0:07

So is this the first time we've

0:09

recorded in South Dakota?

0:11

Yeah, I think so. Does it sound alright?

0:14

Yeah, I think so. I mean, can you turn my mic up just

0:16

a little bit? Yeah, okay. We're in my headphones

0:18

there. Oh, yeah. It's always different when someone

0:21

else is set up, you know what I mean? Yeah,

0:23

it smells different. You don't have all your cleaning products

0:25

there. That's right. I mean- They

0:27

make your smell profile of your home to make you feel comfortable. I thought

0:29

it was really interesting. Like, man, you've got a really

0:32

professional microphone boom set up

0:34

here, and then I moved it, and then it-

0:39

It's like sounds from a horror movie. That's

0:43

right before everything twists

0:44

upside down and the thing comes out

0:46

of the dark. Yeah, it's pretty-

0:48

No, it's very interesting to be in

0:50

a different location recording

0:52

stuff. Got a bunch of cool books in the room,

0:55

art.

0:55

There's a lot of history stuff in this

0:57

room. There's a helmet over

1:00

there. Is that a Roman helmet?

1:02

What is that? Yeah, it's a Roman helmet. I

1:04

used it in a Babylonian skit, but it's a

1:06

Roman helmet. I see a sword.

1:09

That's like a big sword, man. It's

1:11

got like a side sword, like a Darth Maul

1:14

pointy things on the sides. What?

1:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I see what you're talking

1:19

about. What is that? Okay.

1:21

Hang on a second. I'm going to grab it. Just

1:23

wait right there. You don't have to grab it. No,

1:25

it's not going to be right if I don't get the sword for

1:27

it. You asked me about a sword and I'm not going to put it in your hand?

1:30

This is- What kind of host do you think that is?

1:33

It's a podcast. Nobody can see the sword

1:35

that you're- They can feel your- Whoa. Yeah.

1:39

Golly, I can't imagine being

1:41

in battle with that. Yeah, somebody might call

1:44

that sword compensatory. I

1:46

don't know what that means. Oh,

1:48

I see. Yeah, I got it. Okay. But

1:51

it's not. It looks like in the hilt here, it's got

1:53

like brass knuckles

1:55

on the side. Yeah. This

1:58

is just for, okay. This is just for- swinging

2:00

really, really hard. Well,

2:02

you'd think so, right? So what you're holding there is. It's

2:05

not stabby. That's a claymore. This is a

2:07

claymore? That's a Scottish claymore, yeah. So

2:10

it's got a huge cross-shaped

2:12

hilt there at the bottom. Yeah. But

2:15

as you observed, it's got that Kylo

2:17

Ren, I mean, what do you call it? I

2:20

mean, that was kind of a hilt on the Kylo Ren lightsaber,

2:23

but this isn't. It's a second

2:25

hand position. So grab that, whichever

2:27

hand is comfortable. There you go. It's

2:30

like a, so those stabby

2:32

things coming off the side, that

2:34

is like a second hilt for when you're swinging

2:37

it like an ax. No, no.

2:40

I mean, if you're swinging it, you're just swinging

2:42

it with two hands. It's a two-handed claymore. So you would just

2:44

grip that all below the hilt. There you go. Okay.

2:47

But what this is for is

2:49

a secondary function. That's to create

2:52

a phalanx, a spear hedge, a short

2:54

spear hedge. So what you can do, hand

2:56

me that thing back real quick. Normally when you hand

2:58

somebody a knife, you hand them the dole in, but I have

3:00

to rotate this around the entire room to get

3:02

it back to you. So check this out. Right

3:05

now, I'm taking this four and a half foot

3:07

claymore, and I'm putting the hilt,

3:09

the ball,

3:10

at the very bottom of the sword. I'm

3:12

putting it in the pocket of

3:15

my right foot, the arch of my right foot. You

3:17

see that? On the ground. See how that just

3:19

sits in there?

3:20

Yeah. Now what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna move away from the mic

3:22

a little bit. What I'm gonna do. Oh, you're

3:24

sitting down on the ground and

3:26

you're pointing it up. So you can

3:28

kill a horse. That's right. So the guy behind

3:30

me can use his shoe to protect me from

3:33

archer fire, any kind of projectiles. And

3:36

I

3:36

can go underneath. I'm just at the knees.

3:39

I'm below the dude, the guy

3:41

behind me who's swinging. And what I'm creating

3:43

is a hedge. This enables us to

3:45

move forward in increments. Take a little ground,

3:48

take a little ground, all using our

3:50

foot to brace this and create a

3:52

short version of a phalanx. You remember what a phalanx

3:54

formation is, right? Yeah, where

3:56

you've got a person in the front line holding

3:59

the spear and a person.

3:59

and behind them holding the spear as well,

4:02

like in there, they're kind of like doubled up, bony,

4:04

stabby things. It's a hedgehog. And

4:06

you'd normally go with much longer spears. I mean,

4:08

this is what the Greeks did. We talked about that a while back.

4:11

And this is what the Scots famously

4:14

did at the Battle of Stirling,

4:17

the Battle of Bannockburn. They made

4:19

real long pokey sticks to shut

4:21

down the English heavy cavalry. They

4:23

had armored knights and armored horses.

4:26

The idea was, well, let's just not let them get near our highlanders.

4:29

And we'll keep them away. So the claymore is

4:32

reflective. It's a dual purpose sword. It

4:34

has a defensive function here when I brace it against

4:36

my foot to create a hedge. And it has

4:38

a vicious hacking function when

4:41

I go with this wide grip and swing it overhead

4:43

or three quarter arm. That's what you're looking at.

4:45

I don't know that I like it. That's

4:47

hurtful. Well, I mean,

4:50

if you think about it. No, I meant this sword is hurtful.

4:52

Oh, would you also have a short sword? Yeah,

4:55

you'd have what's called a dirk. So those highlanders.

4:58

So for example, I got married in a kilt.

5:00

And this sword was at my wedding, as a matter

5:02

of fact. But I also had a little ceremonial

5:05

dirk in my sock. So you got those tall

5:07

socks like a baseball stirrup

5:10

almost. And there's a blade in there

5:12

as well. And that is for getting up and underneath

5:14

a shield

5:15

or up and underneath a jaw. It's a shank,

5:18

man. It's a shank. It's called a shank. Yeah,

5:20

that sounds good to me. Yeah, so

5:23

a dagger or a dirk or both

5:25

would be part of the repertoire of

5:28

medieval Scottish warrior. So that's what

5:30

I've got here. Kind of cool. My parents gave it to me for graduation.

5:33

Interesting. Yeah, I still have it. Yeah, I

5:35

don't think I'd want to fight with it. Meaning,

5:37

I would not want that to be the weapon I was

5:39

wielding.

5:41

Because it's so big and cumbersome and

5:43

frankly, the rotational inertia

5:45

is just so big. OK, talk

5:47

to me more about that rotational inertia

5:49

of the swing, you mean? If you're coming

5:52

at me and I got one of those things, I get one

5:54

swing.

5:55

If I miss on one swing, I might

5:57

as well just tornado at that point. Because...

6:00

I can't stop it. That's gonna be so bad

6:03

for your neighbors like the exact opposite of the

6:05

Spartans We stand by each other

6:07

we protect our fellow man except for that

6:10

guy. He just has a huge sword He just spins and

6:12

spins and stand as far from him as possible everyone

6:15

test many endeavor formation

6:17

Oh

6:21

Boy, I don't know man. I just I

6:23

just don't think that's what I would want to fight with What

6:25

would you want to fight with I mean war sucks

6:28

I I wouldn't want to

6:29

a Barrett 50 caliber snow. No, no, no, no,

6:31

no, no

6:32

You knew I wasn't going to accept

6:34

that answer. No, no gunpowder.

6:37

It's disallowed Okay, you are at

6:39

the Battle of Agincourt in the middle

6:41

of the hundred years war Okay And

6:43

you are trying to settle the fate of

6:46

really nothing just what King or

6:48

Duke gets to say they own what little chunk of Ground

6:50

right your life as a peasant part-time

6:52

warrior will really be unaffected It's

6:55

not gonna matter to you at all ultimately, but you

6:57

might have to die for this just trust me. It's

6:59

for God or King or

7:01

something. So anyways, you're

7:02

totally committed to this fight and you have

7:05

to be in it, but there's no gunpowder. It's 14th century

7:07

What do you want? I know we

7:10

know the answer to this question. It's Agincourt.

7:12

You use the British long bow Oh, yeah,

7:15

British long bow and that's what one Agincourt

7:17

right? Yeah, or a Welsh long bow

7:19

Seriously, you remember that what do you mean? Why

7:21

am I even here? I knew that before I knew you

7:24

yeah I mean you just like I

7:26

kind of remember basic algebra sort of

7:28

from ninth grade And that's literally all I

7:30

bring to your topics and then we get into

7:32

my stuff and you just like are you just

7:34

pretend that You've never heard of Agincourt. That's

7:36

not true. I mean, you know a ton about

7:39

all this stuff I do great. I don't know

7:41

point nice job knowing very good. So Agincourt.

7:43

I would use a long bow

7:46

Because of you know, we could we could

7:48

knock down the French before they could get to us because they've

7:50

got let's be clear The crossbows they

7:52

have are neat They're very neat,

7:54

but they can't get in close enough to us because

7:57

we're already well said knocking them down. However

7:59

Let's say I was a peasant. Okay,

8:02

are we still at Agincourt? No, let's go

8:04

to like the next day or something. Crazy, let's

8:06

go to Battle of Crazy. So here's the problem with Agincourt,

8:09

it was a big swampy mess, it was like wood stock.

8:12

And so all the people who had big weapons

8:14

like this, they couldn't get around, they couldn't handle-

8:16

It's tornado, yeah, it's hard. Artillery fire, yeah, they

8:18

just got rocked. It nullified all movement

8:21

abilities, all movement modifiers on the

8:23

board were just zeroed. And

8:25

so obviously artillery or light

8:27

infantry with arrows, it's gonna win the day. So

8:29

forget that, let's say we're meeting on clean

8:32

open ground and we're just gonna have a good old fashioned

8:35

medieval beat down, now what weapon

8:37

do you want? A pike, tell me more.

8:40

So I went to- First

8:43

of all, what is a pike? Yeah, so

8:45

I went to this village in Germany

8:48

one time with my wife and

8:50

I forget, I wanna say it starts

8:52

with an R,

8:54

but there's this village, it's like an old village

8:57

and they keep it, and they've got the town

8:59

crier kind of guy that you pay him

9:02

and he gives you a tour in English,

9:04

right? Because- Does he have a bell?

9:06

No, no, but I don't

9:08

know, but he

9:10

went into this whole long talk about a pike

9:13

and how a pike is a big stick

9:15

and it looks like an ax on the top, but

9:17

it has a spear point at the top. Imagine

9:20

an ax with like hooks on the

9:22

bottom and then a spearhead

9:24

out the top.

9:26

And the idea was dudes are coming

9:28

at you with horses, you can stick

9:30

them with a spear side, or if they're

9:33

running past you, you flip around, you

9:35

can reach up and you can hook them with the bottom

9:37

part of the hike and you can pull them off

9:39

their horse and they're done. Once you get them on

9:41

the ground, you win. Because

9:44

you go to the stabby side of the thing.

9:46

So a pike was like, as

9:48

I understand it,

9:49

it was a huge equalizer between

9:52

the foot soldier and cavalry.

9:54

I've told you literally everything I know about this.

9:57

That was pretty good. Okay, I think of a pike

9:59

as being- a very long, very flexible

10:02

spear, a little bit of wobble to it, right? I

10:04

pictured having maybe some little spikes coming

10:06

off of the edges, and my understanding is

10:08

that the point there

10:10

is that you don't want to run someone

10:12

all the way through. This is lovely, by the way. You

10:14

don't want to run somebody all the way through with that pike

10:17

because it was so flexible and so long and you could generate

10:19

so much power. Now your weapon is three

10:22

feet out the back of some other dude, and

10:24

so the idea was having that little crossbar,

10:26

some little spikes on the top would get

10:28

in far enough to get things done but then you're

10:31

able to retrieve your weapon quickly for

10:33

additional work. I could be wrong,

10:35

but

10:35

I think of a pike as being a

10:38

lighter, nimbler weapon, whereas

10:40

a pole armor, a pole axe, or

10:42

a pole hook has that little hook on the end, and all it's

10:44

meant

10:47

to do is hook into armor or chain

10:50

mail. It's kind of like what a grappling hook

10:52

is to a brick wall in a Batman show,

10:54

a pole hook is to armor. It's

10:56

just designed to perfectly grab something,

10:59

anything, and then you can yank that guy

11:01

off that horse and then, well,

11:03

I assume Savage re-insues after that.

11:05

Can we agree that as a child

11:08

watching cartoons, I think we've

11:10

already discussed how incredibly

11:12

overpowered throwing stars were on cartoons?

11:15

They don't miss.

11:16

Ever. And I remember there's an

11:18

episode of GI Joe, I think I've already told

11:20

you this, maybe even on the podcast. I'm still riveted.

11:23

It doesn't matter. In an episode of GI Joe,

11:25

and they were against these ninja type dudes, and

11:28

they're running, and they run inside the door, and they're like,

11:30

oh, we're safe inside this room. And he shuts

11:32

the door, and he's holding the door shut,

11:35

and then they're like, what's the

11:37

matter? Why aren't you talking? He's like, uh,

11:39

uh. And then he slides

11:41

down the door because the throwing stars

11:43

went through the door and killed him. In

11:46

GI Joe? You can't kill

11:48

people in GI Joe? I don't remember what it was

11:50

then. I just remember, I need throwing

11:52

stars now. Alright,

11:55

yeah, I do remember talking about this now because we bought

11:57

throwing stars together in Florida.

11:59

And we lost them. Immediately

12:02

lost mine. I'm gonna go in the backyard, practice

12:04

my throwing stars. Do you see where those went?

12:07

Crap, they dug down at the yard somewhere. Kids,

12:09

be careful out here from now on. I

12:12

don't know what happened to those. I think we literally said that. I

12:14

still have my nunchucks. They might even

12:16

still be here.

12:17

There's a lot of stuff in here.

12:20

Wouldn't, let's see what else. There's a lot of stuff.

12:22

Okay, I'm seeing like a bunch of fish

12:24

things. I'm seeing, let

12:27

me see, hold on.

12:28

I'm just seeing a lot of cool stuff. Thanks, man. Yeah,

12:31

all right, so what are we gonna talk

12:33

about here? Choose your own adventure here,

12:35

buddy. Cause I had one thing that was on my

12:37

mind, but then you started looking at medieval weaponry.

12:40

Yeah. I'm like, well, you know what's really fun and

12:42

interesting? What? Medieval weaponry.

12:44

Because we didn't even talk

12:47

about that basket hill, one hand claymore.

12:49

That's a claymore as well? That is a claymore.

12:52

So this claymore here is from the William Wallace

12:54

era. That's like 1200s, 1300s, right?

12:58

This one over here, that's from the Rob Roy era

13:00

and more like early modern Scottish heroism.

13:03

Just before gunpowder. Cause not

13:05

a little bit of gunpowder in the Rob Roy era. Yeah.

13:08

Man.

13:09

Yeah. There was gunpowder in play, even the

13:11

hundred years war kind of era, it was just so

13:14

useless and untargeted. The Spanish were

13:16

using it already at that point, but it was just a disaster.

13:19

Those hip cannons they would try to carry into medieval

13:21

battle.

13:22

Yeah, it didn't work. Didn't light and blow

13:24

up their own hips. Well, Leonardo da Vinci

13:26

actually drew one

13:28

of the first multi-use guns,

13:31

if I recall. Really? Yeah, I'm

13:33

going purely on childhood memory here, but

13:35

I remember, imagine

13:37

a bunch of pipes,

13:39

like let's say we get 12 pipes and we

13:41

lay them out and those are gun barrels and we lay them

13:43

side by side by side. Okay.

13:45

And then we rotate the thing

13:47

like 120 degrees. Okay.

13:50

And you build an equilateral triangle

13:52

out of these rows of pipes.

13:54

So you could fire a volley and

13:56

then you could roll it and you could fire

13:58

another volley and you can roll it again.

13:59

and he fired one more time. Really?

14:02

Yeah, because they were muzzle load loaders.

14:04

I'm not sure if his design was a muzzle loader,

14:06

but it was a really hard thing

14:09

to load weaponry. Well, it had to be a muzzle

14:11

loader, right? And we're talking, Da Vinci

14:13

was in his prime from 1490 to 1510. Okay.

14:18

So

14:18

you're not doing anything but muzzle loading at that point in

14:20

history. Oh my gosh, dude, there's so

14:22

much to talk about there. What do you mean? With

14:25

breech design, for example. A lot of muzzle

14:27

loading stuff went down in the Civil War, a whole

14:29

lot. What do you mean by went down? You mean that's still how

14:32

people loaded their weapons? Yeah, but

14:34

they were starting to develop breech loading weapons, which

14:36

was amazing. Isn't the Enfield rifle

14:38

a breech loader? I don't know.

14:40

Well, there were some really interesting designs in the Civil

14:42

War. There was cartridges, they

14:44

were starting to develop brass cartridges. There

14:47

was some really forward thinking. For

14:49

people in the third chair who aren't familiar with firearm

14:52

and military technology, what's the difference

14:54

between a cartridge and a bullet? So the

14:56

bullet is the slug or the

14:58

thing that flies out and hits a

15:00

person. The cartridge is

15:02

the part behind the bullet. So if you're

15:04

thinking about a cartoon bullet, the bullet

15:07

is usually copper looking or lead, like

15:09

gray looking,

15:10

and the cartridge is

15:12

brass, typically. There

15:14

are some really interesting new designs coming out.

15:17

I remember I had to do a speech

15:19

competition at the American Society of Mechanical

15:21

Engineers in 2000, what was that? 2002, 2003?

15:25

Whoa, you were just a little pup. Yeah,

15:28

didn't know anything.

15:29

Did you have armpit hair yet? No, I

15:31

still don't. Did they ask in advance? I literally do not

15:33

have armpit hair right now. Well, show me. I

15:35

don't. You have armpit.

15:37

How do you not have armpit? You got like eight.

15:40

I shaved it. Why did you shave your armpit

15:42

hair? I don't know, occasionally I'd do that. I

15:44

got real sweaty. How would that, how did

15:46

we go from that sword to my armpit hair? This

15:49

is your fault. You didn't have to, I mean,

15:51

you could have just rolled with the joke and said you pulled up your

15:53

shirt like a hussy.

15:55

I just don't understand. I'm just really comfortable in your

15:57

house here. I super appreciate it.

15:59

So this guy that I was, it was a speech

16:02

competition. It

16:06

was not a debate, it was a speech competition. He

16:08

was working on a way to make a new

16:10

military rifle using liquid

16:13

propellant.

16:14

And the idea was that, hey, we

16:16

will use bullets

16:17

and we'll just put the bullet in the chamber and then we'll do

16:20

two squirts of a liquid propellant and ignite

16:22

it somehow. I don't remember what the ignition method was.

16:24

It was a really interesting idea. He ended up

16:27

winning, if I recall.

16:28

It was 20 years ago and I haven't heard more about

16:30

that. Yeah, there were a ton of

16:32

reasons why it was a bad idea. Like a ton of reasons

16:34

it was a bad idea. Because it shoots bullets so that it could hit people?

16:37

No, not that. It was, oh

16:39

wow. Dude, this is a bottomless

16:41

pit of a conversation between you and I. Okay,

16:43

well hold on. Because I mean, you're talking about logistics.

16:46

Like there's, military logistics are

16:48

fascinating. For example,

16:50

in the American military,

16:52

the Americans are great. And by Americans,

16:54

I mean us. Really, really good at

16:56

logistics. Everything is standardized,

17:00

palletized.

17:01

For example,

17:02

a light machine gunner. Right

17:04

now it's the M240.

17:06

They're changing over to a new weapon soon,

17:09

but right now it's the M240. What was it before

17:11

that? I won't say M60, long

17:13

time ago.

17:14

It's a cruise serve weapon. You got two people typically.

17:16

But the 240's a really interesting

17:19

firearm. Wait, you're saying this is a light,

17:21

an LMG, this is a light machine gun?

17:23

I don't wanna say the wrong thing. Lee was

17:26

probably a 240 gunner. I

17:28

think he actually was for a while. So I don't

17:30

know the exact term. I just know how they work.

17:32

For the uninitiated, we're not talking about a rifle,

17:36

a battle rifle that a soldier would carry around.

17:38

And we're not talking about a saw, which

17:40

is like, what is it? SAW,

17:44

I don't know what this stands for. It's just a saw. Super

17:47

awesome. Super awesome. Something

17:49

you use in Contra. But the M240

17:52

is a heavier machine gun, higher rate of

17:54

fire. Not as big as

17:55

the M2, the Modus, 50 cal

17:57

machine gun. But anyway, to my point.

18:00

Logistics wise, the Americans just

18:02

have ammo with what's called disintegrating

18:05

links. I don't know what that means. You open

18:07

a can of ammunition. Oh yeah.

18:09

And then you have a belt. Like

18:11

a literal physical can. Yeah, a

18:14

belt of ammunition that you pull out and

18:16

you fire it from the machine gun

18:18

and the links, the part that links

18:20

one bullet to the next bullet to make the chain

18:22

of bullets that can then be mechanically

18:24

fed into the machine gun,

18:26

the links for American weapons,

18:29

both the 50 cal and the

18:31

smaller stuff, they're called disintegrating

18:33

links.

18:34

Which means when the machine gun feeds

18:37

in a bullet, it'll fire the

18:39

bullet and then it disintegrates.

18:41

It basically pulls the brass

18:44

cartridge out of the link and

18:46

that breaks the chain and the chain link

18:49

falls off. So the action

18:51

of clearing the cartridge. Yes. That

18:54

for example, in a handgun,

18:56

resets the firing mechanism. Yes.

18:59

Here that energy is being repurposed to

19:01

dispense with the clutter of

19:03

the links as it's being fed. Which is interesting

19:06

because the Russians and in

19:08

World War II, the Germans, they have non

19:10

disintegrating links, which

19:12

you can reload. So

19:15

logistically, these are two

19:17

different philosophies. One of them would

19:19

say, hey, what we're gonna do is

19:21

we're just gonna send a bunch of cans of ammo and

19:23

then you just take this and

19:25

you wear these things like belts

19:27

and you have these mental

19:29

images of these guys in Vietnam wearing these

19:31

belts of ammo, crossways, almost

19:34

like suspenders. Yeah, like

19:36

rock and roll from GI Joe. Was that his

19:38

name? I think that was a guy, right? He was one of the original four

19:40

or five GI Joe guys. I think he

19:42

wore those belts like

19:44

that. So like a bandolier.

19:47

I think a bandolier is different. Bandolier, if

19:49

I understand correctly, that I've

19:51

never used a bandolier, but you hold stripper

19:54

clips and the bandoliers, golly, man, I'm

19:56

over my head. I need to quit talking. I

19:58

know how it all works.

19:59

I don't know any of the vocabulary. No, that's all

20:02

right. Never- Never

20:04

been to basic training. Yeah, and

20:06

I've never been in medieval

20:08

warfare, but I spent a whole lot

20:10

of time studying it in college and grad

20:13

school and since. But here's what's

20:15

interesting about the Russian and

20:17

the German thought is on the battlefield,

20:20

you can just go pick up the belts because

20:23

the belts are contiguous.

20:25

They're all together and you can put bullets

20:27

back on these belts.

20:29

For example, there's a couple

20:32

of really good machine guns that the

20:34

Russians have made. One of them is called the PKM,

20:37

I believe.

20:39

And you may have heard of the German MG 42.

20:42

The really, there was a

20:44

nickname for it, is a really, really fast one.

20:48

Is it Hitler's Buzzsaw? I don't know.

20:50

It's something crazy, but it

20:52

has an incredible rate of fire.

20:54

And then the Russians have another one called the

20:56

Dishko, which is basically their version

20:58

of a 50 cal. It's a little bit bigger bolt than a 50 cal.

21:01

Bigger?

21:02

Yeah, big. Yeah, right? But

21:05

what's so interesting about all those is the Americans

21:07

are like, hey, put these ammo

21:09

cans on a pallet, ship

21:11

them to wherever they need to go. So when it

21:14

gets to the foxhole or whatever,

21:16

the guy can open the ammo can

21:18

and just pull the belt out and put it in his machine

21:21

gun.

21:21

Whereas the Russian thought is send

21:24

these wooden boxes to the front line.

21:26

And when they get there, they bring out these

21:29

metal cans that look like sardine

21:31

cans, but really big. Okay.

21:34

And then use a can opener,

21:36

or sometimes they have a little ways built to like rip

21:38

the metal open.

21:40

Open the bullets,

21:42

open these paper packs,

21:44

and then they have this really cool machine that

21:46

you just dump all these bullets in and you turn a crank

21:49

and you put one of these non disintegrating belts

21:51

in one side, and it'll just,

21:54

and it'll load the belt. Really? They're

21:57

fascinating.

21:58

Two very different philosophies.

21:59

I don't really understand why

22:02

sometimes they make one decision, sometimes they make the other.

22:04

So

22:05

it's just really interesting how one

22:07

decision, for example, that claymore that's still

22:09

there on the floor by your feet. Yeah. That's

22:12

a decision. I mean, a whole

22:14

army and a whole team of a nation's

22:17

blacksmiths

22:18

made decisions. And

22:20

they're like, this is what we're going to do.

22:23

And then they show up on the battlefield and they're like,

22:25

oh crap, we have crossbows. They have longbows.

22:28

We made the wrong call. It's like there's

22:30

a shadow war. And the shadow war is

22:32

a group of engineers, scientists,

22:35

technicians, fabricators.

22:37

And that's what ends up determining what

22:39

kid speaks what language 200 years

22:42

from the day of the battle. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

22:45

But

22:46

there's a little bit of a chicken or the egg question

22:48

here

22:49

when it comes to weapon design

22:51

choices, iconic weapons, military

22:54

strategy, whether you're talking about the stuff

22:56

that I'm a little more comfortable with that being ancient,

22:59

classical medieval warfare or

23:01

the stuff that you're infinitely more informed

23:03

about being

23:05

modern warfare. I mean, obviously I had a bunch

23:07

of classes about all of that in school as well.

23:09

And I wrote my papers and I did my work. I

23:11

just never understood it as well. Once you get past

23:14

the civil war, I started to feel overwhelmed by

23:16

the logistics

23:17

and the technology. It

23:20

just became a lot to keep track

23:22

of. It wasn't as easy for me to say, all right,

23:24

I understand the human element here and what

23:26

we do, but

23:28

acknowledging that we, you know, we both spend a little bit of time

23:30

thinking about this stuff between the two

23:32

of us. We cover a decent amount of time

23:34

that we spent some time reading about and all of this in terms

23:36

of the grand scheme of history. There's a chicken

23:38

or the egg question here,

23:40

and that is, did the Scots

23:43

make weapons like this big, huge,

23:45

unwieldy dual purpose claymores

23:47

because they wanted their

23:50

military to fight a certain way or

23:53

because the psychology and culture

23:55

of their people was a certain

23:57

way and that's the weapon that

23:59

fit.

23:59

what they would naturally do on a battlefield

24:02

and how they would actually behave

24:05

under duress. That they would

24:07

dig in and play defense,

24:10

that they would endure

24:13

the awful rainy weather of

24:15

the Highlands and that they would use these in,

24:17

it's kind of goofy

24:19

to think about in picture, but it's the truth. You use

24:21

these as a tent pole to

24:24

go along with a kilt to provide

24:26

yourself with shelter in the field.

24:28

I mean, a kilt can be yards and yards and

24:30

yards of wrapped fabric.

24:33

Really? Mine has so much fabric, so

24:35

much more than any human would ever need

24:38

to just wear. It's not like somebody

24:40

just took off a towel,

24:41

a beach towel and just wrapped

24:43

it around your waist once. My kilt is

24:45

massively thick and heavy

24:48

and it's for formal stuff, so

24:50

it's all stitched together, but you could easily

24:52

snip that out and you'd have enough to make a tent.

24:54

I mean, it's just massive.

24:56

I kind of feel like this

24:58

particular weapon design is reflective

25:00

of who those weapon designers already

25:03

had to work with

25:04

and their environment and how they thought

25:07

and how they would behave under duress

25:09

on the battlefield.

25:11

And I suspect that if we went to other people

25:13

groups, maybe I'm not quite as intimately

25:16

familiar with, that a

25:18

lot of the same evolved. These people

25:20

use these weapons because it fits

25:23

their enculturation. It fits with their mindset

25:26

and their approach. Like what you and I are talking about with Sparta.

25:29

The whole hoplite phalanx thing,

25:32

it's not just a military unit, it's a culture.

25:34

I don't know which came first, the hoplite

25:37

or the Spartan mentality, but

25:39

they certainly married together really well.

25:42

And I bet if we picked away at things

25:44

in terms of the Russian mentality, the

25:47

German mentality, the American mentality,

25:49

the British mentality on making

25:51

heavy machine guns,

25:53

machine guns that

25:55

are on a base and are operated from a solid

25:58

footing,

25:58

I'm guessing that they would all.

25:59

all be reflective of certain cultural values

26:02

and instinctive battlefield behaviors

26:04

when under pressure.

26:06

I think the bigger driver, counterpoint,

26:09

I don't, I'm not really counterpoint another point.

26:11

Okay.

26:12

I think the bigger driver is what is the enemy

26:14

using and how do you counter it?

26:17

What

26:17

do you mean by that? What do you mean? What do I mean

26:19

by that? Well, I mean, how does, how

26:22

does a machine gun, I just don't understand

26:24

right off the top of my head how the technology

26:27

of the belt and whether it is disintegrating or

26:29

not disintegrating on a machine gun has

26:31

anything to do with what the other person is doing

26:33

on an offensive weapon. You're right.

26:35

Yeah.

26:36

Uh, good point on many weapons.

26:39

I agree with you a hundred percent

26:41

because a lot of what I worked on was defensive.

26:44

I think maybe I've just programmed to

26:46

think differently because I'm like, what are they doing to hurt

26:48

us? How do we defend against that? Yeah. And

26:51

so I see completely what you're saying. Yeah. I

26:53

think I'm wrong on that. Okay. But I mean, if we go

26:55

back to the middle ages and stuff, you're talking about the Halbrid

26:57

or pole hook. Halbrid is that what

26:59

that's called? Now that's, that's the one that has the

27:01

big ax head on

27:03

a very long stick. And it also has

27:05

the pointy spear point at the end.

27:07

Okay. That's what I'm thinking about then. That's

27:09

a Halbrid. I don't want to pike anymore. I want that. You

27:11

want that. Okay. Spell that please.

27:13

Uh, it's H-A-L-B-E-R-D

27:15

or

27:17

B-R-E-D. Halbrid or Halbrid.

27:20

I'm looking it up. I have heard, I have heard that word

27:22

before. Maybe that's what the German guy said.

27:26

The name of the town sounds like

27:28

Rothsburg or something like that. Rat,

27:30

rats, burger. I

27:33

forget the name of it, but it is a really interesting

27:36

town. It is a Halbrid.

27:39

H-A-L-B-E-R-D. I

27:42

remember seeing one of these at the, uh, Chicago

27:45

Museum of Art of all the weird things

27:47

have a hall of weapons there.

27:49

Really? Yeah. It was my favorite part, which

27:51

I'm sure is not what my art teacher wanted

27:54

my opinion to be. Yeah. Let me show you a picture right here.

27:56

That's a Halbrid. That's what I want. Yes. I

27:58

want that. It's just like an axe that

28:01

Shredder would carry from

28:03

the Ninja Turtles. Yes, yes, absolutely

28:05

it does. It's just tall, yeah, absolutely.

28:08

Yeah, you can do a lot with that. So you can adopt that phalanx

28:11

formation.

28:12

It's a multi-purpose weapon. You can defend

28:14

against heavy cavalry. The name of the

28:16

town I'm thinking about is Rothenburg.

28:18

Ooh. Rothenburg, I think, yeah.

28:21

Super cool town. We stayed in a little bed and breakfast.

28:24

It was early in our marriage

28:26

and we stayed in like what

28:28

we could afford, yeah. That's

28:31

still largely what we do when we travel.

28:33

You know what I'm trying to say. Like we- Yeah, I

28:36

do. We're giving you crap, but when you're

28:38

kids, it's- It's like you-

28:41

Everything is special, anything you can get. Anything

28:43

you can do beyond hamburger helper

28:46

at your own house. Yeah,

28:47

yeah. Do those memories mean more to

28:49

you? Is there something, just a unique flavor

28:52

to that stuff that all happened when you were

28:54

young, just out of college, in debt, and just

28:56

dirt poor?

28:57

Yeah, absolutely.

29:00

Yeah, same here. I remember my wife cooking.

29:04

There's a place called Warehouse Discount

29:07

Grocery. Sounds amazing. Yeah, it was

29:09

not. Sounds so appetizing. And

29:11

we would buy the Benton Dent cans. Two

29:14

of the three words in the name of that place is

29:16

really something I'm feeling. Warehouse Discount

29:18

and then food, yeah. Yeah, right at the beginning, I

29:20

assume we're going somewhere to like meet

29:23

the buyer for a discreet handoff

29:25

or something, but then you said grocery at the end. Yeah,

29:28

those were good times. Those were good times. It

29:31

was just a really special visit because I remember

29:33

when you get to

29:34

go to a new

29:36

interesting place for the first time, I was there

29:38

on work and I was

29:40

able

29:41

to take her,

29:44

which was a huge deal. If we could spring for

29:47

her plane ticket, we could get over there, and then we

29:49

tacked on a couple of extra days and we were able to do a

29:51

bed and breakfast. But I remember the town

29:53

because the guy took us around and he explained all

29:55

these ancient weapons and how

29:57

the city would defend itself and things like

29:59

that.

29:59

And I can remember his punchline

30:02

for the whole tour.

30:03

Apparently there was a bar.

30:06

The name of the bar was synonymous

30:08

with hell. Oh.

30:10

He ended his tour right before the part where,

30:12

you know, you ask for tips as the tour guide. He

30:14

said something about, now everyone go to

30:17

hell. Is what he said. That's

30:20

cute. That was clever. That's cute,

30:22

that's cute. That was clever. But it was a really,

30:24

really interesting thing. Okay, side note,

30:27

you know, Camilla works with immigrants

30:30

and teaches English. And it's

30:33

such a diverse group right now, man. I mean,

30:35

with the war in Ukraine,

30:37

we have a bunch of Eastern Europeans

30:40

and people from all over Latin America.

30:43

And we have an influx right now of people we're

30:45

getting to know from the Indian subcontinent.

30:48

It's just a very diverse time right now. I

30:51

would like to compliment you. So one

30:53

of the things I really wanted to do is go to one of your son's

30:55

baseball games because I know you spend a lot of time

30:57

with that.

30:59

I expected to walk up and

31:01

you're like, oh, you know, he's playing and

31:03

we're in the stands just watching. It

31:05

was really encouraging to show up

31:08

and see Shane there, good friend. And

31:10

then the few guys that showed up from Bangladesh,

31:14

the vibe was really cool. So

31:17

it's some engineering students here in town.

31:19

Apparently you guys just hang out. You guys

31:21

all hang out. And you spent- And that's all

31:24

Shane and his wife, Emily. They just decided

31:26

there

31:26

is this group of people in the community

31:29

who don't know anybody

31:30

because of the rules of studying in the

31:32

United States from where they're from. They're on a very

31:35

super hyper limited budget. And

31:37

Shane and Emily were just like, we should just

31:39

make their time here fun. Just

31:41

given the whole experience. Like this is what it's like hanging out with

31:44

a group of friends, a circle of friends in the United States.

31:47

We play sports, we do things. We tend to cook

31:49

out all summer long, come to all

31:51

of our barbecues. It's just been

31:53

awesome getting to know these guys who've jumped in. Super

31:56

fun, super smart all here studying

31:58

stuff from your field.

31:59

engineering so yeah that's what you're seeing. The

32:02

only credit I can take is that I like them and

32:04

it's been nice getting to know them. Shane and Emily have really

32:07

built this circle up. It's cool.

32:09

And how cool was it that one

32:12

of the guys showed up

32:13

with a little Tupperware tub of cornbread?

32:16

Yes. He's like, yeah I'm just trying to cook and

32:18

I made this, I don't know what it is. And he's like,

32:20

you wanna try it? I was like, yeah. And I tried it, I was like,

32:23

that's cornbread. That's real cornbread, he's from the South.

32:25

Yeah. I don't understand what that means. He's from the South.

32:28

Well the cornbread is, it's a lot. You did a great

32:30

job, the cornbread's good man. It's good, yeah

32:32

it was so fun. Yeah. Yeah it's

32:34

great and I've really enjoyed just watching

32:36

the natural flow of your life

32:38

and I've really enjoyed our boys

32:40

getting to hang out. That's been a blast,

32:43

so yeah thanks for having me. Yeah for sure,

32:45

it's been fun doing nothing.

32:47

Because really we haven't done anything. We're both in the

32:50

flow of our lives right now. You're finishing off a project

32:52

and we're just kind of hearing it out. That's

32:54

fun and it's been really fun to watch the boys just

32:57

know what to do. Get on a scooter,

32:59

go scoot somewhere. There's a park, explore

33:02

it. Yes. There's a neighborhood.

33:04

Go do things. Go feed a dog. Yes. Later

33:07

we will see you, possibly before

33:09

dark.

33:10

Yeah. Possibly not.

33:12

I'm sure it'll go great and so far it's gone great.

33:14

It's been really good, it's been really fun. Yeah. But

33:17

you were saying Camilla works with immigrants,

33:20

yeah? Yeah well you were saying the thing about the guy telling

33:22

everybody to go to hell. We've got immigrants

33:24

from all over the world that Camilla's working with through

33:26

the literacy council here and she

33:28

does tutoring for some. She

33:31

helps to bring on new tutors because of the

33:33

demand is great. So you gotta bring on a bunch

33:35

of new people and train them up. She's doing that in the morning.

33:38

She was doing a conversation class here

33:41

a couple weeks ago. These conversation

33:42

classes are where

33:44

she gets together a reasonable amount of people

33:46

where everybody would have the social ability to get

33:49

in to the conversation. You can't do this with 50 people.

33:51

Yeah. And the ground rules are, it's

33:53

just English. And so Camilla speaks

33:55

Spanish

33:56

and she could easily just speak

33:59

Spanish and exclusive.

33:59

the Ukrainians or

34:02

the Bengalis. You say Bengali for somebody

34:04

from Bangladesh? Don't know. I don't

34:06

know. She could exclude everybody else really easily

34:09

and get practice and that would feel good, but she restricts

34:11

herself. The rule is it's all English,

34:13

it's immersion.

34:15

You just communicate what you're able to communicate,

34:18

grunts, hand gestures, drawing, anything.

34:20

We're just practicing communicating

34:23

in this country, right? And so

34:25

the students text her, she's sort

34:27

of the hub, and so she gets interesting messages

34:30

from people as they attempt English or

34:32

use Google Translate from their native tongue. Well,

34:35

there's a restaurant here called Inferno that's

34:38

a wood fire pizza place. Yeah,

34:40

is it, does Kobe Bryant, no, LeBron James.

34:43

No, LeBron James has Blaze,

34:45

he has Blaze Pizza. Okay.

34:47

Which is kind of like Subway, but for pizza. Okay.

34:50

And Inferno is the same thing, just a competing brand.

34:53

Okay. I don't know if anybody famous owns that one.

34:55

And they're both good, Inferno's good. So Camilla's

34:58

there for some kind of class.

35:00

I don't know. I see where this is going. And

35:02

you do see where

35:04

it's going. She gets a text and

35:07

the texts. The

35:12

text from this student reads,

35:14

teacher, I am in hell and

35:16

the door is locked. Obviously

35:19

it was a Google Translator.

35:24

I

35:28

am at Inferno, but the door

35:30

is locked is what the guy was clearly

35:33

trying to communicate, but it just did turned

35:35

Inferno into hell. I don't know. I

35:38

don't know what language it was. I don't know who said it. Oh

35:40

wow. Yeah, it tickled me. Dang.

35:44

What do you respond to that?

35:46

You just be a good sport. That's amazing.

35:49

Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah,

35:52

I really think it's cool what you guys are doing

35:54

here.

35:54

You're spending

35:56

a lot of time with people in your

35:59

community. And more interestingly with

36:01

people in your community from other communities

36:04

And you're giving them community. I don't know.

36:06

It's kind of weird

36:07

Uh, how you know, that's a weird way to say it. But what

36:10

you're doing is really really cool. I

36:12

don't know why I didn't expect that

36:14

Because I mean I know you well enough and I

36:16

know how you think and I know how your family thinks

36:19

camilla is like next Level with this

36:21

sort of thing, you know serving others

36:23

I don't know why I didn't see that coming. But of course you do

36:25

that. Of course, that's what you do

36:27

I'm riding everybody else's coattails. I really

36:29

am i'm in

36:31

and i'm excited about the things like that

36:33

that are going on, but I

36:35

can't take credit for that. It's easy to be a part of cool

36:37

things when everybody you're hanging out with is initiating

36:40

cool things all the time so it's

36:42

yeah, I That felt like you

36:45

sticking a scottish claymore in the ground

36:47

and deflecting my blow as I charged with

36:49

at you with compliments Thanks

36:51

for the nice things you said I appreciate

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right, so here's the deal. Postage

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and there's a really cool opening deal. What

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is that again? What are we doing here, Destin? You

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it's the top of the page, there's a little microphone. You

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As always, thanks to stamps.com for

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supporting the program, and as always, thanks

38:39

to you for supporting the sponsors. That really helps

38:41

make this thing go. Absolutely. Thank

38:43

you so much for considering it.

38:46

Like you said at the beginning of our conversation, this

38:49

is the first time we've ever sat down at these mics at

38:51

my house in South Dakota. It's a little different. I

38:54

did have something in mind, but

38:55

the second you latched onto the

38:58

weapons, I was like,

38:59

oh, well, yeah, I've thought for a long time it'd be

39:01

really cool to do a pre-gunpowder

39:03

weapon conversation with you and

39:06

game it out a little bit. So hey, great. No,

39:08

cool. I'm just going with it. Okay.

39:12

So there's an outstanding question that you still haven't really answered

39:14

to my satisfaction. You've

39:17

said that the Halberd would be

39:19

your weapon of choice.

39:21

I assume though, that would just be for war,

39:24

right? If you had to have a non-gunpowder

39:26

weapon and just imagine

39:29

a different set of morals, a different time,

39:31

we don't need to suss this out as though it's

39:33

the mid 2020s or whatever. It's just,

39:36

you're in a different situation where things are a lot harder.

39:39

And sometimes, like say one

39:41

to two months a year, people just raid and

39:43

you

39:43

might get raided and you

39:46

might get killed because that happens.

39:49

What do you think would be, as a weapons expert,

39:52

as somebody who specializes in defense

39:54

and defending things,

39:56

what would be your choice if you lived in a pre-electronic,

39:59

pre-industrial Revolution pre-gunpowder

40:02

era,

40:02

what would be the thing that you think would be the best

40:05

weapon for a person to be good at?

40:07

I'm not going to call myself a

40:09

weapons expert.

40:10

I've worked with a lot of them, but I mean, everybody wants to be

40:12

legolas, right? Everybody wants to be good

40:14

with a bow and arrow, but I think

40:16

a short sword would be really

40:18

good as well. Like a gladius kind of, is

40:20

that what it's called? Yeah. Gladius

40:23

gladius, I've never known. I think a short sword

40:25

like Sting and Lord of the

40:27

Rings would be good.

40:29

That would be very, very interesting because you could carry it

40:31

around.

40:32

I guess I'd have a combo,

40:34

kind of like Link and Zelda.

40:36

I would have a bow

40:38

with a small quiver

40:40

and steel tipped arrows.

40:42

I

40:42

would also have a short sword. That's what

40:44

I would go for. By short sword, you mean

40:47

like the length of an arm, wrist

40:49

to shoulder?

40:50

I mean, if I'm just carrying it all the time, it'd

40:53

be probably even shorter than that,

40:55

just like

40:56

a little bit smaller or shorter than a machete.

40:58

You carrying it on your hip or you carrying it over your

41:01

shoulder, across your back?

41:02

I don't know, man. The hip is what

41:04

I would think, but I don't know. So

41:07

in order to keep that from being an issue as you bend your

41:09

knee and do daily tasks,

41:11

that's got to be a way shorter than your

41:13

kneecap. So a hip to kneecap

41:15

is how much you got there. Yeah,

41:17

I don't know. I haven't thought about this. It's

41:20

interesting. I carry a Leatherman every day.

41:22

That was actually an issue coming here. I really wanted to

41:24

bring my Leatherman. You have one?

41:26

Not on me. What? Yeah,

41:29

it's in there. I just gave you a Leatherman. It's not a Leatherman.

41:32

That's a multi-tool. Yeah, it's the multi-tool. It's

41:34

what I had. It's what you had. I have a Leatherman.

41:37

I appreciate you loaning me a multi-tool.

41:39

It's not the one. You know what I mean?

41:41

I know. After years and years and years, I kind

41:44

of like honed in on that. That was

41:46

the one. I used to have a Gerber flick tool,

41:49

so it's a one-handed operation. You pull it out

41:51

of the little pouch, a little sheath on your hip, and

41:53

you can flick it open,

41:55

and I always thought that was really good.

41:57

The Leatherman is where I've ended up. It takes a little

41:59

longer to open.

41:59

open the Leatherman, but once you do, you can

42:02

kind of, I don't know, it's built tougher,

42:04

I think, than the old version I used to use.

42:07

But I think the knife that a person chooses

42:09

to carry says a lot about that person. This

42:12

is gonna be humiliating. Do you not

42:14

carry a knife?

42:15

No, no, just round it out and then we'll get to the

42:17

shameful part later. Okay. Well,

42:19

I remember, so I've carried a multi-tool

42:22

for years and I liked the pliers function

42:24

on the multi-tool and the fact that it has a little screwdriver

42:27

and stuff,

42:28

but I remember going rabbit hunting

42:30

I'm in South Dakota, I said hunting instead of hunting.

42:33

I felt that. Really? That was weird. You changed

42:35

it just to accommodate me? Or was it an accident?

42:38

I don't know, I felt that it was weird. But anyway, I

42:40

went rabbit hunting with Uncle Ronnie. Okay, and

42:42

the holler. No, no, just out in the

42:44

field. We killed a rabbit, I shot one

42:46

with a 20 gauge

42:47

and then we were gonna skin it

42:50

and we went to skin it

42:51

and I got my knife out

42:54

and he checks it and he pulls it out

42:56

and he opens it and he goes, no, this won't do. I

42:58

was like, what's wrong with my knife? How old were you? I

43:01

was pretty young, I was probably 17, 16, 17. He

43:05

said, this isn't sharp. He said,

43:07

if you're gonna carry a knife, might as well be a sharp one.

43:10

I was like, oh man.

43:11

And so he sat there and he got

43:14

out his whetstone and he taught me how to sharpen a

43:16

knife and then he shaved the hair off his arm.

43:18

Oh.

43:19

And he's like, if you're gonna carry a knife, you need to

43:21

carry a sharp one. I was like, man, that's awesome.

43:24

And I never have a sharp knife. I

43:28

really thought there was gonna be a better

43:30

resolution. No, I wish I had

43:32

learned that lesson, but

43:34

I'm the kind of guy that will sharpen a knife every

43:36

year or so,

43:37

but I'm not good at it. And so you really

43:39

have to know what you're doing to do that. And

43:42

so when I look at that big claymore that's sitting

43:44

right beside you, it's not sharp. Well, that's on purpose.

43:46

Well, because it's in your house.

43:49

If something happens here, I'm gonna try

43:51

to come up with a better strategy for how to defend

43:53

the home than this weapon that was

43:55

the weapon of choice for only one people group

43:57

on earth for a very limited number of years.

43:59

primarily during the 13th century.

44:03

I'm just going to go with, I don't know, anything else. I

44:05

might reach for the nunchucks first. I'm not kidding.

44:08

Was it effective? Like did that sword

44:10

design and style? It's effective in a group.

44:13

Did they win battles? Heck yeah.

44:15

They won battles with that? Yes. I

44:17

mean, you got hedge trimmers with that.

44:19

I mean, the mess of sword swings that

44:22

you have going on and you have that defensive

44:24

capacity

44:25

and it's pretty handy for logistics because

44:27

it's a tent pole if you need it to be.

44:30

There were a lot of advantages to this and there's a reason

44:32

it was popular. How do you carry that? You

44:34

have to carry that on your back. You can sling it. You

44:36

can make a baldric that it slides into

44:38

or a

44:39

leather grip that goes between that

44:41

little pointy part in the middle that I don't know the name for

44:43

and the hilt. So a lot of

44:45

that will be leather wrapped to make it easier to hold

44:48

onto or probably like catch the oozing

44:50

blood of your foes that you slain, I

44:52

would guess. You want to be able to hang onto that. But

44:55

no, there's like a baldric, like a sling

44:57

that theoretically you can make for that. I think

44:59

William Wallace, who was not as nice

45:02

as the movie Braveheart Portrayed, I

45:04

think I recall a story where he was rumored to

45:06

have made a

45:07

baldric for his claymore out

45:10

of the tanned hide of one of his

45:12

slain enemies. I don't like that at all.

45:14

No, I'm against it.

45:15

But it might've been a really bad guy.

45:17

Really? I mean, maybe.

45:19

Yeah, I just don't like that. You're just not gonna

45:21

do anything that involves the tanned hide

45:23

of people. No, it's very, very nice

45:25

that we live when we do.

45:27

We don't have to worry about what

45:30

you said to the extent that, you know. You

45:32

won't even say it. I won't gross

45:34

you out that much, sorry. No, I

45:37

mean, we

45:37

live in a time of unprecedented

45:40

peace, I think.

45:42

There are wars going on all the time.

45:44

I've worked on weapons.

45:46

There's a lot to it. But if you think about

45:48

how many people exist versus how many people

45:50

are fighting at any moment in time,

45:53

I don't know. Just when you said something about

45:56

your village will get raided, that made me, that

45:58

was scary to me. That.

45:59

is the difference right there. Your village

46:02

will get raided.

46:03

There was just a campaign season back

46:05

then, and it was just expected. I

46:08

mean, back then, what am I even talking about when I say back

46:10

then? The classical world

46:12

through the Middle Ages, especially

46:15

leading up to the Crusades in the years

46:17

before the land crisis

46:20

started to really come into play. I mean, it's no coincidence

46:22

that the Crusades get started right

46:24

after the turn of the millennium.

46:26

And that's also about the same time that if you just go

46:28

back

46:29

and it's like measuring generations

46:31

of mitosis,

46:33

when you look at cellular biology or anything

46:35

like that, it splits, it splits, it splits.

46:37

You're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But then there's

46:39

going to be one generation where that

46:41

split puts you over the critical mass. Like

46:43

now you've got too much of this

46:46

particular organic presence in your

46:48

compound, in your solution, whatever. And

46:51

so the same thing happened

46:52

with inheritance and land. So

46:54

as Rome disintegrated in the

46:58

fifth century and onward, I mean, there were

47:00

some later attempts to put it back together, but effectively,

47:03

Rome was coming unglued by

47:05

the mid 400s. Well, that's what had

47:07

provided order,

47:09

and particularly order regarding the distribution

47:11

of land. Now that there is

47:13

no more central authority that has

47:15

the power to enforce what happens with

47:18

land, it simply comes

47:20

down to a matter of,

47:22

well, if you have a certain amount of land and

47:24

you can defend it,

47:25

and you have a certain amount of kids,

47:28

you just give some to all the kids, or else

47:30

what are they going to do with life? I mean, they'll die,

47:32

it's agrarian in Europe, in the first millennium,

47:35

second half of the first millennium. Well, that's fine

47:37

for several generations, but you start to get into

47:40

the 800s and the 900s, and about

47:42

there is where

47:43

that's just too many generations of kids,

47:46

and now the land is getting too divided up.

47:48

And this land is getting into such small

47:51

segments that it can't really support families.

47:53

Even that subsistence farming

47:56

thing, we're struggling

47:58

to pull that off, let alone.

47:59

The pressure is caused by nobility

48:02

at this point, you know, but just before

48:04

the Crusades You've got dukes who rule over

48:06

a yard. I mean

48:08

if they don't they don't have any meaningful

48:10

land at all And so I've heard

48:12

there's a well you've seen the ads

48:15

on YouTube Where you

48:17

can pay X amount of dollars and somebody will

48:19

make you a Scottish Lord Or

48:21

whatever it is that's fake. But yes,

48:24

it sounds like a pyramid scheme or something. Yeah,

48:26

it's I mean, it's I don't know Whatever makes

48:28

people feel good. I guess but Yeah,

48:31

I don't think that actually works but it's it's a fun

48:33

idea Any more than naming

48:36

a star after yourself is gonna work

48:38

whatever beings live around

48:40

that star I don't think you're gonna be able to go there someday

48:42

and be like hey, I know this

48:45

sucks, but kind

48:47

of my name my name is Jared and The

48:51

star that you currently call whatever

48:54

that is you're saying it's actually called Jared

48:57

I paid a guy. Yeah, and it's named after

48:59

me. Well, I didn't so I kind of my wife It

49:01

was our third at wedding anniversary. I have to

49:03

have a big deal Religions

49:08

or know how to worship

49:14

So

49:18

the thing that happened is even the Nobility

49:21

is in crisis because there's not enough land

49:23

to support the number of Descendants and

49:26

then the Crusades come along and here's an opportunity to release

49:28

the pressure valve on Europe

49:30

these little entities called Crusader states

49:33

crop up as a result of the Crusades probably

49:35

the most famous of which is a dessa Odessa

49:38

Ukraine Edessa Oh

49:40

Eddessa and Odessa there but

49:43

not Odessa Ukraine

49:44

And so what happens in these places is just

49:47

basically this little European style Duchy

49:50

or or whatever crops up in

49:52

Turkey or Syria or

49:54

the Middle East. It's weird. Okay,

49:56

there's too much here

49:58

At some point I would like to learn about the

49:59

Crusades, because I am totally

50:02

an ignoramus

50:04

when it comes to the Crusades. All I know

50:06

is you're supposed to be able to say, oh yeah,

50:09

religion's awful, because the Crusades, am

50:11

I right? Oh yeah, yeah. You're

50:13

supposed to be able to say that. Yeah. And

50:15

then you're supposed to be like, oh yeah, you know what,

50:17

you're absolutely right, because

50:20

of that thing that I'd known nothing

50:22

about. It is funny, the Puritans and

50:24

the Crusades are the two things where people,

50:26

but it's super Puritanical.

50:28

Just chase that with the following question.

50:30

Yeah, like the super famous Puritan

50:33

that we all know the name of. What

50:35

was his name, that one, name any

50:37

Puritan again? And there's some people in the

50:39

third chair right now listen to this, they're like, I know one.

50:42

William Blake. Or two, sure,

50:44

that sounds like it could be one. But it's

50:46

one of those things where, yeah, I mean, we don't cover

50:49

that stuff, per se, in school,

50:51

but we're pretty sure we know how it is. The

50:53

reality is the Puritans, like all people,

50:55

were pretty mixed bag.

50:57

And the Crusades, it

50:59

was pretty ugly, but also it

51:01

looked a lot like medieval warfare

51:04

and kind of things that were going on in the Middle Ages.

51:06

So it's

51:07

a mixed bag, it's complicated, like

51:09

all of history stuff, like how I like Persia some

51:11

of the time and like Greece some of the time.

51:13

The Crusades are an interesting cat as well. But

51:16

the reason that I brought all of that up was just to say

51:18

the raiding thing

51:21

is just what you did in the spring, and

51:23

especially in the Middle Ages. You'd go

51:25

and try to gather resources from somebody

51:28

else without having to till the soil

51:30

yourself. And this

51:32

moved around boundaries from time to time,

51:35

and you had your blessing to go and raid. If

51:37

you headed to Fennel Farm or something like this,

51:40

do you wanna halberd? What would you use? You can

51:42

have anything, you have a katana, throwing

51:44

stars? I'm

51:47

still thinking bow and arrow because-

51:49

And the short sword. And the short sword, yeah. I'm not

51:51

gonna be able to go up against somebody that can

51:54

wield that clay more in any kind

51:56

of effective way. I'm just not gonna be able to

51:58

physically. So.

52:00

I think that's why guns are such

52:02

a big deal. They,

52:05

what is the saying about Samuel Colt?

52:07

God created man, Samuel Colt made them equal.

52:10

Yeah, I think that's interesting. So like a

52:12

little granny, I can remember my

52:14

granny sleeping with a 38 special

52:17

under her pillow. I don't wanna tangle with

52:19

her. And I remember going in there and being like, Granny, there's, what

52:22

is this pistol doing in here? She's like, well,

52:25

you never know. But

52:27

Granny, like you go to sleep at

52:29

night in this bed. This is not a good

52:31

idea. But

52:34

I do think it's fascinating that

52:37

democratizing violence has

52:40

brought more peace.

52:43

It's interesting. Yeah, and I think that'd

52:45

be another fascinating thing to run down is how

52:47

do we quantify that? Or is it more peaceful

52:49

now?

52:50

Is it less, I mean, it's certainly less violent

52:53

in terms of violent crime,

52:55

since the 1990s, 1980s. I

52:58

mean, we've been in largely in decline.

53:00

I think there's been an uptick in violence in the last few

53:02

years if the statistics I'm seeing

53:04

are right. But in terms of global

53:06

peace or percentage of humanity plunged into

53:09

war, I really don't know on that front. I

53:11

don't know either. Because we don't do campaign season anymore.

53:14

So I like that. We got football season now. Really,

53:16

I think I've told you before, I think it's meant

53:18

to scratch that itch and simulate it. You've got

53:21

artillery,

53:22

you've got infantry, you've got

53:24

a phalanx,

53:25

you've got defensive maneuvers, you've got

53:27

strategic retreats,

53:29

you've got objectives, aerial

53:32

attacks.

53:33

Football is just meant to scratch the itch.

53:35

But man, when we fight, we do

53:37

go big now. I agree, I agree.

53:40

I think about that a lot. You

53:43

can see things happening on Twitter all

53:45

the time now in conflicts. Twitter

53:47

seems to want to

53:50

get me excited by showing me violence.

53:53

Of any kind, it'll show me

53:55

people fighting in a street. Oh,

53:57

this worker was disrespectful to this convenience

53:59

store.

53:59

or customer or whatever just

54:02

really wants me to see fights. And

54:05

I don't know if that's a function of what I'm pausing

54:07

to watch,

54:09

but I don't know, I don't think algorithms

54:11

are good for us in that way.

54:14

I think I think- We need to revisit that as well. Yeah. We

54:16

do. Yeah.

54:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

54:20

Yeah. Man,

54:27

we're all over the place, dude.

54:29

I'm just happy to be here. I'm very happy

54:32

to be here in South Dakota.

54:34

Even if you're sitting there

54:36

in that chair with your arms crossed with this

54:38

huge Scottish claymore at your feet,

54:41

ready to- Ready to what? I

54:43

don't know. I don't know. All I know

54:45

is I'm gonna get in tight and- Yeah, I

54:47

don't think I could hurt you with this. I don't think you could.

54:50

I'd get in there, I could grab a pencil and

54:52

I could start jabbing you before you could tornado

54:54

that thing. Brother, I'm not kidding. If I had to fight

54:56

you with this, let's just say that you got bit

54:59

by a zombie and you just turned evil all of a sudden.

55:01

And I would hate that. It would break my heart-

55:03

It'd be bad, yeah.

55:04

To have to try to stop your animated corpse.

55:06

That's the last animated corpse. I would wanna, I mean,

55:08

it'd be very hard for me. But if

55:10

I had to, I don't think

55:13

I could stop you with this weapon. I think it is

55:15

too slow and too unwieldy. And I'll tell you this,

55:17

I would not swing it at you.

55:19

I'd brace that thing against my hip

55:21

and I would poke and jab with it to keep

55:23

you at a distance until I could get to something else

55:26

other than this stupid thing. I can't

55:28

swing that, it's huge.

55:29

Yeah, it looks interesting though. It commands

55:31

the room. When you walk in here, you're like, oh,

55:34

Matt's got his recording set up. Oh,

55:36

he's done a real good job with the sound treatment in

55:38

here.

55:38

There's very few sharp corners

55:41

in this room. You've got foam everywhere

55:43

and then you've got this gigantic sword. And then

55:45

there's that. It is kind

55:47

of commands presence there. Yeah, that's fair enough.

55:50

Yeah. I think it's interesting to kick this stuff around.

55:52

You know, I'm coming off of a whole bunch

55:54

of Persia and Rome and all

55:57

of this. So I

55:58

have just been down here in this basement. that

56:00

you and I are sitting in, thinking about the

56:02

ancient world and how it was formed

56:05

and what people did to each other because

56:07

the battles were decisive. It's

56:10

not just about the clever leadership of these kings

56:12

or their better ideas or superior

56:15

code of laws. I mean, all of that really matters,

56:18

but ultimately it all got put to a test.

56:20

These civilizations pushed their chips

56:23

to the middle of the table

56:25

in pitched physical,

56:27

bone crunching,

56:29

hand-to-hand, close proximity

56:31

combat. And if you

56:34

lost, that

56:35

could be the end of your thing.

56:36

Yeah, that took me to a weird place

56:39

mentally when you just described battles

56:41

like that, because the fact

56:43

that we are pinned to our physical

56:46

bodies

56:47

and those bodies can die,

56:49

that fact alone changes

56:52

a lot because certain

56:54

ideas went out because of that. And

56:56

I've talked to you about this in the past.

56:59

This is a topic I really think is interesting. But

57:02

just that fact alone, what if we were in bodies that couldn't

57:04

die?

57:05

How would you settle conflict?

57:07

Oh, wow. Yeah.

57:11

I suppose the threat would be

57:13

incarceration. But you would just

57:15

go to whatever, you would

57:18

go to whatever, man, that's an interesting

57:20

question.

57:21

Yeah, it all comes back to mortality.

57:23

It does, doesn't it? Yeah, and you're leveraging

57:26

in the ancient world in hand-to-hand combat,

57:28

you're leveraging our mortality against

57:30

yours. We're willing to take the risk

57:33

and meet you in the field of battle. Oh, okay, you've passed

57:35

the first test. You're willing to meet us in the field of

57:37

battle as well. Well, let's see what your culture

57:39

has produced.

57:40

Let's see what you do when we do this to you. What

57:42

do you do when we black out the sky with arrows? Do

57:45

you have the discipline to stand in the face of

57:47

that?

57:48

Do you have the technology to stand in the face

57:50

of that? Oh, you passed that test. You

57:52

do. Well, that's adorable, Greeks. Well,

57:55

what do you do when you see cavalry that looks

57:57

like this, that rides this hard with these amazing.

58:00

Persian median horses because

58:02

they're unbelievably fast and they're like nothing

58:04

you've ever seen before Do

58:06

you have the technology for that?

58:07

Do you have the discipline for that? Do you have the strategy

58:10

for that? Oh crap. Okay.

58:12

Well you do well Do

58:15

you have the technology to defeat our wicker

58:17

armor and shields you do? Okay This

58:19

is actually getting much much worse Do you have the

58:21

resolve though to chase us into these bogs

58:24

before we can get to these ships? Oh you

58:26

do you have the resolve go go go

58:28

guys go must go faster must I mean that's I

58:30

know that's a battle marathon. Yeah, there

58:33

you go You know, but it's but it's actual

58:35

people wielding actual

58:37

implements like you're seeing here in this office

58:40

and the way to walk off the field that day is

58:43

Use an implement in your hand to take the life

58:46

of other people

58:47

until their will and resolve breaks

58:50

and their technology strategy culture

58:52

and physical conditioning training and discipline

58:55

It either beats yours or it wilts

58:58

in the face of you it's just it's very simple and

59:00

it's kind of terrifying in its simplicity and

59:03

I suppose that's part of the reason I

59:05

like keeping a couple of these instruments

59:07

around here

59:08

because so much of it's come down To that, you know

59:11

as we're recording this

59:14

There's something really wild going on the

59:16

offensive the the campaigning

59:18

season so to speak is kicking off

59:20

in the Ukraine and Ukraine

59:24

is starting this massive

59:26

counter offensive and Russia

59:28

has known this was coming for a long long time

59:31

in basically the eastern part of Ukraine

59:33

and they're having

59:35

to do breaching maneuvers meaning Russia's

59:38

had a really long time to well

59:40

prepare a defensive position and the

59:43

Ukraine is rolling in with just

59:46

brigade after brigade and

59:49

They're having to try

59:51

to go across minefields. They're having

59:53

to do all kinds of stuff with loitering

59:56

UAV kamikaze drones overhead

59:59

artillery that can call in, anti-tank

1:00:01

guided missiles being fired at them.

1:00:03

They're having to do all these things and the

1:00:05

Ukrainians are trying to get, basically establish

1:00:08

a foothold inside those lines

1:00:10

and I think they're going to be successful. But

1:00:13

what's interesting is it boils down

1:00:15

to a guy sitting in the front

1:00:17

of an infantry fighting vehicle with a

1:00:19

bunch of other guys in the back. He's

1:00:21

like, all right guys,

1:00:23

it's time to cross the field.

1:00:25

You ready? Yeah, let's do

1:00:27

it. You know, Slava, they're

1:00:30

getting ready to go and they,

1:00:32

at some point he

1:00:33

hits the gas and he starts moving.

1:00:36

It all comes down to that, man. Somebody

1:00:38

had to stand up and hold that sword

1:00:41

and they were willing to do the things that you just described.

1:00:44

Do you have the resolve? You passed the first test,

1:00:46

you passed the second test. It's

1:00:47

crazy, man. It's just wild to think about.

1:00:50

It's crazy.

1:00:51

And I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested.

1:00:54

Step one for me, I'd probably

1:00:56

wet myself and,

1:00:58

you know, can you imagine being- Just as a function of age?

1:01:02

Can you imagine being in one of those boats, you

1:01:04

know, rolling up on D-Day?

1:01:06

I told you I had a guy tell me about it.

1:01:08

No. Our neighbor in Vegas, when we

1:01:10

were young, we lived in Vegas, we didn't have any kids yet.

1:01:13

Come up, I was just pregnant with our oldest. There

1:01:15

was a dude next door, old dude, and he was always friendly,

1:01:17

had friendly eyes

1:01:18

and he kind of engaged with me an extra sentence or two

1:01:20

when I waved or said hello compared to the other neighbors.

1:01:22

And finally, I just

1:01:25

mustered the courage. I said, okay, if I ask you a couple

1:01:27

of questions, what

1:01:29

have you done with your life? What have you learned along the way? Would

1:01:31

you be willing to share with a stranger?

1:01:33

And he sat me down,

1:01:35

told me everything that he'd learned, the lessons,

1:01:38

but he's like, I learned an awful lot

1:01:40

in one day. Okay, what day?

1:01:43

Well, D-Day. June 6th. June

1:01:45

6th. So you've

1:01:48

seen those boats that the soldiers loaded up

1:01:50

on. Yeah.

1:01:52

Did you know that those made multiple trips?

1:01:54

Well, I guess I didn't really think about what they did

1:01:57

after they dropped off a group. He's like, well,

1:01:59

they did. And I captained

1:02:02

one of those ships.

1:02:03

And it's been long enough now that I don't

1:02:05

remember how many trips he successfully made

1:02:08

until it got destroyed. And

1:02:11

he found himself swimming to the beach

1:02:13

with a sidearm only.

1:02:15

And no idea where

1:02:17

anybody is from, you

1:02:19

know, from his boat, his company. He's

1:02:22

just,

1:02:22

you know, on Utah, Omaha beach,

1:02:24

whatever, wherever he was.

1:02:26

He's like, there's just, there was nothing strategically

1:02:29

for me to do other than not die. There's

1:02:31

nowhere to go. There was nothing to take.

1:02:34

I didn't have the weapons necessary

1:02:36

to help secure anything.

1:02:38

I just tried to not die and help people when I

1:02:40

saw people that needed help. How

1:02:42

long were you out there? Oh, all day.

1:02:44

Yeah, it was, it was all day. And

1:02:47

he, he knows what an MG 42 machine

1:02:49

gun sounds like. I guess he probably does. He probably

1:02:51

still knows what that sounds like. He probably dreams

1:02:53

about it. I wish I'd recorded all of that. I've

1:02:56

already forgotten cool things he said. And

1:02:58

no doubt he's gone now, but

1:03:00

people from across the ages

1:03:02

have picked up whatever implement they have

1:03:04

had to resolve crazy

1:03:07

situations.

1:03:08

It's wild that most of us haven't.

1:03:11

That's wild, man. I

1:03:13

can't imagine how cool it was to hear that guy.

1:03:15

Yeah, it was cool. Seriously,

1:03:17

dude, we came in here, we sat down

1:03:19

and I was going to take the first word

1:03:21

and start with some stuff about childhood magic

1:03:24

and what makes that a thing. Oh. And

1:03:26

instead we talked about savagely

1:03:28

slaughtering your enemies with simple implements

1:03:30

you can hold in your hand. Yeah. So

1:03:33

yeah, basically tonally very

1:03:35

similar. Sounds like a normal episode.

1:03:37

It's my own dang fault. I put swords in here.

1:03:40

You're not going to sit in that seat and not see the

1:03:42

swords. So I guess I

1:03:44

could have honed in on the little statue

1:03:47

snow babies up

1:03:49

there next to the

1:03:51

new Bible dictionary, but I mean, something

1:03:54

about the sword is just more.

1:03:56

Compelling than snow babies.

1:03:58

It's funny. You went right to the helmet. right

1:04:00

to the swords. So, all right, I

1:04:02

can respect it, I see what you did. Now it's

1:04:05

fun to game that out a little bit, fun to think about the

1:04:08

question of simple implements and what you would use.

1:04:10

And I think the idea of a short sword makes a ton of sense because

1:04:15

what's the best camera?

1:04:16

The one you have. Yeah,

1:04:19

what kind of Bible should you read?

1:04:20

The one you have at the time. Yeah, that's it.

1:04:23

It all keeps coming back to that kind of stuff, right? There's

1:04:25

certain things in your life that are important. I didn't return

1:04:27

the question, what are you gonna carry?

1:04:29

Whatever I can keep with me. Oh, okay.

1:04:31

If this were actually something I had to consider,

1:04:34

I would need to figure out a way to have

1:04:36

it on my person all the

1:04:39

time. That's why I'm thinking like a gladdeus.

1:04:42

Yeah, I think that's making a lot of sense. You

1:04:44

have the advantage here because your thigh is

1:04:46

longer than mine, I just do not have long legs.

1:04:48

So for me, the

1:04:49

idea of carrying something on my hip,

1:04:52

I mean, most of the time, if I carry a

1:04:54

sword all the time, I'm not going to be fighting people

1:04:56

with it. Most of the time it's just gonna be obnoxious

1:04:59

and in the way. But

1:05:00

if we lived in a reality where you just really

1:05:03

need to have a handheld non-gunpowder

1:05:05

weapon all the time,

1:05:07

yeah, I think I would want a swinging or slicing

1:05:10

blade, something like that, it's versatile, it

1:05:12

gives you options,

1:05:13

but you have to live your life and do things.

1:05:16

So I think you've got to take that into account. So

1:05:18

I think I would go with some kind of short sword as well.

1:05:20

That's why pistols are such a big deal. They can

1:05:22

be carried easily all the time.

1:05:24

Cool, man. Well, childlike

1:05:26

wonder next time around. Yeah, that would

1:05:29

be great. That's great. I couldn't do it

1:05:31

mix it up. Snow babies. Yeah, I got a snow baby.

1:05:33

Rub it in, rub it in.

1:06:00

you