In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host talks to a scientist who thinks China is the biggest cyber threat to the United States. They talk about the recent attack on Microsoft Exchange servers by the Russians, and how China could be the next big cyber-attack on us. Joe also talks about the growing influence of China's navy, and why they have a plan to take over the world and replace the US as the dominant power in the 21st century. Joe and Mike also talk about how they think China is going to dominate the world in the future and how they plan to do so, and what they are planning to do to get there. And they talk about why they think we should be worried about China's growing influence in cyberspace and the impact it could have on our ability to do what we need to do in order to protect ourselves and the world we want to do. If you like what you hear here, please HIT SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review! It helps us spread the word to other podcast listeners about what we're doing and what's going on in the world. Thanks for listening and share it with your friends and family! Cheers, Joe & Mike! Timestamps: 3:00 - What's the biggest threat to us? 4:30 - Is China a cyber-threat? 5:15 - What are you worried about? 6:40 - What do you think of China? 7:10 - How can we stop them from dominating the world? 8:20 - What does China have a long-term vision? 9:00 10: What is China's plan? 11:10 12:40 13:30 15:00 | What are they're going to do? 16:30 | What's your biggest problem? 17:40 | How do they plan for the future? 14:10 | Are they going to become a global superpower? 15 - How will they be dominant in the way we should we stop us from becoming a global leader? 18:00:00 // 15: What do they need to be a better country? 19:00 / 16: What kind of power do they have? 21:00 + 16:00 Is China s vision for the U.S. need to help us become more like the old fashioned way?
00:00:24.000You know, not much going on in these times of ours.
00:00:28.000I'm very excited to talk to you because I had a guy on, Jamie Metzl yesterday, a scientist who scared the shit out of me, talking about China.
00:00:53.000Yeah, I can't spot the line in what you just said.
00:00:56.000I mean, look, there's so much we can talk about.
00:01:00.000But if you think about it, just in the past handful of months, There was this SolarWinds hack, right, by the Russians.
00:01:11.000So the Russians go in, they hack into a company called SolarWinds that is an IT management software company that happens to be fairly deep into government organizations, agencies, treasury, and a variety of others throughout the U.S. government.
00:01:27.000And they're also into parts of the intel community, defense department, and a lot of commercial sectors.
00:01:34.000So anyway, the Russians figure this out.
00:01:36.000Now, around about December or January, Microsoft identified this as a problem.
00:01:43.000And I think it was the head of Microsoft said, this looks like the most sophisticated attack we've ever seen.
00:01:49.000So this is December, January timeframe.
00:01:51.000And they're still trying to figure out the depth of this hack by Russians.
00:01:55.000At the same time, and going back months and months and months and months before, the Chinese...
00:02:01.000had been engaged in a more sophisticated attack that while everyone is focused on what's going on and so fully aware that we got problems, right, from nation states out there who don't like us, Everybody's talking about SolarWinds, and now it's,
00:02:17.000you know, they've just now released information about the Chinese attack against Microsoft Exchange servers, running the Exchange email systems.
00:02:31.000And so the Chinese, yeah, I mean, we've been so focused for four years on the Russians, you know, and they're, you know, they're out there to cause us all sorts of problems.
00:03:04.000And do it their way, which means we're going to bypass all the costs and the heavy lift of research and development over the years, which is going to steal everything.
00:03:12.000And they've been doing it for decades.
00:03:13.000So people think, oh, China, it's a problem.
00:03:16.000We've talked about this before, this idea that perhaps this is just something relatively new or it's popped up during the previous administration of Trump.
00:03:24.000Honest to God's truth is it's been going on for decades, and they decided that that's how they're going to get to the top of the food chain, is by stealing shit, because it's a lot easier to hoover up everything and then reverse engineer it.
00:03:38.000And the technology has made it even easier, right?
00:04:19.000It looks like what happened here was that Their initial point of attack or the initial focus was intelligence, right?
00:04:30.000So then it branched out, and it branched out very, very quickly, right, to hit everything, small companies, medium-sized companies.
00:04:38.000And that's kind of the M.O. for the Chinese, the Chinese regime, right, and their intel operations.
00:04:47.000They've got this long vision, and they've also got the resources, and they've got the desire to hoover up everything and then sort it out later.
00:04:55.000We take, as a country, we take a very sort of targeted approach, right?
00:05:00.000We say, okay, this is a piece of information that's a priority tasking for the U.S., for our national security.
00:05:22.000The Russians just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks, right?
00:05:25.000But the Chinese, they've got this long view and they've also got this ability.
00:05:30.000So in this particular attack that they're still trying to assess that was perpetrated by Chinese state-sponsored hackers based in China, they They're just going to take everything,
00:05:59.000They'll develop a potential recruit for years and years and years.
00:06:03.000Or they'll infiltrate a society or an organization, right?
00:06:08.000They'll put a student out here who's actually working for the PLA, for their intel operations.
00:06:15.000They'll put them out as an undergrad, and then they'll go to school, and they'll get good grades, and they'll go to grad school, and they'll get a job, and they'll get another job, and then 30 years down the line, it may pay off, but they're willing to make that investment.
00:06:58.000Four years of Trump and sort of his antagonistic relationship with China, and people were all wringing their hands in Washington, D.C., sort of the think tankers and the traditional pundits and the diplomats of the U.S., the long-term people.
00:07:14.000Oh, my God, we've got this adversarial relationship with China.
00:08:02.000Well, you know, it's the old word sanctions.
00:08:05.000You got to go with the sanctions because there's not much else.
00:08:07.000Trade wars, you know, I know everybody hates a trade war, not everybody, but you've got to find a way because the problem with cyber shenanigans is that there's no real clear definition, right?
00:08:21.000We know if a country fires a ballistic missile off, You know, we know what the retaliatory act is.
00:08:28.000We know what an appropriate response is.
00:08:30.000In cyberspace, when you're talking about warfare, Coming up with a definition is very difficult and hasn't been done yet.
00:09:08.000And China's ability to interfere in infrastructure here in the U.S. or in India or with our allies is because for years now they've been probing.
00:09:22.000We talk about – it's a good example.
00:09:27.000We talk about how in the US we have three grids and I think people were stunned to find out that Texas has its own power grid.
00:09:34.000Well, yeah, but it's not so much – people were like, oh my god, look at Texas.
00:09:39.000They're terrible because – they wanted to make it a political thing.
00:09:41.000They wanted to make it sound like the reason why it's so terrible is because it's Republicans and they've got – they want their own independence.
00:09:48.000Well, No, all three grids are fucked, right?
00:09:52.000The East and the West and the Texas grids are all cobbled together over the years.
00:10:17.000Over the years, what goes on is essentially a mapping exercise, right?
00:10:22.000Whether it's the Russians, whether it's the Chinese, whether it's the North Koreans using Chinese capabilities, whether it's the Iranians, whomever, they're in there probing and trying to understand the weaknesses, and they're drawing up a map.
00:10:34.000Now, the reason why they're doing that is to have a game plan, right?
00:10:37.000And I guarantee you, sitting on a desk somewhere not too far from, you know, Xi's office, is a playbook that says, if this thing escalates, here's what we're going to do.
00:10:49.000And if you think, like, it was bad in Texas, you know, a couple weeks ago when, you know, the power was out, and it was bad, but think about that lasting forever.
00:11:36.000Yeah, it does in a sense because – and this is where I think – You know, now personal opinion comes into it.
00:11:42.000Look, I spent most of my adult life overseas, and I like to think that I've got a fairly pragmatic view on things.
00:11:50.000I do admit that I, you know, obviously, look, I look at the U.S., and I like to think, and I have seen on occasion, we do a lot of things for the right reasons.
00:11:58.000Sometimes we don't do it properly, right?
00:12:06.000I guarantee you, if we're talking about the major powers out there, if we're talking about China and us, if we're talking about the Chinese regime, I'm talking about obviously, if we're talking about the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, we better hope that we stay up there, right?
00:12:18.000And are able to exert influence and leverage and control the top, right?
00:12:24.000Because if it's—and again, maybe I'm wrong here, but the Chinese don't view anything in an altruistic manner.
00:12:36.000And sometimes, I'll tell you what's frustrating, sometimes we seem to be the only country out there that apologizes, right, for that sort of thing.
00:12:43.000And so when we act in our own best interest and we go, well, we're really sorry about that.
00:12:46.000You know, we're kind of acting in our own best interest.
00:12:48.000Well, every other nation does it and they don't give a fuck.
00:12:52.000Yeah, but shouldn't we be the moral high ground for the world?
00:13:34.000It's a giant difference between the amount of particulates, the amount of pollution, the amount of CO2. I think they've tried hard to mitigate that over the last few years in particular, but you remember when they had the Beijing Olympics and they had to shut everything down because the air quality was so bad that it would actually be dangerous for the athletes to perform and to compete.
00:17:44.000Look, I think they're doing it for altruistic purposes.
00:17:47.000I think they think that they're being good citizens and good human beings, trying to encourage people to get vaccinated, and they want to discourage anti-vax propaganda.
00:18:00.000If you have 320 million people that get vaccinated, you're going to have 100, 200, 1,000, 2,000 horror stories.
00:18:45.000I don't know what the fuck that is, but this is also the case with virtually anything that gets introduced to the human body.
00:18:52.000We vary so much biologically that if you have a wide swath of people, if you have an enormous number, 330 plus million, you're going to have a few horrible cases.
00:19:03.000Now, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't get vaccinated.
00:19:05.000It doesn't mean people shouldn't eat Brazil nuts.
00:19:07.000It just means you should kind of have access to all the information, but we also should have...
00:19:14.000Unbiased, objective reporting of these things.
00:22:17.000But the Russians, let me tell you about what the Russians are up to now, having just on the heels of the SolarWinds hack, which was very successful for them.
00:22:27.000We still don't know how much intel they've pulled, and it's probably a great deal.
00:22:31.000But now what they're doing is they are engaged in a covert action campaign, basically a propaganda campaign, against U.S. vaccines, Pfizer in particular.
00:23:10.000And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to push down or they're trying to create a lack of credibility in the Pfizer vaccine in particular, US-made vaccines in general.
00:23:21.000And so they're seeding stories out there.
00:23:24.000In the old days, before the internet, What you would do is you would pay off journalists, and you would get stories planted in the newspapers, when people read newspapers.
00:23:36.000And that's how you would influence, to some degree, public opinion.
00:24:31.000You know a lot of smart people, so that's pretty impressive.
00:24:33.000He's a genius, like a legitimate genius.
00:24:36.000And he decided that he wanted to take the Russian vaccine.
00:24:39.000I haven't talked to him about it in depth, but he said based on the research that he did on the vaccine, he said it's as legit as any of them.
00:25:01.000And what they don't have to do is, it's like a lot of other things overseas, they don't necessarily have the FDA, you know, breathing down the neck saying, these are the sort of clinical trials you've got to go through, these are the sort of approvals you need.
00:25:13.000So part of the problem that they've been facing with Sputnik is like, you got this out here pretty quick, right?
00:25:20.000They probably tested it on Pussy Riot and political dissonance.
00:25:50.000Sometimes you want to see the fact that there's a piece of information floating out there.
00:25:53.000You put it in the sidebar conversation.
00:25:56.000So anyway, the bottom line is, I don't want to sound like one of those people, but we just have to be pragmatic.
00:26:02.000And so, to go back to that question you had, which I think is very interesting, is do I get frustrated by people saying, well, the US, you know, does it too?
00:26:25.000You're sitting here in the U.S., and you're using the benefits of being here in the U.S., so you probably want to, on occasion, just on occasion, maybe root for the home team.
00:26:35.000I think it's a natural thing that people do when one country is the most innovative, the most militarily successful.
00:26:45.000There's a lot of shit about the United States that angers people that even are a part of the United States in terms of our...
00:26:54.000I mean, you've got guys like Ron Paul who don't think we should be anywhere.
00:26:57.000We should be controlling the United States.
00:26:59.000And you've got other people that think that we should go over there and fucking kick ass and conquer the whole globe and keep them on the straight and narrow the way allegedly we are.
00:27:09.000But the thing that bothers me more than anything about the United States currently is like...
00:27:14.000There's an unnecessary divide that I see amongst us.
00:27:25.000I wonder how much of this is cultivated and how much of this is curated.
00:27:31.000When I see even weird things that don't make sense, like in Connecticut, 15 of their state titles, state records for women's athletics are held by two biological males who identify as females.
00:27:52.000There's one thing to be tolerant and to be open-minded, but there's one thing to look at the whole picture and go, what better way Across the board, with everything, to get people upset and frustrated and distracted and constantly engaged in arguments and battle than to seed social media with nonsense and constant propaganda.
00:28:20.000We know from the Internet Research Agency and Rene DiResta's work and all this that Russia in particular and probably China and Iran Are constantly flooding social media with arguments against all sorts of policies and pro all sorts of other policies simultaneously just to encourage argument.
00:28:41.000And you wonder, like, how much of the racial divide in America is real?
00:28:44.000For sure there's real racists in America.
00:29:12.000I think what's happening is the world is so filled with information and there's some players that are manipulating that information to keep people being antagonistic against each other.
00:29:26.000And the thing is, they're over there and we think, oh, these motherfuckers are coming after us.
00:29:52.000And there's too many filters in this life between human beings sitting down and communicating with each other and breaking bread with each other and talking with each other.
00:30:03.000Well, I will say, nobody should underestimate that point that you just made earlier, which is that There's a very active covert action wing within the Russian government, within Chinese intel,
00:30:19.000and their whole point sometimes is not to do anything other than just to sow distrust and instability and chaos.
00:30:27.000People say, well, why would they do that?
00:30:28.000Well, they do it because it's in their best interest.
00:30:30.000Again, going back to that same thought.
00:32:39.000I 100% support women's rights, civil rights, trans rights, across the board, but not at the expense of other people.
00:32:47.000Which is why I'm against this whole idea of trans athletes competing against biological females.
00:32:53.000But it's also why I'm also in support of the Second Amendment.
00:32:59.000Some people, they're raised poorly, they're abused, they're tortured, they're fucking put in foster care, they find their way into juvenile detention, they go to prison, and then they're out, and they have no money, and then the pandemic hits, and they want to rob your house.
00:33:13.000If you don't think you should have a gun, To protect yourself from bad people who just, by circumstance or by bad fucking luck, find themselves at your doorstep.
00:33:45.000I mean, a lot of people like to imagine that there's this community of goodwill out there and that if just given the opportunity, all people would be inclined to go along with what's in your best interest.
00:33:57.000Look, I... Yeah, if you could find them as babies and raise them, right?
00:34:02.000When you have children, and I have children too, and there's a thing you find out when you have children.
00:34:07.000When I had children, it changed me as a man.
00:34:24.000And I really started thinking about people like that.
00:34:26.000I started thinking about people as children that grew up, and by bad circumstance, by abuse, by horrible environments, they became this bad person.
00:34:39.000But I don't think people are born bad.
00:34:58.000We need to focus on criminal justice reform.
00:35:01.000But at the same time, as somebody who owns a walk-in safe, yeah, you're never going to convince me that it's not my right to protect my family.
00:35:11.000When you say walk-in safe, you mean a gun safe.
00:35:40.000You're raising your kids, and the legitimate police response time is 20, 30 minutes, right?
00:35:45.000Not because the police are overstretched, but even just because you're living in some place where that's how long it's going to take.
00:35:50.000And it's like this idea of, what's a good example?
00:35:53.000It's like when you're You talk about, well, should some of the teachers in a school be armed?
00:35:57.000Well, we have in Idaho, we have schools where legitimately the sheriff getting to that school is going to take him 25 minutes because of the fucking distance, right?
00:36:06.000So yes, do I want a couple of well-trained, vetted, responsible teachers in that public school to be armed in case there is, God forbid, some incident?
00:36:45.000This is not a heavy lift to have someone trained up and then go through continuous training because they have to do that.
00:36:50.000I mean the problem with a lot of people is they'll get scared or for whatever reason they'll think, oh, they're going to take away our guns so I better go out and buy one.
00:37:34.000Flying into Texas on an aircraft I was on, one of the flight attendants came up and kind of tapped me on the shoulder as we were getting ready to land and said, well, be careful because, you know, Texas has gotten rid of the mask mandate.
00:37:50.000And the point was, from the flight attendant, was...
00:38:50.000You have to wear a mask when you go to pee, and then you don't wear a mask when you come back and sit down at your table like, okay.
00:38:55.000I mean, because to be fair, they've got mostly six-foot distance.
00:38:59.000The places that I've been here in Texas, they keep the social distance.
00:39:03.000But I guess my point was like, you get this, and we talked about this earlier before the show, but was the idea that some people just like to suffer, and they suffer well, right?
00:39:16.000They enjoy the fact that this is hard and bad.
00:39:22.000There's people that they enjoy being depressed.
00:39:24.000It's a hard thing to even say because you don't want it to be real.
00:39:30.000You don't want there to really be people out there that like...
00:39:34.000There's some people that when we got shut into our homes and everyone was sad and everyone was scared, they enjoyed it because that's how they live all the time.
00:39:51.000And I saw this post from this individual who is a professional, clearly from their job, and they posted, oh...
00:40:01.000I'm dealing with such anxiety now because of the possible return to normal and the idea that I'm going to have to travel and I won't be able to have dinner with my kids and I'm just like...
00:40:11.000It was clear from the Post that they've had the luxury of working from home and not losing their job and they could teach their kids And it's this idea of not opening the public schools.
00:40:23.000These kids out here who don't have Wi-Fi, who don't have laptops, who have a one-parent home, who has to work, all those who can't afford a tutor, can't make a little pod to teach their kids...
00:40:35.000You know, those people aren't doing well, right?
00:40:40.000And then you get, like, the people who can afford to set up a private pod for their kids and bring a tutor in and have strong Wi-Fi and can do all those things, have English as a first language.
00:41:05.000Yeah, you know, there's narratives out there.
00:41:08.000And the problem with these narratives are, it's not that they're all completely inaccurate.
00:41:12.000The problem is when you espouse these narratives in a very condensed, processed way like social media, you get a bunch of people that support it and a bunch of people that argue against it.
00:41:23.000But if it's a narrative like, we should stay home, we should all wear masks, pretty hard for people to fight against that, right?
00:41:31.000They pile on, and then people get addicted to the reactions and the interactions on Twitter.
00:41:37.000It becomes this weird fucking method of communication, the method of discussing ideas.
00:41:44.000And people get really attached to whatever they believe in.
00:41:49.000Whether they believe the kids should be in school to the end of time, and all fucking interactions should be done through Zoom.
00:41:55.000Or that we should all throw away our masks and achieve herd immunity and we should take vitamin D and go out in the sun and fucking exercise and be healthier and...
00:42:12.000But at the same time, do I want my kids back in school?
00:42:14.000Do I think it's healthy for my oldest boy Sluggo to, you know, be wearing his, you know, pajamas or his sweatpants all day long and learning from distance?
00:42:27.000I do agree with the idea that there are people that suffer well.
00:42:30.000They're wielding this whole thing as a sword of justice.
00:42:35.000The comedy community is an interesting example.
00:42:39.000One of the things that a lot of my professional comedian friends have found is that there's a lot of people that never worked And when I say never, I'm exaggerating, but they weren't successful.
00:42:52.000They weren't selling out clubs and theaters.
00:44:27.000All these people are talking about fat shaming.
00:44:29.000You want to talk about the super spreaders?
00:44:31.000It's people that have ignored their health.
00:44:33.000And those people need help, and they need support, and they need love.
00:44:36.000But there's a reality to the people that are getting sick from this.
00:44:40.000If everyone was healthy, this would almost be a non-issue.
00:44:43.000Now, that's not a health-shaming thing, like we should be shaming people that are in poor health or people that are born with, you know, comorbidity factors like diabetes and whatever.
00:44:53.000Right, of course, of course, yeah, yeah.
00:44:54.000But we're not looking at this thing 100% objective.
00:44:58.000If we were, we would have a completely different take on it.
00:45:52.000It's the logistics of it saying, well, get it down to three foot, which is what the science supports, and then you can get these schools, you can start opening these places back up in a responsible manner.
00:46:01.000Honest to God, we're going to look at this thing in a year or two.
00:46:04.000Maybe we won't because we're not going to be honest with ourselves.
00:46:07.000But if we actually did an honest hot wash of this reaction to the pandemic, Our reaction has been pathetic over this past year.
00:46:15.000This has not been a shining moment for us.
00:46:17.000Don't you think part of the problem is we started out with a different idea of what the virus is?
00:46:22.000We started out thinking that it was going to be like the next Spanish flu, that it was going to kill.
00:46:26.000I mean, everyone was terrified, me included.
00:47:45.000It's the political nature of this country.
00:47:47.000And again, going back to what we were talking about earlier with the Russians and the Chinese, they see that and they just keep sticking the knife in it.
00:47:54.000And the more they do, the more they tear the threads of our belief in the system.
00:47:59.000And the more polarized we get and the more yelling that goes on.
00:48:03.000The more bullshit people believe when they read social media and they don't bother to say, well, who wrote this?
00:48:08.000Is this actually a scientific piece of work or is this just – and what's the origin of it?
00:48:21.000Then you find out it's owned by some Russian entity that's got an operation out of Cyprus or whatever.
00:48:26.000Well, there's a weird thing when you find something, like you find a meme, like a political meme or a meme that has something to do with anything that's going on in the popular culture, and then you go to the page that runs the meme, and you find that this page has this weird address.
00:48:44.000And they're all memes and there's no quotes to the memes.
00:49:13.000Look, you go back to the sort of earlier days of the CIA and you think about trying to influence opinion or actions in a particular foreign government, right?
00:49:25.000And again, going back to that idea that, well, you didn't have that many opportunities, so what did you do?
00:49:30.000You tried to influence the local media.
00:49:32.000Well, that was newspapers or radio or whatever, so you'd target that, you know.
00:50:39.000You know, is it designed to promote, you know, the idea of democracy and freedom?
00:50:45.000So can we, you know, is that better than the Russians trying with their covert action to criticize and sow disbelief in the US manufactured vaccines?
00:51:18.000But I guess what I'm, you know, so, yeah, I am fascinated by that question about, you know, does it frustrate you that people say America does it too?
00:51:26.000And I keep going back and people say, oh, you know, rose-colored glasses and all that bullshit about, you know.
00:51:41.000Well, if you think about it and we say, that's fine.
00:51:45.000I would rather have our values existing in a place like Iran, and the population would too, frankly, than the theocratic regime that exists there.
00:51:53.000So, I was disappearing down a rabbit hole.
00:51:58.000There's a weird narrative, a weird anti-American narrative that exists even inside of America, and that's oftentimes when you have children, they rebel against their parents.
00:52:15.000America's not perfect, but Iran executed an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling because he protested against the government, and that's a fact.
00:52:24.000We were talking about China yesterday, what China's done in terms of there was that Jack Ma guy who disappeared for three months and came back and he's been, you know, whatever.
00:53:27.000He is the most important leader of China going generations back, right?
00:53:32.000And he has done it through suppression.
00:53:35.000He's done it through, you know, the buildup of the security surface, the internal security services, the suppression of information, oppression of journalists.
00:53:46.000And so, yeah, do I think that Again, every time I start off on this path, I get these responses.
00:55:00.000You build a facility over there, they're going to get it.
00:55:03.000They're going to either get it through coercive means of saying, well, if you want business over here, this is what you have to sign up to.
00:55:08.000We're going to have access to your code, or whatever it may be.
00:56:34.000Do they think that that is more effective?
00:56:36.000Do they think the further left, like, that the people in the moderate left will go along with the further left because at least it's far away from the far right?
00:56:44.000Yeah, I just think that, you know, the extremes always make the most noise, right?
00:56:49.000They always make, whether it's the far right or the far left, right?
00:56:52.000And so I think that they're the vocal, in a sense, minority, right?
00:56:56.000They're the ones who are always going to be beating the drums and screaming about shit.
00:57:01.000And it's like this thing, not to change subject entirely, but it's like if you look at the far right.
00:57:07.000We had an incident in Idaho, in Boise, not that long ago, a few days ago, where some parents brought their kids to the statehouse, and they had a mask-burning ceremony.
00:59:59.000They don't have to be told by the federal government to do the right thing.
01:00:02.000They're just doing it because what the fuck.
01:00:04.000There's this thing going on where there's all these different arguments and there's all these different narratives and all these different people that are arguing their points and no one knows exactly what the motives are, exactly who's doing what or why.
01:00:18.000You're worried about the far left if you're in the far right, and you're worried about the left.
01:00:24.000Everybody in the right is worried about the left.
01:00:26.000Everybody in the left is worried about the right, and everybody in the center is trying to figure out where the fuck the rational people are.
01:00:33.000One of the things that I'm worried about, and this is going to sound really weird, but I'm worried that what all of this dissent and confusion is going to bring about is the rise of Of some sort of technological symbiosis where we can read each other's minds,
01:00:53.000where we can understand each other better, and it's going to make us less human than we are currently.
01:01:31.000I think ultimately there's going to be some sort of technology that literally allows people to understand people's intent and to read their thoughts and ideas.
01:01:43.000It might be 50 years, whatever it is, but we're moving in this direction where we're going to be less human.
01:01:48.000And that might be because of all the bullshit that's been created by social media and by these conversations, by these algorithms that encourage people to be upset about things, that encourage outrage.
01:02:03.000We're gonna move into some weird place where we're gonna have to change who we are in order to recognize what are the motives behind these different programs and campaigns that are forcing people into these situations where they hate each other.
01:02:31.000Yeah, well, what I was going to say was, I mean, we used to say with the polygraph that, oh my God, can't you just put like a colander on our head and just read our thoughts?
01:02:40.000Because that would be a lot more pleasant and easier, right?
01:03:15.000And that varies because it's a human effort, right?
01:03:17.000So you'll get a good polygrapher, you'll get one that's got less experience, you'll get one who's had a bad day, and it's just, you know, whatever.
01:04:24.000So if you carry that with you, then yeah, you're going to have a problem with a polygraph because you're going to be thinking about all these things.
01:05:53.000Because it's been shown that particularly through hypnotic regression that you can introduce false memories to a person.
01:05:59.000So if you say to a, you know, you can create a memory in a person, you know, like, you know, whatever, about seeing Bigfoot or whatever it is.
01:06:07.000And that person can really believe it.
01:06:10.000It's been proven that they can do that.
01:06:14.000So if you can hypnotize someone, get them, To believe a false narrative and then hook them up to a polygraph and then describe that false narrative, they'll show that they believe that thing, even though that thing is not really true.
01:07:05.000Well, and then I've seen it fail miserably, right?
01:07:09.000So, you know, what I would like to see, I mean, I look at it from a counterintelligence perspective, if we can create something that can read people's minds, Great, because you know what that does is that allows us to identify the traitor within the group, the mole, a lot quicker.
01:07:24.000And counterintelligence operations are always an enormous lift.
01:07:27.000People say, like, I can't believe you allowed whomever, you know, Hanson, to operate, you know, within the Bureau and have all those lives lost and betray us to the Russians for all those years.
01:07:37.000And my response is always, you know, I can't believe we caught him because it's a very heavy lift.
01:07:59.000If you go back in time and you go to Martin Luther and you go to the printing press and the ability to translate the Bible into a phonetic language and the changes that that had on society and you move that into the future and you go to the free press and then you go to the internet and you go to social media and you go to where we are today...
01:08:27.000One of the things that's common, the thing that it all shares in common is that there's a course in this path that seems to be inevitable, is that there's a shrinking of the distance between human beings and information.
01:08:42.000And information is far more accessible than it's ever been before.
01:08:46.000And there is some resistance to that, right?
01:08:48.000Like there's some censorship in terms of like what you're allowed to search and what you're not allowed to search, which we talked about earlier with Google and DuckDuckGo and things are curated and we're all aware of the problems with big tech censoring certain voices on social media because they're concerned with the narrative that's going to be...
01:09:06.000Because they're thinking about it in short-term gains and losses.
01:09:12.000All technology is leading into, there's a boundary between human beings and information.
01:09:19.000It's getting smaller and smaller and smaller, to the point where information is going to be instantaneously accessible.
01:09:26.000Whether it is a decade from now, or a month from now, or a hundred years from now, whatever it is, it is inevitable, in my opinion, that as technology continues to progress and innovation continues We're good to go.
01:09:59.000Doesn't just hurt the people that you lie to.
01:10:03.000Because you're living some bullshit life where you're trying to pretend that you're something that you're not.
01:10:07.000And I think ultimately people are going to get that.
01:10:10.000And there's going to be people that fall by the wayside.
01:10:12.000And there's going to be people that rise because of it.
01:10:14.000And it's going to help culture ultimately.
01:10:16.000But I think one of the big things it's going to do, it's going to eliminate propaganda.
01:10:21.000And that's why I think it's going to be embraced.
01:10:23.000Because you can't have propaganda if people can actually understand what people's intentions are.
01:10:28.000In a clear, like, you know how you have, like, if you enable location finding on your phone, and you say, hey, I'm in Russia, and you're like, no, motherfucker, you're in Oklahoma.
01:12:11.000I mean, maybe part of it is how much credit you give to individual humans, but I just think that we haven't done ourselves any favors yet.
01:12:20.000Maybe we learn, and maybe, yes, maybe there's one day when it's all instantaneous, and so therefore everybody's showing their cards all at the same time, and there's no issues.
01:12:31.000But I just have a feeling that so far...
01:12:36.000You know, so far, I don't think the internet has really...
01:12:41.000This is going to sound like I'm some sort of Luddite, but in terms of our children, in terms of general society and the way that we deal with each other...
01:12:53.000I don't know that it's done us more good than harm so far.
01:12:59.000I just have this feeling that the way that we are currently, right, and people, because people, the human condition is still going to be that they're going to, they're going to go to wherever they believe, right?
01:13:10.000So the fact that I can, I know your intentions doesn't mean it's going to make me altruistic and understanding, right?
01:14:58.000For now, but, you know, that's also, again, like, location services and, like, a lot of other things.
01:15:05.000Like, there's these little hurdles that come up that keep people from truly understanding the nature of an actual thing that you're experiencing.
01:15:15.000Look, from my perspective, from an operational perspective, and from my business perspective, what do we do?
01:15:21.000We're involved in a lot of investigations, a lot of fraud concerns, a lot of asset tracing, all these things that my folks do.
01:15:35.000I guess what I'm saying is I think it doesn't change the base nature of human characteristics.
01:15:43.000And so I don't think it's going to make us suddenly come together as a community and understand and get together.
01:15:51.000I think what's happened is the ability to access more information has just driven us apart and created these silos where we all just sit and listen to whatever...
01:16:03.000Affirms our opinion and I don't think that you know a neural link or anything else is going to suddenly make us better people and I think it's going to Not be I don't know I and what the fuck do I know?
01:16:17.000I'm not a neuroscientist, so I don't know I'm not a psychiatrist.
01:16:20.000I don't know what the fuck do I know but my yeah, what the fuck do I know but my my Experiences so far have told me that oftentimes people's intentions aren't particularly good and And that we have to be pragmatic and sometimes being cynical is not a bad thing.
01:16:36.000I don't think it's a bad thing either, but I think that what we're dealing with is there's a lot of confusion and there's a lot of distrust and there's a lot of conflict.
01:16:51.000There's a lot of these things going on.
01:17:34.000As we move forward, technology is increasing at a pace that biology can't possibly keep up with.
01:17:42.000So we are left with these tribal biological instincts that were developed and that evolved when people were in tribes worried about other tribes coming over and attacking us.
01:18:29.000The only way I see that we can keep up with it is if we do something to interface with the technology in a way that's unprecedented.
01:18:40.000In a way that's different than just looking at a screen Or looking at a phone because you're still using the same biology and you're interfacing with new information when you're using a phone.
01:18:50.000And that's also created a lot of confusion.
01:18:53.000You know, that's part of the reasons why people isolate and insulate and get into these fucking, these little bubbles of information and thought and, you know, they insulate themselves from...
01:19:09.000It's not a coincidence that the more technology increases and the more access to information increases, the more likely people are to get into these weird fucking groups where they have echo chambers.
01:19:23.000I think one of the only ways it's going to move us out of that is some sort of technology that alleviates a lot of our concerns by giving us information about intent, give us information about what people's real thoughts are and real intentions are,
01:19:41.000and let people know that most of us want the same thing.
01:19:46.000Most of us really, truly want the same thing.
01:19:48.000And a lot of the conflict that's been exploited, whether it's by social media algorithms or it's by foreign countries or bad entities, they've done so by preying upon these biological limitations.
01:20:27.000I was trying to think about what age do you do this if you do it to a baby because then you could hear what your baby's thinking but also you're going to have to replace that multiple times as they grow older or their brain might not develop correctly because there's already an interference.
01:21:10.000But remember when we were talking with Jamie Messel yesterday about CRISPR? What if CRISPR gets to the point where there's some new technology that we literally develop the human mind to the point where it can access Wi-Fi, where it can access...
01:21:27.000Some new software or some new hardware that allows people to communicate with each other without any...
01:22:15.000And so, you know, but – As an example, was there a benefit to having much of the country sitting down for the 5 o'clock news or the 11 o'clock news, and everybody had a shared experience.
01:22:33.000Now they would process it differently based on their own personal life experience and where they were sitting in life, but there was a shared moment in time.
01:24:01.000But the problem with the scenario that you're painting in these rose-colored glasses is that there was a small group of people that curated that information that was portrayed on the 5 o'clock news.
01:24:16.000It's like, then you relied on government entities and propaganda, and you could have people with unscrupulous ideas, and that's what led to Stalin, Russia, and Laos, China.
01:24:29.000But are you saying that now it's better in terms of politics and the governments and our reliance on government and the way that we have our information?
01:24:34.000It's better in terms of whether or not we know the government's full of shit, because we're way more aware Way more aware of corruption.
01:25:12.000I'm a believer in unbiased sources, and I think there's only a few of them out there.
01:25:18.000It's one of the reasons why I like Apple over Androids.
01:25:21.000They don't share your information the same.
01:25:23.000And I think there's real value in that, because human beings have We've been using these things, whether it's Google or Facebook, and we always thought that that was the product, that we were using these things, and that these things, Facebook was the product, Google was the product,
01:25:38.000and then somewhere along the line we realized, no, we're the product.
01:25:42.000Our data is the product, and we're selling.
01:25:44.000But by using these things for free, by using whatever it is, their message services and posting on these things, we think we're getting something for free, but we're not.
01:25:55.000Because we're giving up our data, we're giving up all of our metadata and all of our information, and through these algorithms they've been able to amass Insane amounts of wealth just by using our information.
01:26:10.000Well, and it's something that, yeah, I always laugh when people talk about the government, you know, collecting information on you.
01:26:16.000They say, government's not the problem.
01:26:32.000There was no such thing as Facebook and Google.
01:26:35.000They didn't have an influence on world ideas.
01:26:37.000They didn't have an influence on the way people express narratives.
01:26:42.000There was no influence by tech companies other than selling you cool products.
01:26:49.00025 years ago, all they did is sell you things that you thought would enhance your life.
01:26:55.000I guess what I'm saying is I don't disagree in the sense of – again, going back to the operational perspective, there's a lot of advantage, right, from somebody who is worried about security and national security concerns.
01:27:04.000Hey, there's a lot of advantage to getting to that point.
01:27:08.000I just don't think it's going to improve the human condition necessarily.
01:27:12.000I don't think there's going to be the upside that necessarily comes from – Instantaneous, immediate access to understanding people's plans and intentions and information.
01:27:24.000I don't think it's going to make us less tribal.
01:27:27.000This was the same argument they had about the printing press.
01:27:36.000I can't spot the lie in what you just said.
01:27:39.000If you follow like Steven Pinker's work and you follow like the analysis of violence and crime as it relates to the progress of civilization and humanity, there's a path.
01:27:52.000And this is not to discount all the situations where people have been the victim of violence and the victim of crime.
01:27:59.000But there's less instances of it statistically.
01:28:01.000If you had an overlook, if you were looking at the earth from above and you looked at a trend in terms of the way civilization is heading, as technology progresses, as access to food and resources and information progress, you have less instances of violence Less instances of crime and less instances of all the undesirable things.
01:28:24.000Whether it's sexual assault or racism, all the things, they occur less over time.
01:28:30.000And I think that as technology increases, this will be a trend that continues to go in that direction.
01:28:37.000This is just me guessing based on the work of other people far smarter than me that have gone over this sort of pattern and looked at it in terms of like, where are we headed?
01:28:51.000People can concentrate on all the bad things that still do exist, whether it's sexual harassment in the workplace or whether it's violence or whatever the thing you want to concentrate on.
01:29:03.000There's 8 billion people on this planet.
01:29:05.000You can find massive amounts of data that can support your idea that this is still a problem, and it's always going to be still a problem until there's no problems.
01:29:14.000Until we reach utopia, and I don't know if we're ever going to reach utopia.
01:32:08.000At what point didn't his chief of staff or somebody, right, who was booking his tickets, didn't say, you know, Ted, this is probably the optic isn't looking good.
01:32:38.000It's just like, if you're going to go to Cancun in the middle of a deep freeze, and then also be aware that you can't say, I was going to head right back when people can fucking research your ticket and find out you actually weren't coming back until Saturday.
01:33:09.000Gave up all her text messages talking about how it's freezing.
01:33:12.000But listen, if you have the means and you are stuck in a place where there's no power and the power's not coming back on and you can just fly to Cancun, I get the optics for Ted, but his family should absolutely be allowed to do that,
01:34:19.000Hey, look, in Connecticut, where we used to live, apparently when you moved to Connecticut, you signed some agreement, I don't remember signing it, that said every winter the power is going to go out at least four or five times during the winter and for days at a time.
01:46:28.000And also, when you've got a channel that has millions of views on their reviews and you sell them a fucking shitty lemon and it keeps breaking down, you've made a mistake.
01:46:41.000They have the worst reliability ratings, and it's unfortunate, because other than that, I don't know what corners they're cutting where their stuff sucks, because the engineering and everything, the design is amazing.
01:46:54.000I'll tell you what we've been happy with.
01:56:25.000I mean, if you're looking for something that's just straight up from the numbers and is legit, it's tough to find sometimes because this is kind of where people are going that direction.
01:56:35.000Anyway, so yeah, we're going to go over to England.
01:56:38.000I'll probably stop at the Home Depot outside of London, pick up some duct tape and some extra wire, then pick up the MGB, drive around, wait for it to break.
01:56:49.000Do you have someone that can inspect the car for you over there to make sure that it's okay?
01:59:25.000It makes me sound like Wilfred Brimley.
01:59:27.000I was watching this video where Ben Stein was on the internet and he was talking about how bad he got wrecked by the second shot, but Ben Stein is like 80, right?
01:59:36.000I mean, he was a writer, speechwriter for Nixon.
01:59:52.000In fact, one of the guys, I got the shots because I was doing some work for a company that's considered to be a Whatever they call it, a critical infrastructure company.
01:59:59.000And so they put me on their list of people that they wanted to have because they were given a certain number of vaccines.
02:00:05.000So they said, you know, would you mind getting on the list?
02:00:10.000But I remember some of their folks, probably late 30s and early 40s, they all said the same thing, which is, yeah, the second shot knocked them on their ass.
02:01:18.000I actually felt, I feel better if I work out.
02:01:20.000In fact, I tried to work out that day when I felt like shit because you get, kind of get moving, right, and you feel, you know what it's, I mean, you know, and I went upstairs.
02:01:39.000I've been surprised by the number of people who don't want to take it.
02:01:44.000Who are disinclined and included in that number are healthcare people who are saying, eh, I'm going to give it a pass.
02:01:51.000So I think that surprised a lot of people.
02:01:54.000The general public, and that doesn't send a good message to the general public when they see healthcare professionals saying, ah, I think I'm going to give this a miss.
02:02:01.000And everybody's got to make that decision.
02:02:03.000For me, it was like, fine, fuck it, I'll take it.
02:02:06.000And again, maybe I'm too simplistic, but...
02:02:37.000I sound like I'm beating a fucking dead horse, but The FSB, the Russian Intel Service, is engaged in a covert action campaign right now to denigrate the U.S. manufactured vaccines.
02:02:48.000So I'm not saying there's not legit information out there that says, you know, you should think about it.
02:04:18.000No, they're telling people, even if you've had the vaccine, or excuse me, if you've had COVID, you should still take the vaccine.
02:04:24.000And I don't necessarily think I understand that.
02:04:27.000Yeah, I would think they'd be pushing people who have tested positive, like Jamie, who now has superpowers, that they would push them to the back of the line, basically, and say, you know what, I'm not going to prioritize you for the vaccine, because that actually doesn't make sense.
02:04:41.000Look, you think about the population in the U.S. that's had COVID already, and then you think about the numbers that have been vaccinated, and you've got to think, okay...
02:05:11.000As much as he's an expert, and God bless him, but he keeps saying that one of the things he said that made me angry, he said, we're never going to shake hands again.
02:05:19.000We're never going to go back to shaking hands again.
02:07:55.000And I got a family that's got a history of heart concerns, right?
02:07:58.000So that's why I was in for the stress tests.
02:08:00.000And if my wife hadn't been with me, I would have died on that plane because everyone would have thought, you know, how the engines wind up and you get ready and people fall asleep.
02:08:07.000It's just, you know, it's a white noise.
02:09:08.000But anyway, the point being is that what I learned from that episode and then the subsequent treatment and all the other things that go on with it, I should have known before because I'm old enough to be pragmatic, but a lot of medicine is educated guesses, right?
02:09:23.000And yet the general population, right, has grown up to believe that medicine is science, is definite, is black and white.
02:09:33.000And I think—so I think it's natural that with a pandemic like this, of course there's going to be—it's not misinformation, it's just— Inconsistent messaging because we're still figuring it out, right?
02:10:10.000But don't expect that, you know, medicine is going to give you the answers right off the bat and it's going to be correct.
02:10:16.000Just like, don't fucking turn to the federal government.
02:10:18.000I don't know where I'm going with this, but don't turn to the federal government for all your answers and, you know, don't buy an MGB and expect it to work.
02:10:27.000Or a Range Rover expected to make it out of the woods.
02:11:04.000So I would go there four days a week, and everybody in there was at least 25 years older than I was.
02:11:11.000I'm not young, but they were all in there, and so they'd kind of be walking around the track, and I was like, I'm hooked up, and I'm walking around with these guys.
02:11:24.000I'd go and have coffee with Fred, and Fred's 89 years old, and we'd have a great time talking.
02:11:31.000But they'd be looking at me like I was 20 years old, which I kind of enjoyed, right?
02:11:35.000Because I'm the youngest guy in there.
02:11:36.000So it was a lot of, you know, build back up your level.
02:11:40.000Now I work out just like I did before, right?
02:11:43.000But the interesting thing is that they basically, now, when you go in and you say, because there was some talk about, well, let's do the other side, meaning let's get in there and clear it out, put a couple of stents on the other side and make sure you're all good.
02:11:55.000But they're like, you know, you talk to one cardiologist and they say, maybe we should.
02:12:00.000And the other said, maybe we shouldn't because there's a risk if we go in there.
02:13:14.000If my one piece of advice to anybody as a dude, to other guys, is go get your fucking colonoscopy because you don't even know it's happening, you know, and it's not like some sort of prison situation.
02:15:19.000There's a lot of people that try to make correlations between red meat being bad for you, but they're all from epidemiology studies where people are eating cheeseburgers and fries and shakes.
02:16:38.000I'll wear a mask, but don't get up on my face about...
02:16:41.000Well, there's things that happen where people use those opportunities as a moment for them to yell at folks.
02:16:48.000It's a moment for them to be righteous and, you know...
02:16:52.000Yeah, never underestimate the strength of the power of someone feeling righteous and smarter than anybody else.
02:16:58.000And that's, again, but to answer your question about every day a gift and everything, you know what, I kind of felt that way before, right?
02:17:05.000I've seen my family go on, I've seen siblings and good friends, and so I always felt like, you know, yeah, every day's a gift, but I don't think you need some sort of life-changing moment If your priorities are right to think that.
02:17:25.000Well, some people, that life-changing moment, though, is just enough of a jolt to just let you know, like, this is real.
02:17:31.000Because sometimes, we all know we're going to die, but it's not something you dwell on.
02:18:11.000I don't dwell on death, but I do find myself...
02:18:19.000This sounds really odd, but I find myself sometimes thinking, you know, I just want, like, just give me 25 more years or give me, you know, give me 30 more years or whatever.
02:18:27.000What do you plan on doing in those 30 years?
02:19:16.000There's a lot of those movies, man, from those days.
02:19:20.000People, they told stories different back then.
02:19:24.000Yeah, there was more character development and fewer explosions.
02:19:28.000It wasn't influenced by these studies, these focus groups that were trying to figure out what people tune into and what people don't tune into.
02:19:38.000They were just trying to tell a story.
02:20:08.000So yeah, I think there was something to that.
02:20:10.000There were a lot of bad movies made in the old days, but a lot of them did allow for more dialogue, more story development, more character development.
02:20:19.000They appreciated and respected your intelligence enough that you could sit and watch something.
02:20:24.000A couple years back, it's been a couple years, but a couple years back I watched Le Mans with Stephen Queen.
02:21:45.000We struck a facility that is essentially a hub, a center for transportation of fighters, foreign fighters and money and hardware weapons that the Iranians have set up.
02:22:01.000The Iranians have basically created a transportation system from Tehran to all the way to Beirut, right, in their effort to try to control the region.
02:22:09.000And so you had this eastern Syria outpost with Iranian-backed militia, and they were engaged in occasional attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, right?
02:22:20.000So they were lobbing missiles, and there were a couple of incidents where we lost contractors and some coalition members.
02:22:28.000And so essentially what happened was the Biden administration, I think correctly so, said, okay, look, we've got to do something.
02:22:37.000They struck a facility there run by some Iranian-backed militia.
02:22:45.000But the news that it was because of the attacks that they were committing on U.S. forces in Iraq, that's the interesting part because it caught people by surprise and going, what the fuck?
02:22:57.000Because we've gone well beyond that time when – support our troops.
02:23:02.000Wounded warrior was always the ads up there and everybody thought about it.
02:23:07.000But it's been, I think about how many years it's been, right?
02:23:09.000And so I think we've forgotten that we still have, we don't have many, but we still have troops over there.
02:23:13.000And so it raised an interesting question, which is an important one to talk about, I think, which is, you know, why are we still over there?
02:23:27.000Twenty years since we've been in Afghanistan, as an example, and what's the point?
02:23:33.000And so I think that's a legitimate conversation to have, regardless of where you fall on the answer.
02:23:38.000I think it's a good question to have, and we should be talking about it.
02:23:42.000But we don't because we get wrapped up in domestic politics or we get wrapped up in COVID or whatever it is.
02:23:47.000So occasionally something like that happens that causes people to shift their focus outside of their bubble and outside the US and think about what the hell else is going on in the world.
02:23:56.000And that's, from my perspective anyway, that's a good thing, right?
02:23:59.000Because there is a lot of happening over there.
02:24:01.000But it's just shocking how little coverage there is.
02:29:48.000Isn't it funny that it's sexist if you say there's movies that you think a boy should watch, but it's not sexist if you say there's movies that I think girls should watch.
02:30:34.000The big one's in sort of a general category where you say that like the far right, you know, they're full of shit and the far left's full of shit.
02:30:41.000And then people get upset because what I get mostly is, well, if you're in the middle, you don't stand for anything.
02:31:05.000But then you get called out because you exist somewhere in the center where you're trying to see that there's smart ideas on both sides, and yet people are so angry that they don't want that, right?
02:31:16.000And it's like that idea that we were talking about before where… The people who are shining during the pandemic, who love the suffering in a sense, right, who really don't want us to return to a normal because they've actually found this to be a good time for them.
02:31:34.000You know, a lot of people, but there are some people who seem to suffer well, right?
02:31:40.000You know, to some degree, they're the same people who grieve well, right?
02:31:43.000You know, you get those people who, they didn't know the person who died, but, you know, my God, they're grieving more than anybody else, including immediate family.
02:32:34.000And a lot of the noise was unnecessary.
02:32:36.000It was because of his personality and the way that he responded, right?
02:32:39.000Now, I know his base loved that because they felt like, well, that's real, right?
02:32:44.000And he's really speaking truth to power.
02:32:45.000He's not part of the swamp and all that.
02:32:47.000But my point was, look, you can be smart enough as the president of the United States to come out and immediately say, regardless of what's going on, just say...
02:34:00.000But I think that if we allow to normalize certain aspects of the electoral system, I think what you're doing – look, I work in fraud all the time, right?
02:34:10.000That's what my guys do in my business.
02:34:15.000If you allow conditions to create the potential for fraud, then people are going to fill that gap, and they're going to rush in, and they're going to engage in fraud.
02:34:24.000So this is the part that I can't figure out.
02:34:27.000Everybody should want, right or left, to allow the ability, the easy access to vote for every U.S. citizen.
02:34:37.000But we should also want To not have people who aren't citizens or Whatever.
02:34:44.000I mean, just to not allow fraud into the system.
02:34:48.000And so I have a hard time understanding how people can't come together and say, yeah, we want integrity in our electoral system.
02:34:55.000Do you think any other country allows for a sort of lax, you know, program that says, yeah, we're not going to check and we're just going to – we're so keen to show how righteous we are that everybody has easy access to voting that we're not going to check and make sure we're a citizen.
02:35:11.000I guarantee you every other country makes sure that the people voting are citizens of that country, if they're given the right to vote, right?
02:35:28.000Well, no, I'm not even saying non-citizens.
02:35:29.000What I'm saying is the way that we allow people to vote.
02:35:32.000If we don't have integrity in ensuring that the vote is coming from a legitimate citizen, right, And the right and the left should want that.
02:35:47.000But you want everybody to be able to vote, and you want them to be able to do it easily.
02:35:51.000But you also want to make sure that you're not opening it up in your desire to allow people to vote so that you don't have the ability to check and make sure that there's no fraud.
02:36:01.000So that doesn't seem to be a heavy lift.
02:36:04.000Allow easy access to voting for every US citizen, but ensure that the integrity of the system allows you to make sure that you just have US citizens voting for your country's elections.
02:36:42.000Well, I think if your system – part of the problem, I think, is if your system isn't clearly explainable and transparent, if people can't look at it and go, I see – and the reason why, like, in-person voting, right, the day of the election was for so long, was – nobody questioned it – was because that's simple.
02:37:06.000Everybody go to the voting polls and vote.
02:37:09.000And so if you're doing it online or there's just unsolicited mail-in ballots, then People can look at that and legitimately go, well, I don't understand it, and so therefore I don't know that it's credible.
02:37:21.000Do you think the mail-in ballots leave more of an opportunity for fraud?
02:37:41.000Well, I think it's – there's a – You know, again, you go back to the human condition.
02:37:47.000I think it's – if there's an opportunity for fraud, I don't think, you know, Republicans are going to be less inclined than Democrats or Democrats are less inclined than Republicans.
02:38:33.000And also then we had outside elements trying to, you know, drop in there with their covert action campaigns to cede that inability to believe in the system.
02:38:43.000So, yeah, we better get this nailed down before the next election.
02:38:46.000Otherwise, we're gonna have the same problems.
02:38:48.000Yeah, I'm worried that Trump comes back in 2024, and I'm worried that these people that were at the Capitol building get more organized and more emboldened.
02:38:57.000The only difference is what's really kind of hilarious is these dummies were also anti-maskers, so they all showed up.
02:39:05.000I mean, it was like a perfect storm of stupid.
02:39:28.000But then they've got to do a hot wash, and we still haven't gotten the results of that yet in terms of the – what was the breakdown in all of this?
02:39:34.000Why was it so difficult to just simply secure the Capitol building?
02:39:39.000Well, look at the difference between when the Black Lives Matter protests were there and they had hundreds of security guards surrounding the Capitol building versus this, which is a pittance.
02:40:46.000No, because it's Washington, D.C. Do you think that the attack on Capitol Hill in many ways is like what happens when the social media chickens come to roost?
02:40:57.000That this divide that we've had on social media that is accentuated by algorithms, it does...
02:41:06.000It emphasizes these echo chambers where people believe the election was stolen.
02:41:11.000They only communicate with other people.
02:42:09.000No, but he did want to incite them to cheer and chant and let people know on his behalf.
02:42:17.000That tape that got leaked of him calling up the governor of Georgia and telling them to change the election results and be a patriot, like that kind of shit.
02:42:37.000And I think at that time, I said that he's losing the election and The next important thing was going to be the Georgia Senate runs.
02:42:51.000If you're a Republican, you should be pissed off that he wasn't smart enough to understand that after the election, He should have turned his attention to Georgia and simply said, all you've got to do now is you've got to focus on Georgia.
02:43:12.000Now look, that doesn't mean I don't like some of the policies of the previous administration.
02:43:17.000You can have disagreements with the person who's in the White House and still like the policies, the attitude towards China and the way that we dealt with China, some of the other things that we were doing.
02:43:31.000We don't live in that world now where you can separate and kind of, you know, look and analyze policies from people, right?
02:43:38.000Now it's like, if you say, look, there were self-inflicted wounds, people go, oh, you're fucked up, you're not a Republican, you hate the policy.
02:44:38.000So I think that what he could have done was just immediately pivot after the national election, the presidential election, and said, look, we're all disappointed, right?
02:44:49.000This is not the result that we wanted.
02:44:51.000But now we have an important task ahead of us.
02:44:54.000And that is the two Senate seats in Georgia.
02:44:56.000If you like the policies that we've been promoting, and you like the deregulation, or you like the China policy, or whatever it is, focus your attention in Georgia.
02:45:06.000But do you think that would have made a difference?
02:45:08.000Because the people that are on the fence, do you think there's that many people that are on the fence that would have voted Republican but wound up voting Democratic?
02:46:28.000What did you think about when they attached in the COVID relief bill 180 days for the CIA to release all the information they have about UFOs?
02:46:56.000Look, I'm happy that when it comes to UFOs, there's a lot of things that the agency needs to keep off the radar for sources and methods, right?
02:47:46.000No, look, I think it's good because I think the...
02:47:49.000Look, it's for the same reason that Pentagon released the information about AATIP, about the Advanced Aeronautical Threat Identification Program.
02:47:58.000There's no reason why we shouldn't, unless...
02:48:02.000You are talking about developmental aircraft as an example, which is important because when you're talking about hypersonic aircraft or missiles or whatever it is, there's some stuff that needs to be kept off the radar screen because there is a tremendous competition going on right now,
02:48:18.000particularly for things like control of space.
02:48:23.000Because the weaponization of space, for a long time people were thinking, ah, space, it's a great exploration and it's good for mankind.
02:48:29.000Frankly, There is a race to figure out how to weaponize space.
02:48:34.000And so as an example of what we're talking about, the idea of just saying, oh, we're going to open the books as a country and reveal all our information about developmental aircraft, as an example, that's the wrong move, right?
02:48:47.000But do you think there are any credible stories, whether it's from Commander David Fravor, who saw that Tic Tac vehicle off the coast of San Diego, or whatever video?
02:49:05.000I'd say the one that if I were somebody who's looking for some redemption because I've been beating the drum about UFOs and nobody's ever believed me and they always roll their eyes, I would say the one thing that would give them comfort would be the incident with Commander Fravor and that sighting.
02:49:23.000That's one that I have yet to see an explanation for that makes any sense.
02:49:59.000Yeah, it's one of those things you look at and you go, okay, and look, the AATIP program made sense in the sense that, you know, if a nation is out there, if the Chinese are out there, or the Russians, whomever, and they're developing propulsion capability that we don't know about, then yeah, we should have a mechanism within the Pentagon,
02:50:18.000within the intel community to understand what that is.
02:50:20.000Let's research it, let's investigate, right?
02:50:22.000And so, oftentimes, you know, they come to a logical conclusion.
02:50:26.000The Fravor incident, I have yet to see any information that explains it, right?
02:50:32.000So, that to me, and also, as you pointed out, the way that it was tracked, the verification of it from very credible, you know, individuals, that...
02:51:02.000And there's no upside for somebody like that, a very well-respected aviator with great experience.
02:51:08.000There's no upside for these guys to come forward.
02:51:11.000In fact, there's pressure to not because it's not necessarily good for your career to come in and say, I think I saw a UFO. What do you think is going on?
02:53:04.000Are they just sort of like watching us just for the entertainment value?
02:53:08.000So I'm always puzzled by that part, the idea that...
02:53:12.000Well, they probably want to observe, but they don't want to interfere.
02:53:16.000If they're super advanced, they probably realize there's a process.
02:53:20.000That intelligent life goes through, where there's stages of their evolutionary development in terms of use of technology, understanding of each other, mitigation of war and conflict, and then ultimately entrance into the Galactic Federation.
02:54:29.000Anything else salacious we could add before we wrap this up?
02:54:33.000I think that's about it actually we're getting I shouldn't say that this is interesting we're getting into invested recently in the cannabis business yeah I know I'm I'm starting to become a believer I'm not a believer in Bitcoin yet but I'm a believer in the cannabis business well it's a fucking giant business it's like not being a believer in trees yeah They're out there.
02:55:08.000I've done some work, a couple of shows on the problems that are around cannabis in terms of the cash economy, the inability of banking systems to get involved and all of that.
02:55:19.000We're going in on a business that does the...
02:55:24.000Is worried about the tax and banking side of things.
02:55:27.000So it's sort of the intersection of the trade with commerce and pulling it into sort of the legitimate world of commerce.
02:55:35.000Well, that's one of the hopes of the Biden administration that they'll pass some sort of federal law on marijuana, that they'll change it and make it legal, which I think they should.
02:57:12.000Like, um, if you were, uh, playing someone and they, you're like playing nine ball, someone would give you the eight ball if they were a little bit better than you.