This is Jack Donner, author of The Way of Men. All right, I'm here with Richard Granan. He's been on the show before, and I'll put up some links in the show notes to his websites and channels and so forth. Richard Granan is, I believe, an NLP master practitioner. That's right. I have a script today, so I'm just going to do that for memory. And his website is Spartan Life Coach. And he does a lot of coaching. And he talks a lot about narcissistic personalities, his order, and we've talked about that before. But the discussion I want to have today, actually, is something that he and I touched on in our last podcast that I think is interesting to a lot of men. And that because there are men who are on a family path, and that's a prescribed life path, and that's fine. And it's good. And if it works out for you, that's fantastic. But what I've found is that there are also a lot of other guys who, for whatever reason, are not going to end up getting married or having kids. And I thought, I assumed for some reason that Richard had a wife at some point, because I guess we're men of a certain age. You just assume the guy has a wife somewhere. But that is actually not the case. And he's been very vocal about that. And so I think, actually, he and I are a really good pair of guys to have a conversation about what meaning in life looks like as you get older, when you're single, and how your life is different, and how, in many cases, it's the same. So anyway, Richard, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me, Chef. And so what are your thoughts, just to jump off on? What are some of the challenges that maybe you've come into or seen from some of your clients? I think, well, speaking selfishly for a second, because I actually hadn't thought about this until you brought it up. I didn't really sort of think, oh, yeah, I'm 42. I'm single. And I have no plans on getting married, no plans on having kids. And the thing is, I'm delighted by that. Right.  As you said, we age slower. Yeah. You know, you have a more sort of a joyful spring in your step. I think, I mean, as you said, if it's your path, and that is really truly what you want, which is to get married and have children, great. I hang around with my sister's kids, and they're so funny.  And it's lovely.  So when are you having some of your own? And I was like, oh, no, I'm not. I wouldn't even have a cat. I have two dogs, and they're a big responsibility. Huge, mate.  But I'm also a freedom junkie, a total freedom junkie. I would say over the years, it's probably been one of my highest core values, you know, as the core values shift and change and move around. That keeps coming to the top. And in terms of personal power, which is a slightly cheesy 80s phrase to use, nothing compares to that. Nothing gives me more agency and the ability to do what I want than consistently prioritizing my freedom. And I've never really sort of, I don't have a philosophy to this. I've never really thought, oh, I will be single and I will not have kids. It was more of a rational thing of like, how do I want to live my life? I want to be able to do this. I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to talk to people I want to talk to, people like yourself. And I want the freedom to just go. Like if I choose to go somewhere, I want to be able to go. So what do I need? I need to have money. And I need to not have humans who are economically welded to me.  Yeah. And there's a part, I've been in business for myself since 2003. And there's this cheeky little part of my brain that whenever relationships come up, I'll always be like, think of it as a business. What's the contract? What's the offer on the table? Is this a good deal for you? And I'm like, no, this isn't a good deal for me.  Maybe some of the guys who are trad conners would find this an appalling position. But I just don't see that as a good deal. I think if you've authentically fallen in love with a woman that you love and you chose to replicate because that was your instinct, good for you. When guys try to get into that scenario, they're looking for a wife and kids. I'm always a bit like, I'm not saying that's cultural conditioning, but it looks like a brainwashing response to me. Why would you, like, why would you shoot? It's not, it's not spontaneous. And I do wonder if historically this is some sort of conspiracy or Illuminati Mind Control trip. I mean, everyone really is right now. I mean, we're just going from one to the next. So, I mean, you know, play the Illuminati card game, we're living it. And I sort of wonder, you know, maybe in a more natural environment, the environment in which we evolved, we weren't all in like one man, one woman, two kids. Our tribal upbringing can't have been that. I don't think there's multiple societies we could point to that were, it was more complicated than that. The relationships were more complicated. I want to be with people. I want to be with humans. I love, well, I wouldn't say love humans. I'm fond of them, in short, as Waldo says. But I seem, I'm much more comfortable with the archetype of the, the shaman. You know, I'm like, let me go live in my hut outside of town.  If you need something, come to me. I'll, you know, I'll talk to you.   Right. Well, I don't, I don't, I don't want to be with you all the time. It drives me crazy. Yeah.  And that's, they've been shafted by that. And I think if you go back in history, you know, men are expendable in a big way. And really you had huge populations of men who never really got married or had kids.   The legionnaires who tramped all across Europe from, from Rome, you know, like they, they didn't see their kids either. I mean, for, for decades, if they had them. Or they just never had. What were their wives doing if they did have kids and they were away for decades? I imagine it was one of those Jodi situations.  So I agree. I, you know, I actually thought about the black pill and the incel thing today. I was like, is there a rather poisonous piece of, of rhetoric or the ideology out there where every guy gets a hot girl and gets to reproduce. And if you didn't, there's something wrong. You, you were duped. You were ripped off and you need to be angry about that. Whereas I'm like, I look at the women I would even remotely be interested in procreating with. And I'm, I'm stupidly fussy. I'm ridiculously fussy. And I go, well, okay, dude, be rational statistically in the age range, not insane, not diseased, not already having kids. You start talking about a tiny fraction of the population. And then I go, is it realistic for you to think you're like, you're going to end up in that kind of a scenario. And I think, well, no, no, it's not realistic. Why, well, that's pure entitlement. I think this is really his first world spoiled brainwashed marketing consumer capitalist entitlement. I'm angry because I didn't get the product I wanted. And I'm like, dude, you were missold. You probably don't even want that product. You've just been brainwashed to think you did. So you're mad about something you don't even want, I think in a lot of cases. Yeah. Yeah.  I mean, my family is super normal. I have two sisters and they've both been married for either close to or 20 years. And they both have kids and they're great kids.  And their husbands are good guys. And, you know, the idea that that's not out there is, to me, I'm like, well, I see it. You know, like, I'm in contact with it all the time. And I definitely went through a period myself where I was like, where I was like, Hey, is there some way that I can make that happen? Because the kids thing, I don't know, it is part of a lot of men's life cycle. Right. And there is something that I do think like being responsible for something like that kind of does for a lot of guys, they need something to a reason to get their shit together.   Not not you or me, because we are probably very similar in the being more in the kind of shaman magician kind of path poet, whatever. But, you know, for a lot of guys, I think they they spin their wheels if they don't have a set of responsibilities and some structure. And I think kids provide a lot of them with their structure. And just personally, I mean, I have really good genes. I've thought about it. And I could see how that would be the kids thing. Not so much the wife thing, but that's the thing I've said. I like kids, I don't like women. And that's the thing too, because you know, I could pull it off in some other way. But I really, I really do think that's right. I think that like, if you're going to have kids, I think it's a lot better for them to see that balance early on. And to have them kind of get this skewed perspective.  And they get a little messed up in the head from that. Or the same thing, I guess there aren't a lot of single dads, but there are some. And you know, you're going to have a little bit of a different perspective from that as well. Whereas if you say, well, mom does this and dad does that. Then at least you can fold into the normal like Freudian archetypes of whatever how things work. Yeah, at least the therapist will know where to start. Yeah, exactly. At least not somewhere to go. Yeah, I think if I was going to do it, even if it was some sort of permutation of something that would never be marriage for me, but some sort of an arrangement, I would also be thinking, you know, if I'm going to have kids, then you've got to be looking at mommy and daddy should be living together because it is better for the kids for sure, for sure as generally if you can do it. I won't use saying before there's two guys I know, they're both former soldiers and they're both same age as me. And they drink and they snort coke and they go out and both of them, I just look at them and I think you two really, if you just got married and had kids, 80% of your mental health issues would be gone. They'd be totally gone. And they're literal soldiers, like they were literally ex-military and I sort of feel like they just need a new place to put that service. And I do think, I don't think it's, you know, try and dance around the sexism thing. I do think there is a service element to men. And that's, we like that, we like soldiering, we like to provide and protect. They need it for sure, for sure. And I, the other thing I wanted to say about what you said is I don't, I don't want to sugarcoat the idea of freedom. I have made peace with the fact that if I don't have children, there are probably chambers of my heart that won't open, that would have done, they'll just remain closed. And there's parts of me that will never be operational in a way that there would have been with kids. When people have kids and they talk about how much it changes them, there's probably a level of attachment that you just can't.  That's your child. That's your own child. That's going to be very special, I'm sure. I'm sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, and also could also provide a level of frustration that you would never have had. Because I mean, I did some mentoring a year ago. I had this kid, I really took under my wing and man, I've never been so mad in my entire life. But I like, I mean, when you give somebody everything that you have and then they go a different direction with it or are not grateful for it or whatever.  To have that come back to you, you know, that's a level of frustration that I think obviously a single man is never going to have. Yeah, there's a lot to it. I think it's like the, I think it was Khalil Gibran wrote about it in The Prophet where he was saying the extents, he was talking about, I think it was a flute and he said it's gouged by pain. And only the extent to which it's gouged by pain can it play beautiful joyous music. And this theme turns up in The Prophet again and again. No pleasure without pain, no pleasure without pain, no pleasure without pain. Somebody was asking me yesterday about magic and the law of attraction and I was trashing the law of attraction.  It's barely related to magic. And he said, why? Why? What's the big problem? I said, it breaks the fundamental law. There's no sacrifice with law of attraction. It's completely infantile. There has to be sacrifice or there's no reward. Have you ever heard of a magical ritual that didn't have an element of sacrifice? And he's like, oh yeah. And I'm like, that's why it doesn't work.  So yeah, I do think if there's going to be pleasurable elements to it, then those pleasurable elements will be matched by the painful elements. They just have to be. That's life. Yeah, and sometimes you might slide by. But dudes have this kind of expectation that if they're going to have kids, that they're going to have these mini-mes, that they're going to do exactly what they wanted. And really, if you're, I think, a successful parent, you kind of have to let go of that and realize you can provide X, Y, and Z, but this person is going to do whatever they're going to do. And they should. They should. If you try and cross that out with them, you're probably going to hurt them. Oh yeah, totally. Totally. I mean, my dad has always been really good about it. Well, he wasn't good about it when I was probably a teenager. But now, as I got older, he was just like, well, he's my son, and I love him, and he's just going to do what he's going to do. And then I kind of came around in a bunch of ways, and now my dad's like my biggest fan. But I just wrote an essay. He called me up. That was a really good one. So I have that relationship now, but I didn't as a young guy. And I think that, but if you were to ask my dad what he was trying to come up with, it wouldn't have been me. He couldn't have figured that out how to do that if life would have depended on it. A 17-year-old electrician, whatever, well, he's 20 years older than me. So a 20-year-old electrician in the 70s, no. No, he had no idea how to do this. I mean, that's a hard perspective. I do feel sorry for parents because I sort of feel like you're probably only really old enough and wise enough to be a good parent by the time your body's really not up to the job. Have you read the research that says the sperm ages as well as the female eggs? Like if we have sex, if we have impregnated after 40, it's rotten sperm. Well, I've heard that. I don't know how true it is, but there is definitely not as... I guess everything, the chances of something being bad are slightly higher. Here all the time of dudes who are like 60 and they're like, I just have my first kid and it's fine. So that happens as well. But yeah, obviously, I have heard that there's more chance of there being a problem. So the big thing with parenting is that I would say me now, I'd probably be okay after. Me at 32, I would have left that kid with some problems.  Because it just would have wound me up. It just would have provoked me. It just would have made me mad because of the... You know, I just couldn't... I know I couldn't have... I didn't have the coping strategies to deal with that at all. But yeah, it's one of these things that like... And I think this comes back into, so how do you live your life? And it sounds a bit trite, but you want to examine... What is it? The unexamined life is not worth living. So you want to live philosophically. You want to be rational and just think, okay, this is what I have. What do I want? How am I going to move towards it? The other thing with the in-cell crowd that concerns me that I think that they're blind to is that they're coming from like an inferiority complex. And I think they think being married and having kids would be like a badge of honour. And they'd be like, now I'm a man. Now I'm a man. Where we can point to plenty of cases where that just simply... Absolutely not. Yeah. So there's like a reaching to some sort of utopia where some external thing will make up for the things that are inside of me that are not so good. And that never works out. So yeah, it's... I just look at it philosophically every day. And every time the kids and marriage things comes up, I start shooting straight back into like, for me, I'm like, what is the nature of this reality?   Yes. But there were people in times gone by in the Gnostic tradition and like the Boga Mills and the Cathars, they wouldn't have children.  God bless them. Because they didn't want to produce... They believed, or not all the sex, but some of the sex believed that you were binding... You're binding light in a dark reality and you're pulling souls from this pool of soul force into this material, this corrupt world, and you shouldn't do that. There's a little bit of that in me, mate. I am the part of my reason for not doing it. I'm not convinced that this is a great world to pull people into. Yeah, I mean, there's always two sides of that argument because the best people don't have kids because they don't want to bring kids into a messed up world and so the world gets more messed up. So it's kind of a thing that feeds itself. I'm sympathetic to both sides of that argument. I mean, like right now...   Their parents must be shitting their pants. Like, what's going on?  I had another guy on the podcast, I think before the podcast started, and he was saying that he had his barber, I guess, had just had a son like during the whole shutdown and whatever.  It's really, really tough times to be thinking about the future because when you have kids, you really have to think about the future for that. That changes a lot of people's political and philosophical orientations as well when they have kids because they become a little bit more conservative just because, you know, like... I think young single guys are very much like... Very easy to fall into the bane, let's burn it all down and start again kind of thing. Because they don't have anything, it's not going to affect... Exactly, man. I have stuff and I don't even want that to happen.   Like, let's not... We don't have to wipe this slate clean, you know. And I think parents are the same way, obviously they're like, wait, I have two little people that I care about that have to grow up in that world, so let's not burn the world down right now. It's a different way of looking at things. But then you have to imagine at some point, you know, and talk about revolutions and so forth in history, at a certain point people still say, okay, well, my kid has to live through a civil war and that's going to be fine. That is what it is because it has to be done, you know. Definitely, definitely. And I do the argument about, you know, the higher IQ, the wealthier people, the people with more potential choosing to have less kids is at a global collective level, a very, very strong one.   There is that social engineering side of it. And it is a good argument, you know, there's no doubt because it's actually irresponsible. It actually, at some point, becomes irresponsible. But, you know, I just look at it and I go, I don't know where I stand on all this. I'm looking at the world that's been revealed in this revelation of the apocalypse of 2020. And I sort of wonder if the slide towards idiocracy, have you seen that movie? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what you're just describing. Yeah, that'd be... Yeah, yeah. And because somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago on a conspiracy theory podcast, he was like, is it going to be 1984 or Brave New World? And I'm like, it's going to be neither. This now is looking like we're sliding towards idiocracy. You know, you have like a bodybuilding wrestler with a wig on in their house. Pouring energy drinks on the crops.  And all of the intelligent people kept on squeezing smaller and smaller and basically breeding intelligence out of the gene pool. I can see that being a very possible future. In terms of revolution, and to currently, obviously we're dealing with whatever it is that it pretends to be, which is based on identity politics. I think the next divisive split that's coming down the pipe is going to be IQ. I think people are going to be talking about IQ more. And that's going to be a very interesting conversation when we start having that one. And very final in a certain sense. We start going, oh, we'll be dividing by left or right, authoritarian versus libertarian. And no, actually, we're going to be dividing by IQ from now on because we can't run the world this way anymore. Which is, it's worrying because, you know, that's the world we would have been living in if Germany and Japan had done what they wanted to do. We'd already be there. We'd already be IQ checked. We'd already be segmented. And that would be the way we are. But I sort of feel like if we don't go, because we're slightly off topic now, I'm looking at it because I have the time to because I don't have kids. And I'm going, yeah, we can figure out that. Do we can navel gaze and figure out that? If we can navel gaze, it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at, I'm going, what's the real problem here? And I boiled it through and I boiled it through and I boiled it through and I was like, it's not about politics. It's not about ethnic identity. It's actually about the fact that most people can't think. They can't think. They think in terms of, they think for 15 seconds where they should be thinking for three minutes and they get like 15 seconds through a thought. And wherever the thought ends, after the 15 second Instagram clip that's running in their mind, they just stop there and go, oh, that's the end of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's the end of it. I did something in it. So, yeah, yeah, that's going to be an interesting, that's why I would predict over the next 10 years we're going to be talking an awful lot more about IQ. So, yeah, it plays back into this thing of having kids and so on. And also what to do with yourself. I mean, for me, it's, I have to say, I find it quite enjoyable. It's, I feel sort of self-indulgent, very self-indulgent compared to my friends because I can do what I want.  And I'd be like, just flip it on its head. Look at all of the advantages. Look at all the freedom and all the time you have to do whatever you want. It's pretty awesome. Right. So, I mean, it's really, in many ways, and in a second, I'm going to get back to conspiracy theories because I got some, I got some, but some things I got to get out. But yeah, no, I think that really is the answer for a lot of these guys is finding something to invest in that isn't a kid. Yeah. Because you still have to have some structure and you still need some responsibilities and you still need something that's going to, you still need a baby, okay? You need a baby, but it doesn't have to be a person. Right. Exactly. You know, I mean, like, it's kind of crass and it came from a really weird book years ago when I was writing more about sex and stuff like that. But there's an author called Supervert out of New York and he was writing all these really philosophical weird sex books about extraterrestrials and all kinds of things. But anyway, his quote was...  Yeah. Yeah. It was like erotica about extraterrestrials and stuff like it was just way off the charts, but also really smart. You know, like really well... Just what you could have where you're coming and being made to think at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like orifice it was, I mean, we're talking about that, like, you know, but the quote is that sodomy is the sex of philosophers because they have children of the mind. And I was like, that's brilliant and it's not wrong. Because we do.  I don't feel like an absence of meeting in my life. No. Because man, I'm just pissed off about all the stuff's going on because I have things to do. You're like everything going on in the world right now is a distraction and it's in my way because I have other things I have... I have... I will never run out of projects in my life. Yes. Like I can always come up with projects, but not everyone's that way. And so I think a lot of guys have a challenge with that in finding something to invest in. Like I'm invested in me and I have the next book I'm writing and then after that I want to do this and then after that I want to do this. Maybe I'll do some paintings. And you know, I have all this, but a lot of guys don't have that. And I think that that's the challenge. What do I do with my life as I get older and give it... That lends a different dimension to the whole conversation in fact because then I would say if the reason guys are going for marriage and kids is because they sort of feel like they're rattling around lonely in their own lives, that's a different problem and marriage and kids can't fix that.  Sorry, I'm still stuck on the orifices and Sergeant Me thing.  Because that is the place where purpose needs to go. And it sounds trite and it's not bonton to quote Nietzsche, but that's what he was always saying is if we don't have a purpose that's beyond who we are, we're never going to evolve. We're just... We're going to become petty. We're going to become... That's why I sent you the quote that he wrote in 1883 where he's predicted, you know, over 120 years ago exactly what we're going through now with amazing accuracy. Recentiment covers a lot. Recentiment covers the nature of this reality. Absolutely. Incredible and in accordance with his teaching and he was a single man and he died. I don't think he had children. No, he didn't. I think you must have a purpose. You must... All humans have to have a purpose and it must be beyond consumerism and it must be beyond the material world. We all need really a philosophical purpose and that could be like a little philosophical purpose. Maybe you love your church or you love your music or you must have a purpose because even if you do the marriage and kids thing and you don't have a purpose you're going to have problems and they're going to be dramatic ones, I think. Yeah. And I think another solution that... Because we're in the solutions business. Another solution that people can talk about because there's the problem of getting older. Like, you know, we're still in our prime. You know, like I definitely feel like I'm still very much in my prime but there's 20 years from here which is a little different. You know, there's 65 and being a single guy which I think is a different situation a little bit but I think that that's where a lot of this other stuff that I've been preaching for years and maybe was just driven home to people is that you need a bigger group of people that you're attached to. Yes. Whether you have a family or not you definitely need a support structure because you can't be lonely guy in his apartment alone with no friends and no anything because, okay, at some point you're going to be old and you're going to need some help. At some point, you know, like you're going to have a surgery and you're going to need to recover for three months. So we're, you know... That's a good way to look at it. There are practical elements to this where, yes, 45 and a single lol and then 65 or 75 and single lol not so long, especially if you do if something happens or you do get sick. I suppose in the back of my head, carry one. I just don't see how we can pull it off for another 20, 30 years. And I suspect if there isn't some huge cataclysm that we would probably be forced back into community living anyway. So I've sort of just made the assumption that the future of humanity, I suspect a good number of people will probably die. So we'll be depopulated and then we probably will be living in in communes. Not quite the walking dead. I think there'll still be electricity and water and so on. But we will be, we will be Balkanized, I think, and moved into separate communities in that sense. So I just kind of assumed that my cult would see me through. Am I am I fine? I mean, that is a strategy. Create a cult, they have a support system built in. People to bring you milk and honey and all the things that you need as a cult leader as you get older. That's a possibility. But I think it is something that most men will have to address. Because I always like to play devil's advocate with the devil's advocate in terms of, well, what if the world just gets slightly dumber and more annoying? What if that's just what happens? Is that possible? No big great thing happens. And it just gets a little bit more irritated. It could fix itself to some mediocre level of annoyingness. I feel like we're being closer to actual like revolution and war in the past year than we have been in my entire life.   I think it's, I think the key is always going to be this thing that they've been preaching, which is, you know, you can be independent and live, you know, like live in a condo by yourself and just talk to people on the internet and never really interact with anyone.  And it's like pushing us towards the pods, isn't that in the matrix, soft version of the pods, but it's just apartments, not quite actual fluid filled pods just yet. But we've definitely been pushed in that direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess they need them to do programming and stuff like that. You know, they'll still need programmers for a while until the AI's just take over. But yeah, but anyway, yeah, I think for a lot of guys, I think that the solution is going to be finding groups of people, but whether, you know, be fraternities of men, that's something that's happening a lot online. I know you've come in, you know, some of these guys, obviously, Brian Mickler has something. There's the fraternity of excellence. There's all these guys who have these kind of intentional intentional communities. Sounds like a very leftist thing, but there's the, there's all these kind of intentional communities of men. Are they safe spaces? I'm not interested if they're safe spaces. Yeah, but I mean, they're, because a lot of these, they can't interact honestly online in any other way, except behind a paywall. And so then they can kind of be real rather than having this social media thing that can be exploited constantly against them and so forth and ruin the relationship with people in the community and all that. I think that for any real growth and friendships and so forth, they need to have some kind of forum. And so there's a lot of people who have those and I've, some of them are really positive. I called in to Ryan Mickler's the other day, they had me on as a guest and they read a book a month and my book was the book of the month. So they get the author on and to talk to a group of 150 guys that are on a Zoom chat and, you know, pretty, pretty cool stuff. I mean, really. That's good. I mean, so, I mean, then these guys are going to have more people to reach out to. I mean, I think it has to be local and I'm working on that. I have lunch with a powerlifter in town this week because I'm trying to like, I think what everyone needs to do right now is reach out to people who are near them. Yes, absolutely.  And I think that now's the time.  You need to know some people in town. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, there could be bad consequences for you if you don't. It's an incredible situation. Obviously, much, much worse in America. But really, very, I've found it just looking very, very disturbing, just watching it happen. And you sort of realize, wow, it's the prison yard scenario.  That's not a choice that, wow. No, it's a necessity. Exactly. Exactly. And what's cool about it, too, is that it also, I think, even for me, a lot of the stuff that I've been preaching over the years as far as, you know, I never like to say that you have to learn to be a man and do manly things and learn martial arts and whatever because they're going to need you someday. Because that kind of puts the purpose, I think, where it doesn't need to be. I like to say that you should do it because it'll make you a better man. Yeah. But a lot of the guys who say, you're going to need to be a man because you're going to need it someday are now right. And you can see, I think there's a lot of people that are a lot of men who are going to wake up and say, hey, I've neglected this side of my life for a long time. And I really need to get some skills. And, you know, some things that I've been ignoring. And I think, honestly, there are probably a lot of women who are also realizing, like, oh, maybe men aren't useless and it might be nice to have one around. It's one potential very, very good consequence of 2020. That, I mean, we haven't had the alien invasion yet. I think that's due in another six weeks. Right. Well, according to the calendar. According to the calendar. We may see a sexual revolution here. And I've spoken to so many women and girls like all age ranges from beautiful girls as well. It like who are at that age where they're now looking for partners. They've got options 23, 24, 25. And then they're saying, there's no men.  So that's why there's no men. But now we may see because of this hardship they are a real swing back around. And I think we can say we're already seeing that. We're already seeing that now. Which is great. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's very positive.   I mean, you know, I went through a thing because I have a lot of guys in the tactical community, tons of them. And I'm lucky enough that a lot of some of them would just want to meet me and hang out with me and teach me stuff. Yeah. Which is super cool. I'm very grateful for that. But you know, I've been and so I've done a lot in some of those courses and so forth. And I've learned some stuff but I'm not really proficient at anything in a way that I would call proficient. I can pick up things and use them if I have to. But not in a you're not going to like pull me into the fire team real quick just because it is. Oh, Jack's our spare.  That's the skill level that I'm at. But and that was because I was like, well, I'm not going to put my eggs in the apocalypse basket. I'm going to assume that things are going to continue because then that makes that maybe the not best use of resources. Yeah. Because it's a big expense and it's even if you're even if you're getting doing the classes for free, it's like thousands of dollars of ammunition and all kinds of stuff like that. And and but man, yeah, I definitely I was like, are we all just playing Call of Duty? You know, are we all like pretending to be operators or something?  But, you know, recent events have made it like, well, actually, that's that's a thing that could happen. Yeah, it's gone from larping to to real world. I mean, just in the two weeks since we last spoke. I've also had to do a real hard review. There's nothing like the threat of real violence and real hostility on your doorstep to make you go, yeah, hang on a second. Let me just let me just check the files here. What? What did I used to think about this situation? Why do I think that? OK, let's just look again. So I'm doing a lot of looking again. And we are I don't want to call it into existence, but we may see a spate of anti-white racist attacks in the coming months. And they will be if they do happen, they'll be nasty, very nasty. Oh, OK, good. We're getting back to our conspiracy theory because there Yeah, I was going to make you. I'm going to roll that out because this has been bothering me. And I almost felt like I need to do right now. I say about it. If nothing else, you get it on record, but I just hate talking about this stuff. Like, I want to talk about myth and cool and fun stuff. I don't want to talk about real life right now.  But yeah, and I don't want to.  And so I just don't want to deal with them. But especially at the extremes, vile on both sides, terrible people. But what I think is happening right now is that you know, obviously the left, in America, I can't speak to the rest of the world. In America, what's happening is that the riots, on one hand, created the worst argument for gun control ever. You know, like they basically blew up gun control arguments. Like, you'll never need this. Now just went away. I think for a lot of people, that is a tough argument to make. Yeah. But I think that's kind of a Pyrrhic victory for gun people. And what I because what I see happening is that for some reason they've allowed you know, groups like, you know, Black Lives Matter and that are really radical, really radical Marxist groups.  That's this is the trick, isn't it, is going, Oh, we'll divide by race. And you go, No, I don't want to divide by race.  And radical Marxist, I think. Radical Marxist and just world hating just a world hating ideology. Yeah. It's terrible. And and and I just you're watching all these people give money to this organization that wants to take their money and redistribute it. I mean, like, that's what that that's what they want. That's what their goals. It's not like I'm making that up. That's not a conspiracy theory. Here are our goals.  And I don't I don't get it, but I think everyone's just afraid. Everyone's just afraid of being canceled.  And supporting a terrorist group is not the same as not being a racist. You know, but that's that's what that's the choice that's being made right now. What I think is happening and the media has been doing this for a long time is that anyone who disagrees with that narrative is going to be pushed towards the white nationalist box. Even if they're not.  And it's it's basically I think it's just basically a lot of gun people who are kind of very. You know, very adamant gun people as far as the best of my, you know, like that it might be time for the revolution kind of guys. Okay, but it's not a race thing.  There are all kinds of other people in that movement.  And they're all they all agree on some certain things. But there's been some you know, like opening salvos in the media of trying to associate that group is with white nationalists and the man a sphere.  And they're all there and it's all cool. And they're all that group is not a racist group. Like the man a sphere group, that's a different thing. But they try to push that into the hate group box, you know, that that's a problem.  Take right. And so I think that in the next six to 12 months, and I think this is pretty much a guaranteed thing. What you have is a some white nationalists and they generally tend to be on the spectrum. A lot of those guys to a real deep into it, they're on the spectrum and they're a little wonky and maybe easily manipulated and make bad choices and are just socially retarded. And in my experience, I've met a lot of these dudes and there's a lot of kind of semi-autistic internet guys that are going to be like, I'm not going to take it anymore. And they're going to say something and have a Travis Bickel moment where they decide they're going to shoot up something. And then every piece of literature that is connected to them, every website they've ever liked. Oh, look, they like the white nationalist site this one time. Or maybe they really liked it. You know, maybe they were all about it, like some of these other shooters, right? The New Zealand guy and whatever. And they're going to use that to then smear all of these other groups.  Yeah, that's right. And so they can do whatever they want to those people. They're dehumanized.   Yeah, yeah. So they're basically, it's a kill zone. And I think that's one of the reasons why these groups are using extreme imagery. Like I think, you know, like washing the feet of blacks and washing the, and kneeling before them.  It's, I think it's meant to be triggering. Yes. Because I think for every, every guy who's like sending it, saying, saying, I'm so sorry, what can we do to help? There's another guy sitting at home.  No, we're not doing that. You know, like not now. And it's funneling them into hate groups. It's funneling, it's making like, I've heard people say like, you know, I've heard uncle so-and-so say some words I've never heard him used before. It's making people more racist. And I think that that's what they want. Absolutely. Absolutely. They want more racist in America because, A, it gives them a raise on death. And it's, it also is going to allow them to push more people into this box. Yes. Yeah. And I think that the good guys in America are the best, the best population you have really, and the only people that can save anything are excellence oriented. Right. They don't care about race. Yeah. They really don't. If you, I mean, all these special forces guys, they've worked with every race.  I don't care about anything.  And you know, we have enough of the same values and that's fine. We'll work it out. And the same thing with elite athletes. Mm-hmm. They're the same way. Like, I want to work with the best people.  I don't care where, yeah. And those are the guys that you want to hang out with in life just generally, are the guys who are high performers. Yes. And the people who are focused on race are generally really low performers. And so I think that these... That's not a strange coincidence. Right. Exactly. And so I think that these high performers are very freedom oriented and they don't want to be oppressed and they want to do... They're good guys who want to do the right thing. And I think that that's the good group that is going to do right. Yeah. You know, but the danger is trying... They're trying to push as many of the hangers on into that box. Yeah. And to one step further, my conspiracy theory, the bigger one, I think, you were saying about IQ earlier. Have you ever seen the movie Elysium? I think I have. Do they try and get off world? Yeah, all the wealthy people... All the wealthy, like, genetically good, whatever people live on the space station and it's fabulous and it's basically they're like Olympians and they live up there and they're very protected. And then everybody else is just kind of the rabble and they do whatever menial labor needs to get done that you can't make robots do and they're just kind of left down there to their own devices in shantytowns and whatever. I think the Elysium thing is where we're going. I think that there's a class of wealth that they stopped caring about race, they stopped caring about nationality a long time ago. Yeah.  They're gonna marry each other. They have their own magical race and social class that they've created that you don't get to be in unless you've gone to the Harvard Club and maybe touched some babies. I don't know. But apparently that's a thing. I don't even know what to believe about that. That seems so crazy. But then you hear about it going on.  All those child trafficking. Many reports. They can't. I'm at the point where I can't be lost. Really? That's what you're into? I mean, I have to wonder if it's not like a price of entry. I think if you enter a gang, you have to commit a crime because they'll always have something on. Yeah? And what worse could you have on somebody than that? It's gross. Everybody hates it. It's a bit of a sideline, but somebody was asking me about it last night and they said, do you think it's happening on the scale that it seems to be? I said, if it's happening on any kind of scale that we could call systemic, it's a problem. While kids are disappearing all over the world in huge numbers if they're in poor areas, somebody snaps them up and doing something with them. And they said, do you really think so many people are pedophiles? And I said, no, because psychologically, there are perversions, there are paraphernalias, but there couldn't be that many pedophiles. And I think what happens is... That's really broken. That's really broken.  I think probably what happens is if there has been a ritual murder, torture murder, involving kids, I think it's reported as a pedophilic event rather than a ritual sacrifice event.  Or maybe it's too gross to say it. I don't know. I don't know. But I suspect there's this label. Maybe they'll disappear if they say it. I don't know. Right, maybe. Maybe, yeah. Who knows? Who knows? But I went down that rabbit hole three weeks ago and I was just like, okay, enough, enough. Because there was too much evidence. And the evidence wasn't... It was pointing towards truly horrific acts. If it's real, it's about torture and it's about evil. Just doing acts of evil as a sort of a dark magical binding. And as you said, it's perfect compromising material to hold on somebody. Remember that video we got to you? Doing that thing with the thing?  Yeah, like you're gonna stay on message, sir. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't go off message here. And that's, you know, I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying I believe that. I'm just, it's conceivable, more conceivable than I'd like it to be. But yeah, I think that the whole kind of Elysium kind of mentality, and I think that that's why... Because it doesn't make any sense on the other eyes. I think that's why things like all this Marxism and all these kind of weakening movements that are really happening. And because they're not about national health, you would never do it, allow any of these things to happen if you cared about your country or carried about the people in it. And, you know, you wouldn't let, you know, teenagers take over a part of Seattle, which just happened. You know, which I just think that says, I'd also watch Escape from New York last night. And I just think that if you build a wall and wall them in, and then like let them show it, let's let utopia happen. Yeah, okay. Let's see your Marxism. See how he... And by the way, we're shutting off the water in the sanitation. Because you can't have daddy's privileges if you... No, that's capitalist poison. You're not allowed anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go back to the ways that humans are really supposed to be.  But because that's 100% what's going to happen. But yeah, I think just that kind of mentality, I think that they're allowing these kind of things to proliferate and spreading them because they don't care.  He's not going to lose his money. You know, they're hurt, they're destroying the middle class. They're not destroying the wealthy people who are getting rich right now. They're getting richer. And they're creating a bigger gap between the extreme wealth and extreme poverty. And, you know, Oprah Winfrey can have as many lovely specials as she wants on, like, what we should do now. But they're not camping on her lawn. Because there are probably armed guards walking around it. And all these people with fabulous wealth are going to stay in their gated communities and they're going to stay in their... They're going to be extremely protected and they're going to have, like, you know, helicopter in from circle to circle. And I'll just meet you on our yacht.  We'll have all-derms, it'll be fantastic. We won't do Don Perriamo.  You know, like, it's...  They aren't scared, they're not protected. Oh.   I mean, I'm not sure where I stand on that one. Two months ago, I had far more sympathy for people than I do now.  Maybe this is the way it's supposed to go in this particular permutation of evolution that we're up to. Right. You know, idealism can't stop the inevitable. There's no utopianism that can fight human nature. If this is what humans really are for now and this is the zone we need to go into, I sort of take that, I sort of look at that and go, you know, it's on the table for me. I'm like, yeah, that could be... Elysium could be exactly where we're supposed to go. Yeah, I mean, there's a... I think it's an H.L. Menken quote where he says like, the people deserve to get what they want good and hard. And I think that's what's happening a little bit. That's like, okay, you want that. That's the new reality that you want. All right, let's see how that works out. Let's see how that works out. Yeah, I mean, and there is that... I get that feeling when, you know, silence is violence. You have to. And I'm like, I have to what? You have to kneel.  Yeah. It's nothing about your skin tone. I don't kneel for anybody. I've never knelt.    It's funny that Antifa's on this. And Antifa, the whole point of Antifa, I thought was, were the resistance against fascists?  How are you different from the, what color shirts did Hitler have that went around beating people up in Germany? Brown.  So that fits the profile. It's always, it's no one ever really actually knows what fascism is, aside from armed political thugs. Right. We can all agree. That's there.  Yeah. And that's really all it has ever been in any cohesive way. Yeah.  And I don't think any of them are relevant now. You know what's not happening? The Nazis aren't coming. Like I've met them. They're not coming. Like they don't have a leadership. And that's the other thing I've been trying to explain to guys, because, you know, I, like I say, people are being funneled into that white nationalist thing and whatever this fascist thing and so forth. And the leadership isn't there. Yeah. Their leadership isn't there and the skill sets aren't there. There's nothing that there's no money there. You know, like there's none of the things that you would need to make any successful change in society. Right. Right. There's just a lot of angry dudes. Yeah. A lot of angry dudes with not a lot of skills and not a lot of money. And it's just a recipe for failure. Yes. Yeah. And that's why I always try and like, I'm trying to talk guys out because I see them going. You know, they're seeing things that they haven't seen before and they're getting triggered and they're like, they're starting to go down that path. I'm like, don't. I've met those people. Don't, don't do that. You know, because it's a bad spot. And I think, as you say, it sort of leads to a lot of wheel spinning, people sitting around, having a bit of a whinge in a moan, not really doing anything because there isn't, there isn't a manifesto. There isn't a route. There isn't a means. And there isn't the financial backing for it. With the movements we're looking at today, I'm not impressed by the way that they've conducted themselves. And I'm not, I'm not intimidated. I don't think that there's a real structure. I don't think that there's really real good organization or anything beyond resentment, as you mentioned before. But there's money.  Oh yeah.    You're not going to be in charge of anything. We're going to let you march to the streets and make a bunch of trouble. And then while we consolidate our wealth and whatever, you have a little tantrum and that'll be fine. And everybody will be very scared and whatever. And you can have Twitter wars and do all kinds of things.  It's just a smoke screen for everything else. I mean, it's, and it's sad that they don't realize that they're being used. Because I think that the group in Seattle this morning, I think sent out messages saying that the homeless people, they invited to install their food and they need more vegan treats. That's beautiful. I don't know. I don't know. It's only in Seattle. Exactly. I'm only like, I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's just propaganda from the other side. I don't know. It's funny and it's exactly what you would expect. Yeah. That's wonderful. That is wonderful. Totally. Totally. No, it's a very, the tone dramatically shifted, I noticed, in the last couple of weeks.  And I'm like, I honestly don't care where that message comes from. It's going to get a violent response from me. I don't care who's saying it. Yeah. I mean, the sad thing is I really feel like, actually, contrary to what they were saying, what everybody's saying right now, I actually feel like, especially in America, since Charlottesville racism and white nationalism, generally, we're on a down slide. Yeah. A big down slide that they probably wouldn't have come back from. And this is actually going to make them have a little moment for the final. But like, this is going to make them have a little bit of a moment right now because people are feeling extreme. Yeah. And the thing is, if these big media companies, especially, if they wanted to actually stop racism, all they have to do is be fair. Because then they take away the best argument that these guys have because I've heard all their arguments. And the best one that they have is that if you're on Twitter or you're on Facebook, any of the big media platforms, you can say kill white people with impunity. It's not considered hate speech. It's considered okay. And no other group can you do that too, especially white men. You can say kill white men. And you know what? If they just policed that fairly, say, hey, you know what? You're not allowed to say we should genocide anyone on our media platform. They would actually reduce racism. Yeah. Because they'd agree, okay, well, we're not allowed to talk about genociding people. Okay. All right. Nobody's allowed to talk about genociding people. All right. That's reasonable. And it's reasonable. Okay. That seems fair. But as long as you're only allowed to talk about genociding one group, that group's going to have some feelings about it. Yeah. They're going to say, why are people trying to destroy me? You know, they're going to be angry. Which is just being frankly honest.  But in the last couple of weeks, I've been like, okay. With the, it's race-based hostility. Yeah. I'm being, and now I'm being treated with hostility purely on the basis of my race. And I'm going, yeah, okay, guys, I don't see how you can fight racism with more racism.  And when I've suggested trying to overcome or transcend racism and just be like, okay, maybe we should start looking at the science of this and be like, maybe the idea of race is dodgy. Maybe we should try and get past it. No, we don't want to do that. This is coming from black people. We don't want to do that. You don't get to get the advantages of your, of race and then having won the race of race, switch it off. We want to stay black and we want you to stay white. So I'm like, aha, this means you're living inside of this weird progressive leftist fantasy in which you think one day you on your team are going to get an apology from the other team. In this case, it happens to be black people. There's a morphous mask that we'll call black people.  Your fantasy is we keep going until we force whitey to say sorry, get on their knees, supplicate, and then give us things.  It's not going to happen in America. It's not going to happen in the UK. It is happening. I mean, it's happening everywhere, but I mean, it's the thing is, it's never going to be enough. It's never going to be, they're not going to get, when we're talking like, will the white establishment raise up black people everywhere in America? The symbolic action of kneeling, yes, even we have British politicians who've been on Twitter kneeling. Yeah. The symbolic gesture of letting you turn, tear down signs and monuments, which a lot of that is happening in the UK now. Yes, we'll give you the symbolic gesture, but they're not going to give them money, which is what they need.  I mean, I don't even know what kind of transfer of wealth it would require to financially uplift a whole ethnicity. And I don't know how you would even do that.     There are no black people here. They're like, and the black people I see are actually seem like they're doing pretty well. Not like wealthy, but they're just normal dudes going to Home Depot and doing normal stuff. But the ghetto, the low culture here is just white meth heads. And so then again, it becomes this weird discriminatory thing where it's, I really think, and I've been saying for years, that smaller governments are always better. Yeah. So like, there's a certain size that is too small, probably to survive in the modern world. But America, the way it was set up was that states were supposed to have most of the power. And that's kind of gone away. But even in this COVID thing, you saw different states come up with different solutions. And have different results. Yes. And so a lot of people got to try a lot of different things. And that's how you figure out how stuff works. Yeah. And that's the best thing possible. And that's what we should be doing with all of this. Instead of like, one thing happens somewhere, then we have to change everything everywhere. That's always wrong. No, it's... That's a bad way to do decision making. Bad thinking.   It's limited and it's infantile. Like, it's broken. Daddy fix it. No. Nothing in the adult world works like that.   Absolutely not. Is it fair? No, it's not fair. Show me where it is fair. Where is this utopia you dream of? Where there is fairness. Where? Where in the world?  Have we ever done it? Has humanity ever done fair? No. So stop it.  Yeah, it really is childish. I think it has to do with the... Maybe it's a consequence of, you know, like the 1950s and when the first generation of teenagers that were had money and were given respect where they didn't deserve it yet. You know, and now we just keep lowering it so you have like your Gretas and so forth of the world that are like, you know, lecturing to adults when they're really just programmed bots, like saying what mommy and daddy told them to say. But, you know, it's like, let's take a child's opinion seriously. And we've been doing that for too long.   When I was at university, that's the way it was.   You're at university to study. You don't want to study, leave motherfucker. It was never, oh, what is your problem? You want something? Oh, everybody stop.  Who cares?  Right. Is that how the world works?  Am I supposed to just stop everything?  It's not how the world works. I don't want to shut down for the day. Someone had a feeling. Right, there's a feeling. Exactly. It's insane. It's insane. But the university thing is a really good example because I was actually listening to Douglas Murray talking his audio book, The Madness of Crowds, describing the near riots that were at the university in 2017 because Eric or Brett Weinstein wouldn't go along with the... It was supposed to leave for the day for being white. It was supposed to leave the year about it. Yeah, yeah. And he said, I'm not leaving the campus for the day for being white. That's ludicrous. And there was a near riot because of it. Yeah. But it was indulged.  Security can't handle it. Call the police. It's criminal behavior. Why are we talking about it? They're criminals. Yeah. Yeah. You should be at your university to learn. And I agree with you 100%.  Go and study. Totally. I mean, because most of my opinions that I have now, I didn't have when I was a kid. I mean, I had very similar opinions of a lot of what these people had. I actually had jobs and had to work in the world and understand how things actually work. And then I think you changed your perspective a little bit. But a lot of these people just work in these bubbles where all those values are perpetuated because a lot of them have trust funds and they don't really need the money. Money. No, you said it, mate. It's money. There's too much money available for them. And I don't know. I just, I saw the beginnings of it. Like I graduated in 99. And you could see the shift from 99 to 2005 of how much money was being tossed at students. Like I was living in a rat pit when I was at university and five years later, six years later, there's these luxury apartments for students. I'm like, well, why do you need that? Part of the student experience is living in grunge and you just get through it. No, no, mate. And then they weren't in shared accommodation anymore.  I'm like, do you want your children to be raised as socially awkward, entitled, narcissistic fucks? I mean, that's because that's how you do it. Right, right, right. Make them live with each other. They're like the young little wretches they are. And don't give them ideas that are totally unmerited. Very strange shift. And it happened very, very quickly from 99 to 2007. There was big shifts there, big, big shifts. Yeah, yeah. It's very strange.  And it's indulged. And I think, you know, it's maybe it's because of lawsuits or maybe it's just because it doesn't matter.  And occasionally that is true, but the stuff she was talking about was just literally just like, no, that's a street tantrum.  And I'm like, if the government was actually scared of you, they wouldn't use rubber bullets. Yeah. You know, like they wouldn't use tear gas rubber bullets. They would just shoot you. Yes. The reason you're allowed to do that is because you're not a threat. And they're indulging this. And maybe they even want this, you know, at some top level. There's, you know, this is a good little thing to have happen. Like it's very, I think, very pandering, but you know, like humoring. I don't understand economics very well, but there is a theory of capitalism that I read that you have to you have to have crises. You have to have riots and looting as sort of a functioning part of a capitalist system. It's almost like a pressure. It's a pressure valve. We're pissed off because we can't have the things that we want. Rah, rah, rah.  Like some kind of like capitalist catharsis. They got it out. Maybe. Stole a few things. Got a bit of Gucci.  And then, you know, we're right back to square one. The tantrum sort of way of looking at it, that my view of this is like, you know, if this is not how genuine political change has ever been done and there is only so much energy, you can offer to something like this. It has like a festival quality to it. You attend, you go, you experience the joy of the chaos and the solidarity.  How terribly exciting that must be for you.  Somebody shouts and you tell your mates about it and you're like, yeah, and I did this and I did. And then you burn out. You're just tired. You go home. And that's it. Fascinating. That's really interesting. Like, yeah, like it's like a bacchanal. Yeah. You know, like this ritual purging of emotion. Yes, and that's, that's people.  You just don't like seeing young black people and young white people going out and smashing stuff up.  I want real change. This is not, this is masturbation. It is. A bacchanal and just get that Dionysian spirit. Just, just, just, just, okay. Back to work on Tuesday kids, because you spent all your energy. You're, you're limp now. It's like some, I think it was the psychologist, Reich would talk about the orgasmic cycle. You become excited, start fucking, you spunk it out. And then you just go back to work. Because what else is there? Like you've, you've, you've got no, you've not thought it through well enough.  We're back to magic again. And, and disciplining it and controlling it and holding it and producing it and pulling back, producing it.  There's a real discipline to that, but I'm not saying that yet. No, no, I mean, it's, that's a lot of, that sounds like a lot of work is what that sounds like. Exactly, exactly. So when you mention the university and tying it into the riots, I look at these things and I go, you guys, what is this really about? What is it, what you're, there's what you're claiming it's about. And then it's, there's what it's really about. Is this about trying to avoid work? And I think, yes, in every sense, in every sense. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think that's definitely part of it. And I think one of the reasons why this has been so powerful when it's gone on so long is that, you know, like a lot of people are out of work. Yeah. A lot of people are out of work and have nothing to do. This is, this is the most exciting thing. They've been locked up at their house for two months. This is about the most exciting thing they can imagine.   You know, like, but they are restraining themselves from doing anything while people scream at them. Well, this is, this is where I have a little bit of a hypothesis that I've been kicking around, that in a sense, we are all enslaved by consumer capitalism.  Yeah. And we're all on a plantation. Now we're allowed to riot every five to 10 years on the plantation as long as we burn our own beds, as long as we burn our own huts, we're allowed, we can break our own tools.  All of you just be killed. So, and we kind of, we kind of psychologically unconsciously know we can do this, but we can't go the master's house. We don't go that far.  I don't respect it. Yeah, go, go. You guys want to create change? Go riot at the White House, motherfuckers. Oh, no, you won't cause your pussies.  And because that's a security risk and they can, they can justify it. And the same thing of like, okay, go, Oprah's got a lot of money. Why don't you take that and redistribute that wealth? Right, exactly. Exactly, you're not going to. That's right.  Bill Gates says it's a ton of money.   Oh, you're not going to do that. They're not, they're not going to do that. I'm just going to go burn down Arby's restaurants and convenience stores and like middle class businesses of people who've worked their whole lives just to have a little bit more and you're going to destroy that. And that's just, that's makes me furious.  It's dreadful. But under this sort of conspiracy theory, you absolutely would give them bricks. You absolutely would lay bricks out. You absolutely, because you're channeling this libidinous energy. You're saying over here, God, can we do, no, no, no, no, not that place. That, you know, just pushing them over there and they're even showing them what to do. They're showing them you break the glass. You can burn a building.  This is ceremonial. This is purely cosmetic. You're not revolutionaries.  You're worse than poses. You're thugs. You're mindless thugs. This is not a revolution. Yeah, it's really, and so many people, they're acting out. Like whatever the people on TV are doing, and this is a huge problem with the world. I really think it could be solved with local media instead of this global media makes everyone crazy. Yes. Like if anything happens anywhere, everybody has to be crazy everywhere. And that's a terrible thing. It blows way out of proportion. And like in my town, and I put this in an essay recently, in my town, there's like, what was it? I think 26,000 people like in the county, less than the 10, 13,000 in the town, I think. And there are probably eight black people, maybe 10, not very many at all. But they had to come and do this thing because they didn't want to be left out. Right. And so like there's 40 or 50 white people laying down in front of the police station like demonstrating against this problem that does not exist in this community because there are no black people, like they're only few. And like I said, most of them seem like they're all right. And they're doing fine. And really, there's probably a lot more Mexican immigrants and farm workers and stuff like that who get profiled. In fact, the guy I live with is Mexican. He's been pulled over four times more than I have.  But because of Mexican, he has gotten pulled over more. And that's real. And so I can see that. But that's not a problem. I mean, the black thing is not a problem that exists in the community, but everybody had to go and lay down because that's what they saw on TV. So were they laying down to protect the police station from what they imagined would be masses? No, no, no, no, no. They're actual protesters. What they do is because the guy was like suffocated on the ground. And so they lay on the ground like how like imitating his martyrdom. Right. I mean, it always, it's when you study myth a lot and all this kind of stuff, it all seems very fits a weird profile. Yeah, it's like it's like a passion play that they're doing. Like, like, oh, we're all imitating what the martyr did. And they all like lay down and do this. It's all very strange and it's a very religious way. Yeah, it's funny to see, isn't it? Like how quickly when the unconscious forces are stirred up, we go back to the more primitive permutations of our religions throughout.  You go, oh, you're doing, you're doing some fetishism now. Oh, that's intro. That's cute. Okay. Yeah, that's horrible. I haven't seen that in a long time. Thanks for bringing that back for 2020. Unfortunately, I feel like the next step is witch burnings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.   I'm like, oh, I think I read in one of their flyers that, you know, like the institution of the police has only existed for like 200 years or something like that, which sounds not right and far-fetched, or maybe it's just like how you're phrasing what police is.  And, you know, that there's always been law and order and someone enforces it. So it's just a matter of the name probably. They mean the British Bobby only existed. I think the British Bobby is 1850, something like that. It might have even started in Scotland before it was in London. But yeah, the British Bobby is known as like the police. But yeah, there would just be thugs. There would just be mercenaries.  I mean, people always had enforcers. And that's what, you know, people are. And so they're talking about community policing. And I'm like, okay, well, if police didn't exist, which I'm not sure I'd buy, community policing, is that like the, you know, like the inquisition or like witch burning or what?  And it's basically mob justice is what that is. Yeah. And the law exists because that's not really great most of the time. But that doesn't actually, it usually doesn't work out well. There's this eternal battle in these kinds of situations between sort of immature idealism. And then people who've experienced cynicism and just go, look, I had this. I was a nightclub security for 15 years and the security manager for five of them.  Why you should talk to people.   So you think nice reasonable, you know, we can talk and everything will be okay. But some people, they don't want to talk and they're not nice. They're actually quite nasty.  It's just, it's just the way it is. It's just, so yeah, I've been asked about the police reform thing over the last few days and I'm like, you're living a total fancy. There should be, for me, the whole thing with this individual case that's so easy to lose sight of is that there was a review board who's unnamed. We don't know their names. They saw a video of the four policemen acting in a way that was criminal. They're totally criminal. That review board said, fire them, not arrest them. That's it. That's all we should be focused on. That needs a review. That needs to be checked.  You must be arrested. Even if you're released the next day, the first response has to be arrest them because it looks like they're committed a crime. The fact that they just fired them indicates a boy's network, a wink and a nudge and they'll take care of you. And you can't, you can't have that either. But how quickly we lose sight of these simple things that's gone now.  I wouldn't have any problem with that. So what are we all fighting about? I think most of America would be like, yeah, that guy should go to jail. And then he's in jail. And so, okay, cool. All right, so I feel like that's, okay, justice was done all of this other, but now you've killed a whole bunch of other people. So who gets to riot for that? You know, like, where was their review board? You know, like who got to make that decision? I mean, it's like, I feel like you can make, but again, I don't think it's a rational concern about injustice. I think it's about some bigger than that. No, it's, which is what proves to me what bugs me is the hypocrisy and the false narratives. We're saying, we're doing this because of this.  You clear, there's no correlation between these two things. That's not why you're doing it. The, it was just, it was an incident that indicated there might be a problem within that police force. You've got it, you've just got to stay calm. You've just got to stay, not even that police force.  I don't know if that's the district attorney or whatever.   Therefore we should treat all black people like criminals. That's, that's a global statement. That's a global statement. So when we move, when we move from the specific to the global, everything gets dumb. As you said, like if all local networks were reporting local news, the world would be a saying of place, but we're reporting news globally as if it's happening on your doorstep and everybody gets dumber and crazier because of it. I mean, but the mainstream media really has behaved just so recklessly.   And once you've seen behind the curtain, I mean, I've dealt with enough reporters in my life that I know that they lie because they've lied to me. You know, and so I know that they lie and they basically will give you whatever their editor says is the story that they want is what they're going to work for. So they're basically, I feel like prostitutes are at least honest about what they do. Like reporters, any person who works in the media at any kind of high level is a complete prostitute, but like in a dishonest way. Yeah, exactly. They trade on deception. Prostitutes don't, you know, journalists, they're actually trained.  You know, like that's part of the deal. You're lying, but I enjoy the lies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  They're being paid to lie to you. And so it's just a different, it's vile. It's a very ugly business.  Very, very cool. All right, well, we've actually spanned, I think we've covered all the conspiracies that can possibly be covered. But this was super fun. I think it's a good bookmark before we get into Aliens. Yeah, we'll save Aliens for next time. Next time Aliens will be great. But cool. But thank you for coming on, go on. Again, this is Richard Grant. Thank you. All right, and thank you. Cheers.


Hey, Bolo Buddies. Thanks for watching. All right. I have some big-bunny Bolo's coming your way. This is a Facebook member's share. I'm gonna tell you where they got it, what they paid for it, and what it sold for. Fantastic way to learn and these are the best Bolo's of March. So what I did is I posted this screenshot in my Bolo Buddies Facebook group and I invited members to share their best March Bolo. So really great stuff. Great thing about this is you know the item sold, you know that it was a good sale and we're gonna learn. You ready to learn? All right, let's get started. Hey, Bolo Buddies. Thanks for watching. Amazing, right? All right, let's get started. I am gonna be looking at my computer to read them off. I will pop up screen shares of each item here. This is going to help you learn and help me learn. So the first item, bought it for a dollar at a consignment shop where I also sell stuff, had it listed for 119, I think, and took a best offer of $90. So let me zoom in here so I can really see what this says. Polly Pocket New Old Stock Rare Vintage Pollyville Card Game. It's a card game. So if you don't know, Polly Pocket, Bluebird, look those up if you find them. I found this vase at a thrift store for $3. I originally listed it for $30. A kind eBayer messaged me and told me who the artist is based on the maker's mark. You got to love it when other people help you out, right? After doing research on the artist, I raised the price to $155. I took a best offer of $135 and I'm really happy. Clary Lillian, I think it is. It's really small, but you should be able to see it right here. And it is a pottery slab-based green with etched flowers and it's got the actual maker's mark on it. So that will help the value. This one comes from Flippin' It Good and he has an amazing YouTube channel. He does a lot of retail arbitrage, unbelievable finds, but he also finds a lot of vintage stuff. So check him out here at Flippin' It Good and he found this at a yard sale for $4. They had seven with box, child and only one twin. I bought them all. This sold for $225 plus shipping on Poshmark and the box was damaged. So I've never seen twins. How cute is that? And he also sold these boots. So very quickly I bought a palette of clothing and shoes. It came up to, I think it was like $8 to $10 an item, depending on which palette it was, because I just did a featured members video with him in it and some of them were $8 to $9. This one he says $10. Took an offer of $360 plus shipping. Marcy Bean, women's size seven, turquoise, antique saddle, big bass cowboy boots. Picked up at a garage sale yesterday with six other items for a whopping $2. So 29 cents into each item sold in one hour for $35 on Mercari with some dings to the finish. So it is a Starbucks mug with some issues. Starbucks mugs, definitely look them up. Some of them go for big bucks. All right, this one comes from Mom, Mom's Nose Treasures. Bought a pink plastic container box of LOL surprise dolls at a swap meet for $10. Some of these dolls are graded rares and ultra rares, etc. It was too overwhelming for me to figure it out and I'm really, and I really am too disorganized to try and sell individually and figure out which outfit goes with which doll. I totally get this. I lot them up as well. And what she means by rares and ultra rares is they're like those blind bags. You never know which one you're going to get and some of them are harder to find. So that's what she means. And you can sell those individually for more money. Sold in auction with starting bid of $29.99. I upped the starting bid from $9.99 because after five days I had 14 watchers and zero bids. Huge lot, 35 dolls and pets ended up selling for $48 plus shipping is also from Mom's Nose Treasures. And this one is super cute. Christian Thrift Store 25% off sale on a Wednesday. I purchased this for $2.99. Sold on Mercari took a couple months and had lower the price a few times to Likers. Buyer bought it at listed price, which was very nice. So it's a vintage napco where I think it's a planter. It's hard to tell here, but I'll pop up the picture sold for $37. I bought this Antique Apothecary Medicine Cabinet at an estate garage sale for $25.  Sold March 4th for best offer of $500. How fantastic is that? Wow. Wow, wow. Rare 1900s. That is amazing. Don't overlook the bathroom at estate sales. If you guys have not seen my Bolo Bathroom Bolo's category video, I've got two or three of them now. Fantastic items to look for that you can find in the bathroom. Picked up these boxes of Breathe Right nasal strips. They are new sealed, listed them on eBay for $49.99 and two days later took an offer of $42 plus shipping. That's awesome. Purchased this mitt for $2.50 on 50% off day at my local thrift store. Listed it for $45. Sold in two days for a best offer of $40 plus shipping. Mizuno, I think is how you pronounce the brand. Okay, paid $2 at an estate sale and sold for $35 plus shipping and it's a 1980s Imperial sticker album. It's mostly empty, so really you're paying for the album and it sold for $35. I feel like I had this when I was a kid. I think I did. There's something similar. I used to love sticker books when I was a kid. The money that some stickers go for, I have a Bolo category video on stickers to be on the lookout for. Unbelievable, unbelievable what people will pay for them. Okay, I paid $5 for it at a mom and pop thrift store. It's a vintage cotton hand quilted scalloped edge double wedding ring quilt. So these quilts have patterns and the different patterns some are more sought after than others. So you definitely want to figure out what the pattern is. I don't know if Google Lens can help you with that, but the five resellers, they sell tons of quilts and they talk about it over on their channel. So definitely check them out. But this quilt sold for $149.99 plus shipping and yeah, they paid five bucks for it. That's amazing. A lot of the estate sale companies know that these are big money. Oh no, I was like excited, I got an offer, but it's not a good offer. So all right, paid $0.25 at an estate sale digging through bins and bins of clothes in a room full. I found eight new attacks vintage ladies panties. Vintage panties can go for big money, you guys. Definitely. Paid a quarter of a piece for them. These sold in minutes after listing sold a different pair later in the day for $19.99 plus shipping. Great Bolo, totally worth the awkwardness of digging through those totes for these. These are Olga, the brand Olga O-L-G-A. New attacks sold for $49.99 plus shipping. Some of these you want to do an auction on, but start your auction high. So if this were me and I had looked up comps on this and saw that it was at $49.99 high sale, I probably would have tried an auction because the worst case is it doesn't sell and then you re-listed it to buy it now. But some of the vintage panties can go really high if they're auctioned. Now, I do have a video on vintage panties. Certain ones go for more and there's certain things that you need to look for and I talk about those things in that video. So that might be a good one for you to go and check out if you're looking to get into vintage lingerie. I got all of these free at a curbside pickup. I almost tossed them again because the shaker top was broken, but parted out was a term I had just learned. It took about eight months to sell, but they didn't take up much space. So it is a Tupperware replacement. It's the wheel disc only for the shaker mix. So she's got three separate, you can see it here, three separate listings and all bread and butter, but it all adds up. And this is the same gal. This came from the same curbside pickup, took a best offer of 20 plus shipping, 100% profit. I was doing a sale, getting rid of stale inventory. So they are pro pin racquet balls, seven cans of two balls. So what's nice about this is they're free.  You might have a, sorry, these are jeans, a bread and butter or possibly a big money Bolo on your hands. All right, this one comes from 1987 Ventures Tracy. She has a YouTube channel. This is what it looks like. She is a Bolo buddies member. So if I shout out a YouTube channel and I say they're a Bolo buddies member, that means that they have joined my YouTube channel, this channel for perks. And that just gets them shout outs and videos like this and it gets them in a featured members video once a month. So if you're interested in memberships, if you join at level two, you get the shout outs, there's a join button down below. There is also a link in the description if you don't see that button. All right, my channel is completely free. This is for perks. This is for people who are trying to grow their channels or want to get exposure with their eBay stores, stuff like that. All right, she bought this for $2 at a thrift store. I didn't know what it was, but my spidey senses were tingling. Turns out I was right, listed it high a few months ago, got an offer for $90. Wait, got an offer from this buyer for $90 and didn't answer right away. An hour later, she made another offer for $100 and I took it. It is an antique, a Velroy and Bach. It's a mug. So very, very cool. A friend gave me two of these free. She had got them as a free gift from a casino. Italian made duvet cover, had it in an auction with $57 as first bid, got an offer within a day or two of $60. They go for more, but I took offer since I didn't feel like waiting and I have one more to list. Plus made some money in shipping by using a priority rate A box. That's a regional mailbox. Payed $2.99 to promote the auction. So let me know in the comments, do you guys use that feature where you promote your auctions? I have not done that. My husband did it once and I thought he was crazy, but she's doing it. So maybe it's a good idea. Let me know in the comments how you guys feel about that. I do promoted listings, but I have not promoted any auctions. $2.99, $2.99. I'm like, ah, that's a lot of money. Yeah. Oh, if you want to learn about the regional boxes, Rachel Strickland, YouTube channel Rachel Strickland has an awesome video that teaches you about that. I have not ever used them because I didn't know how to use them. And then I watched her video and it simplified things so much that I now use them. So check that out. This is the duvet cover right here that sold for $60.  So probably $3 for this water flosser. It came without the box, but everything sealed within a pouch. I decided to part it out and sell each item as replacements. This sold within two weeks of listing and already paid for my trip that day. So again, parting it out. It's a water pick water flosser and it sold for $21.78 plus shipping. This one comes from, I believe it's eBay store, Leo's treasures. I'll pop it up here if I got the name wrong. I purchased these pencils that are in a state sale. They were in a Ziploc bag with some post-it notes and I think post-it is a, you can get a Vero for that because I think post-it is trademarked. So you have to use like sticky notes. If you ever sell post-it notes, just know that. If it's post-it brand, I think you're fine, but you can't call like other sticky notes post-its. I think that's how it works. Anyway, I just released another video. I have three of them out now of items not to buy Vero items. People have been suspended for these items or they have had them taken down from their eBay store and these were posted by members in this group. I invited them to share their items that have gotten them pretty much in trouble on eBay and I created videos and I will tell you, I learned about so many things. I can't remember if post-it notes was on there or if that was just one that was put in the comments of the video, which I think I'm going to do some more videos on this because I have, wow, I've learned a lot, a lot of stuff I didn't know and really learning from other resellers is the best way to figure out what not to list and what to list. So anyway, back to the entire bag was $2. So cost of these pencils was probably about 40 cents. They sold for $39.16 plus shipping. Definitely look up pencils. This one comes from mom's nose treasures. Paid 25 cents at any antique mall shop sold in about seven months for best offer of $24.99 plus $8.70 shipping. Originally had it listed for $39.99. He sent offer for 20 and I countered at $24.99. 1980s Muppet Baby's stickers. These are made by Hallmark. Super cute. It's just a sticker sheet. It's crazy. All right. Bought a box of vintage 60s and 70s G.I. Joe accessories at an antique mall show for $30. So I have $4 into these pictured items and seven other lots of stuff out of the same box. Either sold or listed in the same price range. Gross on everything will be around $280. Main selling point for this lot is the goggles and the unbroken strap. So this one comes from a member of my Facebook group. I won't mention his name in case he wants to remain anonymous, but he is a, I believe he's a collector and I think he has a store, storefront, and then he sells on eBay, but he knows a lot about vintage toys and he's always chiming in and the posts in my Facebook group and helping people out. So $38 that looks like this sold and free shipping. But what he's saying is the accessories are what upped the price for this. This one just sold paid a dollar each at a garage sale for three of these tops from 1988 just because they were new in package and vintage. This is the last of three to sell. It's a wizard and it sold for 50 cents, not 50 cents, $50. Sorry. All right, this one comes from mom's nose treasures, paid 12 on offer up. So she's sourcing on offer up. So it is, you can source on other platforms. There was one gal that bought something on McCurry for like, I don't know, $70 some dollars and sold it for hundreds on eBay. It was crazy. It was in one of my videos. Anyway, she paid 12 on offer up sold in two weeks, had it listed for 95 and took a best offer of 70. Vintage Lisa Frank. This is a, it's a three ring binder. So vintage Lisa Frank can be an amazing bolo. Definitely be on the lookout. Make sure you're not getting a reproduction though. It used to be, you could tell they were vintage if they had a capital L and a capital F, but now they're coming back with the capital L and the capital F. So it's a little harder to know. So be careful. All right, this one comes from Jack's treasures, another YouTube channel. You should definitely check out Bolo Buddies member. And she says this is a very specific Spider-Man figure. I thought it would be normal $3 throw it in their booth. They have like a booth at a flea market and you know, they do storage units. So when they get things that are not big money, they'll just put them in the booth. So she looked it up has pennies in it because it came in a storage unit and it sold for $105 really quick. So that is awesome. And this is what you need to be on the lookout for. All right, you guys, I think that was 25 Bolo items, items to be on the lookout for items you can hopefully buy low and sell high. My name is Courtney, if you're new here, I don't think I told you that. Also known as Bolo Buddies, my channel is all about Bolo items, items to be on the lookout for items you can buy low and sell high, except for the items that you don't want to be on the lookout for. I've got a handful of videos of those, hopefully more to come because I think they're super educational and I think we need to know which items that we should not be listing on eBay as well as the things that do sell well. Thank you so much for being here. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share. Thanks for watching. Hey Bolo Buddies, thanks for watching. I'm going to tell you where they got it, what they paid for it, and what it sold for. Let's get started.