948: How Public Health “Experts” Keep Getting It WRONG

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
I instead of

Brian Nichols  0:15  
focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Speaker 1  0:28  
Well, hey there, folks, Brian is here on another project, sales episode, just on The Brian Nichols Show. I am, as always, here in Princeton, County,

Brian Nichols  0:40  
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Speaker 2  1:25  
It's great to be here, Brian. Try to manage my confusion as well. I think we'll make it the I've been

Brian Nichols  1:31  
managing my confusion for at least five years now, and my wife still get me grief for it. But I had particular confusion when I saw your name pop in the calendar. I said, Is this me? And then I see you join the the feed. We both got the, you know, the facial hair, the backwards hat. I'm thinking, okay, so this Brian is my, my Brian brother from another mother, but hey for today, we're going to make this the Brian Nichols, Nichols show, and we're going to be talking all things FDA, talking about harm reduction, all that fun stuff and more. But Brian, before we jump into today's topic of conversation. Do us a favor. Introduce yourself. Yes, Brian Nichols, to The Brian Nichols Show audience, and why is that your focus so much in the world of health policy? Before we jump in today,

Speaker 2  2:09  
yeah. First of all, it's honor to be be here, Brian. I love the show. And long time listener, first time caller, and yeah and yeah, I'm Brian Nichols. I'm a psychotherapist in transition into journalism to explore how our society and how we're structuring our society, and the kind of philosophical choices we're making from a political theory perspective impact health. So I have a particular I've worked in the field of addiction for a long time. So I have a particular fascination and interest in how our political choices impact our health decisions and vice versa.

Brian Nichols  2:50  
What's allegedly beast? Yeah, well, and let's talk about that. Let's jump right in, right? Because this is absolutely been a topic that has been leading the headlines both in more recent months, with RFK Jr taking over the role as head of HHS there, we've been seeing this throughout the campaign. During 2024 the coalition between make America great again and make America healthy again, the MaHA movement. And here the show, we've had dozens of folks on the program in more recent months talking about the health, the wellness, the stuff we're putting into our bodies, the lack of good things we're putting into our bodies, and all that in between. And one of the reoccurring themes I've been hearing here, Brian on the show, has been, there's a big push from folks, and I would just say, in the more we're going to classify this as the MaHA movement, just for the sake of conversation today, it has not so much been a let's go and ban certain things, but rather, let's just make we sure we have informed consent, right? Like, if I'm going to go to the store and I'm going to go buy fruit loops for my kid, I should, as a consumer, at least feel I have been given enough information to make an educated decision. And with that being said, if I have these government organizations and entities that are in their federal bureaucracies supposed to be keeping us safe, very loose air quotes there for the audio listener and I see a certain ingredient, or whatever it may be, is it's been given the green light, right? This doesn't cause human, you know, human harm when you consume it. Little asterisks there, right? Like this is where the real debate has been. Now, you wrote an article that focuses specifically on the FDA proposed menthol ban, which now looks like it's going into the trash can, but this this overarching ethic, right? It really does permeate into all the different conversations around public health. So I've set the stage here, right? This is where that health conversation really has has turned into over the past few years, into the past few months, and now Brian, what we're seeing is a very different approach to, in this case, the FDA, the HHS, the CDC and and being, I hope, more transparent with. American public. So there's me setting the stage, where did I miss some stuff, and let's maybe turn this into a conversation specifically that your article touches on and that it was that proposed menthol cigarette ban and where that ended up today?

Speaker 2  5:12  
Absolutely. Yeah. So I love how you Brian bringing up transparency and health. This is a really interesting angle. I did touch a little bit on transparency, but where my argument, the main thrust of my argument, was based on choice. So agency choice based public health strategy is the term I use in the article, and this, you know, I think dovetails really nicely with your ideas about transparency, because to make informed choices. We need truth or at least some transparency. So I think those two play really, really nicely together. And I think there is one reason I'm excited to be on the program, because you dive into some of the more philosophical questions. I think there is something deeply philosophical about the nature of humans and self determination, like, what is the best way is human being? Are human beings listening to their body and saying, like, do I want this cigarette? Do I want this fruit loops? Or do I want something else? Is that what we trust, or do we trust a more top down, bureaucratic solution that gives us firm boundaries on what we're allowed to choose? I think that's a pretty deep question about the nature human nature that we can dig into. But I make a bet in my piece on betting on human agency, and that, you know, yeah, if we smoke cigarettes, there might be health consequences, but there'll be unintended, unintended, oftentimes worse consequences when we bring large bureaucracies in, like, what, by the way,

Brian Nichols  6:38  
and like, because this, this argument right here, is where I hear a lot of folks kind of like, they just stop paying attention. They're like, oh, like, what? There's something worse than smoking cigarettes. And the answer is yes, right? Like, the answer is quite obvious yes, but that's maybe a little self apparent to myself and a lot of the more libertarian folks who are on the show, or at least in the audience, right? So for the folks out there who are saying, well, well, Brian, help me out here, like show me where, where we're seeing more negative impacts from these different drugs or not so great things that we're putting into our body actually causing more harm than the various substances themselves.

Speaker 2  7:12  
Absolutely. So I think as I dive into that, there's kind of two lenses, as the our conversation and the article has to dance between the proscriptive, or what should be, and the descriptive and what is, and so descriptively, something I accept is that people smoke cigarettes, and this is, you know, something that happens, and we could say it's bad for you. I don't want my family smoking whatever. But there's a descriptive lens, and then we can be like, uh, take a prescriptive lens and say, Hey, we want a healthier society, and how can we achieve that together? How can we organize together to have a more healthy family, community, society? And I think the question about what's worse is in that domain, like what you know, and there's a lot of evidence in the public health literature. So this has been tried in Massachusetts, New York, California, in both Massachusetts and California, the bills explicitly were targeted at African American populations in a way to decrease smoking among Black people. Essentially, it was the stated intention of these bills, and it increased. In both cases, black people smoke more because the illicit market grew. It became a status symbol. People smuggled it, and it was cheaper, actually, than it was before. So from a pragmatic standpoint, bans often lead to, you know, unintended consequences, like we didn't suspect that a large illicit market would develop. We didn't suspect that they'd become like culture, cultural symbols and a form of resistance against the government. And this is what happened. And yeah, and so we see the pragmatic argument I make is sociology, public health is a complex system, and bureaucratic bands aren't an effective top down, national and state level. Bands are just a bad tool for public health.

Brian Nichols  9:10  
So what's the line, right? And here's, here's the context of my question, right? My wife, she worked in public health for a number of years, and I saw this, you know, firsthand in in the conversations I had with her, you know, I was talking about the the idea that, hey, if you're if you're getting SNAP benefits, which, for those playing on in the home game, as we used to call food stamps, right? And they reframed it, just so it didn't sound as bad. So SNAP benefits, you're getting SNAP benefits. And there was a proposal here during the the coming on of the Trump administration, saying, Hey, if you're getting SNAP benefits. At the very least, we're gonna say maybe you shouldn't be able to use those for garbage, right, like candy and soda and junk food. And for me, as more or less a utilitarian libertarian, I guess like that makes sense if you're going to be getting my government dollars via. My taxpayer dollars being funneled through name your bureaucracy here, saying, Here you go. You know, person who is disadvantaged here is a pile of money that you can now use to go and purchase your food for the week. You shouldn't be able to use that for not so great things, right? And I would say as again, in more that utilitarian mindset, that makes sense. But then I'd have that conversation my wife and she goes, Well, what about when you have food deserts? Right? We lived in Philadelphia for seven years. What do we have food deserts? And there's folks who literally have no access to a fresh produce grocery store, and the closest thing they have is a bodega on the corner, right? Like here in Philadelphia, that's all you see when you go into more of like the quote, unquote ghetto areas, which, by the way, where I lived for a number of years, is you only see those, those little corner stores, those little bodegas, which, by the way, are just chock full of processed garbage. So I see both sides of the argument, and personally, because I have my own biases, but also seeing my wife working in this world. So you know, Brian, when we're looking at this kind of balance between what you should do versus what you shouldn't do. And then you start to add in all those little variables, right? Are they getting taxpayer dollars? Are the actual foods that we're talking about? Are they getting subsidized, like all this kind of stuff, right? And then layering in the topic of conversation, I started with saying, and then you have all these bureaucracies who are saying, and by the way, even if this stuff maybe isn't the best for us, we'll just slide we'll say it's fine. But that seems like there's a lot of variables coming into this very complex and sometimes difficult to have conversation. So help me unwind this, Brian, like, let's talk about, you know, the different aspects, right? The different variables I outlined here, both in terms of utilitarian mindset, you know, the access standpoint, and then also just, hey, if it's being told it's good for you, shouldn't the those different bureaucracies, at the very least, have different standards that they're promoting to the public, and considered what is safe? Yeah, I

Speaker 2  11:58  
think that last point, having different standards. I think one of the principles I'm going to suggest, and what I suggest in the article, is more decentralization, more localization in standards the a federal or state level, they can't plan for the contingencies that you're talking about. So the answer to your question is kind of a both, and it's like, if you're in a in a certain area where you can incentivize healthier choices, maybe as a community, people are going to come together and make that decision the Means Test. But then, if you're doing it in Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, this could lead to, like, starvation or something. I don't know. I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it could be a really bad decision. And so what you know, what foods, food stamps in certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles are going to look different than other neighborhoods in Los Angeles? Maybe we could just stay there. And so I think having more decentralization, if this is what I would suggest to the new administration in in Washington, is, if we're going to centralize money and take money for people, we should be funneling that into community based stakeholders that can use the wisdom of the streets to inform the decisions and not make them be burdened by regulatory frameworks that are just so overly specific or overly broad and unhelpful, because you know, you can't really plan, no myself or any bureaucrat can't plan for the contingencies that are going to, you know, we live in a large country, from Idaho to Kentucky to California to New York, people are going to have to make different decisions on how they help give People a leg up.

Brian Nichols  13:40  
So let me play devil's advocate, and not so much because I want to, but because this is the question, no, we're going to get asked, okay? But Brian, there are just black and white things that are not good for people, right? Or, or, let's say, detrimental to society. And this is not an overtly health focused topic here, but like, this was a conversation I was having back during the election, which was the whole idea of, like, drag queen story hours for kids, right? And I 1,000% agree with you, like, at the very least, that should not be a federal edict saying, hey, no more drag queen story hours. But at the very least, if you're in a locality, and that locality is like, Hey, we've agreed, as a, like, a local government, that that's just that, that's, that's a no go, right? Or at the very least not in our public institutions that taxpayers are paying for, right? So in that, that spirit, there are absolutely things to your point earlier, and we mentioned, you know, the unintended consequences, but there are things that are objectively bad for folks, right? And that could be across the board. You could talk about alcohol, you could talk about smoking, you could talk about like, the crap that we're putting into our bodies from a food perspective, or is it food? That's the question. And you see that there are objective realities. But to your point, there is on the flip side, there is the human behavior side of things that we really can't control. Role, which is by design, right? We're not supposed to be able to control every, every, you know, facet of people's lives. But I guess it does come back to the question, if there are things that are overtly harmful towards people, and then this, and this is the the the golden part of the question, right? Is, and then if we are as a tax paying base expected to cover the costs of the healthcare right, or to cover the cost of name the consequences therein, of allowing this harmful behavior or this harmful substance or this harmful food to go into our food ecosystem, I guess, or our public health ecosystem. Is there not, at the very least an argument to say, Well, should we at the very least say that these regularly are regulatory agencies, even if they're not saying, Hey, we're just going to allow it be truthful in saying that these aren't good for you. So we do it the very least, have a more informed public when they go out and make these purchases. Yeah, it's a it's a great

Speaker 2  16:00  
question. I think in this again, we're bouncing between the descriptive and the person, right, yeah, yeah. And the reason I'm doing this is because this is how the average person kind of approaches these, oh, definitely, definitely, no. These are questions that need to be answered in this debate. Absolutely. I think, from an enforcement perspective, my perspective, we could use examples of like sex work and drugs, when I when I think, as things that I think, like certain drugs and certain, you know, practices are going to be bad for society generally, and bad go after the bigger fish. That's what I think enforcement should do. I think from a smaller local level, more of a focus on, look, you know, punitive measures, objectively aren't, haven't been shown to be effective. But if these things are poor, like, if someone's pouring poison into the river, like, we should stop them from doing that. And that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like, a more utility, utilitarian argument there. It's like, okay, I'm in poli sci class. Talk about John Stuart Mill. You

Brian Nichols  17:07  
could swing your fist up to the bridge of my nose, like, that's the conversation. Yeah.

Speaker 2  17:11  
Basically, yeah. And so yeah, I would say, from an enforcement perspective, like, look at policies around like, Hey, this is how much sugar is, or this fake chemical is in it. That isn't good, like people should know about that if things are objectively causing cancer, you know? No, that's not I think there has to be common sense boundaries for consumer choice, and that is a role that I think a larger body could be, like, the FDA could potentially be more effective in than determining, like, what kind of policies on the ground, what, what should people in LA be eating versus what should people in Chicago be eating?

Brian Nichols  17:53  
Well, I'm so glad you mentioned la just there, because this is also where I think there will be a debate, and that is, well, who do I believe? Do I believe these federal officials, or do I believe my local officials? And we see this because I remember, well, I say, I remember, I know all of us experienced this, right? You go and buy chain product here, and almost guaranteed on the label somewhere is, yeah, this ingredient has been found to cause cancer in the state of California, right? And it almost became like a joke line at one point, because it's like, oh, what doesn't cause cancer if it goes to California, but it's California on the right track, and saying, Hey, listen, there's a lot of this stuff that we say is good or not, the very let me rephrase that, not necessarily good. We're just minimizing the bad, right? Or we're not even talking about the bad. Like, then you have some yin and yang, right? I have California saying one thing, and I had the federal government saying the other. Is that a step in

Speaker 2  18:48  
the right direction. It's a good question. I have to admit, I find that California labeling stuff to be a bit Virtu signal. Like, I don't think, like, if you I don't find, I find it to be not that helpful at that point. If everything has it, I think this is cancer, nothing, and it's like, at what threshold, you know, if it's one in a million people, you know, maybe I wouldn't want to play roulette, Russian roulette with that. But you know, at a certain at a certain level, it's not helpful information. And I think this is one reason why we're seeing things like Maha and that can be mixed up with other, with things that kind of seem a little absurd, sometimes, because there's such a credibility crisis in these organizations. I mean, I remember, you know, during, I mean, the one inspector that's haunting us as we talk about this is the COVID, the COVID pandemic. This is just a crisis point for legitimacy in public health, for a number of reasons, bad messaging, misinformation, all kinds of different things and overly aggressive policies forcing people to do things. Does anyone want to do all kinds of issues with it? Another piece I wrote that's adjacent to the FDA is about being our own fact checker, like not relying on big tech to label everything for us, and actually being developing cognitive tools to be able to make sense of the world. And I think risk analysis, like, we can't trust the any officials to give us an accurate risk analysis, one, because their incentives are misaligned with ours. And two, they don't know our lives. Like, for some people, smoking a cigarette is worth it. You know, 22 year old, you know, at a party might be worth it. 56 year old with grandkids and cancer, that's a bad risk assessment. So it's our own risk assessment. And so when I look at, you know, does this Advil I have a headache, and this Advil has a one in 100,000 chance of giving me a stroke, I'm going to determine I'm going to take the Advil. And I think we need to learn to make those kind of decisions and not rely on institutions that have misaligned incentives to do it for us, because they're not going to.

Brian Nichols  21:05  
So this is where the the real battle takes place. Now, right? Because you and I, we can have this conversation on the show, and yet, when we bring this to your average public they're like, Dude, I I don't have the time. I'm not going to sit there and go through every single ingredient and start to look up every single ingredient to make sure I'm not eating literal poison, or I'm not giving my kids literal poison. And by the way, in my abdication of that responsibility, I'm going to look towards the experts, which, as you mentioned back during COVID, the entire idea of expertise in public health was just completely thrown with egg on its face, right? So all of a sudden you're you're saying, I'm going to defer to the experts. And then a lot of folks say, Well, shit. Which experts, right? Am I going to trust the folks who my tax dollars are going and paying for at these different bureaucratic institutions, the EPA, the FDA, the CDC, the HHS, or am I going to trust other folks. Like, I just heard, I forget the guy's name, who's on, on Patrick bet, David show, but there's a health guy, and then there's, like, I think it's Paul Saladino and stuff like that. Like, there are other experts, Jillian Michaels, who are out there, and they are obviously health experts, by the nature of their number one, their outcomes, right? They help get people healthy. Um, like Jillian Michaels was, was a typo, like that old workout routine, and you put the DVD in, you go kick, kick in the air for three hours, like she, she was and is a health icon, like Tony or a Beachbody, like he's a health icon, Shawn t like all these, these folks out there, um, both from the fitness side and the health side, like the nutrition side, they've built up their careers by being right, right, like more often than not, at the very least, because they're obviously answering a question or presenting a solution to a very real problem. We see, I think that problem is a lack of trust. So I say all that to the average person who's looking at this like, you know, all this information, I'm being told. Red di four is bad. Yellow six is bad. Red three is bad. Like seed oils are causing cancer, like glyphosates on all of our food, folic acids gonna you know, cause, cause all these issues. You two don't, don't ban me. That's the arguments, right? But like you, you hear all this. And as a consumer, I don't do Brian. I don't know who to talk to, I don't know who to I don't know who to trust, I don't know who to ask questions about. To that person, what do we say to them?

Speaker 2  23:25  
It's great question. I've kind of two there's a political advocacy component and then a very practical component to this. And so I'll start with the practical and then get into the political advocacy. So the practical one is, I think like to this misaligned incentive idea. I think there's, like, the 8020, principle, which is really helpful. Like a lot of people in the house fear are, you know, they have an incentive to be the expert and sell something. You know, that's just what I'm not demonizing, that. I'm just saying that's their incentives. But for us, like, our incentive is to just generally be healthy. And I think, like, it's not that hard, you know, some vegetables, some water, you know, the very basics, what our grandparents were, you know, in their best eating, like, don't just do the basics. And for most of us, it's going to be fine, you know. And you know, find some credibility market marker, like you're talking about someone who's been been around for a while, who looks good, who, you know, you know, has access to some kind of decent food that you can find. And I know that can be a privilege for some people, but probably find some organic, good food somewhere and invest in it, because it's important. So that's one. And then, you know, from a political advocacy perspective, it makes sense, people have busy lives. You know, they want different op they want, they want to pay for experts to tell them what to do so they don't have to. And I think this is a huge problem with health in the US it's like so I come from a psychotherapy background. We need more experimentation. Less like more innovation in health, so people can try things and see if it works, you know, and and a lot of our veto Chrissy stops innovation in health in particular, like we need to have. It's squirrely for people, because it's unlike technology, which is inorganic, innovating with the psyche and the it feels so human, but that's how humanity grows, through trial and error. And I know that's for people on the more liberty side, that's one messaging thing we struggle with, is for us to grow, there has to be failure. And you know, if you look in my field, unfortunately, sadly and it's tragic, most of the innovations in neuroscience and psychology came from catastrophic injuries and wars, because we learned through immense damage. You know, how how things work, and we need to control that failure process and make it as safe as possible, but also as real as possible, so that we can see, like, oh, you know, this practice for depression seemed like a good idea. Didn't do shit, didn't didn't help us. Sorry,

Brian Nichols  26:09  
wait, are you saying that the frontal lobotomies didn't work out as intended?

Speaker 2  26:13  
Exactly? Yeah, yeah. And so that's kind of my political like advocating for decentralization, innovative solutions to health. Taking the breaks off of that is huge, is absolutely huge. And then we will have more experts we can trust, and more approaches that we can one thing bottleneck is we have biochemical individuality, which I know is a big mouthful, but people are different. So these, yeah, these, these standards. We're not cookie cutters. No, yeah. So these standardized solutions. It's just dude, even though it would be nice, it's not reality. Amen,

Brian Nichols  26:52  
well, and by the way, let's go back to the reason you're here today, which is talking about your amazing article written over at our good friend Matt kibbs, org three the people, please go ahead and give Matt some love. Matt is one of the best out there, and he's helping teach folks how to sell liberty, but having some awesome conversations. So go check out committee on liberty. Over there, part of the blaze network. But with that being said, Yes, going back to your article, the FDA kills menthol ban, a triumph for harm reduction. Over at free the people. So Brian, give us the Spark Notes version about this article, and what does this look like in terms of talking about cigarettes, menthol and all that kind of I don't smoke, so I'm talking quite ignorantly about the topic. So fill

Speaker 2  27:26  
us in, yeah. So it gives a timeline of the proposal, which started in the Biden administration, a kind of view of the the why of menthol being so they're flavored cigarettes, so that the public health people, they don't like it because it younger people, it tastes better, so it can sometimes it's seen it's like a gateway to to smoking, because it's a bit softer on the lungs. And so I take, I give that view, and then, in the timeline of the panic, got a lot of pushback, and then I look at the evidence, like in the more descriptive level, where this has been tried, it stated intentions, point out how it's failed and created unintended consequences, and then make an argument for choice based strategies, kind of like what we were talking about, more innovation. People want to smoke. Can we make instead of saying all smoking is bad, can we make this healthier? Can we give alternatives that aren't as addictive, you know, can we experiment with different choice based strategies? That's kind

Brian Nichols  28:32  
of it for like, 10 seconds. Yeah, wouldn't, wouldn't the average person say, but Brian vaping, like, that's a thing, and that is safer, like, like, or, or the, the little pouches. What are those things called? Like, the nicotine pouches, the like, the Zin pouches and stuff, right? Like, those are a thing. So, hey, there's an there's an alternative in the market, right? Like, couldn't that be an argument against the the repealing of the menthol ban?

Speaker 2  28:58  
So, like, the argument is, like, they are have these alternatives already. Yeah,

Brian Nichols  29:04  
right, yeah. Like, if we're saying that we want to be able to start focusing on creating better alternatives. Well, hey, here we go. Here, you know, here's some options.

Speaker 2  29:13  
Yeah. I mean, I think I, personally, I wouldn't want to ban those either. And I think if the folks in the FDA had a pen, they would everything would be banned. So, I mean, I think that I, the kind of argument I'm making is have everything on the shelf allow people to experiment, yep, and as the money goes into a particular market. People generally want to be healthy. There's a aspect of, you know, I want us to I want to be healthy. I want healthier solutions. There's a market for it, and we need to unleash entrepreneurs and people in the space. Except that part, it's going to be hard to stop people from smoking. It's. And kind of allow this sphere to exist and allow people to innovate in it. And I kind of been making a bet on ingenuity and human agency here. And, yeah, it's definitely a huge argument. And if you're watching this and want to debate, hit me up. I definitely like doing it on Twitter. There's a lot to talk about

Brian Nichols  30:17  
well, and let's, um, you know, let's maybe a quick little segue. I know we're getting hard pressed for time here, but I do have a follow up question, because I reckon some feathers on social media this weekend, when I posted about social stigma being a good thing, actually, and folks were like, Oh, this is such a backwards mentality. And I was like, okay, hold up. Hold up. I am now arguing in favor of government banning certain things. I'm not arguing in favor of, like, government saying, you know, certain speech or certain products should, should or should not be allowed. What I'm saying is, is that it used to be, back in the day, folks, to your point, would say, you know, maybe you shouldn't do that, right, like, maybe you shouldn't go out and just binge drink every single day. Or you shouldn't you force food down your face? You know, to the extent that you're, you're morbidly obese, right? Like, and there was a stigma, a social stigma, to help hold people socially into check, like, to make sure that you're, you're kind of stepping to the right beat, right? Like you're staying in line. And that's not to say that, like, that was always a good thing. And I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that was at the very least. That's not a phrase I use a lot at the very least, but like, it is at the very least something that it helps curate behavior in a way outside of leveraging government force, right? Like, isn't, isn't that a good like? Isn't social stigma actually a good thing in that regards.

Speaker 2  31:42  
Yeah, it's, I know it's not the sexiest, nicest topic, but I'm also pro stigma, pro guilt, pro shame, in a certain on a certain level, even though, in our kind of culture of narcissism that is, these aren't popular things. I stopped smoking because someone said, I'm not going to kiss you if you continue to smoke. I think that is more effective than a government ban. And I think that in the similar way that we should have choice, we could have another episode on this. Having choice based strategies is good. I think that's why freedom of speech and expression is important. Yeah, like, I don't like when people smoke. It makes my nose hurt. Like, that is better feedback for me than a distant, far off bureaucrat saying, wagging their finger at me and saying, I think this is bad, especially when I don't trust them, when they don't have any integrity. So I think you know, knowing who you want to take feedback from is important, but having feedback, I think, is important, and that's one danger of things going on in our culture that are shutting people up. It's a big problem because we don't get accurate feedback, and, yeah, it makes us more reliant on these really ineffective institutions. So I would have to check out that tweet. I'll have to go engage with it sounds provocative. Oh

Brian Nichols  32:58  
yeah, I got lots of people yelling at me that's not libertarian. I'm like, actually, I think it's very libertarian, but I digress. Um, so Brian, we're going towards the tail end of the episode here. As you know, we do a little segment called Final thoughts. So I'm gonna go ahead, start things off, and I'll kick things over to you, bring us home. Um, but I just want to call something out. And this isn't really, I mean, this. This is like, same church, different pew from our conversation today. But the overarching theme of what I'm gonna wrap up here with is that things change, and look no further than right now. Gen Z, if you go to a concert, right like, I'm the old fuddy duddy and I go to concerts now, Brian, my wife, and I went to go see Post Malone, and I'm like, Hello, fellow kids. And it's, you know, the average age of the concert go is probably like 1819, 20 years old. But there's obviously a lot of folks there who are of drinking age, right? And yet, when I looked around at the crowd, you know what I saw most folks holding in their hand, Brian, it was that new that the liquid death, right? And for the folks who aren't aware, liquid death is a can of water. That's all it is. It looks like you're drinking a beer. It's a tall boy looking can, but it's it's just water, that's all it is, right? And if you look around at this concert, there is literally hundreds 1000s of young folk who are saying, yeah, no, I don't want alcohol, right? And you look at alcohol sales, they have plummeted over the past five years, by and large, due to the fact that Gen Z isn't really drinking anymore and like that just speaks to, I think my generation, and I say my generation has on some old footy Dodd, but like, you know, I was in college about 10 plus years ago, and that was the norm. Like drinking, binge drinking, like parties and stuff like, that's just what people did. And to see now that that has really not gone away, but it's definitely scaled back, especially for that younger generation. So the fact that we're seeing as more and more of the younger generation has access to more information, I mean, the internet. I mean, we really got to take a step back. The internet didn't exist in its form that we have today until the 2000s right? So this is 30 years ballpark of information being readily available to a large public you know that before was never really even a topic. Like you got your news from the paper or from college or from school or from the Encyclopedia, or you watch the like you watch the the evening news, like you didn't go online and do your own research, and that's just such a new thing that that's new, I say new for like Gen X, it's newer for millennials. It's alien to the boomers of the world. But for Gen Z, Gen alpha, this is just that. That's that, that is what it is, that status quo that's normal to them, right? Like, oh man, I forget which episode it was. We did back last year or two years ago. When you do like, 950, plus episodes, you kind of blend a little bit. But, like, there was one episode we were talking about how each generation kind of has a new starting off point, right? And they're, they're carrying forward from the last generation of what was considered the status quo, and to see where Gen Z and Gen alpha are today as their status quo, right? Like that, the world of the cell phone, the world of the internet, like that is, that is now the starting off point. God forbid, you know, unless the the expression, you know, I know that World War Two was fought with, you know, nukes and planes, but World War Three will be thought fought with sticks and stones, right? I pray that never becomes real life. But let's just say we're continuing with the setting off point that, hey, when you have your super computer, phone, or you have access to this massive thing called the internet, which is a knowledge base for everything that's ever been promoted anywhere at any time, like, yeah, I feel that I can do some research and make a decision for myself way better relative to some random bureaucrat sitting in a nice, cushy office in DC telling me that this is going to be bad for me because statistics or science or, Oh, man, that's gonna be clip. Oh, look at Brian. Just quick science. But like, that is the thing right there, right? Is that this the status quo has changed so much just to say we're gonna see that continue, right? Like, I would not be surprised as we can we go forward. Smoking is going to become more and more unpopular. Drinking is going to become more and more unpopular, by the way. Like, interesting. Interestingly enough, there we go. You look at Gen Z right now, the rate of like, one night stands has also plummeted. So you're seeing a social change there as well. So there's a lot to unpack, but the overarching theme is that, yes, things change. So whatever is is today is not necessarily going to be the thing tomorrow. And as a matter of fact, it might be on the way out before we even realize it. But that's my final thoughts. Brian, what do you have for us as we wrap things up here today? And of course, Brian, where can folks go ahead and follow Brian Nichols, not Brian Nichols, floor is

Speaker 2  37:42  
yours. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Yeah. I think that is well said. There's an organic change happening, like the systems self regulate, and a lot of times, centralized planning interrupts that in in a vain attempt to try to protect us from outcomes that are, you know, happening in part of the learning process. And there's more skillful ways that we can act, and if we, if we kind of face reality for what it is, that's what I leave people with thinking of what your trade offs are, thinking of what your credibility signals are, and to what are you willing to how much are you willing to invest in self reliance and and what subjects, and what kind of credit credibility markers are you going to invest in for the topics that you Don't that don't have that time or space to to look at. So that's what all these people with. And, yeah, find me. I'd love to, you know one of my favorite podcasts, I'd love to connect with the audience. I'm at Twitter X slash Twitter at Brian knuckles, not Nichols, Knuckles. 13. Find me. And I also talk about shame and social stigma. But so you'll have to, you know, sort out who you're talking to, but you can follow both me and Brian. And then sub stack is I have a project called hesitation media, where we do slow journalism. We cover things from months and years ago with updated sources. We stay away from breaking news, contribute at young voices. So I'd love to connect with the audience and I appreciate what you're doing, Brian. I'm really glad I was able to come

Brian Nichols  39:23  
on. Likewise, Brian, likewise. And I'm thank you for giving a shout out to yes young voices. Young voices is an amazing organization. I've been working with them now for what, three, four years. I was a mentor there for quite a bit, for some of the up and coming young voicers. Worked with our good buddy, Caleb friends, formerly of the we're libertarians network, and still a phenomenal dude. I love him. He's a great human being. He has his brand new book out called the conductor. Go ahead and check that out if you haven't had a chance yet. But no young voices is doing amazing work, bringing some very bright minds together, both young and a little bit older. You know, hey, I'm not gonna date you there, Brian, but you know, you and I are definitely on the the upper end of the the the young folk, which, hey, you know. I'll channel my inner Steve Buscemi, Hello, fellow kids, but no. Young voice is doing amazing work. And yeah, how about this? We'll make it easy for folks who are like Brian. Nichols. Brian Nichols, this is confusing, guys. All links in the show notes. If you wanna go ahead, follow Brian or follow yours truly. Can find those links, yes, down below, but just for the audio listener, just so you have a heads up, you can find yours truly at B Nichols, Liberty. You can find me on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and yes, The Brian Nichols Show is both a video version show as well as an audio version show. So you can go ahead to YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Facebook, wherever it is you love to consume your video content. Just do me a favor, hit that subscribe button and also head down below into the comments. You know, we want to hear your thoughts. What are your your reaction to both you know, Brian and yours truly's Uh, positions here in the show today. Are you in favor of things being banned? Do you think we just need to have more informed consent? Go down below and duke it out. Um, and otherwise you can go ahead and find a Brian Nichols show, like I said, on your favorite podcasting platforms, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube music. I like, uh, podcasts, attic, wherever it may be. Just hit that subscribe button so you can say, single time we have a brand new episode, hitting your podcast feeds. And one last note, please go ahead support our amazing sponsors, like amp America, cardio miracle, all those links down below. But with that being said, Brian Nichols, signing off here on The Brian Nichols Show for Brian Nichols, we'll see you next time bye.

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