Strategy or Theatre? Decisions, Delusions, and Second-Order Effects

David (00:00) Do you ever notice when something happens somewhere in the world, a war, terrorist attack, an oil spike, a financial panic? Within about ten minutes everybody's staring at the White House? Not because we know what should be done, because uncertainty itself has become uncomfortable. Somewhere along the way we started expecting presidents to manage not just the country, but our anxiety about the country and the rest of the world. The problem is that most of the things we're asking them to control were never really controllable in the first place. So today we're talking about action, uncertainty, military power, and why doing something often feels better than knowing what you're doing. This is Shrink the Nation. Let's go. David (01:24) All right, we are back. another episode going. I'm David. I've got the military service, the board certification, psychiatrist, all that good stuff. Not sure if that's why anybody tunes in. probably not, but at the very least, they'll listen to us sit around getting drunk and man, that's always a blast hearing two idiots drink bourbon and opine about things that most people don't opine about. All right, so today, Robbie, I went as high brow as humanly possible because I'm not at home and I got me a plastic bottle of Evan Williams. This was the smallest non Rob (01:46) Get loud. David (02:02) airplane sized bottle I could get of anything where I'm currently at. And you know, the funny thing about Evan Williams, this is dirt cheap. this is only slightly more expensive than gas at this point. but it's not bad. It's not a terrible bourbon. I mean, it's not great, but after you kind of get through that first sip of gasoline, the ice melt to water's down, it's actually pretty good. It's all right. Not complaining. 375 mil. So see if I can get through it. Rob (02:33) ⁓ I I might suggest no. but but but let's see, let's see. Actually, I'm putting the I'm putting the gauntlet down. Yeah, you you should try to get through it. Evan Williams has an excellent bottled in bond version. David (02:36) Got all day. I've got all day. Rob (02:47) and it's not much more expensive than standard Evan Williams. and it's got a white and l green label, and it is really a amazingly good for a a twenty dollar d dollar bourbon. I a little bit of Elijah Craig sitting around the house so That's what I have today, which is my consistent go-to. You can't go wrong with the father of bourbon, supposedly. and I'm Rob. lot of years in the field of psychiatry and and in the military. and whether they tune in to hear our astute psychological takes on the happenings around the country and the world, or two people getting drunk and loud. that presupposes that people are tuning in. And our tens of listeners, I still love you, appreciate you. for tuning in. but I've not looked at the stats lately. So David (03:41) You don't want to be that sad. Okay. Well, to continue with our attempt to make some money, Robbie. we do have a sponsor. So I'll read this copy. We'll see how it goes. today's episode is brought to you by the 2027 Robbie feet calendar. Twelve months, twelve photos, two feet that should have remained private citizens. each month features Robbie's feet thoughtfully posed next to major geopolitical flashpoints. January, Taiwan. March, the Federal Reserve. June, the Strait of Hormuz. December are simply both feet standing nervously outside a congressional hearing. The calendar has already been banned in three NATO countries and one Home Depot. Order now and receive the limited edition centerfold Toes of Democracy. seems like a winner, Robbie. I I like with these things. boot feet. Rob (04:25) I have lovely feet. lovely feet. David (04:27) almost thirty years in boots. Almost Rob (04:29) I realize the audience is probably imagining something. W I I do have shoes and or boots on in each and every picture. David (04:37) Why would you buy that then? that one toe that you have. It's that one weird toe that kinda like tilts off into an odd direction. it doesn't have a toenail on it. Like like it's a long Yeah, that one. That one. Yeah. Rob (04:44) Extra long, yeah. ⁓ the ninety degree angle one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I got four toes that are hunting and one toe that's fishing. So it it it works. It works. It g they get me around. David (04:59) God. Did you at least shave them for this? the photo shoot. Rob (05:02) Mm. Yeah. natural, baby. natural. David (05:03) So man. looks like a like a seventies porn version of foot. All right. Of a foot counter. Nasty. Rob (05:06) Yeah, no. David (05:11) said yeah. Rob (05:11) and to our listeners, if we ever a thousand listeners, whatever thing David said that I did, I'll do it. If we can hit a thousand listeners. David (05:21) thousand monthly subscribers. All right. okay, so this week I wanted to bounce something that you said. Now I don't know if you remember that you said it last week because you were just out there you had said that with the decisions that are being made right now with Iran, these aren't military decisions. David (05:40) And what I think you were trying to say, I'm not gonna put words in your mouth, toes maybe, but not words. I think what you're trying to say was that the decisions that were being made in Iran were not did not appear to be coming from the military strategists that we typically think about, where they've thought about the second, third, fourth order effects. They are giving out a very clear plan, objectives, what can be achieved, what should be considered. did not seem as though the decisions that were being made were coming from a source like that because of just what we were seeing. and by the way, I did get a request that you you say second and third order effects like 27 more times. apparently that was missed in the last episode, and they really like that. Excellent. So now with that context, so the thing I wanted to maybe talk about and talk deeper about at this point would be. Rob (06:19) I'll work on it. I'll work on it. I'll try to slip in. David (06:31) Donald Trump won the election with this America first promise that there would be no new wars, that everything that he did was gonna be hell bent on making everything about America. we're seeing economically that's not really the case. I mean, he he's got a Trump first perspective for sure. Everything he's doing seems to be enriching him. But the idea of not getting into these foreign engagements, how many countries has he attacked at this point, seven or eight or something like that? Rob (07:03) Here's a good statistic for you, David. Trump, if you count first administration and second, has either bombed or threatened to bomb one out of every thirteen countries in the world. David (07:14) Well there we go. so the taste for foreign Rob (07:17) And that's how you win this prize, by the way. That's it. That's how you do it. David (07:21) Yeah. the taste for these types of engagements is at least from a public perspective, seems to be quite low. Obama during the Arab Spring had gone into Libya and people didn't like it. obviously we were just in a twenty plus year war in the Middle East, and people didn't like it. but This keeps happening. We keep getting engaged in these foreign wars, or starting them or just being part of these foreign actions. People aren't they're not loving it, but this keeps happening. And so when you said these aren't military decisions. What it got me thinking about, Robbie, was that when they are making the decision whether to engage or not. There always is a military strategist who's sitting in that room giving out options, right? Like saying, here's what we can do. Because you're asking them, what could we do militarily? And I I just wondered about the psychology, if you're a president, and on one hand you have the people who elected you who keep saying, We don't want to be in these wars anymore. those are your constituents. But you're also sitting in the room with a very impressive human being, not now, but in the past. You had somebody who had achieved the rank, you know, a four-star general, a four-star admiral who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You had a Secretary of Defense who was incredibly. Competent in that world, not now. But saying, here's what we can do. the psychology of trying to make that decision? I mean, the people are saying we don't want anything, but they're not giving options, right? we don't want any piece of that. But then you have these people who are really competent, not now, that are giving you options. what's that like? I've never sat in a room with a four-star general. I've been around some generals one-star, two-star, really impressive people. What kind of pressure is that? that's what I want to talk about. Rob (09:14) I can speak toward the pressure downstream. I like when you're you're in a room with a four star, the pressure as someone who is not a four star. I cannot necessarily speak toward maybe what you're really curious about, which is the the gravitas that they bring. Actually maybe I can speak to the gravitas. these are impressive. David (09:34) Can you speak to a second or third order of facts? Rob (09:37) I'm gonna do my best. So I I had that special maker's mark, and I was struck by how impactful it was. it was a very high alcohol content. Bourbon. And I should have anticipated that. that was my first time with it. it was new to me. We were, you know, we were getting to know one another. yeah it hit much harder than the average bourbons that I I tend to drink, which are around eighty, eighty-five. And this one I think was a hundred and ten-ish. so it punched me hard. It hurt. and I I did feel it the next day too. So I can't speak to Gravitas. and I can speak to at least the second order effect. I don't know about the third on this one, but the second order effect of of yeah. David (10:22) Shameful. Shameful. Rob (10:23) these are these are remarkable humans. and when you do the math on this, I mean if you look at I'm I'll just speak toward the army, there's you know, one point five million soldiers and you know, there's well less than three hundred total generals, all stars. just to get through the selection process to differentiate yourself in order to be in a position to be promoted to the seven rank. you've done some work. I mean you've done some amazing things and you've you know gone to all the right schools and you've done all the right work and you've been on staffs and you've done it all. And their knowledge is intimidating. I mean it's overwhelmingly intimidating. and they have been in leadership positions for so long that they just exude a leader's confidence. one thing I I can say is when I'm in a room with someone, and I've really had like one experience with a four star and a handful of experiences with three stars and then a ton of experiences with two stars, major generals, that it is really difficult to disagree with them. now usually they're smart enough to recognize that and they actually invite counterfactuals and invite a second opinion. oftentimes it when decisions are being made, someone's actually assigned to be the red team and to you know shoot down these ideas. Shoot down, shoot down, shoot down, be brutal. so there's systems kind of built in, I guess, to account for that. Now what you're talking about is in the situation room or whatever, with the president. and I do have to think that particularly now with the group that are surrounding our president, there's no nobody that offsets the gravitas of these generals, I would think. There's nobody that has knowledge that they're confident enough. they might have false confidence, but they don't really have knowledge that would allow them to be confident enough to maybe argue against or oppose. And what I was saying last week is th that the military really is and has been over the you know the two hundred and fifty years, closing in on fifty one. years of the army will say. We've been refining our decision making process that entire time. it really is a science. And it's a science that we get sent to school to learn and we have to demonstrate and then we have to put it in practice at a brigade level or at a division level. And you get good at it, you understand it. And you know, you start thinking in terms of not just what your gut instinct is, but you know, okay, well then what happens, then what happens, then what happens. the issue is that the army's not the one making the decisions on who to attack or when to attack. If someone comes to one of our generals and says, you know, what can you do for us? We're gonna have a well established plan that has been thought through. This is what we can do for you. my assumption is they also can say here are the friction points that are going to develop after we do this and that these are the risks. Then it's left to the civilian leadership to say yay nay. David (13:27) that's kind of the way that I understand it as well, but what You're saying it kinda worries me in some ways. I when I think about the past, which is really I think what I want to talk about more, because the present is just so strange. Like it's just so weird. what you're saying now, and when you think about what the situation room must look like, today it worries me because you have somebody with so much knowledge, so much time and effort from strategists from Intel people to be able to say here are the second and third order effects and this is what we should consider when going into a the fact that it just to be ignored. And it's hard to say, maybe not even ignored or just not heard in the first place, because Donald Trump is not famously known for paying attention to these like security briefings or anything like that. And so when the question is asked like can we do this thing? And the answer is yes we can. Here's the nuance of it. I would assume what is hurt, I don't know, would be the yes we can, and then everything else is ignored. but that's now. so that's scary. It's scary. in the fact that we're looking at this and going, wow, these are not decisions that probably were made at this point from military leaders, but the bastardized version of them saying yes and then just following the orders that are given to them. Because the military is very good at that. But when you think about the past, in these situations where you do have a president who has little to no experience in the military world, and you're asking somebody who has nothing but they've gone to all the schools they are leaders as far as the definition of leadership goes the access to the knowledge the access to the intel the access to the strategy everything that could possibly imagine from a military perspective they have access to they've considered the alternatives they've had people tell them are the friction points and this is what we shouldn't do and so they're presenting just one of the most well thought out plans ever to somebody who's saying, Well, what are our military options? How fucking hard would it be not to go in that direction when the alternative is, well, we could do nothing, even if that's why you were elected. I mean, the pressure's gotta be immense. Rob (15:38) Well, let's go backwards to the situation room. My my assumption is is that in a decision such as that in in the past, you would have had and you've mentioned so there would have been the president, potentially even the vice president, there would have been the secretary of state, there would have been the chief of staff, there would have been secretary of defense, and the chairman of the joint chiefs, and then whatever experts for whatever decision they're making. So they're gonna probably bring in you know undersecretaries or somebody who has a specific expertise. And I I guess I'm stuck because I I can't really speak toward how they're doing it now. I don't know who was included in these decisions. What I can say is that we have a secretary of state That seems very focused on positioning himself for a a political future. it just also turns out that he's also the chief of staff. How that works, I don't know. I think next week he might become the Secretary of Agriculture too. why not? Let's just, you know. I mean, if you're not doing any of the jobs, you can have all the jobs. Why not? Yeah. David (16:45) You can do all. Well, I mean, when the job is to not do the job, it does make it a little bit easier. Rob (16:51) Yep, give me titles. we've got that. Then we have a Secretary of Defense that has very little in the way of either military experience or geopolitical experience. IQ points. David (17:02) Poor knowledge to be honest. IQ and GABA receptors are different things, Robbie. I don't wanna belittle the man and say he's stupid, because I don't know that he's stupid. Rob (17:14) and then of course the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I imagine, is is involved there. So and then they might have you know, the combatant commander from whatever theater, piped in from the theater. and I I would say that probably has created a bit of a a dynamic mismatch, because one would assume that under normal circumstances, say the Secretary of State would be aggressively arguing for a political or a diplomatic solution to whatever problem is being perceived. so one does wonder if they're considering the full scope of options. and there is something very satisfying about breaking shit. definitive. David (17:55) any action at all. to have action, whether it's good or bad. I mean, I think Donald Trump would. be one of the first people to tell you that Any exposure is good exposure, right? Just to be in the news, keeps your name in the news. But again, we're in such a weird outlier time that everything's up in the air. I would be surprised if Donald Trump went into any room give a shit what anybody is telling him if it doesn't completely align with what he is already thinking. So it wouldn't matter who is presenting that information. But I really want to talk more about our past, why would somebody like Obama have made the decision during the Arab Spring to continue to try to do a regime change within Libya at that point. I've definitely heard people from within his administration who would say that was a mistake. It was a mistake to do that. But our policy as the United States has kind of flowed in that direction to intervene internationally when the taste for it hasn't always been there. Now you could make some strong economical arguments for our interventions, the way our stance within the world until now had been very beneficial to us, The dollar being the currency on which all currencies are sort of based, everything running through us. And those are beneficial things. And so providing defense for the planet for NATO allies, everything else, even though they weren't spending what we were spending on defense, the benefit to us was quite great, right? Because not spending on defense meant that they weren't going to challenge us. but now we have this president who has won saying well they were taking advantage of us, which is a bullshit argument. They weren't taking advantage of us. we were the controlling spouse in this relationship who had subservient other spouses because of that, like our ability to control the world benefited us. Rob (19:49) know if we were abusive. We'd become abusive, but we weren't. That was part of the power of it. David (19:51) I I mean, well, okay, we were well no, well, abuse ⁓ there's an argument to be made that if you are controlling somebody else through economical means, controlling their behaviors through your ability to control economics is abusive. That'd be the argument now that that is a high control relationship, right? Rob (20:10) Well, so what what we established after World War Two, when we were really the last man standing, Soviet Union was hit hard by World War Two, but it it was the United States and our home land had not been touched. and we established NATO, and then entered into the Cold War. and In that we not only established military dominance, we established economic dominance, and we established cultural dominance around the world. I would argue, actually, David, we were very kind with it, the way we wielded it. We were actually quite good at including our allies and and involving them and being respectful toward them, and you know, at least verbalizing appreciation toward them. The idea that they took advantage of us is is just silly. you know, they may not have spent to the levels that they were supposed to spend David (20:56) Yeah. Rob (20:59) to, but they didn't take advantage of us. We actually, through kindness, or at least verbalized kindness, public kindness, public appreciation, they ended up bending to our will. They had to be deferential to us. It put us in a position of great authority, which David (21:04) Century. Rob (21:16) you know, anyone who looks at the last eighty years would say, Hey, it worked. We we were and still are economically dynamic country that has led the world GP G gross domestic product G D P I get it. I IEA David (21:29) GDP, GDP, GPD, PDG. Rob (21:34) IEA I know that I had a really hard time with that last week. David (21:35) DGP. Rob (21:38) it it worked. So it is a silly argument that we were taken advantage of. David (21:39) Yeah, but no, but is, it is, but you weirdly made my argument for me in some ways, because the the analogy is that if you're looking at an individual relationship where somebody controls all the finances and somebody is sort of dependent upon that person, that the person who controls the finances, if they're using that in a way that Rob (21:46) Okay. David (22:01) Inhibits the person doing the things that they would maybe want to do that that can be considered abusive. Now, was that fully the situation? I mean, we gained a ton of power control economic benefit from what we were doing. and was it abusive? No, I mean other countries had the ability if they wanted to, certainly. Somebody who's in a relationship with somebody who has all the economic control and says, like, you can't have a bank account, you can't access this, that's a very different situation. they had the ability if they wanted to to spend more on defense to do these things, but they just had no reason to. And so there's that sort of they were going along with it passively. and it wasn't hurting them. necessarily. and what's funny about that, I guess, is that just in the fact that we're having an argument about that really does detract from the complete asinine ridiculousness of any kind of argument that they were taking advantage of us. And that's what I'm saying is that you have Donald Trump a billionaire now because he's Made himself a billionaire again, who has the ability to control anybody within a relationship that he wants to his benefit. For him to then turn around and say that person was taking advantage of me is so utterly ridiculous. Yet that's what he's alleging all the other countries were doing. They were taking advantage of us. They were on the free ride when it was very much a symbiotic relationship. That we actually had more control of. We're like the shark with little things suckling off of us as protection for them, but they're keeping us clean. But we're still the shark. If we wanted to turn around to eat them, we could. and that benefited us because they weren't becoming sharks themselves. Now we're in a situation a little bit different. So analogy is just a little it's I mean, it's not perfect. I don't no analogy that I ever say I think will ever be perfect. It's usually pretty ridiculous. My brain is thinking probably 10 layers deeper than that, than what I can eventually verbalize, because I've already moved on to the next topic in my head. Like I'm thinking about Robbie, what would you look like as a hot dog? what toppings would you have? You know, would you be a Chicago dog? Would there be pickles? Rob (23:54) Yeah. David (24:11) Would you be like a Sonoran dog? would there be jalapenos? Are you a chili guy? I don't know. I mean, personally, mustard, ketchup, I'm good with that. Rob (24:20) I'm a I'm a mustard ketchup hot dog if you're Yeah. So David (24:23) That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Rob (24:24) Okay. We're we are in agreement that the argument that we we have been taken advantage of for years is a projection from a man who has made a life out of taking advantage people. David (24:38) how did we get on that topic, Robbie? How the fuck Rob (24:40) I was I believe David just actually told us what happened here to our tens of listeners is that his poor brain, addled as it is with the cheapest bourbon you can buy, went down a a trail and we have now reached a cul-de-sact and we're actually going to now jump backwards and talk about the president and the pressures that seem to repetitively create decisions that we don't really want. David (25:07) Yeah. it's so hard to do this now because we've had enough conversations about this administration that I think the pressure to do anything is just predicated on somebody's ego and how they view themselves, right? The this is somebody who spends an inordinate amount of time watching cable news, looking at a cell phone, and just acting in ways to elevate his own self-image. I I you gotta put that aside, I think, because the more interesting conversation is Yeah, and well I I think what what's important isn't how does the most abnormal Rob (25:34) Yeah, 'cause this has existed longer. David (25:41) president in our recent history, I'll say, function, because that one's really easy. Psychologically, I think we've nailed this one down pretty, person acts in self-interest 100% of the time, often to his own detriment, making decisions that are the opposite Of what even common sense would say to do. What is more interesting is why would presidents of both parties, this isn't a Republican-Democrat thing. This is that every president that we've seen given the opportunity to not act, acts. And it rarely historically ends up being best decision. Sometimes, sometimes, but rarely is it like, well, that was a great choice. I'm glad we did that. Why? Rob (26:30) Well, there there is something called action bias and you know, there's this fantasy that history is waiting for a strong man to grab it by the collar and most of the time history is a drunk bear in a dark room. that s some shit goes down and action bias says we have to do something now. We're we can't sit back and wait, because we have this myth of the decisive leader, the president who acts decisively, the general who takes charge, the CEO who moves fast and breaks things, the strongman that gets shit done. our gut instinct is we want a Churchill. Now Churchill wasn't quite as decisive as history has painted him, if you read his memoirs, but we want a Churchill and and what we actually get is a imperfect man who's managing a supply chain, worrying about gas prices, dealing with culture wars, and cable news all at the same time. And that makes a mix that leads to poor decision making. David (27:31) Yeah. I wanted to just throw that piece in there, the military, because I think it's so important, I think, for people to understand the draw of it, difficulty that it would be, because we have to have some kind of empathy on these decisions, not saying they're great if they were bad decisions or what, is that you're asking Again, some of the most impressive people that you've ever met. talk to their spouses, they probably would disagree, but you talk to my spouse, she would disagree too. now, granting talk to you, you disagree, you're talking about somebody who doesn't know them that intimately. So somebody who is asking for a professional opinion on what are the options. Rob (27:58) Yeah. David (28:09) And you're only asking them specifically about what can be done. what could we do? And as you keep saying, and I agree with you, and hopefully most people would agree with you outside of probably Russia or China, but we do have the most impressive military of all time. And so when you're saying if we took this thing out on the open road and opened it up, what could it do? And you're saying we could do zero to sixty in two seconds. We do a 210 miles per hour with this bad boy if we need to. right, but you're getting it from somebody who can say that with authority, who can say that with conviction, who can say that with a confidence that you rarely experience in life. How fucking hard would it be to say, awesome. We could take that out and really take it for a spin. Well maybe we shouldn't because this dude over thinks that might be a bad idea. Rob (29:02) we could do it, but the speed limit's forty-five. So if we do it, there are consequences. I think that's a very reasonable psychologic factor is that you you do have someone who's very competent with a well developed plan as to what they can accomplish. I think there's there's other factors particularly as if you're sitting there as the president and you're spinning a lot of plates and there there's all these pieces, public perception and the political reality and how this will pull. And The ambiguity of doing nothing, even if you're doing something, I mean, behind closed doors, they're talking it through. They're probably developing their red lines as to that when we hit this this juncture, we have to act. They're probably developing the plans for those red lines, but they're not jumping to an immediate action. it's America, baby. we have a bias toward kinetic certainty, you know. that's what we do. So, you restraint is not very photogenic. no one writes a book about restraint. the folks that get books written about them were those decisive men who just as a probably partially luck, the the situation worked out for them. but when when a problem arises, there is an action bias, and as a country we have a bias toward kinetic certainty. that's where you get stuff. my life I'm perpetually frustrating the people around me because they bring problems, they want immediate solutions, and I tell them that there is no problem that will not solve itself on a long enough And make them Now I I've taken the problem in I'm thinking about it. It goes down on my problem list. but I I'm gonna let it play out a little bit before I jump in, you know, in the first fifteen seconds that the problem's identified. David (30:44) I hopefully to give people kind of a peek behind the curtain on the way that we think. as people who get presented with problems all the time, is that perspective of sometimes problems are more problems because you're building them up into problems. And so the action can have much worse downstream consequences trying to repair the problem than just understanding that well, maybe the problem is only a problem because you want it to be. Rob (31:12) I'm c well, the problem is trying to find a solution to it. That's the problem. impossibility of finding the solution becomes the problem. We're just attributing it to the whatever thing that kicked it into gear. David (31:16) Right. often? I say this all the time in therapy you and I could talk about this person all fuck all day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's not going to change them a bit. You'd be be surprised. it depends on the patient. Sometimes the patients are are totally good with the F bomb and some aren't. And I I tease that out early on. But Rob (31:32) I doubt you drop an F bomb in in therapy. I doubt it. All right. All right. Uhhuh. Sure. David (31:46) you know, but I will say and I could talk about this person's actions all day. But who here can really change to make a difference? sometimes people just want to commiserate. They just want to be told they're right. and oftentimes maybe that's the case, but it doesn't mean we're gonna go and bomb Iran every time somebody is a little upset about something. Rob (32:05) You know, there's another element that it kind of perpetually surprises me, and I think this was the element that led to Libya actually, is that the cable news networks began shaming the administration for their quote unquote inaction. You know, how many people have to die before you do something? Basically, we, become the Roomba for the world's anxieties. when along the line did we decide that we needed to solve every problem? When when did that become the expectation? when did we start making presidents transitional objects a weighted blanket with the nuclear codes? when did we do that? and if that's the expectation that if there's a problem someplace in the world, and the cable news starts, you know, basically shaming it's going to force decisions. So this is really kind of multifactorial and you know, public p opinion ends up playing a role. How would this poll? You don't want to be weak. my gosh. Worst thing in the world would be weak when in truth Sitting back with it, absorbing it, requires infinitely more strength than saying attack Iran. David (33:10) I am in agreement and I want to pick up after our next sponsor break. So today's episode is brought to you by Robbie and Company, a lifestyle brand built around bourbon, cardigans, and low-grade concern. This season's collection includes that's probably not ideal mugs, emergency cardigans, and a A limited edition throw blanket embroidered with the phrase Let's wait for more information. Robbie and Co because panic is expensive. Rob (33:38) I do hope everyone has an emergency cardigan though. I really do. you just never know when you might need a cardigan. David (33:43) you have this person who is feeling the pressure to act within a system that is designed to not allow that to happen. we have Congress. We have the judicial system. have this executive that has all this pressure to do things. absolutely right. And what you make me think about, Robbie, is this this fact that we have a system that creates this pressure, this anxiety upon the executive branch to do something in these situations. But it lives within this bigger system that includes a judicial branch, it includes a legislative branch, and there their entire design is to not allow rapid, decisions to be made, not allow action when thoughtfulness should over. purposefully creates a friction to slow things down. And I really think that the change that we're seeing Now, as opposed to we've been used to in the past, is that one, because information travels so quickly in a way that it just never did before, people want action. I won't even order something on Amazon if I can't get it later that day. if it's like you gotta wait three days for this thing, fuck you. I will go to someone else. I will pay $3 more to have it between a.m. and 2 p.m. And that's the world that we're living in now, where even the president is expected to something when the system is designed for long thoughtful decisions so that you don't disrupt and you don't break. And what what we're really seeing today, especially from this administration, is they're going back and they're cherry picking these times where another president did something Outside of that norm at that point and usually was criticized extensively for it later. But in that moment, they said, well, this president a group of people and they made a one million dollar fund to pay them back for whatever thing that they went through. And Then they got criticized because not all the money was taken and they ended up reallocating the funds to something else. And they're saying, let's take a two billion and give it to whoever the fuck we want, no oversight. Rob (35:59) Well what you're s hitting on is the fact that the president is much more nimble than the other two branches of governments. exceedingly more nimble. David (36:08) Only only only ethically. nimble to describe an old fucking man. to describe an old old man who the doctored numbers, and I in doctored is in quotes, there is some pun there, but the doctored numbers of his height and weight being only physics defying. Rob (36:11) the I'm talking the office. David (36:30) Two hundred and thirty-eight pounds. I mean, I'm sorry, but if he's six foot three, two thirty-eight. photogenically, is not. is if he's a pound. But just I'm just saying ethically. Ethically nimble. Ethic morally, morally nimble. Values nimble. All of those. But ethically, no. Rob (36:39) two sixty. Well, I'm not talking wait, I'm not talking about the man. I'm talking about the officer. I'm Right. I I'm not talking about this particular president. I'm talking about the office, the executive branch. So the executive branch was constitutionally designed to be more nimble than the other branches. so i it it wasn't designed to be a therapist. It wasn't designed to be a father, it wasn't designed to be a warlord, it wasn't designed to be an economist. A priest, an influencer. It wasn't designed for all those things. It it was designed to be the executive branch. And the the founders didn't anticipate some of the things that we're facing right now. So the founders didn't design a global nervous system regulator. and that's kind of what the president ends up being asked to do. and it it it probably is unfair, and it probably is excessive. And you're right, the speed of information has changed. That that is dangerous because these problems come into view much quicker than they demand responses. if the president responds, there's criticism, if the president fails to respond, and then what we end up having to sit with is that as a people, the American people, we don't tolerate ambiguity very well. we like the the binary solutions. we like yeses and no's. we hate maybes. we hate wait and sees. just hate it. And it it doesn't poll well biases that we've already covered end up coming into play, and that's why we get bad decisions and then after the fact criticize the hell out of them. David (38:23) Yeah. back and I it's a pre Donald Trump version two point maybe version one point but the the decisions that were made were made with an immense amount of pressure to make. a decision presented with options that sound pretty good. It's not surprising or not difficult to understand why those decisions would have been made, even if in hindsight you can look back and say, wow, that was a real mistake. And I get that. And I think that's something that know we we shouldn't dwell on the past as much, but we can definitely learn from it. But Problem now is that we're not learning from it. We're not watching somebody who's learned a lifetime of lessons on how to behave better. Unfortunately, we're watching somebody's learned kind of a lifetime of lessons on how to behave even worse somehow, which is god fucking rare. if you go back to the the which is how I'm gonna talk about the early 2000s from now on, you go back to those times when Donald Trump was cast for the apprentice and he was making pretend like he was some sort of good businessman, your kids like, I'm gonna make you dinner, and they go out to the fucking yard and they dig up some. and they bring it to you and they go, here you go. And you're like, mm, that's yummy. he was making pretend that he was a good businessman, it's like he thought it was real. was convinced by his own pretendness that he was some sort of this amazing businessman. so he's believing this bullshit. I wonder if now that's kind of the same thing that's happening. the president. I mean, he is some like I it's so weird to say that. It's so even now today, it's so weird to to say. That Donald Trump was elected twice to the presidency. But like, do you ever get the feeling that he's just making pretend like he's been cast into this role as president? Rob (40:10) often does he use the term from central casting? I mean, he uses that all the time when he selects people, he wants them to look like they're from central casting, which i it implies, you know, appearance emb isn't more important than capability. well, he does that too. well in and you know, if you look at a a cabinet meeting, David (40:15) Yeah. Wait till Yeah. If you tuned, folks. He says stay tuned Rob (40:30) My gosh, they fall over each other to tell him how great he is. So yeah, I think there's an element of that. I think there's a reason why he sends out his bleats at in the morning. because he realizes, you know, my gosh, I am not equipped for this job. David (40:43) idea of him walking around with I'm sure there's cameras fucking on him all the time. Even if they're not on, they're just like theirs to make him feel comfortable. Like I can only imagine there's gotta be a camera crew at every minute that he's awake, just on him, like following him around know, they got a guy the boom mic. Rob (41:01) Boom David (41:02) a camera guy, none of it's on or real, but it just helps him to perform. that's how I picture this presidency going down right now. Rob (41:10) Well, we've got a couple two and a half years more, so but we can hope. no well going back to the the the military decision piece and the the gravitas and the the power that they might end up wielding. you know, I I think we do have to the military that is, has to own part of this. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious I'm a military guy. I've spent way more David (41:14) Fuck you, Rob. Rob (41:32) years in the military that than I was not in the military. And absolutely understand the seduction of decisive action. you know, in the army, ambiguity is dangerous and delay can get people killed. And somebody eventually has to give the order. and we have a hierarchy that decides that. Who's gonna give the orders? I think the important thing though is to remember that governance is not a battlefield and foreign policy is not just command and control. we keep applying these battlefield instincts to systems that run on consent and legitimacy and patience and history and that's where we keep getting stupid. David (42:11) soup. I what interesting about everything that we're seeing right now. Is that somehow, Maybe we should give credit to this administration. I keep saying that because I do maybe secretly hope that at some point we'll patch up the rat holes that exist within our government to make sure that we don't ever see anything like this again. But what's interesting is that as I said before, Donald Trump ran on this America first agenda. That was really popular, but now that it's so clear that that's not what his agenda is, you're starting to see people come out from all sides who very much do have this perspective much more America first, or at the very least, America not being the police. saying, gosh, maybe we shouldn't get involved every time. Maybe we shouldn't be the ones to be the police within the world because it doesn't often end with being in a better position. I think about now is that especially the school that got double tapped. little girls lost their lives, is that Robbie, you know we're gonna pay the price for that ten years from now, twenty years from now, fifty years from now, somebody is going to try to get us back. as was the case of nine eleven, we get involved, it doesn't always end in our benefit. Now, economically, at us spending money on defense, us setting up NATO, making sure that the world was safe. That's one thing. But then to actively get involved every time we disagree with how a country is being run. It rarely something that helps us. so many things that we could probably do differently, don't involve just bombing the fucking bejesus out of a country that's all I can had half of this bottle, so my fucking brain isn't working anymore. Rob (44:07) you're tapped out. David (44:08) I'm not tapped out, we could opine fucking all day. You and I could cogitate. we could come up with some interesting things. But not before Rob (44:16) God. David (44:16) Another sponsor. So today's episode is sponsored by Robbie's Foot Awareness Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of an issue nobody previously knew existed. Every donation helps place educational foot photography in underserved communities. Together, we can ensure future generations never have to ask, why is Robbie standing barefoot next to a hydroelectric dam? Rob (44:38) Yep. David (44:38) That one that one I don't even think we should take money for that one. That one just feels like a good Rob (44:42) That one just feels feels right. It just feels like something we should do for the community. ⁓ and again, we we hit that one thousand mark. our our listeners get to say which one of these things I do. David (44:45) Yeah. It should. did we resolve anything today? Have we understood anything better today? Rob (44:56) Negative. you know what I'm actually walking away from it is is that all criticisms of current administration aside, the reality is is that this job, the president, is is kind of impossible and it's actually grown well beyond what the founders probably anticipated and that's just the changes in the world, the changes in media. threats that exist and the immediacy of the threats that exist because the tools of war have changed so dramatically that we have an action bias and when these problems present the military is a very seductive option because they do offer some immediacy that looks strong. I just wish we would maybe Look at history a little bit more. David (45:41) Yeah. maybe that is the takeaway. don't want to sit here and say that every decision that was made was the right decision. it wasn't the best decision. But be able to identify the fact that one of us probably would have made a similar decision. big part of that is just the fact that, you're asking a hammer what to do with nails. What should we do with them? they're they're going to give you a great military plan. That's their job. would expect no less from our military to be able to give a a thoughtful, well formed opinion on how to go about something. But it just doesn't always mean that that's the right decision. it's a seemingly good option. a long discussion about it, but that was just something that, you know, I I hear coming up and and it got me thinking about that. So Anything else, Rob (46:34) of hammers and nails, I think we hammered every single nail into this particular coffin. David (46:39) I agree. you have any prescriptions Rob (46:42) yeah, just more focused on I guess what I was saying, the American public must distinguish between ambiguity and and making my nervous system stop screaming, that we have to be able to sit with ambiguity. We have to be able to tolerate the fact that there's no easy decisions and no easy solutions to some of these problems. you know, when you're sitting at your dinner table and you're opining about what you would do, that's so easy. until the weight of the responsibility is on you. so I I think we have to get in the habit of granting a little more grace to the president in in terms of these decisions. I also know we won't, but It would help. David (47:20) for dramatic interpretation. this is more of PSA anything else, but if you find yourself checking the president's facial expression to determine whether the world is stable, you may be experiencing presidential dependency syndrome. So ask your local mayor if democracy is right for you. really to spend Less time thinking about what the president thinks. Rob (47:42) before we totally close this, I I do want to give an update to the tens of listeners that are sitting on the edge of their seat based on our episode from last week, in which I mentioned the IEA, although I kept messing it up. and that's thanks thanks to Yeah. And then I for some reason to my mouth E EIA is easier, but it's IEA, International Energy Agency. David (47:57) I think you said that at the beginning, but you never repeated that and I thought that was Rob (48:08) at any rate, I had made reference to a report that was going to be released this past week and it was on the twenty-eighth. and what I was saying then was that this is gonna give us a glimpse of just how much our inventories are being drained. So what what it showed was that basically in the last several months we have a combined drawdown of inventories of two hundred and forty-six million barrels. around the world, which is a significantly more enormous draw than was what was anticipated. and supports, I guess, my contention that the tail on this Strait of Hormoose, even if we open it tomorrow, we aren't and which I think what we're really going to see is a long-term degradation of the flow of ships through that for various reasons. I don't think we'll ever get back to pre-war levels of of movement, is a really significant hit to our supplies. and that is going to to have an effect. we're gonna see this in the economy. The markets can smoke their hopium, but all indicators say. It's common, folks. David (49:13) just to clarify, you we were talking about the PPI, which is the producer price index, sometimes people might confuse with the consumer price index. they are different. so normally the the CPI, the consumer price index, is thought about as what's inflation doing to ordinary people, whereas the PPI is what are businesses paying or charging upstream. So different. you were talking about a real thing. Rob (49:18) Yes. David (49:37) Though anybody who was listening to you may have been confused. yeah. Rob (49:41) probably, probably, yeah. and I did learn an important lesson that the maker's mark version that is considered the best sipping bourbon is actually quite good. it is. that extra alcohol gives it a little character. Not an alcohol I'll ever drink on this show again. David (50:00) Don't say that. We had a good time. I I had a great time. Okay. Well, everyone who's still around, we we really do appreciate we love you. thank you so much. You give us a reason to do this, and I don't know that we otherwise have a fucking reason to do this. So keep keep sharing. if eventually it'll probably just come down to Robbie's mom, who we love very much. I've never met, but I do. I I Rob (50:01) No. Yeah. Deeply. David (50:24) I appreciate her so much. but that's Rob (50:25) Thanks, Mom. David (50:26) it. Yeah. Share with ⁓ anybody who wants a thoughtless way to think about thoughtful things, and that's it. So I think we'll queue up that music and we are out. But before we go, pre-orders are now available for the 2027 Arabi calendar. 12 months, 48 toes. One nation under moderate concerns. Rob (50:49) Was twelve months and