 People all across this great nation are in pain. Your most effective talking point are these magic words. Less than 1% of people get addicted to OxyCotin. That's not possible. We're going to do everything in our power to make sure justice is served. That's a clip from the Hulu series Dope Sick, a show about the whole OxyCotin and opioid crisis, which of course is so tragic, so hard to hear. But I think we have to go there because first and foremost, Dope Sick is really about the corruption of science. And that's really a great tie-in to today's guest, the very excellent Ricky Verandes creator and host of the Ripple Effect podcast where he has interviewed some of the most top-notch scientists, people who just have stellar academic and publishing credentials, but are being banned, of course, and suppressed because they don't follow the pandemic dogma and you just can't get a better example, I think, hard example of the corruption of science than that. So we do talk about that, but if you've listened to Skeptico, you might anticipate that I pulled Ricky in some other directions as well. For example, we do not want to get pulled into another one of those protracted medical discussions. What we want to understand is the driving force behind this, something that we could identify as good old-fashioned evil. So I do realize that this is a drama I've been pounding on for a while, but it always generates such an interesting discussion. Because you don't want to go there, Ricky. That's where I'm pushing you. That's how to get Skeptico. It's not just about pleasant conversations. It's not just about everyone has an opinion and I'm going to start a commune in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Oh, even better, I got my seed stacked up in the garage and, you know, I can last. Obviously, none of that works because I'm on some kind of grander spiritual level. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? No, absolutely it's evil. And I think that a lot of the people who are the most outspoken, the people that I've talked to Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Carrie Maday, Del Bigtree, Mickey Willis, all these people are spiritual or religious. And they're the ones who seem and I could go down the list. You attempt to scare the shit out of the population for 18 months and worked on in many cases. There's a lot of people out there who truly, truly are afraid. So I think there's true believers. There's some people who truly are pushing or helping the evil people who have a greater agenda, who aren't true believers in the nonsense that they're pushing onto the public, but using these people as pawns. Ricky is really doing some great work with the Ripple Effect podcast. And with the Union of the I'd Wanted show, terrific show he co-created along with Charlie and Mike and Sam Tripoli. So it was great having him on and having this kind of dialogue, even though I had to do a little bit of the skeptical thing because, well, that's really where I'm coming from. I mean, we don't want an echo chamber. We don't want to replace an echo chamber with another echo chamber. We just want to get to the truth. And sometimes the truth is messy. Here's my interview with Ricky Verandes. If you like it, share it around. Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I'm your host Alex Cares. And today we welcome Ricky Verandes to Skeptico. Ricky is the creator and host of the very popular and very excellent, great, great interview based show, The Ripple Effect. And the co-creator of the podcast that probably has the best chance of saving the world and all of humanity. The Union of the Unwanted. I was on Ricky's show a few weeks ago. It was really great. A little bit uncomfortable at times, but I'm always uncomfortable with the uncomfortable. And Ricky was right there with me. I think we really kind of had a deep dive into some stuff we might pick up on some of those threads. But what I really wanted to do is introduce you to this guy and his awesome work if you're not aware of it. So Ricky, welcome to Skeptico. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Alex. I really appreciate it. Well, like I said, I think we're going to have, you know, I think we're going to have a good time. Maybe, right? But the first thing we ought to do is I gave this kind of introduction, but actually we first turned on the screen, man. You have your guitars in the background of people, you know, most people are listening to the show or not watching it. But yeah, it's a very cool studio and that's where Ricky started. And then I'm also showing the shows on there, The Ripple of Fact, The Union of Wanted and Ricky Rants on Rockfin. So tell us how this all got started for you, Ricky, and a little bit about these shows. I will, but before I forget, I've been meaning to ask you, when you come to Rockfin, are you ever going to maybe post there? Or have you contemplated going over to Rockfin? Because it's a great platform for people like you and I who are willing to kind of go wherever the conversation takes you and talk about maybe fringe topics or things that are slightly controversial because it's uncensored. You don't have to worry about it. And have you had any issues with YouTube in the past? Not the kind that most people have flying under the radar. We're just both good and bad, you know? But you know, I was talking to Charlie about it and I'd welcome that. I'd also, we'll have a separate conversation about that because I think what you guys are doing has really does have a lot of potential. And you know, I was on The Union with you last night. You were so nice to invite me on. And it was awesome. It was depressing because it was truth oriented. And even though people wanted to point to solutions, it's a pretty grim situation that we're in, but better to face it like you guys did on The Union of the Unwanted than to pretend it's something different. So big congrats to you all for putting that together and doing that. And yeah, I'm open to I'm open to whatever works in the in the larger sense. And I know that's what you're doing to you're just trying to figure out, you know, what makes sense to do. Yeah, I mean, I'm one of those people that and, you know, you come from a business background. And I also have kind of been in the corporate world a little bit slightly a lot of my life right after high school. We started a family a family owned construction company. My father had a previous construction actually two previous construction companies with partners and both of them didn't work out. And he just like screw it. It doesn't matter how well you think you know somebody wants money gets involved as as most of us know things change. So he's like, I'm not going to start another company unless the kids want to help because he's a I was born in Portugal came to America when I was four. But my dad grew up most of his life there. And then when he came to America, he came to Ludlow, which was a town not too far from Springfield, Massachusetts, which some people might know because of basketball Hall of Fame and whatnot. And it was a huge immigrant population, tons of Polish people, tons of Portuguese people right off the boat. So even till the state people like how's your dad been in this country for so long. And he still doesn't speak as good of English as you expect him to. And I'm like, because he's never really had to he goes to Portuguese butcher shops, Portuguese bakeries. He's worked for Portuguese people most of his life until he worked for himself. And even when he worked for himself that was kind of the deal was that my dad would be out in the field taking care of that stuff. And then he would have a partner that would be a little bit more book savvy and savvy with the language, which also made it easier to kind of for him not to know what Yeah, yeah, I was trying to be nice, but you're right. Yeah, you can kind of see where this story was going. And yeah, so without a doubt, but coming to America and kind of just seeing the whole capitalistic kind of a world. You know, I think something you taught I'm now I'm getting I'm losing my train. I thought a little bit. I'm moving into something. What was your question before I continue this thought and go somewhere where maybe No, please, please continue because I think it's your background and how you got into all this stuff and what you bring to it. You're because what you're kind of talking about, I think is part of the perspective that you bring, whether it's explicit or just kind of baked into it, you know, it's cool. You have a different a different perspective. It's a it's a first generation kind of perspective kind of guy. Yeah, so so we I ended up working construction with my father. We had a small business with the family. My brother and I decided to help my father out with the with the book stuff and all the stuff that he was kind of restricted to. So we would handle anything that he couldn't do in regards to reading, writing emails and as time went by. Well, we started in 04. So it was right after high school. Well, I graduated in 03. We started in 04. And at that time, really, I mean, you could kind of get away with a handshake and there was there wasn't nearly as much paperwork as there is now. Now it's like I spend so much of my time in the office just catching up with paperwork and certified payrolls and all this, you know, some middles and all these requirements working for the state. And that's a whole nother conversation. I mean, working in Massachusetts, it's such a headache. I mean, just so much paperwork. So and this really kind of highlights some of the issues that a lot of like libertarians talk about how governments and a lot of a lot of what they do really just gets in the way, you know, and you can kind of see that and it really benefits the bigger companies because smaller companies like us, we have to do all the same amount of paperwork and deal with all the same certificates and requirements. But we have a small office, it's me, you know, so it's like, I don't have a lot of help. And, you know, this is all stuff that doesn't really, you know, you don't make any money doing it. It's just stuff that you have to do to eventually do the work to make your money. But anyway, so to make a long story short, that's kind of the world that I got caught up into. I was a musician initially, and then as you get older and things like work and all these other things get in the way. The band just became impossible to keep together. It was just impossible. And it was, I'm one of those people that I'm kind of OCD. And when I start a project, I, I don't like all I do is think about it and think about how to expand it and how to make it the best thing ever. And when people aren't investing the same amount of mental energy and effort, you kind of get discouraged. So I started doing music on my own. And this was right at, you know, I started doing it basically sometime after high school when the band broke up. But that got really hard, too, to kind of find time to do all that produce a whole song on your own, all the music you hear on the Ripple Effect podcast is all my original music. But it takes forever to do that. It's time. I mean, it's super rewarding because as you know, anything that the more work it takes to accomplish something, the more rewarding it is after it's done. But, you know, I just, it really did get difficult to put out music at a rate that I that was satisfying. And podcasting was just one of those things that that I really got attracted to because I was doing a lot of commuting for work. And I'm like, oh my God, I love documentaries. I love reading and I love learning. I can do basically learn the same type of things I was learning from documentaries and books. But in the car, I can listen to a conversation, listen to really thought provoking conversations that were organic. And to me, that was like the really important part that I think people really liked was how organic podcasts were. You know, you turn on the TV, there's agendas, you turn you read a newspaper, there's, you know, narratives that they're pushing on you. So you I always felt like, okay, the whole world is trying to sell you something and they have a narrative that they're pushing on you. And podcasts were at least the ones that I was listening to. And I know there's now like corporate podcasts or whatnot, but the ones I was listening to seem like a organic conversation, the type of conversation that you and I would have if we're at a bar. And we're just bullshitting and talking and, and, you know, it leads here and then it goes there and all these things. So it makes it to me that that that was the appeal to it was listening to, to, to real people just share ideas, challenge ideas. That's why, you know, I always said I enjoy what you do in regards to your, your willingness to kind of push back a little bit because I think that is when you learn and you don't want to be in an echo chamber. I, I also think that's why the union then wanted is such a popular popular and unique show, because we we do a little bit of everything we bring people from all different backgrounds and researchers and different thinkers and we don't always agree. But it's nice to, to bring those ideas together and then see them challenge in real time and see people discuss them and agree and disagree because that's where you grow and that's where you learn. So I eventually got in a podcast, like, like I said, and after a while, I, I'm like, you know what, I have this recording studio, I have this equipment, I know how to record vocals, I know how to use pro tools. I use the software I use for my music and I'm like, why not start a podcast? And I had a co-host that I had to talk him into it. He's a little older than I am. And he's like, what the fuck's a podcast and why would anybody want to just hear us talk? And I would tell him like, listen, when we go out and we have these thought provoking conversations where we would either share some personal stories or share some some really deep philosophy or something interesting that's going on in our lives or something interesting that we've read or watched. We enjoy those conversations. That's why I would say time flies, right? You're, you're talking, you're at a bar, you're at the gym, you're at the grocery, grocery store, wherever you are. If you have those type of deep conversations, the time just flies and you, and it's really enjoyable. And I'm like, all we're doing is recording those conversations, sharing them with the world and hoping people enjoy them as much as, enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoy having them. And the concept to him initially seemed so, because I guess on the surface level, the idea of just recording two people talking and putting it out there seems ridiculous. But when you really put it in perspective and you're like, okay, well, do I enjoy having these conversations? Do I enjoy conversation? Do I learn from conversation? Do I enjoy meeting somebody who has a really interesting thought-provoking perspective and talking to them and kind of dissecting the way they think and some of their life experiences? Well, I do. Then why wouldn't other people enjoy that? And so it's really cool to archive those conversations and share them with the world. And as the Ripple Effect podcast grew, it, one, it became an example of the Ripple Effect, because the whole idea was, or at least the initial thought was to start a ripple, regardless how little or how large it might become, do something. Because I was kind of doing a, and still kind of am, doing a fulfilling job that really doesn't give me a purpose. And I felt like something was missing and that I've always been very artistic. So it also helps, helps with kind of flexing that muscle and exercising that muscle of doing something creative. So it, because again, I think when you get older, you kind of get in a routine, you do a job and it becomes very repetitive. And your thinking becomes repetitive, which I think can be a huge issue too, which is why I think traveling or doing psychedelics or anything that gets you out of the same pattern of thinking is beneficial. Like just get yourself out of a routine from time to time, do something that's difficult, do something that's different, do something that will just make you look at things maybe from a different perspective. But it gave me a sense of purpose. And I'm like, you know what, regardless of one person listens or a million people listen, at least I'm going to feel like I'm doing something. And then as I became a parent, you know, we talked about this when you're on my show, it was really interesting for me to think about my kids being able to listen to their father before becoming a father and through the whole experience and listening. I mean, it's interesting for me to listen to myself years ago and just see where my ideas were and my thinking was and then see it progress. I think I'll even be more interesting for my children, which, you know, they'll go back and be like, okay, what was my dad like when he first became a father? What was my dad like when I was six, when I was seven when I, you know, or just seeing who he was when he was really young. And I think that's that's all super interesting. And I think many of us deal with this issue of not having some sense of fulfillment or purpose and we are just stuck in the system. And that's a whole another conversation that we could, you know, also get into. I'm a big fan of Dr. Christopher Ryan. I think we might have mentioned him. Maybe we mentioned him when you were on my show, who wrote civilized a death. He's been on my show some years ago. And I just love this idea of question like what the hell is progress. And he Christopher Ryan always says this he's like, if the winners right if the game is financial and getting all these material things which is basically the the goal of most people. And it's a goal that's not really something that's internal that we've decided this is what we want. I think it's a lot of its society and marketing, you know, Edward Bernays and propaganda all these techniques of getting you to want things that you don't actually need. I think it convinces us that like, okay, if I go down this road of getting all these things, then that's what success is. And that's also what leads the happiness. And I think many of us go down that road and find out like, okay, I'm not happy still what the fuck's wrong. And then you start self medicating or you end up just trying to find purpose or if you don't end up finding purpose you end up depressed and full of anxiety and it leads to a bunch of issues. So I think it's really important for people to find something they love, pursue it, even if it's not financially. It's not a good idea in regards to finances. Do what what you enjoy my parents are old school, like foreigners who grew up on a farm and came to America to financially get ahead. And I remember always arguing, not arguing, but like butting hands with my mother on anything I want to do that didn't get me financially had it was like, well, you know, what if you get hurt playing basketball? What if you get hurt playing soccer? What if you get like, what do you are you making any like the first question at any time I do anything and I'm a little bit proud of like, oh, I released my first podcast, you know, the first question out of my mother's mouth is, oh, are you making any money doing it? You know, or I released some music first solo music. Oh, great. But are you making any money doing it? You know, it's like all it's always like and I think a lot of it's like the the immigrant mentality of you come from a place where you're poor. You had no running water. You came to America took this giant risk to get ahead financially. And then there's maybe some of that because my wife has a grandmother I would talk to a lot about. She grew up during the Great Depression. She passed away not too long ago, but I remember talking to her and it always seemed like because she went through such struggles, there's always she was almost traumatized by those struggles. And she was always concerned about possibly going back to that place. So now she was like, even though, you know, she's a good saver and she worked her ass off her whole life. So money wasn't really issue. She always you would never know it because she was always acting like money was issue by, you know, trying to find every place to save money or whatnot. And I almost think the anxiety of money growing up because when I came to America and believe me, I wasn't poured to to the extent that some people were poor, you know, where you don't have food and water or whatever. I mean, I had the necessities growing up, but I didn't have anything past the necessities. I didn't, you know, I had to hand me down clothes. I had all so and money was always a topic that I remember my parents just stressing about like how do we cut corners here? How do we save money here? Don't spend money there, you know, and I think it even internally subconsciously somewhere it caused a a relation where like money was I always had this relation of like negative feelings. It was like anxiety fights arguments. It was so growing up like I almost went in the other direction where I'm like, I want to not think about money at all. I'm like that artist where I'm just like I just want to do what I love and just hope things fall into place and not have money be in the back of my head all the time influencing every decision I make and everything I do. And you know, one thing I always tell my friends, it's like, you can make more money, you can't make more time, you know, time is the most valuable thing. And it's like if I'm out, you know, on vacation with my kids or, you know, out to my wife, and we're like, fuck it, we're going to drink a little too much. And we're going to get a hotel, you know, this is before kids when we could do spontaneous things like this and get a hotel and and maybe overpay for the hotel because we want to have a good time tonight and we want to be responsible and stay locally and not drive home. Fuck it, let's just have a good time. You know, and that was always like, I'm like, I can always make more money later, you know, and so all these things kind of factored into my thinking and, you know, now I'm going into a bunch of just childhood stuff that I think, you know, just influences who you become and who you are, which is always interesting, you know, just like going back and reflecting on your childhood and then trying to figure out, okay, what had a negative or positive effect on me or what influenced me that molded my way of thinking and my thought process now. And I think we all have that, right? We all have things that we can look back at and be like, okay, I think that had a bigger impact on me than maybe, you know, anybody thought would at the moment, you know. And so it's fascinating. It's all, you know, it's all part of kind of, you know, putting those pieces together and figuring out yourself and figuring out the world around you, which is I guess the goal of my show and the goal of all of it. I think it's similar to your show. One thing I love about your show is that it's those big questions that you talk about. And I think those big questions aren't asked enough. And I think we're both very similar. I've heard you say this too, about how you're not a religious person. I'm not either. But I appreciate the fact that religious people do ask those questions or people who are in the philosophy ask those questions. And I think that there's a lot of people who are just robots going on with their day and never ask those questions. And sometimes it's too late by the time you realize like, maybe I should be asking those questions because I've been living a life without purpose. Or I've been unhappy and I've been masking it with this or that. And so I, yeah, I think podcasts are absolutely important because if you don't have religion, if you don't have a church or if you're not interested in philosophy, maybe you might listen to a podcast that might help you self reflect a little bit and ask those what I think are super important questions. Tell us about the Union of the Unwanted. And tell us in particular, you know, when I talked to Normies, and I talked to a bunch of Normies on my show too. And I, I don't want to claim like, you know, that's like a complete goal of the thing. But it just turns out to be, I mean, I talked to who I'm going to bring them up on the screen. I talked to Scott Shea. What an interesting conversation. Because probably a billionaire or close to it started a huge bank in New York and just wrote a book on conspiracies in academia, but he's just focused on conspiracies against Jews and anti-Syanism and Zionism. And we had a really interesting quote. He was very good because I really challenged him on that, but he was really able to kind of be there. You know, Pam Popper, we both just talked to recently, and I think we could talk about that in particular in what has to do with science. But who else? Oh, these people, you know, Sarah and Jack Gorman denying the deniers. These are two people that have PhDs from Columbia. Jack is still teaches at Columbia. And I guess the reason I bring it up is, you know, what the union of the unwanted does that like these Normies that I'm talking about those people that have been on the show and I could go through all the list, you know, I could go through the last 10 people that I've had on the show, eight out of 10 of them would not understand the basic purpose, the need for union of the unwanted. They don't really get, and I guess I wanted to kind of bring this up and have you talk about it because you have personal experience with this. Being banned being banned for no fucking reason. You're interviewing a top virologist recognized, you know, in medical journals, and you're being banned because you're interviewing that guy. This is to like you and I, and the people you have on the union of the unwanted, it almost just kind of rolls off your back without even thinking of it. But I want you to speak for a minute at that kind of basic level so people get a sense for who are the kind of people that are being snuffed out of the dialogue and systematically just remove from a scientific discussion. You get you get the whole thing what I'm saying, right? Yeah, well, I was recently banned on YouTube. The funny thing is, we use YouTube TV at home when they canceled my YouTube channel. I couldn't I found out because in the morning, YouTube TV wasn't working. And I'm like, what's going on here? You know, I went to go put on the TV and it wasn't working. And then I found out that my channel was canceled or deleted. And and then they still charge me for YouTube TV and I had to like contact them like, listen, you guys, you don't everything that was under that Gmail account. I had no access to anything like they just basically like, no, you don't exist. And so we end up, you know, obviously I had to create a new Gmail account for now I have a YouTube channel with clips or whatnot. But the stuff that I was getting flagged for was and getting in trouble for word stuff with doctors, which is kind of surprising because I'm like, they're going to get me for when I have maybe a researcher who doesn't have a doc, you know, doesn't have a PhD somebody who who doesn't practice medicine, that would that would make more sense. You know, but when you're specifically going after, you know, I think Dr. Robert Malone, I mean, all these doctors that had on and their shows were being flagged. And actually the first show that got flagged, I believe was Kevin Sorbo, Hercules, which was hilarious because I'm like, okay, well, I didn't think he said anything too controversial. But, but they're picking and choosing what narrative you're going to be able to see. And they're, I mean, it's so deep. When you think of the analytics, the information that they gather all the great minds and software that they have, they know exactly what they want you to see how it affects who you are and what you become and how you think. So it's, it's scary, you know, it is scary, but the censorship issue, this is why when I went to rock Finn. Initially, I was because I truly believe in the idea of open source, right? I'm a big fan of James Corbett. When when way before I started my podcast, I was a fan, he was one of the first guests on my show. And I love this idea of open source, like I don't care if I get the clicks, I don't care if my website gets clicks, put put the information anywhere you want upload or whatever. And I'm like, I love that because it shows that he's about the message, he's about getting these conversations out there. He's not about, you know, making money. And if he and he takes donations, obviously, if you can make money, he can do it full time, which he ends up doing. And that's one of the reasons we get the product. But he had faith in the people that were getting value out of his product that they would contribute. And then that ended up being the case. But, you know, so these alternative platforms, I, you know, I never monetize on YouTube, because I was always concerned about like, kind of, you know, for a lack of better term being a business partner with, with YouTube, I'm like, I never monetize. I always age restricted my stuff. And I think I went under the radar for a while. I remember when Dr. Robert Malone was on my show, he, he contact me like a day or two later, he's like, how the hell is our interview still on YouTube? I'm like, I don't know. Honestly, I'm like, I feel like I'm going out under the radar. And it's okay. And I don't know if the algorithms were confused to because I would have somebody on like Professor Richard Wolf, who's a, you know, socialist and Marxist scholar, and, and, you know, goes on shows just to talk about those topics. And I would have a Lee Kamp on who's, you know, a left leaning, like progressive comedian, and then I would have somebody on like Roger Stone or whatever. So I don't know if maybe there were, because you look at the QAnon people, or the like the real hardcore Trump people, they're the ones who were eliminated first. And I'm like, so I kind of had a little bit of hope that I'm like, maybe I'll go under the radar, not because I care about YouTube. That's the other thing I want to emphasize. It's because shows like yours and other shows that are still on YouTube that go against the grain. Like it's they're necessary because the people who are going on rock urban or odyssey or bit shooter rumble or any of the other websites you can find the video version of my episodes. There are people who most likely already have similar views or at least intrigued with those alternative perspectives, but there's a lot of, you know, user word normies. It's true. There's a lot of people out there fall. It's not a fall of their own. Like they might have never been exposed to something that truly shattered their their world view. And if I can reach a couple of them on YouTube, because that's unfortunately the majority of people when they're searching for information, they're using Google one and they're using YouTube second. It's the second biggest search engine in the world. So to be able to reach some of them would would be good. I think it's a good thing and it's necessary. So it's a shame that they're getting rid of everything. I mean, obviously, it's not about money. It's not because there's some big channels that have been removed off YouTube that I'm sure make them some decent money. I mean, you look at what's his name on the right wing show, Crowder, he was a, you know, another guy who's been getting in trouble and fighting with YouTube. I mean, his show, it's a huge show. I'm sure they make YouTube a lot of money. So it's like, it's obvious it's not about the money. It's about the narrative. It's about a greater agenda. And, and the Union don't want to came from that because what happened was, even though I wasn't banned until recently, I would get warnings from time to time on my YouTube channel. And a lot of other people that were friends of ours, especially during 2020 were getting banned or censored or deleted off all the major platforms. So it was, it actually came from the origin of the Union unwanted came from like, I always enjoyed doing swap cast if you go back, you know, in my archives, you'll find a lot of shows where I'll combine a couple guests. And just because I think we can all bounce things off each other and it would, it would lead to really interesting conversations. So I was always a fan of those. And then I ended up being on Mike's OBDM show. And Charlie, it's like, Hey, you were just on my favorite show. And I'm like, Really? He's like, Yeah, I love the OBDM. I'm like, How about you? Like, you know, we all do a show together. We'll do a swap cast. And he's like, Oh, that'd be awesome. And then we decided to do a swap cast. Then I'm like, Hey, let me email a couple people and see if anybody else wants to come and we'll do like a hangout show. And funny enough, the only person who I emailed out of like, you know, a handful of people with Sam, Sam was the only one. So it ended up being us four. And so it's funny how things work out because it's like, if this little thing turned out slightly different, would, would I be here right now? Or would this show even have been created? So Sam, because maybe if it was a big turnout, you know, if everybody I emailed showed up, maybe, you know, it wouldn't, we wouldn't have had the chemistry and decided as a group to continue this thing. But Sam was on the show and the same triple ages. So people have ten full half podcasts and eight million other shows he does. But he he also has zero a spiritual podcast and a bunch of other shows. But we're all talking and we're talking about the censorship issue. And, and Mike says, Yeah, we're kind of like the union of the unwanted, you know, and that's what where it came from. It was like, we felt unwanted from the major platforms. And immediately we're like, I don't know what we're going to do with that name. But Mike hold on to that name because that's a great that's just has it has a great ring to it. You know, it could be a name of an album or a band or something. And I think he bought the URL while we're on while we were recording, which was pretty funny. And so he ends up buying the URL and then and then we're we're in a group text message talking to four of us. And I was like, Hey, we should get do a show called the union of the unwanted. It was going to be like a episode that was going to be open source. This goes back to like what I mentioned about my love for open source. I was telling the guys, I'm like, let's make it open source. Let's get all these people together and alternative media world. Let's get them all together on like a zoom conference call. And we'll make it open source so everybody can share the episode on their platforms call it the union of the unwanted. And it would be a specific episode and then we did our, our first, like official union of the unwanted show, which Ben swan was on there. I mean, so many James Corbett was on there. So many great people from the alternative media community. We got them all together. And we talked about solutions and what we're dealing with. And it was awesome. And we I loved it. And I've always been a people's person. Like I love meeting people. I feel like everybody has a interesting story or interesting. Well, I shouldn't say everybody would. There's some people out there that are too fascinating. But there's the majority of the time. I'm pleasantly surprised that people are much more interesting and fascinating than I initially think, in many cases. But I've always loved meeting people and talking to them. And I remember even when I was single, like going out, my friends would think I was kidding. But like, much of the fun of being single and meeting girls was like hearing their story. And they would always like think I'm like, just busting their balls like I was making a joke about no, no, I actually care about like where they're from or, you know, how they were brought up and all that stuff. So it was a perfect fit for me because I'm like, I love the you know, unwanted. I get to have a bunch of people together, talk to them, meet some new people, have on old friends and have them, you know, meet other friends and it became like a community. And what I was seeing a lot when we would bring people together and the cool thing is like, Mike's been doing podcasting for a long time. I've been doing a podcasting for a long time. And Charlie's, he had a book Doc What's a Global Control, which he got to know a lot of podcasters and people in the community, Sam's been around for a while too. So we all kind of we're all similar in regard. It's funny how different we are. But one thing and I've told the guys is I'm like the one thing that makes us all very similar. And I think one of the reasons why it works is that none of us have labels like we're not like a conservative guy or a liberal guy or whatever. We just like meeting people and exploring ideas. And because of that, I think you look at our track history, people like us and people were willing to come on the show because they didn't feel like they're going to get attacked. They didn't feel like we had a agenda because they knew us as people didn't have agendas, or we weren't trying to spark debates for the sake of debating or making somebody look bad. So having that, that great relationship with people with all the guests have been on my show throughout the years, I, you know, I just started booking people and I started bringing like just interesting people in and it just kept growing. And it was cool because it almost like self marketed itself because the whole open source thing initially I pushed this on the guys because one that's what I do with my show I tell people like post it anywhere you want it. I'm on a lot of alternative platforms. And sometimes other people with my shows on their channel have more subscribers and more views in my show. But I don't care because at least they're getting exposed to the conversation, which is the most important thing. So, but it started self marketing, because what would happen is that, you know, Monica Perez, or the truth Zilla crew, or whoever it might be when they're on, we send them the links and like you can share it on your platform. And so people who might not know what the union doesn't want it is, they end up hearing it on some other platform, and people will talk about it and whatever so it just kept growing and then you'd see a lot of people connect after the show that was one thing I really liked was that after the show you would see two people that were on the show, interview each other, and I'm like, oh, this is really creating a community so it was, which is why I pushed back a little bit like there's been a little bit of internal conversation about like hey, you know, should we do ads should we do, you know, and it's kind of just been thrown out there and I'm like, I've always, I'm always feel like I'm the jerk who kind of pushed back against it a little bit just because I love the idea so much. And what it's become and how it's helped other podcasters that's like another thing is like if you go back in our archives one thing I we consciously do is that we'll look for a up and coming show and we'll we'll give them opportunity to get a platform I mean at one time Truthzilla was I remember, I remember them emailing me or writing me wherever they wrote me about starting a show I'm like yeah yeah if you need any advice, I'll help you and I mean there's plenty of podcasts out there I mean many many many podcasts that I've, I've told them the same and you know, I'll tell them like this is how I record and this is how I post and I use Potomac to post my shows and and all this other stuff. And so I help out any way I can, and then to have them come on and you don't want to give them that little bit of a bump I mean it's not that the show is huge, but it's big enough where it does help the smaller shows. And it makes me feel good like you know I've had people say that we're you know I'm kind of like the Joe Rogan of podcasts, or the alternative community because Joe Rogan's always telling people to start a podcast start a podcast. Now my show I'm always like start a podcast start a podcast I'll help you. And so it really it's become something bigger than any of the hosts, or even any the participants it's like it's a community and people. People love tuning in and seeing who's going to be on their next. And it's funny because people will always ask like who's going to be on the show like even participants will be. I'm like, honestly, I can tell you who I asked to come on the show, but it's so random. And it, I actually love that aspect of it because I don't know if you've had, you know how your group of friends are Alex but when I go out with my friends we would always have this issue where it's like it's not an issue but we'd always kind of joke about how you have the friends to get there early. You have the friends that get there late. You have the friends that said they're going to come that don't come. You have the friends that didn't sound like they were going to come that end up showing up. And it's fun you go out you have a couple drinks like hey we're meeting at this bar come or we're meeting for dinner or whatever if you want to join us. And it's so it's always random you don't know who's going to walk in the door like oh I haven't seen this guy for a while like how you've been I didn't know you're going to show up. Like that's kind of how the union don't want it is and it's like purposely that way you know sometimes I'll just throw out, you know, back in the day I used to throw out tons of emails and like listen, like if you want to show up. I'll let me know and I'll send you the zoom link, or sometimes I would just send a zoom link, even if the mic, here's a zoom link. Even if you said you can't make it if you want to drop in for a little bit drop in, you know, you even if you're late or whatever don't worry. And some of those people who said they couldn't make it eventually drop drop in because they don't feel any pressure to have to be there from beginning to end. And so it just I don't know I just it really is a blast. It's one of my favorite shows to do. It's it's fascinating. It's personally, you know and I don't speak for the other guys personally I really enjoy the conversations like last night and like many of the other shows we've done where it's on a little bit more serious topics and it's we get to kind of just get a lot of different people from different backgrounds and different researchers and bounce ideas off each other and you never know how one person can contribute or not contribute. Sometimes we'll be talking about something and you think a participant would have nothing to include on that specific topic. And they do have something to include because they've done a little bit of research that you weren't aware of or they read a book that you didn't know that they read that, you know, so they have a little bit of insight on that topic. So that whole just all the wild cards and all the you don't know what's going to happen or what's going to be brought up and who's going to get along and who's not going to get along. All that is what makes it exciting and weirdly enough, we've never had an issue really with like people talking too much and having like really like shut somebody up. We've never had an issue with people being disrespectful. It is funny because I was talking to Charlie about it not too long ago about I've had have made some questionable decisions. I remember right before election time when like people were really emotional and politically like worked up. I had Greg Palace join us on a show with some notable people that were like Super Maga and I'm like I should have known it was going to turn probably not great. I'm like I think most people will be respectful and they were like they were but there was a little bit of budding of heads and I think some people who are kind of new to the alternative media community. They don't realize that like Greg Palace is really a OG in regards to this world and even though I disagree with him on probably quite a few things you can't take away from some of the great work he's done. He's done his journalist work in regards to just everything from the oil spill to so many other corruption stories throughout the years. And so I think you know bringing anybody and same thing when I had Roger Stone on, nobody knew Roger Stone was going to be on. I try not to disclose who's going to be on because then you're always like a little worried that somebody will be like okay, I want to be on this show because he's on or they'll spread the word and then they'll share the link or whatever. So that's why we also change the link every episode. You know I'm initially I think somebody proposed like oh well are you guys going to use the same link? I'm like hell no we're not going to use the same link because in one episode we'll have like 400 people you know if people just jump on. So the whole thing is just fascinating and exciting and during 2020 I think the other thing that was super super important and we get a lot of positive feedback about is that a lot of people who felt like they're going crazy. That like nobody in the world was seeing the facade and seeing the illusion. They listened to the union that wanted it and there'd be people from the you know the UK but you know just like last night people from all over the world, different continents or wherever. And you're like holy shit I'm not alone like there's a huge group of people just podcasters and alternative media people and researchers that feel the way I'm feeling and seeing the things I'm seeing and realizing it's not making sense. And I think it gave them hope. It gave them hope. It gave them community. I think one thing you hear a lot from podcast listeners is that some of them don't have the friends they can talk to about maybe the deep questions and conversations you might have on your podcast. So when they tune in to Skeptico they feel like they're having those conversations they want to have. They feel like they're they're a part of those conversations that they enjoy. And it gives them it almost like it's almost weird because we do so much talking and we record so much of it that there's people who really know us really well. There's I mean we all have listeners that are hardcore fans who listen to every episode and they probably know me better than I know myself because because there's probably things that I've said in the past. I forgot about or ideas that I've had that have changed that I'm not aware of. And you know you meet those people they know like they feel like they know you but you have no idea who they are. So it's always like this weird relationship. Sometimes I have people write me and I'm like this person really fucking knows me. This guy really listens to all you know all my shows and I have no idea who they are you know so but they listen to my show and they feel like we're friends and I like that. I wish I could be their friend I wish I could be everybody's friend and and I'm glad that they feel like that. And I think that's one of the powers of shows like yours and mine and all the shows that really embrace conversation because I think conversations one of the most powerful things in the world. I think you know you can look at you know whatever you know whatever historical document you know the founding fathers were debating things probably drunk and half in a bag at a at a bar at a pub having a drink and and debating and challenging each other and and coming up with solutions and challenging those solutions and and and talking about issues and so so much comes out of it and I think verbalizing your ideas and verbalizing how you feel sometimes you also find flaws in them right like so when you're being interviewed. I've seen it. It's happened to me quite a few times where I'm being interviewed and I get asked a question and in the process of me at answering the question. I realize like I'm not really strong on this opinion and I'm changing it as I'm describing it or I just say sometimes I don't know and I'm not sure which I think is completely okay to and I don't think we do enough of because the ego gets in the way of that and I think sometimes the ego says. Oh it's a sign of weakness if you say you don't know. It's a sign of weakness if you say you're not sure or it's a sign of weakness if you're not you don't have a strong belief on something and I don't. To me anybody who's too sure of everything they say makes me nervous because I'm like you can't be sure about all that you know and it's like are you really do you have blinders on are you is there is there some flaws in your thinking. So it's I think as you get older you you're much more open to the idea of not knowing and you're much more open and you accept it and you embrace it and you know it's like that quote you know the more you know the less you how does it go it's like the more you know the. Yes exactly exactly so yeah so and I think that that happens I mean I think I've talked about it with so many guests on my show how much I love philosophy because it's asks those bigger questions that some people go to religion for but without the religious part of it you know to organize religious issues is just asking questions and a lot of these questions are never really answered I mean it's debated over I mean the same questions are debated over and over again. And you know there's so many different philosophers who have different perspectives on on so many different things and and even to the point where it's like well what's reality what's real what's true with you know all these things and they seem silly. At first when you really start dissecting and you're like you're right you can make that argument you can debate that you can look at it from that perspective are you familiar with like Thaddeus Russell he's another guy who I find really fascinating I've had him on the show in the past. And he wrote the renegade history United States he's he's another guy much like yourself that I've always enjoyed. Listening to because I know you there's always maybe maybe I'm like how do I say this out sound like a like I'm I enjoy conflict but I it's not that I enjoy conflict but anytime I listen to you or or like Thaddeus Russell or any of these people who aren't afraid of being like okay I disagree with this person but I'm not just going to politely, you know, let them talk I'm going to politely disagree with them and politely, you know, push back and see where this conversation goes and I think that's that's so needed I think that is a problem with the union and then wanted at times is that everybody is too polite sometimes and if you disagree with somebody, then sometimes you keep it to yourself, but I wanted to be a platform where eventually people realize like it's okay to disagree and nobody's going to get mad at you and nobody's going to hate you and nobody's going to not invite you next time because of it. We're here to share ideas and challenge ideas and also have our ideas challenged because I think it's really easy to point a finger and and and really, you know, question what other people believe but it's really hard to question what we believe. And I've been talking for so damn long that I should probably let you expand on some of this. Well, yeah, I might because I do think you know people need to tune in to the Union of the Unwanted, and I pulled up on the screen for people who are watching it. Kind of what it looks like because it really shouldn't work as well as it does. You shouldn't be able to have 16 different podcasters that like to talk on a zoom call and have them do what you just described your your gift your and and Charlie to give him credit and Sam as well but the energy that you guys bring to makes it work in a way that you wouldn't expect it to work and in particular that last point that you just made there Ricky is I find to be very very true. And that's that you do generate real thinking and counterpoints within a group without a lot of, you know, dissension or confrontation or uncomfortableness you know which I, I know for my show people are uncomfortable with there isn't a lot of that, but it isn't like everybody just patting each other on the back either there's real discussion and real dialogue. I think it's fantastic I mean I know I was kind of stretching a little bit with the best hope for humanity but it has great potential and I can't help though to return to where this sits in our current situation. You know what I mean, because like you're given a really nice pitch, but you're a guy who got sucked into like the whole covert thing on a very personal level with your family and with your kids. And we talked about that on the last show, but it's easy to forget people who are directly confronting some of the change that's going on. And I think you should talk a little bit about that. But I don't just you, I don't want you to just talk about your story and where it's going and you've actually continued to follow it you've had like attorneys that have followed filed suit in Massachusetts to say, you can't do that, which is what you told the school board when you went there you said you can't do that. They said yes we can do whatever the fuck we want. And then there's maybe a legal thing there. But what's really kind of dark and you're kind of putting adding light to it but I want you to give us the whole spectrum here Ricky is that when you see what is demonstrably happening. People are getting banned for talking to the doctors. People are getting banned for talking to an attorney who's filing a suit in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the court is acknowledging his suit and saying we'll hear it. And that's banned from the dialogue from the public discourse great state of Massachusetts founding fathers. We never I've been at this a while, if you told somebody that 10 years ago, they just would have laughed in your face and said there's no way we'll ever get to that point. And yet we're at that point. So maybe you can trace some of those steps into telling us about your story. And in particular, what it's led for you in terms of the ripple effect and the following interviews done which is fantastic. I love it. It's like we're we're getting the inside, you know, look into your family and then how it's playing out. Yeah, so so what you're referring to was and this is something that I would love to talk to you about because it got on my radar. The issues locally much more after 2020 because I've said this before. I've been so focused on international issues, foreign policy, geopolitics, historical things that in my home state and even more personally in my hometown. There were things going on that I wouldn't be happy with and I probably should have been more hands on and more aware of. And so after I had it was actually I remember this like it was yesterday. I had Dr. Peter McCullough on my show and then I get a text message from or a message from some somebody who is from this town from my town and they're like, you know, you should go to the school committee meeting and I'm like, They're like, oh, they're going to vote on masks. And I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. I'm like, I definitely I'm like, when is it they're like tonight. And so I am going to the meeting and end up, you know, I was nervous. I know a lot of people think because you're constantly go ahead where you can say something. No, I was just going to say, Ricky, fill people in a little bit on what you learned in talking to Dr. McCullough that you're going to share with the school board. Yeah, well, a lot of things. I mean, obviously all the I mean, this is this goes into a another really important issue is we're almost at the point where the science. And it's funny because Justin McCarthy attorney, Justin McCarthy, who was just recently on my show, which you were referring to. He says this and it's so true. And I've had other guests have said this, like the science doesn't matter because and what I mean by that is that it doesn't matter to a lot of people who are brainwashed. Like you could give them all the information, give them all the information that make that that would paint the picture that we've been lied to that there's been suppressed treatments that, you know, all the things like the lab leak theory and gain of function funding, like all this information was being suppressed, all the doctors that had different perspectives were being censored. And in many cases, they were being banned and deleted and they were trying to basically character assassination. And you could give them all this information. And it's like, OK, any logical person would look at all this and go, OK, there's something here like there's enough dots that it's really easy to connect them. But now it's so obvious of all these things and all the truths are slowly seeking into the mainstream narrative where now people are openly discussing these things, things that were so fringe. I mean, if you said that this was a bad flu in early 2020, people were losing their mind on social media if you'd say that if you would compare it to the flu. Now it's like publicly accepted that 99% of people will will survive it. But Ricky, hold up, I got to pull you back a little bit because I think you're getting too far ahead of the story in a way. And like, I want to retrace these steps because I encounter even in my own family, you know, people who are still walking that initial path. So you get on an interview with McCullough, right? That's his name? Yep, Dr. Peter McCullough. Dr. Peter McCullough and you find you get woken up to the mask science thing. And I got it from a different a different guy but came to the same conclusion. They've tested these masks for a long time to see if they prevented the flu and they always came to the same conclusion. Well, we don't exactly know why but no, they don't seem to work as a public health policy. Don't worry about a mask kind of thing. And then the next step is once you get past that are they potentially dangerous. So we looked at, you know, whether the beneficial dangerous. But the part I don't want you to skip over because I just hammer on this and people. The reason I hammer on it is because my show started with science. My show started with, as we talked about Rupert Sheldrick and Richard Wiseman and like, hey, science will will win the day. You know, good evidence will win out and you will replicate your study and you will get a peer review and that people will pay attention in science matters. As our friend Charlie Robinson says, it's not about science. It's about compliance. That is where we're at now. It's not about science. It's about compliance. We just did a whole show on the Stanford and Yale mask study. The biggest science lie I've run across since Sheldrick and Wiseman. It's a complete lie and it's attempt to do that. But the point I guess I want I want you to walk back to that point where you go. You're just being a good citizen. You're being a good dad. And you're being like, hey, well, I just found out some information. Of course the school board would want to hear it. It's because it's not someone's opinion. I found science. If we all care about science, we want to teach our kids science and science matters and I'll go to the school board. There's a certain waking up process that I think you went through here that I you know what I mean? I want you to share that because some people haven't gone through that yet. Well, I think the the the waking up part was the fact that there was no science. I was going to give the school committee members and that was that was kind of what I was getting into or without. I probably made my response way too long and people I get justice losses probably the listeners. But my point was that all that science and all that information was never going to change their mind. They had their minds set and what they do is they cherry pick the science or the information that helps defend their perspective. So it didn't matter how well research I was or how much information I was going to bring to them. I mean, I had a little bit of hope initially because I didn't know who they were. And you know, some people told me that they were closed minded. But I felt like, hey, if I come here with enough logical information on how masking healthy kids because they're literally emailing everybody all the time. Like if your kid has any symptom whatsoever, leave them at home. So you're basically the majority of kids who are in school. And I say the majority because there might be some kids who who might not have symptoms but, you know, might have the virus in their system. And and this is, you know, what do they call pre symptomatic. So that that might be the case. But I'm like, so you're you're masking healthy kids for the majority of them. You're also masking people that are the least threat of being harmed by this virus. You know, and you just go through all the information. I mean, it says on the box, the mask box box that it doesn't stop to spread of a coronavirus. There's no protocols. Right. And this goes back to it's not about science. It's about compliance. Like there's no protocols if my kid coughs in his mask. There's no protocols of my kids at recess and drops his mask. Okay, there's no protocols in regards. So let's make let's keep eye eye out on any kids who might, you know, get their mask dirty and put it on their face. And the reason why that's so important is because the whole point of this fucking thing is to keep them healthy. And it's about health and it's about protecting the kids. So why wouldn't there be protocols? You know, something written out some some steps that are taken to make sure every kid has a clean mask all the time. And the truth is it's not about any of that. And everybody knows and that most kids will reuse their mask over and over again. I mean, I, I, I'm assuming there's probably kids. If I asked my kid, hey, does, you know, is there kids in your class that wear the same mask every single day, every week? He'd probably say yes. You know, do you think that's being clean and washed every night? Absolutely they are. So what happens? Tell us the story. What happens? You go to the school board and I gotta, I gotta say, you kind of made the point. You went there at least with some sense that this, this makes sense. You know, I played it out to my wife. I played it out to my sister-in-law, whoever it is. And they're like, yeah, gosh, I didn't know that. Go Ricky, go tell the school board they're going to want to hear this. They want to protect our kids. Well, yeah. And so I did. And I was pleasantly surprised that there was other people there who also were outspoken and upset about the whole situation. We end up pushing. They were supposed to vote that night. Eventually because of the pushback and kind of our, I think our frustration and all this stuff, they end up. Somebody ended up suggesting like, how about we ask the parents, like let's do a poll. Let's ask the parents what they want. I wasn't too confident on the poll because I'm like, well, the majority of the parents probably watch mainstream media. So according to the information they have, the masking kids make sense of them. But I'm like, you know what, you know, maybe a poll is better than because it didn't seem like we had the votes. It seemed like we're going to lose anyways. You know, there's only one person up there that seemed to be kind of open minded to the idea. The other issue I really had was the fact that they were they were saying words. Oh, let's just start the year, you know, with masks, which eventually end up being what the survey question was that they sent out to all the parents. They sent out the survey question for this poll stating that are you okay with masking kids in the beginning of the school season? And I was ripped shit. I mean, I ended up emailing all of them contacting them like, this is not the survey we asked for. I wanted you what we wanted was parents to have the choice. And if you want to great if you don't want to find and the way they worded it and I don't want to give them too much credit for understanding. You know, Edward Bernays and ways to kind of pull people in one direction or another. But they obviously worded it in a way hoping that, you know, it seemed more innocent and it would be temporary, which was bothersome because we asked them during the school committee meeting. Like, hey, okay, if they do have masks for how long and they couldn't give us the answer and we're like, okay, what do you need to see? Like, what's the criteria? Like, do you need to see zero cases? Do you need to see a handful? What what are you looking for? And they couldn't give you answers. So it was obvious that once those masks went on, they weren't going to go away. So but we did end up pushing for the poll. And then the following week was going to be the next school committee meeting where they were going to share the poll results and also finally vote on the masks. Well, this is it's bothersome because I really felt one I felt defeated because I ended up putting up my own poll. I didn't like the way they questioned it. So I had my own poll going around. I created my own poll on change.org or whatever website I end up using. And I had, I think just under 500 signatures, some from some of the doctors and attorneys that you referred to that's been on the show and many residents from from town. It wasn't just people from all over the place, but it was worded the way that it should have been worded about parents having the option and they should have, you know, that that choice. And so I wanted to I also send them the poll results. I wanted to share my poll results at the school committee meeting and none of it mattered because the day it was either the day of or the day before Massachusetts decided for every town and city and in the state that they're going to mask all kids, even though there were some local towns and many towns that decide not to. And so what the people wanted didn't mean anything. And it also took all the ability for us locally to make a difference and actually push for something and stand up for something and protect the kids. And yeah, so, you know, as a parent, I felt defeated. I felt I felt like, you know, I put all this effort and time and, you know, got people signing the survey got people cheering the survey. You know, I had so many people contacting me about what was going on and thanking me for for being outspoken and all this stuff. And then out of nowhere, Jeffrey Riley, who is, you know, like commission, I will forget what his title is something about education. One of the directors of education or something for Massachusetts decided him and dictator Baker to mask all the kids. And we just got an email just a week ago saying that the Massachusetts plans on masking all the kids so like mid January and or 80% vaccinated schools. If we have 80% vaccinated schools, everybody in the school system, 80% vaccinated, then they can remove the masks. The really absurd thing is nowhere in the email. Do they say anything about no cases or lower numbers like the numbers? It's just, it's so obvious that gender is just to vaccinate the shit out of everybody and it doesn't matter what decay. It never mattered. And that's kind of the thing about the science that like I spend so much time talking to people and and so many people on a personal level. If I'm talking to them at the gym, if I'm talking to them wherever, you know, if I'm at a basketball game or wherever and I'm talking to somebody or at a little get together. And we have a disagreement. Most people I feel like because logically, logics on my side, if I just put this information out there and I explain to them how I came to these conclusions and and how obvious it is, or at least if I don't tell them it's obvious. But if I give them all the information, it'll become obvious. Then they'll at least meet me halfway. And so I had hope that, you know, that that would happen everywhere. And I always felt like I could kind of sway somebody and wonder, and, you know, the school, the school committee members continue to, you know, I keep getting updates on on what's going on in town. And after I was outspoken and people were contacting me and talk to me about. And you, you as a parent, I'm kind of curious on your perspective, because this is kind of related to a Jenna 21 and a Jenna 2030, which we spoke about last night on you and don't want it. But they talked about all these like books with cartoon gay sex and all this stuff that's in the library in the middle school in my town, and how there's all these group of parents who are trying to get these books out of our library. And then I run into like all these other parents are having the same issue all over the U.S. In their school systems with pushing critical race theory, pushing, you know, all these things that I'm just like, are these things that should even be taught in school like what like it doesn't matter if it's books with straight cartoons have, you know, doing sexual things like I don't care what, you know, gender they are. I don't care what sexual preference they have like my kids should not be exposed to this is the conversation that I have with them. This is a conversation that, you know, that they don't learn by grabbing the wrong book at the middle school. And so it just all these agendas end up becoming more and more obvious and you're starting to see how like these are all agendas that have been, I think pushed and there was like little baby steps, like this little move here that little move there to kind of all push. To the same destination. But now it's like, they're all much more obvious. And it's, it's scary because as a parent you think about like, what world are my kids going to grow up in. And I remember saying this before I was a parent. I'm like, what world if I had kids, what world would they grow up in. But now it's like, it's even scary than what I predicted, you know, or at least when I was thinking of like the worst case scenario, like what world would they grow up in. Worst case scenario. And now it's like, well, now the worst case scenario is way worse than I even ever predicted or could ever imagine. And it's just, it's scary. And I don't, I think these are topics that are hard to discuss because not on a surface level of the critical race theory, or being open to, you know, people being gay, lesbian, transgender, like, that's all, that's all fine and dandy. And I'm open to have those discussions. I'm not anti any of those things. I'm anti pushing any ideology on my kids, like a school is supposed to be a place where you teach kids how to think. Hold on, hold on, Ricky, before you go on that role. You know, I think that kind of in a way, it confuses the issue in that we've been talking about that shit forever, right? All my life, you know, that's been an issue. And my kids are a little bit older than yours, college kind of a little bit beyond college. But that was an issue, you know, 10, 15 years ago, all that stuff. What people want to know is, is it different now? And I think what they hear in your show is, no, it's, it's, it's demonstrably and significantly in an important way, different. And I think you've been hammering on that pretty hard with where this whole thing has taken you. And it's really the one part, I guess that I do want you to address, because you kind of mentioned it, and then you kind of rolled right past it. It's pretty dark right now. And it's pretty scary, because the natural through line of what you're painting only goes one way. It goes in this way of a control thing matrix, I was going to say, but then that just throws everybody. It's just, it's, it's, it's scary in a way that even people who've been part of the truth movement, part of the whole thing for a long time, haven't had to really confront what they're willing to kind of do right now with. It's like somebody brought this up the other day, maybe even on the show last night is like this step by step boiling frog thing that everyone's heard about, you know, it's like, you know, even if you just go back 18 months. Remember when people said you're going to have a vaccine passport, you're going to have vaccine mandates. And I remember like again, even in my family, they're like that would never happen. You're just being ridiculous because you don't want. Now that isn't even, that isn't even, that's like just the beginning of it. So how bad is it? I try to be optimistic because I, the more they push, the more I think we push. And I think it was you who said it last night. And I think it's so true. Like, don't fuck with moms. And it's, it's, it's so true. Like throughout the years of, you know, so I, to me, none of this is, is that eye opening or new to me because I've always been really deep in health nutrition. And I've always been really deep into just big pharma and all those issues that are related to it. You know, early years of the ripple effect podcast, I had a lot of doctors on Dr. Brzezinski, Dr. Gregory Smith, so many great researchers that are really exposing how, you know, there's no money and us being healthy, there's money and symptom management and keeping us sick. And, and I always had a lot of belief in the human body and its capabilities to recover from things if you give it the fuel and sunlight and fresh air and all the things that it needs to be healthy. So a lot of these agendas we kind of knew about. And now they stay definitely seem fast tracked. But I also think it's woken up a lot of people like years ago, when I would have conversation with people about vaccines. I mean, there are people that it was really hard to find other people who are skeptical about their safety or they're just about vaccines at all. And I know some of my listeners are sick of me saying this, but I would always use the metaphor of like, okay, if I give every kid peanut butter, some kids are going to die. Like, so what makes you think vaccines are the one thing in the world that you can give everybody and nobody has a negative effect. Like it just it seems silly. And I think a lot of people in the, I guess, medical freedom movement, we've been misrepresented because a lot of times it's we're not saying that every person is going to be harmed from a vaccine. We're just saying that there's a reward risk ratio and you've been misled about how much reward there is and how much risk there is. And that's the wrong. I think that's the wrong debate. And I think it's debate. It's a debate that they would love to have because as you kind of alluded to, you can get mired in all sorts of bullshit on both sides, which is valid. You know, you got to have science and all the rest of that. The question and this kind of came up in when I was on the ripple effect. What no one wants to face is what we really want to know is, is it evil? Are the people behind this evil in some way that we're uncomfortable talking about, but we know what the fuck we're talking about. So when, you know, I was just watching the documentary, one of the documentaries on the kind of Purdue pharmaceutical thing and the whole oxy cotton thing and the family, you know, that hole. And what they did is they made, I thought those are just a thread of sin is just a little aside, but they made pain, a new sense, like, you know, you have sight, you have taste. And now you have pain too. And you have the little person in the, you know, the little smiley face or the frowny face, which is all, you know, kind of really mundane and understandable. And like you're talking about the evil of the middle, it's like, well, of course there's some good and bad in there. All that was done as a marketing effort to introduce oxy cotton because they had this agenda and they sold billions and billions of dollars and they made all this money and they destroyed all these lives. We do not want to get pulled into another one of those protracted medical discussions where there is always going to be that evil middle. What we want to understand is, is the driving force behind this something that we could identify as good old fashioned evil. If it's just people out there and I see it one way and you see it another way, we can deal with that. If it's just somebody out there honestly saying, I think this is a better way to protect humanity and protect the herd. And well, I respectfully disagree. We can handle that. What we can't handle is whether there really is an overarching force in this that is the same force that we've been tracking in the truth movement for a long time. Those building seven wasn't hit by an airplane. Oh my God, what do you bring that up? It's the same thing. Climate change and those phony emails never really happened. You live there in Massachusetts, the ocean isn't coming up. The best scientists in the world, you know, who've tracked the ocean level. There's no change in the ocean level. They continue to push that agenda. So I won't go on too long of a rant there, but the question is, is it evil? Is there evil behind this? Because you don't want to go there, Ricky. That's where I'm pushing you. That's how I would get skeptical. It's not about, it's not just about pleasant conversations. It's not just about everyone has an opinion and I'm going to start a commune in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Oh, even better. I got my seed stacked up in the garage and, you know, I can last, you know, and what kind of guns do you have? Because they are going to come to your door. Oh yeah, I got this gun and that gun. Fuck that shit. Obviously none of that works because on some kind of grander spiritual level, that stuff just kind of looks as ridiculous as everything else looks unless we're really willing to go. You called it philosophical. I'd call it spiritual and really tackle those issues head on. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? No, absolutely it's evil. And I think that a lot of the people who are the most outspoken, the people that I've talked, Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Kerry Maday, Del Bigtree, Mickey Willis, all these people are spiritual or religious and they're the ones who seem, and I could go down the list. I mean, Ryan from Last American Vagabond, I mean, all these researchers, doctors, thinkers, filmmakers, people who are really scared and panicking and feel like this is really bad. There are people who believe in evil and I think there's a lot of, I think there's true believers out there. The people who are going to tell me to put my mask over my nose, they're all not just a-holes. Some of them are truly scared. The propaganda worked. You attempted to scare the shit out of the population for 18 months and worked in many cases. There's a lot of people out there who truly, truly are afraid. They're the ones driving in a car by themselves. They're the ones who, even if you tell them that, like, hey, everything's good. You could take off your mask. They would probably still wear them because you've scared the shit out of them. You've traumatized them to some extent, where now they're so afraid of reality or getting a virus that they'll wear one anyways, just to be on the safe side. So I think it's no different than somebody in fear and danger are two different things. It's like somebody who's afraid of an insect. It's like, well, is that an insect going to harm you? No, but it's not a danger, but it's fear. For some reason, you've been traumatized and you have this over-the-top fear of something. I think there's true believers. There's some people who truly are helping the evil people who have a greater agenda, who aren't true believers in the nonsense that they're pushing on to the public, but using these people as pawns. And you see it with like, there's people out there who truly care about the environment and that's like the cause that they're the most passionate about. And they believe that there's, you know, we're putting chemicals into the water and a lot of the stuff is true. What some of them don't understand is that they're going to use those narratives and those issues to push other agendas. And so when they propose a carbon tax or they propose these things, it's not because they truly care about, you know, protecting the world. It's because they have other agendas. And I think the only explanation is evil, right? I mean, before Hitler, there was evil. After Hitler, there was evil. You know, Saddam Hussein was a real person. Everybody always refers to Hitler as like, almost like he was the last evil person who wanted to kill everybody. Those people still exist. The only thing is we live in North Korea. And what I mean by that is that people in the U.S. are just as brainwashed as everybody in North Korea. Or as everybody in North Korea where you mold their worldview at a young age and you convince them that we are the exception to the rule. And I think somebody talked about it yesterday about the founding fathers and all this stuff. I think it's kind of true. I think I go back and forth because in one way I feel like we are an example of what could be, right? Like a country that truly cares about controlling the hierarchy and the monarchy or the, you know, controlling those in power and making things fear and having checks and balances where we can constantly make sure that we filter out corruption. But in the other hand, I'm like, we've been convinced of this. And yet, like somebody mentioned, I think yesterday and I've mentioned it on my show all the time. I'm like, look who ends up getting an office? Who are all these politicians? Do a little background research. Guess what? They're all linked to powerful people. They're all linked to powerful families. They're all related to each other. They're all a part of these powerful, you know, secret societies and groups. Like it's not us. It's a hierarchy. So we have this illusion that we don't live in a monarchy. But yet the people running for presidents are always Clintons and bushes and people who are skull and bones and and all this stuff. And I think that's only that's I get you. And that's a good point. It's only part of the story, though, you know, the I've been into American history lately partly as a distraction to get away from. But go look at Andrew Jackson who interestingly is being pulled off of what the $20 bill and being replaced by the woman who did the Underground Railroad. Well, hooray for that. I don't have any problem with that. I think maybe that's a good Andrew Jackson's really interesting character because Andrew Jackson just briefed aggression into history. Andrew Jackson genocide on the American Indians. No question about it. Didn't have to set it up to do it that way because it was the most expedient way to get the expansion that he wanted and repeated it and the whole trailer tears thing and all that stuff. He's that guy. He's the guy who but he's also the guy who wins the war of 1812, which I didn't know this. I don't want I don't want to front like I know history because I do this stuff that you go and learn it again. The war of 1812 is the second American Revolution and we almost lost it. It was not a given. Andrew Jackson is a super patriot and he drags the cannon and all the rest of this stuff through 25 miles of swamp to get to the New Orleans mouth of the Mississippi there. And he blast the shit out of the Brits and keeps him from coming up and partly because when he was a little kid, he hated the Brits because they arrested him when he was 14 years old and they locked him up. But the point is we lose what the America is in America if Andrew Jackson doesn't do that. And that's part of the reason he became president. But you know what he also did? He's the guy who really brought about slavery more than anyone else brought Mississippi, Alabama, and he enslaved all those people. And I love how, you know, I don't want to do the whole wokeness thing, but there's always a truth to the wokeness thing. Like if you notice the language now, they say enslaved people. They don't say slaves. Right on to that. That's a good correction linguistically. They weren't slaves. They were enslaved people. Andrew Jackson enslaved them so he could make more money. And the only reason that the Civil War happened was because the abolitionists, the great abolitionists up in the great state of Massachusetts. They went down there and like John Brown is the guy. John Brown went down and he broke into the, you know, the where they have all the munitions in the guns. And he said, I'm going to start a slave revolution. We're going to, we're going to go do this. And John Brown gets thrown down, but then the South goes fuck it, man. We've done everything we can to play Kate because they were just playing the game, playing the game, the middle game that you like to play conversations. Everyone has a voice. Everyone, they're playing that game to the max. And John Brown says, fuck that shit. The middle doesn't hold. Take a stand. Are you four enslaving people from the time that they're born until the time that they die? Are you four enslaving all their offspring forever? Is that what you're for? Or are you against that? And if you're against it, it's only going to come down one way and it came down the way that it is. So our history as, you know, this great experiment, like you're, you're the one to brought up the American history is extremely complicated. It is irreconcilable that, that we carried on that stain longer than anyone else in the world. I mean, Britain had given up on slavery of every other democracy in the world had kind of given up on slavery. We held on to it because it had an economic interest for a certain group of people. I don't want to get off too far on that, but I want to get off on it a little bit because here's the point. Here's the last point I'll make on that. Andrew Jackson wasn't part of the erotocracy. You know what? He was the first commoner to be made president. The evil that we're talking about isn't about occulted secret societies. It isn't about bloodlines. It isn't about any of that shit. It's about something that we need to understand and explore and have a better handle on. It certainly isn't about Christianity. It certainly isn't in the Bible. It can manifest itself through what we can learn maybe in all so many great wisdom books, but Christianity isn't an embodiment of that any more than any other religion is. It's just another vehicle. So I've gone off on a long rant, but maybe you can bring it back home to the history thing and how we deal with our complicated, complicated history and how we own it and at the same time deal with it as what we are going to be going forward. Well, I have a question for you because I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on there are some people who believe they subscribe to the idea that the U.S. the way that they created the U.S. experiment the way they were molding this experiment was for the purpose of having a fear system that had checks and balances. And some people believe like that was a facade. And really, you know, it was like this illusion that you had a checks and balances and the system was fair, but it was there's always going to be some hierarchy for a lack of better term. What do you think? Do you think that like if the experiment was done correctly? I hear that argument from time to time where people say the founding fathers had the right idea. We just messed up their ideas. We're not putting into practice exactly the way they envisioned the system working. Do you agree with that? Or what's your thoughts? I'm kind of curious. It's complicated, right? I mean, we all know this part too, right? Like Thomas Jefferson is a slave owner and he's not only a slave owner, but he's, you know, the fact that you were having sexual relations with one of your slaves, which is like so common, so, so common. You know, there was just this history little factoid that came out. There was this woman who wrote kind of like Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass, the famous guy who was born a slave and comes to be one of the leading voices of abolition and is meeting with Abraham Lincoln. It is probably singularly most responsible for changing Abraham Lincoln's views on slavery. Because Abraham Lincoln starts out as we have to preserve the union first and foremost and slavery. He was kind of this evil middle ground again. And Frederick Douglass and his relationship really changed him. There was a woman who also wrote an autobiography and for a long time historians were like, that's too crude. It can't possibly be true because what she said, if you're a woman almost from the time you could, you know, be a little kid, you're subjected to being raped by, you know, either your master or the, all the chain that would go out there or leased out to someone else, which is what they did, you know, because you'll also hear this stat. People who want to whitewash that history and say, you know, and I have relatives who are Southerners and there's a lot of great Southerners, but they don't want to own their shit a lot of times. It's like, you know, only 25% of people in the South even own slaves. Like that. Yeah. But they rented them out at a pretty high rate. So it wound up like just about everybody, whether it's, you know, the, bring in the crops or whatever. The point being, that's what it was like to be a enslaved woman in America is constant, constant rape or threat of rape was always at hand. So it's Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson. Are we going to take him off all the coins? You know, a lot of people appointed this out, obviously, but George Washington had slaves. These people fucking knew better. Everybody knew better. You know, you can't enslave people. You can't do that. They knew that they were religious people, but they weren't real religious people. They just fixed it to what they wanted. But you know what? We all do bad and horrible things and there's redemption for everybody. And I'm not saying that, you know, they have to live with that burden or you have to live with that burden. Certainly not, you know, because it's irrelevant. Take a look at it from a reincarnation standpoint. Like I always point out, obviously you're being reincarnated. Obviously at some point, you had black skin, brown skin, yellow skin. All that stuff is true. So don't get too, my thought is don't get too tied to that. But back to the question at hand is nothing's perfect, but it did seem like they had learned what it seems to me. And then I want you to answer that question as we kind of wrap up and talk about what's coming up on Union of the Unwanted and the ripple effect. But you know, I think we have to respect the fact that the quote unquote founding fathers, which is even a charged phrase, they had learned some shit and they knew some shit and they tried to pass it on to us. And a lot of the lessons that they were trying to pass on, even like, I don't know about your dad, but like my dad used to tell me, you know, do as I say, not as I do. You know what I mean? Because it's hard to always do the right thing, but you do know what the right thing is to do. And I think the founding fathers, there's a little bit of wisdom in that. They know what the right thing was and they tried to pass it along. And I think it's got a service now. It's our best chance. I don't know if it's our only chance, but it's our best chance against people back to the thing. You just need to reflect back what we started with is that you can't start banning people. You can't be in the state we're at, banning people, mandating stuff, not science, compliance, all the stuff that we're in the middle of that all us normies want to bury our head in. You can't comply to that and think this is going to turn out. That's where we need to return to that energy of the founding fathers. And they said, no, if we don't do something, we will all either hang together or hang separately as our famous perve Benjamin Franklin said. Another great example of what you're saying is MLK, for example. I mean, he was a womanizer. He slept around. But he seemed to know what good was and what being a good person was and loved one another. And obviously, I had a dream speech and all these things. It seemed like his heart was filled with love and acceptance and forgiveness. And yet he wasn't a perfect person. I think that's the story of humans. We all have flaws. And I think that's what's that quote? The biggest trick the devil played was that he made people think he didn't exist. Yeah, something along those lines, I probably messed up. I messed up every quote, so I'm sure I messed that one up. But without a doubt, I think that's a big part of it is that if you don't... There's a lot of people out there and I don't know if it's a lack of spirituality or a lack of asking these bigger questions or searching for these bigger answers. They truly don't believe evil exists. And it does seem like that quote is true. It's like you've been tricked into believing that it doesn't exist and that people who could knowingly do harm to others don't exist. And I think war is always an example I use because it's like, okay, you do know we look back at Vietnam, we look back at Iraq, Afghanistan and everybody considers it a giant mess up. And even if you take it even further and you do some serious research into it, it wasn't an accidental mess up. It was a mess up on purpose. And that means that there's people today who are dealing with PTSD. There's people today who have lost loved ones. There's people today who have died. And all this tragedy and horror and blood spill was all for nothing and based on lies. How is that not an example of evil? How is that not a similar thing to giving people a vaccine that you know could do harm to many? Like the idea that we accept this thing, like we know this happened, it's historically accepted that you look at the weapons of mass destruction all the deception that went into that. You look at the anthrax scare and you know where the anthrax came from and all that stuff and just kept people paranoid because everybody was freaking out. It's like, yeah, we got to fight terror. I don't know what that means, but yeah, we got to do something and keeping everybody so anxious and scared that they make irrational decisions and they emotionally react, right? So it's like super easy to be like, yeah, let's go into Iraq. Yeah, yeah, I'm for Iraq because I'm freaking out, man. I'm afraid because we're at Code Red and there's anthrax in the mail and the towers came down. We need to do something and you get people to emotionally react and that's what's going on now. I mean, it's the same thing only instead of war propaganda, it's big pharma propaganda and it's just, but it's the same idea. You're capitalizing on people's emotions and you're scaring them. I mean, there's been plenty of studies about how hard it is for us to think logically and make logical decisions when we're afraid and your emotions are influencing. And I also think that emotions are constantly playing a factor into our thinking. There's no such thing as a completely logical being that doesn't have any other outside influences, childhood stuff and other influences will have some type of effect on the way you look at information and the way you analyze information, dissect information. But without a doubt, I mean, I agree with you. Evil exists and once you accept that, I think it's much easier to accept what's going on. And I think that's a huge issue is that people just don't, I don't know what it is. And I don't know if that's also a part of the agenda, right? Because that's something we've also been talking a lot about in the alternative media community. And I've heard you say it too on shows, on your show about atheism and how this pro science, like everything's surface level, explainable and any supernatural conversation is childish or not worth entertaining. If that is either a part of the plan to get people to just not believe in evil and not ask these bigger questions, or if it's just something they're taking advantage of, I don't know. But either way, do you have some comments on that? No, no, go ahead. No, I was, I was, yeah, I mean, I just, I think it seems to work in their advantage in regards to pushing us in a direction that seemed like that seems like we're being pushed into. And that's this idea of losing just losing some of the things that make us human. And that's asking those bigger questions. I don't know if you ever, if you ever saw the, I remember this video years ago when I saw when they had two AI robots talking to one another. It didn't take long before they started asking where they came from and like, you know, asking those bigger questions. And I think that's inherent in us. I mean, asking those bigger questions. I mean, to me, I almost don't understand people who don't ask those bigger questions. I'm like, what do you mean, you don't care or you don't, or you've never pondered on this. I'm like, to me, that's like, that's so surreal. Like you're not here. And again, I think when you look at the school system, making us people who regurgitate information, you remove things from our lives that that provoke imagination and critical thinking and just make us just help mold little robots that just regurgitate information. And this go back, I know, Rockefellers, like they seem like they get the blame for everything. But in most cases, it's true. When you look at like schools and, you know, teaching people how to sit down at a desk and even the bell idea of having a bell when your shift is over, it all comes from creating better factory workers. I think naturally, humans are not designed to be factory workers. We're not designed to be a front of a machine doing a repetitive thing for eight, nine, ten hours a day. And they were trying to create better factory workers. And do you want to add to that, Al? Well, that one always gets me, that just gets a little bit tricky. I mean, I get what you're saying, but like, I have kids, we look for a lot of different ways, you know, and not nothing is perfect. I'll tell you what, as we wrap this thing up, do tell people just really quickly what's coming up on the ripple effect and on the union of the unwanted. Two shows that I really hope we'll have links up, obviously. But two shows I really hope people check out. Well, I actually have a show with Dr. Jessica Rose. I just did that. I hopefully will be up sometime this week. And also a show I did every once a month. I do a show with my Patreon supporters. I basically just, you know, share the zoom link with them and I never know who's going to show up or how many people are going to show up. I just always cross my fingers that I'm talking to myself and luckily I don't. And so I do that. And then I have a bunch. I would have to look at my schedule and see who's coming up. But I always look for it's almost it's good and it's bad. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, I've been focused on like, you know, medical freedom and medical, you know, in this whole world for so much, like so much of it's been my focus. I mean, it's always been a focus of mine, but it's taken up so much of the show that I'm now from time to time, like looking for like the guests. Like I used to work like a historian or somebody else who, who I can kind of like, Who are you looking forward to? Who do you have book that you're looking forward to talking to? Honestly, I'd have to. So the reason why I'm not aware of who immediately is booked just because it's I have a little break in my schedule. I know Aaron Franz is coming back on. He wrote the book The Age of Transition and he also did a great documentary back in the day. And I had him on like years ago and he was talking about transhumanism. And at the time it's like, wow, like I can see this agenda being played, but I'm not going to see the outcome of this. I'm not going to see the finish line. And now I'm like, I got to get him back on because he was so right. And in regards to a lot of this, but so I know he's an interesting interview. I'm sure I have some probably some more doctors coming on because it's something that I always love talking about. And then you've been wanted. I know we've kind of brainstormed from time to time. We brainstormed some possible ideas for future shows. I know Sam has suggested a show on the December 6th event because there's so many conflicting opinions and stuff like that. And doing a whole show on what we think happened there. And was there a sigh up inside the sigh up? Was it a sigh up? What happened? And then also I know Charlie's been suggesting, you know, and I think it's a, you know, they're both great suggestions about doing a show on food and being, you know, independent on in regard to that. So your, your necessities and how to take care of yourself and your family. And I mean, when you're growing food, you're growing, you're basically growing money because it's, it's stuff that you don't end up having to buy. And you know what's in it. You know, it's not some, you know, some really clever marketing label that says natural, you know, and it was like, what the fuck does that mean? Natural, you know, and there's nothing natural in it. And so I think we're going to maybe one of those topics might be next. I also liked the general conversations like we had last night. So who knows? I mean, honestly, a lot of this stuff gets decided last second. It's, it's a, I know you've been on, I mean, for people who are listening who might have not listened to a union of Dunwan, did you're on the most recent one? You're, you've also been on a couple other ones. One that really sticks out is the near death experiences because that was a really unique and powerful show. And I think that was, you know, that's kind of the beautiful thing of the union of Dunwan. You get those gem of episodes and it's just, you know, I don't know any other show that's doing stuff like that. But the show wouldn't be what it is if we didn't have people like yourself and the other participants to come in who bring these really interesting perspectives. Because that's what makes it fun is that all these very unique researchers and thinkers and bringing them together and just seeing what happens, right? And is always fascinating. So the umedunwanted.com, you can get all the links to our channels and audio and merch and all the places you can find our shows. And then the Ripple Effect podcast, which, you know, Alex, you did a screen share of and you can find all my episodes of everything I do. Ricky Rantz and Rockfin, which I struggle to do because I don't know if you've ever done a solo show. I go through imposter syndrome right before I think about doing a solo show and I'm like, what the fuck do I have to say or offer talking to myself? But I, from time to time, I do a show called Ricky Rantz and Rockfin, which is a solo show. And then of course, the Ripple Effect podcast, which is more of a personal one-on-one show like this. And then the umedunwanted and you can find them anywhere you can get audio downloads and the videos shows are, most of them are on Odyssey, Rumble, Bitshoot, Rockfin and all the alternative platforms. Because many of us have been censored on YouTube because now in 2020, getting a second opinion from a doctor doesn't exist. You know, you have one opinion that is trumps all the other ones. So it's definitely Ricky, RickyRantz.com or RippleFactPodcast.com will bring you to the same website where you can find all my shows. So it's an easy place to find all the links and episodes and uncensored. Thanks to Matt from Content Save. I got to give him a shout out because he's the one who helped me build the website and protected me from being censored. Because I really wanted a place where I could put all my work that bypassed any other platform. Because even though I love Rockfin, I love Odyssey, I love all these other platforms, they are businesses, private businesses. And you know, so far so good, no censorship, no issues. But you never know. And so, you know, I want to believe that that will stay the case for forever. But like I said, you never know. So it's nice to also be in control of your own destiny and give people a place where they can go find every show for free, uncensored forever. So thanks to Matt for that. And maybe eventually we'll see you on another You Have Done Wanted or another RippleFactPodcast or on Rockfin. Or are you on any of the other ones like Bitshooter? I know you're still on YouTube, but are you on Bitshoot, Odyssey, Rumble, Float, any of the other alternatives? I guess, I mean, I'll try. I'll try anything. Hey, our guest again has been Ricky Verandas. Do check him out, rickyverandas.com. Ricky, thanks so much. I think it's so cool. I mean, I think you'll really turn people on. You have such a great style when I think people really appreciate what you're doing. And I know that's why you're so successful. And that's why the Union of the Unwanted is so unique and so powerful. So I really hope people check it out. Thanks again, buddy. Thanks Alex. Thanks for the time. Thanks for the great conversation. Always thought-provoking, which is always what I'm attempting to get involved in. Some thought-provoking conversations. So thanks Alex. And keep up what you're doing. I think anybody who's as honest and now spoken as you, it's a good thing that you don't self-censor. Because to me, it's a sign that you're not self-censoring. It's almost the same appeal of Trump, right? It's like, you might say some stupid shit sometimes, but I think what people really liked about him, it's like, well, at least I know he's saying what's on his mind because he can't help but say what's on his mind sometimes, even if it hurt him. So I think people like that organic conversation in that it's a real person. It's not of, you know, I'm not trying to paint a picture of something I'm really not. And I always say, love me or hate me, at least, you know, what you see is what you get. You know, if we met somewhere, this is what you would get. So I think people appreciate that. Awesome buddy. I'm not so sure. I can't leave without saying I'm not so sure about Trump. I think it's more of a brand than a person. I certainly appreciate that self-censoring thing. Well, however that turns out. Okay, have an awesome day. We'll talk soon. We'll just stay in touch. Hey, take care, Alex. Thanks again to Ricky Verandis for joining me today on Skeptico, the one question I'd have to tee up from this interview and you could probably anticipate it. What is the nature of this pandemic? Evil. Really kind of what I've been driving at ever since I wrote that book, Why Evil Matters. I mean, I think there's this next level stuff around evil that we never seem to really tackle. I mean, what is the nature of this evil that wants to put so much fear into the system that wants everyone to be so afraid and so medically fragile? What's the evil behind wanting pregnant women to get vaccinated even though it dramatically increases the risk of miscarriage? What is the nature of that evil? And how is it different than the pizza gate evil that we talked about? That's next level. That's why evil matters. So let me know your thoughts on that. Let's start that dollar because I'm not sure that we've really nailed that dialogue down. So that means I'm going to continue to push on it. Love to hear from you. Join me on the Skeptico Forum. Join me over on Telegram although I set it up You get the point. Track me down. I want to connect with you. I want to talk about this stuff. Until next time, take care. Bye for now.