502 JRE Review of Mike Benz

Summary

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Joe Rogan Experience Review Podcast

Episode 502: JRE Review of Mike Benz

Release Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Adam Thorne & Nick from Lesser Known Operators

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience Review dives into the recent JRE conversation with Mike Benz, a former State Department official known for his insights and criticisms regarding government censorship, foreign policy, and information warfare. Adam and Nick break down the dense topic of systemic information control, government overreach, and conspiratorial structures behind modern censorship. The review is candid, at times pessimistic, and full of skepticism—especially from Nick, who pushes back on the utility and emotional impact of Benz’s avalanche of alarming facts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mike Benz JRE Episode: A “TED Talk” of Dystopia

• Adam notes how Rogan took a rare backseat, letting Benz run with a near-monologue style “dense system level breakdown” ([02:00]).
• Nick jokes that this might be the “worst or best episode ever,” highlighting the sheer amount of information Benz crammed into it ([01:08]).

2. Censorship as Organized Ecosystem

• Benz presents censorship not as random acts, but as an “organized ecosystem” intertwined with government, tech, NGOs, and universities, especially post-2016 elections ([03:31]).
• The hosts reflect on how “regular people are just completely outgunned” when these major entities collaborate to dictate information ([06:10]).

3. Money, Influence, and Power

• Nick repeatedly underscores that the core issue is “money,” which begets “power…the superior tier of ascension in the social circles” ([06:51]).
• Both hosts agree that whether it's steak dinners or private islands, those with money bend the world’s systems in their favor.

4. Constitutional Workarounds

• Adam and Nick discuss how government agencies, per Benz, “outsource their powers,” circumventing constitutional restraints like the First Amendment, often via foreign actors or quasi-neutral NGOs ([07:44]).
• Outsourcing allows agencies plausible deniability while perpetuating influence and control.

5. Historical Parallels—Power and Corruption

• The conversation drifts to history: the British Empire, old empires, and how “the rich and powerful were calling the shots at that point” ([09:43]).
• Nick: “Crime is the same at every level. It just looks different, whether it wears a suit and tie or you're dressed like a homeless person on the street…” ([10:25], [12:56]).

6. Foreign Aid and Media Narrative Manipulation

• Adam asks about the use of foreign aid and democracy programs to manipulate foreign media narratives ([13:22]).
• Nick: “We love to throw money at a problem to increase our strategic impact or…have a foothold. We’re everywhere all at the same time and money is no issue.” ([15:06])
• Audits and accountability issues are seen as systemic failures—“The Pentagon failed its audit eight year, eight times in a row” ([16:46]).

7. The Myth of Neutrality: NGOs and Fact-Checking

• Nick calls out the “rigged” system, using examples like factcheck.org—allegedly impartial, but funded by state or tech interests ([17:27]).
• Adam: “When you own factcheck.org…genius.”

8. Overload and Public Reaction

• Nick is direct: “This episode was completely useless…impossible to retain. The only thing you're going to come out of this episode with is being mad at the government.” ([18:44])
• Information overload leads to frustration and distrust rather than constructive action.

9. Distrust, Hopelessness, and Utility of Knowledge

• Adam and Nick debate if simply being informed is valuable, or just a source of frustration.
• Adam: “Do you always have to do something with information? …It gives me a greater sense of understanding of…world issues or how things happen.” ([32:19])
• Nick: “Being angry all the time and worked up is not healthy…that sucks.” ([32:53])

10. Social Media Censorship: The Twitter Files

• The hosts reference the Twitter Files, which exposed government content moderation requests.
  • Adam: “The censorship that they were creating was really dangerous…if they had had 10 more years of control over that social media…who knows what the state of things would have become.” ([23:49])
  • Nick suggests poor foresight on the government’s part: “For them not to understand that all of that was going to come to light one day is a really poor foresight on theirs. Or they just said, who cares?” ([24:58])

11. The Push for Control and Citizen Powerlessness

• Nick notes how citizens have little recourse: “You gotta go to work…What can I affect here? …Because if it’s just be mad, that’s not healthy.” ([31:12])
• Both hosts reflect on how most people are too busy or powerless to change entrenched systems.

12. Pandemic Precedent and Long-Term Concerns

• Adam revisits pandemic-era censorship and public compliance, suggesting there hasn’t been a clear post-mortem or accountability ([35:55]).
• Nick predicts future crises will lead to more polarized reactions: “I believe the next time it comes up, people are going to make a decision faster and they’re going to move further to one side…” ([43:05])

13. The Epstein Files and Loss of Trust

• Adam cites the Epstein revelations as the ultimate test of public trust in elites: “I mean, talk about Bill Gates looking like shit. …now there’s just nothing but smeared shame all over that guy.” ([44:01])
• Nick: “It takes one oh to wipe out a lifetime of attaboys.” ([46:38])
• The constant barrage of scandal further entrenches cynicism.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“He talked 95% of the time…he didn’t even have notes…He just stared at Joe and just rattled off like the longest TED talk, the most detailed, longest TED talk I’ve ever heard.”
— Adam Thorne ([20:04]-[20:10])

“I’m sensing a theme here, that the game is rigged no matter what we do.”
— Nick ([18:35])

“The only thing you’re going to come out of this episode with is being mad at the government…You can’t trust anybody.”
— Nick ([18:45])

“It’s hard to know these days, but…supposedly we can vote and our votes count and they do something…”
— Adam ([22:21])

“We love to throw money at a problem to increase our strategic impact or where we have a foothold. We’re everywhere all at the same time and money is no issue.”
— Nick ([15:06])

“Crime is the same at every level. It just looks different, whether it wears a suit and tie or you’re dressed like a homeless person…”
— Nick ([10:25], [12:56])

“It only takes one oh to wipe out a lifetime of attaboys.”
— Nick ([46:38])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |------------|------------------------------------------| | 02:00 | Intro to Mike Benz, Rogan’s backseat role | | 03:31 | Censorship as a network, post-2016 | | 06:10 | Tech, government, academia vs citizens | | 06:51 | The primacy of money and power | | 13:22 | Foreign aid, democracy programs, media | | 16:46 | Government audits and accountability | | 18:45 | Impact of the episode: outrage & overload | | 23:49 | The Twitter Files, gov’t–tech collusion | | 31:12 | Public powerlessness & daily struggle | | 35:55 | Pandemic management, dissent, & lessons | | 43:05 | Will next crisis polarize the public? | | 44:01 | Epstein files and total trust collapse | | 46:38 | “One oh wipes out a lifetime of attaboys” |

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Final Verdict & Ratings

• Adam: 7/10
  “It had a lot of information that I appreciated…a bit of a slow roll…and it was just all him talking, so it was almost like Rogan wasn’t even there.” ([51:06])

• Nick: 3/10
  “Only because he mentioned the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare course in school, which I am a graduate of, for the Special Forces Qualification course. So only because he mentioned my own advanced studies school I’ve been to.” ([52:02])

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Tone & Takeaways

Language: Direct, irreverent, occasionally dark-humored and cynical. The hosts are skeptical, at times resigned, and intentionally irreverent about government and elite power structures.

Overarching Theme:
Information is power, and that power is highly concentrated—government agencies, tech companies, and NGOs act as a controlled ecosystem, often to the detriment of true transparency or individual liberty. Inundated with complexity, most people either tune out or get mad, but tangible change remains elusive.

Bottom Line:
A dense, fact-heavy JRE episode left these reviewers both impressed by Benz’s mastery and exhausted by the overwhelming lack of hope—worth a listen only if you’re looking for a deep-dive into how the information game is (seemingly) rigged.

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Transcript

[Libsyn Ads Host]

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[Adam Thorne]

You are listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review Podcast. We find little nuggets, treasures, valuable pieces of gold in the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast and pass them on to you. Perhaps expand a little bit. We are not associated with Joe Rogan in any way. Think of us as the talking dead to Joe's walking Dead. You're listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. Bizarre thing we've created now with your host Adam Thorne.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Might either be the worst podcast or the best one of all time. One go.

[Adam Thorne]

Enjoy the show. Hey guys and welcome to another episode of the JRE Review. This week I'm joined by good old Nick from lesser known operators. How you doing buddy?

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me again.

[Adam Thorne]

Yep. But you weren't so happy to listen to this episode, were you buddy?

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

I am going to be the voice of unreason during this review.

[Adam Thorne]

Matt. Well, look, to be honest, I didn't pick this one for us to review because I thought you would hate it. Okay? I thought you would enjoy it more than this. So my apologies. My apologies.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

First off, I do not accept. I do not accept. And I'm gonna hold this against you for the remainder of this recording.

[Adam Thorne]

Okay? All right. For the next 45ish minutes. Well, first off, we are record, we are reviewing Mike Benz, okay? And you know, it's all government conspiracy, etc. Etc. Etc. And yeah, he's, he's dry, I'll give him that. And he talked a lot. Rogan kind of took a backseat to what was going on. Really?

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

90, 95% backseat?

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, at least, at least he's a former state department official, turned out spokesman, critic of foreign policy, censorship, infrastructure and information warfare. And you know, he really laid a dense system level breakdown of kind of what's going on and not your cup of tea, I would say. Fair to say.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Well, and you said when we spoke on the phone or we were messing, you said, let's give the people some more hope after the review. And I am here to clear that up. You're gonna have less hope after listening to this review. Yeah, it was even interesting to listen to Joe because this guy would go on and on and on and on and on and then Joe go and wouldn't know what to say. He's like, which, which point do I pull out of what he just said there? And then he would grab one and then we would move off on another 45 minute tangent.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, well, he has a lot of information, I'll give him that. Yeah, a lot of information. I mean he went into all sorts and he did. And you know where to even start? I mean, you know, a big thing that he kind of started with is, I mean, censorship for one was a big area. I mean, he kind of laid out the idea of censorship is an ad hoc, you know, it's an organized ecosystem that it operates kind of like a structured network and it's not really random acts. You know, he gets into like the interconnected entities. It's almost like a systematic control. And a lot of this, he was saying, came after the 2016 elections, which, you know, so that's Trump getting into office and then building up to Covid, that kind of thing. And you did start to see a lot of censorship in one way or another building up on social media. And just the idea that government wanted to control it does make sense. I mean, social media around that time was just getting so massive that it makes sense. The government wants to get ahead of that and we've seen a ton of that the following ten years since then.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Well, you got private companies that now have more influence, more public reach, more sway than entire governments. And of course the UF government's going to jump in and say we need, we need to get our hands around this. We can't have anything other than the mission or the mission statement of the US Government, you know, and that's the problem with technology though. You make a decision now and you don't know how far that's going to affect you down the road. Like especially with these emails. The reason some of these people are getting found out is because technology advanced to such a point that the. Everything is. Once it's on the Internet, it's forever.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

So if you censor something today, it can just be figured out with 10 years from now, as technology, 20 years from now, there's no, there's no hiding anything once it's on the Internet and once there's a digital paper trail. So you can censor all you want and you can hide these things in the now, but they're going to get found out in the later, because later, us technological wise is a lot smarter. That's the path we're going for sure.

[Adam Thorne]

For sure. But just hearing how like even the government agencies are connected with like these NGOs and universities and also these tech platforms, it's just, it just seems like regular people are just completely outgunned. I mean, that basically covers everything other than the media when it comes to any information or education or guidance that we're supposed to get as regular citizens. And it's all in an effort to kind of like flag or suppress certain content that they don't want us to have.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Money. The guy said it in the interview. It all comes down to money. Once your money's gone, then you can't bribe your senators, you can't pay your Republicans, revolutionaries, you can't do the things that you need to do. So it all comes down to money. And if your business or your influence fits into that and you get more money, then you can have, you can have an island, you can have parties with celebrities and all the girls and all of the people and not necessarily maybe blackmail them, but you're part of the in crowd and you have influence over world decisions because a certain point in life, things only get so expensive. A steak dinner can only get so expensive. These things, these other things. But power, I guess, is the final, the superior tier of ascension in the social circles. When you have power and you can wield it over other people and fitting into that and who you know and what you can do and what you can attain with that power.

[Adam Thorne]

Sure. And then of course, we have the Constitution that's supposed to exist to protect, you know, the little people. And then all the government starts to do, or the CIA, as he put it, it just starts outsourcing their powers to crime either foreign nations or they just kind of move things to different entities so that they can work around the First Amendment and kind of violate those constitutional rules, again, probably for money, if not power. And again to kind of just assert control over all of us.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Yes, yes. All right. We are in the best case scenario of control. Right. Though it's pretty nice here in the United States. It's very shitty in a lot of places in the world, for sure. And for sure there's rampant corruption and crime and the government levels and people just, you know, look at what's going in Iran. Protesters are being killed just for, for protests in the government. Like, it's that we have our problems here and there's, there's things that are wrong with the system. But it's also pretty nice here. It's also really nice here. And we are furthering the interests of the United States. And a lot of that is done in some very, very unsavory ways. And there are people willing to do terrible things for the good of the United States and not necessarily the good of other individuals or people or other countries.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah. And these nasty types of behaviors have been happening a long time. And since we really haven't done it any other way, probably through history. I mean, well, you're British.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Didn't, didn't the sun never set on the British Empire, Right. Didn't you guys just have control of the entire world at one point?

[Adam Thorne]

Oh, he was stabbing flags in the ground, Left or right, any bit of ground.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

And the rich and powerful were the ones calling the shots at that point, correct?

[Adam Thorne]

Of course, of course. I mean, listen, before them, it was.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

The rich and powerful before them and before them. So what would make it any different now that the rich and powerful aren't telling everybody what to do?

[Adam Thorne]

Right. Yeah. And, you know, you're not asserting that kind of power and control and dominance over others with a polite handshake and a nice negotiation and a comfortable meeting. It's always no, you don't control pressure.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Yeah. You don't control your street corner when you're selling drugs by letting people walk all over you. No. You rise to the top and you kill anybody that comes and tries to take over or you get killed and then they take over you. Crime is the same at every level. It just looks different, whether it wears a suit and tie.

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[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Or you're dressed like a homeless person on the street and you're trying to fight for a meal. It's your survival and if somebody feels like they're coming after your livelihood, they're going to take you out in whatever way they can and get away with or not get away with to prove a point. It's, it's survive these A lot of these things is survival and people will do anything to win.

[Adam Thorne]

What did you think of him talking about how foreign aid and kind of like the democracy programs influence the media narrative abroad. Right. And I guess also like the military kind of does that too, I would imagine to some degree, not directly, but with pressure influencing.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Well, it depends on who's in the driver's seat. Right. And who own. So all this, where's the funding coming from? That's why there's donors to political parties because they'll listen that you're basically buying somebody's vote or personal opinion because these people in the government, they don't, they're not, they're not voting for their constituents. They're voting mostly their personal opinion and the personal opinions of people around them and their party. So our first. So what was, what was your question again?

[Adam Thorne]

Well, how foreign aid like so America's gives a lot of foreign aid to different countries, you know, especially plenty. Well, it's plenty to all countries but to poor countries it goes a long way. So they pay a lot to these countries and they're strategically doing it so that it kind of buys favor. And often that favor works into media narratives so America can kind of pass their positive, potentially propagandized message of like pro America or whatever narrative that they want to spin in that country. And at the same time, you know, using like democracy program ish stuff to do the same thing.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

It's just like we can, we could be spreading our message or we could be spreading the message to get other people to kill each other so that somebody else more agreeable gets into power. Well, you know, he said we had just lost power in Iran, but then we started funding the Iranians to fight against the Iraqis. And then we switched sides several time in there because, you know, well, we were supporting Iran because we didn't want Iraq to take over Iran. But then we switched sides, you know, and then we were supporting Iraq. The. We love to throw money at a problem to increase our strategic impact or where we have a foothold. We're, we're everywhere all at the same time. And money is no issue. So if we want somebody to think something, it's just, what are the other effects like with this initial effect? Like, oh, we're gonna, we stand behind country X. Well, what are the second and third order effects of that? And there's other things down the line that are the actual effect we're going after. And then all of these benefits, us donating for aid probably, you know, isn't, isn't the desired effect. There's something else because that money is probably going or getting funneled to something else in. As I said, a lot of other countries aren't as we. The Pentagon failed its audit eight year, eight times in a row. Right. Their eighth one. And we, that's our money where we're spending it and that we're supposed to have control and we can't even pass an audit. Do you think that money that we're sending to all these other places outside the United States is going where they say it's going?

[Adam Thorne]

No. Eight times. Like, wow, unreal. No accountability. Imagine.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

No. And we can't even account for our money here, their money. We don't even know where the money we are spending here is going. Do we think it's going where it's supposed to when it leaves our place?

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, no chance. Like, you can't you go to jail for like owing the IRS a thousand dollars?

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

I think it's like, you know, yeah, if you don't pay, that's why, you know, that's if you don't pay your taxes, you, the IRS will come after you. As long as your, your business Business is involved in crime. As long as you pay your taxes, you'll be fine.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, it's, it's those kind of levels of, you know, and it is a type of corruption. Right? It's just like the levels of that, it just makes it so hard to have a type of faith. And along those lines, I mean, you know, he talks about NGOs positioned as neutral, like neutral NGOs, but they're allegedly funded by state or corporate interests, like directly. So he gives the example of fact check.org well, when you take something like fact check.org, which is the frickin fact check insights that we're supposed to go by that people reference when they're like, I fact check this. And then the claim is that it's supposed to be impartial, but it relies on government funding and tech funding that aligns with their works and like their donor priorities. I mean, what a perfect propaganda machine that is. Like you become the facts when you own factcheck.org. genius.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

I'm sensing a theme here, that the game is rigged no matter what we do. Right. So here's what I got from the whole thing.

[Adam Thorne]

Right.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

It's just this constant. You are not being told the truth. Okay, what do you do with that information? And to me, this, this episode was completely useless for people that listened to it because he was giving out so much information, so much very detailed information so fast that it was impossible to retain. So you're going to only retain the one thing that you get from it because everything he said will make you mad when you think about it. So the only thing you're going to come out of this episode with is being mad at the government. It's just going to rile you up. And then to go, and he said right at the end there, it's hard to know who to trust here. Well, you can't trust anybody. You can't trust anybody that says anything. And now we've got AI that can just make fake documents and make fake videos. So you can't even trust what you see now. And it's just, now you're just angry. And what are you angry at? It's just you being angry at a system that you can't fully understand because there's so much information to process. Like this guy. How many books and reports and manuscripts and things has this guy read to get to this level of comprehension, to be able to spit it out like that on a two and a half hour podcast, Unreal, where he talked 95% of the time.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, Just ridiculous. He didn't even have notes.

[Libsyn Ads Host]

No.

[Adam Thorne]

Like I watched the video. He just stared at Joe and just rattled off like the longest TED talk, the most detailed, longest TED talk I've ever heard.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

And then every, and then he'd go, and this one's really. And he said this a lot, this one's really funny. And then he would say something that totally wasn't funny.

[Adam Thorne]

Not funny.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

And I go, that wasn't, that wasn't funny at all.

[Adam Thorne]

No, it's funny to him. It's funny because it's depressing and you.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Have to get to that level of involved in all of this information to think, oh, this little deep, oh, the CIA on that aircraft. Hahaha. I was like, that's not funny, that's terrible.

[Adam Thorne]

What he really means is this is totally. That's why it's fun. Yeah, this is totally.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Yeah, but to him that's a funny little anecdote on the side of it. And normal people that have bills to worry about and their kids to worry about and their families and a payment and everything like this, what are they going to take away from this? What am I going to take away from this? Well, if we're getting, we're getting and we're paying for it. We're paying the government to do all this stuff. But then again, I don't know, it's really nice here.

[Sponsor Voice]

It's.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Some parts of it are shitty, but it's pretty okay here compared to some other places.

[Adam Thorne]

Mm. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean look, we're in great shape, but it's still really good to have people like him that keep an eye on what's going on and you know, because, because the government's always trying to find ways to skirt around the rules that it's contained by and in a way to just like you say, to gain more power and put us as just the citizens in positions of less control. So the more information we have about what they're up to, the more potential pushback we can create and you know what control that we really have anyway. But you know, supposedly we can vote and our votes count and they do something and then we can write to our politicians and some politicians, you know, like to say that they're standing up for us and who knows, maybe that does something. It's. It's hard to know these days, but.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Maybe two party system, let's flip a coin. It's one side or the other and sometimes there's a tie and then that goes to the party that has the presidency. So really you've got a 50, 50 chance if you're going to be happy or really unhappy.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah. Or miserable or just slightly miserable. It's hard to say. It's hard to say. What, what would you take on the Twitter files and I don't know if you like following it, what kind of way all that was was going on back in the day.

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[Adam Thorne]

Of really expose the internal communications between them and the government requests to moderate all that content on the elections and health. And it revealed kind of the hidden interactions. I mean this is all before Elon bought it. Probably a huge reason why he did. And you know, people kind of sleep on this information and they, and even when it came out, a lot of people is still more upset that Elon bought Twitter than this even happened. They just brush it off as like, oh that was fine. And I'm like, it's not fine that the government was doing that. I mean the, the censorship that they were creating was, was really dangerous. I mean if we had not found out about that, it would have been. If they had had 10 more years of control over that social media and therefore really all the social medias, who knows what the state of things would have become.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Maybe, maybe. But that's them having the poor foresight. Foresight to go to a private company all digitally, right. And say we want you to moderate this or this is the view that we want to be moderate, put out to the public. Right. We want our, our views out there because we're the world's in a crisis. And for them not to understand that all of that was going to come to light one day is a really poor foresight on theirs. Or they just said, who cares? Because we're in this big crisis and we're doing the best for the citizens that we think should be happening right now, and the world moves on it. It could be bad if they would had control, it probably would have been a bigger disaster if they had been able to get away with it longer, and it would have just worked out even more poorly for them because, you know, we have this political party system, and it just swings back and swing, keeps swinging back and left and right and left and right. So maybe it would have been bad, maybe not. Maybe something else would have come up. And maybe this is all a distraction, right?

[Adam Thorne]

Maybe.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

And Elon buys it and brings it all to light, and then nobody cares because there's something else big that comes along in the news cycle.

[Adam Thorne]

Sure. Just having the FBI having direct access to, like, flag content, though, and like a direct line to do that and kind of normalizing it is shocking influence over social media. And that really started to become the norm. I mean, you see Zuckerberg, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, he's had his kind of like, Zuckerberg 2.0 makeover where he's wearing his gold chain and doing jiu jitsu and trying to be cool, bless him. He's not really pulling it off, but he's doing his best. And. And then, you know, he's also going on Rogan and trying to step up and say, yeah, we're not tolerating this anymore, and we're not listening to the government like we did. And I really feel like he's only getting this confidence because of Elon's pushback, but he bent over faster than anyone when Twitter was doing this kind of Twitter files thing with the government. It's like nobody was standing up to the government at that time. Literally every time the FBI contacted them, they're like, oh, this is national security. Okay, whatever you need, here you go. We just stopped doing that. Then, I mean, he woke up and.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

He realized how powerful a man he was. And then he went, well, you know, this doesn't. Everybody changes their opinion based on their experiences as we go through life. And if they don't, then they're not learning anything. So he just realized the way things are going and went, wait, I'm one of the most powerful people in the world. I don't have to listen to anybody ever. And he just changed. And so did a lot of people. And Once one person does it, other people. Other. Other rich and powerful people will too. So, I mean, and it is, it's written into the, the bill or the. We have these inalienable rights, right. We have right to privacy and these things like that. So the. I think they speak. Those people didn't know how powerful they were to be able to stand up to the government. And there's people that forget that. I mean, have you ever seen a hundred billion dollars? That's a lot of money that has a lot of power and a lot of influence.

[Adam Thorne]

Ton.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

And it's terrible that, like, for the government to say, oh, yeah, this is in the interest of national security. But that's how. That's the way things used to work. We went after communism and then we sent a whole bunch of people, 58,000 soldiers and to die in Vietnam over something that turned out maybe that wasn't true, but we were fighting communism. Right. We were all in against that. And then years later and everything changes, you know, the war on drugs. But that war on drugs isn't real. That's all of Saad. Drugs are a part of the world economy. It's. It's the bad stuff that really starts killing people. Everything fits into everything else. It's this web of trying to interconnect. And it's hard to tell when people go too far. Jordan Peterson brought this up in his interview. Right. If we wanted to see how far we can push, we're going to push really far until people give us pushback and say that's too far. And then I'm going to pull back and I'm going to wait and I'm going to push even farther the next time. And if you give the government or anybody in a powerful position enough rope, they will pull you out of your position faster than you can plant your feet. And it's going to happen every single time. If you give somebody too much, they're going to take it and they're going to take it and run with it.

[Adam Thorne]

Sure. I mean, you, you, you push until somebody either hurts you back or you hurt yourself. That's it. I mean, you're going to do it. You just going to keep pushing. That's the only thing that stops. It's not like anyone just sits back and goes, I think I've pushed enough. I'm just going to stop pushing right now. Going to chill.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Well, they brought that up in for California. Right. California is going to take every dollar that every resident has eventually, if the citizens let them. And it seems like they're fully content to let that happen. We're going to just let them tax and tax and tax and tax until they have nothing left, until everybody leaves. So.

[Adam Thorne]

Oh, the tax roll, though, it's unbelievable.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Same here in my neighborhood, they're not raising taxes, but they reassess the value of the houses so they get more money. So they don'. They didn't raise taxes. They just reassessed all the, all the home values in the city so that they get more money. It's just keeps. Keeps going and going and going and it's going to take. Some people are going to have to stand up, but people don't have the time to do that. We're stuck, you know?

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, you got to go to work.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

You got to go to work, you got to take care of your family, you got to make money to pay your bills. It's. And that's my whole, whole view on this. Like, what can I do with this information, right, that comes out about rich and powerful people, people being up and interconnected and controlling the world. God, there's not a lot I can do, right? It's going to upset me. I can, I can influence myself. I can be health as healthy as I can. I can be as aware as I can. But, man, what can I affect here? And that's, that's kind of why this, these episodes bother me so much, is because it's just riling people up and okay, what are you going to do with this information? Is it just be mad? Are you just going to be mad at the other side or the left side of the right side? Because that's not healthy. What are you going to do with this information? Are you going to be more aware? Is it going to change your voting? Are you going to vote the same way? Are you going to research this? Are you going to stand up and I'm going to rise to be a person that people are gonna vote for? What are you gonna do with it? Because if it's just be mad, that's not healthy.

[Adam Thorne]

Of course.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

That's not good for anybody.

[Adam Thorne]

But do you always have to do something with information? I mean, I've always liked learning about World War II. I don't do anything with that information. And it doesn't necessarily make me mad. I mean, some of the stories is sad, I guess, but it's like, it's just interesting to know about a thing that has happened in the world that is going on. Gives me a greater sense of understanding of, like, world issues or how things happen.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Those, those benefit you Right. Those don't make you angry. Being angry all the time and worked up is not healthy.

[Adam Thorne]

No, no, no.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Being interested in learning and knowing about the past and, and growing your perspective on how things work, that's good. But finding out that you're getting all the time and just being mad about it, that sucks.

[Adam Thorne]

It does, it does for sure.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Can I, how can I, how can I work towards this? You know, how can I shelter my money and pay less in taxes and do these.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Things too? Is there ways to kind of be as slimy as the. No, that's terrible.

[Adam Thorne]

But yeah, we don't need to be. But like, even listening to the bit, like, obviously this episode didn't have a ton of hope in. Right. Necessarily. But at the same time, like, I'm glad I learned more of these things. I'm like, oh, yeah, it is like as messed up as I've been hearing, it is as shocking and almost as conspiratorial as I've been hearing. I believe this person, he's very smart. There are some fucked up, you know, behind the scenes, cloak and dagger things going on that are not in the best interest of the, the individuals in this country. And, and you know, and that's okay for me as an individual as well because it's been happening like this for a long time. And like you said, society works and my life is pretty good and many others works as well. And I think it's useful to know and possibly adjust something along the way. It's better than thinking that it's all rainbows and sunshine. But just because stuff works, it's almost more amusing to see that most things work. You know, the lights are on, I go to work, you go to the hospital and everything's kind of pumping. And they've got resources and they've got all the things you need. You go to the store and there's groceries everywhere. And at the same time, you know, all these agencies and governments are up to all these sneaky things and I'm like, oh, I guess it can both happen. It can both be going on at the same time.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

It's like Tommy Lee Jones and Men in Black when he's like, there's always some carillion death ray or an end of the world that's going to happen and end all life on this miserable planet. And somehow at the last minute, everything is fine. You know, they come through with a solution. No. And you're right. This is just my experience in my life and the things that I've seen, the people I've met and I've talked to and the conversations I've had that have led me to the point where I just don't give a. I just don't care. I know there are bad people and there are good people that control the world and they're making decisions that I will never be at the table to have an influence in. And I just go, there is nothing that I can do other than affect what I can physically touch with my. Either with my voice or my hands. And I got to focus on that. And that's the point where I've gotten to in my life. And I. I just. I guess it kind of sucks. I just don't give a fuck, you know, I get as shitty as that sounds.

[Adam Thorne]

Well, you know, it's. It's reasonable, but you can still have an opinion. I mean, in the same way as, like, you know, they talk about the pandemic, right? And how the justification for their kind of emergency narrative management came up and they did that. Rapid suppression of, like, any alternative views. And that happened online. That was part of it. Like, you couldn't tweet anything on X about, you know, this is kind of bullshit or whatever. You get kicked off of X and it was just like, you had to follow it, or you were an anti vaxxer or you're a bad person, or you weren't helping the world. And it's like, you know, it's important to kind of analyze that after the fact and have an opinion about it, because it could happen again. It could happen again. And we don't really have, like, a solid conclusion on it. It's like, to be honest, that whole thing ended and it's like, we didn't really have, like, a team meeting where we're like, all right, what do we actually fucking think about this now? How are we gonna do this again? It just kind of was like, let's not talk about it because we were arguing a lot. It's like that bad fight you have with your wife and then it's like, let's just. You never discuss it again because it was just such a bad fight.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Yeah, Just the elephant in the room for the next 30 to 40 years.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Okay. Are you a Lord of the Rings fan?

[Adam Thorne]

I do like it, yes.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Okay, so you're familiar with Gandalf and the one ring of Power then?

[Adam Thorne]

Correct.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Okay, so have you ever looked into, what, the alternate timelines, if Gandalf had taken the Ring, what would have happened?

[Adam Thorne]

I haven't.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Okay, I'm going to read you this short blurb here, right? If Gandalf claimed the ring for himself, he had 50% chance to destroy Sauron 1 versus 1. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the ring for him. It would have been destroyed, taken from him forever. But the ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end. Gandalf as Ring Lord would have been forever far worse than Sauron. He would have remained righteous, but self righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for good and the benefits of the subjects according to his wisdom, which was and would have remained great. Thus, while Sauron multiplied evil, he left good clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil to all of these things that are done for the purposes of good can be pushed so far that they're seen as bad. Anything taken with great power, with, with good intentions will eventually turn to a place that others perceive to be bad. So these people may have gone at this, this immense power of censorship with good intentions, but you, anytime you're trying to silence the population with good intentions, it's going to turn evil no matter what. Because you have control now and there's no end to that control. And you're never going to want to give it up. And that's the same with all of these rich people and the government. Bad good intentions will always be taken too far. Sure, because you do them for a good reason and then it'll be a bad reason eventually.

[Adam Thorne]

Well, I mean, you saw that so much. I mean, there was suppression of dissenting experts as they like framed them as public safety. You know, they would have any person that was highly decorated in medicine or science or whatever, if anyone spoke out about, hey, maybe these vaccines are slightly dangerous, or maybe Covid isn't quite as spreadable or problematic as we're thinking. They were losing their jobs at universities, like funding they would everything, like they were getting crushed left and right. There was no space for anything other than this narrative that was thrown out there so early on that it wasn't even plausible that they could possibly even have all the answers to be this certain. And the only thing that they had in their corner that they were really pushing forward is it's so dangerous. We just have to be this careful. And anything else is, is just reckless. And you're like, all right, so we're gonna upheaval everything for years based on that. And that's how we found out who was in charge. Like we really started to realize that. Wow. Mayors of towns and governors are like way more powerful than we realized. I just thought mayors open malls. I didn't realize that they could make us all not go to work.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

They're only as powerful as the police force. If the police will listen to whoever's in charge, then they can do whatever they want. So if it's all in the name of safety and the people don't want to lose their jobs because they're all government employees and you don't want to lose your pension and your retirement and everything, you're just going to do whatever the boss says that's with any company that you work for. And until you say I'm not doing that, it's, it's going to slide because there's the, the negatives that'll happen to you if you don't outweigh sometimes your personal opinions. So if a mayor says you have to go arrest those people on the beach in the name of public health, you're going to go arrest them?

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

How? We, we believe in our mind that we are, we would be righteous in that situation. But given all the factors and everything. Would we. Would you, would you give up your pension and would you give up your family's safety just because you have to stand up for your personal rights? Or is. Is you're going to weigh all these decisions? So they're playing on people's fear with their fear. Yeah. And lives. Because life is expensive. Like you work your whole life to be into this position and have, have this, this future and these people in charge. We've made a decision. This is the way things are. We're going to shut down the gyms, we're going to shut down the churches, we're going to shut down all of this stuff and you're going to do what we tell you to do or we're going to get rid of you and then we're going to mark you, we're going to black you, black label you from society as well and crush you in the media. So it's terrible.

[Adam Thorne]

Do you think there's kind of any long term precedent concerns after that whole Covid thing? Meaning like the measures that they put in place are like persistent and will be applied to other things like normalizing that control in the future. Or we see it coming and be like, nah, no chance. We're not doing this.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

I think there would be less of a middle. I think there'll be more one side and more of the other side. There'll Be more polarized. Right. The people that were more okay with it will jump right in and say, this is. You know, I don't want to say it's political, but this is the right way to go. There was no middle ground when it came to these things. Right. It was. You were like, this is ridiculous. Or we have to buy into what the government is saying and whether it didn't matter what side you believe. So I believe the next time it comes up, people are going to make a decision faster and they're going to move further to one side than closer to the middle in future situations that come up like this. And we've now influenced a great portion of the youth in the country to be super skeptical of the people who are in charge of them.

[Adam Thorne]

Well, if the Epstein list hasn't done that, I don't know what else would ever need to come out to get people suspicious of just, you know, big tech oligarchs and government in general. I mean, it's pretty clear why it took them so long to release those files. I still can't understand why they've even released them. They're so damning to so many people. I mean, talk about Bill Gates looking like shit. I mean, holy gosh, his wife having to go on that podcast and just, like, be basically speechless and just shake her head. I mean, imagine talking about your ex husband and have to do it with, like, so much shame. I mean, unreal. Like, they were. They're the two people that have given the most money to charity ever. They should be in retirement, sat back going, look how great we are. We've done so much for humanity, and now there's just nothing but smeared shame all over that guy. And he's just one of many people that showed up on that list doing God knows what creepy things. It's just shocking. And there's so many liars. That's the thing. Like, people that went on TV and directly were like, I barely saw him once and I knew he was a creep and I hate him. And then there's 47 emails of them just saying, hey, I can't wait to hang out again. That was the best time ever. I love pizza. Let's get more pizza. Can we order five pizzas? You're like, wow, these people. All these guys really like pizza for some reason.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Yeah. Code words sound ridiculous when you read them back in plain form as if you're reading a book.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Just like when you're a teenager and you're trying to disguise your speech from your parents when you Were young and had a. I guess the. That's kind of a thing, right? You're like, oh, you know, you know, bring this over. Oh, that totally doesn't mean weed.

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

It'S. It's all ridiculous.

[Adam Thorne]

Make sure you bring the green goblin to my house.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Wink, wink, wink, wink. Oh, I wonder if green got him. I don't. I'm not familiar with that one. Oh, man, I. It only takes one oh to wipe out an entire life of attaboys. I think a drill sergeant told us that at basic training, right?

[Adam Thorne]

Oh, that's great.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

It takes one oh to wipe out a lifetime of atta boys. And, you know, you get into a situation and as I said before, and you just become comfortable with something and then you become comfortable with something else. And then things just became. Come commonplace and all of a sudden you're not who you were long ago and things have changed and them. Right. I don't have anywhere else. Anywhere else to say it. Like, you know, morals and ethics and all these things, they go out the window. And the more money you make and the more power you have but them. I think one post I saw said, I don't care who it is. I don't care what political party they're from. Put them all in the ground. I don't care. But you got to have a significant backing to do that of the government. And now we've got political parties involved and people that are high up in government implicated in this. So what is that? What does that tell me to the person who's already going, I don't give a. Because like, you know, it just confirms that we are at sheer disadvantage in life just starting out from zero. No matter where you're born, like you are, you're basically fucked. And everybody that's in charge of you is gonna make you pay taxes and fund this whole thing, whether you like it or not. And there's nothing you can do about it.

[Adam Thorne]

It's the grind. Yeah. Yep. You're being manipulated one way or another. I mean, that definitely is going on. And people are telling you what they want you to believe, not necessarily what is happening. You got to carefully try and read between the lines. And that takes a great deal of work. A great deal of work. Got to find trusted places to find your information. And that is hard to do these days.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Those types of sources, you know, with the people on the. I follow and I talk to, you know, not my thing, but find your people at church, find your religion, find your circle of people in your community. Get with your Family, get with the people that you trust and the people that you can see and that are nice to be around and work on yourself as well. And I guess as you said, it's good to be aware of all of these things that are going on and. But it is, it's not going to help you being angry about it and it's not going to worked out because God, man, it just seems like worse and worse just keeps coming out over and over and over again. It's like, how bad can it get? Well, maybe it can get worse. It could get so much worse than this, right? God, that's a bad feeling to think.

[Adam Thorne]

Oh yeah, it definitely could get so much worse. I mean, look, it could in. It could be back in Covid again. I mean, that was a lot worse than this. Unless you were somebody that, you know, hated your job and now didn't have to work and was getting those government checks, maybe that was a lot better for you. But I did not appreciate any of that because I like working and I don't like personally just getting handouts. I feel like myself that's bad for your. Your like kind of mental state. I don't know, I think that that's just not good. It's like training you to be lazy or something. But I'm sure a lot of people appreciated that. Maybe a lot of people needed a break and I get it. But I think it's gonna take decades to recover from that amount of time. And yeah, I'm very suspicious of all things after that experience. It's certainly got me jaded, I would say.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

But overall, who to trust here?

[Adam Thorne]

Yeah, I don't know, but. But overall fan reception online was. Was pretty mixed. A lot of people felt like Nick on this one that it was just too intense of a TED talk overall and it was way too heady. And again, like Nick was saying, the feel was just, where's the hope? Everything's a conspiracy. It's all shit. And yeah, I get it. It was those things. Some people really like the input and you know, just the sheer amount of facts that that guy was throwing down and his knowledge. Overall, it's nice that he did the research so we didn't have to. That was one quote that I quite liked overall. Personally, I give this one a 7 out of 10. Only because it had a lot of information in that I appreciated, but it was a bit of a slow roll and he's kind of, kind of, you know, monotony and, you know, and it was just all him. It was just like all him talking, so it was almost like Rogan wasn't even there.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Honestly, I am going to give this a 3, and only because that's the.

[Adam Thorne]

Lowest rating we've ever had for sure.

[Nick from Lesser Known Operators]

Only because he mentioned the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare course in school, which I am a graduate of, for the Special Forces Qualification course. So only because he mentioned my own advanced studies school I've been to. That's why it gets a three.

[Adam Thorne]

Very nice. Very nice. Well, thank you for joining me for this one, Nick, and for putting up with that podcast and struggling through what a trooper you are, as always. And thanks to everybody out there for listening. We appreciate it. If you want a shitload of information and to be slightly scared and to be even more suspicious of the government, check out this episode. If you already feel that way, you could probably skip this one because it's only gonna have you double down. But yeah, if you are still naively fully trusting the government and don't believe in any of the conspiracies, I would recommend this one for you because it might shine a light on some things that you are not paying attention to and it might be worth it. But anyway, thank you all so much. We appreciate you and we will see you next time. Cheers.