- 2 days ago
Philosopher Stefan Molyneux and a caller discuss how to market his new homeschooling curriculum business. Stefan suggests leading with short videos on the dreadful shortcomings in public schools instead of pitching the app directly. The caller discusses his plans to make the curriculum robust, especially for boys, and is working to get things ready before the next school year.
You can find Romeschool at https://romeschool.app/
Early adopters get a lifetime 50% off discount!
0:00:00 Homeschool Vision Begins
0:07:32 Romeschool Rebrand
0:10:20 Teaching Citizenship Through History
0:12:53 Why Time Matters
0:15:51 First AI Experiments
0:18:58 Music, Video, and AI
0:24:08 Discovering the Real Passion
0:26:55 Marketing the Mission
0:31:19 Wisdom, Speech, and Skepticism
0:37:56 Respect, Manners, and Youth
0:43:17 Curriculum and Life Skills
0:50:03 Getting the First Users
0:51:55 Grading and Scaling
0:56:21 Building Homeschool Community
0:58:23 Market Analysis
1:04:10 Public Schools Are Failing
1:09:34 Selling the Solution
1:14:03 Marketing the Danger
1:21:18 Boys and Masculinity
1:24:25 Romeschool Launch
GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/
SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux
Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
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Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026
You can find Romeschool at https://romeschool.app/
Early adopters get a lifetime 50% off discount!
0:00:00 Homeschool Vision Begins
0:07:32 Romeschool Rebrand
0:10:20 Teaching Citizenship Through History
0:12:53 Why Time Matters
0:15:51 First AI Experiments
0:18:58 Music, Video, and AI
0:24:08 Discovering the Real Passion
0:26:55 Marketing the Mission
0:31:19 Wisdom, Speech, and Skepticism
0:37:56 Respect, Manners, and Youth
0:43:17 Curriculum and Life Skills
0:50:03 Getting the First Users
0:51:55 Grading and Scaling
0:56:21 Building Homeschool Community
0:58:23 Market Analysis
1:04:10 Public Schools Are Failing
1:09:34 Selling the Solution
1:14:03 Marketing the Danger
1:21:18 Boys and Masculinity
1:24:25 Romeschool Launch
GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/
SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux
Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00All right, so shall I just start with a brief intro?
00:00:03Do you want to start with your project?
00:00:04What's your pleasure?
00:00:09No, I know I sent it to you late on a Sunday.
00:00:13I don't know if you got to look at this little cute little.
00:00:15Yeah, I read it over.
00:00:16Wonderful, wonderful.
00:00:17And yeah, I started developing a, it's a homeschool curriculum for, hopefully for good speakers, I guess.
00:00:31I made an app that can help people organize their homeschool at the direction of AI tools.
00:00:41I've been working with various ones, you know, as everybody has, but more so Claude over the last few months.
00:00:47And I was working on a cartoon, which was like a history series.
00:00:52It was going to be like a Pixar-like history series about inventions and inventors,
00:00:56because I thought that getting some recognition for the contributions, you know,
00:01:06basically, you know, Western European and American inventors have had.
00:01:11This was kind of an idea I started to cultivate in 2020 with the BLM stuff and all this white
00:01:19people are a plague.
00:01:20You know, it was all this kind of stuff.
00:01:21And I was kind of coming up with a defense myself.
00:01:24And anyway, I started to think that, you know, people could use a little more gratitude with regards to invention.
00:01:31And so I started developing that in like February, well, in earnest.
00:01:36I was kind of working on it for like the last year or so, here and there.
00:01:40And then in earnest, like full-time, February.
00:01:44And I was kind of getting up to a launch position.
00:01:46I could tell that it was going to be a big lift, a guy who's never created anything.
00:01:51There's technical advancements with AI cartoons and stuff like that, that, you know,
00:01:56you're still really working hard to get exactly what you want.
00:02:00But I could maybe get it through.
00:02:03But it was going to be like, it looked like it was going to be harder to get the funding
00:02:06and stuff, you know,
00:02:07with Kickstarter and stuff like that.
00:02:08And I'm not really a marketing, I don't have like a marketing background.
00:02:13I didn't have a cartoon background or storytelling or anything.
00:02:17So it was like a lot that I was getting to.
00:02:19And so as I was trying to procure some funding,
00:02:26somebody asked me, you know, what feedback I've gotten and, you know, what the market wants or whatever.
00:02:33And because they didn't really, they couldn't really see that, you know,
00:02:36there was a need or whatever for a cartoon that was talking about inventions.
00:02:41And I disagreed, but I started talking to Claude that day about, you know,
00:02:45what does the market want with regards to homeschool and curriculums and stuff like that.
00:02:51Or, you know, it wasn't really a curriculum, but it was going to be for homeschoolers
00:02:55because the family was a homeschool family.
00:02:59Anyway, he started talking about tools that they don't have that he went out and poked around.
00:03:06I asked him for pain points and he started poking around and asking about tools that people needed.
00:03:13And I said, well, I did this little thing for my dad a week ago
00:03:18and it made this little piece of software real easily.
00:03:20And I said, maybe we can do that.
00:03:22And so I kind of shifted to like, that's going to be the fundraiser.
00:03:25That's going to be the way that I get the money to make a show.
00:03:28So I worked on that for basically all of May, for about a month from like May 10th to June
00:03:3610th,
00:03:36something like that, which doesn't sound like a lot.
00:03:39But I feel like, I mean, we got where I'm very close to it being a solid planner
00:03:44with some unique aspects where it helps people juggle if they've got, you know,
00:03:49if a kid's falling behind or if a kid can't, is sick or whatever.
00:03:53And it just kind of moves minutes of their curriculum forward and makes it kind of really easy.
00:03:57And they could take weeks off.
00:03:59And I started to get some feedback from some homeschool moms
00:04:03and started adding some stuff in there.
00:04:04And I got a cool piece of software, I think.
00:04:07But it was still going to be, as I started to get a little bit of feedback,
00:04:10it was still going to be kind of more time than I wanted to get a subscriber base, basically.
00:04:19And the software is to help manage people, a kid's progress through the curriculum.
00:04:23Is that right?
00:04:25Yeah.
00:04:25Well, a lot of states, they need to track what they're doing in order, in case the state asks.
00:04:31And in some states, they require it every year.
00:04:34And so, yeah, you feed the curriculum in, you say, you know, Billy worked on math today for this long.
00:04:40And then they have their full hours and they got a paper trail.
00:04:43And it's funny, too, because a lot of people don't know that.
00:04:46So just for the audience who doesn't, homeschooling in Canada is a complete Wild West.
00:04:54Like, there's no feedback, no requirements.
00:04:56They never contact you.
00:04:58You know, they just, I guess, assume you're doing the right thing.
00:05:01And a friend of mine who homeschools in the United States was telling me that, you know, they have to
00:05:06have a review every year.
00:05:07They have to keep detailed notes.
00:05:09They have to show progress.
00:05:10They have to keep all of the work to show the government.
00:05:14And it's one of these funny places where Canada is free, so to speak, and America is less free.
00:05:22Obviously, it's not like Germany where you're not allowed to at all.
00:05:25But it is unusual in that you do have to kind of keep all of this stuff and all of
00:05:29these records and you can be cross-examined.
00:05:31They can audit and so on.
00:05:32So the software helps with something like that.
00:05:34Is that right?
00:05:35Yeah.
00:05:37And, you know, the United States in general is more restrictive.
00:05:42But state by state is, there's a lot of different restrictions.
00:05:47And it changes, you know, every legislative session sometimes, or it's up for debate.
00:05:55And also, they can change a policy, like a law is already in place, and they're going to start enforcing
00:06:00it in a different way.
00:06:01And so that was another unique thing I thought that I did was, you know, we said we'd be the
00:06:07gold standard about, you know, we're sending out crons three times a day to see what news has changed.
00:06:14We want to be the first one to let people know.
00:06:16I saw crons?
00:06:18It was a new term to me, but it's like a thing where your website sends out and asks the
00:06:24internet for something.
00:06:28It's like a search or something like that.
00:06:30But it's automated a certain amount of time.
00:06:33And for me, I was doing it three times a day.
00:06:35And I would get, you know, news alerts, and they would get, that was to me, I wouldn't just have
00:06:41them be pushed out.
00:06:42I would have eyes on them and then say, okay, this is worthy of going to a person's phone or
00:06:45their email.
00:06:46And so that was an aspect.
00:06:49And then I made a field trip finder, which was that, well, anyways, the software is good.
00:06:54And, but I was, I was increasingly apprehensive about the name that I picked, which was the name of my
00:07:03cartoon, which was about time.
00:07:07And the family was a time travel family.
00:07:09They were going to go back in time and, you know, see Gutenberg and see what the watt engine being
00:07:14developed and stuff like that.
00:07:16And, and so it was, it was an okay name and I hadn't come up, you know, it was, it
00:07:20was sort of tentative and, but I was running with it cause it was the best I had.
00:07:24So I, so I had about time.app and, but I was, as I was getting ready to launch, cause
00:07:29we're kind of aiming for a July 4th launch here in a week.
00:07:32And sorry, just to make, make sure I understand the launch is the app, the cartoon, the website.
00:07:38I, um, I'm not sure how that relates to the curriculum that, that you sent me.
00:07:42And I just want to, I'm trying to get the brain cloud in a vague line.
00:07:46No, no.
00:07:47Uh, and it was, it was just the app at this time.
00:07:49It was just the app and it was, it was gonna be July 4th.
00:07:51It was about a month ago.
00:07:51And I was, I was feeling the need to, to rebrand, which I'd already done three times, mostly in the
00:07:56very beginning of the app development, but I was feeling the need.
00:07:59I didn't like the name didn't say enough.
00:08:02I didn't, so I was just thinking about it.
00:08:03And I started, uh, thinking about it increasingly as I'm looking for domains and asking Claude what he thinks about
00:08:10him, was, was boiling down to things like, like virtue and veracity.
00:08:14And, uh, it was, it was art, you know, a truth thing, you know, it was, uh, it was, uh,
00:08:20you know, good values thing.
00:08:21And, and, uh, and then I, I stumbled on one of the ones that was available was Rome school and
00:08:26not Rome school.com, but at Rome school.app.
00:08:29And, and, and so I had like 10 of them and I brought in my wife and she really liked
00:08:32Rome school.
00:08:32And she pointed out that it rhymes with homeschool, which hadn't, hadn't even occurred to me, but I really liked
00:08:38the name Rome school.
00:08:39And so I, uh, doubled down right away.
00:08:42And like, and like that day or the next day, it was always the next day that I would come
00:08:46up, I'd wake up and I would have like a new idea that I, something I wanted to add to
00:08:49my app.
00:08:49But the next day that I got, after I got Rome school, I said, what, what did, what did Rome
00:08:55teach?
00:08:55What did, what did we, what could we do maybe that would be, you know, kind of, uh, on brand
00:09:00for, for, for Rome, uh, in like a curriculum thing.
00:09:03Cause that really helps get funding from, from different directions if you're not just a tool, but if you're actually
00:09:08have something to teach.
00:09:09And, uh, yeah, so I asked, I asked the internet, what, what did Rome teach?
00:09:13And it was this order, uh, line, it was all making you good, a good, you can argue a law
00:09:19and you can be, uh, participate as a, as a citizen in, in Rome.
00:09:23Um, and, uh, and I, I'm a little bit of a history guy, a little bit, but I'm not, uh,
00:09:28it was, this was new to me.
00:09:30And I was like, wow, this is a, this is a lane we could own.
00:09:33Um, and so we started, I, you know, me and Claude, I say we always, all the time is kind
00:09:37of weird, but, uh, we started developing, uh, uh, kind of like a Roman rhetoric, um, uh, uh, course.
00:09:46And, uh, and it started off with the, with the redder course and the, and the grammaticus, uh, which I,
00:09:53I, you know, in their school came before that, which is where they learned, uh, how, how, how sentences go
00:09:58together and how, uh, how the ancient poets, uh, uh, wrote.
00:10:04And, and they would, they would, uh, I put together a lot of stuff based on a lot of stuff
00:10:10that I've learned about, and I, I need to take these courses myself.
00:10:12But anyway, but grammaticus was, I guess it was before that.
00:10:15And, and I think we'll skip the one that comes before that, which is like the elementary school where you
00:10:18just learn how to read, write, and do basic arithmetic.
00:10:20But then it was, I, I wanted to do like my American history of the inventions and, uh, and American
00:10:25history in general.
00:10:27And then the, and then we wrote a Roman history, a Greek history.
00:10:31And then I, I, something I was, I really wanted to tailor and I was really happy about, which I
00:10:34actually did before the Roman and Greek history was how Rome and Greece made their citizens.
00:10:40Um, what, you know, how, what changed when they were growing, uh, and so when they were in power and
00:10:47when they were declining, as far as how, how they were growing their citizens, basically.
00:10:52And, uh, and it was something which I think it feels to me like if a kid, for the first
00:10:59time I'm working on something that I would want to use.
00:11:00Like I, I, the tool was cool.
00:11:02You know, the cartoon was cool.
00:11:03I would want to show my kids the cartoon, but this is like something that I want to put my
00:11:08kids through there.
00:11:09My oldest turns five, uh, in, uh, in about a month.
00:11:13And, uh, and I, it's like a no brainer.
00:11:16Like, I, I think that if I was, if I wanted to, uh, give, give everybody something, it just seems
00:11:22like it's, we've lost, it feels like we've lost something as far as being able to speak effectively and persuasively.
00:11:29Uh, it's something I, I have worked hard to, to claw my way up to like the 20th percentile.
00:11:35I'm not, not very good at it, but I'm, maybe this course will probably help me, I think.
00:11:39Uh, but, uh, with, you know, with Claude, and it's going to need a lot of editing, but with Claude,
00:11:44we got like a million word, a million words or something like that.
00:11:46And, and the courses are about three quarters done or something like that, which was pretty quick run up in
00:11:5110 days.
00:11:52Um, it was a lot of steering for me in the beginning and making sure there's not like victim mentality.
00:11:57There's, uh, the U.S. history was especially originally conceived, uh, uh, with a, with a spine of wrestling with
00:12:04the, the idea of slavery and, and we were built on freedom.
00:12:07And, and I said, let's, uh, let's just go to, we were, it was a self-selected group of Europeans
00:12:13that, you know, came over and they, you know, you know, built, you know, built a society which, where they
00:12:19could be free and built and built, you know, the, the whole, um, I'm sorry, I'm rambling.
00:12:25I know, but, uh, one cool thing I thought when I was doing my invention course was that, um, the
00:12:31main invention that Grok suggested was the most important as far as helping the world was the U.S. constitution,
00:12:37uh, maybe because of the private property rights and the patent system, which kind of allowed a lot of, you
00:12:43know, the, the big boom of American invention.
00:12:45And, uh, and I thought that that was, uh, you know, a much more important aspect of U.S. history.
00:12:51So, so that's, that's, you know, we're, uh, I'm trying to run to make this happen because, um, I'm a
00:12:57handyman by trade and it's, I'm spending way too much time away from home.
00:13:02Um, I'm, I'm, I've really started to lament coming home when my kids are asleep on the couch, uh, regularly.
00:13:09And, um, I'm trying to find a way to be useful to more people faster, get some, some better, a
00:13:17better lifestyle.
00:13:18And so that's, so that's, that's that, I guess.
00:13:21Yeah, it's, it's fascinating.
00:13:22And I, I've worked, uh, with AI, um, working on a UPB movie and AI is, uh, it is tough
00:13:30to wrestle with, man.
00:13:31It is, it is like a completely brilliant and wildly inconsistent employee, you know, like, like,
00:13:38you either get the Sistine Chapel or you get graffiti.
00:13:41There doesn't seem to be much like, oh, wow, that's perfect.
00:13:43That's even better than what I was thinking of.
00:13:45Or, uh, you get something that's like, what drug trip are you on to produce something like this?
00:13:51That makes no sense.
00:13:52And, and I wrestling with continuity, continuous characters and themes and so on.
00:13:59So, I mean, I'm not complaining because, uh, way back in the day I was working on a documentary.
00:14:05Oh gosh, this has to be probably 12 or 14 years ago.
00:14:09And I had an animator and I would ask the animator to do stuff and he'd produce, you know, the
00:14:15sort of wireframe things and so on kind of inconsistent, uh, took him a while.
00:14:19And then he ended up just vanishing, you know, cause artistic types, right.
00:14:23They get better offers or they, they suddenly want to go and quit and pick grapes or mime in
00:14:28Queensland or something like that.
00:14:30So, so being able to work with, uh, an actual AI, um, video and image generator is really
00:14:38cool, but it does require a certain amount of patience and it is like feeding a squirrel
00:14:44on cocaine, you know, like, or feeding a squirrel with cocaine because they're just jumpy and
00:14:48all over the place.
00:14:49So I find it a really cool process to go through.
00:14:53And I, you probably have more patience than me because I will try like, you know, six or
00:14:58seven times to get something right.
00:15:00And then I'll just say, okay, I'll use captions.
00:15:02Like if I have a challenging piece of text that I want to do something visual with, uh,
00:15:06if I'm not getting anything after six or seven prompts, uh, that that's even close to usable,
00:15:11I'll just go to captions.
00:15:12And I'm sure that there are lots of voodoo tricks out there.
00:15:15I've got whole newsletters of people saying, here's how you do AI.
00:15:18Here's how you get it to do this, that, and the other.
00:15:19And I've never worked with Claude.
00:15:20I'm just working with Grok because Grok has no limits and it's already baked into my subscription
00:15:25on X.
00:15:27And so, yeah, I mean, how did you first start working with AI?
00:15:32Was it back in the day?
00:15:33Cause I remember I just had a curiosity when I first started writing peaceful parenting
00:15:37a little over two years ago, I was like, Hey, I'm curious what AI would come up with in
00:15:41terms of chapters.
00:15:42And, you know, it was fine.
00:15:43It was okay.
00:15:44It wasn't anything, you know, stunning or terrible.
00:15:47Uh, but, uh, how long have you been working with the technology as a whole?
00:15:51Yeah.
00:15:52Yeah.
00:15:52Yeah.
00:15:52And it is, it is a pretty cool, uh, cool thing that, and I, and I tried working with
00:15:56Grok a little bit, especially he helped me reform the American thing, pry it away from
00:16:01the slavery, uh, spine and bring it back into something that I thought was a little more
00:16:04based, uh, which I liked a lot.
00:16:07Uh, but he really has been struggling with, um, making long form, making, making a whole,
00:16:12even whole lessons of any kind of length.
00:16:14Claude has been really good with, um, entire units.
00:16:18It takes him like 15 minutes, but he'll generate an entire unit, uh, you know,
00:16:2220,000 words, uh, in a go and, and come back for more.
00:16:26Um, but yeah, no, I started with AI, um, it was about, uh, not, not, not that long.
00:16:32I mean, I was, you know, I was talking to, to Grok.
00:16:34Grok was my, was my favorite because, you know, I think that, uh, I talked to Claude about
00:16:38a year and a half ago and he, he gave me some, some pushback about why I shouldn't have
00:16:42the opinions that I have.
00:16:43And I was, I was, I was, I was, goodbye, you know, uh, but, uh, Grok has been very
00:16:48good and, uh, and helped me figure out, you know, the invention, what, what inventors
00:16:52might be important and research those.
00:16:55And that was, that was interesting.
00:16:56And so that was what I was working with last summer, but I really got interested in working
00:16:59with AI in earnest in like October when, uh, when I, when I, I got, um, I was having trouble
00:17:09finding some, some work at the time and, uh, and my wife's grandmother, uh, said, you know,
00:17:16you should really do music.
00:17:17You play piano.
00:17:20Uh, she, she thought that I knew how to sing, even though she'd never seen me not sing.
00:17:24And, uh, so she's like the siren luring you to the rocks.
00:17:28I know you're a father.
00:17:29I know you have bills, but follow your economically in near to impossible passion.
00:17:35And, you know, Hey, it does work out, but so does winning the lottery.
00:17:38Uh, but, uh, it's maybe not the most conservative plan in the known universe.
00:17:43No, not, not, no, of course not, not, not music, especially these days when everybody with
00:17:47a laptop and, uh, and a Suno, a subscription can make something that sounds almost as good
00:17:52as what's on the radio.
00:17:53So, uh, but, uh, but she, she, she, she, she did recognize, you know, something in me
00:18:00where it was like, it was one of these things that from forever ago where I, you know, that
00:18:05like everybody who's got a guitar and, you know, thinks that, you know, I could have someday
00:18:09if I would have, if, if I would have just found a drummer or something, you know, but I'd
00:18:13always, you know, carried that with me.
00:18:15And it was like, uh, you know, okay, I'll give it.
00:18:17She said, she says, Hey, here's, here's money for your family for three weeks.
00:18:20Just gave it three weeks.
00:18:21And, uh, and so that was, that was nice.
00:18:22And so I, I wrote my first, frankly, my first like full song, um, and I'm, I'm 48.
00:18:28And so it was, and I've been playing piano since I was five and, and thinking about making
00:18:31music.
00:18:3348.
00:18:33So you see now, now what you need to do is sell whatever youthful serum you're taking.
00:18:39That's what you want to sell.
00:18:41Or just make one.
00:18:42Say, I'd say that's my secret.
00:18:43That's true.
00:18:43You too can take a nibble of my jugular for only $9.99.
00:18:48No, that's, that's good.
00:18:49You look great.
00:18:49So, uh, so yeah, you should, but, but, you know, you work, work with your body and that
00:18:53certainly helps keep the blood flowing.
00:18:54And I think that could be quite good, but, uh, okay.
00:18:57So sorry, go on.
00:18:58No, well, I, yeah.
00:19:00And maybe that's why she thought a little bit, you know, Hey, there's still a chance and
00:19:02whatever.
00:19:03So I, I, I made it, I wrote a song.
00:19:05It was a complete song and I was kind of, I thought it was kind of cool.
00:19:07In fact, I thought it was so cool that I put just myself playing piano on the, on Facebook and,
00:19:11you know, to, to, I'm sure the horror of my, my mother and, uh, and anybody else who,
00:19:16uh, knows me by association.
00:19:17Cause I'm, I'm not much of a singer.
00:19:19I thought it was a pretty good song.
00:19:20It had a good theme.
00:19:21It was about a girl, uh, who got talked into having a certain procedure, uh, uh, when she
00:19:28was, you know, by her mother kind of a thing.
00:19:30And then, you know, ended up not having kids, you know, and it was her, you know, she, now
00:19:33she's a cat lady kind of a thing.
00:19:35It was, it was, it was, I thought it was a, it almost made me cry a little bit.
00:19:38It was a good, it was a good song.
00:19:39I thought.
00:19:39And, uh, and it was okay.
00:19:40And then I looked up, uh, you know, AI and music or something like that after I put it
00:19:45out there.
00:19:46Cause I was like trying to figure out how to, how to make it more, I was trying to figure
00:19:50out, I can't remember why I breached the subject, but I found this thing called Suna, which if
00:19:54you're a musician, you've probably heard of and, and real musicians hate it.
00:19:58Cause it's, it's, you know, AI is the, is, you know, really is the nail in the coffin of
00:20:04them trying to, to, to sell whatever kind of, it made, it made my song like sound like a
00:20:09radio edit.
00:20:10It was, it was, it was amazing.
00:20:11Wait, what do you mean?
00:20:11You just, you feed in the thing and it just adds like bass drums and, and, uh, wow.
00:20:16It, it, yeah, it does the arrangement.
00:20:18And so, you know, it's got all the build and everything like that.
00:20:21Yeah.
00:20:21So it took my exact, yeah.
00:20:24Yeah.
00:20:24Took my, uh, exact chords and, uh, the timing of the melody.
00:20:29I mean, everything was like, I, it was important and, and with it all, it sounded, it sounded
00:20:34really good.
00:20:35And so I was really happy with that.
00:20:36And, uh, so the next thing was, you know, AI video, how do I make a music video?
00:20:40And then it was really a rough, a rough, uh, is that because you have trouble twerking
00:20:46yourself because you're pushing 50 is that, is that the challenge?
00:20:49I thought about getting a green screen and, uh, I can, I can twerk maybe twice and then
00:20:54I need to lie down, but sorry, go ahead.
00:20:56That's right.
00:20:57I'm done.
00:20:57Uh, uh, yeah, yeah.
00:20:59But, you know, I was like a story and it was rough.
00:21:01It was really bad, but it had elements that looked like a movie, like a, like a real scene.
00:21:07And, and, uh, and so I started kind of, I was like, well, I could just take, you know,
00:21:11these and I'll, I'll reproduce it, reproduce it, and then edit it together with my little,
00:21:15you know, with my computer.
00:21:16And, and it was, and it was decent.
00:21:19It took, it took a month, but I was pouring like 70 hours a week and it was
00:21:24no, it was for the first time in my life.
00:21:26It was no problem to work.
00:21:28It was kind of revolution.
00:21:30It was a wonderful experience that it was, you know, I wasn't making money, but I felt
00:21:34like I was making something.
00:21:35That's the male.
00:21:36Like, so for women, they, they sort of have this great peripheral vision.
00:21:38When men get focused, it's like, it totally closes and everything is just this one tiny
00:21:43tunnel and you're just making your way through the tunnel and, uh, everybody else, uh, disappears
00:21:49and, and, uh, you, you still care about them in an abstract fashion, but it's the task.
00:21:56The laser task must be completed, right?
00:21:58Yeah.
00:21:58I don't know if you've seen this, um, uh, this meme of this guy, like he's in the gym and
00:22:03it's like, what men are thinking at the gym is like, I have to lift, lift this or I'm gay
00:22:07and my whole family dies.
00:22:08And it's just that level of like hyper, uh, hunting focus.
00:22:13Uh, I must bring meat.
00:22:14Everything else is unimportant.
00:22:16Well, that was it.
00:22:18And, and like, whereas before that, you know, I, I was, uh, feeling bad when I wasn't around
00:22:24my kids and, and, and maybe, you know, and spending as much time, you know, when I wasn't
00:22:29working or whatever, you know, and justifying sitting on the couch and playing with, you
00:22:33know, the family and stuff like that.
00:22:35And here I was just apologizing day after day.
00:22:37I'm, I'm here for five minutes.
00:22:38Okay, guys, I'm going back upstairs.
00:22:40Daddy's got to make some money.
00:22:42And, uh, and I, and I, I got, you know, I don't know how, I'd have to say with the
00:22:48amount of time, it was like, like five, uh, 500 hours over, over the initial month was,
00:22:56was not, but it was, but then it was that, that turned in, I was, I was like, how can
00:22:59I, how can I turn this?
00:23:00Cause it was, it was okay.
00:23:01But I was like, how can I turn this time?
00:23:02Can I make music videos, uh, professionally?
00:23:06Can I, can I, can I, how do I get fun, like crowdfunding?
00:23:08And I messaged this guy who does professional crowdfunding and he said, you need to do like
00:23:12a series.
00:23:12Like that's the series is, are the ones that, you know, they get the money, like, like millions
00:23:16of like this series, this series, let's see how they crowdfunded.
00:23:19Sorry.
00:23:19A series.
00:23:20What do you mean?
00:23:21Like a TV series, like a web series, like, uh, like, you know, in the old days, we'll go
00:23:24on TV, you know, like a cartoon, that kind of thing.
00:23:27And I'm like, well, that's not a music video thing though.
00:23:30Right.
00:23:30That would be like some sort of dramatic series.
00:23:32Right.
00:23:33Or comedy.
00:23:33Uh, so now you've got to be a, not just a songwriter and a performer and an edit music
00:23:39video guy with AI, but now you've got to be a writer of dialogue and you've got to figure
00:23:44out how to get the actors simulated.
00:23:46And okay.
00:23:47I mean, it's, uh, Hey, you know what?
00:23:49Here's a great way to be, to make money.
00:23:51Just be good at absolutely everything.
00:23:54You'll be making a fortune.
00:23:56It's like, it's hard to argue with that.
00:23:57I'm going to be a stone genius at everything I touch and the money will flow.
00:24:01And it's like, yeah, that's a, it's a nice business plan.
00:24:04Uh, I couldn't fulfill it, but I suppose some people, anyway, tell me, tell me your
00:24:09story.
00:24:09How did the series thing go?
00:24:10No, no, no, you're well, so, so I guess what I discovered when I was making the music video
00:24:15was that, uh, uh, it was that it was the video itself that I was, I was really enjoying
00:24:20spending the time doing.
00:24:21Cause I, I, you know, I, I was, when I was a kid, I wrote on my wall that I
00:24:25wanted it
00:24:25to be like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Doug Barry someday.
00:24:28Like I wanted to be a movie maker when I was a kid, like, like, uh, you know, like that's
00:24:35this guy.
00:24:36Oh, oh, so sorry.
00:24:37Sorry.
00:24:37I was like, okay, is there some guy that I, sorry, I was thinking, is it Dave Barry, the
00:24:42comic writer?
00:24:43Okay.
00:24:43Got it.
00:24:44Yeah.
00:24:44Like the third of the Trinity.
00:24:46Okay.
00:24:46Got it.
00:24:46Yeah.
00:24:47Yeah.
00:24:47I just wanted to be like, you know, known for, you know, something and, and I, and I,
00:24:52and I grew up in a movie watching family.
00:24:54And, and so I always had that in the back of my brain, uh, more so than music.
00:24:57I never, if I wanted to do music, I would have done music in my life.
00:25:00Uh, but I, I, it was never really a draw.
00:25:02Like I'm good at it, but I'm never a draw and, uh, but making stories and I bought a
00:25:06nice camera over the last couple of years, a couple of them.
00:25:09And, uh, but also now I was making videos online and, uh, sold, sold my cameras, uh,
00:25:14just to, you know, keep the process going for, so for like, so, so I decided I'm going
00:25:18to do that.
00:25:19I'm going to make a cartoon about the history thing, which I was, you know, kind
00:25:22of tentatively planning this all, this all the time about like a documentary or something
00:25:26I was going to make.
00:25:27I was like, let's do a cartoon.
00:25:28I can make it with the AI videos.
00:25:29And they may, they travel back in time and, and they, uh, get to, to show what, what
00:25:34happened and what life was like and how it changed and all that kind of stuff.
00:25:37And, and, uh, and I was pouring myself into it again for, for about two months, uh, or a
00:25:42month and a half, two months.
00:25:43Um, same thing, 70 hours, 80 hours a week and enjoying it, not feeling worse for the
00:25:48wear, loving the process.
00:25:51And, uh, and then, yeah, like I said, in the beginning, I, um, started to come out to
00:25:55the idea that it was going to be kind of a, a little longer process than I wanted to get
00:25:59it to the point where I could get, prove something that was fundable and, uh, and corral
00:26:05the funding and keep, you know, keep the lights on while I'm working on that.
00:26:09So turn to, uh, what can I do for homeschool software and, uh, made that and it's just about
00:26:16polished.
00:26:16And then, like I said, yeah, all of a sudden, once we add the curriculum, it's, it's, uh,
00:26:22top, it's, it's, it's, it's in there with like the big players for the homeschool apps.
00:26:27Um, and it's got its own niche.
00:26:29And, uh, and then once I start making money with that, then I can make a show.
00:26:33My wife is really, she's, she's like, but you're going to make the show someday.
00:26:36Right.
00:26:37I mean, cause she really likes the idea of this cartoon history show.
00:26:40She thinks it's a really cute family that we put together and a cute house that they live
00:26:43and stuff and she wants to see that brought to life.
00:26:46And so, so that's, so that was the last four months and I'm trying like the Dickens to,
00:26:51uh, justify it.
00:26:53Yeah.
00:26:53Well, I mean, it's justified.
00:26:54It's just, I gotta, no, I gotta market.
00:26:55I heard you say, that's the back of my head.
00:26:57I heard you say, I don't know how many years ago that, uh, and maybe you can correct me,
00:27:01but I think you said something like writing the book is 10% and marketing it is, is 90%
00:27:05or
00:27:05something like that.
00:27:06Certainly at the beginning, I mean, Stephen King doesn't need to do a lot of marketing anymore,
00:27:10but certainly at the beginning, I mean, I spent at least 80% of the time at the beginning
00:27:15of my podcast career, such as it is, I spent 80% of the time just promoting it, just going
00:27:23to websites and posting it on forums and just trying to get people interested in so on.
00:27:26Cause I was a director of marketing and you know, everybody has a great thing in a drawer.
00:27:32You know, uh, I remember I used to do karaoke when I was younger and the karaoke host, uh,
00:27:38we would chat from time to time and he's like, yeah, I've got this whole rock opera in my
00:27:42drawer.
00:27:43And I'm like, great, you know, but why, but why, I mean, at least try, at least try to
00:27:50get it out.
00:27:51And so most people have a great idea or something half finished in their drawer or something even
00:27:55totally finished in their drawer and getting it out into the world.
00:28:02That's the brutal part because you care about it and almost nobody, your wife cares about
00:28:07it.
00:28:07Your kids care about it.
00:28:08You care about it, but nobody else really does.
00:28:12And then how do you make people care about it?
00:28:14How do you make people care about what you care about?
00:28:17That's sort of a very foundational thing in the world.
00:28:20And if you're not useful to the powers that be, like I think about Stephen King's first novel
00:28:24was Carrie and Carrie, uh, like a lot of stuff that was pushed.
00:28:28He's a good writer and all of that, but it was so viciously anti-Christian that, you
00:28:35know, the, the Bolsheviks in marketing and the Bolsheviks in publishing are like, well,
00:28:39great, you know, this makes Christians look terrible.
00:28:41It makes Christians look like they're, uh, terrible people who drive their children crazy
00:28:45because the mother's a religious fanatic, if I remember rightly.
00:28:48And, and so, so if you serve the powers that be, uh, man, you're good to go.
00:28:53Uh, but, but if you don't serve the powers that be, then you have to find people who
00:28:58care about something with no high octane jet fuel from the higher ups.
00:29:03And that is a very, very tough thing to do.
00:29:06So, uh, I certainly applaud your initiative.
00:29:08Obviously it's fantastic that you're so passionate about it.
00:29:11Uh, and of course, you know, the, the hope and goal is that it ends up giving you more
00:29:15time with your kids.
00:29:16Cause you know, a couple of months for a passion project is not the end of the world when it
00:29:19comes to parenting, but it is, it is a very, very tough thing to have people care about
00:29:26what you care about because for a lot of people, sorry to ramble on, but for a lot of people,
00:29:30when you show up and you want something from them, uh, which is either interest or funding.
00:29:35And even though you're going to say, look, it's an exchange of value.
00:29:38You pay me X dollars a month and I'll give you all of this great stuff.
00:29:40When you show up and you want something from people, you give them power over you and people
00:29:47don't do well with power as a whole.
00:29:49And most people will be, uh, kind of either hostile or contemptuous or, uh, sort of super
00:29:57indifferent in a superior fashion or so on.
00:29:59They maybe enjoy the fact that, that you want something from them.
00:30:02It makes them feel important.
00:30:03It makes them feel good, pompous and, and, uh, all of that.
00:30:06So a lot of people, you know, if, if you go out and you say, I really care about this,
00:30:12people are like, Oh, do you?
00:30:13And now they have this power over you and most people, because of the way they're raised
00:30:17in schools and all of this sort of stuff, they don't handle power very well.
00:30:21And so you've just got to grit your teeth and say, look, I know this is important.
00:30:25I know this is good for the world.
00:30:26I also know that me going out there saying those things is going to invite people to treat
00:30:32me badly and they're going to treat me badly based exactly on how much I care about this.
00:30:38Now, this may not be true in the homeschooling community, right?
00:30:40That's, I don't know much about the American homeschooling community, but I will say that
00:30:46that is a big challenge when it comes to marketing.
00:30:49It's one thing if you're just selling widgets or shoes or air conditioners or HVAC units
00:30:53or something like that, uh, that's one thing, then it's just a cost benefit thing.
00:30:57But if you actually care about something that's moral or important for the world to become a
00:31:02better place and has some sort of ethical essence to it, which it sounds like you're working
00:31:07on, whew, man, people, uh, people would just, uh, put the knife in, make sure it's rusty,
00:31:12twist it slowly and smile at the same time.
00:31:15Not everyone, obviously, but that's where it starts in for a lot of people.
00:31:19Yeah.
00:31:20And, uh, you know, uh, uh, I'll, I'll be evaluating with, uh, with a bias, uh, any pushback I get
00:31:27as, like you said, the power structure will promote what it wants to promote and what's
00:31:32good for it and do the opposite for the opposite. And, uh, um, a big part of what I think
00:31:39is,
00:31:39is important about people, uh, becoming wise, cause that's kind of the prerequisite I'm going
00:31:44to have for, for learning how to speak with persuasion. Uh, as far as like, I can, you know,
00:31:49derive, you know, how can you become wise in the world in two years or whatever? Uh, it's going
00:31:53to be kind of like a history and science basis, but once people become wise and then they learn
00:31:58how to speak persuasively, that is inherently dangerous. And I think, uh, maybe a big part
00:32:03of what the power structure has been angling away from six, maybe successful successfully
00:32:08for, for who knows how long, 50 years or a hundred years or however, maybe whenever it
00:32:13could, but maybe more effectively now. And so, uh, so yeah, so I'm sure I'm going to get
00:32:17some vitriol that's going to be, uh, paid for and, or just people seem to defend the system
00:32:24that they're, they're, they're grown up in and sense when something is outside of it
00:32:29and works against it and, and they'll work against it too. So yeah, I'm expecting a bunch
00:32:33of that, but, uh, the angle I think besides, um, appealing to people's want for their kids
00:32:39to have virtue, uh, and, uh, and, and live a good, good life, uh, is going to be the social
00:32:46angle, which I, I'm just getting into homeschooling, but again, I'm asking, you know, what are the
00:32:50pain points? And besides, you know, an organizational tool, big one is, are my kids going to be social,
00:32:56you know? And I, um, my kids are four cousins out of 13, 12 or 13 right here, right here
00:33:03in
00:33:03our, in our town, what outside, uh, is, uh, we're, we're quite a bit outside. We don't
00:33:09have any, I have no, no idea where that, but we're, we're outside. Anyways, we're all, there's
00:33:1313 kids that are all like five and six and not, I think six, six and under my kids are
00:33:19going to be the only ones that are getting homeschooled. And that's the, that's the first
00:33:21thing I hear about from my mom is, uh, you know, how, how are they, you know, they should
00:33:24really be around the cousins, you know, there's a room in, in, you know, their, your cousin's
00:33:28class. Uh, and, uh, I, I think it had a, I think school had a reverse effect on me as
00:33:35far as like how my, my social, my, I clammed up for like, like 15 years and pried myself out
00:33:42of it starting in my, my mid twenties, I think mostly as I recall it. Um, and, uh, so there's
00:33:48that and, and there's a lot of reasons why, why homeschooling in general is not very, you
00:33:53know, you just talk to your kids, you know, they don't, you know, they're, what are they
00:33:56going to learn from talking to another eight year old? You know, but, uh, but learn, teaching
00:34:00them how to speak and think. And, uh, uh, that's going to be, anyway, that's my first concept
00:34:06for like a marketing angles, you know, you maybe don't care if your kid's virtuous, but you'll
00:34:10care if your kid can be a convincing, you know, have a, have a good conversation, be, you know,
00:34:15be a good listener and, and, uh, be a good participant socially. And, uh, so it's hard
00:34:21to do. It's, I mean, I, you know, I hate to get into this old guy kids these days conversation,
00:34:27but, uh, youth are addicted to rapid fire moving comic images, you know, like the Instagram
00:34:35stuff and all of that. And, you know, it can be funny that it can absolutely be funny.
00:34:39It can absolutely be enjoyable, but there's no question that it's a cheese grater for your
00:34:43brain. It's a cheese grater for your concentration to develop an idea, to formulate it, to communicate
00:34:50it effectively, to overcome objections is a process of self-knowledge, commitment to principles,
00:34:56patience, and empathy. And kids don't really read fiction anymore. And fiction is one of
00:35:00the best ways outside of loving parents, or I guess alongside loving parents to develop
00:35:05empathy because you're literally looking into the brain of someone else that it teaches
00:35:09you empathy. And if you go to the book source these days, uh, it's just absolute awful,
00:35:16awful stuff that's out there. It's all just, you know, uh, semi-Marxist, uh, social programming,
00:35:21and it's all for a political effect. None of it is a genuine exploration of the human condition
00:35:27and what it means to be alive and thoughtful in a society, uh, nothing like that. And so the
00:35:33lack of fiction, the lack of long-term dialogue, the handing down of brain shredding, they call
00:35:40it, they literally call it brain rot. You know, I'm sure you've heard this, uh, term like the
00:35:44six servant kind of stuff, this gibbity toilet stuff and phantom tax and, uh, all of this sort
00:35:49of stuff. It is horrendous on concentration and patience and empathy and, uh, long form conversations.
00:35:58And it is all, uh, a spiral down for a lot of young people. It's a spiral down to like
00:36:04the most
00:36:05edgelord shocking, uh, statements, uh, to see who can out pace each other in the grim unraveling of
00:36:11any sacred cows. And that's really tough for long form conversation. So, uh, what, what you're doing
00:36:18in terms of helping people build the concentration, the empathy, and the throughput to communicate
00:36:22effectively, boy, that is really going to differentiate people in the workforce going forward. You know,
00:36:28I mean, one of the things that's tough with young people, it's just basic eye contact. They're actually
00:36:32not used to looking at people. They're just used to looking at screens and having eye contact, which
00:36:37is, you know, eye contact, firm handshake, good posture, you know, all of that kind of stuff, uh, that
00:36:42was sort of drilled in by the mad men generation, but you know, it's a lot of, a lot of,
00:36:45a lot of good
00:36:46stuff. Uh, they, they can't seem to maintain that. And, but at the same time, and of course there's
00:36:52costs and benefits to everything, but at the same time, they also, the degree of corrosive
00:36:58skepticism among young people these days to all of the sacred cows, some of which they should be
00:37:03skeptical of and some of which they should absolutely be hostile towards is really quite
00:37:07remarkable. So, you know, there's pluses and minuses for sure. Concentration, empathy, patience,
00:37:12throughput, communication, following a line of argument and so on. And the back and forth of
00:37:18conversation, you know, I'm sure you've heard this when I do call in shows, I usually spend the first
00:37:2215, 20 minutes just trying to figure out when I can and can't talk. Cause you know, I, I'm not
00:37:26in
00:37:26the room with someone to just go with audio cues. So just getting the ebb and flow of conversation
00:37:31is tough, but at the same time, they've been exposed to a lot of information that goes against
00:37:36generalized narratives and things that my generation would find shocking. They just shrug
00:37:40and accept. So, you know, there's, there's, so if you take that skepticism and you combine it
00:37:46with good skills in rhetoric and conversation and debate, boy, there's be a very powerful force
00:37:51among the young. So that's why I think one of the things, one of the reasons I was interested in
00:37:55what you're doing. Thanks. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, you mentioned, uh, eye contact and it's fine. Cause
00:38:03like, you know, we go for walks, you know, stroller walks with our, with our kids and, and, uh, and
00:38:07it's
00:38:07normal to, you know, when you, when anybody my age or even just a little bit younger, you know,
00:38:12as you're walking past them, there's a certain point where you make eye contact, nod, kind of
00:38:16wave. And, you know, and then you, as when you get right near them, how you doing, you know,
00:38:19none of that with the kids, you, you, you'll never, you'll, you know, a 17 year old walking
00:38:23down the street with his, or sidewalk with his phone, you know, and he'll, he'll, he'll barely
00:38:27look up just right when you're getting there, just to make sure you're not going to jump at
00:38:30him or something. And it'll never, never look at you in the eye and never, you know, nod at
00:38:35you or anything. I mean, just, just kind of pretend like you're not there. Uh, there reminds me of
00:38:39something like there's, there's something where it feels like, um, like, like kids kind
00:38:44of treat like the world, like it's the internet where they just, uh, you know, they, they tell
00:38:49it what they want or they ask it what they want and they don't have to say, you know, you
00:38:53know, Oh, okay. Thank you. Or whatever. Like I find myself like thanking Claude, like, like,
00:38:57okay, please continue or whatever, you know, the amount of, of water that is consumed for
00:39:02the sake of, uh, Gen X and elder politeness. Like I have to, I have to remind myself not to
00:39:07say
00:39:07please and thank you because it's just wasting compute cycles for the, for the entity that
00:39:11doesn't care at all. Right. It is. Doesn't care. Yeah. But that's another thing too, is
00:39:15that, uh, politeness among the younger generation appears to be fairly absent. I mean, I was raised
00:39:24probably a little bit too much with, you know, respect your elders and please and thank you
00:39:27and all of that. Um, but the young people, uh, it's really, it's really remarkable just how
00:39:33little respect they have for their elders. I'm not saying that a lot of us haven't earned it,
00:39:38earned that lack of respect, but, uh, it's almost completely gone. The youth culture. I mean,
00:39:42of course they've been programmed, you know, every kid's show the parents are idiots and dofuses and
00:39:47the kids are cool and wise and know everything. And, and that's just a way to make sure that the
00:39:51kids can be programmed by peer pressure in the media and bypassing any parental wisdom. I get all
00:39:55of that. That's just a standard control mechanism for a culture, but yeah, it's really,
00:40:01it's really wild just how little, uh, respect there is, uh, for any kind of elder. And again,
00:40:08it was a bit too much for me. You'd go into a room with a mom or dad and you'd
00:40:12be like,
00:40:12Oh, gotta keep my elbows off the table. And I gotta, I gotta make sure I don't, uh, speak while
00:40:17I'm
00:40:17and don't slip my tea. You know, that, so I get that may have been a little bit, uh, over,
00:40:22um, gulagged, but, uh, it's really, you know, watching that pendulum swift is a pretty wild thing.
00:40:29Yeah. And you know, the stuff that when your parents teach you for how you have to behave
00:40:32in front of them, of course, when you do that, when you're in a room full of strangers, you're
00:40:36at a new dinner, whatever, you know, it was, it was strangers that you don't rub people the wrong
00:40:41way. You learn how to, how to not rub people the wrong way. Um, my wife had the idea that
00:40:46we should
00:40:47make, you know, it seems like every, every, every day in the last 10 days, I've added some course or
00:40:50something like that, but she thought that, you know, like a manners, manners and politeness course.
00:40:55And so I was like, I was like, Claude, what do you think about this? Like, he's like, he's like,
00:40:59he's like the Greeks, the Greek writers and the Roman writers, they had a name for this. Like,
00:41:03this was a, this was a, this was a thing that they, they taught, you know, it was, you know,
00:41:07it was, uh, it was, uh, formal, I couldn't tell you what it was or not. But anyways, it was,
00:41:12as it has a formal foundation, it's not a stretch to have a course in, you know, usually it's a
00:41:16little
00:41:16bit younger, but to have a course in manners and politeness. And, and yeah, it does seem like,
00:41:21uh, like you said that the kids seem like they've been programmed out of having respect for
00:41:26anybody, uh, but especially people that are older than them. And, and maybe we don't,
00:41:31maybe we old people don't have a whole lot of perspective. Like I, I have no idea what kids
00:41:36that are 18 do like on their, on their phone or 20 or 22. Like I have no idea what,
00:41:41what they do.
00:41:42Um, I, I feel like, well, I'm getting off on a tangent, but I feel like, you know,
00:41:46there's, there's still that draw to, you know, find purpose and meaning however misplaced,
00:41:52but it's, it's, it's, uh, or however it's being misused. For me, it was video game. Like I was,
00:41:56I was a very early adopter of playing video games all day. That's all I wanted. When I was 18,
00:42:00I wanted to find, I almost became a priest because it seemed to me like I only had to work
00:42:03one day
00:42:03a week and, uh, and I could just, I could just play Ultima online, uh, for all the rest of
00:42:08the time.
00:42:09And, uh, and that was my goal was to find a place to, to, to be able to do that.
00:42:14And then I was
00:42:14like 35 before it stopped being fun. Uh, thank God it did, you know? And then I was like, it
00:42:20was
00:42:20like, it was like waking up, you know? And, uh, and then I went out and that's when I became,
00:42:24frankly, a handyman. I was, I was doing a whole bunch of just little jobs, the littlest that I
00:42:28could do to pay the rent in a room with my computer. As long as I had my computer and
00:42:34a place to sleep,
00:42:35I was, I had, I thought that that was all it was going to take to make me happy for
00:42:38my life.
00:42:39And there's like a little bit of that, you know, uh, purpose and meaning and you grow,
00:42:43you know, the growth that you get from leveling up and stuff like that, that I could see just kind
00:42:46of grabbing a kid's, you know, purpose and meaning leveling up. You mean like not in life,
00:42:51but in the video game, in the video game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get the experience,
00:42:55you know, the experience. And, uh, yeah. So I'm sure that these kids have that. And, and, uh, um,
00:43:02anyways, that's, that's the topic for another time is, is, you know, figure out how to help them,
00:43:06you know, figure out what they want to do with their life. But I've, I've, you know,
00:43:08I've got one course, which I think addresses just that called, uh, the good, the good life or
00:43:13I forget exactly what it's called, but that's, that's the essence of it is like, what is life
00:43:16well lived? And, uh, hopefully it's going to help, help people. I, so many things are authored and
00:43:23barely, barely edited and I've got to look more, but I did a lot of steering with, you know, how,
00:43:28how it was going to lay it out and stuff like that and push back. And I got a good
00:43:31skeleton,
00:43:31I thought, but, and hopefully it's got a good skeleton. Hopefully these are going to be really
00:43:34good. I'm really hoping, I don't know how long it's going to take to get these out. Uh, uh, I
00:43:40would
00:43:40like to think that, I mean, it's, it's like, it's going to be like a million and a half words.
00:43:44Um,
00:43:45I think it's going to be something like a year, but, but hopefully when you say it, uh, you're referring
00:43:50to the general curriculum or some specific part. Yeah. The curriculum, the curriculum, uh, and,
00:43:56and actually the specific part part is, is, uh, notable because, uh, because I'm gating
00:44:04my plan as of a few days ago is to gate some, to, we're not going to let people be
00:44:08persuasive,
00:44:09learn how to be a persuasive speaker until they've taken our stuff that we think is going to mean,
00:44:14Claude think are going to make you more wise or whatever. Um, because it's, it's funny. I studied
00:44:22with a Taekwondo master during a chapter of my life when I was about 37. I had a grandmaster
00:44:29in Los Angeles, uh, lived in the dojo, uh, like, uh, me and about 20 guys lived in the dojo.
00:44:36All of
00:44:36them were almost all of them. One, one was older than me, but all of them were younger than me
00:44:40and, uh, practice twice, uh, you know, three practice three times a night or three nights a
00:44:45week. And then in the morning, like the other three mornings a week, we'd get up to 6am, listen to
00:44:49them talk for an hour and then go outside and do running around like we're Rocky and
00:44:52practice, you know, doing different wind sprints and stuff like that. But anyways, he, he, he
00:44:57was a, he was a guy who would, who would try to teach you about, you know, life and being
00:45:01a good, you know, going and getting what you want and stuff like that. He was a very interesting
00:45:06guy. He was like about 80 years old, but very early in his, in his career, he came over
00:45:11from Korea and he was in San Francisco and he, uh, he taught this, all this stuff to,
00:45:18to, uh, Jim Jones who went off to, uh, you know, do all that stuff with the Kool-Aid,
00:45:24you know what I mean? But Jim Jones was, was one of his guys. And ever since then,
00:45:28it kind of occurred to me that you gotta be careful who you, uh, who you, who you give the
00:45:32keys to the kingdom to, you know, you gotta make sure that they got their, their heads
00:45:36in the right place kind of a thing. And so that was kind of the inspiration for me doing
00:45:40the gating of the, of the redder part of it. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I guess I'm probably
00:45:47not going to have to, in general, have to, uh, have that specific thing ready, but, but
00:45:53yeah, the kind of the, the first steps, I guess, you know, I could probably have those
00:45:56ready in a, in a month. I, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be a big lift. I
00:46:00don't,
00:46:02uh, because this is a public hall and it feels, it feels like I'm putting myself in a vulnerable
00:46:06spot, but you know, what the heck, I guess I'm already there. Uh, I don't know to, to,
00:46:10to what degree you feel like you might, might, might be interested in, in working with it.
00:46:16But, uh, I fancifully, uh, pictured, uh, there's this, there's this part of it where
00:46:24kids are arguing, they have things called declamations. I'm not exactly sure what that
00:46:30is, but it has something, it's, it's, it's the more, it's the more free form verbose making
00:46:35an argument part of it, which I think parents are going to struggle with knowing how to grade
00:46:41it and something like that. And, and, uh, uh, and that's, then that itself, it could be
00:46:45like a lot of time. I don't know, like, uh, watching a video and, and, and giving feedback
00:46:50or even doing it one-on-one. But, uh, um, but yeah, in addition to, you know, coming up
00:46:56with maybe ideas that this, because, because, because I don't know anything about, about any
00:47:02of this, I know, I know very little about this stuff, of course, you know, 10, 10 days,
00:47:06like, what did the Romans do, you know, 10 days ago? Um, it seems like it makes sense
00:47:11that it's going to be good. Uh, but, uh, you've, I mean, just when I got to like the,
00:47:15like the, I did a history, I did a philosophy survey book and then I got to a, like a
00:47:20history
00:47:20of philosophy book and we did the skeleton, but I put, I put it to the side and didn't, it
00:47:25didn't work on it. Uh, cause I, I sent you the email and, uh, I know that you particularly,
00:47:31I mean, you wrote, you know, the book on it, I believe. Um, but I'm sure that there's
00:47:36parts of this that you'd want to have your hands on more than, than others. I don't know.
00:47:44Have you thought anything about that?
00:47:45Yeah. Yeah. Listen, first of all, I hugely appreciate and respect the ask, right? Cause
00:47:50it's hard to ask, you know, for people who haven't gone through this entrepreneurial stuff,
00:47:54uh, to, to do the ask and to say, Hey, can you help me out with this project? Or I
00:47:58think
00:47:58you could add some real value, hugely respect the ask and, and people don't know, um, how,
00:48:05how tough that can be. And so I, I hugely respect that. I don't know it's yet. I will say
00:48:10though,
00:48:10that I think that the most value that I can provide to you at the moment would be how to
00:48:14get it out there because, um, if it's out there, then it's worth more for me to contribute to.
00:48:23If I contribute to it, that's not going to be enough of a lever to get it out there.
00:48:29And, uh, if I contribute to it and it doesn't get out there, then we've wasted our time.
00:48:34If that makes sense. Yeah. So, um, listen, if, uh, I have thought countless times over the course
00:48:40of my entire life, how would I teach philosophy or debate or rhetoric to kids? I mean, I'm pretty
00:48:48good at it. And I think I'm not just one of these guys who's instinctively good at it.
00:48:51And, you know, like there was some actor who had this sort of famous thoughtful gaze and somebody's
00:48:57like, well, how do you do that? He's like, I don't know. I just, I stare at the ground. I
00:49:00just
00:49:00kind of unfocused my eyes and I can't remember which actor it was, but it's like, and people think
00:49:04he's thinking about life, the universe and everything. And he's just blurring his vision.
00:49:07He doesn't know what he's doing. Uh, so, but I actually have examined the sort of principles by which
00:49:14I formulate our ideas, arguments and converse. So I wouldn't be one of these guys who's just like,
00:49:20well, just do what I do. You know, like, uh, uh, just, just, uh, I don't know why I do
00:49:25it.
00:49:25I don't know how I do it. It just kind of comes to me in a dream and then I
00:49:27write it down, but I
00:49:28actually have some idea as to why I am able to do what I do. So I think it would
00:49:34be helpful to get
00:49:35that across. I do certainly appreciate that you want to make sure you don't give the weapon of
00:49:40rhetoric to evildoers because they can use it as they do very, very powerfully to learn the art of the
00:49:47argument, the art of rhetoric without a foundational moral base is a very dangerous thing, of course,
00:49:55because then you armed, you armed the, the bad guys without arming the good guys. And that's
00:50:01like, you're not a very good combo at all. So the challenge, yeah, the challenge is to get people,
00:50:08people, uh, interested in it. Now getting stuff from zero to some sort of market penetration,
00:50:16uh, I've had, oh gosh, a wide variety of experience with that as a whole.
00:50:22And I'm not sure what things are like in the realm of modern tech, because it has been like 20
00:50:28years
00:50:28since I started building this show up. So, uh, of course, back in the day, you would go to conferences.
00:50:35There are tons of homeschooling conferences. So you'd go to conferences, you'd have a booth,
00:50:39you'd try to become a speaker and, uh, you would try to, uh, abstract something from what it is
00:50:45that you're doing to be a value to the homeschooling community as a whole. But, uh, having a booth and
00:50:51chatting with people the way that we used to do it in the business world is you would ask for
00:50:56people's
00:50:56contact information. I did a lot of business to business sales. So I would offer a free, I don't know,
00:51:04like it was free. What did we do back then? We would give a free, uh, iPod. This is way
00:51:08back in
00:51:09the day, free iPod, right? Uh, you just put your card in and that's how you gather cards. And then
00:51:13you just do follow-up and you do your phone slogs and you, you know, send out your emails. You
00:51:17try
00:51:18to arrange for meetings to go and present and so on. So that's B2B, but you're a business to consumer.
00:51:23So there are of course, tons of conferences. Uh, you might have to leg it a little bit to get
00:51:29out
00:51:29there and you know, there's some fees for setting it up, but it's sort of how to raise interest as
00:51:33you talk about the sort of ways to raise money to do it. And it's good that you're infusing labor
00:51:39into the AI stuff. Cause of course, if you say, Oh, I built this whole thing using AI, the natural
00:51:45investment response is to say, well, then just about anyone can do it. Right. Right. Right. Or, or people
00:51:49can just say, uh, teach me rhetoric to AI and AI will come up with a series of now. So
00:51:56a couple of
00:51:57questions that pop into my mind, uh, how would you, uh, mark the students? Cause you're going to
00:52:03give them some sort of certification of completion and so on. Uh, and I assume some of it because
00:52:07it's rhetoric, it can't be multiple choice answers, which can be marked by a computer,
00:52:11but you're going to have to evaluate argument and flow and content and structure and grammar and so
00:52:16on. And AI can do grammar, but how would you have the students coursework, especially if they're
00:52:24doing free form, let's say they submit a video of here's how I would do this argument or they have
00:52:29a debate and you've got to mark the participants. How would that get, get graded? Uh, so it came
00:52:35up with a, a rubric, uh, which I haven't looked at, but it's something that it tells the parent
00:52:40what, what to look for. Uh, you know, and maybe the kid, maybe it'll probably be like, I imagine
00:52:46the parent would video, you know, and, and look back at and, you know, and be able to, you know,
00:52:51so they don't have to absorb it all and just have it, you know, bouncing off of their, you
00:52:54know, what, you know, what they have no idea about anyway, but, uh, I guess, what, what
00:52:58do they call it here? It's, uh, no. So the short answer is, would it be graded by people
00:53:04or AI? Uh, yeah. And they would be graded by people, uh, as far as, yeah, the, the complex
00:53:11stuff, as far as like how, how, how people make arguments kind of a thing, uh, I think would
00:53:15have to be, I think would have to be. And so, you know, I'm, I'm picturing, uh, uh, if there's,
00:53:21you know, if, if, if there's enough money, that it's, it's something like a team of tutors who
00:53:27sees the videos and, uh, and grades them ultimately. Uh, that's kind of the ultimate
00:53:32infrastructure. I, I would see working, you know, cause some team of experts who,
00:53:39individuals rather, who, who could watch a video, give, give the feedback, give, give an indication
00:53:43about the marks and, and, uh, and, and be open, I guess, maybe even open to, uh, to actual
00:53:49tutoring also. And what is the head count of user base that would make it, uh, economically
00:53:56viable? Not many, uh, uh, not many because software has a notoriously large margin, if I'm
00:54:07saying that right. But, uh, it's scalable. Yeah, for sure. Cause you get the one product
00:54:11and people can just keep feeding into it. And each additional user is almost no cost.
00:54:15Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's a few, but I mean, there's a, a million, is it a million?
00:54:20There's 4 million kids. There's 4 million homeschool kids right now. And, uh, uh, a year and a half
00:54:26ago or whenever that analysis was done and the market is expected to grow to double in the
00:54:32next five years, uh, by 2031, that's the, that's the money spent. I'm not exactly sure
00:54:37if that's scaling or if, but it's, it's gotta be somewhat maybe proportionate because, because
00:54:41the homeschool audience is growing faster than, uh, it's bigger than it was before. I'm
00:54:47sorry. At the peak, it's bigger than it was at the peak of, uh, COVID when a lot of people
00:54:51started homeschooling and then it kind of took a dive and now it's, it's, it's on its way,
00:54:55it's on its way back up. So anyways, uh, with there being a million homeschool families,
00:55:01um, I mean, if I, if I was, if I, if I had 50,000 or 10, 10,000, it
00:55:07would be a lot, you
00:55:09know, a lot of, a lot of money. I haven't come into the, I haven't figured out how much
00:55:12of that would have to go out into the, you know, the grading, the grading of the, of the
00:55:17rhetoric rhetoric and, uh, uh, and some other stuff, but most, almost everything except for
00:55:22that, that segment is kind of controlled. It could be a five man team or something at the
00:55:27most or something like that. And so it's, uh, as a potential to be, you know, some, some
00:55:32money. Um, and would you require the people who do the grading to have credentials?
00:55:39Uh, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I guess I would want them to be as skilled and give
00:55:45as much value as possible. Yeah. They wouldn't necessarily have to be teachers, but they would
00:55:50have to be people with some skill, obviously some skill in the subject, right? You want a math,
00:55:54you want somebody who's at least got a math degree to, to do the math grading if it's more
00:55:58complex and so on. Although math grading can be done by AI a lot more easily than analyzing
00:56:03an argument. Although I don't know. I mean, it would be interesting to see how good AI is
00:56:09as it continues to develop at a grading, uh, people. Uh, so, and providing suggestions and
00:56:15tips and so on. Again, the more that can be automated, the better, but the more that can
00:56:18be automated, the tough it is to monopolize, right? So now the other question, of course,
00:56:23in America, from what I understand, there are homeschooling communities where, you know,
00:56:30some teacher will teach, no, sorry, some parent who's good at something will, will teach it
00:56:35and so on. And that's how they solve the problem of socializing, right? So, um, they will get
00:56:43together as you pointed earlier, there's sort of the road trips or the, the field days and
00:56:47so on field trips. And so, and, and they get together for, for games and they have their
00:56:52proms and dances and so on. And so with the AI online stuff, the course curriculum, uh, would
00:56:59you have a physical meetups? Would you facilitate that kind of thing? Cause that's what a lot of
00:57:03people are looking for. So, yeah, I mean, well, part of my app was, uh, was this field trip idea
00:57:10cause there's not a real good field trip, you know, which, which is not in and of itself
00:57:15multifamily, but, uh, I, I built this thing that would, uh, it's got like 40, is it 40, sorry,
00:57:2224,000 field trips, whatever, you know, and, and AI did an analysis pass on, you know, if
00:57:27it's good for science or whatever. And then it's got the ability to say, I want to do this.
00:57:31I'm open to doing this with other families and let me know when a certain kind of critical
00:57:34mass is reached and then somebody will have the opportunity to organize it. It's sort of like,
00:57:38that's a, it's a, it's a, it's a slightly different thing. Uh, and, and I'm kind of
00:57:42brand new to all this stuff. Okay. Like a month ago, but I understand that co-ops is, I think
00:57:46that's what you're talking about. And, uh, and we do have a co-op, I don't know, registry
00:57:52basically. Uh, and it's going to hopefully, you know, have where people can tell, tell it
00:57:57if there's openings and stuff like that. But, uh, I can, I haven't thought anything about
00:58:03this, but that's, that's very smart. You can, you can have like one parent in a co-op
00:58:07who's, who gets good or is good at grading rhetoric and, and is able to, to do that in
00:58:13one pass, maybe like once a month or something like that. Um, to, uh, to move the ball forward
00:58:18like that. Yeah. That would be a, yeah, that's smart. I like, yeah, I like that. That's good.
00:58:23Yeah. In, in the business world. Uh, I don't know if this is still considered a thing back,
00:58:27back in my day, we do something called a SWOT analysis, which is, uh, S W O T strengths,
00:58:32weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Uh, so, uh, the strengths you've been talking
00:58:36about, the weaknesses would be relative to other homeschool curricula, other homeschool
00:58:41approaches. And there's just a wide variety of homeschool approaches. Uh, so, uh, your
00:58:47strengths would be, uh, I think stuff you've gone through weakness would, would have to be
00:58:51relative to other, uh, opportunities. Of course, you talk about the doubling of, of people
00:58:56and so on. Some of those people are going to be absorbed into existing homeschool groups.
00:59:00So one of the ways that, that homeschooling grows is, you know, your neighbor that you're
00:59:05friends with is homeschooling. And then you're like, their kids seem happy and productive.
00:59:10And then your kids are being bullied or that's having, it's too woke or too anti-white or anti-male
00:59:14or something like that. Or, or they're threatening your kids with, uh, you know, if we just give
00:59:19them some adjusted meth, uh, your, your, your boys will be very, very happy with this ADHD medication
00:59:25or something like that. And so something happens that vaults you out of a regular school. And then,
00:59:32you know, you talk to your friend or your neighbor who homeschools and they say, oh yeah, well, we're
00:59:36part of this group and so on. And then you kind of get absorbed into that, which would be, so
00:59:40just
00:59:40because the market's growing doesn't mean it's growing in a direction that's going to focus on
00:59:45you. Because again, there's a lot of feed in mechanisms or, uh, or you just, you know, you Google,
00:59:50you know, homeschool groups in my neighborhood. And then you go and talk to them and see if there's
00:59:56a good fit and, and so on. But some of the homeschool groups, of course, uh, have very
01:00:00specific, uh, requirements, uh, which I'm not sure would be part of what you're doing, which is,
01:00:05you know, you may need to be of a foundational religious belief in sort of X, Y, or Z denomination
01:00:11and so on, uh, because they want to keep that, uh, mindset, uh, among the kids and so on. One,
01:00:17one could say they don't want to expose them to opposing views, but that may be uncharitable.
01:00:21They want to keep a consistency of belief system within the group. So, uh, so that may not fit,
01:00:27uh, for everyone. I do think that non-fundamentalist homeschooling is a big thing, is a big thing that's
01:00:37coming because there are a lot of people who are conservatives, but not a fundamentalist in their
01:00:42religious beliefs. They are somewhat Christian or agnostic or even atheist. And the homeschooling
01:00:49opportunities, I think for that is not big. And of course you would want to cover the Christian stuff,
01:00:55but I think if you had an approach that would be welcoming to, um, more secular, objective,
01:01:04non-religious people, I think that's going to be a underserved market. And it's one of these things,
01:01:09there aren't that many atheists who homeschool, which means there aren't going to be many atheists
01:01:14who homeschool because they can't find the kind of community that they want. And I think that their
01:01:18atheism is one of the biggest growing belief systems. And there is a lot of dissatisfaction
01:01:24among atheists at the quality of education. Not all atheists are hyper leftist libtards, but
01:01:30I think that would be a very interesting, uh, module to build and would be, uh, there's no reason why
01:01:37it
01:01:37couldn't coexist with, uh, a religious module as well. But I think that kind of stuff, uh, is a,
01:01:45uh, opportunity. So yeah, the strengths you have, uh, the weaknesses you have would be relative to
01:01:50other flows of getting people into homeschooling. Uh, the opportunities, uh, certainly there's a lot
01:01:55of people coming in and some of those people are coming in. Okay. Of course, you know, homeschooling
01:02:00in America in particular grew because, uh, increasing secular humanism in schools and people wanted to be
01:02:05able to maintain their religious beliefs with their kids. But now the social socializing aspect of
01:02:12schools has diminished considerably, uh, particularly with multiculturalism, right?
01:02:17Because of course, uh, if, uh, you know, half the kids mostly speak Spanish and half the kids, uh,
01:02:22from wildly different cultures that you don't really know how your kids are going to socialize
01:02:26with, uh, then the sort of socializing aspect of school becomes a little bit closer to, I mean,
01:02:32imagine an ad is like, Hey, do you really need to develop your social schools? Have you considered
01:02:38prison? You'll be locked in with people and you'll have a whole lot of interactions with them. There
01:02:43will be no escape and most of them won't be super violent, right? So that would not be a big,
01:02:49that could be kind of a funny ad, but that's what it's a whole lot different. And people,
01:02:53you know, like your mom or your, your wife's mom, they're looking at school like back in the day,
01:02:59like back in the sixties, like, you know, 95% white and everyone's comes from the same belief
01:03:03system and, and therefore socializing is a plus, but it's a whole lot different now. So I think that
01:03:09the socializing argument is less positive. I think bullying is up, particularly the cyber bullying
01:03:14stuff. And of course the peer pressure stuff, because there's a bunch of real feral kids
01:03:20out in schools these days who are, I mean, it's not just,
01:03:23the people who called in to, to my show, but you know, a lot of kids who were like, you
01:03:27know,
01:03:28my, my body count at 16 is five. And, you know, I started doing drugs and drinking at 14 or
01:03:3315.
01:03:34And they, they really trying to spread this is like the bad guys don't just, it's a virus,
01:03:39like it spreads. And so there's a lot of that stuff that's going on. Gang activity is, is fairly
01:03:46big and fairly difficult in the world of school these days. And of course the content has just
01:03:50become, I mean, I was so lucky when I was a kid because it was all just boring.
01:03:56Like boring is way better than toxic and invasive and trying to set you against your soul, your skin,
01:04:04your gender, you know, like at least all I was, was bored. I wasn't constantly told I was an evil
01:04:09guy for breathing. So I think that there is a, a lot of refugees coming out of government schools,
01:04:18schools, not for the reasons that American homeschooling was originally founded, which,
01:04:22I mean, there's, there's sort of two elements of homeschooling. One is, uh, the foundationalist,
01:04:27uh, foundationalist Christianity. And the other is just the hippies, right? Just the counterculture.
01:04:32Don't let the man tell you what to do. And you can study at your own pace and do whatever
01:04:36you want.
01:04:37You know, the, the bong indifference and, and anti-parenting, uh, unparenting stuff that's been
01:04:42going on, which I think is actually really bad and fairly toxic. Uh, kids need involvement.
01:04:46They can't learn on their own anymore than you and I can invent all the technology required to
01:04:50have this conversation. So I think the opportunities are, you know, one of the things that I would do
01:04:57as far as marketing goes is I would dig up how dangerous, toxic and negative schools are these
01:05:03days and say, uh, my argument would be, okay, if you're, if your kid had a friend who was saying
01:05:09this, if your kid had a friend who was doing this, if your kid had a friend who hated him
01:05:14for a skin
01:05:14color or hated him for being male, if your, if your kid had a friend who was, who said, you
01:05:21can only
01:05:21be my friend if you do these drugs. Well, that friend is your school, right? And because, you
01:05:26know, the schools are saying, Hey, if you want your, your intelligent kid to sit like a turnip for six
01:05:32hours a day, he's going to have to take, uh, these, these psychotropic drugs. I mean, that's really,
01:05:37really terrible and, and dangerous stuff. Uh, and so, or, you know, if, if you're, you would get the
01:05:44average stats of like a drug use and promiscuity and alcohol use and, and so on among kids, uh,
01:05:50at the age of say 15 or 16. And, you know, let's say it's 20%, 30%, 40%. Like, would you
01:05:56let your
01:05:56kid be part of a peer group where a third of the kids were doing drugs and sleeping around? It's
01:06:02like,
01:06:02that's your classroom. That's where you're sending your kid. Right. So, uh, to sort of personalize it,
01:06:08uh, and all of that, and then look at the trends for cyber bullying, for, uh, other kinds of bullying
01:06:13and say, you know, would you, you're not sending your kid to the school you went to. That's another
01:06:18thing I would say to parents, like, this is how the school looked when you went. This is how the
01:06:22school looks now. Do not judge. You know, it's like saying, it's like going to the, the, I would
01:06:28say, would you, would you go to the cell phone store and say, I need a rotary dial phone? No.
01:06:33Cause they'd say, well, you know, actually you're old enough to know. No, no,
01:06:36you're not probably not even old enough to like the rotary dial. Right. Just barely. Right. Yeah.
01:06:40I remember. I remember. Right. Right. Uh, you know, so, um, you don't go to a car dealership and
01:06:46ask for a model T, right? So, so helping parents to understand that they cannot judge what their
01:06:51kids are experiencing by what they experienced. There's been way too much of a change. And you
01:06:55can talk about the demographics, the language issues, the different belief systems, the cyber
01:06:59bullying, the promiscuity is way up the drug use. I think vaping and all of that has increased in some
01:07:04areas. So helping kids. So the first thing with selling a solution is helping people understand
01:07:11that they have a problem. And I don't think if parents say, well, you know, my school wasn't
01:07:16that bad. Public school is fine and it's free and blah, blah, blah. It's like, it's not free when you
01:07:20have to pay for rehab. It's not free when you have to pay for a psychologist to rescue your kids
01:07:24from
01:07:25toxic ideology. It's not free. If, uh, your kid decides he wants to do something crazy medically.
01:07:31Right. So I would say that, uh, part of the marketing, uh, fear is a big motivator and fear
01:07:37is not something you want to misuse. Like fear is not, you know, like, are you afraid of missing
01:07:41out on abs? You need to drink this beer. Right. So you don't want to misuse this kind of stuff,
01:07:46but there are legitimate concerns that parents should have. Uh, particularly as people get older
01:07:52as parents, like the age of parents, it used to be early, mid twenties. Now it's late twenties,
01:07:56early thirties. And that means that they're further removed from the changes in education
01:08:01since they were a little and so on. And the changes in education are pretty wild because
01:08:07when I was a kid, I was being taught by people who'd been taught by people in their thirties.
01:08:13So it was very sort of objective, again, kind of boring, but not toxic. Uh, but now, uh, as,
01:08:19as you get this, this radicalization, uh, that has occurred in, in teachers, colleges,
01:08:24in universities. Now your kids are being taught by those who radicalized, you know, 40, 50 years
01:08:30ago. And it's a whole different, uh, education system. And you can get samples of the curriculum
01:08:35and say, you know, if, if your kid had a friend who was telling them this stuff, would you encourage
01:08:43that friendship? You know? Uh, and, uh, of course, you know, so if you personalize it and help people
01:08:49to educate people as to how things have changed and the dangers, and really the,
01:08:54the kids in schools these days, particularly white males are facing existential, uh, threats to
01:08:59identity and self-esteem, uh, because it is absolutely constant. Well, you don't get any
01:09:03points for privilege because you're a white male, but as a white, a white female, you get a few more
01:09:07points. It's just this crazy Marxist hierarchy of, um, victimization. And the purpose of programming
01:09:15people with victimization is to make them feel justified in violence and aggression and abuse,
01:09:22right? Because if you're a victim, you're a cornered rat, you fight back, right? So constantly
01:09:25telling people they're victimized is, uh, ginning them up for, uh, violence, which is, is now coming
01:09:31and it's only going to escalate, unfortunately. So helping parents understand how much things have
01:09:37changed, uh, and personalizing it. Like if you had a friend who was telling your son this, this,
01:09:44and this, would you consider that friend toxic? Well, that's your kid's teacher. And here's your
01:09:49solution. You know, so you, you tell people of the dangers, right? And then you say, you know,
01:09:53here, here's a guy dying of smoking, you know, talking out of the hole in his throat. Here's a
01:09:58guy dying of smoking. Uh, then, you know, the angels come down and here's your smoking cessation
01:10:02program with a 90% effectiveness rate. You can avoid this fate. So I think telling people the,
01:10:07the genuine concerns that they should have about their children. And then, you know, uh, here's the
01:10:15solution. And, uh, you know, are you concerned that you're not part of this particular fundamentalist
01:10:20group and therefore you can't, you're not welcome in homeschooling? Uh, you know, here's our, uh,
01:10:25Greco Roman, uh, enlightenment based, uh, rationality based, uh, uh, maybe, um, a deist
01:10:31based or, or non focused on particular religious issues. We teach your kids how to think, not just
01:10:37have faith or, or something like that. So, uh, while we also welcome people with faith. So,
01:10:42uh, this is just off the top of my head. Sorry, go ahead. No, no. I mean, I think, I
01:10:46think that
01:10:48there's, there's a lot of people that we come across, uh, in our neighborhood, my wife, we're,
01:10:53we're meeting people as she goes for walks and we're meeting a lot of people that have
01:10:57their Mormons and they've got very good arguments. They make, you know, they're, they're,
01:11:01they're decent anyway. Uh, they make, but they make arguments. And, and I think that giving
01:11:07this just, this just shows me that people that have religion, they, they want to have
01:11:11to be able to make arguments and, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, you know, there's no reason
01:11:16to think that people that can, can think and make arguments are going to be more one way
01:11:21or the other. And, and I mean, there is, but there isn't a little bit on the defensive
01:11:25as well, um, because of the sort of onset of secularism. So they have certainly honed and
01:11:30refined their arguments, which may have been left fallow when they were more dominant, but
01:11:33sorry, go ahead. No. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, I, it was interesting that you said
01:11:37that the, that the fundamentalists or, or that the, uh, kind of the, the on the ons,
01:11:44the, the, the biggest maybe segment of the homeschooling thing has kind of a religious
01:11:48base basis. Cause I never even, I never even thought of that. Like I, I first, I guess,
01:11:53maybe started thinking about homeschooling. Uh, there was two things. One, I was in, I was
01:12:00in Los Angeles and I was poor. So I was taking the bus and these, these kids would be taking
01:12:04the, they would be at the bus stop going home from high school and was like purple hair
01:12:10and, and nose rings. And, uh, and, and, you know, and they were just, you know, standing
01:12:14around doing, they, they looked like, I didn't want to, I didn't want to get off the bus right
01:12:17there. You know what I mean? Just outside these high schools. And I said, I said, if I'm going
01:12:22to raise a family, I'm going to leave Los Angeles. Uh, and it also kind of like, you know,
01:12:26made me start thinking. And then, you know, then the COVID thing where all these parents
01:12:30were like, like you said, they're, they're so removed from what the kids are learning
01:12:34and, and then they would have a front row seat if they wanted it. And a lot of them
01:12:38did. And they started saying, I've got to take charge of my kids' education because
01:12:43this, I can't trust. I mean, this is, if this is the little bit that I'm seeing, it's
01:12:47kind of like when I'm writing a program and it gives me a sample and I'm like, if this
01:12:51is what you're writing, like you need to fix this and this. And then, and then, uh, you
01:12:55know, my schools are basically a cult these days. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a vicious
01:12:58or cult. Uh, and so, sorry, but there, that's what pianists don't seem to understand as much
01:13:03as they should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a great opportunity to, you got
01:13:09to figure out, I don't know, man. So the homeschooling crowd is, is very, it's very
01:13:14cool in that, uh, these are parents who are not just watching their kids until they don't
01:13:19have to, or they had kids because they felt like they had to, or, you know, they're, they're,
01:13:23they got more agency and they, they want better outcomes. And, uh, and it's a great,
01:13:27you know, it's a lot of work, obviously, you know, uh, to, uh, to educate your kid, but
01:13:32it was interesting to me to, to learn, you know, in like, you know, 10 days ago about
01:13:36how the, that was how the Romans did. It was, it was the mom in the, in the, in the
01:13:41home
01:13:41until the kid was, I don't know, I figured it was like 12 or 13, but you know, the first
01:13:45like five years of, uh, of the education, something like that, if I remember it, but it
01:13:49was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was basically homeschooling. Like Roman was
01:13:52like, basically, I'm like, I'm like, this is amazing. Like what a cool crossover, but
01:13:56you know, if you can't depend on anybody to have your kid's best interest in, in as
01:14:01much as like, as a parent does, you know?
01:14:03Well, so if I were in your shoes, I would take a shift from content creation to marketing
01:14:09creation, because if you can get a short, powerful video talking about the dangers of
01:14:15the modern curriculum, and here's the lines, here's the charts, here's the bullying, here's
01:14:20the promiscuity. And then, you know, if you want your kids to be socialized, we all
01:14:24want our kids to be socialized, but not in a crime gang, right? But we don't want our
01:14:29kids to be socialized by dropping them off at the homeless encampment, uh, and, and
01:14:33the drug addicts den. And, and we want our kids to be socialized by good people. And
01:14:37unfortunately there's just fewer and fewer good people in school. So we need to start
01:14:41looking for alternatives. Like that ship is going down and you know, do you need a
01:14:44lifeboat? Ah, here come the angels. So I would focus on, you know, 30 to
01:14:5060 seconds of school ain't what it used to be. And here's how it's changed. And
01:14:57here's the danger your kids are in and they're not learning. They're being
01:15:01programmed. They're being indoctrinated and they're in danger. Like they're in
01:15:07existential danger of thinking that they're terrible people because of
01:15:10ideology and you gotta do something to help them. And, you know, our solution is,
01:15:15you know, so if you, uh, even, even, even if all you do is don't even post your
01:15:20solution, but just have a short video that doesn't like you just, you need to
01:15:25bring people to your mind space as a whole. And so even if you just did a
01:15:30video that was totally shareable, that didn't mention anything about your
01:15:34solutions, but came from your channel, then if it gets shared and debated and
01:15:38if it goes viral and so on, then people come to your channel and then you have
01:15:42your other videos. But, uh, talking about the fundamental driver as to what it
01:15:47is that you're doing, I think is that good kids are in real danger and there is
01:15:54a, an agenda to harm your children, to break your children, to turn your
01:16:00children, not just against themselves, but their parents, their history, their
01:16:03culture, their country, everything. It's really dangerous. You're, you've got to
01:16:07know who you're handing your kids over to. And, you know, you, you don't hand,
01:16:13hand your kids over to Jeffrey Dahmer for cooking classes. Okay. Maybe that's a bit
01:16:17of a strong analogy, but, um, but if you just talk about how school has changed and
01:16:22the level of programming propaganda agendas and so on, and that the old
01:16:27argument that you send your kids for socialization is no longer valid. You send
01:16:32your school for, you know, reading, writing, arithmetic, and socialization. Well,
01:16:35they're not getting reading, writing, arithmetic. Uh, they're getting infinity
01:16:39genders and communism and they're not getting socializing. Uh, they're being
01:16:44bullied by teachers and any kid who stands against the agenda is going to be
01:16:49ostracized, attacked, and bullied, and you're throwing your children to the wolves.
01:16:53And so if you do a video like that, random violence. Yeah. Yeah. So if you do, if you
01:16:58do a video like that, which with your skills, I'm sure you could rip off fairly
01:17:02quickly, then I think that you're generating understanding of a problem. Cause
01:17:10again, you can't sell, you can't sell diet pills to a skinny guy, right? And you
01:17:14can't sell ice to the Eskimos. So if people don't even know that they have a
01:17:18problem, there isn't any demand for a solution. And the solution for homeschooling
01:17:24has been school is too secular. We need our kids to stay super Christian. And again,
01:17:28I have no particular issue with that, but that's the fact. But if you want to get
01:17:32a market, you have to create a market. Uh, otherwise you're just trying to hack
01:17:37away at getting kids from already preexisting groups with homeschooling
01:17:42groups that have been around and sorted out and settled for decades. It's really
01:17:46tough. So I didn't go and say, I didn't go and say, well, I want people who would
01:17:50normally take philosophy in university to come and listen to my show. That wasn't,
01:17:55I had to create an audience of people who didn't even know that philosophy was
01:18:01valuable or helpful, who didn't even have a clue that philosophy could help them in
01:18:05their daily lives and could help them choose the right partner to get married
01:18:10to help them raise their kids, help them, uh, make more money if that's what they
01:18:13want to do, or at least succeed in their career. It could help them, uh, with the
01:18:17quality of their relationships. Like philosophy has never been sold in that way
01:18:21before, because I don't think it's ever been aimed at those kinds of particular
01:18:26problems or abstract esoteric problems and so on. Uh, do we live in a simulation?
01:18:30I mean, that's all well and good, but I do have to choose who I'm going to marry. Uh,
01:18:33and that simulation argument really doesn't help me that much. So I created an
01:18:38audience by identifying that the reason people's lives were failing was they were
01:18:44not thinking clearly and didn't have a good grounding in ethics. And I say this of my
01:18:50own life as well. I was, I wasn't, you know, I had to figure out my own life this
01:18:54way and those. So I created an audience of people who didn't even know they needed
01:18:58philosophy by saying that the issues in your life stem from a lack of wisdom as
01:19:05the issues in my life stem from a lack of wisdom and so on. And so the best way to
01:19:11get an audience is to make one like nobody knew they needed an iPad until there was
01:19:15an iPad and then everybody needs an iPad. Uh, and so I would say that if I were in
01:19:20your shoes, I would work as hard as I could to shake people out of their
01:19:26hypnosis about government schools to, to help parents, particularly older parents
01:19:30understand it ain't like it used to be. It is not at all like it used to be like
01:19:36that neighborhood you grew up in that's now surrounded by crack dens. You don't
01:19:39want your kids to live in that neighborhood. You just haven't noticed how much
01:19:42it's changed. So make a video to help parents understand just how toxic government
01:19:47education has become and how it's neither serving reading, writing, arithmetic, nor
01:19:53socialization and don't even provide a solution. Uh, because then it just sounds
01:19:56like you're making a problem to sell a solution. Like if you talk about rising
01:20:00obesity and then say, I have this drug, you know, then, then it's, they have, people
01:20:04have skepticism because they get the agenda, but just putting out, here's why your
01:20:10kids need to be homeschooled. That isn't going to touch the Christians as much
01:20:15because the Christians already understand that. And of course the Mormons
01:20:18and a lot of whom are very nice people, of course, uh, the Mormons are, uh, they
01:20:23already understand that, uh, the Pentecostals, the Baptists, the, the
01:20:26Lutherans, the, um, they, they all, uh, understand that. So I think you want to
01:20:31hit the, the parents who don't understand how bad school has become and yet may
01:20:37have some doubts or may even not be allowed into homeschooling groups that are
01:20:42fundamental Christianity. I think that, because it sounds like that's the
01:20:45curriculum you're working on and I would work to create, uh, that audience
01:20:50rather than try and capture an audience that's already flowing fairly
01:20:53consistently towards long established, uh, Christian homeschooling groups.
01:20:57No, yeah, that's a good point. Cause, uh, there's, there's, there's
01:21:00turnover and people, people pick different curriculums, uh, you know, every, you know,
01:21:05the Facebook groups are just flooded, but people like saying, Hey, we tried this,
01:21:07this, this, and this, and I need something new for my, my fourth grader or
01:21:10whatever. Uh, and, and yeah, you're finding your, you know, finding an
01:21:14argument to be, to be made to those people, uh, you know, you're going to get
01:21:17this and that, but.
01:21:18And I'm sorry, last thing I'll say, and I, I, I don't want to overburden you
01:21:22with options and we'll sort of wrap this up in a sec. But what I would say as
01:21:25well is that one thing from what I've talked about over the years with people
01:21:30in homeschooling groups in America is that homeschooling groups are kind of
01:21:35girly.
01:21:37In that it's the moms running things and, you know, we love the moms and it's
01:21:43great, but you know, uh, masculinity is not in excess supply because the men are
01:21:49usually out there as particularly in Christian families, the men are doing the
01:21:52traditional breadwinner roles and the women are running stuff. And that comes
01:21:57with some very cool stuff and some very positive stuff, but it also comes with some
01:22:01negatives in particular for the boy, uh, for the boy students and homeschooling for
01:22:07boys is a big challenge because it is a hyper female environment for most homeschooling.
01:22:12If you have more of a masculine approach to homeschooling, which if you're going to take
01:22:16the Roman curriculum, that's it. Uh, I would also point that out as well that, uh, in the
01:22:24homeschooling groups that, that I, again, tangentially, uh, know about, um, this is one of the complaints
01:22:29that people I know in those homeschooling have is like, it's just so female. And again, we love the
01:22:35females. I wouldn't want it to be all male, but for the boys, it is not, uh, boys learn from
01:22:42men
01:22:43and girls learn from, uh, women in general. And there's some crossover and so on. And having a
01:22:48homeschool group that's focused on, uh, males and masculinity is another big differentiator,
01:22:54uh, that is kind of tough because the homeschooling groups by being so relentlessly female led,
01:23:00female driven and female focused, it doesn't click with the boys nearly as much. And then the boys end
01:23:05up a little bit more feminized, which makes it tougher for them to be the leaders of their
01:23:10households. If that's what Christianity indicates. So it's a short-term solution that creates a long-term
01:23:14problem as so many of these things are. So I'd also focus on that. So sorry, if I want to
01:23:18give you
01:23:18the last, uh, and just to dovetail, and that's a, that's another, that's still another problem with
01:23:23the, with the public schools is that, you know, it's something, it's going more and more female
01:23:27teachers. And, and so it's, you know, that's kind of a feminine system too. But the last thing I was
01:23:31going to point out or whatever was that, uh, in addition to all the problems that, that, which get
01:23:37worse every year in the public schools, my wife pointed out that something, something that
01:23:40parents can reflect on, you know, and something that's been consistent is they never really ask
01:23:46you, she was pointing out like, they never really ask you to make, well, to make an argument, like
01:23:50to make a, to, to, to convince people of anything. It's always like give a presentation on, you know,
01:23:55butterflies or something that's, you know, like you have to think of 10 minutes worth of stuff and
01:23:58nobody really cares and you're not getting good feedback or whatever. It's never convinced people
01:24:02of something that, you know, maybe half the class doesn't agree with, you know, and that's, uh,
01:24:06it's female because female is about consensus and information sharing, not, you know, men,
01:24:11but heads and try to come up with the best solution. So, uh, having the rhetoric, the debate,
01:24:17the argumentation style, uh, boys like that stuff, don't you? I mean, I spent half my teenage years
01:24:22arguing with my male friends about everything under the sun and it was great. And so, yeah,
01:24:27having that focus on conflict and how to fight with words and still remain positive with people,
01:24:34I think is something that, uh, you focus on the male focus on, uh, uh, maybe a bit more secular
01:24:39stuff and, uh, I, and then help people understand how toxic public school is. I think you're going
01:24:45to, uh, you know, build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. And I
01:24:49think
01:24:49that's, uh, the best you can do. Now, did you want to mention, is there a website? Do you want
01:24:54to
01:24:54mention how people can find what it is that you're doing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please. Well, it's Rome,
01:24:58Rome School and don't go to RomeSchool.com because, uh, uh, somebody took that over, uh, 15 years ago
01:25:06and they've got a beef with an Australian mining company and it auto downloads a video. And so
01:25:10you don't want, you want to stay away from RomeSchool.com. We're, we're working on that,
01:25:14uh, as a branding issue, but RomeSchool.app is, uh, is the, uh, is the website for, for our Rome
01:25:21schooling. And, uh, and yeah, yeah. The last thing I'll say is, um, we, if, if we get a foothold
01:25:28and this becomes a thing, you know, I think that you'll be able to see people that have
01:25:31gone through this program, like in the future. In fact, one of our, uh, my, my, my ads or
01:25:35whatever that I'm looking forward to maybe making is something like, you know, a couple
01:25:39of moms sitting there watching a politician giving a speech, you know, and, and one mom
01:25:43says to the other, like, was he, was he homeschooled? Like I already was homeschooled. And then
01:25:47the other one says like RomeSchooled, you know what I mean? It was like, it's like, like
01:25:51that's a, it's a, oh, you know, and then she goes home and enrolls your kids in the
01:25:54room. You know, it's cause he's the one politician in it, in a toga with a, a
01:25:58Laurel Reese. Oh, that makes sense. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah. Yeah.
01:26:02RomeSchool, RomeSchool.app. And, uh, we're going to be up and running here and
01:26:07ASAP. It's, you know, we're trying to get this kicked off before the beginning
01:26:10of the next school year, because that's, you know, now's when people are making
01:26:12this, you know, for the next month or so when people make a decision. So if this
01:26:16gets out there in the next, uh, who knows when, then, uh, check it out. Uh, it'll be,
01:26:20uh, ready to go probably by the mid to late, uh, July. We'll see at least in, in some
01:26:25form and then it'll have its refinements. We're going to, we're going to have a
01:26:27half off deal for like the people that sign up right away, half off for life,
01:26:32basically to the early adopters who are willing to put up with our, our, our
01:26:34bumps, uh, for the next year. And then it should be, should be golden after that.
01:26:39And you'll have your half off for the, for the rest of your life. So, so check
01:26:42that out. Uh, and, uh, thanks. I can't believe I had a real discussion with
01:26:47Stefan Molyneux. How fun. I really appreciate that. That's, uh,
01:26:51RomeSchool.app and, uh, keep me posted. I'd love to see the videos that you come up
01:26:55with next and we'll stay in touch. Thanks. Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye.
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