Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Michael Mallis and Yaron Brook, Michael’s third time
00:00:05 on this podcast and Yaron’s second, but together for the first time.
00:00:11 Michael is an anarchist, political thinker, host of a podcast called You’re Welcome and
00:00:18 author of Dear Reader, The New Right and two upcoming books Anarchist Handbook and The
00:00:25 White Pill.
00:00:26 Yaron is an objectivist philosopher, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, host of The Yaron
00:00:33 Brook Show and coauthor of The Free Market Revolution and Equal is Unfair.
00:00:41 Quick mention of our sponsors, Ground News, Public Goods, Athletic Greens, Brave and Four
00:00:48 Sigmatic.
00:00:49 Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
00:00:53 As a side note, let me say that this conversation is a kind of experiment.
00:00:58 Both Michael and Yaron are thoughtful and passionate, united in part by an interest
00:01:03 in the history and philosophy of Ayn Rand, but they are also very different in style.
00:01:09 Good conversation, like good food, is often made delicious by pairing of contrasting elements.
00:01:16 For example, someone suggested I try a peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich, which apparently
00:01:22 is very good.
00:01:24 Among the three of us, I don’t know who’s the peanut butter, who’s the bacon and who’s
00:01:28 the banana, I’m guessing it’s probably me, I’m the banana, but I hope the final result,
00:01:34 the final dish, if you will, is equally delicious.
00:01:38 We talk through, I think, a lot of interesting ideas, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes even
00:01:44 in rare cases saying something humorous, including dark humor, especially in Michael’s case.
00:01:51 All three of us are sensitive to the suffering in the world today and throughout human history.
00:01:55 We think about it, we talk about it, and we deal with it in different ways.
00:02:00 Be patient with us.
00:02:02 Whether you agree, disagree, enjoy or dislike the result, I hope you feel listened, you’re
00:02:07 a wiser person on the other end of it, I know I was.
00:02:10 Mostly, I really enjoyed this conversation because no matter what Michael and Yaron believe,
00:02:17 underneath it all, they’re genuine, kind human beings that I’m lucky to be able to
00:02:22 hang out with and learn from.
00:02:25 This is the Lex Friedman Podcast and here’s my conversation with Michael Malus and Yaron
00:02:31 Rook.
00:02:32 I’ve been a huge fan of the two of you for the longest time.
00:02:36 Are we recording now?
00:02:37 Is it starting?
00:02:38 Or are you just talking?
00:02:39 I’m not recording at all.
00:02:40 He’s not going to compliment us if it’s not part of the show.
00:02:43 Yes, he does, all the time.
00:02:44 He speaks very highly of me.
00:02:45 You, I don’t know.
00:02:46 I’m not sure.
00:02:47 He only does this to me on the show.
00:02:48 Objectivists don’t like charity, so don’t compliment him, he won’t think it’s sincere.
00:02:53 So it’s an incredible honor that the both of you would show up here.
00:02:57 If we, let me just ask this sort of profound philosophical question.
00:03:01 How well do you think we would get along if we were stuck on a desert island together?
00:03:05 What would life be like?
00:03:07 I thought the original question you had, that you sent us this question, was how long would
00:03:12 it take for us to murder one another or something like that.
00:03:13 There was murder in the question, if I remember.
00:03:15 I, I, listen, he sent us homework, right?
00:03:18 All these questions.
00:03:19 I ignored it.
00:03:20 I didn’t spend four years at Patrick Henry University to do homework.
00:03:23 To answer your question, I think it would be very easy for us to live together in a
00:03:29 desert island in terms of interpersonal.
00:03:30 I know, and I say this because I know a lot of people who have been the show’s survivor.
00:03:34 So they, and I know a little bit about the dynamics.
00:03:36 So when you have people who are intelligent, who are going to have the same goals, I mean,
00:03:42 there’s space to go away if I’m annoyed at you, I don’t think it would be that hard at
00:03:46 all.
00:03:47 What’s our goals on a desert island?
00:03:48 Food, shelter.
00:03:49 Survival.
00:03:50 Survival.
00:03:51 Survival, basically.
00:03:52 Survival and getting out of there, right?
00:03:53 You don’t want to stay on the desert island.
00:03:54 So yeah, I don’t, I don’t think, I think that’s true of any three, you know, semi rational
00:04:01 people who, you know, who basically share the goal that they want to survive.
00:04:06 They want to thrive.
00:04:07 They want to get off of the island.
00:04:09 Why would there be conflict?
00:04:10 I mean, there would be conflict, but, and there can be conflict, but they’d find ways
00:04:14 to deal with it.
00:04:15 I don’t have this negative view of human beings, particularly not as individuals.
00:04:20 It’s when they get into mobs and groups and collectives that ideology can really motivate
00:04:26 them to do horrible things.
00:04:28 One of the things that really drives me crazy is how sinister an impact the book Lord of
00:04:32 the Flies has had on our culture.
00:04:34 I read it in high school.
00:04:36 It’s a superb book.
00:04:37 That’s not even a question, but it’s not accurate.
00:04:39 We see in many situations where people are trapped together under difficult circumstances.
00:04:45 Obviously that book’s about children that very quickly it is not about conflict.
00:04:50 It very quickly becomes about cooperation.
00:04:52 Let’s work together.
00:04:53 We all have the same goal.
00:04:55 This is not a time to worry about other things.
00:04:57 It really, the human beings, the animal instinct that kicks in is the social animal and I’m
00:05:04 going to shut up and go over there and have a, like stomp my feet instead of arguing with
00:05:08 your own because we’re really trapped in the situation and we need to make it work.
00:05:11 Well, and to the extent that they’re bad people, bad people are dealt with, right?
00:05:14 So this is true of all of, you know, how did we survive as a species, right?
00:05:19 How have we survived as a species?
00:05:20 We’ve been on a desert island in a sense as a species forever.
00:05:24 Tribes survived.
00:05:25 They survived by cooperation.
00:05:26 They survived by dealing with bad people.
00:05:31 Civilization is created by people cooperating and working together and allowing individuals
00:05:37 to thrive within the group and when bad people arise, they deal with them, right?
00:05:43 Now sometimes these groups get captured by bad people and bad ideas and probably from
00:05:50 day one that was going on, right?
00:05:52 The whole tribe is probably a bad idea to begin with, but you know, underneath it all,
00:05:59 the fact is that to survive as a species, we need to think, we need to be rational and
00:06:06 if we don’t have any respect for reason, then we would all die.
00:06:10 We would die off.
00:06:11 So that’s a hopeful message, but where does that go wrong?
00:06:15 So with three people we might get along, we would focus on the basics of life, we have
00:06:19 similar goals.
00:06:20 Once women are introduced, their incessant irrationalism and less of their hormones for
00:06:26 SOL.
00:06:27 Look, three of us on a desert island would be nice, but without women, it wouldn’t be
00:06:31 fun.
00:06:32 I’m going to edit out half the things Michael said through this broadcast.
00:06:34 As you know, I used to run the Ayn Rand Institute.
00:06:37 She was a woman last time I looked.
00:06:38 Oh, wait a minute.
00:06:39 You know, you know exactly what I’m going to say.
00:06:42 When Ludwig von Mises or Hazlitt, I don’t know who it was, Mises was praising Ayn Rand
00:06:47 and I think it was Hazlitt who said it to her.
00:06:50 He said, Ludwig von Mises said, you’re the smartest man I’ve ever met.
00:06:54 And Ayn Rand said, did he say man?
00:06:56 Right?
00:06:57 No, she viewed as a compliment.
00:06:58 Right.
00:06:59 But she wanted to be clear that he said man.
00:07:00 She was excited.
00:07:01 Yes.
00:07:02 Absolutely.
00:07:03 I took it as her perceiving him as seeing her as a full equal.
00:07:07 Oh, I think that’s right.
00:07:09 I think that’s right.
00:07:10 Plus, I think the perception out there, the perception in the culture of man as being
00:07:15 rational was a compliment to her because that was affirming that he viewed her as a rational.
00:07:22 Yeah, because Mises is old school.
00:07:24 He’s an older Eastern European guy, so he would definitely have these rigid views.
00:07:28 Like his wife, I read her autobiography, Margit von Mises, and basically he made her his secretary
00:07:33 to the point where if he’s typing something or he had something handwritten, she had to
00:07:37 type it out.
00:07:38 And if she made a typo, he would tear up the page, she had to start from the beginning.
00:07:41 But it’s like, this is the role of the man, this is the role of the woman.
00:07:44 So for him to regard her, this was kind of a breaking through moment.
00:07:47 Not that she was secretly misogynist.
00:07:51 So I think we go wrong when people try to understand the world around them and come
00:07:55 up with wrong ideas.
00:07:57 And it’s natural that they would come up with wrong ideas because it’s hard to figure out
00:08:02 what’s right.
00:08:03 So we start with trying to come up with mystical explanations for the existence of the things
00:08:10 around us.
00:08:11 And that I think very quickly leads to some people being able to communicate with the
00:08:16 mystical stuff out there and some people not being able to communicate and some people
00:08:20 wanting to control other people and using those pseudo explanations as a way to control.
00:08:27 So you always have, Rand called it Attila and the witch doctor.
00:08:31 You always have a witch doctor, the mystic, the philosopher, the intellectual, the philosopher
00:08:37 king, and you have an Attila, you have somebody who wants control of the people, who’s willing
00:08:43 to use force to control other people.
00:08:45 And when those two get together, that’s when things go bad.
00:08:49 And unfortunately, 95, 98% of human history is when those two are together.
00:08:57 And so the not having them together, having the right ideas, and the right ideas are ones
00:09:02 that are not exclusive to those guys and where we don’t allow Attila to have that kind of
00:09:07 physical power over us, that’s an exception and that’s rare and that’s what needs to be
00:09:13 defended.
00:09:14 Yeah.
00:09:15 Stalin’s not personally killing people.
00:09:16 Hitler’s not personally killing people.
00:09:17 Charles Manson’s not personally killing people.
00:09:18 They need their goons.
00:09:20 They need their goons, but also they don’t have original ideas.
00:09:25 Everything Stalin says is original to him, right?
00:09:28 He needs a Marx, even Lenin, right?
00:09:31 They all need a Marx, right?
00:09:33 And Marx needs a particular line of thinkers that come before him that set him up for these
00:09:40 kind of ideas.
00:09:41 So Stalin both needs his goons, even though he’s somewhat of a goon, particularly Stalin.
00:09:45 Yeah, he’s a bank robber, yeah.
00:09:46 And then, so take Lenin, Lenin I think is a better example because Lenin’s more intellectual
00:09:51 if you will.
00:09:52 Lenin needs his goons, he needs his Stalins, but Lenin also needs his Marx.
00:09:56 And we don’t want to let Marx off the hook because Marx knows, I think, implicitly that
00:10:02 his ideas have to lead to Lenin and Stalin.
00:10:05 His ideas are not neutral.
00:10:06 I don’t think it’s implicit at all.
00:10:08 I think Marx very much glorified revolution, blood and terror, this is not implicit in
00:10:14 the slightest.
00:10:15 No, absolutely.
00:10:16 I mean, there are letters between him and Engels where they talk about which peoples
00:10:17 will have to be eliminated because they don’t have that proletarian thing, right?
00:10:23 So I think certain peoples in Southern Europe are not appropriate for the utopia to come
00:10:31 and will have to be gone.
00:10:32 And Marx also had this concept which we still see today in garbled ways of polylogism, which
00:10:38 is if you’re a capitalist and I’m bourgeois or I’m a worker, your logic is different than
00:10:44 mine.
00:10:45 It’s really going to be impossible for us to communicate.
00:10:47 And at a certain point, you’re going to have to be liquidated.
00:10:49 And they pretend that doesn’t mean murdered, but it means murdered.
00:10:52 And very quickly, everyone becomes a capitalist or bourgeois.
00:10:54 And then you have the Holodomor and things like this.
00:10:57 No, he knows exactly where it’s going to lead.
00:10:59 And this is why people say, oh, Marx is not evil.
00:11:02 He just wrote books.
00:11:03 No, it’s the people who write books who are responsible for the way history evolves.
00:11:09 And they know the bad guys certainly know the consequence of their ideas, and they need
00:11:16 to bear the moral responsibility for what happens when the ideas are implemented.
00:11:20 Here’s a way.
00:11:21 Can I ask a question?
00:11:22 Yeah.
00:11:23 Because I think I know more about Rand than Yaron does.
00:11:24 So let’s see.
00:11:25 Oh.
00:11:26 Okay.
00:11:27 The gauntlet has been thrown down.
00:11:28 Who did Ayn Rand say is the most evil man who ever lived?
00:11:30 Immanuel Kant.
00:11:31 That’s right.
00:11:32 Correct.
00:11:33 No, that I know.
00:11:34 I mean, it’s a big deal that Immanuel Kant is.
00:11:36 And most people don’t understand why, because if you read Kant, there’s certain passages
00:11:41 in Kant that sound pretty liberal, they sound pretty, it sounds like he’s for the individual,
00:11:47 he sounds like he’s for the American Revolution, things like that.
00:11:50 But when you actually read his philosophy and what he’s trying to defend and what he’s
00:11:53 trying to undermine, he’s trying to undermine the foundations that make the revolution possible,
00:11:59 that make freedom and individualism possible.
00:12:01 He’s trying to destroy the Enlightenment.
00:12:03 And the Enlightenment are those ideas that make freedom, individualism feasible.
00:12:08 He’s trying to undermine reason.
00:12:10 And without reason, we’re nothing.
00:12:14 We can’t survive as a species.
00:12:16 And that’s why she thought he was the most evil person, because his ideas undermine the
00:12:21 very foundations of what it requires to be a human being, reason and individualism.
00:12:27 Those are the things he’s trying to eviscerate.
00:12:29 I know you’ve talked about Hoffman before.
00:12:32 So Hoffman is a modern day attempt to, Donald Hoffman, Donald Hoffman is the University
00:12:42 of California, Irvine, a neurologist, a neuroscientist, something like that.
00:12:47 So I met him once and we were at one of these conferences where you do a quick intro, you
00:12:53 sit and you do a quick intro.
00:12:54 His introduction was, I’ve just written a book that proves that evolution has conditioned
00:12:58 us not to see reality.
00:13:03 That is very Kantian.
00:13:04 Yeah.
00:13:05 And he is basically just presenting pseudoscience to defend Kant’s position about epistemology
00:13:13 and about metaphysics.
00:13:14 And there’s nothing original there.
00:13:18 And he puts up a bunch of equations and he says, I ran a simulation and it proves I’m
00:13:23 right.
00:13:24 So Yaron is a little bit frustrated with Donald Hoffman’s work.
00:13:28 Let me…
00:13:29 I’m not frustrated.
00:13:30 I just think it’s completely wrong and it’s anti life, anti mind, anti evolution.
00:13:35 I think he’s an anti evolutionist at the end.
00:13:38 And I think it, you know, anytime you say, look, here’s the important point.
00:13:42 Anytime you say reality doesn’t exist, well, who are you?
00:13:47 What do you mean by reality?
00:13:48 What do any of your words mean?
00:13:49 What does anything you say even mean if it doesn’t refer to something that’s actually
00:13:52 out there in reality?
00:13:53 I try to defend this point of view because in a certain kind of sense, I hear it as being
00:14:00 humble in the face of the uncertainty that’s around us.
00:14:03 Sort of, you know, when you speak with the confidence of Ayn Rand and yourself, that
00:14:10 reason can be like this weapon that cuts through all the bullshit of the world and makes us
00:14:16 like have an ethical moral life and all those kinds of things.
00:14:19 You kind of assume that reason is a superpower that has no limits.
00:14:24 Wait, hold on, hold on a second.
00:14:27 But I got this one.
00:14:31 See this is already leading to a murder by words and we’ve been only talking for 20 minutes.
00:14:37 The three of us wouldn’t get together, we wouldn’t get along together on an island.
00:14:40 We’ll just make him our slave.
00:14:42 We’re all going to get along.
00:14:43 He’s just going to do the work.
00:14:44 But I’m afraid I cannot provide any value as a slave, so this is not going to end well
00:14:49 for me.
00:14:50 We could provide value as dinner.
00:14:52 That’s the problem I’m trying to get to.
00:14:54 That’s a solution.
00:14:55 Okay.
00:14:56 But Donald Hoffman says that there is like he makes an argument that exactly as you said,
00:15:04 that what we perceive is not, is very, very far from actual physical reality.
00:15:12 In fact, we’re not able to perceive the physical reality at all.
00:15:17 And he also makes the bigger claim that evolution prefers beings who are not attached to reality.
00:15:26 So like evolution created creatures that are basically functioning way outside of what
00:15:31 the physical reality is.
00:15:32 I got this.
00:15:33 I got this.
00:15:34 Okay.
00:15:35 Because there’s a lot to unpack here and I hate all of it.
00:15:37 Okay.
00:15:38 First of all, no, no, I’m serious.
00:15:40 First of all, when you were making that comment about how, you know, reason is a superpower
00:15:44 beyond limit, you’re being ironic, but it’s true.
00:15:48 And I’ll give you one example, which is astronomy.
00:15:51 If you look at the physical size of the universe, it’s literally in one sense incomprehensible.
00:15:55 So he’s right in the sense that I do not understand and none of us understand what it means for
00:16:00 93 million miles away for the sun to be.
00:16:02 It makes no, it’s a number on another screen, right?
00:16:05 That said, the fact that my mind, and I’m not one of the great thinkers of all time
00:16:10 is getting there, is capable of appreciating what the sun means, what heliocentrism means.
00:16:19 The fact that we can, you know, you’re a math person that you could look at galaxies and
00:16:23 reduce it to 10 to the 64th power in terms of distance that shows the unlimited capacity
00:16:31 of the human mind and reason.
00:16:32 Number one.
00:16:33 Number two is if he says that evolution favors those who are not in touch with reality, and
00:16:41 I don’t know in what context he’s saying that because that sentence could mean a lot of
00:16:44 different things.
00:16:46 Evolution is what guides, reality is what guides evolution.
00:16:50 Evolution works because you are fitted to the reality of the situation around you.
00:16:56 It’s not that someone is sitting down and says, well, I’m going to add a fin to this
00:17:01 animal and that fin helps it swim.
00:17:04 I engineered a check mark.
00:17:05 It’s that mutations occur.
00:17:08 The vast majority of these mutations are against reality.
00:17:11 They do not further this animal’s life or this plant’s life or this fungus’s life, but
00:17:16 the ones that are in touch with reality, such as, okay, it’s really cold here.
00:17:22 There’s no predators here.
00:17:23 If I could figure out, and I’m using that term very loosely, a way where I could survive
00:17:28 in the cold, I don’t have predation.
00:17:30 It’s really great.
00:17:31 The fact that unconsciously and mindlessly this process can force the mutation and evolution
00:17:38 of the form precisely means that they’re in touch with reality.
00:17:42 Now, if he means the consciousness is not in touch with reality, that’s another thing
00:17:47 that I really hate.
00:17:48 You’re referring to the reality as like the biological reality of evolution, but all of
00:17:52 that is based on many other layers of abstraction that ultimately has quantum mechanics underneath
00:17:57 it all, and he’s saying somewhere along the layers, you start to lose more and more and
00:18:01 more attachment to the actual.
00:18:02 Hold on.
00:18:03 Can I add one more sentence?
00:18:04 Sure, sure.
00:18:05 I do not, I despise the idea, I say despise, I’m not using this, I’m not joking, the idea
00:18:11 that the reality we don’t live in is somehow more real than this.
00:18:17 That is a very dangerous idea to say, well, quantum works in this way, and I’m sure he’s
00:18:20 correct and none of us disagree with that.
00:18:23 What we perceive, macro, works in a different way, well, that’s the real reality and this
00:18:28 is fake.
00:18:29 Bullshit.
00:18:30 Yeah.
00:18:31 This is the real reality.
00:18:32 That is a different type, a subset, but no one’s living there, and humanity is the starting
00:18:37 point.
00:18:38 It’s a subset that has to integrate with this world.
00:18:41 There isn’t two worlds, one in the quantum world and one here.
00:18:44 They’re integrated.
00:18:45 Now, we might not have the scientific knowledge to know how they’re integrated, but so what?
00:18:49 We know that there’s only one reality and that’s this one.
00:18:52 He has this difference.
00:18:53 He says, evolution matches up to fitness, not to reality, and he creates this dichotomy
00:18:59 between fitness and reality, but that’s complete nonsense.
00:19:03 There is no such thing as a concept of fitness outside of fitness to what?
00:19:08 To reality.
00:19:10 Fitness and reality are the same thing.
00:19:12 They’re not separate things.
00:19:14 The whole way he sets this up intellectually is wrong, I think to some extent dishonest,
00:19:21 and certainly philosophically corrupt.
00:19:23 It’s Kantian.
00:19:24 Again, he’s accepted Kant’s ideas, and everybody pretty much has accepted Kant’s ideas for
00:19:29 the last 200 years, and they give it a different facade.
00:19:32 He’s giving it an evolutionary facade, but it’s just a facade for the same idea, and
00:19:37 that is that somehow because we have eyes, we cannot see, because the light waves are
00:19:43 going through a medium, and that medium necessarily distorted.
00:19:46 The medium changes the resolution at which you see.
00:19:49 If I take off my glasses, I’m seeing it a little differently.
00:19:52 The thing is still there, and the thing is still there in the way I see it, because I’m
00:19:56 grasping the handle and lifting the cup.
00:19:58 That’s not an illusion.
00:19:59 That is a real cup.
00:20:00 So do you think some things are more real than others?
00:20:03 For example, money.
00:20:04 There’s a bunch of things that seem real.
00:20:08 This is not an Animal Farm reference.
00:20:09 Is this going to be about love?
00:20:11 There’s nothing as real as love, right Lex?
00:20:16 Love is a fundamental part of the quantum mechanics, yes.
00:20:19 No.
00:20:20 No.
00:20:21 No.
00:20:22 There are some things that have become reality because we humans, in a collective sense,
00:20:27 believe it.
00:20:28 You can’t believe something collectively.
00:20:30 Now it doesn’t become real.
00:20:31 What does it mean to say something’s real?
00:20:33 That is, you can, so love, for example, love’s a good example, right?
00:20:36 Love is an abstraction, right?
00:20:38 It’s not something I can touch.
00:20:40 It’s not something I can see, but it’s certainly something you would feel.
00:20:42 Not something you can hit.
00:20:45 We love differently.
00:20:46 You and I.
00:20:47 I don’t think that’s true.
00:20:48 I think I’m just too honest about it.
00:20:49 You can’t hit love.
00:20:50 You can’t, love is an abstraction.
00:20:53 So is love real?
00:20:54 Yes, it’s real because I feel it.
00:20:56 It’s an existent, but it’s not an existent in the same sense as this cup is.
00:21:00 So abstractions are real, but at the end of the day, all abstractions have to be able
00:21:07 to be reduced to actual concrete so you can either see it.
00:21:14 I really don’t like criticizing someone whose work I haven’t read secondhand.
00:21:19 So I want to take this away from speaking about him personally, because I’m not familiar
00:21:22 with his work.
00:21:23 He is a nice guy.
00:21:24 That makes me like him.
00:21:25 That makes him like him less.
00:21:26 Now you’re back talking about evolutionary fitness again.
00:21:31 I think there’s disingenuousness when we talk about the word real in terms of ideas are
00:21:39 real versus the cup is real, and you try to switch back between those two meanings, and
00:21:45 it’s a little bit of linguistic wordplay that is trying to force a point that’s not accurate,
00:21:51 in my opinion.
00:21:52 Well, I think the issue is, and what he’s challenging is, and what Kant is challenging
00:21:57 is, do we know reality?
00:22:01 And I think the answer is yes, we do.
00:22:03 We know reality.
00:22:04 We observe it.
00:22:05 Now, do we know everything about reality?
00:22:07 No.
00:22:08 We can’t, for example, sense what a bat senses as reality.
00:22:12 A bat observes reality through, what is it?
00:22:16 Sonar.
00:22:17 Sound waves, right?
00:22:18 Yeah.
00:22:19 Through sonar.
00:22:20 Right?
00:22:21 So it has a different sense, but it’s the same reality.
00:22:22 It’s still a table.
00:22:23 The bat’s spatial relationship to the table is different than ours, but the object is
00:22:28 still the same object.
00:22:29 But how do you know that’s true?
00:22:31 Are you not just hoping that’s true or assuming that’s true?
00:22:34 That’s what no means.
00:22:35 No means I have identified an aspect of reality.
00:22:39 That’s literally the definition of knowledge.
00:22:41 Now if you say, how are you certain?
00:22:43 Well, that’s a whole other question, but one of the reasons I know it was certain is because
00:22:47 this happens.
00:22:48 Yes.
00:22:49 Okay.
00:22:50 And I know this is going to happen.
00:22:51 And if I tell you, if you go downstairs, you’re going to see, you know, Mr. Jones and you
00:22:55 walk downstairs and I see Mr. Jones, at the very least, you know, something’s going on
00:22:59 there.
00:23:00 So what about all the things that mess with our perception?
00:23:02 For example, we’ve talked about psychedelics before.
00:23:05 Talked about in dreams where you’d be detached from this, I mean, there’s certain things
00:23:10 that happen to your brain to where you’re not able to perceive.
00:23:12 So you’re not perceiving reality.
00:23:14 That’s right.
00:23:15 So your brain is creating a different reality.
00:23:16 It’s not real.
00:23:17 How do you know it’s not real?
00:23:19 How do you know the elves will meet in the…
00:23:21 Because partially because I need to take a drug in order to do it, because I’m asleep
00:23:26 when I’m dreaming.
00:23:28 It’s not reality.
00:23:29 That is clearly a creation of our mind.
00:23:33 It’s not a creed.
00:23:34 Hold on.
00:23:35 Let’s get to the psychedelics.
00:23:36 The drug is real.
00:23:37 I think you’re going to be thinking I’m joking a lot more than I am this episode.
00:23:42 I’m going to be the humorist objectivist.
00:23:43 He could be the court jester.
00:23:47 In terms of psychedelic, when people are perceiving these elves, these machine elves, these other
00:23:51 entities, whether they could either be real or not, I don’t know.
00:23:57 But the point is that doesn’t go to his broader point because if these beings exist and the
00:24:02 only way to perceive them is to take a drug, they still exist.
00:24:06 This is just…
00:24:07 For example, if I’m walking outside in the woods at night and there’s a deer and I can’t
00:24:14 see it, but if I put on night vision goggles, I can see it.
00:24:17 That deer was there the entire time.
00:24:19 It’s not that the night vision goggles caused the deer to appear.
00:24:22 You can recreate it not only using night vision goggles, but you can then use sonar.
00:24:28 You can use other mechanisms by which to prove that the deer is there.
00:24:31 The thing with psychedelics is that…I don’t know because maybe I’m the least experienced
00:24:36 with psychedelics here probably.
00:24:38 My guess is every time you take the psychedelic, you have exactly the same experience of the
00:24:41 deer.
00:24:42 No.
00:24:43 Second, are there other mechanisms, other scientific mechanisms by which I can find
00:24:48 the deer out there other than the psychedelics?
00:24:50 We don’t know yet.
00:24:51 So…
00:24:52 Well, we don’t know yet.
00:24:53 Well, but the…
00:24:54 This is Occam’s Razor, right?
00:24:56 The simplest explanation here is the most likely, and that is that you’ve taken something
00:25:02 that’s messing with the chemicals in the brain, something is being…that your brain can project.
00:25:07 We dream.
00:25:08 Nobody’s arguing that the dream is real and reality is not, or if they are, I think they’re
00:25:12 nuts.
00:25:13 The dream is a dream.
00:25:15 Your brain is creating an image of telling you a story.
00:25:20 Psychedelics are simulating the same thing.
00:25:22 That’s probably what’s going on until there’s evidence to the contrary.
00:25:25 Well, hold on.
00:25:26 Let me disagree with you a little bit, because let’s take Adderall, for example.
00:25:29 No one here disagrees.
00:25:30 That’s something much more simpler and less out of this world.
00:25:34 I think what he might be speaking to, I know Joe Rogan talks about this and other people
00:25:37 in this space, is that when you take certain drugs, it changes your perception.
00:25:41 It doesn’t have to be otherworldly, it changes your perception of what’s around you.
00:25:44 And as an example, what they talk about is, the three of us are talking, there’s lots
00:25:47 of other stuff in the room, we’re only aware of it vaguely on a personal level.
00:25:50 So it changes the…
00:25:51 Hold on, let me finish.
00:25:52 No, I don’t do that.
00:25:53 I’m Israeli.
00:25:54 You’re about to start.
00:25:55 This is back to the desert island of murder.
00:25:58 No, but we just resolved it within three seconds.
00:26:00 We did.
00:26:01 There’s no conch.
00:26:02 He’s trying to get us to feed on the truth.
00:26:05 Yeah, it’s not going to happen.
00:26:06 Exactly.
00:26:07 I’m trying to create murder.
00:26:08 No one has asthma.
00:26:09 It’s going to be fine.
00:26:10 Because if the two of you murder each other, there’s more food for me.
00:26:12 There’s no food.
00:26:13 You’re all…
00:26:14 Well, ratings would go up.
00:26:15 You robots eat alcohol.
00:26:16 Ratings would go up.
00:26:17 Viewership would go up.
00:26:18 Yeah, it’s good for the ratings.
00:26:19 Yeah.
00:26:20 But if you take, for example, Adderall or speed, right?
00:26:22 People like you focus on things, you perceive things that aren’t there.
00:26:25 But that doesn’t mean those things weren’t there to begin with.
00:26:27 There are absolutely ways to change human perception chemically, through glasses, through
00:26:32 getting drunk.
00:26:33 None of that changes the fact that the reality underneath it is real and is causing this
00:26:37 effect.
00:26:38 Absolutely.
00:26:39 And it has a particular nature, right?
00:26:40 And all it’s doing is changing the focus, right?
00:26:43 So if I take off my glasses, I’m seeing the same thing.
00:26:45 I’m just seeing something’s out of focus and maybe in the distance, I can’t see something.
00:26:49 It’s just gone.
00:26:50 And then I put it on.
00:26:51 There it is.
00:26:52 That thing was always there.
00:26:53 It’s just the sensitivity I have to it has changed.
00:26:57 And it’s absolutely not sensitive to everything equally.
00:27:00 And drugs can change the relative sensitivities.
00:27:03 It doesn’t change reality.
00:27:06 It changes our ability to focus on reality.
00:27:09 Let me give you one great example, the microscope.
00:27:13 I forget who it was.
00:27:14 His name was with an L, the scientist who discovered it.
00:27:16 He had a drop of water and he’s seeing monsters, the protozoa in this drop of water.
00:27:21 For him, it must have been, it is like a drug experience, like, wait a minute, I’m drinking
00:27:24 this.
00:27:25 And there’s alien beings whose shapes are completely crazy in this water.
00:27:29 Those beings were always there.
00:27:30 Those beings were there before any of us were here.
00:27:32 They’ve been there for billions of years.
00:27:33 But because he had this apparatus, now he’s able to see protozoa.
00:27:37 No one’s arguing protozoa are extradimensional, no one’s arguing the supernatural, amoebas
00:27:41 are well studied, paramecia, all the other lots.
00:27:44 So if these elves, the machine elves are real, and the only way to perceive them is through
00:27:49 DMT or something like that, that doesn’t contradict the broader point that they’ve always been
00:27:53 there and this is the mechanism for perceiving them.
00:27:56 So here’s the word I was looking for, it’s the word actually Greg taught me this, so
00:27:59 Greg Salamieri.
00:28:02 So it’s resolution, right?
00:28:03 So it’s resolution.
00:28:04 My resolution changes with the glasses.
00:28:06 My resolution gets finer with the microscope.
00:28:09 So there’s probably some bacteria here on the table.
00:28:11 100%.
00:28:12 Right?
00:28:13 There’s no doubt about it.
00:28:14 I can’t see them.
00:28:15 I can’t use the microscope to not see them, but they’re either there or they’re not there.
00:28:19 And I have the tools to discover whether they are there or they’re not there.
00:28:24 And that’s called a microscope.
00:28:26 Now there could be even smaller beings that even with a microscope, I won’t be able to
00:28:29 define, but that’s completely arbitrary to claim that, that they’re there until I find
00:28:34 a tool to be able to discover it.
00:28:36 The same with what you see if you’re seeing other beings when you’re taking psychedelics.
00:28:41 Unless you find another tool to be able to see them with, the simplest assumption is
00:28:46 probably the truest assumption.
00:28:47 But even the not simplest assumption doesn’t contradict the broader point.
00:28:50 No.
00:28:51 Which is again, reality is what it is.
00:28:52 If it turns out that there are these creatures that you can only see with psychedelics, and
00:28:56 there are these creatures that you can only see with psychedelics, and our resolution
00:29:00 while we’re not on psychedelics is not fine enough to observe them.
00:29:04 So what?
00:29:05 That doesn’t change the fact that we evolved to survive in reality as it is.
00:29:10 What do you do with the possibility that our resolution as it currently stands is really,
00:29:14 really crappy?
00:29:15 That basically.
00:29:16 Well, it’s not.
00:29:17 No, but you don’t know that.
00:29:19 No, we know it.
00:29:20 We know it completely.
00:29:21 Compared to who?
00:29:22 Exactly.
00:29:23 Compared to the future possibilities like artificial intelligence.
00:29:24 It is true.
00:29:25 Hundreds of years.
00:29:26 It is crappy compared to the future.
00:29:27 That’s true.
00:29:28 Fine.
00:29:29 But that’s not relevant.
00:29:30 Much, much.
00:29:31 Yes.
00:29:32 Or just the magnitude of crappy.
00:29:33 Of course.
00:29:34 No, but here I’ll use the standard that Hoffman uses, evolution, right?
00:29:35 The reason I know that our resolution is phenomenal, it’s phenomenally good, right?
00:29:39 Because look at us, we’re sitting here comfortably in an apartment with air conditioning and
00:29:46 in warm Austin with microphones and we did all this stuff, we’re really good at survival
00:29:53 and changing the environment.
00:29:54 Indeed, if you look at the species that we know of, there’s not a species that come anywhere
00:29:59 close to our ability to deal with reality, to observe reality, to understand reality
00:30:05 and to shape it.
00:30:06 Now in the future, well, we’ll come up with machines that can figure out stuff that we
00:30:09 have no clue about today.
00:30:12 That’s only because we’re so well suited to reality that can we create those machines.
00:30:16 And I promise you, in the future, it’s going to be much more what you’re saying.
00:30:20 That’s how it’s going to happen.
00:30:21 No, but the thing is, when the creatures from the future look back to the things we’re saying
00:30:24 now, what Aydin Rand is saying, what you’re saying with certainty, do you think they’ll
00:30:28 laugh at the level of how much confusion there was, how much inaccuracy?
00:30:32 Did you?
00:30:33 No.
00:30:34 No, no.
00:30:35 Let me get this one.
00:30:36 You know what they’re going to do?
00:30:37 Yes.
00:30:38 They’re going to either read Aristotle or read any of these great geniuses of the past.
00:30:42 It’s like these people didn’t have electricity.
00:30:44 They didn’t have warm clothes or anything, and they’re able to figure out the diameter
00:30:49 of the Earth.
00:30:50 Like the creativity to be and to get it within a few miles.
00:30:55 The creativity and to figure out the speed of light when you don’t even have a stopwatch.
00:30:59 When you look back, a lot of it’s nonsense, but it’s like when you’re talking to a kid.
00:31:04 They would disregard the nonsense, and when they get something right, it’s awe.
00:31:09 So it’s never a numbers game, right?
00:31:11 So it’s the few that validate and justify the rest.
00:31:16 So when you look at Aristotle, he’s talking about there was one of those causes which
00:31:20 is like time travel and it doesn’t really make sense.
00:31:23 But you look at the rest of this stuff or even Plato or any of these greats, it’s like,
00:31:26 oh my, this is an amazing miracle.
00:31:29 I wouldn’t say literally miracle, I got you, everyone.
00:31:31 But at the same time, yeah, a lot of these other people had stupid ideas.
00:31:34 You don’t care.
00:31:35 You care about those great, great minds and how they moved us all forward.
00:31:39 To this day, we still study Pythagoras.
00:31:42 And it’s not even just the sciences and the math.
00:31:46 Think about the philosophy.
00:31:48 How much is there to learn from reading Aristotle or Plato or Socrates when you disagree with
00:31:52 them?
00:31:53 How many giants have there been in all of human history that have had the minds of Socrates
00:31:58 or Plato and Aristotle?
00:32:00 A thousand years where they look back at Plato and Aristotle and admire them?
00:32:04 Absolutely.
00:32:05 Well, they find certain things that are wrong, yes, but certain things that Aristotle discovered
00:32:10 are absolutely right and will always be right.
00:32:14 Certain things that Ayn Rand discovered will always be right.
00:32:16 I think a lot of what she came up with, will some things be discovered to be wrong?
00:32:21 Yeah.
00:32:22 You know, that wouldn’t shock me.
00:32:25 But the genius and the truth that we know today is amazing.
00:32:33 It’s stunning to be pessimistic about us because in the future we’ll know more.
00:32:38 Not pessimistic, but more humble.
00:32:40 There’s no reason to be humble.
00:32:42 I mean, I really think humility is a vice, not a virtue.
00:32:45 What’s there to be humble about?
00:32:46 Look at life.
00:32:48 This is amazing.
00:32:49 We should be…
00:32:51 But the word humble has different meanings.
00:32:52 I know.
00:32:53 I know.
00:32:54 Okay.
00:32:55 I know what it’s going to get.
00:32:56 I mean, humility in a sense of not appreciating the genius and the ability and the success
00:33:07 and all the stuff that we as individuals, I think, in our lives, but as a culture, as
00:33:15 a movement, if you think about movement in terms of those of us who respect reason have
00:33:18 achieved in spite of the odds, we should be proud of that and pride as the virtue.
00:33:24 Humility in the sense of, yeah, I know there’s more to know.
00:33:27 I know there’s a lot more to know and in the future we’ll know more.
00:33:30 Sure.
00:33:31 But I don’t think that’s the way…
00:33:32 See, I take humility as the way the Christians use it, which is the other way.
00:33:35 And I think it’s a real vice.
00:33:37 It’s don’t think of yourself too much just because you can think that’s no big deal or
00:33:41 just because you can create this stuff.
00:33:43 It is a big deal.
00:33:44 Your achievements are a big deal and you should take credit for them.
00:33:47 So be careful with the word humility because the real meaning is the Christian meaning,
00:33:52 which is a very, very bad meaning.
00:33:54 Hold on.
00:33:55 Let me be a little pedantic because there’s no such thing as real meaning, right?
00:33:58 So there’s different meanings.
00:33:59 Okay.
00:34:00 Hold on.
00:34:01 This is semantics, but here’s another real meaning that you’re not going to disagree
00:34:03 with, which is the smartest person on earth is ignorant of 99.9% of knowledge, right?
00:34:09 So if I meet someone who is less intelligent than me and less informed than me, it is still
00:34:14 certain that this person has things to teach me.
00:34:18 If I go to a mechanic and maybe this guy’s dumb as rocks.
00:34:22 I don’t know anything about cars.
00:34:24 What he tells me about that car is good.
00:34:26 I could take it to the bank.
00:34:27 He’s going to be in a position to inform me.
00:34:29 So one of the reasons humility is extremely important is very often you have people and
00:34:34 you see this very much in academia who think you know exactly where I’m going around who
00:34:39 think they’re know what else and they think, oh, I have this degree.
00:34:43 You’re a layman.
00:34:44 You’ve never been formally educated.
00:34:46 Therefore not only you dumb and uneducated and you’re wrong.
00:34:49 And it’s like this person might be have won a great example of this.
00:34:53 And this is an example you might not like is a lot of times you have these native populations
00:34:58 and they’ll have a better understanding of the animals around them, the plants, the fruits,
00:35:02 whatever.
00:35:03 And you’d have these scientists and be like, oh, they’re talking about this monster in
00:35:06 the woods.
00:35:07 Yeah, whatever.
00:35:08 This giant, this giant ape.
00:35:09 But it was real.
00:35:10 It was the gorilla.
00:35:11 But you know, you dismiss them because, oh, these are stupid, ignorant, whatever people
00:35:14 that’s kind of changed to some extent.
00:35:15 But that is an aspect of humility that I think behooves especially highly intelligent people
00:35:20 because there is such a presumption to be dismissive of people who you regard as less
00:35:25 than.
00:35:26 But they’re often right.
00:35:27 So I agree.
00:35:28 I agree with all of the concrete examples.
00:35:31 I just think we should come up with a better word than humility.
00:35:34 And I don’t have one because I’m not I’m not a woodsmith.
00:35:36 I’m not.
00:35:37 This is not my strength.
00:35:38 But humility, humility is a is a word from the Christian ethics.
00:35:43 And it means something very specific in the field of ethics.
00:35:47 And it means the opposite of of what I think virtue requires.
00:35:54 It’s demeaning.
00:35:55 It’s to put you down.
00:35:56 It’s to it’s to it’s to resist pride.
00:36:00 And I think pride is a very important thing.
00:36:01 I don’t know.
00:36:02 You’re on.
00:36:03 But again, you have to define your terms properly.
00:36:04 Hating myself has has been quite useful for me as well, but that’s because you’re Russian
00:36:09 and Jewish.
00:36:10 So by what this changes, you know, this is this is what happens, right?
00:36:17 We’re brought up to, you know, to to feel exactly that way in a good Russian boy.
00:36:22 So we got him.
00:36:23 Oh, my God.
00:36:24 What is this?
00:36:25 What is this?
00:36:26 Gimmat again.
00:36:27 What is this?
00:36:28 Gimmat again.
00:36:29 What is that?
00:36:30 What it says?
00:36:31 Yeah.
00:36:32 Gimmat again.
00:36:33 I can’t.
00:36:34 I can’t.
00:36:35 I’m blind.
00:36:36 Yeah.
00:36:37 But as long as you’re good.
00:36:38 But is it kosher?
00:36:39 Yes, it is.
00:36:40 Check if it’s kosher.
00:36:43 This is Ukrainian, my friend.
00:36:44 Oh, oh, my God.
00:36:46 That is a sin.
00:36:47 How dare you?
00:36:48 That is really simple.
00:36:49 You know, me and Sinai were born in the same town.
00:36:50 I’m kidding.
00:36:51 My dad is Ukrainian.
00:36:52 Don’t get mad.
00:36:53 So I don’t think I don’t think self self.
00:36:58 What did you how did you define it?
00:37:00 Self hate?
00:37:01 Yeah.
00:37:02 I think self hate is quite destructive.
00:37:05 Speak for yourself.
00:37:06 I think that humility is quite destructive.
00:37:10 Humility in the sense of I’m no big deal.
00:37:12 No.
00:37:13 I mean, if you’ve achieved something in life, you are a big deal.
00:37:15 You are a big deal because, you know, look, you got the two of us to fly into town just
00:37:20 to sit down here and have a conversation with you.
00:37:22 You’re a big deal.
00:37:23 That says more about you than me.
00:37:24 We’re just desperate.
00:37:25 We’re lonely and depraved.
00:37:26 I’m not lonely.
00:37:27 I might be desperate.
00:37:33 I’m starting to question your ability to reason with the decisions you’re making on the on
00:37:40 the aspect of and I should mention that The Idiot by Dostoevsky is one of my favorite
00:37:44 novels and there is a Christian ethic that runs through that.
00:37:47 I mean, because because, yeah, I mean, particularly but I hate to bring this up, but particularly
00:37:52 Russians and particularly Russian Jews and particularly Eastern European Jews are incredibly
00:37:57 Christian.
00:37:58 There’s a there’s a there’s a real Christian theme in in Judaism that’s that’s about guilt.
00:38:06 Guilt is not there’s no guilt in Judaism.
00:38:09 King David doesn’t feel any guilt.
00:38:11 Solomon doesn’t.
00:38:12 There’s no guilt in the in the Old Testament.
00:38:13 Plenty of guilt.
00:38:15 Once Christianity has an impact on Judaism, we’re raised to feel this way.
00:38:18 We’re raised to be humble.
00:38:20 We’re raised not to feel special.
00:38:22 We were raised to think we’re no big deal and to and our mothers put us down and and
00:38:27 use that against us and try to inflict guilt on us.
00:38:31 They raise us up and then they knock us down.
00:38:33 It’s a mechanism, but it’s it’s a cultural mechanism.
00:38:36 And I think it’s very destructive to self esteem and to happiness.
00:38:39 Let me and I’ll give you a great he’s absolutely right with what he just said.
00:38:42 I disagree.
00:38:43 Oh, yeah.
00:38:44 Why?
00:38:45 Why is he right?
00:38:46 Because like my family, for example, it still doesn’t really understand how I could pay
00:38:48 the rent because I don’t go into an office.
00:38:50 And like when I started out trying to be a writer, the immediate reaction isn’t which
00:38:55 is a lot of times I talk to kids, right, and they have these aspirations.
00:38:58 And I’ll tell them, go for it while you’re young.
00:39:02 If you fail, you’ll go to your grave with like I tried my best.
00:39:05 I didn’t make it happen.
00:39:07 Whereas if you don’t try and never achieve, you are going to feel horrible for the rest
00:39:11 of your life.
00:39:12 And this is the example I use all the time.
00:39:13 I bring up many times I go go to any bookstore and look at all those terrible, terrible books
00:39:19 on the shelves that you wonder, how is this a book that could be you?
00:39:22 You could be that crappy writer.
00:39:23 But the thing is, in that culture that Yaron was talking about, you tell your family, I’m
00:39:27 going to be a writer.
00:39:28 Who do you think you are?
00:39:29 Why do you think you’re going to be?
00:39:30 You’re no Stephen King.
00:39:31 And it’s like, why do you have to be Stephen King?
00:39:33 Why can’t you just be a mediocre, crappy writer making the rent?
00:39:37 The best that you can be.
00:39:38 But even that is an amazing accomplishment.
00:39:39 Yeah, absolutely.
00:39:40 If I don’t have to go to an office and I write books that not that many people read, this
00:39:44 is the story of my life, at the same time, I do have pride because I made this happen.
00:39:49 You can be the best version.
00:39:50 I mean, this is a cliche, but you can be the best version of yourself.
00:39:53 It’s not a competition.
00:39:54 And yet our Jewish mothers, that’s not what they aspire us to be.
00:39:59 They aspire us to be the best version of what they imagine, what the culture imagines, what
00:40:04 society imagined, not what, it’s not about you in their minds.
00:40:09 And I’ve seen it, I see it all around me.
00:40:12 People putting their kids down, putting themselves down.
00:40:15 It’s not healthy.
00:40:16 I’ve never told this story, I’m going to tell it now.
00:40:19 When I graduated college, I was a temp for a while because I didn’t know what I wanted
00:40:24 to do.
00:40:25 Right?
00:40:26 And when you’re a temp, it’s like playing roulette.
00:40:27 You’re going to have jobs that pay well, that suck, and pay well that are great or that
00:40:31 are great that don’t pay well and suck and pay poorly.
00:40:35 But it’s you and you’re 21, you have that kind of space.
00:40:38 And my grandmother was talking to her brother, you know, he’s talking about his kids, she’s
00:40:43 talking about me, she’s, you know, from Odessa.
00:40:45 And she told me she lied to him about how much money I was making.
00:40:50 And that’s something I’ve never brought up and it still hurts me.
00:40:54 Because it’s like, your approval of me should be a function of my character, my happiness.
00:41:02 And the fact that you feel ashamed over how much money I’m making, especially at this
00:41:06 point in my life, I thought was very, really misplaced priorities.
00:41:11 Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:12 I don’t know.
00:41:13 I don’t know what to make of that.
00:41:15 I think there’s a huge benefit to the humility, terms aside, for believing that others can
00:41:23 teach you a lot.
00:41:24 Everybody, everybody can teach you a lot.
00:41:25 I think we all agree on that.
00:41:26 I just mentioned that, the mechanic.
00:41:27 No, you do.
00:41:28 Exactly.
00:41:29 Exactly the point.
00:41:30 But for that, I do believe you have to not constantly sort of break your ego apart and
00:41:37 constantly question whether you know anything about this world and sort of there’s a negativity
00:41:43 with it that I think is very useful.
00:41:46 And it’s also very fulfilling, just constantly.
00:41:50 I don’t know.
00:41:51 It’s the other way around.
00:41:52 I find that the more, the more I know, the more I know I know, the easier it is for me
00:41:58 to learn from other people.
00:42:00 The broader a context I have, the more curious I become, the more areas I know.
00:42:06 You know, it’s true that the more you know, the more areas you know you don’t know.
00:42:10 And the more I find myself attracted to people who can teach me something about things I
00:42:14 don’t know.
00:42:15 Whereas if I was ignorant, if I truly believed I didn’t know anything, I don’t know how I
00:42:21 would live.
00:42:22 It would really completely challenge everything, everything about life for me.
00:42:28 Where would I even start?
00:42:29 You wouldn’t know where to start.
00:42:31 So no, I think, and if you don’t recognize what you know, you don’t have a full appreciation
00:42:36 of yourself.
00:42:37 So really building a recognition of what do I know, right?
00:42:41 And how much do I know is really crucial to living.
00:42:45 And I’ll tell you something else that furthers my life enormously is when you reach a certain
00:42:49 point in your career in your life, and you’re talking to people who are a lot younger, and
00:42:53 they might be smart, driven, intelligent, they lack data.
00:42:57 When you’re 23, you don’t know how to speak corporate, you don’t know what the code words
00:43:00 are.
00:43:01 So if I am in a position to sit down with this kid and be like, do X, Y, and Z, and
00:43:05 here’s why I’m coming to this conclusion.
00:43:06 This is the information that released me this conclusion.
00:43:09 And I can save them from some of the suffering I went through.
00:43:13 That is very gratifying.
00:43:15 It’s making the world a better place.
00:43:17 And it’s also the opposite in a sense of humility, because like, in this context, I’m an expert,
00:43:22 or at least knowledgeable enough that I’m comfortable giving you advice.
00:43:25 Yeah.
00:43:26 And look, everything I do is about me knowing stuff that other people don’t.
00:43:29 And I know a lot of stuff other people don’t, and I do.
00:43:32 And it’s fun.
00:43:34 I’m a teacher.
00:43:35 I’m a teacher at heart, always have been.
00:43:36 It turns out, I didn’t know that early on, but I like becoming an expert and then trying
00:43:42 to teach people.
00:43:43 It doesn’t mean I know everything.
00:43:45 Quite the contrary.
00:43:46 Again, the more I know, the more I know that the certain things I don’t know and the certain
00:43:49 areas of expertise I don’t have.
00:43:51 But look, pride is a broader concept than that.
00:43:54 Pride is about, and humility is the opposite of pride.
00:43:57 And Christianity has that right.
00:43:59 Pride is about taking your life seriously.
00:44:01 Pride is about wanting to be really good at living, wanting to have the knowledge.
00:44:07 And I think what you’re describing is, you’re describing as I’m constantly learning.
00:44:12 Sometimes I have to challenge myself, I have to question what I believe in order to gain
00:44:16 new knowledge.
00:44:17 That’s all good, but that is a drive that is driven by pride.
00:44:23 You want to know.
00:44:24 There are lots of people out there that don’t want to know, because they don’t have that
00:44:28 pride.
00:44:29 They don’t have that commitment to live, the commitment to achieving something.
00:44:34 And I’m going to say something else that I think is crucial.
00:44:36 Humility is extremely important when it comes to politics.
00:44:40 Because if you feel comfortable telling someone you’ve never met how to live their life, that
00:44:46 is a complete lack of humility.
00:44:48 I lack it, obviously, because I tell people how to live all the time.
00:44:51 Not through force.
00:44:52 Not through force.
00:44:53 That’s what I’m saying.
00:44:54 And of course, not in the concrete.
00:44:55 I don’t tell them, you know, move to, although I do tell them to move to Austin, but I don’t
00:44:59 tell them this is what you do as a profession.
00:45:01 But I give them the principles, because I think they’re principles of how to live.
00:45:03 They’re making the choice.
00:45:04 That’s my point.
00:45:05 Politically, what I’m saying is it shows a lack of humility to be like, I’ve never met
00:45:09 this person.
00:45:10 This is how I’m going to take money from him.
00:45:12 I’m going to…
00:45:13 See, but I don’t see that humility.
00:45:14 There’s nothing…
00:45:15 No, it’s the lack of humility.
00:45:16 No, but it’s not even a lack of humility, because it’s…
00:45:19 Who am I to tell them how to live?
00:45:21 That’s lack of humility.
00:45:22 No, of course you’re not.
00:45:23 No, who are you to tell them how to live is an issue of…
00:45:26 It’s an issue of force and rights and a bunch of different things.
00:45:30 I don’t think it’s a lack of humility there.
00:45:32 I think it’s a lack of being a human being.
00:45:34 It can be both.
00:45:37 Sure.
00:45:38 I think it’s, who gives you the right to dictate to somebody else how to live their lives?
00:45:43 Yeah, but that’s a lack of humility, if you think you have that right.
00:45:46 Again, we’re using humility in a very different way.
00:45:49 No, we’re using the same way, because the person who feels comfortable, they think,
00:45:53 I know better than you how you should live your life to the point where I’m a couple
00:45:58 forcing you, because I know it’s gonna be best for you in the long run.
00:46:01 And the answer is you don’t know.
00:46:02 Right, but that’s a lack of humility.
00:46:04 I think in your mind, you’re on humility somehow tied to the Christian concept, the humility,
00:46:09 and so you’re kind of allergic to the word.
00:46:11 Well, absolutely, because it’s part of…
00:46:12 If you look at the cardinal virtues, the cardinal sins in Christianity, pride is a cardinal
00:46:19 sin and humility is a cardinal virtue, but they don’t mean it in the sense, because they’re
00:46:25 happy to tell you how to live, right?
00:46:27 They’re happy to be philosopher kings over your life, and they believe that’s being humble.
00:46:31 And you should be humble, by the way, in listening to the Pope or listening to God, because what
00:46:35 do you know?
00:46:36 You know nothing.
00:46:37 God knows everything, so you should shut up and do what you’re told.
00:46:41 That’s the sense in which I don’t think you should be humble.
00:46:43 I mean, it’s a sense in which I always use the example of Abraham, right?
00:46:48 God comes to Abraham and says, go kill your oldest son, your only son, right?
00:46:53 Your only son.
00:46:54 Go kill him.
00:46:55 It’s like…
00:46:56 And what does Abraham do?
00:46:57 He says, yes, sir.
00:46:58 I’ll follow…
00:46:59 And he’s a moral hero, for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, he’s a moral hero, because he follows
00:47:04 orders, because he’s humble.
00:47:06 I would tell God to go to hell.
00:47:09 Screw you.
00:47:10 I’m not killing my son.
00:47:11 There’s no way.
00:47:12 But he killed…
00:47:13 I mean, he killed his son, so it’s only fair.
00:47:14 Well, this is before he killed his son, so I didn’t know that, right?
00:47:17 No, but part of the evil, part of the evil of Christianity is that he’s killed his son
00:47:21 in the most torturous form of death possible.
00:47:25 I mean, the whole story of Jesus is one of the most immoral, unjust stories ever told,
00:47:30 and that Christians elevate this to a position of…
00:47:33 I’d love to have this conversation with Jordan, right?
00:47:35 Jordan Peterson.
00:47:36 The idea of elevating…
00:47:37 That’ll never happen.
00:47:38 No, it won’t.
00:47:39 But elevating Jesus, exactly, elevating Jesus to a superhero status for one of the most
00:47:43 immoral acts in human history is horrific.
00:47:47 So yeah, I mean, I’m opposed to God sacrificing his own son, never mind my son, but let him
00:47:52 go do it to his own son.
00:47:53 But he didn’t kill Isaac.
00:47:54 He killed the goat.
00:47:55 The story’s about Abraham, not about God.
00:47:57 First of all, God is mean, right, to put Abraham through that.
00:48:01 But Abraham has to assume that he’s going to kill his son, and he lifts his…
00:48:06 He’s going to do it, and he stopped.
00:48:08 So the whole point is obedience.
00:48:10 That’s what humility leads to.
00:48:12 It leads to the opposite of the story you were telling.
00:48:14 It leads to people saying, yes, I should be told what to do.
00:48:17 Where’s the authority who actually knows something?
00:48:19 I don’t know anything.
00:48:20 No, I know a lot, and I know a lot about my life.
00:48:23 The science…
00:48:24 So you stay away from my life because I have pride in my life.
00:48:27 The science is settled, right?
00:48:28 Look at these experts.
00:48:29 Who am I to argue with these experts?
00:48:31 They tell me to drink dog pee.
00:48:32 I’m going to drink…
00:48:33 What am I, not drink dog pee?
00:48:34 Yes.
00:48:35 Yeah.
00:48:36 Let’s go back to the island.
00:48:37 Speaking of which…
00:48:38 We’re on an island again?
00:48:39 We’re back to the island.
00:48:40 Manhattan.
00:48:41 And let’s go to the island.
00:48:43 Let’s…
00:48:44 I live on an island.
00:48:47 Everything is an island in some context.
00:48:49 Like Earth is an island.
00:48:51 This universe is an island in a multiverse.
00:48:54 There’s no multiverses.
00:48:55 There’s only one universe.
00:48:57 All right.
00:48:58 So let’s invite Jordan Peterson to this island.
00:49:01 You wish.
00:49:02 Hold on.
00:49:03 Hold on a sec.
00:49:04 Hey, girl.
00:49:05 Whatcha doing?
00:49:06 Lex.
00:49:07 Lex Friedman?
00:49:08 Look him up.
00:49:09 Lex who?
00:49:10 Yeah, exactly.
00:49:11 I don’t know.
00:49:12 Lex who?
00:49:13 I don’t know, Lex says something as big of a following almost as Jordan does.
00:49:18 I know Jordan.
00:49:19 I know his family actually through Jim Keller, who’s his relative.
00:49:22 He’s an engineer.
00:49:23 And I just talked to Sam, who is perhaps a little bit aligned in some sense on your perspective
00:49:32 on religion and so on.
00:49:34 So let me ask, is there some…
00:49:35 Religion, yes.
00:49:36 But…
00:49:37 Other things, no.
00:49:38 Sam Harris.
00:49:39 Sam Harris, yeah.
00:49:40 Oh, sorry.
00:49:41 Sam Harris.
00:49:42 I thought you were talking about baseball.
00:49:43 Yeah.
00:49:44 I just talked to Sam.
00:49:45 I thought…
00:49:46 Let’s talk about humility.
00:49:47 Let’s talk about humility, Lex.
00:49:48 My buddy Sam.
00:49:49 I was talking to Barack.
00:49:50 You might know him.
00:49:51 Yeah.
00:49:52 I simply…
00:49:53 Humility went out the window.
00:49:55 I’m just a natural language processing model that I assume that once I mentioned Jordan
00:50:02 Peterson, it becomes an obvious statement what Sam means.
00:50:06 This is how neural networks think.
00:50:07 This is how robots think, Michael, you should know this.
00:50:11 I thought by now you’d be a scholar.
00:50:13 For the sake of the audience.
00:50:17 Humility.
00:50:18 Everything can teach you something, even the robot.
00:50:21 Okay.
00:50:22 So do you think there’s value in religion or broader?
00:50:28 Do you think there’s value in myth?
00:50:30 And as we’ve been talking about the value of reason, do you think it’s possible to argue
00:50:33 in society as we grow the population of our little island that there’s some value of common
00:50:40 myths, of common stories, of common religion?
00:50:43 There was value.
00:50:45 There is no value today.
00:50:47 So human beings need explanations, right?
00:50:50 They need a philosophy to guide their life.
00:50:53 They need ethics.
00:50:54 They need some explanation of what’s going on in the world, right?
00:50:58 And it’s no accident that the early religions had a river god and they had a sun god and
00:51:04 a moon god because everything they didn’t understand, they made god, right?
00:51:09 So they had multiple gods because they didn’t understand very much.
00:51:13 As human understanding evolved, it increased, as we knew reality more, right?
00:51:19 We came to the conclusion of, you know, this is very inefficient to have all these gods.
00:51:22 This is a genius of Judaism, right?
00:51:24 Let’s just have one bucket to put all the stuff we don’t know in and we’ll call it one
00:51:28 god and then we don’t, as we gain new knowledge, we can just take it out of the bucket that’s
00:51:32 god and put it into the bucket of science.
00:51:36 At some point, though, at some point, and that point suddenly came during the scientific
00:51:42 revolution, I think, we could come to the conclusion that, no, we don’t need this bucket
00:51:47 that’s called god to explain the things that we don’t know.
00:51:51 We can say we don’t know and we’re learning.
00:51:55 And slowly our knowledge is increasing and yet there’s a lot more that we don’t know,
00:52:00 but we don’t need to throw it into some bucket that’s called god in order to have it.
00:52:05 And I think that’s true for morality and it’s true for everything else, right?
00:52:09 As we gain the tools to understand what morality requires, we don’t need a set of commandments.
00:52:15 We can figure out morality from human nature and from reality.
00:52:19 So I don’t think we need religion anymore.
00:52:22 I think religion needed to die probably about 200 years ago and was dying, I think, up until
00:52:29 Kant.
00:52:30 It seemed to be dying.
00:52:31 Kant’s missions, as he says, is to revive religion against attack of reason in the Enlightenment.
00:52:37 Now mythology is a little different because it depends what you mean by mythology.
00:52:41 Certainly we need stories and certainly we need art.
00:52:45 Art is a…
00:52:46 And Rand writes about this a lot and she’s an artist and she writes in…
00:52:50 I’m a huge fan of the Romantic Manifesto, which I think is one of her underappreciated
00:52:54 masterpieces.
00:52:55 Oh, I hate it.
00:52:56 Okay.
00:52:57 That’s it.
00:52:58 Okay.
00:52:59 So I think we have a real need, right?
00:53:03 As a conceptual being, we have a need for aesthetic experiences.
00:53:07 We have a need to concretize abstractions, to concretize abstract ideas, to concretize
00:53:13 the complex nature of the world out there.
00:53:15 And that’s what painting sculpture, to an extent music, but painting sculpture literature
00:53:20 does for us.
00:53:22 So to the extent that mythology serves that purpose, it’s just art, right?
00:53:27 To the extent that it serves another purpose, that is that it’s a way for the gods to communicate
00:53:31 with us or it fits some kind of preexisting mental construct that we have as, again, kind
00:53:37 of a conscientious perspective, right?
00:53:38 That we have these categorical imperatives and this mythology links up to that.
00:53:45 Then I think it’s false, it’s not helpful and destructive.
00:53:50 So I believe religion today is a destructive force on planet Earth.
00:53:54 I think it’s always been a destructive force.
00:53:55 It was just a necessary force, right?
00:53:57 You needed an explanation.
00:53:59 People needed something to believe in.
00:54:01 Once you get philosophy and once you get philosophy that starts explaining real life, real world,
00:54:05 you don’t need religion anymore and indeed it becomes a destructive force.
00:54:09 And you look around the world today, it’s an unbelievably destructive force.
00:54:12 Everywhere it touches is bad for life.
00:54:16 Again, mythology depends, art is essential, very, very crucial to human existence.
00:54:21 I mean, I’d love to hear what you think, but you don’t see religion and philosophy and
00:54:26 mythology as just a continuous spectrum?
00:54:28 Yeah.
00:54:29 So religion is a primitive form of philosophy.
00:54:30 It’s prephilosophical.
00:54:31 Where I thought Rand was going to go and he didn’t go was that I think he, I agree with
00:54:39 what he’s going to say, Rand was a mythologizer.
00:54:43 In certain specific contexts Atlas Shrugged is a myth.
00:54:46 It’s one thing to sit down and say, these are the people who move us forward.
00:54:50 These are the values that are important.
00:54:52 When you experience it through a story, through a movie, through a TV show, a poem or a painting,
00:54:57 it affects you in a very visceral, very different way.
00:55:02 Talk about American history.
00:55:03 You have the founding fathers, then you have the myth of the founding fathers.
00:55:06 Now, unfortunately the term myth often means lie, but it could mean in a useful sense,
00:55:13 an abstraction to help you systematize and concretize ideas.
00:55:17 So you have the myth of Reagan, you have the myth of Thatcher, the reality often falls
00:55:22 very short.
00:55:23 But when you look at how these different figures are mythologized, not only is it very inspirational
00:55:29 on a personal level, very motivating on a personal level, it’s also a great way to concretize
00:55:35 ideas because just how humans think, it’s one thing to think about ideas, but when you
00:55:39 see someone who embodies these ideas, Miss America, I was saying earlier, I had an aster
00:55:44 on my show, these people might be jerks.
00:55:47 But when you look at them, one specific aspect of their life and you extrapolate it, that
00:55:51 could be to anyone very motivating.
00:55:53 And it’s very important for people to have the belief that happiness and achievement
00:55:59 is possible because it’s very hard to keep that in mind, especially if you’re depressed,
00:56:03 if you’re anxious, you’re unemployed, you don’t have a girlfriend, you think it’s going
00:56:06 to be like this forever.
00:56:07 And then you look at someone’s story and they’re like, you know what, that astronaut interview,
00:56:11 Clayton Anderson, he applied 13 times, didn’t get a call back, applied the 14th time, got
00:56:17 a call back, didn’t get the job, 15th time he get the job.
00:56:19 He talks to kids and he goes, listen, apply 13 times.
00:56:25 Even if you don’t get the call back, you’ll still feel I’m doing something.
00:56:28 And having heard him and the myth of Clayton Anderson, this is going to tell people, yeah,
00:56:33 you know what?
00:56:34 That could be me.
00:56:35 Absolutely.
00:56:36 And it’s not just happiness, it’s the fact that virtue works, that the integrity, I mean,
00:56:42 what’s the power of the fountainhead?
00:56:43 I know you love the fountainhead.
00:56:44 Part of the power of the fountainhead is how it works, absolute commitment to integrity.
00:56:51 He is committed to integrity and he’s happy.
00:56:55 And it’s very rare in life to see that, to actually see a concrete of that.
00:57:02 And it’s very hard to hold it in your mind.
00:57:05 Yes, I’m going to be stuck in the quarry or I’m going to be stuck doing this horrible
00:57:09 job.
00:57:10 But if I stick to my principles, I’m going to be how it works.
00:57:12 Now I’ve got that concrete.
00:57:13 I know I can immediately relate to that success.
00:57:18 So I think art is essential.
00:57:21 And I think in a sense, what we do to Thatcher and Reagan is art.
00:57:24 You have to be careful in true stories, not to diverge too far from reality because then
00:57:29 when you discover the reality, you don’t want to whitewash it, and particularly when it
00:57:33 has political implications and then it’s really bad.
00:57:35 So particularly with Reagan and Thatcher, you have to be careful because they want anyone
00:57:39 near as good as people try to make them out to be.
00:57:41 But these are powerful, powerful, powerful stories and people are moved by it.
00:57:47 And the integration of emotion with reason is crucial.
00:57:51 One of the goals to be happy is to bring your emotions in line with your thinking.
00:57:57 And I think that stories and arts more broadly, and when I go and see Michelangelo’s David,
00:58:03 it does the same thing to me.
00:58:05 I can stand up to anybody because he did.
00:58:08 And look, he succeeded.
00:58:10 And it makes sense that he could.
00:58:13 So this is a really interesting idea of bringing your emotion in line with your thinking, with
00:58:18 your reasoning.
00:58:19 So Ben Shapiro famously has this saying, how do you like that transition, Michael?
00:58:23 Give me props.
00:58:24 I know you do.
00:58:25 He’s not Ben, it’s Ben Shapiro.
00:58:26 Yeah.
00:58:27 Someone is not taking your calls.
00:58:28 Benny.
00:58:29 I guess it’s a daily, don’t take the caller.
00:58:35 Back to the island with the murder.
00:58:37 I think we know.
00:58:38 Murder Island.
00:58:39 We would know who would be committing the murder.
00:58:42 I have the suit for it.
00:58:44 So he has the saying of facts don’t care about your feelings.
00:58:49 And I’ve always felt badly about that statement somehow, like it was incomplete.
00:58:56 So it’s interesting that you mentioned bringing your emotions in line with your thinking.
00:59:01 What do you think about that statement?
00:59:03 I got this one.
00:59:05 What Ben is doing in a loose way is attacking Kantianism because Kant, it’s almost impossible
00:59:16 for Westerners who aren’t schooled in this to understand the idea of philosophical idealism
00:59:21 because it sounds so crazy that you’re like, these great minds of all time can’t really
00:59:25 be saying this.
00:59:26 I must be missing something.
00:59:27 So when we hear idealism, we think John F. Kennedy is a good example.
00:59:32 You aspire things.
00:59:33 You think life can be better than it is.
00:59:35 That’s not what it means in a philosophical sense.
00:59:38 In philosophical idealism, it means ideas are more real than reality.
00:59:43 That I have this idea, then this comes along.
00:59:47 It’s the reality that isn’t correct.
00:59:49 My idea is still correct.
00:59:50 A good example of this that you see all the time on the internet is when they refer to
00:59:53 Mitt Romney and John McCain as rhinos, Republicans in name only.
00:59:58 And it’s like, who is more a real Republican?
01:00:01 The nominee of the party, the Senator, the governor of the party, or some person in your
01:00:07 mind who has never existed and there’s no evidence for them existing.
01:00:11 So what Kant did is he bifurcated reality into what we see around us, the phenomenal
01:00:16 world, but then it’s inferior.
01:00:19 The real world, the noumenal world, we can’t access it because we have eyes.
01:00:25 We only see the thing as it appears, not as it is in itself.
01:00:29 And because of this, everything we know is a shadow and is secondary.
01:00:33 And that’s Plato, straight out of Plato.
01:00:35 And the real reality is this realm of ideas.
01:00:38 So when Ben is saying facts don’t care about your feelings, what he is really saying is
01:00:44 reality comes first.
01:00:45 Your feelings have to be a response or a reaction to it.
01:00:48 You can’t say, this is how I feel.
01:00:50 This table doesn’t care.
01:00:52 You can yell at it all day long.
01:00:54 It will still be indifferent to your emotional state because it comes first.
01:00:57 So it’s a great statement.
01:00:59 I think he’s cribbing it from Ayn Rand in a sense, and there’s a sense in which he is.
01:01:04 I mean, who popularized that kind of idea?
01:01:07 And Ben has read Ayn Rand quite extensively.
01:01:09 Not enough.
01:01:10 Not enough.
01:01:11 Well.
01:01:12 Not enough to reference her.
01:01:13 That’s the way the army goes.
01:01:14 So yeah, obviously.
01:01:15 He may be read enough, but didn’t understand enough.
01:01:19 But so it’s absolutely reality.
01:01:24 Reality is unaffected by your emotional state and your feelings about it.
01:01:29 And this is a great claim against the idealism, the philosophical idealism of much of the
01:01:35 world out there, both left and right.
01:01:36 I think politically, culturally, the left and right are detached from reality.
01:01:40 They live in a different dimension, in a different space that they are creating in their own
01:01:44 minds that has nothing to do with the real world.
01:01:47 And when they fail, they make stuff up to justify their failure, right?
01:01:52 So all of really the ideas that are promulgated today on both sides are this kind of detached
01:02:01 from reality.
01:02:02 We’re putting emotions or ideas before reality itself.
01:02:07 But I believe that emotions are responses.
01:02:11 The responses to reality conditioned by our existing concepts.
01:02:17 You’re going to have to talk slowly to talk emotions to Lex because he doesn’t really
01:02:20 understand what that is.
01:02:21 I don’t understand.
01:02:22 That’s a really, you got to really taste your words.
01:02:24 But he’s big on love?
01:02:25 What is love?
01:02:26 But he’s big on love?
01:02:27 He’s trying to learn.
01:02:28 Pretty big on love.
01:02:29 I’m all in, I’m a love maximalist.
01:02:32 I mean, I could create, we could create an environment on this island where you would
01:02:36 really feel emotions.
01:02:38 Like fear is an emotion.
01:02:40 We could.
01:02:41 That’s the metaphysical terror.
01:02:42 We could easily terrorize you to the point where you felt fear, right?
01:02:47 So we could teach him about emotion.
01:02:49 But emotions are a response to reality.
01:02:51 So some people, for example, you could take five different people and show them exactly
01:02:54 the same thing.
01:02:55 And some of them would feel fear and some of them would actually feel indifferent and
01:03:00 other people might feel love, right?
01:03:03 I think Leonard Peacock uses the example of looking through a microscope and seeing a,
01:03:09 I don’t know, a virus or bacteria.
01:03:11 And for one, it’s a scientist, he’s made a new discovery.
01:03:13 He feels pride and love and awe.
01:03:17 The one has no clue, right, and he’s looking at this and it means nothing to them and somebody
01:03:22 else might look at it and it’s a bacteria and they feel fear because of what it could
01:03:26 do to them.
01:03:27 So it’s conditioned by what you know, what your values are and your level of knowledge
01:03:33 and what the thing is out there in reality.
01:03:35 And it’s that into, so your emotions respond to that.
01:03:40 So aligning your emotions with your reason is making sure that your emotions are really
01:03:48 conditioned by what you know explicitly versus what you’ve internalized implicitly that
01:03:53 you might not agree with anymore.
01:03:55 You know, things might happen in your childhood and they probably do, right, where you get
01:04:02 a trauma.
01:04:03 I don’t know, I’m afraid of dogs and maybe when I was a five year old, some dogs jumped
01:04:09 at me and I don’t even remember it, right?
01:04:11 But I came to a conclusion when I was five, dogs bad, dogs dangerous, right?
01:04:16 And now anytime I see a dog, oh my God, that bringing my emotions aligned with reality,
01:04:20 right, with my ideas is no, now I understand dogs don’t have to be scary.
01:04:26 I can work through this and there are various techniques and hopefully if there is such
01:04:30 a science of psychology, but in psychology to get you to the point where you can get
01:04:35 rid of that fear and align your emotion now with your explicit ideas, and that’s what
01:04:40 I mean by that.
01:04:41 And let me build on that, talking about your friend Putin, I think I mentioned this before
01:04:45 at least maybe on the show, he was meeting with Angela Merkel.
01:04:47 Oh, Vladimir, please.
01:04:48 Yeah, Vlad, my boy Vlad.
01:04:50 He was meeting with Angela Merkel, Angela Merkel has a fear of dogs, so he brought out
01:04:55 his big Labrador Retriever, now for people who don’t know, Labradors are very big dogs,
01:05:00 but they’re also like the least aggressive, it’s like you could punch them in the face,
01:05:03 they don’t care.
01:05:04 That dog is not going to be more likely to attack just because she’s scared.
01:05:10 And I know they say animals can sense fear, domesticated dogs, if they see you’re scared,
01:05:15 they’re not going to be aggressive, they’re going to try to play.
01:05:17 I remember when I was a kid, there was this dog, Rex, this German Shepherd, I’m five,
01:05:22 this dog is gigantic, and I’m sitting on the couch, the German Shepherds have been bred
01:05:26 for intelligence, they’re very bright dogs, they’re very good with kids, he’s sitting
01:05:29 next to me, this thing is three times my size.
01:05:32 He very gently puts his paw on my leg to be like, kid, he can sense my fear, he’s like,
01:05:37 I’m not going to do it, I want to be your friend, I’m still freaking out.
01:05:40 He licks my hand, it’s just very scary, you know, animals are so bright, but that’s the
01:05:45 thing is, in terms of facts don’t care about your feelings, that dog is not more likely
01:05:50 to attack someone because their emotion is so intense.
01:05:54 It’s not that I feel something very strongly, therefore, this thing is more likely to happen.
01:06:01 So my intensity of my emotion does not in any way correlate, when you’re being irrational,
01:06:07 to the likelihood of that thing actually happening.
01:06:09 Now, you could have a dog that does respond to your emotion, right?
01:06:12 But then it’s, but then it’s not, that’s part of reality, right?
01:06:16 That’s a fact of reality that certain dogs respond to certain emotions.
01:06:20 But isn’t this emotion a part of reality, like, okay, let me say a word.
01:06:25 So part of that, I would even say, don’t let your emotion about your emotion, right, because
01:06:30 sometimes you have an emotion about your emotion, don’t be repressed, and identify the emotion
01:06:36 as reality, and evaluate it, don’t judge it, evaluate it.
01:06:41 Is it a rational emotion?
01:06:42 Is it consistent with my, like, if I’m afraid of these dogs, if I feel that fear, is it
01:06:47 rational to be afraid of these dogs?
01:06:49 But you’re speaking to your own individual trajectory as a human being as you grow through
01:06:53 the world and try to understand reality and connect yourself through reason to reality.
01:06:57 What I’m talking about is a term like lived experience.
01:07:02 When you observe and analyze the, you know, conversations with other people to try to
01:07:09 understand how other people see the world, doesn’t emotion fundamentally integrate into
01:07:16 that?
01:07:17 Like, isn’t emotion lived experience?
01:07:19 So everybody experiences the same reality, but the way they experience it might be very
01:07:24 different.
01:07:25 And that has to do with what?
01:07:26 It doesn’t have to do with…
01:07:27 With their values, with their conclusions, with their ideas, with their experiences,
01:07:30 with a million different things, right?
01:07:31 But is it…
01:07:32 But at the end of the day, it’s about the conclusions that they come to, which are then
01:07:35 shaping their emotions.
01:07:37 But look, emotions are not something to be avoided or ignored.
01:07:40 That is, I can sense your emotions to some extent, right?
01:07:43 That’s a lie.
01:07:44 Okay, it is Lex.
01:07:45 I can sense his emotions.
01:07:46 Thank you.
01:07:47 Yeah.
01:07:48 I can sense Michael’s emotions, and that’s part of the fact of reality, right?
01:07:52 So if Michael responds to something that I view as really, really important, right?
01:07:58 If we were standing in front of Michelangelo’s David, and Michael responds to Michelangelo’s
01:08:03 David and goes, eh, and turned his back to it and walked away, that would be really meaningful
01:08:07 to me, right?
01:08:08 That I would respond emotionally to that, and cognitively I would say, what is it about
01:08:12 Michael that makes him, you know, respond this way?
01:08:16 That is…
01:08:17 That gives me a lot of information about him.
01:08:18 So emotions are information laden, right?
01:08:22 But they are not primary.
01:08:25 They are responses, responses to something.
01:08:29 So one must be very aware of one’s own emotions, recognize them, and analyze them.
01:08:34 And one should be aware of other people’s emotions, if they’re important to you, if
01:08:38 they’re not important to you.
01:08:39 It doesn’t matter, right?
01:08:40 You don’t care about a stranger’s emotion, you know, like a stranger walks up to Michael
01:08:43 and Michelangelo’s David and said, eh, and walks away, and I go, okay, I’m glad you’re
01:08:49 a stranger.
01:08:50 But it’s…
01:08:51 Now, I don’t know what Michael’s response to Michelangelo’s David was or is, so I’m
01:08:56 a little worried about what he’s gonna say.
01:08:57 You got candy too, that was great.
01:08:58 Hey, hey, I thought I was special.
01:08:59 Do I get Ukrainian candy?
01:09:00 I don’t know, I can’t read either.
01:09:01 What’s this say, Joshua?
01:09:02 What does that say to him?
01:09:03 Is this Ukrainian candy as well?
01:09:04 I thought it was sent to me from…
01:09:05 Do you know that Atlas Shrugged was the bestselling book in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016?
01:09:12 Do you know Atlas Shrugged was translated to Russian by someone who’s now a crypto like
01:09:17 billionaire and he made like six copies and I have one of them and I sent it to my great
01:09:20 grandma.
01:09:21 No, they’re more than six, but yeah.
01:09:22 Oh, but they were like…
01:09:23 Because I have a copy too.
01:09:24 Okay.
01:09:25 Not I personally, the institute has a copy.
01:09:26 I sent it to my great grandma and she said, why is he sending me this, I wanna read books
01:09:28 about love.
01:09:29 And I’m like, you know what?
01:09:30 This is about love.
01:09:31 Yeah.
01:09:32 That’s what you should have said.
01:09:33 What’s that, what does that say?
01:09:34 So this says it’s…
01:09:35 It has vitamins and minerals.
01:09:36 If it’s in Russian, I don’t believe it.
01:09:37 It just sounds really strange to read like health information in Russian, I’m already
01:09:50 distressed.
01:09:51 But look, there’s a Yorshik like you have.
01:09:53 Exactly.
01:09:54 I mean, I’m much, I like Kiev much more than I like Moscow.
01:09:58 Wow.
01:09:59 Strong words.
01:10:00 But this is, this is not, it’s like hard candy.
01:10:02 I don’t know.
01:10:03 I think this, some of my friends sent me that’s made with blood to give the kids iron.
01:10:07 Whose blood?
01:10:08 Like cow blood.
01:10:09 Oh.
01:10:10 Like with chocolate.
01:10:11 All right.
01:10:12 You can keep it.
01:10:13 That’s all you.
01:10:14 All right.
01:10:15 I’m keeping both of these.
01:10:16 Can I take something you’re talking about with emotion?
01:10:18 Something that is very pernicious in terms of emotion is people denying the validity
01:10:23 of their own emotions.
01:10:24 And here’s one example, someone could be in an abusive relationship or have had an
01:10:28 abusive childhood and they think, well, I didn’t have a black eye.
01:10:32 We had dinner on the table.
01:10:33 It wasn’t abusive because you hear some other story.
01:10:35 So they feel their emotion is invalid or like, oh, he never lays hands on me.
01:10:41 He gets drunk and is mean to me.
01:10:42 He’s still basically a good person.
01:10:44 You’re denying that emotion.
01:10:46 And that emotion is a response to something real.
01:10:49 There’s an expression, I have friends who are in 12 step programs.
01:10:52 There’s an expression there, which I think is very profound, which is if it’s hysterical,
01:10:56 it’s historical.
01:10:57 Meaning if some minor incident is having an extreme disproportionate impact on you, think,
01:11:03 ask yourself, why am I responding in such an extreme way to some minor thing?
01:11:08 And I will tell you 10 times out of 10, you’ll go back and you’ll be like, oh, I’m feeling
01:11:13 now like I felt when I was eight and my dad came home and he was a total jerk and I didn’t
01:11:18 do anything wrong.
01:11:19 And he thought I had, and I was complete powerless.
01:11:21 And now I’m in the same situation, my boss.
01:11:23 I’m not that eight year old in one sense I am, in another sense I’m not, but I feel the
01:11:27 same way I did as a kid.
01:11:28 And this is a very useful mechanism in terms of furthering one’s happiness because you
01:11:32 kind of deprogram all those things that you picked up as a child.
01:11:35 But it’s also, you know, if you’re feeling something wrong, even though you’re trying
01:11:39 to rationalize in a way, you know, it’s not abusive because he’s not hitting me.
01:11:42 No, the emotion is telling you something real about what’s going on.
01:11:46 So acknowledge it and fix the situation, right?
01:11:50 So one of the powers emotions give you is they send you signals about something that
01:11:54 might not be in cognition yet.
01:11:57 And when you examine their emotion, it brings it to cognition and now you can act on it.
01:12:01 So maybe the boss is abusive, but I didn’t really think of it in those terms of my emotions
01:12:06 is sending me signals.
01:12:07 And now that I signal it, I’m going to resign.
01:12:09 I’m going to find a better, another job.
01:12:11 I’m going to complain to his boss or whatever.
01:12:12 I’m going to take action.
01:12:14 Why do you think Ayn Rand is such a controversial figure?
01:12:17 Last time I spoke with you on this particular podcast, the, the amount of emails I’ve gotten
01:12:23 positive and negative and certainly negative, I don’t usually get negative emails.
01:12:28 Yeah.
01:12:29 I can’t, I can’t relate.
01:12:31 I’m sure mine were all positive or only positive.
01:12:34 It was mostly women sending pictures for me to forward to you because you didn’t send
01:12:39 me anything.
01:12:40 Oh, it’s the wrong email address.
01:12:43 Sorry.
01:12:44 I kept bouncing.
01:12:45 Oh, so this is love.
01:12:51 Love hurts.
01:12:52 Okay.
01:12:53 Yes.
01:12:54 No.
01:12:55 But why do you think she’s such a divisive figure?
01:12:56 Why do you think she provokes such emotion in both the positive and the negative side?
01:12:59 I’d love to hear both of your viewpoints on this.
01:13:02 Well, I think on the negative side and both on the positive and the negative side, I think
01:13:05 it’s because she’s radical.
01:13:08 She’s consistently radical.
01:13:10 She upends the, the premises, the ideas that are prevalent in the culture that were brought
01:13:17 up on the, that, that are like, you know, they’re like milk and, and, and, you know,
01:13:24 the basic stuff that we’re, we’re growing up.
01:13:26 You have to be altruistic.
01:13:27 You have to live for other people.
01:13:29 That’s just basic stuff.
01:13:30 Nobody challenges that.
01:13:31 Nobody questions it.
01:13:32 And if they do question it, they usually question it from the perspective of a cynic or a bad
01:13:37 guy.
01:13:38 Right.
01:13:39 You mentioned the book, the Joker, right.
01:13:40 Before we started, right.
01:13:41 You know, I’m going to upend the world because I don’t care about other people.
01:13:44 Right.
01:13:45 So, so they’re presented with these two alternatives and it’s real in people’s lives, right?
01:13:49 You either live for other people or you’re a evil SOB and you know, yeah, most people
01:13:56 in either one of those, but the ethic is right here.
01:14:00 It’s living for other people.
01:14:02 And when you challenge that, they have no way cognitively to go with that.
01:14:05 And the only place they can go with that cognitively is to the Joker.
01:14:08 It’s the evil guy.
01:14:09 It’s the somebody who wants to smash everything and destroy because they don’t have this alternative
01:14:14 conception of, oh no, you can be rationally self interested and that does not involve
01:14:19 destruction and that does not involve, you know, just exploiting other people.
01:14:25 They can’t conceptualize that.
01:14:27 It’s not in their framework.
01:14:30 So it’s the fact that she’s so consistently on the side of self interest, for example,
01:14:34 on the side of capitalism, on the side of freedom.
01:14:37 It’s the fact that she dismisses faith to the extent that she does or to the extent
01:14:42 that I do, right, that alienates people because that is completely different from what they
01:14:47 brought up.
01:14:48 Now the flip side of that is it’s also really interesting to some people.
01:14:52 So you know, a lot of, you got some positives, right?
01:14:56 And I got a lot of positives from that appearance.
01:14:58 I know a lot of people came to my podcast because I appeared on your show.
01:15:02 Why?
01:15:03 Because they hear something that’s completely fresh, new, different, they’ve never heard
01:15:08 before.
01:15:09 It appeals to something in them that maybe, you know, a lot of people say I read Ayn Rand
01:15:13 and it confirmed everything I believed.
01:15:15 Now for me it didn’t.
01:15:16 It was the opposite.
01:15:17 It turned upside down everything I believed, but there are a lot of people out there that
01:15:21 do have a sense that something’s wrong in the world, that altruism is wrong, that socialism,
01:15:26 just the stuff and religion is wrong, but they don’t have an alternative.
01:15:29 It hasn’t coalesced.
01:15:31 And they listen to a lot of podcasts because they’re trying to get ideas of what is it
01:15:35 that I’m sensing that’s wrong out there?
01:15:37 And suddenly somebody comes out and gives them some clear explanation of things and
01:15:42 they go, wow, that’s what I’ve been looking for my whole life.
01:15:45 So that’s the positive for people.
01:15:48 You know, and I read Ayn Rand, it just all made sense.
01:15:53 It all clicked and it all, and it made clear that everything I believed to that point was
01:15:59 just wrong.
01:16:00 It just didn’t, it didn’t integrate.
01:16:02 And I always knew to some extent it didn’t integrate, but there was no alternative, so
01:16:05 I believed it.
01:16:06 What else was there?
01:16:07 I remember saying to myself as a kid, probably 15, why should I, why is this, why is morality
01:16:12 all about other people?
01:16:14 Why is that?
01:16:15 Well, that’s just the way it is, right?
01:16:17 And I couldn’t, couldn’t come up with an explanation.
01:16:19 She gave me the explanation and she gave me the explanation why it’s wrong to do that.
01:16:23 And I think, so I think that’s why people respond.
01:16:25 It’s just too radical.
01:16:27 It can’t fit into their cognitive framework that they have been brought up on, that they’ve
01:16:32 been educated on, that just their whole life revolves around.
01:16:35 Michael, you don’t bring up Ayn Rand that much in conversation, except as kind of references
01:16:40 every once in a while as part of the humor of just the general flow in the music of the
01:16:44 way you like to talk.
01:16:45 Well, why do you think you don’t integrate her into your philosophy when you’re like
01:16:52 explaining ideas and all those kinds of things?
01:16:54 Like, why is she not, you know, a popular reference point for discussion of ideas?
01:17:01 Because I, I don’t know if Yaron’s going to agree with or can agree with me.
01:17:05 I think for a certain percentage of the population, actually I talked to someone from the Ayn
01:17:09 Rand Institute, I forgot his name, older guy with glasses and he didn’t disagree with me.
01:17:12 He said, this is changing.
01:17:13 He said, I think for a certain percentage of the population who are uninformed about
01:17:17 her work, higher than 10%, less than 50%, you mentioned Ayn Rand, they have been trained
01:17:23 to think this is identical Scientology.
01:17:25 So as soon as her name comes up, it’s like, okay, I’m out the door.
01:17:28 I’m not going to have anything to do with this.
01:17:30 And everyone who follows her is a crazy person.
01:17:32 That’s one thing that has happened.
01:17:33 Another thing is Rand in her personality was very aggressive and antagonistic.
01:17:40 She was for a long time, the lone voice in the wilderness being like, this isn’t like
01:17:45 one of her big adversaries in a certain sense is Milton Friedman.
01:17:50 And she really hated how Milton Friedman was like, oh, you know, having rent control is
01:17:55 inefficient.
01:17:56 And she’s like, inefficient?
01:17:58 We’re talking about mass homelessness and people dying.
01:18:02 And you’re talking about this, like what color tie goes with this color shirt?
01:18:06 Are you insane?
01:18:07 And in fact, it’s hilarious.
01:18:09 There was an organization called the Foundation for Economic Education fee.
01:18:12 Leonard Reed was the head of this.
01:18:15 And there were a series of letters and she was helping him.
01:18:18 She was much more philosophically grounded in certain contexts than he was.
01:18:22 And there was an essay, a pamphlet that he published called Roofs or Ceilings.
01:18:27 It was cowritten by Milton Friedman, later Nobel prize winner and George Stigler, also
01:18:32 later Nobel prize winner.
01:18:33 And basically the argument was, well, if the government controls all housing, how’s that
01:18:39 going to work out?
01:18:40 And she’s sitting there and she’s typing in all caps.
01:18:43 So you know, she’s holding on the shift key and doing this on a typewriter and being like
01:18:49 how?
01:18:50 And you can imagine her with her cigarette holder, apoplectic, being like, how is an
01:18:55 organization ostensibly devoted to free enterprise discussing this Stalinist idea in the most
01:19:04 casual of terms?
01:19:06 She’s like, have I taught you not?
01:19:07 And what’s amazing is, so at Fee, they only have her letters because she sent them to
01:19:13 Reed.
01:19:14 The Ayn Rand Institute must have Leonard Reed’s letters.
01:19:16 I was able to, knowing Rand enough, predict exactly what the conversation would go like
01:19:21 because he also did something she didn’t approve of, which is he asked other people for feedback
01:19:26 on her work.
01:19:27 And she goes, I gave this to you to read.
01:19:29 Who are you shopping around to some jerk that I don’t, I need their approval.
01:19:33 What are you doing?
01:19:34 So it was a very interesting situation, but so that’s one issue.
01:19:38 I remember this is Ayn Rand when she’s young.
01:19:40 She wasn’t that young.
01:19:41 It was in the 40s.
01:19:42 She’s relatively young, right?
01:19:43 Yeah.
01:19:44 It’s before Atlas Shrugged.
01:19:45 It was before Atlas Shrugged.
01:19:46 So it’s before she’s super famous.
01:19:47 And before this is, the found has been published, but you know, she’s trying to work with others
01:19:55 and they are disappointing her left and right.
01:19:57 Yeah.
01:19:58 And also when you are a, what she takes away from bad people is you have these kids, right?
01:20:06 And you’re going to sit down with them and they’re going to be like, yeah, I’m going
01:20:09 to take your guns.
01:20:10 I’m going to lock you in your house.
01:20:12 I’m going to take 60% of your income and all this other stuff.
01:20:16 And they might, up to reading Rand, they might sit down and have a discussion.
01:20:21 And Rand goes, Hey, you know what?
01:20:23 You didn’t have to give them an answer.
01:20:25 You could say, go to hell.
01:20:27 We’re not having this conversation and you have no right to one second of my life.
01:20:32 And this is not a legitimate opener.
01:20:35 This is a declaration of war.
01:20:36 This isn’t like, it’s not like if I sit down with you, I run like, Hey, Ron, here are my
01:20:40 plans for your wife.
01:20:41 Go to hell.
01:20:42 Yeah.
01:20:43 This isn’t a conversation we’re having.
01:20:44 Oh, I’m going to make you unsafe in your house.
01:20:45 What?
01:20:46 This is not a discussion.
01:20:47 So what happens is these people who five minutes ago were able to have a debate with this kid
01:20:52 because people read Rand when they’re young often.
01:20:54 And now that kid is like, yeah, I’m not even talking to you.
01:20:57 It’s her fault.
01:20:58 Whereas in reality, it’s that person’s fault because that person had no right, although
01:21:03 they’ve been trained to the contrary of our culture to believe, yeah, I’m going to sit
01:21:06 down and we’re just going to equally have a discussion over your own life.
01:21:11 And you have one vote and I have one vote and we’re going to know Lex has a vote and
01:21:14 that’s just how it’s going to be and Rand’s not having it.
01:21:18 So I think those are two issues.
01:21:19 And there’s some other things which, which I don’t need to get into.
01:21:22 But I, I, because one of the things that Rand said consisting of her life is that her philosophy
01:21:27 is an integrated whole, right?
01:21:29 So to be an objectivist isn’t just like, I like Atlas shrugged.
01:21:33 It means I accept objectivism as a totality.
01:21:37 Since I do not, I don’t, I think it is proper to be respectful to her wishes and not constantly
01:21:43 be, especially given that I’ve somewhat of a platform to be like Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand,
01:21:46 Ayn Rand, because I don’t think Ayn Rand would have liked it if I was talking about Ayn Rand
01:21:50 this much.
01:21:51 So how do you, how do you deprogram?
01:21:54 Because I don’t like to bring up Ayn Rand just because I do see what, like how people
01:21:58 roll their eyes essentially.
01:22:00 So how do you, what’s the upside, exactly.
01:22:03 But what is that pro, can we, can you speak to that programming that people have?
01:22:08 I mean, look, at the end of the day, if you talk about the ideas and the ideas make sense
01:22:12 and people are attracted to the ideas, then you say, oh, by the way, and this came from
01:22:15 Ayn Rand, that’s how you deprogram them, right?
01:22:18 If you make the ideas prevalent in the culture, if people start viewing self interest as something
01:22:23 that’s kind of, that’s interesting and worthwhile and something worth investigating, and they
01:22:27 said, oh, that came from Ayn Rand, then I think, I think then we’ll, we’ll deprogram
01:22:32 them and get them and get them changing their minds about these things.
01:22:36 And also, you know, going on shows where people are going to watch your show no matter who
01:22:40 you bring on.
01:22:41 Right.
01:22:42 So, uh, even though now you do, you, if you put, you put Ayn Rand in the title that immediately
01:22:48 reduces the number of people who watch, so, so in the future you shouldn’t, but, uh, you
01:22:52 put Michael Malice in the title and then at least the, the female population, the female
01:22:56 to, you know, absolutely, just to see, but so, so you go and you try to make them as
01:23:01 credible as possible to as many people as possible over time.
01:23:04 It takes time.
01:23:05 And ultimately, I don’t think the culture will have this response to her.
01:23:08 They might still disagree with her, but I think over time, and already you’re seeing
01:23:12 it, younger people, I think today are far less, there was a generation who never read
01:23:16 Ayn Rand and was like this, bring out the garlic and the crosses.
01:23:19 We don’t want to have anything to do with it then.
01:23:22 And I think today there are many more people who’ve read her and might disagree or not
01:23:25 disagree.
01:23:26 Right.
01:23:27 And then there were a lot of people who haven’t read her, but who are not opposed to it or
01:23:30 willing to have an, to engage.
01:23:32 So I think it’s changing already.
01:23:34 And I think in 20 years it’ll be completely different.
01:23:35 And just two more things that she does that I think it says that I think people find very,
01:23:38 very off putting given our culture.
01:23:41 One is she will, basically you could sit down with Rand and be like, your fear is not in
01:23:46 any way a hold on my freedom.
01:23:48 Just that one sentence.
01:23:50 And for a lot of people that’s very off putting and very harsh, it’s correct.
01:23:55 But for them, it’s just like, wait a minute, I’m still scared.
01:23:59 It’s like, I don’t care.
01:24:00 Like for example, like with lockdowns and things like this, it’s like, well, I’m scared
01:24:04 and maybe I have a right to be scared.
01:24:05 Or like, I’m scared that you have a gun in your house.
01:24:08 And it’s like, I respect that you’re scared.
01:24:10 I don’t care.
01:24:11 At the end, as you say at the end of the day, this is my house.
01:24:13 I’m going to live my life as I please, as long as I don’t hurt other people.
01:24:17 Well, you are hurting me because I’m scared.
01:24:19 No, that’s not.
01:24:20 This is the feeling versus fact.
01:24:21 Yeah, yeah.
01:24:22 So that is one situation.
01:24:23 This is like a feeling versus freedom, essentially.
01:24:26 Yes, where Rand is, that puts a lot of people off.
01:24:30 I also think that historically, a lot of people who were drawn to her are drawn to her for
01:24:36 the wrong reasons.
01:24:38 That a lot of times, like Howard Rourke, the hero, we’re gonna still say hero.
01:24:43 You’re supposed to say protagonist, but hero.
01:24:45 The hero of the fountainhead, he’s extremely intelligent, but he’s also extremely uncompromising.
01:24:51 What often ends up happening is you’ll have a young kid who is somewhat intelligent, but
01:24:55 then they pick up the personality and now you’re someone I can’t work with.
01:24:59 And then it’s like, you’re not Howard Rourke, relax.
01:25:01 You’re not that skilled.
01:25:02 You’re not that talented.
01:25:03 But because the character has to do personification and have certain aspects together, when kids
01:25:08 read that, they might get the wrong idea.
01:25:10 That’s not Rand’s fault.
01:25:11 And it’s more than that.
01:25:12 It’s so, I completely agree with that, but it’s even broader than that.
01:25:18 So here is, in my view, one of the geniuses of the millennium presenting a philosophy.
01:25:24 And she’s got not just the questions, in my view, she’s got the answers.
01:25:27 And you’re reading them at 16 and you’re reading the answers.
01:25:30 You don’t know at 16 that this is true.
01:25:34 You might have a sense that it’s true, but you don’t have the life experience, the learned
01:25:37 experience.
01:25:38 You don’t have the facts, you don’t have the knowledge.
01:25:40 You’re picking up truth.
01:25:41 It’s just being absorbed.
01:25:43 You’re accepting it as true, but you don’t know it’s true.
01:25:46 And then you go out into the world advocating for it, which we all did, or at least I did,
01:25:51 when I was 16.
01:25:52 And you’re obnoxious.
01:25:54 You can’t prove what you’re arguing for because you don’t have the experience.
01:25:58 It took me, I don’t know, 10, 20 years, probably 20, to figure out that I really do think what
01:26:03 she said was true, but I didn’t know when I was 16.
01:26:07 When I was 16, I just absorbed these ideas and accepted them, in a sense, with some connection
01:26:13 to reality, but in a sense, on faith, at least presented it that way.
01:26:20 And as a consequence, you come off as a detached from reality, obnoxious human being.
01:26:26 And I think a lot of young objectivists are, and it’s hard not to be, because you are.
01:26:30 You’re confronted with genius.
01:26:32 And you’re not a genius.
01:26:33 I certainly am not a genius.
01:26:34 And I’m confronted with just genius and have all this information in my head now.
01:26:38 I can’t articulate it.
01:26:41 And it’s hard to deal with yourself.
01:26:42 What?
01:26:43 There’s an inside joke.
01:26:44 No, you said I’m confronted with genius.
01:26:45 I pointed to us.
01:26:46 Yes.
01:26:47 I mean, I’m confronted with you guys.
01:26:48 I’m at an age where I know how to deal with geniuses.
01:26:52 But there’s something else.
01:26:53 This is not why people don’t like her, but there’s something that the Fountainhead does,
01:26:56 which I think is very, and I don’t blame her, but it’s a bad consequence.
01:27:01 If you read the Fountainhead and you’re young and you’re intelligent and talented, the message
01:27:05 at least I got, and I know I’m not alone, is you are going to think that you’re going
01:27:09 to be a pariah, that a lot of people are going to be against you, and you’re basically doomed
01:27:14 for a short period of being isolated and alone.
01:27:17 And that may have been the case when Fountainhead was written.
01:27:20 But I think now with the internet, and in my experience, both as a youth and someone
01:27:24 who’s a little bit older, I didn’t appreciate, and you’re not going to get it from that book,
01:27:28 and you can’t get it through that book because it has to have a certain narrative, how many
01:27:31 people who are a little older are giddy when they find young talent, how inspiring it is,
01:27:38 how exciting it is.
01:27:39 Like when you talk to these kids who are doing things on the internet or writing or whatever
01:27:43 achievement, you want them to flourish.
01:27:45 You’re not threatened by them as the antagonists of the Fountainhead are, and that doesn’t
01:27:50 come through in the Fountainhead because it depends on your profession, right?
01:27:53 I mean, some of these parts of the world are better than others.
01:27:56 If you’re an artist, at least the way I conceive of art, and you want to go study art today,
01:28:02 you’re going to be pouped and look down on and so on.
01:28:06 So yeah, I agree.
01:28:07 I mean, in my generation, when I read Iron Man, there was no internet, and I was in Israel,
01:28:13 so we were isolated, and there was nobody else who had shared their ideas, and you did
01:28:17 feel that kind of isolation.
01:28:19 But Roark gave you, to me, he didn’t teach me about you’re going to be isolated because
01:28:26 partially because I wasn’t, maybe I was humble, right?
01:28:36 When I read Atlas Shrugged, I identified with Eddie Willis.
01:28:40 When I read the Fountainhead, I didn’t identify with Howard Roark.
01:28:43 How old were you when you read the Fountainhead?
01:28:46 So I read Atlas when I was 16.
01:28:47 I probably read the Fountainhead when I was 16 and a half, 17, something like that.
01:28:52 That is unfathomable crime.
01:28:53 You read the Fountainhead after Atlas Shrugged?
01:28:55 If anyone listening to this, if you read the Fountainhead after Atlas Shrugged, that is
01:29:00 a war crime.
01:29:01 No, for me, reading Atlas Shrugged was much more important.
01:29:05 It is more important, but my point is, I think the Fountainhead in many ways is redundant
01:29:10 in certain aspects if you read Atlas Shrugged first, and because the Fountainhead is such
01:29:13 a masterful book and such a personal book.
01:29:17 I agree with that.
01:29:18 So ideally, you would read the Fountainhead.
01:29:19 That’s what I’m saying, yes.
01:29:20 And here’s the other thing people don’t appreciate, I’m sorry to interrupt you.
01:29:24 People think Rand’s always about politics, politics, politics, politics, but the Fountainhead
01:29:27 is not a political book at all.
01:29:29 It’s about, well, she talks about politics in Mansoul, sure.
01:29:32 But it’s about ethics, how important everyone has to have a moral code.
01:29:36 That’s the other thing why people find Rand off putting.
01:29:38 If you have young people who now find it very important to live a moral life, who are like,
01:29:44 what does that mean to have morality, to have ethics, to live with integrity for people
01:29:50 who have gotten a little older, who have made these little sacrifices, who are like, I’m
01:29:55 not going to fight at work.
01:29:56 Do I really need to look for another job?
01:29:58 Yeah, my wife’s kind of getting annoying, but am I going to make a fight about it?
01:30:02 These little sacrifices that they make every day.
01:30:05 And big ones.
01:30:06 And big ones, absolutely.
01:30:08 So when you have someone who’s forcing you to look in the mirror and say, those little
01:30:14 sacrifices and big sacrifices you made, you did the wrong thing and you’re evading that you betrayed your unconscious.
01:30:22 That to many people, I think, is very threatening.
01:30:24 But this is why so many people say that Ayn Rand is for 14 year old boys.
01:30:29 Yeah, right.
01:30:30 Right?
01:30:31 You grow out of it.
01:30:32 And there’s a reason why it appeals to 14 as a little young, but 16, 18.
01:30:37 It’s because those are the ages where we’re still open to idealism.
01:30:41 In a positive sense, to beautiful things, to ideals, to seeking perfection, to seeking
01:30:49 a great life.
01:30:50 I think as you grow older, most people become cynical.
01:30:53 They give up on their ideals.
01:30:54 Why?
01:30:55 Because their ideals were wrong and their ideals failed.
01:30:57 My parents were socialists when they were young.
01:30:59 Those ideas failed.
01:31:00 So where do you go from socialism if your ideals fail?
01:31:02 Cynicism.
01:31:03 Yeah.
01:31:04 Which is horrible.
01:31:05 All adults, almost all adults out there are cynical.
01:31:08 And that is failed idealism.
01:31:10 When they look at the young people, they see their idealism, oh, well, I was idealistic
01:31:15 too.
01:31:16 And they don’t question the idea, well, they’re good ideals and they’re bad ideals, they’re
01:31:19 right ideals and they’re wrong ideals.
01:31:22 And that’s why they attribute it to youth.
01:31:24 So it’s a threat to a lot of people, a lot of people who it’s too late for.
01:31:28 For some people, it’s too late to change their minds.
01:31:31 And they know it.
01:31:33 And they’re too invested in the job, in the wife, in the compromises.
01:31:38 In the comfort.
01:31:39 And they’re too invested in the comfort.
01:31:42 Too invested in a compromise, too invested in a comfort.
01:31:45 And they know that they shouldn’t be.
01:31:47 They know they should change.
01:31:49 And these young people are challenging that.
01:31:51 And that is really, really scary for them.
01:31:53 And that’s why they reject it without too much consideration.
01:31:57 One of the things Rand, the working title for Fountainhead was Secondhand Lives.
01:32:01 And Rand had two definitions of selfishness in that book.
01:32:04 One is selfishness in the sense of my life is the most important thing.
01:32:08 It’s not the only important thing.
01:32:09 My family would be number two friends.
01:32:11 They certainly are extremely high values, but you can’t have these secondary values
01:32:15 without the first value.
01:32:16 But in the context of my life, right?
01:32:17 Because your family might not be a value, right?
01:32:20 You might hate your parents.
01:32:21 Sure.
01:32:22 The point being selfishness.
01:32:23 Then there’s the other kind of selfishness, which is Peter Keating, one of the villains
01:32:26 of the book, which is he’s selfish in that he’s greedy.
01:32:30 He’s looking out for number one, but he has no values.
01:32:33 He has no sense of character.
01:32:34 He just wants to be wealthy.
01:32:36 He wants to have a beautiful wife.
01:32:38 He wants to have a big house.
01:32:39 Why?
01:32:40 He couldn’t tell you because other people have it and he wants to have it more than
01:32:43 them.
01:32:44 His sense of reference is other people.
01:32:45 He’s living secondhand.
01:32:47 The problem with that is a lot of young people read Rand and when they start arguing online,
01:32:53 they just start trying to talk like Rand.
01:32:55 Whereas Rand would be like, be original, be an innovator.
01:32:58 If you want to argue for objectivism in Rand’s views, take her ideas, articulate them in
01:33:02 your own way.
01:33:03 That’s a good way of showing that you understand what she thinks, but what they end up doing
01:33:08 is just talking like her.
01:33:09 It sounds dated and comical and that’s going to be off putting because it’s like Rand wouldn’t
01:33:14 expect someone else to sound like Rand.
01:33:16 She’s her own person.
01:33:18 She of course wouldn’t view Keating as selfish in any sense because, or even greedy, greed
01:33:23 is a tricky word.
01:33:24 Well, he was selfish in the old school sense.
01:33:27 Yeah, he’s selfish in the old, but even there, it’s not as if he has some passion and he’s
01:33:33 going after passion no matter what, I’m going to light, cheat, steal.
01:33:39 His passion is painting and he doesn’t pursue his passion.
01:33:42 He pursues what his mother wants him to pursue and he pursues money and he’s completely second
01:33:48 handed in the sense that he follows other people’s values, not his own.
01:33:51 Can we actually just backtrack and can we define some of these ideas that Ayn Rand
01:33:56 is known for of selfishness, selfishness, egoism, egotism, greed?
01:34:01 Those all, basically all of those words are seen as negative in society and Ayn Rand has
01:34:07 been reclaiming in her work those words.
01:34:10 So can you speak to what they mean?
01:34:13 I think she’s trying to, and Yaron might disagree, I think she’s trying to be needlessly provocative
01:34:20 and it’s off putting and on one hand, maybe you want to be a provocateur because that
01:34:25 gives you people like, what does this woman mean?
01:34:27 On the other hand, many people are going to be viscerally put off.
01:34:30 When Ayn Rand was on Donahue in 1979, he asked her explicitly, define to me the virtue of
01:34:37 selfishness, which is the title of her collection of essays as well.
01:34:40 And she, this is Rand, immediately says, use a different word, self esteem.
01:34:45 And it’s like, yeah, it’s like, why are you championing this word, which has extremely
01:34:49 negative connotations?
01:34:51 Whereas if you just say, and this is thanks to her and her work, my life matters, my values
01:34:58 matter, I’m not going to apologize for that.
01:35:01 That is a lot less off putting than this caricature of Rand, which is I’m for, when people hear
01:35:07 I’m for selfishness, they hear, oh, someone’s bleeding out in the corner, but I want to
01:35:11 get a Coke.
01:35:12 That’s nice.
01:35:13 She condemned that.
01:35:14 She says, I’m against this kind of sociopathy.
01:35:15 That’s absolutely crazy.
01:35:17 But that word selfishness.
01:35:18 If it goes a mistake to be provocative in this one dimension, to go and to stick with
01:35:24 it.
01:35:25 I mean, she’s stuck with this idea of selfishness and so on.
01:35:27 She’s stuck with this term and it’s, I often use terms for provocative effect.
01:35:31 Yes, this is true.
01:35:32 You’re a master, you’re a scholar of the trolling arts.
01:35:36 Thank you, sir.
01:35:37 But I think this is one example where the costs outweigh the benefits.
01:35:42 And go ahead, Yaron.
01:35:43 Yes, I’m open to that idea, but I don’t think that’s right.
01:35:48 When you actually dig deeper into what people object to, they’re not objecting to the word.
01:35:55 They’re objecting to the ideas.
01:35:58 And she addresses this explicitly in The Virtue of Selfishness in the, I think, the introduction.
01:36:03 Wait, hold on.
01:36:04 I got to ask for clarification.
01:36:05 You’re saying they’re objecting to the ideas, but when they talk about her, they’re not
01:36:08 talking about her actual ideas.
01:36:09 They’re talking about the caricature.
01:36:10 Well, sure.
01:36:11 But the caricature is a defense mechanism not to have to deal with the ideas, right?
01:36:17 So they create the caricature in order to ignore the ideas and some of them do it consciously.
01:36:23 Like when people like Krugman and others do this, they know exactly what they’re doing.
01:36:28 But Krugman is Ellsworth Tewi.
01:36:30 Yes, he’s the perfect Ellsworth Tewi.
01:36:33 And he knows Ayn Rand.
01:36:35 He’s read Ayn Rand.
01:36:36 And he knows she’s the enemy in some sense.
01:36:38 He knows…
01:36:39 Check out our episode with Krugman.
01:36:42 I think it’s number 90.
01:36:43 It was a great conversation.
01:36:44 Didn’t get as many views as me, but what are you going to do?
01:36:46 Well, he got a Nobel Prize, so what you got?
01:36:50 I’ve got a ticket to heaven.
01:36:52 Sorry, Paul.
01:36:53 Yasser Alford has a Nobel Prize.
01:36:55 And Hitler was a Times Man of the Year for a few times.
01:37:00 That really bothers me when people bring that up.
01:37:02 Are you really…
01:37:03 Yeah, Time of the Year…
01:37:04 It’s called a joke, Michael.
01:37:05 It’s not good.
01:37:06 Is it?
01:37:07 Man of the Year is not representative of good.
01:37:09 It represents the most influential person of that year, and Hitler was.
01:37:13 Wait, what were you upset about?
01:37:14 When people like, well, look at Time Magazine.
01:37:16 They called Hitler Man of the Year.
01:37:17 They were on set.
01:37:18 They were on set.
01:37:19 They were on set.
01:37:20 This guy’s awesome.
01:37:21 They said this is the guy who moved the world the most.
01:37:22 It’s not like he was Stalin.
01:37:23 I don’t go out there.
01:37:24 Now, that’s who they like.
01:37:25 Hitler’s terrible.
01:37:26 The Stalin guy.
01:37:27 Oh, no, no.
01:37:28 I’m not even joking.
01:37:29 The attitude of people between Nazism and fascism and communism is stunning.
01:37:39 In my upcoming book, I have all the receipts how the things that they were saying about
01:37:43 Stalin at the time are, if you look back, it’s unconscionable, and these people have
01:37:49 had no accountability in the positive direction.
01:37:51 That’s not even at the time, and we need to get back to the selfishness stuff, but it’s
01:37:55 not even at the time.
01:37:57 I think I’ve told this story.
01:37:59 I was in the green room going on John Stossel’s show, and I saw a bunch of libertarians in
01:38:06 the green room all hanging out, and this guy walks in, this young guy walks in, and somebody
01:38:10 says to me, he’s a communist.
01:38:13 I said, what do you mean?
01:38:15 They said, no, no, he’s a card carrying member of the Communist Party.
01:38:19 He’s a communist.
01:38:20 I said, and that’s okay with you guys?
01:38:23 They go, yeah, yeah, he’s a nice guy.
01:38:26 I’m like, no, this is not acceptable.
01:38:28 Hold on.
01:38:29 Let me quote Rand.
01:38:30 Rand said she would rather talk to a philosophical Marxist, right?
01:38:34 Did she not say this?
01:38:35 Yeah, but this is a communist in the context of 21st century, right?
01:38:41 So I said…
01:38:42 But not 20th.
01:38:43 Well, in the sense that we know exactly what, we know exactly.
01:38:46 Yeah, yeah, that’s…
01:38:47 And this guy has the blood of 100 million people on his hands.
01:38:50 I’m not letting him off the hook.
01:38:52 So I engage with this guy, and literally we get into this… I’m telling him what I think
01:38:58 of his ideas, and therefore what I think of him, and the people from the wardrobe department
01:39:03 come out, and their chairs are put aside in this little gladiator ring.
01:39:07 It’s like the libertarians are sitting there amused, because to them it’s just… I’m
01:39:12 not going to name names, but to them it’s just like, yeah, he’s a communist, and I said
01:39:17 at some point to them… I won’t name names, because… I said at some point to them,
01:39:23 if somebody walks into a room and says, I’m a Nazi, do you just treat him as, okay, let’s
01:39:29 go hang out and get some drinks?
01:39:30 I do.
01:39:31 I don’t.
01:39:32 I do.
01:39:33 Because I wrote a book about this, the new write, and I did talk to Nazis, and I went
01:39:34 to North Korea to talk to them.
01:39:35 Yeah, because you were writing a book.
01:39:36 Yeah.
01:39:37 Right?
01:39:38 But you’re not going to hang out with a Nazi or a communist just like the regular person,
01:39:41 right?
01:39:42 To me, a Nazi and a communist are the same.
01:39:43 I don’t under… Okay, please explain this, because first of all, any time you have a
01:39:47 lot of equivocation, I hate that, because I don’t like equality.
01:39:49 I think it’s a bad concept.
01:39:50 Sure.
01:39:51 We’re all sitting here as Jewish people, right?
01:39:53 We’re from the Soviet Union.
01:39:56 To say these two things are basically the same, it’s a matter of life and death for
01:39:59 all of us.
01:40:00 We’d be dead under Hitler.
01:40:01 We’re not doing so hot under Stalin, but we’re still alive.
01:40:04 Sure.
01:40:05 There’s some very big difference.
01:40:07 Sure.
01:40:08 One more thing.
01:40:09 So within the context, they’re different, right?
01:40:10 Hold on, one more thing.
01:40:11 There’s also one very big difference in that one has a lot worse of a brand name, and the
01:40:15 other does not, even though the other should.
01:40:17 It’s a brand.
01:40:18 Yeah, yeah.
01:40:19 Yeah, so I agree.
01:40:20 So there’s a context in which I would fear Stalin more than Hitler.
01:40:23 There’s a different context in which I would fear Hitler, but as ideologies, they are equally
01:40:29 evil.
01:40:30 Wait, wait, but…
01:40:31 Not the same, because the difference is between communism and fascism, but as ideologies,
01:40:36 they’re equally evil.
01:40:37 They both view the individual as insignificant, unimportant, and they both basically want
01:40:41 to kill any independent minded…
01:40:42 Well, you’re equating communism with Stalinism, so you’re equating…
01:40:45 No, I’m equating communism… I don’t know what Stalinism is.
01:40:49 I don’t care.
01:40:50 Stalinism is one version of communism, I’m sure there are others.
01:40:53 Communism is an evil ideology, no matter who practices it.
01:40:57 I don’t think that’s… I think that’s too loose, because here’s one example.
01:41:02 The first person who went to the Soviet Union from the left and denounced it was Emma Goldman.
01:41:10 She was an anarcho communist, right?
01:41:11 So she went there, she got deported from the United States.
01:41:14 She went to Lenin to his face.
01:41:16 Hold on, let me finish.
01:41:17 You’re already dismissing what I’m saying.
01:41:19 Me?
01:41:20 No.
01:41:21 Your body language, your emotions.
01:41:22 No.
01:41:23 Humility, yeah.
01:41:24 Humility.
01:41:25 History doesn’t carry your feelings either.
01:41:26 She goes to Lenin, she goes, we’re supposed to be about free speech.
01:41:29 We’re supposed to be about the individual freedom.
01:41:31 What are you doing?
01:41:32 And he goes, free speech is a bourgeois extravagance.
01:41:34 You can’t have it during a revolution, too bad.
01:41:37 She comes back to the West.
01:41:38 Wait, he’s right?
01:41:39 Yeah.
01:41:40 Oh no, yeah, of course.
01:41:41 She’s more consistent with the idea.
01:41:42 Yeah, he’s more consistent.
01:41:43 She’s a compromise.
01:41:44 Yeah, you’re right.
01:41:45 Well, she comes back to the West, the big red Emma, the big hero of the left.
01:41:50 And she goes, you guys, this is a complete, not, she didn’t say bad.
01:41:55 She was very random.
01:41:56 She goes, this is pure evil.
01:41:57 This is horrifying.
01:41:59 What they’re doing to the workers, which you supposedly care about, completely oppressing.
01:42:03 And when one person described, they go, when she got up to talk, it was a standing ovation.
01:42:08 And when she was finished, you could hear a pin drop because she wasn’t some capitalist.
01:42:12 She wasn’t some bourgeois conservative.
01:42:15 She was as hard left for violent revolution as it gets.
01:42:19 And so I don’t think she, as a communist, is an evil person.
01:42:22 I think she is.
01:42:24 Because if she wasn’t evading, and with Rand, and I think in reality, the essence of evil
01:42:32 is evasion, is ignoring the facts of reality, is putting your feelings ahead of your facts.
01:42:37 She would realize that what was going on in the Soviet Union was the inevitable consequence
01:42:42 of her ideas.
01:42:43 That could be just she’s dumb.
01:42:44 So she could have changed her mind.
01:42:46 She could have, coming back to the Soviet Union, said, these ideas are wrong.
01:42:50 I now repudiate my ideas, not just of implementation, but my ideas.
01:42:54 And then I would have said, yeah, she had been mistaken before, and now she’s confronted
01:42:58 reality.
01:42:59 But if she stayed a leftist, if she stayed a leftist to that extent, not just a mild leftist,
01:43:04 then I think she’s dishonest and therefore immoral.
01:43:07 So –
01:43:08 But you’re using three words identically.
01:43:09 You’re saying dishonest, immoral, and evil.
01:43:10 And I’m –
01:43:11 Okay.
01:43:12 So evil is more – is an extreme form of immorality, right?
01:43:15 Sure.
01:43:16 Of course.
01:43:17 So okay.
01:43:18 So she’s immoral.
01:43:19 The ideology she holds is still evil because the ideology –
01:43:20 Maybe she’s delusional.
01:43:21 She might be delusional.
01:43:22 But delusional and evil are the same.
01:43:23 But she can be delusional.
01:43:24 She cannot be delusional.
01:43:26 See, I’m willing to accept a delusion before she’s gone to the Soviet Union and seen it.
01:43:32 Once she’s gone to see it, I don’t think that excuse holds anymore.
01:43:36 I think now she’s being confronted and she’s lying to herself about the implications of
01:43:41 it.
01:43:42 Logically, it’s inevitable that what happens in the Soviet Union has to happen in any communist
01:43:47 context.
01:43:48 So to play a little bit of a devil’s advocate here, is it logically inevitable?
01:43:54 Is it – can you imagine that there is communist systems where the consequences we’ve seen
01:43:58 in the 20th century are not the consequences we get?
01:44:02 In future societies, under different conditions, under different – with the internet, different
01:44:07 communication schemes, different set of resources.
01:44:09 As long as human beings are what we are.
01:44:11 Now the Borg – you remember the Borg from Star Trek or whatever the series was?
01:44:15 Okay, nerd.
01:44:16 Yeah.
01:44:17 I mean –
01:44:18 Okay, okay.
01:44:19 No.
01:44:20 I’m a nerd.
01:44:21 Okay.
01:44:22 The Borg –
01:44:23 It’s the highest of compliments.
01:44:25 The Borg –
01:44:26 In this household.
01:44:27 The Borg is the highest of lex.
01:44:28 Now we’re talking.
01:44:29 The Borg is communist, right?
01:44:32 The Borg is a different species.
01:44:34 It has a different biology.
01:44:35 It has a business – different form of consciousness.
01:44:38 Now whether such a being could survive evolution is a question.
01:44:43 Whether such a –
01:44:44 People are ants.
01:44:45 They don’t have to be intelligent.
01:44:46 Yeah, but then the question is can you have free will, human cognitive cognition and be
01:44:50 a Borg?
01:44:51 I don’t think so.
01:44:52 But maybe.
01:44:53 Sure.
01:44:54 Maybe in another planet.
01:44:55 But human beings –
01:44:56 You’ve got to take DMT to meet the Borg.
01:44:57 So human beings – no, communism is anti – the reason communism is evil is it’s
01:45:04 anti reality, anti human nature, anti the individual, and therefore it is inherently
01:45:09 evil.
01:45:10 It cannot result in anything good coming out of it.
01:45:13 Only bad can come of it.
01:45:14 Do you think you could have predicted that before the 20th century?
01:45:16 Yes, and plenty of people did.
01:45:18 It’s not –
01:45:19 You know who did?
01:45:20 Mikhail Bakunin.
01:45:21 Mikhail Bakunin, who was an early communist Marxist rival in 18 – this is going to be
01:45:25 in my upcoming book – in 1860, he sat down and wrote an essay, he goes, what Marx is
01:45:31 advocating is insane.
01:45:33 This is going to be worse than the czar.
01:45:35 You’re talking about complete totalitarian nightmare.
01:45:38 When you put this into practice, it’s going to be something we’ve never seen before.
01:45:41 It’s a pure horror.
01:45:42 Like, he was a hardcore leftist.
01:45:43 Look, Marx predicted it, right?
01:45:45 We talked about this.
01:45:46 Yeah, that’s true too.
01:45:47 Yeah, yeah.
01:45:48 Marx at some point says certain people cannot be part of the proletariat and they have to
01:45:50 be liquidated.
01:45:51 So this idea of mass murder and mass killing is not new to communism, it is an inherent
01:45:56 part of what it means.
01:45:58 You’re either proletarian or you’re not.
01:46:00 And you’re – look, and in Marx, it’s in Marx, right?
01:46:04 The individual doesn’t matter.
01:46:06 Now he might matter in his utopia because he knows he’s got a marketing problem.
01:46:09 See, Marx has a marketing problem because of the fact that you have individuals.
01:46:13 How do you convince individuals to give up their individualism, to give up the individuality?
01:46:17 What you say is, well, we have to go through this difficult process.
01:46:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:46:21 We have to get to this utopia.
01:46:22 And in this utopia, I mean, he’s very Christian.
01:46:25 I mean, this is the other thing about Marx.
01:46:27 About the end time.
01:46:28 Marx is very Christian in everything, in his morality, in his collectivism, and in the
01:46:32 end time.
01:46:33 The end times for Marx is going back to the Garden of Eden.
01:46:36 The end time for Marx is you don’t have to do anything.
01:46:40 Food is just available.
01:46:43 Wealth is just available.
01:46:44 You can do your hobbies.
01:46:46 You can do everything.
01:46:47 You can do whatever you want, whatever feelings, whatever.
01:46:49 So it’s going back to a Garden of Eden perspective on human.
01:46:53 So he knows what that is going to require.
01:46:55 It’s going to require this dictatorship of the proletarian to get there.
01:46:58 And he never tells you how we get there.
01:47:00 There’s no game plan.
01:47:01 There’s a dictatorship, then there’s utopia.
01:47:05 It’s like the underpants.
01:47:06 Step one, dictatorship.
01:47:07 Step two, question mark.
01:47:08 Step three, utopia.
01:47:09 Yeah.
01:47:10 And the question mark is where the action is, right?
01:47:11 Annihilate.
01:47:12 Yeah, you yada yada the important part.
01:47:15 And people buy this garbage, right?
01:47:17 So there’s nothing of value in Marx.
01:47:20 I mean, let me be very clear.
01:47:22 There’s nothing.
01:47:23 He gets capitalism wrong.
01:47:24 He gets the proletarian wrong.
01:47:26 He gets the workers wrong.
01:47:27 He gets the labor theory of value is wrong.
01:47:31 There is nothing of value.
01:47:33 There’s nothing of value in communism.
01:47:35 It is a wrong, unfitted to human nature ideology from beginning to end.
01:47:41 The clarity with which you speak is just not something I, I don’t think I have that clarity
01:47:45 about anything.
01:47:46 But I mean, it has to do with that thing that where everybody has something to teach you.
01:47:50 I just feel like I’ve been reading Mein Kampf recently, for example, for the first time.
01:47:54 Something to learn from Hitler?
01:47:55 Well, there’s a lot to learn from Hitler.
01:47:57 About the nature of evil, about wrong ideas, not about anything good, not about anything
01:48:01 positive.
01:48:02 Oh, so yeah.
01:48:03 So that’s probably a really bad example.
01:48:05 Why is Hitler different than Marx?
01:48:07 That’s a very good question.
01:48:08 No, I get that.
01:48:09 But in terms of ideas, why is Hitler different than Marx?
01:48:11 Why do we have to assume there’s something to learn from Marx, but there’s nothing, but
01:48:16 we acknowledge that there’s nothing positive to learn from Hitler.
01:48:19 Because I mean, all right.
01:48:20 I can tell you something, in the sense that like, there’s an interesting question is,
01:48:23 how did this person get from step A to being able to implement the ideas?
01:48:28 I know, everybody should read, anybody who’s interested should read Marx, because it’s
01:48:32 really important.
01:48:33 It’s important in the history and a lot of people were influenced by it.
01:48:36 Why was it influential?
01:48:37 What is it that he says that appeals to people?
01:48:40 I find it interesting to see all the parallels with Christianity.
01:48:42 I think that’s why to a large extent it appeals to people because they got to give up the
01:48:46 unimportant part of religion and got to keep the fun parts of religion, the important parts
01:48:51 to them of religion, the morality, for example.
01:48:54 But no, there’s not something positive to learn from everybody.
01:48:58 In Ayn Rand’s view, in your view, who was worse, Stalin or Hitler?
01:49:04 I think worse is, this is something that I’ll do a Randian sin and be evasive.
01:49:12 It really drives me crazy when people sit down and have these competitions about like,
01:49:18 if someone who’s Jewish brings up the Holocaust and someone who’s African American brings
01:49:21 up slavery, and this is a conversation that I think is pointless and very hurtful and
01:49:27 harmful and it is really silly and ridiculous.
01:49:31 So it might make sense in some kind of stoner context about like you’re doing the math and
01:49:35 trying to figure out, but it’s like, and yeah, you could be like, what would you rather have
01:49:39 like this kind of cancer or full blown AIDS?
01:49:41 In short, I mean, there’s gotta be life expectancy, but these are such, I’ll evade your question,
01:49:48 reframe it.
01:49:49 I think we understand, and a lot of this is a function of the propaganda at the time,
01:49:54 and I’m not using the word propaganda in a negative sense, the horrors of Hitler and
01:49:58 Nazism.
01:50:00 I think, and one of the things I’m trying to solve with my upcoming book, there is a
01:50:04 very poor understanding about the horrors of Stalinism and what that meant in practice.
01:50:11 One of the reasons I wrote Dear Reader, my North Korea book, and what I was shocked and
01:50:16 delighted by when I started writing Dear Reader, I thought to myself, look, I have very little
01:50:22 capacity to affect change, but I can tell stories.
01:50:26 I can write books.
01:50:27 This is my competency.
01:50:29 If I move the needle in America, we got it pretty good here.
01:50:33 If I move the needle in North Korea, this could have really profound positive consequences.
01:50:37 I set a very limited goal, and that goal is to change the conversation about North Korea,
01:50:43 to stop it being regarded as a laughing stock and start regarding it as an existential horror.
01:50:51 The metaphor I use always, and we brought up earlier, was the Joker, because people
01:50:54 look at Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il, his father, they look at a clown disguised as a buffoon,
01:50:59 and that’s valid, and I said, this is what I can do.
01:51:02 I can move that camera a little bit, and now that camera, instead of looking at Kim Jong
01:51:06 Un, Kim Jong Il, you see behind him literally millions of corpses, and when you see people
01:51:12 putting on these performances in these shows, look at these fools, then you’re like, everyone
01:51:17 those people, their kid has a gun to their head right now.
01:51:20 If someone puts a gun to your kid’s head, you’re going to put on clown makeup?
01:51:23 Yeah, you are.
01:51:24 What color?
01:51:25 Put on the shoes, whatever you want.
01:51:27 So in terms of, people do not appreciate the horrors of Stalinism.
01:51:34 I think this is a big fault of the right wing.
01:51:37 You can’t expect necessarily the New York Times to do this because of the blood on their
01:51:40 hands, and for a long time, I was berating conservatives, I go, this was the big right
01:51:45 wing victory, bloodless largely, the victory of the Soviet Union.
01:51:49 No one’s talking about it, no one’s informing, and let’s be clear, there are very many people
01:51:54 who are Democrats who are on the left, who are violently opposed, literally violently
01:51:58 opposed to the Soviet Union, it’s horrors, this is not necessarily a partisan issue.
01:52:03 And I’m like, all right, I’m going to do something about it.
01:52:05 So I know that’s not really literally your question, but you know, that’s kind of information
01:52:10 that feeds us.
01:52:11 Let me ask you that question if it’s okay.
01:52:13 So what, which do we, can we learn more from, from a historical perspective looking forward?
01:52:20 From like, which has more lessons in, in how to avoid it, how to, and just general lessons
01:52:27 about human nature.
01:52:28 Well, I mean, I agree with Michael that it’s not important who’s more evil because they’re
01:52:34 both evil and they’re both just so evil that the differences don’t matter.
01:52:39 What matters is what is the ideology?
01:52:44 What is the, what is, what are the consequences?
01:52:47 What do we understand from it?
01:52:49 What are we worried about?
01:52:51 What are we going to avoid?
01:52:52 So I’m not worried about Nazism qua Nazism because everybody hates Nazism.
01:52:57 I mean, it’s uniform that that’s out.
01:53:01 Even the people I think on the far right in America are staying away from the cliches
01:53:06 of Nazism, although some of them are stupid enough not to.
01:53:08 But, but in the end, if, if, if the United States goes authoritarian right, it’s not
01:53:13 going to be Nazism.
01:53:14 It’d be some other form of fascism because that is so obviously, you know, being understood
01:53:21 as evil and bad that there’s almost no understanding that the evil of communism, I mean, you brought
01:53:28 it up earlier, right?
01:53:30 Almost nobody understands that communism is an evil ideology, that there’s, that there’s
01:53:34 nothing worthwhile there, that any, any attempt to go in that direction in any sustainable
01:53:41 way is destructive.
01:53:42 They are, as you mentioned, they’re economists out there claiming they are communists.
01:53:46 I mean, I find that despicable that anybody would claim to be a communist economist or
01:53:51 communist anything, because I think that’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a ideology that has
01:53:57 no basis, but we haven’t learned that.
01:54:00 So to me, communism is the much bigger threat because we still think it’s some kind of beautiful
01:54:06 ideal in, in the world around us.
01:54:11 I think Nazism is out, but I think, I think fascism is a, is a massive threat out there
01:54:14 because I don’t think we’ve learned real lessons of, nobody knows what fascism is.
01:54:19 Everybody thinks fascism is Nazism.
01:54:21 They don’t, they don’t recognize that in a sense we are already fascist and that we’re
01:54:25 certainly heading in that direction.
01:54:27 So they don’t know what it is.
01:54:28 And again, we haven’t studied, and the real lesson here is we haven’t studied what unifies
01:54:33 them both because there’s not a big difference between fascism and communism.
01:54:37 There’s no big difference between Nazism and communism.
01:54:39 What does unify them?
01:54:40 What unifies them is the common good, the public interest.
01:54:45 What unifies them is this idea that there is some elite group of people who can run
01:54:50 our lives for us, for the common good, for the public interest.
01:54:54 And that you don’t matter.
01:54:55 You as an individual, you individual don’t matter and they, they will dictate how you
01:55:01 live.
01:55:02 And you know, so these are philosopher kings.
01:55:03 It goes back to Plato’s philosophy, but it really unifies it.
01:55:07 Think about communism, communism is about the sacrifice of the individual to the proletarian.
01:55:11 Who is the proletarian?
01:55:13 It’s this collective group here.
01:55:15 Who represents a proletarian?
01:55:17 Well they have, somebody has to, somebody has to tell the proletarian what they believe
01:55:20 in because they don’t know, because there is no collective consciousness.
01:55:23 So you need a Stalin and this is the point about Marxism.
01:55:27 Marxism needs a dictator because somebody has to represent the values, the public interest,
01:55:36 what’s good for the public.
01:55:38 Nazism needs the same thing.
01:55:39 Just Nazism replace proletarian with Aryans, the Aryan race.
01:55:43 And you have exactly the same thing.
01:55:44 You need a dictator to tell us what’s good for the Aryan people so we can do what’s good
01:55:48 for the Aryan people.
01:55:49 So it’s impossible to have a communist system or a fascist system without a dictator naturally
01:55:53 emerging.
01:55:54 It’s not, it’s not possible to have a George.
01:55:56 It’s not naturally, it’s ideologically.
01:55:57 It’s absolutely impossible to have that on scale.
01:56:00 You can certainly have communes where people behave communistically.
01:56:04 Because it’s not inside the ideology.
01:56:06 Hold on.
01:56:07 Let me talk about fascism because fascism definitionally is going to have a strong man.
01:56:11 I don’t even know how it could be fascism without that.
01:56:14 And let’s talk, what you said earlier on is about how people don’t know what fascism is.
01:56:18 Fascists don’t know what fascism is.
01:56:20 So there’s a superb book by John Diggins from the early seventies called Mussolini and Fascism,
01:56:25 the view from America.
01:56:26 So I find Mussolini to be a far more interesting figure than Hitler because he had a much more
01:56:31 nuanced career.
01:56:32 He was much more of an innovator.
01:56:34 He was an intellectual.
01:56:35 Which is shocking because he always comes across as a buffoon, but he was actually a
01:56:39 thinker.
01:56:40 Why did he not resist Hitler at all?
01:56:43 So one of the things with fascism is it comes, it’s a direct line from Kant to Mussolini.
01:56:51 So basically there is a philosopher who I adore, who I’m sure you don’t, called Schopenhauer.
01:56:56 And Schopenhauer, the question became, Rand was not a particularly humorous person.
01:57:02 She had some moments of wit.
01:57:04 There’s a great moment when she was on Tom Snyder show in 1980, I believe, and she’s
01:57:09 talking about Kant and she goes, Immanuel Kant and all his illegitimate children, if
01:57:14 you catch my meaning, she mean all his bastards.
01:57:17 But the host Tom Snyder did not pick up on it.
01:57:19 If you watch it on YouTube, you could pick up on it.
01:57:21 And what happened was once Kant bifurcated reality into the phenomenal world, the pure
01:57:26 idea world and the numeral world, the question became, well, what is the nature of this world
01:57:32 of ideas?
01:57:33 And Hegel had it meant reason.
01:57:35 I don’t know even know what that means theoretically, that the world of reason is idea and this
01:57:39 is Schopenhauer who hated Hegel, who constantly attacked him by name and Hegel’s followers
01:57:45 in his work.
01:57:46 He was a very big innovator in a malevolent way because he said the nature of reality,
01:57:52 this idea is will, meaning the universe doesn’t care about you and it’s constantly in this
01:57:58 reality putting urges in your mind, values.
01:58:02 And when you denounce these values and urges, that’s the basis of morality.
01:58:06 And from there it went to Nietzsche and the will isn’t mindless, it is a will to power.
01:58:12 Mussolini took this and basically said, because the will to power is the real reality, the
01:58:19 Kantian idea, therefore all of this is secondary.
01:58:23 So if we will it, we can make it happen.
01:58:26 When you have this concept of my willpower is stronger than reality and you’re like,
01:58:32 okay, how’s this program going to work?
01:58:34 We can make it happen.
01:58:36 That was why fascism is not a very coherent ideology because explicitly, there’s a book
01:58:42 called from 1936 called The Philosophy of Fascism, which tried to codify this, 36, this
01:58:46 is a long time ago, where they’re like, we’re against reason and explicitly rationality.
01:58:53 We are for willpower, for strength, and if you are strong enough and united enough, you
01:58:59 can force these things to work.
01:59:02 So there’s a lot that is not taught about this ideology.
01:59:06 I highly recommend people read the books from the time.
01:59:10 And what was fascinating about Mussolini is he was regarded as the moderate.
01:59:15 Because the 1930s, you had the Great Depression, all the intellectuals said, this proves capitalism
01:59:21 can’t work, the Great Depression, obviously, air quotes, is capitalism’s fault.
01:59:25 Then you have the alternative, the USSR.
01:59:27 Well, that’s not tenable for us.
01:59:29 Here comes Mussolini and Mussolini says, I’m going to take the best of both worlds.
01:59:34 I have aspects of markets, capitalism, but I don’t have this chaos, but I also don’t
01:59:38 have complete government control of the bureaucrats.
01:59:41 I’m going to have this combination.
01:59:43 And there was a Broadway song, You’re the Top, you’re Mussolini.
01:59:47 That was later edited out because that’s when he took a bad turn.
01:59:50 But this is kind of the fascist idea.
01:59:54 And it’s about power and it’s about control.
01:59:57 That’s the essence.
01:59:58 It’s about will.
01:59:59 So they don’t care.
02:00:01 Fascists don’t care who owns stuff, owns in quotes, because what’s important is who controls
02:00:07 it.
02:00:08 So you can own your home, but if I get to tell you when you can sell it, for how much
02:00:11 you can sell it and what you can do on that home, then I’m in control of it.
02:00:15 That’s the essence of fascism.
02:00:17 And if you think about it, we live today in a much more fascist economic context than
02:00:22 anything else.
02:00:24 We pretend that corporations are private, but when everything they do is regulated,
02:00:29 who they can hire, how much they pay them, when and how they can fire them, what they
02:00:34 can do in their property, it’s all control.
02:00:38 That’s the way fascists start controlling everything.
02:00:43 But it’s not possible to have checks on power and balance of power at the top of fascism
02:00:47 or communist systems.
02:00:48 The question was whether in fascist systems or communist systems, we’re saying the dictator
02:00:56 naturally or must emerge.
02:00:58 I don’t say emerge, the dictator is the one who makes the fascist system.
02:01:02 Yeah, fascism, well, it could emerge because for example, I think today in America we’re
02:01:08 moving much more towards fascism or socialism, and at some point that’ll manifest itself
02:01:14 in some kind of dictator.
02:01:15 And the dictator might be different than a Mussolini or Nazis, it might be couched in
02:01:19 some kind of pseudo constitutional American presence.
02:01:23 It would be a lot easier for a female to be a fascist dictator in America than a male,
02:01:28 because do you have that softness?
02:01:29 She’s not gonna come off as a strong woman, people won’t see it coming, in my opinion.
02:01:33 I think it’s gonna be a nationalist, religionist, environmentalist, I think somebody who can
02:01:41 combine those three.
02:01:42 Well, Hitler did those, yeah.
02:01:43 Yeah, exactly.
02:01:44 And somebody who can combine those three and articulate the case for it, I think America
02:01:47 is ready for it.
02:01:48 So you think it’s possible for fascism to arise in the world again?
02:01:50 Oh, of course, it had never went away, they just adopt the name.
02:01:54 Because the fundamental ideas, the Kantian ideas, the ideas that are behind fascism never
02:02:00 went away.
02:02:01 They’re still as popular, if anything, more popular than they were back then, Marx is
02:02:05 as popular.
02:02:06 I think these ideas are prevalent, they’re out there, and absolutely, I think America
02:02:12 is ready for them.
02:02:13 Again, it won’t be quite in the form that we’ve experienced in the past, it’ll be in
02:02:17 a uniquely American form, couched at a flag, and of course, it was couched at a flag before.
02:02:22 But no, yes, an authoritarian, some form of authoritarianism is necessary, because the
02:02:28 fundamental principle behind both communism and fascism is the unimportance of the individual.
02:02:35 The individual is nothing, the individual is a nobody, and the importance of the collective.
02:02:42 The collective will, the collective soul, the collective consciousness, but the collective
02:02:46 has no will, has no soul, has no consciousness.
02:02:49 So somebody has to emerge to speak for the collective, otherwise, everything falls apart.
02:02:55 So it’s necessary, whether it’s a committee or whether it’s one person, how exactly, somebody
02:03:01 has to speak for the collective.
02:03:03 Even a committee doesn’t function as a committee, right?
02:03:06 Most committees, particularly when the committee is about dictating how people should live,
02:03:11 somebody is going to, because now it becomes really, really important, somebody is going
02:03:14 to dominate that committee and rule over it, because you don’t want independent sources,
02:03:18 independent voices, because the individual doesn’t matter, the individual doesn’t count.
02:03:22 It’s a natural hierarchical, so you have seven people that ostensibly have the same role,
02:03:26 someone is going to emerge as a leader naturally, and some people are going to follow.
02:03:28 Yeah, it’s the same reason you cannot have the Richard Wolff type socialism of, and this
02:03:34 is the more, if you will, innocent part of his ideas.
02:03:37 Oh, why can’t we have corporations all be worker owned, and everybody votes on everything,
02:03:43 and we vote on who should be CEO, and no, communism, fascism, most ideas necessitate
02:03:51 ultimately authoritarians, and that’s most of human history.
02:03:55 We forget again.
02:03:57 This idea of liberty, this idea of freedom, even the limited freedom we have today.
02:04:01 It’s a recent invention.
02:04:02 It’s a recent invention.
02:04:04 It happens in little pockets throughout history.
02:04:07 We had a little bit of this democracy stuff, partial, only a few, some people got to vote
02:04:11 and it wasn’t rights respecting, because they didn’t have the concept of rights in Athens,
02:04:15 right?
02:04:16 You had it in a few Greek cities.
02:04:17 We maybe had a version of it in Venice, we had a version of it in city states around
02:04:21 the world, but then it was invented by the founding fathers in this country.
02:04:25 That’s what makes the founding of America so important, and so different, and such a
02:04:29 radical thing to have happened historically.
02:04:33 Freedom is rare.
02:04:34 Authoritarianism is common.
02:04:35 So I was looking at some statistics that 53% of people in the world live under authoritarian
02:04:41 government.
02:04:42 Only 53.
02:04:43 Oh, because India is democratic, so I guess they don’t count India, but yes, it used to
02:04:49 be 100.
02:04:50 Exactly.
02:04:51 Yeah.
02:04:52 How do we change that?
02:04:53 How do we change that?
02:04:54 And even the authoritarianism in a country like China is a lot less than it used to be
02:04:59 under Mao, right?
02:05:01 So they were better off than they were under Mao.
02:05:05 That’s a reality.
02:05:06 How do we change it?
02:05:08 We have to declare, we have to change the ethical views of people.
02:05:12 This brings us back to selfishness, because as long as the standard of morality is the
02:05:18 group, others, as long as the standard of value is what other people want, what other
02:05:23 people think, as long as you are alive only to be sacrificed to the group, that’s why
02:05:29 you have to challenge Christianity.
02:05:31 As long as the Jesus on a cross dying for other people’s sin is viewed as this noble,
02:05:37 wonderful act instead of one of the most unjust things to ever happen to anybody, as long
02:05:42 as the common good and the public interest are the standards by which we evaluate things,
02:05:47 we will always drift towards fascism, some form of authoritarianism.
02:05:52 Can I answer your question?
02:05:53 I think there’s something that has to go along with what Yaron was saying, and I know he’s
02:05:57 going to agree with me, which is technology.
02:05:59 Because if it becomes harder technologically for the authoritarian and more expensive for
02:06:04 him to input or force his edicts, that is going to create a pocket of freedom regardless
02:06:10 of what the masses think.
02:06:12 And the masses, hold on let me finish, the masses as a rule are not going to be able
02:06:15 to think in general anyway.
02:06:17 I have a much more elitist view of mankind than Rand does.
02:06:19 And let me give you one specific example, which I mentioned in my book that you write.
02:06:23 Let’s suppose it’s 1990, not that long ago, we all remember 1990.
02:06:28 And we’re having an argument about censorship.
02:06:31 And Yaron says, I want full freedom of the press, freedom of books, publish whatever
02:06:35 you want, whatever, free speech.
02:06:37 And I say, well, what about books like Mein Kampf?
02:06:40 What about, you know, people read this the wrong idea?
02:06:42 What about child pornography, things like this?
02:06:44 Like, where are you going to draw the line?
02:06:45 And we could argue along, Lex appears from the future, and he goes, hey, guys, this conversation
02:06:51 is moot.
02:06:52 And we’re like, Lex, you look exactly the same.
02:06:54 I’m like, yeah, of course, Robo Stone Age.
02:06:56 And you go, I’m from the future.
02:06:58 And I go, wait a minute, black president?
02:07:00 And you go, look, this conversation is moot, because in a few years from now, you will
02:07:06 be able to send any book anywhere on earth at the speed of light.
02:07:11 You can make infinite copies in one second.
02:07:15 And you could send it to anyone such that they can only open this book if they know
02:07:19 a magic word.
02:07:21 And I go, well, how much is this going to cost?
02:07:23 Oh, it’s free.
02:07:24 And I go, wait, wait, you’re telling me I can make infinite copies of any book and teleport
02:07:29 them at the speed of light anywhere for free?
02:07:32 And you would say, yes, we would think he’s insane.
02:07:35 But that’s the status quo, right?
02:07:37 So technology has done far more to fight government censorship of literature and ideas than has
02:07:44 spreading the right ideas.
02:07:46 So when you have things like crypto, which makes money less accessible than a gold block
02:07:50 in your house, when you have things like people being able to travel quickly, those are also
02:07:55 necessary compliments to having the right ideas.
02:07:59 And Rand herself said that she couldn’t have come up with her philosophy before the Industrial
02:08:03 Revolution.
02:08:04 So as time goes forward and we have more technology and we have more discourse.
02:08:09 But for very different reasons, she said that, right?
02:08:12 But it’s also a lot easier to persuade people the right ideas.
02:08:16 So I kind of agree.
02:08:18 Maybe I’m more pessimistic or maybe I don’t get the technology completely.
02:08:22 That’s because you’re a boomer.
02:08:23 There you go.
02:08:24 Okay, boomer.
02:08:25 I get that insult a lot.
02:08:30 I think I’m the last year of the boomer generation.
02:08:32 It’s a mindset.
02:08:33 I think I hit that last.
02:08:34 It’s a mindset.
02:08:35 There you go.
02:08:36 I love you so much.
02:08:38 So the reason she said she couldn’t have developed her, the reason she said she couldn’t develop
02:08:43 the philosophy without the Industrial Revolution is the link between reason and wealth was not
02:08:52 obvious before the Industrial Revolution.
02:08:54 And that, for example, it’s not obvious to Aristotle.
02:08:56 Aristotle doesn’t see the link between rationality and wealth creation.
02:09:00 Business is low.
02:09:03 And money is barren, interest has no productive function, bankers don’t have.
02:09:10 So you had to see it existentially to be able to see reason is the source of wealth creation.
02:09:18 So I think that’s a little different.
02:09:20 Now, there is a sense in which, yes, technology makes it more difficult for authoritarians
02:09:25 to achieve their authoritarianism.
02:09:29 I’m not convinced that they can’t.
02:09:31 I didn’t say can’t.
02:09:32 Yeah.
02:09:33 At a certain point, because they can turn off the electricity.
02:09:36 I’m just saying it becomes more expensive.
02:09:38 It becomes more expensive, no question.
02:09:40 It becomes more expensive.
02:09:41 And we’re still beings that live in a physical reality, therefore, they can still harm us
02:09:48 in this physical reality.
02:09:49 But let me say this, it’s going to sound as absurd.
02:09:52 If there was technology that we could teleport anywhere on Earth at the speed of light, that
02:09:56 would certainly go a long way towards hurting authoritarianism.
02:09:59 If there was some way to go, and of course, they could teleport too.
02:10:03 And this is, of course, the danger of they can use the technology too, and look at what
02:10:08 the Chinese are doing with social scores and with monitoring people and cameras everywhere.
02:10:13 So there’s a sense in which you probably had more privacy before some of this technology.
02:10:18 So it’s not obvious to me.
02:10:21 So to me, it’s all about ideas.
02:10:23 And if we don’t get the ideas right, technology will be used for evil, yes, and it will allow
02:10:28 some of us maybe to escape for a little while in some realms, but others not.
02:10:33 You know, Iran and North Korea do a pretty good job shutting themselves away from technology,
02:10:39 although a lot gets through in the Iranian, at least with Iran.
02:10:43 I don’t know about North Korea, how much gets through.
02:10:45 It’s really undermining them, which is wonderful.
02:10:47 Yeah, which is great.
02:10:49 So yes, but it’s more than that.
02:10:51 And this is what leads me to be optimistic.
02:10:54 It’s that we live in a world today where 7 billion people basically have access to all
02:11:00 of human knowledge, all of human knowledge.
02:11:04 It’s not like in Rome.
02:11:05 When Rome fell, all of human knowledge disappeared.
02:11:08 Now some of it escaped to Byzantine, some of the Byzantines had and ultimately land
02:11:12 up with the Arabs and found its way back into Western civilization through them.
02:11:16 But a lot of knowledge disappeared, just wiped out, right?
02:11:19 How to build a dome, how to build a big dome, how to have…
02:11:22 You know, in Pompeii, they had faucets, running water and faucets.
02:11:26 They didn’t have faucets for another thousand years, right?
02:11:30 A lot of…
02:11:31 They couldn’t build tall buildings once Rome came down.
02:11:34 The Great Pyramid of Egypt was the tallest building on earth till like 1840, it was crazy.
02:11:39 Rome was a city of a million people.
02:11:41 Other than China, there wasn’t another city of a million people in the West until London
02:11:45 in the 19th century, 1500 years later.
02:11:48 So it all disappeared because all of it was concentrated basically in one place.
02:11:53 Today none of that exists because of the internet, because of universities everywhere, institutions.
02:11:58 I mean, think about how many engineers there are in the world today, right?
02:12:01 Who have basically all different…
02:12:04 Basically the same level of knowledge on how to build stuff.
02:12:06 So even if the United States went to some kind of dark ages, it’s unlikely the whole
02:12:10 world goes into that kind of dark ages.
02:12:12 So I am optimistic in that sense that the fusion of knowledge is so broad today that
02:12:19 other than wiping out all electricity on the planet, everything electronic on the planet,
02:12:24 it’s just, it’s not going to be possible to control us all.
02:12:27 And in that sense, technology is going to make it possible for us to survive and to
02:12:31 stay semi free, because I don’t think full freedom, but semi free.
02:12:35 Because full freedom, you need the ideas.
02:12:37 Because full freedom means you need some political implementation.
02:12:39 No, full freedom means anarchy, but we know that.
02:12:42 So we need to get into that because we can’t leave without pointing out that we fundamentally
02:12:47 disagree about that.
02:12:48 Oh, that’s beautiful to be continued on that one.
02:12:52 Let me ask about one particular technology that I’ve been learning a lot about, thinking
02:12:57 a lot about, talking about, which is Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general, but Bitcoin
02:13:02 specifically, which a lot of people argue that the Bitcoin, that setting ideas aside,
02:13:11 when you look at practical tools that governments use to manipulate its people is inflation
02:13:16 of the monetary system, within the monetary system.
02:13:19 And so they see Bitcoin as a way for the, for individuals to fight that, to go outside
02:13:26 those specific government control systems and thereby sort of decentralizing power.
02:13:33 You know, there’s a case to be made historically of the 20th century that you couldn’t have
02:13:37 Stalin, you couldn’t have Hitler, you couldn’t have much of the evil that you see in the
02:13:41 world if they couldn’t control the monetary system.
02:13:43 You couldn’t have had the New Deal.
02:13:45 And FDR realized this very quickly.
02:13:46 That’s why they confiscated all the gold.
02:13:49 Everybody knows FDR is going to come in to become president and confiscate the gold.
02:13:53 So one of the mythologies, the myths about the Great Depression is that there were all
02:14:00 these bank runs that, well, bank runs happened because everybody was afraid that FDR would
02:14:07 get elected to confiscate the gold.
02:14:08 So everybody ran to the bank and took the gold.
02:14:11 Little did they realize that he would confiscate their private holdings in their own backyards.
02:14:15 He would force them to dig up the gold from their own backyards.
02:14:18 But yes, one of the first things FDR did in spite of denying it throughout the campaign,
02:14:22 right, he was asked about this over and over again and denied it.
02:14:25 One of the first things was take over the gold and take the United States Federal Reserve
02:14:29 off the gold standard so that they can, in a sense, print money and that he could start
02:14:34 spending.
02:14:35 Yeah, what people don’t realize, just to clarify what Yaron said, is FDR, this is something
02:14:39 that’s so crazy to us that we think, okay, I’m misunderstanding it.
02:14:42 FDR made it illegal for people to own gold unless it’s like a wedding ring.
02:14:48 And before that, contracts, because inflation was a concern, I make a contract with Yaron,
02:14:54 right, I said, okay, you’re either going to pay me in $1,500 for my work or the gold
02:14:59 equivalent because if that $1,500, you know, weimar Germany and you have hyperinflation,
02:15:05 I don’t want that $1,500.
02:15:07 Just give me the gold bullion.
02:15:08 And FDR said all of those clauses, he broke every contract, they don’t matter.
02:15:15 So now if I say, Yaron says, okay, you owe me three feet of drywall.
02:15:20 And I go, here’s three feet of drywall.
02:15:22 It’s 12 inches.
02:15:23 And you go, wait, wait, wait, three feet is 36 inches.
02:15:25 I go, no, no, not anymore.
02:15:26 It’s like, what am I supposed to do?
02:15:28 And because you have, when you print more money, the value of every individual dollar
02:15:32 matters less, it becomes that much harder to plan anything, either in the government
02:15:38 level or in the private level, because if I’m managing outlays, if I’m trying to pay
02:15:43 my workers, I’m trying to build factories, I’m thinking long term, and I don’t know what
02:15:47 this dollar is going to buy in 10 years, that puts an enormous incentive for me to spend
02:15:52 it now and not save it, because if I save it, it’s going to be worth a lot less.
02:15:56 And the worst thing about inflation, and this is something I think people who are pro capitalism
02:16:00 don’t talk about enough, they do talk about it, I would just like to see it more.
02:16:04 This by far hurts the poor, the poorest of the poor the most.
02:16:09 When we came to this country, my mom told me they would go to 86th street in Bensonhurst
02:16:14 with the fruit stands to buy Mika Chika, some grapes.
02:16:17 And you go to this fruit stand, and she’d walk all the way to the other corner.
02:16:21 And if it was three cents more a pound, or less a pound, she’d walk all the way back,
02:16:25 because that three cents mattered.
02:16:26 Now if I have this dollar, and it’s 5% inflation or whatever, and next year it’s 95 cents,
02:16:32 me and you, the three of us might not care, but if I’m destitute hand to mouth, and I’ve
02:16:37 got 5% less, that is really a material consequence of my life.
02:16:42 So inflation really is evil, because it hurts the people for who those pennies matter.
02:16:48 Well, one of the ways the government gets around that, and it’s because they get smart
02:16:52 to that, is they index everything, so they index your social security, they index welfare,
02:16:57 they try to make sure, but that only makes you more dependent on them.
02:17:01 And the people in the modern context that inflation hurts the most are savers, people
02:17:07 trying to save money.
02:17:08 And Fed policy right now is just horrific if you’re a saver, because the Fed, the interest
02:17:14 rates are zero, you get nothing on your saving, and cost of living is going up, maybe not
02:17:19 at a huge level, but it is going up, and yet you can’t even save to keep the value of your
02:17:26 dollars.
02:17:27 And the government controls, and this has massive perverse effects, because it’s not
02:17:33 just that prices go up, it’s that prices don’t reflect reality anymore.
02:17:38 So some prices go up, some prices might not.
02:17:41 Investments get distorted, things get produced that shouldn’t get produced, and then people
02:17:45 like Richard Wolff turn around and blame all the distortions, and the perversions, and
02:17:50 the crashes, and the financial crisis on capitalism.
02:17:53 Not on the fact that the Fed, look at the financial crisis, financial crisis was caused,
02:17:57 you could argue by inflation, and we could get into that if you wanted, but that’s probably
02:18:01 a three hour show, just that, right?
02:18:03 It was caused by the Federal Reserve, and yet who got blamed for the financial crisis?
02:18:07 Who would Richard Wolff is going to jump up and down?
02:18:09 This is a crisis of capitalism, this was caused by capitalism, but capitalism is the negation
02:18:13 of the Fed.
02:18:15 Capitalism says there should be no Fed.
02:18:18 That’s item number one on the list of the things capitalists want, is to get rid of
02:18:24 the Fed, and then grant you guys your wish, have competition for currency, and let’s see
02:18:29 if Bitcoin wins.
02:18:30 I’m skeptical, but I don’t care.
02:18:32 My point is under freedom.
02:18:34 I don’t care who wins, I just want free choices, and let the best currency win.
02:18:39 I doubt that becomes Bitcoin, but it doesn’t really matter.
02:18:43 If I’m wrong, great.
02:18:44 Let me add to this, and I think people appreciate, and this is a leftist, leftism at its best,
02:18:49 that the government and the banks are in bed with each other.
02:18:51 This I don’t think is a particularly controversial statement.
02:18:53 Well I don’t like that statement, let me just say why I don’t like it.
02:18:56 I don’t like it because it assumes that they’re equal partners, or that there’s causality
02:19:00 goes in both directions.
02:19:02 From day one, and this is really from day one of the establishment of the United States,
02:19:07 banks have been regulated by the state, and the reason for that is primarily Jefferson
02:19:12 and others, founders, distrust of finance.
02:19:16 So from the beginning, banks have been controlled by the state.
02:19:20 Now over time, if I’m controlling you, you won’t have influence over me, because I get
02:19:25 to, so yes, they get into bed over time, so I don’t like it that they’re in bed together.
02:19:31 One is dominating over the other, and the other is participating, because what choice
02:19:34 do they have?
02:19:35 I should explain to you how things work when you get in bed, and it’s not always equal.
02:19:40 Okay, so let’s talk about safe words, which is very Randian topic, she doesn’t like those.
02:19:46 I had to read that scene three times in the Fountainhead, because I couldn’t believe what
02:19:49 I was reading.
02:19:50 I’m sure you did.
02:19:51 I’m sure you did.
02:19:52 No, because I looked at the back cover, I’m like, a woman wrote this book in 1943, I
02:19:55 must be misunderstanding the scene.
02:19:57 And it’s 43.
02:19:58 Yeah.
02:19:59 She sure had a lot of shades of gray.
02:20:00 Yeah.
02:20:01 So, no, she hated that.
02:20:02 She hated that.
02:20:03 Only black and white.
02:20:04 No, but what I meant is, 2008, you have the bailout of Wall Street.
02:20:09 Whereas in 2020, we saw every medium and small business under the sun go under, there’s not
02:20:14 even a pretense that these are going to be bailed out.
02:20:17 So the priorities of the politicians, in my view, are always going to be towards powerful
02:20:21 entities, powerful corporations, and they’re not going to be about the medium guy, the
02:20:24 middle guy.
02:20:25 Let me just finish my point, because I see you champing at the bit.
02:20:29 At the very least, if you have regulation, people influencing each other.
02:20:33 With Bitcoin, and with crypto, that is not a possibility.
02:20:38 You do not have any agency who is king of Bitcoin, who is the Federal Reserve of Bitcoin.
02:20:44 There is no organizing organization or management team.
02:20:48 Now, you could say this is a bad thing, but you can’t say that this is a different thing
02:20:53 to money as opposed to Federal Reserve system.
02:20:55 Yeah.
02:20:56 So I agree with that description of Bitcoin, my problems with Bitcoin, elsewhere.
02:21:01 Let me just say about the financial crisis, I don’t like it phrased that way again.
02:21:07 They let Lehman go under and destroyed Lehman Brothers.
02:21:11 In the past, they destroyed Drexel Burnham because they didn’t like Michael Malkin.
02:21:17 They are vindictive.
02:21:19 It’s not an accident that the Treasury Secretary at the time was an ex chairman of Goldman
02:21:25 Sachs, not Lehman Brothers, and Goldman hates Lehman.
02:21:29 The next day, they bail out AIG.
02:21:32 What I got out of financial crisis more than anything, and by the way, there wasn’t a bailout,
02:21:36 it wasn’t even a bailout, because they gave money to every bank, whether they had problems
02:21:41 or not.
02:21:42 Okay.
02:21:43 And indeed, I know several bankers, including big banks, like JP Morgan and Wes Falgo, and
02:21:48 a friend of mine, John Allison of BB&T, who told them explicitly, we don’t want your money,
02:21:53 we don’t need your money, and they were basically, a gun was put to their head and they said,
02:21:57 you don’t take the money, we’ll shut you down, basically, the equivalent of that.
02:22:02 So they, A, wanted a virtue signal, so there’s a big virtue signal, we’re taking care of
02:22:09 things, don’t worry, we’ve got everything under control, even though they were completely
02:22:12 panicking and they had no clue what they were doing.
02:22:16 One of the things that the financial crisis really illustrated was how pathetic, ignorant,
02:22:23 and incompetent the people at the top are, and they knew it.
02:22:27 And they, you know, Sir Paulson goes to Congress, says, give me $700 billion, don’t tell me
02:22:31 how to use it, because I have no clue, just give it to me and give me your authoritarian
02:22:35 power to do it any way I want.
02:22:37 And that was not out of a sense of grandeur, that was a sense of panic, he had no idea,
02:22:41 he had no clue, none of them did.
02:22:44 They bailed out everybody they could, everybody under their, you know, within their periphery,
02:22:50 when they thought it was appropriate, they were vindictive about some people like Lehman,
02:22:55 it was complete arbitrary use of power.
02:22:58 The bankers didn’t benefit from this, indeed, many bankers that took their money lost from
02:23:02 it.
02:23:03 Bank stocks got crushed after the bailout.
02:23:06 Before the bailout, bank stocks were doing okay, and right after top was announced, bank
02:23:10 stocks crushed because this was bad for banks, it wasn’t good for banks.
02:23:15 This is just central planning gone amok, it’s not them bailing out elites, it’s them, you
02:23:22 know, throwing money at a problem without knowing what they would actually do and what
02:23:26 the consequences would be.
02:23:27 Right.
02:23:28 But the point is, sorry, where we agree, the focus will always be on bailing out elites.
02:23:34 It’s almost…
02:23:35 But little banks got money too.
02:23:36 No, I was saying that last year, there’s no talk of saving ice and vice, saving Century
02:23:41 21, saving all these other industries.
02:23:43 But sure there were, if you look at it, it’s just, sure there was, if you look at the,
02:23:47 if you look at what the Fed did, the Fed was bailing out third, fourth class businesses
02:23:53 in all kinds of areas that you wouldn’t consider elitist areas, the whole PPP, the way…
02:23:59 You’re talking 2008.
02:24:00 Yeah.
02:24:01 No, I’m talking about now.
02:24:02 Okay.
02:24:03 I’m talking about COVID last year.
02:24:04 What the Fed did was unbelievable, the kind of bonds that they were buying, even 2008,
02:24:08 even after 2008, I couldn’t believe what they did last year.
02:24:11 PPP, the Payable Protection Program was targeted at everybody, everybody got PPP.
02:24:18 It’s not about…
02:24:19 I don’t think it’s about bailing out elites, it’s about securing their power base.
02:24:22 And if they believe that securing their power base is Wall Street, then they’ll bail out
02:24:25 Wall Street.
02:24:26 They believe securing their power base is writing checks to restaurant owners all over
02:24:31 the country, they’ll write checks to restaurant owners all over the country, which is what
02:24:34 they did with PPP.
02:24:36 It’s all about power for them and it’s whatever will achieve power, whatever will result in
02:24:40 power.
02:24:41 I don’t think it’s about elites.
02:24:42 I don’t see elitism in the bailouts of last year.
02:24:46 I agree.
02:24:47 I agree it wasn’t last year.
02:24:48 I’m saying that’s one distinction between 2008 and 2020.
02:24:50 And I do think, just one more thing, I do think getting in good bed with the elites
02:24:56 is a great mechanism in general for maintaining one’s power.
02:24:59 Oh yeah.
02:25:00 Yeah, that’s not a dispute.
02:25:01 Depending on how we define it.
02:25:02 Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:25:03 Yeah, absolutely.
02:25:04 You mentioned there’s some criticism towards Bitcoin, there’s a lot of excitement about
02:25:08 the technology of Bitcoin for the resistance against this kind of central state pursuit
02:25:16 of power.
02:25:17 So that’s part of my criticism because I don’t think it works.
02:25:19 So yeah, I can imagine a world, I can imagine, I’d love to see a technology evolve that where
02:25:28 money is competitive and it’s a financial instrument that the government cannot touch.
02:25:34 You think the state is too powerful?
02:25:36 I think two things.
02:25:37 I think right now, and maybe this won’t be true in the future, right now, I think crypto
02:25:43 is ill…
02:25:44 It cannot function as money right now.
02:25:45 It just can’t.
02:25:46 But it does.
02:25:47 No, it doesn’t.
02:25:48 It functions as a mechanism.
02:25:50 It functions as a mechanism to transfer, it’s a technology that allows me to transfer fiat
02:25:56 money from place to place, but it doesn’t function, and it can’t because it’s too volatile.
02:26:02 I’ve sold things with Bitcoin.
02:26:03 No, I know you have, but I can sell things.
02:26:06 I can buy things and sell things with my airline model.
02:26:08 So there are lots of ways in which you can use things as money, but it doesn’t make them
02:26:12 money.
02:26:13 If you’re using something as money, it’s money.
02:26:14 So let me take something you said before.
02:26:17 And it contradicts, I think, Bitcoin.
02:26:19 You said one of the things about money is that it’s stable.
02:26:22 I know what it’s gonna buy tomorrow, right?
02:26:24 This is why we’re against inflation, because I know what the dollar today I can plan, because
02:26:28 I can’t plan…
02:26:29 I don’t know what Bitcoin’s gonna be worth tomorrow.
02:26:31 So I can’t plan with Bitcoin.
02:26:33 Bitcoin is way too volatile to serve right now as money.
02:26:35 Now, the argument from Bitcoiners is, yes, it’s still being adopted.
02:26:41 At some point, it’ll reach a certain crucial mass.
02:26:43 High perfect monetization, yeah.
02:26:44 Yes, and then it will become money, because at that point, it can be used as money, because
02:26:48 then it’ll have a stable value.
02:26:51 Maybe right now, it’s not useful as money, because I can’t predict what…
02:26:56 I can’t invest in it knowing what the value will be in five years.
02:27:00 Right now, it’s an asset.
02:27:01 It’s not a monetary unit.
02:27:05 It’s much more functions as an asset.
02:27:06 Asset’s value can go up.
02:27:07 Oh, I agree.
02:27:08 It’s functioning much more as an asset than as money.
02:27:09 That’s not in dispute.
02:27:10 I agree with that completely.
02:27:11 So I don’t think it’s money.
02:27:12 But so I think it’s still…
02:27:16 I think it can compete as a money with something tangible.
02:27:20 So I think in a free market, some kind of crypto backed by gold would be more successful.
02:27:25 So Bitcoin folks argue that Bitcoin has all the same fundamental properties that does
02:27:30 gold.
02:27:32 So it’s backed by…
02:27:33 There’s a scarcity to it, and it’s backed by proof of work, so it’s backed by physical
02:27:39 resources.
02:27:40 And so they say that’s a very natural replacement of gold, so it doesn’t need to be connected
02:27:44 to gold.
02:27:45 So there are two things that gold has that it doesn’t have.
02:27:50 One is gold is not finite.
02:27:52 Gold supply actually grows over time.
02:27:54 Bitcoin at some point is truly finite.
02:27:56 At least unless you count the fact that you can split bitcoins and create coins, but that’s
02:28:02 a whole other question.
02:28:04 So that’s one.
02:28:05 The other one is that gold has value beyond its use as a currency, beyond its use as money.
02:28:14 For jewelry and stuff.
02:28:15 Yeah.
02:28:16 But you minimize that.
02:28:17 But jewelry and stuff has been important for the human race for 100,000 years.
02:28:21 You can find jewelry in caves, for the cavemen designed jewelry and wore them.
02:28:26 So we obviously as human beings value jewelry a lot.
02:28:29 And almost all jewelry evolved to be made out of gold because whatever it is within
02:28:33 us is attracted to shiny gold in particular, shiny object generally.
02:28:38 So there’s something about gold that appeals to human beings.
02:28:40 There’s some value that gold has beyond its being a currency.
02:28:44 It’s not that Bitcoin doesn’t.
02:28:46 Now it’s not enough to use it as money.
02:28:48 Lots of things appeal to human beings.
02:28:50 But those are two characteristics.
02:28:52 One that it’s not finite and second that it is a value beyond that Bitcoin doesn’t have.
02:28:59 Don’t you think the finiteness could be framed as a feature?
02:29:01 The scarcity of Bitcoin?
02:29:02 No, because I think it creates a real problem with scarcity economically.
02:29:07 It’s the issue of planning.
02:29:10 There is a mechanism, there’s a beautiful mechanism in markets that as the supply of
02:29:15 gold is in a sense the quantity of gold is…
02:29:21 Prices are going down because there’s too little gold, right?
02:29:24 So the value of gold in a sense in dollar terms, the prices are going down.
02:29:28 What happens then is there’s an incentive to then go mine for more gold, right?
02:29:34 Because it becomes cheaper and cheaper to mine as the price goes down.
02:29:37 So you mine for more gold, so it keeps increasing and it keeps increasing basically very correlated
02:29:43 to the rate of increasing productivity.
02:29:46 That’s the beauty of gold mining because prices are related to gold, gold is the dominant
02:29:51 money and it increases at about the same rate as productivity.
02:29:55 So it keeps prices relatively stable.
02:29:59 You still have bouts of inflation and deflation, but it keeps it relatively stable.
02:30:04 With Bitcoin it’s fine at its ends, now prices will only decline.
02:30:08 What rate will they decline at?
02:30:09 They’ll decline at the rate of productivity increases.
02:30:12 It’s hard to predict the rate at which productivity increases.
02:30:15 For example, technological shocks can change that dramatically.
02:30:19 You could get bouts of dramatic deflation, dramatic price drops that could be problematic
02:30:26 in terms of planning the same problem of inflation just reversed that you had before.
02:30:31 So again, it’s a technical issue.
02:30:34 I’m sure there are ways to get around it.
02:30:35 And again, I’m not sure.
02:30:38 I don’t know if you guys consider Bitcoin the end or the beginning, that is, is Bitcoin
02:30:43 it or is Bitcoin just the first example of a technology that’s evolving?
02:30:46 I was just going to say there’s the same technological issue with regard to gold, which is we now
02:30:51 have the technology that was very expensive to turn elements into different elements.
02:30:56 And at a certain, yeah, you could fire electrons at it or whatever.
02:30:59 You can make gold.
02:31:00 They figured out how to do it.
02:31:01 It’s not cheap and it’s called big process.
02:31:04 If gold is the standard, a lot of resources are going to be going toward turning other
02:31:09 things into gold, making the production of gold cheaper.
02:31:12 And that’s going to have a similar consequence that Laurence talked about.
02:31:16 That’s kind of the category of security that Bitcoin has talked about, that it’s very difficult
02:31:19 to do that with Bitcoin.
02:31:21 But I would argue that it’s exceptionally difficult to do that with gold.
02:31:24 It is now.
02:31:25 But the thing is, there’s not huge incentive.
02:31:26 If gold is the basis and if gold is worth that much, gold isn’t worth that much.
02:31:32 Gold is worth, let’s say, I’m saying in this world that we’re talking about, in the future,
02:31:36 gold is not going to be worth, let’s say right now, gold is about 2000 bucks.
02:31:39 It’s less than 2000.
02:31:40 Let’s say it’s 2000 bucks.
02:31:42 That’s its price in terms of dollars.
02:31:44 So you’d have to, it would have to be worthwhile to create something of 2000 dollars.
02:31:48 How much would you be willing to put into it?
02:31:49 At some point, you’re right.
02:31:50 And at that point, I think gold stops being money because it’s useless.
02:31:55 Once I can create it like silicon, then once I can make out official gold.
02:31:59 So I’m just not, I don’t think Bitcoin is the solution.
02:32:02 I think, I don’t know what the solution is.
02:32:06 I wish I was that innovative, but I think you need a solution that has more of the characteristics
02:32:12 of gold than Bitcoin currently has.
02:32:14 And I’m, I guess I’m surprised at a lot of the technologists who view Bitcoin as the
02:32:21 end game, where it strikes me as it’s a, it’s the birth of a new tech, it represents the
02:32:26 birth of a new technology and who the winner in that technology is going to be.
02:32:29 We have no clue.
02:32:30 Bitcoin is one of the players, there are other players.
02:32:34 There might be a new technology that is even better than anything we can imagine right
02:32:37 now that, so Bitcoin doesn’t strike me as optimal.
02:32:42 And that we should be moving towards something better.
02:32:44 Can you please stop shilling randcoin for five minutes?
02:32:50 You know where there was randcoin?
02:32:51 There was rand.
02:32:52 South Africa.
02:32:53 No, I was.
02:32:54 The agri currency is rand.
02:32:55 No, that’s true.
02:32:56 No, I mean.
02:32:57 Ayn Rand is the South African one dollar.
02:32:59 Yeah.
02:33:00 Ayn Rand coin was, I was in China in 20, I think it was 2015 or 14.
02:33:04 What’s that?
02:33:05 China.
02:33:06 China.
02:33:07 I was in China 20, something like that.
02:33:10 And this entrepreneur came up to me, she said she’s bought this massive quantity of land
02:33:16 in this area in China, it’s a little secluded.
02:33:19 She’s starting what she’s calling Gold’s Gulch.
02:33:21 She’s serious.
02:33:22 And she’s issuing, and she issued cryptocurrency based on the land, right backed by the land
02:33:30 called rand, but Ayn Rand with a little portrait of Ayn Rand, you know, a little portrait in
02:33:34 the marketing.
02:33:35 I don’t think it went anywhere.
02:33:36 You’re not going to be a janitor?
02:33:39 A janitor in China at Gold’s Gulch.
02:33:42 Yeah.
02:33:43 By the way, I do want to point out something I do enjoy about Objectivist.
02:33:46 I constantly talk about Ayn Rand and her vampire novels and that’s the joke you’re on.
02:33:52 Thank you.
02:33:54 And inevitably someone feels the need to point out that she did not write vampire novels
02:33:59 and her name is actually Ayn.
02:34:00 So thank you.
02:34:01 Thank you.
02:34:02 We’ve been talking for two hours.
02:34:03 I owed her a copy of the Fountainhead.
02:34:05 Somehow I thought her name was Ayn.
02:34:06 Thank you.
02:34:07 Thank you.
02:34:08 I love them.
02:34:10 So this is a really interesting way of phrasing it, which is…
02:34:13 I was kidding with the Ayn.
02:34:15 I know you knew how to pronounce it.
02:34:17 Yeah.
02:34:18 I know you know, you know.
02:34:19 Yeah.
02:34:20 It just got confusing.
02:34:21 I think we all know and we all know that we’re jokers here.
02:34:23 We’re all one.
02:34:24 There’s no Batman in this conversation.
02:34:27 So it’s an interesting way to frame it.
02:34:29 Is Bitcoin the end or the beginning of something?
02:34:32 And I’ve, as sort of with an open mind and seeing kind of all the possibilities of technologies
02:34:37 out there, I also kind of thought that Bitcoin is the beginning of something.
02:34:42 But what the Bitcoin community argues is that Bitcoin is the end of the base layer, meaning
02:34:50 all the different innovations will come on top of it.
02:34:53 Like for example, there’s something called lightning network where it’s basically just
02:34:58 like gold is the end and everything is built like the monetary systems like cash and all
02:35:03 that is built on top of gold.
02:35:05 Bitcoin is the end in that other technologies are built on top of Bitcoin.
02:35:10 That’s their argument.
02:35:11 I get that and I hear that all the time and I just, I don’t quite understand that.
02:35:16 And I think Bitcoin has limitations that potentially other cryptocurrencies might not have.
02:35:23 You know, my attitude towards something like this is to a large extent, I don’t understand
02:35:26 this technology.
02:35:28 My view is let it play out.
02:35:31 I think I have more fear of physical, the ability of the government to crush these things
02:35:41 than I think many in the community.
02:35:43 So for example, so I gave a talk, Bitcoin, you know, and they were hyping the acceptance
02:35:49 now.
02:35:50 A lot of vendors will accept Bitcoin and this is great.
02:35:52 And I said, yeah, it’s absolutely great.
02:35:54 More options is better than fewer options.
02:35:57 But I said, you know that that could be taken away like that.
02:36:00 Now it’s true that we could exchange Bitcoin and the government wouldn’t know, I think,
02:36:05 wouldn’t know that we do.
02:36:06 But once he’s advertising on his website that he accepts Bitcoin or once he tries to turn
02:36:11 his Bitcoin into particular goods, once you manifest it in the physical world, now the
02:36:17 government can step in.
02:36:18 So the government could say, you can’t sell anything to anybody using Bitcoin.
02:36:22 They can do that and you won’t be able to sell it.
02:36:24 It will have to go into the black market.
02:36:26 But that isn’t able to sell it, just sell it in the black market.
02:36:29 Yeah, but that’s where the government thrives, right?
02:36:31 The government thrives on letting you do stuff in the black market so they can decide when
02:36:34 to put you in jail or not, right?
02:36:36 So if I’m buying a sweatshirt from the government, sorry, if I’m buying a sweatshirt from somebody
02:36:40 using Bitcoin, the government can’t monitor my exchange of Bitcoin to him.
02:36:45 But they can monitor the sweatshirt being sent to me, right?
02:36:49 That’s where they can interfere.
02:36:51 And I think that at some point, to the extent Bitcoin is successful, it will be stopped.
02:36:58 And that’s what will stop it from becoming money.
02:37:00 See, money can only become money.
02:37:02 It can only become money if people are using it as money, right?
02:37:06 And if the government can stop it being used, if I can’t go to the grocery store and use
02:37:09 my ATM that charges on Bitcoin or whatever, then it’s not money.
02:37:15 And I think that the government is going to step in and stop people from doing that.
02:37:21 And that’s what I…
02:37:23 So I have more respect and fear for the power of government today.
02:37:30 I don’t see that at all.
02:37:31 However, I could be wrong.
02:37:33 And I’m sure Yaron hopes he’s wrong.
02:37:35 Absolutely.
02:37:36 And in some sense…
02:37:37 I hope the government just give in and the Fed tomorrow says, yeah, let Bitcoin thrive.
02:37:42 But I think they’ll want to regulate and control it.
02:37:43 And the only way to regulate and control it is to stop it.
02:37:47 Yeah, there’s a bunch of people who argue that Bitcoin is too compelling to government
02:37:52 that they’ll actually embrace it, like a Trojan horse and stuff.
02:37:54 But that assumes government has positive goals and wants to do good things.
02:37:58 You can ask…
02:37:59 No, no, it’s greedy.
02:38:01 They say government is greedy because they…
02:38:03 Well, Bitcoiners have this whole lingo.
02:38:05 They say number go up.
02:38:07 Government is not greedy.
02:38:09 Government is not greedy for money.
02:38:11 Government is greedy for power.
02:38:13 Government is greedy for control.
02:38:15 Government is much more…
02:38:16 Now, money is good too.
02:38:17 They’ll take the money if they can get it.
02:38:19 But it’s not fundamentally about money.
02:38:21 It’s fundamentally…
02:38:22 And this is something that many libertarians don’t understand.
02:38:26 This is something many of the Bitcoin community don’t understand.
02:38:28 They have far too benevolent a view of politicians and the people in government today.
02:38:34 By the way, I’m alive with this.
02:38:35 And I know why he’s laughing.
02:38:36 I think I know why he’s laughing.
02:38:37 You know exactly why I’m laughing.
02:38:39 And we should get to that issue at some point here.
02:38:45 So I think there’s a lot of naivete.
02:38:46 Yeah, there’s a lot.
02:38:47 Speaking of naivete…
02:38:48 A lot of it, Yaron.
02:38:49 No.
02:38:50 Okay.
02:38:51 Okay.
02:38:52 I’m not naive.
02:38:53 I’m actually providing the warning and all these Bitcoiners are saying, no, no, no, government
02:38:58 doesn’t function that way.
02:38:59 No one says I’m naive.
02:39:01 Naive people think they’re not naive.
02:39:03 So let’s put this on the table.
02:39:05 Speaking of naive, I still more than the two of you by far, I think, have faith that government
02:39:11 can work.
02:39:12 Okay.
02:39:13 Let’s put that on the table.
02:39:14 I got it.
02:39:15 I’m not trying to be pedantic.
02:39:16 What do you mean work?
02:39:19 Government can achieve goals.
02:39:20 That is not a dispute.
02:39:21 Government can achieve goals effectively to build a better world, a functioning society.
02:39:28 So I’m going to take it one step further than you.
02:39:31 Oh, boy.
02:39:32 The only way to achieve a better world is through government.
02:39:37 Michael, what do you think about that?
02:39:40 He almost dropped it.
02:39:41 I said it on purpose that way.
02:39:42 I’m glad that the mask is dropping.
02:39:45 You cannot achieve, you cannot have liberty or freedom without a government.
02:39:50 Now not anything like the governments we have today.
02:39:53 So I think the idea that you can have liberty or freedom without government is the rejection
02:40:00 of the idea of liberty and freedom and the undermining of any effort, any attempt to
02:40:06 do it.
02:40:07 In that sense, you, Lex, I know, exactly.
02:40:10 On this side, I’m in agreement with Lex, which is unusual.
02:40:12 That government is good for freedom.
02:40:13 Yeah, you’re in agreement with the guy who’s reading Mein Kampf.
02:40:16 That’s not a surprise.
02:40:17 Who’s dressed in black.
02:40:18 Yeah.
02:40:19 That’s the bad guys.
02:40:20 But the fascism, I mean, the road to fascism is anarchy.
02:40:26 It’s not.
02:40:27 What the hell are you talking about?
02:40:28 Anarchy.
02:40:29 Can you give me one example of an anarchy like the fascism?
02:40:32 Well, every example of a stateless society leads to authoritarianism, every single one
02:40:37 in all of human history.
02:40:39 It has to.
02:40:40 Wait, wait, you’re saying Weimar Germany was anarchy?
02:40:43 Well, it wasn’t pure anarchy, but it got close.
02:40:46 But no.
02:40:47 It got close to anarchy?
02:40:48 I said the reverse, by the way.
02:40:49 I said the reverse.
02:40:50 I didn’t say that every form of authoritarianism started with anarchy.
02:40:53 I said that every situation in which human beings lived under anarchy led to authoritarianism.
02:40:59 So I said the flip was right.
02:41:01 Anarchism isn’t a location.
02:41:03 Anarchism is a relationship.
02:41:04 The three of us are in an anarchist relationship.
02:41:07 Every country is in a relationship of anarchy toward each other.
02:41:10 The US and Canada have an anarchist relationship toward one another.
02:41:14 And to claim, you know, going back to Emma Goldman, who I love, in 1901, William McKinley,
02:41:23 President McKinley, was shot by this guy, Leon Salgas.
02:41:27 And it was very funny, but he was a crazy person.
02:41:31 And they arrested him.
02:41:32 He shot the president.
02:41:33 And they go, why did you shoot President McKinley?
02:41:36 And he just goes, I was radicalized by Emma Goldman.
02:41:39 And she’s like, oh, goddammit.
02:41:40 So now she’s on the lam, she had nothing to do with this guy.
02:41:43 She’s trying to flee.
02:41:45 She gets arrested.
02:41:47 They caught her.
02:41:48 And she said, and this is the hubris of this woman, which I admire as the subject to be
02:41:53 good hubris.
02:41:54 She goes, I’d like to thank the cops for doing what they’re doing.
02:41:58 They’re turning far more people into anarchism than I could do on my own.
02:42:02 So given everything you’ve said in these two hours, and then to pivot to being anti government
02:42:11 is being anti liberty, I don’t feel I have to say anything.
02:42:15 Well, okay.
02:42:16 For people who are not familiar, if you’re, I don’t know why you would not be familiar,
02:42:20 but Michael Malice talks quite a bit about the evils of the state and government and
02:42:26 espouses ideas that anarchism is actually, what is it, the most moral system, the most
02:42:33 effective system for human relationships.
02:42:36 There’s this great book called Atlas Shrugged and the author posits an anarchist private
02:42:41 society.
02:42:42 She calls it Galt’s Gulch, where everything is privately owned and everyone is, no one
02:42:46 is in a position of authority over anyone else other than the landowner.
02:42:50 That’s an anarchist society.
02:42:51 There’s one judge and one authority.
02:42:54 Yeah.
02:42:55 And that’s what everyone has voluntarily moved there and agreed to be under.
02:43:00 It’s a very small community, right?
02:43:02 Sure.
02:43:03 That is right.
02:43:04 There’s no problem with competing governments.
02:43:06 That’s the definition of anarchism.
02:43:08 What’s that?
02:43:09 That’s the definition of anarchism.
02:43:10 Case closed.
02:43:11 Okay.
02:43:12 End the show.
02:43:13 End the show.
02:43:14 I got him over.
02:43:15 Mission accomplished.
02:43:16 Not definition of anarchy at all.
02:43:17 I’m all for competing governments.
02:43:18 Hold up.
02:43:19 You get more cookies.
02:43:20 Good job.
02:43:21 He did it.
02:43:22 He did it.
02:43:23 Yay.
02:43:24 You’re wrong.
02:43:25 You brought him over.
02:43:26 Red rover, red rover.
02:43:27 More Lithuanian.
02:43:28 What is this clown stuff?
02:43:29 I was Lithuanian.
02:43:30 That’s my people.
02:43:31 Yasnaya Polyana, Miodom, it’s honey.
02:43:34 No claims of health or nutrition.
02:43:36 The other one claimed health.
02:43:39 This one no claims.
02:43:40 This makes no claims.
02:43:41 No, I’m for competing governments on different geographic areas.
02:43:45 That’s fine.
02:43:46 Why does it have to be over geographic?
02:43:47 Okay, let me…
02:43:48 It’s really crucial that it’s on different…
02:43:50 So you don’t have two judges in Galt’s Gulch, you have one.
02:43:55 And there’s a reason why.
02:43:56 There’s one authority.
02:43:57 There’s one system of laws in Galt’s Gulch that all the people under the Gulch abide
02:44:04 by.
02:44:05 There’s one.
02:44:06 There’s two because they’re in America.
02:44:07 No, they’re not.
02:44:08 The whole point is they’re not, right?
02:44:09 They’re not in America, they’re in Colorado.
02:44:10 I know, but the whole point of the novel is they’ve left America.
02:44:14 They haven’t left America.
02:44:15 They’ve hid themselves.
02:44:16 So they’re not under the authority of the Americans.
02:44:17 But they are.
02:44:18 Don’t you get it?
02:44:19 But they’re hidden.
02:44:20 They’re supposed to be…
02:44:21 Hold on.
02:44:22 The point is that they’re hidden so they’re not under the…
02:44:23 No, no, no.
02:44:24 If the three of us hide, we’re still under the authority of Washington.
02:44:29 Not if they don’t know that we exist.
02:44:30 But this is why they haven’t established a state, and it’s not a government, and it’s
02:44:33 not in that sense an example of really the way we form societies.
02:44:43 It is a private club that is hidden away from everybody else.
02:44:46 Fine.
02:44:47 I’m fine with that.
02:44:48 What happens if an American kills a Canadian in Mexico?
02:44:52 What happens in America, it depends.
02:44:54 Depends on the nature of the governments of the three places, right?
02:44:56 But usually what happens in most of human history is that America will launch a war
02:45:02 either against Mexico or Canada.
02:45:04 Okay.
02:45:05 First of all…
02:45:06 So usually violence results in much more violence.
02:45:08 Anarchy is just a system that legalizes violence.
02:45:11 That’s all it does.
02:45:12 And in international affairs, that’s the reality.
02:45:14 The reality is that the way you resolve disputes that are major disputes is through violence.
02:45:19 Ayn Rand said, the definition of a government is an agency that has a monopoly of force
02:45:25 in a geographical area.
02:45:27 So you can’t complain that anarchism is legalizing violence when the definition of government,
02:45:33 according to Rand, is legalized violence.
02:45:35 No, but because you’re taking the definition of violence the way she defines it, right,
02:45:40 in this context.
02:45:41 A, she talks about retaliatory force only.
02:45:43 Has that ever happened?
02:45:45 That’s not the point.
02:45:46 That is the point.
02:45:47 Before there was Aristotle.
02:45:48 Before there was an America, there was an America.
02:45:51 The fact that something has never existed means that it will never exist before.
02:45:54 The fact that the ideas haven’t been developed to make something exist means that it will
02:45:58 never exist before.
02:46:00 You know, we’re young.
02:46:01 Human race is a young race.
02:46:03 The ideas of freedom are very young.
02:46:05 The ideas of the enlightenment are just 250 years old.
02:46:08 The idea that you can’t create the kind of government Ayn Rand talked about, I talk about,
02:46:13 that it’s never been before means it will never happen again.
02:46:16 That’s a silly argument.
02:46:17 It’s not a silly argument.
02:46:18 You’re being a Platonist.
02:46:19 No, not at all.
02:46:20 I’ll explain to you how you’re being exactly a Platonist.
02:46:22 So if I was sitting in 1750 arguing with Thomas Jefferson, he was telling me what kind of
02:46:26 state he was going to create, and I said, is a state like this ever being created?
02:46:30 And he said, no.
02:46:31 Was I being a Platonist?
02:46:32 Of course not.
02:46:33 No, you’re being a Platonist.
02:46:34 You know, things change.
02:46:35 You’re being a Platonist now.
02:46:36 Here’s why you’re being a Platonist now.
02:46:37 Because one of the things that Aristotle believed in, one of the things that Ayn Rand in other
02:46:41 contexts believed in, the cover of her book, The Philosophy Who Needs It, is, I think it’s
02:46:48 the Sistine Chapel, the cover, or wherever it is.
02:46:50 It’s Aristotle and Plato walking.
02:46:52 No, it’s not.
02:46:53 Yeah, but…
02:46:54 What’s that painting?
02:46:55 I forgot what it is.
02:46:56 It’s the School of Athens.
02:46:57 School of Athens.
02:46:58 Thank you.
02:46:59 It’s the Raphael.
02:47:00 So Plato’s pointing toward the heavens while they’re talking, and Aristotle’s pointing
02:47:03 to the earth.
02:47:04 Reality.
02:47:05 Reality.
02:47:06 Absolutely.
02:47:07 So if you want, there’s two approaches.
02:47:09 There’s the Descartes, Cartesian approach, which is I sit in my armchair and I deduce
02:47:14 all of reality, or if I want to study the nature of man, if I want to study the nature
02:47:19 of dogs, if I want to study the nature of the sun, I have to look around.
02:47:23 I have to open my eyes.
02:47:24 I have to look at data.
02:47:26 It’s very difficult.
02:47:27 You know, when Rand was on Donahue, he asked her about, aren’t you impressed with the order
02:47:32 in the universe?
02:47:33 And she goes, oh, now you have to give me a moment.
02:47:35 And the point she made, which was very hard for many people to grasp, it’s hard for me
02:47:39 to grasp, is one’s concept of order comes from the universe.
02:47:45 You can’t have a disorderly universe because order means describing that which exists and
02:47:51 which has existed.
02:47:52 Now, if you are looking at governments throughout history that have always existed, and when
02:47:58 you were on Lex, you said, what I’m talking about has never existed.
02:48:04 To say that this, therefore, that that has a possibility of working in reality, I think
02:48:10 is certainly not a point in that favor, number one.
02:48:13 And number two, Jefferson was a fraud.
02:48:16 What Jefferson argued how America would look did not come true.
02:48:21 Jefferson’s concerns about the Constitution were accurate.
02:48:24 And the fact is the federal government did become centralized, did become a civil war.
02:48:29 So if you told Mr. Jefferson the government you’re positing can’t work, you would have
02:48:34 been correct.
02:48:36 That’s not what I’m saying.
02:48:37 It’s not the issue of can it work or not.
02:48:39 It’s the issue of can something exist that hasn’t existed in the past?
02:48:45 It’s a silly argument.
02:48:46 Now, we can argue about the fact of reality, whether such a thing can exist.
02:48:50 But to say it hasn’t existed in the past is not an argument about whether it can exist
02:48:53 in the future.
02:48:54 But that’s the argument you made.
02:48:55 No, no, you’re talking about history and now you’re dancing around it.
02:48:58 No, I’m not.
02:48:59 Sure.
02:49:00 I’m saying that something different happened in the founding of America.
02:49:04 It might not have been perfect, might not have been ideal, it might have been some people
02:49:07 even think it was bad, right?
02:49:08 Sure, it was different.
02:49:09 Something different happened.
02:49:10 Sure.
02:49:11 And you could have said 20 years before and said, well, that’s never happened before,
02:49:14 so it can’t happen in the future.
02:49:15 That is a bad argument.
02:49:17 It’s not a good argument.
02:49:18 Irrelevant.
02:49:19 No, but you’re making the argument that just because something hasn’t happened before,
02:49:24 that’s certainly not a point to say it’s likely to happen or possible.
02:49:27 No.
02:49:28 I’m saying, first of all, I agree that everything we know about what’s possible or what’s not
02:49:34 possible has to be from reality.
02:49:36 That we agree completely.
02:49:37 I think anarchists completely evade that point.
02:49:40 I think you guys live in a world of mythology, of abstraction, of Descartes, to imagine the
02:49:48 kind of anarchy that David Friedman or Rothbard describe.
02:49:52 It’s complete fiction and it’s complete mysticism.
02:49:55 Okay, let me ask just a few dumb questions.
02:49:59 So first of all, what do we do with violence in terms of just natural emergence of violence
02:50:06 in human societies?
02:50:08 So the idea that anarchism proposes is that we would, as the community grows, there may
02:50:15 be violence and then we together form collectives that sort of fund mechanisms that resist that
02:50:21 violence.
02:50:22 I mean, I’d love to sort of talk about violence because that seems to be the core thing.
02:50:28 That’s the difference between the state that was definitionally, I guess, is the thing
02:50:33 that has a monopoly on violence or controls violence in such a way that you don’t have
02:50:39 to worry about it.
02:50:40 And then the anarchism, I don’t know, I’m using bad words.
02:50:44 Your definition is accurate, but the point is that being definition of the state versus
02:50:49 how states act in reality is just absurd, yeah.
02:50:54 And then the idea that anarchism will be is that it’s more kind of a market of defenses
02:50:59 against violence.
02:51:01 So you have like security companies and then you hire different ones that are more competent.
02:51:06 You have things being made affordable, you have more accessibility to security, you have
02:51:12 accountability when people misuse their power, and you have more layers of security than
02:51:19 having a government monopoly.
02:51:20 What every objectivist understand, and they don’t deny this, this is something they talk
02:51:25 about constantly, is anytime you have a government monopoly, it’s going to have enormous distortions
02:51:31 as a consequence.
02:51:32 It’s going to be expensive.
02:51:34 It’s going to be ineffective.
02:51:35 And when you’re talking about ineffectiveness in markets, that’s not just, you know, like
02:51:39 the cup sucks.
02:51:40 It often means mass death.
02:51:42 It often means persecution.
02:51:44 So this is something that anarchism, if not entirely prevents, certainly mitigates enormously.
02:51:50 So can I just, as a thought experiment, say it was very easy to immigrate to another country,
02:51:55 like where you could just move about from government to government, would that alleviate
02:52:00 most of the problems that you have towards the state, which is like people being free
02:52:04 to choose which government they operate under?
02:52:07 Wouldn’t that essentially be…
02:52:08 Last scam, yeah.
02:52:09 So like what is, I’m trying to understand why governments aren’t already the thing that’s
02:52:16 the goal of anarchism.
02:52:18 The kind of collectives that emerge under anarchism seems to be what government…
02:52:23 You’re equating two terms.
02:52:24 So there’s something called like private governance and there’s government.
02:52:28 So for example, if I go to Yaron’s house and he has a rule, take off your shoes, become
02:52:34 your house, if you want to really be kind of silly about it, you could say he’s the
02:52:39 governor.
02:52:40 But it’s really nonsensical to say that.
02:52:43 If you go to Macy’s, right, if you want to return your sweater, Macy’s rules are right
02:52:48 up there.
02:52:49 You have seven days.
02:52:50 If you don’t have a receipt, you’re going to get store credit.
02:52:52 If you do have a receipt, you get a refund.
02:52:54 So every organization, every bar, every nightclub, your house has rules of governments.
02:53:00 This is…
02:53:01 It’s often they’re unspoken.
02:53:02 This is unavoidable.
02:53:03 No one in America by law has to pay a tip, but it’s just customary.
02:53:09 You go at the waiter, you give them 15, 20%, so on and so forth.
02:53:13 Now what anarchism does is it says, okay, security is something that is of crucial,
02:53:20 essential human need.
02:53:22 We all need to be safe in our property, safe in our purpose.
02:53:26 The organization that by far is the biggest violator of this and always has been, always
02:53:31 will be, is the government.
02:53:33 Why?
02:53:34 Because it’s a monopoly, because it has no accountability.
02:53:37 And look at the rioting last year, right?
02:53:40 If you have one agency, pretend it’s not the government, pretend it’s Apple.
02:53:44 And Apple has in charge of security in this town.
02:53:47 People are rioting, people are looting.
02:53:49 And Apple says, yeah, we’re not going to send people into work.
02:53:52 And if you try to defend yourself, we’re going to put you in jail as well.
02:53:56 That’s the problem of having a government monopoly and that’s something that anarchism
02:54:00 solves for.
02:54:01 Okay.
02:54:02 But don’t you, cause you said no accountability, don’t you mean to say poor accountability?
02:54:07 No, I mean to say no accountability.
02:54:09 But isn’t that the idea of democracies?
02:54:11 I’m not for democracy.
02:54:13 No, not for democracy, but like the system of governments that we have, there is a monopoly
02:54:18 on violence, but there is a, I mean, at least in the ideal, but I think in practice as well,
02:54:24 there’s an accountability.
02:54:25 I do not think that’s the case.
02:54:26 I know you’re a critic of the police force and all those kinds of things, but the military
02:54:30 is accountable to the people.
02:54:31 I do not agree.
02:54:32 The police force is accountable to the people.
02:54:33 I do not agree.
02:54:35 Perhaps imperfectly, but you’re saying not at all.
02:54:37 Not at all.
02:54:38 And we’ve seen many examples of police officers doing horrific things on video and they don’t
02:54:44 even lose their pensions.
02:54:45 But there’s a lot of amazing police officers or no?
02:54:47 I mean, no, there are not.
02:54:49 So you’re saying by nature, police is like a fundamentally flawed system.
02:54:53 No, by nature, government monopoly on police is a fundamentally irredeemable system.
02:54:59 Talk about private security.
02:55:01 If I have a private security firm, you could have that under a government.
02:55:05 And as a result of my private security, my person who I’m bodyguarding gets shot.
02:55:10 That’s going to be very bad for my company as compared to competing companies.
02:55:14 However, when you have a government monopoly and I get people shot, what are you going
02:55:18 to do?
02:55:20 So the problem is that all the examples are going to be within the context of an existing
02:55:25 government.
02:55:26 The iPhone example and all these other examples of us being here, we’re not an anarchy.
02:55:30 That is absurd.
02:55:31 We’re under a particular system of law and the system of laws applies and we know that
02:55:35 the particular system of laws applies.
02:55:37 So the problem is when you have…
02:55:40 There are many laws that we’re not going to be enforced, that we’re not going to be subject
02:55:43 to.
02:55:44 Sure.
02:55:45 We know that.
02:55:46 Violence related?
02:55:47 No, there are lots of laws that are not going to be enforced.
02:55:48 Right.
02:55:49 And that doesn’t make this anarchy because there are the laws out there.
02:55:54 They could be enforced, which makes it an anarchy.
02:55:57 But look, there’s a number of issues here.
02:56:00 There’s an issue of the role of force in human society.
02:56:03 I got to clarify things because I think you misunderstood what I said.
02:56:06 I’m not saying that America is anarchist.
02:56:08 What I’m saying is the three of us have an anarchist relationship between us because
02:56:11 none of us have authority over the others.
02:56:13 That’s what I’m saying.
02:56:14 But that’s a bad use of the word anarchy.
02:56:16 No, that’s the correct use of the word anarchy.
02:56:18 It makes it meaningless.
02:56:19 It makes it…
02:56:20 Every time any people get together, they have an anarchistic relationship.
02:56:23 Yes.
02:56:24 No.
02:56:25 We have a voluntary relationship.
02:56:26 That’s what anarchism means, voluntarism.
02:56:27 No.
02:56:28 No, it doesn’t.
02:56:29 It’s a political system.
02:56:30 You want to get a dictionary out?
02:56:31 You’re taking a word and it’s accepted usage.
02:56:33 And then you’re saying, oh, no, it means…
02:56:35 You mean like selfishness?
02:56:36 Maybe.
02:56:37 And we never finished that discussion.
02:56:38 You’re taking a word, we’re taking a word that you’re defining and replacing it with
02:56:44 voluntary.
02:56:45 Now, voluntary…
02:56:46 Okay, fine.
02:56:47 I’m not for anarchism or voluntarism.
02:56:48 Fine.
02:56:49 Go ahead.
02:56:50 But let’s understand what voluntary means, right?
02:56:51 For example, going to stores and there’s a certain relationship that we have with a store
02:56:55 that we engage in certain voluntary transactions with that store.
02:56:58 Now, I believe that that works because there is a certain system of law that both the store
02:57:05 and we have accepted that makes that possible.
02:57:08 Now, if that didn’t, there are certain people who would like to walk into their store and
02:57:12 just take the stuff, right?
02:57:14 So there is a…
02:57:16 We might not, but there are certain people who might want it to go into their store.
02:57:19 There’s a certain system of laws that regulates the relationship and that defines the property
02:57:25 rights and then provides protection for the property rights.
02:57:28 Now, you would like all that privatized.
02:57:30 That is, the store would have its police force and that would be privatized.
02:57:33 Now, I don’t believe that force can be privatized and there are many reasons…
02:57:39 And it shouldn’t.
02:57:41 I don’t think it can and I don’t think…
02:57:44 I think it’s a…
02:57:45 That’s an interesting distinction.
02:57:46 I don’t think it can because I think that it’s an unstable equilibrium, right?
02:57:50 I don’t think competing police forces can work.
02:57:55 At the end, the police force with the biggest gun always wins and always takes over and
02:58:00 becomes authoritarian.
02:58:01 That’s not true.
02:58:02 Look at Iran and Iraq, excuse me.
02:58:03 We had the bigger guns, we didn’t win.
02:58:06 Look at Afghanistan.
02:58:09 We didn’t win partially because none of that is an example of anarchy.
02:58:13 No, but you just said the guy with the biggest gun is gonna win.
02:58:15 Yeah.
02:58:16 The guy with the biggest gun is gonna win.
02:58:17 We didn’t win in Vietnam.
02:58:18 We had the bigger guns.
02:58:19 But again, you’re taking it outside of a context.
02:58:22 That was a context in which countries are fighting, not a context in which there is
02:58:27 no country.
02:58:28 Okay.
02:58:29 Let’s suppose you, Yaron, have a rocket launcher and there’s 100 people with handguns.
02:58:32 How are you gonna win?
02:58:33 You have the biggest gun.
02:58:35 Oh, believe me, I could win.
02:58:37 With one rocket launcher against 100 people?
02:58:39 Yeah.
02:58:40 It’s just…
02:58:41 Well, it depends how many rockets I have in the rocket launcher and whether I’m willing
02:58:43 to use them.
02:58:44 But that’s… so now it’s democracy because there are more of them that they win.
02:58:48 Look, any one of these scenarios, all it does… so let’s go back to the store.
02:58:55 This is fascinating, by the way.
02:58:56 I’m really enjoying this.
02:58:57 I just want to say that.
02:58:58 This is great.
02:58:59 Because…
02:59:00 I’m glad you are.
02:59:01 I am enjoying the pain.
02:59:03 And I’m also enjoying the comments that are gonna happen.
02:59:05 Oh, the comments are gonna be overwhelmingly on your side.
02:59:09 I don’t think so.
02:59:10 I know that.
02:59:11 I don’t think so.
02:59:12 I don’t think so.
02:59:13 I’m completely dishonest.
02:59:14 I’m a modern day…
02:59:15 What’s his name?
02:59:16 What’s the guy who is defending communism?
02:59:17 Richard Wolff.
02:59:18 I’m a modern day Richard Wolff.
02:59:21 There’s a sense in which I think anarchists are evading reality in the same sense.
02:59:27 So we’ve got this…
02:59:28 Do you think I’m dishonest or delusional?
02:59:31 Calling someone dishonest is a really specific…
02:59:35 I think you’re delusional.
02:59:36 I think you’re delusional.
02:59:37 And I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt of being delusional.
02:59:42 That’s fair.
02:59:43 What is love?
02:59:44 And as I said on the show, on the previous interview, I said, only smart people can be
02:59:51 anarchists because it requires a certain level of abstraction of being divorced from reality
02:59:56 that is hard for people who are actually connected to reality.
02:59:59 He makes a good point because I always talk about this with people on social media and
03:00:03 they talk about a lot of people who buy into the corporate media narrative and how they’re
03:00:07 dumb.
03:00:08 I go, it’s easier to train smart people than dumb people.
03:00:10 It’s easier to convince smart people of the systemic that’s divorced from reality than
03:00:13 somebody’s dumb.
03:00:14 You can deal in abstracts.
03:00:15 I don’t have to deal with the concretes that actually happen.
03:00:20 This is an example I gave debating another anarchist.
03:00:23 So…
03:00:24 Who was it?
03:00:25 She must have sucked.
03:00:26 Well, you were the best.
03:00:27 They were Hoppe fans.
03:00:28 Oh, okay.
03:00:29 Hoppe, okay.
03:00:30 Hoppe fans.
03:00:31 Not one of my least like…
03:00:33 The people I like least in the world out there.
03:00:37 You like them better than the communists, don’t you?
03:00:40 Barely.
03:00:41 Oh, come on.
03:00:42 Seriously?
03:00:43 Yes.
03:00:44 Because I think it leads to the same place.
03:00:45 I really do.
03:00:46 I think it leads to gulags.
03:00:47 Fine.
03:00:48 I think anarchy leads to gulags.
03:00:49 And I think Hoppe’s view of anarchy definitely leads to gulags.
03:00:50 I’ll grant you just for the sake of argument that it leads to gulags.
03:00:53 However, surely you concede that they are against gulags whereas the commies have no
03:00:58 problem with it.
03:00:59 And that’s a big…
03:01:00 I think some do.
03:01:01 I’m not sure people like Hoppe do.
03:01:03 Because if you read some of his stuff, one wonders, right?
03:01:07 But he wants monarchies and he wants…
03:01:09 No, he said monarchies are preferable to democracy, which is true.
03:01:13 No, it’s not.
03:01:14 Oh, God.
03:01:15 I mean, one of the problems with an anarchist is…
03:01:17 What judge?
03:01:18 That’s the monarch.
03:01:19 One of the problems…
03:01:20 Yeah.
03:01:21 One judge, one authority.
03:01:22 This is why I think…
03:01:23 Yeah, the monarch.
03:01:24 That’s why I think…
03:01:25 So you’re a Hoppean.
03:01:26 I don’t think it’s authoritarians.
03:01:27 So Yaron Brooks is a Hoppean.
03:01:28 Get in the chopper.
03:01:29 No, I’m not a Hoppean.
03:01:30 I don’t want one judge.
03:01:31 I don’t want an arbitrary judge.
03:01:33 I want an objective judge.
03:01:34 There’s an essay by John Hasnas, I think his name, I’m gonna bungle it.
03:01:37 It’s gonna be in my upcoming book on anarchism.
03:01:40 And he just discusses, and it’s a very long, complicated, technical issue, that the idea
03:01:44 of objective law is incoherent.
03:01:46 Well, yeah.
03:01:47 I mean, that’s why we disagree so much.
03:01:49 Yeah.
03:01:50 Because I think objective law is the only coherent system.
03:01:53 Do you disagree that we, in effect, have competing systems of law under America?
03:02:01 Meaning there’s different ideologies.
03:02:04 You have the Sotomayor ideology versus the Scalia ideology, and that effectively.
03:02:08 And the point being, when you and I file a lawsuit, it completely depends on who the
03:02:12 judge is.
03:02:13 Yes.
03:02:14 Okay.
03:02:15 And in theory, I don’t think the system works this way, but in theory, the way the system
03:02:18 would work is that on new issues, there is some competition.
03:02:23 Syria wasn’t talking to you.
03:02:26 Technology.
03:02:27 Capitalism.
03:02:28 So in theory, the system works, and this works, I think, with competing states, but also with
03:02:34 competing legal views, particularly on a new issue.
03:02:38 There’s some, this is how common law worked, right?
03:02:42 There’s some evolution of it, and at some point, that gets codified into the law.
03:02:46 And it gets objectified in that sense.
03:02:48 That is, there’s some conclusion that people come to.
03:02:51 This is the role, in theory, of a legislature, and the legislature would be nice if it was
03:02:56 composed of people who had some idea of legal philosophy.
03:03:01 And it gets codified.
03:03:03 Because these things are complex, and at some point, it goes through all the arguments,
03:03:08 and then a certain truth emerges, or a certain truth is identified, and that’s what gets
03:03:12 encoded in law.
03:03:14 That’s what the purpose of a legislature is.
03:03:15 Now, if you have competing mechanisms that don’t converge on one authority, because there’s
03:03:22 no one authority, there are multiple authorities.
03:03:24 That is, in a sense, there are multiple governments or multiple systems of enforcement, right?
03:03:30 Then you get not just something emerging out of it, what you get is competing legal systems.
03:03:38 Competing legal systems that now have competing mechanisms of enforcement, competing police
03:03:44 forces, competing militaries, however we want to define it.
03:03:47 And now there’s no mechanism to resolve that.
03:03:50 Now, yes, we could negotiate, and there’s goodwill, and so on, right?
03:03:55 Yeah, there you go.
03:03:56 No, no.
03:03:57 But now we’re talking about the law, what each view, each position views as true and
03:04:04 right, right?
03:04:06 And it might involve, for example, it might involve the fact that the legal system has
03:04:11 come to the conclusion that it’s okay for children to have sex with adults, and this
03:04:15 legal system thinks that is evil and wrong, right?
03:04:19 And something has happened between the two, right?
03:04:23 How do you resolve that conflict?
03:04:24 There is no resolution.
03:04:25 If this adult wants to have sex with this child, this legal system thinks it’s okay,
03:04:30 that legal system thinks it’s…
03:04:31 The only way to resolve that system is through one system imposing itself on the other.
03:04:35 An example of countries is exactly that.
03:04:37 When you had monarchies, when you had the little states all over the place, the way
03:04:41 any kind of dispute was resolved when there were issues of territorial disputes, or issues
03:04:46 of marriage, or issues of different legal interpretations about… was war.
03:04:51 No, it wasn’t.
03:04:52 Yes, it was.
03:04:53 It wasn’t marriage.
03:04:54 A lot of times people would marry a princess from another country just to feast.
03:04:56 Sure.
03:04:57 Forced marriages, which was not very pleasant.
03:04:58 I’d rather sacrifice one princess than a queen.
03:05:00 No, I don’t want to sacrifice anybody.
03:05:02 And in addition, I don’t want to sacrifice anybody.
03:05:03 I want to sacrifice the royals.
03:05:04 And in addition…
03:05:05 Well, I don’t want royals.
03:05:06 I don’t want royals.
03:05:07 Well, that’s what sacrificing means.
03:05:08 I think royals are pretty disgusting.
03:05:09 Agreed.
03:05:10 Let’s get the baskets.
03:05:11 And then on top of that, look, those periods in history are filled with violence, much
03:05:16 more violence than we have today, much more bloody than they are today, far less freedom
03:05:20 than we have today in terms of individual freedom.
03:05:21 After the 20th…
03:05:22 You’re comparing this to 20th century.
03:05:25 Yes, I’m comparing a monarchy, right?
03:05:30 You said that’s preferable to democracy, right?
03:05:32 Yes, I did.
03:05:33 I’m comparing…
03:05:34 I’m saying Hoppe said that.
03:05:35 I’m not saying I’m saying that.
03:05:36 I’m saying Hoppe said that.
03:05:37 To some extent.
03:05:38 To some extent.
03:05:39 But I’m not going to die in that hell.
03:05:40 Hoppe said that.
03:05:41 And I think it’s ridiculous.
03:05:42 These kings and queens were fighting constantly.
03:05:43 I mean, the wars back then were violent in a way that…
03:05:47 Unlike now?
03:05:48 No, much more violent than now.
03:05:49 If you look at the actual percentage of people killed in war…
03:05:51 The Steven Pinker book.
03:05:52 Yeah.
03:05:53 If you look at the percentage of people…
03:05:54 And not just that.
03:05:55 You can look at the other stats.
03:05:56 The percentage of people killed in war back then were far greater than the percentage
03:05:59 of people even during World War II and World War I.
03:06:01 So anarchy, and you know, David Friedman loves to quote the sagas of Iceland about how wonderful
03:06:07 the anarchy…
03:06:08 And I mean, it’s funny because a lot of people who read David Friedman never read the sagas.
03:06:13 It’s worth reading.
03:06:14 The sagas of the Iceland are filled with violence.
03:06:19 Constant violence.
03:06:20 Constantly people killing each other over, you know, I stole your chickens and you slept
03:06:25 with my wife.
03:06:27 The only way to resolve disputes, the only way to resolve disputes was violence.
03:06:31 There was no authority, there was no mechanism to resolve these disputes.
03:06:34 There was a council, but the council couldn’t enforce anything, so in the end of the day
03:06:38 we just resolved to violence.
03:06:39 And this is legalized because there is no mechanism by which to make the violence illegal.
03:06:46 So all anarchy is, is legalized violence constrained for a while and up until people stop that
03:06:58 constraint by, you know, arrangements between the security organizations.
03:07:04 But the security organizations have us by the balls, to put it figuratively, right?
03:07:08 They really do.
03:07:09 Sure.
03:07:10 Unlike the state?
03:07:11 Oh, the state today has it, but I would much rather live in this state, much rather live
03:07:15 in this state, much rather live in many more authoritarian states than this, than a place
03:07:20 where there’s constant violence.
03:07:22 I have a bunch of questions, but I’m enjoying this.
03:07:24 Here’s why everything he said is wrong.
03:07:25 Okay, yes.
03:07:26 Well, the idea of competing legal systems is inevitable because what Rand talked about
03:07:33 is what she wanted was, and this is really kind of out of character with her broader
03:07:39 ideology is, I think this was her term and I’m not saying this to make fun of you, when
03:07:43 she has a judge and he’s looking at the information, she wants him to be basically, I think she’s
03:07:49 the word robot, someone without any ideology.
03:07:52 That they’re just looking at the facts, they’re not bringing their kind of worldview to it.
03:07:56 I take it as a compliment.
03:07:58 You are welcome.
03:08:01 I think that given otherwise, her correct view that ideology is just a slur for someone’s
03:08:11 philosophy that someone, especially someone as erudite, educated and informed as a judge
03:08:17 has to, and in fact should bring their ideology to their work is in one sense a little contradiction
03:08:23 in her view, number one.
03:08:25 Number two is we have right now the DA in San Francisco, I forget his name.
03:08:31 He’s the son of literal terrorists, communist terrorists, and he has made it the decree
03:08:36 unilaterally that if you shoplift for less than, I forget, $200, we’re not prosecuting.
03:08:41 Yeah, I know that.
03:08:42 You know this guy, right, right, right.
03:08:44 So now you and I, and Lex I’m sure probably, agree that his ideology is abhorrent, that
03:08:51 this doesn’t help poor people, it doesn’t help shop owners, it creates a culture, an
03:08:57 area where it’s just deleterious to human life.
03:09:00 However, he has in one sense, given that he is a state operative, a legitimate worldview.
03:09:07 Can I ask you just a quick question?
03:09:08 Sure.
03:09:09 Why couldn’t a security force in a particular context say, yeah, if you take stuff on that
03:09:15 store, we’re not going to have any problem with that?
03:09:18 I agree with you.
03:09:19 That’s very fair.
03:09:20 That’s a very legitimate question.
03:09:21 The point is, in the context that I’m talking about, that firm is like, wait a minute, I’m
03:09:27 hiring you for security, you’re saying we’re not going to provide security, why am I writing
03:09:31 you a check?
03:09:32 And we have examples of this in real life.
03:09:34 If I get into a car accident with you, right?
03:09:38 You have your car insurance, I have my car insurance.
03:09:41 If your car insurance had their druthers, they wouldn’t pay me one penny.
03:09:45 If my car insurance didn’t have their druthers, they wouldn’t pay you one penny.
03:09:49 We already have all, you were saying earlier that we need to have one kind of umbrella
03:09:53 mechanism of use.
03:09:54 There are already more cases than you can count where there’s private arbitration.
03:09:59 Now the argument is that private arbitration only works because they have recourse to the
03:10:04 government.
03:10:05 But my point is, there’s many examples where even though that recourse is theoretically
03:10:09 possible, it’s not a realistic concern, specifically because they know that if you have recourse
03:10:16 to the state, you have no concept of what that outcome is going to look like, except
03:10:22 knowing it’s going to be exorbitant, it’s going to be time consuming.
03:10:28 We can’t use the state, right?
03:10:29 I mean, I’m as critical as the state as it is right now.
03:10:33 Maybe not as critical as yours, not as critical as yours, but I’m quite critical of the state
03:10:36 as it is right now.
03:10:38 But let’s say we got into a traffic accident and you have a Rolls Royce and I destroyed
03:10:45 your Rolls Royce and my insurance company now owes your insurance company a lot of money.
03:10:49 And let’s imagine it’s a lot of money just for the sake of it.
03:10:51 You’re clearly guilty.
03:10:52 Yeah, clearly guilty.
03:10:54 And my insurance company looks at the books and it goes, I don’t want to pay this.
03:10:59 And you know what?
03:11:00 I’ve got bigger guns than his insurance company.
03:11:03 And I’m just going to take over their insurance company.
03:11:05 And hostile takeover takes on a whole new meaning when I can muster guns on my behalf
03:11:12 than in a hostile takeover in a capitalist context.
03:11:17 That to me is what happens.
03:11:19 That to me is inevitably what happens.
03:11:22 And I think this is where the delusion comes in.
03:11:24 The idea that when big money is involved and power is involved, remember, again, the same
03:11:30 kind of politicians who today get into politics are likely to want to run some of these security
03:11:36 agencies because they’ll have a lot of power over people.
03:11:39 The same kind of maybe sociopaths would be the same skill set, but that’s a separate
03:11:44 issue.
03:11:45 I think it very much is.
03:11:46 But you think people, the people in Washington, the same, the CEOs psychologically and skill
03:11:50 set wise?
03:11:51 Well, today’s CEOs?
03:11:52 Yes.
03:11:53 Okay.
03:11:54 Yes.
03:11:55 You might be right.
03:11:56 Because I think that’s what’s rewarded for a CEO, somebody who could get along with government.
03:12:00 And I think the kind of CEO who is going to run a security company, which is not just
03:12:05 about business, it’s about the use of force.
03:12:07 It’s about control.
03:12:08 It’s about negotiation with other entities that are using force, you know, diplomacy.
03:12:14 And we should get back to objective law because I think it’s essential to this whole argument.
03:12:19 I think all you get into is security agencies fighting security agencies.
03:12:23 And again, the biggest gun.
03:12:24 And I don’t mean here the guy who has the biggest literal gun, the rocket launcher versus
03:12:28 the guns.
03:12:29 I got excited for a second.
03:12:30 By the biggest gun?
03:12:31 Yeah.
03:12:32 The party that has the more physical force, however, that is mustered either by numbers
03:12:37 or by weapons is going to dominate and will take over everybody else.
03:12:41 Now, one of the things that’s common in a market is takeovers.
03:12:45 It’s consolidation.
03:12:47 And here the consolidation can happen through force and you can rule other security companies.
03:12:54 And that’s exactly what will happen until you dominate the particular geographic area.
03:12:57 Okay.
03:12:58 So let me explain why I disagree with that.
03:13:00 You were just saying, and I agree correctly, I agree with you, that, listen, if I have
03:13:04 access to the bigger gun, why am I paying you or whoever’s paying whatever?
03:13:08 I’m just going to use force and not pay them.
03:13:10 We have that right now.
03:13:11 It’s called lobbying.
03:13:12 Yeah.
03:13:13 So instead of me, and I’m sure in your example, you weren’t being literal, instead of the
03:13:18 insurance company literally having the army, they could be like, hey, let me call corrupt
03:13:22 co with a mafia.
03:13:23 I agree.
03:13:24 Yeah.
03:13:25 Go out and take them out.
03:13:26 By having this federal government, as you know, and certainly I’m not a fan of, takes
03:13:31 more through asset forfeiture than burglaries combined.
03:13:36 What asset forfeiture is, people don’t even understand this.
03:13:38 This is something crazy, which you’re on, it’s as opposed to me, as opposed as I am,
03:13:43 which is I’m a cop.
03:13:45 I go to your house.
03:13:46 I think you haven’t been charged or convicted of anything.
03:13:50 I have evidence.
03:13:51 It’s usually in a car.
03:13:52 Yeah.
03:13:53 Yeah.
03:13:54 It’s like drug deals.
03:13:55 Okay.
03:13:56 I go to your house, you’re a drug dealer.
03:13:57 I say, and you can understand the reasoning, well, if someone is getting profit through
03:14:02 illegal mechanisms, their profit isn’t really their property and they shouldn’t be rewarded
03:14:07 that profit.
03:14:08 So basically, I go to your house, you’re a drug dealer, I seize all your property.
03:14:12 You don’t really have recourse, even though you haven’t been through deep, I’m just explaining
03:14:15 to the audience, through the new process and SOL.
03:14:20 That combined, for people who don’t know, is more than the total amount of burglaries
03:14:25 in America.
03:14:26 It’s a huge incentive.
03:14:27 And what happens is the police department, which seizes your car auctions, it sees your
03:14:30 house auctions, it’s a great way to line their pockets.
03:14:34 This is a huge incentive.
03:14:35 It’s horrible.
03:14:36 It’s a huge incentive for police departments to do this because it’s like, look, this guy’s
03:14:42 a crook.
03:14:43 Maybe he’s not a drug dealer, but he’s clearly a pimp.
03:14:46 Let me just take all his stuff and it’s going to go to the community.
03:14:48 Well, and the rationale originally was if I try him, in the meantime, he’ll take that
03:14:54 money and funnel it somewhere else and hide it, and I’ll never be able to get access to
03:14:59 it.
03:15:00 And it was passed in the 1970s under the original Caesar Laws, what kind of RICO Act, going
03:15:06 after the mafia.
03:15:07 And one of the reasons I despise Giuliani as much as I do, and there’s very few politicians
03:15:12 out there that I despise more, is because he was the first guy to use RICO on financiers.
03:15:18 And so it wasn’t even a drug dealer.
03:15:19 It was you accused of a financial fraud, not you weren’t shown to be guilty, you were accused.
03:15:27 All your assets basically were forfeiture.
03:15:30 Innocent until proven guilty went out the window.
03:15:31 If you were managing money, you were done.
03:15:34 You were finished.
03:15:35 So you’re saying this kind of stuff naturally emerges with the state.
03:15:37 Hold on.
03:15:38 So my point is what are presented as the strongest criticism of anarchism are inevitably descriptions
03:15:43 of status quo.
03:15:44 What you’re describing is already the event.
03:15:46 I am a big insurance company.
03:15:49 I don’t want to pay you.
03:15:50 I call Washington.
03:15:52 Either I pay you and Washington gives me a subsidy.
03:15:54 So what you’re describing is an inevitable aspect of having a government.
03:15:59 So what I’m describing is the inevitable evolution of anarchy into a government.
03:16:03 I just think that the…
03:16:04 Markets don’t consolidate into monopoly.
03:16:06 That’s a leftist propaganda myth.
03:16:08 Not markets where you have substitute products, but this is the problem.
03:16:13 The problem is force has no substitute.
03:16:15 That is force is not a product you can have.
03:16:18 So this is my fundamental issue about turning competing police forces.
03:16:22 Force is not a product.
03:16:23 Force is not a service.
03:16:24 It’s a service.
03:16:25 It’s not a service.
03:16:26 And it’s not a product.
03:16:27 Security is not a service?
03:16:28 No.
03:16:29 Well, security in the context of a legal system is.
03:16:31 But this is the point.
03:16:32 The legal system, the laws are not a service or a product.
03:16:37 They are a different type of human institution.
03:16:42 Science is not a product or a service.
03:16:44 It’s a different type of human institution.
03:16:46 There are different types of human institutions.
03:16:48 Some are marketable.
03:16:49 You can create markets in, some you cannot.
03:16:51 Law is not a marketable system.
03:16:54 Can I ask a question quickly?
03:16:55 Is there any other field other than law that you think you can’t create markets?
03:16:59 Well, science.
03:17:00 Science is not marketable.
03:17:01 The science itself is not marketable.
03:17:03 What science is true and the same ethic is in law.
03:17:05 Law is not marketable.
03:17:07 Law is the system that allows markets to happen.
03:17:10 You need a system of law, whether it’s private law in a particular narrow context or whether
03:17:15 it’s broader law.
03:17:16 Law is the context in which markets arise.
03:17:20 So one of the reasons we transact is we know that there’s a certain contract between us,
03:17:24 explicit or implicit, that is protected by a certain law, whether it’s protected by private
03:17:28 agency or private, the government doesn’t matter.
03:17:30 But there’s a certain contract that is protectable, right?
03:17:34 By a system.
03:17:35 Theoretically.
03:17:36 Theoretically.
03:17:37 Yes.
03:17:38 So law is the context in which markets arise.
03:17:40 You don’t create a market because there’s nothing above it, in a sense.
03:17:47 It is the context that allows markets to be created.
03:17:51 Once you market it, markets fall apart.
03:17:54 So hold on a second.
03:17:55 Hold on.
03:17:56 So you think that law could be a market?
03:17:58 And it already is a market.
03:18:00 And we see it, for example, eBay.
03:18:02 If I am buying something from Yaron, I won’t even know his name.
03:18:05 I don’t know.
03:18:06 Maybe he’s in another country.
03:18:08 And he screws me out of the money.
03:18:11 I can’t sue you.
03:18:12 Or if I sue you in England, good luck with that.
03:18:15 You’re not going to argue that I’m going to sue you.
03:18:16 What happens in this case, which has already been solved by the market, eBay and PayPal,
03:18:21 which has access to your bank account, they act as the private arbiter.
03:18:24 They’re going to get it wrong a lot.
03:18:27 Not even a question, just like Yaron’s not going to argue that the government right now
03:18:30 gets it wrong a lot.
03:18:31 That’s not even a question.
03:18:32 The point is, at the very least, I’m going to get my resolution faster, cheaper, and
03:18:38 more effectively.
03:18:39 So the issue with having any kind of government, anything, and Yaron’s not going to disagree
03:18:44 with this, is at the very least, it’s going to be expensive, inefficient, and cause conflict.
03:18:50 Yeah, but I think what it allows is exactly…
03:18:53 We don’t even know what the Supreme Court’s going to judge.
03:18:55 Again, you’re moving us to today’s environment, which I’m against.
03:18:59 I’m moving us to reality.
03:19:00 No, but reality doesn’t have to be what it is.
03:19:03 I mean, go ahead.
03:19:04 That’s the most anti Iran quote.
03:19:05 No, in a sense of the politics, the political reality.
03:19:10 I know, but the quote by itself is great.
03:19:11 I know.
03:19:12 I know.
03:19:13 You’d love to…
03:19:14 He agrees with Donald Hoffman is what he said.
03:19:15 Yeah, it turns out I agree with Hoffman.
03:19:16 He’s an elf.
03:19:18 So it’s…
03:19:19 Where were we?
03:19:20 So I believe that because we have a certain system of government, it allows for these
03:19:26 private innovations to come about that facilitates certain issues in a much more efficient way
03:19:32 than the government would deal with it.
03:19:34 But it’s only because we have a particular system that has defined property rights, that
03:19:40 has a clear view of what property rights are, it has a clear view of what a transaction
03:19:45 mean or what contract law is, and eBay has a bunch of stuff that you sign, whether you
03:19:51 read it or not.
03:19:52 Of course.
03:19:53 The fact is defined first, and then there are massive innovations at the level of particular
03:20:00 transactions at the level of an eBay that facilitate increased efficiency.
03:20:05 And that’s great.
03:20:06 But the fact is none of that gets developed.
03:20:08 None of that gets created.
03:20:10 In a world in which I might be living under different definition of property rights, eBay
03:20:14 might be living under separate definition of property rights.
03:20:16 You might have a third definition of property rights, and there’s no mechanism by which
03:20:20 we can actually operationalize that because we all have a different system.
03:20:24 There is a mechanism.
03:20:25 We already have that.
03:20:27 Let’s change the example I just used.
03:20:28 What happens if a Chinese person who has different definition of property rights kills an American
03:20:34 in Brazil?
03:20:35 Again, in a smaller community, what happens is lots of violence.
03:20:39 No, but I’m talking right now.
03:20:41 A Chinese person has…
03:20:42 Right now, the only reason that it doesn’t lead to violence is because people are afraid
03:20:47 of even more violence, and it affects many people, large numbers of people who don’t
03:20:52 want to go to war.
03:20:53 But if you have small…
03:20:56 In a state where the states were small, in those little states, there was war all the
03:21:01 time for exactly those reasons, because the cost was lower, because it was more personal,
03:21:08 because I knew maybe the person who was killed over there, and I went to my king and encouraged
03:21:13 him to go to war.
03:21:14 You know why there was war?
03:21:15 Violence is constant.
03:21:16 You know why there was war?
03:21:17 Because there had been no Ayn Rand, and good ideas lead to good societies, which leads
03:21:23 to good people, which leads to good behavior, good interrelationships.
03:21:26 So now that we have Ayn Rand, all this stuff in the past is irrelevant, because if they
03:21:31 studied her works, we would be…
03:21:33 Rand was on Donahue again, you could watch the clip, and he asks her, she goes…
03:21:39 He goes, you’re saying that if we were more selfish and acted more self interest, there’d
03:21:44 be less war, less Hitler?
03:21:46 And she said, there wouldn’t be any.
03:21:48 Right?
03:21:49 That’s right.
03:21:50 Well, if we were all selfish, there wouldn’t be any Hitlers, right?
03:21:53 But who do you regard as the overweening authority if I am buying a product from you as someone
03:22:00 in England via eBay?
03:22:02 Who’s the governing authority?
03:22:05 The governing authority are the legal systems in England and the United States, which have
03:22:10 to be synchronized pretty well.
03:22:11 Right.
03:22:12 So why eBay doesn’t function in certain countries, because there is no legal system.
03:22:17 I agree with you.
03:22:18 My point is, why do those legal systems have to be a function specifically of geography,
03:22:22 as opposed to, why can’t I sitting here…
03:22:25 I could sit here, you’re not going to let me finish my point.
03:22:27 I can sit here and be a British diplomat, right?
03:22:31 And as a British diplomat, I’m going to be treated differently under American law than
03:22:35 you are as an American citizen as you are.
03:22:37 Why can’t you have that same process, sure, we’re geographically proximate, but I’m a
03:22:43 citizen of this company and you’re a citizen of that company?
03:22:47 Why would that be different in your opinion?
03:22:49 If it’s England and the United States, it’s probably not going to matter that much, right?
03:22:55 But if it’s Iran and the United States, then the fact that we’re sitting next to each other
03:23:00 makes a huge difference.
03:23:01 Oh, I…
03:23:02 Massive difference.
03:23:03 The fact is that, and Ayn Rand, I think would be the first technologist and this is why
03:23:08 she was so opposed to anarchy.
03:23:10 It’s not…
03:23:11 That’s not why.
03:23:12 It is why.
03:23:13 It’s because of Rothbard.
03:23:14 No, it has nothing to do with…
03:23:15 Nothing?
03:23:16 It has nothing to do with Rothbard.
03:23:17 Nothing.
03:23:18 Nothing.
03:23:19 How do you know?
03:23:20 Nothing.
03:23:21 How would you know?
03:23:22 Because her argument against anarchy is an intellectual one, not a personality based
03:23:23 one.
03:23:24 Can’t it be both?
03:23:25 Anyway, but back to it, back to Iran.
03:23:26 No, it has nothing to do with Rothbard.
03:23:27 You don’t know that, you’re not a psychic or a necromancer.
03:23:33 The only way we’re going to resolve this is arm wrestling, right?
03:23:36 It’s through violence.
03:23:37 Arm wrestling is not violence.
03:23:40 Words are violence.
03:23:41 Words are violence, everyone.
03:23:42 Words are violence.
03:23:43 Emotions are violence.
03:23:44 He throws me off with this stuff.
03:23:48 That’s the problem.
03:23:49 Even facts and truth?
03:23:50 He’s very, very good.
03:23:51 Not facts and truth.
03:23:52 Distortions and arbitrary statements, because your statement about Rothbard is an arbitrary
03:23:56 statement that has no cognitive standing and therefore I can dismiss it.
03:24:01 I’m not doing like this because I want to dismiss it.
03:24:03 It has no cognitive status.
03:24:04 The fact that she disliked Rothbard doesn’t mean that everything he said she was going
03:24:09 to dismiss because she disliked it.
03:24:10 I agree with you.
03:24:11 But what I’m saying is it would not be impossible.
03:24:13 But there’s no evidence.
03:24:14 I’ll talk.
03:24:15 I’ll give you some evidence.
03:24:16 Human psychology.
03:24:18 It is not impossible that if you hate some… What’s that guy’s name?
03:24:23 Richard Wolff.
03:24:24 Right.
03:24:25 It’s not impossible that if Richard Wolff said something that you would otherwise agree
03:24:29 with, hold on, let me finish, you’d be dismissive or less likely to give him credit for it being
03:24:34 a human being.
03:24:35 That’s all I’m saying.
03:24:36 It’s as silly as to say Rothbard came up with this theory of anarchy because he was pissed
03:24:41 off at Ayn Rand and wanted to write something.
03:24:43 I don’t know.
03:24:44 Bring it down.
03:24:45 Bring it down so that he can speak too and let’s keep it…
03:24:50 I don’t think we’re getting agitated.
03:24:51 No, you guys aren’t.
03:24:52 No, no, no.
03:24:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:24:54 No, bring it down not in terms of give more pauses so Michael can insert himself.
03:25:02 That’s what I mean.
03:25:03 See, private governance.
03:25:04 What’s the point of that?
03:25:05 Private governance.
03:25:06 Look.
03:25:07 Look, it’s private governance.
03:25:08 I’m all for private governance.
03:25:09 I’m trying to establish this geographic law of the land.
03:25:12 I don’t know.
03:25:13 That’s not the point.
03:25:14 I do think that Michael’s… I mean, that’s interesting that you disagree with this.
03:25:17 I do believe that psychology has an impact on ideas and Ayn Rand, you don’t think Ayn
03:25:23 Rand had grudges that impacted the way she saw the world?
03:25:30 We would like to think that…
03:25:31 I don’t think any of her grudges entered into her philosophical statements, at least not
03:25:35 that I can tell, and given the centrality Ayn Rand gave to the role of government, to
03:25:43 the existence of government, to the need for government, to establish real freedom, and
03:25:48 the way she defines freedom, which is very different than Rothbard, and the way she defines
03:25:53 it, to say then that her opposition and anarchy is because of, I think, is just an arbitrary
03:26:00 statement.
03:26:01 I didn’t say because of.
03:26:02 I didn’t say because of.
03:26:03 I said followed by.
03:26:04 And not, and I don’t see why psychology would enter it.
03:26:07 Now, maybe the tone in which you responded to an answer might have been motivated by
03:26:11 that or something like that, but given the amount of thought she gave to the role of
03:26:14 government in human society and why government was needed, and why you needed laws in order
03:26:19 to be free, that freedom didn’t proceed, you needed the right hierarchy, I think that we
03:26:27 could say that it, give it at least a respect that she might have been wrong, but she had
03:26:35 a particular theory that rejected anarchy, and that thought anarchy was wrong.
03:26:39 Okay, hold on.
03:26:40 I really resent, and I don’t want to say you’re doing this, the implication that if Rand was
03:26:45 guided by her passions, that somehow is a criticism of her or lessens her.
03:26:49 I think Rand was a very passionate person.
03:26:52 I think she loved her husband enormously.
03:26:56 She despised certain people enormously, and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong
03:27:02 with that.
03:27:03 I don’t think she would change her philosophical position about something because she disliked
03:27:05 somebody.
03:27:06 I agree, but what I’m saying.
03:27:07 Given the amount of thought she gave to that philosophical position.
03:27:09 All I’m saying is, it is possible that if someone comes across ideas that she had not
03:27:16 considered before, if she regarded this person as a bad actor, like all of us, she would
03:27:22 be less likely to take them under consideration.
03:27:25 Sure.
03:27:26 That’s all I’m saying.
03:27:27 Sure.
03:27:28 And I think other people confronted her with ideas of anarchy, I don’t think Rothbard was
03:27:31 the only one.
03:27:32 Correct, Roy Charles as well, yeah.
03:27:33 Roy Charles certainly did.
03:27:34 And she rejected them, and she rejected them because she had, and whether you agree with
03:27:37 or not, she had a thought out position about why you needed to have this particular structure
03:27:45 in place so that markets and human freedom could exist.
03:27:49 It’s just really interesting because this is the one time, in my view, and please correct
03:27:54 me if I’m wrong, where she invokes need as kind of a basis for political activity.
03:28:01 So let’s suppose you want this federal government, whatever you want, you don’t want it like
03:28:05 it is now, like your version of the government, I don’t see why it’s an issue for you for
03:28:11 me and Lex to say, we’re not privy to Washington, we’re going to do our own thing, and given,
03:28:18 if we go about our lives not initiating force and being productive actors, why she would
03:28:23 have an issue with this.
03:28:24 Why would I care?
03:28:25 Well, you would care because if you’re saying the government has a monopoly on force between
03:28:28 these two oceans.
03:28:29 So you can do that as long as you don’t violate somebody else’s rights.
03:28:32 Sure, but what I’m saying is we just declare ourselves sovereign, we’re not going to pay
03:28:36 any income taxes, we’re going to be peaceful people, and when Lex and I have disputes,
03:28:42 we’re going to call Joe, that’s Joe Rogan, you’re never going to get to meet him, but
03:28:46 he’s a good guy.
03:28:47 I know.
03:28:48 We’re going to call Joe, and Joe’s going to resolve it.
03:28:51 He’s so good at like, you know, needling and getting you off topic that way.
03:28:57 He’s really effective at it.
03:29:00 I always say, when I debate communists, I always say to them…
03:29:04 You mean Lex?
03:29:05 Yeah, maybe Lex.
03:29:07 Maybe I should…
03:29:08 Comrade, I love you.
03:29:10 That if they really believe…
03:29:11 Burgundy, not red.
03:29:12 If they really believe in what they think, then they should be advocates of capitalism,
03:29:15 because under capitalism, under my system of government, capitalist government, right,
03:29:19 they could go and start a commune, they can live with communists, they can live to each
03:29:23 according to his needs, from each according to his ability, all they want, and live their
03:29:29 pathetic miserable lives that way, and the government would never intervene, because
03:29:34 the whole view of capitalism is freedom, is we leave it alone, right?
03:29:38 As long as you’re not violating my rights, as long as you’re not taking my property,
03:29:42 as long as you’re not engaging with…
03:29:45 So in that sense, yeah, you and Lex can form your own thing, I don’t believe in compulsory
03:29:49 taxes anyway, so you and Lex can do your own thing, never pay taxes, as long as you’re
03:29:55 not violating the laws, and the laws are very limited, right, because they’re only there
03:29:59 to protect individual rights, so as long as you’re not violating somebody else’s property
03:30:02 rights or inflicting force on anybody else, you’re peaceful, you can do what you want,
03:30:07 you know, don’t have…
03:30:08 Great.
03:30:09 Yeah.
03:30:10 Great.
03:30:11 Case placed.
03:30:12 Don’t have sex with kids, right?
03:30:13 I will stop immediately.
03:30:14 Good.
03:30:15 The rest of us are just playing checkers and he’s playing chess.
03:30:16 Yeah, I mean, a government that protects individual rights properly is a government
03:30:20 that leaves you alone to live your life as you see fit, even if you live your life in
03:30:23 a way that I don’t approve of, that I don’t think is right, I mean, that’s the whole point,
03:30:27 right?
03:30:28 So the only thing you can do is, you know, try to enforce arbitrary laws that you come
03:30:35 up with on me.
03:30:36 Sure.
03:30:37 Of course.
03:30:38 Absolutely.
03:30:39 Okay, great.
03:30:40 Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a world where rights protecting laws are superfluous,
03:30:45 but the reality is usually that somebody violates them, whether by accident or intentionally,
03:30:52 and that you need some mechanism, now if you guys can resolve that dispute without getting
03:30:57 involved, fine.
03:30:58 But if you guys land up not resolving, there is another authority that will help you resolve
03:31:04 it.
03:31:05 Yeah, our company.
03:31:06 So can I ask you a question?
03:31:07 Under anarchism, what kind of systems of laws do you think will emerge?
03:31:12 Do you think we’ll have basically a similar kind of layer of universal law to where, like…
03:31:18 Let me answer this.
03:31:19 This is a great question.
03:31:20 I know what you’re going with this.
03:31:21 This is often presented as a criticism of anarchism, and this is actually something
03:31:26 I think Yaron would agree with as well in other contexts, which is this.
03:31:30 One of the reasons communism can’t work, central planning can’t work, and this was one of Mises’s
03:31:34 great innovations, is if I could sit down, it’s like asking, what would the fashion industry
03:31:40 look like if the government didn’t run it?
03:31:42 There’s no way for me to know.
03:31:44 What the fashion industry is, which all of us are in favor of it being free, is literally
03:31:48 millions of designers, of seamstresses, of people who make the fabric, also references
03:31:55 throughout history, and these creative artistic minds putting things together in every year.
03:32:01 There’s no shortage of clothes.
03:32:03 In fact, we make so many clothes that we send them in landfill sizes to overseas poor countries,
03:32:08 and you have people in these destitute countries wearing Adidas shirts.
03:32:11 They can’t even read English, but because we don’t know what to do with all these clothes.
03:32:15 That’s how the glory of free enterprise is.
03:32:18 The problem is, problem using this loosely, everything comes cheap and overabundant, like
03:32:23 food.
03:32:24 Well, it doesn’t actually come overabundant, but it’s done properly.
03:32:28 That’s fair.
03:32:29 Supply meets demand.
03:32:30 Sure.
03:32:31 That’s fair.
03:32:32 What I’m saying is, if 150 years ago you said, you know, one day we’re going to have an issue
03:32:34 where there’s going to be so much food and then the kids are too fat.
03:32:38 It’s just going to be like, I have four who are dead in the crib.
03:32:42 I wish.
03:32:43 I mean, what kind of paradise is this?
03:32:47 What you would have, we have this right now in certain senses, you have the Hasidim, you
03:32:52 have Sharia, I’m sure in the medical system, they have their own kind of private courts
03:32:58 and court marshals is another example of this, although obviously that’s through the state.
03:33:01 So you would have innovation in law, under markets, just the same ways you’d have it.
03:33:07 And we have this already.
03:33:09 Maybe it’s not, Yaron doesn’t like in terms of murder and rape and I can understand why,
03:33:13 but in terms of business and interactions, he would have no problem with different arbitration
03:33:18 firms, having different rules for what kind of evidence is allowed.
03:33:22 Maybe you only have 60 days to make your case and so on and so forth.
03:33:25 And the market is a process of creative innovation and it would be dynamic.
03:33:30 It would be changing.
03:33:31 So what’s interesting relating to this is that one of the ways Ayn Rand proposed raising
03:33:35 revenue for the government, because she was against, was let’s say we have a contract.
03:33:41 We could just have it arbitrated without government interfering, but if we wanted to access the
03:33:47 courts of the government as a final authority, we would pay.
03:33:51 And that’s how governments would raise, some of the funds would be raised that way.
03:33:55 So there’s definitely a value to having this innovation and the public space.
03:34:02 But I don’t believe that is the case with murder.
03:34:04 I don’t believe that is the case with violent crime.
03:34:07 And it’s funny you bring up Sharia because David Friedman, when he gives, when he gives
03:34:10 Wait, I got to ask you to clarify.
03:34:12 I’m not trying to interrupt you.
03:34:13 You were talking about with murder.
03:34:14 I mean, you would agree, I think just to clarify for the audience, that there is room for innovation
03:34:19 and murder because there’s things like matter of slaughter.
03:34:21 There’s murder one, murder two.
03:34:22 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:34:23 I don’t think it happens at a market level.
03:34:26 I don’t think there’s a market innovation for murder.
03:34:28 Somebody has to figure out what those standards are and they will evolve as we gain more knowledge.
03:34:32 But we’re all in agreement that the word murder means very different things.
03:34:36 Oh, absolutely.
03:34:37 And if circumstances matter and standards of proof and standards of evidence, all of
03:34:43 that, there has to be a standard.
03:34:45 All of that, there has to be a standard.
03:34:46 And that’s what I think a proper government provides.
03:34:52 So David Friedman uses, in some of his talks about private law, he uses Sharia law in Somalia
03:34:59 as an example.
03:35:00 Look, legal systems evolve privately, independent, yeah, authoritarian ones, ones that don’t
03:35:07 respect the rights of women at all.
03:35:08 Are you married?
03:35:09 No, no.
03:35:10 But we all want to have sex with our mother, as Freud would say.
03:35:14 Oh my God.
03:35:15 Can we make that a clip?
03:35:16 Yeah.
03:35:17 Where the hell did that come from?
03:35:20 That’s much better than what I was just saying about the kids.
03:35:23 I appreciate that.
03:35:24 Okay.
03:35:25 So we went in a voluntary way, although sometimes for Yaron and sometimes for Michael it felt
03:35:29 involuntary, but we all got the big guns.
03:35:34 So how do we land this?
03:35:37 Obviously there’s a disagreement about anarchism here.
03:35:41 I think there’s a big agreement.
03:35:44 Because if Yaron was saying that if I want to have my voluntary stupid thing with you,
03:35:48 and his government is not going to tax me, and is not going to insinuate itself unless
03:35:53 we’re murdering each other, something like that, I’m okay with that.
03:35:56 So if you take the example of Sharia law, which was mentioned earlier.
03:35:59 So if you have a little community within this, within my world, right, that imposes Sharia
03:36:06 law, if it starts mutilating little girls, then you impose your law on it, right?
03:36:15 You impose the law on it because it’s an issue of protecting individual rights.
03:36:18 If they want to treat women, if women have to cover up, and the women are okay with that,
03:36:24 that’s fine.
03:36:25 If the woman wants to leave but is not allowed to leave, that’s where my government would
03:36:29 step in and prevent them from using force against her.
03:36:35 And that’s it, right?
03:36:37 Now I think it’s more complicated than that, right?
03:36:39 Because I think there are complex issue property rights often where it’s not going to be easy
03:36:44 for you guys to resolve, and particularly if you interact with people outside of your
03:36:48 community.
03:36:49 Sure.
03:36:50 But yeah, my view is government is there to protect individual rights.
03:36:56 That’s it.
03:36:57 Otherwise, leave you alone.
03:36:58 I think this conversation is going to continue for quite a while.
03:37:02 Israel has a new book on the topic coming out eventually, one day.
03:37:06 So you’re working also on the, still called the White Pill?
03:37:09 The White Pill, yeah.
03:37:10 And the first line of the White Pill is, Ayn Rand did not laugh.
03:37:16 I’m not joking.
03:37:17 That’s literally the first line.
03:37:18 I believe it.
03:37:19 Because it opens up with her, who knows what the book’s going to look like when it’s done,
03:37:23 but as of now, that’s the beginning, because it opens up with her testimony at the House
03:37:27 UnAmerican Activities Committee, where she’s trying to explain to these congresspeople
03:37:33 what it was like when she left the Soviet Union, and they are just befuddled by it.
03:37:38 Can you explain she did not laugh?
03:37:40 Well, because the first line of the Fountainhead, spoiler alert, is Howard Rourke laughed.
03:37:43 So this is a little inversion of that.
03:37:45 It says Ayn Rand did not laugh, because Ayn Rand was a huge fan of America, as am I.
03:37:53 She took our political system very seriously.
03:37:57 She had enormous reverence for institutions.
03:38:00 One example of this is one of the villains of the Atlas Shrugged is based on Harry Truman.
03:38:06 I think Thompson is the character’s name.
03:38:08 And because she had such respect for the title of president, she refers to him as the chairman.
03:38:13 She couldn’t even bring herself…
03:38:14 She had a huge respect for the presidency.
03:38:17 I wonder if she’d still have it, given the last string of presidents we’ve had.
03:38:20 So having her, which sets up the broader point of the book, which I’m sure I’ll be back on
03:38:27 the show to discuss, assuming this bridge hasn’t been burned, but I’ll try my best.
03:38:32 All three of us are canceled.
03:38:34 Some are more canceled than the others.
03:38:36 Uh oh.
03:38:37 I don’t know.
03:38:38 I’m looking at you, Michael.
03:38:39 And the point being, which sets up the broader point of the book, is how ignorant many people
03:38:45 are in the West about the horrors of Stalinism and communism, but also how many people in
03:38:53 the West were complicit in saying to Americans, go home, everything’s fine, this is great,
03:39:02 sure, you know, this is why pensions have a race, they’re sure they’re mistakes.
03:39:05 And they really made a point to downplay really gratuitously some of the unimaginable atrocities
03:39:13 of the communism.
03:39:15 And just one more sentence, and going through the work and learning about what they actually
03:39:20 did is so jaw dropping that it’s, and if I didn’t know about it, many people I’m friends
03:39:28 with who are historians who entered the space, you know, this isn’t common knowledge to them,
03:39:32 then we can assume that almost no one knows about it.
03:39:35 And I think it’s very important for people to appreciate whether Republican, Democrat,
03:39:40 liberal, whatever, how much of a danger this is.
03:39:45 And I think Americans have this, there’s a book called It Can’t Happen Here, I think
03:39:49 by Sinclair Lewis about a fascism coming to America.
03:39:53 American exceptionalism has a positive context, but also a negative context where you think
03:39:57 we’re invincible, all these horrible things that happen in these other countries, it can’t
03:40:01 possibly happen here, we’re America, we’re special, and it’s completely an absurdity.
03:40:06 Yeah.
03:40:07 Have you seen the movie, Mr. Jones?
03:40:10 My friend wrote it, no I haven’t, but Walter Durante and his quotes, I have a thread on
03:40:15 Twitter.
03:40:16 For those who don’t know, he won a Pulitzer because he was the New York Times man in Moscow.
03:40:22 And endlessly, he was talking about how great it was, how if you hear about this famine
03:40:29 in Ukraine, this is just propaganda, I went to the villages, you know, everyone’s happy
03:40:35 and fed.
03:40:36 A lot of it was explicit lies, you know, and when you realize you’re talking about, let’s
03:40:42 give them the absolute benefit of the doubt, an accidental genocide, it’s still mind boggling.
03:40:49 And also, you know, Ann Applebaum, who’s just a phenomenal, phenomenal writer, she wrote
03:40:54 a book called Red Famine, Stalin’s War in Ukraine, and she talks about how what people
03:40:59 in America don’t appreciate is how clever in their sadism the Soviets were.
03:41:06 And what they knew to do to Ukraine is everyone is starving, so they knew if you got some
03:41:11 meat on your bones, you’re hiding food.
03:41:14 So they come back at night, take your hand, put in the door jam, keep slamming the door,
03:41:18 ransack your house.
03:41:19 They didn’t have to find the food, burn down your house, take all your clothes, goodbye
03:41:24 and good luck.
03:41:25 I don’t recall saying good luck.
03:41:26 Yeah.
03:41:27 So I highly recommend the movie because it’s very well done.
03:41:31 It’s very well directed, it’s beautifully made, it’s stunningly effective in illustrating
03:41:37 exactly that.
03:41:38 When you’re in Ukraine during the famine, oh, your heart goes, I mean, it’s crushing.
03:41:44 And it shifts to black and white.
03:41:45 It’s very, very well made aesthetically, so highly recommend.
03:41:49 And it’s written by Andriusha Lupa, she’s a Ukrainian friend of mine, she introduced
03:41:53 me, Yanmi Park, who’s a big North Korean defector.
03:41:57 And this is the kind of thing where I think more people need to…
03:42:01 When I wrote the new write, which talks a lot about the Nazis or the kind of neo Nazis,
03:42:06 on their big complaints against people who are Jewish, she’s like, oh, we hear all about
03:42:11 the Holocaust.
03:42:12 How come you don’t talk about the Holodomor?
03:42:13 I’m like, I’m trying to do my part.
03:42:15 I agree with you that we need to be talking more about the Holodomor.
03:42:18 Absolutely.
03:42:19 And it’s sad, there are more movies that are anti Soviet, which tells you a lot about the
03:42:24 view of the intelligentsia.
03:42:26 It’s a great idea, it just was badly implemented.
03:42:29 And no, it’s a rotten idea, it’s an evil idea, and it was implemented exactly how it has
03:42:34 to be implemented.
03:42:35 There’s no alternative.
03:42:37 Can we talk about The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and which character do you find
03:42:44 most fascinating, ones that kind of you meet in your own mind, that you almost have conversations
03:42:49 with or has an influence on you and your life in general?
03:42:54 You know what character I like, because I know no one ever gives this answer, but this
03:42:58 is my…
03:43:00 Just aesthetically, you know how sometimes you’re drawn to a character and if this person
03:43:04 were real, you think they’re just horrible, but there’s something about the resonates
03:43:07 with you.
03:43:08 I can’t even explain this, but I love the character in Atlas Shrugged of Lillian Reardon,
03:43:13 who is Hank Reardon’s wife.
03:43:15 And what is amazing about her, so she’s his wife, he’s this big industrialist innovator,
03:43:21 and she’s this like former beauty, but she’s so cold and soulless that there’s…
03:43:29 I mean, I joke about, you know, Ayn Rand’s vampire novels, that character is as close
03:43:33 to a literal vampire as you’re going to see in Rand.
03:43:37 And there’s just this great scene where, you know, Hank Reardon invents Reardon metal.
03:43:42 It’s this great metal, which is extremely strong, but extremely, it’s like light, so
03:43:45 this creates all these innovations.
03:43:48 And he brings her a bracelet made of the first Reardon metal.
03:43:52 This is his life goal.
03:43:53 This is like Prometheus bringing fire.
03:43:55 And she’s like, what the fuck is this?
03:43:57 You brought me diamonds.
03:43:58 Yeah, you could have brought me diamonds.
03:43:59 What is this shit?
03:44:00 And then Dagny, who is another industrialist, she’s a heroine, very strong female character
03:44:04 in Atlas Shrugged, is at a party, and she goes, I got diamonds, let’s trade.
03:44:08 And Lillian’s like, you want this?
03:44:10 And she’s like, yes, because that’s the concretization of the human mind.
03:44:13 These are rocks.
03:44:14 And Lillian’s like, okay, whatever.
03:44:17 And that character is someone who has a lot of resonance in our culture, this kind of
03:44:24 soulless…
03:44:25 It’s easy to write a soulless male figure, like Peter Keating in some ways a soulless,
03:44:31 but that for some reason, when it’s like a soulless female, it seems that much more chilling
03:44:39 and effective.
03:44:40 Do you not agree though, that Lillian Reardon is an amazingly very powerful figure?
03:44:43 Powerful figure.
03:44:44 And I think Reardon is too.
03:44:47 And what I love about Reardon is his evolution, right?
03:44:51 He’s so flawed.
03:44:52 He’s a hero who’s completely flawed, and it drives me nuts when people say, her characters
03:44:57 are cartoonish, they never change, there’s no emotion.
03:45:00 Really?
03:45:01 Did you read the same book I did?
03:45:03 Because if you take Reardon, and he’s struggling and he’s trying to deal with Lillian and his
03:45:07 family and all this stuff, and we know family members like this, right?
03:45:10 I mean, who are leeches and parasites, but he’s excusing them because that’s what he’s
03:45:15 supposed to do.
03:45:17 And then as he evolves to fully realize what’s going on, that evolution is difficult, it’s
03:45:23 hard.
03:45:24 Like the scene after he has sex with Dagny, of course, he gives a speech, but the speeches
03:45:27 is such a good speech in terms of conveying his mind body split, right?
03:45:34 He thinks he really had fun, he really enjoyed the sex, right?
03:45:38 But he thinks it’s animalistic, and he thinks it’s a sign of his depravity, and he thinks,
03:45:43 and here he is, this woman he loves, and he adores her, and he can’t connect the two,
03:45:48 he can’t connect the sex with the love, he can’t connect the sex with adoration, and
03:45:52 with the values.
03:45:53 So her characters are anything I think but cardboard characters, because I think Dagny
03:45:59 and the scenes where she’s listening to music, and gets captured by the music and the way
03:46:05 Wren describes that, I think it’s just beautiful.
03:46:08 Or the scene, my favorite scene in Atlas is the scene where they’re taking the first train
03:46:16 ride across the John Gold Bridge, and they’re in the engine room, and it’s traveling through,
03:46:24 and the way she’s describing Dagny, it’s almost like Dagny’s having sex with the machine,
03:46:28 right?
03:46:29 It’s so powerful emotionally, their success, the fact that they did it.
03:46:34 Nobody told them it was impossible, and the train is going really fast, and that whole,
03:46:39 it’s got a sexual vibe to it, it’s all about passion, it’s all about success, and it’s
03:46:46 all about the success of their minds, and nobody else matters.
03:46:51 What’s really great about that scene, just in terms of constructing the novel, I’m not
03:46:54 going to spoil anything, so the Atlas Shrugged has three acts, like three act structures
03:46:59 not uncommon, and the first act is about Hank Reardon overcoming all this adversity
03:47:04 at home in his personal life and in his business to create this great achievement.
03:47:10 So Rand really makes the reader invested in this character and his accomplishments, he’s
03:47:14 unambiguously doing something good, there’s no downside here, he’s making it easier to
03:47:20 transport people, transport food, this is really just great.
03:47:24 And it’s just, once you read it and you look back, you’re like, she does such a masterful
03:47:29 job of making, you have to be a fan of this person and root for them, because she’s like,
03:47:33 oh, you think things are going great, he’s overcome?
03:47:36 Hold on a minute.
03:47:37 And then the rest of it, she’s just real, and your sense of injustice is triggered as
03:47:43 a reader to such an nth degree, because you saw what he went through to get to this point,
03:47:48 and now you’re seeing it taken away from people inferior to him.
03:47:51 And one of the quotes on Twitter I use all the time is, I’ll see someone, politician
03:47:56 or a bureaucrat or a thinker, just advocate for something completely unconscionable.
03:48:02 And I’ll just quote and say, my favorite criticism of Ayn Rand is that they say her villains
03:48:07 are too evil and unrealistic, because the things that people posit with a straight face
03:48:13 are so much worse than she has in her book.
03:48:16 And not just politicians, you find intellectuals today.
03:48:18 Oh, of course.
03:48:19 So yeah, yeah.
03:48:20 Way, way over the top.
03:48:21 You know, even whenever Adlai Shrugged I was going, nobody really talks like this.
03:48:25 No, they do.
03:48:26 Let me give you one example.
03:48:28 There was a story she wrote, which she never published, they published her journals, the
03:48:31 Ayn Rand Institute.
03:48:33 And there was one character, and this is a prototype of Ellsworth Toohey, he was the
03:48:36 villain of one of the villains of the Fountainhead.
03:48:39 And basically, the kid had like deformed legs or broke his legs or something like that.
03:48:43 And he wants to get leg braces.
03:48:45 And the dad is like, Oh, we’re not going to do that.
03:48:47 Why should you be better than anyone else?
03:48:49 Like you should just have like this deformity, accept your fate.
03:48:52 And you’re reading this.
03:48:53 I’m like, what dad is not going to give his kid leg braces, it’s ridiculous.
03:48:57 But now it’s not uncommon for deaf children to not get cochlear implants and not be able
03:49:03 to hear because their parents say, well, we’re going to lose deaf culture.
03:49:08 Hearing is just information.
03:49:09 And you’re sitting there, and whether you agree with this or not, this is very close
03:49:13 to what she was saying.
03:49:14 And when I read what she was saying, I’m like, okay, crazy Ayn Rand, this is not a thing.
03:49:18 And it’s like, oh, yeah, the craziness is that it’s not braces, it’s hearing.
03:49:23 It’s yeah.
03:49:24 And what evil to deny your kid hearing.
03:49:26 I mean, God.
03:49:27 So here’s the thing, if you want deaf culture, which I would believe is a thing, sign language
03:49:31 or whatever, they could turn it off.
03:49:33 Yeah.
03:49:34 Yeah.
03:49:35 If you want, you give them the choice.
03:49:36 Yeah.
03:49:37 Tonight, I’m sorry, one more thing.
03:49:38 You know, Rand used the word evil frequently.
03:49:41 And I think maybe I can make the argument she used it too loosely.
03:49:45 If you are denying a child the gift of music, I will say that’s evil.
03:49:49 I agree completely.
03:49:51 Unambiguously.
03:49:52 Yep.
03:49:53 If you go online and listen, watch videos of people getting hearing aids and being able
03:49:59 to hear for the first time, I promise you, you will cry because there’s no pure, I’m
03:50:05 getting teared up right now.
03:50:06 There’s no pure expression of humanity and technology at its best than seeing a two year
03:50:12 old or one and a half year old who can’t even talk.
03:50:15 And then you see the reaction when they hear mom’s voice.
03:50:18 It’s so beautiful and moving.
03:50:20 Absolutely.
03:50:21 Yeah.
03:50:22 It’s just moving.
03:50:23 It is.
03:50:24 It’s like it’s one of the, one of the ways to rethink technology, perhaps.
03:50:28 And there’s this, this is really funny because sometimes it’ll be this tough dude, right?
03:50:32 And he’s been deaf all his life.
03:50:34 And then they put the hearing aid and the girl is like, can you hear me?
03:50:36 And he’s trying to be tough for three seconds and you just sit there.
03:50:40 No, absolutely.
03:50:41 And that’s true of any sense.
03:50:43 I mean.
03:50:44 Like colorblind people seeing color for the first time, that kind of thing.
03:50:46 I think there’s a few.
03:50:48 It’s not quite the same, but it’s somewhat.
03:50:50 But if you’re blind and suddenly can see, I mean, it’s just, it’s just stunning.
03:50:55 I mean, and how do we form our concepts?
03:50:57 How do we think?
03:50:58 We have to, we get information from reality, right?
03:51:02 We interact with reality through our senses and that’s how we become conceptual beings.
03:51:06 And you deny an element of that from a human being.
03:51:09 That is horrible.
03:51:10 There’s a potential with that, with the Neuralink too, so further developments there.
03:51:14 So I mean on that, there’s a powerful question of who is John Galt.
03:51:18 I don’t know if we can do this without spoiler alerts.
03:51:21 Yeah, don’t spoil the book.
03:51:22 Okay.
03:51:23 Well, but you can say, you can say.
03:51:25 What’s the importance of this character?
03:51:26 What’s the importance of this question?
03:51:27 I mean, without the, so I want to give a talk on who is John Galt and who is John Galt in
03:51:32 a sense is anybody who takes their own life seriously.
03:51:35 Anybody who’s willing to really live fully their own life, use their mind in pursuit
03:51:40 of their rational values and pursue their happiness fully uncompromisingly with no comp,
03:51:47 with no compromise and sticking to the integrity.
03:51:53 Anybody can be John Galt in that sense.
03:51:55 I think one of the mottos I live by is all we are tasked to, maybe this is a little bit
03:52:02 religious but I think your own is going to agree with it.
03:52:04 I’m sure you’ll agree with it.
03:52:05 All any of us can do is leave the world a little bit of a better place than we found
03:52:09 it.
03:52:10 And I think if you do that through hard work, being honest, being a kind, not at the expense
03:52:15 of other people, you can go to your grave patting yourself on the back.
03:52:20 I mean, to me, leaving the world a better place, yeah, I mean, that’s not what drives
03:52:26 me.
03:52:27 What drives me is, I mean, what I think drives people.
03:52:29 I think just live a good life and good life means a life you’re happy living and part
03:52:34 of that is the impact you have on the world but it’s, so many people live wasted lives,
03:52:41 live mediocre lives, live conventional lives.
03:52:45 Maybe they even leave the world a better place but they didn’t really, they didn’t –
03:52:48 But they didn’t leave the world a better place.
03:52:50 They left the world a better place but they didn’t live their potential or they died
03:52:57 feeling guilty about it or they – a million different things.
03:53:01 So there’s so many productive people.
03:53:02 I mean, think about all the innovators and the technologists and the businessmen who
03:53:06 leave the world a better place by a big shot but are never happy.
03:53:10 Never happy in their own souls, in their own life.
03:53:14 And to me, that’s what counts and if you’re going to be happy, you’ll leave the better
03:53:17 world a better place.
03:53:18 And that’s what Jean Val symbolizes.
03:53:20 To me, it’s living your life by your standards, by your values and pursuing that happiness.
03:53:29 Well, I take – I’m sorry, I take in a different context because I think a lot of – and I
03:53:33 don’t think you’re going to disagree with this.
03:53:35 I think a lot of times when you’re young, you have unrealistic expectations about what
03:53:38 you’re going to accomplish and you think to yourself, well, I thought, let’s suppose
03:53:41 someone wants to go into politics.
03:53:42 Well, if I’m not elected president, I’m a failure.
03:53:44 That’s nonsensical.
03:53:45 There’s lots of people who are successful who haven’t achieved literally the top position
03:53:48 in their role.
03:53:49 So if you can go to your grave having – defending everything you’ve done and you move the needle
03:53:54 in the –
03:53:55 Yes.
03:53:56 Successes should not be relative.
03:53:57 Yes.
03:53:58 So that goes back to second handedness.
03:53:59 Yes.
03:54:00 Success is not being better than other people.
03:54:01 Success is not being the best.
03:54:03 Success is maximizing your potential, whatever that is.
03:54:06 And look, I know people – I have a son who could be a really good engineer, a really
03:54:13 good mathematician, really good scientist, but he decided he wants to write comedy.
03:54:18 So he might have been a better mathematician than he is a comedian, but that’s his values.
03:54:23 That’s his goals.
03:54:24 That’s what he wants to do.
03:54:25 And hopefully he’ll be really, really good at that and he’ll be incredibly successful
03:54:29 at it materially in every other sense, but that’s what you pursue.
03:54:34 So it’s really being true to yourself in a deep sense.
03:54:39 And if you are true to yourself, yeah, you’ll leave the world a better place, but that’s
03:54:43 not the essence.
03:54:44 The essence is you.
03:54:45 No, focus on you.
03:54:47 Focus on making your life the best life that it can be.
03:54:50 And if you do that, you’ll make the world a better place by – almost by definition.
03:54:54 Yeah.
03:54:55 You’ll impact people.
03:54:56 We’re looking at the same thing in different ways.
03:54:58 Yeah.
03:54:59 So at least in my little corner of the world, it was disappointing how rare that is.
03:55:06 So one of the reasons I’m here in Austin and one of the reasons my work gravitated
03:55:12 towards Elon Musk is because he represents that person for me in the world of technology,
03:55:21 in the world of CEO, in the world of business.
03:55:23 It was very surprising to me the more I’ve learned about the world of tech, how few people
03:55:29 live unapologetically, fully to their potential.
03:55:35 I’m sure people, others do that.
03:55:38 Maybe music and art.
03:55:39 I’m not sure.
03:55:40 I don’t know about those worlds.
03:55:41 I do know about the technology world.
03:55:43 And it was disappointing to me how many people compromise their integrity in subtle ways
03:55:49 at first, but then it becomes a slippery slope and then you –
03:55:52 Can I say this?
03:55:53 There’s this great quote and I always forget if it’s Steinbeck or Hemingway and the quote
03:55:57 – and this applies for money, it applies for morality – the quote was, how did you
03:56:01 go bankrupt?
03:56:03 And he says two ways, gradually and then suddenly.
03:56:06 It’s very hard to one day be like, I have no integrity.
03:56:10 That doesn’t happen.
03:56:11 It’s very easy if it’s like, look, I stole this candy bar.
03:56:15 What’s the big deal if I steal this thing?
03:56:17 Then you’re still –
03:56:18 People say there are no slippery slopes.
03:56:20 There are and they’re big and they’re very slippery and people slide.
03:56:24 This is the biggest one.
03:56:25 And people violate their integrity even without stealing.
03:56:27 Just little things about how they treat other people, how they treat themselves, the values
03:56:31 they pursue.
03:56:32 They don’t go after the profession they really wanted to.
03:56:34 They compromise in ways that they shouldn’t with their spouse or with their mothers or
03:56:39 whatever.
03:56:40 And then they wake up one day when they’re 40.
03:56:42 And this is why people go through a midlife crisis.
03:56:47 Midlife crisis is a crisis where you suddenly realize, I didn’t do it.
03:56:51 I didn’t live up to my standards.
03:56:52 I didn’t live up to my youthful idealism.
03:56:55 I compromised and I sold out.
03:56:57 But I also would warn you about Silicon Valley.
03:57:00 Yeah, I think at the top very few of them stick to it and partially it’s the political
03:57:06 pressure is unbearable.
03:57:07 I mean, how would you?
03:57:09 How can you?
03:57:10 It would require to be a hero and very few of them are.
03:57:13 But there are a lot of people who do really well at all kinds of levels in technology
03:57:18 who – little startups, people.
03:57:20 And this is the point Michael was making.
03:57:21 You don’t have to be the best.
03:57:22 Yeah.
03:57:23 You know, you don’t have to be a CEO to live to your max and to live with integrity
03:57:28 and to live a great life.
03:57:30 I know people who because they joined Amazon or whatever have just made a life for themselves,
03:57:36 an amazing life for themselves and have done great work at Amazon let’s say and then
03:57:41 have lived a great life because of the opportunity that created for them.
03:57:45 So I think there are more good people out there but yes, one of the saddest things of
03:57:51 growing up is – or even when you’re a teenager and looking at adults and noticing
03:57:57 how few of them actually live, I mean really alive in a sense of living their values and
03:58:04 enjoying their life.
03:58:05 And you start with your parents and you look across the people, everybody lives such mediocre
03:58:10 lives.
03:58:11 Yeah.
03:58:12 And the other thing is they don’t have to.
03:58:13 That’s what people don’t appreciate.
03:58:14 They don’t have to.
03:58:15 Particularly not in the world that we live in today that’s so wealthy and so many – we
03:58:18 all have so many opportunities.
03:58:20 So what – by way of advice, what advice would you give to young people to live their
03:58:27 life fully?
03:58:28 I mean Michael and I have talked about this but it bears repeating.
03:58:35 So if you look at John Galt, if you look at the highest ideals of what we – of a life
03:58:40 we could live, what advice would you give to a 20 year old today, 18 year old?
03:58:43 Can I say – I don’t think – and I think Rand would agree.
03:58:46 When Rand was writing John Galt, she says, when you have this character’s human perfection,
03:58:51 you don’t want to get too close.
03:58:53 So he’s a little bit of a vague character because she was aware that when you’re dealing
03:58:56 with day to day, it kind of – the shine comes off.
03:58:59 I think Rourke is a lot better character for a young person.
03:59:03 Oh really?
03:59:04 Yeah, but Rourke is all – the entirety of the Fountainhead is Rourke.
03:59:07 So Ed Reardon is the one of several.
03:59:08 We barely know John Galt.
03:59:09 Yeah.
03:59:10 So but Rourke is someone where you could be like, okay.
03:59:12 And what Rourke also gives young people is –
03:59:15 That’s in the Fountainhead.
03:59:16 That’s in the Fountainhead, is the strength to persevere.
03:59:20 Because when you’re young, you’re going to have down times.
03:59:23 There’s going to be times when you’re lonely.
03:59:25 There’s going to be times when you don’t have a girlfriend.
03:59:28 There’s going to be times when you’re out of work and you’re thinking, holy crap, I’m
03:59:32 falling between the cracks.
03:59:33 I’m going to accomplish that.
03:59:34 I’m going to be a failure.
03:59:36 And he gives them the courage.
03:59:38 There’s even a scene in the Fountainhead, which is this amazing scene.
03:59:42 I love that it’s not talked about enough where basically Rourke is looking at one of
03:59:45 his buildings and this little kid on a bicycle comes up to him and – Yaron, please correct
03:59:50 me.
03:59:51 And he’s like, who built this?
03:59:52 And Rourke said, I did.
03:59:54 And the line is, you know, Rourke didn’t realize it, but he just gave that kid the
03:59:58 courage to face the lifetime.
04:00:00 And I think that is such a beautiful thing where you can find inspiration in this character.
04:00:06 Don’t become needlessly difficult.
04:00:08 Don’t start parroting his lines.
04:00:10 You’re not Howard Rourke and he’s not a real person.
04:00:12 But there’s aspects of him that you can apply to your life.
04:00:16 And here’s something else.
04:00:17 I’ll give you one example because this happened to me.
04:00:20 When I was working at Goldman Sachs, I was doing tech support and my great grandmother
04:00:23 had passed away that year.
04:00:25 And I promised my grandmother I would have – I’ve told this story several times.
04:00:28 I would have Thanksgiving dinner with her.
04:00:30 I was working second shift, fort to midnight, and we were a 24 seven help desk.
04:00:35 And I got the schedule for the next week and I sold my grandmother to have lunch with
04:00:39 her at Thanksgiving.
04:00:40 And they had put me down from fort to midnight the day before Wednesday, which is my normal
04:00:44 shift, but then the day shift the next day.
04:00:47 And I go to my boss, I go – first off, second shift, I’m like, this Thanksgiving, I promised
04:00:50 my grandma.
04:00:51 And they’re like, well, if you could find someone to fill this, we’ll do it.
04:00:54 And I asked everyone.
04:00:55 They’re like, no.
04:00:56 And I said, I’m not coming in.
04:00:58 And I 100%, not even a question, if I asked my grandmother, can we have dinner instead,
04:01:03 she would have said yes.
04:01:04 But this was one of those moments, maybe this is from my huge ego where I felt like I was
04:01:08 in a movie and I’m making a choice.
04:01:10 Am I going to ask grandma?
04:01:12 Or am I going to just bend the knee?
04:01:15 And I go, I go, I couldn’t find anyone and I go, I’m not coming in.
04:01:19 And they go, if you’re not coming in, you’re fired.
04:01:21 And I go, fire me.
04:01:23 And they did fire me.
04:01:24 And I have no regrets.
04:01:27 And because if I compromised, I’d have money in my pocket.
04:01:31 But since I didn’t compromise, I could look at that story.
04:01:34 Rand talks about how man is a being of self made soul.
04:01:36 I could look at that story, and next time, I have a time where it’s a tough decision,
04:01:42 where there’s really pressure, I could be like, you know what, this is the kind of person
04:01:45 you are.
04:01:47 Stick to it.
04:01:48 I’ll give one more example.
04:01:49 Sorry, you’re on.
04:01:50 I’ve given talks on networking.
04:01:51 And I tell people, I like to use humor, because humor is a great way to shortcut the brain
04:01:55 and get the truth to them directly.
04:01:57 I say, if you know someone is in town, it’s their birthday, and they’re not doing anything,
04:02:04 take them out.
04:02:05 And I say, I do this for Rand reasons.
04:02:06 I do it selfishly.
04:02:07 And the audience laughs.
04:02:08 And I go, you’re laughing.
04:02:09 But I go, the guy who takes people out for their birthday is awesome.
04:02:14 That could be you.
04:02:15 There’s nothing stopping you.
04:02:16 You’re just not thinking in these terms, what’s it going to cost you $30?
04:02:20 But for the rest of their life, or a few years, that person will remember you and be like,
04:02:24 you know what, this person did right by me.
04:02:27 And I’ll give you a concrete example, which changed my life profoundly.
04:02:31 Ted Hope, who was the producer of the film American Splendor, which starred my mentor
04:02:35 Harvey Pekar, sent an email to his firm that said Harvey’s in town with nothing to do.
04:02:42 If you want to hang out with him, here’s your chance.
04:02:44 They worked at a film company.
04:02:46 And I was the only one, I got the email, I wasn’t working there from a friend who took
04:02:51 him up on it.
04:02:52 And as a consequence, Harvey wrote a graphic novel about me, Ego and Hubris, which is $250
04:02:55 on eBay now, and it moves at that, not too shabby.
04:02:58 The point being, you know what, someone had a movie made about him.
04:03:03 Someone is an interesting figure.
04:03:05 Take the lunch and stay overtime for an hour.
04:03:07 But so many people don’t think in those terms.
04:03:11 And there’s so many opportunities for them.
04:03:12 And so that’s the advice I give.
04:03:14 And I think it’s also good to give advice via anecdote.
04:03:17 So not only is the person getting the advice, they are learning why you got to that point.
04:03:21 And maybe I’m wrong, but at least they’ve thought about it.
04:03:24 Yeah, I mean, I agree with all of that.
04:03:26 And I like the line, Ayn Rand’s line about man is a self made soul, is a creature of
04:03:31 self made soul is huge.
04:03:33 And it’s something most people don’t realize, and it’s something that modern intellectuals
04:03:37 undermine.
04:03:38 I mean, even somebody like Sam Harris, when you keep telling people they don’t have free
04:03:43 will, then you don’t have a self made soul.
04:03:46 Because what is self made, there is no self, according to Sam, right?
04:03:49 He meditates and he sees that he doesn’t have a self.
04:03:52 So you’re undermining the ability of people to take control of their own lives and make
04:03:59 the kind of choices that are necessary to create the kind of moral character that is
04:04:03 necessary for them to be successful.
04:04:05 So I’d encourage people to go read Foundhead and Atlas Shrugged because put aside the politics,
04:04:12 put aside even aspects of the philosophy, focus on these models.
04:04:19 How to Walk is a great model for all of us.
04:04:22 It’s a great story to have in your head, in your mind when you encounter challenging choices
04:04:28 that you might make.
04:04:30 And then spend the time, and this is, I don’t think I ever did this when I was young, I
04:04:35 don’t think people do this, but spend the time thinking about what your values really
04:04:39 are.
04:04:40 What do you love doing?
04:04:42 What makes, what gets you going?
04:04:44 What gets you excited?
04:04:46 And how can I make a living at this?
04:04:50 How can I do this and live through this?
04:04:53 And then, you know, think about what kind of life you want, what kind of, I don’t know,
04:04:58 what kind of people you want to hang out with.
04:04:59 Don’t just, don’t let life just happen to you.
04:05:03 Think it through.
04:05:04 What kind of people, for example, if you want ambitious, excited, maybe you should move
04:05:07 to Silicon Valley, to Austin, Texas, right?
04:05:11 If you want to be around artsy people, I mean, you should go to Hollywood, maybe you should
04:05:14 go to New York, you know, I don’t know, but figure out what kind of life you want to live,
04:05:20 what kind of people you want to hang out with, what kind of woman you want to spend your
04:05:23 life with, what kind of romantic relationship you want to have, figure that out and go and
04:05:28 do it.
04:05:29 Don’t sit around.
04:05:30 Life is not…
04:05:31 Or try and fail.
04:05:32 It’s okay.
04:05:33 You’re going to fail.
04:05:34 Oh, failure, failure, absolutely.
04:05:35 Don’t fail.
04:05:36 Yeah.
04:05:37 And learn from that failure.
04:05:38 And that’s another thing.
04:05:39 Think about what you’re doing, why you’re succeeding, why you’re failing, and keep improving.
04:05:41 Keep working on it because it’s not just going to happen like this.
04:05:44 Nobody is Francisco to take a character out of Atlas Shark, to succeed at everything,
04:05:48 first try, right?
04:05:50 We all need to fail a few times.
04:05:51 We all need to, but what have you got to lose?
04:05:56 Every second is never going to be back.
04:05:58 I mean, these are all cliches, but they’re all true cliches.
04:06:02 So think, figure out what your values are, and try to apply your reason, your rational
04:06:11 thought on getting those values.
04:06:14 We talked about early on in the show, in the interview, we talked about integrating your
04:06:18 emotions with your cognition.
04:06:21 I think that’s crucial because you don’t want to be fighting your emotions as you move towards
04:06:24 these things.
04:06:25 You don’t want your emotions to be barriers to your own success.
04:06:28 You want them to be cheerleaders, to chew on when good things happen and to be negative
04:06:35 emotions when it’s justified that they’re negative.
04:06:38 So work on integrating your soul.
04:06:41 So creating your own soul, that’s the real challenge.
04:06:44 And I’ll give one piece of meta advice.
04:06:46 When you’re young, you’re going to be clueless because you’re going to be ignorant, you know
04:06:49 the data.
04:06:50 Don’t ask your dopey friends for advice because they want to be helpful, but the friends want
04:06:56 to be helpful.
04:06:57 They’re as dopey as you.
04:06:58 They have uninformed as you.
04:06:59 So they’re just going to give you platitudes and you’re going to be worse off because now
04:07:02 you’re going to be confused, especially with social media.
04:07:06 Reach out to people who are older than you, who are accomplished.
04:07:09 You’d be surprised how often that you got to send them 20 bucks, buy them dinner, buy
04:07:13 their book, whatever it takes.
04:07:15 You are getting free world class advice for very cheap and that is really a mechanism
04:07:22 for success.
04:07:23 And here’s something very unpopular and not sexy.
04:07:25 This is why people probably unfollow me.
04:07:28 That’s not why.
04:07:29 Read.
04:07:30 Well, you’ll tell me why after this.
04:07:32 Read, read, read.
04:07:33 Because you’re not always going to have access to those experts.
04:07:36 And I’m not just talking about self help books.
04:07:39 I’m not even talking about self help books.
04:07:41 Read the words with literature.
04:07:42 I mean, literature presents you with all the different characters.
04:07:47 You know, read Dostoevsky, right?
04:07:50 Read Hugo, right?
04:07:52 Read all these authors that have taken time to really create characters and put them in
04:07:56 situations that maybe you will never face those exact situations, but you’ll face similar
04:08:01 situations and they play it out for you.
04:08:04 You’ll see what the consequences are.
04:08:06 Great literature is a real tool for building your soul.
04:08:10 Read generally with literature and particularly because it’s more conceptual.
04:08:14 What maybe you could speak to love and relationship in your own life, but in general, if we look
04:08:20 at Alice Shrugged, if we look at Fountainhead, and maybe this is going to become a therapy
04:08:26 session for Lex, but also just looking at your own life in a form of advice, how can
04:08:32 you be a heroic Reardon type character and live your life to the fullest in creating
04:08:41 the most amazing things that you’re able to create and yet have others in your life that
04:08:48 you give yourself to in terms of loving them fully and having a family, having kids, but
04:08:54 just even just the love of your life kind of thing.
04:08:57 How do you balance those things together?
04:09:00 Is there any anything to say?
04:09:02 I’ll say one thing because then I’ll defer to you, Ron, because he’s the one who’s married
04:09:05 here.
04:09:06 I don’t think it’s a balance.
04:09:07 I think they compliment each other and feed off each other.
04:09:09 So it’s like, how do you balance having shoes and pants?
04:09:12 It’s like, no, you want both.
04:09:14 You want it all.
04:09:15 And having a great partner who thinks you’re a badass and then sometimes they’re on the
04:09:19 stage and you’re like, oh my, I’m married to a badass.
04:09:22 That’s the goal.
04:09:23 Am I wrong?
04:09:24 No, absolutely.
04:09:25 It feeds off of each other.
04:09:26 It’s synergetic.
04:09:27 It’s completely synergetic.
04:09:28 The problem that people have, I think, where they get into challenges is when they view
04:09:33 them as opposites, right?
04:09:35 Work or family.
04:09:36 Well, if you don’t work the family, you can’t finance the family, but more than that.
04:09:42 Why is your wife going to love you?
04:09:45 What are the virtues that you’re bringing?
04:09:47 If you don’t maximize your own potential, if you don’t live the best life that you can
04:09:51 live, what is it to love?
04:09:52 And if she doesn’t do the same thing, why do you love her?
04:09:56 So you don’t get this conflict between work and, you know, how do I have a balanced life?
04:10:02 Of course you have a balanced life.
04:10:03 You balance it based on your values and it’s never going to be the same.
04:10:07 The balance is, you know, the time you spend at work and with family when you’re young
04:10:12 or when you have little kids or when they’re grown up is all going to be different.
04:10:15 It’s going to depend on your priorities at the point, but it’s all going to feed off
04:10:19 of each other.
04:10:20 So maybe another word outside of balance is sacrifice.
04:10:23 Do you think relationship involves sacrifice or no?
04:10:25 Does he know what he’s doing?
04:10:26 I know.
04:10:27 He’s trolling you.
04:10:28 Is he trolling me?
04:10:29 He’s a big troll.
04:10:30 Is he trolling me?
04:10:31 Never.
04:10:32 Lex is the biggest troll on Twitter.
04:10:33 Ever.
04:10:34 Ever.
04:10:35 Ever.
04:10:36 Ever sacrifice.
04:10:37 Deal with it.
04:10:38 Never sacrifice.
04:10:39 Never sacrifice.
04:10:40 But see, he means sacrifice in the context.
04:10:41 I know.
04:10:42 I know.
04:10:43 So I’m going to define it.
04:10:44 Yeah, yeah.
04:10:45 Okay.
04:10:46 Sacrifice in my world.
04:10:47 Can I say one thing before we get sidebar?
04:10:48 Rand had a good example when he was talking about balance.
04:10:49 So she was married to this guy, Frank O. Connor.
04:10:50 He was not a cerebral.
04:10:51 He was not intellectual.
04:10:52 That’s fine.
04:10:53 She was in love with him.
04:10:54 She was a fan.
04:10:55 And a lot of times she’d have these conversations with her acolytes till like four in the morning
04:10:58 about the most cerebral topics.
04:10:59 And I said, he would always bring them food.
04:11:01 He’d stay up and kind of sit there in a corner and I go, when this was happening, was he
04:11:06 sitting there like, oh God, here goes crazy old Ein and I just got to be bored?
04:11:09 And they go, absolutely not.
04:11:12 He was so proud of her.
04:11:14 He was so excited.
04:11:15 In fact, when she got a lot of money from, I think selling Red Pawn, which was her screenplay,
04:11:19 which never produced, he told her you can buy any kind of fur coat as long as it’s
04:11:24 Mink, he’s like, you earn this, celebrate it, so that was a good example.
04:11:29 And that’s a good relationship, absolutely. Now, sacrifice is the giving of a value and
04:11:35 expecting either nothing or something less in return. You don’t do that in a love relationship.
04:11:41 Your love relationship is a sense, a trait. You’re constantly trading. You’re not trading
04:11:46 materially, but you’re trading spiritually. Imagine if I only gave my wife, if I gave
04:11:53 spiritually and materially, only in one direction. I’d get sick of it. She’d get sick of it. It
04:11:58 would never last. It has to be in give and take constantly, in different ways, different values.
04:12:04 It’s not a monetary exchange, but it’s constantly you’re giving and you’re receiving and you’re
04:12:10 giving. And that’s got to be in balance. And I know a lot of relationships where that gets out
04:12:16 of balance. And one party feels like they’re giving all the time, they’re sacrificing.
04:12:22 They’re giving more than they’re receiving, in a sense. And it’s over.
04:12:27 Now, people use the word sacrifice, like Jordan Peterson. He uses it both ways. That’s a problem.
04:12:32 You know Jordan?
04:12:33 I don’t know him personally. Jordan Peterson, I said. I didn’t call him Jordan.
04:12:37 Just wanted to be clear.
04:12:38 Yeah. He uses it in his talks as… Sometimes he uses it just as I described it,
04:12:43 and he’s supportive of that, like the sacrifice Jesus made. And sometimes he uses it as an
04:12:47 investment. But it’s not. If you’re giving money now, expecting a bigger return in the future,
04:12:55 that’s not a sacrifice. That’s an investment. That’s why we have two concepts for that.
04:12:58 And the same is true if my wife is ill. And I’ve got a whole relationship built around what I’m
04:13:07 giving. It’s not that I’m not getting anything back. What I’m getting back is that she is
04:13:11 recovering. Is that she’s still alive or whatever it is that I’m keeping. That’s the value that I’m
04:13:18 getting in return. If I’m not getting that, why am I doing it? Because I signed a contract a long
04:13:23 time ago. So it’s not a sacrifice. Children are not a sacrifice. If I don’t go to the movies,
04:13:30 because I stay at home with my kids, it’s because I love my kids more than I love going to the
04:13:34 movies. And if I love going to the movies more than I love staying with the kids, then get a
04:13:39 babysitter or don’t have kids, which is the better approach. Here’s a question. What book did Ayn Rand
04:13:46 say is the most evil book in all of serious literature? It was Anna Karenina. And the reason
04:13:51 it was that book, which I haven’t read, please correct me if I get the plot wrong. What Rand was
04:13:54 saying is the plot is a guy who’s a big shot, I think. He marries a stupid girl who has nothing
04:13:59 of value to offer him for at all. And she ends up killing herself. Whereas Rand’s version, and we
04:14:04 can take this out of the romantic context. I am delighted when I could be of use to my friends.
04:14:10 It makes me feel wonderful and not in a kind of parasitic way. It’s just like that I’m at a
04:14:15 certain point where they call me up, they’re having a problem and I’ve helped them with that problem.
04:14:19 Anna Karenina, he gives up the love of his life. Oh, is that what it is? The amazing girl.
04:14:26 He has an affair with her outside of marriage, taints her, is married to the stupid, but she gives
04:14:32 him the prestige and everything. Oh, that’s clearly very anti Rand. And the smart, the one he loves,
04:14:42 she commits suicide in there. Okay, I got it wrong. So it’s about him choosing
04:14:49 mediocrity and nothingness over love. So pursuing your values is so crucial. So don’t take it by
04:14:57 saying, it doesn’t mean that if you want to eat Chinese and she wants to eat Italian, you don’t
04:15:01 once in a while eat Italian on that day, right? That’s silly, right? That’s not a sacrifice,
04:15:08 not in the sense in which we’re talking about. It doesn’t mean don’t compromise. It doesn’t mean
04:15:13 don’t compromise on the day to day stuff. It means don’t compromise on moral values. You don’t
04:15:18 compromise on the big stuff and you never sacrifice. And that way you have a relationship
04:15:25 that’s built as equals and as you admire each other and love at the end of the day is a response
04:15:32 to value. If you stop undermining your own value, the person who loves you will stop loving you,
04:15:41 will love you less. If you love yourself less, you have to say, in order to say I love you,
04:15:48 you have to be able to say the I, right? You have to be somebody, you have to know yourself,
04:15:54 you have to have value. And so love is a profound emotional response to value.
04:16:02 So speaking of love and the three of us being on this deserted island for a time together,
04:16:07 somehow not murdering each other, let me ask you, Yaron, Michael, what is the most beautiful thing
04:16:16 you find about the other? So let’s go Yaron first. What do you think about Michael,
04:16:21 that you appreciate about him? What do you get these questions from? What do you love about Michael?
04:16:29 Then he’s going to edit it. See, that makes sense to me. I just programmed him.
04:16:33 Press play. It’s all just a prerecorded message. So I’ve never met Michael before,
04:16:37 so this is my… That’s not true. You have and you’re…
04:16:40 I don’t remember ever meeting Michael before. You’re the very beginning of the new right,
04:16:44 is me meeting you. I’m in the book?
04:16:47 Yes. All right. Well, now I have to read his book
04:16:49 because I mean, am I presented positively or negatively?
04:16:53 Very. Oh, okay. Good.
04:16:56 Lex is not so sure. He’s like…
04:16:58 I like that he goes, have I presented positively or negatively? I just go, very.
04:17:04 And he’s like, oh, good. I’m like, is it?
04:17:08 So Michael Sharp, he’s quick. He’s funny, although some of the humor is beyond me.
04:17:15 That’s a nice way of saying he’s very intelligent.
04:17:18 Yeah. He’s definitely very intelligent, but also very engaging. I think that’s very engaging.
04:17:26 I’m a sharp dresser.
04:17:28 Oh, he’s definitely… Well, yeah. I compliment him on stuff that’s obvious
04:17:32 and everybody can see by the video. The sex appeal.
04:17:34 Let me also just comment, one thing you mentioned about
04:17:38 you deriving joy from being of value to your friends.
04:17:42 People talk to me about you sometimes because you’ll do humor about various things and things
04:17:48 like maybe you’re some kind of a crazy person or something like that.
04:17:53 Yeah. I know you enjoy this aspect of it, but I say that the reason I’m friends with Michael
04:17:58 is there’s real love there. And the kind of kindness you give to your friends,
04:18:04 to people that are close to you, to your family is amazing, man.
04:18:10 So that’s one of my favorite things about you. Your intellect aside, your philosophies aside,
04:18:17 your humor aside, I think there’s a lot of love in you. That’s what I really appreciate.
04:18:20 But enough about you. I’m actually getting sick of saying nice things about you.
04:18:24 You’re always going to say it.
04:18:27 Take it all back.
04:18:29 Can I say one thing? You’re joking, but this is something that’s very key and this is something
04:18:34 in a random context. It is very disturbing, and this is not by accident, how in our culture it is
04:18:42 pooh poohed to show kindness, earnestness, appreciation, to tell someone. You see this
04:18:48 on Twitter where someone’s like, you know what? I read your book. It’s made my life a lot better.
04:18:53 Okay, simp. And there’s a real, and this very much comes out of urban media circles,
04:18:59 there’s this real disdain for showing appreciation, for showing happiness, for showing kindness.
04:19:06 And now that I’ve called it out, you’ll notice it. But when you see how common it is and how people
04:19:11 can’t take compliments, the effects of that are extreme and extremely negative.
04:19:17 I got to say about Texas, one of the things, so Austin especially, I mean, I don’t really
04:19:22 fully know Texas, Texas, but Austin, the friendliness. There’s a reason I’ve gotten
04:19:27 fatter and been drinking a lot is all the friendliness from random people who are no
04:19:33 longer random. They’re just friends. I’ve made more friends in one week than I have in my entire
04:19:39 stay in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Exactly. One and a half. You know what the number two means?
04:19:46 I’ve never counted up that high. So this is what happens when people are free.
04:19:52 No. When people are free and individualistic,
04:19:55 it’s exact opposite of what people believe. The more collectivist we are, the less free we are,
04:20:00 the nastier we are to one another. Individualists who are pursuing their own happiness are incredibly
04:20:05 kind, friendly, and supportive people. Okay. And now your task with doing…
04:20:11 Talk about bad juju.
04:20:14 To practice what you preach, is there in your soul that you can find one beautiful thing to
04:20:21 say about Yaron now that you guys met for the first, second, or third time, or at least in
04:20:26 book format? So that’s an easy one. So what I like about Yaron is that I think he is taking
04:20:34 one of the problems with maybe more old school objectivism is that they would just use Rand’s
04:20:40 arguments in Rand’s way. And it’s like, you’re a parent, you’re not adding anything, and you’re
04:20:45 not going to be better than her. So you give this talk about, I think you can compare, was it Bill
04:20:50 Gates to who was the one who went to jail? Oh, Bernie Madoff.
04:20:55 To Bernie Madoff. And you make the point, you’re like, does anyone here really think Bernie Madoff
04:21:00 was happy? Like, yeah, he’s successful and he’s wealthy, but does he go to bed being like,
04:21:04 hey, I’m a great guy? No. And his son kills himself with all this tragedy that goes with him.
04:21:08 So I think anyone who takes an ideology or worldview that I think is of value and adds to it
04:21:15 and makes it and articulates it in a new way, I think is a great accomplishment. I like how
04:21:22 uncompromising you are in your views of putting her views forward. And I like how you illustrate
04:21:31 how silly it is to argue against anarchism. So I don’t really have to do any of the work.
04:21:37 As for you, and this, I’ve thought this before many times, you’re the first person I met who
04:21:44 I come at, literally the first, other than my friend who I went to yeshiva with as a kid,
04:21:48 who I come at us, there was a line on friends where Ross and Rachel were thinking of dating,
04:21:53 right? And they go, if we start dating, it would be like the third date because they knew each
04:21:59 other well. And then she’s like, yeah, but it’d be like, so it’s like a plus and a minus, like,
04:22:02 yeah, you’re fast forwarding to seriousness, but it’s also the fact that you and I have the same
04:22:06 background. Like I can sit with your own or any of my other friends and try to explain it. The fact
04:22:12 that intuitively you and I grew up the same. And I know that we have that background in common
04:22:18 does create a bond because I feel even if I haven’t told you certain things, you are going
04:22:23 to understand me a lot better than many of my friends who’ve known me for a long time. I also
04:22:28 really like how I feel. This is a very new age term, but I’m going to use it. I feel very seen
04:22:36 when I talk to you. I think you see me for who I am. You appreciate me for who I am. And I also
04:22:43 really like how, and this is increasingly common as my platform increases. So I’m very flattered
04:22:51 by this. You understand what I’m trying to do and you don’t try to get in the way, even though it’s
04:22:56 your show. You’re like, okay, this guy’s a performer. He’s doing his thing. People appreciate
04:23:02 it. I appreciate it. I’m not going to try to drive the car. And I think some people who are who are
04:23:08 bad and I have not encountered this because I would shoot it down. But I think a lot of times
04:23:13 people have a tendency when they’re hosts to try to drive the car. And it’s like these things work
04:23:19 when we come in here. None of us prepare. You prepare by me. None of us talking beforehand
04:23:24 and like make it spontaneous. And the audience really enjoys that more because they know it’s
04:23:28 real earnest and dynamic. Yeah. I enjoy having you drive the car, even though I believe you don’t
04:23:34 have a license. And you think we’re going to crash. No, I think he’s, he’s an extraordinary
04:23:39 interviewer because of all those things. He makes you feel visible. And, and he does, but he also
04:23:45 comes across as really honest. The questions are really questions that you seem really interested
04:23:52 in that you really want answers to. It doesn’t come across as canned or I prepared my three
04:24:00 book project. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. I was pretty sure that on a desert island,
04:24:07 this would end in murder, but now I believe it may. Well, given his comments on anarchy,
04:24:12 it might still. It might still. The day is young. The night is young. This is a huge honor. I’ve
04:24:20 been a fan of both of you separately for a long time. I really appreciate wasting all this time
04:24:25 with me today. I love you, Michael. I love you, Yaron. We love you too. Thanks for listening to
04:24:32 this conversation with Michael Malice and Yaron Brook. And thank you to ground news, public goods,
04:24:38 athletic greens, brave and four Sigmatic. Check them out in the description to support this
04:24:44 podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx. Surround yourself with people who
04:24:52 make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely
04:24:58 care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through.
04:25:05 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.