Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, his second time on the podcast.
00:00:05 He’s an anarchist, political thinker, podcaster, and author.
00:00:10 He wrote Dear Reader, which is a book on North Korea, and The New Right, a book on the various
00:00:17 ideological movements at the fringe of American politics.
00:00:20 He hosts a podcast called You’re Welcome, spelled Y O U R, and in general, there’s
00:00:26 a lot of live shows on YouTube that are at times profoundly absurd, and at other times
00:00:33 absurdly profound, and always full of humor and wisdom.
00:00:38 He is the Joker to my Batman, and the Caviar to my Vodka.
00:00:44 His masterful dance between dark humor and difficult, even dangerous ideas, challenges
00:00:50 me to think deeply about this world, and when that fails, at least smile and have a good
00:00:55 laugh at the absurdity of it all.
00:00:58 This episode has much of that.
00:01:00 His outfit, for example, the exact inverse of mine, with a white suit and a black shirt,
00:01:10 is just one example of that, of the humor, trolling, and brilliance that is Michael Malice.
00:01:18 Quick mention of our sponsors, NetSuite, Business Management Software, Athletic Greens, All
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00:01:32 So the choice is success, health, food, or money.
00:01:38 Choose wisely, my friends, and if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount
00:01:43 and to support this podcast.
00:01:46 As a side note, let me say that Michael is, in many ways, a man of radical ideas, but
00:01:52 also a man with kindness in his heart.
00:01:55 Those two things are great ingredients for a fascinating conversation.
00:01:59 I hope to have several such people on this podcast this upcoming year who also have radical
00:02:05 ideas about politics, science, technology, and life.
00:02:09 At times, often perhaps, I might fail at asking the challenging questions that should be asked,
00:02:15 but I will try my best to do so, and hope to keep improving every time.
00:02:20 Mostly, I come to these conversations with an open mind and with love.
00:02:25 Unfortunately, that kind of approach can be taken advantage of in many ways.
00:02:29 It can be used by reporters or just people online later to highlight how or why I’m
00:02:35 ignorant or worse, I’m generally not a good human being.
00:02:39 In the context of this, I have two options.
00:02:42 I could either be cautious and afraid, or second, be kind, thoughtful, and fearless.
00:02:48 I choose the latter.
00:02:50 Hopefully while still being open, fragile, and empathetic.
00:02:53 Again, I strive to be like the main character of The Idiot by Dostoevsky.
00:02:59 That’s my New Year’s resolution.
00:03:01 Be kind and do difficult things.
00:03:04 Difficult conversations, difficult research projects, and difficult entrepreneurial adventures.
00:03:09 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify,
00:03:16 support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
00:03:20 And now, here’s my conversation with Michael Malice.
00:03:25 Knock knock.
00:03:26 You’re stealing my bed?
00:03:27 I’ll kill your family.
00:03:28 That’s not how a knock knock joke works.
00:03:35 Knock knock, Michael.
00:03:36 You don’t do knock knock jokes with Russians because if we have a knock at the door, turn
00:03:41 down the TV.
00:03:42 You got to sit quiet.
00:03:43 We hope they go away.
00:03:44 You don’t do that back in the motherland.
00:03:45 You know this.
00:03:46 It’s triggering.
00:03:47 Who’s there?
00:03:48 I can’t even do it now.
00:03:53 Knock knock.
00:03:54 Who’s there?
00:03:55 Leon.
00:03:56 Leon who?
00:03:58 Leon me when you’re not strong, Michael.
00:04:00 Well, that will never happen.
00:04:03 I stole elegantly, eloquently that joke from you.
00:04:08 The lie detector term, that was a lie.
00:04:10 Elegantly and eloquently.
00:04:11 Oh.
00:04:12 Yeah, you crossed it out on a sheet of paper.
00:04:17 That means it’s real.
00:04:18 The reason I bring it up is because you had the guts, the brilliance to do a knock knock
00:04:25 joke.
00:04:26 Not once, but three times with Alex Jones.
00:04:28 I think it was like six.
00:04:29 I had a runner.
00:04:30 Okay.
00:04:31 Maybe they started to sort of melt together in this beautiful art form that you’ve created,
00:04:37 which is like these kind, loving knock knock jokes with Alex Jones.
00:04:40 So you got the chance to meet him and talk to him twice with Tim Pool in a long form
00:04:47 conversation.
00:04:48 What was it like talking to Alex Jones, both on the deep philosophical intellectual level
00:04:56 and staring the man in his eyes and doing a knock knock joke about Olive knock knock.
00:05:04 Who’s there?
00:05:05 Olive.
00:05:06 I love you, Alex.
00:05:07 I love you.
00:05:08 Well, there’s a lot to explain.
00:05:11 Where do you start?
00:05:12 I’ve been on his show Infowars a few times when I was researching my book, Then You Write.
00:05:17 So I had had conversations with him before.
00:05:20 One of the things that I appreciate about Alex is he is a lot more self aware than people
00:05:25 think and has a good sense of humor.
00:05:28 And I also like a good twist ending.
00:05:32 So if you set people up and all these jokes are these kind of vapid, you know, all of
00:05:37 you jokes and the last one’s about building seven, they’re not going to see that one coming
00:05:41 nor will he see that one coming.
00:05:43 I even had another one about Sandy Hook, which I didn’t do on the air because he was being
00:05:46 like a good sport, but that was the dagger that was kind of behind my back if necessary.
00:05:52 But it was a good mechanism toward I like it when things work on several levels.
00:05:57 It was also a good mechanism to keep kind of the conversation guarded and this every
00:06:03 so often, this is kind of hitting the control, alt, delete and bring it down to a certain
00:06:09 point of calmness.
00:06:11 What about the love thing?
00:06:12 I mean, you’re saying that that was a buildup to the dagger, but it was also somehow really
00:06:19 refreshing to get that little jolt, like that pause.
00:06:23 You don’t get that in conversations often.
00:06:25 Like I’m a huge fan of Rogan and he’ll have a three hour conversation, but at some point
00:06:30 just pause and be like, I love you, man.
00:06:35 Like it’s in the cheesiest way possible because that seems to be, it somehow hits the hardest
00:06:42 then.
00:06:43 I don’t know.
00:06:44 I don’t know you didn’t intend it that way, but with Alex Jones to sit there and to say,
00:06:48 I love you.
00:06:50 That was like, I just haven’t never heard that before.
00:06:55 And so it struck me as like, not just funny for what you’re doing, but just like, whoa,
00:07:00 we just took, cause conversations are all about like this ranting, especially with Alex
00:07:04 Jones, just like ranting about this or that, this part of the world, like, can you believe
00:07:08 this shit?
00:07:09 That kind of thing.
00:07:10 But like to pause and be like, this is awesome.
00:07:13 I don’t know if you felt that way, but.
00:07:15 Oh, I definitely felt that way.
00:07:16 So it was actually very fun.
00:07:17 I’ll give you the backstory of how that happened.
00:07:22 It was silly cause Tim calls me up and there’s this expression in marketing, don’t go past
00:07:26 the sale.
00:07:27 Right?
00:07:28 You’re gonna buy someone a car and like, it’s got this feature, this feature and that feature.
00:07:32 And they’re like, you know what?
00:07:33 I’m going to buy the car.
00:07:34 If you keep talking, you can only make them lose the sale.
00:07:38 You just get them to sign and get, get out of Dodge.
00:07:41 So Tim calls me up and he goes, okay, here’s what we’re thinking.
00:07:47 This is top secret.
00:07:48 Alex is going to be on the show.
00:07:50 We want you on as well.
00:07:51 And I’ve never said yes to anything as quickly in my life.
00:07:54 And then he keeps talking and I’m like, Tim, this, you don’t have to sell it.
00:07:58 I interrupted him.
00:07:59 I go, you don’t have to sell it.
00:08:00 Why you, by the way?
00:08:01 I think because I am kind of an agent of chaos and Alex is in his own way, an agent of chaos.
00:08:10 And what is, provides an opportunity in this kind of news media space that you and I travel
00:08:15 in, it’s the kind of things where none of us three, you know, as we said on the show,
00:08:20 knew what it would be like.
00:08:22 If you, you know, to certain, within certain parameters, what, you know, Megyn Kelly or
00:08:28 Wolf Blitzer or any of these corporate figures are going to be like in a conversation to
00:08:32 some extent, none of us had any idea.
00:08:35 I knew they didn’t know I was bringing in knocking up jokes.
00:08:39 So that was kind of what was so exciting.
00:08:42 I said at one point, I’m kind of envious of the audience because this is, there’s so many
00:08:47 exciting things that are happening and that the internet and podcasting provides people
00:08:52 an opportunity to do that.
00:08:53 It was great.
00:08:54 Yeah.
00:08:55 That, that was the greatest pairing with Alex Jones that I’ve ever seen by far.
00:09:02 So like, so I immediately knew now this isn’t a knock on Tim, but I don’t even know if Tim
00:09:08 was prepared.
00:09:09 Tim was not prepared.
00:09:11 For this.
00:09:12 How could he be prepared?
00:09:13 Well, so I mean, I don’t know if Tim is used to that.
00:09:16 I think Joe Rogan is more equipped, prepared for the chaos, just the years he’s been in
00:09:22 it.
00:09:23 Like I immediately thought this is the right pairing for Joe Rogan because Alex Jones has
00:09:27 been on Joe Rogan a few times, three times.
00:09:31 My favorite so far was with Tim Dillon, but Tim was clearly, Tim Dillon was also kind
00:09:39 of a genius in his own right, but he was kind of a fan and he was stepping away.
00:09:48 He was almost like in awe of Alex Jones where you were both, you were in awe of the experience
00:09:58 that’s being created and at the same time fearlessly just trolling the situation.
00:10:04 I mean, to do a knock, knock joke, to stop, I mean, that just shows that you’re in control
00:10:08 of the experience.
00:10:09 No, you’re like riding the experience.
00:10:11 That immediately was like, this needs to be on Rogan.
00:10:14 So I hope that happens as well.
00:10:18 You’re on your own, of course, on Rogan, but just you, that’s an experience.
00:10:22 That’s the, whatever, this gotta be a good name for it.
00:10:24 Like Jimi Hendrix Experience, there’s the Michael and Alex.
00:10:27 Because that was a band.
00:10:29 It’s taken.
00:10:30 Well, I don’t know how many years you can restart the experience.
00:10:35 Because I feel sorry to interrupt you, I feel a very big responsibility, especially in 2020
00:10:42 to provide fun and something cool and something unique that hasn’t been done before for the
00:10:49 audience.
00:10:50 I think this has been a very rough year on our audiences psychologically and in other
00:10:55 aspects of their lives.
00:10:57 So I feel if I’m going to be there, I’m going to put on a show and it’s also going to be
00:11:02 great because it also alienates the people you don’t want.
00:11:06 So there’s a lot of people who sit there and be like, oh, he’s telling knock, people who
00:11:09 are too cool for school, where they’re like, oh, he’s telling knock, knock jokes.
00:11:13 This is stupid.
00:11:14 I’m like, good.
00:11:15 If you have an issue with having eaten cotton candy or doing a puzzle with a kid or with
00:11:22 that by yourself, that’s on you.
00:11:26 And it’s something very, something I think is the enemy is cynicism and this idea that
00:11:31 like, oh, this is too silly and we need that kind of childlike aspect in our lives.
00:11:36 I think it’s something we could use more of.
00:11:38 It’s very much an aspect of our media culture that to kind of have be condemnatory about
00:11:42 that or to do it in a certain very corporate fake way.
00:11:46 So it is something I encourage a lot, something I enjoy doing.
00:11:51 And again, like with the first time I was on Tim, I had a propeller beanie on, you know,
00:11:56 with the motorized and a lot of people were like, I can’t take anyone seriously who dresses
00:12:00 like this.
00:12:01 I go, good.
00:12:02 If you judge someone’s ideas by how they appear instead of the ideas themselves, you’re not
00:12:07 someone I want on my team.
00:12:10 Are we going to address the outfit you’re wearing?
00:12:15 We can address it, sure.
00:12:16 You know, for those who are colorblind, Michael’s wearing the, or just listening to this, Michael’s
00:12:25 wearing the exact opposite, the universe from another dimension outfit, which is a white
00:12:31 suit and black shirt.
00:12:33 So genius.
00:12:34 Okay.
00:12:35 So.
00:12:36 You just see the next two looks I’ve planned.
00:12:37 Oh, no.
00:12:38 Yeah, they’re great.
00:12:39 Well, obviously this relationship’s going to end today.
00:12:42 It’s over.
00:12:43 I’ll put them on Insta.
00:12:47 Okay.
00:12:48 Is there some deep philosophy to the humor?
00:12:50 Is this goes to our trolling discussion?
00:12:54 Is there some, is there like chapters to this genius or is this just what makes you smile
00:13:02 in the morning?
00:13:03 Well, I mean, I think you’re honestly, in this case, using the word genius a little
00:13:07 loosely.
00:13:08 I am.
00:13:09 I don’t think this is particularly genius, but I do think it is fun.
00:13:12 It is exuberant.
00:13:13 It is joyous.
00:13:16 I think the bigger my audience has gotten and the more I actually communicate with,
00:13:23 you know, fans, I do feel it kind of kicks in these paternal maternal instincts, which
00:13:28 is very, very odd.
00:13:29 I did not expect to have them.
00:13:30 What do you mean?
00:13:31 Who’s the dad?
00:13:32 I’m the dad and the mom.
00:13:33 I remember, and it may have been similar for you, I’m curious to hear it.
00:13:37 For young, smart, like ambitious men, like 24 to 27 for me was a very rough period because
00:13:43 that’s the window where a lot of people get married and they kind of check out.
00:13:47 And if you’re very much kind of finding your own road, you don’t know what’s happening.
00:13:52 No one’s in a position to really guide you or help you.
00:13:55 And it’s tough.
00:13:56 It’s a very tough window.
00:13:58 And what I’m finding now is having these kids who are in that position, but now instead
00:14:05 of them stumbling along, for some of them, I’m the one who could be like, no, no, no,
00:14:09 it’s not you.
00:14:10 It’s everybody else.
00:14:11 And to be able to give them that semblance of feeling seen, to use a cliched expression,
00:14:18 to feel normal and that, no, no, you’re the heroes here.
00:14:23 They’re the background noise.
00:14:25 It’s just really very flattering and humbling to be in that position.
00:14:30 You have many minds, right?
00:14:31 There’s the thoughtful kind, Michael, there’s like, I’m going to burn down the powerful.
00:14:41 And then there’s like, I’m going to have this just lighthearted trolling of the world, which
00:14:48 and which of those are most important to the 27 demographic?
00:14:55 I think it is the combination.
00:14:57 It’s like if you’re making a meal, chicken Kiev, you need the chicken, you need the ham,
00:15:04 you need the butter sauce.
00:15:07 Because I think people, when you’re young, you need to see someone who’s fought the fight
00:15:13 for you and who’s won.
00:15:15 So it’s very easy to be defeatist.
00:15:18 So this is what winning looks like.
00:15:20 No, this is not.
00:15:23 This is most assuredly what winning does not look like.
00:15:26 But in my normal clothes, a little bit more.
00:15:29 This is a good time to mention that clothes wise, you’re wearing sheath underwear.
00:15:34 And people should buy sheath underwear.
00:15:37 Use code Malice20.
00:15:38 If you go to sheathunderwear.com, use promo code Malice20.
00:15:42 What I love about why I’m glad to promote the product and wear it, it’s the most comfortable
00:15:46 underwear I’ve ever worn.
00:15:48 And you have a separate pouch for both parts of your genitals.
00:15:51 That’s what I thought there was like a punchline coming.
00:15:54 No, it’s a very nice aspect of the product.
00:15:56 Yeah.
00:15:57 But I think what here’s something else just goes back to what we’re just talking about.
00:16:00 There are so many and this is going to segue into this.
00:16:02 There are so many small companies who’ve been devastated this year.
00:16:07 We have not seen a sustained attack on mom and pop shops like we’ve seen in 2020, who
00:16:13 are innovators and making something happen.
00:16:17 And when you’re just like one dude who’s producing a product, they’re a sponsor of mine.
00:16:22 I’m happy to, first of all, it’s funny that I’m pitching underwear, but it’s also something
00:16:28 I enjoy.
00:16:29 And also you said small business.
00:16:30 Yeah.
00:16:31 It’s microscopic, like a thimble.
00:16:33 So this isn’t a sponsor of mine, but this is a good segue.
00:16:36 So this is, Russians, we celebrate New Year’s, it’s Novomgorodom.
00:16:39 We have Dmitry, he comes down, puts a present under your pillow.
00:16:43 So this is a company called J.L. Lawson.
00:16:45 He’s a fan of yours.
00:16:46 He’s a metal worker.
00:16:47 And he said, can I give you something to give to Lex?
00:16:50 I have one of his worry coins.
00:16:52 I’ll tell you what it is.
00:16:54 He’s not a sponsor.
00:16:55 This is not, I’m not getting paid for this.
00:16:56 So what a worry coin is, I carry it around in my butt.
00:16:58 If you have raw denim, it’s great because it brings you fades.
00:17:01 So you carry it around with you all the time.
00:17:03 It says worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe, right?
00:17:08 And I carry this around and allow it to spend like a year.
00:17:12 Next time you’re worrying, and this is good advice if you don’t have a worry coin.
00:17:15 Go think about 10 years ago and what you were worried about then.
00:17:20 And then think about, did any of those things pan out?
00:17:23 And some of them did, but you were able to handle it.
00:17:25 And that’s a good way to maintain perspective.
00:17:28 So J.L. Lawson is the company.
00:17:30 He sent me this present.
00:17:31 I said, let me give it to Lex on air.
00:17:33 So enjoy.
00:17:34 So I have to open it up now?
00:17:37 Yeah.
00:17:38 J.L. Lawson and co.
00:17:39 Two Lex from Anthony.
00:17:40 Yeah.
00:17:41 And I said, make something mathematical for Lex.
00:17:43 So I don’t even know what’s in there.
00:17:44 You don’t know what’s in there?
00:17:45 No.
00:17:46 And it got through his TSA.
00:17:47 Could be a bomb.
00:17:49 It could be.
00:17:50 Just like this episode.
00:17:54 Make sure you unwrap it close to the mic because it drives you for crazy.
00:17:57 That’s really the best part.
00:18:03 Is this what an unboxing video looks like?
00:18:05 I think so.
00:18:07 This conversation is going to be a big hit on the internet.
00:18:10 With the unboxing community.
00:18:12 I need to have an excited look on my face to make sure that the reaction video, it should
00:18:17 be an unboxing and a reaction video.
00:18:19 Lex Freeman reacts.
00:18:20 It’s another box.
00:18:21 It’s just a series of boxes.
00:18:25 Lex big fan since hearing you on Rogan months ago.
00:18:30 Most of your guests are over my head, but still enjoyable.
00:18:34 Like this episode, Michael was kind enough to want to share my work with you.
00:18:40 Keep doing what you do.
00:18:41 Anthony Lawson.
00:18:42 Thanks Anthony.
00:18:43 There’s a lot in there.
00:18:44 What is in there?
00:18:45 Give me some.
00:18:46 I’ll open some.
00:18:47 Okay.
00:18:48 All right.
00:18:49 Show it to the camera and then make sure you look excited or not or disappointed.
00:18:56 No, this is cool.
00:18:57 This is a worry coin.
00:18:58 Like I was showing you.
00:18:59 So you hold it in your hand and when you can do this with your thumb, if people are, have
00:19:03 anxiety or whatever.
00:19:04 Oh, there’s a lot of cool stuff in here.
00:19:06 Fibonacci coin.
00:19:07 Oh, see, yeah, that’s the math stuff.
00:19:10 That’s really awesome.
00:19:11 This is really cool.
00:19:12 Wait, you got a big one laying there too.
00:19:16 That’s what she said.
00:19:19 I’m telling you last time you offended me saying I don’t have humor.
00:19:28 The spin tray micro brass and copper bronze.
00:19:33 By the way, the packaging is epic.
00:19:36 I think that’s his top.
00:19:37 He makes tops.
00:19:38 Cool.
00:19:39 Yeah, you spin it in there and it’s the two different bronze and copper.
00:19:49 I think he’s the only one who makes these machined tops and then they sit in here, I
00:19:54 guess.
00:19:55 Yeah, but you could spin them in that section.
00:19:57 Got it, cool.
00:20:01 Where’s the where’s the worry thing?
00:20:02 Here’s the worry coin.
00:20:03 Anyway, I wasn’t listening.
00:20:04 What were you worried about 10 years ago?
00:20:06 10 years ago, 2010.
00:20:09 What would I have been worried about then?
00:20:11 The government?
00:20:12 No, I’m not.
00:20:13 That’s not a worry.
00:20:14 I think…
00:20:15 What was the North Korea book?
00:20:16 I apologize.
00:20:17 That came out in 2014.
00:20:19 I went there in 2012, came out in January 2014.
00:20:24 It still pays my rent with the royalties.
00:20:28 The North Korea book?
00:20:29 Yeah.
00:20:30 See, this is why it’s so much better.
00:20:31 I gotta talk to you about self publishing because you brought that up.
00:20:36 I’m doing the next books also going to be self published.
00:20:38 Can we talk about self publishing?
00:20:42 What’s the whole idea of publishing?
00:20:45 Like having a publisher and an agent because there’s a bunch of people have been reaching
00:20:49 out to me trying to get me to write a book, which is ridiculous.
00:20:52 Why?
00:20:53 Because people who are brilliant folks like you, like Jordan Peterson, that I think have
00:20:58 a lot of knowledge to share with the world.
00:21:00 I think what I feel I can contribute to the world in terms of impact is to build something.
00:21:10 Meaning like engineering stuff.
00:21:12 Like a book…
00:21:13 A book has to be engineered and I’m not using that loosely.
00:21:16 You have to engineer a book.
00:21:17 No, for sure.
00:21:18 What I mean is like literally a product with programming and artificial intelligence.
00:21:22 I want to build a company.
00:21:24 I want to…
00:21:25 Because I have a few ideas that I feel I’m equipped and it has to do with your intuition
00:21:31 about the way you can build a better world.
00:21:34 You individually.
00:21:35 Like, what can you add to the world that’s a positive thing?
00:21:38 And for me, I feel like the maximal thing I can add to the world is at least to attempt
00:21:45 to build products that would add more love in the world.
00:21:49 And like, so I want to focus on that.
00:21:50 The danger of the book for me, or any kind of writing, and even this podcast is a little
00:21:57 bit dangerous for me, is like, it’s fun.
00:21:59 That’s for sure.
00:22:03 It’s fun.
00:22:04 It’s like it takes you into this place where you start thinking about the world.
00:22:07 You start enjoying and playing with ideas.
00:22:09 You start…
00:22:10 And like, just your book on a Dear Reader, but also the new write.
00:22:16 Like clearly you and I probably think similarly in the sense that you did a lot of work.
00:22:22 Yes.
00:22:23 This next book is killing me.
00:22:25 Yeah.
00:22:26 As you mentioned, often it’s clear, like on your YouTube channel, which I’m a fan of,
00:22:33 you often, it just comes out like you mentioned all of these books that you’re reading.
00:22:37 It just comes through you that you’re suffering through this and it changes you.
00:22:43 And it’s clear that you’re thinking deeply about the world because of this book.
00:22:49 And I feel like if you do that, that’s like when I first came to this country, I read
00:22:55 the book The Giver.
00:22:56 I need to read it again.
00:22:57 It’s like the red pill thing is it changes you in where you can never be the same person
00:23:04 again.
00:23:05 Sure.
00:23:06 I feel about a book in that same way.
00:23:07 The moment you write a book, of course it depends on the book.
00:23:11 I could also just write like in my field, a very technical book.
00:23:15 No, that’s a terrible idea.
00:23:17 Yes.
00:23:18 But that’s okay.
00:23:19 That doesn’t really change you.
00:23:20 That’s just like sharing information.
00:23:22 But like something where you’re like, how do I think about this world?
00:23:26 Can you just leave that behind you?
00:23:28 I get it.
00:23:29 Dude, it’s being pregnant.
00:23:31 It never escapes your brain.
00:23:32 I’m telling you.
00:23:33 You’re absolutely right.
00:23:34 Yeah.
00:23:35 I don’t know.
00:23:36 It does seem to change you.
00:23:37 The reason I bring that up is because there’s this whole industry of people that seem to
00:23:42 not really contribute much to the publication process, but they make themselves seem necessary
00:23:49 for like, if you want to be in the New York Times bestseller list kind of thing, but also
00:23:53 just being like reputable, which I’m allergic to that whole concept.
00:23:59 But do you think it’s possible to be on the New York Times bestseller list and be a reputable
00:24:05 author and still be self published?
00:24:09 Not what you would want to do.
00:24:11 Like people like Mark Sisson, I think is his name.
00:24:12 He wrote like the Primal Blueprints.
00:24:14 So like if I’m getting the names correct, he’s the first paleo guy, right?
00:24:18 So he self published it.
00:24:19 It sold gangbusters.
00:24:20 But that would be on their health chart, I believe.
00:24:24 And it’s a little bit of a different situation.
00:24:27 You would be reaching much more for the mainstream.
00:24:30 You’d be giving up a lot if you go through a publisher, especially financially.
00:24:36 But yeah, you are not going to have the cred because the publishing is a cartel.
00:24:41 The New York Times is part of this cartel.
00:24:44 And if you don’t publish within this cartel, they will do what they can, as any cartel
00:24:50 has to, by necessity of being cartel, to pretend you don’t exist.
00:24:55 So I was, I think, the first one to have an hour on BookTV for Dear Reader because that
00:25:01 was a Kickstarter book.
00:25:03 But this is something that people would have to be aware of.
00:25:12 So you would be giving up a lot.
00:25:14 But you’d also be giving a lot to work with a publisher because you’re losing like a year
00:25:18 and a half of your life because they’re glacial and they don’t care.
00:25:21 Well, that’s my problem.
00:25:22 It’s not the money.
00:25:23 I mean, the money is whatever percent they take, 10, 20, 30, 50%.
00:25:27 They’re taking a huge chunk.
00:25:29 So if I sell a book through St. Martin’s, it’s a dollar.
00:25:33 If I sell a book through Amazon, which is Dear Reader, that’s $6.
00:25:37 So that’s what, 87%, it’s something crazy.
00:25:41 But for me, what bothers me isn’t the money that, for me personally, for me, what bothers
00:25:47 me is incompetence.
00:25:48 Like whenever I go to the DMV or something like that.
00:25:50 Can I interrupt you?
00:25:51 Yeah.
00:25:52 Let’s talk incompetence.
00:25:53 When a new write comes out last year, I get on Rogan, get on Ruben.
00:26:00 I call them and I said, I got on these shows.
00:26:04 Is there money in the budget for travel?
00:26:08 And they say, we don’t have that budget.
00:26:10 Fine.
00:26:11 By the way, you got on those shows with no help from them.
00:26:14 Correct.
00:26:15 Oh yeah, that’s not even a question.
00:26:17 The reason they would want you to do a book is because they know you could get…
00:26:20 The only reason people get book deals nowadays, literally, is because they know that person
00:26:24 can market their own book.
00:26:25 That’s the only way.
00:26:27 And I got on Ruben, I got on Rogan, and they go and have the money for the budget for travel,
00:26:31 which is fair.
00:26:32 They can do Skype.
00:26:33 They told me this in writing.
00:26:36 And I’m like, okay.
00:26:38 And they can financially cover Skype.
00:26:40 No, but it’s like, hey Joe, yeah, we don’t have the budget, but you’re going to do Skype.
00:26:46 Hello?
00:26:47 Hello?
00:26:48 There is, another friend of mine was on a show on CNBC with Nassim Taleb, and they said
00:26:57 Nassim wants a copy of the book.
00:26:59 And they’re like, oh yeah, it’s like four o clock on Friday, so we’re closed.
00:27:04 So, and he’s like, he went there, picked it up, and walked it the two blocks.
00:27:10 So there is, it’s almost cartoonish, and it’s not incompetence.
00:27:17 It’s past that.
00:27:20 It’s something almost, you can’t really believe that, I’ve had two friends who have been literally
00:27:25 rendered suicidal because this was such a huge opportunity for them.
00:27:31 And it was like watching their kid get beaten in front of them, and I had to talk them off
00:27:34 the ledge.
00:27:35 So it’s, people do not appreciate how bad, here’s another example.
00:27:39 The apathy of bureaucracy, something like that.
00:27:41 I did this book, Concierge Confidential.
00:27:44 There’s a typo in the first chapter, it ends with, I’m about to, TOO, they didn’t fix it
00:27:50 for the paperback.
00:27:51 Who cares?
00:27:53 It’s just like, well, okay, yeah, great book by the way, it got, NPR gave it one of the
00:27:58 books of the year, so that was good.
00:28:00 So why participate in this?
00:28:03 Because otherwise, New York Times is going to pretend you don’t exist.
00:28:07 Getting booked on some shows might be more difficult.
00:28:10 Although I think that’s collapsing in real time.
00:28:15 You’re not going to get reviewed necessarily on places like PW, or some others.
00:28:21 So the new book you’re working on, do you have a title yet?
00:28:24 The White Pill.
00:28:25 The White Pill.
00:28:28 Are you self publishing that?
00:28:29 Oh yeah, for sure.
00:28:31 And what’s the thinking behind that?
00:28:33 Just because you already have a huge following and a big platform and…
00:28:36 It’s six times the cash.
00:28:38 If I finish the book in December, I could have it out in February.
00:28:43 If I finish the book in December with the publisher, it’s going to be out in December
00:28:48 at the earliest, 2021.
00:28:50 Why am I giving up 10 months of my life?
00:28:52 Well, this is the big one.
00:28:53 Do you have any leverage?
00:28:55 Like do authors have leverage to say, F you?
00:28:58 Can you just say, what do you mean?
00:29:02 Meaning like, I want to release this book in two months.
00:29:06 Oh no, no.
00:29:07 I mean, you’ll have a contract and then your agent can fight it, but they don’t have the
00:29:11 capacity to rush things through.
00:29:13 Yeah.
00:29:14 I guess if the, cause I’ve heard like big authors, I don’t know, Sam Harris, all those
00:29:19 folks talk about like, they’ve accepted it actually.
00:29:23 They’ve accepted it.
00:29:24 They’re like, yeah, it takes a long time to…
00:29:26 I’m not accepting it.
00:29:28 But you’re kind of implying that a human being like me should, like…
00:29:33 I’m saying these are your options.
00:29:35 Right.
00:29:36 So I just, I just hate it.
00:29:38 I hate the waiting because it’s incompetence.
00:29:41 It’s not the, it’s not necessarily the wait.
00:29:44 If I knew it wasn’t, you know, if it was the kind of people that are up at 2 a.m. at night
00:29:51 on a Friday and they love what you’re doing and they’re helping create something special.
00:29:56 That’s the sense I get with some of the Netflix folks, for example, that work with people.
00:30:01 I just, I don’t know anything about this world, but you get like Netflix folks who, who help
00:30:07 with shows.
00:30:08 You could tell that they’re obsessed with those shows.
00:30:10 Yeah.
00:30:11 Oh yeah.
00:30:12 You’re not going to get that publishing.
00:30:13 If you hand, like I handed the book in, I think it was July, I didn’t hear anything from
00:30:17 my editor until December.
00:30:19 Well, can we actually talk about the suffering, the darkest parts of writing a book?
00:30:27 So the, let’s go to the full Michael Malice, Stephen King mode of what are the darkest
00:30:33 moments of writing this book and what is it maybe start, the white pill?
00:30:38 What’s the idea?
00:30:39 What’s the hope and what are your darkest moments around writing this book?
00:30:43 So people are familiar with the red pill and the blue pill, the red, they’re from the Matrix.
00:30:48 The red pill is the idea that what is presented as fact by the corporate press entertainment
00:30:53 industry is in fact a carefully constructed narrative designed to keep some very unpleasant
00:30:58 people in power and everyone else under control.
00:31:01 And I guess one of my expressions is you take one red pill, not the whole bottle because
00:31:06 at a certain point you think everything’s lie and then you’re kind of no capacity for
00:31:10 distinguishing truths.
00:31:11 You’re full of good one liners.
00:31:12 Well, thank you.
00:31:13 Yeah.
00:31:14 I’m full of something that’s for sure.
00:31:17 And what I saw in this space is a lot of these red pill people got very disheartened and
00:31:26 cynical.
00:31:27 And one of my big heroes is Albert Camus and he said the worst thing is cynicism.
00:31:33 And that’s something called the black pill, which is the idea that, you know, it’s all,
00:31:38 it’s just we’re waiting for the end.
00:31:41 It’s hopeless.
00:31:42 And I don’t see it that way at all.
00:31:47 And I’m like, all right, I have to address this.
00:31:51 And not just with some kind of cheerleading, everything’s going to be great guys.
00:31:55 Here is why I am positive.
00:31:58 And not that I’m positive the good guys are going to win, but I’m positive that good guys
00:32:03 can win.
00:32:05 And that’s all you need.
00:32:07 Because if your God forbid kid is kidnapped and there’s a 10% chance that you can save
00:32:13 them, you’re not going to be like, well, I don’t like those odds.
00:32:17 This is your country.
00:32:19 This is your values.
00:32:20 This is your family.
00:32:21 And I think it’s much more than 10%.
00:32:24 And even if you lose, you will take pride in that you did everything in your power to
00:32:30 win.
00:32:31 So.
00:32:32 Is there a good definition of good guys?
00:32:35 In the sense that.
00:32:36 The ones who wear white.
00:32:38 There’s layers to this.
00:32:40 You’re like modern day Shakespeare.
00:32:43 Is there a danger in thinking Adolf Hitler was probably pretty confident that he led
00:32:53 a group of good guys?
00:32:54 Listen, if Hitler did anything wrong, why isn’t he in jail?
00:32:58 My Czech friend thought of that joke.
00:33:01 He actually says in his accent, he goes, if Hitler’s so bad, why isn’t he in the jail?
00:33:08 That’s a good point.
00:33:09 He’s probably still alive.
00:33:10 Right?
00:33:11 And look, yeah.
00:33:12 Hopefully.
00:33:13 Oh boy.
00:33:14 Two of the three people listening to this are very upset right now.
00:33:21 What were you even talking about?
00:33:22 Oh, how do you, how do you know the, what is good?
00:33:26 There’s lots of standards of good, but if you’re for me to be a good guy is if you want
00:33:32 to leave the world a little bit better than you found it, that to me is the definition
00:33:36 of a good guy.
00:33:38 And I think there are many people that that’s not their motivation at all.
00:33:43 It’s about your motivation.
00:33:44 Well, it’s also about if your motivation is at all correlated to reality.
00:33:50 No one thinks we’re the bad guys.
00:33:52 That’s correct.
00:33:53 But are you taking steps to check your motivations and also take a certain amount of humility
00:34:00 because if you’re going to start interfering with other people’s lives, you really better
00:34:05 be sure you know what you’re talking about.
00:34:08 The control of others, if you do have centralized control or then you kind of, you become a
00:34:15 leader of a group, you better know, you better do so humbly and cautiously.
00:34:21 And also have steam valves, right?
00:34:25 So if in case things go wrong, let’s have, I’m sure this is a lot happening with AI,
00:34:30 whatever work with computers, like, okay, if something goes wrong here, how do we have
00:34:34 a workaround to make sure it doesn’t cause everything to collapse?
00:34:37 Yeah.
00:34:38 The going wrong thing.
00:34:39 I mean, the whole, the feedback mechanism.
00:34:41 Yeah.
00:34:42 Like, I wonder if people in Congress think that things are really wrong.
00:34:50 It’s working for them.
00:34:51 Are you sure?
00:34:52 No, I’m not sure.
00:34:54 Because I’d like to believe that the people that at least when they got into politics
00:35:02 actually wanted, some of it is ego, but some of it is like wanting to be the kind of person
00:35:08 that builds a better world.
00:35:10 Sure.
00:35:11 I also think it’s diverse.
00:35:12 Some of who are going to have different motivations than others.
00:35:15 But like once you’re in the system and trying to build a better world, how do you know that’s
00:35:21 not working?
00:35:22 Like, how do you take the basic feedback mechanisms and like, and actually productively change?
00:35:30 I mean, that’s what it means to be a good guy is like, hmm, something is wrong here.
00:35:34 And that’s why I like the Elon Musk, like think from first principles, like, wait, wait,
00:35:39 wait.
00:35:40 Okay.
00:35:41 Let’s ask the big question.
00:35:42 Like, can this be, one, is this working at all?
00:35:45 Like the way we’re solving this particular problem of government, is this working at
00:35:48 all?
00:35:49 And then like stepping away and saying like, as opposed to modifying this bill or that
00:35:54 bill or like this little strategy, like increase the tax by this much or decrease the tax by
00:36:00 this much, like, why do we have a democracy at all?
00:36:06 Or why do we have any kind of representative democracy?
00:36:11 Shouldn’t it be a pure democracy?
00:36:13 Or why do we have states, like representation of states and federal government and so on?
00:36:20 Why do we have this kind of separation of powers?
00:36:23 Is this different?
00:36:24 Why don’t we have term limits or not like big things?
00:36:28 Like how do you actually make that happen?
00:36:31 And is that what it means to be a good guy?
00:36:33 It’s like taking big revolutionary steps as opposed to incremental steps.
00:36:39 Well, I don’t know that you could be a politician to be a good guy, to be honest.
00:36:43 And let me give you a counter example of someone who you could tell is not being a good guy.
00:36:47 Joe Biden said he regards the Iraq wars a mistake.
00:36:50 Okay.
00:36:51 You and I have made mistakes in our lives, I’m sure.
00:36:53 None of our mistakes have caused tens of thousands of people to die.
00:36:56 If I were a chef, let’s take it out of politics.
00:37:08 And in my restaurant, somehow, accidentally, someone ate something and they died.
00:37:13 A, I would feel horrible.
00:37:15 But more importantly, I would be like, we need to look through the system and figure
00:37:21 out how it got to the point where someone lost their life.
00:37:24 Because that can never happen again.
00:37:26 And we need to figure out step by step.
00:37:28 I’m not a gun person, but there’s like this checklist of like, if you’re holding a gun,
00:37:34 there’s five things to do.
00:37:35 And if you get too wrong, it’s like assume every gun is loaded, only pointed at something
00:37:40 that you want to kill.
00:37:42 And there’s like three other things.
00:37:44 And it’s like to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
00:37:48 So if I’m that chef, and I would have to not only feel guilt, but take preventative action
00:37:55 to make sure this has no possibility of happening again.
00:38:00 If you look at the staff he’s putting in, it’s the same warmongers that would have advised
00:38:05 him to get into the Iraq war on the first time.
00:38:09 That is to me is not a good guy.
00:38:12 That to me is someone who does not feel remorse for their responsibility in killing not only
00:38:17 many Americans, but some of us think that, you know, dead Iraqis isn’t necessarily ideal
00:38:22 either.
00:38:23 Okay, let’s talk a bit about war.
00:38:27 Maybe you can also correct me on something.
00:38:29 The first time I found myself into Barack Obama was, I don’t know how many years ago
00:38:37 this was, but when I maybe heard a speech of his about him speaking out against the
00:38:44 war.
00:38:45 Yeah.
00:38:46 And him, I think it’s on record saying he was against the war before it was happening.
00:38:52 But he wasn’t in Senate at the time, so it was very easy for him to say this.
00:38:55 But see, like people say that, people say that.
00:38:58 People say like it was easy and it was some people say it’s like strategically the wise
00:39:04 thing to do given some kind of calculus, whatever.
00:39:07 But I, to this day give him, that’s the reason I’ve always given him props in my mind.
00:39:13 Like this is a man of character, like he makes, I also personally really value great speeches.
00:39:19 I think speeches are really important for leaders because they inspire the world.
00:39:23 It’s like one of the most best things you can contribute to the world is great, like
00:39:29 through intellect, mold ideas in a way that’s communicable to like a huge number of people.
00:39:34 Yeah, it’s better to persuade than to force in every instance.
00:39:37 That’s where I disagree with Chomsky said, like if you’re, Chomsky’s whole idea was that
00:39:42 like if you’re really eloquent speaker, that means your ideas aren’t that good.
00:39:48 That’s nonsense.
00:39:49 Yeah.
00:39:50 So I think that’s a way for him to describe like I speak in a very boring way.
00:39:54 Maybe that’s a pitch for this podcast.
00:39:56 I speak boring so that the ideas are the things you value and it’s also useful to go to sleep.
00:40:02 But that’s why I really liked Obama throughout his life and still do.
00:40:09 But when I first like saw this is for some reason you can disagree, I thought he’s a
00:40:14 man of character.
00:40:15 It’s when most politicians, most people who are trying to calculate and rise in power,
00:40:21 I think were for the war or too afraid to be against the war.
00:40:25 That’s why I liked Bernie Sanders and that’s why I liked like in the early days Obama for
00:40:33 speaking out against the war and not like in this weird activist way.
00:40:37 Not weird, but not saying I’m an activist, but like just saying the common sense thing
00:40:44 and being brave enough to say the common sense thing without like having a big sign and saying
00:40:50 I’m going to be the antiwar candidate or something like that, but just saying this is not a good
00:40:55 idea.
00:40:56 Yeah.
00:40:57 And I think it’s for those of us who are old enough to remember, it’s pretty despicable
00:41:01 what happened with Tulsi in 2020.
00:41:04 She was the biggest antiwar candidate and she was marginalized within her own party,
00:41:09 which I guess you can make sense.
00:41:10 She’s just a congresswoman from Hawaii.
00:41:12 But the corporate press did everything in their power to diminish her and pretend she
00:41:18 didn’t exist.
00:41:19 And for those of us who remember where 12 years prior, when George W. Bush had the Republican
00:41:26 National Convention in New York and it was the biggest protest in history and the Iraq
00:41:30 war led to democratic landslides in 2006 and 2008, to have that completely not part of
00:41:37 the Democratic Party in 2020 is both shocking and reprehensible.
00:41:43 Hey, Michael, you don’t have to say, hey, Michael, you just say knock, knock, okay.
00:41:54 What did the volcano say to his true love?
00:41:57 What?
00:41:59 I love you.
00:42:05 These jokes are better when you know how to speak English.
00:42:09 It was actually in Russian, I did Google translate, okay.
00:42:13 Back to your book, In the Suffering, you somehow turned it positive.
00:42:18 And as one who’s wearing, who’s the representative of the black pill in this conversation, what
00:42:24 are some of the darker moments?
00:42:25 What are some of the hardest challenges of putting together this book, the white pill?
00:42:30 Content, content, content.
00:42:32 So if I’m having a page in about Reagan taking on Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential primaries,
00:42:41 I’m going to have to read like 20.
00:42:43 So it’s the thing like if there’ll be some times I’ll remember some quote somewhere and
00:42:48 then I have to spend an hour trying to find it because I want it to be as dense with information
00:42:53 as possible.
00:42:54 Like how do you structure the main philosophical ideas you want to convey?
00:43:01 Is that already planned out?
00:43:03 No, the book changed entirely from its conception.
00:43:06 So my buddy Ryan Holiday had a series of books, still does, where he takes the ideas of the
00:43:11 Stoics and he applies them to contemporary terms.
00:43:16 He has this whole cottage industry that he’s doing very well with.
00:43:18 And I’d asked him years ago if I could do that with Camus and he’s like, sure, go for
00:43:22 it.
00:43:23 And I was going to rework Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus.
00:43:27 And I read it recently, reread it, and this wasn’t the book I remembered at all.
00:43:32 And I’m like, okay, I’m going to write the book that I remembered.
00:43:35 But the more I was writing it, one of the things I always yell at conservatives about,
00:43:41 there’s a long list, is they don’t talk about the great victory of conservatism, which was
00:43:47 the winning of the Cold War without firing a shot.
00:43:51 And I said, you can’t expect the New York Times to tell this story because the blood
00:43:53 is on their hands.
00:43:55 And I’m like, well, Michael, instead of complaining about it, why don’t you do it?
00:44:01 Why don’t you talk?
00:44:02 That is a great example of the good guys winning over the bad guys.
00:44:06 And that’s become, A, the victory is beautiful.
00:44:11 But also pointing out to people, when people are like, oh, things are worse than they’ve
00:44:13 ever been, they don’t appreciate how bad things were in the 30s, what Stalin was doing overseas
00:44:20 and how people in the West were advocating to bring that here.
00:44:24 So that’s kind of pointing out how bad things were and how good they became.
00:44:31 And you don’t have to be a Republican or conservative to be delighted at the collapse of totalitarianism
00:44:37 and the peaceful liberation of half the world.
00:44:39 So that’s a picture of the good guys winning.
00:44:40 Oh, yeah.
00:44:41 Well, how does that connect to Sisyphus and maybe to speak deeper to life and whatever
00:44:49 the hell this thing is, which is what I remember the myth of Sisyphus being about.
00:44:55 So where does the threat of Camus sort of lie in the work that you’re doing?
00:45:02 So the myth of Sisyphus, which I had remembered incorrectly, is actually just a five to seven
00:45:09 page coda to the whole book at the very end.
00:45:12 You only need to read that little essay called The Myth of Sisyphus.
00:45:15 The broader work is about Camus’s concept of the absurd and the absurd man within literature.
00:45:21 And it’s just like, I don’t really care about the character in Dostoevsky and all this other
00:45:24 stuff that you’re talking about.
00:45:25 It’s of no relevance.
00:45:27 But the myth of Sisyphus, the myth itself, not the book or the essay of his, is this
00:45:33 Greek character and Sisyphus is forced in hell to roll a rock up a hill for eternity.
00:45:39 At the very last moment, the rock falls away.
00:45:42 And Camus’s takeaway from the story is that we must imagine Sisyphus happy.
00:45:48 And there’s several interpretations of this, but one is once you accept that you are living
00:45:54 an absurdist existence, once you own your reality, it loses its bite.
00:46:02 And you can start with that as your kind of baseline.
00:46:06 And bite is suffering.
00:46:09 And hopelessness.
00:46:11 So I think when people look at how much ridiculousness is happening in America and it’s escalating,
00:46:19 you can either think, oh, all is lost.
00:46:23 And I think you and I have lived our lives like this.
00:46:25 You can live life more like a surfer, whereas you’re never going to control the ocean.
00:46:30 But you can sure enjoy that ride and stop.
00:46:33 If you’re trying to control the waves, yeah, you’re done.
00:46:36 But if you’re like, all right, I’ve got my board, I’m going to see where this takes me.
00:46:41 Surfing from what I understand is a pretty fun activity.
00:46:44 And also sometimes dangerous, but you’d have to ask Tulsi about that.
00:46:48 So we were offline talking about Stalin and the evils of the Soviet regime.
00:46:58 One of the things I mentioned, I watched the movie, Mr. Jones, but it’s about the 1930s,
00:47:05 all the more the, what would you say, the torture of the Ukrainian people by Stalin.
00:47:13 One interesting thing to me that I’d love to hear your opinion about is the role of
00:47:18 journalism in all of this and also about 1930s Germany.
00:47:25 So what’s the role of journalists and intellectuals in a time when trouble is brewing.
00:47:34 But it requires a really sort of brave and deep thinking to understand that trouble is
00:47:41 brewing.
00:47:42 Like if you were a journalist or if you were just like an intellectual, a thinker, but
00:47:47 also a voice in the space of public discourse, what would you do in 1930s about Stalin, about
00:47:56 how the more, and what would you do about Nazi Germany in 1937, 1938?
00:48:03 So that’s really funny that you asked that because currently how the book is structured,
00:48:07 it’s like books often follow a three act structure, right?
00:48:11 So act three is the 80s, act one is the 30s, and act two is going to be like, all right,
00:48:17 let’s suppose you were in the 30s.
00:48:19 Are you just going to give up?
00:48:20 Are you just going to be like, well, we’re screwed?
00:48:22 And you’d be right to say things are going to be very bad for a long time.
00:48:25 Or are you going to be one of those few who are like, we’re going to do something about
00:48:29 this and we’re going to go down swinging.
00:48:32 There are two books I can recommend, which are just masterpieces that are written by
00:48:37 women that just are historians that are just superb.
00:48:41 There’s a book called Beyond Belief by Deborah Lipschdott.
00:48:43 She talks about the rise of Nazi Germany as seen through the press.
00:48:47 And what was amazing, and she does a great job empathizing with the press and understand
00:48:52 their perspective, is we remember, and Chamberlain gets a bad rap, Neville Chamberlain for kind
00:48:56 of appeasing Hitler, because not that long ago they had the Great War, they had World
00:49:01 War I, and they had the carnage that the earth had never seen before.
00:49:06 And when you had people made out of meat, meeting industrial machines, and plastic surgery
00:49:11 was invented as a consequence of this, they’re coming back mangled and disfigured.
00:49:14 And for what?
00:49:16 And this was a world where the Kaiser was the most evil person ever lived.
00:49:20 And we all had the Western propaganda about the Hun and all the rapes and all this barbarism
00:49:25 and blah, blah, blah.
00:49:27 So not that long later, when you’re hearing all this propaganda, which was factual, about
00:49:33 Hitler, it’s like, we heard this, we heard this 20 years ago.
00:49:37 This was all lies.
00:49:39 Give us a break.
00:49:42 And she has all the quotes from the different agencies and how they addressed it.
00:49:47 Plus they had very limited information.
00:49:49 It’s not like Nazi Germany was an open society where reporters can walk around and they were
00:49:53 under a lot of pressure as well in those areas.
00:49:56 And Hitler himself was pretty good at, he let some stuff slip, but usually he made it
00:50:02 seem like he wants peace.
00:50:04 He wants world peace.
00:50:05 This was amazing.
00:50:06 They were making the argument that because all these Jews were being beaten up on the
00:50:10 street, this proved, this was the hot take of the day, that Hitler was weak because since
00:50:16 Hitler’s a statesman and he can’t control these hooligans, that shows his control and
00:50:21 power is tenuous and this is all going to go away.
00:50:24 By the way, Hitler thought that too.
00:50:26 He was kind of afraid of the branchers, whatever, he was afraid of these hooligans a little
00:50:31 bit.
00:50:32 They were useful to him, but at a certain point, yeah, they can get in the way.
00:50:38 That’s why he wanted to get control of the military, the army, their regiment.
00:50:42 If you want to take over the world, you can’t do it with hooligans.
00:50:45 You have to do it with an actual army.
00:50:47 And then you had Kristallnacht, which was a nationwide pogrom, and then all the news
00:50:52 agencies universally were like, oh, crap, we got this wrong, and the condemnation was universal.
00:50:59 So that book traces the West’s reaction to what’s going on there and including the reaction
00:51:05 to the insipid Holocaust as people being, you know, what they knew, when did they know.
00:51:11 There was not ambiguity about people.
00:51:14 I think there’s this myth that she dispels that they didn’t know the Holocaust was happening
00:51:20 or they didn’t care.
00:51:22 They were aware, but they were already at war with Nazi Germany, like what literally
00:51:26 what else could they do at that point, you know, to rescue all these Jews.
00:51:31 So that’s a superb book.
00:51:33 And Ann Applebaum, I think the book is called Red Famine, came out fairly recently.
00:51:38 And she brings the receipts.
00:51:41 And she’s a, you know, this is something I really hate with the binary thinkers, where
00:51:46 the people think, oh, you know, if you’re a Democrat, you’re basically a communist,
00:51:49 they call Joe Biden a Marxist.
00:51:51 It’s just like, you know, she’s a hard lefty, she’s, you know, has TDS.
00:51:54 But this book just systemically lays out what Stalin did.
00:51:59 By the way, I’m triggered by the binary thinkers.
00:52:01 And for those who don’t know, TDS 0011 is a trauma derangement syndrome.
00:52:07 Yes.
00:52:08 So they, you know, forced the starvation in this entire population.
00:52:12 And it’s not only that, it’s like they knew if you weren’t starving by looking at you,
00:52:19 you were hiding food.
00:52:21 So they’d come back to your house at night and break your fingers in the door, or take,
00:52:26 burn down your house.
00:52:27 And now you’re on the street without food because you lied, because this is the people’s
00:52:30 food.
00:52:31 You’re a kulak, you’re a landowner.
00:52:32 And very quickly, a kulak, which meant like peasant landowner, became anyone who had a
00:52:35 piece of bread.
00:52:37 And this was systemic and ongoing.
00:52:40 And many people in the press did not believe it.
00:52:45 There was a British journalist, I believe, who got out of the train, Ukraine, like one
00:52:50 town earlier and walked and he described all this.
00:52:53 And he was mocked and derided.
00:52:55 And this is just anti Russian propaganda.
00:52:58 Because at the time, in the 30s, this was socialism had come to fruition.
00:53:02 This was a noble experiment.
00:53:03 I’d seen the future and it works, as I think Sidney Webb was the guy who said that.
00:53:08 And the premise was, let’s see what happens.
00:53:12 We’ve never tried something like that.
00:53:13 And they were perfectly happy to have this experiment happen overseas at the price of
00:53:18 the Russian people.
00:53:20 Because it’s like, you know what, maybe this will be paradise on earth.
00:53:23 And I address this in my book as well.
00:53:26 This superb essay, I think, by Eugene Genovese.
00:53:30 And he talks about the question.
00:53:32 The question being, what did you know?
00:53:34 And when did you know it?
00:53:36 What did you know about the concentration camps?
00:53:38 What did you know about the starvation?
00:53:39 What did you know about children being taught at school to turn in their parents for having
00:53:43 some extra bread?
00:53:45 And his conclusion is, we all knew.
00:53:47 And we all knew from the beginning, every bit of it.
00:53:49 And we didn’t care.
00:53:51 Because we were more interested in promoting this ideology.
00:53:54 So when people are kind of thinking the worst thing on earth is like Robert E. Lee statue
00:54:00 being taken down to Washington, DC.
00:54:02 We were being told, and especially in a much more limited news information world where
00:54:09 now you have literally anyone can have a Twitter, but how many outlets were there, that this
00:54:14 is, we’re backwards, they’re the future, they’re scientific.
00:54:18 We have the vagaries of the market, which led to the Great Depression.
00:54:21 And when you see what was being put over on the American public at the time, anyone who
00:54:26 thinks things are as bad now as they’ve ever been is simply delusional or ignorant.
00:54:31 Yeah, I would say just as a small aside, that’s why reading, as I’m almost done with The Rise
00:54:38 and Fall of the Third Reich, it’s a refreshes the, resets the palette of your understanding
00:54:47 what is good and evil in the world that I think is really useful now.
00:54:54 What helps me be really positive and almost naive on Twitter and in the world is by just
00:55:01 studying history and comparing it to how amazing things are today.
00:55:10 But in that time, what would you do?
00:55:18 What does a brave mind do?
00:55:21 And not just acts of bravery, but how do you be effective in that?
00:55:30 That’s something I often think about.
00:55:31 It’s easy to be an activist in terms of just saying stuff.
00:55:37 It’s hard to be effective at your activism.
00:55:40 One of the big questions historians have constantly is how did this happen?
00:55:44 A, to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but this is Germany.
00:55:48 This is not some kind of weirdo cult nation.
00:55:51 They’re very advanced, very in the land of poets and philosophers.
00:55:55 How did it get to that point that they’re just shooting children and everyone’s cheering
00:56:00 for this?
00:56:02 Specifically on the anti Semitism and the Holocaust.
00:56:04 But just the totalitarianism, the cult of Hitler and just this whole kind of thing.
00:56:09 This is starting to drop, but there’s two sides.
00:56:11 I don’t know if you want to separate them.
00:56:13 One is the totalitarianism and the entirety of the Nazi regime.
00:56:18 And then there’s the Holocaust, which is going, I would say, very specifically, as I think
00:56:29 you’re about to describe, is targeting Jews very much so.
00:56:34 I don’t know if you see those as two separate things.
00:56:36 I think they’re very interconnected.
00:56:38 But I think if you look at it, everyone thinks that they’d be the ones putting up Anne Frank.
00:56:45 But if you look at the numbers, they’d be the ones calling the Stasi on her or whoever
00:56:49 the people were at the time, and not the Stasi, obviously, and patting themselves on the back
00:56:53 for it.
00:56:54 So sorry to pause on that.
00:56:55 That’s a really important thing.
00:56:57 If you’re listening to this, and you were in Germany at the time, you would have likely
00:57:05 been willing to commit or at least keep a blind eye to the violence against Jews.
00:57:11 You have to really sit with that idea that you would have been somebody who just sees
00:57:17 this and is not bothered by it, and also very likely kind of understand this as a necessary
00:57:24 evil or even a necessary good.
00:57:26 Yeah.
00:57:27 And I think people think they would be the abolitionists or marching on Selma.
00:57:32 The numbers don’t add up to that at all.
00:57:36 And I think the question would be like, what social…
00:57:39 My friend was on Tinder, my friend Matt, who’s a great dude.
00:57:42 And the question was, what’s the most controversial opinion you have?
00:57:46 This is New York.
00:57:47 And the girl wrote, I hate Trump.
00:57:50 And what people perceive themselves as being courageous in saying and doing, and what is
00:57:56 the actual social costs of you saying or doing this are two very disconnected things.
00:58:01 And we’re also trained by corporate media to have completely vapid, uninteresting, banal
00:58:08 ideas and yet regard ourselves as revolutionaries.
00:58:12 There are people who still in New York will take pride because they have a gay friend.
00:58:18 And it’s like, first of all, who cares?
00:58:21 But second of all, you are not a hero.
00:58:25 And that person is not your prop, by the way.
00:58:26 That’s another big problem.
00:58:28 Which is why I’d like to give Richard Wolff a shout out for being an intellectual who
00:58:32 talks about communism.
00:58:34 I think it takes kind of a heroic intellectual right now to speak about communism seriously.
00:58:41 There’s difficult waters to tread.
00:58:44 Is that the expression?
00:58:45 There’s difficult paths to walk.
00:58:47 I love watching a robot try to use idiom in a language he doesn’t even know.
00:58:52 0011.
00:58:53 I’m quite deeply hurt by the binary comment.
00:58:57 Are you?
00:58:58 Your feeling has gone from one to zero.
00:59:03 What is love?
00:59:04 My buffers have overflown.
00:59:07 But there’s difficult, I feel like communism is universally seen as a bad thing currently
00:59:14 in intellectual circles.
00:59:15 Or actually maybe some people disagree with that.
00:59:17 People say far left, people are trying to, there’s some people who argue the BLM movement
00:59:25 is some kind of a Marxist.
00:59:28 I don’t really follow the deep logic in that, whatever.
00:59:34 They said they were formed by Marxism, the founder, co founder.
00:59:37 But stating that is different than…
00:59:41 There’s Marx the totalitarian, there’s also Marx the revolutionary.
00:59:44 I think they’re talking more like we’re revolutionaries, we’re going to overthrow the status quo.
00:59:48 Yeah, right.
00:59:49 But we can have that further discussion.
00:59:51 But I just don’t think they speak deeply about political systems and saying communism is
00:59:58 going to be the righteous system.
01:00:01 There’s not a deep intellectual discourse is what I mean.
01:00:03 But if you were to try to be on stage with the Jordan Peterson, to me the brave thing
01:00:09 now, it would be to argue for communism.
01:00:13 It’d be interesting to see.
01:00:15 Not many people do it.
01:00:16 I certainly wouldn’t be willing to do it.
01:00:18 I don’t have enough…
01:00:19 I don’t, first of all, I don’t believe it, but second of all, it’s a very difficult argument
01:00:23 to make because you will get so much fire, which is why I like Richard Wolff, he’s one
01:00:27 of the people who is quite rigorously showing that there’s some good ideas within the system
01:00:33 of communism, specifically saying that attacking more the negative sides of capitalism.
01:00:42 Just saying that capitalism potentially is more dangerous than communism.
01:00:47 I mean, I disagree with that, but I think it’s a…
01:00:51 I love how something is like we’ve got a body count of 60 million, but this everything
01:00:55 is potentially, like water can drown everyone on earth.
01:00:59 So this is incoherent.
01:01:00 Well, I think nuclear weapons are bad, but nuclear energy is good.
01:01:04 Sure.
01:01:05 Well, nuclear weapons also can be good.
01:01:07 You can easily make the argument, which I don’t know that I subscribe to, that nuclear
01:01:11 weapons prevented boots on the ground war, or it caused them to be much more contained.
01:01:17 And they’re also quite effective at changing the direction of an asteroid that’s about
01:01:21 to hit earth, as I’ve learned from a movie.
01:01:25 Armageddon.
01:01:26 And they’re actually useful as Elon Musk has claimed for prior to colonizing Mars, making
01:01:34 it more habitable.
01:01:35 Oh, okay.
01:01:36 Got to do something.
01:01:37 But yes, but I guess what I’m saying is there’s a place for nuance.
01:01:46 And there’s some topics so hot, like communism, where nuance is very difficult to have.
01:01:53 And I feel like with Nazi Germany, it was a similar thing at the time.
01:01:59 You want to talk about Jeanette Rankin, who was one of my favorite people.
01:02:03 So Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress.
01:02:06 She was elected before women’s suffrage was a constitutional amendment from Montana.
01:02:12 She was elected in 1916.
01:02:16 She was one of a handful of people to vote against the US going into the Great War, which
01:02:22 was the right call at the time.
01:02:23 She was a pacifist Republican as well, coincidentally.
01:02:26 She lost her seat, ran again in, was it 1940?
01:02:32 Got the seat again, and was the only person to vote against getting into World War II.
01:02:38 It was not a unanimous choice.
01:02:40 Jeanette Rankin was the one person.
01:02:42 And she said, you can no more win a war than you can win a hurricane.
01:02:46 So she’s one of these interesting, and talk about bravery.
01:02:50 You’re the one vote after Pearl Harbor to say, we’re not doing this.
01:02:55 And I mean, the pressure she must have been under at the time is, and of course, many
01:03:00 people are not interested in hearing her perspective.
01:03:02 She’s crazy.
01:03:03 She’s evil, blah, blah, blah.
01:03:04 It’s also funny, someone on my Twitter when I talked about her goes, maybe she had Hitler’s
01:03:07 sympathies.
01:03:08 Like, yeah, Ms. Rankin was a big fan of Hitler.
01:03:12 You figured it out, guys.
01:03:13 Do you think there’s an argument to be made that United States should not have gotten
01:03:18 involved in World War II?
01:03:20 Oh, easy.
01:03:21 An easy argument.
01:03:22 The argument, I talk about this in The New Right.
01:03:25 So on internet circles, there’s something called Godwin’s Law, which means the longer
01:03:29 an internet conversation goes on, the probability someone gets compared to Hitler becomes one.
01:03:37 In certain New Right circles, the longer the conversation goes on, the more likelihood
01:03:42 that the argument will become we shouldn’t have ended World War II also becomes one.
01:03:46 And the argument is, at the very least, stay back, let Hitler and Stalin kill each other
01:03:51 off, and then go in and knock off the weaker one.
01:03:54 And you’re going to be saving, destroying two nightmare systems.
01:03:59 And I think that’s an easy argument to make.
01:04:00 Now, it’s hard to pull off after Pearl Harbor.
01:04:02 But in terms of strategy, I don’t think that’s a tough sell.
01:04:07 What about after Pearl Harbor?
01:04:08 I mean, that’s what I’m saying.
01:04:09 After Pearl Harbor, how are you going to sell it to the people?
01:04:11 The argument is, blah, blah, the Holocaust.
01:04:13 The Holocaust, there’s no scenario where that doesn’t happen, really, unless you’re going
01:04:18 in way earlier.
01:04:19 But even so, Hitler had said, if the Jews launch another war, we’re going to wipe them
01:04:24 from the face of the earth.
01:04:25 So the Jews are being held hostage by Hitler as an argument for this.
01:04:27 Another thing he did, which was diabolical, is in order to make it that people could not
01:04:34 accept Jews as refugees, if they were going to leave Germany, they had to be penniless.
01:04:39 So now you have, it’s not like they’re coming over with money and they can take care of
01:04:43 themselves.
01:04:44 No, no.
01:04:45 They’re going to be completely destitute.
01:04:46 It makes it harder to accept them, yeah.
01:04:47 Millions of destitute people who don’t speak the language, it’s a tough sell.
01:04:50 So speaking of good ones law, what do you make of this condition, Trump derangement
01:04:58 syndrome?
01:04:59 Yeah.
01:05:00 And the idea of comparing Trump to Hitler?
01:05:04 I think it’s despicable.
01:05:06 And I’ll give you an example, something parallel that I think more people should be regarding
01:05:11 as despicable.
01:05:12 Earlier in 2020, we were all told that unless we were in Syria immediately, the Kurds were
01:05:19 going to be exterminated.
01:05:20 They invoke the Holocaust.
01:05:22 This is going to be another genocide.
01:05:24 And if you’re not for this, you’re basically forcing another Holocaust.
01:05:29 None of the people who use this argument, we didn’t go to Syria, the Kurds were exterminated,
01:05:33 they just vanished from the news, had any consequences for using this kind of a comparison.
01:05:39 So I think it’s really kind of fatuous.
01:05:44 And I think it’s amazing that people think Hitler’s the only tyrant who ever lived.
01:05:49 Like everyone who’s bad is specifically Hitler.
01:05:52 You know how you know he’s not Hitler?
01:05:54 Because you can tweet at him, and no one comes to your house to kill your family.
01:05:58 Like that’s kind of a big difference.
01:06:01 Also there between Trump and many of his critics is that his grandchildren will be raised as
01:06:06 Jews.
01:06:07 So that’s also kind of a, and Deborah Lipschad talks about this a lot.
01:06:11 The New York Times at the time, there’s another book called Buried by the Times, which talks
01:06:16 about the New York Times in the World War II.
01:06:19 Because the idea that Jews weren’t white was the Hitler idea, the New York Times at the
01:06:25 time, Salzburger, wanted to be against this idea.
01:06:30 So they specifically downplayed the antisemitism as opposed to the Nazis are being oppressive.
01:06:37 So the argument that you can separate Nazism from antisemitism is a historical debate people
01:06:43 have.
01:06:44 And my perspective is, I think it’s, I do not find it convincing that you can separate
01:06:50 those two.
01:06:51 I think antisemitism was essential to Nazism.
01:06:54 I think Nazism and Mussolini’s fascism have very big differences.
01:06:59 And do you think, do you think antisemitism was fundamental to who Hitler was or was it
01:07:04 just that?
01:07:05 So this is the interesting thing is like, was it a tool that he saw as being effective?
01:07:12 No, he believed it.
01:07:14 So why do you see those as intricately connected?
01:07:17 Could Hitler have accomplished the same amount or more without the Holocaust?
01:07:23 Yeah.
01:07:24 Because think about how many resources you had to divert at a time where you have Operation
01:07:28 Barbarossa with Stalin.
01:07:29 So why are they connected?
01:07:30 Why are they so connected?
01:07:33 Is it because Hitler was insane or was he a bad strategist or what?
01:07:38 He was obviously a bad strategist.
01:07:40 He had no need to open a second front.
01:07:42 His generals, my understanding, told him this is crazy.
01:07:45 It didn’t work out for him at all.
01:07:48 I mean, to draw Russia and her resources into that war, it makes absolutely no sense in
01:07:54 retrospect.
01:07:55 There’s a book about, I forgot what it’s called, where it talked about him at that point was
01:07:58 just high all the time on amphetamines and that could have affected his thinking.
01:08:01 Yeah, there’s a really good book on drugs.
01:08:03 I forget what it’s called, but yeah, it’s a really good one.
01:08:07 But it was, I mean, scapegoating is a big part and parcel of the Nazi mythology and
01:08:15 this kind of one universal figure to explain this kind of skeleton key.
01:08:20 But it could have been the communists.
01:08:22 I mean, that could have been the source of the hatred.
01:08:24 But the communists didn’t get Germany into World War I like he said the Jews did.
01:08:28 It seems to me that the atrocity of the Holocaust is the reason we see Hitler as evil.
01:08:36 No, the reason we see Hitler as evil is because of World War II propaganda still.
01:08:40 Because we don’t see Stalin as evil.
01:08:42 Right, that’s my main point.
01:08:43 We don’t see Mao as evil to that extent.
01:08:45 I think that…
01:08:46 Why?
01:08:47 Like why would you say that?
01:08:48 You know what?
01:08:49 Because…
01:08:50 The nature of that propaganda.
01:08:51 Because I think a lot of the problem for certain type of mentality is Hitler didn’t mass
01:08:54 murder equally.
01:08:56 So as long as you’re killing just one group, it’s a problem.
01:08:59 But if you’re murdering everyone equally, all of a sudden, it’s like, what are you going
01:09:02 to do?
01:09:03 So the fact like you were saying, the Hall of the Moor is not common knowledge.
01:09:06 The fact that Mao’s 50 million dead are not common knowledge and Richard Nixon can be
01:09:11 raising a glass to him in China.
01:09:14 These are things that I think the West has not done a good job reconciling.
01:09:19 Knock knock.
01:09:20 Who’s there?
01:09:21 Frank.
01:09:22 Frank who?
01:09:23 Frank, you for being my friend, Michael.
01:09:26 And the heart attacks will say, Frank, you for being my friend.
01:09:30 This is…
01:09:31 You got to do it like this.
01:09:34 Yeah.
01:09:35 Okay.
01:09:36 Now back to Hitler.
01:09:42 Do you think Hitler could have been stopped?
01:09:46 We kind of talked about it a little bit in terms of how to…
01:09:51 What is the brave thing to do in the time of Nazi Germany?
01:09:54 But do you think, I mean, I’m not even going to ask about Stalin in terms of could Stalin
01:09:59 have been stopped?
01:10:00 Because probably the answer there is no.
01:10:02 But on the Hitler side, could Hitler have been stopped?
01:10:05 I think a lot of these things, a lot of luck has to play with it.
01:10:09 He was almost assassinated.
01:10:11 If you mean by like the West, it’s very hard.
01:10:14 I mean, yeah.
01:10:15 By the German people too.
01:10:17 I mean, like if we’re politically speaking, there was a rise to power through the thirties,
01:10:24 through the twenties, really, I mean, like can whoever…
01:10:28 It’s not about Hitler.
01:10:29 It’s about that kind of way of thinking, that totalitarian control that always leads to
01:10:37 trouble at sometimes at a mass scale.
01:10:40 Could that have been stopped in Germany or maybe in the Soviet Union?
01:10:44 I think this is one of the best arguments against radicalization in the States, which
01:10:48 is how do you engage when you have like 30% of the population who are members of a party,
01:10:55 which is dedicated to systemically overthrowing the existing democracy.
01:11:01 Stalin gave orders that the communists who had a pretty sizable population, the Reichstag,
01:11:09 that their target shouldn’t be the Nazis, but the liberals and the social Democrats
01:11:14 and they invented the term social fascist for them.
01:11:16 So instead of, they’re just like jihadis, instead of taking their sights on Nazism,
01:11:21 they set their sights on the moderates because they figured the choice between Hitler and
01:11:27 us we’re going to win.
01:11:28 And this was a huge gamble and they were all killed or had to flee and ones who fled were
01:11:33 killed also by Stalin to my understanding.
01:11:36 So this is an easy way where he could have been certainly heavily mitigated.
01:11:41 What about France and England that it was obvious that Hitler was lying and they wanted
01:11:47 peace so bad that they were willing to put up with it even after Czechoslovakia?
01:11:52 Like this is the anti pacifist argument, which is like they should have threatened military
01:12:03 force more.
01:12:04 But then the other anti, the anti anti pacifist argument is if you’re going to remember Barack
01:12:08 Obama had that, the red line, if you cross this red line in Syria, we’re going to go
01:12:13 in and Assad or whatever is like, yeah, cool.
01:12:15 And he’s like, oh, okay, well, sorry.
01:12:18 So if you’re threatening force, there’s the great song lyric, don’t show your guns unless
01:12:23 you intend to fight, right?
01:12:25 So if it’s very clear with, with free countries through what’s in the press, whether the institutional
01:12:32 will is there to follow through on these threats.
01:12:35 So I think we have been very hard for Chamberlain to rally the British people to take on Hitler
01:12:42 just after the great, I mean, the suffering that Britain’s took the great war, they still,
01:12:47 you know, obviously it means so much more to them than does to us in the West.
01:12:50 What about what do you make of Churchill then?
01:12:53 Like why was Churchill able to rally the British people?
01:12:56 Why was he like, do you give much credit to Churchill for being one of the great forces
01:13:06 in stopping Hitler in World War II?
01:13:08 I don’t think that’s really in dispute.
01:13:10 I think he was very much regarded as this kind of the right man at the right time.
01:13:16 And I think Chamberlain took a gamble.
01:13:19 He, the expression peace in our time was Neville Chamberlain when he signed the appeasement
01:13:24 with Hitler and he goes, we now have peace in our time, now go home and get a good night’s
01:13:28 sleep.
01:13:29 That’s what he said.
01:13:30 Cause he’s like, all right, you know, he’s going to stop here.
01:13:33 And it’s not impossible that if you just gave him, like if you gave Saddam Hussein Kuwait,
01:13:40 it’s not impossible that he’s not going to, you know, invade Saudi Arabia next or something
01:13:44 like that.
01:13:45 Let’s see.
01:13:46 Okay.
01:13:47 The last thing I’ve read, it’s like, of course there’s, there’s a, it’s not impossible, but
01:13:56 when you’re in the room with Hitler, you should be able to see like man to man, like, like
01:14:03 to me, a great leader should be able to see past the facade and see like, like, yes, everything
01:14:10 in life is a risk, but it seems like the right risk to take with Hitler, like it’s surprising
01:14:17 to me.
01:14:18 I know there’s charisma, but it’s surprising to me.
01:14:20 People did not see through this facade.
01:14:23 I really hate the idea of hindsight and everything being 20, 20, and I think it’s a very good
01:14:28 idea.
01:14:29 Generally, I’m thinking generally not in this specific instance to give our ancestors more
01:14:34 credit than they, than, than we tend to give them because people often, here’s a great
01:14:38 example from another context, which is a lightning rods.
01:14:42 People always talk about religious people being stupid and superstitious and they weren’t,
01:14:46 they often were very well reasoned and example of this is lightning rods, which is every
01:14:51 year whatever town, the church was the tallest building and that’s the one that always got
01:14:57 hit by lightning and got caught on fire.
01:14:59 Now what, it’s a coincidence that it’s always the church, like that makes logical sense
01:15:06 that they didn’t realize, well, it’s because the tallest and therefore that attracts electricity.
01:15:11 And in fact, when they invented lighting rods, this is a controversy because it’s like, well,
01:15:15 how is God going to show his displeasure if now it’s striking this lightning rod not burning
01:15:19 down the church?
01:15:20 So a lot of times things are a lot more coherent than we give them credit for.
01:15:26 And again, Chamberlain didn’t, he’s the head of a parliamentary party.
01:15:32 So he does not have the freedom in a sense that a Hitler would to be like, all right,
01:15:36 we’re doing this again, boys.
01:15:38 We don’t know what it’s like in the room with Hitler.
01:15:40 Come on.
01:15:41 That’s, that’s, we really have no idea.
01:15:43 But I think you have to think about that, right?
01:15:45 Yeah, but you can, I can very easily see him in the room being very calm and charming.
01:15:51 And then you think, okay, the guy with the speeches is the act and he’s putting on a
01:15:55 show for his people and this is the real one.
01:15:59 Okay.
01:16:00 So let’s, let’s take somebody as an example.
01:16:02 Let’s take our mutual friend, Vladimir Putin.
01:16:06 Yes.
01:16:07 Okay.
01:16:08 I don’t know why saying his name makes my voice crack.
01:16:11 Because he’s scared he can hear you.
01:16:13 It’s like Beetlejuice.
01:16:14 Volodya.
01:16:15 So there’s a lot of people that…
01:16:21 Was he the one who built you?
01:16:23 No, that was a, that was a collaboration.
01:16:29 It’s a double blind engineering effort where I was not told of who my maker was.
01:16:39 There’s a backstory, but…
01:16:42 There’s a talking cricket.
01:16:43 Pinocchio.
01:16:44 He’ll be a real boy someday.
01:16:52 I talk about him quite a bit because I find him fascinating.
01:16:58 Now there’s a, there’s a really important line that people say, like, why does Lex admire
01:17:03 Putin?
01:17:04 I do not admire Putin.
01:17:07 I find the man fascinating.
01:17:08 I find Hitler fascinating.
01:17:10 I find a lot of figures in history fascinating, both good and bad.
01:17:17 And the figures, just as you said, that are with us today, like Vladimir Putin, like Donald
01:17:23 Trump, like Barack Obama, it’s difficult to place them on the spectrum of good and evil
01:17:28 because that’s only really applies to like when you see the consequences of their action
01:17:33 in a historical context.
01:17:35 So there’s some people who say that Vladimir Putin is evil.
01:17:41 And based on our discussion about Hitler, that’s something I think about a lot, which
01:17:46 is in the room with Putin, and there’s also a lot of historical descriptions of what it’s
01:17:53 like to be in the room with Hitler in the 1930s.
01:17:57 There is a lot of charisma.
01:17:59 In the same way, I find Putin to be very charismatic in his own way.
01:18:05 The humor, the wit, the brilliance, there’s a simplicity of the way he thinks that really,
01:18:16 if taken at face value, looks like a very intelligent, honest man thinking practically
01:18:25 about how to build a better Russia constantly, almost like an executive.
01:18:36 He looks like a man who loves his job in a way that Trump, for example, doesn’t, meaning
01:18:42 like he loves laws and rules and how to…
01:18:45 There’s no adversarial press, so that’s going to help.
01:18:48 Yes.
01:18:49 And he’s popular with his people, that’s also going to help enormously.
01:18:51 I’m talking about strictly the man, directly the words coming out of his mouth, like all
01:18:58 the videos and interviews I watch, I’m based on that, not the press, not the reporting.
01:19:03 You can just see that here’s a man who’s able to display a charisma that’s not…
01:19:10 Like I can see, that’s why I love Joe Rogan, is like you could tell the guy is genuine
01:19:17 and is a good person.
01:19:18 And you could tell immediately that once you meet Joe, that he’s going to be offline, also
01:19:23 a good person.
01:19:24 You could tell there’s signals that we send that are difficult to describe.
01:19:29 In the same way, you could tell Putin is like he genuinely loves his job and wants to build
01:19:37 a better Russia.
01:19:38 There’s the argument that he is actually an evil man behind that charisma, or is able
01:19:45 to assassinate people, limit free press, all those kinds of things.
01:19:54 Like that’s…
01:19:57 What do we do with that?
01:19:59 So what do human beings like journalists or what do other leaders when they’re in their
01:20:06 room with Putin do with those kinds of notions in deciding how to act in this world and deciding
01:20:13 what policy to enact, all those kinds of things?
01:20:16 Just like with Hitler, when Chairman is in the room with Hitler, how does he decide how
01:20:22 to act?
01:20:23 Well, let’s go back to my wheelhouse, which is North Korea.
01:20:27 So when your entire world is based on being against Trump and everything Trump does is
01:20:34 buffoonery or counterproductive, the conclusion of your reporting is going to be pretty much
01:20:39 given.
01:20:41 I was very hopeful that there would be some positive outlooks or outcomes rather of Trump’s
01:20:46 meeting with Kim Jong Un.
01:20:49 It looked like there was a space for things to go a bit better.
01:20:53 I talked about it a lot at the time.
01:20:57 And Trump was under no illusions about who he was dealing with.
01:21:05 People pretend that, oh, he was kind of naive.
01:21:08 He had one of the refugees that had stayed the union, you know, lifting up his crutch.
01:21:13 The first thing he sat down and talked to Xi Jinping about in Mar a Laga right after
01:21:17 he became inaugurated was North Korea.
01:21:19 Barack Obama said that when he sat down Trump in the White House during the transfer of
01:21:24 power, he said North Korea is the biggest issue.
01:21:27 So I think a good leader, whether or not you consider Trump a good leader, has to be aware
01:21:33 of, all right, I’m going to have to have relationships of some kind, even if it’s adversarial, with
01:21:41 some really evil, evil, horrible people, which Kim Jong Un clearly is.
01:21:47 Well, I don’t think there’s anybody that has a perspective that North Korean Kim Jong
01:21:54 Un or ill are not evil, right?
01:21:58 Correct.
01:21:59 But with, in 1930s Germany, isn’t it a little bit more nuanced and difficult?
01:22:06 Yeah, because Hitler hasn’t done anything yet and he’s just a blowhard and he’s an anti
01:22:09 Semite, sure, but he’s…
01:22:12 What about like before the war breaks out, like what about the basic actionable anti
01:22:19 Semitism when you’re like just attacking, hurting?
01:22:22 Are you talking about Kristallnacht or are you talking about the Night of Long Knives?
01:22:25 Kristallnacht.
01:22:26 So it’s the Night of the Broken Glass.
01:22:28 Yeah, yeah, the Long Knives is when he assassinated a bunch of his people, that was something
01:22:32 different.
01:22:33 Yeah, so like when you’re actually attacking your own citizenry.
01:22:37 Yeah, that was universally condemned, Kristallnacht, and that was very shocking, its level of barbarism
01:22:46 to the West.
01:22:47 Because I think we still want to believe, understandably, that things aren’t as bad
01:22:55 as they seem.
01:22:57 We would rather…
01:22:59 This is why the North Korea book I did, Dear Reader, is used in a humorous framework because
01:23:07 if you have to look, it’s like looking to the sun.
01:23:09 If you stared it straight on, it’s very hard to do.
01:23:12 So you have to kind of look at it obliquely and then you’re kind of realizing the enormity
01:23:18 of the depravity.
01:23:20 And again, pogroms in Russia had been a thing for a very long time.
01:23:26 And there’s a difference between, okay, we’re going to sack these villages and persecute
01:23:30 people and we’re going to systematically exterminate them.
01:23:35 There’s still levels of evil and depravity.
01:23:38 So you did write the book, Dear Reader, on Kim Jong Il, Dear Reader, the unauthorized
01:23:45 autobiography of Kim Jong Il.
01:23:48 So that’s the previous leader of North Korea.
01:23:51 Third one is the un, no creativity on the naming.
01:23:56 Well, no, this is intentional because it’s a throwback to the dad.
01:24:01 So there’s been only three leaders in North Korea.
01:24:06 So we’ve talked about the history of Hitler and Stalin, men like these.
01:24:09 I think it’s important to understand that the history of those kinds of humans, there’s
01:24:14 the history of North Korea is not well written about or understood, which is why your book
01:24:18 is exceptionally powerful and important.
01:24:21 So maybe in a big broad way, can you say who was, who is Kim Jong Il as a man, as a leader,
01:24:34 as a historical figure that we should understand and why should we understand them?
01:24:39 So I wrote Dear Reader by going to North Korea and getting all their propaganda, which is
01:24:44 translated into several languages because the conceit is everyone on earth is interested
01:24:47 in them and wants to mirror their ideology.
01:24:51 And he died in 2011 and you wrote the book in 2012.
01:24:55 I went there in 2012.
01:24:56 I wrote the book, came out in 2014.
01:24:58 So Kim Jong Il is, though not an intellect, North Korea’s version of Forrest Gump in that
01:25:04 when they write their history, whenever something happens, he’s there.
01:25:08 And by telling his life story, it’s in the first person, he’s telling the history of
01:25:13 North Korea.
01:25:14 So I wanted to write the kind of book where in one book, and it’s the kind of reading
01:25:19 you could do in the beach or the bathroom, you’re gonna get the entire history and know
01:25:22 everything you need to know about North Korea in one accessible outlet.
01:25:26 And it’s what people don’t appreciate about North Korea, there’s several things, how bad
01:25:31 it is.
01:25:33 And this didn’t happen overnight.
01:25:35 This was very systemic that what this family did to that country where piece by piece,
01:25:41 they did everything in their power to hermetically seal it from the rest of the world, ramp up
01:25:46 the oppression, keep any information from coming in.
01:25:50 And they’re very creative and innovative in their style of manipulation and control.
01:26:00 So there is a farcical element.
01:26:03 Let me give you an example.
01:26:04 So people in the West kind of get it wrong.
01:26:05 They talk about, oh, they talk about when Kim Jong Il played golf for the first time,
01:26:09 they get 17 holes in one.
01:26:11 There’s this one story about Kim Jong Il shrinking time.
01:26:17 And this is a story, it sounds supernatural, but it’s not.
01:26:20 So Kim Jong Il is at a conference, the Dear Leader, and someone is giving a talk.
01:26:25 And while that person is giving a talk, Kim Jong Il is taking notes and working on his
01:26:30 work.
01:26:31 And he has an aide who keeps interrupting him with questions and the speaker keeps stopping.
01:26:36 And Kim Jong Il says, why are you stopping, goes, I see you’re doing these other things.
01:26:39 And he goes, no, no, I can do all these things at once, everyone’s shocked.
01:26:43 And they said, this is why Kim Jong Il looks at time, not like a plane, but like a cube,
01:26:49 and he can shrink time.
01:26:51 And my friend goes, do they mean multitasking?
01:26:54 And yes, Kim Jong Il is the only person in North Korea who’s capable of multitasking.
01:27:00 So in order to elevate him, they basically make everyone else in North Korea completely
01:27:06 incompetent.
01:27:09 And that has a purpose because should the leader go away, this country is going to collapse
01:27:15 overnight.
01:27:16 So they laugh in the West about all these newspapers show him at the factory and he’s
01:27:22 at the fish hatchery at the paper plant.
01:27:25 They say the difference in North Korea is that the leader goes among the people and
01:27:29 does what he calls field guidance.
01:27:31 So he will go in that farm and be like, this is what you need to do.
01:27:34 And he’ll go here and he’s so smart, he’s good at everything.
01:27:37 And thanks to him for sharing his wisdom with us.
01:27:39 And he’s not removed from the people like in every other country.
01:27:43 Why does that seem to go wrong with humans, do you think that this kind of the structure
01:27:50 where there’s this one figure, this authoritarian, this totalitarian structure where there’s
01:27:57 one figure that’s a source of comfort and knowledge?
01:28:00 Kim Jong Il is not good at farming.
01:28:03 Kim Jong Il is not good at the machinery.
01:28:06 It’s all a complete lie.
01:28:07 Or the things he’ll point out will be things that are completely obvious.
01:28:10 So here’s another example that they use.
01:28:12 In North Korea, they have something called the Tower of the Juche Idea, which is an obelisk,
01:28:16 which looks like the Washington Monument.
01:28:18 But it’s completely different because it’s got this like plastic torch at the top.
01:28:23 And they talk about in their propaganda how all the architects got together and they said,
01:28:30 oh, we should make this the second tallest stone obelisk in the world.
01:28:35 And Kim Jong Il says, no, let’s make it the tallest.
01:28:39 They’re like, we never thought of this before.
01:28:41 And the way it’s presented as if, and like, he’s the first person to think of this, like
01:28:46 these architects are having a brainstorming session at the Tower of the Juche Idea.
01:28:49 They’re like, all right, we got to do something innovative to put North Korea on the map.
01:28:53 What can we do?
01:28:54 How about second biggest?
01:28:56 He’s going to go for this.
01:28:58 And then he’s like, make, oh, we never thought of this.
01:29:01 It’s so, because I present it at face value, people sometimes say the book’s a satire.
01:29:06 It’s not a satire.
01:29:07 I downplayed all this stuff.
01:29:09 It’s a farce.
01:29:10 Here’s another example.
01:29:11 North Korea is very big.
01:29:12 And I think Russia is to some extent too, on amusement parks, funfairs, they call them,
01:29:16 in the British style, because this is a chance for the people to all get together.
01:29:21 And there was this amusement park, it’s almost like South Park, Cartman, where there’s all
01:29:25 these rides.
01:29:27 And Kim Jong Il’s like, I’m not going to let any elderly or children take these rides until
01:29:34 I put myself in danger and ride them myself.
01:29:39 And they go, but dear leader, it’s drizzling.
01:29:42 And he goes, no, I have to make sure these rides are going to be safe for everyone, even
01:29:48 during the light rain.
01:29:49 They go, well, can we go on these rides with you?
01:29:51 No, no, no.
01:29:52 I have to be the courageous one.
01:29:54 And he’s riding all the rides and they’re standing there crying at his courage.
01:29:58 But that’s what’s, and you ask all the things in one power.
01:30:00 It’s like, listen, I’m quite confident that those funfair engineers are in a position
01:30:06 to ride Modest Mouse, whatever it’s called, by themselves and be like, yeah, okay, this
01:30:10 is good for the kids.
01:30:11 Although to be fair, some of those amusement parks are pretty rusty and dangerous.
01:30:17 That kind of propaganda, I guess what I’m playing a devil’s advocate is like, it’s comforting
01:30:23 and it’s useful.
01:30:25 But it does seem that that naturally leads to an abuse of power.
01:30:33 How can it be used correctly?
01:30:34 No one person has the intellect or the mind to understand the entirety of an economy,
01:30:40 let alone every individual field of interest.
01:30:42 Well, for example, you can have an artificial intelligence system that understands the entirety
01:30:48 of it.
01:30:49 Your affect just completely changed.
01:30:50 The mask slipped.
01:30:51 I guess you could have an artificial intelligence system.
01:30:55 But the question is, can that, I mean, the human version of that is like, you can hire
01:31:03 a lot of experts, right?
01:31:05 You can be an extremely good manager.
01:31:07 Since everything’s dynamic, they’re not going to have the data to kind of manage it well.
01:31:13 It seems that there’s a, like what George Washington allegedly did, it seems like most
01:31:18 humans are not able to fire themselves.
01:31:21 You’re not able to like, ultimately be a check on your own power.
01:31:26 But that’s not, if I was creating a human, that’s not an obvious bug of the system that
01:31:36 we would not be able to fire ourselves, to know when we have, I mean, it seems like that’s
01:31:43 something you have to know always, like that’s something I often wonder is like, am I wrong
01:31:48 about this?
01:31:49 Well, this is what we talked about earlier, what are the safety valves to make sure that,
01:31:53 okay, if I am incorrect, or my knowledge is finite, Plato’s cave kind of thing, what mechanisms
01:31:59 are in place that my mistake or limited information isn’t going to have the deleterious consequences?
01:32:06 And North Korea does not really have that, and as a result, they had polio in the 90s.
01:32:10 So there is a, you write about it straight, but there’s a humor to it, because it’s an
01:32:17 absurdly evil place, I suppose.
01:32:21 A bunch of people, I asked, I said that I’m talking to you and a bunch of people ask questions.
01:32:28 Oh, I got to hear from the plebs, you asked me before we started recording, I specifically
01:32:33 said no, it was my contract.
01:32:35 Yeah, and you gave, I gave you all the pink skittles or whatever.
01:32:40 But they,
01:32:41 So pink skittles, you know, pink.
01:32:43 I’m trolling, Michael, let me explain to you how that works.
01:32:47 We should go at malice.locals.com and sign up and pay, I think the membership fee is
01:32:55 several thousand dollars, it’s very, it’s not.
01:32:58 It’s not for the layman.
01:32:59 Yeah, but the service is excellent.
01:33:03 You get a coat with it.
01:33:04 But yeah, I went there, posted a lot of really brilliant people there, people should join
01:33:09 that community.
01:33:10 If you find Michael interesting, or if you just want to go and say why he’s wrong, it’s
01:33:15 a great place to have that.
01:33:17 It’s not a good place for that, I assure you.
01:33:21 A lot of really kind people.
01:33:23 So anyway, there’s a bunch of people ask that we should talk about humor.
01:33:29 So pretend hypothetically speaking that I’m a robot asking you to explain humor to me.
01:33:40 So dear reader, I mean, there’s a humor, you so wonderfully dance between serious dark
01:33:48 topics and then seriously dark humor.
01:33:55 Can you try to, if you were to write like a, I don’t know, a Wikipedia article, maybe
01:34:00 a book about your philosophy of humor, what do you think is the role of humor in all of
01:34:05 this?
01:34:06 A joke is like a baby.
01:34:07 You can’t dissect it and then put it back together and expect it to work.
01:34:10 Trust me on this one.
01:34:12 Despite no matter how you carve that thing up, it’s not going to be working the next
01:34:17 day.
01:34:18 And you need it to sew those little sneakers with those hands.
01:34:22 I don’t know that humor is something that is very explainable.
01:34:26 People there’s something called claptor, where this is like the worst kind of humor where
01:34:30 people applaud because they agree with what you’re saying, as opposed to laughter.
01:34:35 That’s the poetry reading and the drag queens do that too, I think because of the nails.
01:34:43 You laugh, it’s a visceral reaction.
01:34:45 When someone on Twitter is insisting, you know, that’s not funny, you’re not in a position
01:34:50 to make that claim.
01:34:52 And let’s go back to North Korea.
01:34:54 I had a refugee I knew and he went to high school here and he was talking to his buddies
01:35:01 and they said, hey, remember when we were kids, we had Pokemon and he goes, oh yeah,
01:35:06 except instead of Pokemon, I watched my dad starve to death, which is the truth.
01:35:09 Now, who are any of us to tell him not to make that joke?
01:35:15 I don’t know what it’s like watching anyone, including my dad, starve to death and my dad’s
01:35:19 fatty so he’s not going hungry anytime soon.
01:35:23 So it’s very bizarre to me when people feel comfortable precluding others from making
01:35:33 jokes, especially, and I think this is a very Jewish thing, like this kind of gallows humor,
01:35:38 especially when it’s laughing about a personal loss or experience that they’ve had.
01:35:44 Humor is a great way to mitigate pain and suffering.
01:35:50 But it’s also, I think this is why it’s a Jewish thing, it’s a black thing.
01:35:53 When you are a marginalized community or poorer, it’s free.
01:35:58 Telling stories, telling jokes or songs, you don’t have to have money, but you can have
01:36:04 joy and happiness.
01:36:05 And I think that’s why you find it so much more in kind of lower status communities than
01:36:10 you find in like wasps who are notoriously humorless.
01:36:14 Which is strange because people pay you a lot of money for the jokes you do, so it’s
01:36:19 not really free.
01:36:20 Yeah, well, nope, they don’t have to pay me.
01:36:22 It’s appreciated but not expected.
01:36:25 I find my voice cracking every time I try to make a joke, like I fail miserably at this.
01:36:31 Some people…
01:36:32 You’re still in beta, that’s what I thought.
01:36:35 Alpha.
01:36:36 Sure.
01:36:37 Being an alpha is like being a lady.
01:36:38 If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
01:36:39 No, I meant alpha version.
01:36:40 Oh, okay.
01:36:41 I don’t know if you’re a robot gobbledygook.
01:36:46 I’m not going there, okay.
01:36:49 Who are you talking to?
01:36:51 In my own head.
01:36:52 I’m talking to myself in my own head.
01:36:54 Okay, speaking of North Korea, some people say that, you know, I’ve read that comedy
01:37:03 is about timing.
01:37:04 Well, first of all, do you agree?
01:37:06 And second of all…
01:37:07 No, I’m serious.
01:37:08 It’s very much about timing.
01:37:09 No, just that you’re saying yes.
01:37:10 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:37:11 Yeah, it’s funny.
01:37:12 Okay.
01:37:13 Isn’t it comedy is tragedy plus timing?
01:37:16 This is not the full reference.
01:37:17 What is it?
01:37:18 The interrupting cow knock knock joke.
01:37:20 I’m not going to do it, but…
01:37:22 That’s not a timing thing.
01:37:23 It’s more of a repetition and then the twist ending.
01:37:27 No, the moo.
01:37:28 Oh, the moo.
01:37:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:37:30 Interrupting cow.
01:37:31 You’re thinking of the banana one.
01:37:33 Anyway, I’m not going there.
01:37:37 Yet you’re…
01:37:38 Who are you talking to?
01:37:39 In my own head.
01:37:40 Good lord.
01:37:41 Are you small wonder?
01:37:42 Do you stand sleeping in a wardrobe?
01:37:45 Yeah.
01:37:46 That’s so British.
01:37:50 But yet you’re very…
01:37:51 I don’t want to stay in a closet because that has connotations.
01:37:55 Let’s both come out of the closet for a second.
01:37:57 I love you.
01:37:58 Let’s talk about…
01:37:59 I love you, Lex.
01:38:00 I wasn’t saying, I love you, Alex.
01:38:02 I was saying, I love you, Lex.
01:38:04 Oh, you’re talking to me.
01:38:06 Yes, through the screen.
01:38:07 So you think about me when you’re with another man.
01:38:11 I watch you when you’re sleeping.
01:38:13 Okay, so you’re really active on Twitter.
01:38:19 And somebody else asked on your overly expensive membership site, how do you find humor different
01:38:31 in writing on Twitter versus spoken humor?
01:38:34 So if humor is about timing, how do you capture the timing and the brilliance of the whatever
01:38:42 is underlying humor in the context of Twitter?
01:38:45 Like another way to say it is how do you be funny and yet thoughtful on Twitter?
01:38:54 So with Twitter, you have to be the first one to the punchline.
01:38:58 So when Ron Paul had a stroke, I was immediately being like, he’s still the most articulate
01:39:03 libertarian.
01:39:04 He’s doing a great Joe Biden impression right now.
01:39:06 All the libertarians got ass mad.
01:39:08 So like too soon, or like when someone dies, you’re making the jokes about them.
01:39:12 It’s like, when do you want to make the jokes about someone just died a week later?
01:39:16 It doesn’t make any sense.
01:39:17 Too soon is perfect timing.
01:39:18 Or you could say it’s not appropriate ever, but too soon does not make sense in this context.
01:39:25 So that is something that I enjoy doing.
01:39:28 It’s also fun ruffling people’s feathers, something I enjoy doing.
01:39:32 I think spoken versus writing is very different because when you are having good banter with
01:39:41 someone, for me as the audience, knowing that it is on the spot really adds an element of
01:39:49 humor because then it’s like, wow, this is fun.
01:39:51 It’s like a ping pong match or something.
01:39:54 Whereas in writing, you’re losing the tone, you’re losing the relationship of a dynamic
01:40:01 conversation.
01:40:04 And a lot of times the joke is just going to be a different type of joke.
01:40:07 Well, it’s funny, but Twitter, there’s a sense, especially your Twitter, that you just thought
01:40:15 of that and you just wrote it.
01:40:17 Yes.
01:40:18 Like there’s a feeling like it’s literally you talking as opposed to what I imagine is
01:40:24 there’s some editing or it doesn’t look like it.
01:40:27 Whoever your editor is should be fired.
01:40:32 There’s an interesting effect actually.
01:40:34 If I want to say something, I don’t know, about something that’s bothering me about
01:40:42 the presidential election or something like that, what is the actual central idea that
01:40:47 I’m trying to convey to myself?
01:40:48 Like if say I was having a hypothetical conversation with myself in my head, why am I putting my
01:40:56 pants back on?
01:40:57 I’m more comfortable this way.
01:41:01 Promo code MALICE20, sheathunderwear.com, okay.
01:41:09 That’s sheath…
01:41:10 What is it?
01:41:11 What’s the website?
01:41:12 Sheathunderwear.com.
01:41:13 Sheathunderwear.com, promo code MALICE20.
01:41:17 And I forgot, why is that underwear really nice?
01:41:20 Because it has a dual pouch technology to keep your man parts separate.
01:41:23 They’ve also got woman stuff, but I don’t know how that works.
01:41:25 There’s a thing worth going somewhere.
01:41:27 And the material is really refreshing.
01:41:29 I mean, it’s really…
01:41:30 And it makes your ass look good.
01:41:32 That’s promo code MALICE20.
01:41:35 And it’s made by a former vet because he was in Iraq.
01:41:39 So that’s why I like promoting it.
01:41:41 Yeah.
01:41:42 But what I’m writing the tweet, I like to…
01:41:45 It forces me to think deeply about the core of the message.
01:41:50 But what I found, this really interesting effect, like I don’t really do much editing
01:41:54 on the tweet, I’ll just think and then I’ll write it.
01:41:57 And then when I post it, like submit, I immediately see the tweet very differently than it was
01:42:05 in my mind.
01:42:06 Huh.
01:42:07 I often delete, I delete, I don’t know, some percentage of tweets about two, five seconds
01:42:12 after.
01:42:13 Wow.
01:42:14 I don’t know.
01:42:15 It’s something…
01:42:16 Once you send it, it’s why the Gmail send features, undo send feature is really nice.
01:42:21 It’s like it just changes the way I see the thing.
01:42:24 So it’s very interesting.
01:42:26 But I really love it that you can delete it because when I say stuff out in the wild,
01:42:33 like to other humans, like spoken word is like, you can’t delete what you just said.
01:42:40 And I often regret the things I say, like on the spot, like I shouldn’t have said that.
01:42:46 Really?
01:42:47 Yeah.
01:42:48 I don’t have that.
01:42:49 Well, again, whoever your editor is, what is it, Edith Piaf, Jeannine Hicart Han?
01:42:58 Wow, your French is as bad as your English.
01:43:01 I don’t have any tweets I regret because if I sent a tweet that I regretted, I would make
01:43:10 amends.
01:43:11 I would make it a point if I was needlessly offensive to somebody or hurtful or accidentally,
01:43:17 I would make sure to fix it and go out of my way to make sure that person feels vindicated
01:43:24 and validated by accepting my apology.
01:43:27 That has never happened, had to happen, thankfully.
01:43:30 I’m also someone who is not big on taking the bait.
01:43:37 Some recently some people have come after me pretty hard.
01:43:40 And my perspective is that it’s not really about me.
01:43:44 It’s either I represent something to them.
01:43:46 I’m just a jackass with the Twitter.
01:43:49 So if you’re getting this riled up over me, it’s not really about me.
01:43:53 Maybe I’m delusional, but that’s how I look at it.
01:43:55 So if they are trying to provoke me into this kind of heated exchange, I will never do it
01:44:01 because I’m not interested in it.
01:44:03 And I don’t think there’s going to be any, like Jeannette Rankin, you can’t win.
01:44:08 It’s just going to be like trying to win a hurricane.
01:44:10 There’s no hero here.
01:44:12 Well, let me ask you about this because somebody also asked that on your overly expensive membership
01:44:16 site that like they were saying that they’re an academic.
01:44:20 They wondered, because I’m an academic, quote unquote, I’m not an academic, but I do still
01:44:24 have an affiliation with MIT.
01:44:27 The word academic is just dirty, which is a problem that needs to change.
01:44:32 Just like the word nerd is dirty.
01:44:34 No, academic needs is going to be the next front to open and they’re going to be very
01:44:38 vilified.
01:44:39 We’re coming for them and it’s going to be very, very ugly.
01:44:42 And I cannot wait.
01:44:43 No, but there needs to be a place, a different term for people who love research and knowledge.
01:44:50 Oh, that’s true.
01:44:51 That’s very fair.
01:44:52 No, you’re right.
01:44:53 100%.
01:44:54 You’re right.
01:44:55 So like you have to clarify what you mean by academic and right now the word academic
01:44:59 means in the intellectual public discourse, it means the enemy.
01:45:04 And there’s a lot of people that perhaps deserve that targeted vilification, but like a lot
01:45:11 that don’t.
01:45:12 They’re just curious people that are just building robots that will one day destroy
01:45:18 you.
01:45:19 Voice cracks every time I make a joke.
01:45:20 You’re not consistent.
01:45:21 I can’t do this.
01:45:22 Because you’re not making a joke, you’re telling the truth.
01:45:24 I’m editing.
01:45:25 Can I delete that joke?
01:45:28 Okay.
01:45:29 That’s not even a joke.
01:45:31 Robots building robots that will one day kill us.
01:45:34 Oh, God willing.
01:45:36 God willing.
01:45:37 Humans are the joke.
01:45:38 That’s why I’m cracking.
01:45:39 My voice is cracking.
01:45:40 What was I even fucking saying?
01:45:45 Academics.
01:45:46 Academics.
01:45:47 But why?
01:45:48 My local, someone had a question.
01:45:49 They’re an academic.
01:45:50 Right.
01:45:51 They’re an academic.
01:45:52 They’re saying like, are you worried that in academia, associating yourself with a sort
01:45:59 of somebody who can be misconstrued to have radical ideas, like the two examples they
01:46:06 gave is Michael Malice and Joe Rogan.
01:46:10 Does Joe have any radical?
01:46:11 I wouldn’t consider him radical at all.
01:46:13 Well, we can talk about it.
01:46:15 But Joe is, I think, a bad example.
01:46:17 He’s quite centrist to me.
01:46:20 Well he could have, for example, like what has Joe been attacked on?
01:46:24 It’s, for example, on the topic of like transgender athletes in sports, there’s what else?
01:46:34 I mean, he’s been pro Bernie Sanders and pro Trump or like giving Trump a pass.
01:46:43 Not anti Trump.
01:46:44 Not anti Trump.
01:46:47 What else?
01:46:48 None of these are radical.
01:46:52 Meat stuff, being pro meat versus anti vegan.
01:46:56 All those kinds of things.
01:46:57 But you can be misconstrued and saying, there’s I think a highlight, my mom actually wrote
01:47:02 to me about this, which is hilarious.
01:47:04 Thank you.
01:47:05 I said, I like how you jot it down.
01:47:08 That’s when it’s important.
01:47:09 That’s a sign, my voice cracks, a sign when Michael Malice makes a funny joke when you
01:47:16 jot something down.
01:47:23 He writes it and then the next time he crosses it out.
01:47:27 Yeah.
01:47:28 It’s like Joe Biden and the debates.
01:47:31 I did also just crap my pants.
01:47:36 So there’s a, I mean, he’s a comedian.
01:47:42 You have a comedian side to you, right?
01:47:44 I mean, you’re, you’ve talked humorous side humorous.
01:47:48 So you can misconstrued like Joe is being somehow a radical thinker and the same can
01:47:53 be done with you.
01:47:54 And his question was, how are you worried about associating yourself with folks like
01:47:59 that?
01:48:00 Am I or are you?
01:48:01 Like me?
01:48:02 Yeah.
01:48:03 That’s a good question.
01:48:04 And is that something, do you see yourself as somebody who’s dangerous that I shouldn’t
01:48:12 be talking to?
01:48:14 And in the same way, do you ever think about guests on your podcast or people you talk
01:48:23 to publicly, associate yourself with publicly and think that there is somebody that crosses
01:48:30 that line that you shouldn’t talk to?
01:48:32 So I interviewed in the new ride, I interviewed like up to full blown Nazis in the last chapter
01:48:37 is that Chris Cantwell, but that was in the context of that book, right?
01:48:40 So there’s lots of people who people want me to have on my show.
01:48:45 And the way I look at it is like you have a table and tablecloth, right?
01:48:48 And let’s suppose the table is three feet wide.
01:48:52 The tablecloth is two feet wide.
01:48:54 So if I move the tablecloth to the right, I’m going to lose people on the left.
01:48:58 I can only cover so much space.
01:49:00 And the further you go on the fringe in one direction, the more mainstream you’re going
01:49:04 to lose on the other direction.
01:49:05 So I’m very much making a conscious choice not to talk to being, people will say I’m
01:49:12 cowardly and that’s absolutely true.
01:49:13 I’m being fearful here.
01:49:15 I would prefer not to talk to some of those who would alienate some of the more mainstream
01:49:22 people.
01:49:23 And here’s a perfect example of why.
01:49:25 On my birthday last year, I woke up seven o clock in the morning to go pee.
01:49:29 And I checked Twitter or whatever, and Jeb Bush had followed me, Jeb.
01:49:34 And it’s seven a.m., you’re not really awake.
01:49:37 You’re like, wait, what?
01:49:38 And then I thought maybe it was a fake account, but it’s in the verified tab.
01:49:41 Oh, you don’t have this because you’re not verified on Twitter, that’s a shame.
01:49:44 So people who are mad are on Twitter.
01:49:45 Twitter does not respect robots.
01:49:49 They ban bots.
01:49:50 You’re lucky.
01:49:51 Zero, one.
01:49:52 Zero, zero.
01:49:53 It’s zero, zero, zero.
01:49:56 Those are my pronouns.
01:49:57 So it was Jeb, Jeb, Governor Bush, and I corresponded with him and I asked him on the show and he
01:50:07 decided not to for various reasons.
01:50:09 Very politely, he’s like, just politics is so bad right now, I don’t want to talk about
01:50:12 it.
01:50:13 And I respect that for him.
01:50:14 If I’m creating my show where he’s going to get heat and get canceled, oh, you can’t be
01:50:24 on the show.
01:50:25 He has these other guests.
01:50:26 I don’t want to lose that opportunity because as we were talking about earlier, me and Alex
01:50:29 Jones and Tim Pool, I think a lot of people would be very excited to see me sit down with
01:50:35 Jeb Bush.
01:50:36 And I told him in writing, and I meant this, I wouldn’t be clowning him.
01:50:40 I wouldn’t be disrespectful.
01:50:41 It would be a lot of fun.
01:50:43 There’s a goofball side to him that comes out sometimes and I would do my best to bring
01:50:46 that out and talk about what it’s like being a blue blood to be born into his grandfather,
01:50:50 Prescott Bush was a Senator from Connecticut, marrying a woman who didn’t speak English.
01:50:55 How does that work when your family’s royalty and things like that?
01:50:58 So I had a lot of fun questions for him and that’s kind of, you’re going to have to choose
01:51:01 one or the other.
01:51:02 Well, you do a really good job with that.
01:51:04 Like Ben Shapiro does a good job with that too, which is you can have multiple, you can
01:51:09 have a trolley side, humor side where you tear down the power structures and so on,
01:51:14 but you can also have a serious side and it’s a safe space for people from all walks of
01:51:19 life to walk in and you’re not adversarial.
01:51:22 Never.
01:51:23 So I take the word guests seriously.
01:51:25 If they’re going to be on my show, I’m not going to have them have negative consequences
01:51:30 as a result of being on my show.
01:51:32 That said, I mean, maybe in my case, I’ll be honest and say that I find Alex Jones outside
01:51:41 of the conspiracy stuff for some reason, maybe you can explain, maybe you can psychoanalyze
01:51:46 me, but I find him hilarious to listen to.
01:51:49 He’s a performer.
01:51:50 He’s very performative.
01:51:51 But there’s a lot of people that don’t see the humor of it and they see the serious consequences
01:51:56 of spreading conspiracy theories of different kinds and they see the danger of it.
01:52:05 And I personally, I’m often tempted to talk to Alex in a podcast format, but I think I’m
01:52:15 trying to convince myself that I never will.
01:52:19 For me, I feel unsafe talking to Alex because I can’t truly be myself, which is like naive
01:52:28 and honest.
01:52:30 And actually, I generally, when I talk to humans, I want to see the best in them.
01:52:37 And I think that’s like, I often think about if I talked to Hitler in 1935, 1938.
01:52:42 You got a list of names to give him.
01:52:46 Well, yeah, I mean, that’s how you get the interview.
01:52:50 Come on, let’s be honest.
01:52:53 Who are we kidding?
01:52:54 I would, you have to give away one of your, I would probably give away one of my brothers,
01:52:59 so.
01:53:00 How many brothers do you have?
01:53:01 Well, just one.
01:53:02 Okay.
01:53:03 Too many.
01:53:04 I want to be an only child.
01:53:07 He’s the older brother.
01:53:08 He used to pick on me.
01:53:09 Payback.
01:53:10 You know, it’s only, he had a good life.
01:53:11 You should think of it more as Stalin, so I don’t interrupt you, because Hitler, you’re
01:53:14 Jewish.
01:53:15 You’re already going to have very adversarial, he’s not going to perceive you as a human
01:53:20 in a sense, right?
01:53:21 Right.
01:53:22 Stalin, you’re right.
01:53:23 Yeah.
01:53:24 That would be much easier.
01:53:25 Or Kim Jong Un or something like that.
01:53:26 Okay.
01:53:27 Do you think, like how, okay, this is a good question, is, and that’s, why don’t you judge
01:53:32 something?
01:53:33 If you, alright, we’ll cross it out in a second.
01:53:44 I think this is a really good example of a difficult figure that’s controversial that
01:53:49 people bring up to me a lot, and you’ve interviewed twice, which is Curtis Yarvin.
01:53:53 Yeah, Manchester Smallbug.
01:53:54 Manchester Small, AKA Manchester Smallbug, which is his pseudonym that he goes by in
01:53:59 his blog.
01:54:00 Can you tell me about who he is?
01:54:03 Sure.
01:54:04 Why is he interesting?
01:54:05 What of his ideas are interesting?
01:54:06 Well, briefly, he invented the concept, the red pill.
01:54:10 So Curtis, Manchester Smallbug had a blog called Unqualified Reservations, you can still
01:54:15 find it online.
01:54:16 It’s very verbose.
01:54:18 He writes at length, very, very bright.
01:54:22 His perspective is very heretical.
01:54:26 So a lot of things that we take for granted in our liberal democracy, he regards as not
01:54:31 only incorrect, which is downright absurd, and he does not take what many people view
01:54:38 as the basis of American political discourse as the basis for his thought.
01:54:44 So when you’re starting with someone who is basically repudiating the American milieu,
01:54:55 a lot of people are going to, of course, regard him as dangerous or someone who is verboten.
01:55:02 He’s a very bright person.
01:55:05 Why is he such a toxic figure?
01:55:08 Because if you are blue pilled, if you are the guardians of what is acceptable discourse,
01:55:17 then you have to make sure your forts are secured, and that any figure outside of this
01:55:22 acceptable discourse has to be marginalized and regarded as radioactive as possible.
01:55:28 You don’t want to let in these kind of ideas that would be destructive to your hegemony.
01:55:34 So let’s dig into it.
01:55:36 So I’ve read a few things by him, but then I hear that in a bunch of places, him being
01:55:44 called a racist, a white supremacist, neo fascist, so on.
01:55:49 I go to his Wikipedia.
01:55:52 There’s a view on race section.
01:55:54 Let me read it.
01:55:57 Yarvin’s opinions have been described as racist, with his writings interpreted as supportive
01:56:02 of slavery, including the belief that whites have higher IQs than blacks for genetic reasons.
01:56:08 Yarvin himself maintains that he’s not a racist because while he doubts that, quote,
01:56:14 all races are equally smart, the notion, quote, that people who score higher on IQ tests are
01:56:19 in some sense superior human beings is, quote, creepy.
01:56:24 He also disputes being an outspoken advocate for slavery, though he has argued that some
01:56:29 races are more suited for slavery than others, quote, it should be obvious that although
01:56:34 I’m not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff.
01:56:40 Yarvin wrote in a post that linked approvingly of, I don’t know these people, Steve Saylor.
01:56:45 Steve Saylor, yeah, he’s from.
01:56:46 Jared Taylor and other racialists.
01:56:49 Yeah, so.
01:56:50 Okay, so like, one of my questions is.
01:56:54 Let me just say one sentence.
01:56:56 In the same way that you had, you mentioned that guy earlier who was defending some aspects
01:57:01 of communism, and that is, in some context, acceptable when you think about it, it’s like
01:57:06 this should be radioactive.
01:57:08 The fact that he is engaging with these ideas in anything other than this has to be reputed
01:57:14 at all costs is what renders him to a large extent a racist.
01:57:18 That’s really interesting.
01:57:19 There are some topics you can be nuanced and some not, and communism is still a topic that
01:57:26 you can be nuanced about.
01:57:28 It’s difficult, but you can be.
01:57:31 Race and this like talking about slavery and IQ differences based on race is a topic that
01:57:38 I guess is radioactive to a degree where you can’t even say anything, even if it’s like
01:57:45 nuanced or not even like making a point, it’s like touching it as you make another point.
01:57:52 And understandably, you can understand that I’m going to steel man their point, because
01:57:56 you can understand the point.
01:57:57 It’s like you’re just talking about Hitler.
01:57:59 Once this foot gets in the door that some people are inherently slaves or some people
01:58:04 are inherently better than others, it really quickly collapses, so that would be their
01:58:09 perspective.
01:58:10 But that’s what, like if I were to give criticism of his…
01:58:12 But let me just say one more thing.
01:58:14 Racist is also used to describe Alex Jones.
01:58:17 Alex doesn’t talk about race.
01:58:19 Racist is a shorthand for a certain percentage of the population to let you know, do not
01:58:25 bother investing in this person any further.
01:58:28 They’re off limits.
01:58:29 Yeah, so definitely.
01:58:30 Racism and sexism is a thing that’s now used to shut down conversation that’s quite absurd
01:58:34 by a small percent of the population.
01:58:36 But Jared Taylor and Steve Saylor, Jared Taylor interviewed him for my book, he would be regarded
01:58:41 in any sense as a racist.
01:58:43 What’s the difference between racist and racialists?
01:58:45 So racialists, I mean, this is splitting hairs and now I’m gonna be all radioactive, Jared
01:58:50 Taylor runs something called Amarin and this is, I mean, his perspective is that there
01:58:55 are inherent differences for the races and you cannot live side by side, well, whites
01:59:01 and blacks should not be living side by side.
01:59:03 And by the way, for people who don’t know, this is out of context, you have written a
01:59:07 great book that includes some of these concepts called The New Right, which does not include
01:59:11 these concepts, but talks about, well, it’s more about the growth of the community around
01:59:20 the alt right and all those kinds of the world.
01:59:23 So and his point about IQ, it’s like, if you had a population, the Dutch, right, I think
01:59:29 they’re the tallest people on earth.
01:59:31 And if you said, well, the Dutch are the best people on earth, why?
01:59:35 Because they’re the tallest, it’s like you’re a crazy person.
01:59:38 So if someone is scoring low, an individual on an IQ test, that means they’re somehow
01:59:43 a lower quality person.
01:59:44 Well, maybe one very specific aspect, but I mean, if they’re a good human being, I’ve
01:59:48 got friends who are low IQ, all my friends are low IQ, frankly, compared to me, sound
01:59:52 like Trump there for a second.
01:59:53 That’s how you choose.
01:59:54 Well, I don’t have any other choices, no one’s gonna be at my level.
01:59:58 You’re the smartest person since Abraham Lincoln that I’ve ever seen.
02:00:02 Unlike him, I actually am honest.
02:00:05 So he is someone who very much swims in heretical ideas.
02:00:11 Here’s another thing, like if you bring up that Aristotle said that some people are born
02:00:16 to be slaves, he wasn’t speaking about race, he just meant people’s souls.
02:00:20 H.L.
02:00:21 Mencken, who’s a great heretic and early 20th century figure, one of his quotes that I say
02:00:27 all the time, which people have seen a lot in this past year, that the average man does
02:00:31 not want to be free, he merely wants to be safe.
02:00:34 That I think speaks, I don’t know, I am not familiar with what Mulbug’s saying about slavery
02:00:39 because his writing is ponderous, but that certainly is something I think that is undeniable,
02:00:45 that I think more people are realizing there’s a large percent of the population that is
02:00:48 actively disinterested in freedom and the more responsibilities it entails.
02:00:52 Well, I mean, really just the word slavery, if you want to make some kind of point or
02:00:57 even think about the topic outside the context of this is a horrible thing that happened
02:01:03 in the United States history.
02:01:05 And other countries history is not unique to us, let’s be clear.
02:01:07 This is very important in their slavery going on today and a lot of people argue that sex
02:01:13 trafficking and all those kinds of things, I mean, there’s atrocities going on today
02:01:17 that talking about it in a way that’s not immediately saying this is the most horrible
02:01:25 thing that happened ever, it’s something I think about a lot is like if I want to say
02:01:32 something controversial, I should do so with skill, with care, and only about things I
02:01:39 care about.
02:01:40 Well, here’s where I would disagree.
02:01:43 When I say things, I often say things that are controversial, or I will say uncontroversial
02:01:48 things in a controversial way, because it’s a useful mechanism to alienate people you
02:01:53 don’t want around you.
02:01:55 Because if there are people who are going to be shocked by certain topics, like we should
02:02:00 have ended World War II, like even as a hypothesis, they just clutch their pearls, they’re like,
02:02:04 oh, you want the Holocaust to happen?
02:02:06 I can’t discuss most things with you because you’re not interested in having a conversation,
02:02:10 you’re interested in your emotional response.
02:02:12 I see things differently, maybe this is a bit of a devil’s advocate, but in at least
02:02:16 the modern discourse of like Twitter and social media and so on, I find that if you do that,
02:02:22 you’re not actually removing the people that are not thoughtful and kind and so on, you’re
02:02:29 actually attracting loud people.
02:02:31 Like a small number of them, they come over and start yelling at you, start yelling, they’re
02:02:36 basically ruin the party by showing up and just screaming, and so all the thoughtful
02:02:43 people leave.
02:02:44 Well, that’s why you have to be a very heavy blocker.
02:02:46 You have to block people on Twitter because you have to cultivate your audience and have
02:02:50 them, like a lot of times people come at me, I don’t care, then they’ll start attacking
02:02:54 members of my audience and then I’m like, dang, I got to block them because they’ve won
02:02:56 this one because I can’t have that.
02:02:59 Yeah, I don’t know, unnecessarily provoking people feels, this is beta testing, you try
02:03:12 to break the system and see what works, you put up as much pressure as possible.
02:03:17 This is very much computer stuff that you should be able to appreciate, the point being
02:03:21 when you have a program, you’re trying to intentionally sit there and do as many mistakes
02:03:25 as you would go wrong.
02:03:26 Right?
02:03:27 Is that not common practice?
02:03:28 Yeah.
02:03:29 So you’re saying that’s a way to see communication with the world, as you say something uncontroversial
02:03:37 in a controversial way and that blocks people.
02:03:40 Or does it trigger them?
02:03:41 Do they roll their eyes?
02:03:42 What is going to be their emotional response?
02:03:44 Are they going to start yelling?
02:03:47 The problem is the reason I can’t think like this, or I can’t, because I’m not sure about
02:03:52 the points I’m trying to make, always.
02:03:56 I’m not always 100% sure that I’m right about things.
02:03:59 So in being thoughtful, I’m afraid that I’ll turn off with an eloquently phrased or even
02:04:08 incorrect statement, I will do damage that can’t be undone in terms of having a good
02:04:15 conversation about a topic.
02:04:17 So I want to be very careful about like, I’m not saying afraid, fear is not what I’m talking
02:04:24 about.
02:04:25 I think fear is like not saying something out of fear is at the core of the many of
02:04:31 the problems of the world today.
02:04:33 But I’m just saying be, say stuff with care.
02:04:36 If I’m going to touch race as a topic, it feels like you really should be deeply, first
02:04:43 have a point to make, like you really care about a point you want to make, and second,
02:04:49 think deeply about how to say that point in a way that communicates it the best.
02:04:54 And touching, I would say, listen, on your show, which is great, I mean, I’d like to
02:05:04 say thank you for having Menchus Moberg.
02:05:07 You are welcome.
02:05:09 That’s the name of the show.
02:05:13 Thank you for having me.
02:05:14 A couple of times, it’s great to sort of get him to in this loose way to talk about different
02:05:20 kinds of stuff.
02:05:21 I don’t think we talked about race at all.
02:05:22 So I’m just bringing it back to what you were asking, which is if you read the Wikipedia,
02:05:27 the perspective is going to be this guy talks about slavery constantly, where it’s completely
02:05:31 disproportionate to his work.
02:05:33 But even on your show, you can tell even not outside of the race stuff that he’s not ultra
02:05:38 careful about, he’s not nuanced.
02:05:44 He’s not afraid to say something just like, I would say, let me just criticize him, my
02:05:48 face is not used as me, carelessly say something controversial.
02:05:53 I’m not saying he doesn’t go, that makes him, it’s a very different thing than somebody
02:06:01 who on purpose says something controversial stuff, like Milo Annapolis, sorry, I forgot
02:06:08 Milo, whatever his name is.
02:06:11 Which is really nice to see that he’s a genuine person who’s thoughtful, he doesn’t mean to,
02:06:15 but he just carelessly seems to say things that I feel like damaged the rest of his body
02:06:23 of work.
02:06:24 I can’t really speak for him, but I would guess his point is once you’re swimming in
02:06:29 this kind of worldview, you’re going to be anathema already.
02:06:34 So there’s no pleasing these people, so why bother trying?
02:06:36 Yeah, I think that’s a deeply, that’s a black pill way of seeing the world.
02:06:41 It’s not black pilled at all, because it’s a cynical way that these people, so it’s saying
02:06:46 that it’s a very kind of way of thinking, I’ll say whatever I want, whoever comes along
02:06:53 with me.
02:06:54 You just earlier said yourself that race, racism has been weaponized as a way to shut
02:06:59 down conversation.
02:07:00 So I think his perspective would be, I am so outside the mainstream in my worldview
02:07:06 that I know I’m going to be called racism, racist.
02:07:09 So there’s no point in trying to be nuanced because I’m already going to get the scarlet
02:07:14 letter.
02:07:15 Yeah, I just disagree with that because for example, I am one person that he turned off
02:07:21 by his carelessness, and I think I should be a good target.
02:07:25 I should be somebody.
02:07:26 I think that’s fair.
02:07:27 And I’m just like, he, it’s very convenient to think that there’s ridiculous people out
02:07:33 there, which they are, who call everybody racist and sexist currently.
02:07:37 And then you can’t please them.
02:07:39 So I’m not even going to try, no, but there’s like this gray area of people that I don’t
02:07:44 listen to the outreach culture, whatever that I don’t, this Wikipedia article means nothing
02:07:48 to me.
02:07:49 I’m not going to, I’m more, I’m just seeing this careless person.
02:07:55 And if he’s going to be careless about a race like this, I feel like if I walk along with
02:08:02 him long enough, I’m going to catch the carelessness.
02:08:06 I’m going to lose like, I’ll defend your perspective better than you can.
02:08:12 This is good.
02:08:13 I’m taking notes.
02:08:14 I talked to Eric Weinstein after you guys talked about me on your show.
02:08:18 We had a good conversation.
02:08:19 He invited me on his show.
02:08:20 That would be an amazing conversation.
02:08:22 And we got on the phone and his concern, fairly, he goes, I don’t want you to come on my show
02:08:28 for the purposes of clowning me.
02:08:31 And I would never do that.
02:08:32 Yeah.
02:08:33 It would never.
02:08:34 He might not be aware of who you are.
02:08:36 That’s why he wants to feel me out.
02:08:37 He’s like, you know, when he hears troll, it can mean a lot of different things.
02:08:40 And I, we had a very conversation and very much was very clear that that’s not where
02:08:44 the conversation would go.
02:08:45 But I think when you are going to be on someone’s show, there is a responsibility that they’re
02:08:51 not going to have to pay a cost for having you as their guests.
02:08:54 So if you’re perceived, if you were put off by how he was in that live streams or two,
02:08:59 I did like, I understand where you’re coming from.
02:09:01 I think he’s very, very bright, but you have a very, you have a different audience than
02:09:05 I do.
02:09:06 And you’re going for something different than I am.
02:09:07 No, no, no.
02:09:08 Like in my interest, the sense of.
02:09:11 You wouldn’t feel safe with him.
02:09:12 Yeah.
02:09:13 I wouldn’t feel safe with him.
02:09:14 That’s a really boring line for me.
02:09:15 I think I would like to actually talk to him one day, Alex Jones has crossed the other
02:09:21 line for me.
02:09:22 Well, you could do what you could do with me, tape the episode and then never release
02:09:25 it.
02:09:26 No, it’s, it’s one of those things will be when there’s finally they’ll, they’ll make
02:09:33 a history channel documentary about you and I and how it all went wrong.
02:09:38 Like the cult that we started and then everybody killed themselves.
02:09:42 And there’s a, we’ll release it then because it’ll be like unseen footage.
02:09:49 This is how it started is it’ll be black and white in a basement somewhere in New York.
02:09:56 Yeah.
02:09:57 Yeah.
02:09:58 My mother’s basement.
02:09:59 Let’s explain so much.
02:10:01 Okay.
02:10:02 So I spoke to Yaron Brooke about objectivism and Ayn Rand, he, he kind of argued, he highlighted
02:10:13 difference between capitalism and anarchism as around the topic of violence and the, that
02:10:23 having government be the sort of the, the negative way to say it is like having a monopoly
02:10:32 on violence, but basically being the arbiter of, or the, the people that making sure that
02:10:39 violence doesn’t get out of hand.
02:10:42 That would, you know.
02:10:43 Yeah.
02:10:44 2020 showed that.
02:10:45 Yeah.
02:10:46 The government’s great at that.
02:10:47 Yep.
02:10:48 Well, what, what’s, okay.
02:10:49 Without.
02:10:50 This is him with a straight face making that argument.
02:10:51 Good work Yaron.
02:10:52 All right.
02:10:53 Well, can you with a straight face argue for the idea that in anarchism, violence would
02:11:02 not get out of hand?
02:11:04 Sure.
02:11:05 For one thing, if your worst argument against that, one of my little quotes is what are
02:11:10 presented as the strongest arguments against anarchism are inevitably description of the
02:11:14 Strasquo.
02:11:15 So the argument is under anarchism, you know, you’d have warlords, you know, killing people
02:11:21 and then you’d have, you know, whoever’s strongest gets to just take over a neighborhood.
02:11:25 Well, we have that now.
02:11:27 We saw that the police are perfectly comfortable disarming the population.
02:11:33 And then when they try to protect themselves or punished, they’re, we’re happy to stand
02:11:37 down.
02:11:38 You can’t, you can only have that happen if you have a monopoly.
02:11:42 If they’re like, let’s suppose you had a television stations, right?
02:11:45 And CBS said, you know what?
02:11:47 We’re not going to broadcast.
02:11:49 Cool.
02:11:50 We’re not going to broadcast.
02:11:51 We’re going to watch any of these other channels.
02:11:53 So the problem with having monopoly is everyone has to be dependent on this issue.
02:11:57 What’s amazing about minarchism, which objectivists are, is they will argue that government is
02:12:02 really, really bad at everything it does and it touches.
02:12:07 Therefore it has to be in charge of the most important stuff.
02:12:10 Well, that’s not therefore, but, but there is a thing that’s fundamentally different
02:12:16 than all the other things.
02:12:17 And Yaron Brook also said that no government has, this is on your show, has ever worked
02:12:24 in the way he’s proposing.
02:12:26 Now objectivism, Ayn Rand’s philosophy is based on objective reality.
02:12:31 And what she posited is you look and study the facts of nature, facts of reality and
02:12:36 deduce things accordingly.
02:12:39 And she very much regards herself as part of the Aristotelian tradition, as opposed
02:12:43 to the Platonist tradition, where the idea precedes reality and the idea is more real
02:12:49 than what we see around us.
02:12:50 So what he’s saying is all the data, according to him, contradicts his argument, but still
02:12:59 he’s going to make this imaginary government that has never existed and there’s no evidence
02:13:03 that it can exist.
02:13:06 Let’s talk about objective law, to have access to the legal system, which is something we
02:13:12 want.
02:13:13 And just in terms of selling disputes, when you have a government monopoly, it’s going
02:13:17 to be more expensive, more difficult for poor people.
02:13:20 The cost of hiring a lawyer is more expensive than hiring a surgeon.
02:13:24 You can’t say with a straight face, this is the only way or the best way.
02:13:31 And the other thing is the argument for objectivism, against anarchism, they have this stupid
02:13:36 claim it’s like, what if you’re a member of one security company and I’m a member of another
02:13:43 and we have a dispute and one shows up the door.
02:13:45 What happens now?
02:13:47 As if this is some insuperable argument.
02:13:49 Well, we have that on earth.
02:13:51 Every country is in a state of anarchism regarding every other country.
02:13:54 We don’t have a world government.
02:13:55 So what happens if a Canadian kills an American in Mexico?
02:14:00 I have no idea.
02:14:01 I bet you don’t have an idea.
02:14:03 What I’m sure of is that system has been worked out ahead of time between the three countries
02:14:09 and it’s been worked out in such a way that you and I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
02:14:13 Same thing with cell phone companies.
02:14:15 If I’m on Sprint, you’re on Metro PCS and I call you, who pays?
02:14:19 Does Sprint pay you?
02:14:20 Do they split the difference?
02:14:21 First of all, there’s no objective way that one has to work, but the thing is companies
02:14:26 who have auto accidents, they have arbitrage all the time.
02:14:30 Like if I run into you, they work it out and it never reaches our desk.
02:14:36 So the only thing that cops are good at is keeping people, at any government monopoly,
02:14:42 is forcing people to be their customers by keeping them unsafe.
02:14:45 Okay.
02:14:46 There’s a few things I’d like to say there to just explore some of these ideas.
02:14:51 So one is in terms of Canadian and Mexico and so on, that it does, something has been
02:14:57 worked out perhaps.
02:14:58 Not perhaps.
02:14:59 Perhaps.
02:15:00 Do you know for sure that if there’s a point I’m trying to make, so let’s say for sure
02:15:05 it’s been worked out.
02:15:07 There was a point in history where it wasn’t worked out.
02:15:11 To work, to come to a place of stability, there has to first be some instability.
02:15:17 So when you first, like for every kind of situation, they’re like dispute over space,
02:15:24 like who gets to own Mars, that kind of thing.
02:15:26 Sure.
02:15:27 For it, and then these different competing institutions will have to figure it out.
02:15:33 And so there’s the concern with anarchism, I think, or with any kind of interaction.
02:15:38 You said brilliantly that there’s an anarchism relative to the, there’s no one world government.
02:15:44 Right.
02:15:45 Alex Jones enters the chat, but the fear is that there’s going to be an instability that
02:15:56 doesn’t converge towards some stable place.
02:15:58 That is not the fear.
02:16:00 That is the goal under Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
02:16:03 Markets have something what they always talk about as being creatively destructive, which
02:16:08 means you look at something that’s been happening for a very long time.
02:16:12 Every generation, every innovator starts chipping away at it.
02:16:16 He finds better ways, marginal improvement or marginal, or it doesn’t work and he goes
02:16:20 broke.
02:16:21 When government tries to implement improvement, we all have to suffer the consequences.
02:16:25 When an innovator does, it’s a huge asymmetry.
02:16:28 If it hurts, it only hurts him.
02:16:30 If it succeeds, he becomes rich and we all profit as a consequence.
02:16:34 But the fear of anarchism, I think, is that it will be non creative destruction.
02:16:39 It’ll be just destruction, right?
02:16:43 It’s not like the instability.
02:16:47 Stability is one of these words that sounds objective, but has no real meaning.
02:16:51 What field has stability?
02:16:55 Let’s suppose you want stability.
02:16:56 Relationships.
02:16:57 Yeah.
02:16:58 Let’s talk about medicine.
02:16:59 Stability means we’re not going to invent new diseases or new treatments, right?
02:17:02 If you mean stability in terms of a baseline of security, we have that already.
02:17:08 Very few relationships turn violent.
02:17:11 Under an anarchist system, look at it right now.
02:17:14 If you look at a bar full of drunken young males full of testosterone, if you look at
02:17:21 a hotel where everyone is not native to the area, those are both far safer than the places
02:17:29 that the government has taken upon itself to protect you.
02:17:32 The parks, the alleyways, the streets, the subways.
02:17:36 We have right now a comparison of which is better at keeping people safe.
02:17:41 And it’s very obvious that when something is private and under someone’s control, and
02:17:46 there would be layers of there’d be more police, but they wouldn’t be a government monopoly.
02:17:50 The store would have someone, the street would have someone, and you’d have your own personal
02:17:54 security that would be attached to your phone.
02:17:56 Having security as a function of geography as opposed to a function of you as an individual
02:18:02 is a landline technology in a post cell phone world.
02:18:05 So you think it’s possible to have, psychologically speaking, as an individual among the masses,
02:18:11 to have a sense of security even though there’s not a centralized thing at the bottom of the
02:18:17 whole thing?
02:18:18 Like, there’s not a set of laws that are enforced based on geography like we have nations now.
02:18:24 You can have a set of laws that are enforced in some kind of emergent agreed upon way.
02:18:30 So like, basically, I want to go to a hotel and trust that I’ll be able to get a room
02:18:35 and nobody’s going to break down the door and I don’t know, take all my vodka.
02:18:41 Let’s take a different way.
02:18:42 If you were worried about a hotel having bedbugs, that’s not something the government’s involved
02:18:46 in.
02:18:47 And that’s not an unrealistic concern.
02:18:50 Are there mechanisms right now that you can undertake to make sure that’s not the case?
02:18:54 Yes.
02:18:55 So it would be the same thing with, I want to make sure I go to a hotel that has security.
02:19:01 It would be exactly the same thing.
02:19:03 And here’s another example, kosher food.
02:19:06 People who keep kosher, Jews who keep kosher, their food has to be prepared in a certain
02:19:09 way.
02:19:10 It has to meet higher rabbinical standards, right?
02:19:13 If you look at food, it will have that certification, the K, and there’s even competition there.
02:19:18 There’s the K and there’s the stricter U letter.
02:19:20 People don’t notice it because they’re looking for it.
02:19:22 You would have companies certifying different locales for their level of security.
02:19:28 And it would take an hour to have an app that would, just like when you have toll roads,
02:19:34 right?
02:19:35 That would tell you you’re approaching an unsafe area, you’re not going to be covered
02:19:38 by us or, and you could have it color coded very easily.
02:19:41 We could do this today.
02:19:43 But the thing is, you’re exactly correct, but there’s an assumption of you’re already
02:19:48 in a, okay, you can give me a different word than stability, but you’re already in a place
02:19:53 where the forces of the market or whatever can operate.
02:19:57 The worry is like, initially, you might not have enough stability to where you can choose
02:20:05 one place over the other based on the security that they provide.
02:20:10 We already have different types of security here because we have federal government, we
02:20:14 have state governments and we have local governments.
02:20:17 So and these often contradict each other.
02:20:20 So the idea of the implausibility of having different security companies and having it
02:20:25 be unstable or impossible, we already have a very rough example of it happening in real
02:20:31 life.
02:20:32 So how all of it started, the idea of, especially with Yaron, is like it all started with government
02:20:41 monopoly of violence saying like, no kids, don’t let violence get out of hand.
02:20:47 So like how do…
02:20:48 We had a civil war where half the country was slaughtered.
02:20:51 That’s the display of the government not having a monopoly on the violence, right?
02:20:56 It’s like, that’s the split.
02:20:58 They had such a monopoly on the violence in the North that it could draft people to fight
02:21:02 others that they didn’t even care about.
02:21:03 But there’s a South.
02:21:07 It’s the government splitting because this is giant iceberg like splitting.
02:21:14 The argument is that you would have something like a civil war much more often under anarchism.
02:21:21 First of all, if you had a civil war much more often, we don’t have that with car companies,
02:21:27 right?
02:21:28 We don’t have a company that says, I refuse to pay or whatever.
02:21:32 That’s not violence.
02:21:33 Sorry to interrupt.
02:21:34 And I’m playing…
02:21:35 Hold on, let me finish.
02:21:36 It is violence because if I’m a company and I’m saying that my cars can run over yours
02:21:42 with no consequences, this is a rough analog, why has that not happened?
02:21:48 Now in terms of having security system, if I am free, just like switching cell phone
02:21:53 to go from one provider to another and this one company as part of its payment doesn’t
02:21:58 want $50 a month, $100 a month, wants my son, I’m not going to be a member of this security
02:22:04 company unless in that case we’re dealing with something like a Pearl Harbor or foreign
02:22:09 invasion where it’s like all hands on deck.
02:22:12 Let’s go by evidence.
02:22:13 How many places do have evidence of that you can have at a large scale?
02:22:17 Well, it’s absolutely in a large scale.
02:22:21 Because it feels like once you don’t know the person.
02:22:24 What about eBay?
02:22:25 eBay is an example of anarchism in practice.
02:22:27 I am selling something to someone whose name I don’t even know in a country that is nowhere
02:22:31 proximate to me and eBay acts as the arbiter.
02:22:34 Sometimes I don’t get the money after I get screwed over, but that’s far less than the
02:22:38 taxation that I have to give to the federal government.
02:22:40 It’s a great point, but it’s in the space of finance.
02:22:43 If I could, if on eBay you could also commit violence.
02:22:49 Theft is violence.
02:22:50 No.
02:22:51 Yeah, if you give me 10 grand for a car and I don’t deliver anything, you’ve stolen 10
02:22:57 grand from me.
02:22:58 Yes, but there’s something uniquely problematic to being stabbed or shot.
02:23:06 The reason you’re stabbed or shot is because the government, despite its contract, is refusing
02:23:11 to allow second amendment rights to be implemented among the citizenry and the people who are
02:23:17 making that the case are the cops.
02:23:20 They are the ones who are the traitors to the constitution and should be regarded as
02:23:23 such.
02:23:24 Whereas private companies are far more amenable to market pressures than the state is.
02:23:31 It’s a strong argument, but let’s actually just briefly mention the scale thing.
02:23:37 Why don’t you think we should talk about scale?
02:23:40 Because if you had anarchism just in Vermont or just in Brooklyn, well, fine.
02:23:45 The people make the argument you need anarchism or else China’s going to invade, but that’s
02:23:48 like saying what, do these little countries don’t exist?
02:23:52 Does San Salvador not exist?
02:23:53 Some of them are violent, some of them are not, but the point is they’re not all at moments
02:23:58 notice about to be invaded.
02:23:59 Kuwait’s an example of this.
02:24:01 Kuwait was invaded by Iraq and very quickly all the big countries who are interested in
02:24:05 having your stability, safe space, got involved and kicked him out of Kuwait.
02:24:11 If you had this company that was waging war on the population, it seems quite likely that
02:24:17 the other organization would get together and put a stop to this because they’re not
02:24:20 in a position to provide this service of security to their customers.
02:24:23 Okay.
02:24:24 All of this is brilliant, but didn’t you just say that we are actually in a state of anarchism
02:24:30 relative to other countries?
02:24:32 Yes.
02:24:33 So isn’t this what emerges?
02:24:35 This is what, aren’t we actually living in a state of anarchism where we all have agreed?
02:24:41 I haven’t agreed to anything.
02:24:43 So the basic criticism you have is you’re born on a geographical area and you’re forced
02:24:52 to have signed a bunch of stuff just by being born in a particular place.
02:24:59 So really, if you could just much easier choose which space of ideas you associated with,
02:25:08 that would be actually a state of anarchism.
02:25:12 And you could have like a military that you sign up with.
02:25:17 Sure.
02:25:18 And you’re certainly not putting people in prison to get raped because they’re selling
02:25:22 drugs.
02:25:23 Yeah.
02:25:24 And you’re certainly not allowing everyone else on the street who wants to be there.
02:25:30 Can we say something nice about Ayn Rand?
02:25:32 I can talk about nice things about her all day.
02:25:34 I own her copy of the Fountainhead, you know.
02:25:36 What to you is Ayn Rand’s best idea, one that you find impactful, insightful, useful for
02:25:43 us in modern society that you think about?
02:25:47 That your life has meaning and productive work is your highest value.
02:25:54 And that you shouldn’t apologize, and this is something I despise, you shouldn’t apologize
02:26:00 for saying, I want to be happy and I’m going to work toward that.
02:26:05 And that, there’s a few others, that you owe nobody else, some random stranger, a second
02:26:11 of your time.
02:26:12 You see this a lot on Twitter and social media, people like demanding a debate or demanding
02:26:17 you act a certain way and engage with them.
02:26:19 You don’t owe them anything.
02:26:22 So I think those are some of her best ideas.
02:26:25 And she teaches you how to think.
02:26:27 Ayn Rand does not have all the answers, but she has all the questions.
02:26:29 Do you think, what do you think about the whole selfishness thing?
02:26:32 I mean, are you triggered by the word selfishness?
02:26:37 It’s really unfortunate what she does because you were just talking earlier about Moldbug
02:26:41 being carelessly, this is indefensible in my opinion.
02:26:47 So she talks about the virtue of selfishness and she claims that when people talk about
02:26:53 selfishness, they mean concern primarily with the self, they don’t.
02:26:58 When people talk about selfishness, they mean in a sociopathic way, concern exclusively
02:27:02 with oneself.
02:27:03 They mean like, oh, if someone is dying on the street, I’m not going to even waste a
02:27:09 second saving them because I’m selfish.
02:27:11 So she sets up this complete caricature of the term.
02:27:15 When she’s attacking selflessness in her best sense is when there are people who have no
02:27:21 sense of self, they have no values of their own, they have no goals of their own, everything
02:27:27 that’s in their mind is gotten secondhand from the culture at large and there’s nothing
02:27:31 unique or special from their perspective worth fighting for.
02:27:36 So when she attacks, when she advocates for the self, she basically means self development,
02:27:43 self improvement and achievement.
02:27:44 So I think that word choice is really false and needlessly off putting.
02:27:52 Yeah, controversial perhaps for the purpose of being controversial, I don’t know, but
02:27:57 it’s just, it’s not accurate.
02:27:59 That’s not what people mean by selfishness.
02:28:01 Yeah, I would say it’s one of the reasons probably her philosophy is not as much adopted
02:28:09 or thought about is like, it’s funny, like the use of words means something.
02:28:13 Exactly as you said, that’s my criticism, I mentioned small bug, which could be incorrect
02:28:17 criticism by the way, so I’m not exactly sure.
02:28:21 Can we talk about some modern day chaos and politics?
02:28:28 Yes, please.
02:28:29 I hate chaos.
02:28:30 Speaking of your hatred for chaos, let’s talk about secession.
02:28:33 Oh yeah, I was the first one on this trip.
02:28:36 Yeah, you were, well, the Civil War beat you to it, but.
02:28:39 Sure, in contemporary times.
02:28:41 In contemporary times you were, you’re on this.
02:28:45 Can you talk about what is the idea of secession, what are the odds that it might happen, what
02:28:52 does it mean for the United States in some way for different states to secede?
02:28:58 Sure, America’s been one country with several cultures since the beginning.
02:29:02 There’s absolutely no reason for someone, this goes back to the anarchist idea, if you
02:29:07 despise Donald Trump, which is your prerogative, if you think Joe Biden is a clown, which is
02:29:12 your prerogative, there’s absolutely no reason for you to be governed by someone you disapprove
02:29:18 of.
02:29:19 This is an incoherent, nonsensical concept.
02:29:21 The only reason we even take it as a hypothesis is that we’re trained to the contrary since
02:29:25 kindergarten.
02:29:26 A secession, I don’t know along what lines, but increasingly it’s becoming harder and
02:29:33 harder for people to have conversations.
02:29:35 I think social media, and this is something people despise social media for, I think this
02:29:39 is something that social media has done well, which I’m advocating for, is it tends to
02:29:45 kind of run through ideas through like an evolutionary process and drive them to the
02:29:49 logical conclusion.
02:29:50 So it’s very hard to be a moderate online because there’s going to be people pushing
02:29:54 through your ideas through several cycles, and then you’re going to end up at some kind
02:29:57 of more pure, or if you want to dislike it, extreme perspective.
02:30:02 Having these different pockets, it’s not really governable because people fundamentally have
02:30:07 different worldviews.
02:30:09 So I don’t know what secession would look like.
02:30:11 I think the number is really increasing at an exponential rate.
02:30:17 I do not think the number of supporters.
02:30:20 I think the claim that this can only be accomplished through violence is false.
02:30:24 It’s a lie.
02:30:26 Just like any divorce doesn’t have to involve beating your ex husband or ex wife.
02:30:31 And I’m very much looking forward to this becoming a reality far quicker than I ever
02:30:37 expected.
02:30:38 Do you think there’s a value of competing worldviews being forced to be in the same
02:30:48 space?
02:30:49 Yes, but within a context.
02:30:52 So we can agree if group one thinks A, B, and C are the fundamental aspects of the worldview
02:30:59 and argue within that, and group two thinks D, E, and F and argue within that.
02:31:04 So you’re going to have a lot of argument within those space.
02:31:07 And if there’s fundamental differences in worldview, there’s no reason to be, especially
02:31:12 when each views the other as completely coherent and unreasonable.
02:31:15 Do you think there’s a line of fundamentally different worldviews along which a secession
02:31:25 will happen in the United States?
02:31:27 Is there something that emerges to you as a set of ideas that are like, what do you
02:31:34 call that?
02:31:35 That you can’t come to an agreement over?
02:31:38 Yeah, I think that’s already happening.
02:31:40 Like with the masks, I think there’s just two fundamental perspective and each one thinks
02:31:46 the other is insane and also deadly and destructive.
02:31:51 And I don’t see how there’s any discourse on this topic.
02:31:56 So on the left, I wouldn’t say it’s left versus right.
02:31:59 I think it’s people who are pro risk versus people who are risk averse.
02:32:04 Yeah, so risk averse.
02:32:07 And then there’s like a hope for the comfort of the sort of a centralized science giving
02:32:18 the truth and then everybody must follow the truth of the proper way to behave.
02:32:23 And then there’s on the other side, a distrust of any kind of centralized institutions of
02:32:29 anybody who might use like control to try to gain greater and greater power and masks
02:32:37 are a symbol of that.
02:32:38 And even if masks are or are not a effective way of stopping the virus, which is really
02:32:48 unfortunate to me from a perspective, I happen to be on a survey paper about masks.
02:32:53 Like people don’t seem to care about the data or the so on.
02:32:57 This has become just a nice point on which to then highlight the difference between the
02:33:05 two sides.
02:33:06 Yeah, that’s really interesting.
02:33:07 I mean, it sounds kind of on the face kind of ridiculous that the succession would occur
02:33:12 over masks.
02:33:13 It wouldn’t, but I’m saying this is an example of something where there’s a clean break.
02:33:18 And risk averse versus someone who’s risk seeking, these are just two fundamentally
02:33:24 different perspectives.
02:33:25 Do you want to have an NHS or do you have one of a market based healthcare system?
02:33:29 You can make very valid arguments for both.
02:33:32 There’s no reason for everyone to be under one.
02:33:34 But do you think that’s not something that’s, you think that’s irreconcilable, if that’s
02:33:39 the word, that that’s not in the space of ideas that you can have in the same room together
02:33:46 and they fight at each other and ultimately make progress like that.
02:33:49 That succession is the more effective way to proceed forward.
02:33:53 Yes.
02:33:54 But do you see a possible world with no is the answer, meaning I know you say yes, because
02:34:04 you kind of lean on the side of freedom and anarchism.
02:34:07 Yes.
02:34:08 Like you make, you want to make, let me make an argument in terms of divorce, which is
02:34:15 in your worldview or your intuition is you want to make secession as frictionless as
02:34:22 possible.
02:34:23 Of course.
02:34:24 And not just like states or whatever, just like you want to choose, you want to be free.
02:34:29 Yeah.
02:34:30 And peaceful.
02:34:31 Let me make my authoritarian, Russian, okay, Papa Stalin argument in terms of relationships.
02:34:39 Like when shit goes wrong in a relationship.
02:34:42 That’s your language.
02:34:45 Okay.
02:34:47 There’s only a place for one Stalin at this table.
02:34:50 Okay.
02:34:51 Okay.
02:34:52 I’ll get to be Lenin.
02:34:53 Or you get to be like Merkel as our previous discussion with Putin.
02:34:57 Okay.
02:34:58 Don’t let me unleash the hounds.
02:35:00 You know, you want to work through some of the troubles before you get divorced.
02:35:05 Like you want to do the work in relationships sometimes, like it goes up and down.
02:35:09 It’s been 200 plus years.
02:35:11 It’s done.
02:35:12 But in the, listen, okay, so it’s not a one night stand, but you know.
02:35:17 Look at Trump.
02:35:18 This I don’t see the middle ground.
02:35:20 He’s either a complete calamity buffoon, or he’s been the first great president we’ve
02:35:26 had in like many, many years.
02:35:29 So you think that there’s something different now than it was 20 years ago?
02:35:33 Yes.
02:35:34 Social media and access to information.
02:35:37 And the division will only increase, you think?
02:35:39 Oh yes.
02:35:40 So Trump is not an accident of history.
02:35:42 So they thought Trump was the river, but he was the dam.
02:35:46 Trump was the dam.
02:35:49 They thought he was the river.
02:35:50 So in that analogy, Trump being gone makes things worse.
02:35:55 Yes.
02:35:56 For that perspective, because now things are really going to hit the fan.
02:36:01 So what are the odds of secession?
02:36:04 I don’t know.
02:36:06 And my desperate hope is that it’s peaceful, but I think the number of people who are becoming
02:36:12 very comfortable with the violence is making me very unsettled.
02:36:17 So I see words as violence and your Twitter.
02:36:21 It’s like Hiroshima times a million.
02:36:27 Sometimes I curl up in the corner crying after I check your Twitter feed.
02:36:31 So in all seriousness, you think it’s possible to do nonviolent secession?
02:36:39 It’s like a Czechoslovakia.
02:36:41 Look at Brexit.
02:36:43 Brexit was a secession.
02:36:45 Right.
02:36:46 Right, so you can have a civil war did not need to be fought.
02:36:50 That would have been a nonviolent secession.
02:36:52 And if you worry about slavery, you could have bought off all the slaves, import them
02:36:55 to the North.
02:36:56 It still would have been cheaper and less loss of life and probably better for race
02:36:59 relations.
02:37:00 Yeah.
02:37:01 I don’t know enough history to, to wonder about like how the civil war could have been
02:37:05 avoided.
02:37:06 Well, that’s how is a well conversation.
02:37:11 So like, no, no.
02:37:12 If they want to secede, say, look, here’s what we’re going to do.
02:37:14 We’re going to let you secede, but you have to end slavery.
02:37:18 They seceded because of slavery.
02:37:19 Here’s the other thing.
02:37:20 There’s like this, some circles of conservatism have this myth that, oh, it wasn’t about slavery,
02:37:23 it was about state’s rights.
02:37:24 Well, if you go back, every state, when they seceded, released the press release.
02:37:28 And they said explicitly, we’re doing this because of slavery.
02:37:31 So that is an abomination that needs to be taken care of.
02:37:34 But other countries have ended slavery peacefully.
02:37:37 One of the ways to do it is pay them by all, and we ended up doing this after the war.
02:37:42 I think the South people got reparations, the slave owners, it was just insane.
02:37:47 Bring them North.
02:37:48 You want to go to Canada, whatever.
02:37:50 And you agree.
02:37:51 And that’s our peace treaty.
02:37:53 Because the people who died weren’t the slave owners.
02:37:56 It was white trash.
02:37:57 And it was, that’s who always, and I hate that that’s the term, I can’t think of a better
02:38:02 one, but that’s who always ends up fighting these wars often disproportionately.
02:38:05 It’s poor people and uneducated people.
02:38:07 And I don’t, I did not regard them as cannon fodder.
02:38:09 I think it’s horrible.
02:38:12 So what would it look like?
02:38:14 There would be two founding documents?
02:38:16 Yeah, they had their constitution.
02:38:18 Actually, I don’t know the history of that.
02:38:20 Yeah, they had a constitution, but it was much more decentralized.
02:38:24 If secession doesn’t happen, you said that Donald Trump was the dam, not the river.
02:38:35 That sounds like Walt Whitman or something.
02:38:37 It’s poetry.
02:38:38 Okay.
02:38:39 Are you flirting with me?
02:38:44 You know us, we don’t flirt.
02:38:45 We just club and drag you to the cave.
02:38:50 We hammer and sickle.
02:38:53 And you don’t want to know about the sickle.
02:38:54 It’s not good cob, bad cob.
02:38:56 It’s bad cup for a sickle.
02:38:59 Yeah.
02:39:00 What do you think 2024 looks like in terms of the candidates?
02:39:07 It’s going to be Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate.
02:39:11 I’m really looking forward to Ted Cruz versus Mike Pence, because they’re both very good
02:39:15 at debate.
02:39:16 That would be interesting to see how they differentiate themselves.
02:39:19 But honestly, I don’t, I mean, things are going to get really ugly really soon.
02:39:24 What about Donald Trump coming back?
02:39:26 He’s not going to do it.
02:39:28 So things, in my opinion, I think things are going to be really, really crazy in 2021.
02:39:33 And talking about the dam being gone, like 2021.
02:39:35 So this year coming up.
02:39:37 Oh yeah.
02:39:38 It’s going to be complete.
02:39:39 It’s going to be complete mayhem.
02:39:40 What do you think, like prediction wise, and this is empirical.
02:39:45 What do you think Donald Trump’s Twitter feed looks like in 2021?
02:39:51 Like if we’re at the end of 2021, we’ll look back and see like, what was the, you know,
02:39:57 Obama gate exclamation points or we won.
02:40:01 He is going to be, for the first time in history, holding the Republican party accountable to
02:40:07 the base.
02:40:10 We’ve never had that happen before.
02:40:11 I think he’s going to be holding their feet to the fire, radicalizing them.
02:40:17 And given that they have the Senate, where it’s going to be 50 50, the Democrats have
02:40:21 a three seat majority in the House.
02:40:24 This is not a governing coalition for either.
02:40:26 It’s going to be complete mayhem.
02:40:27 What does that actually look like?
02:40:29 What are the key values you think that he’s going to try to push?
02:40:33 I think it’s just going to be very contrarian.
02:40:36 He’s going to be holding them accountable in terms of budgeting, even though he never
02:40:39 did that as president.
02:40:41 I think in terms of some kind of nominations, here’s the thing.
02:40:44 This is the first time since Nixon, 50 years and things weren’t as politicized then, where
02:40:53 an incoming president doesn’t have control of the Senate.
02:40:57 The Senate has the vote over cabinet positions.
02:41:01 I do not see a possibility of them not trying to pick a fight on one or two of these nominations.
02:41:08 And especially as revenge for Kavanaugh.
02:41:10 This is going to get very bloody very quickly.
02:41:12 And I think Mitch McConnell, there’s a sadistic side to him.
02:41:16 He revels in being the brakes on the car.
02:41:19 And I think the base, it’s just going to be throwing just, they’re going to want some
02:41:22 bone.
02:41:23 It’s like, oh yeah, we eliminated this one person.
02:41:25 So that’s going to get really ugly really quickly.
02:41:28 You see it being quite divisive, like the division increasing, not stabilizing or decreasing.
02:41:35 And I’ll be doing my part.
02:41:37 I know you’ll be doing my part, but I’m trying to do my part and like trying to be like,
02:41:42 to me, the division is shouting over people like Elon Musk, people who are actually building
02:41:50 stuff and like accomplishing things in this world in terms of like.
02:41:53 Elon said he took the red pill.
02:41:56 No, see, you’re talking about the, I’m talking about, forget Elon, SpaceX and Tesla and actually
02:42:03 the good sides of like some of the things that Google is doing.
02:42:07 Like actually building things, like making the world’s information searchable, all that
02:42:11 kind of stuff.
02:42:12 Like all this stuff, you know, making actually the world a better place.
02:42:18 There’s a bunch of technologies that are increasing our quality of life.
02:42:21 All this, all that kind of stuff.
02:42:22 I feel like they get like not much credit or in our public discourse because of the
02:42:29 division.
02:42:30 The division is just like, it’s clouding our ability to concentrate on what’s awesome about
02:42:36 this world.
02:42:37 Well, you know what would eliminate the division, right?
02:42:39 Succession.
02:42:40 Yeah.
02:42:41 See, I don’t, I don’t, it’s hard for me to disagree.
02:42:47 It’s hard for me to disagree because, but at the same time, succession, I’m a romantic
02:42:57 at heart and divorce breaks my heart.
02:42:59 Cool.
02:43:00 But do you want to live in a country where Joe Rogan is regarded as an example of someone
02:43:07 who’s spreading white supremacy?
02:43:09 I don’t.
02:43:10 Well, but see, I feel like that’s not the country we live in.
02:43:13 That’s just.
02:43:14 The New York Times did it, the cathedral does it on a regular basis.
02:43:18 Well, the cathedral is, okay, the cathedral, I guess you can maybe define the cathedral,
02:43:24 but it’s like the centralized institutions that have like a story that they’re trying
02:43:28 to sell and so on.
02:43:29 Yeah, this is mold books concept, but yeah, they basically are set the limits of permissible
02:43:33 discourse and create a narrative for the population to follow.
02:43:35 But to me, that’s a minority of people.
02:43:37 Yeah, minorities always controlling everything in any country, the vast majority of the masses
02:43:42 have no thought.
02:43:43 But minorities can be overthrown and the.
02:43:45 Sure, the circulation of the elites, yeah.
02:43:46 The way the, no, no, no, and that’s why the, what progress looks like is ridiculous people
02:43:51 take power.
02:43:52 Yes.
02:43:53 And then they get annoying and new ridiculous people that are a little bit better overthrow
02:43:58 the previous.
02:43:59 No, I think progress happens despite the people who are in power, not because of them.
02:44:04 Right.
02:44:05 And so why is this a succession?
02:44:08 So is it always about overthrowing the powerful?
02:44:11 Is that how progress happens?
02:44:12 No, I think progress happens despite the powerful.
02:44:14 The powerful are going to do what’s in their power to maintain their power and they’re
02:44:18 going to fight innovation because it’s a threat to their control.
02:44:21 There’s always going to be the New York Times of the world, right?
02:44:24 There’s always going to be those, those people that haven’t heard.
02:44:26 Sure, let them have their own country.
02:44:28 So it’s two countries.
02:44:30 One has Joe Rogan, the other one has the New York Times.
02:44:33 That’s basically what’s happening right now.
02:44:34 It just geographically doesn’t map out very well, but culturally, yes.
02:44:40 But that’s just cultural stuff.
02:44:41 Like there’s a layer of public discourse.
02:44:43 Okay.
02:44:44 I don’t mean like that’s what we’re operating under now, but there’s actual like progress
02:44:48 being made, like roads being built, hospitals being run, all those kinds of things like
02:44:53 different innovations.
02:44:55 That seems like secession is counterproductive to that.
02:44:59 Right, because one country would have all the roads and the other would have all the
02:45:01 hospitals.
02:45:02 That’s a great point.
02:45:03 No, that’s not, that’s not the point I’m trying to make.
02:45:05 It’s just like, it just feels like the division that we’re experiencing in the space of ideas
02:45:10 could be constructive and productive for, for building better roads and better hospitals
02:45:17 as opposed to like using that division to separate the countries.
02:45:21 They’re all going to have to solve the same problems, it feels like.
02:45:25 Sure but they can solve them differently and compete that way.
02:45:28 Mass is a great example.
02:45:30 Yeah.
02:45:31 We’re seeing that right now.
02:45:32 Different countries have different mass mandates and things like this.
02:45:34 And the competition within the same structure, within the same founding documents and same
02:45:39 institutions is not effective, you think?
02:45:42 As effective as separating.
02:45:43 It is effective but there is a certain point, which I think we have long passed, where there
02:45:48 is not a governing consensus ideologically or culturally.
02:45:51 Let me ask you a fun question, okay?
02:45:54 Knock knock.
02:45:55 Who’s there?
02:45:56 Mars.
02:45:57 God of war.
02:46:03 The other one.
02:46:06 The planet.
02:46:07 Yeah.
02:46:08 So, there is a kind of captivating notion that we might, I’m excited by it, the human
02:46:17 being stepping foot on Mars.
02:46:19 That to me is, it’s like one of those things that feels like it’s, why do we want to engage
02:46:30 in space exploration?
02:46:32 But I’m a little bit with Elon Musk on this, which is, it’s obvious that eventually if
02:46:39 human species is to survive, it’s going to have to innovate in ways that includes the
02:46:45 space.
02:46:46 Okay.
02:46:47 Like, there’s a lot of things we’re not able to predict yet that if we push ourselves to
02:46:53 the limits of space, like new ideas will come that’ll be obvious a hundred years from now
02:46:59 and then we’re not even imagining now.
02:47:01 And colonizing Mars, that idea that seems ridiculous, exceptionally difficult, impossibly
02:47:07 expensive is something that is actually going to be seen as obvious in retrospect and that
02:47:14 we should engage in.
02:47:15 Okay.
02:47:16 That’s just to contextualize things.
02:47:18 The fun idea and experiment from a philosophical and political sense is what kind of government,
02:47:27 how do you orchestrate a government when you go to Mars, like we don’t get too many chances
02:47:32 like this, but how do you build new systems, not in place of old ones, but in a place with
02:47:39 no system previous have existed?
02:47:41 I think organically, I hate that word, but that’s the correct word.
02:47:45 You would have to figure out, I mean, that’s how America was built.
02:47:48 You had the, it was a Jamestown colony and they tried to do communism here and it completely
02:47:52 failed and they went to a more free market system with the second wave of colonists is
02:47:55 my understanding.
02:47:57 For Mars, I mean, it depends on the population, who the population was, the number of people.
02:48:04 I don’t know.
02:48:05 These are all kind of hypotheticals that I don’t really have any good insight in whatsoever.
02:48:10 I’m not a space person.
02:48:12 I hate astronomy.
02:48:13 Like I hate it.
02:48:14 So a lot of people look up to the stars and they’re filled with awe and wonder about the
02:48:18 mystery of the universe and you look up to the stars and you feel what?
02:48:22 I’m not looking up.
02:48:23 I’m looking at the earth.
02:48:25 If you look at what’s, I’d much rather given a choice between Mars and the deep sea.
02:48:33 I’d much rather spend a week at the deep sea and all the life forms that are down there
02:48:36 because they’re literal aliens.
02:48:38 It’s like things that are not literal, but they’re unimaginable to us.
02:48:41 Some of the things down there.
02:48:42 Yeah, that’s true.
02:48:43 To me, it’s an interesting thought experiment to see when you have 10 people, when you have
02:48:47 a hundred people, how do you build an effective, you know, this is actually really useful for
02:48:53 a company, right?
02:48:54 How do you build an effective company that does things?
02:48:57 It’s not an obvious, despite everybody being really certain about everything in this, in
02:49:02 this modern world, to me, it’s not obvious, like how do you run successfully as a group
02:49:07 of people?
02:49:08 I agree.
02:49:09 I agree.
02:49:10 That’s what I’m saying.
02:49:11 It also organic means you have to look at who the people are and tailor the organization
02:49:15 to them as opposed to try to impose something.
02:49:17 But you get to also select people.
02:49:19 Right.
02:49:20 Cause it’s not going to be open borders on Mars.
02:49:22 Oh, right.
02:49:23 I was going to say when you have one country, it’s all open borders.
02:49:27 Yeah, you’re right.
02:49:28 They’re from outer space, right?
02:49:32 Some say they’re aliens already there.
02:49:33 So you’re going to have to negotiate that.
02:49:35 Sure.
02:49:36 We’re aliens.
02:49:37 So we’re aliens to somebody.
02:49:38 We’re legal aliens.
02:49:39 Do you think there’s alien civilizations out there?
02:49:42 Yes.
02:49:43 Of course.
02:49:44 What do you think is their system of government anarchism?
02:49:48 Cause they’re advanced.
02:49:51 Do you honestly think there’s intelligent life forms out there?
02:49:53 Of course.
02:49:54 It’s the math.
02:49:55 It’s impossible that there isn’t.
02:49:56 So what do you make of all the stories of UFO sightings, all that kind of stuff?
02:50:03 Do you think they’ve visited earth?
02:50:05 Yes.
02:50:06 My grandfather was an air traffic controller in the Soviet Union and he said they would
02:50:10 often see these things that were not operating the way we knew vehicles operate.
02:50:17 So that’s good enough for me.
02:50:18 So I mean, do you think government is in possession of some, like, what do you think government
02:50:23 is doing with this kind of information?
02:50:26 Do you think somebody has any understanding of UFO sightings or any kind of information
02:50:36 about extraterrestrial life forms that are not known to the public?
02:50:41 Yes.
02:50:42 That’s indisputably true.
02:50:43 I think the fact that so many of these sightings are from aerodynamic professionals, like
02:50:48 pilots and things of that nature, they are people who’ve seen it all, who are reputable.
02:50:53 If they are on record saying, I’ve seen things that don’t make sense, and both the Russians
02:50:58 and the Americans thought it was the other one, that says something.
02:51:03 Shouldn’t that be a bigger problem?
02:51:04 Shouldn’t that be bigger news and a bigger problem if government is in fact hiding it?
02:51:09 I guess, but like, what are they going to do with that information?
02:51:13 It’s a good question.
02:51:14 Like, if a UFO, if an extraterrestrial spacecraft, which most likely would be like a crappy space,
02:51:22 like it wouldn’t be the actual aliens, it would be like some drone probe ship.
02:51:28 AI.
02:51:29 Yeah.
02:51:30 Yeah.
02:51:31 Yeah.
02:51:32 So if that, like, what would you do with that information?
02:51:33 As somebody that’s in charge of, you know, like you see how badly WHO fumbled the discussion
02:51:41 of masks.
02:51:42 Masks?
02:51:43 Yeah.
02:51:44 Yeah.
02:51:45 Masks is one of them, but everything really in terms of communicating with the public
02:51:47 honestly about what they know, what they don’t know.
02:51:51 And that’s a trivial one.
02:51:53 Right.
02:51:54 I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know.
02:51:58 There certainly feel incompetent at being able to communicate effectively with the public
02:52:03 about something much more difficult, much more full of mystery, like a UFO, a thing,
02:52:11 a piece of material that’s out of this earth.
02:52:14 Forget like organic material.
02:52:17 I don’t, I don’t know.
02:52:19 To me, I just, so from a scientist perspective, it would be beautiful.
02:52:22 It would be inspiring to reveal this to the world.
02:52:25 Here’s the mystery and make it completely public.
02:52:29 Share it with China.
02:52:30 Share it with everybody.
02:52:31 I think there is a domino effect where the concern would be what else are you hiding
02:52:35 from us?
02:52:36 And at that point, if you said, no, no, no, this is everything, people wouldn’t believe
02:52:39 you and they would, you can’t blame them for not believing them.
02:52:43 Ah, yeah.
02:52:45 And then it’d be like, show us the aliens.
02:52:46 They’d be like, we don’t have them.
02:52:47 We just have the craft.
02:52:48 You’re lying.
02:52:50 Speaking of aliens, offline, you mentioned elves.
02:52:55 Yeah.
02:52:57 And psychedelics.
02:52:58 Yeah.
02:52:59 What do you think about psychedelics in terms of the kind of places that can take your mind?
02:53:09 The kind of journey it can take you on.
02:53:11 Like what do you think, what do you think the psychedelics do to the human mind and
02:53:17 what does that say about the capacity of the human mind and just in general, like the mysteries
02:53:22 of all that’s out there?
02:53:23 I don’t know that we understand what they do.
02:53:26 The way I heard it explained to me is that much of the human mind isn’t about receiving
02:53:32 information but blocking information, right?
02:53:36 Because we’re so, there’s so much data coming in any moment that you basically have to train
02:53:39 yourself to see and to hear only what you want to see and to hear.
02:53:42 And that what psychedelics do is they tear that away and suddenly you’re much more aware
02:53:46 of what’s out there and also you’re going to be noticing patterns that you hadn’t noticed
02:53:49 before.
02:53:50 I know you had that researcher on the show and he kind of discussed this at some length.
02:53:56 I mean, Rogan is probably the person who popularized DMT more than, well, he’s obviously the person
02:54:01 who’s popularized DMT more than anything.
02:54:03 I don’t know anyone who had, even the researchers who have anything close to a coherent explanation
02:54:10 of why this drug, which exists everywhere, would have this very specific, very extreme
02:54:15 effect on so many people who are going to be experiencing such bizarre consequences
02:54:21 as a result of it.
02:54:22 I think it’s very interesting that this is talking about the government, you know, the
02:54:26 CIA started experimenting with LSD, they killed one of their own people, drove them to suicide
02:54:33 and there was a lot of research into, Terrence McKenna talks about this, into this field
02:54:39 and then very quickly, once it got into the mainstream, they shut it down, even though
02:54:43 it’s not addictive, it doesn’t cause you to go crazy or anything like that and there was
02:54:47 a lot of propaganda against its use, which I think, thankfully, is now somewhat receding.
02:54:52 I think Colorado just legalized mushrooms, something like that and I think it’ll be very
02:54:56 interesting to see what happens as a result of this.
02:54:58 Yeah, and the interesting thing is, there doesn’t seem to be, for certain psychedelics
02:55:03 like psilocybin, like mushrooms, there doesn’t seem to be a lethal dose, which is fascinating,
02:55:09 like Matthew Johnson, the Hopkins professor that you mentioned, I’m definitely going to
02:55:17 do one of his studies, it’s a really cool way to do what he calls a heroic dose of psilocybin.
02:55:24 Oh, I want to do it, what do I have to do?
02:55:27 Let’s do it.
02:55:28 A heroic dose, holy crap.
02:55:32 Yeah, but it’s safe.
02:55:36 How many grams are we talking?
02:55:37 I don’t know, but it’s just, it’s big.
02:55:41 He says that…
02:55:42 This is going to have a kick.
02:55:45 Yeah.
02:55:46 He says that, I mean, he also studies cocaine, he studies all kinds of drugs and he’s like,
02:55:51 the psilocybin is…
02:55:52 A heroic dose of cocaine kills you.
02:55:55 You can’t, so you can’t even come close, so he says the problem with studying cocaine
02:56:01 is you have people who are addicted to cocaine or war or so on, you give them the kind of
02:56:08 doses that we can and part of the study is like, it’s nothing to them.
02:56:14 Psilocybin is the only one where even daily users or regular users are blown away by the
02:56:22 dose they give them.
02:56:25 So you can go to Russia in your mind, you can go to outer space, maybe you’ll become
02:56:35 an astronaut or astronomer after all.
02:56:39 Maybe I’ll be Baba Yaga.
02:56:42 I’ll let people look that one up.
02:56:46 What is love?
02:56:50 What do you think this thing is like our attachment to other human beings?
02:56:57 And is it something that we should give to just a few people?
02:57:00 Yes, that’s for sure.
02:57:01 When I was working with DL Hughley in his book, he didn’t use the term, but he was describing
02:57:07 like low key depression.
02:57:10 And he talked about how he was in the airport and he noticed a girl had a red dress and
02:57:15 he went up and thanked her and she was like, what are you thanking for?
02:57:17 And he had realized he hadn’t registered color in like weeks.
02:57:22 And I think love is like that when you see someone and you just like, oh, like your eyes
02:57:28 are open.
02:57:29 Like this is something I’ve never seen before or I want more of this, that kind of thing.
02:57:34 It really disorients and reorients your thinking.
02:57:40 Don’t you find that like the world is full of that like nonstop?
02:57:45 It’s not just like a person either.
02:57:47 It’s like…
02:57:48 Yes, but when it’s in a person, it’s a whole other level because it’s like, I could have,
02:57:53 this is going to be great for years.
02:57:55 It’s like, you know, every day it’s something new.
02:57:57 I mean, that is, and that is rare.
02:58:00 You think it’s rare?
02:58:01 I mean…
02:58:02 Find someone who you could talk to them for years and not run out of things to talk to.
02:58:06 Oh, that’s true for years.
02:58:07 Yes.
02:58:08 Yes.
02:58:09 That’s rare.
02:58:10 And know that they really, if you leave the room, they will do right by you.
02:58:14 That’s really rare.
02:58:16 Well, from a Russian perspective, you just don’t give them another choice.
02:58:27 This is Tavadish New Year, New Year’s Eve.
02:58:33 So you talked about secession and the world burning down and you holding the match at
02:58:41 the end, standing with a big smile on your face.
02:58:44 Yes.
02:58:45 I was serious.
02:58:47 But let me ask you, if it doesn’t include flame and secession and destruction and laughing
02:58:54 malice and makeup and a white suit at the end, how do we bring more kindness and love
02:59:01 to the world in 2021?
02:59:03 Oh, easy.
02:59:05 Be comfortable saying, I want to be happy.
02:59:09 And if there’s someone who interjects and gives you attitude, arms lengthen.
02:59:16 Surround yourself with people who also want to be happy.
02:59:19 Here’s a great example.
02:59:21 My buddy Chris Williamson, who I’ve mentioned before, he’s a podcaster, does Modern Wisdom.
02:59:25 He’s an awesome dude and we became very close friends this past year.
02:59:30 And he was in Dubai recently and he sent me pics from Dubai by the pool, just loving life.
02:59:35 And it took me a week and then it clicked in my head and I’m like, you know what?
02:59:41 For some other people, if they saw him under remodel at the pool, they would think this
02:59:48 is him bragging or humble bragging.
02:59:50 And that never entered my head.
02:59:51 I’m like, oh man, I’m so glad my boy can be having a good time and is sharing his joy
02:59:58 with me.
02:59:59 That’s the kind of people you need to surround yourself with, where it never enters their
03:00:03 head to be resentful or anything other than sharing in your bounty.
03:00:10 What makes you happy?
03:00:12 I’m happy all the time.
03:00:15 And one of the points I made in my life is like, I really hated, I really did not like
03:00:19 to give advice because I feel don’t give advice until you know what you’re talking about.
03:00:24 And to me, what makes me happy is being self actualized.
03:00:27 I am in a position with my career where I could be myself 24 seven, where I never have
03:00:34 to engage in small talk, where I never have to interact with someone I don’t want to.
03:00:39 And I’m very blessed to have that.
03:00:41 Very few people have that.
03:00:42 And to have that be not only, to have that be like rewarded and having people find that
03:00:51 something of value to them makes me very, very happy.
03:00:55 But also being an uncle, I have two little nephews.
03:00:58 They make me very, very happy.
03:01:01 Sure my sister’s raising them Russian, so they talk like immigrants, but that’s okay.
03:01:05 We’re going to change that.
03:01:06 We have to dismember her, that’s fine.
03:01:09 That makes me happy.
03:01:10 And to be able to finish this book and know it’s going to give people a sense of hope,
03:01:17 that’s really validating.
03:01:20 What are you most grateful for for our conversation today?
03:01:25 You’re stealing my bit.
03:01:27 What am I most grateful for?
03:01:29 I am very grateful that I can come in here not knowing what we’re going to talk about
03:01:38 and know it’s not going to be something I have to be on guard about, or I have to watch
03:01:44 my words and that neither you or your audience is going to be responding derisively.
03:01:53 I feel safe here.
03:01:55 You’re welcome.
03:01:56 Vaseva.
03:01:57 Thanks for talking to me Michael, that was awesome.
03:02:01 Thank you for listening to this conversation with Michael Malus and thank you to our sponsors.
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03:02:29 And now let me leave you with some words from Emma Goldman on anarchism.
03:02:34 People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to
03:02:39 take.
03:02:41 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.