0065 Sir Gene Speaks - with Dude Named Ben

Gene: 0:14

This is sir gene with dude named Ben named Ben. Ben, how are you today?

Ben: 0:18

I'm doing well, Gene, yourself.

Gene: 0:20

Pretty good. It seems like this last week both flew by and I was also pretty damn tired.

Ben: 0:25

Yeah, I hear you. I've been traveling a little bit, so

Gene: 0:30

Well, not sometimes travels. good.

Ben: 0:33

yeah, it's all for the day job and Biden's hundred day initiative, that's a kind of pushing some of the pipeline companies and some of these energy companies to do a few things that they hadn't done before you can buy.

Gene: 0:47

What Turn off oil completely or what.

Ben: 0:49

No they're worried about cybersecurity. So DHS issued some rules with no teeth, but you know, encouraging companies to do these sorts of things. It's kind of a precursor to regulation. So similar to what happened to the electric industry.

Gene: 1:05

Ah, okay.

Ben: 1:07

So,

Gene: 1:07

enforce air gapping or are they.

Ben: 1:09

Well, I mean, air gapping would be their preference, obviously, but now they're not going to enforce air gapping. What they're doing is really setting up sip like controls. And for people who don't know the power industry for transmission and generation is regulated by a NERC, which is a quasi governmental entity. That's actually the the entities themselves in a corporation that is empowered by FERC, which is the actual federal agency. And there's a regulatory body of you know, sip that set standards for cybersecurity practices in transmission and generation. So, and DHS is pushing to have some similar things in pipeline distribution, right? Transmission. And some of the companies are taking it fairly seriously because they see the writing on the wall and thus, I am traveling around like a madman. So

Gene: 2:05

Well, I guess that's a good thing.

Ben: 2:08

it's a good problem to have,

Gene: 2:10

Yeah. Staying Busy's good. In my book after the COVID downturn for me personally. It was definitely good to back to being busy. Although, I say that Sometimes I do miss being able to just like do a 48 hour straight video game session. Can't do

Ben: 2:29

I,

Gene: 2:29

working.

Ben: 2:31

yeah, No. I I haven't played video games really in a long, long time, like college, I haven't played any amount of games since then. Just got busy with other things.

Gene: 2:44

iPad or like that.

Ben: 2:46

Now, I mean, I don't even have any games installed on my cell phone. I just do other things.

Gene: 2:52

a rare person in this country. It will say,

Ben: 2:57

Yeah. Unfortunately I would I mean, I, I take that time and other things. I just, I don't have much downtime I, you know, there's always something I'm doing.

Gene: 3:12

Well, you also are voracious reader, too.

Ben: 3:15

Yes.

Gene: 3:18

And I know that.

Ben: 3:19

Yup.

Gene: 3:19

from somewhere. he got a wife and kids, you don't have as much time to begin with. So. If you're reading, you're not playing video games. That's for sure.

Ben: 3:29

Yeah. They they've been pretty good. And my daughter, she is just starting to smile and you know, she's only a few months old It's a magical time. Really is

Gene: 3:40

Hence, you're going to be out of the house traveling the whole week.

Ben: 3:44

unfortunately,

Gene: 3:45

Yeah. See, That's the part they remembered though. I mean, the. XYZ. Is parts where you're not there, you're actually making money. think of like, while you weren't around. Sorry, a little D am I a little bitter? Am I remembering things here? A little too much?

Ben: 4:02

no, no. I mean, it, it's definitely you know, you have to make the, you know, w when you're setting up a marriage, there has to be a understanding and a framework of what your split roles are going to be. And you know that in, I can say that could be a stay-at-home husband. It can be whatever. I have no complaints.

Gene: 4:24

job of prepping women young girls for what it's like to be married with all the princess movies.

Ben: 4:30

Yeah. You know, but I, I really think you have to have a structure in your marriage if you want it to be successful. Right. And if someone is the bread winner, then that's fine. Then there has to be split and duties, including the house chores and stuff. You know, I, I help around the house I cook because I like to cook. So it's, you know, it's fine. But if you don't have that definition and you, you know, there, isn't that understanding that, Hey, my job requires this, then yeah. There can be some, some angst about it, but you know, that, that job is why we have the house. That job is why we are able to do what we do. And why would you be better about that?

Gene: 5:14

Yeah, no. I, think that logically all makes sense. I'm just Maybe being slightly better in, in, in pointing out that sometimes logic is not the way women think.

Ben: 5:25

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, with kids, it's hard for me to say, okay, honey, come with me. You know, cause we've got kids to do stuff and everything else. And especially with the age they're at right now, it's really not possible. But you know, eventually what I would like to do. So my parents growing up, I, my mom and I followed my dad all around the Gulf coast when, for his work. So from Brownsville to key west, I've pretty much been there. And I grew up with mom and my dad and you know, stopped at every museum along the way and you know, did a lot of stuff. And I think that really shaped me in a lot. Really cool and interesting ways because you know, a lot of people don't leave within a very small geographic region or their hometown. And when you travel a little bit, even, even if it's inside the U S there's, you know, the U S is a pretty big place and it's got a lot more diversity than we tend to think of

Gene: 6:29

Yeah, That's true. Well, Texas is a big city.

Ben: 6:34

Texas is a big state. Yes.

Gene: 6:35

Well, it's even bigger state, but Yeah. Exactly.

Ben: 6:39

Yeah.

Gene: 6:40

Oh man. Well, what else is going. on? Do you have any guns, anything fun?

Ben: 6:44

Well, I've got one on order. I haven't received it yet, So. I'm still waiting on

Gene: 6:48

Okay.

Ben: 6:50

you to pick out a scope. So, that's, that's the current research project right now?

Gene: 6:55

so, like a deer rifle or

Ben: 6:56

Yeah, some it's a, it's going to be a little bit of a long range play gun. My my Remington 700 is a little too expensive to shoot it's chambered in 300 rooms. So I can't take it to the thousand yard range and go through a box is, you know, 80 bucks or better a box. Yeah,

Gene: 7:16

bucks Holy shit. That's four bucks around though.

Ben: 7:19

yeah,

Gene: 7:19

I'm still blown away by ammo. I mean, I bought a shit ton of AMA like 15, 20 years ago and, I still have half a shit ton. And so I'm still blown away by how expensive AEMO's gotten.

Ben: 7:32

It in, in the years that I've been actively going out and shooting AMO has at least quadrupled,

Gene: 7:42

Yeah. Well,

Ben: 7:44

how many, I mean, I remember buying 500 route 22 long rifle. 500 ground box, a 22 long rifle for$12.

Gene: 7:53

Yup. Yup.

Ben: 7:54

And finding it under 30 right now is not really possible.

Gene: 7:59

Yeah. That's nuts. Well, and I. I remember buying Boxes of forty five, two hundred and fifty count boxes. And I was grumbling about how they're too expensive at 60 bucks.

Ben: 8:12

Yeah.

Gene: 8:12

For 2 59 millimeter ammo was under 10 bucks for a box of 50. So, what does

Ben: 8:20

Yeah.

Gene: 8:20

5 cents around something like that.

Ben: 8:22

Yeah. Ammos gone through the roof. I mean, a

Gene: 8:25

leg? Is it the manufacturing? Is it the brass? What, what do you think is the actual cause here?

Ben: 8:32

demand I think.

Gene: 8:33

but then there's gotta be not enough supply of one of those three. right?

Ben: 8:37

Well, I mean, look at the primer crunch, right? So one of the reasons why 22 long rifle went up so much is because a lot of the primer manufacturers basically stopped making rimfire casings because of the demand. And that was after Sandy hook. Really the first big ammo spike was Sandy hook. And it went back down a little bit and slowed back down a little bit, but the price has never really fully recovered. And then after Obama got out and Trump was in office, everything seemed okay and then COVID hit. And that's when things went absolutely nuts. But the first real ammo crunch was Sandy hook. And I mean, that's when it was almost impossible to get anything.

Gene: 9:21

Yeah.

Ben: 9:21

that's also, when I stocked up on components,

Gene: 9:28

Yeah, it's a good, I mean, There are some deals occasionally, but man, everything just. Seems out there really expensive, like 60, 65 cents around for 45

Ben: 9:40

Oh, yeah.

Gene: 9:41

My God.

Ben: 9:42

Well, I mean 3 0 8 mad ball, surplus ammo is a dollar around,

Gene: 9:49

Yeah,

Ben: 9:50

so.

Gene: 9:50

I remember. I was trying to read What the regular AMA was I For actual hunting. I use the. Somebody forgot to turn off the phone, the ringer. Final countdown in case you're wondering yes. I think I use federal match. That was. I want to say that used to be just over a buck around, which was the most expensive 3 0 8. You could buy. And now the, like the cheapest. surplus stuff was that much.

Ben: 10:24

Yep.

Gene: 10:25

And that how much. bought any for awhile. Do you know how much the federal stuff's going for? A couple of bucks.

Ben: 10:31

No, most of the match Moi shoot are all hand loads, all hand develop loads. So I, I kind of go that route instead of buying factory ammo. Just because I typically develop a load for the gun so I can be as accurate as possible. And

Gene: 10:48

Fancy.

Ben: 10:50

Well, it's not that hard and it's something I find fun. You know, you tinker around with it, you do a couple of different things. You get your chronograph set up and it it's one of those things that when you really get a load dialed in for gun and every gun is slightly different and I'm talking bullet, seeding, depth, everything, you get it dialed in for that gun. And it's amazing what you can do. You can take a gun that shoots you know, MOA and really improve it down to quarter or maybe even a half. Which you know, is pretty tremendous. Now, if you've got a gun that obligate you got blueprinted well and everything else and factory ammo, you find something that choose half MOA. You're probably not going to see as big of a difference in game, but you know, your groupings at distance are always going to be slightly more consistent and things like that, right? When you start pushing. You know, everybody does their test loads at a hundred yards, but where you really see it as downrange. And that's another thing is I can get for the barrel and how the barrel is performing and get the right bullet with the right bullet coefficient that, you know, comes out out the, with the best possible Gerard trajectory. So, yeah.

Gene: 12:03

Got it. Okay. Well, I, you know, my dad hand loaded for many, many years, so it was a. Something that I took advantage of without really him doing any work, which was great. Like, All I had to do is buy the the box of And a brass and primers, and then he'd do all the work. So it was a good deal. But the one thing that I found is that. And maybe, maybe technology is improved on this count, or maybe he just used the wrong lubricant. But I noticed that unlike factory emo, which I still have boxes that are 25, 30 years old. they they're still look and feel just like they did when they were new. His hand loads. After about. Probably 20 years. they kind of feel a little sticky.

Ben: 12:50

Now tarnished now. And so, I mean, it all depends on your case prep and what you're doing there. And, you know, like if he was using probably back in the day, you know, a Tumblr with just like a Walnut shell media or something you know, if he didn't then oil or Lou, that case afterwards, you know, stuff like that are depending on what he used, you know, that that can cause problems that could have even been his The loop he was using for the press. And what di you know, lube he was using there.

Gene: 13:21

because it was all fine for, you know, good 10 years minimum. Maybe 15, but Certainly in towards the 20 year mark is when I noticed they started. Like the cases themselves are kind of sticky.

Ben: 13:32

Yeah, I mean, I would probably just clean up the casing and oil. It use a CLP or something.

Gene: 13:39

I was easier.

Ben: 13:41

Okay. I don't know. My I don't think I've had a hand load sit around for more than, I guess some of them, some of my early so I had a six, eight AR and, you know, ammo for the six, eight AR was a big problem right after Sandy hook, because it was a fairly new cartridge at the time. And

Gene: 14:02

real fast then.

Ben: 14:04

oh yeah. Yeah. I, well, I just didn't want 5, 5, 6. I've never liked the 5, 5, 6 cartridge.

Gene: 14:09

what's a 22.

Ben: 14:11

Yeah. And the six, eight you know, we've met, we've had two seventies for forever, so it's the same caliber. So as far as hand loads and everything else, bullets and everything are right there. So it's not that big of a deal. Right. And that's one of the things that if you're shooting a lot, caliber choice matters like this rifle I'm just purchasing is a 3 0 8 and not a six, five Creedmore. And the reason why isn't, because I think the 3 0 8 is better than the six five, but I have a I have other 3 0 8. I don't want to adopt a, yet another cartridge. Right. And that after you are into things, X amount, the cost of adding an additional cartridge actually becomes pretty So no.

Gene: 14:59

Yeah, it's a, well, I've just bought ammo for again. I don't have so. I picked up some some seven 60 by 39. Because I do want to get. Again, in that caliber, but the damn thing's out of stock everywhere.

Ben: 15:17

Have you, have you looked at the, in people or some people are gonna roll their eyes and some people are going to go, oh yeah. But if you looked at the Palmetto state AK.

Gene: 15:26

the Palmetto state, a K

Ben: 15:29

Yeah.

Gene: 15:29

no. What is that.

Ben: 15:31

So they've got a maiden USA, AK 47 and their gen three product is actually really pretty good.

Gene: 15:39

really

Ben: 15:39

You now their first gens, they had some problems and everything else, but their warranty was good. Gen two was better gen three. Most of the people who I know that have the gen threes are very happy.

Gene: 15:52

Is it a AK knockoff or is it using like a AR lower.

Ben: 15:58

No, it is a built AK 47.

Gene: 16:02

Okay. Yeah. So what I'm looking for And the one I got my eye on is the The iwi gold. They gave 47 pistol. All right. I mean, it's not called an AK 47, but it's, it's the pistol in seven 60 by 39. Which they're available in every other caliber. And this one is sold out in I've checked 35 stores around the internet. And they're also. And there are some really good review videos that talk about how. In that form factor, which is an eight inch barrel. The 5, 5, 6. It, it it's. The powder doesn't burn fully in that length. in just about any load. Yeah.

Ben: 16:48

the 5, 5, 6 in anything under a 16 inch is just you're you're it's that cartridge was not designed for that. And

Gene: 16:56

exactly.

Ben: 16:57

of people are gonna say, oh my AR pistols. Fine. Okay. Sure.

Gene: 17:01

you got a big fireball when you know where you should. The damn thing.

Ben: 17:04

yes.

Gene: 17:05

So, But the two alternatives with the 300 blackouts or the some six two by 39. The 7 62 by 39 is obviously way cheaper to shoot. his demos. And it's an ammo available pretty much everywhere in the world. So, you know, including man made in the U S stuff, which is a little more expensive than the surplus, obviously, but it's still. Reasonably priced where the 300 blackout is not a very popular round, so they have those a lot more pricey. Yada, yada yada. So. I've got some back orders set up on this thing, but I figured I might as well start getting ammo for it before it even. ships out.

Ben: 17:44

take a look at the link I just sent

Gene: 17:46

Okay.

Ben: 17:47

because they have the AK rifle and pistol. I know you're saying you want the delay all, but that

Gene: 17:52

and Gilead. I just got the little shotgun last month and then I get the Galeel. a 3 0 8 the month before that.

Ben: 17:59

w why do you like the glial?

Gene: 18:01

iwi. I go,

Ben: 18:03

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Gene: 18:04

Yeah. all these rallies. I don't know. I just, I, whenever I get into gangs, I always like to buy everything from the same manufacturer. Like I did that with Springfield. I did that with Glock before. it just, you know, I like having.

Ben: 18:16

with apple.

Gene: 18:17

Apple. Sure. Sure. Yeah. And I can bitch about apple and, you know, Like I'm a lot of counts. Believe me. And I use a PC daily a lot more than I do apple products, but But I still have apple stuff. I like them. I should be getting my new Mac mini here any day. They tell you the Mac mini story.

Ben: 18:35

I heard it on unrelenting, but Yeah,

Gene: 18:38

I was looking at, I was hoping there would be an update. The update turned out not to be a mini. It was a, studio.

Ben: 18:45

Gotcha.

Gene: 18:46

It just so happened that a buddy of mine was buying the studio and he had a mini and he was going to trade it into apple. And that, you know, he just paid like, 1300 bucks for two apples, six months ago. And Apple was giving them 450 bucks for it. I'm like, well, shit, dude, I'll give you 500 for it. So

Ben: 19:04

Good deal. for you.

Gene: 19:05

Good deal for me is right. So I should be getting at a reasonably new M chip Based mini. for way less than I was expecting to pay. And frankly for what I'm going to use it for. I, I really don't care that it's six months or even if it was a year old, it's still be the same difference. It's mostly just web surfing.

Ben: 19:23

Well, and you know, people, most, most people have a computer that is way more powerful than they actually in any way, shape or form need. But

Gene: 19:33

Not me. The species back to play the best video games.

Ben: 19:38

yeah, I mean, I have, wanting to talk, I've got one of my laptops, you know, is the Dell and it, you know, it's a workstation replacement laptop with 64 gigs of Ram and a core I nine, but you know, I do run a lot of Em's. So. Yeah. I it is a per there is a purpose for it, you know, I didn't just go spec crazy.

Gene: 20:01

Yeah. I remember those days I used to run every, every client that I had doing consulting had their own VMs, running their stuff on.

Ben: 20:10

Yep. And

Gene: 20:11

a really good separation.

Ben: 20:13

well, and you know, that's kind of what I do is, so I've moved away from the windows environment. Pretty much exclusively on Linux.

Gene: 20:23

running all the Mac beams.

Ben: 20:25

I'm sorry.

Gene: 20:26

You'd just run the Mac VMs.

Ben: 20:27

No, I don't use Mac at

Gene: 20:28

What

Ben: 20:28

stand, no,

Gene: 20:30

that,

Ben: 20:32

pisses me off because I'm a BSD guy and them taking BSD and then not contributing back to it. You know, it's

Gene: 20:39

So it's a political cause. Okay.

Ben: 20:42

I just don't like the layout of the

Gene: 20:45

So you run.

Ben: 20:45

And So I ha yeah, some of

Gene: 20:49

Or do you run legs?

Ben: 20:50

I. Servers it's BSD,

Gene: 20:53

Huh.

Ben: 20:53

you know, workstation it's Linux BSD is not a good workstation.

Gene: 20:57

I dunno, it works pretty good in the Mac format.

Ben: 21:01

right. But that's the modification. And anyway,

Gene: 21:05

huh?

Ben: 21:05

Mac lost any appeal when they went to the Intel processor, When they went away from power PC. It's

Gene: 21:11

Well, there are no longer on the Intel processor. You know that right? They're there on the risk am one.

Ben: 21:19

Yes,

Gene: 21:20

So they're, they're back off of Intel.

Ben: 21:22

I understand. But I I'm just telling you where they lost me was when

Gene: 21:25

Oh, okay. cool. So, okay. Got it. Got it. So it's just timing. It's not that you miss the processor being unique.

Ben: 21:32

no,

Gene: 21:32

Okay.

Ben: 21:33

was just when that transition.

Gene: 21:35

But, You know, they did, when that transition did happen, software ran three times

Ben: 21:42

Yeah, but it all depended on what you were doing because actually for video editing, which is the only excuse to have a Mac back in the day the power PC architecture was arguably better if you're doing any sort of rendering. There were a couple special purposes where the power PC architecture was better. But yeah, that that's a long time ago.

Gene: 22:03

Doesn't feel that old to me. I like last week.

Ben: 22:10

Now. This is the early two thousands gene. So we're,

Gene: 22:14

was about last week. Oh man.

Ben: 22:16

20 years out.

Gene: 22:18

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. But when. 20 years just doesn't feel like 20 years it used to feel.

Ben: 22:25

I don't know, 20 years there, there there's, I haven't caught up to you yet on that

Gene: 22:28

Yeah, you will.

Ben: 22:30

yeah, I'm

Gene: 22:30

Yeah. But yeah, that's, I dunno. It's like, to me, what you just described didn't happen. Then it happened when Steve jobs died. When Steve jobs died or even dying. It was pretty obvious that all innovation, apple, WhatsApp. he was the only guy that was really. Pushing departments to do that. And some people can say, well, you've been by innovative steel, other shit. Whatever it doesn't matter. The Macs were changing. They were improving. The phones were changing and improving. Everything was moving in a direction. And it was true. And there was about one model of each product left after he was dead. That was innovative. That came out. And that was it. Apple pretty much stopped innovating.

Ben: 23:16

what do you think apple did that was so innovative?

Gene: 23:19

Well, when I say innovative, what I mean is that. Each year or every two years more typically when there would be an update of the It wasn't just skin, Skin skin dip. Skin deep. was a. It was a A much better improved version of the thing. And well, I mean, you can look at really, the iPod was the forbearer of the iPhone. I'd say that's gone through a hell of a lot of innovation.

Ben: 23:52

Yeah, but I don't think the iPod was that innovative. You know, there were a bunch of other MP3 players out on the market that arguably had better features in some instances,

Gene: 24:02

They did. And I had one from Rio that had a much bigger storage back in the day. That was definitely the case, but. What apple has always been good at is creating. a uniformity. And that uniformity, that monolithic kind of. Control that you need to do that. is also a downside in the way, tech people or dudes named Ben don't like apple. I totally get that. But what it does is it brings things to mass market that were Nietzsche and split between a bunch of different manufacturers. I could make the argument that like the, the Android operating system wouldn't exist without the iPhone.

Ben: 24:48

Yeah. But like, I, I don't know. I had before the iPhone. I had my Palm and you know, it worked well for me.

Gene: 24:57

Once you start using it.

Ben: 24:59

Oh the cause it. doesn't

Gene: 25:00

Oh, that's Right.

Ben: 25:01

But you know, Hey, I, you know, there are Some things that iterate and apple is good at making it idiot, proof, you know, the app ecosystem and things like that. But I would argue that that's a double-edged sword because while you make it easier for people, fact of the matter is when I was growing up it to be on a computer, you had to learn how the computer worked to get it, to do pretty much anything. Right. I mean, even going

Gene: 25:29

Some of us had to. build our own computers.

Ben: 25:32

yep. Done that. You, you had to figure it out. And as a result, know, you learned skills know, you, you learn how a web server works. You learn how you know, what Ram is and so on. And by doing what apple did with the iPhone. There are a lot of people who are using in their hands that have absolutely no clue about any of the inner workings.

Gene: 25:54

absolutely

Ben: 25:55

And the problem with that there's a lot of power there and a lot of danger that, you know,

Gene: 26:04

Okay, but you could literally use the exact same. Description that you provided or argument. If it is one. In reference to firearms back in the day. Like say 200 years ago. If you wanted it or not even maybe a hundred years ago, if you wanted a good gun. Like you have to be somewhat of a gunsmith because there wasn't as much standardization coming up, maybe 150 years ago, whatever civil war in the us time. And. Every decade or so things became simpler and easier and more standardized. And I would say the. You know, the, the one that I remember the most was when Glock came out. And became the first mass market plastic pistol. And including the barrels they used to have, that they no longer have for gathering when he knows. right. Which didn't really. Require cleaning. I mean, it was like the eight K of pistols. It, just worked all the time. I think I've had over 25,000 rounds. Between cleanings. and that In one of my Glocks. And it's over a hundred thousand rounds total of that gun. But. it's a lot of rounds. Cause I was, I was both teaching firearm safety back then. And going to to events and. Like every every month I was somewhere. So that gun saw a hell of a lot of rounds, But. You know, that was a. In some ways, it's kind of like the same thing that's happened with apple. phone products to where anybody could pick up that gun. And then use it without having to No really much of anything. It doesn't have an external safety. It doesn't require cleaning every 500 rounds, the way a lot of, that's going to say a case that a lot of, 45 ACPS do a lot of 19 lemons. Where the gun. If you don't clean it often enough. We'll just start malfunctioning.

Ben: 28:02

Hm.

Gene: 28:03

It's. It was just easy. And I think apple products, is not a Wazer in that way as well. I wish there was

Ben: 28:10

I would argue.

Gene: 28:11

that you could toggle on an apple. a phone or an iOS system in general, it says Enable all the. The expert. Mode. Controls. And yes, I accept the fact that I may break this phone myself. And I'm not going to bitch about it. Because there are programs which used to exist on the iPhone, which no longer run because apple has deprecated the functions they used So I missed some of that stuff for sure. There's compromises. And that's why I have both Android and iPhone.

Ben: 28:44

I would argue that the the cell phone is a much more dangerous instrument to society then then the Glock

Gene: 28:52

Sure. Yeah. I can see that. Information is generally more dangerous than firearms.

Ben: 28:58

yeah.

Gene: 28:59

Sure, but it's the firearms are probably a little better at defending you than the phone.

Ben: 29:06

True.

Gene: 29:08

It's that phone that you can only throw once.

Ben: 29:11

There's no recall. It's not a boomerang. Yeah.

Gene: 29:13

Nope. Maybe, maybe that's, that's a product that's looking to get developed the boomerang phone, The phone you can throw at somebody it'll bounce right back at you. Have you tried throwing a boomerang

Ben: 29:26

Ah, as a kid.

Gene: 29:27

Yeah, I did as well. And what I found is it was very inconsistent in general at flying back. If it ever touched anything, like if you just threw it against the wind, Yeah, it would come back. But. If it came in contact with anything like a tree branch or neighbor's cat or anything at all, it would just not fly back.

Ben: 29:46

Yeah, but that's the point, right? The entire,

Gene: 29:48

knock something out and then it comes right back to you.

Ben: 29:51

no, no, no. The point

Gene: 29:52

not.

Ben: 29:53

it to hit something and if you miss it comes back to.

Gene: 29:56

Oh, well see right there, I just never knew. I thought that I was, it was misfunctioning Right. But I thought it was a hunting too. like, I thought it was a semi-automatic. Like it would, you know, Knock somebody out and then fly right back at you for the next day.

Ben: 30:12

Yeah. That's not how the

Gene: 30:13

Well, that's annoying. See, I thought it was a special shape device that would just come back to you magically every time.

Ben: 30:19

Yeah. Yeah. And once, you impact something, you've got, you know, totally different energy dispersion and

Gene: 30:26

you say that, but I've, I've thrown a hatchet that came right back at me after hitting something. Have you, ever done that? If it lands in the wrong direction, it. Bounces right back.

Ben: 30:41

Yes. So, but that's a different case because that's coming straight in or at you know, more or less straight up. And, you know, you've got the laws of refraction and reflection, right. And depending on the hardness of the surface that you're hitting and the hardness of the surface that you're throwing. Yeah. You can get pretty good bounce. Right. It's what ricochet is off a steel plate, same sort of thing. So

Gene: 31:05

That's why you don't want to have many ricochet plates. same bread back. trailer. 180 degrees.

Ben: 31:10

Yeah, You know, when you're shooting steel targets, you, you kind of want them at a little bit of an angle. So,

Gene: 31:17

Yeah. I like those self resetting targets. Those are

Ben: 31:21

alright. I, of my favorite things, and I don't know if you've ever done this, but the, and they're great for pistol and rifle. If you can get a rifle rated one, but the dueling trees,

Gene: 31:31

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are fun.

Ben: 31:32

and a buddy man, that that's fun.

Gene: 31:35

I, I remember back when I used to be a lot more proficient. So like, 15 years ago, plus. I remember doing that with a shotgun versus a guy with a pistol. and, And people are like, oh, you're nuts. No, I was, I was much better than most of the pistol guys. With a shotgun, because once you figure it out, like where do I aim? To, to get one or two pellets hitting the target. You're really. You know, it's, it's very easy. You're like you're staying on target. A lot more than the guy in the

Ben: 32:09

Well, I mean, I would argue that, you know, with a rifle versus a pistol, I, I could probably do much better than the guy with the pistol. Just

Gene: 32:17

guys that are shooting pistol assumed that they're going to be faster than the guy with a big, long, heavy thing. Unless they've

Ben: 32:24

yeah,

Gene: 32:25

it and realize it's not the case.

Ben: 32:26

well, I mean the big, long, heavy rifle invariably has less muscle lift than the pistol. So, you know, you're going to be on target

Gene: 32:36

And then the additional beauty of the shotgun. is You don't need to be, even as, as exact. So it is, it is much faster to just do a shotgun versus pistol. But that was that was always a fun activity at I was going to say a school I used to be in, but I am technically a lifetime member. So I'm still there. At front sight. And. Or when they do the, four, the classes for a rifle, shotgun, pistol. At the end of the classes, then that's one of the sort of fun things. They get to do is you get to shoot against people, just another classes or another groups that are there that weekend, or that four days. you get to shoot against people using other firearms. to see who was actually the fastest shadow of the entire weekend. Pretty fun.

Ben: 33:28

yeah, I, you know, I've never done a firearms class. I I've never done that. I've always just, I grew up around guns. I grew up hunting, grew up friends and just us playing around, but never really done much competition or anything else, you know, go out and do my thing.

Gene: 33:50

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 33:52

Try and improve myself.

Gene: 33:53

It's always practice is always the key thing. It doesn't really matter if it's

Ben: 33:58

Right.

Gene: 33:58

I know for me the biggest impact in in taking classes. And I've probably taken. I've probably spent a year. In classes. Cause I, I went. I went like every other week for five or six years. And. And the biggest thing is just speed. The speeds from holster to target the speed from. Getting a guy, a guy getting a gun out of your holster to site picture the speed of follow up shots after the initial shots, all those things. When there's a coach standing there. Looking at you shooting and even recording it with a high speed camera. And then going through with, you know, suggestions and comments while you're shooting, and then looking at it later, looking at yourself later to watch what you're doing. So you can. Mentally envision that and then make slight alterations. That to me was the biggest thing.

Ben: 34:58

You, know, What's interesting about

Gene: 35:00

what's that.

Ben: 35:02

I I'm going to make a comparison for the non-gun people out there. It's like someone watching your golf swing.

Gene: 35:09

Yeah, totally.

Ben: 35:10

I haven't done a formal class, but I've got buddies who are, you know, You know, ex special forces helping me with some stuff.

Gene: 35:17

special forces golfers. Got it.

Ben: 35:19

yeah, but I mean, it's the same sort of adjustments

Gene: 35:23

Huh.

Ben: 35:23

you know, it really is analogous.

Gene: 35:26

Yeah, but I mean, you are kind of taking a class. If you got a buddy giving you suggestions like that, then he got taught by taking classes that they're us paid for. So same day.

Ben: 35:37

The, the, yeah,

Gene: 35:40

I just cut out the middleman. That's all

Ben: 35:42

w I was around some pretty interesting individuals growing up

Gene: 35:46

I bet. Yeah. What's your history of Living all over Texas there. Not just Texas. Yeah.

Ben: 35:54

Yeah, The you know, it, I grew up around people like Jack McLamb and some pretty interesting characters and then involved with politics and everything pretty much my whole life.

Gene: 36:05

and, you lived in Up in Idaho

Ben: 36:07

Idaho Idaho for 10 years. Yup.

Gene: 36:10

Well, 10 years, I thought it was like four. Okay. That's quite a bit.

Ben: 36:13

Yeah.

Gene: 36:14

I I've heard people that live there complaining about as much about the, Californians moving there as people in Austin.

Ben: 36:22

Yeah. move in is really more in the Boise

Gene: 36:26

Hmm.

Ben: 36:26

area than where I was at, but there's definitely an impact, but Idaho is a beautiful state. So is, you know, w Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon are

Gene: 36:38

Idaho, is a state I've never been.

Ben: 36:41

Oh, you

Gene: 36:42

I think I've been to about 45 states. There's only a handful that I haven't been, but Idaho. And Alaska are two, that I have not been to yet.

Ben: 36:50

Yeah. I Alaska Hawaii and North Dakota Michigan and.

Gene: 36:59

No. Okay.

Ben: 37:00

So, yep.

Gene: 37:01

I yeah. I Other than Alaska, I've been to the rest of those, the Wisconsin, I lost my driving privileges and.

Ben: 37:09

You do that?

Gene: 37:10

Yeah. So this is a number of years back. So this would be in the late nineties. And I, I don't think I ever got them back. I think I'm technically not allowed to drive in that state. So I was driving back and

Ben: 37:21

out for Gene's arrest and Wisconsin?

Gene: 37:23

I. don't, I don't know if it's a warrant, but I, like, I had to pay a fee to reinstate my Wisconsin driving privileges and I never paid it. So. But, yeah, so I was, I lived in Minnesota and I had friends in Chicago and so I would make that drive from Minnesota to Chicago. And of course that goes right through Wisconsin. Well, each time I made the drive, I kind of had a little bit of a challenge to do it quicker. So. One time I was making a very good time of it. And then There was a a police helicopter overhead. That had called in my speed. Apparently. To a state trooper there. who then chase me for about 12 miles. Not that I knew he was chasing me. I couldn't see him. He was, you know,

Ben: 38:08

Yeah,

Gene: 38:09

I, so I was I was averaging about 110. And so he must've been going like 130 pushing the limits of that.

Ben: 38:18

Cruiser.

Gene: 38:18

I can't imagine CRA crown Going more than 130.

Ben: 38:22

I can't imagine trying to stop cramping.

Gene: 38:24

yeah. But when the, he caught up, he was not a happy camper and he's, you know, trying to get me. I was like, what are you. Evading police. I'm like, I'm not invading anybody. I was just trying to get to Chicago quickly. That's all. And So he gave me a ticket for, I guess, if you're going double the speed limit in Wisconsin, they don't like that.

Ben: 38:47

Yeah, it was reckless endangerment.

Gene: 38:48

is back in the days when the speed limit was literally 55. So. Yeah. So was right in the middle of the state, Ford's Madison, but not really in the same county as Madison. And this was a county sheriff. I think that pulled me over. Not a state trooper. So I got the ticket and I still made it to Chicago in less than four hours. So I was a happy camper about that. It Didn't

Ben: 39:13

You're very lucky. They let you continue to draw.

Gene: 39:16

I think that was back in the day. I don't think they would have today. This is all like, you know, Preo J kind of stuff. So, I mean, you're, you're in the middle of your, yeah, I guess, I guess they could have not let me, they could have pushed that. But they did. I'd been caught by helicopters, speeding a number of times in my life. So I, wasn't not used to this. And by the way, I probably drive like a grandma these days. But back in the day. had the enjoy driving quickly

Ben: 39:44

Yeah.

Gene: 39:44

And I still, I still had a good time in Chicago, so I was pretty happy. it, created a fun little story. as I got the notice from the court hearing, I'm like, well, I'm not going to drive halfway to Wisconsin to, you know, go through it. And I called him up. I'm like, can I just pay the ticket? They're like, no, you have to show up for the court hearing. It's like, well, I, you know, I don't need to show up. I'll just pay whatever the amount is. I think it was 500 bucks or something. And they're like, well, you know, if you pay the ticket, but you're not in court, then you're still not going to get your driving privileges back. Like okay. So after that I drove through Iowa and, or just flew, I really started just flying after that, I guess.

Ben: 40:23

Yeah, but O'Hare man, I hate flying in and out of O'Hare.

Gene: 40:28

short like Minneapolis to Chicago. You could get flights to what's the other one. Midway

Ben: 40:34

Yeah. I mean, you know,

Gene: 40:37

international. So you got a lot more plants.

Ben: 40:40

Yeah, but the windy city and anytime the wind's blowing at all, you're going to have a delay in O'Hare.

Gene: 40:48

Yeah, they have a lot of weather situations. It's really, really close to the water.

Ben: 40:53

Yup.

Gene: 40:53

But the Chicago used to be fun. I enjoyed Chicago spent quite a bit of them time there in the nineties. And as you know, Darren, O'Neil, my co-host on unrelenting. Lives. Well, he says Chicago, but not really. He's in the burbs outside of Chicago on the south side or Southwest side, I guess. And. He says Chicago is like a war zone. Like you did not want to be walking around downtown Chicago right now. And I have very fond memories of walking around downtown Chicago in the nineties. It was very. I mean, I've been there since then a few times. I think last time I was in Chicago is maybe 2008. Ish, thereabouts. So. Yeah, I guess getting to be 15 years ago.

Ben: 41:36

Well, you know, it's interesting because the, the lack of police. I torn on because you know, there, there has to be a balance. And if we have a police force, it should be enforcing the laws. The idea that these prosecutors are not gonna prosecute anything under a thousand

Gene: 42:00

I'd say somebody needs to get fired if you're not doing your job by. Not following the laws that were written the legislature of the state or federal. Then you're you're not doing your job. You need to get replaced.

Ben: 42:17

I, I, I really think we need to get rid of the concept of a prosecutor entirely you know, the prosecutor shouldn't be making decisions on what goes to trial and the prosecutor shouldn't have anything to do with the plea deal. I think that's really broken the system in many ways. I think we should have grand juries and panel, then let the grand jury decide what we're going to do.

Gene: 42:37

Well, as long as you could do three zoom.

Ben: 42:39

Sure, whatever, you know, it doesn't really matter.

Gene: 42:43

I'm happy feeling.

Ben: 42:43

You know, a, my point is though having a jury of your peers decide whether or not you go to trial, you know, and I'm a big proponent of jury nullification, I think during altercation needs to be taught and educated.

Gene: 42:57

you don't want to say things like that Cause that's how you get occluded from juries.

Ben: 43:03

You don't say that, but then

Gene: 43:06

about it, but without saying anything about it. Yeah. And I've, I've done that in federal cases.

Ben: 43:11

the last time last time I was on a jury and I was jury, jury foreman, I brought in Jerry pamphlet. I forget what the actual title is, but you know, you know what the booklet I'm talking about. And man, that judge read me the riot act. And I said, and exactly what reason do you have for, you know, what, what am I wrong on here? And he didn't like it, but you know, he, he had no reason

Gene: 43:37

No.

Ben: 43:39

do anything, but chew me out and try and scare

Gene: 43:41

Yeah, exactly. they, and cause they don't like. A bunch of layman. non-lawyers. Being able to decide whether or not a law should be enforced. They just want to was the low broken, regardless of whether it's a constitutional

Ben: 43:58

Well, even that, you know, you're the jury instructions, depending on how the judge sets up the jury instructions to me could be quasi illegal based off of what I've seen some judges do. And, you know, in the case that I'm talking about, this was an assault case. And it, it was one of those things that the prosecutor thought they had a slam dunk. And as far as I was concerned, the state did not prove their case in any way, shape or form. And, you know, really going be in the U S you know, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt and, you know, I really, very much believe that our judicial system is supposed to be biased towards releasing guilty people. Right. And I, I think that that is the moral solution because it is better to let a guilty man go free than in prison and innocent man.

Gene: 44:56

But when you're in the population of China, is that really still true?

Ben: 45:01

why not?

Gene: 45:02

Well, I don't know. I mean, you have a lot of people and the value of a person diminishes, is the more you have.

Ben: 45:08

I say, I don't think that's the case at all. I think each individual, Well, I w we can argue that,

Gene: 45:17

see, I made a statement that you can't argue with. Exactly.

Ben: 45:20

Yeah.

Gene: 45:21

it's, I'm being facetious obviously, but it's, I'm Like I understand that. I think the odds are higher in a highly populated city, highly populated country, but whatever the higher the density population. The more, that argument is going to get made. And you, you can certainly say, well, it shouldn't make any difference. And I would agree with you, Nonetheless. The Live crowded like rats. The less value they place on an individual human life.

Ben: 45:53

well, and this is what I would say that

Gene: 45:55

Like the

Ben: 45:56

get out of the cities, right?

Gene: 45:58

Yeah. Yeah. Well that's exactly. Tim cook has been Tim cook, Tim.

Ben: 46:02

Tim cook.

Gene: 46:02

Yeah, that Tim cook.

Ben: 46:04

Tim Castillo.

Gene: 46:05

Yeah,

Ben: 46:06

Yeah.

Gene: 46:06

shit, what's Tim's last name, Tim.

Ben: 46:08

Oh,

Gene: 46:09

Tim. cast, Tim pool, temple.

Ben: 46:12

temple.

Gene: 46:12

the pool man. Everybody

Ben: 46:13

Okay.

Gene: 46:13

me. Yeah. Or, well, nobody calls him except people that don't really watch him. But. Tim has been saying that for a while because he did it and he realizes how much better it is to live in the country. than to live in the city Cause he's

Ben: 46:26

Well,

Gene: 46:27

York, LA, Chicago. Now he's living in Kentucky.

Ben: 46:31

Yeah. And, you know, I lived in a DFW for a few years of, you know, lived in some smaller cities and I very much prefer rural living personally, but it comes down to when you're in that type of a situation, you want to exert more control on your neighbor you're not that tight and people are leaving you alone, it's kind of, I don't care what you're doing over there. You're not bugging me.

Gene: 47:02

Yeah.

Ben: 47:03

you know, and you know, the suburbs when you're out of an apartment building, Our multifamily of any kind, you really care a lot less what your neighbor is doing, but when you're in New York where everybody's living in an apartment, you know, or even in Chicago, in a brown stone where you've got shared walls,

Gene: 47:27

Yeah.

Ben: 47:27

You want to exert more control over your neighbor, cause it has a more direct impact on your life.

Gene: 47:32

Exactly. Yep. Yeah. And the more negative impact that has, the more violent your feelings are about them, even if you don't actually execute on those feelings. Because they're, you know, you can't control things that are part of your environment that makes anybody

Ben: 47:51

and you know, a lot of people don't have a well-integrated shadow. Right. And what I mean by that is, you know, just from a psychological standpoint, people have these tendencies that, you know, they may or may. Recognize openly, but people get angry. People get annoyed. You know, we, we have this, we have this state in our society where we have developed the idea that violence. is never the answer. And that's just counter to

Gene: 48:23

except government derives its power from violence.

Ben: 48:26

100%, you know, government is the only entity that can

Gene: 48:30

Huh.

Ben: 48:31

you use force with no repercussions

Gene: 48:34

Yep.

Ben: 48:34

or little repercussions. So especially around tax time, that's something worth bringing up, you know, taxation being theft at all.

Gene: 48:44

Yeah, no, that's true. And of course the administration is looking at more taxes that they can implement to pay for. All the billions they're sending to Ukraine.

Ben: 48:55

Well, you know, the, this idea of a wealth tax on unrealized gains is absolutely.

Gene: 49:02

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 49:04

And I, I know John's a proponent of the wealth tax, but I, I, I don't understand that at all. I think the only taxes that are moral for service you know, that sort of thing. I get rid of the income tax get rid of capital gains know, service taxes, the way we ran this country early on, I think could work very well. Tariffs on imported goods. I'm fine with and not from a protectionist standpoint, right? I'm all for open trade. I want there to be very few trade restrictions, but that doesn't

Gene: 49:38

Ah, you're just carrying water for Putin.

Ben: 49:41

Oh no, no. I'm talking in general. I, I don't think that there should be very many if any trade restrictions and I don't think sanctions are a legitimate form of warfare. I mean, you can do whatever you want. What right. Does the government have to tell me? I can't do business with an individual,

Gene: 49:59

right

Ben: 50:00

you know, let's think about that for a second. Where do they think they derive that power? Seriously? What, what clause of the constitution does the government see that they have the right to tell a us citizen? They can't do business with someone

Gene: 50:19

Well, probably interstate.

Ben: 50:22

it's not interstate it's international.

Gene: 50:24

Right. And the federal government's in charge of the borders. So they can. Prevent from. the border to do business there.

Ben: 50:33

That, that is dubious. And I don't think the founders and framers of the constitution would agree, but that's neither here nor there.

Gene: 50:40

I mean, I'm trying to come up with something on the fly here, buddy. Come on.

Ben: 50:44

Yeah, I'm just saying, I don't think. People haven't even thought about it or question it. I don't think, but to me it's one of the, whenever the government does something like this, I immediately questioned him. Why do you think you can do that?

Gene: 50:56

Have a flawed concept of what government means. They really equate government with ruling. And what they should equate government with is serving.

Ben: 51:07

well,

Gene: 51:07

The government is basically the DMV. It's a, it's an unfortunate, necessary, necessary evil. Some would argue you don't even But let's say we agree. We need the DMV. And that's what the government is. They're they're providing. A A crappy service to you that you're paying for? That's about it. They They're

Ben: 51:27

It

Gene: 51:27

leaders rulers or anything else. nobody that's in government I want to emulate or tell any child to look at and think. Gee someday you can grow up to be that. If they're in the government, they've already demonstrated to me that they can't make it in any other industry.

Ben: 51:46

well, and I, yeah, absolutely. You know, th there's some idea that you know, the government has all these capabilities and especially when you're talking to the NSA, CIA and the analysts and everything else, they've got the funding that doesn't mean they necessarily have the talent though. You know, they get to pay for lots of cool shiny toys, but quite frankly, the vast majority of the talent is outsourced. Right. It's the contractors coming in that are getting paid a shit ton because the government,

Gene: 52:16

that make the do that.

Ben: 52:18

yes.

Gene: 52:19

And that's

Ben: 52:20

Yeah.

Gene: 52:20

thing. So. back to Ukraine is that we spent now, what is it like 30 billion has been sent to Ukraine, some insane number. what that actually means as in sense to Ukraine. doesn't mean there's a dime that was transferred to any banking queue grade. What it means is contract for us. Products. Without paid by the U S government to be shipped to Ukraine. where you're sending money to Ukraine, that literally that phrase that's being used. What it means is we're now buying us military products. And then paying for the shipment over there. There's no money leaving the U S here. It's just transferred from the government. to private companies that manufacture the stuff or resell this

Ben: 53:07

Yeah, and it's very much, you know, Keynesian economics, right?

Gene: 53:11

Yeah. Yep. and And I've already seen in surplus jobs. or Online. At least. Ukrainian surplus ammunition coming in. I'm not kidding, like manufactured in Ukraine. You know, seven 60 by 39 ammo for sale now in the U S. How does that work?

Ben: 53:31

hopefully it was shipped before the conflict. You know,

Gene: 53:34

I doubt it, man, Cause it's brand new arrivals They're just showing up. I don't think so.

Ben: 53:39

be a pretty good import delay on stuff like that, though.

Gene: 53:41

Yes. Sure sure. I could, but I think that there's a. it's, It's somewhat of a joke to say it, but the joke has a ring of truth. And that is that Ukraine is the black market of Europe. It always has been like, even when I was part of if you want it to get rid of something or you wanted to find something that came from Europe across, you know, the, the east west border. You were able to do it in Ukraine in a way you could never do it in other parts of Russia.

Ben: 54:13

You know, it, this entire conflict over there and the way that this is being carried out and the sheer propaganda. And I think that it's weird because there are, there are so many people who didn't believe the propaganda around COVID, but now believe the propaganda around this. And it's like, if you think they were lying to you here, how can you think that they're telling the truth here? You know, there's just if you're not questioning your government at all steps of the way, then anytime you trust the government, it just shows a. Profound lack of historical understanding. You know, I, I, people day strategists Russia was know getting tied down there, the quagmire effect. And some of that may be true to an extent, but, you know, Russia has no end game there. They are losing this war. I don't think there's a, I don't think there was any effort to take over Ukraine at all. And if they wanted to, and they've avoided the central portion of the country, Is mainly farmland. They've avoided lots of things that cause a lot more global disruption. I mean, they could have carpet bombed Ukraine.

Gene: 55:39

Yeah. there's no desire to destroy. Ukraine or kill Ukrainian

Ben: 55:45

Well, I mean, so if we think in terms of softening up a target before before going in, right. I E shelling, yes. You know, the Russians have enough missiles and variety of, you know, grounds of ground surfaces, surface to surface armament that they could have just shelled the crap out of the Ukraine across the border and then rolled it.

Gene: 56:14

Yeah.

Ben: 56:14

So the Ukrainian forces are not exactly well-funded. I just, you know, and given the amount of corruption that there seems to be in Ukraine, I'm assuming that corruption extends to the Ukrainian military as well.

Gene: 56:29

No, totally. They. They sold off most of their military when the Soviet union fell. I mean, Russia couldn't afford to upkeep a lot of their more expensive things like submarines, but Ukraine literally just sold everything.

Ben: 56:45

Well, that kind of goes to my point though. So I think what we see is I think some of the Northern territory that has been taken is going to go to Belarus. I think that you're going to see Donbass and everything else. I don't think Russia is going to leave. I, I think they've more or less advanced as much as they want. I think they want a little bit more towards, you know, the Southeast.

Gene: 57:09

Yeah.

Ben: 57:09

Other than that, I, I think got what they want

Gene: 57:13

Yeah. well put. Put in literally said before this started what the plan was and nobody in the west listened or believed what he was saying. Cause they all have their own pet theories. on what this crazy man would do. But he. He's very reasonable and logical. He laid it all up And there were three goals for this. And the goals were. to have a neighbor that is not part of NATO and does not have Western military weapons. Okay. They've pretty much achieved that almost completely now. second goal was to Dean that certify Ukraine. The rise of Nazi-ism within Ukraine, to the extent that it has over 60,000 members. Of the Azov battalion, which is. a very Nazi. Self-described. Military group. Was a problem. Russians fought Nazis. And won world war two against Germany, and it costs a hell of a lot of lives. Russia has a very. Both as, as communist. USSR and as Russia now has a very strong hatred of Nazis and this was. Always an issue for them and And we've talked about it before, or at least I've talked about it with plenty of people in the past At the end of world war II, when it was obvious to a lot of Nazis that the war was not going to go their way. They ran towards the west because they wanted to get captured by the U S. Because they knew that. Russians tended not to have. Prisoners of war toward the end of the war.

Ben: 58:53

Yeah,

Gene: 58:54

If you were German, you will be shot. You're not going to get captured.

Ben: 58:58

well, I mean the Germans didn't, this is so after world war II, you know, mower Germans died in us. Prison camps then died during the war. So, but a lot of people don't realize that it's you, you can't say that the allies were very good tenants of their prisoners

Gene: 59:15

Well, sure. You you mean like during the war, are you talking after the

Ben: 59:20

after world war, after secession of hostilities with Germany, the prison camps, more German soldiers died in those camps then died through combat during world war II.

Gene: 59:31

Well again, that's because the us had prison camps.

Ben: 59:35

Yes,

Gene: 59:35

In Russia, they just shot him because there's no food. There's not, there's no, no way you could keep.

Ben: 59:40

of the ally bombing campaign that

Gene: 59:42

Yeah.

Ben: 59:43

was scorched earth.

Gene: 59:44

Yup.

Ben: 59:45

But regardless of that, the, the challenge I have with the principle of, oh, we're going to go in and do not certify you can't kill an idea

Gene: 59:53

No, you can't, but you can certainly kill people that are propagating ideas.

Ben: 59:58

to an extent, but

Gene: 1:00:00

Well, where They're trying quite well. I think to do this.

Ben: 1:00:04

How well has that worked in any other time in history?

Gene: 1:00:07

Well I, I think it would, it does work. Like you said, you can't kill an idea of for sure. But you also can't let a movement gain momentum.

Ben: 1:00:19

Yeah, I mean, you can knock it down, but it it's still going to be bubbling under the.

Gene: 1:00:24

Well, yeah, it might be bubbling, but bubbling is different than having people in public, walking around with Nazi flags and doing, see Kyle's. the idea of de Nazi, defying. is to denormalize being a Nazi. Like if you're going to be a Nazi, you're going to be doing it in secret in your bedroom. With the lights turned off your night and the curtains drawn. You're not going to be doing it in the middle of the street. And you're not going to be teaching children's camps. On how to be a better Nazi.

Ben: 1:00:55

I guess, you know, when I look at how shifts, you know, look at, look at the U S I mean, it wasn't long ago that the battle flag of the army of Northern Virginia, wasn't a problem to be displayed. And now it very much is. And I.

Gene: 1:01:14

It's not a problem to be displayed. It's it's that we have a vocal minority out there that makes it a problem.

Ben: 1:01:22

Yes, but I mean, you get that canceled Canon name deci and that's, that can be pretty powerful. So I don't know. I think that I I've seen a massive shift in the U S on those ideas, and I would say that those are less risk reprehensible than

Gene: 1:01:40

Yeah.

Ben: 1:01:40

but I also don't think the civil war is about

Gene: 1:01:44

was growing. So it's, it was an idea that was not just allowed to. fester, but an idea that was allowed to be. Promoted and growing. So

Ben: 1:01:57

and w what, w what do you think the driver for that growth was? Like, why would people knowing the history of Woolworth.

Gene: 1:02:05

that's. the thing is if you look at the history of Ukraine, the history of Ukrainian independence as a. Separate entity from Russia was rooted in Nazi-ism.

Ben: 1:02:17

Okay.

Gene: 1:02:18

it was the, the leader whose face you see on a lot of these emblems. The guy that this reported to be the founder of Ukrainian independence movement. Was a Nazi. And he espoused ideas of antisemitism and ideas that the Ukrainian people were closer to the German people than they are to the Russian people, which is. nonsense. Genetically Ukrainians are Russians. Same damn thing. Same DNA, same people, But no beyond even Slavic cause poles they're Slavic. A lot of the countries are Slavic, But Ukrainians and the Russians are literally the same. There is no, you couldn't tell one from the other,

Ben: 1:02:57

I don't think the Germans would have accepted them as of the

Gene: 1:03:02

Well, they certainly were not blonde and blue eyes to be sure, but the Germans actually had, I can't remember the name of the program, but they had a program in place because they had such a warm reception in Ukraine. And the Ukrainians saw them at least initially. As the liberator's from Russia. That will help Ukraine become an independent entity. That there was a program in place. Or 50,000 ish. Unmarried German troops. To take Ukrainian identities, Ukrainian names, Ukrainian. Wives. And to effectively help to post war. Spur Ukraine. To become part of greater Germany and culturally. As well as adding the German genetics. That was very well received in Ukraine because again, they, they were trading. The occupation by Germany for what they consider to be. The despotic rule by Russia and they wanted their independence. So this independence movement has existed in Ukraine. That for at least. 80 years now. That's undeniable.

Ben: 1:04:17

why, why trade one desk spot for another? Why, why not want that? Self-governance

Gene: 1:04:22

didn't, like. What happened? After the I think the fall of the Russian czar and this, the rise of the communist party, because

Ben: 1:04:31

well, I can understand that given the, you know, amount of Ukrainians that were.

Gene: 1:04:36

The reason that Ukraine existed as a region. I think I've talked about this before, too. W Came about as that line on the map that eventually became the country border of Ukraine. Came about as a. I don't think he actually drew it himself, but essentially by proxy of London. As a way to not lose the, some of these further out provinces, including this region. To just their own independent communist parties. Because there was a, a big push initially of well, now that we've got the entirety of the Russian empire. There. There's no reason to stay as one entity. We can actually, take different groups that that empire because Russia, even today, Russia has over 300 documented ethnicities in it. the most diverse country in the world. It's one of the largest countries, if not the largest country in the world.

Ben: 1:05:34

in

Gene: 1:05:35

super diverse in terms of ethnicity.

Ben: 1:05:37

well, and that, that comes down to how you define ethnicity and race. Right. And I think there, there's a big difference how we define it here in the us versus the rest of

Gene: 1:05:50

Oh, totally, totally.

Ben: 1:05:51

And a lot of people miss that.

Gene: 1:05:53

is another. point of annoyance for me is. Race-wise we're all homosapien, Homer, homo, homosapien, homo, sapiens, sapiens, whatever the hell it is. The latest version. Like that's the only human rights in there. We killed off the other human races, like the Andrew Saul's or the Devonian. So the only one left is us, but ethnicities. Are I think a combination of genetics as well as culture. And that's what we, that in Russia, there are. Over 300. We have plenty in the U S because people came here from different parts of the world. we used to have this concept called melting pot. Which is you come here as a Norwegian or a African, from Nigeria. But you become an American. That kind of stopped. In the mid eighties. And this idea of diversity became better than the idea of a melting pot.

Ben: 1:06:50

I would argue that really the original idea was, we can argue this a little bit, but you know, we're the United States with a capital S for a reason. I would argue that. I really shouldn't be considered an American. I should be considered a Texan,

Gene: 1:07:06

Well, I agree with that. Yeah,

Ben: 1:07:10

right.

Gene: 1:07:11

Exactly.

Ben: 1:07:12

Yeah.

Gene: 1:07:13

Yeah. So I'm, I'm a European-American

Ben: 1:07:17

Nope. Well, I mean, depending on how far back you want to go, so,

Gene: 1:07:20

was born in Europe. So I'm a European the mirror. Right. If you have African-Americans who weren't even born in Africa at the very least being born in Europe means I I'm in a European American, right.

Ben: 1:07:34

It is Russia part of Europe or is it part of the east? We can have that to pay to.

Gene: 1:07:39

What, There's no debate here. The Europe at the Ural mountains.

Ben: 1:07:44

Hmm.

Gene: 1:07:44

So Russia encompasses two continents, Europe and Asia. But yeah, no, I was solidly born in Europe. So it it's mean, there's a lot of things here. Like I also on my versus if I was born in a that doesn't exist. In a city that doesn't exist. Because both of them have changed names.

Ben: 1:08:08

Ah,

Gene: 1:08:09

So, I was born in Leningrad, USSR. Which is now St. Petersburg, or. So, yeah, it's I mean, people obviously can figure out what it is, but. But that is quite different. That's kind of like if somebody was born during a You know, world war two. Japanese occupation of the Philippines or something.

Ben: 1:08:33

Yeah.

Gene: 1:08:34

versus advocate.

Ben: 1:08:36

I don't know that they had birth certificates during that time.

Gene: 1:08:39

Yeah, maybe I'm just making, you know, they probably did cause it wasn't Barack Obama born around there.

Ben: 1:08:45

Oh, I, the us had birth certificates going back. I don't know that. I don't know what the Japanese records,

Gene: 1:08:52

clearly had birth certificates there. Oh, I have no left field. Yeah. So I, I think that there's a. There's a tremendous amount of lack of understanding of From a scholarly standpoint, because most people. In this country, that's studied. Russia did it from an adversarial standpoint. And that from a. You know, local standpoint, like I don't think there was a whole lot of people that went to Russia. Post the fall of the Soviet union. To study Russian history in Russia. Had they done that? There would be more people today talking about how this occupation of Of Ukraine is something that not only could have been predicted, but makes total sense. But they only see it as an expansionism of Russia. That's completely not the reason for this.

Ben: 1:09:52

Well, even if it is, so what

Gene: 1:09:54

That might be the outcome, but it's not the, the reason for going

Ben: 1:09:59

well, I mean, post-World war II. We've had, you know, really not a lot of change in the world as far as, you know, geographic shifting a whole lot.

Gene: 1:10:10

Y, I don't know. if

Ben: 1:10:12

being probably the largest,

Gene: 1:10:14

and Pakistan the breakup of Yugoslavia, the breakup of rock. We found a few borders changing around.

Ben: 1:10:22

not compared to the previous hundred years though.

Gene: 1:10:25

That's because the people we were fighting the previous hundred years couldn't defend themselves. So it was easy to move borders.

Ben: 1:10:31

Anyway just real quick a side, it was the birth certificate act of 1933. There were a few states doing or there, there were a few states doing birth certificates before that, but nationally

Gene: 1:10:44

I think in the UK, they were doing him for hundreds of years because he, as citizens had. Thing rights that others

Ben: 1:10:53

yeah, but a lot of those documents were actually tied to the

Gene: 1:10:56

Yeah, Yeah. absolutely. Yeah, but it's still, it's a birth record, whatever, it's not a certificate, but somebody recorded a birth with name.

Ben: 1:11:03

Yes.

Gene: 1:11:04

Yeah.

Ben: 1:11:05

I actually debated on whether or not to when my son was born. You get a birth

Gene: 1:11:11

To notify the ATF of it.

Ben: 1:11:13

yeah, I, I really struggled with getting a social security number for him.

Gene: 1:11:18

Huh?

Ben: 1:11:18

know. it's one of those things that

Gene: 1:11:21

You didn't know.

Ben: 1:11:22

make that decision, but at the same time, it's one of those things that you can't undo. So.

Gene: 1:11:29

So Did you. Did you have the barcode tattooed on the back of his head?

Ben: 1:11:33

Not yet

Gene: 1:11:34

Not yet. Okay. I Gotta give him a tiller. He's A little older for that.

Ben: 1:11:38

You got, gotta get that serial number stamped in there. Good

Gene: 1:11:41

I have always loved that in that video game, at which you don't play video games, but there's a video game. called. Hit.

Ben: 1:11:48

Hitman. Yep. I played it back in the day.

Gene: 1:11:50

Yeah, it's been around since back in the day, for sure. And I I actually haven't played the last version, but I did buy it. It's sitting in my steam. Uninstalled. one of these days, I'll install it and play it. But that's one thing I always love this, this. Guy's walking around with a barcode.

Ben: 1:12:05

Yeah.

Gene: 1:12:05

And nobody knows It's like totally normal. And

Ben: 1:12:09

It may become more and more normalized as we go down the

Gene: 1:12:11

maybe,

Ben: 1:12:13

Do you, are you a, just PC gamer or console?

Gene: 1:12:16

I did counsel for about three years. I had an X-Box 360 and then I got an X-Box one. The problem was that the cool games that I really wanted to play were all coming out on PC you head up the X-Box and I just got sick of waiting. So I just. cause I used to be a PC big gamer at the start of PC gaming. So I was I had the first actual graphics video cards as it came out that led you doom in much higher frame rates back in the early nineties. Yeah, the old veto cards. Yup. Yup. I had the first, second and third versions of those. And then. Probably around 2001. I really stopped playing all video games cause I got married and they had plenty of other shit going on. And then around 2008, I guess, or whenever they X-Box 360 came out is when I got that.

Ben: 1:13:09

I up, you know, on computers and I remember building my first gaming computer that I

Gene: 1:13:16

the right of passage.

Ben: 1:13:17

from working and doing stuff as a kid.

Gene: 1:13:20

Running a brothel. Got it.

Ben: 1:13:23

actually no doing database administration before a newsletter. yeah.

Gene: 1:13:28

Hm.

Ben: 1:13:29

and built out. Remember very well. It was based off of AMD K six, two processor at 300 megahertz, which I overclocked, I had 128 megs of Ram. I had a quantum fireball hard drive and a voodoo graphics card.

Gene: 1:13:45

Yup.

Ben: 1:13:47

And Yeah. my gaming PC in the late nineties for the dime for the time it was. And I kept that up all through college

Gene: 1:13:56

Yeah.

Ben: 1:13:56

You know, had X boxes and stuff like that but post-college, I just, you know, got done with it. we used to, I was a group I was a member of a group up in Lewiston the LC web monks, and we had massive land parties and, you know, It was funny. Cause we were running on the switches we were running on. I was actually the network admin for our land parties, but we had gotten this group together, gotten some dues in and you know, we're buying actual Cisco, Cisco switches everything was 10, 100 back then. Of course, you know, gig was just kind of out and it was just too expensive

Gene: 1:14:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:14:38

doing at that time.

Gene: 1:14:39

in.

Ben: 1:14:40

No, no, no. And no one had a gig neck,

Gene: 1:14:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:14:44

So, you know, we were setting stuff up. I was running the DHCP server for everybody, you know, setting. It was, it was nuts, man. It was nuts what we were doing.

Gene: 1:14:53

brings back memories, man. Cause I. I remember in. One of them one of this would've been. It would've been in the late eighties. Going to. Computer parties. Where. We were setting up the network, but a lot of the trading was done. Direct scuzzy drive to computer.

Ben: 1:15:15

Yep.

Gene: 1:15:15

And basically. You know, whatever you want to it's people had.

Ben: 1:15:22

Yeah. Swap and stuff.

Gene: 1:15:23

for all. And. Yeah, it was, I remember buying a. a whopping 300 Meg drive for like 1800 bucks back then. Which was bigger than what anybody else had.'cause I, and I got it. Employee discount at at, at the time would have been controlled data corporation, which became Seagate. Getting one of the infamous drives. And that was like that puppy would get loaded in and I'd be sorting through all the software and images and fonts and everything else I got for the next weeks after that. that. that event was also where I first played with a next computer. So, there were, I mean, back in the day, it was like the late eighties, or people coming in from. There were apple employees there, there was, One guy for next was there, there's a bunch of people that have worked for a lot of these companies. Also wanting to show off their latest gear. To, to the computer enthusiasts out there.

Ben: 1:16:32

Well, and even in the late nineties and early two thousands, you know, the, at the land party, people would throw up shares and the same sorts of thing. Because internet speeds generally were especially. Yeah. Yeah. You, you weren't trading large

Gene: 1:16:49

No,

Ben: 1:16:50

you know? Over, over the web the way we do

Gene: 1:16:52

no,

Ben: 1:16:53

And you know, this is also pre a lot of people won't even realize it, but, you know, preen like Napster and stuff like

Gene: 1:16:59

absolutely.

Ben: 1:17:00

And, know, were piracy was still just as rampant. It was just

Gene: 1:17:09

Exactly. Yeah, Sneakernet this, I forgot about that term. That's a very good way of raising it. And it wasn't even so much about piracy. It was really more about, have you seen this? You gotta check this out. So, and the only way to buy software back then, and certainly in the eighties, when we were doing it. Was to go to a. You know, a computer store, and there was usually only one. Per city. It wasn't like super popular back then. So there were stores that sold some computer stuff. There's also radio shacks, which always sucked. But there was generally like one actual computer store that you could go to that had. A variety of computer gear and some cool joysticks and things like that

Ben: 1:17:54

And you had to get this in the shrink wrap

Gene: 1:17:56

Yeah, that was. eaten. Nothing, Nothing was tested. It had bugs that will never get fixed. And, a, you bought it as a standalone physical product. Now, the only good news with it is because you did buy it that way. You could also sell it. And so it gives you much like what we used to do with music, which is not a concept anymore. Or movies, which is not a concept anymore. If you bought a VHS tape of something or a Betamax or a laser disc. You could sell it at a garage sale or trade it in at a store that specialized in used stuff.

Ben: 1:18:32

well, you know, it's interesting concept because when you own a copy of something, you owned that copy.

Gene: 1:18:41

Yep.

Ben: 1:18:42

Now

Gene: 1:18:43

Everything's licensed.

Ben: 1:18:44

Yeah, exactly. And so if you have a huge, let's say iTunes music library that

Gene: 1:18:50

Yeah.

Ben: 1:18:50

and everything else, well, when you die, you cannot base off term service and everything else, you can't

Gene: 1:18:58

No. Yeah, it goes, it goes back.

Ben: 1:19:00

ends with you.

Gene: 1:19:01

Yep.

Ben: 1:19:02

So, you know, this an interesting thing

Gene: 1:19:06

I think it's

Ben: 1:19:07

when the world economic.

Gene: 1:19:08

I was going to say, I think it's actually. worse than that because I've had some things that I've purchased be removed from my library because the company that sold me, the license lost the license.

Ben: 1:19:19

Yep. And know, what's crazy about this is now think of all that and the world economic forum statement of you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy about it. Well, we already accept that with our music audio books

Gene: 1:19:35

movies.

Ben: 1:19:36

that's not a physical copy,

Gene: 1:19:38

Yeah, all down there, man stuff. And that's the thing, like what I lost my lost my NAS you know, I lost like 40. I didn't have 40 terabytes on. there. I think I had about 28 But other than that, probably 20 out of the 28. Was movies.

Ben: 1:19:55

a lot of porn, Gene.

Gene: 1:19:56

No porn at all on there. Don't need to have porn on there. Porn is on demand and readily available. Nobody should be keeping porn locally. There's so much of it out there. But I did have a lot of stuff that. May not be mass market appealable. You know, Sort of, you know, coffee, house movies and European stuff, Russian stuff. Asian stuff. India and Korea. And It's all theoretic. Yeah, I did have quite a bit of Bollywood actually. A lot of it is I'm sure. Replaceable. If I really looked to replace it, I don't remember what a lot of it was. honestly,

Ben: 1:20:35

to this Nass was just Failure

Gene: 1:20:37

to dry. Two drives died. So one drive died.

Ben: 1:20:42

ready.

Gene: 1:20:42

Yep. One drive died. I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't logging in. I had long ago. Stopped getting the notification messages from NAS. Cause I haven't bothered, updating anything. I honestly, hadn't been using the NAS. It just been sitting there and doing its thing. The only thing it was doing was it was running a Bitcoin node.

Ben: 1:21:04

Yeah.

Gene: 1:21:04

Which I realized I lost now, but that's all right. I didn't have any Bitcoin on there. I, I set up the node. On there to be able to do transfers. So it was, it was, you know, just incoming and outgoing.

Ben: 1:21:17

Yeah. I

Gene: 1:21:18

Nothing. was sitting on. it.

Ben: 1:21:20

I'll have to tell you my Bitcoin sob story at some point in time.

Gene: 1:21:24

I have a different, one of those I used to mind Bitcoins on the computer that wasn't doing anything else back in like 2010.

Ben: 1:21:31

Yup.

Gene: 1:21:32

Yeah. And then it died. And then I through.

Ben: 1:21:34

Well, I, I hit 50 Bitcoin

Gene: 1:21:38

Oh, that's way more than me. I have to

Ben: 1:21:41

Yeah. no, I had, I hit 50 pretty early on and sold it when it got up to a hundred dollars a Bitcoin,

Gene: 1:21:48

know. yeah, yeah. yeah,

Ben: 1:21:50

oh, this is real money.

Gene: 1:21:52

yeah.

Ben: 1:21:53

you know, the shit, this is never going to be worth anything because to me, what I saw in really until recently until the lightning network, I saw that my thought was Bitcoin is never going to scale. Right. Once you get up to a really large.

Gene: 1:22:10

I have my usual problem where descript start working at. Exactly 90 minutes, which must be how long we've been going. Or just shy of 90 minutes and now I just restarted recording we're back on. Okay, go ahead.

Ben: 1:22:25

Anyway. So, you know, I saw the issues with the Bitcoin network as far as scalability, but now with lightning, With, you know, lightning being widely accepted as kind of an off-chain transaction method. That then gets put on chain later. There's some utility to it. So, you know, I have more Bitcoin now, but you know, I sure wish I had that 50. That'd be a very happy

Gene: 1:22:52

Oh, no shit, dude. shit. Yeah, you got more than 50 Bitcoin right now.

Ben: 1:22:58

No. Oh, hell no. I wish.

Gene: 1:23:00

say I have, I have more Bitcoin now, I was like, whoa, wait

Ben: 1:23:03

have some Bitcoin now. Not, Not bad. Yeah. Let me rephrase. No, I, I. So, you know, it's one of those things that you kick yourself, but at the same time,

Gene: 1:23:14

Yeah, who knew.

Ben: 1:23:15

You know, a, such a gamble. And

Gene: 1:23:17

Yeah.

Ben: 1:23:18

point in time in my life, it. That that was

Gene: 1:23:20

I think the lesson to be learned for any of these weird, you know, beanie baby type. Things that you might have gotten into or training cards or anything. This is a lesson for everybody, and it's not a financial advice, but this is a good lesson across the board is when you sell stuff like that, that is. Unusual and you weren't even sure it was going to be worth more later. Always limit your sales through half of the amount you have. They'll have, keep the rest, forget about it for awhile. A few years go by. Maybe sell half of what you have left again. If it goes up. Up You know, make sure you always keep half of whatever you have never sell. Everything you have, because if, if only people would follow that there'll be a lot more Bitcoin millionaires right now that were Bitcoin owners a long time ago. Cause. A lot of people had the stories you did. Mine wasn't even that good. I didn't get to sell it at all. I just, you know, when, when the. Power supply died on the PC. And I realized that it was using about as much energy as what the current value of Bitcoin was.

Ben: 1:24:28

Yeah.

Gene: 1:24:29

I was like, well, this is stupid. Why am I just paying the electric company for mining? Something that I could buy for less money? Than what I'm spending on electricity.

Ben: 1:24:40

Indeed.

Gene: 1:24:41

It didn't make sense. Now, maybe I should have bought at that point, but I didn't buy either. like, this is stupid.

Ben: 1:24:46

So the entire, so my entire interest in Bitcoin at that time was, you know, as a math and physics major, and I was playing around with the math and looking at how. This protocol was going to be set up and it was, it was interesting to me. So it was no. No skin off my teeth and I. You know, one of the things I would say is you can have those rules and you you make the best decision you can. At the time, I was also pretty young. And didn't think it was ever going to be worth anything. So. You know, There's no to cry over spilled milk, you know?

Gene: 1:25:26

Sure.

Ben: 1:25:27

I don't know. But yeah.

Gene: 1:25:29

No, and I, I just think it makes for a funny story at this point in my life.

Ben: 1:25:35

What an idiot was.

Gene: 1:25:37

Right, but, but also almost everybody I know that is a little bit ticky or geeky has the same exact story. What do they need? I was.

Ben: 1:25:46

Yeah.

Gene: 1:25:47

I'm just

Ben: 1:25:47

in.

Gene: 1:25:48

What about all those people that those Bitcoins? You know, like where are those stories? I haven't, I don't know of anybody personally that has the, oh man, I made a lot of money in Bitcoin because I was buying it back when the idiots were selling it.

Ben: 1:26:02

I think a lot of people are just playing around and trading it. And, know, you had some of the people. The Winkle losses and so on, who kind of got in and invested in it. Fairly early. They bought up a lot of it. And I think that's why you have those, you know, max Kaiser, those sorts of people, the. That's I think, I think that's where a lot of it went.

Gene: 1:26:25

Those fuckers. Yeah.

Ben: 1:26:27

And you had to realize also a lot of the, the number of Bitcoin. Back then. Was substantially less, right. Until you really ended up having people. Create a six processors purpose-built to mine and stuff like that. The mining speed unless you were doing it very early on. It was pretty slow. Then you had this jump. Because you had these purposeful processors and, you know, the way the Bitcoin algorithm works is it becomes successfully harder and harder and harder. Problem-solving proof of work. And also there's somewhat of a bit of luck to it. Right. You know, it, it it's, it, it progresses more or less at the same rate, but it's still fundamentally guessing in in a way. So anyway then overall number of Bitcoin at that time, I'd have to go back and look at the actual numbers, but is a fraction of what is in circulation today. So, there's that to consider.

Gene: 1:27:26

just one more iteration left. If I remember.

Ben: 1:27:29

I would have to, it's been a while since I've looked at where we're at, as far as the. The chain is considered, but that is one thing that from a political standpoint, I do like about Bitcoin is it's an inherently deflationary currency. Which, you know, you can say that whether that's good or bad, but.

Gene: 1:27:46

Yeah.

Ben: 1:27:47

I think the amount of ways it can be divided. You know, the value of this is Toshi. up, but. Yeah.

Gene: 1:27:56

Yeah, it's. Having a hard limit. And I think the estimates is roughly half of all Bitcoin, nevermind has now been lost. So it's absolutely inflationary. It's not just static.

Ben: 1:28:07

The deflationary. Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:09

Deflationary. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 1:28:11

Which that man, that, that. That is interesting. Isn't it? of all Bitcoin has been lost.

Gene: 1:28:18

if like your, your Fiat paper currency. Was never to be printed again. What currently exists is all there is. And whenever a piece of paper gets burned or destroyed or, you know, just used too many times. And you can no longer use it anymore. Just the value of every other dollar bill that's out there increases.

Ben: 1:28:39

You know, I wonder if we're going to have some junkyard archeology just going through, looking for Bitcoin.

Gene: 1:28:44

Yeah, I doubt it. I mean, maybe, maybe you never know. It all depends on how long from now. I'm not. Certainly not a thousand years from now.

Ben: 1:28:52

No, no, no. I'm talking like here in the next five,

Gene: 1:28:55

Yeah. Yeah, that could be.

Ben: 1:28:57

Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:58

I could be well, I told you about my little experiment with my portable drives, I think before. Where I plugged in. 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 of the two and a half inch format, external and portable drives. USB powered. That I had sitting around that probably. Add last been turned on. I would guess maybe 10 years ago. And I got zero for six of them working.

Ben: 1:29:26

Wow. Yeah.

Gene: 1:29:27

So that was on a hard disc that what we used to call a Winchester drive. A hard disc that has spinning platters. You're probably not going to get anything off of there unless you take it apart. And then try and rebuild it. Where you come, you moved the platters onto a fresh drive and through that way,

Ben: 1:29:48

I mean, it depends. it depends on a couple things. One, the data density of the drive. The higher, the data density, the more, you know, any sort of magnetic loss is going to matter. Also the physical, know, is the motor and the processor and everything working. What conditions has it been stored in, but that, you know, data long-term data storage is a problem.

Gene: 1:30:10

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm on drives that are not operable. And then, because what happens is eventually. The lack of movement of the drive head, that's just parked on the plantar surface. You. You start actually. Uh, Having, you know, And exchange on the physical level of those two substrates. They start sticking together.

Ben: 1:30:33

Yeah.

Gene: 1:30:34

And if you literally never power on a drive and it's there for a decade. The odds, not guaranteed, but certainly the odds of there being physical issues. Are skyrocketing.

Ben: 1:30:47

A hundred percent and, you know, CDs, degrade, everything.

Gene: 1:30:51

Yeah.

Ben: 1:30:52

You know, everything degrades. In fact, our records are. They're there. Digitizing our records is good and bad. You know, there is no. Currently there's very little good ways of true offline. Storage of digital records for long-term archival purposes. And.

Gene: 1:31:13

them on gold tablets.

Ben: 1:31:15

Yeah.

Gene: 1:31:16

That's

Ben: 1:31:16

Literally.

Gene: 1:31:17

Yup.

Ben: 1:31:18

No.

Gene: 1:31:19

And then ideally you ship them off into space somewhere far enough away where no one's going to touch them.

Ben: 1:31:24

In a sealed container, the dust isn't going interstellar or interest stellar does isn't going to hit. Yes.

Gene: 1:31:30

Yes.

Ben: 1:31:32

But.

Gene: 1:31:33

Yeah. including, of course our lives. Is just transient overtime. What we have about any other period of time in history is just fragments.

Ben: 1:31:48

Well in fragments that are highly distorted, right. I mean. Even looking at world war II history, you know, we can talk about a little, a lot of things, but all I can tell you is that I don't know the truth about what happened in world war II.

Gene: 1:32:04

Yep.

Ben: 1:32:05

wasn't there. And quite frankly, a lot of what has survived and in. The U S at least what's taught in the us. Is definitely. Highly based off allied propaganda. And you have to question, okay. Given what the government's doing now, how much of. How much of that. Can I truly trust? You know, all I know is that. The allies did some pretty shitty things, too. Firebombing of Dresden comes to the top of mind.

Gene: 1:32:31

Yep.

Ben: 1:32:33

So anyway. My entire point in saying that isn't to support anybody, but to say that. We need to be careful with the Uber. Look at us. Sort of stuff because we haven't always behaved great.

Gene: 1:32:51

Well, if you're willing to be on the wrong side and you want to demonstrate strength anyway, that's fine. But. The assumption that you're on the right side. When you're demonstrating strength. could definitely present some problems.

Ben: 1:33:05

And you should always question the motives why. Any group of. Any government is doing something.

Gene: 1:33:11

Hmm.

Ben: 1:33:11

And likely the motives aren't going to be for. Civil Liberty or the individual,

Gene: 1:33:19

No, no.

Ben: 1:33:20

going to be someone taking more power and that that's the natural trend. Of. That's the very natural trend of all governments is for freedom to Wayne and tyranny to increase. There's a shift,

Gene: 1:33:35

Yep.

Ben: 1:33:36

So you look at England and, you know, Alfred the great and what he generated. And then where it has more or less slowly to Cade to. The U S breaking off, so on where we're decaying to. And it seems to happen in a pretty predictable cycle.

Gene: 1:33:56

Yeah. Yeah, there's never been an empire. That's lasted. And I

Ben: 1:34:02

No.

Gene: 1:34:02

faster information travels, the lesser empires will hold up. And you know, certainly I am. Using. Some statistical prediction here, but I think it's pretty obvious that China is racing ahead in the U S falling behind right now in terms of empires. Russia. Isn't really. The main actor in what's happening right now. It's not the country you need to be looking at. China is the country you need to be watching because. China is the country that is coming out of this smelling like a rose. They're getting to have their cake and eat it too. Right now. They're seeing their, their main competitor, their main frenemy. Losing, which is the United States. And they're utilizing Russia to make that happen, which is a move for China.

Ben: 1:34:54

Well, Hopefully, if. I pray that the future of the world is not. The Chinese communist party. I really do. I, if it is, then I hate to think of the world. My children will inherit. But

Gene: 1:35:10

Yeah. I'm more of a realist.

Ben: 1:35:14

Aye. Aye. Aye. I have this hope that. Enough people will wake up that there will be a move away from collectivism soon. Based off of where we're at in the cycle.

Gene: 1:35:27

not here. I think if you want to find God's golf, Jenn, ain't going to be in the U S it's going to be somewhere in south America.

Ben: 1:35:37

Why south America.

Gene: 1:35:38

Yeah, south America right now is the place that is least likely to get nuked.

Ben: 1:35:46

You ever read a. Much Heinlein.

Gene: 1:35:50

I mean, I own the full library. I doesn't mean I've read all of them though.

Ben: 1:35:54

Forums freehold.

Gene: 1:35:55

I have not read it.

Ben: 1:35:56

That's a good book. It's it's the premise is that there's a nuclear war. This was written right after, during the Cuban missile crisis. And

Gene: 1:36:04

What kind of war.

Ben: 1:36:06

Nuclear war.

Gene: 1:36:07

What, what is that? Not familiar.

Ben: 1:36:10

Make in front of my accent.

Gene: 1:36:12

How do you spell that word?

Ben: 1:36:14

Anyway. Moving on Gene.

Gene: 1:36:18

All right, Mr. George Bush.

Ben: 1:36:19

Oh, God. would you make that? That is the

Gene: 1:36:22

Because that's the guy that

Ben: 1:36:23

said to me.

Gene: 1:36:24

word all the time.

Ben: 1:36:26

It's. It's a common thing. Yeah.

Gene: 1:36:30

Did not know how to read in the south. I guess that used to be a common thing. I hope it's not anymore.

Ben: 1:36:35

Wow, man. it's just a. Okay.

Gene: 1:36:40

The pet peeve.

Ben: 1:36:42

Okay. Pet peeve of the side. So bombs were used all over the world in this book.

Gene: 1:36:48

Yes.

Ben: 1:36:48

the only continent to survive was Africa.

Gene: 1:36:52

Oh, interesting.

Ben: 1:36:53

anyway, it's just a very interesting take and. Farm and his family is thrown into the future It's would consider an, a racist book, but it's just an interesting. It's an interesting book that. Is about how, if there was a war world war three, so to speak. That the lesser populated countries would survive and take over.

Gene: 1:37:15

That's it's true, but right now, unless I'm drastically missing some piece of political data. I just don't see anybody, either China or Russia or us, or you. Pointing any nukes at south America. I know they're all pointing nukes at each other.

Ben: 1:37:36

Yeah, but. My, I guess my point in bringing up. That book was to say, well, why would you say that about south America, not Africa as

Gene: 1:37:43

And I think the issue with Africa that the reason I would say that is Africa. It doesn't have the. Technological. Existing technological. Industry, nor does it have the population of south America. That's why the same reason? I wouldn't say Australia, although I do think the big cities in Australia will be nuked by China. The population density is just so goddamn low. That even if they weren't Australia would not be enough.

Ben: 1:38:11

Yeah.

Gene: 1:38:12

Texas might be enough, but we're definitely getting nuked.

Ben: 1:38:17

If we're still part of the United States, that's for sure.

Gene: 1:38:19

Even if we're not, we're just believe me. We're still getting them. No, there there's. There's. Too much. Technology as well as too much oil and gas here for us to not get Newt.

Ben: 1:38:30

What about Canada?

Gene: 1:38:32

Well, given that 90% of the Canadian populations lives within 50 miles of the U S border. say Canada doesn't have to get new. They will just suffer the the

Ben: 1:38:42

Yeah.

Gene: 1:38:43

Yeah, I wouldn't waste say New Zealand, Canada, myself. If I was Mr. Nuke, wouldn't bother nuking. Tana. That's not worth the waste. Russia has a, what was it? Just a little over six and a half thousand, I think 65, 80 or so. We're heads right now. So there is enough to new Canada as well.

Ben: 1:39:02

You know, at that point, there's not. You're you're talking. Anything outside of very strategic weapons, deployment's going to end up in a very catastrophic.

Gene: 1:39:15

Oh, absolutely. It's a

Ben: 1:39:16

entire world.

Gene: 1:39:17

That's the whole point is to limit the population to 500 million.

Ben: 1:39:21

Well, I, if it's that survive, I mean, you're talking nuclear winter at that point.

Gene: 1:39:26

Well, or even the nuclear winter. Yeah. I think that there's a. There's probably much better chance of surviving a nuclear winter than what the fear mongers would have you believe. But there is. There is definitely going to be a reduction in technology availability, just simply from a lack of spare parts for everything.

Ben: 1:39:48

Well, and the specialization that's required to maintain our current society.

Gene: 1:39:52

Yeah.

Ben: 1:39:53

You know, I know quite a bit about computers. I am. You know,

Gene: 1:39:57

Yeah. So you're going to be useless in that regard. Do you know about farming? That's the more interesting question.

Ben: 1:40:03

I grew up on one. Yeah. But that he.

Gene: 1:40:06

castrate goats?

Ben: 1:40:09

Yes.

Gene: 1:40:09

Perfect. You got a job.

Ben: 1:40:12

But anyway. the, the, the the question though is, I mean, We are, talking about going back to the stone age.

Gene: 1:40:22

I don't think it's quite the stone age. It's probably even a little past the bronze age.

Ben: 1:40:28

Okay. Fair enough. You're definitely not going back to the 18 hundreds,

Gene: 1:40:31

No, definitely not.

Ben: 1:40:32

to the 17 hundreds. Because there is people underestimate the amount of technology that was required

Gene: 1:40:38

absolutely. And that knowledge has gone. Like we couldn't recreate most of that technology anymore.

Ben: 1:40:46

I mean, you're talking about. Living on inland is no longer an option because of salt. Availability.

Gene: 1:40:54

Yeah. I mean a lot of these things. It's basically. Going to. Probably, I would say the. The 12th century, maybe 13th.

Ben: 1:41:06

You know, I, I think you're going pre agricultural personally, but.

Gene: 1:41:11

I think that agriculture will well, not today's modern agriculture with corporate agriculture, but it certainly, I think. 12th century agriculture is, is doable.

Ben: 1:41:23

I don't know if you're going to be able to maintain it.

Gene: 1:41:26

I think we'll still have a steel working. Because of the machineries that do that. Are pretty massive. They don't get destroyed in initial.

Ben: 1:41:36

That totally disagree. Every modern steel mill is an electric induction furnace, and you're Not going to be able to run a power plant. Okay. I don't know enough about south American steel industry to argue that, but

Gene: 1:41:52

I think this is why you want to be in a second world. Or even the third world country, rather than the first world country. Because a lot of the technologies have not advanced. Horribly since 50, 60 years ago, from not because they couldn't, but because of the cost factors,

Ben: 1:42:11

All right.

Gene: 1:42:11

I mean, even Mexico now, both us. And I think. The Yucatan peninsula are going to be completely. Uninhabitable, but. Let's say they weren't. I think Mexico would be better off than you, us the same reason, there's less reliance on. Electrical run modern. Gadgets. Like more things are still done. In a mechanical way in Mexico than the U S.

Ben: 1:42:37

Okay, well, now we're in a subject that I don't have enough knowledge to talk about

Gene: 1:42:42

Hey, you can still have opinions, even if you don't have knowledge.

Ben: 1:42:45

and things like that here in the us, but not. Not Sarah.

Gene: 1:42:48

if you just assume that let's say we just have EMPS, right? No actual. Ground-based bombs. So your electrical. Grid capacity is knocked out for effectively. It's just not going to get repaired. It's just not gonna work.

Ben: 1:43:04

Aye. You know, I think the threat of an EMP. It's that is. So highly. Dependent on lots and lots of things. Know, power generation. EMP can be stopped by. You know, there's X amount of shielding that occurs right. So when you're talking about a power block, For a power plant and you're looking at. Let's say a turbine deck. And the control room for the For the power plant is typically going to be in a metal industrial ask building. So you've got metal sheeting there. The controls. For the main DCS or the main turbine controls are often going to be. Inside and underneath the turbine deck, which, you know, I'm talking about for like most coal plant construction. And that term deck is a lot of steel and concrete and. Pretty good shielding from an EMP. And then your control system, actual main components, your control processors, your drops, or your loops. Our all.

Gene: 1:44:15

transformer on the line just blew.

Ben: 1:44:18

Not necessarily. I mean.

Gene: 1:44:19

No.

Ben: 1:44:20

No, not necessarily. So. I mean, it all depends on what the actual induced load is.

Gene: 1:44:28

Well, I will say I have not done the math, so I wouldn't get down trust. The you to do the math to say what radius.

Ben: 1:44:35

you're certainly, you're going to have some transformers that are absolutely destroyed. You're definitely going to probably have massive blackouts because of breaker protection, schemes and everything else. And that's. The other thing is a lot of our breaker protection is very, very, very fast at this point.

Gene: 1:44:52

A lot of our cars will no longer work.

Ben: 1:44:55

Yes. I agree.

Gene: 1:44:57

Except for cars made in the eighties.

Ben: 1:45:01

Well, even then, if you've got a fuel injected car from the eighties, you still got.

Gene: 1:45:04

what I'm talking about. Pre fuel injected carburetor, baby.

Ben: 1:45:08

Carburetor.

Gene: 1:45:08

Still works.

Ben: 1:45:10

As long as it didn't

Gene: 1:45:11

Gas pumps don't

Ben: 1:45:12

cap.

Gene: 1:45:14

This is the thing I always find funny and like zombie movies is they just, oh, we found another gas station. We can scrounge up some gas. How are you pumping that shit?

Ben: 1:45:23

By hand.

Gene: 1:45:25

Yeah, I don't see them doing that in the movies by hand.

Ben: 1:45:27

No, no. Well, you mean there's lots of post-apocalyptic stuff that's just out there,

Gene: 1:45:33

Yeah. Ridiculous.

Ben: 1:45:36

And last book recommendation for the day. The earth abides.

Gene: 1:45:41

Another one I haven't read. Well, who's this one by.

Ben: 1:45:43

Oh, man. It it's one it's from the fifties. It's

Gene: 1:45:46

Okay.

Ben: 1:45:47

It's you're going to get me the line. I'm going to have to look up the author.

Gene: 1:45:50

I'm thinking, look it up. And the way the book is called the earth abides.

Ben: 1:45:54

The earth abides and,

Gene: 1:45:55

The due to bides.

Ben: 1:45:57

No, the earth

Gene: 1:45:58

Oh,

Ben: 1:45:58

And it's, it's about a guy who gets snakebit and in the mountains and survives and comes

Gene: 1:46:06

Hmm.

Ben: 1:46:06

and. Plague has wiped out a large portion of humanity and he survived because he was up in the mountains and it just follows. Them trying to come together and survive. And eventually the children, other survivors. Think of guns is nothing but toys because

Gene: 1:46:23

Hm.

Ben: 1:46:24

has become unreliable and things like that. It's it's, it's a

Gene: 1:46:27

That's the

Ben: 1:46:28

one.

Gene: 1:46:28

problems they were in business back then. Okay. Yes.

Ben: 1:46:34

I mean, in the fifties and you

Gene: 1:46:36

Yeah. They weren't worried about computers or televisions or anything else? Yeah.

Ben: 1:46:42

Well, and the book was written in the

Gene: 1:46:44

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:46:45

Not every house even had a TV. So.

Gene: 1:46:47

Yeah, it's an interesting idea. But. Whether it's Africa or south America. I think there's some other issues with Africa and the middle east is absolutely getting nuked. And that will definitely.

Ben: 1:46:59

why.

Gene: 1:47:00

It has to.

Ben: 1:47:01

Y.

Gene: 1:47:02

It's it's part of the plan.

Ben: 1:47:05

But okay. Okay, Gene.

Gene: 1:47:08

Okay. So the way

Ben: 1:47:09

us your deep Kremlin knowledge.

Gene: 1:47:11

to you my deep understanding of mutually assured. Annihilation. The way.

Ben: 1:47:18

Carol Quigley. Tragedy and hope.

Gene: 1:47:20

No, I haven't, but I, but I'm Russian and that's good enough. The way it works is. If we can have this, the no one's going to have it. That that's the book right there. It could be a title, could be the first sentence. It could be the entire book. And so the way it works is that you take out. Everybody. Who can have a potential technological advantage. You take out the middle east to get rid of the oil. You'd take out. Large cities in India. To ensure that they don't have sufficient population to be able to survive. Post-lab apocalypse. Same thing with China. That's why Russia has always had nukes targeting China and China has always had star getting Russia. You take out the U S because they're making bad decisions. You take out your, because they've deserved it for a long time.

Ben: 1:48:13

Why has your observed.

Gene: 1:48:15

Why is Europe? I I'm sorry, what are we in? W w why is Russia occupying Ukraine right now? Because of Europe because they're pesky little NATO just has to keep getting in there. And pushing its way in and sucking you all these countries. So that's right up against Russia.

Ben: 1:48:32

Oh, NATO.

Gene: 1:48:33

Europe absolutely gets it. There's no two ways about it, both us and. Russia have new same than Europe. And this was confirmed by a leaked Israeli report that came out about the U S. There was the middle east. Yeah. If, if half the countries will take outside of your Arabia and oil countries, the other half we'll take out Israel. That's gone. Australia, China is absolutely going to take out Australia for the same reason. Russia is going to take out India. The only countries that I can think of that. Don't have. Enough of a. Interest to be taken out in south America. And that that may exclude con you know, the, the larger cities. Yeah.

Ben: 1:49:15

Oil.

Gene: 1:49:16

Well, the, yeah. Paula might get taken out, but for the most part, if I was going to pick a place to be. And when the the atomic clock, it moves through less than a second. Towards midnight. Would be in south America. I would not want to be in Panama because that'll get taken out to take out the canal. I wouldn't want to be in lots of parts of Africa, because there are things other than nuclear strikes, they'll kill you there. I would want to be. In south America, preferably not too far from the Amazon jungles, because that's going to be the best place to survive.

Ben: 1:49:56

So, let me ask you

Gene: 1:49:58

financial advice.

Ben: 1:49:59

geopolitical question.

Gene: 1:50:01

Traded show.

Ben: 1:50:03

Huh.

Gene: 1:50:04

Did you say trader Joe?

Ben: 1:50:05

No. I said, let me ask you

Gene: 1:50:06

Oh,

Ben: 1:50:06

larger historical geopolitical

Gene: 1:50:09

I heard trader Joe in there for some reason.

Ben: 1:50:11

Okay. How the hell did we allow China? To gain the nuclear technology that we gained. How did we think that was a good idea?

Gene: 1:50:21

they get it. I'm not sure what year they got it. I can look this up in

Ben: 1:50:25

So the missile delivery systems that we allowed, the, the, the. Clintons were very much involved in China's nuclear program.

Gene: 1:50:33

Really there was a oh, China's developing 6,000 mile per hour. Hypersonic missile for defensive purposes only. China denies, developing nuclear, capable. Sonic missiles. Yeah, so it looks like 1964 was the first year of a Chinese nuclear weapons test.

Ben: 1:50:50

Yes. Well, hold on, hold on. Hold on. No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about having a weapons test. I'm talking

Gene: 1:50:56

Oh, Well, you can't disallow that. I mean, India has got missiles. A lot of countries have missiles that we don't really think about. Pakistan has missiles. And nukes.

Ben: 1:51:13

So, if you want to look at what I'm talking about, chip technology and the missile technology, the multiple re-entry vehicle technology. Bill Clinton gave China missile technology. If you go through and

Gene: 1:51:26

All right. Well, that's not shocking at all.

Ben: 1:51:28

Yeah, it was in 1996.

Gene: 1:51:30

Was a policy, even pre Clinton. There was a policy, I think start. Starting with either. Second term of Reagan or a first term of Bush. That. The best way to move China off its communist path. Was too flooded with westernization. I forget the official term for it. There was a name for it, but it was a, it was a us government program. That's arrived. Multiple presidents. That calculated that that was the best strategy for the U S. Post Dixon era. To suede China. To move away from it's communism ways was through modernization, westernization and sharing of technology. It's it's very similar to the Russian cancer of denazification.

Ben: 1:52:17

Yeah, that worked really well for us. Didn't it.

Gene: 1:52:19

Yeah.

Ben: 1:52:20

Yeah.

Gene: 1:52:22

So it moved China to having all the technology. And to having plenty of Western goods. But also to making all Western goods, there's not much made in the U S at all right now, which is very sad.

Ben: 1:52:35

Is a sad thing and it's a problematic thing. So it, you know, it's going to be interesting when we look at. The great reset. And you look at the economy of China. And, you know, there is no saving because of the way they play with their as often as they do. There is no 401k system in China there, you know, most people have There. well tied up in real estate. And they have these, you know, empty cities that are built. For nothing, but to sell. Sell to someone, right? They have apartment buildings with no windows, no doors, no elevators, nothing. a. Skyrise mid-rise building that has is nothing but a shell. That house of cards. I have to think. Collapses at some point. Fairly soon.

Gene: 1:53:29

You mean financially or figuratively or? Okay.

Ben: 1:53:33

No financially.

Gene: 1:53:35

Yeah, maybe unless they can manage them. To get the us dollar to lose so much value. That they can actually. Leverage it. And, you know, be able to buy up real assets for pennies on the dollar. I mean that I think. The one thing I will not do is discount. The intellect of Chinese government. I think there. Operating very, very intelligently and very efficiently. Or what is their purpose, which is the. Continuation of their power. Everything China's doing. Is rational. It may be immoral, but it is rational.

Ben: 1:54:21

Yeah. I can't argue with that.

Gene: 1:54:22

the sense of the government, not from the sense of the average Chinese. I wouldn't go there. But if you got into Chinese communist party, in college and you continue down your path. The government has been making huge strides supporting the activities of the party by allowing a hell of a lot of what would be described as capitalism to anyone else. And that's the thing is I think. Chinese communist party is a misnomer. It is not no longer. And hasn't been for awhile. Communist. What it has been is to tell Tarion, but nobody wants to call their own government. The. Chinese totalitarian party. That, that sounds even worse than Chinese communist party.

Ben: 1:55:05

Yeah. It's definitely cronie. is the ultimate crony capitalism,

Gene: 1:55:10

Yeah, which is not communist. You know, communism may be

Ben: 1:55:15

either, right? Because you're, you you're limiting the players.

Gene: 1:55:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Ben: 1:55:20

I mean, it is. In some ways It's more akin to, yes.

Gene: 1:55:24

Really? Yeah. Yeah. But again,

Ben: 1:55:26

to what Nazi Germany was doing.

Gene: 1:55:28

Right. But except China's done it successfully for 20 years. Or at least 20 years, possibly even longer, but. I think the last remnants of anything that could be described as communism have already left China.

Ben: 1:55:45

Except the toll terror. totalitarianism of that goes along with it. But.

Gene: 1:55:50

But you don't need to be communist to be, to tell Ontarian is my point. And that's and it's. You know, again, I could argue that. Well, Putin has been in power for 20 years. Sees totally addict air. That's a totalitarian country. Well, he is. Probably. By definition, a dictator, but he's a very popular one. And which has been the case quite often than countries. In pre democracies where you had. People that have a lot of power, but they were also loved by the people.

Ben: 1:56:25

Hmm.

Gene: 1:56:26

And I think that's what we have in Russia right now.

Ben: 1:56:28

Khadafi.

Gene: 1:56:29

Yeah, well, I, I don't know because Kadafi was from a minority. Sect So the majority of Iraqis were actually not. Part of the Sunni's

Ben: 1:56:41

Okay, Joe.

Gene: 1:56:43

What is that wrong?

Ben: 1:56:45

Kadafi wasn't in Iraq.

Gene: 1:56:47

Oh, sorry. Who am I thinking? Yeah, no. Yeah. That's so damn I'm thinking. I said, damn, you're right. Yeah, good point. None of that. So could that be, was just while he wanted to get on the, get off the U S petrodollar. That was his main defense.

Ben: 1:57:01

Yeah, but I'm just saying he was a dictator that was fairly well

Gene: 1:57:06

I think you're right. I think he was fairly liked by the, but.

Ben: 1:57:10

it, anytime there's a dictatorship, anytime there's a dictatorship. And I don't think there's an example of this. In history. Where. Yes. The majority may love the dictator, but there is a minority that is being oppressed.

Gene: 1:57:26

Yeah.

Ben: 1:57:26

By the dictator because minority in a dictatorship minority rights are not considered. And as a result. That. Yeah, this. This is why Kadafi. When we we came, we saw he died.

Gene: 1:57:40

Right.

Ben: 1:57:41

You know, you had a repressed minority that were more than willing to absolutely. Take him out in a very grotesque way. with us support. So.

Gene: 1:57:52

But also that I think is more indicative of, of the region.

Ben: 1:57:59

I don't know.

Gene: 1:58:00

like more people die in grotesque ways. There.

Ben: 1:58:04

E. Tuning. Yeah. I mean, but.

Gene: 1:58:07

as taboo. To have grotesque death. In the middle east and parts of As it is, for example, here in the us.

Ben: 1:58:17

I have that. I.

Gene: 1:58:20

Are you in Europe?

Ben: 1:58:21

See, see the French revolution. You know, you want to see

Gene: 1:58:25

I'm talking about right now. I mean like today, not in history in history, everybody went through periods of growth. I mean, Jesus, the Spanish inquisition. But no I'm talking like today. I think you're less likely to see if, if we had the same kind of. The same kind of mentality as. North Africa. We're actually probably good chunks of Africa. Most of Africa. And the middle east and parts of Asia. treatment of people that are accused of heinous crimes. Do you think that the certain I have brother that's gone through a trial would still be alive. He would have been. Basically ripped to shreds by people just. Ripping them apart. Before he was ever sentenced.

Ben: 1:59:12

Ah, you know, and all I will say is you put people in enough of a repressive

Gene: 1:59:19

why you're, you're hitting the nail on the head. Exactly. But.

Ben: 1:59:23

going to become violent and you know, a lot of the middle east by its very nature from a. A religious side is to a degree oppressive. And you can argue that six ways to Sunday, but I think most people would agree that. There is a lot of restriction and repression there. That causes. Tensions to be high. I say the least.

Gene: 1:59:48

No, I, I, I don't disagree with that at all, but I think that the other part of it is the huge divide between the, the. The average populous, which is very poor. And the small minority, which is very rich. So the minority is rich even compared to the U S but the average population is. Goddamn poor compared to the U S. And I think the greater divide. The the greater you have an acceptance for. Brutality.

Ben: 2:00:22

Absolutely. The you get wars and you get that sort of violence, the greater, the the disillusionment and disparity.

Gene: 2:00:31

Hm.

Ben: 2:00:32

always a bottom. There's always a top. The further away those. Get from each other. The more likely you are to have major social upheaval and war.

Gene: 2:00:43

And this is a very worrying trend in the us as well as we're losing the middle class.

Ben: 2:00:50

Yeah, I much agree.

Gene: 2:00:53

Yeah. And I don't like, there's not an easy solution here.

Ben: 2:00:57

Well in the us, I think where we're headed is, and this is just. Anathema to me, but I think what we're going to have is a major inflationary period. if you're the ultra wealthy. hurts to an extent, but. You're so wealthy that it doesn't really matter.

Gene: 2:01:17

Yeah.

Ben: 2:01:18

The middle-class is going to be destroyed.

Gene: 2:01:21

Yup.

Ben: 2:01:21

the lower class is just going to end up on UBI.

Gene: 2:01:25

Yep. I think I completely agree with you. That's a, I was curious to see what you were going to come up with, but that is, I think. The writing on the wall as it were.

Ben: 2:01:36

Yeah.

Gene: 2:01:38

And it's once you do that. Once you have. We already have a large percentage of people working for the, for the government in either state or federal capacity. But once you have people that aren't necessarily working for the government, but. Rely on the government. As part of their normal survival.

Ben: 2:01:59

Yep.

Gene: 2:01:59

government is going to become irreplaceable. Meaning there is no. You know, friendly, elected type change of government. That point, it's the only thing that's going to do it as a revolution.

Ben: 2:02:11

Well, and. You can vote yourself into tyranny. That you can't. Yeah.

Gene: 2:02:20

Yep. I can't remember who said that, but that's a good quote.

Ben: 2:02:24

Well, What Was it The.

Gene: 2:02:28

No,

Ben: 2:02:29

Yeah.

Gene: 2:02:29

like that. It was some. I believe of some sort to military in person that that's attributed to.

Ben: 2:02:35

Yeah. The w what, what is it? The The ballot box. I'm missing them. One of them.

Gene: 2:02:40

Yeah. And that's.

Ben: 2:02:42

It ends with the cartridge box. And anyway,

Gene: 2:02:45

It's by design. It's a one way road. That you may take. Of your own choosing. Which has no return path. Short of. Of, you know, fertilizing the tree of Liberty with Willow blood.

Ben: 2:03:02

Well, let's hope. That the populous is awake enough or just enough of us are that we can. At least avoid that path a little longer.

Gene: 2:03:11

Well, I, yeah, a little longer. That'd be. I was good as it gets. I ultimately, I, think the us will become the dominant communist country on the planet. Communism will arrive here much as it didn't Russia with a bloody revolution. That takes out.

Ben: 2:03:27

Do you think it will take a revolution or do you think it will be stepped into.

Gene: 2:03:30

the thing you got to remember is the revolution happened in Russia. Not because there was a lot of opposition to communism, but because. It was symbolism of taking the current government. Off the stage. They were no longer the government. And I think at some point that may happen, that revolution may include people like AOC. Who will. Participate in a slightly bloodier version of January six. That ends up taking power for quote unquote, all the underrepresented people of the country. And when that happens, there will be a lot of support. It's not going to be a minority revolution. That will be a majority revolution. But I think that in this sense, maybe Marx was correct and I'm still going through and reading. And in that. The. You can't get. To communism when nobody can really get to it, but you can't even in theory, get to it without having gone through capitalism.

Ben: 2:04:34

Hm.

Gene: 2:04:34

so I think that a lot of countries that are post communist countries, and this will include China. We'll eventually drop the Monica communists from their title. But I think that a lot of countries. Most communism understand. How capitalism works and also how. Unbridled democracy can do what you just said. has lead you right down the road. Two. or to communism. And to tell Terry aneurysm.

Ben: 2:05:05

Well, this is why we are not supposed to be. And unbridled democracy, right? This is why we're supposed to be a representative Republic and really.

Gene: 2:05:14

Or just under half the country, doesn't want that they want unbridled democracy so they can rule the other half.

Ben: 2:05:23

Just a terrifying prospect.

Gene: 2:05:26

It is. And I mean the backlash account against that of course is more federalism, but I don't know if it's going to be enough.

Ben: 2:05:36

Well, who knows maybe the Californians that are moving into Idaho and Texas and people, you know, like, Michael malice and others will be of the still. That are moving to Texas and. We can turn Texas even a nine. I won't say darker shade of red, cause I really don't care about the Republican party, but. Turn to a more independent nature.

Gene: 2:05:57

I tell you it's going to be a sad day when Texas blue. But I think it's coming. Because the, at least what I'm seeing here in Austin is the number of sheer number of Californians here. There's like a thousand people a day coming. It's crazy numbers and.

Ben: 2:06:17

Oh,

Gene: 2:06:18

While some of them will even give lip service and say, well, yeah, I mean, we saw what happened there. I also guarantee you that most of them are the bleeding heart types. Well, you can't, you can't. homeless people. You know, we're no, we should build housing for them right. In the middle of rich neighborhoods. You

Ben: 2:06:37

Yeah, that'll happen.

Gene: 2:06:38

to do.

Ben: 2:06:40

Well, The homeless situation, you know? You would have to do something about the dispossessed. And there is a segment of the population that cannot do anything very useful and can't bootstrap themselves to a normal

Gene: 2:06:54

Yeah.

Ben: 2:06:54

And you have to have some charity there to handle

Gene: 2:06:57

Well, you got to have some work programs. And then the biggest I think in a lot of people said this. Right now isn't homelessness itself. It is the drug addiction the homeless population. Because if somebody is high, they can't work. they can't work, they can't support themselves.

Ben: 2:07:18

I think it's not just drug addiction. I think it's a tragedy of some kind, right? You have a loss of family or support structure. And. You know, maybe you turned to drugs as part of the escapism to.

Gene: 2:07:32

Well, I'm not

Ben: 2:07:32

Not just in your reality.

Gene: 2:07:34

when they were homeless, but I'm saying. Like simply putting homeless people into a physical residence. Isn't solving the problem. Because they will continue to not work. They will continue to utilize drugs. They'll continue. Everything else they're doing. These are. Not all homeless people, but for the most part, these are people. And Adams, Doug Much deeper dive on this than I have, but he talked about it. They're mostly people that have. Come to terms with. The fact that they're willing to be homeless. order to be able to do the things that they're addicted to.

Ben: 2:08:14

Well, and I we're all addicted to something. We all do drugs. Doing drugs or not. Is not the problem. It's

Gene: 2:08:23

You'll leave my

Ben: 2:08:23

anything.

Gene: 2:08:24

alone. Goddammit.

Ben: 2:08:26

Well T sugar, whatever it is, nicotine doesn't matter. You can allow any drug. To become a problem, right? You can overdo it on sugar and ended up being a diabetic in that. Ruining your life because you've lost your leg. There are lots of paths to that. But, you know, my, my point is. There are lots of people who use drugs, at least in my experience in life that very high achievers. And you would never know it. So. You know, we have this concept

Gene: 2:08:59

Yeah.

Ben: 2:08:59

know, if you, if you do any sort of drug your, your. You're you're going to be.

Gene: 2:09:04

bad.

Ben: 2:09:06

We have this idea that if you do anything at all, once you, you know, someone smoked. They're going to be their life's over. They're going to be destroyed. don't know, you know, there, there are

Gene: 2:09:18

Plenty of high-achieving meth users. For sure. They don't have any teeth, but that aside there. I achieving.

Ben: 2:09:24

Hunter Biden. Being in a prime example.

Gene: 2:09:27

You think those are implanted teeth? Is that. Is that what you're saying there? Implants.

Ben: 2:09:30

Very, yeah.

Gene: 2:09:32

Yeah. Got a good smile. Got a good smile.

Ben: 2:09:37

Now.

Gene: 2:09:37

Now. Yeah.

Ben: 2:09:39

But regardless, I mean, cocaine in the eighties and

Gene: 2:09:43

Well, I don't really

Ben: 2:09:44

today,

Gene: 2:09:45

drug though. I mean, that was just a enhancement.

Ben: 2:09:49

To an extent. And, you know, when I was in college, I know this probably is differs from you, but academic doping is huge. The amount of people using Ritalin and add meds.

Gene: 2:09:59

of that shit. We actually had to get grades.

Ben: 2:10:02

Yeah. Well, I mean, people doing academic doping is a real

Gene: 2:10:05

Yeah.

Ben: 2:10:06

it's all about speed. And I know people. Who into their professional career. On add per prescriptions. Not that they really need it, but because they can do more,

Gene: 2:10:17

I think, I think your rights and there's a ton of people I've met that are taking ADHD pills in their thirties. I was like, what the fuck dude?

Ben: 2:10:26

Yeah. I in fact, I. I had a boss, not that many years ago.

Gene: 2:10:33

Yeah.

Ben: 2:10:33

Who actually he was in his forties. And went to a doctor and got on add meds because he wanted to keep up at work.

Gene: 2:10:42

Hmm. Interesting. Well, I, yeah, I mean, not every drug leads you to. Negative results.

Ben: 2:10:55

Well, and.

Gene: 2:10:55

But of the people that have fallen to the bottom, the percentage that are using drugs. Is exceedingly high.

Ben: 2:11:03

Right, but they're not. my, I guess my point

Gene: 2:11:06

It's a co-factor it's not a cause it's a co-factor.

Ben: 2:11:09

Right. people who. Fall susceptible to that. Would have fallen, susceptible to something else too. Were addictive personalities and there are people who don't want to face the reality of their lives and they will find an escape something, no matter what it is, whether it's drugs, alcohol, Are some other abandoned, right? Hayden as on being. An outlet that some people choose there. There are lots of things. But the type of person who allows a situation to destroy their life. Was going to allow something to destroy their life and it may be drugs. It may be whatever it is, but it's just an overall personality trait.

Gene: 2:11:51

agree. I agree. I'm not blaming the drugs. I'm just saying that the people that are homeless. Physically in multiple cities. been found that most of them. Are addicted and are currently using.

Ben: 2:12:08

Well, and I guess what I would say to that is drugs or just the easy. Popular answer to. That today. You know, wasn't that long ago that it alcohol.

Gene: 2:12:18

Yeah, there were a lot more alcoholics. Yeah. Yeah, monster. Yeah, but it's a drug. I mean, alcohol is a drug, they're all drugs. Food food is a drug.

Ben: 2:12:30

Yes indeed.

Gene: 2:12:31

has drugs in it. I mean, really somebody should be at breath area and if they want to live a pure life,

Ben: 2:12:37

Well, the, you know, Th that's, that's one thing that I think the Protestants very much got wrong in a lot of ways. Is this. Puritanical idea that. You know, You can leave a puritanical lifestyle. Well, Boy, that's a really funky definition, right? When you really start thinking about what that means, it's, it's pretty hard to do.

Gene: 2:13:00

Well, I think puritanism is, is really just. It's a form. Of masochism. You're getting the internal hits like any other masochists from being so constricted and confined in your activities.

Ben: 2:13:18

Yeah, well, who's the sadist to the massive, the. The puritanical masochist.

Gene: 2:13:24

Well, E I mean, the sadist are generally the the people that are preaching that.

Ben: 2:13:29

Yeah. Interesting.

Gene: 2:13:31

It's or

Ben: 2:13:32

The interesting analogy.

Gene: 2:13:33

There at least the sadomasochists, which is more common actually then say this it's pretty hard to find peer status. And you know, I'm sure you've met a few, maybe, maybe not. I certainly have but. Most people are somewhere in the sadomasochist realm that have any deviants in that direction. Second probably are people that are more on the, the Mansa guests, pure side. And then the L the smallest group are the pure sadists.

Ben: 2:14:01

Yeah. It's definitely an interesting world and the internet has. Brought. Vast minority groups to the forefront.

Gene: 2:14:10

Well, it's easier to find people now.

Ben: 2:14:12

Yeah, it's easier to

Gene: 2:14:13

Yeah.

Ben: 2:14:14

than the N a N have an exaggerated feel of normalicy.

Gene: 2:14:18

You used to be, you'd have to live in the big city, like New York or LA or San Francisco or Chicago, to

Ben: 2:14:24

very carefully find that community.

Gene: 2:14:26

Yeah. Yeah. and then they've always existed. I mean, Christ. These concepts are as old as humanity.

Ben: 2:14:32

100%.

Gene: 2:14:33

And, and they're, they're sort of pre-wired into us because they're all based on survival techniques.

Ben: 2:14:39

Well, and they're all based on normal human emotions and reactions and. Built in psychological defense mechanisms of one form or another getting triggered by a wide variety of things.

Gene: 2:14:52

wouldn't even limit that to human there. I. It's a plenty of species exhibit, the same types of hierarchical behaviors and responses that humans do.

Ben: 2:15:03

Well, your, your. Dog submission to you. All right.

Gene: 2:15:06

Or Jordan Peterson with the lobster study.

Ben: 2:15:08

Top lobster. Yeah.

Gene: 2:15:11

So a lot of these behaviors are understood. And I think that certainly some people have exaggerated. psychological traits in these directions. And there's a lot of vast over simplification and misattribution that's happening in the current world, more so than they did in the eighties. When I remember. Actually taking some of these classes in college. But it's a M. It's always existed and it always will exist. It's it's part of who we are.

Ben: 2:15:44

Well, I can't disagree with it. it's, we currently letting a very vocal minority. Make massive changes to our society and to the point of. Do we really want to screw with our society that much?

Gene: 2:16:00

And.

Ben: 2:16:01

are the consequences going to

Gene: 2:16:02

And then a lot of ways, this accommodation of that vocal smile, small minority is I think drums training. A shift towards submissiveness of the general us populace as a whole.

Ben: 2:16:14

Well, the general us populace has been. The fight has been taken out of the vast majority of people in this country. And that's something that is astonishing to me because

Gene: 2:16:24

there haven't been any fights in a very long time.

Ben: 2:16:29

What do you mean?

Gene: 2:16:30

Well, I mean, it's not that people are tired of war because there's so much war it's that people are just. They're too caught up in watching their phones for the latest. Tic-tac videos. To bother with. Not wanting the small minority of people pushing its agenda. To Moshe to move ahead.

Ben: 2:16:49

Well, you know what kills me is kids don't hardly get in fights anymore. You know, there there's a small group of people who get in fights in school, but. You know, My my oldest. Son, you know, he. 16. And he, he hasn't ever been in a fight

Gene: 2:17:06

What.

Ben: 2:17:07

yeah. And at that age, Oh, I just it's a massive. It's a massive shift. In the last few generations, my generation didn't fight that

Gene: 2:17:18

Is he on the red line? Is that the success of the drugs?

Ben: 2:17:21

No, not at all.

Gene: 2:17:22

Okay.

Ben: 2:17:22

on any of that. Just never been. He's a very agreeable person.

Gene: 2:17:25

I was always in the principal's office. At least once a year, starting with about third grade.

Ben: 2:17:34

I wasn't that bad, but

Gene: 2:17:35

I don't think that's a bad once a year. It's not bad. At least it wasn't when I, there were guys that were in there, like every month.

Ben: 2:17:42

Well, you know, Starting with my generation though, gene. It didn't matter what side of the fight you were on. If you were. In a fight you were suspended. And they had very little tolerance for that. And

Gene: 2:17:53

Yeah.

Ben: 2:17:54

Fought the school and the school board on that because Hey, you know, been didn't start the fight. He just finished

Gene: 2:17:59

Yeah.

Ben: 2:17:59

But,

Gene: 2:18:00

Well, when we have more of a. I don't know. Well, maybe not more, but I think more, we had have a sort of a us versus them mentality from the student's standpoint, because when there were fights. You know, it was either at a predetermined place in time outside and everybody knew who's fighting. And then everybody, regardless of who you were reading for.

Ben: 2:18:21

Showed up.

Gene: 2:18:22

the teachers out of it, like

Ben: 2:18:24

Yep.

Gene: 2:18:24

would, they would tell them, oh, I know maybe I heard something going on, but it's, it's, you know, in a totally different area. to misdirect and make sure that the fight that was scheduled to happen was going to happen. Fairly without any adult interaction involved.

Ben: 2:18:40

Well,

Gene: 2:18:41

healthy. That's high school. That's not like in junior high elementary, obviously, but in high school, that was the case.

Ben: 2:18:45

Yeah, but now you have the problem of everyone standing around filming it.

Gene: 2:18:50

Well,

Ben: 2:18:50

Creating evidence.

Gene: 2:18:51

you're, absolutely right about that. That we did not have any evidence to deal with. Except missing teeth or black eyes or things

Ben: 2:18:58

Yeah.

Gene: 2:18:58

if you. I'm sorry, this is a crude generation, but if you're a man and you've never felt what it's like to get punched in the face.

Ben: 2:19:07

Yeah.

Gene: 2:19:08

you can call yourself a man.

Ben: 2:19:11

I can't say I disagree.

Gene: 2:19:13

I mean, that's a, that's

Ben: 2:19:14

I mean it even to this generation, you know, Calling the old man out. You know, That's not a. Joke. It's not a verbal thing. I remember. The first time my dad and I got into it. And you know, out on the front lawn and my mom screaming at us to stop and don't do it and all that. And we knock the living crap out of each other. And I lost. And you know, My dad's big, bigger than me. I'm five foot, 10 he's six, three. And you know, but I was young and. That was just. It got to that point. the fact that that's not the reality for a lot of people. I just. It's hard to understand, I guess.

Gene: 2:20:09

Yeah. You know, it's. It's a weird thing. This. This concept that you know, all fighting is bad and then you should never resort to fighting, all it's done is it shifted. Words to the level that physical violence used to be considered it. Like I ha I don't know how many times I've repeated this. Now. I repeated so often the saying back from when I was young, which is a sticks and stones may break my bones, but the world's words will never hurt me.

Ben: 2:20:41

Yep.

Gene: 2:20:42

You can't get upset at somebody that is calling you a name you don't like.

Ben: 2:20:47

Well,

Gene: 2:20:47

I was called a commie bastard all through elementary school. What did I have to do with communism? Nothing. You just learned to deal with it.

Ben: 2:20:57

It's interesting because me and my friends used to get into it, you know, and not like. We weren't trying to necessarily hurt each other, but you know, Hey man, don't do that or whatever, you know? And ended up. You know, In a brawl of some sort, and we were friends. You know, there, there was one time. In a. I guess. About middle school. We had a. The three Musketeers. You know, the movie, the three Musketeers had come out And we thought it was, Yeah. we, well, yeah. The movie is what inspired us to do this, but we thought it was cool at the time. And so three of us. Got together. And we had some welding machines, so we took some steel rods and we made little swords, right. Just to Dick around with it. Well, we ended up beating the absolute crap out of each other with.

Gene: 2:21:46

Oh, I can see that. Yeah.

Ben: 2:21:48

But, you know, It was fun and it was, know, No one got mad.

Gene: 2:21:55

Yeah.

Ben: 2:21:56

bruises and. That was just part of being a kid.

Gene: 2:22:00

a lot of physical violence. No, it's dude, I think the last. Well, last time I remember getting into a little fisticuffs. I don't remember what year that was, but a friend of mine had just sold this company for millions and we were on a trip. Afterwards to kind of celebrate. And both had some drinks. And started pushing each other around a little bit. Next thing you know, we're punching each other. Like you have grown adults, one of them worth over a million bucks at the time. And it's totally fine. You wake up the next day. It was like, oh my God. Okay. We need to not do that again.

Ben: 2:22:34

Yeah.

Gene: 2:22:36

But the. I don't know, man, this is again, this is another reason where the us has. Hadn't done toilet. Compared to other countries, not, I'm not saying that in the abstract, I'm saying compared to what's going on in other countries where masculinity is being promoted. In the U S masculinity is absolutely been trashed and it keeps being trashed more. And basically boys are being told that. They need to act more like girls. And every. Single instance of behavior.

Ben: 2:23:07

So I told you offline that this was a pretty rough week from a work standpoint.

Gene: 2:23:13

Yeah. You know, by the way, it's bad manner to talk about when you're recording something about what you talked about when you weren't recording. Just bring it up as though it's brand new.

Ben: 2:23:21

Okay,

Gene: 2:23:22

Just saying.

Ben: 2:23:23

this was a really rough week from a work

Gene: 2:23:26

Oh, you don't say.

Ben: 2:23:27

I had a, had to work with one of the software developers. On Project for a customer. And Was trying to get an answer out of him on, you know, a solution to a particular problem.

Gene: 2:23:39

Hmm.

Ben: 2:23:39

And this is over a several week period of time. And it was coming down to Friday morning. I was supposed to have a meeting with the client. And. You know, still haven't gotten an answer. So I throw him. night before, cause I was up working. threw him on the meeting as optional. Optional.

Gene: 2:23:59

Sure.

Ben: 2:24:01

Friday morning comes around and I get a phone call from his boss. That I'm putting too much pressure on him and everything else. And I'm just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. First of all, I gave him the requirements from the client. A week ago. Our two weeks ago, he said, give me a week. I didn't ask him a single question about it. After that week was up, I started asking him questions because that's what the timeframe he gave me. And here we are. Got given him a whole nother week and we're supposed to be meeting with the client. A week past the, his self-imposed deadline and I'm asking questions and I throw them on the meeting as optional. So he would know that the meeting was scheduled and still taking place. Well, you know, he's under a lot of pressure. You can't do this. I said, this is a fricking clown world to which, oh man. Talk about stepping in it. The his boss. Who's also very, snowflakey just thought that my comment was just very insensitive.

Gene: 2:24:58

Oh, my God.

Ben: 2:24:59

And it's like, first of all, Dude, if you got, if I'm putting too much pressure on you say, Hey man, I'm under a lot. I can't get to that. Communicate. Let me know. But to me, he sent an SOS text to his boss.

Gene: 2:25:12

insane. Yeah, you need to find a new place to work. I think.

Ben: 2:25:18

Nah. Nah, it's not the majority. Is this guy. This particular gentleman is out of Portland.

Gene: 2:25:24

Oh, well, Portland. Yeah, that, that does tell you everything you need to know. Exactly. Oh, my God. No, it's.

Ben: 2:25:31

Have you seen the documentary Portlandia?

Gene: 2:25:33

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I loved watching that because you know, I worked in Portland for nine months. So, and that was right when Portlandia was running. And I thought it was the most accurately portrayed documentary show I've ever seen because. And what was cool about it is I could S. You know, watch the, the places they talk about there, and then I can go visit them right when I was Literally show up and and it was exactly the way it was portrayed in that show.

Ben: 2:25:58

Well, you know, in Texas, we have the saying, keep Austin weird, but man Portland takes the cake.

Gene: 2:26:04

Yeah. They won that one. I one of the biggest differences and I was living in Austin when I was working in Portland. One of the biggest differences. Is the amount of metal in people's faces in Portland was way higher than Austin.

Ben: 2:26:17

Yeah.

Gene: 2:26:18

But the flight from Austin to Portland. 50% of the of the passengers had beards.

Ben: 2:26:26

Interesting.

Gene: 2:26:26

Yeah.

Ben: 2:26:27

know, It's interesting. It's interesting because when I was a kid, I had a friend who had his his air. His ear perished. And he had, he was, had real liberal parents and everything. And. You know, one of the, the, he and I were getting along pretty good. And I just said, man, you better hope never ended up in a fight. And he goes, why is that? I said, cause that thing's coming

Gene: 2:26:51

Absolutely 100%.

Ben: 2:26:54

And I guess that in Texas, there's just a little bit more thread of that still between men.

Gene: 2:27:03

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I have never understood any kind of facial piercings or anything else. I mean, Like the two that I actually understand. Our genital and tongue. Because they're not for show. Therefore utilization. Okay.

Ben: 2:27:22

Gene.

Gene: 2:27:22

But it's true. I mean, I just, I don't understand the concept of piercings as a form of decoration. That makes no sense if you're going to use it for a purpose, that's fine.

Ben: 2:27:33

Well, you know, I don't have any piercings or tattoos, but

Gene: 2:27:36

Yeah.

Ben: 2:27:37

just me.

Gene: 2:27:37

I don't either. I don't either at all, but.

Ben: 2:27:41

people like it. So.

Gene: 2:27:43

Yeah, there's, there's definitely plenty of people that do, but tattoos were in the minority dude. Because almost everybody, at least where I live has tattoos.

Ben: 2:27:53

Yep.

Gene: 2:27:53

And in fact, when I've talked to people, when they find out that I don't have to, it's like, oh my God, I got to take you to a tattoo parlor. I'm like not going to happen.

Ben: 2:28:01

Yeah. I just point to scars and say, I'm good.

Gene: 2:28:05

Yeah. No, it's it's just, it's one of those things that. I guess I've always just seen myself as being perfect already. Why would I spoil that with some other, you know, Additions.

Ben: 2:28:18

Well, No, one's perfect. Well, there's only one man, and they killed him, but you know,

Gene: 2:28:25

Well, that kind of makes them that perfect then.

Ben: 2:28:30

We'll work on it. Alrighty gene.

Gene: 2:28:32

you do that. All right. Well, we've been talking long enough. I've had to reset the the recorder already. So. I, and I got to, I got to say just on the off nodes. This is something that started happening about three months ago. And I've got a ticket open. I've had it open for a while. They can't seem to replicate this problem. But I need to have a fricking. Clock going when I'm recording because a. Every time for any, not just with you, but anybody. The recording stops at about the 90 minute mark, give or take a minute. I have not fit.

Ben: 2:29:08

this?

Gene: 2:29:08

Descript, the script is the software I use for recording. It also does transcription in real time. So it converts everything to, you know, I mean, mostly good. It's not a perfect description. Transcription, but it's pretty good. But I really hope they figure out what's causing it and how to fix it because limiting a show to 90 minutes is ridiculous and a. You know, stopping and starting is kind of ridiculous too.

Ben: 2:29:33

Have you, so it sounds like there's some sort of buffering. occurring.

Gene: 2:29:38

Yeah.

Ben: 2:29:39

So one of the things I would suggest there is on the ticket would come to my mind immediately. Is what bit rate are you recording at? And are they in that, in their testing to try and replicate? Are they recording at the

Gene: 2:29:53

Yeah, 48 cohorts. The same as everybody else.

Ben: 2:29:56

Okay,

Gene: 2:29:56

But

Ben: 2:29:56

I would just at these things right.

Gene: 2:29:59

yeah, I. The one thing I.

Ben: 2:30:02

play around with it and see if increasing or changing thing have any of the recording settings. Changes that

Gene: 2:30:08

Yeah, the trouble with playing around with it, as you say. Is that this failure occurs at an hour and a half in. Which means that a single iteration of a test would require an hour and a half. And I'm, I'm kind of not too keen on. Recording just garbage for an hour and a half just to test one thing and see if it made a difference. I've sent them all the there's, there's some kind of a. Send diagnostic data that they have me do. So I sent that. Hoping that they'll discover something at some point, but

Ben: 2:30:41

you try this?

Gene: 2:30:42

What's that.

Ben: 2:30:43

Why don't you double your sample rate? And play some music and come back and half the time and see

Gene: 2:30:51

If we'll do it.

Ben: 2:30:52

yeah. Exactly.

Gene: 2:30:54

I don't even know if it'll let me. Because it's really meant for. Podcasting. I don't know if it'll, let me double the sample. Right. Nope. I can't change the sample rate.

Ben: 2:31:05

Okay.

Gene: 2:31:07

I think if anything is more of a memory issue.

Ben: 2:31:10

shouldn't be a problem.

Gene: 2:31:11

But I've got 64 gigs here. I don't think. Unless there's something in the app. That's limiting its memory to 90 minutes worth of audio. I don't know what it is. And I could try and selling the software on a different computer and see what happens as well.

Ben: 2:31:26

If you're on a windows machine, I would tell you to look at handles. Number of handles that are occurring. For process leakage, that sort of thing. You know, handles leak can cause erratic behavior like that. It doesn't necessarily even have to be a memory leak. Right.

Gene: 2:31:42

Yeah.

Ben: 2:31:42

the, the. Anyway. All right.

Gene: 2:31:45

Yeah, no, let's get the, definitely let's do the tech support Ray Wallenberg. We're recording the podcast. That's a great idea.

Ben: 2:31:51

Yeah. We can edit it out.

Gene: 2:31:53

I don't. Yeah, I could, but I think it's kind of funny. So I'm going to leave it in. Well, I do plenty of work. I ended out long pauses. I ended out. If we have too many ums and AHS, which I don't think we've got too many in this episode. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've had some episodes where there's. 150. that's annoying. So I will edit that stuff out.

Ben: 2:32:18

Well, Alrighty, man.

Gene: 2:32:19

Yeah.

Ben: 2:32:20

Oh on that note, Gene we're at two hours and 45 minutes

Gene: 2:32:24

Are we really? Holy cow. Okay. Well, You know, people aren't listening though. I'm seeing an uptick in listenership. So that's a good thing.

Ben: 2:32:31

Good.

Gene: 2:32:31

Hopefully you all enjoyed it. This episode was brought to you by not having news about Ukraine. And for a change of pace, I think that's probably not a bad thing. And so we'll see you once again, a week from now. Where Ben and I will be talking about the next book that he recommends.