Inputs Outputs and Human Nature

Your summer weekends fill up fast, but Crocs has your back. Road trips, beach days, last minute getaways, whatever's on the agenda, swing by your local store and find your new goat too Try it, style it, make it yours. becausecause the right pair doesn't just show up It shows off Wock out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest croc store today I was raised in a very non religious house. I would call it an anti religious house. My mother was a Mexican Catholic who hated the Catholic Church in the way that so many Mexicans get angry at the Catholic Church, but still exercised Catholic practices, right? She still had Catholic guilt and she still made sure we went to church on Easter and Christmas, that kind of stuff So but she was like really opposed to organized religion My dad, Viet my stepad was a Vietnam vet. who also came back and basically was like, God doesn't exist. He's not real. after what I saw in Vietnam Noone that's justs real. So I was raised in a household that that myself and my sisters If you believe in God, you're weak If you believe in religion, you're weak, right? You're stupid. it's the opium for the masses You know, you're going to be ignorant your whole life if you actually believe in some kind of religion eightight nine years old. That was a message. that was a lesson So I'm not I'm not going to be stupid. I'm not going to be weak So religion must be wrong. So I was just parroting that shit all through my young adult life I joined the Air Force at the Air Force Academy at eighteen My first year at the Air Force Academy, there's a The guy that lived next to me his name is Meredith Jess And u Jessp was I think it was from Alabama African American guy Big on big Jesus loving American And I treated I treated Jessp like shit all the time I don't you know you'reup Don't you know your ignorance? Don't know it's just it's, you know, the opium of the mass is just parroting all this shit to him And for a whole year this poor sab bitch lived next to me And for a whole year This guy never in my in front of me, at least, he never cracked. He never fought back. He never argued with me. He never did anything except just show patience and forgiveness and love in his own opinion By the end of probably six months there's something to this Jessup guy, like We didn't call each other by our first name. There's notin to this guy like How How is he so kind? How is he so friendly? How can life happen to him all the time? right? He's also trying to figure out dating. He's also trying to figure out life for the accademy. He's also passing and failing tests just like I am, but he doesn't seem to be like nearly as volatile or dynamic in his day to dayays as I am What's this guy doing different Could it be his faith? That seed That's seed stuck with me the entire time I was at the accademy. and I just I started observing people who Christian, people who were Mormon, people who were Catholic, people who were like devout in their faith versus people who were, you know culturally part of their faith, cultural Catholics, cultural Jews, that kind of thing I kept seeing this trareor. I was like These fucking people of faith. are like stable. and the rest of us less stable Fast forward to I graduate. I graduate in one of my closest friends, a guy named Ian Slasnik getsarried right out of the colle, right out of the Air Force Academy, which is to me, absolutely insane. You go four years without women And then F remind. Good. M for you and me Three months after you graduate, you lock yourself down the one of them. I was like, that's insane. statistically a few years But but I wanted to do something really special. for Ian's wedding present And Ian was one of those men of faith, those stable, like God fearing men that I had been with for four years, a close one of my best friends at the Air Force Academy So I was like, you know what I'm going I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to journal my way through the entire Bible, and I'm going to give that to him for a wedding gift R right. So I it was like I have fourteen months to do this Let's make it happen. So I actually as stupid as this sounds because I was I'm still artistic in my soul. I learned calligraphy so that I could write him a journal in calligraphy, journaling my journey through the Bible And that's what I did. I built it for him and I wrote for him And I gave it to him on his wedding day fourteen months later And it was in the middle of Psalms that I that I took Jesus into my own heart that I was like Holy shit, like I am convinced now. I see What this is, I see God as the perfect or Jesus is the perfect propitiation for our sin I see why I believe what I believe and how I believe it wrong and I believe in Jesus Christ. So I was sae. happen like that. I mean, to you, it sounds like it just happened to me. It built up. It was a journey through the Bible, right hearing God's voice and taking it' a prayer and experiencing it myself And I gave that journal to Ian on his wedding day and He flipped through three or four pages Heard the story like started crying on his wedding day and gave it right back to me and said, can't, you can't give this to me Like this has to be for you and this day I still have it. My wife is actually when I met my wife who's Buddhist My wife saw it, she read it. She was like, we can never lose this. So she's created digital copies. She's scanned copies. She's got the thing protected, like And she' still Buddhist? And she's She is still Buddhist This is another reason why I'm so firm in my faith because I watch my wife ask questions and engage in more Christian thinking every day. Christian thinking. Yeah rather than Buddhist thinking. Right? What's? Can you explain the Cross path or cross path there. So less familiar with Buddhism. So Christians Christians believe that there was a man nam named Jesus Christ who came to earth, who died on the cross without committing a sin as the perfect propitiation for the rest of us, meaning his sin replaced all of arson So we can go to heaven if we believe He was sinless on the cross. ? He died for us so that we can be eligible for heaven. othertherwise We live in a fallen world. We belong to the devil. God wants us to come to Him, Jesus is the way that we come to Him I'm sure that there are theologians out there that can say it better Say it in the comments. I'm the one on the podcast. That's that's my understanding Buddhists, Buddhists believe every decision you individually make Creates karma, yes. Karma that helps or karma that hurts you and that you will be responsible for whatever the kharmic repercussions are of your decisions There's no person who came that makes your sins clean. That's what we believe In Buddhism, you have to make your own karma clean So if you're a fucking asshole right now and you die Then you're reborn again And you have to pay the penalty of being a fuc' asshole in previous life that you don't remember ight. So all the karma that you built up, all the debt that you buildil up You have to pay back in some future life. And then you're reborn right? You don't remember your rebirth. you don't remember why you're suffering, but you are suffering. So then that gives them comfort Oh, I'm suffering now because I'm paying back karma from my previous life and Pw, I'm gonna to have a better life the next time I come back, notot that I'll remember my new life So it's this constant like balance book, this checkbook that goes back and forth. and then There's this idea of Buddhahood and enlightenment where you can become enlightened and during that enlightenment, you understand how the universe works and you can go on to Nirvana and you can be, you know, a Bodhisatva and be and be clear and be outside of the cycle of kara and etcetera, et ceter. Aain Some Buddhist theologian can correct me in the comments because I'm the one talking That is my understanding of both. What I have found is that My kids Myself My family asks less questions about uddism And more questions about Christianity I, right And as we go through our life, there are areas where we see the idea of forgiveness and the idea of of, you know, intelligent design and God creator, we see these things represented in daily life, more than we see pillars of Buddhism And as a result of that My wife is still Buddhist. I'm not going to call her a Christian by any means But she certainly shows more and more interest and curiosity in the Christian faith every day. Like it's For anybody who's ever seen it play out, it's one of the things where You don't want to get involved because you want everybody be on their own journey. I want my son to his jney my daught to have her own journey my wife to have her own journe I had my own journey And that's part of the relationship they get to build with God. That's what I believe You said this moment where you kind of flipped over was when you were it was before CIA. Correct. Is this right when you're leaving the academy Yeah know, I think about that line a lot that you You had an episode one hundred seven with me, I mention it all the time where you're just like you know, we were going back and forth on whether things are all good or all bad. And talked about this for like ten, fifteen minutes And I was trying to paint some examples. Obviously someone who's not been out in the field like you, and you're like You I've lived that. You have not lived that. And like I could almost see you like hallucinating above your body because then like you went into this zone. I don't think the camera does it justice, but like you had this look in your eye where you were reseing all these things talkking about the worst examples of the worst things that human beings do to other human beings And it really affected me because's like it does put things in perspective. That's one of nice things about this show. You know, I sit in podcast studio, but I have people from around the world come in here and sometimes tell me some things that are harsh realities if you will, but What I'm curious about is If at any point throughout your CIA career when you were seeing some of said things. if you wavered in your faith or thought that, you know, maybe this is all bullshit because why the fuck would I live in a world where X happens? So No, it's actually the other way around My time at CIA made me that much more confident in my faith because I saw the principles of the Bible lived all over the world. I think explain that? So one of the things one of the things that you learn in the Bible is that, you know, We live in a fallen world We live in a world that's controlled by Satan We live in a world that where the enemy is the most powerful being on the planet, right? God is waiting for us somewhere else. The Holy Spirit is here with us to help guide us and lead us But God doesn't claim to control the earth has sent his son so that his son can have cleaned our sin forever God is not really interested in The earth. God is interested in the universe and the individual souls that choose to join him There's They may have been Ian Ian or Ian or somebody else that helped me on my faithful journey and there were three or five of them that were really important in my faithful journey at the accademy once explained to me this idea of you know The Eth is a ball And Satan is a Rottweiler. And Satan controls that ball. We are his plaything R, The enemy, if you will The Rottweilerers on a leash And the Eash is held by God He gets to play with the earth as much as God lets him play with the Earth But otherwise, we're just stuck on this thing R God lets him do. becausecause God is hisal and' an ultimate control And what do you think of that For me, it's very liberating because for me, it shows me how small I am. It shows me how big the enemy is, which is what I need to know because guess what? ninety five percent of my day is filled with Temptation to do the wrong thing. And everybody listening is in the same fucking b That's what fills our day. Yes. Temptation to do the wrong thing, not motivation to do the right thing So it makes sense. I like that visual understanding of oh Big scary dog, I'm on a fucking ball I can't beat that dog Dg's going to doate hell it wants to with me Life doesn't end here. There's something bigger than the dog So when I get chewed, swallowed and shout out the back end of that Rottweiler, That's that's the end. That's when I have the chance to actually join the father For me, it's a very comforting idea Traveling operating, meeting people around the world, you learn very fucking fast the world is a fallen place You learn very fast, Satan is in control. You learn very fast. peopleeople accept, adhere, follow obsess with Satan's in control with their with their temptations Right? You find that everywhere. You see it, It's crystal clear You can't fight it, you have to accept it. And then you learn a lot about yourself by seeing all the villainy of the world. The world is an evil, villainous place. R? It's full of people who do things that hurt other people Yeah Yeah is. You've said this before, you're like human beings are not good. No And my comeback to that is, yes, there are evil people in the world and there are more than we would like to think. There's no doubt about that. Whatever got them there, it's a separate story, but like that's a real thing. But then there are also good people too. And you seem to think that you seem to operate from the assumption and correct me if I'm wrong here that like no, that's not really the case. Most of them are just bad gonna be more likely to bet. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha raappuccino drink? or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel maybe? orr a white chocolate moocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Rappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. It's just a matter of inputs will push them to a bad place. That's all it is Inputs would get you to a place where you'd kill another person Inputs would get you to a place where you'd steal from somebody else. What inputs would get you to a place where you would lie Let let's run that example off us. Our mutual friend, Matt Cox talks about this. the threshold of committing crime. and he learned because he never committed a crime until he's thirty years old He learned that he has a low threshold Correct, right? But he's like everyone has a threshold. And what I mean by that is if you're the mother of an infant and the infant starving, you'll steal some fucking bread To me Is that good? Is it good to steal? No. is it is it technically like if you're looking at it purely objectively like goodood versus evil, the evil option to do. sureure. But like if you're a mother trying to trying to, you know give sustenance to your starving child and you take them one loaf of bread. You understand what I mean? Like it's not an evil thing to me. It's not ideal, but likeject should happen. The fact that you said it's not evil to me. Subjective. shows that it's subjective. You know who it is evil to? The fucking court system And the court system will say it's black and white And the court system is built by men who built policy. people, humans, men and females, whatever, right? It was built by human beings who built a policy to create and enforce a law the all the evil objectively. because they needed something objective. becausecause otherwise it would all fall to some magistrate who decides Right? So The point I'm trying to make is We We live in a fallen world. It is an evil world if you're going to use the terms good and evil There are pockets, moments of good as people aspire to benefit and help other human beings, moments. But we are predominantly fallen. We are predominantly evil Predominantly selfish dominantly self interested dominantly abusive predominantly manipulative. That is what we do. We manipulate our kids to get them to brush their teeth and turn off the TV. We say that we're doing it for a good reason. And we forget the fact that one day those kids that are manipulated into watching TV today grow up into adults who are manipulated into whatever the fuck else, right? And they end up on trial like dididdy G not. . The world can't be the world can't be broken into this definition of good and evil because it is in a predominantly evil world. if you're going to use those terms. As a man of faith, you say that though. As a man of faith, I say that too. I also say that as an experienced objective CIA officer Right That is what the world is So you have to look at it through a term through consequences, inputs and consequences, inputs and outputs, right? You have to look at it through that lens because whether somebody has good intentions or evil intentions, you know, positive or destructive intentions, whatever the fuck you want to call it You can always create predictable outcomes based off of predictable inputs. That's the world we have to live in All right, let's go back to what you just said though. You said objectively as a CIA officer, something like that, right I would actually argue that that's subjective. and here's why I say that Your job is to go to Not always dangerous places. sometometimes you go to a friendly country with a job, right? But it's not to go meet you know the friendly, fucking village baker when you're there unless you're trying to get information from them and they don't do anything good or evil. They just, you know say they b Oh yeah, it's fucking fifty five degrees today. and you're like, oh, thank you. Middle class. Sure Damn you. God damn you. But I see why you get the comments you get. Anyway If you are going into these places, you are trying to find the people that can be manipulated and can be pulled to the other side or you're trying to observe the people who are doing bad shit or are involved with the people doing bad shit. So subjectively, you are looking at you are always looking at a sample size of like, hey, what maybe not evil, but like not good, whatever's going on here versus like You know, the fucking lady teaching elementary school for thirty years and helping the kids. She means nothing to you. You're not doing jobs with her. You see what I'm saying? I do. And you're not one hundred percent wrong There's there's a flaw in your logic, right? Okay. You are correct. The majority of our effort goes into a small subset of villainous people You have to be a terrorist, you have to be an army general, you have to be a you, nuclear lab technician. You have to be somebody that we call a person of access That person of access who has access to state secrets is where we predominantly put our time But that doesn't mean We only manipulate the people of access becausecause get to that person of access Everything from the flights to the taxi cabs, the hotels, you know, where you stay, When you live undercover, you are living undercover. one hundred percent. Yeah That means everybody around you who is not a person of access still gets shaped, manipulated, puppeteered. But you're doing that. Correct. Right. So the flight attendant who, you know, gives you something she shouldn't give you because you're being nice to her.'s not Bad No, but that shows that inputs and outputs can be controlled. Okay, whichich is the original point that we were making. R. Why we're recording at eleven thirty today instead of twelve thirty becausecause you switch it last minute. Inputs and output. L like you do every time Inputs and output. But I also asked you first what you needed to make sure that you got what you needed Yeah I told you afterwards, You didn't miss me Inputs and outputs drive everything. It's not about good or evil. The flight attendant has predominantly evil thoughts. She has predominantly self interested, self motivated, manipulative thoughts. Right? She doesn't like having to work shift that. she doesn't want She wants to get paid more for the job that she does half assed, Like thats that's all of us. That's human beings. That doesn't necessarily mean that she's worth a CIA officer's time to further manipulate like a person of access Hey,'s Ran Reynold here from MitMobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile dot com slash switch Upront payment forty five dollars for three months, ninety dollars for six mons or one hundred ninety dollars forel month, reired fifteen dollars for ath equalent to taxas and bes extra. initial plan term only greater than fifty gigabyes be slow network is busy t