Is The Media Lying?

[00:00:11] Hello Rye, welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast, Kevin and Chuck.

[00:00:18] Today, well, we're going to talk about fake news, disinformation, the media lying.

[00:00:26] It turns out we're going to talk about lies, and that's really what it comes down to.

[00:00:31] Kind of everywhere we go, social media, which obviously is not necessarily a credible source.

[00:00:38] I mean, there may be credible sources coming through social media, but not that often.

[00:00:44] And we're going to kind of talk about the idea of how everything really comes from your perspective, right?

[00:00:51] Two people maybe sitting in a room hear a speech and both hear different things.

[00:00:56] Now, we hear the same words, but maybe we hear a different meaning, right?

[00:01:02] And honestly, some of us older veterans, maybe we hear different words too.

[00:01:07] You know, who knows?

[00:01:08] But you get the idea.

[00:01:11] Kevin, thoughts?

[00:01:13] Yeah, well, I mean, I think a big part of the stuff that we don't talk about is stories that the news just doesn't report, you know?

[00:01:23] You flip to CNN, you flip to MSNBC, Fox News.

[00:01:28] It's all the same stories from a different perspective, you know?

[00:01:31] But there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't get reported.

[00:01:34] Yeah.

[00:01:34] And I think that's a big portion of the problem.

[00:01:40] Like, example?

[00:01:41] You got something?

[00:01:42] I got a couple.

[00:01:43] Yeah, because like, where do you even find these?

[00:01:46] Like, you – and that's the thing.

[00:01:48] Like, they end up in like a local newspaper or like they're in the like small town Gazette or –

[00:01:54] It's to me, it's like, I mean, they're events or, you know, studies that are completed that just nobody knows about.

[00:02:03] They don't fit the agenda.

[00:02:04] One of the big things, I think we talked a few months ago, we talked about Forever Chemicals.

[00:02:10] Yes.

[00:02:12] So, yeah, they're finding Forever Chemicals in rainwater, which is getting in everybody's drinking water.

[00:02:18] Obviously.

[00:02:19] Which now it's basically everybody is infected with these chemicals, which are causing health problems.

[00:02:26] So the news never talked about that because it was a multibillion-dollar corporation that put the chemicals there, and they don't want everyone to know about it.

[00:02:35] No, I wouldn't want people to know about that.

[00:02:37] Dupont?

[00:02:38] Oh, no.

[00:02:39] Let's hit another one real quick.

[00:02:45] Facebook, Twitter, Google, they're all filling up with ex-CIA agents and ex-Israeli agents, you know, special intelligence agents.

[00:02:58] So it's kind of like we're now turning big tech into big brother.

[00:03:04] Nobody's reporting on that news story.

[00:03:06] It's happening.

[00:03:07] But you didn't see that on CNN.

[00:03:09] They're not going to talk about it.

[00:03:11] Hey, we're all being bribed.

[00:03:13] And that's one of the things.

[00:03:15] Like, if I search on Google or I search on something less controlled, and maybe it's not even.

[00:03:21] I don't know how it's been infiltrated or not.

[00:03:23] But if I search Google and DuckDuckGo, I get a totally different answer.

[00:03:28] Right.

[00:03:29] Right.

[00:03:30] Because there are some that are just kind of like removed from, you know, removed from the algorithm.

[00:03:35] And you type in the right words and it just doesn't.

[00:03:40] It's not going to show you that result.

[00:03:41] So I had remembered after September 11th, this came up at work yesterday and it was just unrelated.

[00:03:48] I was like, well, that's not true.

[00:03:50] But I had remembered that Lloyd's of London was the big insurer for the World Trade Towers and that they didn't really pay.

[00:03:59] And I swear that was a news story that it wasn't big news, but it got around, you know, and people heard it and it was a thing.

[00:04:07] And they were the primary insurer and that they really just were like, well, we didn't think that had happened and they didn't pay Jack.

[00:04:17] Right.

[00:04:17] Now, mind you, it didn't.

[00:04:18] I searched it out yesterday and it didn't really get resolved till 2007.

[00:04:24] And again, in 2009, it was revisited.

[00:04:28] So, I mean, this happened and I had heard about it in like 2002 or three, you know, early on about them not paying and committing to their, their obligations.

[00:04:37] Um, but when I, I was having this debate at work with somebody about it, I go to Google and I search, you know, Lloyd's of London and, and world trade tower insurance.

[00:04:50] Nothing, not one result came up and I'm like, did I imagine it?

[00:04:56] Is it?

[00:04:56] And you start to doubt your own memories, you know, you're like, oh, that can't be.

[00:05:00] But then I was like, well, let me try duck, duck, go, you know, and the work computers are just like naturally set up to have Google at my employer.

[00:05:08] Right.

[00:05:08] So I go over to duck, duck, go and I search it and sure enough.

[00:05:12] And I typed in Lloyd's of London, the Lloyd's of London website comes up and says, we were the primary insurer on.

[00:05:22] And that was nowhere in Google when I was for it.

[00:05:26] And they're like, yeah, we were.

[00:05:28] And we were great.

[00:05:29] And then I'm like, wait a minute.

[00:05:31] That isn't.

[00:05:32] Uh, that's not what Google said.

[00:05:36] It said, it said we were the primary insurer and we, we came through excellent on that one.

[00:05:45] Just like Katrina and COVID.

[00:05:47] They were big insurer for COVID.

[00:05:48] I didn't even know what that's about.

[00:05:50] I didn't know insurance had it.

[00:05:51] Yeah.

[00:05:53] I guess it was like businesses shutting down and there was a big article there, but I dug into it.

[00:05:59] And, you know, it basically ended up saying like they ended up paying like close to 4 billion in, in the end, but nothing was clear in any article I read.

[00:06:09] Like I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole and they're like, well, they paid a little, they, you know, and 4 billion is obviously more than a little, but it's still, it, it wasn't what was, you know, justified.

[00:06:22] But anyway.

[00:06:23] And I'm sure they had to fight for every penny of that 4 billion.

[00:06:26] It was just, yeah.

[00:06:27] Just the example, you know, that they gave and, and it wasn't them that paid that much, but yeah, it just, it was crazy how things get misrepresented.

[00:06:36] And like, remember there was always the story of, uh, on September 11th, the day before Rumsfeld gave that speech where he said, Oh, by the way, the Pentagon lost, it was like 2.1 or 3.1 trillion or billion dollars or whatever.

[00:06:53] Yeah.

[00:06:54] I think it was trillion.

[00:06:54] It was like stupid.

[00:06:56] And they were like, eh, we don't know.

[00:06:58] And then nine 11 happened.

[00:07:00] And now when you bring that up, people are like, it's not on YouTube.

[00:07:02] You can't find it.

[00:07:04] And if you search for a couple hours, you'll find it in the middle of a speech, like accidentally that YouTube accidentally gets in there.

[00:07:13] But, uh, yeah, that's hard to find.

[00:07:15] And, you know, you start to question your reality and that's the whole thing, but, uh, sorry, more, uh, fake news or, or that's the ones you got for unreported.

[00:07:25] Unreported.

[00:07:26] No, I got two more.

[00:07:27] All right, let's go.

[00:07:28] Two more.

[00:07:28] Between, uh, 2012 and 2021, uh, 1,733 environmental activists were murdered.

[00:07:39] Seems like a lot of people to murder and not have anything about it, but nobody reported on that story.

[00:07:45] Yeah, sure.

[00:07:45] You know, who reports on things that, you know, journalists, eh.

[00:07:50] All right.

[00:07:50] And the fourth one here.

[00:07:52] Now there's, there's a bunch.

[00:07:53] There was a bunch that, you know, these are the only ones I looked into, uh, proximity to oil and gas extraction sites are linked to maternal health risks and childhood leukemia.

[00:08:03] So if you live near any place that they're drilling for oil, you might get cancer and there's nothing you're going to do about it.

[00:08:11] But, you know, just a heads up, maybe, maybe move out of those spots.

[00:08:15] You know, I don't know why that wouldn't be a news story.

[00:08:19] You would think that would be important for the people to live around those places, but nobody reported on that.

[00:08:24] So, right.

[00:08:25] Well, the big thing, like we end up when these stories don't get reported people, a lot of times, depending on the issue and how important it is to people and how much funding they can get.

[00:08:36] But we get these documentaries where they dig down into it and they try and, you know, unmask the bad situations.

[00:08:45] And, you know, you'll see ones about farming, big pharma or, or that there's that Matt Damon one about fracking.

[00:08:52] That's not a documentary.

[00:08:54] I think that one, like they made a movie about it, but it tries to like expose a big scandal and, and whatever.

[00:09:00] But there's a bunch like that where they dig in, you know, like shutting down farms for, you know, I don't know, raw milk and things like that.

[00:09:10] Right.

[00:09:10] And they go down these rabbit holes and even if they expose it.

[00:09:17] Immediately people with money and power kind of show up with, oh, that's discredited.

[00:09:22] Look, it's not real because, and then when you start searching it out, it's like, oh, but that's not true because so and so.

[00:09:30] And the thing is, it may not be true because I don't know.

[00:09:34] And that's the whole thing.

[00:09:36] That's why it's so scary is we don't know what reality is.

[00:09:40] And then when you get AI going like it is and the way it's able to recreate video and stories and everything else and see people saying things, you don't.

[00:09:50] What is reality anymore?

[00:09:52] It gets completely changed.

[00:09:54] And that's, you know, we can tell you, oh, well, back when the moon landing, those pictures were faked.

[00:09:59] Look, maybe they were.

[00:10:01] I don't know.

[00:10:02] That's the thing.

[00:10:03] You don't know what reality is anymore.

[00:10:06] It was funny.

[00:10:07] Glenn Beck used to talk a couple of years back.

[00:10:10] He would, he was given a big thing and he said, look, you won't even be able to recognize what reality is.

[00:10:15] And he's like, you need to collect as much history as you can and preserve it.

[00:10:21] And he's like, that's why I'm making this museum or whatever, doing what he could do.

[00:10:25] But the thing is, the idea is because if you don't have the actual stuff, who knows what reality is.

[00:10:33] Right.

[00:10:34] Right.

[00:10:34] There's a big conspiracy theory that the Middle Ages never happened.

[00:10:40] Did you ever hear about this?

[00:10:41] Yeah.

[00:10:42] They didn't happen?

[00:10:43] Yeah.

[00:10:44] So there's four or five hundred years.

[00:10:46] The thing is, his histories are written about him.

[00:10:49] But a lot of the, like the armor, the swords, all the metal, all that stuff gets melted down and turned into something else.

[00:10:58] Right.

[00:10:58] It's not useful.

[00:10:59] Yeah.

[00:11:00] Right.

[00:11:00] So they don't have the physical evidence, you know, aside of some castles and some books that they wrote.

[00:11:05] You know, there's not a whole lot of like historical evidence about it.

[00:11:10] And just because it doesn't exist doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[00:11:13] But you know what I mean?

[00:11:14] Like, yeah, exactly.

[00:11:16] You can't prove it.

[00:11:17] Yeah.

[00:11:18] That's one of the things I just saw.

[00:11:21] I was watching a guy there.

[00:11:22] They're doing a whole bunch of archaeology stuff over in Israel.

[00:11:26] And they say, you know, that the land of David or whatever and King David and and that, you know, where he was supposed to be and digging up and searching for clues.

[00:11:37] Believe it or not, according to archaeologists and mainstream history, if you will.

[00:11:46] King David, aside of the Bible, there was no evidence that he ever existed.

[00:11:52] And they never found anything until 1993.

[00:11:57] I mean, that's amazing to me that you could go that long without any artifacts to, you know, and then they found some.

[00:12:05] And now it's, you know, progressing and they have more stuff and more evidence and whatever.

[00:12:09] But they weren't even like sure that, you know, he was a real thing.

[00:12:13] And they were really like, oh, the Bible's, you know, full of it because that's weird because they find evidence of lots of other stuff.

[00:12:20] But they didn't find evidence of that, you know?

[00:12:23] Yeah.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:25] No, I mean, a lot of that stuff is kind of weird.

[00:12:27] So let's let's talk real quick about the news agencies that we get our news from.

[00:12:33] I'm going to run through.

[00:12:35] Well, let's start with Disney.

[00:12:36] Disney owns ABC, ESPN and Vice News.

[00:12:40] But who owns Disney?

[00:12:43] Primarily the Vanguard Group, BlackRock and State Street Corporation.

[00:12:49] Warner Brothers owns CNN and they're owned by BlackRock and State Street Corporation and Harris Associates.

[00:12:57] Comcast owns NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.

[00:13:01] And they're owned by BlackRock, State Street and JP Morgan.

[00:13:05] So you're going to hear you hear the same names over again.

[00:13:08] So who owns BlackRock?

[00:13:09] Well, BlackRock is owned by State Street Corporation and Vanguard Group.

[00:13:14] You're like, wait, that's the same guys.

[00:13:17] Right.

[00:13:18] So who owns State Street Corporation?

[00:13:22] BlackRock and JP Morgan.

[00:13:26] And JP Morgan owns Morgan Stanley, which owns large shares in Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street Corporation.

[00:13:37] So it's like the same four or five corporations that all own stock in each other.

[00:13:43] In each other.

[00:13:44] And guess where all your retirement money goes when you put it in your 401k if you don't select something else?

[00:13:51] Can you say Vanguard Group or Jack Gordon?

[00:13:55] Yeah, exactly.

[00:13:56] You're like, wait, what?

[00:13:57] I'm paying for them to control me?

[00:14:00] And yeah, that sounds right.

[00:14:01] You are.

[00:14:02] You know what's even scarier?

[00:14:04] I was hearing there's stuff floating around the government that, you know, in the small back channels that they talk about in dark rooms.

[00:14:15] And again, probably fake news, but maybe it's not.

[00:14:19] Is that AI, the big powerful tool?

[00:14:23] You know how the government in the during like World War II, they used to go and seize people's patents.

[00:14:30] Like people are always afraid that they come after them with like you invent a car that runs off water.

[00:14:35] And the government's like, nope, big oil shut that down.

[00:14:38] That's for government, you know, use only.

[00:14:40] And we can't.

[00:14:41] And they seize the patents.

[00:14:43] Well, it turns out they're really thinking about going after AI and making it government only.

[00:14:49] Now, imagine if the government had AI, but you didn't have access to it.

[00:14:54] What kind of world they could create and shape in your image?

[00:14:58] You know, you wonder, like, how could they pull off the blind stuff of 1984 where they make you believe a total different reality?

[00:15:11] Right.

[00:15:11] That's how you do it.

[00:15:12] And the thing is, they're already doing it now.

[00:15:14] It's not like they have exclusive control.

[00:15:16] They can already do it now.

[00:15:18] You know, it's not what you believe.

[00:15:20] One of the big things in 1984 that they talked about is that they would report the news, you know, they would have facts.

[00:15:28] And then one day everything would change.

[00:15:31] I mean, no, we've always been at war with that country.

[00:15:33] No, it's always been that way.

[00:15:34] And like you said, you can go back and Google and look up stories that you remember and it doesn't exist anymore.

[00:15:41] And then you're like, well, maybe I misheard that.

[00:15:44] I didn't know.

[00:15:45] I'm dumb.

[00:15:46] Yeah.

[00:15:46] Maybe I'm crazy.

[00:15:48] Right.

[00:15:49] And you start to question your reality.

[00:15:51] And that's where it gets so like hairy.

[00:15:54] And man, it's unbelievable how much, you know, that stuff shapes reality.

[00:16:01] And what's worse is, you know, obviously me and Kevin, we're trying to bring you the truth.

[00:16:06] I'm actually pretty careful.

[00:16:09] I mean, you could always be more careful, right?

[00:16:12] I mean, definitely everything.

[00:16:15] Like I check and make sure that the news site I got it from when I repeat a story is like a real newspaper.

[00:16:23] But that doesn't mean anything like, oh, I got it from the New York Times.

[00:16:27] So it's true.

[00:16:28] Well, right.

[00:16:29] Exactly.

[00:16:29] It used to be the New York Times would be pretty reliable.

[00:16:33] You know, I try and, you know, make sure it's not like the Kevin Gazette or whatever that I'm getting your article from.

[00:16:41] But on the flip side of that, maybe the Kevin Gazette is putting out the truth and the New York Times might not be.

[00:16:48] You know, you don't know.

[00:16:50] And it's so hard to interpret what reality is.

[00:16:54] And that's, you know, I was pointing out, oh, save your old history books.

[00:16:57] Well, it turns out your old history books might not have been accurate either.

[00:17:03] Right.

[00:17:03] So it's all from the, you know, they say that the winners get to write the history, you know?

[00:17:09] Right.

[00:17:09] The winners get to write the story.

[00:17:11] Yeah.

[00:17:12] Well, Winston Churchill said that.

[00:17:14] He said history is going to be kind to me because I intend to write it.

[00:17:19] And, yeah, we don't, you know, you can talk shit about Winston Churchill, but most people think he's, you know, a pretty decent dude.

[00:17:26] You know?

[00:17:27] And you wonder why.

[00:17:28] Wonder why.

[00:17:30] But that's the reality of it.

[00:17:32] And it's crazy how much that stuff is shaped and changed by, you know, the winner gets to do it.

[00:17:41] And the same thing like Animal Farm.

[00:17:43] You know, they talk about the pigs had a list of rules that they would write on the, that they had a chalkboard.

[00:17:50] And it turns out one of the cool things about a chalkboard is that it, you can erase it and change it.

[00:17:57] You can erase it, yeah.

[00:17:58] And that's why they're so big.

[00:17:59] Remember all the textbooks in schools now are digital for the most part in elementary schools.

[00:18:06] I mean, obviously, it depends on the budget.

[00:18:08] If you're in a poor place, you might still have your old school papered textbooks.

[00:18:13] But the big thing is everything is digital.

[00:18:15] In Mississippi and Alabama, getting actual facts.

[00:18:18] They're getting actual textbook information because they have the same book from 1964.

[00:18:23] 1964.

[00:18:25] But the thing is, they can rewrite history at the end of the year and it's different next year.

[00:18:32] And you're saying, Chuck, that would never happen.

[00:18:35] Okay.

[00:18:36] Okay.

[00:18:36] That's all I can say.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:39] Probably.

[00:18:39] You're probably right.

[00:18:40] Not going to happen.

[00:18:43] Yeah.

[00:18:44] Now, one of the biggest problems we had was in who owns what news sites and why they are all owned by the same people is the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

[00:18:57] Basically, it deregulated ownership, allowing a small number of conglomerates to control most of the media.

[00:19:03] Now, that wasn't the intention of it, but they didn't, you know, they were the ones that wrote the act.

[00:19:11] You know what I mean?

[00:19:12] The telecommunication companies were the ones that wrote this bill and it just got passed by Congress and the Senate.

[00:19:17] And Congress and the Senate is going to, you know, pass whatever bill makes them most likely get reelected.

[00:19:23] And so, I mean.

[00:19:25] And that's the thing, like in order to like pass something, you know, everybody's like, well, I'll agree to it as long as I can write in my little back door that I'll be able to do what I still want.

[00:19:37] You know, and that's the thing with these bills.

[00:19:39] You always kind of, you know, what is it they say?

[00:19:43] It would be cool to have a clean bill, meaning it just does its intended purpose without anything.

[00:19:49] But that never happens.

[00:19:50] That's not usually the reality.

[00:19:52] And let's talk about the first amendments to the Constitution.

[00:19:56] They're not even bills.

[00:19:57] They're the Constitution amended, you know, a bill of rights.

[00:20:00] Each one of those is like two sentences long.

[00:20:03] You know what I mean?

[00:20:05] Straightforward.

[00:20:05] The Constitution, the whole framework of our government is laid out in like, I don't know, what's it?

[00:20:11] Probably like 10 pages if you had it typed out and printed.

[00:20:15] You know, I mean, it's really like two pages.

[00:20:18] But if you, you know, spread it out in reality, it's not much.

[00:20:22] And they were somehow able to shape an entire new country and lay out a government.

[00:20:28] And they could do it in 10 pages.

[00:20:30] But now every bill we have is like a thousand pages.

[00:20:35] And you're like, really?

[00:20:36] And no senator or congressman that votes for or against the bill has read any of it.

[00:20:40] You know what I mean?

[00:20:41] Even if you have, you completely understand it.

[00:20:44] Because it could be just one sentence.

[00:20:47] It's one, you know, strange word in there that can really reshape, you know, powers and give people, you know, more.

[00:20:55] And that's where it gets crazy.

[00:20:58] The big thing with fake news and disinformation is that once these stories get out, it's hard to retract it.

[00:21:07] MIT did a study and said that fake news spreads six times faster than actual news.

[00:21:15] Now, obviously, because it's meant to be scandalous or salacious.

[00:21:18] That's why we get clicks and, you know, views and that kind of thing.

[00:21:23] But when you correct it, nobody cares.

[00:21:26] You know, one of the stories, you know, I had talked about there was some kind of some weird.

[00:21:31] I thought I remembered some kind of Ben Carson affair story that discredited him.

[00:21:36] Maybe it was in my imagination because when I looked it up, I didn't see anything.

[00:21:41] I'm like, I don't know.

[00:21:42] It just disappeared.

[00:21:43] It just exists anymore.

[00:21:44] Because, you know, that's how things go.

[00:21:46] But when I did search Ben Carson stuff, there was a story about his office had spent $31,000 on office furniture.

[00:21:59] And it wasn't approved by Congress.

[00:22:01] And how dare he, you know, whatever.

[00:22:03] And then, like, later I found an article.

[00:22:06] Oh, he was cleared of all that.

[00:22:08] But it didn't say why.

[00:22:10] It didn't say he didn't do it.

[00:22:11] It said, you know.

[00:22:13] And I'm like, oh, well, I know he seems to be a really honorable guy.

[00:22:16] But I don't know.

[00:22:18] You know, it's I don't know what that means.

[00:22:21] And that's the whole thing is they can shape your perception just by printing a story that may or may not be true or based in fact.

[00:22:30] And if you put a correction, it's like, oh, yeah, I put it out there.

[00:22:33] I said I was wrong.

[00:22:34] Sorry.

[00:22:35] You know, so sad.

[00:22:37] Right.

[00:22:39] Right.

[00:22:39] Well, I think a lot of that stuff is is intentional.

[00:22:43] You know, you just all you have to do is float a story like I'm going to do right now.

[00:22:49] Oh.

[00:22:51] So Twitter, you know, big, big news source for a lot of people, which it shouldn't be because anybody can say whatever they want.

[00:22:58] So, Kevin, it's really X.

[00:23:00] I don't know why you would try and slander the X formerly known as Twitter, the company formerly known as Twitter.

[00:23:06] That's like when I tell you about Prince, you know, it's same.

[00:23:09] Exactly.

[00:23:10] Same same dude, actually.

[00:23:12] Yeah.

[00:23:13] So a lot of rumors have been going around about a guy named Adrian, Adrian Dittman.

[00:23:20] OK.

[00:23:21] All right.

[00:23:21] So I've not heard of Adrian Dittman.

[00:23:25] Yeah.

[00:23:25] On online debates, he backed.

[00:23:28] He always backs Trump.

[00:23:30] I'm sorry, Musk.

[00:23:31] Right.

[00:23:33] He criticizes Musk's opponents.

[00:23:36] He shares the same vocal signatures as Elon Musk.

[00:23:41] He refers to Musk in the first person like he talks about Musk, but says I.

[00:23:47] Any user that has called him out on being the same person gets gets banned from Twitter.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:56] So I was looking at some of these tweets and like one was a picture of of Elon Musk carrying his kid around on his back.

[00:24:05] And he Adrian Dittman posted on there.

[00:24:08] You're such a good father.

[00:24:09] Elon Musk.

[00:24:10] Good dad.

[00:24:10] Good.

[00:24:11] Yeah.

[00:24:11] But it's probably the same person.

[00:24:13] Just don't say that out loud because you'll get in trouble for it.

[00:24:15] Well, as long as you're not on Twitter, you're probably good.

[00:24:18] Mm hmm.

[00:24:19] I could lose all 150 followers I have on Twitter.

[00:24:23] So.

[00:24:23] Yeah.

[00:24:24] So it doesn't.

[00:24:25] That could be.

[00:24:26] I mean, that's half of our listeners, though, honestly.

[00:24:29] Oh, our audience would drop off like that.

[00:24:32] That's the thing.

[00:24:32] The on world, online world, I hate to say it, has there are consequences, but they're not the same as reality.

[00:24:42] Right.

[00:24:43] Like, you know, if I come up and say, Kevin, you know what?

[00:24:48] You're a fat loser and you look dumb.

[00:24:50] I might get punched in the face.

[00:24:52] But if I go online on social media and I'm like, ah, Kevin, you're a fat loser and you look like you're dumb or whatever.

[00:24:59] You get thousands of likes on that one.

[00:25:01] Thousands of likes.

[00:25:02] And it just goes on like nobody, you know, nothing.

[00:25:05] I have no consequences.

[00:25:07] Right.

[00:25:07] You know, there are a few times there's backlash.

[00:25:09] You know, maybe I I talk about this Dittman guy and I get banned from Twitter.

[00:25:14] That would be a consequence.

[00:25:16] And then I would be sad and a little hurt in my heart, you know, like, oh, I can't go on Twitter.

[00:25:22] You know that.

[00:25:23] What I always wonder is how come everybody's a little bit prettier on the Internet?

[00:25:29] Have you noticed this?

[00:25:31] Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

[00:25:33] Except for me.

[00:25:34] I mean, I don't know how the filters work.

[00:25:36] Exactly.

[00:25:36] I don't know how they do that because I'm ugly.

[00:25:38] I'm ugly as sin still.

[00:25:39] If somebody knows how to make me and Kevin look pretty, then we can do that.

[00:25:44] That would help.

[00:25:44] But yeah.

[00:25:45] Well, I mean, we're going to have to start doing like, you know, lipstick, makeup, eyeshadow, maybe some fake eyelashes help us out.

[00:25:51] I don't know.

[00:25:52] You don't even need that anymore.

[00:25:53] There's like skin smoothing filters and, you know, and tone, skin tone adjustments.

[00:26:00] And well, I'll tell you what, if we got on there and got the right filters where we could turn ourselves into hot women.

[00:26:06] Yeah.

[00:26:07] Our podcast would go through the roof, show off a bunch of cleavage.

[00:26:13] Things would be great.

[00:26:14] Yep.

[00:26:15] Yep.

[00:26:16] Yep.

[00:26:16] We need to do that.

[00:26:17] Have somebody edited in just, you know, cleavage.

[00:26:20] I've seen that they can do like cartoon episodes where people become like cartoon characters.

[00:26:26] Right.

[00:26:26] And the cartoons always look a lot better than people do.

[00:26:29] Right.

[00:26:30] And we could switch to attractive people, you know?

[00:26:33] Who knows?

[00:26:34] Yeah.

[00:26:34] Well, you be a person of color and I'll switch over to a woman and we should be able to work things out a little bit.

[00:26:40] As long as we're both attractive, we're going to be all right.

[00:26:43] All right.

[00:26:43] So the thing is, the more clicks and likes you get, the more chance you have to make money.

[00:26:49] And you know what I'm noticing though?

[00:26:51] The internet's dropped out on me like three times.

[00:26:54] And while we've recorded this and I'm using Starlink and I'm wondering, Kevin, it might be because you exposed that story.

[00:27:04] We should have kept our mouths shut.

[00:27:05] We should have kept your mouth shut and we wouldn't have these problems with, you know, internet connection.

[00:27:12] I'm just saying.

[00:27:14] But, and now all of a sudden the government's calling you.

[00:27:17] I'm seeing it.

[00:27:18] They're all contacting me.

[00:27:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:27:20] Yeah.

[00:27:20] Yeah.

[00:27:21] I don't know.

[00:27:22] We, one of the things too is your mind actually can play tricks on you.

[00:27:28] So there's actually some reality to what you remember might not be accurate.

[00:27:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:27:34] And because basically we remember events, but your mind fills in the gaps of, well, this probably happened.

[00:27:43] Like it's one of those things, like if you tell a lie to yourself kind of, and, and to people as, you know, more and more, you actually start to believe it.

[00:27:52] Or you start to believe like more of the details, you know, you fill it in.

[00:27:56] But there was a lot of studies with the CIA where they would kind of create memories.

[00:28:02] I know we talked about this in the past of, you know, where they suggest, well, remember that time at the wedding, you dropped the cake and everyone was, and people are like, oh yeah.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] That, that, that, and at first it's like, no, that didn't happen.

[00:28:16] And then didn't it?

[00:28:18] Are you sure?

[00:28:18] Cause don't you remember your uncle Bill was there and Bill said this and you, and you're like, maybe that does sound familiar.

[00:28:29] But, and then you start to fill in the gaps.

[00:28:32] So sometimes it's not even your fault.

[00:28:34] Like maybe all these politicians who are lying to us all the time, maybe it's cause they're just confused.

[00:28:43] If you were to tell me that the majority of congressmen and senators in the United States are confused.

[00:28:51] Shocked.

[00:28:52] I would be shocked.

[00:28:53] Do you remember that, uh, that just happened.

[00:28:55] It was a Senator or Congressman.

[00:28:57] They, they, uh, she hadn't voted in like six months.

[00:29:01] And then all of a sudden, uh, all of a sudden they, they found her in an old folks home for people that are, that are, uh, confused.

[00:29:09] I, I, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but there was a pretty big deal.

[00:29:13] You know, she was just in a, in an old folks home with dementia and nobody had noticed she had been missing for six months.

[00:29:20] Right.

[00:29:21] Now I feel like that happens.

[00:29:23] I, I don't know.

[00:29:24] I just, well, there was that one guy, uh, that one Congressman who was like, yeah, I don't think we can put any more troops in Guam.

[00:29:32] I'm afraid to approve this bill because what if the Island flips over?

[00:29:36] If we put too many in there, I'll just.

[00:29:39] And I'm like, yeah, sure.

[00:29:41] That could happen.

[00:29:42] You know, that sounds right.

[00:29:45] That sounds right.

[00:29:46] Flip over.

[00:29:46] Not even sake.

[00:29:47] Just.

[00:29:48] No, he said it could flip over.

[00:29:51] And I'm like, yeah, you know, and we vote for these guys.

[00:29:56] Um, I don't know.

[00:29:59] What are you going to do though?

[00:30:01] All right.

[00:30:02] So, uh, yeah, so clickbait is, is one of those, uh, big ones that really kind of like drives a lot of the garbage that's on the internet, you know?

[00:30:12] And you know it.

[00:30:13] Cause you, you see, you know, you see those, those articles and those, those websites.

[00:30:18] And you're like, Ooh, what does that old Hollywood star look like today?

[00:30:22] Right.

[00:30:23] Right.

[00:30:23] You know?

[00:30:23] And you go on the shit and it's, you know, you have to click link to click another lane.

[00:30:27] And there's like a thousand ads.

[00:30:29] And you scroll through the story they did.

[00:30:30] And you're like, no.

[00:30:31] Yeah.

[00:30:32] And you realize the story is just made up bullshit to begin with, you know?

[00:30:37] But tricked you.

[00:30:38] And I found like 500 of those while I was just preparing for this episode.

[00:30:44] You know what I mean?

[00:30:44] I came across like 80 of those.

[00:30:46] I'm like, Oh, here it is.

[00:30:47] This is what I was looking for.

[00:30:48] And nope, nope.

[00:30:49] It's just bullshit.

[00:30:50] Right.

[00:30:51] Right.

[00:30:52] And that's it.

[00:30:53] You're like, Oh yeah, I can go down this road.

[00:30:55] And, and it's so, it's so hard.

[00:30:59] And the thing is, it's flashing in front of you over and over again.

[00:31:02] You're seeing the same stuff and it's like, Oh, I did hear it.

[00:31:06] But it's even weirder that like your feed is curated to you.

[00:31:13] So whatever things you like and you want to do, you're going to see more of it.

[00:31:21] So like, if I like really attractive brunettes with brown eyes and whatever, then I'm going

[00:31:28] to see more really attractive brunettes.

[00:31:30] Well, if I like hardcore conspiracy theories about UFOs, turns out I'm going to see a lot

[00:31:37] more hardcore conspiracy theories about UFOs.

[00:31:40] And if I like things that tell me that the planet is burning up and, you know, man's causing

[00:31:47] it all.

[00:31:47] And it's the evil fossil fuels.

[00:31:49] I'm going to see a lot of stories about the planet burning up and fossil fuels and, and

[00:31:55] evil.

[00:31:56] And, you know, that's the thing.

[00:31:58] Um, so it kinda, it tells you what you want to hear.

[00:32:05] And the thing is you can go down the other road, like there's that show land man and he

[00:32:10] gives a, uh, it's that Billy Bob Thornton or whatever.

[00:32:13] And it's written by, uh, the guy who wrote Yellowstone, um, Taylor Sheridan, I think.

[00:32:19] And, uh, that one, the guy gives, again, I don't know what reality is.

[00:32:24] It's a TV show.

[00:32:25] So I can't swear that what he's saying is the truth, but he gives a speech about, you

[00:32:31] know, building a big wind turbine is going to take more fuel to build it, get it into

[00:32:37] location, use a crane, set it up, keep it lubed up to work.

[00:32:42] It's going to take as much fossil fuels as you could have used to produce the energy to,

[00:32:48] you know, that it's going to make.

[00:32:50] And you're kind of like, yeah, that sucks, but it doesn't mean that's true.

[00:32:54] Nobody said this is a fact, but they planted that in my head because it's there.

[00:32:58] Now I kind of think it's a fact that affirms other things I've read, but I don't know.

[00:33:04] You know, that's one of the things it's like, well, it could be, but it might not be.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:10] Well, I mean, the beauty of, of this country is that you can say whatever the hell you

[00:33:14] want.

[00:33:14] You know, the drawback is that, you know, you can say whatever you want and, you know,

[00:33:21] doesn't have to be based in fact.

[00:33:22] It doesn't even have to have any relationship to the facts, you know?

[00:33:26] But you can say it, it's our obligation to listen to that shit and then follow up.

[00:33:32] You know, you can believe it or not, but you have to, you have to look it up and who has

[00:33:37] time to like go deep into every single thing that you've ever read or saw or heard, you

[00:33:44] know, it's just not possible.

[00:33:46] Let's say we can only do so much digging and so much research and you have to either

[00:33:50] say credible, not credible and dismiss it, you know, or discard, you know, like don't

[00:33:55] know, don't care.

[00:33:56] And that could be, and, and you have to, the thing is you have to search every story.

[00:34:01] And like I said, even Google just rehashes the same stuff back to us.

[00:34:06] We don't know the inner workings.

[00:34:09] And I got to say, you know, and I, I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating that articles

[00:34:16] now are like three bits of information.

[00:34:21] And it's usually like scandal, like this guy stole $5 million and, you know, and he spent

[00:34:29] it at the nudie bar and I can get that same headline repeated over and over again.

[00:34:36] And yet I can't get any details like, oh, he used a black Jeep and he drove and smashed

[00:34:43] into this store.

[00:34:44] And he, you know, you don't get the details unless the details are the salacious story

[00:34:49] they're trying to sell.

[00:34:50] You know, you only get the details they want, you know, or he did it because his babies were

[00:34:56] all dying of cancer.

[00:34:57] And, you know, that guy did something to him, you know, it just, it's, we see the story

[00:35:03] they want to paint.

[00:35:04] We don't see reality.

[00:35:06] It's funny.

[00:35:07] Uh, I, uh, my sister used to work for a, uh, a news station, a TV news station, and she

[00:35:13] would write the copy for it.

[00:35:16] And she would, uh, she would say the, uh, you know, that they would get like a, a three

[00:35:23] paragraph story and you would write the news clips that they would repeat, you know, like

[00:35:28] the news talks about a story every half hour or hour.

[00:35:31] And you would get like a new sentence in each one.

[00:35:35] Like, so you'd get like another little clue to what's the reality, but you'd never get

[00:35:41] like the full story at once.

[00:35:43] Cause we're going to give 30 seconds to this topic.

[00:35:46] But that way, as you hear it all day long, you know, on the radio, the little news break

[00:35:51] or whatever thing you'd get.

[00:35:53] And Hearst was, you know, TV, whatever.

[00:35:54] But each segment, you know, you see those morning shows, you're getting like another clue and

[00:36:00] they kind of hang you there, but you never get like the full story.

[00:36:03] And it's so hard to dig down and get the actual facts.

[00:36:09] And you have to spend hours and hours of research and that's, you know, I mean, next week could

[00:36:14] be landing on the moon.

[00:36:15] Right.

[00:36:15] I mean, I don't know.

[00:36:16] I don't know.

[00:36:17] I mean, it is one of those things though.

[00:36:20] That's like a, you know, the 24 hour news cycle, they'll hit on a story, never get in

[00:36:25] depth.

[00:36:26] And by the next day that's gone.

[00:36:28] You know what I mean?

[00:36:28] It's, it's whatever you heard yesterday.

[00:36:30] That's, that's yesterday's news.

[00:36:33] It's not important anymore.

[00:36:34] And that's the beauty.

[00:36:35] What is it?

[00:36:36] The Friday afternoon drop, you know, where anything they kind of have to disclose.

[00:36:40] These are the stories that you found.

[00:36:42] They came out on the Friday afternoon and by Monday, that's old news.

[00:36:46] You know, nobody talked about that after work because there is no after work.

[00:36:50] Yeah.

[00:36:51] Monday, you know, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, it's gone.

[00:36:54] And I don't know that's reality.

[00:36:56] But again, it's all about how you perceive it and how your mind hears it.

[00:37:00] And I'm just saying, take everything with a grain of salt and just be cautious with

[00:37:06] it.

[00:37:07] And before you maybe don't be so quick to repeat it, which I mean, we do, we all do.

[00:37:13] Right.

[00:37:13] I mean, a good story is a good story.

[00:37:15] Uh, but you know, before you act on things kind of dig into the truth a little bit and

[00:37:20] that's all.

[00:37:21] Cause you know, I mean, just cause somebody says that me and Kevin are ugly, doesn't mean

[00:37:26] that that's true.

[00:37:27] So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you know?

[00:37:33] Exactly.

[00:37:33] I am pretty on the beholder.

[00:37:36] Beholder.

[00:37:37] I can't even talk today.

[00:37:38] It's a bad one.

[00:37:39] You guys have questions, concerns, things you want to tell us about.

[00:37:42] Um, you can email us at prepping bad-ass at gmail.com.

[00:37:47] And we really appreciate, you know, you guys staying in touch with us and, you know, telling

[00:37:52] us things.

[00:37:53] Also, you want to follow things.

[00:37:55] You could join the prepping bad-ass group on Facebook.

[00:37:58] I absolutely, you know, love you guys there.

[00:38:01] Make sure you like, and subscribe to the YouTube channel, uh, leave reviews, comments, Spotify,

[00:38:08] iTunes, wherever iPhone podcasts, whatever it is, Apple podcasts.

[00:38:12] Wherever it is that you're downloading this, you know, keep it up.

[00:38:16] Cause we really appreciate it.

[00:38:17] It helps grow the brand and we love it.

[00:38:20] Um, again, things you want to hear about, let us know.

[00:38:23] So with that, I would say stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week.