Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Yannis Papas, a comedian who cohosted the podcast
00:00:05 History Hyenas that I came across when I was researching the Battle of Crete from WWII.
00:00:12 He and his cohost were hilarious in their rants about history and about life.
00:00:18 The chemistry they have is probably the best of any cohosted comedy podcast or even podcast
00:00:23 in general that I’ve ever heard.
00:00:26 As of a few weeks ago, unfortunately, History Hyenas is no more, at least for now, because
00:00:32 all good things must come to an end.
00:00:35 But Yannis hosts a new podcast called Long Days with Yannis Papas, plus he has a comedy
00:00:41 special on YouTube for free.
00:00:45 Quick mention of our sponsors, WineAxis, Blinkist, Magic Spoon, and Indeed.
00:00:51 Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
00:00:54 As a side note, let me say that some of you have noticed that I have not spoken with too
00:00:59 many computer scientists, physicists, biologists, or engineers recently.
00:01:03 The reason has to do mostly with the risk aversion of many of these folks in the time
00:01:08 of COVID, especially as they get closer to taking the vaccine.
00:01:12 I’m tested several times a week and still some people are just more willing than others
00:01:17 to have an in person conversation in these times.
00:01:20 I only do these podcasts in person because I look for the possibility of a genuine human
00:01:26 connection.
00:01:27 I’m willing to sacrifice a lot for that.
00:01:30 Maybe it’s silly, but I look for the magic that Charles Bukowski writes about in his
00:01:35 poem Nirvana.
00:01:36 The magic that is somehow in the air on those rare occasions when two people meet, talk,
00:01:42 and you notice that while on the surface you may be worlds apart, you’re still somehow
00:01:47 woven from the same fabric.
00:01:50 I’ve had that with many guests, Jim Keller comes to mind, but many others as well.
00:01:55 I’m an AI person, machine learning, robotics, computer science is my passion.
00:02:01 Trust me, I can’t wait to be having more technical conversations again, but I will
00:02:05 also continue to mix in comedians, musicians, historians, and of course, wise all seeing
00:02:11 sages like Giannis Papas and Tim Dillon, just to keep it, as Tim likes to say, fun.
00:02:19 This is the Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with Giannis Papas.
00:02:26 You’ve cohosted, until recently, an amazing history comedy podcast called The History
00:02:32 Hyenas.
00:02:33 So you’re a bit of a student of history?
00:02:35 Yeah, an F student of history.
00:02:38 F student.
00:02:39 Okay, I thought it was more like a D minus.
00:02:40 D minus, yeah.
00:02:41 Okay.
00:02:42 Still got to repeat the grade if you get all D minuses.
00:02:44 I actually had a.67 GPA average my freshman year and I had to do it again.
00:02:49 This podcast is going to be the spectrum of human intelligence.
00:02:53 It runs the gamut from there to here.
00:02:55 So this is going to set the low bar.
00:02:57 I’m barely sliding into human, I’m closer to chimp.
00:03:00 And I bring that up that you’re also friends with the great, the powerful Tim Dillon.
00:03:08 So let’s talk about power and the corrupting effects of power.
00:03:14 Sometimes I look at Tim Dillon as he grows in power.
00:03:16 Oh, I thought you meant in size.
00:03:19 Well, size, I think they’re correlated.
00:03:21 Yeah.
00:03:22 I saw him, I’ve been in Austin a couple of days, I saw him once, we had eight meals in
00:03:26 one day.
00:03:27 Eight meals.
00:03:28 Yeah.
00:03:29 So I feel like I’ve been here longer than I have just because of the meals with Dillon.
00:03:32 Kid likes biscuits and barbecue.
00:03:34 Okay.
00:03:35 So he’s more like, see, I was imagining Putin or somebody like that.
00:03:38 He’s more like the North Korean dictator.
00:03:39 Okay.
00:03:40 Yeah.
00:03:41 All right.
00:03:42 They get along great, those two.
00:03:43 Yeah.
00:03:44 I mean, Tim Dillon and King Jong Un would be like, they could make like a buddy cop
00:03:48 movie.
00:03:49 They would get along like Lethal Weapon.
00:03:50 That would be a good pitch movie.
00:03:52 Great podcast.
00:03:53 Yeah.
00:03:54 That would be a great podcast.
00:03:55 Yeah.
00:03:56 So much to talk about.
00:03:57 So many similar ideas about the world.
00:03:59 So what do you think the world would look like if Tim Dillon was given absolute power?
00:04:05 He seems like a person that’s an interesting study of the corrupting effects of power.
00:04:10 Yeah.
00:04:11 You don’t want to give him power.
00:04:12 You don’t want, I don’t even want him wearing a suit.
00:04:15 Like I want a guy who’s as thoughtful and educated as you wearing a suit.
00:04:19 Like cause you know, suits corrupt you.
00:04:21 You put that suit on, you start feeling that power.
00:04:22 You start.
00:04:23 Definitely.
00:04:24 It’s like, you know, yeah.
00:04:25 I don’t even want Tim Dillon in a suit.
00:04:26 Power would, he would kill people.
00:04:28 He’d get rid of anything that he deemed.
00:04:30 I mean, if you made a lobster roll and it wasn’t up to Tim Dillon’s standard, he would
00:04:34 have you executed.
00:04:35 The entire restaurant staff is just gone.
00:04:38 He would have people below his food standard execute.
00:04:41 There’d be programs, not of people who are political dissidents, but of people who don’t
00:04:45 meet his food standard.
00:04:47 His cuisine standard is high and he’s usually right.
00:04:50 Do you think power does corrupt people?
00:04:52 Yes.
00:04:53 Like one of the reasons we mentioned offline Joe Rogan, he’s been an inspiration to me
00:04:56 cause he gets, he gets, if you get power, just more famous and famous and yes, probably
00:05:02 a bit of power in terms of influence and he’s still pretty much the same guy.
00:05:07 I’m not sure that’s going to be true for everybody.
00:05:09 Do you ever think, ask yourself that question?
00:05:11 Yeah.
00:05:12 He’s a rare breed.
00:05:13 He’s like a benign king.
00:05:15 Most people I meet who are like really powerful are like douchebags and that’s how they got
00:05:19 there.
00:05:20 I think that’s, psychopaths have the advantage because they don’t have feelings and Joe’s
00:05:23 a rare example.
00:05:24 He’s just a powerhouse of will and he, I do think about that.
00:05:29 Yeah.
00:05:30 I think I should be stopped right now.
00:05:32 Just stop me right now because yeah, power for me, I would, when people get power, they
00:05:37 indulge.
00:05:38 It doesn’t change anyone.
00:05:39 It just reveals your darkest, you know, people aren’t supposed to have anything they want.
00:05:44 You got to be able to struggle for everything.
00:05:45 So I would have a harem, I’d be like a Roman dictator.
00:05:48 Yeah.
00:05:49 I’d be like a Roman emperor.
00:05:50 I mean, people called them emperors.
00:05:51 They were dictators.
00:05:52 The most effective leaders are dictators.
00:05:53 I hope we get back to that.
00:05:55 Democracy hasn’t worked.
00:05:56 I’m ready for a secession of Caesars and I want to start with AOC.
00:06:00 That’s true.
00:06:02 Dictators get the job done.
00:06:03 They do.
00:06:04 They do.
00:06:05 At a certain point you got, that’s why social workers can only get you so far.
00:06:07 You need action.
00:06:08 I was a social worker for five years and all you do is ask about medications and you don’t
00:06:14 solve anything.
00:06:15 I do ask myself of that, like, cause I’m more in the tech space of constructing systems
00:06:21 that prevent me from being corrupt.
00:06:23 Cause right now I’m all about love and all about those kinds of things.
00:06:27 But I wonder, you said like, it just reveals the darkness.
00:06:31 The problem is we might not be aware of our own darkness.
00:06:35 I have the same feeling about money actually.
00:06:37 I’ve been avoiding thinking about money, like basically constructing my moral system, my
00:06:44 moral compass around money.
00:06:46 It’s like the moment I feel a little too happy about the idea of owning some cool shiny thing,
00:06:54 I started to think, okay, I’m not going to own that shiny thing cause I’m afraid of the
00:06:58 slippery slope of it.
00:07:00 Yeah.
00:07:01 You ever think about that kind of stuff?
00:07:02 Yeah.
00:07:03 The thing about the capitalist system is it puts sort of a profit motive above beauty.
00:07:11 And you notice when you see certain cities, especially in the old days where like buildings
00:07:15 used to be beautiful and now they’re just like boxes, they throw a kid up and it’s just
00:07:20 for all profit margin.
00:07:24 It’s the illusion of permanence that, you know, it’s like, oh, let me get as much money
00:07:27 as I can.
00:07:28 You’re like, yeah.
00:07:29 You know, my dad used to say, you know, everyone, it’s a cliche, but you can’t take it with
00:07:32 you.
00:07:33 So it’s kind of, it’s, it’s comical to me that we’re here trying to get this infinite
00:07:37 amount.
00:07:38 Like it’s like Sisyphus, we’re all trying to climb this hill, but I mean, the rock’s
00:07:41 going to fall on us.
00:07:42 So I think that’s a healthy outlook.
00:07:44 Yeah.
00:07:45 My dad always used to say before he passed, you know, he would say, you can’t, you have
00:07:48 to survive not only physically, but you have to survive emotionally.
00:07:51 I think a lot of people forget about the emotional part of a survival.
00:07:56 You have to survive emotionally and humor and, and, and understanding reality in its
00:08:01 objective context helps with that.
00:08:04 Accepting reality as this ephemeral thing that you’re really just a part of, but not
00:08:11 as significant as your ego wants you to believe is a, is a start.
00:08:15 That’s a good foundation for surviving emotionally.
00:08:18 What’s that mean?
00:08:19 Surviving emotionally?
00:08:20 Like what, what’s an ideal life look like while you’re thriving?
00:08:23 You can’t take things too seriously.
00:08:25 You can’t, because they’re ephemeral.
00:08:27 They’re not permanent.
00:08:28 Nothing’s permanent.
00:08:29 Your bank account’s not permanent.
00:08:30 Your abilities aren’t permanent.
00:08:32 Nothing’s permanent.
00:08:33 Your abilities aren’t permanent.
00:08:35 Your memory’s not permanent.
00:08:36 Your, your, your dick getting hard is not permanent.
00:08:38 Can I curse on this or is this go out to, yeah, you can curse to your heart’s content.
00:08:43 Okay.
00:08:44 Yeah.
00:08:45 I mean, gender’s not even permanent anymore.
00:08:46 I think I’m gonna, I’m gonna change maybe and live my second half as another gender
00:08:48 just to have, I’m bored with this gender.
00:08:51 So it’s like nothing is permanent.
00:08:53 And so accepting that emotionally is a good start to being more flexible.
00:08:59 You gotta be flexible.
00:09:00 Like my dad used to say, anything too stiff snaps.
00:09:03 You gotta, you know, it’s a cliche and people have said it a bunch of different ways, but
00:09:07 Bruce Lee’s right, man.
00:09:08 Be water.
00:09:09 Be water.
00:09:10 Yeah.
00:09:11 Bukowski has this quote about love, that love is a fog that fades with the first light of
00:09:18 reality.
00:09:19 So he’s, he’s a romantic, that guy.
00:09:21 But that even love is a thing that just doesn’t last very long.
00:09:25 No.
00:09:26 Um, you know, some people would disagree with that.
00:09:28 Maybe it morphs, like, like, like water, it changes, right?
00:09:32 It might not be, it might not be this, cause he’s mostly just, uh, loved like prostitutes,
00:09:37 I think.
00:09:38 So,
00:09:39 The best kind of love.
00:09:40 Yeah.
00:09:41 No demand.
00:09:42 No, uh, responsibilities.
00:09:43 Yeah.
00:09:44 It’s a financial transaction.
00:09:45 Yeah.
00:09:46 Uh, ephemeral as ever.
00:09:48 You mentioned your dad.
00:09:49 He passed away, uh, two, uh, a year and a half ago.
00:09:53 Yeah.
00:09:54 What did you learn from him?
00:09:56 I love my dad.
00:09:57 My dad, I would say my dad was my, my hero.
00:10:00 He was just, uh, my dad really embodied those values and I think, um, for better or worse,
00:10:05 it’s made me who I am.
00:10:06 He’s, he, uh, my dad was, was a painter, he was a lawyer, he was, uh, he was, uh, you
00:10:13 know, a Lieutenant in the military.
00:10:15 New Yorker.
00:10:16 New Yorker.
00:10:17 Born and bred Brooklyn.
00:10:18 His dad, his dad, you know, uh, surprise owned a diner.
00:10:21 So that’s, that’s sort of the Greek passport.
00:10:24 That’s the immigration passport for Greeks into America.
00:10:27 And, um, yeah, my dad played football.
00:10:29 He just, my dad did what he wanted.
00:10:31 He lived as he wanted at all costs and I think I got that from him for better or worse.
00:10:35 I think it’s hurt me in my pursuits.
00:10:37 Uh, if you consider money and fame, uh, to be paramount, you know, I, I’ve always done
00:10:44 what I wanted and if I stopped wanting to do it, I just stopped doing it.
00:10:47 I think I got that from my dad.
00:10:48 So maybe for better or worse, that’s what I learned from him.
00:10:52 But that’s a real currency, you know, feeling like you’re in love with what you’re doing
00:10:55 when you’re doing it, maybe perhaps that’s worth more than money.
00:10:59 I don’t know.
00:11:01 You miss him?
00:11:02 Yeah.
00:11:03 Every day.
00:11:04 Every day.
00:11:05 But I’m happy that, uh, he, he got 91 years.
00:11:08 It’s very rare.
00:11:09 I mean, he smoked for 60 years.
00:11:12 Talk about like a guy who was an outlier and he smoked like 60 years, like packs.
00:11:16 I mean, and he didn’t die from that.
00:11:18 He died.
00:11:19 He had a prostate cancer, which is the way men should go.
00:11:21 Your dick should give out.
00:11:22 It should start from the dick.
00:11:24 I mean, we focus so much of our life on the dick that that’s the way that’s a successful
00:11:29 life and that’s why every man eventually gets prostate cancer because that is the universe’s
00:11:33 way of saying like the thing you focused on the most is you put the most energy into is
00:11:38 the thing that’s spent and it’s going to, your, your rotting is going to start there.
00:11:42 So that’s a successful life and it just spread all over his body and he slowly died.
00:11:47 I was with him when he died and that meant a lot to me because me and my brother weren’t
00:11:50 talking at the time cause we’re Greeks, we’re, we’re talking again, but that’s how it is.
00:11:55 You got a few brothers, right?
00:11:56 I got two brothers, but I wanted to make sure I was with him when he died and I got lucky
00:12:01 and I was in the room with him when he died.
00:12:03 You were in the room with your brother and you weren’t.
00:12:06 No, my brother wasn’t there.
00:12:07 We were kind of doing shifts.
00:12:08 I was, I was there.
00:12:09 I spent the night, the dad, my, the night my dad died, he died in the early in the morning
00:12:14 and I heard the death rattle last breath and it was just, I think it was, uh, I, he knew
00:12:19 I was there and, uh, I think that just probably meant something to him and I’m just glad I
00:12:24 was there.
00:12:25 Does that make you sad that, uh, life is ephemeral, like you said, that, that you die?
00:12:30 Yeah.
00:12:31 What do you think about your own death?
00:12:32 You meditate on that?
00:12:33 I think it, I think the actual, if there is a point to life, it’s to, um, hopefully not
00:12:40 fear death, to accept reality.
00:12:43 I think that’s important.
00:12:44 I think so much goes awry in the human condition when we lose touch with reality.
00:12:50 Every, uh, political system that’s led to mass murder and everything, I think because
00:12:55 it’s because the, the tenants of those political philosophies ended up being utopian.
00:13:02 They were detached from reality, detached from nature.
00:13:05 And so I think it’s, it’s very important to accept and acknowledge your own mortality.
00:13:11 I think it’s the foundation for what makes a good person, a moral person, um, a contributing
00:13:16 member of society because it’s true.
00:13:18 True things should be the foundation of all things.
00:13:21 If, if, if what you believe is based on illusion, you’re going to end up doing destruction.
00:13:26 Whether that destruction is on a scale of one to 10, you are going to be destructive
00:13:30 because it’s not real.
00:13:31 It’s a fantasy.
00:13:32 It doesn’t exist.
00:13:33 See, the thing is the truth is about, I don’t think you can ever reach truth.
00:13:36 Truth is about like constantly digging and to push back on your idea that you should
00:13:40 accept death.
00:13:41 I think the more honest response to death, so the least honest is to run away from it,
00:13:47 create illusions that help you imagine that there’s not a death.
00:13:51 Uh, the next is to accept it, but the real honest one is to fear it because I, I, I mean,
00:13:59 I’m, I’m with, uh, Ernest Becker is a philosopher, uh, wrote a book called Denial of Death.
00:14:04 He says that the, like much of the human condition is based in the fear of mortality.
00:14:10 That we like, that’s, that’s the creative force of the human energy.
00:14:15 Like Freud said, do you want to sleep with your mother?
00:14:17 He said, no, that’s not what motivates you.
00:14:20 Maybe his mom wasn’t hot though.
00:14:21 I mean, or he wasn’t Greek because apparently at a poll, we found that we found that all
00:14:26 things good and bad.
00:14:27 Yeah.
00:14:28 Thanks.
00:14:29 Thanks for that.
00:14:30 Thanks.
00:14:31 I just don’t know if his mom was a looker or not.
00:14:32 I mean, I’d have to Google it.
00:14:33 All right.
00:14:34 Yeah.
00:14:35 I’ll look up on Google images.
00:14:37 Yeah.
00:14:38 But I think the honest, as he says, the thing that we run away from is that there’s a terror.
00:14:44 He calls it like terror.
00:14:45 Uh, there’s something called terror management theory.
00:14:48 That’s some philosophers after him followed on that we’re basically trying to run away
00:14:54 from this fear and acceptance is actually creating an illusion for yourself.
00:15:00 Like you can actually accept something as terrifying as this.
00:15:03 So he’s more with the stoics, the stoic constantly meditate on their death.
00:15:07 I mean, they, what does that mean?
00:15:09 I mean, it’s kind of, it’s, you know, acceptance of death isn’t a thing you do like on a Monday
00:15:15 and then you’re done is a thing you constantly have to meditate on, like reminding yourself
00:15:22 like this ride is over.
00:15:23 It could be over today.
00:15:25 And that’s something you’re, if you think about every single day, it gives you an appreciation
00:15:29 of Woody Allen movies, at least it gives you appreciation of basically everything, including
00:15:34 Woody Allen movies, which shows you how deep your appreciation for life could be.
00:15:39 I’ve actually haven’t been following much about what Woody Allen’s, but apparently he’s
00:15:44 been a troublemaker through most of his life.
00:15:47 He’s yeah.
00:15:48 I mean, you know, he’s caused a little bit of strife.
00:15:49 He’s left a little, uh, yeah, he’s left a little confusion in his wake for sure.
00:15:53 But I mean, you know, that’s another one separate the art from the artist.
00:15:58 He’s got, I mean, the guys will go down in history as the greatest he’s made, I mean,
00:16:02 maybe a year and they’re all, you can always find something good about each movie, like
00:16:06 the dialogue or whatever.
00:16:08 Um, I love what you’re saying.
00:16:09 It’s interesting, but the only thing I would say to push back a little bit since we’re
00:16:12 playing a little table tennis here is, um, I don’t know if it’s a choice to fear death.
00:16:17 That’s more of an, it seems more instinctual.
00:16:19 It seems like something that nature wants you to do because I’ve been in positions where
00:16:24 I thought I was going to die.
00:16:25 Like I’ve been shot and I had those moments and then nature also, uh, you know, kicks
00:16:31 in an instinct, which is acceptance where you kind of, I don’t know, it’s a chemical
00:16:36 release or whatever.
00:16:37 I don’t know, you know, we’re all, we’re robots basically.
00:16:39 So some sort of chemical is released that protects you, but there is an acceptance.
00:16:44 I don’t know how much, uh, of it was a conscious choice, probably very little.
00:16:48 Um, and that’s the point I’m making is it’s, it’s instinctual.
00:16:51 We don’t really have a choice in fearing death.
00:16:53 Otherwise there would be no progression.
00:16:55 We wouldn’t all life seems to want to survive, uh, not by choice, but by instinct.
00:17:02 So he, he argues that the fear is not the instinctual of, it’s not the animalistic stuff.
00:17:07 That’s the thing that makes us special is the, what humans are able to do is to have
00:17:11 a knowledge that we’re going to die one day.
00:17:14 Animals don’t have that animals.
00:17:15 Fear is instinctual.
00:17:16 It’s like, Holy shit, what’s that sound over there?
00:17:19 He says, we’re actually able to contemplate the fact that this ride ends and that that
00:17:25 kind of cognitive construct is difficult for us to deal with.
00:17:29 Like what the hell does that mean?
00:17:31 Like just to, just to think about, it’s going to be over at a certain point, it’s just over
00:17:38 lights out.
00:17:39 Like it’s very difficult to kind of load that into whatever this like little brain we got.
00:17:46 Like, what does that actually mean?
00:17:49 Maybe that’s what gives everything meaning.
00:17:51 Yeah.
00:17:52 Because if everything lasted forever, if, uh, if this went on ad infinitum, there would
00:17:56 be no meaning to it.
00:17:57 I’d be like, Hey, if I don’t see you tomorrow, I’ll see in a million years, there would be
00:18:00 no meaning.
00:18:01 There’ll be no urgency.
00:18:02 There would be no feelings.
00:18:03 There’d be no, uh, nothing of magnitude or superficiality.
00:18:07 It would all just be this kind of, it would be torture.
00:18:10 It would actually, that would actually be torture to be here forever.
00:18:13 I mean, I’m already sick of this place and I’m just in my forties.
00:18:17 Like I’m done.
00:18:18 I’m sick of me.
00:18:19 I’m sick of everything.
00:18:20 You know, a lot of people, when they talk about mortality, they consider, they consider
00:18:27 mortality appealing because you get a chance to do basically all these things you might
00:18:33 not get a chance to do otherwise, like all the kinds of travel broadly, explore, read
00:18:38 every book, explore every idea, do every hobby, all those kinds of things.
00:18:43 The idea I was talking to mentioned, uh, the reality of being immortal would be more likely,
00:18:50 I like this idea, more likely would be you just sitting there doing nothing because,
00:18:57 and putting off all that travel and exploration to later because you’ll always have time.
00:19:03 And so what you’re going to have, what actual immortality would look like for a bunch of
00:19:07 humans is people sitting there doing nothing.
00:19:09 It would be like a Greek caffineer just sitting around drinking coffee.
00:19:12 I love it.
00:19:13 Yeah.
00:19:14 I mean, it’s a lazy man’s paradise.
00:19:16 Yeah.
00:19:17 But it’s so interesting because that, that’s, that rings true to me for what humans are
00:19:21 like is we’ll basically just put off all those exciting adventures and just be lazy, become
00:19:27 lazier and lazier and lazier because you’ll always have a chance to do all the exciting
00:19:30 things and we’ll just get, we’ll basically become Tim Dillon.
00:19:33 We just sit there and have a podcast and that’s it.
00:19:36 He works hard.
00:19:37 Um, yeah.
00:19:38 I mean, that sounds actually like heaven, dude.
00:19:40 That’s speaking to my heart really.
00:19:41 I mean, I’m at heart, I’m a very lazy person.
00:19:44 I always try to find ways to lie down.
00:19:47 Like if I’m sitting, I’ll figure out a way to kind of contort myself to later.
00:19:51 That’s an interesting thing to like in, yeah.
00:19:54 If you can always push something off, yeah, that, I like that.
00:19:59 I think that’s heaven.
00:20:01 And um,
00:20:02 See, we just changed your mind.
00:20:03 You kind of like the immortality.
00:20:04 Yeah.
00:20:05 I kind of like it.
00:20:06 No.
00:20:07 So there’ll be no thirsts.
00:20:08 No.
00:20:09 You can always put it off.
00:20:10 You don’t want to bang this girl.
00:20:11 You’re like, ah, put it off.
00:20:13 But now I’m thinking about Muslim heaven and they may be offering the best deal.
00:20:16 I mean, if it was an expo and they had a booth, I may go with them because they offer, they
00:20:23 offer 62 or 72, but then I’d get sick of them.
00:20:26 I’d want to, I don’t know.
00:20:28 I always wondered like, are you given the 62 virgins or you choose, can you create them
00:20:33 like an avatar, like a video game, or are you just given?
00:20:36 I don’t know what the number, why it’s important to have that high number.
00:20:39 First of all, I think it’s a mistranslation about the virgins, but outside of that, outside
00:20:44 of that, I feel like the conversation is really important.
00:20:48 I don’t think they ever specify like what kind of books these girls read.
00:20:52 Like what are they, what are they into?
00:20:54 Like the quality of the conversation, I think if you’re talking about eternity, the quality
00:20:59 of the intellect and the conversation and the personalities is way more important.
00:21:03 And the Greeks have an ancient, ancient expression, pat metronaros stone, which my mother always
00:21:07 used to say, which is everything in moderation, nothing in excess.
00:21:10 So trying to always get the status quo and uh, yeah, that many women, eventually it’s
00:21:16 like the magic Johnson effect, Isaiah Thomas effect.
00:21:19 It’s just too much and you’re going to end up, you’re going to end up banging a dude
00:21:22 is what I’m saying.
00:21:23 You’re going to get sick of it cause it’s too much and there’s going to be a eunuch
00:21:27 that finds its way into your harem.
00:21:29 That’s been proven throughout history, every empire, when you have all that power.
00:21:33 And again, this goes back to power corrupting.
00:21:35 If you have, if there’s no struggle, there’s no meaning, there’s the value is from the
00:21:40 journey, the, the working hard to struggle.
00:21:43 And if it’s just given to you because you’re a Sultan or you’re Alexander the Great or
00:21:47 whatever, you’re going to get bored and you’re going to bang a dude.
00:21:50 That’s it’s, I think that’s a scientific axiom actually.
00:21:54 Eventually you’ll get bored and bang a dude.
00:21:55 Yeah, but I think it won’t stop there.
00:21:57 I think you’ll go to animals, you go to robot.
00:21:59 I mean, eventually it all ends up in robots and then the robots rebel and then the humans
00:22:02 will be destroyed.
00:22:03 Yeah.
00:22:04 I’m sorry.
00:22:05 If, if we’re speaking truth, you said the value of life, one of the highest ideals is
00:22:12 to seek truth.
00:22:13 I think if we’re being honest.
00:22:14 Can I ask you a quick question?
00:22:15 Yes.
00:22:16 If you, if you live in a small, I come from small islands, right?
00:22:18 And so there’s a stereotype that that’s where they bang animals.
00:22:20 But if you come from a very small community, you know, an island or something, and you
00:22:24 have the choice of banging a family member or an animal, which one is worse on the moral
00:22:28 scale?
00:22:29 Because you’re technically not related to the animal.
00:22:31 Right.
00:22:32 This is interesting.
00:22:33 I mean, these are human constructs, these ideas, but yet for me personally, taboo would
00:22:37 be more taboo to, uh, to, to have sex with a family member.
00:22:40 Yeah.
00:22:41 I mean, animal.
00:22:42 I mean, okay.
00:22:43 It’s good to know where you stand on that.
00:22:44 I think if viewers, you know, if they didn’t have, they didn’t know they had that question.
00:22:47 I just, they just learned a little bit about you.
00:22:49 And now I know.
00:22:50 I look forward to the internet clipping that out.
00:22:53 Yeah.
00:22:54 I mean, there, there is, listen, uh, in some, outside of, outside of that, I do think about
00:23:01 that a lot.
00:23:02 I think it’s kind of ridiculous, uh, about morality connected to animals in terms of
00:23:06 all the, the, the factory farming and so on.
00:23:10 It seems like that’s one of the things we’ll look, cause I love meat, but I kind of feel
00:23:14 bad about it and, and bad in a way where I think if we look like a hundred years from
00:23:21 now, we’ll look back at this time as like one of the great like tortures and injustices
00:23:28 that we humans have committed.
00:23:30 And I mean, all that has to do with the sex with the animal has to do with consent and
00:23:34 about the experience of suffering of animals.
00:23:37 The reason I think about that personally a lot, cause I think about robotics, I think
00:23:42 about creating artificial consciousnesses, uh, or artificial like beings that have some
00:23:50 elements of the human nature.
00:23:52 And then you start to think like, well, what does it mean to suffer?
00:23:55 What does it mean for entity to exist such that it deserves rights?
00:24:00 This is something that the founding fathers were thinking about, like, you know, all men
00:24:05 are created equal.
00:24:06 What does it, which, who is included in the men who, who’s not in that, in that sentence
00:24:11 and our animals included in that are robots.
00:24:14 I honestly think that there will be a civil rights movement for robots in the future.
00:24:18 I don’t, I don’t know.
00:24:19 Is that the Turing test, the way you try to, is that what they call it where you’re trying
00:24:23 to see if AI can think like a human or whatever, or feel like a human?
00:24:28 Well, it’s a, the Turing test closely defined as more about talk like a human.
00:24:34 So you can, you can imagine systems that are able to, you can have a conversation like
00:24:39 this and I would be a robot for example, but that doesn’t mean I would do in a, in society.
00:24:46 That doesn’t mean I deserve rights or that doesn’t mean I would be conscious.
00:24:50 It doesn’t mean that I would be able to suffer and to experience pleasure and dream and all
00:24:55 those kinds of human things.
00:24:57 The question isn’t whether you’re able to talk, which is passed in the Turing test.
00:25:01 The question is whether you’re able to feel, to be, I mean, I go back to suffering.
00:25:08 The thing that the, that our documents protect us against is suffering.
00:25:14 Like we don’t want humans to suffer.
00:25:17 And if a robot can suffer, that discussion starts being about like, well, shouldn’t we
00:25:25 protect them?
00:25:27 Currently we don’t protect animals.
00:25:29 We protect that dog.
00:25:30 There’s laws.
00:25:31 There’s actual legislation that protects dogs for torture places.
00:25:34 Yeah.
00:25:35 And you know what?
00:25:36 Dogs is something I don’t think people really understand enough about.
00:25:38 It’s one of my obsessions.
00:25:39 So they, they, my dad always used to say those, he goes, those things are, those things are
00:25:45 basically human.
00:25:47 And I mean, they dream, they have anxiety.
00:25:51 And what people often overlook about dogs is without dogs, we wouldn’t be here.
00:25:55 We would not have ever evolved from hunter gatherer to agrarian to, you know, civilization.
00:26:03 We wouldn’t have cities.
00:26:05 We wouldn’t have anything.
00:26:06 I mean, they are our partner in survival and they are a magical animal.
00:26:10 There’s no, there’s no animal that was, it was like destiny almost.
00:26:14 I mean, a malleable animal, there’s no animal that’s that malleable that in a few generations
00:26:19 you can tailor to a specific job that you need.
00:26:22 And without that animal, without dogs doing that animal, protecting our crops from, from,
00:26:28 you know scavengers and stuff like that, you know, the list goes on.
00:26:32 We wouldn’t be here.
00:26:34 So we, that’s an often overlooked fact that human evolution was not done in a vacuum just
00:26:41 with humans.
00:26:42 Without dogs, we would have never evolved.
00:26:44 I mean, we weren’t the apex predator for most of our existence.
00:26:46 We weren’t even the apex predator.
00:26:47 I mean, we’re getting eaten by hyenas, which is my favorite animal and you know, that’s
00:26:51 kind of an injustice to, I mean, I’m kind of mad at dogs.
00:26:54 We deserve to get eaten by hyenas, but without dogs, we wouldn’t be here and dogs, dogs deserve
00:26:59 the protection.
00:27:00 So do horses.
00:27:01 They fucking lugged us around for thousands of years and now these fucking German psychopaths
00:27:06 are eating them or whatever.
00:27:07 We should not eat horse meat just on like, be a good dude, man.
00:27:11 These things lugged us around for generations, they’re beautiful, you know, ride them or
00:27:15 I don’t know.
00:27:16 I don’t know, but it rubs me the wrong way that we eat horses.
00:27:19 Yeah, the horses one is interesting and one of my favorite books is Animal Farm by Orwell
00:27:24 and the horses don’t get a good ending in that, I kind of, my spirit animal I suppose
00:27:31 is the horse from Animal Farm, Boxer, where he says, I will work harder.
00:27:36 That’s his motto.
00:27:37 I work really hard at stupid things.
00:27:41 That’s basically what I, I just hit my head against the wall for no reason whatsoever.
00:27:45 But that probably fulfills, you have a big brain, you were probably born with a big brain
00:27:47 that kind of fulfills.
00:27:48 It’s killing neurons.
00:27:50 It’s exercise for you.
00:27:51 Yeah.
00:27:52 Yeah.
00:27:53 Don’t you think some animals deserve to be eaten though?
00:27:54 Kind of like.
00:27:55 Hyenas.
00:27:56 Come on, dude.
00:27:57 I mean, you gotta respect the hyena.
00:28:00 Okay, so let’s look, first of all, let me just comment on the dog thing.
00:28:03 There is like conferences on dog cognition from a perspective of people that study psychology,
00:28:08 cognitive science, neuroscience, dogs are fascinating.
00:28:12 The way they move their eyes, they’re able to, they’re the only other animal besides
00:28:15 humans, they’re able to communicate with their eyes.
00:28:18 They can look at a thing and look back at you and look back at the thing to communicate
00:28:23 that we’re all like through our eyes, communicate that we’re collaborating.
00:28:27 So every other animal uses their eyes to actually look at things.
00:28:31 The dogs use it to like communicate with you, with us humans.
00:28:35 It’s fascinating.
00:28:36 There are a lot of other elements of dogs that are amazing.
00:28:38 Yeah, I mean, if it wasn’t for them, they’re the ones, they were our first alarm system
00:28:42 for predators.
00:28:43 They would defend us.
00:28:44 I mean, the Basenji is one of the most ancient dogs.
00:28:46 I mean, they’re tiny, but they’re fearless and they would chase off lions.
00:28:49 Like there’d be packs of them and they chase off lions and protect the tribes.
00:28:54 I even get tingles like thinking about dogs because I have a dog, I love my dog.
00:28:59 And there’s something about when you’re walking with your dog off leash in the woods, there’s
00:29:02 something about it that’s like, that tugs at that millions of years of evolution, like
00:29:09 that gut, you know, it’s like, I had a Finnish friend of mine, he’s a comic, Tommy Valamies
00:29:13 once told me, he was like, he was like, the gut, he’s like, I believe in it.
00:29:18 Like that gut, you know, when you have that feeling, he’s like, always trust that because
00:29:21 that is million, those are all your ancestors.
00:29:25 That’s the survival instinct of all your ancestors at the beginning of time, you know, telling
00:29:30 you like, Hey, something’s off here, something’s, you know, so don’t get in the car with Ted
00:29:34 Bundy is what I’m saying, ladies, how fucking stupid, who, how can you fall for that?
00:29:38 You know, he’s got a fucking sling on, don’t get in.
00:29:40 Yeah.
00:29:41 Follow the gut.
00:29:42 My question to you, are psychopaths essentially robots?
00:29:46 So first of all, let’s not, you’re using the word robot in a derogatory way that I, I’m
00:29:51 triggered by.
00:29:52 Okay.
00:29:53 So I feel offended.
00:29:54 You should be because you know what, people are always scared of robots, but I actually,
00:29:59 I have, I’ve made the sort of, uh, I, I’ve made it to say, Hey, I’ve, I thought about
00:30:05 it and like robot, robots have been nothing but helpful.
00:30:07 It’s the people we should be scared of.
00:30:09 Again, we’re kind of missing the most destructive thing is us because it’s, but robots are helpful.
00:30:15 I mean, this is a fucking robot.
00:30:17 You know, I went on hotel tonight, I’m already booked up, you know, I got my, I can change
00:30:20 my flight if, if this barbecue with Rogan goes 16 hours, which whatever Rogan wants
00:30:24 to do, I’ll do it.
00:30:25 If he wants to kick me in the chest, I’ll let him kick me in the chest, whatever.
00:30:29 Robots are helpful.
00:30:30 No?
00:30:31 Yeah.
00:30:32 Uh, tanks and autonomous weapons systems don’t kill people.
00:30:35 People kill people.
00:30:36 Yeah.
00:30:37 That’s yeah.
00:30:38 Yeah.
00:30:39 The NRA is about to collect that for you.
00:30:42 Uh, a lot of love for dogs.
00:30:44 I appreciate it very much.
00:30:45 And at the same time, you have the other thing that people seem to have love for, which is
00:30:49 cats.
00:30:50 And on the flip side of everything you’ve said, I’m trying to understand what have cats
00:30:56 ever done for human civilization?
00:30:58 They keep rodents away.
00:30:59 The domesticated cat is very important.
00:31:01 Keeps the rodents away.
00:31:02 Yeah.
00:31:03 That’s what they were domesticated for.
00:31:04 I mean, they’re psychopathic killers who ended up killing, uh, innocent, um, neighborhood
00:31:10 chipmunks and, and birds, uh, they really affect the, uh, the balance of the local ecosystem.
00:31:18 But if you have love for cats too, not as much as dogs, I mean, dogs are, like you said,
00:31:22 they look at humans.
00:31:23 I actually read an article that some people were theorizing they’re smarter than chimps
00:31:26 because of the way they can work with humans.
00:31:29 And there was one border collie that spoke like 300 words, like a quarter, like a lang,
00:31:33 almost part of the language.
00:31:35 And their nose is like a mat.
00:31:36 I mean, that’s like magic, dude.
00:31:38 If you can smell in my ass to what I had for breakfast from miles away, that’s intelligence.
00:31:43 That’s intelligence.
00:31:44 I mean, in some ways that their nose, if you were to put it on a scale, maybe their nose
00:31:48 is more intelligent than our brain for what it does.
00:31:51 You know, it’s like, I mean, dude, they can smell you from miles away.
00:31:54 You ever see a dog just like sniffing, catching?
00:31:57 I mean, it’s smelling like, I don’t remember the, the, the date on it, but it’s like, they
00:32:01 have like millions of receptors or something where we only, you know, thank God we don’t
00:32:06 have their nose.
00:32:07 That would be, that would make sex weird, be a little too intense.
00:32:13 I think you mentioned when you were talking about Woody Allen separating the, the art
00:32:18 from the artist.
00:32:19 So that brings to mind Vladimir Putin.
00:32:24 How about that transition?
00:32:25 I don’t know.
00:32:26 I’m so sorry.
00:32:29 But if you look at just powerful leaders throughout history, Stalin, Hitler, but even modern ones
00:32:36 like Putin, and we’re talking about power.
00:32:40 How do you explain them?
00:32:42 You said that power reveals, not corrupts, but do you think there’s some element to which
00:32:50 power corrupted Hitler, power corrupted Stalin after he gained power?
00:32:55 And the same with Putin.
00:32:56 When Putin gained power in 2000, do you think the amount of power that he was in possession
00:33:01 with for many years, do you think that corrupted him?
00:33:04 I mean, we’re joking about dictators get the job done.
00:33:07 There is some sense in certain countries where a dictator is the only thing that can stabilize
00:33:16 a nation.
00:33:19 The counter argument to that for democracies is like, yeah, but that’s a short term solution
00:33:24 for a long term problem.
00:33:26 So you want to embrace chaos with democracy.
00:33:29 That might be violent.
00:33:30 There might be a lot of just constant changing of leadership.
00:33:35 There might be a lot of corruption in the short term, but if you stay strong with the
00:33:42 ideals of democracy, then you’ll be ultimately create something that as beautiful and stable
00:33:47 as the United States.
00:33:51 The sad thing is, is I don’t know if history tells that story.
00:33:55 It’s like I said, you look at Greece, you look at Rome, democracy kind of failed.
00:33:59 The majority of Rome, the most successful empire that we’ve had, was a dictatorship
00:34:07 for most of its run.
00:34:10 But I do believe in a republic, which is sort of a limited democracy.
00:34:14 I do believe in what we have here.
00:34:17 I believe in common law.
00:34:18 I believe in individual rights.
00:34:23 But yeah, I think you said it.
00:34:26 Nobody could have said it better.
00:34:27 Yeah.
00:34:28 It’s a short term solution.
00:34:29 You look at Saddam Hussein, he kind of, when we took him out, then there was a lot of infighting
00:34:35 that happened that he was kind of keeping at bay because he was a strong man, dictator.
00:34:43 Well, he’s an interesting one, sorry to interrupt.
00:34:46 From my understanding, I’m sure people will correct me, but when Saddam Hussein first
00:34:50 came to power, he was, he’s quite progressive.
00:34:54 So like the, as far as I understand, the signs of an evil dictator weren’t exactly there.
00:35:03 So again, there’s, I don’t know if power revealed or power corrupted.
00:35:07 Or that could have been the initial subterfuge to kind of get everybody, you know, Hitler
00:35:11 also is a champion of the people.
00:35:13 It’s built some new roads.
00:35:14 It’s with psychopaths too.
00:35:15 And that’s why it’s interesting to me.
00:35:17 I’m not sure if power corrupts psychopaths.
00:35:20 And now that we know that we can do these CAT scans and brain scans, we know that they’re
00:35:23 born that way.
00:35:25 Power definitely corrupts people who have the capacity to feel and for empathy.
00:35:33 Power I’m not sure.
00:35:34 I don’t think power corrupts people who were born psychopathic with that condition or sociopaths
00:35:41 who had, who, you know, who were closer to psychopath and then had some traumatic life.
00:35:46 You know, I just think, you know, the best way to get away with whatever nefarious thing
00:35:52 you want to do to feel, I guess the only thing psychopaths can feel is that excitement, is
00:35:56 to pretend to be the opposite of what you are.
00:35:58 That’s what, that’s what killers do.
00:36:00 That’s what the worst people, look at Bill Cosby.
00:36:02 I mean, he was, what better way to hide, you know, it’s like what wokeness is now.
00:36:08 It’s like, I’m such a great person and then you’re like, are you?
00:36:11 It’s a great, the best way to hide is to pretend to be the opposite of what you are.
00:36:16 Just like Ted Bundy.
00:36:17 I’m just an innocent, helpful guy.
00:36:18 And then boom, next thing you know, you’re getting your tit bit off.
00:36:21 That’s really well said.
00:36:22 It’s actually kind of funny because I talk about love a lot.
00:36:25 And I think the people that kind of look at me with squinty eyes, they wonder like how
00:36:32 many bodies are in that closet, you know what I mean?
00:36:35 Like there’s something about the duality of like, we’re so skeptical as a culture.
00:36:40 Like if somebody is just like, seems to be kind of, sort of, I don’t know, positive and
00:36:48 all that kind of, you know, how do I put it?
00:36:50 Just simple, simple minded in the positivity they express.
00:36:55 They think like, okay, there’s some demons in there.
00:36:57 Yeah.
00:36:58 Especially if you’re a New Yorker, we don’t trust any, the nicer you are, the more skeptical
00:37:01 we are.
00:37:02 Yeah.
00:37:03 I’ve struggled with that down here.
00:37:04 And they’re like, nah, dude, just, I wanted to show you the best tacos, man.
00:37:07 And I’m like, did you really, what do you want?
00:37:10 Because in New York, it’s like, if anyone’s nice to you, they want something.
00:37:13 And that’s, the pro side to that is it makes you very street smart.
00:37:18 The downside to that is it makes you way too cynical.
00:37:20 Yeah.
00:37:21 I’ve definitely experienced that here in Texas, but people are super, super nice.
00:37:26 And they’re like, do all this cool shit for you and you wonder, what’s the angle?
00:37:32 What are we doing here?
00:37:33 You mentioned hyenas as your favorite animal.
00:37:35 I forgot to ask you, what the hell were you thinking?
00:37:39 Why is a hyena is your favorite animal?
00:37:41 Yeah.
00:37:42 It’s a fascinating animal.
00:37:45 Let’s look at the whole animal kingdom.
00:37:47 Like why is it, where do you put, so you like dogs, love my favorite, your favorite is dogs,
00:37:52 but they’re kind of outside the animal kingdom because you’re thinking about wolves.
00:37:56 So the animal kingdom is in nature.
00:37:59 Dogs escaped nature.
00:38:00 They kind of did.
00:38:02 Uh, together with humans, like in a collaborative way, exactly.
00:38:06 So within nature, within the animal kingdom, what, who’s, uh, why not lions?
00:38:11 Because lions are predictable.
00:38:14 Lions are just, you know, they’re regal and kind of, they bore me.
00:38:16 It’s like the hot chick.
00:38:18 It’s like, we get it.
00:38:19 You were born the best.
00:38:21 Yeah.
00:38:22 You know, I like a scrappy, by any means necessary, intelligent and cunning.
00:38:28 But aren’t they dishonest?
00:38:30 Yeah.
00:38:31 And that’s why I like them.
00:38:33 Yes.
00:38:34 They’re dishonest.
00:38:35 They employ chicanery.
00:38:36 They, uh, they’re, and that’s just a sign of how intelligent they are and how self reliant
00:38:42 they are and how brutal they are.
00:38:44 Um, they’re brutally honest in how much they lie, you know, because it’s just, they’re
00:38:50 trying to get the job done.
00:38:52 You know, lions are just like, they’re, they’re too gifted.
00:38:55 Everyone hates the fucking, you know, if I went to school with you, I’d be like, of course,
00:38:59 Lex knows the fucking answer.
00:39:00 Yeah.
00:39:01 Lex was born smarter than me.
00:39:02 Yeah.
00:39:03 You know, and you’d probably hate me because I was the kid always seeking attention and
00:39:06 making people, it’s like, that’s not interesting.
00:39:09 The guy that claws his way to the top and those are hyenas.
00:39:12 They’re also fascinating just by, uh, merely who they are.
00:39:16 I mean, they’re not related to any other animal.
00:39:19 They’re more closely related to cats than they are dogs, even though they look like
00:39:23 a dog.
00:39:24 Yeah.
00:39:25 They’re, but they’re very, like very tangentially related even to cats.
00:39:28 So they’re their own kind of thing, which is kind of mysterious.
00:39:31 I don’t think they fully figured out and uh, they, the pseudo penis thing is the, is the,
00:39:36 I mean,
00:39:37 Can you explain the pseudo penis?
00:39:38 Yeah.
00:39:39 So the, it’s a matriarchal society by the way.
00:39:42 So that’s the unique in and of itself that this, we’re talking about an apex predator
00:39:46 that is a matriarchal, much like, uh, you know, the praying mantis.
00:39:49 It’s very rare though.
00:39:51 And they are fucking brutal and vicious and the women are bigger and they let their cubs
00:39:55 fight, a lot of fratricide and they do that because they’re like, Hey, you’re weaker.
00:39:59 I let your brother kill you.
00:40:01 And uh, the women have penises, the women have pseudo penises that they give birth out
00:40:05 of and the birth is violent, but they, they roll around with just huge pieces.
00:40:10 They’re glue guns are just fucking swinging, you know, and the women are just run the show
00:40:15 and uh, it’s just cool that they have these pseudo penises.
00:40:21 It’s almost romantic the way you describe it.
00:40:23 They have the strongest bite force.
00:40:25 They they pulverize bone.
00:40:26 Like when they eat an animal, the animal’s gone.
00:40:29 There’s no bones.
00:40:30 They eat everything.
00:40:31 They can pulverize their bite is so powerful.
00:40:34 They pulverize bone and eat it.
00:40:36 So if they consume an animal, it, the animal was there and then the animal’s gone.
00:40:40 There’s no nothing for the vultures there to, uh, to, to, to grab.
00:40:44 Yeah.
00:40:45 I’m going to have to revisit the hyenas because my experience with the heinous was from, uh,
00:40:50 first of all, history is your show, uh, has rebranded them for me, but, uh, the lion king,
00:40:57 which is, uh, a cartoon, I guess, that, uh, I get emotional at every time I, I hope that
00:41:05 probably a father issues, every guy probably just, you just have feelings.
00:41:09 You’re a good guy.
00:41:10 I mean, everyone has feelings.
00:41:11 Yeah.
00:41:12 Yeah.
00:41:13 That one gets everybody.
00:41:14 I don’t know.
00:41:15 I get, I get every father son movie, like blow with Johnny Depp, uh, and, uh, really
00:41:20 Yoda.
00:41:21 Damn.
00:41:22 That’s a good movie.
00:41:23 And whenever there’s like, um, like the disappointment in the father that his son has become like
00:41:29 this incredibly successful drug lord that then ends up with nothing in, in, in prison,
00:41:36 uh, just the sadness of them communicating through letters, man, it gets me every time,
00:41:41 but, but, you know, uh, there, the hyenas are not presented that well in that, um,
00:41:47 No, they’re usually portrayed as like, uh, it’s, it’s really, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s
00:41:50 really sad that they’re portrayed that way as lions.
00:41:53 Like lions aren’t dicks.
00:41:55 Lions are dicks.
00:41:56 They, the, the, the, the alpha lions will kill the cubs of another rival.
00:42:00 They do all types of dick shit.
00:42:02 Yeah.
00:42:03 And, um, yeah, it’s, uh, the hyenas are more interesting.
00:42:06 Like they’ll just roll in like a hyena will like, like you said, the lie, you know, cause
00:42:10 when you watch the Serengeti, you know, animals will hang out with each other.
00:42:13 They’re like by water.
00:42:15 So one hyena will just kind of roll in and pretend like it’s not hungry and then bang.
00:42:20 They’ll use any means necessary to take an animal down.
00:42:23 Like lions will just use brute strength.
00:42:26 Hyenas use cunning and you can even go on the internet and find, uh, memes of this where
00:42:31 hyenas will grab the big animal by the balls and just like, we’ll sneak up behind it and
00:42:35 bite its balls.
00:42:37 And you’ll watch an animal 10 size, 10 times the size of the hyena just slowly go down.
00:42:42 It’s brutal, but it’s fucking hilarious.
00:42:44 So I, I think that’s, uh, I don’t know if you follow the channel, um, nature’s metal
00:42:51 that, that one weighs heavy on me.
00:42:56 Um, with the hyenas on the balls, I it’s tough to, to intellectualize it.
00:43:03 It’s tough to think that the entirety of life on earth has this history of, uh, predators
00:43:11 being violent, just like just the murder that we come from.
00:43:17 It’s crazy.
00:43:18 I, it, uh, just like when we’re talking about meditating on death, I actually, I keep following
00:43:23 and unfollowing that Instagram channel because like sometimes it’s too much.
00:43:28 Like I can’t, I can’t continue with the day after like seeing the brutality, the honest
00:43:32 brutality of that.
00:43:34 I don’t know how to make sense of it.
00:43:36 It’s important to acknowledge, I think, cause that it’s real and we do come from that.
00:43:40 We are, we evolve from that.
00:43:42 It’s important.
00:43:43 We still do that.
00:43:44 We’re just hidden from it.
00:43:45 You know, when you go to the supermarket and get your slab of meat, you know, you’re so
00:43:48 disconnected from where that meat came from.
00:43:51 It came from that and often that’s uglier to watch than because there’s some honesty,
00:43:57 you know, the, the, the, the nature channels only show, uh, that’s why we have so much
00:44:02 sympathy with the prey.
00:44:03 And this is where I think the same thing with mafia movies, they don’t show what the mafia
00:44:06 really does.
00:44:07 They glorify the good parts.
00:44:08 That’s why I like state of grace cause it’s really just shaking down old people and fucking
00:44:11 being dicks.
00:44:12 It’s not driving nice cars and being like, you know, so, and, and animal channels do
00:44:16 the same thing.
00:44:17 They only show when the cheetah gets it because that’s, that’s the exciting part.
00:44:22 But what most people don’t know is that those predators strike out almost always a majority
00:44:27 of the time, the prey wins.
00:44:30 And so if you saw that and put it in context, you might not hate it as much when the predator
00:44:35 actually gets the little fawn or whatever, because it’s so many fawns got away.
00:44:39 It’s so hard to capture your prey.
00:44:42 And you know, we, we don’t have the, the, the, they no, no documentary is going to sit
00:44:46 around and show you the 99 times the cheetah didn’t catch.
00:44:51 Thank you for this perspective.
00:44:52 It’s murder is difficult.
00:44:54 So like this is the, they never talk about for people who murder how difficult that is
00:44:59 like to trap somebody, to convince them to come back to your place, give it some respect,
00:45:05 put some respect on Ted Bundy’s name.
00:45:06 Yeah.
00:45:07 It’s not easy to convince somebody to get in your Volkswagen Beagle and, and the cleanup.
00:45:11 And then you have to kind of plan ahead because you want to keep doing the murder, mass murder.
00:45:15 You gotta learn how to saw them up, put them in duffel bags, bury, you gotta learn to dig,
00:45:19 you gotta learn how to hide.
00:45:20 You gotta learn to lie.
00:45:21 I mean, it’s a lot that goes into it that we need to put a little respect on.
00:45:25 Yeah.
00:45:26 Yeah.
00:45:27 And you have to figure out which tools work the best for the sawing and all those kinds
00:45:29 of things.
00:45:30 Um, um, so thank you for the perspective.
00:45:33 That’s what I was hoping we would bring to this table.
00:45:38 So you, um, uh, you got a little bit Greek in you.
00:45:42 Uh, one of the episodes on, on a history hyenas, you talked about the battle of Crete where
00:45:50 the Greeks, your people in, uh, uh, in 19, I guess 41 and the early stages of the world
00:45:58 war II, there’s one of the most epic battles of the war.
00:46:02 Uh, in fact, in 1941 in a speech made at the Reichstag, Hitler paid tribute to the bravery
00:46:09 of the Greek saying, it must be said, uh, for the sake of historical truth that amongst
00:46:15 all our opponents, only the Greeks fought with the endless courage and defiance of death.
00:46:22 So okay.
00:46:23 What do you make of this battle?
00:46:24 What do you make of the spirit of the Greek people?
00:46:27 This is one of the closest things to me because my mother was actually on the island of Crete
00:46:33 during this, the first aerial invasion in history.
00:46:35 A lot of people don’t know that.
00:46:37 So this is a very significant battle.
00:46:39 Um, first time there was an invasion from the sky, um, and, uh, my mother was a little
00:46:44 girl and she lived through four years of a Nazi occupation there.
00:46:48 So my mother was a human rights lawyer and everything, but she just always hated Germans.
00:46:51 It’s just what it is.
00:46:53 She hated Germans and she never got over it.
00:46:55 So the most progressive, open minded woman just could not get over this.
00:46:59 Um, it’s a monumental battle that a lot of historians in retrospect have now looked back
00:47:04 on and said, because the Nazis, first off, you got to take it back to when Hitler instructed
00:47:10 Mussolini.
00:47:11 Cause let’s be honest, Mussolini was Hitler’s bitch.
00:47:12 You know what I mean?
00:47:13 It was like, if it, well, you know, if it was fantasy island, Hitler was the fucking
00:47:17 and the, and Mussolini was boss, the plane.
00:47:19 Mussolini ever say no to Hitler or even maybe it’s always like, yes, yes, yes, we will do
00:47:25 it.
00:47:26 And, uh, it’s like, yeah, it takes, you have to take Greece.
00:47:29 And so, um, yeah, so Italy being much bigger than Greece, Greece is a tiny country, nine,
00:47:37 10 million.
00:47:38 So Italy invaded Greece, um, you know, um, and Aukey day’s a big, it’s a big holiday
00:47:45 for Greeks.
00:47:46 And this speaks to the spirit Greeks in fight until we have a common enemy and then we unite,
00:47:52 you see it throughout history, Sparta and Athens, you see it in Greek families where
00:47:58 the brothers will fight.
00:47:59 But then as soon as we have a common enemy, we unite and maybe it’s an overactive brain.
00:48:03 We think too much, our traditions, philosophy, and we overthink things and we fight with
00:48:07 each other and take things personally, we’re ultra passionate.
00:48:10 But when Italy said, Hey, we’re going to move troops through, you know, uh, a Greek said
00:48:17 Aukey, which means no, and that was, um, and then Italy attacked and, uh, we beat the shit
00:48:23 out of them.
00:48:24 A much bigger country, much, uh, more well equipped country.
00:48:28 Greece beat the shit of them, kicked them back into Albania, actually not only repelled
00:48:32 them, actually like conquered some ground in Albania, pushed them back.
00:48:36 And then Hitler was like, fuck, you know, I was planning my March to Russia, uh, but
00:48:41 I have to go down because he basically said to Mussolini, like, you know, you’re basically
00:48:45 bitch slapped.
00:48:46 I’m like, I got to do this myself because you’re such a fucking bitch.
00:48:49 So then the Nazis invaded Greece.
00:48:51 Obviously they took the mainland with fight and shot out.
00:48:54 The Greeks never give credit to the British and New Zealand and Australian troops that
00:48:57 were there.
00:48:58 You know, they were a large part of this, the majority of it, but the Greeks fight dude,
00:49:03 civilians.
00:49:04 I mean, they fought, you know, the Ottomans were there 400 years.
00:49:07 You go to Greece.
00:49:08 Now there’s no evidence.
00:49:09 There’s virtually no evidence of them ever being there.
00:49:13 That’s the Greek spirit.
00:49:14 Kick them out and we kicked out hummus too.
00:49:17 So it’s like their culture’s gone.
00:49:18 You’re gone.
00:49:19 Cause Greeks are, uh, it’s philoptimo.
00:49:21 It’s called philoptimo.
00:49:22 And it’s a real thing.
00:49:23 Philoptimo is a, it’s very little translate.
00:49:26 You can’t translate it, but it’s kind of like honor, loyalty, friendship, uh, altruism.
00:49:33 It’s a, it’s, you can’t define it, but Greeks know it and we’re taught it from our, from
00:49:36 our, uh, families.
00:49:38 It’s a vibe, man.
00:49:39 It’s a Greek cultural thing and we’re an old culture and philoptimo is what it’s called
00:49:43 philoptimo.
00:49:44 And it’s, um, it’s love, it’s passion and it comes out and it comes out.
00:49:50 And so, um, so Hitler had to postpone his invasion of, um, of, uh, Russia went down
00:49:57 the island of Crete took 10 days to conquer.
00:50:01 It’s an island to put that in perspective, the country of France fell in three or four
00:50:07 days.
00:50:08 I can’t even remember cause they fucking just rolled over.
00:50:09 So what is it?
00:50:10 What does a couple of hours matter when you’re that much of a fucking pussy?
00:50:13 Okay.
00:50:14 What is a couple out in 12 hour fucking three or four days, the island of Crete took the
00:50:19 Germans 10 days to conquer.
00:50:22 And because of that, and because of the Greek resistance, Hitler had to postpone his invasion
00:50:28 of Russia to winter.
00:50:29 And of course that was, you know, that was his downfall just as it was Napoleon’s and
00:50:34 a never dude, never try to invade Russia.
00:50:37 They got millions of people to throw at death.
00:50:39 Every time you read about Russians in history books, like, and a million died.
00:50:42 I mean, it’s like, you just guys throw millions of people at the problem and don’t fuck with
00:50:46 that Russian winter and don’t fuck with Russian people, dude, they’re tough.
00:50:50 People in New York know that you don’t go to fucking sheep set bay and start talking
00:50:53 shit.
00:50:54 You’ll end up in a fucking car trunk and they’ll brutally murder you.
00:50:56 I do not fuck with Russians.
00:50:58 Amen.
00:50:59 And then there’s a, I mean, there’s a lot of people, a lot of historians argue that
00:51:03 that battle was because of the Russian winter because of delaying the Russian invasion,
00:51:07 but also psychologically delaying the invasion.
00:51:10 It was the first time, I think it was the first time the Germans failed, not, or didn’t
00:51:17 succeed like they wanted to early in the war, which is a little like psychologically the
00:51:23 impact of that I think is immeasurable.
00:51:26 And also a lot of people argue from a military strategy perspective that the, just like you
00:51:33 said, it was an aerial attack and that Hitler didn’t think that the, that kind of attack
00:51:39 would then be useful for the rest of the war.
00:51:42 So that’s, that’s a really part where, whereas it might’ve been very useful.
00:51:47 So it’s a, it’s really interesting how these little battles can steer the directions of
00:51:51 war.
00:51:52 Of course, me growing up in the Soviet Union, we didn’t hear much about this battle.
00:51:57 Just like you said, millions of Soviets died.
00:52:00 All those people in history that you read about dying, those are all civilians, but
00:52:03 I mean, not all, but a very large number of them are civilians and their stories, obviously
00:52:08 that’s the rooted, the literature, the poetry, the music, just the way people talk, the way
00:52:15 they drink vodka, the way they love, the way they hate, the way they fear.
00:52:20 That’s all like rooted in World War II and World War I.
00:52:24 And so, but we never kind of think about Europe and we certainly, growing up, didn’t think
00:52:32 about their role in the United States.
00:52:34 All this, there’s plenty of stories of heroism in the Soviet Union, enough to, enough for
00:52:39 many lifetimes.
00:52:40 So, but it was fascinating to read from a Greek perspective, cause I, you know, I don’t
00:52:45 have many Greek friends, I hope you didn’t change that.
00:52:50 This is the beginning of a love affair of your people.
00:52:54 Yeah.
00:52:55 But likewise, the Americans don’t hear about the Soviet contribution to the end of World
00:52:59 War II because obviously we became, you know, enemies after that because of the two systems.
00:53:04 But yeah, without the Russians, World War II wouldn’t have been won either.
00:53:08 Yeah.
00:53:09 The stories are written by the victors.
00:53:10 That’s really interesting.
00:53:11 I, just looking at the, at history, you wonder what’s missing.
00:53:16 I’ll tell you what’s missing that I know for a fact, cause my dad told, my dad told me
00:53:21 combat’s hell and he would tell me the reality of what it’s really like.
00:53:23 Guys pissing themselves, calling for their mother, the fog of war, obviously, fratricide
00:53:28 happens all the time.
00:53:29 It’s pandemonium.
00:53:30 I mean, there’s skill involved, but I mean, there’s no, like it’s a lot of it is just
00:53:33 luck.
00:53:34 My dad said, he, my dad won three, he got, you know, medals, braille, purple hearts,
00:53:39 all that shit.
00:53:40 And he said, the reason was, is cause you can’t, he always said, this is another thing.
00:53:42 He told me, you can’t pin a medal on a dead guy.
00:53:44 So it’s like, those are the guys who deserve it, but you can’t pin a medal.
00:53:47 You can’t do the pomp and, and I’ll tell you one thing is that it is written by the victors
00:53:55 and all these leaders, they say we’re in the front.
00:53:57 We’re not in the front.
00:53:58 We’re not in the front.
00:53:59 Whenever the history books say he led his troops into battle.
00:54:02 It’s like, did he really, did he, so then how did he live?
00:54:06 Cause they put like kids in the front, you know, it’s like nobody limps back from the
00:54:09 front with like a injury, you know, that’s, that’s army PR, you know, whenever you read,
00:54:15 you know, 27 soldiers died, 14 were injured.
00:54:20 The word injured is PR.
00:54:21 That’s like injured.
00:54:22 Was he, did he sprain his ankle?
00:54:25 Did he need, did he get carried off the court or, you know, he was maimed.
00:54:28 I mean, he was like, his leg was blown off, you know, it’s like, so, uh, I think that,
00:54:34 you know, Alexander the Great was just kind of in the back on his horse and just kind
00:54:37 of, he had his eunuch blow him a few times and he was like, is it bad up there?
00:54:40 And then like after that he was like, okay, my scribe, give me my scribe.
00:54:43 Okay.
00:54:44 When you write this down, can you put me in the front?
00:54:46 Yeah.
00:54:47 And I was just making me a big hero and I was in there and then he, you know, he just
00:54:50 blew his, you know, he had sex with his eunuch and rode off into the sunset because there’s
00:54:54 just no way you survive in the front, especially warfare back then.
00:54:57 I mean, it’s like brutal.
00:54:59 Then again, you have like, uh, Genghis Khan.
00:55:02 The sense I got that he was a little bit up on the front, at least the first.
00:55:07 Yeah.
00:55:08 Or is that also, is he a little bit Alexander the Great?
00:55:09 Give me my scribe.
00:55:10 Yeah.
00:55:11 It’s all lore.
00:55:12 I mean, you ever play the game of telephone?
00:55:13 You know, it’s like, you know, there’s no video cameras back then.
00:55:16 So shit just get, turns into myth, you know, and, uh, there’s no way he was in the front.
00:55:21 There’s no way he wouldn’t have lived.
00:55:23 You know, he was probably good on horseback cause those, those dudes were good on horseback.
00:55:28 But it was like game of Thrones back then.
00:55:30 You had all these different people and they kind of, yeah, the, the, the Mongols were
00:55:33 wild dude.
00:55:34 They are actually said like, um, they started like they were more adaptable to the horse
00:55:39 because they were so good on horseback that kids started to be born like kind of bow legged
00:55:43 like to fit the horse.
00:55:44 It’s wild.
00:55:45 And they would stretch their heads and shit like that.
00:55:47 They wrap them and stretch their heads.
00:55:49 So they find like Mongol skulls and they look like cone heads and they were brutal and vicious
00:55:56 and they would maraud and rape and all the fun stuff that, you know, when, you know,
00:56:00 when you visit other places back then, there’s no tchotchke stops and souvenir shops.
00:56:04 What you do is you take women and those are the tokens, you know, you burn a few huts
00:56:08 different.
00:56:10 Tourism was different back then.
00:56:11 Yeah.
00:56:12 That’s another difficult thing.
00:56:15 So we’re talking about nature and predators to think about the long stretch of history
00:56:21 where we’re just murder and we made so much progress, I guess, in the past couple of centuries.
00:56:28 The United States is a shining example of that.
00:56:31 But do you think also that it’s that effect that we were, a lot of good things had to
00:56:35 happen too or else we wouldn’t be here.
00:56:37 So do we just focus, isn’t it like a car crash effect that like we’re, you know, the rubber
00:56:42 neck that everyone pulls over to see a car crash, are we just only focusing on the negative
00:56:46 things of history because they’re just more exciting to us?
00:56:48 Like it’s just not, it’s boring to be like, yeah, and then there was a bunch of villagers
00:56:51 and they ate every day and danced and loved.
00:56:55 Yeah.
00:56:56 I wonder, I wonder how different those people were, you know, like they might’ve had the
00:57:01 same exact loves and fears and like they perhaps had the same kind of brilliant ideas in their
00:57:09 head, if not more brilliant.
00:57:11 And we kind of think about like this moment in history is like the most special moment.
00:57:16 Like we’re doing the coolest shit that we’re doing the most amazing building and most amazing
00:57:20 things.
00:57:21 But maybe they were building amazing things in their different way with like less technological,
00:57:25 but in the space of ideas, in the space of just all the different, the camaraderie and
00:57:30 the space of like concepts, mathematics, all those kinds of things.
00:57:35 Yeah.
00:57:36 I mean, Greece, you look at the architecture, it still stands up.
00:57:37 I mean, all the government, but it’s still arguably, I mean, as far as objective beauty,
00:57:42 it’s hard to argue that Greco Roman, it’s just something about it with the, with the
00:57:47 columns.
00:57:48 It’s just, it’s powerful.
00:57:50 It’s I don’t know, even Ayn Rand would probably appreciate it.
00:57:54 She doesn’t, no, no, no.
00:57:59 So in your history, hyenas that unfortunately has come to an end, we’re talking about empires
00:58:04 coming to an end, all empires fall.
00:58:08 That one, it may rise again.
00:58:11 Empires might rise again.
00:58:12 Who knows?
00:58:13 Who knows?
00:58:14 I, I’m obviously a fan, so I hope it does rise again, but you’ve seemed to develop your
00:58:20 own language.
00:58:22 Can you, you know, it’s what it is.
00:58:26 What is, what is that?
00:58:28 What the hell, is this some kind of medical condition or can you, can you explain like
00:58:34 the linguistic essentials that catch us up to the linguistic essentials that people need
00:58:39 to know to understand the way you speak?
00:58:43 You know, Leopold and Loeb, you know the story of those two, they murdered that kid and they
00:58:47 had this weird relationship.
00:58:48 Anyway, it’s an interesting thing to Google, Leopold and Loeb, these two guys who ended
00:58:53 up murdering a kid because they developed their own language with each other and this
00:58:57 own reality and this weird thing and they wanted to know what it’s like to murder a
00:59:00 kid and they murder a kid.
00:59:01 It’s a famous story in American lore and history or whatever, famous case.
00:59:07 But this phenomenon, yeah, me and Chris got together.
00:59:10 It wasn’t as dark as Leopold and Loeb, we didn’t murder a kid, but we murdered a podcast.
00:59:15 Or at least stabbed it a few times.
00:59:18 Yeah, it’s, it was something in the organic chemistry of me and Chris that I think we’ll
00:59:24 both end up appreciating even probably more than we do now that it’s mysterious.
00:59:31 I got to be honest with you, it’s, it was a thing that it wasn’t conscious, wasn’t intentional.
00:59:39 It was something that happened in the music of our energies that just went.
00:59:45 Like when you hear someone sing or when a jazz band hits a rhythm or even when I’m on
00:59:50 stage and I just catch a rhythm, it’s like, dude, I didn’t make a choice there.
00:59:54 I don’t know what that is.
00:59:55 I don’t know how to explain it, but it comes from somewhere else and I don’t know what
01:00:00 it is.
01:00:01 It’s beyond my comprehension.
01:00:02 But with Chris, there was this magical chemistry that, you know, I have chemistry with a lot
01:00:07 of people and it can be funny and I feel zero chemistry here.
01:00:11 This is great.
01:00:12 Yeah.
01:00:13 It’s a little bit more intelligent than what me and Chris did.
01:00:17 But you know, me and Chris, I think we connected on the funny bone.
01:00:21 Like I, he, I found him so funny and we found the same things funny.
01:00:26 And from that, these organic expressions came from some part of our brains that was created
01:00:33 from this chemistry.
01:00:34 And yeah, we just developed this language and this cult following and people were really
01:00:38 upset when we ended.
01:00:40 But it was the right thing to end because like all things that end, it was kind of done
01:00:44 a few episodes even before we finished.
01:00:46 And I think we pulled the plug before it started rolling downhill, like all, you know, like
01:00:52 all great flings, you know, there’s your long relation, long marriages are boring and comfortable.
01:00:59 The one you really like fucking always ends abruptly and sadly and, but you always look
01:01:05 back and you jerk off to it.
01:01:07 And so you guys made love and we made, yeah.
01:01:10 So it’s like, it was like a hot fling with me and him and it was intense and we burned
01:01:16 the candle at both ends.
01:01:17 And it was, I think that podcast was meant to be three years and maybe people will go
01:01:24 back and appreciate it and listen to it over and over again.
01:01:27 And I think the new things we do, people will love, I’m doing long days now, that podcast
01:01:31 and people seem to enjoy it.
01:01:32 I’ve been really enjoying the long days on YouTube.
01:01:35 I just found myself just like staring at you ranting for, same with Tim Dillon, I really
01:01:41 enjoyed the, whatever those rants are, the genius of just one thing after the other.
01:01:45 But definitely the chemistry, almost as a study, I remember the reason I first started
01:01:50 listening to it, I was trying to get a perspective on certain historical moments.
01:01:57 Like it was interesting.
01:01:58 I tuned in to learn history.
01:02:00 Yeah.
01:02:01 I came for the history and like stayed for the chaos and the crack open and clean out.
01:02:08 And yeah, this, it was almost, I listened to Rogan like this sometimes.
01:02:14 I’ll relisten to an episode to try to understand why was this so fun to listen to?
01:02:23 It’s almost like trying to analyze humor or something like that.
01:02:26 But it’s nice from a conversational perspective, like why was this so easy to listen to?
01:02:32 And with History of Hyenas, like why is the chemistry so good?
01:02:37 It’s so, it’s weird.
01:02:39 It’s weird.
01:02:40 Cause there’s not many podcasts like, I don’t know any with the chemistry like that.
01:02:44 It’s interesting.
01:02:45 And it’s kind of sad that the fling with a prostitute in Vegas has to end, you know?
01:02:54 But that’s what makes it special.
01:02:55 It’s the Bukowski thing with the fog.
01:02:58 The British Office, one of my favorite shows was that it ended very quick.
01:03:03 It’s only a couple of seasons or something like that.
01:03:05 And that was tragic, but that took guts to just end it.
01:03:09 Given all the money you could have made, given all the, you just end it.
01:03:13 And that’s what makes it truly special.
01:03:14 Yeah.
01:03:15 And I’ll tell you, man, I’ll just emphasize it.
01:03:17 Cause I marvel at it too.
01:03:19 Cause as a guy who tries to always figure out what the causes of things, I gotta be
01:03:24 honest, man.
01:03:25 Looking back on that, even with retrospective wisdom, you know, that 2020 hindsight, we’ve
01:03:29 been done a couple of months now, it’s something that I can’t explain.
01:03:35 It’s something that I don’t know how you quantify it.
01:03:38 I don’t know how you describe it.
01:03:40 It’s musical.
01:03:41 It’s really kind of rhythmic.
01:03:44 Maybe like a Netflix show about history.
01:03:48 That’s in the future with the two of you.
01:03:52 You guys will meet like the way you meet with a fling like a decade from now at a diner
01:03:59 and you’re both way fatter and uglier and then you just reminisce over some cigarettes
01:04:05 and coffee.
01:04:06 It could be.
01:04:07 Yeah, it could be.
01:04:08 Yeah.
01:04:09 It’s definitely a classic podcast that people can go back and appreciate.
01:04:13 It’s fast paced and it was unique.
01:04:16 What was it like to research for, I mean, it was really scholarly, the depth of research
01:04:21 that you performed.
01:04:23 It sometimes felt like you almost read an entire Wikipedia article beforehand.
01:04:29 Or like.
01:04:30 Exactly true.
01:04:31 We were, we were one fan, we attracted such funny people to that podcast and the fans
01:04:38 were so funny and one fan called us nicknamed as Wikipedia sluts.
01:04:43 And so it just stuck.
01:04:44 Yeah.
01:04:45 We just would read Wikipedia.
01:04:46 I would do a lot more research than Chris.
01:04:48 And so I would actually, you know, once in a while he’d get into it too.
01:04:52 But for very interesting episodes, I got some subject matter would just pull me in.
01:04:58 Like Bernie Madoff, just to think of one that was recent, it was one of our last ones.
01:05:01 And I think one of our better episodes and I’m glad that it kind of ended after that
01:05:06 because it was rare to, I think we started to slip a little bit.
01:05:09 I got fascinated and I got, I did a lot of research for Bernie Madoff, but usually, yeah,
01:05:13 we’d pull up Wikipedia and we’d have fun.
01:05:15 We were sort of the antithesis of Dan Carlin.
01:05:17 I mean, you went to Dan Carlin for accuracy and thoughtfulness and you went to us for,
01:05:24 it was a hang with history.
01:05:26 That’s why history hyenas was such an appropriate name because it was, it was a little bit of
01:05:30 history.
01:05:31 Some, some episodes were more hyena, more wild and a little history and some were a
01:05:35 little more dense, like the battle of Crete and less hyena.
01:05:38 So you were, you were always going to get both, you’re either going to get a majority
01:05:41 of one or the other.
01:05:42 Yeah.
01:05:43 And Dan Carlin is the lion, I guess.
01:05:44 Yeah.
01:05:45 And you guys, predictably good.
01:05:48 Yeah.
01:05:49 I mean, what, what are your thoughts about, I mean, he’s a storyteller too.
01:05:53 He gets a lot of criticism for the, from the historians, quote unquote.
01:05:57 That’s why he likes to knock.
01:05:59 He keeps saying he’s not a historian, but what’s your, what are your thoughts about
01:06:04 the hardcore history with Dan Carlin?
01:06:06 Like, was he an inspiration to the podcast you were doing or, or like an account, like
01:06:15 a, almost like a reverse psychology inspiration where you wanted to do some kind of opposing
01:06:20 type of podcast in history or was history always just like a, a launching pad to just
01:06:27 talk shit about human nature?
01:06:29 More of the latter.
01:06:31 I wasn’t even aware of his podcast when we started.
01:06:33 Oh, interesting.
01:06:34 Yeah.
01:06:35 And so we, it was just very organic, again, like the chemistry, me and Chris became very
01:06:39 good friends.
01:06:40 We started the podcast.
01:06:41 First we did a web series called Bay Ridge Boys, which has its sort of little cult following.
01:06:45 We did like five episodes and ended it.
01:06:48 And then we did the podcast and hi, hyenas were my favorite animal and I talk about them
01:06:53 passionately and I told Chris about them and then he started appreciating them and we both
01:06:57 love history.
01:06:58 I majored in history.
01:06:59 It’s one of the things I love.
01:07:00 I go to museums all the time.
01:07:01 I go to his, I do history tours, so does he.
01:07:03 And so it was just sort of a natural, let’s do a history podcast and it gave us something
01:07:07 to talk about each episode to sort of lean our, you know, hang our hats on and, and riff
01:07:12 off of.
01:07:13 So it had nothing to do with dance.
01:07:15 What I think about dance, I think it’s great.
01:07:17 I think even if he’s inaccurate in the opinions of the historical community, it starts conversations,
01:07:24 which is good.
01:07:25 It’s like this thing where people go, oh, it’s dangerous rhetoric.
01:07:28 It’s like, no, rhetoric only becomes dangerous when education fails.
01:07:32 What’s going on in America is education has failed.
01:07:35 So if you call someone online dangerous, it’s not him that’s dangerous.
01:07:39 It’s the fucking stupid people that’s dangerous.
01:07:41 And it’s the fault of this country.
01:07:42 We didn’t listen to Aristotle.
01:07:44 The future of a civilization depends on public education and we failed.
01:07:50 Education has failed.
01:07:51 Kids are, kids are not interested in shit.
01:07:53 And so in some sense, those dance podcasts and podcasts can be incredibly educational.
01:07:59 Because he’s a, the storytelling that pulls you in ultimately leads to you internalizing
01:08:07 these stories and like remembering them and thinking through them and all those kinds
01:08:11 of things that is much more powerful than you book on history.
01:08:15 That’s accurate.
01:08:16 I think often it inspires you to go learn more.
01:08:18 So it’s like, I know we did that.
01:08:19 I mean, you know, I, people would go, Hey, I went and learned about this because they
01:08:23 knew with us, there was no pretense, which was great that we had no standard.
01:08:27 So it’s like, nobody came to us for historical accuracy, but I was kind of turned on by the
01:08:32 fact that it inspired people to go learn about this stuff or to at least know like Battle
01:08:37 of Crete, like you said, a very underappreciated battle.
01:08:42 Even Winston Churchill said from here on, we will no longer say that Greeks fight like
01:08:47 heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks.
01:08:49 I mean, it was a monumental battle and you know, not talked about enough.
01:08:54 And I, our podcast would inspire people to go actually learn more, to go listen to Dan
01:09:00 Carlin or to go pick up a book or to do research on their own.
01:09:04 And so I think podcasts, Dan Carlin’s obviously much more accurate than us, but it’s good
01:09:10 that people are going to podcasts like yours and to learn shit.
01:09:13 Joe was, is really like the progenitor of that.
01:09:16 I mean, you know, having intellectuals on and getting the public interested with this
01:09:22 new medium in, in people who are intelligent.
01:09:27 It’s nice.
01:09:28 Cause you know, what the mainstream press pushes out is horseshit, gorgeous horseshit.
01:09:33 It’s got a beautiful veneer, but no substance.
01:09:37 And so this, this is a nice pushback.
01:09:39 Yeah.
01:09:40 The authenticity of Joe’s show.
01:09:41 I mean, I’m through, I started listening from the very beginning, you know, doing my in
01:09:46 grad school, you know, like a technical person and he just pulled me in.
01:09:51 And made me curious to learn about all kinds of things and use my own critical reasoning
01:09:57 skills on some of the bullshit guests he’s had and some of the most inspiring guests
01:10:02 he’s had.
01:10:03 And so I teach you to think, can you, I don’t know much about Bernie Madoff as a small tangent.
01:10:08 Can you, can you tell me who the hell is Bernie Madoff?
01:10:10 Oh, Bernie Madoff is the GOAT.
01:10:13 The greatest thief of all time, dude.
01:10:16 Hedge fund guy, ran a hedge fund and pulled, stole the most money in the history of America.
01:10:22 I mean a con artist and he does, people obviously he’s become, he’s a household name because
01:10:29 of the magnitude of his crime, but you got to appreciate, again, you got to appreciate
01:10:34 what went into this and how long he was able to pull it off by tricking the smartest and
01:10:39 richest people in the world and a brilliant scam.
01:10:43 The con man, con man is short for confidence man.
01:10:47 And it came from, yeah, a con man, basically they exude confidence and they trick people
01:10:53 by playing on their ego and blind spots.
01:10:56 And the word comes from a guy, I can’t remember where, but what he used to do, I can’t remember
01:11:00 the guy’s name, whatever, you can Google it, con man.
01:11:03 But it’s very interesting.
01:11:04 The first con man that is on record, what he would do, he would go to very rich people
01:11:08 and he’d be very well dressed, right?
01:11:11 And he’d go, I bet you, you don’t have the confidence to give me your watch.
01:11:16 And he would play on the egos of these very powerful and rich people and they would give
01:11:19 them the watch for some reason, some sort of reverse psychology bullshit.
01:11:23 And he’d take the watch and he would just steal it because basically saying like, you
01:11:27 don’t have the confidence to give me the watch because you don’t, I don’t know, you don’t
01:11:29 think I’m going to give it back.
01:11:30 And he would just take it.
01:11:31 So Bernie Madoff was a very sophisticated con man.
01:11:35 And again, we were talking about people pretending to be the opposite of what they are.
01:11:39 And he hid his thievery in how available he was to his clients, how he would show up at
01:11:46 every bar mitzvah, every birthday, he was always available for their phone calls.
01:11:50 And he played on their egos.
01:11:52 He made it so people wanted to invest in him, like they were competing.
01:11:56 He made it very exclusive.
01:11:58 He wouldn’t just take anyone.
01:12:00 And there was a method behind that madness because he wanted the whales that wouldn’t
01:12:04 notice that he had this pyramid scheme going.
01:12:07 And so what he would do is he would just rob from the richer and he just kept, it was like
01:12:11 he’d pay back the richer with the guy who was a little, and it was a pyramid scheme.
01:12:15 And he was able to do it for so long and steal so much money.
01:12:20 And he would win people over with the scheme because with that scheme, he was the only
01:12:24 guy who could provide, who could guarantee like a 1% return even during times of recession.
01:12:30 And because he was such a good con man, he hijacked people’s reasoning with his charm.
01:12:35 And that’s what con artists do.
01:12:36 That’s what psychopaths do.
01:12:37 They’re so fucking charming.
01:12:38 They get you in that Volkswagen Beetle.
01:12:41 Because if they use their reasoning for one second, they’d go, hey, nobody can provide
01:12:45 1% returns during recessions.
01:12:46 How the fuck is this guy doing it?
01:12:48 I’ll tell you how he’s doing it.
01:12:49 He’s stealing from another guy to pay you.
01:12:51 You fucking idiot.
01:12:52 So charisma is essential to that.
01:12:54 Maybe you can help explain something to me, something I have been affected by.
01:13:00 I’m getting way too loud for your listeners, there’s going to be comments like, tell this
01:13:02 guy to calm down.
01:13:03 I’m sorry, I’m Greek, I’m positive.
01:13:07 No, that’s beautiful.
01:13:09 I love it.
01:13:10 Something that I have been thinking about and have encountered indirectly is Jeffrey
01:13:15 Epstein.
01:13:16 And I have a sense because of MIT, because of all the other people that have been touched,
01:13:24 the wrong term, by Jeffrey Epstein in the sense that literally and figuratively.
01:13:30 And it always felt to me like there’s not a deep conspiracy, I don’t know, but it felt
01:13:37 to me like it’s not some deeply rooted conspiracy where like Eric Weinstein thinks that there’s
01:13:44 some probability that Jeffrey Epstein is a front for like an intelligence agency, whether
01:13:50 it’s Israeli or the CIA, I don’t know, but is a front for something much, much bigger.
01:13:57 And then I always thought that he’s just, maybe you can correct me, but more of the
01:14:02 Bernie Madoff variety, where he’s just a charismatic guy who maybe is psychopathic in some sense,
01:14:10 so you know, also a pedophile, but just charismatic and is able to convince people of that 1%
01:14:16 of any idea that in the case of scientists is able to convince these people that their
01:14:23 ideas matter.
01:14:25 So one thing scientists don’t really, you know, despite what people say, I don’t think
01:14:29 they care about money as much as people think.
01:14:32 I mean, people are ridiculous when they think that, yeah, that’s why people get into science
01:14:35 for the money.
01:14:36 Yeah, right.
01:14:37 The personalities that get into science are obsessed with minutia and they do the scientific
01:14:41 method.
01:14:42 You know how boring that is?
01:14:43 Like you have to have a love for it in order to do it.
01:14:46 But the thing, what drives you is for your ideas to be then heard.
01:14:52 Like when a rich guy comes over, probably super charismatic, is going to tell you that
01:14:57 your ideas, especially for some of these outsiders at MIT, at Harvard, at Caltech, all these
01:15:03 like sort of big science, like physics, biology, artificial intelligence, computing fields,
01:15:13 to hear somebody say that your ideas are brilliant and ideas matter, it’s pretty powerful, especially
01:15:19 when you’ve been an outsider.
01:15:21 Like he’s talked to a bunch of people who had outsider ideas.
01:15:26 You know, the big negative for me of modern academia is that most people, actually like
01:15:34 most communities, most people think the same and there’s just these brilliant outsiders
01:15:38 and the outsiders are just derided.
01:15:41 And so when you have Jeffrey Epstein, like a hyena, sorry, sorry, sorry, going on the
01:15:47 outside and picking off these brilliant minds that are the outsiders, he can use charisma
01:15:52 to convince them to collaborate with him, to take his funding and then thereby he builds
01:15:59 a reputation, like slowly accumulates these people that actually results in a network
01:16:07 of like some of those brilliant people in the world, you know, and then pulls in people
01:16:12 like Bill Gates and I don’t know, political figures.
01:16:16 I tend to believe that one person can do that.
01:16:19 Yeah.
01:16:20 I mean, look at Hitler, charisma is blinding.
01:16:22 I think that’s what Kahneman, speaking of Bernie Madoff, that’s one of their major tools
01:16:27 is flattery, glib, superficial charm.
01:16:31 It creates those blind spots.
01:16:33 People want to hear how great they are.
01:16:34 They want to be flattered.
01:16:36 It takes your defenses down, plays to our ego, how much we’re all just pieces of garbage
01:16:42 and want to hear how great we are.
01:16:44 We want that love from our mother and our father.
01:16:46 That’s Freudian and they know because they’re not burdened with that need, they’re not burdened
01:16:52 with that empathy or emotions and they just see things very calculatively.
01:16:59 They play, they know that we’re prey in their game and they use that against us and that
01:17:04 is why someone who is not that intelligent, like Hitler, can probably convince a lot more
01:17:09 intelligent people, you know, and that’s why we can’t give Tim Dillon power because then,
01:17:14 you know, he already stands on a stage.
01:17:15 I mean, if we let that guy, I mean, he will just take over a country and everyone who
01:17:19 can’t cook well will be eliminated.
01:17:21 So it’s like…
01:17:22 I wonder why he keeps complimenting me when we’re in private.
01:17:25 Exactly.
01:17:26 Be careful.
01:17:27 He looks at me just, I like your suit.
01:17:29 I like the cut of your jib.
01:17:30 Yeah, definitely.
01:17:31 You gotta be careful of that kid.
01:17:32 He’s Hitler.
01:17:33 But it’s crazy to think about…
01:17:35 Clip that, please.
01:17:36 Internet.
01:17:37 I mean, Quentin Tarantino said it to Pat, I mean, in his script, personality goes a long
01:17:40 way, dude.
01:17:41 I mean, personality can usurp common sense and reason of the smartest people.
01:17:48 These absolute smartest people can be hypnotized.
01:17:52 It’s sort of like a sexy woman.
01:17:54 It’s like, you can just, you can be tricked because we have such a blind spot for, you
01:18:00 know, for flattery.
01:18:02 Yeah, I wonder.
01:18:03 I think there’s a BBC documentary on, I think it’s called something like Charisma, Hitler’s
01:18:08 Charisma or something like that.
01:18:10 It was quite, I mean, that one focused more about the power of the speeches.
01:18:15 But I wonder if most of the success or the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich had to
01:18:21 do with the charisma of Hitler when he’s alone in a room with somebody, with the generals,
01:18:27 just one on one.
01:18:28 Like, I wonder if that’s the essential element of just being able to just look into a person’s
01:18:34 eyes, like flatter them or whatever is needed to earn their trust and then convince them
01:18:41 of anything you want.
01:18:43 Right.
01:18:44 Yeah.
01:18:45 I mean, you’re right.
01:18:46 Because that’s the one piece of history we don’t have.
01:18:49 We don’t know.
01:18:50 We do know that the kid crushed.
01:18:53 I mean, he was a headliner.
01:18:55 He got up there and his hair would flop.
01:18:58 I mean, he crushed it.
01:19:00 Yeah, there’s certain elements about nationalism and pride that are really powerful.
01:19:04 Like a lot of us humans, I think, long for that, for the feeling of belonging.
01:19:10 And when some charismatic leader makes us feel like we belong to a group, the amount
01:19:18 of evil we can do to other humans because of that, it’s endless.
01:19:23 Nobody wants to look and nobody wants to do the work to be better or look at where they
01:19:26 messed up.
01:19:27 Why does it always have to be the Jews that escape?
01:19:29 You know, it’s like, get over it, guys.
01:19:32 I mean, it’s like they killed Jesus.
01:19:34 You get over it.
01:19:35 Yeah.
01:19:36 Okay.
01:19:37 It’s a long time ago.
01:19:38 I mean, move on.
01:19:39 I’m Jewish.
01:19:40 I understand because we do run the central banks.
01:19:41 And the weather.
01:19:42 And the weather.
01:19:43 Yeah.
01:19:44 Don’t forget about the weather.
01:19:45 That’s a big one.
01:19:46 That’s a funny one that people created.
01:19:47 Like, who gives a shit?
01:19:48 What is the weather?
01:19:49 Like, what’s the importance of the weather?
01:19:50 All right.
01:19:51 The Jews made it rain outside.
01:19:52 Good.
01:19:53 You got to fuck.
01:19:54 You know, they made it snow.
01:19:55 Okay.
01:19:56 You get a day off.
01:19:57 Thank the Jews.
01:19:58 Yeah.
01:19:59 It’s like, yeah, there’s certain conspiracies that make me like flat earth.
01:20:00 Like, what’s the motive?
01:20:01 What’s the motivation for lying that the earth is round?
01:20:04 Like, what’s the conspiracy?
01:20:05 Yeah.
01:20:06 What does anyone get out of that?
01:20:07 Yeah.
01:20:08 What is exactly the profit?
01:20:09 What’s the strategy?
01:20:10 Do you have any, from a historical perspective or just a human perspective, conspiracy theories
01:20:17 you connect with?
01:20:18 Or you’re not necessarily conspiratorial?
01:20:22 I’m not necessarily conspiratorial.
01:20:26 Nobody cares that much.
01:20:30 But then, you know, what happens is you find out this one or this two, and you start questioning
01:20:36 everything.
01:20:37 And you start questioning everything, man.
01:20:38 It’s like, you know, the Vietnam War started, that was a lie.
01:20:42 That was a false flag.
01:20:43 And then next thing you know, everything’s a false flag.
01:20:45 There are some strange things on 9 11.
01:20:49 You know, there’s some strange things from a scientific perspective.
01:20:52 I’m no scientist, but it’s like, you know, yeah, three steel framed skyscrapers falling
01:20:58 on the same day in the same way.
01:21:00 A lot of people say, oh, they were hit by planes.
01:21:03 It’s like, yeah, but that’s not why they fell.
01:21:04 They fell because of fires and usually, not usually, all the time, except for three times.
01:21:13 And there was buildings that have burned for longer than that.
01:21:17 And there might be good explanations, but the lack of transparency, it’s like, I feel
01:21:21 like government.
01:21:22 And building seven’s weird.
01:21:23 I mean, the way it kind of died, just a neat, just a neat, the physical, I mean, you’re
01:21:27 a scientist.
01:21:28 Is that, well, I don’t, I, is there resistance from the steel and free fall, not all scientists
01:21:34 know everything.
01:21:35 I’m just a computer guy.
01:21:36 Cause I had some questions I wanted to ask you about my biology, but yeah, so exactly.
01:21:40 I don’t understand biology.
01:21:41 I don’t understand the melting point of steel.
01:21:43 I don’t, but I’m just the common sense human that looks at government and institutions
01:21:49 when they try to communicate.
01:21:51 And there’s a certain human element where you can sense that there’s dishonesty going
01:21:56 on.
01:21:57 And dishonesty might not be deeply rooted in a conspiracy theory and something malevolent.
01:22:01 It might just be rooted more likely to me in a basic fear of losing your job.
01:22:06 So when you have a bunch of people that are afraid of losing their job, you know, and
01:22:10 they just don’t want to like the origins of the virus, whether it came from a lab or not,
01:22:16 you know, that’s a pretty, I know a lot of biologists behind a closed doors that, that
01:22:22 say it’s very likely it was leaked from the lab.
01:22:25 But like, they don’t want to talk about it because there’s not good evidence either way.
01:22:29 It’s mostly you’re just using common sense.
01:22:32 So they’re waiting for good evidence to come out in either direction.
01:22:35 But just like nobody in positions of institutional, like centralized power wants to just honestly
01:22:40 say, we don’t know, or on the point of masks or all those kinds of things to say, you know,
01:22:46 here’s the best evidence we have.
01:22:47 We’re not sure we’re trying to figure that out.
01:22:49 We’re desperately trying to figure that out or just like honesty, especially in the modern
01:22:53 day, that’s the hope I have for the 21st centuries.
01:22:56 People seem to detect bullshit much, much better because of the internet.
01:23:00 Yeah.
01:23:01 Internet.
01:23:02 Yeah.
01:23:03 Yeah.
01:23:04 And we seem to…
01:23:05 But they also believe crazy shit too.
01:23:06 There’s no Yang without a Yang, I guess.
01:23:07 But I think the conspiracy theories arise only when the people in positions of power
01:23:12 and government institutions are full of shit.
01:23:15 Like the air will be taken out of the conspiracy theories if the people in elected power would
01:23:19 be much more honest.
01:23:20 Like just like real.
01:23:21 Yeah, people like Andrew Yang, whatever you think about him, just more honest.
01:23:26 He just like says whatever the hell comes to mind.
01:23:29 By the way, he’s running for New York mayor.
01:23:31 Mayor, yeah.
01:23:32 Do you have opinions?
01:23:34 Yeah, it’s no good.
01:23:35 I like Andrew Yang and it’s no good.
01:23:37 I’d be honest with you.
01:23:39 I’m a lifelong New Yorker.
01:23:40 I mean, I’m a New Yorker.
01:23:41 Well, you’re a New Yorker, so nothing’s good.
01:23:44 Well, something is good.
01:23:45 Okay.
01:23:46 Let’s be honest about New York.
01:23:49 It’s a very socially liberal place.
01:23:51 It is the head of the snake.
01:23:52 New York is the country.
01:23:54 If New York, when New York’s not doing good, country’s not doing good.
01:23:58 It’s the most important city, DC, New York.
01:24:01 It’s really Rome.
01:24:02 Be honest.
01:24:03 It’s, maybe I’m biased.
01:24:04 I don’t know.
01:24:05 No.
01:24:06 Yeah.
01:24:07 We just, New Yorkers, we walk around everywhere and we go, this is just like New York, but
01:24:10 not New York.
01:24:11 It’s, but New York needs, and I’m a guy who leans left.
01:24:17 You know, I just, I lean left and that’s just what it is.
01:24:20 A dictator?
01:24:21 Is that where you’re going?
01:24:22 No, we need.
01:24:23 Are we going back to Stalin again?
01:24:24 We need, it’s a money town.
01:24:25 Let’s be, come on, man.
01:24:26 I mean, New York is a money town.
01:24:29 And Wall Street, and then when AOC and her cronies at the local level rejected that Amazon
01:24:36 thing, you’re going like, what do you think makes cities?
01:24:40 What’s going to create jobs in the 21st century?
01:24:42 What do we need?
01:24:43 More nail salons?
01:24:44 Yeah.
01:24:45 More pizza places?
01:24:46 I mean, we’re living in the tech revolution and you know, whatever your opinions are
01:24:49 about Jeff Bezos, that’s the world, tech.
01:24:53 And they want you to come here.
01:24:54 Of course you give them tax breaks.
01:24:56 That’s why companies go anywhere.
01:24:58 She’s so fucking utopian and that progressive wing is so utopian and that always ends in
01:25:04 disaster because it’s not rooted in reality.
01:25:06 It doesn’t accept the reality that people are self interested.
01:25:09 Now they’re going to do this 14%, 15% tax hike on people making a million dollars more.
01:25:13 In New York City, a million dollars is not that much.
01:25:16 So people are going to flee New York.
01:25:18 The tax base is going to flee.
01:25:19 New York’s going to fall to shit like it did before.
01:25:21 So you’re saying it basically needs a more capitalist front, like capitalistic type of
01:25:25 thinker.
01:25:26 Yes.
01:25:27 Bloomberg, Giuliani when he was still sane and his hair wasn’t melting off his face.
01:25:31 Prosecutor.
01:25:32 You need a tough, I mean, I don’t know what’s happened to that guy.
01:25:34 He’s lost it.
01:25:35 But it’s fun.
01:25:36 Yeah.
01:25:37 It’s fun to watch.
01:25:38 Yeah.
01:25:39 It’s fun to watch him be just like, uh, Trump’s lackey.
01:25:40 Like, yeah, boy, whatever you want, boss.
01:25:41 I’ll just say whatever you want, boss.
01:25:43 But New York is a money town that needs a money guy and sort of more of a Republican.
01:25:49 I have to say on the local level, as more of a guy who leans left, I’ll just be honest.
01:25:53 It’s a tough city that needs a tough mayor, not some guy who’s going like, I understand
01:25:58 we all need free money.
01:25:59 You know, Andrew Yang I think is right in the big picture because all the real jobs
01:26:03 are somewhere else.
01:26:04 You look at those Asian cities, you go like, oh, that’s what our cities used to look like
01:26:07 at the industrial revolution.
01:26:09 You know, there was like, there was jobs and people were making things here.
01:26:12 Now you look at those cities in Asia and you’re going like, wow.
01:26:15 And then you go to Detroit and you’re like, yeah, we’re done.
01:26:17 You go to Cleveland, you go, we were done.
01:26:19 So I don’t actually, it’s, it’s funny.
01:26:22 The reason I really like Andrew Yang is I’ve learned a lot every time he talks, like it’s
01:26:27 not his opinions.
01:26:28 He’s just giving a lot of data, like information, which I just start a podcast.
01:26:33 Don’t run for mayor.
01:26:34 Yeah, that’s true.
01:26:35 He already has a podcast.
01:26:36 I think Yang speaks.
01:26:37 Who doesn’t?
01:26:38 Who does it?
01:26:39 Who does it now?
01:26:40 That’s the way we communicate.
01:26:41 I don’t even talk to people unless it’s on a podcast.
01:26:43 What?
01:26:44 Listen, man, I’m a, I’m not going to criticize that because there is something like I talked
01:26:48 to my dad on a podcast for four hours and I’m not sure I would ever talk to him in the
01:26:55 way we talked without the podcast.
01:26:57 What does he do?
01:26:58 Uh, physicist.
01:26:59 Oh shit.
01:27:00 But like, yeah, it’s a episode 100.
01:27:05 And you know, I, uh, the, the way I recorded that podcast is I tried to put my ego aside.
01:27:14 It’s actually really tough to talk to your dad, especially because you’re giving him
01:27:18 a platform.
01:27:19 Uh, especially, so at that time there’s already a bit of a platform for this podcast.
01:27:24 And so there’s this, as a son, you think like, oh, here it goes with this bullshit again.
01:27:30 Like that’s the natural son thought you have.
01:27:34 But at the same time, I wanted to, the way I thought about it is in 20 years when I look
01:27:39 back, like I want to do a conversation where I’m happy with it, you know?
01:27:43 So I want to make him shine.
01:27:46 But I also called him out on like, why were you so distant, like, like all of that kind
01:27:51 of stuff.
01:27:52 Yeah.
01:27:53 It was very difficult to do, but it was really important to do.
01:27:54 And I don’t think I’d be able to do it without a, without a microphone.
01:27:58 Right.
01:27:59 Listen, how often do we sit there and just focus our attention and just look at the other
01:28:02 person?
01:28:03 I, I don’t know, man.
01:28:05 This is not even recording right now.
01:28:07 I just invited you over.
01:28:10 Just so we could actually, you’re right.
01:28:11 The podcast does make, like I listen, I’ve been listening to every word you’ve been saying.
01:28:15 And if we weren’t doing a podcast, I might be looking at my phone or being self conscious
01:28:19 about something else or nervous or anxious, especially with people close to you.
01:28:23 I mean, that was, I recommend that actually for people to talk to their family on a podcast
01:28:29 or like a fake or not.
01:28:31 That’s really powerful.
01:28:32 It made me realize that there’s a clear distinction between the conversations we usually have
01:28:37 with humans and those we have when a podcast is being recorded.
01:28:43 What the fuck were we talking on before that?
01:28:46 I knew you were going to lose your train of thought on that one because that’s a big one.
01:28:49 There’s a motion behind that one.
01:28:50 A podcast with dad is going to take, that’s going to take you to a place that took you
01:28:53 to a place.
01:28:54 It took you outside of interviewer.
01:28:57 New York.
01:28:58 It went to a place.
01:28:59 New York and Yang.
01:29:00 Yeah.
01:29:01 In New York and Yang.
01:29:02 That’s what really surprised me about, I like the psychoanalysis that you just threw in
01:29:07 there.
01:29:08 Yeah.
01:29:09 I knew that.
01:29:10 Yeah.
01:29:11 That took you to a place.
01:29:12 So Andrew Yang mentioned.
01:29:13 Do you respect me now, dad?
01:29:14 MIT, is it enough?
01:29:15 Fucking million people listening to this.
01:29:16 I got 14 Rogans.
01:29:17 Is it enough, dad?
01:29:18 I’m creating robots.
01:29:19 Is it enough for you?
01:29:20 It’s never enough.
01:29:21 That’s what drives you probably.
01:29:26 That’s probably what drives me.
01:29:27 That’s what gives meaning to life is it’s never enough.
01:29:30 And I hope to pass that on to my kids one day.
01:29:33 That nothing’s ever enough.
01:29:34 Whether they’re robot or human, right?
01:29:36 Your kids.
01:29:37 Most likely.
01:29:38 Let’s be honest.
01:29:39 Robot.
01:29:40 You might call one of your robot.
01:29:41 Do you love your robot?
01:29:42 Are you starting to love your…
01:29:43 Is it going to be like that Pygmalion thing?
01:29:44 You create them and then they kill you.
01:29:45 But even while they’re killing you, you got a tear.
01:29:46 The tear.
01:29:47 A slow one.
01:29:48 One tear.
01:29:49 One tear.
01:29:50 And just.
01:29:51 Yeah.
01:29:52 Why are you doing this Frankenstein?
01:29:53 Why?
01:29:54 Why?
01:29:55 But I loved you.
01:29:56 Those would be the last words out of my mouth.
01:29:57 I just want to mention something on the, that it costs $400,000.
01:30:03 Over $400,000 per year to support one person in prison in New York.
01:30:11 Like when I heard that number, it was really confusing to me.
01:30:15 Like that it costs that much, 400K per person.
01:30:21 And it was really refreshing to hear a politician describe a particular problem with data.
01:30:27 That this is this prison industrial complex, whatever the hell it is.
01:30:31 And whether the solution, it’s unclear what the solution is.
01:30:33 I think he has solutions, but just the honesty of presenting that information was refreshing.
01:30:39 And I’m not sure a capitalistic person would solve that.
01:30:43 Those kinds of problems he might make worse.
01:30:44 And I’m not, I’m a huge fan of capitalism.
01:30:48 I think the free market is the way we make progress in this world, but it seems to go
01:30:56 wrong in certain directions.
01:30:58 Like the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, anything that ends
01:31:01 with industrial complex.
01:31:04 And so I’m not sure.
01:31:06 I’m not sure if all of the problems, you’re basically saying, let’s put New York’s problems
01:31:14 aside.
01:31:16 We need to have New York shine first to do what it does best.
01:31:20 Essentially.
01:31:21 Yeah.
01:31:22 And then we will fix them, well, and then we can focus on the problems.
01:31:26 But if you just say like, here’s a problem, here’s a problem, here’s a problem, let’s
01:31:29 make sure we have the safety net that protects us against all of these kinds of problems.
01:31:32 That’s not going to, that’s going to kill the city, the spirit of the city that is in
01:31:38 your biased opinion, the Rome of the world.
01:31:42 That said, a lot of people are fleeing New York.
01:31:44 Yeah, that’s why I say it.
01:31:46 That’s the reality of the situation is, you know, I’m all for the public good, but yeah,
01:31:51 there needs to be a back to that Greek expression, pan metroniris, and I also think the free
01:31:56 market is responsible for progress.
01:31:58 I think it’s the most natural thing, the thing that’s most aligned with human nature, which
01:32:02 is self interest.
01:32:03 And which I’m not to the extent that Ayn Rand would, but I do believe people are mostly
01:32:07 self interested, especially with one gun to the head, morals are out the window, you know,
01:32:13 it’s about survival.
01:32:14 So, you know, create a system that respects that and acknowledges that, but socialism
01:32:18 works very well, at least right now, as a check as to temper the excesses of capitalism
01:32:25 and in certain scenarios is the more appropriate system, you know, in a vacuum.
01:32:31 So one being prisons or, you know, you know, governance, you know, parks.
01:32:38 Maybe even, well, and this is a difficult one, but in healthcare, healthcare, it’s unclear
01:32:44 what to write.
01:32:45 There’s a lot of debates there.
01:32:46 Yeah.
01:32:47 Doctors want boats.
01:32:48 Yeah.
01:32:49 So I guess you’re voting for AOC you’re saying.
01:32:50 No, I’m not voting for AOC, but I do, it’s just a tough one.
01:32:54 That’s a tough one.
01:32:55 But ultimately, the Hippocratic Oath, it’s like, how do you turn people away, man?
01:33:01 How do you do that to people?
01:33:02 It’s like, it’s a tough thing to reconcile helping people, curing people with the marketplace.
01:33:13 It’s just, I can understand why that one’s so tough.
01:33:16 And then you got hypochondriacs, of course, who drain the system, you know, like people
01:33:19 who are having anxiety, like me who had COVID and called 14, you know, I called 14 ambulances.
01:33:26 So and then of course we’re fat and the free market made us fat because it played the marketing
01:33:31 made us want all this junk food and that’s a burden on the healthcare system.
01:33:34 So we got to do something about that.
01:33:35 We got to get creative.
01:33:36 We need new thinkers.
01:33:37 I’ll be one of them.
01:33:38 When you go to a fast food restaurant, you stand on a scale.
01:33:41 If you’re over a certain thing, you can’t be served.
01:33:44 It’s good for the healthcare system.
01:33:45 You know, you just handed a salad and say, sorry, this burger is illegal for right now.
01:33:49 If you achieve these certain BMI goals, then you can, you can have this burger, but right
01:33:56 now you can’t.
01:33:57 And that’s where the state’s important.
01:33:58 Yeah.
01:33:59 Okay.
01:34:00 To regulate our freedoms.
01:34:01 No slurpees.
01:34:02 I’m with you Bloomberg.
01:34:03 Well, I’m with you to go along.
01:34:04 I think the salads are too expensive.
01:34:06 They should be subsidized.
01:34:07 If you, if you go to like a fast food joint, the burger is always going to be cheaper than
01:34:11 the salad.
01:34:12 And this does not make sense.
01:34:13 We should run on this platform.
01:34:14 I’ll be your vice president or ban burgers for, for people of a certain weight and make
01:34:19 salads cheap.
01:34:21 Three day work weeks.
01:34:22 Why has that not happened yet?
01:34:23 Wait, wait.
01:34:24 Okay.
01:34:25 Where are you going with this one?
01:34:26 Dude, good for the economy.
01:34:27 Stimulates the economy, right?
01:34:28 More shifts, creates more jobs, more people spending because they have more leisure time,
01:34:32 boosts the leisure economy, you know?
01:34:34 Why are we still doing the five day work week that, that was, that was tempered from the
01:34:38 seven day work week.
01:34:39 That was, so the seven, it used to be seven day work week, it used to be like, and people
01:34:43 who are just these libertarians, it’s like, come on dude, what, what is this fresh, are
01:34:46 we freshmen in college?
01:34:47 Yeah.
01:34:48 You’re going to, we’re going to talk about Ayn Rand next.
01:34:50 Like let’s talk about reality.
01:34:51 Okay.
01:34:52 And human nature.
01:34:53 People are fucking greedy.
01:34:54 They lie.
01:34:55 They, you know, there’s no end to up, which is one of my favorite expressions.
01:34:59 No end to up.
01:35:00 No end to up.
01:35:01 There’s no end to up.
01:35:02 Can we dissect that?
01:35:03 Yeah.
01:35:04 From a Randian perspective.
01:35:05 There’s no end to up, which is, uh, you just keep going.
01:35:08 It’s never enough.
01:35:09 Oh, never enough.
01:35:10 Oh, it’s never enough.
01:35:11 No end to up.
01:35:12 No end to up more.
01:35:13 And you know, you have to reconcile your fact that you’re going to die.
01:35:16 So like this no end up thing is that balance is, is just as valuable as progress.
01:35:25 So we have to reconcile those two things and put them on a seesaw and figure out how to
01:35:30 get two people who have the equal weight to keep it like that.
01:35:34 And that’s the goal.
01:35:35 And it constantly vacillates, uh, according to the time you sometimes you need a little
01:35:38 more socialism.
01:35:39 Sometimes you need a little more capitalism.
01:35:40 You gotta, you gotta, you gotta fly the plane, man.
01:35:43 You gotta fly the plane, dude.
01:35:45 What’s your, um, looking back at history, is there a moment, time period in history,
01:35:52 a person in history that’s most fascinating to you?
01:35:54 You mentioned Bernie Madoff, maybe second to Bernie Madoff.
01:35:57 Is there in a battle of Crete, is there something that you’ve always been curious about?
01:36:01 Even if it’s something you haven’t actually researched that well yet, just something that
01:36:04 pulled at your curiosity that, uh, instructed the way you think about the world.
01:36:09 An individual or an event or an event, individual, uh, you know, yeah.
01:36:15 Moment in history or a person in history.
01:36:18 Um, there’s a few, but, uh, you know, queen Elizabeth, uh, the Elizabethan era, you know,
01:36:25 the sun never sets in the British empire, very successful empire, uh, what an absolute
01:36:33 success story that is, is for a leader and a woman, um, can you tell a little bit about
01:36:40 her story?
01:36:41 I actually don’t know much about the British empire.
01:36:42 Yeah.
01:36:43 She had a good run.
01:36:44 I think it’s like 70 years, you know, as a Shakespeare, they, you know, the, oh, I guess
01:36:47 what’s the word, Pax Romana, the, the, uh, the period of Rome that it was at peace and
01:36:52 they flourished like a couple of emperors like Trajan or some good ones.
01:36:56 And I think he was part of the Pax Romana that sort of just a peace and a comfortable
01:37:00 flourishing time and England, uh, had sort of that in their empire under her successful
01:37:06 reign.
01:37:07 She murdered her cousin.
01:37:08 She, you know, the movies, there’s, uh, you know, um, Kate Blanchett plays her and, and
01:37:12 does so.
01:37:13 And she didn’t win the Oscar because fucking Gwyneth Paltrow put a, put a British accent
01:37:18 on in Shakespeare in love.
01:37:19 It’s a tragedy.
01:37:20 Why do I know this?
01:37:21 Because I’m not a full man.
01:37:22 I’m a comedian, which means I do skits and I perform, um, and I, uh, Kate Blanchett’s
01:37:27 incredible actress at great movies.
01:37:30 She was just so, and here’s the thing, she, she never got married.
01:37:34 She was, she was so, um, astute at public relations and, and, and, and imagine how strong
01:37:42 you got to be as a woman to lead the greatest empire maybe known to man at the time and
01:37:47 to do so, so successfully.
01:37:50 How Machiavellian you have to be, how idealist you have to be, how much of a good marketer
01:37:54 you have to be.
01:37:55 Propaganda machine was on point.
01:37:56 She was married to England.
01:37:58 She was adored the way she adorned herself.
01:38:01 You walked in, you’re like, holy men, God just walked in here.
01:38:04 And of course she got fucked.
01:38:06 I mean, who doesn’t fuck?
01:38:07 We all fuck.
01:38:08 Even robots one day will fuck.
01:38:10 But she was, she, she did that propaganda thing and historians aren’t, uh, haven’t,
01:38:16 they haven’t decided this, but I believe she fucked.
01:38:20 And I believe she did that as a tool of propaganda.
01:38:24 I’m married to England.
01:38:26 So you, oh, you’re, you’re directly referring to like using sex as a way to manipulate people.
01:38:31 Well, she, her, she was known as like the, the Virgin queen.
01:38:35 And uh, and her thing was like, I’m married to England.
01:38:37 Like I can’t be distracted by man or woman, blah, blah, blah.
01:38:40 She never had any kids, nothing.
01:38:42 I think she did that as a tool of manipulation, which you need.
01:38:49 Rulers need to, you know, Obama made you feel good and then he went and bombed, carpet bombed
01:38:53 everywhere.
01:38:54 You need to feel good about your guy, no matter how evil they are.
01:38:58 And she was fucking a dictator.
01:39:00 But when you look back at her, everyone’s like, oh my God, she was so great.
01:39:03 The horror and the shit that she had to do, she didn’t put that in the history books,
01:39:08 but that’s what probably was part of what made her successful.
01:39:11 And um, she’s a fascinating character to, to ponder because she was so successful and,
01:39:17 and England flourished so much.
01:39:20 And it’s just fascinating to me because she was the great Virgin queen.
01:39:23 And can you think of, there’s no other woman who was that, I mean, Angela Merkel, I mean,
01:39:28 come on.
01:39:29 I mean, there’s nobody who comes close and defeating the Spanish Armada, I think that
01:39:33 happened under her.
01:39:34 I mean, I’m no professional, but I mean, the, the woman crushed.
01:39:39 And uh,
01:39:40 Do you think it’s more effective to lead by love, which just sounds like what she did
01:39:44 from the PR perspective or by fear?
01:39:46 Where do you, where do you land on that?
01:39:48 That’s a great question.
01:39:49 Um, I’m not, we got to ask Joe.
01:39:52 Well, yeah, this is interesting cause I think leading in the 21st century in whatever ways
01:39:58 is different.
01:39:59 I think it’s very difficult to lead by fear.
01:40:01 I mean, um, that’s why I find Putin fascinating and like really fascinating.
01:40:08 Like is he a relic of another era or is he something that will still be necessary in
01:40:14 the coming decades for certain nations?
01:40:16 I think he’s a, I don’t think he’s a relic from another era.
01:40:19 I think his background, I think he is who you think he is because his background was
01:40:23 in espionage.
01:40:25 His background was in subterfuge and espionage.
01:40:28 I think I’ve said the word subterfuge maybe 10 times now, but he, uh, like big words,
01:40:33 intellectuals.
01:40:34 I just sitting here with you.
01:40:35 It’s my, it’s time to flex.
01:40:37 Um, but he, um, he’s very good at that, right?
01:40:41 Like, uh, controlling people with psychology and even if you look at the way he sort of
01:40:45 used the internet and, um, has sort of been, you know, gotten in to the citizens of other
01:40:51 countries opinions and it’s very KGB.
01:40:56 He also looks great without a shirt on a pony on a horse on a horse.
01:41:00 Yeah.
01:41:01 Yeah.
01:41:02 I thought he would choose a pony cause a pony smaller makes him would, uh, would you, would
01:41:06 you put queen Elizabeth as the greatest leader of all time?
01:41:09 Probably.
01:41:10 Yeah.
01:41:11 If you look at Elizabeth as a woman and you look at, uh, you look at the, the length of
01:41:16 the reign, I think it’s like 70 something years or something like that, that she reigned
01:41:21 success man, success.
01:41:23 She used the church, she used public psychology, Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all
01:41:28 time, uh, under her reign, you know, people were going to plays and, and, uh, it was a,
01:41:34 it was a success front and she was marauding everywhere else marauding and culling resources
01:41:40 for the empire and just say a absolute successful.
01:41:44 It’s even, uh, a token of her success.
01:41:46 We don’t consider her a dictator.
01:41:48 Yeah.
01:41:49 She’s a dictator, you know, she was queen.
01:41:51 I, this is my thing I love about the feudal system that these fucking countries still
01:41:55 have feudal systems.
01:41:56 They’re celebrating a horrible thing, divine right of Kings oppression, Kings were dictators
01:42:03 and now they have fucking ceremonial.
01:42:05 Why don’t we have a ceremonial Fuhrer?
01:42:07 What is in German?
01:42:08 He doesn’t do any of the bad stuff.
01:42:09 He just rolls around and does, I mean, it’s like, what the fuck?
01:42:13 There’s no difference between a Hitler and a fucking King.
01:42:15 They did the same horrible shit.
01:42:17 Why not a fucking ceremonial conqueror, Alexander the Great walks in, rapes a little bit, but
01:42:22 it’s all fun.
01:42:23 It’s for ceremony.
01:42:24 He represents the country.
01:42:25 Macedonia is Greek.
01:42:26 It’s interesting to see that, uh, some you’re starting to see a bit of that in Russia was
01:42:32 Stalin, actually the celebration of a, of a man that helped win the great patriotic war.
01:42:40 Yeah.
01:42:41 Right.
01:42:42 So like you, you’re already starting to see that it’s very possible in history books,
01:42:44 you’ll be seen as maybe like a Genghis Khan type of character and you forget the millions
01:42:50 that he tortured.
01:42:51 So you’re one of the most successful and brilliant people the world has ever seen.
01:42:55 So you’re the good person to ask, uh, for advice.
01:42:59 You know, there’s a lot of young people that look up to you, uh, God bless their souls
01:43:04 and hearts.
01:43:05 Made the right choice.
01:43:06 What advice would you give to a young person?
01:43:08 Maybe to yourself, to a young version of yourself, you know, and just how to live a successful,
01:43:14 a good life.
01:43:16 Be doggedly you.
01:43:18 I think the magic happens when you are stubbornly doggedly you and you meet other people who
01:43:25 are doing the same and, um, the real magic of life, the real true currency in this ephemeral
01:43:30 life is sort of the communication that happens between people.
01:43:35 Uh, that’s the real currency, friendships, love, it’s, it’s cliche, but it’s a, I think
01:43:40 the meaning of life is to experience, to experience love.
01:43:45 And, uh, I think, uh, people often mistake, maybe it’s because of Hollywood films and
01:43:49 things like that, that love is a feeling, but it’s not, it’s an action.
01:43:54 So, uh, that took me a while to learn and I think that’s why I’ve made decisions since
01:43:59 that I think have been good for me and healthy for me.
01:44:01 Love is an action.
01:44:03 People can say things, you can feel things, um, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily
01:44:08 real.
01:44:09 It’s all chemical reactions.
01:44:10 It’s all, um, tied to our immaturity and, uh, psychological issues and, uh, survival,
01:44:17 but action when some, when you do things, when you act out of love and you, the, that’s,
01:44:24 that’s what it’s about.
01:44:25 Is there, uh, times when you were younger where you were kind of dishonest with who
01:44:31 you are to yourself in terms of like, what, what kind of things did you have to do to,
01:44:36 to shake yourself up and be like, okay, I thought, um, I thought I’m going to be a scientist,
01:44:41 but instead I realized I’m going to do this.
01:44:44 Yeah.
01:44:45 My parents were funny.
01:44:46 Yeah.
01:44:47 My, my comedy is a hard, hard thing to explain to, uh, you know, an immigrant mother who
01:44:50 came here and under Nazi occupied Crete and became a human rights lawyer and lawyer.
01:44:55 And, uh, my brother’s a lawyer and my father was a lawyer, you know, clawed his way up.
01:44:59 His dad was a, was a, um, so your disappointment, um, the black sheep.
01:45:04 Yeah.
01:45:05 My brother went to Oxford Georgetown law at Brown, you know, has a master’s in pot, you
01:45:11 know, law degrees.
01:45:13 My mother has followed up for law degrees, uh, you know, uh, she was on the human rights
01:45:17 commission in New York up for a judgeship under Dinkins, um, wrote a, you know, um,
01:45:22 she was the editor of Unitar.
01:45:24 She wrote a seminal piece on the human rights of children for the United Nations.
01:45:27 Um, and, uh, yeah, it was a comedian.
01:45:30 I was always a fuck up.
01:45:31 And, uh, the thing that I was best at, the only thing I was ever decent at was just like
01:45:35 making people laugh.
01:45:36 I don’t know why.
01:45:37 I don’t know where that comes from, but, uh, was there ever a question or did, was there
01:45:41 a moment where you decided this is what I’m going to do?
01:45:44 There was a moment after I graduated college.
01:45:45 Yeah.
01:45:46 I was just thinking about all types of stuff that other people imposed on me.
01:45:51 And, um, I was honest with myself and once I figured out it was an actual career path,
01:45:55 I wasn’t even aware back then the internet wasn’t huge, you know, late 99, 2000 it wasn’t
01:46:00 big yet.
01:46:01 So I didn’t, I thought Robin Williams was just like an actor.
01:46:02 I didn’t know there was comedy clubs and all.
01:46:04 So once I learned that I was just like, I tried it.
01:46:07 I suffer from massive anxiety.
01:46:09 I remember the first time I did comedy, my arms went numb.
01:46:12 I started having a massive panic attack.
01:46:14 I have my first set.
01:46:15 I can show it to you.
01:46:16 I suggest I just come video.
01:46:17 Yeah.
01:46:18 I’m video.
01:46:19 Thank you.
01:46:20 Thank you.
01:46:21 Thank you.
01:46:22 And the reason why I kept saying thank you is because I forgot my old jokes.
01:46:23 I was so scared.
01:46:24 And then they laughed because of the amount of times I said thank you.
01:46:26 And then once they laughed, I was, I remembered the whole thing and I did the five minutes
01:46:31 and I remember getting off.
01:46:32 And for a person who never felt like he had a place anywhere, nothing ever felt right.
01:46:37 That felt like, okay, I found it.
01:46:39 This is what I’m supposed to do.
01:46:41 This is it.
01:46:42 It was the only time in my life I felt that I haven’t felt that sense.
01:46:45 Never felt it before.
01:46:46 So that’s the only thing I can do.
01:46:48 And yeah, I had that, you know, it’s funny cause there’s a similar experience like immigrant
01:46:53 family and the world tells you to do certain things and you think that’s right, but, but
01:46:59 then you put yourself in situations by luck probably where it’s like, oh, this, this,
01:47:07 this feels right.
01:47:08 I don’t know what this means, but this feels right.
01:47:11 I think the biggest moment like that for me was, I don’t know what to make of it exactly,
01:47:17 but when I met Spot, the robot, the legged robot, it was like five years ago, it felt
01:47:23 like this, the depth of fascinating ideas that are yet to be explored with this thing.
01:47:31 This felt like a journey.
01:47:32 It was like a door that opened and I was like, I don’t want to be a professor.
01:47:38 At that point I realized I don’t want to do sort of a generic stuff.
01:47:43 I want to do something crazy.
01:47:44 I want to do something big.
01:47:46 That’s the reason I stepped away from MIT.
01:47:48 That’s the reason I have this burning desire to do a startup.
01:47:51 That’s the reason I came to Austin.
01:47:53 Yeah.
01:47:54 I don’t know what the hell it all means, but you just kind of follow that.
01:47:57 That’s awesome.
01:47:58 That sounds like you’re following what’s doggedly you.
01:48:00 And also I think I just to, just to piggyback off it, I think that means no matter what
01:48:06 it is, because I think our, the American dream is sold like, Hey, if you’re not Beyonce or
01:48:12 if you’re not famous, you’re not worth it.
01:48:14 I hate that.
01:48:15 And that’s what I love so much about certain countries like Sweden, it’s like where everyone
01:48:19 has healthcare and stuff like that because everyone’s a little is valued more.
01:48:22 It’s like whatever, if you want to be a doorman, do it like it’s all the same.
01:48:26 Prince was not happy.
01:48:28 There’s no, just because you’re rich or famous, you’re still the same guy with your possessions
01:48:33 are a lot little, you know?
01:48:34 It’s like, I have met some doormen.
01:48:37 I have met some tax cappers that I lie to you not are more fascinating.
01:48:42 I have comedians are horrible people, so I want to get away from all of them.
01:48:47 I have very few friends, Paul Verzi, Tim Dillon, who are comedians because they’re awful, awful
01:48:52 people.
01:48:53 Some of the people who you know the most, who are the most famous are not who they say
01:48:58 they are.
01:48:59 Usually that’s the case.
01:49:00 They’re putting on that public facade because they’re fucking sociopaths and they’re horrible
01:49:04 people and some of the most beautiful people I’ve met and the most interesting people I’ve
01:49:08 met have regular jobs.
01:49:10 There is no shame in any fucking job.
01:49:13 We don’t all have to be rappers with like rims.
01:49:16 It’s just a weird thing.
01:49:17 Yeah.
01:49:18 Fame is a drug and yeah, comedians, I agree with you.
01:49:22 There’s some part of me that knows that there’ll be a moment in my life when I’m standing there
01:49:28 with like a sword or a knife in my stomach and looking at Tim Dillon’s smiling face saying
01:49:37 you shouldn’t have trusted me, you stupid fuck.
01:49:41 So on that note, Yannis, I’ve been a huge fan of yours.
01:49:46 I love what you’re doing with Long Days Now, your new podcast, and I obviously love all
01:49:51 the stuff you’ve done before with History of Hyenas, the chemistry you have with yourself
01:49:56 is also fun to watch.
01:49:57 So man, I’m a huge fan.
01:49:58 It’s a huge honor that you come down here.
01:50:00 Thanks so much for talking to me.
01:50:01 It means so much to me to hear you say that.
01:50:03 I really appreciate it.
01:50:04 I’m a big fan of yours and having me on has been amazing and just thank you, man.
01:50:07 Thank you for having me on and people, if they want to watch my special, it’s called
01:50:10 Blowing the Light.
01:50:11 It’s on YouTube and please come listen to Long Days of Podcasts and let’s go eat some
01:50:15 barbecue.
01:50:16 Let’s do it.
01:50:17 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Yannis Papas and thank you to Wine Access,
01:50:22 Blinkist, Magic Spoon, and Indeed.
01:50:25 Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
01:50:29 And now let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx.
01:50:32 Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
01:50:37 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.