Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the British monarchy and the UK in general and the huge role it's had in shaping the world in the past and how people are processing that in processing its standing today and the transition of in the monarchy that we're seeing right now.
And later on, we're going to take a look at the issue of muscle dysmorphia and how many men appear to be dealing with similar thoughts of inadequacy in their physical appearance. Things that we've all heard as far as like, with women dealing with for some period of time.
Joining me today is a man who may not be royalty, but he does know how to host parties like a king. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to reveal what you know about that?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm actually honored with that one. People that know me know I like to, you know, I'm a social butterfly. So I wasn't prepared for you to give me that kind of compliment, sir. I will accept it.
All right.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: All right. Well, we're recording this on September 12, 2022, and we saw last week that Queen Elizabeth of the UK passed away at the age of 96 after serving as Queen for over 70 years.
Now, while the British Empire, which is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations, has decreased in stature over the last century, Queen Elizabeth has still had quite a notable reign, one that in particular lasted longer than any other British monarch and is the longest of record of written record for female head of state.
So just to get us started, Tunde, what are your thoughts on the Queen's death, the new King Charles, and this ongoing line of monarchs that we see in the UK that stretch back really nearly 1000 years to William the Conqueror?
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's where I'll actually continue. Which to me, the impressive thing that we hear about a thousand year reigns throughout history, or let's say this, we hear about the desire for many to reign for a thousand years for some reason that the thousand year mark is important to a lot of people. Remember Hitler wanted to have a thousand year Reich. Right. And I used to wonder, well, what happens like in 1100 years? Then why don't you just say I want it indefinitely. But so my joke. Yeah. Is that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Why not just say forever?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So William the Conqueror, as you mentioned, was the first Norman king of England that created this line that goes till today. So if this line Continues, which I don't see any threat to it in the next 20 or, sorry, 44 years, by the year 2066, officially this British monarchy will have had a thousand year reign. So I think that's just pretty cool. Shoot, that's some good family planning. Let's just put that.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: No, I mean, actually the thing that fascinates me about this is how they've evolved over the time. You know, how the British monarchy itself has evolved and you know, where it was an absolute thing at one point and times change, you know, and as, as Britain evolved, very Britain evolved and so forth. And you know, you. This is where the Magna Carta was, which I don't know if you want to get into that, but just the Magna Carta being. Trying to create a rule of law that even the King would be subject to and that, you know, the document is notable. It didn't really take right away, but it was a start in a process that. And you go along this process over the centuries where now the British. Excuse me. Yeah, the British monarchs are not the head of government. And so. And I think that contributes to them still being. If they were still trying to be absolute authority, then I don't think they would still be in place. And so the fact that now they've become what is what you could term as a head of state, but not a head of government. And so people get mad about the government doing this or the government doing that. They don't look to overthrow the Queen or the King. They're like, no, we got to get in. In fact, we just saw this in England where they had the Prime Minister, you know, Boris Johnson, they just got him out the paint and they replaced him with a different person. And so that was the gripes with the government though, like nobody was looking at Queen Elizabeth saying, oh, the government's not working. Right. So it actually insulated them, it allowed them to perform ceremonial roles that nobody really gets that upset about, or at least nobody in that country gets that upset about, you know, and get to participate in. But not necessarily the things that the government governing things that everybody gets upset about.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Well, it's interesting because you bring up the Magna Carta, which was written in the year 1215 under King John of England's rule.
And what's interesting with that is think about what we're going to say here is for this monarchy to last a thousand years, the Magna Carta was an example of them giving up some power earlier on in the journey, which is just interesting, right, which is kind of not the normal DNA, when we think of monarchs, kings, dictators, emperors, kind of those types of roles.
But it wasn't until the Glorious Revolution, what they call it, that's actually what it's called.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: I thought you must really like that revolution.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: No, no, no, it's actually capital G and capital R. That's the name of it. It's called the glorious revolution of 1688.
Around that period when the kind of Bill of Rights, so to speak, what we would equate to that here in the United States, was really enshrined for the British people And into the 1700s, I mean, they were still kind of dealing with some of these individual rights stuff. And so what's interesting is that Magna Carta was initially established to deal with the relationship between the king and the barons. Yeah.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Other nobility, basically.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, the nobility. Because remember back then in the 1200s, you still had a strong kind of serfs, peasants, you know, that, that kind of caste system in Europe generally and especially England. So. But what they said was, I was, I was reading something, I talked about Victorian historian, historians found that there was a myth of the Magna Carta. So most British people believe that the document written in 1215 actually was about the rights of the individuals and the people. So it's kind of interesting that this myth turned into reality. But one thing that I was reminded reading it is it's almost a 500 year journey from 1215 to about 1700. And so again, our country is 250 years old.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: So it just tells you that, you know, it takes a long time sometimes. And we know, well, all of us, the history of Europe and in a country like England, there's been a lot of infighting over those hundreds of years to get to some sort of what we see now as a stable nation. So.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, because if you talk just recorded history, some level of recorded history, you're talking 5,000 years. And you know, the first 3,000 of that is like Egypt.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Then, you know, a little bit in the Middle east and all that. But there's not a bunch of writings from all over the world from the BC period, you know, so to speak, until you get really close, I guess you get. You bring Greece in around 1000 or so, 800 BC. But yeah, so just the concept of time and the concept that you've had this, this monarchy in place is very notable, like you said, particularly for people who live in a country that's 250 years old as far as, as a sovereign, it was a colony, you know, of, of. Of England before that. And so I think that their ability to adapt, though, I think we bring up these two pieces, but it's important to say that these two things, I'm sure are related. They're interrelated in the sense that the fact that they were able to adapt, even if adaptation goes slowly or whatever, but there's this. The ability to adapt to how things are going, but yet remain kind of relevant, remain in some level of power or some level of influence is what kind of allows them to do that. Because most of the time the position of monarch and so forth tends to make people more rigid. And then you're rigid, rigid, rigid until you break. Whereas if you're flexible, then a lot of times you can withstand a lot more. I think also one of the things that stood out to me also is that they're talking about the estate and you know, several hundred million or so forth. And it's like you think of the British monarchy in terms of history of the world as one of the wealthiest kind of things out there. You know, like all of the colonies and all this stuff, with quarter of the world's population at various points and pulling wealth from all these places. So I'm sure some of this has to do with the disconnect between the government, the government of Britain. But also just looking at a half a billion dollar or so estate is like, huh, that's not what you might necessarily think of when you see. Okay, yeah, yeah, this is going back 300, 400, 500 years. Like, wow, these people had their hands in all these pots.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've actually was doing some reading just preparing for today and found some interesting stuff on that which, Which I'll share here in a sec. But you know, when I first saw. You're right, that they said that her estate was worth around or her net worth around 500 million. First thing, I thought the same. The first of all, just for the audience, I'm not worth 500 million. So I wish I was. But the idea, everything we're about to.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Say now is relative.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Relative to expectations, relative to rich people in the world.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: When I say that I expected her to be worth a little more is not because I'm sitting here trying to gloat that I'm some kind of, you know, super 100 millionaire billionaire. But the idea, what it really, on a serious note, brought me to realize was it's just fascinating to me how capital moves over time. So it's like, to your point, I'm sure, let's say King George, Right. That we all know famously froze king during our revolution, you know, when we had a revolution against the British, let's say prior to the revolution, when the United States or America was still part of the British colonies at that time, that the King was the sovereign and the head of state, basically. And as we just noted. Right. That the laws weren't the same they were today in England. So the King really did have control over all the subjects in that.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Oh, and all the wealth.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And then all the wealth of the colonies. So you think about all those plantations in the United States that were, that were, you know, making the raw materials like tobacco, sugar, cotton, all their colonies and plantations in the Caribbean, all this stuff in India, so on and so forth. So he might have been the richest guy in the world, literally.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: I mean, I would say that's a safe assumption.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: You know, like, yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: What I thought about when I saw the Queen's net worth was this truly is shows you that, you know, we have now, you and I were personally born after this. But the last hundred years really did see the end of feudalism and the European dominated monarchies, literally replaced by the industrial age and capitalism. Because remember, the shift to the industrial age was the first time in modern kind of last thousand 1500 years that wealth, especially in Europe, was not handed down through patronage and that it wasn't primarily built on land ownership because remember, that's what gave the British Empire so much wealth was the amount of they owned 24, 25% of the world's land when they were the peak of their empire. But now the, the greatest commodities are like oil and information, data. So it's interesting that you can have someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, these guys are worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but the Queen of England is worth half of 1 billion. And that's kind of what it showed me was like, all right, this proves that we are definitely in a different age than we might have been at the beginning of the 20th century. You know, like the world has made this total ship at this point.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, total, yeah. So no, I mean, I think that that's it, that kind of context, you know, and that's kind of what it is. It's the context of like we hear about the richest people in the world. And yeah, those are billions and bees, you know, and now at this point, it's, it's hundreds of billions with bees, you know.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Well, and one of the things I just wanted to state this, that the wealth of the crown estate, which is Actually like the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace, I was reading here it says it was in 2011, the value was 7.3 billion pounds. And so I'm guessing that probably doubled with looking at how real estate went the last decade. But so let's just assume it went up a bit. Right? Like Maybe they're worth 15 or 12 billion now, but still you think about the Crown Estate is still not worth what a large corporation on New York Stock Exchange is worth today. You know what I mean? So it's just interesting that.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, Apple is a trillion dollar company and so like, so. But I mean, I think in the sense that since their wealth was about control, a lot of times forced control over other people and other things, I think that where we are now, where it might be monopolistic, but it is off of, generally speaking, people who are wealthy are delivering something, some product, service or resource. And if you go to Saudi Arabia or whatever and the wealth that they're talking about, I think that at least in terms of our current perception of value in economics, that makes more sense. Like you're, you're wealthy because you're delivering something that people need or people want more so than you're, you're wealthy because you just control all of these people.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah, because one thing I was gonna just finish up with the, what I learned about how the, the finances are managed or not only you have that kind of wealth, but remember you've got, you know, like I was a kid and I went to visit the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. So there's revenue made from things like tourism and all that kind of stuff, right?
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So what I was reading was it's interesting, the Crown Estate produced, I'll quote here, 200 million pounds in the financial year 2007. 2008, whereas reported parliamentary funding for the monarch was 40 million during the same period. So the, the revenue was at a surplus for managing the Royal Family's affairs. Right. All the stipends they get and the homes they live in, it's actually paid for by the business generated from the Crown Estate. And to your. That's what I was going to say to your point about how they're so much different than other monarchies, because I think what causes other monarchies to fail within time? Like, who knows where the Saudi family will go? Is it the fact that they siphon all the wealth and then they just control it? And the British monarchy at some point said, you know what, we better be okay with just this piece here because we See what happened in the French Revolution, all these other. The czars of Russia, you know, 100 years ago, that anytime a monarch tries to get too much for too long, the people come and take them down.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: So that's how it's been throughout history. I mean, that's an interesting point that, in terms of how you lay that out as far as them being essentially a net surplus.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: As a, you know, as a producing entity. And I mean, I think that goes to. Like I said, I'm not saying that this should be done, but the distinction, particularly for somebody who lives in the United States, the distinction between the head of state and the head of government. You know, whereas, like, you have a president, in this case, we expect the president to be all the ceremonial stuff and we expect him to be a part of the governing and the governing functions and so forth. It's that they can operate at a surplus as just the head of state. Hey, we'll just make people feel good about being British and, you know, we'll show up at places and cut ribbons and all that. And they're able to do that at a surplus is actually a pretty interesting kind of way to go about, you know, things and to create. To create value where otherwise it wouldn't be. And so.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Well, it also keeps the anger of. Let's say that the British populace from, you know, pointed at them.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: Like the crown is stealing from the people. And they can say, no, we're not. Like, look.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: And they're not stealing from the people. And if you're not happy with the way things are going, it's not on them. It's like, yeah, yeah, talk to the prime Minister. You know, Exactly. Somebody different. And so get those people out of.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Kind of a genius. Yeah, they figured out an actual figure out.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yes, good hustle.
Everybody just worship me.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: I gotta figure out they gotta have some daughters so we can get our sons up in there. You know, something like that. I'm too old now to go marry a royal, but, you know, you just.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Gotta throw a party for him, man.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Now we saw, you know, there's things to look at and kind of appreciate or kind of just note like, oh, yeah, that's pretty interesting. But we saw there was a notable amount of negative reaction to the Queen's death as well. So setting aside, like, the timing of it, you know, there can be in this discussion where you avoid the conversation altogether and, oh, it was a wrong time to do this, or whatever. Which, you know, fine. It could be a valid point. May not be a valid point, but just kind of not looking at the timing. But just. What stood out to you about the criticism?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: It's interesting because I think the criticism dealt with things, that little bit of the stuff we covered a little bit just now on the empire. I think that's where I've seen most of the criticism is, I guess, people trying to remind the world that the British did have colonies then had people under subjugation in those colonies. I would say, obviously, our country was one until we had a revolution and our country had its issues with the British. But I feel like some of those, like the Indians, specifically meaning the nation of India, really can trace evidence of having a lot of their own sovereign wealth kind of siphoned out of the country over a couple hundred years. You got, you know, you think about their role in the African slave trade. You know, at the height of it, about 74% of all slaves brought from Africa to the Americas. Somehow the British touched it, whether through merchant ships, whether through insurance companies like Lords of London, insuring the ships, all that kind of stuff. And so I think there is a lot of, you know, look, understandably so everyone's entitled to an opinion. So there's people that aren't happy that Britain has that kind of stain on their history.
And it's just, to me, it's. It's fascinating. I'm not here to, like, make an opinion about that, whether it's right or wrong. I think people just are entitled to have their opinion. But it's just a reminder how fascinating it is for me, the impact that this small island in the North Atlantic basically has had on the whole world, that at one point in recent time, in 1920, near the end of the empire, they had influence over 25% of the whole world population.
And so it's just.
So you look at migration patterns throughout the world. We talked about it with the fact that India was a colony at the same time as the West Indies. And living here in South Florida, I never understood why. How did Chinese people and people from East India get to Jamaica in the 17, 1800? And then someone told me it was all part of the British Empire. And I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. So, you know, there's always good and bad with all these things, right?
[00:19:16] Speaker A: And so, yeah, I mean, I think I've seen some pretty legitimate complaints. And then I've seen some things that it's like, well, I think there's kind of a desire to just get out the thought or get out the feeling. Because when someone Dies. A lot of times you see people not necessarily fawn over them, but just kind of, kind of talk about the good. And so I think that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. That may associate the British Empire more negatively. But like, for example, though one of the more like I would say constructive or just legitimate things, like, hey, you know this Koh I Noor diamond, 105 carat diamond that came up out of India that I think the Queen wears it, you know, like it's part of the what's worn, you know, by the end. And they're like, yo, why don't you give that back? It's like, yeah, maybe, maybe that's, you know, like that, that, that's not just, oh, you know, I'm not happy that everybody's praising you right now. That's kind of like, that's probably a gripe that someone would have at any time. And they're just taking the opportunity, hey, while we're talking about all this, why don't you give that back? So, but at the same time, I think that with that level of influence, as you just kind of detailed, there's going to be.
Everyone is not going to view that in the same way. So in the same way that when we talk about the, like, when people talk about American history and there's this, in many circles, there's this aversion, like, I don't want to hear anything unless it's from my perspective or in a particular narrative that I like. If it's not in that narrative, I don't want to hear about it or I don't think anybody should hear about it. And I think in this case it's the same kind of thing. Like, it would be silly to try to say that everyone should have the same perspective or view the Queen of England or, you know, the British monarchy in the same way. The world is big and they've had a lot of influence. They aren't people that, you know that, that, you know, that, that empire, that, that monarch, you know, monarchy wasn't one that people did, you know, I don't know. They, they weren't that influential. Like, no, they were very influential. They had their hands everywhere. So it's not, of course, there would be people who have a view of them or subscribe to a narrative of them that is less flattering. And so to me, that's kind of part and parcel with the game. If you, if you play at a very high level, very influential, you're going to have people that see you in a positive light, you're going to see people that see you in a negative light. And it doesn't make any one of those more legitimate. And so to me, that's just what you saw. You just saw this is a big world. And that these people affected the world in many different places in a lot of different ways. And there are some people that are very fond of it, and there are some people that are like, eh, I don't know, that was kind of messed up. And others that are really mad about it, you know, and then that's fine. Everybody not gonna see things the same way or view things interesting.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: You make a good point because, I mean, we did the show recently from Ray Dalio on the Changing World Order, and the fact, you know, let's say we're the number one empire now and think about, you know, there's a lot of areas, the Middle East, Russia, China, they don't look at us favorably. Right.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: And, you know, we're the big dog on the block. And so I agree.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: And it's territory.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: But what's interesting to me about England, again, is this. This. There's a certain humility that they have, which I find interesting. You know, they. Prince William and Kate Middleton, I think it was in the first quarter of this year, in 2022, basically went on an apology tour in the Caribbean to the colonies, Jamaica, Bahamas, you know, Antigua, those kind of islands. And apologizing for their role in the slave trade.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: And, you know, I. I thought about it. Like, it's interesting. Like, and I don't. It's not that I'm a big fan that they should have done it or not. Like, again, I'm neutral on things like that, but I found it kind of refreshing that they. That they not insecure to just say something like that, you know, and just move on and think about it. It's not like everybody in those islands are sitting there throwing tomatoes at Prince William and all that. This is a respectful kind of moment in passing. And it was just kind of like, all right, he drew a line in the sand, he said something nice. You know, they made an apology and everyone moves on. And it was an interesting contrast to our country's inability to deal with some of these things in our history.
And it just was a contrast to me, which I found interesting that they are willing to at least engage in certain conversations. Like they're engaging with India now about that diamond. They haven't told them, no, let her body cool down first, guys. Let's work this out. But it's kind of early. She just died a week ago.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: You're correct, though, that they do say, seem to, at least from the monarchy standpoint. And maybe this has to do with the fact that they are in a ceremonial role more than anything else, but that they do have a level of comfort in their own skin, so to speak. It seems like that they can have conversations like that. Whereas you do see it in our country where it's like people tend to look at that type of stuff as admissions of inadequacy in themselves. Like just acknowledging history.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: So, you know, like they seem to have a certain level of comfort with who they are and so forth that allows them to do that. The other thing, which I don't keep track of this kind of stuff and it just briefly just how the whole idea of the Commonwealth, you know, this Commonwealth of Nations that has all these different countries in it and you know, that is still, that still see the British monarch in a head of state kind of way, you know, like, and again, not ahead of government. You know, many of those are republics, you know, that still are part of this Commonwealth of Nations. You know, used to be British Commonwealth of Nations, but you know, that was the former British Empire. So that they remain associated with so many countries and that the, the royal family in the monarchy is, has an active kind of role in that is just very interesting to me that yes, there's some negative. There's going to be negative, of course, and the negative is in many cases legitimate, but there's still some positive that so many countries would still readily have an association with, you know, the, the, the, the, the crown in that sense. Because, you know, like something that never crossed my mind, you know, certainly I live in the United States, which doesn't do that. So it never crossed my mind that you could live in another country and be like, oh, yeah, you know, like big countries like Australia, you know, stuff like that where it's like, oh, wow, these people.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Well, no, it's interesting for me actually that hits home because I lived in Australia in the 90s and at the time I remember just watching the news and all that, that they were having those debates openly in that country because there was a, you know, like every other nation, they got their own beefs. Right. Internally. And so there was a group, a faction in Australia that supported the Queen and kind of the old school, you know, ties to Mother Britain and all that. And then there was kind of the newer guard of Australians that were like, no, we need to get rid of the Governor General. And you know, we don't need to pay homage to this, you know, to the Brits anymore and da, da, da. And, you know, the desire to stay somewhat connected with Britain won out. And obviously, like you're saying, it's still there today. So.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: And you mentioned this to me, like, as of 2016, this is like almost two and a half billion people.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And you look at then how many people, 400 million people in the world speak English directly as the first language. And then I think there's over a billion that have it as a second language or some other language that they speak. Right.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: And that really underestimates it because English is also established around the world as like a language of commerce.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: You know, and so, like, at high level commerce, a lot of times, English is a very, very prominent. And so I make that distinction because that high level commerce a lot of times is international conversations, you know, like conversations amongst people in different nations. So the influence is amazing. And so one of the other things I wanted to ask you, I guess the last thing I wanted to ask you, like, specific was just what do you think about in terms of. There have been efforts to kind of contextualize what the British Empire actually was able to, how much it took from other countries. And we've seen numbers thrown around not by just people playing around, but like prominent economists, like $45 trillion that Great Britain pulled out of India, you know, so is there a right way to deal with. And that's just one example. But this question still seems to just be floating around, like in terms of colonialism and the exploitation that involved. And it may not necessarily be in place as it was then anymore. There still may be things where people take advantage of people. And I mean, honestly, in the world, there's always going to be people taking advantage. Yeah, but what do you think? Is there a right way or a wrong way? Some people want reparations. Some people want apologies or acknowledgments. Some people want their money back or various things. They want things back, which is not trivial. Some people want art back, some people want cultural artifacts back. What do you think as far as the right way to deal with this? And this is not directly pertinent to the transition from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles, but it's more. So this is an opportunity to reflect on these things, so to speak, and to look at. Okay, here's where we are. What does this mean? Or what can we, what can we take from this as far as how we're going to move forward?
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, first I'll Answer, which I don't have a perfect answer because I don't think there is one. Because you got.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: That is an answer, though.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a good point you make of just. It's a bigger conversation than just England, Just the queen. You know, I was reading actually this morning in my newsfeed, just as a similar topic, the FBI actually confiscated 21 pieces of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is returning them to the countries of Egypt and Syria. They're ancient artifacts, like from whether the Egyptian time or the Assyrians and all those kind of, you know, Bronze Age and Iron Age type of stuff.
Because they were saying that it was stolen by an Italian who was in that area in the. In the late 19th and early 20th century when Italy had a colonies there in those areas.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: See, man, FBI always going in and taking stuff back that people shouldn't have taken in the first place.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: And FBI, man, if you have stolen property, man, you better watch out.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: I'll leave that alone.
We'll keep it about artifacts.
But again, it just tells you that there's a theme globally going on just about that things that were taken. And think about it, this is no different. I mean, I thought about as you were winding up your question, does anyone argue that the Nazis stole art and other valuable things like jewelry and all that from Jews as they loaded them on trains and put them, sent them to concentration camps in the 30s and 40s?
[00:30:02] Speaker A: That was big. That was a lot of wealth transfer.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Contributed to a lot of wealth transfer. Why Germany? Boom. One reason why Germany boomed in the 30s. I mean, if you just. It's a stimulus package. You just take from this whole group stuff. Yeah, just give it to a bunch of other people. Right. That's. That's a stimulus. Kind of like the CARES act. Right. So. So the thing is, is that, you know, we've seen this for decades trying to recover stolen Nazi art.
In a sense, this is a similar thing, but just over a hundred years. And we all know the stories about the conquistadors, you know, the Spanish crown, that, you know, ships were sinking, leaving South America because they were so heavy and they had too much gold. You think we have all these treasure hunters out here in South Florida and in the Caribbean. So that's my point is the evidence is there that, yes, raw materials were basically taken from colonial societies or societies that didn't have the technology to defend themselves at the time. And if you want to look at it at that alpha way, right. Like, oh, the only the strong survive. And the weak, and that's part of natural selection, then that's how you can look at it. If you want to look at it a more holistic way that, oh, you know, we should do better now that, you know, we know better and we should give people back things, then that's, that's why I said I don't have a perfect answer. I just think it's going to be the ultimate debate, not only now, but it's probably happened forever. So.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: No, and I mean, I think you're correct. I mean it's, it sounds kind of like a cop out, that there is no right way. But I think that we underestimate.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: I think it's about what lens you're looking at it from.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Well, but I think we underestimate how kind of common and persistent people taking or taking advantage of other people are. Like when we did the book, the economic hitman book. I mean, that's not much different than the colonialism stuff. Like you go in and you're like, yeah, let me get these people to sign all these contracts that they don't know, but I know is just gonna allow me to take all this stuff under guise of a contract and you know, I'm going to use them to extract their resources, sell it back to them. They're going to default on some loan and then I'm going to own everything. Like, that's not much different that it involves like tricks instead of guns. Does that make it better? And so, no.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: I mean, but you know, I'm thinking of as you're talking the Sackler family with the opioids. The opioids that killed 400,000Americans in the last 20 years. And it's the same thing. They come under this guise of helping medically, but all they're doing is sucking money out, billions of dollars out of our economy and hurting people.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: So it's just, you know, it's just happens in different ways.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: And so I say that, to say only that, to try to isolate this and say, okay, this is where we need to pay that. If you're talking about returning priceless things, that to me is a different conversation. Like we have, we have this diamond or we have this mummy, or we have this thing and where that's from, like that, that is something that's bigger than commerce, you know, and so forth. But it's really difficult to untangle when you're talking about this financial stuff. Even if even like there was a $45 trillion number put on and you and I both were like big eyes when we saw that. Like, what in the world. But there's a methodology that this economist put together that it looks very legitimate, you know, but it's like, hold on, Great Britain's not gonna pay them back $45 trillion. That would take them 100 years or more. You know, like, it's. It's not feasible in that sense. And so what do we do? Like, I think the better approach actually is to. As nations right now the world is much smaller than it used to be and nations do things collaboratively. Collaboratively more than they used to. And I think the goal of making it right may not necessarily be undoing what has been done, but figure out ways to try to lift the tide for all boats. And also acknowledging that, I think is a big thing. And we see that's a big fight here in the United States in terms of whether history is going to be taught or not. But I think around the world as well, and this is old as human beings as well. There's many things that happen in the world that we just don't know about because it wasn't. Either it was recorded and then it was burned or whatever we know about the history as people want us to perceive it in many ways. But now I think it's important that we try to preserve as much as possible what happened and again, try to lift all boats. Try to lift. Make sure you can have arm's length transactions with people and not predatory type things. And. But those are the same struggles we have internationally. We have those same struggles here. Yeah, you know, within, like real quick look at the, like a lot of the student loan stuff or there's colleges that are like predatory on students and so get people taking out loans to go to colleges that didn't dissolve and stuff like that, like predatory stuff is out there. So I think, again, more so looking forward, we need to set up systems where it's difficult or that stuff doesn't pay as easily.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Well, they weren't that predatory when I was there because when they had me sign up for a credit card when I was 18 with the table in the mess hall area, they did give me a free T shirt.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Which you then became a billboard for them.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was great. I got a T shirt and I got $1,000 line of credit.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Which I ran up in about a week.
So.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: But I think we can move on from there, man. It's something though. I think the conversation a lot of times, I think it's something. We'll see where the conversations Become very emotional and passionate. And there's nothing wrong with that necessarily. But a lot of times there's more to it. And so, you know, like you can, there's more information to digest, there's more context to kind of process. And this I think is one of those where it seemed like a lot of times the discussion end ended up being, oh, well, is the British monarchy bad? Is it good? Is it this? Is it that, you know, are these people that are criticizing it, are they wrong, are they right? And it's like, well, you know, like there's more texture to the conversation than that. But the other thing we wanted to talk about today actually was it's been circulating around lately. It's talking about muscle dysmorphia. And particularly with men in modern, you know, modern age right now where men are. There's, there's a tendency right now for whether it be because of social media images or whatever it is to become obsessed with getting quote unquote jacked. You know, just being swole, being however you want to term it. You know, where it's all muscle, no fat, you know, all the definitions, six pack, eight pack, if you really go, you know, all the way. And, and so how that. It's almost like with a combination of the kind of over the counter or even readily accessible type of supplements or drugs that people can get. It's, there's a, there's a tendency for people to go overboard with this stuff right now where people are really throwing off their body just trying to have, you know, the, the, the, the look like Incredible Hulk minus the green, you know. So what was your, what was your kind of thought process seeing this? I mean, and you're somebody that, you know, you were a high school, college level athlete. You know, I was involved in athletics, you know, sports and stuff in my younger days. So I was interested in what, what your thought was on this. And then like, like we've talked about before, instead of just asking you on the phone, figured I'd talk to you about it on the pod.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: I'm just laughing my ass. Like the minute you said like the Hulk without going green or something, I pictured, I pictured like Arnold Schwartz like the size of Schwarzenegger in his prime. Or like Lou Ferrigno just smoking a joint.
I could see a whole marketing campaign of a big muscle heads going green.
So you never cease to allow my mind to get somewhere new look, it's, I'll be honest audience. When James came to me with this topic, I was like, dude, this seems kind of Boring. What's he talking about? But I shut my mouth and played along and decided, you know, let me, let me be open minded. And I'm glad I did because in reading and all that, it was very interesting because.
So for several levels. One is, unfortunately, this is like many other conditions that we have in our society, right. Where people can look at themselves and see something maybe either different than what the rest of us see, or they just are comparing themselves to something that may not be realistic. So you think about how that affects people. People have anorexia, people have depression, people have eating disorders in other ways, bulimia, all that right into money.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Lifestyle, like that seems to be kind of a thing in humanity is like grass is greener on the other side type of thing. Like we're always looking at it. Yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: So, so, but normally those, I think in our culture, right. In my whole lifetime it's been more. You hear about that with women and.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Women as far as the physical appearance.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Phyllis, physical, like women trying to keep up with the Joneses. Right. Their hair, their nails, their boobs, their butt, they're this, they're that. Right. And so when we're used to seeing women doing things like breast implants or butt lifts or whatever to try and maintain a certain look and maintain youthful look or whatever. So we're not as used to seeing men go through that, at least up until, let's say the last decade where there's more anti aging companies, more testosterone promotion and all that kind of stuff.
[00:38:45] Speaker A: And to your point, by the way, I think one of the key things is doing something that maybe from a health standpoint, not 100%, nothing to worry about. Things that, you know, entail, they may not have a high level of risk, but just entail some level of risk, but you know, to look better, so to speak. You know.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but and the interesting thing too, I mean, look, we're, you know, you're a year younger than me, so I won't drag you into the mid-40s yet. But I'm 44 and, you know, it's interesting. I'm right smack in middle age and, you know, I can't lift as heavy weights as I used to without probably getting on some supplement. You know, I, I can just feel my body aging. You know, I got little aches more and all that. And so I find myself with some of these feelings sometimes. Like I look in the mirror and the thing with me is I just lose weight. Like, I get slim if I don't lift. I don't really put on fat. It's probably more of my diet and my lifestyle. But what, what I remember I played college basketball, I was, I'm 6 4, I was 215 at my peak with probably 7% body fat.
And so now I'm probably 196, so I'm 20 pounds lighter. So when I look at the old pictures of me, you know, sometimes there's a part of me now is a man. I want to get that kid back, you know, like, you know, that feel like Mr. You know, musclehead and all that.
And so I can appreciate it. And what this really made me appreciate in preparing for today was the role again of social media in creating these bubbles of focus.
And I'll pass.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: That's a good way to go.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: Yeah, and I'll pass it back because one area I'll speak about a little bit, he gave me his permission. My 24 year old son who's in central Florida right now, he was getting down this rabbit hole about two years ago into weightlifting, bodybuilding. So I'll share some of that, but I'll pass it back because I saw that social media to me was another culprit of creating a reality bubble for people which then they got drawn down to. Like it has with other kind of.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good way to put it in terms of how it isolates your focus. And so there's so much going on in the world, but instead of just seeing, you know, a Marvel movie and being like, oh yeah, that guy is really, really strong, you know, and then doing a million other things before you think about that again, it's like something that's gonna be put in front of you all the time.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: To me, actually what stood out to me most about this was the different mentalities of kind of strength training and body appearance. And I consider myself fortunate in the sense. And I'm 42, so you got me by a little bit. I guess I'll turn 43 soon. But for me, when I was younger and my athletic career ended after high school, but in high school, you know, I played football, ran track and so forth and what I was always interested in, and that's where I learned lifting and things like that is in the context of the football team. Now for me, I learned about lifting in a direct correlation to being able to perform, to not be, get, to not get out overpowered, to not get thrown off balance or something like that. So to me I've always had this association with less so appearance. Like my mindset was always that the Appearance will take care of itself. But I wanted performance, I wanted to be able, I wanted to be strong and not necessarily the look. And so when I look at the focus on the aesthetic, I'm like, it's interesting. And I've noticed this over the time. I've always been kind of an avid weightlifter or sports sprinter or runner, whatever it would be, it all types of performance things. And I've noticed in many instances, like when I'm at the gym and so forth, people lift differently. A lot of times when it's about the aesthetic than it is about trying to make sure that you're powerful, make sure that you're strong. And so it's basically this rabbit hole that we're seeing here where the aesthetic, because that is visually it's like you can't, you look at somebody who's very powerful, you probably can tell that they're, they're strong to a degree, but you can't tell the extent of someone when they're, you know, six pack, eight pack abs and just fully, you know, no, no water weight or anything. And so the obsession to that, to me it's just interesting how that has taken over. And like you said, it's probably the visual medium or a large part of. It's probably the visual medium, but also the supplement industry and all those things, they, they really, I think point people in that direction. They're saying, hey, you can be like this or you get those muscle and fitness magazines and stuff. It's the same kind of thing.
Not the same level of immersion.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: No, it's interesting. So just for the audience to be clear, you know, James is stoic. I, I'm totally vain. I just want to have a big chest and I want to have my shoulders ripped just so I can look good. So.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: But you weren't like that when you were playing ball.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: I had no problem, admitted it.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: But you weren't like that when you were playing ball though.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I was, I didn't have to think like that because I was just snapping like, that's my point.
That's what I'm saying. I was 6, 4, like 215 with 7, 8% body fat, man. I was ripped, man.
But the thing was, to your point, I was good basketball strong because if I'd have put on another 20 pounds of muscle, I don't think I'd have been as flexible and able to be good on the basketball court.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: So there isn't a been. You would have been less explosive.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: That's what I mean. When you're an active athlete, there is a part where, like, you can't go too far because it's gonna definitely hinder your performance. But we've all seen that.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: The muscle. The muscle head guy that can't move. But now.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's the thing. But you know what gets me back a little bit to the social media, not really to pick on it, but to pick on it, in a sense, is because in reading this and talking to my son, like, that's the thing. It's amazing when your kid is involved with something.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: Home. Yeah.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's cool because I got worried about him. Like, two years ago, he came home for Christmas from college, and not only was he huge, but he's, like, telling me he's thinking about maybe taking some testosterone. So I was like, Jarrell, you're 22, man. You're on market testosterone. And, you know, you're gonna. You wanna literally jump through the roof. Like, literally.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: And then he's like, yeah, but I gotta get bigger. And the kid was huge. I mean, he's bigger than me and. And he's taller. He's 6 5, and he was like 2 20, but all muscle, you know, like, he's huge. And. And then I remember where I thought, okay, my kid might have an issue, but I didn't say anything at the time was he showed me a picture of a huge bodybuilder. I'm talking about a guy that was unnaturally huge. Like, my head's the size of his shoulder and with, like 2% body fat. You know, it was all shredded up. And he was like, I want to look like that, but he was serious.
And, you know, I mean, I didn't pay it too much mind. I wasn't sitting there fretting over it, but in my head, I was like, this kid's a little bit into this stuff. And what's cool is I've noticed. I noticed that he didn't keep going down that road, which kind of brought me off the ledge of wanting to talk to him seriously about it. And then what happened is he's, you know, doing good in school. He ended up working full time in cybersecurity now and all that. So he's got a life and he's got other passions and things he's doing. And I think that's what. And that's what he shared with me, actually talked to him about us doing this topic and asked his permission to mention him. And that's kind of what he told me, was there's, like, the bro Culture in the gym. And that's what he got involved with, was he was going to the gym every day. Everybody in the gym is ripped. Then they all go on the same. They have the same social media groups.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: So then everybody's passing their photos around and comparing each other.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Whether intentionally or unintentionally. Because when you see. And you're. When you're absorbed enough into only one thing, again the focus being the reality, then that's while you're looking at. And so I'm going to quote from the article that we're citing here. It says, plus, social media users aren't just consuming a buffet of rippling pecs, they're gorging on information and misinformation on how to get them. And that's the thing that caught me. And the misinformation.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Because it went back to everything else we've talked about on our couple years now doing the show about how social media has distorted a lot of the narrative in our society. There's misinformation about historical facts. There's misinformation about things like health care stuff like during COVID and all that. There's misinformation about basically everything. Right. That you can. Because. And that's how things like QAnon and all that take on so much prominence because there's no way to combat the misinformation. So what my son was sharing with me one on one was a lot of the misinformation in the health care space. And like you're saying about the supplements and all that, because a lot of this is kind of in that quasi, not really regulated by the true health side of things, pharmaceutical drugs.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Yeah. The supplement industry is not now prescription stuff is regulated, but the supplemental stuff is not.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: And so that's, that's. So that to me is just the interesting part that social media's influence again on our society, I guess that's what I'm getting at to me, was seen here and how many more of them.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: But it's still more of an increasing of the prevalence of it though, because this same culture existed when it was just in the magazines, you know, Men's Health or Muscle and Fitness and stuff or the Arnold Schwarzenegger is like a legend. And you know, because I've been going to the gym for 20 some years, you know, so I've seen all of this stuff. But again, it had less of an appeal to me, I think, you know, just because of my personal like. And I look at it now as I'm Getting older and like, it's even more important to be functionally strong when you're older as opposed to, you know, looking a certain way. But with your, with your son, it was interesting because what that reminded me of is like how kids go through phases and a lot of times, and you kind of allowed him to go through the phase without.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Circuiting that process. Yeah. And then you might, you might short circuit that process and then he sticks in the face, you know. So a lot of times parents, we see this in so many different things where a kid comes home talking about something and then everything in their life becomes about that thing for the parent. And it's like, well, let kids go through phases. Kids love one thing one day and love something the next day. And let's not just try not to have them make too many permanent decisions when they're super, when they're still developing. But ultimately you got to allow your kids to do that kind of stuff because that's how they learn, you know. But and the other thing I wanted to mention on this, and I think the analogy to women is really good because we've seen this in terms with the women we've heard about, whether it be again, the magazine covers or you know, like the movie, the media, all that kind of stuff and you know, the movies, all that kind of stuff. And then social media, same thing. And then how people in social media can alter, do alterations to pictures to make themselves look more of this or more of that. And to me, I mean, I bring it back to the humanity aspect in the same way we see that young women go through this. I mean, it's not a surprise that we see young men go through this and including the unnatural aspect of it. Because one thing I know and that people should know is that when you see in the magazines or when you like the super ripped people that are super low body fat, you can't get like that 99 times out of 100, 999 times out of a thousand. You can't get like that without unnatural, without, you know, whether it be steroids or whatever, you can't get like that. Your body doesn't work like that. And so ultimately everybody doesn't know that, especially at the young age. Or same thing with women, like when they see people look a certain way and they're like, oh, I want to be like that. And it's like, well, for the person you're looking at that they may not be able to do that naturally. And so if you don't know that, then you Start going down the path, you start failing. And then you almost back yourself into the idea of, oh, well, then I've been trying so hard. I haven't. Hasn't worked. I got to try something else now. I'm going to try something that may be unnatural, may have longer impact. And so to me, I just see it as part of our humanity. There's no cure to that in terms of whether or not people are going to do this kind of stuff. But it's kind of like where you just want to get the information out there. Like if people knew, I think that certain looks are natural that you can get to naturally, some people at least, and other looks aren't. That may help. It may not, though. It may not because, you know, people, you know, people, people want to look a certain way, you know, like whether it be men or women.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Well, I think. And your point about it's not all social media's fault is valid. I think you're right that clearly it was interesting. I was reading in the article there was a guy who had been. He recognized 20 years ago that he had this issue, you know, so you're right, I think. But I think like many things we've identified, though, that would have been a fringe at the time.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: It was.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: Because you certainly was like, I go to the gym. Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: And I wasn't one of them, but I could see them. And I, you know. Yeah.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Well, I'm thinking that like other fringes, you know, we've discussed over time in our society, social media has brought it to the mainstream.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Well, they make the fringe more influential.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's what we're seeing. Like when I see my son getting caught into it is. Is okay. What once might have been fringe now is capturing a much higher percentage of the population. Right. So again, and when you're reading some of the psychological effects of this is people feeling depressed about themselves, the extreme cases, people don't want to leave the house, all this kind of stuff because they think that their appearance is so bad. So what I'm saying is, again, it's another example to me of social media just having, again, I don't think this was the intent of people that when they created social media 15 years ago or so, but, you know, or 15 to 20 years ago. But it's just this idea that we are learning now with almost a generation into this stuff, that it just has a negative effect on our society and on many people in our society. And we either got to figure out a way how to educate people Even starting in school on how to deal with it better. And I'm starting to see that now. Believe it or not, my 11 year old's curriculum now has something about dealing with online people, which I found refreshing actually.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Hopefully they don't find it to be controversial and take it out of the schools. Then who knows?
[00:52:04] Speaker B: It wasn't controversial to me, but I mean, yeah, there's a lot of controversial.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: To you that have been taken out of schools.
[00:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So. But the bottom line is just looking at this as another example of the influence, influence of the ability for social media to capture the attention of an individual into one subject and have them focus solely on that and that becoming their whole world. And just like other topics, they were talking in the magazines how people lost, you know, family members, friends and people. Their natural market of relationships starts kind of dwindling because no one wants to deal with someone. Almost like I was. That's why I almost wanted to talk to my son before I saw that he was getting off the ledge because it was becoming like all he would talk to me about was that I'll call him just to see how he's doing or just hear, you know, dad, I'm at the gym, dad, I can't eat this, I can't do that. And I was like, dude, well, that whole life you're 22. I almost felt sorry for him. But luckily.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: But that's the thing, is that it's not that social media is all risk, but that's a very particular and specific risk that we can and should identify how it creates this immersion. It can immerse you in things that otherwise might be fringe, but can, you know, it can. That's a particular risk. You immerses you in it and it becomes your reality. The last thing I wanted to mention on this though was just the idea of how I think that there is more awareness being brought to this and that is a good thing. Like we've seen it with the women, you know, and like where women speak out, no filters and stuff like that, where they're trying to bring people's awareness to this. And right now, even like recently there was a, I think men's health, you know, where Zac Efron, you know, was talking about how that, what he looked like in Baywatch, like all the crazy stuff he had to do to his body and how it threw like it messed him up, you know, after that he had insomnia and all these other problems that he had to try to recover from just to try to look like that for the movie, you know, whereas people saw that movie, though, and were like, oh, I'm gonna do what it takes to look like that. And so it creates this cycle. So for him coming back full circle and like, yeah, that was not the move, so to speak. I think there is more awareness will help these types of things because I'm one. I'm a big advocate on exercise, on strength training and stuff like that. But your goals, I think, matter. And if your goals are set by a fringe, so to speak, or what should be a fringe, it could take you to a dangerous place. In the same way with women that if it's everything has to look like this or that or whatever, then it could take you to a bad place where, you know, you kind of lose perspective. But.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Well, and I think.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: But, but we got a wrap from there, man. I think we're. But I think we can, we can go from there.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Hold on. I'm just gonna apologize to my son for bringing him up.
Sorry, buddy.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: Oh, man. All right.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: But you gave me permission.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's an honorable thing to do. You know, that's something that, you know, shows how, how stand up of a person you are, so. But I think we can wrap from here, man. We appreciate everybody joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast. Rate it. Review us. Tell us what you think. Until next time, I'm James Keys and.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: I'm apparently a stand up guy, so I'm gonna bask in that one for a little while.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: There you go today, man. All right.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: Hey, man, you.
[00:54:58] Speaker A: We'll talk to you next time.
