Show Vs. Business
Show Vs. Business
SvB E196 Broicism is here and it's CHANGING the Tech World
Ever thought about how Stoicism and bro culture go hand in hand?
In this episode, we dive into the "chill guy" mindset and how ancient philosophy lines up with today’s memes.
Plus, we talk about everything from Kendrick Lamar’s Toronto tour, Cobra Kai, Star Wars, Media, Technology, Taylor Swift and more!
00:00 Introduction and Current Events
02:17 Reflecting on Life and Podcasting
07:02 Cobra Kai and Streaming Content
11:37 Star Wars and Media Representation
19:40 Historical Perspectives and Content Consumption
26:38 Music and Artistic Evolution
31:20 Kendrick Lamar's Toronto Tour Announcement
32:32 Rick Ross Incident in Toronto
34:55 Live Performances and Regrets
38:41 Taylor Swift's Marketing Genius
45:59 United Healthcare CEO Incident
47:45 The Dark Side of Health Insurance
56:20 Stoicism and Bro Culture
01:09:27 Conclusion and Sign-Off
#Stoicism #BroCulture #ChillGuyMeme #MindsetMatters #Podcast
YouTube link to this Podcast Episode:
https://youtu.be/HzZgEZGrtRw
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Introduction and Current Events
Theo Harvey: This is show versus business where pop culture meets pop money with your host, the real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja. So Mr. Benja, what's been
Mr.Benja: going on? Oh man, what's been going on? The world is a crazy place. And I think I've, I think I'm going to call it for just about everybody, at least that I'm connected with, that they're connected with, and maybe who they're connected with.
So I'm going to say maybe three degrees of separation for me, at least this is as far as I can tell. People are feeling stressed or something, man. I don't know. Something's going on in the air. And we got a few things to talk about that with the, stoicism, some some chill guy action some people trying to get rich quick.
We got Kendrick, he seems like a chill guy who will go off on you. It's, and we got people snapping, man. United healthcare is in the story too. So a lot of things going on. But. It's sacred. Underneath the surface. Like they're trying to keep that surface shiny. Something's happening.
I don't do you feel anything like this? I don't know.
Theo Harvey: Wow, man, this is a different angle. I didn't see this coming. I didn't either. I love it. This is what we do is show versus business. Yeah, man, I think there is of a piece, obviously we just went through a crazy election.
There's that there's just this whole craziness going on with technology and what's legit, what's not was real, what's not. Yeah, man, I think there is an underlying kind of anxiety that's affecting everyone. Especially now that, Things slow down a little bit here in December as we're recording this for the U S based holidays.
I think people are starting to realize, Oh wow. I've been stressed all year. Didn't realize it until I stopped and looked around and said, Oh wow. I've been carrying a lot.
Cause I felt that too. When I got to slow down a little bit, I was like, Oh, it's like a, the flash you're running so fast. It just he's on that treadmill running fast. Did Susie stops and all this stuff. He was, that was falling, just don't behind him. He like, Oh crap, all that was behind me.
So yeah, hot
Mr.Benja: dogs, trash bills, small pets, flying by. I was like,
Theo Harvey: wow, I didn't know. So yeah, I feel you, man. Wow. That's definitely a different angle, man. Yeah, different angle.
Mr.Benja: Yeah.
Reflecting on Life and Podcasting
Mr.Benja: You had you had a week, I know I want to jump out there and say, happy birthday. It was your birthday week last week.
Catching up on all that wisdom.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, man. We say we're older. We never say how older we are. But let's just say we are on the least. I'll admit it. We're in the latter half of the forties. And so for those that don't know what I know, yeah, black don't crack, guys. But yes, we are have a lot of wisdom here between us almost damn near a century of wisdom.
So it is something that definitely proud of. And, I haven't had my family over. It just You know, obviously December is always a reflective time for me, but definitely around your birthday, always a year older and just thinking through certain things about where you are, where you want to be and things like that.
One of the things I want to be is doing this podcast. My wife says, wow, you dedicate to this podcast. And I said, You know what? I guess I am, I try not to miss it. We do, we went over backwards to make it happen. And a shout out to those who saw our podcast last week where we did remote sessions.
So it's one of those things where it is part of my life. And I was like, wow, this, I guess I am dedicated to this thing. So yes.
Mr.Benja: What did what did Benjamin Hardy say? He said your results are a reflection of what you're committed to. You look down and see almost 200 episodes.
It's apparently I'm committed to that. And that's what,
Theo Harvey: That's true. Good point. Sometimes, I told someone the other day, I said, we judge people by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. Cause we, we tend to do different things and all that.
But then when you look back and look at your actions, you like, Oh, wow. That's really what I'm about. That's so much of what I believe or what I think. It's not about feelings
Mr.Benja: or it's just what I
Theo Harvey: do. And it's Oh, I do this podcast. And so this is who I am. So it's okay. So whatever you focus on And it's subconscious, these many decisions, on my birthday I may put some videos out there on it, but the kids and I said, this year, cause I've been traveling a lot.
I said, I want to spend time with the kids. So literally on my birthday, I took them to Disney. And We rode some rides together on Friday. Everybody's Oh, you're such a good dad. Take him on your birthday. I said, nah, I wanted to go. I
Mr.Benja: love when people do that. They're like Oh, you're so like, yeah, I guess so.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, exactly. I told my sister said that, Oh, you're such a great dad taking your kids on your birthday out. I said, nah, I want to spend time. Nah, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend time with them and also wanted to, being that it's Christmas time. If you ever go to Disney world or Disneyland, they have all the music and the trees up.
So you get in that mode anyway. So that helps. So yeah, man, it was, thanks for asking, man. I appreciate it.
Mr.Benja: Did I ever tell you about my mom took me to my first consumer electronic show.
Theo Harvey: Oh,
Mr.Benja: really? So yeah you just reminded me of that when it's I was like, yeah, I'm going to the consumer electronics show.
I complained about it. I talked about it. I, I showed her pictures and I got from Nintendo power. It was great. And my mom's going to take me to the consumer electronics show. I was hype. My mom did the whole thing. She got all the tickets organized, got my dad convinced him to go.
And one of my other family members, it's like a grand aunt or something. I'm like, why is she coming? I don't even know, man, we get up there and we go to the, we go in the convention center. I see some things I've run around like a mad kid. I remember playing like some Lucasfilm games and was all excited about the new technologies and the super Nintendo and all that, and then.
Real quick, my mom was like, all right, that was fun. Let's go do something else. And we just left. And then I was like Oh, my mom just wanted to go to Chicago.
Theo Harvey: Oh,
Mr.Benja: cause as a kid, I'm thinking, everything was about me, but it was just one of those moments where I was like, nah, man, mom is cool.
She still did the thing. But she had. She was going to Chicago. That's what I'm saying.
Theo Harvey: Yes, just happened to be in the way
Mr.Benja: That's a good excuse
Theo Harvey: and it's so funny, you know because as you get you see As you have kids is take on some of your personality, some of your likes. And so the kids are this is what dad likes.
And, they may not admit that they like certain things, but they're like my daughter, she's, of that age now she's about to be a teenager. So she's trying to be cool about it, but I see your eyes light up whenever there's a new Disney show that we're going to watch or something like that.
And so just to your point, yes. She went to the C Yes. For you. But I'm sure there was some stuff that she imparted in you, like probably love of music and stuff like that. So I think yeah, so it's interesting. It's both ways, right? You were using each other to get what we want yeah. So yes. Use your family best relationships.
Mr.Benja: Yes.
Theo Harvey: Yep. I love it. Yeah, they're reciprocal. They're reciprocal. But yeah, man, yeah, birthday was great. The other thing I wanted to bring up, just content.
Cobra Kai and Streaming Content
Theo Harvey: I'm the content guy now, some of the stuff I've been watching I caught up on Cobra Kai.
I know we haven't talked about now a long time. Yeah, they had, they broke it up the final season, the three parts. So I had to. Thanksgiving weekend, had some time off. So I finally caught up on it still pretty good, man. They have, wait,
Mr.Benja: how many episodes is that? Cause they didn't want to do the binge with this one.
I know, but I didn't know they were going to break it up into three different segments.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. That's what pushed me back from when the, when it first came back, I was like, I'll wait. So I missed the first half. Then I saw the second and the second half just came out. So I said, Oh, I got time doing Thanksgiving.
So I think it was like six. Six episodes each. There's a total of 12 so far, and they have six more coming out in February and there'll be done, but the rumor is they're going to probably do a movie with Jackie Chan and Ralph Malchio, right where they're going to get together. But yeah, it's still pretty good.
Mr.Benja: Are these Are is the e is the story based around these six episode chunks? So is it like a full arc you're watching? Oh, okay. Is it set up that Yeah. Pretty
Theo Harvey: mu Yeah. It's the full arc, but yes it's like act breaks, right? This is a complete act, but it's part of a bigger story. Right?
First we're getting prepared to go to the big, I forgot what they call it, the the big, global karate championship, right? Yeah. So it was all about that. And so it's more internal squabbles, right? Who hates who, who likes who, then they get together and then they do the second part is all about external.
Everybody's coming together. And it's so funny, man. It's it still has that goofy stuff, right? Just like people saying stupid stuff. That doesn't make sense. If they were a legitimate human being, they would know that. Yeah, especially the what's the character, the main character not Ralph Macchio's character, but The other guy the one who really makes a show I'm drawing a blank.
I don't know his name, but
Mr.Benja: go ahead.
Theo Harvey: Yeah Zapka, I think that's the actor's name, but yeah, so he says stupid stuff just to keep the comedy going, but But they do, it's funny. They do all these different things where there's people go in and out. Sometimes they're lying together.
Sometimes they guess each other. Sometimes they're lying together. Enemies become friends because they got to go up against a bigger enemy. So it's just, they're constantly doing that over and over. And then they're bringing people back, from still bringing people back from other, karate show for the karate movies back in karate kid, when he was back in the eighties.
Mr.Benja: It's still entertaining then. Cause I'm looking at, yeah, I think it
Theo Harvey: is. Yeah, man. Yeah. I'll, to your point, if you're, I don't know if you're still on Netflix this month, but if you decide to get back on it, maybe wait till February so you can just binge the whole, final arc so that it doesn't delay things.
Mr.Benja: Oh, I will have to jump back on because Squid Game 2 is coming up December 26th, I believe.
Theo Harvey: Oh, okay. So you you're hype about that?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really liked the way the story played out and the way it touched the populace, if you will.
Theo Harvey: Okay. Johnny Lawrence, William's actor. That's the actor.
Yeah. Johnny. Yeah. Yeah. He's still he's still, yeah. Sweep the leg, Johnny. Yeah, man. He still makes a show, man, to his credit, but cause he's the kind of like the comedic version of that. But Yeah. Okay, man. Yeah. I didn't know you were a big fan of the script game. I don't know, man, it's been so long since the first one was a phenomenon, right?
During the pandemic, it just blew up and everybody watched it. I don't know, man, after Mr. Beast did a version of it and after all these knockoffs and all this other stuff, it's is it still, can it still, Excite us. And, it came out of nowhere. So it's hard when it's like such a successful thing that was successful because it came out of nowhere comes back.
Is that, is it, is excitement still going to be there?
Mr.Benja: So I can speak to that actually. I think they know how there's a blueprint for that. And it comes from anime where there's some big concept right off the bat. Hey, here's. Concept, all these kids are in high school and they get these powers and whatever my hero academia, oh, death note, it's about a book, you write someone's name in it and they die, it's like an interesting concept that carries you through the first bit, but then you're like, How does that last?
And I think they figured that out. And if Squid Game does that, where all of a sudden they figured out, okay, now that we had a concept, how can we explore the world? So the connection to the police, the the people that they invited, how the games got started I think there's just a ton of stuff that they could pull from squid game to make squid game to happen.
And they're keeping it quiet on the story. So I hope that's a good thing as opposed to Oh my god, we don't have anything i'm looking forward to it.
Theo Harvey: Okay. Wow. Yeah, you when we talk about content or TV shows and movies, you rarely say you're looking forward to something. So this is so when you say it, I'm like, Oh, stop slow, the podcast what is it that you are resonating with?
So we can figure this out. Cause you know me, I'm the one that watches everything, I just like, Hey, I got to catch up on my shows, but yeah. And then the other thing I would watch Mr. Benja is I was looking around the kind of things to look at.
Star Wars and Media Representation
Theo Harvey: So one of the things Disney plus has skeleton crew.
I think you heard about that. That's the latest Star Wars show
Mr.Benja: Yeah,
Theo Harvey: it's pretty good. It's this kid show which so finally, you know I've been surveying which ones I can expose my kids to not Ashoka. All right, not definitely not what sexy? Jedi set sexy stiff time, right with What's it the print?
So what was it called the acolyte? Yeah
Mr.Benja: Hold up for the kids who don't know back in the day when they used to have like network TV you would have your Chunks of time during the day and all of the programming, all of the inserts and commercials would change over. So if you were after school, it'd be like, Hey, after school, make sure you learn, eat good food, not at us.
Okay. And they insert the stuff between the shows and during the shows. It was a thing you got to the evening and everybody got serious. Now for the news, when it came to late night, they would always like, and now it's time for, and and people would, parents would put their kids to bed and everything and whether it was violent or sex or whatever, but man.
If I was a kid and it was 1130 at night and it was sexist time, boy that's wild. Theo, that is wild.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, man. Sexy. You know
Mr.Benja: what to
Theo Harvey: do? Yes. Put that out there. James. Sexy. Sift time is real. Yeah, man. Yes. I couldn't let them watch that. Definitely. It's by John Watts who did the cop cars, he's really good with kids stuff.
He did a lot with so it's just, I think there's some opportunity here to reinvigorate Star Wars from, for the next generation. So hopefully, the backlash and we'll talk about later about this big, this culture of the men's sphere, this is backlash against anything that.
It's perceived as woke, right? There's been a big backlash against Disney for a couple of years now and anything, star Wars that they perceive as woke. So I'm not seeing that same backlash for this. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens with this. It's interesting. I'm not even seeing the same backlash for wicked, maybe because it's so unapologetic, unapologetically, is that how you say it?
Unapologetic. Jellically. Guys, I apologize. It's been a long week. It's unapologetic. James, run
Mr.Benja: that one up, too.
Theo Harvey: It's unapologetic. It's unapologetic. Thank you. We're doing it live, baby. You didn't even try to help me, man. That's the kind of friend you are. I love it. I'm drowning here. I can't say the word.
Mr.Benja: I was trying to think of funny words to go with it, like apothecary Appomattox Bay Courthouse,
Theo Harvey: I'm over here.
Up up. Anyway, so yeah, James. Run it. Run it, James. Yeah, so I think they just were really blatant focused on women, with Wicked, and so that whole, just like Barbie was, and so yes, there could be backlash against it, but it's just so hey, this is who we are, we're going to be perceived as woke and all this other stuff, and really, because yeah, if you, I don't know if you've seen Wicked, but yeah, they have a Girl in a wheelchair.
They have, the other one is, she's, it's basically a lot of, gay and lesbian characters. There's a lot of different things in there that, the manosphere would be,
Oh, that's terrible. I don't want that in my content.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. No. And to, to my I've tried making this point before, and I don't think a lot of it is the straight up content.
It's how they're putting it across and it's how they're going about, Advertising, pushing it to people, it's Hey, this is just like insert bro character here. But not, because it's better because this character is vegan. It's yeah, I just want to watch an action movie.
Why don't care if he's vegan, shut up, you meat eater. And it's you're saying the character
Theo Harvey: should be unique to who they are. So if they are, women characters, just be women characters. Don't try to shoehorn or race. Change or anything like that. It's just this be the characters who they are.
Cause there's some controversy coming on. If you saw they cast Snape professor Snape as a black actor coming out, so that was played by white actor in the original movies.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. That might be Tom foolery. I don't know. I haven't looked into it. It might be pure stupidity. It might be awesome.
It's just in how. And you can start to tell the spirit behind a production is, are the people who are creating this thinking, you know what we really should make Kingpin black, or the, or is it like, you know what this Clark Duncan guy he might be good for the Kingpin role. Let's try him out.
It's, you can start to smell the spirit behind what built it. Were they trying to lead with the message or were they trying to lead with the story? And this character happened to work well for that story. Was it an artistic, Hey, let's try this out and let's see what this angle does. Or was it a, I'm going to wag my finger at you because this is going to subvert your expectations and it's going to make you uncomfortable.
I, there, there are different reasons to do things. You can start to smell that in the, in the kitchen when they're cooking it. So I don't know, I can't say Samuel L.
Theo Harvey: Jackson. It was done in a comics, an ultimate verse, a universe in the comics, but would you say Samuel L.
Jackson's character of Nick Fury, in the original version of Nick Fury, he was white, now he's played by a black actor. Do, would you say that's kind of race? Changing of the character or anything like that, or did it fit, where they were going with this new cinematic version of the Avengers?
Mr.Benja: I think it worked out fine.
Theo Harvey: Okay. Yeah. It's of a piece, and
Mr.Benja: There's some stuff that like, they're doing with Craven now, it's it just seems a little silly, like it's trying to, they're trying to make something as opposed to letting it flow naturally. It's it's hard to explain, but I've been in creative rooms where we're trying to come up with something.
And someone goes, Hey, what if we had the character, do a dance number here. And then all of a sudden either somebody goes that's stupid. And, somebody goes that's a good idea. But if everybody stops and gets quiet and they're like. Hey, wait a minute. No.
There's something here. This needs a dance number. And then the creativity leads you into that for whatever reason. But if somebody who came from a dance school is adamant about getting this character to dance for some reason, and they want to do a musical because they heard a musical when they were a kid and they promised their dying mother that they would make a musical somewhere in their lifetime, then I'm like, come on, man.
Quit doing that. Just stop being silly. But as I said I can't tell unless I'm in the room and it's, it becomes a, it's a spectrum of a answer. I don't know, but so
Theo Harvey: It's, you can tell in a room, right? In the creative space that someone's forcing something to happen or is coming organically.
That's, driven by the character or the story, right? To your point. And everybody can sense it, but if it's not, yeah. Then you just Oh, dude, this dude really wants a dance number here for whatever reason. So it's just yeah, then it becomes how much power that person has. If it's
Mr.Benja: yeah, it's like the creator to your point, the final fantasy three opera scene. It was a fun little opera scene inside a game. And you're thinking, Oh, this is interesting. There's an opera and everything. The characters are okay. There's an opera scene in the game. And I play the role of the characters in this opera or whatever, and it works out.
But if you're playing it and you're like, Oh man, why is this in the game? What is this? This is dumb. They tried to force me to like opera because they think that video gamers are too stupid and dah, you can start to smell it. As far as the skeleton crew goes, I've seen some of the promos and things like that.
And it looks like it was just, Hey, let's just have this fun little kid show. There's no need to. There's no need for the, people to get mad at it. I'm not mad at it. Obviously I'm not mad at S. O. R. T. So everything that's what it should be. That's just my opinion.
Theo Harvey: I'm sorry.
You you the bro barometer, right? Oh man. Where you go is where the bro, when the men's fear is going, that's why you're like the canary in the coal mine. Mr. Benja. Yeah. Anyway. So yeah we'll put that out there.
Historical Perspectives and Content Consumption
Theo Harvey: The other thing too, I did a deep dive on the presidents.
Have you heard of a guy named Mr. Beat? Not Mr. Beast, Mr. Beat. Take out a letter, a constant. No, I don't know. Yeah, man. I don't know how I ran up on him, but he just, I don't, he just became this guy. He's been doing it for 10 years and he's doing deep. He's done deep dives on pretty much every president we've ever had, except for Trump.
Yeah, I guess it's cause it's still so new, but or from, but yeah, if you look them up, man, he goes into D is yeah, Stuff about presidents. And then when you start looking, listen to stuff, especially the president's like Andrew Jackson or ones that you thought you knew, but you didn't know you realized like, Oh man, you know what?
This guy's just like this president, this Trump, or this guy's just like this. And it's like, when you started seeing history, cause they said history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. It's so true, man. You just we're going through the same stuff over and over again. We just forget it's yes, we got better tools.
We have better communications, we've always been divided. We've always had. Controversial presidents. We have presidents who are ineffective but for whatever reason, something always pulled out the hat at the last minute. And when you get a better sense of history, man, you start realizing it's you know what, it will be okay.
And so maybe that is helping me with some of the anxiety. You talked about the beginning of this pod, right? It's just. Oh, wow, this, because there was many times, hundreds of times where we could literally been gone, no more United States, no more, world. Not saying it would never happen, but I'm just saying that it's one of those things that when she started looking at history and and a whole holistic standpoint, you get a better sense of perspective.
It's what's that from shoot man, what was that show, man? With the Cylons Battlestar, no, Battlestar Galactica, right? They always said that, we've been here before and we've done it again. It's like a cyclical thing, right? The five, original Cylons and all that kind of stuff.
If you guys don't know that show, go watch it. Pretty great. But yeah, it's just we've been here before we've done it, we're going to do it again. So I, I. Think, it's that cyclical nature of history because I think that the fundamental thing, I'm getting, philosophical here, philosophical deals coming up December, human nature doesn't change.
It's been the same for millennial, right? And but we think it's different because we have different tools. But no, the tools just amplify more of what we fundamentally all have always been. And so I think, cause that's been developed over, millennia or developed by God or whatever you believe.
And I think it's something that's inherent. So that's why history always rhymes because we're going to be dealing with the same things over and over again as human, as the human species. So anyway, make a long story short. So yeah, go check out Mr. Beat if you just want to do deep dive. I did deep dive on the big, his big claim to fame was he created the interstate system so we could travel across the country. Which was huge at the time. Stuff like that is insightful to get better perspective on Hey, you know what? We've been here before. We'll be okay. Don't freak out.
Mr.Benja: Do not freak out. I, you're, you've been on the content kick obviously for some reason, somehow. I, and I don't know, I don't. I shouldn't say somehow because I know how I got here, but I started watching old stuff. Right now I'm watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I found out that it was on Prime, and I was just like, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
So now I'm going through all of those episodes, and it calms me down, man. It's so slow, you just have to,
Okay. And it's old school and simple, so I'm just. Chilling out with Alfred Hitchcock presents still getting good story twist and actually coming up with Modern takes on all this old stuff and like you were talking about with cycles You see how certain cycles are playing out and say, oh, yeah That's their way of dealing with this kind of situation And all that is this in an old rapper or a new rapper now So yeah, I'm gonna be watching old stuff and I got to watch all through Dick Tracy again, too.
Theo Harvey: What
Mr.Benja: slow, bad music, bad makeup.
Theo Harvey: You know what? I think two things about that, right? If you watch those old TV shows like Donald Reed or my, my three sons. Yeah, guys, this is old stuff. Go look it up. But you remember Nick at night, they would show some of that stuff. And one thing about those shows was that only had, you remember now we watch TV shows.
It's they got five different storylines, 20 different characters. They only had like really one storyline, beaver, leave it a beaver, beaver broke, this vase, right? And so now he's trying to lie about it. And that's what the whole story is about, but 30 minutes, it's like, there's no side character, trying to be shady, trying to, there's no, issue with the mom and it's just that one little, microcosm and people forget about the next day.
You remember that time you broke that boss? So it's just it's very quaint to your point, very simple storytelling back in the day. And so to your point, it can be a little bit slower and you don't miss stuff. Like you watch a show now on Netflix or a primary thing. You're like, you try to do other things and you're like what'd they say?
Mr.Benja: Okay. They're making Easter eggs nods to the directors and homage to another show. Yeah. Yeah, good point. Tie-ins from the sister show and another hero
Theo Harvey: Or preparing you for the future, fores shattering or more or less setting up a universe, cinematic universe for the whole ecosystem.
But the other thing too, you know who, it's funny,
Mr.Benja: I was actually watching one of the Alfred Hitchcock. And I was thinking, a guy got shot and I was like, Hey, what if that was the same shooter from the previous show? No, wait, they didn't do that back then.
Theo Harvey: You were trying to think, I figured this out.
I figured it out. Oh, wait a minute. They don't do that. Exactly. I love it. You know what, you also did that. Cause on my birthday, the folks were over and we're playing old music for when I was born, in the seventies. And then we did my sister and everything. So you listen to those old.
Classics. We all know them, but do you know, remember the beginning of these songs? They were like a 20 minute intro before the words came in. People just dancing for 20 minutes before the song actually came on.
Used to be my girl. It's like 20 minutes of that song before you even had the words. And that's what they did. They just
Mr.Benja: or the outro, they do the same thing.
Theo Harvey: Yep. It was like a good 20 minutes before even the words come on. So people just cause, cause we did like name that tune and we try to do it as fast as you can.
And so you would do it, but no one did the words, but they would just do the humming Of the 20 minute song, right before the lyrics. So my dad would be like, Oh, used to be my girl. I was like, Oh yeah. Now us, they get right to it, man. It's a tick top video. It's yeah, dance, you got to have a dance.
You got some lyrics. You have a beat. If you don't got those three things, it didn't exist. Never. So yeah. Anyway, man. Yeah. So that's good for you, man. Going back old school, man.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, man. It's keeping me calm.
Music and Artistic Evolution
Mr.Benja: And I got to admit, I haven't jumped into Kendrick's album. You're talking about music and getting into it.
I haven't jumped into Kendrick's because, yeah, man, it's too deep. And I don't know if I want all these thoughts going on. I just watched the squabble up video right before we started and He got me hyped, man. And I'm sitting here like with a pen and pad just Oh man, we about to get in this year.
What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Write that down. It's good. It's good. I saw a lot of references. Had fun with this. Saw a lot of TikToks earlier in the week. And this kid, man. This kid is about to do up a tour and everything. Are you excited for the, this whole wave of Kendrick?
Because It seems like it's about to be a thing for the next year.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, man. Rumor is this. He's gonna drop another album. If you read all the tea leaves or according to the tiktoks and , the influencers out there, he's giving hints. He's gonna see, that's Latin on the words that they were spelling on Squabble Up.
That's Latin. It says it's gonna happen this year for the next video. He's a Gemini. So it's a of a thing. But yeah, I think he's in his ascendant, he's taking that. That crown if he didn't have it. He definitely has it now after he handily defeated drake and but the rumor is this is you know, have you heard the album yet listen to some of it?
Mr.Benja: No, I haven't. I haven't gone through it.
Theo Harvey: It's a bop, man. This is, Squabble Up is one of the bops, and it's wait a minute, you just created a Drake album. So it's just you defeated Drake, and you created a Drake album. So it's you
Mr.Benja: created a Drake album?
Theo Harvey: What are you saying?
What's a Drake album? What does that remind you of? Is it songs that you want to listen to and, bop your head, kiki, do you love me? All those little songs, guys playing, what? They're all bops. You're here in the club, right? Squabble up. You can hear in the club tomorrow, right?
You're right. And Kendrick Lamar was not known for that. Let's be honest, for a long while. He had a couple of hots, A couple of hot ones, but it wasn't like a whole album and it's like a lot of songs on this one is there's some bops, man, there's some bops here, so I was like, wow, let's defeat my greatest enemy and I become him.
He's a part of me now. Yeah, man. So that's interesting. But yeah, the deep dive in this, like we talked about before this. Recorded is we're seeing the nerds, who do the deep dives on these, MCU or or the DC studios, if you will content going deep dives, they're doing this for Kendrick Lamar.
So it's wow. So that shows you the level that these guys are putting to their artistry now, right? It's not, you can't just be the best rapper. You got to put a lot of. Easter eggs in here. A lot of cultural references, a lot of pointers to previous, there's, Oh, this references ice teas, album cover, or this references, this culture, the crump culture and when that happened and this references, every black person's home with the the Panther sitting in the corner, or the black Jesus right on the wall. And so it's just it's wait, is this, Are we talking about Deadpool Wolverine? Are we talking about Kitchen Lamar album? So it's just like it's getting to that level now. I'm glad for it, man. I'm there for it, man There's another artist
Mr.Benja: It actually reminds me of it actually reminds me of Basquiat's paintings.
People are always wondering, like, why is he so And it's yeah, you start digging into the layers of all the stuff in those paintings. It does remind me a lot of what Kendrick's doing right here, but go
Theo Harvey: on. Yeah, there's another artist. Her name is Dolce. Have you heard of her yet?
Yeah, I like her. She's hot. Yeah, man. Guess what? She's from Tampa. I'm like, what? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, man. She grew up right down the street, man. I'm like, wait a minute. She came out of Tampa. She had a, she did something on Stephen Colbert, very artistic. It was just like her and two other girls and had their braids connected in this very choreographed dance performance, obviously compared, with her acting skills and her rapping skills and her singing voice.
I'm like. Man, these artists are taking it to another level, man. It's it's not so much about the music so much as like how you present the music that's getting people to draw you into it. I guess it may have always been like that, but I think it's more so that, cause it's like the only way to get people's attention.
If you have to add more, it can't just be the lyrics can't just be your voice. Can't be just what it's gotta be what did the video? What's the video about? Why she do all that crazy stuff. Cause you remember Missy Elliott, she used to do all that all the time, but I think she was, We probably, above before her time, but now it's every artist and Kendrick is showing you the pathway if you want to stay interesting, or you'd be like Taylor Swift, who, makes her life interesting enough that you want to stay involved.
So either your artistry is so interesting that people want to drive into it, or you make your life. So the lyrics you say could be references to ex boyfriends or you dating, the quarter, the tight end of. The Superbowl champions.
Kendrick Lamar's Toronto Tour Announcement
Theo Harvey: And so people are seeing you where you are. So it's you can't just be a simple artist anymore, .
Mr.Benja: So what do you what do you think about, speaking of just being a simple artist, you heard that he's making a tour stop in Toronto, Canada.
For those who don't know yeah, if you're talking about like a. A beef between areas and locations. I'm getting this from the bleacher report here. Kendrick Lamar announces tour date at Toronto Blue Jay stadium, and the fans are trolling Drake. Hard. So that
Theo Harvey: goes to show you how he's.
feature report is a sports media, outlet. So it's interesting how he's permanated, every kind of, we're listening to the nerd culture comment on his videos, sports culture commented on him. So it's so he has, that's what you have to do now in order to get all the attention, you have to hit all the bubbles.
If you don't, people are not going to know, know what's going on. So you gotta You know, and that's what he's doing. He's crossed that cat, that chasm.
Mr.Benja: That's going to be interesting. I'll let you know. Hey man, I'm here for the smoke.
Rick Ross Incident in Toronto
Mr.Benja: That's one thing he's saying because I don't know if you saw the Rick Ross video when Rick Ross was in Toronto and they were having a party or, Of some type.
And at one point, Rick Ross told the DJ or the DJ with Rick Ross's blessing, played Not Like Us. And a bunch of people in Toronto flipped out. I don't want to say gang members or whatever in Toronto. I don't know if they call themselves that. But they were a group of affiliated Canadians. Who were very upset and they were like, turn that off right now.
And it became a thing. Ross got punched in the mouth. I think at one point there was, wow. Yeah. You didn't hear about this? Yeah. It got a little, it got a little heated. So that was in Toronto just for playing. Not like us now, Kendrick's excuse me, if you don't want a recording played, I'll go perform it myself in your city.
So that's hardcore. Love it. Yeah. And this with Drake suing because, he thinks that we talked about the lawsuit no, no one brings the lawsuits into battle raft. Get out of here. I'm not going to talk about it.
Theo Harvey: No. Should you, he's trying to make it of a piece and explain.
Oh, I'm trying to help our artists, but let's be honest. You weren't thinking about helping artists before. So if the scale was tipped in your favor prior to Kendrick Lamar, how come you didn't say nothing then? So it's it's the argument is we don't talk politics too much on this pod, but like the whole argument with Joe Biden, pardon his son.
Hunter Biden, right? It's the argument was, we stand for the rule of law. We're going to do what's right for the people, the populace, and yes, if my son is accused, yes, I'm not going to pardon him. Nope. That goes out the window. So it's like, where's your stance, so just like Drake, same way, man. It's come on, man. We know what this is about. And just wouldn't, just have some respect, man. And just try to win back on your own, man. Just go back in the lab.
Mr.Benja: Have some respect, be disrespected in peace. All right. Just be peaceful. When you're being disrespected, you are being dissed literally in your own town.
It's going to be great. I'm sorry. I don't always get into that, but I want to, I want this. I want to see the smoke.
Theo Harvey: Are you? So let me ask you, Mr. Benji, I've been on the Toronto
Mr.Benja: tour. Okay.
Theo Harvey: I'm going to ask you about this.
Live Performances and Regrets
Theo Harvey: I've been on this since I had a chance to see Prince back in Atlanta.
And that was his last performance. I've been on this yeah, I had a chance that I didn't get the chance to go see Prince. And so I've always regretted that live, and performance. So I've been on this kick and like I had tickets to go see Conjure Kanye West when he came down here to Tampa, but he canceled it.
That was, he went crazy and he canceled it. I'm on this whole kick, I got to go see artists, right? They're performing artists live. And so are you at that point where you want to see these artists live still? You're okay with that.
Mr.Benja: It depends. And that's, if I get into the whole artistic vibe of them, then I'm in for it.
I saw Kanye West twice. The flashing lights tour and the I forgot what the name of the other tour was, but it was the big dark and dreary one with the big mountain in the back
Theo Harvey: not life of Pablo. Was it?
Mr.Benja: No, the one right before life of Pablo. But yeah I was into what Kanye was trying and doing.
So I wanted to witness that and feel the vibe of all the people there and I really got it. I was like, Oh, okay. This is what he's doing and this is what he's up to. So yeah, whenever that happens and comes around, I think the first time that really hit me as a concept. I saw Cypress Hill live
Theo Harvey: and
Mr.Benja: I was into them, right?
I was really into their music and I was fascinated. I was like, I was in Florida and I was thinking, I don't understand these California references. I'm not into weed, at the time. And it just, The whole scene didn't make sense to me, but I was really fascinated by Cypress Hill. I really liked him.
So when I went to one of their concerts, I saw the people who were listening to it. I saw how they behaved and the whole vibe. I was like, Oh, okay. I get the images. I get the iconography. I get the music. I get the, I started to get all of that. And yeah. Yes, a little while later, I partook in the herb, I was starting to understand it a little more.
Their music changed for me when I could understand the context. So anybody right now that I'd want to do that for, gosh, I would have liked to seen Prince as well. That would have been amazing. Yeah. Nobody right now though.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Like I said he's got, probably touring now. I'm going to probably go see him.
I saw usher last year, he did hit that residency, which was amazing. I didn't expect this. I didn't know it's going to be like that. My wife wanted to go see it cause she heard, she saw the tick tocks and all that. So I had the chance to go see him as his residency in Las Vegas. It was amazing.
No, but I was like, dude, he's he's our age. You know that, right? Mr. Benji he's out there just doing all the moves. I'm like, and I'm like, every time he did a move, I was like my knee, just look.
I was like, Oh my goodness, man. How are you doing that? But yeah, that's. So yeah, kudos to him. Like I said, I'm glad I saw that. I saw Jay Z in concert. I saw Beyonce, of course, years ago I saw. So it's Kendrick is probably, another one. I probably want to go see in concert.
So if he does come down here to the Florida world, I definitely want to go check them out and just say, Hey, this is a guy I haven't seen Drake in concert though. But maybe it's not important, but you know what, Mr. Benji. We did see Drake. We did see Kendrick, you remember Coachella. He is his cousin.
Mr.Benja: Oh yeah.
Theo Harvey: Baby came out. Yeah. Baby came, but then Kendrick came out, but I think we had walked away when he did come out. We were like, Oh, we missed it. We were leaving.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. When you're walking one way at a concert and you see a bunch of other people running the opposite way and you're like Wait, what's going on that way?
We missed it.
Theo Harvey: So yeah, anyway so yeah, man kudos to him.
Taylor Swift's Marketing Genius
Theo Harvey: Taylor Swift, we're talking about music in general. You heard the latest, biggest tour ever, close to 2 billion, yeah, it's huge. Obviously. Look, she's just really good marketer, man. But yeah, she's got good music and she's an artist as well.
I'm not going to, denigrate Swifties. Don't come at me, but you can, cause I talked about you before. True story. I told my team on my other YouTube channel. I said, Hey, I'm just going to say, I said, I don't like Taylor Swift, man. That got the most views. That we ever put out there, man, because I said I did not like Taylor Swift and it was the hate came and the hate came.
I loved it. But anyway Taylor Swift, definitely leave
Mr.Benja: a bad comment,
Theo Harvey: but yeah, she's a good artist, but man, she's bad. Very, she's I think her skills are marketing, man. Not only was she able to build up momentum for, obviously we talked about this, business standpoint, got her master's back and she couldn't get her masters back.
So basically she just rerecorded all her old hits. So she didn't really do anything new. This ain't new music. This is just music. She's just I'm just going to sing it again. Maybe throw a little riff in here. Maybe get baby spice or what's ice spice on, a little remix, but nothing's new guys.
And they, she outsold that didn't take the same concept and made a concert out of it. Songs that people already knew and became the top sell. And Got a movie out of it.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. There's a lot you can say for making an experience, right? Where you start to build up this catalog and it stops becoming about promoting something new and showing off your new creation to okay, we've developed This language this palette of ideas and concepts and color sounds, thoughts, et cetera.
And now that it all exists, we can just enjoy it together and play with it. And that's a great thing. I don't know how many albums Taylor Swift has, but you need a couple albums and a lot of reps to do that, where you can just come out and say, you know what, I'm going to have an experience.
I'm going to have a Vegas residency. I'm going to go on this tour that lasts two years or whatever. And no it's a beautiful thing. So applaud, I applaud her for getting all that together and making it happen and doing it and having the depth to where an experience is actually entertaining and not just Hey, we're going to play the hits.
Theo Harvey: And look, she's got what, 283 million followers on Instagram, that's. There's over 330 million people in the United States, so she's got her own country, basically, that she has followers on. You look at some of the other ones out there they, they have maybe a 10th of what she has.
Yeah. So it's That helps. And then obviously she's really key on her music could be about her boyfriends or could be about, exes. She happened to link in that, that probably took it to the stratosphere, right? This Superbowl connection, right? Superbowl is the most popular sport in America.
She got connected to. Travis Kelsey, who's, tight in, not a quarterback even, but a tight in of the super bowl champs, Kansas city chiefs. And so now she's showing up in every game, and especially when, so I thought it was going to be a short term thing because, it was like very convenient how they got together around the time when her.
Movie was coming out, right? But they're still together. So we'll see. But arrival the Josh Allen for the Buffalo bills, he just got engaged to actress what's her name? Steinfield. I think that's her name. Haley. She was the Haley Steinfeld is a Haley. I'm going to get a second guy.
She was Gwen Stacy in the Spider verse movies. Yeah, she's yes, she's she's been around for a minute, actors, but yeah, they got engaged. So we'll see what happens, with them and how they're going to take it to the next level. She was in pitch. Perfect. She does the voice for arcane.
I don't know if you watched. She was in Hawkeye. She was Hawkeye, Kate Hawkeye. I don't know if you watched that.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Oh of course. Now it's all clicking. I do remember that. Do you yeah I put, I tried to put you on Hawkeye Arcane a while back.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, is it good?
Mr.Benja: Yeah it's something that needs to be watched because it seems, I don't want to say simple, but it seems like stuff is just going on normally, but there's a good amount of a subtext.
I don't even want to say subtext. That's not really the right word, but there's a good amount of artistry put into the show and the work that they're creating. So when you start to see this side versus that side, it's okay, this guy is fighting for character. Yeah. His personal character. And this guy is fighting for his honor, which is the honor of the, community or whatever.
And there's a slight bit of, you could see friction happening at certain points and you're starting to watch these themes play out arcane's good. And I watched it because I wanted to see if a video game property could. Play out like this and it really took the property to the next level.
Theo Harvey: Yeah.
I was wondering about that. Cause that's the first one that league of legends outside of the arcade, the game industry, that's their first kind of thing that they've done. When it comes to that, is that correct? Arcane is based on league of legends games.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah. From riot games. I used to work down the street from them when I was at Sony.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah, so that's, they're building their expanded universe, creating their own kind of content outside of the games. And so arcane is a part of that piece of it.
Mr.Benja: One thing you might want to check out just maybe for the future note there it's like taking on a Pokemon strategy where instead of one character, you just have this huge field of characters, yeah. Where, there's like a gang of Pokemon, 150, 200, whatever Pokemon. And then you can make stories out of each of those.
You can make a Snorlax game, Pokemon sleep or whatever. It's all about Snorlax and you can make a Pikachu game. If you want some bed warmers, you get your Charmander, Charizard bed warmers. And you just have this stock of characters that you can build all types of properties and could license off for whatever reason.
And with League of Legends, I think you can do a similar thing. And. It's brilliant where you don't have one character. You just have this huge conglomerations, huge stock pile of a roster of characters that you can like, Hey, let's make a spinoff. Let's make a side this let's make an aside that, and there is no one singular property.
Theo Harvey: Interesting. Yeah. So I just know League of Legends is like huge. There was a show I watched called player. I don't know if you watched that it was on a prime, but yeah they, I think they were talking about, it was like a League of Legends type of game and they had these V E player, it was a makeup world.
It was funny. It's supposed to be funny at least. And it was like, going to dive into that world of what it takes to be a E player, right? And what that looks like. Yeah, man. Anyway, yeah. So we were talking about sports and Taylor Swift down a rabbit hole, but I think it's all of a piece, right?
Just like these artists, these musicians, trying to find a link into, different bubbles. And so I'm not saying that, Taylor Swift and Kelsey. Kelsey's relationship is fake, but it does seem convenient. And so she's still dominating, the charts, if you will.
Yeah, so it's interesting how that's all working out for them. Mr. Benja, did we want to I want to pivot real quick.
United Healthcare CEO Incident
Theo Harvey: I don't know if there's a good laid off to this, but this United healthcare, thing, and then maybe we can end it off with a rant at the end.
But United healthcare CEO. For those that know my other business, I'm in the healthcare space. And so this kind of was interesting for me, Mr. Benja. And I I think you talked to me about it and then, but I've been monitoring it. I literally stayed at that Hilton. I know exactly where he was at.
I was there back in so
Mr.Benja: hold it back, back up, give them the quick overview.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah. So basically earlier as we're recording this probably around Thanksgiving week or last week basically in November into November, the United healthcare CEO He was happened to be at a conference down in New York city, midtown, not too far from central park.
And when he came out in the morning just to do whatever, relax or whatever, a gentleman came out of the shadows and basically what's the word we can say without getting banned by YouTube, but basically did away with him, with decided his
Mr.Benja: game was over.
Theo Harvey: Yes. And so many words. And so it was shocking because it was in broad daylight. It was in the morning. It's I think I read this somewhere. It's like when someone dies in, a war zone or something, no one's, soldier dies, no one's worried. But when someone, dies in broad daylight, it's something like this. I think people Get shocked. And so this was very a tragedy that has happened out of the blue. And I think the guy was 50 years old and then the gentlemen who are purposely, people are saying to maybe someone else, but this person they just escaped and they have not found this person yet.
They're still trying to, they're still at large. Someone who was the most civilian, probably one of the most video heavy Cities in America just disappeared. Killing someone in broad daylight is just unheard of. And so it's a lot of parts to unpack here.
The Dark Side of Health Insurance
Theo Harvey: Mr. Benja, I know you're not in the healthcare space, but insurers, United Healthcare, unfortunately, is one of those insurers, just like all big companies that have a profit motive.
If you're insuring people, basically people are paying money every month called premiums just in case stuff happens. So when stuff happens. Then it's up to the insurer to determine if they're going to pay out, for your cancer treatment or MRI and all that. But if their goal is for a profit motive, you think they're incentivized to want to pay out all the time.
And that was written on the bullet that was on the ground, the shell cat kept casting that was on the ground. It said deny defense and it, and I forgot what the other terms were, but basically it's just the terms that they use to prevent people from getting the money they need for life saving treatment.
And so it became of a piece, right? And this hate that came toward health care in general insurers on how they're hurting Americans when it comes to denying them from the care that they need. I got a lot of pieces to this and I don't know if you have some thoughts on that.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. So I didn't know about the shell casings. I'm looking at the new, the news report here, shell casings with the word delay and deny were written on them were found at the scene of the shooting. And apparently that's a common phrase in the industry, delay, deny, defend. And it's immediately, this is somebody, Delay, deny, and defend is a common phrase used in the industry. It's a title of a popular book that is critical of tactics allegedly used by insurers. That's coming from CBS news. And I initially got on this because I saw a bunch of people discussing it. And if someone had just been if someone had their game ended and that was that it'd be like, okay what was it about?
This case caught my eye because of the public reaction. And a lot of people are really, I don't want to say happy about it, although there are many who are, but it's like this indifference and this separation, this, screw him. And I, that's. Part of that whole veneer thing I was talking about earlier, where it's like, people are stressed out and there's something going on.
When I started reading the comments from a lot of these people reporting on the story, that's what I felt. And I was like, Oh, wow. So that's what got me interested in the story.
Theo Harvey: Cause you saw a lot of communication around it on the discourse on the internet. That's what kind of bubbled up in your viewpoint.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, I'm looking at I'm looking at some comments right now, this guy says it's hard to care about someone who's always put profits over people, I doubt anyone in his family was ever denied care or treatment. Some other person says, may the rich be eaten, other person murder for murder and with the clapping emoji.
It's and this is. As far as what I'm seeing, maybe this is my, no, it's not even my algorithm. I'm not logged in here. So it's just what's predominantly out there, or at least people are being loudest about.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. If you never dealt with insurer, it can be it's tough, man.
They, they try to push you back. Yeah, man. Yes. It's terrible, man. And unfortunately we're in the system. We, that's the problem with healthcare, man. We have this private system that's supposed to give you, and when you have a area where you need help from a health standpoint, you'll pay whatever costs a million, a billion dollars, right?
Whatever it takes to extend your life. So you're a captured audience, right? So it's not like you have choices. You need this paid for. If the doctor said this could save your life, you got to get paid for it. And you got to deal with these insurers. And unfortunately that's, and that's why they can make as much money as they want.
United healthcare is the largest of them all. They may in revenue, 371 billion.
Just one company one sure. And it's a trillion, the GDP, it's 20 percent of the United States GDP healthcare costs. So it's just that's like trillions of dollars tied into healthcare. So yeah, man, this is something that affects everybody. And it's interesting, they're tying it to, the rich factor and all that stuff.
But I think it goes deeper than that because, At the same time, we elected a billionaire, quote unquote, a billionaire to the White House. So is it really about the rich or is it really about certain aspects of the rich that they feel like that's not on their side?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. And let me jump back in here with this.
Back in 2023 was reported that UnitedHealth uses faulty AI to deny elderly patients medically necessary coverage lawsuit. In this lawsuit that's what they were claiming. And the lawsuit filed claim that United healthcare, United health legally denied elderly patients care owed to them by the Medicare advantage plans by deploying an AI model known by the company to have a 90 percent error rate, overriding determinations made by the patient's physician, that the expenses were medically necessary.
If someone's Hey, they plugged in the AI, I'm sorry. We can't change it. It's policy. If you start getting that kind of thing, when your family members are passing away, that's rough, man. And I don't know. I really hope some healthcare changes happen. Maybe we should call up Mark Cuban and see what he has to say.
Cost
Theo Harvey: plus idea,
Mr.Benja: cost plus drugs, which I haven't actually used, but I want to check it out.
Theo Harvey: As someone who works in this industry, man, I could tell you, man, it is opaque and it's very like murky for a reason, man. I, even I am like still, Fabric gassed it about how much optimization and just unknown of how this stuff works.
There's levels to this thing, man. And so I would just say that think people got to realize that they're just, they're incentivized to not pay out. Really the health care companies and that's insurance in general, let's think about any kind of insurance, car insurance any type of insurance you pay, because basically that's free money for them, right?
As long as you keep paying monthly, as long as you don't never have to come out later for pay it out, they're good. But as soon as you want that money from what you paid into, then that's when things get murky, right? I live in Florida, right? From we have hurricanes, man. They're trying to deny people for getting new roofs, right?
Because of the hurricane, they're leaking roofs, but they're denying people all of a sudden. If you had any issues with Any type of flooding. Oh, you in a flood zone. You should have got this coverage, so denied. Wait a minute. I didn't know that covers change. So it's like insurance is like the biggest scam, man.
And unfortunately it's, it's like they change the policy so fast and so furious. That you don't even know until when you finally, so I've been paying you guys historically for 10 years, at least, hundreds of thousands of dollars and now I just need 50, 000 to fix my roof and you push back on me.
And that's just help. That's just, a house, right? Which is not your health. Imagine your health when you have to get that. So you're more, even more desperate. So yeah, man, it's, I don't know. I would just say this Aetna had a policy where they were denying people anesthesia. So this is crazy.
If you were on your table, yes, if you're at the table and the surgery went longer than what was prescribed, they could actually try to turn or not turn it off, but basically say, we're not going to pay for anesthesia after an hour. So basically they're going to keep you on anesthesia, right? But they will keep paying you.
They would keep, they would start instead of insuring, paying for the anesthesia, They would make you pay for it. And but check this out after this happened, no, but check this out after this happened they get they stopped that policy, but that goes to show you the depth of what they do To get as much profit margin out of everything.
Mr.Benja: I'm here laughing because I'm thinking of the sitcom kind of situation where you got somebody like Chappelle in the bed. Hurry up the pain coming, just how are you going to turn it's man, that is wild. But I, something that is. Completely within bounds of what I expect from them.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, man, it's the profit motive.
Stoicism and Bro Culture
Theo Harvey: Hey, I know we're going a little longer than normal, but do you want to get into the stoicism real quick rant, back and forth real quick, we can go towards the end of the year and
Mr.Benja: let's give them a little gift.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, let's get into this.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. So what are your thoughts on stoicism?
Cause I think we hit this from two different angles around the same time. Maybe, I don't know. It something you've been thinking about? Ryan holiday is a big proponent of you looking back in your bookshelf over there.
Theo Harvey: I'm trying to see if I have that book over there.
If I don't inspire my little book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, great stuff. Marcus Aurelius, big fan, but it's of a piece, right? This whole internet culture thing where they take an ideal or a subject matter and just run with it and becomes like, this is the thing you have to do. And I, I feel that's what happened with this whole.
This whole model, man, it's like people are realizing that the obstacles away, this whole scenarios are just not working for them anymore. This because stoicism is about accepting the reality of the world as it is, right? And being in control of your own kind of focus there.
At least my interpretation of maybe you have a different interpretation with stoicism is, but for my, Thought point is accepting the reality of the world, right? As it is. And Marcus Aurelius meditations is the Bible for folks like this. But then you have people like Ryan holiday.
You have people like Tim Ferriss take that and just say, Hey, This is the Bible to be as successful as we are. So now they're in this internet world. And they're saying, look, the reason why we're millionaires, billionaires, or multimillionaires is because we're stoics, right?
We have embraced this policy of embrace the hard thing or understand the obstacles and you can too. And so that, so Tim Ferriss, if you don't know, he's the one who wrote the four day work week. And this came with this whole idea of virtual assistants and, how he's on this whole.
Experimentation phase, right? Trying to hack his body and do all this other stuff, but he was one of the big time influencers, right? Up there with Gary Vee in the early days of this internet, boom that we see internet influencer boom. And so he embraced that with Ryan holiday, who became this growth hacker, this guy who was talking about like how you can make, The goal is to grow at all costs.
Which seems almost the opposite of what stoicism is. But and so I say all this, say, give people background. I think so. The hustle culture of the internet kind of co opted stoicism to create this nice, serene bigger than ourselves philosophy and created this whole.
Ecosystem, this whole, and you take this, but I would say even Alex Hermosi is part of this, right? This whole ecosystem. It's. The ecosystem is based on a Roman type infrastructure, right? Cause Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor. And so you think about the aesthetic, the beard that their aesthetic of focused on, what's important in life and being, understanding to take the hard things is part of that hustle culture, the internet. Culture has pushed, for startup, I'm going to start a phase and all that. So when I saw this art, this video, YouTube essay, and they talked about how, this has co opted stoicism excuse me, the internet culture, has co opted.
Stoicism to make it, more of a easier sell. And to me that the light bulb just came up. I said, that's exactly what happened. It is election because you have these ecosystem of all these bros, the men's fear that say, Hey, we're losing all kinds of influence, right? We, DEI is taking over woke culture, women, the me too movement.
We have to gain it back. And stoicism gives them a sense of a higher, like a a nice veneer of, of, massage, misogyny, or, quote unquote, some slight racism, because it's look, we're just trying to do what we need to do to be successful.
And that's accepting, our limitations. And now you have this whole manosphere, which, I always say this to you, but it's not true, your boy,
no, that too. Oh, but what's his name? The podcast, podcaster, Joe Rogan, and you take, that's not your boy. I know that, it's of a piece, right? This whole, even Jordan period. Peterson a little bit, right? Just this as a man, accept your manliness, right? And take it back, right?
And stoicism can help you take it back. So I, so that's the impression I got from that.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, to me, it was, it's always been this, and this doesn't, this isn't just for stoicism. This happens in all types of philosophies religions ways of thinking ideologies. It happens all over the place where you'll find someone is feeling a certain way and then they don't have all of the words or they don't have everything to put it together.
So they're like, Hey, look. This thing kind of matches all my ideas and there's some stuff in there that's weird and esoteric or whatever, but I don't care about that. I'm just going to jump onto it and take it. And we see that this even happens in like music or whatever. It's Oh yeah, I like those drums.
I like that beat or whatever. I'll just do whatever I want with it. And there's a, it's not like us video. I'll send it to James. Cause he's got to get that one. But it's very. Yeah, co opting is the common word, but there's a whole thing behind it where someone makes a fake philosophy based on another philosophy and twist it to their own means.
But, called a cult. Yeah. Something like that. But let me go from what from what our friend friends over at Google had said. And this came from a Gemini search, which was funny. I just searched on Google and it was like, Hey, here's what Gemini, our AI system has to say about broicism. So it says let me start with stoicism.
It says stoicism is based on the idea that people can't control the world around them, but they can control how they respond to it. Stoics believe that virtue is the only good. Is only good for humans and the external things like health, wealth and pleasure are not good and bad in themselves.
They just exist. And then it goes on to say, Broicism is a life hack that applies stoic philosophy to entrepreneurs and young men. It's often described as a Roman regimen for success and self discipline. It's a practical guide for entrepreneurs, and I laughed at this, and a philosophical stress ball for tech bros.
It's often associated with the Hollywood Rome of Spartacus and Gladiator, which is seen as a symbol of toughness and valor. I'm impressed that Google Gemini said that broicism was a philosophical stress ball for tech bros. That's a that's beautiful.
Theo Harvey: No, I get it, man. It's of a piece.
And when I saw that YouTube video and I sent you away, it unlocked for me, at least what is happening inside, because I was telling my mother and aunt, who we just went through a contentious election. I think there were these bubbles that people didn't even know about.
And As black men we're aware of those, cause we're in that space a little bit. Cause I was talking to my dad and my brother in law and they got it too. Cause we've seen those type of, bro, your kind of conversations, but you talk to black women, even some white women, they don't know anything about this space.
And it's that's probably why they were so shocked. They were so shocked when they found out that, wow. That's what the election was lost. Where do these guys come from? No, they always been here and it's been building right. The whole, the beard, as aesthetic, that's why I sent out some Moses of a piece, the whole working out, the whole hustle culture, the whole, you gotta be hard, and I think it's a pushback against the perception that Every other folks. Oh, what the argument I gave to the family was that, a lot of times these men, who young men, they're trying to, date women and stuff like that, let's be honest,
Mr.Benja: 5 percent of them, the whole pickup scene there to the
Theo Harvey: 5 percent of men are probably the top notch guys that, most of the women want to get with.
That's a 95%. It's tough. It's tough pickings, right? It's and so they're mad about that, right? That's number one. Number two, they're mad about what the perceived culture change where you see ascended other cultures, right? And transsexuals and, that's right. Excuse me. Yeah.
Is that what you call? I'm sorry. I'm drawing the blank right now. So you got, different descendant minorities, right? That they perceive as getting a better shake than they get. Yeah. And
Mr.Benja: I'd say that falls into the whole umbrella category of, bro ism versus woke. And you get this, but then,
Theo Harvey: But there's always been like that.
Again, like I thought the beginning of this episode history, man, there's always been the other, it's not your fault. It's the other's fault that you're not successful. And so I think we're bringing that back into play. Human nature doesn't change. If there's another scapegoat, you're going to find out a scapegoat before you blame yourself.
And so we're seeing that now with the anti woke culture, the red pill, the whole. What's that? The quality man. What was that? The, that was the other thing that came out about the quality man, the high value. Yep. So it's of a piece, right?
And so now you and to me, that was unlocked when I watched that video. It's Oh, There's this whole men's sphere that, we're familiar with, but a lot of people, especially women don't really understand. And that's what really swayed the election. And that's what was really swaying kind of culture underneath it all, right?
Cause they're not as vocal, but they're there. They're listening to these podcasts, doing all this stuff. And when it's time to make a decision, then they'd be like, Oh, wow. I didn't know they were there.
Mr.Benja: Did you see a Grant Cardone post a chill guy meme?
Theo Harvey: No. Yeah.
Mr.Benja: He was standing in the pose and everything. I remember when we brought up the chill guy, we're discussing whether it was like it's like, it's an interesting meme, but I'm like, I think this is really connected to a lot of the crypto stuff and the people, tech bros, and this group, if you want to call them that and next thing I know.
He's posted multiple posts about how he's the chill guy now. So his suits are toned down and he's just got this, cream colored pants and a gray shirt, sweatshirt on, and just Hey, people think I'm a big maggot supporter, but really I'm just low key too. And it's
Theo Harvey: Oh, these guys, man.
I love it, man. He's switching it up, man. I love it, man. That's what you do. Market marketing one on one, man. It's Be like watching my friend be like, water .
Mr.Benja: But I want to, I wanna throw a little wrench up in this this train of thought. Because what's funny is when you sent me that video, it wasn't wrong. I was listening to it, I was like, oh yeah, this is coming from this and that.
But I realized it was leaving out a lot of stuff. It's wait a minute. It's not like stoicism is bad. It was twisted. So now it's twisting the whole idea of, what was going on with the Roman emperors, Epictetus Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and maybe a couple others, if you want to throw them in there.
I was listening to this video and he's guys, they're just trying to get your money. They're doing this and that. And we here, we talked to this professor, right? And of course, a college professor, it's very, Dainty outfit or quaint. That's the word I'm going to use quaint outfit.
He's sitting behind a desk. I was very surprised that these people hadn't really understood, the meaning of stoicism and all this. And I'm like, okay, I can see that. And then he starts explaining like. In depth translations from Greek and Latin. And he's I don't believe, I don't understand how people don't understand this and it's dude, who is doing that?
Who is doing that kind of research? What are you talking about? So it started to get weird and, a little bit high and mighty, but it was still trying to, For a lot of shade on stoicism in general, but using bros as the reason to do it or something, was weird.
So as I was watching this, I was like this is how they're breaking apart quote unquote, logic, this is how they're doing it. And then at some point they said, Hey, listen, we just want to help people. We really do. I'm going to put the links in the show notes and everything.
I'm like, okay, links are going to be in the show notes and where I can find actual stoic information. I went down to the links after it was over. None of those links. Took me to anything about stoicism. I found out where to buy a t shirt. I found out how I could join this guy's Patreon. I found out how I could support his, travel to some country to do research and there were all these links to other stuff.
But nothing about actually learning what stoicism was. So I thought that was very interesting and I was yeah, this is what's happening now. This is what we're doing.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. It undercut their whole argument a little bit. Yeah. The scam, scamification of stoicism. And they were using that as a cover for their scam.
So I get it. Smash, smash
Mr.Benja: that subscribe button. Join my Patreon. Yeah. Smash that bell.
Theo Harvey: Mr. Benjamin, I love it, man. We look guys.
Conclusion and Sign-Off
Theo Harvey: I hope you look, Mr. Benjamin, was there anything else that we missed this week? I think this was a good one.
Mr.Benja: No, we hit on everything. We said we were don't buy the Hawk to a girl's crypto.
If it's still possible to, but I think we hit most everything else.
Theo Harvey: No, this has been good guys. Thank you guys for listening. Me and Mr. Benja always enjoy doing these things. And so look, we're going to end it here, but look, if you like what you heard, subscribe, comment and show versus business on X threads, YouTube, and Instagram, we may have a blue sky account coming out soon, so watch out for that.
Listen to us as Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts, visit us on our website, show versus business. Mr. Benja have a good one. Peace.