TrueLife - High Octane Speculation - Bailouts, Banks, & Belief Systems

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Is it just me or are things accelerating. Covd, Ukraine, Train Derailments, and bank bailouts…let’s see if we can’t read behind the lines…with some High Octane Speculation! One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We're here with the one and only Benjamin C. George, aka Mr. Wizard. It's been a while since we talked, my friend. How are things going? Well, I mean, that depends on your perspective, I guess, for me, not too bad for the world.

Well, it's some interesting times. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, you know, I don't think anyone would have thought that all of these things could have happened in a year. When we look at just the, you know, the acceleration from COVID to the war in Ukraine to train derailments to bank bailouts, you know, it's almost like there's, this great reset right in front of us. Well, you know, it's only been being advertised for a while. So I guess my question to you has been, will you owe nothing and will you be happy about it? Well, I probably will owe nothing.

I'm not sure I'll be so happy about it, though. Yeah, I think what they mean is, you know, you're either going to laugh or you're going to cry because you can't do both. Well, it's that false choice, right? It is. You're going to laugh or cry. You don't have a third option.

Yeah. So I got a few headlines lined up. Let's just go ahead and jump into this first one here and give the people some ideas here. So the first set of headlines comes to us from global research.ca. Bankrupt banks, food crisis, mandatory vaccine, and our grim future. This time, the virus has infected money itself. What say you about that particular type of headline? Well, that's definitely a clickbait headline for sure.

Sure, huh? You know, I was actually thinking about this when we decided to do some podcasting. I think we talked about this whole bank stuff some eight months ago. And it's fascinating. You know, it's one of those things that's like you call it and then all of a sudden it happens. And you go, well, I guess that did happen. Yeah. Have you looked into this much?

Well, I think that we run in the same circles and we probably try to scan the news for lots of different things. And it's almost uncanny the idea of the conspiracy theorist. I heard somebody saying that the difference between conspiracy theorist and conspiracy fact is about six months. And it doesn't take long to see what's been happening. We heard about all these things coming out and everyone said they were crazy with the lab league theory. you guys are crazy, but sure enough, it's getting to the point where it can't be hidden anymore. And so if that's true and some of the things about the vaccine are true, then, you know, why wouldn't the whole idea of the Great Reset be true?

Well, you know, I think when we talked about it originally, we were just quoting what people had set on stage at things like the World Economic Forum. I mean, yeah, you get labeled by the mainstream as conspiracy theory, but is it a conspiracy theory when you know you have the richest people in the world kind of broadcasting it far and wide. It's pretty wild. Yeah. I had some thoughts about, you know, when this whole train derailment happened in East

Palestine, it really pulled back the curtain for me on what, and this is just my opinion. I don't know. But maybe this has been happening for a long time, but you really got to see a, you really got to see the state capitalism model that happens in China happening right here in the U.S. Like, it has probably been happening for quite some time. But no government at all is helping out with East Palestine. And that's all done by Norfolk. And they have their own private security in there. They have their own lawyers. They brought in their own third party testing. You know,

it's kind of an oxymoron, their own third party testing. You know, and isn't it interesting that those same people had a digital ID provided to them like a week or two weeks before the derailment happened. You know, it's, it's just, there's just so much there. There's so many moving parts. And another, as I, as I'm throwing that out, there's another part that I'd like to get your opinion on, you know, a lot of those gases that were in those, that we even know about, you know, a lot of those gases are used to make weapons, you know, whether they're, they are, you know, and that's something no one's talking about. So it's interesting to think about. What's say you about those two ideas? Well, you know, it is, it's kind of the, you know,

these things have been happening for a while, but this is kind of like where the rubber meets the road. You know, this is where the vast privatization of things, the deregulation of those private industries, via capitalist means, via lobbying, via all this stuff, you know, this is the reality of those situations, similar to the banking stuff that we're watching unfold right now. I was looking into that a little bit, and it was very interesting. Apparently, Silicon Valley Bank has $80 billion in treasury bonds that they bought at a 1.5% yield. And now there's another like 13 banks that got stopped trading today. And if you go and look at their books, all of these banks bought up, at least from my initial calculation, over half a trillion dollars of treasury bonds at a 1.5% yield.

Wow. Yeah. And so now that interest rates are, you know, what they are now, you know, nobody wants to buy a 1.5% yield bond. So all that becomes basically just wasted money. And as all these collapse, it will just consolidate this whole banking system. And you just removed, you know, 25% of the players on the board. And I think that's similar to what we're seeing happening, you know, not just the railways, but also, you know, all the food stuff that's happening in the supply chains in every industry.

So, you know, this is kind of the, I would say kind of the how runaway capitalism plays out on a global scale. Like a mass consolidation, you know. Yeah. You know, I'm curious too. When I think about the banking bailouts that happened today, you know, how many of those guys were shorting the other banker stock? Like, I mean, it's almost like they're eating themselves after a while. Like, they all know they're going down. So let's short everybody while it's going down. And then we'll get the bailout on top of it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if you, the CEO, the chief resource officer, basically all the executive suite, they started selling off stuff about a month ago. And then, you know, I saw somebody put in a $7,500 short. right before this all happened. Just $7,500 worth $2.2 million. Wow. Yeah, it's fascinating.

And, you know, it further shows that there's definitely, you know, especially when you correlate all of the treasury bonds and all those things, somebody had a great scheme to sit down with all of these leaders of all these banks and say, hey, this is where you invest all of that customer money that you're sitting on. And, you know, whether they knew interest rates were going to rise, you know, it's kind of wild to me because it's like at that time when interest rates, you know, went above zero. We already knew that we were going into inflation and not the Fed was going to raise these rates. Yet you're talking half a trillion dollars got spent on bonds that were 1.5%. It's an interesting game.

Yeah. I think that the CEO of SVB was also a principal at the San Francisco Fed when he was immediately fired. But, you know, like, if that's not insider trading, if that's not collusion, if that's not just the, the, you know, most obvious form of corruption possible, I don't know what it is. Like, everybody knew. And I don't understand, like, we've crossed the idea of moral hazard. Without a doubt, that's moral hazard. I mean, right out there in front of everybody. And the government, the Fed, all the banks, just high-fiving each other.

Like, yeah, look, we pulled it off. We stole everybody's money and we're all going to get reimbursed and get bonuses for it. I don't understand why people aren't in prison. I don't understand why the gears haven't jammed up and there's not people in the streets. It's crazy. Because it's legal. So there is an obscure piece of legislation that was passed. allowed these banks to do exactly that and allowed the executive officers to offload their stock

and it wasn't considered insider trading so what they did is actually legal it's criminal well it's definitely criminal but it's legal so you know yeah it is it's mind blowing me to think of all those things that are happening and you know on one level, you know, I think it's Hanlon's razor that says don't contribute to malice, what could be contributed to stupidity. And, you know, maybe it is just the collapse of the dollar and everything is going by the wayside and people are taking their shots where they can. And, you know, the idea that because the dollar is failing, there's no more regulation,

there's no money to regulate stuff. So corporations can just run rough shot over everything. or maybe there's a more, you know, something else in play. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, you know, to attribute it to stupidity, I definitely could see Hanlon's razor apply. But then you start to look at some of the evidence,

like the treasury bonds and all of this other pieces of evidence. And it's not just the single bank. It's a multitude of banks. So, you know, at some level, you know, whether that have been, you know, cigars and whiskey in a back room, just everybody glad-handed saying, oh, yeah, this is going to be a win, or it was something a bit more malicious than that. I think the evidence suggests that there is some sort of coordination behind this. Now, who's pulling those strings? You know, just like everything else, the easiest way to

find that answer is to watch where the money flows. You know, the people who go up and buy off, you know, SVB and all these other banks and buy that debt pennies on a dollar, that'll tell you, you know, kind of at least who is aware of the game that was being played. Yeah, I like that idea of it. To think of it as a giant poker game and there's people sitting at a table. You know, on one hand, there's a lot of people that have been pushing for zero interest rates and haven't been getting them. A lot of the corporate, a lot of the zombie corporations that want to buy their stock back at 0%,

a lot of the people sitting in boardrooms want that zero. percent free money. A lot of, you know, like the, uh, the car companies that can't really compete. Everybody wants the rates to go back to zero so they can have the easy money again. And, you know, banks too, banks making the risky bets. On some level, you know, it wouldn't take if you had a pretty good hand, if you're the CEO of SVP and you know, some other bankers, you know, that's a pretty big hand to say, look, we're going to, we're doing, we're going to, we'll bluff them. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, our cards down, let's call their bluff. You're not going to bail us out. Let's see. Not only do they

get bailed out, but Jerome Powell goes from an 80% chance of a 50% basis rate hike to now almost a 0% chance of a 50% base rate hike. So there's that. Another question I have is that the SVB Bank, they did a lot with the startups and technologies and you hear about how there's all this tech involved, but it wasn't just Silicon Valley. It was also their branches in Israel and the United Kingdom. HSBC, which is the Hong Kong, I think that's the bank out of Hong Kong, Shanghai, maybe, the HSBC. They bought the bank in the UK. So are they now the people that own those startup tech companies? Do they just acquire all that tech by buying that bank? No, it doesn't work that way. Basically, basically what happens is they buy up all of the bad debt, quote, unquote.

So they'll get it on pennies on a dollar, which means, so like when you have an FDIC insured bank, right, each individual depositors, you know, supported up to $250,000. Well, it turns out that SVB, 93% of their total investment volume, which was, you know, $220 some billion. wasn't covered by FDIC because, you know, you have these big tech startups, you have venture capitalists, you had other bank investments. And so what they'll do is they'll buy up all of that unsecured debt. And what happens is, is then they basically have the choice as a private institution to say, okay, yeah, you had a million dollars with us, but now you only have $250,000 with us due to all of this fallout of what happened. So basically, they don't own the tech, but they own the tech's money.

And they kind of have it by the balls, right? So, yeah, it's a very big consolidation of economic power, not necessarily technical power. Yeah, that's an interesting point to bring up. It's, man, I'm not even sure what to take it from here. Like, things have been so crazy. Like, if you were to throw a dart, at the board and try to guess what happens next what do you think that dart would land um oh gosh i mean in what direction i think i think we're going to see this is going to have you know this could be like

we talked about a franz ferdinand moment in podcast past this could very well be that you know there's nothing that's triggered more animosity in wars in the world than wealth right or the lack thereof sources being probably a distant second, even though it directly equates the wealth. But I think, you know, I think we're definitely going to see a continued collapse of, you know, these investment banking systems where, you know, it was interesting because we saw it with FTX that started it. You know, we're going to use customer funds and we're going to go off and make sketchy bets. Well, sketchy bets can pay off, but, you know, most of the time they don't. That's why they're sketchy beds. And I think this is probably just a domino event. I think we're going to see a fall

out for quite a few investment banks across the world because everything, you know, like we've talked about before, is pegged to the U.S. dollar via the petro dollar in a whole lot of things. Now, I think something that we'll see is this is going to give a rise to bricks. I think we're definitely going to see a massive movement in the economic sector on where money lies, how investment lies. One thing I don't think we'll see is, we won't see anything from like a Congress that says, hey, you guys can't do this anymore. Because I think there's direct beneficiaries that, you know, stand as basically gatekeepers

in that system. Yeah. If we've learned anything, it's that the idea we have been taught about government is completely false. It's sad to think about that, and I don't know if enough people understand that the country that they live in, the United States of America, doesn't function like they think it does. It's not we the people, for the people, by the people. It's just, and there's no justice.

It's just us. And by us, I mean, it's the ruling class. It's an oligarchy that run things. And, you know, if you just pan back a little bit, you can say, okay, you know, Elon Musk is the technology czar. Jeff Bezos is the commerce czar. You know, and you have all these oligarchs

that are in charge of different industries, Norfolk, Virginia. Like they're in charge of the Midwest Railroad and not the government. The government can't even go in there. They don't even want, hey, Pete, don't even come here. Biden don't come here.

We don't want you guys test and stuff. We don't want you here. And you begin to see who's really pulling the levers of power. One thing I'm thinking about on this idea of the financial, front is the introduction of CBDCs. I don't know if they're ready, but we have seen, we've seen the end of FTX.

We've seen everybody taken down except Binance. And they have gone out of their way to try to get Binance down. Haven't done it yet. It's actually probably just starting. Coinbase just suspended Binance's USD peg today. Oh, okay. So I would expect in the next week or two to start seeing that unfurl. And, you know, if I put on my tinfoil hat, I would say that that's the last off ramp for cash.

That's the last off ramp to get your money into any sort of crypto vehicle that was a big boy. You know, we have, you know, Coinbase, which is the American sanctioned off ramp, which is governed by the oligarchs. And Binance is the only semi-autonomous one left. I guess you have decentralized stuff or what do you think? Right. Not really. I mean, Binance is a massive player. It is.

They are the biggest player, bar none. But there's the thing about crypto is that, you know, you can roll up a crypto exchange based out of, you know, one of the almost 200 countries on this planet, right? And they have different regulations, different stipulations. Now, what we'll see is a tightening of that. Like you won't be able to go to finance and use that as the ramp on. enough for you know you know dollars but what'll happen is is there'll still be other exchanges and more of them will rise because you know they'll cater to that market but it'll just continue to

be a tightening and tightening with that there's also peer to peer decentralized exchanges so i can you know i'll say one bitcoin for 24 000 today and you send wire transfer 24000 dollars to my bank, you know, I send you a Bitcoin. However, because of what's happening, because of all of these different banks going belly up, there's only going to be a few players left on the board. And if they decide to deny the ability to send wire transfers for crypto or things like that, that's when the off-rams disappear. And that's when you have the advent of CDBC's kind of pushing crypto out of the market, so to speak. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's too, gosh, it was, you know, it was told to us that, you know, that the CBCs are coming.

It was told to us that, you know, we are going to see hyperinflation. And it's just like, here it is. I guess I don't really know about inflation, but here's one of the things I was thinking about when it comes to, to what the Fed was trying to do. And from what I had read, Jerome Powell was on a rampage to try to stop people from buying stuff. There was too much people out there consuming. So he's trying to get consumption down. The way they were doing that is you move up rates. People get fired.

They can't afford stuff. Businesses tighten up. And that was the plan of the Fed. By raising up rage, you were going to clamp down on people consuming things. But it seems to me when you start bailing everybody out, you just, open the spigot to consumption. You're given the millionaires and billionaires and you're telling the banks, here's unlimited money for you. So isn't that going to drive demand up? Well, you have to realize that that's consumption for a small group of people.

Not for the general people. And I think, you know, even these bailouts that they're talking about. So I heard that, you know, the tax payers aren't going to be bailing out the banks. But yet we have this money to bail out the banks. I was like, well, wait a second. Where does the government get its money. I'm pretty sure they get it from taxpayers. They don't really get it from anywhere else. So at some level, that has to be taxpayer money. And it is. And so after 2008, they established this basically bailout fund essentially. And, but it's not, it's not a complete bailout. So I think the fund is only like $50 billion. And SVB alone has over $200 billion in liabilities. So, you know, even if they get that bailout, then it becomes, you know, you're going to get 35, 40% of whatever you had in that bank type idea.

And then the rest would be if they decided to liquidate the bank's assets, then they would pay you back whatever they could earn from those assets. Yeah, I originally thought that there was going to be a haircut. But from what I'm hearing, there's no haircut. Like everyone's going to get, they're going to make everybody whole. And they're not talking about a 50% or 70% or 7% haircut. They're like, yeah, guess what? No problems. We got it all covered.

And if they only have $50 billion in that in that particular account, that TARP type account, then I mean, that money has to come from the taxpayers. That's a full blown bailout. Right. And it's taxpayer money, whether that was taxpayer money in 2012 or 2016 or whatnot. It's still taxpayer money. Yeah. Yeah. So there's in in that could they could have other funds available to that that was just one thing I read about that

particular fund that the federal government established after 20 2008 So you know there could be other funds and they could make people whole At the same time they could just print out a few more trillion dollars make people whole You know I mean we're already 30 plus trillion dollars in debt. What's right another couple trillion right? Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's It's such a joke at this point in time. It's like, you know, we're talking about inflation and we're talking about people losing their jobs. But there's no shortage of money for Ukraine. Not there's whatever you want. You want a trillion dollars, no problem. Oh, the banks bail out? No problem. Like, it's so, it's such a sham for anybody, whether you're a politician, a banker, all these CEOs. You know, I just, I can't understand how these people sleep at night when they, when they're just, you know, when they're just, you know, I'm just, you know, I just. I can't understand how these people sleep at night. I, when they, when they're just, you know, I just wrecking the very country that gave them everything that they had ever wanted. The country that gave them their dreams, the place they made their fortune, their families. And they just, you know, when I think about Jerome Powell, when I think about people at the Fed, I think about somebody who was

born into an incredible wealth and has so much opportunity. He went to all the best schools. You don't get to be the head of the Fed by going to a public school. This guy was given everything. He had, and it was given to him by the sacrifice and the sweat off the brow of working people. Hey, let's give these people. These are the best and the brightest. Let's give them everything and they're going to make the good decisions. The people gave them everything. And he just turned around and took a big steamer on everybody.

And that's what they do. Like people in positions, it seems to me people in high ranking positions of authority care nothing about people that make under a certain dollar amount. And I don't understand why that doesn't translate into full out. vote or will it well and we've talked about this before but i think this is the breaking of nation states because i think eventually it does eventually you know it gets too much of a burden for the populace to bear right um now i think that that's not going to be an instantaneous thing it'll be a long drawn out thing and it won't be it'll be a regional thing it'll be it'll happen in in segments right

and yeah how those people sleep at night brought to you by fizer taken into it. Right? You know, they don't, otherwise they wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to sleep well. I mean, you know,

even narcissists have a conscience at some level. Especially when they're confronted with the amount of pain that they generate in the world. And it's really, I think, you know, even if you shelter yourself, you're going to realize that you're generating pain in the world. Yeah.

At some visceral level. Yeah. I, you know, maybe this is part of it. Maybe. obviously you and I get to see the ramifications of decisions that were made. Maybe people that are sitting at a higher perch realize, hey, these people are coming for us.

We need to start pulling some. We need to start closing some banks. The interest rates are not working the way we thought it was. We thought there was going to be more layoffs. These people are not quitting. They're not stopping consuming. We're going to need to ratchet it up a little bit. And when you look at it from that level, it begins to look at it.

look a little bit more orchestrated. You have a guy that was the CEO of a bank that also worked at the Fed. Like to think that that guy didn't, birds of a feather flocked together. The guy worked at the Fed. Like that seems to me you could make the argument that it was a move. It was a plan. It was a strategy that was implemented. I would agree.

And if we look at history, it's not like this is an uncommon event. Right. Right. You know, a lot of people are. more familiar with the term old money old money versus new money and you know there's always that contention between those two groups and so this is this is a good way for old money to wipe off new now there's a few people who've uh you know transitioned from you know new money to part of the group but not many and if you want to limit that scope because then that increases your potential

I mean, from a game theory perspective, it's a pretty logical move. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, if I put on my other hat, my, my long term. I'll put on my long term old money strategic hat. And I would say that the United States is too big and nothing can get done. And so the only way to move forward in the United States is to either break it up into small city states or go full, you know, go full bore into, you know, smart cities and strong cities, which, which there is, it's kind of the same thing. Like a smart city is a city run by a corporation. A strong city is a city run by a different type of corporation.

And, you know, it doesn't take a whole lot to start peeling back the onion. And you start hearing this talk about strong cities, smart cities, 15-minute cities. Yeah, they're rolling them up. Yeah, they're coming. And, you know, like, I read this thing on 15-minute cities. I'd love to get your opinion on it. And in the idea of a 15-minute city, for those who may not know, there are, I think Cleveland is talking about becoming one.

I know that they've already rolled out one or two in the UK. And it's this idea that everything you need or could possibly want is in a, with a in 15 minutes, whether walking or a bike ride. That means you're shopping, your clothes, your work, your schools. Everything is in this 15-minute radius. And it sounds like a nice way to- Sounds good on paper. Sounds great on paper.

You've got this tight sardine place. Everybody's working together. But, you know, you start looking at it, and you're like, oh, you're not allowed to leave the 15-minute city. Pretty soon it starts sounding like a prison a little bit. Like, what do you mean I can't leave there? Oh, no, you can leave, but you can only leave 100 times a year. you know that's the end of mobility right or you get charged for x amount of miles that you leave outside of the city

and so this is where they roll in the individual carbon footprint that they've been talking about this is where you know and in order to even leave those areas you'll have to be part of that you'll have to have the cdbc's you'll have to or cbcs you'll have to have the app that you know is your social credit app essentially um and If you don't, you won't even, there is no entry and exit access for you. Yeah, there's your digital ID as well, right? Yep. Yeah, so that all rolls together and it all ties together.

And so, you know, you'll be in a suburb of Chicago and, yeah, they'll give you a monthly stipend of this central bank digital currency for, you know, $4,000 a month. And that'll pay, you know, it'll be calculated to pay exactly your region of where you rent. what your grocery should be according to somebody's, you know, plan. And that'll probably be, you know, cockroaches and, you know, other bugs of assortments, plus, you know, whatever sort of vegetables can make it your way. And it'll kind of be like, remember the Hunger Games movie where they had all those different districts? It'll be like that. Man.

Yeah, it's, it's the Hunger Games meets Ready Player 1. You know, and you start. They're trying for a ready player one. Yeah. I guess that technology is kind of, you know, hasn't quite made the cut just yet. Well, you know, it doesn't take too much imagination to look at some of the cities. Pick the state that you live in. In some areas, they're nice areas.

In some areas, they're shitty areas. You know, and so why wouldn't they take all the homeless people and the crackheads and give them a visor and a video game and let them here? You guys just play in this opium den over here. We could shoot you up, play the video games. You're probably not going to be too hungry because we'll keep you on some stimulants. And they're going to keep those people out of trouble. You know, over here you have people that are, you know, they're the betas. You got, you got, you know, brave new world on one side, ready to play or one over here,

and then hunger games on this side. And they're going to try them all out, you know, and see which one seems to work the best. It's just pick your dystopia. There it is. Yeah, and I think we'll probably see a flavor of all of it in different areas. I mean, you know, like you said, they're already rolling out a couple smart cities in the UK. They have some plans for some in Canada. There's the, it's, I think it's CP40.org now or CP30.org where they have, they're trying to make these megacities.

And within those megacities, they'll basically have smart districts. They actually call them smart districts, which I thought was pretty interesting. but yeah, this is all a broadcasted plan. I mean, we have websites and PDFs and presentations and all sorts of things on

how this is all going to roll out. Yeah, and, you know, what better way to do it when you have a series of manufactured crises to,

it's like leading the pigs to slaughter. You just keep narrowing that fence line. You keep narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, and narrowing, until people have to file in.

they'll probably have people begging to get into the smart cities. Oh, sure. I mean, imagine place like East Palestine. It becomes unlivable from a real estate perspective. You're not going to be able to sell that property. So what's your option? If you were already in debt, I think credit card debt has passed $1 trillion I read last week. So now if all of a sudden you're indebted to the system, your options become very limited.

You're a pig filing in that line ready to go for the slaughter. And happily so, because outside is, you know, you don't have the skills, the resources, the know-how, the ability, the contacts, the network in order to survive. So that becomes from, you know, your perspective, the only path to survive. Yeah. The path of despair seems to be, you know, how you get to places of suffering, you know, whether through inspiration, you know, whether through inspiration, or desperation. I think that it seems to me the powers are being done trying to inspire.

I think we lost that ticket a while ago. Yeah, it blows my mind to think about where we are and where things are going. Another thing to think about is, if you are, if you do find yourself,

like I live, where I live, I don't really leave Hawaii that often. And I, on some level, am subject to headlines and news and calling people in those areas to find out what's going on. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know what's happened in Ukraine. I'm not over there. I only can read the propaganda or do my best to search stuff out, but it's still limited.

The same thing would be even more limited if you found yourself in a smart city or a strong city or one of these places. They can really tighten down what is possible, what you see, who you talk to, where you go. It's like the idea of the Panopticon. They see everything. Well, and I've also seen some AI systems rolling out where they're doing tests in those cities currently where you'll, you know, they have cameras set up on the street, people walking down the street. It goes over their face and it says, hey, it's George Monty. It says 97% accurate. And then it pulls up George Monty's profile.

And it's all of your social media accounts. It's all of your, and it gives you ratings on. you know, what's your, what's your feelings towards the state, what your feelings towards the economy, what your feelings toward blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what your occupation is. And so these systems are being rolled out in these smart cities. Man. Yeah. It's mind-blowing to think about.

I, I, I, I'm not even sure where to, to take it from there. It makes me think, let's shift gears and talk about, I guess, we're kind of on the same idea, but I hear a lot of people talking about the unipolar world versus the multipolar world. And I don't thoroughly know what, if the strategy is much different, it's just instead of the USA having the petro dollar and running everything, now you have more of like districts running everything. But it seems to me everyone's pushing for the same technology, the same smart cities, the same sort of control. Do you think that that's accurate? Yeah, well, I mean, you have to think about it from somebody who wants to maintain a power structure slash grows their influence in power.

It's the only way to do it. I mean, it's similar to what's happening with chat GPT these days. You know, all of a sudden, everybody and their brother can go out and turn out content, can turn out images, can turn out all of these things. So, you know, where does, how do you funnel that? How do you, how do you maintain this kind of a, for lack of a better term, a social order? And you maintain that by becoming more authority. Because, you know, if you allow people all of this kind of, you know, all of these tools at a common person level, now there's actually no need potentially for those oligarchs, for those big institutions.

And so that's the fear from their perspective, if you love. And so that's what kind of funnels these things to happen at a global scale. Yeah, but whether that be the group of people sitting in the room saying, hey, we want a unipolar system, we want a one-world government essentially that can manage all of this stuff. Or you have some other people who are like, hey, I don't want your one-world government, but I'm happy to roll over my little slice of way of over here. The impetus to have those tools in check to be able to regulate and be the authority on how those are utilized is the same. Yeah, it's interesting you say that because when I look at chat GPT or when I look at some of these new open AI tools people are using,

and we may have covered this in a previous podcast, but I really think. think on some level that it erases the middleman like there's there's really you know if it gets good enough there's really no need for a lawyer there's really no need for a judge and it would it would finally be equal justice under the law it might not be great justice but if the same if it's equal justice for everybody then who does that benefit well it benefits the people that don't have access to justice and it penalizes the people that can buy their way out of just you know of justice and so exactly fascinating to think about it from that point of view. Right. So then what would be your next step if you're on the side of somebody who can buy your way out? What would you attempt to do?

I shut it down. I don't want that. I don't, I've worked harder than these dummies down. I'm better and smarter than them, right? That's probably the idea. Or you attempt to control it in some way. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and in some ways, you know, you can see people saying that it's just a matter of time before chat GPT and these tools become a subscription service. Oh, they are. Yeah. Do they change them already over? Yeah.

I think chat GPT, they have like their developer service now. So they start charging 20 bucks a month or something like that. Yeah. So yeah, it's interesting. And then, you know, if you think about that as a language, like we've both played around with it. And I think that we have both found that in some ways to be in, credibly ingenious and in other ways maybe a little scary but you know i'll give you an example i was

using it for i would use it for uh to use it i would prompt it with something like this speak or not i didn't say pretending but in the form of a provide me a title in the form of a viral video from a sociological point of view mixed with a podcasting point of view that is most likely to be up regulated by YouTube. And the titles, here's what I'm talking about. And it would print out like a list of 10 of them. And I'll be damned if some of them I used, they were up 30% just from the title. I was like, same thing for thumbnails.

You know, it's pretty amazing. Yeah. And, you know, like we talked about before, it's such a value, potentially valuable tool. Yeah. You know, the thing is, it's simply just a tool too, because, you know, and it's also a tool that's subjected to someone else's influence. So there's certain things in chat GPT.

You can't ask it. Right. You know, you can't ask it, whatever it deems offensive. You can't, and it does kind of, it has a more liberal kind of slant to it. If you ask it to write some supporting document about like a Donald Trump or something like that, it won't do. It won't do those things like it would if you were to ask it to write a supporting document about Joe Biden's processes. You know, and it comes down to, well, who controls the reins on these things? And if all of a sudden you can control the people who can control the reins, well, then you control the flow of information.

Yeah, it's early on I had heard some people likening it to Google Search and even Google Search was a little, worried that people were using that instead. But what I have found that, understanding the biases of chat GPT, what it's censoring itself on opens, pulls back the curtain on what Google is censoring because they're censoring the same stuff. But Google, you don't really know because no one looks past the first page. But you ask chat GPT something. And it's like, I can't say that.

And you go, oh, well, these are the, you know, I think it was Voltaire, who said, if you want to know who rules you, just think about who you can't criticize. And so you could just ask chat. GPT and they'll tell you yep well and you know Google has been less a less obscure about that in recent years you know it always says you know 8.7 billion results for your search but if you actually start going down the pages eventually you get to things and it starts saying omitted omitted omitted and starts to repeat you know the same stuff from pages to 10 and you know when you go to other search engines that

are a bit less censored like a duck, duck go or something like that, you type in the same search, then all of a sudden you get a whole plethora of different results that, you know, you're like, oh, this is actually kind of what I was looking for. I don't care what, you know, five articles from NBC, CNN, Fox News, all of these people have to say, I was looking for the blogger who actually did the research and wrote about this, but you can't really find that on Google many times these days. So they've gotten less obscure about it. It's a bit more. on the nose these days. Yeah, it's interesting to think.

What is your take, Ben? Like, we talk a lot about the reaction to what's happening and what could happen because of that. But if we were to put on our, if we were to put on our best faces and talk about ways in which the common person could capitalize right now, what are some of the ideas you think that we could, we could do to get things rolling on an individual? level that could better people's lives. Well, I mean, that's really going to depend on one starting position.

Unfortunately, the game is so far down the line that, you know, if you don't, if you don't have real estate or you never had the opportunity to own real estate or own your home or own an apartment or own a condo or something like this, the likelihood that you're going to be subjected to what's coming next is very high. You know, from an individual level, this is the time where, you know, you really need to put your head on straight and start being realistic about what's happening in this world. You know, you have a lot of evidence in front of you now that is, you know, telling you that things are not going to get better. They're definitely going to get worse for the common person. You know, survival skills are probably something that should be at the top of people.

list. Being in good shape should be at the top of people's list. Practicing good nutrition. You know, finding, you know, a good spiritual regimen, whether that just be through meditation or, you know, the use of psychedelics, which we're fond of talking about, and finding yourself a solid community of like-minded people. Yeah, it's true. I, uh, I, I, just looking at what's been happening thus far. You know, you people, you can never imagine what's happening. And the way the cleanup or the way the government, the cities, the world is reacting to the situation on some level seems like a panic.

And on another level seems like a capitalization on weak people. Oh, you know, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, look what's happening in the Netherlands. You know, that was one of the first things we talked about when we started podcasting together. And now look how, where that's gone. Now it went from just, oh, they may do this to where they're actually trying to actively seize, you know, 3,000 plus farms. The protests have gotten to the point where now they've brought in the military to put down the protests. And, you know, so, you know, we're watching these things happen.

at a faster and faster clip. You know, things that were like, oh, that might be, you know, something that could be troublesome in the future. Well, the future is now. I mean, we're walking day by day. I mean, last week, if you were to ask anybody that listens to mainstream media, anybody who even does their own research, do you think there's going to be a bank run next week? You're going to get a 99.9% of people be like, I don't know.

I haven't seen anything about that. I haven't heard anything about that. Probably not. Here we are. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, before we were blindsided by the bank runs,

you know, it seemed to me that, you know, it's pretty hard to look at all these train derailments and not see any pattern there. You know, and I'm a big fan of patterns. And, you know, if you look back at, yeah,

there's a lot of train derailments. But why was there like seven in Ohio? Why were they all in front of the water? Why were they all in front of chemical or metal plants? Or like that, to me, seems out of the ordinary. And also, why was the solution to blow the damn thing up? Yeah. How did that get past, you know, we have an EPA.

We have all sorts of government agencies that should have put the kibosh on that, you know, before it even had a chance to pass, you know, an exact. you know, an executive's door. But yet they announced that they were going to blow it up. Nobody told them no, and then they blew it up. And it's not just a train derailment. You know, before that, we've had, you know, more distribution centers go up in flames than we ever have.

We've had more animal processing centers go up in flames. You know, maybe people are cashing in on the insurance. Sure. All of them doesn't seem like. it's a likely possibility. Yeah, you know, I forgot who said it, but they said the, I think there was a great old radio guy named John B. Wells,

and he used to be on, you know, he, he has a show called Midnight to Caravan, but he used to be on with George Norrie, who did that great late night show. And he had this saying, and he said, you know, the thing about World War III is you won't know who you're going to be. you won't know who the enemy is. And it just seems that, you know, it wasn't too long ago that Seymour Hirsch came out

and he was talking about the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, you know, and he showed the evidence. He showed here's the guys that did it. Here's how they did it. Here's the timeline. Here's Victoria Newland saying stuff. Here's Joe Biden saying stuff.

And then almost after that, you get what could be, at least in my opinion, considered a dirty bomb. You know, that train could very well be considered a dirty bomb. When you look at the people that are having, you know, they have skin rashes and burns and they can't breathe. Like that's the first sign of radiation poisoning.

You know, and we don't know what was on that train. It was quarantined off and they set it on fire. You know, if you want to get rid of the evidence, you burn it. You know what I mean? When you want to get rid of the evidence, you don't hide it. You don't put it under the seat cushion. You burn it. You don't let anybody see it.

You know, and maybe that was, maybe. that was maybe there was chemicals going to build weapons. Maybe there was chemical waste on there they didn't want people to know about. But, you know, it seems like it could have been a dirty bomb and it seemed like it could have been a tit for tat, you know, Nord Stream. Okay, here's your infrastructure done. And if that's the case, why wouldn't all those other things be destruction of the supply chain? Like that destroys the U.S. And it makes sense. If we're at war, we've already been told we're in a proxy war. We're in a war with Russia. Russia's not going to come over and put troops on the ground trying to stop putting troops on the ground but how how can

you possibly defend the border how could you possibly defend the millions of miles of tracks like you can't it's open you know and that's that's what people would hit so i mean it seems to mean like you can make that case and i tried to make that argument yeah we're at war there's a guerrilla war going on right now we're there's that's that's acts of terrorism right there oh yeah and you know In addition to that, there's been a concerted effort over the past few years from the hacking space to hack industrial controllers, you know, to hack all of these things that run all of the infrastructure, all of the electricity, all of the water, all the waste management systems, the railways, all of these things. And, you know, from chatter, it looks like it's state-sponsored groups. And now all of a sudden, you know, fast forward a few years later, and you have an uptick in trained aroundments. You have an uptick in distribution fires.

You have all of these supply chain ailments that are now afflicting not just here, but in a lot of Western nations. You know, that reminds me of the, there was a recent sort of, remember Event 201 was what they had prior to COVID. A few years ago, they had like a, the internet blackout games. And I think it was Russia who was, who was pretending to be the bad guy. You know, okay, here's here's one for everybody. The next thing, the next shoot a drop. You heard it here first is going to be the, the internet blackout. I think that that's the next shoe to drop.

Whether it's, whether it's hacking on one side or it's the takedown of the grid on one side. but I think the next shoe to drop. And you know what? I'll put a date on it. I'll tell you next Thursday. Next Thursday you're going to see an internet blackout. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. I'm a truck driver.

I know these things. That's a hell of a prediction. I'll make you famous. Let's put it on the True Life podcast right now. Next Thursday, internet blackout. Everybody be ready. It's coming. It's going to be blamed on Russia, state sponsored.

You're going to see the takedown of multiple banks. and probably the Austin grid. Why not? Well, the Austin grid goes down if it just sprinkles a little. So I don't know if that's a great prediction. But no, I think we're definitely going to see more and more of these things roll out. In fact, you know, there already is effectively an internet blackout. We don't know what's happening in China.

We don't know what's happening in Ukraine. You know, we get little tidbits in pieces. You know, it's interesting when like the Iraq war happened, right? This was, you know, 30 years ago, well, 25, 26, 27 years ago. You know, there was journalists everywhere. It was being live broadcasts. There was, we watched every single bit of that war, right? Yep.

Have you seen anything from Ukraine like that? Nothing. Me either. Yeah. Yeah, imagine that. I've heard people tell some stories about, you know, videos on Discord or something that look like World War II videos, like trench warfare and stuff like that. But I haven't seen any of them. And, you know, I hear you hear stories about both sides running out of ammo.

And if you watch the news in a Western country, what you see is this idea that Russia is about to fold. But if you peel back that onion and you start looking at websites like New Eastern Outlook or you start listening to people like Scott Ritter, you realize like they're not even trying yet like they you know they're Russia's you know if you look back at their history they'll they will roll out millions of people and just lay them all out until it's over like they have a history of doing that you tell me they keep over you you nothing to them right and you have to remember you know this whole offensive in ukraine started with 125,000 people uh Russia's population population is estimated some 80 million people.

I mean, when we're talking like the amount of bodies that could be thrown at this thing, it hasn't even begun. You know, they just conscripted another, I think, three to 400,000 people. So now you're talking four times as many people invading than the initial invasion. Yeah, this thing is like we talked last year and you said, do you think this dies out? Do you think this kind of goes away and gets so up? And I said, I don't think so.

I think this continues to roll out. And I think it continues to roll out. I don't think at this point from just a interior perspective of Russia as a Putin, as a leader of that country, you can't back out now. Yeah. Right? Like you already, you're standing in the ring with your, with the person you're going to fight. And haymakers are already being thrown. You don't quit.

You're not quitting. You're thrown back haymakers. anchors. Now it's now it's a real fight. Yeah, I would say you've got the guy on the ropes and he's desperately trying to tag his partner, but you got them in a headlock, you're choking them out. Like, there's nothing. There's not one thing Ukraine can do to Russia without the help of the United States. Right.

Nothing. They're done. They are. And you know what? Like, I thought about it like this. If you look at the way in World War I or World War II, the way Great Britain, used Hitler as like a proxy to start pushing into Russia. The same thing is I think that Europe is using Ukraine the same way they use Nazi Germany. They're using them as like this cudgel to try to take shots at Russia and bring down like this

so-called threat that they think it is. And unlike, you know, it seems to me from what I read, Hitler stopped playing along with the powers of Europe is like, you know what? I'm going to do my own thing. Thanks for all the money. Thanks for everything. I'm going to do my own thing. And then that's when they turned on him. Zelensky will never do that. Zolinski is their whipping boy. He's going to do whatever they say or he's dead. And so, you know, he's just going to keep pushing, pushing and pushing. I think that, you know, I recently read that we have Ukrainian pilots in the United States training on planes, which means just a matter of time before they start putting planes in the air. It's game over there.

It's already game over, but, you know, you get a, you get a plane with a U.S. tail number on there flying over Moscow or something like that. It's, it really escalates the pot right there. Well, I've actually seen reports of, you know, from a lot of different NATO countries now that, you know, you clearly U.S. planes, no U.S. tail marking on them, no markings whatsoever on them. So, you know, I think that that will be the next phase of this, because as Russia brings down another few hundred thousand people, the Ukrainian army doesn't have the ability to withstand that. And the only way to combat that will be with, you know, some air power. Yeah, and I think, you know, Russia hasn't been sitting on their heels since the Cold War. Right. You know, yeah, granted, they might. not be as technologically advanced.

They might have not as many cool tools. But they have, you know, Russia's been long in the war game. You know, this isn't their first rodeo. And, you know, it's always been Russia's game where they kind of start tentatively. And then they just continue to ramp it up and ramp it up and ramp it up. And to think that they don't have some stuff to deploy, I mean, they've already shot hypersonic missiles, right? So hypersonic missile technology is not an easy thing And to think that that's just the pinnacle of their technology is probably a bit naive

Yeah, let us not forget they're the first ones in space Right, they're the only ones to get there now Well, you like to get you to space probably yeah yeah Yeah, it's you know it's interesting when I look at Russia, I look at the breakdown of the Soviet Union and how all the oligarchs came in and they just took everything over. And then it took Putin to push those people, at least some of them out. I mean, you know, he didn't get rid of all of them. He used some of them. Yeah, he did. He did. And he imprisoned a lot of them. You know, and if you look, if you look at that model, you know, you go,

oh, you could see why the people in Russia love Putin. It's like, they were they were ruled by these crazy oligarchs that were just that that that look a lot like that model of of the Soviet Union dying and being privately owned by oligarchs looks a lot like what's happening in the United States right now and if you you look at China what does China do China put away the who who was the they had a really big guy that owned like 10 cent or he He owned Jack Maugh. Oliver. Yeah, he started getting pretty big for his britches.

And then all of a sudden you saw Zigo, you know what? Come here for him. And you take a little time out. You didn't hear about him for a few months. He went to a reprogramming camp. That's right. That's right. On some level, you know, you've got to look at China and Russia's standing up against the oligarchs.

And you got to, it's sad to think about it. But anybody who wants to have an open mind should look at what's happening in the United States. Like, we are being more and more private. privatized, run by oligarchs. And you could also say that's why. Look at all these calamities that are happening. There's no more, there's no more restraints. There's no more, you know, things in order that stop the oligarch from doing what they want.

There's no more penalties for them. And you have trained derailments. You have bank bailouts. You know, all these people that were clamoring. Oh, regulations are too tight. Well, guess what? We tried something. We took away all the regulations.

And now, look, everything's going to hell. Yep. Well, and if you think about it, this is kind of flamed. like the ebb and flow of human history and nation states. You always have this aristocratic oligarch class of people that are always trying to regain their former influence, their power, whatever, and then they eventually do. And then you have a Putin or some or G or somebody like that come in and bring order to the chaos, so to speak. And in doing so, they gained this authoritarian thing. And then you, from that authoritarianism, you have kind of like a democracy that's born.

And then you have the rise of the oligarchs again, of the aristocracy again. I mean, this has happened for as long as we've been recording history. Yeah. It was a really good book I read. I think last year it was called 2032. And it was written by a rear admiral. I forgot the guy's name. And it was clearly.

You know, it's a work of fiction, but it must have been based on some sort of military game because the premise of the book was something along the lines of a battle group sails through the, you know, close to Taiwan through the China Sea. They come upon a distressed fishing boat. They get on that boat and they see that there is this piece of technology that the fisherman refuses to give up. And so they finally get that guy on board and they're questioning him. And they're like, what is this technology you have here?

And then the book shifts from that scene to Washington, D.C., where the ambassador from China is knocking on like the vice president's door is like, hey, you have one of our fishing boats. I want that thing released now. And if it's not released, there's going to be some problems. And then it's a really good book. People should check it out. I think it's called 2032. And I won't spoil it for every.

buddy, but long story longer, there's a lot of talks about a limited capable nuclear strike on the United States and how that plays back and forth. There's like a one two punch and I'll leave it there for people to think about, but, you know, it's clearly something that was thought about. It was some type of war game that had probably been taught to him and they had obviously gained it out, but, you know, it's interesting how close we are to that book right now and what could happen and how much of a good strategy that would be. And we talked about different kinds of technology that could possibly be on the board.

It's pretty fascinating to think about. Yeah, I think, you know, the idea of a limited nuclear strike 20 years ago was that would never happen. But now you have hypersonic delivery systems. Those basically negate the functionality of all missile defense systems that have been created today.

They fly too low and too fast. The whole idea of intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile was because it has has to go up and then come down. And so you have some time to intercept it as it's rising up into the stratosphere. But with these hypersonic missiles, it's A to B. And you know, you're talking 30 minutes from Moscow to New York. Yeah, and that's just the stuff we know about, you know. Right, exactly. God forbid there's some sort of space-based weapon that you just, the rods from God or whatever.

whatever they are, you know. Yeah. And with how much stuff is up there? Who's to say there's not? I mean, you know, you only need, I think, what was it? There was only like a two ton ton tonstoned rod to really destroy like the city center of like a size of a London. Yeah. That's not that's not a heavy payload for what we've been launching in the space over the past 30, 40 years.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It come in, you know, there's. it's crazy to think that there's probably boardrooms or war rooms where people have mapped out first strike capabilities and responses to that and people sat back and were like, well, I think we can win this. It's crazy to think that someone would say that, but I'm sure it's happened. Oh, sure. I mean, well, that's probably a yearly exercise at military headquarters around the world.

You know, if we decided on this first strike action, you know, what would be? the consequences. Oh, we might actually, we got a 25% chance to come out of this one smelling like roses. Yeah. Yeah, you know, 75% of the people will be dead, but we'll win. Yeah, there's the old, gosh, I can't think of the name of it. It was, it'll probably come to me in a minute. And then I could probably put the notes in the chat, but there was this, there was this website that popped up in like 2012, something like that. And it, it was a like a military contracting website. And I remember just being mind blown about it because it had all the statistics for that day.

They had like a, it had all the countries named. And then it had population. It had, you know, size of the army, size of the GDP. And it was like all these statistics about each country. And then it showed, uh, 2023. And I remember specifically that the United States went from like 330 million to like 325,000. Britain dropped the way down. And like all these countries dropped the way down. And it caused this, this big

hollow blue because people are like, who is this military contract? And why is the U.S. going from 30, you know, 340 million to 325,000? Like, what does that mean? And then all of a sudden that website was wiped off the map like four years later and, you know, it's not up there anymore. But it's, you know, it's interesting to think about.

And, you know, if there was a first strike, there was a limited nuclear strike. Like, let's just say that the United States begins to blockade China or China begins to blockade Taiwan. And then, you know, China fires a something at, like, say, Texas or Washington, D.C. Is the United States really have the, the, are they really going to fire something back at China after we've been hit by a nuclear strike in the United States? state. I mean, do we have the fortitude to do that? Do the people are like, whoa, wait a minute. What are we going to do? We're going to fire a nuclear strike in this other country because they hit us over here. You know, what happens at that point in time? Or do they go, you know what? We don't need a nuclear bomb.

We have a biological weapon, you know, but it just seems like we're too close to like all this rhetoric sometimes can end up becoming more than rhetoric. And it just takes, you know, if you look back in history, you see the guys in the subs that didn't pull the trigger or got in the way of the orders and stuff it's crazy to think where we are indeed and you know to that point a bit uh i was watching uh jo rogan eric wein stein the other day and he talked about you know uh he mentioned that people today alive don't know what the power of a nuclear weapon is we haven't seen a nuclear weapon tested you know since you know the certainly after world war two really, beginning of the Cold War.

It's been 70-some years since a nuclear blast has been detonated on this, at least the surface of the Earth. You know, so there's just a lack of intimacy with what that actually means, what sort of destruction, what sort of, you know, and the ones that were detonated, those were small compared to what was actually built. I mean, we have these thermonuclear warheads that are just, you know, wild. They even dwarfed what the Sarbamba, which was the, you know, I think the biggest H-bomb that was detonated. And they dwarfed that. I mean, we're talking destruction that you just

is unfathomable. And so there's just a lack of appreciation for what that actually means. You know, it's it's the person sitting there talking trash and then, you know, they, they talk shit to the wrong person. And that person just happens to be, you know, a black, black, martial artist and just lays the weapon on them. You know, and because there's just a lack, you know, nobody's been punched in the face for 30 years, right? And so when there's, when people don't have the ability to understand that, you know, the consequences of these actions, of this rhetoric,

you know, we quickly walk ourselves into a corner where, yeah, I mean, you could have these nuclear strikes happen. And then to your question of, you know, what happens at that point? Do we have the wherewithal? Do we have the fortitude to go off and strike back? Do we even have, I mean, would it be, I guess, would require an act of Congress, right? How are you going to get this Congress to agree to something like that?

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I agree. I don't know either. Do you give any credence to the idea that it's just all, it's all like an attempt to bolster both economies is everybody just at a point where there's no progress, there's no technology moving us forward. We're at a standstill. So we are banging the war drums, but secretly Russia, the U.S., Great Britain's just all kind of behind the scenes, just trying to push people to create and to release this thing called. evolution and creativity and trying to scare us into making the next leap forward.

That would require some considerable level of evidence of altruistic behaviors from authoritarian figures. I personally haven't seen evidence like that in my life, nor have I seen it in studying the history of humanity. I mean, it's kind of a rosy thought. I don't see it. I wouldn't give too much credence to it personally. What about you? Sometimes I think that, and this is just me thinking wildly,

but I think that there are some, there's some evidence to show, and this is kind of dark, but some people tend to believe that warfare is the highest, virtue of mankind. And they say that because that is where the idea of progress comes from. If you just leave people to themselves, they just want to dance and party and have a great time. And, you know, they're not really hip on killing each other. So you have to force them into this

mode where they have to fight for their lives. And when you do that, that's when you get the giant leaps in progress. That's when you get the giant leaps in technology. And, you know, it seems for a long time, in the same, maybe it wasn't, it wasn't Weinstein and Rogan, but Peter Thiel recently gave a speech at the Oxford Union. And in that speech, he talked about how there's been no real technological advances in the last 30 years.

You know, we were supposed to have the Jetsons flying cars and we got 140 characters. And so this idea of war, this idea of scaring people, this idea of, I'm going to steal everything from you until you make, you know, it's like the old rumple stills can turn us into gold.

You know, I think that that has, there's been evidence of people using those tactics to push the human race forward. So I guess that would be my answer to that. Hmm. I mean, yeah, I've definitely heard people talk about that. But, you know, I think that almost would be something to disguise other motives. Hmm. you know, I think from a, if I was, you know, a super billionaire on this world looking at what's happening in the world, we have an explosion of populations that are demographically vastly different than the current power structures in the world. And that's going to unbalance the system that, you know, I'm a part of.

So while I certainly you know war does lead to progress, I don't think there's any real argument against that. I think that's just kind of the veneer behind the actual motivation, you know, of, you know, say, maintaining the power structure or growing the power structure. Because, you know, even if, you know, even two things can be true at once in this instance, right? you know uh like a warlord yeah he knows by you know going to war uh all of a sudden you know we're going to have factories opening up we're going to have workers in those factories it's going to be innovation because people want to protect their families but at the same time uh you know he's not necessarily doing it for the progress and the innovation he's doing it for the resources the power the maintaining of of everything he's known yeah it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a

It's interesting to think about the strategy behind the games and the real people pulling the levers and the people they use to be out in front. And, you know, on some level, there's way, as conspiracy-minded as I am, I often fall back on. There's way too many moving parts in order for some things to happen. You know, and that's probably, like you said, both things can be true at once. I'm sure some people have grand plans, but it's easy to disrupt those plans. if you just put some goo in the gear. Yeah, well, yeah, there are so many moving parts. And I think that's kind of why we're seeing the world the way it was,

the way it is today. If there wasn't so many moving parts, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation on the Internet. People wouldn't be talking about these things. We would still have a Walter Cronkite who told us exactly how to think and feel about everything that was happening. world based upon a very narrow set of information. But I think, you know, there is goo in the system because there are so many moving parts.

And I think that we're, we're witnessing the seizing of the system at some level. We're witnessing people try to repair the system. We're witnessing other people just saying, put it down a gear and hit the gas. Yeah. And so we're, we're in the midst of that actuality. Let me take a hard right turn right here and throw this one at you. You know, what do you think about the idea that what we are seeing in the world today is the unrealized dreams of the boomers dying?

If you look at all the octogenarians that are in positions of authority, be it in corporations, boards of directors, be it Putin or whether it's Biden. You know, there's all these ideas about Lagos, there's all these. unrealized dreams of this giant class of people that have been spoiled their whole lives and been given everything. And now all of a sudden they're knocking on death's door like, what do you mean? I'm not God's gift to the earth. What do you mean my mom's not going to do this?

What do you mean my dad's not going to give me this thing? Like, you know, I think that there's a lot of boomers out there that are finally coming to the realization that they were given everything and that they are not going to, they're not God's gift to the world and that they are going to die. They're not going to live forever, regardless of how much money you sink into longevity pills and you don't have time to take care of your family and you want a legacy, you better act out now. And, you know, I think that there's something to be said about the species on the planet and a large part of that species dying, like part of the human race, a large part of our form is dying and it's fighting tooth and

to stay alive. And I think that that's the boomer class. I would agree that that's certainly happening at multiple different scales, right? You have the personal scale. You have the family. You have things like that. But then you do have, you know, these Bidens and Trumps and people like that who are, you know, they're trying to, they're trying to play young man's games when they're at the end of their, of the end of their era. And yeah, I think they're, I think that definitely plays into some of it. And I also think that there's another component of it that's, you know, there's multi-generational things at play too. You know, you have these families and systems that, you know, are so broad and so vast that have so much actual wealth. They're not

the people you read about on the Ford's top 10 list. They're the people that make the people on the Ford's top 10 lists look like they're poor. And, you know, I think there is a component of those multi-generational plans for, you know, structuring of society and all of these things that are really old-school ideas that were born back, you know, in the Renaissance era of things that are also playing into this as well. I think there's just a confluence of different ideologies, narratives, plans, goals, legacies, all just kind of hitting

together all at the same time. Yeah. Okay. How about this one then? What about this not being the first time this has happened? What about there being a plan to wipe off, you know, 70 or 80% of the people on the planet and having a small breakaway society of people keeping all the relevant knowledge? You know, and I know this kind of seems way out there, What the hell?

You know, if you look at the way technology has been rolled out, in some ways, it, you know, you look back and you're like, hey, Einstein didn't write all that. Hey, this guy didn't come up with that. Hey, this, hey, you know what? This whole idea about history and the Bible, maybe there weren't Greeks. Maybe that was the middle ages, you know? And like, you start realizing that even though Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History because he thought it was over, it really means like the end of everybody's history. It kind of means history was bullshit. And so, you know, what about this being a cycle that happens?

What about there being certain families that are, that have histories of like, yeah, every now and then we've got to wipe out the human race and start over? You know, I think that there is credence to that, whether maybe I'm reading too much sci-fi or maybe I've gotten too deep down too many rabbit holes. But is that is that something that you have ever thought about before? Yeah, I've thought about it. And I also have come at it from a different perspective in that these cycles are not necessarily driven by humanity, but are driven by the circumstance of humanity on this planet. meaning that, you know, we've talked about melodraphic cycles and, you know, there is a consistent history of extinction level events on this planet. And who's to say that if you're in a position with, you've gathered tons of knowledge and

resources from all over the world and all of a sudden you're aware of that something like this is going to happen? What sort of, you know, the moves and some of the actions we're seeing today, would fall right in line with, hey, I know there's a coming end of this cycle. So guess what? This is what we're going to do. And, you know, I mean, we've had, you know, like the Adam and News story we've talked about before. Right. You know, and, you know, when you look at like solar cycles and things like that, which I've done a lot of research on,

I think that there probably is a cyclical disaster that does befall humanity. And there is a group of people who preserve knowledge and re-reve knowledge and really, birth, you know, society at large. And then that knowledge is squirled away and lost over time to the vast majority of people, except, you know, there's record of it. You know, we see from geological records from our modern science to, you know, things like megalithic structures all over the world, some of which we still can't even fathom on have a bill. And, you know, So I think there is probably a cyclical disaster. And if I was in, if I knew about that and I had a whole bunch of resources,

I, I would play the game in a similar way that it's being played. Yeah. Yeah. And no one, everyone would think you're crazy. They just think you're a weirdo. Like, look at this lunatic.

The sky is falling. The sky is falling. Pretty much. Yeah. It's crazy to think about. Well, Ben, I have an absolute blast. talking to you and I'm looking forward to us getting back on a more regular scale.

But before I let you go, what do you have coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Benjamin C.George.com is where it can be found. Coming up, hopefully some new podcasting stuff. I've been doing the entrepreneurial thing for the past month and a half, two months and seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. So hopefully I'll have some more fun things and announcements.

I got a bunch of like individual podcast episodes, things about the book, a second edition of the book pretty much written, some other stuff like that. I just haven't had the time to put the final 5% on it and hit publish or, you know, hit broadcasts or what have you. So hopefully get some of that out here soon. But I'm definitely excited for that. Be excited to talk to you again.

It's always great talking to you. Yeah, pleasure's all mine. Yeah, I'd love to get back and get some more, get some more ideas about the book back on there. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, oh, I did want to make that point earlier. I think, you know, part of what people can do is a personal philosophy and how we view the world. You know, you can let these things be a burden on your shoulders and tear you down or through your philosophy and outlook and research and experimentation and all of this. you can find solutions to these problems. And so that's kind of in the next rewrite of the book here, Volume 2. Yeah, I like it. And I would add to that, try and produce as much as you consume.

You know, try and create the life that you want to live and take care of the people you love and spend time with them. and try to make everyone around you better, and in doing so, you make your own life better. So we got for today, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the time. Benjamin C. George, thank you for the time. And we'll be back again next week.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time. Aloha.