TrueLife - Great Debates # 2

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

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Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Heirous through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. The Sunday edition of The True Life podcast, we are here with the whole team, and we are going to hopefully get into some great debates. We've got a myriad of different positions about different things. And let's just start off going around the panel. We'll start off with Kevin. Kevin, can you introduce yourself for those who may not be aware of how great and who you are? You can't leave like that.

All right. My name's Kevin. Holt is my fabricated, shortened last name. Swiss-born, U.S. grown race partially, a nomadic type person. Currently living in Bali, trying to. be a writer and figuring out how I can sustain living in Bali still it's been a year and a half and I'm trying to figure out how to keep the money coming in. And you've got one book out. Yeah, you've got what the, tell them the name of your book, the first one. Yeah, first book's called Young, Successful, and Miserable. I wrote it after my second time quitting the corporate world. And it was an accumulation of frustration, rage, and knowledge I'd gained during that time.

And I poured it all out in like two weeks. And now I'm working out on a second one, which is about divorce and stuff like that, which you guys have offered to read. I'm almost letting you down. I wanted to get it out last week. Hurt my back. I haven't done anything. Hopefully this week. I'll finish the draft.

Nice. Looking forward to it. Ben, can you introduce yourself for people who may not have, might not be aware of who we are? Benjamin George. My website's Benjamin C. George. I have a book which initiated all of this called No Absolutes. framework for life, at least Georgia nice conversations. And there's a podcast that will be happening shortly under the same veil.

Fantastic. Ranga, what tell us about yourself a little bit, buddy? Self-introduction makes me anxious. So I begin to wonder why is that. And then it's because lack of a solid answer. So it's pretty difficult to go there. And it seems very, you have to be very, by his to vote paper.

Yeah, you got to animate, you got to animate your ego to participate in the dream state to some extent. Most narcissistic move I ever made was having my own website with my name on it. It felt weird. That's weird. Paul, tell us about yourself, man. For those who may not know you, Paul in the dark over here, why don't you tell the people who you are? Yeah, my name is Paul Apau. live on the island of Maui in the state of Hawaii and yeah not much more than that avid reader I love to read

beekeeper right beekeeper yeah macadamia farmer right may ask you a bee question yeah what's up because I had my uncle's godfather was a beekeeper in Switzerland and he was convinced even then like 20 years ago that cell phone towers were screwing up his bees navigation and I'm wondering what you think about that especially at 5G and stuff like that yeah um that really something I've you know I do honeybee research but um you know not that type our the stuff I do is more about um systemic you know pesticides herbicides fungicides stuff like that but I've talked to a lot of beekeepers who would agree with your grandfather. Grandfather said.

Yeah, it was my uncle's godfather. It's been your connection. He's been dead for a while. Yeah, so I know a bunch of beekeepers who would agree with that. Nothing I've really done a lot of, you know, church on. I kind of just stick to my own little world. But yeah, but I've heard that. I've heard a lot of beekeepers like that.

do you think that translates like if if that's true if those towers mess up the rhythm of the bee or their rhythm wouldn't they also mess up ours i mean it's possible um again not something that i've done a lot of you know looking into but um i mean honeybees are really delicate you know for all insects and um that have you know pretty complicated forms of communication that are um you know pheromone driven and also, you know, movement driven. And the slightest things tend to mess them up pretty easily, you know. But it's the same thing when people ask me about, like, the work that I do, you know, with research on it, with honeybees is, you know, is this what's killing honeybees? Is this the problem of honeybees?

Is it a colony collapse disorder? Is it, you know, it's accumulation of all types of it. Just like, you know, since industrialization, we've been doing a lot of damage, not just to honeybees, I believe, but to a lot of things. If you took away cell phone, the towers would honeybees be better off? Like, you know, I don't know, maybe slightly. It sounds to me like you're advocating for people to go out and tear down 5G towers, Paul. What I'm advocating for is for people to, you know, make, you know, little changes in their lives that help. to support, you know, the environment, even if it's just the stuff that they do at home, you know, to help, you know, bring back honeybee populations to, you know, to do a much greater level than where they are. They're in massive decline all around the world for, you know, a while now. You know, I raised queens and I tell people, it's like putting a little hello kitty bandaid on a cut that requires like 100 stitches.

You know, we need to fix things moving forward. I mean, it's pretty detrimental to honeybees and honeybee populations that we do that. It is. That is. What, so Ben brought up a big topic that I kind of wanted to start off with today. It is the idea of divine right. You guys familiar with this idea, this idea that was popular in the medieval ages where someone who, rules over the people strictly because they were ordained by God or by a higher power. And we saw this week the queen has passed.

And I believe that, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they rule by divine, right? Like, who died and made them king and queen? I think that was the original mandate, right? Right. Now, I'm not sure if they still cite that. I didn't watch the ceremony. I'm not actually too intimate with the monarchy. Right.

Mostly because I don't care for, you know, people who think that they can rule over other people. So, but I think that was the original mandate was that they were, you know, in that, and it's not just the British Empire, but that was, you know, it's been many of the monarch, monothal systems in our past. that they were, you know, divinely instituted by God to be able to rule. Which I thought was an interesting topic because I think it very much applies to many different aspects of what they're looking at in society today. Like what? Like what else do you think it applies to? Well, I mean, you know, we've kind of, with the advent of the internet and technology and the movement towards, you know, scientific knowledge and things like that, we've created different. religions, if you will. And one of those religions is certainly politics. Another one is

money. You know, from a personal experience, I took a startup through a program. And I was blown away by how much it was almost like a religious Sunday sermon church-going experience. it was people, you know, expressing themselves, giving testimony, kind of, you know, and it was very much just completely similar to that. And I've been, you know, involved in a few corporate things that I've noticed the same thing. And so I think, you know, there is, and, you know, look at like a person like Elon Musk, he's exalted by many of the people, right? you know so i think our detachment from religion as kind of a institution has moved that

that void that people typically have to different directions and i think a lot of those directions kind of directly applied to this whole kind of divine right like you have these guys these people with all the money all the resources dictating all the rules by what account well you know because they made it because they were successful because they achieved all of this. It's similar in aspects to kind of that older system but kind of diverges into modernality. Yeah. What do you think, Kevin? Is that what do you think about you've traveled to different places? You've seen Japan. You know, I know they have an emperor there. I'm not too sure about their government, but do they have some sort of divine, right? They used to. And I believe that was the whole reason for.

for the sort of the excuse that the US told itself for the nuclear bombs because that and that sorry in those days he did have the rent divine right and the people were going to do whatever he said so when he said that okay we're going to defend japan to the last man that would have happened like the people were just completely devoted to and whatever he said so the calculation was that well we're going to lose a million soldiers trying to invade Japan and untold numbers of people in Japan defending it. So we'll do the bombs and hopefully mitigate that loss. Whether or not that was a right decision, I don't know.

But yeah, they did have that tradition. I don't think it's the same anymore. They don't. It's like the queen now. It's sort of just a theatrical post. And they have a prime minister who kind of runs as a dictator. And they have the emperor that just chills and is responsible for the years because they still count it in emperor years over there.

that's interesting paul what about my birth shola 57 show uh emperor year 57 that's what i was bored yeah paul what about the king and queen of hawai did they rule by like divine right

um you mean they were divine and i think that's the difference like what we're talking about here with like japan and like ancient egypt and then like european kings and queens that i think is my understanding

that like it's mostly in Europe where it was like a given rights to rule by God, divine right, and then a lot of the other places around the world, kings and queens were divine. And I think that may be true with Japan too. I don't know, maybe Kevin you could point more to that. Yeah, that he had divine right back in the, you know, they actually, I think what he's alluding to is that they actually like,

It's kind of like the Pope, you know, like as soon as you're the Pope, you're kind of a different level of human type idea. You know, you are divinity at that point. Yeah, like, you know, ancient pharaohs were divine. They weren't given the right by something, you know, from a god to rule. They actually were divine. But what do you mean by the divotry thing? Isn't that just semantics? Right.

That was what they called, you know, the rulers at that point. like that so there was no distinction between like a god and the rulers a ruler was god essentially well like it wasn't in like with like european kings and queens that it was the given the right to rule politically over over people and then really i see were actually given the right you know to speak for god right and it was kind of a different thing whereas like in egypt you know they were like born of the gods they were actually divine themselves um i don't i kind understand it to be a little bit different thing i think in japan it was the same way too is that the emperor was divine not given rights to rule by god but actually was god

wow see that yeah go ahead i was going to say which begs the question you know what is that What does that imply? What does that mean? I mean, you know, go ahead, go ahead. I think it just means that there was a ruthless dictator in charge that lied to everybody, right? Like, that's what that means. Like, I'm smarter than you. I can read.

You guys are dumb. I'm the king. I mean, why? Because God said so. In fact, I'm God. And if you do anything to me, I'm going to bring hellfire on you. So get back to the fields and start working. I would say, by and large.

that was, you know, mostly the case, at least from my purview of history. Now, there are different exceptions. You know, there were rulers who were really great to their people. But at the same time, I found it, you know, I would agree with the George. I think it was a lot of good excuse to take advantage and, you know, reap resources and, you know, maintain power structures. Yeah, I come to the idea of, like, we've all heard that I'll put the fear of God in you. Like, why, if you fear God because God will kill you. So then might God just be another name for the almighty, powerful?

I mean, those two things can be synonymous. So if you are the most powerful, then you become God, right? I heard mother is the word for God on the lips of a child, right? Because that the mother sustains life that could kill that child. But so too, if that is true, so too, then the word for God on the lips of a worker would be the state. you know, in some weird way, like maybe back then or the king or the queen. But yeah, I think now, especially now, where we, some of us are very fortunate to live in a world where we have so much. We have so many resources.

Yeah, where, damn, I should bring Dan in here. Dan Hawks says manifest destiny, right? Like, you know, you just decide to run across the states. You just decide to run across the West and whatever you conquer you, become God at. I don't, does anybody think that there should be, people should have a divine right to rule? Anybody on the panel think that someone should have that right? I don't think so. And if you look at the history, it just goes, if you try to look it in a bigger picture where the average IQ of a human being is increasing, it doesn't have to be for the good, always.

but in this case I feel like the general tendencies start changing but very slowly right it's not like evolution doesn't happen at a single point it's a stretch of time at thousands and thousands of years so that that change is always there sometimes when I get frustrated or angry by that part that's the reminder that things are changing just the expectations within me is too fast right at a people will be learned. Well, when you see a solution, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, well, can everybody see this? Well, oh, they can't.

Oh, oh, what do they have to learn to see the solution? Oh, it's actually everything that I've spent the past years of my life. Oh, okay. Well, you know, there is a process to all of these things. Do you think that like, so when we, yeah, go ahead. we discussed it once before. It seems like the challenge is how do we increase self-governance while expanding the in-group at the same time? Because clearly, the more rulers you have, the more patriarchical leadership you have, the less individual freedom you have. So I'm fully in

alignment with the idea of a self-governing what George is talking about, blockchain-based, decentralized model of existence. But how do you stop the tribalism that will probably result from as resulting from history, right? We were the small groups. We were constantly battling each other for stuff. We got some guy, some strong guy who came in, took it all over, made it stable, fought another strong guy, slowly expanded like that, and there was always conflict. So I guess the question is, is conflict inevitable, or do we have a way to do what I said, expand the end group while keeping the unit small? So, you know, I think at one level conflict can be viewed as inevitable.

However, when you put it in the context of a global situation where people now are committed and people do, you know, they love the internet, right? They love the aspect of more information. And so we have these kind of institutions in the world now where people might be more reluctant to let them go than say in the past where the only aspects of the aspects of their lives were, you know, maintaining the farm or being part of the guild or something like that. Because of the greater opportunity, I think it does potentially give us the opportunity to surpass the insurmountable conflict, at least for our time. And so the way I looked at it and the way I kind

of formulated it is you have to be able to compete in the marketplace, right? You have to be able to compete in the wide world. And if you can compete in that wide world, then you can create individual wealth within that system that will become a duplicatable model that then will become almost spread like a virus. Because why would I not want to be part of something that's creating individual wealth, individual liberty, individual freedom, or as opposed to being attached to this system that's telling me what I can and can't do is holding me down that is barriers of entry, etc., etc. I think you create basically a magnetic environment where people say, hey, those are the things that are important, like, those are the aspects of life. That's the philosophy of life

that I want to pursue. So I'm going to see how I can be a part of the system. And if we create the right thing where it is focused on individual life, where each person's, you know, opinions and ideas are represented in the brain and being able to, you know, we don't have to make this network or podcasting in order to be heard type of idea. I think that is maybe the element that allows us to kind of pop over that conflict. What do you say, though, to the idea that conflict is the mother of invention. It seems that like so many wars, and I don't necessarily believe this myself, but it seems to me there are lots of theories that say we must be at odds with each other so we continue to move forward the idea of technology. And if you look at the technology that we have, most of it has come from war.

Maybe that's because we develop it for war, but it's still coming out of conflict and war. And when two people, be it expert boxers or expert debaters, come together and fight, be it verbally or physically, the outcome of that tends to be like a sharper form. What do you think about that? I would say that necessity is the mother of invention. So, you know, obviously conflict is going to bring necessity, but necessity comes from other places as well. I think war was an expression of conflict. I think conflict will continue to happen throughout human existence, let's say, because with our limited consciousness we perceive some way. And in order to go ahead, like, progress as a humanity, you need to have conflicting opinions and take that.

But people who are stubbornly caught up in it, if they are caught up in it, that the result in this work, because I'm going to, if I cannot condense you, the kill kind of stuff. But now it's changing. We can agree to disagree. Well, I think it's also changing, too, back to our previous conversation about language and how that influences things. You know, instead of having us to wage war with our fists, you know,

we can articulate ourselves and present evidence and have, you know, differing opinions, but then analyze those points. As long as people are willing to come to the table, I think we have that option that doesn't necessitate conflict. Yeah. It almost like, why not, what do you think about the Malthusian concept of like, let's just kill half the people? Like, I'm not saying I agree with that,

but I think that there's a group of people that do think that, you know, when you start hearing terms about like useless eaters or low IQs, And again, it's not, I'll just be devil's advocate and pretend I'm a Malthusian. Like, look, we need to get rid of all these dummies, okay? There's a bunch of dummies. They don't do anything. Like, they can barely talk. They don't do anything.

They just take up space. And they're outpopulating people that are actually doing stuff. We should just get rid of all of them. Let's just starve them. The world will be a better place. But what are we supposed to do with the film? We're not feed them. We don't still send them.

We pretend that there's, a problem in Ukraine and then we don't feed them. We fill them off without them knowing it or acknowledging it. I wonder what that could be. We can have a virus. How about a virus? Oh boy, boy. We're getting into the weeds now, boys.

I'm just kidding. But would that work? I mean, if you could lower the earth's, if you could just drop down the population by, I don't know, one-third. If you could get rid of one-third of people that are not produced, would that change the world for the better? Be more jobs? Maybe. No, because in, you know, when you make the decision of killing the unproductive people,

it's with the idea that our goal as a human is to be productive. That's a good point. If our goal is to be lazy, then they should be killing the productive ones. I think that they are though. Aren't they already doing that? By non-participation? Yes. Administratively, yeah.

Administratively. I think it's about bringing them to the table. I agree. All of unproductiveness comes from system and not from individuality. I would concur with that. And, you know, the other, another more perhaps humanistic aspect of that is, you know, the responsibility of, you know, the populace to everyone else. is not, hey, you guys aren't up to snuff, we're going to kill you all.

You have to analyze why these people aren't up to snuff. Why are, why is there people who are poor? Why is there people who are uneducated? Why are there people who are lower educated? Why do all of these things happen? And the reality I think of that situation is once you start to really evaluate those aspects of society and culture, you see that the fundamental reasons typically pull back

to, you know, the pursuit of money and power for a lot of, a lot of these aspects of society. You know, for instance, the American education system was founded by a communist guy who was trying to found a system that wanted create more work with these. We adopted that, right? You know, so what's the, you know, when we're actually talking about that, the actual solution is a much longer-term solution, nobody wants because politics are very snap, snap, staff in four years here, four years here, I have to campaign about this and this and this.

And if I can't fix it in a very quick time frame, it's not anything that I need to talk about. But the real solutions are why do these problems exist and it's exciting. And when you solve those solutions, you eventually solve the grander problem. But you have to start with solving the root of the cause. And we know this intuitively.

We just don't like to acknowledge, politically or financial. And there's another angle to this in that people are surviving today. How do I put this? People are existing today that maybe otherwise would not have made it because we have systems in place to enable them. Like a paraplegic 200 years ago is not going to make it, right? But now we've got all this support and medical care.

I'm not saying that's wrong. It's great that we have the ability to pull on life where it wouldn't have otherwise existed. But yeah, a lot of people wouldn't just wouldn't made it. Right. And the sad part of that part is that there is an altruistic and humanistic aspect of it, but there's also a monetary aspect to it. Those people are now an indentured servant to that system where the funds of not only them, but they're, you know, people who love them are going to end up in that pipeline of, you know, monetary wealth. And it's not going to be transition to the family, it's not going to spread out, you know, to the community, it's going to

an entity that does not have any care, concern, or investment in prolonging those individual lines, those family lines, those communal lines, they're focused on just accumulating more on their wealth. I mean, we just saw that greatest transfer of wealth that we've ever seen in human history. well kind of recorded yeah it's it almost seems to me that you know if there is it almost seems to me that the underclass be it people that have had a pre-existing

condition or that fought through the cracks in education like they just become they just become fodder for the system like all of a sudden now they're dependent on the medical system but the medical assistant needs them as fuel to continue to to fire their profits, you know, and it's, it's almost the, maybe that is the way our society is run. Like we are just, we're no longer looked at being productive people. We're just looked at being numbers. We're just looked at being, you know,

what, yeah, big data, you know, there's, it kind of strips away the humanities, resources, yeah, that's a good, good way to think about it. It makes me wonder if, if, if, if, if, if, if this move towards science. And it makes me also wonder if, you know, this move towards science, if we're just resources and we can be looked at like numbers, then what's to stop the process of eugenics from happening, you know? Or like it just becomes easier to implement these ideas based on science to create productivity. If we're already going down that road,

if we're already looking at ourselves, stripped of humanity, what's to stop us from being like, you know what? you have to have a license to have kids, you have to have this to have kids, or, you know, it just seems like that's kind of the road we're going down unless we make some sort of change. What do you guys think? It's like this, right? Your mental wavelength is kind of traveling the ship with other mental wavelengths and few people control that. Right.

So regardless of how much ever we tried to individualize and come out of it, there is some part of dependency still there. It's a lot of sacrificial things we might have to do to completely get into a recluse or a, you know. So a certain amount of, let's say, normal life as us tied along, you know, the system. So we can see a part of it. what's that? Sorry. I thought you were a finished guy. No, no, no.

That was it. Oh, no. So I'm saying these are tough questions. Like these are kind of questions that really make me question what I think because I do like the free market. I'm in favor of capitalism generally. But the logical extension of that is that eventually private ownership will own all of the factors of production if we go fully AI. And then what do you do with the A. 80 or 90% of people whose jobs no longer exists because they can't all be AI mechanics or robot repair people.

And I don't know how we're going to. I mean, you think, for example, like if we were able to figure out how to farm and take care of all our foods with AI, is it fair that somebody owns all of that? Or is there a way that we can like blockchain solution or whatever where we distribute ownership of that process and we all get the fruits of that? yeah there's totally a way i think that it's not like google made google it's like we we all pitched into that like if if you paid taxes in america you founded google like they were founded by the taxpayer once it became profitable they spun it off into a private company they probably grew it a lot more but everybody paid into that so everybody should be getting like a freedom dividend

from that and if i i runs everything well okay so how about this like if we have If you have, like in a car plant, they have different robots that make different parts. Why don't those robots pay taxes? Why don't those robots pay a percentage of the profits into the system? And then we get that. Like, we all built it. You know what I mean? Like, we all built this whole system.

But now there's a few people that are like, actually, we built it. It's actually, I own the company. You know, like, that's bullshit. No, you didn't. You are the frontman for it. But everybody else kicked in. And I, maybe that's the, maybe that's the end result is that the people that are consolidating power end up just being murdered because they're so greedy and selfish. Like, I'm not saying we should do that.

It wouldn't be the first time in history. Yeah, they'll, they'll never tax those machines, but they'll give them rights to vote. So, you know, I think we do face a precipice here where if we do not come up with the system, that does enable the individual to actually benefit for these things. We are going to end up in a situation that Kevin just described, where you are going to have a small collective group of people who accumulate everything of all of the resources, all of the control, all of the systems, all of the supply chains.

And, you know, we already seeing that today. It's not too far of a distant future. I mean, you know, when you look at the amount of wealth in the world, and where it's distributed, it's not hard to see that where this direction is going. And then if you plot it over time, it's really easy to see where it's going. So, you know, the reality of that is, you know, you have to come up with something that competes in the marketplace. You have to be able to out-compete the competitors. Because that's the only solution that is where you can come to some sort of, you know, redistribution funds, if you will,

without conflict. Otherwise, you have to go murder those people. You know, it seems like manifest destiny. If we look at what happened, like, you know, Dan Hawk was telling us a little bit about Indians being moved to reservations. And like, if you look at a smart city, it's kind of a new age reservation. Like they're moving, they want to move people off the land and into a smart city. You want to move people off the land and into a reservation. And like when you, you know, it seems similar to me. And why wouldn't it be if he,

history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. It's very similar to see that happening. That's a nice way to put it. Because I don't think it repeats the exact same way. It goes in a spiral so that are a lot of similarities. So it feels like so much is happening, but there is a lot of difference as well. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I think that Paul, why do you think that they would never tax the robots? Like if we could get like a vote, I mean, you could theoretically, put out, especially in today's time, you could start a go, maybe not a go fund me, but you could get a petition out there and get enough people to sign it that says, hey, we think that the robots should be paying our taxes. Like, why wouldn't that work, Paul? That was kind of more of a joke, George.

Well, you know, I would chime in and say because people who are power hungry typically like to absorb more power, they don't like to distribute it. So I think, you know, any sort of vote in that instance that's going to cut into the bottom line of not just them but their shareholders is going to be heavily resistant. Yeah, that's a great point. But don't you get to the point, too? I think I remember hearing, being a union guy like I am, I remember hearing a story about Eugene Debs, who was like a great union leader and Henry Ford. And so Eugene Debs and Henry Ford are walking down the Ford plant. when all the new robot arms came in.

And Henry Ford looks at Eugene and he goes, Hey, Eugene, how are you going to get those robots to pay union dues? Ha ha ha ha. And Eugene Debb says, hey, Henry, how are you going to get those robots to buy your cars? You know what I mean? Like, so don't we kind of get into that catch-22 where, hey, great, there's not enough jobs for anybody. But guess what?

And then there's no more commerce. You know, now you've, you have controlled everything. And now no one's buying any anything. because they don't have any money unless you give them money. And maybe that's the debate happening with giving people income right now. Right. That's the, you'll own nothing and like it idea. This is that you're going to get a monthly stipend to go off and play in Metaverse.

To, you know, buy your digital stuff and go off in a ready player one experience and collect all these things when in reality you live with a box, you know, a two-by-two cubicle. what that does from on a consumer level in capitalism is you know i think i think you're right i think that devastates the system but at the same time you know we have come so far with robotics and automation artificial intelligence that what is the system what is it created for to begin with why does that whole supply chain system exist because you need labor to extract resources to provide the ever-encroaching aspect of technology and advancement, things like this. But what happens if you no longer need to label?

What happens if you can extract resources automatically and process resources automatically and build things automatically? Well, you don't need a labor force. Now, there's the utopian future of this, which is like a Star Trek, right? And there's many dystopian parts of this, which I think when you can, factor and the human factor of all of this, the dystopian ones kind of look more realistic. And that's a dangerous and scary idea. But I think that's the reality we do things. No, I think it's both of utopian and dystopian happen at the same time. The movies just differ

on which observer they are showing. You know, when you see all these superhero movies where they're attacking, there are millions of people who die. which we don't focus on. So, and as an average person, I think we would have to watch more dystopian films to be prepared. But yeah, in a different boat, I think it's different.

I think that there's like, what does it say about our society when all the biggest movies are like the fantasies of a 12-year-old boy? Like, I'm Flash. I'm the Incredible Hulk. Like, they're all, like, every single top movie is like a Marvel book,

which is like the fantasy of a 12-year-old. 12-year-old boy who has no power. Like, is that something people are doing on purpose? Like, are we trying to infant, are we trying to make sure that every man in America is an infant child that just sits around and plays video games and reads comic books and wishes they were Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk?

Like, that's, like, all the top movies. Like, that's where all the money goes. Or is that who's running our world? There's, like, these man boys that, like, they've just fantasized about having all this power. and now they've somehow found themselves as like Dr. Evil or like, you know, Lex Luthor. Yeah, or they're trying to be superheroes. I mean, I think that the world, you know, you can see the world around you if you look at it

and you need not look far to your nurse billboard to see what people think of society. If you look at media as a mirror of society. I mean, women love these movies too. My sister and my mom, I think, like them even more than I do. and I heard Jordan Peterson talk about this once. He says that the comic book, I guess, trend right now the last 20 years where that's all that comes out, it seems, is to replace what he considers a godlessness and avoid of losing faith in religions. And these comic book characters are demigods.

They've got these powers. They fight for good. And that's his theory. I don't think the fantasies of 12-year-old. boys are a lot different than the fantasies of grown men. Not too many men I've met. And that's the thing, right? All these things on global level as a group, they are not...

What's there? No. Oh, man, go, go, okay. So the movies, right, on a... It is affected on a group dynamics, right? People, I don't think it's run by the minds of 12-year-olds, but rather that... This is what brings in money. Money is the driving factor in almost everything.

So that goes back to the, if someone is going to invest, they're going to want higher returns. That's all they care. It's not about producing good quality. That's not an average person's mind, I feel like. Some people go out of the way for getting financial concerns for quality, but most of it comes back to what's going to bring this investment tennis to one or something.

And when they go back to the data, it's there. So it's like it's going to be a self-fulfilling loop until a certain group of people really branch out of it. A diminishing one. at that yeah yeah and you know I think to that point I think we are seeing that diminishing loop you know they they have gotten so constrained by the aspect of money that you know when they look at the data to your point is that they're like well we can't stray from this because this was half a billion dollars that

we made you know gross off or that it's sort of whatever so I think it is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that instance. But I do think there is a certain aspect to, you know, what that says about the culture that we're putting out there. Because, yeah, you know, when we grew up, science fiction was one of those things where it was all over the place. There was many different science fiction things. You know, there's all the Star Tracks and all that stuff, and there is a saying that science fiction eventually becomes science fact, right? If you go back to the previous ages of science fiction, those are a lot of the things. that we have technologically available to us today.

So, you know, and then if you look at what the richest people in the world are spending a lot of their money on, it is to try to become superheroes. They're trying to prolong their lives. They're working on immortality. They're transhumanist movement. There is all these things where, you know, that's where these 12-year-old boys who never grew up and became men. I'll take that debate anytime, anybody. you know, they are going down this pathway of, you know,

societal destruction, but definitely, you know, trying to achieve these different things, you know, outside the bounds of culture and outside the bounds of, you know, what that means to everybody else. Yeah, I agree. Here's an interesting question. Dan brings this one in. Can you create a video game without action?

I think this is talking about, you know, be it a movie or be it anything, can you create a video game without? I don't think, I don't know if you can create anything without action. What do you think, Ranga? What kind of action are we referring to this? Right. I would agree with that. Because you have like the Sims, right?

There's not a lot of action in the Sims or like Sim City where you're building something. But there is action in the sense that things are actually progressing. So I guess it would come down to the definition. of action. I'll tell you one game on PS4 which is the least I found to be having containing action. It's called everything. And in the game you just become things, all living things. So you can either become a planet or a stone in a particular planet. And the backlog is of all the quotes of Alan Watts. And that's a game. So I feel like you can experience becoming everything, Just listening to that.

And I don't think that as action. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's action at some point because you're turning one thing into something else. Your perception into a planet into a rock or something like that. So, yeah, I think it really, you know, how do you define action? Or if it's like an action movie, like superhero type stuff, I think there's definitely, you know, to what you just said, there's definitely a lot of those games. There's a lot of like mystery type games.

I remember way back in the day. What was that? Mystic Isles or something like? Miss. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was the one. You're just walking around for most of the game.

It's just a fish tank that would do well. Maybe. Yeah. Well, Farmville, right? That gate made hundreds of millions of dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars for people just building a farm and having. But they're still doing something. Right, they're still like...

Right, there's still action, yeah. Well, and, you know, if you get into the psychological aspects of it, it really, you know, kicks off that dopamine aspect in the brain, and it gives these people a little reward drips throughout the day. Random rewards, apparently. Yeah, exactly. Candy curse is the thing, right? I see, it's the least amount of action from the participant.

You know, touch of a button, and it can keep a few hooked on for I would say yes I guess there's some sort of mental action I was trying to think like you know when you look when you watch a fish tank if you go to the aquarium it's pretty relaxing you know you're just like watching the fish swim

and they're all moving in like a perfect kind of harmony with the water you know I don't know if that would be a game but it dumbed for sure would you sit down on fire for PS4 and just watch it for two hours maybe it was a screensaver or something but I don't think I would sit there and watch it

I mean maybe in the back background. But yeah, I don't know. I don't think I could come up with with one like that. Let me, let me ask guys this. On the top, like it seems to me one way to fundamentally change society is to change the way people think. And the way we do that or we have done that before is with narratives. Like be it God, you know, and most societies or cultures are built around a narrative, be it a divine king or God or religion. Maybe these are the foundation. of societies. But it seems to me if you were to put on a tinfoil hat or just to do a thought experiment, like how, like COVID has changed,

and I wish I could see the research on this. I bet you people have it, but, you know, COVID has fundamentally changed the way people think about disease. And there's probably a lot of, probably a lot of documentation on what percentage of people got the jab. What percentage of,

percentage of people were able to be confined to their house. They could probably tell a lot just by we had, we had every station blast out this message. Here's the effects that it had. And if you had that information, you could do something similar and get better results. Like if you believe that you can do something over and over and get better results because you can change things to make it better, then shouldn't you also be able to change a narrative? And if the results you want to get is changing behavior. You should be able to change people's behavior in steps like that. So if you wanted people to rally around a narrative of health, you would use things like, okay, the planet is unhealthy. We all have to come together regardless of what race you are, of how old you are, of your sexual orientation.

We can all agree that we have to save the planet, right? Right. So let's get together and pay this. Like you could, like I can see how some of these huge narratives take place. Like maybe it is an attempt from people who are passionately care about the world trying to unite people. Because what, right, people care about the planet. That's one way to unite people. Another way to unite people is like, hey, there's a giant virus. We're all going to die. You almost have to have these cataclysmic ideas of destruction to bring people together.

If you, since it's 9-11, remember what happened after 9-11 in the United States? Like everybody came together. Now, granted, we came together to go kill people. But that's what we do. Like we come together when there's a crisis. So wouldn't, if we were a government, if we were the governing body, wouldn't we try to think of like a crisis to get people to come together? Like don't.

And if that's true, isn't it probably true that that's what people are doing in like the World Economic Forum and in the United States and China? Like aren't they looking for ideas to bring people together? And don't these ideas of crisis kind of fit that bill? I think they absolutely do. but I think an important point to look in that is that, you know, there's not a single motive. And we can observe that there's not a singular motive because, you know, you will have, you know, these crises, but then you'll also have these transfers of wealth. So, yes, you know, there is an idea that people want to bring people together, and you can definitely do that via crisis.

I mean, I think there's, you know, pain and fear are the greatest motivators. You know, I think love comes in a third, you know, a distant third for a lot of people. And maybe even not a third for some. But pain and fear really motivate a lot of people. And so if you can spark that fear mechanism in somebody, now you have their entire attention, not only the fact that you have their attention, but now if you can perpetuate it, narrative to them. They're going to buy into that narrative. They're not asking what your motivations are. They're not asking, you know, is just, is this altruistic? You know, it's, and I think,

you know, in often cases, especially if we look back in history, we can see that most of these things, if not all of them, are not altruistic at the end of the day. They are enabled to create a movement, to create a response, to create that, you know, economic shift. But at the end of the day, who benefits from that is a small group of people? And by and large, there's millions of deaths, there's families, there's property loss, there's, you know, genocide in some cases. So I think there is something to be said about a narrative being able to motivate people. But it also really comes down to at the end of the day, what's the motivations? Who are the people who are providing their? and what are their motivations? Hey, Josh, when you were saying that you sounded really optimistic, but I don't think that was anywhere close to being the reality for at least COVID. It's definitely not talking about COVID, right?

No, because just take this one thing of, like, you want to bring people together and one of the most simplistic physical rules where, oh, we're going to maintain distance. It does, it starts from there. Right, but at the same time, it did have everybody mentally focused on the same thing, which means they're not looking over here. They're not looking over here. They're just looking right here. So it is bringing people together in a sense.

Yeah, it's like when 9-11 happened. The Japanese, after that, the Japanese enacted sweeping new terrorism laws. The Japanese never had terrorism, right? Interesting. It saw the focus somewhere else, and Switzerland did some similar. this was never had terrorism. And they started pushing through all these products. Yeah.

Yeah, it seems to me without a doubt that, you know, never let a good crisis go to waste. And even in the United States today, especially in California and New York, who have the most draconian laws, they're still under a state of emergency. And even in Hawaii, we're under a state of emergency.

The reason for the state of emergency is because you have emergency powers when you're under a state of an emergency. That's why every president, is a wartime president. That's why there's a war on drugs, you know, so that they can be a wartime president. Because when you're a wartime president, you don't need Congress to, you can start producing executive orders at a more rapid rate. You have less people looking over your shoulder because you're at a time of war. And so even though you're not at a time of war, you find something to be at war at. And then you can have the sweeping legislation that, you know, allows you to

raise money or bypass any sort of laws. And I don't know if it's like that in other countries, but I would imagine, and this is the pattern that the process that takes us from, you know, a republic into a dictatorship is just this long pathway of wartime. You know, why don't we have a war on poverty? How about that? How about, you know, like, here's one for you guys. Good. I was going to say, people are really easy to train in these situations. I remember after the 9-11 thing in the U.S., maybe it was after the shoe bomber, I can't remember, but all of a sudden you had to take. your shoes off and put them through the x-ray machine. And I remember being in another country. I think it was Switzerland.

And they were kind of making fun of the U.S. tourists in German at one point. I was listening to their conversation. They're like, look, they're so well trained. You don't have to ask them to just take their shoes off and put it through. And it wasn't even a rule there. They were just sort of habitually taking your shoes off and putting it through. And so I think the way forward, I'm not sure how to address this. I mean, there seems to be a lack of thinking.

People do not like to think. People do not know how to think. And until we can fix that, people are going to be swayed by their emotions. And fear is always used to sway emotions. And I know this, like, look at the people around you. People watch comic book movies because they don't want to think. They want to turn their brains off for two minutes or two hours.

Because thinking is, I guess, painful to a lot of people. Something that people who do like to think. It's confusing to a lot of people. And to those people's credit, they were indoctrinated into a system that did not teach them how to think. I agree with that. That's exactly it, I think. When they are learning things in that phase, you're not taught how to think. So you want to keep certain people there who will tell you where to go because it's easier.

In a state of crisis, it's much easier. If you didn't have soldiers, like soldiers are basically our nightguards, right? There is a joke. They are basically the first line of people who are going to die. They're like alarm system. They died and buy some time for you, and then you can get away. So you need some people who are going to say yes. So hey, Mr. Wizard, how did you learn how to think?

That's an interesting question. I don't know how to answer that off the top of my head. But I would say I was always pretty questionable. of how things were going. Oh, I take that back. I know how to answer that. When I was 16 years old, I had a tragedy in my life, my little sister died in a car accident.

And after that, you know, I started looking at the world in a different way. And when people told me that something was true, there was much more of a bullshit meter that went up. Because if that was true, then why did this happen type idea and nobody could give me good explanations of things you know there was religion there was people who said x y and z but it all didn't sit well with me and so i went on my own path and i've been on it for a long time since nice i think that fits the title right sorry for

cutting you paul but tragedy tragedy and most of it i feel like as death in it in some way which starts awakening us because that this is for the point first time I feel like irreplaceable loss. So you have to question it, why that to happen, especially when in circumstances where the situation seems so good, at least according to scriptures, let's say, and then something happens so you question God for the first time. But you can continue, Paul, sorry. No, it was just like when we, you know, in our first conversation a couple Sundays ago,

you know, we were talking about language and I mean, all kinds of stuff. And I brought up that I felt that, you know, there was a lack of, you know, people weren't building foundations of knowledge in their lives. Me and George have had this conversation many times. And, you know, so, you know, the thinking process, you know, never really gets fully developed. And it seems like everybody here, you know, knows how to form an opinion and actually knows how to think. And I'm just kind of wondering how everybody got to this point, you know, in their lives and maybe why some people don't. That's very interesting.

I got Ranga, Ranga and I were talking on Friday. And I think, I think Ranga does something that reminds me something we probably all do or all have done or still do to this point. In our conversation, Rongo was telling me how he likes to make people feel uncomfortable.

But by consequence, he makes himself feel uncomfortable. And like, That's the best way to think. Like sometimes we, I bet you every one of us, probably even to this day, but definitely when you were a younger man, you were doing all kinds of things that made people feel uncomfortable, which made you feel uncomfortable, which forced you to have to think about what the hell you were doing or why the hell that person was treating you a certain way.

And I think that that fits this idea of thinking. Like, if someone around, if you get a weird vibe from somebody or say you say something to someone that makes them feel uncomfortable, all of a sudden, you're like, okay, why is, did I just say something bad? Why is this person looking at me? Why? Do they think I'm a, why? Because I got long hair? Well, you don't like me because of what I said?

All these questions are popping up in your head. And like, that's the beginning, the foundation of critical thinking is like, why? Why? Why? Why? You're mad at that? Because I said that. Why?

You know, it's this question of why. And some people feel so uncomfortable. Yeah, self-reflection. I think it is the question of why. But I think, you know, why is buried so. deep, especially, I mean, after you're indoctrinated for years and years and years, you know, you're, it's to the point where a lot of places people aren't allowed to ask why. You don't ask why you have a church. You don't ask why mom and dad teeth you here. You don't ask why they said

to do this. You don't ask this, you know, because you learn that when I ask why, there's consequences. And so you get, you get beat down from asking why our entire lives. And then eventually, you know, I think all of us got to the point where, you know, why became much. more important than anybody else's reasoning for why not and I think that kind of you know I think that propels people for me when when when when that why gets bigger than the why not is you know something that's important and then you know that triggers that self-reflection that path that that in your journey yeah I think you have I think why is buried underneath discipline and respect and authority and you know you have dig down to find why you have to dig down to find the reason why and it's buried under respect it's

buried under division it's buried under respect like you know and and it's tough to dig it up because people don't want to dig it up but and it's scary it hurts people yeah yeah you're gonna you're going to have conflict you know yeah personal experiences many of them um but yeah you're gonna end up in conflict especially with people you love and actually did respect or still even do respect. But yet you're still asking why because something really doesn't add up. And it's just not making sense. And, you know, you have to ask that why because eventually you get to that tipping point. And, you know, sometimes you're going to lose those relationships because you ask why. Yeah, it is. Yeah, really unthinkable.

You ask why enough times and you realize that nobody has an answer to it. You ask it enough times you're going to shit. Did you guys have this thing as a kid, you think adults have it figured out, and you grow, grow, grow to become adult and you don't know, there is no distinctive point where you become adult? I think most kids have that perception and I don't think most people grow up. And so I think most people walking around are still kids with that perception. They still appeal to authority.

They still look at, if it's not mom and dad, it's the government, it's the police officer, it's the doctor, it's the what have you in their life. that is some position of authority that they've just relegated their reasoning and rational ability to. It's the expert. They know why. Yeah. Well, you know, we're talking about this thing about, you know, divine right, you know, and, and to me, it's like, you know, you know, way back when largely, you know, existed because people didn't ask, you know, people, people, people didn't have life, you know, that, that sort of

you know like questioning of authority or or you know well you weren't allowed to either you would end up on a stake or you would end up or you know there was consequences to asking why that are a bit more harsh these days or than these days

yeah right I think I was just going to say thanks for bringing that up that was actually one of the points I wanted to get to in that whole divine right way to tie it back Paul I think this is kind of a big difference between the East and the West too. It seems to me, and I don't know this, but it seems to me that the Eastern traditions

have more of a sense of saving face and having harmony and want to have less of a debate about the right or wrong and rather choose to just disagree without arguing in front of people because it can bring shame or disrespect like that, where in the Western tradition, it seems like people are willing to argue in front of each other, not to be rude or disrespectful, but just to prove a point. What do you guys think?

Sometimes to be rude and disrespectful, too. Sure, sure. Yeah. But, yeah, there is some sort of impetus between the East and West. You know, there's still, you know, there seems like honor. If you ask the definition, of honor to anybody in the West these days, you're going to get probably not a close definition to the thing. But if you ask people in these, they're very honor bound to, you know, families,

institutions, religions, just social impetus. So I think there is a distinct difference in that. And that would probably heart back to our last conversation about language. What do you think, Ranga? You seem to be disagreeable at times. And you were born. in India. Are you more disagreeable than people in your family? Or what is your take on argumentation? It goes back to two, three things you said, well, why people do not think, right? Because of fear of authority or discipline. And those points were not just random words. Everything has happened in my life that I wasn't able to talk out loud until like two, three years back. Like, I literally had a heavy public fear and it was mostly because in india schools are based on the french uh military

system so first thing is discipline and one of the funny things i have been thinking about last year is that they taught us uh march past i do not know why that was there there was a ncc national cat something uh and they train you to with things but they weren't sending us to war or anything but this was there in schools instead of kids having playtime which was limited to 40 minutes a week we did this for four hours right and you cannot talk back you know one good thing was i was interested in going there because i wanted to fit in i was too small at that point so they didn't take me so that turned to be a little bit of sadness but the question came why did they not take me right and then i still didn't have an understanding because this white question i couldn't convey to a person of authority

right so for example in my cast or ritual they have a white thread they wear around the body i'm curious i asked my dad why there is no answer like you will understand it one day right because because i do not have the answer is not they don't you understand you cannot confront them they they are not because they have not talked to themselves you know people meet you only as deeply as they have met themselves. I really agree because I feel like many people that I met back in India are very shallow with respect to not having shallow ideas or something. It's just they've not done anything with themselves. So that's how they interact with people too. So there is no honesty from my dad to tell me that he doesn't know so that, you know, it could have been a joint thing

of finding out why it existed. But all those kind of helped me to question those, right? And And I honestly, I had so much fear in talking to people. My legs would start shaking considerably. I couldn't do anything. I would stay in the stage. My voice will shiver. And all of that because there is a person I know of authority sitting in the audience. If it was just my friends, it was much different.

Right. And all these things I had to break. But all the situation is what caused me to break it. Right. It's like what you said about tradition. George last time. So wouldn't you say tradition has been successful because those are the things that made me question it and, you know, let's say get away from it or something. So in that way, yeah, nothing as positive or a negative effect. It's just that and just it's interaction of

different things happening. It's a dynamic play, right? In interaction of multiple things happening. So it leads to one result. But in this, in this, thing I was watching the good place today, sorry for jumping from that, but we were questioning about free will and determinism. So, you know, there are so many things that appears deterministic and there is always a question of free will. But again, all these, all the things behind this is as you said, George, the question of why. Why is very crucial? That is crucial. I'm done. Nothing should be taken at the face value. Everything can be doubted, every single thing.

Yeah, I think that you can You know what, Kevin, you have a friend That's been That has read Jeb McKenna and become enlightened And And I think we're Two steps Yeah, yeah

Yeah, okay So I wanted to tie this to Ranga Ranga had, Ranga and I were talking about The idea of Of being there And he was asking I'll have him sum it up

But the way I see it Remember, Ranga, Do you remember our conversation when you were asking, like, what is the push to get there? Do you remember us talking about that on Friday? Push to get that or push to just action? What is the thing that pushes us to move? Okay, what is the thing that pushes us to move because?

And there was a because in there. And the because was like, no matter what, there's no real reason to do anything. I think Kevin's friend, maybe Kevin can tell us about his friend who thinks he's become enlightened or may have become enlightened. And then I think it'll feed into the ideas that you were talking about. Can you tell us that story, Kevin, about your friend and why he thinks the way he does? I think, first of all, we have to make some definitions as in what is the definition of enlightenment.

Okay, good idea. Because I don't think anyone universally agrees on that. And typically, if you read the scriptures, old yoghic texts and so forth, an enlightened person is somebody who is experiencing bliss, and his fully awareness, fully in an awareness and has dissolved ego and his love and compassion. Whereas this guy, Jed McKenna, he defines enlightenment as the destruction of the false self and that there is no self left and the removal of all emotional attachments. So my friend has followed this path. And he's literally with effort tried to destroy his own ego and his false self, as he called it,

and is in this way merged with the dream state, but not attached to it. So I guess those are the two different definitions of it. If he's your friend, doesn't he still have nothing? So in terms of you have a question about motivation, and the motivation there is hatred of falsity to destroy everything false, including the self. What's false? Everything, basically.

So denying reality. You accept reality as an illusion. It's the question. Boil it down, let's hear it. Awareness versus appearance. There is only awareness and everything else in appearance. It's like the man's asking, how do I overcome the desire of killing all my desires?

Right. You ask who am I forever? That's the practice. Yeah. But then so that discounts the things like love. Yes. So compassion. The things that we typically hold is good virtues, right?

Yeah, because there's no good or bad. Everything is. Well, there's no good or bad. It's all relative. And most forms of love are fearful attachments, according to this philosophy. Oh. I disagree. I disagree.

All right. Yeah. So my take on this whole position is actually fairly similar. I'm no absolute. There is no such thing as good or bad. There's no right or wrong. What's right for me is not necessarily right for you. Truth is a relative perspective.

In order for us to know the entirety of truth, we would have to have access to everything that's ever happened at all times in order to say that is actually true. And we are incapable of such a thing. I approach my philosophy from the, there is no absolutes in that sense, but that does not degrade from the experience, because we are all here living in experience, and to deny that experience is to deny, you know, everything that we're doing. Does that make you enlighten? Yeah, might in some regard, I suppose, if you actually think about it, because you're not going to

give a shit about what's going on around you. And one could consider that. enlighten however in my perspective I would much more rather see the smiles on the faces of new general I would much more interact with the people around me I would much more have love with my dog who you know has nothing but joy to bring to my life and I think denying that there is value in those aspects is to deny this experience and if you were to deny this experience then why are you here? I think we can agree that dogs are like.

Yeah, I agree. They got it all figured out as far as I'm concerned. I think in one definition, as Kevin said, right? Enlightened being in state of place, again, it all involves definitions. So without defining, I would like to think it's a person who's completely non-reactive and accepting of all things that are happening. right in that sense

I don't think they are denying the experience to go somewhere they are just in complete sync with the experience where there's no narrative of what's happening so they're one with the experience but there is no choice like as you said right I would rather sit with here

and add this video I agree but I think it's like a choice right but if you're one with the experience that would necessitate that you are a part of said experience you would you know, be, you know, experiencing the experience would, otherwise you're not a part of the experience. So for personal story, I, when I first kind of, you know, went on my philosophy journey and discovered this for myself, I found an exceptional jewelry in my life. I was in Costa Rica. I had no responsibilities.

I owed nothing to nobody. And I was on a hilltop with, I could have sat there forever in bliss. but then there was that little bit of inkling in my mind that said, hey, everybody else is in bliss. Everybody, there's a lot of struggle. There's a lot of pain. There's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of people that you love that are doing well. And so for you to remain here is a selfish act.

And I would think the annihilation of attachment is, the utmost selfish act one could make. That's not to say that, you know, by detaching yourself from things you cannot have perspective and you gain perspective, and I think that is the path to enlightenment. However, to entirely deny that attachment is perfectly selfish.

But I think the journey is about finding that self, right? It's not with the goal of denying the self. It's finding the self, but it's not being, selfness. Once you find yourself, you are now a beacon. Now you're a light. Now you're, now you're, now you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, uh, you're, are something to lead people to. I don't think Kevin, what was his reason for doing this? My friend or the author. Your, your friend. I think he'd been on a very, very long journey. Um, and multi-year, multi-decade, perhaps. And

he just encountered this guy who spoke to him because I guess there's a lot of writing that says look into the heart you know the emotions are the way and this guy says no the mind is the way emotions are there to deceive you and my friend is a very intellectual guy so that appealed to his sense of how the world works so basically the idea is use your mind to destroy falsity and I just think his writing appeal yeah Oh yeah, he would say there's absolutely no such bounce. He's like you have to be like aggressively

like obsessed, single-minded don't care if you survive the process like going to the deepest darkest holds of yourself and just until you're done. Even there there's there's about it. Oh sorry so he talks about this and

in his methodology. Discuss this. I don't know what exactly he did. Yeah. Well, the author recommends just writing, like just writing constantly. Like just always just deconstructing yourself through writing. I don't know what my life. So I assume my friend did the same thing.

Oh, okay. Sometimes I wonder if it's backwards. Like maybe you can't be enlightened unless you have attachment. Like the things you recognize in other people are the things you recognize about yourself. Like if you see someone is like, have you ever seen someone to be like, I know what this fucker's doing? This guy's trying to manipulate me. I know what he's doing.

You know how you know that because you do it? Or you know how like, you know what this girl is doing? I see what she's doing. She's going to be with this person to get back at me. That's something. That's the only reason you can see that is because that's something you see yourself doing. So if you really want to know yourself, you have been attached to these other people because they're like a mirror for you.

You know, and the more attachments you've had in your life, the more fuller you are. It's like maybe when you attach to something, then you detach you take part of that with you. Or maybe you can only untatch from them because you've learned the lesson about yourself from them. We have to define what the self is here again. We're getting tricky with semantics. Like what is the self, right? This guy is proposing, a lot of other writers actually propose, that the self is just the thing that is aware, just the consciousness,

everything else. It's like a balloon. Inside the balloon is the self or no self, and your personnel and your persona are paper machete, newspapers that you throw on it. Sure, but then what's the purpose? No, there's no purpose. And he would even say that.

There's no purpose, so we should all just kill ourselves and forget about this thing, right? I think the only real argument against suicide is that if you fail, you have a big medical bill. Ha, ha. That's funny. I think that's funny. I think that's common. I would contend just in all of this, that balance is still is the thing.

Even when you go to the deep dark, even if you go to the depths of space, there is a balance there. There's an equilibrium between all of the things that are around it, the environment that it's encompassed or encompassed by. So I think even, you know, in ultimate attachment, you still necessitate the need to find a bound with that attachment to the attachment. And I think that is the factor in light. I mean, if I were to put my two cents. Yeah, check out the guy. I enjoy his books. He's pretty funny sometimes.

So if you're interested in these topics and want to have a mental debate with him, checking out. What Dan asks, is it, when you talk about self as awareness, would you say, could you use the word observer? Yeah. It's that thing that's just looking. And, I mean, you can see it sometimes even if you try to recall memories. Like, if you close your eyes and you remember something,

something, that feeling of being there and seeing the ageless part of you. That's what he's talking about, absent all of the culture and thoughts and opinions. There's this thing that's just ageless and always there. Does everybody have an observer or am I other people's observer as well? I have no idea if anybody else has an observer. I can't say if you're a real person or if you're conscious, right? But I assume that. This is all dream, Kevin.

this is all of your work. That's Biggie Smalls right there, the great philosopher. Wow, yeah. It's interesting to think about it. I always think of Albert Kamu when I think of suicide, right? Have you read that book The Stranger where, like, he just goes to court and, like, you know, maybe he killed somebody, maybe he didn't, but no one really cares. I guess you could interpret that, like, different ways, but.

Yeah, I would go with balance. I think that that seems to be the best pathway for an individual to move through this life. Because sometimes you're high, sometimes you're low. But the truth is you're probably neither of those things. You're probably always in the middle, right? A good way to look at yourself, at least me, is that I always think to myself, you know what? There's a lot of people who are way smarter and better than me. And then there's a lot of people who are way worse and worse off than me.

That's usually the truth, right? Well, I would also just kind of lament that with, you know, we don't exist without balance, without this equilibrium of balance between, you know, the sun, the earth, the biosphere, all of the things that are existing to enable this conversation, we're not here. Can you put up Dan's question again? Yeah. Because that, I thought of something kind of interesting. Is it awareness or will?

And I think this is a really interesting question. me in anyway, it strikes me as, is this everybody is God or there's a single individual God? Maybe there's both. Or can it be like in the Hindu tradition where there's like a sort of master God and these little sub-gods responsible for different areas? Right. And that's, you know, so yeah, I think that's a very interesting conversation. I think we're all like Voltron. Like we've got to come together to be that one guy.

well I you know in that kind of analogy you know there's a lot to be said about together we're stronger right we're able to hash out a lot of different things if we were all to try to pick up a rock together we could definitely pick up a larger rock than good individuals it's a good point it's a very good point what about let me just grab the wheel and take it this way like uh I've been having like I've been on my mushroom trips lately, I've been having this reoccurring theme. I'm pretty sure I'm an alien. Just think about this for a minute. Like, wouldn't it make more sense? Like, just think about how crazy the world is and we think of God all the time. Yeah, go ahead. What are you got?

Oh, I'm actually on the page. In my recent mushroom trips, I've kind of had a similar experience. So it's, I'll just, I'll leave it at that. I'll let you go. Sorry. Okay. But so, my... It depends.

I'm sorry. I'm just going to add that part where, again, it comes to the part where we put a boundary and say, this is home, and we are not from here, and that makes us alien. So I feel like sometimes, you know, different places of awareness gets trapped in different level of consciousness with psychics. Sometimes, you know, state-specific memory starts coming back, so it's more redundant. So the stories are nice, I think, but I truly believe it's just the awareness behind. And God, in that sense, would be just the resistant against which the quark is making its first motion, and that's it. I would agree with you until I weigh that against anthropology and history.

In what way? In what way? So are you familiar with the Sumerian Kings list? Say that again? The Sumerian Kings list? Yes. So if you look at the Samarian Kings list, their calculations of math and everything are pretty exact with just about everything. But, you know, the reign of those kings were in, I think the first one was a couple hundred thousand years.

And the next one was 407,000 years. The next one after that was 20 or 12 or something. And they had a range. I think it accounts to some, correct me if I'm wrong, George, but I think it's close to 400,000 years of reigning kings that they, recorded. Now, for people who are articulating math in such a very specific manner that they're able to, you know, everything else we've translated is exact, why would this be fanciful? That's just one piece of evidence. And when you start to look at, you know, older things on the world like megalithic sites around the world, every continent around this world has these megalithic sites

that are lower on geographic stratosphere, if you will, than the buildings above them. You know, what we call our ancient societies, like the Ica's, the Mayans, and, you know, all of these things, these are societies built upon these ancient structures that are much more precise. You know, you have these polygonal walls all over the world that you still can't fit human hair into after thousands and thousands of years of geologic movement. And, you know, you have things like a Balback in Lebanon and many other places around the world where it looks like there was some sort of culture

that had outdid us in technology to things that we can't even recreate today. Where did that come from? Where did it go? So I think there's, I don't think it's just a cut and dry, like the perception of the of the trip as you will I think there's a bit more to that story I I've been reading that and I've watched a documentary on the American gods and my question comes about thinking about God is from this sentence where you know what's the difference between an atheist and a religious

person the religious person says the earth couldn't have just come from nothing the God has to be there to create it and aethist who's created the god, right? So relatively, we are going in Yugos, right, as Hindus described it, or in mega cycles. So there are things happen where intelligence rises and it goes down and it threatens a plateau, who goes, sits a rock bottom and comes back up.

I think that happens. And if they were God, why are they not still there? So it depends on how we define God, right? So relatively, they could be different creatures. In future. I don't think it's God at all. I don't think it's God at all. You know, most people would call magic, you know, just technology that they don't understand.

Most people would attribute God to something similar. And if I showed up 2,000 years ago with the cell phone and there was GPS satellites, I would be God. Yeah. There's no question. I think this was just a different technological age. And, you know, where that technological age came from, I think is. is an interesting question, especially when you start to collaborate that evidence with things like genetic records. You know, 40,000 some years ago, you had pro magnon come onto the genetic record,

who was a fully formed human with a pro-nastician chin, which means that they were agricultural in some sense. Essentially, that's kind of the accepted science. But they came from kind of nowhere, whereas you had these Neanderthals, and other things that were similar, you know, we traced those back to astrophyticus back in the day. But then there was all of a sudden this new species, essentially. And then you also have things genetically like RH negative phenotypes, right? So are you familiar with those? So RH negative is, you know, there are certain people that have the RH negative component.

where if they breed with somebody who doesn't, the baby will actually abort. So it's a very rare number of people who have it. Oh, my daughter, my wife is R-H-negative and I'm R-H-positive. And when our daughter was born, like, there was a real chance. They had to go in intensive care and, like, she was under this crazy watch and stuff like that. And we were all scared for a while. Obviously, she made it.

What happens is the body attacks, like the RH negative, sees that being in her body as a foreign invader because the blood type is different. Because the mother's nutrients and umbilical cord and blood is feeding that child, it will begin to attack it at a certain point in time or it has at least the opportunity to do so. Paul, you told me a story one time about a holiday that the Hawaiians celebrate about potentially coming from the Pilates. Can you share that with everybody? The Machuiki season? Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, kind of coincides with, like, harvest and, and basically begins with the Pleiades rising as the sun is setting.

So, Hawaiians were, like, over here on Maui, go Haleakala and on top of Haleakala, and watch for the Pleiades. to rise when the sun was setting and then that began the makahigi season um you know basically no more war beyond your best behavior uh time of celebration um and and they thought that's because they were being watched by their ancestors and that you know they could come from the pleiades um and then you know after after the pleiades you know sets as the sun is rising then the um you know back time to behave poorly basically doing what they wanted to do as far as war goes um but you know i mean the hawaians aren't the only ones that think of from the pleiades a lot of cultures

around the world um you know would define their origins as being it from the pleities does it you guys any you guys know who uh wayne herschel is has ever heard of that guy no started star mapping, basically going around the globe and, and, you know, looking at ancient civilizations and the structures they built and how they were laid out. This goes back to like geographical location, you know, Giza Plateau, Tuchin Tentatou, all these different places around the world. And kind of laying out by, you know, satellite photos or, you know, airplanes. playing photos of these places that they all kind of lay out in the design of the Pleiades. And that the ancient star, what the Egyptians called Ra is actually a star 283, 271,

that you cannot see with the naked eye when you look at the pre-ed. And that that's where people come from. Interesting. That everybody had migrated from that star system. So you look at like ancient Egyptian like hieroglyphic hieroglyphs and you see the hunter and the bull and the blazing star of raw. Well, if you look in the sky, you see like Orion's belt is shining through like the seven stars of Orion point to the five stars of Taurus. Or sorry, the three stars of Orion point to the five stars of Taurus that point to the seven stars of the Pleiades which point to that star, the star of Rao. So it's kind of a symbolic thing with like, especially like the ancient Egyptian culture, you know, where the hunters actually shooting through the horns of the bull and and aiming towards the pleiades.

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of maps you can look up. Ancient civilizations that actually are laid out that way and have similar type of stories about the pleiades. Yeah, look it up And a lot of scriptures too Like if you look at the book of Enoch He gets taken into space And you know There's all these people going to the temple

Mount where they communicate God is always in the sky You know and there The tablets came from the sky And if you look at the Muslim tradition when they go And they dance around The gosh I forgot the name

Of the sacred cube that they dance around, but like that came from space. Like that's a meteorite. And like it just, it seems to me in so much religious connotation that everyone is looking up to see the gods. And, you know, there's people. Not just them.

Like if you look at the level one tracing board and, you know, but the mason, you know, it's the same thing. It's, you know, laid out in different levels of human migration to planet Earth. Right. You know, primitive migration all the way, them to three big migrations that you know started 200,000 years ago up to about 50,000 years ago when the last great migration of people came you know Solomon's ladder you know is on

there the plea the star David all symbolic stuff that points to you know um the belief that you know humankind may average and you know cultures like you know a lot of people if you look at even like Stonehenge and you know Stonehenge has been kind of destroyed over the year. People didn't know what it was. They just saw the major parts of it, but there are a lot of other people which also lay out ironically, you know, to the same pattern as the stars of the flea. First time I ever thought, like, read something and was like, wow, it's a possibility of, you know, like sounds more plausible than a lot of other stories that I've heard people tell about the origin of the man. And you're back to bloodlines and divine right.

You know, but Taranga's earlier point is where did they go? You're looking at them. This is the answer to Fermi's paradox. Look in the mirror. Hey, Fermi, look in the mirror. That's them. They're right there.

Where's everybody at? They're right there in the mirror. Like, we are the aliens. Like, if you think about it, like, why are we warring so much? Like, we're fighting over resources, the same way an alien species would come down to this earth and mine all the resource. Like, what's our, what's our affinity with gold? Like, why do we love this metal so much? Like, you know, I mean, I don't think that we were originally brought here as part of that

migration that I was discussing to mine gold. Well, if you look at like the Samarian text, we were created. Right. To do that, right? And we're not the first iteration of that, according to the, the Samarian text where the second or third, if I recalls, aching and if you want to look it up, I don't have it off the top of my head. But essentially, you know, the first ones were they didn't, I forget exactly what it is.

But yeah, we're a couple iterations down the line. Yeah, three. Oh, okay. You got it, Paul. Well, inform us, sir. I thought you were just talking about that, you know, about the migrations of people. Yeah, they say the Garden of Eden. Like if you read Zacharias Sitchin,

and I know he's been debated left and right, but if you look at the Garden of Eden, it's the same story that Sitchin puts forth in the Sumerian text, where they built, like, the gods came down here to mine all this gold, or they came down here to exploit the planet, and they got tired of working. Like, we should be, we should just create a worker out of one of these beings that are here. And so they genetically engineer them.

And they tried multiple ones. and if you look at the story of Adam and Eve, you know, it reads like that. It reads like that. And the same story is in the Sumerian text where they create these beings and they take the rib of one and they make a new one. You know, you can take, you can genetically engineer an organism. Like they're trying to regrow a mammoth right now by using CRISPR and finding the DNA inside the bone marrow, right? They are doing it. They have successfully sequenced enough of the genome that they're.

can marry it with an elephant. Yeah. Okay, so this goes like, this gets me thinking too. Like if we just, if we continue to go down the rabbit hole a little bit and we look at some of, you know, the Kings list and some of these Kings reigns for thousands of years. And,

you know, we factor in the fall of man. And then we think about, you know, there's a guy that was, gosh, dang it, I can't think of his name.

I want to say learn, the learner lab, but I think that's wrong. Maybe it's called the Larimer Lab. There was a guy. that was in the Chinese COVID lab that was whisked out of there. And he is like the head scientist at Harvard. And his name's David Larimer.

And you guys can look him up, Larimer Lab. And this guy, yeah, he's got, all his work is on bioengineering. And he's trying to find these incredible ways to fuse technology, change the genome so you can last longer. And he was like, he was a huge part of that lab in Wuhan. And he recently won, even though he's supposed to be under investigation, you might go to prison. Yeah, discredited. He just won like the, what's that award people win for making weapons, but it's called a Peace Prize. You know what I'm talking about.

I do. It's the same thing that the guy won for nuclear weapons and Barack Obama won. But anyways, he just won the Nobel Peace Prize. And, you know, here he is making a very, virus that, you know, maybe killed people or maybe he's experimenting on people. But, you know, maybe the reason he really won that award is because he's found a way to successfully, fundamentally change the human genome. And I think that that- COVID, is that what you're saying? This guy's, like, credited with doing that.

Well, that's going to be, George is going to get some hate now. Listen, all I'm saying is go look up the guy's Harvard Lab. Look up the, look up David, Larimer's lab in Harvard. Everybody watches this. Do it right now. If I could do it, I would. If you look up Larimer Lab, you'll see all this guy's patents and all the stuff this guy's working on. And then if you look harder, you'll say like, dude, what the hell was this guy doing in Wuhan? And why is this not all over the front page news? Like, you know, here's a here is one the top. Yeah, yeah, because it was, he was doing some. Like there's a, there's a connection there that people don't want everyone talking.

about is what I'm saying and I would highly recommend people look it up it's fascinating oh I'm sure I think people are still arguing if they should have their masks on or not so I don't think they care about this yeah that's a fair point right right yeah and that's yeah it's it's there I I don't know in my in my height of my hallucinogenic trip like I just felt as if, and maybe this goes to wrong a point. Maybe this is me seeing myself for the first time so it feels alien. Maybe this is me seeing a side of myself that I don't normally see so it's alien to me. However, I felt as if I was being told my purpose here on earth is to help out as many people as I can. Like my purpose on earth is that I'm part of a long history of people that are here to,

fundamentally change the planet for the better. And then my destiny is to not become some, like, wealthy, well-known person that chases the dreams of the average person. My destiny is to be among people like me that are hidden here to make the world better. And I realize how freaking crazy ego that sounds. But why not? Why can't that be a good destiny? Why shouldn't aliens be telling me that?

I mean, they say voice, George, is like a leftover of like, you know, from our early existence of receiving information so that we can go to work in the minds from a higher being without actually, you know, the audio communication, like actually physically use words and all the rest of that stuff. I feel like it was the logos, man. I feel like maybe it's because I read way too much old classic stories about this stuff, but I felt like it was the logos. So you read too many novels, for one. Okay, okay. This is going to bring up a great point. Can somebody here please tell Paul the importance of reading fiction? I'll start with you, Kevin, Hold.

I don't have an opinion on this, honestly. Okay, okay? It goes to this motivation, right? It goes back to what we're talking about with language last time. I think fiction is important because people in real situations get, let their emotions go. They don't have a detached way of observing the thing. They still have a worldly sense of these are real even so. I should be angered about it.

I should be saving it. But set in a fictional world, I think they're able to give way to understand the meaning of why it's being said. I don't need a teddy. Well, I agree to the point that it's a mechanism of perception. I also think it's a bit more than me. I think, you know, when you're talking about fiction and things like this, these are, this is an imaginative process. These are people who are drawing from their environments, the Akasha records, in my personal hypothesis of how this all works, you know, the field of information, where there is the infinite set of possibilities. And when you draw from that, even if it's fiction to what we're talking,

talking about in our reality, that fiction is just as much of part of that grander whole as, you know, anything that we would consider non-culture. I think that it's all, it's all fiction. I mean, whenever you tell a story, you're not telling, you're not telling the real story. You don't have one side of the story. You go, alien. That's right. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. Okay, but okay, let's take an example of something like Brave New World or something like Animal Farm. Here's a fictional story of what can happen, but it might also be a story of what's actually happening. So anytime you read a point of fiction, especially really good fiction, it paints a picture that may or may not have happened or may or may not already happen.

I'll take a 45 minutes of Marvel comics on something. big strength. That's fiction too. I mean, I guess I have to contend with both of those. But I think you could, I think that there is a difference between good fiction and bad fiction, the same way there's a, there's a difference between a good woman and a bad woman, you know, or a good man and a bad man. That's going to be relative to you. Okay, well, here's this. Do you know how you tell a difference between and if you live in a city that has tall buildings and people live in the city, do you know how to tell the difference between a good building and a bad building if you want to live in one.

A good building has a doorman. A bad building has a man at the door. I mean, to me, it's just a really long way of making a point. I didn't hear that, Paul. I'm sorry. Fixing to me, it's just like

a really long way of making a point. But, you know, in that long past, you know, there's perspectives to that point that people don't always see when they're encountered with it just in day-to-day reality. Agreed. I think that you can, I think if, like I'd read this guy Brandon Sanderson, who's got a series

of books called, like the words of radiance. And it's, this guy builds a world that you can participate in if you're willing to let your imagination do it. And in that world, he brings up points. that may be idealistic, points that may be happening in our world. And it allows you to see your world from a different point of view. In a way, I think fiction is a hill in the mountain of dreams, if that kind of makes sense. Like, you're standing on a hill in the mountain of dreams, looking down to this imaginary, yes, yes.

You know, you're looking down at this world that you live in. from a different perspective because you've been transported to a different part of reality. And you can only see this perspective from a different part of reality. And the only way you can get there is through imagination. And that to me is what fiction can do for you if you're willing to suspend belief in reality for a little bit. And if you think about that, we always do that. We may not be aware of it, but we're constantly suspending our belief, which brings me back to it's all fiction, Mac.

And even the ability to write fiction, I think, helps with the ability in language to explain the world you live in. Because let's face it, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And, you know, who would have ever thought that us five people from different time zones would be getting together to help change the world for the better? We're in the same time zone, Jordan. Wait, is that what we are doing? Wrong as like, I didn't know we signed up for that. You see, you haven't read the end of the story yet,

but I've already got it halfway written out. Oh, wonderful. I don't, I think it's important to be the same thing from poetry or music, right? Right, that's fiction. In essence, right? Because it's just a depiction of something that's not real. You don't walk down the street and hear music playing behind you,

even though that happens in movies, and it would be kind of cool if you had your own. soundtrack. George, you said suspend our belief of... That's right, there you know. George,

you said suspend our belief of reality, right? Do we call this part of life reality? Because, like, maybe in dreams, we die, we won't, you know, be actually dead. But in this real life, according to stories we have,

we might be actually dead if we, you know, is that why we call it reality? So in that case, if we suspend our fear of dying, would everything become real then instead of fiction wow interesting question I think I think we run

into the the inefficiency of or the insufficiency of language there oh no right like I think so I mean you can suspend your belief in reality

and live in your own world sometimes I think that maybe I am a manifestation of a false reality in a homeless guy's world, you know? Like, I don't know if I exist sometimes. Maybe I am the thing he's laughing at and I have to act it out. I'm not sure. The key word in there is I am. I am.

Yeah. I am. Do you feel? Deeply. And you are? I like to think so. Oh, wouldn't you exist? Yeah.

The trick is, can you change your environment just by telling yourself a different story? I want to share this story with you guys. Here's something that happened to me like a few years ago. And it fundamentally changed my life. So I was on my journey, you know, and I was reading a lot of books. And I was taking a lot of modafinol. And I was just, I was kind of at the end of my rope.

I was just getting kind of, I was. falling in this trap of monotony where I just get up, go to work, come home. Get up, go to work, come home. And I just felt like I didn't have a whole lot going for me. I didn't have a whole lot to live for. And I just felt like a drone a little bit. And so one day, I'm on the road in my UPS truck and I'm driving and my phone starts blowing up. You know, you know, like sometimes someone will call you once and you like, I don't know what it is. So they'll call you again and then they think maybe the second time you'll answer because they keep calling your phone. So my phone rings and I'm driving so I can't really pick it up, but I look at it. And I'm like, I don't know

who that is. And then it rings again. And I'm like, I don't know who it is. So I just, I keep silencing it. And it goes, this goes on for like, the person called like, no joke like 15 times. And I'm like, what the fuck? And then like, so by this time, I'm off the road. And then my wife calls me. And I see it to her. And she's like, George, uh, is there something you want to tell me? And I'm like, uh, yeah, someone keeps blowing up my phone. Is everything all right? And she goes, yeah, there's some people here like from the CIA that came to came to the house I'm like shut up what what are you talking about she goes do they show me their card and they tried to come in the door like my my my wife my wife's mom were living with this at the time my wife's mom was doing this at the time

and she goes yeah my mom had to like she had her hand on the door like get out get out and then like the guy just gave us his card they said that they're looking for you and I'm like dude are you are you messing with me and she goes no I'm not at all and then as soon as that part of the conversation goes, my phone rings again. Like, I'll call it because I have the, you know, multiple callers, whatever. I'm like, okay, it's these people. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to see what the hell's going on. I love you.

I'm okay. I got nothing to hide. I love you. I'll call you back in a minute. And so I click off with her and then I click on and they're like, Mr. Monty. And I'm like, this is him. They're like, this is agent.

I forgot his name. Agent's something. See, I'm like, what? Like, okay? How can I help you? And the guy's like, I need to see. you today. And I'm like, hmm, how about we meet maybe tomorrow or something? I'm like, I'm at work right now. And he goes, how about I come to your work? And I'm like, that's a horrible idea. You should never come to my work.

Like, I don't, I think that's a bad idea. And he's like, well, listen, it's important that I see you today. I'm like, what's this about? And he's like, well, I can't tell you over the phone. And I'm like, are you, are you messing with me? Like, how do I know you're even real? And he's like, look, I am who I say I am. I just came to your house. and then like I kind of know I don't know if he's the real I know he came to my house my wife's telling me so I'm like okay I'm like and I'm scared on my mind

I'm like did I fucking do something I'm like is it because I've I've been like buying all these books about dissident thinkers that want to take over the government maybe or you know I just bought all these books about technological slavery and the unabomber maybe and I'm like that's not that and I'm like

did I've bought in a bunch of like modafinal offline I'm like that's stupid but they don't want, they don't care about that. So then I'm like, I got nothing to hide. I'm like, okay, fine, yeah, meet me. I'll be, this is where I'm at. I'm going to be at U.H.

Why don't you come and meet me? He's like, all right, we're at. I'm like, meet me at this address. I'll be waiting for you. And so I'm thinking to myself like, fuck, man, this is really strange, dude. And so I park my truck and I walk over to where I'm supposed to meet and I'm sitting and waiting for him.

And these two younger kids kind of show up. They're younger than me. And I'm like, these guys don't look fucking CIA agents. And so they walk up to me and they do the guy, Hey, how's it going? Shows me his badge? And I'm like, son of a bitch.

This guy's got a badge. And he has a, he has a manila folder with him. And I'm like, how can I help you, man? And he's like, take a look at these pictures. And so I'm looking at these pictures.

And like, there's pictures of a guy, there's like two guys in there. Dude, I have never seen him in my life. And so I'm looking through these pictures. And as I'm looking to the pictures, I'm thinking, dude,

is this guy looking at me, looking at these pictures, looking for something else? My mind's just racing. I'm like, what the fuck? And he's like, Do you know these guys? And I'm like, I've never seen.

I go through all of my hand at back and I go, I've never seen these guys in my entire life, man. And he's like, well, can you explain how this guy has your ID then? And I'm like, I'm thinking. And I go, yep, I can. I got pickpocketed at the mall a month ago, man. Someone grabbed my wallet. If you don't believe me, you can go to Macy's because they have the guy on camera

because he stole my wallet and then he tried to buy a watch with my credit card. And then I see the, like, I see automatically see the, the guys get deflated, right? They're like, oh, like they thought they had something on me. You know what I mean? And I'm like, ah, I got him. And so he's like, oh, okay. And I'm like, does that guy have my license and my ID? Because I'd like to get that stuff back.

And they're like, yeah, he's got it. But, you know, we don't, we don't know if we're going to be able to get it back. I'm like, what's this guy? What is he done? I mean, you guys are trying to track him down. You're with the CIA, apparently. Like, what is he done? They're like, he's up with some pretty bad stuff, man.

And we can't really talk to you about that right now. But if we can get your ID back, we'll get it to you. Like, that was the end of the discussion, you know? Wow. Yeah, it was kind of a trip. And so, but here's where the work came in. Like, so then they leave. And I think to myself, like, wow, that was so weird, man.

Like, for a minute, like I felt like I was like this undercover criminal. Like I had done something crazy. You know, I felt like I was. And then part of me is like, fuck, I think I was smarter than those guys, man. I think I could have done something. I bet you I could have, if I tried to, I think I could have fooled those guys. You know, I came up with that pretty quick. I bet you I could have fooled them.

And that thought stayed with me. And when I got home that night, like, I kept thinking more about it. And I'm like, you know what? Like, even though that was scary, it felt pretty auxiliary. Like for a minute in my mind, I was like, and in those guys' mind, even more importantly, those guys thought that I was some international criminal, man. And you know what? If I was, it wouldn't have been for the crimes they thought.

It would have been for something way cooler than that. Like, I would have been. been like a robin banks across the world. I would have done something crazy. And then I like, it just stayed with me. I'm like, okay, I thought I was that guy. They thought I was that guy. I thought I was that guy. I played around with that idea. Fuck, I could be that guy. I could, I could live an exciting life as a international lunatic that gets away with stuff. And that's way more exciting than George, the UPS driver. And like, so like, like, I just started, I kept that idea in my mind. And I was like, what else?

would I do if I could do that well I'd probably live in a giant house I'd probably have a super fucking awesome car you know what I my wife probably wouldn't have to work a full-time job you know and then I just my mind blew up and it opened up this area in my mind for me to imagine things and like ever since then it really blew up this concept of imagining myself as something greater than I've ever thought of and that was the first catalyst I've ever had with it and like I think think my, the reason I'm telling you this is like, that is a fiction. I told myself that changed my life. And I think that fiction, be it something that happens to you or a story you tell yourself about yourself, can manifest incredible changes in your life.

Hey, George. Yeah. Sounds like a 12 year old fantasy. I was going to say, I was going to say, this is George telling us all we're on the list. Right. association, man. I wasn't guilty. And you know what? I would say it was more like a 28-year-old fantasy, Paul. Like, I think that it was a little bit cooler than that.

Like, I didn't turn into an animal. You know, I didn't have superpowers. I couldn't shoot extraigusion. You know, Austin Powers, you know, superhero. I was going for James Bond, but I'll go with that. He's, you know, you know, something like that. But it's, the point is it's still a fiction, you know, and it's, it may not be as fiction.

as the Incredible Hulk, but it is a fiction, and it is a fiction I told myself. But I think that's important, man. I think that that shows the importance of imagination and creativity and and fantasy, man. Yeah, why not? In fantasy. How much time did you spend on that?

I still think about it, man. Like, it's amazing. What's that? You should have went to the movies. Well, then I would have lived someone else's fantasy. They would have put someone else's stuff in my head. You know, instead of spending years, like, thinking about this, he could have got it all done in about an hour and 45 minutes.

Yeah, but I wouldn't have had the changes that I had. You know what I mean? Like, this is my movie. This is my, I'm 009 and a half. You know what I mean? The hero's journey imagined. Yeah, yeah. Which leads its way into having real changes in your life, right?

Like, you can't go anywhere without a linguistic pathway. And you have to at least think about things before you have that linguistic pathway. I thought you were going to start talking about how if you change definitions, you change reality. You want to talk about that, George? Yeah, let's do that. Like, I think you can. Yeah. You could define tragedy as, as, you know, if you see tragedy as something that is debilitating, you know, you're going to be debilitated about it.

But if you define tragedy as an opportunity to become better, you know, you're going to use it as a catalyst. right is that fair to say i think that's an extreme extreme extreme measure i think you know we can actually oh go ahead pa yeah sorry do it i was i was disagree with you man yeah oh i was going to say you know but i think we can look at like you know the redefinition of what it means to be a nazi in in today yeah um yeah for a long time to be called a nazi was the most horrific adjective one could be described. However, now it's, it's thrown around like candy. And so it does, huh? What'd you say? Term of interment.

Yes, in some parts, yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, in that depiction of things, especially in like the places where it is thrown as a term of endearment, you're going to see a change in response to that, to that word, to that idea, to that. that information. So I, you know, our words very much define our reality. I would like to, I would like to enter into the record. I think anybody who calls someone a Nazi is worse than Hitler. What a statement.

Yeah, I mean it too. What a statement. Interesting, I'll think about seconding that. I'll think about it. I have to evaluate it. Jesus. you know you know i i understand where you're coming from though on the surface i get it because if you're willing to take all of that moment and put it into a word and throw it at somebody with just malintent

i mean what does that make you so i i see where you're coming from i still have to I mean, I think that, you know, definitions are changing all the time. Like, you know, you could read, look at the way people read marks today. Like, there were a lot of people that read marks one way and then today read it another way. Very different way. Yeah, right? It's interesting to think about the way. And is that, is that, that's definitions changing, right?

Like the book hasn't changed. It's a reflection of culture and society. I think people are using Marx's, like, terms, his definitions, the way he described things differently today, for sure. I mean, people are using Marxist language. They don't even realize they're doing it. Right, because it became part of an indoctrination process. Yeah.

It became the way that, you know, people talk about things. What do you think, right? Go ahead with it. Well, it's, yes, it's quite interesting. I think that's why journalism is one of the things where if you're able to get it out there, you're able to have a structure to your emotion, right? Emotions are a way in which your subconscious is kind of communicating to you. So instead of reacting, we try to formulate it into words which are maybe the conscious part

is able to analyze it better so people can write it. In the beginning, it seems helpful, but it also turns out to be limiting at some point, feel like. So everything is a tool. I think it all comes back to, as you were saying, right, having a balance. So yeah, you said using that word Nazi against someone. Now I have, I compare the whole upper cast of India called Brahman. That brahmsome is just Nazism, hidden Nazism. It's a more cunning way of Nazism. But it's based on, from which part it comes. Is there an energy painted? I could just, use any word right now without intention to use it, right?

So just because of the knowledge of the word, I can use it. But does it convey the meaning? Depends on much more than just words that come out. So I think it's the dance of many more things. Like honesty takes a personality of spirit. Like if the person is not honest and words come out, those words are like meaningless, like noise. It's just a disturbance, right?

So we invite different things to the conversation. Absolutely. Do you think that emotions are what changed definitions? Not entirely. No. I think it plays a part for sure because if, you know, people are going to be emotionally charged about something. They're going to be much more passionate about it.

They're going to involve much more of their attention and energy into it. And I think that will alter the perception of the definition. but I think there's a little bit more that goes into it too. I think there's underlying factors. I think there's socioeconomic, there's cultural, there's all these other factors that play into that as well. On top of intention, you know, to Ranga's point about where that's coming to come.

But you said socioeconomic, it does involve in a group population. So in that case, what's definition of different meaning? But when we come to individual level, I think emotion and words have direct correlation. For example, when I was God fearing, God was a bad word. The way I defined it was limited to the manifest form as per Hindu tradition, and I was getting caught in those definitions.

But if the thing you're able to understand from fear, how to go to love and perceive the same thing, the definitions change for you. So I feel like at an individual level, what's happening within, it has a definition. And then with another person, the definitions change, right? And with group, the same words, like on the outside it might be like, but the stories are different in different people's head. So it's kind of a magic. That's how I see it. Like, we might think there are four people you're talking and it does a central thing. It might have a hint of centrality to the conversations, but each one have their own stories going in their head.

Absolutely. Based on my perception being trapped in certain parts for me, the focus would be on certain set of words. that would be, I would find it more effective. So I might be able to respond better to those words than others, I guess. Right, but I would also push back a little bit in that context. Your internal self-perception of those things is going to be a reflection of the environment around you, of the culture around you, of the conversations that you have. 100% I agree because we are nothing but sometimes that's why I say there is no free, It's all deterministic where you're nothing, but as you said, the whole world is a mirror to show you and you're nothing but a mirror that's showing the whole world back to it.

We're not just a mirror. I would call it transceiver. We receive and we transmit it. Yes. I think mostly it starts off as mirror. If self-awareness is lacking, it just turns out to be a wall that's bouncing off the ball or a mirror that's reflecting. So it's predictable. So if self-awareness builds, then you become a receiver or you say there are different

frequencies of that and I can receive everything and still choose no action towards it, no response towards it. I don't know. I'm raising a little nephew right now. He's 13 months. And he's a sponge. He's a receiver for sure, right? And he's not receiving any sort of anything but beyond what he can perceive emotional,

which is really interesting. So, you know, watching him all of a sudden be able to walk now and be able to point at things and recognize certain phrases that I can say, but he can communicate that. I would disagree with that. I think that you can use hand signals. Like, I think that I know when our daughter was even young, like, you can, you, like, if you begin to show them, like, this one means milk. Oh, like I was saying, he points at things. He asked me for food, you know, like, yeah, he has different. So he's communicating.

but it's much more of a, it's a reflective thing. Yeah, okay. It's mimicry. And then that mimicry gives birth to intuition. I always believe mimicry is one of the... Highest ones are flattery. 100% that is there. And it also the way we learn, right?

Most of the stuff you see resultant in society is people trying to copy a this. It is. Status game comes to that right. I have to, maybe that's where it lies. I'm going to copy. And it's the primal form of learning which people are using.

But I think there is certain forms of learning that, you know, gets overused as you grow up from developmental stage to, let's say, while you're able to, your prefrontal context is fully developed. And now you're having a complicated view of the world. So I think it's much different than when we talk about kids. Absolutely. And I think, you know, there is a brain. in there when eventually you can speak, you do have language, you do have all of these things,

and that, and when the world doesn't continue to reflect back the best ideals, the best language, and then it reflects certain very narrow passages of language and experience, you know, that's when we kind of get dissuaded from this path. Yes, and I think that ties up to the fiction part, right? This is where when the reality doesn't make sense to your language, do you want to listen to fiction, to still have that hope. I think it tells us. Hope, that's a wonderful word.

How did you? No, basically, George predicted, I think he saw the conversation before. He went out, picked up the towards, yeah, I'm going to be going to talk about divine rights, tragedy, hope, and life. Life itself. I am an alien, you know, so.

You're slowly convincing me. Yes. So on the topic of mimicry, like, Isn't that also the way in which technology seems to be developing? Isn't it like biomimicry? Like we're trying to fly like a bird. We are, you know, we learn, even though we don't have the same exact methodology as the animals, we are trying to mimic biology.

And a lot of times it falls short of biology. Many times. Most of the times. Most of the times. Our best systems are when we can most closely mimic the natural order of the world. in some way, shape, before me. Yeah, and if you look at it from that angle,

we're doomed to fail with things like the metaverse. Like, you know, you're trying to mimic reality. You're trying to mimic an ecosystem. And we're not even close to being able to do that. Let's put all our money and put all our eggs in this basket. But look at our track record. We always get it wrong.

You know, look at his story, right? History. Like, we always get it wrong. Why would this? time be right. But you can't get it right until you know what's wrong. That's right. And it's the spiral.

We're moving up. We're moving up. We're like the Jeffersons. It's a helical model. That's right. I wonder if we bring it back to the idea of self-reflection and reflection in the mirror. Like we mimic, we. And then once we get to a certain stage, all of a sudden,

There's no more magic and mimicry. So we begin to try to project our own image onto the world. That seems like it's a right of passage or it's a noticing or something. So I, you know, some people call, you know, the psychedelic experience, the truth. Like when you really have that, you know, looking into the black man or traversing the abyss, right? And these are the points, these are inflection points where now that you're doing. not you're not mimicking. Now you are, you know, you're taking in all of the different variables, all the information, all of the energy, all of the perspectives, and you are postulating, you're

hypothesizing, you are innovating, you are iterating, you are doing all of these different factors of life that allow progress, not just that like, you know, you know, technologically. point of view or a consumerism point of view, but a personal point of view, more important. Yeah. And I think that like when I told that story, I think that that was like the first time I saw a different reflection of myself. Maybe that's a good way to explain it. It is like, hey, here's me from a different angle. Whoa, I've never seen that side of me before. But you could imagine it. Yeah. Yeah. And once you can imagine it, you know, all of a sudden, and now I have a way to explain it.

Now I have a way to move towards it. Now I have a way to manifest it. Or move away from. Or move away from it. Yeah. Absolutely. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about things that were horrible. I would never do that.

But why am I thinking of this? Like that's a pretty crazy thing to think about. And I still think about it. I'll never do it, but I still think about it. Oh, yeah. But at the same time, that allows you the perspective to understand your choice. to not do that. That's a great point.

Never thought about it like that. Because if you don't understand the choice of why you wanted to it, then what's stopping you from doing it? You know, and so many people... It's a good story about the CIA, you know, and you had some, like, wild fantasies after you had that experience.

You know, that there are a lot of things that we think about, like in the deepest, darkest parts of our mind that may be, like, you know, unaccepted by society or things that could be, really, you know, dangerous for us or whatever. And we like to flirt with those things. It's just like...

You even relish some of them at times. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Even relish some of those things. It's human nature. It's like if we're not willing to test the boundaries, you know, physically, sometimes the only alternative is to test them mentally, you know, and have those fantasies as if, you know, oh, I could do that or I would do that or hell know I wouldn't do that.

Yeah, it's a good point. It is a good point. Well, gentlemen, I love talking to you. And I, like I say, I could always, I could talk for another two hours. Like, I really find it rewarding and enjoying. But I have someone more important to talk to her in my life. And that is my wife. I love you guys.

You know what? I love my wife and my kid more. So I am going to. Fair enough. We'll work on that. Yeah. Work on your reflections, okay? See, become the alien.

Become the alien. Anyways, let's start off. Where can people find you, Benjamin? And what do you got coming up and what are you excited about? Benjamin C.George.com for all of my works and misadventures. New podcast coming up soon. All these people will be featured on it at some point. So tune in and have some fun.

And I hope everybody has a wonderful rest of the way. Ranga. The hours that it is. Yes. Ranga, what are you up to? What do you got coming up and what are you excited about? Where can people find it? Just embarrassment coming up, I say,

say one more time the podcast is coming soon. But apart from that, I don't think just the way I didn't have any way to define today, I don't think I also am in the mood to do anything. So just being couch potato. Wait for the time, rather, right? Yes. Look for the reflection. Paul, where can, if someone wanted to buy some queen bees,

where can people find you? And what you got coming up and what are you excited about? No one can find me really anywhere. That's probably good, too. I don't know. What am I excited about? I'm next Sunday, 2 o'clock Hawaii. What a beautiful promo.

Thank you. I don't, you know, I don't know. Yeah, you really can't find me. I keep it that way. Good for you. I wish. I don't know. I've been working really hard on.

this for a long time, you know. And then you are on the podcast. Yeah. And if I got rid of all my like spam email, I'd probably get like, you know, maybe like four emails a week. I get, you know, maybe the same amount of voicemails. And, and, and that's it. That's how I like it. Nice. I think we all know where we can go if we want to get away for a little bit. So if you want to contact Paul, talk to George. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Amazing. All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. I'm super excited. I've got, I'm super excited to have all you guys on board. This is a great time. I got some great podcast coming up. I got some guys talking about ketamine. I've got Rick Strassman coming on. I've got a couple other, I got a tattoo artist from Poland coming on, hopefully soon. And yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for the future. And I'm excited. for tomorrow and I'm excited for all of us. That's what I got for today. Thank you for spending time with the True Life podcast. Dan Hawk, a special thanks to you. Eric Crawford, thanks to you. And we will be back next Sunday.

Aloha. Okay. Yep. Awesome.