Sir Gene Speaks

0069 Sir Gene Speaks with Dude Named Ben - Civil War

May 16, 2022 Gene Naftulyev Season 2022 Episode 69
Sir Gene Speaks
0069 Sir Gene Speaks with Dude Named Ben - Civil War
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Weekend Gaming Livestream atlasrandgaming onTwitch
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Podcast recorded on Descript and hosted on BuzzSprout

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Sir Gene:

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

Ben:

I'm doing well. You're evil Haven.

Sir Gene:

Yes, we're going to keep using that line. Are we

Ben:

I don't know, man. I gotta, I

Sir Gene:

Okay. Math and

Ben:

I gotta get under CSB skin a little bit, you know, he he's, he's trying to get under mine, so

Sir Gene:

Well, there is a solution for that. That's called block.

Ben:

yeah. Yeah. I, I don't, I'm not that mad at the guy.

Sir Gene:

I'm not either. I just, I think it's, it's probably the thing that pissed them off the most is that I blocked him.

Ben:

Gotcha.

Sir Gene:

you got some new audio hardware, so we're going to hear a cleaner, better version of you,

Ben:

Hopefully a little bit.

Sir Gene:

maybe dirty version of you. We'll see.

Ben:

Yeah. So I got a little bit of a mic upgrade.

Sir Gene:

What did you get Ben?

Ben:

I got, the electric voice three 20. I got the

Sir Gene:

Oh, the mic that Adam's been using forever.

Ben:

Yeah. And you, and everybody recommended to me. So how, how can I go wrong?

Sir Gene:

I do really like it. I think it, it is a mic that requires the least amount of pro post-processing. It is good right out of the bat. And even if you used with a like a lower end audio interface, it's still. like you're using now. temporarily, it's still a massive improvements. And if you were to get one of the other mics that are recommended, like the RA 20 it's older brother or the SMB seven, those mikes typically require more post-processing they don't, they're not as lively sounding and don't have as strong a signal. So they need more more boost from the preamp and people have products like a cloud lifter, which actually is an inline booster, things like that to really get the most out of those mics. And they cost about 150 bucks more so, or at least a hundred last I checked. So you. do sound better, which is great.

Ben:

Good. I hope so. Hopefully my cheap little PreSonus audio interface holds up for us until I can get something better.

Sir Gene:

It'll be fine. You know, I am doing processing on incoming stream for you. So, you're

Ben:

well, thank you.

Sir Gene:

yeah. You're here taking care of now, anything you do on your own, of course then, you know,

Ben:

yeah, we'll, we'll work up to that. So I really want to get them a motu that you have, but damn they're back ordered.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, And they've been back-ordered for probably a couple of months now, which is not a good

Ben:

they had an issue at the factory and then the chip shortage. And I talked to the guy at Sweetwater and what he said was it's going to be at least 20, 23 before they get anything.

Sir Gene:

Oh my God, the rest of the year. Really?

Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Okay. Well there,

Ben:

20, 23 out.

Sir Gene:

so there is a more expensive solution, you know, that, right?

Ben:

Yeah. I'm I'm trying not to do the more expensive, full

Sir Gene:

They it's same company. It's the big brother of my unit. My unit is for two microphones. You can get the one for eight microphones

Ben:

Jean, I will probably only ever need one.

Sir Gene:

Oh, I know I've only ever used one. as well. And of course then the other solution, if you don't, don't want to go with the mode two, which I do think is the, not only the cleanest sounding, but also gives you the most flexibility, but plenty of people very successfully are using the product that was somewhat of a knock off of the product, Adam and I did. And that's the road caster, which is a, the things even shaped the way that our prototype was.

Ben:

Yeah. The, the road castor looks interesting. I've read a lot of reviews and it, it seems like channel two, depending on what unit you get, you get some hum it looks like they've got some quality control issues that kind of gives me a little hesitation. So I'm actually looking at a Yamaha interface that might be, if I'm going to wait for the mode two, that might be a good step away from what I'm using now that has some inline analog EEQ that can be done. Things like that. So it's not the big processing board that the motu is, but it's a better than

Sir Gene:

looked at the month, who's on eBay at all. Are they going used?

Ben:

If you can find them, they are going for brand new prices. Plus one guy has got apparently a pretty good supply and he's asking a thousand dollars

Sir Gene:

That's the blacks from yeah, Cause their retail is six 50. I think. Yeah.

Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. You know what I am going to, and we are recording, So, everybody's hearing this, but I'm going to ping a friend of mine. I used to do podcasts with and see if he's still using his and if he's not, if he wants to sell it.

Ben:

well that would work. I'm not a, I'm not opposed to use gear in good shape.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, we did a, how long did we do our podcast? About a year you ever take? So yeah, if he doesn't want it, That might be an option. And then if anybody knows anybody, who's not even a person, if they have an audio interface that they're no longer using, because they've kind of given up doing podcasting or something like that drop an email. Well, let's, let's try and find Ben a unit here and I'm out to if we can, before the end of the year. Wow. I can't believe they're actually officially saying it's going to take until next.

Ben:

Well, that's what motu, hasn't said that, but that was what Sweetwater said. And I think if Sweetwater's not going to get them in for a year, that's

Sir Gene:

I would

Ben:

the official line.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, Sweetwater's probably the biggest music only distributor out there. I mean, obviously I think Amazon's selling a lot of gear, but as far as they buying gear from a place that has exactly the same price as Amazon and also sales people that understand and can explain things to you, sweet waters, mid my go-to, it's kind of like new egg. It's like new egg versus Amazon. You can find most things in both places and you can, the pricing is very comparable, but with new YAG you have much more techie reviews. And if you actually call them up and you ask questions, they have people that understand technology, Amazon, what you see is what you get.

Ben:

Well, when was the last time you were able to get anyone on Amazon on, on a call, even for customer

Sir Gene:

Actually, I've done that a number of times and it's not that hard. They are in India, but, but the last time I had to call Amazon was when they didn't deliver a package to me. And I used the online facilities to let them know, Hey, you guys dropped it off at the wrong address. You can see at the photo of the door

Ben:

That is not my door.

Sir Gene:

it's not my door. It's not my welcoming. That is somebody else's guys and they were apologetic. They did, but they weren't able to reship. They were only able to do a refund and the product was now backordered. So I'm like, well, screw that. and that was a memory for computer and right before the big memory price hike. So I'm like, well, that's no good. So I just walked around my whole neighborhood until I found the house that delivered it to, and then I I'm sure somebody thought I was a porch thief because I'm walking around looking at, oh, here's a package. I'll grab it real quick and walk away. And then everyone in my neighborhood has the

Ben:

ring doorbell.

Sir Gene:

doorbell, literally everybody. And so the whole place is monitored, like crazy. And including people that don't even live here, like I have a food delivery across the street to my neighbor that used to, or the house that used to be a guy that lives in Houston. And so I walked over and grabbed my food and that's why I walked away. I got a phone call and it was him from Houston say, Hey, I saw You walk by my house. I'm like, yeah, you still in Houston. He's like, yep. Still in Houston renting the place out. But I still monitored doorbell.

Ben:

oh God. See the whole concept of the ring, doorbells it just especially with the, the Police integrations that they've pushed for and things like that. It's insanity to me. I, you know, I've had cameras on my house and things like that, but I control them. I own them. I own the access to them and I can promise you unless it's because someone broke into my house, I'm never giving that to law enforcement versus now, you know, people are just passively giving connections to these devices to, to police. And that's, that's insidious in my mind.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I, I totally understand the point. And to a large extent, I agree with that. However, the view of the front of my house, which already has three of my neighbors rings pointed at my house. And this is a view pointing away from my house does not add sufficient risk or anything else to me. So I I'd rather have the convenience.

Ben:

that's fine. I'm just saying, I wish at

Sir Gene:

If I lived on the five acre lots where you couldn't see my house, I would probably not have a ring.

Ben:

yeah, absolutely. I just wish it was an opt in to sharing that information with the police versus essentially

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

closer to an opt out.

Sir Gene:

Well, I mean, they were, they even started doing things like sharing the rings wifi network, which is like, hold up. I never agreed to this. You can't be using my internet for other devices.

Ben:

Well, come on. It's just convenience. It's like having an Alexa in your house. It's

Sir Gene:

I have three of those.

Ben:

man. I, you

Sir Gene:

There's one in every place in the house.

Ben:

I I got a Google home mini or whatever given to me for whatever reason and

Sir Gene:

I would not trust.

Ben:

yeah, after just looking at the amount of traffic constantly going out of that, even with the mic switched off that, that stayed plugged in less than 24 hours. So

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah, you actually plug it in.

Ben:

Yeah, for testing

Sir Gene:

Hmm.

Ben:

while I was by myself and no one else was home and I

Sir Gene:

Those things

Ben:

to see what traffic was going

Sir Gene:

super efficiently. Like whatever we talk about as we're recording here right now, I will literally get ads for it in the next 15, 20 minutes. And the ads are not on, they're not on the Amazon website. They're, I'm sure they're coming through. being sold by Amazon, but the ads will be in Google.

Ben:

Interesting.

Sir Gene:

Oh, it's instant. The, the video recommendations on YouTube that I will see in the next hour to two hours are directly related to stuff that I talk about with you.

Ben:

Is it related to what you talk about with me or the previous videos that you watch, that you

Sir Gene:

No. No. I mean, not at all. I mean, some, some weird topical will come up like blending lemons, completely skin and everything and making a nice. Smoothie out of it. And then all of a sudden I'll start getting recommendations on YouTube videos or, Hey, have you looked at people blending lemons? Oh no. It's, it's absolutely listening to the conversation. There's no two ways about? it. big brother's here but I, I really, I don't

Ben:

to stay.

Sir Gene:

Oh, absolutely. But I'm doing this consciously, knowing that I've got a big brother living in the house.

Ben:

Well I have other people living in the house that are not as conscious as they should be on what's going on in the world. So,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. And I do,

Ben:

teenagers, this is one thing that I can you imagine if we were

Sir Gene:

oh my God. Oh

Ben:

and not being able to forget the stupid shit we did and not letting it die.

Sir Gene:

like, fighting a stash of Playboys out in the woods somewhere and shooting BBS everywhere and doing all kinds of stuff that kids used to do back in the day.

Ben:

Yeah. I mean it anyway, it's just, I, I do not envy children growing up today.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. They, in some ways they're forced to become a lot more mature quickly, but at the same time, their childhood has extended by decade.

Ben:

Yeah, I think they're more infantilized because they don't go through some of those trying things, because they're not because they're too timid to risk doing something that, that, that, that, in that ways, infantilizes them. Speaking of kids, man, w so we normally record this show on Saturday mornings, but I had some family come in, so we're recording it on Sunday afternoon. And yeah. So there was a shooting yesterday in Buffalo.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I saw, I, I actually haven't seen much, but I've heard a few blurbs about it. I don't really watch mainstream and that's mostly, who's been talking about it.

Ben:

Yeah. So at this point there's 10 people dead, three injured. It was a white guy who drove several hundred miles to apparently go shoot up Buffalo, New York for some racial reason is what

Sir Gene:

it's Buffalo, a black city.

Ben:

I was unaware of this, but apparently the neighborhood he was in, you know, Buffalo, New York has never struck me as a super, you know, ethnic city by any stretch. I wouldn't have thought of it that way, but it's definitely being portrayed that way. And the people talking about white fragility and everything else are all coming out of the woodwork and. Apparently there's a manifesto. Apparently there is there was a Twitch live stream, which has since been taken down. Someone said to me earlier that citizen free press had the live stream. So I haven't gotten to go look at that, but you know, most people will never see that. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens. Also. They're making a very big

Sir Gene:

you know, like 20 year old or, or

Ben:

18, 18 year

Sir Gene:

eight. Okay. Okay. So it is a kid.

Ben:

And they're making a really big deal about a him being able to go get the guns that he had and so on, and then be the tactical gear he was using. He was wearing body armor and so on. So that'll be interesting

Sir Gene:

go through the gear. What, what kind of guns do they think? Or they say he was using.

Ben:

from what I've seen reported right now is AR 15.

Sir Gene:

Okay. So the most popular rifle in the United States

Ben:

Exactly.

Sir Gene:

got it. And body armor was this like a tactical vest or what?

Ben:

So I have not seen the, the pictures of him, but they, the news media, including Fox news today was reporting it as body armor. So th

Sir Gene:

mean a whole slew of things and probably not actual body

Ben:

Well, 1, 1, 1 website said tactical gear. I mean, that could be a chest rig, right. Running multiple mags.

Sir Gene:

probably running you know, tactical vest with a Molly system on it and maybe, or maybe not a plate inside, it may be soft body armor. Which is a lot cheaper and more common.

Ben:

well, and so what, you know, body armor is body armor is very

Sir Gene:

It's larvae.

Ben:

well. Well, here's the thing, body armor is effective. If you have access to high quality trauma medicine, otherwise, you know, in like the zombie apocalypse, I'm not wearing body armor, it weighs me down. I'd rather carry more ammo. So,

Sir Gene:

Right, right. The best kind of body armor has been OLED.

Ben:

yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so it's going to be interesting.

Sir Gene:

damage to

Ben:

It's gonna, well, time, distance and shielding

Sir Gene:

sufficient led.

Ben:

Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see what is made out of this

Sir Gene:

I'm sure it'll be a big anti gun thing.

Ben:

well, and

Sir Gene:

guns. Look at what happens when you don't white people going shoot up everybody.

Ben:

well, and th they're really pushing the race angle on this one hard I sent you a video earlier. You'll, you'll get to watch and see what I'm talking about, but you know, Robin D'Angelo and others have already started commenting. So

Sir Gene:

Ugh. What a waste of human skin.

Ben:

yes, in many ways,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's a, I mean, how's it different though? It always happens. There are about 10 times as many non-white ethnic people that commit murder, but yet there's never a story about it. And then some idiot kid probably with mental problems, probably prescription drug taker goes on the crazy rampage. And that's all that people can talk about for a month.

Ben:

Well, you know, regardless

Sir Gene:

people got shot in? oh, how many people got murdered in Chicago? I'll bet you as over 10 in the last week.

Ben:

oh, easily.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. It might've been 10 in the last

Ben:

it up, but,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. well, I dunno if their stats are updated quite that recently, but I know when I talked to Darren, you know, the, the murder rate in Chicago has doubled from the previous year

Ben:

well, I mean,

Sir Gene:

and it was already high

Ben:

the significance they're making of this is just that, you know, there are 10 P 13 people 13 casualties, 10 dead in one incident. Okay. All I can say is it's always shocking to me when stuff like Aurora happens, and this happens how to me low that body count number actually is

Sir Gene:

yeah, everyone's a crappy

Ben:

you're, if you're in a target rich environment, like a movie theater, that's fairly full,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. You had

Ben:

doesn't matter a 10 22, you know,

Sir Gene:

Anyway, if you're in a target rich environment and you're psycho enough to just want to go and kill people, not caring, if you get killed, why would you use anything other than the shotgun?

Ben:

R a bomb.

Sir Gene:

Well, yes, but you know, I mean, that's, let's say these, these kids actually want to. Aimed at people, not just push a button.

Ben:

Well, perhaps it is what you already just said that it's LARPing, right? That they

Sir Gene:

I that's, that's kinda my point. And this is, this has to do with the way that addressed as Well, because if your goal is to simply kill a bunch of people, you bring a couple of boxes of shotgun, ammo of buckshot and a shotgun, and that's it. And you don't need any second weapons or, you know, third weapons. You don't need much of anything else that'll

Ben:

if you have a tactical shotgun with mags that you can swap out.

Sir Gene:

well that, yes, for sure. But even if you don't, I mean, reloading is pretty quick in shotguns, if you don't, you're doing

Ben:

Well it depends. I would argue that like, if you're using a Mossberg eight 70, your fingers, you got to watch that finger, you know, but you know, our Mossberg or Remington eight 70 versus a Mossberg 500, a mile spec, 500, you can reload pretty easy and quick. So yeah, I was going to talk about the two shotguns that messed them up there for a second. Sorry about

Sir Gene:

newb.

Ben:

No, not a noob. Just, you know, you're going to say one thing while thinking about the next thing you're going to say, and you ended up saying both.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I, you know, it's, if you're going to use a rifle, obviously the, the the problem with the rifles is that even though you can have more rounds in the magazine, Is that with adrenaline pumping the way it would be in a live fire scenario, you're going to miss a lot more. And we've had incidents over the years. I remember watching one video of a New York police take down of a shooter where the, there was a aggregate total of 162 rounds fired by the police and no hit on the perp.

Ben:

Yeah. Well, you know, this is one thing that is shocking to me, but when you look at, you know, the way tactics are designed, you know, body mass shots, the average ground pounder, the average, and this is no offense to anyone. I'm just saying average infantryman, an average cop on duty are not the best shots in the world. Believe it or not.

Sir Gene:

well, they hardly practice. I mean, most police departments give you two boxes a year and anything else that you have to pay for yourself. And so that's, you're lucky if the cap spends two boxes a year on practice ammo.

Ben:

Well, I mean, it varies from department to department, but even then the, what they train and what their qualification numbers are on is, you know, center mass shots and, you know, fairly short ranges. Whereas if you're a hunter and you know, you're shooting at a deer, for instance, you know, you're, you're,

Sir Gene:

you're a deer hunter or something. Yeah,

Ben:

well, why I I'm, I'm giving a specific example here, but you know, a deer kill box where the target you want to hit is about eight inches in size is really what you're wanting to hit for optimal kill for a side shot. And

Sir Gene:

kill. And so the animal

Ben:

yes, exactly. That's your optimum target zone. And, you know, in Texas, most hunters shoot under a hundred yards, but in the Northwest where I live for a long time, you know, a two, 300 yard shot was not uncommon. So you know, that that's a much smaller target than center of mass or body mass on a, you know, six foot guy at that range. So it's just a substantial difference. So not that we want to make you know, people more efficient at these things.

Sir Gene:

yeah, exactly. Let's, let's caveat that with that. What we're just talking about, how bad the shot, just the average person is not suggesting that people that are crazy enough to be mass murderers should get better.

Ben:

Well, and, you know, I, I will say this, I can think of, I, I, I'm a pretty decent shot. So I sit there and I look at some of these statistics and I go, I can't believe they didn't do better, but at the same time, you know what, I've never shot at a human being. So I don't know what my reaction would be.

Sir Gene:

Hmm. Why have you done have you done any kill house scenarios?

Ben:

paintball. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Okay. So let's close enough. Anything that gets adrenaline going. So I've done simulation. I've done. I used to play pinball pretty regularly, but I've done the kill houses with simunition and it's it is amazing how much worse I shoot in that scenario. Then when I'm shooting at paper tire gets in a straight line at the range

Ben:

Well, of course one you're in motion and everything else, but you know, the

Sir Gene:

and the, my hand does not stay steady at all. It's just, he wants to move a lot more. You're thinking, just move over, like a quarter inch and your hands, like rush.

Ben:

Yeah. So the first, the first kill house thing I ever did was put on by an army ranger and a green Baret. And they set it up and it was with paintball and I was seven or eight years old and I was supposed to be the hostage.

Sir Gene:

I was going to guess 14, but, okay,

Ben:

No, I was seven or eight years old and I was the hostage and everybody's gotten shot and everybody's down the room's clear I stand up and one gung-ho motherfucker comes in at the last second and shoots me

Sir Gene:

Oh,

Ben:

and yeah, it was just like, okay, fail, fail, dude. But yeah, I had an interesting childhood gene,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, no, I, I, I believe you, that sounds very fun. So it was a Testament to your appearance, I think. And, and I think if every kid went through doing a kill house when they were young, they would have a, a much better appreciation for guns. B would want to be gun owners a lot earlier in life. And I guess that's the other point to bring up here is if we look at it, not from a racism standpoint or the, oh my God, guns kill people standpoint, but a self-defense standpoint, why wasn't anybody in this crowd shooting back and taking this guy out sooner?

Ben:

Because it's New York state.

Sir Gene:

Well, I mean, New York city has crappy laws is the whole state have a crappy gun laws

Ben:

New York city runs New York state, so they don't have as crappy laws. But my understanding is New York state has fairly strict

Sir Gene:

because New York is, I mean, there's a lot of forests and just kind of, you know, not cityscape in New York,

Ben:

Yes. And New York state is one of those states that should be broken into a couple pieces and everybody be very happy

Sir Gene:

Yeah, I will. I always thought the best thing that could happen is if the water level goes up by about 18 feet or so,

Ben:

and just flood all of long island.

Sir Gene:

just the parts that we don't need,

Ben:

What parts do we need is a better question.

Sir Gene:

The parts with force and stuff for some foreign land the, the coastal areas tend to attract the wrong kind of people.

Ben:

Well, you know, the coastal areas attract everybody. Most civilization is on the coast. So

Sir Gene:

Like I said, the wrong kind of people.

Ben:

indeed, you know, I will say that as much as I love loved growing up on the Gulf coast I, I do prefer the wilderness to an extent just because of the isolation.

Sir Gene:

see, this is, this is another another totology that seems to exist is that the nicer, the land, the better the climate, the, the more left leaning, the people there. And

Ben:

Well, the easier the life,

Sir Gene:

yeah, the easier to

Ben:

the, yeah.

Sir Gene:

You know, when I was in San Diego had clients out there, it is absolutely perfect. It's beautiful. It's never too hot. It's never too cold. There's always a slight breeze from the ocean. They got, you know, a coastline that runs from north to south. There's tons of beaches. There's tons of water activities. And you're literally only about an hour away from a hot desert, if you really want to go in the opposite direction. And only about two and a half hours away from getting up in the mountains where the weather is a lot cooler.

Ben:

Hmm.

Sir Gene:

it's a great location, it's full of Californians

Ben:

Californians are a problem. And

Sir Gene:

are a problem for everyone.

Ben:

as well. They're there, especially here in Texas, you know, if a Beto gets even close, it's going to be because of Californians moving in, by the

Sir Gene:

no, that's certainly true. And they tend to bring their politics with them. But where I was going with this whole thing is what you described, which is you like the forest, but, you liked growing up next to water. It kind of describes Minnesota where you have water no further than a mile from any place on land. You're never more than a mile away from lake, but you have the entire north of the state. I say north two-thirds of this. Is just deep forest.

Ben:

Yeah,

Sir Gene:

Southern third of the state is farmland for sure.

Ben:

but that's freshwater.

Sir Gene:

Oh Yeah. It's fresh water, but water is much better than no water. This is why I couldn't live in like in Colorado, is that yes, it has some streams, but that is very different from lakes. And I think lakes are a lot closer to a coastal water in terms of the variety of critters that live there, the stuff that you can fish there, the amount of bio creation, and it's not even just diversity, it's just the bio creation that's happening because streams by their nature of constantly moving and elevating, eating the water, also take out a lot of the bacteria. And so that's why you're much better drinking from a stream than you are from a lake. But that bacteria is what creates a lot of the food products that all the fish and everybody else eats.

Ben:

Yeah. But you know, nothing fights like salt water. I haven't ever caught a bass or a steel head or anything else

Sir Gene:

Abass as a joke fish. I mean, this is why it's so funny to me that people consider bass some kind of a, like a tournament fish. A bass is, a fish that literally wants to not even be in the water. It jumps out of the water at first opportunity to make it much easier for you to read.

Ben:

Oh, you know, all I can say is a big red fish is is about as good of a fight as you're going to get. So

Sir Gene:

oh, well, ocean fish, obviously. I mean, dude, tuna

Ben:

no,

Sir Gene:

like I fought with swordfish over an hour

Ben:

Yeah. Swordfish though. I just don't like eating them to where

Sir Gene:

No, I know a lot of, a lot of people say that I, and I it's something that I dislike eating them there, but I like eating red snapper the most. That's my favorite

Ben:

yeah. Oh yeah. Well, any of the snapper,

Sir Gene:

So tasty, but especially the rent. It's just so tasty, man.

Ben:

well, and, and grouper grouper to, you know, big,

Sir Gene:

Although I think grouper are smart. I don't like telling grouper.

Ben:

Well, have you ever seen the Goliath grouper? Yeah.

Sir Gene:

They're they're cool. They charc something

Ben:

No, they're not that big, but they're, they're a big damn fish.

Sir Gene:

I think they do. I think they, they, they like baby sharks.

Ben:

Okay. Well, a fish will eat anything that it's small enough that it can eat. Let's be honest.

Sir Gene:

but they just seem very curious and friendly and that goes a long way.

Ben:

Yeah, fish. Aren't very smart gene.

Sir Gene:

Well, there, you know, some Fisher smarter than there, there's definitely a continuum there. You can't just say all Fisher stupid.

Ben:

I have,

Sir Gene:

the F I had fish tanks for quite a while and there are definitely smart fish.

Ben:

there are smarter fish, but when we're comparing them to, you know, a porpoise or something like that, or even an octopus, you know,

Sir Gene:

Oh, octopus is like smarter than the person as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, no octopus. I could plus octopi are they're incredible aliens there. The crash landed here many, many millions of years ago and

Ben:

You know, that, that is a distinct possibility.

Sir Gene:

Three hearts, copper-based blood instead of iron a brain that's the shape of a donut that goes around their stomach and limbs that can taste and feel, not just touch and pick up and also contain more neurons than our hands and fingers do. They're pretty incredible critters. I always been partial to, I that's one of the animals I won't eat. I don't eat certain smart animals.

Ben:

Huh. I, you know, I didn't realize that the copper, that the octopus had a copper hemoglobin.

Sir Gene:

Yup.

Ben:

That is interesting. So it's yeah. So, so there Vulcan.

Sir Gene:

they are welcome. I kind of figured that was where you were going with that. Exactly. They're more closely related to.

Ben:

Yeah. So for those who've who don't know Spock on tos Vulcan, and it on tos, they talked about him having green blood because he had a copper hemoglobin. Right? The anyway, that's funny.

Sir Gene:

have. Yeah, no, they're, they're interesting. I, I, in general, I, I like squid as Well, but the octopus in particular, they're the most friendly, interesting. One of the characteristics that they

Ben:

They, they, they, they exhibit a lot of curiosity and problem solving.

Sir Gene:

Yup, yup. Great. At problem solving, but here's one of the characteristics that sort of separates them from most other Marine life who are not mammals is that they play and they've done the experiments and you can watch them on YouTube with octopus to test their interaction with toys. And what they've done is put something that like half floats in the water. So it's got a little bit of air in it and the aquarium has a, a you know, water research relation systems has got some water movement happening in it. And after putting the octopus in the tank and it's started, you know, looking around and get used to it, it started playing with this thing by basically. Using its siphon to push it into the jet stream and then having it go all the way around the tank, come back to the act bus. So he's not moving and he's grabbing it, then moves it next to his safe and then produces his siphoned to squish it into the stream that's flying. And then that goes around the whole circle yet. So it's, there's no point to this activity, it's it literally is a purposeless purposeless activity just to pass the time. And he could have just picked up the thing, looked at it and then, you know, like go over it. But he was literally playing and they've done this. I think they did that with 20 active on 16 out of the 20 ended up playing with this thing.

Ben:

I mean, it's crazy how old and deep the play circuit is, you know,

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah. Well, I, it, it is, it is a simulation circuit and it's supposed to simulate experiences that may be dangerous in our youth so that we can learn from that simulation before it happens for real,

Ben:

Well, it's somewhat the basis of thought, you know, because thought provides something very similar because if you think you can spin out, you know, copies of yourself and play through a a you know, thought experiment and, you know, I don't know about you, but generally if I'm going to be in a heated argument with someone, I try to strongman their argument and figure it out before I get there. So,

Sir Gene:

I usually just point out all the the logical errors in their argument and hope they give up.

Ben:

so.

Sir Gene:

yeah, it's, there's, there's been studies done on, on that as well. Like athletes who visualize hitting baseballs or shooting three pointers they have a marked improvement over the control group who isn't doing that where neither one of the group are actually practicing for real. So they're basically taking people that are away from their ability to practice. Half the group is doing imaginary practice. The other group is just watching TV or YouTube or whatever Instagram and the ones that were doing imaginary practice have a market difference in their performance versus the control group.

Ben:

Interesting. So do you think that that's that's what a NATO is doing right now as imaginary practice?

Sir Gene:

I think NATO's committing suicide, but

Ben:

I had to figure out a good segue.

Sir Gene:

get it. Good segue to it. Yeah. Dan, I hear, I thought we were going to skip the whole damn topic this whole.

Ben:

well, if you want, we

Sir Gene:

No, no, no, I'm kidding.

Ben:

I mean, the reports on, you know, an oligarch who doesn't really have good ties to Putin being quote unquote, secret labors secretly recorded saying that he has blood cancer seems interesting.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And as I said the other day the watching the full, not the clip version, but the full version of the victory, they prayed in Russia in Moscow and seeing boudin Lavrov and a bunch of these other people walking about half a mile from the parade stage to the eternal flame. I would be out of breath and like trying to keep up with these people. I don't think anybody with cancer of any kind is going to be doing that walk. They're going to have a car drive them between the two locations. Now, granted half a mile is not a huge amount. It's probably just in their kilometer. It's not a huge distance, but it's more than most Americans walk per day.

Ben:

You know, I would make the joke that I'd like to see Biden do that, but he'd get lost.

Sir Gene:

Yes, he'd do a circle. He wouldn't, he wouldn't I don't think he could walk in the straight line and he'd certainly be shaking hands with, you know, mythical, invisible

Ben:

the air, yes. So, I mean, it's interesting to me that they are pushing this narrative You know, citing a source that might as well be sources familiar with the matter. You know, I, I, I just don't know how to parse that and why they're pushing this health angle so much is it to prep an assassination

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I think they're going to poison them. I think that's the plan is they're going to have somebody trying to poison them

Ben:

And you know, then who takes over Russia and how does that go? So that's the

Sir Gene:

and that's the big question. I don't know. One of the, one of the reasons that Putin himself has actually mentioned when asked, why have you not just retired and enjoyed life and play with your grandkids and you know, why do you want to keep running to, to be in this office for so long? And his point was that, you know, I, I haven't finished the work that is necessary to be done for Russia. And there's no one that I've been like grooming or waiting in the wings to take over. So I need to finish this before I leave.

Ben:

And what do you think that work is? Like? Ha what has Putin articulated publicly as his goals?

Sir Gene:

So. his, for Russia it's really to restore the national identity. That was in a lot of ways lost during the Russian revolution a hundred years ago somewhat gained back during world war two and then lost again with dissolution of the USSR. And that is to remind people of Russia that Russia was the biggest empire for the longest period of time. England, the British empire was bigger for a certain period of time, but nowhere near, as long as the Russian empire and that, that this is where I think a lot of these American politicians extrapolate that he just wants to reunify the USSR. And I think that that's a very two dimensional perspective on what his desire is. It is not about territory. It is about a culture and an attitude that most Americans would absolutely understand, you know, American American number one the, the, you know, the big finger on, in football games, right? It's your team number one. Exactly. And that's, that's really what it is, is that he's trying to do was to guide Russia from. The the fall of the Soviet union, which everybody, him included. Thanks was absolutely necessary because the country was being stifled. It's progress has growth at science it's industry. We're all being stifled by this completely asinine communist system. A lot of people like to point out, well, wait a minute. Well, he was part of the problem. He was a KGB agent. Yeah. He was a KGB agent for sure. But he wasn't a communist. He was not a, You know,

Ben:

think he was a member of the communist party

Sir Gene:

you have to

Ben:

I don't think that

Sir Gene:

I was a member of the communist party. Everybody's a member of the communist party if you want to get somewhere.

Ben:

Exactly. So, but not a true believers. What you're

Sir Gene:

yeah, and I think that's the case in China for a lot of people as well. They're members of the party, even though they're, you know, they're about as capitalist as you get. And, and so for Putin, it wasn't, so you gotta, you gotta make a separation between like loyalty to the party and loyalty to the country. Like, are you loyal to the Republican party? Are you loyal to the United States of America?

Ben:

Well, let me say it differently. I have often said that this is my country and I love it, but this is not my government. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Now, if you haven't been. in the CIA for that government, you'd have a harder time saying that.

Ben:

Yeah, indeed.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And So uh, Putin was in the in the KGB, in his twenties. He was a fairly young guy at the time he grew up in a, a very lower middle-class family. He was, you know, I still is somewhat small in stature. He probably weighed about 130 pounds. So he took up jujitsu as a teenager and he in St. Petersburg, and I think it was actually that, that ultimately led to him being becoming a part of the KGB. And I don't mean like abilities. I mean, like through connections, connections through the gym that he was in, through the tournaments that he went on,

Ben:

So one of the things that shocked me was to learn that Russia fairly recently before going into Ukraine had talked about a European defense pact. And I, I found a video of Laffer off talking about this, and it's something that I hadn't even heard about, but they had proposed a European defense pact which would, while them not joining NATO would have been similar to the NATO article article five or two, whatever agreement it is an attack on one is in tech against all, which would have seemed to be a very strong move against China

Sir Gene:

yep.

Ben:

that the west absolutely ignored. Are you familiar with that agreement at all? Because I haven't

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Not a whole lot more than you though, but I remember when it came out, they were talking about it on Russian tea and the, the idea's actually been around for quite a while, which is a post Soviet and you know, pro Western Europe European pack that covers Europe from Portugal to the euros. So it includes Russia, Ukraine, you know, all of the European countries and the idea being for a mutual you know, protection of Europe against the elements, which at the time, and this, this conversation probably started you know, 15 years ago. It really the biggest threats that the world was seeing was coming from the middle east. And that from not really terrorism. China I've talked about before Russia has basically been untrusting and suspicious and not particularly friendly with China. ever since the mid sixties, I mean, like for a long period of time, it was a well, known fact that about a third of Russia's nuclear arsenal was not pointing at New York or Washington DC. It was pointing at Beijing. Because there were, the Russia felt that the threat of invasion or some kind of hostile action coming from China was much higher than what the west thought it was.

Ben:

yeah. And you know, it just struck me because it's very interesting thing because I, I don't remember hearing in the Western media really anything about this proposal. So the fact that this proposal was even made and it would have included Ukraine by the way. And it would have been, it would have been a way of, it would have been a way of. Moscow securing its border and not seeing NATO as hostile, because then they would have agreements even with NATO countries that, Hey, you know, they, they essentially would have a mutual defense pact. And I'm wondering if the reason why we didn't see any of that really is because of, you know, on, on our last

Sir Gene:

country that wouldn't have been a part of that obviously. And that's the United States.

Ben:

Okay. But we would still have NATO as part of that,

Sir Gene:

well, but it's it's a challenge. It's a competitor to NATO. The thing that for some reason, people seem to deny about NATO. And that is very obvious. If you look at the history of NATO and even the question of why does NATO exist today is NATO was created as a response to the communist expansion happening in Eastern Europe. That it was, it was a creation of the United States alone, really. And then pulling into all the countries that they helped during world war two and saying, you have to join this

Ben:

Well, it, I mean, there, there were several things, but I mean, I, my history books include, you know, post fall of the USSR talks about Russia, joining NATO.

Sir Gene:

right. Putin had that conversations, famous conversation with Clinton, where he asked Clinton, you know, w what do you think would be the process for us becoming a part of NATO. and Clinton? According to Putin, just sort of laughed And said, well, I think it's a little early talk about that.

Ben:

And I wonder why though. I mean, it, it, it seems to me that if you had write posts and it really should have been even with Bush, but right. Post follow USSR, why not bring Russia and any former Warsaw pact countries into NATO immediately, if they are willing to do so and

Sir Gene:

you can't share your secrets with people that were your enemies just a year ago. Are you kidding? that's a very, very anti secrets you know,

Ben:

first of all, I don't think NATO is sharing a whole lot of secrets

Sir Gene:

well, weaponry, I mean, they, those, the biggest thing when NATO is, it's a, it's a supermarket, right? It's a us supermarket for military gear.

Ben:

Yeah. To an extent you know, there are still different fighters flown and so on. It's we're going to use a common cartridge. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. Th there, there are some commonalities, but none of it is. You know, military tactics, battle plans, things like that. Well, if you're no longer planning on attacking each other, then what the hell difference does it make? And if someone ends up being a bad actor, the odds of all of the countries at that point in time, that you're pulling in being a bad actor is minuscule. But anyway, I just think it would have been

Sir Gene:

saying that was the right decision. I'm I'm just, yes, absolutely. And, but America just won the war with Russia. They didn't get to a draw with Russia They beat Russia. They, they won the battle. They won the war because of the country broke.

Ben:

But the cold war was not against Russia. It was against communism.

Sir Gene:

That's the point that everyone seems to be missing

Ben:

So, so the cold war was not about Russia. It was about communism. And quite frankly, we have not won that war yet. You know, there, there are still communist nations in the world today. So to me, it seems to me, if someone has thrown off a regime, that was your enemy and the people say, Hey sorry about that. But we corrected it as soon as we could. Why would you not welcome them into Europe? Welcome them into the greater world stage and say, okay, brother, now let's focus against, you know, at the, especially at the time, fairly communist, still China.

Sir Gene:

I'm playing a little bit of a devil's advocate here, obviously, because I don't agree with those positions, but I understand where they came from. And I think, I think what you're talking about is the optimist view of the fall of communism and what most people in the Pentagon and state department had was the pessimist view of the fall of communism, which is yes, on the surface, we're battling communism. But really what we're doing is we're battling for the dominance of the economy of the world. We need to be in control of that. And that just happened. And. Take the guy that lost and you put your hand out and pull them back up to stand next to you. When that guy lost, you'll leave them on the ground and you take your glory again. I'm not saying this is my thought. I'm just saying, this is what I believe people in the Pentagon and state department. And we're thinking back in the 1990s.

Ben:

yeah, but my point of view on that is if you're a gracious winner, you can create an ally. Whereas if you kick someone leather down and go, ha look at what I just did to you, you're setting yourself up for a revenge plot. Haven't we seen this in every movie.

Sir Gene:

of course. Yeah, exactly. I think there people were very self-assured that it took them 60 years, but they finally broke communism down. And the other thing about it is they, they miscalculated the threat of China because had they realized the threat of China and the growth of China that was happening, it would have been much better strategically to have Russia be in NATO because then NATO would literally stretch all the way around dark DIC circle from Alaska, through Russia, through Europe and and all the way down to the border of China. China would be the one that would be bitching about the fact that what's not fair. NATO's in our doorstep.

Ben:

Yeah, I tend to

Sir Gene:

But it, but it's the same mentality right now, you know, we're, we're 20 plus years. We're 30 years since that that thing was happening with the breakups Soviet union and the opportunity to bring your actually in. But people are still thinking the same way they are pushing Russia and China and India. Those three countries, the country that has the most resources, the country that has the most factories and the country that has most you know, the most technological capable workforce. They're pushing those three countries together. And that's literally like shooting yourself in the groin, not even the foot because

Ben:

again, I don't

Sir Gene:

future generations of Americans from being able to compete with that.

Ben:

I don't think it's just China, Russia, and India. I think it's the full bricks nations and you

Sir Gene:

Well, but I don't think Brazil and South Africa add the whole lot to that, but sure. it, could

Ben:

Both are actually, so Brazil is very strategic location and, you know, ha has resources. But anyway, I, I don't know. I think it's that entire Alliance is something that is going to be interesting to see how it plays

Sir Gene:

well, it is, but Russia, India, China, and also right next to each other too.

Ben:

And they're also the main players in that. Yes.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And it just from a you know, from a people on territory prospective, that is a majority of the earth.

Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

It's like, what are you guys doing? How stupid are you that you want to bring those three together? And certainly if you throw a Brazil on there, there's a whole shit ton of people. And it gives them a foot cold on the other continents as Well I mean, South Africa, whatever, but

Ben:

part of the strategic nature of Brazil and South Africa, and this is to align strategically across continents, right? Because between China, Russia in India, and then South Africa and Brazil, you've got one major continent missing.

Sir Gene:

yeah.

Ben:

And before anyone corrects me on my account, I'm just saying Australia and Antarctica, you know, not as strategic, really important in this.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, China has been working on taking over Australia for a while now and they're, they're making, as we heard on our last episode, they're making inroads.

Ben:

absolutely, but that's kinda my point is that you have a lot of strategic territorial coverage is what I'm getting at.

Sir Gene:

So the, the idea of having the Soviet union fall apart into individual smaller states was the right plan. And this is, this is where I think people just their continuity breaks down. Cause, cause I look at our goal as what you just mentioned for NATO, which I don't think is the real goal of the end of the real goal was to, you know, to dominate the world by the U S and in the process of that means getting rid of Russia or communism or both. That's fine. But ultimately that wasn't, the, the communism was not the main goal because then if it was the NATO should have just shut down the year after the Soviet union broke down, which it obviously

Ben:

communism isn't done.

Sir Gene:

well, it isn't, but then at least rename NATO, north Atlantic treaty organization that, you know

Ben:

Yeah, I agree. It was set up to fight Russia, but it should've been set up to fight communism. And for instance, if NATO was meant to truly fight communism, why would Japan not be a member?

Sir Gene:

right, right.

Ben:

would

Sir Gene:

you want to, if you want to have the anticommunist Alliance, I think they could have gotten a lot more countries to join

Ben:

Absolutely.

Sir Gene:

a lot of people dislike communism, and because they've seen what it does to get. And that includes a lot of the dictatorships, like in the middle east and south America who saw what communism can do. It'll bring in the populist you know, leader who themselves may become a dictator eventually, but a communist dictator is not the same thing as a

Ben:

As well, our a the theocratic dictator in the case of like the,

Sir Gene:

I, I don't know, how many of those guys are actually all that religious in the middle east.

Ben:

Well, but by at least show, right, the, the basis of their power is such.

Sir Gene:

They had told us certainly was

Ben:

Absolutely. So I don't know, it's going to be interesting to see what the end game of all this is because, you know, one of my goals,

Sir Gene:

know the end game.

Ben:

well, you know, one of my goals and what I w I was, I was talking to to my parents last night and having conversations, and, you know, we were thinking about what the, what the exit strategy really is. If this Roe V Wade decision really takes us to the brink of civil war. And if we see a split up a long, the states, what does that do? And, you know, in, in less, we go through a peaceful divorce, which I don't think is possible for a nation to do.

Sir Gene:

Lincoln made sure that

Ben:

I'm sorry.

Sir Gene:

Lincoln insured.

Ben:

Absolutely. And I think what we would see is we would see a breakup, the U S and a power vacuum that would quickly be filled by China. And that's not a necessarily, necessarily acceptable solution either.

Sir Gene:

If you're not China.

Ben:

Well, that's kind of my point. So as an American, even though I would love to see an independent Texas, I am very fearful of what, what, what getting that would require. And what would step in in the United States is place

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. I think the ununited states or the United States, I don't know what would have been called by the rest of the world. I think that it absolutely leaves a power vacuum at the top. Now Russia just doesn't have the population to be the dominant country. They, they only had the population while they were the USSR, because it included a lot more territories, including some Muslim countries that w where the birth rates are much higher. Plus the birth rate in Russia today is worse than the birth rate was in Russia during communist times. So as it is in Europe as well, and it has nothing to do with communism or Russians, and the United States. is getting there. We're not quite as bad as Europe, but we're getting a lot closer there. People are not having kids. So.

Ben:

know, if you break it down by years that your family has been here, it's pretty interesting because yeah, recent immigrants you know, last couple of generations, their birth rates up there, but families that have been here a long time, it's very different story.

Sir Gene:

Exactly. Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. And the I think if, if the United States, and this is the dirty little secrets, which is why I think we need to have reform and real border controls and real immigration is that the illegal immigrants that are coming into the United States, which right now the estimates I've heard are there's about 35 million people that are in the United States that are undocumented, that are living with false social security cards.

Ben:

So just to put that in perspective, that would be 10% of the population.

Sir Gene:

But that 10% of the population is having an average of three and a half kids. The kids get automatic citizenship because they're born in the country. So one could make the argument that the, the only reason the United States doesn't have the problem that Japan and Europe and Russia have with depopulation. Is because of the illegal immigrants that are coming over.

Ben:

Well, and let me say this, I think that we need to have a massive reform in our immigration system. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to come here, work and assimilate into the melting pot culture. I'm great with I, you know, that that's fantastic. But it has to be that melting pot assimilation. That's the only way a multicultural society works. I think the salad bowl analogy breaks down and fails and you end up, you end up in civil war and civil strife, and that's not what I want to see.

Sir Gene:

Absolutely. And one of the factors and like it or not, that contributed to people wanting to be part of the melting pot and not just stick with their own people is the absolutely horrible and abusive descriptions and treatment of new immigrant groups that has always historically happened to United States, whether it was the Chinese building railroads, whether there was the Irish coming over whether it was the Polish, wha whoever it was, whatever the new group was coming over by people that literally were one generation away from being also, immigrants were typically treated pretty, pretty much like crap by the current Americans. And that really makes you make sure that your kids. I just Americans, they're not hyphenated Americans and it's it, it's a bullying type mentality. And I get it. A lot of people dislike that. That's why women shouldn't have a vote, but we nonetheless got to where we are. That's right. We got to where we are by the decisions that were made in the past. There's nobody to blame here other than the decisions that were made by Americans in the past.

Ben:

Well, and you know, it's one of those things that we often don't judge our past, by the times that they, we, we, we look at the past through a modern lens and say, oh, that was wrong. Well, given the time and day. So I'm not one for playing moral relativism, but when you look at someone's actions and the lens of what they're doing, you should take into account their frame of reference as part of that that said there is a absolute moral understanding that has to evolve. And I don't think we are at the pinnacle of our moral understanding today, but, you know, for instance a Muslim who doesn't honor killing because of whatever reason. That may be within their own moral ethic, but as someone standing outside, I can go, I can understand the frame of reference on why they did that, what it was wrong. And I can judge them on that, especially given, you know, we're in the same time now when someone's dead and you're looking at history, you can judge them, but maybe because you were not living in the same time they were, you didn't have the same moral ethic. Some, you know, don't throw the baby out with the bath water is all I'm

Sir Gene:

that's a good point. Somebody mentioned, I put something that had Arthur, C Clark in it, who is a great science fiction writer

Ben:

Yeah, absolutely. Childhoods in's great

Sir Gene:

yeah. And the first response was you get, well, you know, he was a pedophile that the only reason he moved to Srilanka cause he has a race supply of, of like male kids to fuck out there.

Ben:

I had absolutely no clue, but okay.

Sir Gene:

Well, first of all, who the hell knows if it was true, but my response is like, you know what? I don't care because I, I'm not in the business of judging dead people. I'm, I'm perfectly happy judging people who are currently alive and their current actions, but I'm not going to go back over and commit this, this fallacy of interpreting somebody who's worth and value to society from the past, based on the current ethics and standards.

Ben:

Okay.

Sir Gene:

you know, who else was a pedophile Alexander? The great.

Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And you know who wasn't a pedophile, you know, who wasn't the pedophile Hitler

Ben:

that we know of

Sir Gene:

that we, that we're pretty sure of. Apparently he did. He was not much into sex in general. So you know, what somebody does based on the norms of the place they live in the time they live in, I'm absolutely not going to be judging whether people had slaves or whether they were slaves makes no difference to me compared to the accomplishments that they had created.

Ben:

you know, Def define a pedophile. So my grandfather, on my mom's side, married my grandmother and they had kids before she was 17.

Sir Gene:

yeah, there you go.

Ben:

So

Sir Gene:

right there. You got a history of family pattern of paraphilia.

Ben:

no, no. Cause this is in the south

Sir Gene:

I'm trying to make a joke.

Ben:

I, then I got you. I got you. But my point is there is a cultural relativism there. This is, this is going back. You have to remember that you know, my parents are older and you know, th this is, this is pre-World war.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And, and I think that there's the whole concept of I think pedophilia in the United States. Is vastly different than other countries. And we, we cannot assume that we are correct on our standing that 18 is the point at which somebody becomes an adult because many Americans are not adults at 24.

Ben:

Yeah. I, I agree, but I agree with when we start talking about an 18 year old versus a 17 year old versus, you know, but when you're talking about, there's a pretty, pretty easy line that can be drawn when you're talking about different ages there that I think is absolutely an arguable. So

Sir Gene:

Well, I, I think they presented is absolutely gets smaller and smaller. The younger you go, but there are many instances in past history of what we would absolutely consider children right now at 13, having to make ends meet, to work for themselves, to bring family money. They were not children would treat it as small adults, not as something special and different. They weren't babies by the time they were 13.

Ben:

Well,

Sir Gene:

can make the

Ben:

infantilization of our youth and extending that infancy out

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Where, which is the, I guess the opposite effect. You could also make the. Depending on whether you want to make it as a religious argument, or just purely a physiological argument that the determination of when somebody is an adult is been established for millions of years. And that is the point at which the female starts to ovulate. That's one, either God intended women to start having children, if you want to go that route, or that's when evolution determined was optimal, we're starting to have children.

Ben:

well, that are, you

Sir Gene:

It's not a

Ben:

neuroscience, you can look at neuroscience and say that a 24 year old adult male is just now becoming an adult, right. Because the near the neurosciences, the brain development's finally wrapping up at that point.

Sir Gene:

But an adult is not somebody that is wrapping up development and adult is somebody that can be self-sufficient.

Ben:

so again, you know, in today's era, the, you know, the whole failure launch

Sir Gene:

thirties, mid thirties.

Ben:

First off for some people. Absolutely. You know, I, I have a guy I knew in college who he's, he, you know, he'd never, he's always been dependent. And he, this is by no means someone who has a mental deficiency or inability. It's just a lack of responsibility and drive to really, truly be independent,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, no, there are plenty of people like that. We've got examples of. So my only point is that if the point at which you were expected to become self-sufficient and to act like an adult 300 years ago

Ben:

very different than

Sir Gene:

or 15. It certainly wasn't 18. Nobody waited until they were 18. You know, women could get married, they have children. 13, 14, 15 boys turned were seen as men. They were both enlisted in armies. They were brought on as apprentices. And before everyone went to college, like lemming, the apprenticeship was the best way to get a an understanding of a career to get into a field, into a Guild of that particular type of work. So you entered that apprenticeship absolutely. In your early teens, not in your late teens, early twenties, by the time you were in your, in your twenties, you should be bouncing five six-year-olds on your knee. And by the time you're near your mid thirties, you know, your kids have left the house.

Ben:

so there's a little bit of a difference there for men and women. So historically, you know, women got married fairly young, but a man would generally wait until he was older to establish himself and then get a bride. So you had the age disparity between the man and the woman, very commonly, you

Sir Gene:

Well that's because the man that had to build Yeah. And the man, the woman is given her worth. And I, again, I'm, I'm sure I would get letters for this if anyone actually listened to this, but, but a woman's worth historically is determined by her ability to have children. And if you want to get sexist about it, mostly male children, that a woman that can have more males is worth more money

Ben:

Yeah.

Sir Gene:

and it's not like

Ben:

only problem there is that it's the male that determines the sex of the child.

Sir Gene:

Right. For sure. But but the woman determines the way that the males to stop drone is produced in a lot of ways.

Ben:

Neither

Sir Gene:

you, if, if you,

Ben:

I think that's a little too minutiae of you to worry about there.

Sir Gene:

well sure. But there. are plenty of men that only produce girls. And when you talk to their wives, you know exactly why

Ben:

Oh, do you now?

Sir Gene:

yeah. And I've, I've like I'm old enough to have seen tons of examples of this being the case. So, whereas the worth of a man isn't determined by something that is just gifted to him by genetics, it's determined by his ability to utilize whatever he was gifted by. To build up security for his family. And so it certainly is more likely that it would take a man from 14 til 24, or maybe even later in life to be at a point where he can support a wife and family. And whereas for the wife, you know, she is ready. Not saying she has to get married, but she's certainly ready for childbearing at a mature age.

Ben:

Well, and again, this is looking back in history and talking about a foregone age, not what exists today

Sir Gene:

looking at the last 10 million years versus the last 100 years. Yes. For the 99.999, 9% of human history. That's been the case.

Ben:

Yeah, I would say the last hundred years is a very good estimation of when that

Sir Gene:

When did women get the vote again? Oh, that's right. A hundred years ago. Okay.

Ben:

close. Yes. But I'm not even talking about that. I'm just talking about the

Sir Gene:

this is the biggest hot potato topic that nobody ever wants to talk

Ben:

Well, it's not just that it's, it's a bigger move in society because your, the industrial revolution really started to kick into high gear. You started moving out of the agrarian economic model into the industrial economic model. And that was a huge shift. You know, most people don't realize that Mississippi pre civil war was the richest state in the union because of agriculture post, post civil war. There was reconstruction, but, you know, that was not the only economic factor. And I'll be the first to admit it that the industrial revolution that came in the decades after really would have pushed Mississippi down the line. Anyway.

Sir Gene:

Anyway, right. Although the cotton gym helped.

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, the cotton gin, so we can get into this the, the civil war was not necessary to end slavery because technology would have done it without that. The fact of the matter is Abraham Lincoln won through a fluke of the electoral college. The Southern states did not like it for a variety of reasons. The north had done a lot to the Southern states. You can read John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, expositions and protest and Calhoun, by the way, was a vice-president of the United States. This is not a fringe Southern view. But the abominable tariffs and everything else drove the south to say no more. We are going back to, and the reason why that's called the Confederacy is because they wanted a return to the articles of Confederation and a looser style of government at the Federation level. Because, you know, even, even the constitution today we are, if we were abiding by the constitution of the 1780s, we would be in a drastically different position than we are today, because we are meant to be a United States capitalists. So, yeah,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. So one thing somewhat related to that

Ben:

That was my Southern boy rant

Sir Gene:

no, I know, I know you have that Kamala, so I was enjoying it. I just give you a room to talk at that point.

Ben:

To hang myself.

Sir Gene:

at all. No, I think it's. Hmm. So one interesting stat I saw recently was that today in 20 20, 20, 22, whatever hell year, this is the, the number of slaves in the world is greater than it has ever been in the history of the planet.

Ben:

Depending on how they're measuring that metric, I can believe it.

Sir Gene:

Somebody for whom their life choices are made by somebody other than themselves,

Ben:

that could be someone who works for Foxconn though.

Sir Gene:

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I absolutely agree if you can't leave your job, but you know, you still go to work. You go shopping at a. But you have no option to quit that job and do something else, or you have no option to pick up and leave. Yeah. You're a slave. You're a better treated slave, but you are a slave.

Ben:

Well, and you know, here, here's the interesting thing Americans like to think in, in that line, Americans, like to think that slavery ended with the civil war in the United States, but that's not the case, you know? Have you ever heard the Tennessee Ernie Ford song? 16 tons,

Sir Gene:

course. Yeah. The

Ben:

but I owe my soul to the company store.

Sir Gene:

that's still happening with farmers right now, especially with

Ben:

With not just poultry farmers, but you know, the GMO, you know, Monsanto, Monsanto owning the seeds and everything else. In many ways, you, your production is completely tied to that

Sir Gene:

there have been some positive court cases with Monsanto specifically.

Ben:

Yeah. Well, I mean, now it's bare, but yes. But Monsanto was very bad about seed licensing agreements and

Sir Gene:

were very aggressive there. Their stance was if, if our genetically modified plants, germinate sees the blow across from your neighbor who bought our seeds

Ben:

or bird crafted out on your

Sir Gene:

yeah. And somehow land on your property you owe us money. And I would, I would take that the opposite and say, if, if your seeds flew over and landed on my property, you owe me clean up.

Ben:

Well, yeah, except that they have the patent and the licensing and everything else. And they're going to argue that you were illegally using their goods.

Sir Gene:

doing illegal distribution of a patented material.

Ben:

Well, a patent and invasive species that I do not want. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Exactly.

Ben:

But unfortunately that

Sir Gene:

But then even they have to be invasive. It's just like, look, here's something that's free. Shareware software, here's commercial software. I don't want the commercial software. I click on the download button for the free stuff. And instead of downloads Photoshop, like I didn't try and get Photoshop. I don't want Photoshop. I will delete Photoshop. You can't charge me for having Photoshop on my computer because I got Photoshop, not as a result of my choices to get it, but because the prevailing wind was blowing that direction And, it gets sent to me in there or whatever, or by design in there.

Ben:

and what I'll say is what we might constitute as modern day slavery to the company store to Monsanto or anything else is drastically different than what was happening in, you know, previous generations. I will say that, but I would say around the rest of the world, the slavery, I'm sorry.

Sir Gene:

When I say slavery I'm, I mean, I'm not talking about the company store. I'm talking about people that don't have a choice. In their life of what they do, who they do it for, where they live and what kind of food they eat. That that is a, that is a

Ben:

may not be working in an agrarian society at the time now, but they may be working in a factory

Sir Gene:

Absolutely.

Ben:

and, you know, you know, sweatshops, those sorts of

Sir Gene:

Absolutely. China has a huge problem with slavery, or if you don't want to call it a problem, they have a huge advantage because they have slavery the middle east, many of those middle Eastern countries. Yeah. North Korea, the whole damn country is basically just a big slave farm. But a lot of countries in the middle east have really what amounts to slavery because they import people from India, from Indonesia and to do menial work. But once they get there, they're their passports and all legal documents are taken away and they're effectively, you know, like their housing is provided for them, but they have no choice who they work for, where they work, how many hours they work, or how much money they're getting. Like all that is just sort of trust us. We'll take care of it and you can't leave and we'll make sure you can't leave because all your legal documents are taken away. So this is happening all over the world in Africa, not only were there more slaves. Sold by African slavers to other African countries and the middle east during the same time period, as they were also selling them to the Dutch Indies company and to what eventually would bring slaves to North America. But that only represented about a third of the slave trade. The rest of the slave trade was going east, not west.

Ben:

To a very, very large extent. Yes.

Sir Gene:

So people have a very confused view propagated by people that want to present slavery as an American problem. And to still, to this day, talk about some kind of reparations reparations to who every slave in the United States that's been a slave and on the plantation died long time ago.

Ben:

well, I mean, even if you, so this is one of the things that, you know, I like Mo a lot, but I think he's got something wrong when you talk about reparations, because if anyone, so here here's the argument. Okay. You think the, the civil war was fought just about slavery. There's your reparations, more dead than any other American war in history.

Sir Gene:

You mean more

Ben:

mean the not, not the price was paid and human blood. What, what, what is more valuable than that

Sir Gene:

No. I know, but a lot more people died in Russia finding the Germans than died in the us fighting

Ben:

I was talking about us wars

Sir Gene:

But you didn't specify. That's why I

Ben:

I did. I

Sir Gene:

mean the Americans,

Ben:

more people died in the civil war than any other us war.

Sir Gene:

okay, you didn't put us in there, but okay. We'll go back to the tape. Don't

Ben:

me, maybe my microphone clipped because I need a better

Sir Gene:

This is must be, must've been the hardware. It was a glitch. It was a glitch

Ben:

don't get me started on the glitch, but, but regardless, you know, the, and I think that there has definitely been, so I think reconstruction actually did more to harm racial tensions than probably just about anything else. And I know that's not going to be a very popular view, but I think if you go back and look at history and you look

Sir Gene:

we've got to get you set up with, with an email so people can complain to you directly.

Ben:

I have email addresses, I just don't give them out all the

Sir Gene:

No, no, no. I mean like a abandoned Serjean that cam or something.

Ben:

I've got, I've got URLs. I can use, I'll throw something up. But so if you go back and look at during reconstruction, during the reconstruction period, you look at some of the state legislature debates and arguments about monuments to Confederacy and things like that, thing, things pre Confederate daughters going daughters of the Confederacy going out and doing the biggie monument push that they did, but recognition. There's some interesting there's some interesting speeches given by former slaves that are now state representatives and interesting conversations. But, you know, the reality is while things weren't perfect. You have stories like Jim limber, Davis, you have lots of different things.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, Thomas sawmill

Ben:

cabin, uncle Tom's cabin was not the way the south was. That was a fictional account.

Sir Gene:

right, right. Well, and Thomas Sowell has talks in quite a few different I haven't read, maybe he's got books about it too, but he certainly has had a number of talks on this topic. And the, the way that slavery was described by the winning side in the history, annals is vastly different than if you can find actual firsthand. Were there people that were mistreated? Absolutely. That inevitably happens when somebody has complete control over somebody else. There are going to be mistakes made.

Ben:

Th there were lots of things. So, you know, general forest, Nathan Bedford, Forrest, supposedly the founder of the KKK, which if you look at the KKK during reconstruction and the KKK and by the God, a lot of people are just going to roast me over this. I'm sure, but the KKA KKK of the 1920s and thirties, very different things than that, of right during reconstruction, regardless, not a great organization, not advocating for that, not the point I'm making, but supposedly Nathan Bedford Forrest was the founder of the KKK. We don't know that for sure. What we do know is that he asked for volunteers to go to war with him. And he said, if you come with me and we win, I will set you free. And if we do not, you will surely be set free. Anyway, two years into the civil war, roughly I forget the exact date and someone will roast me for that. But forest went to his slaves and said, I give you your freedom. Our causes surely lost. You might as well go now. And they stayed with him. Now you can ascribe that to, that's just what they always did and everything else. Are you going to ascribe that to. Maybe there was a relationship there that we don't understand looking back today.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I've seen in and some accounts some recordings from the 1920s of people that were still alive during slavery and describing their memories of what it was like before the civil war on the plantations. And a number of the accounts were very positive. And they're talking about how, you know, the, the conditions that they worked under after the reconstruction were much worse than the conditions they had as slaves.

Ben:

well, and you have to just, you have to disambiguate the average. So first of all, less than less than I think it's 6% of the south owned slaves at all period. And you have to distinguish between the planters and the average plantation owner. So the planters had, you know, potentially up to thousands of slaves and hundreds of thousands of acres, very large operations. And then like my

Sir Gene:

You mean like candy land.

Ben:

Yeah. So like my ancestor who fought for the Confederacy in Louisiana he was part of the Louisiana Calvary. He had I think it was five or six slaves at the time now five or six slaves and, you know, a couple hundred acre plantation. He was working the field right there with them. It was not the same thing as the planters, but the planters were such a small minority of the population. So, you know, the, the idea of uncle Tom's cabin is just an asinine one

Sir Gene:

Yeah,

Ben:

and people will say, I just don't want to think ill of my relatives. Well, I never met them. I have no opinion towards them other than, you know, I have no nostalgic opinion of that. I just

Sir Gene:

no. Other than that, they were fighting for their way of life and freedom.

Ben:

Well, and again, people would argue that, you know, it was over states' rights, states' rights to keep slaves. No, it was also over terrorists in taxation. It was over lots and lots of things. It was about the north wanting to prevent the south from importing manufactured goods from Europe because they wanted the south to import it from the north. It was about preventing the north. Especially in Atlanta, which was a fairly new city at the time generating any sort of industry to rival the north. Th there are lots of things there that was a fairly complicated situation. And I would argue that the economic tariffs that were placed on the south did more than anything else. You have to remember. Lincoln was not a real abolitionists in any way, shape or form. He did not run on an abolitionists platform. He didn't push for abolition. When he got into office, he wanted to save the union and quite frankly, he would have kept slavery to do it. And if you want to make an argument that the south just wanted to keep slavery, okay. All the south had to do with stay the south and not vote to admit any other states. And guess what slavery would have never been abolished except through economic means the south that needed to go to war, to keep slavery. The north had to go to war to keep the south. And by what I mean by that is that any new states that were to come into the union would be non-slip states and so on. Well, it takes an act of Congress to admit a new state and the south had enough people in Congress to prevent that from happening.

Sir Gene:

that makes sense.

Ben:

So again, I, we can argue this all day long and I know you're not arguing at, and I'm going

Sir Gene:

I, yeah, I mean, it's kind of a boring topic cause you're not going to get a whole lot of arguments for me. I know just enough about the civil war to know that it's not the PR the thing that was portrayed and in typical public school history books I've read enough about it. I had a book as a kid of newspapers from the entirety of the civil war. I like a, you know, shrunk down version of those publications for a number of areas in the south. And it absolutely like anything else. The history written by the Victor always makes the Victor a perfect good guy and the loser absolutely evil. And that's just, that was absolutely not the case in this case. Like it often isn't.

Ben:

well, yeah. And let me just tie this into a modern topic and that is whether or not you know, Roe V Wade or anything else will trigger the next, the real civil war, because what'd you had in the civil war was a war between independent nations. In many ways, we can argue the, the, the details about that later, but that was two geographically separate and independent states fighting each other. What we would have today, the Mason Dixon line, isn't the dividing line. It's likely going to be rural versus urban, and that's going to be a very different thing and very.

Sir Gene:

yeah. It's I don't know if it's going to be as big as you think, or maybe you don't think as big as some people would make it out to be. I think the media is hyping it by covering all the extreme protests that are going on right there that probably represent less than 1% of the population. I think the majority of Americans already live in states where Roe V Wade is closely aligned or the where abortion laws are more closely aligned to their personal principles. California is always going to have on demand abortions. In fact, they may change the laws to allow abortions up to the ninth month because that's California and people that live in California for the most part, that's what they want. So how, how is it that the, the liberals somehow feel that federalism is a bad thing when federalism allows them to have extreme laws that aren't struck down by the courts, because if we were more Federalists than each state gets to have more, more saying, what is state law

Ben:

Well, the problem you have is that people in one state are not content to allow others in another state to make what they consider to be an immoral decision, regardless of which direction that is. And, you know, I was actually talking to my parents about this last night, specifically, my mother she's far more anti-abortion than I am, because what I come down to is I am torn between the rights of the mother and the rights of the child, because the, you can argue whenever you want, when life begins, let's not argue that, but you ha the mother has a right. Every person has a right to say, I don't want to live for anyone else. I am not. No one should, no one has a right to me. This is, goes into the arguments of why taxation is theft, right? If I am compelled to live for another, that is by the force. I am in some ways of slave.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

So

Sir Gene:

always said that you, if you, if you don't have a right to terminate the pregnancy, then ultimately doesn't remove that right. Completely. It simply removes the right to terminate pregnancy. While staying alive yourself,

Ben:

w.

Sir Gene:

can commit suicide, who's pregnant and then terminate the pregnancy.

Ben:

Well, yeah, there's that, but what,

Sir Gene:

don't want to bring somebody into this world badly enough, you will.

Ben:

well, let me just say this though. I think that the mother has a right to self-defense. So if the pregnancy is threatening her own life, for whatever reason, she has the right to self-defense, that's just a basic human right. What I would even say is in cases of rape, where there was not a voluntary pregnancy, there, there was no, oops, birth control failed. It was an actual rape. There was no consent there. Now there's still the life of the child to consider, but it's one of those things that man, again, I can't force someone to live. This is where I get to the point of social norms versus government force and just like gay marriage. Get the hell out of marriage. I think winning the, the social norms war is the way to do it. Not necessarily legality that said after, after a baby is viable, I can see no moral justification for our, no moral, no possible moral argument for terminating the life of the child.

Sir Gene:

okay.

Ben:

you want to terminate the pregnancy. Take the baby, even if the baby has to be in the NICU for a long period of time,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I guess what your point is. Is the, the abortion and termination of the baby's life, or simply a removal of the baby from the mother.

Ben:

our termination of the pregnancy. Yeah.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. yeah. Right. Because you're no longer pregnant if there's no kid inside. Right. Yeah. And I mean, let's, let's not quibble about well, is you'd get enough to do that because there's millions of babies saved every year from that are born prematurely.

Ben:

Well, not only that, if we focused on that and every mid to late term abortion, if every abortion, every abortion science took that as an opportunity to, at the very least try and refine itself to the survival of the child, we would get better and better at it quicker and

Sir Gene:

Now let me play a little devil's advocate though, and say, okay. So when, when is it considered the child in your eyes?

Ben:

My eyes are what I would say is a legally binding argument.

Sir Gene:

What does that mean?

Ben:

So I think I, my personal view, my moral view is different from where I say that the force of government should be imposed because the force of government is a very, very. Sticky subject that you have to be careful on your application with, because I don't want someone using the force of government against me. So I'm very hesitant to do that from a personal viewpoint where I view life as beginning is that conception.

Sir Gene:

Okay. So one cell is enough to make It a life for you

Ben:

It is an individual set of DNA that is never going to be reproduced. Again, it is unique

Sir Gene:

unless you clone it. Sure.

Ben:

Then you have errors in the cloning process.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, you do. Absolutely. It's kind of like twins, right?

Ben:

Yeah. So I mean you, or you based off of your genetics

Sir Gene:

right. But are you you as a potential? I mean, is it, why would I not extend the argument if you, if you, if we agree that a single cell is a human being, why could I not extend that to two cells each containing half the DNA also being a human being?

Ben:

because it is not unique DNA at that point. It's my DNA. And it's the mother's DNA that has yet to come.

Sir Gene:

well, it has yet to combine, right? So you're saying the combination of the DNA is what makes a human.

Ben:

It becomes a unique thing. So you could take the two same cells, introduce them, and the combination is going to happen differently. Each time that is introduced. This is why when

Sir Gene:

wouldn't it be more accurate to say then that's

Ben:

different kids.

Sir Gene:

yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's absolutely true, but, but without those two cells, then no life exists.

Ben:

Well there's life. There's my life in the mother's life. It has yet to become a unique life.

Sir Gene:

neither does her. Oh, I'm no, nor your sperm have life on its own though.

Ben:

I would consider that part of my own life.

Sir Gene:

Well, I mean, like

Ben:

I scrape a skin cell off of me and it's no longer attached to my body, that's still part of my body and it's going to die without me.

Sir Gene:

It will die without you. And, but

Ben:

It was still part of me.

Sir Gene:

your, your skin, you replace every cell in your body. I think a, was it every, I can't remember it it's either 18 months or 72 months. It's one or the other, literally every cell. There's no

Ben:

This is why you

Sir Gene:

been replaced. Yeah.

Ben:

error.

Sir Gene:

Right. And the, you today is not the you of 20 years ago either. There's been a lot of changes to your DNA in that timeframe. So this is where I think you have to start with the basics, which is definition. And if you take a, and I'm glad you're doing this with me, because you know, I'm not using. The point that which God blows the spirit into the cells. I'm just looking at it from a mechanical standpoint. And if we can, if we can come up with a definition that establishes an independent human life, not just potential life or life as a

Ben:

so this is where you, and this is where I said, which definition do you want? Do you want what I personally believe or not? So to me again, as soon as a child is potentially viable and I'll be loose with the potentially, because again, I think we'll get better and better over time. I wouldn't set a deadline or anything else because there's developmental differences. There's lots of things. But when a child is potentially viable, I think it should have rights. So you get to the point of, I mean, people are not going to like this, but you know, a few months into the pregnancy. You're starting to get towards that viability territory pretty quick. And you know, I have a cousin that was a six month preemie and she survived and has done well, and she was born in the late eighties. So our technology has increased from there. Yeah. So I think once the baby has a potential viability, it, it has to have basic inalienable human rights.

Sir Gene:

Okay. So does that happen on viability or at one cell?

Ben:

Again, are you talking about my religious views or are you talking about what I would say that the government has a reasonable position to enforce?

Sir Gene:

Well, I guess whichever one matters more to you.

Ben:

So I'm, I'm not a militant on this subject at all. I, I

Sir Gene:

know that's why, that's why it's more interesting talking to you than somebody who is a militant.

Ben:

yeah. So, so my view is that honestly, if, if we were not using abortion as a means of contraception, this wouldn't be an argument at all.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

At least not for me. It just, just wouldn't be here, here's the thing it's, it's like the difference of murders and crime versus genocide. There's a difference. Who was it stolen that said one man lost a one man's life is a tragedy, a loss of a million is a statistic or something like that.

Sir Gene:

I, whoever said it's a good statement.

Ben:

roughly, I typically disagree with that. I think that, you know, yeah, murder is wrong and we should address that at an individual level. And, you know, we can even, we can talk about it that way, but when you're looking at the systematic removal of large amounts of population through just cheer irresponsibility, it's astonishing to me. And here's the thing. I don't want to see a massive spike in the birth rate, just because abortion is illegal. That, that, that that's the wrong thing. What I would like to see happen is people recognize that they have a responsibility and that anytime you engage in sex, you should take it as a serious act. And through that serious act, you should protect yourself and others from either a, an accidental pregnancy or STD or anything else. So you should be serious about it. It shouldn't be a flippant decision. And I think that maturity is what I would like to see more than anything. And the results would be a decrease in the need for abortion. So that's my.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And I, I think most people, I would guess 80% of the population would agree that there should be a minimal need for abortion, but. Either none, like there shouldn't be a need at all, or in some particular circumstances, not in all general circumstances. I think it's a, maybe 20% or so that are in the, what I would describe as the more Milton's, you know, I want my abortion, I want it now. And I want it, you know,

Ben:

I have a hard time believing that that person really exists. I know they do. I know they have

Sir Gene:

They do do these, try dating a college student.

Ben:

yeah. I gave that up a while back,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Well, some was going back to it, but it's I think it's because they see abortion as a form of release from responsibility that they don't want

Ben:

Well, why, but my question is why not avoid the responsibility in the first

Sir Gene:

because often they're drunk.

Ben:

Okay. Well, you, you

Sir Gene:

I mean, you could just, as easily say you could also say why not just not drink while at the same reason that people drank as the same reason that they're afraid of getting pregnant

Ben:

okay.

Sir Gene:

and by people. I mean, like, you know, 19 year old girls,

Ben:

Well, 19 year old girls, shouldn't be legally drinking now. Should they?

Sir Gene:

well, that's usually the kind of drink stag. I mean by 21, they S they may or may not be already, but I w well, that's okay. Now you're jumping topics on me. Cause I also think 21 as a drinking late age is part of the problem, not the solution.

Ben:

I tend to agree.

Sir Gene:

you start kids drinking at 15 ish, they've outgrown it within a few years. So it's no longer a novelty and there'll be way less prone to get drunk. When they're in college.

Ben:

I don't know, man. I'm in my mid thirties and I still occasionally enjoy it. So there's that

Sir Gene:

get drunk? Well, okay. I guess I even know the answer to that myself directly. So why am I asking?

Ben:

Yeah. I mean,

Sir Gene:

had an hour long phone call with you while you were drunk?

Ben:

Yeah, you have it, but that's not the common thing. That's not my everyday thing, but occasionally I will. Yes. And you

Sir Gene:

I don't I'm my personality type does not understand that it does not compute I've. I've maybe been to the point where I shouldn't be driving three times in my life. I've never thrown up. And in general, whenever I have been drinking and I've drank a lot and I was even the bartender was around alcohol all the time. I get free drinks for other bartenders. Like that's a standard thing. If you're a bumped on there, you get tons of free booze. But to me, anytime I start drinking, it's always a battle between not wanting to lose control, which my brain pretty much lives for. And using the alcohol as a method of social interactive lubricant.

Ben:

Yeah. So what I hear is

Sir Gene:

I don't like losing control.

Ben:

yeah, exactly. You have a problem with the loss of control.

Sir Gene:

I have no problem with it cause I don't lose it.

Ben:

Right. But the,

Sir Gene:

else that has a problem with it. Cause they seem to not mind not being in the, control of their own bodies, which to me is bizarre. It's the weirdest thing.

Ben:

well, I, I mean, we can get into lots of conversation here on people's desire to turn off things. And why? I I'll say this getting drunk is definitely not the norm for me, because I feel similarly to you. There are times when I feel differently for a variety of reasons, but you know, it shocks me that you don't understand this. Just from, from the standpoint of society and, you know, powerful people going to a dominant, dominant dominate. I cannot, there you go. I can't speak today, you know, it's, I think it's ultimately the same cathartic thing in some

Sir Gene:

think, I think it is. And this is also probably why I could never be a sub. It just doesn't work. Doesn't doesn't do anything for me. I guess. I've never been sufficiently powerful enough to have that particular kink

Ben:

Yeah. Well, I certainly haven't either, but I do like turning off my brain occasionally.

Sir Gene:

Ah, I, I can't, I mean, this was my end result when I did my study with with THC is I kept ramping up the dosage to try and get to a place where it actually has an impact on me. And I found that place and there was a little over a hundred micrograms whatever the, whatever, the, the edible. It's whatever the it's, whatever the edibles are labeled in. And I, I suspect isn't milligram. I thought it would be micrograms. Maybe I'm thinking

Ben:

U S it's milligrams,

Sir Gene:

a, that's a different thing. Yeah. And so, so I guess a little over a hundred milligrams. then, but the point is having achieved that and doing the testing with my reaction times and in video games and you know, things that, that demand certain level of concentration.

Ben:

You know what I think it may be,

Sir Gene:

I followed very nonproductive.

Ben:

may, it may be since you are have the high tolerance that you do that you've never gotten to the euphoric places that others have because of that.

Sir Gene:

I mean, that could certainly be, I'm not sure I'm willing to, cause that seems like, like, like I think there are drugs that absolutely have a like for, for not getting banned. I'm not gonna say a beneficial effect, but I would say having an effect that. is not negative, like cocaine is one cocaine, if done in moderation seems to have an effect of an increased operational stuff.

Ben:

you mean? Like, well, a perfect example would be Adderall.

Sir Gene:

yeah, so, and that's, that's another good example. Exactly. Is if we look at the what now is only available as an prescription medicine that, yeah, it's certain in the right quantity in the, in the right dosage, I guess I should say a variety of uppers can provide benefits to the users

Ben:

Well, not just uppers, but even sell a Seibon microdose can provide a lot of benefits.

Sir Gene:

Well, and it depends on what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And incidentally, like, for example if you drink some got, now I'm blanking out. See, I need to take my vitamin B is what I need to do.

Ben:

I'm glad you're the divorce in the situation and not me

Sir Gene:

it's definitely made me I believe me. I'm thinking of that green alcohol the, what am I thinking of? Absent. Right? So, if you take and drink some absence with the original formula with, with wormwood. extract and

Ben:

Yep.

Sir Gene:

it absolutely does have an effect. And when.

Ben:

depends on your body chemistry, but sure.

Sir Gene:

Yeah, maybe, maybe, but it does have an effect on. me. So I've done some tests with it as well. Where I actually did a painting, just a normal sort of unaltered state. And then the aisle, I then consumed massive quantities of absence and then painted after that. And I think the absent definitely does open up more of the creative sort of a driver for me. So I, I totally understand why many writers and and artists utilized absinthe as a preferred alcohol.

Ben:

Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because I have a very liberal ideas when it comes to drugs, right? I, you own your body, you can put into it, whatever you wish. I did some pot in college. I've done some pot as an adult and it's just not, my thing never has been alcohol and caffeine are my drugs of choice. Always have been, you know, I don't

Sir Gene:

I can't do caffeine anymore.

Ben:

see coffee, man. But I don't do it in large quantities anymore. I mean, there was a time when I was drinking lots and lots of coffee, but I, the less than a pot a day,

Sir Gene:

well, I've always liked espresso. I've I've never been much of a diluted brown water game, but the yes, that, that is the correct. You got the correct just for me on that. But what I found is I just had some coffee recently that I made maybe a month ago, is it, it just bumped up my blood pressure too much. And it was to the point where I could like feel without even measuring that. Yeah. I think I've got high blood pressure right now. Like you can feel it in your eyeballs and your teeth.

Ben:

I've never had that situation.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

always on the low end of the blood pressure scale.

Sir Gene:

that's good. That's good. Keep, keep it in that place. It's a better zone to be in. And So consequently I'm like, yeah, I, don't feel good after drinking a high high caffeine content drink anymore. The way I used to, I used to enjoy ice drink while time is I've got a, I've got a European like$2,000 espresso maker at home that I use for heating up water for tea

Ben:

So I, I'm going to draw a conclusion here that I think will tie in nicely and help wrap us up. But it seems to me that the evil, evil heathen Jean is actually leading a purity, a pretty pure life when it comes to

Sir Gene:

and given that I haven't drank alcohol at all this

Ben:

that's what I'm saying. You don't drink

Sir Gene:

I haven't smoked anything this year. No, I'm actually,

Ben:

uses genes turning into you

Sir Gene:

the thing. I can literally be any religion tomorrow and it wouldn't be difficult at all. I can be a Muslim tomorrow. I can be a a a Mormon tomorrow. Like I wouldn't have to give up anything cause I don't really eat these things. Yeah. I mean, I eat bacon occasionally, but it's not the staple. It's not like it's a, every morning ritual for me. I, what I couldn't give up would be like Philemon, Yon. I, I did that when I was in college. I was a vegetarian for a two and a half years,

Ben:

I think you would have other issues on the adjusting to the religious lifestyle G

Sir Gene:

possibly. Possibly. I'm not

Ben:

living in a Margaret Atwood novel.

Sir Gene:

I'm not saying that. Look, here's the thing. I think all religions are much better with money.

Ben:

Amen.

Sir Gene:

Exactly.

Ben:

think

Sir Gene:

goes for Chris. Jammy goes for Islam, goes for

Ben:

for atheism. I think that the worst position you can be in a society as a serf. The fact of the matter is even, even just being upper-middle-class war comes, things happen. Your position is far, far better off than the, than, than the surface, you know?

Sir Gene:

absolutely. No, I think it's a money is simply saved work. And B you can argue about whether it was justified that some people were getting paid X amount per dollar versus others. But what you have is money is work that you already done, but you haven't traded for anything yet. That's all it is.

Ben:

Well, and here's the thing. Most people don't like to think of this, but the fact of the matter is yes, there are some people who have gotten wealthy through nepotism and things like that. I, hunter Biden, great example, but the

Sir Gene:

Well, you don't think hunter is working for that money.

Ben:

I haven't looked at his art, but I

Sir Gene:

He's ruined his health. He's ruined his health because his dad's making them do this shit.

Ben:

I can't imagine his art's much better than George bushes. Regardless the point is that there, there are those people who get wealthy or have money because of some nefarious circumstances. But the fact of the matter is most people don't like to realize that the majority of people earn whatever they earn through their own work and be great, be it small, whatever it is it's deserved because of either talent, a good idea, or just sheer industriousness and ability to bust one's ass.

Sir Gene:

right. And, and there's always an element of luck. And this is where the fairness comes in. It's like, Well, that's not fair that I'm making 25 bucks an hour and this other person's making 250 bucks an hour. Well, it may or may not be it like you'd really have to examine the amount of effort that both people have put into not just doing the work, but in learning things to get to the point of being able to do the work, like anybody can be an Uber driver, as long as you have a driver's license, right. That's a fairly low bar. But a lot fewer people can be a formula, one driver, and it's still driving a car, but the amount of effort and energy you've put in to be able to drive a car really well. And then on top of it to drive a car that is meant to be driven at the very edge of capability that makes you a lot more unique and therefore you're making more money than the person that drives a car for.

Ben:

Well, I mean, it can come down to this. Let's say you start driving a car for Uber and you, you just got your driver's license. Let's say you're a typical gen Z or, and you didn't get your driver's license until you're 1820. Right. But whatever, you're old enough to work.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

How many hours a week do you work? So, Jean, let me ask you this. How many hours a week do you work on average

Sir Gene:

Well, it depends what you include in the work, but I mean, if you include things like doing a research and just, you know, planning

Ben:

things that end up earning you money?

Sir Gene:

yeah. I mean, certainly, probably somewhere between 60 and 80

Ben:

Okay. So the average person in the us, if we really think about how much they actually work, someone putting in 40 hours a week is probably really only putting in 30, 25, 30 hours a week because they're

Sir Gene:

socializing

Ben:

frankly dicking off the rest of the time.

Sir Gene:

Right, right. Okay. Well, I'm going to revise mine to them maybe 40 to 50 because I do, I do fuck around quite a bit too.

Ben:

Okay. So in, you know, I, I will too on occasion, but in the environment I work on, I, honest amount of labor put in in a week is easily between probably 40 and 60 hours a week. And the difference there between the 25 to 30 and w and you can measure this in multiple ways, let's just say, actual hours and front, so 40 to, you know, 50 to 60 hours a week. However you want to measure it, that, that little bit of percentage, that little bit of absolute time difference, but, you know, 25 to 50% difference in actual workload that adds up over time exponentially is what

Sir Gene:

but, but it's also not just about time because

Ben:

and ability and everything else that builds

Sir Gene:

is called, but basically in any organization, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Ben:

You're roughly saying analogous to the predo district.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. I think it is. It is because, and this has been shown over and over in large companies and even in smaller businesses as well, is that once you go through and you interview everybody and you really figure out, and, and I've done quite a few of these myself from business efficiency consulting standpoint for different companies, what you really realize is there's usually two or three or four or 20 or 30 or 40, if it's a large company really sort of key people that are the big movers that everybody relies on. And then the rest of the folks, just sort of our ancillary, they, they help those people get to where they're going. And it does. And it's not, I'm not saying that there's like 20% is management and 80% are the peons doing the work. Not at all. Quite often, these people that are actually the biggest movers, the ones that, that are, that shift, the biggest leavers in the company they're usually they're lower management or, or just even the solo contributors that are just at that they're, you know, very experienced level

Ben:

And that our top performers, the people who can sit down and write a, a maybe either write a large report, detailing out the minutia of whatever process it is that you're needing, or the, the board operator that can sit there. And from memory start the power plan up without Rav having to reference the the, the step-by-step instructions, the in hand procedure,

Sir Gene:

a great example.

Ben:

know, because they've done it so many times because they've done it efficiently. They're the people that you go to when, you know, you have to solve a problem,

Sir Gene:

And that's, that's the key thing. It's not just memorizing procedures it's you can also do. You can always tell the people

Ben:

on their

Sir Gene:

when you, when you say we have a problem, we have to figure out how to solve it. There's usually 20% or less of the people in the room that will say. All right. So here's what we should start.

Ben:

Well,

Sir Gene:

most people, when they're presented with unusual or rarely occurring synchrony stances,

Ben:

don't want to risk being

Sir Gene:

no, they're a little lost. They're like, I'll do what you guys want me to do, but I have no idea. And it's the people that are willing to figure out how to solve problems. There's the ones that will use the phrase that you've seen in movies that has businesses. Don't worry. I will take care of it. And it's not just for assassins either. Okay guys, this is, this is a phrase that a lot of people use.

Ben:

Well, it's one of those things that people actually do. It's something that you, you end up having those people who are not afraid to be wrong and, you know, they they're, they, they put their head on the chopping block in these situations and say, I got this. And if they're wrong, they're fucked. But guess what? You have some people who are talented that aren't wrong that have gone through their, I'm sorry.

Sir Gene:

They're more right than they are wrong.

Ben:

Exactly. For an extended period of time. It's not a, oh, I got it once. Right? So therefore I'm golden. No, it's I have been there are very few times that I'm, that I'm wrong. Right? And, but the differentiator there, I think oftentimes is the willingness to work, the willingness to put in the effort to become that expert and everything else. And then even if you have the book smarts, and this is what differentiates the high-performers in private industry versus academia is the high-performers enact in in private industry, put their neck on the line. The academics never do

Sir Gene:

Now once you have tenure, there's no reason to ever.

Ben:

well unless you're Jordan Peterson, which he's just a unique individual, but.

Sir Gene:

no, he is very, very unique in academia. There. Most, most people in academia

Ben:

And Bret

Sir Gene:

modify their opinions to suit the least amount of stress.

Ben:

Absolutely.

Sir Gene:

And you've been, you've been watching a lot of his stuff. I see.

Ben:

Peterson,

Sir Gene:

Yeah, because you keep sending me more and more of his videos.

Ben:

man, I've been a Peterson fan for a long time. Like w w the very first video of him standing outside the college, talking to people, I I've been tracking him. I, he resonates with me a lot because I'll just say this he's quite obviously a Christian, whether he wants to publicly admit it or not. And he dances around the question on whether you depends on what you may believe in God know

Sir Gene:

I think he's becoming more at ease with it, but that's one thing I always notate. It is like, he's really a smart guy, but he's Christian

Ben:

well,

Sir Gene:

he's not. And I, I say that with a smile on my face, but, but he won't, like, he's not an obvious out there kind of Christian. He just kind of kept his religion private, but I think it's becoming a little more,

Ben:

well, and I think he's more on the Orthodox side than I would say the evangelical, but regardless

Sir Gene:

I don't think he's on particular either side.

Ben:

I'm just basing it off of, you know, his biblical lectures and everything else. I am an avid consumer of Peterson, I would say. And part of that is because I really enjoy his philosophy. I agree with his analysis of the Western Canon and, you know, Western ethos and value. One of the things that he articulated early on that I have absolutely agreed with, and he said better than I ever could is that, you know, the, the right level of analysis is the individual and that this whole idea of intersectionality is just going to end up in the same place. You know, because, because you get to infinitum really quickly, as you add multiple layers of analysis all the way through there, there are

Sir Gene:

Well, and you start creating a hierarchy of of the. Intersectionalities,

Ben:

Well, but

Sir Gene:

better to be gay and black or is it better to be you know, trans and black

Ben:

or is it better to be black and a gay woman, right. What level of abstraction do you take that to? And when it comes down to is the right level of analysis is not a group identity. Think I ideation it's the individually.

Sir Gene:

I think that's The irony is that the ultimate conclusion

Ben:

is the

Sir Gene:

is one. It is the individual that that's like you, if you are intellectually honest, you can't help. But To end up taking it through its ultimate level,

Ben:

To its ultimate conclusion.

Sir Gene:

to its conclusion. yeah. Of individuality,

Ben:

Yes.

Sir Gene:

that's where you end up. And that's, that's the irony is that 99% of the people hell more than that, that study the topic. Never see that, that irony in it.

Ben:

So, so what I like about Peterson is that a he's an apologist for the west, not just Christianity, but the west in general and that he is an individualist and he's not only an individualist, but he's for personal responsibility. Those are my core tenants. So

Sir Gene:

I, I, I think it's pretty much the same as the stuff I like about him, which is he's a snappy. He's a former drug addict. And and, and he's asked the question about women voting. So I, I think we're saying the same thing.

Ben:

yeah. Well, I mean, he, he, he's definitely the cautionary tale. Right. So you and I were talking about you not understanding why people would give up their.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

Control over their body. Well, he he's someone who I think is a little bit of a potential hypochondriac, but regardless of that,

Sir Gene:

I'd agree with that.

Ben:

so regardless of that there is someone who is quite obviously operating in. I mean, I, I don't know what his IQ is, but God it's gotta be high. I mean, I interface with some fairly intelligent people and at least his verbal IQ is through the roof.

Sir Gene:

I don't know about that. I think he definitely has a high IQ, but it's not anywhere near as high as some of the people I've met. I think that he is

Ben:

is extremely

Sir Gene:

spent in the well he's. Yes, he, he has spoken for over 20 years in front of people. He's a public speaker because he was teaching a what would be by a lot of people. Determinants soft cell. And so he's not talking about chemical formulas or math formulas, he's talking about results. And he has to be able to re express the re the results of his soft science in a manner that is understandable to, you know, freshmen and sophomores. And so I think, and he's also very well-read. I mean, that's one thing I think you guys share is that he reads like a book every few days. And so, he has a very good English not just comprehension, but like you said, his verbal skills are really good. I totally agreed with you on that, but he's also been really, you know, focusing one specific area for a long time. And I think that makes him an expert at that area. And I would not deny that he isn't intelligent, but, but I've met people that are just amazing at a whole multitude of things at the same time. And it just undeniably gifted folks.

Ben:

ma'am, I, I, I, I won't disagree. I mean, I, I'm just saying that there are, he is

Sir Gene:

I'm not sure how, how easily he could change a tire or work in a car engine.

Ben:

Well, that's a totally different acumen. I, I'm not suggesting that. So there are different types of intelligence. I don't think anyone's arguing that I think their IQ is a pure you know, it is very pure in that it's your ability to reason. Then you have, you know, spatial acuity and other things that come into.

Sir Gene:

And that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about is that I'm not saying he has crap spatial acuity, but I've not seen examples of him having extremely good spatial acuity either.

Ben:

You haven't seen him district you know, going through mechanical skills credit. Yeah, exactly.

Sir Gene:

And now I, and just so you're aware, I've actually seen him in person twice and I've watched probably about a hundred hours of his teaching videos.

Ben:

Yeah. I, I actually have seen him in person as well.

Sir Gene:

And, I, and, and I think we both read his his first book as well.

Ben:

I've actually read all three of his books and I

Sir Gene:

Yeah. and I have not read the two more popular ones.

Ben:

The 12 rules and 12 more rules.

Sir Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

Yeah. Both are good. I think there's a lot of good in there. I'm not a self-help book person at

Sir Gene:

That's main reason I haven't read them.

Ben:

well, it, the only reason why I read them is because out of respect for him and actually reading his first book before 12 rules for life was even published and maps of beginning his deep maps and meaning took me a good three reads before I really had what I considered a very strong hold on. Exactly the arguments he was making the whole way through.

Sir Gene:

Now, did you read that after you knew him for his stance? Because that's what I did. I didn't, I never heard of him until I saw him in that first video, as you mentioned, standing up to the students that are trying to get them to use their pronouns and him explaining why that's ridiculous. And I thought, well, who is this guy? And I saw the, he, he had a Bookout.

Ben:

Yeah. That's exactly what I did. So it was, Hey, compelled speech is anti-free speech. Well, that's right. It's exactly right. And who is this person? And holy crap, this is a university professor standing up to a crowd of people in a fashion that I would never have imagined any of my professors doing. And you have to remember that this is also Jesus. When, when was that video? It

Sir Gene:

Eight years ago. Nine.

Ben:

at, it was a long time ago. So this is easily 2014 or so are less. And so you got to remember, I'm not that far at a college at that point, right? I was class of oh eight. So, you know, I'm thinking back to my college professors, I'm thinking back to my college experience and going, who the hell is this? This is far more in line with something that I would consider almost heroic in nature on how it was

Sir Gene:

heroic. I mean, I think what he did, what, what Brett Weinstein Steen

Ben:

Oh, yeah. And not just Bret Weinstein, but his wife as

Sir Gene:

yeah. Yeah. But any, mostly Brett though. You know,

Ben:

were both targeted.

Sir Gene:

They were both targeted. because of him though. I mean, that's the thing, it's like, she's on the right side. Don't get me wrong.

Ben:

She was a more popular professor at evergreen than he was.

Sir Gene:

Absolutely. Yeah. People, people definitely I think a lot of people like their classes there's it takes a certain amount of guts to be able to push back against the mob. And most people lack that. And it, there has to be a stronger desire for truth than for self-preservation or like.

Ben:

Well, I a hundred percent, you know, I, I think part of my motivation, my personal motivation for having this conversation with you. And again, I try and forget that we're talking to anyone else. It's just me and you having a conversation. Pardon?

Sir Gene:

the microphones in front of our faces.

Ben:

Yeah, but part of my motivation for that is to take the ideas I would express in private and dare to risk exposure, expressing them publicly, which may bring the hangman's noose around nine neck may cost me money, may cost me my livelihood, but being unafraid enough to say, no, this is my opinion. This is what I think. And if you don't like what I have to say, then by all means, let, let's have a conversation and discuss, but this cancel culture has to stop. And I think the only way it does stop is by people standing up and being willing to have conversations and question narratives.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. We have cancel, cancel orders. You have to make them PRI.

Ben:

Well, we have to get to the point where, you know, my, my view on the civil war was take that I'm not a racist. I am not fighting for anything, but when I say my read of history is this, why should that ever affect anything in my current life? If you, if you think it's different than please educate me, show me, but I guarantee you, there are many people who would take what I said about the civil war today and run to my boss and try and get me fired. And that to me is where we are failing as a society. If you disagree with my speech, the answer isn't to get me fired. The answer is to educate me and say, you know what? I don't agree with what you said. Here's why here's where I think you got it wrong.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. And and likewise, if somebody's trying to get to me to fire somebody that works for me, I don't care if they're a self-avowed communist. I may disagree with them completely, but what I pay them to do is a particular job. And if they're doing a good enough job, I really don't care. I don't care if they're an, you know, an ex felon. If they're doing a good job, doing the job is what I'm paying them. And there's no reason to fire somebody. I don't, you know, I don't care if they dress up in women's clothing or men's clothing or whatever, or no clothing, if they're nudist, like none of these things have an impact on somebody's ability to do their job Well,

Ben:

Well, I, I agree. So for instance, sexual orientation or coming out or whatever, I you're, you're an adult, you have the right to do what you want behind closed doors or otherwise the, the thing I would say is that

Sir Gene:

or the cameras have only fans.

Ben:

yes, indeed. A plug for Gene's channel, by the way.

Sir Gene:

Oh yeah, yeah. Check me out on only fans.

Ben:

know, it's interesting. And I think this could possibly be our last topic. Cause I know you got to go soon,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. It's already been an hour and a half, so

Ben:

yeah. You know, I think we're starting to see some go woke, go broke moves, especially with like Netflix. You know, now there's a lot of concern that their anti-censorship regime that they're talking about will in queue include things like QTS and so on. But I think it's an interesting move, especially given Musk and Twitter and everything else that they're saying, we're going to buy what we want to buy. We're going to do what we want to do. And we don't give a shit what our employees think about it, please. No comments.

Sir Gene:

have been their stance from the beginning. And I was

Ben:

asinine that it was anything else.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And that was one of the people that canceled when cuties came out, I was like, I've been on Netflix for 18 years or something very early on. And it's like, you guys are insane if this is what you're currently going to be showing.

Ben:

Well, and as a customer, that's an appropriate comment,

Sir Gene:

but I'm not like trying to get the company D listed off the stock exchange. I I'm,

Ben:

but, but

Sir Gene:

I'm fine. If a lot of us just no longer participate in that,

Ben:

well, but here here's the insane thing is the Dave Chappelle stuff and the employees that work there are trying to do that. That's, you know,

Sir Gene:

Well, if

Ben:

you know, bite the bite, the hand that.

Sir Gene:

yeah, And, I know you have, but if people have been listening to no agenda long enough, it's literally the noodle boy. It's like, well, I don't mind if the owner also works here, but they have to put in their fair, fair share of work. You know, like the rest of us do.

Ben:

And, and we should have a discussion on the rules

Sir Gene:

Yes, exactly. We should have a discussion. That's the way that these people working in that flakes were behaving. and that's the way that absolutely from personal experience, I've seen people behaving in Facebook. This is the way that Google people behave. This is the way the apple people behave. The,

Ben:

and let's

Sir Gene:

people that have entered the workforce in the last eight years or less, they have a very distorted view of what their place is in that work.

Ben:

and let's be clear gene because the people who we're talking about are in the 80%, not the 20%.

Sir Gene:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. They're they're not the ones that are the big movers. Yeah. And so I'm glad to hear that, but it may be too little too late and it very conveniently coincides with the fact that they had a, a big loss for the quarter, which resulted from a lot of people unsubscribing and more they're predicting a lot more will be unsubscribing. And so they would have had to lay people off anyway. And in some ways this is just a quote, good idea, unquote, that somebody came up with like, Hey, why don't we ask for voluntary people leaving voluntarily first?

Ben:

Willingness a way to get rid of the fifth column inside your own ranks.

Sir Gene:

Yeah. And, and if you are a a fan of Douglas Adams then you'll know that this is how the earth was populated is that there was a society that was running out of room or commodities or something, and they're like, okay, we're going to have to leave our planet. And we're gonna, we're going to send the most important people. The people that we can't live without on the first mega spaceship, and then the other two groups will follow on. So the three groups were people that do the actual. People that are the the business owners, the senior management and the third group was all in the middle management and the bureaucrats. And these were the people put on the first ship to get saved first, to go in repopulating a new world. And of course, the thing you're supposed to understand from that is that the first group and the second group realized that this third group is unnecessary and they're just consuming resources. And so if you get rid of them and you just learn to work together, then you end up having a much higher percentage of productive society. And the spaceship that actually left that contained all the, the, the middle management and the bureaucrats was the one that ultimately ended up landing on the earth. And that we are that population descendants of those people from that crash spaceship,

Ben:

So two things, because I don't think we've had a book recommendation yet. So I'll

Sir Gene:

don't know, Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy. There we go.

Ben:

yeah, well, there's that, there's that one from Jean. The other one I would say is oh shit, Orson Scott card. I'm going to have to look up the book. I think it's treason, but it's one of his first novels where it's human specialization. It's pretty interesting. I'll look it up for the next one. Since gene came up with Hitchhiker's guide,

Sir Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben:

think a good,

Sir Gene:

though. I

Ben:

I think a good way to end. This would just be to say so long and thanks for all the fish.