0:00 It's like our soft footfalls. It seems to do a good job, like positionally. So, like, you know, if it's like a little bit closer to me. And, you know, Sean is like, I don't know what the decibel rating is, but it's like, if he's like one arm's length. Yeah. If he's like one arm's length or 1 or 2 arm's length away, it seems like the perfect balance.

0:18 So that's what we do. And when we're not in the studio, when we're walking around, like, I'll hold it in my hand away from him. And no, no, it's like perfectly balanced. Yeah. We used to do where we'd each hold it and we figure out which one was good. And suddenly you were way louder than he was. Yeah, yeah.

0:36 Believe it. Yeah. And then we have two of them. Yeah. So we were trying to two audio tracks, and then one would just be blasting. I would sound like I'm in a cave 100 miles away. And then the other one would just be balanced. Sean's at a broken drive through. I think he ran some jackhammer. Yeah. I mean, I really do think that the Adobe processing algorithm thinks that I am a jackhammer.

1:02 Yeah. Yes. For eyes. Yep. Yep. So we're talking today about propaganda, and I printed out a definition of propaganda for Marion Webster. And the top definition is ideas, facts or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage the the opposing cause. And I like the second part. That's really treating right. So like propaganda, if it's used to damage someone else's cause.

1:24 Indirectly bolstering your cause because you damage your enemy. Right. And so propaganda is nothing new to humanity. I think probably Grimlock. And is that the name we use of the cable? Yeah, yeah. Grimlock in the cave. I'm sure Grimlock and John. Yeah. Grimlock and John are. Because those are two cave names. And so we came with this idea when we were talking about just, you know, splendor and wonder and all that kind of stuff.

1:52 We use that metaphor of two different, distinct personalities in caves, but I'm sure that the original caveman, you know, Grimlock had written some propaganda at some point. You know, like John, John, John has a stinky but or something or, you know, he performed a public action having such an effect. Yeah. I was like, yeah, you know, wrote on the cave wall a picture of John.

2:13 Stinky ass. Yeah. With one. Right. It wouldn't be writing. It would be surely a picture. Yeah. Yeah. It's like John with a poop or something. Yeah. Anyway, so, Sean had mentioned previously at a podcast, Graffiti in Pompeii. And I was listening the other day to one of her back episodes and, this idea of graffiti and marks and ideas just everywhere is the functional today of billboards and, you know, the canvasing that we have.

2:41 And so, propaganda I think has always been with humanity or to some form who gave me a clicky pen. Yeah. Just inside, in, in some form. We've had propaganda, I think, all through all of human history. However, in 2026, I think that, we have layers of new dynamics, of propaganda blossoming all around us. Blossoming probably too kind of a word, festering all around.

3:09 Much better. And, so we have lots of cover today, and, Lindsay was talking about we're here with Lindsay and, her husband, Quinn, and, of course, Sean and I. My emotional support husband came with me emotionally support. And, so we prepared a whole bunch of stuff. But, we'll start with Lindsay telling us a story about something that she encountered with her brother.

3:31 Or was it your brother? It was my brother. Yeah. Arguing about contemporary topics on Facebook and something unique happened. Go ahead. Yeah. So he decided that he was going to post and let everybody know, that he has bested ChatGPT. Now, that was, I think, my favorite part about it. He really he really felt like he bested it.

3:54 He asked ChatGPT if he thought if if the bot thought that, it could be biased because there's so many left wing sources and there's not as many right wing sources, even though that's kind of not true, because there is an abundance of right wing sources. And where you go, you can find these right wing sources there popping up all over the place.

4:17 And by left wing sources, he's talking about mainstream media and also independent media, which is he's talking about the fact checked media. Right? So, I mean, that's something we can trace the cord back to the wall. We can verify. And so he asks it like a series of questions and he's like, don't you think you could have a biased opinion on this because of the difference in left wing versus right wing media you have access to?

4:45 And ChatGPT, of course, as as its programed to do, said, you are right, there could be a bias here because of these sources and basically repeated his answer, his question as an answer back to him. Meanwhile, I went in and I asked ChatGPT the same exact question, but from my standpoint of a more of a left wing leaning person, and it gave me the same exact answer, just tailored to me, because that is what it is there for that algorithm you personally build each time you asked a question is going to appease you.

5:20 Yes, it's it's made. And I mean, I know Quinn had something to say about this, but it's made to it's an echo chamber. It's made to glorify you, stroke your ego, keep you engaged, to monetize you, to make money. What were you were going to say something. You said something earlier about this whole thing with ChatGPT and, you know, this whole story.

5:45 Just searching for John Spot. No. You're fine. Just how, just how amazing it is that people who are as intelligent as they as they are just completely leaning into a computer based algorithm. Yes. That ultimately gives them what they're what they're wanting. Yeah. Seek and ye shall find in the digital world. Right? Correct. Well, and it's like he uses it also.

6:15 My brother, the perfect example of how he uses it is we recently got into a fight. We are no longer speaking. Oh, boy. At this moment. And so there was a lot of just issues and to late to some meetup, he was taking everything I was saying to him, putting it in ChatGPT and formulating his responses back to eat for that.

6:37 So saying ChatGPT are you against? Yes. So I was arguing. You are? He was arguing me. And so he's taking out I'm trying to hit him on like a social emotional level. Like this is what's happening and this is what we need to fix. Like, hey, he not really mad that I said something about him. Well, argument of morality versus legality, right.

7:01 Talked about. Right. So he's like he's putting on these. I'm getting I'm getting personalized algorithm ChatGPT responses. Meanwhile, I'm coming at him from a socio emotional standpoint. They're right. And it's just it's making him further into the hole that I'm right. You're wrong, I'm right, you're wrong. I'm a c ChatGPT selling the I'm right and you're wrong. But I've had I put our entire argument in there.

7:25 ChatGPT for me would have come back and been like, oh, wow. Yeah. No, I can see why you're like this. Why you're mad. Why this, why that? So it it just it people don't realize that this bot is catering directly to them and the algorithm they themselves have built on it. Yes. Well, I mean, that entire episode of South Park with sick of NC.

7:48 Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's that's spot on of why what was he usually hit the nail on the head. That's what what what has that always a joke at the end of the day. Yeah. But I mean just the way he round he was Randy was putting in what to jet chat GBT what he should do next. And I mean coding with, you know.

8:12 Well, I think I've mentioned here before that my brother excuse of Brian Griffin. Oh. Like he's the human version of Brian Griffin. Like he is intelligent, but he needs sources for his intelligence. It's not like a critically or freethinking intelligence, like it's he he can put the puzzle pieces together. Somebody needs to give them to it. Right? He can gather the information, but the comprehension of that information is a different story.

8:40 Yeah. Well so it makes sense that there would be a wrinkle of propaganda if we're using this definition. Right a second ago. Right. Ideas, facts, allegations spread delivery to further one's cause. Right. And so it's basically just finding the sources in Chechnya to making this stupid easy to support your cause. Exactly. It's its own little pocket propaganda machine.

9:02 Completely not fair and balanced because it's sick. Often. See, esque, you know, way nature, if you will, is going out and finding all the things on the internet that that that furthers what you're saying, and then it condenses it down, you know, to you and helps even write your argument. And then you put it back on social media.

9:20 And the only the only thing that happens is that Facebook just laughs all the way to the bank. And this tool supersedes all these other, all these other media tools we had for propaganda. I mean, the radio, newspaper, powerful engines of propaganda, like even theater plays, you know, art of any sort or of any sort. That's right.

9:44 Definition. The power to control what is seen as good or bad is a fundamental for propaganda. Boom. And so that that that's exactly what things like ChatGPT or AI or anything is doing. So you have all these artists right now that are coming out on TikTok that are making incredibly powerful songs are things like that. But then you have the majority, which is the ChatGPT and the AI powered stuff coming out, and that's that's going to overpower these actual free and critical thinking artists that are trying to put out this stuff in here.

10:15 So we have this reality and a knowledge base and a factual truth that propaganda works. If it didn't, it wouldn't existed through all of human history. So propaganda works to motivate people to do, you know, to produce certain outcomes, whatever your agenda is. Right. So further ones cause or to damage opponents cause right. By the definition. And so propaganda has been used as a tool throughout all of human history.

10:38 And human beings are vulnerable to propaganda. Absolutely. In everyday life. Sure. And so now, you know, we could probably, like, look historic lens back through history and then kind of galvanize ourself against certain forms of propaganda. The problem is these new tools that are coming online, we don't have any kind of preparation for. We just have to deal with them as they emerge.

10:59 And so now I think the human being, any given human being, is extremely even more vulnerable to propaganda than they ever have in all of human history. Absolutely. Because there's now all these incredibly sophisticated tools that even can get into psychological domains and all this kind of stuff, you know, I mean, so now it's like on hyper propaganda is now on like hyper, you know, speed.

11:20 And so what tools do we actually have to mitigate this? Well, I have a tool that a lot of my friends and family don't like, but I employ it, which is just disconnect, unplug, disconnect, disassociate, don't even listen because I, I know that I don't have the tools to survive this domain. Right. Like I will not come out intact on the other side.

11:42 I'll just be put drag on to some rabbit hole where I'm arguing with a bunch of idiots online about some bots or bots. Yeah. Or most likely boss. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for that correction. Yeah. And, Right. And now, next thing you know, you know, up 3:00 in the morning, aggravated. And my goals in my life aren't being met because I got pulled down to this rabbit hole.

12:01 And I'm just ultimately, like I just said a minute ago, I'm contributing to some major media conglomerate like Facebook or whatever platform I'm arguing on. At the end of the day, I'm generating more content and more engagement for that platform. So I'm just feeding the fucking pig, right? And I don't usually leave those conversations illuminated and nobody does.

12:22 Satisfied, right? I almost always leave those conversations aggravated and frustrated. You know, the person you're talking to isn't fucking hear the words you're saying, right? There's probably no reading comprehension on that if it is a real person. Right. And as we've gone back and forth, if it's a real person, we've probably just pushed ourselves further into our camps that we came in to begin with.

12:41 And at the end of the day, yeah, we're all either consuming or brokering or age here. I mean, it's it's really just you are in it for that bleeding edge emotional response or to try to slap somebody over the head and give that to them. Well, I've had to I have had to find like a balance within myself because I have I had the social justice autism.

13:02 Oh do I where it's like I just, I feel like really deeply when there's injustices happening. When it comes to, like, socio emotional things and stuff. And I've had to find a spot where I am because I can't just not be aware. Like, I can't ignore that it's happening. I can't unplug and just sit back and pretend like it's not happening.

13:24 I'm not capable of that because I know what's happening, right? So I can't just turn into your inner social justice. Warrior is just pining to jump into the fray. Right. But I have to find a balance of not engaging. So finding actual outlets to, productive outlets to put that social justice into, like, volunteering for, the Democrats of my county.

13:52 There we go, I. My hands. My hands don't work. So you're just stick. Do you need another pen? No, I got it. Thank you, thank you. My emotional support husband got it for me. I'm about to get him a vest. That's awesome. That's awesome. We could buy you if we can buy you one of those thunder vests like they put on pets, and then Quinn can get a break.

14:13 Yeah, well, okay. I feel like he in this contract. He probably doesn't need mandated breaks. He he probably does, because, honestly, like. And since last January, he's been, like, he's been the person I'm leaning on for this. So he's been the one hearing what I have to like. What's bothering me about what's going on is that during this Trumpian journey.

14:35 You've been the the sink the emotional thing. So you're saying I worry about is when strangers come up to me that is to me, you know, I mean especially because you're wearing the vessel as service animal. Do not touch him. Yeah. We we're getting a little bit of his do not pet Velcro sticker is still in the mail.

14:51 So I mean we're. Well, the thing is, people are going to want to pet him. It's that it's that majestic man mane that he's got. You know, they're just going to want to run their fingers through it. This is what we call him lovingly. Dad. Squatch. Oh, that's fucking beautiful. I don't like that, dad. He's got a ring to it.

15:07 Yeah. So let's say, for argument's sake, that there's this thing with knowledge is that, I guess it's like the burden of knowledge, you can call it that. I think, like maybe Thanos said to stark, you know, you're not the only one cursed with knowledge, right? Yes. Is this is that you can't ring a bell like, once you learn something?

15:24 Yeah. Once you once you become aware of something like, you know, that triggers your social justice warrior instinct as you, as you're describing, you know that that's there now. It's there in your brain, and then your brain does what it's going to do, right? You're brain is your brain. It's going to do what it does with that stuff.

15:40 And if that means getting triggered by and then feeling a need to then make 50 posts or however it's dealt with is, you know, ultimately, end of the day, you have to don't have to. But I would advise being able to zoom out and say, how is this how is this helping me in my life? Is this getting me somewhere?

15:58 Is this is this moving the needle forward for me? Right. In some capacity, right. And if it's not, if the answer to that is no, then you have to see it as like the the reality of it, which would be in this case an input comes in, a whole bunch of errata happens and then output goes out, none of which serves, none of which serves you or your family's interest.

16:17 Right? Right. So then at the ultimately, at the end of the day, whose interest got served, I think I alluded to it, you know, the the rage fading machines that are out there, these propaganda machines of the big social media conglomerates and all that. They just benefit because then you're now putting your energy into their platform. If these comments and you're working for free getting reactions, they're getting this, they're getting traffic.

16:37 So it's it's it's ultimately only good for that. Right. That giant media giant the input comes in. And then really what what happens to be fair, is that a whole bunch of free labor that occurs by you or not, you're not alone. This is like yeah, this is like, you know, majority. Well, you should say us collectively. Yeah.

16:58 Yeah. And so, the input comes in and then the, the brain is triggered, the bell is wrong if you will. Right. And then the vibration, the tuning fork then just vibrates. And all this free labor is then done. Videos post repos comments. Right. All this stuff, it's labor. It takes time and effort and energy, human labor to do that.

17:15 And then it's all unpaid labor. And the monetization of is so bald faced and simple, it's just adds like they haven't even figured out another way to do it. Do they need to? It's so early. Like anything from Google's original text ads, which were less intrusive to now these full blown multimedia fucking sprints that I have to go through?

17:40 Yeah, well, I think I think it's deeper than I think the ads are a huge component, but I think it's deeper than that. I think it's the free, unpaid labor and conjunction with the actual profiling of your psychology to then know how to target you, not just with ads. Put any potential propaganda agenda. Right. So like change a fucking election.

18:00 Yeah. Or. Right. That's how I go, right? Right. That settles that out of court for a few million bucks. They had sued them for 8 billion. So it's dude, they settled for a few hundred million. It was it was Cambridge Analytica the first time around. Then the second time around, it was just flagrant. Hey tech bros, I'll I'll give you whatever you want.

18:20 If you just tweak the algorithm for me and get me again. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah. So that's the power that ultimately we're really given that goes way beyond ad revenue. Right. So you want to talk about the ultimate propaganda machine. This propaganda machine can be now so so focused and so intense. It can go down to the individual level on how your personal algorithm is tuned for the propaganda design.

18:44 So like you're saying, you know, we want to steer the election. We want to nudge the election two percentage points in this direction because that's determinant. That's going to determine the election thousands and thousands, if not millions then of focused right, algorithmic changes just in the content you see would then cause that micro change just enough to decide for enough people on which lever they pull.

19:05 They would have pulled this lever, but now they pulled this off. You can see it between. Yeah. I mean, speaking about 2 or 3 years ago, my algorithm and thing, the videos that were popping up and that were being recommended to me and everything to now where my outlook has shifted. So the things that I've been clicking on or, or looking at, searching all of that has completely shifted.

19:33 And there's stuff from three years ago that she would send me on Facebook Messenger that, you know, I never would have come across, because that's not what my algorithm followed to. Now she sends me, you know, 30 videos in a day, and I've seen 28 of them. Right. It's just it's wild. And a difference between our algorithm. Two people who are married and live in the same home mostly hold similar like moral and ethical views.

20:04 And but our algorithms were so wildly different, like this past year, what you guys were consuming. And I mean, I've got a quote that kind of tell us with that, because I was thinking about your your journey and basically this and this is what I wanted to say about it. We all walk in the dark, and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own life.

20:26 Earl Nightingale said that, and I mean, that's what you did. You walked over and you said, you know what? Everything I'm consuming, everything I'm looking at. I don't think this is quite right. There's cracks in it. There's something else I need to look at. And you made a conscious decision, so. And it sounds good, so long as it's not moving from one, like, prepackaged thought pattern into another prepackaged thought pattern.

20:52 It has to be a critical thinking. And yeah, it has it has to be an actual like enlightenment journey, not just go from one set of saying it firsthand. I really it feels like that's what it was. It was him, like being like, wow, this is not what I believe. And I am going to formulate my own opinions based on actual evidence.

21:11 And that is fantastic. I actually have something that I wrote down that kind of relates to this. And I feel like, a lot of years of consuming the propaganda will do what it's done to the folks in the citizens that it it or in this country. And I feel like those with less empathy seem to want to convince others to be the same, while those with empathy tend to appeal to it, with no avail.

21:38 So you have people with no empathy, wanting other people to feel less empathetic, and then the people with empathy being like, why don't you feel like this? And that empathy would be really sorry to interrupt that empathy will be very much, directed towards in-group or outgroup. So like, hey, they could have extremely high empathy towards the those that they feel are in-group with them and very low empathy for those outgroup.

22:01 And that could be true for both sides. Right. And it's so and with that this separation is what underpins political differences. Hate versus love has core motivators. And more societal. The more societal divides that we struggle with throughout our species. So it's going to create like an even bigger societal divide among those people. Oh, yeah. Speaking on the Chris was talking about.

22:28 That's why you speaking on that. Yeah. That's why when you see the people that wanted the empathy for Charlie, Kurt, the selective empathy that was happening had had the feeling that they did for him and then not for René. Good. Yes. Or vice versa. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you see that. Yeah. And you see you see a huge start.

22:50 There's a stark difference with how that was handled. Like because you see people who never post anything political. Right. And all of a sudden they're posting all these things about Charlie Kirk versus people who are posting political things and they're like, oh, these school shootings are bad. We got to do this. We got to do that. We got to do this.

23:05 But they're not posting anything about that. So you're having people with these selective empathy because they look at this person who was clearly obviously Charlie Kirk. He was murdered. But like they look at him and they're like, that could have been mate. And that's what people do. But like so and on the same level I would look at René good and be like that could have been me.

23:24 But what the parallel is with that in probably a 1% chance, would you be a millionaire with a crowd of people talking about your beliefs on a stage? No. Okay. There's a there's a very small percentage, right? Whereas people like me or who are empathetic to what happened to good, there's way more of a chance that that would have been one of us.

23:51 Yes, I would have been out at that protest. I would have been doing this. I would have been doing that. So it's like it is a very clear they're like, oh, this could have been me. I could have been Charlie Kirk. I believe the same things he does. You would not have been there. No, you would not. There's a very small chance you would have been there.

24:07 You would not have been on a college campus debating 19 year olds with not fully formed opinions and brains and being a mid 30s, large teeth. Motherfuck. Right. Whereas me, a middle class leftist, would have most definitely been probably in the streets protesting like it's there parallels their drawing are are very very far fetched. And it really comes down to everybody thinks about, you know this quote is trading ever used.

24:37 But I'm going to try it out anyway. It's like everybody thinks about changing the world and those world changing impacts, but nobody thinks of changing themselves, you know. And. Right. Tolstoy said that. But, you know, and that's what it is. Everybody wants to take up the overarching cause of Charlie Kirk and say, boom. This is this is what needs to change.

24:57 And this is the world changing, impactful thing everybody wants to chase up, wants to take up the cause of Renee Good, which is in a smaller vein. But really the change has to come at our individual level, us gaining the tools to fight the propaganda and critical thinking skills which we've all taken some time to develop and flex a little bit.

25:15 Right? Yeah. Makes me want to listen to man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. Boom. Yeah, right. Like it fits exactly. Just that we all grew up with those same songs, and somehow here we are. Okay. You don't know how that happened. I think one of the biggest, one of the biggest pieces of propaganda, we as like the 90% of the population, that's like middle to lower class or impoverished have been fed is violence is never the answer.

25:40 I think that is a huge piece of propaganda that was told by those who use violence to maintain power. Yeah, and the violence isn't always overt. It's social violence. It's a financial and economic violence, psychological, psychological violence. And it's told by those who who actively use violence to maintain their power. Yep. And I feel like nothing, nothing in history has ever been done quietly.

26:09 Right. You don't you don't have that justice that liberates people or gets rid of oppression or things like that. The oppressed are not going to get ahead by staying peaceful like that. That I can't think personally. I'd have to look it up, but I can't think personally of what I know. A bloodless revolution and not a revolution. Yeah, there are plenty of cases and examples that are legitimate where the pen is mightier than the sword.

26:36 Yes, but, if we were to just enter a room randomly and I'm on one side of the room and I'm posing the person of their side, I'll take the the sword over the pen any day. So it's it's it's contextual. Right, right. When you're in the moment where, when you're at that gun point and you're getting shot through a windshield, that's, that's that's 100% real at that moment.

26:57 Like, so when you have a bell curve of what could happen in your life like to you, right? You're you're from the societal perspective. You're a data point on that grid, and you're likely to never, never encounter these things until you're on that outlier, until you find yourself that day, that moment as one of those outliers. And then it's 100%.

27:17 So that's a weird thing about statistics is that when you're in that fringe margin, it's 100% for you in your data set. And many people online, they poo poo those outlying things. They say, oh, I'll take what could never happen for 300, Alex. And, you know, now here's another thing is right, here's another aspect of that. So because we focus in on a couple examples here, like the, the good, you know, idea and whatnot.

27:43 Well so like you know, we now have access to this information on this like microscale to where we can get into this vacuum chamber. We're only seeing the outlier conditions. And then our brain makes us think those outlier is the norm because we're just that's all our exposure is. So if your exposure is always just outlying data points, right, right.

28:02 You're going to your brain. That is a form of propaganda, because it's going to make you start to believe that that is actually the norm. That's where the majority is. So people begin to embrace the idea of hyper violence from Fox News. People begin to embrace the idea of, you know, villain ized immigrants. Any any brown person I encounter is out to get me things like that.

28:21 What was that the last line of 1984 is. And so they loved Big Brother like, well, so if you're sitting there, for example, like doom scrolling TikTok and the algorithm is just giving you all this stuff about ice doing this stuff to people, right? Your, your actual perception, mind's eye, if you will, of what's happening in the country is that everywhere there's ice agents just crawling on every freaking inch of the territory all the time busting everybody and, you know, harassing everybody.

28:47 If you're in Minneapolis, this is if they ask, well, but but but it's making your brain things like this is happening everywhere. Like this is right. Let me give you a really beautiful like I heard this one time, this is ancient at this point, but I once I heard this in it and was spelled out to me, I never I saw so many things differently.

29:06 I'll share it. Right. So there was this idea of, a newscast that was trying to and it was some mainstream, you know, news and whatever. And they were talking about climate change, human induced climate change. And there was a climatologist on there that was talking about the facts that, you know, human activity is definitely affecting the climate, you know, blah, blah, blah.

29:27 And they had then sitting opposed from him, a climate Scientologist who was a denier, saying human activity is not causing. Okay. And they they did a full discussion. Right. And it seems fair. It seems honest. Right. We're here talking about whether or not climate change is human induced. But the reality is, if you zoom out and you look at really what just happened, is that overarching I idea was implanted in everyone's mind that watched that is that climate scientists are divided on what they think about the climate change.

29:57 And they also they credence to an idea that doesn't deserve it. So this person I forgot who who produced this because it was brilliant, said this is what the broadcast should have looked like. And what they showed is they showed a panel of 99 climate scientists, climate scientists on one side arguing that climate change was human induced and one lone claim, climate scientist on the other side saying it was not human induced because that would be the actual representation of climate scientists opinions about climate change.

30:30 Professional opinions. Yeah, that would give a completely different impression in people's mind about the about the debate. Right? Absolutely. So by just putting the two people side by side gives a completely false narrative about where climate scientists, climate scientists, two faced Marshall's four out of five dentists approved, you know, like it's it's got to go to kind of the same way.

30:51 Like and so there's this there's this like ultimate kind of meta of propaganda built into something like that. Because what seems like really reasonable and fair turns out to be extremely unfair, because the juxtaposition of, of what percentage of, of scientists believe this or that was never properly represented by, yeah, you know, visually in front of you. And so everyone that walks away from that is going to get an impression that climate science scientists are divided, which is exactly what the true agenda of that program, what they wanted to give that fringe idea a foothold so that people so that people would popularize it, so that people would use it as an ideological base to

31:31 fight from. And they wanted to give the uninformed a rock to throw. Yeah. So the same thing is happening in this polarized political climate that we have now in our country, is that the algorithm is pushing everyone to a polarized view, whereas in the reality is that a overwhelming majority of people really want to meet in the middle.

31:49 Yeah, the citizens of the country, when they sit down and talk fairly, not without all these things, are not as far from each other as right. The propaganda would have you think. Right? And then when you get in the ring, you're a boxer. I think a perfect example of that would be recently Bernie Sanders. He went into West Virginia, which historically was a Democratic.

32:10 They've been blue historically, because at that point in time it was the Democrats were for the unions, the workers, the coal miners, things like that. And as they got more millionaire billionaire investors, the Democrats fucked off and forgot about them. So they became red. But when Bernie went in there and he sat down with hundreds of people from West Virginia, they realized they're very similar in what they feel, you know.

32:37 So you have these like right wing Trump country people, who for like the last decade have been pushed towards the Republican side because of what the Democrats, unfortunately did by leaving them high and dry when they were originally for the unions, abandoned them, Democrats abandoned them all, abandoned everybody, abandoned them because the money wasn't there, like you said.

32:57 And they've been told. Oh, socialist is communist socialism this socialist is that. But then they actually sit down with someone like Bernie Sanders and they're like, wait a minute, I agree with you. We agree on a lot of those Appalachian ideals are really social. It is. Yes, it is that don't tread on me. It is that community. It is that like that that the Appalachia view of things is very similar to a democratic socialism?

33:24 Yes, yes. Well, so the Democrat Party has been dead to me for quite some time now, and now a Democrat, because they get the Democrats gave us Trump twice that part. Fuck them. Sorry. Sorry for the language. That's what they saying. Oh let's get him in peach. Let's get y'all ready. Did that twice. Yeah. Peach yourself. Yeah. Yep.

33:42 You got you had plenty of time to not let this happen again. And here we are. And so the Democratic Party for redemption path would be to, I think come to terms with that reality and then set an actual agenda going forward, not just cater to the ultra woke agenda and worry about pronouns and whatever. It's time to worry about human values.

34:05 Everybody, right? Like, you know, morals, morals, ethics, universal health care, you know, all these kind of platforms rather than language police and worried about. But that, of course, that's been lost a lot. That's where I think they lost. Yeah, that that's why I mean, when they gave their the ones they gave us Trump twice because they got people so frustrated with this nonsense.

34:25 Well, and unfortunately you have like the left wing people, you have liberals and who are arguing with each other. You have progressive and liberals who are arguing with each other, and then you have leftists go over here, go, and what the fuck are you all talking about? Like, we just need to get to a point where our society can thrive with education, health care, housing, food.

34:45 You know, this is what we need to have a thriving society. And then over here you got people arguing about, every other little issue that liberals and Democrats want to argue about. Now, that's not to say that the oppressed groups don't deserve the recognition they need, like with the LGBT community and things like that. But there is there's a line when we get to a point where the people are thriving and taking care of the other things will eventually come into place.

35:18 Like, indeed. So I what I've done as a result of this is I've created this thing called the ten domains. Or if I showed that with you or not, but it's it's basically like these are the things that matter for people. Yeah. That really matter. Like there's politics, there's propaganda, there's all this stuff that's coming at us a million miles an hour for 1000 different angles, right?

35:37 And okay, that's there. But then like for a moment, just for a moment, let's close the door right. And say what? What matters. Like what is what is going to cause me to to to have a good functional life where I'm healthy and happy and those around me are as well, the ones that the people that I influence, how can I get to that stage of my life where I take care of myself and and have the capacity to take care of someone else to or some other and take care of others as well.

36:02 Right? How can I get to that functional capacity of my life? And so I created this thing called the ten domains, which is basically the elephant in the room conversation is that here's where people need to focus your very own seven tenants. Yeah, sure sure sure, sure. Right. But but you know, like with with evidence, you know, not just not not just random.

36:21 And so like, you know, what's my sleep look like? For example, how's my sleep hygiene? Am I sleeping consistently every day? Am I getting normal, regular, consistent sleep because that's required to function? Because a normal person really is ideal to get about 7.5 hours, 6 to 8 somewhere in there. There. Yeah. And so when we don't do that and when you're a parent 4 to 6, 4 to 5, parenting is is a is a time in your life where that that struggles and especially we can get into new patterns where we start self-medicating to induce sleep or wake up from sleep, you know, all this kind of stuff.

36:55 And so and, you know, this leads to this leads to that's why other countries don't have that problem with the parenting because they have the parental leave, the pay leave, the childcare help, all that. So anyway, going down, right, going down these ten domains like, you know, food, diet, what what type of food do we eat in chess and what effect does it have on our body.

37:14 And so it's it's ten domains of these things to it's like the anti proclamation right. It's like sometimes if you if you focus on something like this ten domain idea and commit your mind and your time and attention to that and not to the propaganda, it helps galvanize you against some of the propaganda because your focus is elsewhere.

37:36 Right? The propaganda will pull you into never, never land with no regard for your health, no regard for your family, no regard for your internal mental health. Right. It'll it'll consume. It'll it'll literally consume you. And so we need to have some type of protection mechanisms against these, this propaganda machine in all of its forms just consuming us.

37:58 Right. And that consumer model like would live in a consumer nation. But it's, you know, in it's become now with this propaganda machine, it's become, you know, where the product and we're the ones being consumed. And we discuss this a lot. But what were you going to say? I was just going to say. With that being said, I, I think that if 99% of America sat down together in a room without the propaganda.

38:22 Yeah, you have everyone's ideals aligning with your ten domains, like everybody wants that. The problem is, the propaganda creates the divide between us, which in turn doesn't allow us to sit down. Keeps the government and the top 1% sneaking away with that giant money back. And I mean, I think that's just divide and conquer. That's the reality, right?

38:49 100%. Yeah. The versus down idea. You know, they are absconding with all of our shit. They're walking away like the Grinch with all of our stuff. Well, it's the same from ants or A Bug's Life. Oh yeah. With the one grain that hits, hits the grasshopper and the second grain. And he's like, did that hurt? Yeah, he's actually feel that and then rips the whole time down.

39:10 Yeah. Just they outnumber us 100 to 1. Right. They will overrun it if one ant stands up. It's not a big deal. Yeah. But if they all stand up, there's there's indomitable, right? Yes. So the elephant in the room or the ultimate kind of, pull away right out all the way, fully zoom out. And what you see is you see wealth inequality decimating us.

39:34 Like, and then the the propaganda machine is just all this almost endless divide and conquer keep people divided and arguing on all these micro issues that they can do nothing about, have no say or pull over. But they sure can. Social justice warrior themselves every day in and day out and burn themselves from both ends, right? And they're not then standing up against and confirm I feel burnt out is fucked.

39:57 Yeah, yeah. And then. But you know. And so. So how much, how much time and attention are you paying to wealth inequality, for example, which is like one of the biggest if not the biggest real. That's my biggest issue. Existential. Yeah. That's our existential issue, right. Yeah. The our biggest existential crisis right now is wealth inequality. Absolutely. It's it's threatening.

40:17 The analogy is like if you have a baseball bat and you have like a 100 pound weight balance on the top of that baseball bat, and you get it balanced just perfectly right the slightest, then tap sends the whole thing down and sends it crashing down hard. Right. And so that's what top heavy wealth inequality does, is that you put the society under so much pressure, you make it so top heavy that it's right to to just topple and topple fast and topple hard, you know, you see what I'm saying?

40:47 And so that's the existential crisis we're actually facing. History shows us every time when you have dramatic wealth inequality, it's just it's a ticking time bomb. Well, you have the ultra rich blaming the lower class. Yes. And scaring the middle upper to upper class that they're coming to take your money when that's they're wanting the billionaires that shouldn't exist.

41:12 Yes. Well, that's one of the biggest part of the billionaires the wealthy class has put out is pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Right? But the boot is on your neck. Exactly. The boots on your neck. And typically your billionaires didn't bowl themselves on. No, no, no, no. But they tell everybody else it's correct. It's the myth of the lone inventor.

41:31 It's the myth of the lone genius. It's the it's that we have accepted that they're somehow better than us because they have money and resources. What was it? Dodgeball. Where Ben Stiller character. Yes. I built this all by myself. And a large a trust fund. Trust fund from my father didn't have it. And it comes down to that, you know, Trump, he would be wealthier than he is right now.

41:58 Or at least before he went into the presidency a year ago. He'd be wealthier than he was then. If he had just taken the 140 million that his dad gave him and invested it in modest investments, probably just left it in the count to grow. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to have you been so desensitized as a country. Not even from the large like, political propaganda.

42:18 We are fed propaganda in everything, in advertisements. Something as simple as, like from, like the 1950s to the 1990s, cleaning products were only marketed to women. Tools and things were only marketed to men, you know. So you have like these little propaganda that we've been desensitized to with all of our lives for decades. And so we when we actually come across political propaganda.

42:45 Yeah. We have no idea what it is. Well, not me, I see it. So, you know, I've never received any I, I'm one of the most educated people as far as, like taking so many classes and I've, I've been committed to lifelong education. I mean, it's part of who I became in my life now to two year old Lauren, but two.

43:03 Two. No, no, I mean, just numerically. I've just taken so many different classes and, you know, since so much time in formal education settings and then I've done stuff on my own, there's like, you know, I had that no social program, which is still running and all that, but it's like we're we're thinking as many college classes that they offer for free online.

43:20 Those are my favorite. Yeah. That and you know, I've done all this kind of stuff for I believe in lifelong learning, and I've never yet to take a class or have been offered a class to give me genuine tools to face the propaganda machine. And that's what he says, come, where the hell is that class? They don't want you to.

43:37 Exactly. Exactly. They don't want you to. And I mean, we've been talking about it for years. It's incumbent upon ourselves to either make some tools that people can use or really talk about. How the hell do you resist this? They did. ChatGPT. Hey, down. So that's it's a double edged sword. It can be used to us and elevate us.

44:00 Well, let's we'll we'll somebody should be we should be trained on how to use that tool to elevate us. Right. Yeah. And so what I'm saying is that perhaps the reason that this class doesn't exist and why it's not offered or, you know, maybe it is. It's just really hard to find or whatever. They're not they're not abundant.

44:15 They're not all over the place. And it's not one of the primary topics is because of how freaking expansive the topic is and how nebulous the topic is. It's really not really easy to discretely define all the different measures of propaganda that are bestowed upon us. It's coming at us of all types of ways that I think I've been.

44:32 90% of them are completely invisible to us that we're not even aware of, from marketing, from marketing and advertising, all the way up, all the way up to two Bubble Dome and Kick ass. Oh, let it go. They live, they live, they live. It's like the perfect example of propaganda, of propaganda and how it affects us. Like we all put on the glasses.

44:51 We're going to be like, what the fuck? And now we finally see it for what it is, right? So you know, further ones cause to deliberate deliberately and further one's cause can even be from a marketing perspective, how do I increase my sales? Well, so like a Happy Meal which delivers no happiness whatsoever, right? Deliver it delivers like a pattern of of poor eating habits and, you know, artificial chemicals.

45:14 And it's just a chemical shift. Retired to make dinner. Yeah. So it's something that no one should be putting in their body, right? Right. But like every child on the planet has a perception that is experienced. It has a perception this is something good. Well, they get a toy. Yeah. Exactly. Right here. What are your points? Emotional manipulation techniques with use of modern propaganda.

45:31 Exactly. Emotional vulnerabilities by triggering fear, anger, anxiety. And you're eventually going to those those things right there that are that are fostered by your Magdala are going to automatically make you look a certain way. It's going to take all the things you already feel and amplify everything. Yep. So you'll have a commercial, for example, that, you know, is like maybe funny.

45:51 Something quirky or funny happens in the commercial that's not related to the product in any way, but you associated with that. But then that just emotional, you know, Bell that gets wrong, that murder call it that left starts to associativity, merge this humor and happiness within that product, which is exactly what they're trying to do. So over time, they create an identity for this brand, that there's value there that isn't there, which is a derivative of property, which is a form of propaganda.

46:17 Right? It's the further their cause of selling their product. Joe Camel with cigarettes. Yeah. Or they would for sexy commercial with the hot lady and this that and the other that Audi. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like party parties. Cheeseburger trick. But. Yeah. Right, right. And or even the more subtle things like the ice, the hot ice cream scoop going through the ice cream.

46:39 And, you know, subliminally, there's a lady right there, there's a sexy, curvaceous lady. Yeah. You know, so somehow they figured out how to make Doritos sexy. Like, how does that even happen with the licking of the lips? Yeah, like pinch or the fingers. Do you ever see the grocery store commercial where the girl, like, takes the really delicious Greek yogurt or something, and the guy walks up and she's like, just sucking it out, and he's like, she's gaping at it.

47:05 But you got to me sexy. Like, what is this? Make your sex. Make yogurt sexy again. Beat that on it. So, so, the something here in my notes is this radicalization pipeline. So like this, we just we talked about this this polarizing. Right. And the way I've described it is my children, like, in a way I think they can understand is that society has for them all these trappings.

47:34 And I use the word bear trap because it's, it's a, it's a kind of scary metaphor, right? Metaphor and step in it and chink these like, really sharp triangular, you know, teeth latch into your leg and it's got, you know, right. And so there's all these trappings. So there's, you know, psychoactive chemicals, there's this propaganda machine, there's all these, there's all this like, bullshit out there waiting.

47:53 We talked about like, the Klan. We joked about that earlier. Having good barbecue. You're bringing people in these radicalization. What was it you're saying? Josh Johnson talking about their ribs? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was a friend. Went to the, so went to the Klan meeting and didn't realize it was a clan meeting because he ate the barbecue and the ribs were fantastic.

48:13 And then all of a sudden everybody starts putting on hoods. Then he's like, I could go for some more of those ribs. He got so hard for him. So what's best for the the hate rub on the ribs with some reason. Delicious, right? It's that extra dasher rich but not really getting said he and cinnamon. But yeah. So there's a spiritual there's an emotional component to all this stuff, right?

48:37 Like sorry. We're like having a good time and I keep like buzz killing it for some reason. But I'm not trying to do that. Well, triggers the endorphins. Yeah. There you go. There we go. So, so so this collective emotional, spiritual, spiritual, emotional effect that this propaganda has on us, I think is a numbing agent. Right? I think collectively it will it will cause us to create a psychological barrier to the societal Novocain societal boom.

49:03 There you go. And then that numbing agent, unfortunately, will then cause us to not get our embassy triggered when we need it to, and then possibly have our empathy triggered when we have some strength built back up and then it gets fizzled or focused into something that we have no control over is outside of our scope. Right? So then our empathy like kind of control or, or our proper human nature empathy then gets completely disrupted.

49:28 So like it's not available when we need it available and then over abused when, you know, ultimately. And so I think what happens to many, many people is like, we get this like paralyzed doom scrolling in your bed at 3:00 in the morning with your arm hanging off the side of the bed. Why you got to talk about being, you know, in the phone falls on the floor because you're falling asleep while you're scrolling, right?

49:48 Phone. You woken up by the phone hitting the floor. Yeah. And I mean not you at all. And you talk about you. I'm sorry. Okay, okay. If that if that, if that has happened to you, like, more than once or whatever, I think it's time to, like, take a step back. I just, I just, I think that's a I think that's a good sign.

50:05 I had to we had to have a chat and like really get into it because it was really it was really fucking with me. Like it was ruining my whole fucking day. And so like, I had to really. I'm a big reader. So I got back into like reading books and I had to I tried to read like my normal fiction fiction books and stuff, but I had to I had to delve into, like full on, like fantasy and science fiction, like a mental break.

50:29 I needed to escape reality so far, and I needed a good, just good, old fashioned good guys rise up and win and beat the bad guys. So like every night before bed, I have to turn off the TV, I have to unplug my phone, and I have to take 30 or 40 minutes to just read these simple fantasy trope books that like 100% not abnormal, though.

50:51 That's actually normal like that. We all need that collective, you know, blue light reduction. As we we did a whole entire podcast with a, with a, with a we had a guest on who was like a huge advocate for this and lives this lifestyle through there like no blue light after a certain thing, no caffeine after, you know, like all these little micro rules just to just for him to, not only want to say, function normally, but be the person he wants to be.

51:13 Yeah, yeah. Otherwise just stop the caffeine after like, 4:00. And, you know, I just I had to find ways because I will burn myself out so fast. Well, you're getting off this hamster wheel they've created for it, you know, and and like I said earlier, you can't I can't just look away. I can't pretend it's not happening. But I also had to remind myself that taking a break for my mental health is not a bad thing.

51:36 And I think that's a lot of people fail to realize it's like, okay, just because I'm unplugging for an hour to four hours to not think about it for a second doesn't mean that my empathy and care has gone up. You know, there are other people in the social justice warrior cadre with you. It's like singing in a choir.

51:54 You can take a break for a second of the sunshine, you know? But you were going to say something. Oh, I was just gonna expound on or expand its. Found it out of the day. Found it out there is fine to expand it. We're open to foundation. Yeah. Just like Lindsay came across a TikTok. And it was a woman basically speaking about what she's scrolling through and she's like, oh, I scrolled through a video and there's someone shooting a woman in Minnesota.

52:27 Oh, look, now we're talking about blankets and oh, this one's about dinosaurs. And, oh, now there's riots in Minnesota. And here's an ad for a kitchen gadget. But I suddenly want, for some reason. And then just as she scroll. And that's the whole desensitization, idea on on all of that. Yeah. It's just. Yeah. We go. My husband felt that.

52:51 Click right. That's it. Then we go from riots and murders in the street to look at this. But but here's the thing. Now, now I say, now watch this. Now watch this ad. Here's my personal idea to tie this together. I mean, that was Bush Bush degree angle. That's it's funny, but that was just it was all this war, you know, we're on terrorism.

53:17 You know, it's on fire. And he's like, now watch this drive. So, you know, and I and I got a point to kind of draw the ChatGPT anesthetize us the, you know, the social justice warrior stuff in us. It's like to the masses, all you have to do is tell them they're elite. They've got a mission, they're making history, they're fulfilling their destiny and fighting for a better world.

53:39 And they swallow it like lands. Even when a gutter snipe says it. That's a gutter. That's a German nice propagandist spewing this. But, Yeah. And but that's it. It's it's like that's all we're doing. We're giving each of these things that we're. You're saying you need to take a break from. They're giving us a mission. They're giving us something to dedicate ourselves to.

54:02 We're really just on that hamster wheel doing nothing. Well, they're trying to burn us out, so we cannot think right. If we are burnt out, we are less likely to rethink and think critically. So we are they they just continue to pump this shit at us, and people continue to just drink it up and guzzle it down and everything like that.

54:21 And I'm guilty of it too. Like we are all guilty of doing this, but because we feel like we're doing something, we get that mental hit of I've accomplished something, but really we did nothing. But there's a percentage of people like the boon. You're engaging with the bot. Yeah, there's a percentage of people like the people in this room who are going to see these things and go, I think I'm going to look this up for myself.

54:42 And they're going to find these sources, these reputable sources, these places that you can find this information so fucking easily in the Black Mirror area you go through and you go through you, you, you hone in on one thing, right? And you fact check the shit out of it, and you go to all of your social medias and you make this like really elaborate post about the truth, and you post all your facts, all your data.

55:02 Right? You can you can go back and go over my, my trail and audit trail and see everything I did and try to dispute this. I mean, this is ironclad on college level paper. And then someone. Right, right. And then someone just posts a meme behind you, and that meme gets 5000 likes, and you're in your really two day effort of going through and vetting this thing perfectly.

55:24 No, no one even makes a comment to because everyone is so flooded. Okay? Between social media, mainstream media, government, and down generative tools. Yeah, we're just bombed with we've tried to fact check one thing. Now we got 5000 more things in the queue to fact check. Yeah, but we let but we let it in. We let it in because we just to the next thing it's, it's like an ipecac of information.

55:46 Like it just. Yeah. But not all the information is right. Exactly. Say that in the car world. Yeah. Right. So the most factual correct. The most factual. Correct TikTok that you see that someone's on there and they have like a great piece of information to share. And you take the time and you watch through the whole thing. Right.

56:04 Gets equal play time as then the next piece of garbage propaganda that comes through in your next swipe. So to discern each one of those is impossible. It's an impossible task for any human brain. It's just overwhelming because of the volume. Right. So the target about Mar-A-Lago right now, the car world contrast? Well, no, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wrap up.

56:21 Who's talking about Mar-A-Lago anymore? Not Margot Epstein files anymore. Me. Me. No no no no no no no no no. Like everyone's talking about Renee. Good now. And they're talking about me. But the end of every the beginning and end of every one of my posts, I try to say. But what about the Epstein files? Yeah, but you see what's happening on the mainstream, right?

56:39 It's it's the it's the flavor of the day. Yeah. What was that old song flavor of the week. That's that's it. So let's say that I was all fired up about the Epstein files, and I was like, yeah, yeah, let's. But, you know, it's a law now they have to release it. And I'm like, calling up my senators and I'm like really engaged and motivated and spend all my free time like, because I care.

56:57 Right. And now everyone's talking about good. You know Renee. Good or moralize. Yeah. You know and yeah. And it just it just got like the, you know, the movie Chicago or they're like, oh, there's fresh blood on the walls now. And like, you know, Roxie Hart is now, like, done like he had a gun. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's such a great story.

57:17 There's fresh blood on the wall. And so everyone just now has forgotten about the flavor of the day and the lines of this next thing. And really collectively, what it shows is we really don't care. No. We were so quickly move on to right. No offense but we don't care. We care more about having our outrage. Dopamine.

57:33 Sasha Riley is coming out with his full, unedited testimony on Substack and giving us a full account of names, places, people and everyone being trafficked. Starring. I don't know if y'all starring in a porno called Betty Davis Eyes with Trump. Well, we also have information about John Ramsey. Oh, no. Oh, shit, I missed it. So like it? It's like yes and no.

57:59 Talking about being able to fully vet and fully go down all this, like every single little tidbit of that is going to be a rabbit hole. Oh, right. And then how much of this shit is just made up to and, and all of this comes down to, you know, we, we by being stuck in these treadmills, these hamster wheels, by being stuck on this outrage, being addicted to this outrage circus.

58:21 We committed injustice by doing nothing. You know, we we don't end up doing anything. We just end up being on this hype and rage train.