TrueLife - When the Instrument becomes an Institution: The Lahaina Model

Episode Date: September 20, 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/https://benjamincgeorge.com/Today is a free flowing conversation about the emerging world. From the failure of corporate governance to creative destruction & the law of unintended consequences. 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, furious 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 Kodak Serafini, check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day.

I hope the sun is shining, the birds are singing the wind. Is that your back? I hope you know that there is a real good chance. A miracle is about to happen to you right now. We always think that, Ben. You know what? We always think like the worst case scenario is going to happen, but we don't ever think like the best case scenario is going to happen.

And it blows my mind. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Benjamin C, George, no absolutes. You may have heard the no absolutes podcast. You may have read the no absolute book. If you haven't, then I highly suggest you do.

Benjamin C. George, what's going on, my friend? How are you? Another day in paradise, brother. It's gorgeous here in Colorado. We've got kind of like the Indian summer type thing going on right now. So beautiful weather here. Just a slight breeze, nice and warm.

How about you, man? How's Hawaii? It's beautiful. It's such an interesting time to be in Hawaii. And I'm often reminded of Huxley's book, The Island. And I can't help but think about the similarities between what's happening right now in Hawaii. It's geographic location and that book, the island. There's so many similarities there.

Yeah, indeed. Yeah, there's definitely Hawaii's been in the news a lot recently, huh? Yeah, it's fascinating. And I want to premise this episode with what you're hearing today is high octane speculation. I don't know what happened there. However, because I'm of where I am, I see some very interesting things happening. And some of them may be the manifestation of my creative mind or they could be things that are actually happening. But I just want to talk to you about them today, man.

It's fascinating for me to see the world evolving the way it is. And I want to talk about the failure of governments, the rise of smart cities and the Lahaina a model, Ben. What do you think about that when I say that? Well, I mean, some broad topics, brother. But as always, I'm sure we'll get into them. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some, the rapidity of changes in the world of late is definitely just on, you know, it's kind of like a parabolic course. I mean, ever since, you know, well before COVID, but definitely as soon as COVID hit, it was like an inflection point. And, you know, now it's just kind of, it's almost turned into like a daily cycle.

Yeah. I think that on some levels, a lot of what we're seeing today are echoes of the changes that happened during the COVID. And when I bring up the idea of the Lahaina model, you know, I'm just using it as a metaphorical model of what's happening. But it's really relevant. If we just take what happened in Lahaina,

and I don't know what caused that destruction, My personal belief is that we'll never know exactly what happened. But I think it's a form of creative destruction. I'll put it that way. It seems to me that the only way to get things done globally now, the only way to really fundamentally change the foundation for society or to change real infrastructure is to burn. everything down and start over. And it sounds so horrible. It sounds so crazy and it sounds so callous.

But if the entire foundation is cracked, you have to start over. There's no saving the system. You can't save it, right? And I'll give you a few, let me give you a few examples of what I'm talking about here. Throughout the United States or even in Hawaii or even in the world, there are so many laws, there's so many regulations that have been written that you can't do anything. If you're a business trying to come in and redo the water pipes for a city, well, you have to dance and jump through all these hoops in order to get approval. We've got to greet this politicians whose brother works at the county and whose other cousin works at the, you know, Hiko or his other brother works there. Like, there's no way to get anything done.

By the time you get everything done, you've already spent 10 times or 20 times over budget. So you have to, there's no way to get around it. There's no way for change, you know, I think it was Rockefeller who said something along the lines of competition is the enemy. So what do you do? You burn it all down and you start over. Is that too far of a bridge, Ben? Do you think that's too crazy? Is that too ten-hat?

You know, I don't think it's too crazy. I think there is a lot of validity to that. You know, I could akin it to kind of like a train that just has massive momentum barreling down the track. you know, you can put whatever you want in front of that thing and it's just going to plower it through it. You know, and that could be good intentions. That could be bad intentions. It could be what, you know, the litany of, you know, the idea of change. But there's just so much built up momentum in that, in that, you know, it's going to keep going until the track ends. And I think we're, you know, we've talked about this ever since we really started talking. But I think, you know, you end up in a position

where, you know, the only solution is to have that track end and then build a new system, a new track. You know, I think we're seeing it across industries. We're seeing it from, you know, across governments, across nations. And I think, yeah, you touched on it. It has a lot to do with the laws. It has a lot to do with all the red tape. It has a lot to do with those things.

But I think it's also, you know, where we, you know, how we've done things as a society and what we what we decided that we were going to value over something else. And, you know, in terms of a system of itself, I think, you know, it's fracturing and it's going to continue to fracture. I don't think, you know, you can put some duct tape on it and go, all good. I, you know, I think we're reaching a stage where there has to be new ideas, there has to be new systems, there has to be these parallel economies in order for us to kind of, you know, continue on with the life that, you know, the global society has kind of created. Yeah. That's really well said. And it's, you know, a mutual friend of ours, our friend Paul,

he's in Maui right now. And when I talk to him, it's fascinating to get to see the way in which Lahaina is finding a way to heal. According to our friend, the government is inept. You know, maybe it's they're paralyzed with out of any funds or maybe they're paralyzed by fear or maybe they're paralyzed by regulations. But as the smoke begins to clear, what you're seeing is a clear relationship between the private, you know, electric company, HECO and the government. Like they were working hand in hand together. Like they were part and parcel.

It wasn't like one was regulating the other. It's like they were both taking money and looking the other way. And again, this is my, this is all. hearsay. I'm just throwing this out here from what I've heard. But, you know, that seems to be, I've often said that when the instrument becomes institutionalized, that's when the corruption sets in. And that's what you have there. This institution that was to provide power to people was to do this. All of a sudden it became corrupted. Both sides put their hand out and they both walk, they walk away like that. And so what's beginning to emerge and what's beautiful about seeing that thing

happen if there if there can be a silver lining there is that real individual private citizens are stepping up and they're coming to the rescue to solve problems they're not government they're not corporations even though both those people are involved both sides are involved there's real people that are standing up and hey i have this farm hey i have this technology to build these mycelium socks to clean water all of a sudden you're starting to see the real leaders emerge and that's sometimes what happens. Hopefully that's what happens a lot in times of crisis is that the leaders rise to the top. And it's unfortunate that the chaff of the industry and the chaff of government fall to the side because we had such high hopes for them. And sometimes when there's real

destruction, leaders begin to emerge. And when I talk to some of my friends in Maui, that's what you're seeing done. You're seeing the people step up, come up and clean things, people that know how to actually do things or getting involved. And I think that's another aspect of the Lahaina model that I hope people begin to see. Is that something that when you read books or when you look at the no absolute framework, is this some sort of thing that tends to normally happen? What's your take on normal people rising to the top in times of tragedy? I think times of tragedy, times of chaos, you know, that's what creates great opportunity.

It creates those moments for people to actually rise. You know, and it's it's almost, you know, you could call it a sad cycle, but also it's the cycle of change, right? You know, it's if something's so bloated and corrupt that it can't do what it was tasked to do to begin with, well, you need something new. And where does that come from? Well, the bloated and corrupt isn't going to go away until it's kind of blown away, right? Until it's shown for what it is. And then in that void, that's where the opportunity to create. something new comes from. You know, historically speaking, very, you know, there's a litany of accounts of that.

And I think we're seeing it, you know, we're seeing that Lahaina model kind of play out in many different regards. You know, I mean, you have, you know, I think of like when Texas has their power problems, all of a sudden people are getting $3,000 electric bills for running their, their heater during the snowstorm over a weekend, right? You know, and eventually these things, you know, they home to Bruce, that they become so apparent that you can't look away. And I think in that, in that chaos, that's where we do find the greatest opportunities for change and for growth and for evolving this thing we call human society. It's really well said. We have a, what's up, Marissa? Thanks for chiming in over here. She says, definitely, I moved to Maui two years

ago. And even then, long before them, the Hawaiian people were calling for their sovereignty. This is the spark to do it. The electric lines all over the island have to be put underground. Why has this not been done? There has been skimming off the top or where is all the revenue from behind it going into restoration and ensuring the safety of the town? It wasn't until now. Yeah, it wasn't until now. In fact, from some of the literature I've read, Hico was taking the money they were supposed to be using to keep up all those power lines and keep everything and running and fashioning order and protect people from fires. They were taking that and moving it over to like in a renewable source. So they were robbing

Peter to pay Paul. But Marissa, here is something super awesome. I think you'll like. You know, the island of Kauai, they have a co-op over there and they have the least expensive power in the entire chain of islands. So maybe what can come out of this is this idea that we can co-op the co-op model over there and bring it over here. And maybe that could be a sign for more to come. Maybe we don't need these giant private monoliths coming in and telling us what we should do. Maybe the idea of the co-op is a much better model, not only for electricity, but for all utilities. Maybe that's a new form of self-governance that we're talking about here, this thing that can emerge out of this chaos. Maybe I know a lot of times the idea of a smart city comes in some people's eyes as a pejorative,

like, oh, you're going to get a company dollar to buy at the company store. But if the people get involved, perhaps a smart city could be more like a co-op. You know, on some level, it seems like people are pretty happy going to the Apple campus or going to the Googleplex or whatever it is. You know, might there be some validity in that model? And what if it was more of a co-op? What if the board organization was sort of like the way a jury works and you're sequestered to go and work at the board for three months out of the year

or two weeks out of the year? You know, everybody has a role the same way everybody in Israel plays in the military. So too should everybody play in the government in a new smart city. There's some real possibilities, right, Ben? Yeah, I mean, you know, we've talked about it before, but I've been working on my Terry Libre project, which is kind of a similar idea to this. And the idea is, is that, you know, you don't need these massive centralized monoliths to, you know, dictate from the top down.

All you need is the communication and organization to. to leverage the group's buying power in order to get those proper resources to bury the electrical lines underground and have a co-op. Or to get a fleet of fishing vessels to provide X amount of food for an island. Or just in general like building supplies, instead of somebody trying to ship over one container, you can have 30 people ship over 30 containers. And now your cost goes down. And now you can start to build things from a very, you know, individual people for people type level from a communal aspect instead of from a top-down structure. And I think we're going to see a lot more of this. And, you know, and I've been talking to people around the world who are working on similar type of projects.

And I think that one of the key things in all of that, though, is, you know, kind of like a code of ethics. a charter for these things you know people in agreement you know similar to how we have like the agreement of the constitution um now it's been kind of drummed down and beat up over the past 250 years and but you know there's great merit in having that kind of centralized i wouldn't even called an ideology but just an agreement between interested parties who say hey i'm willing to help you if you can help me over here and it's akin to like you know the barter system. It's the free market, as the free market should be. Yeah, we should, let's, I was thinking about your Terra Libre project a while ago. I spoke to a young tech entrepreneur

named Israel Wilson, and he's, he is sort of following the idea of the board apes yacht club in that. And for people that don't know, I know, NFTs can sound like they're just like this crazy image of like a gorilla with a banana peel. It's like a crazy. It's like a crappy 2D thing. But don't think about it like that. Think about it like this. Think about a token. Okay, let's say that you, me, Ben, and everybody listening to this.

Like, we all buy this token. Okay. And the token costs like, I don't know, $1,000. But all of us that have that token, like I'm pretty good at podcast. Ben is an incredible systems guy. I'm sure there's architects and artists out there. Now, we all have our token. Ben says, you know what, George?

I've built this system. I got to get it. I got to get the word out. Can I use your audience? He's got his token. Of course you can. We need an engineer. He has his token.

We need an artist. They have their token. In some ways, we're using this buy-in, this token, this image for us to call in a favor to each other. So no money is really changing hands. We're part of this elite group or non-elite group of similar like-minded people that want to move their dreams forward. And we call upon each other with this token. these types of parallel economies are not only something that I'm making up in my mind. They're happening in real time right now.

And I think that the more people learn about them, the more we can really begin to understand what economy means, what peer-to-peer means and what the future holds for us. Does that break down into the Terra Libre Project, Ben? Yeah. And I think, you know, the way I like to call it these days is a People for People network. I love it. You know, and in the reality of the situation is the world has gotten much smaller in the terms of communication. Obviously, we're a few thousand miles away from each other.

But yet we're able to have this exchange of ideas. We're able to, you know, understand each other's needs, dreams, goals, and desires. Because now we can communicate. So with the shrinking of the world, that also creates the opportunity for these parallel economies to really actually work. you know, all we have to do is be able to say, hey, you know, I think the world should be a better place. I think we should do some more sustainable things and how we operate and how we build things. And, you know, instead of all these top-down monoliths telling us, you know, in regulations and all of this stuff, why don't we just say, hey, let's pull our resources together and build for a better good, have a people for people network.

And I think crypto and, you know, has a kind of a central role into that. It has the capacity to decentralize that monolith. And in that decentralization, now you actually, you actually build democracy. You have the ability to have a one person, one vote type of system. And you have the ability to make those votes, not some grand thing off in D.C. or some other capital. in the world, but, you know, a very local thing that can be, you know, it can be voted on instantaneously. You know, if my community says, hey, we want to put in a community garden in our little neighborhood here, well, we don't need the approval of even the city or the state or the

government, you know, our community wants to do it. So, hey, you guys all are in? Yeah, we're all in. Okay, cool. Let's build a community garden. Oh, I'll give up a little bit of my backyard. Oh, I'll give up a little bit of my backyard. Oh, here we go. all of a sudden, now we have a solution to a problem. And I think, you know, the Tara Libra project is, you know, it's modeled for that. And I think there's a lot of other people working on those models because they realize the potential and the power. Yeah. It's the magnitude of change in that model is mind-blowing.

You know, how much of the decisions that are made in your local community have nothing to do with your community, but are made by a multinational corporation whose headquarters are 10,000 miles away from you. That is so dumb. It's so dumb for a community to make a decision based on a profit margin by some guy in a boardroom 10,000 miles away. That person cares nothing about your community. Not one bit. You're but a cog in the wheel of its widget. It's ridiculous.

And I think that that type of poor decision-making is leading. to the destruction of communities, families, resources around the world. The people are waking up to it. This idea that you can have this, you know, the idea that people can be supply chains is an idea that's not talked about nowhere near enough. The fact that I'm talking to you in Colorado,

and we can call our friend Kevin, who's probably in Scandinavia or Bali or somewhere around the world. You know, we are our own supply chain. We have the supply chain of information. But I could also order goods through you. The fact that I can sit here and talk to someone, I can talk to 10 different people in 10 different countries in an hour. Like, I am my own supply chain.

And when people begin to figure that out, the brick and mortar world of poor ideas and boomer ideology, I don't mean that as a pejorative, But like that type of old thinking just falls away and it allows the ability of the future to be reimagined. So I hope people begin seeing themselves as more dynamic as the economy, as supply chains. Because when you do that, you can really begin to start making changes not only in your own life, but in your community. And like that takes us back to what I'm calling the Lahaina model is there will be a smart city that emerges out of that rubble that will be unlike anything anyone has ever seen. There's already, last time I checked, I think Bezos was offering $100 million to rebuild.

Now, let's take this back for a minute. I want to just put in some of the things that I see. First off, the amount of billionaires that are currently moving to Maui is thought-provoking. I spoke with a guy yesterday, a real estate agent, who said that in the last like eight weeks, he has sold like six or seven bolthole properties, a bolthole property. A bolthole property is like 100 acres of land or 30 acres of land, some large portion of some large track of land that has its own well. You know, it's totally sustainable. One of the people just recently flew in their car collection.

So you got to start thinking to myself like, why would some of the smartest people in the world be moving right now to Maui when Lahaina is a toxic mess? Like, why would they be doing that? And then I start thinking to myself, Larry Ellison is probably one of the smartest people on the planet. Like let's just, let me just tie this back together here. Larry Ellison, if you're watching, you're probably the smartest man on the planet. Here's a man with a company called Oracle, and he has an aircraft carrier.

So think about that for a minute. How does a man with a company name, first off, how do you get an aircraft carrier? Well, the man has a company named Oracle. you know, it kind of starts making sense. He kind of bought La Haas. Oh, I don't know, five or six years ago, maybe 10 years ago. But as a young blue-collar kid whose dad was in construction, I realized that you would put up a little trailer on the job site

when you were going to develop that property. It kind of seems like he's got a trailer on the job site to me. And look at all these other billion. Amazon just invested huge in these islands. And if you look at the map behind me, you can see that Alaska used to be the jump-off point for all supply chains to go. They'd go to Alaska and then down because it was cheaper. But you'll be much more economical in the long run. If land wasn't so expensive, it would be Hawaii.

You know, if we didn't have, I think it's the, I'm going to butcher this, I think it's the Logan Act, or it's one of these acts that says all boats have to go past Hawaii to California and then back to Hawaii. You know, that was something that was made up in times of war. But what if that wasn't true? what if we could get past that? Okay, if you just factor in all these things I said, Hawaii, with its geographic location, with its incredible weather, with its incredible resource of billionaires that have just moved here, be it Ellison, be it Zuckerberg, you know, be it Oprah, like all these billionaires live here. There's more moving here. Like there's hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been invested in Lahaina.

Like it doesn't take too much imagination to see what is happening. It is Huxley's the island. It's happening right now. For those people paying attention, it's the most fascinating time in the world. What's going to emerge from Lahaina is going to blow people's minds. It's going to be the city of the future. And it's the model. And this is what I'm talking about.

Lahaina is the model for private industries to build cities throughout the world. Lahaina will become the Singapore of the United States. Lahaina will become the greatest smart city that's ever been dreamed of. We've tried to do them. They've tried to do, you know, I've never been to Dubai, Ben, but I've seen pictures. I think that what we're going to see in Lahaina will be the Dubai of the United States. Is that too, am I getting too far out there? What do you think about the things I'm saying?

No, I mean, I definitely see, you know, from the economic perspective, of the interest and then from, you know, just a proposed, this, the proposed idea of smart cities, you know, I think that, you know, again, back to the beginning of the conversation through that great catastrophe, now, you know, there's a great opportunity. You know, I would say that, you know, I do question the motivations of building these types of cities.

You know, obviously you have a whole bunch of displaced people. Are those displaced people? Do they get at stake in this city that's going to emerge from the ashes here? And so, you know, I think those questions are very important to how these things kind of, and they are going to happen. I mean, you know, you have all sorts of technology coming down the pike that's going to enable these things. There's a couple companies out there who want to put drone landing pads on people's houses and pay them for it so that they can do deliveries throughout the city.

You have all these different types of projects that want to, instead of companies just being able to harvest your data and build these AI models and sell that data and profit from it, they want to pay out individuals for the data that they create. So you have a lot of technology that under the right premise and under the right model could definitely benefit a great number of people. And, you know, the rising tide raises all ships type idea. But I think it's very important to, you know, that the motivations and kind of the code of ethics and how these things are going to operate. Who profits from it? You know, who has a stake in it? Who, you know, who become the, the shareholders of tomorrow? You know, where does that all, where do those, where are those lines drawn?

How, you know, what's the, what's the real model under the model, so to speak? You know, and I think that that's a very important question. And I think that's a question that the world is going to be answering here in the short term. Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I think the model in the model is the same model. And I'll give you an example of what I mean. employees tend to hate their bosses because employees think I can do this way better than my boss. He doesn't know shit. This guy's a dummy.

He's in his office all day. He doesn't know anything. He's a retard. Dummy. I hate him. That's a lot of people think. And so that same mentality is exactly what corporations think about government. These guys are a bunch of dummies.

They're a bunch of retard. They don't know anything. They're stupid. They've always regulations. They've never done anything in their life. They just run their mouth. So if you think about that, okay, the employee thinks his boss. The business thinks government sucks.

Well, it's the same problem. And what I see in this creative model of smart cities is that business is like, okay, we've gotten government out of the way. We've did it. But what they don't understand is by getting government out of the way, they have become the de facto government. They've just become the people they've hated. It's like the, and it's a metaphor for life.

You know, they say that a child, a kid who's not a liberal when they're a person who's not a liberal when they're in their teens doesn't have a heart but who is not a conservative when they get older doesn't have a brain like we're growing like that so maybe maybe the same way we we and i'll give you one more beautiful model ben like if you look at cities that were built in the dark ages you know we can often tell who runs this runs the power system by the tallest buildings in the city square it used to be the castle the king was had the power then the church had the power. And then the financial tower had the power.

Those are the three biggest buildings. And if you go to, if you go to Salt Lake City, Utah, you can see all three of those things. And so maybe what we're seeing is the evolution of business into the power structure and simultaneously seeing it fall and this new thing evolve. It's like those,

it's like those Bushka doll, those Russian dolls where you just keep taking that thing out and there's one smaller and smaller in there. But yeah, I see this as the last step in the business. model as an authoritarian structure. Hey, we can run it better than everybody for a while. Of course. When you start something new, the ideas are fresh, and you can run it better for a while. But as soon as that instrument becomes institutionalized, and it already has, there's already

too much chaos. There's already too many hands in the pie. There's already too much corruption. It's going to fall. But that brings us to the idea, the law of unintended consequences. And the people that put this creative destruction out there for everybody are the people that plowing the fields for the new ideas to grow. I see it happening like that. And I can't think of a better, and I mean this with all respect, like the Lahaina model is going to be the model for all of us to plant our seeds in. You know, the soil, while toxic right now, will give way to a fertile ground for ideas to grow it.

I think that's well said. And I think it's, I think that's definitely the evolution that we're currently a part of. And I think as more of these things continue to kind of unravel as the fractures in the system become, you know, so apparent that you can't not see it. We end up in a situation where you're going to have those natural leaders, the good ideas that are going to compete in the marketplace and they're going to win. And they're going to win because they're going to be better ideas. They're going to be more agile. They're going to be more elegant. They're going to be more sustainable.

They're going to take into account the multiplicity of human experience as opposed to the pursuit of the almighty dollar. And so, yeah, I think, you know, we're in unprecedented times, in a sense. But I think, you know, again, to what you said, I think this is something that's been pretty cyclical through history as well. You have the evolution of power structures. And I think we're just at the precipice between the evolution of one power structure into another. And I think with the advent of all of this technology, exists an unparalleled opportunity for us to change the world in a very real and powerful way. Yeah, I love it. And that is beautiful.

And I see it everywhere, Ben. I recently spoke with some people. I think they have a the Moxha journeys I think that they have a spot in Colorado I know they have one in Oregon but let's just take for a moment the way in which our society has dealt

with addiction for the last 60 years we have used the we have tried to treat addiction with addiction which is so silly to me like oh you're addicted take this pill they have to take forever

or we give them these unrealistic expectations of like, okay, you're addicted, you can never do it again. Like, as soon as you tell someone, they can never do something again, what do they want to do? They want to do it again. As soon as you tell them that. And on some levels, I think that the societal ills, be it addiction, anorexia, all these societal problems that we have seen are not a problem of an individual, that are a problem of our society. And the way we... Right, right. But is that a fact.

Fair statement? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's, you know, just because of, and I don't think there's some sort of grand plot to the whole thing, but just because of how society has evolved, you know, we've taken away the communal structure of society. Yeah. Destroyed the family unit. And in the pursuit of profit, we have found ourselves, you know, at a loss for the individual. It becomes, you know, people can't even see themselves, you know, owning any sort of land or property or having a house. Whereas opposed to 50, 60, 70 years ago, that was the status quo, right? And, you know, just the evolution of society has brought us into a position where, you know, these things have become untenable. And, you know, I think there's great opportunity in that. And I think that's where we're going to see real change in these parallel economies rise very fast. Yeah.

It's amazing to me to see the outward manifestation of anger in the human condition. You know, and it started with the Arab Spring. And then you saw the yellow vest. And then you saw Italy. And, you know, we can talk about all these things that have had. happened since the Arab Spring. But what I think you're seeing is a manifestation of anger in the human condition bubbling to the top everywhere. Look at all the strikes that are happening in the United States. Like, they're not covering them, but people are fed up. Like, people don't want to do

this anymore. And if I was the people in power, I would be shitting my pants because it doesn't seem like we're that far from a Robespirian moment. And I think people understand that. And They're desperately trying to get out of the way and point fingers and on some level. And cash in. And cash in. Like, why not, right? And then that just leads to a faster chain of corruption. Like, okay, these people all hate us.

They want us to die. Let's just take their money. Screw them. Let's who care? Let's kill them all. Who cares? They want to kill us. Let's kill all them.

I know that's kind of conspiratorial. But it doesn't, it doesn't, it just seems like there's this outward manifestation of anger that's bubbling to the top. And if I try to have empathy for the people that are trying to control it, I get it. Like, first off, the bravado you have to think you can control something like that. On some level, I guess it comes from good intentions, right? Like, I care about people. I want to help.

I don't know. What do you think? I mean, you know, it's hard to see the good intentions through, you know, through a lot of these, a lot of these different structures. Yeah. No, but I think any student of history has seen this kind of play out, you know, over and over. You know, you get a corrupt power. structure, you know, whether that be aristocrats or kings or what, what have you. And eventually

the suffering of the people in mass becomes so, you know, so readily apparent in day-to-day lives that, you know, a change is forced. And it's usually in that change is forced, usually by cutting the head off of the snake, historically speaking, right? And I think, you know, And then usually when that happens, you also see, you know, grand overreach in terms of violence, in terms of regulation, in terms of, you know, trying to control things because that's the only, that's the only learned response that those power structures have. And the only option left available to them at some level of that game being played out. So if I put on my Machiavellian hat and I think about the devil's chess board or the great game, and I look at Maui from a purely speculative point. This is just me speculating.

Can I say that enough? I'm speculating here. So like all wealthy areas, there's families that run them. And I think it would help people understand the world better if you understand you're run by a crime family. Just think about your favorite Martin Scorsese film, and that's your country, that's your state, that's your town. You're run by crime families.

and power is what runs those families power and fear and so that's obvious when you come to Hawaii like it's obvious when you go into any town like there's spots you don't go because of what you look like and it doesn't matter if you're white you're black you're Mexican there's some spots that certain races don't go to because you don't belong it has nothing to do with with with with I don't know maybe it has a lot to do with with racism stuff like that but anyways there's places you don't go so when I look at Maui

I see an infrastructure that was built there a long time ago. There's people that own that land that's belonged to them. And in some ways, they still have the word chief in their name, chief of police, chief of the firefighter. There's all these chiefs around, which in a weird sort of way brings us back to this idea of language. Like the more things change, the more they stay the same. Okay, so think about that. These chiefs, they run that they own the land. They own the liquor.

They own everything. it's a crime family and I'm not trying to use that as a pejorative I'm just saying the chiefs have all the power there's organized crime and it's probably a good thing that they're organized

so there's this organized organized crime syndicate there then a new system comes in and they go we want to we're going to take you guys over it's a hostile takeover well that crime family says fuck you you ain't taking us over we'll kill you and they make some moves right

okay you can all how about this how about you know you want to take our stuff over how about we're partners how about you invest hundreds of million dollars in our city and then we'll work together and the big boys say okay that sounds like a good idea but then the chiefs take their money and they say fuck you get out of here well i got news for people when when you when you think you're burning them they're burning you and if you're a multi-millionaire who's been in one town for 100 years or 400 years and an entity comes has been around for a thousand years

and as a billionaire, you don't stand a chance. You don't stand a chance. Let me tell you this. What happened in Maui was United Fruit Company. Think about that. I just want people to understand the relevance of that. What you saw in Maui was United Fruit Company.

They brought all the chiefs over to Honolulu. Okay, boys, come on over here for this meeting. Oh, is that your kids dying? Oh, well, son of a bitch. Look at that. Those are all your people dying over there. Remember that money you stole from us? Got you.

We got you back, man. That's a good one, right? Like, what you saw there was the implementation of raw power. And on some level, there's no, like, both parties are guilty. Here's this old crime family that thought they could take out this giant monolith that is crime. And they got crushed. They got destroyed. They got sent back with their tails between their legs.

Like, you guys don't know shit. You work for us. This city's going in here, and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. End of discussion. We'll kill your family. Boom. You know, and when, like, again, I'm just speculating here. But when you start looking at what's happening there,

when you see the corruption that happened between all the chiefs, Hiko, all that there, they're made to look so horrible. And I'm not saying that they deserve all of that. horribleness of the beginning. But the picture that is emerging is that they are incredibly inept. They're ridiculous. They're foolish. They burn their families. They kill their children. Like that is the story that's emerging. And I could see like, I don't know, on some level, I could see a mastermind in the, on a small island somewhere, just watching this play out in the four seasons. Like, God, these guys are so down. I crushed them every time. Just pat himself on the back.

Like, the city's going in right there. you like it or not. Now I know that was kind of way out there, Ben, but that was my speculative hat. And if you need more information, like, why do we have these, why do we have these contracts for a desalination plant, a nuclear plant going into the Maui? Like, how long has that been in the works? Why are they coming from Israel over here? Like, you know, like, there's just way too many things happening in order for it to not on some level have been planned out in the way. I'll probably going to get myself in trouble with this little ramp. But that's what I see happening, man.

That's what I see happening. Well, you know, we don't have to look too far in the history to see that same exact scenario play out. In fact, we don't even have to look in history itself. You know, we can look at the cartels down in Mexico. You know, the rise of the cartels. They came in. They made their money.

And then they just started buying up the old industry. which were the old cartels. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so we have examples of this playing out in real time across the world. And that's just on this side of the world, let alone if you go to the other side. So, yeah, I mean, there's historical precedent for things like this. And, you know, there is documented evidence of very powerful families and organizations.

You know, I mean, one of the most readily apparent, one of the Catholic Church, you know, there's a lot of documentation on how they played this game, right? And they incorporated this exact model for thousands of views at this point, or a thousand plus years anyway. So, you know, it's, I don't, it is speculative, of course, but I don't think it takes some grand imagination to see that there are, you know, pieces on the on the game board that play this game at a very different level. a multi-generational level.

And, you know, and I think there's plenty of evidence to support that, you know, the way that they play that game is usually not in the best interest of, you know, just a common person, common individual out there. In fact, there are nothing more than an afterthought, if anything. So, you know, while it is speculative, and I don't think we'll ever be able to know. Right. You know, you know, we're never going to be able to. sit at that table and smoke the cigar and sip the whiskey and hear the tail. But yeah, I mean,

you can't look at something like this. And so the one that struck me is, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not super up to date on the high end itself. But a lot of that was declared a historic district, correct? And so in order for any sort of building to happen, that had to be removed. Well, how do you remove a historic district by the laws in the United States really? can't. But if it doesn't exist anymore, those laws don't apply. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, one and one often equals two in my experience. Yeah. And how can you tear down buildings with asbestos without getting like an EPA exemption and, you know, you have to do an environmental impact study and like, and what about all the pipes that are corroded down there? You know what

a nightmare that's going to be to take all that kind of garbage out of there? They just burn it it fucking down. Just fuck it over. You know what I mean? Like, I have. It's not going to be pretty, but it'll be best what comes out of it. And it's when you say, when you speak to the idea of, will there be any consideration for the local people? Isn't it interesting that the Hawaiian homelands only had two houses burn in that entire, like, infrastructure? Like, hmm, they, you know, I just, it's, you could say it is the spirit of Maui protecting the people.

You could say that. You know, I, I would like to. believe that. But when we look at this idea of creative destruction, it seems so far-fetched to us in the West because we live in a rich Western country, which you alluded to it earlier. Just look at what the United States has done or look at what giant multinational corporations have done or colonial powers. Pick your poison. Look at what we've done throughout the world since the beginning of time. We've colonized it. So it just seems foreign to us when the colonization machine comes back to where we are.

So whether it's this creative destruction in Hawaii, whether it is the opium dens in the Midwest that we have now, you know, it's, it seems atrocious when it happens to you. But these things have been happening to everybody for a long time. Sure. I mean, you know, one of the most egregious out there, which is the Nestle company. Oh, man. Oh, boy. I mean, the amount of suffering that they have individually caused as a single organization is untold.

I mean, you know, emptying out reservoirs for, you know, where hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people downstream can no longer sufficiently live on the land. You know, let alone environmental impacts and all of these other things. And, you know, they're not alone in this kind of, this colonization of the world. an industrial perspective. And I think, yeah, and I think a lot of this is coming to the point where because now it is coming back home to all of these, you know, quote unquote rich Western countries and other rich parts of the world too, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost. And now people can see them for what they are or beginning to see them for what they are.

disaster capitalism real estate acquisition it's everywhere it's profitable eminent domain it's profit like you know it it blows my mind to think that there are people asking the question why wouldn't you do it that's so crazy right it's super profitable why wouldn't you do it well and that and that's wrong well and you know that's the thing it's like you know sitting around that table having that conversation you know that conversation's being had you know is why not why not do it you know if if the if the goal of the capitalist world is profit then this is how you get some profit folks so let's go ahead and do this you know consequences be damned we have patzies let's you want to let's have this conversation let's pretend like we're sitting around that

table but you want to steal man this conversation Let's steal man the idea of disaster capitalism. Can we do that? Can we try? We can try. It's going to hurt my soul, I think. Okay. Okay.

For everybody watching, we're just, we are pretending to be the masters of the universe. And we're going to steal man this thing. So join in the comments with us. Okay, Ben, listen, it's not, I'm not saying what we're doing is right. Okay. I'm not saying that. But I think in the long run, for the greater good, we're going to create more opportunities for the next generation. What we have done now is we've already stolen from the youth.

There's no way a kid today is going to be able to amass what I have amass. And it's not right. And I'm not saying I'm innocent. But I think the best things that we can, some of the things that we can do is the only way to create this infrastructure is to burn it down. There's going to be a lot of people that die. But, I mean, am I getting my point across to you, Ben, like it has to be done? This is the only way to do it. I don't know if I could steal me in this trip.

No, I mean, that's a good, that's a good take. But I would say, you know, I think it's, I think that's almost a superficial take of it. I think it would be more along the lines of, hey, look, if we do this, this is going to equate to this much more revenue for us. Well, and then somebody would say, well, what about all the people? and said, what about all the people? I think that's a little bit more true to how that would kind of go, man. I think you're right. It's nice to think that those decisions are made under some sort of premise of right and wrong of morality of ethics.

But I don't think that they have that foundation of morality and ethics to really, we'll call it, hampering their decisions and sort of steal many. Yeah. See, I can't even get that. there. Like, I can't even begin to come off that angle unless I begin with that premise of like, okay, this is the things I would already begin rationalizing on some level. But you know, if I do look at the model of Nestle, I recently saw a quick, you know, a quick documentary, like maybe 15, 20 minutes. And they spoke about Nestle going into Pakistan and taking the water from a small reservoir, bottling it in like horrible plastic and then selling it back. And

to all the people. And it's mind-blowing to me to think that that sort of devastation on some level gets translated into a 1% profit margin or an increase in, you know, an increase in margin somewhere. Like that's so, that's the reason why there's so much pain in this world is that we have stripped the humanity out of all of our business. We've traded imagination for product. activity. Yeah. We've traded. Yeah. And we've traded the future of our children for profit. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, not all children, of course, because the ones who are part of that,

that, you know, those large corporations and large crime families, these syndicates, they're going to be just fine. But in, in doing that, you know, you essentially damn, you know, a hundred thousand times more children to having zero future. I mean, you know, this, you know, the stated, I think with all of the stuff that's coming down economically, I mean, just look at the inflation rate, you know, across the world. People are not going to be able to afford to live without some sort of, you know, assistance from a top-down perspective. And in that, I think, you know, you conflate that, You compound that with things like artificial intelligence now being able to replace a vast multitude of white collar jobs. Where is the money for people going to come from for them to be able to live, to own property, to build the foundation for their next future generations?

It's evaporating as fast as we're talking. And I think what's going to happen is you're going to see, and I think this is kind of more dystopian view of these smart cities, I think you're going to see out of necessity some sort of, you know, assistance program kind of handed down to the masses. And in that handing down, they're going to forego their property rights and perpetuity, their ability to have, quote-unquote, the American dream, which, you know, I think we were probably both argue is probably on its last legs or has been dead and gone for a little while. And for most people, right? And so, and so I think, you know, what we're seeing from, you know,

the rise of all of this stuff is definitely, you know, the massive chasm of divide between the halves and the half knots. And I think that's where this is all being pushed to. And I don't think it's some necessarily grand scheme. I think there are schemes within it for sure. But I think, you know, this is a consequence of how we've structured society over the past ever since industrial revolution. And unless there are solutions that don't require these smart cities and these top down controls and these nestleys and all of these things to be a part of the system, then I think we do end up in a very, a very different kind of future when we're talking in terms of humanity and people in the sense of opportunity and the sense of, you know, creativity, imagination and all of the things that

make humanity great. Yeah. You know, the wedge of division to, I think that there's wedges within wedges. And in order for the top, I don't know, I struggle to say the top 1%, because in the world, you and I would be the top 1%. You know, maybe that's not even the top 1%. Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah. It's the people that have the power and the money, they're desperately trying to find ways to divide everybody else. It's like, it's like that old game spy hunter when you have the oil slick or the smoke screen coming out the back, you know, and you're trying to get the cars from chasing you. Like, and one of the biggest smoke screens I see

is the way we look at the planet. Like for a long time, there's been this divide between, you know, global warming and climate change and all that stuff. But the truth is, everybody agrees that the, we want the planet to be better. But the people that seem to be pulling a lot of the strings on climate change

are the people that are being the worst people towards the climate. Like, you know, it used to be when I was a kid, we looked for pollution. Now we look for CO2. Now, what about all pollution, man? What about all the rivers and lakes being polluted? What about all that crap?

What about all the actual pollution? No, no, no, no. Now we're going to measure these particles, these invisible particles in the air. That's a pretty creative solution to get me and everyone else to look up here instead of over there. You know, and on some level,

I think we've all been duped there. Well, over here started to cut in the profit margins, you see. I'm back to steel manning. Yeah, totally. Yes, I've heard a good, of good showstopper for when you find yourself in a discussion with somebody who seems to be spouting talking points. You just say, yeah, well, that's company science. You know, oh, yeah, yeah, but that's company science.

You know, and it seems to stop people in their tracks and be like, oh, yeah, you're kind of right. That is company science. But it also brings up the question, what the hell is company science, man? Company science is the vaccine that we've just been to. Company science is smoking is good for you. Company science is that production, you know, that what was the sign of of,

Auschwitz, like labor equals freedom or something like that? Like, that's company science, man. Yeah, and I think it is a showstopper in most conversations. which it shouldn't be. It should actually be the, it should be the stepping stone to, okay, then I think we started to identify the real problem.

And the real, and again, back to, you know, the dog and pony show of, look over here, why I'm doing something over here, is it's kind of the nature of,

of company science, right? And, and usually if somebody's trying to distract you from what's actually happening, you know, they're probably up to something. that they don't, that is no good in the, in the grander sense of good. And, you know, so then the

question becomes, okay, so what do we do about company science? And again, this comes back to the beginning of the conversation. I think that's where you're seeing these leaders step up and meant this chaos. And, you know, sees these opportunities that are created by this company science that is, you know, clearly doesn't work. You can only distract people for so long. Yeah. You can only, you can only, you can only say that hey there's not a dumpster fire over here look at the pretty bird over here you know until the dumpster fire is so big that's you know everybody can smell yeah and and so you know i think that we're just in some very interesting times where company science is no longer going to be the solution to to continue on this this this this crazy profit-driven capitalist destruction

modeled that's been kind of, you know, at this forefront of the world for the past 70 years. Yeah. Pretty long. No, it's beautiful. It takes me down this idea, Ben, of, you know, depending on what station you're in, depending where you're born, depending on what station you're in in your life, the ideas, your nationality, the ideas of good and bad and good and evil take on radically, different meanings, right? If I was Larry Ellison and I was sitting in the four seasons on Lanai,

and I owned that, and I was one of the smartest men on the planet, I'm sure I would see the world in a way that I can't even comprehend right now. And, you know, it's easy for me to sit here and talk about all these crimes and these horrible things. And I think Nestle definitely fits that category of evil in some ways. Or, on the same. But isn't it the investors that want to have more that forces the hand of Nestle to do it? I don't thoroughly understand the way in which all of that works. I'm just saying if you were, you know, if you try to put yourself in the position of someone who's vastly more intelligent than you and has much more resources than you, does that change the way you see the world, Ben? If you can accomplish that mental exercise, would you be willing to do some crazy things to make the world better?

Well, I think, you know, this comes back to the dichotomy of good and bad, good and evil. Right. And I think, you know, those are very mischaracterized in our sense of how we look at them. Right. You know, like you kind of touched on. What's good for me isn't necessarily good for you, let alone very Allison. Right. And so good and evil are much more of a value judgment based upon one's ideals and their goals.

And so I find it helpful to look at things as additive, additive and subtractive. You know, what is, you know, what is this effort that I'm trying to do add to people? What does it take away from people? And, you know, take, or sometimes taking away isn't a terrible thing, right? You know, you have, you have, you know, we take away stuff and you create beautiful works of art with the debt space in there, right? You know, you have these beautiful sculptures. that because of things were subtracted, you know, you can walk around them and you see an elephant from one angle and you see a bird from another angle and a horse from another.

Yeah. So, you know, it's not necessarily, you know, a value judgment on one's ideals and goals, but it becomes a practical assessment of a situation of, you know, of a model and, you know, and even how to, you know, operate on an individual level in the world. So in a Larry Ellison perspective, I could see where, you know, if, you know, you're looking at a large picture of things, you can make the argument of good and bad really easy. But, you know, the argument of does it add value to the grand total of humanity versus does it take away value is much harder justification to be had? Yeah. On some level, I think the responsibility that comes with having that much power, I can't imagine.

I can't imagine having to think through the implications of what your one or two actions could do. By having a company so large that if you moved into this part of the world, there's a real cost analysis that you would have to do. Am I really bringing value to this place? And a lot of the times that answer would be no. Like the amount of value that I'm going to do in the long run is way worse than the short-term profit. And I don't understand how once you reach a certain station in life that you can just say to yourself like, well, don't you have a moral obligation once you've reached a certain stage in life to try to do good? or see it, God damn it. Then I'm back to good and bad again.

There I go, Ben, right back in a damn circle. Well, no, no, but that you elucidate a good point. And I think, you know, this goes back to the Laiyne model, the Terribley project where we're talking about. What are the underlying motivations? What's the underlying ethics of these new systems that you're putting up, these smart cities? Is it a people-for-people type system,

or is it just a regurgitation of this top-down model? where, you know, power sits with the few at the expense of the many. And do, you know, is there some sort of moral obligation that arises when you achieve this power? I don't think so. I, you know, that has to be, that's going to be an individual factor, right? You know, people can justify away good and bad because it is a relative judgment based upon values and ideals and goals. And you can even delusion yourself into thinking that, hey, I am, you know, this is for the greater good, right? But at the end of the day, you know, if there's not an honesty in that responsibility, and if they're in, and usually how, you know, if you think about society, how we've really kind of defined that responsibility, that honesty of responsibility has been through things like a constitution, you know, things for things like the manacarta.

and different documents that have kind of bound us in a similar ideology and saying, hey, I don't have to worry about George over here coming and stealing my chickens, because we're kind of in it for this game that we both agree is how we're playing the game. And so, you know, without those types of, they're not even binding at the end of the day, right? But they are, they become binding in the sense of if you're building a community, or even if you're building a company. And without that kind of foundational ethic and moral backbone, I think it's just, it's really left up to, you know,

somebody's feelings and opinions, which those typically are what other people's feelings and opinions are. A republic, if you can keep it. Yeah, it's, I think it does come back to this idea of, shared goals and shared sacrifice. And, you know, if I look at my own history as someone who was a shop steward for a long time at UPS, you know, there were times where I would spend crafting an argument to help someone who was wrong only to have that person tell me, like, I don't want to go through with this

anymore because I'm afraid to lose my job. Or I don't want to go through this anymore because I've already worked it out. And on some level for me, when you get personally involved, you think, you think that's a lot of like, man, I just spent like three days away from my family trying to help you come up with solution that I think will work and I think you should fight it because if you don't fight, it's going to happen to more people. And after you go through that a few times, you get, you know, you get a little disheartened. And at some point in time, I could see how that disheartened feeling could find its way

into a sort of rebellious sort of vigilante. You know what I mean? Like, well, if they're not going to do it, then I will. And I'll be the sacrificial. Yeah, yeah. And that callousness could turn into a weapon that could be wielded against innocent people. And it's, you can see the pain everywhere, man.

And maybe that's the one thing that binds us. And maybe that's the law of unintended consequences when devastation happens is that new abilities arise and it would only arise if there was this destruction. Whether it's done purposeful or whether it's a traumatic event or whether it's an act of God, I really think that people should be looking to find opportunities in difficult times and tragedies

because that's when the playing field is leveled and that's when you have an opportunity the same as everybody else. Yeah, well said. You know, and I think it's something that until those moments arise, you know, it's much easier to kind of, you know, just like the people who choose not to fight with it. It's just so much more simple to go with the status quo. Because if I go with the status quo, I know what's going to, I know what the outcome is. If I go against the status quo, it's an uncertainty. And it's that fear of the unknown. And in that fear of the unknown, that's where, you know, that's where a lot of people fracture and turn around and go back and, you know, retreat.

And but it's in those moments of calamity of chaos where the fear of the unknown, you know, is on equal footing with the, you know, the status quo. And that's where I think true opportunity really arises. That brings up, that's fascinating. I'm glad you said it that way. And as you're speaking, I began thinking about this idea of uncertainty. And the relationship between uncertainty and dreaming. You know, when you go to sleep at night and you have a dream, you have no idea what's going to happen. Sometimes you have a nightmare. Sometimes you have a dream that you're floating down a chocolate river on a giant piece of LSD eating mushrooms, you know?

It's quite the dream, Joe. Hey, you dare to dream, right? But it's this idea of uncertainty that is in the dream. and it would make sense if we can agree that dreams are uncertain, then I think we would also have to agree that if you want to live the dream, you have to be comfortable with uncertainty. And it may mean taking these wild twists and turns down to the demon under your bed, but it also may lead to the fluffy rainbow on top of the cloud playing the heart.

And it's it is times like these where people either begin to embrace uncertainty or they fall back and wait until they find a time where they feel more comfortable. And maybe those people aren't ready to embrace uncertainty right there. But maybe you can speak to the idea of fulfillment and uncertainty. And how do you navigate those waters, Ben? Well, I've always been a bit of a risk taker. And I think that it's part and parcel to the entrepreneurial kind of traction. You know, the first failure is the scariest. The second failure is almost as bad, but by the time

you're in failure four or five, it's kind of old hat. And, you know, so, you know, it's not a, it's not a novel quote, but embracing the embracement of failure of, you know, understanding that in that uncertainty, you may stumble, you may fall. But that's not the end of it. It's when you pick yourself back up, when you take the next step, that's what determines your outcome. And understanding that is a learned experience for me. And I think it probably almost has to be a learned experience for an individual. But it's through that that we, you know, these are the concepts of bravery. These are the concepts of courage.

These are the concepts that have shaped the foundations of the world that allow us to sit here and have this conversation. And the more that people can embrace that failure, embrace that uncertainty, the more they learn how to pick themselves back up and take the next step. Yeah, it's almost as if when you begin to embrace uncertainty, you become certain in who you are,

or you begin to feel certain in who you are. That's what radiated out. That is the hero's journey in so many ways. or the realization of a dream. Maybe that's the realization of a dream is embracing uncertainty. There's a lot in there, you know, and it's interesting that we can get that all

from a little high in a model. Indeed, George, indeed. Indeed, my friend. Ben, I love talking to you, my friend. We have to do this way more often. I feel like it's too long of a break that we have had. And I really enjoy the conversation, and I really enjoy what you got going on.

And that brings me to the idea of the new book, man. When is that coming out? Put me under the... Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So I can say that it's mostly written in various different documents and whatnot. Yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, the idea initially was to write them all three very concurrently,

because I had the idea flushed out. But, you know, in taking that pause and, you know, going down different paths and different rabbit holes of life and, you know, different experiences, I think it's rounding out the next book in a much different light than I originally envisioned it. So that's a long bullshit answer to basically say, I have no idea. I love it, man. I love it. That's that's a great answer.

Yeah, it's such a fascinating time. And I'm, I think people should definitely, do you still have the offer where you're, if people will read, if people will write to you about the book? Or do you still have an offer for your book for the, for the first book? Maybe you can tell all my listeners about that. Yeah, if somebody wants to provide me a review, I'll provide you a free book.

Now we're talking, man. Now we're talking. And I can tell you that the infographics alone in your book, are worth the review. They're worth the read. They're worth picking it up on Amazon. Because it's, remember the first time I saw it. I was like, what?

I've never seen this sort of imagery put together with these kind of words. And it really made sense to me. It's no absolutes. It's a podcast. It's a book. It's a way of life. And then I'm stoked to talking, my friend. Before I let you go, what do you have coming up?

Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yeah, people could always find me at Benjamin C.George.com. have a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of secret projects in the works. But, yeah, the Tara Libre project is picking up some momentum and some steam. So there'll be, you know, more releases for that, hopefully here in the next few months. And yeah, excited, always about the opportunities that are being made available in the world. I mean, you know, being able to have conversations like this, you know, just on a personal level.

It was fantastic for me. And I think it's through conversations like this and, you know, people discussing things like this that we as a whole actually get to envision some real change and, you know, pick ourselves up and take that next step forward in the world. Man, that's really well said. Ladies and gentlemen, Benjamin C. George, check them out. We'll be back. I'm sure way sooner than we were before. That's all we got for today. Hang on a sec, bam.

I'm going to hang out with our audience, but I still want to talk to you for a little bit afterwards. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this show. go check out Benjamin C. George Aloha.