based around the Christian bishop St. Nicholas of Myra who lived from March 15, 270 until December 6, 343 A.D. Santa Claus in modern times has become a merger of St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, the Norse god Odin, the ghost of Christmas present in an advertising campaign. Traditionally, Nicholas was born in the city of Pitara in Asia Minor in the Roman Empire to a wealthy family of Greek Christians. In some accounts, Nicholas's uncle was the bishop of the city of Myra, also in Lycia. Recognizing his nephew's calling, Nicholas's uncle ordained him as a priest. After his parents died, Nicholas is said to have distributed their wealth to the poor. In his most famous exploit, Nicholas heard of a devout man who once had been wealthy, but had lost all his money. The man had three daughters, but could not afford a proper dowry for them. This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably in absence of any other possible employment be forced to become prostitutes. Hearing of the girl's plight, Nicholas decided to help them, but being too modest to help the family in public, he went to the house under the cover of night and threw a purse filled with gold coins through the window opening into the house. He did the same thing the next two nights, giving the man a total of three bags of gold, one for each of his daughters. In another story, Nicholas is said to have visited the Holy Land. The ship he was on was nearly destroyed by a terrible storm, but he rebuked the waves, causing the storm to subside. Because of this miracle, Nicholas became venerated as the patron saint of sailors.  Nicholas, visiting the region to care for the hungry, saw through the butcher's lies and resurrected the pickled children by making the sign of the cross. The feast day of St. Nicholas, otherwise known as St. Nicholas's Day, is observed on December 6th, usually in the West, while in Eastern Christian countries, is celebrated on December 19th. It is celebrated as a Christian festival with particular regard to this reputation as a bringer of gifts, as well as through the attendance of a mass or other worship service. In the Ukraine, children wait for St. Nicholas to come and to put a present under their pillows, provided that the children were good during the year. Children who behave badly may expect to find a twig or a piece of coal under their pillows. In the United States, one custom associated with St. Nicholas's Day is children leaving their shoes in the foyer on St. Nicholas Eve, in hope that St. Nicholas will place some coins on their shoes. Father Christmas is a traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. The first known English personification of Christmas, a carol attributed to Richard Smart, rector of Plime Tree, from 1435 to 1477, was associated with merrymaking, singing, and drinking. Many late medieval Christmas customs incorporated both sacred and secular themes. In Norwich in January 1443, at a traditional battle between the flesh and the spirit, John Gladman, crowned and disguised as King Christmas, roamed behind a pageant of the months, disguised as the season required on a horse decorated with tinfoil. As interest in Christmas customs waned, Father Christmas's profile declined. During the Reformation in 16th, 17th century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift-bringer from Sinterclause to the Christ child, or Christkindle, which was corrupted in English as Chris Kringle. He still continued to be regarded as Christmas's presiding spirit. However, the diaries of 18th and early 19th century clergy take little note of any Christmas traditions. During the Victorian period, Christmas customs enjoyed a significant revival, including the figure of Father Christmas himself as the emblem of good cheer. Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol, was highly influential and has been credited both with reviving interest in Christmas in England and with shaping the themes attached to it. A famous image from the novel is John Leitch's illustration of the ghost of Christmas present. Although not explicitly named Father Christmas, the character wears a holly wreath, is shown sitting among food, drink, and wassail bowl, and is dressed in the traditional loose furred gown, but in green rather than the red. As Victorian Christmas has developed into family festivals centered mainly on children, Father Christmas started to be associated with the giving of gifts. Author Washington Irving wrote in 1812 a history of New York in which Irving inserted a dream sequence featuring St. Nicholas soaring over treetops in a flying wagon. In 1821, the book A New Year's Present to the Little Ones from 5 to 12 was published in New York. It contained old Santa Claus with much delight. An anonymous poem describes Santa Claus on a reindeer sleigh bringing presents to children. Some modern ideas of Santa Claus became canon after the anonymous publication of the poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, better known today as The Night Before Christmas, was printed in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23rd, 1823. In the poem, St. Nick is described as being chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf with a little round belly that shook like a bowl full of jelly. The reindeer were also named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, Blixom. Dunder and Blixom, however, were later changed to the more German sounding Donner and Blitzen. A magazine article from 1853 described American Christmas customs to British readers, referring to children hanging up their stockings on Christmas Eve for a fabulous personage whose name varies. In Pennsylvania, he is usually called Krish Kinkl, but in New York, he is St. Nicholas or Santa Claus. As the years passed, Santa Claus evolved into a large, heavy-set man. One of the first artists to define Santa Claus's modern image was Thomas Nast, an American cartoonist in the 19th century. In 1863, a picture of Santa Claus illustrated by Nast appeared in Harper's Weekly. As the U.S.-inspired customs became popular in England, Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. Until the late 1890s, both characters were still distinguishable from each other. L. Frank Bombs, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, a 1902 children's book, further popularized Santa Claus and gave him many of his more memorable qualities such as being immortal. Haddon Sunbaum's depiction of Santa Claus further popularized him for the Coca-Cola Company's Christmas advertising in the 1930s. The popularity of the ad campaign spawned rumors that Coca-Cola Company had invented Santa Claus, and that's why he wears red and white due to those colors being the company's colors. This however was untrue due to Santa appearing dressed in red and white in his current form on several covers of Huck magazine during the first few years of the 20th century. So, where did some of the other traditions associated with Santa come into play? Well, in pre-Christian Norse tradition, Odin would often enter through chimneys and fireholes on the solstice. In the Italian Baphana tradition, a gift-giving witch is perpetually covered with soot from her trips down the chimneys of children's homes. In North American tradition, in the United States and Canada at least, Santa lives on the North Pole, which according to Canada Post, lies within Canadian jurisdiction in postal code H0H0H0, a reference to how Santa is described as laughing. On December 23, 2008, Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, firmly awarded Canadian citizenship status to Santa Claus. According to German tradition, Netsch Ruprecht appears in homes on Christmas Eve and asks children whether they know their prayers. If they do, they receive apples, nuts, and gingerbread. If they don't, he beats the children with a bag of ashes. In many traditions on the evening of December 5, a wicked hairy devil appears on the streets. He sometimes accompanies St. Nicholas. However, Krampus will at times be on his own, visiting homes and businesses. St. Nicholas dispenses gifts while the Krampus supplies coal and bundles of birch branches. Bill's Nickel is a companion of St. Nicholas in the Palatinate, Germany, who is a man wearing fur which covers his entire body and he sometimes wears a mask with a long tongue.  But if the children were not good, they find coal and or switches in their stockings instead. Okay, so that explains the chimney and the concept of the naughty and nice list. But what about the elves? Where do they come from? The first appearance of the Christmas Elf was in the 1850 book by Louisa May Alcott, entitled Christmas Elves. The image of the elves in a workshop building toys was popularized by Godi's Ladies Book in the 1873 Christmas issue. Godi's was also responsible for the first widely circulated picture of a modern Christmas tree in its 1850 Christmas issue. The predecessor of St.'s Elves was that of Black Peter, who was a companion of St. Nicholas, which first appeared in an 1850 book by Amsterdam schoolteacher Jan Skinkman. So there you have it, my friends. Before you feel there isn't any harm in not believing in a figure that many acknowledge to be a fiction, just remember, Santa isn't just a whimsical figure who wears a charming suit and affects a jolly demeanor. He's a symbol, a symbol of the human ability to be able to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives. If you can't believe, if you can't accept anything on faith, then you're doomed for a life dominated by doubt. The spirit of Santa is to create in the minds of all, not just children, but the young and the old alike, a world far better than the one made for them. And if you go on to suggest there is no Santa Claus, then you must ask yourself, which is worse, a lie that draws a smile or truth that draws a tear? Santa Claus is real, my friends. He is the spirit of giving, the spirit of joy, the spirit of innocence and kindness. Santa may not be a physical being, a jolly man in a red coat and hat, but he is an idea for at least one night out of the year. We can all be better versions of ourselves. Santa is real. He's real because children all over the world believe in him and parents around the world believe in the idea of him. With that being said, I invite you to ask yourself this one simple question. Do you believe in Santa Claus? I'm going to stay up to date on all things geek culture. Merry Christmas.


Hey, hey, hey, it's another year, it's another Scream. And a gory one of that. Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for Scream 6. I still find it hilarious that this series is still going. I remember watching Scream 2 back in the late 90s on VHS and then I kind of got around to watching all the other films. Honestly, Scream 3 is still the worst one, in my opinion. I actually think that Scream 4 is very unappreciated. I did get around to seeing Scream 5 just recently and I liked it. I think it was a pretty good sequel, even if it did kill off Dewey, which apologies for those of you who didn't know that, but it's been out for a few years now. They did make comments about that with legacy characters and you can tell that it was an underhanded jab at the Star Wars films or the new ones, anyways. This film follows the survivors from the first film, primarily being Sam and Tara and some of their friends who have now moved to the city for college. Whereas Tara is actually trying to continue along with her life from the previous film, Sam is just dead set stuck in this protection mentality, as well as there's also these false rumors being passed around that she's kind of the orchestrator of the entire event. As the Scream movies have always been, they've always been relevant not only with film but also just kind of current day things and misinformation, false identities and false truths being pushed is a pretty prominent thing happening. And I will say that this film kind of has an up and a down and then an up for me. The beginning of the film honestly is at first one of the dumber openings.  Like they try to make a kind of a reference to the stupidity of the scene, but then once the first half is done there's another half to it and that's the part that's really fun. So I feel that that's kind of the flow, the ebb and flow of this film.  It's not until the bodega shootout, which is where they take refuge inside. This convenience store and a Scream guy killer follows them along and the whole thought that there was supernatural elements to this because they did that edit where he dodges the shotgun blast. I was very let down. But after this the film really delves into this absurdity and this hysteria and the gore. Like holy crap, some of the deaths in this movie are brutal. Absolutely vicious. And the film just keeps on upping and upping and upping the absurdity and the intensity of this film. I actually do like Sam in this film. Again, I do like her own personal demons or own personal fears of what's going on happening both within her own mind as well as what's going on around her and the threats that follow her and her sister. I do like the core group. I like how they are cohesed. There's probably more of a cohesion in with this than the other movies. I felt like they just had to be because they were all survivors of the event. Whereas this one, they're a core group. And as the film gets towards the end, you are actually in for a really good ride. Especially the last, I would say 20-30 minutes is really good from everything from going on to the subway train to the final climax of the film. I really enjoyed the second half of this movie. The second half of this movie is very, very good. It's very well paced. It's got some great intensity, some great scares, some great horror, some great gore, and some wackadoodle twists at the end. However, the first half is slow, and that's the part that it's going to be the most challenging for viewers is just getting over that hump, that initial the opening. And I understand that it's laying down a lot of aspects that are kind of the core aspect of the film being Sam's personal demons and her own personal struggles to try and acclimate and return to society with how things are. But it just feels like, but it definitely takes a hit on the pacing. I will say that. Now something that was actually kind of cool is I went to a 3D event. You don't need to see this movie in 3D if anything. I kind of wish I hadn't.  Some of you might have seen this poster around. Look how cool this is. Nope. That's awesome. So I'm going to definitely put that up on the wall. But that's really cool, right? Overall is Scream 6 a worthy sequel considering it's the 6th in the series. Actually, yes, I think it's pretty decent. It takes a lot of what was established in the last film and continues on with that, as well as making some nods to the previous film. Probably some of the best moments are with just the main characters. There is a kind of a tossaway line about why Neve Campbell is in this movie. For those of you who didn't know, there was discrepancy with her pay and she didn't want to come back for that. So they kind of just give her a send off through a line. Maybe she might come back in another one. Depends on how much they pay her. Gale Weathers is good in this one. I think that Courtney Cox actually has a pretty good bit in it. She's probably got one of the most intense scenes in the entire film. So give her credit for that. The only thing that I could probably say about Scream 6 that might be a little bit on the nose is just it does go through one ear and out the other. You know that they're setting up another one right after this. And I'm kind of worried that it will become serialization to the point where it is the very thing that it's parodying. It's more so focusing on establishing something to create. Instead of creating something that's parodying and also pointing out establish horror franchises, it's becoming one of its own. Like they literally call themselves a franchise at this point in this series. And the self awareness is still good. It's still spot on considering this is the second film about Wes Craven attached to it. I think I might be a little bit pressed to try and remember that I saw this movie this year. I definitely will remember because of the poster, but overall as a memorable experience I think I'm going to have kind of just a feeling towards it at the end of the year. So in the end I'm going to give Scream 6 a 4 out of 7.  If you're a fan of horror slasher movies you'll enjoy it. I just don't think it's anything exceptional, but I think it is competently well put together. But those are my thoughts. What did you guys think about the movie? Let me know in the comments below. Otherwise guys I hope you enjoyed the review. If you did leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe. Until then I'll see you guys next time.


Here I am with Zach Geist, who has a really interesting business called Student Loan Tutor that basically gets people out of student debt, or gets them out of the servitude to student debt. Whatever numbers are still on the books and whatever computers and whatever banks, whatever system, you know, it gets complicated. But basically it's a, he finds ways to liberate people from the burden of debt from being debt peons.  But like what you're doing is it's not only like liberating for individuals. And like you've told me like a lot of moving stories and stuff, but also it has, like for me, it has systemic implications, political implications, you know, even going to the level of debt jubilee and things like that. So yeah, can you tell me a little bit about, I mean, because when I first, you know, when I first, when you first told me what you did, I was like, but student debt is non-dischargeable. You can never escape it, right? So that's not true, is it? No. And that's, like a lot of truth, it's true and not true. So it's both. And I think in the fact that it's very difficult, but not impossible to discharge student loan debts in bankruptcy. And I have to of course say, I am not an attorney, I'm not giving legal advice. What it appears has happened is in closing a loophole, like if you close a door, it forces, there's air pressure and windows begin to burst. So in closing that door for bankruptcy of student loans or making it virtually impossible, you're making undue hardship impossible to show. But in doing that, it opens up loan forgiveness, which is a complicated, I don't know if it's intentionally complicated, but it happens to be in practice complicated. But it does create something like a debt jubilee, at least when it pertains to student loans, which your comment said it has deeper implications. And I think that one of the beautiful things that in trying to stop student borrowers from being able to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy, something bigger is going to happen, which is we could bring awareness to this idea of debt jubilee. Yeah, it does. I was saying before we recorded some stuff, just like me speaking about debt and the idea of illegitimate debt, which I think that when you're forced to go into debt just to become a full member of society, which requires you to go to some kind of school, some kind of professional school, when debt is baked into the cake for 90% of the people or 80 or 90% of the people, that's not legitimate debt. That is a system error. And then to hook people's moral desire to repay their debts is in service to a corrupt financial system. That's illegitimate. So you're on the ground in this thing. I tend to be up in the clouds, theoretical and stuff, but you're actually encountering and helping people who are just burdened. What does this burden look like for people? Is it that they made some bad decisions, poor choices, and they deserve to be in debt? Can you paint the typical situation that somebody's in if there is a typical situation? Yeah, I could speak to what I see a lot of the situations being. The people that we work with, I'm also forced to do things not exactly how I would love to. I would love to help a lot more people than I help currently. The challenge I run into is that nobody pays me except for the people that I help. Like there's no bank paying me, the government's not paying, and we have people working on this, taking the time. And so the challenge is that we work with a lot of people that have graduate degrees. So most of our clients have a quarter million or more, not that the same principles don't help everybody. The challenge with for-profit schools is they have a quarter million. Yeah, and that's just principle and interest right now. How much do these schools cost? They've doubled in the past eight years. And they probably double because of student lending because it's like, well, we can jack it up however much we want because people are going to borrow the money anyway. So there's no limit almost. The fascinating thing, so I was curious about this too, and there's one of them is a professor from Penn State wrote a book in 2013 about this problem. The idea is that for-profit schools came into existence and they were federally accredited. So their business was to bring in as many students as possible because they could bring in money that way. And then essentially the public schools and the UCs were, and even the private colleges, were looking at that model and expected to keep up with the same production as those schools were.  And so the schools would compete with one another. And in doing so, they'd get better amenities, better gyms, larger facilities to compete with the other schools. So that same level of competition and the same dependence on debt. Bigger sports stadiums, big whole thing. Yeah, and not bigger teacher salaries though. That's like the one. Anyway, I derailed you though. You were talking about like, so these people are in a quarter million of debt. Quarter million of most of my clients are quarter million dollars in debt coming in. They're sometimes making payments. They generally have two different strategies. They're trying to pay off the debt because they feel obligated to pay off the debt. And they're hopeful that something is going to change that is going to allow them to pay off the debt. They're going to have a successful business. They're going to make some successful investments. That's partly why they went to school to begin with. They did. They're like chiropractors, lawyers, acupuncturists. Yeah, yeah. They went to school so that they could obviously earn a livelihood. That's an important part. But most of my clients, you said, is it a bad decision? Did they make a bad decision? Did they do something wrong? Did they make a poor decision? And some people, I guess one story is, yeah, they made a poor decision financially because they went into a profession that doesn't pay a ton of money, but does require a lot of education to practice that. Another thing you could say is they made the best decision because they followed what their heart was calling them to do and they ignored the financial element of it to some degree. They said, well, I might not have it as easy going this direction of following my heart as I would going this other direction and going to converting my very life force to make money so that I could enjoy whatever my life is outside of my work. So in some ways, they made the best decision by following their heart and doing something they really love. I mean, usually there's some suggestion though, when you're looking at professional schools, there's some suggestion that you're going to be able to have a viable career here. Of course. Right? Yeah. So I imagine that so do people like blame themselves when it doesn't work? How much, for one thing, how much is like a monthly debt payment if you have a quarter million dollars of student loans? It's over three grand. It depends on your interest rate. And that depends on also your term. So there's nine different, technically, 10 different ways to repay a student loan. So you have to be making, like even if you made like $8,000 a month, that's like $100,000 a year, first you're paying taxes on that. So now you're down to like, you know, $6,000 or $5,500. And then you take $3,000 off the top of that. That's $2,500 left for your life. And this is, and what's the term for paying? Like, how long would they be paying this? 10, 20, even 30 years. So there's different ways to repay it. Oftentimes people, they, like I said, they have one strategy like, let me pay this thing off as soon as possible. And they try to do that for a while. Then life happens. And then they put it into ferment or forbearance, then it accrues interest, interest capitalizes. As they go back in, a lot of people hear about income driven repayment and they get into a low payment at first. And then that starts to rise. And then when that gets big enough, because the system's broken, then they go back into a deferment. The challenge is, is that there's not really anybody wanting to help them. There's no financial interest in helping people that have already borrowed the money. Unless of course they have phenomenal credit, and then you can put them in a private loan in a lower interest rate and that bank makes it. And a lot of times what happens if they have family or friends or parents who are financially capable of helping them, then they, those people bail them out. So really what this is, is a wealth transfer that's draining wealth away from the middle and upper middle class, funneling it to the financial system and basically sending, like hollowing out the middle and upper middle class basically, and dividing society, polarizing society along wealth lines.  It's a huge divide now. Yeah. Because the only way that a lot of people maintain a viable American life is either to rack up credit card debt. And then when that fails, I know a lot of people my age and younger, even my age, I'm 50, give or take. A lot of people even my age are still kind of depend, like their parents bail them out for this, bail them out for that, help them with the down payment on the house. And especially people younger in their 20s and 30s. They can't live anything like the life their parents lived without draining that money, the money that would have been their inheritance or something like that. And I know this is like kind of problem of the affluent. I mean, then you go to the people who don't have affluent parents and they just end up in what you're describing this like lifelong struggle with debt always over their heads forever. And so you have found ways, okay, so actually I keep interrupting you and not letting you the poor choices thing. But I mean, it's pretty obvious this is a systemic problem. It's a systemic problem. And I think it's directing people to make decisions with their entire life of a direction to go, the people that do pay off their debt, a lot of them that have have followed a place, they have followed what their mind said would make the most amount of money. And the people that have gone to like, I want to be a healer, I want to I see a deep need, work with people that have a lot of need, which generally people that have a lot of need by definition don't have the ability to pay. So they don't have ability to receive the money and then give it in the form of interest and principle. So basically the student loans forced you to to join the rat race and play the money game.  So it's okay, do I get a fancy job at a big urban hospital? Or do I go serve some underserved community and make way way less? Well, I'd really like to do that maybe after I pay off my student loans, you know, so it forces them into it, or if you're some kind of like a chiropractor or an acupuncturist. And you would really like to not just serve rich people, which is what a lot of holistic practitioners have to do is not because they're greedy. It's like they're under this constant pressure. So the debt system basically keeps everybody imprisoned in a certain lifestyle, right, a certain, you're forced to sell your gifts to the highest bidder, which then may not be the people that really require your gifts the most. And I think that there's, you go in that specific direction. And I think that more people may be open to what is considered holistic or alternative medicines. If everything wasn't so weighing on a different way to play the money game, I think most people are, they're playing the money game until they feel like they don't need to do that anymore. At least that's their idea. And many people don't ever escape that. Or if they do end up, quote unquote, winning the money game, they're a different person because they've won it because of the ruthlessness and the ignoring everything in order to get there. They become someone else. The idealistic, altruistic version of themself has died somewhere in that process. And so when you find ways to liberate them from the debt, does that part of them come alive again? Like does it change their life in more ways than just, oh, I've got more money now. Maybe I'll buy a sailboat.  It's a good question. I think it varies per person, but I definitely think that there's some relief. My goal is with Student Loan Tutor and the idea of what I would call sacred finance in a way is how does a shifting and understanding of how the system works and your place in it kind of like Neo understanding that he's in a matrix and that there's a non matrix and a matrix. And how do I work within instead of saying, I'm just not participating at all and becoming a site on the sideline? How do I help other people that are also trapped in it and also not get eaten alive by the system itself? And Student Loans is just one of those things. It's also credit card debt, right? Credit card taxes. I mean taxes are written, the game is written, the rules of the game are written by the people that have the leisure and the money to be able to even play the game at all.  They don't even realize they're playing a game and they also have no idea what the rules are. The challenge again, I'm faced with the same situation of the people that need the help the most don't have access to people or the information for how the rules work. And how is it that me and there's a team of nine of us that all work with a non-profit with me and we have a permaculture garden, we do all these really beautiful things, but how do we help all of the people that need it? Well, yeah, I mean no matter how many, I mean this is just a drop in the bucket. Yeah. And the ultimate solution isn't that everybody finds loopholes in the system. No. I mean it's that we change the system. Yeah. But I think what you're doing helps to create a field of system change and to delegitimize the system because it's actually a big psychological thing for someone and this is why I think it's kind of an initiation because to even, it's like when somebody finally goes to alternative medicine, after they've tried everything in the conventional system, it's, that's a momentous decision. It means that they are letting go of a worldview and an identity within that worldview and the same thing when someone, that moment of like, I can't pay anymore, I won't pay anymore, or I choose to reject the, that moral weight that, you know, it's actually, I think it's a hijacking of morality. The, the morality is that I want to give my gift to the world because I was so, so sacredly given this life, you know, like this life is a gift that I want to give from that gift to the world and it gets hijacked and instead of giving it to the world, it's giving it to the banks, giving it to the government. And so they're, they're hooking that moral desire, which is authentic, but diverting it towards something else. So to, to reject that, to say no more, to, to, I will not let my life energy be hijacked anymore. I will take possession of my life. That is, it's scary. I mean, that, right?  Like I imagine, well, maybe I'm an exception, like I declared bankruptcy like 10 years ago, you know, and I felt no shame around it whatsoever. But that's probably because I've been, you know, in looking at the radical roots of our system for a long time. And so I had no buy-in, no intellectual buy-in to it. But I imagine a lot of people would be like, wow, am I going to be a bad person? A deadbeat, you know, like this idea that a good person pays his debts. And, and so to, to step out of that universe into new territory, who even am I in that new territory? And who am I without this monthly burden, this dark cloud? Who am I without this? Can you say, like, do you have any stories that illustrate this or what can you say about that? What's coming up right now for me, Charles, I'm seeing it visually, and it's like really intense, is that slavery has been diluted. Instead of being concentrated into a very few people that are having it really, really, really bad, it's now polluted and masked under the guise of debt. And I think that a liberation, we deserve a liberation. Why are some people born into, how much slavery is okay? Like how much servitude and indebtedness to other human beings do we deserve to be in as our birthright? You know, that's interesting because slavery and debt originated, they were closely interlinked.  They were sold into slavery to meet the debts that were current in those societies. And there were certainly some exceptions, you know, but for them, yeah, historically slavery and debt, even going back to ancient times, were interwoven. Like most people went into slavery when they couldn't pay their debts anymore.  Eventually, you give away yourself. So this isn't an idle metaphor that you're operating here. And yeah, I mean, what is it? What do you call it when your life is not your own? It's like, it's, it's renting your life. And so you're essentially renting your life from someone else who has control of your life due to some form of privilege. And then you track that back far enough and you go, what, what bestowed them with that privilege? And there was a theft that took place at some point. And to speak on the, on David Graber and his writing about the African slave trade is from what I understand it, there was slavery in Africa, but it was a different form. There was a bond that was between the slave that would be here. And then the slave would eventually not be a slave. And you couldn't even tell who was the slaves and who weren't at some point. And it wasn't Mary, right. It was, they became part of the village and the slavery ended at some point. Not that I'm a proponent of slavery in any, in any way. I think we've moved past that. At least I hope so. But except we have this system of debt, peonage. I think we've moved past it from a, if we could see our chains that are not so clear anymore, there's more subtle, they don't feel subtle. When you wake up and you hate Monday and you still have to go do whatever Monday is, because Monday is an abstraction from, we just decided to call it Monday and we work five days and we get two days off and it's normal to hate it. It's normal. Yeah. There are shows and six comms about it. School like little kids, they hate Monday and we think it's cute and normal to look forward to Friday. The programming is pretty deep. And I wonder, I'm just thinking now, that mindset of debt, something's always hanging over your head. You know what it's reminding me of is homework. Like the programming to accept indebtedness, at least for me, it kind of began in school where there's always something hanging over my head. My time is not my own. And any time that I steal for myself, I'm going to regret it later. You know, any money that I use for myself or something that is going to serve my well-being, I'm going to regret it later because there's this fog of scarcity everywhere. And yeah, so ultimately, if we're talking about like a debt jubilee, which would put you out of business, sorry, but this is what we're really in service to. Yeah, no, totally. It's interesting to work on the very mechanism that would put me out of business. But yeah, that's what we're doing. We're speaking to the illegitimacy of maybe not all debt. I think in a healthy system, there would be definitely a place for investment and business enterprise. I think debt is beautiful. I think not debt to strangers that are trying to maximize on our... And that you have to have just to live. ...need. And I have to have it just to live. But debt, as in, I came down to your house and I was gifted. And the gift was... I went to buy all the food that I was going to eat, and I was gifted it. And I was like, are you sure? Are you sure? Laurie, I was trying to give her the money. She goes, no, no, no, it's okay. It's on a more beautiful world. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to receive that gift. And it's not a conscious debt that I'm in, but there is a debt and there's this spirit of something that is alive that has been... This is the way that human beings have evolved is in giving gift and being indebted to one another. And I think maybe that's why the African slave trade was not when it was in Africa wasn't as brutal is that there was still some spirit of, oh, yeah, that's, you know, whomever part of the tribe really, you know, they're in this role right now, but it's not their identity. It's not who they are. And there wasn't a racial dimension to it either. There wasn't. Like, you know, there wasn't this dehumanization of the slaves. Like they were recognized just as much a human being as the slave owners were. Yeah, they'd intermarry and have children, you know, from... So then when the slave trade came to this country, the slavery debt thing was wedded to white supremacy and, you know, this manifest destiny mindset and, yeah, basically racism. I mean, slavery is bad enough by itself, but slavery plus racism led to one of the most brutal systems that's ever been on this earth. Totally. And there was also white indentured service, essentially oftentimes debt peons that would be living in the same place that were really good friends with black slaves in the U.S.  And I think that it's in our heart of hearts, we know that, I mean, even the declaration of independence is that all men and women and human beings are created equal, yet weren't still not born into equality, you know, especially if you're born into debt. Right. And even if you're not, like, I mean, debts are not inheritable yet in our system, but you might as well be born into debt when we have an economy now that requires you to go into debt. Public education used to be free, you know, university level education used to be almost free. Graduate school, they would pay you to go. You didn't need to go into debt just to live. You didn't need to go into credit card debt just to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. You could support a whole family on one high school degree level income. So what was I saying? Oh, yeah, what I wanted to go with it, right, so you might as well be born into debt. And I want to bring back the racial dimension as well, because the legacy, even though it's many generations in the past, the legacy of, well, slavery's many generations in the past, but then we had, you know, Jim Crow and then the new Jim Crow going to this time. So black people are still, generally speaking, way more in debt and have a lot, like much smaller assets. So debt is kind of the inheritance of slavery and other injustices.  They have no credit rating. They can't rent an apartment, right? Oftentimes, yeah. And it's surprising who these people are, extremely intelligent, talented people. And their life circumstances have convinced them that they're not good with money. Therefore, they give up on that whole institution in a way. They end up handing it over to other people to manage for them. And generally, these people managing for them are salespeople that call themselves, you know, people that could help them with their finances and they get stuck in this position. So yeah, there's a couple of directions I could go. I want to maybe just mention one thing that I'm actually brewing an essay about this. But given that debt is the inheritance of slavery, it's the inheritance of indentured servitude, it's the inheritance of all kinds of oppression. Then when people talk about reparations and how to do that, you know, and how, what percent African-American do you have to be? And are you going to measure the genetics and who gets left out and who gets included? Like, I think that at least one huge step toward reparations would be debt cancellation. And on a global level, even more, because like pretty much all of Africa is in debt.  These African nations, they're basically exporting, exporting, exporting raw materials and they never get to see the money because all those exports are to generate foreign exchange to meet the interest payments on their debt. And they can't even keep up with that. So it's basically a system of imperial tribute.  That would be up on my list as well. I think it would happen as a result of debt jubilee. I think if everybody, Charles, were to be able to see the system for what it really is, which if I was to use a metaphor is a game of monopoly that's been being played for a very, very long time and pretty much most of the hotels, it's not just hotels, it's patents, it's copyrights, it's generations after generations of inheriting wealth without having to pay taxes. It's a tax system that is built for the rentier class, people that make money off of money as opposed to the labor class. If you were to take all of that, you wouldn't have a form of communism, like people think, oh, it's going to turn into communism. Well, you wouldn't necessarily have communism. It could develop into, what is communism anyway, could develop into some terrible thing, I guess it's possible. But I think the fair thing would be a debt jubilee because why are we inheriting debt and why are others inheriting wealth? I think if we all were to walk in, if it was a vote on whether we should start the game over, 99% of people, more than 99% would benefit from the game starting over. You might say, well, I'm doing okay. I've got some of this stuff figured out. I've got these skills. You would even benefit from it starting over because, I mean, if you look at it, 67 people approximately have over half of the world's wealth. It's accumulated, it's trapped there. And I don't think it's benefiting them either. I think it's extremely isolating to have that degree of money. The way that people relate with you when you have that degree of money, you actually become the money in a way. Yeah. I mean, it's occasionally I rub shoulders with people in that class. I can't say that they're less happy than other people, but I definitely can't say that they're more happy either. It doesn't do them much good and some of them are miserable. Yeah, I know quite a few and the ones that I know are pretty miserable. Miserable for different reasons, not miserable due to lack of food or lack of health care or worried about paying their rent or is their phone or electricity going to get shut off. They're still worried about money. They are still worried about money. They're worried about, yeah, what if the stock market crashes? You know, what if my portfolio mix is wrong? Like they're actually, they spend more of their time and energy worrying about money than like that I do for sure. And a lot of people who are just, you know, kind of middle class. I have a theory for that.  So that creates that deep fear. In a lot of ways, if they were to be liberated of a lot of their money, they would, their entire behavior, their whole life and what they choose to do and who they're able to connect with would increase. So Zach, I'd like to hear, like to speak a little bit about what is it, what's the, what are the examples of kind of the mindsets of the people who are coming to you? Like what's it like to be them? Like what's a typical situation or maybe a couple of typical situations? Like, like, and this is both for people who will resonate with it and like, oh my God, I'm not alone. And also for people who might not have compassion and might think that these are just deadbeats. Like what's it like? Wow. I can assure you that they're definitely not deadbeats. Some of the, I mean, most of the people I work with are doctors. They have doctorates. A lot of them are very heartfelt, beautiful souls. They have a lot of debt. They have that in common. They're often married to somebody who also has a lot of debt. So generally the family has $500,000 or more in student loan debt, which if you start adding that up, you were talking about, you know, you got to make this much before you even do that. Well, now you've got two people with that. Then you've got the added challenge that it's hard to, you can't even buy a house because in order to buy a house, you have to get a mortgage. The housing game is the same as a student loan game we were talking about where the prices of the schools keep going up because they're competing with one another to do it. It's all based on this economics. So what does that do to them psychologically? What's it like to be in that? I think you're in a constant frenetic state, uh, to holding out that sometimes somehow in the future by just austerity, by pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, at some point you will do enough marketing on Facebook or read the right book and get the business going and, you know, get the right clients or get the right thing going. And somehow you're going to be able to buy the house and pay it off and pay off all the debt. And somehow by reaching me generally, they've gotten to the point where they're starting to question that and they're like, well, I don't know if I can. And their biggest issue is what we do seems like magic. And I've met people in other financial in like arenas that do similar things to what we do, which is I liked what you'd said, Charles. And I don't know if you I actually literally think that you're doing magic, you know, like the stuff that you've been telling me about like these different like little glitches in the system, nothing you do is illegal.  And I can't remember some of the stuff you were talking about, but like, you know, like starting an LLC and putting income in that and like, you know, distributions don't count as income for student loan purposes. And like there's all these different like you have like probably 10 or 20 of these different maybe more, right? There's so many and they're and they're individual because all these rules are based they're they're created during when laws are being formed. So it's like, if you have this type of loan and you could only get this type of loan, if you got a huge mess, like even most accountants don't even know. No, no, I've never met an accountant that knows it. I've actually only know a handful of handful of attorneys that know this.  And the only way to intercede with these powers is that you have to know like certain magical formula.  Yeah, or less, and their interest rate gets kind of half. It's literally magic. And then at the end, the loan disappears. I'm not saying it's like magic. I'm saying it is magic. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is the, this is the system of symbol and ritual that we live in today.    Oh yeah. Totally. The biggest question people have is, what do I do with all this money I'm saving? And it's really tempting to say, well, you could invest it in this thing over here. Right. Because you probably know all kinds of tricks to, to avoid taxes and stuff like that. Yeah, right. Definitely. It kind of goes hand in hand. It was never intentional. Actually, the irony is if universal basic living income existed, I might not have ever figured all of this out. It was due to a situation of complete and utter desperation that I got involved doing this. And then it was my inability to give up on things due to some childhood programming that I can't quit nor on my failure, that I kept seeing it through when people are like, that's impossible. That's impossible. And I just can't. I mean, that must be one of the things that makes it hard for people to take the step that you're offering them this programming about my failure. Like if I can't make it in society, if I can't even pay my debts, like, what's wrong with me? I mean, this are, we're in a culture that venerates the winner.   The people that make the most money, the sad thing is, is there are also magicians, maybe black magicians in a way that they run hedge funds. What is a hedge fund? You know, it's an organization of different numbers. It's like basically voodoo. Yeah. You know, I mean, like that's another way to look at finance. Like you can, or the economy or the money system, like you are putting lots of people under your spell. And in a way, that's what the debt system is doing. It's basically creating voodoo zombies that instead of serving themselves and the expression of their lives and what they're here to do, they serve you or they serve your bank or your system. It is, again, it's a system of black magic. And you're kind of like this white magician, not trying to flatter you here, but, and I'm sure that you have your own struggle and learning curve, but you're kind of dispelling the spell, dispelling the control system. And, you know, like liberating at least individuals, but also I think that every time that you dispel the control system, for individuals, you're also weakening the whole fabric. Yeah. While we were here, a couple of things are coming up. I have, we were talking about so many things want to come out. This is what wants to be said. It was something different is Louis Hyde's book, The Gift. He, something that really jumped out on in this book about gift, gift economy and gift culture is that in a society, in a society money is supposed to travel or whatever it is, the gift is supposed to travel to the greatest need. Anytime you have a society where there are people that are stronger than the people in need, stepping between the gift, trying to move to that person, you have a sick society. And it's not the challenges. It's not like the slave owner used to be just one person. It's that guy. The challenge is it's people that you can't see. It's the wizard behind the, the dark wizard. And it's systemic. It's not systemic. Like it's happening even, it's not because of bad greedy people. No, it's, it's systemic. The people coming to me that are so desperate for help with their debt are trying to figure out, ask me how is, is that they could take the money that they're saving and use that to make more money. Like they're asking, how do I get behind the curtain?  Why is anyone behind the curtain? And I guess if I could say to speak to the shaman idea is that my goal is to be able to exercise, you know, the spirit or the apparition that's between them and their birthright, which is this liberation from indentured servitude based on where they were born or who they were born to. Right. So basically you're saying there's this natural movement of the gift towards the need. And then there's this guy who blocks that. Like I, you know, wanting to express my gifts for the benefit of all, say I'm a chiropractor, you know, and I'm wanting to, to put my hands on everybody who's injured and, and instead that gift is like, it gets like sidetracked onto whatever is going to make the most money. And then the money goes to some external power.  Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I got it.  And we only have so much attention and so much time and interest is essentially a parasite of time and life force. And to the degree that you're paying interest or rents, and you might say, oh, I own my house, would you have a mortgage?  So, I mean, so a lot of what you're saying sounds like you're some kind of communist. And, and I'd like to hear what you have to say about that. And like, are your clients mostly like left-wing radicals?  People owned their house free and clear quite often. And so anyway, so just to say, if it sounds like we're saying capitalism is bad and we should have communism, what I like to say, it's like, maybe it's the kind of capitalism that we have based on the agreements that constitute capital. But anyway, I don't want to go off too much on that. I want to hear like, what are your clients, are your clients political? What are their politics? Yeah, surprisingly, I'd say almost all my clients are conservative. Most of them are Republicans. Most of them live not on the coastlines. And I think the reason for that is that they want to really believe that America is a phenomenal country. And in many ways it is a great country. In many ways it's not. And they at least believe maybe that there could be some way for them to not be totally screwed by this. So they come in contact with me and other people that are able to work within that world of like taxes and corporations and things like that. So they're still surprised, but not as surprised as my more liberal clients. And we do have some of like many of those. You told me like a lot of chiropractors, right? A lot of chiropractors, natural pass, acupuncturists. We don't advertise really, we haven't for like, I mean. I know that a lot of chiropractors are politically conservative. I know that. Acupuncturists, really? You know, we have so, you know. Today it's actually hard to say who's liberal and conservative because things have just turned on their head. I mean, what's a communist? You know, like, are we? Nobody knows who a communist is. Are we having a communistic relationship? All here today sharing, we're all sharing food. I didn't know who, was I eating your corn tortilla? Or were you eating, you know, the beans that I bought? Like, I don't really know. There's more of that. I don't think that there's one answer like politically that everything must be liberal. Everything must be conservative or everything must be communistic. However, that's not what we're speaking to. And I know I could get turned into that. What we're speaking to is, should some people be born into indentured servitude due to how they were, where they were brought into the world? You know, I think that the issue of debt actually just totally transcends political alignment. Absolutely. And that's why I think it's such a potent issue to bypass the intense political polarization of our time and to be the vehicle for an expression of people power that discards all of these manufactured polarities, these debates that consume everybody's attention, leaving the deeper issues completely unexamined.  Yeah, yeah. And like, okay, I might have an opinion about that, but I do not have the opinion that this is the main thing we should be talking about. Let's all forgive the debt and then talk about all the other things. Right. Yeah. Right. And this is something that affects it affects Trump voters as much as it affects Hillary voters or Bernie voters, like everybody, and more and more. Trump's a big proponent of debt forgiveness for himself. Oh, right. He's bankrupted. I don't know how many times. Like six times. If you can't pay, don't pay, you know. Yeah. And that's a good example of, you know, his, I mean, he like pays no taxes and people get all worked up about that, but that's normal. Totally normal. For that class. The way that the taxes are written, and I could just say real briefly is, if you're making $30,000 a year gross revenue coming in from real estate property versus you're making that laboring, well, laboring you have an income tax to pay. With real estate, you could actually depreciate the value of the property of the structure itself. And that goes against your income, which actually you still have the property. As a matter of fact, the property probably went up in value, not down, but you're able to depreciate the asset. At which point, you're essentially making that money. You could be making it tax free. In many cases, people are. And then you say, well, that's okay. When they sell it, you'll get, oh, sorry. Then what about when the house goes up in value? You know, if I'm from the Bay Area originally, my house was like, I lived in the cheapest house in all of the Bay Area. It was in Hayward, the cheapest house. That's how we decided to move into it. It was the only thing we could afford is when I was a kid. And borderline by projects in the Jackson Triangle, if anyone listening to this knows where that is. But that house is now probably worth $650,000. Let's say, for example, someone bought it really cheap. It got bought in foreclosure, this specific house. As synchronicity would have it, I met the person who bought it. Isn't that weird? But if it raises to $600,000, all of a sudden you made $500,000 on the increase and you also were making the money off the rents that you're able to write off the depreciation of the actual buildings. You're not paying. So even though the building's appreciating, you can still write off depreciation. You're writing it off depreciation. But you say, well, okay, they'll get charged with it when they sell the house. Well, you could 1031 exchange the house, as long as you don't leave the game. I want to interrupt you a second. Yeah. Okay. Because this is a good example of the mumbo jumbo. Yeah. You're speaking a language and a cult language of depreciation assets and 1031 and try to do this and that. Yeah. This is something that ordinary citizens have only the foggiest notion of. So, yeah, it's like a magical incantation. You know, it's this occult language that you're working with. And I would say thank you for using that to help people and not just to accumulate wealth. Accumulate tons of wealth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. I don't really have much of a choice in it. I just I see where that goes. And there's a great story that Bio-Kumalafei said that put into words what I felt. And it's those who I think it's called those who walk away from Omulus. It's a 30-minute read. It's a very short science fiction book about one person essentially suffering in a cage.  But like they've made an agreement. This village has made an agreement with some God.  The only downside is they have to know that person is there. They could forget if they could, but they know that it's there. And nobody's allowed to help them. No.  You know. And I think that a lot of... It's a good metaphor for the way that our civilization is set up. Like the thing, the difference, well, that the prosperity of some depends on the misery of others. The difference between our society and that story is that in Omulus, they're actually happy. Yeah. You know. And here, not even the people who are supposedly the winners are actually happy. It's not a system that works for anybody, but still a powerful metaphor, that story. Yeah. Yeah, we're offered so many ways to feel like we're superficially helping. The ideas of like, do you want to donate your bag credit to a charity when you're going through Amazon Foods and Whole Foods, you know? Right. And you want, people do want to give. And maybe Amazon really does give it somewhere. I don't know. But they also, from what I understand, and I haven't researched it, pay virtually no taxes. Maybe don't pay any tax. Maybe even are subsidized by the cities that they locate their businesses in. And their employees pay all of the taxes. Most of...  I don't want you to... Right. Who writes the rules? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's maybe wrap it up. Is there a... Let's just take a 10-second pause and just wear longer. And see if there's one more thing that really wants to be said. Like, what do you really wish people to know if they're in debt? And not as a business pitch, but like psychologically, like what... Maybe, like, what step has to happen before people are ready to liberate themselves? Like, what has to happen? What do you want them to know? What's the deep piece of information? Well, it's coming up super strongly and it's surprising what it is. Is look what your religion says about debt and usury. If you're Jewish, look at what Moses or... Look at... I'm not Jewish, Moses, I believe. What Judaism says about debt. And if you're Muslim, look at what the Koran says about debt. And if you're Christian, look what Christ himself said about debt. And then feel into what that means. I don't come to expect me to have the answer. Maybe even pray about that. And if you don't, if you're not of any of those religious affiliations, just think about what it's like to be born into something different and how long that game should go. Maybe that game was valuable for a while. Maybe like it was cool to play the game of some people having a lot and not other people not having a lot. But at some point, when I was a kid, we'd have Nintendo and sometimes the game would glitch out. And when it did, we'd reset the thing, open a cartridge and blow in it, put it back in and press play again. Maybe it's time to do that. And the debt jubilee would be a way to do that. I would suggest that if there was something as important as a debt jubilee, probably a lot of cultures might write it down on something where they wouldn't lose it. Maybe on like a stone tablet somewhere. I don't know if you ever heard of something called the Rosetta Stone before it was an application to learn languages online. Tell us what it says on the Rosetta Stone. You know, if there's something that's on the Rosetta Stone that is the way that we were able to transcribe and figure out, translate what Egyptian meant. It was written in... The reason that the Rosetta Stone worked to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs as far as I could understand, because there were what you might call linguists and... It was hard to decode it, but it was in three languages. But it was in three languages. So the three languages, you had Greek, you had some other language which I can't... It's falling off of me right now. That's what I'm stumbling over. And then you had the Egyptian hieroglyphs. What was so important that you would carve it into stone in three languages? It was a debt jubilee. It was a declaration of a forgiveness of debt. Why was it so important to write it on three languages? And why was it hidden there, just waiting for something? Another thing is, what was Jesus's gospel? It was a debt jubilee. It was a debt forgiveness. Sin and debt are the same word in many languages. So I would send people down the pathway. And I know that the Quran is also very similar. The Islam forbids interest. Forbids interest, I think, altogether. So if that's the case for... I mean, the challenge is where people start to separate. And they say, well, what is the spiritual? What is a sacred economy? What is a sacred way to engage with finance? And that is an inquiry that I think everybody could ask themselves, what do they want to see? Because every time they're participating in the world, it's a participatory experience. We create the reality by participating in it. That's not like the law of attraction. I just think one thing and the whole world changes. Maybe that works for you. And if that does, by all means, keep doing it. But for me, it's little pieces. And I make the best decision I can to the greatest degree of where my heart leads. And it takes courage because it goes against what is mostly happening. So I won't add much to that, but I'll just say that, yeah, forgive them. It's not forgive them their sins. The translation should be forgive them their debts. And what if you turn that on yourself, too? And if you are somebody who is in debt, to let go of my bad choices and my incapacity, and I'm not good enough, and forgive yourself your debts. And I think that once you really do that, then you might be open to the kinds of offerings that you have or other opportunities in life. Because so much of the power of the debt system is in people's complicity with it. You know, their inner complicity, their belief that it is legitimate. And the same thing on a political level. For this system to change, we have to stop saying, well, you know, it's the fault of the debtors that they're in debt. We have to forgive them their debts. And once we exercise that compassion, then the system has no psychological legitimacy. And we are then ready to change it. And may it be so. May it be so. Thank you, Zach. Thank you, Charles. This was fun. It was really fun. Yeah, thank you. Thanks. That's a loud noise.