Both 20th 2021 and we have another their community development meeting. We have some new participants if you want, we can do a quick introduction to these individuals.  I think that would be great. Some of you who took part in the last meeting already met me. As I said, I work on Red Hat deployment of Claire, where we also have an application called Claire wrapper around it that integrates it tightly with Red Hat ecosystem of container images. And, uh, and yeah, uh, Lukas and Yaku are my colleagues who are onboarding on Claire work as well. So, uh, Lukas and Yaku, if you want to say hello.  Okay. So, hi, I'm Lukas, so, uh, I am working in Red Hat for like three years or so. And so far, I've been working on, uh, internal projects that deals with metadata and this kind of stuff. So, yeah, right now I'm going through or starting on Claire and I'm happy to meet you guys. Nice to meet you. And my name is Yaku, um, as Jan mentioned, we are working on the same team. Um, and I've been at Red Hat for 5 years. Um, yeah, and also looking forward to working with you all. Great. Nice to meet you guys. Cool. So we have a couple of agenda items here. Um, I'll just go right down the list and I'll click it off, uh, with just a couple of items that I have mostly informational. So, uh, me and Hank have worked out a proper Claire release cadence proposal. So far, it looks like it's thumbs up, uh, across the board as far as the Quay team. But what this consists of is that we are going to commit to a particular day of every month that a release of Claire and Claire core will take place. Um, so we'll probably stop doing these ad hoc, uh, release requests and whatever is on the, um, whatever gets merged in before this release day is what will be available in those releases. Um, this is all to kind of, um, act, let other projects treat Claire as, um, more of a dependency. Um, so something to look out for, I think, um, I'm going to bring it up today in our engineering meeting just to get like a final no go. Uh, go or no go. Um, so just keep an eye out for that. We'll probably stop doing requests for release and then, uh, release will happen once a month with a three month, um, support commitment. So if you're running, um, any other releases within the last three months, you can expect back ports. But once you fall out of that, um, three month window, you'll have to bump your Claire version for any new bug fixes. I would share the document, um, but I created it with our internal. Um, red hat Google account and this just such a burn that we can't share those documents publicly. So I'll just copy and paste it into like a public document after this meeting and put it here just so you guys can see. I mean, yeah. So I think that's going to help a lot with just the predictability of like, when is my stuff going to come out? I think we've had some turbulence, uh, dealing with, you know, oh, yeah, we merged things in the Claire core, but we don't see them in Claire for a while, but this is now will be a date where anything that's merged into Claire core and Claire will be available at a very defined date. Cool. So enrichment updates, uh, the work is underway. I'm working out the data model changes to support enrichments. If you're not aware of what enrichments is, it's the return of using. Metadata, most specifically, and VD metadata to write auxiliary data to the vulnerability reports. So, in circumstances where Alpine is missing severity, the information will be available via an enrichment. In the vulnerability report, if you would like to see more information about that, you can go to Claire repository and go to discussions and then go to design. And the Claire enrichment specification outlines this and all the work that's happening. And then if you are very interested in actually following the work issues.redhat.com, if you go to projects, yeah, I wonder if I could just do project, will that work? Okay, so in progress right now, anything with this little enrichment signifier on the ticket description are enrichment tickets. So right now I'm doing live on data model, which is just basically prepping the database and any kind of database related code to be able to handle. Multiple update operation types now, since enrichments will be a new type of updater. That's underway. And then April 26, this is what I've been working on outside of just coding. We're going to do a talk with OpenShift Commons about. The Claire index or service, the internals and how it works. So if you are unfamiliar or you're getting onboarded, Jakub and Lucas, you probably want to. Either get a recording of this or log into it live April 26. I will add a link to the calendar for that. Cool. So now there's one other thing. We got some correspondence about sent OS. I basically asked the sent OS development mailing list about if we could predictably use rel content to match sent OS and the quit. And the answer was like, maybe, but probably not things might not match up completely well. So I'm not exactly sure if we should move forward with sent OS support, especially with things moving to stream and everything being in flux. So as of today, I think we're going to take the stance that we're not going to move forward with the sent OS support. Or if we do, it will be external to Claire core, as in someone can develop the support and we'll find a way to run it in Claire out of tree. Yeah, I think, I think I agree that a an out of tree. Matcher and updater is probably the only real way forward, given that there's no. Uh, like database from the project. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it becomes a little difficult and then, you know, one of the things we want to avoid is just like.  Well, um, yeah, that's just how I feel about it. So. All right, cool. So that's all I got. Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about the go binary scanner. It must be two weeks ago now, something like that for. Thank for the hack and hustle day. I knocked together a binary scanner go binary scanner basically sort of ripped out what the go tools version sub command does. And had it pull out the module and dependency information. So that's in code review right now. There's not a. Like, it's single database of a place to look for that. So it's not like it's not going in imminently because there's no data to match against yet. But the go project is working on a vulnerability. Database centralized database for go packages and modules, or I guess just modules. So. We should be in a good position to consume that when it comes up. And of course, go look at it if you're interested. And then the other thing I wanted to touch on is the operator. I've been working on the operator. Or I guess week weeks now. And it's getting somewhere finally sort of got traction on actually like running code. Figuring out co builder things like that. So that that work is progressing. There's a design doc in the. GitHub discussions. It's a little, it's a little loose. It's spread across. I think the initial post and a couple of comments. But everything's up there. The idea is is that. Since Claire has multiple parts. It's going to be individual resources for each service the indexer matcher notifier. And then they'll be sort of ditched together with some webhook logic that makes sure everything. If they want to reference each other, they are correctly referencing each other and then an overall. Easier resource that will create the sub resources for you and optionally create a database for you if you need one. Otherwise you just. That spin up the individual service resources. So, yeah, that's that's coming along. And it's looking good. Very cool. You want to go over the Maven indexer? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Would you like to? Yeah, I thought of doing a short demo. Yeah, yeah. Shall I or at your screen, Luis? Was that sorry? Shall I already your screen? Yeah, that should be fine. Yeah, hope you guys can see my screen. Yep. Sorry, I'm like, I'm working with a very bad Internet. Hopefully, like, it will not burden you much. Okay, so actually, I've been working with this Maven indexer for a while. I actually started it as a downstream implementation. And it was mainly integrated with the CRD implementation. Then later we thought of up streaming it. So, basically the Maven scanner, it's similar to Python scanner. So, it, it extracts the jar file content from the layers. Basically, the jar files which has been created through the Maven usually have a metadata. So, the metadata will usually have the package information as well as the version information. So, that's it. That is, that will be part of each jar file which is created by the Maven too. So, it will be usually in this particular path. So, if you extract that content, the package will be in this particular form. Basically, in Maven, each and every jar will have an unique identifier. That's called group ID along with artifact ID. That will be usually, will be used to uniquely identify a jar file. And it will also have a version. So, basically, I started the implementation from scratch. But later I found that there is an implementation from the aqua security team. So, I just reused in this implementation. And thanks to Luis for reviewing this code as well as merging it. So, currently the change has been available in the clear core master. Yeah.  Yeah, before jumping into the demo, I would like to add another point that currently we don't have any local updater for Maven. That means like we are able to identify vulnerability data source for the Maven artifacts. I found couple of data sources only from GitLab. Basically, it's called ZinnaciumDB. But the thing is that the licensing model is not allowing us to access it programmatically. So, we were in touch with them and we are trying to get any exception for our product. Other than that, there is another data source from GitHub, but it seems like the data is not that much rich when comparing to the other data source from GitLab. So, I'm constantly looking for that data source. Meanwhile, those who are aware of the remote matcher, so our remote matcher from Red Hat's code dependency analytics already has Maven database support. So, current Maven indexer is integrated with that and I'll be showcasing a demo with that. So, the current one is based on the clear core command line tool. I haven't really tried to run it with the actual clear. So, the image which I'm trying to show here is basically a Java based application. It's basically used in our platform. I'm just executing this clear core CC tool report command to get the vulnerability associated with the Java artifacts present in this particular image. So, hopefully you guys can see that the report has found plenty of vulnerabilities in this particular image. Let me go to the top. It's plenty actually. I think I remember someone mentioning that that Jackson data bind package is like the canonical example to test for it because it's like the most vulnerable Java package that's ever existed. Yeah, yeah, right. I guess it almost has 209 vulnerabilities. If I remember correctly, it's pretty old anyway. So, yeah, so with this integration, we were able to analyze the jar files and list down the vulnerabilities. That's great. I'm curious when you were working through this and you were implementing this into clear core, did you find any areas where our modeling just fell off or didn't make sense? Or was it a pretty easy experience to get the support in there because we don't get that feedback too often? Actually, I haven't really drilled down into the core level. I was mostly working at the interface level and no feedbacks as of now. Definitely, I'll let you guys know in case if I find something interesting. Cool. Yeah, I mean, I think that's that was part of the goal of remodeling Claire anyways that hopefully when you're doing things like this, you've not digging.  So I'm kind of, I'm at least happy to hear that. Yeah, I'll just show another interesting fact is like, I haven't changed any existing code to achieve this. So it's pretty well designed and cruise to the team. If you look at the changes, right? The overall changes is like something like I haven't changed any, I haven't modified any existing line. I just added new line, I mean new code to complete this integration. Yeah, that's great. Cool. Well, that's great. Yeah, language support is always great to see. Yeah, I did notice that there is conversation going on about whether gymnasiums lag from updating the upstream, whether that six months period is valid or not. I wanted to respond, but I was trying to respond with more of like some kind of numerical basis. I wanted to say like, well, you know, NVD is updated this often or the security databases are updated this often.  I tried to look at the NVD database, but I couldn't get like a diff of when the last update was. So I avoided actually saying anything until I had some time to actually, you know, give them a good reason of hey, why is six months bad? You know, we can all say like six months bad, but I'd like to do it empirically. Okay, so actually I was going through an white pepper. It is related to this particular topic. So it has some analysis about like when and how the vulnerabilities are exposed and how when like the time frame between the people getting the CV and that has been exposed publicly. So I'm just going through the white paper. Probably I can share you a link. Yeah, yeah, that would be great because that's exactly what I was looking for.  But yeah, that'd be great to give me that information because then we can respond there. Yeah, sure. I'll share with you. Other than that, an information to Hank, actually, our remote matcher has vulnerability information about goal and packages as well. So probably for your goal and scanner, you can give a try using our remote matcher as well. Nice. That could be pretty cool just to do like a POC. Yeah, yeah. We just have to, do you have like an open API documentation because remote matching it would actually just hit your API correct? Right, right. So the existing implementation like just few lines of tweaking will work with the existing implement. Gotcha. Probably I can just raise a draft PR so that Hank can give it a try. Yeah, it'd be real cool. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for your presentation. That was great. Yeah. Cool. So we have a little bit of time. What I'd like to do is go over open PRs in Claire and Claire core. See if anything stuck right now. And then if we do have any additional time, we will then take a look at bugs. So let me share my screen once again. You guys are seeing GitHub. Okay, great. So let's see what's open for pull requests. Bounty concurrency. So Crosy has been going in lately in a good way. He has some good feedbacks here. But he is looking for binding the concurrency for the affected manifest API calls, I believe, let me see. We reasoned about it a little bit. I think it's fine. We are moving to so previously our strategy for doing a lot of concurrency was to basically chunk the workload.  Let them all come back and then set off the next chunk. Recently, a lot of that code has been moving to using semaphores, which just, you know, creates more of the predicament where as soon as one is finished, another one starts. So now you have more of just kind of like chain of activity that continues to happen. I guess he must have noticed this. And I have no problem with this. I mean, if we want to move away from the chunking patterns and he is probably right about it being a little bit better on burst. It sounds good to me and it just follows the pattern of the other code in there anyway. So I'm into this PR. Hank, if you are interested in anything here, we did kind of chat about a concurrency number for the sem, right? So I wanted to kind of go with the number of CPUs because I knew that if all these go routine start and they're immediately IO bound, they're going to get parked. So when they come back, I didn't want a lot of contention for scheduling because then they would just hold on to that connection even longer. But the other option was looking more along the correlating closer to the con pool max, which was 30. So we just picked a static value in between there basically to try to like negotiate like, okay, well, most likely you'll over commit cores just a bit, which is what you want. I don't think it has to be a one to one, but you'll also be under your con limit, which I think is a balance. I mean, no matter what, this is a very hard thing to say definitively without actually measuring. Like you just need metrics here. So it's mostly just anecdotal, but I think at least an educated guess would be somewhere below the max con limit, but slightly over committing on cores. So that's kind of where we landed. Yeah. All right. All right, cool. So yeah, so this is open, but I will probably I'll do a once over and I'll probably approve this today. Jason blog fixed copy ops. This is yours. This is pretty simple, right? Yeah. Yeah, this we were talking about something and yeah, you you pointed out it doesn't actually honor the interface and then I spotted a typo. So I just fired that. So this also you did actually make it do the sorting, huh? The on date sort date to do to do driving each one. Yep. Okay. I think that works. Let's get that. Let's get that in needs a rebase, but when we're done with this. This is your go binary scanner that we talked about. Yep. Do you want to form one with it? Um, or you wanted to sit for a bit. I think there's I think if you if you click on it. Yeah, I think I've got a question about something or other in there. Do we want to address this real quick if you know if we do have an answer right off the top of your head since both people are here. I mean, the reason for not pulling it in is I don't know it was relatively easy to implement and I don't know a little. I don't I like avoiding dependencies though. Yeah. Easy enough. There's in the initial open. Yeah, so it's basically like in a in our model. I'm not entirely sure how we module how we like model. How we model this like is the. Yeah, how do we indicate this is a single binary and then a dependency of that or a component of that binary. We don't really. I guess we we say it's like a the package DB is the binary path. Yeah, exactly. So what I. I would do that. I would do that for now basically the treated the same way as you look as like an RPM like the packages is actually in the RPM definitions. We don't actually find them on the file system. Right. We don't have a great model for that right now. I mean to me it could honestly just like look could just like let's agree on a string encoding like. You know, database colon package will represent a package inside a database when it's solely housed inside that database, but we haven't, you know, conformed on any kind of encoding of a string to represent that. So, you know, right now I saw that, you know, we have like Python colon something for PIP. I think now that's right. I did do that. Yes. So now I think I think Arun followed that to and did Maven colon if I'm not mistaken when you're representing the package database path. But yeah, we'll just I think that's fine to follow suit with that. We don't really formalize it. We probably should formalize it. Yeah, maybe putting some thought into how like if we want to if we want to standardize that to be a non hierarchical URI that might be just the easiest way to do it. Yeah. Okay, I'll just leave a comment there just. So, yeah, do you want a formal review of this or do you want to go back with just the comments that we just made and do another pass. Yeah, I think I've got a couple changes to make and then I'll undraft it. Okay, cool. Fedora support formal review. Are you still want to keep it in draft for now? I think just like a once over just an RFC on it, whether this if this is something we want to do or I think one of the the big questions and hurdles for this is this doesn't work with our with the way everything else got switched over to having like that. Like that equally defined distribution. Okay, names. I think a six month cycle and new things showing up when they're in beta means it would be really hard to keep that list up to date it would require everyone would require users to install clear updates at regular intervals to be able to just those things. That's sort of the, that's sort of the open question the other one I point out there is like, how do we encode lagging things as an entire distribution as out of support. That's still sort of an open question. Yeah, yeah, currently we just don't. So what's the, what's the implications of having out of support distribution inside of Claire. Whether database data model, whatever it might be versus, you know, just more data that it uses. Well, I guess the question is like how do we unicate that it's out of support I guess it could be in a side channel as an enricher, but the I guess the overall idea is like, these are. We kind of know because of policy upstream policy that these outstanding vulnerabilities will never get better. They'll never get fixed. Gotcha. So, is it do we want to just, I guess, do we want to have some way in to model that to communicate that or should we just have. I mean, I wasn't thinking about enrichers when I like wrote this out but that could also be a thing that gets put in there. That's true say to basically say like this distribution is end of life as of, you know, so when we parse vulnerability databases. There might be a fixed inversion that will never get fixed because the distribution is out of support right. Yeah, basically it'll it'll never have a fixed inversion. Because we do represent, you know, like each individual vulnerability we do represent the fact that hey this vulnerability is never going to get fixed and we'll march that as flagged. Is that is this the question is like if we can prove that your like sort of base OS is now out of support not getting security updates at all. That might be something that's worth surfacing. I got you our report although again, I think an enricher might be a good place for this. Now that you scoped it like that it might very well be it might just be a new enrichment source. That you know just is the list of distributions and has unsupported and if they match then hey. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that the the underlying OS is out of support. Yeah, that would be I think that's now another we're talking this through. I think that's a good a good way to solve this. Okay, good way to surface this at least. All right, cool rate limiter. This was just waiting on testing timing, timing tests. Oh yeah, I haven't I haven't run the timing test yet and that's on my to do this. Yep, as soon as that's done, then we'll I can make a yes or no on that the code looks fine. Like I think it's okay. I know you worked out something with crossy. Yeah, that's well this is like half like the actual mentation is in Claire. This is this bid I guess is just plumbing through making sure everything actually is configurable and uses the past in configuration and doesn't just like pull each to be clients out of the ether. Cool. And then there's this one who's been sitting for a while. I thought I agreed with this. I did ping you Hank to see if you agreed as well. This is basically just a code organization ticket from a room or a PR about where configure lives. So drivers are updater sets. It moves the configure method to live on driver updater set dot go away from the registry and then configure becomes part of the update the driver package instead of updater package. Yeah, I think that seems fine to me. I'll I'll take I'll put it on my list to take a look at the stuff in there. Okay. All right, cool. I'll just assign this to you so it shows up in your email. Okay. Yeah, great. You like that. I think that's kind of how you you said you've mentioned that before assigning it to you is helpful. I don't know if it is or not. Yeah, I mean it's more helpful than I guess. Okay. So pull request for Claire. Notifier DB usage pass. I haven't been able to look at this just yet. It isn't draft though. Is there anything it's not done for it. It's not done yet. It's it's some some groundwork for for digging into it more. It adds some profiling on like where connections are and yeah, things like that. Yeah, I do remember that. Okay. Well, when you're ready to take this out of draft just ping me. This does bring up the list. I'll circle back to that rate limiter again waiting on timing. You're not to go over that again. CICD Jan this we requested for this to actually move to Claire core. Was there any move on that? Yeah, well, I reacted with the request to really at least have a cursory look at this. So I don't I don't port the code that you might fundamentally disagree with. And another thing is that I also don't see the secrets that are available in the in the repository. And I don't know if I can make use of the quay token there. I mean, that's fine. We can add the secret is a basic logic finance leaves. Okay, I'll do this. I'll take a look at this. I think we did agree on like your reasoning around this. We're just waiting to move it to Claire core, but I'll give this one more look after this meeting today and give me a definitive answer. Okay, thank you. Okay, integration tests.  Everything I saw looked good. I thought you were doing the correct thing there. So you're just waiting for a final review, basically. Yeah, but I posted the changes like a day ago. I really had a hard time finding time for that in the past couple weeks. Yeah, it's not super high priority. So it's totally cool. It just it's very helpful for us, especially that you guys are the consumers of, you know, the rabbit MQ and active MQ stuff. So it's helpful to get your opinion about these tests free messages. Okay, cool. I'll take a look at that after this meeting. Thank you. See how bad I am with tabs. Okay, except OCI manifest for indexing. Just a back burner, right? This is you Hank. I think we lost Hank. Oh, wow, look back. His head's gone. This is a little frightening. All right. Well, I know this is just a back burner. It's probably like a nice to have. We haven't had a much request for that. But I think moving to OCI is a good idea just all around. I can't see any bad reason. So config allow disabling notifier. So Hank, the question around this I have, right? It's like, I'm not not about it. It's less of a problem now that we killed those log lines because that was really like the annoyance. But the thing is, is that disabling notifier, we don't really allow anything else to act like that. You know, we don't allow disabling the indexer in combo mode separate from other things. So I'm either for all of it where you can run combo mode and if a piece of the config is missing at a high level, then that particular service doesn't run in combo mode. Or I'm for none of it where we just combo modes combo mode. It all runs together. I didn't I don't want to like the special treatment of like just the notifier and I get it. I know why this happened is just because the notifier was spamming all the logs across like most of the services. So where do you want to go with that? But also the notifier is the only component that like needs a duration that doesn't have to be configured and you can still have a working system. So like it's it's special. Yeah. In that in that way. Anyway, like I have the matcher unconfigured and say you can't then you can't run. You can't have a clear without a matter. Yeah, but you can have just an indexer. So it's actually the matcher. That's the only special case. I mean you can't have a you can't have a clear system without an indexer either. You can run you could have just an indexer if you just wanted index reports. Well sure but then you don't have like the matcher part of the API I guess my point is the notifier like needs to be configured to do anything at all. Like you can have a complete system and not a notifier. You can't have a complete system without an indexer or without a matcher. Okay. Right. So if you just run Claire and you're not running Claire. Like and quay or and something else. You don't need the notifier at all. So like by default if it's unconfigured it should just not start it like we shouldn't throw errors that bits are unconfigured. Yeah, I mean it. Yeah, I get what you're saying I just don't like the idea that like. Here's a very special case of our configuration for notifier instead of. It being uniform and one less thing that we need to explain across the board. Because combo mode is combo mode you're expecting everything to run. I mean I guess. But I mean the. I don't know my argument is like you you have it configured to you don't have it configured to do anything. Why do you need it. But you don't have it configured to send the notifications anywhere. Yeah. Okay. Is this in a reviewable state. Probably not. It's at least six months old I think. Gotcha. Do you still want to move forward with it. I mean I don't I don't have. Strong feelings I guess one or the other. I mean I get what you're saying. So come on. You don't want notifications. Leave the notification area blank. I think that's fine. And I guess you're right in the fact that like. Yeah if you're not sending off notifications why are you running all the code using. System resources firing timers. Utilizing more go routines than necessary. Yeah and for like simple for simple setups. It's one less bit of the config you have to fill out. Okay. Okay yeah well if you do want to get it back into shape then I think I get what you're saying I think it makes sense. Okay. You want to push this into draft. I don't think I can since your PR can I. I guess not. Okay. I'll toggle it back into draft. Yeah if I can I I've never done that. And I don't know if I can open with edit maybe. Now that's just the title. Okay. All right cool. 10 minutes. Maybe we can hit clear core issues. Oh yeah so this one. Definitely worth looking at. Apparently we're creating duplicate. Vulnerabilities in the database. I am not super surprised by the existence of this bug since we do a lot of exploding of data. You know we see like a an oval and then we'll make like multiple vulnerabilities from it. I think some investigation has to be done about whether this is on purpose or are we doing this just because of a software bug. I don't find this. I think this is the binary source thing. Okay. No Austrian data sources are providing. So you think that well I thought she pointed out that quite literally. Oh you mean at what point like when we're parsing the security database and we're like writing two records now. Yeah. Okay. Okay that's a good place to start looking. I don't immediately see this as like a critical issue because we're not actually false reporting we're just like giving you things twice. It's not great. But I'm not sure if it's like a drop everything situation. Yeah. Claire before finds incorrect package versions and vulnerabilities. Again. Did you have an opinion on this one as far as where it might be. No I haven't I haven't really looked at this. Okay. I'll take a look at that. So there's no way to limit numbers of index or DB connections. This might fall into your recent work Hank so was this covered in that notifier DB work. But that graph ER goes in and sets this adds a config field starts using it. Cool so let me link those. So click or pull requests. So this was actually in a. It was in Claire. Yeah. I only did it for the notifier. I think the other ones we already do it but the notifier was just hard coded. Yep. So this before doesn't find all installed packages. Yeah I think so these really just need like investigation. The spelling investigate. So I'll try to knock those out over the next couple of weeks. There we go. It doesn't find install packages because that's really just you know finding time to sit down. Yeah and go up through some. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Issues. Okay. So that this will be handled with that linked PR incorrect version parsing for DPK archive. I haven't actually looked at Jason before answering. Okay. So just another one. Let's support. Let's close this out. There's also a JIRA. I don't know if you saw there was a message to the mailing list. Linked to the JIRA issue about this. So if we're going to close this we should also close that. Okay. I'm going to end up that information to close it after the meeting. Okay. On support of scan results. I'd like to do a POC of distrilous image as everything is today with a with a caveat. Yeah, I talked to someone about this and they said that it could just work like. Yeah. Logically there's the whole where it couldn't uninstall things, but that's not the like basal system that spits these out doesn't work that way. Awesome. So yeah, as long as there's like a documented caveat we should be able to sort of move forward with it. So let's let's do this. Let's say plan this POC for the 4.1. Let's say let's give ourselves some time. So we have 4.1 coming out June 17. Let's let's just plan it for v4 to tentatively. Sure. And then see if we can just have a POC.  You want to make a milestone? Should we start using milestones? Sure. Milestone just click here. Open close nothing. Okay. I'll do that after the meeting just because we are a little tight. But yeah, I will make a milestone. I think with the with the you know release cadence now it's it's going to be a lot easier to say like here are the things we're trying to do in this. Having our own having our own release is going to make it much easier. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, this is pretty good.  I'm not going to hold everyone just next week we should be we don't have a churn on issues too hard. So we'll just grab these next week. And then we'll go over Claire, but cool. Well, thanks everyone for sticking around. The videos will be uploaded shortly after this to YouTube, the open shift channel and I'll get all the announcements out. Well, take it easy.


What's up everybody Jason here for Jasper's case breaks calm twenty twenty two tops gypsy queen baseball just sold out This is a five box half case break three random teams each number two and again guys Everybody gets three random teams and they'll be per spot remember no vet common ships So that means just base cards anything numbered short printed variation You know chrome rookie Autographs will ship just no vet base just remember that guys and you get two autographs per box on card as well Here's a dice for this so we tripled up your names guys So there you go from lying down to Jeremy and then we got diamond backs down at the nationals Let's roll the dice and we got ourselves a four or two six times. Good luck six times one two three four five and six four to two six Lonnie down to Adam and then we got six times here One two three four five and six Six times Met down to the nationals All right, so Lonnie have the meds Jeremy Port with the Phillies Lonnie with the Pirates Jeremy Harden with the Tigers Lonnie with the A's Mike with the Diamondbacks Adam with the Brewers Lonnie with the Reds Jeremy Harden with the Yankees Lonnie with the Royals Guardians Padres Orioles Jeremy with the Cardinals harder that is Lonnie with the Rockies Adam with the Blue Jays Lonnie with the Marlins Angels Dodgers and Rangers Jeremy Port you have the Chicago White Sox Mike with the Giants Adam with the Twins Lonnie with the Mariners Adam with the Cubs Red Sox Jeremy Port with the Astros Lonnie with the Braves Mike with the Rays and Adam with the Washington Nationals So again, I'll leave it open for a quick 30 seconds to a minute if anybody wants to trade if not, I'll close it right now And we'll start ripping. All right actually mean time. Let me just Start ripping a box. Don't worry guys.  I'm just gonna start ripping a box Just to give some people potential some time They just pop you didn't see their teams and want to trade By the time I finish this box, there's no trades and we'll close it. Okay, a little quick head start Let's close the trade window then I was out Nate. We have fillers for both The dual caser has like four spots left plus a filler and the all-time great single case six box break Has a filler in the basketball section That needs to sell out which is right here So once we sell that one out, we can break it and then same thing with the dual case one in the football section Once we sell at 16 and four spots, we can sell those out. Yeah, they both have a filler. It's just two different sports in the filler so But I matched up the fillers with all the break so you don't have to go searching for specific fillers everywhere As long as you know the filler section, it should be right next to the break Yeah, that should go at some points tonight, man Good luck guys. Here we go Labor Taurus and we got AJ Alexi for the Rangers I Nothing crazy yet Robert Luba All right, so we have one more autograph here guys Marsh rookie as wander Franco rookie and Darling nice signature Jesus for the Mets Ron darling So Mets with that one. That's Lonnie my trippin are doing not not even got a numbered card yet in this box It's usually like three That's crazy a Rosaranya. Here's one coming. So this only had one numbered card That's Cameron to 150 Modesty, all right. Well, hopefully we got better boxes ahead Do they Tim do they really rule? I think that's something you tie yourself I Rule last year last year was the Braves that ruled MLB crazy name strains now, man. I wouldn't even know what that is. I Just remember the normal name strains nothing crazy. It's Cali sour diesel Alrighty next box guys. Here we go No name Julie Julia Cobb like I don't really see type of that much Like those older players are definitely probably type of short front again, I get them. I would have known Like why do we have to have all these crazy names for strains now? I can't we just be simple Zach for sack For the Guardians No, yeah, but I'm saying I'm asking why why why these crazy names like who? Who invents a strain name? Can you answer that? I'm just I'm just very curious like I've been swimming the growers like somehow do things with their plants and then They just invent a name It's it's ridiculous, right? It's like, I mean, I thought it was funny.  They had some funny names It's just hilarious though. Oh wonder Franko.  What's like your signature one? It's like, yeah, I got that from Tim Turner. Yeah. Yeah. Oh Pepsi and Coke. Gotcha. What's up? Pizzle? Shut the front door your first ever car show you've never been to any car show like nothing After all these years Pizzle and a no-name blue jays autograph Carlos Delgado, man, that's what the past the hell's wrong with you Pizzle I feel like I thought you would have been to at least a couple like, you know, I mean maybe not frequently but There's like car chosen Arizona all the time Jal, Jr. To 250 See, okay, just never went So what what's making you go? Like are you selling something you're looking for something? It's fun though, man. You should definitely go to like the National one of these years like plan it out Take the wife and take the daughter let them enjoy Chicago or Atlantic City while you're at the show I mean, maybe your daughter wants to close the show. Who knows? I don't know but It's such a fun experience man. The National is something else You just see hundreds of thousands of people that are just like us in one huge Convention Center, I tell my mom about it that obviously we're gonna be going And obviously she loves gambling. So she's like, oh, no, it's in Atlantic City. She's like, oh, could I come? I'm like, I mean technically I'm not stopping you Other but I don't think you can like Come with us. I mean, I guess I have to buy your flight ticket That would be the same flight ticket as ours She's like, yeah, I just I'll just add the burgata I was like, okay, I Mean I'm sure she'll go to the show like a day or so, but I'm like, yeah, mom. That's fine. It's just just know that I have to work those five days you know, like I'm not there for like so much fun exactly, yeah The company area. She's like, yeah, I'll ask you a Rosa if she's if she's if she wants to go I'll go with her. I was like, all right. What's yeah Like that's the one thing like when we work at the national especially like me and jolly, obviously we're breaking most of the time Tuesday Wednesday Thursday at the national like we can start breaking on Tuesday morning, right? Like 10 a.m. So like midnight usually is what it is so we can break for hours, right and then You know Wednesday is the preview night for like the VIPs. You got to go in like From like 430 to like 738 30 something like that like a four-hour window five-hour window and then Thursdays all night or again there basically And not until like Friday Saturday Sunday where we can only break during the show hours. So That'll be like from 9 a.m. To like 5, you know Those days are easier But those Tuesday Wednesday Thursday days obviously a lot longer So I'm like, we're just really ripping most of the time This time we are taking Teddy Teddy obviously lives in these clothes for most of most of his life obviously for the last couple years now here in LA But he's coming with us this time. So I think we're gonna be kind of shifting off like Joe breaks for a couple hours and I pray for a couple hours and then either I take over for Joe And then Teddy takes over for me and vice versa. So I think it'll be a little less hectic breaking So that should be fun. I don't know what the schedule is like though But I assume it's something like that and then we can have all my wife with the sorting side or the shipping backing a bagging upside So that should be fun, but I'm pretty excited. I love the next city when I went obviously just like anywhere else. There's good parts of it bad parts of it But for the most part, I mean having the casinos around is always a plus Yeah, man, enjoy enjoy your Enjoy the show see if you find anything nice. I'm sure you'll be able to find some some Devon bookers around there Really? Like you will do Cabrera number Well, I'm assuming Tim you're up. You're up in Northern, California, right? So like Giants Warriors You know fans like that 49ers, I would assume unless you're a radar fan, right? Because you could be a radio fan now that they're not there. I can open I guess it's the same. It's just the colors off Demers Gotcha, gotcha. This should have one more autograph couple numbered cards Kanha for the men's really what what do you say that like? Well, we're What city is it or town? Maybe I've heard of it playing Kershaw. Oh so more like land so you're like more in the like Trying to think of the trying to think of the Part of it. You're like more in the open like I want to say country part of it But like green everywhere I should say up in Northern, California So how far from how far from like a major city like what what's it? What city is the closest to lower Lake? I'll catch it. I honestly have only been to Northern, California a few times like I Go down to like San Diego, Mexico a lot Really never up north with it. I've only been to Things never just go open like twice in my life Third time I was just driving through it coming from Canada up north. We took like a trip I flew out to Canada, but then drove back down my wife's family But yeah, I don't really go up there so often I said only a couple times Okay, yeah, so you're your little witch for me. Yeah, for sure. Gotcha. Yeah, California man is a huge estate and Lot of land everywhere for sure All right, two more boxes of this guys two more boxes. I see a couple orders came in remember guys Those hip parade brought breaks are getting closer and closer guys. Like I said, we're just spots away So I would definitely go grab some teams it looks like cork teams also is getting closer Never if you buy if you do buy two or more teams in that cork games You will have the opportunity to win some money back. So I Definitely advise you to grab at least two teams You're obviously looking for only one team specifically, you know, obviously, there's an affordable team left there Might as well take them gives it an entry into the giveaway And I think we're giving away like a thousand bucks to kind of like the contenders one two more boxes guys. Good luck Robinson definitely a short print Like a high-number short print or something Gold trade Turner to 50 Varshow for the diamond banks Mike freshwater with that one. You got a Jared Kalanek 299 or see you Adams for the Nationals gonna Adam Adam to Adam mojo Your eyes for a seager All right last box here guys. Good luck Number we do have a lot of this soul if Nick hasn't already I'll repost the next one But like I said, we do have more of this You can continue ripping this tonight Guys, good luck and a Nemo We found Nemo to 50 another autograph. That's gonna go to Lonnie Patrick Marcus and gold for the Yankees, John Carlos Stan 12 out of 50 here guys. Good luck. I'm in bags. That's a Stewart Fairchild. We have a Howard For Texas pink to 99 Spencer Howard Reese Hoskins Wander Franco you go guys. So nothing's super super crazy out of this case But again some beautiful cards Like I said, you still get to on card as well Her box we got all these numbered cards here and silvers and rookies inserts a couple short prints and Here are some of the autographs here one two three four five six seven eight nine and ten Ten autographs again. This was number two guys. I'll post the number three right now That'll be from a fresh case if you guys want to get another one going but remember guys those hip-rate breaks are just a filler or spots away and They're getting fairly fairly close. They're gonna happen at some point tonight guys Let's get that done. Jasper's case breaks.com guys. Appreciate it


Sam Vacanin is my guest today. He joins us for a conversation about narcissism. He is a professor of psychology and a narcissist himself. He is the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, and what follows is our conversation. I'm here with Sam Vacanin. Sam, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I wanted to lay the groundwork for the discussion we're about to have. Could you tell us what is a narcissist? How is that different from someone who is just egotistical? Well, orthological narcissism is both a clinical entity in the sense that it's the equivalent of a disease in classical medicine. And on the other hand, it's also an organizing principle, an explanatory principle. A principle that can elucidate and enlighten us with regards to many processes. What people say narcissists, laymen mean someone who is difficult and impossible to cope with and pleasant to be around. And diagnosticians, mental health practitioners mean someone who is having difficulties with the regulation of his sense of self-worth. He needs external output to regulate his sense of identity. And this external output is known as narcissistic supply. Someone who has difficulties with intimacy, his relationship, the relationships of a narcissist are self-serving, they're shallow, they're superficial. Someone who is not genuinely interested in other people, including ostensibly intimate partners. Someone who emphasizes personal gain and therefore is exploitative. He is grandiose, he is attention seeking, lacks empathy, although I suggest in my work that narcissists actually lack the emotional component of empathy. They have all the rest and I call it cold empathy. Someone who sets goals just in order to gain approval from others. And someone who is mood fluctuates in accordance with this input from the outside. These are the hallmarks of a typical narcissist. Now, many people have narcissistic traits, narcissistic behaviors, or as Theodore Millen called it, narcissistic style or narcissistic personality. And these do not amount to narcissistic personality disorder. And within narcissistic personality disorder, the high end of the spectrum or the low end of the spectrum, depending on your vantage point, would be the malignant narcissist, which is essentially a psychopathic variant of narcissists or compensatory narcissists. Someone who tries to compensate for an innate sense of inferiority. And then finally, there's a type of narcissist called covert narcissists. That's a narcissist who would very much like to be a narcissist but doesn't know how to do it. Doesn't know how to garner narcissistic supply is shy, fragile, vulnerable, avoids the limelight, et cetera, et cetera. So he's usually very frustrated, passive aggressive, or just simply aggressive, scheming, cunning, and so on in the shadows. And usually takes a ride, hitchhikes on classical narcissists or other types of attention seekers. In order to garner his supply vicariously. Within narcissism, again, there are many subtypes, the rebel narcissist. That's usually an intellectual, someone who uses his intelligence and intellectual pyrotechnics to elicit admiration and adulation from his environment. And then there's the inverted narcissist, which is a sub variant, subspecies of the covert narcissist. And that's a covert narcissist who uses an overt narcissist to obtain supply indirectly or vicariously. A little like the Moon and the Sun. So as you see the field is fast evolving, proliferating, spawning numerous classifications, taxonomies, subspecies and subspecies and so on and so forth. And the reason for this sometimes unhealthy proliferation is because narcissism is not only a clinical entity. It's a state of mind. It's a state of mind that's more and more typifies and characterizes our current civilization, culture, and society. Thereby, via the transmission mechanisms of technology and politics and so on, infecting, so to speak, ever largest swaths of the population. Indeed, I was the first to compare narcissism to an epidemic and the spread of narcissism to the spread of a virus. I think epidemiological tools could be very useful in describing narcissism. And that's why everyone is, you know, that's why it's a buzzword. It's a hot button topic. Right. That's when you talk about this concept of narcissistic supply that they need this external validation just to feel normal, almost like a drug addict. Could you explain that concept a little bit? What does narcissistic supply look like? What happens when they don't get it? Well, I'm starting to deviate from the orthodoxy. A big part of mainstream thinking I contributed to in my 25 years of work. But I'm starting to deviate from my own work.  A post-traumatic condition that fixates the narcissist at an early stage of development. So it's a case of arrested development. And of course, the narcissist is fixated at such an early stage or age that he cannot develop healthy attachments and healthy bonding. But thereby, and this obstructs his ability to relate to other people and to foster intimate or even working relationships, et cetera, et cetera. So I regard narcissism as a post-traumatic condition, childhood pathology or child-related pathology, and a case of arrested development coupled with attachment disorder. Because of all this, the narcissist hasn't formed a clear core of identity. To a very large extent, one could say that the narcissist has no identity and no self in any meaningful sense of the word, where there should have been a self, where there should have been a human being or a person or a personality. Disavoid. Because the narcissist doesn't have a self, he lacks all what Freud used to call ego functions. He lacks a lot of regulatory mechanisms which healthy people use automatically, equivalent of driving a car, you know, thoughtlessly. So one of the things he cannot regulate properly is sense of self-worth. Where does he start? Where does he end? This is known as boundaries. What are his limitations? What are his capabilities, skills and talents? What is a realistic appraisal of his accomplishments and so on and so forth? The narcissist has a labile, totally fluctuating view of himself. No one can live like that. No one can endure these ups and downs on an hour by hour basis. It's eroding, it's energy depleting, it's utterly destructive. So what narcissists try to do, they try to get other people to fulfill the functions that they miss internally. If they don't fully regulate the sense of self-worth, they ask others to do it for them. So normal people would say, well, having surveyed my life and my accomplishments doesn't look that much of a genius. Narcissists can't give this answer because there's a total lack of self-awareness and total lack of access to inner constructs and total lack of inner constructs. So what the narcissist does instead, he approaches people and says, excuse me, do you have a moment? Am I a genius? Would you mind telling me? And this is what is called narcissistic supply. The constant need for attention, but information bearing attention, not any kind of attention, attention that adds information.  Narcissist grandiose, he would block out, he would rule out any information that countervins his information bias taking place. Massive cognitive deficit, grandiose is a form of cognitive deficit. And so he would block out this countervailing information and absorb, assimilate, and incorporate only information that supports his self-image and self-perception as Godlike, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, brilliant, and so on. It is crucial to understand that by any stretch of the world, the narcissist does not exist. Very early on, usually between the ages of four and nine, the narcissist has suspended his autonomous existence. And that's the reason he does not develop any identity or any self. And he suspended himself because it is the outcome of early childhood trauma and abuse. And so to avoid the pain attendant on these trauma and abuse, what the narcissist does, he annulces himself. He cancels himself out. But no one can exist as a non-entity. And what the narcissist does instead, he invents an alternative entity called the false self. The false self is everything that the narcissist is not. The narcissist, remember, is a child. The narcissist is small and helpless. The false self is omnipotent. The narcissist cannot predict the behavior of his tormentors and abusers. The false self is omniscient or knowing. The narcissist is told by his caregivers and so on that he is a bad and worthy object or a failed object or whatever. The false self is, of course, brilliant and perfect to absorb the pain and the hurt and acting as a decoy. Acting as a firewall if you wish to use a contemporaneous metaphor. So the false self firewalls the narcissist and yet behind the firewall, there's no computing device. There's nothing there. There's only a void. And inside the void, somewhere in the recesses of the void, there's a tiny fossilized, ossified child, wounded, bleeding and dead to all intents and purposes. So it is the false self that is interacting with the world. That's the interface. But because the false self is false by definition. And it knows that it's false. It needs people, other people to tell it that it is not false. The false self precisely because it is cognizant of its own falsity. It knows it is a pre-varication. So it seeks, it wants people to tell it, well, actually you're not false. It's true.    And these are understatements. You're more than perfect and brilliant. The false self is godlike, evidently. And indeed I regard narcissism as a private case of a religion. It's a private religion where the narcissist cancels and suspends himself, sacrifices himself. It's human sacrifice. The narcissist sacrifices himself to a mollock, to an idol. That idol, that mollock, that wooden god is the false self. It's no wonder most major religions, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, have butted heads with narcissism. In all these sacred texts, you can find admonitions against egotism, against self-centeredness, against lack of empathy, against all the features and hallmarks and diagnostic criteria of narcissism because the enemy of religion is narcissism. Narcissism is another competing religion. Anyhow, that's how I see narcissism. That's fascinating. The idea that this imposter syndrome, they can't break out of it and they just need more and more validation. A lot of things, or one thing that people might say is there are definitely uber successful people who might have narcissistic traits or who might be narcissists themselves, like people like Steve Jobs or prominent politicians, intellectuals. Can these people still be said to have a disorder if they're operating at that high of a level? You forgot to mention Donald Trump. Yeah, that's the elephant in the room, I guess. According to Eric Fromm, Donald Trump is in good company, together with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Who is Eric Fromm? Eric Fromm was a prominent psychoanalyst in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. It's a very loaded question. In societies, civilizations and cultures, periods in history, which are narcissistic and even psychopathic, narcissism and psychopathy are positive adaptations. And to have been an empathic person was a negative adaptation to be discouraged. Indeed, in July 2017, a neuroscientist, which is one of the two leading science magazines in the world, together with Scientific American, popular science, neuroscientists came with a cover story, which exorted and encouraged parents to teach their children to be more narcissistic. Because narcissism works, narcissism pays.  They are perfectly adopted. Of course, there is immediately the question of who decides what is sick and anomic. And the answer is that, of course, moral relativism has rendered all these observations suspect. And yet, I think the test is in the pudding. Narcissism and psychopathy, ineluctably, lead to destruction. Both self-destruction and the destruction of the very framework, frameworks that they upheld. So narcissistic and psychopathic civilizations, cultures and societies, and with an inverted big bang. They self-destruct. There are no value judgments here. Only works doesn't work. Narcissistic and psychopathic societies work only in the short term. They never work in the long term. None of them. There is not a single case in human history where societies and cultures characterized by narcissism and psychopathy survive to old age. So perhaps with the exception of Rome, but Rome is a very complex case because it has several phases and a big part of Rome's history was actually the exact opposite of narcissism. So if this is the test, then we are living in a self-imploding civilization that is again, yet again, elevating to the fore highly pathologized individuals. This has happened before in the 1930s and it ended, as you might recall, badly. I don't think we are that far from that stage. I am very pessimistic about the immediate future. I think the wave of revolutions or slow-motion revolutions that is taking place across the west at least, not only the west actually, across the world, is leading us down this path. On that same note, I was wondering, I mean, there are within the context of our society certain advantages then to being a narcissist.  He's not a violent guy.  Now, I know that you also have been, I believe, diagnosed as a narcissist. Do you see any advantages of that for you or how does that manifest itself in your life? Oh, it's a fact that you're interviewing me, not the other way around. Yes. So the answer, I think, is obvious. Yes, in a sick, pathologized, anomic, dysfunctional, unraveling society, people like me and like James Fallon, have advantages. And now we have even labels. We are called high-functioning narcissists, productive narcissists. There's a whole cohort in academia who latch onto successful narcissists. Of course, academia is a whore, and it gravitates to where the money is and the power is. And now the money and the power is in the hands of narcissists and psychopaths. So that's where you will find a growing body of academics extolling narcissism and psychopathy as positive adaptations, which actually will propel the human species forward in its difficult path in an increasingly hostile world, et cetera, et cetera. You can watch, for example, videos by Kevin Dutton who claims that successful leaders ought to be psychopaths. I think the answer to your question is that psychopaths and narcissists are the equivalent of mercury in the ancient thermometers. We rise as the body gets sicker. Interesting. That's one of the things I wanted to ask you, and I don't know how much you want to get into this, but I know that one of the problems with narcissism, with NPD, unlike a lot of other mental illnesses or even personality disorders, people with NPD tend to not want to humble themselves before a therapist or they don't like the idea of seeking treatment. What brought you into a therapist's office? How did you react when you got the diagnosis? No, I would rather this interview be about the topic, not about me. Sure. No, no, of course. Are there any treatments for narcissism? It seems like a personality disorder. Is it something that doesn't fully go away? Can people with NPD live a happy, fulfilled life? How would that even be possible? Well, most people with narcissistic personality disorder are egocintonic in the sense that they live well within their skins. They feel that they are the next step in the evolutionary ladder. They consider themselves superior. They regret the fact that they are surrounded by other inferior subhumans, but that's the unfortunate coincidence. The unfortunate circumstance in which narcissists have to survive, but they have no doubt that they are the next step and they're together with artificial intelligence that will rule the world. In this sense, many narcissists and psychopaths today feel that they are pioneer, and eradicate the plankton and algae that today pass for humans. And I'm kidding you're not.  And that makes them even happier. Narcissists easily manipulate systems or create systems that they can manipulate. They are pillars of the community. They reach the top of their professions in many professions. They gravitate towards professions which provide narcissistic supplies such as the medical professions, law enforcement, show business, the media, academe, and so on. These are high-paying professions, so they are the elite. The new elites in the West, and not only, we used to be in the West, but today all over the world, it's a good world to be a narcissist and a psychopath in. You must understand that. In this world, in the last 30 years, shall we say, it's great to be a narcissist and psychopath. It's rewarding, it's gratifying, and it pays. It's also lucrative. So narcissists and psychopaths have very little to complain about, and they don't. Consequently, why would a narcissist and a psychopath go to a therapist to face the competitive edge or the competitive or the relative advantage he was endowed with?  Why on earth would someone like Donald Trump attend therapy? He's the President of the United States, he's a multi-billionaire. He had his hand and other parts of him in every beautiful woman. He, I mean, why, give me one reason, one half reason, a hint of a shadow of a reason for someone like Donald Trump to attend therapy. Or Bolsonaro in Brazil, or Duterte in the Philippines, or Erdogan in Turkey, or Viktor Orban in Hungary, or Lafarge in the United Kingdom, and the list is endless. Why would any of these utterly sick in the head individuals attend therapy are heads of state, multi-billionaires, celebrities, etc. They don't have an incentive to do that, to attend therapy. Attending therapy means accepting implicitly a set of values. These values are anti-narcissistic and anti-antipsychopathic. These are values of empathy, of teamwork, of collaboration, of intergenerational responsibility, of long-term thinking and planning, of impulse control, of delayed gratification. These are the values that we try to parlay and to to prefer in therapy. But these values don't work.    So, narcissists have no incentive to change, because society has changed in a way that renders narcissism and psychopathy positive adaptations. Therapy also implies a power matrix or a power structure. First possesses privileged knowledge, superior knowledge, and then privileged information as the therapy progresses. Therapists can call the shots, dictate directions, suggest strategies, et cetera, et cetera. Therapists are not consultants, they're not advisors. They are parental figures, as Freud recognized. Freud came up with the concepts of transference and counter-transference. When the patient enters therapy, the therapist becomes father or mother. Narcissists harbor very negative emotions and feelings towards authority figures. Bosses, employers, therapists, government entities, et cetera, et cetera. They try to usurp the power structure. They try to co-opt people in power. They try to defy authority by becoming authority, et cetera, et cetera. They undermine the subvert. So, in this sense, narcissism is a deconstructive narrative. It's a subversive text. Very long time ago, in the 50s, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth together with Frenchmen, there were two Frenchmen who were Marxist philosophers. They came with very interesting books. This is a story, of course, right? Yeah, yeah. When these two roamed the earth, but these two Frenchmen did exist. One of them was Louis Althusser, who ended up, by the way, in a mental asylum. The other one was Guy Debord. And Guy Debord came with the concept of the society of the spectacle. He said that reality is going to be replaced by a set of images, by a simulacrum, by simulation. There was a very daring observation in the mid-1960s. It was brilliant because he predicted, he foresaw social media, the impact of television, and long before anyone else, actually, so society of the spectacle. Althusser was even more prescient. Althusser described something called interpolation. He said that various institutions, including diffused institutions such as advertising, interpolate us. They tell us what to do to translate his language into proper English. They kind of tell us what to do via a process that is very much like mind control or brainwashing. And so if you put the two together, we live in a society where images tell us what to do. Images dictate to us our moves, decisions, choices, and moods and inner processes. And what are these images? These images are manufactured images. And who is the best in the world in manufacturing images? Narcissists. The narcissist from age four has manufactured an image called the false self. There are no bigger experts in the world at manufacturing images than narcissists. No wonder that for a very long time, for decades, they controlled Hollywood, television stations, created industries that manufactured and manipulated images because narcissists are walking, talking images. There is no one there. They are projected holograms. Beyond the hologram, there's a void. There's an emptiness. And so narcissists are best adopted to today's world. I just made an interview with Richard Grannon on social media, the true toxicity of social media in two parts. And I explained how social media grew out of narcissism, did not foster narcissism, but is the reflection of narcissism. Narcissism has been growing since at least the 1960s. And ever since then, it's only gotten worse. And narcissism now, as a cancerous process, has metastasized and invaded not only our mass entertainment, not only our digital devices and social networks and social media, not it has invaded and metastasized our minds. We are conditioned now to think narcissistically. And we are beginning to be conditioned to think psychopathically. Why? Because we are atomized, all the institutions that used, in which we used to be embedded, the family, the community, the neighborhood, the city or the village, the town, the small town, not the 20 million people megalopolis, but the small town, all the nation, all these institutions are disintegrated, evaporated. Nothing is left. We are floating like atoms in space, tethered to ever receding, ever smaller screens. And so in this atomization, narcissism is king. This must be understood. We are becoming narcissists and psychopaths, all of us, to varying degrees. Yeah, that's, I was reading a study recently. It was just like a, you know, they asked kids from like 15 to 21 or something like that, what's, what job do you want? And the number one job they wanted was to be like a YouTube star. So that's, it's interesting to see that, I mean it's definitely true. Oh, the numerous studies. The numerous studies. Yeah. 200 Campbell conducted a series of impressive study, for example, the utter collapse of interest in sex, the utter collapse of interest in interpersonal relationships, the sharp skyrocketing increase in anxiety and depression amongst the youth. So we see the rise of attendant phenomenon, not only as a pathology, but as a lifestyle. I would say that narcissism and psychopathy are becoming a lifestyle. As long as narcissism and psychopathy were a pathology, they could have been contained like the CDC, you know, they could have been contained in vaults. The minute narcissism is becoming a fad, a fashion in a lifestyle choice, we are doomed, utterly doomed. Because it narcissism and psychopathy have gone viral in the deepest sense of the word. For people who aren't narcissists, how can you wait? I think, because based on what you're saying, I guess just based on experience, narcissism is a lot more common than we give it credit for. How can someone identify if a person in their life is a narcissist and would you have any advice for someone in that position? Well, if I describe the set of criteria, I think everyone immediately would, I mean, everyone would daggers everyone as a narcissist. I think the first thing would be a lack of true empathy, a lack of ability to sincerely relate to other people's needs, wishes, preferences, fears, priorities, fantasies, emotions, etc. To perceive other people as three-dimensional autonomous entities with the life of their own, not as extensions, not as introjects, not as internal representation, but as a separate entity with its own life, three-dimensional. So lack of empathy, I would say, is the prime test. The second, I think, would be exploitativeness. The narcissist puts himself and his needs first to insist on immediate and instant gratification. Would have no impulse control if he's not satisfied, frustration immediately is translated into aggression. And the narcissist wouldn't care what the cost is to other parties as long as he's satisfied his needs, his wishes, his plans, his fantasies, his priorities. I would say that's the second test. The third test is, I think, envy. A whole bevy of negative emotions for most of which would be envy, pathological envy, destructive envy, the wish to reduce others to size and to perspective and to destroy other people. Envy, but also explosive rage, also hatred, misdirected hatred, diffuse hatred, diffuse rage. Everything is diffuse. It's not trait of mind, constant rage, constant envy, constant hatred. I think that would be another test coupled with paranoia. Of course, narcissists are paranoid. What few people understand and even I would say most clinicians don't understand is that paranoia is a type of narcissism. If you say the CIA is after me, it means you are sufficiently important to be pursued by the CIA. It aggrandizes you. So conspiracy theorists and paranoids and so on, they're actually narcissists. So paranoia is a hallmark of narcissism. I would say the fifth sign is cognitive distortions, cognitive deficits and cognitive biases. Perceiving the world in bizarre ways and I mean utterly bizarre. Blocking out relevant information, reframing other information than accepting social mores and conventions or other people's opinions or whatever. So very bizarre cognitive relationship with the world and we say that we call it a failed reality test to some extent. And finally, I think the sixth sign, although there are many more, but the sixth sign would be a shared psychosis or shared psychotic disorder. The narcissist creates a cult. The cult is founded on lies. So there's a lot of pathological line on confabulations where lies, where there are gaps even between the lies. There's confabulation, all kinds of stories and narratives and so on. And total adherence and loyalty to the narcissist. It's a cult and I would say a militant cult and the death cult even. And all people in the immediate ambit and remit of the narcissist must obey the cult and belong to it. The narcissist insists on this absolute obeisance and that would be the sixth sign. There are many other signs, many, and you can find lists of 20 signs, 60 signs on the Internet. So there are many other signs, but if I had to select only six, these would be the six. Unfortunately, as narcissism spreads like the California wildfire, that it is, more and more people could easily fall into these six criteria. I mean, if 20 years ago you would have identified one in ten as someone like that, today I think one in two would be more likely.   Today it's all over the place. And narcissism starts at an earlier and earlier age, until about 15 years ago. We used to say that narcissism cannot be diagnosed before the age of 21 and then 18. And now we believe that we can diagnose pathological narcissism even at the age of 12. Narcissism begins much earlier than before and I think this is influenced by technology, technology empowers. Technology gives even children and adolescents, teenagers, gives them the powers that used to be reserved to adults only until ten years ago. Today a kid of ten years old can publish books, make a television program, espouse his views and pretend to be 60 throughout the process. So there is a lot of unhealthy empowerment going on and I think it has an effect. I'm kidding you not by the way, this is a true, this is not a metaphor, it's a true case.  And you have 16.8 million followers. It's bound to get to your head. Of course. It's bound to get to your head. And indeed recently, I mean not recently, relatively speaking, recently about ten or 15 years ago, there was a professor, Milman, in Harvard University who suggested a new concept called situational narcissism. Situational narcissism is late onset narcissism. Remember, we believe that pathological narcissism is created in childhood. It's a childhood thing. Milman suggested that actually there is late onset narcissism. Circumstances which tend to reward narcissistic behaviors and traits. So he studied actually rock stars. He studied rock stars, I think football stars, but definitely rock stars. And he discovered that perfectly decent chaps, you know, the neighbor next door. When they become rock stars, they become utterly narcissistic. And then they become narcissists. I mean they score high on the narcissistic personality inventory test. And on MMPI too, which are the main tests we use to diagnose narcissism. So they become narcissists. Even though a year before they became rock stars, they were utterly decent folks, folks, you know. So he coined the phrase situational, acquired situational narcissism. And I think many, many, many, many teenagers and so on are beginning to experience acquired situational narcissism. Up for this, I'm going to hijack the interview. Please do. Just to explain the meaning of this. When I say, when I keep saying, you know, narcissism is a result of childhood abuse. Narcissism is a result of childhood abuse. Everyone imagines emaciated children, age four and three and two, who are beaten daily and at night raked. You know, that's the typical image of abuse. Right, the worst possible fact. And yes, of course. Yeah. Well, yes, of course.  Are the classic forms of abuse of children and they result in severe trauma. And these traumas can lead to one of various solutions because they're very solutions. A child can solve the trauma by becoming submissive and later on in life becoming co-dependent. The child can solve the trauma by internalizing the aggressor, internalizing the abuser by saying, well, I will not be the abuser. I will never be a victim. I'll be the victimizer from now on. And this is, of course, narcissism. So reactions to abuse can be to remain healthy, mentally healthy. And most people do, by the way. A few people become narcissists and a few people become co-dependent. And that's one of the reasons we believe that there is a genetic predisposition to narcissism. Because in the same family, 10 siblings are abused, only one becomes narcissists. It seems to be some genetic component. Coming back to abuse. Abuse can be classic, as I described. But abuse is also less conventional forms. For example, when you put a child on a pedestal, when you idolize the child, when you use the child to realize your own, as a parent, your own unfulfilled wishes and dreams. When you treat the child as an extension of yourself, if you get best marks in school, I will love you.   And that will make me proud, etc., etc. All these are forms of abuse. Why? Because both in the classical forms, sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc., and in the non-classical forms, idolizing, treating as extensions, conditional love. In all these forms, the child's boundaries are not recognized. Either they are invaded physically, or they are invaded mentally. The child is not allowed to separate from the parent and individuate, to become an individual. The boundaries of a child are violated. The child is treated as never to be separated. And we know, I mean, we believe, that there is a process called separation and individuation, as described by Melanie Klein and Vera Mahler. Separation and individuation are crucial processes where we separate from our parents, which is in itself a very frightening and traumatic experience. And we separate from them, and then we individuate, we become individuals. Narcissistic parents do not allow their children to separate and individuate. And this is an intergenerational transmission mechanism of narcissism. The current generation are much more narcissistic than the previous generation. And their children will be much more narcissistic than they are. And their children's children will be even more narcissistic. Because narcissism is passed on. It's contagious. They merge with their children. They fuse with the children. And they manipulate the children by guilt-tripping the child, by shaming the child, and by using the child and exploiting the child to gratify themselves. And so this is not an epidemic that's going to stop. It's an epidemic that's going to evolve exponentially.  We asked me about therapy. Unfortunately, right now there are no effective therapies. Some therapies succeed in modifying behaviors, but it's not long-term. And it's in the fringes. It deals mostly with abrasive and antisocial behaviors, socially unacceptable and so on. We don't have any therapy with the exception of a therapy that I'm just developing, but it's very experimental, and I don't dare put it to the public that I found the solution, but I'm working on it. So with the exception of this therapy, which I dubbed cold therapy, the exception of cold therapy, all other treatment modalities, all other psychotherapies known to us, have very little traction with nausea. So going to therapy is not a solution. I can't tell a narcissist who is a prospective parent, for example, well, go treat yourself. It's useless. Self-awareness works to some extent, but the narcissist's needs for narcissistic supply are existential. Without this supply, they feel dead. They feel they don't exist. They feel annihilated. Like the famous painting Galatea by Dalí, where the image dissolves into a series of molecules. Narcissists feel that they dissolve if they don't have supply. It's existential. It's like food and water and air. So they can't stop it.  It won't work. It simply won't work. Regrettably, the only advice I have to a prospective parent who is absolutely convinced or has been diagnosed as a narcissist, in other words, has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, is to not have children, which is exactly the solution I chose. I don't have children. That's fascinating, though. In terms of being in a relationship with a narcissist, do you think it's possible to have a successful romantic relationship with a narcissist or are there kinds of people who are more likely to get caught in a narcissist's web? Everyone is liable to be caught in a narcissist's web. There is a myth online that narcissists seek specific types. That's not true. Narcissists are equal opportunity abusers. You provide the narcissist with narcissistic supply. He's yours or you are his. So it's type in constant and type non-specific. Everyone could be a victim. Everyone can and does become a victim of narcissism. Of course, it's possible to maintain a long term, and even though it's a happy relationship with a narcissist, if you're willing, negate yourself. Be completely subservient and submissive. Lie constantly, adulate, admire, and adore the narcissist. Provide the narcissist with a constant stream of reminiscences with regards to his glory and grandeur, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're willing to kowtow, you can survive with the narcissist and even be happy. Whatever else you say about narcissists, they're very interesting people. Their life is technicolor. Most people's lives are black and white. Narciss life is colorful. Narciss is reckless. Six risks and thrills is innovative, because he has to constantly innovate to obtain supply on a regular basis. Witness Donald Trump, who has reinvented himself, I don't know how many times, at least four, and so on. So there are rewards to living with the narcissist. There are definitely rewards. If you're an adrenaline junkie, if you love thrills and race and so on, then narcissists is the person for you. But you have to pay a very high price. Narcissists will not countenance and tolerate your existence, your separate existence as an autonomous entity. That's out of the question. You are the narcissist, extension, servant, the equivalent of his third arm and third leg. As the narcissist would be utterly shocked to discover that he is disobeyed by his refrigerator, he would be utterly infuriated by your disobedience and argumentativeness or opinionated counter. It's utterly out of the question. You do not exist. If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you. You'll drop everything you're doing and you'll do it now, because my priorities and needs and so on are for most paramount, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I think the picture is clear. You have to stop to exist in order to survive with the narcissist, and then you have your rewards, you know, like every other addiction, because living with the narcissist becomes, fast becomes an addiction. It's addictive. We know that intermittent reinforcement, hot and cold, approach avoidance, they create addiction biochemically. I mean, neurotransmitters and so on. There's a biochemical reaction to intermittent reinforcement. The narcissist uses intermittent reinforcement and bullying, which is a heightened form of such reinforcement, on a regular basis. Hot and cold, unpredictability. Here today, there tomorrow, cycles, ups and downs, moods, nobility, all these create addiction in the partner. And it's very difficult to get rid of this addiction. Even partners who have been abused to the absolute maximum and beyond imagination still miss the narcissist solely, miss the days they had with the narcissist, miss this roller coaster. One of the last things I wanted to ask you, because clearly, I mean, you are putting out a message that is useful, I would say, to a lot of people, and you're definitely warning people about the dangers of narcissism, telling people how to spot them.  I know it's a lifelong condition, but in your experience, does it get any easier? I mean, do you think narcissists, when they're 20 or more, or equally reckless than there, when they're 50, is there any hope at all for people with NPD? No, antisocial and reckless behaviors tend to ameliorate with age. That has been discovered in the 50s and 60s. Psychopaths, for example, become much less psychopathic. After the age of 40, 45. People with borderline personality disorder, 50% of them lose the diagnosis after age 40. So between 35 and 45, after age 40 especially, there's an amelioration of many of the less savoury aspects. But on the other hand, narcissists become older, both destructive and self-destructive. So they keep losing, they keep losing spouses, families, money. Business ventures collapse.  So these losses accumulate and they are very eroding, erosive. And the narcissist is very tired, exhausted and depleted by the end of his life. He's also become, he's also much older. So as a wunderkind, you could have garnered narcissistic supply much more easily. As a 25-year-old somatic narcissist, it's much easier to get laid or to conquer women if you're a man, etc., etc. And of course when you're in your 60s, everything becomes much more difficult. Everything you do is jaded.  So sexual conquests are difficult. Romantic conquests are almost impossible. It's much more difficult to obtain supply when you are older. And the need for supply is constant, actually increases with age, because you have to compensate for the dilapidation of your body and the stalling of your mind. So you need more supply. The need for supply increases. The ability to procure it or to secure it decreases. And this gap is harrowing and at some point begins to be terrifying to the narcissist. Other features, antisocial conduct or criminalized conduct, sadism, all these ameliorate with age. So it's much easier to be a narcissist when he's older than when he's younger, but it's much less rewarding because he's likely to become a brooding, melancholic, pessimistic, hopeless, grouchy, paranoid recluse, which is a typical profile of old age narcissists. And even someone like Trump is actually this. This is the profile of Donald Trump. He's doing all this in full public view. But if you look at him objectively, that's precisely what he is. Grouchy, pessimistic, paranoid, aggressive and so on. So it would have been easier. It's easier to be with him in some ways now, but it's also more difficult. Sam Vaknen, thank you so much for your time. It was a pleasure talking to you. My pleasure as well. Thank you. All right, folks, that was Sam Vaknen. Thank you for listening to Dunk Tank. See you next time.


Happy rip party day everybody. I'm Joe for jazzy's case breaks.com With just the randomizer for 2022 top series one baseball six-box jumbo random team break number one This is the standard 30 spot break One spot gets you one random team all-card ship and please check the schedule That's pinned in the chat so you'll know exactly when your break is gonna happen at later tonight Big thanks to this group for making it happen Pre-orders were brisk ladies and gentlemen, so everyone it seems like all the baseball fans are excited about this year's series one Now we just need to get some baseball officially gone. Oh, I need some dice. Let's get some dice Let's roll it randomized names and teams four and a six ten times for names and teams one two three four five six seven eight nine and 10th and final time after 10 we got Andrew down to Andrew Andrew are down to Andrew C One in between of course four and a six ten times for the teams one two three four five six seven eight Nine and a tenth and final time Good luck everybody up to ten. We got the Toronto Blue Jays All the way down to the Bronx bombers All right, Andrew are with the Blue Jays Brad with the Phillies Gary with the Padres Michael with the Giants Greg With the Royals Levi Tigers and O's Matthew with the Boston Red Sox Kevin with the Angels Adam with the Pirates Toby with the Mets Adam Harper with the Cardinals and Cubs Michael Gellis with the Reds Kevin with the Rays Khalil Cleveland Guardians Michael Gallucci two different Michael G's here Mariners Mark with my Dodgers Monty with the Brew Crew Gary with the Twinkies Michael Gallucci with the Nats Levi with the Bravos Andrew C with the Stroze John with the Fish Bob with the Shy Sox Michael Gallucci with the Rangers. I don't really have a nickname, right? Kevin with the Rocks Adam with the Snakes Darren with the Athletics and Andrew with the Bronx Bombers Andrew C Let's get all this on one screen. Let's order this alphabetically by team So basically you have until the very second we start the video I guess to confirm a trader maybe a few seconds before we start the break for for trading opportunities So if you want to you can give that a shot. I'm Joe for jazby's case breaks calm We'll see you for the rib party soon. Bye. Bye