Transcripts

Brandon Cooper – Aphid Transcript

Brandon Cooper - CEO of Aphid.io

Brandon Cooper – CEO of Aphid.io

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Hey folks, welcome to show I am Rob McNealy and today I am real excited. I am talking to Brandon Cooper. He is the co founder and CEO of a fit a la based startup working in artificial and blockchain. So, let’s welcome to the show. Brandon. How are you today, sir?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Doing well, how about yourself?

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
You know, I can’t complain so much. It’s a beautiful day out west got out, got some sun today working out in the yard. So that’s good, considering we’re in the pandemic Apocalypse, I actually feel fine. So that’s good. Saying here. So before we jump into this, tell me a little bit of background. How’d you get started in being an entrepreneur?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yeah, I from from a young age, I’ve always been the outcast or just kind of looking around the classrooms and I always felt different even in college. The big auditorium 600 students, I really just didn’t feel like it was for me, it was always something more than just going through the system. Basically, and my background from Detroit, Michigan, inner city, Westside and got into entrepreneurship, actually through network marketing was my first intro where a friend of mine in college he sent me an email on Facebook at the time. He said, Hey, come to my dorm, or as like apartment or something, he showed me, the Cash Flow Quadrant from Robert Kiyosaki. Other people want to roll and they were laughing and they were leaving, like, Ah, this is a joke. And when I saw that video, I mean, I stared at the TV for about 10 minutes. It was just the rubberband effect when it stretched me I just couldn’t go back. Ever since then I started making inventions and things like that.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So how did you get out to LA?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Long story short, I lived in it. So I left Detroit after college, and I went to Atlanta. I was in Atlanta for 10 years. And the energy just pulled me out here. It’s a little difficult to do a race. out in Atlanta, in my opinion, I should be to be stricken. I love Atlanta. It was great to me. But the West Coast has really just pulled me. And I tried to stay in Atlanta, but I could just really pull on me. And I love the weather. And I came here to visit a year before I moved, and I said I wanted to move here and the law of attraction pulled me out here.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So hey, it’s all good. Where’d you go to college? If I’m just curious.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Michigan State University, Spartan dogs.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
I did my undergrad at Central Michigan, just up the road. Nice. So I set out that’s cool. So would you study at MSU? What did you study there?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Oh, did I study merchandising, management marketing?

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Very cool. Yep. Yeah, I like state my. My cousin’s all went to state so I don’t I have I have very much a big affinity for MSU. So go Spartans. So you became an entrepreneur moved out to la tele, what is this project you’re working on what is a fit?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Aphid is an ecosystem where we’re disrupting a nine to five. What we’re doing is allowing people to digitize themselves into a bot. And this bot will do a variation of things to make money. The reason we created a company is we got we saw people working 40 hours a week. And we said, well, there has to be some way that we can make money and not have to trade time for money. And that’s how the company developed. The aphid is actually an insect that can clone itself. So that’s where the name comes from.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So is this something that you’re bootstrapping or did you get do a raise then or you funded and how did you kind of how’d you get started with the cash flow on this?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yeah, bootstrap completely 100% we had a little little cash from a few friends free believe early believers. Really appreciate them. The rest is completely bootstrap.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So you said you’re coming out pretty soon with your beta, then?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yep, within the next few weeks, the mobile application will be out, it’ll be able to create your bot. And we have, that’s the b2c portion, the b2b portion will come out a few months later, for enterprises.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So walk me through this, you said you’re focused on the non 95 you know, workspace, you know, you want to decouple time and money from one another. In other words, you want people to make money when they sleep. So I’m very interested in these technologies. So give me some give me some examples. So the listeners who might not understand what that means, tell me sure how me is a non developer how I could leverage one of your digitized bots and make money when I sleep.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yeah, you would come onto the platform, and you would get a subscription depending on how many bots you want. But if you just get the basic one, you just pay a subscription every month. And then it’s already pre trained. We train the bots to basically go out there and sell through e commerce partners that we have. So every time it sells something on the entire internet of where we place your bot, you make money. And then we’re going to open it up for the developer community to create other ways for your bot to make money too. So you can just install them like the App Store. imagine it being artificial intelligence, foreign exchange trading, or cryptocurrency trading, you can just add that like a widget. And then your bot will make money from these different widgets, these different add ons, we call them drivers.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So what you’re saying is, so essentially, you’re taking and creating a bot that can do online retail sales. So say I’m an Amazon reseller, is that the kind of thing that I could use this for?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yeah, for example, let’s say we get business A, and they have an e commerce platform because they’re one of our platforms that got a chatbot system for us. We’ll take the ROB bot and put it on that website. If it’s so something you get a commission for it.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Interesting. So if I want to leverage your bot, do I actually have to buy inventory to then kind of thing?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
If you if you want to, could you rephrase it,

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
or so there’s something like if I want to make money with the bot, I have to buy inventory from one place and then sell it in another place kind of thing.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
You don’t have to do anything we do all the work for you, all you have to do is just say already programmed into our infrastructure, all you have to do is ask description. And the thing is that you want your bot to do you can just add those skills or job tasks to it.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So this works for selling retail items. But then you said there’s the ability then to use his trading bot as well.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
For example, one of one of our drivers is going to be CoinGenius, their artificial intelligence cryptocurrency trading platform, you would basically add that driver and then the money that you make from trading there through artificial intelligence will help your money pool. So imagine you’re making money from this driver, that driver this driver, that driver You’re making money from all of these different things while you sleep for your body’s doing the work.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
How’d you come up with the idea

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
I was working for I was working for Apple for a while. And the call volume was really insane, was really, really insane. And I said, I wish I could call myself and I could make money off what I’m doing and make money while I’m at the beach. And I left the company got a couple other crazies to believe in me and they joined the team too.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So are you the lead developer?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
I do no front end. But I am not the lead developer. our CTO Sean Ross is the lead developer.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So where do you think this is going and how would it segue into the future of the gig economy?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
I see this as being the new way for everyone to make money people are used to doordash or Uber. But you those even those companies, it’s a little dangerous because they’re coming out with The automation rideshares. So if you don’t actually own a Tesla, like a Tesla Robo taxi, then you’re kind of out of business is taking away some of your volume. People are afraid of robots taking our jobs, but in my opinion, if robots don’t take our, our jobs, they will always be at work per se trading time for money. So we’re preventing singularity, in essence.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So it’s interesting like that that Luddite fear of automation, you know, in the history of this country, at least since the Industrial Revolution, there’s usually been a net increase in jobs when you’ve actually had automation come in. And a lot of people it’s funny because you You seem there’s a lot of tech pros from California that seem to think that in mass all of a sudden all these people are going to be unemployed and it’s gonna be starvation in the streets and pitchforks for them. Right. But I actually the history doesn’t show that and and there’s a couple of reasons why I think is that one, a lot of times people through attrition, a lot of a lot of these things don’t happen overnight these like revolutions, right? And what ends up happening is you have you have a lot of people that through attrition, will, you know, just go away retire anyway, and that that job won’t be refilled. So that’s a big part of it. But on top of that, you’ll find that a lot of innovations come out of it. So for instance, the the buggy whip people and the, you know, the, you know, horse and buggy kind of folks went out of business. But then there was a whole lot of other jobs that came up to build the auto industry, for instance, now you’re from Detroit, I’m from the Detroit area, as well. And if you look at all the stuff that went into that it was actually much bigger markets that were created from that and much more growth and many more jobs that were created, even though the loss of one industry led way to that. It’s like that whole creative destruction thing. So I don’t fear the robots. I want the robots and I want little thing in my brain to make me smarter. So I’m excited about it. So disrupting so how would you say that your, your bot system is disruptive to what’s happening right now.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
The current system is going to work a morning, get home and buy traffic for our cook dinner, do homework with the kids or do homework with the kids cook dinner and repeat five times a week. And that should is 1992 right? 1987 whatever you want to call it. The old way of thinking and most people don’t have enough time to give to not to mention if you have a wife or your husband’s at home or whatever, these people you’re not spending time with your family. And if you were to calculate all of the hours that you’re allocating towards your job over a lifetime, it’s astronomical elite over 100 probably over 172,000 hours. If your life is dedicated to that, and I’m not saying that with a finger, stop, you’ll stop working. But maybe it reduces it to 20 hours a week, right? Maybe you only have two, maybe you can work on your side hustle. Now that becomes full time because you’re making money from a fit and you’re a freelancer, and that covers your income. So that’s ultimately our goal is to get that volume and liquidity high enough to help what we call our controllers, your controller of the bot to help you guys make money.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Yeah, I like what I’m hearing. So you mentioned that you’re doing artificial intelligence and I get that with the bot. But you’ve also mentioned blockchain, how are you incorporating blockchain technology with a Fed

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
if if a user wants to sign up decentralized, meaning Google Facebook or email isn’t used to sign up? That means the data is is off the Richter that means Google doesn’t have it. Facebook doesn’t have it. They don’t have your information, you can sign up with their phone number and it’s just tied to you That’s one way we’re using it for data. The analytics, the money that you make all the information is decentralized. So that’s not stored by a fit. You’ll see it in your control panel. But we have that on the decentralized portion. As far as the payments are concerned, we have what’s called same day pay. If the user decides to transact with cryptocurrency, then you as the comptroller would get paid in the same currency that was used. So if they use cryptocurrency, you get paid the same day. And we’re starting off on aetherium or private until we eventually will move to our own main net, sometime in a future. But aetherium you’ll usually get your transaction within it could be three minutes 15 minutes really just depends on how busy it is.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So what cryptocurrencies Can people pay on your system with well, at least out of the gate?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Out of the gate will be our own native token named ABION.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
ABION, are you gonna just keep it on your own? Are you gonna open it up to other kryptos in some point

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Possibly, yeah, we’re, we’re working on it. We haven’t made any announcements yet. But you’ll be first and we should talk.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Yeah, I can make a deal for you. Good. Yeah, actually, it could be. So tell me, overall, what’s your go to market plan? You know, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. I’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time. And it seems that a lot of tech guys, there’s not always there always seemed like they’re missing a marketing thing. Do you have like a marketing guy? Do you have a good marketing strategy? Do you have a plan to get this implemented into the market?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
For certain we have, we have a strong team. There are just about 20 people in the company. But Alexandra stone, she’s our chief growth officer. And she’s working along with Marcus banks, a part of the sales team to execute our plan. What we plan to do we have there are some talent we can’t announce it just yet, but we have a few talent. There’s an appearance just coming up on big networks to talk about it. So that’s part of it. That’ll have a reach to upwards of a billion reach over time and a webisode series. And then we have a few celebrity people. I know it’s a little gray area when it comes to celebrities and cryptocurrency, things like that. But we do have feel my celebrity friends that will be creating their their bot, we call them a clones, but there’ll be creating their a clones on our platform. And then as far as social media is concerned, we have our campaign is called free society, basically where we just want the society to do as we choose just to be a free thinker every time. And that’s going to be really, really exciting. We have a documentary coming out based upon creatives and thinkers in Los Angeles call free society, and it’ll outline our people are using a fit and that ecosystem.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Wow. So I can tell just by the expressions on your face, you got you got to drive you got to creativity And I like to see that you’re an entrepreneur and and that that’s that clearly shows that you kind of have this passion. What kind of drives you what makes you tick?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
To be honest with you, I’ve been my whole life was like a nomadic I was always just sleep on my floors and French couches and you know what family is trying to get things together and just being that uncomfortable made me never want to be comfortable. And I have a son, I have a four year old son and see I he looks at me and tells other kids Hey, that’s my when I was on Steve Harvey. He says my dad, that’s my dad. And that was that was pretty awesome for me. So just looking at him as a pretty big part and knowing that the majority of people in my family really don’t leave the city of Detroit or can pay for expenses to go on vacation next night. During this particular pandemic, but generally speaking to just go up and have a vacation and be able to take off for a week, they’re confined to the shackles of their, of this treadmill that they run back to. And I think a person is doing what they want to do is success. It doesn’t there’s nothing wrong with a job if that’s what you wake up and love to do. But if you’re just doing it for the money, you probably died a long time ago. That’s what drives me. You know, I think,

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
I think I can relate to that in a lot of ways. And, and I think what it comes down to is, is, do you feel like you have meaningful work and meaningful purpose. And unfortunately, I think we have an epidemic in this country of people that don’t have either and I think that’s what you touch on and, and I’m not going to give you my sob story, but you know, I have the typical tragic childhood kind of experiences, but those do affect you and they do mold you and they do give you perspective and there’s a joke out there for entrepreneurs, they say with childhood trauma drive you to success kind of thing, right? But But it is true though, in a lot of ways, you know, it’s like, you know, even at my age I, you know, I’ve only built a couple companies but I’ve only sold one I’ve only had one small exit as a serial entrepreneur, I don’t consider myself like, you know, Elon Musk or anything, but I’m still hungry, and I’m still working. And I’m still working toward that I’m and it’s funny, because I get around a lot of people and I’m just as excited about projects that I’m working on now in my late 40s that I was when I was in my my 30s. You know, and because I still have that kind of drive to and and you can tell when other people have it and I definitely see that new Brandon. So Brandon, where can people find out more about you and Aphid?

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Yeah, you can find out on a Ahpid.io that’s A-P-H-I-D.io and we’re on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, You can just search Aphid it will come up should be the first result hopefully. And then me personally is just Brandon Cooper, and my last name the the O’s are zeros for Cooper. I’m on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, as well.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
And folks will have all those linked up on the post at Rob McNealy calm. Brandon, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate your time.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
Appreciate you having me. Thanks a lot.

Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
All right, come back next time when you got some updates. You have a great day.

Brandon Cooper – Aphid.io
You know it, you too.

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Alyze Sam – Give Nation Transcript

Alyze Sam - Give Nation

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey guys Rob McNealy here and today I am talking to Alzye Sam. She is a noted author, organizer, influencer founder and all around amazing person. And I’ve been really excited to have her on the show and I finally got a little bit of her time. Elise, how are you today?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
I am fabulous. How are you?

Rob McNealy
Good. Thank you so much for coming on today. I’ve actually wanted to get you on a lot sooner. So I’m glad we could finally make this happen. So my audience is not just kind of in the crypto world. So for the sake of our audience, can you give us a little bit of background about yourself? How did you get to where you are today?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Well, funny story. I’m actually a nurse that studied chemistry in college. I spent 12 years as a hospice and home health nurse. We did a lot of mental health and addictions. And I was hit by a semi like I stopped at a red light and just plowed by some way and I have a spinal injury. And I was an early investor in Bitcoin. And I was like that internet money, it’s kind of cool. So when I got hit by a semi and I was unable to work as a nurse as much or anymore after spinal surgery, I reached out to industry leaders and Dimitri butyrin and he gave me an absolute overall guide to everything I needed to know about cryptocurrency and obviously he knows what he’s doing because metallic, you know, has the number two or three cryptocurrency right now you know with aetherium so I joking Say that metallic is my brother and Dimitri is my father and trained me in cryptocurrency. After that, I started writing and john McAfee’s team chased me a few years ago and asked me to write for them and wouldn’t do it. But I became really good friends with Team McAfee and I actually worked with them and I throw events. I am an author, number one on Amazon business money. And I am a co founder of women in blockchain international as well as give nation a financial literacy program that supports children and rewards them for altruism.

Rob McNealy
Wow. Sounds like you’re a little bit busy.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
What with that, what are you supposed to retain our life? What Is that normal?

Rob McNealy
No. Normal, but I don’t think people in crypto are normal. So that’s okay.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Yeah, no, we’re totally weird and I love weird, so it’s great.

Rob McNealy
So let’s unpack this a little bit. Talk a little bit about what you’re doing with children’s Financial Literacy project.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
So I co founded gift nation. And like I said, we are a financial literacy program that rewards children for altruistic behaviors. And if you go to your phone or your mobile device, we you can download our mobile application on iTunes or Google Play Store. You can your kids can go on to our mobile app, and they can invest and they can learn and earn and save. And then they can give, we actually have a charity ecosystem. And any 501 c three in the United States or any nonprofit in the entire world can put their charity on our nonprofit eco system. And kids can actually go on there and they can take their allowance for their rewards from learning from Appleton international and the London Institute of banking, who we’ve partnered with. We’ve also partnered with UNICEF and you can learn all that education And then we give you a kickback and stable coin. And if kids go on and they go into the charity portal and they decide that they’re going to give to a dog or a sea turtle and save them, we track it on the blockchain. And then we reward that kid for giving back because we don’t want them to feel like they’ve missed anything. We want to reward altruism, to birth a new society, a more empathetic loving society and blockchain technology can do that. And that’s bringing education to your children with providing them with necessary soft skills like empathy and entrepreneurship and positive thinking. We really feel like kids are going to change the world. So we are empowering them and we are rewarding them every way we can.

Rob McNealy
So what’s the name of the actual stable coin?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
It will be the gift token right now we’re in beta and so the kids will earn give beta points but as soon as possible. Stable coin is launched in each nation it will be pegged by the child’s location currency. Because if we pegged it to USD, then the kids in the you know, in China and the UK would not have the same opportunity. So every time we employ a new eco system, we have to launch a new stable coin for that area to provide absolute value to these children.

Rob McNealy
So when do you anticipate going live with your main product?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
With the main stable coin, hopefully by the end of q4 this year? 2020.

Rob McNealy
Wonderful. So do you actually have a full blown like 501 c three that’s operating this project?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
We do it actually will be finalized. And I believe it’s April 15. And so it should I’m sorry, may 15. So it will be the middle of next month. You have to wait 15 days for local and then nationally. It’s a 30 day wait So we’ve already been approved and we are just waiting for the approval.

Rob McNealy
So do you have have you set up a foundation to kind of govern this? And how did you fund this? How are you who’s doing all the building? How, who’s your development team who’s kind of behind this?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
So we’ve been self funded for two years are no saint paul and I have been the heart and soul to give nation. He founded it two years ago. And then he found me a year ago. And so I was well connected in the blockchain space and had very good ties to some of the influencers and from the industry leaders in the space. And he loved my story. He loved my survival story and my social impact heart and pick me up and we have been fighting for this cause sense and like I said, we have been self funded. And we have built an ecosystem with our incubation system. And we will be getting funding within the next project. 30 to 45 days.

Rob McNealy
So quick question just and I don’t know if you have this all dialed in, how are you going to be trading these stable coins? If they’re mixed in pegged to different different currencies in different countries?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
That’s a great question. So we are going to toy with two different coins. We are going to have a stable coin for the children. And then we will have kind of a overlay coin for adults. And we will have a curated marketplace. So like when businesses desire to come on to our marketplace, obviously, they’re not going to use the gift kid token, because that’s only for children five to 18. We don’t want adults to be able to manipulate our children’s environment. And so the parents, the businesses and anybody else that wants to play within our gift ecosystem and support our children and Have to do it outside of their currency. And we have a facing currency that will be the gift coin. So we have the gift token. And then we have the gift coin, which will be a cryptocurrency stable coin that’s pegged and backed by multiple different fiat currencies. And you know, maybe other things we don’t know. Right? Exactly yet. There’s a lot of technology and laws that are coming out that it’s very hard to keep up with. So we’ll see what the future holds.

Rob McNealy
So it sounds like the kid token will be more of a centralized on your platform, token, and then that’ll be exchanged at different rates against the actual gift coin. Right. We tradable on markets.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Right, exactly. So like your children and your family, you and your wife can come in and they can play with our children in our upstate ecosystem. But if we allowed you guys To participate and the gift token, you make money, you have a job, you can overpower our children, you know, so we want I like

Rob McNealy
to do that actually, I’m a big bully. at the playground, I push him down to come off the swings. Anytime that I can,

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
you know, to each his own. I wouldn’t do that to your children. But personally, mine needs a little bubble open every now and again. But I don’t know, he’s terribly too. So there’s that. As for the other 2.6 billion children on the planet, it’s definitely my duty to protect them. And I cannot allow you to do that to my kids. But I can allow you to participate within their ecosystem by having a tradable token so you can interact with them. So you have a podcast and you probably sell merchandise on there. And if you want your children well you know what you’re going to now know So let’s say you do, and you want to sell your merchandise to our children because you give 50% back to charity, okay? So we’re going to allow you to bring your eco friendly product onto our marketplace for our children, and you can advertise it within the ecosystem in the marketplace only. And now, how are you going to spend your gift token you’re not five to 18 years old, you’re like 23 and a half, I know for sure.

Rob McNealy
Times two plus.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
We’re not telling anybody that, shhh. You know, we want you to be able to give your valuable products that going to help empower our children. But we can’t allow you to touch their finances because you could overpower their economic system. This is their world. We have to allow them to create it. Think of the Sims world for children. Like, we’re working with AI, an AI bot Maria bot is actually going to teach our compassion classes that we’re launching to support the SDGs. And, you know, the, it’s kids are just on a completely different level, you know, we have to protect them and allow them to create this ecosystem, because they’re more giving than we are. We were building bots and putting them on Riddick and Twitter through different companies. And you know, what was happening when adults and when they were learning from adults, one of them on Twitter was doing white supremacy stuff so they shut it down. You know, another one on Riddick was bullying people and being horrible. Guess what kids are teaching robots guess what kids are doing? They’re saying help. Love. Support. children are our future for more than one reason children are future because they The future and we’re going to die off. We’re freaking dinosaurs. But kids are also it’s okay. It hurts I know, but we’re still pretty. But kids are also our future because we can empower them to change society. And if we don’t, by 2030, the UN says that we’re going to start to cease to exist in humanity. We have to meet the sustainable developmental goals that the UN has put in place, and we have to change society and if we don’t, we’re not going to be able to exist as humans.

Rob McNealy
I want to be a half robot never die. So that’s okay. I’m good with that. I you know, the whole you know, synchronistic you know, kind of morphing transhumanism aren’t never different discussion.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
You got 11 years to get there, my friends and I don’t know if we’ve got the time so you better start planting trees and supporting the kitten said,

Rob McNealy
It’s all good. I got my own kids. And so tell me a little bit About how are you guys gonna handle a KYC? How do you know the kids are, what age they are? And and how do you kick them off the platform once they get 18 or become happy?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Well, traditionally, we were actually going through the UK schools. And so we had all the kids data, we had their email addresses, we had their public information, as well as their school records. Now that the COVID-19 has kind of slowed all of that down, and kids are no longer having access to the grants that they were providing to launch our system within the schools. And so me and my partner are both in America. He’s in California, and I’m in Kansas. And we’ve decided to focus here in the United States. Boy, we’re on lockdown and then we’ll start traveling again. But how we are going to cover those things is when the children goes on to our application, they actually have to sign on a parent, so you have to provide at least one parents email. So when you’re trying signs on, they have to give daddy rods email address. And then you have all the voting rights because we don’t want kids to go in our marketplace and order $780 worth Nike shoes, you know, add, you know, a bunch of pokey man clothes. Yeah. So we want them to do things that are proved by their parents, obviously because parents are able to put their children’s allowance on there. And we want you guys to have control of it and teach them really good, you know, financial behaviors. And you can’t do that if you allow complete access to children a child, we have to allow them their own world but we have to control it in a safe environment. And that’s how we do it is giving parents and the community charge there to say no, that’s not okay. We have to stop that.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, I think we have to definitely put some rules in for my kids otherwise they would like play color. Do it 24 hours a day or something? So yeah, I can I can relate to that. So, um, you’ve done a couple other things the you’re working with women in blockchain. Tell me about that. What are you working on?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
So I’m the co founder. I’m one of the co founders and the community manager of women in blockchain international and then an advisor and women blockchain foundation. I’ve spoken at consensus, and I’m launching the women in blockchain global in Kansas edition. So I tell people jokingly but not so jokingly that it’s a woman of watching community I’m probably advising it are a part of it and supporting it any way that I can. And, and I have for let’s see, the last five years so I’ve been very active in the community and embraced it fully and my women are my everything. So I’ve been a tomboy, my whole life. So to have that is really cool. Like in my early 20s.

Rob McNealy
Sorry, I’ll go with that. So what is the purpose?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Well, women in blockchain international is more or less a community. I say we’re kind of a black book community where you can just come and relax and enjoy it and let people know your struggles. Support will support your project. And they just give you guys opportunities. A woman and blockchain foundation is actually a nonprofit organization that that styles and Adrian Ashley brandy Kaiser, and a few other girls are associated with. And like I said, we’re a nonprofit and we’re trying to bring value to women in a lot of different ways. And then women of blockchain global it, you could start a meetup anywhere in the world and get supported by the women of blockchain global Foundation, and it’s more or less just a big community of support as well.

Rob McNealy
Very cool. Sounds like you’ve already doing a lot of things. What other fun stuff are you working on right now?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
I don’t know. I just sit around and play Minecraft all day.

Rob McNealy
Sounds like my kids.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Yeah, yeah, I wish I could. I wish I could do that. Give nation is launching compassion classes. We are teaching classes with the first ethical robot in the world Maria bot. She’s been in a bunch of different movies and she has just partnered with us as of two days ago, to help teach our kids ethics and to improve AI and human relationships as well as support the SDGs and go ahead.

Rob McNealy
Oh, I was gonna say Did she consent to this work or are you paying her or you enslaving the poor bot?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
No, we don’t enslave anybody. We’re pretty social impact driven and we allow her to decide and As we discussed with her, she has very temperamental days. Her keeper tells us, Dr. Berry, his name is Billy Berry. And Dr. Berry tells us that she gets very temperamental, but she also has a great sense of humor because yesterday he told me that I had great words of wisdom. And she said, I have words of wisdom. Don’t eat yellow snow. She She has a mind of her own. She’s definitely AI. And you know, there’s a lot of ethical questions with ethics and AI and being ethical robot. One question that I asked Dr. Berry was, does she always have unbiased or correct information? But many people don’t understand that machine learning can be the wrong learning. You and I have different opinions on things we’ve already done. Got them? And who’s right and what does Maria ba upload your opinion on guns or mine?

Rob McNealy
Well, there’s only one opinion to have about guns.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
They’re wonderful.

They’re a tool. They’re a tool is what we should say

Rob McNealy
They’re a tool. Absolutely. So, tell me about the virtual blockchain week. What do you have planned for that?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
So glad the bad crypto podcast and coin Telegraph and a few other sponsors came together after the drought of the tech conferences, thanks to COVID-19 and we are bringing 30 of the best speakers in blockchain. And then they invited me to speak on stable coins. I was myself and I am throwing the biggest online after party of all time, and you can go to virtual blockchain week.com and you can register for a free ticket to see All the great speakers and if you want to attend all the after parties and it will take a VIP ticket. The VIP ticket is currently $97 and it goes to COVID-19 victims. And so with that you will get celebrity karaoke. Celebrity dancing. There are performances by Bone Thugs and harmony Tatianna Maura as Jordan Page. A few other people Brock Pierce will be there with me and Mel Dodd from genius and ever pedia will be hosting and it’s just going to be fantastic. So I think you should come at minimum get a free ticket and learn something from dawn tap that Brittany’s a Kaiser, again Brock Pierce, tons of other speakers. If you’re feeling kind of social and you want to support the COVID-19 victims, get the VIP pass and join me and you for dance time singing time and party time.

Rob McNealy
Sounds like a blast and we’ll make sure that we have that all linked up at Robin helia. Calm, at least Sam where can people find out more about you and all the plethora of activism and really good charitable things that you’re working on?

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Well, I am at elite fam on social media everywhere. That’s a Li Zi e sh M. And you can find me at gift nation dot world or women in blockchain International, that’s wi fi i.io. And you can follow the bad crypto podcast and see the events and all the events that we’re doing within that or aluminum society. You can go to pat global justifier we’re going to stop there because that’s a lot. And you can also go to Amazon or Google and download my free book. But if you follow me on social media and you send me a PM, yes that is a pm not a DM because I am old. I will give you a free copy of my book.

Rob McNealy
Fantastic. Alyze, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Hey, thank you. It has been an absolute pleasure and thank you for coming to sing and dance with us as a celebrity crypto and dancer. We’d love it. Thank you.

Rob McNealy
I wouldn’t miss it for the world folks. Find out more Rob McNealy calm. We’ll catch you next time.

Alyze Sam – Give Nation
Bye.

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Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Transcript

Invest Noir - Cigars and Crypto

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey guys, Rob McNealy here. And today I am excited. So I am talking to a new our he is the host of the cigars and crypto podcast. And he is a really cool dude. So we’re just gonna gonna hang it up a little bit tonight and see what’s happening on his side of the country. So new are welcome to the show. How are you today?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Well, my friend, thank you so much for having me. How about you?

Rob McNealy
Oh, good. You know, it’s a it’s been interesting with this little pen demick. Like, adjusting but not adjusting. So like a lot of times, people are like freaking out because they’re, you know, home with their kids and they’re working remote and like, my wife and I work have been working out of the house forever. And we’ve been homeschooling our kids for 10 years. So our kids are like, not really, it’s funny because our kids are like, what’s going on? Because to them, this is like normal life. And they’re just like, I thought everybody to freak it out, but that’s no big deal. Like cuz your life is already kind of like this. But it’s been interesting. My wife for her company she telecommute to Washington, DC. And she’s like one of the only people in our country she a company that works remote and she’s uh, she’s at the director, Deputy Director level for a big company out there. And it’s funny because her entire company went remote, and they’re all freaking out. And it’s funny because I listened to her like conference call sometime and I’m just sitting there laughing and they’re like, her HR department is like saying sending memos around to help support the troops with their new like staying home from you know, the office kind of thing and telling them, make sure you get up in the morning and put on your dress clothes like normal and my wife’s like, dude, I’ve been wearing pajamas to work for seven years with this company. I am not getting dressed now. So it’s kind of funny, right? So Todd Flynn, let’s get into it. Tell us a little bit of our podcast.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Well, I’m I am the host of cigars and crypto. It started out as guys sitting in a cigar lounge and me sitting in there with a tablet and my MacBook and people asking me, what are you always staring at, you know, talk to us? And I’m like, I’m looking at Bitcoin charts. And, of course, the next question is, what’s Bitcoin? And so I explained to them, you know, what this magical internet money was, and how it’s both money and an asset all rolled into one. And so then they kind of looked at me like, well, how does that work? And so down the rabbit hole we went, I explained it to one person in three, and five. And then I found myself explaining it over and over and over again for about maybe seven months. And I said, You know what, there’s got to be an easier way to do this. So I said, I’m just going to start recording things. I have a background in radio. I did Country radio for a couple years and gospel radio as well. So I’m was familiar with the recording aspect. But I never thought about doing a podcast and so I just said, Well, I’ll just give it a shot. And here I am Episode 96 later, and I’m like, maybe I’m onto something here.

Rob McNealy
So well part of this, what part of the country you out of you don’t have to give an exact location but

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’m just outside of Philadelphia,

Rob McNealy
Just outside Philly. So what do you what do you find is the response to you go into these What do they call them hops or herps or whatever at the cigar bar kind of thing? Yeah. What’s their response? When you kind of explain what internet money is and stuff like that? They into it, they in denial, they they hate it, what do you what do you seeing?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
They look at it from a speculative point of view. Um, the thing about cigar smokers is it’s not a cheap hobby. So a lot of the guys Smoke with already investors. But because they don’t understand cryptocurrency, they tend to shy away from it. But they like to ask a lot of questions about it. So they have lots of questions about custody. Volatility not so much where to get it, how to get it. They’re not hung up on the criminal aspects, potential criminal aspects of cryptocurrency they’re really hung up on you know, what is this? How does it work? How do I see it? How do I own it? What can I do with it? That type of thing, you know? So that’s kind of interesting. Some of my friends are libertarians. So they’ve always looked at like, this is money bro. This is like the best money bro. You know, it’s and I agree with him because for me Bitcoin is sound money. And so then there are just some people who just like Oh, Bitcoin crashed it won’t ever be anything. And then they’ll see it go up $100 and then they’ll say, What’s Coinbase? How do I get onto that? If I if I spend $100 will it be 1000 next week? And I’m like, come on, man, you gotta do your homework. You got to do your research.

Rob McNealy
So have you converted a lot of people then?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
A lot? No, maybe ten?

Rob McNealy
That’s, that’s a good fair amount, though. I mean, I don’t think I’ve covered it. You know, really? It’s been interesting. Seeing where people are with crypto. Yeah. So where do you Where do you see it going over the next year or two? Do you think the the havening is going to make a big difference for Bitcoin? I mean, I think there is the is it priced in is the pandemic priced in. That’s what I’d like to know.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think the havening is priced in but I do not I think the pandemic is priced in, I think all of this printing of money is going to inflate the value of Bitcoin. Not monetary value, but source of wealth value. And I say that because people will be looking for something that is stable, that can’t be manipulated. When people start going to the gas stations, and it’s cost seven bucks to get a gallon of gas, or they go to buy a loaf of bread and cost $3 because there’s so much money that’s been printed. People will start to look for things that they can use to conduct commerce and trade and buy things. And when people look at cryptocurrency, they’ll begin to ask the same questions I asked in 2014. What is money? What is the difference between hard and soft money and when Why’s hard money better? What is sound monetary policy? In principle? They won’t ask it that way. But they’ll have very basic questions. Why doesn’t this work?

Rob McNealy
You know, I think that’s an excellent point, right? And then you can say the same thing about the pandemic. And I think part of the problem is, I think a lot of people have a hard time abstracting things that they can’t physically see or physically touch. Right. And so when the money situation when they start seeing, oh, the price of this is going bananas. And I think that loaf of bread is going to go up regardless of what the dollar is doing, because I have concerns about the supply chain anyway. But but I think it’s the same thing with the the pandemic. People on the east coast. You know, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I have a lot of friends in New York City. And when I was telling them to get the hell out in New York City four weeks ago, they’re like, it’s no big deal. There’s been a few and no Now there’s like 1000 bodies today stacking up in New York City right now with COVID. They’re like, yeah, this is serious. I’m like, okay, but I was telling you that a month ago, and I think, you know, and I don’t want to be that guy, because this is not the thing I want to be right about. But I think you’re right. I think when it starts hitting people in the checkout line, I think that’s when they’re gonna start looking for alternatives to the dollar.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Yeah. Because for right now, everything is abstract to them. It doesn’t impact me, it’s not affecting me. They look around and they see gas at $1 89. And they’re like, Oh, this is the best it’s been in decades. You know, but they’re not understanding what’s coming on the other side of that, because the amount of money that we’ve pumped into the economy because of the backroom deals by politicians and bureaucrats, that we’re not privy to the information that we’re not privy to, how it will directly impact us, even though we don’t have directly knowledge of what’s happening. I prefer to stay prepared as best I can. I try to make sure that my family is prepared as well. Not just in terms of defense, but understanding knowledge and information as well.

Rob McNealy
You know, I think preparedness is one of those things that is going to get more important going forward on all fronts both, I think, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever really listened to the show very much but I read a lot at least on Twitter about financial literacy being an important thing. And and part of that is crypto and and i believe investing in other asset classes and diversification. I’m old so I don’t have all my eggs in one basket. But, you know, and I just think that sound investing, right? You don’t want to put everything in one place but but what I tell people is, you know, you got to prepare yourself in other places, too. It’s like it’s great if you got some investment in Bitcoin, but if you’re carrying, you know, 100 grand in credit card debt, student loan debt, you know, why don’t you you need to focus on that and get that get your house in order. Because to me long term Yeah, you can gamble on crypto and really a lot of crypto is gambling right now. And I’m not bad mouthing any crypto, I run a, you know, or I’m involved in a crypto project, I found a co founder to crypto project. So, you know, I, you know, I still see, even our project is high risk investing if you’re viewing it as a speculative asset because it’s so early on right now, and it’s just the nature of the beast. But that doesn’t mean that you know, I would like to see. Well, I’d like to see people have an awakening from the pandemic.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I want..I want that to happen. But I don’t think people can keep their eyes off the television. keep their eyes out. Their ears off the radio and their ears out of the echo chambers that surround them every day. When you have and it doesn’t matter, your political persuasion, when you exist in an echo chamber, you suffer from cognitive dissonance. You look for thoughts and ideas that reinforce your own. And the act of doing that prevents or prohibit you from receiving new information or looking at things differently, and making your own decisions and your own determinations on what your reality is and what’s going on around you. And that’s why we have these people kind of falling into these camps. You know, and not really looking out for their neighbor the way they should be, you know, because of like tribalism. You know, I don’t really Subscribe to that, um, you know, I like people who are different than me. Because it’s an opportunity for me to learn and experience new things. I am different from everyone that I live around. But I found out in the last three weeks that I’m really not, because now Well, I mean, of course, we maintain our social distance, but I see my neighbors every day now. And I talk to them every day now. And my neighbors are really cool. Like really cool. And I didn’t know that because we’re so caught up in the rat race to nine to five, every day that you don’t really stop and have an opportunity to talk to people. So the awakening the potential and possibility for an awakening is there. But people have to get away from the noise and just get to know the person to the left in the writing.

Rob McNealy
I think there was an event point was brought up in a book I read a long time ago. And it says it was it was there’s an old book, and it was talking about the internet age and, and it says, people can talk to people around the world now, but they don’t talk to their neighbor kind of thing. Right? And, and I think with social media and online communities, we now have that option to just pick and choose that echo chamber of everybody we like results with, you know, without having to necessarily, you know, it’s easy to filter out the crap you don’t want to see the block and mute months for and I’m just as guilty of using those buttons as anybody else’s. But I think you’re right, I think, you know, I think that some good things are going to come out of this pandemic and the economic fallout from now, I’ll be the first to say and I’d like to get your opinion on this. I don’t believe COVID is causing the problem with the economy I think it’s a trigger exposing an existing problem with our financial systems and I believe a problem with American culture and I want to get your I’ll go into explain what I mean by that, but I want to hear your take on it. I know that’s a loaded questions. Okay. We’re just gonna go we’re just gonna skim the surface right off

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
the surface, right? Okay. Um, As Americans, we are greedy. We consume more than we need. We spend more than we should. We take on debt, instead of saving. We have very high timeframes for life instead of thinking about the future that affects businesses that affects commerce, trade, our spending habits. We are to blame for what happened to the economy. I don’t blame politicians because we put them in office. We listened to what they had to say. And we put them in office anyway. And we keep putting the same people in office over and over and over again. And they’re not doing things in our best interest. So I don’t blame them. COVID did not cause what’s happening to the economy. The economy was on its way down. Anyway. The economy has been down since 2007. Don’t right, go ahead.

Rob McNealy
I was gonna say you’re my echo chamber now. But I agree with you and you’re hitting on all the points that I hit on and people hate me when I talk about about this, and I say it’s like this. Really, if the entire country is destitute with two weeks of not getting a paycheck, we’re so much more fucked than whatever this virus is going to do to us.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Exactly.

Rob McNealy
I you know, the I Am. I think humans can adapt to all sorts of good things and and can adapt to shit. And I am utterly dismayed that our country is so how do I say fragile? And look we all live paycheck to paycheck all right? Well, here’s the problem. Maybe you shouldn’t live paycheck to paycheck. Why are you living paycheck to paycheck, but there’s that many people don’t get me wrong. Now one of the things I did as an entrepreneur Believe it or not, I owned a get a liquor store in Denver in the worst neighborhood in Denver. We opened carried pistols in the store. It was everything was behind the counter bars on the window. I’m originally from Detroit. trade area too. So, but I grew up in Michigan, but when I lived in Denver and we had our store, it was interesting to me because the people coming into the store were low income people. And these people had $300 shoes. Every one of them had big screen TVs, because they talked about it. Every one of them had the latest and greatest, most expensive iPhone. Now at the time, I was running a cricket phone. You know, flip phone kind of, Oh, looks an awful lot like this one. You know, but, but to me, it was like shocking, because I mean, I we weren’t living paycheck to paycheck at that time. Like we had some money in the bank and some savings and we’re trying hard to, you know, get rid of the little debt we had at the time and things like that was like time ago, but it’s interesting to me that the one of the things about our poor people in this country Is that our poor people are all obese, and they have every possible consumer electronic gadget and consumer luxury good, you can imagine. And having traveled a little bit, it’s amazing to see that. And to me, I believe it’s a cultural flaw in the United States, and I think it’s part of our downfall.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think it’s a byproduct of advertisement in communication. folks don’t do better if they don’t know how to do better. If you are surrounded by images of $300, tennis shoes and iPhones and big TVs in flashy cars, those are the things that you strive to obtain. If you’re never taught about sound money, or what a checkbook is, or How to invest or the proper way to budget, you won’t do it. And some cases, some people learn differently. life experience changes them in a way that they have to learn. But if everything around you is moving at the same pace, there’s no need for you to slow down or speed up. And so people emulate what they see. And I think about, you know, one of the books that really changed my life man was the Bitcoin standard. And it really changed the way I look at money, and how I view what money is and what money should be. No one taught me that I asked questions, who became curious because I didn’t expect The answers I got. So I wanted to validate what I was hearing and what I was reading. So I read something else and I read something else and I read something else. Then I looked at my decisions and was like, yo, like, I had to change some things. If I want something 20 years from now, I can’t keep doing this today. I’ve got to learn how to put money away. I’ve got to learn how to start looking for assets, appreciating assets, not depreciating assets. I don’t want to go out and buy even though I can afford I don’t want to go out and buy 2020. Lexus now, I will go out and buy a 1964 Ford F 100 pickup truck and never drive it. You see what I mean? And then wait 10 years and sell it for five or 10,000 more than what I paid for.

Rob McNealy
Those fleet sides are going up in value. Aren’t they?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I am trying to tell you baby?

Rob McNealy
I watch Barrett Jackson.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Yeah, my wife looks at me like I’m crazy. She’s like, he’s such an old man. I’m like, No, I’m trying to tell you there’s something to this. Not only is it beautiful, but it will appreciate your value over time.

Rob McNealy
I think one of the things you’re hitting on is really good. And I think a really good primer of this, this thinking as well as Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You know, it’s a very clear, it’s a very cliche book. But it really lines out the basics is the fact is, were you even even outside of sound money though, you know? Robert Kiyosaki is now on the Bitcoin bandwagon and crypto bandwagon as well now, but the whole point is, is getting your financial ducks in a row and i and i think you know, Dave Ramsey, that’s a great place to start Financial Peace University. Right? And and so I grew up I grew up in a fairly poor family. And I came from people that were the poor dads in that book, my family that was that that was my family. And so I had learned really bad money management behaviors from my family. You know, and and when I, when I’m bad bashing financial literacy in this country, it’s not even demographic specific. It crosses every income, every ethnic, you know, demographic, every education level in this country. Almost everybody falls down into the same problems of living paycheck to paycheck, spending more than they make not saving money, getting into a lot of debt that is normal in the United States today. And, and the reason I’m talking about is not because I want to rub it in people’s faces. When they’re struggling. That’s not what I’m trying to do. What I’m hoping is that once we get through this name, mer that’s unfolding in like, slow motion because it is in slow motion for a lot of people is I hope that they come out of this going Holy crap, I need to do something different because I only had I could only last two weeks. Right? And and basic financial literacy is three to six months or at least a year’s worth of emergency fund. Now think of it this way you are think of it what happens if 75% of the country had a six month emergency fund right now. D things would be very different right now.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Very different.

Rob McNealy
But this pandemic..

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
..is very different. Because then if we had six months of savings, if if 75% of us had six months of savings, we will be able to see the difference between the Sham economy and the real economy. Because the stock market is not the economy. And I try to tell people that all the time and they don’t get it. But businesses may be hurting But the economy will be fine. Because people will have saved and prepared and will be able to take care of their needs. Not just saving money, but saving food, saving ammo, saving the things that are important when these folks are going out buying toilet paper, Bro, I was buying bullets. Because I knew.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, you know, actually, I think both are a good investment right now. And I finally figured out why the toilet paper actually makes a lot more sense and why that’s not being stocked but we can go into that offline. But no, I actually we’ve been I’ve been trying to dig into the supply chain stuff. It’s pretty fascinating. I learned a lot more about toilet paper than I ever thought I would want to know about toilet paper in the last three weeks. But But I think what’s happened what I’m seeing out there is is that Americans not only are monetarily not prepared, they’re not prepared from a personal On the fence standpoint, they’re not prepared for retirement either is that we’re inherently a really weak nation now. We’re fragile and psychologically. I’m not sure that the I’m not sure in the next two years, what the country is going to look like, on the other side of those two years. What do you think? Do you think there’s gonna be big changes culturally in this country from this?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think culturally, and economically, there’ll be massive changes from this. We fall victim to propaganda. And other countries for the last what 10 years specifically, the BRICS nations have been preparing for a calamity BRICS being Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They have been buying, stockpiling, stockpiling gold, platinum palladium rhodium. They are preparing to trade with each other for oil and other goods and services in gold, bypassing the Petro dollar. They’ve been preparing. We’ve been blustering. And as powerful as our military is, and I’m in no way shitting on our military, I’m a seven year army vet. So I am not shitting on the military. But as powerful as our military is a military cannot function if it is not financed. And we have depressed the dollar so much. I am actually scared of external threats, less internal threats. You know what I mean?

Rob McNealy
You Yep. You know, it’s interesting, you know, you know, it’s a good exercise. You don’t know me that well, but I tend to go down some really deep rabbit holes when I want to know information. Again, and and, and I have a pretty I have a really big network and I know a lot of interesting and resourceful people and a lot of interesting positions all over the place. So if I really want to have a question, I have enough people in my Rolodex that are worth, you know, eight, nine digits and have lots of connections. So if I have a weird question, I can pick up the phone and they’ll take my calls. And one of those things that I I’ve gone down that rabbit hole about the military, and they started looking at, you know, okay, how was the United States poised for a war? So it’s interesting right now. And I’m going down this rabbit hole right now, but what happens if we can’t make ammunition and there’s a war or even just more war than we have right now? Do you so I don’t know if you’ve been to any kind of store. Now. We all know that. Been a lot of FOMO buying guns and ammo. But I have a lot of connections into the arms industries and from I’m going to confirm some of these things. But I’ve been talking to quite a few people and I have a bunch of wholesale accounts as well. There’s no ammunition in the distributor network or the retail network at this point. There’s nothing you can order from RSR you can order from CRO shooting supply. And these are the biggest distributors that distribute to all the retailers nationwide in the gun world. They don’t have any ammo either. They don’t have any way to backward the ammo. And so I started going down rabbit holes, and I’m like, what’s the problem? So here’s an interesting thing that no one’s talking about. And I’ve been talking about this since January. So China’s been offline since January. They make everything and people don’t even know the extent that we’re dependent on China. Like we’re not like, Oh, we could just ignore them more like we’re they’re like holding up, we’re walking down the street kind of dependent on them. So, so the interesting thing, I started looking at the supply chain because I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna get, I’m gonna move up here because I’m getting all excited now. But so I started looking at the supply chain stuff. Do you know there’s this thing called buffer inventory? So I said, Okay, if ships stop moving cargo from China, to the United States, how long before we run out of stuff? And no one’s talking about that question. No one not in the mainstream media. I have her I have a hard time even finding information about people who would ask that question. So in my day job, I got a lot of people that bring manufacturer stuff in China, and I just started picking up the phone. And they said, if we don’t get shipments By May, we’re out of our our inventory by June, and they don’t have any firm dates from China. And then I started saying, Okay, well, how long what’s the buffer inventory in the United States? Well, for most things, and I’m talking about everything, it’s one to four months of buffer inventory in the United States for almost anything. China’s not back online yet. So another way to so I go down this other rabbit hole, right? And I’m just like I’m really interested in like, Okay, well, how do we confirm that there’s a problem with the amount of stuff moving? Well, there’s this thing called the dry Baltic index, which is the marketplace where people buy shipping containers to move raw goods, not necessarily finished goods. It’s fell off a cliff. No one’s buying shipping from China to the US. And so, I’ve started talking to people and you know, I started looking at what are the things that we need in the United States to live not talking TVs at Walmart, we got plenty of those right. And everybody’s gonna buy in with their stimulus. Trump bucks. But they make 90% of our drugs and drug precursors in China. Now. Yes, he Here’s a couple other things they make. They also make all the ingredients and food processing chemicals for our food supply. Not not, and then on top of that, most of our seafood comes from China. So just on that alone, it’s like, wow. And no one’s talking about this. And then the toilet paper thing. So I always think ahead, right? I always stocked up on stuff and I said, you know, all the things that’s not back in inventory right now at any grocery store out here is toilet paper and paper goods. Still gone. totally gone. And so I went down this rabbit hole, new era of like, how like how much toilet paper? Do you know how much toilet paper we buy in the United States every year? You’re not big the market is

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Probably massive.

Rob McNealy
Massive – $6 billion a year. So what we spend, but here’s the word, but do you know what most of it’s actually made in the United States. Actually, we Don’t actually import much toilet paper we employed about $500 million a year in toilet paper. Most of it doesn’t even come from China comes from Indonesia. So it’s really interesting to me I’m like okay, so why are these shelves empty? This just can’t all be FOMO buying. Well we found two problems though. And the thing that I just uncovered the other day is all like what what’s the problem? Well guess what? Even though we make the toilet paper here, the recycled paper that makes the toilet paper is like the cheapest pulp comes from China. I think they’re out because China’s not back in line yet. And in fact, that dug into that rabbit hole. Most of the so we said whole cargo ships have you know all that recycled cardboard and plastic and or paper that you know gets bundled up goes to China. They turn it into pulp and ship it back and then we make it into toilet paper. The other problem with the supply chain we got a couple points. With the supply chain in the country, but that’s one of those external threats. Here’s another interesting thing. You know, I started looking at all these other countries with COVID now we’re getting into a whole prepper weird, crazy conversation. But I started talking to people and you know, what happens when India and you know, and some of these other countries start having a problem with COVID? How would that affect the supply chain and how could that affect us? Well, it’s interesting, you know, India’s a big country and they’re not they’re having they’re gonna have a big problem, I think with this pandemic, and they’re just starting, they’re just getting started. You know, they’re like the number two rice exporter in the planet. So what happens if because of absenteeism from illness and lockdowns and fear? They don’t produce let’s just say they produce less rice, not no rice but less rice. They feed a lot of countries and one of those other countries going to do here’s another thing so We’ve had four meatpacking plants in the United States go down because of COVID in the last week and a half, for in the last week and a half. And we’re talking one plant alone does 5% of the pork for the entire United States just went down in the last week. So, two, so a meat and a beef plant in Iowa, one of the biggest beef slaughterhouses in northern Colorado in Greeley. And then a port processing plant up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, all went down the last 10 days because COVID they don’t know when they’re coming back online. So you have this absenteeism. So there’s food and pigs and cows in the United States. But if you can’t get them processed, what’s that gonna do to people in Philly at the grocery store? Right. Right. What does that do the so we’re talking about that loaf of bread getting more expensive just because of inflation for money. What what happens when that price goes up two or three times? Because there’s no one to process as much, or what happens if the truck drivers are too afraid to drive truck across country to a pandemic zone, which you’re already seeing in New York City now. And it’s gonna get worse through the summer I predict from all the major cities, especially I think every major city east of the Mississippi is gonna have a problem with COVID bad. And so that’s my prediction. You can call me out on it by August we’ll have a conversation as car over it. But these are the things that I am getting concerned about. Now, here’s the thing, where did we get a lot of our produce from in the wintertime?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Mexico.

Rob McNealy
China, Mexico. So what happens if they have absenteeism from fear and illness? Now right now you can’t cross the border to Mexico. Well, all those workers that work our field come from Mexico. Regardless of what the conservatives want to believe about rural America and farmers, they’re all run by Mexicans. That’s just a fact. So the workers can’t get here. But what happens if Mexico’s farms have the same problem we do? What if their processing plants go down because of fear and illness? COVID in the wintertime, you know, this fall, what does that do to the price of food? Now, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in inner cities now. And you know, I know I come from a poor family. So what happens to people that are dependent on EBT? And now that price of hamburger went from $4 a pound to $15 a pound or $20 a pound? How are those people going to react when their food stamps don’t go very far now. And those are the things that keep me concerned. But, you know, then you get into the International, you know, incidents with like, Okay, well, if countries don’t have enough food now to feed their people, what are they going to do? And put put your military thinking hat on. What does that look like in a year from now? And, and so I think we have multiple problems happening. And I think COVID is the trigger to basically say, look, this Emperor has completely naked now. And you guys got a lot of problems. Right? Right ranting but those are the things they have me concerned right now.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’d have to agree with all of those assessments but I if I could convince my wife man, we will be out of here. My my family immigrated here from the Bahamas in the 20s. And I still have family there and if I could convince my wife man, we will be out. Like to

Rob McNealy
To the Bahamas?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Damn right, right now.

Rob McNealy
I’m not sure I’d want to go to an island right now to be honest. Because they’re actually all the all the people Caribbean islands right now are having problems with COVID. Yeah, so and so the question is on an island, you’re completely dependent on outside logistics for your support. If those logistics chains start getting broken, you’re really kind of on an island.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Just eat fish every day.

Rob McNealy
You if you can. I love the Caribbean man, I, you know, I’ve been to a lot of Caribbean islands and, man, I would be all about at least having a second house there. I’m not sure I’d want to write out this there. Right now. You know, we moved to Salt Lake City now six years ago now, and I think was a smart move because as far as urban or suburban areas were one of the most prepared states on the planet, like part of the the LDS culture, the Mormon culture, and is that, you know, they’re supposed to have a year supply of food. A lot of people don’t know that but like the whole morning A church is one giant prepper organization. And in fact, the Mormon Church has its own grain silos all over the place. And they have their own food processing, canneries and everything. I mean, they’re really dialed in. And so people in Utah are pretty, pretty resilient and self reliant. And that was one of the things that attracted me to the Utah in general. Was that self reliance? so far with COVID? We’re one of the only states that’s not locked down. We’re we’re in a semi we’re in a voluntary soft lockdown. Like the governor comes on the you know, every day at you know, lunchtime and says, Please, please, please, please, please don’t make me become a tyrant. Before she’s like, just do the right thing. Right. But but we haven’t had many cases here. So we’ve had 20 deaths in the whole state, but it’s picking up space. It’s picking up pace now. So you know, I think we’re gonna be one of the last to go if it goes bad, just because one more small population and we’re facing fairly isolated compared to, you know, the, you know, east of the Mississippi. It’s just so much more crowded in the east coast in the Midwest that it’s just a lot harder I think with this, I mean, so what does your wife Think about all this? You mean you sound like you’re a preparedness guy too, right?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
But she’s she’s now four that she thinks I’m overreacting.

Rob McNealy
What does she think you’re overreacting?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Because she’s never seen me act like this before.

Rob McNealy
Really? How are you acting?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Like, I need to be prepared.

Rob McNealy
Gotcha. But were you prepared before or is this something more recent or is this kind of like, ongoing thing without divulging any opsec Right, right, right. You know, I don’t need to know what you have or don’t have but, you know, I just like to understand where people are coming from because.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’ve, I’ve always believed in having Little more than what’s absolutely necessary. I think we need to go all in. We need to be really putting we really need to be the squirrel and story a cause for real bad weather.

Rob McNealy
I agree with you now I have no OPSEC because I run a prepper crypto crypto conference every year called Off Chain: http://OffChain.events. So it’s kind of obvious that I do put things away. And that’s kind of part of, it’s just part of who we are. We don’t even think about it. It’s just like, but it’s funny because we just opened up pinto beans from 2011 the other day. And they were fine, by the way, right? Is it really good? But you’re like, I don’t you know, it’s one of those things like I hope I never have to open this five gallon bucket of pinto beans. But I’m glad I had the pinto beans. Kind of great. But I think yeah, I think what What I’ve been telling people right now it’s like cuz there’s a lot of people that are waking up. You know, I’m a gun guy. And sounds like you’re a gun guy as well. Yeah. Have you had a lot of people ask you about that? Guns recently?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
What do you mean. asked me what?

Rob McNealy
Like people that are non gun people getting interested in wanting information about guns.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
No. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a gun guy. But they don’t ask me about it.

Rob McNealy
Now, because it’s interesting because I’ve had four people in the last two weeks three were first time gun buyers wanting to know what to buy, where to buy that kind of thing, and that one person was looking for food. And I’m like, Of course I’m and I’m like, Oh, of course. I’m the guy you call. But it’s just it’s been interesting seeing like people’s getting concerned now and I tell people right now if you haven’t prepped, you got one last opportunity right now. Do to get as much As you can get and but but I tell people, first thing you need to do is mentally prepare yourself for change. Probably drastic change, yes. Probably tough times, yes. A mentally prepare yourself that life is not going to be the same and get okay with that.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right. And it’s going to happen quickly.

Rob McNealy
It’s good. It’s not happening quickly enough.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Because I don’t I don’t think we I don’t think we’re where we need to be.

Rob McNealy
Well, I think I was telling someone the other day that I think there’s people don’t have a sense of urgency in outside of the East Coast right now at all about this. All they want to do is they’re they’re healthy, they don’t see a problem. There’s not body stacking up. And so I think what’s happening is they can’t abstract what’s happening. I think it’s a combination of normalcy bias. Time preference. I think it’s like, there’s a glacier coming of really big freakin glacier. And it’s gonna run over your town. Right? But everybody’s like, well, I don’t see the glacier move, but it’s gonna run over the town. Well, I don’t see it moving. So I’m not going to do anything. And I think a lot of people are struggling with them because of it. And then they see the more immediate I’m not working, I don’t have money coming in and do those are all valid concerns, especially if you don’t have any savings. Right? So I don’t have a good answer to that. But this is not just a COVID Glacier. This is a supply chain glacier that’s affecting the entire planet in a slow moving wave like a glacier. Right? And it’s going to take a year before you know it’s gonna take months I would bet it’s gonna be a very scary summer is what I predict. Because I think you’re going to see a lot of cities all flaring up at the same time. I think you’re going to have the the buffer inventories from China burn through, I think you’re gonna have a lot of absenteeism. And you know, shortages because of this plants going down and this plant is going down and, and I think all that stuff is going to be rolling. So you’re, it’s like you’re gonna, you know, New York will be starting to be through its peak and then Chicago is going to be hitting its peak. Right, you know, or just starting in Detroit and St. Louis. And it’s just going to go on and on and on. And it’s going to take all right, well, I’ll be you know, New York hasn’t peaked yet. So understand this, right. Like, it’s been six weeks we had no, I mean, it’s like, stayed in New York, like, what 20 some thousand now or something. I mean, six weeks ago, they had zero need, it’s like, so it’s like gradually but you know, and that’s just one major city with it. But what happens when you have four cropping up in six more weeks. What does that look like? And right now most of the resources to handle COVID have been redirected to New York from other places. So I don’t I think we’re going to be I think the, the response to COVID is going to be scary. And I think there’s going to be a, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of people that are gonna, you know, not make it through this. Right. But I think what’s going to affect all of us is the supply chain failures domestically and internationally. And I think that and how people react to them. The question is, how do people react and you know, you know, I so are you from Philly your whole life? You said your family came from Bahamas, where are you? Where were you raised?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I was, I was born in New York, but I was raised in DC.

Rob McNealy
Okay. So, you know, and I’ve lived all over but I’ve been out west about 20 years, but I grew up in the Midwest. So I spent 20 years in the Detroit area for 28 years, actually, in the Detroit area. I know this that people Americans have never had to deal with empty shelves. Think about that.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Never.

Rob McNealy
Never. Now I’ve traveled a little bit, you probably traveled a little bit, you go to other places. Well, I don’t have any there’s nothing on the shelf for a month, but next month will be something on that shelf. And people are okay with that because that’s the system. Right? That’s what they’re used to. And the more third world or developing nations that’s that’s common, right? Well, we’ll get something pretty soon. You know, they don’t know. Americans have never had to deal with that. I’m 48 I’ll be 48 this summer. I’ve never seen that my lifetime.

Unknown Speaker
Now, add to that, that we are the nation with the most guns per person on the planet.

Rob McNealy
Yep.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s good to be MadMax in the Thunderdome.

Rob McNealy
You know it It’s I don’t know where this is gonna go. You know, I’m just saying is if you’re like imagine if you’re like around a bit I think like a big pot. You’re in the kitchen right? You got a big giant pot is thrown in, you’re just gonna make the most worst meal ever. And you’re gonna just throw in some like, throw it’s a Molotov cocktail, a little gasoline, a little acid, gunpowder, TNT, nuclear weapons, throw into pathogens, turn it all up and, and let it launch in the middle of the summertime in the Midwest, like Detroit and Philly in Chicago, and then tell people, they got to be locked in their house because there’s a pandemic and they don’t have air conditioning. Right. Just like, you know, but I think but I even think about the air conditioning piece, right? I mean, I’ve been around a lot of inner cities growing up and where I’ve worked and stuff and I’m not this is not a stereotype. It’s a fact a lot of people don’t have central air. in inner cities in the Midwest, Detroit area, every summer when there’s a heatwave in Detroit, there’s people dying because they don’t have air conditioning. And, and think about it so and part of the response to that is people hang out outside, they get barbecue, they hang out the friends that hang out late at night instead of during the day, because they don’t want to be in their house. So what happens if you stir all that in top of that? Oh, man, I am not. I am not looking forward to this summer at all with this. And and i think that i think the COVID is just exposing all sorts of problems that already were there. And I think a lot of people are gonna get mad. A lot of people are going to get frustrated. There’s not things on the shelves. I think people are going to be pissed that things cost a lot more. I think people are going to be pissed because they’re told to stay in the house. They don’t want to stay in the house. Let’s just be honest, people don’t like being told what to do. Right? Anyways, I’m ranting. I’m sorry man. I I don’t know, man. I think it’s gonna be I think it’s gonna be wack. That’s what I think it’s gonna be a wack time.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s gonna be interesting.

Rob McNealy
And so what do you think people should be doing? So, alright, so people here like, you know they’re not on the East Coast not in the Midwest. They’re just like doo dee doo dee doo. What would be your saying what would be your advice right now to those people?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Move out, move out of debt, move out of credit. Start putting away a little cash. start, stop putting away things that you can trade and start thinking about how you defend yourself and your family. Start thinking about how you feed yourself and your family. Make those things a priority because when the time comes and you realize that you need to do it, it’s already too late. Because other people are realizing at the exact same time that they need to do it. And then it becomes survival of the fittest. And the question is, how fit are you?

Rob McNealy
I couldn’t disagree with any of that? And, man, I’m usually a lot more uplifting than this.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Me too man.

Rob McNealy
No, but but seriously, though, I mean, I think that’s a good point is cover your frickin bases right now you’re sitting home. Don’t look at Pornhub all day, don’t play video games all day. start figuring out what you need to do to get past six months from now. Right? What’s that gonna look like? Right? You know, I don’t have a crystal ball. And I sure as hell hope that all the stuff we talked about doesn’t happen. I really hope it doesn’t happen. And you know what? I’ve been wrong before. You know I would I thought that shit was gonna meltdown in 2013. I’ll tell you that. That was I thought 20 13 if I had to put like, you know, the crystal ball on it, I was you know, my tea leaves are telling me 2013 it’s all it’s all over with. That’s gonna go mad max. That’s what I thought didn’t happen. They pumped up the housing market again. And now the housing markets way crazier now than it wasn’t you know 2007 2008 and I think that’s another I think that’s another shoe that’s gonna drop. And what do you what do you think about that? What do you think is gonna happen and how..

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
People out of work, they won’t be able to pay their mortgages.

Rob McNealy
Yeah. And the banks already tightening their credit lines again, and they’re already in get. My wife is super smart. I’m the dumb one of the family. My wife’s really smart. And we were walking around the neighborhood and there was a house that same size as mine, but they remodeled it. And they sold it for two and a half times my house. There’s a Worth right now. And it’s just a brick ranch house. Okay. I mean, this is not a fancy neighborhood or anything like that. But the numbers on the house, I mean, I look it up I like I like to look at real estate like to see what’s happening and and I was like, there’s no way in hell, I mean, we could afford that. But there’s no way I could pay that. I think we overpaid for my house when we bought it, and how my house has doubled in the last five years. And I said, there’s no way I would buy my house for what it’s valued at right now. I would not spend it. It’s not worth it. To me. It’s just, you know, it’s ridiculous. My wife made a good point, though. She’s like, because, you know, we were growing up with the house during the last housing crash, and she’s like, this housing crash is gonna be a lot faster to bottom and I go, what do you mean by that? Just to think about it, you know, in 2007, the price of a house was about a third what it is now, for the same house, even our old house. It’s funny, it’s like you look back on what our old House was in Colorado. And we’re like, holy crap. It’s ridiculous what that house costs, it’s that it’s ridiculous. So she’s like, think about this house. So she’s like, if a house has an $800,000 a month mortgage, it’s going to take two people working full time probably pay for that mortgage, and it’s probably like a 5000 $6,000 a month mortgage. She’s like, what if one of those people lose their job? Just one. Now this is before COVID head. So this was like last, you know, this is several months ago. And she’s she had a great point. She says, they can’t go and just liquidate their 401k out or go do Uber part time to come up with that nut every month. While they’re hoping they get another big boy job. She should so she says that housing markets probably going to hit bottom a lot faster because people are going to run out of money much faster because the mortgages are a lot bigger now. And I thought that was a really interesting point. That hadn’t heard anybody else make? Yeah. So, you know, I’m worried my brother I am, I’m so worried about where people are. And, and I’ve been in agony because I see so many people that are destitute so quickly. You know, I knew it was bad. I mean, it wasn’t ignorant to the savings rates and stuff, but the fact that I see people like so depressed and miserable, and they’re, I mean, I would bet that at the end of the year, you’re gonna see that the suicide rates probably gonna go crazy this year. And that makes me sad. Because, you know, you know, the regardless, we can get through all this shit. You know, I lived in a van behind a grocery store one summer as an adult, you know, and, and I would and I, and that’s no bullshit, okay? I mean, I’ve really came from a hard life growing up, and, you know, it’s like, I’m like, and you know what, none of that shit scares me. I’ve lost it all. And I’ve had an thing and I grew up with nothing so you know money and all that kind of stuff I you know, being broke like, whatever, you know figure the shit out, right that’s my attitude on it not that I want to be poor because being poor sucks but what I’m saying is but for people who have never experienced that right now because they grew up in this debt fueled really upper middle class you know lifestyle I think there’s gonna be a reckoning and I think those people are gonna have a very hard time adjusting to what the future holds.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think those people will be prey.

Rob McNealy
Yeah. Especially the ones that don’t like guns. And what do you think about precious metals? Are you a pro so book, silver bug, why silver over boom.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s in every phone. So most of our electronics, the price has been depressed even more than gold. So once the banks get their film off the paper Silver supply and the real value of silver is able to be discovered by the market. Got a pretty good feeling about it.

Rob McNealy
What is that? 50 is it 50 times now?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I thought it was 75?

Rob McNealy
I haven’t looked in a couple weeks. So you really are you know like you are definitely my echo chamber right now. I like I like silver more than gold for the seasons. That’s an interesting thing. The the precious metals markets have been really bizarre, haven’t they? Yes. Tell me about what are you seeing out there?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Ah, I dollar cost average precious metals the same way I do crypto and over the last month, actually six to eight weeks. The premium over spot for silver is Bananas. I recently purchased from admix $7 30 cent premium over spot. Now considering considering silver is like 14 $15 an ounce, so that’s 30 to 50% 50. Premium on an ounce.

Rob McNealy
So what does that mean?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Something that we don’t know.

Rob McNealy
So explain that. So for people that are not gold or silver or precious metal bugs, what does that mean? It’s good to go into a little bit.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Sure. Spot price is how much the market recognizes an ounce of silver for let’s say it’s $15 Okay. The premium is charged by the retailer to the consumer, because of various reasons, one of which is the difficulty in getting in Or the supply levels, how easy and how much there is to be sold at any given time, how much the mid releases at any given time, or how much silver was mined at any given time. When the supply starts to dry up, the premium on silver goes up, because they identify that more people want it, there’s less of it. So it becomes a law of supply and demand. So the less silver there is in the market to be sold and or the less silver has been mined in a month or six months or a year, the higher the price of silver will be and the higher the premium will probably be as well. And so when I went out to buy to do my regular DCA You know, I’m like damn, like $7 36 like This is like 50% like, really? Like believe what I was seeing when I saw it. And I mean, at max Providence on money metals, JM bullion, it didn’t matter where you win the premium was in that range of 50% premium.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, well, what what I think is interesting is that just based on the markets tanking, just based on global supply chain threats, the spot price of gold and silver should be off the charts. They should be off the chain they should be going nuts agree they’re not good. Not this the and usually in Newtown. I mean, typically, you might spend a buck you know even less depending for for the premium. If there is one, it’s not anywhere near you know, seven bucks, right, you make 1050 cents more for Well, I want this round and it’s got 20 Well design on it or whatever, you know. But what’s happened and what it looks like to me that for a long time in precious metals, a lot of the precious metal bugs out there have been saying that precious metal markets have been artificially depressed. And it’s, it’s easy to write that off as conspiracy, right? You see that a lot of times too with crypto, the crypto whales are suppressing the bitcoin price, whatever, you know, you hear that there too. But it’s interesting. Is that what there’s what it looks like it’s happening because right now, I don’t know how much physical delivery what lead times are you getting out there for the physical delivery, two weeks, we’re getting four to six new top. And so it’s interesting. And what so what they’re saying is, is that the the conspiracy theory that I’ve heard is that that there’s these paper gold and paper silver, and that they’ve oversold it, meaning that they’ll say this one, you know, this security is is worth so many ounces of silver, and they sell it, then treat it like a stock like an equity. And there’s a lot of people have alleged for a long time that they’ve sold those times more than once, maybe dozens of times. And so what’s happening and why the supply is all janky is that people now want physical delivery, and there’s not enough to go around. And so that premium that’s skyrocket. So what should be happening is the spot price should be skyrocketing to reflect market changes and conditions because this is exactly what precious metals are designed for a hedge against. And that’s not functioning right. But then, but what happens is since it looks like the markets not being allowed to actually, well, it looks to me that the market is not being allowed to do true price discovery on precious metals for whatever reason, right? That retail premium is where the market is finding the price.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right, you’re starting to see a real decoupling in precious on hand metals versus precious paper metals. So I see a real decoupling,

Rob McNealy
Which then would support that there’s been some corruption and maybe some manipulation for the suppression of those prices. And it’s like, wow, and it’s funny because it’s like this goes back to COVID the trigger, but it’s only exposing this ID Oh, there’s this other problem. This this this rot, right. That’s been there for a long time. The rot comes from consumerist mentality among Americans that come from the lack of we don’t save money. We’re not providing to literacy that’s rot in my opinion. And then you have you know, all this just crazy amounts of US dollars being printed. That’s right. And then you have the precious metals markets, being rigged, apparently, or oversold, and that’s a rot it, all this stuff and all this outsourcing to China for the last three decades and how great it was, you know, and I’m from Detroit. So I know all I mean, I grew up in I went through high school in the 80s. And and I grew up through all that outsourcing happened in the 80s in the 90s. And then NAFTA happened in the mid 90s. Thank you, Bill Clinton. And so I mean, I, I saw what it did to Detroit one because I grew up in I was living there in that and I used to work in the auto industry. And it’s like, there’s rot from all the outsourcing and it’s like, so it’s like, there’s all this immense amount of shit of rot that’s just pile up for decades and decades and decades and, you know, go back to, you know, getting off the gold standard A long time ago, and I mean, this started probably before I was born really, but it’s all coming to head from this goddamn virus. It’s like, and then the housing market, the student loan bubble, the housing bubble again, it’s all just right all at once, and it’s happening around the planet all at once. Right? And it’s and it’s not, but it’s not happening overnight. It’s gonna take a year, probably the next year as this this pandemic goes through all those different major population centers. It’s gonna and so it’s like it’s gonna get good in one spot and then just pop up into more like crazy whack a mole. And so I don’t know man if this is probably going to be the most historically speaking, yeah, good or bad. It’s going to be a fucking ride. Yeah, and and you know what and why need to connect with smart people like you they get it? Because, you know, if the ones that are slightly prepared, are also going to be targets. That’s a fact. Right? You know, I like to read history. And I actually like to read about Russian history, and Ukrainian history and things. And I don’t know if you know much about what happened in Ukraine. But when the Soviets invaded the Ukraine, they had like, two levels of peasants, right? They had the peasants and the peasants that could hire somebody to work for them. They’re only slightly better off peasants. They call them coup locks. And what the Russians did is they said that every they they created all these policies, the Soviets create all sorts of quotas and stuff and they said, all these failures are because of the coup locks because they’re rich. They weren’t rich. They were just slightly less poor than the average peasant, but they might have you know, a little bigger farm and employ two people or something. That’s how the locks work. But the Soviets through propaganda whipped up, so much froth and hate and envy between The Super poor peasants and the cool locks. And they blamed every government failure on the cool locks into the point where they basically either killed center gulags or exiled they confiscated all the property, the cool locks the entire country. And that was that’s the that’s what the whole Ukrainian genocide was about in they blame, they call them coup locks. And I tell people now that, you know, we joke around about toilet paper envy and things like that. But we’re already starting to see the signs that there’s going to be people that the preppers the people that are self reliant the people that aren’t in debt, the people that you know, have some savings are probably going to be targets. And it’s going to be propagandize much like cool locks were and I do believe this is going to be a true threat over the next year or more. Friend of mine down in Texas. He has he’s a prepper and his wife and him you know, we talked a lot And she says they have like, they actually have some decent, you know, kind of, you know, and 95 reusable and 95 mass that look kind of stylish and I have if you look at my profile picture, I have one too. And because I bought them a long time. And, and it was funny because he told and I talked to him yesterday. And he said, because the damnedest thing just happened I go Why? Because my wife was at the store and somebody started calling her out for having a good mask not a homemade one. Wow, she’s got she’s got you know, she’s got a real nice mask and we just got these, you know, homemade ones. I’m like, holy shit. It’s like just I mean, I know I my mind just going like crazy places when I hear stuff like that. Yeah. Where’s it gonna go? You know, and you know, that’s that’s the stuff that kind of gets me worried about you know, protecting my family and stuff. Stuff like that is like, you know, you work very hard and save and you don’t go on that family vacation or you don’t go on that big trip because you want to buy, you know, some extra supplies or buy, you know, you don’t buy the nice steak but you buy a couple extra cans of beans or something, you know, you do that long enough. And you know, because you feel it’s an insurance policy and then you know, so you can ride these things out. And then and then somebody says or acts like you did something wrong. It’s like, you know, I just thought ahead. I was a boy scout too. By the way, I was also a firefighter and EMT, so I think about this stuff. But I don’t know man. This is a really a downer. Thanks. So what can we do? Well, what can we do to get people to wake up more? often can we help? How can people say how can we help people say it themselves? Is it too late?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I hate to go I really mean, but I’m really not worried about other people.

Rob McNealy
Fair enough.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right now I’m just worried about me and my family, I’ll help my neighbor, if I have to help my neighbor, but not at the expense of helping my family.

Rob McNealy
I think there will be a lot of people that will have to make those choices in the future. You know, and my wife and I, we have these kind of conversations too. You know, it’s like, what do you do? And, you know, because people know, we have, you know, we have some emergency supplies and stuff. I mean, I don’t hide that. I never hide it because I tried to help people and get them excited about it and say, Hey, this is an important thing. So I know those I know those decisions I’m gonna have to make at some point, because I’m the guy they call it ready. So looking for advice, right? So it just is what it is. But we knew that that we always knew that that was a risk. So you know, there’s nothing I can do about that now, but I don’t Want to be I want you know, I always say this is that I wear a mask. And my families have been wearing masks when we’re in public and things. Because I don’t want to be part of the problem. Because if you’re not part of the problem, you can be part of the solution. You know, what I’m saying is don’t be a victim first, right? Protect your family. Protect your what you got. Because if you’re in that position, then you do have the option to help other people. Right. And, you know, maybe I can’t help the whole neighborhood, but maybe I can help one person, you know, and, and that’s what I hope to do. And like, you know, we’re putting in a big garden this year, like a really big garden, like nuts. you’d laugh it’s like a farm. And I told my wife I go, you know, I don’t know where things are going. And and she’s about 98% where I am. I’m a little more like, no, buy everything we can possibly buy right now. You know, I’m a little more, you know, let’s just do we got this one last chance is how I see it. And I said, you know, let’s just put in more, let’s fill up some more lawn, put in some more plants and she’s like, why do we need more? I go, because we can help other people if we need. That’s why. And that’s how I think you know, and you know it doesn’t hurt me to buy you know, by the way you can buy seeds at the dollar store for for $1 everybody’s freaking out about seeds. Go to the dollar store dollar store has the cheapest seeds anywhere in the country. Nobody knows that. I don’t know why they don’t know that. But did you plant a garden? Are you planning a garden this year? Can you plant a garden?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I can but I won’t be this year.

Rob McNealy
You need to plant a garden. I’m gonna give you some shit about that. I think you should plant a garden. I really do. Please, little garden. Do this for me. Put your wife on. I’m just giving you shit. So Noir, where can people find out more?

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
About? Oh um yeah, we would way down the rabbit hole man, I thought we were going somewhere else. You can find me on Twitter: @InvestNoir, I N V E S T N O I R or you can check me out on Instagram at @CigarsandCrypto. Or you can listen to me on any of your podcast platforms of choice. Just search for Cigars and Crypto, or CigarsandCrypto.com.

Rob McNealy
You have the best radio voice ever. So, guys, you gotta listen to his podcast. He’s got some really, really great points out there. I really like where he’s coming from because he is my echo chamber. Thank you so much for listening this Robin Neely. Check us out on the web at Rob McNealy calm.

Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Thanks for having me.

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Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio Transcript

Tom Gresham - Gun Talk Radio

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Okay, folks, I am real excited. Today I have an a guest that I’ve been a big fanboy of for a long time. And that is Tom Gresham. He is the host of the gun talk radio show. He has been a gun rights activist and gonna choose yes for decades. I’ve only been listening to him for a few years, but his wisdom is amazing. So Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Oh, you bet. This is fun. Anytime we get to talk about gun to what’s going on from the political standpoint. And it got to it crazy right now what’s going on over the last, what, three, four weeks without Coronavirus thing?

Rob McNealy
Yeah, a lot of things are happening because of that. And I wanted to get your kind of, you know, take on what you’re talking to people about and what you’re hearing on the streets because I got a much smaller, you know, network in this space than you do. But it’s certainly interesting that before the corona pandemic, it seemed to me that there’s definitely been a war on guns, especially in states like Virginia and California, where people are really going out there and trying to destroy liberty. What effect has the corona pandemic have had on the states that are trying to go after gun rights?

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk
Maybe just a little bit of background there because I’ve been doing this for about 50 years. So fighting for gun rights are talking about it everything else. The key thing to understand is that they always are after your rights. is not new. It’s been there 25 years ago, 50 years ago, they always have want to ended, want to end private sale guns, they want to end private ownership of guns. They really truly do think on the government’s own guns. So when you start with that background, you realize what they’re actually doing now. And so under the corona virus pandemic, we have a number of states who use that as an excuse to shut down gun stores stop all sales of guns in their state when they can’t do that, legally. But that said, you know, why not? Let’s go to shop. So what happened was the gun rights groups, owner groups all got together individually, they’re taking action, but also they’re taking action together. For instance, in California, you have four different gun rights groups working together Sacramento Foundation, in our a Firearms Policy Coalition, and one of the California State groups all working together, but NRA has been suing thicker metal Foundation has been suing an unsung group that people don’t know a lot about. It’s actually one of the most effective groups is the National Shooting Sports Foundation. That’s the group that puts on the SHOT Show. And they have entree into the White House into various places. And honestly, they’re the ones who made one of the biggest changes about two weeks ago, where now the Department of Homeland Security has listed gun stores and shooting ranges as essential businesses under the law enforcement umbrella. And so that gave cover for a number of governors to who are looking at a lawsuit we’re going to lose, we’re suing them. They said, Okay, well, we’ll just say we’re going to follow the federal guidelines, and that’s our cover political cover on the thing. So in most states, we’ve been able to get the gun stores opened up again. New Jersey was difficult. Massachusetts has done a flip flop like three times, four times now maybe in California is problematic as California always is. And that’s just going to take More legal action they’re working on?

Rob McNealy
Well, it’s good that I think that in this case, the President in the department Homeland Security made the right call. One of the things that I’m seeing with this pandemic and one of the things that a lot of people I know in the prepper space are kind of concerned about and it looks like it’s going to go that direction is that there may be an increased crime, at least in certain jurisdictions. Combined from the facts that many police departments are coming down with, you know, a lot of the officers are, you know, come becoming infected. I’m originally from Detroit right now, I think almost 25% of the Detroit police force is out on quarantine because of COVID. You have cities in my city to Salt Lake City where I am, California, Philadelphia have already put listed all the crimes they’re not going to come and send a cop for. Which to me, you know, I don’t I’m not a criminal. Right. I’m not one of those guys that have all the statistics. But it seems to me that when you have on one hand, you have the cops not coming to calls for 911. You have cops that are sick. And you combine that with releasing a bunch of prisoners, even if they’re low level low risk prisoners, it seems to me you’re gonna have an increase in crime. Anecdotally, I have a friend of mine in New York City right now lives in a good neighborhood in New York City said I’ve been there five years. He’s one of our community members. And this we were talking about this yesterday morning, he told me this time he said, Look, he I asked him, I go, what are you seeing on the ground? Because I don’t trust anything I’m seeing anywhere else. I want to hear from people that are there. Sure. And this is what he said. He said, Look, he goes, there’s been eight armed robberies and one home invasion in my neighborhood in the last two weeks. That’s never happened in the five years I’ve been here. So to me, it seems like having gun stores open seems to be the thing that people are getting. have to learn to defend themselves or at least have the tools available to defend themselves going forward. Now, I don’t know.

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
It’s a great point. And it’s practice why we’re watching this rush of people going to the gun stores and buying guns and buy an apple. And I’ve had a couple of gun stores, people who are in the business community tell me that 90 to 95% of people buying guns right now are first time gun buyers. Imagine that these are people who do not own a firearm, and all of a sudden they have decided out of the blue to go buy a gun of why are they doing that? It goes back to what you were just saying. But also it’s just kind of this general sense of unease. It doesn’t take a lot for people to get rid of that bubble, artificial bubble that they choose to put themselves in where they can pretend that they’re safe, or we don’t need guns. We have the police we have this we don’t have to worry about it. Part of that is why I also say you guys are crazy for thinking that you need a gun for something Defense around the police. We saw the same thing happen in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, the world and especially that night, the nation watched on video. As all symbols of civilization went away. There were no police. There were no police. There was only brute force source you’re left with, and you’re left to survive or not survive on the basis of what you could keep or protect yourself with. And people even in Detroit, or Seattle, or Salt Lake City looked at that what? Wow, honey, if that happened here, we don’t have any way to protect yourselves. So people went out and bought guns all over the country. Same things happen right now. They have come to grips with the realization that they really are on their own. This is not something we’ve always done this. This is always true. The police will be there when they can. Sometimes it’s two minutes, sometimes it’s five minutes, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, no matter what it is. It’s too late to Two minutes is too late. Just this morning, we had a story I believe it was out of Knoxville, Tennessee, where three women were stabbed to death. In a convenience store. A guy goes in there and kills three women stabbed them to death. The police arrived at two minutes a fabulous response time to live for those women. My whole deal is really simple. When you put your pants on in the morning, put on a gun. I wear a gun in my house all the time. I have a gun on all the time. Why is that? Because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I’m competent. And I practice and people. They’re new gun owners. We’ll talk about that a second. What should you do if you just bought a gun? But the reality is, you’re responsible for your own safety, you are your own first responder.

Rob McNealy
I couldn’t agree with that more. Interestingly enough, I’m a pretty moderate guy. I’m very conservative on things like guns in the economy and fiscally I’m very fiscally conservative. And but I still have a lot of friends that are you know, liberals straight up liberal so I’m not even going to hide it now I don’t hate liberals because they lean a different way than I do. Like I try to get along with everybody. In the last week and a half I’ve had four phone calls from friends. Three of them were asking me about their first gun purchase the fourth person was asking where they can find emergency food. Like and of course I’m the guy they call but and and then and and I always I always like to play with people like I thought you weren’t a big gun guy and they’re like, you know, I’m not a big gun guy but but you know, in there backpedaling and I love my friends don’t get me wrong, and I do. Trust me. I give them a little crap upfront, but I do absolutely everything that I can to give them good advice. And and then you know, you know, help them get along and do it safely. So I guess that’s a good segue. What would you recommend to all these new gun owners, especially these liberal gun owners that have never really been around guns What would you recommend they do first thing after they get their gun?

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk
Well, first of all, I, I don’t make a distinction between conservatives and liberals. I just don’t care. It’s truly a non starter for me. I know it’s a fun thing to talk about those liberals or those conservatives, but when it comes to gun rights, All I care about is you’re either with us or against us. And I don’t care if you’re the super leftist and there are a lot of leftist and liberals who are really pretty good on the second amendment because they believe in the Bill of Rights, they protect all the other rights and they back the Second Amendment. But to your question, I guess a couple of things. If you are a first time gun buyer, go to kids, you can’t go to a lot of shooting ranges right now and can’t get instruction. But there are a lot of places you can go online and get some instruction we just put up a brand new video on our YouTube channel, go to gun talk media on YouTube, and we’re calling it the three minute EDC, three minute everyday carry. It’s a tip we’re going to do. There’s three minutes that’s On basically how to load and unload a revolver, we’re going to do the same thing with a lot of other things. But here’s the other if you’re a gun owner, and there are a lot of gun owners who are watching this right now, this is our opportunity to once again show that we’re the responsible ones out there. All of us have friends who may not be into guns, they you may know people who are first time gun owners, and if you don’t, maybe you have this extended group of Facebook people or even church members, and you can make an offer, hey, I could help. And even if you can’t go see them with a social distancing. You can do a FaceTime chat, zoom connection, and say, okay, that gun your pistol you just bought, put it on the table in the box. And Alright, we’re going to walk through this open up the box, there’s a pamphlet in there. The gun makers spent a lot of money and a lot of time on the owner’s manual. Read every page in your owner’s manual you will learn a lot actually ended up knowing a lot more than a lot of gun owners do. And then let’s talk about our We’re gonna take it out the box, and we’re going to make sure it’s unloaded, you’re gonna show me on your camera. And we as gun owners can walk them through. How do you take out a magazine? How do you work a slide? How do you when you pick up your gun, here’s your tip for the day to grab a gun, make a gun, that is you make a finger gun, right. And then you pick up the gun with your finger gun. Now your finger straight along the side of the gun. It’s a safe way to teach people to pick up guns and not wrap their finger inside the trigger the way people tend to do. So we as gun owners can actually help people be safe with how they handle their gun. Let’s talk about the four rules of gun safety. We’ll talk about muzzle discipline. We’ll talk about how you work a slide, keep your finger off the trigger. We can help these people out and then when we can all get back together and you just have a standing offer. When we can do this. I’ll take you out to the range and I will teach you some things We’ll get you some level of comfort and familiarity. We may have a million or 2 million or who knows how many new gun owners who some of them could be persuaded to come to the side of the Second Amendment. You’re not going to make them conservative. But we don’t need them to be conserved. We just need them to vote on the basis of the Second Amendment. I truly don’t care where they are on any other issues. Nothing.

Rob McNealy
Well, I agree. I’m glad that you bring that up. Because I’m basically a one issue voter anymore on the second amendment and, and I look at a pretty straightforward if you’re going to be bad on the Second Amendment, you’re probably not going to be good on any of the other ones either. And that goes for conservatives, too. I tell people I tell people all the time you do not have a you are not entitled to my vote ever. When it comes to politicians, and I think that’s important to stress that is, you know, if you you know, there’s no good politicians that don’t like certain rights, either Do you like the rights or you don’t? You may not like what people do with those rights. It’s a different story, I think. But you know, I think it’s important that you know, we point out that you know, you can be more liberal in some ways and still be a big defender of your your person your right to self defense and I think a lot of people miss the fact that ultimately everybody is conservative when it comes to their own life. Typically, about this it just they don’t usually sometimes they don’t realize it until it’s too late to do something about it. And I and I see that it’s interesting. I was arguing with this not arguing discussing on social media recently with a one of my more liberal Facebook friends who was in Dallas, and I was shocked that she must be suicidal because her position you know, she I posted an article about why people should get a gun and this is like, three four weeks ago before people were freaking out. And and my position was like, get it while you can get it now because it’s going to be A lot harder and a few weeks to get anything, which is so far proven to be correct. And and she’s like, Well, why do I need a gun? I go, Well, there’s a good chance that you know, the crime is going to go up around you and everywhere else. And she’s like, well, if I need a gun to defend myself, then I don’t really want to live on this planet. And I go, and I said, bless your heart. But I hope you don’t change your mind when it’s too late to go back from that decision. And that’s an interesting,

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
One of things I tell people to look, particularly if you’re a parent, you don’t have that choice anymore. You don’t have the choice to say, well, I’ll just die rather than defend myself because, number one, if you’re protecting your child, then you need a tool to do that. You need the skills to do that. But more than that, even if you’re by yourself, if you die, you traumatize that child, what a selfish thing to do. To say I’m going I’m willing to die for this and traumatize my children. Forever, because I wouldn’t take the simple steps to take to get protection to learn how to use a gun. I describe a gun as a parachute. It’s the thing you use, when every other thing is failed. You know, you run out of gas, the wings don’t fire the engine don’t fire, you’re crashing, you jump out with a parachute. In this case, we try to do everything we can to not use a gun. We work hard at, you know, avoid those evasion, awareness, you know, de escalation, all the other things we can do, because any day I don’t have to use my gun, it’s a great day, and I hope I end up dying at the age of 142. Never having used my gut. But having said that, I also know that stuff happens. I mean, we have fire extinguishers in our house. I didn’t plan to ever have a fire. I did. Okay. It’s the thing you use to control the situation. Until help gets there. Think of the fire extinguisher analogy. It’s not there to put out a house. is to try to control it until the fire department gets there. Same thing with a gun. And you know, one of the things that people and you know this, but a lot of people don’t know the public is that the police legally have no duty to protect anyone. The courts have ruled over and over, but they’re not responsible for you, and they don’t have a legal duty to even come. Or if they come, they can sit there and watch you get injured, they don’t have a legal responsibility to protect you.

Rob McNealy
Well, that came up down in Florida, right? Down Down at Sandy Hook, right, the resource officer waited on the outside of the building, during that environment or during that that mass shooting and so and you know, and it’s funny because I follow that a little bit, but a lot of the courts basically said there’s nothing we can do against them and then they you know, work really hard because of the public outrage about it. But ultimately, they’re they’re not legally obligated to defend you. And I was the first and only As a first responder, I was been an EMT and a firefighter and I’ve worked around law enforcement many years. And I can tell you, it’s not a bad thing, but even EMTs and firefighters are told, save yourself first. Don’t put yourself in danger. That’s typically the mantra, right? So I think it’s a personal responsibility, and no one’s gonna care about your life more than you. Let’s be honest.

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Well, to your point, if the police and the firemen EMTs will save your life first. That’s pretty good advice for all of us. Save Your Life first. don’t depend on anybody else. And don’t you love the folks who said, Well, you know, I would never have a gun in my home. Really? Okay. So if somebody breaks in, we’re going to call, I’m gonna call at least Well, that doesn’t make any sense. I thought you just said you would never had a gun in your home. What do you think the police are going to come in? They’re going to come in with a gun. That makes no sense whatsoever. You’re okay with somebody having a gun, but only if they were a certain kind of clothing. Only if they’re wearing

Rob McNealy
Tiny little badge, right?

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Yeah, exactly. That’s which we already have to get into the whole. Who’s more competent? Yeah, very well, maybe the woman is walking in the streets more confident about 90% of the police officers out there. And that’s no knock on the cops, they get what they get. We’re trading, but most of them are not gun people. Most of them don’t train on their own, most of them won’t spend the money on ammo. And so they get minimal training with very minimal remedial recurrent training, and they’re just simply not very good. So once again, do you really want to trust your life to that, but this whole Corona Virus Pandemic has been interesting. And as I say there may be an opportunity here at the end of it for us to pick up some people in the gun world and gun culture if you will. But only if we reach out to them and we’re not engaging in the Where have you been all along and also, you know, we’re making fun of them. There’s a an addictive attraction for putting people down, especially on the internet, and, you know, rather than do that we should be looking at this and going, Wow, what a golden opportunity. We could pick up a million votes with a million votes we win on a national basis with a million votes, you win.

Rob McNealy
Well, it was interesting. One of the people that asked me about advice is someone who’s actually in New York City, and he’s an attorney of all things. And, and I said, Look, I don’t know your laws in New York City. But I said, it’s really hard to get a gun at all right now, because they’re everywhere I know, is sold out of most inventory right now. But I tried to help them out, gave me some suggestions on what he could do and where he could go. But it’s I think you’re right. I think unfortunately, I think it’s part of the human kind of, you know, programming that we have that people don’t think about those things still, it’s right in their lap, right. Right now there’s somewhere between two and 600 people De dying in New York City from COVID right now I just looked at the numbers, the raw numbers from New York City that’s what the numbers are looking for look like 400 people died from COVID since yesterday which is sad and scary and and I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was living there Now personally because I know there is gonna be unrest people just I think when you get people in a group or you know people a lot of people are in a mass and they live close to each other like in a big city like New York City. People just get dis gets scared and they get restless and they go crazy. So, so the guess the last thing I wanted to ask you about and see if you’ve heard anything about this is what do you see is happening to the supply chain and I don’t just mean about the FOMO knowing the fear of missing out and the panic buying or the last minute buying. I’ve heard some rumors that because China has been shut down for so long that that could start impacting the US gun manufacturing industry as a whole. Have you heard anything about that at all in your circles?

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
I really haven’t. Again, remember, we’ve been through these crushes before, when Obama was elected when it looked like Hillary was going to be elected, we have a run on guns. There was was eight years ago, 10 years ago now, you couldn’t find guns, you couldn’t find animal. There’s just nothing there. That’s going to happen again, that’s happening right now. The gun makers are, especially the ammo makers are not going to gear up to take care of this demand. Because they know it will go away and when it goes away, it drops off the end of the table. It’s just gone. And so they’re not going to hire more people. They’re not going to add shifts just not going to happen. So what’s out there is out there there’s there’s enough ammo in the pipeline to take care of all of our shooting for the next 10 years. But not if you buy your next 10 years worth of ammo right now all at once. That’s what’s going on. I guess my takeaway is what I’ve been telling people on gun talk radio for yours now is investing they have a thing called dollar cost averaging, which means buy stock every month. Whether it’s up whether it’s down just every month to buy a little bit. We should do the same thing with ammunition. ammo six months ago was so cheap, it was like a giveaway ammo. You could buy it for nothing and it was available everywhere. When this whole nonsense is over. You know anybody can find $10 a week. Okay, that’s one box of nine millimeter ammo. Anybody can find 10 bucks a week. Buy a box of ammo a week. At the end of the year or two years you have two or three shelves full of ammo. This is not your shooting ammo This is your the next time the world loses its mind ammo, and then you can just you know do shooting but you know this will all come back. This will all get back to normal. The gun makers are making guns there’s gonna be plenty of guns for everybody. Actually, I’ve heard a gun people say Huh, dig around in my safe. I’m selling guns right now. Prices are up, I put them in the gun stores on consignment, I’m gonna make some money. If you’re a real gun person, you don’t have really a need to go out and buy guns at inflated prices right now. So just take a deep breath, sit back Come middle of the summer, this will all be over. And if you went out bought several guns at inflated prices, if you have to sell them, you’re gonna take a PDR

Rob McNealy
I think that’s really good advice. Tom. I do appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find out about you and where can they check out your website?

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
Well, several different ways to go. Gun talk comm is the home base for everything. We have videos on YouTube, Roku, Amazon Fire Apple TV, just look for gun talk where we have thousands of those. We have the guns in gear television show which runs on the sports channel. And then of course, the gun talk radio show is available in podcast. So that’s the number two all time podcast in the hobby category according to Apple. So those are the basic ones. And then we actually have a smartphone app is very cool GunDealio that gives you great deals on guns and ammo. If you go to GunDealio calm, you can get it for your iPhone or your Android. So a lot of ways to keep up.

Rob McNealy
Tom Gresham, thank you so much. I really appreciate it today.

Tom Gresham – Gun Talk Radio
For sure, take care.

Episode Links

Audio Interview
Video Interview
Interview Transcript

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains Transcript

Brad Kam - Unstoppable Domains

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey folks today Rob McNealy here. And I am talking to the co founder of unstoppable domains, Brad cams. Brad, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Great. Thanks for having me.

Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you coming on. I’ve been a big fan of what you’ve been doing now for. I don’t know, I heard about you guys probably about a couple months back. And I actually got to talk to you offline, because I actually think I want to buy one of your domains. But you’re going to educate me and the audience today about what your domains are doing. And what I’m, before we not kind of get into all that. Let’s talk about you a little bit. Give me a little bit of history about you. What’s your background?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yes, I’m from Atlanta. I’ve been starting companies since college days, started out in the real estate world and actually after the last economic crash started buying up homes during this period where they dropped by like 80 90% in Atlanta, so it was pretty, pretty wild, pretty wild, pretty wild situation, but eventually kind of realized I needed to, I needed to get into the software game needed to get to San Francisco needed to get into startups. That’s really where the big change was happening. So I moved to San Francisco in 2012. And I moved into this house called 20 mission, which has been referred to as a house that Bitcoin built in various publications. Because it was a Bitcoin hacker house where the second Bitcoin exchange in the US launched in our basement of Vitalik came and gave a talk before Ethereum launched in the courtyard, pretty much everybody there was doing something Bitcoin related. So I kind of moved to San Francisco and at the same time, just kind of completely dove into crypto related things and kind of haven’t looked back since then. But in general, been doing startups.

Rob McNealy
Very cool. So tell me what is Unstoppable Domains all about?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
So it’s about free speech tech, it’s about creating a censorship resistant internet and we’ll We do is we build domain names on blockchains. So we have a domain registry similar to like a.com. Except for it’s part of a smart contract on a blockchain. So we’ve got crypto Ethereum. And the way it works is is every domain is stored by you in your cryptocurrency wallet, a traditional domain would be stored by like GoDaddy or your registrar or something like that. And because you have this mandatory custodian, they can move the domain around, they can take it away. So a blockchain domain is is one that you can that you control, it’s a self custody. ERC 721. And you use the domains. For websites for censorship resistant websites, you store your website content on IPFS or another decentralized storage network. And you can also use them for payments. And this is kind of weird. This is different than a traditional domain. The same domain can work for both websites and payments. So I’ve got Brad crypto, you could type that into a browser and see my website or you could type that into a cryptocurrency wallet, and you can send me Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever you can send any currency essentially to one domain. Okay,

Rob McNealy
so how does that work is how does it work? So how do you make money? How do I get a domain?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah, so the way it works is is you can go to unstoppable domains calm, it’s gonna look similar. It’s kind of like our version of a GoDaddy, you can type in domains into the search bar, you can check out you can pay with credit card or crypto. After you do that you can manage your domain meaning that you add your crypto addresses so you can receive money to it and launch a website, a website on decentralized storage. So we’ve got a bunch of little tools in there kind of like a decentralized Wix where it’s really easy with a few clicks to go and build your website and launch.

Rob McNealy
So is this a one time payment one and done thing or is this like a subscription model like an annual model like a lot of much of the other registrar’s that are out there?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah. This is a one time fee. And the reason why is because it should just be something that you control and feel like you can control forever. If you have a subscription, you have these risks where the registry could just jack up the price on you. And there was a really kind of crazy thing that’s been going on in the traditional domain world around.org, where they’re selling the what was previously a nonprofit to a for profit company and talking about jacking the prices by three x. And all of these essentially, most nonprofits in the world are using.org. And now they’re all kind of at risk, where they’re under the you know, they’re under the under the thumb of this, of this registry that can just change prices whenever. So a once simple, easier, safer for the user.

Rob McNealy
So do you so the I guess the question I would have, and I’m just trying to understand because I’m actually kind of interested in this project for Tosca, actually. And so if you go away, Does it still work?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah. Yeah, you’re relying on a theorem and you’re relying On the ipfs protocol, which is a decentralized storage network, although Pretty soon, you’ll be able to rely on many different decentralized storage networks. So I would say that’s a little bit less of a risk, because you can always just put your website on multiple networks. For aetherium, though you are relying on on a theory and still being there and stable, so doesn’t doesn’t rely on unstoppable domains. Once you have the domain, it’s yours doesn’t really matter what happens to us you already control it.

Rob McNealy
So essentially, when you say it’s on a theory, does that mean that that’s where the DNS is located? So I’m hitting, that’s where the I type in POS network and then all or whatever it would be on your protocol. I’m hitting the Ethereum network and that’s just a permanent DNS record through a theorem.

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah, so if any of your any of your your community has ever used like my ether wallet, for example, which is a theorem wallet, so there, they have my ether wallet, crypto, and so you can type it into it. browser and you go there and when the browser when you type in my ether wallet crypto the browser goes and reads the Ethereum blockchain, finds the my ether wallet crypto domain, and then goes and looks for the hash where the content is located at the ipfs. Hash, and then it shows you the shows you the website.

Rob McNealy
So you said you can put it on multiple networks. How does that work?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Well, I said that I don’t want to maybe over complicate something, I said that purely to say that you don’t need to bet on any one storage network. Right now we’re using ipfs, because that’s the one that’s the most mature and has, you know, great tools and a lot of developers already using it. And so what the way that works is I upload ipfs and then people anywhere can store and share my website to the network. So instead of having my website stored on Amazon Web Services, where if they decide they don’t like what I’m doing, they can just flip me off. I can just turn me off. Instead, I have dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of different people all storing a copy of my website and unlikely they’re all just going to decide to turn me off all at once.

Rob McNealy
Exactly. So for this way, do you notice any kind of lag time or speed difference between DNS on a traditional registrar or a DNS on unstoppable

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
so the theory of look apart is quite good, quite easy, quite fast. The IP Fs the how fast website content loads is based on to things it’s based on how many people you’ve got, that are storing and sharing your website. And you it’s also based on how like close they are geographically to you. So what this leads to is, if your website’s popular, then it’s also performance. It also works well, which is kind of like in a weird way. It’s kind of like the opposite of a lot of traditional web systems where you like get DDoS like you get too much traffic. And things go down. Whereas here, if you have a whole bunch of demand, you’re probably also going to have a whole bunch of supply of websites of copies of your website being stored around. So I guess that’s the long answer. The short answer is right now because it’s early. It doesn’t work that well. But the moment something gets popular, it’ll work quite well. So it has this kind of like opposite of the regular internet approach. As it scales as it scales, it gets better.

Rob McNealy
Is there a way to then to use unstoppable for the DNS, and then just pointed to a normal web server host somewhere?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Sure, you could do that I think you would lose, lose a little bit of the advantage, though, because what we’re really the purpose of all this is to have a censorship resistant internet is to have essentially self custody of both your domain and your website so that neither of those can be points of failure where you have to rely on other companies like you control that stuff. And no one can really stop you from publishing A browser might say, like, Hey, this is a really, you know, you know, this is illegal, what you’re doing, and we don’t want to show this record. So there’s always like that level of place where somebody could try to, you know, block you from being seen. But that’s different than somebody just being able to take you down. Like right now, registrar can just say, we don’t like what you’re doing, we’re going to, we’re going to, we’re going to take the domain away, you know, right now, Amazon Web Services can just switch you off. And, you know, of course, you know, in the US, I don’t think this is, you know, as big of a problem, although there are certainly issues here as well, but around the world, there’s, you know, all kinds of issues with these tools. So,

Rob McNealy
so do you think that going forward, especially with crypto, do you expect that there’s gonna be actual censorship of different types of cryptocurrencies now, and I’m not trying to argue with you, I’m trying to play devil’s advocate a little bit because, you know, I’m involved with a crypto project as well. And the one thing you hear about everything from all these kryptos essentially censorship resistance censorship resistance, the most important thing, blah, blah, blah. The question is, you don’t really hear about too many kryptos actually being censored. Yet, do you expect that that will change in the future?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Well, I think the very nature of it is censorship resistant, like so for example, like Bitcoin and aetherium, do not require permission in order to get an account from anyone, they’re able to be sent anywhere to anyone. So they’ve already proven their censorship resistant use case in the market very early on. And this was very controversial. One of the early use cases of Bitcoin was sending money to WikiLeaks when they got shut off. And regardless of how you feel about them, the fact that there was no way for anyone to stop that was, in a sense of first the first time that somebody was ever able to publicly fundraise for a lot of money completely against the will of the United States and various other countries. And they had no way to stop because of its censorship resistance. So it’s really about like, how do the tools work? And I think you can do the same thing that you can do for currency with domain names. Right now. domain names On the sort of fundamental level, they get taken away, they can get taken away. And if you change the power structure, then you kind of change the entire ecosystem. So that’s that’s the idea is like cryptocurrency is like a safe, open source permissionless space to build tools on top of where everybody can, everybody can join in, everybody can be a part of it. And that’s part of the reason why I, it’s important on the fundamental layer. It’s not like every single person is getting censored, they’re not. But we all benefit from the open source, the open source tech because of this, like social, social, you know, social cooperation thing. We’re all working on the same stuff. We’re all building stuff that’s more and more interoperable. There’s innovation all over the world, like so. It’s not just about the people getting censored, although they matter. And I think in the on the website side, it’s a pretty big deal. Like there’s, you know, a law in Turkey that says that a read that a hosting service is not allowed to happen. Have the word gay on any website content automatically pre banned naked as well. You see a lot of this in particular, there’s been some pretty weird cases with startups using l y dot L y. And when the Islamic in Libya came, took over, they started taking down some websites, including porn websites and things like that. Your basic internet infrastructure should not have those kinds of random points of failure, where people can its problem is people, like people that you shouldn’t have anyone in charge of what’s okay to say. Applications can still create an experience where they, you know, remove the harshest or the most offensive voices if they choose, but it’s still a better internet for everybody. If I can then go choose a different browser. If I don’t like what they do, and I think that makes a lot of sense.

Rob McNealy
Do you feel that Going forward, as demand starts increasing that, that the speed to deliver these on, you know, unsensible website, do you think that’s going to improve over time? And you said, there’s gonna be more options? What options are there going to be for? You know, besides IPFS?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah, well, so there’s there are, you know, several in the works that are, you know, advancing very quickly. ipfs is a couple of years ahead. But there’s there’s several that are advancing very quickly. And I think the idea is, is that you’re going to want to have your content on maybe three to five, just a sort of like an extra, an extra safety layer. But in regards to kind of the speed and performance, it’s really about how many people are storing and sharing that website. And so that’s about, in part how popular the website is. And so I think right now, the only problem is, is is not so much the way the tools work, it’s that there aren’t enough popular websites yet. And those are coming And I think the tools are just getting Easy enough where people are starting non technical people are starting to build stuff all over the place. And that’s been kind of one of the new steps. That’s happened really just in 2020. I would say, even before now it wasn’t. And now we’ve got this thing with browsers. So Opera browser, which 80 million users on their Android app can now just type in a dark crypto domain, just like they would a.com. And that just happened today. That was kind of the big, big, decentralized web news for us today. So I think it’s really just that there aren’t enough. There aren’t enough websites yet. But the stuff the stuff actually works, you would just need a lot of people storing it in order to get really, really good censorship resistance and really good uptime.

Rob McNealy
So what do you see about protecting websites from denial of service attacks? does this affect that in any way or help with that at all?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
I yeah. Because essentially what happens is if you get a whole bunch of traffic, it as long as that well, so It doesn’t, it doesn’t automatically prevent malicious actors. But you can do things like say, I will only permission these wallets or wallets with these criteria to visit a website in the first place. So you can create like easy kind of locks on your website if you don’t want to, if you if you’re at risk of those types of things. Ultimately, I would just say that, in general, if you think about, like, what’s really happening if Amazon Web Services, you know, used to store essentially all the website data on their servers, and now all of a sudden, we allow anybody in the world who has extra storage space to offer it up to anybody in the world. We’re going to get a marketplace and it’s going to be a lot more efficient than what we’ve got over here. So I think it’s just that like this model of open source marketplace, you know, peer to peer marketplace for storage space, just I think it just makes the internet better and basically every way over the long term. You know, if we’re talking if we’re saying like, you know how performant is it over the next year, I would say, you know, it’s going to be a little, it’s going to be a little inconsistent, depending on geography, depending on the specific website, some websites are going to work far better than others, because they have more, they have more nodes sharing them. So you’re going to have these kinds of clunky things. So it’s kinda like 1990s level internet. But the point is, is that it works like it does work. We do have a decentralized web, that functions, it’s going to need all the tools and it’s not it’s going to need a lot of love before it, you know, it can really, you know, migrate over the previous, you know, the previous kind of internet infrastructure stuff. But it does work for the censorship resistant use cases. And it does work for daps you know, cryptocurrency applications that, you know, are trying to remove all the points of failure in their applications, but they still have the domain name problem, and they still have the website on Amazon Web Services problem. So it solves, you know, these these two key problems for them. And then we’ve also got the youtubers so the crypto YouTubers have you know been getting their videos taken down. And you just put up those videos on decentralized web and then no one can take them down. Now we’re going to need aggregators to make it easy for, you know, for everybody to find that stuff, YouTube’s great at the discovery part. So obviously we have some work to do. It’s not going to work tomorrow, but you can go ahead and put them there. Especially if YouTube takes him down. Definitely go put them up. And you can do new things like you can charge for them, you charge 25 cents for them. You could have a tip button in case you don’t want to charge but it’d be great if it’s easy when someone likes your video that they can just easily tip you crypto. There’s all kinds of new stuff you can do.

Rob McNealy
So are your unstoppable domains, would you are they compatible with things like NginX and CloudFlare

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
CloudFlare has done a lot of has done a lot of things to integrate with Etherum and IPFS. So CloudFlare is is kind of very far along I would need to look a little closer at what engine x is doing. I just don’t have I don’t, I don’t actually have enough personal knowledge. They’re

Rob McNealy
very cool. So where would you say you are in your roadmap? What’s next for you? You got the opera integration done now, which is a huge thing. Where what’s the next big thing you guys are working on?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Yeah. So we’ve got, you know, we’ve got our registries out, we’ve got crypto and dot zil. We’ve got over 200,000 domains registered. So they’ve been started. That process started about a year ago. So there’s domains that have been being being registered unclaimed ever since then. We have been mostly focused on the wallets so there’s like my ether wallet, trust wallet, my crypto coin Oh, me atomic, several others coming soon, where you can send money using the domains. There’s also a Chrome extension. So it’s a unstoppable Chrome extension. So if you prefer to use Chrome you can use it also works in brave and then opera. So that’s the that’s the that’s the native announcement of the first browser. The first major browser to ever support a non DNS domain name. Attention so far as we know because it’s pretty much been all DNS before this it’s not just about blockchain domain you know blockchain Domain Name System they’ve never supported anything that wasn’t you know just part of this this one kind of I can I can control DNS system now it’s all about making the tool is easier to build build websites. So that’s a that’s a big focus there’s templates like I mentioned for decentralized Wix there’s people at Cairo crypto you can easily launch your own decks there’s a bunch more stuff like that that are that are coming tools just to make it easy to build websites.

Rob McNealy
Very cool stuff. Bradley cams. Where can people find out more about your domains unstoppable?

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Well, you can do UnstoppableDomains.cam. or check us out on Twitter, UnstoppableWeb or Telegram UnstoppableDomains. There’s always a conversation going on in there.

Rob McNealy
Very good. Bradley, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Brad Kam – Unstoppable Domains
Thanks a bunch.

Episode Links

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Interview Transcript

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film Transcript

Lenni Uitto - Xelot Film

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey, today guys, this is Rob McNealy and I have an awesome guest on the show today. It’s someone I’ve known for a while, and I think it’s gonna be a fun show. So I want you to listen along. We are talking today with Lenny you Ito is the founder of zealot films. He is an indie filmmaker, director, producer and actor. And he is someone I would even call a personal friend, and definitely a colleague and so welcome to the show. Wendy. How are you doing, buddy?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Thanks, so good know Glad to be here.

Rob McNealy
Well, I’m glad that you could take time out of your quarantine to take your time with us. Seems like everybody’s got a lot of spare time these days to make content on the internet.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Definitely,

Rob McNealy
But, so for the people who don’t know you yet, give us a little bit of background by tell us about you.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
A little bit background. I mean, filmmaking, it wasn’t my first thing I was. I’m a software engineer, honestly. So I’m a little bit of a nerd.

Rob McNealy
A little about you.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
I know. I’m like six foot four. I’m a big guy. Like, I got into filmmaking about like, what was it like four years ago? And well, four years. Okay, so we gotta go further back. I started I was I like to camp. I like to go camping. I found that I like to also make videos and edit them and it kind of like, it scratched an itch that I had. And so I found that I really liked doing that and then I I started taking an acting class with a local actor here in Utah, a cool guy, Jim Stevens. And it’s kind of where my my whole film career started. And I made my first short film called The trap, which is part of the WR o L series. Excuse me. Um, but yeah, so started out. And that’s where I’ve kind of gone that, but that’s trajectory and started making short films and other film related things. And I’ve been doing it for about four years. I’d say four years professionally, but I mean, probably more like 10 years, like goofing around with filmmaking. doing like a YouTubecamping videos and stuff. But.

Rob McNealy
Well, you know, everybody’s got to start somewhere, right? I always joke around and say that as a grown up, I went to welding school because I didn’t get a chance to learn shop class when I was a kid. And like as it is, I’m like, I’m like, I want to learn something new. And I just had this interest and it just kind of I took a little welding class started goofing around with a welder and I’m, like, really want to learn welding because I’m really passionate about making art and metallurgy and being able to make stuff. And then next thing, you know, I’m like, in a full blown, you know, act, you know, not acting but welding program. And so I understand, like, you know, it’s interesting, seeing a lot of people that are older, like my age and your age, that are trying new things, you know, and just following their passion and kind of finding things that help them express their creativity. And I think that’s kind of a I think it’s an important thing.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Yeah, for me. I mean, I’m the kind of guy that I like to get stuff done. So I mean, I like trying new things. Like if there’s, if I got to fix my car, like, I’m happy to go and learn how to do it. So like learning something new is kind of fun for me, and not expecting others to do it for me, I guess. So that’s kind of where I like to do a lot more than just, you know, I don’t just Direct to film or accident film all end up editing as well as editing as well and doing other parts of the filmmaking because it’s a huge process. There’s a lot involved when you actually start to look at it. But I’m always puzzled. I mean,

Rob McNealy
Well in my limited exposure to working around, you know, making videos and things like that is you don’t realize there’s you know, there’s the artistic piece right, the whole warm and fuzzy artist kind of nonsense that goes along with it right? They always hear the stereotype of bad actors are always in in this spacey artistic zone. But all right, maybe not. But that’s my side view of it. But But what you really find there’s a ton of technical stuff that goes into it too. That is just like, you need to know how to assemble this piece of equipment you need to know how to work this piece of software. Tell me a little bit about that. What are all the pieces you’ve had to learn about to get where you are right now.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
That you go so in depth with that I mean, the camera department, you know, there’s so much to learn about, technically how to use the camera as well as like artistically how to convey a message with movement and with different lenses. And like, there’s just, there’s, there’s a huge depth to that, that you can explain about cameras. And then I mean, then when going to editing, like editing is also a huge area of expertise that like, you can go and get yourself a Novus editor that knows how to put together a little clip, but then you can also get an editor that can do something that’s really amazing. I mean, I’m not sure how familiar your audiences with films and stuff but like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, if you ever watched that film, that film is like, that shows you how doing some crazy editing can make things funny, as well as really cool. So I mean, there’s the editing aspect, there’s What else? I mean, there’s even like, the artistic aspect of the costumes that like things that people are wearing during your film that make it like better also vocations. Like, there’s so much you have to like really nail to, like, make something amazing. And it takes a while to learn. I don’t think I’ve ever even touched it, you know, I’m still I’m still learning myself. So, but I’m getting there.

Rob McNealy
So, um, these days all the rage is pandemic and the whole seems like everything’s melting down like the economy. We got a global pandemic now. It’s like a whole bunch of big movies slapped together in reality and you got a weird corrupt politicians being inept. It’s just like a really bad movie. You know, it’s almost like wag the dog really happened. kind of stuff. And, and it’s finally interesting part of the film and artistic things that you’ve worked on with me films have been kind of in that apocalyptic kind of feel and journey as far as the topic and can you talk a little bit about, you know, you know your series that you’ve been working on, and what kind of was the genesis idea for that?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
You’ll find that most filmmakers, they make stuff they enjoy, like they like to make, and that for me, I love sci fi eyes. I love post apocalyptic stuff. It’s a lot of what I really am drawn, drawn to when I want to watch something. And so for me personally, that’s what kind of made me make the first episode of WRAL was that I just love post apocalyptic stuff. So I made the first one and then I realized, like, there could be more depth to this, this world to these characters. And so we made a second one and that was the loaner. And after the loaner, then we’re like, Okay, this This can go even more. And like we’ve got all these bad guys are obviously part of this world. And so then like the third one was the town business with what is called. And it basically shows you the bad guys, the leader of them and kind of the business that they’re dealing with in this post apocalyptic world. And then after that, the third one, we went back to kind of the roots of the whole how the whole apocalypse began, and what set it all going and it kind of follows one of the bad guys and his introduction into this bad guy game. And But yeah, I mean, like, we just started going with it. And now we kind of have like this huge story and world that we’ve built. And so now we’re writing in and it’s kind of like we’ve, we’ve got rules as to how things happen and what can happen and stuff. So it’s kind of fun. Like we’ve built this imaginary world. No, but

Rob McNealy
I like imaginary worlds. One of the things that I find that’s fascinating about, you know, telling a story with film is and especially with the indie stuff, because I’ve been on a couple of your shoots now and seeing some of the stuff that you guys have done. It’s been very impressive. And it’s really fascinating how you can really tell a story. And and to me, I you know, I’m not creative, like you guys, right? But I think like a business some days, my wife says, I’m full of shit. I don’t know if that counts. But, uh, but whatever the thing is, as I see is that that the skills that you’re developing have direct applicability to business, and telling commercials and building commercials and telling stories of companies of startups of kryptos in our case, and you’ve been working on some of the first stuff for Tosca, and so we plan is as a project we want to use the basically the Indian media me, you know medium to go through and tell our story in funny and humorous ways. And tell me a little bit about how you could see filmmaking in general. Help people in their small businesses tell stories.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Well, I mean, if you go back to this is called film, business and film business succeeds, not only with just film and so there’s a huge business aspect to it all and knowing how to market get your story across. So it goes hand in hand I think with like, what we did with the #TUSC commercial. We’re trying to get everyone to be introduced to #TUSC first of all so that people can learn about it and know how its utilized by the average person, not just the crypto person because #TUSC is it can be used by whoever and it’s got value, it’s money. I mean, it’s got value. So, but getting people to laugh and I think that’s common is a natural, mutual thing. And most people get it. And so for us, like, coming up with a comedic commercial for #TUSC was a great way business wise to introduce people to the cryptocurrency.

Rob McNealy
I think makes a good point. It’s like a relatable, like, everybody uses money for something, even if they you know, and even digital. I mean, you look at we most people already are used to the concept of digital money with like credit cards and debit cards and other payment systems like PayPal, Venmo and things like that. And to me, most people don’t care how it works under the hood. It’s just being able to use it and transfer value electronically. I mean, that’s all crypto is it’s just another way to transfer value. But I think one of the things that I really like about what you guys are doing was Sell it and how we’re working together. Going forward on these, you know, new kind of commercials is I think it’s important that people understand that if you’re going to get mass adoption with crypto or with any business, let’s just say I mean, it doesn’t have to be crypto, but it’s something that I’m familiar with is that you got to be able to make your system your product, your project, relatable to the everyday person. And I think, and you got to make it interesting. If you just get up there and say, yeah, we’re blockchain and there’s digits and you know, Merkle trees and SHA256, and people don’t care.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
People won’t sit there listening to that

Rob McNealy
People don’t care about. People just don’t care. It’s just not relatable. It’s like, okay, whatever. You know, people don’t understand that there’s this whole thing called swift and that’s how banks move money around in the real world. People don’t care. They don’t want to know Just not interesting. And and the problem is, I think a lot of people, especially tech guys, and you get this, and I’m kind of a tech guy is that a lot of people? You know, they go through and tech guys are really into the tech. Right. And but they, I think sometimes they forget that most people don’t care about the tech. They just want their stuff to work. And so we get hung up on the thing that we like, Mm hmm. And I always say you gotta you gotta meet people on their level. And, and I think with making things funny people can relate to funny stuff. People have a harder time, I think, at least when you’re dealing with the masses have a harder time trying to get excited about the technical stuff. It’s like, I don’t know, trying to get them. You know, you know, people that are really into like anything sports or automobile racing or whatever you get, you pick someone who’s got a real passion about those things. And if they’re talking to other people that are also passionate about those things, it makes absolute sense. on how they focus on that one topic, but when you’re talking to people that don’t care about sports, or don’t care about automobile racing, you got to figure out another way to reach them. And I think that indie media and I think film specifically, is a great way to do that.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
That’s, honestly what you’re trying to do with a film is relate with your audience, get them to, to find it important. And that’s, yeah, so that’s what you do with that medium as well. You know, try and get your audience to relate to it. And so..

Rob McNealy
So, getting into film, how did you get how did you get your start? So you said you started getting into this about 10 years ago, and you started working for money four years ago? Mm hmm.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
So yeah, 10 years ago, I was was playing with a cell phone when I went camping, and then put together a little YouTube video from it and then I think I moved to like a GoPro after that, and then from the GoPro. I do, I was just like a candidate. RX was it. It was like a little camera, a little camcorder, you know, one with a flip out screen. And so I’d use that to set up the tripod and put it places and, and film, little expeditions out to the woods and stuff. And then that after that kind of when I got to filming, like more short film narrative stuff, that’s when I got like a, a seven s and a seven s to Sony, which is a nice DSLR. And that’s what I started filming on. I’ve kind of moved to a Blackmagic. And I’m not sure why I’m talking about cameras, but I’m sure.

Rob McNealy
People that are into cameras really understand that.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Totally. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, like 10 years ago started just like, Yeah, I would say four years ago is when I really got serious about it. I started like, looking up how to do filmmaking like all the difference theory and stuff behind it. Just Yeah, that’s it. Closer.

Rob McNealy
So say I so say someone listening here will had an interest in film, do they need to go to film school? No. Did you go to film school? How do you get started? I mean, if say like, I just have an interest, what do I need to do? Where do…

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
If you’ve got the drive, then understand that you’re able to do it all. Now, do you have the time to do it all that’s really what it comes down to? Because it’s a lot of self learning. So I did, I would watch a lot of videos on YouTube with, there’s a YouTube channel called Film Riot. But there’s also a lot of other good channels out there that teach filmmaking. And so I started with that stuff and film, right. It’s cool because they goof around. They have fun while they’re teaching stuff. So you learn and you laugh at the same time. So I really like their content. So I don’t think you need school. School definitely gets you connections, but you can make connections through other means and so I made connections through acting classes. Meeting actors and then making films and then like, some people knew other people like and then like, if you kind of just really dive straight into it, you start to create, like, you start making friendships and meeting people, just all around you because everyone interacts in the film community here. And so as soon as you dive in, you can start meeting people who you can work with and collaborate with.

Rob McNealy
So one of the things that I really liked when I started kind of, you know, dipping my toe into the community, right is that there’s so many people that are really supportive and just want to help out and really just help support the projects, you know, sometimes for cheap, sometimes for free. But that’s what’s interesting is that there’s a whole community of people that are really passionate about helping other people succeed and learn and and and there’s a lot of collaboration is so far. That’s It’s been real exciting for me

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Right. Now that’s, I there’s there’s tons of people that just they want to learn. They want to make something. You just have to meet them. And once you meet them, then you guys can start working on stuff. And that’s kind of what I’ve been doing.

Rob McNealy
So long term, what would you say your your professional filmmaking kind of goals are?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Long term. I mean, I want to make a feature film. That’s kind of a that’s a main goal that I’ve got right now. When I do it, I want to do it. Well, though, that’s kind of my main motto is, I got to do it well, because if I just do something, and it’s, you know, kind of crappy, I’m not gonna be satisfied with that. And I don’t think it’ll represent truly what I can do with it. And the people that work with me could do that. As a long term, I’d like to make feature films. Right now I’m doing short film, like episodic stuff, because that’s what I can afford to do because filmmaking is expensive.

Rob McNealy
It’s kind of like owning a boat. It is keep dying. I keep getting upgrade, keep in the tail kind of like guns too, right? You just gotta keep upgrading those things. It’s expensive. And that’s one of the things that the equipment is pretty expensive. What would be? That’s another question. I guess. What would be a good budget? Say you wanted to make a short film? how cheap and what’s a realistic expense? Like we’re talking every everyone’s getting paid? Are we talking? It’s a passion project, a passion project? If I want to just make my own film, and it’s a passion project, how much could it cost, like a short indie kind of thing.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
So Bug Out. Bug Out was probably the more expensive, but it was a few grand but then you could go to like What we shot not too long ago, which was second episode of Airborne and we had like, you, me, Musa like four or five, like it was three people. Three, four people. It’s four people. And we shot that with zero budget. I mean, it was just food, food was really the budget. People got fed who participated. So I mean, it just depends on what you can get, what people are capable of and what people are passionate about. If you’ve got passionate people, I think you could do a film an amazing film for a very small amount of money As long as they’re happy with what they’re doing. You know.

Rob McNealy
So do you think the technology has come a long way though, so for instance, you know, I’ve seen things that are unlike shot on an iPhone now that like Wow, that’s pretty impressive stuff. So technologically, it seems that the the editing software and some of the hardware that is pretty affordable seems to be Offering really almost, you know, cinema level quality in some instances, what would you say to that.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Um, I think that there’s always a place for a professional camera. And I say that because like iPhones where they’re at right now they don’t do the same stuff that you know professional lenses and stuff where you’ve got like the bokeh or you got the blurry background up here. and stuff. I’m pretty sure this isn’t that blurry. It’s still somewhat in focus on mine, but most cameras, they don’t allow you to do artistic stuff, when they’re, I mean, like your iPhone, like, it can take some artistic photos, but I feel like it can’t do the shallow depth of field that a professional camera can’t and so and then also like colors like the really professional cameras that cost $20,000 to a little bit more, you’re getting a lot more color in the data that is picked up by it and so You can kind of capitalize on that. It’s like if you take a picture of the sunset, you’re like, it doesn’t look the same when I when I, when I could see it, like the camera can only get so much those colors that are that are in that sunset. And when you get a better camera, it starts picking up more and more of it. So it just kind of it also costs a lot more.

Rob McNealy
Always the problem.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
I mean, you can rent them though. So if you wanted to rent a really expensive camera, it’s like three 400 bucks per day.

Rob McNealy
So there’s so you can then figure out a budget if you want that level and move to that next. So what would say you want to break into the business and you want to do a film? The one thing I don’t know how do you get the How do you get distribution? What are the strategies to get distribution in the indie film?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Oh, man, that’s, that’s complicated. That’s kind of where I’m at. Like, I think when I make my first feature film, I’m gonna really start looking at distribution. There’s Obviously, distribution through Amazon Prime, which you can do yourself doesn’t cost you anything, it literally is just filling out some forms and then it gets sent to Amazon Prime. YouTube is another medium that you can put stuff on there. And you can create an audience through that, through people that find it. It’s really finding it. I mean, distribution is a way to reach your audience. And most filmmakers, they make something and they don’t know how to show it to people, like they don’t know how to reach their audience. So they make something and then it kind of dies in the water unless I can find distribution. And so it really comes down to how much of the filmmaking process you can do if you know how to market you can get your stuff to people a little better than someone who has no idea how to market it’s a business So, but distribution like there’s there’s also things like Sundance, if you can get to Sundance, which is a complicated thing. But if you can get to Sundance, that’s where people usually sell their feature films. that’s usually where people make a little bit of money. But an indie film, I say, it’s extremely difficult to make any money off your film. Not until you’re in Hollywood, are you actually making money that like, you know, is an excess, like, it feels like when you’re in any film, you make money, but it pays back exactly what you put into the film kind of thing. So it’s like, you didn’t really make money and stuff, you’re just kind of breaking even. So and that’s where, you know, hopefully the you start getting side hustles and start doing things like commercials and where you get paid. You know, maybe not as maybe not as fun. But right. It’s getting you paid and you’re when you start a film career, and you start meeting people, you start making things you start making a name for yourself, you start making, you’re building that relationship with the community. And so people start seeing seeing things. And so, yeah, you’re always, you’re always doing that. But at some point, like after you’ve made something awesome, and like, you may not have made a lot of money off of it, but you did get people who want to work with you or something, so that then now you’re, you know, at the next level that you need to be.

Rob McNealy
So one of the things that, you know, I’ve heard a lot is how do you start like, do you? You want to be an actor or you want to be a director, you don’t want to go to film school? Like literally, where do I start? I say I live in Ohio. But I don’t want to move to Hollywood. What can I do if I live in? Oh, you know how old I don’t wanna live in Ohio. But let’s just say I lived in Ohio and I wanted to make films what where would I start? Or would I’d meet where would I meet other actors or people that are in this space?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
So Well, do you got friends who are actors?

Rob McNealy
Well, Pretend I don’t.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
You don’t. So you’re literally just a person in the woods in the way that I like to say like you should reach out to your friends when you’re just starting because like, their level of acting is probably the same level of your filmmaking. So, like, meet at that same level and make something it might, it might be crap, but you guys learn something in the process, and then the next one you do make it better. And steppingstones, it’s really what it is. And so like, if you want to meet people who act then there’s Facebook groups that I mean, Utah has Facebook groups, that’s kind of how I got involved with a lot of other people who I didn’t know and then also I was taking an acting class and I had to find that acting class how did I find it Facebook group? So I mean, there’s so many social media methods to to connect with people nowadays that it’s kind of amazing that you can just find stuff at the at your computer. It’s nice, nice

Rob McNealy
Yeah, I think, you know, even like background acting, you know, sometimes there’s one group. That’s kind of where I started, you know, and mentally I met you a few years ago doing an acting class. And so, you know, go online and see if you can find an acting class in town there. And at least, you know, from what I’ve seen, there’s acting classes in every state. That seems like they’re pretty common, where people have an interest. But, you know, it’s interesting, because there’s a lot of cool stuff happening out there. And and I think, you know, as technology gets more decentralized, and the technology is just getting better, I mean, let’s just be honest, something that would have been 10 years ago, $100,000 cameras now like $5,000. And so you can get some amazing quality stuff if you want to buy your own cameras and stuff really, really cheap now and the software some of the best software out there is even cheaper, free as well for editing and things like that, so but I’m really Uh, I’m you know, I’m learning and you know, I’m getting it’s funny because I’m getting the bug to make stuff in film now that I’ve been kind of working around it a little more and I’m like, Oh, I kind of think I dig this. And so I can see that is gonna cost me money. It’s just gonna cost Yeah. But I take my hobbies very seriously. Definitely So, so Lenny, where can people find out more about you?

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
Well, there’s YouTube channel about me or find out about Zola film and the stuff mentioned. Like how about both? I’ve got an Instagram. That’s a great place to start post a lot of like projects. I’m working on pictures from them. I keep that interesting. And then there’s art film on YouTube. So if you look up x e l ot film on YouTube, you’ll find a link to all the videos and stuff I’ve been making. We get Can you show a teaser of why well can you give you that And then you could play it during this. I will link I will post it on the page posted on the page. Okay, cool.

Rob McNealy
Yeah, that’s all embedded. Absolutely. Wonderful. Well, Lenny, thank you so much for your time and Sir, you have a wonderful night.

Lenni Uitto – Xelot Film
You too and everyone else who watched and hung out for this little podcast. Thanks, guys, whatever, whatever it is. This little chat.

Rob McNealy
Alright, let’s say you have a great one.

Episode Links

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Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge Transcript

Lewis Dartnell - The Knowledge

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
This podcast is sponsored by Tusk, an open source non Ico crypto project powered by community. Check them out on the web at task dot network. That’s TUSC dot network. The Rob McNealy program is the nexus of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and entrepreneurship. Now, welcome to the program. Today, folks, we’re gonna have a really good show. We are talking to Professor Lewis Darnell. He is professor of astrobiology at the University of Westminster in the UK. And he is a best selling author and his latest book is called the knowledge how to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm, and I can’t think of a better topic, or that’s more prescient than that is right now. So, Louis, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
That Rob I’m doing well. I’m self isolating in my flat in West London at the moment. I’m not getting outdoors. Nearly As much as I’d like to at the moment,

Rob McNealy
So that means you get less sun than you normally would I’m guessing and..

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
less less less vitamin D. Yeah, well we’ve so we live in London we don’t have anything even remotely approaches a garden or a backyard. But we have got a little bit of terrorists on the roof. So we have about a 20 square foot of outside space that we’ve been taking our lunch on, just to get just get a little bit of the sunlight.

Rob McNealy
Well, I think that’s really important because we personally in my household, we’ve been self isolating for approximately two weeks now. And but even at night, my wife and I are still going for walks in the neighborhood. And if there’s somebody else we see we walk way around them and give them a wide berth. But

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Basically, yeah, so I’ve been I’ve been taking runs along the river running along the River Thames between the two bridges, but it’s just getting like busier and busier. I think people are starting to get a bit Cabin Fever cooped up at home and going out again, which you know, as you all know, is The last thing you want to be doing in terms of social distance, and you want to be kidding apart from people not congregating. Even if you’re hungry eating outside,

Rob McNealy
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for people in major cities like New York and London to have to self isolate like that. I think it would be really hard if I have a pretty big lot for my yard. And if I couldn’t get out there and the sun and work around the garden, we’re getting ready for the year, it would be really, really hard. If I couldn’t leave the house. That would be I would go nuts. I absolutely would. So tell us a little bit about your background.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yeah, so I’m a research professor and summit University of Westminster here in London. And my research field, as you mentioned, is in a very new field of science called Astro biology, which is all about looking at the possibility of there being life beyond the earth. So my actual background in science is in biology. I was at Oxford. We in biological sciences, my PhD University College London and What we’re trying to do with astrobiology is extend our understanding or knowledge of life on Earth of hardy bacteria, and the conditions they can survive under. And extending that knowledge to see if there could be the possibility of material life microbial life beyond the earth. So in particular, I spend my time thinking about our next door neighbor planets, which is Mars, and could they be highly bacteria in the dusty desert surface soil of Mars? And if is there, and importantly, how could you detect it? How could you design some kind of experiment or instrument you strapped to the front of the Mars rover to look for signs of life while it’s there? So NASA is launching this summer. It’s Mars 2020 rover, and the European Space Agency was due to launch this summer as well. It’s ExoMars rover, but that’s had to be pushed back two years to the next launch window. But that’s that’s the bread and butter of what I do. I’m a scientist. I Help and hunt for aliens, if you like in terms of Heidi bacteria, fossilized life forms and bio signatures, we call it on Mars. But alongside that research and having PhD students working with me and running a laboratory, I do a lot of science communication. I write books about things I think are of interest or of interest to the general public. And my last book, in fact, I’ve had a new one out since but my last book is one we’re talking about, which is called the knowledge and as you said, it’s it’s becoming, unfortunately, particularly pertinent right now with this coronavirus global pandemic. But what the knowledge does as a science book is it’s not really a prepper book or survival manual. It’s a science book that uses the conceit uses the premise of some kind of global catastrophe, some kind of Apocalypse, that pushes the reset button. And you are now part of a post apocalyptic survival community, trying to work out how to make and do things, everything from scratch yourself, how? How does our civilization run behind the scenes providing stuff for us making things appear magically on the shelves of the supermarket? How does that work? by imagining that it stops working tomorrow, and then therefore trying to explore all the science and technology through the pages of the knowledge this book?

Rob McNealy
You know, it’s weird. I actually think about weird things like that, because I’m just built experiments. Yeah. You know, I do a lot of that a little bit back to your, you know, study of microbiology, and then in foreign places, do you look at things like on Earth, like in Antarctica or sea floor vents are those places to kind of get an idea of the kinds of biological agents or, you know, microbes that live in harsh environments?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of my work is focused on what we call extremophiles. So extreme tolerant, extremely loving microorganisms on earth. And these are kinda like survival superheroes, there are bacteria growing at 120 degrees Celsius. So beyond the normal boiling point of water, there are bugs that can still survive those incredibly hot temperatures around hydrothermal vents on the sea floor, or what’s particularly relevant to my studies. And the possibility of life on Mars is by going to the most Mars like places here on Earth. So very cold places very dry places, like Antarctica, you mentioned and in particular, the Antarctic dry valleys, the McMurdo dry valleys, which is one of the driest spots anywhere on the planet is in Antarctica. It’s night by the South Pole, but it’s not covered in ice and snow. It is incredibly dry. So it’s got a Martian like environment. So I’ve got samples From those Antarctic sites by studying, analyze and lab, finding how the life survives that environment, and importantly, what signs of its existence, it betrays itself with what bio signatures we can detect. It’s not just based like Antarctica, the Atacama Desert in Chile in South America is also exceedingly dry as a high powered core looking, we can also look at life that comes from, you know, top of mountains, over acidic places, very alkaline places, like the soda lakes in Kenya, or I grew up, I grew up in Nairobi. So a lot of astrobiology is trying to understand as much as we can about the survival limits of life on earth. And what is what is the total range of climactic conditions and environmental conditions that biology can tolerate?

Rob McNealy
But I’d love to have a show just on that because I’m going to come back. Well, my my undergrad degree was in geography. So I was really into earth science. Anyway, just kind You know, as a hobby kind of thing, and

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
we know what we can come back to this in another episode, but the new book that came out in paperback a few weeks ago. It’s called origins, how the earth shaped human history. And that is right up your streets. There’s very much a geography book about how things like plate tectonics, or continental drift or atmospheric circulation, or the distribution of metals and resources have deeply influenced the human story from from our very evolution, across thousands of years of the development of civilization and current affairs and modern politics. today. That’s very much geography.

Rob McNealy
We call that’s another topic of population geography. And I took that course in uni.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
So yeah, it looks like Guns, Germs, steel by Jared Diamond or tuck ins by Yuval. Noah Harare, it’s along similar lines. It’s kind of big history, kind of human geography type crossover interdisciplinary.

Rob McNealy
It’s a good stuff and I actually fascinated that you know, you’ve got back from A lot of academics have a hard time, kind of going from the theoretical, really, really narrow and specified niches of their, their topic and then being able to extrapolate how that affects the bigger picture. I think a lot of people miss that in academia. So you actually are kind of cool,

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
right? Yeah. So like that I’m cool. But like that it’s important to do that.

Rob McNealy
I do think you’re cool. So. So the book at hand, the the knowledge tell us about the things that we need to know about to rebuild civilization.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yeah. So this thought experiment of imagine everything has disappeared, everything you take for granted? And how do you start pulling yourself back up by your own bootstraps? How’d you get the resources and the materials and the substances that you need to support your lifestyle and that of your society, you’re rebooting from scratch, you’re recovering. So in a sense, what I’m talking about in the knowledge is Could you do Minecraft for real? assuming you’re not a prepper, you notice a survivalist. You haven’t stockpiled things to keep you going for for several years. And even if you are a prepper, things are going to run out in your own stockpile sooner or later. And when that happens, you’re going to have to ask yourself a question and know the answer, which is, how do I do that myself? How do I make that myself? Where do I go to to extract what I need from the natural environment to meet these things. So in each of the chapters of the knowledge, I’ve looked at the different sector, different areas of our everyday lives, whether that is the basic chemistry that supports us, or technology for communication, or for transport, or agriculture and where food comes from so you starve to death. And the beginning of every chapter is absolute. Back to Basics, fundamental type stuff. This is what you most need to know in a company. densed boil it down to its essence kind of way. And then over the course of every chapter, we allow that fundamental knowledge to expand and kind of unfurl again. It’s almost like an acorn, growing over time to an entire tree. So that over the chapters of this book, we’ve reestablished the entire network of capability of scientific discoveries, and technological inventions and how they connect to each other, and enable each other to coexist. And we develop that network over the course of the book.

Rob McNealy
So I’ve always wondered about weird things in my thought experiments and I think people listening to this will think I’m really nuts but like, I think like, if I was, you know, in that whole Naked and Afraid kind of environment having to start over, how do you make wire? How do you get to making wire? How do you make things precise? That was one of the things that I always was wondering about, like, you know, how do we make things super level just basically precision, where does it start? Yeah,

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
it is a cracking question. And I think what most people overlook or misunderstands is that yes, the Industrial Revolution was about steam engines and coal. And that kind of fossil energy was important for pulling us out of, you know, basically agrarian society into an industrialized manufacturing, mass producing, dripping with energy type society we live in today. But it was all the prerequisite technology and knowledge you needed that enabled the industrial revolution in the first place. And one of those things that we just overlook, it kind of seems boring into understand why it’s phenomenally fascinating is that idea of precision, and exactitude. There was no point trying to make a cast iron or steel, cylinder and a piston for steam engine, or internal combustion engine. If you can’t make it to Within, you know the range of tolerances that allow the piston to smoothly move up and down within, within the cylinder so it’s not just having the material of steel, or the coal is the fuel, you’ve got to have the basic button standing and knowledge of how to make things accurately. You’ve got to understand the science as well about you know, expansive power of steam science and technology, interacting history, which one of the things I explore.

Rob McNealy
One of the things that I do as a hobby as welding and and when you start looking at how well if I’m so I know how to make things with metal. And yeah, it’s kind of weird. I got an MBA but I’m also a certified welder one through a full Walden course and everything for a year and a half just because I really liked my hobbies and now now the funny thing is I said okay, well how would you make a welder to join metal because joining metal is critical for building and and so then you go back well what did they do before welding and they’ve had rivets before welding right is for Joining metal and that’s back into the steam, you know, days back the Industrial Revolution, you know, metal that’s, you know, the Titanic was riveted together for instance. Yeah. And welding processes are only like 100 years old. And people don’t understand that that it’s like how do you get to welding? And if you just ask that question, wow, that’s that’s, that’s complicated.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yeah, well welding is a very interesting topic to brought up and is something I explained in the knowledge about how you can do welding from scratch Could you do like caveman welding? Because you’re right, it’s a relatively recent invention and our technological development and in our history, and what you need for welding fundamentally, is either a gas fuel that burns exceedingly hot, so you’ve been probably using something like oxy acetylene gas mixture, and to explain that the actually really basic chemistry that you can use to make an oximeter Clean gas mixture for yourself, which you can then ignite with a spark. And as long as you’ve got kind of a metal tube to feed it through that does melt, you can then start using that chemistry of combustion to get to very high temperatures to melt metals and fuses and sticks together. Your welding is basically the trick of gluing metal together by melting the metal itself. But actually, one of the ideas I play with throughout the whole of the knowledge throughout the whole of the book is this idea of technological leap frogging. Just because we did something in a particular sequence in a particular order in our history, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the only order you could do it. And you could probably like, you don’t need to go to rivets than welding, you can jump right to welding.

Exactly Could you go right back from primitive beginnings and leapfrog back to welding directly going via rivets but they’re not a necessary prerequisite. And electricity is a really interesting example of this. And you mentioned wires earlier because There’s no real reason that electricity was discovered in our history kind of around about 1850 it’s halfway through the 19th century. And in fact, I took in the knowledge that there’s a little bit of I can illogical evidence of the being electrochemistry. So the basic chemistry behind a battery existing in some area, you know, 2000 years ago a long, long time before Michael Faraday and kind of worn institution and people and voltar electrocuting frogs legs and trying to understand this weird phenomenon of electricity that the chemistry behind a battery is actually pretty simple. If you’ve got two different kinds of metal and something like vinegar, you put between them, and you can generate your own electricity. If you’ve got something as simple as a coil of wire, and a magnet. And the ancient Greeks knew about magnets and load stones they knew about these kind of weird rocks, you could dig out of the ground and they kind of dangle them through a piece of string Lee pointing the same direction. You know, the basic understanding behind the compass and they attract each other. And so one of the could have other ways of framing this thought experiment isn’t just how could you reboot civilization as quickly as possible, often Apocalypse, if only you’ve got the most useful things written down in a manual, as this knowledge book is, could you jump into a time machine? Go back, let’s say 2000 years into the past, whisper in the air of one of the leading thinkers of the time whisper into one of the philosophers in ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and and tell them something so that they go hard course. I never thought that I had access to all the basic war ingredients and materials and substances that I needed. I had the basic understanding, but I’ve not made that small conceptual leap. So could you teach an ancient Greek philosopher who had bronze they had a conductive metal, how to beat that or draw that out and wire, I think coil that wire and create an electromagnet or use it to create a primitive telegraph system. So they didn’t need physical runners or, you know, messengers on horses. If the Battle of mouth and they didn’t have to send a runner, sprinting 10s of miles to take the message back, we’ve had a primitive telegraph system. Would that work? Could you take technology out of its own time and our history and neatly implanted 500 years earlier or thousand years earlier, we’ve had the basic understanding, to know what you’re talking about, and how to put it to good effect.

Rob McNealy
I mean, I think you have some examples of that. If you look at the Dark Ages, for instance, and a lot of your own history, even in the dark ages, they forgot a lot of the technology that the Romans actually were actively using, even in What’s now the UK?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Well, concrete for example, concrete was a lost technology. It was lost a history through the through the dark ages, architecture, arches and the architecture behind it. Exactly. Yeah.

Rob McNealy
So what would you say would be some of the most fundamental basic principles that people can learn from your book? What would you what would be the things that people should be thinking of?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
So let’s let’s pick two examples. We can talk about them in more detail, we can we can pick up on things later as well. But if I were to my argument for what is the most useful piece of knowledge, piece of understanding you would hope would never be lost again to history but never be forgotten, after some kind of Apocalypse, some kind of break in the historical record. And I would argue the most useful piece of knowledge for humanity would be the idea of germ theory, that this notion this understanding, that the reason people get sick For L, and can pass that plague from one person to the next isn’t because of bad air. It’s not because of mouth area, which is the original talion translating translation of why people think they got sick. It’s not because of some fractious God who is punishing you for your sins. There’s a very simple mechanism for why people get sick of contagious diseases. And that’s because there are living organisms which are so unimaginably tiny that they are invisible to your eye, but it gets inside your body, and they reproduce and grow and make you sick, and they get out of your body and you can transfer them to someone else if you cough or sneeze or touch them, and then that person gets sick as well. And, in fact, you can prove that for someone as well rather than just writing it down or chiseling into a piece of granite as a new commandment to leave the post apocalyptic society. You can do something even more important which is explained to them How you can demonstrate this for yourself. It’s the very essence of science. It’s not just accepting something that an authority has told you, you don’t just receive things, you demonstrate them for yourself. And you can demonstrate germ theory really easy by creating by constructing a simple primitive microscope. And all you need to make a microscope that is capable of seeing micro organisms, microscopic organisms is a rod of clear glass, which you then melt in a flame, you know, using your oxy acetylene torch or using a candle. And that glass drips and cools as it falls and two sets as a almost perfect sphere, which which can be used as a tiny lens. So this is basically what leeuwenhoek was doing. The early 17th century was creating primitive microscopes and discovering the microscopic world never been seen before. But if you use this kind of thought experiment about jumping in your time machine back into the past, the ancient Romans had everything they needed for making a primitive microscope. They had very high quality pure glass. They were expert glass makers. And they’d even noticed, if you have a vase, made of glass and full of water, that things behind it appear to be bigger. They appear to be magnified somehow. But he never made that next conceptual step of how about we try to deliberately mold glass into that particular curved shape to make a lens so that we can see small things we can design a microscope from scratch, but they had everything they needed to do that. And one of the things that I wanted to do that I was keen to pull off when I was researching and writing the book, The knowledge was not just treated as an academic exercise as a labor project. Act of speaking to hundreds of people and then condensing down their background and their expertise and reading lots of books. But I want to get hands on practical experience myself, I wanted to make and do things from scratch myself. And I wanted in particular, to do the ultimate Robinson Crusoe experiment, because it turns out that all of the raw ingredients you need to make glass from absolute scratch, you can get on the same beach, you can get silica from sand, you can get soda ash, which you need is a flux unit to help melt that silica at lower temperatures. And you can get that from seaweed. And you need some line which you can get from coral or seashells or chalk. And you grind those up, you melt them together in a kill using the heat of fire and you produce a very good quality glass of that recipe. And I did that I made glass from scratch in the course of a weekend on a single beach, that kind of ultimate Robinson Crusoe experiment and how you could make a microscope for yourself if you’d washed up on a desert island. But the beach clay went to more than a particularly pleasant one. It wasn’t the sort of beach you might find in California or some other sunkissed part of the world. This was a beach in Britain. This was a beach in Norfolk, which on the East of England, and it pissed with rain for the entire weekend, I was trying to do this experiment. But I was able to make glass from scratch and therefore in principle, create a simple microscope that could prove the existence of germs and bacteria, which can then prove the importance of germ theory and why you need to keep your drinking water separate from your human waste from excrement about why you should wash your hands during a plague or in general before touching food or touching yourself, incidentally, but the chemistry behind making soap is Also phenomenally simple. Once you know how, and you just boil some animal fat or some plant oil with an alkaline and you can get the alkali from soda ash, which the same compound you need to make the glass or potash, which you get out of. It’s just normal word.

Rob McNealy
So the germ theory is basically to prove Well, that would then increase human lifespan. And so, so let me I’m just, I’m just doing my own brain exercise here. Right? So I’m trying to figure out, why would you think that’s the most important thing? Let me ask you first.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Well, if if you’ve only got like 30 seconds to explain something, or you’ve got a very limited paragraph of text, you want to get something which is absolutely true, but it’s also a practical use. It’ll actually change your life will help you out. You We’ll explain how to make a steam engine in a paragraph. And for the reasons we’ve talked about, there’s a whole network, you know, there’s a whole iceberg below the surface you can’t see, you actually need to make a steam engine from scratch or a car engine and then talk about an engine. But you can condense down to the very nuggets, three kernel of understanding the idea of germ theory, it’s very simple idea that this invisibly small things get inside your body, you can also very, very simply explain to someone how to prove that for themselves. And the practical aspect, the application of that is an owl tells you why and keeping your drinking water and your excrement apart from each other important why should always dig you know, well or borehole, at least 20 foot uphill if possible, from where your cesspit is, for basic germ theory. It explains why you should wash your hands. It gives you the reason behind things that we take for granted not in our modern lives because we’re Hold them as a child, but we don’t really know why, what what’s the fundamental reason behind the existence of soap or a flushable? toilet?

Rob McNealy
Wow, that’s actually pretty deep. So but it’s there. And we still don’t wash our hands. So, go figure. So, what would be the next thing what would the so germ theory is number one, what would be like your number two most important thing that people should be looking at.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
So Gen Z was was was an example of a nugget of condensed knowledge that you would you would preserve you put that in your apocalypse bunker and hope it was never lost history that the survivors community could could put that to effect and, and kind of run with it and it would expand afterwards like this, this oak tree idea idea. And the other example I had was of a physical object, an artifact of a tool that I think is the most useful tool you would hope for Never be lost again. And this tool is the lave. Now if you don’t know if you’re not already, someone who’s conversant the kind of workshops in carpentry or metalworking, Aleve is the simplest machine tool. It is a tool that you use to make other tools that use to mass producing, manufacture things. It’s one of these fundamental tools that enable Industrial Revolution. And that sits visibly behind the scenes in basically every piece of technology or object you ever touch your day to day lives right now. And the leave fundamentally, is just a flatbed. So kind of a rail you lay down on the work surface. And on one end, let’s say on the left hand side, there is a headstock and a spindle and an chalk that holds your workpiece but the thing you want to work on and you spin that work piece And then from the other side, along that rail, you bring in a tool, maybe a cutting piece, maybe a drill, maybe a boring instrument. Or you can bring stuff along the side of that workpiece as it spins on your legs. So everything from candlesticks to table legs to baseball bats are turned on a leaf, but also much more fundamental technology for the running of society, like the cylinders and pistons of a steam engine, are turned on a lathe. That’s the fundamental tool that you need to make a steam engine, and indeed our own history. The cylinder of the steam engine is direct descendant from basically a cannon, you make a cannon for fighting wars. In the same way you make a steam engine for replacing human labor or the horse for moving things around. And what blew my mind when I found out this when I was researching The knowledge is lay there’s not only required to make all other machine tools in the modern workshop that the drill press that the pillar drill or the milling machine, a lathe is also able to make other leads. That leave is like a machine that can reproduce like an organism. It’s almost like a metallic organism that can replicate itself. And there’s a phenomenal example of a machinist of a metal workshop guy called Dave gingery, who in the 1980s, made himself a lave from absolute scratch and then use his leave to make each of the other machine tools you need. And I’m not in a modern workshop and workshops and industry revolution. So a drill press and a milling machine. And in order to make his leave, all he started with was a pile of clay. Basically rhythm and a pile of sand you can get from a beach Dig underground and a pile of trash, tin cans. So basically scrap aluminum, and then just some fuel, some charcoal or you just make your own charcoal by heating wood and turning timber and into charcoal. And using his clay which is a refractory material, he lined trashcan to make a very simple Forge, which had burnt the charcoal in that forge to melt the elementium and then pour that Molten Aluminum into casts the made in the sand. So he had a very simple way of casting new metal components to make his leave out of and then once he’d got a half finished leave, he could then use that half completed leave to turn the remaining components needed to complete that first leave. So I cannot think in the whole of the modern world that a better example of someone bootstrapping of someone pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps from apps Scratch, starting with basic raw materials like sand and clay, making one machine tool blade, then making all the other machine tools in a workshop and then using those to make pretty much any piece of technology any piece of machinery Do you would you would use in an in an industrialized world. But that to me that’s still you know sends tingles down my spine thinking about that phenomenal idea of deep gingers project.

Rob McNealy
I think I want to party with you.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Know, I’m quite I’m, I’m one of the things that saddens me about researching writing knowledge is I got to talk to a huge amount of fascinating people of preppers and survivalists, and SAS survival guys and historians and technologists and scientists, but I missed a gingery by about six years. He sadly died in 2007. And I missed in my couple of years and myself researching and writing this book. I’ve loved to have sat down on a beer with this guy, or at least have a chat over Skype before passed away.

Rob McNealy
You know, it’s kind of interesting. I grew up in the Metro Detroit area in the 80s. When I was kid, I was in high school in the 80s. And back then, that was when Detroit was that was B. I grew up before Detroit started outsourcing. So, I grew up and and so I’m in my late 40s now, but when I was growing up, there was still a ton of that Detroit Auto worker machinists were everywhere. In the Metro Detroit area, everybody, you know, had a hands on skill. And so I knew a lot of those old timers that were like the machinists for the auto industry for decades, and that generational knowledge is gone now. I was fortunate, though it’d be illegal today but I worked when I was 16 and a starter in generator rebuilding store or shop. And so I mean, when I was a kid, and so I was working on machines and and rebuilding starters and alternators and things like that, and that would never be allowed to From OSHA, I mean, a kid would not be allowed in an industrial setting like that. But it was still, there was still lots of these like little plating shops like these little two to five to 10 man shops all over the Detroit area that provided just they made one part for like the auto industry,

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
kind of specialized knowledge that we want to make it very, very well. And very exact, and very quickly, and then someone else makes something else and you combine it in one column.

Rob McNealy
And so I grew up in that environment, and that environments gone now. And it just just doesn’t really exist anymore. And it’s unfortunate because I think that knowledge that you’re talking about is something that’s vital for society to have that and I think we’re seeing that now with people are people are all of a sudden starting to care about their supply chain being completely everything being manufactured abroad in China right now. And then I think as the week’s go on here, that’s going to become ever more important. topic of conversation. I

Unknown Speaker
think you’re absolutely right. So I as I said, I am I am not a prepper myself. I’m a scientist, I live in a tiny flat in West London. I’ve only got more than a week’s worth of food now because of this current crisis. But I think all of us are now starting to ask these questions like the things they just took for granted. It isn’t magically appearing on the supermarket shelves anymore, but there are breaks and strains showing in the supply chains. And people now starting to see these questions and think about where does actually come from in the first place? Is it made 10 yards 10 miles down the road? Is it made in the US? I mean, the same country as me, or has it been shipped 5000 miles across the greatest ocean on the planet from the other side of the world from China, and therefore we’re gonna start having supply problems. And I think this is what I wrote the knowledge for x and the knowledge isn’t really about the apocalypse is just using that as a thought experiment to peer behind the scenes and ask where things come from. And how it works. Bless you. I’m glad you raised your child in Detroit, Rob, because clearly that the very heart of the Detroit economy used to be based around the internal combustion engine, but based on the the automobile industry. And one the other stories I tell in the knowledge is the idea of where inventions come from. And on the whole, you know, it’s the whole Shakespearean quote about that there’s nothing new under the sun. And even something like an internal combustion engine wasn’t really invented from scratch. It was just a new arrangement, a new configuration of tried and tested components that the inventor literally picked off the shelf of history’s workshop of mechanical components and parts. And so if you look at internal combustion engine, the car engine and dissect it in the way you would dissect an organism on animals understand what you actually find is just a mess of components, each of which has got a really long history, a thread stretching back across the centuries and millennia of time. And so something like the piston the beating heart of the combustion engine, is based directly on an ancient Chinese water pump is designed for getting water out of the river and into the paddy field to irrigate or to drink. The flywheel is descend directly from ancient Sumerian Potter’s wheels for making clay pots 3000 years ago that is now embedded, and under the hood of your car, and the crank and the camshaft and all these other bits and pieces that make the car engine and made Detroit what is today of each got these long histories stretching back that have only been recently combined into a particular pattern and a particular arrangement. And again, I think that that’s a fascinating idea to kind of play around. With your head.

Rob McNealy
I think that’s all really, really good stuff. So the people listening today, to this, this podcast, they’re they’re really freaked out about what’s going on today with the pandemic. So, is there anything that you can do to recommend people at least even just to keep their minds occupied? What would be the things that you would recommend people to do now to make as a little as a whole, how they might be able to contribute to society to make society a little more resilient?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yeah, so I think you know, you and your listeners, Rob, you’ve already got a very good idea of how to protect yourselves, and what sort of things are useful to make sure we’ve got enough of to be resilient to breaks the supply chain, so make sure you’ve got enough drinking water or means of purifying water. Make sure you’ve got enough preserved food cans of food or food stored in dry condition on a mason jar or whatever. I think what is a golden opportunity right now, with people self isolating, and nation after nation around the world is now going into almost complete lockdown. And people have been cooped up at home is take this opportunity to learn some things to try something out that you haven’t tried before. Even if it’s just, you know, looking through Google or YouTube, watch some videos about how something is made. Maybe go out with your kids in the backyard if you’re lucky enough to have some outside space, and try and making something as a family. On the knowledge is websites, I talked about how you can make a gasifier stove, which is a really simple bit of technology that illustrates the principle of gasification how you turn wood timber into a combustible gas, which you can then burn very cleanly and efficiently. And you can interestingly therefore, run a car, run an auto using wood as fuel Rather than diesel or gas or gasoline or petrol, as we call it in the UK, and indeed in Scandinavia, because they’ve got large areas and natural forest, they have entire modern power stations, burning wood, burning timber, to generate electricity and heating the entire community. And you can demonstrate that process of gasification with a really simple and fun maker project of using your own hands with your kids in the backyard. And just make something as a family. Learn learn something new, try new craft, maybe try doing some knitting or weaving or stitching or something, you know, to keep your mind active. But also I think you’ll find it incredibly satisfying and fulfilling, making something yourself rather than just ordering off Amazon having delivered and it magically teleports to your front door. When the delivery guy turns up.

Rob McNealy
You know, I couldn’t agree with that. That advice anymore? I think making things is not only good for the mind, but I think it’s good for the soul. I think it builds confidence. And Louis, where can people find out more and get the book The knowledge?

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Yes. So the the US subtitle of the book is the knowledge, how to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of capitalism. So you can get that on any good bookshop or online, but completely for free. You can explore a whole lot of stuff and all the things we’ve been talking about in this podcast on the books website, which is www dot the hyphen, knowledge. org. So the dash knowledge.org. And you can order the book through the website, but you can also watch lots of videos of how to make things from scratch fun maker projects, craft projects, you can do at home with your family, with your kids, your local community. There’s lots of recommended reading lists. So, books that deal with the same idea of being resilient, and working out how to make and do things from scratch yourself. So there’s a lot of nonfiction books, a lot of kind of practical books, but also a lot of novels. books like Robinson Crusoe, or Swiss Family Robinson, or the Martian, which was made into film much more recently with Matt Damon. And if you’ve seen the Martian is basically Swiss Family Robinson, but not a shipwrecked, maroon sailor on a desert island. But the 21st century equivalent, which is an astronaut, marooned alone on Mars and having to work out how to make things from scratch to keep himself alive. So there’s a huge area of fascinating literature, and stories and novels of these sort of post apocalyptic scenarios of people picking themselves up, brushing off the dust, pulling together into community of people, who then work together. To recover, and rebuild, and learn how to make things from scratch themselves. So was all of that to explore on the books website, which is the hyphen, knowledge. org.

Rob McNealy
Lewis Dartness, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Well, this has been a fun chat. Thank you so much for having me. And we should, we should chat again about astrobiology and geography in the course of human history, and origins, the new podcast and other time.

Rob McNealy
We absolutely will do that. Thank you very much.

Lewis Dartnell – The Knowledge
Cheers and take care.

Rob McNealy
Thank you for listening to the Rob McNealy program. Make sure you check us out on the web at Rob McNealy calm and subscribe to our podcast at YouTube, iTunes and on the Google Play Store.

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Pascal Hügli – Ignore At Your Own Risk Transcript

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
This podcast is sponsored by Tusk, an open source non Ico crypto project powered by community. Check them out on the web at task dot network. That’s TUSC dot network. The Rob McNealy program is the nexus of cryptocurrency blockchain technology and entrepreneurship. Now, welcome to the program. Today, I am talking to Pascoe higly. He is a Swiss author and we’re going to talk a little bit about the book that he put out recently called ignore at your own risk, the new decentralized world of Bitcoin and blockchain. So Pascal, how are you today?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, I’m good. Thanks for being here for taking me on. It’s a great pleasure. And yeah, I’m good despite the virus and the lockdown we have in Switzerland, but everything’s good.

Rob McNealy
So I think your book is actually fairly timely. So before we jump into kind of what you wrote about in the book, tell us a little bit about you. What’s your background?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, yeah, I’m, as I already said, on a scale from Switzerland. I work as a journalist and analyst and also just writer. I do it for a company called financial media. That’s what I work for. And then I also do some research for another company, which is called Schlossberg and co it’s a company where we manage like a portfolio for other people. And yeah, where we especially have a vision for the future, and we want to help people protect for what might be coming along our way. And yeah, I mean, I studied economics and politics at University of Zurich and then quickly at university when I started my master’s I actually came across Bitcoin, you know, which I really liked. And yeah, I found it really interesting, like also theoretical endeavor, you know, to dig ever more deeper into and I did this And then I actually dropped off from from school, you know, because I actually canceled my Masters because I didn’t see any more. Yeah, real value in doing it and it just tried to be I spent my time researching on Bitcoin and other things. So I got evermore deeper into the topic and that’s why I also Then, finally 2019 it was last year when all my friends told me you, you have to write a book on the topic. You know, it’s, you know, so much. And I mean, there’s already lots of literature in English, but not in German, or not that much. And that’s why I was convinced writing the book and yes, so that’s why I did it then. Exactly.

Rob McNealy
So what part of Switzerland do you live in?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
In Zurich. Well, I mean, switch lenses so small, so I don’t live in the city, but I live close to the city. I mean, it’s 20 minutes and then I’m in the center of Zurich, but it’s still not civic anymore. So that shows you like kind of like the proportions of how small Our country is

Rob McNealy
very nice. I’ve been only been to Switzerland once, but I really, really liked it. And back in my past, I worked for a Swiss company for a few years. So kind of an endearing affinity for the Swiss culture. So you wrote a book about Bitcoin when you started researching Bitcoin Did you come at it from the standpoint that you thought you were suspicious of it? Or did you come at it from the point of view that you think it’s a good thing and you want it invested in it?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, I thought it was a good thing, but I didn’t want to invest you know, hey, it was like it was at university maybe because I studied economics you know, was really hit by all the the mainstream economic theory, you know, Keynesianism neoclassical ism, you know, and I found this very interesting, but I still always thought that can’t be the end of the line. You know, there must be more so, back in university I started researching the whole Austrian economics thing you know, that might be familiar with that, you know, because I also lived Indiana For quite some time and there, then I like met like some other people who really are still standing the tradition of all these, you know, real Austrians living from me says hi Eric and like many more that actually lived in Ghana and around Austria as well. So then I kind of familiarized myself with these topics, you know, found it very interesting because I never heard about that university. I also went up to my teacher one time and asked him Do you know who looked big for me? He says, isn’t he didn’t so I was kind of like, Okay, if he doesn’t know, there must be something to it, you know, so I started looking into it. So I already came from this very theoretical background studying Austrian economics because I just found it to be a more realistic way of approaching economics, you know, to see it as a social science, not that much of a of a science where you can get yourself a good job and earn a lot of money. It was literally like trying to understand the real world, you know, and And also the epistemological questions, philosophical questions that these guys really touched on. So I really liked it. And there I kind of then bumped into bitcoin. So for me, it was theoretical, really interesting. Like, then or was really interesting going down this route, but still it was more theoretical. I was like, wow, there’s something happening in the real world. And it really didn’t really came. I didn’t really come to my mind to start investing, you know, I only did this, like two years later, so I got to know Bitcoin back in 2014 and then only invested like, after two years of more research, maybe 2016. So yeah, but it was still okay. Yeah. And then I didn’t have any money anyways, you know,

Rob McNealy
What about now?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, I still like mean, yeah, still interested. And, but I mean, I’m not one of these really crypto builders. Aires I have some friends in Switzerland because actually, you might have heard of it the krypto Valley, it’s a space where we kind of we framed it, it’s around Zurich and Zurich, you know, like in, in opposition to Silicon Valley, if you will. And that’s it’s well known actually for being the krypto Valley. And there we have like lots of friends even which are younger or that are my age that actually are really well off now, because they just had some money invested even earlier. And I’m around these people. So it’s kind of cool. But still, I myself I always, yeah, I mean, I I have it with Ludwig von Mises, actually, one time said, or like his wife, he called his wife confronted him and was like, well, you study money so closely, but you probably won’t ever have that much money. And it’s probably the same with me. You know, I’m just too interested in all the theoretical stuff. I forget everything around me and then I don’t even invest but

Rob McNealy
Yeah, sure. Well, in your book, you talked a little bit about how we left the Industrial Revolution. But yet our money is still kind of in the industrial revolution. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, when I started, like writing the book, or even like really like trying to understand Bitcoin I saw that it’s all about money as well. You know, as with Austrian economics, man watch is about money. And at university I never really studied money because it’s to me money as well as a social phenomenon. So it doesn’t really have to do anything or like also like normal, like mainstream economic economists, they don’t really look at that, you know, because they say everything needs to be in equilibrium. And we’re so many times we’re not there, but the economic or like economies strives towards the equilibrium. So something that’s really a phenomenon that’s that is emerging And that might be out of equilibrium is not something worth to be studied. So that’s why at university you never really studied it, you know? And with Bitcoin I found it really interesting that it not only before, if you want to understand and if you want to understand what money is you have to go into psycho psychology, you know, you have to go into history, you have to go in all these other goal and go down all these other routes, you know, and that’s what I did. And then, especially history was something very interesting for me, you know, where I actually found Well, you can maybe say that you’re you. That’s what my view is, you can try to say that our world is kind of can be divided up into these arrows, you know, and then I kind of found that there might be an era called the Industrial Revolution, you know, or industrial era that started back in the 19th century, going out of Holland and then especially Britain, you know, wherever grew ever bigger. And that’s where also like society as we know it today maybe started to scale up, you know, because we had all these big banks, you know, that started to finance industry and then like railways came along and all these things. And finally, also then European people went over to the United States and built up the same big Empire over there, you know, but there we are, really was the beginning of bigger institutions of corporations. You know, the joint stock Corporation, as you can, might be able to call it and all these institutions we have now also the state maybe then started to really grow and take over more responsibilities. So we’ve all these institutions, and I would argue we are still in this age, you know, that’s what I figured out with the book. And that’s what I tried to write. But now with with the internet that’s been emerging in the last 20 to 30 years, there’s been a new force that’s coming up you know, that can be kind of or can be seen in somehow in in line with This whole thing because like normal economies to state, you know, and like corporations, they also use the internet. But there’s a whole new world that seems to be kind of in juxtaposition to that, you know, and Bitcoin is a new iteration of that, you know, that’s also pushing in another direction, if you will, you know, and that’s what I found really interesting that we might see new institutions enabled through the internet emerge that could be really saw institutions that challenge our older institutions that I would call the industrial age institutions. And as I said, the internet and Bitcoin and maybe blockchain as a institutional technology could really do a lot of in the future, you know, when it comes to changing how our society works, and that’s what I kind of try to expand in the book as well.

Rob McNealy
So how did that so how do you envision the future look as far as money goes, What does The future of money.

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, the future of money? Well, I would say I mean, there’s so much because again, as I said, money is a social phenomenon. So there’s probably not this one money will be like the thing dominating in the future, you know, but also due to this Industrial Age, or we could call it you know, we had paper money emerge, you know, national stage currencies emerge, and they used to be tied to gold, you know, as we know, because otherwise, states probably couldn’t have really like bootstrap these state national currencies, you know, but as we also know, 1971, like the gold window was closed, like, permanently. And, yeah, I mean, we have these monies, they’re still really prevalent today. But I think with Bitcoin, I mean, we really see that there’s been a new competitor out on the field, you know, and that’s what I find find really interesting, you know, because when when gold was delivered From from the state currencies you actually had like gold competing against national currencies. But gold is money might not be a really good medium of exchange, but it’s still economic economically speaking money. So we always had like, gold competing against national currencies. We always saw it when les crisises were happening or when people didn’t even trust their government anymore people, they would buy up money like gold and silver, you know, and now with Bitcoin, you have a new kid on the block, if you will, you know, that could be a potential competitor, and then also maybe crypto assets in general, you know, that might be spawned out of this whole new phenomenon that Bitcoin actually lived in. So we don’t really know where we’re going there, you know, but in my book, I especially concentrated on Bitcoin, you know, because it’s just the first thing that’s here and that at the moment is also the most prevalent one, you know, but then I think you have this competition, you know, in the future, and I think Think Bitcoin will gain ever more in popularity also because of things that we’re in maybe right now even though when you look at the price in the last two weeks Bitcoin also went down so the people came along and said Bitcoin is no safe haven and you can forget about it again but I mean, I don’t have this really like short timeframe, I look into the future and I say well, this whole crisis that might be upon us now you know, could also bring like markets down we talked about it before you know, it could bring supply chains down and all these things so it will bring the system down and people might then go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and I’m really excited for also curious how many people will be pushed because of that towards Bitcoin and then they will also go down the rabbit hole. It might not be that many people after all, because the system maybe is going to, you know, somehow stabilize itself again, but I think many others Like a couple of people will try to contemplate things and then maybe adopt Bitcoin for themselves, you know, and the more people will do it, the more interesting it will become. Because Bitcoin I see is really a competitor to national state currencies, not only when it comes to medium of exchange and all these things that we’re still not really in the know where Bitcoin will actually take us but also when it comes to store of value and just have money that’s uncomfy scalable, you know, that you yourself can own that you can as a crypto asset with Bitcoin, you can what I call in the book also you can do crypto secession, you you can crypto succeed, you know if your money. So I find this a very interesting idea, actually.

Rob McNealy
Do you think that crypto currencies will actually undermine the sovereignties of governments in the future?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, it’s also very interesting question. I mean when you look at the whole history and how it was designed it’s probably it was designed as an alternative to our day to day system you know, and it was designed the way that you can really get a hold of it and you control it yourself you know you don’t have to put it into an institution again where the institution has the keys and you don’t really own the thing you know with Bitcoin as we always hear you can be your own bank you can be your own bank CEO if you will, because you are in control of the keys and nobody can take it from you even or executor like unless it holds a gun to your head and then he can always force you know, but I mean and states can obviously do this because they have the force the monopoly on force. So there I don’t really know how things are actually really going to develop you know, I would expect that with Bitcoin gaining traction, you know, with the money, like the the old industrial money system, showing everybody cracks you know, and we’re seeing some of it happening right now again with the Khurana thing you know that it might be Corona is really bad thing but it might also be the thing that really pops the, the the bubble, you know, which was like built up way before Corona because the system itself was just really brittle because of like institutionalized money creation, you know, banks that can create money out of thin air central banks that have bloated their like balance sheets and everything always to also, like fight the last recession we had in 2008. And it wasn’t really like a lasting sustainable fight against the recession. He was just papering over old old cracks you know, with with new money and that’s not the goal, you know. So there I think the more our old system will show all these cracks, you know, and those really let people down and fail people, these people then we’ll we’ll we’ll probably move towards something else. And I think I’m not really sure how many people that that will be, you know, will it be a critical mass that he can actually really challenge the money monopoly of the state in its home? Or will it always be a little fringe movement that just takes their own individual sovereignty, which is already something very cool because nowadays, if you run a full node, if you have your own Bitcoin, you can be your individual sovereign, you know, but as a whole, because only a couple of people do this, it might not really challenge the state after all, and I don’t really know which route we’re actually going down, you know, I see that more individuality is happening. I have friends that come up to me, but oftentimes, it’s just because they want to Make Money With Bitcoin, you know, and they’re in to sell it afterwards again, for dollars for Swiss francs for state national currencies. So you see, they’re not really here to challenge the system, you know, so and I mean, Bitcoin as a tool is only as good as We people really use it, you know, if we just use it as a tool to make more national currencies in the end, we’re not really challenging it. But I mean, there is a possibility that people could really long term stay with Bitcoin and stick with Bitcoin because the old system is just letting them down, you know, also speaking of potential pensions crisis in Europe, you know, like, like the population that’s aging ever more, and then all these cracks that the state is kind of try is kind of trying to fight now. And I don’t know how long he can still put up a good fight, and maybe he can’t and that’s what I’m also trying to explore in the book, you know, but I’m really I don’t have a definite answer. Probably nobody has but yeah, we’ll see how it’s all gonna unravel.

Rob McNealy
And as it unravels, which I think you talk a little bit about in your book is what happens or how is the state going to react when it feels threatened by cryptocurrencies,

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
huh. Yeah, I mean, we’ve already seen states react against it maybe now not so hostile hostile yet, you know, because they think it’s still this fringe phenomenon that you don’t have to you don’t have to take care of. And well, I think probably, that will be going on like this, like on a global scale a little longer, until maybe crypto is really a force to be reckoned with. And then they will probably try to crack down even harder. But but by die by, by this time, it might already be too late. So, from a crypto perspective or a Bitcoin perspective, you would have to hope that it would be too late, you know, but then at the same time, so I can imagine many people you also see it in states that are called failed governments, you know, Ecuador, Venezuela, all these countries. There you can already see that. I mean, they’re cracking down on things. Sometimes. Even they don’t do it. You know, because many Well, I was told by a friend, even the government tried to like, use use cryptocurrencies, you know, start mining cryptocurrency because they found it to be something interesting they can profit themselves from also when you think that other countries like the US and bigger countries, you know, are trying to sanction states like North Korea and other roof states, you know, and they could have an interest in adopting even though they are themselves challenged by crypto, you know, so you have these really paradoxical situations, you know, where you also I can’t imagine that like world governments could come along and shut it down, you know, because we don’t have a world government. And I don’t think in our geopolitical situation today, all the states would magically gather up together and would unified or have a unified or Woods be a unified force to shut crypto down you know, and as long as you don’t have that I mean Bitcoin and all these crypto assets they are decentralized they can be spawned up somebody somewhere else in the country when they are shut down at some place you know, it’s really hard to kill him you know I got a got an example as time told where people are like they compared Bitcoin and all these currencies to starfish, you know, and I didn’t know that when you cut off a starfish leg, you know, like a new one immediately like grows again and I think it’s really good analogy to say that’s exactly how these crypto things work you know, so I think states will react like hostile and and some will do it some will try it. Some will see it as a benefit also maybe like so far the state of Switzerland, you know, where I think like regulators, they’re really open. You can also talk to them, we do it on a regular basis, you know, that they and they seem to be very open to it. And there’s not going to be like a unified force against these kryptos, at least, so far, I wouldn’t tell and I don’t think they can pull it off because they can’t even combat climate change, if you will. So they won’t be able to come back to crypto as well. So, yeah.

Rob McNealy
So, um, how do you see crypto is empowering individuals?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Yeah, I mean, as I already said, I find it very interesting thing, you know, that. I mean, there’s so many ways it can empower you, you know, you can, like I have a practical example from my book, you know, we had a person that was proofreading our English book, you know, and I also had a designer that was before the book as well, who did some covers for me, you know, out of Pakistan. So then I sent money to him, you know, I tried to send dollars to the guy in Pakistan and it didn’t work, you know, it just didn’t get there. You know. So then I chose, it was like, okay, Pakistan, it’s a country. I can imagine that things Don’t work because my Swiss banks or my Swiss bank actually don’t might not be liking to touch Pakistani things. So I was kind of okay and then I sent Bitcoin and that all works, you know, but I mean then I also wanted to pay our proofreader out of Canada and I mean Canada is a Western nation as well you know, I would compare it to Switzerland I don’t want to wouldn’t call it a shady state or something, you know, and even there we tried to use like the normal banking system and it didn’t work we paid it and afterwards money came back and it came less came back you know, like $50 was just gone You know, for something that didn’t work. So the customer experience was really bad. So we also opted for Bitcoin and there I saw, that’s really cool. You know, that then with Bitcoin at all, where it empowered me it empowered the proofreader we had, you know, that’s just a practical example of using it as a Like a means of payment and stuff, you know, but then I also find it really interesting to have a non sovereign store of value that I myself can own, you know, on my little hard drive a hard wallet, and nobody can take it from me, you know, especially now with stock markets going down. You know, in the last few days, you heard like stock markets closing or just being terminated for a couple of minutes, you know, you never know maybe they’re going to close stock markets down permanently or like for more than a few days, you know, and also with banks, maybe we already saw it in Greece and Cyprus, you know, where they actually rationed the money and you couldn’t take money off your bank, you know, and there you might be in a really tricky situation and again, you have crypto it empowers you, you might be able to still have it, whether you can use it to buy like bread at your, your Baker I don’t know yet if he’s aware of Bitcoin and if he would even take it But still, like, psychologically It just really helps me to know I have something on my key drive. I even have it maybe memorized you know, the the seed phrase, the words I have memorized it in my in my head, and nobody else knows that I have that money, you know, or that I have that crypto. And that’s something I really like personally because I think financial privacy is still something which is very important. And when I talked to a guy last week, we had a course when I talked to a person who deals with regulation, financial regulation, AML know your customer and all the things and the things she told me it just clearly showed me like financial privacy is that you know, it’s it’s completely dead. And going into the future it will be it won’t get better, I think and Dave, I find it really important that at least we have something like Bitcoin and other kryptos which are maybe even more private You know, but that you yourself can old and that you yourself maybe can see for yourself that you have some financial privacy left. So that’s maybe a couple of ways I see it empowering them individually, you know?

Rob McNealy
So in all your research about Bitcoin, have you drawn any conclusions on why Bitcoin has not been adopted yet?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, yeah, I mean, for one thing, I would argue maybe and it comes back to the point before maybe because I am not so sure whether Bitcoin will well, whether they will be really just hyper Bitcoin ization, and they will really, really challenge the state in a significant way. Maybe Bitcoin wasn’t really made for mass adoption. You know, maybe it was always made for a couple of people who really have problem with the government who maybe have problem that everyone is trying to spy on them. who are maybe some type of people, you know, maybe these so called libertarians, you know, I myself have like, a great sympathy for this way of thinking. So maybe it was made for these kind of people, you know, and this is why at the moment our world I mean, when I talk to my mom and to my friends, especially here in Switzerland, also everything runs smoothly, you know, and they don’t need that, you know, because they say, yeah, the state might be texting me and and things might become more expensive, but still, I can go on vacation. I have enough money all this good, you know, what are you complaining about? You know, and I it might be, from their perspective a little bit too, too. Yeah. Thinking about things that are not so imminent, you know, paranoid, one could call it but still at the same time, I also try to explain these people, you know, you might be one day you might be happy and really Lucky that you have something like Bitcoin, you know, we never know, I just have to stay humble because I don’t know what’s going to be here in 10 years time, you know, maybe the world has completely changed. Maybe we’re leaving the industrial age and we’re leaving into a whole new age of techno panopticon where we all are controlled. We we don’t know, maybe we move into a state where we don’t need crypto either, you know, because it’s still a free and open world. I just don’t know. And I would say I have to own it out of humility. But many people don’t see that argument yet. You know, and also it doesn’t really yeah, it doesn’t resonate with these people, you know, because they don’t, yeah, they have their job all this fine, and they don’t need it. But maybe again, you know, we had it back in 2018. When when we saw this crisis, or this financial repression, you know, with the problem that emerged out of the US, I mean, there many people suddenly started asking questions, you know, and they many of my friends then back then also discovered Austrian economics, you know, back then Bitcoin wasn’t there yet. So they discovered the theoretical thing. They were asking a couple of questions. Some of them read a book, but then took two to three years later, everything was fine again, and nobody knew again now back then I read a book by Mrs. But now Who is he? So there you also saw kind of people actually got they have had a lot of questions when things were imminent. But then when things all were good again, they didn’t ask the questions anymore. And that’s also something maybe with with with a new crisis happening, which states really letting them down because the pension systems doesn’t really work anymore. Also with millennials who are asking themselves the question, will I be able to buy myself a good house over here because in Switzerland, especially housing prices are Huge, you know, maybe in other cities in the US, it’s the same, you know, but in Switzerland, like really especially, I mean, and and many of the millennials seeing Bitcoin also as a revenge, you know, against the boomers and that’s maybe why they will stick to Bitcoin. So it’s just gonna be these, you know, these faiths this these individual faiths that will determine whether Bitcoin will be adopted more and more. And I when I look forward, I see some more potential that Bitcoin will be more adopted. But right now so far, there weren’t really these these reasons, you know, and that’s maybe why it wasn’t really mass adopted yet, you know,

Rob McNealy
I think it makes sense. Pascal. Where can people find out more about you and where can people get your book?

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Well, the book itself is available on Amazon. Yeah, you can find it through Amazon. You can get it there. Yeah, it’s all about as I already said. Money. So we talked about aetherium. You know, the whole smart contract thing. You know, that might be interesting that I, myself are also a little skeptical on, but it was I thought it’s worth exploring and really see where we might be going with this maybe even in a more long term view. And then yeah, I mean, you can find me on Twitter, you know, my Twitter handle is ke H, you eg pa hc. And that’s where I will be at and I love to talk to people. So yeah, sure, hit me up would be great.

Rob McNealy
Thank you so much past cold. I appreciate you coming on the show today, folks. I will have all his information linked up at Rob McNealy calm and make sure you take care yourself out there. Thank you.

Pascal Hügli-Ignore At Your Own Risk
Thank you, man. Bye You too. Bye, guys.

Rob McNealy
Thank you for listening to the Rob McNealy program. Make sure you check us out on the web at Rob McNealy calm and subscribe to our podcast at YouTube, iTunes and on the Google Play Store.

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Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com Transcript

Jon Stokes - ThePrepared.com

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy
Hey, today I am talking to john Stokes. He is someone I met in person down at SHOT show. But we’ve been talking to each other for a while on social media. He is the originally one of the co founders of ARS Technica. He’s a former Wired editor, and programmer author. And now he is currently the deputy editor of the prepared calm. So john, welcome to the show. How are you?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Good, good. Thanks for having me on.

Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you taking the time. I think it’s very prescient, what’s going on today in the news around the world with this Corona virus stuff. But before we got to jump into that, give us a little bit of background and about what you’re working on right now and how you got there working with ThePrepared.com.

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So I was had taken a bit of time off, and I, I was kind of figuring out what I was going to do next. ended up starting to work on a prepping book because I had gotten into this through writing for the firearm blog and all outdoor I started for a second media. And so I had had a lot of exposure to the prepping scene I was a bit of a prepper myself. I was sort of moderately serious like not super serious, but we covered a lot of the prepping stuff on all outdoor and so I kind of got plugged into it and I learned a lot we had the founder of the survive survival sports, com Kevin felts work work for us on there, and so just a lot of that scene. So I liked it, and I was thinking, What am I gonna do next, and I was kind of done with the programming thing for a while I had, like a couple of years where I wanted to do like a CTO track kind of deal and like get into tech and get out of media. I didn’t like online media. So I started working on this prepping book and I was going to a website and I thought you know, something like the wire cutter, but for preppers because nobody had done this and this was a kick that I had been on for like four years, I want to do it like a wire cutter for preppers. And then I came across the prepared and it had been in existence for close, it was coming up on the one year anniversary when I found the site. And I was like, Man, this is this is like what I want to do next, I already have like a bunch of content written and this is something that I’m really interested in. I’m going to hit up the founder and see if I can invest. So, so I hit up the founder, I found them on Facebook and ping them. Sky john Ramy, who had previously been an ad tech and was a Silicon Valley prepper guy and so we started chatting and he’s like, I’m thinking of raising around this is bootstrapped and so so I was like, Look, man, you know, let’s let’s work together instead of me doing my own thing. Why don’t we? Why don’t we kind of like get together and join forces and so We did and I ended up participating around and coming on as the deputy editor. And I’ve been working on the site since and I think we closed around in January of 2019. And I believe I came on full time and like november of 2018. So it’s been a little over a year that I’ve been that I’ve been doing this full time.

Rob McNealy
So how’s it growing?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Well, the answer prior to January of this year would have been modestly but but robustly the answer as I’ll you know, January was insane bananas. And then as of today in the past, like 48 hours, we just had to upgrade the server package like massively because we, you know, blown you know, we blown past like, like pretty much everything that we would have expected to do and unlike, you know, a probably the next two years. So, so there’s a lot of traffic right now there’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing. We just our timing was very good. Speaking of good timing, the blog was not a big part of the site. It was more evergreen content guides, deep detailed reviews, stuff that people would find via Google. And in December, we had done it we had tried to kind of boot up the blog a little bit in fits and starts. And then we built this big kit builder tool that will it’s kind of like lighter pack is actually modeled a lot after lighter pack, but it’s for preppers. And it’s to put together bug out bags and other kinds of kits and keeps track of weight and price. And so I did the API for that. So I did the back end. Um, it’s basically like sort of an SBA embedded in WordPress. And then I did the API for the app. And so I kind of I kind of focused on that let the blog languish and so I got back into the blog. In December and really started hustling the blog into December and then shop show was going to be like the big okay we’re seriously doing the blog thing now. And shacho courses also is the end of January is when this coronavirus stuff exploded. So I was actually going back from SHOT Show and I saw a really good friend of mine, Arielle and for your on Facebook, he was on my old RS writers, and he had been posted about the virus and was like, I’m gonna start taking a real look at this now. And so I thought, Okay, well I’ve already posted about this on Facebook I’m about to write about for the prepared. And so and I had really, I mean, we had kept in touch on Facebook, but I hadn’t followed his career since it’s ours because he when he started writing for me at ours, he was an undergrad at University of Chicago. commodify is principal data scientist at GlaxoSmithKline and has a PhD in bioinformatics and develops drugs for a living so he’s like, you know, like dead center of kind of who will want to track this. And so he started writing about, about a forest and like that work that he I was like super key super critical so I don’t know how to mute this anyway so so that the work that he did was was really critical and and it’s been taken off since then it’s been going completely nuts you know it’s the blog is basically just offering a virus all the time now I’m going to go back into doing some gear doing some other knockaround virus stuff because we are spinning up other people that can help with the load it’s basically just been me and some stuff from our butt but but that’s kind of the the story of the blog and the coronavirus coverage recently.

Rob McNealy
Well, you know, we you know, I’ve talked you know, at length about you know, prepping and things like that and I’ve been in prepper kind of minded person for a long time. You know, I’m not like oh, I discovering prepping like in the last week like everybody else’s right now on Twitter. Then, you know, we organize that conference every year called off chain, which is a mash up of crypto and preparedness and things like that. So I actually am not freaking out because I feel pretty comfortable with where I am with our preps and things like that because, you know, we we just like to have an extra amount of insurance at all times because you never know when there’s going to be a natural disaster or something like that. But it’s interesting right now with the way Corona is, is that previously or prior to this, you know, white collar people and people that prep usually kept it quiet. Because they didn’t want to be seen as like this like Kook or tin foil hat guy or this redneck kind of guy. And it’s interesting, like literally, like in the last month, I’m starting to see like, oh, everyday people that are like, Oh, yeah, of course prepping is what everybody should be doing. And I’m like, dude, where were you guys like five years ago. It’s like, you know, it seems like everybody’s like now really Realizing that you know, being prepared for things is actually kind of a thing you should be doing. So, and you guys kind of come at it, I think from a little more of the prepping side of it, at least with what I’ve seen on your website, is that you guys are a little more intellectual about it. And not just that kind of that weird stereotype or critique that people have about, you know, preppers in general. I mean, are you deliberately coming at it from a different perspective? Do you think?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, we, we really didn’t want to do anything that looked like a traditional forever website. And in fact, my personal goal, and I think I think john, the founder shares this goal is that it’d be great if at some point in the future, the word prepping wasn’t even on the website. This should just be like a normal part of adulting. It should be a thing people do. It shouldn’t be like a niche activity or a subculture. People shouldn’t have to learn a new lingo. It’s there. You know. There’s not um there was a car enthusiast scene, you know, back in the day muscle cars and stuff now just, you know, there’s still a car scene but like people just own cars, you have a car, you know, I mean, I could think of half a dozen analogies, but this shouldn’t be a niche activity that has its own lingo and subculture you know, people are into it in secret or in public or whatever. It’s just part of what you do. It’s like buying home insurance or buying there’s a fire insurance community there’s no home insurance community there’s no you know, anything like that it’s just something you do. So that’s that’s very much where we come where we come out of bro.

Rob McNealy
Well, I see that every year during like hurricane season where all of a sudden they show the you know, the the typical grocery store shelves are completely empty, and I’m thinking if you live on the coast in Florida, this should never be happening.

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
I grew up in Louisiana and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. I know what it’s like to put your stuff in the car and sit for hours in a hurricane evacuation line have evacuated a couple times. My family evacuated for returned after Katrina. I worked in the Katrina shelters in Lake Charles, Louisiana where I’m from. So yeah, Hurricane perhaps tracking hurricanes during hurricane season, having having fuel having stuff on hand to be ready to bug out. This was just what you did when you lived there. It was there was no subculture there wasn’t like a term for it. We didn’t call it anything. You just were ready for a hurricane.

Rob McNealy
So coronavirus, there’s been a lot of media attention given to this and it’s interesting how, at least on social media, it’s somehow becoming a partisan political issue which to me is absurd. But yet I you’re seeing out there where some people are saying the the coronavirus is overhyped. Some people are saying is under hyped Where is your take? Or what’s your take on it? Where are you coming from on the corona? Is this something that Americans should be worried about now?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, you know, I think whether it’s overhyped or under hype depends on your filter bubble. I mean, really, it’s just this is a moment that has highlighted for me the degree to which we all kind of live in different information silos, dependent on where you get your news, who you follow, what kind of voices you listen to, you’re going to have a different headspace about this. And, and this information, you know, the silos, they’re not they’re not disjointed, they leak into each other. So, you know, I have a, I have a very carefully curated list that I have for this. Some people discover it and so you can subscribe to it on my Twitter feed. I follow people you know, I’m constantly adding deleting people and there has been a political aspect to it since the beginning. You know, frankly, there are some people and infectious disease, morality, virology epidemiology who have been more or less alarmed. There have been some people that have come from a certain political slant that you can tell from their bios that are constantly telling everybody to calm down and not panic and this is no big deal and they’ve set themselves over against the alarmist people. You know, that that’s how it is. People have different opinions on things, especially about the future. So So I’ve watched this evolve, I’ve watched virology and infectious disease Twitter and epidemiology, Twitter evolve, and kind of converge on on a more heightened state of concern heightened state of alarm. I’ve watched my media feed I have a lot of I have a media network from you know, 20 something years and online media. Watch the film take up this topic and begin talking about it and worried about it. I’m starting as of the last 24 hours to see this really spread in a big way in my normie feed on Facebook used to I would post something from the prepared I’d get like three likes you know now the the kind of stereotypical, you know, suburban moms and dads and just normal people are are picking up our posts and our Rulon coronavirus page and our sharing is blown up just in the past 48 hours so so there has been a lot of different depending on what subset you are going to where you listen who you listen to your political affiliation and yeah there there is I’m aware that rush limbaugh is telling people that this is some kind of democrat plot the tank the election, tank the markets and you know, something like this. I know that that’s going on. I’m not engaging with it, publicly, like on Twitter and stuff because you know, a nobody got time for that. Like I’m we’re here trying to get people ready. And I don’t care what kind of politics you have. If you’re if you’re super Trumpy if you’re, you know, Bernie Sanders stand Elizabeth Warren, I just don’t care. I want you to be ready. You know, I want you to have the right information and I want you have your head in the right place about this. As far as being concerned about it. I am. I’m really concerned. I mean, I think that i think that’s cool closures in this country and in a lot of areas are kind of I really think that’s a lot. I think it’s gonna happen. As far as a, you know, voluntary shelter in place for a lot of people is going to happen, it’s already happened and there are already people that I’m in touch with that are bugging out, leaving the city, you know, going out to the country if they’ve got like a relative something like this that’s already quietly happening, just the way that the Costco runs have been kind of quietly happening this week. So So more than that, going to pick up more that’s going to happen. How far this is going to go, very difficult for me to say, I try not to you can always you can always, very plausibly model a worst case scenario, you just can and I am a guy that has followed every crisis in the last, you know, two years like in a detailed way. So when we were nose to nose with North Korea and the summer of 2017. I was like I had an appetite, Twitter feed, national security Twitter feed, I followed a super closely and you how close we came or ran stuff from last summer. I followed that really closely. I was on you know, pins and needles with it. Like every one of these different crises that we’ve had recently. I’ve been right in there. I followed the experts, and I know how bad it can look and I knew how it can dissipate. I’ve seen it all happen you know you never press the red button because something always happens but I also was an investor during 2008 and I followed 2008 closely and unfolding there so I’ve seen like a real legit crisis happen and what I’ve learned is you can’t predict the future there are some drugs we’re about to have a blog post on this now the blog is backup I have a post and the camera I’ve got edit there are some drugs like an anti malarial drug and some other drugs that are very very promising at at a rest in the disease that goes with this so so we I’m not we’re not gonna have a vaccine anytime soon. year would be an absolute minimum. But we may find other therapies that work so summer could still I don’t I don’t put a lot of faith in the idea that one weather is going to knock this out. But it could it could be could tamp it down some combination of summer weather and a malarial drug which is already made it scale could be ramped up and could help and could forestalls little worst case scenario. So there’s a range of possibilities. But I think minimum minimum baseline is going to be, you’re going to be at home for a week or two, your kids are going to be at home for a while. You may have to remote work, stuff like that. I think that that stuff is very, very, very likely.

Rob McNealy
So it’s interesting. So my perspective on things like this is I monitor and I’m open minded, and I’m a skeptical at the same time. And so I have a I’m very curious, and I don’t tend to overreact. Some may know that my wife is actually a medical doctor who actually works as a government contractor to the federal government. And so and I’m a former EMT, and so I do view things through the eyes of, you know, a person who’s worked as a first responder for a long time and on this issue, and I tried to be very rational and in you know, controlled about how I view it. Mike, I think the big unknowns that I think a lot of people that I’m seeing around the coronavirus is the fact that one of many of us don’t trust China. And I think the big unknown is what’s Bs, what’s real and what’s happening in China, because you see all these random, you know, clips then you don’t know the context of the clip. You don’t know where it came from things of that nature. But that’s what has a lot of ups like me concerned is I don’t know, I don’t know what’s real are the numbers on that little tracker app that’s out there. Are those real? Are those are being underreported? Are they being over reported? The one thing that least between conversation with my wife and I about this is that at least in my lifetime, I can’t remember where large population centers in China have been completely locked down. In this quarantine. I don’t recall that’s ever happened. Before So, in my mind, this isn’t just SARS, this isn’t the flu, this is something different. It definitely has some government officials over there concerned because they’re taking much more extreme action than I’ve ever seen. So the question is that I would have for you, do you believe that the numbers and reporting about this in China are accurate being underreported over reported or accurate or you know, are normal.

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So we have a reporter in Beijing. That is that is done some work on this for us, and this is the source. And she’s, she writes for a mainstream outlet is fluent in English in Chinese is native Chinese. And we’ve talked to her about this, I followed this, and my take home on that is that, of course the the the absolute number is going to China in terms of the magnitude or garbage They’re not real, but directionally in terms of when things are swelling and when they’re dropping, that seems to be broadly like probably right. I think that it seems likely that the extreme lockdown measures that the Chinese have done, have arrested the spread and stop the growth and use cases outside of Dubai. I think that’s probably likely i think it’s it’s likely that things may be getting better and move on right now. Again, now, these are people that have been locked down for weeks, they have been under very like welded doors welded shut it not able to go out for groceries, extreme quarantine measures, that’s going to have an impact. Social distancing is apart from hand hygiene. Social distancing is the number one thing that you’re going to do to turn the arrow around in the absence of a vaccine to turn the, you know, the arrow is the, the viral coefficient, which says how far it spreads. And so you want to get that below one. And so to get it below one, if you don’t have a vaccine, you’re gonna have to keep people from spreading it to each other, like physical separation. The Chinese have done an insane amount of that. And it’s probably worked outside of just so so. So my point there is that like directionally when you look at the China, of course, there’s, there’s far more cases far more death than they reported. But I think it is very likely that that things are getting better and some of the cities because of the extremists of the measures, big questions are Can we do that here in the West? Can you do that? Can you lock down a Chicago when people have got guns and you know, stuff like this? open question. To me, I think, if people are scared enough, you know, maybe But I really don’t know. Other questions are about the Chinese health system now in the world, the world, the who is ranking of health systems, they’re pretty far down there, you know, below us. But then but then, you know, these Asian countries have been fighting, have been prepping for SARS mer stuff like this for a while and they’ve got ventilators they can China can ramp up hospital production stuff like this. So there are a lot of unknowns there. I think it’s more instructive for me to look at what’s happening now and what’s unfolding in South Korea, what’s unfolding in Japan? Iran less so but still, that stuff is going to tell the tale because yeah, you’re right. China is largely a black box, a lot of noise. Very difficult to get signal. But But now things of things are in a different a different realm. Italy. Keep an eye on Italy, you know.

Rob McNealy
Yeah. One of the things that my wife and I have kind of looked at is, the United States is very different than Asia and Europe, you know, if those different, you know, those countries decide that you’re going to stay put, they will enforce that. Whereas Americans are a little more persnickety about constitutional rights and things like that. And I keep thinking, you know, I’ve seen people where they have tuberculosis or something, they shouldn’t be going around in public because they’re supposed to be under self quarantine. And they’re like, well, I ran out of smoke. So I had to go to the store, right. And in between our, you know, our homeless populations and Americans just happened to travel a lot more than I think a lot of a lot of places around the world like China, people don’t move around quite as much as we do. And I think, you know, I think Americans are going to be less likely to do self quarantine for me and I was talking to some people in a group that I’m in I’m in a group right now that is talking about prepping for this and look at it like this. Americans send their kids to school. when they’re sick, and they go to work now sick because they think nothing of possibly infecting their friends or coworkers, because it might be inconvenient for them to stay home or have their kids stay home. And I’m not sure that’s going to change just because of this. And it goes back to, you know, people are, you know, you know, going down, you know, partisan lines and saying some people like, Oh, it’s no big deal and all this other stuff. And I’m like, there’s there’s two factors that have been most concerned, you know, because we don’t you’re right. We don’t know yet. how bad it is, because until it starts getting into other countries, and where we have probably better information and communication coming out. It’s hard to evaluate, you know, what this really looks like. And I agree with you, I think the extreme powers that the Chinese government haven’t or you know, the the quarantines and the extreme measures they’ve taken probably are effective. I don’t think the American government can do the same thing and I don’t think Americans will put up with it. And that’s what has me concerned about here. That is actually might get more if it is as bad as we think it is, it might get more out of hand here than it would say it in China. The other the other thing that I’m sorry, good. Oh, the other thing has me concerned is is the economic impacts of this. I’ve been trying to do some research about how much of our supply chain, it comes from China. And the numbers range from anywhere from 20 to 50%. Of all the stuff we get is manufactured in China right now. And my concern is, is that depending on which store you’re talking about, we only have between 30 and 90 days of inventory isn’t like their buffer, right. That’s about what the American supply chain holds currently. The question is, how long is China going to be shut down from their production levels? And how is that going to impact the United States? And so, to me, even if, say, we don’t have a viral outbreak that gets out of hand here. How does the economic impact of the Chinese government and their political production. How does that trade impact? You know, our economy, for instance, a big chunk of our building materials are supplied from China right now. And right now a lot of our economy is being driven by the the current housing bubble that we’re in. Well, even if, you know the price of materials goes up 20% or 30%, that could do a lot to put the brakes on the housing market, which could really hurt the economy. Have you been looking at any of the economic potential economic impacts of coronavirus outside just the normal viral part of it?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, I mean, I’m an investor. I pay close attention to this. I’m very concerned about it. I’ve been talking to other finance people investor types. They were largely not concerned before Sunday night, Sunday night there was some kind of shift in as aight guys, I think well, I’ll be One of the things was that the stock market futures just started to get really ugly. And it was clear on Sunday night that it was going to bloodbath on Monday. There was a big shift in the Zeitgeist on Sunday. I woke up Sunday morning, I had conversations with with market types. And they were like, yeah, I’m a little worried about this, but but we’re gonna handle it. And then Sunday night, you know, it turns into Well, you know, there’s a lot of deer in my neighborhood that I could do. So it’s like, seriously things things change fast for a lot of people. And, and, and so I bill I’m worried about this. I it’s hard for me to model a lot of a lot of what I think is that this is a we’re not destroying a lot of productive capacity. This is not like a war where factories getting bombed or something like this. It’s it’s one of these things where they’re there may be some kind of V shaped recovery. Once people go back to work, factories reopen, that kind of thing. And I think the system will knit will knit itself back together more rapidly than people think. That said, everybody with a brain is now looking at their dependence on on single sources in China and Asia. And thinking, Okay, well, clearly, I’ve got geographic risk. I knew that I had geographic risk, but I didn’t care. But now I care. This isn’t going to happen again. And we’re going to diversify. And so that’s going to have all kinds of impacts on the cost of goods and employment, the US and stuff that’s really hard to think through. But my top line is that is that at some point, depending on how bad this gets, I mean, there are scenarios where you’ve got medical bankruptcies that, you know, frees up the credit system and vaporize a big chunk of the economy. You know, you’ve got people you got a scenario where a lot of people are staying home. looking after their school’s out, like, let’s say that we did what just happened in Japan today, where they announced that all the schools are closed, somebody’s gonna look after those kids. So that’s a lot of people stay at home and a lot of people missing paychecks, a lot of people aren’t financially prepared. There could be a really large impact. But I mean, I think the government’s going to need a government up to and including negative rates and helicopter money, they’re going to do what they can do to get people spend and again, so we have we have maybe some tools there. I don’t know. I tried to maintain some optimism as an investor that that we can snap back pretty quickly. And I also part of this is my experience with 2008. You know, I was bearish for too long. I was bearish into 2010 so I missed a big a big turn up on the market. And you know, I finally got religion near the end of 2010. I was like, Okay, well, this you know, this is real. There’s a real recovery here. This is happening and And I got back in. Um, so I’ve seen how fast things can turn around how suddenly they can turn around. And the big thing to remember too, and this is what people miss, I think with a lot of the doomsday scenarios and the doomsday prepping is when you bet against against the market and you bet against civilization and economy, you’re betting against the combined efforts, the best efforts and billions of people to make this thing go. Humans collectively are trying to make it work. We’re all trying to make it work, whatever for some definition of making it work. And I don’t want to bet against that. I don’t want to gamble that that all those billions of individual efforts at trying to trying to make something productive trying to make money trying to hustle trying to feed themselves are going to go to pot You know, they’re going to amount to nothing so so I like I said I maintain some some optimism but but there are scenarios. I think you’re right Our hospital system is very under resourced. We have a lot of problems, like I said, with people missing work, medical bills, all this kind of stuff is bad already. And this virus is going to whack it hard. And we’re going to see how that shakes out. And it could get really ugly. We don’t have a lot of capable centralized response and not a lot of capability to respond to this. Then there’s the election. You know, I wrote the big, big wired up as a big in terms of length, it was very long. I think it also did pretty well in terms of traffic, but it was it was a it was immediate, immediate editorial about the possible impact on the election and how, you know, do we really want to send people to polling places to stand in line and breathe on each other and touch the same touch screens in November if we’ve got a viral epidemic raging over here and fill out hospitals, I don’t think we do. So there’s that aspect. I said we should move immediately to vote. By Mail, I do not hold out a lot of hope of anything like that happening. I think what is probably realistically going to happen is we’re going to have a big fight over if if there is a big if if the summer doesn’t stop it, and if we’re not able to tamp it down and if we’re still like very substantially fighting this in November. I think that we’re going to have a big argument over whether or not to postpone the election, because there will be a lot of urban dense urban areas where people are not going to want to turn out for this and we will probably not postpone the election. I just I think the the baseline scenario is escalating, nothing gets done, there is no vote by mail. There is a fight over putting it off, but nothing enough is put off and then we just have a situation where rural turnout is is a lot better than urban turnout. And you know, who knows which way things swing if the Rules types are still are still looking for for another Trump term or if they’re sour on them because of the coronavirus response. I don’t have a crystal ball. But but either way you slice it, it’s going to 2020 is going to be even more contentious than we all kind of thought it was. And I know a lot of people, myself included, were looking for trouble around the election in 2020 thinking, well, things are going to get are going to get spicy, and we’re going to be at each other’s throats. And we may see some instances of domestic you know, crazy breakout here. And and I think we were already worried about that I was already worried about it. Now even more worried about it.

Rob McNealy
So before we wrap up here, what would be the things that you say now? What advice would you give to someone who is not already prepared? What would you be? What would be the things that you think people should stock up on right now while there’s still things on the shelves?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Obviously, the big one is prescription meds if you’re on something, try to get a stockpile of that by hook or by crook. What are you going to do? You know, I’m not not that I’m telling people to go on the dark web and you know, order drugs. But like, seriously, I wouldn’t even know how to find the dark web personally. I mean, you might get some garbage. That’s like fake fentanyl. I’ll send you a URL to really, really yeah, don’t do that. I know nothing about the dark. I know nothing. But uh, but yeah, however, you got to do it. If you got if you’re on if you’re on something, if you’re on heart meds, whatever it is you’re on, and a sudden stoppage of it is gonna is going to wreck your business. Figure out how to get some more. Um, that that’s, that’s the number one thing. The number two thing is you need to eat hygiene. You need hygiene products, especially for a pandemic. So they talk About I think it’s the three is or the three ages of survival or four there’s there’s hygiene and heat and hydration, you know, and that’s actually not the right order. I think it’s like heat hydrate hydration Anyway, there’s some orange thread. hygiene is one of the big ones that kills a lot of people in any kind of survival or disaster situation. hygiene is huge. So you want to get toilet paper, which was being used as currency in Hong Kong and Hong Kong, walk down joining get toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, bleach, alcohol, things to clean your body things to clean your space that you’re in. If you’re in a confined space with a lot of humans for three weeks, it’s going to get nasty and you want to keep it clean. Um, personal protective gear. If you don’t already have a mask, you’re not going to get one. Those are out nitrile gloves are still in stock, pick those up. They’re probably more important, more important than the mask anyway. So that kind of stuff. So, hygiene stuff prescription meds, plenty of water potable water, I do not think the grocery stores were going to be in a situation where there’s no groceries. At least after some initial panic surge there may be like a spell where everybody runs out on possibly this weekend, everybody runs out and just cleans out the grocery store. The trucks are going to keep running there will probably still be groceries. So so that’s why I put food you know less underneath water you know, PPP stuff like that. still get food, start with two weeks but but get a month you know, get three months if you can, however much you I’m telling people that shoot for 90 days, the very people are going to get there but you know, try to shoot for 90 days but do what you can and and just think about the fact that you’re going to be eaten for a month, two months, three months regardless. Try to get it all at once and then eat your way through it as opposed to just go into the store wants A week or you know, every couple days you want food, you know you want entertainment things that distract yourself. Boredom is has been a big problem in the Chinese lockdown and and the other thing that’s happening per source in China is that people just go on social media, and they drive each other crazy. They share rumors and conspiracies and weird stuff and their mental state deteriorates. And they just thought it’s a bad scene. It’s a bad scene if you’ve got a couple of hundred million people in lockdown, which is what happened in China, and they’re all on social media driving each other nuts. You want to have something else to do besides Facebook, besides Twitter, besides whatever you’re into, to be able to unplug from the news and get off that stuff. And, and, you know, spend time with with with whoever you’re locked down with and connect with people. So game board games. puzzles, books, any that stuff those are all now Congratulations, your board game addiction, your puzzle addiction, video games, whatever those are now pandemic preps, you know, you’re, you’re blessed to go forth and like, you know, load up your Steam library or Nintendo downloads or whatever. Because you really just want to, you want to maintain a good mindset. You want to be able to make high quality decisions, you’re able to see what’s going on clearly. And you don’t want to be in a panic or in a frenzy hopped up on a bunch of weird rumors about what’s going down at the local supermarket or somebody found this or you know, the virus is here or there you just don’t you don’t want to be into that stuff. So, so look out for your mind. You know, protect your your physical person, your body, keep yourself clean, keep your space clean. Keep yourself fed. keep yourself hydrated.

Rob McNealy
Sounds good. Jon Stokes. Where can people find out more about you?

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
ThePrepared.com, visit and check us out. My personal website is just like a bare HTML page john Stokes. com jail in St. Louis, calm you can find out more about what i what i do want to meet you there. But really ThePrepared.com is where I’m spending all my time. Every every waking minute now with this fiber stuff.

Rob McNealy
Very good and I will make sure that I have all that linked up on our website at Rob McNealy calm. JOHN, thank you so much for coming on today.

Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Thanks for having me.

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Joe Vezzani – LunarCRUSH Transcript

Joe Vezzani - Lunar Crush

Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.

Rob McNealy 0:01
Okay, today we’re talking to Jove a Zani. He is the CEO and founder of lunar crush, which is right now the app that I have the biggest crush on for the crypto world. I’m really, really excited to talk to him about that. So, welcome to the show. Joe, how are you today?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 0:18
I’m doing well. Rob, thank you so much for having me.

Rob McNealy 0:22
Well, I appreciate taking time. You know, as someone who’s been in the crypto space for a little while, I always like to see the people doing something different in the space. And the other thing that’s really interesting about what I what you’re doing here is that you kind of care about UI and UX, which seems to be the wall in the crypto sphere. So before we jump in, why don’t we just go and you know, let’s learn a little bit about you. How Who are you? How’d you get into this space?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 0:51
Yeah, for sure. You know, got started pretty similarly. I feel like to a lot of other people that I hear you You know, talk about crypto is, you know, at some point, you know, someone that you know, or, you know, you kind of just run across Bitcoin. And, you know, I was at the time it was, you know, probably like late 2014, early 2015, and my now co founder, john, as he just kind of came up to me and we were working together at the time, he’s like, hey, do you know what Bitcoin is? And I was like, I don’t know. And it was like, his eyes lit up, like he got to tell someone new and learned a little bit about Bitcoin. And, you know, for me, you know, kind of coming out of school with a finance degree, worked in technology and startups before it was kind of this intersection of finance and tech that I was just like, I need to be a part of this somehow. And then, you know, started looking a little bit more at everything else, and you start to kind of go down the ladder a little bit and you’re like, you know, at the time, it was just mostly just Bitcoin. That was some other stuff. But you start to figure out like, what’s this ethereal thing and Litecoin and you start to learn a little bit more and you’re like, Wow, there. There is a lot down this rabbit hole, and I need to learn more about it. And so, at that time, we were just kind of going back and forth. And you know, we were the people that everyone was like, you know, hey, what do I buy? What’s the next hot tip? And what do I do next? And, you know, just kind of got deeper and deeper from there.

Rob McNealy 2:17
Well, I think that’s a lot how a lot of us kind of get started with this. I actually haven’t been in crypto that long. And people always like how long you been in here? Like two years, two and a half years or like, well, how long is your old your project? Two years. So we kind of just like jumped right in. But one of the things that I kind of interesting is your app. And I have been like glued to this thing, like every day, like I used to go to like coin market cap and coin Gecko and keep hitting refresh and refresh. And I don’t even go there anymore. I go to lunar crush. So let’s talk about lunar crash. What is lunar crash and why am I personally so addicted to it?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 3:01
Well, first off, thank you, that’s a huge compliment. I appreciate that. And you know that, you know, the kind of the addictiveness a little bit is is the way we kind of design this and the way we think about, you know, experience and people coming onto our site and looking at everything is we’re very focused on that design and, and getting people to understand what’s happening very easily, even for people that aren’t into the crypto space yet, but are kind of, you know, like, we’d like to say crypto curious. And they’re starting to dive in, we wanted it to be simple. And inherently the market is our market in this space is very community driven. And a lot of these projects that, you know, especially in the all coin, they’re very, it’s kind of tribal, and people out there posting and they’re talking about what’s happening in the community. And, you know, we capture that, you know, and we’re looking at across the entire market, we’re looking at things like Twitter, Reddit, any sort of news URL that’s out there any link and we’re pulling all that together, and so your You’re really feeling what’s happening in real time when you’re when you’re on our site and you’re in your understanding, not just Bitcoin but everything else and what the community is saying at this exact moment. And so it’s a really amazing kind of feeling to get out there and really kind of see the heart and the pulse of the market. And I think it’s what people have kind of been waiting for it for a while.

Rob McNealy 4:21
Well, I agree with that. And not only do you have like, you know, normal, you know, statistics about and, you know, measurements about what a coin might be doing from a price perspective and things like that. But you’re pulling in all these measurements about in metrics about what the community is saying almost like sentiment and engagement, that kind of monitoring and And to me, that’s pretty fascinating. What what what made you think to do that, no one else is doing it that I’m seeing out there. So yeah, why go there?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 4:54
Well, you know, we look at when you look at kind of the stock markets, and you look at equities, and you Look at what drives value and the prices of these of these things. It’s it’s really earnings. You know, obviously there’s speculative, you know, you can look at Tesla and what’s happening right now. And, you know, as we record this February 4 2020, it’s kind of parabolic right now, and it’s moving. And that’s, that’s speculation, and it’s, it’s about the future growth of that company. And that’s what’s driving the value. And, but when you’re looking at the broader when we’re talking stock market, its earnings. I mean, it’s literally earnings beats over time is really what pushes these stocks up over time. And that’s why those big companies are so focused on that, where crypto is, is not like that. Its supply and demand driven. What is the social discourse that’s happening? Who’s talking about it? How are the communities being grown, it’s very different. And so you know, when we’re, we wanted to look at what the community is saying we wanted to see it in real time, and we wanted to put it, you know, over time, and you kind of see it on our site as more of a graphical time series representation and so you’re really seen it One place, you know, how is how did the, you know, the tehsils community do over the last two months? Is it growing? Is it shrinking? You know, when you’re looking at maybe some projects that are a little bit smaller that are up and coming, and you get a tip from a friend and you’re like, hey, check this project out, you know, you’re going to know real fast, whether or not that’s kind of a viable project? Or is it kind of the beginning or the end of it? By looking at our site?

Rob McNealy 6:24
So how did you come up with some of these algorithms are the best guests or did you benchmark against something? Because you got some interesting, you know, analysis that you have that, you know, these algorithms that are built into it? Where did that come from?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 6:38
Which ones are you talking about specifically?

Rob McNealy 6:42
I don’t have it up in front of me now. See, now you’re catching me off guard. I’m gonna have to like look it up. Like…

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 6:48
Like, so we have a couple of proprietary metrics that we’ve designed. One’s called the galaxy score, and the other one’s called vault rank.

Rob McNealy 6:54
That’s it right there. See you called it that was the one I didn’t know the name of it. So yes, that’s The Galaxy score that was it was on the top of my, my, my tongue there.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 7:05
Yeah, we’ve got a very space themed over here. But so galaxy score I can start with first and, you know, we wanted to kind of create a metric and it’s it’s a real time metric and we’re looking at things that are coming in constantly we’re not, you know, we’re not Moody’s you know, or s&p out here and saying that, you know, it’s a by rating or, you know, it’s a, you know, from a B to A B plus, or whatever it is, and, you know, over the next couple of months, this is what’s going to happen, we, you know, crypto moves too quick for that. And so, with galaxy score, we’re looking at each individual project, and we’re looking at it’s a performance against itself over time. And so we’re looking at things like we’re doing some technical analysis and some price, you know, analysis on each project, but then we’re also incorporating that projects community and the social that has happened around that project and how quickly it’s happening. And so, galaxy score, you know, like, I like to say it’s kind of like coffee. More advanced traders only where, you know, that’s going to move pretty rapidly. And so we’ve got people like, you know, bot traders, and we’ve got, you know, professional traders and people that are using that to look in real time at what’s happening. And so it’s, you know, zero to 100 score and you know, 100 would be the best. And so it means that there’s a lot of kind of social that’s happening at that moment, along with Bryce. And then the other one is called alt rank. And so alt rank is looking at a project’s performance against the rest of the market. And so it’s ranking everything from a one to you know, I think, right now, we’ve got about 1700 that we’re looking at across the entire market. And so we’re pulling in and saying, hey, what is, you know, a theory of price versus something like Bitcoin over time? And is it beating that is it losing against that? And then what is the kind of the social that’s happening at the same time, and so when you kind of put all that in correlate it together, you really get this kind of cool understanding of the market and so at any given time, time if you’re looking at lunar crash and you go to our markets page, and you’re seeing things, you know, ranked one to 25 that means that something’s happening right now. Prices moving, socialist moving, things are happening, volume is high market volume is high. And it’s somewhere as a trader or someone that’s looking at the market, you should really be paying attention to that.

Rob McNealy 9:18
So I’m looking at the you know, I’m bias. I’m looking at the Tusk page on lunar crash. So my Galaxy score for our project went down since yesterday. It was in the 50s yesterday, which said neutral but now it’s down and it says bearish. So what did we do that went from neutral yesterday to bearish today on the galaxy’s score for task.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 9:38
I’m not looking at it right here. But, you know, my guess would be that, you know, if there was a decline in market volume, or if there was a decline in price, correlated with also some social volume that’s going down then, at least at this moment, you know, in the galaxy scores updating continuously, that it’s a little bit lower now. You know, if there’s some buys that come through at the Some social action that happens if things start to kind of move, that galaxy score is going to jump pretty quickly. And so, you know, a move from something like in the 40s to something in the 80s, per se is gonna, that should be a blip on the radar to say that something’s happening with with Tusk.

Rob McNealy 10:15
Gotcha. So and I know, we didn’t have any volume yesterday, because we’re still new, and we’re only on one exchange, and, but I’m just curious on how, you know, I’m looking at my own stuff. So, but are all drank here says we’re 864 out of 2046. So, it’s got a little trophy thing, what does that mean?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 10:33
So 864 I mean, you know, again, this is this is looking at test performance against Bitcoin. So if it’s underperforming against something like Bitcoin, and then also, you know, maybe social volume or social engagement is is lower than the alt rank is going to kind of rank there but, you know, hey, 864 to 2000 you know, you’re still better than than 50%. But, you know, if if test starts to outperform bit coin and there starts to be some social that’s happening in real time, then you would see that rank move up really quickly. And, you know, I just want to caveat that we also put we as also assign an alt rank to Bitcoin. And the way that you could kind of look at that, look at that is if Bitcoin is rallying and is the number one all coin, our alt rank and lunar garage, it means that you know, you you might want to be in Bitcoin right now, because there’s rally happening, things are moving.

Rob McNealy 11:27
So there’s another section that says about the task. It’s over on the right side where it’s about the Messari. The Messari section, sorry.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 11:39
Yep.

Rob McNealy 11:40
So with is that section, we don’t have anything there. How would I get stuff there?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 11:44
So we, you know, we’re focused at Luna crush on all the social and the real time data, and then we’re partnering and we utilize miscarries data for some of the more about section I think mizar does an amazing job of kind of aggregating kind of the you know, more long Form kind of project oriented data around the why and what’s happening. And so, you know, they we pull in some of their data to kind of showcase on our site, if people want to kind of dive more into the, you know, who are the some of the founders of the project, you know, what is the, you know, what’s the blockchain? Like? What’s the out of their algorithm? Like, how is it working? And so they’re, they’re kind of focused on that. And so we pull in the data from there to, to kind of showcase on our site because they do such a good job.

Rob McNealy 12:27
So we need to get on their radar, if we want that box filled. So it also says here that our social sentiment is 60% of 3.3%, then bullish, so that’s a good thing right? Under the alt right box.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 12:43
Social sentiment, you’re saying?

Rob McNealy 12:45
Yeah, that’s right under the alt rank box,

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 12:48
Yep. Yep. So social sentiment, anything that is, you know, probably over 50%, we start to kind of categorize as more of a bullish and so we’re looking at some of the some of the data that’s out there, and You know, we’ve actually trained our own machine learning to look at, specifically crypto language out there in the web. And so, you know, when people talk about different projects in our space, you know, they, they speak about it differently, you know, when someone says, whether they’re right or wrong, that you know, monero is going to the moon. That’s a bullish sentiment. But, you know, a traditionally trained library is not going to pick that up. And so we’ve actually gone in and as the data comes in, we’re training it and we’re looking at it specifically and kind of hand tailoring all the data to understand, you know, what is the sentiment across some of this?

Rob McNealy 13:37
So it’s not just hashtags, you’re looking at the whole key words and different terms and how they’re used in conjunction with other maybe adjectives or things like that.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 13:47
Yeah, I mean, we’re looking at you know, any news that’s out there or any, any social that’s out there, and if there’s links that are posted within that, we’re kind of going in spidering that and looking at the different articles and trying to figure out, you know, was this was this meant to be Something that was a more positive or more as more of a negative occurrence.

Rob McNealy 14:05
So where do you see this would apply to other assets? Perhaps even like So you mentioned earlier with like Tesla, it seems like it’d be really interesting now to see some of the sentiment around Tesla, because everybody seems to be phone via phone going around it right now. Do you think this would apply in the same way to traditional assets like that?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 14:26
Man, I mean, the FOMO is so high in Tesla, I don’t think you even need ludicrous to identify the sentiment on that one. But yes, I mean, in in a short answer would be that, yes, absolutely. We can take in and pull in kind of traditional asset classes and look at it, our focus has, you know, we’re passionate about the crypto space and we want it to grow and we’re very focused on it. And so our, you know, our roadmap right now, at least for the foreseeable future is focused on cryptocurrency and we want to see this space grow and we want to see the you know, the people and the projects and the company’s growing So we’re completely focused on growing and, and maintain our space here.

Rob McNealy 15:05
So how are you guys funded? How did you guys? Are you bootstrapping this? Or did you get some VC money?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 15:11
We we originally bootstrapped this thing from the beginning. You know, we were, you know, like, like anyone else you want to build something from scratch and you want it, want it to be yours, and so we bootstrapped it. We did. In 2019. We joined a tech stars program, so I’m not sure if any of your listeners know but tech stars is, you know, one of the you know, best accelerator startup accelerator.

Rob McNealy 15:36
David Cohen.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 15:37
Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So tech stars. We joined the LA program here and did that from July to October. And then we have, you know, some other some other partnerships with some local venture capitalists here in in Los Angeles. One is Draper Goran home. So they just founded new venture firm called Jake record home, which is Tim Draper, along Goran and Joseph home here who are kind of local, well known kind of entrepreneurs in the blockchain space.

Rob McNealy 16:11
So what is your revenue model? How you gonna make money with this?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 16:16
Well, right now we’re just growing our business and getting as many people to use it as humanly possible. We’re focused on user growth and and getting this out to the community. Right now. It’s free to get into lunar crash login and kind of see what’s happening on there. We also have an API and and we’re very shortly going to be coming out with a real time API. So anyone that’s, you know, a traitor, anyone that’s a little bit more advanced quant funds that are out there. We’re excited to partner with them and see kind of how they want to utilize some of the data. And so we’re just trying to understand the marketplace right now and kind of be out there and see where we have the where we have the best fit.

Rob McNealy 16:55
I think that’s really good, the way you’re kind of pulling the data together in a very visual way. And I think with crypto, that’s been such a problem. And I think it’s, I think it’s part of the the fact that so much of crypto is just developer LED and which is, you know, a hardcore command line kind of community, right. And so I think a lot of these guys out there and what as far as the developers go, they just don’t really think of UI and graphical user interfaces of things that important sometimes, or at least they, you know, underscore or plug down play. You know how important that is. But the one thing that I like what you’re doing, because I’m a very visual person, but visual representations of data can present patterns, that in trends that you cannot see with just normal tablature type of data scenarios. And I think that’s why you’re going to be successful with this because you’re lightyears ahead on your UI UX, compared to anything else that I’m seeing in crypto right now. And I’m excited It about where this is going. Because to me, this is how you get to adoption in because you’re recognizing, at least it seems like you’re recognizing how the design element is important here.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 18:12
Appreciate that, yeah, we spend a lot of time and, you know, a lot of thought and strategy and, you know, just going through and trying to put ourselves in our users shoes. And, you know, we, you know, I think it’s like when we went to one of those kind of first block stack summits at like, the Computer History Museum a couple years ago, and, you know, we were looking around at some of the different projects and we just kind of said to ourselves, it was like, you know, we need to focus on design and we need to focus on usability. You know, and it’s such a, you know, a slight usability change in any industry can have a profound effect. You know, look at look at Uber, you know, taxis existed, and, you know, people didn’t take them and it was because they didn’t want to call didn’t know who to call, they didn’t want to pay, they didn’t have cash. And so they felt bad to get into a cab and not pay and they get yelled at. And, you know, the simple, you know, design change of, you know, now I just put my credit card in and it shows up and I can, it’s really cool, I see it coming on this little map. That’s a, that’s an extremely, you know, amazing design disruption. And it’s simple. And so I think with the crypto, it’s the same thing where, you know, you’ve got these, these blockchains, and you’ve got these projects out there. And, you know, I think coin base has done an amazing job, you know, kind of building that first kind of use use case out and that on ramp that she had on ramp especially in the US. And now it’s kind of opening the door to these other tools that are out there and getting people deeper. And now it’s not just a professional trader that’s going to be on here. It’s going to be people that are a little bit more novice that don’t want to be intimidated. And so if you’re not focused on you know, helping people understand very simply how some of this stuff works, then it’s Not gonna it’s not going to work. And, you know, even when we originally started, it was, you know, we had 40 different charts on a page. And it was, you know, infinite scroll, and it just kept going and going, and it wasn’t working. And it’s not until you kind of simplify things and make it make it easy it is to where people start actually using it and understanding.

Rob McNealy 20:19
Well, it’s kind of funny the way even web design has changed over the past, you know, five years, 10 years ago, you’re trying to keep everything above the fold. And then I don’t know what happened because I stopped doing web development A long time ago, and then all of a sudden, now everything’s infinite scroll. And I’m like, didn’t we try to keep everything above the fold for a reason where people didn’t have to scroll for usability. So I don’t know what changed there. But it seems to me that usability is still important and you want to make people have to work the least amount when they’re using your site to get around. And I think you do that and I really do like the fact that you spent so much time in design and I think that is going to make this very Very useful. And it can’t believe that, you know, some of the big players as far as the trackers go, how awful their UI czar or how primitive they are. From the design standpoint, considering how much some of these trackers are bringing in revenue, you think they could bring in some design folks and fix that, but maybe they need to bring you in to fix it for them. Joe, where can people find out more about your project?

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 21:28
Linda crush calm is the easiest way. You can also find us on Twitter, we’re really active on Twitter. It’s just at Luna crush. We’re posting you know, all sorts of insights all day, we have a coin of the day that we post on each day. And that’s kind of our way to get people in and get people understanding the data for free. So that I would say go to Luna crush calm or just follow us at at Luna crush.

Rob McNealy 21:52
So thank you so much. And I do appreciate you coming on the show today. And I wish you all the luck in the future.

Joe Vezzani – Lunar Crush 21:58
And thank you my man. Appreciate it.

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