The Manosphere Report

0:01Joe Rogan podcast check it out the Joe Rogan experience train by day Joe Rogan

0:07podcast by night all day what's up Bill how you doing good to see you

0:14bro good to see this is this might be one of the coolest things anybody's

0:16ever given me so you gave me this knife explain all this all right so

0:23I mean there's a larger explanatory reason behind this my brother and I grew up

0:27my father died when I was five my brother and I grew up doing um

0:32these things called rendezvous have you ever heard of them um in what way what

0:36is it so there you go so what a rendezvous is is it's not you

0:40know you go to those like uh where I don't even know what they're called

0:44but people do like reenactments oh okay like civil war reenactments it's not like that

0:48so that's the closest thing approximation to probably what it is you get invited to

0:53them or these days are easier to get to but my stepfather my the guy

0:57my mother remarried brought us to him all you do is camp but you're only

1:01allowed to camp and no one comes to the camp or sometimes they might have

1:04people at the end but while you're in the camp everything in the camp has

1:07to be 1840 or prior so there can be no modern appurtenances nothing like a

1:12you know refrigerator nothing like that 1840 why that year at the end of the

1:17fur trapping at the end like that that was considered like Jeremiah Johnson time like

1:20peak fur trapping oh so there's people you know they dress like either you know

1:26revolutionary like American revolutionaries or they dress like mountain men or they dress like Indians

1:30how'd you guys dress mountain men so uh while we're there you learn all kinds

1:35of stuff while you're reenacting like I learned how to brain tan hides I learned

1:39how to traditionally art or do traditional archery stuff like that so anyway this knife

1:44was a knife I'd actually started working on my brother a while ago I do

1:48more of like the brain tanning tomahawk and when you're saying brain tanning you talk

1:52about using brains to tan animal hides yes using animal brains what what does brains

1:58do why does brain it softens the leather in a natural way and what's cool

2:02about it is every animal no matter what animal you kill has the exact amount

2:06of brain needed in order to tan the hide so you don't need any additional

2:10like people use egg yolks or mayonnaise or something like that all you do is

2:13you take the brain out of the cavity you grind it up you mix it

2:16into some water and then after you've after you've cleaned the leather and you've scraped

2:21it clean you stretch it I usually use like a dull shovel you stretch it

2:25over the dull shovel and then you soak it in the brain water mixture and

2:30then you just keep repeating that pattern and the leather gets like a really nice

2:34soft um feel to it what is it about the brain is it the fat

2:39it breaks down the leather uh I'm not sure if it's the fatter I haven't

2:43gotten that deep into it but it breaks down the leather and just makes it

2:46feel really soft really nice so anyway this knife here I started I killed that

2:50bear so the jaw is made out of two um bear jaws or out of

2:54one bear jaw split in half so um that was a bear I killed in

3:00Canada in 2017 it was my biggest black um black bear and uh so we

3:05split the jaw put that together um it's Irish linen threading then that's a knife

3:10that my brother picked up that was from 1860 it was totally rusted we had

3:15to grind it back or he had to grind it back down and then the

3:18sheath is uh is traditional like you know you could the cool thing about doing

3:23rendezvous and the cool thing about this is you could have a DeLorean and drop

3:27that in 1840 and somebody pick it up and think it was made yesterday and

3:31so everything on there has been done traditionally from the um the quilling on the

3:36beadwork is made from porcupine quills the backing is um uh buffalo brain tan and

3:42then the front is beaver hide or a beaver tail I'm sorry and then um

3:47the sides are horse and turkey hair hanging off of it and these are bear

3:52teeth and those are bear teeth yep from the same bear so when I was

3:57thinking about what I was because I wanted to give you something for inviting me

3:59on because it's still a shock to me that you did it even though we've

4:02been talking for so long I just never imagined a scenario where you'd want to

4:06have me on here so well you're an interesting dude I thought what could I

4:09give this guy that you know money or people or whatever couldn't get you and

4:14so I thought this is the right thing to do so it went from a

4:16me project to a you project and uh my brother Aaron uh helped me out

4:21with it tremendously so how'd you find this knife from the 1860s well he found

4:26it my brother is um even more esoteric and odd than I am believe it

4:30or not and uh he collects this kind of stuff um they I mean the

4:34guy who dated it said 1860 to 1890 that is what they figured and uh

4:40and you can tell by the way that like around the hilt and the way

4:43that it's the the pitting on it and stuff like that and the way that

4:47it was made that it fits that era I mean it could have been somebody

4:50we did it in 1900 but it's definitely that old like the type of steel

4:55and the way that it was worked and the way that it is around the

4:58hilt around the bottom there and um so it's at least you know 130 140

5:04but most likely 160 170 it actually fits my hand perfect yeah so that's also

5:10something my brother and I talked about about how long it was going to be

5:13and we made some educated guesses and put it all together so yeah I mean

5:17like I said not something you can just go pick up somewhere or something that

5:20will you know hopefully mean something not saying it's practical like it's not something you'd

5:25be gutting an elk out with but um well if we get attacked by zombies

5:29in the studio it's a good thing to have on the desk yeah I mean

5:32if you're gonna make a last stand you know that's a pretty good that's a

5:36pretty good knife to make your last stand with it's a good way to go

5:39out yeah exactly that's awesome yeah so the rendezvous um uh we did those from

5:44how long do they last uh they vary from a week and then some go

5:48up to three weeks and what do you do for food while you're out there

5:51um so inside of your lot so there's two types of rendezvous and at most

5:56rendezvous inside of your lodge you can have a cooler as long as it doesn't

6:00leave the lodge so I have like a 20 -foot teepee that I take to

6:03these things and uh inside of my teepee you can have a cooler oh and

6:08some modern appurtenances you Did they have any kind of coolers in the 1800s?

6:12I mean, they had ice boxes and like steel ice boxes and that type of

6:16thing, but nothing like we have today.

6:18You know, stuff was getting dug out, buried in the ground or put into the

6:22ground, like cool areas of the ground or dig outs.

6:24And they dried everything. So pemmican would have been the, you know, everyday thing to

6:29eat. That's just dried. So did you bring your own food or did you have

6:32to hunt for food? So you bring your own food, but there are other rendezvous

6:36that are kind of invite only.

6:38And I don't even think a lot of people who do rendezvous knew about these,

6:41but there's ones that I think they're called.

6:43I think I might be speaking out of school.

6:44Somebody might send me an email after this, but I'm going to talk about it

6:46anyway because I never got read the right act.

6:48They're called juried. I think they called them juried Southerns, and I've only been to

6:52one of those. And that's where everything in the camp has to be pre -1840.

6:56You meet down in a parking lot.

6:57You put everything on the back of a mule.

6:59And when I did mine, it was up in the, I think it was the

7:03Bighorns. So, you know, you talk to a rancher, get everything packed up.

7:08You go into the back of the Bighorns and everything in camp has to be

7:11pre -1840, as close as it can get.

7:14They'll even look at your stitching and say, oh, that was sewn with a sewing

7:18machine. You got to take that off.

7:19And it's always these weird, like, eccentric history teachers that run them, like guys who,

7:24you know, teaches history at Berkeley or something like that or other places.

7:28And they just really enjoy living like this.

7:30And at those ones, if they're in season, you can hunt whatever's in season.

7:33You're hunting with traditional archery.

7:35And it's really good for kids.

7:37Like, the Internet wasn't a problem as much when I was a kid.

7:40I was certainly into computers.

7:41I have been since I was a child.

7:43But you could just detach.

7:45Everyone's running around crazy, sitting around the campfire at night.

7:49People are singing with, you know, songs and the guitar.

7:51You're learning how to do things like this.

7:53You're learning how to brain tan.

7:54You're learning how to live traditionally.

7:56And it's an eccentric cult, kind of.

7:59It's not a cult. It's an eccentric group of people.

8:01It's a lot of fun.

8:02People take it very seriously.

8:03Community. People take it very seriously.

8:06There's more advertising surrounding it now than there used to be because numbers are kind

8:10of dwindling. But I did my last one last year with my brother.

8:14So if you go on my Instagram, there's a picture of my brother, my son,

8:17and I doing, I think, our second rendezvous together.

8:20And we're just dressed like, you know.

8:22I've actually got an awesome war shirt.

8:24I can show you the picture.

8:25I've got an awesome war shirt that a friend of mine went to war with.

8:30He was half Native American.

8:31And his grandfather was Ojibwe or something, Chippewa, something like that.

8:37And he was, I don't remember what his role was.

8:40But anyway, I went, we deployed to Iraq together.

8:43And his grandpa made me this war shirt.

8:45Oh, there you found it.

8:47Jamie. He pulled it up.

8:48That's my lodge. How much do you enjoy a shower after you get out of

8:54here? I mean, as long as you keep, you know, they have showers in camp.

8:59And they've got a showering area where it's just like pallets.

9:03That's the inside of my lodge.

9:05So there's a cooler at this one.

9:06This is not a juried rendezvous.

9:10And so you can shower while you're in.

9:12Some of them, they call them hooters.

9:13There'll be like a latrine and a shower area in camp.

9:16But also like some of them, I don't do it at all.

9:19This is wild. And so there's no reenactment.

9:22Like there's not like civilians walking around.

9:24It's not like Renaissance figure.

9:25Yeah, exactly. It's just more like I want to act like it's 1840 for a

9:29couple of weeks and not look at my phone one time and not worry about

9:32the news. It's amazing after a week here, you really forget about the world.

9:37And you're like, don't even know you're supposed to be stressed out about things.

9:40You're just out there doing your thing for a couple of weeks.

9:43And you just cook over open fire.

9:45Everything gets done traditionally that way.

9:47And did you bring your own meat?

9:48Yeah, you bring your own meat and stuff in the cooler.

9:51And then there's also cooking classes where they teach you like all the recipes to

9:55do with like a Dutch oven, like an old cast iron oven.

9:59And they do gambling at nights.

10:01So you'll walk into like a huge, they call them marquees, but it's like a

10:05huge 100 foot square lodge.

10:06There'll be three gambling tables and there are girls in like the low cut shirts

10:09and dealing cards and smoking cigars and just having an amazing time.

10:14And you go by camp names while you're in there.

10:17Nobody uses their real name.

10:18Well, some people use their real name.

10:20I'd say 60 % of people don't use their real names.

10:23What was your camp name?

10:25This is embarrassing. It should be.

10:28Yeah. So I got my camp name.

10:30I got christened with my camp name in the big horns when I was 14

10:35or 13. And it was Talks A Lot.

10:38Talks A Lot. Yeah. And Sue, it was pronounced I -a -ota.

10:42Just because you talk a lot?

10:43When I was a kid, I talked a lot.

10:45Actually, as an adult, I don't talk that much unless I know you.

10:49But as a kid, I would never shut up.

10:51I had really bad ADHD.

10:52They kind of diagnosed me with having some low -level version of Asperger's.

10:57And I was a rapscallion in class.

11:01Just never shut up, never listened, never did anything.

11:04Those are the people that are the most fun.

11:06Well, they didn't enjoy me in high school or in grade school.

11:09I probably would have been your friend.

11:11But yeah, they called me I -a -ota.

11:15And we got christened. And it was a...

11:19One of the things we're kind of missing in culture today, or something that I'm

11:22trying to reinvigorate, especially with my son and with other young men that I run

11:26into, is kind of like coming -of -age rights.

11:28Yeah. Something to say, you're a man.

11:32And I'm going to start treating you like a man from this moment forward.

11:34Like, you know, what does that...

11:35There should be structure to that.

11:37You know, we're tribal. And it's important to me, so...

11:41I think that is really something that's missing from society.

11:45I think that... I used to think it was silly when I was young.

11:48And then as I got older, I realized, oh, I went through that.

11:51I became a black belt.

11:52And I started fighting. And you had a group of men telling you, you're at

11:56this level. We're going to treat you like that.

11:57And if you fall from grace, we're going to remind you right away.

12:01Yeah. And we just don't do that with young men.

12:03And we have a society now where young men act like young men until they're

12:0645 or 50 or 60.

12:08And sometimes never stop. Yeah.

12:09And, you know, women, nature imposes itself on women.

12:14They become fertile. They're able to have babies.

12:16And they've got to seek security or find a husband or a really good job

12:21that will supplement whatever a husband would provide.

12:23And they've got to... I start acting like a woman, whereas men can sit in

12:27a basement, you know, and it becomes very dangerous.

12:29Especially men that never have children.

12:31Yeah. They're perpetual children. Yeah.

12:34And if you don't impose nature on yourself by undergoing those types of rights and

12:38understanding what it means to become a man, nature will impose itself on you by

12:41either A, you're never going to have children and therefore you're dead forever, or B,

12:45it will kill you because you're fat and in your mom's basement, you get diabetes,

12:49the foot chopped off and you're 35 and, you know, we just don't tell men,

12:54we don't have a, the military did it for me.

12:56I had really put off, uh, responsibility or, uh, seeking meaning or any of those

13:02things until I was in the military.

13:04And like I said, my father died when I was five.

13:06So I really had no central male authority until I was about 13 or 14

13:10when I met this guy, Steve.

13:12Um, and, uh, he kind of initiated some of those rights for me and, and

13:17held me to account, but it was really the military, which was a turning point

13:21for me where, um, I, there was a standard and I was expected to hold

13:25it. I think there's a reason why most ancient cultures and a lot of ancient

13:29religions have these rites of passages where you are like now officially, officially a man.

13:35Yeah. Officially, you know, you're responsible.

13:38You, you are, you have to think of yourself as a different thing now.

13:41Now, whereas if you leave it up to your own decision, men sort of dwindle

13:47into this perpetual state of childhood.

13:49Yep. And it's not about you anymore.

13:51It's about other people like that, that for me having children, I've got four kids.

13:56Um, really, you know, the military was kind of the first inkling of responsibility, but

14:01then having children and realizing this isn't about me at all.

14:04Right. And I need to be willing to break my back for these people who

14:06depend on me. Um, there's this weird primal feeling that, you know, you're responsible for

14:12these like very vulnerable little people that you love more than life itself.

14:16It just changes everything. It just kicks you into gear.

14:19But for some people it doesn't, you know, some people that are so stuck in

14:24that perpetual childhood thing, they just wind up deciding it's too much of a drag

14:28and they get divorced. Yeah.

14:29You know, and then they fuck up the kids.

14:31Yeah. God, we have so many rabbit holes we could go down on this, but

14:35I mean, it, it was, um, you know, growing up in the eighties and the

14:40early nineties, it was really like a divorce culture.

14:44And I obviously understand that if you're in a bad relationship or an abusive relationship

14:48or, you know, there's certainly there's a threshold where marriage should dissolve.

14:52No question. But I kind of feel like it are the central thrust of a

14:57lot of culture at that time was about like divorce or not getting married or,

15:01you know, discovering yourself and that type of thing, which in some ways is good.

15:04There's goodness there, but when it becomes a central thrust or a central narrative and

15:08divorce becomes very easy or it's happening everywhere, it's super normalized and it's normalized.

15:13It's super destructive. Children are the ones who suffer the most on it.

15:16And I think the data is clear on that.

15:17Um, when you look at, you know, single parent homes or no parent homes or

15:21being raised, you know, without a, uh, an authority or an abusive step person or

15:25abuses. And that is, you know, when you look up the stats on that, like

15:29remarriage and having a new family like that, that becomes the single most likely vector

15:34of abuse in a child, young child's life is that new person.

15:37Right. Because now they're raising someone else's kid or whatever.

15:41Um, I mean, it's a, that's in every old movie, the evil stepmother, you know,

15:46or evil stepfather, but it's in the old movies, it's always the stepmother that abuses

15:50the girl. Yes. And, and, and so, you know, I kind of, uh, I kind

15:57of resented that part of that time.

15:58That culture was, um, I shouldn't say when I was a child, I should say

16:02as I got older, cause I wasn't a single mom home and, uh, the guy

16:05that my mother remarried right after my father died was abusive.

16:09And, um, you know, he really got hard on my younger brother and, you know,

16:13my mother moved us out almost immediately.

16:15But, uh, when I reexamined that time, it really was, uh, you know, I don't

16:21know how to describe it, but you know, there are no rules when it comes

16:25to relationships and family and every family special in particular in its own way.

16:30And they all need to be venerated.

16:32And there's of course, some truth to that.

16:33We shouldn't deride someone because they come from a broken family, but we shouldn't elevate

16:37it. Like it's at the same level as a unified family.

16:41Um, and, and that's a tricky line to, to walk, but also the people who

16:45are making those movies and that culture came from the fifties and sixties where divorce

16:49was just not in the cards.

16:51And so that was a, you know, Hook's law, as you bend any object, it

16:56wants to return back to its natural state.

16:58And Hook's law kind of played there where nobody could get divorced in the forties,

17:02thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties.

17:04And then you had the baby boomers who kind of culturally said, you know, actually

17:08there's, it's not as bad as we think, but then it overcorrected and then it

17:11became kind of, kind of part of that cultural zeitgeist.

17:15And that's kind of what humans do, right?

17:17We always overcorrect. Yeah, we do.

17:19Yeah. We go in one direction until we realize it's destructive and then we overcorrect

17:23until we realize that's destructive.

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18:37from Ketone IQ. And I would say...

18:39That's the, and not, this isn't a political thing.

18:41This is just the reality of it.

18:43That's mostly what makes me conservative in nature, is I agree systems need to change,

18:48but they need to change slowly and pragmatically.

18:50So we, because, you know, any social, any social scientist worth their salt will know

18:57a social experiment almost never has the outcome that we thought it was going to

19:00have. In other words, we thought doing something to society would form society this way,

19:05but it almost has the inverse, the anti -pattern, like we talked about before.

19:08And it almost ends up propagating itself.

19:12And so that makes me, I'm still a proponent for change, but it should be

19:16slow and thought out and done in pockets first.

19:22Kind of, you know, federalism.

19:23Let's do little changes here.

19:25Let's let California be crazy for a while and see how that works out for

19:28them. But let's not nationalize the craziness.

19:31Let's learn from what they learned there and there'll be goodness.

19:34You know, hot baristas that make great coffee and it's cool art.

19:37And let's take those parts, but how about the rampant homeless?

19:42Let's find out what caused that and solve for that.

19:45And, you know, that was kind of the founder's intent with federalism.

19:49They're really federalist -minded, state -minded.

19:51And there's, you know, even for that being as 250 years ago, there's a profound

19:55amount of profanity in that.

19:57Like, let's change things slowly and let social experiments take place and adopt the best

20:02parts of those things and then integrate them to the culture overall as we move

20:05along. But, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

20:09Yeah. I think in this country, one of the primary problems that people have is

20:14a profound lack of respect for discipline and how important discipline is for your life.

20:20Yeah. And discipline is associated with conservatism.

20:23And because of that, like, a lot of people think that I'm – I don't

20:27think I'm anything. I think I have – politically or ideologically, I have a lot

20:33of everything in me. I don't think I identify with one side or another.

20:37But if one thing that I agree with conservative people on, conservative people lend more

20:42towards the importance of discipline.

20:43Hard work, discipline, don't complain, get things done, deal with the hand that you've been

20:50dealt with, and just sort it out and get to work.

20:53Yeah. Don't cry. Don't look for other people to save you.

20:56They're not going to. And this is not something that's celebrated in society.

21:02It's thought of as a cruelty that if you say that you need discipline, that,

21:07well, you're not treating these people that are victims of circumstance with the proper respect

21:12or with the proper empathy.

21:14And I think a certain amount of empathy is probably not so good for you

21:18at a certain point in time.

21:19There comes a point in time where you're letting people wallow in their bullshit and

21:22just make excuses for why they're not getting anything done.

21:25And in that sense, I think California is – that is a giant part of

21:29what's wrong with California. What's wrong with California when it comes to crime?

21:33What's wrong with California? You know, the way they address crime and the way they

21:38address homelessness and all these issues that they have, they don't put their foot down.

21:42At a certain point in time, you've got to realize, like, what Gad Saad calls

21:46suicidal empathy. Society can suffer from suicidal empathy.

21:50And at a certain point in time, you've got to enforce rules and you've got

21:53to make it so that people have to get their shit together.

21:55Yeah. And that suicidal empathy becomes a way for the person who's imposing it on

22:00someone else to feel good about themselves, which makes it even trickier and even more

22:04insidious because they're feeling good from the weaponization of other people's lot in life.

22:13And the thing about that is none of the rules that you're going to impose,

22:18especially as a legislator or as somebody in a think tank, you'll never feel the

22:22repercussions of them. You'll never have to actually deal with it day to day.

22:26You're just imposing it on someone else and saying, I better understand the structure of

22:30reality and the fabric of the world and you can't help but be this way.

22:35It's the system that's done this to you.

22:36So let me give you a pittance that I'm going to take from someone else.

22:40And that makes me benevolent.

22:42I get to feel good about that.

22:44That's a giant part of government for sure.

22:46That's a giant part of what's the problem with, like, liberal governments.

22:49Liberal governments should, they should get paid based on whether or not the city does

22:56better or worse financially than when they were in office.

23:00If their policies lead to greater domestic production of goods and services and GDP does

23:09better and everything does better, then you should get paid more.

23:12If more real estate sales, more people are making more money, medium income raises, less

23:17homeless people, you should get paid more.

23:19And you should get paid less if homelessness goes up, if crime goes up, if

23:23there's more destruction, if there's more assaults and home invasions, you should get paid less.

23:29You're doing a shitty job.

23:31And if you did that, I think they would impose laws that made it safer

23:36and healthier and made it for, you know, better for society.

23:40Yeah. And then they would just inevitably change the ways that we track and measure

23:43those things and pay themselves more.

23:45Well, they shouldn't have the opportunity to do that.

23:47Then you need some sort of an oversight.

23:49I'm being cynical. You're right, though.

23:51You're right to be cynical because that's what they do about everything.

23:54Someone was explaining to me yesterday that one of the problems with cleaning up fraud

24:00is that fraud is responsible for a giant percentage of GDP.

24:05And if you have hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud in this country and

24:10you eliminated that, you actually lower GDP because you actually lower the amount of money

24:17that's in circulation. That's interesting.

24:19I've never thought about that before.

24:21He was explaining to me and I was like, oh, my God, that is crazy

24:24that a giant percentage of our GDP is fraud.

24:27And if that was somehow or another eliminated, it'd be like one of the things

24:32that they do when they raise jobs, like they increase GDP.

24:37We've added, you know, 200 ,000 jobs to the market.

24:41Well, what are those jobs?

24:42Like, what are those jobs?

24:43Are these government jobs? Because the government is a giant percentage of our GDP, government

24:48jobs. You know, it's way bigger than it should be.

24:51Yeah, way bigger. And those jobs, a lot of them.

24:53Bullshit and waste a lot of them.

24:55Yeah, you know, and that was some of the stuff that was uncovered during doge

24:59you know the limited amount of access the doge had to it just just the

25:03Beginning of it where you got to see the curtain pulled back and get to

25:07see exposure of so many of these fraudulent supposedly Charitable organizations that were really just

25:14money laundering. They're really just funneling money into these people's hands Like like the homeless

25:20thing in California. Oh my goodness.

25:21It's about bonkers Situation where they've spent 24 billion dollars.

25:27They cannot track it. They've tried to audit it the government has vetoed these audits

25:31and They have no idea where that 24 billion dollars went and yet homelessness went

25:38up. Yeah, but you've got a giant machine That is this homeless Establishment this homeless

25:44industrial complex. Yes, that is being funneled money into that and that actually aids the

25:50gdp Which is kind of crazy Yeah, I mean it was one of the things

25:55my last three years in the military um I was advising a colonel and a

26:00two -star general and they were in charge of all of the offensive cyber development

26:06Ethical hacking offensive cyber development.

26:09I was their technical advisor and one of the things I kind of learned about

26:12government at that point was Um, these systems have their own incentive and incentives not

26:20the output of their purported mission The incentive is the growing of the organization and

26:25the execution of budget So while they're in there, you know, I've never seen a

26:30field grade officer get dressed down more Than when he didn't spend all of the

26:33money that he was budgeted for for that year.

26:35Isn't that crazy? He would go to the pentagon and they'd be like well You

26:38didn't execute 300 million dollars of oco of overseas contingent operations funds Here and they

26:45would dress them down for an hour and what people don't understand is if you

26:48don't spend that money your budget for the next year We'll be lower because there's

26:53no need to have a higher budget instead of tying it to mission to say

26:56right Did you achieve your mission objectives right you we started the year grilling agreeing

27:00from the president's framework the nip if the national intelligence priority framework We wanted to

27:05achieve these effects You what you would want to hear is we achieve them and

27:09we save 25 percent But instead it's we achieve them, but we didn't execute all

27:13of this money. Well, you're fired And I literally have seen that happen I've literally

27:18seen that happen and and that kind of what a six Yeah, and that kind

27:22of shifted my thinking in that These systems have their own incentive to exist and

27:28to grow Because those guys that were holding that general officer that oh six is

27:32that colonel's feet to the fire They also have an incentive to because they were

27:36part of that trickle -down and they've got bureaucracy that surrounds them And if they

27:41didn't execute it, that means they didn't execute it and that means they have to

27:44go to whomever This was during the Biden administration.

27:46I believe hegseth for Everything we could say has actually tightened this up quite a

27:51bit and he's kind of rehauled the way development works Especially on the offensive cyber

27:55side But they have bureaucracies and the incentive of the bureaucracy is to make sure

27:59that we grow and that's it And then then you think about that for a

28:03minute and you're like, well, it's no longer a question why we have 30 trillion

28:06dollars of of debt 39 39 trillion and then what like a hundred and fifty

28:11trillion of unfunded liability in other words We've promised people money for the next 30

28:17years And and it's debt that you know, I don't see how we'll ever escape

28:22that debt um, and it's the thing about it is is and I don't want

28:26to be pigeonholed because i'm actually quite liberal when it comes to My politics are

28:31are like yours in that i'm kind of a man without a home But they

28:34also change at different levels of analysis.

28:37I'm very liberal with my family And i'm very like communist.

28:40I protect them. I forgive them everything they need I'm trying to give them structure

28:45And even in my community i'll help someone out out of pocket or do something

28:49for them That's a strain on my time or might hurt something else because there

28:53are really no solutions. There's just trade -offs that's supportive for the community Yeah, that's

28:57how people are supposed to do charity and and i'm also very non -judgmental and

29:01someone how they care I don't care what they do in their house.

29:03I don't care if it's a roman orgy on the weekends like Be a predictable

29:07productive person monday through friday and go do your roman orgy on the on the

29:11weekend. I don't care I won't judge you like I don't I really have enough

29:15crap in my own life As long as someone's not getting hurt as long as

29:18no one's getting hurt consenting adults Like I I have enough problems and I screw

29:22up enough and people have have there's a laundry list of things that people can

29:25say about me How i've screwed up in my life, but then as I graduate

29:28and get higher and higher more conservatism takes place um and and and that's a

29:35result of just You know having an engineering mindset when i'm looking at life And

29:40understanding that it's just not republican or democrat or leftist or rightist or or liberal

29:47or or classically liberal all of these monikers Don't work for me because they break

29:53down At some level of analysis, right?

29:56And I think that's the problem I think the problem is these ideologies that people

30:00subscribe to we have a predetermined pattern of thinking that you're supposed to adopt Yes,

30:05you're supposed to adopt these opinions and some of them just don't fit and that's

30:09how people get pigeon That's like on people on the left They get pigeonholed into

30:12weird stuff that you can't really really justify like trans women in sports Like what

30:17the fuck are you doing?

30:18Yeah, like we're you know, we're being inclusive like no you're not or loving the

30:21borders of ukraine while hating our own border Yeah Fucking bonkers.

30:26Yeah, it's there's so many crazy things There's so many crazy things that people just

30:30adopt that don't make any sense And you know when you subscribe to an ideology

30:35the problem is if like if you you define yourself as this person I am

30:39this I am a hardcore right wing blah blah whatever it is You you immediately

30:44close the door to all the very productive and interesting things that the other side

30:48thinks Yeah, and you're also making yourself into a tool of propaganda Mm -hmm because

30:53if I if someone if I meet someone and they just say I'm this right,

30:56it's like well, I could reasonably Predict everything that's gonna come out of your mouth.

31:00Yeah, that's not entertaining I don't want to have a conversation with that person, right?

31:03I can't seek to learn from them because I could just pick up the communist

31:06manifesto or mine conf and have a pretty good understanding of who i'm dealing with

31:10and therefore conversation is not is not relevant it's not needed a lot of people

31:14are afraid of social ostracization too so they're afraid of straying outside of the narrative

31:21whatever side they're supposed to be on and you know some groups are really good

31:26at making you feel like dog shit if you don't agree entirely with even things

31:31that don't even make any sense yeah so that's why people go along with stuff

31:34that's illogical like open borders or whatever it is yeah they go along with things

31:38that's not in their best interest because they're scared they're scared of being ostracized they're

31:43scared of being cast out of the kingdom there's you know they're scared of being

31:46excommunicated yeah i dealt with a lot of people first when i retired from the

31:51military and then more recently um leading up to the last election where you know

31:56i was entertaining the deal of doing some work for government um believe it or

32:00not and because i'm as we talk more you'll figure out i'm pretty anti institutions

32:06i'm really uh against those types of things but i really felt if you would

32:12have asked me three years ago how i felt about the trump election and all

32:14of that stuff i was very excited because he was saying a lot of things

32:17that i wanted someone to say trump fits a pattern and this is what people

32:22i think kind of lack when they my whole life is built around pattern analysis

32:27i really enjoy patterns and exhuming and looking into patterns and there's a pattern of

32:34like a there's you'll laugh when i say this first part of the pattern but

32:38then i'll i'll make it make more sense later but he fits the pattern well

32:43first he's a jacksonian and and and in that he's a pragmatic person the way

32:48that he governs which i liked or at least i did and you know there's

32:51some things he's done recently that i don't enjoy and um but he's also a

32:56an outsider or or a savior type a la you know i don't remember the

33:03movie but the magnificent seven back in the day i don't remember the actor's name

33:06there's this group of you know there's this western town everything's going to shit these

33:12seven guys walk in i think chris pratt remade it with denzel washington or someone

33:16else oh really i think so i can't remember but there's an old one that

33:19i used to watch my grandpa god there's too many movies yeah and uh there's

33:23this pattern where you wouldn't invite these guys to a dinner party you wouldn't want

33:27them in church on sunday but when a system is so corrupt and so horrible

33:31you have to rely on these types of people to come in and be a

33:35check to the system but then also you don't want them to stick around when

33:38the system is reset so there's a scene in the movie where he says uh

33:42you know man these the seven guys are talking they said man these people must

33:46have really wanted us like it's crazy they must be happy we're here and i

33:50think it's gary cooper or someone or one of these guys says looks at him

33:53and says they're gonna be even happier when we leave and trump kind of fits

33:57that narrative wolverine from the x -men would be another one who fits this narrative

34:00like is he going to be at the x -men christmas party no right is

34:05he trying to hit on scott gray's wife cyclops i'm a comic nerd so i'm

34:08sorry is he trying to hit on is he trying to sleep with cyclops his

34:12wife yes uh did he chop a guy's head off and throw it at a

34:15car yes but we're about to go face galactus and we're gonna need him and

34:20so we have to put up with all of this other stuff because we understand

34:24that when the system is corrupt at every level you need someone who's outside of

34:28the system to come in and set the system right it's a western uh um

34:33pattern as well other people who fit this would be like patten right married his

34:37cousin slap soldiers who did he really oh yeah his cousin yeah i think it's

34:40his third cousin hey this is your asmr break from car rental chaos brought to

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35:09rent a car not a rental car uh how many cousins removed or does it

35:15become okay i don't know is it third or if there's blood if you never

35:19met them i'm icelandic so i really can't say anything right they literally have apps

35:23in iceland like my grandparents are and my great -grandparents are all from iceland my

35:26they settled in manitoba gimli manitoba which is this icelandic community and they literally have

35:31apps in iceland to make sure you're not dating your cousin so you know you

35:36know less than such a small community less than a million people right on one

35:39island you know it's so you're trying to prevent that stuff but anyway um patent

35:44yeah uh slap soldiers who had tuberculosis one of them probably had cell shell shock

35:49it got in the newspaper they wanted his head and thankfully the generals were like

35:53no he's the guy that we need for the moment right he had the ivory

35:56pistols and he dressed like not like a general he didn't talk like a general

36:00he wasn't like a um eisenhower where he had the the veneer of a general

36:05but we knew he was the only guy we could have at the battle of

36:08the bulge like the germans talked about him like he was already a mythic legend

36:12in his own in his lifetime um but the part of this pattern that people

36:17should understand or when they examine this pattern is it never ends well for these

36:20antiheroes they're always killed and they're always killed or defamed in the final analysis so

36:26when the magnificent seven come in they'll go to another town and i'll get killed

36:29when patten retired he died in some weird jeep accident um you know wolverine he's

36:35the only guy left uh on this desolate like world where the hulk's in charge

36:39and it's a horrible existence uh pat or not patten um petraeus is another one

36:45i you know i i brief petraeus i worked for not for him but for

36:49people who worked for him in iraq and um he was the guy that got

36:54us through with the surge but um he he was really a weird guy when

36:58you would talk to him like you knew that he knew something you didn't and

37:03that he was seeing things that you weren't but even for myself as being like

37:07a chief warrant officer at that time a low -level technician he would ask questions

37:10like he got it he didn't act like other generals like other generals would have

37:14their three things they want to talk about then they'd want to get out of

37:16dodge he would ask questions that really had implications and and and he is another

37:21one of these outsiders who came in to write a system that was not working

37:24vis -a -vis Iraq in 2006 and then what happens to him when he leaves

37:30he they put him in charge of the CIA they knew he had been screwing

37:33around with this woman and they're like okay we he served his function now he

37:37needs to get out of dodge and then he now he's you know uh got

37:41tried for all these things and sleeping with someone while he wasn't married and you

37:45know there's it's not a ceremonious end for these types I saw and is that

37:49really what happened to Petraeus that's how he ended yeah he was sleeping with some

37:53girl that was writing his book or something along those lines uh well I'm not

37:58saying that's yeah I'm not saying that's the end of him right all I'm saying

38:01is that history will remember the pattern is ending unfavorably you know what I'm saying

38:06and so when I examined Trump I I said yeah I don't like what he

38:10says I wouldn't want him around my daughters I don't want wouldn't want him at

38:14a dinner party um but he seems to be saying these things like he's going

38:18to reset this system you know I think it was Chappelle was on your show

38:22or another show or someone like that where he talked about Hillary saying uh you

38:26know something about the tax loopholes or whatever and he just hit right back at

38:30her and said well you're the people who are funding your campaign take advantage of

38:33those same loopholes and if they're there I'm going to take advantage of them I

38:36wouldn't be a pragmatist if I didn't when he started saying stuff like that it

38:40seemed to me like he was going to upend this system uh the jury's out

38:43on that because I don't know how I feel these days we can get into

38:45that if you need to if we want to but um uh he's an outsider

38:49personality and I thought he was going to really reset the system and and there

38:53are you know good things that are happening you know if I were to grade

38:57him I would probably give him a c plus or a b minus um he's

39:00certainly better than you know what was happening under Biden um I was still in

39:03the military when Biden was in charge and it was awful to say the least

39:07um what were the problems oh my goodness um books that general officers were being

39:13told to read and that I as an advisor were being told to read books

39:17like white rage like understanding why your problem uh you as a white man are

39:23a problem in the modern day military because um this whole thing's built on systemic

39:28racism you have inbuilt implicit bias that you can't escape even if you wanted to

39:33or you recognized it is woke politics yeah it was woke politics and it was

39:37um and it was uh you know I would sit there and say you know

39:41all of the friends all the people that I know who've died during this war

39:45not all of them but 80 percent of them and the numbers bear this out

39:48when you look at them they're all white guys from the middle of the country

39:51who were on their farms or you know not all of them 80 percent of

39:55them I think the numbers bear out about 80 percent of them were these guys

39:59from the midwest or these places where they didn't really have a lot going and

40:03they went off to fight a war that we probably shouldn't have been fighting in

40:06the first place especially in Iraq and they died for their cause and uh and

40:10now you're saying that those people who make up the majority of the combat deaths

40:14are somehow part of this problem and that other people aren't benefiting from it um

40:19I don't believe race to me is disgusting even to talk about someone's race even

40:25you know on both sides of the spectrum when they were you know electing that

40:29supreme court justice I can't remember her name right now off the top of my

40:32head just because I'm a little nervous still um she was black and they were

40:36talking brown yeah they're talking about how it's historic because she's black and Biden had

40:40said he's gonna hire a black woman to do this job if I had worked

40:44my whole life to do something but now I'm only being elevated to this next

40:48position because of my gender and the color of my skin I would turn that

40:52job down so fast because that's not what I want to be known for these

40:56are immutable characteristics that I'm not in control of I wasn't I didn't choose to

41:00be born white or with blue eyes I didn't choose to be born in a

41:03trailer park in the middle of nowhere without a dad at five I didn't choose

41:07any of those things I don't see how I benefit from these things at the

41:10individual level and you know the individual level of analysis for me is really the

41:14only way to evaluate someone for their pluses and their minuses and anything beyond that

41:19to me is discriminatory on its face of course it's just a great way to

41:23control people because you pit people against each other that way and it's just an

41:28awesome way that they can stay in control and make everybody walk on eggshells and

41:33think that you know they've victimized people in order to get to their position and

41:37they have to be shameful of who they are that they had no control over

41:42it also gives people an easy rubric to judge other people yeah because nothing's easy

41:47really and it gives them like white guy bad you know black guy good Chinese

41:53guy as long as he's not applying to the college I want to get into

41:55he's good right um and and it gives people want easy answers really at the

42:01end of the day they want to be told the easy rubric to navigate life

42:04because really none of it's easy and it requires discipline like you said before um

42:08and thought and and and so it was that stuff in the military I remember

42:13getting told in an equal opportunity briefing we were getting um it doesn't matter what

42:20you meant when you said what you were saying it only matters what the person

42:24felt when you said it they'd said that in a military it was a military

42:29equal opportunity briefing so and the example they gave was if a woman walks into

42:33the like we worked with a lot of civilians at this um at this uh

42:37military organization where we're developing these um offensive cyber capabilities a lot of civilians in

42:43there and uh so if you know woman x walks in today and she's got

42:48a dress on and the thought in your head is I'd like to get my

42:51wife that dress or something like it or find out where she bought it and

42:54you just say that's a nice dress anyway here's the tps reports if she heard

42:59something sexual or didn't like the connotation or whatever there's going to be an investigation

43:05you're going to be pulled out of that office this is all going to happen

43:09despite what you meant so the idea probably was good we want to prevent sexual

43:15harassment inside of the office um but it was weaponized but it was weaponized and

43:20it was carried out in a way where it's only about how people feel and

43:22not what a reasonable person standard would be in a particular situation and from the

43:27time I joined the military until that time we'd been at war my entire time

43:31in the military we were at war um I deployed throughout my career and I

43:36wouldn't say say that I was a war horse.

43:38I was not a long tabber.

43:39I was not a cool guy kicking in doors.

43:40It was my job as the guy with tape over his glasses to point out

43:45the door for someone else and say, bad guy's in there.

43:48So I was not a super badass in that regard.

43:51I was a nerd for super badasses.

43:55But we also all engaged in gallows humor and the jokes and stuff.

44:01Even someone who had recently died, we'd make a joke about.

44:04It's because you have this tremendous pressure and comedy is the relief valve for that

44:11in a lot of ways.

44:13But then someone would overhear that joke or something.

44:15And now you're looking down the barrel of a 15 -6, which is a military

44:19investigation and all of these things that could permanently impact your life in a way

44:24and give you a scarlet letter to where you could never be employed again or

44:28do anything ever again, because you were simply trying to relieve some pressure or you

44:33were trying to find out where to buy your wife at the next dress and

44:37now your life's being ruined.

44:38And I know guys who suffered under that sword.

44:40I wouldn't name them, but I know guys who their career met a terminal end

44:45because of a dumb joke or something.

44:48It's like you can't be expected to go out and shoot people in the face

44:51and then be sensitive to someone's feelings an hour later.

44:55It does not work. Now, should you talk to that guy and say, hey, you

44:59made woman X feel so -and -so be more cognizant of that whenever you're around

45:04her in the future? Well, you should also have a rational discussion with the woman.

45:07Yes. And what did he ask you?

45:08He said, where did you get that dress?

45:10It's very lovely. I'd like to get one for my wife.

45:14Why were you upset at that?

45:15Like, is this rational? Like, you can't be in an office if you're that sensitive.

45:22Like, it's one thing if the guy said, I'd like to get you out of

45:24that dress. Well, for sure.

45:26Now you're in a different world.

45:28A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

45:29Right. And if someone says, you look great, you know, have you lost weight?

45:33You look fantastic. That's a compliment.

45:35Yes. And if someone gets upset, I felt sexually objectified.

45:39I felt harassed. Like, okay, he just said you look great.

45:42Yeah. That's it. Healthy. It's not, you look great.

45:45I'd like to get you naked.

45:46Now we've crossed the Rubicon, right?

45:48For sure. For sure. But just, you look great.

45:51Or I like your dress.

45:53That's like, if you said that to a man, like, Hey, great suit.

45:57And he's like, I need to file a complaint.

45:59Yeah. I need to file a complaint.

46:00Yeah. You've trimmed up, Joe.

46:01You're looking good. Looking great, Bill.

46:03Like, Oh my God, I'm being harassed.

46:05I need it. Like complaint.

46:06That would have worked during the Biden administration.

46:08That is fucking crazy. That would have worked.

46:10That's so crazy. And the other thing that they were doing in this briefing, which

46:13is where I kind of, you know, the last couple of years of my military

46:16career, I got in trouble a couple of times, or I should say called down.

46:19I was a senior. I was a CW four.

46:21I was one rank from the top.

46:23I was advising two -star generals, colonels, um, on very important matters.

46:27I wasn't high. I was a, I wasn't high in the, in the dominance hierarchy,

46:31but I was adjacent to people who were as an advisor and, um, uh, the,

46:38the amount of, in this briefing in particular, um, they had gotten into, uh, you

46:45know, it's bad that there are so many white people, uh, this, I'm doing high

46:50points here, but we need more diversity.

46:52I was part of an accepted career program that they were starting to call like

46:56the old white boys network because most of the people, so the requirements for the,

47:00for this network were you had to speak a couple languages.

47:04You needed an engineering degree or some kind of demonstrated engineering background.

47:08Uh, you had to have deployed.

47:10Um, they wanted you to speak the language very well.

47:14They wanted you to be able to go through these engineering courses, these other things.

47:19And, and what happens naturally is you now need people who are interested in engineering.

47:24All right. So you've got somebody who's maybe more constrained in their thinking.

47:28You need somebody who speaks languages.

47:30Well, now they also need to be kind of, um, you know, speak French, speak

47:35Russian, whatever it was. So they had to have studied or lived in an area

47:38and done this, and they need to be able to go through these crazy tactical

47:41and strategic, strategic types of courses.

47:44By virtue of those things, you're going to get men and, and there are, we're

47:49lots of women, but then there'll be more white men.

47:51And it's, it's not because the pool, the pool presented itself that way.

47:55Now you have to extract from that pool.

47:57And so in this briefing, when they were talking about like the old white boys

48:02network or how we need to change things, I said, you know, do you realize

48:05that most men are, have more in common, um, than most women?

48:10Or like if there's a, if, if, if I, if I say I need more

48:13diversity in a particular room, if you said diversity of thought, I'd be fine with

48:17that. But, but Joe and, you know, random black guy in the, in the same

48:23program, in the same office have far more in common than the white woman.

48:27But if all, but what you're saying is these people need to have all separate

48:32different colors and different, and different, like all of this needs to be this way.

48:36It's going to naturally present itself that way because men in the military generally are

48:40disagreeable. Men in the military who like engineering are generally hyper disagreeable.

48:45And, and the, the only difference between these two people is the pigment of their

48:49skin. So this fake diversity quota that they're putting on top of us doesn't achieve

48:54anything other than giving some officer a bullet on their OER.

48:58And, you know, I got pulled into the office afterwards.

49:01I said way more than that, but essentially afterwards they're like, Hey chief, you can't,

49:04uh, you can't say that in those briefings, like the way that you were getting

49:07animated in there and what you're saying, what you're doing, like, uh, yeah, this is

49:11not going to fly. And this was like 2018 or 2019 or something.

49:16Just being rational. Yeah. Just trying to be rational and say that there's, there's more

49:19difference in groups than there is between groups and that the similarities and the way

49:24that things stack up, you recruit from a pool of volunteers and candidates.

49:28If I'm recruiting from a pool of volunteers and candidates who are 80 % male

49:32and white, I have to expect that the selected individuals are going to be male

49:38and white. The majority of people who join the military, I don't control this.

49:42I'm just, as an engineer, I'm looking at statistics.

49:45Also, if you want a highly functional, productive group, it's got to be based on

49:48meritocracy. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

49:51Anything. Other than that, is literally a threat to national security.

49:54Yeah, you're denigrating lethality. Yeah.

49:57The role of the army is to deter war through exuding superior military fighting and

50:03technology. And when deterrence fails to win, that's it.

50:07Those are the two things that we need to do with our military.

50:10It needs to look like the guy in the playground who you would not muck

50:13about with. And if you were to muck with him, he will beat you senseless.

50:18That's it. Now, whether or not we should be using that all the time or

50:20how we use it, that's a separate question.

50:22But the entity itself needs to comport itself in this way.

50:26Otherwise, you are endangering this truly special experiment, which at least in its beginnings, valued

50:34the individual. It valued individual rights and states' rights.

50:38And the founders, and this was another thing I said in that briefing, was the

50:43founders knew, yes, they were all slaveholders.

50:46But they knew that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of

50:50Independence would eventually lead to a system where we had to acknowledge these people as

50:55people. And we fought a civil war where a million white dudes died to see

51:02this experiment through. The scaffolding was there.

51:05You have to look at the things, the zeitgeist of the time.

51:08If they had just said, nope, everyone's going to be free.

51:11There will be no slaves.

51:12You would have never gotten ratification through the southern states.

51:15But they knew that there are.

51:16And when you read the Federalist papers, they knew that they were erecting this system.

51:20And when you look at Thomas Jefferson and some of these other great thinkers who,

51:23yes, he owned slaves. I get it.

51:26They knew what they were building and they knew what would ultimately terminate in.

51:30And then we had a civil war where we destroyed our country from the inside

51:34to see this dream come about.

51:37And now we're just going to all go back and say they're all slave owners.

51:40I know this has all been said here a million times, but this stuff animates

51:44me because it's built with blood and treasure.

51:46Well, it's also you can't judge people from the past based on the standards of

51:50the present. For sure. Because culture changes.

51:53People understand things better. We have a much greater recognition of what was wrong with

52:02things 100 years ago, 200 years ago.

52:04And I'm sure in the future we're going to look back on today with the

52:08same lens. It just always works that way.

52:11Did you know Joe had a gas powered car?

52:13Exactly. That kind of stuff.

52:15Yeah. Did you know that?

52:16You consumed more. You flew more.

52:18You ate more meat. You did whatever you did.

52:20You were a problem. He was a problem.

52:23Yeah. And now why would we ever, like I'm voting to get rid of the

52:26Joe Rogan experience from the National Archives because he drove a gas car.

52:30Yeah. You know what I mean?

52:31Like someone stores your stuff for profundity's sake for the future to hear about this.

52:36You know, I've always loved your podcast, Joe.

52:40And it was because you're a genuinely curious person.

52:43And I'm not kissing your ass right now.

52:44You're a genuinely curious person that was saying things that were not in the current

52:49zeitgeist at the time. And you refused to apologize for it.

52:52And it, you know, led to a lot of great things.

52:56But it led to an updating of the system.

52:58And you did it with dialogue, with the dialogos, with, you know, two people trying

53:02to learn things about each other.

53:04And it led to an updating of a system.

53:06I think it's very important for culture to have free and open dialogue so we

53:10can update our system. So bad ideas can die so we don't have to die

53:13instead of our bad ideas.

53:15Yeah. Because if I can't express a bad idea, I have to act it out.

53:18And if I act out the bad idea, it could kill me.

53:21And the celebration of good ideas.

53:23And the celebration of good ideas.

53:25Yeah. And it's just really, there's just been such a weird inversion in politics where

53:30the free, hippie -loving liberals of yesteryear are now the ones telling you what words

53:37you can use. There are no borders.

53:39All of these crazy things.

53:41And I always say to people, I said it to Andy, some fun, my last

53:45podcast with him. I'm like a 1996 Bill Clinton Democrat.

53:48If you go watch his State of the Union and he talks about lowering debt,

53:53getting out of debt, actually, working with Newt Gringrich to get out of debt, securing

53:57the borders, making work and education freely accessible.

54:03I'm voting for that guy.

54:04I know. Isn't it crazy?

54:06I mean, that's why the problem of labels doesn't work, ideological labels.

54:11Because if you go back far enough and look at Clinton, for example, he's one

54:15of the best ones. And by the way, he did balance the budget.

54:17Yeah, he did. He actually did.

54:18We had a surplus when he left the office.

54:21Did a fucking amazing job.

54:22So he got his dick sucked.

54:23Yeah. Who didn't? Back then, that's the other thing.

54:27Judging people by the standards of the past, JFK doesn't look so good in the

54:32Me Too movement. Right. Exactly.

54:34I mean, he would have got canceled.

54:35Yeah. It's like you have to recognize that this ideological bubble that we find ourselves

54:42in left versus right, Bill Clinton does not fit in that.

54:45Bill Clinton is securely on the right in terms of 1996 standards applied to today.

54:52He would never want to hear that.

54:53No, he would never want to hear that because he's kind of shifted with the

54:56zeitgeist because that's what you kind of have to do if you want to stay

54:59in your party and be protected by your party.

55:01Yes. But he's essentially – he had a lot of the – I mean, we've

55:06talked about this before. We've played clips of Hillary Clinton from 2008.

55:10And she's more MAGA than MAGA.

55:12I know. You know, her take on the border was like hardcore.

55:16Yeah. It was hardcore. If you've been convicted of a crime, get out.

55:20You know, if you stay here, pay a stiff penalty and you have to get

55:23in line and you have to learn English and everybody cheers.

55:26Yeah. Like, that is a hardcore right -wing 2026 perspective.

55:30Obama did it too in 2012.

55:32Yes, absolutely. And Obama deported more people than Trump did.

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56:26and it's just i'm not saying like my thought is always i'm always updating i'm

56:31always updating my systems i'm always getting told things i always have a pre -prescribed

56:37way of looking at the world that i'll have a good conversation with someone i'll

56:40update my system but generally my principles are in place and when you watch these

56:45people who get in their 30s 40s 50s and 60s and their core foundational principles

56:50are changing that really should give you cause for concern because like you were saying

56:56this at this time and now you're saying this at that time it's like generally

56:59my rubric that i don't think will change about myself is i'm fervently for the

57:03individual and i'm fervently for truth and and that we can that the that the

57:09world you should measure it and look at not what your intentions are but what

57:13the outcomes are and and then evaluate the system and how it scales based on

57:18those outcomes those are that's principally if you i try to live that standard up

57:23to myself i fall fall short of that standard all the time but i try

57:26being a human i try to live by that standard and i feel like that

57:29will always be me even into my 90s like unless something goes horribly wrong right

57:34right right and and i've pretty much been here since you know the past seven

57:39or eight years or so like even into my 30s i wasn't quite sure who

57:42i was um as a human and uh but i'm i'm pretty you know steadfast

57:49in that and the amount of opportunities and the amount of goodness in my life

57:53and my children and and my home and the things i've been able to do

57:58have really been born out of that last seven years of the truth's going to

58:02be the top of the of the decision matrix for me the top of the

58:06hierarchy for me i'm going to try not to cut corners whenever i can and

58:11help good people around me and and and the truth is the way that i'll

58:14organize and function myself in life and that i will try to only judge people

58:19as individuals and the world you know these are christ's teachings from 2000 years ago

58:25and but the world for me has just opened up in a way that i

58:29could have never predicted using a very simple rubric it's not easy but it's simple

58:34and if more people just took those and this isn't me i didn't come up

58:39with this this is the result of you know watching a bunch of experiments go

58:43bad but if people just adopted that very simple thing and just tried it for

58:47three months you'll feel better about yourself you'll feel better about the world you feel

58:51better about the people proximally around you it might make you hate the government more

58:55yeah but uh i don't think if you don't hate the government i think you're

59:00not paying attention yeah yeah for sure i mean when you were working in cyber

59:05defense like what cyber offense cyber offense what was the the primary function like what

59:11did you do um so in the beginning it i have no short answers and

59:17i apologize in the beginning i don't like short answers yeah i just i always

59:21feel like i'm i like a good long answer yeah don't worry about that okay

59:25when i joined the military i was in signals intelligence um and essentially learning the

59:30ins and outs of radars how radars work what they do um how they function

59:35did you guys ever see any weird shit like ufo shit i wish i had

59:39i really do i wish you had to yeah i really do um i was

59:44more in the signals intelligence side of the house um focusing first on electronic signals

59:48or emanations from radars mapping them so that you know if we were going to

59:53go do the ground invasion and there was going to be some air support going

59:56in first and blowing shit up we would tell them hey there's a man packable

59:59sa7 here there's a sa10 here there's this here there's there and then telling these

1:00:04pilots so they didn't get shot out of the sky um quickly when the war

1:00:08kicked off that became irrelevant because there was no you know surface air missiles surface

1:00:12to surface missiles in iraq we had knocked them all out in the first few

1:00:16weeks so then it shifted to communications intelligence so i kind of retrained on communications

1:00:21intelligence and that was at that time off of cell phones off of uh push

1:00:26-to -talk radios repeaters um long -haul networks terrestrial networks extraterrestrial networks and what i

1:00:32mean by that is satellites in the sky um and doing analysis on those to

1:00:37try to inform the the what we call the common operating picture of the battlefield

1:00:42for a combatant commander so command commander wants to know where the bad guys are

1:00:46what they're doing what they're saying to the event to the amount that we could

1:00:49my job was to um come up with solutions and conduct you know um passive

1:00:54and active um signals analysis on these things and then inform the commander so that

1:00:59we could you know mitigate risk it was all about mitigation of risk um from

1:01:05this is 2008 or so i'd been doing this for about seven years eight years

1:01:09and um from there it shifted to the phones getting smart and essentially it went

1:01:14from you walking around with a 2g phone or a 3g phone that had limited

1:01:19compute capability to now there's robust compute capability with the advent of like the iphone

1:01:24and now it's like well now we've got to get after guys who are you

1:01:27know essentially walking on with a computer we could never have envisioned 20 years ago

1:01:31in their pocket with all this capability because the military and our and our our

1:01:36forces that we're fighting against it all comes down to our ability to shoot move

1:01:40and communicate communication being the part that i was focused on so as the advent

1:01:44of the iphone and those things came out the army realized we didn't have a

1:01:48computer network operations mos we didn't have a um offensive cyber component we didn't have

1:01:53a defensive cyber component so we kind of i was there for at the ground

1:01:57floor when we were building out these new mos's now that are all over the

1:02:00military but at that time there was a thought going into you know we need

1:02:05to have people who know how to be on -end operators ethical hacking as paradoxical

1:02:09as that sounds that's how the lawyers called it that so it's hacking at the

1:02:13end of the day but ethical hacking because you've got the backing of the u

1:02:16.s government and so we set up that framework and really started Launching into operations,

1:02:22you know, 2006, 7, 8, all the way into my last deployment in 2017 or

1:02:282017, it was all focused on computer network operations and how they lash up with

1:02:33terrestrial networks. How do we exploit all of that was one facet of my job.

1:02:39And your question was, how did I get into all of that?

1:02:44And that was the... How do you get into it?

1:02:46What was the operational aspect of it?

1:02:50Like, how did you actually...

1:02:51What did you do? So, you know, there's...

1:02:55I'll stick to terms that are more generally understood by the public, but learning how

1:03:00to do things like war driving, collecting on networks, Wi -Fi, you know, endpoints, cell

1:03:07phones, understanding the ins and outs of them, understanding how to do forensic analysis of

1:03:11them. So, after there was an operation and a bunch of guerrillas had been sent

1:03:16in to kill the bad guy, we could derive maximum intelligence value from the handset

1:03:21to plan other operations. And so, you know, it would be passive monitoring of networks

1:03:30to inform the intelligence picture, which would lead to either combat operations or active computer

1:03:37network operations. Where now it's like, well, there's, you know, I don't know, an Iraqi

1:03:44or an Afghani router that hasn't been patched in three years.

1:03:48And we think we can either write or find a zero day, which is just

1:03:52an exploit of those routers, where we can muck with their router in a way

1:03:58where they think they're getting good information and they're not, or erecting other things to

1:04:06mitigate risk for the commander.

1:04:08And so, um, that really, you know, exploded at that point and between that and

1:04:14human intelligence, which is kind of the, um, the actual gathering of intelligence from other

1:04:19people, you know, you would call it spy or, you know, James Bond, but that's

1:04:22James Bond was a horrible spy.

1:04:24Um, I mean, yeah, you know, your job's to remain anonymous and you're walking into

1:04:30a casino and there's Goldfinger calling you by your first and last name.

1:04:33Um, it's not a great look, um, you know, generally you don't want to be

1:04:38sleeping with your sources or, uh, um, you know, using a real name or whatever.

1:04:44So human intelligence and then my focus for the last 10 years was how does

1:04:48signals intelligence, computer network operations, um, become a force multiplier for people conducting overt and

1:04:54clandestine operations, um, throughout the theater at that time.

1:04:58Um, my, you know, my deployments and my time was spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, um,

1:05:04Africa, Northern Africa. And then a lot of people don't know it, but we were

1:05:07in active combat operations in the Southern Philippines as well for, uh, a fair amount

1:05:12of time. I want to maybe say seven or 10 years.

1:05:14We were doing combat operations in the Southern Philippines.

1:05:17My first deployment to the cell of, um, um, Southern Philippines was, uh, 2007.

1:05:24Who are we doing operations again?

1:05:26So, um, there were terrorist elements down there that were traveling back and forth from

1:05:31Pakistan and Afghanistan. And there was a terrorist organization down there called the Abu Sayyaf

1:05:36group. And, uh, there were other ones as well.

1:05:39Jamaa Islamia, I think was the name of the other one.

1:05:42And, uh, they were conducting their own terrorist anti -Christian operations in the Southern part

1:05:47of the Philippines. In the Southern part of the Philippines.

1:05:50I don't, can I say it?

1:05:50Can I say the word?

1:05:51What do you mean? Jamie, can you pull up a map of the Philippines?

1:05:54Can you pull it up?

1:05:55Oh, say that. Say that term.

1:05:57Yeah, pull it up, Jamie.

1:05:58Been listening to it forever.

1:05:59Uh, so there's what's called the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao, which is the Southern

1:06:04part from like a place called Zamboanga down to Hulu or Holo Island.

1:06:08Um, and there's a, it's a funny joke because if you zoom into Zamboanga, which

1:06:13is. God, look how many islands are in the Philippines.

1:06:15I know. Go down to the South there.

1:06:17See Zambo, go down right there.

1:06:19Right, right. Zoom right there on that Island.

1:06:21Now move to, sorry. Now move to the Southwest.

1:06:25See that penis? Mm -hmm.

1:06:28At the tip of that penis is called Zamboanga.

1:06:30Mm -hmm. All of our combat operations.

1:06:32Now, if you zoom out a little bit more and pan more South and zoom

1:06:37out just a little bit more so the joke hits.

1:06:39All that sperm south of the tip of the, uh, the Zamboanga city, this, there

1:06:46are terrorist operations in here.

1:06:47Now, if you go to that main island called Sulu, there's Holo Island.

1:06:51That's where I was on this tiny island out in the middle of nowhere.

1:06:55And on that, there's a mountain.

1:06:57That's all the Philippines? Well, no.

1:06:59I mean, this is all the Philippines down here.

1:07:00Yeah. Wow. So this is called, there's a mountain in there.

1:07:02I think it was called Mount Tumatok or something like that on the near, on

1:07:06the eastern part of the island called Luke.

1:07:08It's called Luke. Yeah. So there's mountains.

1:07:10There's a mountainous region there.

1:07:11There are a bunch of terrorists up there.

1:07:13They were killing people in the area, conducting bombings.

1:07:16They were getting trained. Um, in fact, there was a guy and I believe, I'm

1:07:19going to get his name wrong, perhaps, but I believe his name, it was either

1:07:23Insulon Haplon or, oh, it's Jamar Patek.

1:07:27Jamar Patek. He was actually arrested outside of Osama bin Laden's compound the day after

1:07:32he was killed. We were trying to kill him on that island or in and

1:07:36around that island is where we were trying to find him.

1:07:38Uh, so they're terrorist facilitators.

1:07:41Um, they did the USS Cole bombing.

1:07:43Go, zoom back out. I want to see the Philippines one more time.

1:07:46Like all the islands. When you zoom all the way out, it's so nuts how

1:07:50many islands there are. Yeah.

1:07:52So up north, up north of Manila is mostly the Christian, um, population.

1:07:57And as you get down south, it's the autonomous region of Muslim men now.

1:08:00And that is all of where these terrorist operations were happening.

1:08:04Um, and I believe that mostly pulled out of there.

1:08:07There might be still some people in Zamboanga.

1:08:09I'm not sure anymore because it's been five years, four years since I retired.

1:08:13But, um, yeah, we were doing counterinsurgency operations down there and guys died down there.

1:08:18And there were combat operations.

1:08:19And, uh, I was out there, um, I was in a tactical military intelligence battalion

1:08:25and I was attached to the first special forces group.

1:08:27And we were down there a couple of times and a lot of people don't

1:08:30even know about it. So, yeah, I never heard about it.

1:08:33Yeah. So, uh, anyway. I'm sorry, it's a sidebar, but I'm so stunned at how

1:08:38many islands are in the Philippines and how spread out of this.

1:08:41Yeah, it's insane. And the thing about it is, is I'd go to all of

1:08:46these little outposts and these out islands.

1:08:48We were always debriefing these guys.

1:08:50And I'm going to get these terms wrong, so I'm sure there'll be people in

1:08:52the comments. But I think they were called bongarais or something like that.

1:08:55But they were like these mayors of each one of these little islands.

1:08:59And there'd be terrorists in and around those areas.

1:09:01And we'd try to make friends with these guys, so they'd give us some information.

1:09:05And every one of those places was absolutely beautiful.

1:09:08Like you'd go there and be like, man, Hilton could turn this into something in

1:09:11a short order. Right. You know, when you're out of these places, beautiful beach, beautiful

1:09:15lush jungles, the best swimming water.

1:09:18Nicest people, too. Oh, Filipino people are some of my favorite people, man.

1:09:23Like you want to talk, the guys that we worked with out there, they're scout,

1:09:26I think they're called scout, sniper, scout rangers.

1:09:28And they were special, I think they were like their special forces.

1:09:31We'd go to the range with these guys and show them stuff.

1:09:34And they're the most ride or die type of guys you'll ever meet in your

1:09:38life. Like, you know, so -and -so said this about you last week and I

1:09:41could kill him. It's like, no, dude, it's cool.

1:09:43It's like, don't worry about it.

1:09:45Fun fact, they're some of the best pool players on earth, too.

1:09:47Oh, really? Some of the greatest pool players of all time came out of the

1:09:50Philippines. They're just great people.

1:09:51I mean, I just, the people down there were fantastic.

1:09:54And it was awful because those guys would be bombing churches, Christian churches and stuff

1:09:57like that. And they're doing counter -operate, like I said, counter -intelligence operations out there,

1:10:04doing intelligence operations collection to inform that battle picture.

1:10:08But those guys had direct links with Osama Bin Laden and other people.

1:10:11I had no idea. Right after we, like I said, I think it was, I

1:10:15think if you look it up, I think his name is Patek, P -A -T

1:10:18-E -K. And he was arrested outside of Osama Bin Laden's compound.

1:10:23And we had been chasing him in the Philippines.

1:10:25Wow. Because we thought he was still down there.

1:10:28There was another guy that we, I believe we killed him.

1:10:30His name was Elbader Parad.

1:10:33But yeah, my job was not, I always say this on podcasts because the veteran

1:10:36community is wild right now.

1:10:38They love to cut each other down right now.

1:10:40There's something weird going on where, like obviously lying.

1:10:43Yeah. Call the people out.

1:10:45I prefer to call people out face to face.

1:10:48But I always make sure people know I was not a cool guy.

1:10:52Like sometimes I got to dress like one, you know, for a few years I

1:10:55didn't wear any uniforms and I got to grow my beard out and act like

1:10:57a cool guy. But I was really a nerd for cool guys.

1:11:00I've literally got pictures of myself down in the holo or in Afghanistan or anywhere

1:11:06else and tape around my glasses and, you know, Pez dispenser and my radio and

1:11:11collection equipment looking like a true blue American nerd.

1:11:14But I was not the guy who kicked the door in.

1:11:16I was always the guy who pointed the door out.

1:11:18So I'd be safe in the Humvee in the back, you know, eat an MRE

1:11:21and somebody that looked like another gorilla, you know, like Annie Stumpf or Tim Kennedy

1:11:25or someone like that. I'd be like, is that the house?

1:11:27I'd be like, pretty sure that's the house.

1:11:28You guys might want to be safe, but go ahead.

1:11:30I'll be in the Humvee.

1:11:31I'll be out here or I'll be in an airplane above, you know.

1:11:35And, yeah, it was it was being born in North Dakota.

1:11:40And and, you know, my mother, single mother, after she left that first guy trailer

1:11:46house in the middle of this little town called Cavalier, North Dakota.

1:11:50I had no options. I was a horrible student.

1:11:53And and what did it's crazy that you're so smart, but you were a horrible

1:11:56student. I wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't.

1:11:57I call myself curious before I'd call myself smart.

1:12:01But, you know, my mother, you know, I don't know if we remember you would

1:12:05remember this, but maybe other people my age.

1:12:08You know, you get these scholastic book order forms that you'd bring home from school

1:12:12and you could order books.

1:12:13There'd always be on the back page or it always be like little cool stuff

1:12:16like you could get like, you know, a pair of gloves or a hat or

1:12:20something. Anyway, one time there was a coil radio that you could order with an

1:12:25earpiece and you put this coil radio together and with an earpiece, no battery.

1:12:29It was just the electromagnetic radiation would would would activate the coil and the coil

1:12:35would you could listen to radio chatter.

1:12:38Really? With no battery? Yeah.

1:12:39Yeah. Just tiny little little radio.

1:12:41How did it? What was the power?

1:12:43The electromagnetic radiation. And you would just kind of like a record of like, you

1:12:48know, how you hit a record.

1:12:51Electromagnetic radiation would hit the coil and the coil would feed up to an amplifier

1:12:54or up to an earpiece.

1:12:56And the earpiece, you could hear chatter and you could do the earpiece have a

1:12:58battery. Nothing. I don't think anything had a battery on it.

1:13:01Yeah. I think it was just a.

1:13:03Wow. I could be mistaken, but I don't believe it was.

1:13:05Powered by electromagnetic radiation. Yeah.

1:13:08I mean, you can look it up, Jamie, if you want.

1:13:10Sorry to say that again, but.

1:13:11Tighten that thing down. That thing's driving me crazy.

1:13:13Yeah. Sorry. This thing. Like here or here?

1:13:16Right here. Look at my finger.

1:13:17It's right here. Yeah. I've been meaning to do that.

1:13:19Like literally when everybody uses this fucking thing, it's wobbling around, ready to fall off.

1:13:23Yeah. But if you look up coil coil radio with small earpiece, I could be

1:13:27wrong. I don't remember there being a battery on it.

1:13:30Electromagnetic radiation powered it. That's bananas.

1:13:33Yeah. So kind of like a same thing with like, you know, not the same

1:13:36wattage, but a microwave, right?

1:13:38Sends power through the air.

1:13:39Right. But it uses. Or DC.

1:13:40But it uses power. If you want to send it.

1:13:43Yeah. But I could be wrong.

1:13:45But at any rate, that was the first time I got a radio and I

1:13:49was hearing things and I'd put it together and I'm listening to things.

1:13:52Like what kind of things?

1:13:54HF radio, VHF radio, people talking, that type of stuff.

1:13:59And it was just, and then I found out how to get an antenna to

1:14:02make the antenna larger and started ordering auxiliary pieces for it.

1:14:06And then what really changed me was my mother let me get a, my mother

1:14:09and I would clean houses.

1:14:11She was a waitress, but we also would go around and clean houses.

1:14:13And there was a lawyer that we worked for.

1:14:15His name was Phil Culp.

1:14:17And he had an old 286SX IBM.

1:14:21And it was just sitting in his basement.

1:14:23And I told my mom, I was like, hey, if I clean for like a

1:14:25month, can I have that computer?

1:14:27Like he doesn't use it.

1:14:28He's got a new 486 up in his place here.

1:14:30And he instantly said I could have it.

1:14:32And then that started me down the computer networking realm.

1:14:35And like, look, how could I get this 286 to act like a 386?

1:14:38Or how could I force it to run Windows?

1:14:40Or how do I update the memory?

1:14:41How do I do these things?

1:14:42In this little town, Edinburgh, North Dakota, there was a guy who had a computer

1:14:45store in a basement of an old general store.

1:14:48And his name was Jeff Munsabra.

1:14:50And I would go there and ask them questions about computers and just start learning,

1:14:53like, ins and outs on how do I update the RAM, how do I get

1:14:57memory better, how do I augment the storage, how can I force this thing to

1:15:01run Windows 3 .1 so I can have a GUI instead of using a command

1:15:05line. GUI mean graphic user interface?

1:15:08Graphic user interface, yeah. For people at home?

1:15:09Yeah, sorry. That's okay. And so that kind of started me on that.

1:15:13And that, for me, like I said, I had all kinds of problems with attention

1:15:18deficit disorder and not being able to pay attention.

1:15:21That was the only time I would go for it.

1:15:25I don't believe in ADHD.

1:15:28I might be wrong. I think it's a superpower.

1:15:31I mean, it's certainly, I remember I would spend two days working on a problem

1:15:34and not sleeping. That's what I'm saying.

1:15:36I think it's a superpower.

1:15:37I think it just keeps you from being interested in things you're not interested in.

1:15:41Yeah. I have a theory on that, too, that I can get into after.

1:15:44But that started me down that road.

1:15:47But in school, I couldn't pay attention.

1:15:48Me neither. There was this teacher.

1:15:50I always tell this story.

1:15:51It's a great teacher. She's still around.

1:15:53Her name is Connie Trenbeth.

1:15:56And she was my English teacher or literature teacher or something like that.

1:15:59She might not even remember this story, but here I am telling it on your

1:16:01podcast. I remember it. She kept me after class once.

1:16:05And she goes, you know, I knew your dad, Bill.

1:16:08And, you know, your uncles were all smart.

1:16:11And my great uncle has an engineering wing of a school named after him out

1:16:17in western North Dakota. And she goes, all these guys were thinkers.

1:16:20And your dad did all this great stuff and built all this stuff.

1:16:22And essentially what she was telling me is you're a waste of life.

1:16:29All you do is you come in here, you disrupt the class, you upset people,

1:16:33no one can talk. Sounds like me.

1:16:35You're trying to dominate every conversation.

1:16:37But when, you know, you had written one paper on something that interested you, and

1:16:41I don't remember what it was.

1:16:42And she's like, that was a wonderful paper.

1:16:45She's like, if you could just do that every time.

1:16:48And I was not hearing it.

1:16:51Like, I remember the conversation because I actually remember her.

1:16:53I think she said waste of life.

1:16:55I think she actually said that.

1:16:57Like, you're wasting. Like, you're obviously.

1:17:00My CPU clocks high. I'm always thinking, even when I'm not thinking.

1:17:04And even as we're sitting here talking, I'm thinking about other things.

1:17:07Or stuff I want to do when I get back to my computer.

1:17:09Or stuff I want to do for my business.

1:17:12And so I joined the military.

1:17:14And the absurdity of life is this.

1:17:17I joined to be a military policeman.

1:17:19Which I absolutely would have hated.

1:17:22All of them got turned into infantry people.

1:17:24Or would stand gate guard.

1:17:25Which is a needed function in the military.

1:17:27But it doesn't apply to my personality.

1:17:29But when I went to the recruiter station out in Minneapolis, I think it was.

1:17:33I was a bonehead. And I forgot my driver's license.

1:17:36And they're like, well. And I was supposed to leave.

1:17:38And at this time, I'd dumped my girlfriend.

1:17:41Told everyone goodbye. I'd wiped the dust off my boots.

1:17:44Like, left Cavalier, North Dakota.

1:17:47And I was like, hey, I'm not going back.

1:17:51So whatever we got to do right now.

1:17:54And he's like, well, you can go home.

1:17:56Get your license. Because the MEPS station was in Minneapolis.

1:18:01Was it Fargo? It doesn't matter.

1:18:02It was five, six, seven hours away.

1:18:04And they're like, well, you're not leaving today without a driver's license.

1:18:08So I looked at my recruiter.

1:18:10And I was like, I don't know what job you need to get me into.

1:18:12But it needs to be a different job.

1:18:13And they're like, well, you scored, you know, exceptionally high in your general technical part

1:18:18of your ASVAB, which is like understanding machines and objects and stuff.

1:18:22So we could get you into this, like, intel job where you'd learn about radars

1:18:26and stuff. And that immediately clicked for me.

1:18:28And then he's like, well, we got to go brief you in this SCIF room.

1:18:32There's a, you know, secure compartmented information facility.

1:18:35There's only one guy who's got a clearance.

1:18:37And he can brief you on the job.

1:18:38And if you want that job, then you can leave tomorrow.

1:18:40I instantly started hearing, like, the James Bond music, you know, and so they walked

1:18:48me in this back place.

1:18:49And, you know, nothing super crazy and briefed me up on the job.

1:18:53And I went back out and I said, yeah, this is actually the job for

1:18:55me. So the absurdity of life is me forgetting my driver's license when I was

1:18:5916. I was 16 when I signed up.

1:19:02Maybe 17. No, I was turning 17 that December.

1:19:05When I signed up for the military, I can connect with a string to forgetting

1:19:10my driver's license to being here with you today.

1:19:12You can sign up when you're 16?

1:19:15I think I was turning 17.

1:19:17You can sign up when you're 17.

1:19:18I didn't even know you could sign up when you're 17.

1:19:19I didn't even know you could sign my delayed entry program thing.

1:19:22And I left a little bit before my 18th birthday.

1:19:25So I just graduated from high school.

1:19:27But, yeah, you can sign up when you're 16, I believe, as long as your

1:19:30parents signed the waiver. My mother signed the waiver.

1:19:32She was happy to get me out of the trailer.

1:19:36So, yeah, I was 17, almost 18 when I left.

1:19:39You can make a radio out of that.

1:19:40Yeah, right there. So that's all the pieces.

1:19:42They call it a crystal radio.

1:19:43Yeah. I was going to say crystal controlled.

1:19:45That's a radio? There it is.

1:19:47That's actually the exact thing.

1:19:48That looks almost, that is almost exactly what it looks like.

1:19:52Slinky made it? Well, they bought the brand, they just let the Slinky brand now.

1:19:55Bought this toy, but there's a bunch of these all over the internet, yeah.

1:19:58Wow. Make your own working radio without batteries.

1:20:02Yeah, and it uses a, I was going to say crystal controlled radio because it

1:20:05uses a crystal diode on it.

1:20:08Would you say Tesla coil, Jamie?

1:20:09Yeah, it's a Tesla coil.

1:20:11This guy's explaining it. So this thing has a kind of cool, let me find

1:20:15this thing, a rocket radio they called, which is like further development, this thing.

1:20:20It attached to a phone.

1:20:23Oh. So you plug that onto a phone cable.

1:20:25There's a picture of it somewhere on here, but it explains, like you're picking up,

1:20:30there you go. Wow. No power.

1:20:34No battery or current needed, hence no operating expense and long life.

1:20:38Yeah, this is almost. Flip it onto a phone.

1:20:40What year was this? Man, this is old.

1:20:44Yeah. So it also shows here, this is like you're picking up power from a

1:20:48radio tower. Yeah. Wow. The more powerful the signal.

1:20:51This is kind of like what they're paying for at the FCC.

1:20:53The more powerful your radio tower, the longer and more people you can reach.

1:20:58Crazy. That has no battery.

1:21:01And that's also why some radio signals come in.

1:21:03very well on your radio and some don't and it's like dog shit yeah weak

1:21:08power yeah and then the frequency modulation like amplitude modulation isn't as efficient as frequency

1:21:14modulation when it comes to for the vocorder to produce sound amplitude modulation travels farther

1:21:21but it doesn't have the um the amount of information it's not modulated with the

1:21:26the carrier wave can't be modulated with as much information as you need whereas frequency

1:21:31modulation is much quicker megahertz and you can amplitude and add more um sound or

1:21:36more information which is why it sounds better so fm sounds better but it doesn't

1:21:40travel as far right am sounds worse i always when i was training people in

1:21:44the military on this i always use the analogy of if a party is happening

1:21:47next door you can hear the bass music but you can't hear the treble you

1:21:51can hear the bass music because that frequency travels farther because it's lower in their

1:21:55frequency band but you can hear the treble because or you can't hear the treble

1:22:00i'm sorry because it's higher frequency and there's more modulation and so it disperses quicker

1:22:06and you can't hear it as well and it's the same thing with like vlf

1:22:09comms coming off of like a submarine can travel underwater for a very long ways

1:22:13but you can't put as much information in them as you could if you were

1:22:17doing you know vhf or uhf comms where there's lots of modulation so it's the

1:22:23dispersal and you know a lot of my you know mid part of my career

1:22:27was explaining this stuff to you know military guys who were trying to understand like

1:22:31here's how a cell phone works and this is how frequency works and this is

1:22:34how we send information and just kind of demystic demystifying you know how you know

1:22:40a gsm network works one of the things that i wanted to ask you about

1:22:43that is when new technology is emerging how how do you how do you stay

1:22:53ahead of the ability to extract information from this technology hack into networks before people

1:23:03understand the capability you really can't you really can't that's the beauty of the free

1:23:08market is that the innovation to perform the function that you want someone to pay

1:23:13for will always move faster than your ability to exploit the technology then how do

1:23:19you explain things like pegasus well i mean something like pegasus well first off explain

1:23:26pegasus to people that don't know it was a a persistent implant on cell phones

1:23:30for people um initially it was you had to click it it was a click

1:23:34initially it was click a click and then it became a non -click exploit so

1:23:38in other words you had to interact with something on the phone in order to

1:23:41initialize and install the implant and then after and but the reason why it was

1:23:46so good is because it wasn't stored in the um it wasn't stored in the

1:23:52usual areas that you would want a persistent implant or where you would have a

1:23:55persistent implant for instance uh you know you might want to put it in the

1:24:00application layer of an app or something like that where there's a binary that can

1:24:04run and execute commands or functions um and so they i won't get into the

1:24:10very specifics of where and how they did this because i'm not sure if i

1:24:13got this information from the government or not so i won't say it but they

1:24:17stored it in a place where it wasn't normal um and you can read papers

1:24:21on your own for and look at the forensics of it and how the actual

1:24:25implant was executed but it essentially you know all people that own your phone um

1:24:31and and uh you know was the kind of implant i only dreamed of when

1:24:36i was helping develop my own plants implants in the military mostly what we would

1:24:41rely on is um you know zero day architecture and looking for something in a

1:24:45phone that either they hadn't patched or that the phone that you are looking at

1:24:49hadn't been patched so phones as they have their own red teams are going through

1:24:53the the phone for their own because they want to sell a product that people

1:24:56will use and people won't use stuff that can get hacked so they'll do their

1:24:59own red teaming and they'll discover like oh you know we we on this router

1:25:04we developed we left this port open and it shouldn't have been open so now

1:25:07we're going to write a patch that will close that port so that this port

1:25:10is no longer accessible by a guy like me so i can't go in there

1:25:13and and do something to this particular type of router another great thing i'll say

1:25:17something good about the administration they're they're doing some stuff right now to make sure

1:25:20that we're getting rid of um chinese technology and chinese um routers and um um

1:25:26you know there's a widespread network of um uh there's the pla has a and

1:25:32i can't remember the name of the botnet but they essentially implanted a bunch of

1:25:36old unpatched routers to get access to government and business um proximal people and it

1:25:44was widespread and huge and you know they it looked like to me i haven't

1:25:48read this anywhere but if i were looking at this implant and how it was

1:25:52done they were trying to really cause some trouble um it was being placed at

1:25:56critical places think power think energy think banking like they really wanted to cause some

1:26:02ruckus and i have not been part of this administration so i'm not saying anything

1:26:07classified for those of you who are listening and so but there was a decision

1:26:11to say hey we need to make sure that these things get patched and also

1:26:14that we're not bringing in um architecture from the overseas because they don't play by

1:26:19the same rules that we at least say we play by that's why they banned

1:26:22huawei devices oh yeah and zte yeah huawei had a phone that i was really

1:26:27interested in back in the day they they had a porsche design had partnered with

1:26:32huawei and made this insane android phone with like the best camera the best battery

1:26:37it was like really high level and i was like gonna buy it and then

1:26:41all of a sudden they banned all the huawei phones and i was like what's

1:26:44going on and then you know i'd heard some people say oh they're just trying

1:26:48to stop competition it's like american companies are trying to stop it and then i

1:26:52i went into it deeper and i said no it seems like there's third party

1:26:56input on some of the routers and some of their um some of their network

1:27:01devices that they had engineered in order to be able to access them by third

1:27:07party and this because of whatever lack of understanding lack of uh knowledge of how

1:27:15these things are constructed the people that purchased them didn't work weren't aware of them

1:27:19and these things had gotten into place and they had gotten into place in universities

1:27:23they got into place in military establishments they were using them in cell phone towers

1:27:28that people had you know inadvertently bought from china yep they were born on the

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1:28:03i mean i can tell you firsthand from having done some other forensic exploitation on

1:28:07this stuff another large part of my career i didn't talk about was just on

1:28:10mobile forensics and media forensics which is essentially you think of like csi miami or

1:28:16csi whatever the city was there's a crime someone was killed you have forensics that

1:28:21are doing forensics on like blood and fingerprints and blood splatter and all that stuff

1:28:24there's a whole another part of that same forensics branch that focuses on media forensics

1:28:29what was deleted off this phone at one point what remains on this phone what

1:28:34was it being used for i would do this in the military so that when

1:28:37we did do an operation and i was part of some of the largest ones

1:28:40ever done out in afghanistan uh there would be treasure troves of phones and all

1:28:46of these computers and stuff like that and it was my job and i had

1:28:49a great team that worked for me uh in 20 my deployment in 2015 um

1:28:54we would go in afterwards gather up all of this stuff and you know this

1:28:58task force commander would literally be standing by and we'd say you know here's the

1:29:03intelligence that we've derived here's the multi -point analysis here you know it was on

1:29:07this hard drive it was here it was here you know there's a bad guy

1:29:09place out here and those guys be rolling like within moments after the last operation

1:29:13like some operations we do where we'd be rolling one after another target because we

1:29:17were getting really good at media forensics and the intelligence that was there and then

1:29:22getting into active media forensics which is a different discipline but essentially i'll get it

1:29:27i can get to that later if you want to but um launching and and

1:29:31doing these these follow -on operations off you know dumping the binary from a phone

1:29:35and examining it at the ones and zeros level to say everything that was going

1:29:39on with this thing or if it was a really high like the organization that

1:29:43i worked for at that time uh did the analysis of the sama bin laden

1:29:47media and you know at on that media we're doing far more than we would

1:29:52for another piece of media and that we're you know x -raying it and we're

1:29:56looking at maybe what the the disc looked like before what was destroyed or reconstructing

1:30:00things spending millions of dollars on that intelligence analysis because we wanted to fully understand

1:30:05everything that this guy was involved in and what he was doing and where he

1:30:08was and who he was talking to um and so that was another part of

1:30:11my career that i did for about five years or so what was going on

1:30:15with the huawei phones like what were they doing with them i mean they were

1:30:19they were they were either some of them were coming out implanted in other words

1:30:22there was access built in for a foreign actor and then other in other terms

1:30:26other places with routers with the zte stuff there were just things that you would

1:30:31patch or that you would fix as a company who was trying to protect the

1:30:35consumer and create a product that would people you would use and they weren't doing

1:30:38it so they were creating persistent back doors either by actively placing code on there

1:30:44that would allow you know root access or they were leaving things open especially in

1:30:49africa like the work that you know i was working in africa the chinese were

1:30:53just owning africa they were just giving them communications infrastructure and uh they were doing

1:30:59that because they wanted their resources and they wanted to know what these people were

1:31:02saying and what they were doing um and so i'm a free market real like

1:31:07i'm as free market as a guy can get i want the best people building

1:31:10the best products and i want everyone to be able to compete but in that

1:31:14case i would never own a huawei or a zte or anything else on a

1:31:18consumer level what were they doing with those phones like if they had imported them

1:31:22to the united states if they didn't have that ban what would have been the

1:31:26issue uh getting access to you know any number of people that the chinese really

1:31:32want access to everybody but you could start at the topical level of just saying

1:31:36you know getting joe rogan to use his zte would be that would be my

1:31:41wet dream as a guy who used to do this work back in the day

1:31:43because you're talking to the president or you're talking to this guy or that guy

1:31:46and i can build out a a network of understanding who you're in contact with

1:31:50who you're talking to what's being talked about but then also finding out you know

1:31:54this person's phone number and now doing a deep dive on there so it's really

1:31:58about you know getting all of that data and constructing an you know an analyst

1:32:02notebook essentially outline of who's talking to who who do we need to implant and

1:32:07it but it's for business as well like they're really trying to go they would

1:32:10want this in the hands of somebody who's in charge of a business because they

1:32:12want their ip they would want this in soldiers hands so they would know deployment

1:32:16dates or who's going where and who's doing what they want this in routers because

1:32:20um routers are usually the most unpatched piece of technology in that you're not especially

1:32:25you know these days they're more automated patching but back in the day like you

1:32:29had to manually update a router and if you didn't well then you had potential

1:32:33exploits that were sitting on that router where i could gain access to your the

1:32:37router in your home or i could gain access to a bgp router which is

1:32:40like a border gateway which is moving all of the internet data where i could

1:32:44get access to a microwave terminal you know if you look at a cell phone

1:32:48they've got the microwave terminals on there that are sending information in between them if

1:32:52those are chinese parts that are either being used for the processing the cpu or

1:32:57the physical the physical infrastructure of that the the products that they were putting out

1:33:01would give me direct access to the information that's being passed on those terminals so

1:33:05you're getting you know system level root level access through machinery through communication devices and

1:33:12through things like routers where you can know everything you want to know about your

1:33:16enemy wow and so as far as today's technology i see you you use an

1:33:21android phone like is there a phone that is more secure or a platform that

1:33:27is more secure it all depends like i always take this from thomas soul There

1:33:33are no answers. There are only trade -offs.

1:33:35So there's like the way to answer that question would be is like, who are

1:33:38you? What are you trying to do with your life?

1:33:41What are you talking about on your phone?

1:33:42What are you doing on your phone?

1:33:44You know, most of these phones, if you're just an average everyday citizen who's just

1:33:47going about your job, you know, the phones today are pretty secure, especially versus a

1:33:53few years ago. If you're a reporter, now the nexus is, do you trust the

1:33:58government and do you trust Apple?

1:34:00If you trust the government, you trust Apple, then Apple's probably your best bet for

1:34:05using an, you know, there's lockdown mode on an Apple phone or they used to

1:34:10call it back in the day.

1:34:10I think it was called reporter mode, but there was way to ways to encrypt

1:34:13the devices and to encrypt the chatter and the tunnel coming out of the phone,

1:34:19the RF coming out of the phone.

1:34:21And what is lockdown mode there?

1:34:24I don't know if that's exactly what it was called or not because I've never

1:34:27really used Apple just for my own personal reasons.

1:34:29What personal reasons? I don't trust Apple.

1:34:32How so? They are more interested in monetizing people's data than they are providing them

1:34:38capability. So every time you take a photo, every time you upload a document, every

1:34:42time you talk to it, every time it asks you about your, you know, you'll

1:34:47get these questions where it says, uh, if your password's lost, you can back up

1:34:51your password in these ways.

1:34:52Tell us where you were born.

1:34:53Tell us your mom's maiden's name.

1:34:55Tell us your mom's this, your mom's that.

1:34:57Lockdown mode is an extreme optional protection.

1:34:59You'd only be used if you believe you may be personally targeted by a highly

1:35:02sophisticated cyber attack. Most people are never targeted by attacks of this nature.

1:35:06When iPhone is in lockdown mode, it will not function as it typically does.

1:35:09Apps, websites, and features will be strictly limited for security and some experiences will be

1:35:14completely unavailable. Yeah. So when I was advising guys back in the day on going

1:35:19out and doing like a high risk source meet, so they're going to go meet,

1:35:22you know, a spy for another country and you're a military guy and you're debriefing

1:35:27someone or doing something, I would always tell them to use lockdown mode.

1:35:30I knew that it did those things.

1:35:31I didn't know if that was the term or if I'd thought that up.

1:35:34So can you still send iMessages?

1:35:35You can still text and call.

1:35:37Text and call, that's it.

1:35:38Yeah, but there's other things that you can't do.

1:35:40And so when you're - Well, like Meta just recently announced they're no longer encrypting

1:35:44your DMs. Why would they do that?

1:35:46Well, they said that it's for protection or whatever to make sure that people aren't

1:35:51doing bad things. I don't know what, see what their explanation for it was.

1:35:56What was it? Sorry, I'm worried about this reporter.

1:35:58I'm sorry. Meta recently announced that they're no longer encrypting your DMs on Instagram.

1:36:08And a lot of people are up in arms and they're stopping using any DMs

1:36:12on Instagram and any of that stuff.

1:36:15And the idea is that other people can read your stuff now.

1:36:18Now, whether it's Meta can read your stuff or who - That's what I mean.

1:36:23Yeah. And I said, why don't you trust Apple?

1:36:24It's the same reason I don't trust Meta.

1:36:26They're not interested - The dangers behind Meta killing end -to -end encryption for Instagram

1:36:30DMs. Meta blamed users for not opting into the privacy -protecting feature.

1:36:34Experts fear the move could be the first major domino to fall for end -to

1:36:38-end encryption tech worldwide. That's a horrible narrative.

1:36:41Mm. Yeah. It seems squirrely.

1:36:47So, oh, you've read your last free article.

1:36:50Oh my God. Give me money, motherfucker.

1:36:52But what Apple and Meta want to do is, like, they're trying to build these

1:36:56new neural networks. They're trying to, you know, humans, and we can get into this

1:37:00too later if you want.

1:37:01Humans are the only thing, in my opinion, and I'm happy to have you disagree

1:37:05with me and I'd love to have this conversation.

1:37:07In my opinion, we're the only ones that are - After May 8, 2026, announced

1:37:13plans to discontinue support for end -to -end encryption for chats on Instagram.

1:37:16If you have chats that are impacted by this change, you will see instructions on

1:37:19how you can download any media or messages you may want to keep.

1:37:23Social media giant said in a help document, if you're on an older version of

1:37:27Instagram, you may also need to update the app before you can download your affected

1:37:30chats. When reached for comment, this is what Meta had to say, very few people

1:37:34are opting for end -to -end encrypted messages and DMs, so we're removing this option

1:37:38from Instagram in the coming months.

1:37:40Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end -to -end encryption can easily do that

1:37:44on WhatsApp. But WhatsApp is a little squirrely, right?

1:37:46Yeah, I mean, they're all squirrely.

1:37:48And that's the problem. And so you asked me why I don't trust them.

1:37:52It's because they want to use - So humans, in my opinion, and some animals,

1:37:58are the only things that have the ability to project consciousness.

1:38:04And projecting consciousness is how you train a neural network.

1:38:07And it's how you train all these large networks.

1:38:09A lot of my time also in the military was spent in our - I

1:38:12was doing artificial intelligence in 2012, 2011.

1:38:15Like before it was even a catch term, we were using artificial intelligence to map

1:38:19dynamic networks and to do other things, more pragmatic uses of it than how it's

1:38:23being used today with large language models or convolutional neural networks.

1:38:26But they need consciousness to train their models.

1:38:29So when Google offers you Meta or Instagram or whoever else offers you photo storage,

1:38:35it's because they want your face to train neural networks.

1:38:38If they're going to pay for the compute, if they're going to pay for the

1:38:41storage for these things, they're doing it because they're going to use the data.

1:38:46If you're getting a free app, in essence, any free app, if the product's free,

1:38:50then you're the product. So when Google is allowing you to use a Google Drive

1:38:54and get a gig of storage, they're going to use those photos to train neural

1:38:58networks to do better facial recognition.

1:39:00What if you're paying for Google Drive?

1:39:02I don't know about their terms of service now.

1:39:04That is one of the best things that I use with large language models is

1:39:07any product I download, I have the neural network examine the terms of service.

1:39:13And then you can pretty much understand like, here's my focus.

1:39:17Here's the 40 page terms of services document.

1:39:19When you click that link that you got, what are they able to do with

1:39:22my data? So that's how I sign up for apps.

1:39:24And that's one of the great uses of a large language model, in my opinion,

1:39:27is to quickly understand how these things are being used.

1:39:30And that's why I say with Apple, with Meta, with all of these large information,

1:39:34you are more the product than the product's the product.

1:39:37And that is because they're trying to build the most powerful, capable artificial intelligences, which

1:39:43I think is a misnomer.

1:39:44And again, we can get into it later, but they're trying to build these...

1:39:47hyper -competent artificial intelligences and you need two things for that really is training data

1:39:53and you need compute and that's why you start seeing them coming out with like

1:39:56meta's building its own nuclear engineering facility or something nuclear facility or something like that

1:40:01and they need more they need more training data so if i want to build

1:40:05a you know a replica of joe rogan that i can make hyper realistic ai

1:40:09videos for i need every picture of your face from every angle i need every

1:40:13wince every squint everything you've ever done so i can introduce more training data to

1:40:19better train that neural network in order to generate more hyper realistic versions of yourself

1:40:24and so when a company's offering you something for free and it's fine like if

1:40:29people are fine with that idea then by all means download all the free apps

1:40:33that you want but if you're downloading a free app it's because you are the

1:40:37product they either want to see how you type they want to see what you're

1:40:40saying they want to see how you're thinking about things they want to understand your

1:40:43political biases they want to look at your photos and this isn't because they're a

1:40:47deep -seated nation state actor they can become that but it's because they're trying to

1:40:51build the best products because the big money is in ai that's where the biggest

1:40:56money is so anytime you're doing any of these things and it's just been obvious

1:40:59to me from the on not from the onset but pretty close to the onset

1:41:02that um yeah this is a good example right pokemon go players built a 30

1:41:07billion photo map that's how training robots to deliver your pizza there you go um

1:41:14so you you know they view p and they can say they don't and maybe

1:41:18if someone from there catches this podcast which they well could they might put out

1:41:23a statement that's saying that that's not they're doing but i'm telling you as a

1:41:25person who has done media forensics who has done computer network operations and who has

1:41:30trained artificial intelligence models that is precisely what they are doing that is there's no

1:41:36what is the difference between using apple and using android well android will do the

1:41:41same things and google will do the same things it's just that i can root

1:41:44my phone or i can install a custom operating system like graphene or something like

1:41:49that which i'm not doing right now i i had to make a sacrifice when

1:41:53i started my carton my company spartan forge and the sacrifice was i had to

1:41:58be the face of this product and so i never had a social media until

1:42:02i started the company and i didn't upload things to the cloud until i started

1:42:05this company and it became just like i have to sell a product i have

1:42:09to you know and i'm actually selling a product not people's data or people's photos

1:42:14i have to sell this product i have to let people people often don't know

1:42:17who is the company or who is the organizing principle and what do they care

1:42:21about in the company and i just made that trade and said i'm gonna have

1:42:25to become a public person and start putting things out there and uh so you

1:42:30know when i started a company we started our first instagram and i started my

1:42:33my marketing team started my first instagram and uh i had to start uploading things

1:42:38and talking about how i felt about things because um i wanted people to know

1:42:42that this company was not going to be like the other companies that are out

1:42:46there we don't sell their data we don't sell emails i can make a half

1:42:49million dollars off my email list tomorrow and i've been offered that money you know

1:42:52we've got millions of emails from people who have signed up for our apps other

1:42:55companies who are starting companies they want to go out and reach marketing people so

1:43:01if you're starting another hunting app maybe for cameras or for a call or a

1:43:05tricky call or an out call or something and you have found spartan forge and

1:43:11you said man they've got two million emails i could pay them a half million

1:43:15dollars for that two million dollars and start some top of mark top of line

1:43:18marketing top of funnel marketing and go blast them so they'd pay me a lot

1:43:22of money for those emails i will never do that i'll never sell my company's

1:43:25emails the people's emails i'll never do any of those things because the product is

1:43:30the product for my company it's not the people um so the reason why you

1:43:34use android over apple is the ability to root it and install things like graphene

1:43:40yeah custom os's and uh but yeah you don't use it i'm not now but

1:43:44what i still can use and what i still do use is android also publishes

1:43:48their their their framework in an open source fashion where you can you can look

1:43:52at the and it's called aosp android open source project so the basis of android

1:43:58the the nuts think of it as the nuts and bolts i'll turn out to

1:44:01talk in two technical terms here but the basic framework think about it like a

1:44:06car the frame and the engine makeup is published so you can look at how

1:44:11things work on the inside apple goes the opposite way and they don't publish any

1:44:14of that you can't see any of that stuff i'm for the free and open

1:44:18version because at least if something at least if i'm worried about my phone having

1:44:23a problem i can actually dump binary or i can create neo one file and

1:44:27exhume i can look at the binary and say is my phone acting like it

1:44:30should or doing what it should or is there some kind of persistent implant i

1:44:33wouldn't be able to do that with uh i would have to trust apple and

1:44:36apple's ecosystem and whoever their mcafee or whatever they're using i would have to trust

1:44:41them which i don't um so i like the android um because that option available

1:44:47for the average consumer that's not that learned in computers well the great part about

1:44:52large language models now is if you wanted to dump your own phone today you

1:44:56could follow along with a large language model and do it your own android and

1:45:00how would you do that um well there's you would have to buy some expensive

1:45:04there there is something you'd either have to pay a firm to do it or

1:45:09you could download things like uh uh celebrate you could get a celebrate uh or

1:45:14there's other things called forensic toolkit other things like that that allow you to examine

1:45:19your phone at a deeper level and is this an app forensic their products products

1:45:24their products so it's a physical product some of them have dump your phone into

1:45:27yeah and there's software um and there's connecting and all that type of stuff tools

1:45:32i used throughout my military um career um celebrate was one of them but they're

1:45:36israeli owned um i've got nothing against israel i've just got everything against foreign actors

1:45:41just if they're not an american company that automatically kicks them down a level for

1:45:45me so um anyway there's there's all kinds of android just makes it much easier

1:45:51to examine your phone or to understand if you've got something going on that's funky

1:45:56than it is on apple so for the average person like for me like if

1:46:00i you're not the average person you're not the average person Well, let's pretend I

1:46:02am. If I got an Android phone and I wanted to examine my phone, what

1:46:07would be the process? You would download some of the software that I talked about.

1:46:11You would jack your phone into it.

1:46:12You would open your phone, and then it would start carving the binary of your

1:46:17phone, everything in your phone.

1:46:21You could create a one -to -one emulation of your phone if you wanted to,

1:46:23and then you would be able to get under the hood and examine the apps.

1:46:27You'd be able to examine the binary.

1:46:29What's the executable code? You'd be able to look at all of those things and

1:46:32then determine, because Android open -source project is published, you could do a one -for

1:46:37-one and say, well, at the kernel level, there's this weird code that's not in

1:46:42the Android build. So what is this code?

1:46:47And then with a neural network, I've never done it, but I'm sure you could

1:46:51figure out what the intent is of that code, even for a layperson.

1:46:54So I could take that information, I could put it into perplexity, and perplexity would

1:46:59lay out what's going on with it.

1:47:01Ostensibly, it would be able to, yes, unless it was some type of weird code.

1:47:04I don't know if, I haven't used perplexity, so I don't know if they have

1:47:07something like ChatGPT's codex, but...

1:47:10I sort of just tried just to be like, can you help me examine my

1:47:13Android phone is doing, looking for any malicious actors?

1:47:15Yes, I can walk you through structured, non -destructive, check for malware or other shady

1:47:19activity on your Android phone.

1:47:21A first, what are you noticing?

1:47:23For tools, commands, quickly check for common warning signs, sudden big battery drain, you're not

1:47:28using the phone, unusual data usage, particularly in the background, apps you don't remember installing,

1:47:33or icons briefly appearing and then disappearing.

1:47:35Lots of pop -ups, redirects in browser, or new default search launcher, strange calls, SMS

1:47:42messages you didn't send yourself.

1:47:44If any of those ring a bell, we'll focus on them in later steps.

1:47:48So this is just something that you could do with an Android phone that you

1:47:51just can't do with Apple.

1:47:53Yeah, Apple's not open. What are the reasons you don't trust Apple?

1:47:55Well, could I ask, can I do one thing before we, remember that question, because

1:47:58I want to forget it.

1:47:59Could I give you a prompt?

1:48:01Sure. Because I want to answer your first question that we've already gone past.

1:48:04If you, can you bring perplexity back up, please?

1:48:07Do you want to go in addition to that or start a new one?

1:48:08No, this is fine. Just say, my friend helped me carve an EO1 file, EO,

1:48:16Echo, Oscar, EO1 file. And he says that there is code in there that doesn't

1:48:30comport with the rest of the Android system.

1:48:33Comport? Yeah, P -O -R -T.

1:48:35With? The rest of the system.

1:48:38Could I dump that code here, and could you tell me what it means?

1:48:43I'm sure the answer is yes, but I just didn't want to answer it, because

1:48:45I've never done it. Could you tell me?

1:48:50Could you tell me, Jimmy?

1:48:52Could you tell me what it means here?

1:48:57Get the you out. Get the you.

1:48:59Tell me you. Could I have some of your coffee, please?

1:49:02Yeah, absolutely. It's for you.

1:49:05Okay, let's see what it says.

1:49:09Yes, you can paste suspicious code here, and I can help explain what it appears

1:49:13to do line by line, and whether anything looks malicious.

1:49:17Before you paste, a few important notes.

1:49:19Remove or redact anything that looks like private data, usernames, passwords, keys, tokens, IPs, email

1:49:25addresses, phone numbers. Perplexity is our sponsor.

1:49:27I love that, because you'd never get that from ChatGPT.

1:49:30You'd want all that information.

1:49:32Perplexity is the shit. And so you're not sharing personal or case -sensitive information.

1:49:38Wonderful perplexity. If it's very long, send in chunks and tell me chunk 1 -3,

1:49:45chunk 2 -3, et cetera, so we can help keep track.

1:49:48I can do static analysis here, read and reason about the code, but I cannot

1:49:51actually execute it in a sandbox.

1:49:54Right. So this is more like a careful forensic read -through than a full dynamic

1:49:58malware analysis. Go ahead and paste the code snippet your friend flagged as not fitting

1:50:03with the rest of the system, and tell me in a sentence or two where

1:50:06in the EO -1 it came from.

1:50:09Example, app folder, system partition, random file path.

1:50:13Yep, exactly. So yeah, I thought that would be the answer.

1:50:16I've just never done it.

1:50:17And so you can do a forensic examination of an Apple, by the way.

1:50:22I'm sorry if I misspoke there, but you can't do it to the level that

1:50:25you can with... Because the Android Open Source Project publishes all of the code, I

1:50:30can get an understanding of the very inner working.

1:50:32So if something's being done, for instance, at the kernel, or you could think about

1:50:35it as like the lowest level of the phone, something that wouldn't normally get caught

1:50:41in a forensic examination, I wouldn't be able to do that with Apple.

1:50:45And the nation state actors are doing things at very low levels in the code

1:50:50framework for that exact reason, because most people who aren't very deep into forensics would

1:50:57miss that. It'd be like the fingerprint under the couch cushion or something like that.

1:51:00And what is the difference between what someone could do with an Android phone with

1:51:07the standard Android operating system versus graphene?

1:51:11So that gets into, you know, if you wanted to war drive or sample Wi

1:51:16-Fi networks in an area, or if you wanted to run a barrage attack on

1:51:21a Wi -Fi endpoint, you could work that in there to do things with the

1:51:26phone that you couldn't otherwise do with a standard Android operating kit.

1:51:31But as far as on a consumer level, like what protections do you have by

1:51:35running graphene that you don't have by running Android?

1:51:40You're much more in control of the ecosystem.

1:51:43You have a firmer understanding.

1:51:45And again, you could use a large language model to do this, to understand exactly

1:51:48what's being run on the phone.

1:51:50You control the background services that can be run on the phone.

1:51:52So if you're getting hot mic'd or if your camera's taking pictures of you and

1:51:56you're not looking or it's listening to you for advertising content, stuff like that, you

1:51:59would be in control of all of that in a way that you're not in

1:52:02control of on a native Android app.

1:52:04In control, like how so?

1:52:05Would it alert you that this is happening?

1:52:07Or just the functionality wouldn't be there for it to take place.

1:52:10Right, because the functionality is, it's only designed for the standard Android operating system.

1:52:15Yeah, and I haven't installed it yet.

1:52:16I've called graphene in a while, so a lot of us, all of us updates,

1:52:20and I could be saying things that are incorrect.

1:52:21My data, I stopped doing this about three years ago.

1:52:24I know that there was, I forget what country it was, but they were focusing

1:52:27on people who use Google Pixel phones, for example.

1:52:31Yeah, because that's... Because that's one of the phones that are more commonly rooted.

1:52:35Yeah, it's easy to do.

1:52:36And you could do it with a large language model.

1:52:38You could sit there and be walked through on how to do it, which is

1:52:40a great, you know, part of that.

1:52:42Is it complicated, like, for a person like me that's not that astute?

1:52:46No, it's not something I would do with a phone that you care about the

1:52:48first few times. Right. Because you're going to jack things up.

1:52:51You have to, you know, get the bootloader, and essentially the starting, you know, the

1:52:56starting mechanisms of the phone that launches all of the other things, you have to

1:52:59get down to a level and unlock that so that you can...

1:53:02Is that available for all Android phones?

1:53:04No, not all Android phones.

1:53:06Lots of them lock it down, so you can't do that.

1:53:08Is that available for Samsung phones?

1:53:10No, not this one. You can't, so the question has to become, can you lock,

1:53:13unlock the bootloader? And that is the starting, think of it as the starting engine

1:53:17of the rest of the phones.

1:53:18Why is it only available on Google Pixel phones?

1:53:20I'm not sure why they do it that way.

1:53:22I haven't looked into that.

1:53:23It's just Pixels. And the older Samsung's made it available.

1:53:27The older Galaxy S7s, S10s, you could do more than you can with like, you

1:53:34know, I've got the Galaxy Fold here, and you can do almost none of that

1:53:37on here. That is fucking sweet, though.

1:53:38Yeah, I love this phone.

1:53:39But like I said, I went away from doing all that, A, because it was

1:53:43work, B, because I'm not working in national security anymore, and I'm not, you know,

1:53:47I haven't written an exploit in years.

1:53:50I don't do this type of work anymore, and I need to sell a product.

1:53:54And it just, you know, working with other employees like that run my Instagram or,

1:53:58you know, assistant going through my email and all those other types of things, it

1:54:02just wasn't pragmatic anymore for me to keep doing that, and I had to give

1:54:05up that part of myself.

1:54:06Does Spartan Forge your app run on graphene?

1:54:08Yeah, well, it could. Yeah, it would.

1:54:10You have to sideload the app.

1:54:12But again, a large language model could walk you through doing that.

1:54:15So we haven't gotten to that level of— Does it make sense here that this

1:54:19says it's easier because Google makes it easier?

1:54:22Yeah. He was just asking me why they make it easier, and I don't know

1:54:25that answer. So the process is officially supported in the Android settings under developer options,

1:54:31allowing users to toggle OEM locking.

1:54:33Simple fast boot method. Pixels use standard fast boot commands that work consistently across all

1:54:40models to unlock the bootloader accessibility.

1:54:43That's what I was talking about.

1:54:45So, yeah, I don't know why they do it.

1:54:47It might be people can—well, the Android open source project exists, so it would stand

1:54:53to reason that you would want a way for someone, because what you want is

1:54:55people interacting with that code and red teaming it and making the code better and

1:55:00then offering, you know, bug bounties so that you can tell Android, like, hey, you've

1:55:05got a critical flaw in your system architecture here, and then they'll pay you 20

1:55:08grand for that. Right. I've got friends who do that.

1:55:11So— You and I talked about Eric Prince's phone.

1:55:14Yes. That—which is—so the narrative is that that is an unhackable phone.

1:55:22Yeah, it's just by virtue—and look, Eric's a wonderful guy, and he's—the principles that he

1:55:29used for the first instantiation of that phone are the correct principles, which is we

1:55:35need to get—if you want—if you're security -focused at all, you should get away from

1:55:39these big, large conglomerates because none of your data is private.

1:55:43That's a correct principle. An incorrect principle—and I'm going to get shit about this, but

1:55:47I told you in the beginning I care about the truth, and I do care

1:55:51about the truth—is that when you're using a PKI subsystem that relies on Microsoft, then

1:55:58you're not in control of the PKI certificate signing, and Microsoft could cause a bunch

1:56:02of problems, and they were using that.

1:56:05So the other thing being, if you're building on the Android open source project, that

1:56:09means the code that you're using as the engine—let's just call it that of your

1:56:13phone—is examinable by the public.

1:56:16So you're relying on Android to publish these, you know, updates to the phone, and

1:56:22you're relying on those things to be as good as possible.

1:56:25Now, you might harden it some more, but as long as the code is out

1:56:28there, it can always be mucked with.

1:56:29As long as people have to interact with the device and type, and you have

1:56:33to see what you're typing, a phone's going to be—it's going to have Swiss cheese.

1:56:38So when people say something is unhackable, as you said, that's just not true.

1:56:43Yeah, it didn't make sense to me, which is why you and I talked about

1:56:47it. Yeah, we talked about it quite a bit.

1:56:49I have—like I said, great guy, done lots of great things for the country, and

1:56:53it's just—if they had just said something along the lines of, it's hackable as any

1:56:58phone is hackable, because by virtue of you having to interact with it, it's hackable.

1:57:03It's just—like if I came up with an app that had a—you know, look at

1:57:08the TikTok terms of service on the first TikTok.

1:57:10Oh, it's bonkers. With those terms of services, I will own your phone.

1:57:14And I'm not saying you can install TikTok on his phone, but what I'm saying

1:57:16is by virtue that you have to interact with the phone and see what you're

1:57:20doing and type passwords, and you've got those kinds of terms of service, I could

1:57:24easily put a keylogger in that, and now I know your signal password or your

1:57:28signal pin. Or, you know, I get you—you know, you're going to China, so I

1:57:32stop you in secondary. And while you're in secondary, I've got a CCTV on you,

1:57:36and you unlock your phone.

1:57:37Now I know how to unlock your phone.

1:57:39Now I'm going to lock you up in secondary at customs in China or in

1:57:44Canada, and I'm going to separate you from your phone, and I've seen you unlock

1:57:49it. Well, now I'm going to get in there with NCASE or I'm going to

1:57:51get in there with FTK or I'm going to get in there with Celebrite, and

1:57:54I'm going to dump your phone.

1:57:57And just by virtue of it being built on the Android open source project, that's

1:58:02a great thing. It's a good thing.

1:58:04Just don't call it totally unhackable because a guy like me, I don't need but

1:58:09a week or two to tell you on this current build, like, here's the hole

1:58:13in this Swiss cheese. Now is it far better than having a Google phone with

1:58:19standard firmware and standard OS or an Apple phone?

1:58:23I don't know about Apple because, again, you asked me about Apple, and I said

1:58:26I don't know Apple. I don't know what's happening at the top of that company,

1:58:29but I know that they like the monetization.

1:58:30is people and that's pervasive in my mind and using data that people don't know

1:58:35is getting used even though it's in a 40 page terms of services document is

1:58:39pervasive so I just don't know at that highest level of analysis and that's why

1:58:43I said to answer your question about the safest phone I would ask you what

1:58:46you're using it for who you are and what are you doing in the world

1:58:50is the best way to answer that question so me like what would you recommend

1:58:54I use I mean I wouldn't want it I mean okay I'll tell you generally

1:58:59what I would say because you might ask me that question one day because we

1:59:03go back and forth about a lot of tech I know specifically what I would

1:59:07recommend for you to do and I'd even tell you to hire someone else to

1:59:09do it not me because that just that checks and balances is what I would

1:59:14want but for you I would say you should take something like a raspberry pi

1:59:20and you should run wire guard on your phone and you should route all of

1:59:24your internet traffic through something like a home terminal at your house through a raspberry

1:59:28pi using something like wire guard which is a vpn that I use that's very

1:59:33good and you know everything should be routed through that and if you trust apple

1:59:41continue using apple if you don't trust apple then you know use android and you

1:59:47could do you could use a pixel and do graphene and you could use signal

1:59:51on there and those other things you're gonna be relatively safe but again if I'm

1:59:55a nation -state actor I can create circumstances where I'm going to get access to

1:59:59your shit and I'm going to lock you down and there some of them are

2:00:03more expensive than other methods to do it but I'm a pragmatist and you can

2:00:07always come up with a method to get a hold of somebody's shit you can

2:00:09always create the circumstances especially if you're a nation -state actor to get a hold

2:00:14of somebody's stuff that would be the very high level of things that I would

2:00:17recommend to you um uh coupe chassis climate control camshaft cylinder converter carbon fiber cvt

2:00:29continuously variable transmission don't get cars cars guide does with 12 000 independent reviews and

2:00:37over 60 000 listings we'll help you get cars too cars guide get cars they

2:00:45call this the lucky country trouble is there's only so much luck to go around

2:00:51see for every winner driving home with a meat tray there's another driver getting t

2:01:00-boned in the car park lucky amy offers comprehensive car insurance lucky you're with amy

2:01:08before buying insurance issued by amy read the pds and tmd at amy .com .au

2:01:13and consider whether it's right for you just out the gate yeah it's uh very

2:01:19concerning because it seems like these things keep getting stronger and more capable yes like

2:01:24the pegasus 2 being a non -click exploit yes so all they have to do

2:01:29essentially is just know your number yep and that's you know uh you just make

2:01:36yourself a difficult target would be my best recommendation when you're going to answer questions

2:01:41about password reset don't answer them honestly write down in a physical journal or something

2:01:46how you answered those questions don't answer them honestly um you know all of these

2:01:50things we think are added for layers of protection for instance you used to get

2:01:54that pop -up on your phone where it said you know there'd be like blocks

2:01:57of pictures and it would say click all of the pictures right with a uh

2:02:03with a traffic light i was just going to say that a traffic light in

2:02:05it yeah part of that might be for security the other part of it is

2:02:08they're using the information of what you're clicking to train neural networks right you're a

2:02:13product at that point right you think you're getting security out of it but you're

2:02:17a product at that point because you're helping to educate a neural network on what

2:02:20traffic lights look like yeah and how they can look and all those different instantiations

2:02:24of traffic lights so and again like we have to separate causality and intention and

2:02:30outcomes and that the companies might do this because they want to create the greatest

2:02:34ai ever but when you're issuing someone a 40 page terms of service document on

2:02:40everything they can do with your thing that you paid two thousand dollars for it's

2:02:44just you know we need more ethical people at least what eric prince was trying

2:02:48to do was right which was we need to off -ramp from some of these

2:02:52big things because the way that this government is going i'm very worried about the

2:02:57rights of the individual now and going forward because we have an uneducated class of

2:03:03people for all of the reasons in the world like if you want to just

2:03:07focus on your family and you're not thinking about these things i don't hate that

2:03:10for you but the idea of individual autonomy and rights has been so shit on

2:03:16in in recent years that where this when we get more uneducated and we rely

2:03:22large language models are great but they're not a foundation of learning in other words

2:03:27um we have a lot of people with access to information but no wisdom it's

2:03:32like when your parents would say learn how to do addition and subtraction on paper

2:03:36before you use a calculator like understand how to do research and cite sources and

2:03:41understand you know how to conduct really good analysis before you just use a neural

2:03:46network for everything because as we lose focus of our civics and and and what

2:03:51our founders are trying to do and the uniqueness of it which is truly unique

2:03:54which is you know when i joined the army i joined the army to get

2:03:57out of north dakota when i re -enlisted in the army it's because i believed

2:04:00in the experiment and that's another five -hour podcast but um the the the foundation

2:04:06of the experiment is good but we've eroded it in so many ways over the

2:04:11years and given up so many individual rights in the name of security and i'm

2:04:15sure it's been said on here before but franklin said anybody who gives up their

2:04:18individual rights in the name of security deserves neither um your freedoms in the name

2:04:23of security deserve neither um and it's some of the ways that they've done it

2:04:27have been really above the surface and it frankly blows my mind that we let

2:04:33the government get away with some of these things that we let them get away

2:04:36with where you even explain it to people they're like i don't see it like

2:04:40i don't see how that was a big deal and i'm like it was a

2:04:43total recalibration of the system how that was a big deal and i'm like it's

2:04:45a big deal and i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm

2:04:45like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like

2:04:45i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm

2:04:45like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like

2:04:45i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm

2:04:45like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like

2:04:45i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm

2:04:45like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like

2:04:45i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm like i'm

2:04:45like i'm like i'm like i That allowed the Democratic Party and the Republican Party

2:04:48to usurp your rights in a way that if you knew any better, you'd probably

2:04:52be protesting. Like some of the ways that they've done this, you know, we can

2:04:57go with the easy stuff like the Patriot Act, right?

2:05:00In the name of security, we're going to start collecting on Americans, you know, and

2:05:03the Biden and Obama administration.

2:05:05I will say this at risk of, you know, getting in trouble because I used

2:05:11to have a clearance. They had a massive vacuum cleaner and they knew what it

2:05:16was vacuuming up and they kept vacuuming it up anyway in the name of security.

2:05:20I'm not saying they were going after American citizens, but they certainly knew they were

2:05:25and they just vacuumed shit up and collected it and stored it in a database.

2:05:30In case they need it.

2:05:31In case at some point we needed to, you know, come up with a narrative

2:05:35or get rid of somebody who's inconvenient or whatever else that just flies in the

2:05:39face of individual American rights and American autonomy.

2:05:43And is really, in my mind, the anti -pattern to freedom.

2:05:48It's just really, really bad.

2:05:50I mean, I'll give you one that people always crap on me whenever I talk

2:05:53to them about it. But there's two that really bother me.

2:05:55One of them being like the 17th Amendment.

2:05:57Do you know the 17th Amendment of the Constitution?

2:06:01So when the founders, when you read the Federalist Papers and the Federalist Papers, I

2:06:06really love reading the Federalist Papers.

2:06:07I love reading how they informed the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration even.

2:06:13John Jay, James Madison wrote these documents explaining the framework.

2:06:17And the 17th Amendment, essentially how the Senate, the Senate, right, the 50 people there

2:06:22that are supposed to be representing us, was originally constructed was a state would have

2:06:26legislatures. And the state legislatures and the governor would appoint the senator.

2:06:31The reason that the founders did that was because the state governments had to give

2:06:36power to the federal government to exist.

2:06:39Back with the Articles of Confederation, Confederation, is that right?

2:06:45Articles of, I think it's the Articles of Confederation.

2:06:48I'm blowing up. Sorry, I'm going nuts.

2:06:51Back before there was a strong centralized American government, we had problems with money.

2:06:55We had problems with interstate commerce and those types of things.

2:06:58And those articles eventually turned into what is the Constitution.

2:07:01But the states had to grant that power.

2:07:03And the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution knew that the states

2:07:08needed to be those small projects that we talked about before, where if California wanted

2:07:12to go nuts, let them go nuts.

2:07:14But it shouldn't impact what's happening in Texas.

2:07:16It shouldn't impact what's happening over in New England.

2:07:18It shouldn't impact what's happening in the Midwest.

2:07:20But if that goes nuts and it fails, it needs to fail.

2:07:24So the state senators, I'm sorry, the state legislatures would come together and they would

2:07:29vote for a senator. They would elect a senator.

2:07:31And that senator's job was to go to the federal government and protect the rights

2:07:35of the state, not to protect the rights of individuals per se, and certainly not

2:07:41to embolden the federal government.

2:07:42But with the 17th Amendment, what happened was the House of Representatives function was to

2:07:49be the petulant children of government.

2:07:51So their job was to come up with crazy ideas, crazy laws, all of those

2:07:55things. The more liberal version of government jurisprudence would be the House of Representatives, your

2:08:02crazy ideas. And then you had state senators who were supposed to be between the

2:08:05House and the president who would say, well, here's a good idea, but the rest

2:08:09of this is retarded, AOC.

2:08:10Like, we're not doing all this.

2:08:11That's crazy. Or whoever else.

2:08:13Name me a Republican who's an asshat as well.

2:08:16We're not doing these things.

2:08:18And that's because it would erode the state's rights and the state's constitution and what

2:08:22made this state great. Because what the legislatures would do is say, hey, Joe Rogan,

2:08:27you've made a lot of money and you've got a big podcast and a big

2:08:30voice and you've learned some lessons around the way.

2:08:32And you were able to do that in Texas.

2:08:33And you decided to come to Texas because we had all of these things that

2:08:36California didn't have. We need you to go to the Senate for three years or

2:08:42six years or seven years, whatever it was back then, and represent those same principles.

2:08:46So when Obamacare comes through, you can say not only no, but fuck no.

2:08:50Like, I'm not voting for this thing.

2:08:51And it was to protect the state.

2:08:53But what the 17th Amendment did was it was redundant with the House of Representatives,

2:09:00which was, in the founders' eyes, the only popular vote part of the American government

2:09:06was the popular vote. And then you had, you know, the way the president gets

2:09:10elected through electors, but you had the state Senate, which was appointed by the states.

2:09:14So the legislatures, and I'll use North Dakota, where I'm from, you'll have one big

2:09:18city, two big cities, Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota.

2:09:23It's where the universities are.

2:09:24It's where your crazy kids are.

2:09:26Crazy thought exists. Hyper crazy ideas.

2:09:29But some of them are useful.

2:09:31The rest of the state's agriculture, right?

2:09:33So all of those legislators from all of those counties or those legislative districts would

2:09:38get together and say, we're going to put Bill Thompson, that would never happen, but

2:09:42in charge of, he's going to be at the Senate representing North Dakota.

2:09:45But he has to represent the whole state.

2:09:48In other words, you can't do things that will help Grand Forks or Fargo because

2:09:51that's where the universities are.

2:09:53That's where all the crazy politics are.

2:09:54You also need to be thinking about the guys out in the western counties, Lemoore

2:09:58County in North Dakota or way out west.

2:10:00You have to protect agriculture.

2:10:01You have to protect small businesses.

2:10:03You have to protect families.

2:10:05What the 17th Amendment under Wunderwood Wilson and how they really usurped the Constitution and

2:10:10made the Senate a redundant, they made it a redundant House of Representatives and using

2:10:15the popular vote. So now we use popular vote for that.

2:10:18But if you want the popular vote in North Dakota, 85 % of the population

2:10:22is in Fargo and Grand Forks.

2:10:24So now you've got – if I want to run for Senate in North Dakota,

2:10:27I'm just going to spend all of my time in Fargo and Grand Forks because

2:10:30if I can repeat back to those people all the ideas that they want to

2:10:34hear, I'm going to win that vote and I don't have to represent those people

2:10:37out in the rest of the state in anything.

2:10:39So they created a redundant House of Representatives.

2:10:42But another reason why it happened was they wanted popular vote because there is no

2:10:46amount of money that you could stick into a legislature out in the western part

2:10:50of North Dakota. You can't bribe these people.

2:10:52But the DNC and RNC now can say, look, these two senators are running.

2:10:56We like this guy. So we're going to – this guy will do whatever we

2:10:59tell him to do. And it has nothing to do with the state or representing

2:11:02the state's rights or the rest of those legislative districts.

2:11:05We're going to pick this senator, and he's getting $300 million for his election bid.

2:11:09And this other guy, who's a slower -moving constitutional conservative who might be a free

2:11:15market absolutist and a classical liberal, he's not being funded.

2:11:21But under the state architecture, you might have been a better representation of the state.

2:11:26And that's why the legislators had to vote for you to put you in as

2:11:29a senator. You had to represent the whole state.

2:11:32But now all that someone who wants to be a senator needs to do is

2:11:35go to the Republican National Committee or the Democrat National Committee and say, I'll do

2:11:41all the things you tell me to do, fund my campaign, and I'm going to

2:11:44go stump in Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota, and the hell with the rest

2:11:47of the state. It's very important.

2:11:50It's a very important sleight of hand.

2:11:51And when that happened, you made a redundant House of Representatives, and the state no

2:11:56longer was protected at the federal level.

2:11:59And what happened was all of the power from all of these states and these

2:12:03legislatures and these individuals got sucked up into the federal government.

2:12:06And then after that, you see all of these things that would never have been

2:12:09passed by a state getting passed, things like Obamacare, things like the Patriot Act, certain

2:12:14war resolutions, all kinds of things where it just further erodes the power of the

2:12:20state. And federal government wants that because it puts all of the power up in

2:12:25the federal government. And people always say we need to get money out of politics.

2:12:28No, we need to get power out of politics.

2:12:30That power that they've taken over the last 130 years or so used to exist

2:12:36at the state and local levels because they wanted these thought experiments happening where we

2:12:40could pluck the best things out of them and forget the rest.

2:12:43But all of that power has now gone up to the federal government, and the

2:12:46federal government won't ever release that power, and they only want more budget and more

2:12:52spending to execute that power.

2:12:53And that's also because the interest groups that want to go, they don't want to

2:12:57have to go and convince a whole state of whether or not something is good

2:13:00that people are going to vote on.

2:13:01They just want to go take a lobby and go up to the federal government

2:13:04because they want all of the power up there as well.

2:13:06And the federal government wants all the power up there as well because they make

2:13:09$300 ,000 a year before they become a politician, and they're worth $30 million when

2:13:14they're done being a politician because all of the money has to go to the

2:13:17federal government because they're in charge of light bulbs we can use, computers we can

2:13:21use, flush toilets we can have, how our roads are going to look, what our

2:13:25medical care looks like. None of those powers are explicitly written in the Constitution of

2:13:30the United States, and they use things like the commerce law and other things in

2:13:34order to create things like Obamacare.

2:13:36Where really we want competing states.

2:13:38If Texas comes up with a great way to do health care and North Dakota's

2:13:43isn't so great, they can look at that experiment, they can adopt the principles, and

2:13:47they can have it at that level.

2:13:48But it's much easier to get change at the local level when the power is

2:13:53derived from the state and the individual because if I want to change the way

2:13:55that my state does health care, I have one of two options or three options.

2:13:59I can run for office, I can support someone who is going to go into

2:14:02office and do what I want, or I can move.

2:14:04But when everything's centralized at the federal government and everything flows from the federal government,

2:14:09all of the money, power, and gravity is up there, and the individual, the 300

2:14:13million of us or so, have really no power now to exercise either states' rights

2:14:18or individual rights at the higher level.

2:14:20I hope I'm elucidating this correctly.

2:14:22But it's a real usurpation of individual and state autonomy that really got rid of

2:14:27state power, which was, if you read the federalist papers, was so important to the

2:14:31founders that there was this state, that the state's needs were organized because the state

2:14:36was where the founders wanted these thought experiments.

2:14:39You read Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or John Locke, or Montesquieu.

2:14:43All of them talked about this great experiment that was being set up and how

2:14:47it was built on all of this Western politics and everything that had came before

2:14:49it on how we could have a government that was forced to respect the rights

2:14:53of individuals and allowed for these competing think tanks of ideas and that the power

2:14:58would never rest at the federal government.

2:15:00But the 17th Amendment was a way that a lot of that power went from

2:15:05the state level and the state legislatures.

2:15:07And now, to become the president, they want to do a popular vote.

2:15:11And under a popular vote, you would just have to campaign in New York and

2:15:14L .A. You would get the popular vote out of the likely voting people, and

2:15:19now the rest of the country is not.

2:15:21And that would be another – you hear all these people saying, we need a

2:15:23popular vote. We can't have the electoral college.

2:15:26We can't have all of these things.

2:15:28Everything needs to be – pure democracy allows 51 percent to rule 49 percent.

2:15:34And that was another thing the founders were working fervently to get away from.

2:15:39And that's why we had an electoral college.

2:15:42And it's actually quite beautiful when you actually read about it and examine it.

2:15:45It's why we had the state senate and state legislatures, and this is why we

2:15:48had the house. You had all levels of the things of government that the founders

2:15:52cared about being represented in this body politic, and it was a beautiful thing.

2:15:56And I could go on for 15 more things about that.

2:15:58I won't do it for the sake of your listeners because I doubt this is

2:16:01what they wanted to do.

2:16:02But similar things happened with the Supreme Court, Marbury v.

2:16:06Madison, and allowing the Supreme Court to have judicial review.

2:16:09That was never a thing that was in the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

2:16:12If you like the Supreme Court being able to have the power to describe everything

2:16:15as being either constitutional or unconstitutional, then you're not ruled by a democracy.

2:16:19You're ruled by an oligarchy.

2:16:20You've got eight people in a robe that are going to tell you whether or

2:16:23not laws are good or bad.

2:16:24And that's not the founding of this country.

2:16:26It's not how it was intended to work.

2:16:27And that all started back in Marbury v.

2:16:30Madison with Thomas Jefferson and these writs of mandamus that where the Supreme Court, long

2:16:36story short, essentially granted itself the power to conduct judicial review.

2:16:40Under the old system or the system that was ratified and that the founders approved

2:16:45was if a law was deemed unconstitutional, it would go before the Supreme Court, and

2:16:51they would rule in favor of the person.

2:16:54And then eventually the government would figure out, oh, this law doesn't work.

2:16:57But it was never on the Supreme Court to say constitutional, unconstitutional.

2:17:01You would get arrested for some law, and it would get appealed to the Supreme

2:17:04Court. The Supreme Court would say, we're not punishing this person.

2:17:07This is against the Constitution.

2:17:09But the government would have to keep arresting people.

2:17:12They'd have to keep going in front of the federal government.

2:17:14The Supreme Court would have to keep arresting people.

2:17:14So what I'm saying is, and I'm sorry to go off on this, we can

2:17:16go back to tech, but all I'm saying is the core of the American experiment

2:17:21in individual rights and what makes this country so great and why I was willing

2:17:25to die for it after my initial enlistment and why I have such love for

2:17:29this is because it was the only experiment where the value of the individual was

2:17:33held at the top of the hierarchy and that people could truly be allowed to

2:17:37flourish. And in 250 years, we did more than any society could have hoped to

2:17:41have achieved in tens of thousands of years or not that it's been around that

2:17:44long, but in thousands of years, everything tends towards, um, disorder and everything, uh, power

2:17:51always gets centralized and we had a framework to do that, but we were willing

2:17:55participants in our own demise.

2:17:56And now we're scratching our heads and wondering why there's no individual and why there's

2:18:00no individual autonomy, why a guy can't smoke weed on the weekend or why a

2:18:04guy can't do X, Y, or Z, because we have centralized the authority and the

2:18:08power and the decision -making structure.

2:18:10And we're allowing them to be, there would be no problem with money in politics

2:18:14if the federal government had only the powers that were outlined to it in the

2:18:17constitution. I think that's very well said, and I could have never said it the

2:18:23way you said it. And I think there's a lot to absorb here.

2:18:25I'm sorry. No, no, it was great, dude.

2:18:28It was great. I'm, this is one of the things that I love about you.

2:18:31You're very thorough. Thorough is one thing.

2:18:34My friends always say Bill's tism is starting to show.

2:18:36Ah, you got a touch of the tism, but I think that's good.

2:18:39Like I said, just like ADHD, I think it's a superpower.

2:18:42A lot to absorb. So I think we'll wrap it up right here, but thank

2:18:46you. This was an awesome conversation.

2:18:47I really appreciate it. It was really great.

2:18:49Yeah. Um, we could do this again too.

2:18:51I'm sure we could probably have 30 or 40 of these.

2:18:53We didn't even get to AI.

2:18:54I wanted to get to AI because I think I have a very anti -pattern

2:18:57to AI and how you understand it.

2:18:59But, um, we, if you want, we can save that for another time.

2:19:02Yeah, we'll do that for our next one.

2:19:03Cause I think that's another four hours.

2:19:04Yeah, probably. Yeah, for sure.

2:19:06Um, and by then who knows where it's going to, I mean, Jensen, Jensen Huynh

2:19:10from NVIDIA recently declared that we've reached AGR.

2:19:13Yeah. So I would, I would, yeah, I could, yeah, I just couldn't disagree more.

2:19:20And I think I could, in the same way, I just elucidate.

2:19:22You're not the only one.

2:19:23There's quite a few people.

2:19:24Yeah. I mean, it's consciousness projection and I'll sum it up in a minute.

2:19:28At the end of the day, um, neural networks are mathematical functions.

2:19:32They rest in, you know, weighting neurons based on training data and applying power to

2:19:37train models. It's all mathematic.

2:19:39Um, there's no sense of knowing there in that, um, you know, Penrose, I've read

2:19:45a lot of, um, on his Orc OR, if people want to read about that,

2:19:49I won't explain it, um, um, orchestrated objective reduction and how the mind works in

2:19:55these fleets of consciousness that we have, these shimmers of consciousness that we have based

2:19:59around what, you know, he describes in the microtubule.

2:20:02Um, we get conscious thought and that conscious thought we project into things.

2:20:06AI is very good conscious projection, but we'll, it will never have consciousness or knowing

2:20:11because it has no system of values.

2:20:13And if we were to instill values in it, it would still be consciousness projection.

2:20:17You saw my dad's cabin.

2:20:18My dad died when I was five, but I bought it back and was working

2:20:21on it. And inside of his cabin, um, I got to learn a lot about

2:20:24my father by working on the cabin that he built.

2:20:27Like he would measure things and cut things right on walls and that type of

2:20:30stuff. That's all consciousness projection that allowed me to get to, to know him a

2:20:35way I might not even have known him if he were alive, but I got

2:20:38to re -experience and understand my father and his thoroughness through that cabin.

2:20:42AI is consciousness projection is projected consciousness.

2:20:44It's getting very good, but on a calculator, you could get the same thing out

2:20:49of a neural that you get out of a neural network.

2:20:51If you had sufficient time, I could present you a question just like you did

2:20:54on perplexity. I could sit here with a rule book and I could type in

2:20:58a calculator. It might take me a million years, but I could do it and

2:21:03I could give you the same answer that a neural network would give you.

2:21:05That doesn't mean consciousness or knowing or AGI is presence is present.

2:21:10It relies on its training data.

2:21:12It can only give you what the training data gives it.

2:21:14It needs human consciousness projection.

2:21:17Like we talked about with the captures or we talked about with uploading photos to

2:21:21Google drive. It needs that training data.

2:21:24And to me, it's just really fancy, clever math.

2:21:28And having trained these networks from dozens of years or a dozen years now and

2:21:32working with them, they're just really clever consciousness projection.

2:21:37And so, yeah, that is four hours and we can do that next time.

2:21:40We'll do that next time.

2:21:41Definitely. But if people, you mentioned the app.

2:21:43By the time we do it next time, who knows what the fuck is going

2:21:46to be going on with AI too.

2:21:48But if people want to learn more about me or my company, if I can

2:21:51say that. Yeah, please. It's SpartanForge .ai.

2:21:54We're built under the rubric of individual freedom.

2:21:56I want people outdoors. I want people hunting.

2:21:58I want people experiencing nature.

2:22:00I want people providing for their families.

2:22:03The best part of my day is when my kids are eating a backstrap of

2:22:06an animal that I took.

2:22:08And I want to enable people to go out and do that.

2:22:10Even though it's paradoxical through an app, you can get lost.

2:22:13You've got to conserve time.

2:22:14You've got to e -scout.

2:22:15You've got to learn things before you go out there.

2:22:16So we built this company under that.

2:22:18It's one of my, I've got three other companies that I'm doing.

2:22:20But Spartan Forge is the one that I'm really working on.

2:22:24Well, I really appreciate that.

2:22:25We've put a lot of work into it.

2:22:26And we've got a lot more coming over the summer.

2:22:28So if people want to support us or want to get out there and get

2:22:31some hunting done, please check it out.

2:22:32And I answer all the Instagram DMs.

2:22:34So if you want to have a question for me.

2:22:36Good luck with that now.

2:22:37Well, I try to. I spend about two hours every morning doing it.

2:22:41But good luck. Thank you, Joe, for having me.

2:22:43Thanks, brother. Appreciate you very much.

2:22:44Yeah, I get that. All right, you too.

2:22:46Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

2:22:53Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

2:22:58Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

2:22:58Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. You

#2473 - Bill Thompson