Israel: What It's Like on the Ground featuring Jessica Rose on DarkHorse

sitting with returning guests, Jessica Rose, who is a fellow at the Brown Stone Institute, as am I, making her a fellow fellow. She's also a fellow at the independent medical alliance.

If I didn't say it just a second ago, she's an independent scientific researcher, a biologist,

and she is in northern Israel, can't say more about where at the moment, but we will get into that. She is obviously juggling the reality of bombs and fragments, and I'm sure she will tell us raining down from Iran, and may have to go suddenly, if that happens, we'll pick up the conversation another time. In any case, just go welcome to Dark Horse. Hey, thanks for having me back. It's really nice to see you again.

Great to see you. I wish it were under better circumstances, but in any case, I'm hoping to get a sense for what is going on on the ground as much as you can tell us, and also in the social environment. But before we get there, let's just establish the basics.

“Where were you born? Ottawa, Ottawa, and when did you move to Israel?”

In, well, actually, I didn't move right away. I got invited to do my PhD,

and I'd never been here before, and because, you know, this kind of situation that we're in now

happens occasionally, there was an offer from my principal investigator to come for a three-week trial, because he has had students that he's invited to come to do PhD in master's programs, who were like, "Hell, no, I can't live like this," and so I came for a three-week trial in 2007, and I loved it. I mean, the Mediterranean region is just, it's historic, it's beautiful. The people are rich with culture. The food is great. I'm a big foodie.

So I took to it like a doctor water, and then, you know, he was pleased. So he said, "Okay, welcome aboard, and I went back to Canada, and I glued up my things that I needed to do,

“grab some stuff, and came over in 2008." And you've been living there ever since?”

Yep, pretty much. All right. Okay, and you did live in Tel Aviv. Yep. Is that correct? Yep. For some of you in the city well, but cannot stay now. That's right. I was attending Barry Lann University, which is like the religious university near Ramakhan, which is like a more religious neighborhood, and that was just because my PI was there. I wasn't any specific reason. And so yeah, I took the bus every day or not every day.

When I had to go to the university for meetings and stuff, I would take the bus from Tel Aviv to the university. All right. Well, let's get into the question of what you all are facing on the ground right now. I should also say you told me something, as we were chatting a few days ago, you're a very avid surfer. I would say that a fair description.

“Yeah, you could even call me professional because I was. I think I didn't call you professional”

last time and you've slightly corrected me, but in any case, you're that serious about surfing. And you were surfing, well, I will tell you what it looks like on the in the outside world is we get two very different stories about what's going on on the ground. I want you to hear about what. Well, we hear that there is massive devastation on the one hand, especially in Tel Aviv. And we also hear it's fine. People are on the beach, not a big deal. I have a feeling neither of

these portrayals exactly describes the situation. Tell me you were out surfing the other day and you literally had bomb fragments raining down on you. Not raining, there was one. So, yeah,

it's an interesting story. I'll frame it like this. So, well, first of all, I'd like to say,

and there's a resilience that comes not just from living here, but from the people

that have lived here in the past, even that there's a very strong resilience, the flows through the veins of the people who live here. And I imagine in the veins of the people who live in any region that's in turmoil. I mean, this is the only one I've lived in, but so people might think that, okay, well, there are bombs falling, how stupid are you for going surfing? I'm sure a lot of people think that of me, but besides the periodicity of the attacks

that are preceded by warning sirens, there comes a point when you kind of get past your

“fear of it all and you realize that life is too important to be hiding and you have to get back”

to some sort of normalcy at some point. I'm a bit weirder than most people because my threshold for chaos is very, very high. I mean, I don't want anything stop me from surfing. When COVID was happening, I'm sure we talked about this before. They closed the sea and, you know, it's not just me, it's the heart of a surfer. It's like, it's not just the heart of an Israeli, it's the heart of a surfer. Like you, you can't stop a surfer from surfing. You can't do it.

We'll do everything in our power and go have a session because it's it's so important for us to have that experience. It's it's more than just, you know, catching waves and being a surfer

“dude. It's like, you get so many beneficial things from surfing besides body movement. You get”

bonding with the water, the sun, mother nature, all these amazing things that actually

put you in the right. So it's like, there's a really good physiological reason to do it and mental. So yeah, we're getting like four or five attacks a day. Right, you know, more or less, there have been a couple of days. We don't have much action. And so this was one of the days when it was pretty quiet. Waves were pumping and I was like, and where I surf, there are like two main breaks. One of them is a little more powerful. And so I and it's a little farther away. Like you

have to paddle a little bit farther. So I was there and because it's a little farther away and

“people don't want a paddle. I was there with only one other guy. So I was on a longboard. He was on a”

shortboard and an all of a sudden it looked like because we were pretty far out that there were signs of a siren. There's there's two levels. There's like the the one that goes from people's phones that gives you eight minutes to get to a shelter. These are the warnings that you get when the Iranians are sending stuff over. Because they're coming from Hezbollah and Iran in the north. And so I tuned, I'm very tuned in. I'm very tuned in to my surrounding. So I was like,

I heard someone yelling. I was like, okay, that's probably what that is. And I saw people leaving the water and I turned to this guy and I'm like, you know, is there a siren going off? And he's like, I don't know. So I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure we're going to hear siren soon. So we're waiting there in the water and sure enough siren's go off. And I'm like, there's nothing to do because even if I paddle as hard as I can and catch a wave, I'm not going to get out in time to get to a shelter.

And a lot of us are of the opinion that it's actually safer to be in the water. Even if there is drop no coming down my my take on it before a couple of days ago was that I could just go deep. So the day before I forgot to mention this part that this happened and I'll finish the story. There was a video that was circulating amongst friends because of hold on. There's some there. Okay, I just have to keep listening because there's some things falling.

So everyone in Israel knows each other, everyone. It's a very, very tight knit loving community.

everybody in the surfing community is going to know in like five minutes. It's like we're a bunch of old

“grandma's okay. Did you hear about the thing? And so there is this video that's it's actually camera.”

No, I don't quote me on that. There's a video put it in from a camera or somebody's phone. It was the break in Tel Aviv or learned to surf. I learned to surf when I was 32. Thank you very much. And is the exact same spot where I took hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ways. So the video is kind of boring. You're looking at the view of the sea and all of a sudden, the thing about these things and I'll get into that that's so striking is the speed and the sound. And so this thing comes

really from the sky and just like, like you don't see something, you just see the effect. So you see these massive plume of water go up into the sky, like 40 feet and I'm like, what? Because none of us have

“seen that before. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't. And I was like, what? I was shocked. Not only because”

I was so familiar with this, but because it happened. And there were surfers in the water just a few meters away. Nobody got hurt. Thank goodness. But there were, there were guys in the water and

probably girls. So she kind of shook me in this idea that I always have like, I'll just go deep

and I'm safer in the water. Kind of moved a little bit. And so my brain kind of flipped on in a new way. The very next day is this story that I'm telling you now. So I was out there and, you know, there was a wave coming. So, you know, I'm, I'm paddling for my way of top-up, start surfing, walking to the nose. Sirens go off. So I'm surfing while the sirens are going off. It's kind of surreal. And I'm like, please don't let anything hit me. You know, while I'm writing a wave

and I finish my wave, I turn around, start paddling back, look up to the right. The same thing in the video. And this plume of water goes up in the air. Like, it was even higher than the one that I saw in the videos, like 50 feet. So I must have been a huge chunk. These are huge, like bigger than I can show you with my hands chunks of pieces of either the interceptor missile or the ones that were being sent over from having exploded coming

down into the water. Or it could be these, these ones that split off and send off multiple smaller bombs. These are really insidious. And they're very hard to, to, to get with interceptions.

“See, that that's why you'd have to be really careful with just having cover over your head.”

So I might, I don't know what it was, but it caused quite the splash. And I looked over the guy, because he was pretty close to me. So I had been paddling up and I was like, did you see that? And he's like, yep. And I was like, so, do you feel safer than water now? And he's like, what can we do? And that kind of summarizes it. It's like, what can we do? And the, what can we do is to try and stay alive and be smart. So yeah, that was my personal experience the other day.

I'm not going to stop surfing by the way. Yeah, it sounds like this is exactly what the motorcycle riders mean when they say rider die. It's like, this is, this is a choice. This is life. And, you know, I get exactly what you're saying about the, I'm not a surfer. I've

done it one time and not well. Obviously. In principle, I would love to be good at it. But I never

got there. But anyway, I'm not walking to the nose, though. I'm just staying upright would be my object. But in any case, the idea is always struck me as a fascinating way to commune with nature, right? Each wave is absolutely individual. And here you are not commanding the waves. But accepting it as it is delivered, riding it and then, you know, in some fit of, I don't know,

somehow. So anyway, I get that totally beautiful. Wow, you really get it. I have my own ways of communing with nature. It's more often, you know, staring up into the canopy at monkeys. But whatever, okay. So we, we get a lot already from your story. This is happening right around you. It's not an abstraction. It's not somewhat else even out in the water where it seems like you would be safer for various reasons. You're obviously not safe. I have a bunch of questions. I want to know

how much devastation there is. Obviously, all of us adults understand why there would be restrictions on broadcasting images of damage because you don't want to provide feedback to the enemy as to where they've hit. On the other hand, that is a slam dunk for those who wish to conceal the level of

“damage and those of us in the outside world. I think the honest brokers are all scratching their heads”

because, you know, when you don't have a lot of information, the propaganda is a lot more effective. So what can you tell us about how much damage there is? Do you know people in Tel Aviv at the moment? Yes. I don't talk to a lot of them. Not enough to have like any stories like my friend's apartment type thing. Like nothing like that. But do you have a sense of how much devastation

there is on the ground? I don't think there's, I would never use the word devastation. And by the

way, I'd just like to throw in that I think it's supremely intelligent, not as a strategy in any conflict, not to, for many reasons, not to, I'll use the word sensationalize what's going on

“because, hey, it's insensitive. Be you are giving away data, which you shouldn't do. A lot of the,”

I'll tell you this, there have been some touchdowns all over the country. It's impossible that there wouldn't be because I'm, I'm telling you that it's, it's where we, in the north, it's like four

or five times a day. And it's not one or two things like, like, first of all, there's a difference.

Like, has ballads still, I'm like, I have someone not a tell me, like, how the hell they still have the ability to be firing at us? But, and so it's coming from them, and it's coming from me wrong. So there are different strategies that they're using to inflict damage. So, sometimes there are like, the other day, yesterday, actually, there were like 30 at one time overhead. So, like, it's kind of impossible to get it all, especially with these cluster bombs.

If, if the audience members don't know what, anything about those, these are really in city, so I was having a conversation with one of the guys that I was hiding with the other day. I was like, I just looked at him and I'm like, what kind of a messed up person in your head,

“do you have to be to design something like that? Like, you know, weapons design is one thing,”

but like, you have to actually think in your head, like, how can I, I thought as many human beings as they're possibly can? You know what I mean? It's like that's the thinking behind this kind of weapon. It's like, next level evil, if you ask me. Anyway, so, um, where was I? Yeah, I was talking to the guy you were hiding with. Yeah, it's inevitable that there's going to be

some destruction, but it's, I would, I would never call it how it's being referred to.

And the thing about it is the, like I said, the heart of the people here and, and the, the unification of the people here, it's, it's just, as, as much as you see like somebody's house got obliterated or something, what, maybe it's what I choose to see. I don't know, but as much as that, that you see, you see people coming together. There are many people who are from a broad who are here now volunteering to help people clean up their homes, rebuild their homes,

provide medical care, if people get injured by sharp no. So you see, there's, I mean,

And so, with as much, you know, destruction, as there might be in some of the infrastructure,

“there is rebuilding immediate. There's no hesitation. It's like, and it's not like people are trying to,”

you know, forget or, or, you know, let's get rid of that as soon as possible. So nobody can, it's not like that. It's like, let's restore. Let's rebuild immediately so that people can get back to what they were doing really. And a lot of people, even here, you know, you have conversations, or, you know, I talked to my mom about this stuff. She's very interested in what's going on, and she asked me the other day, like, what, what are the conversations like, you know,

in the bunkers? Like, are people scared? Are they like crying? And I'm like, you know,

and she said, do they come? They must complain, right? No. I've never heard a single person complain.

“I've never heard them whine. I mean, everybody's afraid. Let's not, let's not be stupid here.”

But that comes, you know, manifest in different ways and different people. Some people talk more, some people go quiet, like me, some, you know, etc. But the thing that is just incredible is that everybody's always there for each other. No matter if they know each other or not. And it's, it's a very supportive environment in, in a very, very, very stressful time. So, I don't want to underplay what's going on here by saying that there's not a lot of, like,

stuff getting damaged. Because even I, I don't watch the news. So even I might be misinformed. I can tell you that in my local area, we've been very lucky, because of the anti-missile missiles.

We've been, we've, we're okay. However, it's, if you've never experienced anything like this,

it's really hard to, to, to get a real feeling of what it might be like. I'll do my very vast, too, to convey. It's, this particular conflict is different, first of all, from the other ones that I've experienced. I've been in, like, seven, I guess now. This one's much more hearty. It's been going on for a month now, is it? Maybe a little more or less. And it's been every day. Normally, there's like a pausa, you know, yet, like a, I mean a couple of days off where

here, it courses all levels. It's going down a little bit, but there's been no, there's been no release of the, the fighter flight mode. It's like, it's, you're on all the time. Even when you're sleeping, like some consciously, you're, you're, you're going to hear that sound. So, I was talking to someone yesterday who said, "They hear the sirens all the time." And I'm like, I get it, but luckily, I can shut that off. But, uh, when, when they said,

I hear the sirens all the time you're talking about in their heads, or you're talking about their, yeah, yep. Because you, you do. It's, it's, it's awful. It's an awful sound. It's like,

if I never heard it again, it would be fine. And I get that tendency. It's like, you know,

like that other day in the water, when everything, you know, it's that feeling of it's been too quiet for too long. And all of a sudden, you, your memory, like, sings that stupid siren song in your head and I'm like, yeah, that's probably, that's probably just not my memory. That's probably like a signal that it's going to happen soon. And it did. It happened like a few minutes later. So, I can't resist asking this. Maybe this is the biologist coming out. But

“is it the equivalent of a song that won't get out of your head and like earworms? Is it like that?”

Yeah. Yeah. But, but it's, I mean, it's certainly not a song. It's, I describe it once as the, uh, I'm going to get this wrong, but I'm going to try the glissette resando. I'm going to look this up because this will give everybody a really nice idea of, of how awful the song is. Uh, it's not like the, um, the air horns that you hear when there's like a tsunami warning. Yeah, it's called the glissette resando. GL-I-S-S-E-T-R-I-S-S-A-N-D-O. So, go, go, look that up and listen to it. That's the actual siren

it gets in your head. But, um, it's not like the air horns that you hear which are kind of more,

I guess familiar, especially if you're Hawaiian, you know, like if there's going to be an earthquake or a title wave, it's different from that. And, uh, it goes up and then it goes up and then it goes uh,

“and so it's kind of like, it's penetrating. Um, I guess that's the best way to say it. But it's also”

persistent. I mean, like I said, um, there were a few nights there. Um, my god, it was like every hour, in the dead of night, um, you get, you get this message from your phone, which is another

horrid sound. It's, it's the eight minute alarm, which is new. So that's wonderful. I, I think the

defense systems here are just like, they're very, very, very good. And if I may say professional, they give you an eight minute, um, like opportunity to get to a shelter because, um, a lot of people have these, um, uh, like the safe rooms in their buildings, if they're new buildings, but

“they're also a lot of older buildings, because there was a lot of construction, uh, 50s and 60s,”

I suppose it was, um, so a lot of the older buildings don't have these, so they have, uh, like outside of the apartment shelters. So a lot of people have to like physically get out, grab their kids, or their animals, or whatever, in my case, my laptop, and, and go to a reinforced concrete structure, um, these are specially built, uh, and so, yeah, uh, doing that lately. It's a few people things that arise as there is often this. You talk about messages that you get on your phone

from the National Defense Service, presumably, IDF, I don't know who it is, but early on in this conflict. We saw a report out here in the world. I assume you saw it too. I want you to tell me what happened and how it's interpreted, but did the Iranians send the message

“to all the cell phones in Israel or was that a false report? Oh, I remember something like that.”

I can't comment because I have no idea. You didn't get it. No, no, no, I didn't get it. I remember hearing about it and thinking that it was like something I didn't have to pay attention to because it didn't apply to me because I didn't get it. So yeah, I didn't hear about it from other people who got it. I didn't hear anyone who got it, so I don't know. That's very interesting. All right, um, can you give me a sense out here in the outside world, at least in the U.S. and I

assume everywhere else in the West? It is very hard to approach the issue of the war. Without setting off trip wires, social trip wires, ever. It's it's like COVID. It's like BLM, where my experience, at least, has been if you are not on board with the exact view of the world on one of the two sides, you are viewed as the enemy of both. And so it's a good one, it works.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's very powerful. I get the sense that whatever is going on inside Israel

is different and that perspectives that are very difficult to express out here are more easily expressed, that the idea that there are opposing camps inside of Israel that have different views of the war, even if I assume almost everybody is strongly on board with winning the war because you have a lot at stake. But is there, are you hearing a diversity of opinion about whether this was foolhardy or necessary? Are you hearing both of those things? I'm the wrong person to ask

because I am a bit of a loner to be honest with you. Um, they're really talk to many people about what's going on. Like, I literally, and actually, that's kind of who I am. I try to, I learned from COVID, like, to stay away from certain subject matters because like, I'm a real loner when it

Jess, like from the neighborhood or surf community, they don't really know that I'm just like really

outspoken, you know, nuclear-side-modified LMP shot like anti-advocate. Um, so like, you're talking about mRNA vaccines. Yeah. So like, I will put my ear, you know, to the ground sometimes. But it's not to be boring, but it's pretty much how you described it. And it's pretty much human nature playing out in any case. So there, it's about 50, 50, I would say. Like people are like, completely against this thing even starting. The others are of the opinion that, like, it needs

to happen. Otherwise, we are always going to be, this, this place is always going to be a nation

under fire by people who have no other motive than to eliminate us just for the sake of being alive. I really is like that. Um, and so yeah, I guess I try and stay like, I try and stay neutral. I do hear, but this is kind of a regular thing from a lot of people who know me. They're like, why do you live here? Like, aren't you Canadian? And I'm like, and it used to really piss me off because it's like, why are you asking me that? Like, I, you know, I, I feel like it's kind of like,

don't you appreciate this place that you live in and that you're born in and that your family lives in? And I feel like I appreciate it more, the land and the beauty, sometimes than some people.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's a big mix, but ultimately, the bottom line is

“100% of people want to live. They want to survive. And that's what everybody's focused on. It's like,”

even if, um, like, I hate a war as hell. I hate this. I wanted to stop right now. I, when the ceasefire happened from the last one, I was like, praise God. Um, and it's up to humans, right? So it's kind of annoying because we're not in control. The civilian population's never in control, which sucks. But like, what was I saying? It's just, yeah, I forgot what I was saying. You're saying that you, I hope, hope it will stop, um, that you, you hate this. You were describing that you find the

question strange. Why do you live here? Because you obviously live there because you appreciate it. And it would seem that that would be obvious to be other people who, who live there, um, not sure where you were headed. But, uh, I think I was trying to, um, get into the global head of the necessity for this, uh, which is something that some people absolutely believe. Like, it's, it's necessary that, um, you know, certain things are done in order for

a nation, any nation, you know, that we don't have to use the word Israel, any nation under constant attack from terrorists to not be under constant attack from terrorists for whatever reason.

“And there's only, there's really only way to one way to do that. And, um, you, you have to”

remove the, the, um, the, the source of the attacks. And if, if it's a terrorist group, um, which, you know, Hamas and Hezbollah are, you know, according to just what every country in the world are classified officially as terrorist groups, um, then seems like, you know, if, if you're a living breathing, loving human being that you, you, you probably shouldn't have a problem with somebody, you know, taking the reins to, to do that. So, um, most, most people, even if they're against the war,

like me, you know, I hate war, I don't, I don't like being in danger all the time, um, get,

“you know, from, from a bigger point of view, why it's important and maybe even necessary to do this.”

I mean, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's such difficult subject matter. It, it's, it seems to be the nature of man to fight, which really bothers me. I don't mean man as in males. I mean, man as

There's a question of whether it needed to be done from Israel's perspective. There's a question

in the U.S. as to whether or not it was reasonable for us to involve ourselves. And then there's another question, which is let's say that you accepted that it was necessary from Israel's perspective. There was no other way to accomplish the goal. Israel can't be safe. If it's not accomplished and there was no other option on the table, let's say that it was necessary for the United States to, uh, to participate. Then there's a question about whether or not

it's going to be effective, ineffective, or even counterproductive. And if it's going to be counterproductive,

“then you have to go back to those first two questions and say, well, the fact that there was no other”

option doesn't make it good if it's going to make the very same matter worse. For example, I think the message that we have collectively now sent is that a country like Iran is only safe if it has a nuclear weapon, which is presumably what Israel's position is. So from the point of view of we can't have a nuclear Iran, well, did we just increase the likelihood of a nuclear

Iran? Because now they know that they will be attacked up until the point they have one.

Yeah, yep. I saw a, uh, can't remember what it was. It was some kind of documentary, or I don't

“know, it's some kind of conversation about this. I don't know anything about geopolitics. I just”

kind of look from the sidelines, but the conclusion was that it's kind of gross to say, but any nation that is like that has nukes to safe, like in the eyes of the other like big nations, North Korea's a good example. And so yeah, it's a good question, man. I actually like to, to flip and ask you, because you're, you're an American, what you think the answer to the, the question about whether or not it was, well, I mean, we can't really ask, was it a good idea? Because like the thing about this is

that it's completely unpredictable, the situation. That's the part that really pisses me off when people, that part, however, was predictable. And that's one of the things that is an a key component

“in answering your question is, I think, you know, there was a PowerPoint presentation in which the”

logic behind this was described. It has not been shared with us one of the conspicuous features of this conflict is that it has not yet been articulated to us Americans, why we did this. And on the one hand, what are people saying, like the people that you hear talking, like what do they think? There is a large contingent that believes this was not by any stretch in America's interest, and that we were forced into it, or the president was propagandized or coerced into it.

And then there is another large contingent that, if I'm to give their position, it's due, their position is, there simply was no other option. Just had to happen. And it is a reality of the situation that a price needed to be paid in order to stay off a much larger delayed price. Now, I will cards on the table. I have not heard a rational explanation for what we are doing, having been correct about the Iraq War and the Quagmire that emerged

there, understanding something about the complexity of fighting a war in Iran, seeing the naive tale of our leadership in thinking that attacking Iran was going to result in the Iranian people overthrowing their regime rather than circling the wagons around them. I'm spooked. I'm spooked that the people in charge do not know what they're doing. I'm also spooked that there is a larger, privately understood objective, which is to destabilize.

do you ever talk to Trump? Do you have access to his ear?

I have never spoken to him, so I don't. Yeah, I love to hear what he's thinking.

I'm sure a lot of people would like to be on the fly on the wall in the conversations he has, but yeah, that's the part that I'll say. I am spooked by what he puts out publicly because his stuff out publicly, though, or is it somebody else? That's always the question I have.

“Like did he actually say that or somebody else who also has a stuck caps lock key? Maybe.”

My sense is that just observing the man from afar, my sense is that he

views his ability to directly put things into the public as a key

arrow in his quiver and that he would be very reluctant to give that up, especially since he has a constant problem with the danger of betrayal. So my guess is it is actually him tweeting and the problem that I see, having no good access to information about what's actually going on on the ground in Iran, in Israel or frankly anywhere else. His public pronouncements

“appear disconnected from reality as far as I can ascertain what reality looks like, which could be one of”

two things. This president has a comfort with saying untrue things in order to accomplish an objective and it is possible that we are seeing him strategically deploying things that are not a reflection of reality. That would not be good, but it would at least provide the comfort that the person in charge himself has information that would allow him to navigate somewhat reasonably on our collective behalf. But the alternative is that he is being gained, that he is being given

information which leads him to steer us into greater danger because someone else sees it as in their interest to do that. So I'm in a position to distinguish between these things. I would say one of the reasons that I really wanted to have you on was that some sort of clarity about what's actually going on on the ground is a necessary calibration for assessing what is being told to us. I don't know where I stand on it, but I'm spooked to hear the commander-in-chief speaking as if

we are absolutely clobbering Iran. I have no doubt that there's tremendous damage there. But the question is, is it damage that actually achieves some intended objective or is it

“damage that the Iranians are prepared to endure because they've been preparing for this for decades?”

Of course they are. Right. And one of the things I will just add, I don't know, you know, I don't know how in what order or what topics even to cover, but one thing that I'm watching out here in the remote parts of the world from this conflict is I'm watching a meme more, a one-sided meme more, being deployed seemingly by the Iranians themselves, taunting our president in exactly the style that he would typically be doing with his enemies. Have you seen these? No. Wow.

Well, I cannot vouch for their authenticity, but I have looked to see if it is challenged by anybody.

My expectation would be if it was a third party, there'd be community notes all over Twitter saying

this is not authentically from the Iranians. And if that was what I was seeing, I'd say, well, okay, that's part for the course of 2026. But these things so far, who knows what I don't know, but they appear to be incredibly sophisticated short form videos that have a kind of there are a couple different styles of them. One of the styles is this sort of, how do I describe it?

capability to do things a Lego character couldn't do. It's not stop motion. It's animation,

deliberately chosen to be in Lego form and taunting the president, calling him a loser, portraying him as frightened and deluded and under the influence of literal demons. And so that's one sort of thread. And then the other thread is an appeal to the victims of Western free market culture. Right. So it deliberately appeals to American Indians. It appeals to it portrays little girl victims of Epstein. It portrays the girls who were killed in the Girl School in Iran and the

early hours of the attacks. And it's like a call to action for all of the people who have been wronged in the West and portrays them as in natural alignment with Iran. First of all, just we at least need

to notice that there is a front in this war that has never really existed before. Maybe there have

been minor efforts, but this is high production values carefully thought out by someone who understands psychology in the West. And it is jarring to see this coming from a Mullah led theocracy that is portrayed to us as so backwards and ridiculous that it couldn't possibly mount such an effort. And I hope that people in hearing me say that will understand that I have no sympathy with that regime.

“On the other hand, it is important if you are going to be in conflict that can turn”

kinetic with highly sophisticated weapons and innocent people all over the map. It is important not

to underestimate your enemy. And what this meme war seems to be saying is we have desperately underestimated our enemy. And the fact that you would expect based on who Trump is that memes are kind of his bread and butter with respect to gaining power. It is half of how he did it. You would expect a, you would expect an arms race in the meme war. And we see nothing from our administrative nothing. And on the one hand, you could say, well, they're trying to be adults. The Iranians are

playing to a channel that isn't adult. On the other hand, it's not like propaganda isn't playing a major role in this war. So here you have, there's a novel version of propaganda being deployed frankly spreading like wildfire as far as I can tell because it is interesting. And because it's

“of exactly the genre of the moment, you know, short form video. That's what people are consuming.”

And it's very hard to look away. Anyway, interesting. You're not seeing any of that. No, I'm going to go check it out though. Like, I have no idea what you're not not to sound rude, but I have no idea what you're talking about. That's what I'm, which I'm glad for. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I, I try and have limited screen time, but very interesting. Yeah, I'm going to check it out. Who do you think is behind it? It sure looks like, I mean undoubtedly,

“if it is, if it is what it appears to be, and it's being released officially by, I think the”

IRTC, then they have employed something somewhere, either they assembled a team that has a deep

who it's trying to reach. So either that exists inside of Iran or they've contracted somebody,

which is hard for me to imagine because wouldn't somebody working for the Iranians in the outside world be setting themselves up as a target? So I don't know. I find the whole thing shocking and fascinating and troubling if I'm to be honest. Yeah, wow. I'm going to have to check that out. Yeah, it's really something. Let's let's let's use that as a segue to, I can't remember if we were talking about this

offer on camera, but like we both agree that there's something bigger going on in the world right now.

“Probably has a lot to do with this. Socks for us though, right?”

Well, let's clean that up a little bit. I know what you're saying because of this conversation. One way to think about the war with Iran is that it is part of some much more massive planned reorganization of power resources, populations, and I don't, I don't feel confident that that's true, but it is impossible to dismiss in my mind. It is impossible to dismiss the idea that

the PowerPoint presentation that explains what we're doing in Iran is much broader than maybe

even in the middle. Sorry, my phone scared me. Sorry. You see how on edge I am, sorry. I was listening. It's like, yeah. Sorry. Okay, so I'm just, I've just fleshed out a little bit what I think you were saying. What do you see with respect to whether or not something larger is in play?

“And that's exactly how you should ask me personally because I use my eyes. And I'm a person who”

looks at outcome. I'm also a person who investigates motivation because oftentimes people's motivation is the driver to the endpoint. So anyway, it's just interesting after a very short time. I mean, four weeks to be pummeled by rockets is a very long time, but it's not a long time overall. And in this short time, what are we seeing now? Like, let me ask you, this is this fascinating. I'm so glad we're doing this because you might not be seeing what I'm seeing and we've done

to where I'm sure I'm not even seeing what other people who are ostensibly in the same position I men are seeing. And I don't know how much of that is individually tailored. I don't know how much of that has happened. Stance you mentioned before we began here that, you know, if you click on one video, you get fed a lot of things in the same genre. So who knows how much we're doing. We're doing the work of the algorithms to ourselves by triggering them to speed us particular kinds of

propaganda. It's, you know, I'm proud of coining the term the fog machine of war. This is not simple fog of war. This is intentional derangement for some purpose, which could be mundane economic purposes at the platforms. It could be some cabal at a higher level that doesn't fly any particular national fly. It could be anything in between. But at the very least, we individuals looking into a screen feeling like we are eyewitnesses to history have to

understand that although you may be seeing an event that actually happened, the context of that event, the scale of that event, all of these things are susceptible to manipulation. And so we are all of us are, you know, like blowing in our country, staring into our screens. Yeah, totally. And the thing

“that everybody needs to remember, which is something that I've learned, is that you're only allowed”

to see what you're allowed to see. I don't believe anything anymore in the age of eight I, like in terms of what I'm seeing. I literally, you know, I, I just believe anything until I kind of have a feel or a seat with my eyes. So the, the feel and the thing that I'm seeing right now is a by-product of what's been going on for four weeks is these like global global level deficiencies

And there are countries and nations now who have gone into emergency mode and lockdown mode,

“which makes me really nervous and roll my eyes back in my head because it's starting to look”

a little bit like what we were starting to see about six years ago, but this time, my feeling is that it's going to be a much larger scale. And I, I don't know if this was, it's just like you said. I don't know if this was the intention, it's pretty damn convenient if it wasn't because speaking, you know, on behalf of the globalists and I have no idea who they are, so don't anyone ask me. When I say they, I don't know, a bunch of rich assholes. So if there is some kind of

coordination that that supersedes, the horrible story of what's going on here now, it kind of makes sense to me and that really bugs me. It really bugs me.

“Because just just from the local point of view, I'll, I'll make this point because it's irrelevant.”

A lot of people, you're well aware of this, and human nature is to side with someone, or to cast blame, or to figure things out. Like, we, we love to figure things out and we love to say, yeah, this is why, or that's why they're a dare to blame. And a lot of people are like,

"Israel, blah blah blah blah, blame, why is there always a Israel?" And so that kind of amplifies that whole life, that some people are holding right now,

because it's like, it's our fault that you don't have gas in your gas pump and in remote, whatever it is, which is like, you can't over-simple by like that, first of all. But you see what I'm saying, like, well, let me just say, this is, I, I think about this every day, and I try very carefully

“to remember that if you say the Americans, the Americans are doing this, the Americans are doing that,”

you will end up blaming me for a lot of things that I have bent over backwards to prevent, right? I love that you said that, and I want to remind me to elaborate. Yeah, so the point is, I'm not, I thought the Biden administration was an existential threat to the country and the constitution. I think the Trump administration has betrayed all of those of us who voted for Trump on the basis that he promised no new wars. Now, mind you, I don't know why that happened. But so the point is,

it's not the Israelis, obviously. The Israelis citizens are divided, right? It can't be the Israelis. It's not even Israel, as far as I'm concerned, you have an administration that has power that is making decisions for reasons. It only partially shares, or maybe doesn't share it all. And so I try to remain laser-focused on the fact that very few people actually have influence on the events we're talking about, and it does not make sense to drag in a flag or to point

to a set of borders on a map and say those people, because it never is.

Yeah, it's not constructed to do that either, because it's not, it's not valid, like, in a correctness way, if you ask me. Yeah, I just want to say I'm glad you said that, because it's like, for me, you know, I'm a, I'm a people over, I have no prejudices, well, except against death cultists. I don't like that much. So, like, you know, you can't, I don't know, this whole thing about nations and people lumping everything in together. It's just, it's not productive to do

that ever. And if, if anybody, you know, is kind of like on the fence about what's going on here, maybe you, you yourself have kind of gotten about impression of Israel, for example, because of all the stuff that's being shown, I hope that listening to me speak, maybe, will get you curious, at least to find out, like, a little bit more about the truth. And it's not just the truth of Israel, it's the truth of everything, it's the truth of, the, the, the grand scale that we are all, all of us,

but, like, it's like, you were saying, but, like, everything you see on a screen, especially in these days

of AI are, they're extreme manipulations. It's not just to get you to buy shit either. Like, we, we are, we are being commercialized. Like, we are seeing as, data, right now, if you ask me. And I know this might sound like I'm talking about a completely different

“subject matter, but I'm not, because I think this all ties in, um, just like, I'm, I'm really good at,”

um, I have a very, uh, vivid imagination. I even have a sci-fi brain. Somebody told me once I should be a science fiction writer. And I can imagine, you know, bad things happening in the future pretty easily, not just based on what we've done historically, but because it's kind of obvious when you look around, if you start seeing countries, saying, okay, we're, we're imposing these, these rules or sanctions or whatever on, on the people of our country with regard to, um,

fuel use, uh, you know, how, how much water you can drink, how much food you can eat, et cetera, et cetera.

What does that look like in a very short period of time globally? The first thing that I see

is a disconnection from nations, like a dissociation between us, not just trade route shit, but like actual people, I see division, which is like the the greatest tool of, of evil warmongers, like divide and conquer, like, you know, I'll know, I see, uh, individual communities changing for the worse. I see, uh, people struggling, I see people fighting. It's going to take a lot of resilience within local communities for people to come together, and I think they will,

you know, like, you're not, you're not going to put an Aussie down, for example, like, I've seen

quite a few videos that are quite funny about the, the pumps being empty, and, and in Australia,

“you have to have a car drive around because it's so big. It's like, you know, one house to the”

other house is like, it's almost like a whole continent. It's almost like that. Um, so yeah, it's, this is what I'm starting to see as a five product of what's going on, and even though I'm smack dab in the middle of this, like getting pummeled every day, what I'm seeing is, like, I'm not sitting, oh, you know, I lived the war. No, that's not what this is about, and I don't want to put my energy to that because I think something bigger is going on. I could be totally wrong, by the way,

but I mean, it just seems to me from looking around because I'm a world-looker, um, and maybe I'm misinformed too, but it just does seem like, uh, something else is going on here. So,

“you said you agreed. I'd love to hear your opinion. Well, I'm glad you asked because I think this is a”

very important line of inquiry. And I want to, before I give you my opinion, let me say, I think we are caught between two hypotheses for what is going on at the larger scale. One is that there is going to plan enacted in which this conflict, or conflict in the Middle East more broadly, is part of some larger, intentional reorganization or attempted reorganization.

The other is that the principle, I'm trying to remember who exactly coined this phrase. It may be Rama manual said something like, uh, don't let a good crisis go to waste. So the fact that we see forces in motion as the result of this conflict could be that those forces initiated the conflict for the purpose of doing whatever they're doing, or it could be that those forces are reacting to the opportunity created by what's going on. And, you know,

I would say almost undoubtedly, you'll have components of both. So let's just keep that in mind. But what do I think is going on? I'm reminded Heather's PhD advisor, great guy named Arnold Klugey, father genetics systemadist, and also kind of a philosophical hardliner. I'm not sure if there are any systemadists watching, they'll know what that means. But in any case,

And it said, it's about power and limited resources stupid. And, you know, it's just one of those

“things. There's a reason that he had that among all things prominently displayed. And it's because”

us little people get caught up in these narratives about why things are going on. And in the end, those things, even though those narratives may be partly or even sometimes wholly true, they exist in a context of dynamics that haven't changed. In fact, dynamics that aren't even human fundamentally, all creatures compete over limited resources, whether that's food or territory,

or mates, these things, that's a feature of the landscape before you even introduce humans. And so when

you do introduce humans, the ways in which that unfolds are much more diverse and confusing, because human beings will tell you they're doing something for reason X when really they're doing it

“for reason Y. You know how to lie. I've noticed. But in any case, that's what I think is going on.”

And, you know, the concern, of course, is any time we talk about collusion and conspiracy, which I think we have to, because there's an awful lot of collusion and conspiracy, anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool. But anytime we talk about this, we have to realize that the philosophical rules of analysis and logic do not apply in the same standard way that they would, if we were in a laboratory or trying to conduct an experiment in a forest. Right? The forest

is not trying to mislead you about what it's doing. You know, the beakers on the lab bench are what they are. The deception involved in human events at scale is so profound that, you know, because every crime comes with a cover story or a rationalization, we are constantly having to say, the fact that that's the simplest explanation for what we've seen may be deceptive. It may be that if we had seen more evidence, we would have a very different understanding of what the simplest

“explanation is. So anyway, the punchline there is, it is very important and very difficult to be a”

nuanced and careful conspiracy theorist. You'd be a fool to rule out the possibility of conspiracies, but in seeing conspiracies, it's very easy to talk yourself into the idea that something is there when it's not because the normal rules of logic do not apply in a simple way. I would also, there is no question that something like an attempt to topple the regime in Iran redraws the map of resources in a potentially profound way. Obviously, the straight of our

Moses sitting right there and the world immediately has a stake in this conflict. And the world's preparedness, each of the nations, their differing levels of preparedness for being starved for resources, quickly reorders the map of power. And you would hope that those who had initiated this conflict would have prepared for it in that way, but I'm not so sure. I don't see a lot of wisdom in the political landscape. I see a lot of game theory causing us to behave in ways that are very

unwise. And so I don't know how well prepared we are for this conflict. And frankly, obviously, as you point out just a few minutes ago, the austerity that kinetic war can induce is useful in the same way that a virus spreading around the globe is useful, that the ability

to lock us down, the ability to shut down the mom and pop shops so that they would never reopen

creates a kind of indirect war profiteering. You don't have to, you don't have to be selling

munitions in order to be making a profit on the reorganization of civilization that comes when we have to tighten our belts. And obviously, it is not lost on your connection between the COVID lockdowns, which were unnecessary and devastating and exacerbating of exactly the phenomenon they were nominally supposed to address. The same people who liked the idea of locking the public down may well see the inability of people to travel because there's not enough jet fuel, there's not

“enough gasoline. That's a feature not a bug to some people. And I think we need to understand who they are”

and what role they may or may not have played in pushing us in this direction. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's becoming clearer to me by the moment. I'm already seeing, um, you know, headlines about jet fuel. However, I want to repeat that I don't believe anything I see. I need multiple sources of evidence from like also its sides of the dice, dice, dice, anyway. Um, I feel that there's way too much hubris. Uh, that's another like parallel between what was and what is. Uh, you know, it's

the same, it's the same machine nonetheless. If not the same people instigating these, uh, these

conflicts. I mean, this is ultimately, it's kind of sad. It's no, it's not kind of sad. It's very sad

to me. How these resource wars, you know, it's, it's like, it's just so beneath us as a species. I find it pathetic. Like, we're so much better than this. Um, are we really, are we really still doing this?

“I mean, that that's how I feel about it. I mean, it's, it's the difference between where we could be”

as a civilization, all those, you know, some people would argue we're not one yet. But what is that

scale that that starts with K, um, the, anyway, Elon Musk is always talking about it. The civilization

scale, yeah, I've forgotten what it's called. It's very important that people tap into the reality that that the reality itself, whatever that means, is so different from what's portrayed and, and what I mean by portrayed is like, what, what the public in general is allowed to see or narrated. And like you said, it's, it's in an, an individual level now, uh, even more so because of the algos. I mean, they're, they're, they're putting you into, like, a duly of, uh, this, and this is by design.

I mean, it's, it's, these algorithms are designed to happen to who you are, what you like, where you go, or everything that is you, so that they can, like in my opinion, what they're trying to do is recreate you, like, or an avatar of you in, in a way. Um, it's more, it's, it's not, it's not about selling crap to you. That's, that's, that's bullshit. Um, this, um, this age verification stuff that's going around all the time. Sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm seemingly going off on a tangent, but I'm not because

“I think this is all linked. This is not about protecting children. Come on now. You know, like, it's,”

it would be really nice if, if one of the things I could do in this episode is, is help people just think about the massive illusion of, of, of what's being presented to you. Um, I guess that, a better way to say it is, take a step back and in, in silence and, like, think hard or maybe not hard, maybe think softly about what's real to you, uh, and what's important to you, and how you,

but I think it's really important, and I, I, I, I am very spiritual these days because I'm in a war, but like it's, it's important to me and, and from a global point of view for people to to try and imagine the world that they want to be in, because it's very different from the world that I think we're actually heading toward because of assholes who are literally creating the

circumstances to make our lives, like basically a life of slavery at the very best, and, you know,

a life of turmoil and destruction at the very worst. So, I don't know, that might have sounded a little

“bit like this jointed and renting, but, um, I think, you know, it's, it's a really important”

part of why this is all going on. Um, it's more than just a base human struggle here. It's, it's pettiness, it's hubris. It's, um, there's a lot of manipulation and lying going on and, uh, it's sometimes it's hard to actually see what the lies are, um, and, and, and it's even harder when you see something that you kind of believed in is absolutely a lie. It shakes your foundation and then you

kind of have to rebuild from that, and it's hard to do that. A lot of people just don't want to do that at

all, which is why they stay in a state of, um, I don't know, in a state behold into ignorance, I don't know how else to say it, like, you know, going back to the COVID thing. I mean, some people still have no idea that there's, there's even a problem with the entire thing. I can't believe that, but it's true, you know, there's some people who have no idea that there's a problem that happened last six years. Uh, some people have no idea there's a big global problem going on right now.

They think that there's just this stupid war that has nothing to do with them going on between

“Israel, because Israel's the devil. I mean, that's what, that's what some people think. It's crazy.”

Well, let me, let me, let me try to reorient as I hear, I hear exactly what you're saying, and I, I think a couple things, well, one thing I think is. I can't hear what I'm saying, because I feel like I'm just like, but no, no, no, no, no, nobody has a clue what I'm talking about. Thank you. No, I mean it. No, I, I've known you long enough. I know, I know what you're getting at. Uh, I think others will get it, too. Something finds our freedoms going and the idea that we have a right to demand

things from our societies is a problem to be addressed. And it's constantly chipping away. It can't go after it wholesale, but if you look at what's happening to freedoms in the nominal West, they are being eroded rapidly. And I can't help but feel that, you know, we've all heard of 15-minute cities and at some level, maybe we headed that off because we, it had a name and we all wrapped our mind around what it really meant. And so it's now going to be kind of hard

to do because a lot of us are alert. But there's an attempt to create 15-minute cities of the mind where you're unable to escape some Truman show that's been created for you so that you will comply and that you will allow and that you will sanction all of the things that these powerful forces prefer that enables them and apples us. And in that light, my position since October 7th, or at least my stated position

since then and my fear before October 7th was that much rests on what happens in the Middle East and that the dynamic, as I see it, is this. Israel is two places.

Now, mind you, I've never been to Israel, I would love to go. At the moment, I would be afraid to go

“because I don't trust the people in charge of Israel. I think they have the right”

to eliminate anybody who has a contrary position and an audience. But hopefully I'm imagining that. But in any case, I see Israel saying, "I think you'd be welcomed." I think I'd be welcomed by people, but anyway, let's put my paranoia aside.

and it also looks like a civilization with a deep and very direct connection to the Torah.

“And the problem is that the Torah is a document that was written or that came to be”

in an era where the rules that governed human population interactions were the rules of lineage against lineage violence, where you displace other people so that they will not displace you. That was what history looked like until very recently. It was really the only option. It was an extension of the biological reality that populations of creatures displace each other,

populations of people displace each other. What emerged very late in human history in the very

recent chapter is the modern West in which we behave more or less as you were suggesting we ought to behave or at least we aspire to it, where we don't look at somebody as defined by their population of origin or their religion. But we collaborate with each other because it's productive to do so and we treat those other things as cultural variation that is interesting but not materially important in our interactions with each other. It's a very productive system. It is as

fair as any system that has ever been devised. It is much fairer than communism which aspires

to promote fairness above all other things and results in a gray, unproductive dystopia for

“totally understandable game theoretic reasons. Anyway, the point is I think the world”

does know what we are supposed to be doing. I think we haven't seen the West function the way it's supposed to. It falls down on its obligations frequently and behaves in ways that are exactly counter to the values that we espouse but it also succeeds regularly enough that we know that it works. What we have is a prototype of the West and we know that the right thing to do is to refine that prototype and make it work as the brochure describes it. But that because

Israel is caught between its modern cosmopolitan Western side and its religious Old Testament side that much hangs in the balance. In other words, what I've said since October 7th very publicly is that we are in danger the whole world of being dragged backwards into lineage against lineage violence rather than pulling those who are still engaged in lineage against lineage violence into this modern superior fairer, more productive way of existing

as human beings where we don't get rid of competition. That's the beauty of our system is that the competition is not kinetic and it is not targeted at displacing people. It's about ideas.

“Can I figure out what the opportunities are in the market and can I bring them into reality?”

Yes, if I do it well, then some other competitor will lose for having done it more poorly but that makes us all wealthier when we do that. Anyway, basic point is I'm concerned that we are actually watching the nightmare that I described unfold where the world is being dragged backwards into lineage against lineage violence in the Middle East with Israel leaning into its Torah-based structure even though it is under the direction of secularists. Now I wonder

does that resonate? Does it even make sense for you? Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. Resonate. I don't know. From what I know about the the religious, that's what I call them because, yeah, it's an Australian term.

turning around. You are welcome to bring your cat onto the podcast. Okay, well, look Bretton

why did you so come on, are you? Okay, so here is Mr. Mr. Ripped my hand open this morning when I was trying to help him get out of the blanket he was trapped in. Okay, yeah, so I don't enjoy, you know, the religious or the religious and they're kind of they keep to themselves

“and they have their thing. I don't know much about them. So can you be a little more specific?”

You're not, are you talking about all, you're surely not talking about all religious people in Israel?

No, no, like the the the the hasidine I think I would I would call them like the the orthodox.

Yeah, the orthodox people. So yeah, there there are a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but I think structurally in terms of Israel as a place with like a huge diversity of cultures and religions and etc, they actually play a really vital role. Even if people don't want to admit it or they don't understand why they actually do and I don't understand the dynamics of it. All I know is that that that seems to be apparent to me because I've I've actually thought

about what it would be like if they didn't comprise a large proportion and and of the community and they they they do have a very distinct way of life, but they don't use I know this is going

“to sound funny, but it's I'm making an important point. They don't use smartphones.”

They you know their their children and they have many children and their children all have to like they have to learn a musical instrument. They have to learn you know three languages etc etc. So there are a lot of things that come I have a very minimal knowledge of this. I'm saying this outright of their culture because I'm not a part of it, but there are so many things that I can see from the outside that are like they're really like awesome you know for lack of a better way of saying

and it's like yeah you know what one of the best things I think Western culture could do right now is get rid of all the bloody devices especially in the context of raising children because I you know the they're messing everyone up sorry but it's true. So anyway I think that they you know that they they make up a very important part of the entirety of the people of Israel. I'm not sure

what proportion like there's about 9 million people here um not anyway. As per you're talking

“more about like going back to tribal type ways right like that's what you were implying about”

any ages. Yeah so I mean if you just think about the way history worked the idea of obviously it is evolutionarily effective to destroy another population and replace them. So this displacement game is ancient and it's the default game. And it is a significant fact of history that that's not the only game. If it was the only game then the rest of this is academic. The basic point is what you say doesn't really matter. This is all a question of deploying power in order to displace others so

that they don't displace you. And the alternative version of how to live works well but I'm afraid that it is fragile and that we collapse backward into that more ancient form of being and mind you. I'm not taking anyone to task for their religious beliefs. We could get into a long thread about what those religious beliefs are, how I see them as a secular materialist. But I understand why people hold those beliefs and I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't but my concern is and this isn't

just about Israel. It's certainly a concern about Iran. It's a concern about the United States. Is that when you take what you think the lessons of those ancient texts are and you attempt to

we have evangelicals who have a particular interpretation of the New Testament that interpretation

“has led many to see the conflict in the Middle East as a key to getting to the end state where”

Jesus returns and the dead. Right so my point is look I'm not telling you you're not fully entitled to that belief of course you are. But I am telling you I don't think there is a moral justification for attempting to adjust policy so that it brings about a terrible outcome because you think that

terrible outcome is actually good. Right that can't be policy. So the confusing thing in Israel,

as I see it, is I take Netanyahu to be secular and I take his faction to be primarily secular but they appear to be behaving in a recognizable mode from a time when secular wasn't even a thing. Interesting. Can you elaborate? Well I have said elsewhere that this feels like a holy war and one that could globalize you have you know. Isn't it though? I mean I think it is.

You know like so so shouldn't that if this if if that is not a mirage if this is somehow a

holy war that is de facto between the today of Christian world and the Muslim world

“every single person that that's what I'm concerned about and you know okay you can say”

Brett you're crazy person you're seeing things that aren't real this is really close now. And it could be exactly what's going down I don't know. Right so if it is then everyone on earth should be saying holy moly what just happened we cannot afford to have the world's two largest religions battling in literal terms and a kinetic sense on planet earth the planet it's not big enough it can endure that and what we risk here

is losing the one alternative to that style of interaction that actually works which is the

“West so you know maybe I'm naive but I think the West and again it's a prototype I'm not”

claiming that it lives up to its values even most of the time but it does some of the time. I think the West needed to help the Middle East it needed to pull Israel across the line into its one of two ways of thinking and it needed to help the rest of the Middle East see A that this is a better way of being and B that it doesn't I mean one of the things that would have to be true for that to work is the West would have to clean up its act with respect

to the carnage created by unfettered free market democracy or whatever it is that goes under that click right because we do a tremendous amount of damage to innocent people right we allow corporations to parasitize our children that's inhumane and it makes it much harder to make the argument to other people that who the hell are we to say right so you know I see you know I see the Iranians hanging gay people from cranes right there is not a defense in the world for this absolutely barbaric

behavior on the other hand I see the West as inducing girls to prostitute themselves for the profit of corporations and for the benefit of unscrupulous men it's not quite a good one then walking around with their weeners hanging out in front of children and calling it pride right there you go

the longevity of the human race right and we are falling down on that job and at the same time

“we are allowing ourselves to be dragged backwards into a prior mode that A is intolerable at a”

human level right I don't want to live in a world where people view me as less deserving of life and dignity than them because of the book I or you know that that that vision of other people usually comes from seeing yourself that way there's this is this is the thing that really like there are people who don't value life it's the simplest way for me to put it at all like you know everyone can relate the idea of that by thinking about someone who would abuse an animal for example right

like they they don't value animal life which probably means they don't value life at all and you know not to be a psychology about it but the psychologists about it but like you know a kid that abuse is an animal usually grows up to be an abusive human being anyway yeah but I want to say

“three things one I think your vision is beautiful I really do it would be lovely if that's actually”

what humans could pull together and do as as a as a species I love that vision too a lot of how you described that way that we can make things work as a species without this holy war and with without the pending war between good and evil I'm just going to say like you see it every

single day in the place where I live 21 percent of the population is is Arabic and a lot of

people don't know that they're like Jews Jews no there there it's like a quarter of the population are you know Arabs and that that comprises Muslims and Christians we are made up of everyone and everything and everyone it's it's a very weird thing it's like it's like this part of the world creates this vortex where certain kinds of people kind of just come together and without saying anything when I don't really thinking about it just fall into a way of living together

with with like an understanding that comes from just looking at each other in the eyes I don't know if you know what I'm saying but it's like there's a demonstration of how everyone can live

harmoniously together happening right now and I'm I'm not saying it's always like that and I'm

not saying there aren't people who are here to cause shit because there are but ultimately when you walk like I'm a person that engages with life on the daily and people and I look at things and I feel things and I touch things and when I look around and I did this a lot you know a lot of people ask to me like how did you know there were something going on in the beginning of COVID it's like it's exactly mechanism I look around and I listen and I look into it and

what I see is just normal people you know some summer knowing summer funny summer good looking summer ugly whenever just normal people living their lives and everyone really has one goal they just kind of want to have a good day they want to you know be able to feed their kids in themselves they want to be able to do their job the thing that they love go surfing whatever

“and I think this is absolutely universal to all the human beings on the planet even the ones who have”

become bad seeds I still have hope for them not evil ones but the ones who have kind of turned to the dark side I'm a believer in turning people back everyone wants the same god damn thing pardon my language but like everyone and I I can hear the people of the world now so well what

about you know the people of Gaza and I'm gonna go there because I I've always been empathetic

to every single individual who's suffering I've never been there I can't comment directly on what's going on there right now I cannot imagine that it's it's it's not awful and I really do empathize I sympathize with every single human being who's was not a death cultist I have to

it's so difficult because it's it's it's the good piece it's the normal masses who are like how I just described and then there's this like tiny little percentage of people

“I'm serious I think this is how it is who seem to have a culmination of wealth and what you want”

what you might call power and resources to manipulate this entire mass into doing what they want and people it's it all ties into what we're saying people are they're manipulated into

believing things that they would never believe if they weren't in a certain state of mind

and so I think that it's possible one day that we humans will evolve to a point where we all have enough not this you you will have nothing and be happy crap I mean we all there's an abundance of resources on this planet there's enough for everyone there are too many people we just need to start doing things right we have to stop polluting we have to stop effing up the planet for example because we are doing that we have to stop hating each other quite frankly yeah we we have we

we have to agree on the basic human dignity of people and I think your point about death cultists

is of course right it seems to me that every human being starts out deserving of human dignity you can lose that if you decide it's your right to obliterate others or to or if you're

“topped from birth that it's okay and you should kill as many people as possible based on a religion”

of course but the basic dignity of people is actually fundamental to the actual western structure and I don't know I guess I increasingly hear people invoking something in this neighborhood and discussing the war in the Middle East but I don't think we're focused on this enough we're really in a battle over which structure is going to govern the future and I think unfortunately let's take the situation in Gaza I'm struck I cannot if we go back to

the dichotomy between explanations the two hypotheses we discussed earlier is is there a plan

“that involves the destruction of Gaza and that's what's going on or is there a faction”

taking advantage of this destruction in Gaza what I see is oh my god did I just hear the description of a beautiful you know a real estate proposal in Gaza I think I did is that incidental or you know was that on the minds I mean obviously October 7th happened on the other hand the problem with Benjamin Netanyahu as I see it is that he is tremendously capable and I see no evidence in his behavior that he believes in the fundamental human dignity of all

people and that he's only interested in going after those who have through their actions lost that right and I don't know what to make of that it troubles me I mean among other things I am tremendously troubled by the fact that he cynically argued apparently to support Hamas now this was years ago and the purpose was to divide the Palestinians it's the ostensible purpose but

the problem is I'm putting myself in the mind or I'm trying to have a Palestinian in Gaza

who Benjamin Netanyahu has supported Hamas and now I'm living under Hamas rule I would be living that somebody would cynically inflict Hamas rule on me and then that it would result in a massive bombing campaign it just seems to me it reminds me so much of Anthony Fauci right Anthony Fauci became the go-to guy for what to do about COVID but he was also a guy

such terrible judgment that he would offshore the work of the dual-use research that seems to have

“created SARS-CoV-2 he lost any right to be in the room for a discussion about what to do about COVID”

and I feel this is the situation with Netanyahu he let's say it was an honest error that he cynically wanted to divide the Palestinians was callous enough to attempt to inflict Hamas on the people of Gaza and it went badly and resulted in the most major massacre of Jews since the Holocaust well didn't he naturally lose his right to be in the room when discussing what to do about the problem of Gaza it seems like he should have and yet he remains in power and now is behaving

in a belligerent way with respect to Iran now you know look maybe the hardliners are right

“maybe there's no future in any alternative system in which we do honor the dignity of other people”

and I'm naive that's possible but if I'm not then the point is well what what rules are we living under where the people who make problems worse are the people we go to to figure out how to solve problems it just does not add up to me yeah are we trying to figure out how to solve

problems I don't know I've never met the guy and I've heard him speak a few times and I'm not sure

that I agree because I just don't know I'm not in his head I don't know what he's thinking I I don't know you know the connection between I don't know enough about the connection between him and Hamas but that's actually a distinction I'd like to make because I don't think enough people understand that there's a huge difference between the people of Gaza and and this this terrorist group however that the unfortunate part is that you're right like they're they are inflicted upon the people

and they're very scary and you know I I haven't been there I haven't you know experienced it so I feel like an idiot saying anything about it but I would imagine that a lot of people are exceedingly subjugated and have lost I would say the spirit to revolt to fight back I don't know I I just feel I feel a lot of sympathy for all people who are suffering at the hands of others I mean of course it ties into what's happening now everything is tying together but

I don't know like I I'm still trying to figure out like I have no I like well no that that would be now you for me to say I have an idea why the U.S. has involved with this current situation my feeling now I'm I'm going back to what you were saying about Trump I'm trying to remember when I was going to say about that but like I I have a feeling now that he it's just a feeling that maybe he might be feeling himself

that how do I say it diplomatically he might have bitten off more than he can shoot

in terms of Iran I mean again I've never been to Iran I I don't even really have a close Iranian

friend the most I know about what's going on there from these like these speaking groups on Twitter

“that I get invited to sometimes that have some like intel people in it and I mean the only thing”

I really know when I don't even know if this is true is that the internet is down there so that you know communication is down as well that's also depressing isn't it I just a every now and then I tap into the the actual people who are involved like I think about all the people of Iran as well like the the different

and women I mean there are there are beautiful photographs of what Iran used to look like

“we're women we're wearing beautiful clothes and everyone was smiling and happy the culture was”

free and not saying that there isn't beauty in in the architecture the art or whatever or you know that um well actually maybe maybe the education system has changed but like I just hope that I just hope that we can overcome evil I I don't know how else to say it like I hope that the good people of all the places on earth can set aside their their

base fighting I don't know what to call it and and see try to see if you still can if you're evil

I don't think you can try to see eye to eye with whom ever you're sitting in front of man woman child whatever wherever you're from doesn't matter um you're describing you're describing what the West is when functions yeah when it functions yeah and you know I will just say I am reluctant to

“admit that in the end it does come down to a battle between us and them but I think the us and them”

who's misunderstood and the us is every person on earth who understands that the right way to do this is to put aside ancient rivalries skin colors religious texts and participate in preserving and enhancing the earth as much as we can given our opportunities and them should be an empty set it should be all of the people who oppose that plan and hopefully there are none but they're aren't going to be none but my basic feeling is I am ready to make common cause with anybody who is

on board with the idea that we do know a better way to be that we see it sometimes it fails other times but what we should be doing is trying to figure out how to make it fail less succeed more and work better right it's that simple the West is a prototype of something and as a prototype that is so superior

“to a world in which you have to worry about who's coming after you because of you know the you know”

the medallion you wear around your neck that everybody wants it if they've participated and again it does involve cleaning up the problems there's you know the so called free market does a lot of unnecessary harm and it does it to innocent people so it's not like the West is some shining example of how to you know respect people it doesn't work that way it degrades a lot of people but is it the better system yes and frankly is it the only system that allows humanity to have

an indefinitely long future it is but you know we can't have half the world involved in lineage against lineage violence and the other half struggling to put it aside it's unstable and it brings us right back to where we are now in the Middle East and I don't know I just wish people would take it as a wakeup call yeah sometimes I wonder I'm sorry I'm I'm it's just my personality I have to bring in some levity and joke you know you know how they're talking about releasing like

UFO stuff yes well like I'm one impressed yeah so but like it occurs to me sometimes that maybe I I'm I'm the like uber optimist here and I'm half joking but only half that may be this is some kind of plan to unify the human species you know what I mean I know what you mean

the problem is okay I'm with you until you oh don't be with me because I don't know from there

I'm with you I'm with you up through it's some kind of and then you said the word plan and the problem is the people in a position to plan one haven't figured out that their plans never work out because they don't know anything about complex systems and they tell themselves stories and then some thing that they didn't know anything systems biologists to rule the world at least maybe the only value is that the systems biologists can tell them hey actually that thing you think is going to happen

it's not right you know that would be useful but okay so the planners are a incapable of

position to plan are trying to figure out what real estate they're going to put in Gaza

“now that the buildings have conveniently fallen down they're not of a mindset to unite us in”

fact our uniting as a planet is like their nightmare yeah yeah yeah so these people are the same people who did the lahaina thing I'm just using no seriously like do you think that this is the same thing like let me put it to this way I don't know what happened in lahaina I've certainly seen evidence that says there are things about that event that do not look like normal five dynamics but I don't I'm not going to pretend to know what did happen on the other hand

let's put it this way you want to wear some scary goggles wear goggles that look at human events and say how much of this could be interpreted through a real estate lens right those are scary goggles to wear I try not to put them on too often because wow can you freak yourself out but there's a let's put it to this way if you were a diabolical highly powerful person wouldn't you be looking at the world and saying ha there are too many people over there

and gee that would be some nice real estate if only there wasn't a such and such so am I saying

“that happens no but I am saying I think most people fall down in their analysis of the world”

because they do not properly understand what it would be like to be a psychopath and to the extent

that there are psychopaths who have the ability to do things the rest of us would never do you would

expect clever ones to rise and once in a position to do things that normal folks don't even contemplate the question is exactly what forced you think it is that's holding them back so anyway I don't know what happened in line I don't know frankly why the events in the middle least are unfolding the way they are but you could imagine it's about power and limited resources stupid and somebody is looking at the map as if it was a chessboard with no one there's no

mind like I do this as a thought exercise for myself sometimes I'm like it's very hard for me though because I'm no interest in money that's not the thing that I place value on but like

I don't even think most people understand the concept of a billion dollars and there are

billionaires and there are more billionaires like since COVID so literally and and a lot you know ties into this Hollywood thing where people just get up to no good and it's like people are like how can they do that it's like okay do do the thought exercise where you literally can do whatever you want today you can literally do whatever you want as as gross of a thought as you have ever imagined you know some fantasy playing out or as as great you can do whatever you want what would you

“do and so like I think that like if you ask the average person to do that and then like turn it into”

the worst freaking thing you could possibly imagine if no one was ever going to find out type thing you know that kind of question imagine I imagine that a lot of people would be behaving in this in a similar way to these psychopaths and it's interesting because I actually watched documentaries on psychopathy and a stunning number of people are actually considered true psychopaths it's don't call me on this but I think it's like one in a hundred it's something crazy like the

statistic I'm actual psychopaths walking among us um they have to understand that given the way the world is constructed it we have a very wrong idea about sociopaths and psychopaths laws we become aware of them when they screw up right it is their behavior that gets revealed that calls our attention the fact it's such a person exists which means that our sample is biased in the direction of those who fuck up more regularly and those who actually don't

have a superpower the rest of us don't have if you literally have every move available to you and your competitors have only a limited subset of moves that are constrained by some sort of moral guiderails then the point is oh well there are lots of games you'll win the only games where you won't win our games where for example reputation causes your superpower to be neutralize

and you can spend it at the car dealership just like anybody else so you know we've set up a game

in which there is a particular kind of monster that we should expect to see at the top and then we see people at the top doing monstrous things we bend over backwards to imagine what other

“explanation might exist because we wouldn't do that but it's you know the only thing that's”

hard about the puzzle is imagining what it would be like to be a truly a moral human being but they do exist totally and actually I think that the morality is one of the huge problems that

we're facing maybe not as a species but like man maybe I have a weird perception of the west but

like amoralities is just something very prevalent it's ranked and yeah and it's it's like it's it's not just a word I mean it comes with with a boatload of characteristics and implications that are kind of foundational and without them I mean not a boatload a yachtload it's a very particular kind of boat yeah I agree and yeah empathy true empathy though I mean like being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes on the subject matter trying to imagine what it's like to be a

billionaire psychopath and like the the the planet is your playground and beyond you know I might be

going overboard by saying this but I I can I can't personally imagine ever being a human being that could be that type of that could ever be power hungry I'll put it that way because I I don't I don't have an appetite for that kind of thing I mean absolute power corrupt

“absolutely true um money I think is is the root of all evil I really do I know that sounds”

kind of foolish but I really do believe that it makes people weird I'm changes changes the game theory to be sure which yeah well it's like you said it it allows you to to just not only have the game and and have the pieces but you you're in control of all the moves so it's it's kind of boring like I actually think about that sometimes too I'm like maybe they just act like asshole is because they're bored let's let let let's go like ruin these people's lives today because I'm bored you know what I mean

I think this I think this is a known pattern actually from psychopaths is that they you get bored and they're

“still seeking I was kind of joking well your joke was a little a little on the nose I think”

we could obviously get deep in the weeds here if we start to explore the complicated relationship between Jews and the idea of an afterlife however I think there is something to the idea you know Jews have a much more remote relationship to an afterlife than for example Christians and I think there is something valuable in the idea that what we are supposed to be doing is working to make this place better

and this comes back to the the us and them thing that we were talking about before I think at some level we have to courageously face the what seemed like dire prospects in front of us and do everything in our power to to beat the odds and I would say you know one COVID dissident to another we've seen this work we know that we can punch above our weight class and what it takes is weirdly a kind of well for me it's not a literal faith but it's an as if faith if you have

faith that good is supposed to win out then the idea is well in what way you know this this looks

wins so what should we be doing to beat the odds you know where's the slingshot that's the

question and anyway and I think you know if we do recognize it as hey you know who's on our team well in principle it should be every single person who respects the dignity of others then that's a pretty big team yeah respects life yeah I think that I know this might sound as jointed but somewhere it's it connects in my brain you might have to draw a map outside on a piece of paper but if I sometimes I think like if I had to list like three things that I think human beings are

absolutely neatly significantly beautiful because of I always think to architecture first of all

like a beautiful buildings I think about books like actual books with like words from different languages written on pages and bound and I think about music and musical instruments and within all of these cultures and even if you want to just talk about you know the the two that are quarreling right now I don't know oversimplify anything forgive me but um we all have now let me back that up I like to talk about people as individuals every single person has the ability

“to be to do whatever they want first of all and I think everybody has a talent you need to do some”

work and explore listen to your hard to figure out what that is but we've demonstrated as a species of individuals that we have these incredible abilities and what's even more beautiful is that when we come together like saying orchestra it's it's it's more than sync it's like

something even more beautiful comes out as a result that could never happen with just the

single individual as brilliantly talented one musician might be in the music music example and I think this is how I just choose to see the world no matter how much turmoil is going on around me or chaos I just I will never not envision a world one day or even as a potential that never gets

“realized that's how I see us like we that's what we could be we could be this beautiful orchestra”

creating something magical that is I don't know if I don't know how to express it it's not burnt into time but it's it's it's it's universal it's like um I mean maybe maybe millions of years from now some you know other other species you know might not be able to see us play live but maybe there's us a CD remaining or something that they'll be able to hear or building a beautiful gothic cathedral or something and I'm just I think that we owe it to ourselves as this wickedly weird complex

confused species to just be all of those things but in a constructive way and I don't know if any of the psychopaths are listening to this but like if you're not actually psychopath and you just kind of turn to the dark side like maybe this what I'm saying can help you believe that there's a reason to to go to the light because there are people like me and and Brett who we really we don't just want to live a good life in light and love but it it it's just better

“it leads somewhere better I mean um fine if you want to go play in a dark sandbox with you”

money but like I don't that's it nice I love it and uh there's of course a lot of ways we could build on that but I think it I think it speaks very well for the challenge ahead of us in any case

surf the spots that stuff isn't falling on because uh it would just be a terrible I mean I

“guess it's maybe it's the best way to go out but uh still I'd rather you hang out and continue to”

surf through well that's the thing like it's that's the philosophy like I you know I don't I don't

want to sound morbid but you know like the inevitability of life is death and we're all going to

“succumb to it and contrary to what some people might think but I read y'all and you collect new book”

but uh at least I'll go doing what I love um it has you know you gotta it's it's surf or die

those are alternatives don't surf and die all right so I promise I'll try

“and thanks to universe we're not interrupting us with missile attacks. Thanks to the universe”

for making any of this pops. Yeah, I'm getting the atoms to work is a kind of a short story. Thank you. Thatems were coming together and making this weird serial experience. Yeah all right well uh a great joy talking to you stay safe and everyone else thanks for joining us. [BLANK_AUDIO]