Gene: 0:14

Today were joined by like guy that I've known him for quite a while, but I've never met. His name's Adam. Adam, how are you?

Adam: 0:20

I am doing well. How are you, Gene

Gene: 0:22

good. Good. How long do you figure We've actually virtually met or known each other online?

Adam: 0:27

Oh, that's a really good question. I'd tell you at least, what, three or four years now?

Gene: 0:31

Probably. That's why I was thinking it's three to four years. Somewhere in that range. Cuz it was when I came back to our mutual group that plays world of Worships, which when, when I left, I don't think you were in. And then when I came back there you were.

Adam: 0:48

I just popped out of the middle of nowhere.

Gene: 0:50

That's right. And I actually do get kind of a kick out of making people's mouths open up a little bit. Say Yeah, I'm in the Texas Klan. Yep. Yep. We meet up, every, every week we've got we got some maneuvers that we go through.

Adam: 1:05

Yeah, yeah,

Gene: 1:06

Mm-hmm. So welcome, welcome. Texas Klan brother,

Adam: 1:10

Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Gene: 1:12

Uhhuh, Uhhuh So, and

Adam: 1:15

Was that not sincere enough?

Gene: 1:16

no, that was, that was perfect. I can see the your, your eyeballs darting back and forth through the phone lines there going what the hell am I getting myself?

Adam: 1:25

Oh man. I'm glad I wore my boots tonight cuz this is getting deep

Gene: 1:29

Yeah. Well, and I don't know if it's just world of Worships because different games use different nomenclature for what a group of people in the same group are referred to as. But certainly in World of Tanks, world of warships, it seems like clans are what these groups are called.

Adam: 1:49

yeah.

Gene: 1:50

Extended family unit for people that don't know the actual meaning

Adam: 1:54

well, I, we're basically family we're, granted I would say, we're a broken family, but we're, we're a family

Gene: 2:00

it's a lot of drinking going on in this family.

Adam: 2:04

Lots of therapy.

Gene: 2:05

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A lot of drunk conversations happen for sure. Also seem to be predominantly an older family. Now you are one of the younger whipper snappers in the group.

Adam: 2:16

I am.

Gene: 2:17

Yeah. And how old are you though?

Adam: 2:19

Oh, that's a good question. If I carry the 2 28.

Gene: 2:24

Yeah. So you're still in your twenties, so you were like in your mid twenties when we first started playing together.

Adam: 2:30

Yeah. Yeah. So one of our one of our clan mates I had actually, I never was in a clan, never was in any, online gaming groups. And we just kept getting dropped into these same battles, and

Gene: 2:42

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 2:43

sending me a message, and next thing hey, welcome to Texas.

Gene: 2:46

Yeah.

Adam: 2:48

And I've met a lot of great people. I've met a lot of stinkers too, but

Gene: 2:52

that's a good point. There's definitely been a good share of people coming through and sometimes staying for quite a while that fall into this stinker category. And, and really when you play a game with random people, the only thing you really give a shit about skill, like all the, teenage messages about your mother don't really matter if they're playing well. When you play with the same people over and over when you're in a group with them you, you kind of need to make sure the personalities don't rub each other wrong either. It's not just about the quality and the skill. It's about a combination of skill and behavior like towards each other.

Adam: 3:32

Yes.

Gene: 3:34

So

Adam: 3:35

it's a, it,

Gene: 3:38

yeah, it's there. There's definitely I think it's much easier to be in a group with like-minded folks playing games when the country that you're in isn't on the verge of civil war as well.

Adam: 3:52

Well, then again, there have been some pretty close civil wars in some of the groups that I've been in. I wouldn't say directing towards any one, but there's usually some conflict, but not to the extent that we're seeing here nationwide.

Gene: 4:05

yeah, yeah. That's, but I, I think things are still moving in the right direction or well, right direction in the direction of more conflict. There's a, a book that a friend of mine wrote many years back called Pendulum that historically goes through and documents a 40 slash 80 year cycle. So it's, it's 41 extreme to the other, or 80 to get back to where the pendulum was previously cycle. And the cycle that we're in right now is exactly at the very left word edge of that pendulum swing, where the the pendulum extreme points are between between sort of a socialist mentality or a mentality of groups. It doesn't have to be socialist in the political system, but just, it's basically groups. It's the we. And then the other extreme is it's the I or the me or the individualism. And so where we are today in 2023 is exactly 40 years from the pinnacle of the me, which was 1983.

Adam: 5:18

Yeah.

Gene: 5:19

So 83 was that point where if you weren't looking out for yourself and then there's something wrong with you, like people would be making fun of you. Everybody was all about the me, the self. And right now everything is group think. Everybody's talking and thinking in terms of what's good for the group, or which group's getting offended or what group's responsible. And regardless of whether you have any knowledge of the thing you're responsible for, I mean, straight white males pretty much responsible for everything. Bad period,

Adam: 5:54

Oh. Oh, I know. I'm Public Enemy number

Gene: 5:57

public enemy number one. But yet somehow believe in the science, which the science is pretty much the product of all those years and years of straight white males.

Adam: 6:06

Yeah.

Gene: 6:07

So it's funny how that works.

Adam: 6:09

Well, it's, it's funny that you say, we're in that 40 year swing on the pendulum. I would say it feels more like we're in that swing, but it's all the way to the left in someone's holding the

Gene: 6:20

mm-hmm. well in the, according to the book. So if you trace back through all the history 2023 was the, the edge. Or 83 or any of those. So basically we've now just entered and it's not even so much that the book makes predictions as it just talks about past cycles and that they're unc candidly the same length. And so this year is, if the same pattern holds, then this year should be the very edge of that group think mentality. And next year things should be starting to shift in the other direction, but it's gonna take 40 years to get to a point where everything is in the exact opposite side. That would be similar to 83, where it's the individualism, not the group think that is the standard, the norm for society.

Adam: 7:17

sure.

Gene: 7:19

So, and you can never, of course ever really say that it's fully predictable. It's just when you observe patterns in the past, quite often you can extrapolate them for the future.

Adam: 7:29

Well, wait a minute. Are you saying that you're looking at previous history and making a conclusion on what is going to happen?

Gene: 7:34

How extremely,

Adam: 7:36

That is

Gene: 7:37

old white male of me

Adam: 7:39

That is not allowed anymore.

Gene: 7:41

yes, that's part of, part of the problem clearly is looking at past history and, and doing analysis on it. I think analysis in general is problematic. Clearly that's, you should be thinking, with your. And not with your brain.

Adam: 7:55

I'm not even gonna comment on that.

Gene: 7:57

there's gonna be a bit of sarcasm here in this show. I

Adam: 7:59

I was, I I, I'm starting to pick up a little bit on it. A little bit. know, it, it's, it's the feel good generation is what we've been living in.

Gene: 8:08

and that that often comes from an abundance. An abundance and a lack of wars, a lack of conflict. It, it is something that makes people feel like, here's the thing, I I think people tend to have a need for a certain amount of stress.

Adam: 8:27

Yeah.

Gene: 8:28

And that stress can be external. It can come from literal hardships, or if those don't exist, if you're living in a, and look, nothing's utopian, but you're living closer to utopia, closer to what your grandparents would've thought as what they wanted for you, they don't want wars. They don't want any kind of lack of food. They like the things that your grandparents would wish for you. If you're actually living in those conditions, you're going to take things that aren't nearly as big and as stressful as what they live through, and still treat them with the exact same amount of stress. That much bigger things would've caused for previous generations.

Adam: 9:15

Yeah,

Gene: 9:16

so I think there is a, it's, it's almost like if you look at, at at this from a sociological standpoint like that, there's a correction that takes place. It's an automatic correction that, that kicks in in humanity. When things get to be too good, then people's temperaments will start creating conditions that will create the bad.

Adam: 9:43

sure.

Gene: 9:43

we're seeing that right now more the, the conflict happening in Ukraine, which I'm, I'm kind of in the process of relabeling as the slavi civil War because really, I think from a future context, looking back at it, that's what it's gonna be seen as. It's, it's the, the war of the slavi people with each other to a degree that's really never happened before. mean, certain, there have been certain countries that have certainly been at war with each other, but rarely has that been happening, where it's just happening in slavi countries. It's usually been a part of other conflicts. So, with what's happening right now, I think we were closer than we've ever been to the brink of nuclear annihilation. I certainly wasn't around when the Cuban missile crisis happened but I think we're closer to it today than we were during the Cuba missile crisis for a number of reasons. One is the number of atomic weapons right now on both sides is way higher than it was at that point in time. The the ability of each country to deliver those weapons without getting'em blown out of the sky is much higher as well. Like there's a better success rate, if you want to call it that, even though that success would mean the, in the humanity. But there's a better success rate in being able to deliver the nuclear weapons and annihilate the entire population. And it seems like while there's this slavi civil war happening, the US is doing everything that it can to antagonize the one side of that, the side with the nuclear weapons during this civil war. And it's God damn it, it, it's almost like people have a death wish.

Adam: 11:30

I, I, don't believe that we're any worse right now and the nuclear threat as we did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I do believe the threat is still there. I just, I really don't see the Ukrainian Russian War right now as being all that has been played up to be on the the way they're broadcasting it throughout the news.

Gene: 12:00

Now the propaganda is super

Adam: 12:02

the propaganda is unbelievable. I think this is, I don't know. I'm not gonna say I don't like, is it zelensky? The

Gene: 12:13

Oh, you can say it. I don't like Zelensky.

Adam: 12:15

well, I mean, I think he's just using this as a cash grab. I just wanted to pronounce a guy's name. Right.

Gene: 12:20

Yeah.

Adam: 12:21

But I think it's a cash grab. I think there's some kind of dirty, playbook going on in between him and Putin. I believe that they are in cahoots and they're trying to bankrupt us even worse than what we are right now. I think them and China and all of them are working together.

Gene: 12:36

yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it. I've heard some theories that China is definitely behind Zelensky in terms, not in terms of meki and wind, but in terms of maximizing, squeezing the most money out of the us. I have not heard of somebody proposing that Russia's doing that because, both Russians and Ukrainians are getting killed by the busload. So there's a lot of, there's a high cost to it. There's not a high cost to China. China can definitely, and they're one of the primary beneficiaries out of this conflict because they're the only ones that are, the only thing China's gotten as a result of this conflict is cheap oil from Russia.

Adam: 13:12

Yeah.

Gene: 13:13

So they're benefiting without participating.

Adam: 13:16

And I, and I really think that Biden had a hand in that also.

Gene: 13:20

Yeah. The connection between Biden through his kid and China just keeps getting just Mercury and Mercury.

Adam: 13:27

Well, yes. His son and that whole Barisma, Barisma I, whatever it was. And the fact that that Nord stream pipeline, that every, administration previously had said, absolutely not. We're not gonna pass that. And then he turns around on a first day of office, cancels our own pipeline ventures, and then green lights Putin to do that.

Gene: 13:49

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 13:51

that was pretty dirty. Now that's basically a choke hold on the entire European block countries, Germany they're, I know you and I have discussed it about how Germany is, on the brink of collapse.

Gene: 14:05

Yeah. Yeah. Their, their manufacturing base is just about permanently gone.

Adam: 14:13

I, I really think that there's a, and I kinda leans back to the globalist theory. I think that they are trying to eliminate individual nations, individual privacies, individual thoughts and, and freedoms and just trying to make it a globalist, we're the super controlling factor of everybody.

Gene: 14:33

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean the, there certainly seems to be a group of people, not a very large one, but a group of people who had the best years they've ever had for the last few years financially. Like they're profiting off covid, they're profiting off the Ukraine situation.

Adam: 14:51

Oh, they're definitely profiting off Covid.

Gene: 14:53

Oh yeah. Yeah. And you think about this, like in the us who benefits, who's, who are really the only people that benefit from the a hundred billion that the US is now committed to sending to the us. A lot of over half of which has already been sented. Well, it's the it's, it's the military manufacturers, it's the weapons manufacturers. This is a absolute boon for them because just after Biden pulled out of Afghanistan and incidentally left several billion dollars worth of weaponry there,

Adam: 15:24

Boy, that was a nice donation to the Taliban

Gene: 15:27

Oh yeah, the Taliban appreciated because they, they now, they've got a, a better equipped army than most of their neighbors, frankly. But also they have, there's just so much stuff there that they were able to liquidate a lot of it and sell it off. And it, you can't even call it black market cuz it's not black. It's legitimately their property that they're selling that was abandoned by the us

Adam: 15:47

Yeah.

Gene: 15:47

To, to be able to build up a nice, nice little war chest a nice fund of all the weaponry they've been able to sell that the US graciously donated to them. Well, not bringing that back was also a gift to the military manufacturers, because if you left it there, then it's gotta be replaced, right?

Adam: 16:06

Yeah.

Gene: 16:07

So they got a bump from that. And then after with the whole Ukraine situation, now they're getting a huge bump because a lot of the money that has been authorized isn't just a cash payment sent over there. Believe me, there's plenty of that unfortunately as well, which goes partly into Biden's pocket, I believe, partly into Zelensky S Pocket and partly into whoever the, the shadow staff is there that makes sure that all this money disappears. And by the time there's something that actually gets to Ukraine, it's, it's a small fraction of what was initially authorized and sent by the US. but even aside from that, the, the, a very large chunk of that money is just going directly from the US government to US manufacturers of these weapons in order to provide the replacements. And then the, the stuff that's actually sitting in the warehouses is what's being shipped over to Ukraine.

Adam: 17:07

Yeah. Well, maybe, hopefully some of that money that Biden got back on that, maybe he'll buy a better lock for his garage.

Gene: 17:15

Well, having classified documents in a house that his kid who is on the board of directors of Chinese companies as well as Ukrainian companies is living in, just seems to me like the kind of thing that gets you thrown out of office, but maybe not, I don't know. We'll find out I guess. But how, they're, they're, they're making such a big deal about Trump having classified documents in his home, in a locked room in Florida, and at the same exact time. In fact, even throughout this whole escapade, there's Biden who doesn't have the ability to declassify documents.

Adam: 17:54

Well, he does now, but he

Gene: 17:56

well now he does, but he didn't at the time that they, they were left there. So you can say he can certainly, he could declassify'em right now if he wanted to, but for three years the documents were sitting in a house he wasn't living in. But rather he was renting out to his kid. But it's almost irrelevant that that's his kid. He was renting that house out and that house had classified documents.

Adam: 18:18

Yeah,

Gene: 18:19

How do you not get in trouble for that?

Adam: 18:21

well, he probably forgot and he profoundly forgot that he was even renting a house to his crackhead son.

Gene: 18:25

and I think you're right on both counts. And a person that keeps forgetting those things has no business being the president of the country.

Adam: 18:33

Well, neither does Herman Munster being a senator for Pennsylvania

Gene: 18:38

the people of Pennsylvania have clearly spoken, I'm sorry, I can't even say that with a straight face. It, it is just so ridiculous. The, the fact that they would elect somebody with no brain,

Adam: 18:53

Well, I mean, he is still got a brain. It's just some of it's on vacation right now.

Gene: 18:57

I don't think it's ever coming back, man. This, this guy can barely remember his name. I mean, it's, I remember when my dad was in a major car accident, they had to airlift him from the car wreck to a hospital, and then it took, like a day for him to regain consciousness and stuff. And he could speak, he could use words. They weren't always the right words. He, I remember he would say that, when he looked at an analog clock, he knew that it was a clock, but he couldn't tell what time it was. Because the, the part of the memory that corresponded to the locations of the hands wasn't working like he was gone. So he, he looked, he knew where to look to see what time it was, but couldn't tell what time it was,

Adam: 19:47

Yeah.

Gene: 19:48

stuff like that.

Adam: 19:50

And I, and I'm sure you noticed, when someone goes through something like that, a stroke, and they lose, simple, common abilities, the frustration and the anger is

Gene: 20:01

Oh, it builds up.

Adam: 20:02

awful. So now we have an angry guy that was already angry before chasing around an African American man with a shotgun. That's the other thing that blows my mind. If that would've been anybody on the G o P ticket and that came out, they would've rode that. Like Dead Horse said it was,

Gene: 20:20

Oh. But, Democrats aren't racist by definition.

Adam: 20:22

oh, I'm sorry. I, I forgot. I

Gene: 20:24

Yeah. You gotta remember

Adam: 20:25

Remember, I'm just, I'm just the, the simple minded white guy. I'm remember we're, I'm Public Enemy number one,

Gene: 20:31

Well, you are, you are. And you're part of the screwed over generation as well. Now, I did an interview previously on this channel with Zach, who was a a zoomer. He, he's 20 years old right now, and he was one of the guys that Covid hit when he was a senior in high school. So basically his entire senior year got fucked over. and see like your senior year in high school is something most guys look forward to for at least five, six years. previous to

Adam: 20:58

yeah. Not for, all of the

Gene: 21:00

Oh. For,

Adam: 21:00

education. Yeah, oh yeah, The educational purposes. yeah.

Gene: 21:04

it's completing your education. Yes. That's what

Adam: 21:06

Well, I mean, technically that would, I would consider that your education,

Gene: 21:11

So now, at, at your age let's see. So you were, you were still in high school or junior high during the last financial downturn? Like 2009. 2010.

Adam: 21:23

2008, 2009. So that would've put me right. Coming out of middle school. Yeah.

Gene: 21:29

Okay. So you, you're probably a little too young to really notice anything about it.

Adam: 21:34

Oh, no, I remember. I mean, being in a family business, I definitely remember all of the hardships that were going on.

Gene: 21:40

Yeah. Family businesses felt a lot more, I'm think, than just people working at regular jobs.

Adam: 21:45

oh, for sure. As the housing market exploded, I remember all of the, you. People saying that the times were coming to an end and then, shortly after the economic turndown, then we had that whole 2012 Mayan clock. Everybody's gonna die. The world's coming into it. I, I feel like everybody has lived through enough, world ending crisises

Gene: 22:06

Yeah.

Adam: 22:07

I just kind of hear about the next one. I go, really? Why can't we just move on and just keep working? I mean, this is stupid.

Gene: 22:15

and, and there does seem to be a crisis about every decade, give or take. And the older I get, the more I recognize this is a regular phenomenon, but it's always treated as the, the, it's like first time in a hundred years that's how it's treated. So there's, for me, I remember when, when George Bush Sr. Pulled us into the first Gulf War and

Adam: 22:37

invaded Kuwait,

Gene: 22:39

yes, Domin va, like two countries in the Middle East that have nothing to do with the us,

Adam: 22:44

oil, oil, buddy, there's oil over

Gene: 22:46

Well, that's the connection, obviously. Right? But, and, and incidentally, out of those two, it was Iraq that the US had supplied with weapons. And the leader was extremely friendly to the US because during the Iran Iraq war, the US was very much propping up Iraq, which probably would've lost that war. And Iran would've dominated Iraq. And we wouldn't have had AAM Posse and Kuwait would've been invaded. But because the US was propping up Iraq, we ended up where we were. And incidentally, he had a, a very good reason to invade Kuwait. Which was I think obfuscated during the war, but became very cleared after the fact, which is that Kuwait was drilling diagonally underneath their border with Iraq to suck out Iraqi oil. So, and, and this is, this is something that they, they, it's not like it happened out of the blue. They were warned about, there was conversation about it, there was threats from Iraq that if you don't stop doing this, we're gonna come in and shut down your wells.

Adam: 23:57

Yeah.

Gene: 23:58

And then they did.

Adam: 23:59

Yep.

Gene: 24:00

And the US clearly somebody in the state department made the case that, we don't really need Iraq because they're not really fighting Iraq anymore. So here's a plan for us to get a whole bunch of free oil out of there. All we gotta do is just come in and topple their, their leadership and then we'll get at least a decade of free oil.

Adam: 24:20

Yeah,

Gene: 24:22

And that's kind of what happened.

Adam: 24:24

that's exactly what

Gene: 24:25

Mm-hmm. So it, it is the worst behavior that the US gets accused of quite frequently, which is imperialism which is ignoring the standards, norms of international treaties and order and just coming up with these rationalizations for, for why us. Sticks its foot into other countries with a fairly substantial US military footprint. And you start, you you, you notice one or two of these when you're young. And as you get older, you just start seeing a pattern again because they're, this happens on the regular basis. The US is always trying to come up with what, what's the next country that we're gonna have a conflict with? What are we gonna do? Even during the relative peace time of bill Clinton's administration in the late nineties, like we still managed to bomb Serbia,

Adam: 25:24

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 25:25

and which again over the years have it is, it is been demonstrated that all the reasons, all the rationale that was brought up as to why it's happening was entirely made up. There were no atrocities being committed. There were no mass graves. It was all propaganda. It was all bullshit. It was just a civil war happening in the country where the US got the itchy trigger finger and probably prompted by money from donations from Raytheon and other military contracts said, Hey, there's something going on there. It'd be great if we got involved because then we can sell some weapons.

Adam: 26:00

Yeah.

Gene: 26:01

And for whatever reason, the US picked the Muslim side over the ca, the, Christian side of that. And ended up bombing the hell out of this Christian country

Adam: 26:12

Well, we gotta be equal opportunity

Gene: 26:14

equally Yeah. Well, we've, we've certainly bombed plenty of Buddhists in Vietnam and every other religious denomination out there over the years. So it, it is not at all a surprise to me that the US is trying to pour more gasoline on the the fire that is the slavi civil war. It, it absolutely is part for the course. The difference here is historically the US has done this with countries where the conflict is, know, it's a third world thing.

Adam: 26:49

Yeah.

Gene: 26:50

So this is the first time that they're doing it with, directly with another superpower. And I think that's where the danger lies. And that's why I think right now we are much closer than we've ever been to Annihilation. And I know it's easy to say, wow, it's just tar power. Nobody in their right mind would launch stuff. It doesn't take somebody in their right mind or wrong mind. All it takes is for a mistake to be made.

Adam: 27:14

Yeah,

Gene: 27:15

That's it. And it, and it, one side makes a mistake. The other side responds to it, and then the first side response to that response. That's all it is.

Adam: 27:26

but

Gene: 27:26

It, it's, it has nothing to do with even a, blood lust for.

Adam: 27:31

I, I, my biggest struggle is I'm really trying to see the justification that can be said for why the US has to be so involved in this conflict. There is no, I, I don't

Gene: 27:44

It's financial. That's all it is.

Adam: 27:46

I know it's financial, but it's only Pat in the backs of a select few that are in powered to make these decisions.

Gene: 27:53

Yep.

Adam: 27:53

I don't see any benefit for the United States as a country to be involved in that. In fact, I think we should be staying well clear of it.

Gene: 28:03

Yeah.

Adam: 28:05

But, hey, we got, we got Uncle Joe and we got Herman Mun and, and we got well, not I, I guess not anymore, but we did have old granny Pelosi.

Gene: 28:16

Oh yeah. Granny Pelosi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's I think you just use M's. Razor. The, the thing that makes the most sense is the most likely course of events here. And the way that Congress operates is they're not trying to do what's good for the people that elect them. They do what will generate them the most money coming in, in fundraising and the, the, where the majority of that money comes from are special interest.

Adam: 28:47

Yeah.

Gene: 28:47

the lobbyists that are providing huge amounts of money from corporations, from not even just individual corporations, but special interest groups for that industry.

Adam: 29:00

Well, that kind of leads back and ties into one of the reasons that both sides of the aisle had such a problem with Trump when he was in office. Now, let me phrase again, like we'd spoke to one another in the past. I am not a super Trump dude. I didn't like him when he ran. I didn't like some of the stuff he'd done. But he was uncontrollable from the political narrative. He didn't need their money.

Gene: 29:25

right?

Adam: 29:26

And I think that that was one of the reasons that, both sides of the is had so many problems with him and wanted to get him as far away as.

Gene: 29:34

I totally agree. I think, and this is the same reason that right now the the villain of the hour is Elon Musk

Adam: 29:42

Yeah.

Gene: 29:43

because he is not viable. He doesn't need other people's money because he's literally the richest man on the planet. And consequently, if you can't buy somebody off, that makes them dangerous

Adam: 30:00

Yeah.

Gene: 30:00

minds of these folks.

Adam: 30:02

Well, we'll see if Elon continues being the wealthiest man in the world with this whole Twitter scandal.

Gene: 30:08

Oh, I think he I think the, he's got enough buffer there that even if Twitter goes out of business, he's still the wealthiest man in the world.

Adam: 30:15

Really? I would've figured that Amazon dude

Gene: 30:17

no, Amazon's not doing great. Their stock went down like 26%.

Adam: 30:22

Really?

Gene: 30:23

Yeah.

Adam: 30:24

Hmm.

Gene: 30:24

Amazon really peaked during Covid. It was a time where everybody, even people that were still driving to Walmart to buy shit or wherever your store happens to be even those people just said, fuck it. I'm just ordering from Amazon. It's, it's they're they currently have a hiring freeze and for an, all of Amazon, all divisions of Amazon are under a hiring freeze. And this is, this is after they already had layoffs, I think back in November, I believe is when they had some layoffs.

Adam: 31:01

See I've, I've got a friend that, that works for Amazon and I, last, last, yeah. everybody has a buddy, you know your buddy is in your neighborhood with Amazon. He, he's in conversations I had with him cuz I remember I reading on the news that Amazon was doing a bunch of layoffs and closing down a lot of facilities and the first thing he said was that, is anything Amazon related, not related to fulfillment centers.

Gene: 31:29

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 31:30

They are still building those and they are still hiring like crazy for the

Gene: 31:35

Oh, that's, that's probably true. But a lot of those fulfillment centers, they have low wage workers and robots. But yeah, so I just pulled up Amazon, so Amazon for a year from last year this time, so exactly a year goes trading at 158,

Adam: 31:51

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 31:52

and right now it's trading at 87.

Adam: 31:56

Mm,

Gene: 31:57

That's a pretty big difference. That's, that's actually over a 35% drop here.

Adam: 32:05

See, I hadn't realized I'd dropped that hard.

Gene: 32:07

Yeah. And

Adam: 32:08

I don't, I don't play the stock game. That,

Gene: 32:10

Sure. Well, they peaked at 170 last year, and on Jan in the beginning of January, they were 81. So they, they literally are, were at half their peak of last year just last week. Now they're up a little bit since then

Adam: 32:25

Well, they're up, 2.99%

Gene: 32:28

Their year to date is up from 86 to 98, so it's a decent bump back up. But generally speaking, Amazon's, banner time is the fourth quarter of the year. It's a Christmas, it's holidays shopping. So the fact that that didn't happen really last year, it's kind of, that was a big, I think a big reason for the dropping stock price.

Adam: 32:52

Yeah. Cuz in the past year they're down 38.26%. That's ouch.

Gene: 32:57

Yep. So I don't think it's gonna be Bezos And meanwhile SpaceX, I don't know if you're a space dude at all or not, but they just did a, a very beautiful launch of the the heavy version of their, their rocket yesterday.

Adam: 33:13

Oh really?

Gene: 33:14

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so if you haven't watched it, you probably just watch a YouTube re replay. They very rarely do them, but it, because most companies don't want to pay the money for, for doing that launch. It's significantly more expensive than their single rocket, more typical launch that they do. It just looks cooler. I mean, it's visually

Adam: 33:36

Oh, it's, it's stunning. It's

Gene: 33:38

Yeah. And then, watching those boosters. Pop off the sides and then fly themselves back to their, their location where they flew off from and then land and literally land together. I mean, it's just like, this has gotta be sci-fi. This can't actually be real, that a rocket can just bring itself back and land on the launch fad.

Adam: 34:02

SpaceX is an excellent example of what the free market can do and can in the, I don't know how long has, have they been around what, 15

Gene: 34:13

a while actually. But they, they, it took'em a while to really get their legs out together.

Adam: 34:17

But in the short amount of time that they have done this, it's incredible what they are doing as compared to the decades of nasa. and government, government constraints and regulations and, and think tanks and all of these, I, I know how government projects goes. They're, they're slow. They're extremely

Gene: 34:36

they were founded 20 years ago.

Adam: 34:38

20 years ago, so from 20 years ago, Elon is still, he's, you know what, he's still messing around with PayPal back

Gene: 34:46

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 34:47

and now they're sending, these incredible rockets into space.

Gene: 34:52

They are the only means the US currently has to send people and stuff to the iss. You remember for how many years when the, after the space shuttle was retired that the US had to rely in Russia,

Adam: 35:06

Yeah.

Gene: 35:08

So literally SpaceX is the only means to do it.

Adam: 35:11

Isn't that kind of, it's funny to think, it's kind of ironic cuz I remember the Soviet Union, they built a copy of the space shuttle called the Barran.

Gene: 35:21

Barran? Yep.

Adam: 35:22

They made one launch with it and then went, tits up bankrupt and couldn't afford to, to continue with the program. And here's the United States, flexing our muscles, going, look at us, we got all these shuttles and, and we're doing all this cool shit. And now we have to shut our own program down and call up Putin and say, Hey you, you, don't mind piggybacking us up to the station we built. Huh?

Gene: 35:44

Yeah. Well, and that's the funny thing is like all the American astronauts, up until a few years back when SpaceX got approved for ferrying humans they all have to learn Russian to be able to get to the iss because you need to, in case of emergency, like you need to, you, you're not just a passenger, right? When you're a part of the crew going up to the iss in the sous module, you're, each of those three people has a job to do. There there are no passengers, everyone's crew. And so part of that included learning Russian to be able to communicate with the guys, and then reading all the labels on all the sensors and stuff. And of course now that, that no longer has to happen because SpaceX just has iPads in front of everybody. You, you've seen the inside of a dragons capsule, right?

Adam: 36:36

Yeah.

Gene: 36:37

Yeah. It's very impressive. It's it's super minimalist. It's just like a Tesla. Like you get in there and there's nothing but a touchscreen in front of you.

Adam: 36:44

Yeah. Well, keep it simple. There's no point in over complicating something

Gene: 36:48

No,

Adam: 36:49

that's been my motto for years.

Gene: 36:51

yeah, just keep it. So that explains why you're not married,

Adam: 36:55

Well, keep it simple. Hey, you're the same way.

Gene: 36:57

Yeah. Well, I learned my lesson. I wa I was married. Took me, it took me in marriage to realize that hang on. Now there's pros, but boys there're cons. But yeah. Yeah. And that's a, actually, that brings us over to a, a fun topic to talk about, which

Adam: 37:14

Okay.

Gene: 37:14

Generationally we're certainly far enough apart. Not quite young enough to be my kid. But you're certainly in the general vicinity thereof, where you, you went through the experiences that I went through after many, many years. So I've noticed certainly with the the Zoomers and probably the, the youngest of the millennials that there's definitely been a change that in attitudes towards dating and sex and relationships. And I think part of it is course is driven by having a a cellphone in your hand at all times. And instead of going to a bar to meet people, you look at your phone and you flick left or right to meet people. And other things like that have changed the way that human relationships start and the way that people interact with each other. What's your take on that? Because I, I don't know if you're like doing the old fashioned way or if you're along with everybody your age, you're part of that generation and what, what are your thoughts about relationships?

Adam: 38:20

Well, I think relationships are more difficult now because of the, a augmentation of the internet. A lot of it, I think, and why a lot of people have relationship issues nowadays, at least at my age, are social media. Everybody looks at what everybody else is doing. Oh, well, look, they're doing so well and they're going on vacation all the time, and you won't even take me out and take me down to the Golden Corral once a month. Again, you're, you're, you're

Gene: 38:49

for

Adam: 38:50

your, your area may vary, so, but I, I don't know. And the online dating, I think is just it, it's awful. You can't really meet somebody and get to know someone through a picture and a little story about who they are. I've

Gene: 39:10

But

Adam: 39:11

and I think it also reflects, I mean, if you look at how many people get married, at a young age nowadays, compared to 40 years ago, or even longer

Gene: 39:20

Yeah. Nobody getting married?

Adam: 39:22

nobody's getting married anymore. Kids are still being made. Oh, there's a lot of kids being born, but there's a lot of broken families and no dad, and,

Gene: 39:31

Yep.

Adam: 39:33

I don't know, I think, I think it's a slippery slope that started a few years ago, and now we're, we're on a, we're, we're like Chevy Chase and Christmas vacation. We're, we're going down it. And we're, we're not gonna have an easy stop at the end.

Gene: 39:48

Yeah. And it, and you think about it, it's like in the past, before all this stuff existed, when you approach somebody. You didn't have a picture and a little story that you could scroll through and then have 30 or a hundred different people. You just looked at, you, you were getting an ere at a bar, and the only thing you saw was their current the way that they look right now.

Adam: 40:13

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 40:14

And then you, you'd have to go over to'em and come up with some bullshit reason to start a conversation. And then if she liked the way that you looked right now while you're hammered, then she would continue that conversation. And

Adam: 40:28

well and there's a, and, and the, and the truth always comes out when you have a lot of drunk people around. I mean, people get loosened up and really, show who they are. And I think that's one of the reasons so many people got married and got divorced is

Gene: 40:44

Well it, it's I don't know man, I again, maybe that's, maybe you're absolutely right here because it's if you look back a hundred years, people would meet at church,

Adam: 40:53

Yeah.

Gene: 40:53

not at a bar. And then you look at back to my youth and it was definitely meeting at a bar. And then you look at right now and it's, texting each other on the phone based on the photo. A, a curated photo of your best version of yourself along with something witty that was in the bio. And then how many people put that they like dogs in there even though they don't really like dogs

Adam: 41:19

Probably more than I would

Gene: 41:21

because everybody's told Oh yeah. Women love, to hear that you're into pets.

Adam: 41:26

Oh, yeah. Well, and if you scroll through a online dating, now it's 90%, or, oh, it's just me and my two dogs and you better love my dogs, or it ain't gonna work.

Gene: 41:37

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Adam: 41:39

That, or, or mostly, oh, I've got four kids and four different baby daddies and, and looking for a good man to take care of me and my kids. Well, I, that's not gonna really be a great start off to, hi, I'm so-and-so. You,

Gene: 41:54

Here, come and fix my mistakes.

Adam: 41:56

yeah. Basically,

Gene: 41:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just, I don't I don't feel like the all the technology has really solved any problems.

Adam: 42:07

I think It has made it worse.

Gene: 42:08

it shifted things. Yeah. And the, the idea of seeing other people doing things, better with Instagram or whatever, I don't know that it's a whole lot different because in the past there, well, people have always had movies or photos or images or of, of people that are doing better than them. Celebrities, famous people, rich people, whatever. You know how many people have seen somebody lounging on a yacht in Monaco? I'd say a hundred percent of the population.

Adam: 42:37

Yeah.

Gene: 42:38

now all of a sudden you were

Adam: 42:39

It becomes

Gene: 42:40

people, Yeah. It's what am I doing wrong? That they're doing right. That they get to have this thing.

Adam: 42:44

it brings keeping up with the Joneses to a new

Gene: 42:48

Right. Right. And that's certainly I remember that when I was married and you started accumulating like married friends there. It's absolutely a fricking competition there for spending money. it's, whether it's the size of the house you own, the type of car you drive, how old is the car you drive, where are you vacationing? Are you a member of this golf course? Like the keeping up with the Jones' thing is the pastime of married life.

Adam: 43:14

Well, and I think that's where, fake breasts really originated was Wow. So-and-so's wife has got a really nice rack. Hey, let's go get them installed on you and, oh, look at my wife's new titties.

Gene: 43:25

Yeah, I think that that's a, probably a big part of it. I think. I think the, speaking of big breasts and or fake breasts, I should say, I think a lot of'em happen from women with low self-esteem that are thinking they're gonna gain self-esteem by having big fake boobs. And then part of it is certainly the men encouraging their girlfriends. I think it's more girlfriends than wives though, honestly. But encouraging their, their females to augment. Because while the men can use all the reasons, the rationale, how she's gonna be happy with it, but ultimately guys always get a value out of being seen with a hot woman. That's part of your social standing is how hot is the woman that is willing to be with you? Because if you can't, if you can't have a hot looking chick on your arm, then clearly women, all women have mutually determined that you're worthless. And so having that hot looking woman on your arm is the way that you raise your social standing with other guys.

Adam: 44:40

Yeah.

Gene: 44:42

And definitely the case for me. Man. I, I had a hottie.

Adam: 44:45

Why? So I have heard, I've heard you talk a lot about that.

Gene: 44:50

Mm, yeah, yeah, no, she was so when I, when I first met, met her and we got married pretty quick, but when I first met her, she was 23 years old and looked just like Natalie Portman.

Adam: 45:00

Oh,

Gene: 45:02

So that, that gives you a good visual indicator. So thin very cute. Just had those, those kind of,

Adam: 45:09

Which, which you and you, you two get along today.

Gene: 45:13

we do. I mean we,

Adam: 45:14

it's all water under the bridge.

Gene: 45:16

yeah, we don't talk that often, but we probably talk every six months or something.

Adam: 45:20

So was it just a kind of grew apart thing?

Gene: 45:23

Nah, she fucked another guy.

Adam: 45:25

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, props to you for being decent

Gene: 45:31

Well,

Adam: 45:31

Cause I, I would've a, I, well, I would, I would sure

Gene: 45:35

Here's the thing though. The guy that she ended up cheating on me with, she's still with now 10 years, 11 years later.

Adam: 45:43

Hmm,

Gene: 45:43

So, so it, it wasn't like a one-off thing. Clearly there was something there. Which I don't know if that necessarily makes me feel any better because obviously we should have had a conversation when she was tired of the marriage before she went out looking for somebody else. But that's not what women do. Statistically speaking, if a guy wants to break out with a woman, they will do that and then revel in their freedom by going out and, having all kinds of new girlfriends women typically will not break up with a guy until they have the next thing lined up.

Adam: 46:22

and it's usually followed with when, when the conversation does arise. Well, I didn't wanna make you mad. Well,

Gene: 46:28

there's all kinds of rationalizations and it's all bullshit and it's always like they're trying to be, you let you off the co let, let you down slowly or some bullshit like that.

Adam: 46:37

The it's, it's not you, it's me.

Gene: 46:41

Well, it, yeah, yeah. Which probably is true, but it's nonetheless, it's one of those things where you definitely get the signs, like every guy that's either been cheated on or, or has had a woman break up only to run into her a week later with somebody else knows that if you start looking back on the previous six months to a year of your relationship, like all the signs are there, you were just ignoring him.

Adam: 47:07

Yeah.

Gene: 47:08

Like it's, it, it's the kind of stuff where you can either start getting suspicious or you can just say, ah, it's probably nothing. I'm just being paranoid. And I think most of the guys just think that they're being paranoid, but, if you paid attention, the, generally the signs are there because all of a sudden they're not the ones nagging you to do stuff together. Now all of a sudden they're perfectly fine with you going off and playing video games.

Adam: 47:36

mm-hmm.

Gene: 47:37

I was like, wait a minute, is that for the better or the worse? Did she, she finally used to this where it's like a normal thing and, and I'm good. Or does this actually mean she doesn't give a shit because she's fulfilling her needs elsewhere? Right. So that's the thing. That's why I, I, my current policy is just have fun. I, I like women, I like dating women. I think the right age for a woman is between 20 and 24.

Adam: 48:05

Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's youthful, man. That's,

Gene: 48:08

no, that's the right age man. Mm-hmm. because if you can have a choice, why not

Adam: 48:13

Well, I mean, I can't blame you there,

Gene: 48:16

And and I have zero interest in being married again. I don't need to like, find somebody that is my age, that is, that is financially set and everything, and it's a why, what, what is that gonna get me? Nothing?

Adam: 48:28

Hey, get you, get you a big old sugar mama.

Gene: 48:30

And well, and people say, well, yeah, but man, aren't you afraid of dying alone? It's I, here's what I, what I would prefer is I would love to die during sex, and that ain't gonna happen if I'm with a woman my own age. That's my goal. That's my way out, is I want to be as happy as possible for my last moments on this earth.

Adam: 48:52

I can't blame you.

Gene: 48:54

Yeah. It's, it's one of those things that I think most men, would

Adam: 48:58

I mean, that's, that's kind of a, kind of a, the, the generic male fantasy of, that's, that's how I think I would like to go out. But

Gene: 49:06

Totally.

Adam: 49:07

I feel like that would be terrible for, for her, you

Gene: 49:10

Yeah. Whatever.

Adam: 49:10

Whatever. I mean, although that would be some bragging rights, man, that was such good that

Gene: 49:16

yeah.

Adam: 49:16

killed the guy.

Gene: 49:17

exactly. And there, I think there are women that have done that with multiple men and that they usually end up pretty wealthy,

Adam: 49:22

Yeah.

Gene: 49:24

mm-hmm.

Adam: 49:24

mm-hmm.

Gene: 49:26

So, yeah. I'm, I'm all for that. I, I don't see a problem with it and frankly not, not implying anything for you personally there, but guys in their twenties right now are so fucking clueless and poor. It's just, it, it's almost like shooting fish in a barrel because the, it's not like you're competing with a guy that's, that's gonna bring anything really to the table when you're my age, to, to these younger women because they're, they're not even, well, some of'em are looking, I'm sure, but a lot of'em aren't even that's not even consideration for them to date somebody in their twenties because they don't think guys can get their shit together until they're in their mid 30.

Adam: 50:04

Yeah. Well, and, and I, I kind of have to agree with that cuz there's a lot of. In my age range that definitely don't have their shit together. But that kind of leads back to the saying of you are never gonna be able to better yourself unless you are around people's. That will make you

Gene: 50:28

Absolutely. And I think you gotta focus on the things that that make you more interesting. Like for example, you fly. I mean, you don't have wings growing outta the back of your

Adam: 50:41

you sure? Oh, well, dang, you let the truth out, I'm just, flying like an eagle. No I, of course, for me, I don't find that as a very, special thing to me it's, it's no different in driving a car. But then again, I've been around it my whole life

Gene: 50:54

Right? Right. Exactly. But I think for a lot of people, that's a huge difference. Like the percentage of people with pilot licenses is tiny.

Adam: 51:02

it, it, and it used to be so much bigger. General aviation used to be more common practice back in the day, and now it is just kind of like a, a taboo thing to go and do. And a lot of it, flying an airplane is not hard. I, I believe anybody can pick it up and.

Gene: 51:21

Yeah. Well, I mean, I fly spaceships, so

Adam: 51:23

Well, yeah, you've lost spaceships. I mean, I mean, hell, you could have owned a quite a few airplanes from what you've generously donated to.

Gene: 51:30

xna, the the amount

Adam: 51:32

yeah, Yeah. But I, the, it kinda leads, ties back into the conversation about guys are, and, in their twenties are clueless and is, there's no strive, there's no dedication to trying to get their pilot's license because it is a lengthy process.

Gene: 51:51

I remember there was a kid in my high school that senior year of high school that, in fact, I think there was more than one. I think there's a couple of people I knew that got their pilot's licenses when they were in high school.

Adam: 52:01

Oh, yeah. My dad, he got his pilot's license before he got his driver's license,

Gene: 52:06

Holy shit. Yeah. There you go. Mm-hmm.

Adam: 52:09

But it's a lengthy process and there's a lot of work you gotta do, a lot of studying. I mean, it's like a, a college class that you're trying to pass. And it can be, it can be expensive, it can be, affordable. That is one of the things about General being a pilot,

Gene: 52:25

Yeah.

Adam: 52:26

like, oh, well, you've gotta be a millionaire to own an airplane. You're just, you just must ship gold bricks at night.

Gene: 52:32

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 52:33

Well, there's different levels for every financial

Gene: 52:37

But, but you have to agree that when it comes to buying accessories, bits and pieces, airplanes are so much more expensive than

Adam: 52:45

Oh, absolutely. And that, that is all thanks in part to the federal government, and I believe a lot of their overstep into aviation.

Gene: 52:56

yeah.

Adam: 52:56

Any, if it's gonna be FAA approved, you might as well triple the price of what it would cost for anything non-certified. But if that's an issue, buy an experimental airplane, now you can put, you can go down to your auto zone and, and grab something, throw it on there.

Gene: 53:10

Yeah. It's the thing that I think never, or, or the reason that I never really got into airplanes and I, I've, I've probably done over the multitude of years, probably about 3000 hours of simulation flying.

Adam: 53:25

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 53:25

But the reason I never really bothered trying to go in for getting real pilots license and getting, taking lessons and stuff, it's because a big part of it is the, you have to go through all the checklists. Every time you do stuff, every time you get on the plane, every time X number of hours rolls around on the engine, every time X, y, and Z happens. And for good reason. I'm not disputing that you should be doing this. It's just. I really dislike doing shit like that. I don't like checklists. I don't like being forced to do things that were 99.9% of the time. The answer is gonna be it's all fine. It's just you're looking for that 0.1%. And again, I'm not disputing on that you should do'em or why you do'em. It's just that completely turns me off of activities that require that type of maintenance, if you will.

Adam: 54:24

So when it comes to checklists, are they required Yes and no. they there for your safety and to make sure that you get everything done correctly? Yes. If like you've got a guy that's been flying the same airplane for the last 40 years, he pretty well has it down pat. What to do, where to look for what to touch, what not to touch. Checklist is kind of

Gene: 54:46

but I really enjoy having stuff, whether it's a car or a gun or something else

Adam: 54:52

Well, remember, you are supposed to read your firearms owner's manual every time.

Gene: 54:56

Uhhuh, Uhhuh, Yeah.

Adam: 54:58

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gene: 54:59

I just having stuff that works like on one of my Glocks I think I did this is again, I still have, it's an one of my olds guns. And it was when both I was doing, taking my own classes and when I was a firearms instructor it's got somewhere in the neighborhood, 50,000 rounds through it

Adam: 55:17

Wow.

Gene: 55:19

in, it had, it's on a second barrel right now. But I did easily 10,000 rounds without cleaning the gun. Now I, I've cleaned it plenty of times before and after, but there was a stint there where I shot about 10,000 rounds without a cleaning and the gun always performed. It never,

Adam: 55:40

Glock's quality.

Gene: 55:41

they're design. Yeah. And that was using the old barrels, which were better, in my opinion. They were hexagonal. The new barrels are more like the traditional barrels with the, the grooves. The hexagonal barrels, I think are the ultimate don't worry about it. Barrel

Adam: 55:55

Well, and I imagine, well, how, how old is that pistol?

Gene: 55:59

I think I bought it, I wanna say in shit, man. Probably 94. 93. 94

Adam: 56:05

probably old enough that it's probably got a lot better steel in it than what is produced today.

Gene: 56:12

maybe. But I mean, it is on second barrel, but it's.

Adam: 56:16

Yeah.

Gene: 56:17

It, it's also heavily, heavily modified. Like I, that was the gun. I did a ton of gunsmithing too. Which is also why I kept it cuz I can't really sell it. It's just not like it. The, the amount of time and money I've put into it will never be recouped because people actually probably pay less for it, instead of more. So consequently that gun is mine forever. But that's all right cuz it's also kind of sentimental where all the other guns that I have are, well, most of'em are, are Springfield X dms I just bought, I just talked about it on the episode. That's not released yet. Another show that I just got a xds gun that I picked up for. Damn cheap, amazingly good

Adam: 57:00

Very good bargain.

Gene: 57:02

Yeah. Which is a, just a single stack, nine millimeter compact carry gun. And, but it came with a red dot. And it was like 360 I think. So very, very good deal. Still haven't picked it up yet. I gotta probably wait another day or two before it shows up at the, at the store. But

Adam: 57:18

Well, you would've been losing money if you hadn't bought it.

Gene: 57:21

yeah, I mean, you kind of had to by that, but for the most part I've kind of standardized on, on the Springfield plastic guns if you will.

Adam: 57:29

I used to have great distaste for anything with a plastic lower,

Gene: 57:33

mm-hmm.

Adam: 57:34

I, I've always thought, I'm gonna do God's work, with a trustee old 1911. It's, Tried and true and, and finally started venting off into some plastic guns. And it's really kind of changed my motto.

Gene: 57:52

Yep. Well, I, I've also done a similar thing with the AR versus a a K because the AR just seemed like always such a better design weapon, but in the end, what you're looking for is a gun that always functions.

Adam: 58:07

yeah.

Gene: 58:08

And, and that's where the AK really shines through, is shooting the AR platform. I've got a bunch of different guns that, that are with on that platform, but I've I've certainly had to clear my share of malfunctions on those guys. So, again, gets overheated or it just gets too gummed up with the the carbon coming off of the exhaust from the gas system. There, there's a variety of things that you need to clean and take care of that gun. It's not quite as bad as like a high end 1911, which is you used the wrong ammo type, sorry, not gonna.

Adam: 58:46

Yeah.

Gene: 58:46

Wrong brand of ammo, not, not type, the right type, wrong brand, wrong company made it, and the gun just stops working all of a sudden. But nonetheless, the, the AR is fairly finicky as well, where in the modern AKs, and I'm not talking about an actual like 1940s or fifties ak, but the companies that are using that design but creating the guns in modern processes are both extremely robust and require virtually no maintenance. And they've addressed the the negatives that the AK had in the past as well. So what you end up with is kind of a best of both worlds. One of which is not having a fricking recoil buffer system coming outta the back of the gun, making it twice as long.

Adam: 59:35

Well, the AK was really developed to just be fixed with a hammer and a trench. Throw it in the mud, throw it in the snow, it's, it's gonna work. And that's always kind of been anything that was Soviet manufactured was just make it simple. Make it to where, the farmer that's out there defending the homeland is gonna be able to use it.

Gene: 59:57

Yep.

Adam: 59:59

I've had, I've, I've had one ak wish I would've never gotten rid of it. Had an sks and that was probably my favorite. I really

Gene: 1:00:06

Really, because that's like the worst manufactured usually

Adam: 1:00:11

I know, but, well, when I got mine, it had a plastic.

Gene: 1:00:16

Okay.

Adam: 1:00:16

it was awful. And I've, I found an original wood lower and put it, put it back together and man, that thing was just, it was sweet. I, I really wish I, and that was one of those deals that I remember you, everybody was getting imported SKSs and, and AK 40 sevens and you could pick'em up

Gene: 1:00:37

they were so cheap,

Adam: 1:00:39

on a dollar. Hard There was a,

Gene: 1:00:41

they were under a hundred bucks when I was young. And the AKs were in the$200 range.

Adam: 1:00:47

yeah. I remember there was a hardware store here where I live and, and they had them up in there. You could buy a brand new AK 47, right out the box out of the wooden crate for 150, 200 bucks.

Gene: 1:01:00

Yep. Yeah. They were insanely cheaply priced. And I, that in a lot of ways had to do with the breakup, the Soviet Union, of

Adam: 1:01:09

Yeah. I mean, that's how I got a lot of my Moises you could pick them up

Gene: 1:01:12

then the GOs.

Adam: 1:01:13

to nothing. And they're great rifles.

Gene: 1:01:16

Those were actually pretty good rifles. It depends when they were manufactured. Of course, if they were manufactured pre-World War ii, they were exceptionally good. If they were manufactured during World War ii, not quite as,

Adam: 1:01:29

So I've, I've got pre-war and, and I've got some that were built during the war, and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of, of the construction. And I don't know, I, I've, well, I'm sure you do, but I, there was a bunch of Moises that were built here in the us

Gene: 1:01:47

Oh really? No, I didn't know that.

Adam: 1:01:48

and I think they were built by Remington, if I remember

Gene: 1:01:51

Really? So they would contract it out?

Adam: 1:01:53

yes. The u Soviet Union was having trouble producing enough rifles, and the Remington Company took the design, said, yep, we can build them. And they built a bunch for'em. And, and if I remember right, guess what? Soviet Union never paid for

Gene: 1:02:08

Well, that wouldn't certainly surprise me. I mean, that, that, yeah. That would be pretty funny. But yeah, that, that was I think a very good rifle design. It, it was really a gun designed and manufactured in the pre Soviet days in the SARS Russia, late 1890s. And was one really sort of the standard gun of the Russian Revolution, the first World War, and all the way up into the Second World War.

Adam: 1:02:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I've, and they made multiple variants of it also.

Gene: 1:02:41

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:02:42

favorite is the M 44 short Carine. That's one of the, my favorite versions of that rifle.

Gene: 1:02:47

Yeah, because the, the original, the the original version was wanna say they had 22 or even 24 inch barrels. They were really borderline sniper rifles.

Adam: 1:03:00

Yeah.

Gene: 1:03:00

So, and that's really, I mean, even after that for the Svds ri snipe, well, it's not really a sniper rifle. The S VD is a, a precision mic marks man's rifle, but they still utilize the 7 62 by 54 millimeter round of the the most in the gun. So yeah, there's the interesting stuff, but I will say that the German rifles of World War II were were better So given, given the choice between one of those two I think I'll, I'd take the the M 98

Adam: 1:03:33

Yes. Well, the Mouser has always been kind of the Hallmark rifle. That was the one to have.

Gene: 1:03:40

mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:03:42

And that's, I, I don't have any mouthers. I've, I've come close to buying a. But to me, I like owning the obscure firearms, kinda like everybody I know has an AR 15

Gene: 1:03:55

Yep. Everybody.

Adam: 1:03:57

it's, it's, it's kind of the, I I've always called the AR 15, the small block Chevy of firearms. You can do anything you want to'em, you can turn'em up, you can, bolt every option on that you can think of.

Gene: 1:04:11

Yeah.

Adam: 1:04:11

And everybody has one.

Gene: 1:04:13

Yep.

Adam: 1:04:14

And I, I like to stand out a little bit from the crowd with my collection

Gene: 1:04:18

Yeah. Yeah, it's true. My, my only thing is I've never liked old shit. I always like new shit, so I

Adam: 1:04:25

that? That's what I like. I like, I like vintage firearms.

Gene: 1:04:28

like winter stuff. Yeah. I like stuff that is brand new. So my favorite guns were like the P 90.

Adam: 1:04:35

Hmm.

Gene: 1:04:37

very futuristic, very new cartridge, new gun. The, I had a F 2000, I actually had a couple of'em. I ended up selling'em very futuristic. It looks like a gun out of some space video game. And I think they were used as props, in, in sci-fi quite a bit for that reason. Very, very ergonomic. Good design in a lot of ways, but it, it was very finicky, unfortunately, with ammo more so even than the AR platform. And so I luckily, I, I held on to them until covid, when the gun prices went. And then unloaded'em, both of those at the same time. So I actually made money on both of those guns compared to what I paid for'em. But it was a cool gun. It's just there are better bull pops. I've always been a bull pop fan. And so right now I've kinda, my, my current bull ups are all I w I platform guns, so, or I w I manufactured guns. So the Tavar platform for both the shotgun and 3 0 8 rifle and for a 300 blackout, and you get the compactness of a short barreled rifle

Adam: 1:05:49

Yeah.

Gene: 1:05:49

with the good ergonomics and the barrel length of a full size gun which gives you good ballistics

Adam: 1:05:58

Yes. And they're just cool.

Gene: 1:06:01

and some people just don't like having, the actual chamber right next to your ear. And I get that. But just make sure your ear plugs and that, that's the one thing is I've definitely learned with those guns, is to use earplugs, not ear muffs.

Adam: 1:06:15

or else you can't see down a site. Where's the

Gene: 1:06:18

Well, yeah. The, that, and then the, the ear muffs

Adam: 1:06:22

rattle against the.

Gene: 1:06:24

yeah, you're pressing them against the gun itself. There's no other way to do it, really. And if you're holding a pistol, you don't worry about these things. But with a rifle, Depending on the shape of the stock, you're gonna actually make physical contact between your earmuffs and the stock. And on the stock on Bull Pups is always a full stock. It's, there's no cutouts for anything. There's not really major adjustments to anything, so it's best just to use ear earplugs or even just, ear earplug in your right ear and then a cuff on your left and then the cuff just over your head or something. But either way, you, you tend to figure that out pretty quick, that it's yeah, I don't really wanna earmuff in these,

Adam: 1:07:07

So have you played around any with the AR twelves?

Gene: 1:07:10

Ar twelves. No, I have not.

Adam: 1:07:12

So that was one of my most recent purchases

Gene: 1:07:15

is the AR 12.

Adam: 1:07:16

AR 12. It's built on the AR platform, but it's a 12 gauge shotgun.

Gene: 1:07:20

Oh, okay. Got it.

Adam: 1:07:21

And

Gene: 1:07:22

that, but I wasn't sure.

Adam: 1:07:24

there, I, I really like, it's, it's a great shotgun with the exception of it is very, very sensitive on what ammunition you put in it.

Gene: 1:07:33

Oh, really?

Adam: 1:07:34

Yes. And what I have come to realize is that it, it really likes short brass. It does not like to feed long brass,

Gene: 1:07:42

Okay.

Adam: 1:07:43

but it's kind of a gimmicky,

Gene: 1:07:45

How many, how many rounds of hold in

Adam: 1:07:47

That's the downside to it, is the magazine holds four shells.

Gene: 1:07:53

That's it.

Adam: 1:07:53

That's it. And I'm sure there's probably some manufacturers making some drums or, or something,

Gene: 1:08:00

Yeah. That, that's, that's a little too few. Unless you're going, unless you're in a restricted magazine capacity environment.

Adam: 1:08:07

Well, California or New York,

Gene: 1:08:10

Well, or, or if you're shooting trap where you can only have two rounds anyway.

Adam: 1:08:14

But

Gene: 1:08:15

Yeah.

Adam: 1:08:16

I,

Gene: 1:08:16

And then

Adam: 1:08:17

it's funny, I,

Gene: 1:08:19

go ahead.

Adam: 1:08:19

I bought this shotgun on a whim. I thought, it, it looks cool. It sounds like it's gonna really be a good, I kind of bought it as kind of a home defense

Gene: 1:08:29

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Adam: 1:08:31

sitting next to it. I have a Remington Automatic that was, I mean, this is, if I remember right, it was built back in the late thirties

Gene: 1:08:43

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:08:44

and the old humpback automatic shotgun, it, it will knock your shoulder off of your body, but it just, it feeds, it cycles. It's works every time you even think about using it. But, and that's kind of where I've leaned more back on vintage

Gene: 1:09:03

to an eight 70 or what?

Adam: 1:09:05

No. So kinda like your Browning a five s they really, they're, they're taken off of the design of that, the old humpback automatics. I would like to have a browning, but, I don't wanna spend the money for one.

Gene: 1:09:16

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:09:19

I've got, I've got airplane stuff, I gotta spend money

Gene: 1:09:21

Exactly. You got, you got plenty of other things to spend money

Adam: 1:09:26

Too many projects and not enough time.

Gene: 1:09:29

well, and I, I've typically the shotgun that I've probably done the most with the tactical shotgun was a the Winchester Defender the old version before they stopped making him. And then I think about 10 years later, they came out with a new version that has the same name, but mine's the the one from the early two thousands. And what I liked about it is it was midway, so it was between the weights of the the mossbergs, which are aluminum and super light, and the Remingtons, which are all steel and heavy. This was like midway between those,

Adam: 1:10:01

Yeah.

Gene: 1:10:02

And it, it had at the time the fastest action of any pumpkin. And so I've shot a lot of rounds to that, probably in the 10,000 to 12,000 rounds area. And it's always been a great little gun, so I just kept it as a defensive firearm. But when I saw the the reviews of the Tur war, I was like, holy shit, I need to get one of these because this thing holds 18 rounds

Adam: 1:10:34

Hmm.

Gene: 1:10:36

and it's it's more compact than it like, it's 18 rounds in a package that is 26 inches.

Adam: 1:10:43

Wow.

Gene: 1:10:44

It's amazingly compact.

Adam: 1:10:46

And which one is that?

Gene: 1:10:48

It's a Tavo, I think it's Tavo 12, or Tavo is something, but it's, it's obvious it's an only shotgun tour. B b Tao, let me see if it's ta 12,

Adam: 1:10:59

TS 12.

Gene: 1:11:00

TS 12, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and it's semi-automatic, so there's no pumping or anything. But it, it is a

Adam: 1:11:07

it's a bull. It's a Bullpup shotgun.

Gene: 1:11:10

yeah, it's a Bullpup shotgun. Exactly. Exactly. And you

Adam: 1:11:14

starting to see a trend here.

Gene: 1:11:15

Well, I like Bullpups. No, I, and, and to, I w I has clearly embraced Bullpup designs, which is why I've been buying a lot of their weapons lately. Which is cool stuff. I, I I also like the quality of those guns. I think that their labor is cheaper out there than US Labor,

Adam: 1:11:35

Hmm,

Gene: 1:11:36

but also, Completely too high spec, high standard. So you're basically getting a firearm manufactured to high-end US or German quality. But you're paying slightly lower. Not a whole lot lower, but like 10% cheaper than it would be if it was made here. And a pricing?

Adam: 1:11:55

you're getting quality at rock Island Prices

Gene: 1:11:58

Well, not that cheap. No, I think, I'm trying to remember how much it was. I wanna say 11 or 1200 bucks. But that's still quite a bit cheaper than my$2,000 benelli, which also is good quality. But that's, that's not a tactical shotgun, that's a trap. Shotgun or hunting potentially. I've never gone, actually, I've never shot Burts. I've never gone bird hunting with shotgun. I've only shot trap.

Adam: 1:12:23

See, I'm not a huge hunter, but I, on occasion I'll, I'll go Mainly cuz I just barely have enough time to go shoot.

Gene: 1:12:31

I know. I get it.

Adam: 1:12:33

Well, it's that, it's kind of a funny story. A friend of mine, we had gone out and we'd flown on a little trip. We were down at the far end of the runway getting ready to take off. And my buddy looked over at me and he said, Hey, did, did you lock your vehicle? I said, well, I hope I did. And he said, well, why is there anything in there that you don't want stolen? And I said, well, I mean, I, maybe a handgun or two. He said, well, why didn't you bring him with us in the airplane? I said, why in the hell would we need it? Well, you don't know. You might, you might need to,

Gene: 1:13:03

Wild Animals. Wild Animals, man.

Adam: 1:13:05

No, no, I don't believe so.

Gene: 1:13:07

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:13:08

But that, that you ought bring that up with one of our friends there on Texas. He's, he's got some good flying and shooting stories.

Gene: 1:13:16

Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll definitely do that. Yeah, I think well e even, I don't think the Americans do this, but the, the, the Souse flights up to the iss up until about five years ago, always carried a shotgun in the capsule.

Adam: 1:13:35

Hmm.

Gene: 1:13:36

Not, to shoot people on the space station, but because the Souses landing area is very large and it's in the it's in the ta right? So it's in, in kind of a high desert.

Adam: 1:13:48

Hmm.

Gene: 1:13:49

And so consequently it is very possible that you might have a you might land, especially if the landing goes, off plan and and there might be animals trying to see if your capsule's edible.

Adam: 1:14:05

True. I, I think it sounds a little better if you say, somebody watched a movie Alien a few many times

Gene: 1:14:09

oh, yeah. Well, it's, that's good too. Yeah. I like that. Mm-hmm. And apparently you could do that, like firearms can be taken into a full vacuum and not have an issue

Adam: 1:14:19

Hmm. Well, yeah, I, I mean

Gene: 1:14:23

or, or at least the AKs

Adam: 1:14:25

I I, I was gonna say, I'd

Gene: 1:14:26

I don't know about ar

Adam: 1:14:28

probably really great there and, and Zero atmosphere.

Gene: 1:14:32

yeah. Well, well, one thing's for sure if, if you fire around in vacuum, it's gonna keep going

Adam: 1:14:38

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:14:40

for a long

Adam: 1:14:41

would make you wonder if, if it would start tumbling and just kind of get uncontrollable.

Gene: 1:14:46

but you can tumble forever.

Adam: 1:14:48

I, yeah. I mean, it's gotta keep going at that same speed, don't know that, I have noticed, kind of going back onto the, the space aspect. There was a, like the space race, that was what everybody wanted to do. That's where everybody wanted to go worldwide. I mean, hell look at the cars that were even being

Gene: 1:15:11

Oh, they were all

Adam: 1:15:11

late fifties, early sixties. I mean, let's, like a 59 Cadillac has got the tallest fins of any car with jet tail lights and everything.

Gene: 1:15:19

Yeah. It blocks your view out the back.

Adam: 1:15:21

Oh yeah, great, great cars. But then the romance of space died off.

Gene: 1:15:28

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:15:29

It came back up a little bit, but that was always like, they portrayed it in movies. Like every young kid wanted to go to space. Like that was just, everyone wanted to be an astronaut

Gene: 1:15:40

Yeah. I think it kind of went from all the boys wanting to be cowboys to all the boys wanting to be astronauts.

Adam: 1:15:45

and now it's all the boys want to,

Gene: 1:15:47

Now they all want to be fem boys.

Adam: 1:15:49

chop their wieners off and

Gene: 1:15:51

Yep. Chapter wieners off and wear girls clothes. What the hell's wrong with this country?

Adam: 1:15:57

I, if you figure it out, you let me know.

Gene: 1:15:59

Mm-hmm. Well, I, like I said, I think it is a cycle that we're going through, and unfortunately, what probably will be the corrective course for this cycle is that there will be a war, whether it's a civil war or some kind of international war, but it'll be something that. make these questions of are you allowed to use certain words, be irrelevant because when you're fighting for your life,

Adam: 1:16:27

Well, aren't they

Gene: 1:16:28

you don't have time to worry about what's coming out of somebody's mouth.

Adam: 1:16:32

Well, I, I grew up with everybody saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Gene: 1:16:39

Yep. I, I literally used that phrase earlier today when I'm trying to explain this to a zoomer, is that the, the, the codification of language as violence is not only absurd and dangerous, but it is the hallmark of totalitarian societies when you're not allowed to say certain things and the context that it leads to is identical to physical violence. That's not a country you want to be in.

Adam: 1:17:08

no. Well, and I think

Gene: 1:17:10

the kind of stuff we accrue in North Korea of, but yet we're actually doing more of here in the us.

Adam: 1:17:16

oh, tenfold, I would say

Gene: 1:17:18

Yeah, well,

Adam: 1:17:19

we're destroying ourself from within.

Gene: 1:17:22

absolutely, 100%. And people keep searching for an external cause. Like I, I have, I've got both conservative and, and liberal and libertarian all kinds of friends. But you, I keep seeing these conservatives keep referencing things like these interviews with a A former U S S R spy that talked about how, this is the plan for communism to take over the US and they're gonna infiltrate these groups and then they're gonna do this. That it's dude, okay, that first of all was 50 years ago. Secondly, that's not the only way that these groups or this kind of mentality happens. It's not some external force trying to infiltrate you and, and turn you in a lot of ways what's happening in the US is a, it's a it's, it's proof to some degree that Marx was correct,

Adam: 1:18:12

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:18:12

that there is a cycle that happens in capitalism that ultimately by different disenfranchising enough of the working people, which is, it's questionable what that means these days, but, but it does lead people to want to throw away capitalism. And that's one of the negative aspects of it, is because inevitably there are winners and losers. And when you get to a point where the number of winners is minuscule, and these are the, the, the rich tech company executive types, and the number of losers is huge because everybody's quality of life is down from what it was 10 years ago.

Adam: 1:18:54

Yeah.

Gene: 1:18:55

And so you do get into this attitude where people are starting to say, well, you know what? Fuck them communism. Maybe he's got good aspects to it that we ought be looking into,

Adam: 1:19:05

Yeah. But point, point to one, communist co, country that has succeeded with the, with the exception of China.

Gene: 1:19:13

they all use these same America first arguments. They say, well, the reason that communism hasn't succeeded in the past is because it wasn't done by countries that were ready for it. The way the US is. Like the, like Russian peasants and Chinese surfs had no business trying to be communists because they weren't intelligent enough and prepared enough to really understand what living in the communal government entails. But Americans are smart enough and prepared enough to be able to actually have a successful communism happening here. That's, that's the self rationalization that they utilize. I obviously, I think it's bullshit, but nonetheless, there is a big movement. And I think a lot of these organizations like B l m that are not on their surface. Communist at all. But once you start digging through the materials, you start looking at the people that the you, you do the, the overlay of who's involved in those organizations and what else are they involved in and what else, what other ideas are they promulgating? You definitely start seeing that a lot of these people are very heavily influenced by Marxism and communism, and they're, they're just referred to as progressivism,

Adam: 1:20:41

well in Progressivism has been a cover name for communism,

Gene: 1:20:48

right? Yeah. It's, they're always trying to avoid using things that sound derogatory, obviously. And Communism's gotten a bad rep, and incidentally, unlike the big communist scare that was happening back in the fifties,

Adam: 1:21:03

the, Red Scare.

Gene: 1:21:04

yeah, the red scare like you don't need, again, I keep coming back to this. You don't need an external force. Like if enough of your population thinks that the current system is bad enough, then they're much more apt to embrace a different system without needing subversion from some other country. Now, there are still communist countries. There are fewer. Now, China is a very modified form of communism. It's, it's sort of, Imperial China, communism, It's not really not really the stuff that Marx or Orlen were describing. But in the end, this is, this is a very realistic, dangerous path that I see the United States going down. And I think we're gonna have a reckoning very soon that'll determine which side gets to be the majority, which side gets to push that narrative through. Whether it is gonna be the progressive a k a communist side, or whether there's gonna be enough of a rebellion against it and a belief in traditional American values that are very anti-communists. To have that pendulum swing back. So I started talking about the pendulum at the beginning of the conversation, and I think that is, that is sort of my white pill, that is my silver lining on everything that's been happening, is that looking at the past, it does look like that pendulum should start swinging backwards. But there's zero guarantee of that. There's certainly a chance that it won't, and that the country will keep going further and further down into decline. Much the way that Rome, which was the greatest country on the earth,

Adam: 1:22:49

it was the greatest civilization on the face of the earth.

Gene: 1:22:51

Yeah. It was a, it was a civilization that really was named for a city, Rome, the city still exists, but the, the Roman Empire, the the, the Roman meth government and mentality that existed

Adam: 1:23:03

It collapsed from within.

Gene: 1:23:05

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The Rome was not conquered. Rome fell

Adam: 1:23:09

yeah. And I think, I think the United States is definitely on that road. And I think one of the greatest adders to our own self-destruction was the destruction of the church and the destruction of the family.

Gene: 1:23:26

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:23:27

That's been a great burden against the United

Gene: 1:23:32

I think they're very related. I think that when, when you don't have a family unit when you just have one parent,

Adam: 1:23:39

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:23:40

it, then the church there's almost no time for religion. You know what I mean?

Adam: 1:23:44

no.

Gene: 1:23:45

People are just trying to get by. And I think that the, the single family or the single parent family can absolutely be traced to the Women's Liberation Movement. This idea that women are self-sufficient, they don't need men.

Adam: 1:24:04

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:24:05

While it may sound good in theory, It, it goes contrary to what the last million years of human evolution has worked towards. Like we, we didn't evolve to be individual self-sufficient beings that only meet up once a year to have sex. And then part like bears are that way. Bears are solitary animals.

Adam: 1:24:28

Well, I mean, you're kind of, you're kind of a bearish guy,

Gene: 1:24:30

little bit, yeah. And I, I like bears, man. I think bears are one of my favorite

Adam: 1:24:34

Oh, they're

Gene: 1:24:35

live in herds. They don't live in communes. The dudes are out on their own and they, they hook up once a year with a, a female bear and then, they don't really get to see their kids a whole lot. And like that is not what we evolved to. What we evolved to is to have hierarchies, hierarchies of small family units followed by larger extended families follow, followed by geographically based communities, and on and on and on all the way up to countries. And that's one of the reasons that I think humanity has been successful in conquering the planet was because of this, this sort of hierarchical tendency that we have. And Jordan Peterson talks about this quite a bit. Although he, he jokingly there, his studies were all done in lobsters and then he kind of extrapolates that out to other animals. But nonetheless I, I think. When you start doing things that are contrary to what evolution has evolved you to, and my definition of evolution is very simple. It's, it is the the propagation of the successful when, when something works. And that means that the people doing that thing have a higher chance of having offspring. So if you live in a very high stress, high risk environment, the odds are you're probably gonna gonna die off at some point because there's just too much pressure on you. And then people that leave that environment go to an environment that's less stressful, less risky. They'll have a higher chance of surviving and, and procreating and having offspring. And eventually there won't be anybody left in that high stress environment and everybody will be living in the lower stress environment because that's the people that actually manage to have kids.

Adam: 1:26:29

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:26:30

And so right now with what's happening with the, the very large drop in birth rates in the us I think could be seen through that same analytical lens of this will self-correct, this will correct itself. It's not gonna be fun living here, but the US is gonna go through a period of shrinking not just shrinking power that's already being seen and then shrinking value of the US dollar, but it's going to go through a period of shrinking population within the US as well

Adam: 1:27:02

Well, I it, in all honesty, you're, you're literally reading the screenplay from Idiocracy

Gene: 1:27:08

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Idiocracy was a non-fiction documentary as far as I'm concerned.

Adam: 1:27:13

well, Mike Judge. He, he nailed the hammer right on a head. I mean, the nail right on a head. Yeah.

Gene: 1:27:22

that that was filmed here in, in Austin.

Adam: 1:27:24

Was it really? Huh? Did not know that.

Gene: 1:27:27

Parts of it were shot up in Dallas as well, but good Chunk Wood was down here.

Adam: 1:27:31

Well, if they would've waited another 20 years, they would've

Gene: 1:27:34

right. Couldn't have just,

Adam: 1:27:35

the real deal right there in Austin

Gene: 1:27:39

Exactly. Yeah. It, it's it is kind of the path that we're going down and including the, the fact that they basically have a coliseum in that movie, for the entertainment of the people. the president is basically elected by popularity that has nothing to do with political or,

Adam: 1:27:59

where we're at right now,

Gene: 1:28:02

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:28:03

although I don't believe, sleepy. Joe has got the popularity.

Gene: 1:28:07

I would never say that Joe was elected. I think Joe was

Adam: 1:28:10

I think he was installed.

Gene: 1:28:13

Yeah. I think install is the appropriate word cuz you, you're, you're not specifying how he was installed, but he was installed. He is the president. That's indisputable. But I don't believe that he he received the majority of the vote.

Adam: 1:28:26

No, I don't believe he did. I believe there was a lot of dirty dirtiness going on in the last election, but

Gene: 1:28:32

well, every election for the last few. Really? I, I don't think that they started this two years ago.

Adam: 1:28:40

no,

Gene: 1:28:41

they just underestimated. Exactly. They under, I think this was still happening with Hillary, but I don't think they, they underestimated how many more bags of votes need to be found and just didn't deliver them in time to win Hillary's election. They just truly were just, enamored with the smell of their own farts and thought that people just loved Hillary.

Adam: 1:29:06

I don't know of anybody, even people that you know, that I know that are staunch Democrat or liberals that liked her. I don't know anybody that likes

Gene: 1:29:16

no.

Adam: 1:29:17

She's very unlikeable. And I think, I think there was some dirty pool being played on that election too. They just underestimated, how many people did not like her?

Gene: 1:29:28

You gotta remember it, women by a large majority voted for a guy that said the phrase, grab her by the pussy over Hillary Clinton.

Adam: 1:29:39

well, he didn't say Grab her by the pussy,

Gene: 1:29:42

He said, grab them by the pussy.

Adam: 1:29:44

they will let you grab them by the pussy.

Gene: 1:29:47

yeah, yeah, yeah. Right?

Adam: 1:29:49

Which is, I mean, he wasn't saying that he goes out and, and intentionally grabs people by the puy. He might, props to him if he

Gene: 1:29:55

But, but I'm just saying a guy who said a crude thing

Adam: 1:29:58

he said a crude.

Gene: 1:29:59

that was reported publicly, he didn't say it publicly. He said it privately, but the asshole happened to be recording. that he was saying it to.

Adam: 1:30:08

It was Jim Ro, Jim locker talk. I mean, everybody has said something like that. And if you say you haven't, then you're,

Gene: 1:30:15

Oh God. Way worse than that. Of course. Yeah. No, when you're talking to guys like on a podcast or something and nobody's listening, there's all kinds of stuff.

Adam: 1:30:23

So, so is no, is nobody gonna listen to this? Is that, is that what you're

Gene: 1:30:26

Oh, no, no. For safety reasons, there's no listeners to this podcast. This is, this is just you and I talking now, it's being recorded, frankly. But yeah, I mean, I, if we had people listening, there would be you wouldn't want things certain, certain elements of this conversation coming.

Adam: 1:30:41

Well, not to say that I'm gonna pull a Paula Dean and say something really, outta context. But how about that man? She talking about Paula Dean? I don't know. Are you, you're you're familiar with

Gene: 1:30:52

Yeah, I remember that.

Adam: 1:30:54

I mean, that, I'm pretty sure she had a truckload of butter delivered to her home every day. But,

Gene: 1:30:58

she did. Yeah.

Adam: 1:30:59

I mean,

Gene: 1:31:00

Cooking and butter's good,

Adam: 1:31:02

she was huge. Everybody loved her.

Gene: 1:31:04

Yeah, yeah,

Adam: 1:31:05

And then that, that deal come out where she said the N word and Wow. Holy cow.

Gene: 1:31:11

Yeah. And I don't think that she was at all nasty and she wasn't, Steve was definitely not racist. And it, it's all in context. And this goes back to what I'm talking about, this whole woke ideology where words are violence is insane. And it, and it is absolutely the sort of stuff that you find in authoritarian regimes.

Adam: 1:31:33

Well, and you'll also find

Gene: 1:31:35

the, Chinese leader is looks like Winnie the p because you, the same thing will happen to you that happens to Paul Dean.

Adam: 1:31:42

Yep.

Gene: 1:31:43

You'll be erased.

Adam: 1:31:45

But then again, if you're a straight white guy, you're already trying to be a race. So what, what's the point of

Gene: 1:31:50

Yeah. I mean, if you were really trying, you would stop being a straight white guy.

Adam: 1:31:55

oh, really? Well, I a pull of Justin Tro Trudel or, that little

Gene: 1:32:00

If it'll Fidel Castro's kid.

Adam: 1:32:02

Yeah. Do the black face,

Gene: 1:32:03

Exactly. Exactly. So that does that just demonstrates his willingness to stop being a I don't know if he's straight or not, but a white man anyway.

Adam: 1:32:11

I, I don't, I don't care if someone is a homosexual or, or gay or, or whatever. Where I start having problems with any of that is when it's trying to force it down everybody's throat saying that everyone, it's everyone else's the problem.

Gene: 1:32:25

Exactly. Exactly.

Adam: 1:32:27

the same way with, with words or hate, but yet that's the same group that defends free speech. So how could you say you are all about free speech, and then on the other hand, you're trying to shut somebody else down for their own ideas.

Gene: 1:32:41

Well, that's, see, as a, as a straight white male, you don just don't understand that free speech actually means approved speech.

Adam: 1:32:49

oh,

Gene: 1:32:50

Yeah. See, that's the mistake you're making.

Adam: 1:32:52

see I'm learning something every day.

Gene: 1:32:54

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is it, once you understand that, really you can say you're totally forced free speech as long as you understand that the word free speech means approved speech. Yes. And, and what did you mean by that woman?

Adam: 1:33:10

Yeah.

Gene: 1:33:11

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:33:12

That woman,

Gene: 1:33:13

Yeah. That woman

Adam: 1:33:14

I think, I think Bill learned the hard way on that one.

Gene: 1:33:18

yeah. Yeah. I'm, something was hard there.

Adam: 1:33:21

Probably the cigars

Gene: 1:33:21

but bump. Yeah. Definitely never g never take a cigar from Bill Clinton. It's probably been used.

Adam: 1:33:27

No, no. And, and Bill was the party guy. I mean,

Gene: 1:33:31

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't agree with his politics, but I would totally hang with Bill

Adam: 1:33:35

I've, I've, I've, I've talked to some people that have met Bill Clinton and they said that he's just a very sociable, fun guy to be around. But,

Gene: 1:33:45

exactly. And then witch just grabbed onto him and clearly she had

Adam: 1:33:50

whole marriage, that whole

Gene: 1:33:52

it was all a sham. Yeah. Yeah. She's been a lesbian her whole life. That's pretty fucking obvious. She's repressed. She grew up in a conservative home. She was campaigning for Nixon and and she was holding back this little secret of her actually liking to eat pussy. And so what she did was find a guy that would do a deal with her for their mutual benefit to where she could keep doing what she likes. He was her, he was her beard effectively. And then she didn't care who he was fucking cuz it certainly wasn't her

Adam: 1:34:27

Yeah. The only problem was, is he got caught.

Gene: 1:34:30

too many times. It wasn't just once he kept getting.

Adam: 1:34:34

And then he decided it was a good idea to hang out with ol Epstein and take a little flip plane ride over

Gene: 1:34:41

But

Adam: 1:34:41

know, Epstein's

Gene: 1:34:42

seemed like, no, that seemed like a good idea at the time, because then he's not gonna get caught cuz he knows there are no cameras on Lolita Island and that he could have all the fun that he wants when, and it's never gonna end up being reported anywhere.

Adam: 1:34:58

Well, until the fact that Epstein was behind bars and Hillary goes, oh, we can't let any more of that come out.

Gene: 1:35:05

no, no, no. Epstein just amazingly suicided himself by, hanging himself and, and, and shooting himself in the head at the same time.

Adam: 1:35:14

Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:35:15

It's amazing.

Adam: 1:35:17

two things that don't hang themself. Christmas ornaments and Jerry Epstein.

Gene: 1:35:21

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's, it's it's always amazing to me when people suicide by doing a double tap. Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:35:28

It. I heard an article about a pedophile in Russia that the, the guy, this guy found out that this pedophile was after his kid. So he, he shot the guy twice in the back of the head, dug a hole and buried him, and they found the guy in, in the hole. And the Russian police, I, I, I'm just kind of paraphrasing on who actually come up with a conclusion on what happened, but they said the guy committed suicide.

Gene: 1:36:01

Sounds like it. I mean, isn't that what you call suicide by police in the us? It's like if, if somebody dies in police custody, that was suicide by police.

Adam: 1:36:11

And see that's the thing is, is anywhere else in the world, including my own world, pedophilia is, should be punishable by death.

Gene: 1:36:21

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:36:22

But we live in, a woke society that believes that that is a disability

Gene: 1:36:28

It's a, yeah. Don't you see? You just don't understand.

Adam: 1:36:32

but clearly I don't. Do you

Gene: 1:36:34

no, no. I mean, I understand that. I don't understand. So I guess it's a little closer than you are, but yeah. And, and I think that there's a, it's, it's almost comical hearing Putin's last speech, talking about the, the collapse of the Western civilization being parallel to the collapse of the Roman civilization. Because the same exact things are happening,

Adam: 1:36:59

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:37:01

aside from a concepts that they're very ridiculous, like that words are violence, which is insane. You'll, you'll also have. The increase in public depravity. Now, again, I don't give a shit what people do in their own bedrooms. Whatever. Have fun, man. I'm all for doing crazy shit that doesn't hurt you or anybody else. You wanna stick a carrot up your ass, stick a carrot up your ass. I don't care. But when it comes to

Adam: 1:37:31

I think there's been a lot worse things besides carrots,

Gene: 1:37:34

there, there have been, yeah, a lot of stories have come

Adam: 1:37:37

but let, let, let, let's try and keep this podcast at least

Gene: 1:37:40

Yeah. I mean, yeah, somewhat G-rated we're G-rated,

Adam: 1:37:44

Oh yeah.

Gene: 1:37:44

know. Yes. But but when you come and do that in a public farm and you're really doing it to push buttons more than anything, there's a video interview that I watched with the founder of a group called Gays Against Groomers, and it's this

Adam: 1:38:05

groomers.

Gene: 1:38:06

yeah, gays Against Groomers and it, it was founded by this lesbian woman and they've got a whole bunch of members in there. And, and it is, it was a great interview because it's, it's so nice to be able to hear somebody who's rational and talking about how not only do these topics not belong in public school, or anywhere around children, But also talking about, kind of bitching actually about how, the Pride parades used to be about people just wanting to go out and demonstrate essentially for getting equal rights. The what, what they wanted was like, for example, the right to get married. And, you, you could have multiple opinions on whether that's good or bad or otherwise, but it kind of went from that to now. The way she describes it, I think very accurately is it's like a fetish fest. It, it has nothing to do with protesting. It has nothing because we got, this is her words. We got everything we wanted, and now they're just pushing further and further down and, and doubling down on on these pride parade to where you have all the d variety of kinks publicly being demonstrated. Very much not kid appropriate venues because they're literally on the streets and absolutely not doing activities that are kids friendly. So it it she's just frustrated cuz like this. This is not what we oughta be doing. Like we ought to the, the whole point of originally, if you go back to the eighties, again, I'm, I'm going back times before you were alive, but you go back to that I certainly knew gay people in college and stuff, and their, their gayness, if you will, was a small part of their personalities.

Adam: 1:40:11

Yeah,

Gene: 1:40:11

They were into the, just like anybody else, into a variety of different interests and hobbies and topics and everything. And and so the, the L G B T, and it wasn't even L G B T back then, by the way. It was G l b, it was the gays, lesbians and bisexuals groups. Somehow the lesbians flipped it around, so they became first place in that whole list of litany of things. But those groups were just like normal people, normal students who had this one thing in common with each other that they had a difference with the majority of the people, which is they liked people of the same sex. And it wasn't just about the sex either. It was that like they had friends, there was plenty of people that had friends that were on the opposite side of the the gay or straight thing, like playing a straight people at gay friends, playing gay people who had straight friends. Because they had things in common with their friends, and this was just one of the things that they didn't have in common with them. And so being part of these groups like G L B was just a, is a way to actually be a majority of people with something in common and not always be somebody who's the minority. But it, it was not radicalized, it wasn't politicized the degree that it is today after all the victories that they've had. And it sure as hell wasn't this enormous tent where everybody with every kind of king possible is part of the same 10th.

Adam: 1:41:45

Yeah.

Gene: 1:41:46

and, and really, I mean, if you listen to some of the less radical gays out there, a lot of both gay men and and lesbians have been talking about how if you're white and you're gay, you're almost pushed out of G L B T X, Y Z, asterisk, apostrophe, whatever the hell it is, because you are too close to the enemy for them.

Adam: 1:42:10

Well, what? And I've heard it, and I, and of course I'm not, I have very little knowledge about that community cuz I'm not associated with any of that.

Gene: 1:42:21

Yeah. Well, I'm more metropolitan. I, I've seen plenty of drag shows over the years.

Adam: 1:42:25

But they, they call it SISs, right?

Gene: 1:42:29

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:42:30

Like you could be a cis gay person,

Gene: 1:42:33

which is insane.

Adam: 1:42:34

which I, first of all, I had a hard time trying to figure out what they meant by SISs. I mean, I'm not,

Gene: 1:42:40

Right. Right. And it, and it, and it's an insult. I mean, they pretend like this is just a description, but you don't have to say SISs. You say SISs because you want to insult that person by putting them in a, in a separate box. Like SISs makes you sound like that's not normal.

Adam: 1:42:57

hmm.

Gene: 1:42:58

Oh, you're one of those cis people, huh? Yeah. Gotta watch out for you. And it, it, it's, again, it stems from, it's a first time I heard that was probably like, oh, six years ago, seven years ago. It's, it's a fairly recent thing because it comes from academia and it, and it it really is just a way to describe similar, it, it, you could just as easily say homo, ironically, because homo simply means similar or same. Your

Adam: 1:43:27

Well, I mean,

Gene: 1:43:29

homogenous the, the root of that is homo.

Adam: 1:43:31

well, and if you look further on back, I mean, gay wasn't even a word to describe someone that was a homosexual

Gene: 1:43:39

Yeah. Gay used to be just gay. Yeah. Happy gol. Exactly. Exactly. And but you know, again, I think this is my suspicion is without looking up the entomology of this, is that the word gay became a word for homosexual because nice cis people didn't want to insult the gays by calling them homosexuals. They just said, well, he's kinda, he's happy all the time. One of those people, well, those happy go-lucky people, you know what I mean? Wink wink.

Adam: 1:44:12

I want them little fruity left limp drifted, fellers. That's what I always

Gene: 1:44:16

Yeah. exactly. Limp, wristed. Feller. Exactly. So, and there's definitely been a push in that, in that group of people, in that community, if you will, to try and take words that they're being described as, and use them themselves to kind of diffuse the meaning, like the word queer, like that was clearly an insult. Like queer definition, pre-game meaning of queer it means unusual, strange, not normal. That's what queer means. And so that was again, probably a word used by people that were not gay to describe gay people, they're kinda, eh, something a little queer about'em, a little off. And and then the, now the word queer is one of the mainstream gay self deses descriptive words I think that's, I, and she talked about this, this gal, I can't remember her name, but I like her. She's really good.

Adam: 1:45:10

So are we at a point to where nowadays gay and or homosexual or lesbian is now gonna be not allowed to be said, because we're already to the point where, there's no such thing as a man or a woman.

Gene: 1:45:27

right.

Adam: 1:45:27

There's no such thing as, human beings almost to this point. You can identify as whatever you are,

Gene: 1:45:35

Yeah. Come quiet.

Adam: 1:45:37

Yeah. Well, I, I've, I've cl I, when people ask me, I, I usually say, I, I identify as an Apache helicopter,

Gene: 1:45:44

That's pretty good. Yeah. I usually identify as a stolen grad. Uhhuh.

Adam: 1:45:49

I identify as an asshole,

Gene: 1:45:51

Yeah.

Adam: 1:45:52

but

Gene: 1:45:52

no, Everybody else identifies you as an asshole.

Adam: 1:45:55

well, I mean, I mean, I've been called At some point they're gonna say, gay isn't allowed, homosexual isn't allowed. Man, woman, I mean, and it's, it's, it does not make sense to me anymore. It doesn't make sense to most people I talk to,

Gene: 1:46:10

Yeah, yeah,

Adam: 1:46:12

but yet this is the road that we're on and I'm trying to figure out, cuz it's no different, it, it's like talking about Joe Biden. You talk to 90% of people. I didn't vote for him. Well then how did he get in?

Gene: 1:46:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Adam: 1:46:30

It's, it's things that, that are just un

Gene: 1:46:34

mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:46:35

makes my brain hurt.

Gene: 1:46:38

Yeah. So it's a very interesting time to be living in, not necessarily the best time, but definitely interesting because of what's happening. But it, it is not a time that I would wish for people to be living here or, well, shit, dude, we're still better off than Europe. Look at what's going on there.

Adam: 1:46:56

Well true. I, I would, I would have to say that we as a civilization worldwide are heading into sift.

Gene: 1:47:04

I would actually modify, it's not that we are and have been in that a modern surf themm, we're just not aware of it because the, if you, let's say you were, let's say abstracted, right? Let's say you're gonna build a card game like a Dungeons Dragon time.

Adam: 1:47:26

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:47:27

And you wanna create these different classes and categories in that game of different power, qualities or whatever.

Adam: 1:47:35

Okay,

Gene: 1:47:35

If you look at the Middle Ages or even the the Renaissance period, and you look at where was power, what were the hierarchical structures of power at that point in time, you had sort of village elders or leaders. You had a, a variety of different levels of nobility above them, and then it all kind of rolls up to a king

Adam: 1:47:59

now?

Gene: 1:48:01

and none of these people are elected, right?

Adam: 1:48:03

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:48:04

Do we not have that today? Except it's corporation based. There are people that not only live the lifestyle of Dukes and the, vi counts and all that today, regardless of what the rest of us look like, like people whose assets number in the hundreds of millions, they can pick up the phone and get anybody on the phone they want. They can buy politicians left and right because politicians are all for sale. This is not like hyperbole. This is a fact. The way that politicians get votes in Congress, in the US Congress. Is by buying those votes. Legally,

Adam: 1:48:52

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:48:54

the way they can do this is they effectively swap political donations that are promised by the special interest groups. If you vote for this, I'll give you 20% of the donations that I get from Raytheon. Okay, I'll vote for it. That's worth it. That is literally how it's done and it's above board. Like people don't hear about it because they don't want to talk about it, but it's not really hidden. Anybody that wants to dig into

Adam: 1:49:24

it's public knowledge.

Gene: 1:49:25

Absolutely, because all the data's reported, like they still have to report all this shit in the end, but the way our system is set up is this is legal,

Adam: 1:49:35

Well, it, it's, it's reported If it is legal, I mean, I'm

Gene: 1:49:39

well, they don't need to do it illegally because it's, it's totally allowed to do it legally. Not to mention the fact that they can literally create a law that affects a business positively or negatively, and then buy stock in that business beforehand to take advantage of that change. And that's perfectly legal as well.

Adam: 1:49:57

Well, perfect example of that was PanAm versus twa, Howard Hughes. That was a great example of now I'm trying to remember the name of the senator that was in front of the hearing that went after Howard Hughes because TWA was a competitor to Pan Am. PanAm had spent a lot of money with the Senator to try and basically control the airways to where any other airline would have to ha pay or have permission from PanAm to be able to fly those routes.

Gene: 1:50:31

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:50:33

And I think the movie have you ever seen that movie, Leonardo DiCaprio?

Gene: 1:50:37

I never did, no.

Adam: 1:50:38

Aviator?

Gene: 1:50:39

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:50:39

He goes into pretty good detail about that court

Gene: 1:50:42

Yeah. Well, that's going way back, but I, I don't think you have to go back that far and look at

Adam: 1:50:46

well, no, well look at Na. Yeah, perfect example. Look at her husband. He likes having hammers put in places, you

Gene: 1:50:52

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Adam: 1:50:54

but that's a perfect

Gene: 1:50:55

conveyance,

Adam: 1:50:56

Ah, boy, that ain't no crap. But sh I seen an advertisement the other day for hey, come take a look at what Nancy Pelosi's doing and selling off so many shares of these stocks, and you can watch what she's doing and we will kind of guide you in the

Gene: 1:51:11

Yeah. There's funds that literally just mirror what politicians do, and they all make money. You never lose money

Adam: 1:51:17

No, but wouldn't that be considered insider trading?

Gene: 1:51:23

Oh. For anybody else. But,

Adam: 1:51:24

Oh, well,

Gene: 1:51:25

this is not a secret. This is literally, they have an exemption to that. So it is, I think we are living in just a modern version of feudalism. We have people that have the ability to control great wealth through corporations, whether they built those from nothing, and plenty of people do that, or whether they just got lucky in the stock market or got money some other way. Now, once you have a certain amount of money, you have to literally be an idiot to lose it. Like enough money in the system just generates more wealth. So,

Adam: 1:52:06

unless you're ye

Gene: 1:52:09

well, but again, what did I just say? You have to be an idiot to lose it. YE is actively trying to lose money.

Adam: 1:52:16

Well, I don't think he's trying to lose money. I think he's just lost his mind.

Gene: 1:52:21

Well, fair enough. My, I'm not saying the reason behind why he is losing money, but his actions are predictably going to lose money for him.

Adam: 1:52:32

Yeah.

Gene: 1:52:32

No rational person would've think that he wouldn't lose money given what he's been doing.

Adam: 1:52:39

Well, I mean, no rational person would think that Nancy Pelosi would be making money with the stupid shit she's been doing.

Gene: 1:52:46

Everybody that comes, well not so much Congress, but certainly to the Senate. it becomes a millionaire if there aren't already a millionaire. Like there, the Senate is run 100% by millionaires. It's, it's just, that's how it works,

Adam: 1:53:03

And

Gene: 1:53:03

is where you go to become a millionaire.

Adam: 1:53:05

and that's, and it's, it's kind of sickening and you can really see where we are going in such a wrong direction because our founding fathers never intended for government to get to the stage where it's at now. It was supposed to be a part-time job. It was supposed to be, come in, combine, vote on the important things, go home, see your family. Now it is just a career.

Gene: 1:53:31

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And, and I, I, I think I bring this up probably way too often for people that listen to the podcast, but I, I keep bringing it up cuz it's true. I remember writing a paper in high school that in order to address and solve the major problems we have with current government, and this was written in the eighties, as I said, the only viable solution is to implement term limits. And yes, I know that means that some people are gonna be upset that a good person that they think is doing good for the country will also be limited in their ability to do good.

Adam: 1:54:06

Yeah.

Gene: 1:54:06

Nonetheless, we know what happens when you don't have term limits because we've been living it and the only solution is to implement term loads. And what I proposed. Two terms for senator, two terms for president, three terms for a house member.

Adam: 1:54:23

Yeah.

Gene: 1:54:24

That's

Adam: 1:54:24

if you did that, that would solve majority of the problems that we're living through right now.

Gene: 1:54:30

Mm-hmm. because the incentives and we as human beings are all about doing things that we're incentivized to do. Where machines built to do that. The incentives are absolutely not to do what, what's good for the country, but rather to do what's good for the individual. When somebody says, Hey, we'll we'll give you 50 million for your campaign, and all you have to do is introduce this legislation that we like.

Adam: 1:54:58

That we typed up for you.

Gene: 1:55:00

Yeah. And, and we'll even write the whole thing like, there's nothing you need to do, you just need to sponsor it.

Adam: 1:55:05

And we'll make it so big that nobody will leave and read it.

Gene: 1:55:08

It's such a no-brainer. If you're a politician, all I have to do is introduce this bill. I don't even have to read it and I get 50 million. What? You'd be an idiot not to do it.

Adam: 1:55:19

Mm.

Gene: 1:55:21

And that's exactly what happens. And that's why when these 20 politicians stood up and said, we're not gonna go with the, the standard flow here. And we're gonna actually push back on the The speaker of the house position because there are things that we don't like that the rest of you, which is a combination of Democrats, progressive liberals, rhinos, plenty of people with an are behind their name, but really they're not really Republicans.

Adam: 1:55:54

No,

Gene: 1:55:55

And they basically gummed up the works for a while there. And that was great. I love seeing that. I want to see more of that. And that's kind of, that was why I liked Trump coming in as a brand new unknown force who wasn't gonna be affected by donations of money cuz he doesn't need it. But unfortunately at this stage Trump is like, that was his shots. He did it once. Now he is part of the system and I just don't think that he's the right candidate moving forward. I, I think it's, as of right now, at least the only guy that I can see is the governor of Florida.

Adam: 1:56:33

DeSantis.

Gene: 1:56:34

Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't see anybody else that would be good. Well, both, that could both pull it off and be good for the country.

Adam: 1:56:44

And we may see DeSantis turn into, another Dan Crenshaw.

Gene: 1:56:50

We may, but again, this is the point of term limits. You only get the guy for a short period of time. So if you get somebody that is good today, if you have term limits, you don't have to worry about what they're gonna turn into later.

Adam: 1:57:04

Yeah.

Gene: 1:57:05

And I really think at this point, Trump wanting to be president has more to do with satisfying his ego than it does with any unfulfilled plans. The guy literally had the opportunity in his first term, in the first half of his first term, to do anything he wanted. He could have gotten Julian Assange pardoned. He could have done a whole slew of things that people were hoping he would do. And he did some, but he didn't do anywhere near the number of things that people that voted for him wanted him to do. And the people that he kept bringing in were horrible. It's like he, every time Trump announced a new nominee you could just see he's shooting himself in the foot cuz this person does not represent the view of the people that voted for Trump. So that's why right now I think Trump is out of sync with the MAGA movement. I think the MAGA movement still wants the same stuff they did when it first got organized. But Trump is a lot more of a status now, like he is. A lot more willing to compromise with the Democrats and the rhinos. He's a lot more, and he's demonstrated his inability to bring in good people that are gonna fight those rhinos into his staff. So I don't want Trump in there because the only thing that happens if Trump is the nominee on the ballot is a guaranteed another loss for the Republicans, regardless of who's running on a Democratic ticket. You, it could be fucking a o C on a ticket and she would win over Trump

Adam: 1:58:37

Oh God. Don't, don't, I don't need any more nightmares. That is just a, as she scares me as much

Gene: 1:58:47

see, this is why we play space video games cuz it's a world, it's a way of escaping

Adam: 1:58:52

that's why I go, that's why I go spend way too much money on airplanes.

Gene: 1:58:57

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:58:59

That is what, what everybody in this generation calls a, a safe space for me, Oh, I

Gene: 1:59:04

You can, you can be yourself when you're flying around.

Adam: 1:59:07

I, but, I, I agree

Gene: 1:59:09

way to be yourself.

Adam: 1:59:10

It, well, I, it keeps me off the streets.

Gene: 1:59:13

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:59:14

But I, I do agree. I think Trump runs again, it's gonna be a guaranteed loss regardless of who's on the other ticket. And I think a lot of Trump's problem was, I don't think he realized how two faced people on his own party line

Gene: 1:59:35

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Adam: 1:59:36

he went in. I think the first four years he learned a lot. I think if he went back, if, if by some miracle he did get reelected, I think he would probably do a lot better in a second term.

Gene: 1:59:55

Well, I, I voted for him for his second term. I think it would've been certainly the right move versus the alternative

Adam: 2:00:03

Oh yeah. I

Gene: 2:00:04

to have Trump win, but I just don't, now that we've kind of gone through that and he didn't, and again, we all have theories about why he didn't win, but the reality is he, he didn't win even if that was for nefarious purposes,

Adam: 2:00:20

He won in all of the places, with the exception of a select few that were going to turn the tie to the election.

Gene: 2:00:27

Right. Well, and, and he, he certainly won. If you look at the incoming results earlier in the days, Like all the, all the negative results for him all came in after the sunset which is interesting.

Adam: 2:00:43

Oh, it's very questionable to say the least. And then, well, I mean, I remember they were gonna fight it. They were gonna fight it. They had, oh, Rudy Giuliani was his hair dye running down his foreheads, beating on a podium. And then the F b I rated him. And there hasn't been a peep outta Rudy

Gene: 2:01:04

that's how it works. I mean, that, that is the other thing that's come out ever since all this Twitter stuff came out is that the F B I is not an impartial agency whatsoever. The F B I is very clearly had an agenda that coincided with evoke movement.

Adam: 2:01:21

surely not.

Gene: 2:01:23

Well, yeah. I mean, it's not even hard. It it, it would take actual difficult work to try and pretend that they weren't.

Adam: 2:01:32

Well, I mean, that goes, all that go

Gene: 2:01:35

pretend that that's the case.

Adam: 2:01:36

Well, I mean, when it's that clear and blatantly obvious all the way back to j Edgar Hoover starting the F B I to do his dirty work. I mean everybody, I mean, especially people on the left. When you mentioned the F B I, prior to all of this shit coming along the left had a great disdain for the F B I. Oh, well that was, that was Hoover's, hit squad that, you know, people that disagreed with him. That was, his gustapo. But then you turned the tide and you shows that it was a lot of the left's narrative being forced through the fbi. Oh, how dare you. You must say that you don't like the police and, and you don't like justice.

Gene: 2:02:19

Yeah.

Adam: 2:02:21

and anything that the left says that their opponent done has all come back to show that this is shit that they did.

Gene: 2:02:30

Oh, absolutely. And it, it's the old sort of, ironical description of January 6th versus the actual burning of Portland. And of course, Portland was a mostly peaceful protest while Washington DC was an insurrection. And the biggest attack in America since the Civil War.

Adam: 2:02:50

Or as I heard, I think a O C said that it was worse than nine 11.

Gene: 2:02:56

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Worse than nine 11. Yeah. Well, cuz one woman died

Adam: 2:03:01

Yeah. And windows were broken

Gene: 2:03:04

Yeah. And windows were broken. Yes,

Adam: 2:03:05

pictures are taken in Pelosi's chair.

Gene: 2:03:07

And pictures were taken. Exactly. I mean, these are horrible. If you, if you want to see what an insurrection looks. Look at Ukraine 2014, when the CIA insurrection came in and overthrew an elected government and installed a government that was created by the US as to become a US proxy. That is literally an insurrection.

Adam: 2:03:35

Yep.

Gene: 2:03:37

What happened on January 6th? Not even a pale shadow of that.

Adam: 2:03:41

No, but you know, it doesn't fit that narrative.

Gene: 2:03:46

No, no. It it

Adam: 2:03:48

Remember, remember, you're a straight white male. You're, you just don't understand

Gene: 2:03:53

Yeah. Clearly. Clearly. And, and the president of Ukraine, we have video of him dancing in drag, so Yes, he understands.

Adam: 2:04:01

Wait, what?

Gene: 2:04:02

You haven't seen this?

Adam: 2:04:03

No,

Gene: 2:04:04

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just do a Google search for Zelensky drag dancing.

Adam: 2:04:09

I don't know if I want to watch that.

Gene: 2:04:11

That's up to you.

Adam: 2:04:12

I you're,

Gene: 2:04:13

He was an actor.

Adam: 2:04:15

Really?

Gene: 2:04:15

he, he had never been in politics. No, because he's placed, he's not elected. He, he was the, so, oh my gosh. I guess I didn't realize he didn't know the backstory. So here's the backs. So there's a, a Ukrainian building there called named Kalo Moki that had been one of the people that championed the US overthrow of the Ukrainian government. And so he was greatly involved from a financial side to ensure that that happened when the US came in in 2014 to indirect Ukraine in the color revolution that they had there, and install Nazis in in place, which they totally did. But at that point in time, KA moki after that insurrection and, and the, they take over the country, he actually ran for public office himself. And he was not well liked, so he, he did not get elected to the offices that he wanted to be in. And so his plan B was to, okay, people don't like me. They don't like my attitude, but I still want my ideas to be in place. So let's just find somebody that people will like, that I can control. And so what he did like he was a billionaire. He owned at least one in, I think maybe several television networks in Ukraine. So he had created this show, or he, he sexually paid to have a show. Man of the People. And this show, the storyline was, it followed a, a high school history teacher who ends up getting pulled into politics through no particular desire of himself, but through a number of things that happened. Over the course of two seasons, he ends up being pulled into politics, running for office, and eventually running for presidency of Ukraine and becoming the president. The actor that played that character was Vladimir Zelensky because he was an actor. That's all he'd ever done. This show was one of the best created pieces of long-term propaganda you could imagine. It effectively rewrote history and sold the fictional story that people liked and aligned with. And then amazingly, the guy that played this great heroic hi history teacher in Ukraine, all of a sudden had his name on the ballot for the actual presidency of the country. Well, what do you think's gonna happen? Think like this is the pre pro-Nazi Kanye getting his name on the ballot. This is some big. Star in Hollywood deciding that he's gonna run for president. It's the same shit that happened when Schwartzenegger got elected to be governor of California. He didn't get elected for his great political ideas. He got elected because he was a movie star. Well, the population of Ukraine's, I think pretty close to the population of California, maybe California in a couple other states. It's a tiny country compared to the us.

Adam: 2:07:28

Yeah,

Gene: 2:07:29

And so Zelensky becomes president of the country with less experience than Barack Obama. Literally no political experience after having played a character who was elected to become president of Ukraine with no political experience. It, it's, it's so on the nose that it should make people go, what? That's insane. How the fuck could that happen? Well, it happens because the whole thing is paid for an orchestrated by the actual guy in charge which is called Mosk, and not to mention the us. And as soon as that happens well before Zelensky, this is still, but after the revolution, know, unlike what happened at the fall of the Soviet Union, where a lot of the assets were sold off to Western companies a lot of factories, factory equipment all kinds of stuff. Ammunition. It's the reason you saw a lot of guns for sale super cheap. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it all got dumped because people were willing to make a quick buck. What happened after this insurrection in Ukraine was that the country itself got sold to the US and the Biden family. The Pelosi family, the there's four of'em. There are four big American politicians. So Biden's kid, Pelosi's kid what's his name? The Utah guy. The

Adam: 2:08:56

Oh Romney.

Gene: 2:08:58

yeah. Romney's kid. And there's one more. All their kids got magical jobs in Ukraine.

Adam: 2:09:04

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:09:05

That's called money laundering. And that's exactly what was happening is that Ukraine was being funneled money post their magical mighton revolution by the US and a big chunk of that money a slice of that was getting funneled right back into the bank accounts of these American politicians. And and everybody just sort of ignored it. It was just not that big deal. And Ukraine had become a great slush fund, a great way to launder money. from donations. Like it wasn't creating any money. It's not like Ukraine was sending money to these people. Ukraine was just cleaning the money. They were laundering it. They, they were taking funds coming from the US government and re funneling them to go to individual politicians', kids. Now, they also did plenty of other shit. Like for some reason, Ukraine, all of a sudden, magically out of thin air, ended up having 22 research locations research centers for researching biological,

Adam: 2:10:17

Oh

Gene: 2:10:17

contagions,

Adam: 2:10:19

I

Gene: 2:10:19

which of course everybody's just, no, no, no, not biological weapons. They were just biological contagions. Okay.

Adam: 2:10:26

what the hell is the difference?

Gene: 2:10:27

Yeah. What the hell's the difference and why are they done in Ukraine by, and the money for it, as we know, through looking at the, the paper Trail of Congress was appropriated and authorized by Congress. So how does that, and that was during Barack Obama's term, so basically American taxpayers paid for there to be all these biological research facilities to pop up in Ukraine. Just like Wuhan lab was paid for by Fauci guys. Same exact thing. Oh, you can't do that kind of research in the United States? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. We. let's just find somewhere else, some other country where they don't have these, these prohibitions on this type of research that's very dangerous. And do it there. Yeah, let's do'em In Ukraine, we just bought Ukraine, so we can do anything we want there.

Adam: 2:11:19

Yeah.

Gene: 2:11:19

And the little annoying thing that happened to them, to this KY guy, to the cia, to Hillary Clinton, her state department group was that while the, they were able to bamboozle people in western Ukraine because there was, there was generally a dislike of Russia because Russia, they got back on their feet very quickly post collapse of the Soviet Union. They were able to, they, there was definitely some hard times, dude and I, I remember that there were people genuinely concerned for their ability to buy food and to heat themselves in the winter in those early years. But for the most part after about a decade or so, maybe 15 years, Russia was absolutely a normal country. Like grocery shelves were full. The prices of of things were very reasonable. Everything is going fine. Ukraine never got to that point. Ukraine was mostly agrarian and it didn't get there between the fall of Communis. And the this Mayan insurrection that happened. And it that was another thing that was able to be utilized by the West, is to say, well, the, the, the only reason you guys haven't been enjoying the quality of life that the Russians have is because they hate you, and therefore you should hate them. And so consequently there that that was a, there was always some anti-Russian sentiment it's not fair. Like we should have gotten the bigger piece of our pie here. And so I think it was easier to sell in Western Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine. The closer you got to Russia, the more pro-Russia people's attitudes were.

Adam: 2:13:04

Yeah,

Gene: 2:13:04

I know the way that the media here paints it is well, the Russians living in eastern Ukraine. It's like, dude, that whole place, there was no country called Ukraine. The, the whole thing is literally was Russia. It was all part of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years up until the Russian Revolution where it became a political district within the country of U S S R. So it was always Russia, then it was always U S S R. And the first time that the country of Ukraine ever saw the light of day was at the fall of the Soviet Union. When all of a sudden each of these regions, each of these ter. Became an independent country. So really the history of Ukraine is the history of Russia. It's the same exact biological people. There's no DNA a difference between Ukrainians and Russians. There is a d n a difference. If you look at French people and Germans, Europeans, even though they have the eu, have very different distinct biological characteristics. There is zero difference between Ukraine and Russia because it's always been the same country. Now it's been invaded a number of times. Like Poland occupied a good chunk of Ukraine during the, I think the 17 hundreds back when Poland was a major power along with Lithuania. But there were, it was never independent as a country.

Adam: 2:14:31

No.

Gene: 2:14:32

so it's really more of anti-Russian sentiment than pro Ukrainian sentiment that existed. But as you got further to the east, more of the people that live there in, in what it's now Ukraine, were prohibition. And so they started pushing back on this insurrection and saying, Hey, you guys overthrew legitimate government, we're gonna fight for the real government. And by the way, what does that remind you of? Like this scenario of a country having a big revolution in the west and then slowly push. Their way to the east. And then there's a holdouts that just never end up getting captured and turned over in the east. Can you think of any other examples of that?

Adam: 2:15:12

Mm. Well, China would be one

Gene: 2:15:14

Oh, China. That's right. China, where the communism spread from the west to the east and the country kept getting conquered. But Taiwan, which was a, an island republic of China was the last stronghold of the original former government of the country of China.

Adam: 2:15:35

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:15:36

Same exact thing. So what did Ukraine do? Well from 2014 when that event happened up until the present time, up until really beginning of this year when Russia did something, they kept bombing and blasting what is, inside of of Ukrainian territory, the eastern side of Ukraine, where most of the people were pro-Russia to the tune of killing 20,000 civilians and countless non civilian casualties.

Adam: 2:16:01

Yep.

Gene: 2:16:03

And so, finally, and incidentally, a lot of people were really pissed off at Putin for not doing anything about this because it's our people getting killed. It's people that speak Russian. It's people that, that want to fight for the actual government of Ukraine, not the revolutionary government that came in during the insurrection. The people that oppose Nazism that's spreading like crazy in.

Adam: 2:16:25

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:16:27

these people need your help. And he kept hemming and hawing and not really doing much about it. There's some aid provided, it's a typical shit that the US usually does. But, and then finally something convinced him, and I think what convinced him was there was a huge buildup in Ukraine militarily with support of NATO to once and for all, wipe out these eastern re regions like esque capture them and get rid of all the troublemakers that were still fighting the the Ukrainian government at that point. And I think once it would became clear that there was going to be a massive pu push of 400,000 troops from Ukraine into these fairly small regions which have been depleted over the last, I guess eight years. And I had a lot of the men or a die defending them that Putin made the decision to come in and stop this. And just simply by entering the country, they prevented the tack from being executed. And I think initially the thoughts of, of Putin and, and Russia in general, were like, okay, this should be like a two, maybe three month operation will come in. They'll be a little bit of skirmishes, they're gonna realize that we're serious. We're not fucking around. And they're going to back away. They're gonna back off. They're gonna let these people live independently. They're gonna stop harassing and bombing the hell out of'em and blowing up schools and kindergartens. And and that's really the main reason that Russia came in there. But that's not what happened. What happened is, as soon as this happened, American and well Western in general, military corporations saw a great opportunity to test their equipment, to create some cool videos for selling their gear and to get rid of old gear from us and NATO coffers. It's like, we sold'em this shit 15 years ago. We really need them to get rid of all that old stuff and buy the new stuff. And I think that's ultimately where the big push came from for NATO support of Ukraine and this massive amount of transfer of old equipment, which is what Ukraine's been getting because it's a way to get rid of it. It's a way to create new purchase orders and everybody loves to just give Russia the finger so you know, you might as well. It's a good opportunity. And who cares? They're Ukrainians. It doesn't matter how many Ukrainians die. This is literally the thought pattern of Western people. And that's why I refer to this as. E eventually this will end and this will be seen as the the Slavi Civil War and both sides that are currently fighting each other will have a hatred for the West, like hasn't been seen since World War ii,

Adam: 2:19:28

And it's probably gonna reunite those two.

Gene: 2:19:30

guaranteed 100% because the Ukrainians will start not just, I think a lot of'em already realized this, but they'll be in a position to do something about the fact that none of this had to happen. None of these deaths needed to happen. The only reason that this is happening is because a, the, the west over through the government of the country in an insurrection, fully paid and sponsored for, and then they kept pushing further and further east, right up to the borders with Russia. And so the West created this problem for the Ukrainian people, which has resulted in a huge displacement of people from Ukraine fleeing and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In fact, well, at least a hundred thousand. I think that's a minimal number right now of Ukrainian men have died already. Probably about 50,000 Russian deaths as well. And,

Adam: 2:20:26

So, so let me ask you, do you think that it's eventually gonna turn into the same building blocks that led our involvement as the United States into World War ii?

Gene: 2:20:38

I think it's closer to Vietnam.

Adam: 2:20:40

Well, I mean, yes, but cuz if you look, 19 39, 19 40, were supporting everyone fighting. Hitler

Gene: 2:20:50

Yeah. We're not supporting anybody in, in 1939. We're, we haven't started supporting anybody yet.

Adam: 2:20:57

well, we were already starting to send over supplies.

Gene: 2:21:00

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, we're making a buck for sure. Absolutely.

Adam: 2:21:03

and that's a, that, that, that's the stage that we're at right now.

Gene: 2:21:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Adam: 2:21:06

Doing the same thing in China. Japan is moving in, they're pushing through, cuz China, prior to World War II was a very poor, very non technologically advanced nation. So we're sending over, weapons, we're sending over aircraft, we're sending over all this stuff. And hey, you know what would really help is if all of this stuff that we were selling to Japan, oil and steel, well let's just cut them.

Gene: 2:21:31

Mm-hmm.

Adam: 2:21:32

that's what led the attack at Pearl Harbor.

Gene: 2:21:34

Absolutely. Yeah. That, that attack was not at all random. It was not unpredictable and it was instigated by the United States government. I don't think that necessarily the goal was to.

Adam: 2:21:46

Start a

Gene: 2:21:46

attack the us but the goal was definitely to legitimize an American attack in Japan.

Adam: 2:21:52

Oh yeah,

Gene: 2:21:55

Like it's much easier to fight Japan if you can have them attack you first.

Adam: 2:22:01

well then you don't look like a bad guy

Gene: 2:22:03

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's not the bad guy. That's why they keep saying in the propaganda media that the unprovoked attack of Russia and Ukraine, they always use the word unprovoked. Unprovoked.

Adam: 2:22:12

and it wasn't

Gene: 2:22:14

Why are they using, that word every time? Because it's not true. Because it was a clearly provoked response to American middling.

Adam: 2:22:26

American meddling. And also with the shit that was going on over there, I mean, you poke a bear so many times, eventually it's gonna get you,

Gene: 2:22:33

Yeah. So again, the propaganda is very thick. Unfortunately, it's working on a lot of people that watch Fox News just as much as they watch cnn.

Adam: 2:22:45

oh, you mean sheep?

Gene: 2:22:47

yeah. Sheep. Yeah. People that think that if they see something on tv or if the government tells'em that it was an insurrection on January 6th, well that must be true. Then those people ought to be in prison. That, and our, our former president ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. That's what these people think.

Adam: 2:23:03

yeah. And I still, I, when I heard that the other day, I just my mouth fell open because it's

Gene: 2:23:13

And they're not saying it, ironically, they're, they literally believe in that

Adam: 2:23:17

Yeah.

Gene: 2:23:18

and that's why a country's fucked. And it's gonna get, it's just rewards. And I, I, I mean, I say that as somebody who lives here and isn't looking forward to the collapse of the economic power of the United States, from a personal standpoint, this is gonna suck. Are are, we're gonna turn into a third world nation here. And for folks your age, it's doubly worse because a bigger percentage of your life is gonna be spent in dealing with things that as an American, you were never expected to have to deal with. Shortages, shortages of product, shortages of foods,

Adam: 2:23:52

And we're still dealing with that.

Gene: 2:23:56

nowhere near to where it's gonna be.

Adam: 2:23:58

I, I really don't see anything coming back to normal. As for supply chain issues for the next 10 years,

Gene: 2:24:07

no, exactly. And as I started the conversation, and I think we're gonna wrap up cuz we've been going for a while here. With the whole pendulum swinging this year is historically looking back at patterns. This is the year of the asthma. This is the year where we just hit the very edge of the swing of the pendulum, which means that the next five to 10 years, we're still not gonna be even at the midway point. We're gonna be at that midway point, 20 years from now. So 20 years from now is when you're gonna start seeing a preponderance of people agreeing with more, more libertarian, more conservative type viewpoints for the next 20 years. It'll be shifting toward that direction, but the majority will still be convinced that socialism, communism that, that this mentality is the right answer.

Adam: 2:25:08

Yep.

Gene: 2:25:10

So I,

Adam: 2:25:11

I tell you what, Jean. Jean, if you, if you ever come up with a solution to speed that pendulum up.

Gene: 2:25:16

time machine, that's the only

Adam: 2:25:18

Yeah. Time machine. Not

Gene: 2:25:20

yourself for 20 years and then wake back up, you'll be in a much better world.

Adam: 2:25:24

Well you got a hot tub, don't you? We'll just, you know there

Gene: 2:25:27

Yeah. Hot tub time machine. Exactly. Exactly. And the irony here, and I, I certainly am not recommending anybody move to China or anything, but we don't know today who's going to emerge to take up that place of the leading sort of economic growth. Is it gonna be Singapore? Is it gonna be China? Is it gonna be Russia? Is it gonna be the Middle East? I mean, if you look at the shit that the Saudi Arabia is putting money into right now, They know that there's probably another 50 to a hundred years of oil money and they need to start diversifying today. And they're doing that. They're, they're putting a lot of money into other things. And it's not by diversifying, I don't mean into other fuels. I mean, diversifying into other money making things. They need to start coming up with ways to make money for the country that doesn't involve sucking oil outta the ground. But I think they are aware of that. Like the current dude, I forget his name. Prince

Adam: 2:26:28

Oh.

Gene: 2:26:28

KM B or K b m or something, I

Adam: 2:26:30

something like that.

Gene: 2:26:31

Uh uh Yeah, like that guy, but you know, you may dislike him because he's had people assassinated like Khoi who was a CIA spy, but whatever. Regardless of that, he's a smart dude and he knows what's good for his country. The country literally has his last name, so he's gonna be making sure that their path goes well. And I think a lot of that's true for a lot of those Midland countries. Not exactly bright examples of democracies are they, but that's gonna be the economic powerhouses and leaders Africa, we could see some country really coming through and shining and becoming a powerhouse in Africa. Don't know yet. It's right now I can't really point a finger at any country in Africa, but it could happen. We never know Australia, not likely because they, they've got the western corrupt mindset. They've gone full woke, full bore gun confiscations, the whole thing. Putting people in prison for not taking the Covid vaccine. Europe is just fucked. Europe is going back to the Middle Ages. They'll be lucky to maintain their population levels. I think there'll be mass starvation in Europe. I think that's extremely likely that they will just simply not have an ability to feed their own populations. Not to mention even this year, but really what they're, everyone's saying that, that understands the the energy markets is that this year is bad for Europe. They're, they're drastically shrinking. Like how long people can keep power running there. There are brownouts and blackouts and temperatures. Bylaw can't be any higher than 70 degrees inside your house. I may, may or may even be lower that it might be like 64 degrees, but whatever it is, things that are, there were never any laws about the, their laws now, but it's really not this winter, it's next winter that's gonna have people dying because this, this winter, they're still kind of, they're colonizing the reserves that they still.

Adam: 2:28:29

Yeah.

Gene: 2:28:30

They're trying to make stretch things out without going to the grocery store just by eating less food in a di per day. But next winter, they're gonna have zero reserves and cold weather. They will literally not be able to run power plants and without power plants, their people will not have heat indoors. Germany has not had to deal with no heat indoors since 1947. They're gonna have to deal with it next year, and that's even if the war ends tomorrow. Incidentally, like the war ending does not mean that Europe gets everything back. Europe is cre the creator of this mess for themselves through all their sanctions. And those sanctions are not going to be shut down because you boy, talk about a, a hit on your pride if you have to go back and apologize to Russia and say, you were wrong for creating these sanctions in the first place. Now, can we buy some gas from you please. And meanwhile, Russia's been selling more fuel, more gas, more oil to China in India. The, the numbers were published just recently for 2022 as we rounded up the end of the year. And the Russian revenues from oil and gas industry. In 2022, the year with all the Western sanctions, right? You wanna take a stab at what happened to oil and gas? Wrong use.

Adam: 2:29:58

Hmm.

Gene: 2:29:59

Remember we've had now 11 rounds of sanctions against Russia.

Adam: 2:30:03

I, I don't even know.

Gene: 2:30:05

Yeah. Revenues up by 28%.

Adam: 2:30:09

Wow.

Gene: 2:30:10

That's a hell of a year. When sanctions are in, in force, when your revenues go up by a third, literally. And that's room that's also considering that somebody mysteriously that speaks English, blew up the pipeline to Germany.

Adam: 2:30:26

Yeah.

Gene: 2:30:27

Like that whole revenue is gone. But even still with all of that, revenues are up 28%. Call production is up 1%. Production of exports, of liquified natural gas by Russia is up by 8%. And most of that is going to Europe through Turkey and through, well both Turkey and Greece. Like they're basically doing the money laundering of Russian energy and then reselling it back to Europe for higher prices. Oil exports from Russia increase by 7% overall. So Europe's not getting that oil. Who's getting that oil? Oh, China's getting it. India's getting it both. The two largest countries in the world are now getting Russian oil instead of Europe getting that oil.

Adam: 2:31:16

Yep.

Gene: 2:31:16

It, it's it's insane. It's the sanctions only hurt Europe and to some extent the US but mostly Europe and did nothing to hurt Russia financially at all.

Adam: 2:31:29

Oh, but,

Gene: 2:31:30

pulls out of there and all these American brands

Adam: 2:31:32

oh, that, that was gonna hurt them,

Gene: 2:31:34

Yeah. Boy, is that

Adam: 2:31:36

uncle, uncle Joe. He swore that he was gonna lay the hammer down with

Gene: 2:31:41

Yeah. Oh, don't throw me in the Briar patch. Whatever you do. Not the Briar patch. No. Anything but that. So all these companies that had to pay franchise fees to American brands, European brands,

Adam: 2:31:54

They got fucked.

Gene: 2:31:55

they're all, no, they didn't get fucked because now they're still running the same stores. They're still selling the same product. Remember the product's coming from China, it's not coming

Adam: 2:32:05

Oh, yep, yep.

Gene: 2:32:06

They're still selling the same stuff, but now they don't have to pay the franchise fees. They just got a boost of about 15% to their bottom lines. Thank you, I mean, it's like Jesus Christ who is planning this shit. How do you, you can't do. Sanctions of luxury goods to a country that you get raw materials from. That's called shooting yourself in the foot.

Adam: 2:32:35

Yeah.

Gene: 2:32:37

The US gets the nuclear material that it uses in all of its nuclear power plants. From who? From Russia? Yeah. The US gets 90% of its titanium from Russia and the other 10% from China. What do you use titanium for? Oh, let's see. Military equipment. Oh, great. Good planning. Good planning.

Adam: 2:33:04

Yeah.

Gene: 2:33:05

Europe gets 80% of its grain from Russia and US and Ukraine combined 80%. So if Ukraine's the middle of a war and you put in sanctions against Russia, you just cut off 80% of the grain to your country.

Adam: 2:33:23

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:33:24

I was like, nobody with a brain would make these decisions. These decisions are literally made in a vacuum by people who won't be affected. Why? Because they're the actual ruling class. They're not politicians. They are the rich people. The modern day barons. Yeah. Oligarch is basically what we call the Russian and, and East European versions of this. But you know, Elon Mosque is an oligarch. Jeff Bezos is an oligarch. All these people are oligarchs. But Jeff Bezos owns his own newspaper. How the hell is that different from what we saw in the Middle Ages of the guy that owned the take your pick whatever industry, the street, the the Tempur back in the day Knight Templer they grew tremendously because they offered a service. They kind of fell into it, really. They, because they were spread around from Europe to the Middle East, they offered a banking service that allowed you to send money from any of their locations to any other location. So if you wanted to send money from France to Jerusalem for, to pay the salaries of your troops that you mounted for your crusades, you did it through the Knight's Temple. There was one organization that was not happy about this one bit. Do you know who that is?

Adam: 2:34:45

Well, my medieval history is not really up to par.

Gene: 2:34:49

okay. All right. Well, that would be the Vatican

Adam: 2:34:53

Oh, well

Gene: 2:34:53

Yes. Because that was

Adam: 2:34:55

I was going to guess Vatican, but I didn't wanna sound like a complete ile, but Huh. That does not

Gene: 2:35:04

That would've been a very good guess on your part if you would've said it. Absolutely. It, it's a and, and the Vatican didn't want the competition. They didn't, like they already had, they courted the market basically on taxation. They had an exclusivity with crowning King. So if you were a king anywhere in the Western world, you weren't a king until you were crowned by the

Adam: 2:35:29

the Pope.

Gene: 2:35:30

The Pope is the one that anointed you, gives you God's blessing to be the ruler of your country. So that was a very nice racket that they created. And then of course, that meant that they could get money and troops and favors and power from European countries. And during the Crusades when all these European countries like France and England and Spain were sending knights to recapture the holy lands the that seemed like a good idea, except that in the process of doing that, it, it really grew and created a lot of wealth and power for the Knights Temple, and the Vatican was gonna have none of that. And so find the, the plot was hatched to take down the Knight's Temple. By the Vatican who used combinations of relationships with different different royalty and rulers in different places and private mercenaries, and then literally orchestrated a Europe-wide campaign that on the same day had leaders of the Knights Templer in every region arrested at the same time. Now part of the reason too that this happened is because the Vatican was also using the Knights Templer to move money around, and they had built up a substantial debt to the Knights because they would, essentially say, well send money to these guys, and then we'll, we'll pay you later. Well, you, you gotta trust the Vatican, right? They're rich, that's, they'll pay their bills until they won't. And so on Friday the 13th, which is where that day comes from in 1307, all the Knight's Templar were rounded up and charged with heresy. And that's where Friday the 13th comes from that. What how, how, how long is that? That's 700 plus years later, almost 800 years later. We're still using Friday the 13th as a designation of an unlucky day. We just had one last Friday, by the way.

Adam: 2:37:31

Yes, we did.

Gene: 2:37:32

So history is great. I wish more people would read history because the more you know about history, the more you start seeing cycles and patterns, the more you start realizing that things repeat all the time. Because every generation steps into the mistakes of the past, and then in the way of correcting the mistakes of the past makes bigger blunders on their own.

Adam: 2:37:54

And that like, that's why I always tell people there's no such thing as bad history. There may have been some bad things that happened, but without seeing the past results of people's actions, people are dubious to just go and do it again.

Gene: 2:38:10

Oh, absolutely.

Adam: 2:38:11

repeats itself

Gene: 2:38:13

Yeah. History repeats itself because our memories are biological. They're very limited, books to a large extent help alleviate that problem, but only if you get people to read'em.

Adam: 2:38:23

well, and a lot of people don't don't even own books.

Gene: 2:38:28

Well, yeah. Yeah. They just will, they, they own Instagram They, they just wanna look at photos of, of other people doing things

Adam: 2:38:36

Yeah.

Gene: 2:38:37

then complain about'em.

Adam: 2:38:39

Yeah. Welcome to welcome to 2023

Gene: 2:38:42

All right. Well, on that note, I think we'll wrap things up. Hopefully y'all enjoyed this episode. We cover a whole bunch of different topics and. It's, it's good having, I enjoy having perspectives of people that are of variety of ages as well. So, I think at your age and probably your background and upbringing as well certainly puts you a lot closer to my thought patterns than Zach, the guy that we had who's 20. But I'm sure that there are plenty of things that well, in fact, I know a lot of people that are my age that are sort of more traditionally socially conservative than I am, cuz I'm pretty socially liberal. I'm just financially conservative. I think a lot of those people would probably have more, more things in that they would disagree with you on, but, oh, it seems like we have a very very similar worldview right now.

Adam: 2:39:34

Yes. Yes. I believe we do.

Gene: 2:39:36

Both like 23 year old girls. I mean, what else is

Adam: 2:39:39

Yeah, I, mean, I, I, I, I'm still gonna say 20 threes is a little bit too young,

Gene: 2:39:43

a little too young. Okay. Well you take the

Adam: 2:39:45

E e even for me, I'll take the olden ones. Oh, well, heck, I could shake on that

Gene: 2:39:49

Good deal.

Adam: 2:39:50

gene. It's been a pleasure.

Gene: 2:39:52

well thank you. I appreciate you coming in and I'm sure I'm sure we'll get some comments out of this and maybe we'll have you back in.

Adam: 2:39:58

Sounds good.