Podcasts about Balkanization

Pete Quinones shares his views on America's decline and transition from a unified people to a mere economic zone. He stresses the importance of localism and manufacturing and points to the inevitability of balkanization due to cultural and racial divisions, as well as the fact that the Trump administration won't go after the left who will seek vengeance when they return to power. He also expresses concern about the fragility of the U.S. economy and talks foreign policy. Watch on BitChute / Brighteon / Rumble / Substack / YouTube Geopolitics & Empire · Pete Quinones: The Balkanization of America #547 *Support Geopolitics & Empire! Become a Member https://geopoliticsandempire.substack.com Donate https://geopoliticsandempire.com/donations Consult https://geopoliticsandempire.com/consultation **Visit Our Affiliates & Sponsors! Above Phone https://abovephone.com/?above=geopolitics easyDNS (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://easydns.com Escape Technocracy course (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://escapethetechnocracy.com/geopolitics PassVult https://passvult.com Sociatates Civis (CitizenHR, CitizenIT, CitizenPL) https://societates-civis.com Wise Wolf Gold https://www.wolfpack.gold/?ref=geopolitics Websites Substack https://petessubstack.com X https://x.com/PeterRQuinones Find My Frens https://findmyfrens.net/petequinones About Pete Quinones Pete Quinones has hosted his show since July 2017 (formerly titled Free Man Beyond the Wall) and has concentrated on topics pertaining to tyrannical government. His current focus is building strong local communities. *Podcast intro music is from the song "The Queens Jig" by "Musicke & Mirth" from their album "Music for Two Lyra Viols": http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)

SaaS giant Salesforce has always been a disruptor in the tech industry. But it now stands at a point where the future of this industry is being completely reshaped by AI. In this episode, Marc Benioff, the man behind the CRM major, talks to ET’s tech editor Surabhi Agarwal about Salesforce’ origin, its core ethos, present and future..the last two driven largely by AI. He elaborates on the company's new technological and business model, focusing on the agentic layers and AI-driven digital labor. He talks about the importance of India as a lucrative market, talent pool and spiritual influence on his work; about challenges such as commoditization of AI agents and Balkanization of tech in the face of new trade wars and export controls. He talks about responsible AI usage and says that US’ perceived lead in the AI race is an illusion.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's episode of More or Less, Meta kills DEI and fact-checking (right after their $27B moderation exit), Zuck's talking "masculine energy" on Rogan, and TikTok's facing a ban while DJI mysteriously drops US flight restrictions. It's not even February. We also share opinions on: • why tech's gender gap persists (18% of CS grads are women) • whether Elon's X could inherit TikTok's distribution • what NYC's congestion tax reveals about tech's bubble Just another week in Silicon Valley's great realignment. We're also on ↓ X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moreorlesspod Connect with us here: 1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin 2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin 3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin 4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit 00:00 Trailer 01:22 Tech's gender gap 07:52 Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energies 18:36 Implications of TikTok Ban 26:52 If TikTok goes dark 30:51 Balkanization 38:21 Inauguration 41:01 Wellness festival 44:12 Congestion tax and consumption patterns 48:08 Girl math 49:41 Los Angeles 53:10 Outro

Nova Scotian Spitfire and Host of The Freedom Conversation Podcast, Dave Gardener, joined the Big Puff convo and it was a barnburner! From Transhumanist Cults, to the Wokification of the Maritimes, to the Balkanization of Canada, to the Joan of Arc Archetype, to Spiritual Warfare, to Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," to Mind Files, to Black Pill Philosophy...we smoked it to the filter!  Find Dave here: X:https://x.com/freedomconvopod?s=21&t=mpww9P59bWDNJdyJ24IQyQRumble: https://rumble.com/user/TheFreedomConvoPodcastPodbean: https://thefreedomconvopodcast.podbean.com/

Nosvember continues with Ken Russell's 1988 adaption of Bram Stoker's novel. Grant, Capaldi, Donohoe, Oxenberg, mongeese, Oh My!Plus we jib-jab about abortion, phone case demos, and the Balkanization of Z's interest in Keith's special interests. +++++Outro: The Mitford Family performing The Lampton WormTheme by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/zandkmoviepod/support

Squawking and Balking at you good-for-nothings all the way from Beef Tallow (Hallow), Michigan, where Jessica Stimps holds the Tallow Tiara high and the Beef Tallow Tambourines make light the burden of existence! Join Bobby, Dan, and True American Idiot Dusty White as they watch the moon glow and the sun show on such topics as The Balkanization of Western PA, giving credit to borrowed jokes (stealing) and Lea Thompson's somewhat unfortunate 80's roles involving time travelers and also ducks! Later, the lads rate and review a libel-palooza of cards that's more stress inducing than jumping Annulment River Canyon! Listen on that commute you can't stop talking about!  Also, we mentioned Jeff Jakob's newest album "The Milk Barn Sessions", and you'd be a Lord & Taylor of a  fool to not check it out on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever good streaming music is heard!

In this episode, we sit down with Nico Perrino, a leading advocate for free speech and individual rights, currently serving at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Nico shares his views on the increasing government control over digital speech, the role of social media, and how misinformation and disinformation are shaping our society. We dive deep into the debate around censorship, the dangers of having a "Ministry of Truth," and the future implications of AI on free speech. Whether it's the growing concerns about misinformation or the battle between government intervention and freedom of expression, Nico gives us a fresh perspective on navigating these complex issues. ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 13: This is a special edition of the show, featuring Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade's full keynote day remarks at LABScon2024. In this talk, Juanito addresses the current state of the threat intelligence industry, expressing a need for a difficult conversation about its direction and purpose. He discusses feelings of disenfranchisement among professionals, the void in meaningful work, and the importance of reclaiming control and value in cybersecurity. Juan emphasizes the need for researchers, journalists, and even VCs, to be the change to reinvigorate the industry and ensure its relevance and impact. Cast: Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade (SentinelLabs). Costin Raiu and Ryan Naraine are listening to this episode.

Register free at https://brightu.com to watch the full Home Medicine Skills stream - Debate Analysis and Media Bias (0:03) - Kamala's Deceptive Tactics and Media's Role (1:20) - Rob Smith's Reaction and Media Bias (6:28) - Economic Collapse and Political Theater (9:56) - Balkanization and Regional Nation States (16:28) - Gold and Silver as Safe Havens (24:54) - China's Moral Superiority and US Hypocrisy (28:15) - The US Empire's Criminal Cabal (37:06) - Preparing for Economic Collapse (45:07) - Home Medicine Skills Course (52:03) For more updates, visit: http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport NaturalNews videos would not be possible without you, as always we remain passionately dedicated to our mission of educating people all over the world on the subject of natural healing remedies and personal liberty (food freedom, medical freedom, the freedom of speech, etc.). Together, we're helping create a better world, with more honest food labeling, reduced chemical contamination, the avoidance of toxic heavy metals and vastly increased scientific transparency. ▶️ Every dollar you spend at the Health Ranger Store goes toward helping us achieve important science and content goals for humanity: https://www.healthrangerstore.com/ ▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html ▶️ Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/hrreport ▶️ Join Our Social Network: https://brighteon.social/@HealthRanger ▶️ Check In Stock Products at: https://PrepWithMike.com

Three Buddy Problem - Episode 8: This week's show digs into Microsoft's in-the-wild zero-day woes, Patch Tuesday and the absence of IOCs, a wormable Windows TCP/IP flaw that the Chinese government knew about for months, Iran's aggressive hacking US election targets, CrowdStrike v Qihoo360 and major problems with APT naming conventions. Hosts: Costin Raiu (Art of Noh), Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade (SentinelLabs), Ryan Naraine (SecurityWeek)

Join us at https://www.crisisinvesting.com Ray Dalio's Article on the coming Civil War: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pick-side-fight-keep-your-head-down-flee-ray-dalio-53fpe/ Matt's Son's Blog: https://www.greatman.com/ 12 Virtues of Western Civilization: https://youtu.be/B0a9NvuU3Ok   Ray Dalio's Civil War Warning.  Billionaire Ray Dalio thinks civil war is coming. Not with guns, maybe. But a war all the same. You'll have to choose. Fight for a side. Keep your head down. Or run.  He sees the signs. Wealth gaps. Populism. Media lies. Rule of law breaking down. It's happened before. France. Russia. China. Now here. Dalio says we're at Stage 5. Stage 6 is civil war. It's close and the odds are greater than 50%.  00:00 Introduction and Member Group Information 00:16 Discussing Ray Dalio's Editorial 01:29 Potential Civil War in the U.S. 02:55 Historical Context of Civil Wars 05:06 Dalio's Predictions and Personal Reflections 08:04 Global Migration and Cultural Tensions 14:55 Western Civilization Values Under Threat 21:34 Independence Day Reflections 23:07 European Elections and Political Comparisons 29:35 Liberland Citizenship and Anarcho-Capitalism 33:27 Genetic Elements of Libertarian Beliefs 36:24 Real Estate Development in Sark 39:43 Trump's Narcissism and Political Impact 43:06 Reflections on Life Choices 46:20 Balkanization of the U.S. 48:08 Economic Indicators and Capital Movement 49:46 U.S. and Global Political Dynamics 54:12 Investing in Wheat and Natural Gas 57:06 Elon Musk: Hero or Villain? 01:01:30 Fighting for a Better Future

The news of Texas covered today includes:Our Lone Star story of the day: The entire 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, en banc, heard arguments on Galveston County's redistricting case yesterday. At issue is whether the Voting Rights Act can be perverted to allow for “coalitions” of minorities. It is a major case that stands to greatly affect most of Texas. If the Left prevails, it will lead to further Balkanization of the country and further empower Leftist revolution in our society.Our Lone Star story of the day is sponsored by Allied Compliance Services providing the best service in DOT, business and personal drug and alcohol testing since 1995.Governor Abbott hits back at Democrats claiming that public schools are in a budgeting “crisis.”An interesting story on the happenings related to the prosecution of a man accused of slaying a Lubbock County deputy sheriff in Levelland.Listen on the radio, or station stream, at 5pm Central. Click for our radio and streaming affiliates.www.PrattonTexas.com

"Somalia first, Islam second".  America is to be used for their feuds, wars. For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHT Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show

In my Sovereign Nations 2024 Forecast, I reflect on the accuracy of my past predictions and issue warnings about imminent challenges. Over the years, I've highlighted the emergence of Critical Race Theory, divisive tactics, and the manipulation of societal structures by global entities such as the World Economic Forum. Looking ahead to 2024, I predict potential compromises in our digital infrastructure, ongoing law enforcement challenges, and intensified efforts to reshape Christianity. My forecast anticipates a push for Balkanization, economic transformation towards scarcity, and the rise of artificial intelligence. Additionally, I emphasize political developments, potential conflicts with China, and the promotion of a digital meta world. I stress the importance of defending the U.S. Constitution and urge vigilance to proactively address these forecasts. https://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: https://paypal.me/sovnations https://patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: https://sovereignnations.com/subscribe/ © 2024 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved. #sovereignnations

We know that Donald Trump is a fascist, but what would MAGA fascism look like in a second Trump term? Brynn Tannehill, senior defense analyst and author of “American Fascism” and “My Child Told Me They're Trans...What Do I Do?,” lays out the horrors to expect if Trump is sworn in in 2025. Plus: the Trump Days of Christmas.Follow Brynn:https://twitter.com/BrynnTannehillHer website:http://www.brynntannehill.com/Buy her books:https://www.amazon.com/stores/Brynn-Tannehill/author/B07MG4MCX4?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Subscribe to the PREVAIL newsletter:https://gregolear.substack.com/aboutWould you like to tell us more about you?http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=short

Our final program for 2023 takes a quick look back at the biggest stories of the year: War in Israel and Ukraine, government-sponsored censorship, a growing divide between East and West, and the Balkanization of the United States. NOTE: Our next program, barring major news updates, will be Tuesday, January 2, 2024. Merry Christmas! FOLLOW US! Twitter X: @SkyWatch_TV YouTube: @SkyWatchTVnow @SimplyHIS @FiveInTen Rumble: @SkyWatchTV Facebook: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHIS @EdensEssentials Instagram: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsUSA TikTok: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentials SkyWatchTV.com | SkyWatchTVStore.com | EdensEssentials.com | WhisperingPoniesRanch.com

Our final program for 2023 takes a quick look back at the biggest stories of the year: War in Israel and Ukraine, government-sponsored censorship, a growing divide between East and West, and the Balkanization of the United States.NOTE: Our next program, barring major news updates, will be Tuesday, January 2, 2024. Merry Christmas!FOLLOW US!Twitter X: @SkyWatch_TVYouTube: @SkyWatchTVnow @SimplyHIS @FiveInTenRumble: @SkyWatchTVFacebook: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHIS @EdensEssentialsInstagram: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsUSATikTok: @SkyWatchTV @SimplyHisShow @EdensEssentialsSkyWatchTV.com | SkyWatchTVStore.com | EdensEssentials.com | WhisperingPoniesRanch.com

Jeta Mulaj, Balkanization And The Racial Order by Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto

In three recent incidents, the police got it right and prevented serious mass casualty events. In this episode, Serge and Clarke discuss how the number of police agencies impacts the ability of sharing information and investigating criminal incidents. Clarke -- but not Serge -- thinks it is a miracle that the police got it right in one cross-state proactive police response.

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We find ourselves in a precarious moment in our nation's history, where the flames of division are being deliberately fanned, and the very foundations of our constitutional republic are under threat of being dismantled. If you have been a dedicated follower of my podcasts, you may recall one of my most popular episodes released on November 2nd, 2020, titled The Great Reset (https://sovereignnations.com/2020/11/02/25-the-great-reset/ ). During this episode, I delved into a concept known as "The Big Sort" and its crucial role within the Great Reset agenda. The Great Reset cannot be achieved without the implementation of the Big Sort, which primarily relies on identity politics driven through education and social media to actualize a divide and conquer strategy. The Big Sort acts as the complementary "ying" to The Great Reset's "yang," utilizing identity politics to fragment and weaken the United States of America. Join me in this vitally important podcast that describes the what, how, and why behind the deceptive attempts to Balkanize our nation. -Michael O'Fallon https://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: https://paypal.me/sovnations https://patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: https://sovereignnations.com/subscribe/ © 2023 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved. #sovereignnations #michaelofallon #balkanization

On today's Podcast we have to talk about how Florida will no longer recognize driver licenses from curtain states who allow Illegal Immigrants to drive and how it will impact those who live in those states. Then we talk about how the PINO is appealing a ruling where he wants to censor people and we talk about the Balkanization of this country. Source: Florida will no longer recognize drivers license from curtain state. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/florida-stops-recognizing-some-drivers-licenses-from-connecticut-other-new-england-states/3063073/ Pino wants to censor your right to speak freely. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-admin-seeks-emergency-order-halting-ban-social-media-company-contacts-2023-07-07/ The Balkanization of America is in full affect. https://apnews.com/article/polarization-republicans-democrats-abortion-gender-colorado-idaho-406b5a841d4d47c8a08cf054c38bb2a0   Audible book recommendation Murder in Bermuda by James Patterson https://amzn.to/3PY4gk2 Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See https://amzn.to/46JW0tU   Amazon deals Amazon Dress deal. https://amzn.to/3XMG71T Early Amazon Prime deals. https://amzn.to/3NWu3Ij Amazon Prime day deals. https://amzn.to/3pyspD9   Support my affiliates Podbean affiliate: https://www.podbean.com/NCPB Advertise on Podbean: https://sponsorship.podbean.com/NCPB Audible Gift Memberships: https://amzn.to/3of4yqZ Try Audible Plus: https://amzn.to/41yjsXV Shop MyID: https://lddy.no/1frus Ebay Deals: https://t.ly/oBfE Amazon Deals: https://amzn.to/3JhPnoK Try Shibari Study. https://shibaristudy.com/?referral_code=ieeHaHHDeFgF

Out with the old and in with the new! For ANNUITAS' Adam Needles and Martin Schneider, it's time to rethink your go-to-market strategy. They join Ignite USA Co-Host, Katie Martell, to explain how you can take the next big step through a Converged Growth Lens. In this episode, they explore why sales and marketing alignment might actually be unattainable, the Balkanization of customer data, and much, much more. To find out more about taking your GTM strategy to the next level, make sure you attend Adam and Martin's session at Ignite USA on May 23-24 in Chicago. Podcast listeners can save 20% on Ignite USA 2023 tickets by using discount code PODCAST at checkout here: https://events.b2bmarketing.net/igniteusa/tickets?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=ignite_usa&utm_term=episode_102:_how_to_transform_your_go-to-market_strategy Ignite USA is where the B2B marketing industry comes together to connect and be inspired by B2B pioneers and game changers. Join us for two days of inspirational talks, interactive workshops and roundtables to discuss your pain points and challenges in depth and help move your marketing forward to new frontiers.

Vinny Lingham joins Jason to break down the state of crypto's de-platforming by the US government. They discuss recent happenings with Coinbase (2:13), Balaji's Bitcoin bet (20:00), Binance (38:23), SBF (44:07), and more! Then, they wrap with a discussion about the coming balkanization of AI (52:54). (0:00) Jason tees up today's topics (2:13) Coinbases' Wells notice & the state of crypto (8:08) Pilot - Get 20% off the first 6 months at https://pilot.com/twist (9:36) Clarity within the crypto industry (15:06) The future of Bitcoin in the US  (18:29) Orgspace - Get $2000 in credits at http://orgspace.io/twist (20:00) Balaji's bet and hyperinflation (25:50) A debate on whether to short Coinbase (36:52) Issuu - Sign up for free or get 50% off an annual premium account by using promo code twist at https://issuu.com/podcast (38:23) CFTC sues Binance  (44:07) SBF's indictment  (49:00) Why is the government clamping down on crypto?  (52:54) The balkanization of AI FOLLOW Vinny: https://twitter.com/vinnylingham FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis Subscribe to our YouTube to watch all full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkkhmBWfS7pILYIk0izkc3A?sub_confirmation=1 FOUNDERS! Subscribe to the Founder University podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/founder-university/id1648407190

Royce White: Deep Church, Deep State, Satanism, and Balkanization”**Moving? Use a Catholic pro-life realtor who donates substantially to the pro-life cause!! Contact Real Estate For Life: https://realestateforlife.org/**No matter what your Catholic vocation, The Saintmaker™ is a one-of-a-kind personal journal and planner to help you reignite your faith, succeed in life, and experience true spiritual freedom! With the Saintmaker Free Trial Offer, you can try it out for 90 days risk free. If you decide it's not for you, return your Saintmaker for a full refund INCLUDING shipping. Rules for Retrogrades listeners can learn more about and get 10% off their first Saintmaker by visiting https://www.thesaintmaker.com/retrogrades and using promo code RETROGRADES at checkout.____________________________________________________________________

http://www.mofpodcast.com/https://prepperbroadcasting.com/https://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/www.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcastSupport the showShop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*Phil and Andrew sit down for a good long ramble about current world events, civil unrest and protests in Brazil and China, and draw some comparisons to the escalating social unease growing in our own country.Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and our website. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.Intro and Outro Music by Phil RabalaisAll rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator

http://www.mofpodcast.com/https://prepperbroadcasting.com/https://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/www.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcastSupport the showShop at Amazon:  http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon:  https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais:  https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX:  http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*Phil and Andrew sit down for a good long ramble about current world events, civil unrest and protests in Brazil and China, and draw some comparisons to the escalating social unease growing in our own country.Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and our website. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.Intro and Outro Music by Phil RabalaisAll rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator

Drew breaks down the election results and where we go from here.

Last time we spoke Rear Admiral Seymour took the charge as he waged war first on the city of Canton to hunt down the seemingly tyrannical Ye Mingchen. Seymour took the city quickly and with ease, but knew he had no way to hold onto it so he opted to start capturing all the forts he could along the riverways. Meanwhile back in Britain, the politicians were raging over the entire conflict and what was to be the best course of action. The Torries and Whigs fought another to use the issue for their own interests and it seems the Torries might be successful at thwarting the need for another war with China, but not if the Whigs had anything to say about it. Now a new figure will come to the forefront to be placed in charge of the China issue and it will consume his life. Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #20 This episode is Part 2 of the Second Opium War: Lord Elgin's reluctant War Now outside parliament, the British public was in a jingoistic mood after winning the Crimean War. Palmerston began to appeal to the masses on the basis of patriotism. Meanwhile the Prime Minister decided to appoint a plenipotentiary to carry out negotiations with the Qing court. The Duke of Newcastle was Palmerstons first choice, but he rejected the job as he knew it would be a thankless one and would earn him no favors. On March 13th, in the middle of a general election, Palmerston announced a new appointment for the new envoy to China. It was the popular Scotsman, former governor of Jamaica and British North America, James Bruce the Earl of Elgin, a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. Lord Elgin was the son of a famous antiquarian who had notoriously preserved or better said vandalized, if you're Greek, parts of Ancient Athens by shipping them back to Britain. Yes the British museum issue. Elgin also sold these pieces of history in question to the British Museum at around 35,000 pounds in 1816 before going bankrupt and leaving England in exile to escape creditors. So yeah daddy was not a good person so to say. Ironically Elgin's fathers actions would haunt him in this story, because he would perform a heinous act on a similar level. During the 3 day voting period that began on March 28th of 1857, the Whigs managed to return to office with a landslide victory. Turns out Palmerston had won the public over, alongside the Queen and now parliament.  The day before Palmerston named Elgin the plenipotentiary to China, Elgin wrote to his wife “My Dearest, I have had a note from [Palmerston] followed by an interview. The proposal is to undertake a special mission of a few months' duration to settle the important and difficult question now embarrassing us in the East and concentrating the attention of all the world. On what grounds can I decline? Not on political grounds for however opposed I might be to the Govt. that would be a reason to prevent them from making the offer, but not me from accepting it. The very mission of a Plenipotentiary is an admission that there are errors of policy to be repaired.” Elgin's wife responded “Dearest, it was unexpected but if your conscience and feelings tell you to say yes I would not for the world dissuade you. God bless you my own darling. I promise you to do my best not to distress you. Forgive me if I can't write more today. Your own ever Mary.” Now Lord Elgin had a very impressive career, as I said he had been the governor of Jamaica and the governor-general of British North America, I live in quebec and he is quite the figure here. There is a statue of him in front of the Quebec parliament building. Lord Elgin attempted to establish responsible government to Canada, wrestled issues of immigration to Canada and took a surprising stance during a French English conflict. You see there were rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada over various colonial issues. Lord Elgin ended up compensating French Canadians who had suffered during the rebellions and this greatly pissed off his British colleagues. On top of that Elgin invited the leader of the lower Canada revolt, Papineau to dine with him at the governor-generals residence in Canada. An English mob began burning parliament buildings in montreal, Elgin was assaulted, but instead of calling in the military, Elgin got his family to safety and allowed civil authorities to restore order. Anyways Elgin did a lot in Canada such as setting up economic treaties with the US and such, he is a large figure in my countries history, though I'd argue not many Canadians are even aware of him haha. Canadian history can be, the best way to put it, a bit boring. Now back to the story at hand, Lord Elgin was a very well regarded figure for his capabilities and royal blood. But he also held a ton of debt from his father, the Greek artifact plunderer. Elgin was notably not xenophobic in a time when many British were. Elgin spoke English and French and was a highly educated man. The day before Elgin set off for China he was given detailed instructions from Lord Clarendon. Clarendon ordered Elgin that under no circumstance was he to try and retake Canton, a tall order since Bowring and Seymour were literally trying to do just that. Clarendon stated he was to acquire the right for Britain to send an ambassador to Beijing to conduct and direct negotiations with the Qing imperial court. He was to demand the opening of new ports of trade and to force the Qing government to adhere to the terms of the treaty of Nanjing. Military force was to be only a last resort if the Emperor refused and Elgin was urged to contain the military action to naval attacks only to save British lives. Elgin had his own demand, he wanted the British military forces in China to be under his sole command. Britain ended up giving Elgin joint command alongside Lt Generals Ashburnham and Seymour who could decide when and where to attack. Elgin made record time journeying to China by riding on the brand new railroad that cut across the Isthmus of Suez. From Suez he took a ship, rounding the coast of India in late May. Elgin came across troops who had been summoned from Bombay and Calcutta. Interesting side note, in May, Sepoy's, those being Indian troops of the East India Company Army, stationed in Meerut performed a mutiny. They had refused to follow orders from the British officers and on May 10th, an entire garrison killed their officers, their families and any Europeans in the vicinity. Word spread of the mutiny resulting in similar outbreaks amongst other sepoy units. Within just a few days there was a widespread rebellion as some Indian prince joined, rallying against the British Raj. Northern India was ablaze with bloodshed and it looked like Britain was at threat of losing its greatest colony. Elgin arrived in Singapore on June 3rd where he was met with two letters from Lord Canning the governor general of india. The letters told Elgin the dire news and begged him to divert troops assigned to the China mission to come help in India. Canning was an old classmate of Elgin and said “If you send me troops they shall not be kept one hour more than is absolutely needed.” Elgin had no time to consult with Plamerston or Clarendon, as it would take 2 months to get word back to London. Without hesitation Elgin diverted 1700 men of the 90th regiment from Mauritius to help quell the rebellion. I obviously cant go into the Indian Rebellion of 1857, but just want to say if you get a chance do learnt about it, an absolutely horrible event. Around 150,000 Indians were killed in the rebellion with 100,000 of them being civilians. The British suffered around 6000 troops and 40,000 civilians killed. The British forces performed massacres and numerous atrocities in places like Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad. On top of the war deaths, it is estimated up to a possible 800,000 Indians would die from famine and disease as well. A truly horrible event.  Back to Elgin, he faced a period in Singapore where he had to await some troops from India to come over to China and during this period he began to study the China situation. Elgin visited an opium den in Singapore to witness the evil effects of the drug firsthand. He wrote this to his wife about the experience  “They are wretched, dark places with little lamps. The opium looks like treacle, and the smokers are haggard and stupefied, except at the moment of inhaling, when an unnatural brightness sparkles from their eyes,” As a result of dispatching men to India to help Canning, Elgin now had to go to China aboard a single ship, the Shannon without any troops. He arrived in Hong Kong on July 2nd of 1857 and was welcomed warmly by the Chinese. Seymour was not all too pleased to find Elgin arriving without any troops. Seymour soon pressed Elgin to form an attack on Canton, handing to him a petition signed by 85 British opium merchants who all believed if Canton fell to the British, the Emperor would have to capitulate to all of their demands. Elgin did not give in to the pressure, though he also did not have the troops to carry out the task regardless.  Elgin then began to brush shoulders with Harry Parkes and they did not get off on the right foot. Parks said of Elgin  “He may be a man that suits the government well, very cautious, having ever before him [placating] Parliament, the world, the public, etc.” Parkes soon began a campaign against Elgin by sending a ton of letters back home criticizing Elgin for what he called “too generous a treatment of the Chinese”. As warhawkish as Seymour and Parkes could be, it was Bowring who really brought the heat. Bowring felt demoted by Elgin's new position and began to work behind the scenes to bring Elgin down. Bowring also began to lecture Elgin on the imperative for  full scale military action against Canton. “There is quite an explosion of public opinion as to the fatal mistake which would be committed by any movement upon Peking until the Cantonese question is settled. Many think such a movement might imperil the whole trade of China. I am quite of the opinion that any action which refers the Canton question to the Emperor would be a most injurious and embarrassing step.” Elgin for the most part ignored Bowring and opted instead for negotiations as were his instructions. Elgin also shared a concern it seems the other men did not, Elgin worried about tearing China apart. Elgin did not want to topple the Manchu rulers of China and throw the nation into some Balkanization hellscape which would only make things harder for Britain to deal with. The Taiping and their talk of banning private property scared Elgin, who knew Britain's trade would be hurt by such rule. In the end Elgin did not wait for his reinforcements from India, he instead went to India himself. Elgin gathered a small force of 400 marines and sailors aboard the 55 gun ship Shannon and sailed for Calcutta. Elgin made it to Calcutta on June 14th where he found the city abandoned by its European residents. Turned out there was a rumor the Sepoy's were going to march into the city to slaughter the Europeans so they all fled, the rumor proved to be false however. Elgin was mortified by the situation in India. He was lambasted with horror stories of sexual atrocities committed against British subjects and mass hangings in reprisal. One Major Renard, ordered the execution of 12 Indians for allegedly turning their faces the wrong way as Renards troops marched past them. That same Major also allegedly burnt down every Indian village he passed and hung 42 villagers along the way. Elgin sent a letter back to his wife  “I have seldom from man or woman since I came to the East heard a sentence that was reconcilable with the hypothesis that Christianity had come into the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the object.” Elgin hopped aboard the steamship Ava on september 20th to return to China. Back in China, Bowring had taken advantage of Elgin's trip by making overtures to Ye Mingchen in violation of Britain's instructions that the Chinese viceroy should only deal with Elgin. When Elgin found out and confronted Bowring, Bowring simply denied it. A month after Elgin had arrived to China, his French counterpart arrived, Baron Gros. The French aristocrat quickly began to share Elgin's hatred for Bowring upon meeting the man. Gros and Elgin both agreed to disagree with Bowring's ideas from the offset. Gros and Elgin agreed the response to the arsenic bakery debacle and the murder of Father Chapedelaine, would be a well coordinated, measured and hopefully light on military deaths. Gros advocated for an attack upon Beijing, while Elgin urged for negotiation. However, foreign minister Clarendon chose another option. Clarendon sent Elgin a letter on October 14th supporting Bowrings ideas. Winter was fast approaching, and the Bei He River, the gateway to Beijing would be frozen before an allied army could reach the city gates. Thus Clarendon advocated for an attack on Canton. Elgin was forced to allow Bowring to take the lead. In november, William Reed, the new American Minister showed up aboard the 55 gun steamship Minnesota. Reed was instructed by his government that America would remain neutral in the inevitable conflict. Russia's emissary, Count Euphemius Putiatin also arrived in november aboard the Amerika. Putiatin brought with him a proposal for China, if the emperor would give Manchuria to the Russians, the Tsar would help the Qing stamp out the Taiping Rebels once and for all. So each of the 4 nations brought their representatives looking to strike a deal with the Qing dynasty. In December of 1857, 3 ships carrying 2000 British soldiers from Calcutta sailed into Canton's harbor followed by a French fleet led by Admiral Rigault de Genouilly. Elgin and Gros sent Ye Mingchen separate ultimatums. France demanded the murderers of Father Chapedelaine to be brought to justice, reparations and permission to operate unrestricted in Canton. Britain demanded compliance with the terms of the treaty of Nanjing; a permanent British ambassador in Beijing; and unspecified reparations for the loss of life and property. Elgin felt his demands were reasonable, but also knew full well they were unacceptable for the Emperor. Ye Mingchen believed the demands to be mere posturing rather than actual threats. He did not have the authority to satisfy the British and French ultimata. So he did nothing…well nothing is a strong word he actually began spending his time by beheading 400 Taiping and placed their heads on spikes atop Cantons walls. It seems perhaps Ye believed such actions would scare off the foreigners, because he had no real army or navy to back him up. Well his brutality against the Taiping sure backfired. The British enlisted 700 really enraged Hakka to man the artillery at the Dutch Folly which was across the Pearl River near the foreign factories. Hakka if you remember made up some of the Taiping ranks as they were a persecuted ethnic minority in Guangxi province. 8 British and 4 French steamships arrived to the scene to add extra military might.  Ye Mingchen replied to the British and French in separate letters. To the British Ye stated, that in 1850 Sir George Bonham had agreed to give up access to Canton to avoid a war with the Qing dynasty. Ye heard that Bonham was given the Order of Bath and perhaps if Elgin did likewise he could also receive such a title. Ye was not aware that the title of Earl was high than that of Sir, but give the guy some credit for doing some homework on the foreign advisory. As for the treaty of Nanjing, Ye simply stated the Emperor declared the terms would be held inviolate for 10 millennium, it would be suicide to go against the Emperor. Ye sent a similar letter to the French and while he made these rather coy and cheeky remarks he did not seem to grasp the very real war threat going on. It may have been because he was too distracted by the Taiping rebellion, which to be brutally honest was a much more pressing concern, regardless Ye lacked any real strategy with how to deal with the foreign threat. When the British and French landed on Henan island, opposite of Canton of December 15th, Ye apparently made no move. The British and French disembarked without any resistance and found the strategic island undefended and without fortification. 200 Chinese war junks and sampans near Henan island fled as soon as the British and French had arrived.  On December 21st, Elgin, Gros and Putiatin had a talk aboard the French flagship Audacieuse. They all agreed to give Ye Mingchen one more chance before the shelling of Canton began. They sent Ye a 2 day deadline to meet their demands. As they waited Elgin wrote in his diary “Canton the great city doomed I fear to destruction by the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours.” While they waited for 2 days, Elgin and Gros discussed military organization. Admiral Seymour and Rigault would command sea forces, while land troops would be commanded by General Ashburnham. On paper the invaders seemed to be completely out gunned. Canton's 6 mile wall circumference was 25 feet high and 20 feet wide. The allied force amounted to 800 men of the Indian Royal Sappers and Miners and the British 59th regiment of Foot, 2100 Royal marines, 1829 men of a British naval brigade and 950 men of the French Navy. The Qing forces were 30,000 strong at Canton, they were outnumbered 5 to 1. The Europeans did have one major tactical advantage however. The European ship born artillery had superior range and firepower compared to Cantons gun and their position on Henan island was within shelling distance of Canton.  On December 22nd, Ye's deadline ran out, but Elgin and Gros hesitated. On December 24th, perhaps because it was so close to Christmas they decided to give the Viceroy another 3 days to accept their terms, but Ye did not respond. On the evening of the 27th, the Europeans sent a reconnaissance team ashore a mile from the city's walls. On the morning of the 28th, the Anglo-Franco armada began shelling the city with artillery support from Henan. The bombardment went on for an entire day and on top of the shells, the europeans also fired incendiary rockets. It is alleged the Qing defenders only tossed back 2 shells. It is estimated the Chinese suffered almost 200 casualties to the shelling, while the incendiary rockets lit parts of Canton ablaze.While the day long shelling was raging on, 500 British and French forces landed and made their way through some rice paddies and came across a cemetery. At the cemetery Qing soldiers were taking up positions behind tombstones. Many of the Qing soldiers were armed with an 18th century weapon known as a Jingall. Now if you have a chance to google these, please do because they are comical to say the least. Its a muzzle loaded giant musket, the barrel is around 60 inches. Usually these were mount on walls, but they could be placed on tipods or on the shoulder of a comrade while you shoot it. Picture a comically big musket and thats basically what it looks like. In the west we call them “wall guns”, anyways they are extremely impractical. So for the Qing it took at minimum 2 men to fire one Jingall and usually when they fired them, the kick back knocked the men to the ground which provided quite the slapstick humor for the Europeans witnessing it. Many of the Qing soldiers also fired bow and arrow alongside some firelock muskets. On the other side, the British and French were using 19th century rifles, such as the British Enfield Rifle and French Minie rifle. Basically it was like Mike Tyson fighting an infant. The Europeans began to take up positions behind tombstones similar to the Qing. During the night the european formed an HQ in a temple on the cemetery grounds and apparently did nothing while some of their soldiers began to ransack the cemetery's statuaries thinking they would find gems or gold inside them. Dawn of the next day, the Europeans woke up to a shocking sight. On the hills behind Canton emerged 1500 Qing soldiers. The Qing soldiers had fled the battle to go atop the hill and were simply staring at the Europeans like they were watching a sports game. It seems Ye's brutality had caused a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the local populace and this resulted in quite the lackluster will to fight. At 9am Admiral Rigault personally led French troops towards the walls of canton carrying scaling ladders. The defenders on top of the walls provided little resistance, while some Chinese artillery on some nearby hills tried to shell the invaders. By 10am British and French flags were flying from the 5 story Pagoda near the walls. Alongside the wall climbing, the British stormed the East Gate of the city with ease. Over 4700 British, Indian alongside 950 French troops scaled the walls in total. Seymour and Rigault had stopped the shelling to allow the troops to get atop the walls and began to fire again, but Elgin quickly forced them to stop deeming it overkill. The death toll was incredibly lopsided, the French reported 3 men dead and 30 wounded, the British reported 13 men dead with around 83 wounded. The Qing suffered upto a possible 650 casualties. The allies set to work hunting Ye Mingchen who they believed was still hiding in the city. Ye's second in command Pih-kwei came out suddenly making a proclamation that he would no longer associate himself with Ye Mingchen nor his disastrous policies. On New Years day, Elgin made a tour of Canton and noticed a lack of resistance, confirming to himself he made the right decision to halt the shelling. Then Elgin witnessed large scale looting. Elgin's private secretary Laurence Oliphant noted “While honest Jack was flourishing down the street with a broad grin of triumph on his face, a bowl of goldfish under one arm and a cage of canary-birds under the other, honest Jean, with a demure countenance and no external display, was conveying his well-lined pockets to the waterside.” It seemed the French preferred to grab cash while the British sought out souvenirs. Elgin feared losing control of the men and ordered them to all stop looting, but he had no authority for the French forces. Upon seeing that the French were not halting their looting, the British soldiers soon rejoined the plundering spree. Elgin lamented the situation in his diary “My difficulty has been to prevent the wretched Cantonese from being plundered and bullied. There is a [Hindi] word called ‘loot' which gives unfortunately a venial character to what would, in common English, be styled robbery. Add to this that there is no flogging in the French Army, so that it is impossible to punish men committing this class of offenses.” The son of Howqua and other Cohong merchants began to petition Elgin to do something to restore order and stop the plunder and destruction of Canton. Within mere days of the city's occupation, 90% of its inhabitants fled the city. One thing Elgin did not seem to mind though was “official expropriations” and sent one Colonel Lemon with a few Royal marines to Canton's treasury where they seized 52 boxes of silver, 68 boxes of gold ingots and over a millions dollars worth in silver taels. This “legal plunder” wink wink, was put aboard the HMS Calcutta and sent post haste to India. After all, the war had to be paid for.  On January 5th, over 8000 British and French marched through the gates of Canton unopposed. Harry Parkes grabbed a squad of 100 Royal Marines and rushed over to Ye Mingchens residence armed with a miniature of the man to identify him. This was quite the smart move, because many of Ye Mingchen's subordinates had attempted to pass themselves off as the viceroy to protect him. Well the tactic provided results as they caught Ye as he was trying to climb over the rear wall of his residence. A marine seized Ye by his queue and dragged the man to a sedan chair enclosed with bars to humiliate him. The tiny prison was put aboard the steamship Inflexible to an audience of Europeans and many Hakka, including Taiping rebels who taunted the disgraced viceroy by making the slashing throat gesture. When the marines searching Ye's residence they came across his letters back to the Qing court, giving them a ton of insight into how the Qing worked. That same day, Elgin and Gross named Ye's second in command, Pih-Kwei the new governor of Canton, but he would be advised by the triumvirate of Parkes, Captain Martineau and Colonel Holloway. The 3 real powers behind Pih-Kwei were granted control of judiciary, and to vet edicts before they were promulgated. Each man spoke Chinese and would report to Clarendon. Elgin wrote to Clarendon to explain the situation “If Pih-kwei was removed or harshly dealt with we should be called upon to govern a city containing many hundred thousand inhabitants with hardly any means of communicating with the people.” The Europeans also created a police force for Canton to stop all the looting and restore confidence in the once great commercial city. Howqua, his son and the other Cohong merchants found the new situation with the Europeans a far better deal than what would occur if the Taiping took Canton. Pih-Kwei received secret instructions from Beijing on January 27th, ordering him to organize an army of civilians and kick the invaders out. He also received orders from Seymour to hand over 17 Chinese war junks to help fight off a Taiping fleet obstructing the Pearl River. On the 28th, 2 french warships, the Fusee and Mitraille both shelled Ye's residence to further Ye's punishment. Ye's subordinates made attempts to rescue him from his prison, so Elgin sent Ye into exile to Calcutta on February 20th. In Calcutta Ye lived under house arrest for a year until he starved himself to death. Back over in Canton, the 70th Sepoy regiment arrived in March to reinforce Canton's garrison. The Sepoys were delighted when they found out 200 Chinese servants were assigned to them as they had been dealing with a lot of racism. Notably the British called them the N word and the French killed 3 Sepoys claiming they were looting. No Europeans were ever shot for looting in Canton. Elgin, Seymour and Gross then took a naval squadron up north towards the mouth of the Bei He River by April 24th. The British, French and Russian plenipotentiaries sent a joint communique to the governor of Zhili province, Tan. Elgin, ever the pacifist, tried to negotiate a way out of further bloodshed writing to Tan to see if they could meet a minister duly authorized by Emperor Xianfeng. Tan performed the standard Chinese response, by stalling and claiming he didn't have the power to negotiate with them. Apparently in his letter response, he used larger characters for the Emperor than that of Queen Victoria which infuriated the British as it was yet again in violation of the terms to the treaty of Nanjing, that both nations be considered equal. Ironically if you think about it, the British and Qing were both so uptight about such status symbols and such. Tan sent another letter that indicated the Chinese position was shifting somewhat, iit offer some negotiation, opened some ports, granted religious freedom to Christians and agreed to pay reparations for the foreign factories being destroyed in 1856. Tan also said he passed on the Europeans request for an embassy in Beijing to the Emperor. What he did not tell them, was that the Emperor rejected that request outright. Putiatin in an attempt to avoid further bloodshed pleaded with the parties to accept this offer, but allegedly the French Foriegn office replied to him with a smirk “they are only Chinese lives”. On a bit of a side note, a rather remarkable thing occurred on the Russian side of this story at this time. The Archimandrite, named Palladius, something of a spiritual leader to a tiny population of Russians living in Beijing was granted permission by Emperor Xianfeng to visit the European fleet at the end of may. He was forced to travel in a sealed litter. Prior to leaving, Putiatin got word to the man ordering him to gather as much intelligence as he could traveling towards them. Palladius was able to peer through a small crack in the shutter and did his best to get details on the position of the Qing fleet. When Palladius arrived he brought with him great news, apparently Beijing was starving and the rambunctious life of the Emperor was catching up to him. Please note the Emperor was only 30 years old, guy must have really partied it up. Another thing the Emperor was doing was strongly contemplating leaving the country because he was terrified. Meanwhile Elgin's anxiety was being lifted day by day as more warships arrived. By late May, the combined Anglo-French fleet was now 26 gunboats strong, preparing to take on the famous Taku Forts that guarded the mouth of the Bei He River. D-day was to be may 20th and the invaders were just 100 miles away from Beijing. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The reluctant Elgin had done it, they seized Canton and finally brought Ye Mingchen to British justice. The British French coalition was working its way slowly but surely to straggle Beijing and force its Emperor to abide by their demands.  

In this episode of Magic Internet Money, host Brad Mills invites lifelong hacker and Bitcoin entrepreneur, Eric Martindale onto the show to discuss Bitcoin, his journey working as a developer for Bitcoin related companies, and his layer 3 software called Fabric.Brad kicks the show off describing life in Cape Breton and the lessons of that experience, which he compares to the great depression and the film Cinderella Man. He introduces Martindale and a handful of basic topics of critique such as DeFi and altcoins.The main topic of the show is censorship resistance and the advantages to the additional layers that Bitcoin has developed since its initial launch by Satoshi. Martindale shares valuable personal experience with Bitcoin's development.Time Stamps00:00:19 - Introduction and catching up with Brad Mills00:32:50 - Show Start and introducing layer 3 and other terms00:37:50 - Introducing Eric Martindale00:44:40 - When did Martindale look closer at BTC?00:54:04 - Martindale's developer journey and insights01:09:55 - Where does Fabric fit into the layers of BTC?01:25:29 - On the Balkanization of the cryptocurrency world01:40:07 - More questions about Fabric and Portal01:51:30 - How to balance a passion for BTC with shitcoiner coworkers01:58:50 - How does the token for Portal work?02:06:20 - Outro and plugsLinks to Mentions in the ShowFabricPortalHolepunchWhat is layer 3?DeFiAustrian economicsThe Lean StartupCypherpunksThe World Economic ForumThe Lightning NetworkFind Eric MartindaleEric Martindale TwitterEric Martindale WebsiteFind Brad MillsBrad Mills TwitterMIM TwitterBrad Mills Facebook

Is America on the road to Balkanization?Keith Alexander, co-host of The Political Cesspool, talks about how fast race relations have deteriorated since the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960s.Learn more about racial tensions in America and why America is on the road to Balkanization in this installment of El Nino Speaks.Buy My Book "The 10 Myths of Gun Control" TodayIf you're serious about changing the gun control status quo we live in, this book is a must.After reading this text, you will be able to hold your own in any debate with your anti-gun friends, family, or associates. No questions asked.And heck, you will have a solid foundation in championing issues like gun rights should you take your activism to the next level.Knowledge is power and the foundation for any worthwhile endeavor. With this next-level information at your fingertips, the sky is the limit.So make today the day you say NO to the gun control status quo by taking action NOW.The full retail price for The 10 Myths of Gun Control is $6.Get Your Copy TodayBookmark my Website For Direct ContactIn the era of Big Tech censorship, we can't rely on just one or two platforms to keep us connected. Bookmark my website today so you always know where to get the true, unfiltered information about the news and views that matter to you.Subscribe to my Premium Newsletter TodayThe Niño FileIf you're serious about changing the authoritarian status quo we live in, make sure to join the Niño File on Patreon for as little as $5 a month. This is the premier source for dedicated and passionate leaders who want to not just “move the needle”, but actually win and change the landscape ahead of us.The Niño File is bringing you the necessary and concise ways to help you identify and train strong candidates, kill bad legislation while actively passing good bills, keeping incumbents accountable and knowing how to replace them when push comes to shove. Those are just the tip of the iceberg, the only way to get so much more is to join today!Don't Forget to Follow me on Twitter @JoseAlNino This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit josbcf.substack.com/subscribe

On today's show we are talking about the impact of the macroeconomics environment on the world real estate investing so much of what is happening in the economy is being dominated by the macro economic environment. ----------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

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The Colonization of the American Psyche   Richard Gale & Gary Null Progressive Radio Network, July 12, 2022       We delude ourselves at our own peril by wrongly believing that government policy makers and the captains of private finance and industry are older and wiser. Because these people have managed to reach the top of their game, we assume they possess the intellectual acumen to steer a nation past its economic and social ills. We falsely believe they have the comprehensive skills to tackle the dire challenges that lie ahead such as a warming planet, growing cultural divisions, and an economic system on the verge of total collapse.  But as the years go by, more and more Americans are mounting questions with no realistic answers in sight. People feel we are charging blindly towards unaffordable energy costs, food insecurity, out-of-control debt and runaway inflation.  We realize we can no longer rely upon our leading institutions and the mainstream media. Our politicians constantly voice promises that are never fulfilled.    We need to realize that the colonialist perspective, which has dominated American history since its founding, cannot be completely divorced from government efforts to manipulate and control factions within the population. A colonialist mindset can never offer constructive solutions to solve problems. Promoting common ground to simmer disharmony between seeming oppositional segments of society is counterintuitive to colonialism. Rather it must rely on instilling discord, conflict, and eventually violence, either psychological or physical, in order to keep conflicts alive, which in turn validate further control, surveillance and heavy-handed measures.  Our nation's leaders and institutions believe they are the adults in the room and we their children deserve their tough love.    Consequently whatever can be weaponized in order to manipulate the sensitivities of others to keep conflicts alive is fair game. The emotions behind racial and gender tensions are weaponized to keep people divided. For example, Biden wants to criminalize parents who oppose school boards that seem determined to sexualize grammar school education. Religion has been weaponized whereby authentic religion barely exists in the American landscape anymore. Politicians on both sides of the aisle weaponize any issue contrary to their ideological goals. The Covid pandemic's controversies are manipulated so that science is weaponized against itself. Physicians and medical professionals who disagree with the pandemic's lockdowns, drug treatments, vaccine mandates and the wet market theory about the SARS-2 virus' origins, are censored, demonized and threatened with the loss of their medical licenses. However there are always blowbacks and serious repercussions when others are weaponized in order to colonize a perceived enemy psychologically or by physical force.    A fundamental problem is that the average person expects very simple solutions to otherwise extremely complex problems. Regardless of the political divide, people expect instant transformation to be backed immediately by legislation. They want their emotional biases and self-righteous believes to written into law. And the easiest solution is to create a scapegoat and then keep the victim alive and wandering in the wasteland until the problem reaches its final solution. Nazis colonized the German psyche by scapegoating Jews, gypsies, and members of the LBGT community. But of course a final solution is never reached constructively and inevitably leaves catastrophic destruction in its wake.    Instead we are led to a more rapid breakdown of the remaining threads of democracy. The educational system, the nuclear family, and the very moral fabric that keeps a culture healthy and vital collapse. Inescapably, whoever is the aggressor generates its own negative and destructive identity. The new cancel culture, which has now been absorbed into the federal government, has become the very cancer of hatred and vitriol it tries to marginalize and eradicate. One party or the other becomes vehemently juxtaposed to the opposing party as an enemy to be abolished; eventually that party identifies subliminally with the very pernicious characteristics it blames on its enemy. The powerless seize power by demonizing those less powerful. What we are witnessing is American culture being displaced by a hyperactive Hollywood dystopia.  People are displaced by technological robotism. News porn displaces pragmatic inquiry. And as we look around, we no longer have a culture that is even capable of defining itself in any way other than a psychological tyranny bent on coercive control. It is as if we inhabit a haunted house of horrors while being completely oblivious to that fact.    Perhaps it is time to regard our nation's politick as grievously and mentally unstable. For many people this is self evident. The US is the world's most anxious, depressed and mentally disturbed nation. Despite the widespread use of psychiatric drugs to palliate symptoms and enormous resources spent to tackle the epidemic of mental disorders, Americans' psychological health continues to worsen. Our ruling institutions believe they understand their own psychology but they are unquestionably clueless. The psychological fragmentation and creation of divisions in American culture are sometimes viewed as the Balkanization of American culture. This doesn't suggest that the powers that be desire to carve up the nation into separate regions hostile and uncooperative with each other. That is counter-intuitive for any government or corporate ambition to strengthen political and economic control over a population. Nevertheless it has resulted in the red and blue factions becoming more distinctly divided and hostile. The Balkanization of the American psyche is the unwanted consequence of a mentally unsound political apparatus and an equally psychologically unstable media.    Perhaps it is more accurate to regard the belligerent quagmire of factional animosity towards the “other” as a fascist colonization of the American psyche. After Trump's surprising 2016 electoral win, book sales dealing with fascism soared. Sales of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism and Orwell's 1984 skyrocketed.  However we should be very wary of our choice of words and the real life definitions we give them. Rather than assuming the reemergence of an early 20th century fascism on American shores, perhaps we might consider the term Americanism as a unique fascist ideology contrary and in opposition to the Constitution.   In 1938, a Yale Divinity School professor, Halford Luccock, gave a sermon at Manhattan's Riverside Church. Luccock derogatorily coined the term Americanism.   “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled “made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.”    Similar predictive warnings were not uncommon in the 1930s. The prominent social commentator H.L. Mencken gave a similar prediction. Writing for the Baltimore Sun, Mencken wrote:   “My own belief, more than once set afloat from this spot, is that it will take us, soon or late, into the stormy waters of fascism. To be sure, that fascism is not likely to be identical with the kinds on tap in Germany, Italy and Russia; indeed it is very apt to come in under the name of anti-fascism.”   In her 1939 Harper's Magazine article, Lillian Symes wrote about Huey Long's suspected prediction that “Fascism would come to America in the name of anti-fascism” (a quote often wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill)   “If a fascist movement ever triumphs in America it will undoubtedly triumph in the name of our most popular slogan – Democracy, and under the leadership of some such “friend of the common people” as the late Huey Long…. Whoever its angels and whatever their purpose, it will speak the language of a populist left.”   The fragmented Balkanization of the American psyche has certainly given rise to warring populist factions. The triumph of cancel culture, in groups such as Antifa, the radicalized factions in the race-based and gender movements, the White Fragility phenomena, and Silicon Valley social media censorship is evidence of a new emerging authoritarian Americanism growing within the ranks of the left's liberal populism.    Roosevelt's vice president Henry Wallace likewise observed signs that US's weakness might flirt with fascism.  In April 1944, the New York Times quoted Wallace stating:    “The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution… Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."    Wallace believed that the greatest weapon to prevent fascism was to prioritize the importance of human well being above dollars and profit. He saw evidence that ‘fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually war with Russia.” Although such a war would never erupt during America's Cold War against the Soviet Union, Wallace's warning now seems to be at our doorstep. “Already American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerance toward certain races creeds and classes.”  If Wallace could hear the venom spewed by the neo-con cartel surrounding Biden in the Oval Office, he would certainly see America's fascist moment on hand. However, domestically, the ultimate goal of American political conceit and elitism is to impose homogeneity across society. Thus we observe the government imposing an aberrant universal vanity not only on its own population but repeatedly upon other nations through electoral interference and military or intelligence intervention.   Another obstacle is that America's attention skills are direly week. Most Americans emotionally react to wherever the headline of the day leads them. Their priorities about the nation's most urgent challenges shift and change dramatically.  For example, when the economy is strong, global warming and the preservation of the environment are high on people's lists. Today with rising popular uncertainty, confusion and aimlessness, the percentage of people who place climate change as the single most important threat barely reaches double figures. It is only the most conscientious among us who are aware of how our activities and habits contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of the environment.  Our international climate change summits are utterly worthless. They are little more than weeklong seminars for world leaders to learn more platitudes and more talking points for political campaigns and press conferences. Since no nation is held legally accountable by international environmental treaties, everything is voluntary and nothing essential is done. It is all smoke and mirrors to cover over Washington's guilt.   Good intentions without deep moral and spiritual understanding and resolve to act, are fruitless.  Once the intention fades from awareness, the potential to act constructively vanishes immediately. An amusing comparison can be made between Kim Kardassian's sister Kylie Jenner and green activist Greta Thunberg.   Kyle Jenner is a fashion mogul billionaire with 300 million Instagram views. She claims to be a strong proponent of protecting the planet and the environment. Yet, typically of the rich and powerful, the sincerity of their claims are questionable. She has a closet stacked with hundreds of pairs of shoes. She is a massive consumer who travels in a private jet. Contrast Kylie's faux environmentalism with Greta Thunberg, and her 12 million social media followers, who rails against the acerbic hypocrisy of national presidents, prime ministers and business leaders. Kylie and Greta both claim to have a mission to protect the planet.  Yet one is a habitual spender; the other is an extraordinarily conscientious consumer. One is a plastic manikin of media hype and privileged elitism; the other aggressively challenges the fossil fuel, lumber, mining and livestock industries. Kylie flaunts empty words; Greta pragmatically persuades us in taking account of our lives. There can never be a sustainable future if we are unable to disengage from current American standards of living, consumerism, dietary habits and modes of transportation.    Fortunately distrust in government and the media is growing exponentially. Yet sadly this will not solve our population's growing disorientation in US's new no-mans-land. Similar to the warnings given seven decades ago, the American media has been fully captured by private and secretive national security interests. We hear the dreaded dirge of a single official mantra; that is, increase irrational hope, surrender your independence and individuality, leave your reason at the door and obey your elected leaders and the unelected cartels that keep them in office. Only a tiny percent of the US population actually controls the larger national dialogues and agendas, both domestic and foreign. But a new generation of technocrats, groomed in the halls of the culture wars of division, condemnation and conquest are now entering the halls of government, finance and corporate boardrooms.  These are new shock troops that are leading the assault to colonize the American psyche, the mass formation of a distinctly American hive mentality, that forebodes far worse things to come in the near future.

Will right-wing populists put the anti-White Left in its place?James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool, shares his optimistic views about right-wing populism on El Nino Speaks. In addition, he believes that Balkanization could be an eventual scenario in the United States Follow James' content here:Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamesEdwardsTPCThe Political Cesspool Website: https://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/Buy My Book "The 10 Myths of Gun Control" TodayIf you're serious about changing the gun control status quo we live in, this book is a must.After reading this text, you will be able to hold your own in any debate with your anti-gun friends, family, or associates. No questions asked.And heck, you will have a solid foundation in championing issues like gun rights should you take your activism to the next level.Knowledge is power and the foundation for any worthwhile endeavor. With this next-level information at your fingertips, the sky is the limit.So make today the day you say NO to the gun control status quo by taking action NOW.The full retail price for The 10 Myths of Gun Control is $6.Get Your Copy TodayBookmark my Website For Direct ContactIn the era of Big Tech censorship, we can't rely on just one or two platforms to keep us connected. Bookmark my website today so you always know where to get the true, unfiltered information about the news and views that matter to you.Subscribe to my Premium Newsletter TodayThe Niño FileIf you're serious about changing the authoritarian status quo we live in, make sure to join the Niño File on Patreon for as little as $5 a month. This is the premier source for dedicated and passionate leaders who want to not just “move the needle”, but actually win and change the landscape ahead of us.The Niño File is bringing you the necessary and concise ways to help you identify and train strong candidates, kill bad legislation while actively passing good bills, keeping incumbents accountable and knowing how to replace them when push comes to shove. Those are just the tip of the iceberg, the only way to get so much more is to join today!Don't Forget to Follow me on Twitter @JoseAlNino This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit josbcf.substack.com/subscribe

You can hear my new airing on 9670 kHz (9.670 MHz) every Friday at the following times: 5 PM British Summer Time Friday 7 PM Eastern European Summer Time Friday 8 PM Samara Time Friday 10 PM Alma-Ata Time Friday Reception should be best for listeners in Europe, Russia, Central and East Asia, the signal may also be heard (with varying strength) in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia. Consider supporting my show with a donation via PayPal to vorwinfo@gmail.com it needs your help to survive!

Roon is a machine learning engineer, anonymous writer at roonscape.substack.com, and the inventor of the term “wordcel”. He's an extremely insightful commentator with a similar technical background to mine - all the better for approaching the questions we're asking today. Topics discussed include the “wordcel and “shape rotator” meme, the decline of journalism, the conflict between legacy and new institutions, the difficulty of explaining machine learning to lay audiences, how very few people are agentic, niche communities and anonymity, the “neoreactionary” movement, accelerationism, techno-optimism, existential risk, alien life, and which problems machine learning is most likely to solve. Please subscribe and share with friends!Roon on twitter: https://twitter.com/tszzlHis substack: DALL-E ML Image Generator: https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/UPDATE: Timestamps2:01 interview starts9:28 legacy journalists15:11 financial collapse22:33 Elon Musk and twitter28:44 "Hate Speech" is a fake term39:53 Old Money vs. New Money53:53 Technologists Becoming Disillusioned by Politics57:01 The Neoreactionary Movement1:06:30 Existential Risk1:13:22 Aliens1:18:37 Machine Learning in Simple English1:26:54 Automation1:38:09 Inequality1:50:32 Gen Z1:57:43 Why are tech journalists so incompetent? 2:05:34 Machine Learning Lightning Round2:07:55 Central Planning2:11:46 Machine Learning and Emotion2:18:07 Self-Driving Cars2:21:45 Finance This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cactus.substack.com

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In this episode we discuss abortion in the half of the US possibly coming to an end and how this will lead to the Balkanization of the United States spoken of In Daniel 2. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thalassocratichephzibah/message

Summary: Not only is the U.S. government-media complex lying about what is happening in Ukraine, but it's telling the same lies it did about its previous regime change project in Syria. Guest bio: Janice Kortkamp began researching Syria and the war in 2012 and has put in well over 10,000 hours in research, made hundreds of contacts in Syria also ex-pat Syrians in several other countries and made seven trips in 2016-2019, each almost one month long. She traveled to Damascus (inc. Ma'aloula and Saidnaya), Homs (inc. Valley of the Christians and villages in the countryside near Masyaf), Lattakia (inc. Ugarit, Slonfeh, Kessab), Tartous (inc. Amrit, Arwad) Aleppo, Palmyra, and Deir Ezzor (inc. Al Mayadeen) and met with soldiers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, musicians, community and government leaders, professors, teachers, students, displaced persons, religious leaders, businessmen, housewives, children – from all major religious groups. Guest Links: https://www.syriaresources.com/ (Janice's Website) https://www.facebook.com/janice.kortkamp (Janice's Facebook Page) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTWw7o6lq9KT2xzmvJt79_g/videos (Janice's You Tube Channel) Additional Reading: https://www.syriaresources.com/syria-declares-its-independence-from-us-western-regime-change-addicts/ (Syria declares its independence from US/Western regime change addicts) https://www.syriaresources.com/https-www-youtube-com-watchv6b-ixujzhiulistfltww7o6lq9kt2xzmvjt79-gindex54t0s/ (2013: Syria: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, Says Freed Hostage Pierre Piccinin) https://www.syriaresources.com/the-kurdish-struggle-for-independence-in-syria-is-a-us-propaganda-campaign-to-hide-the-intended-balkanization-of-the-country/ (The “Kurdish Struggle for Independence in Syria” is a US propaganda campaign to hide the intended Balkanization of the country) Free Gift from Tom: Download a free copy of Tom's new e-book, It's the Fed, Stupid, at https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/2092395087.html (itsthefedstupid.com). It's also available in paperback https://amzn.to/3HTYSYh (here). It's priced at a pre-hyperinflation level so grab a few copies for friends if you can. It makes a great introduction to the government's most economically damaging institution for liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, and independents alike. Like the music on Tom Mullen Talks Freedom? You can hear more at https://skepticsongs.com/ (tommullensings.com)!

Dealing with overheated laptop (several fixes), using same USB flashdrive for Mac and Windows (format using exFAT), System Image vs System Restore, malware on SmartTV (not a problem), WiFi USB adaptors (nano vs full size), Profiles in IT (Donald Knuth, author Art of Computer Programming), Balkanization of the Internet (China, then Russia, implications), Viasat hacked in Europe and Ukraine (Russia suspected), Russian tech braindrain (fleeing the oppression), and AI translation could unseat English as Lingua Franca. This show originally aired on Saturday, April 2, 2022, at 9:00 AM EST on WFED (1500 AM).

Dealing with overheated laptop (several fixes), using same USB flashdrive for Mac and Windows (format using exFAT), System Image vs System Restore, malware on SmartTV (not a problem), WiFi USB adaptors (nano vs full size), Profiles in IT (Donald Knuth, author Art of Computer Programming), Balkanization of the Internet (China, then Russia, implications), Viasat hacked in Europe and Ukraine (Russia suspected), Russian tech braindrain (fleeing the oppression), and AI translation could unseat English as Lingua Franca. This show originally aired on Saturday, April 2, 2022, at 9:00 AM EST on WFED (1500 AM).

Was the financial war against Russia over before it even began? My guest this week thinks so.  Sean Ring is a writer, trainer, EdTech startup CEO, teacher, and Editor of The Rude Awakening.  Sean has lived and traveled in East Asia for many years, and he has a unique take on China's view of the West's response to Russia and the invasion of Ukraine.On this episode of The Wiggin Sessions, Sean joins me to discuss China's view of the US's financial war and why the US can't act alone. Sean discusses how sanctions against Russia are speeding up China's plans to dominate the global economy and how they might replace the U.S. dollar's dominance of the Middle Eastern market, plus the ramifications therein.  Listen in to understand the war from Russia's point of view and what Halford Mackinder's “Heartland Theory” of the World-Island has to do with why the Russia Ukrainian conflict is raging right now.  Key Takeaways How Sean's history of living and traveling in East Asia informs his perspective on China's view of the West Why the sanctions against self-sufficient Russia are only going to backfire and make them more powerful Sean's insight into China's perspective on the war, and how the Russian sanctions could cause the emergence of non-dependence on the US dollar Sean looks at the countries that refuse to impose sanctions and the Russian isolation fairy tale  Why we will see a Balkanization of the world economy What Sean thinks is China's biggest risk Sean explains Russia's view of the war and why the Russia Ukrainian conflict is raging right now Sean gives an insight into what we don't get from the Western media The impending depreciation of the US dollar and why inflation is here to stay Connect with Sean Ring Sean Ring Subscribe to The Rude Awakening Sean on LinkedIn Connect with Addison Wiggin Consilience Financial Be sure to follow The Wiggin Sessions on your socials. You can find me on— Facebook @thewigginsessions Instagram @thewigginsessions Twitter @WigginSessions Resources  Klaus Schwab Mark Carney Byron King—The Danger in Weaponizing the US Dollar EP48 Martin Anderson—When and Why Wars are Needed EP49 'Got Rubles?' by Sean Ring in The Rude Awakening Jim Rickards at The Daily Reckoning 'Russia Built Parallel Payments System That Escaped Western Sanctions' in The Wall Street Journal 'The Usual Suspects Are Pushing War with Russia' in Mises Wire Dmitry Orlov Peter Thiel Halford Mackinder John Mearsheimer ‘Biden Saves Ukraine From Russia—by the Inch' in The Wall Street Journal Olaf Scholz The Budapest Memorandum Taiwan Relations Act Jim Rogers Victoria Nuland Testimony On Biolabs In Ukraine Bill Bonner The World Economic Forum

Public schooling, by forcing people with diverse values and needs to fund a single system of government schools, inevitably produces conflict. Such conflict has reached a fever pitch over the last several years, with Americans battling over critical race theory, LGBTQ issues, COVID-19 masking, and more. Logically, school choice would defuse such conflict, enabling diverse people to choose what they think is best rather than having to fight for control of a single system. But is there evidence of that working? If so, where? And how does that not lead to Balkanization?Three experts in education and pluralism will discuss whether and how school choice can foster peace in a large, diverse society. The event will focus on questions and comments from audience members. We hope anyone interested in the role of education in bringing diverse people together will join us. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join the editors as they continue their discussion of the role of myth in political life, examining the "QAnon" conspiracy theory. What does Q tell us about myth and its role in politics? Is there precedent for conspiracy theories like Q in the American past? How is Q different from past conspiracy theories? Next week, we will conclude our discussion of the role of myth in political life by discussing the possibility of a global myth, whether myths are ultimately natural or socially constructed, and what policies might make American myths more believable. -- To comment on this episode or sign up for our newsletter, click here.https://spectacles-insight.captivate.fm/listen (To listen to written articles from Spectacles read aloud, click here.)Further Reading"https://www.propublica.org/article/heeding-steve-bannons-call-election-deniers-organize-to-seize-control-of-the-gop-and-reshape-americas-elections (Heeding Steve Bannon's Call, Election Deniers Organize to Seize Control of the GOP — and Reshape America's Elections)," by Isaac Arnsdorf, Doug Bock Clark, Alexandra Berzon and Anjeanette Damon, for ProPublica. "https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/ (Qanon Is More Important Than You Think)," by Adrienne LaFrance in The Atlantic. "https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ (The Paranoid Style in American Politics)," by Richard Hofstadter in Harper's Magazine. Table of Contents00:00 - Introduction 00:32 - Q Excerpts 02:57 - Recap of Last Week 04:39 - Today's Topic 05:50 - What is Q, basically? 09:33 - Connection to Election Fraud Conspiracy 12:34 - Q As Myth, Religion 17:48 - Q As Reactionary Myth, Fantasy 21:26 - Q's Roots in American Covenantal Myth 23:53 - History of American Paranoia 31:15 - American Tension b/t Universality, Particularity 35:20 - The Power of The Internet 42:39 - The Balkanization of American Narratives 43:13 - Next Week's Topic 43:54 - Signing Off

There are three plausible reasons for the Biden Administration’s tone-deaf reaction to India’s humanitarian crisis in the #Wuhanvirus vaccine imbroglio:malign neglecta woke agendaa monstrous conspiracy.As someone who lived half his adult life in the US, I have fond memories of the people and the country, and I have long been an advocate of closer India-US ties. The two are Estranged Democracies that share common values. I found the American reaction startling because of:a) the optics regarding a quasi-ally, b) the alleged Quad vaccine cooperation, c) the fact India is the biggest supplier to the Covax initiative that provides the vaccine to developing countries. Given the global pandemic, it would not do any good to America if pockets of the infection remained in some far off country. It has to be eradicated everywhere. We all have to be vaccinated. If that’s not true, then there’s something truly sinister going on.There are three possible scenarios, in decreasing order of probability:Scenario One: Commercial considerations of Big PharmaThere has long been the suspicion that Western Big Pharma is in the vaccine game for the profits, and that it will brook no competition. For instance, the moment their mRNA vaccines went on the market, they began strong-arming customers. It is said that Pfizer demanded (and got!) total sovereign indemnity from any potential lawsuits; they also are rumored to have asked some countries to put up their embassies and military assets as collateral!Estimates are that Pfizer made $15 billion in 2020. This data is a little old, but is shows the trend: Pfizer and Moderna are priced much higher than AstraZeneca (Covishield) and Bharat Biotech (Covaxin) products at Rs 150 ($2) in India. Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine is also cheaper. AstraZeneca and J&J promised to sell at cost, and not make a profit, for a while. Therefore, the hit job. QED. No wonder, then, that there have been all these media horror stories about blood clots following AstraZeneca and J&J vaccinations, which have led the EU and the US to issue warnings. Meanwhile, there have been no major reports about any side effects of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. That is distinctly odd.I am reminded of Sherlock Holmes’ famous “curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. I am also reminded of the old saying “What’s good for General Motors is good for America”, only suitably updated for today. So why was the Biden administration forced to back-pedal furiously and declare they will help India? First, the optics were really bad: India has exported 44% of its production, and America 0%. There was broad support for India, even from groups such as crypto-enthusiasts.Of course the usual suspect Cold Warriors weren’t very happy. But it appears that American businesses (other than pharma) were a little concerned about India’s ‘buyer power’. After all, India buys a lot of stuff from Boeing, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, etc., and will probably buy even more going forward. Unless, of course, some unfortunate things happened. Like embargoes.Scenario Two: Regime change and Balkanization in India, and ‘sub-national’ goalsThe unrepentant East Coast Atlanticists and woke banshees who make up the Democratic ruling cabal have decided that two things must happen: the toppling of Narendra Modi, and the breakup of India into a bunch of squabbling state-lets. In case it occurs to you that this is exactly what the Pakistani establishment wants, it is, and that is no coincidence.It is quite possible that Biden’s Afghan exit is predicated on a deal with Pakistan’s ISI and its proxy the Taliban. Biden will (metaphorically) deliver Modi’s head on a platter, and in return the ISI will not severely harass and kill off American troops as they run for the exits.But you can’t blame just Biden for this. It has been the general tenor of Democratic presidencies going way back to that charming rogue Clinton and the sainted Obama (who, if I remember right, also publicly granted China the ‘contract’ to manage ‘South Asia’). The accepted narrative in the West (and this is reflected in their media’s breathless schadenfreude over India’s current Wuhanvirus wave, see for example, https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-26-the-stunning-reaction-to-indias) is that Modi’s is a monstrous regime, that needs to be overturned in a ‘color revolution’, of which anti-CAA/anti-370 and ‘farmer’ [sic] protests are dress rehearsals that need American support and encouragement.The Deep State definitely wants its old embedded assets, the Congress Party, back in power. They smell blood: they used the Wuhan virus and social media to do regime change and get rid of Donald Trump in the US. They think they can do the same in India. The 500,000 bots recruited by the Congress party (they advertised openly for it) can be counted upon to manufacture consent on social media. The Congress party has a long history of giving away Indian land: starting with Partition and the gift of PoK by Nehru, then the gift of Cocos Islands to Myanmar, the tremendous efforts by Manmohan Singh to give away Siachen to Pakistan, and now the Congress’ support to Khalistani separatists aka ‘farmers’. This fits right in with the Deep State’s balkanization efforts for India. “Subnational” is code for “let’s split India into many pieces”. Incidentally, Biden’s graceless offer under duress to help India was intended to be through “partners” and “institutions”, read NGOs and embedded long-term assets including astroturfed activists. I hope India put its foot down and insisted that all transactions would be government-to-government. John Mearsheimer, a well-known geostrategist, pointed out the fatal flaws in the Deep State’s assumptions about “Liberal Hegemony” and the huge bloodshed they have caused, but they march on, regardless. (Hat tip Megh Kalyanasundaram). I can tell you this delusion isn’t going to end well for anybody concerned. The narrative that Indians need to be ‘saved’ is so pervasive that no western media would ever run a story that shows we actually have agency, for example the story of 85 year old Narayan Dabhadkar, who voluntarily gave up his COVID bed in a hospital for a younger man, a stranger, “because I have lived my life, and he hasn’t”. He died 3 days later, at home. Narayan Dabhadkar, an RSS man, will for that reason not be honored in Indian media or textbooks. Compare this to how Captain Oates in the ill-fated South Pole expedition of Robert Scott was lionized by the British as the ultimate in self-sacrifice, and we lap up the European sentiment vicariously. Scenario Three: A large climate change initiative of depopulationThis is the doomsday scenario. We may be facing a perfect storm of several things: technological discontinuities, the possibly exaggerated fear of climate change, and ruthless power politics. On the one hand, the AI revolution is making more and more people redundant. They are surplus workers who will never again find employment. What happened with factory jobs through automation is on the verge of happening to white collar jobs through GPT-3 and natural language processing neural networks. Then the question arises: why should the Earth be burdened with over 8 billion people who are ravaging the environment? There’s COP-26 on climate change and COP-15 on biodiversity coming up later this year, and it is evident that the two are linked, and that both are severely affected by growing human populations.We have seen utterly ruthless exterminations of various populations by big powers in the past: and today we see Chinese settlers doing it to Uighurs and Tibetans. Earlier, white settlers did this in North America and Australia, wiping out not only the natives, but also the passenger pigeon and the American bison. (I am not sure if it’s a European custom, or an Abrahamic custom, or both.)In case you think I made up the scenario of depopulation, here’s The New York Times saying so just yesterday, hat tip to Sujeev Kommana. Since the NYT is to Biden as Global Times is to Xi Jinping, we should be concerned. Very concerned.Here is a relevant screenshot: “Perhaps some rogue technology…bioterror attacks… will kill enough people”. The question is, “which people"? The answer is obvious. And that is precisely what the Wuhan virus could well be: a bio-weapon. There are unanswered questions:How did the virus actually originate? Was it an accident or was it deliberately engineered?Since it first appeared in China, why has Chinese mortality been low, and why have new mutated variants not appeared there?Why have East Asians been notably less susceptible? How come new catastrophic variants appeared in the UK, Brazil and India? (Note: brown indigenous people in Brazil, and brown people in India)In India, the mutations appeared in Delhi and Mumbai, all of a sudden after the earlier wave had died out. (Note: not where election rallies took place)What I’m driving at is that there seems to be a series of engineered variants that are quietly being introduced into different places. It doesn’t appear natural. What’s even more remarkable is that high-ranking Americans (whom I dare not name) funded the Wuhan virology lab; others accurately predicted the trajectory of the pandemic; in fact, there were even films made that were startlingly accurate, such as Contagion. It does sound like science fiction. If one were to feed the climate change data into an impersonal AI like HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it would definitely suggest depopulation using any means possible, just as it decided to kill its astronauts since it thought they might jeopardize its mission. HAL would even suggest to the West an alliance with the Chinese to get rid of the pesky global South, all those useless black and brown people just occupying space and using up resources. It could well be that bio-weapons are the most efficient and least damaging way of achieving the desired depopulation of brown and black people. Let us note that India is only about 10% vaccinated, and Africa is roughly 1% vaccinated. Deny them vaccines, and it’s mission accomplished. Apr 28, 2021; updated Apr 29, 2021. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

This week we talk about the Ottoman Empire, the GDPR, and Balkanization.We also discuss Section 230, Norwegian ebooks, and censorship. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Frontside alum and original podcast host, Brandon Hays, makes a special guest appearance to talk with Charles about the evolution of The Frontside as a company: where it's been, where it's going, and more hopes, dreams, and goals for the future! Transcript CHARLES: Hello everybody. Welcome to The Frontside Podcast Episode 100. Here we are. Episode 100. My name is Charles Lowell. I'm a developer here at The Frontside and I think it's safe to say, your official podcast host. With me to celebrate the 100th episode, he was also here a few episodes ago but also was here on our first episode I believe, is the [inaudible] Hays. Hello Brandon. BRANDON: Hi. CHARLES: Welcome back to the podcast. BRANDON: Actually, are you going to light your trainee badge on fire now in a bucket, in a ceremonial pyre? CHARLES: I live in New Mexico, so I think I'm going to just after this, grab my shotgun and give myself a 21 gun salute. Just in my front yard. BRANDON: There goes old man Lowell again, with the shotgun. CHARLES: I'm just going to [gun shot sounds] in my own honor. BRANDON: I was at the Alamo this weekend, actually. And I don't know if it was just because it was fiesta in San Antonio but they had a demonstration, like a musket firing demonstration where those things are basically little cannons. They're just small cannons. It's very interesting. They're very loud. CHARLES: Yeah. They're small, handheld cannons, yeah. So wait, were you – what is fiesta? Now, as someone who grew up in Central [inaudible], I feel like I ought to know this. BRANDON: I don't know. We found out by accident because we were planning a weekend to go hang out and get drunk on the riverwalk and we took our families down with some friends and then they're like, “Oh, it's fiesta,” which is like a 10-day celebration of the history and establishment of San Antonio – which I did not know is a 300-year-old institution. So, it's like one of the oldest things in this entire western United States. So, it's pretty neat. It's different. It's weird. It's like 90 minutes from Austin. There's nothing in Austin that's older than six months. Every six months we must demolish something and then build a condo skyscraper in its place. So, it's kind of neat to be in a city where it has – walking around the Alamo, I'm realizing, “Wow. Setting aside any of the historical significance of Texas independence or whatever, this is just like a really interesting very old building. This is hundreds of years old in an area where there's nothing that's hundreds of years old.” So yeah, it was pretty cool. It was a good weekend and we got to see muskets being fired. And we saw a doctor gross my kids out by talking about the medicine of the day, in full costume and showing all of the procedures and threatening my kids with amputation. And it was a good time. We all had a good time. My nine-year-old thought it was the coolest damn thing he'd ever seen. CHARLES: Really? Did the have bloody saws and everything? BRANDON: Oh, yeah. CHARLES: Was it like a reenactment of 300-year-old surgery? BRANDON: It wasn't a full reenactment. But it was a graphic description using the tools of the time. CHARLES: Wow. BRANDON: Highly recommend, check out the Alamo. Super fun. CHARLES: That does sound really cool. BRANDON: I did not expect to have a good time and it was a good time. CHARLES: Yeah. Yeah, I know the whole reenactment with the musket firing is fun. And it is, it's actually an incredible building. Although there's been a big kerfuffle about something about how they're going to preserve the lawn. But I haven't really followed that too much. BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah, I don't care about the lawn. I care about – no offense, lawn, if lawn is listening. This is not weird, how Stanley broke our brains with the word ‘lawn'. CHARLES: That's true. BRANDON: Yeah. He broke us real good. CHARLES: Yeah. I can't see a lawn without a beard. BRANDON: So yeah. So, life has been pretty good, man. Let's see. I left Frontside September, October. CHARLES: 2016. BRANDON: 2016. CHARLES: So, it's been months. BRANDON: 18. Yeah, thereabouts, right? So, I assume that nothing happened since then and if I came back to The Frontside now, everything would be exactly as I left it. My posters are still up in my room. My Bon Jovi poster. You left my bed just as I made it, like kind of unmade. Everything is just preserved as a shrine to me. CHARLES: Pretty much. I mean, we did give away the mics to Goodwill. BRANDON: No. CHARLES: We actually did not give away those mics. BRANDON: I never even got to use them. CHARLES: I know. Well, you know part of the problem is we don't even get to use them that much either. It looks really cool and it plays really well, like our podcast studio. But you know, I'm now spending 75% of my time in Corrales, New Mexico. And at any given time, people are either working from home, or working remotely. So, a lot of times the podcast room tragically does not get used. But it looks so cool. People come in there and they're like, “Wow, you guys must be really smart and technical people.” BRANDON: I realize this is probably a rote stereotype at this point, but I am assuming the only reason that you moved is that you are dabbling in the production of meth. CHARLES: Pretty much. BRANDON: It's like, I want to learn a new trade. Programming, it's just – programming, how interesting does it stay honestly for 25 years? CHARLES: Right. Yeah, and you know, we've got some good techniques. Continuous integration, deployment, things like that. Test-first. These are things that can be applied to different verticals. And I was looking… BRANDON: [Laughs] We ship meth to production on the first day. CHARLES: Right. [Laughter] Exactly. So, I figured it was a market ripe for disruption. BRANDON: [Laughs] It's probably true. So yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. You all kind of scattered to the four winds in some ways. You have Elrich in Boston and you're in New Mexico most of the time. CHARLES: Joe is in [inaudible]. BRANDON: Oh yeah, Joe moved to New York. CHARLES: Yup. And honestly, the traffic is so bad in Austin that I'd say 50% of the time, people stay home rather than drive into our centrally-located office. So, that's actually something that we're struggling with right now because the bulk of the team is still in Austin. But the office space is underutilized. Our team size now, we have eight engineers. And five of them are in Austin. Our other staff is also in Austin. So, what do we do with the office? It's a big question. BRANDON: And that's quite a cultural change, too. Because when I was there, we would tell people, “We want to be able to do remote someday. But we just don't know how to get into that culture to change the way that we do our meetings and change the way that we do standups and coordination and communication.” I didn't feel like we had the tooling at the time. So, something – I knew that at some point there would be probably a forcing function to basically catalyze something to allow that to work. And I'm curious to know what that process was like there. CHARLES: I wish I could say that there was a process other than experiencing the force of the forcing function and then being forced into it and then just kind of dealing with it. I have not taken a poll of the other remote employees of which now I am one, at least for the time being. So, I don't want to speak for them. But it was less painful than you might imagine. And the reason is because – and it's one of those things you actually gave me this analogy back, probably three or four years ago and I love it – is sometimes you're hanging off of a precipice and you don't realize that you're toes are two inches off the ground. And then all you can perceive is the precipice and you feel the weight of your own body concentrated on your fingers gripped to the ledge. And you don't focus on the fact that you're actually, the fall is only two inches long. And that's kind of what we experience with the remote culture. Now, I don't want to say we were Pollyanna about it and didn't realize that this was the step that we were taking and making sure to check in with the remote employees. But one of the things is our communication styles were already very asynchronous both for our client work, for our internal work, using mostly Slack and GitHub pull requests and issues – certainly for the development portion, very little changed. What we didn't realize is that because of our involvement in open source, we were already acclimated to a distributed work style. We just didn't really realize it. We didn't have to change much. I think where we have a lot more work to do is kind of integrating people socially and making sure that conversations don't happen that aren't available for other people to consume asynchronously. So, if you're having some architecture problem and you're sitting next to somebody, you'll take that avenue rather than let it play out in chat or over email. And there is definitely a certain portion of that, but I think we still do a lot of pair programming. That's still our major mode. I'd say 75% of our code gets written as people collaborating. And so, while those in-office discussions do happen, the ramifications circulate rather quickly. And most of those are in the context of people pairing inside the office. Does that make sense? BRANDON: Mmhmm. CHARLES: So, I don't think the office and the physical space were as much of a bottleneck as we thought they might be. And so, because of the – a lot of people did work from home already because of the traffic. And we were involved in open source. And our communication with our clients is usually – we don't currently have any clients in Austin. So, that's all to say that the transition was actually quite natural. And I think there's some strong analogies between collaborating in open source and having a remote culture in your office. I think what we need to get better about is making sure that we get the team together at least twice a year, everybody together. Making sure that people are able to understand their priorities and get to circulate around and get introduced to a bunch of different people. And yeah, I don't know. There's definitely a lot of work to be done on the non-development front. BRANDON: It's interesting. The agile approach to things is to try something. I'm starting to think the agile and the scientific method are related where it's like, “Here's a hypothesis. Here's the experiment. Here's what we think we want to learn,” and then you learn it and you take the next step based on that information. And that failure is an option. I think that's the point of agile, is to make failure safe because it's small and you're guaranteed to learn from it. Like, the point is to learn. And so, I really, I'm starting to think that those are just basically the same thing. That agile is like the application of the scientific method to product development. And it sounds like you're being agile or experimental about your work. And the trick is, like any scientific discovery, the trick is in coming back around to it and analyzing it and deciding whether this was successful or a failure based on feedback and finding what the measurement was that you were trying to improve. So, the lesson there was, “Oh, people become disconnected from each other. We need to gather everybody for an all-hands periodically.” We didn't use to have to do that because all-hands was every week, at least. CHARLES: Right. Yeah, everybody was constantly – there was a constant chatter and you could just kind of, the context was just all sitting at that one table, in that one room on 38th Street. And all you needed to do was dip your ear into that pool of context and you're set. Whereas that's just not an option right now. So yeah. I think the danger with agile is not being concentrated in your experimentation. I think what gave us our fear about saying we're going to do remote work – because I remember we always talked about it. We danced around the issue – was are we going to lose who we are? We have a set of way that we do things. And there is power in kind of sticking to the framework of the way that you do things. Because you understand it and you know it. So, when you're pushing and you're experimenting, being able to say, “We're going to – push and we're going to focus on this one area and we're going to iterate on it and we're going to keep everything else static,” it's going to be the wall that we can walk along. But we are going to push in this area. And so, I think the dangers of you doing that in all the areas of your business or all the areas of your project, you're iterating and refining, nothing ever gets done. And so, it's kind of like once you get to some ground that's solid, when you do start iterating it, you start introducing instability. So, when you go remote you have to start thinking about remote work, whereas we didn't have to think about that before. We were essentially, the feature of saying that we were a one-office company and an on-site company is we didn't have to think about that problem. BRANDON: One thing that you were just taking about is this idea of concentrating so that your experiments are happening one or two or maybe three at a time instead of trying to run five experiments at a time. And yeah, there's another danger I think in agile of seeking local optimization where you're basically like – it's like taking a bacteria and running it through many, many, many iterations that's targeting one thing and it mutates into this weird thing that only does this one thing. Or a dog breed that the whole – did you see that, I don't know where this came from but there was some scientific findings that there was a dog that was bred in ancient prehistoric times that was bred to turn a spit to roast meat over. So, they bread a dog that the whole point of this dog was to turn a spit so that people could roast meat and go to sleep and let their dog serve it, cook for them I guess? CHARLES: Wow. BRANDON: That's pretty impressive. CHARLES: I would say like their dystopia is in the past. Or certainly canine dystopias. I guess we live in a canine dystopia. BRANDON: Not in my house. CHARLES: Not at your house. BRANDON: This place is known as a canine paradise. So yeah, I think that's a really interesting point though, that limiting the number of concurrent experiments so that you can actually respond to them in a meaningful way instead of just being like, “Wow, we learned a bunch of stuff we're doing wrong. Anyway, back to the grind.” CHARLES: [Laughs] Yeah. BRANDON: Back to sucking at everything. CHARLES: Right, right. BRANDON: That kind of feeds into a lesson that I have learned very, very, very recently in the interview process for looking for my first real job in over a decade. And that process is very humbling. And one of the humbling experiences was being rejected for a job from a very notable larger former startup here in Austin. And their interview process is really buttoned up. I got really deep into the interview process and at the end of it they're like, “Oh, you're not technical enough.” And it was really, it was like, I don't know. It was hard for me to process at the time but it's super easy now to look back and go, “Oh, I was definitely not a fit for that type of job if being able to write JavaScript on a whiteboard without the aid of Google to solve problems and refactor code is like a fundamental part of what is valued in a manager there.” That's just not going to be me. But one thing I – and it wasn't a colossal waste of time. There was a ton of time and energy I invested into that specific process, but I actually derived a ton of value out of it. Because every person I met there was focused on the same thing: their culture of making experimentation inexpensive so that everything there is framed in terms of an experiment. What's the experiment here? What's the hypothesis? What's the expected outcome? How soon can we get to a place where we can validate that outcome? So, it's kind of like everything is really lean. And yes, it does – like I asked, “What's the dark side of that?” and it can lead to optimizing for a local maximum. So, you have to pause every once in a while and reflect at a larger scale. But it changed my attitude about a lot of stuff. I tend to walk around fearing failure. That's more my speed. I'm afraid of failing because failure can be catastrophic. But that's because I take big swings at stuff. When I go give a conference talk, it better be the best conference talk of my life. When somebody's like, “Oh, that was the best conference talk I have ever seen,” I'm like, “Ah. I'm so glad you said that because if you'd said literally anything else I would have collapsed internally.” You know? The stakes are so high for everything. And making it safe for yourself to fail by treating things like an experiment and working with my teammates. And so, two or three scenarios over the phone in a week when I was managing the team at my last company, somebody would bring something to me and I'm like, I instantly went to all the reasons this probably won't work. “Here's the problem with this.” And I thought, and I immediately turn around and went, “Wait a minute. Bring me a hypothesis and the experiment and how we can experiment with this thing.” And he's like, “Well, we could try this next week and we'll know whether or not this is a good idea.” And we tried it the next week. It was like organizing an architecture team because we were waiting to hire an architect. And the results were mixed for reasons I won't get too deep into. But the fact was, it gave us the freedom to try things. And I'm trying to carry that spirit around with me now. It's been really eye-opening. So, completely like, just a 4% alteration in the way that I think about problems, but it has the ability to dramatically alter the trajectory of how I solve things in the future. CHARLES: So, do you include now inside the planning process experiments? Like, a certain number. BRANDON: Absolutely. CHARLES: So, the typical “enterprise” development is we have our features, we're going to do them in this order because they're this priority. And then agile comes along and it's like, “You need to take these things and you need to break them up into small chunks so that they can be accomplished in small time slices,” so that you don't basically bark up wrong trees. Or explore [inaudible]. BRANDON: Yeah, but that's almost like a stupider version of waterfall. CHARLES: But exactly. That's exactly my point. Whereas the problem is, there's no avenue for experimentation in there. Rather than saying the entire team is marching in this one direction that meanders around and focuses in on the local maximum, which hopefully is relative to the market landscape is the absolute maximum, saying, “We're actually going to be marching in one major direction but we're going to be sending out scouts at all points.” If you were actually – I've actually been reading a lot of ancient military history. And It's just insane that an army, or even a detachment, would go all in one clump. They're constantly sending out people. Information is really, really, really important. BRANDON: That's an extremely, extremely good point. I've actually – it's so funny, because I've used a very similar description where we are trying to chart a course to this ocean of opportunity somewhere. And we can't just send the whole team in a direction hoping that the ocean is in that direction. We have to have our Lewis and Clark. Somebody has to be the cartographer. Somebody has to be the explorer. And that means that there has to be a little bit more freedom for those explorers. I don't yet know how to translate that into software terms. I just know that that's a collaboration usually at most companies between product and development. That product is doing some of the exploring of the space and then development is doing some of the exploring of the technical capabilities and possibilities there. CHARLES: So, you see it. What's interesting is you see it in product planning, kind of in the large, with the waterfall. You see it in huge organizations. They have a research and development department. And I wonder if agile kind of saw the Balkanization of your feature set into very small component parts. Can you take the exact same principle and Balkanize your research and development and integrate it into micro-iterations? We have this R&D but we're going to integrate it into our day-to-day and week-to-week process. BRANDON: I think that is a really noble goal and I think I see some people making progress toward that. The company I interviewed with does it almost to a pathological degree where there is a point of diminishing returns where you're sort of bound to this process of experimentation. And at a certain point you can only achieve incremental results. CHARLES: Some of these problems, you just need to be able to think about them for a long, long time. I actually didn't read, I actually didn't see the talk. But everything from the title, Rich Hickey's ‘Hammock Driven Development', just that title resonated with me so much. I was like, “Yes,” because sometimes you just need to be in the hammock for six hours at a time. Or in the shower. Or hiking. Or doing whatever it is that you need to do to put yourself in a zen state where you're just, your brain is slowly turning its wheels. And it can follow every lead to its conclusion without any interruption. And sometimes that process can take hours. Sometimes it needs to take weeks. BRANDON: Right. I want to kind of pivot on that. Because that's actually one of the biggest things that I've learned in the intervening time since leaving Frontside, which is creating space instead of trying to maximize – one thing that I did when I was at Frontside and then did again at my next place and I'm realizing is really has long-term negative implications is cram as much into a work day, as much output out as possible. I'm very output-oriented. I want to jam as much into my day as possible. I want to jam as much software out the door as possible. And people describe working at Frontside while I was there as one of the most intense work experiences they'd ever had. Literally, I can project that, literally just from my own intensity of trying to cram all that stuff. And providing that space for developers to ruminate on hard problems, on some of the harder problems they encounter, providing space for managers, I've learned that a big chunk of what it is to be a manager is to be available. And so, I actually want to write a sign – I was on the fence about doing this but I think I'm actually doing to do this – I have an office and I'm going to write a sign and put it up on the door that says, “If I look busy, interrupt me and remind me I'm not doing this right.” So, creating the space to ruminate or to be available for discussion, people that protect their breathing room sometimes are made fun of, especially in American corporate culture. I walked in and they were just reading a newspaper. What the heck are you doing at work if you're just going to read a newspaper? Like no, this is actually really important time. CHARLES: I think it's, yeah, it's something that I think about a lot. And I know I've shared this analogy with you before. I don't know if I've done it on the podcast. But I saw and I can't take credit for it. I actually saw it at DevOpsDays I think in 2013. There was a woman giving a talk and she was just talking about managing developers. But one of the things that she was saying was that if you looked at a microservices architecture or you looked at just even your operating system, and if your CPU was constantly pegged, you were squeezing out 100% of every time slice, instructions were just flowing through that, you're going to have a very unhealthy, very brittle, very prone to failure software system. If our microservices were not available to actually service requests, and service excess requests, and service spikes of requests, then something is fundamentally wrong. BRANDON: I want to add to that a little bit, because the thing that I noticed in managing a team where I received a ton of pressure to peg everybody out at 100% – and it jived with my philosophy at the time of, “Hey, I'm 100% guy. Everybody I work with is 100% type people. And then, let's peg everybody at 100%. This is a startup. Let's get everything going,” and I realized very, very quickly that if you don't preserve a little buffer, 20% buffer in that level of intensity, there is no ability to share resources. Everything is now a silo. So, if you're going to peg all your CPUs out, part of that thrashing is that there's no time for people to share things with each other. And people become very protective over their little silo all of a sudden. And it causes us – it's actually like the first stage of a catastrophic cultural collapse if everybody's pegged out at 100%. And literally, just dialing down the intensity is often the only thing that's necessary to get people to feel comfortable sharing some of their time with each other. You do a really good job of that with the lunch and learns. You mentioned that y'all are doing better thoughtful lunch and learns and stuff like that. It's one of those forcing ways that you can force that and say, “Hold on. Stop the development and do some stuff where you're actually sharing things with your teammates.” CHARLES: Yeah. And we do that. My biggest concern is that that actually increases the intensity. So, one of the things we've done is we used to actually be very formal about our lunch and learns. It's like, “We've got to generate content and put it out on the web so that people can see us.” We backed away from saying – we're not going to do them as often and make sure that people can actually do them. Yeah, making sure that people don't feel overwhelmed by, “I've got a lunch and learn coming up.” The point is to share something that you're passionate about and maybe introduce some really cool ideas to ferment in people's head. Rather, that's kind of the goal. There are certain things that we do very much feel interested in generating content. But I think, we've kind of been dancing around the ideas of distributed computing and IoT and what are some of the others? BRANDON: If you say blockchain, I'm going to just virtually punch you in the face. CHARLES: [Laughs] I actually didn't. Did I say blockchain? BRANDON: No. I just was waiting for you to say it. CHARLES: Okay, no. I haven't. Well, because that's – but it is distributed computing in Web 3.0, right? These problems – and we're actually going to be podcasting about this next, so in two weeks you can tune in to listen to us talk about blockchain but in the context of distributed computing – and one of the things that we're seeing is now we're starting to pay the price of outsourcing all of our lives to these central services like Facebook and Google and Amazon. And I think now they're starting to build a credible and more mainstream movement to wrestle back that control and say, “What would it mean to have software as a service that wasn't actually dependent on some central thing?” What would it look like to have Slack where it's Slack that looked like email? Where everybody had their own email server, maybe not a bad example. But you've got an email at Gmail or Microsoft or Yahoo or your company-run that's big enough its running its own Outlook client or something like that. Email is actually a really great example. Now probably people are going to crucify me for saying this, but I think it's actually a good example of a distributed system that's worked well. I own all of my email. All the messages that you send to me, I own, and all the messages I send to you, I also own. But you also own the messages that I send to you. Information is duplicated. And it's fine. If I send you an image, yes it's on your hard drive or it's on your Google Drive. You send a message to me, it's got an attachment, I also have that attachment. But the point is that we can each own our email and we each own our email service. And we can change it up. That's not possible with Slack. That's not possible with Facebook. That's not possible with all these other sharing platforms. All of them are controlled by this one thing. And so, I think that that's something that we've been exposed to through the lunch and learns and I'm actually certainly very excited about it. It's not something that we're going to be investing in immediately. We're kind of dancing around that idea. But that's something that's come out of that. So yeah, we've kind of refocused it on, what is something that you feel good about? But back to the original point, I think that this is something that applies on all fronts. If you have a business where you can't actually take opportunities because you don't actually have people – so there's maxing out at the individual level, filling up people's workspace with client work or filling it up with what have you or having them work nights and weekends. There's individual maxing out but then there's like maxing out of your business. So, if you have – we're a consultancy – if you have 100% utilization or you're shooting for 100% utilization, that everybody is placed on a project, that is a brittle and unsustainable system. BRANDON: I wish you would have told me that 18 months before I left there. There were like two years where we were at 100% for two solid years. CHARLES: Yeah, yeah. We're still at 100%. BRANDON: Yeah. I wonder what would have happened if we'd had a little, if we had figured out how to build in space. CHARLES: Part of the problem – so, here's the thing though. Space, nice space costs nice money. BRANDON: Yeah. CHARLES: And so, that's the thing, is you have to charge more. And you have to say, “We are going to be more expensive than other people.” You have to be dedicated to be at the forefront of a cultural battle, essentially. In the same way that people were with testing, where it was very [controversial]. BRANDON: Yeah. You were with CI. CI is a given now, right? CI is… CHARLES: Yeah, like [inaudible]. BRANDON: This idea was semi-revolutionary when you and I were talking about this in 2012, 2013, that we ship to production on the first day. We don't even start building software until the CI system is set up. The first thing we do is set up Jenkins and tests and get everything, the pipeline working. And now, that's just what people do. By and large, that's how software is expected to be built. And the tooling has really come up around that. But that was an expensive way to sell software five years ago, that, “Hey, this is going to cost more than bringing in Cowboy Bob and having them come jam in your console for 40 days and ship a bunch of stuff that then will most likely collapse and you won't know about it and Cowboy Bob has ridden off into Juarez, Mexico.” CHARLES: Right, with his saddlebag stuffed with your cash. BRANDON: Yup. CHARLES: Yeah, no. So, you have to – the problem is, you know when you pick these battles, you need to be prepared to fight the war of attrition of they're not going to be able to perceive the value for six months, a year, right? You're going to have to ask your clients to bet on this strategy. And it's a bet. And you're going to have to say, “It's going to pay off in six months. It's going to pay off in a year.” And you're really going to start raking in like five years. That's when… BRANDON: Yeah. Try making that pitch to a startup founder that is borderline, that is on the verge of an anxiety attack, and you can kind of just figure out what my last year was like. And the… CHARLES: So, that's one of the reasons we don't really work with startups anymore. They have a five-year plan, but not really. BRANDON: Yeah. CHARLES: They're fighting for their survival. And they're fighting for the opportunity to have a legitimate five-year plan. And so, in that sense, it's maybe not a good fit for the way that we develop software, because you either need an extraordinarily prescient founder who has been through this before, knows the true costs of software development, and is pretty well-funded so that they can actually – because we're more expensive upfront, like a lot more expensive upfront and so sometimes they flat out don't even have the cash. And that's something that you can make a quick, “It's not a good fit,” but then there also needs to be this understanding and an acknowledgment that what you're really shooting for is your five-year dividend. BRANDON: Yeah. It is really interesting, the turn that occurs when a company finds product/market fit. By then it's too late to fix the problems. So, it's really tricky to find the balance of: how much energy do you put into the success case for a company before they have product/market fit? How much time and energy do you invest in betting that this is going to be successful versus betting that if it is successful, hopefully we'll have the time, money, and resources to redo a bunch of the things that we are going to have to apologize for later? And I think that's what makes… CHARLES: Right. Like, where do those two lines cross on that graph? BRANDON: Yeah. Because you and I have both seen startups completely sunk by somebody who was overly focused on building a scaleable architecture in a company pre-product/market fit. That is a common story where an engineer that doesn't understand the business value of what they're doing and only focused on “quality” will absolutely torpedo, they'll chew up your first million and a half of funding and leave the place in just a smoldering pile of ashes at the end. So, it is tricky. It's totally a difficult thing. But I think coming back to your point of being sort of a vanguard of cultural, the tip of the spear on somebody's cultural changes – DevOps would be one. People that were really investing in DevOps culture in 2010, 2012 saying, “Hey, this, automation, is the future of how software gets shipped, maintained, observed, supported.” And so, now it sounds like, so what is your big bet for the future? CHARLES: Boy. That's a great question. There are two bets. One you're going to like, one you're going to vomit. BRANDON: [Laughs] CHARLES: But that's okay. BRANDON: Yeah. I don't work for you. CHARLES: You need to serve, what is it? You need to serve the spiny urchin with the yellow tail. BRANDON: Is that a Sonic the Hedgehog reference? CHARLES: It's just a sushi reference. BRANDON: Oh, okay. CHARLES: Some people don't like urchin. Or maybe they don't like eggs. What it like, the roe that come with sushi. But they're on the same plate. So, I would say the first one that I've been thinking about a lot is optimizing for capacity and being able to handle spikes and not being at 100% both for people and for utilization. I think that's something that is – I don't see how you could have a healthy software development process if people are completely spiked on delivering, heads down delivering features for product. That is something that I'm betting on. Essentially, you could call it the 25% time but it's really about having excess capacity to exploit opportunities as they arise. And then being protective of that excess capacity. Because you can exploit an opportunity. Your CPU has a spike load up to 100%. But then make sure you [inaudible] down to 50% at some point, or 75%. And so, I would very much like to see Frontside have a bench where people can rotate out and they're working on different stuff that are not even client-related. They can recharge their creative tanks. They're not going to be idle. BRANDON: Yeah, I've really come around on – and I really hated this at the time – but I've actually come around to the thoughtbot style of working on a product where – because owning and managing a product and developing it as a side quest, the goal is not necessarily for that product to catch fire and become the world's next big thing and to replace your consulting revenue. The goal is to give people a sense of – think about all the stuff that you've learned in your side projects that you went back and brought to your work. And some of my biggest gains as a developer have come from having a side gig of some kind, some side project that that's how I learned Ember. That changed my life. And I would never have gotten to try it if I was waiting for somebody at work to tell me it was okay to do it. So, it's about taking that permission back for yourself and giving yourself permission to try stuff. So, it could be something like that, or it could be the content stuff that y'all do. Or it could be conference talks. It could be whatever. But the goal isn't necessarily to produce things that have a direct return. It is to create the space to allow people to flex some muscles of creativity that you may not get in your day-to-day work. And that's very difficult to offer to people in any company. Now having explored startups and larger companies, but I would say especially in a consultancy where the exchange rate is dollars for days. It's sort of like when I was freelancing. I could feel every vacation I took draining both real money and opportunity money out of my bank account. That's such a hard, difficult thing to do. And so, you actually have to create the budget ahead of time and say, “This budget is allocated to these things and it's already spent.” Anyway, that's really tough to do. CHARLES: It is hard. BRANDON: If you can exercise the discipline necessary to do that and create the environment for that, I would say you're ahead of 90% of companies in the industry. CHARLES: Yeah. Yeah, so that's something I definitely want to bet on, because I think that's where the best things come from. BRANDON: Okay. So, what's the thing I'm going to hate? CHARLES: Functional programming. BRANDON: Oh, Charles. Okay, I have to stop you. Do you know what I'm doing? Did I tell you this yet? That I am participating. When I told them this, I was like, “Charles is going to have a field day with this,” but I am participating in a Haskell study group. CHARLES: No way. BRANDON: And I'm like four exercises into this thing. I have to do four more for next week. And I'm like, “This is bizarrely easy, actually,” after as much JavaScript as you and I did in sort of a functional style and then learning Elixir. And I was like, “Wait a minute. The case statement is, Elixir just stole Haskell's case statements.” So like, so far I'm not finding functional programming to be onerous. Or anyway, but we'll see when we get to the static typing. But so far, I'm not getting any of that in the earlier lessons of the book. CHARLES: Yeah, the static typing. But the thing is, you can do – it's not 100% necessary. It isn't in Haskell, for sure. But I'm surprised. What inspired you? BRANDON: We have an architect at the office that was like, “Hey, I want to do sort of a functional programming book club.” So, we have a Slack group for FP study group. CHARLES: Are you doing ‘Haskell: From First Principles'? BRANDON: No. That one was a little actually intimidating. CHARLES: Really? BRANDON: Yeah. It gets into the lingo a little early. And we're doing one called ‘Get Programming with Haskell' that is a little more – ‘Haskell: From First Principles' is kind of math-oriented. So, for somebody with a math background but not necessarily a programming background, it's perfect. But for somebody with a programming background that is just trying to understand functional programming principles using Haskell, ‘Get Programming with Haskell' is actually a really great option. CHARLES: Okay. Actually, I have not heard of that one. BRANDON: The stuff that I'm looking at looks just like Elixir. So, it's early. But it's very comfortable so far. CHARLES: Yeah. So, this is the thing. It's all a matter of messaging and marketing. Because I really feel – so, it is like there are a lot of behaviors that you see sometimes in currently entrenched functional programming communities that I think are, well I think they're objectively repulsive. But I think they're also pragmatically repulsive and that they repulse potential community members. But I think a lot of it too is people talk about these things that are, they use abstruse terminology. And they're kind of chattering back and it's very jargon-oriented. And there's just – people operate with a different set of concrete things. So, when you and I are talking, for example we might talk about a Rails controller and that's a very concrete thing. You know exactly what I'm talking about. It's something that you have held in your hand, literally. Remember when we got that Rails codebase that came as a thumb drive? BRANDON: Yes I do. CHARLES: But the point is you knew that this had a Rails codebase on it. There were any number of controllers. And when I say controller to you, a controller is an abstraction, but not really. Once you work with an abstraction long enough, it becomes concrete. And so, part of the problem is just a mismatch in language where people are talking in their world about concrete things, things that you can touch and you can feel and you can exchange and they're very relatable. But from another person's perspective, they're talking about something that's totally abstract and totally opaque and totally what have you. And so, I feel like yeah there's a huge mismatch there. And that's been one of the big bets. The other big bet that I'm making is on this trying to make what is currently abstract to JavaScript and Ruby developers be concrete. And I think that we're going to see type classes like functor and monoid and semigroup and all these things, they're abstract to you now, become concrete over the next five years. And so, that's something that I'm betting on. BRANDON: Check out this – and I know that you have a good relationship with the people that did the other book, but it really does tend to come from more of a mathematical background. And this one actually does speak to people with JavaScript, Ruby, Python experience. Like, “Hey, here is how you will perceive these things.” And so, it's much more approachable. I'm still in the first unit of the book. But having sort of tasted it a little bit, it's like, “Wait a minute. This is actually extremely familiar and not super intimidating.” CHARLES: Exactly. And that was kind of – so, I read the other book. And I think I was also aided by the fact that I tried to learn Haskell probably for five times in the past. And so, I also had the benefit of jumping against the wall with the velcro suit and bouncing off four times. And fifth time, it stuck. So, I had just temerity on my side and a general feeling. But that's definitely – the lesson that I actually came away from reading that book was like, “Oh, there's a mismatch in concrete concepts.” It's using concrete concepts that are concrete to people with a CS background or mathematics background, or people who are brand new. Honestly, people who are brand new to programming who don't actually have JavaScript or Elixir or Ruby or any other thing to lean on, I think that the First Principles book is actually pretty decent for them, too. Because they don't have anything to compare to. BRANDON: They don't have anything to unlearn. CHARLES: Yeah, they don't have anything to unlearn whereas one of the things I took away was I was like, “Oh, man. I'm using semigroups all the time. This is something that I do constantly.” When I'm coding, I might do it eight times in a day. I just didn't have a name for it. BRANDON: Right. They're like design patterns, just at a micro level. CHARLES: Yes, micro-design patterns. Yeah, it's like a RESTful architecture for your code. In REST you only get five verbs. There's five methods, man. That's all you got. BRANDON: Okay, so those are two bets. And I want to cover one more thing because I know we're super overtime. But the last thing I want to be able to say about talking about what we've learned since I left Frontside but I want to put a bow on that. So, the two things that you're betting heavily on are functional programming as a basis for solid architectures in the future, like the work that you all are doing. And… CHARLES: I would also like to say, and this is something – let me just add one more thought. What I don't understand, and this is in no way like, I don't understand people who do the, “Saying goodbye to framework X.” That's not me with object-oriented programming. BRANDON: Often abstractions are like oversimplifications but they're really useful, sort of like Rich Hickey's Simple versus Easy. Like, “Hey, there's a lot of promise with that metaphor. It's a leaky abstraction but it's a useful abstraction.” And Gary Bernhardt's ‘Functional Core, Imperative Shell' is a leaky abstraction but it's a useful abstraction. If people haven't seen or experienced that, it's pretty good. The subtlety is that these are tools that are suited to certain situations a little better. And those same situations can exist in the same codebase, can exist in the same program. CHARLES: Yeah. I still, I love Ruby. I adore it. And in some ways, I've been researching functional programming and it's been going on for the last four years. So many times, people are like, “Oh, I just can't stand this tool anymore.” And I'm like, “Man, I still love Java.” I don't understand how learning to love something decreases your love for something else. BRANDON: That happens the first two times that you fall in love, is that you feel like you have the old thing less in order to love the new thing. And then you start realizing, “No, you are allowed to fall in love with new things without falling out of love with the old things.” I would almost use that as an interview question. Is there some way to use that as a way to gauge somebody's actual real concrete maturity as a developer? Because that is a mark of maturity. CHARLES: Yeah. I mean, you could say, “What's some tool that you no longer use that still informs your day-to-day routine?” BRANDON: Yeah. I guarantee you, people that were doing Smalltalk in the 80s think about it all the time. CHARLES: [Laughs] Yup. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. BRANDON: Alright. So, I want to cover one last thing. CHARLES: It's part of growing, right? If you're going to grow as a developer, you can't be shrinking at the same time as you're growing. Otherwise, you're like the same size, just in a different place. BRANDON: However, you don't get any Medium think piece points. Nobody does the one clap, two clap, forty, for blog posts that are like, “Why I'm still using some programming language but using one a little more than I used to use and this one a little less.” CHARLES: [Laughs] Zero claps. BRANDON: Yeah, zero claps on that think piece. I just want to cover one last thing before we wrap this up, and it is the fact that Frontside, the biggest gift that Frontside gave me was the mission for the next 20 years of my career. I think it could change, but I'm pretty confident about this, at this point. Being approximately 20 years into my career, I feel like I kind of have a feeling for what the next 20 years is about. And the Frontside really drilled that into me and helped me focus it and helped me dial it in. And it is this idea that there is an incoming generation of programmer that thinks about things differently than the previous generation in a pretty radical way. Because the previous generation all came out of the same schools. They all look the same. They all have a similar shared set of values in general. They created the Sil- – you know, I'm not actually going to be overly critical of the Silicon Valley culture that exists now. It is a result of the type of people that came out at the time that value innovation over almost anything else. People talk about ripe for disruption. The fact is, that has been an engine of economic growth and progress for society in a lot of ways that has a lot of costs that weren't factored in by a bunch of people who all thought the same way. And now, with people coming through code schools and people coming from different backgrounds and people coming from different environments, they're looking at programming and software as either an economic opportunity or something they didn't see that they could possibly do. Those doors were not open to that group of people before. There is a natural influx of people but many of them are bouncing out because they're not finding that group of people, they don't have a shared enough set of values that the people that are new are coming in and finding job opportunities, finding promotions, finding leadership positions. And so, I know now that my mission over the next 20 years of my career is to create those opportunities for people that have different backgrounds from me and different experiences. The career tracks, the promotions, endorsing and supporting and kind of sponsoring this incoming group of freshmen into our industry that come from different places, different backgrounds, different problems that they care about solving. They want to figure out how to solve the Flint Michigan water crisis instead of delivering socks to people in Silicon Valley, you know? So, I feel like we're at the beginning of a seed change in the value system potentially of our entire industry. But that's going to require training up the next generation of technical leadership. And I felt like the best thing I could do right now is learn to be a better manager, because I really like that job. And it provides the opportunity to find, hire, sponsor, promote and encourage those people to move into their own leadership positions. There are lots of other things that a person, you could be a VC and care about that stuff. You could have lots of different positions and put yourself in a position to do that. You could be a consultancy owner. You know what I mean? There are jobs that you can do that you can accomplish that goal. But it gives me such a sense of direction that when I'm looking for a job, I was looking for a home for that mission rather than just the thing that I felt like doing. Like okay, this job is important to me because I need it to house me and this mission so that I can support my family but have enough emotional overhead to participate in community stuff, but enough ability to lead within an organization, enough influence to actually push that agenda. So that the next generation of people are making better companies. So anyway, all of that came out of my time at Frontside where you and I sat around talking about: how do we build a place that is like a monastery? These were your words. You remember this? We want a monastery for code where people can just focus on becoming better developers. And underneath that though was the sense that this was a place of opportunity for people that might go somewhere else and stagnate as a developer. This will be a place to accelerate them. And so, that kind of spun me out and accelerated me into my mission. So anyway, I just wanted to point out that that was like, with a bullet, is the most important thing that came out for me in my time at Frontside, was that it clarified for me what I was trying to accomplish with the next couple of decades of my career. CHARLES: Wow. Well, that's fantastic. You definitely did a lot of that both here at Frontside and I mean you're continuing to do that. I definitely want to see more public speaking from you. Maybe some [inaudible] perfect. [Inaudible] at EmberConf was actually fantastic. But I mean, you're also able to help people find their mission, too. Like the talks you have at Keep Ruby Weird and even really, the first talk you gave at LoneStarRuby about moving Ember. It's always, how do I adapt what I'm feeling to my overall mission and then relate that back to technology? Man, I just can't wait. I can't wait. When are you going to hit the road again? BRANDON: I think this is the year. I'm going to start thinking about this stuff. I'm looking at the stuff that I wanted to talk about on this podcast and I was like, “Oh no, wait. That's like a dozen podcasts.” Like, no. Absolutely not. Not possible. I will say, I miss so much, this time that I spend with you. I don't want to let it go. I really miss working with you. I really miss having these conversations whenever I want. This has been a very, very special privilege for me to be able to do this with you today. And congratulations on Frontside continuing to thrive and grow and become more of its own entity and more of its own special flavor. And it makes me really happy to see the people coming out of there, that it's still doing its mission of making great software by making great developers. It makes me real happy. CHARLES: Yeah, yeah. Hopefully we can keep on keeping on. I do miss working with you. I miss the conversations that we would have in the kitchen which are basically an extension of this podcast. But I also, man, I really, really, really, really like working with the group of people that are here today. I've just seen them producing just some absolutely amazing things. And honestly, there's a selfish aspect to it, too. I get stimulated. My own thinking and learning is stimulated by the people that I work with. And like I said, the whole side note we had about distributed systems and IoT and just a constant ferment of things. So, I still really, really, really enjoy it. BRANDON: That makes me happy. CHARLES: And I'm really glad that we got to kick it today. BRANDON: Yeah, me too. CHARLES: I thought you were going to say that your 20-year mission was to have your perfect Emacs initialization setup. BRANDON: Oh my gosh. Some of these days, I'm going to figure out RuboCop. CHARLES: Actually, do you want to pair on that? BRANDON: Yeah, let's do that. CHARLES: Alright, everybody. I'm going to sign off. If anyone wants to continue the conversation, obviously you can get in touch with Brandon. He is misspelled @tehviking on Twitter. T-E-H-V-I-K-I-N-G. Always come at him. BRANDON: Don't @ me. CHARLES: [Laughs] BRANDON: I work for a really cool company and if you ask me about it on Twitter, I'll tell you all about it. CHARLES: Awesome. And we of course are Frontside. You can get us on Twitter at @TheFrontside or just drop us a line to contact@frontside.io. And we would love to talk to you more about this podcast and all the wonderful things that we do here, which includes building custom software that you can stake your future on, that's going to be good for the five-year outlook. So with that, goodbye Brandon. Goodbye everybody. And we will see you… BRANDON: Bye Charles. I love you. CHARLES: Me too.