Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - 502 JRE Review of Mike Benz

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Thanks to this weeks sponsors: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to Quo dot com slash JRER www.quo.com/jrer Go to RocketMoney.com/JRER to help monitor your spending, find and cancel unwanted subscriptions. In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience Review, we break down Joe Rogan's conversation with Mike Benz, a former State Department official and current executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. Benz brings a policy-level lens to how governments, NGOs, and tech platforms influence online speech, censorship, and digital power. His discussion with The Joe Rogan Experience dives into content moderation, information control, and the often invisible systems shaping what people see, say, and share online. We unpack what Benz is actually arguing, where his claims land, and why this episode sparked strong reactions across Rogan's audience. Is this a necessary warning about digital overreach, or does it drift into overly dense policy territory for the average listener? If you're interested in free speech, technology, power, and how modern narratives are managed behind the scenes, this is a conversation worth examining carefully. This podcast exists to separate signal from noise in Joe Rogan episodes, highlight the core ideas, and explore why certain conversations resonate or divide audiences online. www.JREreview.com For all marketing questions and inquiries: [e-mail] Follow the best JRE fan Instagram: www.instagram.com/thejrecompanion Please email us here with any suggestions, comments and questions for future shows.. [e-mail]  

Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from Miandis? That's a gift that lasts. Meandes creates matching prints for couples and friends, same adorable designs and different cuts for each of you, all made from their signature ultramodal fabric that feels impossibly soft. With 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, Meandie's Matching Prints are the perfect gift.

Valentine's Day is February 14th, so don't wait. Get exclusive deals up to 50% off at meandies.com slash comfort. code comfort. That's meundies.com slash comfort code comfort. You are listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast. We find little nuggets, treasures, valuable pieces of gold in the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and pass them on to you. Perhaps expand a little bit. We are not associated with Joe Rogan in any way. Think of us as the Talking Dead to Joe's Walking Dead. You're listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. What a bizarre thing we've created. Now with your hosts.

Adam Thuland might either be the worst podcast. One. Two, one. Go. Enjoy the show. Hey, guys, and welcome to another episode of the J.R.E. Review. This week, I'm joined by good old Nick from lesser-known operators. How you doing, buddy?

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me again. Yep. But you weren't so happy to listen to this episode, were you, bud? I am going to be the voice of unreason during this review. Matt, well, look, to be honest, I didn't pick this one for us to review because I thought you would hate it, okay? I thought you would enjoy it more than this. So my apologies, my apologies. First off, I do not accept, I do not accept and I'm going to hold this against just for the remainder of this recording.

Okay, all right, for the next 45-ish minutes. Well, first off, we are reviewing. Mike Benz, okay? And, you know, it's all government, conspiracy, etc., etc., etc. And, yeah, he's dry. I'll give him that. And he talked a lot. Rogan kind of took a backseat to what was going on, really. 95% backseat, yeah.

At least, at least. He's a former State Department official turned outspoken. spokesman critic of foreign policy, censorship, infrastructure, and information warfare. And, you know, he really laid a dense system level breakdown of kind of what's going on. And not your cup of tea, I would say. Fair to say? Well, and you said when we spoke on the phone or we were messaging, you said, let's give the people some more hope after the review. I am here to clear that up.

You're going to have less hope after listening to this review. Yeah, it was even interesting to listen to Joe because this guy would go on and on and on and on and on. And then Joe would go, and wouldn't know what to say. He's like, which point do I pull out of what he just said there? And then he would grab one

and then we would move off on another 45-minute tangent. Yeah. well he has a lot of information i'll give him that yeah a lot of information i mean he went into all sorts and he did and uh you know where to even start i mean a you know a big thing that he kind of started with is i mean censorship for one was a big area i mean he kind of laid out the idea of censorship is an ad hoc you know it's an organized ecosystem that it operates kind of like a structured network and it's not really random acts um you know he gets into like the interconnected entities it's almost like a systematic control and a lot of this he was saying came after the 2016 elections

which you know so that's trump getting into office and then building up to COVID, that kind of thing. And you did start to see a lot of censorship in one way or another building up on social media. And just the idea that government wanted to control it does make sense. I mean, social media around that time was just getting so massive that it makes sense the government wants to get ahead of that. And we've seen a ton of that.

you know, the following 10 years since then. Well, you've got private companies that now have more influence, more public reach, more sway than entire governments. And of course, the U.F. government's going to jump in and say, we need to get our hands around this. We can't have anything other than the mission or the mission statement of the U.S. government, you know. And that's the problem with technology, though. you make a decision now and you don't know how far that's going to affect you down the road. Like, especially with these emails, the reason some of these people are getting found out is because technology advanced to such a point that the everything is, once it's on the internet, it's forever.

Yeah. So if you censor something today, it can just be figured out with 10 years from now is technology, 20 years from now. There's no, there's no hiding anything once it's on the internet and once there's a digital paper trail. So you can censor all you want and you can hide these things in the now, but they're going to get found out in the later because later us, technological wise, is a lot smarter. That's the least the path we're going. For sure. For sure.

But just hearing how like even the government agencies are connected with like these NGOs and universities and also these tech platforms. It just seems like regular people are just completely outgunned. I mean, that basically covers everything other than the media when it comes to any information or education or guidance that we're supposed to get as regular citizens. And it's all in an effort to kind of flag or suppress certain content that they don't want us to have. money the guy said it in the interview it all comes down to money once your money's gone then you can't

bribe your senators you can't pay your your revolutionaries you can't do the things that you need to do so it all comes down to money and if your business or your influence fits into that and you get more money then you can have you can have an island you can have parties with celebrities and all the girls and all of the people and not necessarily maybe blackmail them but you're part of the in crowd and you have influence over world decisions because a certain point in life, things only get so expensive. A steak dinner can only get so expensive. These things, these other things, but power, I guess, is the final, the superior tier of ascension in the social circles.

When you have power and you can wield it over other people and fitting into that and who you know and what you can do and what you can attain with that power. Sure. And then, of course, we have the Constitution that's supposed to exist to protect, you know, the little people. And then all the government starts to do, or the CIA, as he put it, it just starts outsourcing their powers to either foreign nations or they just kind of move things to different entities so that they can work around the First Amendment. and kind of violate those constitutional rules again, probably for money, if not power, and again to kind of just assert control over all of us. Yes, yes, all right. We are in the best case scenario of control, right?

Though it's pretty nice here in the United States. It's very shitty in a lot of places in the world. world. For sure. For sure. There's rampant eruption and crime and the government levels and people just, you know, look at what's going in Iran. Protesters are being killed just for protests in the government. It's that we have our problems here and there's things that are wrong with the system, but it's also pretty nice here. It's also really nice here. And we are furthering the interests of the United States. And a lot of that is done in some very, very unsavory ways. And there are people willing to do terrible things for the good of the United States and not necessarily the good

of other individuals or people or other countries. Yeah. And these nasty types of behaviors have been happening a long time. And since we really haven't done it any other way, probably through history, I mean Well you're British Didn't the sun never set on the British Empire right Didn't you guys just have control of the entire world at one point? Oh he was stabbing flags in the ground left and right Any bit of ground

Put a flag in the rich and powerful were the ones calling the shots at that point correct Of course of course I mean listen Before them it was the rich and powerful before them And before them so what would make it any different now That the rich and powerful aren't telling everybody what to do Right Yeah

And you know You're not asserting that kind of power and control and dominance over others with a polite handshake and a nice negotiation and a comfortable meeting. It's always done with pressure. You don't control your street corner when you're selling drugs by letting people walk all over you. No, you rise to the top and you kill anybody that comes and tries to take over or you get killed and then they take over you. Crime is the same at every level. it just looks different, whether it wears a suit and tie. This podcast is brought to you by Rocket Money.

I used to spend many hours each month trying to sort out my finances before Rocket Money. But now with Rocket Money, I get to save all that time and I can put it towards spending time with my family, my friends. Going to the gym, reading books is truly wonderful. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. You can set budgets and goals, get personalized insights and regular reports, and receive real-time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. It's super useful.

Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com. slash J-R-E-R. That's rocketmoney.com slash J-R-E-R. RocketMoney.com slash J-R-E-R. New Year, new systems, right? This is the time when we all look at the messier parts of our business and think there has to be a better way. And there is. Streaming your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo works wherever you are, write from an app on your phone or computer, and let you keep your existing number,

add new numbers or teammates in minutes, sync your CRM, and reply on seamless routing and call flows as your business scales. Make this the year when no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free plus get 20% of your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash J-R-E-R. That's QU-O dot com slash J-R-E-R. Quo no-miss calls, no-miss customers. Or you're dressed like a homeless person on the street and you're trying to fight for a meal. It's your survival. And if somebody feels like they're coming after your livelihood, they're going to take you out in whatever way they can and get away with or not get away with to prove a point that's it's survive these a lot of these things is survival and people will do

anything to win what did you think of um him talking about how foreign aid and um kind of like the democracy programs influence the media narrative abroad right and i guess also like the military kind of does that too i would imagine to some degree not directly but with pressure influencing what depends on who's in the driver's seat right and who own so all this where's the funding coming from that's why there's donors to political parties because they'll listen that you're basically buying somebody's vote or personal opinion because these people in the government they don't they're not they're not voting for their constituents they're voting mostly their personal opinion and the personal opinions of people around

them and their party so what was what was your question again well how foreign aid like so america's gives a lot of foreign aid to different countries um you know especially plenty well it's plenty to all countries but to poor countries it goes a long way so they pay a lot to these countries and they're strategically doing it so that it kind of buys favor and often that that favor works into media narratives so America can kind of pass their positive, potentially

propagandized message of like pro-America or whatever narrative that they want to spin in that country. And at the same time, you know, using like democracy

program-ish stuff to do the same thing. It's just like We can. We could be spreading our message or we could be spreading the message to get other people to kill each other so that somebody else more agreeable gets into power. Well, you know, he said we had just lost power in Iran, but then we started funding the Iranians to fight against the Iraqis. And then we switched sides several times in there because, you know, well, we were supporting Iran because we didn't want Iraq to take over Iran. But then we switched sides, you know, and then we were supporting Iraq.

we love to throw money at a problem to increase our strategic impact or where we have a foothold. We're everywhere all at the same time and money is no issue. So if we want somebody to think something, it's just what are the other effects like this initial effect. Oh, we're going to, we stand behind country X. Oh, what are the second and third order effects of that? And there's other things down the line that are the actual. effect we're going after and then all of these benefits us donating for aid probably you know isn't isn't the desired effect there's something else because that money is probably going or getting funneled

to something else in as i said a lot of other countries aren't as we we the pentagon failed its audit eight year eight times in a row right they're eighth one and we that's our money where we're spending it and that we're supposed to have control it and we can't even pass an audit. Do you think that money that we're sending to all these other places out the side of the United States is going where they say it's going? No. Eight times. Like, wow. Unreal.

No accountability. No. And we can't even account for our money here. They're money. We don't even know where the money we are spending here is going. Do we think it's going where it's supposed to when it leaves our place? Yeah, no chance. Can you go to jail for like owning the IRS $1,000?

I think it's like, you know, yeah, if you don't pay, that's why, you know, if you don't pay your taxes, the IRS will come after you. As long as your business is involved in crime, as long as you pay your taxes, you'll be fine. Yeah. It's those kind of levels of, you know, and it is, you know, and it is, type of corruption right it's just like the the levels of that it's it just makes it so hard to have a type of faith and along those lines i mean you know he talks about NGOs positioned as neutral like neutral NGOs but they're allegedly funded by state or corporate interests like directly so he gives the example of fact check.org well when you take something like fact check.org which is

the fricking fact-checking sites that we're supposed to go by, the people reference when they're like, I fact-check this. And then the claim is that it's supposed to be impartial, but it relies on government funding and tech funding that aligns with their works and, like, their donor priorities. I mean, what a perfect propaganda machine that is. Like, you become the facts when you own factcheck.org.

I'm sensing a theme. I'm sensing a theme here that the game is rigged no matter what we do. So here's what I got from the whole thing, right? It's just this constant, you are not being told the truth. Okay. What do you do with that information? And to me, this episode was completely useless for people that listen to it because he was giving out so much information, so much very detailed information,

so fast that it was impossible to retain. So you're going to only retain the one thing that you get from it because everything he said will make you mad when you think about it. So the only thing you're going to come out of this episode with is being mad at the government. It's just going to rile you up and then to go. And he said right at the end there, it's hard to know who to trust here. Well, you can't fucking trust anybody. You can't trust anybody that says anything.

And now we've got AI that can just make fake documents and make. fake videos so you can't even trust what you see now and it's just now you're just angry and what are you angry at it's just you being angry at a system that you can't fully understand because there's so much information to process like this guy how many books and reports and manuscripts and things has this guy read to get to this level of comprehension oh thousands be able to spit it out like that on a two and a half hour podcast unreal where he talked 95% of the time Yeah. Just ridiculous. He didn't even have notes. No. I watched the video. He just stared at Joe and just rattled off like the longest TED talk, the most detailed longest TED talk I've ever heard. And then he go, and this one's really, and he said this a lot. This one's really funny. And then he would say something that totally wasn't funny. It's not funny.

And I go, that wasn't, that wasn't funny at all. No, it's funny to him. It's funny because it's depressing. And you have to get to that level of involved in all of this information to think, oh, this little detail, oh, the CIA on that aircraft. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I was like, that's not funny. That's terrible. What he really means is this is totally fucked. That's why it's fun.

Yeah, this is totally fucked. Yeah. But to him, that's a funny little anecdote on the side of it. And normal people that have bills to worry about and their kids to worry about and their families and a payment and everything like this. what are they going to take away from this? What am I going to take away from this? Well, we're getting fucked.

We're getting fucked and we're paying for it. We're paying the government to do all this stuff. But then again, I don't know. It's really nice here. Some parts of it are shitty, but it's pretty okay here compared to some other places. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, we're in great shape, but it's still really good to have people like him that keep an eye on what's going on. and, you know, because the government's always trying to find ways to skirt around the rules that it's contained by and in a way to just, like you say, to gain more power and put us as just the citizens in positions of less control.

So the more information we have about what they're up to, the more potential pushback we can create. you know, what control that we really have anyway. But, you know, supposedly we can vote and our votes count and they do something. And then we can write to our politicians and some politicians, you know, like to say that they're standing up for us. And who knows? Maybe that does something. It's hard to know these days. Maybe two-party system that's flip a coin.

It's one side or the other. And sometimes there's a tie and then that goes to the party that has the presidency. So really, you've got a 50-50 chance if you're going to be happy or really unhappy. Yeah. Or miserable or just slightly miserable. It's hard to say. It's hard to say. What would you take on the Twitter files?

And I don't know if you were like following it, what kind of when all that was going on back in the day. Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from MeUndies? That's a gift that lasts. MeUndies creates matching prints for couples and friends, same adorable designs, and different cuts for each of you, all made from their signature ultram modal fabric that feels impossibly soft. With 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, MeUndy's Matching Prints are the perfect gift. Valentine's Day is February 14th, so don't wait.

Get exclusive deals up to 50% off at meundies.com slash comfort. code comfort. That's meundees.com slash comfort code comfort. Where the Twitter files kind of really exposed the internal communications between them and the government requests to moderate all that content on the elections and health, and it revealed kind of the hidden interactions. I mean, this is all before Elon bought it. probably a huge reason why he did

and you know people kind of sleep on this information and they and even when it came out a lot of people are still more upset that Elon bought Twitter than this even happened they just brush it off as like oh well that was fine and I'm like it's not fine that the government was doing that I mean, the censorship that they were creating was really dangerous.

I mean, if we had not found out about that, it would have been, if they had had 10 more years of control over that social media and therefore really all the social media's, who knows what the state of things would have become? Maybe, maybe, but that's them having the poor foresight. to go to a private company, all digitally, right, and say, we want you to moderate this, or this is the view that we want to be put out to the public, right? We want our views out there because we're the world's in a crisis. And for them not to understand that all of that was going to come to light one day is a really poor foresight on theirs.

Or they just said, who fucking cares? because we're in this big crisis and we're doing the best for the citizens that we think should be happening right now. And the world moves on. It could be bad if they would have had control. It probably would have been a bigger disaster if they had been able to get away with it longer. And it would have just worked out even more poorly for them. Because, you know, we have this political party system and it just swings back and keep swinging back and left and right and left. right so maybe it would have been bad maybe not maybe something else would have come up and maybe this

is all a distraction right maybe and Elon buys it and brings it all to light and then nobody cares because there's something else big that comes along in the news cycle sure just having the FBI having direct access to like flag content though and like a direct line to do that and to kind of normalizing it is shocking influence over social media. And that really started to become the norm. I mean, you see Zuckerberg, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, he's had his kind of like Zuckerberg 2.0 makeover where he's wearing his gold chain and doing jiu-jitsu and trying to be cool.

Bless him, he's not really pulling it off, but he's doing his best. And then, you know, he's also going on road. and trying to step up and say, yeah, we're not tolerating this anymore, and we're not listening to the government like we did. And I really feel like he's only getting this confidence because of Elon's pushback. But, you know, he bent over faster than anyone when Twitter was doing this kind of Twitter files thing with the government. It's like nobody was standing up to the government at that time. literally every time the FBI contacted them, they're like, oh, this is national security.

Okay, whatever you need. Here you go. We just stopped doing that, Ben. I mean, he woke up and he realized how powerful a man he was. And then he went, well, you know, this doesn't. Everybody changes their opinion based on their experiences as we go through life. And if they don't, then they're not learning anything. So he just realized the way things are going and went, wait, I'm one of the most powerful people in the world.

I don't have to listen to anybody. ever and he just changed and so did a lot of people and once one person does it um other people other other rich and powerful people will too so i mean and it is it's written into the the bill or the we have these inalienable rights right we have right to privacy and these things like that so the i think they those people didn't know how powerful they were to be be able to stand up to the government. And there's people that forget that. I mean, have you ever seen $100 billion?

That's a lot of money. That has a lot of power and a lot of influence. Ton. And it's terrible for the government to say, oh, yeah, this is in the interest of national security. But that's how, that's the way things used to work. We went after communism. And we sent a whole bunch of people, 58,000 soldiers to die in Vietnam. over something that turned out, maybe that wasn't true, but we were fighting communism, right?

We were all in against that. And then years later, and everything changes, you know, the war on drugs. But the war on drugs isn't real. That's all the fraud. Drugs are a part of the world economy. It's the bad stuff that really starts killing people. Everything fits into everything else. It's this web of trying to interconnect.

And it's hard to tell when people go too far. Jordan Peterson brought this up in his interview, right? If we wanted to see how far we can push, we're going to push really far until people give us push back and say, that's too far. And I'm going to pull back and I'm going to wait, and then I'm going to push even farther the next time. And if you give the government or anybody in a powerful position, enough rope, they will pull you out of your position faster than you can plant your feet. And it's going to happen every single time. If you give somebody too much, they're going to take it. And they're going to take it and run with it.

Sure. I mean, you push until somebody either hurt you back or you hurt yourself. That's it. I mean, you're going to do it. You're just going to keep pushing. That's the only thing that stops. It's not like anyone just sits back and goes, I think I've pushed enough. I'm just going to stop pushing right now. I'm going to chill. Well, they brought that up for California, right? California is going to take every dollar that every resident has eventually if the citizens let them. And it seems like they're fully content to let that happen. We're going to just let them tax and tax and tax and tax until they have nothing left until everybody leaves. So the taxes are out of control there. It's unbelievable. Same here in my neighborhood. They're not raising taxes, but they reassess the value of the houses so they get more money.

So they didn't raise taxes. They just reassessed all the home values in the city so that they get more money. It just keeps going. going and going and going and it's going to take some people are going to have to stand up but people don't have the time to do that we're stuck you know yeah you got to go to work you got to go to work you got to take care of your family you got to make money to pay your bills it's um and that's my whole whole view on this like what can i do with this information right that comes out about rich and powerful people people being fucked up and interconnected and controlling the world god

There's not a fucking lot I can do, right? It's going to upset me. I can influence myself. I can be as healthy as I can. I can be as aware as I can. But, man, what can I affect here? And that's kind of why these episodes bother me so much is because it's just riling people up. And, okay, what are you going to do with this information?

Is it just be mad? Are you just going to be mad at the other side or the left side of the right side? Because that's not healthy. What are you going to do with this information? Are you going to be more aware? Is it going to change your voting? Are you going to vote the same way? Are you going to research this?

Are you going to stand up and I'm going to rise to be a person that people are going to vote for? What are you going to do with it? Because if it's just be mad, that's not healthy. Of course. That's not good for anybody. But do you always have to do something with information? I mean, I've always liked learning about World War II. I don't do anything with that information.

And it doesn't necessarily make me mad. I mean, some of the stories is sad, I guess, but it's like, it's just interesting to know about a thing that has happened in the world that is going on. It gives me a greatest sense of understanding of, like, world issues or how things happen. Those benefits you, right? Those don't make you angry all the time and worked up is not healthy. No, no, no. Being interested in learning and knowing about the past and growing your perspective on how things work. That's good.

finding out that you're getting fucked all the time and just being mad about it, that sucks. It does. It does. For sure. How can I, how can I work towards this? You know, how can I shelter my money and pay less in taxes and do these things too? Is there ways to kind of be as slimy as the, no, that's terrible. But we don't need to be. But like, even listening to the bit, like, obviously this episode didn't have a ton of hope in, right, necessarily. But at the same time, I'm glad I learned more of these things. I'm like, oh, yeah, it is like as messed up as I've been hearing. It is as shocking and almost as conspiratorial as I've been hearing.

I believe this person, he's very smart. Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from Miundis? That's a gift that lasts. Meundies creates matching prints for couples and friends, same adorable designs in different colors. cuts for each of you, all made from their signature ultramodal fabric that feels impossibly soft. With 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, MeUndy's Matching Prints are the perfect gift.

Valentine's Day is February 14th, so don't wait. Get exclusive deals up to 50% off at meundees.com slash comfort, code comfort. That's meundies.com slash comfort code comfort. There are some fucked up, you know, behind the scenes, cloaking. dagger things going on that are not in the best interest of the individuals in this country. And that's okay for me as an individual as well, because it's been happening like this for a long time. And like you said, society works and my life is pretty good and many others works as well. And I think it's useful to know and possibly adjust something along the way.

it's better than thinking that it's all rainbows and sunshine, but just because stuff works, it's almost more amusing to see that most things work. You know, the lights are on, I go to work, you go to the hospital, and everything's kind of pumping, and they've got resources, and they've got all the things you need. You go to the store, and there's groceries everywhere, and at the same time, you know, all these agencies and governments are up to all these sneaky things. and I'm like, oh, I guess it can both happen. It can both be going on at the same time.

It's like Tommy Lee Jones and men in black when he's like, there's always some Carillion death ray or an end of the world that's going to happen and end all life on this miserable planet. And somehow at the last minute, everything is fine. You know, they come through with a solution. No, and you're right. This is just my experience in my life and the things that I've seen, the people I've met and I've talked to in the conversation

I've had that have led me to the point where I just don't give a fuck. I just don't fucking care. I know there are bad people and there are good people that control the world and they're making decisions that I will never be at the table to have an influence in. And I just go, there is nothing that I can do other than affect what I can physically touch either with my voice or my hands and I got to focus on that. And that's the point where I've got into in my life and I just I get I get it's kind of suck I just don't give a fuck you know I get as shitty as that sounds well you know it's it's reasonable but you can still have an opinion I mean in the same way as like you know they talk about the pandemic right and how the justification

for their kind of emergency narrative management came up and they did that rapid suppression of like any alternative views. And that happened online. That was part of it. Like you couldn't tweet anything on X about, you know, this is kind of bullshit or whatever. You get kicked off of X. And it was just like you had to follow it or you were an anti-vaxor or you're a bad person or you weren't helping the world.

And it's like, you know, it's important to kind of analyze that after the fact and have an opinion about it because it could happen again. It could happen again and we don't really have like a solid conclusion on it. It's like to be honest, that whole thing ended.

And it's like we didn't really have like a team meeting where we're like, all right, what are we actually fucking think about this now? How are we going to do this again? It just kind of was like,

let's not talk about it because we were arguing a lot. It's like that bad fight you have with your wife. And then it's like, let's just, you never discuss it again because it was just such a bad

fight. Yeah, just the elephant in the room for the next 30 to 40 years. Yeah. Okay, are you a Lord of the Rings fan? I do like it, yes. Okay, so you're familiar with Gandalf and the one ring of power then? Correct. Okay, so have you ever looked into what the alternate timelines, if Gandalf had taken the ring? What would have happened? I haven't. Okay, I'm going to read you this short blurb here, right? If Gandalf claimed the ring for himself, he had 50% chance to destroy Sauron one versus one. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the ring. For him, it would have been destroyed, taken from him forever. But the ring and all its works would have endured.

It would have been the master in the end. Gandalf as ring lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained righteous but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for good, and the benefits of these subjects according to his wisdom, which was and would have remained great. Thus while Sauron multiplied evil, he left good clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil. All of these things that are done for the purposes of good can be pushed so far that they're

seen as bad. Anything taken with great power with good intentions will eventually turn to a place that others perceive to be bad. So these people may have gone at this immense power of censorship with good intentions, but any time you're trying to silence the population with good intentions, it's going to turn evil no matter what because you have control now. And there's no end to that control and you're never going to want to give it up. And that's the same with all of these rich people and the government.

bad good intentions will always be taken too far sure because you do them for a good reason and then it'll be a bad reason eventually well i mean you saw that so much i mean there was suppression of dissenting experts as they like framed them as public safety you know they would have any person that it was highly decorated in medicine or science or whatever if anyone spoke out about hey you maybe these vaccines are slightly dangerous, or maybe COVID isn't quite as spreadable or problematic as we're thinking. They were losing their jobs at universities,

like funding, they were everything. Like, they were getting crushed left and right. There was no space for anything other than this narrative that was thrown out there so early on that it wasn't even plausible that they could possibly even have all the answers to be this certain. And the only thing that they had in their corner

that they were really pushing forward is it's so dangerous we just have to be this careful and anything else is just reckless. And you're like, all right, so we're going to

upheaval everything for years based on that. And that's how we found out who was in charge. charge. Like, we really started to realize that, wow, mayors of towns and governors are like way more powerful than we realized. I just thought mayors open malls. I didn't realize that they could make us all not go to work. They're only as powerful as the police force. If the police will listen to whoever's in charge, then they can do whatever they want. So if it's all in the name of safety

and the people don't want to lose their jobs, because they're all government employees. employees and you don't want to lose your pension and your retirement and everything, you're just going to do whatever the boss says. That's with any company that you work for. Until you say, I'm not doing that, it's going to slide because there's the negatives that will happen to you. If you don't outweigh, sometimes your personal opinion. So if a mayor says you have to go arrest those people on the beach in the name of public health, you're going to go arrest them. Yeah. How we, we, we, we believe in our mind that we are, we would be righteous in that situation.

But given all the factors and everything, would we, would you, would you give up your pension and would you give up your family's safety just because you have to stand up for your personal rights or is, is, you're going to weigh all these decisions? So they're playing on people's fear, with their fear, yeah, and lives. because life is expensive. You work your whole life to be into this position and have this future. And these people in charge, we've made a decision. This is the way things are. We're going to shut down the gyms.

We're going to shut down the churches. We're going to shut down all of this stuff. And you're going to do what we tell you to do or we're going to get rid of you. And then we're going to mark you. We're going to black label you from society as well and crush you in the media. So it's terrible. Do you think there's kind of any long-term precedent concerns after that whole COVID thing,

meaning like the measures that they put in place are like persistent and that will be applied to other things, like normalizing that control in the future? Or we see it coming and be like, nah, no chance. We're not doing this. I think there would be less of a middle. I think there would be more one-sum. and more of the other side. There'll be more polarized, right?

The people that were more okay with it will jump right in and say, this is, you know, I don't want to say it's political, but this is the right way to go. There was no middle ground when it came to these things, right? It was you were like,

this is ridiculous or we have to buy into what the government is saying. And it didn't matter what side you believe. So I believe in the next time it comes up, people are going to make a decision fast, and they're going to move further to one side than closer to the middle in future situations that come up like this. Flowers die in three days. Matching underwear from Mianti's? That's a gift that lasts. Meandes creates matching prints for couples and friends, same adorable designs and different cuts for each of you,

all made from their signature ultramodal fabric that feels impossibly soft. With 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 5-star reviews, Meanty's matching prints are the perfect gift. Valentine's Day is February 14th, so don't wait. Get exclusive deals up to 50% off at meundies.com slash comfort, code comfort. That's meetundies.com slash comfort code comfort. We've now influenced a great portion of the youth in the country to be super skeptical of the people who are in charge of them. Well, if the Epstein list hasn't done that, I don't know what else. would ever need to come out to get people suspicious of just, you know, big tech oligarchs and government in general.

I mean, it's pretty clear why it took them so long to release those files. I still can't understand why they've even released them. They're so damning to so many people. I mean, talk about Bill Gates looking like shit. I mean, holy gosh. his wife having to go on that podcast and just like be basically speechless and just shake her head. I mean, imagine talking about your ex-husband and have to do it with like so much shame. I mean, unreal.

Like they're the two people that have given the most money to charity ever. They should be in retirement, sat back going, look how great we are. We've done so much for humanity. and now there's just nothing but smeared shame all over that guy and he's just one of many people that showed up on that list doing God knows what creepy things it's just shocking and there's so many liars that's the thing

like people that went on TV and directly were like I barely saw him once and I knew he was a creep and I hate him and then there's 47 emails of them just saying, hey, I can't wait to hang out again. That was the best time ever. I love pizza. Let's get more pizza. Can we order five pizzas?

You're like, wow, all these guys really like pizza for some reason. Yeah, code words sound ridiculous when you read them back in plain form as if you're reading a book. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just like when you're a teenager and you're trying to disguise your speech from your parents when you were young and had a, I guess the. that's kind of a thing right you're like oh i know you know bring this over then oh that totally

doesn't mean weed yeah it's it's all ridiculous make sure you bring the green goblin to my house wink wink wink oh i wonder if green gum i don't i'm not familiar with that one oh man i it only takes one oh shit to wipe out an entire life of attaboys I think a drill sergeant told us that at basic training. Oh, that's great. It takes one oh shit to wipe out a lifetime of Ataboy's. Mm-hmm. And, you know, you get into a situation, and as I said before,

and you just become comfortable with something, and then you become comfortable with something else, and then things just become commonplace, and all of a sudden you're not who you were long ago, and things have changed, and fuck them, right? I don't have anywhere else, any way else to say it. Like, you know, morals and ethics and all these things, they go out the window, and the more money you make and the more power you have.

But fuck them. I think one post I saw, I said, I don't care who it is. I don't care what political party they're from, fucking put them all in the ground. I don't care. But you got to have a significant backing to do that of the government. And now we've got political parties involved and people. that are high up in government implicated in this. So what does that tell me to the person who's already going,

I don't give a fuck? It goes like, you know, it just confirms that we are at a sheer disadvantage in life just starting out from zero no matter where you're born. Like you are basically fucked. And everybody that's in charge of you is going to make you pay taxes and fund this whole thing, whether you like it or not. And there's nothing you can do about it. It's the grind.

Yeah. Yep, you're being manipulated one way or another. I mean, that definitely is going on. And people are telling you what they want you to believe, not necessarily what is happening. You got to carefully try and read between the lines, and that takes a great deal of work. A great deal of work.

You've got to find trusted places. to find your information, and that is hard to do these days. Those types of sources. You know, with the people that I follow and I talk to, you know, not my thing, but find your people at church, find your religion, find your circle of people in your community, get with your family, get with the people that you trust, and the people that you can see and that are nice to be around and work on yourself as well. And I guess, as you said, it's good to be aware of all of these things that are going on,

but it is not going to help you being angry about it, and it's not going to work it out. Because, God, man, it just seems like worse and worse shit just keeps coming out over and over and over again. And it's like, how bad can it get? Well, maybe it can get worse. It could get so much worse than this, right? God, that's a bad feeling to think. Oh, yeah, definitely could get so much worse. I mean, look, it could be back in COVID again.

I mean, that was a lot worse than this, unless you were somebody that, you know, hated your job and now didn't have to work and was getting those government checks. Maybe that was a lot better for you. but I did not appreciate any of that because I like working and I don't like personally just getting handouts. I feel like myself that's bad for your kind of mental state. I don't know. I think that that's just not good.

It's like training you to be lazy or something. But I'm sure a lot of people appreciated that. Maybe a lot of people needed a break and I get it. But I think it's going to take decades to recover from that amount of time. And yeah, I'm very suspicious of all things after that experience. It's certainly got me jaded, I would say. Hard to know who to trust here. Yeah, I don't know.

But overall, fan reception online was pretty mixed. A lot of people felt like Nick on this. one, that it was just too intense of a TED talk overall, and it was way too heady. And again, like Nick was saying, the feel was just, where's the hope? Everything's a conspiracy. It's all shit. And yeah, I get it. It was those things. Some people really like the input and, you know, just the sheer amount of facts that that guy was thrown down and his knowledge overall. It's nice that he did the research, so we didn't have to. That was one quote that I quite liked.

Overall, personally, I give this one at 7 out of 10 only because it had a lot of information that I appreciated. But it was a bit of a slow roll, and he's kind of, you know, monotony and it was just all him. it was just like all him talking so uh it was almost like rogan wasn't even there honestly i am going to give this a three only because that's the lowest rating we've ever had only because he mentioned the john f kennedy special warfare course in school which i am a graduate of for the special forces qualification course so only because he mentioned my only advanced

studies school I've been to. That's why it gets a three. Very nice. Very nice. Well, thank you for joining me for this one, Nick, and for putting up with that podcast and struggling through what a trooper you are, as always. And thanks to everybody out there for listening. We appreciate it. If you want a shitload of information and to be slightly scared and to be even more suspicious of the government, check out this episode. already feel that way, you could probably skip this one because it's only going to have you double down. But yeah, if you are still naively fully trusting the government and don't believe in any of the conspiracies, I would recommend this one for you because it might shine a light on

some things that you are not paying attention to and it might be worth it. But anyway, thank you all so much. We appreciate you and we will see you next time. Cheers.