Civil Disobedience in the Age of Tyranny | Socrates| 21 Convention

boom welcome back to the 21 convention 2021 of orlando florida 15 year anniversary being held at 21 summit triple conference super conference event experience our next speaker is a very good friend of mine i'd say my best friend at this point in my life he's someone who's more than a friend almost like an uncle and definitely a mentor longest running mentor i've had in my life since 2006 back when we didn't even get along i used to uh i mean he used to battle on these uh pickup artist forms and stuff i thought he was an asshole the feeling was mutual but over the many years he's become very close friends and he even blames his uh the existence of his daughter on me in a very positive way which has i don't even know how to explain it it's it's a big it's a big weight in a very positive way someone has also saved mass multiple times including at a huge low point in my life a world shattering event back in 2016. bad divorce funding my wife is a hooker blah blah blah he took me in when i had nowhere to go and i really appreciate that never forget it so without further ado please tell me welcome back to the 21 convention stage a veteran of this stage for over 10 years socrates welcome back thanks sir i'm socrates and everything anthony said is true he was the bigger asshole than i was uh in in all seriousness i really do owe him a a round of thanks uh because he's provided me an opportunity to learn grow share the knowledge that i have with other people uh exchange communications back and forth and become a better man in the process and part of that life arc was becoming a father to my daughter and it's an existence that probably would not have happened on its own because of where i was at my fears and culture and some of the concerns that i had so that is in very no small measure uh if you don't know me i am i'm probably the antithesis of a content creator while i do create content i don't push the stuff out i'm not really interested in followers supporters likes everything else which is really the inverse of what people do for popularity and exposure but what i do is i try to develop connections with men to make a difference in their lives and follow up on that and i think there are a number of people who come here that i look forward to seeing again again and it's one of the highlights of my year each time i do so i am a professional architect and i'm willing to come up to stand on stages like this and speaks about some of the subjects that i do because i think the nature of what we discuss are not only important they're critical and in many ways prosecuted in a society today there are inherent risks for being seen as an individual who conveys information that's not acceptable within public realms that they may find distasteful so we do take personal risks in doing that what i'd like to do today is discuss not necessarily the stuff i'm normally known for dating relationships navigating uh the sexual marketplace and current cultural events but really focus in on some elements of today's current cultural events as they will affect you and you in particular right now this is the 21 convention presentation i'm giving every individual in this room is a war fighting male and that is going to be significant in the information we provide right now it's a sincere concern because i prided myself on helping men to have better lives to have better relationships to have better marriages or reduce the risks of marriages to prevent divorce which ultimately leads a lot of men to suicide and if i'm looking to save men's lives in a very literal way the following discussion we will have i'm hoping will save yours or at least prevent you from doing something seriously stupid and seriously not thought out and so with that in mind we'll be discussing the following as of today it's late october 2021 where nearly two years into a global pandemic in december of 2019 covet was first identified nearly four months later that's four months later the institutions responsible to protect our health and welfare to give early warning and to advise governments finally finally we're able to identify that this pandemic was truly a pandemic by their own definition but they were forced to it initially they were playing word games and words out almost a year later we actually have our first vaccine experimental in nature two others were to follow shortly thereafter within two months so nearly two years into this we have three vaccines that have cleared supposedly experimental stages of investigation and review that have dubious effects by the way you can't really find solid information on their efficacy because they don't stop the virus or disease and they don't stop as transmission there's some concerns here we were constantly fed a narrative that was life or death and the images were incredibly frightening they were serious and we didn't understand what was going on the behavioral actions were not inc where they were incompatible with what they were the governments were saying as opposed what we're seeing does this look like the flu or a release bio agent we still can't find out an answer this is a behavior action behavior and what was being said were not congruent this is world health organization for four months and you think it's just them the cdc was the same thing they didn't they didn't decide it was a pandemic until a day or so later after the world health organization did four months for an organization that's supposed to be able to identify and protect world global health and an idiot could see the writing on the wall this is where i started having some serious questions you're seeing something you're looking at it and then you're seeing a governmental response so how are things going to go there's a kind of an idiom that passes prologue and if you can look at it short term what do you see i think there's this element of truth and this confucius wisdom is that the beginning of wisdom is to call something by its proper name they couldn't even meet a definition a pandemic and call pandemic its proper term should i trust this organization should i trust this governmental institution should i trust the governments in front of me or is it going to be incumbent upon me and my family to sort things out by ourselves what if we called this pandemic by its property and it's really not the virus is it it's the governmental responses to this that's the biggest issue governments initially and quite honestly righteously so were conservative in nature they contracted they tried to protect they were very slow in responding because they wanted to make sure and there's a human tendency to become authoritarian to seek higher knowledge and awareness so we look at these institutions as sources of wisdom these were the hallmarks and the in just the hollow ground of silence science these are the science best sciences we have in our in our nation in the world and we look to them and we listen to their advice the problem is is that it becomes very authoritarian and totalitarian when they start directing things so why don't we call things by their proper name when they overstep when they overreach when their authority goes too far remember we're free to do what they tell you you're free to flatten the curve this is an interesting concept this is the first acknowledgment that our institutions were woefully woefully unprepared the institutions that were supposed to have stockpile of pppe were not available the institutions that should have been able to identify the source of this virus somehow weren't able to pursue the the convictions of science and pursue the matter so what were they going to do collectively we were going to sacrifice some freedoms to be able to slow something down this is a curve that's unmitigated that is going to be a human tragedy because we know this has happened in history they've been able to track that the idea is we take up strong strong behavioral actions collectively and mitigate some of that and flatten that out to reduce not only the demand on our hospitals and staff but reduce the cost of lives the impacts on lives now the interesting thing is if you just look at it and well i'm an architect i'm not that good of an architect i'm not that bright of a guy but i can kind of sense scale because this is the scale all right and it's typically one season all right and i take my hand i say it's that large and if i flip it over double it i get this so if this is three to four months that's what six to eight pretty easy but what did we get we got a snl skit and unfortunately this isn't the snl skit this is actually real life that is or was u.s attorney attorney general surgeon general suggesting we have 15 days to slow the spread you know what that really translates to we're going to crash the fucking economy we're pull an emergency brake slam on the fucking brakes and we're gonna slide skid into this emergency again what does he really know compared to what he's saying which reflects in what he's doing is this a cult is this a is this a flu virus we're responding to or something far more sinister and menacing to society in the world what do they really know all right and this is by the way is somebody who's responsible for national health us surgeon general this is the guy you're supposed to trust this is a guy who by the way i love it social media tweeting come on man and i shit you not that was a quote come on man with regards to masks you were not supposed to take care of you or your family by getting superior n95 mass at a time period which they were supposed to stockpile this equipment and failed you were supposed to avoid that opportunity to protect you and your family but you're going to trust them remember you're free you're a u.s citizen except when it comes to lockdowns we're going to lock it in you're going to lose some civil liberties some freedom for your health how many businesses had to close i know we have eden smith speaking about it his business pursued vigorously legally because he dared to keep a gym open dared to try to feed his family and maintain his standards of living in his livelihood when the nation's locking down i'm going to ask you a silly question was it truly a lockdown or was it a tamp dam because guess what big business didn't suffer did they they were essential some of the best sell season of the year how many how many big businesses were able to actually grow massively maintain operations while small businesses were shut down i know amazon's one walmart's another how many others so we persecute the small guy and allow corporations to run wild you're free except for the mass mandates in all honesty are we still pretending that a cloth napkin across your face is going to protect and save lives and don't don't take me wrong i understand fear is real and i have compassion for people who in all seriousness are trying to protect themselves their loved ones and doing what they feel is best but there's no science that sisanna states this prevents viral spread none but we're to pretend that it does because men like the surgeon general say it's true people ahead the national institute of health are now reversing decades of scientific review center for disease control saying the same thing you're free come on except when it comes to medical passports now we don't quite have that here yet but this isn't fiction now is it could you imagine reading a piece of literature fiction that would sit down and say in the continent of australia the australian people would be required to provide case medical history and proof prior to going to buy a fucking cup of coffee my assessment of the australian people needs to seriously change i had the gross imagination that they were rugged independent outgoing people on the last kind of frontier continent this world has i had a nostalgic view of these people as better than americans in some ways because they still lived that rugged style that kind of that down to earth mentality the straightforwardness but there's seriously something wrong with all the commonwealth countries because we share that in history that did not win their independence through violence means and rebellion what the fuck is wrong with australia new zealand canada that this is possible so let's talk about vaccines real quick again i'm a simple guy i'm not really bright our vaccine is effective if yes then the vaccine passports are pointless the vaccine works you don't need a passport to stop the spread if they don't work they don't fucking work so what's the point of the passport does it serve a medical need does it fulfill a medical mission or something very seriously going awry here you're free except for the vaccine mandates this is where it's getting ugly it's no longer just a passport they're going to mandate it and this is all for a virus and if i know this is small i want to maintain that even at the highest age 70 plus 94.6 survival rate for they aged next is going to be obesity right diabetes all the health markers associated with the diseases of civilization unhealthy people are at risk but we're not going to talk about that we're also not going to talk about you know let's talk about children under 20. 3 000 of a percent somebody out there is either a statistician or a role role-playing game individual i want to actually kind of figure out how many six-sided dice would i'd have to roll to come up with you end up with covet and die how many dice what what what are the how many handfuls of dice do i have to roll and have them all come up number one to actually be of that age healthy and die from this virus so this really isn't about managing risk because the risks are incredibly slow i question why they're doing this this is going to happen it's already happening it's not fiction it's already happening your children may be forced at the point of a gun to get a vaccine you don't want your child to have what happened to the legal preposition that a parent knows best for what's in the best interest of their children that's a legal standing that's being changed so let's talk about this really quick what does this really mean for men when you can't protect your family you man should i honor respect a man who can't protect his family wife children let's take a step further it's not just about protection is it it's about providing your jobs are going to be at stake and they know it they're leveraging that's the coheres development they're leveraging your employment your ability to provide for your family your livelihood and we all know our sense of identity often is derived by what you do what we produce what we create how you provide for your family and they're threatening that and it goes a step further i've talked previously about the dangers of marriage and the risk factor what's what's currently roughly ballpark divorce rate fifty percent fifty percent and whether it's higher i really don't care so you have one in two chance on a normal basis to have a failed marriage does this reduce those risks or amplify what's the leading indication other than a woman's unsense of unhappiness for cause of divorce financial reasons so they know this they know you intuitively know this this is just another war on men and marriage you either submit and comply or you may lose your family now they'll blame you because it's your marriage your family but you didn't follow the mandate these are choices that you're making forced upon you of course and what do we call when somebody forces themselves upon another person there's a there's a term for that kind of rape isn't it it's kind of rapish they're going to force this on you but it's for your own good it's for your own health you're free to do what we tell you and it's for your health covid 1984. so let's talk about something real quick what happens if you say no i'm not doing it not me no moss what's going to happen and i can show you i know i'll paint a picture but let's actually look at reality here's a guy in australia getting fucking mugged by cops okay now let's really paint this honest picture this guy like me grossly overweight right is a beast he's literally outside what in what used to be what free australian air and sunshine exercising he's in workout clothes going for a damn walk to improve his health which by the way should be one of the things he does to protect himself from this virus probably one of the most successful things you can do in control because your age you can't help but your fitness state he's not complying and personally i know talking uh with a couple of guys i think it's interesting that all the cops are actually masked i actually think they should be mass the rest of their fucking goddamn lives it's that goddamn shameful they should be ashamed of the behavior should we wear fucking hoods not goddamn mass but they will fucking put they will arrest you manhandling to put a fucking blanket over your face that doesn't work because you went outside and had the audacity to breathe fresh free air how about this little girl you know what her mistake was she joined a protest now previously on this this is the one where they bust through the police line and in all honesty the police officers got manhandled pretty goddamn bad what happened though they went past her she's in the midst these boys are so riled up she's standing there turns and had the audacity to say no to agents of the government what did they do did they knock her on her ass no they really didn't they hit this bitch so goddamn hard she fell on her back cleanly head strikes the ground and then these fuckers have the audacity to macer both of them 74 year old woman and if that's not enough that's a steel baton he's ready to break bones because she had enough this isn't fiction this is in what used to be one of the freest countries in the world first-rate nation what happened australia here's another sad case what happens when a man puts his hands around a woman's neck is that assault or attempted murder men have been prosecuted for attempted murder for doing it because it's a lethal hold so what do we have here we have a young lady not complying and being argumentative was this agent of the government do puts her in a chokehold and it really doesn't just do that if you actually look at the imagery if you kind of look she's considerably shorter than he is here's a shoulder line here i mean she is up until the point he picks her up off the ground and slams her head against the concrete wall the brick wall as a legal citizen could you stop that is this a police officer under control but you're supposed to restrain yourself when a law enforcement agent who's trained isn't able to stop that at what point do you sit down and say hey he's a material threat to her life in the state of florida i have the right to physically defend another person with lethal force if i believe in all sincerity that it would that's what's taking place could i do that here i could but unfortunately what's not being shown right now is right just out of screen view is his partner a female and she would have a righteous shoot in return wouldn't she because i'm shooting a police officer so the question is is are they shown restraint and the answer is no we can't expect that and we won't as this continues this is bad shit this is worse what you're seeing here is a father and draped around his neck hanging off the ground literally is this child this is what force force vaccinations are this is an actual live event recorded in video it's poor quality but i'm glad we have it we have armed officers going to physically separate the father from the child and we have nurses just to the left that are going to inject a vaccine that the parent does not want the child does not want without their consent and it goes about as good as you think it goes dad goes down that's an issue child is literally running and screaming screaming no no no no no it's heartbreaking what do we call when we force ourselves upon somebody and inject something into them rape not just rape medical rape these are people that are sworn in o to protect our lives to serve and protect and to do no harm by the way these ladies had no compunction in doing just that and they did they went from being heroes of the pandemic to being the villains of a state overreach how funny are their tick-tock dancing videos now so the question is as a father as a man and particularly you young men what are you willing to do what would you do in these people's place where is that line that the overreach sistana says no no more you're not doing this the fuck you will moral justification for violence moral justification for armed god damn rebellion to take up arms against this state we have a culture for this shit right we have a second amendment we're founded on it we take pride in it we celebrate it every year what do we fight that war for taxes this is more than just loss of liberty or temporary one because we know it's not going to be temporary never is i think the compulsion to act and respond in kind and violently is completely natural i also think it's terribly misguided i think it's a terrible compulsion to have right now to act on it my concern right now with you gentlemen is your culture to sacrifice yourself to be the bulwark of our society of our culture warfighting males and i don't want you getting sucked into something and not being prepared to understand exactly what it is we've already seen one round of this a protest gone bad people lose themselves one way or another and her name was ashley babbitt she paid a very steep price for something she believed in and acted foolishly and got killed for it so i'm going to propose something that there's this massive chasm between being impotent to make change to being subject to this and the threshold for violence and so let's look at this objectively let's look at this through the eyes of history and let's see where the facts fall is violence really the most effective form of public protest and response and rebellion is violence really effective and efficient so let's talk about civil resistance civil disobedience and civil violence let's start with some basic definitions let's talk about power what is the source of power particularly governmental power does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun mao believes so some great propaganda not only do they know the value of the power and the value of violence but they're celebrating that collectively unifying people different nations different races together under the banner of communism and socialism and they're projecting that forward you sense that sense of power the russians believe the same thing or not don't they the soviets does power truly flow from a barrel a gun how about this one does power come from a deity does god ordain it does god sit down and say this man's dna holds power and has the ability to be transcended through his genetic line is that the source of real power for hundreds and thousands of years humans believe so you don't build pyramids in the desert for nothing okay you have to show this i mean this is magnificent why it needs to showcase that divinity power wealth command sorry more propaganda is power static or can power move from one entity to another does power have to be constituted regularly by those that have it governments don't want you to think it is this man and his family paid a cost for that i think the kaiser in their center wished powers a little more static than it is so we know that's not true what is really the source of power particularly for governments it's the will of the governed the consent of the governed you all of you collectively our forefathers knew that and we started with it that's a part of american history we need to remember we also need to remember interestingly enough is that there was 15 to 16 years of civil resistance prior to lexington and concord prior to a single shot being rung out 15 to 16 years of active civil protest and disobedience opportunity to reduce the casualties of life and to maintain the social civility civil resistance it operates on appeals to the adversary utilizing pressure and coercion resistance is not passive it is an active confrontational strategy to affect power to express personal power it is an act of confrontation done civilly key here is if you don't have the skills at hand when you need them to behave accordingly or to respond to conflict accordingly what happens what happens in the dating world when the girl you're dating doesn't have the skill sets or relationship skills to maintain the relationship let alone go through and communicate the needs and desires and objectives of a relationship and to be able to resolve issues appropriately how do they do it how does crazy resolve problems they don't they create them the issue here is the skill set you have are the ones you're going to go into this conflict with and i want you to have better skill sets than crazy the other thing that civil resistance does it actively tries to destabilize the pillars of the support of the regime above and the idea is if you are able to pull the pillars of the support out it weakens and you can change and shift political dynamics this man knew that he came from a third world nation and he fought off a global power to win their independence this is gandhi and india i speak of this man knew it he made peaceful non-violent campaign essential to the civil rights movement that's also american history it's also terribly successful so successful communist countries adopted it people have won their independence overthrowing oppressive tyrannical regimes violent regimes using civil rights methods and using non-violent campaigns for civil resistance by the way the trend is that this is now the expectation for those people that are looking for freedom and democracy this is a choice this is a pattern of behavior and it's accelerating let's talk about civil disobedience this is the active refusal to obey a law or an authority based on moral grounds all right and it utilizes a number of pressure points on society and essentially what they're trying to do it's it's actively in plan is that you intentionally violate and disobey an authority with the intent to have an action dilemma to force their hand in an awkward position that they either act on and enforce the law and regulation which then makes them look absurd or not respond to it and acknowledge that it's trivial or immoral so it's planned the other component to this is each movement has a little bit different understanding and acceptance of what that means and so there'll be issues with violating the law is not enough like i just can't speed and break a 55 mile an hour speed limit and say i'm doing civil disobedience you have to be willing to be caught and prosecuted for it intentionally all right the question then though is also do you re passively or aggressively resist arrest do you assist in the booking process you know do you comply you know are you civil about it or do you continue to protest and resist and the last one interestingly enough is how do you plead innocent or guilty right you know and so these are some of the factors that each movement has to think about in advance but the bottom line is civil disobedience is when you actively engage in violating a law and you feel you have a right to do this because it's immoral or injust or you're doing it intentionally to call attention to it but you have to be willing to face the consequences because that's a moral and ethical thing to do so let's talk about an example this how about the summer of love remember that blm riots fires why was this civil disobedience rather than civil violence why do liberals feel like they can do this and be morally justified most men are weak in beta how do you get past this how do you be a real man how do you be a husband and a father that has been where we've dropped the ball as men is because we're too acceptant we're too tolerant i'm calling for intolerance for evil we need to be able to properly identify with the definition what is masculinity we need men to stand up and do heroic things building a tribe of people who are of like mind who you can depend on will hold you accountable who will call you on your bs i call the official tagline for now with 21 convention is america's last stand for masculinity i think it is the event and it's as a reflection of the manuscript really you come out and you consciously attend and start talking with these people because people who are coming here are coming here to discuss big ideas important ideas not just talking about being masculine but okay you've done all this self-development what are you going to do with it and the answer is our understanding of a definition what disobedience means it's not violence when it's done to property when you destroy things that can be replaced it's not immoral but the problem is is the other side views as you're destroying my livelihood my place of business my house my home my car whatever that is so there's issues with that liberals will also tell you quite honestly that a riot is the voice of the unheard these people have no other means to call attention to their plight no other means to protest to be heard kind of makes sense i guess i kind of get it you're angry can't be heard you're wailing and lashing out we should probably have some compassion and empathy for that right what was this was this really an insurrection kind of feels honestly more like an instagram insurrection the selfie insurrection why wasn't this a cry of the unheard what was being protested here dubious highly contested election that wasn't transparent wasn't that what that rally was about wasn't that what that march on the capitol was about where's this individual noun all his compatriots how many of those have been booked are still sitting in jail 10 months later in comparison to people who burn down kenosha who burn down businesses in minnesota why were they booked and almost immediately released what's going on here pay attention to it just because the law says something and there's a definition for it do not think they won't take in consideration who you are this is a great example of it this is reality right so i think this is a serious issue i think there were some really shitty things done i think there was some really douchebaggery behavior taking place but i get the justification the instance of it so let's talk about this anybody know what this is georgia 2003 what is it it's a mass gathering of people happens to be a protest interestingly enough protests that was spontaneous that lasted that continued what were they protesting strangely enough a highly contested election that was dubious nature dubious accounting and vote counting and by the way that had almost zero uh transparency really similar situation you know who remembers this you know who really remembers this nancy pelosi you know that saying there's nothing worse than a woman scorned who farted in her seat and put their feet on her chair up on the desk you think she forgot about that dared to violate her office dared to walk through it unannounced you know forced themselves into her office she felt violated she references rape it doesn't say the word it's interesting because eight or nine months earlier democrats said the same thing with aoc but that wasn't quite the same thing but what is this a display what ended up happening we have u.s troops being deployed in water in washington dc this is a display of absolute force you know who believes violence and power are synonymous you know who believes power really truly does flow from a barrel of begun an administration that was in question that was tenuous that wanted that power desperately what do you think they're going to do when it's serious when it's a real insurrection think they're going to act like that are we going to see a little bit more of a reaction let's put this in comparison really quick how many troops were sent to washington dc i don't mean law enforcement officers i mean truly armed troops right 26 000. that's a shitload small army how many troops did we have when we were through from afghanistan 2 500. so when we compare things we want to know where values place we look at behavioral actions let's do a comparison we're withdrawing from the current major operational center for the global war on terrorism or withdrawing we send and provide 2500 troops and for an nc selfie gram insurrection with some douchebaggery taking place we send 26 000 troops you know what i see when i see this i don't see security i see an administration that is deathly deathly fragile and they know it they felt they had to be compelled to do this you know why if they were a secure administration would you have had a single gate up because remember by six o'clock or so that capitol building was cleared out why wasn't the capital open for business and people immediately following thereafter would that have sent a very different message particularly in light with what happened they're sending a different message because they have a different viewpoint they have different concerns you don't want to talk about that one because you know real elections have curves so what did this buffoonery showcase us about the current administration and willful use of force what can we expect in the future what can you expect in the future if you resist this more or less of that let's talk violence really quick it's exactly what you think it is physical altercation assault and in rebellion a willingness to kill i'm an architect it means i build things i have visions for the future future creations i honestly don't understand human beings that fantasize about destruction and as an architect who stands on this stage for over a decade trying to create a better world i have concerns about people who are eager for this i have reservations about the ease in which we talk about this because i think it's terribly destructive we don't build civil societies through violence so let's compare these two let's just talk efficiency i think it's we can talk about morally but you know the reality is is that i think we need to observe it so interestingly enough there's been a whole group of people there's an area of research that studied violence they studied non-violent campaigns and they analyzed the two over 120 years of every rebellion and resistance movement that they could catalog analyze the stuff and they came up with some fascinating results is violence really more effective than non-violent campaigns for overturning governments this is a complete governmental transformation non-violently that were oppressive and violent tyrannical meaning they were willing to kill the governments were willing to kill their own citizens to stay in power what do you think the success ratio is 22 or yeah 22 that's almost a one in four chance it's pretty high not great but one in four by the way the people who are professionals at this the real pros who believe in the violence whose job it is to enact this violence whose profession literally is the enactment of violence have really started to refine this you would expect them to become better at this it'll be kind of interesting to see how this plays out but if you're really kind of interested the people you'd really want to talk to the u.s special operations command particularly their joint special operations command aren't those the door kickers what are they talking about violence internationally enough how are they countering it in some of their doctrines to protect allied nations against similar type things being overthrown from other governments what are the suggestions interestingly enough one of the hallmarks of it is to harden your population to nationalize that population funny how we can't do that in our own country so any guess on the success rate for non-violence 40 45. 45 i mean we're almost at 50 right this is a crap shoot 50 50 shot your average non-violent campaign has the ability to overthrow or oppress a regime 50 50 shot i think you could approve those odds if you're smart about it organized prepared educated united were able to communicate that message you think you can improve that if i'm really interested in changing this world do you take the hard path or you take the one that's more going to be more likely to bear fruit more likely to bear success and if so where do i place my energy where do i place my efforts it's not as rewarding as an emotional reaction but uh jesse lee peterson sat down and told you today an emotional reaction was bitch behavior didn't he anybody want to be a bitch feels good god the power of a weapon being able to fire that shit off i know it i was in the army for a little while there is a sense that power does come from a device that can take a life you could defend yourself in a manner you physically probably couldn't do before i think it's terribly human nature too by the way i've spoken on this stage before that i believe that human evolution and human mankind we're not just killer apes we're murderer saves our brains everything else how we developed kind of points to violence we have history for violence we're cultured for violence but we're evolving we're learning i want you guys to do the same if you're gonna get involved in silver resistance one way or another i want you to be smart with where you spend your life two to one risk success ratio what do we call that in business when you dominate i feel you call that a monopoly start thinking in these terms you know if you have a hard time believing non-violence is kind of an effective way why wouldn't you want to exercise a monopoly on success so let's talk honestly about why is violence so unsuccessful in their approach in overturning repressive exams when you think it would be so successful and the reality is that violence begets more violence regimes who are already oppressed have become even more oppressive do you think the next time if there was real i mean if they set fire to the capital how many troops would we have had let's be honest they're already asking for the global war on terrorism brought home a domestic surveillance program the type that we had in the middle east we've already had a facebook post here which was an image advertising this event be flagged on facebook because of covet misinformation that had nothing but an image that had nothing to do with covid but you know what was in that image the wrong person's face and an algorithm picked up on facial recognition pattern and identified that as a troublesome individual and that post was flagged this is today this is happening right now we also know violence spreads violence is not contained to the belligerence it goes into other parties whether that are allied or supporting of it what do we know about secretarian violence when you allow a pattern of language to exist between two civil people that includes violence everybody will resort to it the other is collateral damage it's not just belligerence involved you have civilian casualties as well now and that accelerates so let's talk about that really quick the largest war we've ever fought was a civil war 1.5 million people were killed now most of those were combatants but let's put that in contrast to i don't know an armed rebellion let's say let's pick a good one let's go to the russian revolution how many people were killed in pursuing the grand vision of a politically dominated socialist communist party any idea historians will tell you it's upward over 60 million people 60 million people for political ideology those weren't belligerents to put that in comparison i believe the total death count for world war ii is 57 million how about the chinese how about the chinese revolution 80 million people so let's just take a really dirty shorthand analogy let's just say that the idea of this pandemic enclosure falls truly upon political lines i don't believe that's true i know it's not true but let's just theoretically use msnbc's version of events that this is really a democrat versus republican issue and the belligerents are only the voting parties how many biden voters were there 81 million if you believe the stats what i'm telling you is should we go violent and hold a civil war today in the united states if i look at history as prologue and look from the past what can i expect projected forward i think we'll exceed 80 million i don't want to live in that world i don't want to be responsible for abetting that world enabling that to occur i hope you guys donate i'm always amazed at the wisdom of shakespeare and when we talk about civility you know it's where civil blood makes civil hands unclean you lose the moral authority when you use violence don't you when you physically have to violent violate somebody to force your will upon it this is one of the reasons why they're not successful you lose that standard you also lose allies and support network those groups that would normally support you that are looking at like yeah we're not down with the violence and we also know most people don't have an inclination to kill and that has been interestingly enough a problem for most militaries to the stent that they actually research it to the extent that they actually have to train and develop systems to reduce people's inclination to kill interestingly enough one of the best ways to do that dehumanize your opposition right do we really want to do that when we're trying to create a civil society dehumanize your opposition it also reduces your recruitment pool meaning you have far fewer people so let's go through these really quick one of the biggest ones is sex when you exclude females because most females are not going to be inclined to violence i know that there's a feminism thank god for feminism for this right we have a much larger fighting force now but on the whole we could sit down and say we lose half our population just based on gender roles another one's going to be age fitness and commitment that's me right too old out of shape interestingly enough i got a day job that i like to keep you know i'm not going to be able to commit to the time period in which to be a proper rebellion and serve in a military capacity right because essentially what you're doing here is building a military right which then goes to costs you're going to have to fund that even if you do it privately what's a decent and what ar-15 what's a decent one cost these days and of course you're going to go tacky cool with it right you got to get the sights you got to get the thermals the laser pointer you know all the all the kit is costly you're going to have to fund that we also know it takes skill that's the other component just can't give somebody a tool you have to train to be effective if you're going to be an insurgent in a rebellion how much skill are you going to have to have and by the way do you really want a straight infantry force because everybody thinks they're going to be in the line fighting right no support network right none of that no water and beans no food there are also operational realities so you're living in a country you're going to violate the law you're willing to commit murder are you able to do that publicly are you going to have to do it clandestinely can you tell your family friends girlfriend others how do you screen and vet those are some of the operational realities so it's going to be even harder and a bigger challenge than a military force and let's talk life post conflict you only have one in four chance of success what happens when you're at the other two thirds or i'm sorry three-fourths what happens when you're on the wrong side of that what's your life going to be like on the run ever be normal again i think there's something interesting as well that when you analyze violent revolution in the last 10 years anywhere there has been a civil war there's been a previous civil war in the previous thirty what that means again in very simplistic terms is violence begets violence that most rebellions in this particular case 90 of the time current current assessment that you're successful rebellion will ultimately lead to another civil war within 30 years because guess what you touch your opposition violence is a morally acceptable means to affect social change what do we know about those nations right now suffering sectarian violence anywhere you want to live so let's do support and comparison of population as expected it's a pretty low number for violence because obviously the demands to get fighting individuals prepared and equipped to actually lead a rebellion resistance movement is going to be low expect higher numbers for non-violent campaigns it's 1.6 percent of the population on average all right that's a four to one ratio not a big surprise here but why does this matter what if i told you no campaign has been unsuccessful meaning 100 of the rebellions that took place either violent or non-violent succeeded when they had 10 of the population mobilized at any one time now this 10 percent is underscoring people who are actively engaged who actually came in march who actually were involved it underscores the fact that there's a much larger broad a population swath that is supporting them but that's an incredibly low number 10 and you've got 100 chances of overturning a government not affecting change in your society but overturning a government that is violent and oppressive ten percent of the population and you have a hundred percent of the possibility you know the problem with stats it's the outliers that skew it you know what the real number of people are looking at to study this 3.5 of the population 80 percent of the time they've been successful let me go back one 1.6 is the average non-violent campaign 3.5 year goal you're almost halfway there just by choosing this method being organized and replicating what's already been done this is how you be successful this is how you make it efficient so let's talk about this guy really quick i'm going to read the quote this is a frederick douglass and it essentially says this power concedes nothing without a demand it never did and it never will find out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be opposed upon them and these will continue until they are resisted either with words or by blows or by both or with both the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress the limits of tyrants are limited by the endurance of those they oppress regimes are fragile more fragile than they want you to believe and they require institutional support this is the current methodology of civil resistance that essentially a regime is the upper tier of this structure here the upper group and these are the support networks institutional groups all right and the idea is if you cut that out from underneath them or essentially pull essential members out from that column base into your camp it weakens the stability of the regime this is a well accepted and proven model this is roughly the development since the 1960s that has been formulated it has been tried and proven in hostile areas of the world it's been proven successful the problem though is it takes time because you have to convince people here persuade them to change their minds now most people think you're going to be able to change their minds to a moral argument hey this this is right this is the correct things to do or can't you understand our side and the reality is civil resistance doesn't work this way it's not effective that way because remember it's confrontational in nature and the use of coercion is not only authorized it's expected you have to force dilemma on people to recalculate their support so it's not about the rationality of your beliefs it's about having these folks recalculate and if it's a business issue recalculate their business interest to make it i don't know unprofitable unpopular unsavory they don't want to be associated with this that's how you do that so let's talk about that really quick so what do we talk about here how about members of the media that's a pillar of support one of the most critical the propaganda arm of the government in charge of the regime in charge what would it take to change this buffoon's mind you're not because he's a mouthpiece his existence depended upon telling those lies and willingness to tell those lies to willings to spread that information you're probably not but you should probably find the individuals who are chew journalists if they're out there how about this guy bureaucrat and in this particular case a medical bureaucrat or let me rephrase this the medical bureaucrat you're going to change his mind a man most likely suffering from what is it mensch housing syndrome by proxy probably national manchester problem by proxy i mean is he going to change his mind probably not maybe it might be interesting if you don't i i would formulate this what if you were to take this troll and pin him against the administration so that that government is aligned with this man change the equation much how about this guy financial economic elites i think this one's a kind of an easy one it's not that you need to change his mind what if he actually said no this one's yours we're gonna make sure it's yours i mean after all this is a man who associated with a known sex trafficker because he was recruiting money just had dinners you know downplaying uh his association repeated association i found the interview that they had with him recently uh fairly enlightening what did he say about the man's death what was what was what was the lessons learned about epstein he's dead now interesting the lessons he learned is the man's dead now that strike you as odd because we all know he killed himself right and a man who kills himself just didn't die you would kind of refer to that unless he didn't i think the uh the meme and the joke his epson didn't kill himself another bill got to him first right a clinton i don't know maybe we have a contender here that the wrong bill got him or another bill got him but i don't think we're going to change his mind i think he's all in so let's have him have it let's let them have a high of a villainy and showcase and publicize that not only for what he's done but for who he supports because by the way they're going to do the same thing to you right what are the risks for you coming to a place like this how about this guy head of the fbi head of the premier investigative unit of the world there's a saying in washington dc when i was there that the that the building knows the core of a building knows what the top floor wants top floor never has to tell the building what they want to hear the building knows intuitively no what position is this man in really he's the top of an investigation bureau no doubt does he answer to somebody did he get that job by saying no by speaking truth to power i might ask a couple other questions too this is a kind of a meme this is a colonel landa searching for jews and the quote during the movie is that you're hiding jews under the floorboard aren't you but i don't know maybe the head of the the fbi will be in a position to sit down and say you're hiding dr seuss books under the floorboards now aren't you we laugh but that happened didn't it elements of racism found in dr seuss's books get them while you can how about these guys how about your average fbi agent what do you tell him what would you tell an fbi agent that you knew and try to pull them out from supporting regime what would you tell them is this why you went into the service is this why you became one of the world's premier investigative units are you turning into him or are you going to be a butt of a joke because honestly can the fbi actually solve a crime they are not complicit in i got a quick joke for you how many fbi informers does it take to connect governor whitner three out of the nine at least right here's an interesting one what do you tell these guys what do you tell your local law enforcement officer who has a duty to uphold the law what do you what do you tell him what do you tell the good officer standing in the back do you tell him fuck you asshole asswipe do you do that is that effective is it true or is he in a position like you having a job a livelihood identity and interestingly enough lives in your community is one of you what would you tell this individual how about taking a step back and realizing the same people who are currently saying and pledging to defund the police them are the same fuckers that were willing to offshore american jobs and tell you to learn to code is there common ground there can you work with that i told the ladies over at 22 con similar type image and asked them what could they do what's the most important powerful thing you could hear as a husband in a situation like this that your livelihood is under threat remember we talked about the vaccine mandated vaccine the threat under men divorce losing your family suicide rates they're going to face the same thing right what could she say that could change that equation honey if you're ever put in this position we could find another way would that change things provide an opportunity we'll see how about these guys department of justice what do you what do you tell the attorneys the prosecutors the guys are going to come after you i don't know how about this one how about how about another meme how about imagining in very likelihood a very real life colonel landa in the form of a department of justice investigator city none across from you in regards to your actions with your child's school and asking you oppose pornography and there's child school don't you is this a joke or did i just mishear the department of justice state they're going to investigate americans at school board meetings that get become a little impassionate in regards to pornography child grooming pedophilia material in their schools did the u.s department of justice really say that we're going to advise school boards regarding this we live in a digital age digital social media age and you know what the power of one tweet can do one tweet from this woman with over a million followers made a mockery of a vaccine mandate oops wrong slide sorry that one what if we had institutions willing to support and defend you and advocate that we're well prepared well organized disciplined in their message messaging and willing to project that over years what if we had trade unions that were able to leverage their effectiveness to affect change what happened here this is already done vaccine mandate pressured by politics to the ceo changed a mandate for employees getting vaccinated within a couple of weeks we're not on as tenuous grounds as we think the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those they oppress if we learn to say no collectively we can change this instead of trying to topple a regime from outside the system by going to the pillars of support which we know historically takes time planning organization and you have to sustain that effort i'm an architect what can i tell you about foundations what if you mobilize mass support mass support to undermine the foundations of the entire thing do you have to go after the pillars do you have to have organizations and structures looking long-term at the cost or can you do this more effectively more decisively electronically and efficiently in today's age what's the number we're looking for 3.5 3.5 and you can change the world from an oppressive regime a regime willing to commit violence i don't think you need 3.5 the consent of the governed that's what this nation was built upon i want you to remember this history and yes we have a history and a culture for rebellion we also have a massive history and i suggest we look at it again review that 16-year history that led up to the armed rebellion we have a history of civil disobedience we have a history of civil resistance that is highly effective proven effective in times that we're not as good as these when technology and skills and capability and knowledge was not as plentiful as they are today this is plato uh and his great quote at least in regards to this is the price goodman pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men civil resistance is an active confrontational strategy to affect personal change and project personal power it is the antidote to frustration anger the gross missteps of the govern and of culture it also fills an active void between infancy and the threshold of violence please choose wisely thank you [Music] this is will spencer from the renaissance of men here with the new 21 report and socrates thank you good to see you man so you've been at the 21 convention since the very beginning and this is year number 15. uh you know honestly i've been around since the beginning yeah i think that i missed the first three to be really honest uh but this is i wanna say the 11th or 12th year wow uh the 21st time i've been up on the stage it's kind of crazy and um you sit down and you go there's this i used to say there was this nervousness you know about getting on stage that large you know cameras and everything else and uh it's kind of alternative to what i normally do in my life and but you know the reality is it's not so much nervousness as excitement you know the anticipation and desire to perform well and so it's it's always exciting you know whether it's your first time or you know in this particular case the 21st time so when you get to number 25 do you get a gold watch at this point i'm just surprised to keep asking you back you know so yeah it's it's um yeah it's it's amazing because each convention is different each convention has its own identity uh there's different ideas conveyed uh your your sense of time and culture is a little bit different shifted and the environment in which we're talking in uh evolves and changes as well and so to have been at that time period now i sit down and i look forward to the next one because i know it's going to be an evolution of where we were and i always look forward to seeing those modifications and changes and progressions so if it's not too big of a question how has 21 changed in the past 10 11 years at least since you've been coming i it uh dramatically and highly highly dramatically you know initially it was it was a bunch of very young men bootstrapping uh terribly under fathered you know and they were doing a very vigorous and noble endeavor of trying to fill a void in their lives and take on that measure of agency uh the problem is they had the worst instructors in the world themselves and so you know and that's true of anybody trying to teach some stuff and so there was this reaching out and so that there was a kind of an emphasis on where they were felt most vulnerable engagement with women uh masculinity those sort of things and unfortunately at the time period uh there wasn't a lot of really good solid information around that that was reaching them it's not that it wasn't available they may not have been no known to me and you have to deal with the world that you know uh and if you don't know something exists outside of it you're not going to be going towards that source right so as it's evolved i think there's been other speakers other content other ideas that have spread that awareness a refinement of those issues uh and then also um there's gonna be a transcendence you know of what works what doesn't work you have to fed it out and obviously the personalities changed as well you know the people conveying the information i hate to say that the messenger is a message but too often that's truly the case sure um but you know if we take in uh you know the fact that we've gone from young men bootstrapping themselves with masculinity and the ideas of what is it to be a man and the ideal man and to shoot towards that we also look at now a narrative arc of what it is over multi phases of your life and we see that transcending into the patriarch convention you know when you have that sort of stuff of men looking to wanting to be fathers that are fathers what it is about fathering that's so important and then looking in depth multi-generationally uh and then starting last year quite honestly um you know if you believe men and women are compatible and complementary and you want to have a conversation about the nature of human conditions we cannot exclude women from the conversation because it's such a pivotal you know element of our humanity and so bringing them in not just as attendees or speakers but a convention where they feel safe it's directed towards them is segue i think to a greater audience to actually eventually merge together and so i think what you're seeing now is not only did we have these three conventions we had them all three simultaneously within proximity of each other and there was a lot of overlapping a lot of germination of individuals going from one to another and in particular the ladies talking to the guys and seeing what they had to offer and what was the conversations taking place there that we've never had that conversation any other way and i think there's something immensely important and human about looking somebody in the eye and holding a heart-to-heart conversation uh whether it's about dating relationships about life uh the intersexual dynamics finance business any of those sort of things being conducted in person with another living human being well let's talk about the 22 convention this is the second year did you you spoke last year yesterday yes what differences did you observe in the 22 convention how are things looking you know for that innovation now well it's it's interesting you know when we look at these conventions in general uh within the master anybody can cobble together one convention sure you can get out the door once yeah it's the second one that matters you know uh and and so the first one in a very real sense we didn't know who would come what the conditions were going to be uh there was a tremendous amount of cultural blow up over it and part of that was the marketing efforts associated with it it created a tremendous amount of tensions all the way around uh that drove attention but yeah i think um it it's i guess as debatable as how effective that was as far as trying to get true conversation going rather than having you know the the big splash of attention um and so i think there was a very concern and and you know oddly enough i was the first speaker yes and so you're you're one you're doing this for the first time and two you don't know how it's going to be received or what's going to take place uh and surprisingly it went really well um and so there was dialogue you were actually able for the first time to talk to women in this marine you know arena and have a dialogue you know even though we were doing the presentations we're able to speak at length in between and during and now i attended more of those talks than any of the other two specifically because i was really interested in that dialogue um this time around we didn't have any of that you know you didn't have any of the feminist blowback you didn't have any of that it was much more relaxed no anxiety we had return attendees which was fantastic to see which i always like in a normal convention anyways to see where people were what's gone how they've shaped it and they were very inspired about what not only their experiences last year but what they are anticipating this year and then using that to springboard ford for the next year and so we saw a lot more of that and have that sort of dialogue the conversations were continued uh and i just found it a terribly rewarding experience just to be a part of that and you know the attendees that i've spoken to have really enjoyed it as well what did you talk about at 22 years old oddly enough i did not talk about anything with relationships um i talked about civil resistance and particularly in the age of coveted and medical tyranny and the issue on that was i want to talk about culture you know and how people navigate culture and normally i talk about relationships because my concern is that i want people to be able to get along but and to have healthy relationships but if you don't have the skill set going into it you don't want to be learning that on the job you know at a point of conflict or a point of deterioration so you you really are going into a situation with the skills that you have and so when we start with guys with relationships that was kind of the big one if we were trying to improve relationships then you'd naturally want to improve the the your prospects for marriage you know on family development so i've always focused in on that how culture right now is overstepping all that and the the nature of the conversations the nature of things that are taking place uh the tremendous impacts and losses of our civil liberties uh freedoms uh in just blatant blatant disregard uh you know it it we're probably i hate to say the most unscientific moment in our imaginal it's it's it's science fiction stuff i i wouldn't believe the fiction i've always read them right and so there is a natural tendency to be angered by this to be frustrated by this and the anger is immense and unfortunately i think in many ways it's a very very natural human reaction to want to push back and to push back hard and to push back with violence right and if you don't know any other means that's all you use so you know if in for example if we talk about boundary setting within a relationship if you don't know how to manage boundaries appropriately in a relationship you'll manage that relationship inappropriately right and and i see that happening now at a society level scale okay but it's not a matter of i'm going to be a drama queen i'm going to pitch a fit and crash a relationship now we have people that are talking about armed rebellion taking up arms against the state we have people that have done things and i don't want to project because i don't know but i mean you just sit down and say uh january 6 you know where you have the capital insurrection you know the insurrection the instagram insurrection an individual was killed right right was there a better way and i'm not saying that they did their intent for clear just transparent elections were not justified but they didn't understand the nature of true civil resistance and how important discipline and behavior needs to be and so i talked about civil resistance what's that meant and why civil resistance is so much more dominating effectively than violence is you know uh for example most people don't know that armed resistance overthrowing a tyrannical government truly overthrown the government only exceeds a quarter of the time less than a quarter of a time but none non-violent campaigns are typically 45 successful so that's a two to one ratio and and and if you're talking about trying to choose a path i want to be going with the one more successful right now not only that the results of a successful campaign either violent or non-violent are dramatically different the civil societies are dramatically different when violence when violence is interjected into the cultural language and behavioral patterns it gets repeated it gets spread and so one of the quotes i noted was in the last 10 years all those nations that are going through second you know violence and civil strife are using campaigns have typically been birthed 30 years in the past with a violence campaign privately and so when we look at you know so for the cycle it's a cycle and it's a cycle that needs to stop but how do you stop it when you can't trust the other side not to do violence right for sure and which is a you know it's really kind of frightening and if we look at historically when you are overturning ideologies you know the russian revolution you know killed 60 million people installing a social system of communism and socialism right okay the chinese outdid it with 80 million you know in comparison you know let's put it this way in competition and we're talking about the industrialization of killing you know the civil war itself is only 1.5 million people okay in comparison yeah so what do we think the next conflict is going to be and by the way if we're talking with the united states i don't want to be a part of that i don't want to i it's not that i don't want to just be a part of that i don't want to inherit that world i don't want to put my daughter into the world that will exist after that conflict right you know or my grandchildren that's the idea of looking three generations deep you know that right that going deep what type of world are we creating you know and saying is this really what i want to see in this world and so my my talking essence was to teach at least those general facts and to also then and then to sit down and showcase as powerful as some of the images you saw you know so for example on january 6 the administration threw in 26 000 armed troops into the capital area was that well for for the inauguration and to protect it after to to make sure they barricaded it oh yeah the national guard troops yeah yeah everywhere yeah and so was that a projection of power you know so one of the questions i asked is does power flow from the barrel of a gun is not saying tongue states or or is it really the consent of the government and so you kind of go through that and when you have to throw 26 000 troops into a non-armed insurrection that really is a selfie kind of it's a lot of buffoonery right but the reality is in 2003 georgia did the same thing and did overthrow the government because of very similar georgia yes russian georgia yeah because of uh fraudulent elections non-transparency you know and all the things that were in play at that time you know and they insist and they they ended up winning you know they ended up convincing and overthrowing a very tyrannical you know an authoritarian uh illegitimate government and were able to do so so i the powers that be knew that right and so they ended up throwing all these troops in in place out of fear and they felt they had to show power and seize the power and physically show it how how terribly different would have been because remember that evening the capital was cleared out they're back to business had they opened it up doors and had tours walking through the next morning as though nothing happened would we be living in a different world that would have been strength immense strength and trust in the american people but what you saw was a government afraid of the people and afraid of loss of power that they had just seized one way or another and it doesn't spell well when you have a you know every all that background you know taking place in the background and it's not just those sort of things and then you look at all the other behaviors especially with you know them you know i just happen to use coveted as kind of a nice convenient way to ramp kind of guys up to the point of saying hey look let's look at more efficient ways right the problem with civil resistance so in many cases is that they look at destabilizing the pillars of the support of the administration and to do that well you have to look at all the major social institutions that support the regime and to sway them one way or another now it's that's not a passive measure you're you're active right it's a strategy and techniques of persuasion of coercion it's it's confrontation you you are forcing confrontation on it but non-violent all through legal means you know and but that takes decades on average and we don't have decades yeah but i'm an architect i can tell you you can take a building down not by rattling the cage the vertical structure but undermining the foundation and that foundation is the mass of people and we live in a digital age in which we can create content just like this we have the ability to cross-communicate which is why digital social media censorship is so important it's why they're doing it okay our ability to communicate exchange ideas over a broad-based area and if you sway people and then the other one is not only convince them okay but to join you and to physically act on it to march to say no to protest to not accept the narrative those sort of things will stabilize or unstabilize a regime and quite honestly we know that the cliche is that politics lives downstream of culture that's true that's very true obviously okay and politics politicians know that and so why don't we look at force and i think the interesting another fascinating stat was that no movement has failed when they've been able to mobilize 10 percent of the population none it's 100 successful at 10 and the reality is there were some outliers that skewed it the probably the mean for that is about 3.5 and that's based on our researchers and analysis of all these uh conflicts over 120 years wow okay so so nothing has failed at 10 but you can get the job done at three percent uh 3.5 typically so but that's that's if that's if you're overthrowing a government that's tyrannical and violent against its own people where it's out in the open where it's out in the open we don't live in that world right now right now it's it's moving there but right now there's not defense yeah yeah yeah and so i think the number's actually much slower and so if the number's lower and the average the average non-violent campaign has 1.6 percent of the population you're pretty much 45 of the way there so wait so so just to make sure that i understand the numbers ten percent nothing has ever failed average is close the mean you said it's closer to three point five that's correct right and now but like really at one point six percent you can probably make a pretty significant it's it's not it's the one point six percent is the average non-violent campaign average number okay average nonviolence 1.6 high likelihood of success at 3.5 right guaranteeing success at 10. 10 and and what what you're seeing is is that even though we're only mobilizing those numbers there's a much broader support within the population right okay which then sways change okay and it forces people to change the metrics in which they're making the decision so for example southwest airlines uh with the pilots right supposedly there was no strike they just had a business failure even though the administration was literally forcing the mandates down and pressuring them to do i heard it was bad weather you know it was it's just it's florida sunshine it's just too rich sometimes yeah the bad weather that only affects one airliner yeah absolutely so you know you you and that would be one institution of power is unions being able to kind of step together and say no yeah in effect change and what we're talking about is doing it on a larger scale and so when you look at this sheer population size that's why groups are so important large and one of the one of the reasons why i gave the same speech at 22 convention is that if you exclude sex okay as you know most most women are not wanting to pick up arms on general right right you're losing half your population base and by the way the the demographics that's more inclined for social network mobilization early discussion uh alliance making supporting uh enabling things to actually sustain a movement forward tends to be female traits which is one of the reasons why in a lot of these protests and a lot of these voter registration polls and all you see dominated by the groundwork the grassroots are always dominated by women and so soft power because it's not absolutely right they'll call me when i need to get off the couch for the hard power yeah yeah yeah completely right and so when you are able to talk to him and say hey it's not just that we need you we desperately need you now to avoid what's coming you know if violence you know to prevent that violence to prevent that alternative and we need to act now and the other is that we need you to engage your partner okay and this is where men and women are compatible and complementary to our particularly in this realm and so it was really nice to be able to talk to women specifically about that you know as opposed to my 21 talk which was to a bunch of military-aged males guys who are naturally wound up are looking to defend their values and cultures and implement change and can be very easily swayed to join something like january 6 and have that go arrive at this time with violence sure and so you say hey guys just be very careful what you're doing you know there's there's better more more efficient more effective ways and you create the change that you really truly idealize not to make change that becomes even more oppressive more you know and by intent you know uh that that gets mismanaged uh and and so i i sit down and said you know and from my personal perspective if i sat quiet during this time period i i it's not just that i'm missing a moment in time i would not be able to respect myself going forward having not spoken up to have used the platforms that are available to me to be able to convey that information to help not only create a better alternative but to prevent real human tragedy you know and so we backed that all up you know i started out with trying to help individual guys improve their personal lives it grew to helping the relationships marriages families and then in this particular case it's now we're now at a societal level so looking back at the past 15 years of 21 in the past 10 12 years that you've been involved are you surprised like put yourself backwards in time are you surprised even setting aside the socio-political climate of right now surprised that 21 has moved in this direction of family society even larger aesthetic and religious values i you and that's that's another one that's interesting is it it's not just in one vein that that's changing yes brought up religious value i i think the my my favorite panel uh that was recorded the other day on red men group was the religious one uh you had what five five or six individuals up there representing five five or six different nominations and viewpoints on religion and faith and and beliefs in god talk about that in very civil open communicating hate you know in a way what's also interesting is everybody look for areas in which they mutually agree first and then only highlighted hey it's not this is where you're wrong or this is what we believe it's just or let me phrase that it wasn't where you're wrong this is what we believe you know and then profit it that way consensus building first consensus building and that's not something you normally see in most manosphere environments or most environments in general when you talk about that and especially with religion in general oh my god you know the only thing more of a the only other two tops you could have been worse other than that was sex and politics right yeah and and probably almost yeah at some point we're grabbing all three of them right exactly and that's the 21 convention yeah you know but you know to sit down and see that evolution and seeing that change i sorely welcome it you know i in part of me sisana says it's so intuitive you know it was bound to happen because you you have individuals that are truly growing in their interests and everything else that's going to manifest into something bigger but as as ideas share across germany it's it's going to take more than just those inroads as well or you know you'll see a lot of growth going in multiple different directions uh which i think we desperately need in society you know we we've somehow lost that you know um i i i love jack donovan because of a lot of the symbolisms that he talked about about men going out making fires and and that radiating you know idea of light yeah and the notion of men sitting around a campfire and people sitting around a campfire telling stories communicating um and in many cases you see that in other other media so for example um ted talks were 20 minute talks right you know just short sound bites you know this you know short 20 minutes there's something to be said about joe rogan's five hour format podcast in depth at length you know where things are rolling and it's not just the subject matters it's the experience of that evening that i think we've lost that connection in this fast-paced moving culture you know the journey of the conversation the journey absolutely you know and how much more enlightening and fulfilling is that and like i honestly have a hard time um turning on entertainment media to watch a two-hour video or something a movie because what i find is the the reality of a human podcast a human dialogue so much more meaningful and non-scripted and i'm not saying that great fiction and everything else you know i'm tired of the same stories and being redone and everything else hollywood's lost that creative edge that we go back to just holding conversations you know um you know that's fascinating you're blowing my mind right now by the way well it was a whole conversation the other one was yeah i was talking to steve williams and and because i don't get to see him often and he's like great by the way yeah i just love him and and it's one of those things we're talking and he goes you know socrates if i ever won a billion dollars he is you and i i'm going to set a million aside for you and i to do nothing nothing more than to sit on my porch and just sit and watch our kids play and talk and i'm like a million dollars i looked at it and you know i was hard-pressed to think of a better way to spend a million dollars right and you just look at it and go whether you get a million dollars a day let's let's make that happen let's let's make that happen yeah um and i think there's something just magnificent about that yeah yeah well it's something i've been reflecting on lately about how what accounts for the explosion of podcasts like never before in human history ever have we had as much access to people just talking right right that's all what podcast is whether it's a video otherwise it's people just talking you have you know live stream conversations like tony bruno's channel you know and many more like that just hours and hours and hours produced ever like billions of hours at this point who knows of conversation and it's cool that yes the medium is there to do it but what accounts for the interest in it why are we all listening to people talking versus listening to music for example and i think you put your finger on it it's like our creative our our visual media creative institutions radio music movies tv in some sense have failed us our fail have lost their creative edge it's like so what are we as individuals going to do let's create something through conversation yes you know and aj cortez the other day and i'm going to steal this right from him he talked about being a dime store philosopher but man that guy can nail some things like sometimes sometimes it's like 15 cents yeah yeah 15 you get a quarter for it yeah but you know he said something he's that the right now people are desperately lonely oh it's so true you know and so so let's talk about the medium of a podcast i think of the police song you know where you're talking about a message in a bottle and you you take this and i don't have somebody to relate to and and media is such that it's it's i don't want to say it's garbage because it's poor quality it's it's superficial it's sugar it's it's probably certainly not yeah it's it's it's not deep it's not impactful and it's only one way right yeah so very clearly pushing a narrative at the expense of the actual storytelling character yeah absolutely and so when i do a podcast i'm doing two things i'm attempting to be seen and heard and i'm putting my message in a bottle and i'm casting it out into the ocean and then the police on that he talked about waking up in the morning and there's a million bottles washed ashore and i see podcasts and this sort of media very much like that yeah you know the explosion the proliferation of it is that everybody can put a message in a bottle and try to find some connection with somebody globally that's out there that's not on my island of sphere of influence that's out there that we're not in contact right uh and then hopefully that message gets to somebody who reads it you know it's meaningful and i find that conventions like this takes that and brings those islands of people together you know even if it's just for a couple of days you end up leaving with a sense of belonging a connection with other people who are trying and attempt to do similar type things and you you're left with a an experience you know you you live it and breathe it and and it's a journey okay whereas if i sat in and i hate to say it if you're watching this now it's a video it's it's two-dimensional this there's a richness to this that's right that you you just don't have there right and it's different when the cameras turn off because when the cameras turn off and you go behind the scenes or everything that's going on over there you can't capture that or should you right that's the stuff where the real magic happens yes yes and you know what i really love about it too is returning and seeing people overturned as well so it's not just a snapshot right now right it's it's a series and you're able to say where have you been what what have what's gone on with you and have you changed or you know seeing people progress and uh personally i know i i focus on relationships i'm always amazed at the number of wedding invitations i'm invited to or pictures of kids you know you know this is my child or uh you know i've given two talks where i talk about a dad bag you know being a diaper changing i've heard about that yeah no it's it's i never in my life did i ever think i would be ever talking about that but it wasn't it's not the diaper and the changing that i was important it was caring for my child and developing the pattern of behavior that my child knows when it's under duress to come to me you know that it's that the diaper changing was the symptom but the result was i wanted the child to see by behavior that i will be there for them i will hold them particularly when they can't speak you know that they can only cry or you know act and i see that my own daughter and seeing that reflective and just how powerful that that has been you know and to sit down and say i don't i can't afford to wait to be involved in her life later on mm-hmm yeah you know if i if i'm going to have value i have to distribute you know showcase that value in advance lead by example you know and you you teach by doing and part of it was just simply changing the diaper and not just changing the diaper becoming the best diaper changer in the world and it wasn't because i can change the dirty diaper it's because i care for the child i cared for my partner and i actually looked further in depth than the actual act of changing the diaper you know that the child's needs and i took care of all the relationships which then made me absolutely indispensable nobody does a better diaper than i do you know because that they're they're my unit they're my family and that's how you care and protect and provide you know uh ryan mitchell's you know that the element of preside that i actually kind of liked as well yeah so well jack donovan talks about you know strength courage mastery none of the four tactical virtues and right as you're as just you're describing there's something you wanted to do it masterfully because as a man you bring mastery to your life you bring strength forward mastery and honor why not bring it to changing a diaper not for the sake of changing a diaper but this is another area that i can express mastery as a man and i actually use that in part of the talk of course yeah you know and to sit down and literally and it was actually really funny to see jack in the room talking about it right you know and and you just see the the you know he's making the connections that his work is now being utilized for a kid's diaper and just how wonderful that was you know uh and and but there really is something to that you know there are absolutely something to that and he's not wrong and and uh one of the best talks he ever gave was uh one of the workshops it was not recorded and he says let's talk about just this but what happens when your business uses this as a model he talked about business and the four tactical virtues yes what do you think what if you had a business that said this is our mission statement wow we're going to apply yeah you know what would that mean what would that look like and it could be any number of services or products but what happens if you say this is how we're going to do this and what a difference that would make in the world wow and you're just you're struck by that yeah and so i think there's a lot of things that that can be done and leveraged upon whether it's jack or any of the other number of guys that you can take bits and pieces cobble them together and they still work you know and and come up with something new and original and insightful let's talk about the 21 convention patriarchs event what you saw going on there compared to years past and some of the some of the speakers and some of the men the fascinating one on that was that you know the patriarch event was typically for guys that are fathers wanting to be better fathers you know and and um we i we realized that there was this real darth of knowledge out there and so one of the the projects that we did literally started at 21 convention on the side conversation was how do you teach guys to father that or under father themselves while they're in the active father so you're having to on the job teach guys how to father and so we took the notion of a children's book and in saying look you read to a child to be able to teach language to spend time with them to know that they to to relate with the child to sit and hold and to engage them rather than just sort of playing games and we chose a bullying booktube to develop help develop a skill set like how do you teach your child not to get bullied what does that look like and how to start a conversation well outside of them you know like have you seen bullying somewhere else and how bring it forward closer to them so the the notion was always how do we teach men who are under fathered how to father you know and who don't know um we're also teaching men who are fathering in the act be better fathers and then themselves and to expose them to some of the other ideas and so that was kind of the premise and so we we we're doing that it's evolving and developing and growing the fascinating element was there were a number of guys at 21 the young men's group that actually had the opportunity at will to go to the other convention and sit in on those talks that sat then said i would not have paid to come to a fathering event but because it was available i could go next door catch one or two and be exposed to the information to be exposed to that community of men before being fully committed so it's very much like trying something on you know taking it out for a test drive or whatever even if it's just light exposure so we're seeing that now take place as well uh the other is we're also seeing grandfathers show up oh wow really yeah yeah so we always talk about the other we're seeing grandfather's show all new conventions yeah yeah yeah but they're sitting there saying they are realizing because it's a patriarchy yeah yeah is that they they're now you know essentially they're biologically successful right their children have had children in their own that's darwinian successful wow and and they said yeah yeah so but here's here's the difference though they didn't do it with intent they just did it right yeah and now they sit down and say but i miss something along the way how do i galvanize that legacy how do i recontribute how do i start with where i'm at and make something more of it how do i strengthen my family tree at this relatively end stage of life it's not too late so good no really because i think i think we have a very youth-centric culture right completely yeah and we're beginning to change that i think uh particularly with men with the 21 convention and stuff like that where it's like no let's focus on all stages of a man's lifestyle like yes it's cool to be like young and awesome and fit in the whole thing but like let's think about dating let's think about marriage let's think about fatherhood right let's think about this and now i i'm i'm really happy to see grandfathers are coming because there's a real lack of information about that stage of a man's life cycle yes like there are so many different aspects of being a man that crystallized in being a grandfather like yes you can't do the same things that you did when you were like a teenager you know what i mean when you're the you know the calvin klein cover model whatever yes but there's real unique power in a grandfather i was talking to ken curry about this he was saying in a man's voice and in his presence the gravitas that's right yes and i believe i personally believe that a cultivated man and at the elder stage the grandfather stage has more power than like a dozen young men well it's it's experiencing wisdom yeah experiential wisdom gravitas yeah yeah and the interesting thing is and it's and i'm gonna it's it's not that the grandfathers are not showing up they were there from the beginning right and some of them are return returning they've been to everyone the difference no is they're finding their voice they're being seen amongst the group now yes and so even within they're not ashamed of being older yeah yeah and they're not insecure about being there they're actually more willing to talk to the other guys to engage the other guys and in many ways they're ambassadors of the event itself and you're seeing that and so it's with any kind of a group you're seeing them kind of take ownership of that kind of group and security not only within their own families but within the group of men that are showing up right and it's fantastic to see you know some of these guys the older guys show up and to taco you literally go over and talk to some of the younger guys you know finding out what their interests are and being again mentors to other men as it should be you know and and and i hate to say it in part this is why you come yeah you know the idea is that you're not just looking for information you're looking for direct experience people who are role modeling you know and uh you know and we've had father's grandfather speak you know texas dom is one of the guys i just love you know at the convention and he he said something that i know is so true it shocked me the moment i heard it but it's something terribly natural he's literally said that he uses that you'll and and this is a man who just loves his children you know that there's it's not a profession of a lack of love he is it's amazing how much you can love your child and how insignificant your child becomes the moment you see and hold your grandchild i've heard that yeah and he's it allows me to make for amends of all the mistakes and fallacies or inadequacies of me as a man and as a father that i can see past and through that i'm not the individual i'm not i'm not the man in the arena anymore i'm the guiding hand that can help hold and control you know contain my family unit to assist and alleviate where needed and to influence in positive ways and i find that just a tremendous testament to the man uh to his sense of his self his obligations to his family and it's a wonderful wonderful human sentiment i want to i want to ask a philosophical question here because we're just we're in it now i i struck with this notion that in some ways it feels like society has too low expectations for men right in some ways like you know that like uh mediocrity seems to kind of be the norm in many ways right right and celebrating it but it also feels like there's a flip side to that where society has too much like over expectations from it so for example any man is naturally going to be imperfect as a man and therefore will be imperfect in his fathering right and it seems like there's been a generation of kids that came up maybe through the inner work world where it's like my father did this and my father did this and yes there's obviously cases for abuse and neglect and those sort of things but where you take like yeah my dad was a man and he screwed up because he's a man and it's like you got to be able to see that and let that go but it seems like there's a lot of holding on to like my dad should have known whatever whatever this is maybe that why i like jesse lee peterson where he's like have you forgiven your mother have you forgiven your father right but i guess in that it's kind of like what's that divide between the expectation of mediocrity setting the bar too low versus setting the bar too high like you should have been perfect and maybe the 21 convention is like saying no it's okay to be a man and to be imperfect and to always be striving right i i think it's in part you know culture lives lives downstream of so many things right or consciousness and consciousness that's what my friend arthur blood and rain says like politics is dancing from culture but culture is downstream from consciousness it's just right love that what he said and so let's let's talk about what we're infusing our culture with our heroes are not men who who rise above not anymore yeah they're men that massively over chief but that's not the hero we're really selling who we're really selling out in the media you know in the public it's super heroes and men who are no even they're not even human anymore they're being they're fictional i mean there's no attempt you have to be from some far off brought to earth with superman you you don't even you don't have a chance the only superhero out of the whole group that's human that doesn't have some god gift is batman yeah but he yeah and even saying or hawkeye yeah yeah and even then they're they're super human right yeah exactly and he's a billionaire yeah well we'll first start yeah yeah and then it goes from there right yeah yeah uh and so what is what is some kids versus like a luke skywalker who's like some some poor kid living on a desert planet who discovers his innate potential and manifests it and honestly how revolting in your presentation the destruction of that once you see that yeah and it was one of those things where i saw it and i couldn't give voice to it i just felt physically ill and i'd i'd let go of that whole thing for forever and honestly there was only one star wars there's only one i the boys in my the house no no actually star wars star wars even that was a if i really honestly were to look at it was a disappointment to me i mean they should have stopped with one you know and just well yeah yeah just i'm hot take yeah yeah you just pretend pretentious don't talk to me about the other six i don't care it's it's only one done amazingly well yeah um but you know to sit down they had to they had to destroy your god you had to destroy your moderation all of them yeah and whether it's you know not shooting first or any of that you know all that there's been a conscious effort well his son like you know what i mean like that was just horrible and these are our myths these are you know this is the thing all the culture and the myth that's trying that is trying to be important yes right right and so what i find is that if we can culture people with real life people human conditions and showcase heroism in the day-to-day achievable things to grow from there i think we'll have a vastly different culture but right now i think fantasy and fiction have become subconsciously embedded into our consciousness and expectation interesting because i think we're here at this in-person event where men are seeing each other as men right these are the things that we all share these are the things that we all go through we get to see each other's humanity like i had friends coming who had um you know from from my renaissance of men council group who had been uh enjoying the content let's say of so many different creators herself included but like jack donovan and alexander cortez and tanner guzzy and anthony etcetera the whole the whole and they seem almost these men seem almost larger than life through social media especially jack donovan with the with the character i i introduced him as a live-action you know literally a live-action you know superhero yeah and he is he manifests he manifests that and he creates that through social media it's very intentional but then my guys are coming here and they're like okay who are these guys in person right right yeah do they all sit aside behind some velvet rope right right you know with sunglasses on indoors like don't talk yeah i'll sign autographs yeah it's like the vip section of whatever yeah exactly but instead what they found is what the truth is it's like no we're all just men yeah this it is possible to be authentic and to include the larger than life parts of your personality and then to just kind of put that away and be just the guy you are right you know and to go back and forth and to manifest that greatness within yourself and you don't stop being great when you put it away but it's like to show up on social media is different how then you show up in person and that can all be part of being a congruent man yes and i think for men it may be difficult to see that through the you know the fourth wall or whatever right but that's the magic of what goes on here is like no we're all three-dimensional men and human beings and and beyond that it's not just that you see that once or twice or just in passing like in other conventions the p the talent shows up they present they may have a meet and greet and they're out yeah right right here it's four days and for the most part all the speakers stay around they attend the other speeches you have multiple social cigars and talk at length you know and honestly the best times are after 10 o'clock where everyone's sitting around the pool talking or carrying on a conversation you know well you and jack that one year i can remember yeah last year literally i i left you guys late because i knew i needed to get some sleep and i was speaking in the morning yeah and then as i'm heading back to the the convention you guys are literally coming up at daybreak heading back to changing showers up talking and you absolutely knew you guys were talking like and you have that sort of thing yeah and the number of times i've had guys to sit down and say yeah i'm talking here and i'm i'm actually bumping into somebody to my left and i turn and here it is it's aj cortez himself or jack donner or whatever it is and uh one of the guys is like looking at jack and jack has to grab the guys it's me you know yeah and i just you know i i can remember the same thing and i hate it's gonna sound really weird i've done this for what 11 years you know 21 times and i still there are new speakers that i know are coming that i'm excited to speak you know kind of like you're kind of a fanboy myself right like i want to meet this individual you know it's really weird to be able to do that and i value that experience and i know that i have that here yeah abs absolutely have that here and uh i in all honesty i think we need more than just the 21 convention or 22. i think we need a lot more of this in life in the world yeah and this sort of idea needs to grow across the spectrum i agree i agree yeah i think of like ian smith you know ian smith is almost like a a a world leader not a world leader in like the political sense but it's like he's ian smith right and there he is hanging out having dinner having a drink smoking right now it's like oh he's just like right there next to jack donovan like is it is this real life yeah right it is it is it absolutely is and what i like about it is that anthony's done a really good job at not only vetting a lot of the speakers but getting people who are personal and willing to do that yeah and and the interesting enough is that you know there's something wrong when the person doesn't do that it's usually a tell right you know and and so because you'll you'll have it has it really yeah yeah and and being honest having seen that kind of spectrum there are some people have come and gone you don't see them and there's some conflicts there's some and anthony at times will actually have somebody he brings in he completely disagrees with but put some opposite of somebody else to hear two stories you know so uh it was really interesting that very brave yeah brave you know where you have somebody talking about monogamy and religion and how important family is and then bringing in a polygamist yeah you know one two and then have them on a panel um you know interestingly enough we have learned though you don't bring in uh the fit and cardio folks together uh that that usually is a little more confrontational meaning the weight lifting wait wait wait wait folks but it was kind of funny hearing some of this stuff you know where you're on a panel and you know one way or something just kind of leans over and looks you know it's like awesome whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa so it's not that everyone's going to agree here and that's kind of very important you're going to hear you're going to have conflicting information at times people believe very different things uh the religious panel yeah exactly oh my god you know eastern orthodox mormon uh uh protestant christian yeah jax of pagan the first night i you know we're we're at the pool you know the meet and greet after the meet and greet the convention hasn't started yet and um i'm with jeff younger who's you know orthodox i have michael foster as a pastor and we're sitting in and we're starting to have a conversation and they immediately go to religion and it goes deep i mean so deep i i'm trying to even understand the words they're using that have met and i don't know i just sat there and i go i'm just gonna put my you know i figuratively say i'm just gonna keep my foot in the pool you guys just go on do your thing and for the next 45 minutes they had one of the most profound conversations back and forth that was amenable that was sincere honest with integrity with respect and you just sit down and go my god the chance just to be the fly in that wall uh and two guys that would normally you would think would be vehemently vietnamale opposed to each other in the world that would be the case you know religious religious conflict is intense and in what was interesting they like each other yeah as people yeah you know and there's something terribly wonderful about that you know and so i'm really glad that we had that that panel to be able to come up and so that got captured on film you know as opposed to that was an experience i had that not everybody else had because nobody else was around at the moment that now is shared and reviewed and i and i honestly hope that helps bring others in to sit down and say hey we do have these experiences there there is room for a growth it's not just where this thing started you know unfortunately it started with pick up and has all that background well those are the frontiers at the time it really was like this is the this is the new edgy stuff to explore let's explore it but the frontier has moved on but that doesn't mean it wasn't valuable for what it was right and and i view it as kind of like you know the wild west frontier it was this chaos and it was a boom town and in any of those shows of boom towns whether it's the railroad show where they have the stops and there's nothing but tents and all all the debauchery and the stupidity and the gravity it it it was there's no doubt it was but you know it's i've always been fascinating about how either fallen societies or boom towns how they start from that point and then transcend into civilization yes okay and which ones do it well and where it falls and so that's been kind of everybody go ahead sorry finish the thought and and so i see that happening with you know pickup and manosphere and red pill and all that stuff i see the boom town era disappearing and civilization's arriving the roads are getting paved the stores now have you know swinging front doors we now have you know we now have restrooms indoors you know running water right amazing yeah yeah and so i i see in many ways civilization entering into this realm well very literally because we have arthur quan lee you know internationally acclaimed fine artist speaking incredibly and that's the highest level of civilization is the argument is the expression yeah absolutely and not just an artist a man who is a philosopher deeply religious deeply committed to family and express into his art i i just like absolutely awesome yeah absolutely awesome you know as you were saying that what makes me think what really begins to shift the boom town into civilization is the arrival of the law and we kind of gone through a little bit of that and that's it's really ugly you know so for example yeah well you get all the bandits on the outside yeah they're used to kind of having their way with things and then the law shows up it's like the new sheriff in town new sheriff now and it's it's really ugly initially and it's it's messy and that did come and that is a degree of self-regulation and that's that's taking place right and you know um i use the analogy of tombstone which is partial me from being the west and i went to school in arizona the movie the movie yeah very much but it was based on reality that was all based on reality and the the the real life was more fabulous than than the story the movie though the reality of it was much more extreme um yeah and violent and just incredibly violent yeah um but you know you you have this sort of you know how do you get rid of the grifters and is that sort of cleaning up you know the the sheer fraudulent behavior in some of the cases but i think you also need to move on but civilization the other part and it shows up in tombstone as well as many of the other genres is when the arts start to arrive and typically it's a traveling theater that shows up civilizations out and that's when the cowboys that are wearing dirty that that that have just nothing but you know a spittoon and and you know that your whiskey is either poured in you know a clean glass or or you know you know and then that sort of level of behavior and all sudden they're dressing they're dusting themselves off to present even minor errors of presentation and we've seen that with tanner guzzy arriving to the 21 sense of style and everything else and doing it in an unapologetic masculine way very much and so i i've seen that transformation as well and i see that continuing um the guys were giving me a bad time because i happened to wear the same shirt that i spoke in because i never left the convention area right sure and they had come gone well i can get a favorite of your shirt it but they went and got jackets and and and you know a little and they dressed for dinner nice and i'm like boom town right yeah you're just like there was something immensely respectful they're they were representing themselves and they're representing a moment as well this isn't normal we're going to we're going to honor this moment by our presence by how we handle that and i thought well fucking done you know just well done yeah so it's like this is this process of maturation well it also makes me think what about the female speakers suzanne vanker and melissa isaac coming in and and speaking here and these are women with established brands or careers and audiences who've come to complement everything that's already going on like men and women are complementary yes and and it's not only do they have something to say they have something critical to say so very much you know and that was kind of the surprise on the first 22 convention was that we had a guest speaker at the very end that was going that was a woman speak yeah yeah that's right and and sharp and funny and humorous and just in that pure girl next door kind of spirit and health and beauty and she radiates and glows that just absolutely love her and and the only thing better than jen moleska is her partner and husband you know yeah i i love that guy um and and so you have that then you have anthony wanted to increase the more women to talk and that was critical so it's not just men lecturing to women the man was playing the youth of the century like a stall back at you you sell it that way but then you deliver you deliver and and maybe i'm blowing this one too but we're already talking about there needs to be a 22 convention strictly women presenters oh that'd be amazing yeah okay to to get women to kind of do it for themselves to have that venue and say hey look it's not just it's not just men talking to them here you go that that would actually be the ideal i mean i think it's important because this subject has come up multiple times during the weekend that you know women do what while there is this whole thing about mansplaining or whatever right you know there there is an an aspect of masculine authority masculine competence where men can in fact speak to men and yes they can speak to women there's a component i think mansplaining has this implication of being condescending like a man speaking to a woman is nationally condescending right which i think is is a pollution you know it's a corruption of an idea because that's not necessarily true yes of course men can be condescending to men yes of course men can be condescending to women but a man by nature speaking to a woman is not being condescending and so this has come up multiple times during during the convention where it's like women do listen to men who project authority and that's fundamentally incompetence that is fundamentally a good thing and yet women speaking to women as you say about these issues about femininity about masculinity about their true natures is even more powerful because they get the chance to model it in a way that men don't and that you're hitting something right on the head and then we know the reality in many cases the messenger becomes a message yeah medium is the message yeah yeah right and i don't care if you know a lot of the talks we're saying things that we were saying five six seven years ago the facts haven't changed yeah but the difference is if you hear it and it takes that speaker to get that point across and for you to absorb it [Music] that's what we want whatever it takes whether it's me or somebody else or whoever it is we you just keep trying and changing that messenger's messenger you know and if finally you pick it up you know it's like it's like it's a book you've read before and you pick it up again finding also a passage strikes you differently because of the context where you're in it's been there the whole time you've read it before but now this is resonating same thing yeah same thing yeah there's a quote that re reading is rereading so the first time you read a book you're just catching the overall themes and flow of the thing but the second time you read a book that's when you actually read the book yeah i think that's of the 21 convention you've you have enough um other than anthony right who would be the guy on the ground yes knowing exactly the direction no driving the bus you know you've you've seen what you said 11 12 years something of the trajectory of the thing along with a trajectory of the men's space and the trajectory of society like tie those three together oh my you know yeah and i have a a profoundly unfair position um you know because no cheating yeah anthony and i are close physically in proximity yeah and so it's it's not uncommon for him to meet up we go to dinner he comes over to the house we talk and so we're bumping inside absolutely inside our intel back and forth but for the 21 convention and everything else there he drives the bus it is his bus completely i i'm just the the first seat over here look you know taking the tour and yeah yeah i know i i know what technically where we're going on the tour but yeah he's his own man completely yeah but i think he's fine in his own way and his his his life arc is changing you know he's now 33 right yeah yeah yeah and he's a huge transition point for a man yep and here's a man who's gone through marriage in a bad divorce incredibly bad and i was there for that um and you're seeing as he matures in his ark that he's looking ahead and it goes back to when he was a 17 year old punk he yeah and i mean that in a very sincere sincere way just energy and focus and driving conviction but he he knew enough that he wanted to surround himself with mentors he wanted these relationships he had an interest in this so he found somebody he he would believe in you know whether it's ann ran and andrean's past so he found you know the ann ran institute and brought one of their speakers in you know he developed those relationships so he ends up starting with this circle of mentors himself and then he so damn graciously shares that free to the world films this stuff it always at the best that he could afford at the time and what technology would allow the scale of technical production at this event is insane i came last year and i saw it but i didn't really see it right like cameras and photographers and you know angles and lighting and video it's like it's incredible what's going on here yeah and it's invisible the audio yeah completely invisible yeah and and that's that is the backbone and there's all these other elements that that he orchestrates as well for sure like that guy yeah yeah that guy and it what's interesting is seeing that he's open and looking ahead of where his life's going and what's impacting and he's bringing the folks together and the other is he's also very consciously looking at society oh yeah in a very sincere way society is kind of forcing you to look at it like you know fine and any you know you hear them being terribly bombastic about feminism and everything else and he says it in terribly in elegant ways and just very guttural and yeah yeah completely and and you know and part of me goes oh damn you know the messenger and the message you know become linked and everybody can point to that and and they're 100 absolutely right but it's not it's not out of malice it's there is a point to i wish in some cases there you know you you want everything in one body and you're not going to get it right right no no individual is going to embodiment everything but at the same time he has this knack of bringing others along to other voices and he promotes that he pushes that and he does it graciously i i see this kind of moving along and the thing i kind of worry about is that the ideas we're talking about are going to grow and balloons so large that no one individual is going to be able to kind of orchestrate some of this stuff is that one organization isn't going to be sufficient oh yeah yeah from your lips to god's ears there need to be millions of men doing this yeah absolutely absolutely yeah in different ways right masculinity yeah and so an interesting thing is anthony's never had an issue with any of the speakers going and talking at other conventions as long as they weren't competing directly with 21c and that's sure that's just a strange honorable about it we don't need to compete absolutely and where there have been issues with us it has been a very serious broach of faith of trust of relationships they were betrayals and in particularly when they were absolutely pointedly decided to be so yeah and a decision was made shameful yeah absolutely fucking shameful and a lot of it's easy it doesn't need to be that way no it absolutely does not and so i i look forward to the day in which we can have not only other conventions other ideas and not be competitive in nature but supporting and synergy between the groups how can we work together how can we share how can we really how can we ally and support each other yes you know we network with coordinators you know and to grow a tribe beyond 150 relationships because that's the thing you know and which we have the capability to do the internet and yeah yeah right yeah and and quite honestly you know we talk about the messengers you can have different messages saying the exact same things or groups of men but i think their personalities and the leadership styles lend a different cultural influence at hand yeah and we need to find it it's almost like you know a religious experience you know shopping for your church you know that sort of thing you know and i don't mean it just in a religious way you know it could be a financial issue it could be a a nutritional health yeah exactly whatever whatever whatever it is going into the marketplace and finding the thing that suits your needs you're right you know and in many cases i think there's almost too many different things going on sometimes on these conventions because you don't have a chance to really dive deep into yeah watching like between conversations in the hallway conversations by the pool individuals meeting two conventions you know which was the power of the patriarch convention okay okay you know so it's men about fathering it's no longer about all these other stuff oh sure all directly yeah that's for 21c got it but i can see eventually that kind of factoring out where you have a specialty breakout conference for you know within the other summits or an afternoon you know like this afternoon we're covering this set of topics with this speaker so you know you know okay so i'm interested in finance and fitness and father okay yeah and one of the things i like too is the the notion of the breakout workshops where you can go deeper and the thing that i really like about that is that they're not filmed so yeah you you have a discussion you have a talk they get a sense of who you are um and now you don't have to stand in front of a microphone and be filmed and ask a question or even try to you know god forbid president in front of a crowd yeah and then i'm trying to say something that doesn't look foolish and ask a question or whatever and then and more importantly at the same time yeah having a discussion you know and so uh that was really kind of neat you know and being able to you gave you hosted a workshop didn't you i did yeah it did yeah and it was really interesting i i actually was concerned that the guys because i intentionally avoid the the notion of violence right you know i bring it up and i talk about the risks and everything else yeah like you said earlier in our conversation like let's avoid that as a societal outcome yeah in societal income and i didn't want the non-film portion to be hey what what's your recipe for syntax by the way exactly you know by the way guys you know if you put these two products together you know uh you know if you place this here you know i and i did not want that don't google that yeah uh you know and and but somebody did talk about when do you defend yourself and i even said there there is that threshold there there is a moral responsibility and even the law acknowledges that yeah correct but the thing is it's already baked into the cake right as a society we have these laws and regulations and the military is constrained by military law for sure okay with civilian oversight some amount of international law as well right yeah 100 but when you act independently yes you are 100 responsible for that and man that is some really thin ice out there yeah really thin ice for many reasons yes and the rest you know so one of the nights sat down and told the the the the patriarch group have you had to talk about what's your family going to do when they lose you and we know your wife is going to remarry right we know in the military we talk about jody the guy who's sleeping with your wife while you're deployed what do you think is going to happen when you're down we also know in the military it's not uncommon for guys who serve closely even like let's say police forces guys that serve closely together when you lose a partner that your former partner and your spouse get together out of related trauma and it's a huge it's it's terribly human you you can feel skeezy about it you can set up an a very real human issue this is how we resolve pain and trauma and all sorts of stuff are you willing to have that conversation are you really okay with saying hey um because my willingness to serve my nation and take up arms i'm going to turn my wife into a single mother and my children are going to have all the effects you know this is what you have at risk this this is what's at stake if you choose violence it's not a conversation about men who joined the military yeah absolutely it's about men who choose violence as as as their preferred media mean of resist means of resistance well what if that doesn't go well for you what about your family you know what that's what we're talking about military service members yeah absolutely yeah but but let's let's go there for a second and because it's one of the things i i wanted to talk about i didn't um we had service members killed on the afghanistan withdrawal one of the most egregious was the young man who had a newborn that was due to arrive yeah and i look at this as from a men's rights perspective it was like did that young man that young man need to go no and the answer is no could somebody have served his class right right and and i and do i fault his command no but at the same time i fault the higher command if that we have a nation that hasn't looked at that and said you know what you're deploying into a combat zone you're in a combat position you're expecting father and as an american value we're pulling you offline so you can see your child and we're going to send somebody else instead okay yes i'll add some nuance to that the nuance of that would be like i don't know um i haven't served but i don't know if you can say like well we're gonna provide exceptions for service with men who have newborns coming or just born like within whatever some let's say arbitrarily six month window i think i don't know if you can do that but i know what you can do is you can say the the leaders of the of the higher military hierarchy up all the way up to the commander-in-chief take accountability for the loss of every single human life due to their incompetence and so like you may not be able to say to prevent the man from being killed but you can say my failure of leadership is why this man was killed and i take personal accountability for that and to feel the grief of that of the loss of that man and the child that will never know his father and to have some compassion if it's something i i will take it one step further i think as a nation we have an obligation to that mother and a child to step into their lives and support them that's right that's right you know very much like how jeff younger was talking about when you see a service member deploy who mows their lawn who's taking care of this who's making sure their kids are getting to karate class or boy scouts or girl scouts or whatever the case may be and as a society i think we have an obligation to do more than just you know aggrieve to the widow and say my condolences right yeah men are expected to be superheroes those are our myths right but men are also disposable like square that for you right you know what it means you have to be the super human thing he was able to do all the things and man up and when we tell you to but we don't need you whatever yeah sorry well and the other one is i was struck by the image of the female marine as well that was killed that days before she's literally creating cradling a child and this isn't just an enlistment she's an nco you know a non-commissioned officer an officer in the marine corps skilled competent dedicated and she literally in her social media post just prior to her death says i love my life i love what i do and i look at that and go that's the greatness of our country you know that we have individuals like that men and women serving in armed forces doing exactly that and i never knew her in life sure but i think she's that's a memory of her and what she did through her death and that's that's not lost on and i i think there's something to be said tremendously about that i'm so grateful that we have this platform to talk about these issues as men you and me 21 or 4 21 convention because these conversations aren't really happening in the same out in the world or aren't happening in the same way framed in the context of masculinity try try to tweet that and in all honesty i tried a number and it just it it falls flat and then and then you and i and i see this and it bothers me because and the reason one of the reasons why i'm bringing up now is because i know that this is a platform which others will see sure is that i felt impotent in my inability to tongue that to to speak that truth um that it just it didn't give that weight that sense of loss that sense of value and appreciation and i know there are other men and women out there doing that today you know that stand ready to do that they're volunteering uh i i'm just dumb struck by that i'm dumb struck that after all this we still have people willing to do that yeah we've got several powerful social media outlets instagram you know uh twitter etc youtube escalates that well tick tock is a small form youtube escalates that to long-term video podcast escalates that to long-form audio absolutely but there's still something incredibly powerful about getting together in person to have these discussions that you know by breaking down these digital walls and actually being face-to-face well and i would say our conversation right now is kind of reflective some of the things that we would probably have with a drink in our hand exactly yeah yeah completely yeah exactly and and i i just i i i long for it my own personal life i look forward to it and it's one of the reasons why i just keep coming back yeah uh and i joke with anthony it's like whether you have me up or not i just want to attend you just where are they to be here one one way or the other can i just want to touch on one on one more issue um it had come up earlier and the thought was in my mind like we have all these men doing all these different things with masculinity how do we get them all going in the same direction and the word that came to mind is harmonize we don't all have to be singing the same note in fact we shouldn't be singing the same note how do we take everything that we're all singing together with the different themes and how do we bring them together into one chorus for maximum volume you know it's interesting uh i think it's very much like driving you know when you're first starting to drive you you're not looking past the steering wheel like it's literally what's two feet in front of the bumper right yeah and i think there's a lot of men that are focusing on their specific issue and they're looking just at that just right what's right in front of the car and when we start getting more people on the road we're worried about bumping into each other and there's going to be a degree of that but i think when we think aspirationally we're looking way down the road and it's so much easier to drive a car when you're looking way down the road and responding in time with things much further out and so if i think if we're going to harmonize we need to think aspirational what are our real goals what what does success look like [Music] yeah it's a vision and so for right now i would sit down and say the manuscript has very much lacked that we we kind of we're looking inward what we want what we want to gain but we're not looking at something yeah yeah we're not looking at you know like when between two people there's a relationship there's you there's me and then there's the relationship we're not looking at the relationship and where where does this relationship want to go you know this this this energy and so how do we bring other people into other information and i think we we've kind of in many cases lost a narrative of where is this kind of arc going and what what are we truly looking to achieve and i think if we're going to have a group of men that are concerned about that that that kind of needs to be answered it needs to be identified clearly and i think that message needs to be created and then i don't want to say profess but it needs to be released to the publicated yeah propagated yeah it was a great word and i think we're missing that component um get that right and you're on top of a rocket you are on top of a rocket it sounds amazing yes it is i i i hope to take that right i hope to either whether any and i say that living in central florida where it's almost kind of like watching nasa of i'm not involved in that but i get to watch it you know and there's something magical about watching a rocket take flight you know all this energy and technology all in a little thing at distance and all the hopes and ambitions are the thing just sort of launching and going and going going and you know it's not safe until that final separation and you know it's hit orbit and there's something about watching that crest over the horizon into the darkness and just saying godspeed thank you socrates thank you this is will spencer with the renaissance of men here with the new 21 report and socrates thanks for watching [Music] you