Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
Truth Under Fire: Intelligence, AI, and Information Warfare
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How does real intelligence survive in the age of misinformation and AI-generated chaos?
In this episode of The Security Halt Podcast, Deny sits down with former military intelligence analyst Daniel W., founder of HM Intelligence, to break down how open-source reporting really works behind the scenes.
They dive into AI-assisted intelligence, misinformation, media bias, the Ukraine war’s global consequences, and how veterans can build purpose beyond service while still contributing real value to the world.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Daniel W and His Journey
02:58 Transitioning from Military to Intelligence
05:56 The Role of AI in Intelligence Gathering
08:57 Challenges of Solo Intelligence Work
11:46 Navigating Misinformation and Social Media
14:58 Current Global Hotspots and Concerns
17:54 The Importance of Accurate Information
20:51 Future Aspirations and Educational Endeavors
30:55 Dissecting Media Bias and Finding Truth
34:27 Safety and Security in London: A Personal Perspective
38:47 Coping with Dark News: Mental Health Strategies
42:03 The Complexity of the Ukraine Conflict
54:16 The Reality of War: A Personal Reflection
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Connect with Daniel Today!
https://www.instagram.com/hm_intelligence/
Podcast: https://youtube.com/@intelbriefpodcast?si=1cw2nVWgNbWnFX26
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@hm_intelligence?si=rNngHjpxvQ-e1lQE
Produced by Security Halt Media
This idea that war is the ultimate thing, I hate to tell you it's not.
SPEAKER_01:Wars are expensive. Everyone's economies are suffering.
SPEAKER_00:The Ukraine conflict. In your perfect world, to try to like solve this, what do you think the best case scenario would be for these two, you know, nations to end this war?
SPEAKER_01:How this war ends is going to set a precedent for like how the world deals with large-scale state-on-state conflict. And there's another looming large-scale state-on-state conflict, depending on how this war ends, or depend on what happens there.
SPEAKER_00:For the first time in modern history, we're seeing passionate volunteers on both sides.
SPEAKER_01:From what I understand, the Russian economy is currently designed in a way that it cannot survive if it stops fighting.
SPEAKER_00:It's very well. How are you? Doing well. Hugan and Moonin, uh, intelligence. Uh, your guys' profile and what you're doing online is remarkable. I am a big fan, been following you guys for a while, and being married to somebody that is an a a very uh astute individual who is constantly debunking things and doing fact checking. It's great to see individuals such as yourself and what you guys are doing over there putting out real information. And um, now more than ever, we need the truth. There's so much going on in the world, and what you guys are doing uh is uh commendable to say the least.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. I enjoy it. It's uh an interesting hobby, let's say.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's uh let's dive into it, man. How'd you find yourself in this space with this hobby?
SPEAKER_01:Um so I I discharged out of the military end of 2019, I believe, and I moved to Europe. Uh I moved to Budapest in Hungary, and I was doing a master's degree r uh remotely, just living in Hungary. The plan was with me and a mate to just travel around, have a good time, you know, experience Europe um just as two random dudes in our like late 20s. Um and then COVID kind of, you know, came in and destroyed all those plans. So we ended up sitting in an apartment for about a year. Um, it was still fun. We had a great time. We drank a lot. We I managed to actually pass my master's degree, which I don't know if I would have without COVID's help. Um and yeah, and then towards the end of that, I started working in like corporate intelligence and I started moving away from like geopolitics and like security-based intelligence. Um, but I still had the passion for it, which you know I had in the military and from you know my experience. So a friend of mine, um, Cole, who runs all intelligence, I don't know if you've seen so me and him serve together. We're in the same units.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, no shit. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So he he was doing it in for like China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Um, and we were chatting, and I was like, I wrote a few things for him about Europe, and he was like, Oh, why don't you just like start your own page? So I did, and here we are. That was like I think I started it like the end of 2022 around about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's funny. We we obviously, you know, through the meme pages, we always make fun of our our Intel guys, and you think that when somebody it's look, sitting in a skiff, diving into reports is not always fun. But for a lot of people, they love it. They're passionate about it. And that's that's something that we I tell all veterans in the show is like find what you really love doing and try to find your find a find a way to make money, find a way to at least find an outlet through it when you get out. Um, which 20, 30 years ago, maybe that's that wasn't the case. But now, certainly with the rise of social media, that's something that is very like I mean, you the page has grown to I think you're at 133k. That's insane. There's space for it. Uh, there's space. And I have to say, like, hey, take a take a tactical pause here, security hall, if you will. If you're an intelligence professional in the military right now, don't take this lightly. You can leave the military, find a great rewarding career, but still be of service, be of value to individuals. Because, like I mentioned earlier, going to your page and getting some actual information versus going and sifting through conventional media, trying to find a nugget of truth is very helpful. Uh, like I said, the instant something was going down and all over the world, I try to go to AllCon or your page to kind of get a real bird's eye view of what's going on, no pun intended. Um understanding that the situations are constantly changing. There's, I mean, in Ukraine alone, uh, how do you stay on top of it? You don't have the the powerhouse of the military anymore. You don't have colleagues to your left and right in uniform. How do you continue gathering and you know, and open source and data mining? Like, how do you do that in today's world?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think it comes back to something that I think you want to talk about. It's AI. Um So I have like some trusted sources that I go to regularly, and that's where I get basically all of my reporting. And I have it narrowed down to a handful of pages that I would kind of take with a pretty good like grain of salt. Um, and generally cross-referencing them against each other. And then there are some like conventional media pages for bigger stories that are very good. Um, so there's like Reuters, I think, can be pretty good, and then like Deutschweller in Germany, they post very good stuff. Um they also do that. So they get lots of different news articles from different sources and then put them together in one article. So they're kind of doing the same thing. Um But that's the main way. And then using AI to speed up the process. Um, so like summarizing information or stuff like that, you know, m things that would have in the past taken an analyst three or four hours to do can now take like sixty seconds to a few minutes. And then you just you know make sure it says it sounds right, reword it a little bit, make sure like take out the you know, weird AI stuff. Yeah. And then you just make it more human. But that's the I mean, that's the only way that a page like mine could so HM intelligence is just one person. It's just me. Like there's no telling it's just it's just me. Um so there's no way I could do all of this without um you know the help of something. Um go ahead. I was gonna say, like it works pretty well. In um I think me and Cole talked about this on a another podcast a few weeks probably uh over a month ago now. But like AI is a great tool, but it is a tool. It's the same as like any other tool. If you put in good stuff, you can get out good stuff. But if you put in shit, you'll get shit out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You have to gather the real information and then give it like I'm I'm sure you've dove dove into this uh and and are probably way better versed in it, but giving it the the actual like role task and like really define that proper prompt before you dive into it. I mean, because if you're trying to do anything with AI, the moment you give it loose boundaries and shitty prompts, like you're gonna get garbage out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And like, I mean, I'm lucky that I I could pay for premium chat GPT, and that has some like features with it where you can like define boundaries for like all of what it's doing. So you can like set preset prompts that no matter what you ask it, it stays within the certain like boundaries, and then you can also give it base documents. So like say I wanted to write a report on Ukraine focusing on the last month, I could go collect the last month's worth of documents and give it to the AI, and then it has that as a base set of documents to work off. So then no matter what I'm asking it or what I'm putting into it from that point on, it has a good solid base level and it doesn't need to like go and find other things that might be less credible. So yeah. It's it's like all tools. If if you set it up correctly and use it correctly, it can be good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, doing this on your own, man. It's funny because I you know, I run this this whole thing on my own as well. But we have whenever we see something that's well curated and well developed and like done the right way, we tend to think like this is a multi-person agency. Like from the from the outside perspective, you do a really good job. It looks like there's a full team. From the website to the social media presence, it's like, holy shit, like this is like in my mind, it's this, you know, this gang of individuals, rogue individuals that are trying to put something good out there, put information, not put a spin to it, and and get it out for the masses. But come to find out, it's on the shoulders of one man. Like, Daniel, you're you're a veteran, you're you've served your nation. Like, how do you throttle the responsibility of supporting a hundred and thirty-three some odd thousand individuals in the the entire world with information and still, you know, find time to to live?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I just don't I think this comes back to Kiwi mentality. I just don't think about it too much. Just push it on down. What does it matter? Like, I don't know. I mean, like I started all of this to learn new things, like to while continuing to like focus on geopolitics, but like learn new stuff. Like I built the website, so I had to learn how to build a website. Um and like watched YouTube videos to learn how to do that. Then like I didn't know how to design, you know, like a social media post, like the imagery for it. So then got Canva and like learned how to use that. Was all like this whole journey has been about learning new things that are not in the wheelhouse of an intelligence analyst. Um to be fair, I was a strange. So like I think Cole as well, actually. Both of us uh trade uh what do you call it, trade changes? Like we so I joined the army into the infantry and I spent two years doing that, and then I changed into Intel. So like I joined Intel as a bit of a an oddity. There was a few mates of mine who were doing the same thing, so we had a good crew, but yeah. Yeah. So it's like when you talk about the people that sit in the skiff, I probably wasn't the best one of them, but you know, you need the people that go and talk to the the operators, speakers, the skiff people. Sometimes they lack certain skills to get the cross.
SPEAKER_00:Some do, some are amazing, some uh and not no no shade to you powerhouse intel workers, my my humant, all you guys, uh guys and gals, you're you're amazing individuals. You're the job, it's fun to make fun of. It's it's you know, the the troll memes, the cave trolls, the the the weird kids that don't talk and and probably have an issue with hygiene. But the reality is like it's a lot of work. It's a lot of the the the analysis part. And you know, when you're in the skiff, you're part of a team, you're sitting there collaborating. Everybody has their own role, everybody has there's a hierarchy of submitting process. This episode of Security Hall is brought to you by Dr. Mark Gordon and Millennium Health Store. If you've listened to this show, you know how seriously we take brain health, recovery, and long-term performance, especially for veterans and high performers. Dr. Mark Gordon is one of the leading experts in neuroendocrinology and traumatic brain injury. He's just released his new book, Peptides for Health, both the Medical Edition, Volume 1, and a Consumer Edition, Volume 1, are available right now. The book breaks down how peptide therapy supports brain health, hormonal balance, recovery, and resilience in a way that's practical and evidence-based. You can get 25% off the book by using code PTH25 at checkout, battle through March 15th. And for Dr. Gordon's proprietary health products, Security Health listeners can receive 10% off if they use the code phase2P. Click the link in the episode description to find out more and visit Millennium Health Store today. On this side of the house, it's just you. If do you ever worry if you get something wrong? And have you had that problem where you put something out there and immediately you're like, oh shit, I didn't do that. I didn't fact check the fact-check it enough. I didn't verify it enough, I need to pull this down. Like going through that process on your own, like, have is that something you've gone through?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Um, and it happens like all the time. Um The challenging thing about doing Intel in social media is speed. Like if you're not getting stuff out there instantly. I I slept through the first two hours of that Venezuela invasion because it it went down at like 0200 their time. So like I think it was like 5 a.m. when it started in the UK. So I woke up to my phone just blowing up for people being like, you're missing the war. Um But so like Yeah, so like instantly I'm like, all right, I need to start. And that's where like there's a balance of like speed and accuracy. Something has to give. If you want to be super fast, you're going to be less accurate because you just need to be putting stuff out there. Um and with imagery, like I think we talked about was AI manipulated footage. Like, I've posted numerous things, especially with how much better it's getting, that are just wrong. Um, and you've you'll find out very quickly because people will tell you.
SPEAKER_02:I can only imagine the DMs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um the weirdest ones are when it's real and they're telling you it's fake and to end your life. But that's life. Um Yeah. Uh don't worry, I get the same. Yeah, yeah. Um Facebook's way worse for it though. Um I think I didn't have a Facebook page until I think it was last Christmas. Was it when Russia shot down the uh airliner from Azerbaijan? Um Yeah. So I posted that. I just started a Facebook page like a month earlier because Instagram lets you cross post, so it was super easy. I never really thought about it. Turns out I had two videos of that plane getting shot down that had gone like viral on Facebook. They had like over a million views each. And the comments were like Instagram comments are bad. Like they are, but it's generally like funny slash dark humor. Pretty like can be trolling, but at least there's like a bit of humor to it. Facebook comments, because of the uh the age of the people that use Facebook as their main source of social media, um, they're a way more aggressive. Um side, people just being like, this isn't real, and I'm like, but it is. Like there's multiple angles of the same plane, it's multiple reports of it happening. Yeah, I don't know. And there was a few, few people that thought that my life should be taken from me for this. For posting this video, I was like, okay, sweet, man.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel in the same house, but uh I get it for a meme or for putting out a resource.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's the internet gives people that dislocation where they're not gonna face consequences for the things they say.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So they're always gonna do it. Do you ever find yourself or at some point did you find yourself engaging with them? Like trying to reassure, like, or is has you have you always maintained the the principle of like I'm not gonna engage? If if it's eight, gonna just move on by.
SPEAKER_01:Um if I'm bored, I might have a wee banter with them. Um I actually did it over the weekend. There was a page with no followers, no, it was like zip no posts, no followers, no profile picture, who messaged me asking me why I was limiting comments on a post. And I don't limit comments on a post because that goes that's counterproductive, right? More comments, more reach. You guys can argue all you want in the comments. It's fine by me. I'm not reading it, so sweet. Um but this guy, so like Instagram often I think it's like, especially for new accounts, will not let them post, no, like comment on posts because they're clearly just bot accounts. Yeah. And this guy asked me why I'd done it, and I said, I didn't. Um he just started like saying real mean stuff. So I just started like being extremely friendly back to him, asking him why. Um he's getting like very anti-Semitic, uh, accused me of being Jewish. Um I was like, and then he asked me if I was like an American lap dog. I was like, mate, I'm from New Zealand, I live in the UK, I know what you're on about. I just essentially just had a conversation with this guy for about half an hour and he got bored and stopped replying. So I was like, cool, man. When? Yeah, no longer bored.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I was just I was just messaging him between I was just playing art graders and messaging him in between. So no skin off minors. But no, I don't I don't normally engage with hate comments. That was more for the love of the game. I mean I grew up in that generation that the internet started when I was about twelve in a big way. So I grew up as an internet troll. So Yeah. In a Call of Duty lobby is just the most horrific places on the internet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was gonna like when we had Facebook when I was like a teenager, you could comment on people's connections. So like if you became friends with, say, a girl you liked, your friends would just pile into the comments on that. Like, that is nasty business. Those were cutthroat years. Yeah, yeah. You learn some stuff.
SPEAKER_00:But it's a it's a it's it's funny because I bring that up because we're we're in a situation, an age where you know things, flashpoints like Ukraine bring out the worst in people on both sides. Like you can't find anybody that's just willing to say, hey, like let's just all agree that people dying is bad. Uh and that's the the thing that I realize when you go on social media, even if you're just putting out information that's just facts, just putting out info on a daily basis, you're feeding it to the algorithm that's eventually going to get it out to two polarizing groups of people that can't agree on anything. Is it something that you struggle with where you're just like just trying to put information out there? And seeing the comets, seeing the engagement being so negative, does it ever make you want to change missions or at least get to the point where it's like, fuck, man, like maybe I will turn off comets? Um I've never got to that point.
SPEAKER_01:Um I I I mean, I don't post that much. I mean, I post a lot, but I don't post enough that it's like I don't know. I also think like the way that Instagram engages, because Instagram is like I think my most popular platform by a long way. And like they the comments, I don't need to see them. Like my Instagram, I don't know, we like when you click to see what notifications you have, that's just diabolical. So why I don't even try and look at it. Um and like DMs, I can just close it. It doesn't matter. Um where it's not like uh X, where it's like to become a big channel, you have to like be engaging with people to like spur conversation. Um I think that would be a lot different because people are like, you're having to argue your point.
SPEAKER_00:Um, this episode of Security Hulk is brought to you by Dr. Taylor Bosley and Precision Wellness Group. Let's be real. By now, a lot of New Year's resolutions have already fizzled out, life gets busy, motivation drops, and health ends up on the back burner. But here's the truth there's no better time to start than right now. Precision Wellness Group specializes in hormone optimization and hormone health, delivering personalized care and treatment right to your door. You've been dealing with low energy, brain fog, or sleep, or stalled performance, hormone imbalance may be the missing piece. Dr. Taylor Bosley and his team take a data-driven, individualized approach to help you get back to operating at your best. Secured Hall listeners received 25% off their initial consultation when they use Security Halt 25 at checkout. Click the link in the episode description to find out more and get started today.
SPEAKER_01:Which I guess is it's good because you get to think about different perspectives, but it would be tough. Um and also it's it's a lot more time consuming. I have a regular job. Um Yeah. HM is a hobby to me. So I don't have time to be having massive arguments with people on Twitter. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, looking at the uh the world today, like there's There's so much to focus on. What are you keeping tabs on the most? I mean, when you look at China, you look at Taiwan, you look at US and South uh South America now. I mean, I literally woke up this morning and saw a what-if. Um it's and there's several of these pages, not exactly like yours or all con, but they're they they have the flashy maps, and they're putting out what-if information. Oh, if the U.S. takes over Venezuela, and the graphics are just and the information they're putting out there is, you know, the typical AI voice, and it makes it sound like it's a position of authority, like it's a real thing, but it's completely speculative, and it's not reality, and it's not anywhere near being the truth. But it's it's gaining traction, and people are taking this as truth. When you look at the world today, what are the hot points that you're focused on or keeping tabs on the most?
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean, it's changed in the last few days, I would have to say. Um so for a bit of background, I made a video over the weekend of like my predictions for the year. I thought it'd be interesting. Um, and I wrote the script on Friday. The script got ruined on Saturday, so I had to rewrite it. Like what I was gonna say. I had to re- I'd made the PowerPoint. I'd say Venezuela wasn't even on the presentation. Like I had just been like, yeah, cool. There'll be continued air strikes, probably moving to the ground. Like I was just gonna put it in like some other comments at the end. And then, you know, that happened. Really railroaded the entire video. Um But I think over the next 12 months, like Russia-Ukraine is gonna be the big focus for especially the globe. Like, that is just gonna continue to be the focal point. Um, I think China-Taiwan is gonna probably ramp up in like terms of like political rhetoric and like tensions, but I don't think China is going to actually invade in 2026, that is. Um and yeah, but like I don't as a page, I don't really not worry. I do worry about that, but like I don't tend to post about it because like that to me is like ah, all cons got that sorted, I could just not worry about it and reshare his posts. So that's quite helpful. Um So yeah. Other things like Africa to me is just becoming more and more turbulent. Um like with kind of the withdrawing is probably the wrong word, but like re-prioritization of the US, you're seeing a lot of m a lot more tensions and like flare-ups within Africa. And like France is also pulling back, wars are expensive, right? Everyone's economies are suffering, so they're kind of withdrawing from their historic spheres of influence. Um, I think Africa is going to continue to be turbulent. Like, I continue to see pretty aggressive language from Ethiopia around like trying to reclaim access to the sea, which is a massive issue for their economy, because they have to pay port charges to uh to Djibouti or maybe Somaliland if they can make that deal. But yeah, so I think stuff like that to me could go flash to bang very quickly. Um and there's just this this constant level of conflict within Africa. Like the Sudan conflict is so underreported for how devastating it is.
SPEAKER_00:Like it's been going on for so long now, and it's the death and destruction is just mainstream media does not do a uh doesn't doesn't do it justice, it's not covered. You'll be hard pressed to find anything, even with Nigeria. Um and that guy just a bleep, but just just tiny bleep, banner on the map just for a little bit, uh, because of kinetic strike. And that's a reality. That that's the crazy part that we have to rely on social media pages to get information about the world of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01:And like the shit part is that if they're not getting attention, then they're not getting resource. So like if if the conflict in Sudan isn't in the media and people aren't talking about it, then it just falls away and no large Western power is gonna put resources into it because it's not a voting issue. So why care? Like it's a it's a brutal business that I didn't I don't think I really fully grasp how it actually works until I'd left the military. Because in the military, you're just worried about your government's priorities, right? They are set up to you. You go out and collect your information, write your reports, and feed it back into the system. But what the government prioritizes is driven by a completely other cycle that's a bit more complex. Yeah. Um yeah. So yeah, that's what I worry about. The world. But I also don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00:So how do you find the time in the balance? You mentioned you know it's a it's a a fun hobby. Um do you feel that it's ever going to be your full time, your full focus, and focus more on the training aspect, focus more on the education piece? Uh now more than ever, especially here in the United States, individuals want to be empowered. They want to learn how to be able to scrutinize information. Anyone can make a school community these days to teach just about anything. Are these uh is any of this something that's you're on the back burner, or do you always see that it's going to be a separate, just kind of hobby thing for you?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I do sell courses, but they're pretty low-key. Um, and they're more just a way of like offsetting the costs of HM. Um I don't see myself as much of a trainer. Like, while I like helping, I mean, it probably boils down to I'm pretty shit businessman. Um the amount of people I've just given my courses to, because I'm like, ah, you seem like a nice guy. Um Yeah. I'm not very good at advertising. Like I have merch. I never talk about it.
SPEAKER_00:Um Daniel, it seems like you've gone through uh the security hall at business school because I always tell people I'm a dog shit entrepreneur, I work so damn hard, stay up so damn late. I'm like, fuck, there's gotta be an easy way to do it. And I I'll have like these discussions with people and they'll be like, oh yeah, what if you just do this, this, and this, it'll cut your time by half. And I'm like, I've been doing it this way for four years. It's like, wow, I'm an idiot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It would have been smart rather than the masters in geopolitics that I got. Um Hey, it's working pretty good right now. I mean, it looks good on LinkedIn, mate. I tell you. Doing it doing a class after five years of Intel, doing a class on the intelligence cycle was it's pretty tough. It's a pretty tough ask. I was like, yeah, this is where we are. Um but no, uh, I don't know. We'll see what happens. Um I'm enjoying doing what I'm doing. I don't see myself as a trainer. Like my courses are I think they cover the basics of intelligence, um, but they're very cheap. Um compared to like because they're all online. Because like I I design them the way that I like training. I like training to be at my own pace, online, and pretty cheap. Like short, sharp, pretty budget, like gives you this the the crux of the information, because no course is going to teach you how to do something to a an amazing level, despite what they say. Unless the course has somehow like got really good exercises in it. Like, if you think about how long training in the military takes, it's like months. But that is because you just you like learn something and then you practice it over and over and over again, and then you do a test. Whereas like in the civilian world, a course or like a university course is just eight weeks of getting talked at, and then you have to go and put those new skills or ideas into practice somewhere. Um I don't know. I like like Udemy style courses that are just like, here's the information you need to know. Absolutely. Good luck. And you're like, sweet. And it costs you 20 bucks, and you're like, yeah. Cool. Um Got my certificate. Yeah, and like I mean the certificate's not worth the paper it's written on, but at least you now understand a concept that you didn't understand before. And if you have a chance, you can put it into practice and then you'll learn how to do it better and better and better. But it's like most things, you're gonna, as you learn more, you're gonna come up with your own processes. Like everyone talks about like Ausn't it's like this amazing and it's like there's so many aspects of Ausn't that I mean it's very difficult to get into, but like at the end of the day, it's just a process, and you learn your own process of how to do research online. You learn what sources are good for what, and like you do learn by talking to other people or like courses will show you where to find stuff, but you're gonna come up with your own way at the end of the day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Building systems, man. Like it's it's hard to teach somebody like these concepts. I think the best you can hope to do if well, do you favor right now? Hey, please go to episode description. Click the links, go take a class. You know, my man already made it super simple. It's like a Udemy course, you just click through it, learn it. But for those individuals, like if they're just trying to learn how to be more discerning, like what are some tips that you can give to like like my my in-laws? I love him. Charles, amazing guy. But if you put that man in front of Fox News, he's gonna take that as the gospel of God. And it's like, dude, you have to be willing to dive in a little deeper. Go to a different channel, go to a couple more sources, and then be able to discern, like, okay, like this is a little bit from Columbia, a little bit from Columbia, and then here's the truth. Like, what are some tips you can give to people listening that you know can help them digest dissect the the media and really get to the truth?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think US media is the greatest to watch as a base level. Um I agree with that. The level of like polarization within US media is for want of a better word, fucking insane. Um so for that reason I don't read it, listen to it, ingest it. I see memes from it. Yeah. That's about it. Um but yeah, in a general sense, it's multiple sources, right? Um understanding a who owns the news source that you're ingesting or taking in. Um, where did their allegiances lie? Where does their money come from? Because that is always going to be the base level. It's like how they make money, who they're trying to sell it to. Um so like if you take Al Jazeera, for example, right? It's owned by the Qataris. If you don't know that, they own it. If you ever want to see biased reporting, go look at what they're saying about issues Qatar cares about.
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SPEAKER_01:But for most issues, they're pretty good. Because if Qatar doesn't have a vested interest, they're better off coming across as a pretty non-biased source. But then the moment Qatar's interested, just give it a little a little tweak, you know? Um, so understanding like who owns the source and where they're coming from is probably the first thing. And then trying to just get multiple sources of the same story from different sides, and then find the middle ground. You're probably somewhere near there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's my go-to anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's please. I'll I will do you a favor. I'll I will take this snippet from that conversation. I'll put an episode description for you. Send that to your parents, send it to your grandparents, your in-laws, anybody that's a legacy news media fanatic, help them. Like the that the at least allows you to sleep better knowing that you can at least explain it to your loved ones of how to get their information because man, it's it is getting hard. And we we have to give them a little bit of grace because they grew up with it. They they learned to tune in every day at a certain time and only get their information from there. I was a victim of it for a majority of my adult life. Fucking Fox News for everything. It's not the reality. Um, both sides are retarded, and they don't want there's no benefit to tell you the truth. You have to go out there. So tune out, don't tune into those, and start going out somewhere else, man. Um it's c it's very complicated. It's very complex, but you gotta work for it. You gotta work for the truth, man. Like, and I wanna I wanna ask you, like, what's the you know, when I look on the news for issues concerning free speech and issues in London, I see nothing but stories of like just absolute lunacy, people going to jail for like 14 years for a mean, mean tweet or a mean post on Instagram. What's the ground truth? What's really happening in London? Like what's really oh you know, what's life for you over there?
SPEAKER_01:Um So we'll start with like sick safety and security in London, right? Yeah. I mean, I'm probably not a great example. I'm a rather big dude, and I've looked like I've been in multiple fights because I have. Um so probably not the best, you know, example of safety and security while walking around. Um, but in general, it's nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. I used to live in uh probably one of the worst areas of East London um and never had any issues. No one ever bothered me. But if you just keep to yourself understand some basic principles of not being an idiot, you're gonna be fine. If you hang out in tourist areas, then yeah, you're gonna get run into pickpockets, you're gonna run into like phone thieves. But this is gonna happen in most places. Um I've never seen anyone have their phone stolen. Um, I've never seen anyone get pickpocketed. Uh and I've lived here for four and a half, nearly five years now. Um I've probably seen less fights here than I saw in New Zealand. Um but that is because it's different kinds of fights. Like the fights that happen in the UK and London are like gang related. So like most knife crime is like gang on gang. So it's like youth gangs stabbing each other for credibility, basically. Um whereas like violence in New Zealand is just drunk idiots trying to beat the shit out of each other. Don't know why. Kiwis and Aussies, when we get boozed up, fighting each other. Um so yeah, that's like it's just it's nowhere near as bad as it proclaims to be on the internet. However, I have seen two bodies since moving here. So that's pretty crazy. Not as bad. This this might negate everything I've said. But slight caveat. Just just just two bodies. Yeah. So I was like running around a pretty prominent park in East and L East London probably in like 2022. And there was a cop standing next to a body covered in a sheet of someone who got stabbed in a knife fight and killed. It is, as I said, a pretty rough part of London. And then another, I think about a year or two later, running up this a canal not far from that park, police were pulling a body out of the canal. And it turned out someone had got murdered and thrown in the canal. Yeah. That's nothing. That's that's a Tuesday morning in New York. People die, right? The world isn't all sunshine and rambus. Um I didn't see them get killed. So it's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00:Uh hey, no hashtag no trauma. We're good. Yeah. My brain is just I don't think I care about much. Yeah. You know, that which brings me to my my next question. You know, you're inundated by a lot of dark things. You're seeing a lot of breaking news and reports. You know, we we were joking earlier about the Call of Duty lobbies. Like we grew up playing Call of Duty. We shouldn't say we growing up. Like I was an adult man uh chastising children on Call of Duty. But it's gonna be necessary for their maturing process. I helped them. But you know, back then it was you know, a drone strike was a thing we saw on a video game. Now it's a daily occurrence. And for somebody that's looking to put updated factual information out there for their audience, I would imagine that you're being exposed to it more, probably more so than than the lay man out there that's just perusing. Um, have you noticed or have had issues with like the amount of dark stuff you're seeing on a near constant basis? Like, how do you throttle it down? What are you doing to take care of yourself? Like we cover mental health a lot on the on the show, and you know, subjecting yourself, the data's out there, the studies are out there, putting yourself in front of this device or even your computer screen for prolonged periods of time, digesting the stuff, it's not the best thing for you. Uh have you struggled? Are you cooking like what are you doing on your daily basis to take care of yourself, man?
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean, in general, I live a pretty reasonable life. Like I go to the gym every morning, go for a run or something like that with my partner, um, train jujitsu two to three times a week, not as much as I should be. Um But there's like other things. So like I've been looking at this stuff for nearly 10 years. Like um as an Intel analyst in the army, I was working in open source intelligence since I mean the rise of the Islamic State, right? Yeah. Um so like during my time in the military, we spent a lot of time talking with the psychologists around how to be resilient with this stuff. And like I don't know. I d I don't think it's like a anything manual anymore. I mean, I click off videos if I know someone's about to get killed. Like if I'm you like execution videos, I just won't watch it. There's no need to see it. There's no requ you know what happens. It's fine. Um and I won't post it either because that's just it's unhelpful. Also, my account will get banned, so it's kind of silly. Um drone strikes, again, I'll just like click off if I see the rockets like heading towards an individual or like, you know, the FPV style drones at a person, I'll just close it before it gets to the point of impact. Um I don't seem to find FPV drones hitting vehicles to be that bad.
SPEAKER_00:Even though you know people that's yeah. Uh there's only been a few that it's like I mean actually, um you see the individual and I guess the scientific turn is uh turn into hamburger meat. Uh that's that one's pretty pretty haunting. Uh I've seen some gnarly stuff, but uh yeah, it it's what humans are willing to do to each other in war. Got it.
SPEAKER_01:When you involve technology, that is one thing if there's one thing we can do, it's fucking kill each other. I'm getting really good at it. Shockingly. I mean, I've talked to quite a few people about this recently, is like we're in a really dark sadistic way. We're just getting back to what we've always done. Like the last 70 years post-World War II, like, while there have been there's been wars, it's been relative peace. And the the wars haven't been like well, Korea, Vietnam, you know, stuff like that is pretty significant. Afghanistan, I write. Yeah. Big significant wars. But like not like World War II-esque wars. Yeah. Um But we're just we're just going we've done this for thousands of years. Humans. We love it. We can't help ourselves.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I don't know how else to say it. This is just No, it's it's it's true. We love having a bad guy to uh to root against. We love having somebody like Putin to to just rally around and say, ah, this bad guy. Like we we've we've made it a habit, uh a worldwide habit of always you gotta have somebody to root for and somebody to root against. And unfortunately, we we aren't satisfied with just soccer or the NFL. Like Yeah. It's gotta be for real, mate. It's gonna be a real match. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I don't know. Like But then like you look at, I don't know. Like the whole reason the EU was founded was to tie Germany and France together economically so they couldn't fight because basically they're just destined to fight each other because that's just what they've always done. And they'll do it again every 20, 30 years until one of them wins and one of them loses. But I don't know. It's a complex world.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think sadly we are just returning to what humans have always done. Which is scary and not ideal, but it's kind of just just life in a weird way.
SPEAKER_00:I think the the one thing I do want to see come to an end, and I don't know, I don't have a good enough answer to what one side has to give and and concede to, uh, is the Ukraine conflict, man. Like in in your in your perfect world to try to like solve this, like what do you think the best case scenario would be for these two nations to finally de-escalate and uh end this war?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's I think that some of the issues are bigger than just this war. Like how this war ends, in my opinion, is going to set a precedent for like how the world deals with large-scale state-on-state conflict, and there's another looming large-scale state-on-state conflict that I think depending on how this war ends, will depend on what happens there. So I think that is like where I start my assessment from is like it it's not just getting out of this war. That if it was, that's all well and good. We could probably exit this war pretty quickly. But there are appeasement is not gonna work. Like for the longevity of peace, um essentially letting Putin get away with winning is a tough is a tough situation. Um and for him, it's existential, right? It's if I don't win here who knows. And it's not just him he worries about, right? It's his family. We all know what happens when a dictator dies. His family doesn't get to live in that lovely little house in northwestern Russia anymore. So I don't think he thinks I don't think he's thinking just about himself. I think he's thinking about his successes, his family, and to him, it's either win or die. Um and if it's die, it's probably the death of your entire family. So that gives you a lot to fight for, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um I don't even think about it that way. Shit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, like, and if he loses, the Russian economy collapses, he gets deposed, probably by other oligarchs. Um, they're probably not gonna let him wander off to Siberia by himself and disappear. He's probably gonna follow the fate of many Russians and fly out a window or something similar.
SPEAKER_02:Mysterious Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And if that happens, what does his family do? Are the oligarchs gonna let his family just inherit all this money that they've been siphoning off for Russia all this time?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or do you just quietly get rid of them and keep it for yourself? So I think it's probably one of the most complex issues to solve. Um and then it comes down to like if you're a Ukrainian, right? Without any with I I think I talked about it this morning on my podcast. It's like Trump said on Sunday that he doesn't believe that Ukraine flew those drones at Moscow's at Putin's house. Um he said they faked it. They fabricated the evidence and they're lying, right? It's like this is just a dry run for how they break whatever ceasefire they want. And if you're Ukraine, you just watch them do it. Like, and they're just gonna stand there and boldface lie to you and be like, no, you tried to attack us. So we're gonna attack you now. And depending on how the peace agreement looks and how the security guarantees look, can whoever's providing the security guaranteors just step aside and let Russia roll back in? Because if you're in Ukraine, why would you accept that? Like, while they're not winning, they're not losing. Well, they are, but very, very slowly. Yeah. Um and like, how long can Russia deal with this amount of losses, this cost? Is it something has to give? Um, active defense is working all right. I disagree with some of their military tactics, but hey, I'm not there. I'm not making the decisions. Um, it's not my job. But like, you know, slowly grinding down the Russian army. I think last this month or last month was the first time they haven't been able to replenish more soldiers than they lost in the month. So, like, is that a sign that it's starting to fail? And if you're Ukraine, is that uh Oh, here we go. You can only throw so much meat into the grinder until you run out of meat. And they have a lot of meat, but it's not endless.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. No, the the one thing that's that's unique about this, it's for the first time in modern history, we're seeing passionate volunteers on both sides and conscriptions on the Russian side, uh, individuals that you know have got service members that have gotten out veterans that have gone to Ukraine to fight for their uh for their cause. You got Colombians, Brazilians, Mexicans, tons and tons of people that are pouring in because they identify with the cause, they want to be there, but for me, it's like geez, man, like it's that old man trying to tell a young man, like, be careful what you wish for, man. Like this idea that war is the ultimate thing. No, it I I hate to tell you it's not.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was lucky enough to not have to, I was never in active uh contact. No. I I served my deployments in a skiff, as you said. Especially five eye skiffs, a long way away from any form of conflict. Um so I had a a lush life. Um but I have a few friends who've gone over and a few of them have passed away. But when I talk to them, like they just I think there's some people, you know, they just they just they can't help but try. They just want to experience it. And like with what reasons they're doing it for, good or bad, hey, someone's gonna fight the war. Um yeah. It is pretty horrid. And like, I mean, I can't imagine fighting a war with FPVs. Um I was talking to someone the other day, and you're a special operations man yourself. Um and I said this in a bit of a joking way, but it is the reality of it, it's pretty tough. Is you guys spend so much time training and perfecting your skills to be these like precision operators who do the pointy end, and now you can get killed by a 15-year-old flying a drone that costs two grand. Yeah. And he can kill you in the dead of night, you don't have a fucking chance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. They're brilliant. The the on a good note though, we have incredible, amazing individuals in our special operations community that have taken it upon themselves to, I mean, to take it as your mission to go to Ukraine to learn and develop TTPs, to adjust on the fly, to rewrite tactics and techniques for such a formidable opponent is insane. And some of the tech, some of the ingenuity, the I mean, just rewriting how you patrol in that environment to ensure that, like, hey, look, if one of us is gonna take it, you're gonna take out the entire squad or team. And I'm seeing that that level of of you know, ownership of the mission set with guys that are at that that leading edge of it. I'm I'm I'm in sh I'm in awe of one, willing to put yourself out there, willing to do this, and and two, the the tenacity of being willing to like go back and talk to people in the tech space to be like, hey, how can I cloak myself from a fucking drone? Like what what what are some ideas? Let's brainstorm this. Like that's great and all. That's the the ingenuity of this fight, but still, you shouldn't be there. I w I don't want you there. I don't want you to be dealing with this. This is a conflict that has now, I feel, has gone into this. We're really close to seeing what I don't want it to become is uh this next generation's Afghanistan, next generation's Iraq, where it's the ball is a stalemate. Like you're moving inches one way in the next month or two months down the road, it's the other way, with no clear and decisive understanding of what victory looks like. That's the greatest lesson that I take away from the years of Afghanistan. Senior officers, seniors leaders that never had a clear understanding of what the exit strategy is and what the fucking end game would be. So that's like what I'm fascinated about this, specifically in Ukraine and in Russia, like individuals like yourself that can bring in some insight of what it really looks like to be that guy on the ground that like what's going through Putin's head. Of course he's not willing to fucking concede, because like you you mentioned earlier, it's not just him. He's worried about the reality of the situations what happens if I don't win decisively, 100%. Everybody that I that I love and care about, they're done. They're out. So yeah. That's a good way to frame it and look at it, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And also, from what I understand, the Russian economy is currently designed in a way that it cannot survive if it stops fighting. Um so yeah. That's crazy. It's an extremely tough situation. And yeah, I agree that I hope it doesn't drag out to the the times that you know Iraq, Afghanistan are and everyone loses sight of what the goals really are. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it's uh it's not where it's at, kids. Stay home. Um serve, but I absolutely serve. I I want more people that I think the military gave me great opportunities. So I want people to be encouraged to serve, but don't look at war as like this the romanticized idea. I mean, we I think it's a young man thing. We all had it. We wanted to be the the the hero. Uh I talked to a psychologist about this once.
SPEAKER_01:Um essentially what it boils down to from this guy's perspective is the romanticization and like the psychology built into especially like lower infantry units, is almost it's a necessity, right? Um in the brutal way it is, is at some point you have to convince these young men to go stand up, march across some form of land, and do despicable things to other people. So you have to somehow psychologically convince them that it's the right thing to do, and to give them the courage to do it. Like and believe so it's like how you, you know, all infantry units think they're the best in the world. All soldiers think they're the toughest, meanest, hardest, fastest humans there ever are. And it's like this psychology that's just pushed into all of all soldiers' brains is necess is a necessity to get them to go do the job. Because without it, if you think you're gonna go into that room and there's you know seven foot spits in a dude who's gonna clothesline you over and then break your brains with his fists. Probably it's gonna lobe grenades from the door. But you know, like yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:It's a weird thing. I think you're on it. I think that's part of it. It is, man. I think the the truth is like we you can never convince a young man that's that's already made up his mind about service. I got a friend right now, same thing, trying to talk to him, be like, dude, like you're past your prime. Like your husband, you're a father. Make that your mission.
SPEAKER_01:And he's making is joining up now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, he it's going he's he's going to definitely Different uh different route. Um but it's just one of those things where it's it's like there's conflict all over the world and there's opportunities to serve in various capacities with various, you know, as a contractor, to go do work in places like Ukraine or in Africa. One thing I always tell people is like, dude, the greatest mission you can have is is being right here at home to your family, to your friends. Be the best version of yourself here. You don't have to fight a war to find yourself. I mean, we a lot of us did. Um it was it was a great adventure, but at the end of the day, it was just a footnote. It was just a footnote in my life. It wasn't everything, and I think that's something that I like to tell every veteran. Um, and I think it it trans it transcends um, you know, territories and boundaries. It's probably the same in the UK, where a lot of veterans feel like their only great chapter was in service, in uniform. And in reality, it's just like, no, like, dude, what you're doing right now is infinitely more important than going out there and suiting back up and trying to make a run at the next conflict. I wouldn't survive. I'm too too old. Um, definitely don't have the run times I used to have. Uh find your purpose in the now and what you're doing and where you're going in the family you're building. Um, and if you're looking for good intelligence, my friend Daniel's got a great page to follow. Please do us a favor before we close out, man. Tell us where we can find you. Tell us what you're doing, and uh where can people find your your awesome e-courses.
SPEAKER_01:Um HM intelligence in most places. Uh the specifics, I'm not 100% sure. The main kind of things I'm trying to grow at the moment is my YouTube, which is like huggin' minin intelligence, and also the podcast The Intel Brief. Um, which is basically me chatting shit each morning for about six to seven minutes. Um I've just started making a video for it, um, which is essentially just showing what I'm looking at while I'm talking, but hopefully gonna develop it into something more. But um yeah, and then like humintelligence.org has everything else. Um Perfect.
SPEAKER_00:What's what's the YouTube channel again?
SPEAKER_01:Hugging is uh HM Intelligence or uh Huggin'amino Intelligence. It'll perfect. Something it'll get you there. Yeah, or just message me on Instagram.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Do me a favor, just go ahead and pause the episode right now, go to those descriptions, click all those links, help my brother out, subscribe to the show, watch it grow, be one of those that follow them from the early because I have a feeling this thing is gonna flow up, uh blow up, and I'll be following as soon as we get done recording. I'm gonna go there and check it out. Um, YouTube, uh, it's a little difficult, folks. Support our guy right from the start. Be one of the first subscribers, be one of the first followers, and then the most important thing, share it with your friends, share it with your mom and dad to have a hard time listening to anything other than Fox News or MSNBC or any other fucking, especially if they listen to the view. If you got any family members to watch the view, just send them this link. Just help them out. They're they're struggling, folks. Dude, I can't thank you enough for being here, Daniel. Uh, it's it's great to see the work that you're doing. It's extremely helpful. Because, like I said, as soon as I knew something was going on with Maduro, the first page I went to, it's yours. I was like, all right, he's gonna have something that's actually of uh value other than Maduro dancing and doing the stanky leg through AI. They were good though. I will get AI's gone too far. Some of the fucking memes out there, they are hilarious, they are very enjoyable. Uh uh it it did make me laugh. But at the same time, I want to hear information. I want to know the the truth of what's going on. Uh, you know, because now I'm uh I'm a dirty civilian. I'm no longer privy to the skiff discussions. I can't go down and find out what those boys are doing. So yeah, I'm selfish. And uh I want you to be selfish too when it comes to being educated about current events. So please follow HM Intelligence. You like I said before, all the links will be in the episode description. Daniel, thank you for being here. Folks, season fucking eight. We've been doing it. Uh finally, I think we hit our stride. We finally know what we're doing here. And by we, I mean me. Because uh just like Daniel, it's a solo fucking endeavor. Um, but yeah, thank y'all for tuning in. Daniel, thank you for being here, and we'll see y'all next time. Till then, take care.
