Based Camp - Oil Blockade Ended Weeks Ago： The Media Blackout Is Terrifying

00:00:00.760 Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today.

00:00:03.440 Today, we are going to be having a conversation that shows why it's important that you watch podcasts like this

00:00:08.140 instead of just the mainstream news, because there has been a significant change in the state of the Iranian war

00:00:12.260 that is not being reported on much at all.

00:00:16.760 Specifically, the blockade of the strait is over.

00:00:20.640 Well, not our blockade of Iran's exports, but their blockade of the rest of the world's exports. 0.76

00:00:26.380 To give you an example of how over it is, pre-war, this is roughly in the 12 months

00:00:33.500 before the conflict began, February 28th, 2026, Gulf Middle Eastern crude averaged

00:00:38.660 at about 18 million barrels per day, okay?

00:00:42.240 Okay.

00:00:43.920 And 83% of its crude was going through Hormuz.

00:00:47.700 Today, now remember, it was 18 million barrels per day.

00:00:50.760 That was the average.

00:00:51.460 the seven day moving average that we are at right now is 18.3 million barrels per day

00:00:58.040 coming out of the region higher than the average before the war now you're probably thinking

00:01:07.100 but how how are they able to block it so easily and how did we get around it apparently

00:01:16.960 so easily yeah but they dropped mines in there or something right i even heard one of the mines

00:01:22.600 exploded recently so let's go over how we've globally gotten around this and the geopolitical

00:01:29.220 consequences of us getting around it because what it means for iran is astonishingly bad

00:01:37.340 i personally didn't think this was possible i did not think we would find a way around it this

00:01:41.960 quickly um and we're building out ways to get around it even more that will be live by 2027

00:01:49.400 so one of the big ways we got around it is remember how 83 used to go through the gulf

00:01:54.900 um that means through her moves now it's only 40 okay so it's still significantly down

00:02:01.740 well no it's significant it's up but it's that we're not sending it through the gulf anymore

00:02:08.740 We're not sending it through the strait anymore.

00:02:10.720 We're sending it through other pipelines.

00:02:14.840 And those pipelines are actually being expanded at this moment,

00:02:18.540 which is going to bring it so that only around 20% is estimated to still go through the strait.

00:02:25.020 Okay, yes.

00:02:25.780 I mean, which is inevitable.

00:02:27.400 If one path does not work, you have to take another path.

00:02:30.220 That goes live in 2027. 0.85

00:02:31.380 This shows that Iran indiscriminately attacking ships was the dumbest thing they could have done. 0.78

00:02:41.300 Because they're rendering one of their big points of leverage obsolete. 0.92

00:02:47.080 Yes! Iran doesn't just make their point of leverage obsolete. 0.83

00:02:52.280 We didn't start blocking their oil exports, which is 30% of their government revenue,

00:02:57.500 until they blocked the straight oh really i yeah oh weren't they subject to significant

00:03:05.560 economic sanctions after a certain point before we escalated to war yeah they they had sanctions

00:03:10.000 but they were still shipping oil oh and it was making up a huge chunk of their government and

00:03:14.460 they don't run out of back payments for that oil until around december but like oh so they're still

00:03:19.560 getting income that's crazy yeah but they're incredibly boned long term from this um and if

00:03:26.340 you're like i thought we were we were barely at war with them as i pointed out in a recent episode

00:03:31.000 uh the hr a n a this is like the mainstream this isn't some israeli whatever uh mainstream

00:03:37.480 estimate the united states has killed 17 sorry a thousand seven hundred civilians

00:03:43.040 since the start of the war and iran by the same organization's estimates killed seven thousand

00:03:51.460 civilians and this is considered people give really high numbers like 30 000 or something i

00:03:55.580 i don't buy that right is it that includes like all the protests that were leading up to yeah yeah

00:04:00.080 so we've killed and and note here even if we go as the iranian official figure which is 3 117

00:04:06.960 civilians that they killed during the crackdowns of people asking the united states to come in and

00:04:11.480 save them that is still almost double the number of civilians the united states killed since the

00:04:16.900 start of this war uh if you know anything about war that means we're not really fighting what

00:04:23.360 anyone would think of as a traditional war we're i don't know it's it's it's as much of a war as

00:04:30.820 whatever happened in venezuela was a war uh and a lot of people don't get that they don't get how

00:04:35.920 asymmetrical and weird this war is uh nor how badly it's going for iran now that we have found

00:04:44.660 a way and i'll go into the economics of how we get oil around it's really fascinating actually

00:04:48.320 um but uh it's really really bad long-term forever um because they no longer have any

00:04:56.940 leverage and have pissed off all their friends and are on a lifeline that's eventually going

00:05:04.020 to dry up and the question is what happens when it dries up and they could become like cuba cuba's

00:05:11.580 lifeline dried up a while ago and they are just not really making it right now press coverage

00:05:18.700 seems to have mostly fizzled out after just multiple headlines amounting to they're out of

00:05:24.040 power again oh yes once again they're out of power and i just i don't know what they're doing

00:05:29.260 by the way if you're talking about like geopolitical victories that one administration in like two

00:05:35.340 years knocked out our three venezuela was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term cuba

00:05:40.840 was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term let's see we can sync the deal on that

00:05:44.380 and iran was one of our primary geopolitical enemies the long term which is going to take

00:05:47.740 forever to and it's while trump gave them this awesome deal right uh that i had talked about

00:05:53.400 before where they would have gotten a bunch of money to that no one's going to be offering them

00:05:58.340 that deal anymore that i mean the deal that he offered to maduro being like i you will be set

00:06:02.580 for life anonymously somewhere no no not maduro i'm talking about iran he's like we're gonna give

00:06:08.400 you well not we we're gonna have the the oil power saudi arabia qatar etc invest like 300

00:06:13.380 billion dollars oh right yes we did a whole podcast on that and even crazier is part of

00:06:17.940 that deal if they had taken it they could have had unrestricted sale of their oil which they

00:06:23.220 haven't had in decades and would have made them so so so much money and they blew up the deal

00:06:30.220 to maintain control of her moods which they don't have anymore so yeah what yeah and iran was like

00:06:37.160 now now these countries have no reason to the only reason they were going to make these investments

00:06:41.340 was because they wanted enough political control of iran to keep the strait open now

00:06:45.600 they don't care iran could be a failed state for all they care they're not going to be dealing 0.95

00:06:49.940 with refugees they shoot them you know this these aren't these aren't fuzzy european countries okay 1.00

00:06:55.240 so and iranian refugees secondarily integrate pretty well with european populations um they 0.98

00:07:02.640 are persian they are not you're you know uh arab muslims have integrated less well with european

00:07:07.920 and american population persian muslims have typically they stop being muslim pretty quickly

00:07:12.460 the religion doesn't really seem to work without ethnicity very well or as well as it does for

00:07:18.040 other groups we've talked about this in other episodes um and that's a great example you know

00:07:23.060 you want to talk about a muslim group within the other episode i was like i don't know muslim

00:07:26.280 groups that made this work the persian immigrants in america they have been able to maintain fairly

00:07:31.120 high fertility rates and um maintain cultural connections they often drop being muslim though

00:07:37.140 um but i've seen some that keep being muslim and and stay very american culturally speaking

00:07:42.200 um and they can be they can be good and i don't think any american has a problem with like working

00:07:47.500 with like people who identify as persian um and you i mean if you're watching the podcast you

00:07:52.820 probably know a couple they're pretty cool um they if you don't know i'm probably gonna offend

00:08:00.100 a lot of people here they remind me a lot of armenians um it's gonna really piss some people

00:08:05.380 off i'm sure armenians and persians in la try not to be identical challenge impossible both of these

00:08:10.780 guys will try to convince you that they are completely different and that their culture 0.81

00:08:14.140 is unique yet each of them have a nose job reek of dior salvation spend all their time at the 0.92

00:08:18.740 shisha lounge with their cousin who's a dentist the only noticeable difference is the color of

00:08:23.020 their bmws but just culturally that's what i've noticed when i've interacted with the two groups

00:08:28.480 or if you want to be more offensive and you're like i don't know a lot of armenians that's a 0.96

00:08:33.100 deep cut they're basically cocaine jews it's like you took jewish culture and you somehow infused it 0.78

00:08:40.640 with about 25 cocaine that's persian culture very sort of mercantile but the the point here being 0.99

00:08:48.900 mercantile but jovial mercantile but jovial and obsessed with partying like really obsessed with

00:08:55.460 partying yeah work hard play hard they're the type of people where i'm like you are why somebody is

00:09:02.320 going to a nightclub and i will never understand it yeah yeah we're work hard work hard and they

00:09:08.520 work hard play hard well puritan right you know you gotta gotta keep with the traditions yeah but

00:09:13.640 um the point here being uh where where was i going was this um yeah so i was talking about

00:09:18.900 why it's so bad for iran what iran should have done and what a smart country would have done

00:09:22.640 is what Iran tried to do, but they're too fractionalized to do this, is done tolls on

00:09:29.460 the boats going through the strait. Because if they had charged tolls on boats going through

00:09:33.460 the strait, they would have, one, increased the global cost of oil, but two, created a pathway

00:09:38.800 through the strait that wasn't worth setting up these alternate mechanisms. Because they didn't

00:09:45.100 do that, it was cost-worthy to set up the alternate mechanisms. So let's get into the alternate

00:09:51.240 mechanisms and how bad they are for iran long term especially now that all their neighbors hate them

00:09:56.320 um which is if you're wondering why it's because they bombed them all even their closest allies 0.56

00:10:01.240 like qatar okay so what they did is they take the tanker ships uh when they get near the strait

00:10:08.040 and so the tanker ships get near the strait and then they unload from the tanker ship to a smaller

00:10:13.920 tanker ship that can go into shallower water then this shallow water tanker ship ends up moving the

00:10:20.860 oil just hugging the coast that that was basically it just hug the coast and they can't do anything

00:10:26.640 about it that's it wait what about all the the mines well the mine ships would have to come all

00:10:33.460 the way right next to like the uae um and the uae isn't gonna allow that right like the uae

00:10:40.600 is an armed country with like and it's deep enough it's not gonna run aground well i keep in mind

00:10:47.080 you've got like all sorts of islands on the uae side of this and everything like it would be really

00:10:51.740 hard to do and in addition to that um the reason why the tankers went in the center areas because

00:10:58.000 there were these giant tanker ships right uh that's that's not an issue anymore and in addition

00:11:01.780 to that the u.s has significantly defamed iran they just don't have the munitions they don't

00:11:06.020 have the people they don't have the organization to do something that's sophisticated anymore

00:11:09.640 Yeah.

00:11:10.220 Wow.

00:11:10.840 Okay.

00:11:13.040 So that was the trick.

00:11:15.920 Use ferries.

00:11:16.800 For wondering why the ferries allowed this to work,

00:11:19.340 there's actually logistical reasons.

00:11:20.820 It's not just that they can go into shallower waters,

00:11:23.020 but they also don't have to deal with the same insurance.

00:11:27.700 They remove the insurance from the typical insurance companies

00:11:31.000 and the country that's operating them,

00:11:33.120 specifically either the UAE, Saudi Arabia,

00:11:35.000 or the U.S. Navy slash U.S. Central Command,

00:11:37.140 ends up insuring them.

00:11:39.140 huh for like a price so it's actually a way for these countries to make even more money

00:11:44.760 now you say well surely that affects the price of the oil and it does affect the price of the

00:11:51.300 oil going through so uh war risk insurance adds about seven to eight dollars per barrel and the

00:11:58.260 premium on hull insurance jumped from 0.1 percent of hull value to 1.5 percent which is

00:12:03.720 uh pretty significant that's a lot yes yeah uh so how much is this affecting the end price uh

00:12:10.980 the end price uh on insurance is only a seven to eight percent boost uh but for the entire price

00:12:17.840 of the oil going through the region is 25 to 35 percent increase now you can say well that's a

00:12:26.240 a meaningful number it's not like catastrophic but it's meaningful and the problem being is

00:12:33.800 yes it's meaningful but the economic impact it has isn't as bad as you would expect it to be

00:12:40.260 because it's a known increase in cost instead of the unknown increase associated with how long is

00:12:48.460 this going to be shut down now we know the upper limit of an increase in cost that iran can impose

00:12:55.080 upon oil coming from this region and it's 25 to 35 percent and next year when these new pipelines

00:13:03.800 come out it's going to be even less than that so it's just going to decrease from here and in

00:13:08.860 in relation to how that affects oil prices actually the biggest thing that's affecting

00:13:13.180 oil prices right now is not what you would expect so this really got me when i was digging deeper

00:13:18.920 into this so right now um it's adding what's happening in this region is adding 35 to per

00:13:27.540 barrel okay now the average increase overall per barrel is 30 and you can say wait wait wait why

00:13:36.920 why is the average cost increasing almost as much as the cost coming out of just this region right

00:13:42.080 yeah in terms of the cost to ship the region is is actually very interesting um it has to do with

00:13:48.400 the number of vlcc fleets um so the the vlcc fleet that got involved in this is um the specialized

00:14:01.660 smaller um freighter capacity uh the oh they're doing smaller boats that can hug the shore

00:14:09.340 basically like the super big honking ones can't do this yeah and so this for this shuttle to work

00:14:16.160 it's using right now 14 to 40 percent of the vlcc global fleet okay but what that means is

00:14:28.220 they're just going to produce more of them right if this keeps going it definitely

00:14:32.440 shipbuilding takes a while though and i mean at least they're not dependent on the u.s for this

00:14:36.760 because our shipbuilding capacity is gone r.i.p uh yeah that sucks but korea is great at shipbuilding

00:14:43.880 by the way yeah um the the super tankers and stuff like this just wish we were decent at it

00:14:48.700 we could be if the u.s government invested in local manufacturing um and we weren't tarred

00:14:56.060 i mean some of the military ship designs i don't know if we should do a full episode on this we've

00:14:59.220 done recently have been basically useless like some of the u.s's most recently added specifically

00:15:05.000 here i'm thinking of the littoral class battleships where they tried to build them to be like a thing

00:15:10.100 where you could swap out internal components to make the ship for different purposes but the swap

00:15:17.280 out mechanism was too long to use and so they're they're basically useless now and they were the

00:15:24.620 main thing we were producing for a period because somebody got excited by like that idea remember

00:15:29.780 when there was a phone and it was like you could swap out the internals and turn it into different

00:15:33.240 things and they were like oh that's so cool no we can't things can't be built based on rfps anymore

00:15:39.040 just period we can't we we can't really have the government build things we need to have private

00:15:43.320 businesses no more boeing boeing needs to be cut i know i might get shot for this

00:15:47.700 if boeing lends a single more one more contract from the government no no just like the entire

00:15:53.380 process of of bid based like the the the bureaucratic mechanism through which stuff is

00:16:01.600 built and services are rendered to the united states government is so far gone that it is a

00:16:08.660 wonder that we are able to get anything at all ever right if you're wondering how i would handle

00:16:13.980 requisitions if i was a government official doing this yeah you have a department where it's a

00:16:20.500 department of like the best and the best in terms of like multiple past successes in venture capital

00:16:27.880 that's what i would be looking for venture capitalists demand this department okay so you

00:16:31.100 take venture capitalists and you say no not industry insiders which is a lot of what they

00:16:35.940 do right now it's like who decides who wins the oil rfp somebody with a ton of oil industry

00:16:39.160 experience i understand why that looks good on the outside it's not actually a good way to do

00:16:42.540 things because it leads them to giving lots of kickbacks working with their friends yeah take

00:16:46.440 vcs people from the startup industry then you tell them you have to choose who you're going to give

00:16:52.380 the money to to do this um and it can be a couple teams and then there they get scores based on the

00:16:58.360 success of the project that that vc and that vc's money that they get to distribute in the next

00:17:04.160 round is based on their past scores. Um, and this allows them to just be like, if Boeing really is

00:17:10.540 the only person to do this, then they can go to Boeing, but they can also go straight to some

00:17:14.560 small entrepreneur and be like, Hey, you seem to be a unique expert in this, or even an engineer

00:17:19.100 at Boeing and be like, Hey, you're an expert in this. Why don't you spin up your own thing?

00:17:23.800 I'll give you the money to do it. Yeah. You'll get insider dealing with this,

00:17:27.420 but it will be less bad than the existing RFP process.

00:17:30.580 honestly anything would be better i i don't have an answer but it cannot be what it is now

00:17:37.040 yeah so what about all of that oil that's not going through the straight right now how did

00:17:43.560 they pull that one off that seems pretty wild right do you happen to know because i could

00:17:47.620 have answered this immediately you said they hug the shore what do you mean no no no that's how

00:17:53.320 they remember how it went from i think it was 85 to only 40 40 oh so yeah where does the rest go

00:17:59.840 83% to 40%. Where does the rest go? Presumably, they're using land bridges,

00:18:07.480 like, you know, hauling on tankers across land, I guess. What are they doing?

00:18:12.120 Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline for petroleum and the UAE Abu Dhabi's crude oil pipeline

00:18:18.440 for where these go. The Saudi Arabia one carries it to the Red Sea.

00:18:23.460 Oh, so they're just using, like, physical oil pipelines.

00:18:27.440 Yes.

00:18:28.300 And the UAE's Abu Dhabi's pipeline, basically, it carries it to the Gulf of Milan.

00:18:32.200 Why weren't they using those pipelines more before?

00:18:35.480 Because it was slightly cheaper.

00:18:37.340 These add around 7% to the cost of the shipment.

00:18:41.120 That's not trivial.

00:18:42.540 Yeah.

00:18:42.800 It's not trivial, but, like, for being able to get around a blockade, it is trivial.

00:18:48.560 Great.

00:18:49.040 You're glad you have the pipeline.

00:18:50.080 So they built these.

00:18:51.520 if you're like why why why did they build these it's because iran has done this and threatened

00:18:57.280 to do this before so they built them that that's that's why they have them they they threatened

00:19:03.540 them before and when they built them out uh they use them in small amounts but they made them so

00:19:07.520 that they could be much much bigger expecting saudi arabia to do this and it just took a little

00:19:11.020 bit of time to get them all up and fully operational because uh you know iran kept

00:19:16.300 trying to bomb them and they did damage them at one point but they're they're fixed up now

00:19:20.540 um and they're both set to be significantly expanded in the very near future which we'll get

00:19:24.860 to in a second um i will note that this solution has a problem to it do you know the problem and

00:19:34.640 it has to do with ai actually simone you you you are familiar with this story you just not might

00:19:39.300 have put two and two together no i have no idea so you know how iran loves funding terrorist

00:19:47.320 organizations yeah one of the terrorist organizations they did pulled a fun little trick

00:19:52.640 on the the uae and saudi backed fraction in yemen um which was they cloned his voice and then told

00:20:00.660 all his forces to retreat and it worked oh and what really that creates a problem because if you

00:20:11.540 nowhere in the city that they took it's at the mouth of the red sea great fantastic of course

00:20:18.080 and it could be used to do a blockade um they haven't successfully done this yet

00:20:24.500 but they could um what's gonna happen if they attempt to do this the reality is it's nobody

00:20:33.000 cares about about yemen yemen's been killing yemenese people for a long time and nobody cares 0.75

00:20:38.940 Saudi Arabia and the UAE is like most Muslim countries these days incompetent as a military 1.00

00:20:46.540 I've pointed this is like an objective fact like all of the Muslim world at the same time 1.00

00:20:51.220 jumping a significantly weaker and technologically fairly incapable Israel multiple times kept 1.00

00:20:56.580 getting their butts kicked in by a very small Israeli force we have a video on why Muslims are 0.96

00:21:01.880 so bad at war today or at least have been for a while and you can be like oh they've been able 0.98

00:21:07.380 to defend in like afghanistan it's yeah it doesn't matter like being able to to hide and anyone can

00:21:13.580 defend themselves in that scenario um you know that that's just a how long can you hide in the

00:21:18.280 mountains game right that's not like durably taking land i'm talking about like like actually

00:21:23.520 going out and projecting force that a super wealthy coalition is failing to control they

00:21:31.840 don't even need to take the country they just need to control this one straight um that is

00:21:36.100 practically or literally their neighbor is astonishing and i'd point out here they are

00:21:42.240 claiming that they were not tricked by the ai it was just a tactical retreat to which i would say

00:21:47.240 then that's even worse that's so so so much worse the people you're fighting against have nothing

00:21:55.980 and they're not like hiding in mountains or something like that where you could make an

00:22:02.400 excuse for this or you can't genocide them like america has to play by those rules you can do

00:22:08.580 whatever you want and you're just trying to hold one city by the way and they have like

00:22:15.580 infinite money to do this and these people are nothing they've got nothing they've got no

00:22:22.120 technology they've got little technicals with guns stapled to them okay um that they can't hold this

00:22:28.800 region should genuinely be embarrassing for them um they're getting tricked by that they didn't

00:22:33.100 have like good communication uh systems to prevent this that their forces didn't uh what's going to

00:22:39.680 end up happening and what i expect to end up happening is just a genocide because nobody

00:22:44.480 cares about yemen and the uae wants them dead now and i think that a genocide is not above

00:22:51.720 saudi arabia and i think they might just come to the perspective of if forces do attempt to 0.75

00:22:58.380 close the red sea they're just going to be like like let's get rid of them it's it's note here

00:23:05.700 it would be much easier than doing this um in uh iran where it's just significantly more

00:23:11.580 uh as a country technologically competent and built up it's it's it's whatever iran

00:23:17.980 is to the united states military the who sees on is to the iranian military okay um okay huh not good

00:23:28.380 so there's been an expansion um process uh that i'm trying to find where i wrote down the

00:23:35.480 the dates for this the overall scale yeah okay so the uae new east pipeline to ferugia uh is

00:23:43.380 already about 50 complete out of 2026 um and it'll be operational by 2027 it will allow 1.5 to 1.8

00:23:51.160 million uh barrels towards uh 3 million to 3.6 million so significantly increasing it like

00:23:57.700 doubling it um and then the saudi arabia so this is next year that's operational the saudi arabia

00:24:03.340 east-west expansion system is going to be uh a conversion that could add 1.2 million bpd

00:24:09.660 and this should be done within seven to eight weeks at this point barrels per day is that what

00:24:15.380 bp yeah yeah yeah basically it'll move it so that you'd only need 20 going through this this new

00:24:21.860 system that they built um which is going to dramatically reduce the cost of operating the

00:24:26.240 system it's just uh i i ran completely boned themselves on this one yeah i also wonder if

00:24:36.340 these i mean this does mean sustained higher oil prices and i wonder if it will push more people

00:24:40.920 toward electricity in the united states even though our charging options are not fantastic

00:24:48.120 i still think it might be decent i'm just so annoyed by u.s car commercials which fail

00:24:55.860 to demonstrate any of the features of the cars i i how are you seeing car commercials because i 0.95

00:25:03.320 watch some you know that stupid old lady mystery show where they're gardeners and they solve

00:25:08.340 mysteries that's on amazon prime and they show commercials and there's so many car commercials 0.98

00:25:12.960 and the car commercials demonstrate that it's a car it drives and it holds people and i'm like

00:25:19.280 how are what is what are we doing in the united states how the iq of someone that that appeals to

00:25:27.800 i don't under yeah it's like music car it's like a perfume advertisement which also i do not

00:25:33.540 understand what people are being sold on here whereas i apparently in china when they advertise

00:25:40.120 cars they actually advertise their really freaking cool features that are in their cars

00:25:44.380 but u.s cars are so bad that they're like it drive ha come buy it it drive in mud it drive

00:25:53.640 in mud it drive in hot air it drive in cold air it drive oh i didn't know it could do that yeah

00:25:59.860 no i'm not kidding you um like there's one and i really really love um land rovers and range rovers

00:26:07.720 but they have a commercial where it's like if they're trying to use a baking analogy uh and

00:26:13.880 they're like you know like at 300 like 120 degrees fahrenheit and frozen at below 40 degrees

00:26:19.080 fahrenheit and i'm actually using the actual numbers from the commercial because i've seen

00:26:21.980 it so many times and it's like i don't care what's inside it what is my driving experience like

00:26:27.400 they actually like i i i drove range rovers um when i was in the uk and on on a course like on

00:26:35.000 a professional driving course it was like one of these weird things we did with the the school of

00:26:39.380 business we did a whole case study with them and they are really cool cars with a lot of cool

00:26:43.580 features that can actually help you drive better that will like show you the view of your car from

00:26:47.800 all around none of that's being advertised i don't care but oh sorry i'm what are we doing

00:26:55.640 so but yeah you think that more people would use electric cars going forward i mean i think maybe

00:27:00.140 one of the reasons why this is not being covered in the media is people care about their pocket

00:27:03.980 books their pocket books are not seeing relief they're not seeing gas prices go down but you're

00:27:09.900 going to like right it's basically over right i know but like the insulting thing is that no

00:27:14.520 like it's not basically because people are still paying more and they're pissed about it because

00:27:18.380 they didn't ask for this more and it's all very removed for them until iran i mean there is a

00:27:23.500 case in which it isn't over which is iran begins to panic and tries to bomb facilities um which 0.96

00:27:28.820 they could do it'd be incredibly stupid because it would give another country the ability to bomb 0.62

00:27:33.840 their position at karg which would financially devastate them forever and everyone is very 0.97

00:27:40.180 explicitly holding off from doing right now you're trying so hard for you unaware if you bomb this

00:27:44.880 one little island iran wouldn't be able to do its oil anymore right like it'd be over um for a very

00:27:50.860 long time um and it would destroy their economy and it would be horrible and uh that's the you

00:27:58.520 know they they bombed someone else someone else is going to bomb that eventually and then what

00:28:02.440 does iran do right like it's over for them um uh which is not good um to understand how bad things

00:28:09.020 are for iran right now uh the iranian do you know what their inflation has been um this year in

00:28:14.760 as of like now for the past year no good bad what 90 inflation this year is this just a thing that

00:28:23.980 happens during war a lot uh well if you uh have a economy as cooked as iran's if you forgot our

00:28:30.380 episode on how cooked it was to live in iran iran has had for the past few years inflation of

00:28:34.620 last year 42 the year before that 32 the year before that 45 the year before that 43 the year

00:28:40.520 before that 43 the year before that 31 imagine how boned you are as a citizen in iran like 0.91

00:28:49.060 i feel really bad i feel really bad i it's not it's not okay and it sucks because

00:28:55.960 i don't know how they're food prices out of that you can't afford to get out of it you can't even

00:29:03.220 like if you could easily flee how can you even afford to flee and i get this is like the worst

00:29:10.520 time to be a refugee internationally as all the countries start shutting down because they've seen

00:29:15.540 what happens when they get refugees even though so many iranians are really really awesome people

00:29:19.700 who would be an asset to any country 1.00

00:29:21.600 that they were able to be a part of.

00:29:24.660 I think all you can do is start attempting

00:29:26.960 to fight back in any way you can, right?

00:29:30.720 Like there aren't many, 0.98

00:29:32.420 and obviously the government will kill you, 1.00

00:29:33.800 but they're going to kill you one day anyway. 0.99

00:29:35.160 I mean, the reports I hear of people's sisters 0.97

00:29:38.180 being like beaten to death for not wearing a hijab

00:29:40.460 in public the right way or whatever, 0.79

00:29:42.560 like it's horrible.

00:29:43.440 It's a horrible place to live and it needs to end.

00:29:45.800 And my greatest hope is that we can end this regime 0.97

00:29:48.940 because there is no reason that Iran, of all countries, 1.00

00:29:53.380 should be a Muslim theocracy. 0.76

00:29:55.320 See our episode on the atheist theocracy. 1.00

00:29:59.720 It goes over.

00:30:00.520 Islam is just not that big in Iran right now.

00:30:03.000 It's been losing tons and tons of members.

00:30:05.840 And it would be very easy to, of like countries in the region,

00:30:11.100 Iran is actually one that could convert to a more Western style

00:30:14.140 of government and operation. 0.76

00:30:15.260 it was historically right it just yeah so it's it's ridiculous it's ridiculous that we're dealing

00:30:24.240 with any of this um it it is well not that we're dealing with it like i i think um especially

00:30:29.160 given how this war is going and where we are right now i did not think we would have found

00:30:32.940 a solution to the blockade i did not think that was possible and that the solution would be a

00:30:38.900 measly like 25 boost on the cost of what's being shipped through and that wouldn't even

00:30:45.160 be for most of it most it would only be like a seven percent increase because it's going through

00:30:48.000 these pipelines that would be finished within a year well it goes to show how just little

00:30:51.780 negotiating power iran had from the start which is yeah and now they got none but i think this

00:30:58.760 so the reason why it's not even worth it for them to like not hail mary this though and and be so

00:31:04.540 antagonistic is they don't have a future anyway so the from a perspective of what do they have

00:31:10.220 to lose i think maybe that influences some of this you did a whole episode on just how

00:31:14.440 dire it was in iran from an environmental infrastructure standpoint that living in

00:31:21.680 iran is a living hell and it has been for years well and that their government is they're going

00:31:25.820 to what they're going to run out of water in in many of the major cities right yeah the city is

00:31:30.520 collapsing like the tehran is these major sinkhole issues where like you just disappear one day yeah

00:31:36.600 So even if, for example, things were politically totally, let's say, okay, suddenly, I don't

00:31:42.560 know, whatever, Iran westernizes and they have a government that cares about the well-being

00:31:48.860 of their people.

00:31:49.780 And even if they get like a bunch of aid money to restart things, that's still not going

00:31:55.300 to change the fact that their cities are built on fundamentally unsound foundations, literally,

00:31:59.840 that they're running out of water, literally, that all these other issues are there.

00:32:03.440 I don't know how to like. 0.65

00:32:04.740 Iran is just not a long-term relevant country is yeah I mean I think the question really for me 1.00

00:32:12.220 if suddenly I was empress of the world would be how can I safely resettle Iranian citizens in a 1.00

00:32:18.260 way that would set them up to thrive because I just don't I can't no I wouldn't do that they 1.00

00:32:23.040 they got themselves into it by allowing this to happen okay um it's their job to either

00:32:27.860 have a revolution and uh yeah but Malcolm what I'm saying is just literally the foundation

00:32:34.160 they're on environmentally logistically is not sound if they had a revolution and took over what

00:32:38.940 would they do to make things okay if they had a revolution and took over you'd have a ton of

00:32:42.700 foreign investment because there's a lot of rich persians around the world and a lot of people who

00:32:46.480 would like the idea of being able to make money in a country that just do you know the money people

00:32:50.420 made in eastern germany after the war uh after the berlin wild fell so many people became like

00:32:56.560 billionaires because you could buy all this land for cheap right and and and all of this talent 0.97

00:33:02.320 for cheap right because they were still germans they were just under a bad government and then 0.91

00:33:07.980 how much money was made in the people who invested in korea after the war the people who invested in

00:33:12.700 japan after the war insane amounts that's what people are going to think of iran okay it's not

00:33:18.640 like afghanistan after the war right but it's not like gangnam was going to sink into the ground and

00:33:24.420 run out of water right but iran is already trying solutions like moving its capital and stuff like

00:33:29.580 this it would get a bunch of investment no it would have no problem getting the money it needed

00:33:33.380 so just basically it would start new cities and then people would relocate to these new cities

00:33:38.580 and there's hope well that's one thing and i guess a lot of desalinization and but a lot of the world

00:33:46.320 is going to be dealing with this and i think the reality of the situation is that iran is a country

00:33:51.620 that the world will forget when the demographic crisis starts to become a more of a reality and

00:33:56.840 the ai crisis becomes more of a reality um by the ai crisis i'm talking about the jobs crisis that

00:34:01.100 will be precipitated from ai uh because the income is going to increasingly concentrate in just a few

00:34:05.960 countries and the countries that people are going to be focused on is like latin america and stuff

00:34:10.380 like this like why care about iran when latin america's starving right you know like there's

00:34:15.140 other places that are closer to home and i have more sympathy for and i think for a lot of europeans 1.00

00:34:20.100 they're going to immediately go to like a Gaza and Africa because they're stupid. Um, and we'll 1.00

00:34:26.880 always go for the most victim-y culture and Iran isn't the biggest victim either. So, you know, 0.93

00:34:32.300 it's going to be forgotten. That's, that's what's going to happen to Iran. It's going to be 0.98

00:34:35.640 forgotten in global history and we'll dry up in whatever happens in the oncoming demographic

00:34:41.740 crisis. I mean, they already have a super low fertility rate. It's lower than ours. 1.00

00:34:45.500 um so like and we're like a developed country so and their their social security system you

00:34:52.780 know how bad it's yeah what social security system yeah i it's i don't know i keep thinking

00:34:59.780 about the the guy who makes videos that asmongold covers for example um who now ends up in sky

00:35:05.180 browse videos who really shows the the human side of this that there are people there who are like

00:35:11.600 look help i'm like you okay we watch the same shows we we try um it's really tough and they're

00:35:19.660 given so few outs it's not like they allowed this to happen it's not like they made this happen they

00:35:24.900 grew up hold on they asked for us oh yes they did they did ask for us but i the protests on the

00:35:33.320 streets this costs us politically this costs us financially yes it's in our long-term best

00:35:38.920 interests but this is also a favor to the iranian people in trying i know i know i don't think

00:35:45.020 yeah the u.s the u.s did act and did step forward despite huge resistance to that i just don't see

00:35:54.180 how there's nothing we can do for them that is how do i get bigger there's nothing we can do

00:35:59.740 for them bigger than what we've already done okay uh it is it is it is their moment to either take

00:36:07.000 or just let pass by and it might just basically like the most ideal scenario is iran's government

00:36:13.420 falls a bunch of foreign direct investment new cities spread up that are just basically okay

00:36:18.260 let's just start from the ground up build a new thing and yeah which happened in many countries

00:36:26.240 yeah you're right you're right it has happened in many countries it has just a piece of countryside

00:36:30.600 yeah look at south korea absolutely okay i hope that happens can that happen let's have that

00:36:36.300 happen i would like it to happen but it requires you know people with a lot of courage making a 0.99

00:36:44.000 lot of risks and uh this is this is something that um you know we've we've done what we can

00:36:51.180 at this point and it's whatever happens right now i mean we're in a pretty good situation coming out

00:36:56.100 of this right now geopolitically speaking um uh with stronger allies in the middle east than we

00:37:01.700 had going into this for how we pulled off that crazy feat we basically did nothing to accomplish

00:37:07.740 this it was iran that did it for us by attacking all of their neighbors and closest allies the

00:37:14.200 moment the war started for in reason it was crazy it's i have no one has ever offered anyone else

00:37:23.360 for nothing that big a diplomatic victory like the fact that this war could have improved our

00:37:30.540 relationship with most middle eastern countries is absolutely nanners it should not have turned

00:37:36.560 out this way i if you told me oh yeah iran's gonna immediately start bombing qatar i'd be like wait

00:37:44.240 what why and i think that's the way qatar felt as well and uh a country that cannot threaten us 0.54

00:37:52.760 anymore uh either nuclear war cutting off the strait like what what what an awesome and palestine

00:37:59.460 has been significantly under undermined by this yeah the only the only um i mean i i shouldn't

00:38:06.440 say palestine hamas has been significantly all of that all of various all of the groups because

00:38:11.460 they're not getting the same amount of money anymore right i mean are they getting any money

00:38:15.640 i don't imagine that the current regime in iran is exactly feeling generous at this point funding

00:38:22.200 their side projects yeah nothing of course here we are discounting all of the money that's coming

00:38:29.260 from american anime dubbing actors uh for the terrorist networks that iran used to fund

00:38:36.580 it's a joke in reference to yesterday's episode no but really uh most of the terrorist organizations

00:38:42.020 across this region um were heavily reliant on funding from iran which isn't coming anymore

00:38:48.800 right we'll have nothing they lose they lost do i think now i'm in a tough position because my

00:38:55.620 advice of the administration before was just we got what we wanted with iran we can stop now

00:39:00.780 get out but now that we can get around the blockade it's kind of like and we can blockade

00:39:05.700 them absolutely it's kind of like um well maybe wait them out uh but that's not politically

00:39:14.380 palatable but it it is the obvious right choice for american interests so i don't know what the

00:39:21.460 administration is going to do but this is where we are right now is is now they're just not able

00:39:25.660 to inflict the same amount of pain and we can just wait them out unless i mean it looks like

00:39:30.500 i just checked polymarket and the current betting markets around a u.s iran ceasefire continuing

00:39:38.240 through october 15th is 97 october 31st 82 it seems like the expectation in general

00:39:46.160 is that there will be a continued steady ceasefire more likely than not and i guess i don't know

00:39:54.040 what's going to happen is iran just going to continue limping forward indefinitely i mean

00:40:01.140 how long can they last is are there models on that do people consider how things bad things

00:40:06.100 got in venezuela a country can get really really really bad before people you're right cuba's still

00:40:12.920 going strong venezuela is still doing whatever it's doing despite a devastating earthquake that

00:40:19.900 is um yeah that's fair and it doesn't look like we're going to reach any sort of really the best

00:40:26.380 realistic cases of scenario is we find out where this leader is and we do business with somebody

00:40:31.920 else who's willing to play ball and we get rid of him i suppose yeah there's uh i'm looking also

00:40:37.680 we do the venezuelan the betting market for the u.s iran because the leader of iran wanted to take

00:40:43.780 a more muted approach and the generals basically overrode him because of their mosaic defense

00:40:47.880 strategy oh which we talk about in our last video on iran or maybe the video before that where we

00:40:53.180 pointed out that he clearly did not want these missiles sent at their allied neighbors and then

00:40:58.520 he had to backtrack and he was the guy presumably in charge so why is he having to backtrack

00:41:02.520 and looking really scared for having said it was a mistake on our part that's because

00:41:07.440 likely he's got a bunch of like warlords who are like we'll kill you if you tell us to stop

00:41:13.320 bombing people we're we want to do max war forever because i'm military guy and now i control and i

00:41:19.280 that's that's where things are i don't like it but it is very interesting that the straight

00:41:25.940 of four moves is not at all what people probably most people think it is yep well i love you simone

00:41:31.760 um for dinner tonight i would love bacon and sweet potato fries i had and and and look up a

00:41:38.980 recipe for like sugared bacon slightly yeah well i'm gonna have to do it a little differently

00:41:45.700 because it's mostly cooked but i have some ideas great i love you i love you too you'll come up

00:41:53.540 with something great and then we can try some other things with bacon i was thinking

00:41:55.840 bacon might do really well with oyster sauce if you put like a small amount on

00:42:01.760 I don't know, but I trust you, maybe.

00:42:07.980 And, oh, also keep the bacon grease for like dipping for the sweet potato fries.

00:42:12.620 Oh, sorry.

00:42:14.080 Okay, next time.

00:42:15.000 Yeah, I did not hold on to it this last time.

00:42:19.240 But there are two more packs, so don't you worry.

00:42:22.220 There will be more bacon.

00:42:23.520 I might also look into what sauces you can make at home with bacon grease,

00:42:27.860 because I bet you can make some really killer like french fry sauce.

00:42:30.300 i really should have thought of that that was very wasteful of me it's just that like

00:42:34.720 the past five times we've had bacon grease i've saved it we've done absolutely nothing with it

00:42:40.240 and it's well because we didn't have ai to make up the perfect cullen's family recipe for bacon

00:42:45.720 grease this is true yes and they serve it to the kids if i don't eat it yeah they'll they love

00:42:50.960 their sauces the giant ketchup pile they love ketchup okay they eat nothing else that is in

00:42:57.460 sauce form there is one well cheese sauce i guess you could say on macaroni and cheese but no they

00:43:02.300 eat ketchup and also ketchup and that is mostly just titan and octavian no one else consumes

00:43:07.380 have you tried pasto with them yes they're um despite the fact that they love broccoli they

00:43:14.140 don't like the green they're like what is this witchcraft on my noodles it's not orange oh my

00:43:20.900 god i love our kids they don't make more kids oh okay okay welcome okay it's gonna be okay it's

00:43:31.800 gonna be okay by the way if you guys haven't tried it bacon with sweet potato fries tastes

00:43:37.180 really good the flavors go together really well anyway yeah it's one of the few things malcolm's

00:43:44.300 eaten which is delightful yeah i've really struggled to eat since the miscarriage and

00:43:48.080 i mean i eat maybe one every three days now um and even then it's not been my it hasn't been

00:43:55.160 my usual meals either um i've really struggled like my palate is i don't know yeah that hit you

00:44:02.160 hard it hurt all of us hard who knew actually a lot of people who listen to this podcast know

00:44:07.940 they get it no life is life but it's so worth it so that's how it is we're making cool new

00:44:16.860 mud puppy tablets for the kids guys if you want to check out the best chatbot site on the internet

00:44:21.220 and please promote us on other sites or discords or whatever if you like using our fab let people

00:44:25.440 know you know we're we're trying to grow and i don't know how okay like i know that we're better

00:44:29.780 than the other sites because i've used them i know that we're cheaper than the other sites well did

00:44:32.940 you see what bruno said that uh character ai declared bankruptcy did they let me just fact

00:44:39.420 check because i saw the link you sent kid did because like character ai was using horrible

00:44:45.280 models. And it was very exploitative. Oh, no, that was Candy AI. Yes, Character AI's parent

00:44:54.160 company, Character Technologies, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on Monday,

00:44:59.720 October 12, 2026. It is pursuing a court-supervised sale of its business and assets.

00:45:06.700 Why? The company cited high development in operating costs, potential litigation and

00:45:11.360 liabilities and regulatory pressures that left it unable to generate sufficient cash flow how

00:45:17.180 i'm in the same business guys it doesn't take big engineering costs to do this it's like two guys

00:45:24.000 that is wild uh disney has agreed to a 20 million deal involving certain assets and a non-exclusive

00:45:34.260 perpetual license to company intellectual property not a purchase of the entire character.ai platform

00:45:40.720 that is interesting so you'll be able to interact with disney characters and flirt with them which

00:45:49.640 else i can tell you to renounce responsibility for everything and leave entire kingdoms to die

00:45:54.020 that's great yeah to just have your little shitty fit in the mountains and everybody's dying and

00:46:00.740 that's that's apparently heroic now yeah look this is our um what's the name of the woman who 0.95

00:46:09.600 horrifically killed our children that's very elsa you know this is the era we live in

00:46:14.360 this is what we get when elsa's clancy clancy clancy clancy yeah sorry i wanted to say lindsey 0.84

00:46:20.000 ellis because i'm still watching her cruise ship video she is old daria she's daria once daria

00:46:26.240 becomes a parent it's amazing it's like i'm watching the show all over again which is a good

00:46:33.360 i don't know i want to say that daria was a good show but also it was so boring it actually wasn't

00:46:39.340 a good show so i remember thinking it was a good show when i was a kid because do i wear daria

00:46:44.380 glasses i wear daria glasses daria was edgy and i thought that that made it good when i was a kid

00:46:51.380 and then i went back and re-watched it during a period where i went back and re-watched a bunch

00:46:54.520 of older shows yeah and it's only edgy it's not actually funny like the humor doesn't is it even

00:46:59.780 edgy though it was edgy for the period okay it was a girl who didn't like her society and rules

00:47:07.320 And I was like, that's cool.

00:47:09.920 Not liking society and rules.

00:47:12.380 And then I got older and I was like, these plots are not very good.

00:47:17.460 I just remember wanting to like the show so much.

00:47:20.200 And then being very confused by a lot of things.

00:47:25.120 Anyway, okay, I got to pick this up.

00:47:26.480 I love you.

00:47:27.520 Love you.

00:47:28.200 Bye, Malcolm.

00:47:29.140 This reminds me of Mario Kart.

00:47:30.980 I don't know why.

00:47:31.880 You know.

00:47:32.000 Ding.

00:47:32.240 Boop, boop, boop. 1.00

00:47:34.120 I should add that sound effect.

00:47:35.520 oh my gosh that would be really fun just gives me that childhood feeling of like oh my god

00:47:42.140 my friend valerie would always beat me at everything because she had the game console

00:47:48.240 and i would just watch her play half the time but then when she did let me play

00:47:50.980 it would always lose except for rainbow road i don't know why

00:47:54.620 but for out of a reason and she was always princess peach and i was always yoshi and i love

00:48:00.640 that Yoshi always sounded like he was hawking a loogie.

00:48:04.780 Who knows why?

00:48:07.700 But what does that sound supposed to be if not loogie hawking?

00:48:11.560 Explain this to me. 0.94

00:48:14.120 Who would you play in Mario Kart?

00:48:18.020 Yoshi, right?

00:48:20.640 I didn't play much.

00:48:22.180 What?

00:48:24.360 Okay.

00:48:25.260 Wow.

00:48:26.880 What did your friends play with you?

00:48:28.680 It's like group games.

00:48:30.640 You're vibe coding it right now.

00:48:32.440 I can't.

00:48:33.300 I can't.

00:48:34.200 I can't.

00:48:34.540 You can't with me?

00:48:35.920 This is how you got to be so productive.

00:48:37.780 A thousand things at once.

00:48:38.900 Recording episodes, vibe coding, everything here.

00:48:41.020 I know.

00:48:41.440 All right.

00:48:41.680 We're all getting bricked, though.

00:48:42.860 We need to defragment. 0.87

00:48:43.840 I guess that's what the Sabbath is. 0.95

00:48:45.260 It's your defrag day.

00:48:47.660 And then I spend it having fun, making new AI things.

00:48:51.080 As you do.

00:48:51.740 You spend it vibe coding.

00:48:52.800 It's always our opportunity to build something new.

00:48:55.100 Because we made a rule that you can start building something new.

00:48:57.500 Yeah, you can't do productive work.

00:48:58.880 You can't do routine work, productive work, et cetera.

00:49:01.000 You can't keep building something you're already building,

00:49:03.220 but you can build something new if you want.

00:49:05.360 Yeah, if it's just for fun,

00:49:06.980 but then it turns out to be productive,

00:49:09.000 then that's terrible.

00:49:11.160 It's actually not terrible.

00:49:12.140 It's actually really awesome.

00:49:13.100 I don't know.

00:49:13.560 We're working it out, okay?

00:49:15.180 It's...

00:49:15.500 Okay.

00:49:16.160 We'll do our episode on that eventually.

00:49:17.880 Yeah.

00:49:18.160 I just...

00:49:19.560 I think we need to playtest it for longer.

00:49:21.220 I think after six months of playtesting,

00:49:22.780 we might have more data than three satellites.

00:49:25.100 I don't know what works.

00:49:25.900 Yeah.

00:49:26.860 All right.

00:49:28.880 Why it's so hideous

00:49:34.280 It's genuinely repulsive is this why why do you want this

00:49:41.660 Because you love having it what else does this cat want

00:49:45.160 what is it why are you all obsessed with okay oh this one oh what is that like leopold on okay g

00:50:01.320 g is ultimate damage tly why we're

00:50:06.120 Tlyosaurus figure.

00:50:08.840 Tlyosaurus.

00:50:09.920 But I want this one.

00:50:12.680 Yeah? Okay, Tlyosaurus.

00:50:14.460 Pretty cool. It's better than the one

00:50:16.740 Titan wants.

00:50:17.540 So it's totally why it was

00:50:19.120 why I wanted this one.

00:50:21.660 Oh, okay.

00:50:24.220 That's better.

00:50:24.680 We gotta figure out how to draw it

00:50:27.080 on a piece of paper

00:50:29.860 so Santa can give me it.

00:50:32.100 Oh, well, we'll just write his name out.

00:50:34.060 We'll spell it out.

00:50:34.840 yeah well if we just spell the word tylo

Based Camp - October 15, 2026

Oil Blockade Ended Weeks Ago： The Media Blackout Is Terrifying

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