You seem a little resigned to, I don't want to oversimplify, but you just seem very resigned to change. It's just going to happen. It's the only constant that you have. Yeah. You know, it's funny when you first said that I seem resigned, like that's a trigger word for me because resignation, that feeling of resignation, that is a key giveaway. That's a, we look for it in every asset. Every potential recruited asset has to have a point where they are resigned to something. It's a very similar process to how you create a terrorist. Terrorists have to come to a, the way that you fundamentalize a person is you find the point where they resign and then that's your anchor point to keep moving, right? And there's a whole ladder that supports that in the counterterrorism world and in the asset development world. So as soon as I heard you say that word with me, like, you know, haunches went up, spikes went up. I was like, I got to defend myself on this. But then you said resign to change and I was like, holy shit, you're exactly right. I am absolutely resigned to change because I have seen firsthand you can control all the variables and there's still something that's going to change so what you have to be able to do is rapidly adapt to whatever change happens whether it's a change in the weather i mean friggin the clock changes its position every second right there's always some change the people who can adapt faster to that change are the people who are going to win the people who try to fight the change they're destined to lose i try to in every client in every customer, in my family, all I try to do is encourage people like, hey, when change happens, I am guaranteeing you that when we work together, you will be better prepared for that change than anybody else. When I say resign to change in this context, to finish off the full explanation, I would say with you, I'm referring to the fact that, you know, America was viewed or has been viewed consistently as like the world power and everything, but you seem very resigned to the idea that that no longer is going to be the case. That within our lifetime, this is what's crazy. You and I, our lifetime is the first adult lifetime where we realistically have the chance of seeing that change. Our parents would have never seen that day, right? Your parents that I just met, they're not going to see that happen. But you and I, we realistically could see America become the second largest country in the world in terms of economy, which is the only thing that matters, right? If people think that religion or population or whatever matter, it doesn't matter. What matters is economy. Who can create wealth? Who can control wealth? So yeah, we might see that happen. Doesn't mean it's a foregone conclusion, but we might see it happen. The bigger question is, are we willing to remain part of this country while this country adapts to whatever it has to do to stay in first place. Because what China's doing right now has helped it grow five spots on that economic ladder. And what is that? What are they doing? Centralizing their government, quieting dissent, manipulating global economies, taking advantage of the freedoms of the human rights of non-Chinese citizens. These are things that it's done to go from fifth or sixth on the economic scale. When I was in college, it surpassed japan two years ago three years ago in terms of its economic size japan also does have some problems they're not having kids that's an issue china used to have the same problem yeah right they used to limit how many people could have but that was also by choice because they had so many japan's the opposite they just don't fuck over there i know what's going on they really appreciate their old people yeah get it together japan come on but but yeah but now we get to this place where it's like hey if if doing what we have always done doesn't keep us in front, are we willing to stay American citizens in a country that changes to do whatever it takes to stay in first place? So do you want those things you listed off as China to be realities here though? No. Right. I would rather be in a third place economic country that has freedom than in a first place country that does not. But do they really have freedom if they are at the beck and call of the places that control their dollar or their money? So I believe that freedom is self but that because American culture is an independence culture They are a collective culture in China So collectively they believe that freedom is what they collectively define it to be, which is the freedom to not have to choose what country they live in, not have to choose all the little choices that their government has to make. They believe the freedom is different than what we believe freedom to be. They've also been wired that way. So have we. We have been wired this way. Yes, that's fair. We've been wired this way to determine what our freedom is, and we view that as better because we know things that their citizens wouldn't know. That's what we tell ourselves also. Right, right, right. And to an extent, that's not even always true. But I'm saying, at least on a grand scale, if you haven't discovered your natural-born spy skills, then somebody else might be using theirs against you. CIA teaches us that there are only three types of people in the world. Those who motivate, those who manipulate, and those who are being controlled by one of the other two. I created a three-minute CIA-style quiz to help you unlock your secret psychological advantage and identify your hidden blind spot. This test was developed to help you weaponize your natural-born gifts and use them to get ahead of 99% of people in power, wealth, and purpose. It was also designed to make sure that you can protect yourself against those who would use their skills against you. All you have to do is click on the first link in the description below or scan the QR code on your screen to start your spy quiz now. I want you to discover your secret spy superpower and use it for good before somebody else uses their power against you. It's more true than false because there are rights that we have that we get access to things that they don't under their system. They also have access to things that only a few people here have access to because their system support it. Like medical care, medicine, education, food, like basic human, the bottom tier of their hierarchy. The state takes care of all of that. They don't have to worry about social welfare because culturally the family takes care of everybody. So here in the United States, what do families do? Disperse. Parents have kids. What do they expect their kids to do? Leave the house. When they leave the house, do they expect their kids to ever come back again? No. Right? So we believe in this dispersed society. You're on your own. That's not the case in China. In China, the cultural idea is that there's always someone there to care for you. And when there's nobody there to care for you, the government cares for you, which isn't the government to them. It's the state. It's the party. It's the larger culture that cares for them. And it's not just like that in China, right? It's like that in almost all of those, quote unquote, socialist countries of the world, where they believe that it's okay for someone who has failed at life to become a ward of the state. In the United States, if you fail at life, we believe that you are a failure. Even social welfare here. When you talk to real social welfare professionals, what are they trying to give people? A chance. They never assume that they're just going to save people. We're giving you a way of life for the next 50 years. They all think, no, they just need another chance. They just need someone to help them give them another chance. It's like, give a heroin addict another chance, enough times. They're just going to keep becoming a heroin addict. At what point, you call it quits. At least in China, they're like, oh, heroin addict. So let's go ahead and dog ear that person for 12,000 run men be a year. And they're going to live in that state house. And boom, done. We've given up trying to help this person. Now they're just going to live there until they die. It's heavy though. It's heavy because we believe in ideologically in something better. We believe in opportunity. We believe in bettering our lives. That's why our immigrant ancestors came here. The belief, the faith that things could be better. That's why you're making this podcast, man. It's the reason I do my work every day on the hope, on the belief that things will get better. What I have learned from the agency is that things will get better for a few. And for the vast majority things will remain the same or degrade outside of that because that obviously a change from working at the agency and seeing things around the world seeing how different governments work how it compares to ours and all that But it seems to me that a lot of your I don want to say worldview but the way you look at things had already developed before you were at the agency and it didn't necessarily like drastically change. Am I right about that? Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when you were mentioning just a second ago about how if you were to have a plumber from town, you just had a New Jersey townie in here talking, they could be saying the same thing, but it wouldn't be as mind blowing to you, right? Because what credibility do they have? What's fascinating to me is that the agency doesn't have to teach us our mind frame, our worldview. They just have to find people who have a certain set of character traits, and then they have a high probability chance that those people will also have the same kind of worldview. The same plumber that could sit in here and blow your mind if you had different credibility could be the next CIA officer because he already has the larger moral and ethical flexibility to exist in an intelligence apparatus collecting, prosecuting an illegal operation overseas. Whereas your brilliant engineer who's working at whatever Google may not have that kind of flexibility so they would never be recruited well that kind of opens up a whole can of worms too because then it gets to like well how much of the agency is built on a total bureaucracy of groupthink that's planned and by the way to be fair how much of that is actually good correct for the country i would also make sure that i know you've used groupthink a few times right so uh groupthink is a little bit different than values right groupthink is something where a group comes together and then they holistically as a group land on a new thought and then they stick as a group to that thought. Whether or not they just accept the flaws in the thought. That's groupthink. It's completely different when you find a group of people who all value dogs and then you bring them together as a group of people who inherently value dogs. Right? Okay. So I think what the agency does is it finds the people who are all dog people you're like hey you guys are already dog people we need really good dogs so let's bring these people together and now we don't have to spend any time training these people to understand the value of man's best friend you bring in people who already are contrarian bring in people who already believe in american primacy bring together people who already are willing to accept that things aren't equal things aren't fair and they never will be just bring those people together and now you don't have to spend any money or time training them to think that way they already think that way so now you get to the good stuff now let's train you how to do tradecraft now let's train you how to detect surveillance now let's train you how to shoot guns and throw knives right it just cuts to the chase so much faster now i also recognize there needs to be an element of you can't just hire to hire right like you can't just throw a bunch of shit against the wall and be like oh well they'll figure themselves out this is the highest level thing you can't be having like learning experiences left and right that are planned let's say right so it's not like you're ever going to have a system that doesn't at least attract on some of these qualities like like you're saying i just worry about where it becomes bigger than itself and we've kind of beat around this today but it's come up without coming up like you look at the ultimate theories of government bureaucracy which probably start with eisenhower's speech on the military industrial complex and things like that that then occur over time and frankly it's hard to argue it because you see it over and over again but when i look at this i'm like well some of it's necessary for sure to protect the people protect our place in the world protect their economic interests and continue to expand democracy I understand that but at what point do you start to then have a big dick and say oh well we better than everyone so fuck it whatever we our shit doesn stink we can do whatever we want we already there i know we are but i saying like when do you then just totally justify that and and move all the way down and suddenly become everything you hate that's what people worry about so what's funny to me is normal people like me what's funny to me is the uh so let's just look at politics real quick right we're in polarized country what is the one thing that basically every heavily polarized democrat and every heavily polarized republican would agree on uh i don't know they would all agree that the entire government should be their party yeah okay what happens when the entire government is one party fascism or communism you are a one country, one party country like China. Yes. Right? So what's fascinating to me is that people are willing to make this argument and yet they're not accepting, they're not recognizing the fact that what they're saying is evolving the United States into a country like China, into a one party system, which is absolutely opposed to anything that we've ever wanted to be in the past. Right? So it's difficult for me to be able to live in a world where people aren't thinking about the long-term outcome of the argument that they're trying to make. That's everyone. That's a lot of people, which is why I don't talk to them. Better way to say a lot of people. It's why I'm here talking to you, but there's plenty of podcast interviews where I just don't talk because I know where they're going to go with their argument. I know what they're going to say. It's not productive. if it's not productive it's not worth my time well i try not to marry and like danny's great at this i try not to marry myself to things you know don't kill somebody all right yes i'll marry myself to that right but you know if someone comes in and and holds a gun to my mom's head i might kill him you know there's nuance to it excellent example right excellent example everybody has the right to life except the guy who's holding a gun to your mom's head yes right does that person have a right to privacy if what they were doing in private was planning to assault your mother would you like a heads up on that maybe would that be okay with you if maybe the federal government tapped their phone three days in advance oh man people don't like answering that question they don't like answering that but what if they then lie then then they lie they lie to themselves they're not lying to me there's only one answer but then it costs you you may go to jail for something that you didn't you know what i mean like it can it can take away your right and and affect your entire life if they lie on behalf of something that involves you directly, the person that they're lying on. So I think that I might be getting lost in the hypotheticals. But essentially, what I lean on is the fact that we have three arms of government. So it might be one arm that takes you into custody, but it's a different arm that determines your innocence or guilt. and then it's a different arm that handles everything about intelligence. So the one arms, all three arms, their checks and balances like they were always designed to be. Sometimes those checks and balances work and we never hear about it. Sometimes those checks and balances fail and we all hear about it. And then sometimes those checks and balances systemically fail and we all hear about it, but we have no way of fixing it because the system itself is the flawed system. That's what you see so often with prisoners and re-education and everything that's out there, everything that's led to the BLM movement, right? Those are all justified systemic issues, but nobody's found a way to fix it. And for sure, going to the streets and destroying businesses is also not going to fix it. Yeah. Thank you.
