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Hi folks with the download button on Survivalist Podcast and as always folks you can get all of our old shows at survivalistpodcast.org
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and of course our SoundCloud soundcloud.com/survivalistpodcast and everywhere where all fine podcasts are available
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so we’ve got a lot to talk about today, a lot going on in the news this week, busy news week
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and we’ve got other things to talk about as well but always I want to mention our wonderful sponsor over at Pete and Pedro
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their wonderful men’s care line, they do everything from shampoos, conditioners, shaving cream, razors, trimmers, anything pretty much for guys
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and I really recommend them, I actually do use them personally myself, not because they’re a sponsor
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I actually reached out to them to become a sponsor because I really like their product so much and they really are great
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go ahead and use the offer code in the show notes and the link in the show notes is where we get the credit for it
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keep the show up, keep it free and keep everything going here
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also too I do want to mention our wonderful group over at rebel social dot media
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it’s our Mastodon instance where everybody gets together, we chit chat, it’s a really nice group
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it’s not anything crazy, political or anything like that, it’s just a fun group of people that get together
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talk about everything going on from gaming to prepping to survival to outdoors to technical problems to politics
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we talk about everything but it’s really a nicely run group, I keep it pretty tight-lit on it for our listeners only
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and that is rebel social dot media and like I said you can go ahead and join and then you can go ahead and reach out to me on there as well
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and I really appreciate it if you do join, like I said we’re a really tight group and we try to keep it very well put together
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so pretty crazy week for the news, recording this on Thursday so still a couple more days left for the news
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but pretty crazy news week this week, kind of surprised, I did not expect it to be as crazy as it is
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but I guess after the holidays everything’s going, we all finally know, we finally got a house speaker
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fifteenth time is the charm and now obviously the first thing they’re doing is they’re going to open up a case
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they’re going to be investigating the White House, their conversations with social media and everything that they’ve done
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that’s occurred, that has caused any kind of silencing of conservatives, anything like that
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so you know I said that from day one that as soon as these people got into office it was going to be like this
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and they’ve already approved that funding for anything investigating Trump is going to be defunded and all that
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and that’s fine but it’s just because nothing ever comes of it anyway but I just knew this was going to happen
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as soon as they got into office they were going to start some kind of investigation
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and I mean the timing couldn’t be worse right now for Biden as they just got that all those confidential documents
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that he had when he was VP they discovered him in storage in his house in Delaware
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they discovered him in other offices where they were moving and they happened to discover them
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so the timing couldn’t be worse for him, they’re looking for stuff to investigate him on, the Republicans are anyway
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and when these kind of sorts of things happen now it’s just going to make them want to look even harder
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so like I said unfortunately for Biden anyway this couldn’t happen, all these documents being found couldn’t come at a worse time
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considering they already want to look into the way social media handles just everything
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the way they handle silencing the conservatives, the way that the White House has been in communication with them
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they’re going to investigate everything when it comes to social media, big tech
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I can tell you for a fact they’re probably going to try to get that law passed that they’ve been talking about
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they passed it in Florida and Texas that you can’t take down social media posts and you know and all this
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they already have it in Florida and kind of in Texas but those laws really at the state level are not really going to work
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because it’s just social media doesn’t work that way, the internet doesn’t work that way
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you can’t say okay you can’t take it down to Texas but you can take it down to those, it just doesn’t work that way
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that kind of law has to be done at the federal level and I think that’s what they’re going to try to push
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and I think getting it passed in Texas and Florida was just kind of like preliminary
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kind of let’s see what we can get passed, let’s see how we can word this stuff that’s just now with Congress
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I bet you because I think this whole thing that’s going on right now with the investigation into Biden
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and the investigation into the way the White House handles social media and Facebook, Google and all them
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the way they handle everything I think this is going to be kind of like the precedence for okay well we did research into this
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we found this, now I want to pass this bill. They’re laying the groundwork for what they want to do which is pass this bill
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and that’s what they’re doing so you know like I said we’ll need to see what happens with that
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but this whole, the hell with Biden with all these documents they’re finding in that old office they moved
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they found documents in his in his home in Delaware and this is often when he was VP
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I mean granted now as president he would still be allowed to view them but the fact that they’re finding them in places where he was
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means that they were left after he was vice president so you know it’s the same kind of thing
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and I think and personally as somebody who’s in the computer security industry and all that
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I think that the government especially needs to really what happened with Trump what happened with Biden
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it happened during the Bush administration even Obama had some documents that he didn’t return
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I think this just kind of shows how poor the government really handles this stuff
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and I’ve said this before in previous podcasts but the government really needs a better way of securing
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and handling and not so much protecting but knowing who has these documents
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knowing that they’re returned knowing that there’s no there really is no way
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the government has no way of really tracking these properly and knowing hey these documents were never returned
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these documents were never returned there needs to be a better check-in check-out process for these sorts of things
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and for documents and they have stuff like this out there already just the government doesn’t want to spend money on it
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so you know they’re gonna have to really you know because having you know a data leak digitally
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or having it on paper still a data leak and you know remember when the Snowden thing happened
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remember the Bradley Manning thing happened they said they were supposed to tighten up the way they handled secure documentation
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and it just goes to show you they really haven’t especially with this now coming out I mean Biden I mean Trump
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like I said every president has taken some classified documents home with them
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but my whole issue is they need they should have a check-in check-out system that they know who has this
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or maybe here’s an idea instead of keeping them all paper documents which are hard to track
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maybe they need a digital system where you check them out digitally
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and this way somebody looks at them digitally and then you know who has these things and they have to check them in
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I mean we do this digitally with libraries all the time I don’t understand why they can’t do a secure system
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for secure documents you know like this I just I don’t understand why they haven’t done it why they they haven’t implemented it yet
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you know digitize everything you know put it on you know and make it so that the person has to check them out
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when they want to view them so now we have a record of who’s viewing them we know where they are
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we have a way of digitally erasing them if somebody should check them out that’s not you know that and now they’re not the president
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or not the vice president we can delete them off the device or issue them a device that we control
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I mean there are things in this world being somebody who’s in the computer security industry
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there are there are systems out of the box that could do this why the government is still passing around paper files
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in 2023 and why this is still an issue in 2023 is basically just lackadaisical handling by the government
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of classified documents okay and the other thing is too okay we’ve had digital leaks before we’ve had now we’ve had two issues
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where paper documents big loads of them have come up I mean if a whistleblower got a hold of one of these things
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and dumped it online they would be so upset but it’s their fault for not handling the documentation
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and not having a system to track who has it track who checked it out track who returned it knowing where it is
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and this this is not I don’t blame Trump I don’t blame oh I don’t even blame Biden I don’t blame Obama
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and I don’t blame Bush I mean I blame the government for the way they handle this okay this should have been fixed
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back I would say probably during the during the late Bush early Obama administration they had two big cyber leaks
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by Manning and or Snowden they could have handled this much better with but yet they still insist on using paper documents
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they still insist on you know I mean I think what it is and I really have said this before I think what it is part of it is
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they had to dead in the their mindset as older people in their mindset in Bush and Obama I’m sorry Bush and Biden
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especially older people they don’t understand technology their thing is well it’s on paper it’s safe
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we can put in a drawer we can lock it we can keep it safe okay because of the two data leaks they had during the Obama
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administration that were digital they’re thinking as well let’s not digitize this stuff you know let’s keep it on paper
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so it’s safe because that’s the way old people think they think if it’s if it’s on paper it’s safe okay the same thing goes with
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with what’s her with with Hillary with her emails okay again big digital leaks so they they’re like oh we can’t digitize classified
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information let’s keep it on paper so it’s safer no it’s not safer because there’s no record of it yes if it’s up on a network
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it could be it could be compromised but it just shows this stuff if it’s on paper it’s it’s open for anybody to get
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it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter if it’s locked somebody could have broken into Biden’s house and got documents we’ve had classified documents leaked
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because of people breaking into people’s homes it doesn’t matter it’s all that whole thing of it’s on paper it’s safe is is BS that’s why old people think
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that’s the way they’re thinking now because of the couple leaks that happened during the Biden of the Obama administration they want to keep everything on paper
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so it’s safe it should be digitized it should be on an iPad or or on a device that’s secured so this way we know who has it when they’re done being present
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we can wipe the data off it there’s so much that this is a ridiculous thing in 2023 that we’re going through stop with the paper paper is just as dangerous
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as digital okay secure your network secure your systems put this stuff digitally in a vault that only people that have certain access can get you know checks it out
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you know who has it they have a device you can control there are so many safer ways of doing this than passing files around with classified data okay it’s ridiculous
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it shouldn’t happen in 20 in 2023 there are safer ways to do this I know they’re scared because of what happened with data leaks and WikiLeaks but this can just as easily happen I mean come on
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look at look at this isn’t the first time by the way confidential data has gotten out by the way I like to point that out during the Obama administration and all that kind of stuff those two leases the first time people have been leaking data for for decades
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I mean look I mean you had it during Watergate which is all which wasn’t digital you had it during you know the whole issue with the wars in Vietnam we had classified information leaked during World War Two
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it doesn’t matter if it’s digital or if it’s electronic it happens, but with digital there are more ways than than not of tracking it which is why I don’t understand why we are still having these problems in in 20 in 2023 there are such there are ways to do this at our safe
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why are we still handing out paper files and not having any record of who’s had them okay there has to be a record keeper that literally says okay the president took this file and brought it home with them he didn’t return there has to be a record keeper at least that’s keeping these records even if we are going to go paper
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there needs to be a person that their job is to say okay this classified document was checked out to this person or this classified I’ve checked out to this person and they know the fact that there is no record of these documents missing record and nobody’s held accountable
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it’s just typical government BS it’s just typical laziness of we need to have somebody keeping track of this stuff the Secret Service has more than enough people they can handle it let them say okay president you know the president checked out these five files
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you know the president checked out this the president checked out that the vice president checked out this that they have record okay guess what we’re changing you know you know we’re changing administrations now okay all these files need to be returned before
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why isn’t that why I don’t understand that there is absolutely no reason for this. There’s just none. It’s laziness, it’s weak security. It’s, it’s, I just I don’t understand why the government, I just don’t know somebody who’s in this industry.
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Okay, we can spend a billion dollars on a website for for national health care, but we can’t spend a billion dollars to secure our classified Intel, be real. Okay, listen, I’ll do it for a half of the price or a quarter of the price.
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Okay, I mean really hire me.
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Okay, go to my website, hire me, and I will more than happily do this for half the price or quarter the price. Okay, it’s really ridiculous I’m sorry.
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Okay, I’m good. There’s my rant I feel like Alex Jones now I’ve ranted but as somebody who has a lot of knowledge in this field it’s just ridiculous.
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So, let’s talk about a couple things. First of all, as far as the rest of the news goes I’ll try to get through this without ranting anymore.
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Brazil, obviously has their own little uprising going on over there we saw what’s going on with that not going to really go into that because we all know kind of what’s going on at this point but they had their own little uprising their, their own little kind of January 6 thing going on over there.
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As far as survival goes I thought this was an article I wanted to bring up.
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I think it was relevant to our podcast here and relevant to everything else going on in the world.
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Four people were killed in an avalanche in Colorado in the last two weeks.
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So what’s going on over in Colorado is obviously it’s skiing season over there, and they’re having these avalanches and what’s going on is people are getting, you’re getting the powder, the way the way snow is packed but they’ve had a lot of fresh powder and some of it over there and they’ve had thin layers and when and what happens is when you get those kind of things called avalanches.
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And four people have been killed in, you know, in two weeks over there with these avalanches and they really really need over there, some kind of system and I don’t know and we’ve talked this for a long time but really monitoring the snowfall and if the slopes are safe it’s really a shame that a bunch of people have died.
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They go out to do something they enjoy like skiing and they die over an avalanche and unfortunately you can be as prepared as you want. An avalanche, most people die of criss injuries or suffocation unfortunately in those sorts of situations but you know it’s really a shame that that you know how many people have died they go out to you go out to do something you really enjoy doing and you end up getting killed over it.
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So it really is a shame but yeah that I wanted to bring that up in case kind of more like a public service for people out there that go skiing if you’re going to be going to Colorado anytime soon. Please be careful and please know what you’re getting into.
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In the news today as well the woman scammed, she had three years in prison over that whole $450,000 scam that she pulled with GoFundMe to try to help the homeless.
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This is why I always say all the time I brought this up a bunch of times but I have a serious problem with crowdfunding. One because you don’t know if the money is specifically going to those places and two there’s too many times where we’ve caught people really doing bad things with crowdfunding and I always get upset with the people that don’t prepare financially in life and then all of a sudden oh well we need you know $10,000 for burial expenses.
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Stuff like that that really upsets me. You know I understand that you know not everybody can have life insurance but the fact that you you know if you don’t have a lot of money.
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Okay well you’re gonna have to cremate the people and you’re just gonna have to do the cheapest funeral possible.
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If you you know I don’t like the fact when people say all the time well we need $10,000 for burial expenses. Well if the person didn’t leave you enough money to bury them then they’re gonna have to make do with what you give them and you don’t need to necessarily have the people laid out and all that kind of stuff and spend 10 grand on a funeral if they didn’t leave you any way of paying for it.
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So that’s just me that’s just the way I feel about it. I have a serious problem with crowdfunding especially like I don’t mind doing crowdfunding when people have something that happens and they need you know a little help at the time that’s fine.
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I don’t even have a problem with this you know but crowdfunding is one of those things you got to make sure the money is going where it’s supposed to go.
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And unfortunately sometimes if I do see these crowdfunding things I will actually sometimes look deeper into it and say okay well the person is looking to raise money oh look they have a Venmo I can pay them directly and I’ll just pay the person directly rather than going through crowdfunding.
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Because also too if they don’t reach their goal the people don’t get the money either that’s my other problem with crowdfunding.
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Sometimes people overshot they’ll say oh I want a hundred thousand for this well if you don’t meet that goal they don’t get the money and either sometimes it goes back to people or sometimes the GoFundMe keeps a part of it.
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So that’s kind of my problem with the crowdfunding thing a lot of times I will try to actually just go right to the source and say here you need help here here’s a few bucks on Venmo you know rather than going through crowdfunding personally that’s just me personally.
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Another thing kind of I just wanted to bring up as kind of like I said a public service announcement.
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John Deere has actually said they are going to participate in Right to Repair.
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And I think it’s really important because a lot of people especially people that own this kind of equipment want to prepare it on their own and sometimes they have to save money you know farmers necessarily aren’t the you know aren’t the wealthiest people in the world sometimes they’re working hard and they’re not getting a lot for it.
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Sometimes they need to save you know save a buck where they can if they know how to repair it they can.
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And sometimes they have people on staff that actually know how to repair it and it’s part of their job.
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So John Deere is going to allow people to do Right to Repair.
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And one of the things I really like about this is, is I mean you can they’re saying to use their parts if you are going to do Right to Repair, which I don’t think that’s fair either.
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I mean John Deere should be like any other car I mean you buy a car you can use any parts you want. So I don’t agree with that either but the fact that John Deere is fighting it the fact that a tractor should be just like a car I can repair it out you know use whatever parts I want.
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They want to use their parts to maintain the warranty, which is something like Apple and places like that do.
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I don’t know necessarily agree with that either.
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But that’s what they’re saying but they are going to try to participate in Right to Repair which I think is very right.
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By the way if you are interested at all in John Deere, if you go to Stacy on IOT is the website.
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She actually got a whole big walkthrough a couple months ago at the John Deere factory and actually talked a little bit about it that they actually bought some spectrum in the area they’re in so they can have their own little cell phone network so they can control all their robots and stuff like that very securely.
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Also too they have like these Olympic sized swimming pools that they actually put these tractors in to actually paint them and stuff like that so a lot of really good if you’re interested in John Deere and the way it’s made go to Stacy on IOT she actually did a kind of whole walkthrough of their plant in their factory and they really did a really nice she really did a really nice job with it.
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So in New Jersey there was an article on Politico that apparently and I found this a little bit interesting because Jersey’s always had pretty pretty tight gun laws but apparently they’re trying to make gun laws that would increase the make it harder to get a gun that’s something they always do.
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Stuff like that but what I found interesting was they blocked part of it which went with and the part that they blocked was allowing them to ban guns from being carried in public libraries, museums, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol and entertainment facilities.
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So apparently that was the they’re blocking the federal federal judge is temporary blocking portions of it. But like I said they still passed other parts of it that you know were you know make it a little harder to get.
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I think the waiting period is a little bit longer. Stuff like that. And while not a massive gun person personally, I mean I think you know everybody should have a gun but I don’t not one of those you know crate gun nuts I said but there are there are other things too that they that they were trying to pass that I guess got held back.
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Which was those things but they also had like I said they wanted to make it where there’s certain areas you can’t carry in certain boroughs certain as you know, and to make it more complicated and more, you know, kind of make it more difficult people so they don’t get guns.
00:23:10.000 –> 00:23:28.000
So it’s one of those kinds of things they always try to do that and Jersey has never been super friendly gun state but, but I wanted to bring that up but we are in Pennsylvania here and as of January 1 now switch blades are allowed which is something that was never allowed in Pennsylvania.
00:23:28.000 –> 00:23:35.000
You can now have a switch blade but you still cannot have a double sided knife. So I find that interesting.
00:23:35.000 –> 00:23:40.000
That was some of the stuff that our governor signed before he kind of ran out the door.
00:23:40.000 –> 00:23:47.000
But I am kind of happy with that so switch blades now are actually legal here in Pennsylvania which is pretty interesting.
00:23:47.000 –> 00:23:52.000
So, some other stuff that I heard as well that I thought was a little bit interesting.
00:23:52.000 –> 00:23:56.000
In Washington, those two guys that over Christmas.
00:23:56.000 –> 00:24:04.000
They, they guess they, there was four substations they attacked to cut power and apparently they were two guys arrested.
00:24:04.000 –> 00:24:08.000
I’m sorry it was on New Year’s Eve. I’m sorry they were arrested on New Year’s Eve.
00:24:08.000 –> 00:24:25.000
They were trying to shut down the Washington State substations and the power outages that caused that to be you know, a power outages of that but apparently they, they were charged with conspiracy to damage emergency facilities and stuff like that.
00:24:25.000 –> 00:24:30.000
I’m not gonna read the whole thing, but possessing illegal short barreled rifles.
00:24:30.000 –> 00:24:35.000
They were two, they two cut power off the thousands of locations.
00:24:35.000 –> 00:24:41.000
Cool thing about these, they had $3 million worth of damage according to the charges, and they face up to 20 years behind bars.
00:24:41.000 –> 00:24:50.000
So, anytime people lose power it’s always a real pain in the ass, but the fact that these two guys tried to do it purposely kind of pissed me off a little bit.
00:24:50.000 –> 00:24:54.000
And I’m kind of glad we went ahead and got them.
00:24:54.000 –> 00:25:03.000
So good job to our police officers and the Federal Bureau and all that, got those guys. That really was kind of really an act of terror in my opinion.
00:25:03.000 –> 00:25:12.000
I know cutting the power maybe isn’t the, maybe isn’t you know as bad as all the things they could have done, but, but boy that could be a real pain in the butt.
00:25:12.000 –> 00:25:23.000
Especially if you have somebody on any kind of home dialysis or people that need breathing machines to breathe at home and stuff like that, could really be losing power sometimes is really more dangerous than you think.
00:25:23.000 –> 00:25:30.000
It’s not just the heat and the cold that can do people in, but people that need medical devices as well can be very dangerous.
00:25:30.000 –> 00:25:37.000
So, I’m kind of glad that they caught those guys and I believe with $3 million in damage, that’ll come out of our taxpayer money to fix that.
00:25:37.000 –> 00:25:46.000
Isn’t that, or maybe Washington’s tax money. Either way somebody’s paying for it and it’s going to be our tax dollars somewhere, or somebody’s tax dollars.
00:25:46.000 –> 00:25:55.000
So, Seattle Public Schools are suing social media giants, saying that they’re causing mental health issues.
00:25:55.000 –> 00:26:13.000
I don’t really think this is going to go through, I think this is a just you know just a political move by the superintendents and stuff like that or whoever’s doing it but they’re suing TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Snap, Instagram, pretty much anybody you can think of which Facebook is Instagram, their own best seen company.
00:26:13.000 –> 00:26:28.000
But apparently they’re saying that social media giants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youths and children using psychological tactics that cause mental health problems as they get older.
00:26:28.000 –> 00:26:51.000
A suit filed in the US District Court of Seattle seeks maximum penalties and maximum retribution, which probably means money, to have violated Washington state public laws against mental health, which I don’t think this is going to go anywhere but there’s an update on the story from when I got this the other day.
00:26:51.000 –> 00:27:04.000
The lawsuit, basically the mental health is no accident saying that they are defendants are saying that the campaigns to get kids to watch.
00:27:04.000 –> 00:27:08.000
You know it’s against the Child Safety Act I don’t know about that.
00:27:08.000 –> 00:27:20.000
President Joe Biden’s statement in 2020, he said in the Union address we must hold social media platforms accountable for national experiment they’ve constructed for our children and all that.
00:27:20.000 –> 00:27:27.000
Suits looks at the school district bringing the attention to public, I don’t think this is going to go anywhere if I’m being honest with you.
00:27:27.000 –> 00:27:43.000
Again, I do think that social media is an issue and I do think especially the Democrats and the Republicans, especially the Republicans are very worried about, you know, if social media is influencing our children, and social media is predominantly leans left.
00:27:43.000 –> 00:27:53.000
That means all the kids coming up are going to be left wing and I think this whole thing is, is they’re worried about conditioning they’re worried about the Republican Party.
00:27:53.000 –> 00:28:05.000
The Democrats are worried if they don’t want to lose control of the social media because that’s how they’re, they’re worried about winning elections, the whole thing doesn’t care about the kids.
00:28:05.000 –> 00:28:25.000
This whole thing with the kids that they’ve been bringing up that Biden brought up and that this lawsuit is bringing up, all this is basically because, is basically a blinder or kind of like a blanket thing to disguise the fact that they’re worried about future Republicans that are not going to be,
00:28:25.000 –> 00:28:42.000
people that could be future Republicans are going to be influenced by right, that left wing social media. They’re concerned about voting. The Democrats want to keep social media on the left so that they can get the younger votes for the millennials, which are the majority of the voting group.
00:28:42.000 –> 00:29:01.000
This whole thing. That’s all this is. Okay, the same thing goes for the right side of it when it comes to the Republicans how they always want to raise the voting age to 25. They want to raise the voting age 25 because people under 25 generally vote Democrat.
00:29:01.000 –> 00:29:18.000
And the same reason why the Democrats are so worried about this, this about not having any kind of ID for voters, it, it, it, it, it, it, it dis, it doesn’t, I don’t want to say discrimination, it makes sense to write a word.
00:29:18.000 –> 00:29:37.000
It basically hurts the minority vote because minorities don’t want to have to show their ID to vote, which I don’t understand why that is, but that is a thing, whatever. But Democrats are so diehard against people showing their ID because they don’t want to lose the minority vote because minorities mostly vote Democrat.
00:29:37.000 –> 00:29:55.000
Okay. It’s this whole thing, this whole thing about a safe and secure election, it all boils down to which side is this going to hurt worse. It’s going to hurt the Republicans. It’s going to benefit the Republicans more to have, to have people show their ID.
00:29:55.000 –> 00:30:22.000
It’s going to, it’s going to not benefit the Democrats. So both sides are fighting. It has nothing to do, do you think either side cares about us voting? Well, they do care about us voting because they need votes, but they care about this whole thing is, is basically just them jockeying to say, we want to save, you know, Republicans are going to scream in the aisle, they’re basically saying, oh, we want a safe, secure election. And we do, but the Democrats are going to scream back those, saying, well, you’re, you’re, you’re hurting people that could be, could be potential voters.
00:30:22.000 –> 00:30:36.000
No, you’re hurting people that could potentially vote for us is what they should be saying, but they won’t say that. And I know many people, many friends of mine who are diehard Democrats that are, don’t understand why people don’t have to show their ID to vote.
00:30:36.000 –> 00:30:51.000
And I think it’s ridiculous thing too. I mean, you have to show your ID for things that are less important. Why don’t you have to show your ID to vote for the president of the United States or for your local politicians or governors?
00:30:51.000 –> 00:31:08.000
I think it’s really ridiculous. You don’t have to show ID. I have to show ID for, for things that I mean are less important. Why can’t I have to show ID to vote for the president? I think it’s, it’s really ridiculous. And I think it’s really dumb. And I just don’t understand that.
00:31:08.000 –> 00:31:24.000
So another article I thought was interesting. I wanted to bring this up because I know we do have some young listeners and believe me, no pressure, but they’re saying that the birth rates are down in America by lowest they’ve been since the seventies.
00:31:24.000 –> 00:31:38.000
So they’re saying the lowest birth rates we’ve seen since the seventies. They said they’ve been on a steady decline, or sorry, the steady incline for 50 years. And ever since prior to COVID the numbers have really, they’re not growing.
00:31:38.000 –> 00:31:47.000
The birth rates are down. People are not having as many kids. And I understand it. I mean, rightfully so. I mean, the cost of inflation has gone through the roof.
00:31:47.000 –> 00:31:56.000
I mean, people can’t afford that big families anymore. Two is like the max. Three, I mean, if you have three, I mean that’s, and then four for some reason seems to be the tipping point when people like you got four kids.
00:31:56.000 –> 00:32:05.000
By the way, I want to bring that up. I, not to joke about it, but I don’t understand why that is. My wife and I have actually joked about that. We only have two, but we have friends that have three.
00:32:05.000 –> 00:32:18.000
But why is four kids seem to be that tipping point where you have people that like, people that have four kids, four kids, four kids, always that big number. Three is okay. Four is like, whoa, like it’s not really, it’s only not that many.
00:32:18.000 –> 00:32:28.000
I mean, it’s only one more, but I mean, it’s the four seems to be that, that tipping point where people always say, wow, you have four kids where we’re three. Oh, you only have three. You have three. You know, it’s just one of those things.
00:32:28.000 –> 00:32:40.000
My wife and I always joke about that. I don’t know why four seems to be that tipping point, but you know, it’s one of those things where like, and people can’t afford it. And that’s why, but the birth rates are down.
00:32:40.000 –> 00:32:48.000
They’re saying this could have long-term effects down the road. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. This kind of thing takes years and years and years to see what happens.
00:32:48.000 –> 00:33:00.000
I do find it interesting that birth rates are down. I’m seeing a lot of our friends now that COVID is kind of heading in, you know, it’s kind of like an endemic now. A lot of our friends are having kids. Maybe we just are at that age or maybe it’s just the area we’re in.
00:33:00.000 –> 00:33:13.000
But a lot of our friends are having kids this year and you know, now that things are starting to go back to normal. So, but interesting to see for me, this was a shocking article only because I know so many people that are having kids that are friends to see that the numbers are down kind of shocked me a little bit.
00:33:13.000 –> 00:33:25.000
I thought for sure they were going to be up, but apparently they are down. So that was, that was a little bit interesting. Finally, that US Navy veteran, the Marine, finally got let go by Russia.
00:33:25.000 –> 00:33:36.000
He’s been over there for a long time. We got that Russian basketball, we got that basketball player with the weed back from Russia quicker than we did our own Marine, which our own Navy.
00:33:36.000 –> 00:33:52.000
So I thought that was kind of sad. But apparently, like I said, he’s been released about time. I think he should have been released. We gave them back their arms dealer. I think that should have been worth at least a couple of our military and that Russian, that lady coming back from Russia for a basketball player.
00:33:52.000 –> 00:34:11.000
But like I said, I was kind of upset about that. That basketball player came back, but yet our soldier didn’t. But now they’ve got him back. So that was breaking news before. So good for the good. I’m so happy to hear that really. And because I was a little upset about that, that our Marine was still over there, but a basketball player, we can get back. I thought that was a little ridiculous.
00:34:11.000 –> 00:34:32.000
So they are saying that inflation has slowed down from 8.8 down to 6.5, they are saying. That’s what they’re saying. They said consumer prices fell 0.1%, not 1%, 0.1% in December in line with the expectation of the economy.
00:34:32.000 –> 00:34:53.000
They are saying now that food and energy prices have gone down 3%, 0.3%. And also too, they’re saying that the CPI rose 6.5%, which obviously has gone down a little bit.
00:34:53.000 –> 00:35:07.000
But they’re saying that the big reason for the inflation starting to come down is the gasoline prices, which are now lower, but they are starting to go back up again. So we’ll have to see what happens. I think that number is not going to stay that way. I would like to see it go down a little more.
00:35:07.000 –> 00:35:31.000
But it has come down. It was 8.2, now it’s 6.5. So it has come down. It was 9% in June. So it is coming down, but it’s coming down very slowly. And I don’t think we’ll ever see it go back down to the COVID level again, like 2 or 3%.
00:35:31.000 –> 00:35:48.000
It is starting to come down, but it’s going to take a lot more time for it to come down. But it is starting to come down. The gas prices are a big part of that. It’s starting to come down now that the war is starting to really get, I don’t want to say under control, but it’s starting to hit a certain point. So that’s another reason why.
00:35:48.000 –> 00:36:10.000
So that’s been going on. And like I said, the news really has been pretty crazy this week. One of the things I do want to point out, which is the area that Mastodon, which is what we use here for our rebel social media group, which is very Twitter-like.
00:36:10.000 –> 00:36:21.000
The Truce.Social uses it as well for their background. Gab used it for a while, stuff like that. It’s a really great open source, free backend for social media platforms. It really is wonderful.
00:36:21.000 –> 00:36:32.000
And I actually do support those guys a couple bucks a year because they are really doing this for free and you can take their code and make your own little social network with it. It’s a lot of work and I give those guys a lot of credit.
00:36:32.000 –> 00:36:42.000
But one of the things I wanted to point out, they are saying now that Mastodon, I got this off of Throt.com, they’re a pretty reputable website for this sort of stuff.
00:36:42.000 –> 00:37:04.000
Mastodon, which is the group, ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, Mastodon jumped 2.5 million users from like half a million users. So it had a big surge in users that were like, “Oh, I’m done with Twitter. I’m leaving. I’m going to Mastodon.”
00:37:04.000 –> 00:37:19.000
Or people started their own instances and stuff like that. But now apparently they’re saying Mastodon still has 2.2 million active users out of a total of 5.4 million accounts.
00:37:19.000 –> 00:37:34.000
So now they’re saying that was in December. January they’re down to 1.7 million active users and still at the 5.9 million. So it looks like they’ve had like a 23% decrease in active users.
00:37:34.000 –> 00:37:50.000
They still have a big user base. They went from half a million to even 1.7 is big. But they’re saying that Twitter has, people are starting to go back to Twitter now. They’ve flocked back now that the dust is starting to settle a little bit.
00:37:50.000 –> 00:38:04.000
People are starting to go back to Twitter now. And also too the fact that Twitter is kind of starting to turn it around and has kind of cooled it on the censoring and stuff like that. They’re saying people are starting to go back there now.
00:38:04.000 –> 00:38:28.000
Like I said, Truth Social and places like that, while they are big and even ours is so small. But when you’re talking about Twitter who has 252 million users and you look at something like Gab or Truth Social or Rumble, any of them, they have like 79 million users.
00:38:28.000 –> 00:38:42.000
Is tiny, very very small in comparison to Twitter who has 252 million users. And if you’re looking at something like Facebook that has over 2 billion active users a month.
00:38:42.000 –> 00:39:06.000
I mean when you really look at social media, even Twitter is tiny compared to Facebook. But even that, even when you look at something, even go to the next level and look at something like Mastodon or Truth Social or like Gab or any of those, Rumble, they are even a tiny fish even compared to Twitter.
00:39:06.000 –> 00:39:20.000
So they are even a tinier fish compared to something like Facebook. So like I said, kind of an interesting thing there. I thought, we all remember a lot of people running off of Twitter for a while.
00:39:20.000 –> 00:39:41.000
And now it seems that people are starting to come back to it. Also too, things like Telegram, Discord, things like that. Social networking is becoming really more of a smaller niche thing. There’s a lot of Telegram groups, there’s a lot of Signal groups, WhatsApp groups.
00:39:41.000 –> 00:39:51.000
Things like that are really becoming more segmented and more fragmented where people want to be in groups that they want to be a part of rather than being part of one big thing.
00:39:51.000 –> 00:40:07.000
And one of the things that I brought up about social media, which is we’re very worried about stuff like this. And the reason why is because if you’re only in a group of people that tells you the same thing, you will never get the other side of anything.
00:40:07.000 –> 00:40:18.000
And that goes for politics, that goes for anything. Where if you’re only getting the one side of it, you’re never going to see the other side. And that’s really really dangerous with the way social media is right now.
00:40:18.000 –> 00:40:32.000
And I think that might be part of one of the things that concerns me going forward with social media is the fact that you have people that are all on one side.
00:40:32.000 –> 00:40:43.000
They want to be part of these little subgroups. Facebook and Twitter used to be the only things. Now you have all these other social media groups, all these other social group platforms.
00:40:43.000 –> 00:40:55.000
Like I said, Telegram, Discord, Mastodon, Gap. There’s Hunt, Snap, there’s millions of them. Not millions, but a lot of them.
00:40:55.000 –> 00:41:10.000
But now people join these groups that want to see all the stuff. They want to be around people they want, which is great to be around people you want and share the same views as you because you have good conversations.
00:41:10.000 –> 00:41:20.000
But the problem is when you go into a subgroup like that, you don’t necessarily see the other side of things. And I think that as a society is a really big problem.
00:41:20.000 –> 00:41:26.000
And I brought this up to people before where if you only ever see one side of an argument, you can’t see the other person’s point of view.
00:41:26.000 –> 00:41:33.000
And I think that social media now is getting more fragmented now as things are changing from what they were 10 years ago.
00:41:33.000 –> 00:41:41.000
We just had Facebook or just had Twitter. I think you’re going to see more and more people are going to get more and things are going to get more fragmented.
00:41:41.000 –> 00:41:50.000
And you’re going to see even more of a problem. You’re going to see even more of a problem going forward. Not on a scale like we have where people are just joining because they’re part of a fan group.
00:41:50.000 –> 00:42:08.000
Because I think fan pages have always a thing. But I think as a larger whole, as people maybe just stay on TikTok or just stay on True Souls, they’re only going to see one side of the story.
00:42:08.000 –> 00:42:19.000
And that’s a problem in general when people get their news only from one source. Like I said, our stuff is more of a fan club kind of thing, more of a fun thing. We’re all hanging out with same interests.
00:42:19.000 –> 00:42:30.000
But we’re talking about people that use things to get their news. And if you’re only going to get your news from Telegram, only going to get your news from certain different places, it’s going to eventually be a problem.
00:42:30.000 –> 00:42:44.000
And that goes for anybody. Especially at my point, this has a million times for it. I love Google News, but I don’t go there just for my news because Google News is a free service, but they’re also a service.
00:42:44.000 –> 00:42:53.000
And Google is going to show you stuff that keeps you on their platform longer so that you see more ads. That is the business Facebook’s in. That’s the business that Google’s in.
00:42:53.000 –> 00:43:08.000
Well, the problem is things that you don’t like are not going to keep you on the platform. So many times Facebook, Google and other platforms will show you stuff you want to see so you stay on the platform longer, seeing you maximize advertising.
00:43:08.000 –> 00:43:17.000
And while that is a great thing for them as a business, it’s not necessarily a great thing for you as a person who’s trying to get both sides of the story.
00:43:17.000 –> 00:43:25.000
And I brought that up and I think that’s my biggest problem with any of these social networks is, and it’s kind of why I do like Mastodon because it doesn’t do any of that stuff.
00:43:25.000 –> 00:43:36.000
But my issue with that is if Facebook is so worried about maximizing their clicks that they’re going to show you, and YouTube, they’re all guilty of it.
00:43:36.000 –> 00:43:42.000
Because they want to maximize your time on their platform, maximize their clicks, they’re going to show you things that are going to keep you there longer.
00:43:42.000 –> 00:43:49.000
But the problem is things that keep you there longer generally agree with your point of view. And then people are not getting the other side of the story.
00:43:49.000 –> 00:43:55.000
So I think that’s a major problem and going forward, I really think you’re going to see more and more of that as an issue.
00:43:55.000 –> 00:44:07.000
And like I said, it really is something I think we need to be concerned about. I do think social media is a threat to democracy in the sense of sometimes they’re not giving people both sides of the story.
00:44:07.000 –> 00:44:16.000
An informed voter is somebody that understands both sides of things. And I think that’s a really big problem, especially with some of these platforms now, is they only show you one side of things.
00:44:16.000 –> 00:44:28.000
And people don’t get both sides of the story, which is kind of, I think, part of the reason why they’re investigating social media right now is because social media has always leaned either in that direction.
00:44:28.000 –> 00:44:40.000
But the other problem is, and I do think this is an issue and Republicans, I don’t care about it, but I do, in the sense of since Facebook only shows you, if you are a Republican, they’re probably only going to show you Republican leaning things.
00:44:40.000 –> 00:44:49.000
If you are Democrats, they’re only going to show you Democrat leaning things, which is a problem. And they’re not really worried about this. They’re more worried about being silenced.
00:44:49.000 –> 00:44:59.000
But I think it is a really big issue, and it’s something that we in this country here are going to have to think about, is people should be getting news from multiple places.
00:44:59.000 –> 00:45:08.000
And newspapers are guilty of this too. They always lean one way or the other. They try to show certain things that are going to keep people reading longer.
00:45:08.000 –> 00:45:21.000
All the platforms are really guilty of this. But it is a problem because people only get one side of the story, and then that one side of the story, unfortunately, isn’t necessarily the whole thing.
00:45:21.000 –> 00:45:28.000
And the problem is everybody has different tastes, different views, and sometimes they don’t want to see the other side, which is another problem.
00:45:28.000 –> 00:45:38.000
But like I said, today really was mostly digging into things, talking about things really that’s been going on, things that I think are important.
00:45:38.000 –> 00:45:47.000
The way we handle classified data in this country is a big issue for me. The way we handle social media, what social media tells us.
00:45:47.000 –> 00:45:54.000
I think a lot of this stuff are big issues that we in this country are really going to have to figure out what to do.
00:45:54.000 –> 00:45:58.000
There’s got to be a solution to this problem, but I don’t think it’s going to be an easy solution.
00:45:58.000 –> 00:46:03.000
And unfortunately, I think legislation is only going to make it worse, I think. I hate to be honest with you, but I think it is.
00:46:03.000 –> 00:46:17.000
And we’ll have to wait and see what happens. On that note, I do want to thank everybody for listening, and we will see you on the next episode. Thank you very much.