Left Of Greg 059 Beware The Ides of March

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I'm Brian, the host of The Human Behavior Podcast. You're going to be watching the video version of our audio podcast. Please, guys, if you like the video, like it and subscribe to the channel. There's going to be more content there if you're already a subscriber. It's a better way for us to get you guys some more stuff. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead and leave them below. Check out our links down below to get a hold of us and to actually find out more places where you can get more information about this. Please like and subscribe. Follow us on Facebook at HBPRNA. Remember, all these cases that we discuss and all these discussions that we have are through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis. So, please like it, share it, tell your friends about it, and I hope you enjoy the show. Thanks.

But someone might say, "What prompted the idea for today's broadcast?" And I would tell you that it was earlier this morning when I was running. I was wearing my "Make My Prostate Small Again" hat, and that made me think about the upcoming election. So, on that, as we get started, we do have to, real quick: last week we recorded the Flat Earth podcast, and later that day – or the next day, it was later that day – we got the news that one of you got one killed. So, I feel horrible about that. One of these guys who was a flat-Earther was building his own rocket to shoot up high enough to see if he could see the Earth was round. Died in that. And God, Buddha, Vishnu, Allah said, "Not so fast!" And tonight, we're just not— what I want out of these people. I don't think they deserve to die. I don't think any of them deserve to die; that's not where I was going, and I don't want to bash them like that. But, holy crap! So, you got to see, are you two monkeys? Pause. Do you get what I'm saying? We all of a sudden, we have it on the broadcast, and then somebody dies. Don't worry about that. I mean, we're used to predicting things, but not one. I don't like it when good people, or people that don't deserve to die, die. I don't want that to happen.

So, this Tobias (Rathjen), the German shooter... I've had it up to here, before our formal start, everything that people are writing is saying, "There is no way!" There are photos and videos of him conducting the pre-surveillance and walking in with the jacket on, with his arms covered up, with the predatory looks. Every single person is spending calories saying how it can't be done, and there's no way to profile these people, and it doesn't matter because it was a different language and he was a German in a hookah bar with a, you know, a wooden leg. Folks, all horseshit. Training changes behavior. If you have the training, the scales fall from your eyes, and you see stuff like you didn't before. And that's the whole idea about getting the training, because all the electrolytes that you're burning, all the calories you're burning trying to say it can't be done, it's a waste of time. You could be filling that with training time and saving life.

Oh, I just get started. I get tired, and we all get— everyone gets tired of the same old crap they see all the time. So, why don't we change the narrative? And I think that's part of why we do this, and part of why all these people are tuning in.

So, it's actually, real quick, thanks to everyone. Both of those people who go to the Patreon site know that we appreciate those of you who signed up. That's awesome. You guys can check out more on YouTube at The Human Behavior Podcast. So, that's— I just want to shout out to everyone. Also, if you could scroll down while you're listening to this and hit the like or five-star rating button or something, that actually helps a lot. It's one on your side and one on my side.

Yeah.

And if so, am I getting more likes than you are? I just wonder.

Sure, sure. I know you are.

Oh, my project today is make your campaign slogan, if you were running for office, would be "Make My Prostate Small Again."

Unlikely.

So, we are coming up to that time. All underwear should be brown. No, no underwear brown again. Anyway, we're talking about it because this is going to be released, obviously, the first week of March. We've got March. But, beware the Ides of March, right? Always dates seem to— or attacks and significant events coalesce around together for a number of reasons. But it is that election week, so I know you wanted to start there.

And disappear.

So, Shelly (Williams, co-founder of HBPRNA and Greg's wife) has been doing pre-election training in our town. We were talking about a topic, and Shelly's our CEO, folks, an incredible instructor, plank holder, and former copper. We were talking about a couple of the attacks that occurred recently. Yesterday, a couple of kids were rammed off of their bicycles because they were wearing the shirts and colors and hats of a certain candidate. And the people that rammed them off were adults in a motor vehicle that you would have never imagined would do this. Last week, the guy that was celebrating his birthday— a guy came up from behind him because he was wearing a certain color and a shape of a hat that he got for his birthday that had nothing to do with the elections, and knocked him out. And then, just one after the other, after the other, in different places.

Listen, I'm absolutely apolitical. My personal bent and the things that I do in my closet at home or my business... But when I come on here, I would know you and the business of the other person in that closet. (Sarcastically) Exactly, neck restraint, serene hypoxia. But the idea, folks— we'll edit that out. What Shelly's bringing up is, "Why do I feel that there were these certain areas that we're bringing up?" And I said, it's very simple. Go back to white belt: natural line of drift, anchor point, habitual area. And here's the idea: when a terrorist or a criminal is going to attack you, they're not going to attack you in an anchor point. That's when you're strongest. That's your safe place, your she-shed or your man cave where you've got everything hardened, and nobody in their right mind is going to come there. Then, all of a sudden, you've got the habitual area. We're out in public, you're at Disney, you're at the waterpark, you're on Virginia Beach with a bunch of folks. That's when you lose— you gain anonymity because of the crowd, but you lose your situational awareness because you think the crowd is going to protect you. So that's where a well-placed bike bomb or a body bomb or a sniper or something is going to wreak havoc. In a simple level, Brian, it's where people go. It's where people are. Don't go attack out in the woods because there's nothing there. It's like virus marketing. I don't have to look far; all I've got to do is find a bellwether.

Then, the third point of that little star there, or triangle rather, would be a natural line of drift. When we're on a natural line of drift, we go into this autonomous mode where we're no longer thinking. That's why they used to say, "You remember the insurance guy would always come on and he would say, 'Hey, listen, you're in more danger at the last mile before you get home.'" Why? Because it's rote memorization. You black out; you don't even think about it.

Well, there's a memory for Brian.

The idea is that you don't think about it as much because your brain goes on impulse. And I know you didn't mean it like that, but there's actually a good way to put it. You didn't mean that you don't actually physically black out, unless you've consumed any alcohol or drugs. But you do in a sense, with your level of attention and situational awareness. You're more likely to pick up the phone and read a message or do whatever, and you won't do that when you're going somewhere new and you're looking for someone you're picking up at the airport, or you're in a new area that you're trying to find your way around, because you'll even autonomically, without even realizing, turn down your car stereo, you'll turn the radio down. You're trying to attend. You actually attend to what you're doing and what you're trying to do, whether it's driving or whatever, you're paying attention. But, just like you said, the more times we do something, the more patterns we set, the more it becomes almost autonomic. You just start—

That's where we're most dangerous. Aren't we most in peril when we're hyper-agitated, hyper-alert, or when there's absolutely no external stimuli?

You get what I'm trying to say? So that's when we dumb it down. So in the natural line of drift, that's going from a place to a place. It reminded me of the boating thing. So, if you're going up to vote, for example, last week, I think Brian, when we talked on Friday, I had checked, and there was over a thousand articles that were talking about election. And what I entered— because I did, Brian, folks — I went and with my big, fat, stubby fingers, I typed in "election day dangers." And I'm thinking about bombings.

I don't really—

Well, Brian, we're both— that's Saudi Arabia, when there were troubles with the elections and people getting blown up and shot. But in America, guess what they were all about? Voter fraud.

Yes, I do.

So, a duplicitous standard that meant nothing to the natural line of drifting. So, if we have talked about in previous episodes, pulling up to a restaurant, you've never been there before, and driving around it, then parking in the parking lot a safe way away from the entrance, and just observing for a minute. Look, listen, smell, feel the environment, check those atmospheres. Why wouldn't we say the same thing about an election day? Because Election Day, we're going from a habitual area and our own anchor point, following natural lines of drift, to another habitual area, which is kind of an anchor point too.

So, if you think of like a ball game, the dugout for each team is an anchor point for that team, for that specific— now, welcome there if you're not on that team. So, if you went over, like you're the batboy for the Boston Stranglers (a fictional team, a joke), which color is black and purple— I don't know what it is. So, you go over to the other thing, and it's the Nitwits, and they're in yellow and blue. You walk in with the little donut thing, you go, "I'm the smartest motherfucker here, and you can all kiss my ass!" How long until punches are thrown? It's like one of those little Andy Capp cartoons where he's spinning around with his old lady doing the "ten-sixteen." That's going to happen. So, you normally would avoid that situation unless you're a psycho and you want that fight. So, why wouldn't you look at those three geographic indicators in your own life on a daily basis and anticipate? I would caution you, Brian, that it doesn't have to be just with danger. What about parking? Do you get what I'm trying to say? Is parking different in the morning, by rush hour, at lunchtime, when people are going to eat? Do you see what I'm trying to say? You're going to make a plan, and you're going to sit down and take a look at your day, and you're going to make an operation and say, "Operationally, this is how I'm going to do this as my advance party." Wouldn't you do that for an election?

And I'm just saying no, because I'm lazy. So, why wouldn't you, at that point? Well, it's about what you're talking about is just how to avoid those situations. It doesn't take a whole lot. But getting into everything that this is all stuff that we discussed and how we break it down. But specifically for, you know, it's election time. So, what does that mean for us?

This way, and this is everyone, especially— I would say, it seems like— and I don't know, it's still a signal-to-noise ratio, as with everything we're dealing with right now. But people are very, very... it's like a polarizing political time right now.

It really is.

It's always been that way. It's always been there. We just— or maybe just the noise is louder right now. Maybe we turn it up to 11. Now, if it's Spinal Tap... But the idea behind that, Brian, is now in an age of instant communication, that noise— is it just for equities? And it's always around us. I would challenge you, and I would say that there were key things going on: World War II, Vietnam, a lot of different things with women, the right to vote. You talk about— and we didn't go back to the 1800s, the Dred Scott and talking about slavery. There were some real big-ticket items going on.

We always want to think— we always want to think it's the most important time, and that's not necessarily true, is it?

No, it's not. I mean, you could go back even just to the '60s. There were bombings, and a lot of bomb threats; that was a big thing back then in the '60s that was happening, and they were real. And that doesn't really happen. But now it always changes, always something else that occurs. But the idea is, is it really that as people say it is, or is there just a lot more noise right now? And it's still always that signal-to-noise ratio. We filter out the nonsense from what's actually going on. But either way, it's still a bad person, so it could shoot you in your head. But because they fall for that, because as we— you mentioned too, and I said when we were talking about doing something about this, like, "Why do we come up with 'Beware the Ides of March'?" That's a really, really old saying, because things start to coalesce around this time. Because if politics gets us amped up and people argue about it, and it is emotional, and people get very attached to it, so that means it's coming to a point right now. So, that steam is building, and it's coming to the point now where one of those points would be a primary election time, when those emotions will be higher than normal. So, more likely to act irrationally because of that, and you can get caught in the middle of that. Correct?

So, yesterday morning, coming out of our front door at Roadman or West, Shelly punched a deer, I believe. That there went and told everyone, and now they left the stage. Eight months. Exactly. There's eight months of winter in Gunnison, and you've got to love the winter, you've got to love the snow. You're not going to live up here. But there's also a thing that's called cabin fever. And sometimes cabin fever affects other people in other ways. And we have this thing that we all talk about, that April showers bring May flowers. The Ides of March, it's— there's no way a "Lessons Learned" on it, folks. If you know what those are, please go to the site; they're free, you can look it up. But the idea is that people go, "Well, that happened in April," and combine management, "April listen, happened." And, you know, we had the Roman stabbed in the Ides of March. Everybody says famous guy.

Yeah, Caesar.

Caesar, because he's eluded me right there. But the idea, Brian, is that if you take a look at it, everything happens in waves and cycles and particles and photons. And the idea is that it's no more dangerous than another period, but this is one of those spikes where a lot of people— and there's going to be a lot. For example, the "glass ceiling" night of elections a few years ago. The election, and people were up all night long, and nobody wants to call it even though there was information. Why? Because we delude ourselves and denude ourselves and think that our story is more important than other people's story, and we feel betrayed, we feel that, "Man, we were counting on this. What are we going to do?" And I would tell people, first of all, calm down. Because what was the Hale-Bopp comet? Everybody go out and buy your Nikes, and we're all going to die. No. I've lived in the land of fruit and nuts, and I've seen how egregiously ridiculous you guys are sometimes. I'm just visiting, Brian, in what's that suburban San Diego that you live in? Santee, or whatever that was. And so, but I know that people sometimes do fringe stuff. The flat-Earther guy— listen, folks, it's going to be alright. And we're not only had this tumultuous change in these riots that people are predicting, and a civil war, unless you want them. And that's the problem sometimes with the news media is they foment on this type of hate and distrust and misinformation because it sells news.

And talk show. Everybody goes, "That picture was great. That pizza was good." Nobody wants to watch that.

No.

It's all about someone's making money off of it. What you've got to remember, that was all the big thing even when I was had whatever path other other work that I had done, and it was involving— you mean a criminal, but involving buying a large amount of weapons? It was a military.

Comes first, as far as I'm concerned.

So, tell me that there was the whole thing was like, you know, you look at people play off of everyone's emotions. So, I had a friend who we thought about it, we were just having beers, just talking about it one time. Like, "Man, you could actually, we could actually make money off of something like that, where you look at the price of ammo or guns or something, you could buy them in bulk, and then when one of those things happens, what, it's like the stock market, the price goes up, everything doubles, and we could sell everything. And when it comes back down again, we'll buy everything again and keep it." I was like, "Wow, that's incredible." But we should be turning a profit off of really, really bad situations.

Scientific scrutiny from inside, like you're going, "This is all BS. This is just trying to make money off of everyone getting up in arms about something or getting emotional." So, that applies to a lot.

But get politically elected to office, whatever. If you're—

Exactly right, Brian. I always want to make sure that we had that lens looking back, and not the jaundiced eye always looking forward or sideways for the wall. We met in Indiana. But the idea is, home of the wide head. And that's a shout-out to our CEO right there. So, Brian, have you ever heard that thing when you go to somebody else's house, "What are the topics that you don't ever want to talk about?" Religion, politics. People say that, and there are others that other people around the country have filled in, around the world. But the idea is, why? Because people historically have murdered, mass-murdered, killed, maimed, undercut, and put down people of different statuses, when it came to their political or religious affiliation. Everything in moderation. Take your time. If you want change in this country, the great thing about our country is that you can vote it in or you can vote it out. But people forget that.

We have what I like to call the "spilled milk" phenomenon, that nobody is happy with whatever happens. And we're dealing with the thing in Colorado right now that has to do with, long time before any other states, not only legalization, but the decriminalization of marijuana. And with that come certain billions of dollars of unpaid currency, cash, that nobody's sure what to do with, and jail. Everybody's looking at everybody else. "Who's going to be first? And what are we going to do? Do we legalize this and make it— do we go to the federal route, or do we fix our schools?" So, you've got that part that's going on. Then you've got the other part where the people are still saying, people my age, and generally older, are going, "I get your point, but marijuana my whole life has been illegal, and I associated it with losers and idiots."

The perception exists.

And there are kids that are grown up that are being trained on Narcan. So, all those factions have to live in that same Fabergé egg. And everyone, listen, while we peek in and say, "Which one are we?"

And you brought up— that's a perfect example of all of these issues are two sides of the coin. Like, "I get what you're trying to do here, but you're also not taking into account the— there's going to be second- and third-order effects of this that you control, and you don't know." So, why don't we take an approach— because I get that too. It's the same thing, like, to me, my generation, or my people, my age and younger, are looking at all that, all the drug stuff, going, "This is ridiculous. Why is marijuana illegal?" But at the same time, people forget, like, your perspective of being a cop for how long. "I had to enforce the law, so no amount of marijuana—" It's not that you think that those people are horrible people or wrong, it's just, "Look, man, this has been my perspective my whole life. I don't understand your way." And I know from my perspective, I have to take that into account and go, "Yeah, you're right. This is a huge paradigm shift. This is bigger." Whereas I might think, "What's the big deal about it? That's so stupid." Like, for you— how many people died from alcohol than have ever died from marijuana? We haven't touched the numbers of people that died on the road because of the alcohol-related accidents.

But think of this: recently, in many of the states across our country— and this happens in the world too — they've let a lot of people out of jail because they said, "When we take a look at it, we measure this, and a lot of these were dope crimes, meaning marijuana, not like cocaine Schedule I and II narcotics." But the problem is that those agencies and those cities and those governments said, "And we had a crime spike." People would go to jail, generally become recidivist, and a very small amount of the people that are in the jail recur and commit the same crimes over and over and over and go back to jail. Now, that's not necessarily so with a low-level marijuana offense. But the problem is that overgeneralization. We're saying that this person was only dealing with marijuana, not that it was a part of a cartel and people died while they were plotting their crime, and we're talking about tons of marijuana. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

And it's the same thing with the election. I can go to a person on an election day. I go get my haircut in town, and it's the greatest thing in the world because you go into town, you've got Republicans and demagogues. If you're still walking around with flintlocks... So, I'm sitting in there, and you can't say anything around Election Day because everybody's got their story on a candidate. "Well, I heard that Trump actually was down at Area 51 getting a nail, and that he's actually part alien!" What is it, Mr. Deeds? If you ever want to watch a dumb movie, but you laugh because everything Sandler does is over-the-top dumb. Do you remember when he goes, "Hey, I'm Mandrake Falls' assistant fire chief," and he climbs a building, and a guy's doing parkour, that's all he's doing? And he goes, "Well, how is he doing parkour?" And he goes, "He's got monkey blood in him!" I sat and howled at that line because it's so stupid. But this is what I get sometimes. And now I can't go to the same barbershop. Thanks, there are only two in town. But this is what I get sometimes: somebody will come up with this story that is so off the beaten path, but there are three or four people go, "I heard that same thing too!" And they're willing to fight over it. "And then Bernie Sanders is a dyed-in-the-wool communist, and he was shirtless with Putin over the weekend!" Listen, none of that stuff is true. What is true is not going to impact your day-to-day life. And if you only knew what was going on in your name of politics, you—

That's— you brought up specifically, of course, when you're talking about letting people out of prison. That's another great example.

It's a turning point, man.

Well, it's— these are all— each one of those situations, each one of those cases, each one of those individuals, those criminals were convicted, it's a nuanced case. There's a lot of nuance. And what you have to do is, when you remember, when you're trying to make a policy, the policy has to generalize. Because if so, it's got to be— it's going to affect— there are some people it's not going to work out for, some people it will work out for, and there are going to be situations that come up that challenge that. That's why we have case law in us, where it goes, "Wait a minute, for this case, that's not true." So, I think everyone needs to just remember, with all these, these are all very nuanced policies and situations. So, when anyone, when that politician is trying to simplify things, or, "It's all about this!" Like, "Well, no, it's not!" These things that have a—

Have a ripple effect.

Exactly. So, why is it, Greg, that people— and this is a general question— get so emotionally involved in politics? Emotionally respond to stuff or have these very, very strong beliefs regardless of how much information they know? So, I bring this up because I'm always curious: how much does the president— and the president gets selected, whether that's Democrat or Republican — how much do their policies, what they actually do, affect their everyday life? I think if you got heated about your local elections, or your state reps, or your federal representatives, that I could see, because that has more direct effect on you. Whereas these big popularity contests we have for the presidency is kind of—

No, no, that's like it's affected you and I. I know that firsthand. And I can sit in the backseat now, folks, I can't take him. Whoa, no. But here's the thing: I mean, I know I've been working on stuff, and a new president came in, and they changed their foreign policy, and they said, "We're doing this, we're doing that," and then all of a sudden, boom, "Hey, this program is cut. Packing all those jobs, left, go home. Go do this. We're not doing this." Like, "Wait a minute, we're knee-deep in this, we've made these relationships, we're going to do this." And now because someone else came in with a different attitude, we're just at that all— hate. Drop, drop, pop, pop, smoke and leave.

Like every administration since—

Oh, sure. You tell me that it's about money?

I'm saying those corporations, those decisions have personally affected my life. But, most people, I don't think that's the key. So, I don't get that emotional about electing the president. I go, "It's just going to be the guy."

It's the only thing that we're going to talk about is the means and the extremes. Because everything that's in the middle is vanilla. Most people don't care. And when I say "don't care," what I'm trying to say is there's not such an egregious impact on their lives that they're going to go out and shoot their neighbor. Those are the means or the extremes, and most— both sides have an extreme. But I'll give you a pressure point argument. I'll give you one right here. So, a candidate, and again, be apolitical, folks, sit down, think about that thing. And just like the math you do when you're at Kohl's about buying a new blouse, apply that to everything else that you do. "This is the best value, I can afford this, I can't afford that." Brian, we have that in our normal life.

So, here you've got this candidate, day before yesterday, says— and I'm paraphrasing, that's the other thing, because I'm not giving the exact quote, so therefore I'm twisting it, even though I don't want to twist it. Brian, when is this hair free? Something I have to— (to Brian Marren, playfully) Toto. But the idea was that, listen, anybody that comes to this country illegally, if they're in this country illegally, they deserve the full protection of the law. That's true. They also deserve the full benefits that everybody that's a citizen gets. And that's where some people go off the rails. Now, what's the difference? Listen, if you're in our country, you deserve the full protection, no matter where you were from, no matter what you're doing, as long as you're— within your robbing or some way— we've got to step in, that's the way it is. But when it comes to stuff like, "Hey, I want this equal pay, I want this—" why don't we think that somebody else gets it? Well, because we're basically selfish enough to say, "I think I've done more than that. I paid into our system." I thought so. Change is never fun. Nobody ever wants to talk about that. And when somebody goes, "Well, yeah, but this immigrant is not unlike your great-grandfather Bill that was an immigrant here."

Exactly. We don't want to see it in terms of those things.

I would liken it instead of attaching such a deep emotional fixture to it. I would say liken it to something that you do every day. Why did you choose to go to KFC rather than to go to Whole Foods and get a salad? Why did you choose to spend this much on this pair of shoes because they can be used duplicitously for hiking or going to work? We make decisions like that all our lives. When it comes to these decisions, we get stupid because we think that the investment is a much greater deal. We also think that individually we are going to feel the burn. And that's what I think we fight about more often than not.

That's a good point. But also, those individual cases, on an individual level, I think people are much more reasonable. They're like, "Okay, well, no, I don't want to give that guy a handout, but I'll get my hand up." We're going to get a hand up any day that we get. But it's when this goes in from taking something that's nuanced into something that has to be general for a policy, it doesn't always come out clean and not everyone's going to get—

Right.

So, a problematic approach it that way, like, look, if you're at it, this is not a zero-sum game. Anyone who's versus them, it's all— with all of these policies, and we look with it— and I think this is a big problem with a lot of what happens with the politicians in DC. And it's hard because we're all on the outside looking in, saying, "Hey, you guys all suck. You're not working together." But I guarantee there's a whole bunch of them that are really trying hard to work together. We're not watching them 24 hours a day, what they're doing right now. But the idea is, you can't come into this going, "Hey, I'm going to get everything I want!" Or when you make policy, this stuff gets watered down because, let's say, someone will come in and say, "Here's what I want." And then the other side is like, "Well, we're never going to give you that, so you've got to get rid of this, this, this, and this." And then that person goes, "Alright," and those concessions aren't always easy. And they'll make those concessions. And then so, the people that they were fighting for don't even really get that much of what they were expecting. And so it's almost like now we're only thrown a little bit. We're really not what we intended it to be either. Why don't they make it more collaborative where the left can come up and say, "Look, here's everything that we want," and then the right says, "Here, here's everything that we want. How do we give each other everything that we want?" Like, "If you give me all this, you get all of what you want." But it doesn't— and I know that's so much more. I'm oversimplified to do that.

So, everyone, I'll throw a little ripple into that pond that sounds outside my head, I think. Exactly. So, I'll give you a ripple that's in the pond. So, to our governor— and I haven't been a fan of his recent policies, even though I'm apolitical. It just every once in a while something comes up that's controversial, and I don't like controversy. You know that. I like Wavy Gravy, Chili Palmer; everything's going to be good because I don't like change. Change scares me. I'm an older guy now, so change scares me even more than when I was your age, Brian.

So, he comes up and he says, "Hey, we've got this legislation that's going to pass where we're going to make it free daycare for anyone and free kindergarten if your kids are going to school." And the idea is, first of all, nothing's ever free. So that means that my money that I'm paying legally into the tax — and specifically for all the different things that I do in Colorado, it's not cheap to live in Colorado — is going to this guy. And my kids are all grown up, and I paid for all of their stuff. But now he's going to get something for nothing. Do you get what I'm saying? And I resent it. And so I'm not thinking anymore of, "What's great for all kids? All kids should deserve this because it equalizes the playing field." I'm immediately going, "Social!"

As well laid out, but it's actually— but that's the thing is that if you don't see the— what is the intent behind it? Because if those kids get to go to a full day of kindergarten for free and after-school care, guess what their parent gets to do? Gets to have a job and gets— makes more money. So, that's an investment that is when that kid is fully formed and working and doing well. And so, what's your knee-jerk, what's your reaction?

And only few Americans— and we're just talking in our borders because our elections are coming up— the average person in Middle America, meaning Middle America anywhere except the extreme places like New York and where you live. You get people— and I'm just joking, folks — but you get people that have that. And they see, I am in this one. You see a bumper sticker. The bumper sticker says, "My kid's an honor roll student." Brian, 98 people out of a hundred in our great country, you won't one day see that bumper sticker. Well, first of all, 98 percent of the people don't read it because they're busy driving like maniacs. But if they did take time in a traffic jam to read that, ninety percent of the people go, "Good on you! It's wonderful, I'm happy for you." What are the two percent, one over here and one over here? What do they say? "I apologize, they're an interesting day." "Oh, you think you're so—"

My dad would want to ram the car out of the way and go, "My three kids are right back here and they can throw a rocket!"

Exactly! They would have the bumper stickers, you know, "My kid can kick your honor student's ass!" or something. But nobody does that. Listen, when you're in the film crew business and you're running around and you see it all the time. This family just had— they said "home invasion," so I tuned in right away. I hate the news. And the home invasion was a car; a guy had a seizure and drove through the porch of a house, destroying the house. So, first of all, that was their clever pun, which just pissed me off. And the second thing is, people are out $125,000 at the house. They only have insurance for $55,000 on the house, and the guy got a $500 fine for not declaring or driving when he was on his medicine, and the medicine made him drowsy or whatever. So there's a lose-lose that's all the way around. So they come up and they put the camera. They find Slim, that standard in the car, and they go, "Do you have anything to do with this?" "No." "Do you have an opinion on this?" "No." "Have you huffed some paint today?" "Yes, I have." And they just picked a camera in his mouth and go, "What are you thinking?" He goes, "They should take him out and shoot him!" I'm trying to say this, but why is it that those are the repetitive messages we get?

Again, we're dealing with the investment. The investment from journalists, the investment from news. Do you remember the days not too long ago when they would have eight lawyers all in their individual squares and everybody was screaming to be heard over anybody else? What did that accomplish? It still ramped up pressure.

But it's slowly dying.

It's dying.

No, celebrating its death, Brian. That's why people are listening to podcasts.

Well, but that goes back to a good point, one of our— hey, just so you know, folks, that was our only F-bomb aside from the phone. But that goes to a few things. I mean, we— you forgot where the hell we were at. It's thinking of the general populace and what's best for all of us, because we're all in this together. You have to. It's two things. So, you're watching it, let's say. I just watched a super interesting interview conversation with this physicist guy who is answering all these really complicated questions and breaking it down to like, "Hey, here's what we know, here's what we can prove." But it was super fascinating stuff, and he's explaining, even down to Einstein's theories, "What does that actually mean?" It's like, "Well, here's how you understand that." Super fascinating. But you'll see something like that, and then they'll go, "Hey, well, let's go ask Bill out on the street." And the guy's like, "That's a bunch of crock." Why are we asking Bill on the street? Or you go the opposite direction. Neil deGrasse Tyson— huge fan. So, a couple of months back, there was a very simple, softball idea, and he hit it out of the park, and he was absolutely right on what he said. But what did the people, the Flat-Earthers, Brian, that you had? What did they say? They attacked him to the point that on social media he apologized for his position, which is horrible. It's okay to have your opinion as long as your opinion's not hurting a bunch of people, and it's an informed opinion. But they don't take that back.

Well, the smartest guys in the world.

You've got to pay attention to that though, because there are a lot of people out there who think that way. So, it's like, "Great, well, how do we reach that guy?" That's what you've got to be thinking, not turning people off or turning people away. It's, "Alright, we've got to bring that, we've got to bring specific information."

No, too much information leads to poor decisions as well. So, if we talk something as obtuse as John Boyd's OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), I've heard it described and explained, and everybody that's tried sounds like the village idiot. It sounds like this guy standing on a chair. I've seen hundreds of thousands of views. This sounds smart. To put it in context— and you bring the relevance, Brian. If I'm going to give you the context, you've got to bring the relevance. If I bring the relevance to an argument, then you've got to give me the context in which it's observed. If those two things don't come together, there's no point in what's going on. So, what's happening is what they're doing is they're saying, "I want to take you to—" But I'm going to take out the second "O" (Orient) and I'm going to replace it with a starfish. You can't do that. There are certain very simple scientific principles that you've got to follow.

And people are generally— all of us grew up, and I'm talking wide-based evolution, big picture, Brian— in small groups and sets of about 200 people. And in that group or that tribe that we had, we had a certain amount of those people that took care of us. So they became the police and the emergency services and first responders. We had a couple of people that knew how to negotiate with other tribes, and they became our politicians. And then we had two hunters, and then we had two gatherers.

Storytellers.

Yes. And what were the storytellers? Our teachers. The thing is that when we think of it like that, and we sit down and give ourselves a gift of time and distance, which I truly believe in, Brian, you know that, and we say, "Okay, we're going to take away this extreme, just like when we're doing calculus or a math problem. We're going to take this extreme amount, we're going to take this extreme amount. We're only going to look at these, because these numbers just skew our results horribly." And we say, "What's best for everybody here?"

Listen, I don't want this election that's coming up in a week— I don't want, and it's going to be a couple of days after the folks hear this— I don't want people doing mayhem and doing vehicle attack ramming attacks and doing shootings and all this other stuff. Because if they're going to do it one way or the other, they're going to do it around an event like this, and they're going to do it at a place like this. We know that. Why did the guy go to the hookah bar? Because I've got to bring the chess game to you, or bring you to the homicide. I've got to bring the crime scene to you, or you to the crime scene, the ambush to you, and you to the ambush. And it's that simple, Brian, when we're taking a look at these: anytime that we've got these high emotional content events that are going to happen, someone's going to walk in and they're going to do something stupid.

I think that's a good way to label it, or to call it what it is: a high emotional content event. That's a funeral, that's a political rally, a protest, that's a ballot box. How many times have there been attacks during an election throughout the history of the world? All of them. Probably almost every election, unless it was like the local church group electing their—

I mean, when you have somebody who is losing, we're losing control, they're losing money. Or you put it in a very simple way: how it affected you. And now imagine their welfare. They think they have looked at a place where the mullahs in a certain village knew that the election was going to take them out of power, and it was going to put a figurehead into the power. How did we see those street fights start? How many people had to die? "How many people have been in there to vote so far today?" "Three of the guys that are working for us, that's about it." "Everyone stay at home today." But that's absolutely every one of the bads that worked in those places. I'm not trying to say jack shit about the religion. I don't care what religion you are, I don't care what politics you are. But I am saying that when you get this, look how many times were we at a wedding, or heard about a wedding in the district we were, Brian, where during the wedding one of the families threw a grenade because they were celebrating the wedding of the two people, and that turned into a fire fight? That kind of stuff happens. So that's some dumb mistakes. We don't want this election to turn into: one, dumb mistakes; two, intentional acts of violence; three, any type of altercation.

There was a shooting in a Denver Walmart just a day ago, and at the beginning of the thing, I cried like a baby. Now my PTSD has manifested, and to me, just crying when the wind blows too hard. And they had these two old women that were standing outside and the interviewer said, "Hey, listen, what happened inside?" And a female and a male were shooting it out in the store. And they started very calmly and they said, "This is our Sunday morning, we were going shopping." And then they burst down into tears, and they were sobbing, Brian. And it killed me to my soul, making anybody afraid to go and vote, or to go and buy food or clothes at a Walmart. You don't have that right. And I stand firmly against that. I hope everybody in America would do that. Your opinion is your own, and I pledge allegiance not to a country, but our Constitution, which allows you to be as different as you want to be. And I'm willing to fight, and I was willing to die for it, Brian.

And I think that's what we've got to go back to. We've got to go back to that universal level of respect. Even though I disagree with the hedonistic lifestyle Brian Marren leads, he is my valued friend, and therefore I put up with it. And on a grander scale, I occasionally dabble in it. But even though once a year I have to have him with this much Jameson and this much Shamrock Shake trying to tell me the terrors of the world. No, but I'm just—

Well, they come.

But this all ties into, it's a purpose, it's a choice. So you have to make a personal responsibility and a personal code. So let's just understand the fact that, because you're going to see it, people attacking political rallies, people attacking polling places. And it gets sensationalized. I mean, it's— as it should be, meaning it's news. I get it. But don't get in this idea of, "Oh my God, everything's chaos!" Look, this is happening every normal history though. Absolutely. There's always going to be someone out there who takes it too far. So, just protect— that's the thing. It's just you focus on you and what you can influence in your immediate area. You're exactly right. Make yourself safer, you're making the group you're with safer. If you're safer, you're making your community safe. That's how it builds. But I kind of counterpoint that to, "If you see something, say something." Well, this is one of those places where I should see their campaign on television every day. But what do I see? I see a bunch of ads. What do the ads say? The ads are counterproductive because, "This guy's a jerk, and he's going to take this, and he's going to do that." And again, they foment hate. My thing to you folks is that if you see somebody that needs a hand up, like Brian said it so eloquently earlier, you give them that hand up. I'm not a big fan of giving a handout. If you see somebody that's hurt, say something. We wonder why there are spikes in suicides. Well, listen, when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. And if you just have a good word for somebody, if you just open a door for somebody, if you just back off and give the gift of time and distance and say, "Wow, I may want to shut my mouth at this point, or I may want to speak up." You know your personal responsibility. You don't have to do it, but think about a greater world, or community, or day at that restaurant or that voting booth could be if you just took responsibility for your own—

Ass. "It's not my fault, and I don't want to take responsibility." But on this, so next month we'll get into— I just want to kind of go back to, because it is March now when this is going to be released. Folks, you just record the news about a week prior, or a few days, depending on what time.

When your time, Brian, got out of rehab. What time my parole board?

So, we bond money... But the idea is, this is getting released basically like March 1st or 2nd, right at the beginning of March. And March is a big one. Beware the Ides of March. And people like to get very historical about this stuff, and they like to tie in everything. Now we'll get to April. So, April, next month, will be, "April is the cruelest month," for similar reasons.

Right, another lesson learned.

But why? What is it about? Because, let's take a real big, big picture, because that'll lead into next month. What is it? Why was it "Beware the Ides of March"? Where does that come from? What does it have to do with the environment, change the seasons, and why certain— what's going to happen in Afghanistan? Now, I know we're in talks with the leaders. Remember how many of our translators or the people that we were dealing with that wintertime, they were going home and you were going like, "Okay, man, we know your dude." No, no, you don't even worry about anything till the spring thaw. So, I'm just saying that if you increase— first of all, HBPRNA. Anybody that you see that's out there that's posing with just situational awareness, don't buy into that crap. Increase in your situational awareness isn't what they're selling. It is this— this situational awareness comes from you understanding your relationship to your environment and the environment's relationship to you. And if you can't read those signals of homeostasis, then how are you going to baseline and detect an anomaly? And that right there— ask that from an answer from the guy that's selling the crap on the two-minute video. The "five-minute abs" became "four-minute abs." And what I'm telling you is, you're responsible for your own safety and security.

We're coming into a period of time that historically, even historically, the earliest times, when seasons changed, so did people. And sometimes right after a certain season, people said, "Oh, you know, Groundhog Day." Some people are blowing their brains out after Groundhog Day, Brian. They just can't take six damn more weeks of winter. Do you understand what I'm saying? And understanding that sometimes is enough understanding and saying, "I hear you, what's on your mind?" But going on with you.

And that's what I was getting at though. I mean, from a historical perspective, it's literally that starting the change of seasons. So, this is when, as prehistoric humans, we're coming out. We are no longer just holed up for the winter trying to survive. Now that's changing. Males are impregnated. They are. Our most prized possession is our next generation. So, now we have to go out there, and it's starting to— that whole cycle. So, that could lead to what you go to places like Afghanistan, what does that mean? Well, that's fighting because that snow is starting to melt, and we can move around a little bit more. We have mobility. So, it could be a negative thing, it could be a positive thing. Changing of the year, changing of the seasons, it's a new, it's a rebirth. The dead part of the year, of the winter, is over, so now we come out into the light. This is all what we're talking about, and I think that's why— huge emotional input. Then that goes back into the emotional content event. That's what an election is, around at the same time of a year where there's an emotional content change within humans. So, we wonder why these things start to coalesce around the same time. And it's actually as old as time itself.

It really is, Brian. It really is. And being aware of just that simple fact can make you take notice of it even more. It's not just increasing your situational awareness. If you don't have the known, the unknown, and the baseline to measure it against, even detecting that atmospheric change, for example, isn't going to help you be safer or stronger or smarter, is it? You don't know when to— you dial 911, and you've got to know when to hover your finger over the other one. And the way to do that is to put these situations together. You're going to have a very highly emotional content-driven event. You're going to have a lot of people. Listen, if you see a person acting in a strange or suspicious manner, you've got to do something. You've got to step in, you've got to say something, you've got to call somebody, you've got to pull somebody out of harm's way. You know why? Because this is an important part of what it is to be an American. And in our society, voting is an absolute right, and we have to stand behind that. If we allow the fabric of this institution to become afraid, and people don't step up and stand up for their fellow man, then what's going to be natural? What's going to be a .38 Special (revolver) and then maybe one other thing.

I don't know how you— what you would agree with this statement, but mine is, if you don't do your civic duty of voting, I don't want to hear you talk about politics.

It's so Gandalf-y. You don't— you have to go out. Guess what? We're so—

But it's all so easy now. But it is and it isn't. I mean, it's very simple to do, but it's now almost, because of how our lives are, it's almost an inconvenience. And like our phones, if you made an app for it, we'd do it every day.

And I'm kind of against that, actually, for reasons. I think you should either roll your chair, or wheel yourself down, or have somebody carry you. And that's why you look at politicians and how they go after certain segments of the population, and people certain areas. And it's not always the loudest people that they go after who are always on social media. Some of those people aren't voting. They're going after the senior groups, because every one of them is organized and they're going to vote. They're going to go after the community organizations, why? Because they're all organized and they vote. I just—

When someone I find out someone—

Exactly.

What about, "You don't get to talk about it." What about the comment that says, "My individual vote doesn't matter"?

Now more than ever.

Yeah, more than ever your individual vote matters, because there was a time, these last probably 10-15 years, where you couldn't tell the difference between the parties. And now all of a sudden the parties are so diametrically opposed. So what's going on? And they're very tumultuous. So they're fighting.

It's normal politics, and I think normal—

And it's not wild. If anything, I would say that the turnout in the voting and for the next actual presidential election— is it ever like some, you know, where someone wins by a blowout amount? I don't know what happens. It's like one person gets about 51 percent, the other 49.

That's our democracy at work, right? It's showing us how people go back and forth and how it can work, probably. Between— of the people that voted, you're right. We generally have something similar because if you're that close, if everyone was 80 percent versus 20 percent, it'd be a completely different country. I don't know if we'd like it. The old Super Bowls— you remember the old Super Bowls that everybody would go and play cards and we'd bet on a bingo square, but nobody would watch the games because they were a rout. And it's not fun being routed. Nobody likes it.

Alright, well, I think that's going to— on a lot of losing team, Brian. So, I know that last comment, I just want to back up. I'm sorry that I brought that up. I've seen the 1986 Super Bowl where the Bears won. Because that's the last thing they did. You know, once a year when I was a kid, and that's all people in Chicago could still talk about this, because we have to be the greatest football team ever. So, I don't care if it was 30 years ago.

Alright. Good talk. Be safe, folks. Be good to each other and give yourself the gift of time and distance this election year. Don't forget, training changes behavior.