Readiness Theater: Testosterone, Trump Strait, and the Illusion of Control

David (00:00) You know that feeling when someone hands you a number and suddenly a messy problem looks solved? A testosterone level becomes readiness, a new name on a map becomes control, a browser game becomes policy success, and a war becomes a military conflict. This week we're looking at what happens when institutions start managing the representation instead of the reality. Because the dashboard can look fantastic right up until the system actually has to perform. This is Shrink the Nation. Let's go. David (01:09) Alright, hey, welcome back to Shrink the Nation. I'm David. I am a psychiatrist. I have years of experience in the military. And today I am drinking some sort of Costco branded coffee, French roast, drip. it's alright. Black, unsweetened. I'm just trying to get through my morning Rob (01:29) hey, it's Rob, also board certified psychiatrists and also the stuff he just said, maybe a couple of years more. and I'm drinking a brand of coffee that I found somewhere out in the grand old United States when I was touring around. it is Mothman coffee. and it's actually remarkably good. drip coffee, black. unsweetened because that's how we like it. It's how we like our politics, David (01:53) Yeah. Rob (01:55) it's like how we like our psychology. David (01:57) Man, it I definitely don't like my coffee drip, but that's all I have today. okay, Robbie, I have to give people an update from last week because several of our listeners were very interested in this. I did end up sampling some of Laura Bush's easy pie. And I'm gonna tell ya, it was lackluster. it did not taste like candy. it was somewhat underwhelming. It was weirdly Rob (02:19) Yeah. David (02:20) dry for a cream pie, which I found off putting. Rob (02:25) is a what a seventy five year old recipe. David (02:27) Yeah. anyway, it was a little disappointing. I expect my cream pies Rob (02:29) Right. David (02:31) to be a little bit more exciting than that, Rob (02:33) Juicy. David (02:33) you get your mouth on it just explodes, Rob (02:35) Yeah. David (02:36) right? And there was no explosion in I was very disappointed. Rob (02:38) Yeah. and for our tens of listeners, David has now demonstrated a level of follow through on Laura Bush's cream pie that exceeds most congressional oversight. Good for you, David. Good for you. your wherewithal is really I am in awe David (02:55) Do it for the people, Robbia, do it for the people. why we do all of this. That's Rob (02:56) Yeah. Exactly. For the tens of listeners that can't do it for themselves. I get it. David (03:01) right. But speaking of dry lackluster cream pies, did you hear about this new policy that the Pentagon finally released their guidance on testosterone screening and replacement, which did actually impact what they should do with our female troops? So the women in the military who are postmenopausal and having HSDD, which is hyposexual desired disorder, there are now formal guidelines by the Pentagon on what to do with testosterone treatment. So no more dry lackluster cream pies from our older female troops. And you know Papa Hegh is taking care of Everybody 'cause that's who he is. Rob (03:41) yeah, there's no doubt. David (03:43) but before you laugh, what's actually funny about the policy is that the guidelines for treating women with postmenopausal HSD, that's probably the only part of the policy that's got real good scientific backing to follow through with. So congratulations, Rob (03:57) Ha ha David (04:00) Pentagon. you got part of it right. Actually more interesting about thing about the policy was that they released it on September second, and then pulled it back on September third. So I don't know, by the time this post, maybe they will have brought the guidance back out. Rob (04:13) Well, y you know, of all the aspects of this, the fact that they did pull it, I actually find that to be the healthiest indicator of the system that they released something, they realized they had made some errors, they pulled it back. we have not seen enough of that in this administration They shoot from the hip and then they no matter what will push forward even if it's a mistake. So the fact that they did pull it back having identified there was some weaknesses in it, I found that actually reassuring. it does imply there was some pressure and where that pressure came from, I don't know. clearly his initial Bush had something more to do with men and making them combat fighting machines. David (05:00) what they were attempting to do with the policy was to improve combat readiness by screening people for low T and then treating them the troubling thing of even what you just said is it's true I do think it's good that identifying an issue with the policy had them do a reversal on it. so to me that's a probably a really overly optimistic perspective on it, because the big thing to begin with is why would you even release a policy and guidance to manage something like this, and then pull it back immediately afterwards, after you get some just pushback because what is that saying? It's not saying that our policy was good to begin with. It was saying we were trying to create a perception people were making fun of the perception that you were trying to create with it and so you pulled it back. But they haven't stopped the guidance on screening thirty plus males for testosterone deficiencies That's still the key part of the policy and that is going to remain in place. Their guidance is going to be modified a little bit on how they're going to implement what to do with that information. so I don't know that they're following science at this point. They're just trying to modify the perception that's being created. Rob (06:08) Well and incorporate women. David (06:09) Yeah. Rob (06:10) the way this was rolled out There's a laughable element to it, particularly who it comes from, you know, Papa Hegsa. so the fact that they have pushed out this thing to like incorporate women in this effort to look inclusive, and then did it in such a quick fashion that they had to pull it back. that's where the humor potential is. now for our postmenopausal military members, which just for our tens of listeners aren't many. as it turns out, David (06:38) We might have more listeners. Rob (06:40) Yeah, the military is a young person's game, folks. you don't get into the advanced ages or middle ages advanced middle age, that's the better term, and still be kicking around the army. But they clearly wanted that impression that they're being inclusive and pushed it out pretty quickly. David (06:58) Yeah, and I guess that's where the psychology of this becomes interesting. laugh all day at a goofy policy that doesn't follow any recommendations from endocrine societies. screening all men over the age of thirty for low testosterone is gonna have very likely low, low yield for at the very least that first ten years of that. Rob (07:18) can you imagine an insurance system, any insurance system that would adopt such a poor utilization of resources screening a population that is low risk for a condition universally, it's kind of striking and for our tens of listeners, testosterone levels are interesting because there is a range, but that range is really broad. And for each individual, the range is almost irrelevant. It really comes down to symptoms that you're having, not necessarily whether you're in the middle zone or the high zone. however once you screen someone, if they're on the low end, it does create some cognitive dissonances, as if we're all in a competition as to what our testosterone levels are, you want to be higher. So how many people are they going to treat just because they're low normal. Low normal is normal. David (08:10) Right. Well, I think that's the key, is it asymptomatic screening for low testosterone in a massive population, most of which will be way younger than where you would typically see the problem is kind of the problem here, right? and the fact is one single test is not the answer to the question, when did you get the test? What was going on that day? You need multiple tests to confirm this is potentially a very expensive solution to a problem that doesn't exist. not to mention the potential for side effects to somebody who is then getting T replaced when they don't require T replaced. I think what we're looking at here though on the grander scheme is that You're trying to assign a value and a number to combat readiness that just doesn't have role. It doesn't play a role in combat readiness, the lack Rob (08:58) Yeah. David (09:01) of testosterone. the screening process is ridiculous. This is like screening children from the age of zero to five for sexually transmitted infections, Rob (09:10) Yeah. No, that's a reasonable analogy. I can't wait to all the VA disability claims that are going to flow from this related to male pattern baldness. I was not bald until you made me take testosterone and now I got bald. yeah, the downstream's ramifications for this are interesting to say the least. However, the human need take something as complex as readiness. how do we know a soldier can do their job in combat. And it is a complex set of things. it is their psychological health, their training readiness, their equipment readiness, their medical readiness. it is a set of metrics that are so challenging to manage, and ultimately there's a big dark unknown for any given soldier, that from personal experience, When the shit hits the fan, how someone performs is very unpredictable, and I'm certainly not gonna say high testosterone people don't perform as well as others, I will say I was perpetually surprised. as to who rose to the occasion and who didn't. there's a variable that you can't put your finger on. But this gives us an exact number. So you're at 417 you're ready, you're gonna go and you're gonna kick some ass, is silly. it reminds me a great deal of McNamara. that during Vietnam for our tens of listeners, McNamara, who was the secretary of the Department of Defense during Vietnam, he tried to make a science from war and it's an art and a science and he wanted to take metrics and utilize them to predict some things that are just unpredictable. You cannot predict the will of an enemy. he turned it into body count they were using the metric of body count. in order to predict how we were doing. And it was wrong. It was just wrong. it did not end up translating into any legitimate reflection of how the war was going and now we've got testosterone and testosterone replacement. David (11:18) Well, yeah, you're taking something that's measurable because it's measurable. you're giving it more privilege because it's something that you can measure, and then you're discounting all of the other factors potentially that could actually impact the success or failure of something because you can't measure it and you're confusing this number for what you assume the outcome is going to be. I can tell you what you can understand from one testosterone screening is what their testosterone level was at that time on that day. That's what you get from that number with nothing else. I mean how many times, Robbie, do you get family members or friends who will send you A copy of their labs and say, What do you think? And you're just like, Well, with zero context whatsoever, can tell Rob (12:08) Yeah. David (12:08) you that your white count is low. and that's it. It's all you can really get. Well, there's a reason, when you talk to your doctor. You have a full conversation. That's the idea. You talk to them. as much as we'd want an change everything into an algorithm, it's not that simple, especially in psychiatry, which we're not talking about right now, but that's my experience. whenever I would talk to residents, in the military. they would say, Well, when should I put in the paperwork to have this person looked at as to whether they can continue service? And because they're doing okay right now. And I'd do my best because the answer is It really fucking depends. But I'd always say if you were the person who was downrange who was receiving this person. To have to deal with their mental health issues while in a combat zone, would you be pissed off at you for sending them? that's the litmus test that I would use. Is there any science to that? No. can you measure it somehow? No. Is it accurate? Maybe, in some people, yes, and some people no. But it doesn't give you the warm and fuzzies of a number that says, well, this person's a 10, do not send them. And this person's Rob (13:15) Yeah. David (13:16) a one. Go ahead. Rob (13:17) Yeah. we humans have almost an erotic relationship with decimal points. and the desire to take the nebulous shades of gray and make them a black and white is almost irresistible, particularly in big organizations. there's a book. David (13:32) Surprise. Rob (13:33) yeah, that talks about the legibility of a population. So an organization has to have legibility about their people, And when you're in a leadership position, your ability to have legibility of what your organization is becomes increasingly challenging. the bigger that organization comes. So if you have an organization of five people, you can walk around all five people and you can get a sense of how they're doing, how are things with their job, et cetera. When you have an organization that is comprised of millions of people, it becomes more challenging. So you have to collect metrics. you do your best to select the right metrics. trying to give yourself some sense the health of the population. but they're always less than ideal in an organization as the size of the DOD, that ability to have some legibility over your personnel is challenged. So now we have added into the mix testosterone and I don't know if that's gonna give us any more sense of our soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, but it does have a decimal point and we can measure it on any given day, first thing in the morning what your testosterone level is. David (14:45) Yeah, I it just imagine fast forwarding a bit and going, I don't know how we lost. The testosterone levels looked great. Rob (14:52) huh. this is the irritant to me good military leaders know their soldiers, know their personnel. I've got an army background, so I lean into soldier terminology. However good leaders know their personnel and true readiness is incredibly complex. it's physical conditioning, it's training, it's experience, it's unit cohesion, it's mental health, it's sleep, it's family stability. it is three hundred and sixty degree look at an individual soldier and It does offend me, from a leader standpoint. factoring in, this testosterone thing, because it really becomes noise. It's not signal. and what do you do with that ultimately and does it really change readiness and functionally the moment of choice, that time when the soldier has to stand up and do their job under difficult circumstances. I don't think their testosterone level is what actually makes the difference. David (15:48) But they could get one more rep. Rob (15:49) It might make the difference in the gym. I have yet to see the gym translating out into combat performance, but David (15:56) So speaking of slapping labels onto things that don't need new labels, it all just has this feeling of theater to it. It's perceptual theater is what we're really looking at, which isn't really new from this administration. So throwing back to our Gulf of America name change that we had, I don't even know how long feels like a million years ago, even though I never thought of it that way and I still don't. on August twenty seventh. There was an executive order by Donald Shelly Donut Trump to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. And apparently that's caused some kerfuffle, even though it means nothing, but basically Canada and the international community do not use this. Only we in America using Google Maps or Apple Maps will see that change. apparently if you use MapQuest, they decide not to change it and that gave a huge surge to MapQuest. I didn't know It's kinda like when somebody says some celebrity's name that died recently and your response is, Wait, were they still alive? Rob (16:59) Ha ha. David (16:59) I would have expected they died years ago. Rob (17:01) my curiosity is has anyone clued him in on the fact that Lake Ontario isn't the largest lake? because I have a sense that all of a sudden we might end up having to change the name again, if that information comes out. David (17:17) That's what I thought when I saw it. wait a minute, did you just name the smallest great lake? Lake America? Rob (17:23) Yeah. We did. the biggest lake is named Lake Superior. so it makes sense, right? somebody put some thought into that one. David (17:30) sense. I g I gotta tell you, my Great Lakes knowledge is pretty minimal, but I knew that it wasn't the largest for sure. Rob (17:36) know the Great Lakes. David (17:37) The American education system doing me good. But then on September second, Trump did what I think we all kind of expected after he suggested that we take the Strait of Hormuz as a territory and he floated the idea of maybe renaming it to Trump Strait. if anything I'm a bit impressed because I would have expected him to have named the Gulf of Mexico or Lake Ontario after himself. So for him to have that kind of restraint to wait until a middle of the night bleat on Truth Social to float the idea of slapping his name on the hormone straight, I'm surprised. Not surprised that he did it. Just surprised that he withheld this long. That must have felt fucking good to him. Rob (18:20) you know it brings me back to shamelessness, but I'm not gonna beat that poor dead horse any further. what is it with this guy slapping his name on things? just indiscriminately. just any place, anything that he can develop a likeness, slap his name on. he just can't help himself. I think the rest of us would feel embarrassed. He doesn't seem to. the Strait of Hormuz, for crying out loud, a it's a whole different part of the world. it's ancient. Help me here, David. This doesn't make sense to me. Or it makes sense in a scary kind of like my God, are you that impaired way? David (19:00) don't know. it doesn't make sense for a normal person to want their name on everything, but it really tracks with him. he's delightfully on brand. Rob (19:09) Delightfully. David (19:10) you have to appreciate that. It's more perceptual theater. you slap your name on it and that changes everything about it. No, it doesn't. It doesn't change anything about it. And nobody recognizes it. Rob (19:18) Well it's on brand. and as you just astutely called it, it's delightfully so. it makes me smile. it's the kind of smile you have to give when the alternative is tears. so I'm not smiling out of true mirth. it's painful actually. for me. But it's also taking ownership of a shit show. the Straight Hore Moose is a shit show right now. It is a mess. it is probably emblematic, well it is emblematic of an entire administration and a decision making style that is anti-strategery. but Where in the translation in this guy's mind did he not think slapping my name on this is taking ownership of a complete travesty, a mess? that part I don't get. something that's successful, something that's doing well, and he wants to associate himself with it. Okay, all right. you know, at least I can get that. I think it's narcissistic, I think it's shameless. but I can at least get it. But slapping your name on a shit show And does he honestly believe that that's gonna stick? Like the day he dies. virtually everything that he's named is gonna revert back to wherever it was. David (20:33) you make good points, but I think maybe, Rob, you're you've got a logical fallacy going on here in that you're assuming that the thought processes going through his brain are capable of this kind of logical thinking that you're having. I think what you're forgetting Is that this man lives in a fantasy world 24-7? He's got his little Natalie Harp following him around, telling him how wonderful he is and how good he smells. he works every day, presumably, with Steven Miller, who he thinks is a good person. he's just not. He works with Stephen Chong, who Constantly berates people for their appearance. I mean, he lives in a fantasy world. he's surrounded by sycophanti yes men who tell him that every thought that he has is the perfect thought, and who don't tell him no. think somewhere in the back of his mind, somewhere back there, the fact that he is absolutely torching his own legacy. with everything that he thinks or does does bother him, but he just pushes that aside with more actions that are gonna further torch his legacy. I'm so excited to fast forward a few years and just read the books from the people who sat around watching the toddler that he is throwing tantrums in the White House. Shitting on the carpet and blaming somebody else for it. The you shit my pants defense, a constant thing, who shit my pants? maybe Natalie Harp takes that role on. Maybe that's what she does. It was me, sir. I shit your pants. Rob (22:03) So I do speculate that in the immortal words of elf from the Christmas movie, he smells like beef and cheese. I am almost certain that David (22:13) I was I thought you were gonna say you're an angry elf. you're an angry elf. Rob (22:15) I'm almost certain he smells like beef and cheese. but so I mean from a cognitive dissonance standpoint. Can you imagine the level of energy he's investing on a day-to-day basis to convince himself that his legacy is legitimate and lasting and is anything less than a future comedy show? in the future the humor. That is going to be pulled from this. And you're right, there are going to be these books. they're going to reveal it all. they'll come out for the next decade plus, and then fifty years down the line there'll be another group coming out to talk about just how ridiculous this was. But at this moment, Getting up every day and probably more to the point, going to sleep every night, and that's when we see the bleats. David (23:04) every early morning. Rob (23:05) yeah, the middle of the night darkness, because the dark always listens more than the daytime. how much of his energy psychological energy has to be invested in keeping at bay the farce that is him. that has to be damn near painful. David (23:22) You know, I think he should switch to Coke. I just don't think Diet Coke is gonna provide enough caloric energy to help that brain really dig through the difficult situation you just described. that's just it. I think maybe the way that we've been looking at this is wrong because We've been thinking that he's doing these name changes to distract all of us from his epic failures as a leader. And I'm really starting to think, no, he's doing these name changes as a distraction to him. this is self-soothing. This is like him pulling out a massive binky and sucking on it to just calm himself down, and maybe that's what we should call these binky moves, Rob (24:04) Binky moves, David (24:05) he's just sucking on, a plastic nipple when he's got his truth social post in the middle of the night, as he's, coming up with these great policies like Reopen Alcatraz and stuff like that. it's sad really, but sometimes you make your bed and you gotta lie in it. And fortunately for him and unfortunately for us, we both made a bed that we gotta now lie in, and it's just covered in shit. until he's no longer the president. think about the level of non reality that he lives in. somebody sent me a meme the other day of just a side by side picture. Now granted they took a very unflattering photo of Donald Trump. I don't care, take any regular photo, but they put him next to DK Metcalf, he used to play for the Seattle Seahawks. now plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, weighing in it six foot four, two hundred and thirty pounds, standing next to our president, who is listed as six foot three, two hundred and twenty-four pounds. And frankly, I couldn't tell which one was which, Robbie, because they look so similar. I mean, you have this massively jacked Adonis of a human being. spoiler alert, that was DK Metcalf standing next to a morbidly obese Donald Trump, but he is told and is confirmed by physicians who should have some sense of maybe I should be honest about your condition, that he is specimen. I think they call him overweight, But he is morbidly obese. visually. I can't diagnose anything, but I would wonder if he needs a sleep study. But he lives in this world and sometimes he as you said in the middle of the night, sometimes you step into reality for a couple of minutes and that's really, really scary. And you gotta get your Binky out. and start bleeding away. Rob (25:44) and for this renaming territory thing that usually in history a country will first conquer and then rename. I do have to hand it to him for skipping the conquering part, going just straight to the renaming with no authority to do so. and why in the hell is Google and Apple playing along with this bullshit? what in the hell? David (26:05) Because it's easier. When you got a cranky toddler, you just let run around and scream until they tire themselves out. no, it's a money thing. Apple Maps the day that the new CEO took over, that's when Apple Maps changed. I think it's a play nice with the guy who threatens everybody, sues everybody, attacks you and can take away half of your fan base. is that okay? No, I think if people actually stood up to him, he would have less influence. But for some reason nobody wants to stand up to him. it really is like everybody thinks this guy is the size of DK Metcalf. he's not He's just an old old old fat fat man who walks around seemingly confused a lot. Did you see though on September fourth that the UN General Assembly had a vote on whether they should encourage the use of the equal earth projection on maps instead of the very common that we're all used to seeing Mercator map. for some context The map that you typically see on a flat picture is called the Mercator map. And that is really designed to help with navigation in the waterways and airways, because it's a flat projection of a round earth, the size of the continents are just not correct. And so if you look at the map. Greenland actually looks larger than Africa, even though Africa is actually fourteen times the size of Greenland in reality. because when you try to flatten out the equator, it just makes things in that area look a lot smaller. And this is also the thing I've been telling my wife for a long, long time. Different context though, different context. when you look at it from that angle, it just looks smaller. but if you use the equal earth map, which is a more accurate Yeah, yeah. Rob (27:47) Bad lighting, sweetie. It's just bad lighting. David (27:49) But if you look at the equal earth projection, it's not very accurate or good for navigation, but it very much increases the size of Africa to its more accurate representation. which To a country that is diminished often, this is just a psychological thing. if you want to make somebody look or feel smaller, then have everybody for the last five hundred years believe that your importance is somehow diminished because your size is diminished. Anyway, so the UN voted and they voted one hundred and sixty four yeses, six abstentions, and one no. can you guess who the one no was, Robbie? Rob (28:24) US David (28:25) It was the US. We were the only country to say no, we should not use the equal earth projection. So essentially our current cartographic doctrine is we're willing to change what things are called on the map. we just drew the line at making their relative sizes more accurate. And The reason for it was because they felt that the equal earth map is going to somehow create an ideological agenda with a larger discussion on colonial legacies and they just don't want to talk about the past. Because the UN has also stated that the Atlantic slave trade was the greatest human tragedy ever and they don't want to talk about that. it's interesting. it's more perceptual theater, Rob (29:07) Well and I speculate, if we had used this equal earth map, the recent focus on Greenland would not have existed. is my sense of it when it was happening. I had this sense that Trump wants Greenland because he looks on our standard maps and he thinks it's Huge. And that led him to wanting it. and if he saw it actually depicted its relative size to the rest of the world, we may not have ever gone down that comedy gold pathway. David (29:37) Yeah. Well, and to be clear, it's not that the UN is saying that we should use this map for things like navigation or, flying. It's just they recommend it being the standardized map moving forward in like schools and stuff like that because it's just more accurate and it could potentially help out Africa's standing in the world if people don't view them as being essentially diminished. because a big fucking continent. Rob (30:00) it's massive and I believe Africa and South America both are the only continents whose populations are currently increasing versus decreasing. So its future importance is relevant. David (30:11) Yeah. this more of the US trying to play games with the world and it doesn't make sense. But speaking of which, Robbie, did you see that the White House ripped us off? Rob (30:21) What? collar me stunned and surprised no, I did not see. David (30:25) they fucking ripped off our idea and I'm kinda pissed about it. The White House I pretty sure they listened to us and they thought these guys they know what's going on because what are we? We're a podcast of psychiatrists with military background who talk about behavioral politics. So naturally, Robbie, what does that turn into? an arcade on our website We have twelve games now. and they're actually really fun games. Well the White House decided that they, on September fourth, were also going to release an arcade where they have only five games. we got more, by the way. But at Whitehouse.gov slash arcade Robbie, they have Five games with one coming soon apparently where you can do different things that the administration thinks makes them a lot of fun. They want to highlight the fun of Trump's agenda. The one that struck me most was this game called Rio Run that is basically I think it's a little Donald Trump and he walks around and he arrests people who are very brown, actually, very brown. and if you look at the picture maybe they changed it to tom homeman anyway the little screenshot of this game all the people are following him around are wearing their regular clothes but if you play the game as you walk around and quote unquote deport the illegals you put them in orange jumpsuits so that they start falling around orange jumpsuits. so they have their games and I thought, Robbie, this is shockingly racist Yeah. And not that fun. Rob (31:54) they're terrible. I just pulled it up and you use the term shockingly racist. It's racist. I don't think anymore it shocks me though. I don't think this is shocking. however, so I just pulled this up and I played the Rio run. it does look like Tom Holman, by the way. a fat bald man. And in the picture that you click to play the game, very, very brown. Very brown people. in the actual game that looks like they have adjusted it such that the skin tones are lighter. so somebody's paying attention, maybe. maybe. yes, the David (32:25) it it is random. Rob (32:26) your games are much, much better. David (32:28) Yeah, so we decided to release game to Rob (32:32) wait, I take it back. Very brown. it's a mix. It's a mix. They've they've got David (32:34) I told you. It's a mix. It's a mix. Rob (32:37) super brown people and some not so brown people. David (32:40) It's a mix. Yeah, they did deport that one MAGA influencer last week Rob (32:44) Milo, man. Milo took a hit big David (32:46) Yeah. Rob (32:47) time. David (32:47) Yeah. So they're not not just brown people, yeah, so after playing that game and feeling like it really wasn't all that much fun, we decided to make our own game called the Accountability Trail. And similar concept, instead of walking around deporting illegals, you walk around and you expose and hold accountable people who are doing corruptive acts we'll say. they have a game called Build the Wall, which apparently looks a lot like Tetris. And I didn't decide to spoof that one, but we do have a game called Congress Does Its Job and Rob (33:19) Mm-hmm. David (33:19) that one a fictional president does some corrupt act in some way, you have to go around and collect evidence and then try to convince Congress to impeach and then convict. So fun little games that you guys can play if you want on our website, shrinkthenation.com. they're right at the top. So just go look at those and play away. Rob (33:37) I also want to let our listeners know that I am in no way recommending you go to whitehouse.gov arcade. But when you do play Raya Run, or Rhea Run, David (33:47) Rio? Rob (33:48) Rio, you capture brown people just different shades of brown people and once you capture them They're immediately put into a orange jumpsuit and they follow along. behind all this is terrible. This is just awful. Who greenlit this? Who thought this was a good idea? David (34:06) Steven Miller, I assume. it's awful. Rob (34:07) I mean, this feels like who thought it was a good idea for us to have video games? David (34:12) Exactly, that's what I'm saying. I mean it makes no sense. It makes no sense Rob (34:13) Who who greenlit that? David (34:15) no sense for us to have video games. It makes even less sense for the White House to have an arcade. So they're ripping us off, Robbie. So we're gonna hit back. Rob (34:23) This is the public representation of the White House. David (34:28) It's ridiculous. Rob (34:28) I'm ashamed. David (34:30) I think what I'm offended by as somebody who has made a lot of video games is that they're trying to stay that this is showing how fun their agenda is. And the thing is their games aren't fucking fun. At least our games are fun. I mean, our games are maybe overly complex and way more fun than they should be, but our games are fun. These aren't fun. These games suck. our Congress does its job game. There's a lot of civic learning that goes into that. You get to learn how the process works. you take three little avatars and you work on Congress until they finally nut up and impeach the president. It's fun. That's fun. Walk around. Anyway, it's all silliness. But Rob (35:09) It's embarrassing. David (35:10) many times a day do you think what fucking timeline am I living in? And it's only when I read the news or see something that this administration has done, but every time I'm thinking, what fucking timeline? I mean at the very least, commission good games, man. Commission good games. Rob (35:26) recent history has got me convinced that I am living in a simulation, by the way. and I do believe that in the multiverse theory, there's a normal out there. We're just not living in it. this is not it. there is a universe in which the White House would have the good sense to be respectable, to project some gravitas on the world and they wouldn't create an arcade whitehouse dot gov and once you run around capturing brown people and putting them in orange jumpsuits. It's shameful. David (36:00) the easiest way to say this is that this administration lacks tact. That's the way I like to frame it in my mind Speaking of lacking tact though, did you see that on September third JD Vance is now saying that he wouldn't call the Iran war a war because the major combat operations have ended. Fighting is now intermittently flaring and because at the moment he was speaking there was no active shooting, it's no longer a war. even though we're now in its seventh month, we've had fifty thousand troops in the region, twenty warships are involved in a blockade, and we've had strikes between the US and Iran within this week with people killed. I mean we've had eighteen US service members, which is it's not fifty thousand, but we've had casualties. I would imagine that those eighteen families probably think this is war, that have to deal with the fact that their loved one is no longer with them. Rob (36:54) Well and we've had hundreds injured. so I I think that they think it's a war. David (36:59) You're missing a leg you probably feel like you'd happen to morph. Yeah. Rob (37:02) Yeah, I think the combatant commanders are approaching it like it's a war. but you know, semantics, baby. David (37:08) if somebody in your family died and or was, severely wounded in this conflict and they came out and they came back and said, Well, we would give you a purple heart, but we'd have to acknowledge that this was a war and we're not gonna do that. So sorry, buddy. yeah, I think I'd be pretty offended, but I guess This is just a new Lake America at this point because now Trump is saying, well, it's just a military conflict. And he said, quote, small potatoes for us. small potatoes, thirty seven point five billion dollars at least. And I think that's a very generous probably doctored. I think thirty seven point five billion is whatever the equivalent of Trump's weight when they came up with that number. And then nearly twenty people died on our side. So Rob (37:50) You know, I guess what I'm curious about is that what operational variables change because we change the category? it's ridiculous. I mean it's a ridiculous rhetorical tool, but words do have power. David (38:05) I think it implements the Small Potatoes Act. when you have to go before Congress and ask if you can continue the small potatoes. Rob (38:11) are fewer ships requiring maintenance, are fewer interceptors required to protect our Gulf allies and our troops? does Iran stop shooting now that they know that this is not a war? it's such a ridiculous rhetorical tool and it is so emblematic. of what we see. It's just pretending that they can portray reality and that that makes it real. And it's really frustrating to me. David (38:38) I think there's frustration on my part at least, You see reporting from classified sources, so what's the actual truth, but it is suggested that the military commanders feel like this particular war, call it military conflict, call it whatever you want, is degrading our ability as a fighting force to engage in other conflicts should they arise around the world. And so our readiness is actually being diminished by use of our munitions, by having our forces deployed to these settings for seven months now. our air defense systems have been used extensively in this conflict because Iran has a bunch of missiles and they had a bunch of drones the combatant commanders from around the world have said yeah we are at a reduced mission readiness because our resources being taxed. and i you know I can't say that's an official source that's just What has been reported? Rob (39:31) We have three near peers in this world. we have China, we have Russia, and to a lesser degree, we have North Korea. and when I use near peer, I'm not pretending that they are peers. we have seen how Russia performed in Ukraine. China is not forecasted to have a fully modernized military until twenty fifty. North Korea they are what they are. However, they do have the capability to do a great deal of damage and threaten us. they have the capability of taking control of one of the domains of war. So air, sea, land, information and space. they have that capability. Can they hold it indefinitely? unlikely, but they can hold it for a while, which certainly complicates our ability to wage war. Iran's not one of them and that region of the world is not exactly one in which it is strategically sensible for us to be investing in. And yes, we have invested so many resources into that region that if something kicks off, if Russia follows through with this. theorized plan to challenge NATO by hitting one of the Baltic states, if China follows through with their longstanding goal of taking Taiwan, if North Korea were to open up on South Korea, our ability to respond to those things is compromised right now. And if three of them happen at once, It's not just compromise. we no longer could rise to that occasion. David (41:01) you had Dan Driscoll resigning because he had concerns apparently about a number of issues related to our readiness, and some of the leaders that were being removed the army transformations that were happening and just I think having overall beef with Pete Hegsith. not that I would say he's some amazing stand up guy, but when you have leaders who are actively leaving with the concerns and the direction that things are moving, there's some red flags that definitely go up. Rob (41:24) He also atypically went straight to the president to tender his resignation. and reportedly at least, voiced concerns that Hegseth has fired our most capable generals at a time in which we need our most capable generals. and he's done it purely for his own purposes because he cannot tolerate dissension, he cannot tolerate a different point of view. he's perpetually threatened in his position because, deep down inside he realizes he's incompetent to do the job that he accepted, which we have talked about in the past. the level of hubris to accept a job that you Have to recognize that you have no qualifications for. So there was something atypical about it. And the thing that I found humorous was that Trump said, I didn't know any of this. I didn't realize that he was firing all these generals. which really says he's got his finger on the pulse, folks. he's right there in between the ballroom and the reflecting pool. David (42:21) Park to Trump. Rob (42:22) he really invests himself in, one of the primary jobs of the president of the United States, the commander in chief of the military. he really knows what's going on. And it filled me with pride. it filled me with reassurance. we've got a steady hand on the wheel is what it told me. David (42:41) It's scary. what's interesting about all this is it does really bring us full circle to what we started with, which is Laura Bush's pie. no i it Rob (42:51) I love your commitment to that. David (42:52) you gotta you want Laura Bush's pie, Rob (42:54) Once you taste Laura Bush's pie, you're gonna be committed to Laura Bush's I get it. Yeah. David (42:57) You've gotta be committed. Yeah, absolutely. Just by just by agreeing to taste Lorebush's pie, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with it. It will always be there. You'll be haunted by it forever. No pie will taste the same. Every ply will be measured the lower bushes. Rob (43:10) From now until eternity. all these themes actually are reminiscent to me of another book another book which basically details the importance of psychological safety in an organization. And right now, across the board, there is not psychological safety. And what I mean by that is employees, people that work in an organization need to feel safe to voice their concerns, their disagreements, where things are messed up. And as it stands right now, we have a leadership that has such fragile ego structures that dissension is not tolerated. It's just deleted. And there's a wonderful example of how that turns out. And I'm not equating anyone to a Nazi, by the way. But one of the reasons that Nazi Germany ended up failing so miserably was that there was zero psychological safety within the organization. And they got to the point where there was no ability to tell the leader where all the problems were and he was basing his decisions on bad information and his own ego and there we are the Department of Defense is my understanding at least in a shambles because nobody can voice the reality of the situation to Papa Heg. David (44:29) yeah. Rob (44:28) Without getting fired. Not to mention if you're a woman or a person of color or you're owl. Yeah. David (44:33) to tie this all together and to just go back to where we started with is that this administration runs off of testosterone guidance as combat readiness. it's slapping a label onto something and then claiming that it somehow changed without having to do anything. It's all perceptual theater. the reality of even low T, if you do rough, rough math, you'd say seven percent ish of the military would be comprised of males over the age of forty. If you look at just the population, you'd probably call it about three to six percent of the general population in males would have symptomatic hypogonadism. And maybe ten to twenty percent have testosterone levels at a lower level if you remove substance use disorders as being a contributing factor, which you can't be in the military and have an active substance use disorder, at least not for long, which would contribute to low T. And so when you do the math on that, it's maybe, one, percent of the military would be expected to have a low testosterone level that's actually impacting their function in some way. so what's a policy about testosterone gonna actually do for combat readiness? Probably nothing, but it does give them Rob (45:45) Nothing. Nothing. David (45:47) the warm and fuzzies that they're doing something, and projecting out to everyone else who's watching them and particularly the people who like them, that what they're doing is having some beneficial effect Rob (45:58) So let me tie this entire episode in with a bow. because we've talked about testosterone, we've talked about Lake America, Trump Strait, arcade victory, not a war. so that's the representation. and the reality is what we're talking about is like individual readiness. we're talking about geopolitical control, control of the Strait of Hormuz, operational demands. So there's the representation and then there's the reality. And representation matters. it does matter. however, what we're doing is taking very challenging, complex things, and we're trading it off for certainty. And when that representation diverges from the reality significantly, which everything we just talked about diverges from the reality that's where the problem arises that we're trading off dealing with reality for a projected, pretended certainty. down that road lie madness, my friend. certainly not good results. David (46:57) haven't been so far. All right. you and I could do twenty four hours on this topic, but we unfortunately don't have time to go into it any further than that, even though I would like to. But have any prescriptions? Rob (47:08) Yeah, I do. measure things you actually care about, not whatever happens to be easiest to count. use metrics, symbols, and narratives, but force them to answer reality before you adopt one. Decide what evidence would make you abandon it because strength isn't looking ready. Strength is surviving contact with things you were supposed to be ready for. David (47:29) Like it. I like it. Rob (47:30) And my other prescription is do not go to whitehouse dot gov arcade. Don't support that, folks. David (47:37) All right, my prescription is treat the patient, not the chart. If the military is exhausted, the ships are strained, and the war's still happening, changing a lab value map, or vocabulary isn't the cure. Reality remains stubbornly noncompliant. Well, thank you to everybody for sticking around. We really do value and appreciate our tens of listeners. hit like, subscribe, share with your friends. See if they like us too. Sometimes we calm things down and sometimes we stir things up, Rob (48:07) Yeah, and I'm just gonna close with just stressing, do not support White House.gov arcade. I mean, David and I are a couple of psychiatrists with very poor impulse control. They're the federal government. We're allowed to do dumb. They aren't. Don't support folks. David (48:22) Yeah. Yeah, go to our website shrinkthenation.com, play our arcade games, learn something, and have Rob (48:28) Absolutely. David (48:29) a good time. So, all right. Well, I'm going to cue up this music, Rob, and we are out.