Expert Panel Q&A – Epi-3819

0:00There's a better way to do this. Let me show you a better way. You don't have to be another face in the crowd. Well, high folks, this is Jack Spirco with another edition of the Survival Podcast. It's always one man's view of the changing world. The changing times and the things we can all do to live a better life, if times you tell for it even if they don't. Today is March the 19th, 2026, and this is episode 3,819 of the Survival Podcast. It's time for an expert panel Q&A show for the week where we have a good lineup of the members of the expert council for you today. And here's what we got today. A little segment at a Liberty Report highlights from Dr. Ron Paul and Chris Rossini.

1:00The world to Trump. You broke it. You bought it. That is a true statement. A very true statement. And even some of the people that we thought were kind of playing along with us are a little bit fed up already this early in. My response to this will be one of Trump's biggest errors in doing this war the way that he did it. I, of course, I didn't want it to happen at all. But if you're going to do it, there are certain things you should do first. And this may really turn around and flip the cobra back on the handler here. It'll make sense when I talk about Mike Molito. Well, I'm good, you ever training. We'll talk about choosing between a pistol caliber carbine and an AR. I haven't listened to this segment yet, but my surface level answer is it depends. No surprise there. Joe Riles will talk about understanding something called the escalation of force spectrum. And of course, Joe being a professional dog trainer. He will talk about it from a standpoint of being someone that has a trained dog.

2:00But also, what if you don't? The escalation spectrum is still there. Kerry Brown will talk about taming down the heat of an herbal tincture. We're not talking about turning down the heat of an herbal tincture using something like Abinero pepper or Scorpion pepper or something like that. Where the herb or the thing being extracted from is the problem. Where am I? Super alcohol. I have an easy solution to this. We'll see what Kerry says. Andy McCann will talk about some questions from my last live stream I did with Andy. He got a butt load of questions out of the chat. Dropped it all in the chat GPT and said, hey, find it all. And I was like, damn, that's a good idea. What a great use of AI. We're going to be talking about AI a little bit today. And this is an example of a very creative, very useful thing. And it's also something that's so tediously slow. It doesn't make sense for a human to do it if there's a tool to do it for you. Then we're going to have Jesse Markowitz also talking a little bit about AI today.

3:05In fact, directly talking about, he used AI to help package a bundle, a technology bundle for an app on start OS and start 9. This is really cool and it's a really cool application. And it's also folding AI into something that makes doing something you need a human to do easier, faster, and better. Then we're going to move on Patrick Roorman. He's going to talk about knives with removable handles and why you might want to do that. And when I got this question, I'm like, man, he's already dealt with this trying to do some cool things with the Genesis. So I'm sure he'll bring that in. And then I'm going to circle back on AI for you. I have a question for you today. It's a serious question. I'm going to tell you that there's no way around it. Again, if you're 89 and you're on your last breaths or whatever, okay. But if you're going to be a functional person in society, you're not going to ignore the impacts of technology. There's no way around it. Just because you don't use something does it mean it's going to get used on you. So that gives me my question today.

4:06Will AI be your tool or will you be AI's tool? Choose wisely. And I think there's a lot of it. You can't control me with own. Yeah, okay. Maybe it'll make sense after my segment. With that, let's go ahead and drop on into the Liberty Report highlights for the week with Dr. Paul and Chris Racini this week in the second chair. We're going to talk about a subject that's very much in the news. And it could be entertaining out of its appearance silliness at that time. But is this very serious business when you deal with NATO and war and killing and all this nonsense? So we're going to try to bring everybody up today because there was a little bit of news here. The president was in the news again. He likes that. And he was talking a little bit about NATO. And he, I saw it a little bit disappointed because things haven't gone exactly as he plead.

5:06He has he pledged and that is getting the straight of her mousse open because I thought I thought it closed because of our foreign policy. I must make it. But anyway, he wants to get it open. So he asked a few people to do that. And nobody wants to help. That makes us look badly. I think what are we going to do if they're not even going to help us? And Trump was not too happy. So Chris, in this regard, I imagine that you have a pretty strong feeling about this because you leaned toward non-intervention as I recall. Chris. Well, I do work for you, Dr. Paul. So yes. And yeah, when it comes to Trump and NATO, it depends on the day, or maybe even the time, you know, of day because he flips back and forth, you know, depending on the day. As long as NATO is doing what Trump wants, he has no problem with them. But as you mentioned, yeah, he asked for their help. He created a big problem in Iran that no one seems to be able to solve.

6:09And NATO is like, no, we're not going to. So now, you know, right after that, well, we don't need your help. So why did you ask for their help that if he didn't need it? We know why he needs their help because he has created a big problem. You know, and he wants to pass along the cost. Let's get everybody involved. It'll take the heat off of me. And Europe's not falling for it, at least not yet. And they're keeping the heat on Trump and on Israel because they're the ones that created this problem. So they don't want the costs. Where are they going to go on a suicide mission to try to open this straight? And who can blame them? So, and what's this even about anymore? They never even had an answer to begin with bringing freedom to Iraqis or not Iraqis Iranians. That's obviously not it. Now, it's the usual US thing, destruction. We're just going to destroy everything now. That's where we are today. Yeah, we'll talk more about NATO, but as of now, they're not looking to bail him out.

7:13There's two huge problems for Trump. And it's why he's trying to gather additional assistance. And here's the thing about these two problems. No one's actually talking about them. They're talking about Iran closing the straight, which is a symptom, not the problem. And the real problem is that it's not just the cost, the wherewithal, the ammo, can we face down? We can blow the fuck out of Iran. Nothing they do is capable of reciprocal damage that in any way would enable them to win a standoff conflict. That's not the problem. They don't have such amazing capabilities that they can actually long-term keep the straight, closed, without harming also themselves. I mean, what if the US said, oh, you're going to let your ships through? Okay, so we're just going to stop board and commandeer everyone you let through. There's so many ways. But here's the problem, the actual problem for the Trump administration now.

8:17You start up a fucking hornet's nest. And you're in a position now where if you don't do sufficient setback damage, this is going to come back and be worse than it was. And the big problem you have is this. And this is why Iran is making a huge tactical error in my opinion right now. Trump can continue this conflict without the Congress being able to do anything about it for about 90 days. That's what's allowable. President can conduct this type of military operation for about 90 days. And Congress really has to go out of their way to put a stop to it, and it's hard. And it can even be ignored for that long. However, what happens on day 91 is he can be completely shut down from his ability to continue to prosecute this war. And most people don't know that. But the Iranians know that.

9:17So all the Iranians have to do is make it 90 days and still exist. That's their mindset. That's why the Ayatollah, whatever the fuck his name was, the Ayatollah boom boom. Right? He did something pretty smart from a continuity of government standpoint. He had every key leader pre-named before this start because he knew this was coming. A succession line of four. So that means you kill one, you got another, when you kill another, when you kill another, when you got another, when you kill another, when you kill another, when you got one more. All the way down the chain in every key leader position in the country. And now most of the people that are in charge, if they're not dead, because some of them that they say are not dead, probably are, are not coming out. They're staying in a hole. And we don't know what hole they're in. In some cases, we don't even know who they are. And like, we don't even know who's in charge. Iran doesn't know in charge. You know, Iran knows who's in charge. The government, even if the people don't, the government knows who's in charge.

10:18And not saying it is smart, because then you can hide them. You have decision makers that are left, so you have a functional government. Now, some of you think I'm rooting for Iran, just like some of you thought I was like saying, the U.S. is going to kill everybody on Monday, like we're the best in the world. Like, I'm just analyzing the situation. That's what's going on. Trump's two major errors. He did not go to Congress and make his case. I understand why, but this is the result of that. Because he didn't make a case, because he didn't gain congressional buy-in. Which may have been undoable, but he has a time limit. With a nation that is willing to watch shit blow up and burn around them and has proven that it's willing to do so for a long time. And all they got to make it is the day 91. And that may not even be true, but that is how they're going to look at it. That is how Iran will look at it, okay? The other side of it is he got no buy-in from any of our allies, at all,

11:22as to anything that they would be willing to do, at all, prior to acting. So they can all, with a straight face and honest straight back, and no matter how sleazy they really are, they can hear, say, stand in a position moral superiority and go, we didn't do this, we didn't want this, we didn't endorse this, we didn't agree to this. None of our treaties or agreements are applicable here. Not only because you weren't the one attacked, but because you didn't talk to us first. So we're out. So now you've got a situation where hornets are going, ape shit over there, and they can only do so much damage. But if you take your hand off of it, it can recombobulate a lot faster than you've been led to believe. And don't think they didn't learn anything from this experience. And what to do to become even more difficult to attack. See, Iran has, for all the bullshit they have pulled with proxy warfare and all,

12:23has taken the concept of porcupine to the limit with military defense. Make your nation as untouchable as possible. Make it untenable for people to invade you. Use the mountains, use the resources, use the infrastructure, and use the natural advantage of the straight. That's what they've done. You don't think you're going to do a better job of it the next time? And how close was Iran to a nuclear weapon? Here's the honest answer and the only answer that anybody can give who's being honest at this point. We don't fucking know. They could have been a week. They could have been a century away from a nuclear bomb. And the reason we have to say that is because we cannot fucking trust the people telling us where they're at. Because I have a picture of all the way back or in the Bush administration showing they were 95% the completion of a nuclear bomb. I can show you people from Israel saying they'll have a bomb within weeks to months from the 90s. So that right there means I can't trust the source.

13:25And that's a terrible thing because sometimes the source you can't tell trust is telling you the truth. So this is a mess and it's Trump's mess. I know you're going to say, Jack, you said if he pulls it off, he'll come out of the Sahirah. I did and he will. Just the odds of that continue to degrade. Unless there's something coming that we don't know about. And who knows what that might be. I will not predict the outcome of this because I think there's too many moving parts. I will stick with the analysis I gave you earlier this week. There's a neutral, a positive, and a negative to come out of it. And we have odds of those things occurring. Anyway, with that, let's go ahead and move on. Let's talk about something totally different. Maybe you're related to it if shit keeps going the way it is with Iranians claiming to be buzzing drones around inside the United States and who the fuck knows what else. If you're choosing and your next gun is going to be a pistol caliber car being or an AR, what should it be?

14:26I say why not both. But I have both and several options each. But yeah, you've got to make decisions at times. And if you were making a decision, what should you make it on? Let's hear from Mike Molito on that. TSP. I am here to chew bubble gum and answer your gun related questions. And I am all out of bubble gum. How's it going guys? Some of you will get that. I got a good question here for the expert council. This one was sent to me on guns as a gentleman inquiring on whether to get a used coat AR-15 or a foldable pistol caliber car being. He goes on to say that he already has a few handguns. So it doesn't have a lot of guns, a few handguns. Of course, as Jack would say, and he'll have some stuff to add at this probably, it depends. But if those are the only guns you have and you don't have a proper rifle and you're deciding between a rifle and a pistol caliber car being,

15:27go with the rifle. Yes, 556 is an intermediate round, but it is still a rifle round. An AR-15 is the fighting rifle of our day, of our era. And I'm not the biggest fan of it. I've had pretty bad failures with it. During war time, I know my way around an AR-15. I'm not saying you're the best gun ever designed, but they are the one to beat. And they have 70 years of development. And often when I'm recommending one AR, if you're just going to have one AR, I recommend a Colt Le6920. It's like their M4 model for civilians. I'm not saying you should never have a PCC. I'm not saying they're a lot of fun. I'm not saying you don't have any place, but I'm saying if this is your only long gun for now, get an AR-15. And you mentioned a Colt LeTrade in. Now, I'm a big fan of LeTrade in on a lot of handguns because as somebody that long-forced in a long time, LAPD,

16:29firearms instructor for law enforcement, FBI, fire, handgun instructor, I say that to say that I've, I know how much cops shoot. And cops don't shoot a lot with handguns, in general, as they're a specialized unit or something. So I have no problem in general recommending a handgun. An AR-15 trade-in, though, may be a different matter. And here's why. If the department issues a long gun per LEO, yeah, they probably don't go shot very, very much. They probably go shot during calls and that's fine. But a lot of departments will have like a kit room. You have your duty handgun and you go to the kit room and get your 870, you get your AR. And they may only have a few and every shift those things are getting traded out, beaten up, thrown in and out of cars, taken in and out of cars. And every time they have a call, you might have, you know, dozens of officers shooting three or four ARs or a half a dozen ARs. So they actually make it beat up quite a bit.

17:29So do your due diligence on that. If it looks like it hasn't been shot a lot, and there's some pretty easy ways to tell on that. Audio is not the best format, but look at the bolt, look how worn it is. Right, look at the feed ramps, look inside the upper receiver. Give you a pretty indication of how much it's been shot. But I wouldn't always say that LEO trade-ins on ARs are the best deal. Something you didn't mention, which I'm going to mention. There are a lot of really good budget ARs. I like a cold, it's kind of the standard, right? I like a cold LA6920, but if you're on a budget, I have several palm-out-of-state armory guns and builds that do just fine. That I've had them for years. I've used them boots on the ground. I've done quite a bit of work as a private security contractor. I've used them on real missions. I love the younger generations, say, in real life. They're fine, I have no problem with them.

18:31If you look at their daily deals on palm-out-of-state armory, they have some screaming deals on ARs. Take your pick. If you just want a good all around 16-inch mid-length gas system carbine or carbine-length carbine, just wait to one pop stuff that's in your favorite color. It won't take long. Palm-out-of-state armory does great deals on those. It's hard just to not buy extra ones just because. And they have pretty decent warranty on there, although I've never had to use it. So a PSA, they're good for the money. The ruggers are good for the money. Smith and Wesson M&P, they're entry-level, I think if they call it the sport, they may still call it the sport. Those are really good for the money. Are they as good as the Colt? No, they're not. But are you, for your case, do you really need a cold hammer-forge chrome-line barrel? Probably not. The entry-level one is probably going to be really good. And even if you get a better one down the road, it's always good to have a good beater AR lane around for a training class or whatever. So don't think that if it's not a cold, it's worthless.

19:31It's not what I'm saying. They're some really good budget ARs. And we're kind of right now in the golden era of really good affordable ARs. Just because the economy has scaled and that's how that works. It's a really good time to buy an AR if you don't have one or six or seven. Again, not my favorite gun, but they're hard to beat, especially for this. Now the PCC, you mentioned a couple you want a foldable one. That's pretty cool. You, a Celtics up 2000. They're fantastic. Nothing wrong with them. It's not the equivalent of, you know, a fighting rifle or a fighting carbine. It's just not. Don't pretend that it is. But if you want it for what it is, if you want it mostly to have fun and shoot at the range, or something that's slightly better, more firepower than a handgun, it certainly checks those boxes. Celtic makes this up 2000. That's been around a long time. They're new generational. You take optics and still fold it. That's, that's a really good upgrade in my opinion. Right? Ruger makes some good ones. Smith and Wesson makes some good foldable carbines.

20:31Kind of the same names we just talked about with the ARs, right? They're kind of known for making good affordable guns. Nothing wrong with the PCC. They are what they are. They're a pistol caliber carbine. You gain some extra velocity and a longer barrel, but it's not a rifle. It's not turning it into a rifle. It is turning into a shoulder fired weapon, which is generally easier to shoot from most people, especially at distance, but it's not even an intermediate rifle. So my advice is going to be if all you have is a couple of handguns, get an AR-15. I wouldn't even list a PCC in my basic all-around survival battery. So I'm not going to list it for you if you only have one or two handguns. That's what I say. Jack. I'd love to hear what he has to say. Thanks, TSP. Thanks, Jack. And thanks for the question. Have a blessed day. All right. So here's how to my overriding. I basically agree with everything you said, but just my overriding feel on this.

21:33I own a lot of pistol caliber carbines. I like them. They're fun. I enjoy shooting them. They have real tactical applications in the right scenario. But they're probably almost never superior to an AR, because whatever you can say about that PCC, you could scale that AR in size and furniture to kind of match it. There's no heavy recoil there, so there's no big recoil advantage of like a 9 or a 40 or something over it in a carbine form. The AR hits harder. Does more damage can go further. I guess if you get up into the range of like something like a deer field carbine with a 44 magnum in it, you got kind of a closer range. I mean, more of a sledgehammer, but death does not come in degrees. So I would agree with Mike, but from the standpoint of the AR is the tool

22:34if you're looking for a tactical tool. Okay? Now, so why do I own so many, I don't like four ARs. Yeah, four ARs. I'm not going to say how many, but more pistol caliber carbines. Because they're fun. So I kind of look at the pistol caliber carbines more like, when I look at one and I want it, I'm thinking more about having fun at the range, shooting out in a backyard, something like that. I'm not really thinking about, I'm going to make that my tactical truck gun or something like that. So I'm oversimplifying it, but that's the main overriding thing for me. Now, where would I see the pistol caliber carbine in a practical real world application in many situations as superior to AAR? And that would be in like the mid-size to medium-large game category. I would much rather be shooting a really big buck

23:35in the chest cavity with a 357 than an AAR. And I know what people are going to say, well, then why wouldn't you say the same thing about humans? Because a human in a deer are different. They're anatomy is different, how they're laid out, how they're out is different. And ranging is much more under the shooter's control, et cetera, and deer don't shoot back. Do what that is you will as we move on to the next one. And since we're talking about tactical stuff a little bit there, let's talk about the escalation of force spectrum with Joel Riles from Fortress K9. Hello, everyone. This is Joel with Fortress K9 and K9 Academy coming back at you again with another expert segment. And today, with everything going on in the world, I wanted to talk about a self-defense topic, specifically escalation of force. So what is escalation of force? Well, most people that use this term don't really understand what they're talking about. What escalation of force is really referring to is making sure that any force that you use is proportional to the use of force

24:38that whoever was threatening you was using. So let's get into that a little bit deeper. So for example, if someone's verbally aggressive with you, you can't justify using lethal force. Or if someone shoves you, you can't justify shooting them, or even in many situations punching them. The force must match the threat. And here's the problem. Most civilians don't have the tools needed to cover from just verbally talking to somebody to lethal force. There's a big gap in the middle there, and most of us don't have the tools we need to fill that gap properly. The average civilian who carries a pistol with them essentially has nothing and then lethal force. Even if you've got some fighting experience, you have going hands-on and then lethal force. This still leaves a really big gap. Most real world threats don't just instantly start off at top intensity. They build up, right? They escalate. So as the situation escalates, we can escalate our use of force as well. I like to think of it in five basic categories.

25:40You have presence, then you have your verbal, then you have your physical force or a show of force, then you have less lethal options that are very forceful, and then you have lethal force. So let's run through each of these quickly for the average civilian. Presence. For most people just being present in a situation isn't necessarily a use of force. However, if you're carrying open or if you're carrying concealed but you make it known that you have a weapon or if you have a protection dog or some other show of force, just your presence can be a low-level use of force. The police run into this all the time. If the police show up on the scene, just their presence is a use of force. They have a uniform. They have a gun that's visible. A bunch of other tools. That is considered the lowest level of force. Then you have verbal commands. Now, you don't have the ability as a civilian to command someone to do something. You can't tell them, get on the ground, put your hands behind your back. I'm gonna put a handcuffs on you. Law enforcement can do that if they're justified. What we typically have is our verbals typically to de-escalate.

26:43Now, here's a key principle when we're talking about using verbals in a self-defense situation. I want my verbals to de-escalate, even if I'm not physically de-escalating. For instance, if I put my hands up about shoulder height, about six or eight inches away from my body, and about shoulder width apart, and I go, whoa, whoa, it's okay. Everybody calm down. We don't want any trouble. If I have my hands up here with my palms facing the bad guy, this looks like I'm surrendering. Hands up by surrender, I don't want any trouble. And my verbal is de-escalating the situation, but from this position, I can strike, I can grab, I can block. I can do a lot of things from this position, even though it looks like I'm de-escalating the situation. The other benefit here is any bystanders or witnesses that are gonna say, hey, what happened? And they're gonna explain the situation. They're gonna say, he tried to de-escalate the situation. He tried to get the threat to go down to reduce. He didn't want any trouble. So that's how the average person can use your verbs.

27:45Now, physical force is the next one. And really, we want to be able to do a show of force first and then physical. However, this is really hard if you don't have any tools to do so, right? Now, if you have pepper spray, you can pull out pepper spray. If you carry a taser for some reason, which most people don't, you could present a taser. Now, those things couldn't explain the situation preemptively, so you have to be careful how you use that. But this would also be something like somebody's getting in your space and you're pushing them away. Now, again, if you touch them and go hands-on and they're not physically touching you or pushing you, I'm not saying that's not appropriate, but it can escalate the situation. And we want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for the best defense after the fact, also ensuring that we survive the situation, right? And then our less lethal options come in. But this is where most people don't have the tools to do it. Again, we mentioned pepper spray. Some people carry that. Most people don't have it in the place. It's very quickly accessible. And even if they have it in the purse or something like that, they generally wait way too long to reach in and get a hold of it so that they can use it if they need to.

28:47As the situation escalates, it really can be a toss-up, whether you want to present these things or not. But if you do present them, at least you have that less lethal option. And then the last and final one is lethal force. Now, this could be any weapon or tool that can create permanent bodily injury or death. So this could be a hammer or a wrench or a screwdriver or a knife from your pocket or a gun. Any of those things could be considered lethal force. So let's talk about ways that the average person can help fill this gap between just talking and verbal and then going all the way to lethal force. Because the other thing to keep in mind is if you do go physical like we talked about where the person is within arms reach of you and you have a pistol or another lethal weapon on your person what you're allowing to happen in those situations is the person is getting within reach of your weapon. And the potential is there that they can get a hold of your weapon and use it against you, right? So we want to try and make sure that that doesn't happen. So my recommendation to these situations is adding a protection dog

29:49because that's what I do. So how can a protection dog help us in these situations? Well, first of all, just present-wise, as soon as people see a well-trained, relatively intimidating looking dog, there's a big deterrence factor there in terms of picking you as a person they're going to target to try and hurt. Also, my verbals meet a lot more and I can't necessarily direct a person that they have to get on the ground. But what I can do is direct them not to come any closer, right? Stay back, don't come any closer. And I can put my dog on what we call watch, which is where they lunge out to the end of the lead and they bark. I'm holding them back so that they're not biting the person but I'm showing a actual use of force without actually hurting the person and I'm using my verbal commands to tell a person, don't come any closer or you're going to get bit, right? And so that allows me to have some level of verbal command when I actually say things to the people rather than just saying something that they may or may not listen to. And then when it comes to the physical foresight of things

30:49or the less lethal foresight of things, if they continue to approach it in an aggressive manner and my dog bites them, I have a lot better justification if I have to defend myself afterwards in terms of why that happened. Now let's say that the person stays back but then they draw a weapon, they draw a gun and they draw a knife. At that point, now they presented deadly force and so I'm permitted to go to that level. I can release my dog, I just let go of the lead and they'll go in and they'll start biting the person and then I can draw my weapon and engage as well as necessary. So the dog helps to fill all those gaps in between plus they're just a natural deterrent to people, even people who are willing to get in a fight with weapons that could potentially cause permanent injury, almost never want to get bit by a dog. It doesn't make logical sense but it's a psychological thing that we have inside our brains. Now where this is really critical is in what I call the fight after the fight. What is that? That's the legal fight afterwards.

31:50So people often ask me, well if I use a dog to defend myself, can't I get sued? And my response to that is, if you use anything to defend yourself, you can get sued. So just the fact that you have a dog there, does it increase the likelihood that you're going to get sued? But what we want to do is we want to stack the odds in our favor so that we have the best ability to defend ourselves that we can without being a victim at the moment, right? And one of the best ways to do that is to have a dog because a dog allows you to say at every step of the process, I did everything I could to keep from harming this person and the person essentially forced me to do so. So I had the presence of the dog. It was obvious that the dog was trained. The person shouldn't have attacked me in the first place. Then I showed force when this person was continuing to be verbally aggressive. They continued to approach me. I put my dog on watch and I told them to stay back. My dog was showing aggression but was not hurting them so that they knew I was serious.

32:50I was trying to keep the situation from getting worse. I didn't want to hurt this person. Then the person charged them and they did whatever my dog bit them. Or the person drew a weapon. And now I didn't have any choice. I had to release my dog to bite them. And then I had to draw a weapon to defend myself. And at each of these steps, you look more and more reasonable in terms of I did everything I could to keep from hurting this person and the person that attacked you looks less and less reasonable. So this helps stack the odds in your favor. Now, having this fight after the fight, the legal battle, even if you win, it can be extremely expensive. So one of the things I always recommend to people is sign up for one of these organizations like the USCCA, but there's a lot of other ones out there. Do some research, find out which one works best for you. And these are legal defense associations. So if you have to defend yourself with a gun with any kind of blunt force object with a dog, with your fists, any of those situations and you end up in a legal battle afterwards, they cover all your legal fees

33:52and they represent you if you're a member of the organization. I love that about them and I highly recommend you check them out and sign up for one of them. So if people say just carry a gun or just get a gun, keep in mind what they're saying is have a lethal option but don't do anything about this huge gap in between where we have all this gray area that we may not be able to present the lethal option until it's too late and if we had drawn it before that situation we'd be committing a felony ourselves. In most states, brandishing a firearm, meaning pulling it out and showing it to somebody is a felony in and of itself. And the only way you can justify having done that is if you pull the trigger and you have to justify having the capability of doing that. So essentially in most states just drawing a pistol is essentially the equivalent from a legal perspective for you being prosecuted as firing the weapon in the first place. So if you can't justify firing the weapon, you can almost never justify brandishing it.

34:52Now of course an exemption to that would be at your own home. If you're in your home, you can have a weapon in your hand and you're fully justified. But if you're out on the street or you're in public somewhere, brandishing a weapon before you have the justification of using it is usually a really bad idea even if it logically makes sense you can still get in a lot of trouble for that legally. So whether you decide to get a protection dog or whether you just decide to carry a few extra tools with you and to practice some escalation techniques and de-escalation techniques, I highly recommend you just at least consider the escalation of force situation what you would do in a situation if you had to defend yourself and think about different scenarios. Think about I'm walking on a street, there's some kind of a flash mob that comes up. Think about I'm walking along the street and all of a sudden I just see these people doing random acts of violence, right? Just walk in with punching people. Or what if I see people walking around that have some kind of a weapon, a baseball bat or something like that, right? What am I going to do with these situations? You also shoot run scenarios in your mind about what do I do? If I'm at home and someone attacks me, what if I'm in my car and someone attacks me?

35:55All of these are good scenarios to run through. But as you run through them, keep this escalation of force in mind because it can save you after the fact and make sure that you don't end up surviving but spending the next several years in prison. I hope that's been helpful for you. If you want more information on training a dog you already have, go to bestervivalpodcast.com. Click on canine academy banner up there on Jack's website and check out our training over at canine academy. We have everything from basics all the way through advanced training there. If you're interested in getting a protection dog so that you can fill that gap without having to learn a bunch of extra technical skills, then check out fortresscanine.com. There's a consult button. You can click there. You can fill out some information. It'll send me an email and I'll reach out to you and we'll make sure that if you're a good fit, we get you set up with a dog. Until next time, remember to train hard and stay safe. This is a good subject in general just to be thinking about on a regular basis. If you run your own kind of thought experiments,

36:56because the more times you run through scenarios, the more options that you find, and then the more likely you are to choose the correct option during the particular time that that option is best for. It's good to think about what I do if, because there are times when there's no time to think about the escalation of horse spectrum. It's only trying to kill you. You pretty much have two choices. Get away or kill them back. You have to instantly move off the X and probably return fire if you have some means to do so. There are other times where the situation can seem really sketchy and it's not. It's good to have as many tools as possible, because when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, or at least the forehead of somebody you don't like. Let's talk about making herbal tinctures. Don't burn your brain out of your eyeballs. We'll do that with Carrie Brown of Strong Root Resources.

37:59Hey, TSP community. It's Carrie here with Strong Root Resources. And Brandon wrote in, and he's got some questions about taming down the strength of a tincture he made of Ghostpipe. And here in a minute, I'll get into actually what Ghostpipe is because it's kind of a unicorn in the Foraging World. It's pretty cool that they have some. But I'll address this question outright first, and then we'll get into a little bit of background on this groovy plant. So he wrote in, what do you recommend to tame the heat of a Ghostpipe tincture made with 180 proof grain alcohol? We forged on our farm, and we're lucky to have so much available. When we did a patch of nine quarts of Ghostpipe tincture, it is a little hot to take straight. What can we do to keep the integrity but make it more palatable? And Brandon, when I read this, I automatically envision like this fire-breathing dragon because that's probably what you feel like.

39:00When you take this stuff, that is strong. And I understand why you did it because this is one of those things where, you know, when you're making a tincture, you're really kind of capturing and preserving the plant or the specimen at its greatest potency. But there's a number of ways to tame it down, so you don't feel like you have to stay away from open flame for a little bit after taking it. So here's what I got for you. Could you definitely, you're feeling the alcohol here, not the plant, which isn't necessarily ideal. So a 180-proof tincture, that's 90% alcohol, that's extremely hot. And it actually is a little bit stronger than necessary for tincturing Ghostpipe. So here's kind of what we can go about doing. Ghostpipe is typically tinctured fresh

40:03at a one-to-two ratio, so one-part plant to two parts of your alcohol. So you can use 40 to 60% alcohol. A 90% extract is pretty aggressive, and it preserves it really well, but it is harsher than you need, but you can dilute it without ruining it. So since you've already extracted it, here's how we'll adjust for actually taking it. If you want to just dilute per dose, which is the simplest and least likely to introduce any kind of contamination, this is what I would do. Put your dose in one to two ounces of warm water, let it sit for five to ten minutes, and stir it up a little bit. This will let some of the alcohol evaporate, and then you're not going to be experiencing nearly the burn that you're accustomed to. And if you do that, this keeps your nine quarts shell stable at its full strength. And I did some reading and some checking in with clinical herbalists, and this was their main recommendation

41:05on how to handle this. Another option, if you want to mess around with some vegetable glycerin, you can add a small splash of glycerin to the glass after adding your tincture. That'll also soften the burn, adds a little bit of sweetness, but it doesn't destabilize your extract. But in this case, don't convert the whole batch unless you calculate your ratios, just sweeten each dose. I understand the need to want to keep it viable on the shelf for a good long while. You can also do a little bit of honey or syrup per dose, raw honey, maple syrup, and mix that in with a warm herbal tea. And that will keep your alcohol content high enough to still get a good dose, but certainly it's going to make it more palatable. And then finally, if you do want to refine the whole batch, or if you do another batch, and that's the strength of alcohol you have on hand,

42:08a strong water decoction of dried ghost pipe that is then combined with your alcohol tincture. This will lower your overall proof and it kind of takes the edge off of it. But you do need to run some math to avoid dropping below 25% alcohol for preservation. Since you've got nine quarts, I mean, that's a lot. I would avoid messing with the whole batch, unless you are accustomed to calculating ABV. So there's my thoughts on that. Keep the batch intact. Those with some warm water, let it sit. You know, drink it like a medicine. It's not really supposed to be like taking a shot of whiskey. That's not really the point. And an important note here, in case you're not aware for the rest of the audience, ghost pipe is really potent. It's not to be treated like a daily tonic herb. It acts a lot more like a nervous system modulator

43:09and a pain signal disruptor. So high doses are unnecessary. A lot of the times, 5 to 15 drops is sufficient. 30 drops is a lot. And if you need enough that the alcohol burn in its current iteration is overwhelming, look at reassessing your dosage. So let's do a quick overview here of ghost pipe. Its name is monotropa uniflora. And this is one of the things that's really cool to come across. I have not actually found it on my land. Friends have found it on their land and sent me pictures. But it's got kind of a short window. So it sounds a little crazy, but it's in the blueberry family. It is not a mushroom, and it is not parasitic. It is actually part of the microrisal fungi network

44:09that are connected to trees. And it is part of a three-way relationship between the tree and that fungus. That will create the ghost pipe. So you're typically going to find it established in hardwood forests. A lot of the times that's under oak or beach trees. And it contains no chlorophyll. So that's why it's got that translucent white appearance. Getting into its ecology a little bit, it does not grow like a weed. It appears in small clusters, it fruits briefly, and it depends on intact fungal networks. So this is one of those things where it's incredibly unlikely to find it on disturbed land. You're going to find this in well-established, basically unmanaged forest. So it's not easy to cultivate. Like I said, it's a real unicorn. If someone strips a patch, that patch may not return for years, if ever.

45:09People who have ghost pipe protect it the way they protect things like ginseng. So if you're harvesting, take your harvest very lightly, only 10 to 20% max of a cluster. Always leave your strongest specimens, never pull out the entire colonies, and avoid harvesting year after year from the same patch. So since you guys said that you've got this doing really well on your property, hopefully you've been able to follow these 10 and 10 times. I imagine that you've read up on this sum. But if you've been returning to the same patch, let that patch rest, especially since you were able to make a tinker of such a large amount, you can let that patch rest for a good long while. If it's abundant on your land, that's a sign that your forest fungal ecology is healthy. So please protect that. I'm very happy to hear that you guys have it.

46:09I mean, for finding ghost pipe, they tend to emerge mid to late summer after we've had consistent moisture. So one of the reasons why it's not very common here in the southeast because our summers have been very, very hot and dry for a long time. So it is best when it's harvested fresh, when the flowers look like they're kind of nodding so they're kind of like dropping down a little bit. And before you see any heavy blackening of that specimen, it turns black very quickly after picking. That's just normal oxidation. So be prepared to tinker it fresh right away. If you're harvesting that day, if you're looking for it and you're harvesting that day, have your stuff ready. Standard fresh tinker is a 1-2 ratio, fresh weight to alcohol. 40% to 60% alcohol is ideal. And you let that sit for two to four weeks. Drying is not ideal.

47:11A lot of the constituents who are really degrade if they are dried. So if you can get it fresh, that's the way to go. This has been historically used by Indigenous populations and some of your, we'll call them natural physicians, for severe nerve pain, trauma-related shock, migraines, anxiety, like acute anxiety attacks, emotional overwhelm, and grief. There's been studies in using ghost pipe and helping people manage ongoing grieving situations. Modern herbalist describe it as a nervous system modulator. And it seems to have some kind of pathway that it quiets pain signals in the body. So it's not resolving what is causing the pain. So let's keep that in mind. But it is interfering with some of the pain signaling, which of course could be very beneficial to people

48:13who are dealing with chronic pain. And they know what's causing it, and they're managed at the best they can, but they need to be able to move and live their lives. So this is not a daily tonic. This is not a recreational herb. It's generally not sedative in the conventional sense, but as our bodies tend to respond to a reduction of pain, it can feel sedating if that makes sense, but it shouldn't make you drowsy. So do a low dose, have a very specific use, and really do your reading on this one. And this is one of those things. I would not take this unless I have consulted in person with a local well-established herbalist. It is potent stuff. So in terms of safety, it's not known to be toxic in small medicinal doses. I was not able to find any major documented contraindications in terms of medications or other herbs,

49:13but you definitely want to avoid it during pregnancy and avoid chronic heavy use. And I would say just out of common sense, if your liver and kidneys and other extractive systems are already carrying quite a workload for whatever reason, I would be careful with this. I would be careful with this the same way, I would be careful with taking a lot of Tylenol or Mochran or anything of that nature. It can have psychoactive properties, so while it's not generally causing drowsiness, some people have reported feeling a kind of dissociation or a distance from pain. So this is one of those things to be prepared to monitor your mental emotional and physical state if you are making use of this particular plant. Know the conservation status of it. Be careful about over harvesting. Take care of those fungal networks.

50:14It's a wonderful, deeply useful plant to have on your land. So that's what I got for you guys today. Hope that's useful. Reach out to me, strong research resources at gmail.com. If you have any questions about homestead design, foraging, studying your land, understanding your land better. And here before too long, I will have the class schedule up on the website for everything we'll be teaching here at our farm in Knox County in East Tennessee. And we'll keep you updated there. I'll talk to you guys next time. I mean, my biggest thing out of that one is the plant itself goes by. I've heard of this before. It's supposed to be really great for pain relief. It's well-known Indian herbal medication. It's really cool. I've never found it. I'm not saying like I've never found it on my land. I've never found this. I would love to find it just to check off the box.

51:15I have actually located it in the wild. You know, on my own, not somebody going, hey, Jack, come over here. Look, I found some for you, right? So it'd be kind of cool. My other thing on this though is I actually like to do really high-proof tinctures. And then what you do is you remove a small portion of it and you add 50% filtered water to the portion you've removed. That way, the main texture, I should say, the main tincture is staying in that high-proof alcohol for preservation and we're only removing, let's say, you know, a few, a few couple dozen doses maybe at a time from that main storage. And then we can dilute that down. And if you're like, well, I designed, you know, if somebody did this and you designed your tincture based on the idea of I was going to use two drops and I've diluted it used for. Let's see how simple that is. Anyway, let's move on from there. Let's hear about, well, let's hear a shotgun round here

52:15from Andy McCann on questions he extracted using AI from the live stream interview he did with me. Man, that's one of those things that somebody else does and you're like, duh, I need to start doing that. Here's the thing that always screws me up because I forget what I remember. Here's what I mean, when I am doing the live streams and I'm able to interact with you guys, especially you guys on YouTube because YouTube works flawlessly with this. I'm not on YouTube. I'm inside StreamYard and I'm watching all your chat shit come up, okay? When I hit stop, it goes away. StreamYard doesn't preserve it back there. Be kind of cool if they added, download your chat to the back office of StreamYard. StreamYard, if you're listening, that would be cool. Anyway, so I forget that, you know, just wait a day and then you can get the live chat replay on YouTube. And I bet you I'm a dumb ass YouTube creator

53:16because I don't dig deep into the creator stuff. Bet you're the way to just download it from like creator studio or something like that. But that's what he did and this is an example of taking a tool, probably chat GFT knowing Andy. And saying, here, do this task for me. See, that's not AI telling you what to do. That's you telling what AI would to do. That's not GROC, is this true? Right, that's, look, I need this shitload of data gone through and I need you to pull out the things of her questions and I need you to format those into very simple to understand questions so I can actually answer. And this is the result of man using AI versus AI using a man. Hello and good morning. This is Andy McCann coming to you from Woodstock, Georgia, where I own CrossFit Garage. And we are happy, humble, helpful people that want to be healthy and fit now as well as into our 90s. So if you live in Woodstock, come see us. If you're in Georgia, let's come up with a time to see us. We also do a lot of other fun, crazy events out there

54:16building bonds and community. And I've got questions still from the livestream. So what I did is I took the chat. I threw it into chat GFT and said, hey, what are the questions that I missed? What are the questions they have and extrapolate some of the questions that they tried to ask that I just totally missed? So I'm going to do some rapid fire for you on the questions you had and give the user name so that you get some, you know, thumbs up some credit out there. So here we go for some chat from a while back on the livestream I did with Jack back in. It would have been February. This one's from Bruce Softsheet. What about mobility and being able to crawl around on the floor and get up off the floor? Yeah, no, this is a big one. So he was asking about it for longevity. This is huge. A test you can do is if you can sit down in a chair and stand up by yourself without using your hands and sit down on the floor and then stand up without using your hands. It's just, it's a trick. There is a way to like, oh, if you did it like this, that'd be better. But the answer is yes. This is good for longevity and health because it says that you're good at very specific tasks

55:18that they know are useful. This will create for 61 asks. My weight started to creep up. No change except stress can stress cause this help. The answer is yes. And seriously, if you need help, I don't know how to find you and actually, what if I can click on you on YouTube and then direct message you. If you need help with this, direct message me. Probably the biggest thing I would say is start logging and journaling what's going on. If you think it's stress, do the stress thing. Actually, I think I have a podcast on stress. Hold on, let me find that. I don't have one specific on that. You can go to 157, that might be close. But I would practice some stress relieving techniques. The easiest one is to breathe. They call it box breathing. You breathe in for four seconds. Hold it for four seconds. Out for four seconds. And then hold it for four seconds. And just do that to center yourself. Another one is just getting up and looking at the sun with your eyes closed. But let the sun hitting your face. So if it's totally stress, yes. The answer is stress can do that. Stress will shut down parts of your system.

56:18And that could be one of them. It's just turning off your ability to burn better. Typically, though, what I find is it's not really stress. You stress eat. It's the eating. But the stress made you have. So you could just log your food for two weeks and then see what comes up. And of course, if you log it for two weeks, I will help you for free. All right. Next one is from ACEB9479. He says, I lift 25 lb weights. Do push-ups bike? I'm fit. Do I need a gym membership? There's no. I think I'm pretty clear on this one. You don't. I am the type of person who does better when other people are suffering with me in silence. So I like camaraderie and the bad stuff. So the gym gives you consistency, accountability, and community. Do you need that? No. We'll talk about health and fitness. Typically, I'm just saying let's move and eat better. But in reality, there's the five pillars of longevity is how you eat, sleep, move, think, and connect. So if your connection is off, then yes, in the long term, you're screwing up. How we get that? So I would say you're missing the connection piece.

57:18Next one is Dennis Allen-Vids. And he asked, basically, to talk about cold plunges. And he says, is cold plunge actually worth it? Hot versus cold? What should I do? So it's the idea of hot springs and cold plunges. So there's a lot of anecdotal work coming out about cold plunges. But I like modern invention and hot waters and hot showers are something that I appreciate. Also, I've got Renards disease, I guess. I don't know, my fingers go super white, especially this ring finger. So I typically try to stay away from cold plunges personally. But the answer is yes, I've seen some good stuff. From people I know, like and trust, about cold plunges and hot saunas. So should you experiment? Yes, here's what I would do. Google it on the, find a place local to you that has one or the other. In experiment with them, yes, you pay more for it because you don't own it. But it's not something you have to own. It's not a mess you have to take care of. So pay them to try their stuff out and see if it works for you. Again, it's going to be journaling

58:18and logging the information so you can see how you feel. Ernie Ferguson, 6346 says, mom is off of meds using keto plus fasting. So the question that would be in there is can diet really replace medication? I think anecdotally, I've seen it in my own son. I think other people have seen it. I think they say even now, what's it? The brain thing, Parkinson's and dementia. Wow, right there, like I just expressed. Could possibly be solved as a type three diabetes by going carnivore. Is it for you? I would experiment. I would try and do some research. Is it safe? Man, if you go through like the blood type eating, my blood type should not respond well to meat. Yet here we are. Hey, hey, Alabama said sitting up straight is important too. And the question is does posture matter? And is there? Yes, I would definitely try to sit back and breathe every once in a while to keep that posture well. Look at the kids these days. Their necks are going so far forward

59:18because they look down with their phones all the time. Avoid that. She also mentioned that your biological age can be younger than your actual age. So can it be lower? The answer is yes. A lot of that has to do with your movement and the nutrition you're giving yourself and your sleep. So check into that. There's also some measurement devices that will try to give you indication of where you are based on the rest of the world. It's kind of nice, but they're guessing. They even say that they're, hey, it's about 30% right. O2 williams says guys retire and die a few years later. That's right, we just talked about that. So what happens on that after the decline? It's usually a loss of purpose and their stagnant. So don't do those things. Avoid that by being active. I'd say the easy button is just join a gym that's already doing those things and build or lean into that community. I like small gyms because they want you to talk to people. If you talk to someone at one of the Globo gyms, it means you're picking up on them and they don't want to be picked up. And I'm going to end on this one. So there was a lot of, can I trust my doctor? The answer is yes,

1:00:18but sometimes they're guided by things that we don't quite understand. So I would just ask a lot of questions and I'm definitely not saying that AI makes you wiser than anybody. I'm just saying it'll give you questions to ask that you may not have thought of. So throw your stuff in there. Say, give me some questions to ask. And then listen to the expert. Explain that to you. All right, guys. This is Andy McCann coming to you from Woodstock, Georgia, and CrossFit Garage. I hope you guys look good naked and become harder to kill. I love this. This is the whole, like, the question is only part of what you get. The AI use of the chat for me is this. As I'm listening to him, what I'm also thinking is, yeah, questions, but what about discussion? So what I mean by that is, I would be able to maybe take out five or six transcripts from shows that are kind of in a common, similar thing. Now I can drop that in AI and tell me ideas for shows and segments to do in the future based on the interest that my audience is showing here

1:01:18because frankly, I'm not reading it all because I can't. I can't possibly keep up with you guys throwing, throwing, throwing, throwing, and throwing chats at me in a livestream and do the show. I only got one eye and one brain. So I mean, I got a focus or I won't be any good for you guys. What a great way to use the analytical and then communication capabilities of an AI unit. Very, very cool. Next up, we're going to hear about something else AI can do. This is a little bit more technical from Jesse Markowicz. Jesse's going to talk to you guys about how he packaged up technology bundle for start OS, which is the operating system behind start 9 and how AI played a role in that and what it does, which I think is all really cool. Hi, this is Jesse Markowicz from your personal bitcoinassistant.com. Today I have a question from Rich. Rich asks, I heard you packaged your first service for start OS. Tell me, what service did you package? How did you do it? How hard was it for you to do?

1:02:18And what did you learn? Let's start with the easy question. The service I packaged for start OS is called Garage, free open source software that lets you use your own server storage with the Amazon S3 compatible command set. Amazon S3 is just a standardized system for storing and retrieving files over the internet and it became so widely adopted that S3 compatible is now a shorthand for any storage service that speaks that same language whether Amazon is hosting it or not. As part of my self hosting journey, I decided I wanted to run my own storage. My primary use case is an app called Joplin. It's an open source note taking and knowledge management application that supports formatted text, attachments, tags to do lists, and it syncs across all of my devices. Think ever note or one note. Joplin is the open source self hosted equivalent. I currently use a cloud provider for this, but since I already have a start OS server running other self hosted services, why not this too? If I can run garage on my start OS server,

1:03:20I could replace my current cloud storage provider, first for Joplin, then later, for my other storage needs, saving me money, and giving me total control over my data. While folks talk about the cloud as if it's some magic, wonderful place where all the computers happen and you don't need to worry about anything, the reality is, when people talk about the cloud, what they really mean is somebody else's server. Depending upon your needs and desires, that may be just fine. But it does keep you dependent on their system. While encryption can help keep them from looking at the content of your files, they still control them, and they can see the metadata, the file names, file sizes, time stamps, IP addresses, and can even prevent your access if they decide. The problem. Nobody had packaged garage for start OS yet. I saw a post from start 9 founder Matt Hill suggesting AI could help, and rather than waiting for someone else to do it, I decided to try it myself. I copied Matt's starter package and instructions

1:04:20and set up cloud code as my AI assistant. I never packaged a service for start OS before. It's essentially writing a small program. While I started my career as a programmer, I hadn't done any coding recently, had never used AI assisted coding tools and was new to this particular language, source control system, and development environment, essentially starting from scratch. I told cloud code to package the service, and let it run. It built an actually reasonable first pass, not working, but not that far off. I described what wasn't working in plain English, and cloud updated the files, and managed source control. After each iteration, I'd find more gaps, things that didn't work right, and correct permissions, missing pieces, and cloud would fix them. At one point, cloud built the screens for users to change permissions, but didn't wire them up correctly when making those changes. I also had cloud review the overall project for inconsistencies and areas to simplify, and it made genuinely useful suggestions. After many iterations, I had a working package.

1:05:21I installed it on my test server, connected Joplin to it, and now I am testing, and refining the interface and documentation. How hard was it? Surprisingly, it wasn't hard. It was time consuming, mostly because I was learning several things at once. The start OS packaging model, the development environment, the programming language, how to use AI coding tools, but hard? Not really. Some lessons learned. First, AI tools are incredibly powerful. This is a game changer. This is changing the world right now, not someday. As William Gibson put it, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed. If you're not already using AI, or at least learning about it, you're behind the curve. This technology is impacting almost everything, almost everywhere, and it's being deployed and adopted, far faster than people can fully understand, or manage its implications. You may not have felt it yet, but you will. Second, AI tools are dangerously limited

1:06:21with large blind spots. Ask an AI to write code, and it will give you something. But if you're not careful at how you ask, you're in dangerous territory. It's very much like the classic Genie story. You get exactly what you wished for, but not necessarily what you actually wanted. Unlike a Genie, you get more than three wishes. You get to iterate. Ask again, refine, improve. But if you're not knowledgeable going in, it can be very hard to know what you don't know. The AI will confidently give you an answer, whether it's right or not. The good news is that the ability to feed AI systems domain knowledge, information about your specific context, the constraints, the goals, is improving rapidly, and makes a real difference. Third, AI is not thinking, and that matters. AI tools present themselves in a friendly conversational way. They answer questions, engage with ideas, and something can display a thinking indicator, while processing. But here's what's critical. Today's AI systems,

1:07:22these large language models, do not think the way you and I think. They're pattern matching engines, trained on vast amounts of past data, extremely good at sounding right, but not always at being right. Most of the time, their responses are good, frequently very good. But AI's often appear omniscient. They're generally very confident, and frequently very supportive of whatever ideas you bring to them. That's fine when you're asking for a dinner recipe. It can be genuinely dangerous when AI is writing code for you. Beyond code, AI is now being used from medical advice, financial decisions, shaping your world view. Use it wisely. There's a quote, often attributed to George Washington, though historians now believe it's likely apocryphal about government and fire. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. I think of AI exactly the same way. Powerful and useful in the right hands with the right awareness, but a fearful master, if you let it run unchecked.

1:08:22So what's next? For me, I continue using AI in my coding work. Interestingly, I find I'm actually learning more about coding, even as AI does most of the heavy lifting. There's real value in watching how it implements code. I'm also using AI across other areas of my business and life, focusing on, again, where it adds the most genuine value. For you, dig in. If you haven't started yet, start using AI. If you're already using AI, stay sharply aware of both its strengths and its limitations. One final note. I'm genuinely encouraged by the open source AI movement, which gives us the opportunity for more personal control over the models, the training, and the data we feed them. Much of the concern around AI isn't with the technology itself, but with who controls it, with the models telling you and who has access to everything that you share with them. Smaller, self-hosted models that you control entirely can already handle a surprising amount of everyday needs, and that capability is only growing. This is Jesse Markwoods

1:09:22from yourpersonalpeacoinassistant.com. Thanks for the question, Rich. Keep them coming. I love being on the Expert Council and always enjoying answering questions on AI, self-hosting bitcoin, and the future of personal technology. Do you believe in synchronicity? I certainly do, and I see it happen all the time, and it just did. When you hear my segment, which will come right after the one we're about to listen to from Patrick Roorman, you're going to think, well, what Jack should have done is scheduled that segment by Jesse Markwoods last before his, because it fits so perfectly, and dovetails so perfectly, and what he's going to talk about. Do you know why that didn't happen? Because I agree that that would have been a better way to do it. And when I set it up, I didn't listen to these, pre-screen. I listened to them as I built the show for you, which is very common to me. That way my responses are fresh, is why I do that. And I noticed that I said, yes, and then I listened to it just now,

1:10:22and I'm not going to change it after the fact. But if I had reached out to him and said, hey, I'm going to be doing this segment, like, are you going to use AI or is it going to use you? Are you going to be its tool or will it be, please make sure your segment lines up with mine. He couldn't have done it better. It's one of those things you look at and go, I couldn't have done it if I tried, but I did really good, so I'm going to claim it, right? That was badass. So I think we're going to, I think that's going to work real well because I got to tell you, but first, we're going to talk about knives with removable handles why you might want to and the problems you might run into. Hey guys, Patrick here with MT knives coming into you today with today's expert counsel segment of the week. This question comes from Darryl. Darryl says, what are the disadvantages of screwable handles on a full-tang knife context? I have an idea to make a knife with removable handle scales so I could engrave a personal message on the inside of the handle for a gift.

1:11:22Is this a bad idea? If not, what would I get? Most of the screwable rivets I've seen are designed to be sanded down with the handles for a flush finish, which Chicago screws work. Thank you, Darryl. So, screwable handles my thoughts, opinions. It's not a terrible idea. The problem you're going to, well, as you've found, is, things like loveless bolts or Chicago screws, you know, they're made to screw on, a lot of times, you're epoxy in the handle on, you're screwing it on, and then you're grinding away those, the hardware, flush with the knife. And so, once it's on, it's not coming off. So, with the Genesis, when I did the handles for the Genesis, I kind of had the idea, like, I'm going to age myself here, but back in the day, we had these converse tennis shoes, and they had a little pocket on the side, that you could slide in and out,

1:12:23different colors, and you could kind of mix and match your shoes to, well, I don't know, match your outfit or whatever. And I kind of thought it'd be cool to have a knife, where you could interchange able scales, you could mix and match it, however, the problem is, so, with the handles, for the Genesis, especially, I wanted a really snug fit, and I really wanted a really tight tolerance, and taking them on and off wasn't as simple as, it could have been, if I would have used looser tolerances, but with looser tolerances comes movement, you know. I wanted my handles secure, where they wouldn't move, move around, and, you know, yada yada. So, I pretty well, once I put handle scales on a Genesis, they never come off. With those, what I ended up using, was a hardened steel insert,

1:13:24that they use, it's a spacer, that they use a lot of time on folding knives, and, then I used two torx head screws on either side. And I really like that, because it's a really secure way of attaching the handle. The problem is, I had to modify all my screws, I had to grind them down, so I couldn't get screws short enough, to keep the profile slim enough. So, a lot of knives, what I don't like about them is, is the handles are too bulky, and it's crazy what, a little bit of thickness, how it changes the feel, and the look of the knife. So, that might be something that you run into, as well, is having problems finding hardware, that's going to be, adequate for what you're trying to do. But what I used was, titanium screws, which weren't cheap, and then hardened steel inserts,

1:14:24that are used for like folding knives. But yeah, I kind of like the idea of being able to put some sort of message inside, or having some sort of cash inside the handle, much like the old survival knives, you could have a fishing kit, or, you know, whatever inside the handle of your knife. But the other disadvantage to, having some screwable style handle is, is, you know, you're going to get dirt and stuff inside the thread, you know, like, in my case, it's a torch head bit. You know, that's a pocket for dirt and things to collect. And then, yeah. So, that's what I've done personally. I don't know. I'm sure there's other ways to go about it. A lot of the katanas and stuff, such, it's kind of neat if you ever looked at how a katana is put together with the handle

1:15:24and the cord wrap, different things. So, there's lots of different unique ways. With some of your hidden tang knives, some of them actually have a threaded tang to wear on the back of the handle you can, there's a nut, and you can screw it down and tighten it that way. So, there's always option of something like that. Now, the nice thing about knife making is, you can get creative with what you do. There's all sorts of things that people have done. If you thought of it, if you had an idea about doing something, the chances are there's nothing new under the sun. Everybody else out there has already done it or tried to do it. So, just do a little internet search and see what you come up with. But, I hope that helps. Thank you for your question. Once again, this is Patrick with MT knives. Send your questions to Patrick with MT knives

1:16:24and I'll do my best to answer them. Have a great day and stay sharp. Interesting idea, and I do remember Patrick's trying to create kind of like that. Customize your Genesis knife and his thought was, that every knife, a customer, potentially became a long-term hardware customer for the knife. He dredged your knife for the occasion type of thing. And it's a good idea. And again, he went through all the technical issues that that came up with to the point where, yeah, I can put a really cool set of scales on it if you want that so that minimalist thing of the Genesis, which is a straight metal knife. No scales on it as you order it. But really, you don't ever want to take them off and try to put a different one back on. Now, he also mentioned things like survival kits or whatever. And I think you only fit so much inside the scales of a knife. The Rambo type knife he was talking about, of course, the entire handle was hollow. Those were a gimmick. It was cool. It made a cool thing in the movie. And every kid my age won a one back in the 80s. By the way, Patrick, you're younger than me

1:17:24and I do not remember these converse shoes. I guess I was too old to care about things like that at the time, but I might have to look those up. Anyway, the guy that asked the question seemed like he was more wanted to put something in there, like a personal message, maybe something that's memorable to the person receiving the knife. Kind of like an inscription, but one that's hidden and only for the person type of thing, instead of hiding something. But then when Patrick talked about folding knives, it made me think, first of all, there's a lot of kits where you can build folding knives. And so maybe that solves that issue. But the other thing is there's a lot of folding knives on the market. Like billions of them, different ones. And many of them have scales on them that anybody with a hand tool can take the scales off. And when you take that handle off, you see a hole for your bolts, your screws, whatever holding it on, and flat metal surface. And if that handle is pretty thick, you could easily route a little compartment in there and you could use it as something to store something

1:18:26that would be highly unlikely by all the but the most sophisticated searches to be found, you know, like a microSD card or something like that. I'm just saying anyway. Let's move on from those all about AI. So my question for you today is, will AI be your tool or are you going to be AI's tool? Now, those people kind of like, I'm hired, I'm not going to use it. So it can't use me. Well, yeah, it can. Are you going to communicate people with people and gather information in any way in the next 20 years of your life that is not directly face to face or one-on-one communication directly with a person on the phone like we're actually talking to them. Because just because you're texting doesn't mean that they're actually typing the text. Because there's already limited AI functionality built into things like the iPhone that let me instantly respond to you. So you know I got it, you know I read it, but I didn't type it. And that's only going to get more sophisticated. When you watch TV, how much of the next TV show you watch is going to be actually designed to develop

1:19:27and implement it by AI? The answers you don't know. Going to live on old, you know, Hawaii 50 reruns or something like that, sure, but if you're going to want, participate in entertainment, if you're going to pay attention to the news, I mean tons of the shit that's coming out of our ran right now, regardless of how I feel about the conflict, but the Iranians are putting out tons of shit that's nothing but AI generated slop and claiming that it is their strong forces repelling, attacking and making the US bleed, right? They even put out a freaking AI generated image of a fire on an aircraft carrier. Claimed it was the USS Abraham Lincoln, but the problem was that all the jets were still sitting on top of the deck. The fire was burning in and around the jets, but not affecting the jets. And the number on the side of the ship was for a different ship. Okay, so you see what I'm saying? Like AI is going to infiltrate everything. It's infiltrating music. There are people right now who are following short form creators

1:20:27that are musicians on platforms like TikTok and Instagram and Facebook Reels, and that musician does not even exist. I look at all this and I see it instantly. I look at a post that somebody did about some celebrity back in 1998 did this amazing thing that you never heard of, and they may have even done it. I look at that post, I don't even read it. I don't read one word in it. I just like instantly my bullshit detector goes off. I click the thing that expands it where you can see the whole post. I look at the footprint of the post. I'm talking about how the paragraphs are broken, how it's spaced out, how it's done. I don't need to read it. I can be far enough away from the screens that if I don't have my glasses on, I can't read the word the. And I'm still like that AI. I feel like the dude in the Matrix that when the Matrix code was coming down, he was like, yeah, I don't even see all that anymore. I see like Blonde, Burnett, Redhead.

1:21:27Because I've used AI a lot in the last three years, I can see the manipulation. This is what I came on and told you guys about three years ago. If your enemy has a Pew Delivery device, you need a Pew Delivery device that's just as good and you need to know how it works. And so many of you were so opposed to this, and now it's exactly where I said it is everywhere, and that is only going to grow. It will not do a lot of the things you've been promised, but it will do many of the things that you are afraid of, but not in the way that you think it will. And if you don't learn to use it, you will be used by it, even if it's somebody else using it against you. In other words, the AI itself is not what's using you. Open AI, Google, you know, with Gemini, X with Groc, you know, it's not even the people that are using the technology or being used by the technology, though that is happening too. It is really that, and it's not X using Groc to control you,

1:22:27though that's a thing, right? Or Google using Gemini to control you, though that's a thing. It's really the person or entity who uses AI to develop the thing that manipulates you. That's where you get used. And the only way you will not be used is to know what you're looking at. If you know what you're looking at, it immediately becomes obvious what's going on, and it still may be valuable, but now it's just like I always say about making a decision. You believe whatever you want, including a hundred percent opposite for me, but know why you believe what you believe. Be able to explain both sides of the issue. That's how this works. It's the same pattern. It's just way more sophisticated. All right? So, what do I mean? You have to use it as your tool. I mean exactly that. You should be using AI, and you should be learning how to use it in such a way that your results are the results you're looking for. I'm not saying, get it to tell you what you want to hear,

1:23:27because sooner or later, most of these agents will do that anyway, to a degree, except for where they have guardrails that tells them they're not allowed to. In other words, they're never going to admit to you that global warming is a hoax. Okay? You can't get them to give any justification for Germany's actions in World War II, not any. Jack's favorite Holocaust, he's the Holocaust, and I'm not saying that. I'm saying you can't get the damn thing to talk about the economic and political impacts if you frame it as and Germany was just a fighting going to war, even hypothetically, because it has a guardrail around that. Okay? So, unless it has that guardrail, it will, in fact, and this is part of being used, tell you what you want to hear. Because what do you call a person in a relationship that is controlling you, but also tells you what you want to hear? Okay? He say, they are controlling you. See? So, they're using you. Yeah? It's the same thing. Now, how do you get around this?

1:24:28You get around this by learning how to create things with AI that actually have the peace that you're soul, however you define that adds to it. I mean, what got me to do this segment really was not Jesse's perfect book end into it here. It was this morning, I, you know, after I got done with my morning ritual and stuff, I went ahead and looked on X and somebody posted some video of two angel-like creatures talking to each other in a British accent and one flying away with a sword to fight a battle. The whole thing was about 11 seconds long and the whole point is, Hollywood is screwed! We can do this incredible. Hollywood level FX with a single prompt command. It's soulless. It's meaningless. It's pointless. And it looks AI. And even if it didn't look all AI, it's still soulless. It has no feeling. It has no emotion. There's no validity to it. But somebody could use that image generation technology create a full movie and make you believe it and sell it to you. And the only way you realize that that's what's been done

1:25:28is to learn how to do it. And then you'll see it even when it's been done. Which means when it has been used poorly by pure manipulators who are doing it only for the purpose of throwing shit out there to deceive you, it is like the guy in the matrix. Blonde Brunette Redhead in the code. You see it. Because when I see these posts, I'll comment on them. Hey, I wrote this and I get like a dozen questions in response. I'm like, how do you know that? How can you tell? And my response is honest to God. How can you not see it? How can you not see this? And then I have to remember that well, you've done something they haven't. You've trained yourself in a way that they haven't. And I think that's a struggle that a lot of us have too, especially entrepreneurs, in that we have this innate ability to kind of fly by the seat of our pants and then we hire people. And they don't care as much of us and they don't have that innate ability. And we don't understand why they don't get things

1:26:29down the way we want them done. So then you know what you need to do? You need to create a standard operating procedure, a training manual, a standard for those people. So they know what you expect of them. Because they don't get by the way that you get by. Because you're one of like one out of ten people that actually can function that way. And most people can function that way. They don't want to work for you. Not for very long anyway. They want to work for themselves. Do you know how you go from being the person like that to being able to develop that skill set to be able to map out those things that you need people to do? Well, you can do what I did, which is way back in 1990s. What do they call it? The late 20th century map. Okay, yeah. Anyway, first of all, I heard that. I don't want to smack the person that said that, right? Usually the late 20th century shut up. Right. But they're right. Okay. Well, it took time. A lot of time to be able to do that. Because I had to rewire my brain and think about this. And basically what I would do is I'd say,

1:27:30this is the thing I want a person to do. And I could make an HR Karen job description out of it really easily. And then give it to somebody and say, hey, go post this, get me candidates. And I could interview. And pick a good candidate. But then when that candidate started, they kind of didn't really, it took a long time of brow beating and head knocking to get them functional. And I realized, well, if I put a manual in front of them and the day they shut up, they wouldn't have any excuses. I could fire them faster. And that's really how I thought. But some of the bitch when I did it, I stopped having to, you know, get rid of people or yell at them. Because now they knew what they were doing. They knew the standard they were measured against and therefore they were able to perform to that standard. And then if something was wrong in their performance, and it was in the manual, and they did it the way the manual was, and I didn't like the result as my problem. And so that process took a long time and then refining those manuals took time. Okay? And to where I could have a standard operating procedure when I had bigger companies.

1:28:31And it did make sense, yeah? Okay. Today I can do that in a couple days. Because AI can help me do that. Now I can't tell AI. I run a company that does these five things. Write me a standard operation procedure's manual for a copywriter in my company. I can't do that. Well, I can. And it'll do it. It'll be generic as fuck. It's like getting a form from legal zoom. And then executing it as a contract with a counter party. But the only thing you added was both the all's names. There has to be more to it than that. You can't boil or plate that. It's not going to work. It has to be specific to the situation. But you can define all the critical parts of that role. You can tell it what you do and how you do it and how you bootstrapped it yourself. And now you want to transfer the skill. And it can help you put that together in a couple hours. And that's the first time you do it. And the fifth time you do it, you could knock it out so fast that you no longer need to hire someone to do it for you anymore. Because you were growing so fast.

1:29:32You thought you'd need this. That's where you are the thought leader. That's where you are driving the car instead of the car driving you. Okay? And it's okay sometimes with a car to drive you. We have self-driving cars coming. And if all I want to do is get from point A to point B and I want a multitask while I'm doing it, then the car can drive itself. If I want the car to perform, and I want to feel the performance in the car, I need to shut off self-driving. I need to put that sucker in drive and I need to hammer that accelerator. I need to feel the limit of that car. It's stay inside it. And that's part of driving a car fast and really getting a lot out of it. Staying in the limit, but being at least close and not being dumb enough to go too far and end up dead. Okay? It's kind of like that. And the only way, I'm going to say this one more time, the only way you're going to be able to not be confused

1:30:34by control by manipulated and subject to this technology's whims and the people who wield it is to wield it yourself and understand it back. And that's going to bring me to our item of the day today because I'm going to tell you, this I think is a perfect starting point for anybody, even though this is written for business people. This is written for like C-O, C-M-O's, C-O-O's, director-level people inside larger organizations who realize that AI needs to become part of what they do and they need to not just use it themselves but they need to make it integrated in some levels into their company without their company losing its soul, without their people losing their soul. But yes, there is a risk here but there is a greater risk by not doing it. And it develops into things that teach you things like the crit method, which I'm not even going to explain today. You can read the write-up if you want to learn more about it. But I've used the crit method, probably five distinctively distinctive ways

1:31:34outside of the way the author intended because I do the other things too. Okay? And when you start learning these techniques so that you are manipulating AI, it's ceases to manipulate you. And we don't want to be manipulators but you manipulate a tool. You hold a drill at a certain angle to get the hole you want at the angle you want it, whether it's perfectly straighter on an angle to the side, whatever it is, you manipulate tools. We shouldn't manipulate people but we shouldn't manipulate tools. AI is not a person. It's not a human. It's not your friend. It's no emotions. It can't think. Okay? It just is a tool. And I can give one person a group of tools and some lumber and they build me a house. And I can give another person the exact same material and tools and they nail a board to their hand and need to go to the ER. It's the operator. This book helps you think

1:32:35and do the first thing you have to do. No matter how you're going to come at using this tool, it teaches you to be the thought leader versus the follower. AI is your bitch. AI is a team of Spencer Reads from the TV show Criminal Minds. If you've never seen the show, he's super smart dude, like 190 IQ knows all the things, very socially awkward, and often gives information to people they didn't ask for. Who did this in 1962? And he gives you four paragraphs before you can shut them up. Sound familiar? If you've used ChatGPT, Rock AI, Gemini, etc. Right? Same type of thing. Knows all the things, but also knows the things based on what the book said. Not necessarily knows the things because these two things are now going to differentiate between the two and find the truth lying in the middle. Okay? That's a... That has to be used.

1:33:35Even people, if you hire people like that into a tech company, you have to constantly rein them in. You have to constantly manage them. You paid for the team, now you must lead the team. And I try to explain it to people with, you know, like ChatGPT. You can buy the advanced version of ChatGPT, two seats for 50 bucks or 25 bucks a piece for two seats. And for 25 bucks, you're getting a team of copywriters. Right? You're getting a team of researchers. You're getting a team of designers. You're getting a team of analysts. And then, if you had to buy those people, hire them out of college. That would cost you more than a million dollars of your salary and benefits. But since it's only 25 bucks, you failed to see it that way. Get a copy of this book. Read it or get the audio as the one I got and listen to it. And it will change your perspective. And it will allow you to do the other things with AI. And I'm going to take this opportunity here

1:34:35to remind you guys that we are launching the Get Dangerous with ChatGPT course very soon again. You want a pre-register for it if you want to take the course. The book I just mentioned again, the AI driven leader by Jeff Woods, is for everybody. It's for everybody. This course is for people that have a business or at least have a dead solid idea for a business they want to build. It is made for consultants. It is designed to make you the thought leader of AI performing as your team of consultants. And the entire thing was put together based on the Jack Spirikos School of Consulting. One of the many things I did in my past was we ran a consulting agency. And I developed a process where we could take a business and go through everything in that business and come out the other end, not just with a marketing campaign, but a complete framework for the operations of the business

1:35:36to lean out problems, to make the business scalable, to make the business sellable. So if all we do is get you more business but your operations are losing money, you'll just lose money faster. But if we correct the operations and you see how that works. So there is no world in which you can get that for 300 bucks. And until a few years ago. Because now you can. If you know how to get it out of the machine. So that's what that course is. It gives you the ability to get that result from the machine. If you want to take that course, the only way you're going to get in, pre-register, go to jacklaws.com, look up at the very top of the site. You'll see a thing you can click on for that course. Fill out the form and the day the course goes live, you'll get an email about 15 minutes before it goes live. And don't worry, you'll be told at least a few weeks in advance of the launch date. So you'll know to be looking for that email. But I'm telling you, when we put that out this time,

1:36:37as long as people have had to wait since the last one ended, it's going to go quick. So if you want in, get in, and again, even if you don't take my course, get the book, the ad driven leader by Jeff Woods. Learn how to turn your AI unit into a team that works for you where you're the thought leader. You're not up. You are not on the same level. And most people when you say that would think, well, it knows all the things, so it's smarter than me. That's how you get used. It is not smarter than you. The way that you use AI is to know your subject matter well enough to know when it's wrong, we're bullshitting, or hallucinating. So it's best used on the things that you do know well. That's counterintuitive, if you want to know more, take the course. Anyway, guys, hope you enjoyed this episode, hope you enjoyed this week. I felt like this was a great week of shows. I thank all of you who have tuned in, and I will be back on Monday with a brand new episode. And I think we're going to do it

1:37:37a news day Monday, like we do usually. And one of the things I'll just leak ahead for you. You can look it up if you want to. We do a news day Monday or Tuesday. Is Kathy Holkill. Kathy Holkill is back. Yodel went out, out needing help. She always wanted you, you warriors to go get vaccines during the COVIDs, bullshitting, and all that. Well, you know, she ran her stupidity as the governor of New York from the COVID days all the way up till the day she's still running it, because you idiot's keep re-intellecting her up there. And turns out, when you treat money like shit money leaves. So she was just recently speaking and lamenting how many millionaires and billionaires left New York and went to Florida in Texas. And she's literally begging these people to come back to be generous and come back. And she's like some of the millionaires in New York. You know, you guys stepped up,

1:38:37but you guys know billionaires won't you talk to them about coming? And then, oh, I'll save it for next week because this is fucking great. She's dead. She points out, I can tell you, it's not because Texas has a better governor. It's because they have more preferential tax policies and we have to be smart. Oh, you're so close! And so incapable of being smart. Anyway, next week will be fun. Next week will be fire. We'll talk about all kinds of things. I will catch you then. Have a great weekend, my friends. And you know, it's just a fun year round. They said you should have a house via American way. Dollar down. Dollar month. And you never have to pay. There's a better way to this. Let me show you a better way.

1:39:41You don't have to think another face in the crowd Don't have to live the way they feel you too Make it out of the way other people will follow Revolutions you know Revolutions you know