Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages to the families of the Sandy Hook victims. The New York Post reports that Jones' lawyer asked the jury to destroy his platform and make sure he never gets another chance to defend himself. Tucker Max and Hannah-Claire Brimelow discuss this and more on this week's episode of the podcast.
00:01:01.000Now, my understanding, we've got a couple articles, there's punitive damages that they're capped at two times the damages plus $750,000, which means Alex Jones with compensatory damages is on the hook for about $13 million.
00:01:14.000I don't know how much that's going to impact him.
00:01:16.000He says that's devastating, but the crazy thing about the story is that the lawyer asked the jury to destroy InfoWars.
00:01:25.000He said, destroy his platform, and I'm paraphrasing by the way, destroy his platform and make sure he cannot rebuild it.
00:01:32.000Considering the rare circumstance where a default ruling was presented, Jones never had a jury trial, the right to defend himself, a lot of people are saying this is The whole thing was just an attempt to destroy Infowars because, well, Alex Jones backed Trump, uses his platform to call out things like Epstein, and, uh, well, that's what they're saying it's about.
00:01:54.000I think it's fair to point out that Alex Jones was wrong about what he said about the Sandy Hook families, and even his own employees brought it up, but this seems to be This is get it's just absolutely it's a crazy story, so we'll talk about that and then man We got to talk about this other story too because it's just it's going crazy in the media I talked about at 4 p.m.
00:02:11.000It's video out of Vegas of an Asian store clerk at a smoke shop and Some guy jumps the counter and then the clerk just knifes him and it looks like the dude gets killed so We're going to talk about all of that.
00:02:23.000Before we get started, my friends, head over to TimCast.com and become a member if you'd like to support our work, and you'll get access to our exclusive members-only shows.
00:02:32.000We have a TimCast IRL podcast here on the website, Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m.
00:02:37.000And then we also have a couple new shows.
00:02:38.000We have Tales from the Inverted World, and we're going to be launching the rebooted Cast Castle, which is kind of behind the scenes and kind of just fun, us doing bits, and it's going to be comedic.
00:02:48.000Of course, there's also Pop Culture Crisis, but you've got to be a member for that.
00:02:51.000They're live Monday through Friday at 3 p.m.
00:02:53.000So don't forget to smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show with your friends.
00:02:57.000Joining us tonight to talk about this news and more is Tucker Max.
00:04:22.000They say here, others have pointed out that Texas law caps punitive damages at twice the compensatory damage award plus $750,000.
00:04:30.000Moreover, an exemplary damage award requires a unanimous jury, and only 10 of the 12 jurors agreed on the original $4.1 million compensatory award.
00:04:42.000And if the jury's original award was for non-economic damages, i.e.
00:04:45.000to compensate for the pain and suffering, they may only get the $750,000 in this phase of the trial, which is perhaps why Plaintiff's Counsel tried to anchor the jury at $150 million in the first place.
00:04:56.000So it looks like All in all, Alex Jones will end up being on the hook for about $13 million.
00:05:01.000They say, Texas law prohibits telling the jury about the cap, so it may well return a massive verdict, which will then be reduced to comply with the statute, sending a signal about Jones' moral culpability, but allowing him to walk away with a slap on the wrist in light of the company's annual revenues in the neighborhood of $65 million.
00:05:20.000The interesting thing here is, this is what, let me read here, let me read you what the lawyer said.
00:05:25.000Quote, I ask that with your verdict, you not only take Alex Jones's platform that he talks about away, I ask that you make sure that he can't rebuild the platform.
00:06:22.000But it looks like they're just trying to destroy as much of this company as possible, especially with 2024 coming up and Trump probably running again.
00:06:28.000Yeah, I feel like when you're as financially successful as Alex Jones is, you know well in advance to set up systems that will protect your money.
00:06:36.000I mean, it's not like he's just sticking... I mean, maybe he is, but he's probably not sticking the cash in the walls of his house.
00:06:42.000It's hidden under tax shelters or in trusts.
00:06:44.000I mean, not that I could fault him or anyone else for doing that.
00:06:47.000Why would you leave that much cash vulnerable?
00:06:50.000This is why people set up LLCs for, like, everything.
00:06:53.000For people who are renting, you may notice you're paying rent to, like, your address.
00:06:57.000Like, if you live at 123 Fake Street, you write a rent check to 123 Fake Street, LLC, and then you mail it in because they want to limit the liability.
00:07:06.000You slip and fall in that house, you sue them, they only got that one house in that company.
00:07:09.000But the people who own that house, they probably own 50 houses all under their own LLCs.
00:07:15.000You put your money in a trust or a series of protected trusts or blind trusts and then they're not... Even if you get this damage, you can't seize those trusts.
00:07:25.000Can you explain how a trust would work?
00:07:27.000Look, just because I went to law school doesn't mean I know anything.
00:07:30.000He's trying to distance himself from his past.
00:07:33.000All right, so basically what a trust is is it's like it's almost imagine like a corporation But it doesn't have a job to do other than be a vehicle for money.
00:07:43.000So like I have a trust in my we have a max family trust and like most of my assets are in the max family trust and My wife and I are the executors of the trust and our children are their beneficiaries, right?
00:07:56.000so if I were to like Get drunk and drive like an idiot and do something stupid and hurt somebody and they sue me and win.
00:09:20.000I mean, if that's the case, then why wouldn't Alex Jones just be like, here's $300 million and put it in trust?
00:09:25.000So, I don't... Alex seems kind of crazy to me, so maybe he has or hasn't, but most people I know who have serious money, like you get into the eight figures and above, Then you start protecting your assets and things like that.
00:09:40.000I don't he's been in a couple lawsuits related to Sandy Hook and if I'm remembering correctly at one point they were arguing that he financially benefited off of the suffering that he put like the family and parents through by Promoting conspiracy theory or whatever the claim was so part of it is like I remember and I hate to quote this because I don't have something in front of me to reference but he he had they had wanted him to say basically how much money he had made during that time period because it gained him he was well known but it was one of the things that really uh gave him a certain amount of notoriety and that turned into financial benefit and so therefore the argument would be and i believe is that the family is actually entitled to this profit because he made it unfairly off of that right right right so he in some ways he wants to hide i'm not saying he does but like he would want to hide his money if that were true
00:10:32.000I'm not, and I don't want to imply you're a financial expert, but if you had a trust like this, could there be like a bank account with just cash in it?
00:10:38.000You could pull money out whenever you wanted?
00:10:41.000You can set up trust like that, totally.
00:10:44.000Because I, you know, first when I heard that they were getting going after him for four million dollars, I was like, Alex Jones is worth a lot.
00:10:56.000I know he has kids, so if he has any sense at all, or anyone around him has sense, he has trusts set up, probably individually for the kids, and then family trusts.
00:11:05.000And that's just one way to shelter money.
00:11:34.000This is why I see this and they're like, you know, the lawyer says, make sure he can't rebuild his company.
00:11:39.000I'm like, there's literally nothing you can do.
00:11:40.000That's just posturing, I'm pretty sure.
00:11:42.000I think, you know, some people have claimed, I saw people tweeting that they're filming a documentary about it or whatever, so everything's really hammed up.
00:11:49.000But I'm like, even if Alex Jones, every last penny was taken from him, some random guy will walk up on the street with a cell phone and film Alex Jones ranting and it'll get millions of views.
00:12:00.000You can't take that away from somebody.
00:12:47.000So I guess the conspiracy theory, as it were, I don't even know if you can call it a theory or a conspiracy or whatever, but the idea is that all of this is just to find the vulnerability in InfoWars to knock the whole thing down.
00:13:01.000People have left the company because of stuff like this.
00:13:04.000But I think, to be fair, I mean, the dude defamed private individuals, and this is what happens.
00:13:09.000I mean, I remember when he was talking about that.
00:13:12.000I'm like, dude, what are you, like, there's things that you can make the false flag claim on.
00:13:50.000Like I don't, you know, with Kyle Rittenhouse, I said this, I'm like, look man, you know, I'm going to give anybody the same benefit of the doubt initially.
00:14:01.000I don't care if you're Walter Cronkite or if you're Alex Jones or whatever.
00:14:04.000And then, you know, I'll, when you say something, I'll fact check it.
00:14:13.000It's very clear that when you look at, I'll be careful how I say this, what people are saying about the court case, they don't care whether Alex Jones is telling the truth, whether he's lying.
00:14:27.000I think he's like a mythical figure at this point to a lot of people like he is this symbol of all the horrible dark corners of the internet that they're afraid of and supposed to stay away from and you know that may not be exactly who Alex is but they see it as sort of this righteous victory over him because he is a representation of a larger problem with society.
00:14:47.000Let me pull this next story in this saga.
00:14:50.000Daily Mail says Alex Jones is worth $270 million.
00:14:53.000Forensic accountant tells court true worth of InfoWars founder.
00:14:57.000I'm wondering how much of this is just bluster nonsense, and they're saying this so they can rip the, you know, just gut the company.
00:15:05.000Because if you come out and you say he makes $800,000 a day, which was like one day, it was like two days or something like that, and then you claim he's worth $270 million, you justify a massive Settlement, right, of course.
00:16:17.000The guy apparently says that Jones, he says records show that Jones withdrew $62 million for himself in 2021 when default judgments were issued in lawsuits against him.
00:16:27.000They said he was also funneling $11,000 a day into one of his shell companies after he was alleged to have defamed parents and victims of Sandy Hook.
00:18:58.000Yeah, but I mean, if you're making that much money, if he really took $62 million for himself, I mean, there's a certain point, there's like, you can buy anything, you know?
00:19:08.000I mean, he could buy stuff, or he can, we've already said he has two children, he can use it to create generational wealth.
00:19:14.000I mean, theoretically, if he managed it correctly, they could really support generations to come.
00:19:19.000I'm just saying, if it's true that he made that much money, where's the shenanigans from Alex Jones, you know?
00:19:24.000Like, we put a 96-foot billboard of our rooster, Roberto Jr., up in Times Square, and they banned James Lindsay, so I'm like, do I gotta put up a James Lindsay billboard?
00:19:57.000I'll tell you, this is gonna sound super weird, because when I first started writing and I was the OG on the internet and I was making a little bit of money, I was just making no money, and a lot to me was like, oh, dude, I made 10 grand this month.
00:20:25.000As you accrue wealth and power and relationships, the more time you spend doing dumbass shit that draws attention to yourself, unless that's your business model.
00:21:21.000I've gotten more experienced or more conservative and less like, oh, let's do cool, ridiculous stuff just because I've gotten older and richer.
00:22:08.000Some people make $62 million and then they're like, better put that in my trust for my kids or something like that.
00:22:13.000Me, I'm like, we got Michael Malice, Luke Rutkowski up on billboards in Times Square because they've been on this show, I respect them, but I also think it's important to have their presence be expanded.
00:22:24.000And I gotta tell you, One of the things I'm most excited for was that we got Luke Rydkowski.
00:22:31.000I'm most excited about getting him up in Times Square on multiple billboards because he's the guy who, only a couple years ago, walks up to Donald Rumsfeld and starts questioning him.
00:22:39.000One of the few people who's gotten in the face of these CEOs and these big corporations.
00:22:43.000And I was like, it's going to be the funniest thing in the world when his face is looking down on Times Square.
00:22:48.000And then this guy who actually had the balls to go and question all these people is going to be of significant influence.
00:23:13.000I know a lot of people who are pretty well known.
00:23:16.000I've come up with them and I've seen the change in them.
00:23:19.000When people have something to lose, Right?
00:23:22.000Like when someone's young and just starting off or just got momentum and you don't have anything to lose, man, it's easy to do risky shit.
00:23:30.000As you have more, have more people dependent on you, as you accrue more, most people become more risk averse.
00:23:40.000And quite frankly, like when you start having a lot of money and you're able to turn, let's call it a youthful idealism into reality, you start being an actual threat to people in power.
00:24:01.000And so like, again, not saying he should or shouldn't be a certain way, I'm just saying there's a reason that very few people retain their idealism through wealth and power.
00:24:13.000Yeah, you know, I'm not trying to single out Alex on this one.
00:24:16.000There's a ton of wealthy people who speak up and then seemingly don't do all that much.
00:24:20.000But, you know, there are a lot of people you'd think should do more, but do a lot.
00:24:24.000I'm not going to name anybody, but they're powerful individuals who fund stuff.
00:24:28.000And then I just, you know, but my question is, We've got cultural problems in this country.
00:24:33.000We've got cultural stagnation, cultural decay.
00:24:36.000And that's because there is no forward facing, no brazen, no adventurous, no heroic, no challenge, no figurative threat to the, you know, no one ruffling the feathers up or anything like that.
00:24:48.000I think we need to get more people to figuratively throw a pie.
00:27:07.000When you have 200 million people who are making demands and if you stop producing the oil Then the government comes in says why did you stop people are screaming at us and demanding you do it?
00:27:15.000So you can't just the point was this dude at the highest level was like supposedly the villain and he's like, but I agree with you the problem is the machine is controlling you and So my thing is like, then you gotta just one day wake up and be like, I don't care for the machine.
00:28:17.000And no one has replaced that story, right?
00:28:20.000And so that most people are followers, you know, not good or bad, they just are.
00:28:24.000And right now, the dominant narrative in America is a very toxic, destructive death cult, like CRT or wokeism or that whole conglomeration of narratives.
00:28:37.000are horribly anti-human and depressing and toxic, and there has been no narrative to replace it.
00:28:43.000And we're not going back to old school American exceptionalism.
00:29:02.000Look what we're doing now with zero money.
00:29:04.000We're displaying to a hundred million people.
00:29:07.000I think your point is, simply put, I think most people are looking at the culture right now and thinking, I have nothing in common with these people, so I won't do anything for them.
00:31:34.000This is a really good example of, I think, what the issue is, is that people are like, hey, Twitter's banning conservatives and people who are challenging the establishment, so let's make a new Twitter.
00:31:43.000And the actual reality is the technology and the platform is not the problem.
00:31:47.000The problem is culture, the cultural dominance, and the issue that the people who run these companies, like Twitter, They are ideologically driven.
00:31:57.000So when you have a group of people who are well off, not particularly ideologically driven, except they support free speech, they don't know how to solve the problem.
00:32:24.000You need a masterful troll to create a cultural shift through a large cultural shock, which is why, you know, I mention my view on things is maybe where I'm getting things wrong is people absolutely are spending money, but they just don't, they're not addressing the culture problems.
00:34:03.000There's a bunch, but like I want to think as much as possible locally.
00:34:07.000I don't, I think that if there's gonna be a thread that is a true counterculture thread, it's gonna be around Think about how disconnected and detached everyone is from each other.
00:34:21.000The opposite of that is not just interpersonal, it's as much as possible local.
00:34:25.000I mean, obviously, I can't get my oysters locally.
00:35:20.000Employee wards off three robbers with a knife.
00:35:23.000Stabs one multiple times at Las Vegas Smoke Shop.
00:35:25.000Of course, we've got to censor these images, because these are brutal images.
00:35:29.000But I'll tell you the gist of the story.
00:35:31.000Guys working at a smoke shop in Vegas, dudes come in, one guy immediately robs them, the next guy jumps the counter, and the clerk just says, okay, with a knife in his hand, and just starts going at the dude who jumped the counter.
00:35:44.000Now a lot of people are saying that it's, was it a legal use of force, because he gets this guy in the neck a couple times, and the guy says, I'm dead, I'm dead.
00:35:52.000The reason I think this is, you know, in the previous segment, we're talking about, you know, why are people keeping their money, hoarding it, not really investing in their communities and stuff like that.
00:36:01.000And I think there's a really good example.
00:36:10.000And so it's things like this, when people say, I'm out.
00:36:14.000If we're sitting here looking at the story, thinking that you could be minding your own business, someone can jump the counter wearing a ski mask, and you are legally required to back up and wait for them to draw on you before you have a chance to actually defend yourself, that's the reality of this country in many states.
00:36:29.000At that point, a lot of people are just like, don't care anymore.
00:36:32.000I'm gonna watch out for myself because you will get boot stomped by the machine if you try and defend yourself.
00:37:40.000The fact that there were people in this country that had no idea what happened, and wanted him to go to prison.
00:37:46.000The fact that he spent two months, or it wasn't two months, it was almost three months, in jail, and then they were like, oh yeah, I mean, it was self-defense.
00:37:55.000It's remarkable that anybody who watched that, just unquestionably, it was self-defense.
00:37:59.000Of course it was, just watch the video!
00:38:00.000But most people didn't watch the video, because that one is the wrong narrative.
00:38:04.000But they believe Jesse Smollett Well, the same people that believe Jussie Smollett are the ones who, when they watched the Rittenhouse trial, were like, wait a minute, he didn't shoot a bunch of black people?
00:38:16.000No, like, do you remember how many people were like, wait a minute, he shot three white guys who had one of them had a gun?
00:38:23.000And he's on the ground and the guy runs up with the gun?
00:38:48.000It's an example of systemic racism that, you know, they never tried to fact check themselves at all.
00:38:53.000They never really looked at the case, again, because they're not really interested in it.
00:38:56.000They're interested in their own narrative.
00:38:58.000I'm sure all of these really wealthy media people are watching shows like this and they're hearing me talk about stuff and they're laughing like, what an idiot.
00:39:06.000The fact that I would say I would rather invest in the company than hoard the money and hide it somewhere.
00:39:11.000They're like, when it all comes crashing down, and it is because they all see it coming, Taiwan, China, Russia, whatever it is, I'm going to be left holding an empty bag and they've been stocking their money up in Panama and El Salvador and crypto and wherever else.
00:40:10.000Let's say you're a super billionaire who has a huge estate outside of Sun Valley.
00:40:15.000That head of security, that guy who, you know, he was former SF, and he's got his family there, and he hired the whole crew, and there's like four dudes that all report to him.
00:40:28.000That's what happened with the Roman Empire, I mean, the head of the Praetorian Guard would just kill the emperor and become the new emperor.
00:41:30.000This is like an old-timey Western thing, but if you're not home and your family's home, you need the rest of your community to be like, we're gonna head over there.
00:42:02.000So if you really want to seize assets, resources, and control a city, a civilization, you need boots on the ground instructing the people what to do.
00:42:12.000Well, my favorite about that is there was someone, I can't remember, it was one of like Max Boot or one of those lunatics who was like, blah, blah, blah, what are your stupid AR-15s gonna do against drones and, you know, like predator drones and all that stuff.
00:42:25.000And, uh, I think it was Clay Martin, who's a total badass.
00:42:28.000He just responded to Max and he said, Hey, the people operating those drones, they got addresses and families?
00:43:54.000And when you get your supply lines shut down and you spent 70 bucks on like a food bucket so you know you've got freeze-dried food to eat, that's not about the apocalypse.
00:44:04.000And now they're like, food shortage is coming.
00:44:06.000So my point is just, man, You've got a group of people in this country, people who watch shows like this, who are interested and looking for nuanced context.
00:44:15.000And then you've got people who are just like, tell me what to do and how to do it and who to make fun of.
00:47:18.000Patrick Kahn, CEO of thegunfood.com says he's lost thousands of dollars worth of ammo because customers' orders don't always seem to make it to their doors, especially when delivering with UPS.
00:47:26.000He says about 18,000 rounds of ammo shipped through UPS, only a third were actually delivered, so where is it going?
00:48:05.000So, so it's just the reason I bring this story up is not to insinuate that one company seeing their ammo go missing is indicative of a collapse, but just like it's another grain of sand in this heap with IRS agents being armed with Taiwan that maybe the fourth turning is upon us.
00:48:35.000I mean, I know enough about physics to know all energy moves in waves and cycles, so it's almost certainly... They seem to make a lot of sense, right?
00:49:28.000And so for seven days, basically, everyone was locked in.
00:49:31.000But really, for four days, everything was truly down.
00:49:37.000By the end of the, by the beginning of the fourth day, one of the people who worked, I was still at my company, who worked for my company, she was, she lived like eight blocks from the office, was walking into the office, right?
00:49:50.000Because we were all remote, so like we could keep working.
00:49:53.000She had people trying to rob her, but like these are clearly not professionals.
00:49:57.000It was like a dude who was hungry, right?
00:50:00.000I mean, my company was 75 people full-time in Austin at that point, and they were all like millennials who were like, LOL, I have Cheetos in my freezer.
00:50:11.000I don't know what to, that's all I have.
00:50:13.000Like I had to drive, I had just gotten a cow slaughtered, and so I literally drove like 200 pounds of meat in to the office, and then a bunch of them walked in to get it.
00:51:47.000They are just standing there in the crowd, mindless, and then quite literally, yo, If the supply chain collapses and you got 2.5 million people on Manhattan Island alone, let alone Central Brooklyn, how do you get out of Central Brooklyn?
00:53:24.000Like, they went on a hard, hard lockdown, and no one knows how many people died there.
00:53:29.000You know, the Chinese are real sketchy about that, but all those videos coming out, people were like... You see the pictures of people taking the refrigerator?
00:53:36.000The guy takes the refrigerator, pushes it onto his balcony, it's open and empty.
00:53:49.000I was in New York and it was crazy to see how high the floodwaters got.
00:53:52.000Windows were smashed out from the surge.
00:53:55.000They're the coolest thing I saw was when the downed bus stops skateboarders were grinding on them So they were having a blast but then you go to the bodegas.
00:54:03.000There's no electricity nothing So all the perishables have expired within a couple days and I went in there were two guys outside holding like two by fours a big line and And they were like one person at a time.
00:54:14.000I walked in, cash only obviously, and the guy was just like, he's like, don't touch the perishables, like the milk, everything's bad, you don't eat it, but anything that's not perishable, like the high fructose corn juice and like the canned stuff is good.
00:54:28.000And so I went and I was like, I got like a Coke, and I was like, it's warm, you know, but it's all you get.
00:54:46.000Yeah, and then the question becomes, how long does it last?
00:54:49.000Oh, for them, that... So, I put it this way.
00:54:52.000New York gets supply chain disruption.
00:54:55.000Like, the whole system just fails for some reason.
00:54:58.000You get a couple days where it's guys with 2x4s guarding the bodegas, and people going in.
00:55:03.000Three days after that, the food's gone.
00:55:05.000And now it's people fighting in the streets for the last can of beans.
00:55:08.000Three days after that, people have already started to leave, they're gonna be eating fish out of the Hudson, and they're gonna be barfing and sick the entire time.
00:55:16.000But I think the other thing that happens, and we saw this during COVID, is those who can, like wealthy people who can afford to move more quickly, will move into upstate New York, Connecticut, parts of New Jersey, and then continue to put pressure on those systems that don't normally have that many people there.
00:55:30.000So those grocery stores will start to feel the effect.
00:55:35.000But then what happens, you know, you hit days 5 to 10, when all the stores are empty, if nothing's coming in, what happens is people start moving out.
00:55:55.000I know, did you see how they put, it's so weird you're talking about this, because they just put those massive metal doors on the tunnels, on the Lincoln Tunnel.
00:58:04.000Well that and then also I mean like in 2019 I made fun of preppers and I didn't really I had a couple guns but they're like hunting like I wasn't.
00:58:16.000How could you not after the last two and a half years right?
00:58:18.000But I think it's also that like We've grown up in arguably the richest, most abundant, safest period in world history, in the safest country in the world.
00:58:29.000So it's like, who alive has had to deal with anything truly catastrophic?
00:58:34.000Like we don't, I don't know, you know?
00:58:36.000And so like the idea that this could happen is just not, it's not in the living memory of anybody.
00:58:42.000Yeah, we've had a golden age of sorts.
00:58:46.000At least from our perspective, the security's been fat and happy.
01:01:30.000I'm kind of obsessive about talking about new technology, like, You know, graphing industry and iron fertilization of the oceans, regrowing the coral reefs and things like that.
01:01:38.000Sometimes it's really about how you introduce the ideas, because like if we're in the moment of all like blackmailing each other, like what we did.
01:03:27.000Dude, I joke about like one day we'll be hanging out, we'll be doing the show and we'll hear like a noise and then we'll like run outside and there'll be some hipster guy in like flannel with a beanie on and a handlebar mustache trying to steal a chicken and he's like, I'm just hungry!
01:03:46.000Dude, in Texas, you paint your fence posts purple and you put no trespassing sign because that's basically the, you know, if you come on land, we're going to shoot you.
01:04:25.000Do you think that I, that we, cause I think we are building the story for the future right now.
01:04:30.000Maybe nothing we say today is going to cause it to change tomorrow, but in a 20 years when people are like, I've had enough, they'll look at this video and that will be what inspires them.
01:04:45.000I'm not, like, I like psychedelics, I use them as medicine, like, they've been transformative for me, but I'm not like, you know, uh, bless his heart, like, I love Aubrey Marcus, but I'm not like, oh, you gotta, everyone's gotta do ayahuasca!
01:04:55.000No, everyone doesn't, you know, like, they're just a tool to achieve a goal, they're not the thing.
01:05:01.000Like, imagine if I was super into hammers, like, what, what, why?
01:05:05.000But if I'm like, I want to build a lot of houses for people to live in, you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
01:05:09.000So I just look at psychedelics as the hammer, right?
01:05:11.000I kind of, I've always kind of felt that there's a lot of people who really need some kind of hammer experience.
01:05:18.000Hammer, as one way to put it, because I don't want to.
01:05:51.000For me, I remember I would talk to my friends and they would start asking these crazy philosophical questions or when they were stoned or something and I was like, I don't need whatever it is you're doing to ask these questions, but clearly you do.
01:06:01.000Maybe there are some people who are like mindless cogs, but then they have an experience, like Ian was saying, and all of a sudden they start asking themselves, where's that garbage going?
01:06:09.000Then they realize, hey, wait a minute, probably not somewhere good.
01:06:12.000Just like so many problems, they're just put in on an island and waiting for it to go away.
01:06:16.000They put on a garbage barge, kick it out, and forget about it.
01:06:18.000Of course, now we find there's mushrooms and bacteria that'll digest it and turn it into sugar.
01:07:05.000I think a big problem, one of the big problems we've had is that millennials, and to an extent every generation before it, but growing in scale, don't understand that other people did work to make things exist that you have.
01:07:19.000So, like, for example, I remember I was riding my bike across the Williamsburg Bridge in New York, and I just thought to myself, like, man, Some people worked really, really hard to make this bridge happen.
01:07:30.000And I don't think twice when I ride my bike over it.
01:08:06.000I think that is like the generational wealth of Millennials and now Gen Z. They don't understand how much blood, sweat, and tears went into making the world so comfortable.
01:08:40.000You mentioned earlier you don't think the technology is the story, but, like, In the past the story was told through new technology like the printing press allowed us to proliferate the story or writing allowed us to proliferate the idea of God to the masses so maybe that the metaverse or that the internet is the vessel that the story will be told.
01:09:00.000So the post-World War II story in America was that progress solves all and progress is the goal.
01:10:14.000But honestly, if there was one thing Karl Marx got right, it was at least the beginning of a critique of understanding that there is a relationship between a human and the value they create that matters that's not captured in the normal way you calculate capital, right?
01:11:10.000How does this prosperity doctrine fit in with like your past?
01:11:13.000Because I feel like in some ways you had a very different mindset when you were 20s when you were like the pickup artist and you were like... Don't you ever... You can call me anything but not pickup artist.
01:11:50.000I wrote... If you want to put me in a category... The New York Times said I invented my own literary genre, which, like, it's the New York Times, so whatever.
01:12:00.000But, like, you don't put me in a category.
01:12:01.000Put, like, Bukowski or Hunter S. Thompson or that sort of stuff.
01:12:21.000You're a writer who specialized in a very specific... Writing about my life.
01:12:25.000Writing about your life, which had a lot to do with I was like a 20-something year old dude who got drunk and hooked up and act like an idiot.
01:12:33.000And now you're someone who's saying, and I think it's cool, but we need to think about how we are affecting the humans around us, how we're affecting change, how we're affecting humanity.
01:13:57.000For me, the thing that cracked me open was MDMA therapy.
01:14:00.000Like, that was just mind-blowing to me.
01:14:05.000And that was when I was like, oh my god, I can feel love and sadness.
01:14:11.000And then that's like I started about four years ago and that's really what I kind of knew all this intellectually, and I believed it, but I didn't get it, really, until I started to connect with myself.
01:14:22.000And once you connect with yourself, then you connect with nature.
01:14:24.000And that's when I was like, Oh, like, of course, God exists.
01:14:28.000And I'm like, literally, I'll never forget, I did a session with MDMA and LSD.
01:14:32.000And like, I had the experience of like, it sounds crazy if you've never done Psychedelics, but like the experience, I didn't talk to God, but the experience of God, and I remember I called my friend who's Mormon, and I'm like, dude, I thought you were just an idiot who was fooled.
01:14:46.000And he's like, no, I'm like, I get it now.
01:15:31.000But once you start connecting to yourself and you connect everything around you, I think it just... I don't think anything I'm saying is all that revolutionary.
01:17:33.000I had some really, really good mentors around who had walked this path decades before and kind of knew and helped me, but it's basically called integration, right?
01:17:43.000So, you know, I had a talk therapist, a different one from before, you know, and I actually had to really learn self-care, truly, deep, like, okay, I can't be working 15 hours a day anymore.
01:17:54.000I can't this, I can't that's not going to work.
01:17:57.000And so, journaling every day, which I've been doing for a while anyway, but I got serious about it.
01:18:04.000You know, like got very serious about nutrition, very serious about sleep, all this sort of stuff.
01:19:15.000And so, like, once you kind of understand that, it's like, okay, you eat what the animals eat, right?
01:19:21.000So, if they're, even if they're healthy chickens, organic, and they're raised in these horrible, you know, massive pens where they, you know, they don't walk on the ground, they walk on dead chickens or whatever.
01:20:19.000Like, you can't just do... I know plenty of people who've done a ton of emotional work but are flighty as hell and have dumb ideas in their head, right?
01:20:26.000And then I know plenty of people who've thought their way as far as they can but won't feel anything, right?
01:20:45.000When you like come up on a situation that makes you want to cry or that makes you want to like, what, at what point do you stop yourself from crying?
01:20:51.000And at what point do you let yourself cry?
01:21:45.000That sort of a relational trauma is actually, it's hard to understand because there's not a great narrative around it and most people don't understand.
01:21:52.000The closest person I've ever heard who understood was someone who actually helped, they were in Romania after the fall of the wall and there were all these abandoned kids and they worked in orphanage there and they would tell me like, The Romanian orphanages are crazy.
01:23:04.000Because when you're four, it's overwhelming.
01:23:06.000You know, but now when you're 40 and you're taking MDMA and you're laying on this sofa and you know New York wherever and like it comes up and it's like oh and you like safe and whatever you can feel it then you feel it you know but then it's like it's like you're free now.
01:23:21.000Does this impact how you parent I'm assuming?
01:23:29.000In fact, if you want me to start crying, if I think about what I was like as a parent seven years ago with my first bishop, my oldest, who just turned eight, versus now.
01:23:39.000On the scale of parents, I was a very good parent compared to most parents seven years ago.
01:23:44.000I am a fundamentally different parent now.
01:25:01.000So, like, I've had friends who, one example is skateboarding.
01:25:05.000A friend of mine said they wanted to skate, got a skateboard, and then eventually didn't want to do it anymore, but their parents were like, you have to.
01:25:14.000We bought you a board, you're using it!
01:25:16.000But then, when you have all of these other skateboarders all cheering you on, and then you have your own group of friends, all of a sudden you're like, this is my community, you get into it.
01:25:26.000Yeah, but there's also, I think, an intrinsic versus extrinsic, right?
01:25:31.000And so, my son's pretty independent, and thankfully.
01:25:35.000And I was pushing him, and I think he was naturally rebelling against that, and so when I stopped pushing and let go, then he was able to find it on his own, and his own desire for it, as opposed to mine.
01:25:47.000So pushing a little is probably a good thing, just so he knows... Introducing is a good thing.
01:26:01.000So a lot of people don't understand Magic the Gathering is chess and poker combined, and a lot of the top Magic players were actually top poker players.
01:26:09.000There's a famous quote from one of these guys, and they said, you play Magic the Gathering and poker, is being a top poker player harder?
01:26:16.000And he's like, one game has 13,000 cards you're trying to guess.
01:27:44.000In 2020, they basically played D&D, but it was like modern politics.
01:27:47.000And then, like, one of the Democrats was like, if Trump wins, we're seceding from the Union, and, like, they would roll die to see what would happen.
01:28:09.000Yeah, roll to see if people actually like you this time.
01:28:12.000No, no, no, you don't, well, you do your base stats, but like, I'm pretty sure her charisma would be like minus, yeah, it'd be like a minus one.
01:29:24.000She's accessible, at least to me so far.
01:29:26.000I've been on the show, we interviewed her twice, and we talked about a local voting app that you could use.
01:29:30.000where like you could set your slider for like, I wanna put 7% of my taxes towards this local thing, 4% towards this, and it'd be like a Tinder app kind of where you could, I could say like, okay, hey everyone, I wanna put a fountain on Main Street.
01:29:43.000And then if people are going through the app, they see it, they swipe right, it goes into their little slide bar thing, and then they can allocate like 2% of their taxes to the thing.
01:30:04.000I mean, I don't know, like, I don't, it wouldn't shock, there's almost nothing you could tell me about the future of America that would shock me now, like a complete chaotic civil war, a federalist, you know, kind of quasi-breakup but not really, I don't know, something.
01:30:27.000I was saying yesterday that it seems like all the cultures on earth now have come together and they're all forcing each other on themselves.
01:31:07.000That's like, okay, if I can find a lever of control where you are responsible for something I want, I'm convinced.
01:31:16.000I've been skeptical of climate stuff for a long time for two reasons.
01:31:20.000One is because the people who are pushing it are always the same people who are pushing whatever authoritarian bullshit that comes up, right?
01:31:29.000So it's never like, so someone I'm like, okay, well this person's really smart and they know their stuff.
01:31:33.000It's always like, you know, Al Gore, right?
01:31:38.000But then the other thing is, it's like, hold on a minute.
01:31:41.000You want to make me responsible for something that you get you can't really measure you can't attribute to me But it's gonna have to fundamentally alter my behavior and my output, but you get to decide what that is and No, that's not going to work.
01:31:59.000And like, whenever someone's like, you know, trying to make other people responsible for something and it means they get to control them, that's the reddest of red flags.
01:32:07.000Even if, like, yeah, I mean, you can look at the data.
01:32:10.000It's gotten hotter in most parts of the world last couple of years or whatever, et cetera, et cetera.
01:32:14.000Like, even if there's some truth to it.
01:32:17.000The more tangible example would be like poisoning the waterway inadvertently upriver, like dumping chemicals in and then the other community that you're not related to.
01:34:16.000No, no, because the way it's processed, like propane will last essentially, kerosene lasts forever effectively, diesel I think is about a year to 18 months, and I think gas has to turn over quick.
01:34:26.000Oh, so you can cycle it without destroying it?
01:34:37.000Says Tim seeing death in real life is exactly why veterans are some of the biggest adversaries of war Once you see life drain from someone's eyes you get it.
01:34:44.000Yep Yeah, when I saw that video today of the guy in the store, it just brought like memories back and feelings man, and I always I always say like I'm not like a war- I'm not like a soldier or anything, I didn't do any of that stuff, but I've been places where people have died and I've- I remember the first time I saw someone die and the feeling I got was something I had never experienced in 27 years of life.
01:35:08.000Seeing it actually happen was just- it was like, I don't know, it felt like getting- having like, just water submerge my brain like it was a- like a- And then there's like this gut-wrenching feeling like someone was squeezing my heart.
01:35:23.000And I watched them carry that body off the street.
01:35:27.000And watching the stuff earlier today, I'm just, man, the crime that's skyrocketing, these woke Soros-backed DAs, Soros writes an op-ed saying he's doubling down on all of this.
01:35:37.000We're watching people get slashed in the street.
01:35:40.000There was a guy just in New York, I think it was today, he was going around, or the other day he was just punching people in the face.
01:35:49.000Violent crime is up all over the country.
01:35:51.000And it's been on the rise since COVID probably before that.
01:35:55.000And then you start seeing these stories like The shop owner who fires a shotgun at the dude with the rifle and it's like, man, this is not going in a good way.
01:36:05.000And people are going to get a rude awakening when they like, there's so many people that think they want to live in like a zombie apocalypse horror movie and they think it'd be fun and exciting.
01:36:45.000They have a huge problem with guys on motorcycles robbing cars and they legalized like you can run over those motor and like there's all kinds of videos now coming out.
01:36:57.000Just mowing people down with their cars.
01:37:26.000But then you're gonna see people, like, when it's about luxuries, An armed population, an armed society is a polite society.
01:37:33.000If there's some guy who's going to rob a store because he wants to come up on something, and he knows everyone's armed, he's going to think twice.
01:37:38.000Somebody who's starving, they don't care.
01:38:32.000We let him run around and do cat stuff because for the most part they're fine.
01:38:34.000I know you can you run the risk of like coyotes and stuff like that, but...
01:38:38.000We had a raccoon come on the property because they were getting desperate.
01:38:41.000They were getting hungry or something.
01:38:43.000And then when they're desperate, they don't care about the threats.
01:38:45.000So time to like not wear jewelry out in public, not hold your phone up in front of you on the street in New York if you're walking down the street.
01:39:12.000So meaning like if I set up a trust for my son that's irrevocable, so it's gone to him fully, it just makes it more protected.
01:39:20.000So I can't be like there's because sometimes you can pierce the veil with trust and like, you know, like in a lawsuit, depending on which trust it is irrevocables.
01:39:54.000It depends how it's set up because I know like for kids, I think they're each allowed to get, there's a number, five or ten million from their parents, maybe five million apiece from parents that's tax-free and then after that it's like death tax where it's like 80% or whatever crazy amount and so like I think that if it's somebody else then I'm not sure how that would work.
01:41:39.000I hope, I swear, please, if you're listening to me, please, studio, the next movie, maybe the next one, because you're already working on it.
01:41:46.000The one after that, I want there to be like a quantum explosion that gives them all superpowers.
01:42:12.000And then like, you know, ludicrous characters.
01:42:14.000And then they fight the Marvel characters.
01:42:16.000No, no, no, they gotta make their own villains, you know?
01:42:19.000And then, but then, it's just like all of a sudden you've got this cinematic universe, and then Jason Statham can teleport for some reason, and you know, The Rock can like, he gets super strength because he's The Rock.
01:44:22.000I mean, certain scenes I don't feel like they were really... I'm not sure, hold on, because they're flying the F-14s, the two-seaters, they're shooting him from the front, so how the hell is he flying the plane then?
01:45:23.000McChilla says wealthy philanthropists should spend every last cent of their fortune and effort to get a convention of states repeal the 19th.
01:45:48.000The thing is, if I could give up my right to vote to a husband who I trusted and thought would make better decisions and it would guarantee something better, I would be open to it, right?
01:45:59.000I don't think that Feminism was necessarily the best thing for this country, especially third wave feminism.
01:46:08.000But generally, no offense to all of you, but if you're willing to make a 10th Fast and Furious, like, no, I have to vote for myself.
01:46:41.000I thought you were going to confirm how many Fast and the Furious movies.
01:46:43.000Well, dude, listen, I mean, we all used to make fun of Tom Cruise and now it's like, Oh, it turns out he was totally right about antidepressants.
01:46:50.000Now it's recirculating where he was talking to Matt Lauer and he was like, dude, the psychiatric industry is for pro- I don't know if he was saying it was for profit, but he was showing like this.
01:50:40.000I mean, the game's been out for a while now, but the ending is basically, you know, the original story is like humanity gets wiped out by self-replicating robots.
01:50:48.000Then there's the Zero Dawn project, which once all the biomass is destroyed, these machines underground kick on at Humans Built to start recreating and re-terraforming the planet.
01:50:58.000And then in this new, the second game, there's humans, another operation to save humanity was the Zenith Project, I think it was called Zenith, and they escape Earth.
01:51:08.000So these people are super advanced, immortal, can float, and they have advanced technology, and they come back to Earth.
01:51:14.000And then it turns out they were actually fleeing from, they uploaded their consciousness replicating themselves and then freaked out when they saw what it was and imprisoned it, enraging the multi-consciousness of all of their minds, which escapes and then seeks to destroy them.
01:51:39.000Well, the thing is, I have an older brother, so I spent a lot of time sitting next to someone playing video games and who was like, shut up, you can't play, stop.
01:51:48.000But we did a lot of Assassin's Creed when I was younger.
01:51:51.000I just figured because you didn't watch Fast and Furious, you probably just had bad taste in games.
01:54:51.000So the one thing is, we've been trying to develop a new commenting system, and we're trying to do it in a way that promotes other social platforms.
01:55:01.000Because like, I don't want to say too much, but how Facebook has the, you know, most websites that have comments will just like put a Facebook comment thing on it, you can embed it.
01:55:07.000So we want to do something like that with a different platform.
01:55:10.000We might just put back on the original comments.
01:55:15.000And we're thinking about doing some kind of messaging system for members so that there's a community building thing happening.
01:55:21.000But the issue is we have like one developer.
01:55:24.000And so it's an issue of how much we can afford and how fast we can do it.
01:55:27.000But yeah, first I was like, screw Facebook.
01:55:29.000But at the same time, it's like some comments are better than no comments.
01:55:32.000So it might be worth it as a stepping stone.
01:55:34.000And if we did Facebook comments, you snap your fingers and they're there.
01:55:37.000It's, like, really easy to generate, and then it posts on Facebook, and then people can share on Facebook, so... But Facebook is awful!
01:55:43.000All right, Waffle Sensei says, Yes, Magic the Gathering is an expensive game.
01:55:45.000right? What commanders do you run? My Omnath, Locus of Mana will destroy you. And to the viewers,
01:55:52.000teach your kids magic because they won't be able to afford drugs. Yes, Magic the Gathering is an
01:55:57.000expensive game. That's what he was saying, pay to win. Yeah, but I mean, honestly, you could just
01:56:00.000download pieces of paper that have the images on them, cut them up, put some cardboard on it and
01:58:27.000So, the Cylons destroy the colonies, and then the fleet is just traveling, and all they have left are these fleet of ships, and then there's one plot where there's a ship that's just mining, effectively, coal, so it's all of these people have to work 16 hour days with no breaks, and they're just slaves.
01:58:44.000They're like if you stop working we all die and so then there's a revolt and then they're like other people have to
01:58:49.000rotate in Because they're gonna just kill themselves or something
01:58:51.000shows brutal. Yeah crazy And then in the end they make it to earth and then they're
01:58:56.000like the people on earth are compatible with us It's like okay. That's my
01:59:00.000That's like a weird plot point, but I guess We'll take a look.
01:59:04.000We actually have a card game in development right now.
02:00:14.000If it makes you think, it's worth being there.
02:00:15.000I mean, that's the point of effective op-ed pieces.
02:00:18.000Right, and then Marshall, for your thoughts, it should arm you against... This is the thing, like, read people you disagree with, express your disagreement, and now you're better equipped to argue your ideas.
02:01:09.000I'm actually really impressed with Seth MacFarlane.
02:01:12.000He did a whole episode about detransitioning kids that were forced to transition.
02:01:18.000Spoiler alert, I guess, for those that don't want to hear it, because it was a couple weeks ago.
02:01:22.000But they did an episode where one of the planets in the Union was ejected because they were forcing kids to transition.
02:01:30.000It's like, it's a crazy, I'm like, I can't believe he wrote this stuff.
02:01:33.000But like, as long as he's willing to write these stories, maybe some of these people who follow him, because he's very Democrat, might actually be exposed to some other ideas.
02:01:43.000Basically the plot was on their planet, they don't allow women.
02:01:48.000And then this kid grows up and is like, this is not what I'm supposed to be.
02:01:51.000And then there's like a conflict with the traditions of the planet that wanted to transition kids.
02:01:55.000The kid de-transitions and then the planet is trying to stop like their smugglers rescuing these kids from being forced to go undergo sex changes.
02:02:04.000It's crazy that he wrote this story and then they've done it two episodes on it.
02:02:09.000Yeah, but I can promise you, I could totally be wrong.
02:02:13.000I'm betting that that's his vision of like, the smugglers were the blue states and the planets the red states.
02:02:20.000I don't, you know, some people have said like, he's trying to make a story about why kids should transition, but I'm like, I don't know about what you think he's thinking.
02:02:29.000All I know is he did a show where they forcefully transition a baby.
02:02:34.000Seth MacFarlane literally says, you can't perform a sex change on a baby, that's unethical.
02:02:39.000And then they've got several episodes now where they're trying to stop minors from undergoing sex changes.
02:02:46.000So I'm like, you'd think you'd be cancelled heavily for getting into that territory.
02:02:51.000My friends, if you haven't already, would you kindly smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show if you do like it, become a member at TimCast.com to support our work.