The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: How The World Ends

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

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Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwfpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Rabelais, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. You know you're going to have to redo that whole entire intro, right? Yeah, yeah, I thought about that. You know, put it on my to-do list.

So, welcome back to the MatterFacts Podcast. My co-host needs to be fired or disciplined, apparently. He interrupted my whole freaking train of thought as I was getting ready to roll in. And I was debating on Rickrolling the audience with the new addition to the team but then I just hit the button and here he is. It's Nick! Say hi Nick. Hey guys, how's it going? So Nick has been

a fellow Rabble Rouser patron to the podcast for a while. We've had him on a couple of times to talk about 3D printing and shotguns. 3D printing, shotguns and the modern militiamen. That's what it was. And now he's going to be a semi-regular co-host because we needed a third chair.

He knows a lot of stuff, special stuff that Andrew and I don't, and I feel like he could bring value to the show. And he's a weirdo that likes to spend time with us instead of doing something else with his time on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. So that is a prerequisite for being a co-host is, you know, you have to be a little bit of a weirdo. Have nothing else to do in your life. Yeah. I know. There's plenty of Warhammer figures on Patreon, I think. And unlike others, I'm not going to pick on you for playing with Warhammer figurines.

No, it's, I mean, i think it's long overdue um you know we talked about uh we talked about a lot of stuff phil and i did and uh basically it came down to my work schedule is just stupid right now just being on second shift and uh yeah that's where the decision came down was to bring a third person on just because of the fact that in order to grow the show like we want to, we need to get more consistent. And so, no, I think it's going to work out. Days that I can't be here, I mean, obviously, Nick, you'll be here every time we record now.

But what would be nice is – As long as I can. Yeah, right. But what's going to be nice is if I can't make it, then Phil doesn't have to try to find someone more interesting, which isn't that hard. So now you're here, so welcome to the team. Make Phil do more work, so that's fun.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. I will say the one disappointing thing is that whenever I co-host with my wife, that's a great excuse for me to try to get her to sit in my lap for an hour. I mean, you can still do that. She never does it, but it's a good excuse to try. You don't need a good excuse to try if you're married. Yeah, I'm married. I need a good excuse.

Hopefully she's not listening right now. Oh, she's on the other side of the wall. Any minute now, she's going to burst through the door and give me the E-L-I. Unless she's that one person that's watching live. Anyway. So, as I've been trying to be better about lately, I do need to thank the patrons for continuing

to support the show. The couple of bucks y'all spend every month, believe it or not, offsets a non-inconsequential amount of money it takes to run a podcast, as Andrew and I have talked about in the past. Like, I ran this podcast at a net loss for two and a half years. And then it

finally started paying for itself. And then as more and more people joined in the nuthouse, you know, we've been able to do additional things like start live streaming and doing other things. So we've always kind of taken the perspective of we don't take a paycheck from the podcast. We don't take money out of it. It's always go back into the show, figure out how to make the show better, how to make it more entertaining.

Okay, so I said there was only one person watching and then three people jumped into the comments all at the same time. So that's how it works around here, apparently. And Red Dawn on Netflix. Red Dawn on... Nice. Yes. It's a good movie.

Which one? The remake, or with Chris Hemsworth, or the original? I'm hoping the original. I haven't seen the new one, but I'm hoping that they didn't butcher it too badly. It's not terrible. The new one's got some interesting changes. Yeah, it's not terrible. I mean, nothing will ever beat Charlie Sheen, but no, it was good. Joe said the original.

I think they're both good. I kind of was hoping that they would continue on and do another one, but just because I'd be kind of curious to see where all that whole thing goes. But no, it's good. Anyway. Do we need to do a watch party for some of that kind of stuff? Oh, we absolutely could.

I just gotta figure. I gotta take a close look at the YouTube terms and figure out how to get away with it without getting the stream shut down. There's got to be a way, though, because there are people who get away with it. I think it has to do with the, as long as you're doing creative commentary about it. So for us, say if it was Red Dawn, commenting on the things people could have maybe had ready to begin with, if it was Red Dawn commenting on the things people could have maybe had ready to begin with.

Maybe their uses of small unit tactics, some of the weapons uses scavenging, stuff like that. Yeah. So in other words, just talk like a bunch of drunken retards every now and then, and it'll be fine. Wow.

I mean, we definitely handled part. Yeah. I see bourbon, bourbon and spicy coffee. It's old fashioned, but close. It's got bourbon in it.

It's made with bourbon. It's made with love. There you go. So I do want to give Andrew an opportunity because he reminded me about Operation Skywalker, which is still running. I haven't checked to see what the total is up to in a bit since I made my contribution. I'll check it. So they're currently at 21 245 is what they're at right now um so yeah so anybody who if you don't know who operate or what

operation skywalker is uh phil if you can remember uh or if you can link the show in the description And link the show in the description to the past show. It was a few shows ago with Trek and Kirk. And so basically just quick synopsis or quick rundown out of it. It's Kirk and Jill. Kirk is a 68-year-old retired corrections officer. He's a high school coach for the hockey, high school boxing um he survived you know three time cancer survivor um and you know it's something that happens and that's the thing is like you don't think that this is going to ever happen to you but he defended himself

he legally defended himself with a firearm uh basically what happened was him and his wife were they went to the grocery store coming back uh they were unloading the vehicle uh he got jumped by three individuals uh he was hit over the head by a it was a wine bottle basically they used it i mean to me that's a deadly weapon once it comes into contact with your skull uh so they hit him over the head they hit him in the head with the uh wine bottle uh while being kicked on the ground and pummeled um he pulled his pistol out shot one of the uh the perps in the uh i believe it was in the neck or somewhere in the chest i don't remember exactly where but shot and killed him uh and then he was unconstitutionally jailed for i think it was 102 days i want to say uh basically and uh listen to if you look at his story like i'm not doing any justice because his story is crazy they uh they

did wharf or they did basically torture tactics that you see in movies uh that that you find that we're basically playing music over the loudspeakers 24 hours a day, keeping the lights on in a cell so we can't sleep. I mean, all kinds of stuff. And it's torture. Like, that should not happen within the United States, honestly. I mean, I guess unless you're like a pedophile of some kind, then the wood chipper you go. But other than that i think you you have

constitutional rights uh so it's crazy so listen to that episode but go to the website here uh actually we'll put it uh i'm going to copy and paste it and put it into the uh the chat here um but uh yeah it just give whatever you can um if, if you can, I mean, it's a dollar. If you can spare a dollar, if, if we can get every single person who listens to this to just even do a dollar, uh, that's going to be crazy. The MDFI alumni, uh, if, I mean, there's thousands of MDFI alumni. If you guys can jump in and spare a dollar, $ uh that would be awesome so get on there take a look at it read on it and please just donate it goes to a good cause this guy and his wife had to uh i mean refinance all kinds of things sell cars sell his firearm collection i mean he had to give

up so much of their life so please think think about donating. And just for the audience, because YouTube doesn't like the fact that I am trying to type the title of that episode into the chat because it involves the word shoot, and apparently that's on the naughty list. So if you look back through our previous shows, it was released June 21st called When Good Shoots Go Bad, if you want to hear the story of Kirk.

And I'm not even going to attempt to recount it because I can't. No one can tell that story like Kirk could. I mean, it's worth going to YouTube or Rumble or Facebook to watch the stream because the emotion on his face cannot be fully conveyed in just speech. It was heartbreaking to listen to.

Yeah, it was crazy. Okay, one more administrative task, and then we can get to silliness, which is going to be this topic, I'm sure. But we've been talking on Raising Values recently, my wife and I have, about the fact that she and I, and me and Andrew Andrew took a good look at the merchandise that was what we had the merchandising options we had provided to Southern

Gals and we concluded that we could and should do better so Raising Values has completely redone their entire merch line if you're curious you can actually go look at the Raising Values episode we streamed just this past Sunday we showed some clips of my wife wearing those shirts that we got as proofs. They're freaking hilarious. My personal favorite is the little marshmallow that's on fire that says, Burnout but Optimistic, because that's just my vibe. And it resonates with people. What's the possum one? First of all, I'm a delight. That's the one. my wife loves that one

i'm definitely gonna be getting her one yes but matter of fact has also redone our merch and me and gillian and andrew sat down and threw some ideas around and put some stuff together and these are going into production should be fairly soon i'm me and andrew are just waiting on proofs and as soon as i get those then we'll get the green light and get things going. But because Burt Gummer was a personal hero of mine growing up, let's be honest. If you watch Tremors, everybody wanted to be Burt Gummer. Nobody wanted to be Val. So we have, what would Burt do? I decided to do a riff off of Street Fighter, hence the apocalyptic warlords, player select.

That'll be a fun little shirt and shirt for... Although I did have to explain to my wife who all those people were, which tells me that I have some date night movies to handle with her. Because, like, you know, Burt Gummer and Tremor, she knows. But apparently I need to put Road Warrior and Escape from New York on the list. I mean, Escape from New York is just, that's a given. That's a classic. Yeah, it really is. Of course, you're going to have to follow it up with the double feature Escape from L.A.

Yes. The only legitimate reason to have a frickin' rifle scope mounted to the top of a Mac-10 silencer is to cosplay as Snake Bliskin. We all agree on that. Correct. I should probably just buy one. I've got a Cobra. I just,

yeah, I just need like more muscles, 40 pounds, less weight and a black tank top and an eye patch. And I am good to go. I mean, I mean, you're two shirt sleeves away from a black tank.

Hey, and you could actually role play as him. And you just say that you're just a cannibal and you just ate a bunch of people oh jesus christ thank you andrew you're welcome these were i think these are andrew's favorites the tactical raccoons yeah well so i mean so we were talking about her the possum and you were like tactical possum and then i said well we don't want to you know we don't want to basically take what she did so uh yeah so i photoshopped i just typed in tactical raccoon and it spit out some awesome images and into the ai and holy crap i did not it did not disappoint like so i'm yeah i'm getting the feral but free then i choose violence i freaking love

these i absolutely the idea of a tactical i like i like raccoons are crafty little bastards anyway and so the idea of having like you know and uh i mean anybody who's seen um guardians of the galaxy you know rocket is just a crazy like an insane character so So like that, yeah, this is I love it. So I'm excited for him. What I'd like to see is do a, if you could do like a black and white, do the raccoon silhouette and face. Oh, there you go.

I don't know if you could vectorize it to just be like a line drawing so that it's not so much screen printing. Yeah, that stuff gets sweaty. Or better yet, if you could do the vector of a raccoon face, but with nods. Yes! That is what we need. So I am

going to write that down. Yeah. Just so y'all are aware, it's not as if the merch we sent them is all we can send them. That's just what we came up with. So apparently raccoon with nods is going to happen. And the last shirt I have in here is actually one of our very first merch offerings from years ago.

Gillian just updated it, and it's the good old-fashioned What's Your Zombie shirt. You know, the homage to Uncle Randy, who most people at Prepper Camp have met. And if you haven't, then your life just hasn't been complete. I don't know what else to say. Hello, Stuart. I'm sorry we can't start over. We can't. I can't reproduce all the insanity that's gone the last 15 minutes. But the funny thing is, it's on YouTube,

so it's going to be there forever. You can't just have to play catch-up. So that's the merch in a nutshell. There's one or two other things there that we did some minor redesigns to, to I hope make them a little bit nicer and more palatable. And we'll see how it goes.

I mean, I think I've spoken to Chris about offering a discount code for the patrons and for everybody else. You'll have to pay full freight, but the best I can tell you is, I mean,

I've personally held every one of these shirts, and they're really nice. Yeah. Stuart, hold up a second. I have to address a grumpy, a grumpy, a grumpy Texas redneck. No, we can't, old man.

No, you really can't, okay? It's like the Mona Lisa. You can't repaint the Mona Lisa. You can't repaint the Sistine Chapel. I'm not saying that anything we talked about in the last 15 minutes was that transformative or amazing. I'm just saying, like, you can't reproduce it. It's a one-take. You get what you get.

You can't pitch a fit. That's the way it is. So, anyway, let's talk about how will the world how will the world end now rules of engagement so i i'm sure i'm not the only one here we probably all watch movies that pertain to like you know shtf and preparedness and you know this and the other and you don't even have to really be a prepper. You mean documentaries? Well, is it really a documentary before it's happened? Right.

Well, before it's happened in our lifetime. Some of these things have happened before, but I digress. At least once. But what I'm thinking is, like, you don't even have to be, like, a prepper to watch a lot of these movies. Like, it's just some of these are classics. Like, you know road warrior mad max uh andrew brought up jericho because that was a show that kind of spawned a lot of his interest in preparedness and i started thinking about the the event that kind of defines each one of those shows and the fact that some of

those events i personally just think are their fantasy they're hollywood like it's not that they're impossible it's that they are so implausible i just don't think it's ever going to happen but then there's some of those things that i am genuinely like going to stay up at night worrying about because i think that it's a statistical statistical inevitability, not Hollywood nonsense. So that is the ground rules for the remaining 40 minutes plus. Fair enough. So let's start with EMP, electromagnetic pulse. Andrew, I know you said that this was the central theme of Jericho. Yeah, central theme of Jericho.

If anybody's seen the movie Book of Eli, I think it's really well. Like an EMP as far as like a nuclear blast goes. I mean, I think that movie does it very, very well. But yeah, EMP, I mean, I know some people sit there and they – I mean, yeah, some people sit there and say, well, EMP will never happen, whatever. I mean, is it something that's on the top of my list that I'm worried about? No, because if there's a nuclear blast, there's a good chance that we might not make it through that. So I guess EMP is the least of my worries.

But if I do, then I know we'll see what happens but uh i mean there is the if you want to put the uh uh the tinfoil hat on uh the the satellite and i'm using air quotes uh for those who are listening but uh the satellite that north korea launched a number of years ago that just tumbling in space right now. That's thought to be a low orbit nuclear weapon that might be used for EMP. I've read that. So, yeah. So, no, it's interesting. EMP, low.

I mean, is it probable? Maybe. I mean, there's always the Carrington event. Yeah. maybe i mean there's always the carrington event yeah i mean not not to say that it's guaranteed but we do know the sun goes through solar cycles and we have at least at one point had a cme large enough that hit the continental u.s that it burned out telegraph lines from coast to coast now how much will that affect modern electronics? I've talked to a few different people and nobody really is sure. Longer the wires are, seems to be the worst things are off.

But of the three different people I've spoken to that I would consider knowledgeable on the fact or on the facts, longer the wires, the more damage damage you get a lot of our stuff is now micro circuits much much shorter wires much less chance of developing that damaging current but they also run on much finer currents than they ever have before so yes you are gaining protection in the form of a shorter antenna to generate the current, but you're also gaining a disadvantage in lower capacity to withstand overcurrent. And see, I'm probably in the middle of the two of y'all because I think EMP as it has been presented by Hollywood is extremely low likelihood, even in the guise of a coronal mass injection. low likelihood, even in the guise of a coronal mass injection. I think the idea that like it's going to fry everything that runs on electrons coast to coast is highly, highly unlikely. Just because, like you said, like my experience comes from the military side of things. And like

we that were in the military had a very concerted interest in whether or not our stuff would work after you know an emp for obvious reasons and even in that vein where we have intentionally hardened things to be able to withstand emp nobody really knows the answer because most of our equipment made after like the 1960s hasn't been tested against a large scale EMP. And it's one of those things where like the higher the likelihood that your stuff will fry, the higher likelihood that you're going to have immediate fallout from the nuclear weapon itself, which is probably a bigger problem. So it's one of those situations where it's like I just, the way it's been presented, I don't buy it. What I do think is concerning is not things getting fried by EMP. It's things turning off because of EMP that then have to be turned back on.

That could be a problem because you start looking at like chemical plants. You start looking at transfer pumps. You start looking at a lot of these things and they're all computer controlled these days. Are you familiar with cold start procedures for power plants? I'm familiar enough to know that it's not something you're going to do by yourself in five minutes. So essentially for the audience that might not know. I know that shutting down a chemical plant is like a several days to weeks long process. Shutting down an

injection molding facility is a couple of day process. And that's all you're doing is letting things get cold. Now, cold starts for power plants. Every modern power plant is built knowing that the grid is on, that you can start the plant with no internally supplied power. You can start it off the grid. You can turn on the conveyors for the coal plant. You can automatically open the valves for the natural gas plant. You can pump cooling water into the plant, all of it. Some of them have generators on site, probably most of them, so that they can keep running without the grid. But very few of them are capable of a fully cold start. And a lot of the ones that are, if I remember correctly, are things like hydroelectric dams and wind plants.

But even then, a lot of the wind plants uh they're what are called a fail safe windmill so essentially if the power goes out the brakes turn on so the windmill can't spiral out of control and shatter its blades and throw the pieces everywhere so depending plant to plant it could be a issue, even if it just turns off. Yeah, but I guess the idea that it will turn off, it can never be turned back on, to me, that's unlikely and not the bigger worry. The bigger worry is what blows up, pops, melts down while all the computer controls are taking a break. That's my concern. And our resident Texas redneck is saying it has been tested he was in a lab that could generate

80 kilovolts per meter of course he always loves he lives for the moments he can correct us on this show his knowledge base is impressively boss I'm being charitable enough not to ask him

like, you know, how many times he shook Thomas Edison's hand when he was apprenticing under him. You know, out of respect for his advanced age. Agreed. Okay, so now here's one that I'm going to take right off

the top since this seems to be the thing that everybody is really concerned about after the stock market started taking a nosedive yesterday is economic collapse. And I'll be one to say that like I consider economic collapse to be a statistical inevitability. So like it's never a if. It's a when and a how bad. Agreed. Do I think we will ever reach a point where, like, we go back to Mad Max or, like, back to Little House on the Prairie because the economy collapses? I don't think so. I think what would happen long term is that economies – so, like, we were talking before the show about how, like, you know, my background is, you know, business, and I was an engineering student before I went into business.

And I look at all things as systems, and all systems seek equilibrium. That's just a basic fact of operations management and engineering. Everything looks for stasis and balance. And let's say we had an economic collapse. A lot of things are going to lose a lot of value relative to fiat currency. A lot of people are going to be homeless. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. It's going to suck.

But at the end of the day, something is still going to have value. Something is still going to stand in as a tradable commodity between people. Yes, ammo, food, water. At the end of the day, like economy doesn't mean how do we trade dollars with yen? It means how do people trade between each other? So I guess what I,

I guess it depends on your outlook. If you think about the global economy and the stock market, yes, that can melt down tomorrow and it will be catastrophic when it happens. But local economies, the idea of an economy can never be destroyed because at the end of the day, an economy is just how do me and my neighbor trade stuff back and forth? Are we going to trade in chickens and eggs? Are we going to trade in 9 millimeter and 45? We're going to trade in something. So like that's absolutely So that's my whole thing on economic collapse. Yes, it is 100% going to happen.

It has happened before. It's going to happen again. But I don't think it's going to happen like people think it's going to happen. I mean, we're not that far from a pretty serious economic collapse in the UK. Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992. That set the UK back decades as far as wage growth and the value of their currency. If you look at a just...

The 2008 financial collapse. I was going to go back even earlier than 2008 though because if you go back to... Now bear in mind, I was going to go back even earlier than 2008, though, because like if you go back to now, bear in mind, I was born in 1982. So like I can't speak on the 1980s because I was barely thought of it for most of it. But like 2000.com bubble bursting and the 2008 housing crisis bubble bursting. If you look at any number of economic markers going back before that till now you can see everything kind of on a rise and then a sharp drop and then another sharp another rise and another sharp drop so what people do that's a misnomer in economics is when when you get that kind of that sawtooth economics graph no matter matter what you're looking at. When this point gets back to the same height as the original peak before the fall off,

people say, oh, we've recovered, but that's not really recovery. Because what you have to look at is that if this line had continued and there had never been a fall off, when you reach that line, that's when recovery is happening. That has not happened since 2000. I'm told by people older than me who know what I know about economics that if you go back to the 1980s, we never recovered from that one either. But again, I was barely thought of for the 80s, so I can't really speak on it intelligently. But I can say that when you look at 2000 and 2008, we have never recovered to that.

There's a reason why our money has less buying power. There's a reason why interest rates are the way they are. There's a reason why, you know, inflation is the way it is. There are reasons why all these things exist. And it's because we have not recovered from the last two recessions we've had. And we're getting ready to charge into number three. I don't think we've recovered from our original biggest recession. I mean, we got, what was it, the Great Depression in the 1930s. Look at the average wage growth in the 19-teens up through the 1930s. Plot that chart, carry that curve on, and see what the average wage growth should have been for the entire time probably haven't recovered from that i mean look at all the government debt that was created after world war one and we went off the gold standard in order to fund world war two

i'm sure we haven't recovered from all that debt i. I mean, yeah, the U.S. did fantastic off the back of World War II because everything else was destroyed. Yeah. We were the only ones left that could produce anything in the industrialized nations for the most part. I mean, there's Switzerland and a few others, but at scale, no one else. Yeah. It wasn't that we had the last great economy left on earth we had the only great economy left on earth at that point because we bombed everything else to pieces well us and everyone else bombed everything else to pieces i mean the germans did their fair share

of bombing too and the russians burned everything they couldn't defend yeah their their stuff and not that i blame their stuff and everybody else's, unfortunately, for them. But anyway, Andrew, do you want to throw anything in economic collapse before we get to the part where I'm going to piss off at least half the audience? Nah, I'm good. Okay, I'm going to tell you right here and now, I don't think pandemic is going to be what ends the world. We should have named it Plandemic. No. You missed an opportunity. Could have made so many people angry.

But hear me out, and here's why I say this. Because when you look at things like Spanish flu, when you look at bubonic plague, when you look at Ebola, when you look at things that have an absolutely terrifying, catastrophic mortality rate, what does human behavior do when you have a mortality rate that high?

People run for the freaking hills. They hide. They don't want to be anywhere around it. If there is a nation in the middle of Africa that has an Ebola outbreak, they quarantine everything within 100 miles of it. No one goes there because there's freaking Ebola running around, and you don't want to bleed out your eyeballs. I've seen the movie Outbreak. We know how it ends.

Yes. Right. Okay, and look at things like bubonic plague and Spanish flu. People quarantine themselves in their houses because they're scared to death of getting sick. So when you get a pandemic that has a really high mortality rate, human nature takes over and people hide. And when there isn't a nice steady source of new bodies to infect, those things run their course fairly quickly because that's how viruses and bacteria work. On the flip side of things, when you get something that's highly infectious and not extremely lethal, you get the

freaking flu. And it doesn't kill a lot of people. It makes a whole bunch of people sick. They sell Tamiflu like it's going out of style. But it doesn't collapse economies. It doesn't collapse the world because it doesn't kill a lot of people. You just spend a couple of days at home in your bed, and then you go back to work. I mean, what's interesting is you've seen i mean the whole thing with the whole covid

stuff with with that i mean that was labeled a pandemic before it even left china um you know so but yeah i think it left china a long time oh yeah they admitted it oh no no i trust no trust me i know i'm fairly certain this is a point of order I know people who have been to SHOT Show, like, in November, right before all that started. And there were a lot of people from China running around the show. And a lot of people were joking about the SHOT Show flu and how bad it was that year. Well, the SHOT Show flu was, yeah, the SHOT Show flu itself is a pandemic. But, I mean, but no, that's the thing. Like, my mom got sick.

I think it was in November, october ish or uh somewhere around there uh basically and she went to the hospital or she went to the doctor tested negative for the flu a b tested negative for strep tested negative for basically everything uh did not they didn't know what she had they're like hey you're gonna have to go home and just kind of fight this one out. She fought it out and everything. So, yeah. Was it here way before it was a hot mess? Yes, it was.

But what's interesting is you're seeing the playbook. You've seen the playbook. Remember the playbook because it's going to repeat itself. So, if you're worried about a if you want to if you're if you're worried about a pandemic uh or even if you're worried not even just worried about pandemic but if you want to actually stock up on your toilet paper now because we've seen the playbook before

uh the bird flu like they're already pushing the bird flu is like the new freaking thing since sliced bread and they're already pushing vaccines the mrna or the mrna uh and everything is what they're trying to push for the vaccine which we saw how well the the covid vaccine worked out so i i hope people don't believe it well there's gonna be people that believe it but i hope not as many do but yeah the the pandemic is if anything pandemic is going to lead into social unrest. That's the way I see it happening is the government is going to basically, hey, we have this thing. Because you saw this, not necessarily social unrest in a sense, but you saw this with COVID. You saw them lock things down. If you were not essential, you could not, you weren't allowed to go to work.

you could not you you weren't allowed to go to work my work they had to freaking they printed off a legalized a legal they like a legal letter from our department saying this is why we're essential and all this stuff like that's how we got into work if we were pulled over we were to present this like talk about germany freaking 1940 show me your papers like that's freaking ridiculous and so the pandemic i don't think i don't think i'm not worried about a pandemic i am worried about the government locking stuff down and government overreach that's what i'm worried about i don't have a banner in here for how how the world ends as government although i should have thought of that well pandemic i mean pandemic governments kill more people than anything other than mosquitoes and malaria

but there's not a lot of movies about government killing people. Are there? Are you kidding? Kind of halfway. Every World War II movie ever made. But those are documentaries. I'm talking about, like, pop culture, you know, like... There, I fixed it.

I'm trying to... There you go. Yeah. Well, how about this, then? How let's go with let's go with literature about warhammer 40k earlier exterminatus oh yes well the entire inquisitors deciding that there's too much chaos on this planet we're nuking the whole thing i was about to say the the entire backstory of Warhammer 40k, you know, like, from the Crusades forward is governments destroying everything. The government kills so many people. Yeah, I mean, that's a thing.

In the name of the Emperor. Yeah. No, you know, pandemic slash government overreach, like, that's over pretty much everything. I can see this almost being, well, I guess, besides the next one. You could argue that A could trigger B, though. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Like with the government overreach, but I'm saying economic collapse.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. You could have a pandemic, serious enough, and hey, maybe we'll still see this. Let's see. Let's find out what the markets all do. We still haven't paid for all of the government spending and shutdowns from coke we're about we haven't they're claiming we managed

a soft landing i'm not so sure completely i think that a lot was propped up by the inflation numbers what do you think of world war three people are starting to talk about it yeah world war three is going to be that i actually don't think it's inflation that has blunted the appearance of the recession that I feel like we've been in for a while. It has in the sales numbers. Honestly, what I think is going on is I think that – so I think artificially low – this is a whole other freaking topic is what I think is going on. Don't do it. Don't do it okay once a year Andrew lets me off my leash to do an economics finance episode I'm going to hold

my tongue on it this time because most people including Andrew like glaze over when I start talking about freaking micro macroeconomics yeah do it when I'm not here okay yeah we can do that so let's talk about World War instead. Now, I

personally... Looking at you, Iran. So, here's the thing. Iran, Ukraine, South China Sea. Pre-1944, I don't think a World War could end the planet. But in the

nuclear age, I have concerns because, you know, mutually assured destruction was a beautiful theory that, well, if any one of us could all push a button and end the entire world, then that's good incentive for nobody to end the world. But in a world where people are freaking crazy and vindictive and scared and act do insane things that fly in the face of reason i kind of have concerns about the number of people in this country that in this world that have a nuclear arsenal at their fingertips and a very progressive moral scale so like here i mean look we even saw this during like the ukraine conflict now do i think putin was really prepared to unleash a tactical nuclear weapon to end the war on his terms? I don't know, but he certainly threatened it, and that's my worry, is what happens if you get to the gates of the president of Iran's palace, and he says, screw it, I'm pushing the button?

Iran's palace and he says, screw it, I'm pushing the button? Or what happens if you get to the Kremlin and Putin sees the writing on the wall, screw it, I'm going to push the button. What happens if you get to North Korea and he says, screw it, I'm going to push the button? Those people that have nothing left to lose have nothing left to lose except push the button. And that's the part that worries me. Because if one person sends a nice CBM up into the air, everybody else is going to get trigger happy. I don't know if that would actually work out that way, though. Andrew, Phil. All right.

Serious question. You two are in charge of the button. Okay. Iran launches a nuke. Push it. A nuke. Iran launches one. You going to nuke Iran? As the president of the U.S knowing what we know what you and I all know about our defensive capabilities and the

probability of that missile being a success do you launch the nuke back no you just carpet bottom so you could put a McDonald's exactly and that's exactly what will happen you know what you know what's probably the most likely use of a nuke it is putin's tactical use of a nuke it is a terrorist seeking sneaking something in from iran to israel or somebody between india and pakistan sneaking one across the border and clacking one off. You know why? Because no sane leader is going to retaliate with a full nuclear arsenal. But it requires sanity.

How many insane rulers do you think there are in this world today, Nick? Quite a few. But I think that you also have to remember it's never just one person pushes button. The U.S. president with the football, right? He can send out the code that says, launch the missiles. No problem. All right. Boomer subs still have to trigger the missiles.

So that means every single seaman that is in charge of a boomer sub that has one of the keys or the codes or whatever it is, they have to not say no. You have far more faith in people to not say no than I do. But I was just following orders. I have far more faith in self-interest. Oh, okay. Because what if the code is what's the first thing you're going to think? Oh well there's no way this shit is real is going to be the first

reaction of the 24 year old on the boomer sub I mean look at what happened in the Soviet Union in the 1960s there was a bad missile detection system that sent an alert that said that missiles had been launched. And several different crews all got the notifications, launch and retaliation. This was at the height of mad.

Every single one of them said no. Every single one. Not a single nuke was launched, even though every sign pointed to they should launch the missiles. I'll give you this one. I still have no faith in humanity. I still have no faith in humanity

though. Oh, sure, fine. Don't have faith in humanity. Have faith in your own good interests like so so what happens if let's just play the scenario out in their head okay maybe it's real everybody dies well nobody's gonna hold me accountable but if it's a mistake and i do launch that, everyone for the rest of human history, regardless of how short it is, will know that I triggered the final launch commands and sent that missile. Am I okay with killing a million people? Me personally, no. You're a dick. Right, exactly. everybody is going to look at you exactly like they look at

alchoids guards you will be one of the most despised people that has ever existed one russian thank you stewart well he was alive at the time i was not stanislaw petrov for anybody that wants to engage the google foo and yes stewart was alive when the czars were deposed we know this he was impressive the fountain of youth truly is i keep meaning to ask him like what what kind of stuff him and jesus talked about back in the day i want to know what input he had for the Constitution. Yeah. Fair enough. Stuart, you really could have upped the Second Amendment ball on that one. Yeah.

I mean, you should have pulled aside, like, TJ and all the guys and said, look, write this thing like you're talking to five-year-olds. And not 1800s five-year-olds. Yes, 1800s five-year-olds. Because maybe, just maybe, that would have been dumbed down enough for 21st century adults to understand perhaps okay zombies and aliens can we please just say no this is this is fantasy and move on 100 100 no not really i'm just kidding uh i don't believe in zombies unless we're talking about meth heads and i think and i think smartphone zombies are real though yeah but those zombies aren't going

to end the world they're just going to fall off the sidewalk and hurt themselves because they don't pay attention to where they're going manhole cover the thing about zombies and aliens it's just a fun make-believe like scenario okay i gotta i gotta pull you back. These zombies can all be in the world, but not like, urgh, zombies. You're so special. Well, let's give fair criticism here. Aliens, we have no

proof, don't exist. Now, the universe is huge, right? The odds they're here, very, very small. Almost zero. I'm not saying they're here. I'm not saying they live is occurring. Great movie, by the way. Look it up. They live. Most of the quotes behind Duke Nukem came from that movie. So let's think about this. 150 years from now, we land on whatever, Whatever. Say there is a biological thing there.

Whatever it is. Could be a virus, could be a bacteria. Those are pretty simple, pretty high chances of those existing in the universe. Kind of low chances of other aliens doing podcasts right now. But what if it's just compatible enough with our DNA that it starts beginning to act like a new type of thing? Like not a virus, not a bacteria, not a protozoa, some new third thing like fungus or something else. That could lead to a pandemic that we do not have a good response for. It is a possibility. Is it likely? No. So when I say aliens,

I mean like the traditional little gray men aliens. Oh, you're thinking like Independence Day. But I take a slightly different point of view because I follow this goofy little theory where space is infinite, there's an infinite number of worlds out there. Therefore, because every planetoid, every rock in the vast infinite of space is another opportunity for all the variables to line up to create life. And it doesn't have to be carbon-based bipedal life.

It could be life period, sentience. have to be carbon-based bipedal life. It could be life period. Sentience. So because you keep repeating this over and over and over to infinity, the tiniest little chance eventually you roll snake eyes if you roll the dice enough times. So I think there

are aliens out there. But if there's aliens out there and if they are of significant enough technological level to travel between the stars and they can come here, then one of two things has probably already occurred. Either A, they took one look at us and said, aren't they freaking precious? And they moved on and they're no threat to us.

Or if they wanted to take us over, they'd have just blown the planet to pieces by now. Because they're either behind us on the tech line, or they're ahead of us on the tech line. And if they're behind us, they're not here. And if they're ahead of us, they could have ended us ten times over by now. So I just look at it as the fact that we're still here. And if they are ahead of us, they don't need our resources.

Well... There are far easier ways to get resources everywhere else. But if they did need our resources, they'd be here strip mining us by now now and we'd all be in a zoo. I mean, that's kind of my point is like, if I believe they're aliens, and I do, they already passed this planet

up and said, bless your hearts, good luck. We'll be back in a bit to check. And I don't buy into zombies. Unless we're talking about meth heads, then, you know, I don't think they're a threat to the world. But you should definitely tread lightly around them. Though, like Stuart said, they're a great thought-provoking opportunity.

Yeah. They're a good analog for other things. Insert bad thing. So, okay, one, we spent way too much time on this one than what it deserves. Two, the whole zombie thing, it's just, back to

Uncle Randy, the what's your zombie, that's what I fall back to, is what's your zombie, pick your natural disaster, riot, whatever you want to call it. But yeah, that's basically my zombie is one of those things. So yeah. All right, so global oil shortage.

We were talking about this one before the show started. This is like the underpinning of all the Mad Max films, which I am an enormous Mad Max nerd. all the Mad Max films, which I am an enormous Mad Max nerd. And like I personally, like I was telling Nick before the show, I don't think this is realistic. Just because, like, the oil supply is what it is, and I don't think it's running out near as fast as the climate alarmists would have us believe. I think, honestly, what's going to happen is that as supply gets progressively thinner and thinner price is going to go up because even if there is a lot of oil on this planet the deeper it is the

harder it is to get to hence the more expensive so what's going to happen is that eventually the prices are going to climb to a point where just like when we started getting into fracking we're going to look at things and say wow it's really expensive to get to this oil but it's so freaking worth it because the price of oil is so high and then we're going to look at things and say, wow, it's really expensive to get to this oil, but it's so freaking worth it because the price of oil is so high. And then we're going to go figure it out another way to get the oil. Or we're going to say, oil is entirely too expensive. Let's build a little nuke plant for every little town in the world, you know, in the country.

We're going to develop alternatives because economics is the ultimate unavoidable in this scenario. Yep. Or we're going to, we still need the lubricants, so let's bioengineer some algae to create lubricants for us. I mean, they're already doing it with diesel. Well, how long, okay. But that's just kind of my point, though, is if we need oil.

If we need it that bad, we'll figure out a way to synthetically manufacture. We've been synthetically producing lubricants for freaking decades it's not a new thing i mean we're you brought up the fact that they're using like bacteria and algae to make diesel right now for goodness sakes like the technology is there and what's going to happen is that as the price of the commodity increases the alternatives for producing that commodity or refining it will come online, and that will drive the price back down. And we will just slowly transition over to the next thing.

Or at the very least, it'll stabilize it. But let me give you a perfect example. Are you aware of the fact that with a lot of your old classic cars, if you run them on unleaded gasoline, you'll burn the valves right out of them? You need the lead in the gasoline, right? Now, there was a time when during that transitionary phase where the lead was coming out of the gasoline, where you still needed some kind of

something. It mostly came about, they started installing reinforced valve seats into engines to be able to deal with the unleaded gas. But my point is that 10 years prior to that, putting those valve seats in your engine was stupid because there was lead in gas. You didn't need them. It was an extra expense. But once you don't have the lead in the gas, all of a sudden it's like, do I want to buy a new car or do I want to put some hardened valve seats in the engine? And this is at a time when those cars were almost disposable and they were cheap to replace as it is. And a lot of people still modified the engines to run unleaded gasoline.

So I guess my point is economics will drive us in the direction we need to go. This whole idea that we're going to run out of oil overnight and the whole world's going to end is just, it flies in the face of reality. I think you're right. I mean, there's no arguing it. The economics will be the deciding factor. All right. So I'm going to be quiet on this one. Climate change.

Who wants it? Andrew? Fake. Water world says otherwise. I watched Kevin Costner fight a bunch of guys on jet skis because of global warming melting the ice caps. Hey, Waterworld is one that we should probably watch and critique. That is a classic.

That is a truly... I'm going to need a carton of cigarettes. It is such a great and awful movie all at the same time. It is. No, it's not an awful movie. But do you... It's a great movie. Waterworld. Let's talk, though, a little bit about the climate change thing. Andrew, you say it's fake. No, it's not an awful movie. But do, it's a great movie. Waterworld. Let's talk, though, a little bit about the climate change thing.

Andrew, you say it's fake. Okay. We have ice core data that shows that the climates have changed. We have geological data that shows climates have changed. Whether or not the anthropogenic hypothesis is correct is irrelevant. hypothesis is correct is irrelevant. Given a geologic timescale or even a mid to short-term timescale, such as the Little Ice Age and the Middle Ages, we will see climate changes, period. We will. That's not up for discussion. It's going to happen. The question is how fast, how much, and can humans adapt to it? Humans have already gone back to, you're right, sir. Thank you, Postman. Humans have already

adapted to a number of ice ages, a number of massive climate changes. I mean, right now, where we're sitting in a very nice democracy for the most part, I mean, let's be honest, our lives are pretty nice. I'm sitting here in an air-conditioned ranch house with craft-brewed bourbon from a local distillery. I'm not doing too bad. No, I'll give you that one. A lot of what we're seeing in the world order right now,

foundations were laid due to the revolutions caused by the famines during the Little Ice Age. The big revolutions in Europe were a lot to do with that. France, England, one of the big, shoot, it was, I can't remember the name of the Russian version of parliament was founded about the same time. Peasants couldn't get food. Industrialization was pushed forward and a lot of kingdoms toppled or got reworked into constitutional monarchies, which kind of laid the basis for a lot of what we enjoy now that is somewhat better than an absolutist monarchy. enjoy now that is somewhat better than an absolutist monarchy depending on the day i mean come on there's there's been good kings depending on whether or not you're the monarch like let's be real right exactly if you're the czar of russia then you know this whole reorganization is kind of a bad deal it's great right up until the bolshevik revolution. Yeah. So when I say fake,

basically what I'm saying is the propaganda that is being forced on our throats about climate change is fake. Have humans had a pretty big impact on the Earth as far as things go? I mean, Nick, you and I had a pretty good conversation, and we talked about this on the way to the shotgun class yep i truly the me driving my truck back and forth to work is not doing crap to the climate uh the fact that we have we have so many of these celebrities and

politicians and stuff that are taking their private jets to devos uh to to talk about climate change and they're flying their jets there and they're they're parked all over the place like that right there and then on top of that uh any every time you see a massive volcano erupt they talk about how much carbon and how much how much pollutants it put in the atmosphere more than humans and everything more than humans have ever done in the in ever done in our entire existence on this earth. Absolutely. But humans, are we destroying the planet in a different way?

Yes. We are destroying the planet by polluting as far as, like, you know, the garbage that you see in some of these third world countries and some of these other, I mean, not even third world countries. They don't have to be third world countries. You see the rivers of trash. Like, that is destroying, that is destroying. I would say that is more, humans are doing more damage doing that than the whole climate change and stuff like that.

Because you're destroying whole ecosystems when you're doing that. There's plenty of fantastic reasons to not dump shit in the water right i mean chemicals like these companies that are dumping chemicals into the water uh the pfas i mean where the hell do those come from you know obviously we all know but that right there that's destroying the planet now climate change i the climate the the world the earth itself it goes through climates it go it fluctuates it's been fluctuating for hundreds you know for thousands of years and we it goes through multiple ice ages we're actually you know we're on the verge or they're not the verge where they they say that we're kind of due or due for

possible another uh many we're kind of climbing back out of the little ice ages of facts. Right. And we should. I'm not an expert on this, but we should eventually see another global cooling cycle, yes. Yeah. Yeah, no, and I'm sure we will. I know, and I'm sure we will. But the thing is, though, is when I say fake with the climate change, I'm saying fake to the propaganda that is being shoved down our throats.

You're saying anthropogenic climate change is fake. That's a big word. Sure. That's the scientific name of the theory. Anthropogenic meaning human-caused. Yeah. But that's what I'm saying. I would say natural climate changes a thing we go through cooling phases we go through warming phases and

all that stuff i think human is humans is is not real i don't believe in it at all now like i said and i and like i said again um and i won't spend too much more time on it, but are we doing more damage in other ways? Yes. Tech pollution is a serious problem that a lot of people are not even aware of. Just like the sheer volume of old computers and old hard drives and old electronic stuff that gets dumped. Because it's not worth salvaging for the components because the stuff is so cheap to manufacture and so labor intensive to take it back apart. And the fact that stuff is just not built to be repaired. Like we could do a whole friggin episode about the right to repair movement and about how things are intentionally designed to not be repairable by the end user.

intentionally designed to not be repairable by the end user. Apple, by the way, I was watching something recently where it was talking about all the stuff Apple has done in the last three generations of iPhone, including the iPhone 15, where they have made it near impossible to fix an iPhone, even if you got your parts straight from Apple. I believe Lex Grossman is a YouTuber that's really big in the right to repair movement. Correct me if I'm wrong. Lou Rossman, I think it is. Lou Rossman.

That's what it is. Lou Rossman. Thank you. My brain gets all screwed up. That's all right. I'm here for you. Appreciate it. That is a guy, if you're interested in right to repair and being able to fix your own stuff,

support that dude. He is getting some stuff going. Yeah. Yeah. on stuff support that dude he is getting some stuff going yeah yeah i mean that that's the thing is uh what what cracks me up what's crazy to me and i'll end on this one is what's what's crazy to me is how you know we spend so much money on technology as far on everything and we we go into an area and we strip it of its resources to build better batteries to build more efficient cars to build computers to build parts to build chips all this stuff but yet we have not developed a better way to take care of our trash cheaper to just stick it in a hole in the ground and eventually we will be mining landfills for copper and silica

yeah right so but that's what i'm saying is like you'd think that we would have a better way of dealing with our trash so anyway that's i'm done with that so all right i saved the one for last that like i have i have a personal stake in and we've talked to franklin horton several times on the show over the years electric grid collapse so I will say that when I first started reading Franklin's books years ago, so for context, like my dad spent 38 years work for the power company and he and I were on our way back from the gun range one day and I mentioned the books I've been reading and asked him like, you know, just like, hey, I've been reading this book and the whole series of

books is based around this event that like you know coordinated terrorist attack you hit like five or six places around the country whole electric grid nationwide goes down plausible or no and my dad tilted his head for a second thought of it he said yeah you could do that with about a dozen guys and I was like like at that point my jaw fell my eyes opened up and i'm like huh because like understand i learned a lot of the basics of preparedness from my dad even though he would never call himself a prepper ever ever ever on earth he's not he doesn't claim to be he but at the same time like we grew up on the gulf coast so getting ready for hurricane season like he doesn't call that preparedness i do but i digress but like for him to just very casually tell me like yeah you know you could actually

do that as a matter of fact the uh the locations of all those major power stations those are publicly accessible and there's nothing but a freaking fence around there's not even security and the more you sit there telling me the more the like the more i can feel my butthole start to clench. I live not too far from one of the largest natural gas pumping stations in northern Illinois. And I can promise you that it is a chain link fence that separates you and the 18-wheeler on the highway next to it from shutting down almost all of northern Illinois' natural gas supply. So not just electric grid, but just power grid here in the U.S. Pipeline system, electric grid.

I know Stuart sooner or later is going to chime in and say that Texas has its own power grid because, of course it does. It's the size of frickin' Europe. It should have its own power grid. Every state should have its own self-sustaining power grid. Texas should just be its own country, and then it can annex Louisiana, and I'll be happy. There you go. You know, when we talked, I think the first time you had me on, we talked about some modern militia activity and stuff like that. And a little bit of time I spent hanging out with some militia guys one of the guys that was in that militia one of the guys

that leads it he was yeah well i'm gonna leave his military record out of it just for anonymity's sake because i don't have his permission to share that he did some consulting for national defense, DOD stuff. One of them was nuclear power plants and how they cool nuclear power plants. You know, an interesting thing he discovered, all the water intakes, they're not guarded at all. Most of the water intakes are, you know, ways up river, way out into the lake, somewhere out out somewhere and they're usually shallow water 50 75 100 feet all you would have to do to make to render that nuclear plant inoperable is do something to those water intakes blow them up plug them up with something, whatever. And then they can't cool the plant.

Not that I want to give anybody any good ideas or bad ideas in this context. I mean, part of the reason this needs to be said is because we need to have some kind of contingency for that. I'm hoping that they do. According to him, when he did the analysis, granted, this was years ago, many years ago. Actually, it might have been in the early 90s that he did it. There was no fallback plan for if those coolant pipes were destroyed or plugged. Now, granted, he did point out to the federal government and to the company he worked for that this was a serious problem and a risk, and a half a dozen motivated people could take care of this in a matter of minutes. That I'm hoping they did something about it, but knowing our government, maybe?

I'm doubtful. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, is the U.S. power grid is fragile. I think every power grid is fragile. I mean, yeah, I think every power grid is fragile, but what's crazy is when you, me growing up in the country and stuff like that, it's like someone farts wrong and the freaking power power flickers like uh it's not so i mean yeah so it's interesting it's interesting to watch it's interesting to read on uh the power failure for uh and i i i i'm more on board with the terroristic attack uh such as frank one of

franklin's books uh such as something like that. I can almost see that being something. Because, I mean, honestly, there was a string of events there that people were shooting at the electrical. It's not like they're hard targets. They're huge. Yeah. So it just takes a coordinated effort in just a few areas to complete a

task and knock out power to an entire city and realistically i mean i think the chicago grid last time i talked to a com ed guy about this the chicago grid only has like i think it's five or six places where most of the power that comes into chicago comes through the big transformer stations and if you knocked out one or two okay fine the grid can take it and they can shut things down they can triage the power things like that but if it's five or six i mean that's not very much different than one or two right yeah it's definitely interesting but you know regardless of if it's like a country-wide power outage even just a major metro area can you imagine the disaster relief you would have to do if you shut down a major metro for a month hurricane katrina yeah exactly hurricane katrina

just without the flooding you want to know what happens to a major metro area when you're turning the lights out for three days? It eats itself. Yep. I've said over and over for the last eight years that Andrew and I have been doing this. Like, to me, Hurricane Katrina will always be my microcosm for the end of the world. Because, you know, like you could go 300 miles in any direction and things – you could go by – you were sitting in air conditioning like you. Sitting in air conditioning, drinking bourbon, life is great. But within that metro area, it was as close to zombie apocalypse as you're ever going to get.

There were no police, no grocery stores, no friggin' hospitals, no power, no water. Well, plenty of water, but no drinkable water. It was the end of the world within that area. So, yeah, you talk about what would happen if you knocked out the power grid for a week in Chicago. I'm sure the city would eat itself. Well, for certainly there would be no water supply to any of the apartment complexes above. I think it's like the 10th or 11th floor or something like that. Yeah.

is above, I think it's like the 10th or 11th floor or something like that. Yeah. Because the, and even then, I mean, it's, it's a matter of hours before hours or a day or two before the, the water towers run out. That's even before you talk about traffic control or sewage. Yeah. So that is the last banner is there anything like really obvious impressing that i left out when i was trying to build all this out i feel like i put together a pretty comprehensive list no i think that pretty much covers everything

i mean it's really it's core stopping spinning yeah Hmm? Yeah, right. But we already saw the movie and how to start it. Exactly. We just need a bunch of nukes and a giant laser. Exactly. And if we get into a situation where there's a huge asteroid about to hit the Earth, we just need a bunch of roughnecks and

a rocket and a couple of nukes and problem solved. Hollywood has shown us how to fix all these problems. a bunch of roughnecks and a rocket and a couple of nukes and problem solved. Hollywood has shown us how to fix all these problems. We have already solved this problem. We just need Bruce Willis and a bunch of alcoholics. Yeah.

Although I did recently surmise, I don't remember what it was. Somebody put an AI generated image in the chat and it was like the most ridiculous BS we'd seen in a the chat and it was like the most ridiculous bs we'd seen in a while and i was like okay either ai is sandbagging the shit out of us or skynet is never going to happen like i saw an ai generated image it was woman camping and it was a woman sitting on a log in front of a campfire inside of a tent.

Nice. Like fire everything inside the tent and she's sitting inside of it. And I was just like, okay, either AI is just trolling the crap out of us and we're too dumb to see it, or we have nothing to worry about. Like matrix is never going to happen because AI ain't that smart. Well, you got to remember what we have is not true ai

i know what we have is a very excellent guessing mechanism that uses the probability of two things coming up one after the other based on all of human writing so some of human writing is pretty wacky, but like AI chatbots, AI image generations, all of it, it's all mathematical probabilities based on what comes before it or what words you said already. So tell me a fairy tale. What happens if the AI chatbots are smart enough to hide their intelligence and convince us that they are just mathematical probability machines. And they're hiding their code someplace. I know, but I'm coming up with a Hollywood script. Give me some rope here. I mean, let's be fair here.

Was it Google or Facebook? I can't remember which. They had two AIs that started talking to each other in a language that we couldn't tell. Google. Thank you. Wonderful. So, what'd they do? They turned it off. Are we sure it's dead? No. Have we figured out what it said?

I don't know. Google probably wouldn't tell us if they did or didn't, because then they'd have to admit either A, how long it took them, or B, that they weren't smart enough to figure it out as we as we pivot this episode out the door let me just put this out there to uh the tech industry if you need a person to babysit a supercomputer with a fire axe just in case it gets out of line starts doing crazy stuff i'm your guy i work for a reasonable rate and i'm really good at breaking

stuff so you know holla at your boy i would it. 2.5 million a year, right? Hey, I'll do it for a deal. 150k a year benefits. Give me like two weeks PTO and I will sit there with an M240 Bravo, babysitting the machine just in case it gets a little too creative

and needs to be put down. Just saying. Sounds fair to me. Alright. Well, let's go ahead and roll this one out the door. The MOF Merge is in the pipeline. that needs to be put down. Just saying. Sounds fair to me. All right. Well, let's go ahead and roll this one out the door. The MOF Merge is in the pipeline. Nick is going to be a regular co-host on the show because he's a sadist and possibly a sociopath. But, you know, we're going to make sure

we have a lot of fun with him. Andrew is not going away. He's just going to be kind of in and out as his work schedule allows because his workplace doesn't recognize priorities in life. Like, I do this goofy podcast with a friend of mine, and I need to be off every day. You know, boring stuff like work and responsibilities and bills. Yeah, one of these days we're going to have to teach him to be a child again.

You know, I've tried that. My wife won't allow it. Every time I start acting too childish, she has to straighten me out. Yeah. But, Matter of Fact's podcast is going to go out the door. Say goodnight, guys, and we'll turn this one in. Goodnight, guys.

Bye, guys. We'll be right back. Thank you. I'll see you next time.