00:08:21.760But yes, Robert De Niro's Neil Macaulay
00:08:24.140and Al Pacino's Lieutenant Vincent Hanna.
00:08:26.580Hanna going head to head throughout the film
00:08:29.460in every, basically along every level of crime.
00:08:35.560Like you have them playing the cat and nose game
00:08:38.100of OPSEC surveillance, counter-surveillance, forensics, counter-forensics, you have the
00:08:44.520mental psychological game where there's one of the most gorgeous scenes in any film where
00:08:52.620they meet at the coffee shop, which is a real thing that actually happened between the real
00:08:59.380life Neil McCauley and I can't remember the real life police officer's name, but there
00:09:06.580is a real life detective chuck adamson in the 60s perfect that this was a story that that um
00:09:16.180that director michael mann fan had heard heard from the man himself incorporated into the film
00:09:24.640and laid out the story this way you have that psychological aspect then you have all the
00:09:29.780tactical aspects that are going on and then you have this um the entire second half of the film
00:09:34.880is kind of a a chase fugitive sequence sequence that doesn't quite play out like like one but
00:09:44.620there's this entirely separate counter forensic investigative game of uh macaulay is he going to
00:09:52.420get away is is vince and hannah gonna hunt him hunt him down and then you have the final duel
00:09:57.880between between them and every single level of like tactical consideration every single level
00:10:03.880of crime every single level of like operational considerations um even the logistics itself
00:10:12.100is laid laid out in this film at a breakneck pace like you're watching this and it's easy
00:10:20.020to miss all this because because it's buried in the background it's filth it's uh details are on
00:10:27.920the screen that like the average audience isn't picking up on but your brain notices it and
00:10:35.780generations now of professional criminals have like worn out their vhs of heat breaking apart
00:10:43.620every individual scene to try and like pull out details for their own crimes and now we're almost
00:10:50.820coming on and generations of youtubers have broken down individual scenes to pull out
00:10:56.000One of those rare movies that puts so much more thought into how these things are laid out compared to the typical Hollywood film, that all of these considerations make sense because, A, they're based on reality, right?
00:11:11.340Like, a lot of the scenes in Heat did happen, and B, they had a consummate professional SAS man, Andy McNabb, a Desert Storm veteran of many special operations, drill the casting crew for, like, three months how every aspect of gunplay, squad tactics, covering fire, egress, retreat, all of these things were drilled into them with a level of intensity befitting the highest levels of special warfare.
00:11:41.340yes and it's in incredible and and the amazing aspect is that's not just that one limited
00:11:54.440tactical element oh this film is really good for this this is every element so um
00:11:59.820so jodie foster's dad john boyce plays a character nate who's like it something of a
00:12:07.480minor supporting character he's a fixer for robert de niro neil mccall uh robert de niro's
00:12:13.800neil mccauley and he's i could tell you right now that like a lot of people will watch the film
00:12:21.840like have watched the film several times and don't even remember this character
00:12:25.620but if you pay attention to him and how he's going about uh operating his business as a fix
00:12:33.280sir and and negotiating all these details for macaulay uh uh fencing his stolen goods
00:12:40.440arranging fake ids uh arranging outs and evacuations
00:12:45.500giving him waynegrove's location right like yes yes but he he explains it that he doesn't
00:12:58.080think neil should go for it but he feels bound to tell him because he did pay for
00:13:05.680for the information requested and he did get his hand hands on it it's a code of honor there's a
00:13:13.020code of honor there there's a like professional quality there that you're like oh i see exactly
00:13:18.360why all these criminals are depending on this character and why like like this guy gets to be
00:13:24.780like kind of a black box to them in terms of like how he's how he's negotiating between all these
00:13:32.260criminal elements that like none of these elements trust each other but all of them will do business
00:13:38.120with him but then there's also like a symbolic aspect to it that like this guy looks like an
00:13:44.140old biker and um we were debating at one point whether or not he's wearing a like iron cross
00:13:51.300like a pagan symbol that um that there's also a symbolic element to it like a odinic character to
00:13:59.700him in which case it's like oh he's doing this for professional things but symbolically he's like
00:14:06.240he's like odin the hunt master leading on neil to away from the peaceful life and towards valhalla
00:14:13.860and glory and a glorious death and i would ask you here to determine whether this is coincidence
00:14:19.440or not whether you have noticed other pagan themes in michael mann's work like has he made
00:14:25.200these sorts of references before or is this an isolated incident uh so he there's definitely
00:14:31.900like a strong focus on um on symbolism michael mann in collateral uh one of the defining
00:14:40.580scenes that like everyone kind of remembers which which is a very small scene is the coyote scene
00:14:47.440where um uh michael michael fox's character and um tom cruise are in the car and they've been
00:14:56.300having this like battle back and forth of wills uh tom cruise has taken jamie fox hostage and
00:15:03.240and as they're driving in this cab and are going to the like final shit out the final assassination
00:15:11.200that that uh tom cruise tom cruise is doing they encounter a coyote on the road in like
00:15:18.580this outskirt section of la and this has actually been set up by an earlier scene
00:15:23.420scene where um where jamie fox makes an excuse that the reason his car is dented is because
00:15:31.960he had a deer when really it was it was this action sequence in the shootout the
00:15:37.520that occurred but he gets away from the cops by invoking this and then they actually do encounter
00:15:42.980like wildlife in like a coyote in the mean streets of la which um has actually happened
00:15:49.280to me not in la but in another city of like 3 a.m on like a back street when i was like
00:15:56.740when i was you know running wild and in the night that uh valley i was bicycling down this
00:16:05.680as as i do as i do uh not going to break down what i was doing at like 3 a.m
00:16:13.820m on like a stormy night night in a major metro area on like a back street
00:16:19.680unassociated with me but uh but i'm riding my my bike
00:16:24.520bike along uh taking like these circuitous back streets and and as i'm riding this coyote
00:16:33.860darts out of the woods like runs over sees me uh runs across the street again and then like
00:16:41.740zigzags around me back where it was go where it was going that bit that is incredibly authentic
00:16:47.920to like like anyone who's like doing anything like slightly shady shady uh at 3 a.m at night
00:16:55.660in a major metro area in north north america and is very authentic authentic but this focus on like
00:17:03.580symbolism and like that scene was like this powerful moment between these characters that
00:17:08.840focused on symbolism as much as michael mann is like this tactical gear focused person he has this
00:17:16.200incredible narrative and symbolic focus so so that would almost the odinic element we're debating it
00:17:25.620but that's certainly something that he would include um for you beers at home heat if you
00:17:33.040have been seated is one of the most unique hollywood films in terms of like slot structuring
00:17:39.520and and um story structure because it doesn't follow a three-act hollywood film structure
00:17:46.080it follows a five-act shakespearean structure like a structure the same way that hamlet or
00:17:52.680mcbeth would be structure structure make that actually is kind of closer to is a five-act
00:17:57.960structure but it kind of it has a lot of elements of that would become a three-act structure but
00:18:02.640That's like structured the same way Titus Andronicus would be structured or any of these Shakespeare stories where you have these massive ensemble cast, Romeo and Juliet would be in the other one.
00:18:15.820And you have these massive ensemble cast, this like operatic story that's playing out, this core drama between like the core characters.
00:18:25.520but then instead of like like the way a three-act structure works is like
00:18:31.860like michael bay is the master of this if it's building action this building action this building
00:18:37.180action this building action until like you get to the very end of the film and there's this massive
00:18:44.020action sequence this final drama all the elements come together you know the character who was like
00:18:50.260from the start of the film who's like kind of irrelevant did something in the second act and
00:18:54.420third act they come back and they wind up being very important all these all this power of teamwork
00:18:59.980stuff all these elements come together they're very important the villain is defeated and then
00:19:05.080you have like five ten minutes left of the film you know optimus prime gives gives a speech calling
00:19:10.740to the all all their autobots that earth earth is worth defending and whatnot and then you know
00:19:17.420uh shia labeouf kisses kisses the girl um and then yeah we've all seen this a hundred times
00:19:25.760yeah yeah everyone's seen this it's like formulaic as can be and that's partly why i
00:19:34.060wanted to dig down into it so that you know like this is all these elements are like conscious
00:19:39.700this isn't just how a story's told this is a conscious like structure and heat does not follow
00:19:45.300that at all uh the the central action of heat happens in the exact middle of the film uh the
00:19:54.660major bank ice in which like la is ripped apart by gunfire uh uh the the sound effect that's been
00:20:02.520commented on a million times that that they actually capture the sound of the blanks echoing
00:20:08.020off the the skyscrapers of la as they're recording and that's what's in the film that's why the gunfire
00:20:14.100sounds like nothing else like this operatic explosive explosive moment like one of the most
00:20:21.760impressive and terrifying scenes you've ever seen seen the centerpiece of the film
00:20:27.320and that's exactly at the middle point of the film you still have like
00:20:32.020an hour and 15 minutes an hour and a half a half left after that it's like well what's in there
00:20:39.980what's it what's in there are almost more impactful and intriguing than the heist itself
00:20:46.920right like the relationship between men um the egress strategies the the the end game right it's
00:20:55.740uh to make a chess metaphor right like the most number of pieces are on are on the board at the
00:21:01.680beginning the most decisive action is in the middle but the end game is often uh despite
00:21:07.760there only being sometimes you know five or six pieces on the board the end game is the by far
00:21:13.400the most important part of a chess match right and it's the same in heat yes that's exactly
00:21:19.180that's a perfect metaphor i would not have come up with that myself that's as wonderful but yes
00:21:25.420it's this um this tragedy and sense sensibility of like these characters we've seen them at their
00:21:33.400most extreme and now we're going to see them strip down to like their bare core core throughout the
00:21:40.200latter half of it and you see this rising action and this falling action that reveals the true core
00:21:46.940of the characters and what they really value and what's most essential to them and who they really
00:21:53.940really are and like it it works in heat and it works in shakespeare because the heat he has
00:22:03.820shakespeare writes tragedies and heat has if it's not a tragedy it certainly has a tragedy
00:22:10.660and sensibility and we'll get into spoilers later on in the the podcast but it has this
00:22:17.240wonderful shakespearean quality to it that you see in like no films and i'd say this is
00:22:24.380this is why um this is why this film like probably of all the films of the 90s 90s despite the 90s
00:22:34.020being like an amazing decade for phil will like stand out even amongst that that in like the scale
00:22:40.480of history um you know hundreds of years from now people will be watching heat and still puzzling
00:22:46.180over over neil macaulay and vincent hannah and the and the what ifs and the and the american
00:22:55.640tragedy of it there's there's so many wonderful noir elements in this they're like downplayed as
00:23:02.440can be but are played 100 straight straight and it like despite it being like having all the sheen
00:23:10.640of like modernity and and like realism and like this tactical logic it becomes like
00:23:17.160maybe one of the top five american noir stories ever told
00:23:22.220and it's inspiring in a way not just to gun tubers but to like the actual criminals because he
00:23:30.220is the harbinger of an era of an increasing level of violence on the world's streets
00:23:35.660Not just in like the US and Europe with, you know, highly organized cartel terror or Islamic terror, but also in East Asia.0.79
00:23:45.440If you mind me going on a minor tangent, there's an interesting story from just before the era of heat in the 1980s, where Mainlander Chinese gangsters start infiltrating the Hong Kong gang scene.0.61
00:24:00.340And before Mainlanders start showing up, Hong Kong is really not that violent. There are local triad gangsters, and these are tough guys, but they don't pull out weapons. They're not armed in the sense that they carry firearms regularly, right?0.62
00:24:17.380because Hong Kong, as part of the British Empire, is a gun control zone.
00:24:24.360But when mainlanders start showing up with Chinese copies of Tokarev 7.62mm pistols,0.95
00:24:31.280it begins an orgy of violence on Hong Kong streets
00:24:34.020where small groups of gangsters outshoot even the Hong Kong SWAT team.
00:24:40.940They end up killing several police officers, making their escape to the mainland,
00:24:44.500and then coming back again a couple years later to rob jewelry stores.
00:24:48.860And this is happening all over the world in this era,
00:24:51.240where civilians get access to increasing levels of firepower.
00:24:54.880And we wouldn't consider a 7.62 pistol to really be a lot of firepower today.
00:25:00.580But back then, this was like shooting through cover
00:25:04.600and shooting through the limited body armor of the day.
00:25:09.520And so I found that to be an interesting parallel,
00:25:11.800Because that era, the 80s and 90s, is when these well-organized groups of civilians realize that they do have an edge and have a niche where their level of organization and firepower can achieve meaningful tactical results against police forces that are not expecting it at all.
00:25:28.740yeah so obviously the the one that's the event for you listeners at home who
00:25:38.020who aren't buried in cheat lore like uh like me and every gun tuber and ipo zamata uh
00:25:48.120the famous event that's associated with heat of um life imitating art is the north hollywood
00:25:57.820shootout where where a shootout very much like the central shootout heat occurs occurs where
00:26:05.500the these two robbers fire thousands of rounds of ammunition and manage to like have firepower
00:26:13.660dominance over the entire lapd with with helicopters inbound and like swat teams to
00:26:21.000sent me on them for like 45 minutes an hour uh someone out there will have uh will have the exact
00:26:29.420timetable memorized that this is such a famous famous event and there are tons of cops and just
00:26:35.660like tactical people who who can tell you right now is 42 minutes and so many seconds or however
00:26:42.140long long it was this has been the subject of like dozens of documentaries but uh this dynamic um
00:26:48.860you see play out um canada um most people don't wouldn't think of this but uh canada
00:26:56.900throughout like the 2000s and 2010s has this recurring um uh revenge of the mad trapper
00:27:05.700style return of um these lone madmen on the prairies or the east coast or um actually the
00:27:12.660canadian parliament was stormed by lone gunman uh sometime in the 2010s i can't quite remember when
00:27:19.480it was a blink and you miss a type of event he was islamic so no one no one wanted to dwell on
00:27:25.060it too long you're talking about like the 2014 thing where um one of the uh soldiers on ceremonial0.59
00:27:31.780sentry duty gets shot yes uh the soldier on ceremonial sentry duty got shot but the gunman
00:27:38.820then stormed the parliament building and actually had like a shootout with the uh the sergeant at
00:27:45.780arms of the canadian parliament uh that it was actually although dramatic in a way that like
00:27:53.720could be from a movie that was actually the most senior person in like the canadian parliamentary
00:27:58.840security service who actually has like a a big uniform and like a ceremonial title having a
00:28:05.660shootout with a sidearm with a um with a an armed intruder who had already cut down a ceremonial
00:28:14.060guardsman but uh but you also had the mayor thorpe tragedy where four rcmp officers were cut down you
00:28:22.540also had the the moncton shooting where were several police officers were cut down i believe
00:28:30.100us three don't have that in front of you right now and you have uh this echoes throughout american
00:28:39.880society in love in some ways there were um their work criminals and um fanatics who uh
00:28:50.100went on shooting rampages against police in the 2010s uh related to black lives matter
00:28:56.620but um those remember uh the dc sniper yes the dc sniper this is it uh those two guys shut down
00:29:06.080the entire imperial capital for a month so the dc sniper is the subject of a case study in um
00:29:13.800in john west fry the brain the art of urban girl sniping which um is up on archive like as
00:29:21.800last time i checked you could get like the full version of this like of this book by an
00:29:29.020ex-special forces guy breaking down guerrilla sniper warfare play free on archive and pdf
00:29:35.020pdf but it um like he did an entire breakdown of the sniper campaign and said and basically
00:29:44.320made the argument that something like this or campaigns like this are the future of guerrilla
00:29:50.080warfare because of the effect it had. And he placed it up there with the South Armas sniper
00:29:55.560campaign or the sniper campaigns in Baghdad around the same time. I would have to say that
00:30:03.580this had a sweet spot in like the late 90s and 2000s, where a small team of well-equipped
00:30:10.500civilians with semi-automatic rifles and optics could do this and largely get away with it for a
00:30:16.460But these days, the technology available to the surveillance state at triangulating and locating these sorts of incidents and then responding with overwhelming force and precision has gotten to the level where you need a much more sophisticated actor to get away with it.
00:30:32.360You need to neutralize all of the systems that would be used to track you. You would need to jam the sensors and the UAVs that the police would deploy to follow you.
00:30:45.560it would probably take a force funded uh by a state actor these days like if two guys tried
00:30:53.920to replicate the dc sniper campaign today i would be willing that they would catch them within two
00:30:58.220to three days they would not be able to rampage around washington dc for a month uh i i disagree
00:31:06.300that um basically all the countermeasures that like a sophisticated actor would use to avoid it
00:31:14.240is like like none of those countermeasures are actually very expensive like if you gave like a
00:31:22.300a reasonably intelligent psychopath like a checklist like he could like i'm convinced
00:31:29.900that any like reasonable intelligent person could neutralize almost all all those like if they just
00:31:36.800had like a good cheat sheet of how how to do it um this is i i'm writing a piece right now
00:31:43.500run an electronic warfare attack on the cctv apparatus right you need to shut down all the
00:31:50.440cameras in the entire area no no no you don't because because basically what you have to do
00:31:57.720is you have to infiltrate and you have to exfiltrate because as long as you uh a facial
00:32:04.020recognition technology isn't that great like uh like cctv cameras are like limited to about 70
00:32:11.440thousand people they can differentiate between before they start getting lots of false positives
00:32:16.660positives which if you're wearing masks that increasing your vehicle not your face
00:32:21.460and the dc snipers were going around in their suv the whole time yeah but part of the infiltration
00:32:29.260and exfiltration would be be staging in relation to the vehicle or switching to a like secondary
00:32:35.700disposable disposable vehicle so like uh you stage from a car outside the city you using a like
00:32:44.280personal e-bike or scooter or bicycle on your way in or like it's winter now cross-country skis or
00:32:51.580something something of a sort you carry out the the operation then you exfiltrate and you do
00:33:26.120but looking forward to it but the when you contrast the the expense and complexity of the
00:33:35.460of the vast surveillance apparatus and how much effort goes into maintaining it versus like um
00:33:41.640the minutes of individual effort or like the hours of just like physically traveling that it takes to
00:33:50.780like neutralize them so like uh so like an entire like stingray uh uh a surveillance system to like
00:34:01.220be intersecting everyone's to be peeing everyone's cell phones and like keeping track of the
00:34:07.660individual identifiers of everyone's cell phones is defeated by like a 25 faraday bag
00:34:13.340it requires discipline like it requires forethought and and calculation and like
00:34:20.440knowledge of how you do it and like an intuitive understanding of like how aggressively
00:34:27.500informationally can be exploited the thing is that's free and even if you add up the hours
00:34:35.120it takes to understand it really if someone presents it to you like properly it only takes
00:34:40.000a few hours to like really get it into your head if you're an intelligent person and this is
00:34:45.360basically my art argument in the piece which now should actually head in is that that fundamentally
00:34:54.940the the panopticon surveillance apparatus is like a losing losing proposition it's because it's
00:35:03.080fundamentally defensive and and requires requires to be secure every everywhere at the same time
00:35:12.940that it can be be over that that to have it at a level of sophistication that a skilled actor or
00:35:22.680even a moderately skilled actor couldn't like short it out or like get around around it like
00:35:29.120fairly tribly with the right right sort of discipline everywhere like you're looking at
00:35:36.720a complete explosion in cost and this is the and even with things like ai or um predictive policing
00:35:46.480fundamentally those are limited by just how much information actually leaks and the amount of
00:35:53.780discipline it takes to get to what is essentially a zero or like near zero information leak
00:36:00.820operational tempo is like not extreme i will agree with you that it is possible for an extremely
00:36:09.440intelligent and extremely conscientious actor to circumvent the system given sufficient
00:36:14.680familiarity but the people who are conducting these attacks are usually much higher impulsivity
00:36:19.880guys um that don't do these things the most conscientious and most intelligent people with
00:36:25.860a specific goal in mind whether that's monetary gain or something political or ideological they
00:36:31.140realize that carrying out a mass shooting in public is not the best way to achieve their goal
00:36:35.180and they will go about their goal in a more sophisticated manner
00:36:39.140they will manipulate other actors into committing violent acts for them right like they will
00:36:44.880achieve achieve power within a you know corporate or security apparatus and then use it against1.00
00:36:52.640them the people who are actually committing these public acts of violence are almost always morons1.00
00:36:57.880this is true however there's a level of there's a level of moron where um you're still intelligent0.99
00:37:06.820enough to like get the cheat sheet version of it so like uh the luigi was like most mass shooters0.86
00:37:13.540who like write a manifesto are of like the level of intelligence that they could probably implement
00:37:20.420like 80 to 90 percent of what i'm talking about like fairly fairly easily and like largely cost
00:37:29.640free if like they had it presented to them in such a way that's like like don't that they don't have
00:37:36.800assemble their own methodology so like it's very it's very hard to be to like individually invent
00:37:44.460all these methods and like anticipate all these like obscure surveillance techniques
00:37:50.300but once someone like actually prepares it and presents it as like a standard methodology
00:37:57.040like it's infinitely replicable like uh and there are lots of examples of things like this in
00:38:03.840history where we're like uh so historically we just read the caesar's gallic wars wars
00:38:12.400in the anarcho-nofcom book club uh historically uh armies were consistently being surprised or
00:38:21.180caught unaware by like armies and forces who just show up at random moments or like just attack at
00:38:29.080like moments they wouldn't expect so like they go out to forage or they go out to meet meet an
00:38:35.060emissary and they attack at that exact moment and no one's expecting it and no one's prepared for it
00:38:39.720for it and they get overwhelmed and overrun despite having the entire army standing to
00:38:44.960to and ready for this this because they didn't have a protocol place and basically0.61
00:38:52.780outside of like the egregious third world like that largely wouldn't happen now because then0.98
00:39:00.820the over like thousands of years it's been formalized that no there are protocols for0.99
00:39:07.200this whenever you do this you do this whenever you do this you do that you have a contingency
00:39:11.660plan for this or that when you're in close contact with the enemy that that basically
00:39:16.880you're maintaining a level of preparedness at all times that like well okay so you're having like
00:39:23.660right you're not having like hours where there's no one on watch for example right okay so there
00:39:30.360are egregious instances like that but in modern and post-modern warfare right the idea of having
00:39:37.580a reconnaissance or armored cavalry screen in front of your main body to locate and fix the
00:39:44.440enemy for your main body to maneuver around that's that's been a part of doctrine you know
00:39:49.080for a century but the the armored cavalry screen itself is still expected to get into a chaotic
00:39:55.420meeting engagement with the enemy um and a lot of times this means just attacking recklessly the
00:40:00.900first enemy uh recon unit you run into in order to gain to brush past them and gain that level of
00:40:06.940visibility on the main body and you see a bit of this in ukraine where it's not like world war ii
00:40:13.560where you have like a heavy tank destroyer that posts up on a hill and has great visibility of
00:40:18.040miles around so they can engage at two kilometers away. What you see are like, you know, tanks and
00:40:22.820IFVs engaging at 30 meters because they only notice each other at 30 meters because they are
00:40:28.360taking the most circuitous like visibility covering approach possible. And so I'm sure you've seen
00:40:37.260these videos of like T-90s and Bradleys just blazing away at each other at a range where
00:40:41.720the tank commander could conceivably pop open the hatch and hit the opposing vehicle as a thrown
00:40:46.480football right like these sorts of media no i i remember seeing a video of like a lone tank
00:40:54.900like like not just within like a hundred meters or so of another tank but then within a hundred
00:41:03.160meters or so of like two or three other tanks and there's a uav operator observing this like
00:41:08.800radioing to them what's going on and the uav operator has just spotted but you're talking
00:41:14.200about the russian t-80 that engages the column of ukrainian imvs and martyrs yeah yeah and this
00:41:21.380this russian is just uh just screaming because he thinks he's like watching this guy about to die
00:41:27.940and then like because it's so unpredictable because they didn't see him either0.66
00:41:32.380it still happens and inevitably it's always some buriak who credits like war thunder for his like
00:41:39.600irl afv skills the war thunder you're changing the face of war
00:41:47.540uh changing modern intelligence and changing modern armor combat but uh getting back to
00:41:57.800heat the film we are here to discuss right gus uh the the techniques employed by the
00:42:07.840by the robbers in the film so like a they're robbing a bank without mass that's a big gap
00:42:13.820between the 90s and today where in like the 90s you could basically you could basically assume
00:42:21.220that like once you were out of the bank itself like there aren't cameras on you everywhere
00:42:25.980because cameras are expensive in the 90s 90s and there's like an intense limit to their quality
00:42:32.900they're like you're on the street there's no live feed back to some central command center
00:42:37.480yeah um so they take their math off the second they're out of the bank because they the big
00:42:43.240threat there is that they'll seem conspicuous and like an unmasked guy isn't conspicuous
00:42:48.940because that's different but a lot of the techniques they employ are like very
00:42:54.220in 10 years so one of the ones that i was like impressed by is uh neil mccauley he's being
00:43:03.300this occurs right after the diner sequence it's a bliss and you blink and you miss a thing uh this
00:43:10.060is where the uh this is where the in uh intermission is if you want to like have an intermission when
00:43:18.380you're screening this with friends that everyone can get snacks and stuff this is the perfect scene
00:43:22.020this is what i did during the the our screening is immediately after that scene uh vincent hannah
00:43:29.500goes back to to the office and then a a cop comes in and he says we lost them what do you mean you
00:43:37.360lost them uh vincent we lost them they they slipped our tail phil he says what i but i was
00:43:45.140having coffee with him 10 minutes ago. And in synchronicity, Macaulay's entire crew
00:43:53.580slipped their tails and they go into, well, where's Macaulay? And what Macaulay did was he
00:44:03.200drove his car into airport long-term parking, like right at the airport because LAPD can't
00:44:11.620overfly it and then like he booked it through the airport as if he was missing a flight
00:44:16.840hop a cab it was like like out of their downtown la before they could like like follow him through
00:44:25.200the airport and you might think modern days well they have all these networked uh security cameras
00:44:31.340there there and they have like an identifying number on the cab and they have cameras in the
00:44:36.380cab like they can follow you through that establish a perimeter like on the fly while this is happening
00:44:42.680right they'd be able to reroute security teams through the airport once that becomes a possibility
00:44:47.640where the initial containment perimeter is breached no he's just under surveillance at this
00:44:52.880point he's not a fugitive all right i'm saying like today like if he was a fugitive this is
00:44:58.200something that could easily be done but just him under surveillance hour today this would work
00:45:04.220because even if they like managed to get to his um even if they managed to get to the security
00:45:12.760system and follow him and get the cab number by the time they've done all that he's out of the
00:45:18.380cab and he's like going through zigzag formations down like um la downtown like alleys and stuff
00:45:26.740and like going through lethal residential neighborhoods and then like gets another cab
00:45:30.900and then, like, goes through a mall and then gets another cab that basically the amount of manpower you'd need to surveil this one guy with, like, this is, you know, airport long-term Harkin plus a cab plus another cab.
00:45:52.460You know, this is this cost him like one hundred, two hundred bucks in modern dollars.
00:45:58.840And you've increased the amount of surveillance, real time emergency level, like on the fly surveillance.
00:46:09.420So if you were like a terrorist who just pulled off like a bombing, but if you are just merely a suspected criminal under surveillance, those resources just don't exist.
00:46:19.680yeah so if you're an active fugitive like uh you have to be like you'd have to be like booking it
00:46:28.240like diving over fences and stuff and like and like maybe you get a you get a cat at some point
00:46:37.440where you think you're like 10-15 minutes ahead of them yeah be out of that cat within like within
00:46:43.840like 10 to 20 minutes because as soon as because there's a very good chance they're gonna like
00:46:49.980zero in on that cab and they would like be able to pull over that cab unless you're like already
00:46:55.220out of there moving again like if you're actually on the run run and they like head you yeah it'd
00:47:02.380be an entirely different different game like if they're that close behind you but just for
00:47:09.220surveillance purposes this would work today and there's a lot of comparable stuff that you see
00:47:14.940them employ where it's like there's like those old school ops techniques and those ways of like
00:47:20.760breaking surveillance um uh in a lot of cities in like the north so like frano montreal
00:47:28.200nyc boston boston chicago like um in the downtown core of cities they have like these tunnel
00:47:37.360networks between office buildings and and shopping centers because it gets too cold to go outside
00:47:44.260side during the day or like you don't want to go out in minus 30 if you're like a wealthy office
00:47:52.700person on your lunch break and those are hooked up to um those are hooked up to like like subway
00:48:00.540stations train stations whatnot like you can you can hop up your cap go through this go to the
00:48:07.920subway go to another subway station on these networks networks run across the network and
00:48:16.200it's like yeah they'll see what you're doing if they manage to like pull the cctv footage after
00:48:23.020which is like yes it's all in a centralized um digital location but they're gonna do that within
00:48:28.700like the 20 minutes that you're like breaking the surveillance chain and then you like and then like
00:48:35.200you get up on the street or you get in the subway and like go to another stop and then
00:48:40.360redirect your leafy neighborhood and you've broken the surveillance so the leafy neighborhood is no
00:48:46.860comfort right because you're familiar with like the ring camera that like people buy to
00:48:52.340to surveil like porch pirates well a lot of major cities have protocols where if there is an active
00:48:59.320chase going on the footage from like random suburban you know housewives ring cameras can
00:49:06.340be uh fed to a central processing hub in real time to observe someone's progress as they're
00:49:13.180running through you know some leafy green suburban neighborhood this is no comfort
00:49:16.980and these things these ring cameras are ubiquitous link that to me because i would assume that most
00:49:28.320that um basically most of us for the purpose of identification are not are not going to be
00:49:37.580strong enough to like pick a guy up from the other side of the street like you're not going
00:49:42.260to be able to do like facial recognition or anything of the sort from the other side of the
00:49:46.060street it's actually they're pointed down at the porch porch like the other side of the street you
00:49:54.760might it not might not be able to pick out your face but if it sees someone you know wearing your
00:49:59.480color of coat with your build run through the neighborhood it will tip off an act of police
00:50:04.920pursuit uh i i'm deeply suspicious of that and you gotta remember that that all these is like
00:50:16.400not automatic like you still largely have a person at the office going through the footage
00:50:23.360and like manually tracking it that was true as as recent as like five years ago but like
00:50:28.740there's a reason why like palantir is valued at what it is because like security focused ai
00:50:34.620companies are working on making this a reality yeah they're working on it but to what extent
00:50:41.120are they just bilking money from the from the government and to what extent does it actually
00:50:46.020work because i'm i've seen the false positive numbers that they get and it's very very easy0.99
00:50:54.500to overstate this like like dumb black people get away with crime all the time all right but the0.98
00:51:00.820amount of police resources focused on them are comparatively minimal for you know low-end street1.00
00:51:07.640crime if you are a someone who has done what neil macaulay has done right and shot 20 cops in la
00:51:13.820all of the resources of the law will be focused on you so like my contention is if luigi maggione
00:51:22.700had done had done this he would have probably gone away with it because the way he was tracked
00:51:29.480is basically he went directly from his hotel to the crime scene and directly from the crime scene
00:51:36.480to the George Washington Bridge bus terminal and that's how he they managed to get him to Altoona
00:51:42.840where um McDonald's used its facial recognition software on a population of like fewer than a
00:51:48.580hundred thousand and like picked him out out if yeah i thought i saw like a take that if he had
00:51:56.820bounced around manhattan for a while like went to brooklyn or something or queens and then got out
00:52:02.680he might and maybe wore like a latex mask or something to throw off the initial facial
00:52:08.160recognition he might have been able to to book it for another week or two the initial facial
00:52:14.240recognition my impression is even that didn't get him because the thing is they have all this
00:52:20.360facial recognition right and they do not get get luigi magione's name out to the public
00:52:30.180at any any point in that five-day search like if they had him down to a name and let's say he
00:52:36.080killed another ceo like that's a lawsuit immediately like that'll destroy careers if they
00:52:41.940if it comes out they had his identity and he killed killed again and killed like a multi-millionaire
00:52:48.940like that's that scandal of the century if they had gotten him like like they had his face if
00:52:56.040they'd taken his face and like railed to match it to a social media profile they would have they
00:53:02.120would have released it the thing is they they didn't and that tells me that that basically the
00:53:39.640bikes out to brooklyn bounces around like through those leafy neighborhoods neighborhoods gets a
00:53:48.740subway to queen gets a cab from queens to like up to like the the bronx gets it bounce around the
00:53:58.100bronx burns eight hours in like a burns eight hours like a mom and pop uh a cafe that like
00:54:09.620doesn't have a network camera basically at that point the set of people you have to search through
00:54:17.840through who have like gone through the new york metro area because that's like a massive circle
00:54:22.540around the initial crime scene is 10 million plus people people and he wore a mask from
00:54:29.420most of it so like the amount of differentiation it can do of just his eyebrows are like maybe a few
00:54:36.500few thousand at that point he'd probably be out he'd almost certainly be out he'd be cutting down
00:54:43.360his chance of being caught by like 99 like there's still a chance that they'd that like the most
00:54:51.400astute people would get him or like he he breaks discipline in like in like something with how he
00:55:00.020extracts via the bus station like the bus station is a major choke point but but doing all that
00:55:06.720like um surveillance isn't surveillance and evidence isn't like a um yes no it's a it's a
00:55:18.140series of cascading failures like it's like it's like hygiene in a surgery like yes right like um
00:55:25.260I get what you're trying to say here. There is a level of action that you can take to increase your probability of getting over those first few most critical hurdles until you're not completely scot-free, but the amount of effort necessary to set up a perimeter is prohibitive, even for the NYPD.
00:55:44.040like um if you're performing surgery and you wash your and you like fail to wash your hands
00:55:51.080that guy's getting infected but you wash your hands you doesn't disinfect you wear a surgical
00:55:56.380mask you spray down with disinfectant you give them antibiotics at the end of it yeah there's
00:56:02.860still a chance that like a stray particle of like necrotizing fasciitis will get in it and like
00:56:07.980turn the guy into soup but like but like the odds of like this cascading
00:56:15.720gaining failure happening in spite of all these intercessions like um the difference in risk
00:56:22.000between like an unsanitized surgery versus like a modern sanitized surgical surgical operating
00:56:29.140theater is like miles and miles apart and the biggest impact things like the biggest impact
00:56:37.240things that immediately like cut the odds of a catastrophic infection down by like 40 50 percent
00:56:45.020is like washing your your hands like sure you like we would not accept just like oh i washed
00:56:52.820my hands now i'm gonna like 80 of the gains was like 20 of the effort yeah so like the difference
00:57:00.200between like like a battlefield surgery on like a ship in like 1812 versus like a modern theater
00:57:09.520surgery like like you die of an infection in both settings but like the slightest intervention
00:57:16.240but like people did survive those battlefield surgeries in 1812 and and the odds of like a
00:57:24.060catastrophic infection or catastrophic failure with the minorist interventions decrease it
00:57:30.200radically remember the uh homicide clearance rates total in the u.s have been going down for
00:57:38.220like 50 years yes here's like it's true but the majority of homicides committed the police
00:57:45.960genuinely don't care about and you know what demographic we're talking about yeah i i'm
00:57:52.820which i always find offensive because it's like okay even if you don't care about the victim like
00:57:59.440screw them that's still like a violent thug out on the street like you should care that there's
00:58:04.060enough like you think oh it's a dead thug i'm glad he's dead you should think yes but there's1.00
00:58:09.020another thug out there that you can also destroy the life of like this isn't that assumes that the
00:58:16.060police trust the district prosecutor to destroy the life of the second thug who is often a minor
00:58:21.640right right but homicide homicide even if they like the district prosecutor tries to like
00:58:32.500whittle it down to like 13 years that's still 13 years of a murderer who's not on the street
00:58:38.200that seems very very worth it especially since apparently it's easing with all this
00:58:43.740normal like homicide you might expect the community to collaborate with the police in
00:58:50.600tracking down the killer right when you get witness testimony you can even if the witness
00:58:55.720testimony memory is not accurate which it usually isn't you can usually trust them to make a good
00:59:00.880face effort to help them help uh you the policeman uh the detective catch whoever did the killing
00:59:07.460with a certain type of demographic and neighborhood in in the united states you often get massive
00:59:14.740stonewalling and no help whatsoever from the local community yeah but in that scenario you
00:59:21.420you it is very difficult to yeah but that doesn't matter for any of these
00:59:27.800that doesn't matter for any of these high level crimes though because like
00:59:32.020there isn't a community to report on neil mcculley there isn't a community to report on neil mcculley
00:59:40.000stuff you know he's operating across such a vast theater of crime um uh the real life neil macaulay
00:59:47.480actually moved to chicago cago because he thought it would be a better setting for his crime like
00:59:55.200he was completely divorced from the that community this is the guy in the 60s right i mean the real
01:00:00.740one died at the scene of the crime right like the the detective uh adamson he literally just
01:00:06.400pursued macaulay through a through a neighborhood then shot him in the back six times and it was
01:00:11.820over yes exactly no it's uh like like and my impression is if you do my impression having like
01:00:24.360assess this blank was is if you do like a lot of this basic hygiene stuff and you like maintain
01:51:59.860equivalent like you have to do a ton of stuff after this to get beyond beyond it is as well
01:52:06.680that like you do have to pull out all the stops for like really informational discipline and stuff
01:52:12.820but like even then hey like basic footwork at that's a lot and uh so there's one other scenario
01:52:22.980where you can get into extremely high-intensity urban combat
01:52:27.560and not have to do any of these things to cover your tracks
01:52:32.840because if you are with a sufficiently large group of armed men,
01:52:38.500you often have the leverage to just negotiate with the government
01:52:42.180in some third world regime to give you full amnesty
01:52:45.320so they don't have to destroy half the urban core to get you out.
01:52:48.640And so this is what happened in the 1989 Philippine coup d'etat attempt
01:52:52.220where, like, Philippine Marine Rangers, like, attacked central Manila and were fighting a fierce gun battle supported by, you know, howitzer-armed landing vehicles and T-28 aircraft.
01:53:03.540And when the coup failed to secure the presidential palace and arrest President Corazon Aquino,
01:53:10.780the entire battalion of, like, rangers in central Manila negotiated total amnesty
01:53:18.240because otherwise the army would have to destroy half the city to to beat them out so they were
01:53:24.220able to walk away scot uh scot free just like a you know like a 16th century garrison you know
01:53:30.360parading out with all of their flags and honors yeah no um you see this in like tons of coup
01:53:39.040attempts in history where there are these negotiated ends or like shockingly generous
01:53:45.000terms given these people uh you see this with a lot of different terrorist movements so like the
01:53:50.700FLQ in Quebec in like Canada in the 70s uh a bunch of them got um negotiated terms that they
01:54:00.740were able to like board a flight to Cuba and I think some of them were like emceed in the 2000s
01:54:06.780uh uh obviously like all the american deserters who like who fled the country like they got
01:54:17.180amnesty within like four years like there's a shocking number of like like things you think
01:54:22.760would be damning and ruin your life that like no no you're gonna as long as you like don't get
01:54:28.080caught or like manage to negotiate something like you'll get amnestied in like 10 years because
01:54:33.520it'll be politically inconvenient for you to be feel like track down like or or like a regime
01:54:40.840that's like somewhat sympathetic to your movement will take power yeah exactly which like we saw
01:54:46.980what happened to the january 6th guys right i mean yeah we saw what happened to january 6th guys we
01:54:53.300saw what happened to ross ulbricht which like i never would have expected that ulbricht would be
01:54:58.360free in 10 years really because the prediction markets were saying 70 plus that trump would
01:55:03.020amnesty him like you know even several months ago yeah several months ago but if i if we go back
01:55:08.120like five five years or so like trump didn't pardon him the first time so like most people
01:55:14.100like you know as recently as like 2020 politician right like he knew that doing this would gain him
01:55:22.340sympathy among you know libertarian types so yeah no like by by the time we know trump is running
01:55:28.600again again and like the lay of the land of 2024 it becomes vastly more likely but if you're like
01:55:34.920if you're like projecting it from like 2018 by one of the odds at that time that being said i saw a
01:55:45.780fairly funny meme about this uh trump sentences man to 20 years of libertarian podcast appearances
01:55:50.780uh and here we didn't even commit a crime
01:55:55.600and if you could get uh ross olbrecht on this show that might be interesting
01:56:00.420oh i i would love to have ross olbrecht on the show i haven't i haven't seen him appear on like
01:56:06.400hardly anything so i think he's just like decompressing which like totally understand
01:56:12.580i would do yeah yeah no uh going through 10 missed years going back to all those reddit
01:56:22.200postsiness but uh out of everything to catch up on reddit no no no this is the thing because
01:56:29.840in 2015 like like when he went away reddit was still like like heckies and stuff right
01:56:37.860back when reddit thought ron paul was cool yeah yeah i remember like like in 2018 2019 all these
01:56:47.520like arrested bitcoin guys who were like getting out in a few years they're being interviewed oh
01:56:53.740what did you miss most yeah i couldn't like follow anything that was happening in the space because
01:56:59.080i didn't have access to reddit or like i got a smuggled cell phone at one point and the first
01:57:03.300thing i did was check reddit it's like wow like you like even at the time they're saying this
01:57:09.760it was like reddit isn't that anymore more like reddit isn't like like nerdy libertarians and
01:57:16.340anymore and bitcoin people like big public forums on the internet being places where you can
01:57:21.220coordinate with like-minded people is slowly dying it's all private groups now the internet
01:57:25.480is breaking up into small cells like i don't know your discord slav war telegrams that sort
01:57:31.580of thing oh yeah oh yeah no dark force steering action but uh there really are super predators
01:57:40.400out there yes exactly exactly but um but no like uh if you if you manage to get away and like
01:57:52.600or or get into a position where you can negotiate you're probably fine unless like you you're really
01:58:01.000bad at the negotiation like for gozen like uh the fact that he didn't want to be extradited to
01:58:07.600a third country after like trying to launch a coup against the russian government that he thought he
01:58:15.200could stay within russia he thought he could control the narrative and present it as a military
01:58:21.200mutiny for better conditions rather than a coup attempt but and and he has a point in the sense
01:58:26.420that most historical 20th century military
01:58:53.440Well, the Royal Navy, the Great Mutiny, they negotiated it out, which, like, you think if any institution in history was, like, never negotiate with mutineers or would, like, hunt them to the end of the earth, it would be the Royal Navy.
01:59:09.960So they hunt the mutineers to the end of the earth if the mutineers kill their captains?
02:07:44.020I can tell you stuff about, like, getting out of handcuffs and whatnot, but, oh, Lock, Safe, and Security, an international police reference, second edition, and the classified government edition that's used by intel agencies and, like, Interpol and the place that includes a lot of, like, the hidden details is actually has leaked online.
02:08:14.020It's by Mark Webber Tobias, Entry 42 on the Warlord's Reading List.
02:08:20.560And they have pages that go into exactly the techniques.
02:08:25.860They don't use heat as a case study, but all the techniques used in heat are right out of that book,
02:08:33.660like how they're using the drill to get into the precious metals depository.
02:08:37.540And the discipline exercise that, um, apparently, so the parable of the precious male's depository robbery is they use all these advanced techniques.
02:09:58.400This happened with the IRL, Neil Macaulay, too. One of his previous heists before his final shootout did end prematurely because of the exact same failed police ambush.
02:10:12.860yes if i remember the story that i that i heard it was that um they're breaking in
02:10:20.800into a safe and above them in the apartment above them uh uh was the police stakeout like
02:10:31.720listening to them and watching them and one of the cops up there bumped them and the real life
02:10:38.060neil macaulay in the 1960s as this criminal that like uh this cop was really taken taken with and
02:10:45.320actually decided to go get coffee with and that like inspired michael mint the real life neil
02:10:50.900macaulay abandoned everything just like um al pacino in the middle of in the middle of the
02:10:57.140precious mill depository heist and told all these guys no we're leaving we're getting out we're
02:11:01.880getting out and the real and the real life cop just like detective hannah tells all the all the
02:11:10.360cops that no we are not arresting these guys on breaking and entering that won't that won't stick
02:11:16.640you know because breaking in in and even like damaging the safe like uh there there isn't a
02:11:26.160crime of attempted robbery like there's a crime of attempted murder murder like trespassing or
02:11:32.780whatever but it's not the same yeah and it's destruction of property like they're damaging
02:11:37.560the safe but until they've actually stolen it it's um you know robbery and theft is a crime of value
02:11:47.840like if you threaten someone you can get them on threatening them but uh theft is only um
02:13:42.660employ this many advanced techniques in concert
02:13:45.780except for like luigi maggione who did like have like several impressive like very modern uh
02:13:54.920offset techniques like you can find the ghost gun with the mask which is like a post 2020 thing that
02:14:02.780you can just like walk around north america with a mask over over your face and you can bind it
02:14:08.260with like fake ids uh preloaded burner credit cards preloaded burner cell phone uh which i
02:14:15.280suspect the burner cell phone even though they couldn't like pull up his id i suspect he was
02:14:20.660still being tracked by it because that's pinging and and even if it's like not tied to your um
02:14:27.180your personal name and financial information still has a unique identifying number
02:14:31.880number even if it's like a an anonymous number that if it's paying off like the new york city
02:14:39.340stingray system and like play all the cell phone towers like they have that and they can
02:14:44.820vaguely track its position like try to narrow it narrow it down like even but uh like aside from
02:14:53.420like these really famous cases you almost never see all those modern techniques be employed
02:14:59.760like consistently together which is like
02:15:04.020like actually a shame because it's well i a shame from my perspective of like like wanting to see
02:15:13.980cool shit because because like a lot of this stuff like actually doesn't take an extraordinary
02:15:21.040extraordinary amount of research to like like develop an advanced technique and then to develop0.98
02:15:26.920another and then to develop another like compared to the amount of time that is like
02:15:30.980exerted in a lot of this stuff like doing it well is not it's not an incredible barrier
02:15:37.020but um like uh just just going back to the point that we talked about a bunch of times
02:15:46.660um the level it depends on the level of heat that's on you and the amount of effort commensurate
02:15:52.600to that level of heat and whether you have that code of honor to escalate by doing things like
02:15:59.080you know liquidating a member of your gang that that broke it yeah so so macaulay's decision to
02:16:07.000go back for Wayne Grove um the thing is the thing with this is it's almost certainly the right call
02:16:15.160at any other point in his career so so right at the end when he's getting out like um he should
02:16:24.880be able to abandon loose ends like that like um like from a purely calculating strategic perspective
02:16:33.200right at the end when he's like hanging up for good like he can leave a loose end of like revenge
02:16:38.700that he didn't didn't get but at any other point in his career like um you see the same like
02:16:45.820like terror movements like northern ireland where like um for like the ira or the loyalists
02:16:52.440like the most aggressive amount of violence they employ like is against their own people
02:16:58.980uh so like when the ira would like kneecap people it was never it was almost never like the ira
02:17:06.380kneecapping like uh a protestant or like a member of a loyalist paramilitary like that did happen
02:17:13.420but like the vast vast majority of like this horrific violence of like howard girls being
02:17:18.720applied to knees is like someone who like collaborated with the police or someone who like
02:17:24.640um tried to betray them and like um and like and like violate their code or like um the ira would
02:17:34.520famously like kneecap people for like robbery and joyriding in like catholic arians areas and
02:17:42.280the reason they did that is because like the first thing you have to establish when you're creating
02:17:47.240like a little sovereign entity of um people who are committing violence is you have to like very
02:17:53.640plainly establish that that no no no the authority of this like little entity entity this gang this
02:18:02.460um terror movement this outfit okay yeah you have to establish the internal discipline but you have
02:18:11.400to establish it ruthlessly enough that it overrides the external discipline of the law
02:18:16.100like you have to be exercising enough violence internally that that overwhelms like the
02:18:22.580calculations of well this will break the law this exposes me to this this exposes me to that
02:18:27.460no no no no no the law is like the king is far away the emperor is far away and the hills are
02:18:35.240very very high and you're worried about the other members of your gang and like obeying the code of
02:18:41.420this this world and that requires extraordinary violence you see this um you see this even in
02:18:48.320like military outfits that um it's a common trend in like uh east asia in the 20th century when you
02:18:54.200have these communist movements trying to take over their countries that they gain so much support
02:18:59.320from the peasantry because the communist movements are willing to to discipline their own members when
02:19:04.620they steal from the peasants right like Mao Zedong uh had like three rules obey orders and all of
02:19:10.560your actions do not take anything from the peasants and then turn in everything captured
02:19:14.920So it can be redistributed. And he enforced this with absolute amounts of intensity.
02:19:22.220And so if you are a peasant in Jiangsu province in China in like, you know, 1936, and the warlord troops associated with the so-called legitimate nationalist government are constantly looting and stealing and, you know, raping people, and the communists are not, it becomes very obvious who to support.0.64
02:19:41.180And this is how they build this massive support from the peasantry in order to take over the country.
02:19:47.740And following on from this, like communist movements in Korea, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, at the beginning of their underground phase, they would follow the exact same pattern.
02:19:59.540Massive internal discipline in order to gain the support of the peasants to form a base area to operate against the central government.
02:20:05.940because the central government is incapable of dictating the same level of discipline
02:20:09.920because they just don't have that level of cohesion.
02:20:12.840They don't have that level of control over their own backers.
02:20:15.120The warlords pledged to them and the gangs of thugs that call themselves troops.
02:20:22.920Now, Mao Zedong has an amazing quote that
02:20:28.240guerrilla warfare cannot succeed without the support of the populace.
02:20:32.900and the most effective way to gain the support of pocket of the populace is via terrorism
02:20:38.500and terrorism against those that are perceived to be the oppressor
02:20:43.280the most no no no no yeah i remember this is 1950 this isn't terrorism in like the 2000s sense of
02:20:51.700like like random violence against the civilian populace this is terrorism in terms of like
02:20:58.080the 1790s sense of like revolutionary terror that the most effective way to gain the support
02:21:06.340of the populace is violence not against the regime but against the people such that they
02:21:12.980fear the communists more more than they fear the regime that the the order of the communists
02:21:48.700but fairness in a way that the peasant cannot expect from the so-called legitimate regime0.95
02:21:55.780yeah the the rules are incredibly strict but they are incredibly consistent
02:22:02.020which is like which is like um the the main thing of like hearts and minds people think it's like
02:22:10.680an ideology oh you have to persuade the local populace no no no no you have to make them
02:22:16.400feel your rules and your presence more than the other guy and you have to to make the signal of
02:22:24.460your message that's being communicated by your your rule and your laws and your code0.52
02:22:29.980a more powerful signal than the other guys and like that's how the taliban beat the u.s like
02:22:36.800only a few years ago right like in the areas of the taliban control they were able to enforce a
02:22:42.500fairly rigid system but consistent system of sharia law that could adjudicate local disputes
02:22:48.480in a way that you know local pashtun tribes could understand and predict and this made them
02:22:54.980legitimate to these people in a way that administration or whatever could never be
02:23:01.100did you ever hear the story of um of the taliban's land registry system
02:23:08.380uh i i have but um let's talk about it anyway for the benefit of the viewer all right so
02:23:17.820so if you are like a business person in afghanistan throughout the u.s occupation
02:23:23.820and like the karzai government uh basically at any moment your title to your land can be taken
02:23:32.620from you by any one of these like warlords thugs gangs that have like some influence in the
02:23:37.640government and like uh a lot of these warlords were receiving liberal like um like plastic bins
02:23:47.240like you'd use to move into like a university dorm they were receiving those bins filled with
02:23:54.020cash that are being flowed out to them by by uh the cia and stuff and yet in spite of receiving
02:24:00.300that money they were corrupt as hell and this is how they how they fund themselves and they would
02:24:06.840just steal land from people like if you were operating a shop in the city and like owned your0.60
02:24:14.440business they come and say no you don't own that you're paying rent to us or no you don't own that
02:24:19.940we're kicking you out and and my buddy's setting up the coffee shop now and you could do nothing
02:24:27.000because they they'd shoot you if you're resisted too aggressively but like they probably didn't
02:24:33.620even have to shoot you because the cops would enforce their title title to it with like a bribe
02:24:40.140which is this is how like most of the third wall operates like in india um people the first thing
02:24:47.460you do if you buy land in india is you build a massive like 10 foot high wall around your
02:24:53.560property because otherwise your neighbor will build the wall around their property and put it
02:24:59.040like, an extra five feet into your property, and you're never getting that five feet back.
02:25:04.100Like, you'd have to, like, fight to the courts through, like, these corrupt courts,
02:25:09.640bribing your own lawyer, bribing their lawyer, bribing the judge, bribing the bailiff,
02:25:14.740bribing the cop who has to enforce the court, or at the end of it,
02:25:18.680all, and at the end of it, you'd be spending more money than the land itself is worth.
02:25:22.660uh so this is like the system that predominated in af afghanistan like even worse where people
02:25:29.560would just come and steal like your title to your land like by brute force and what the taliban did0.67
02:25:36.320is they started maintaining their own registry of all the lands in the regions they're like trying0.79
02:25:42.440to take over and so anything like this happened sure you could try to fight through like the
02:25:50.520karzai government's courts or you could complain to the americans americans and like have to and
02:25:56.740get brushed off or have to pay like thousands of dollars in bribes to like fight for this like
02:26:02.420piece of land that's worth six hundred dollars or you could go to the taliban and they do it for
02:26:08.420free and they maintain it got to the point that the taliban had the most complete record of all
02:26:15.940the lands in afghanistan and would like completely enforce it for free but as soon as that's the
02:26:24.360case soon as like you're depending on the taliban for that you're depending on the taliban for
02:26:28.760everything like you're like like you need the taliban to to win or you're losing your property
02:26:35.720are you or like um so the taliban won't french is your connection to them as a parallel government
02:26:41.920Right. And like Taliban, like is Pashto for like students. Right. Like in Afghanistan, the Taliban are perceived as the intellectuals, as the people with the state capacity to centralize, not necessarily modernize, but to rule the country under a consistent value system that like the Northern Alliance Coalition can never maintain.
02:27:04.180Yeah, they're perceived as like highly idealistic, idealistic and like principled.
02:27:08.960right and it's genuinely an elite human capital movement in the sense that the
02:27:13.700senior taliban leader are highly studied people people have spent most of their life schooling
02:27:18.800in islamic law which has had thousands of years to work out uh the you know the sort of edge cases
02:27:25.740that might arise in this part of the world yeah and it's not it it's not like um western law
02:27:34.260where like if you meet a constitutional lawyer you're sit 90 nine times out of 10 you're meeting
02:27:40.840someone whose job it is to undermine your constitutional rights but if you meet a
02:27:45.300constitutional lawyer nine times out of 10 that person is like part of advocacy groups who are
02:27:51.100like could not be more hostile to the original vision of the founder and could not be more
02:27:56.260hostile to like your property rights and and like the processes as it's supposed to work
02:28:30.080previously assumed protections but the the taliban are genuine fundamentalists1.00
02:28:34.320from like the 600s right like these these people
02:28:37.640take every word literally imagine if america had a had a scholarly movement that wanted to
02:28:48.560enforce the original founder's vision of the constitution with the power of life and death
02:28:53.300yeah what the tea party it's like a dreamt of true right the tea party larped at this but they
02:29:02.160could never aspire to taking it as seriously as the taliban did ah american needs it american0.74
02:29:07.840needs it yeah yeah admire them yeah admire yeah admire anyone who who will control the street
02:29:15.420on rollerblades right like there's a reason why they were able to defeat an enemy that outspent
02:29:20.080them a hundred and a hundred thousand to one probably the most lopsided spending to outcome
02:29:26.440ratio in human history yeah no it's a it's a truly extraordinary case study and the fact that like1.00
02:29:35.080like uh the average american still treats the the taliban is like uh these idiots in caves
02:29:43.300as opposed to like this very coherent, like, like philosophical ethos and like very powerful, powerful intellectual movement is like really a tragedy of the American imagination.0.89
02:29:58.520You slightly overestimate the Taliban as well, because the Taliban have also today, you know, they've won, but they're still not really that in control of like half the country.
02:30:11.360They have nominal control, but they're unable to make certain local power brokers that flipped to the Taliban side completely comply with their vision of how to run the country.
02:30:22.900And that's okay, because it's almost a feudal system where there's an oath, a bond between the ruler and the vassal, in which the vassal does have some leeway to run his territory as he sees fit in return for flipping in the first place.
02:30:42.500but um it's not this monolithic block that uh certain folks on the right like to like to say
02:30:51.380that the taliban is it is still a very messed up country yeah no the the strength of the taliban
02:30:58.580was not like any like technological or military reality and not even like an organizational0.74
02:31:05.300reality it was like a a strength of their ethos which like is very threatening to like like most
02:31:15.500westerns to admit that like like uh they won because they're like more committed to their
02:31:21.360morality and like like believed it whereas like none of the people they were fighting against
02:31:26.900did believe it they simply cared more about victory yes that they were and they won through
02:31:33.860the power of friendship and will this only works against an empire that really doesn't care though
02:31:42.440it would not have worked against caesar it would not have worked against caesar but caesar did
02:31:49.000did care and like caesar is very much the exception where he was one man whose will like
02:31:55.740like moved the wheel of history you know he was one man who's like will was so powerful
02:32:02.320It would not have worked against any Roman because any Roman would have just sold every would have just killed like the adult fighting male population and then sold everyone else into slavery.
02:32:13.260rome does struggle with a lot of different stuff like this like they were they were struggling0.71
02:32:20.900against the judeans for like years until like emperor hadrian uh settled it and then they
02:32:27.900were struggling against the the germans and like various various other factual powers for like
02:32:34.780centuries after that uh the germans are able to get battles against against rome on many and
02:32:42.160many an occasion right like you you have to be able to generate that amount of combat power
02:32:46.740right right no but uh but like you see similar stuff in like the the revolution in russia you
02:32:59.600see similar stuff in are you familiar with the revolutions in like the 1920s and 1930s in central
02:33:06.520asia like right next to afghanistan where muslim tribesmen rise up against the new soviet power
02:33:12.960and are absolutely crushed right yeah it's a i think enver pasha out of all people like dies
02:33:22.800leading the bazmachi revolt oh i am unfamiliar with this one entirely i don't i don't know
02:33:30.140central asian history that well you are the you are the universal expert oh no okay so
02:33:36.120uh so between like the end of the russian civil war in the 1930s and like what what russia calls
02:33:42.800like turkestan but today we uh this is like most of like central asia between like um kazakhstan
02:33:50.060uzbekistan turkestan um and so the during the russian civil war you have autonomous turkestani
02:33:59.260Muslim political movements that create a sort of like pseudo-sovereign state, and they massacre
02:34:06.240Russians and Bolshevik supporters. But when the Reds gain control of Russia itself, they turn0.87
02:34:14.920their attention onto Central Asia and deploy fairly significant forces to just absolutely crush these0.68
02:34:20.800people. The Turkestani resistance was not really fighting a guerrilla war in the sense of
02:34:31.600Afghanistan today. They were fighting in a more conventional sense. And they were actually led
02:34:37.100by Enver Pasha, the former minister of war of the Ottoman Empire, and one of the key architects
02:34:42.280of the Armenian genocide. So he arrives in Bukhara. He says that he's going to join the
02:34:48.560soviet army to to assist in putting down this rebellion then he defects immediately to the0.92
02:34:55.780to the muslims um he calls for jihad assembles a fairly sizable army but uh the soviets just
02:35:04.740end up committing so many reinforcements into the region um securing all the major urban centers
02:35:10.120interning hostile populations and by the 1930s the central asia is largely pacified
02:54:46.860like yes exactly so so basically if your cell phone in any way chip or form can transmit as
02:54:56.660a signal or if it goes back on wi-fi or what it will do is you turn the off airplane mode
02:55:03.760mode the first packet it sends is all the gps locations you had um wherever you you were while
02:55:14.200on airplane mode so like there's no there's no magical off switch that turns off gps
02:55:20.160gps tracking if you want to use like a cell phone for gps in like an ops operationally secure
02:55:28.200environment but you have to use you have to disable those receivers sorry not the receivers
02:55:33.300you have to disable the like transmitters and then you have to like destroy the cell phone at
02:55:38.740the end of it because as soon as it touches the internet that packet is going to google with all
02:55:43.580the gps location on it like you cannot use you basically cannot have an operational like
02:55:50.880like cell phone with like your ballistic application and your gps and your gps on there
02:55:58.980and like any other applications you want and then use it as like a cell phone or device ever again
02:56:04.160because all that information is going out in a second completely compromised right like burners
02:56:09.180exist for a reason yeah you have to you have to burn that that device at the end of the operation
02:56:16.480so that that packet of information dies on the device but um but if you
02:56:24.880but basically if you like keep a cell phone like like a hot swapable well batteries so that it's
02:56:35.760never powered or like keep it in a faraday bag like a faraday bag blocks it from even receiving
02:56:42.020the gps information so theoretically if it's like turned off or or battery out in a faraday bag
02:56:49.640uh that is a complete black box from when it enters the faraday bag to when it leaves it
02:56:56.180like um it'll appear again on whatever systems it goes on the second it comes out of the faraday
02:57:05.740bag and pings them again but the intermittent time it doesn't even know where it is
02:57:10.860oh okay so a faraday cage is a solution used by an individual or organization that does not
02:57:20.780have actual root control over their electronics ideally you bring something relatively primitive
02:57:26.760that you actually have control over uh yeah so that would be the the ideal situation
02:57:35.580If you have, like, true root control, however, it's always questionable, like, whether even if you do, that there haven't been, like, backdoors installed in some of the software that you use.
02:57:53.880So there were, there have been like various attacks on like Russian or Ukrainian positions based off of, as far as I know, like software compromises that, that on the, on paper, they had gone through and like removed various access points, but it had been compromised some other way along the, along the line.
02:58:21.020oh right like these zero day hacks that have been built in from the very beginning just waiting to
02:58:26.960be activated by a security service yeah which is why like i'm assuming that like even like
02:58:34.680like even a very sophisticated person listening to this podcast like uh like you know if you're
02:58:42.420like actually special forces listening to this podcast like if you actually like went through
02:58:47.400green beret school and you want to like operate on your own like like you're going row you're
02:58:54.120you want to expose the secrets of metal gear you know you're probably not a genius
02:59:00.400genius hacker or like have access to one who can like who could like make it truly secure
02:59:06.980or and even then like they might get zero date so what i'm proposing is instead of a hacker it's
02:59:13.720about the or it's it's about control on a national level right you need in you need a tech ecosystem
02:59:20.780on the scale of like the u.s software industry or the chinese software industry to create so what
02:59:27.940you do if you don't so what you do if you don't have that is you is you hard solve that problem
02:59:38.340by controlling, by fully controlling, like, the electronic emissions
02:59:43.760and, like, the physical limitations of the device.
02:59:47.620So it's not, oh, I'm trusting the software.
02:59:49.920It's, no, I have physically disabled the hardware that would allow it to transmit it.
02:59:56.300So as soon as, like, the mapping software, the ballistics calculator,
03:00:03.700the whatever the um you know the often it is often it is about just confiscating the phones
03:00:13.160because what you saw in like the opening scale the opening days of like the russia ukraine war
03:00:18.380is that like soldiers would take selfies of themselves in their unit like training in like
03:00:23.160the gym of some school that was commandeered and then 15 minutes later the building would be hit by0.98
03:00:56.480like even even like marines in afghanistan when their radios didn't work would fall back to the
03:01:03.520afghani flight salsas system and and you need like the saturated like you basically want a like
03:01:14.520gps unit ballistic calculator all this stuff which is ruinously expensive if you're not doing
03:01:20.600if you're if you don't have the budget to like buy these all separate as like dedicated devices
03:01:27.160so by hard disabling the self the receivers within the cell phone and then like like using
03:01:37.340i don't know tape or whatever to to like designate no this device never like gets connected again
03:01:45.920and it's been disabled until it can never get connected again,
03:01:48.660and it must be destroyed at this point.
03:01:52.300Or maintaining your emergency burner cell phone in a Faraday cage
03:01:57.740so that it can't be tracked by controlling the physical limitations of the device
03:02:03.520and having a doctrine and a tempo of how you're going to be physically restricted.
03:02:10.760You can basically replicate the level of emission discipline and control that these complete environment governments are creating for yourself or your small unit.
03:02:35.240You can exercise that level of control over your emissions and what's tracking you very directly by physically eliminating and pursuing a doctrine of physical limitation.
03:02:51.520Within a certain set of constraints, yes.
03:02:53.980That is the most cost-effective solution on a small unit level if you don't have the resources to subvert these systems at a higher one.
03:03:05.240And that has the extreme advantage of, it's actually fairly simple.
03:03:13.560Like, you know, you could write down the full doctrine that you need in a way that's, like, readable to, like, a non-technical person in, like, two pages.
03:03:25.920Or, like, a reasonably intelligent non-technical person.
03:03:28.620Like, you don't have to, like, you don't have to learn anything more complex than what is a signal, what are the types of signals that are transmitted, what is the type of information that's recorded.
03:03:42.460Well, you can convey the information. Conveying the mindset about absolute emissions control is a lot harder, right?
03:03:48.740Like, for example, in the U.S. community, right, like, emissions control has been, like, a thing for decades because that is how you prevent your ship from being detected by, like, a hostile Elant aircraft.
03:03:58.000But a lot of times when you drill for emissions control and you tell, you know, everyone we're going to emissions control and then you have a third party contractor actually test for emissions, there are still emissions coming from this or that device that have that has been mistakenly or confusedly or just not identified as a possible emitting source.
03:04:19.420And then the ship is locatable anyways. Right. The level of discipline you need is more important than the actual knowledge.
03:04:25.020yes exactly uh the the chief petty officer who put up her who set up a starlink on a u.s destroyer
03:04:34.860because she wanted to watch her soap operas i think it was a an electoral combat ship not a
03:04:39.960not a destroyer but yeah it was ridiculous yeah i i'm not a navy person i don't know the ship
03:04:46.960classifications but yeah and they were like they were in the indian ocean like they weren't like
03:04:52.140close to home somewhere where it really doesn't matter like this this is occurring like
03:04:58.180this is occurring like like in an operational theater this is compromised
03:05:07.000not strictly at war during wartime right like if they were doing it in like the red sea like
03:05:14.720while under who's the missile attack that would be one thing but in the central pacific uh it's
03:05:19.920not exactly that big of a deal in peacetime
03:05:23.300true true but that's the other thing that like um
03:05:30.800this is where it's like very important to like if you're trying to hide from a surveillance
03:05:38.400technology to at least get like a very crappy version of that surveillance technology and
03:05:44.480apply it to yourself right it's having the like it's having the discipline to do these like that
03:05:49.860this sort of backdoor penetration testing constantly and apply those who are found wanting
03:05:55.520why like actual night vision that you would use to like operate entry levels like three thousand
03:06:05.440dollars for an for psv 14 or like um actual ir that you could use in the field is like thousands
03:06:13.400and thousands of dollars but like a really crappy digital version of like night vision or ir that's
03:06:20.740like a few hundred bucks from china you can't use it like like it won't be functional in the field
03:06:27.960but you can quick check whether like your clothing glows under ir and like you're it's
03:06:36.520riddled with like fabric brighteners or you can quick check it's the most basic thing but a lot
03:06:41.160of organizations don't really have like a red team that is dedicated towards thinking of what
03:06:48.580the enemy will likely do to them yeah and like like you don't need like full um full red cell
03:06:57.000you don't need um more shanko like actually sneaking up and like and like soft torturing
03:07:04.940your secrets out of like hostages that he's taken like the insane stuff they did in the 80s
03:07:10.480You just need, like, someone who's, like, going to go through and check.
03:07:19.100So I worked at a Fortune 500 at one point.
03:07:23.860One point that just had, like, corporate secrets of their clients.
03:07:30.120Just, like, their requests, some information.
03:07:33.320But it was selling, like, a technical solution.
03:07:38.940And one of the things that our instructor would do is he would consistently go around and if we left our laptop open, he would like go into the hotkeys and change them so that like some basic command would like load up jokes and stuff and like really screw with us and like make it a pain to hunt down what he did.
03:08:08.940One of the ones was he'd take, was he'd rearrange our folders, create a screen capture of it, set the screen capture to the background, and then remove all our folders from, like, the desktop.
03:08:22.920So that you'd go in and you'd be trying to click your folders forever and there's, like, there's not a folder there.
03:08:28.180There's an image of a folder buried in the image of, like, the desktop background, and, like, would screw with us for this, like, twisted little stuff.
03:08:41.520But the thing that this drilled into us was the second you get up from your laptop, you hit Windows L and walk the screen again because he's going to come along and share with you.
03:08:53.540But the thing is, that's, like, vitally, was vitally important for our organization because if we're just leaving, like, our laptops and our desktops, like, logged in, anyone could have walked up, like, stolen information on our clients and, like, probably could have sold that for, like, some value.
03:09:15.800like uh well especially like software and and stuff um if you know you're if you know of a
03:09:24.440company that's like for example has admitted to like one of their IT guys or one of their
03:09:31.760their people like admits that they are breaking a copyright in some way on their software
03:09:37.980software their uh windows adobe all those have like extensive programs to like financially
03:09:48.560compensate whistleblowers who report that their company is violating violating windows copyright
03:09:56.320or adobe pop topy right whatnot and they will like and they will like they'll pay you like
03:10:03.940six figures to rat out your company if it's large enough or the scale is large enough and they will
03:10:09.440like sue them for seven figures figures for like breaking their copyright and scurrying them over
03:10:16.420and you know someone might admit that to us and look and like we're supposed to like not
03:10:24.540we're supposed to like respect our clients interest and stuff but like information like
03:10:32.460that like flies around on corporate computers that like that's a simple example there's also
03:10:38.580like international corporate espionage like china is trying to steal steal secrets and stuff and
03:10:44.800like this was just like a private company protecting its clients information that like
03:10:50.240we had this this intensive culture of um of like red team testing that like like all our
03:10:59.840instructors and stuff would would screw with us if we left our if we left our laptops and
03:11:07.540and secure it and like really trolled into us no no no no no you lock your laptop every time
03:11:14.240you step away from it i still do this like in my own house of compromised information from this
03:11:19.560exact source within fairly recent memory because if they didn't and they were doing this entirely
03:11:24.700proactively that's that's a pretty impressive culture yeah no this was this had started with
03:11:31.220like one guy who would do this i'm not sure if like they were doing this at other offices
03:11:36.000other offices as well but this guy like part of it was he he enjoyed screwing with us but like
03:11:42.940this was a very impressive cultural thing and then like i noticed like organizations that had
03:11:50.040way more secure information had nothing of the sort we're not doing anything like this and
03:11:56.960and like you need that kind of like like sort of pranking pranking culture like you need to
03:12:04.760be tracking down people who are like breaking breaking security or breaking opsuck in a way
03:12:10.820like like um there is no unit in the modern us multi who when they as far as i know that what
03:12:18.860or the canadian military or the british military that when they go on exercise
03:12:23.540you know there's a sergeant or a warrant officer who's just there tracking their movements via
03:12:32.060electronic emissions like there's no one there that's like oh your cell phone isn't secure
03:12:37.180it's been emitting it's actually a fairly common thing to do on exercises for one side to attempt
03:21:06.220right but at any given moment only like half or less of them are deployable because the rest are
03:21:13.740either working up from a deployment or in an extended maintenance period where they're getting
03:21:17.940like a reactor refueled and this is a process yeah the complex you're feeling over how
03:21:22.300all that takes like four years five uh heavily dependent on what what the hell is going on at
03:21:31.460the shipyards at any given moment but it's an extended process that cannot be rushed right
03:21:37.240right so from that 10 to 11 depending on like how many how many support vehicles they have
03:21:47.080it's down to like two or three that can be on the scene at a moment and as of right now only
03:21:55.180nimitz truman washington and vincent are active yes and and one of them just ran into a cargo ship
03:22:03.560right so but the thing is having one carrier strike group on the scene of like um say you
03:22:13.580wanted it in the gulf region to check check around or you wanted it off taiwan to check china
03:22:19.320One carrier strike group on the scene actually is fairly limited because a carrier on its own can only maintain a slight tempo for like 24 hours before its strike ability starts to grade very quickly.
03:22:40.100Like the amount of the tempo of airstrikes that can start doing grades very quickly.
03:25:03.700and isr slash strike bandwidth a serious actor can generate
03:25:09.420this is why i have you on the podcast you have these these answers but uh the
03:25:17.160but for you at home like the u.s military
03:25:21.460terry what the u.s navy can like put out even at max capacity is like is basically enough to keep
03:25:31.400the world to a dull roar or that that would be stretched thin if like you had
03:25:39.000you had multiple theaters popping off at the same time oh yeah like if you had a scenario is that
03:25:45.720like simultaneous high-end conflicts erupt in northern europe the persian gulf and east asia
03:25:53.280in which case they are vastly overstretched in their ability to respond yes and what you're
03:26:00.160telling telling us with this um degradation of the u.s navy in terms of like their operational
03:26:07.480temple just having to stay on station at like all all these different hot spots is that that that
03:26:15.760maximum capacity that would already be like significantly overstretched is is itself
03:26:22.140degrading because they're already they're already exhausted in a lot of respects
03:26:26.760sort of right it's more about like the relative capability that the u.s had
03:26:32.700has relative to the hypothetical adversary power has shifted drastically over the course of the
03:26:38.760past decade or so right like in 1990 the chinese navy was a joke right like the the u.s could sail
03:26:44.800nearly right up to the mainland with total impunity like what what are the chinese going0.95
03:26:49.400to do like attack you with like mig-21s with dumb bombs uh by 2010 things are starting to change0.74
03:26:55.760By within the last couple of years, it's moved exponentially faster in the sense that Chinese communist investment in long range ISR bandwidth and strike capability has pushed the U.S. Navy potentially even beyond what is known as the second island chain.
03:27:15.020And if you saw what they were flying over the skyline of Chongqing a couple months ago, six generation fighters with absolutely enormous amounts of range and onboard energy generation for sensors, the U.S. Navy could be pushed even further once these things go into production and service.
03:27:36.980yes um if you follow s2 under underground i he he did a small piece on a a u.s um on a chinese um
03:27:53.280he did a small piece on the a chinese like flyby near alaska that that was hypothetically possible
03:28:34.220So that on its own is not very suggestive, right?
03:28:36.800I'm sure that every Air Force worth its salt has practiced this.
03:28:41.540But the idea of being able to do this with a low observable aircraft instead of like an extremely obvious tanker, that's a revolutionary capability.
03:28:53.000Yes, the Chinese and Soviets, I recall, had wingtip to wingtip refueling that they had devolved.
03:29:01.700and allegedly this is this still exists in some capacity and has like some new developments in it
03:29:09.640or is speculated might in terms of the tanker releasing a hose from its wingtip i mean that
03:29:17.120was a thing but it doesn't actually offer any major advantages over like a standard probe and
03:29:22.620drug technique right like this is not some sort of super weapon it's just a different technique
03:29:27.460yes but um part of the speculation was that that the ability to
03:29:35.720miniaturize this onto like low-profile vehicles like that no one currently has a low-profile
03:29:43.540tanker other than potentially the u.s with its next generation um carrier-based refueling drone
03:29:51.760this is not a capability that has been seen
03:30:50.180and within the the tactical world and i'd argue probably one of the the greatest like american
03:30:58.660stories of all time like this is this is neo-noir like cops and robbers american stories paired with
03:31:09.000a shakespearean shakespearean operatic story structure paired with state of the art and like
03:31:17.900still very impressive like unmatched storytelling and logistics of of crime this technical
03:31:29.300exploration of this world and the sociological exploration like um everything from prostitutes
03:31:36.300to like low level low level hoods to like small small criminal operations like dog fighting
03:31:45.820brings up to like like major hyper skilled heist crews up to cartel money wanderers
03:31:55.740are explored throughout the world of heat and this ecosystem of all these criminals who are like
03:32:01.960hiding themselves from each other and from the police but are still like have to feel each other
03:32:07.900out and like still have to like have some information like an exposure to like operate
03:32:13.640within this business environment that dynamic that that full that full orchestra of the film
03:32:22.220creates new dynamics which are like beautifully explored and there's and we've dug through so
03:32:29.700many different themes are revealed but it's it's beautifully explored in this way that the
03:32:36.180intersection of them creates new themes and explores new dynamics and this is a film that
03:32:43.300you could write a thousand essays on and reference with a thousand different real
03:32:49.520real crimes and it will always this lens will always be informative because there's a richness
03:32:59.200here that that only exists from how many stories from reality were brought into the film um
03:33:05.860that's my takeaway my pitch to you the listener to go watch this watch this second time watch
03:33:14.400this a third time yeah uh what do you think it's like uh catcher in the rye right like in the sense
03:33:20.040that like this is the book that inspired a generation of americans to assassinate the
03:33:24.380previous generation but this is the film that that inspired the the shooters of the 90s and 2000s
03:33:31.480well it's not just the shooters of the 90s and 2000s like i can guarantee you that that
03:33:39.720tons of cartel like capos who are running like smuggling operations who are running like
03:33:46.940assassination rings or who are like taking over segments of american cities yes i can guarantee
03:33:53.280you i can guarantee you that they're they're watching this for like not just the tactics for
03:34:01.260like the business side of it that like this is a relevant film even if you never intend to point a
03:34:07.840even for the people who never intend to point a pistol at at anyone in their elaborate criminal
03:34:14.500operation right like it also teaches you how to deal with other nefarious actors what level of
03:34:20.980information you you can and should reveal who you should trust you know that sort of thing
03:34:25.580Yeah, forensics, counter-forensics, surveillance, counter-surveillance, risk management, one you should hang it up, the themes, the beautiful tragedies that percolate through this, and the rare gorgeous victories.
03:34:45.020These are timeless and percolate through all levels of crime, all levels of military and beyond.
03:34:53.300Like, there's a reason this crime film about Heisman in the 90s has, like, taken us to, like, discussing the U.S. Navy or discussing Napoleon's campaigns or Caesar.
03:35:09.960Anyway, if you ever want to, like, take a risk or hoist the black thing or never thought about it, this is the film to watch and give yourself a lens on it.
03:35:20.340Anyway, so, uh, so, uh, hyposomata, is there anywhere, uh, people should look into your stuff?
03:35:30.980Um, publicly, not really at the moment, but, uh, keep your eye out.
03:35:37.480Maybe I'll have something to pitch to you fairly soon.
03:35:41.160All right, and we, anything you decide to put together a pitch,
03:35:45.140we'd love to have you back on the show to pitch to tell us about it you are consistently one of
03:35:52.560the most interesting people i i talked to and your depth of knowledge on all these different topics
03:35:58.700is like overwhelming if you if you do not have a security clearance you should seek one out
03:36:04.460i turned one down right after college because it just didn't pay enough but uh thank you kulak
03:36:12.140for having me on it was great getting to uh you know spurg out about all these things for
03:36:17.320several hours we've been here for a while but uh it's time just time to sign off thank you again
03:36:22.840all right thank you so much and have a great one and as for you
03:36:27.880you listeners stay glorious out there uh get away while you can don't don't go back for wangrow
03:36:35.440I won't hire him in the first place, but yes.