Michael Malice: New Year's Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #253

00:00:00.000 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:00:02.480 | The following is a conversation with Michael Malice,

00:00:05.480 | his fifth time on this "The Lex Friedman Podcast."

00:00:09.720 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:00:11.680 | in the description.

00:00:12.960 | And now, here's my New Year's Eve 2021 conversation

00:00:17.960 | with the one and only Mr. Michael Malice.

00:00:22.060 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:00:26.800 | Dostoevsky wrote in "The Idiot," my favorite of his books,

00:00:30.840 | through the main character, Prince Mishkin,

00:00:33.240 | that beauty will save the world.

00:00:36.280 | (speaking in foreign language)

00:00:38.640 | These words, seemingly naive,

00:00:40.960 | and ultimately, at least to me, profound,

00:00:44.040 | what do they mean to you?

00:00:45.360 | Beauty will save the world.

00:00:46.680 | - Naive? Really?

00:00:48.440 | I don't think they seem naive at all.

00:00:50.320 | - Well, Sholzhenitsyn actually,

00:00:52.400 | for his 1970 Nobel Prize speech,

00:00:55.320 | talked about this line a lot.

00:00:57.280 | And he thought for most of his life,

00:00:59.000 | that was a silly line.

00:01:00.320 | It was just words thrown out there

00:01:02.200 | because with all the suffering that's in the world,

00:01:05.200 | what has beauty actually ever done?

00:01:07.640 | - Oh my God, I hate this so much.

00:01:09.400 | (laughing)

00:01:10.240 | - You're talking trash about Sholzhenitsyn.

00:01:11.760 | - Yeah, I am.

00:01:12.600 | - Okay.

00:01:13.920 | - And this perfectly sets up this theme.

00:01:15.920 | You know, I said, let's do this episode,

00:01:17.560 | start the new year on a positive note,

00:01:19.600 | give people hope, give people joy.

00:01:22.480 | You and I both have friends who are models, right?

00:01:26.680 | And it's a silly profession to some extent, of course, but-

00:01:30.720 | - You are actually a model.

00:01:32.760 | You are my friend.

00:01:34.160 | - That's right, that's true.

00:01:35.000 | I am an under model.

00:01:35.920 | I was trying to be subtle.

00:01:37.720 | But for those people who actually, you know,

00:01:39.960 | deserve to be models,

00:01:41.720 | when you look at someone who is a model

00:01:46.080 | and in some of their photos,

00:01:47.880 | and these people look perfect.

00:01:51.360 | Now in real life, they're not perfect.

00:01:52.760 | They have flaws.

00:01:53.580 | They'll be the first to admit it, so on and so forth.

00:01:55.360 | But when you look at beauty,

00:01:57.560 | it is almost impossible to maintain a sense of cynicism

00:02:02.560 | and hopelessness.

00:02:04.520 | Because if there's even one moment when some element

00:02:08.720 | of perfection has been actualized,

00:02:11.220 | if there's one moment where beauty has been realized

00:02:14.920 | and captured, you can't say,

00:02:16.800 | well, it's never gonna happen again.

00:02:18.400 | So I think beauty, it means hope.

00:02:22.240 | I think I hate that cynical idea of like,

00:02:27.240 | I get, I appreciate Solzhenitsyn's broader point

00:02:32.560 | in that a lot of times people,

00:02:33.760 | there's something called the deepity,

00:02:35.200 | where people throw words together to sound profound.

00:02:37.880 | And if you take it apart,

00:02:38.920 | like this is just complete gibberish.

00:02:40.840 | I don't think this is an example of that.

00:02:42.640 | I think beauty inspires, and more importantly,

00:02:46.920 | it proves to you this is something

00:02:49.680 | that can actually happen on this Earth.

00:02:52.560 | Plato, right, the Platonic theory of forms,

00:02:55.000 | like this world is imperfect,

00:02:56.720 | but these perfect forms exist in another dimension,

00:02:59.200 | and that's where our concepts come from.

00:03:00.440 | You know, he was an early person trying to figure out

00:03:03.440 | where our concepts come from,

00:03:04.680 | and epistemology and so on and so forth.

00:03:06.680 | But that is something that is real in here.

00:03:10.480 | So I completely disagree with his analysis of that,

00:03:14.380 | and I don't know if it'll save the world,

00:03:16.120 | but it's certainly a prerequisite.

00:03:17.880 | And what's the point of fighting for your values

00:03:20.920 | if you don't wanna make the world a more beautiful place?

00:03:23.440 | - Well, it's also how you define beauty,

00:03:24.840 | 'cause beauty could be just aesthetic beauty,

00:03:26.760 | it could be art.

00:03:27.920 | Of course, art could encompass a lot,

00:03:32.640 | a lot more than just literature and paintings.

00:03:34.560 | It can encompass the full life, the full dance of life.

00:03:39.560 | But then beauty could be something just deeper,

00:03:44.760 | like whatever that awe you feel

00:03:48.220 | when you pause and hear the music,

00:03:51.800 | just hear and look up at the stars.

00:03:55.880 | Like for some reason when I see rockets go up,

00:03:58.320 | for me it's like science.

00:03:59.620 | What is that?

00:04:00.720 | The awe that we're able to accomplish that as humans.

00:04:04.000 | - You know, that's funny, 'cause there's lots

00:04:05.800 | of different schools of thought,

00:04:07.000 | like these people versus these people,

00:04:08.940 | and maybe vegans versus steakhouse people.

00:04:14.060 | I think in terms of the sciences,

00:04:16.140 | and I guess you and I would be on opposite sides here,

00:04:18.760 | you have the astronomy people versus the zoology people.

00:04:23.760 | Like the big question is,

00:04:25.440 | would you rather spend 10 minutes on the moon,

00:04:29.080 | or would you rather spend 10 minutes in the deep sea?

00:04:31.920 | And for me, it's clearly the deep sea.

00:04:34.640 | The zoology that's down there,

00:04:36.560 | there's something I would encourage people to look up

00:04:38.780 | called deep staria, which is a jellyfish.

00:04:41.560 | And the scientists, what's amazing

00:04:43.480 | when you watch these deep sea dives on YouTube,

00:04:46.640 | is that the scientists, they're nature dorks

00:04:49.720 | like everybody else, they went into this field,

00:04:52.080 | and there's none of this maybe soljohnishin style cynicism

00:04:56.400 | of when they see an amazing animal

00:04:58.960 | in its natural environment exhibiting these crazy behaviors,

00:05:03.640 | they lose it.

00:05:04.480 | They're on the mic like, oh my god!

00:05:06.760 | Like it's so exciting to watch.

00:05:08.440 | So I'm not a rocket person,

00:05:11.480 | but I'm definitely a zoology person.

00:05:13.240 | - So animals and plants and the sea.

00:05:15.600 | - And also it's so mathematical.

00:05:17.180 | There's so many forms.

00:05:18.640 | There's this plant called Areospermum titanopsoides.

00:05:25.280 | I don't know how to pronounce it,

00:05:26.200 | 'cause they're always in Latin.

00:05:27.040 | You never hear them pronounced.

00:05:27.920 | - You said sperm.

00:05:28.960 | - Areospermum, yeah, 'cause it's a woolly seed is the genus.

00:05:31.960 | The leaf, it's just always puts out one leaf,

00:05:35.120 | but the leaf is covered in little magnifying glasses,

00:05:39.360 | lenses, to make it maximize the sunlight.

00:05:42.360 | So it looks like this little crystal seashell.

00:05:45.120 | It's tiny, it's like two centimeters,

00:05:47.000 | but it's just this amazing thing

00:05:49.120 | that grows out of the sands in South Africa.

00:05:53.120 | - Just to defend Solzhenitsyn for a second,

00:05:54.920 | so if I may read a couple of his lines from the speech.

00:05:58.000 | - Sure.

00:05:58.840 | - So he said, "One day," this is how he introduces it,

00:06:01.400 | "One day, Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark,

00:06:04.600 | "'Beauty will save the world.'

00:06:06.780 | "What sort of a statement is that?

00:06:08.360 | "For a long time, I considered it mere words.

00:06:11.200 | "How could that be possible?

00:06:12.840 | "When in bloodthirsty history,

00:06:14.800 | "did beauty ever save anyone from anything?"

00:06:18.260 | And then later, he goes on to argue with himself

00:06:22.220 | in the speech, "As a older, wiser man now,

00:06:25.680 | "but perhaps that ancient trinity of truth, goodness,

00:06:28.500 | "and beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula,

00:06:32.540 | "as we thought in the days of our self-confident,

00:06:34.780 | "materialistic youth.

00:06:36.820 | "If the tops of these three trees converge,"

00:06:40.120 | as the scholars maintained,

00:06:41.860 | "but the two blatant, two direct stems

00:06:43.980 | "of truth and goodness are crushed, cut down,

00:06:47.240 | "not allowed through, then perhaps the fantastic,

00:06:50.140 | "unpredictable, unexpected stems of beauty

00:06:52.940 | "will push through and soar to that very same place,

00:06:57.040 | "and in so doing, will fulfill the work of all three.

00:07:00.160 | "In that case, Dostoevsky's remark,

00:07:02.600 | "'Beauty will save the world,'

00:07:04.120 | "was not a careless phrase, but a prophecy.

00:07:08.520 | "Which of these three things are your favorites,

00:07:12.360 | "truth, goodness, or beauty?"

00:07:14.640 | What did he call truth and goodness?

00:07:16.840 | The blatant, two direct stems of truth and goodness,

00:07:20.780 | versus the fantastic, unpredictable,

00:07:26.080 | unexpected stems of beauty,

00:07:27.880 | which is how I see your Twitter account.

00:07:30.440 | - I don't think, I think there's certain

00:07:31.880 | truth and beauty if you had my Twitter account,

00:07:33.280 | that's for sure.

00:07:34.400 | It's certainly no goodness.

00:07:35.700 | - Or truth.

00:07:38.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:38.880 | (laughing)

00:07:39.700 | It's Twitter, there's no truth to be found.

00:07:41.400 | I would, I will answer the question.

00:07:44.800 | I will, of course, point out that having this kind of,

00:07:48.160 | you know, distinction between the three things

00:07:50.120 | is, I think, kind of synthetic.

00:07:51.520 | I think they very heavily overlap.

00:07:53.140 | If not, I can probably make the argument

00:07:55.200 | they're synonymous.

00:07:56.100 | In fact, I do believe that they're largely synonymous.

00:07:59.900 | - Goodness, that's such an interesting word, goodness.

00:08:05.720 | Which of those three is my favorite?

00:08:07.940 | I think truth is overrated in the sense that

00:08:14.520 | if something is a good story,

00:08:18.680 | the story doesn't have to be true or real

00:08:21.120 | in order to motivate you and move you.

00:08:24.420 | A lot of times, we can delude ourselves about somebody

00:08:31.160 | and that might actually serve a purpose to some extent.

00:08:35.560 | You know, if you have someone who's maybe a family member

00:08:38.760 | and you kind of ignore bad things that they do,

00:08:41.600 | there might be a reason for that.

00:08:43.260 | Of the three, which is most important?

00:08:47.220 | I think, I would say probably goodness.

00:08:51.020 | I would say of the three, the most important is goodness

00:08:53.540 | because if you don't appreciate goodness,

00:08:57.140 | then beauty is just empty.

00:08:59.200 | It's just a picture or it's nice.

00:09:03.600 | Bad people appreciate beauty.

00:09:05.320 | Bad people are often seductive or have a beauty about them.

00:09:11.120 | - And in terms of action, I think it takes a lot of skill

00:09:14.440 | and work to create beauty or to create truth

00:09:17.760 | or to express truth or to express beauty.

00:09:19.920 | But I think goodness is,

00:09:21.440 | it's like the easiest default state of being,

00:09:27.300 | just being good to others.

00:09:29.440 | - Yeah, like, you know, there'll be things where,

00:09:32.560 | these videos where like one dog is drowning

00:09:35.560 | and like another dog jumps in and saves it from the pool.

00:09:38.840 | Like that to me is just really amazing stuff

00:09:43.320 | and is very moving.

00:09:44.540 | So just, to me, goodness means integrity

00:09:49.440 | and it means kindness.

00:09:51.100 | And yeah, I think of the three,

00:09:54.600 | that's my, would be the one I pick.

00:09:56.560 | - Yeah, you actually-- - And I think people,

00:09:58.320 | I'm sorry to interrupt.

00:09:59.160 | People also have this idea, which is inculcated to them,

00:10:02.920 | especially by corporate America,

00:10:05.080 | that as you get older, it's okay to do the wrong thing

00:10:08.240 | sometimes, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:10:10.040 | I don't buy that.

00:10:11.080 | And so I think goodness gets rarer and rarer.

00:10:14.480 | And I think people know better and they tell themselves lies.

00:10:18.360 | - Yeah, but once you get, allow yourself the chance

00:10:22.880 | to just be good, I think it makes for a better life.

00:10:27.560 | - Yeah.

00:10:28.400 | - It's not that much work.

00:10:29.600 | Like it's not like going to the gym and working out.

00:10:31.740 | That's a lot of work and it's great afterwards.

00:10:34.720 | But like goodness is easy once you get into the habit of it.

00:10:37.720 | I suppose working out is the same way.

00:10:39.680 | There's a lot of stuff.

00:10:40.520 | If you make it a habit, you're going to get the rewards

00:10:44.280 | of it and it's going to be easy.

00:10:46.580 | - The rewards of goodness, I think, are more immediate

00:10:49.340 | than the rewards of working out.

00:10:51.720 | - As opposed to the hard drugs.

00:10:53.220 | - Yeah.

00:10:54.060 | - If, you mentioned this quote on one of your live streams,

00:10:57.320 | I think, "If you save one life, you save the world."

00:10:59.800 | - Yeah.

00:11:00.640 | - That's such a cool line.

00:11:03.160 | I think, I remember reading about Paul Farmer.

00:11:05.720 | I think his name is, he's a doctor that really,

00:11:08.480 | I mean, doctors in general, they kind of don't care

00:11:11.720 | about like what they're doing as a broad policy

00:11:16.440 | across hundreds of thousands of millions of people.

00:11:20.240 | They just care about the human in front of them,

00:11:22.400 | which is so interesting.

00:11:23.560 | They don't care it's going to cost, like in his case,

00:11:26.300 | to save one child, it will cost him hundreds

00:11:29.800 | of thousands of dollars.

00:11:31.120 | They don't care about that.

00:11:32.320 | They can't.

00:11:33.160 | They know very well that their actions cannot be scaled,

00:11:38.160 | but they can't help but help the child in front of them.

00:11:41.840 | And it's so interesting.

00:11:43.080 | That's such an interesting way to live.

00:11:46.600 | And that's the way I kind of think when I try

00:11:48.760 | to do something positive is, will this help one person?

00:11:55.600 | And I just kind of imagine a specific person,

00:11:58.500 | depending on the thing, that that would help with.

00:12:01.060 | Like when I'm trying to create something,

00:12:02.800 | whether it's a piece of hardware or a video

00:12:05.180 | or anything like that, or educational material,

00:12:08.220 | lecture, that kind of stuff.

00:12:09.620 | I don't know, what do you think about this quote?

00:12:13.140 | Is it profound or is it just poetic?

00:12:16.120 | - I think it's more profound than it sounds at first.

00:12:18.740 | The example I think of is Michelle Bachman.

00:12:20.540 | She was a former congresswoman from Minnesota.

00:12:22.980 | She clearly had crazy eyes.

00:12:24.600 | Something was going on with her husband.

00:12:26.640 | But she adopted like 20 kids.

00:12:29.300 | Terry Shappert's another friend of mine.

00:12:30.780 | He's like a either Navy SEAL or Marines,

00:12:33.620 | whatever it is, Terry, I apologize.

00:12:34.700 | I'm not trying to be funny.

00:12:36.020 | And he adopts like elder dogs.

00:12:39.320 | So going back to Bachman, it's like, yeah,

00:12:42.120 | you can say she's crazy.

00:12:43.380 | You can make fun of her politics all you want,

00:12:45.380 | and all that stuff's legitimate.

00:12:47.060 | But if you save a kid, give them a home,

00:12:50.420 | and you save them from the foster system,

00:12:52.640 | and you put a roof over their heads

00:12:54.100 | and make them feel loved and appreciated,

00:12:56.020 | it's really hard for me to sit here

00:12:58.980 | and call you like a totally bad person.

00:13:02.380 | I think that kind of thing is,

00:13:04.820 | Nick Surcey's another one.

00:13:05.960 | He adopted a kid.

00:13:07.940 | And I said, I think you're a hero.

00:13:09.980 | Like if you, there's some, you know,

00:13:13.260 | one of the things that's very hard for me in writing,

00:13:15.220 | as you know, I talk about this endlessly,

00:13:16.660 | this book, "The White Pill."

00:13:17.920 | But writing about when people do hurtful things to children,

00:13:22.940 | it really is hard to watch.

00:13:25.020 | And it's hard to, 'cause when you're an author,

00:13:26.780 | you have to kind of empathize with the character.

00:13:28.420 | You have to, where's this character coming from?

00:13:30.380 | Explain their point of view.

00:13:31.780 | And that's the one that's the hardest

00:13:33.160 | for me to wrap my head around.

00:13:34.860 | - Cruelty to children.

00:13:35.980 | - Yeah, or, and yeah, sadism to children.

00:13:39.500 | It's just like, this is something even animals

00:13:42.900 | know not to do, do you know what I mean?

00:13:44.020 | Like dogs, when you see them around kids,

00:13:46.140 | they're very protective.

00:13:48.260 | If the kid pokes their eyes out,

00:13:49.460 | the dog doesn't do anything.

00:13:50.900 | So it's like, if you can't even get to that level,

00:13:53.920 | what kind of person are you?

00:13:55.540 | So I think that quote is a profound one,

00:14:00.380 | and it's an important one.

00:14:02.060 | It also means we're not all called upon to be Superman.

00:14:06.360 | Right, you only have very finite ability to move the needle.

00:14:10.780 | But at the same time, if you have actually saved a life,

00:14:15.540 | you can go to meet your maker, you did your part.

00:14:18.140 | You left the world a little bit better than you found it.

00:14:20.220 | And that's all you could ask anybody.

00:14:22.060 | - Also, I think from a policy perspective,

00:14:24.860 | it seems we just do better when we focus

00:14:27.820 | on doing a small thing, helping one person.

00:14:31.820 | 'Cause it feels like when you start talking about communism

00:14:34.020 | and all those kinds of things,

00:14:34.900 | when you start to believe you could do good

00:14:36.720 | by a lot of people, that's where your mind somehow

00:14:40.660 | stops being able to do good by a lot of people.

00:14:43.020 | That's when you start to think about utopias

00:14:45.500 | and somehow utopias goes to,

00:14:48.980 | feeds power into the brain to where it deludes you

00:14:51.500 | completely and then you start,

00:14:53.340 | it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelet

00:14:55.380 | kind of reasoning and you run into trouble.

00:14:58.100 | It seems like it's much better,

00:15:00.020 | even when you have the power and the money and so on,

00:15:02.980 | to achieve scale, to focus on one.

00:15:05.260 | - Or locally, yeah.

00:15:07.580 | - Locally, yeah.

00:15:08.980 | - Because then, so you have the feedback.

00:15:10.780 | - Exactly.

00:15:11.620 | - So if you have some kind of program in Austin

00:15:13.460 | or Brooklyn or something like that,

00:15:15.100 | and you can watch, oh, this is working, this isn't working,

00:15:17.580 | and you can port it out to other places,

00:15:19.140 | but top-down helping is, at the very least,

00:15:22.940 | it's gonna be inefficient.

00:15:23.980 | And also, I think it's a lot more useful

00:15:26.100 | when you're helping people,

00:15:27.380 | when it's a one-on-one relationship,

00:15:29.780 | because then it's less, I don't know, embarrassing,

00:15:32.140 | but certainly less something to receive help.

00:15:34.700 | And you also feel, it's one thing if you get a check

00:15:37.020 | from the government, food stamps,

00:15:38.900 | it's another thing if someone's like,

00:15:40.060 | hey, I'm gonna buy you groceries

00:15:41.420 | until you get back on your feet.

00:15:42.780 | You have this kind of motivation, I think,

00:15:44.540 | for most people to be like, you know what,

00:15:46.420 | this person believed in me,

00:15:47.980 | I'm gonna make it worth their while

00:15:50.580 | that they believed in me.

00:15:51.980 | 'Cause I didn't believe in me.

00:15:53.620 | - Yeah, when I was giving lectures at MIT,

00:15:55.980 | there was one, I was scared shitless.

00:15:58.860 | And I mean, everybody, you know how students are

00:16:01.140 | and all that kind of stuff, they're kind of bored.

00:16:03.380 | And they don't understand that you're human too.

00:16:06.500 | Yeah. (laughs)

00:16:09.500 | Or this could be just me.

00:16:11.860 | - I don't understand you're trying to pass as human.

00:16:13.820 | - I know.

00:16:14.980 | But there's one gentleman in the audience,

00:16:17.580 | and he went to all the lectures,

00:16:19.980 | all the gentlemen, he was a faculty at MIT.

00:16:22.780 | And he just, without, very kind of nonchalant,

00:16:26.540 | just said, after the lectures,

00:16:28.740 | he would kind of nod at me and say, you did great.

00:16:31.240 | And before, like one time he said,

00:16:35.140 | in a non-creepy way, I know this is gonna come off

00:16:37.060 | as creepy, he said, you look great today.

00:16:41.540 | Like he said that in a, I don't, in the way,

00:16:44.460 | so he's like 60, 70, whatever, like he,

00:16:48.320 | in this, I don't know, it's in a wise sage way.

00:16:51.460 | 'Cause I was wearing a suit and tie.

00:16:53.420 | Like I look like, you know when you dress up

00:16:55.180 | like a young kid, you dress 'em up for--

00:16:56.860 | - The barbit's festival, yeah.

00:16:57.700 | You go to your barbit's festival, yeah.

00:16:58.520 | - So he was just like, all right, you're all dressed up,

00:17:02.500 | you look great, you got this.

00:17:04.300 | I don't know, that has a lasting impact,

00:17:06.380 | that kind of pat on the back.

00:17:08.260 | But I agree with you, cruelty towards other adults

00:17:13.260 | is somehow understandable.

00:17:16.300 | 'Cause it's a world full of conflict,

00:17:19.340 | but cruelty towards children doesn't,

00:17:23.240 | it doesn't quite, I can't understand it.

00:17:28.380 | I can't understand how you could act in a way

00:17:31.340 | that directly causes suffering to a child in front of you.

00:17:35.700 | - Yeah, that is, I don't think I've ever talked to you,

00:17:39.140 | this might be a good time to ask you about this.

00:17:42.140 | What do you make, what lessons do you draw

00:17:43.980 | about human civilization from Jeffrey Epstein?

00:17:48.020 | From just laying, everybody thinks about different things.

00:17:52.100 | When you talk to Eric Weinstein,

00:17:53.580 | he thinks about intelligence and like who,

00:17:57.340 | like Jeffrey Epstein is a front for something else.

00:18:00.540 | That's what he thinks about.

00:18:02.420 | - I think about the weakness of grown men

00:18:06.580 | in the face of charismatic evil,

00:18:09.260 | which is like for me directly is MIT.

00:18:11.860 | I didn't know, I actually was,

00:18:14.060 | I guess I was at MIT when Jeffrey Epstein

00:18:15.940 | was just at the very end.

00:18:17.580 | He must've been there.

00:18:18.860 | I didn't know any of this, but it really bothers me

00:18:23.860 | that nobody was able to see through this man.

00:18:27.180 | Because he's obviously, what is also obvious to me

00:18:30.100 | is that he was very charismatic.

00:18:31.980 | Like, I mean, I try to think about human nature

00:18:36.980 | from this perspective is directly,

00:18:41.260 | like we said, help one life.

00:18:42.820 | Would I know a Jeffrey Epstein if he was in my life?

00:18:48.400 | Would I know evil when I saw evil?

00:18:51.060 | - Even if it's sitting across from you.

00:18:52.940 | - Even, I mean, you, so, exactly, the evil laugh,

00:18:57.940 | thank you, the thing.

00:19:00.180 | (both laughing)

00:19:02.840 | - Well, there's-- - It's a necronomicon.

00:19:05.580 | - Well, the thing, I'm sure we'll talk about it,

00:19:08.780 | maybe not, it doesn't really matter.

00:19:10.220 | We see things, you and I, Michael,

00:19:13.020 | very differently about a lot of things,

00:19:14.740 | politically and so on.

00:19:15.820 | The reason I like you a lot,

00:19:17.380 | the reason I like the people I do in my life

00:19:20.620 | is there's a warmth, there's a kindness,

00:19:23.980 | there's a humanity underneath it all.

00:19:26.060 | I don't really care what you believe.

00:19:27.460 | I don't care what your Twitter says.

00:19:31.900 | It's easy to mistake your Twitter to indicate

00:19:34.020 | that there's not a deeply human love for humanity in there,

00:19:38.660 | and that's why I'm detecting that.

00:19:41.100 | I think I would be able to detect that Jeffrey Epstein--

00:19:44.060 | - You say detect, I'm just imagining the T-1000.

00:19:46.300 | (laughing)

00:19:48.380 | - Detected, yes.

00:19:50.660 | I imagine, I hope I would be able to detect

00:19:55.700 | that Epstein lacks that completely.

00:19:59.700 | Even if he's charismatic in the humor he has,

00:20:02.840 | even if he is charismatic in the expression of curiosity

00:20:07.580 | for science, which he did, he was curious about,

00:20:10.180 | not just boring minutiae of science,

00:20:15.260 | he was interested about the big questions in science,

00:20:17.720 | which I could see that become exciting to scientists.

00:20:21.100 | Oh, wow, here's a person who's thinking big.

00:20:23.980 | That's always exciting.

00:20:25.140 | When somebody goes into a room and thinks about

00:20:28.260 | how do we solve intelligence,

00:20:30.080 | how do we travel faster than the speed of light,

00:20:32.900 | that's exciting to people, especially people with money,

00:20:35.780 | 'cause it's like, all right,

00:20:36.860 | so we might be able to actually do big things here.

00:20:40.260 | But you could see through the bullshit,

00:20:42.420 | the deadness in the eyes, I don't know.

00:20:45.780 | So I think about that because I feel like

00:20:48.940 | I have the responsibility for me as an individual

00:20:51.580 | to detect evil.

00:20:53.180 | So do you know who Michael Alig is?

00:20:56.020 | Okay, this is gonna be a whole long,

00:20:58.900 | this is gonna be on Lex Clips,

00:21:00.220 | but this is a whole long story.

00:21:01.740 | So there was a scene in New York in the '90s

00:21:04.060 | called The Club Kids.

00:21:06.020 | And they would go out to different nightclubs at night,

00:21:08.820 | they would all dress in really kind of crazy costumes.

00:21:12.620 | But the costumes were all goofy,

00:21:15.900 | and just like an angel, this was dressed like a nurse,

00:21:18.500 | there was a juvenile aspect to it.

00:21:20.820 | They're all taking ketamine and ecstasy to all hours,

00:21:24.700 | this is kind of, rape culture was coming up in there.

00:21:27.700 | And the head of it, and in fact, there's a clip on YouTube,

00:21:32.700 | I think it was the Jane Whitney Show of The Club Kids

00:21:35.940 | and Gigi Allen.

00:21:36.980 | Gigi Allen is a kind of punk rock performer,

00:21:40.260 | hard rock performer, who passed away.

00:21:43.460 | And Gigi Allen was very aggressive and like a crazy person.

00:21:47.940 | My friend once saw him in a concert,

00:21:50.500 | and he took a dump on stage, smeared it all over his face,

00:21:55.060 | grabbed the girl from the audience, gave her a big kiss.

00:21:57.500 | And as she walked by him, she just went like this,

00:22:00.300 | like, excuse me, like went to the bathroom.

00:22:02.620 | So the audience is screaming at Gigi Allen

00:22:04.540 | because he's very visibly over the top.

00:22:06.780 | Whereas you got a bunch of these kids

00:22:07.940 | dressed in these silly costumes, you guys just having fun.

00:22:10.700 | Well, the head of The Club Kids, Michael Allig,

00:22:12.380 | ended up killing someone.

00:22:14.020 | There was a kid called Angel Menendez

00:22:15.940 | who hung around with them.

00:22:17.140 | He would always have angel wings and boots.

00:22:19.660 | One time they're at Michael's condo

00:22:22.700 | with a drug dealer named Freeze.

00:22:26.180 | They got into a fight.

00:22:27.700 | Angel got hit in the head with a hammer.

00:22:29.500 | They kill him.

00:22:30.660 | What are we gonna do with the body?

00:22:32.420 | They put it on ice in the bathtub.

00:22:34.380 | They had a party.

00:22:35.500 | So everyone's going to the bathroom

00:22:36.740 | while Angel's body's there.

00:22:38.340 | Michael got, they're like, all right,

00:22:39.700 | we gotta take care of this.

00:22:40.620 | Michael got extremely high on heroin,

00:22:43.220 | had like cutlery from Macy's,

00:22:46.660 | sawed the body in pieces, put in a box.

00:22:49.220 | They took him in a cab.

00:22:50.300 | The cab driver helped them throw the body into the river.

00:22:52.860 | And then Michael starts walking around Manhattan

00:22:54.940 | wearing Angel's boots and would tell people,

00:22:57.460 | oh, I killed Angel.

00:22:58.420 | Now, because he was a super effeminate,

00:23:00.620 | over the top, like he would pee in people's beer kinda guy,

00:23:03.660 | everyone's like, oh God, Michael,

00:23:04.780 | like you and your stupid pranks.

00:23:07.660 | But it was true.

00:23:09.260 | And he got caught and he got sentenced to jail.

00:23:12.300 | So I was in a store in Manhattan in Soho.

00:23:16.580 | And it was one of those stores

00:23:17.540 | where you have like all sorts of things for sale.

00:23:19.420 | And I saw a painting and it said "Malice."

00:23:21.860 | And I'm like, wait, what?

00:23:23.100 | And it was M. Alec.

00:23:24.100 | It was a Michael Alec painting.

00:23:25.420 | He had painted while in jail.

00:23:26.660 | So my mom bought it for me for my birthday.

00:23:28.340 | I don't remember what birthday it was.

00:23:29.900 | And I started writing him in prison.

00:23:31.980 | He was gonna write a memoir called "Allegula,"

00:23:34.060 | which is clever.

00:23:35.300 | And then I actually went to visit him.

00:23:37.700 | Like, I wanna see what this person's like.

00:23:39.300 | 'Cause on one hand, he's king of New York nightlife,

00:23:42.100 | this goofy person.

00:23:43.740 | And it's also kind of ironic that G.G. Allen is like,

00:23:45.980 | maybe he's gross, he's not killing anybody.

00:23:47.620 | He's probably an accountant off the stage.

00:23:48.940 | And Michael Alec actually did kill someone

00:23:50.620 | and then bragged about it tongue in cheek.

00:23:52.900 | So, but meeting him, he passed away last December,

00:23:57.220 | on Christmas actually, Christmas 2020.

00:24:01.100 | He was clearly a sociopath.

00:24:06.660 | And I'd never met a sociopath before.

00:24:09.380 | Now, a lot of times you'll read these,

00:24:11.060 | like you'll take a BuzzFeed quiz, like,

00:24:12.660 | are you a sociopath?

00:24:13.660 | And it's like, oh, my feelings weren't hurt

00:24:15.660 | when I was meeting someone.

00:24:17.180 | It's not a thin line between like me and you and him.

00:24:22.180 | It's a thick, thick line.

00:24:24.660 | Because when you're talking to someone like that,

00:24:26.620 | at least in this specific case,

00:24:28.180 | he was being very friendly.

00:24:29.260 | He wasn't, and it's not like he was gonna kill anyone

00:24:31.140 | or as a threat to me.

00:24:32.180 | But there's that sense, like something's really off here.

00:24:37.500 | And he was talking to me about how after he had killed Angel,

00:24:42.580 | he would just talk about it because he felt so much guilt,

00:24:46.420 | he just wanted to get caught.

00:24:47.660 | It's like, no, no, no, what he was describing wasn't guilt.

00:24:50.300 | He was describing just, he didn't like the knife

00:24:53.580 | over his head, like waiting to get caught.

00:24:55.980 | I'm like, you don't even know what guilt is?

00:24:57.540 | So it was kind of like, oh, wow.

00:24:59.820 | So as for Jeffrey Epstein, but the thing is,

00:25:03.020 | Michael Elling was in a very low social position.

00:25:06.820 | And the thing is when someone is powerful,

00:25:09.100 | very high status, and they do something,

00:25:12.820 | we are, as kind of hierarchical animals,

00:25:16.340 | we kind of defer to their norms.

00:25:19.780 | So if you're at a party with, let's suppose,

00:25:23.220 | either of us, and it's like a Jeffrey Epstein party,

00:25:26.180 | and everyone at the party is doing some sort of weird drug

00:25:28.860 | we've never heard of,

00:25:30.340 | we wouldn't really feel comfortable judging them

00:25:33.700 | because their norms kind of become the norm for that space.

00:25:38.900 | The lesson for me about Jeffrey Epstein,

00:25:41.900 | there's a lot of them, because I think this,

00:25:45.500 | to me, the biggest moment was the Amy Rohrbach situation.

00:25:49.580 | Amy Rohrbach was caught on a hot mic saying

00:25:53.180 | that they had all the goods on him, they had all the names,

00:25:55.980 | and that Buckingham Palace called them.

00:25:58.580 | They killed the story 'cause they weren't gonna get

00:26:00.260 | a Meghan Markle interview out of it.

00:26:02.180 | So that, the willingness of those in power

00:26:06.580 | to do the wrong thing for the flimsiest pretext,

00:26:10.740 | I think was a big, important lesson.

00:26:12.860 | Also the fact that no one at ABC

00:26:16.380 | had any consequences for this.

00:26:18.500 | In fact, the only person who got in trouble for all this

00:26:21.620 | was someone who used to work at ABC,

00:26:23.500 | went to, I believe, CBS, and they got fired from CBS

00:26:26.940 | because apparently they had access to footage at one point,

00:26:29.020 | even though they weren't the ones who had leaked it.

00:26:31.340 | So whistleblowers are, like, the only,

00:26:34.260 | for example, the case in Eric Garner,

00:26:37.820 | the guy who was selling Lucy cigarettes in New York City,

00:26:41.460 | who was arrested, he had a heart attack

00:26:43.900 | or whatever it was on the way to jail, he died.

00:26:45.940 | The only person, so the cops had a situation,

00:26:48.900 | the only person who had gotten in trouble 'cause of that

00:26:50.780 | was the guy filming it, like, he went to jail.

00:26:53.460 | So I think there is, if there's a lesson in terms of,

00:26:56.900 | look at Julian Assange, right?

00:26:59.140 | There's a huge amount of power exercised by elites

00:27:03.340 | to make sure that what is done on the cover of darkness

00:27:06.060 | remains on the cover of darkness.

00:27:07.900 | And also Kevin McCarthy, who is currently

00:27:09.900 | the House Minority Leader, leader of the Republicans,

00:27:12.420 | he wrote a letter to ABC News, like, you had this guy,

00:27:16.860 | maybe you couldn't call in the authorities,

00:27:18.900 | but you could have leaked it to somebody,

00:27:20.140 | why hasn't anything come forward?

00:27:22.140 | Nothing happened as a result of this.

00:27:23.740 | We also have to keep in mind that the longest serving

00:27:26.100 | Republican Speaker of the House in history,

00:27:27.740 | Dennis Hastert, went to jail 'cause of things related

00:27:30.140 | to pedophilia and things like that.

00:27:31.660 | So as Russians, and this is something I think

00:27:34.940 | you and I have mentioned before,

00:27:37.180 | Americans are very naive, often, decreasingly so,

00:27:41.420 | about the nature of evil.

00:27:43.100 | They think an evil person is someone

00:27:44.700 | who's like getting kickbacks, or, you know,

00:27:47.940 | the Cuomos are colluding, something like that,

00:27:49.980 | I would hardly even call that evil.

00:27:51.740 | No, no, this is the sort of things that are so depraved

00:27:56.580 | that you would never think about it in a million years,

00:27:58.620 | in your own home, you don't think in these terms.

00:28:00.260 | And I think they get off on doing things

00:28:03.700 | that if the average person heard about it,

00:28:06.060 | the average person would be shocked,

00:28:07.820 | 'cause that gives them this sense of we're above them,

00:28:10.100 | we're different from them.

00:28:12.140 | The rules don't apply to us.

00:28:13.260 | - There's a lot to say here.

00:28:14.500 | So what is the norm thing you said at a party?

00:28:16.660 | It's really interesting for an NRK-ass to say that.

00:28:20.580 | - Well, no, it's--

00:28:21.540 | - No, well, I know, I know, I'm not sorry,

00:28:24.100 | that came off as criticism, I meant it as harsh criticism.

00:28:27.460 | (both laughing)

00:28:29.740 | No, I think about that a lot,

00:28:31.380 | as I find myself in situations where I'm invited

00:28:37.740 | to these kinds of parties where people have nice things,

00:28:42.420 | and I find it deeply uncomfortable for that reason.

00:28:45.420 | I don't want to be sort of an activist

00:28:48.340 | that goes in and ruins a party.

00:28:50.140 | That's, I think that's not the courageous act.

00:28:55.140 | Neither is it courageous

00:28:56.580 | when everyone's doing some weird drug

00:28:58.140 | that you mentioned to join in, I think.

00:29:00.380 | Courageous is more being your, remaining yourself,

00:29:06.380 | sticking to your principles calmly in that room

00:29:10.140 | where everybody is doing the drug.

00:29:11.700 | And just don't do the drug.

00:29:13.100 | Don't make a scene about it, but also don't do it.

00:29:15.980 | And I think that little act of courage over time

00:29:19.300 | is the way you resist Jeffrey Epstein.

00:29:21.100 | Exactly the thing you said is probably the situation

00:29:25.500 | where charisma works.

00:29:26.980 | So one charismatic person gets a little crowd going,

00:29:29.780 | and the crowd is everybody sort of establishes a norm

00:29:34.780 | at the little crowd.

00:29:37.380 | And yes, there could be some dynamics

00:29:39.260 | that allow that norm to be established.

00:29:41.340 | Like you said, like rich and powerful people

00:29:43.660 | might enjoy being rich and powerful

00:29:47.580 | and better than everybody else kind of thing.

00:29:50.780 | But like I, especially for scientists,

00:29:55.020 | I thought they should have integrity and courage enough

00:29:58.620 | to see through that, not again as an activist,

00:30:02.940 | like so you can tweet about it, how courageous you are,

00:30:05.780 | but just literally, see, there's something off here.

00:30:08.900 | There's something off here,

00:30:09.820 | and I'm not going to participate in it.

00:30:10.660 | - I'm gonna defend these scientists

00:30:12.340 | because something off, first of all--

00:30:15.300 | - You're always defending academia, it's disgusting.

00:30:17.620 | - It's my favorite thing.

00:30:18.860 | I think that, first of all,

00:30:21.140 | this is gonna sound like a joke, and it's not,

00:30:23.020 | I bet you 90% of those MIT scientists are on the spectrum,

00:30:28.020 | so everyone they're gonna meet is gonna be off, right?

00:30:30.780 | So I'm sure part of their brain is like,

00:30:32.060 | okay, this person's weird,

00:30:33.260 | this is just them being on the spectrum.

00:30:34.540 | - Like the light spectrum,

00:30:36.100 | I couldn't even finish the joke, okay, go.

00:30:38.100 | (laughing)

00:30:39.540 | - Number two is off, we tend to, there's this poem,

00:30:44.540 | I forget who wrote it, it was like Nick Cave or something,

00:30:48.860 | and it was describing, I think it was Goebbels,

00:30:52.900 | hair, normal, height, normal, weight, normal,

00:30:57.220 | what do you expect, horns, right?

00:30:58.820 | So when you meet someone, you think something's off,

00:31:02.500 | there's gonna be a bell curve of what that could be, right?

00:31:04.740 | It could be that they're twitchy,

00:31:06.580 | or maybe they're completely asocial,

00:31:08.460 | and then you have Jeffrey Epstein over here,

00:31:11.140 | you're gonna need a lot of evidence to be like,

00:31:13.580 | oh, I feel something off,

00:31:14.620 | therefore this guy's the head of an international

00:31:16.820 | sex trafficking ring.

00:31:18.140 | So yeah, you might be like, okay,

00:31:21.360 | but at the same time, if the extent of your relationship is

00:31:23.600 | this guy is interested in my work,

00:31:25.680 | he's gonna fund my work,

00:31:27.040 | and I don't have to give him anything in return,

00:31:28.480 | he's clearly intelligent, he's appreciating it,

00:31:31.480 | and being a scientist is a thankless job.

00:31:34.000 | I know what it's like as an author,

00:31:36.080 | when I was writing Dear Reader, the North Korea book,

00:31:38.420 | my friends were sick of hearing

00:31:39.520 | all these North Korea anecdotes,

00:31:40.920 | 'cause at a certain point, it's like, okay, we get it,

00:31:42.600 | just save it for the book,

00:31:43.740 | and you gotta be in that lab,

00:31:45.200 | you're looking at the springtails,

00:31:46.280 | whatever it is you're looking at,

00:31:47.240 | no one knows what a springtail is.

00:31:48.520 | - I just disagree with you,

00:31:49.640 | so that'd be interesting to draw the distinction

00:31:52.280 | between science and writing,

00:31:54.020 | because the scientific process itself is fun as fuck.

00:31:58.120 | You're solving little puzzles.

00:31:59.440 | - Sure.

00:32:00.280 | - So in itself, it's fun, so it's rewarding.

00:32:04.680 | The reason you go into science is you can continue,

00:32:08.920 | really without a boss,

00:32:10.200 | to continue having fun and solving puzzles.

00:32:13.060 | So unless you become cynical and tired

00:32:19.100 | of the whole thing, so the people, the administration,

00:32:21.920 | or when you're running a large lab,

00:32:23.760 | and what you get sick of is the emails and the meetings

00:32:26.520 | and all that kind of stuff,

00:32:27.440 | the actual act of being in the lab is still fun as fuck.

00:32:32.440 | If you allow it to be, writing, I feel like,

00:32:36.320 | there's more priority to publishing.

00:32:39.040 | Would you enjoy it, the tree falling in the forest,

00:32:41.880 | would you still enjoy any of the books you've written

00:32:45.360 | if they never got published?

00:32:47.080 | - Not to the same extent, not even close.

00:32:49.100 | - Right.

00:32:49.940 | I think that the thing about science,

00:32:51.980 | it's almost like you get a peek into the mysterious.

00:32:54.780 | - Yeah, but this is, okay, this is where I'm coming from.

00:32:57.820 | Since moving to Austin, I bought over 150 plants.

00:33:03.100 | - Look how you're doing the politician thing.

00:33:05.700 | - Look, let me be clear, all right?

00:33:08.680 | It's not--

00:33:11.220 | - You are running in 2024, this is very interesting.

00:33:15.040 | - I bought 150 succulents for my house.

00:33:16.980 | They're thriving here in Austin

00:33:18.440 | as they wouldn't have in Brooklyn.

00:33:19.620 | - You have a great video about it.

00:33:21.220 | - One of those plants I have is the photo I took

00:33:24.100 | on my Instagram, there's no other photos

00:33:25.380 | on the whole internet.

00:33:26.360 | None of my friends care.

00:33:28.000 | Or they care ostensibly, but that's cool.

00:33:30.460 | I have a better plant collection in my house

00:33:32.900 | than almost any botanical, succulent collection

00:33:35.600 | than any botanical garden in America

00:33:37.220 | other than probably the Huntington, and no one cares.

00:33:39.340 | - This is what ego looks like, by the way.

00:33:41.980 | - I can prove it to you.

00:33:43.120 | - No, I know, but you don't have to rub it in.

00:33:45.300 | - Well, they have a big budget.

00:33:46.900 | I don't, so if I can put it together,

00:33:48.700 | they should be able to.

00:33:50.260 | So I can only imagine that a scientist

00:33:53.220 | who studied those spiders that look like ants,

00:33:57.380 | like, oh, and this species does this

00:34:01.340 | with the gender dimorphism,

00:34:02.960 | their friends are only gonna care so much.

00:34:04.700 | So if you meet someone who has a lot of money

00:34:06.700 | who now cares about ant spiders,

00:34:09.060 | it's gonna be exciting for you.

00:34:09.900 | - Yeah, it will be very exciting.

00:34:11.220 | But I just wanted to push back on the,

00:34:15.460 | I think the act itself should be the biggest reward.

00:34:19.500 | I think you're always safe.

00:34:20.940 | We're talking about goodness being a safe default.

00:34:24.120 | I think a good default for plants

00:34:28.380 | and for writing and for science

00:34:30.600 | is to just enjoy the act even if nobody cares.

00:34:34.060 | - Okay, this is where, okay, now I'm even,

00:34:36.560 | now I'm wondering why I'm pushing back so hard,

00:34:38.740 | and I realize what it was.

00:34:40.360 | Because I've made this point several times,

00:34:43.420 | and I'm glad I can make it again.

00:34:45.100 | There's this window of time that happened in my life,

00:34:48.180 | and I know it happens to a lot of people,

00:34:50.140 | when you're in your 24 to 27, 28, right?

00:34:54.280 | So 21 to 24, you still have your friends from college,

00:34:56.980 | so on and so forth, right?

00:34:58.460 | But then it's kind of like a poker game,

00:35:00.860 | and every so often, people cash out.

00:35:03.100 | They're like, I'm out, I'm out.

00:35:03.940 | They get married, they get a job, they move.

00:35:06.740 | And if you are someone who's a young, ambitious creative,

00:35:10.020 | that window is a very rough one

00:35:12.180 | because you're doing the right thing, right?

00:35:14.540 | And you're not being a drug addict,

00:35:16.980 | you're not being a philanderer.

00:35:18.300 | Not that those things are wrong,

00:35:19.260 | but just like you're playing by the rules.

00:35:21.580 | You're creating your stuff,

00:35:23.300 | what you wanna be known for,

00:35:24.860 | contribution you wanna make for the world,

00:35:26.820 | and no one cares, and it gets very lonely.

00:35:29.420 | And there's this very emotional disconnect

00:35:32.060 | about how is it that I'm creating, and I'm working hard,

00:35:36.840 | and I'm making something happen,

00:35:38.420 | and it's just radio silence.

00:35:40.100 | So that, I don't think it's that easy

00:35:42.540 | when you're the scientist, not me,

00:35:45.460 | when you don't have any kind of external validation.

00:35:48.380 | Humans only have so much fuel.

00:35:51.700 | - Nothing worth having is easy, Michael.

00:35:54.500 | By the way, yesterday, talked on the phone

00:35:57.500 | with a person who said he was deeply moved

00:35:59.600 | the first time you mentioned this age group of 24 to 27.

00:36:03.860 | He's like, he's 26, he said,

00:36:07.180 | and he feels the full responsibility of that.

00:36:10.700 | So he left his corporate typey job

00:36:14.780 | to pursue something that he's really passionate about,

00:36:17.180 | and that was, you were an inspiration to him,

00:36:20.700 | which I was deeply saddened by that.

00:36:23.180 | - I also inspired Michael Alex.

00:36:24.740 | (laughing)

00:36:26.980 | - The amount of mass murder,

00:36:30.780 | those that were inspired by you,

00:36:32.180 | will eventually lead to is truly horrifying.

00:36:36.480 | What were we talking about?

00:36:37.820 | So Jeffrey Epstein, oh, one thing I wanted to ask you,

00:36:41.020 | so let's put scientists aside.

00:36:43.980 | What about world leaders, Bill Clinton,

00:36:48.900 | your favorite person?

00:36:50.500 | Why would he fly with Jeffrey Epstein?

00:36:53.700 | Why would he interact with that guy?

00:36:57.300 | - I mean, don't you think that that's kind of the deal,

00:37:01.940 | that I'm the president, and I get big and powerful people

00:37:05.740 | fly me around in their jets,

00:37:06.900 | and that's a symbiotic relationship?

00:37:09.100 | - Yeah, but don't you also have a good BS detector?

00:37:12.620 | Don't you have a good detector for people

00:37:15.940 | who just wanna be in your presence?

00:37:18.420 | Like, I already understand

00:37:20.860 | that there's people like this out there.

00:37:22.740 | There's people that kinda wanna use me for stuff.

00:37:26.460 | - You mean Tim Dillon?

00:37:29.340 | - Tim Dillon.

00:37:30.180 | (laughing)

00:37:35.660 | - I love that guy.

00:37:36.500 | You guys met?

00:37:37.320 | - We haven't met yet here.

00:37:38.160 | - You haven't met, okay, wow.

00:37:39.420 | - We met before in New York,

00:37:40.660 | but we had not since I moved here.

00:37:42.020 | - Yeah, so you should be able to detect

00:37:44.740 | that there's those people,

00:37:45.980 | and there's the people that have kindness in their heart,

00:37:48.100 | even if they can benefit from the interaction with you,

00:37:50.180 | but they're good human beings.

00:37:52.260 | I feel like you run into a lot of trouble

00:37:55.140 | if you surround yourself or have any people

00:37:57.940 | that are manipulative like that.

00:37:59.860 | - But I think you make a bad example,

00:38:01.980 | 'cause let's look at Clinton,

00:38:03.180 | and let's look at Obama, right?

00:38:05.060 | So Obama, even though their politics are very close,

00:38:07.860 | I'd say in many ways,

00:38:09.100 | Obama is apparent, we don't know,

00:38:11.860 | I don't know either of them,

00:38:12.940 | but to me it seems very apparent

00:38:14.700 | that he's very similar behind closed doors

00:38:16.740 | as he is in front of the camera.

00:38:17.580 | - Yeah, yeah, he's Barack to me.

00:38:18.980 | - Oh, okay.

00:38:19.820 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:38:20.660 | - He's good.

00:38:21.480 | - Yeah.

00:38:22.460 | Clinton seems very clearly to be much more of a performer.

00:38:27.220 | He's in front of the cameras, he puts on a role,

00:38:28.980 | but behind the cameras he very much has a temper.

00:38:31.300 | He's known for that.

00:38:32.260 | He's much more of a lech.

00:38:34.740 | What's that?

00:38:35.660 | - A pervert.

00:38:36.660 | - Oh, lech with an E?

00:38:38.300 | - L-E-T-C-H, yeah.

00:38:39.500 | - Oh, cool.

00:38:40.380 | Lech, is that like a, that's a cool term,

00:38:42.460 | so I can use that on the internet?

00:38:44.580 | Like you're a lech.

00:38:45.780 | - Yeah, you can use it on the internet.

00:38:46.940 | - You're a dirty lech.

00:38:48.180 | - Well, dirty's implied.

00:38:50.180 | - Oh, so it's, okay.

00:38:51.140 | - Yeah, so--

00:38:52.140 | - Being redundant.

00:38:53.060 | - Yeah.

00:38:54.260 | - But it just feels like he needs an adjective

00:38:56.140 | to give it more power.

00:38:57.420 | Anyway, I'm sorry, so Clinton is a lech.

00:38:59.740 | - Right, so you can see how there's people

00:39:03.740 | who wanna meet the surface Bill Clinton,

00:39:07.100 | and I'm sure that gets old for him

00:39:08.340 | 'cause he has to be on,

00:39:09.900 | but then there's the good old boys

00:39:11.460 | where he could be a pervert,

00:39:13.180 | and this guy's like, yeah, I know what it's like,

00:39:15.540 | and then he feels like he's himself,

00:39:17.100 | but we're all speculating.

00:39:18.820 | I mean, I don't know what Bill Clinton is like,

00:39:21.060 | what was in it for him.

00:39:22.140 | He certainly could afford private jets if he wanted to.

00:39:25.580 | There's no shortage of people who wanna fly around the world

00:39:27.440 | to give speeches, you know.

00:39:29.580 | - Can't he satisfy the lech within?

00:39:33.620 | Without hanging out with the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world?

00:39:36.980 | Like, can't he get, I mean,

00:39:38.180 | this is the Monica Lewinsky question to me.

00:39:40.220 | I'm confused by all of this.

00:39:42.420 | Can't he get women in an illegitimate way

00:39:46.340 | of not using his power,

00:39:49.540 | not hanging out with these shady, rich people,

00:39:53.220 | but just having a normal mistress like JFK had?

00:39:57.780 | - Well, JFK had a lot.

00:39:59.140 | - I know, I understand that, but in a normal way,

00:40:01.380 | or I don't know enough about JFK.

00:40:03.780 | - I don't understand the Clinton psychology.

00:40:07.780 | First of all, the fact that you're hooking up

00:40:09.860 | with someone who's close to your daughter's age,

00:40:12.060 | to me, I think is inherently disturbing.

00:40:15.140 | But she's an adult, so okay, that's not that, that,

00:40:18.260 | you know, beyond the pale.

00:40:19.860 | But also the idea that, oh,

00:40:22.300 | if I don't physically fornicate with you, it's not cheating.

00:40:26.920 | Like that, whatever you tell yourself,

00:40:28.740 | or like if I don't ejaculate, it's not cheating.

00:40:31.780 | Like these rules that--

00:40:34.540 | - Maybe it leads to some kind of slippery slope.

00:40:36.580 | Like you start not having the rules of--

00:40:39.580 | - Who you fool, I mean, if you told your wife,

00:40:41.540 | like listen, it wasn't cheating, she only, you know,

00:40:44.700 | performed on me, you're gonna say this with a straight face?

00:40:47.700 | Like do you, at a certain point when something is so brazen,

00:40:51.820 | you wonder if the person even has to believe it,

00:40:53.740 | because who are you fooling?

00:40:56.460 | But like we started this conversation with,

00:40:59.500 | there is a line between young women older than 18

00:41:03.220 | and young teen, like 12, 13, kids.

00:41:07.620 | - Have you ever, when's the last,

00:41:09.820 | oh, 'cause it's different for you 'cause you're at MIT.

00:41:12.060 | I was hanging out with Blair White,

00:41:15.380 | and she had a couple of fans of hers,

00:41:17.780 | and they were like 22, 23,

00:41:19.700 | and they were like children to me.

00:41:21.580 | Like I'm like, to me, as someone who is in his late 60s,

00:41:26.380 | to look at these people as adults,

00:41:29.300 | like they look completely like kids.

00:41:32.100 | So that--

00:41:33.500 | - Now, of course, there's exceptions.

00:41:34.660 | Like I've interacted with young 20-year-olds

00:41:38.300 | that are like, you're way more mature than I'll ever be.

00:41:42.500 | Like the wisdom that comes out of them is quite fascinating.

00:41:45.740 | - Visually, the energy and the way they look,

00:41:49.140 | they looked so young to me,

00:41:51.220 | and the way they carried themselves.

00:41:53.860 | The idea that my instinct was,

00:41:58.100 | let's tuck you in and read you a bedtime story,

00:42:00.140 | not let me touch you or something.

00:42:02.220 | It was just like, it just wouldn't enter my head.

00:42:05.260 | So there's, but the thing is,

00:42:08.620 | is it possible that in order to wanna be the president,

00:42:11.020 | you have to be a crazy person?

00:42:13.140 | - That you have some kind of weird view on power.

00:42:16.820 | It could be a power thing, too.

00:42:18.820 | - Yeah.

00:42:19.660 | - Like you can get away with stuff.

00:42:21.700 | Like if I was Clinton's age,

00:42:24.140 | nothing about Monica Lewinsky to me would be attractive.

00:42:27.940 | And also, I would just feel bad for her

00:42:30.060 | 'cause I know she's gonna catch feelings.

00:42:32.260 | And it's kind of like--

00:42:33.100 | - Catch feelings, yeah, it's true.

00:42:34.300 | This is very true.

00:42:35.140 | - It's just like, why would I do this to this kid?

00:42:37.420 | For what?

00:42:38.260 | Just 'cause I wanna get some momentary pleasure?

00:42:40.700 | Come on.

00:42:41.540 | - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

00:42:43.420 | I'm sure she looked gorgeous to him in the moment.

00:42:46.740 | Well, let me ask, we started talking about beauty.

00:42:51.620 | Who are you wearing?

00:42:52.700 | (laughing)

00:42:56.180 | So as a model, you usually don't have a shirt on

00:43:00.740 | when you're modeling.

00:43:01.840 | So it's nice to see you dressed up today.

00:43:05.360 | Nice and warm.

00:43:10.180 | - This is because, so for those who don't know,

00:43:12.860 | Russians don't celebrate Christmas.

00:43:15.420 | Obviously, with the Soviet Union, Christmas was illegal.

00:43:17.700 | - No Thanksgiving, basically no major holidays

00:43:21.260 | where everyone gets together.

00:43:22.380 | This is the one holiday, New Year's.

00:43:23.860 | - Yeah, New Year's, Novigrad.

00:43:25.300 | And instead of, I remember as a kid,

00:43:27.220 | instead of Santa Claus, we have Ded Moroz,

00:43:29.420 | who's the same thing, basically.

00:43:31.220 | - It's like Android and iPhone.

00:43:32.900 | It's like a cheap version of Christmas.

00:43:34.940 | - He's got this girl with him.

00:43:36.080 | She's like Snow White or whatever.

00:43:37.540 | And Russian kids, they go to sleep on December 31st,

00:43:40.820 | and they wake up January,

00:43:41.940 | and they have a present under their pillow.

00:43:43.700 | And I remember as a kid, this happened once,

00:43:46.420 | and it just blew my mind.

00:43:47.740 | You know what I mean?

00:43:48.580 | It's just like, I went to bed,

00:43:50.100 | and my dad's like, "Oh, you know, you're gonna have,

00:43:52.140 | "Ded Moroz is gonna bring you a present

00:43:53.380 | "if you've been a good kid."

00:43:54.420 | I'm like, "I think I was a good kid."

00:43:56.780 | But you don't even remember a year of your life

00:43:58.340 | when you're four.

00:43:59.740 | You remember like two weeks. - You remember those moments.

00:44:01.420 | - Yeah, and then I woke up,

00:44:02.700 | and there was a present under my pillow,

00:44:04.180 | and it just blew my mind.

00:44:07.060 | That building is still there,

00:44:08.220 | 1461 Sherwood Parkway in Brooklyn.

00:44:10.420 | And it's just also funny.

00:44:15.460 | What I really like about kids,

00:44:17.660 | being an uncle now, is kid logic.

00:44:19.960 | Because they have very little data,

00:44:23.260 | but they're using logic to make sense of it.

00:44:25.740 | And sometimes it gives them the completely wrong conclusions

00:44:28.620 | for the completely right reasons.

00:44:30.500 | I remember, my bedroom as a kid was right off the kitchen,

00:44:35.500 | and I'd be scared of the dark a little bit,

00:44:37.540 | so they'd leave the light on the kitchen

00:44:38.980 | while I went to sleep.

00:44:40.460 | And at the same time, my parents had told me,

00:44:43.740 | "You don't leave the lights on the house.

00:44:45.040 | "It costs money, wastes electricity."

00:44:47.380 | So I would be worried, 'cause I'm like,

00:44:49.820 | "Oh my God, my parents leave the lights

00:44:51.280 | "on the kitchen all night,

00:44:52.740 | "and now it's costing them so much money."

00:44:55.560 | Not realizing that five minutes after I'm out,

00:44:57.660 | obviously they're turning the lights off.

00:44:58.880 | But in my kid logic, this was a concern of mine.

00:45:02.160 | - Yeah, and memories work that same way.

00:45:04.880 | I have a collection of memories

00:45:06.680 | that are stitched together logically somehow,

00:45:08.940 | but they also don't really make sense.

00:45:10.920 | There's a few defining things.

00:45:12.720 | So I grew up in Russia,

00:45:14.640 | and experienced a lot of New Years in Russia.

00:45:18.460 | There's a lot of incredible things about that tradition

00:45:22.960 | that just warms my heart.

00:45:25.520 | So one, as a kid, you mentioned these kind of stories,

00:45:29.320 | that's the one night of the year

00:45:30.680 | that kids are allowed to be adults in the following way,

00:45:34.400 | like in kid logic.

00:45:37.520 | You're allowed to stay up all night.

00:45:38.920 | - Oh yeah, okay.

00:45:39.920 | - That was as late as you want,

00:45:42.120 | which actually ends up being, you're not used to it.

00:45:43.960 | - 11, right, you're out.

00:45:45.960 | - You crash, but no, you get to two, three, four at night,

00:45:50.460 | you stay up, and what you get to witness

00:45:53.460 | is almost like "Alice in Wonderland" goes into this world.

00:45:56.620 | You get to witness what is the adult world really like.

00:45:59.860 | Now, obviously it's not an actual adult world.

00:46:02.220 | - A lot of drinking and fighting.

00:46:03.820 | - Merriment, like laughing, fighting, arguing,

00:46:08.140 | but also, in our case, like singing,

00:46:11.620 | and arguing, like philosophical stuff,

00:46:16.180 | but also, if I may, how would I describe it?

00:46:20.980 | This is also probably a little bit of Russian culture,

00:46:24.320 | but flirtation in all of its forms,

00:46:27.500 | meaning men and women just being like,

00:46:30.200 | 'cause they dress up.

00:46:31.580 | It's joy, it's like you get to show off dresses,

00:46:36.580 | whatever you got, you show it off, this is fun.

00:46:39.700 | And then men, too, just like friends, laughing,

00:46:44.700 | arguing, just showing off the best they got

00:46:47.260 | with delicious food.

00:46:48.180 | Obviously, there's a Thanksgiving element there,

00:46:51.100 | where there's just so many,

00:46:54.220 | you bring out all the traditional stuff.

00:46:56.280 | You have salad, just everything,

00:46:59.860 | just the full thing with the desserts,

00:47:02.020 | and obviously the vodka, a lot of vodka.

00:47:04.740 | And at the time, so this is the Soviet Union,

00:47:09.700 | the biggest stuff, and this is so sad

00:47:11.940 | that these are the things I remember,

00:47:13.420 | is Coca-Cola.

00:47:16.060 | - Oh, yeah.

00:47:16.900 | - Like American, I would probably kill somebody

00:47:20.980 | for a Dr. Pepper.

00:47:22.620 | It's so fascinating that you take it for granted,

00:47:26.700 | sort of the results of capitalist society,

00:47:30.140 | the material things that are created,

00:47:32.980 | but that was the ultimate happiness,

00:47:36.860 | is to experience this new thing, sugar, I don't know.

00:47:41.860 | Under scarcity, you just love it.

00:47:43.380 | - There's like communist Coca-Cola in Czech Republic.

00:47:46.740 | So basically, they tried to rip off Coke,

00:47:49.540 | and it's just like,

00:47:51.380 | they just threw whatever they could together,

00:47:53.460 | and it was a very poor knockoff, as you can imagine.

00:47:56.260 | I forget what it's called,

00:47:57.140 | and all the Czech people right now

00:47:58.220 | are getting very angry at me 'cause I can't think of it.

00:48:00.580 | But they have it now, and the slogan is, "Good or weird?"

00:48:05.660 | So it's like this,

00:48:07.060 | so they kind of reclaimed this kind of hipster soda, yeah.

00:48:09.860 | - Oh, that's awesome.

00:48:10.700 | It's almost like a parody.

00:48:11.740 | - Right, yeah.

00:48:12.580 | - But I think the thing I really remember is the camaraderie,

00:48:17.340 | like the love for each other, and neighbors too.

00:48:22.620 | Like you and I are neighbors now.

00:48:26.500 | We don't see each other that often.

00:48:28.740 | I hope that changes, but a lot of it is also me.

00:48:30.820 | I'm just a deep introvert.

00:48:32.140 | - You're also the hardest working person I know.

00:48:35.220 | - Yeah, so it's time, but you know,

00:48:37.220 | it's not like I'll go in the middle of the night

00:48:41.340 | at like 4 a.m. and go to 7-Eleven,

00:48:44.300 | just sit there sipping a Slurpee for an hour

00:48:47.900 | thinking about life.

00:48:49.060 | So it's not like I'm always working.

00:48:52.540 | Yeah, I don't know.

00:48:53.380 | What I mean is you get to meet your neighbors,

00:48:54.980 | and you get to experience their highs and their lows,

00:48:58.940 | and you get to bitch about life, about government,

00:49:01.940 | about corruption, about the unfairness of life together.

00:49:05.620 | - Well, it's also, I think,

00:49:06.660 | what people don't appreciate as Americans

00:49:08.660 | is it's very rare in Russia to have a safe space.

00:49:11.900 | - Yeah.

00:49:12.740 | - So you know that January 1st,

00:49:16.220 | no one's gonna snitch on you.

00:49:18.140 | They're not gonna be informants probably,

00:49:20.220 | so you can vent, and that's the thing

00:49:23.420 | with people in totalitarian countries.

00:49:25.740 | You have to have the public-facing persona,

00:49:27.740 | and then behind closed doors, it's very different.

00:49:29.700 | - It all comes out.

00:49:30.540 | I also remember the arguments,

00:49:32.060 | and I've been going on Clubhouse recently

00:49:36.140 | into Russian rooms.

00:49:37.420 | - Oh, Jesus.

00:49:38.660 | - Well, just to practice Russian,

00:49:40.500 | and it's so beautiful to watch.

00:49:44.040 | I mean, Clubhouse is a very specific collection

00:49:46.900 | of Russian people.

00:49:48.140 | Maybe it's a little bit political,

00:49:49.900 | and they're a little bit older,

00:49:52.500 | and it's interesting to watch how much they love to argue.

00:49:57.900 | - Oh, Russian love to argue. - They love.

00:49:59.860 | And so it would be literally,

00:50:02.040 | you could think of it as a nonlinear dynamical system,

00:50:06.300 | okay, from an engineering perspective.

00:50:08.200 | Whenever any positive topic comes up,

00:50:12.720 | you could feel the skepticism, and then wait a minute,

00:50:16.220 | this is not good, and they'll start perturbing it

00:50:20.660 | until you're like, they'll find some way to say,

00:50:24.540 | like, come on now, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard,

00:50:27.460 | and then it goes back into argument.

00:50:29.020 | It's so fun to watch, because in one sense,

00:50:32.420 | you could see it as negative.

00:50:34.360 | In another, you could see it as free to express yourself,

00:50:37.740 | because it feels like you can solve a lot of problems

00:50:41.960 | by allowing yourself to just be emotional,

00:50:45.580 | both emotional and say hard truths

00:50:48.100 | and all those kinds of things

00:50:49.500 | without patting yourself on the back about it,

00:50:54.540 | but also, it just, sort of those Russian rooms,

00:50:58.900 | make me realize how constrained American speech is,

00:51:02.100 | how careful people are in the way they express it,

00:51:04.780 | even the Michael Malis is in the world.

00:51:06.580 | You're constantly being nuanced.

00:51:09.300 | There, they just say crazy shit,

00:51:13.460 | and then they correct themselves and make fun of themselves,

00:51:16.060 | and they completely shift opinions a minute later,

00:51:19.020 | and it's chaos.

00:51:20.620 | - Yeah.

00:51:21.460 | - I mean, it's beautiful chaos.

00:51:23.300 | So I love that that culture is present.

00:51:25.060 | It's funny, given the current regime in Russia,

00:51:28.660 | like how that's coupled with how people are talking,

00:51:32.020 | and yeah, I don't know,

00:51:34.260 | and I have those memories of childhood,

00:51:36.540 | of friends that I had,

00:51:38.980 | of just having that true freedom of talking,

00:51:41.500 | and somehow that leads to deep bonds together.

00:51:45.420 | When the life, when you're poor,

00:51:48.000 | when life has a lot of elements that are unfair,

00:51:52.160 | when the government is corrupt,

00:51:53.460 | there's sort of, it's just,

00:51:55.500 | especially in the Soviet Union,

00:51:56.900 | there's uncertainty about the future,

00:51:58.440 | all of it, you just get closer together,

00:52:00.580 | like penguins huddling together in the cold,

00:52:03.220 | like that March of the Penguins movie,

00:52:05.420 | that, I don't know, the friends I've gotten there,

00:52:08.580 | I get emotional every time I kinda think about those friends

00:52:16.660 | 'cause it was so close.

00:52:18.000 | That friendship was so fucking close.

00:52:19.660 | - But I just really hate the Russian cynicism.

00:52:22.780 | - No, I know you do,

00:52:23.620 | and I actually disagree with you about it.

00:52:25.700 | You see it as cynicism.

00:52:27.860 | I see it as waves on top of the water,

00:52:30.900 | like surface cynicism,

00:52:32.820 | and the depths, I see the beauty of the Russian soul.

00:52:36.020 | So we, like, yes,

00:52:38.300 | that cynicism can negatively affect a lot of people.

00:52:41.140 | I think you've talked about, like, as a parent,

00:52:43.640 | being cynical about the world,

00:52:47.300 | and then you have dire negative consequences

00:52:50.060 | on your children, they become cynical,

00:52:51.920 | they don't ever take big risks,

00:52:53.300 | they take on bold things,

00:52:54.940 | and I have those arguments

00:52:57.060 | because the cynicism is exhausting, it's destructive,

00:52:59.780 | it's anti-creative,

00:53:02.580 | but, so in their perspective,

00:53:04.620 | as this is what the Russian folks would say,

00:53:06.220 | well, yes, that's our role.

00:53:07.700 | Like, being cynical is being reasonable about the world.

00:53:12.700 | - But it's not, it's completely unreasonable.

00:53:14.540 | It's a complete lie.

00:53:15.980 | - No, I know, but their argument is,

00:53:18.140 | yes, but we're giving you this force,

00:53:21.220 | and it's your job to resist against it.

00:53:23.660 | So it's a test.

00:53:25.060 | - I love the idea that if you're gonna be creative

00:53:28.260 | and innovative, you don't have enough up against you.

00:53:30.300 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:53:31.180 | This is exactly it.

00:53:32.620 | - It's not hard enough already that I wanna be an author,

00:53:34.780 | and now you gotta be like,

00:53:35.620 | well, let me just put some fire ants on top of it.

00:53:38.740 | - So I just wanna separate,

00:53:41.080 | I agree with you that the cynicism is bad and destructive,

00:53:45.580 | but the idea that life is suffering,

00:53:49.160 | and thinking from that as a first principle,

00:53:53.300 | I think there's a lot of beauty

00:53:54.860 | to be discovered through that.

00:53:56.300 | So there's a cynicism, and then there's a horrible message.

00:54:01.300 | - Life is suffering?

00:54:03.980 | - No, not, well, yeah, I mean, Camus.

00:54:06.740 | - Camus doesn't think that.

00:54:09.180 | - Now we're going into definitions of suffering then,

00:54:14.700 | because absurd.

00:54:16.260 | - Life is absurd and life is suffering

00:54:19.120 | are not even close to the same concept.

00:54:21.020 | - Well, then you're just defining the terms differently.

00:54:23.060 | - Well, that's 'cause they're different terms.

00:54:25.020 | - Well, so is love and beauty,

00:54:26.820 | but so let's define, okay.

00:54:28.340 | - Wait, you're telling if your baby's in the crib,

00:54:30.260 | like with a fever, you're like, oh, that's absurd.

00:54:32.140 | No, it's the kid's suffering.

00:54:33.580 | It's not the same.

00:54:34.700 | - So yes, starvation, see,

00:54:36.500 | you've been, for the white pill researching,

00:54:38.300 | a lot of actual specifically defined suffering.

00:54:41.380 | - Sure, but also a lot of wonderful things.

00:54:45.380 | - Right, yeah, yeah.

00:54:46.500 | But the word suffering can encompass

00:54:49.420 | more than just specifically starving,

00:54:52.060 | and it can encompass,

00:54:55.500 | like a lot of the philosophers talk about it,

00:54:58.340 | it encompass like philosophical suffering,

00:55:00.100 | the fact that there is,

00:55:01.460 | if you're not careful, life can appear meaningless.

00:55:05.720 | You can fall into a nihilistic view.

00:55:07.620 | Like it's difficult to have the responsibility

00:55:11.500 | of freedom to act in this world,

00:55:13.640 | because you can fuck up in so many different ways.

00:55:15.900 | And then life is seemingly unfair

00:55:19.900 | in the sense that good things happen

00:55:23.740 | for no apparent reason,

00:55:25.460 | and terrible things happen for no apparent,

00:55:27.980 | like it's the old religious question

00:55:30.220 | of why does evil happen in the world,

00:55:33.060 | or why do terrible things happen in the world?

00:55:35.220 | - There's this book called Six Word Memoirs,

00:55:37.300 | right, where all these different personalities--

00:55:39.540 | - Those are awesome.

00:55:40.380 | - Were you in it?

00:55:41.200 | - No.

00:55:42.040 | - I'm in it with,

00:55:42.880 | so you had to basically write your autobiography

00:55:44.660 | in six words.

00:55:45.500 | - In six words.

00:55:46.320 | - And mine was, good things happen to bad people.

00:55:48.260 | (laughing)

00:55:50.020 | - You see, there you go, there's humor.

00:55:51.540 | - Yes.

00:55:52.380 | - That's your way of dealing with the suffering.

00:55:53.420 | - But I don't think life is inherently,

00:55:54.700 | if life was suffering, we wouldn't be able to have happiness.

00:55:58.540 | - No, out of suffering, happiness is born.

00:56:01.500 | So like it's the ups and downs of life.

00:56:03.940 | And what it means like--

00:56:05.420 | - I don't, I disagree, I don't agree at all

00:56:08.980 | that you need to suffer in order to be happy.

00:56:11.620 | I agree you have to work hard,

00:56:13.300 | but that's not the same thing.

00:56:15.180 | - Yeah, all right, so the way I'm using suffering,

00:56:17.260 | I think a lot of them use suffering

00:56:18.620 | is the way you use like gravity.

00:56:21.260 | So in order for the roller coaster to work,

00:56:23.100 | you need gravity.

00:56:24.620 | There needs to be a force that bring you down.

00:56:27.020 | - Sure.

00:56:27.860 | - In that same way, there's like,

00:56:30.460 | you have to resist the natural pull of nature

00:56:35.180 | that wants to destroy you.

00:56:38.180 | - No, nature wants you to, nature's indifferent,

00:56:43.300 | but we have the capacity 'cause we're blessed with minds

00:56:47.500 | and we're blessed with friends.

00:56:48.900 | - Yeah, to transcend nature.

00:56:50.780 | Yeah, no, I know, but I think it's a word

00:56:54.100 | that captures something about life

00:56:56.660 | that there's no reason to it, that is absurd.

00:57:01.340 | I think to me, oftentimes,

00:57:03.260 | the way I think about the word suffering

00:57:04.820 | is synonymous with absurdity.

00:57:07.980 | - This is not suffering, but this is absurd.

00:57:12.420 | I just noticed there's a box

00:57:14.420 | with a big bow on it next to you.

00:57:17.060 | What's in the box, Michael?

00:57:18.540 | - It's your present, so it's your present for New Year's.

00:57:21.700 | - Can we open it?

00:57:22.540 | - Yeah, sure.

00:57:23.380 | - What's in the box?

00:57:26.420 | - It's gonna take--

00:57:27.260 | - And you brought up suffering.

00:57:28.180 | This is gonna be very unpleasant.

00:57:29.460 | - Here you go.

00:57:30.300 | I packed it myself.

00:57:32.900 | Yeah, there's a whole process in there.

00:57:35.820 | So there's three presents in there.

00:57:38.860 | - Less.

00:57:42.700 | - I'll read the card first.

00:57:43.820 | - Okay.

00:57:44.660 | - Something about opening presents, like tearing stuff,

00:57:53.420 | makes me feel like,

00:57:54.700 | 'cause I just tore the sheet of paper,

00:57:56.700 | so it'll never be the same again.

00:57:59.380 | - It's entropy.

00:58:00.300 | - It's entropy.

00:58:01.140 | Times, you've got a powerful voice.

00:58:03.980 | You've got a powerful voice.

00:58:10.500 | To Lex, thank you.

00:58:12.580 | Maybe I should read the other card first.

00:58:14.780 | You've got a powerful voice.

00:58:15.980 | Listening to what you have to say

00:58:17.540 | always puts me in a hopeful place.

00:58:19.580 | I feel like this is building up to something.

00:58:21.900 | You show me how change can happen

00:58:24.300 | when you face the world with pride, confidence,

00:58:26.740 | and a voice that can't be silenced.

00:58:28.940 | Keep speaking up.

00:58:30.380 | The world is listening.

00:58:31.820 | - Yeah.

00:58:32.660 | - There's no cynicism in this card.

00:58:35.180 | - No, this is New Year's.

00:58:36.900 | This is all about hope and joy.

00:58:38.500 | (laughing)

00:58:39.340 | What?

00:58:40.180 | - To Lex, I'm seeing the binary.

00:58:41.580 | To Lex, thank you for setting the path

00:58:44.340 | for me to move to Austin.

00:58:46.820 | Zero one, zero zero one.

00:58:49.140 | Zero zero one, zero one one, zero one one,

00:58:53.420 | zero zero zero one one, one zero one zero one.

00:58:57.420 | Michael Mells.

00:58:58.260 | - Yeah.

00:58:59.100 | - Brings tears to my eyes.

00:59:02.540 | Thank you, brother.

00:59:03.380 | - My pleasure.

00:59:04.220 | - Let's get to the present.

00:59:08.140 | (laughing)

00:59:09.580 | - Okay.

00:59:10.420 | - It's a PC box.

00:59:13.860 | This is very promising.

00:59:15.100 | It better not be sex toys.

00:59:17.900 | - There's nothing, this is all,

00:59:18.980 | there's nothing inappropriate at all.

00:59:21.380 | Why would it?

00:59:22.460 | - Why would sex toys be inappropriate?

00:59:24.580 | - Because you're--

00:59:25.420 | - That's sex positive.

00:59:26.260 | - Because you're a virgin.

00:59:27.380 | - You gotta bring a knife to a party.

00:59:32.260 | - How clever is it to put it in a PC box?

00:59:38.420 | - Well, I had it, I just got a new PC.

00:59:40.300 | Okay, there's also a can.

00:59:43.380 | - Yeah.

00:59:44.220 | - Open the can first.

00:59:45.180 | - Open the can.

00:59:46.020 | Do you wrap this yourself?

00:59:51.580 | (laughing)

00:59:53.820 | That scared the shit out of me.

00:59:57.740 | (laughing)

00:59:59.980 | Could get back in the can.

01:00:07.020 | - That actually stayed in there.

01:00:08.500 | That's magic.

01:00:09.460 | - Just gotta cut the string.

01:00:10.860 | - No.

01:00:13.940 | (laughing)

01:00:16.180 | You're the most beautiful troll of all.

01:00:22.500 | - I am.

01:00:23.340 | - I love you so much.

01:00:24.180 | This is awesome.

01:00:31.540 | (plastic crinkling)

01:00:34.540 | - Did it not work?

01:00:39.660 | Pick it up.

01:00:40.500 | Oh, it didn't work.

01:00:43.660 | - There's a terrifying springy feeling to this thing.

01:00:51.980 | I don't wanna open this.

01:00:54.100 | - I need to move something aside.

01:00:56.540 | (plastic crinkling)

01:00:59.540 | I hate you so much.

01:01:05.020 | - What?

01:01:05.860 | - What?

01:01:06.700 | Oh, is it the other way?

01:01:10.220 | - No, just pick it up.

01:01:11.340 | (laughing)

01:01:20.820 | (plastic crinkling)

01:01:23.820 | - I can't believe I fell for that.

01:01:31.340 | Thank you so much.

01:01:32.220 | Wrenches are my favorite.

01:01:35.660 | I can't believe I fell for that.

01:01:37.660 | - Okay.

01:01:39.020 | - And there's box number three.

01:01:40.500 | - It's like a matryoshka.

01:01:42.100 | - I can't believe that worked.

01:01:43.220 | - Yeah.

01:01:44.060 | I wanted the box to open all these gears to fall out,

01:01:48.460 | but you can't get any.

01:01:49.300 | - You can't get them, yeah.

01:01:50.620 | - Does that really grind your...

01:01:52.460 | - You know what grinding is?

01:01:54.580 | - Why am I scared?

01:01:58.740 | Okay.

01:02:00.940 | There's another box.

01:02:09.460 | This leads to my death.

01:02:15.500 | - No, no, there's a story behind it.

01:02:20.420 | (laughing)

01:02:21.260 | - I can't believe that worked.

01:02:22.980 | Oh God, that's so good.

01:02:24.340 | All right.

01:02:25.180 | - All right, no springs, no weapons.

01:02:29.700 | - No wrenches.

01:02:30.540 | Okay, so let me tell you the story behind that toy.

01:02:40.940 | - Tonka robots that turn into vehicles.

01:02:46.340 | - So when I was a kid,

01:02:49.140 | you had Transformers,

01:02:51.380 | but for us poor people,

01:02:53.460 | you had GoBots, right?

01:02:55.580 | So the GoBots,

01:02:56.860 | they were four main characters for the good guys.

01:02:58.780 | It was Leader One, Smallfoot Turbo, and Scooter.

01:03:02.460 | And what was annoying is when you had the action figures,

01:03:06.060 | you couldn't find the ones that were on the TV show.

01:03:09.180 | And I was a big GoBots fan as a kid.

01:03:11.620 | And I went once to the Toys R Us

01:03:13.740 | in Caesars Bay in Brooklyn with my grandfather.

01:03:16.380 | My grandfather was always very lucky,

01:03:17.900 | like just good things happened to him every so often.

01:03:20.700 | And I went there, I remember very vividly,

01:03:22.900 | they must've just unpacked,

01:03:24.620 | they just loaded the shelves.

01:03:26.140 | And how they had the shelving,

01:03:27.340 | it would be like a grid.

01:03:28.580 | You'd have like, it was like one, two, three, four, five,

01:03:31.420 | five rows and like five by five.

01:03:35.220 | And I remember it was like two up.

01:03:36.940 | And then you have to do,

01:03:38.020 | you have to sit by the side and kind of sort through them.

01:03:40.940 | And with the GoBots,

01:03:41.780 | each package had a picture of the different figures.

01:03:43.780 | So the packaging wasn't uniform.

01:03:45.460 | And they just had Scooter there.

01:03:47.220 | She was just sitting there.

01:03:48.260 | And I was like, holy crap.

01:03:49.580 | So that feeling when you're a kid

01:03:53.980 | and you find that just sitting on the shelf--

01:03:56.660 | - Scooter's right there.

01:03:57.500 | - It's just, it was such this--

01:03:58.340 | - Wait, is this that Scooter?

01:03:59.900 | - No, I have it though.

01:04:01.100 | But that one is for you.

01:04:02.500 | I thought if you want to put it next to your other robots--

01:04:04.740 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Open it up.

01:04:05.780 | - I can open it up? - Yeah, yeah, it's for you.

01:04:07.460 | And that way, it's that symbol of joy

01:04:10.820 | when you have when you're a kid,

01:04:11.820 | when you find something you really want.

01:04:13.700 | I think it just is really like,

01:04:15.500 | so when people look at it, they'll be like,

01:04:17.540 | don't be hopeless.

01:04:18.940 | - I'll open this carefully later.

01:04:20.500 | - No, do it, just do it.

01:04:21.340 | - Yeah, should I do it now? - Yeah.

01:04:22.380 | - Okay.

01:04:23.220 | - There's no way to open it carefully.

01:04:25.220 | Kids don't open stuff carefully.

01:04:26.380 | You rip that crap open.

01:04:27.900 | - But then you break it and then you cry.

01:04:29.700 | That's what happens when you're a kid.

01:04:31.300 | - I never did that.

01:04:32.220 | - Okay.

01:04:33.660 | Me neither, I never cried.

01:04:35.420 | I never got presents either.

01:04:36.940 | - That is so cool.

01:04:41.060 | - All right, Scooter.

01:04:44.380 | - You symbolize childlike discovery.

01:04:47.820 | - Right?

01:04:48.660 | - The poor man's robot.

01:04:54.740 | - The poor man's transformers.

01:04:57.100 | I think there's instructions on the back

01:05:00.260 | how to transform her.

01:05:01.380 | - To her?

01:05:03.180 | - I only found out as an adult

01:05:04.140 | that it was supposed to be a girl, yeah.

01:05:06.260 | - Wow, this changes everything.

01:05:07.660 | (laughing)

01:05:10.340 | Thank you, Mark.

01:05:11.260 | That's incredible.

01:05:12.580 | - No, give me, here, let me show you.

01:05:13.540 | It looks better when she's transformed.

01:05:15.500 | What?

01:05:17.780 | - No, there's levels to that statement.

01:05:19.980 | - Oh.

01:05:20.820 | - How does it do like this?

01:05:22.100 | Let me see if I remember how to do it.

01:05:24.180 | 'Cause I had this as a kid.

01:05:26.180 | - Arms out.

01:05:27.100 | - The thing is, these are easy to break, I remember.

01:05:32.540 | Is it like this?

01:05:33.780 | - No, oh, the front comes out.

01:05:38.020 | - Oh, let me see this.

01:05:39.980 | Oh, this comes up, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:41.980 | - Yep, so that's that.

01:05:43.380 | The arms go.

01:05:45.700 | - I'm having visions of like baby Michael.

01:05:48.900 | - I can't do it.

01:05:50.780 | Okay, I can't do it.

01:05:51.980 | I can't figure it out.

01:05:52.940 | - Wow, you're right.

01:05:54.020 | She looks so much better transformed.

01:05:56.860 | Oh.

01:05:57.700 | All right.

01:06:00.500 | I'm gonna follow the instructions in a bit.

01:06:02.500 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:06:03.660 | - I'll leave this failed project of yours.

01:06:06.260 | Oh, there's a wheel out.

01:06:09.500 | - Well, I don't like this in between form.

01:06:12.060 | - Well, this is how it's gonna be.

01:06:15.820 | - Okay.

01:06:17.340 | - Because we're gonna be accepting of the transformation.

01:06:20.380 | That takes time.

01:06:21.620 | - Okay.

01:06:22.980 | - I got, I saw this.

01:06:27.420 | - Oh, it's this.

01:06:30.100 | - Little thing when I was walking on Congress

01:06:31.980 | and it says resist.

01:06:33.540 | It's a bracelet.

01:06:34.380 | It made me think of you.

01:06:35.340 | The reason I got it is 'cause there's two bracelets.

01:06:38.500 | So one said lucky fuck and the other one said resist.

01:06:43.500 | Now I first saw resist and I'm like,

01:06:45.740 | and then I saw the lucky fuck

01:06:47.220 | and I realized I'm a lucky fuck to find a relevant.

01:06:51.060 | It makes me think of you.

01:06:53.980 | - This is very nice.

01:06:54.940 | - Resist the powerful.

01:06:56.700 | - That's true.

01:06:57.540 | I saw this somewhere.

01:07:00.980 | Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:04.980 | This has to do with, in terms of resist,

01:07:09.500 | you often bring up the book Machiavellians by James Burnham.

01:07:13.740 | And so I was looking through,

01:07:17.540 | I was reading different parts of it.

01:07:19.020 | It's a tricky read.

01:07:20.460 | It's a little bit, but there is a ebook,

01:07:24.620 | Kindle version now that I've been working through.

01:07:27.660 | I think there's an actual audio book too, anyway.

01:07:29.660 | - Yeah, I just bought some.

01:07:31.140 | The Machiavellians is James Burnham's analysis

01:07:34.300 | of the four thinkers that he regards as the Machiavellians.

01:07:38.100 | It was Gaetano Mosco, Vilfredo Pareto, George Sorrell,

01:07:42.020 | and I'm blanking on the Mosco, Pareto, Sorrell,

01:07:47.020 | and George Michel.

01:07:49.860 | And I just got Pareto's autograph in the mail this week.

01:07:52.940 | - So he talks about freedom and liberty.

01:07:58.500 | This is an interesting line

01:08:02.500 | that I'd like to get your opinion on

01:08:04.300 | in terms of resist and in terms of liberty.

01:08:06.500 | There's no one force, it goes, quote,

01:08:09.100 | there's no one force, no group, and no class

01:08:11.620 | that is the preserver of liberty.

01:08:13.780 | Liberty is preserved by those

01:08:15.540 | who are against the existing chief power.

01:08:18.280 | Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces

01:08:23.100 | are as trivial in relation to entrenched power

01:08:26.220 | as the old court jesters.

01:08:28.860 | So, I mean, the question here is,

01:08:31.140 | can liberty, are you comfortable with that definition

01:08:36.140 | or that view of liberty, of freedom,

01:08:39.700 | that at its highest ideal is expressed

01:08:42.660 | through the resistance to the powerful

01:08:44.660 | as opposed to existing in its own?

01:08:46.300 | - I think his point, broadly speaking, which I agree with,

01:08:50.740 | is the only thing that can work

01:08:53.460 | to mitigate power is other power.

01:08:56.820 | That it's, talk is cheap

01:09:01.820 | and persuasion has very limited efficacy.

01:09:05.660 | It's like if there's a burglar, right,

01:09:08.740 | and one person will give you a speech about property rights

01:09:11.740 | and you shouldn't be in this person's house

01:09:13.500 | and the other person has a gun, you know,

01:09:15.980 | it's clear which is gonna be more persuasive.

01:09:18.920 | - Yeah, but can't you just be free

01:09:22.300 | without the struggle, without this conflict?

01:09:25.740 | I mean, what I'm uncomfortable with this view

01:09:29.020 | is how closely it links freedom and conflict.

01:09:34.020 | Like, why does this world have to have conflict

01:09:38.500 | for you to be free?

01:09:39.620 | Can't, I mean, and part of it is just emphasis.

01:09:42.660 | - Well, you weren't just saying suffering

01:09:43.820 | is what leads to joy?

01:09:44.860 | - See, and now you're in agreement.

01:09:48.020 | Thank you, I just did that

01:09:49.620 | just so you can come around and agree.

01:09:51.420 | I win, next topic.

01:09:54.100 | (laughing)

01:09:56.340 | Wow, I'm playing 3D chess here.

01:09:59.980 | Okay, this is New Year's.

01:10:04.920 | This is now December 31st.

01:10:08.140 | I think that's how it works, but in 1973.

01:10:10.660 | - Okay.

01:10:11.660 | - We recorded this before you were born.

01:10:13.660 | Oh no, years after you were born, 60.

01:10:17.100 | You look great for 60, early 60s or?

01:10:22.100 | - Sure. - Okay.

01:10:24.180 | What five things, let's say, or moments in 2021

01:10:29.180 | are you grateful for?

01:10:31.180 | Or people, just, I don't know, things, moments,

01:10:35.380 | beautiful experiences, profound essences of the year.

01:10:40.380 | Like looking back, what are the cool things?

01:10:43.780 | - Personally or socially?

01:10:45.220 | - Do you exist like in a platonic way socially?

01:10:49.580 | I mean, oh, in your personal life?

01:10:51.860 | - Yeah. - Anything.

01:10:52.780 | You're both, you're now Michael Malice.

01:10:56.660 | You exist as a social entity and a personal human being

01:11:00.500 | and all of it, the whole thing.

01:11:02.180 | Like what stands out to you about 2021?

01:11:05.220 | - The fact that for the first time in my life,

01:11:07.740 | other than college, I moved to a new city.

01:11:10.380 | That was a very big one and there's no part of me

01:11:13.300 | that regrets it or misses New York.

01:11:15.420 | So that was a very big deal for me.

01:11:17.940 | - What do you, about this move, about Austin itself,

01:11:22.300 | but maybe the move itself, maybe just the act of moving,

01:11:27.300 | what's great about it to you?

01:11:31.220 | - The fact that I had forgotten what it's like

01:11:34.860 | to have a huge social network, which I had in New York,

01:11:38.420 | before people started falling away

01:11:40.300 | and then it really escalated as a result of de Blasio

01:11:43.460 | and the COVID restrictions.

01:11:45.100 | So to have a big crew here is something

01:11:48.380 | that was very validating.

01:11:50.460 | The thing that's also exciting about Austin

01:11:53.780 | is that Austin is not a particularly big town.

01:11:56.340 | It's not a particularly great town,

01:11:57.900 | but everyone here, at least in the circles I travel in,

01:12:00.780 | is kind of a refugee from their towns.

01:12:03.540 | So there is this sense of camaraderie.

01:12:05.500 | There is the sense of we're building something together.

01:12:08.100 | Back in New York, when you meet someone,

01:12:10.500 | it would be like, who is this person?

01:12:11.860 | Why am I talking to them?

01:12:13.300 | Like, are they a normie?

01:12:14.300 | Are they gonna be weird?

01:12:15.740 | And here there's very little of that.

01:12:17.820 | I think there's much more sense of trust with one another

01:12:20.380 | when you meet new people.

01:12:21.380 | So that's something that's really exciting about,

01:12:24.060 | like I've been introducing all my friends to each other

01:12:25.980 | and everyone's been hitting it off like gangbusters.

01:12:28.180 | It's really great.

01:12:29.300 | So I really enjoy that about Austin.

01:12:32.220 | I'm enjoying the weather, the space.

01:12:35.940 | - You read Kerouac, any of his stuff?

01:12:38.140 | - I have, on the road, I read a biography of him.

01:12:41.380 | - I don't know if it was on, I think it was on the road

01:12:43.820 | where he talks about that feeling

01:12:46.780 | when you go into some place, you're leaving a place

01:12:50.820 | and you go in somewhere else

01:12:52.820 | and the place you're leaving disappears behind you

01:12:56.260 | and all the people and all,

01:12:58.140 | like you just think about that life and it's forever gone.

01:13:01.300 | And there's some inkling of that

01:13:03.980 | where you get to realize your almost mortality

01:13:08.900 | because, okay, that's a chapter and there's not many more.

01:13:12.660 | I know it's a beautiful chapter,

01:13:14.580 | but now on to the next chapter.

01:13:16.420 | Is there a melancholy feeling there?

01:13:18.260 | - No, it's the opposite.

01:13:19.100 | I feel like I've been given a new lease on life

01:13:21.380 | 'cause I didn't realize to what extent

01:13:22.660 | there was this subtext of hopelessness in New York

01:13:25.300 | and also people who in New York you don't appreciate

01:13:28.500 | or you appreciate it consciously

01:13:29.740 | but you can't escape it emotionally,

01:13:31.420 | how much the winters get to you psychologically.

01:13:34.900 | It's tough, it gets dark so early, it gets cold,

01:13:37.180 | you can't walk around.

01:13:38.260 | Like that's the thing that's fun about

01:13:39.460 | or what's fun about New York is that

01:13:41.140 | when the weather's warm you can walk for an hour

01:13:42.780 | and just enjoy the sunshine and there's a lot to see and do,

01:13:46.060 | but in the winter you don't have any of that, it's brutal.

01:13:49.020 | And here it's just, so that is something,

01:13:51.600 | there's no melancholy at all.

01:13:54.020 | - Well, that's because there's,

01:13:55.580 | can we say something beautiful about New York?

01:13:58.780 | Not the way it is now, but the way it--

01:14:01.300 | - I could go on for days about how great New York was.

01:14:04.300 | - What did you learn about human civilization

01:14:06.500 | and just life that was beautiful from New York?

01:14:10.300 | - I learned that there's a lot

01:14:13.620 | of really unique special people out there

01:14:19.260 | who are doing their little part to move the envelope

01:14:22.340 | and make the world a better place.

01:14:24.220 | And that when you have a city

01:14:28.980 | where they're all there together at the same time,

01:14:32.220 | then that really moves the world.

01:14:33.540 | And I'm thinking of Paris in the '20s

01:14:35.620 | and Harlem in the '20s and New York in the '70s

01:14:39.140 | and LA in the late '60s and San Francisco,

01:14:42.300 | especially in late '60s, things like this.

01:14:44.940 | They really punch above Detroit, certainly, at its heyday.

01:14:47.720 | They punch above their weight and just really kind of,

01:14:51.020 | Philadelphia in the 1700s, things really start happening

01:14:55.340 | and that ripples throughout the world.

01:14:57.180 | - You think Austin has a chance to be a Paris in some way?

01:15:01.940 | - Yes, 'cause again, it wasn't all of Paris,

01:15:04.940 | it was the left bank of Paris

01:15:06.580 | and Gertrude Stein and Hemingway

01:15:08.020 | and all of them in a little area.

01:15:09.740 | So when you read these history books, these scenes,

01:15:12.940 | it's like 50 people in a 10-block radius.

01:15:15.780 | These aren't these huge Davos conventions.

01:15:19.200 | - Okay, so the move, the big move.

01:15:23.060 | What else stands out to you?

01:15:25.060 | Again, both personally and socially,

01:15:27.900 | like zooming in and zooming out.

01:15:30.380 | - I did a book with a UFC fighter

01:15:32.620 | and I was making the point,

01:15:34.820 | he was a nine-time world champion,

01:15:36.580 | that I would never be as good at my job as he was at his.

01:15:40.940 | And then when I dropped Anarchist Handbook in May

01:15:43.380 | and it was the top nonfiction book on Amazon

01:15:46.920 | for most of the day, I was like,

01:15:49.180 | oh, I'm the top nonfiction writer in America just for today.

01:15:52.620 | I was like, oh crap, okay, so I guess I was wrong.

01:15:54.980 | That was a major deal.

01:15:56.540 | I was still shocked and delighted.

01:15:58.860 | - By the way, congratulations.

01:16:01.100 | I'm truly happy for you, man.

01:16:03.140 | I'm so proud.

01:16:05.260 | But it's also, I'm proud because these are people

01:16:10.260 | who had points of view and they didn't have it easy

01:16:15.660 | and they fought for what they believed in.

01:16:17.780 | And insofar as I get to rescue them to some extent

01:16:22.660 | from the dustbin of history and say,

01:16:24.220 | these people really mattered

01:16:25.480 | and they really are worth hearing, that I love.

01:16:29.260 | I love stuff like that.

01:16:31.940 | I was talking to a friend of mine, Topher, a year ago.

01:16:35.780 | 'Cause we're in a weird position

01:16:37.980 | with what kind of jobs we have.

01:16:39.740 | So I'd be talking in my live streams

01:16:41.460 | about people like Kandi Darling or Wallace Thurman

01:16:43.900 | and these are not household names at all.

01:16:47.280 | And then I'd be proud of myself

01:16:49.020 | that I'm the one who brings them

01:16:50.540 | to some sort of more prominence.

01:16:53.060 | And then you wanna tell yourself,

01:16:54.420 | well, get over yourself who you think you are,

01:16:55.860 | but no one else is talking about these people or very few.

01:16:59.180 | So to be able to kind of give them

01:17:02.500 | some kind of stature and platform that they deserve,

01:17:04.780 | I think is, I love being able to do that.

01:17:07.300 | - So you have a strong voice yourself

01:17:09.460 | and to sort of join them in,

01:17:11.500 | it's like John Lennon joining in with the Beatles.

01:17:14.800 | It's like a chorus of very different views on anarchism.

01:17:19.800 | It's celebrating the individuals, it's celebrating the idea

01:17:25.480 | and you are, I think will be remembered

01:17:28.480 | as a powerful philosophy yourself,

01:17:31.240 | but like you're almost taking just the humility

01:17:34.960 | of being in a room with powerful minds together

01:17:37.400 | in one book, it's cool.

01:17:38.900 | - Yeah, and that these people mattered

01:17:41.200 | and they had a unique perspective.

01:17:43.980 | And as I said in the introduction to the book,

01:17:45.960 | I remember I was in college and we were studying bioethics

01:17:49.560 | and there was like a graph in the book

01:17:52.440 | and one part says antinomianism,

01:17:54.740 | which was the view that,

01:17:56.000 | and one side said legalism, right?

01:17:57.880 | These two extremes, legalism is what is legal

01:18:01.240 | is defined by the government

01:18:02.560 | or what is moral is defined by the government.

01:18:04.180 | And one said antinomianism,

01:18:06.040 | which is nothing stands above moral law.

01:18:09.320 | And then there was like, well, since no one believes in this,

01:18:11.160 | the answer is something to the other side.

01:18:12.360 | It's like, well, why is it on the charge of no one believe,

01:18:14.240 | if it has a name, someone believes in it.

01:18:16.360 | So anarchism is a word that's bandied about

01:18:20.040 | and in a dismissive way.

01:18:22.120 | And it's like, you don't have to like me

01:18:23.600 | or agree with what I'm saying,

01:18:24.680 | but you can't pretend that they weren't Tolstoy.

01:18:27.160 | You're gonna tell me Tolstoy

01:18:28.080 | doesn't know what he's talking about completely.

01:18:29.480 | He's in there, he was an anarchist.

01:18:31.120 | So it was a big accomplishment.

01:18:35.400 | - It was really cool to get a chance to do the audio book.

01:18:39.440 | You did an incredible thing,

01:18:41.080 | which has got a bunch of really cool people to read,

01:18:44.880 | a lot of interesting, varied people to--

01:18:46.920 | - Yeah, so what I did for the audio book,

01:18:48.520 | which I don't like the idea

01:18:51.080 | that hard work is inherently good

01:18:52.800 | 'cause sometimes being lazy is actually the right choice.

01:18:55.960 | So I'm like, wait a minute,

01:18:56.840 | why am I reading all 23 chapters

01:18:59.100 | when it's 23 different authors?

01:19:00.480 | Does it make sense?

01:19:01.520 | So I hit my Rolodex

01:19:02.680 | and I had different people read different chapters

01:19:05.400 | to make it sound literally

01:19:07.560 | like you have the different voices in the book.

01:19:10.720 | Thank you very much for you did my,

01:19:12.240 | 'cause I was gonna read my chapter,

01:19:13.320 | wait a minute, like all the other authors

01:19:14.640 | are being read by somebody else.

01:19:15.580 | Let's have Lex read mine.

01:19:17.120 | The one chapter I am most moved by

01:19:21.400 | is Lauren Chen, she's a podcaster as well.

01:19:24.760 | She's expecting now,

01:19:26.000 | so we wish nothing but the best for Lauren and Liam

01:19:28.600 | and the Babby.

01:19:30.000 | There's a chapter there

01:19:31.400 | by this guy named Charles Robert Plunkett called "Dynamite"

01:19:34.800 | and he's advocating for making bombs and killing people,

01:19:39.120 | killing the forces of capitalism.

01:19:41.960 | And Emma Goldman was publishing her essay

01:19:45.700 | while she was in lecture tour

01:19:46.640 | and she was just like, why is this in here?

01:19:48.520 | This is just really gonna make us look bad,

01:19:51.200 | so on and so forth.

01:19:52.800 | And when you're dealing with any kind of,

01:19:55.560 | you know, HL Mencken has that quote about

01:19:57.720 | every rational man must at times be tempted

01:20:00.440 | to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag

01:20:03.580 | and begin slitting throats.

01:20:05.400 | So I wanted to talk,

01:20:07.520 | sound like the seductive aspect of violence.

01:20:11.760 | Like that's the problem,

01:20:12.740 | like when you're dealing with terrorism,

01:20:13.960 | when you're dealing with political violence,

01:20:16.220 | to be able to understand how people can fall for this,

01:20:19.920 | how people can be persuaded to think this is a good idea,

01:20:24.120 | that I'm gonna make some dynamite

01:20:25.720 | and throw it into this crowd and kill police officers

01:20:29.480 | and innocent people possibly in service of,

01:20:32.040 | you have to, it's easy to say, oh, they're all crazy,

01:20:35.040 | but they're not, you know,

01:20:36.400 | even most people who are crazy don't do these things.

01:20:40.520 | So to have a woman read that chapter

01:20:43.840 | and I told her kind of read it like a phone sex operator

01:20:47.240 | because I wanted to have that siren song

01:20:49.700 | of like, so you can understand why this calls out

01:20:52.960 | to people who are in the rope,

01:20:54.320 | the people who are like marginalized.

01:20:56.280 | And she did such a superb job with that chapter.

01:20:59.200 | - That's such a beautiful vision.

01:21:02.000 | Yeah, 'cause violence,

01:21:03.320 | that's a violence part of human history

01:21:06.200 | to a degree that it must be seductive.

01:21:11.240 | It must be, there must be a strong pull.

01:21:14.280 | Like it's not insane people.

01:21:17.480 | There's something probably deep within our nature

01:21:19.900 | that craves violence.

01:21:22.060 | And then when there is charismatic leaders

01:21:23.820 | that inspire that and revolution plus violence,

01:21:28.820 | that I could see that being extremely seductive to us.

01:21:33.580 | Like when you're truly suffering in your current situation,

01:21:36.900 | whatever it is, you're being oppressed by governments

01:21:38.660 | or being oppressed by the powerful,

01:21:40.860 | violent revolution is probably there's something

01:21:45.900 | deep within us that longs for that.

01:21:47.600 | - And also this kind of the Jelaine Maxwell

01:21:49.400 | to Jeffrey Epstein, right?

01:21:50.680 | You need that woman to be like, no, no, this is okay, honey.

01:21:54.840 | Come along, it's not a big deal.

01:21:56.800 | Don't listen to what your parents told you.

01:21:58.420 | They're just prudes.

01:21:59.760 | It's a siren song.

01:22:01.240 | - What do you think about Jelaine Maxwell

01:22:04.360 | and the trial and so on?

01:22:06.240 | Again, maybe the interesting story there is

01:22:09.840 | about the coverage of the trial.

01:22:13.840 | So like the story is more complex and interesting

01:22:16.780 | than the actual horrific acts themselves.

01:22:19.900 | So to me, I don't, maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough,

01:22:23.540 | but to me, she's also truly evil.

01:22:27.520 | I don't know where to, maybe you can help me

01:22:30.780 | to figure out who is more evil.

01:22:33.140 | Just like you said, now the person that says,

01:22:37.460 | it's okay, it's okay, that helps the evil doer

01:22:42.020 | or is it the evil doer themselves?

01:22:43.700 | I don't know, but I think she scares me

01:22:46.520 | more than Jeffrey Epstein somehow.

01:22:48.280 | There's people like that in the world too.

01:22:50.980 | - Like a Twitter poll, do you think it's more evil

01:22:52.860 | or less evil to kill someone 'cause you've been paid to do it

01:22:56.020 | and people, the winning answer was more evil

01:23:01.560 | and I said it was less because I think in that case,

01:23:05.820 | you can kind of check out, you could be like,

01:23:07.640 | this isn't my, I'm just doing a job.

01:23:12.240 | I think in a sense, if you have a certain mindset,

01:23:15.960 | like intellectually remove yourself from the situation,

01:23:18.380 | I'm just a conduit.

01:23:19.380 | When you're talking, I haven't been following her case

01:23:23.080 | that that much.

01:23:24.800 | - It's 'cause you mostly watch CNN

01:23:26.280 | and CNN's not covering it.

01:23:27.640 | - Well, I think my broader point would be

01:23:31.280 | people who are untouchable and who know they're untouchable

01:23:37.000 | do much worse things than those of us

01:23:41.440 | who aren't that way can appreciate.

01:23:43.520 | Like I was just talking about on Twitter

01:23:47.120 | about Rosemary Kennedy.

01:23:49.060 | She was one of JFK's sisters.

01:23:51.640 | It's not clear whether she was developmentally disabled

01:23:55.460 | or had like depressive mental illness.

01:23:58.480 | There was something clearly off with her to some capacity

01:24:02.040 | and at age 23, they gave her a lobotomy

01:24:06.920 | and the thing with a lobotomy is you have to be conscious.

01:24:09.400 | You don't, they don't put you under

01:24:10.840 | so you have to be counting backwards

01:24:12.280 | while their scalp is in your brain and they stopped

01:24:14.920 | but they stopped, they did too far.

01:24:18.160 | She became mentally like a two-year-old,

01:24:20.480 | never had bladder control for the rest of her life,

01:24:22.400 | couldn't really talk or walk and when that happened,

01:24:26.080 | they just put her away to some home

01:24:29.440 | and they never mentioned her again

01:24:30.640 | or they didn't tell the brothers or sisters where she went.

01:24:33.440 | The lobotomy was only revealed in 1987

01:24:36.440 | and they pretended, oh, she's in this home for her kids

01:24:40.360 | with special needs and it's just like,

01:24:43.020 | like that to me is very, very scary

01:24:47.560 | that someone could do this to their,

01:24:49.880 | that people, I saw people respond like,

01:24:51.840 | oh, that was cutting edge technology at the time, ha ha

01:24:55.440 | but I'm like, I don't think that that was really done

01:24:59.760 | that frequently or be hearing more about it,

01:25:02.000 | all these botched lobotomies

01:25:03.520 | and my understanding is lobotomies are very hard to,

01:25:07.380 | like they would wanna do them

01:25:10.040 | if someone's like a mass murderer

01:25:11.080 | or like if someone's really bad,

01:25:12.400 | like if the person's left an invalid,

01:25:14.080 | like who cares kind of situation

01:25:16.240 | but when you're dealing with something like this,

01:25:17.720 | like she's not killing people, she's not assaulting people,

01:25:21.880 | she's just difficult

01:25:22.880 | because she's making your vaunted family look bad so--

01:25:27.040 | - So that's, to you, that's, what is that,

01:25:29.240 | like psychopathy or something like that,

01:25:30.800 | like you don't care about,

01:25:32.280 | you just, you do horrific things and you don't really care.

01:25:35.040 | - I can't diagnose Joe Kennedy

01:25:37.360 | but what I would say, like if it's Jelaine Maxwell,

01:25:40.680 | I can't empathize because I don't understand,

01:25:43.840 | first of all, even in a positive sense,

01:25:45.800 | I don't know what it's like to be grooming my son

01:25:48.640 | to be the president and lost the other son in war,

01:25:52.000 | I don't know what that's like,

01:25:53.240 | I don't know what it's like to be so wealthy,

01:25:55.480 | like you have to give Joe Kennedy credit

01:25:57.440 | 'cause a lot of what he was fighting for

01:25:59.260 | was to allow Irish people and Catholic people acceptance

01:26:03.160 | into like high society

01:26:04.960 | and he was up against a lot of pressure with that

01:26:07.200 | and he's like, I'm gonna screw these people,

01:26:09.400 | I'm gonna be recognized

01:26:10.400 | and we're gonna make people recognized,

01:26:12.080 | so somebody said for that,

01:26:13.200 | but I mean, I can't relate to people like him.

01:26:17.260 | - Yeah.

01:26:20.240 | - But I mean, that like, is just terrifying,

01:26:23.360 | like I mean, one of the big reasons I'm an anarchist

01:26:25.920 | is like when you have someone

01:26:28.080 | who has that sense of amount of power over somebody else,

01:26:31.400 | a lot of times they're gonna do bad things

01:26:34.160 | and have no consequences.

01:26:36.440 | - Do you think in a, just like Maxwell case

01:26:39.120 | and Epstein case,

01:26:40.920 | do you think they were trying to blackmail people?

01:26:45.180 | Like trying, what the conspiracy theories kind of describe,

01:26:48.420 | that's probably not too far away from reality,

01:26:52.160 | did they intentionally try to put powerful people

01:26:56.780 | in compromising situations

01:26:58.980 | so that they can basically get more and more power?

01:27:03.160 | - Yeah, I think that was a Vanity Fair piece

01:27:05.020 | that you're referring to or Fortune.

01:27:07.200 | - Oh, sorry, I'm just referring to general concept.

01:27:09.360 | - Oh, so there was an article that broke this down

01:27:11.800 | 'cause this article,

01:27:12.720 | it was either Fortune, Businessweek, Vanity Fair,

01:27:14.360 | I don't remember, a major, major reputable outlet

01:27:16.960 | and they made the report and made the point,

01:27:20.140 | they asked around and they go,

01:27:21.960 | this guy's a billionaire or extremely wealthy at least,

01:27:24.640 | no one I know ever traded with him,

01:27:26.760 | like where is his money coming from?

01:27:27.920 | There's no paper trail.

01:27:29.320 | So they're like, okay, if it's not trading

01:27:33.120 | and trades are public often,

01:27:34.680 | where's his money coming from?

01:27:35.960 | And it's also like, why are all these people

01:27:38.840 | allowing Epstein to be their business manager

01:27:41.640 | when he has no kind of track record to show for it?

01:27:43.760 | So the hypothesis was he would get people

01:27:47.240 | into uncompromising situations with underage girls,

01:27:50.240 | secretly film it and then he would blackmail them accordingly.

01:27:54.920 | - Well, I guess that's the question.

01:27:55.760 | - That would make sense.

01:27:56.720 | - I know it makes sense,

01:27:57.680 | but I also see a lot of evidence

01:27:59.840 | that he's just very charismatic in a room.

01:28:03.860 | And I've also seen, that's how human connections get made,

01:28:08.460 | like business deals get made.

01:28:09.740 | - Yeah, but where's his money coming from?

01:28:12.620 | - Oh, like they, rich people without blackmailing

01:28:16.700 | just like him close, like him as a friend.

01:28:21.700 | - I'm not arguing that, like, okay, I like Jeff Epstein,

01:28:24.580 | make sure you pull that quote.

01:28:25.900 | - Yes.

01:28:26.740 | - I'm a business person, I like Jeff Epstein.

01:28:27.560 | - Michael Malice, I love Jeff.

01:28:29.020 | - Like or love?

01:28:29.860 | - Love, I'm in love with.

01:28:31.100 | - This escalated quickly.

01:28:33.340 | - I'm gonna hand over him to be my money manager

01:28:36.780 | to have 20% of my estate fine.

01:28:38.740 | Where is he making the money for that 20%?

01:28:43.300 | That's the thing that there's no paper trail

01:28:44.820 | of him trading or anything.

01:28:46.140 | So I can understand why.

01:28:46.980 | - Oh, I see, I see.

01:28:47.820 | - Yeah.

01:28:48.960 | - Interesting.

01:28:49.800 | - What were your 2020 favorite moments?

01:28:53.220 | - You mean 2021?

01:28:54.580 | - Yeah, 2021.

01:28:55.420 | - Time flies when you have a kid.

01:28:56.240 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:28:57.080 | - Clearly it's the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.

01:29:00.420 | It just really stands out to me, it's very moving.

01:29:03.020 | This is why I bring it up.

01:29:04.580 | No.

01:29:06.020 | - Moving here.

01:29:07.020 | - So moving here, but for me,

01:29:09.080 | I think we actually didn't cover that with you

01:29:12.540 | and I'd love to get your comment.

01:29:14.180 | 'Cause you said it's for the first time

01:29:16.900 | in your life you moved.

01:29:17.820 | So it's not just about the place you go to,

01:29:21.100 | it's the actual act of moving is also a leap.

01:29:24.540 | - Oh yeah.

01:29:25.380 | - The decision was that I'm going to

01:29:29.900 | give away my salary at MIT.

01:29:31.540 | So stop taking salary, give away the group.

01:29:35.180 | So students, no more research, the grant funding,

01:29:39.020 | and still keep an MIT affiliation

01:29:40.740 | just because I have friends and colleagues there

01:29:42.260 | still doing research, but giving away

01:29:44.140 | really primarily is the source of money.

01:29:46.860 | So no salary and let it go to zero.

01:29:49.660 | Let my bank account go to zero.

01:29:52.060 | And take a leap in San Francisco or elsewhere.

01:29:58.980 | And as COVID broke out and a lot of people

01:30:02.220 | started talking to me about San Francisco,

01:30:04.180 | about the cynicism there.

01:30:05.620 | And I would go there and there was a kind of,

01:30:08.340 | so it's not all the woke stuff and all that kind of things,

01:30:11.980 | which is also a problem.

01:30:13.700 | It's less about dreaming about a big future,

01:30:17.700 | about building a big future,

01:30:19.420 | and more about some kind of identity politic battles

01:30:22.620 | that they're just, you could say some aspect

01:30:25.760 | in the positive light is important,

01:30:27.820 | but in a place like Silicon Valley, to me,

01:30:30.340 | the most important thing is to do big things

01:30:34.260 | and for that to be most of the conversation.

01:30:38.260 | And so that cynicism was there.

01:30:40.820 | And then I went to look at Austin

01:30:42.860 | and Austin was the opposite, it was the optimism.

01:30:45.980 | And you have people like, as I talked to,

01:30:48.700 | Elon was the optimistic about making this

01:30:52.680 | the capital of artificial intelligence

01:30:54.300 | and technology and so on.

01:30:55.740 | And then Mr. Joe Rogan, now just the optimism

01:31:00.740 | about making this the cultural capital of the world,

01:31:03.740 | of, I mean, specifically comedy,

01:31:05.780 | but it just radiates from them, just the excitement.

01:31:09.620 | And I've seen not many people of that nature in my life.

01:31:13.140 | And when I see that in their eyes, that engine,

01:31:15.740 | that fire of wanting to create something special

01:31:18.060 | about the place, first of all, those people rarely fail.

01:31:21.660 | That's first of all.

01:31:22.480 | And second of all, that's-- - It's contagious.

01:31:23.740 | - It's contagious. - Yes, very contagious.

01:31:26.660 | - And so all of that combined, for me,

01:31:29.260 | 2021 was the actual leap of taking the leap,

01:31:33.300 | saying, all right, well, I'm actually going to do this.

01:31:37.580 | So not just giving away the salary,

01:31:39.540 | not giving away all of that, but the whole thing.

01:31:42.620 | That's it, you just move to a place,

01:31:44.980 | there's an empty building, you know,

01:31:48.260 | and you're moving into it, and this is a new life.

01:31:53.540 | And that leap, I don't know, it's a scary leap to take,

01:31:56.780 | because I've taken that leap many times in my life,

01:31:59.700 | and this is where parents and all those kinds of cynicism

01:32:02.820 | is really destructive, because from a cynical perspective,

01:32:07.820 | is I worked at Google, so why leave Google?

01:32:10.980 | There's a very high-paying salary that you can have at Google.

01:32:15.020 | Then at MIT, why leave MIT?

01:32:18.120 | Like, it's MIT.

01:32:19.780 | This is, you've always dreamed about.

01:32:21.760 | Like, why do you get a PhD?

01:32:23.480 | You've loved MIT all your life, why leave MIT?

01:32:26.540 | I mean, this is the same process I've gone through

01:32:28.540 | with a lot of things in life.

01:32:29.740 | Like, you've been saying every single stage,

01:32:32.340 | and you need that, you need friends,

01:32:35.060 | you need support groups, and all those kinds of things

01:32:37.020 | that are extremely important.

01:32:38.340 | But in the end, it's about taking the leap.

01:32:40.700 | And for me, 2021 was this leap.

01:32:43.300 | And to me, one of the most beautiful things

01:32:46.380 | you can do in life is to take those leaps.

01:32:49.260 | - And that's something that I think

01:32:50.720 | is no longer a thing in New York.

01:32:52.140 | There's no sense of hope.

01:32:53.740 | You don't go to New York now.

01:32:55.240 | There's been such an assault,

01:32:57.800 | and intentionally or otherwise, maybe it's inevitable,

01:33:01.580 | they didn't have a choice,

01:33:02.700 | but there's been such an assault on creativity

01:33:04.620 | and small business in New York

01:33:06.420 | that no one, or very few people who are in New York

01:33:09.420 | right now think things are gonna get great soon.

01:33:11.820 | Whereas here, I feel it's, every day

01:33:14.940 | is just something exciting that's gonna happen.

01:33:17.380 | - And that's part of the culture

01:33:18.580 | and how the conversation goes.

01:33:20.100 | It's just in vogue to be cynical

01:33:22.100 | in New York and San Francisco.

01:33:24.820 | I hope it changes 'cause what I love about New York

01:33:27.780 | and what I love about Austin also

01:33:30.340 | is the weirdos, the characters,

01:33:33.380 | just the variety of personalities

01:33:36.980 | that if you just walk around, you get to meet them.

01:33:39.540 | And I think New York still has that,

01:33:41.220 | but it has the extra cynicism on top of it.

01:33:43.340 | That's a negative.

01:33:45.620 | I mean, just becoming friends with Joe,

01:33:48.060 | he inspired me to be nicer to people,

01:33:50.540 | to not take myself seriously, to be humble,

01:33:52.820 | to celebrate friends, not to be competitive.

01:33:58.700 | Like all those things, since I started listening

01:34:02.660 | to his podcast from the very beginning,

01:34:04.380 | it just radiated from the guy.

01:34:06.860 | - The thing that people don't appreciate

01:34:09.100 | is Joe Rogan likes it when you bust his chops.

01:34:13.340 | I mean, a lot of people at that level,

01:34:16.780 | like if it's, "Oh, Mr. Rogan, you're laughing,"

01:34:18.580 | and everything they say, they don't want that.

01:34:20.140 | It's very phony and they feel uncomfortable

01:34:22.940 | 'cause they know that everything they say is hilarious.

01:34:25.060 | I remember I went with him, he was doing a performance here

01:34:28.900 | and I was, yeah, you were there.

01:34:32.260 | And he was doing his set and I'd reached the point now

01:34:35.980 | where I don't think of him as Joe Rogan.

01:34:37.540 | You know, it's just like my buddy's doing standup,

01:34:39.540 | you forget.

01:34:40.380 | And then I looked at the audience and I remember,

01:34:42.380 | I'm like, "Oh, this is like a religious experience

01:34:44.020 | for these people."

01:34:45.140 | But you forget who he is 'cause he doesn't carry himself

01:34:48.260 | like a big shot.

01:34:49.460 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:34:50.300 | And still, I mean, he gets competitive as fuck.

01:34:52.500 | Like I argue with him a lot.

01:34:53.980 | I mean, when I talked to Francis Collins and Pfizer CEO,

01:34:58.060 | you better believe I heard from Joe.

01:34:59.820 | And then we would just get super drunk and argue about it.

01:35:04.180 | So it's, I mean, it's beautiful.

01:35:06.020 | And he gets really passionate.

01:35:08.380 | So it's not like easy to argue with him, but that's great.

01:35:13.820 | - When you don't take it personally, it's fun.

01:35:16.740 | - As you and I discussed,

01:35:17.940 | and I'm sure he wouldn't mind us saying this,

01:35:20.340 | but like that moment when you first get a text

01:35:24.020 | from Joe Rogan and it's some boomer meme,

01:35:26.180 | like I finally felt like I've arrived as a person.

01:35:29.460 | - A boomer meme?

01:35:30.740 | What kind of boomer meme are we talking about?

01:35:32.180 | - Like he just sends some silly meme,

01:35:33.460 | but it's just like, this is the kind of thing

01:35:34.620 | you can imagine someone's uncle posting on Facebook.

01:35:36.620 | It's Joe Rogan texting it to you.

01:35:39.220 | - Yeah.

01:35:40.060 | I mean, for me also with Elon, obviously,

01:35:42.220 | there's a few people.

01:35:43.380 | I'm just saying folks that people know.

01:35:45.900 | Also Jim Keller, who's worked with Elon.

01:35:48.900 | So I've had conversations with them,

01:35:50.720 | 'cause it's just my line of work.

01:35:52.500 | They're realizing that everything is possible in this world.

01:35:56.180 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:35:57.500 | Which is not the Russian mindset.

01:35:59.420 | - Yeah, well, okay.

01:36:00.340 | All right, let's--

01:36:02.500 | - Start with Donald Nudge.

01:36:05.380 | - Start with Donald Nudge.

01:36:07.420 | Yeah, it's what Elon calls first principles thinking,

01:36:10.540 | but really it's just not being limited

01:36:13.700 | by the constraints of the past.

01:36:15.100 | - Yes.

01:36:15.940 | - And so saying like, okay, this is how things

01:36:18.220 | have been done, but can be done much, much better.

01:36:21.020 | And that has to do with manufacture.

01:36:23.340 | How do we do this 10 times cheaper?

01:36:27.600 | Like everyone says it's super expensive,

01:36:31.060 | but does it really need to be?

01:36:32.860 | This is more of a question about manufacture,

01:36:34.620 | about how to build a product,

01:36:36.180 | how to actually have a product that's scaled,

01:36:37.940 | that has an impact.

01:36:39.500 | And just having a very serious engineering,

01:36:42.340 | like to the level of physics,

01:36:45.140 | discussion about building a thing and fucking doing it

01:36:49.340 | and just being around people that did it.

01:36:52.100 | And basically, literally or figuratively said,

01:36:57.100 | fuck you to everybody in the room

01:36:59.940 | that said they can't do it.

01:37:01.860 | And that energy.

01:37:03.180 | So that I've gotten to know Elon a lot better in 2021.

01:37:06.220 | That to me, it's like everything, the whole thing,

01:37:09.300 | that moving here and being surrounded

01:37:11.700 | by that optimistic energy,

01:37:13.660 | and then the individual interactions with people

01:37:16.560 | that refuse to be like brought down by the,

01:37:21.220 | yeah, the cynicism of the world.

01:37:23.300 | The naysayers.

01:37:24.140 | That to me is what I'm gonna remember this year for.

01:37:28.020 | And I hope it like materializes

01:37:31.660 | into something concrete here in Austin.

01:37:34.820 | And I feel it's doing that.

01:37:36.460 | - I really am curious to be a fly on the wall.

01:37:39.780 | I'm sure it'll happen at some point,

01:37:41.020 | watching you and Elon talk to each other.

01:37:43.260 | 'Cause he's even more of a robot than you.

01:37:45.420 | He was on the Babylon Bee podcast,

01:37:48.020 | and I was honored to be able to be in the room

01:37:49.860 | while this was happening.

01:37:51.540 | And with the guys at the Bee do,

01:37:54.380 | at the end of every podcast,

01:37:55.780 | they have like 10 questions.

01:37:57.940 | I don't think this, remember this was one of those.

01:37:59.380 | No, no, this, and they go to Elon,

01:38:01.220 | would you rather be Batman or Iron Man?

01:38:05.220 | 'Cause they're both like multimillionaire industrialists.

01:38:08.020 | And Elon being Elon is like,

01:38:09.740 | well, let's think this through.

01:38:11.980 | There's different kinds of bats.

01:38:12.980 | You've got fruit bats and you've got insect bats.

01:38:15.780 | Why it's called Batman?

01:38:16.620 | Batman makes you fly, right?

01:38:17.940 | Bats can fly.

01:38:18.780 | And I'm just sitting there with the whole,

01:38:20.740 | like dude, just answer the question.

01:38:22.100 | (laughing)

01:38:23.260 | It was so literal.

01:38:24.900 | I was like, damn.

01:38:26.780 | - I guess by this point,

01:38:28.420 | I've released a podcast with him.

01:38:30.380 | That's several hours,

01:38:32.260 | and it's exactly as you would imagine.

01:38:34.980 | - It's exactly as you would imagine.

01:38:37.020 | - There was this, did you watch the movie Her?

01:38:39.980 | - Yes, of course.

01:38:40.820 | - So there's that one scene,

01:38:41.940 | it's when, is it Joaquin,

01:38:43.980 | who's the lead character?

01:38:45.060 | - Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix.

01:38:46.540 | - Yeah, so he's the lead

01:38:47.660 | and he falls in love with Siri basically,

01:38:49.140 | who's played by Scarlett Johansson.

01:38:51.020 | And there's another artificial AI that she's talking to.

01:38:55.060 | And she's like, oh, can I,

01:38:57.180 | permission to go into nonverbal communication

01:38:59.300 | with this professor?

01:39:00.780 | And the guy's like, sure.

01:39:02.620 | And they just start talking to each other in their robot.

01:39:04.820 | And I'm just imagining the two of you

01:39:06.100 | having this mind meld.

01:39:07.940 | - Well, that, so there's both the humor of that,

01:39:11.260 | but also the practical nature

01:39:13.460 | of the kind of conversations you have.

01:39:15.500 | It's so great because it's problem solving mode.

01:39:19.820 | - Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.

01:39:20.900 | - It's so cool. - That is fun.

01:39:21.860 | That is exciting.

01:39:22.700 | - Because like you stop completing sentences.

01:39:25.660 | I actually feel at home

01:39:26.820 | because you don't need to say the full sentences anymore.

01:39:30.140 | You could just like say random words

01:39:32.660 | and you start to understand

01:39:34.140 | what you're talking about.

01:39:35.620 | And then you can have multiple conversations

01:39:37.700 | at the same time and go on these tangents.

01:39:40.300 | One of the biggest problems I have with podcasting,

01:39:42.900 | for me, talking, I have to finish my sentences.

01:39:45.860 | I have to actually finish making a point,

01:39:48.500 | which is a big problem.

01:39:49.740 | 'Cause there's like a listener

01:39:51.100 | that needs to hear the point being finished

01:39:53.260 | as opposed to completing your sentences

01:39:57.260 | inside your own mind.

01:39:59.780 | And like the thing I find is useful to,

01:40:02.420 | Elon does the exact same thing,

01:40:03.940 | is when the line of thinking is no longer useful,

01:40:08.740 | you just ran, you just switched to the next thing.

01:40:11.820 | You just leave that whole thing behind.

01:40:13.620 | You don't need a nice transition.

01:40:14.980 | You don't need any of that.

01:40:16.620 | And also just, it's the first principles thing.

01:40:20.020 | It's like zooming in on the elephant in the room.

01:40:24.820 | I love that.

01:40:25.660 | It's so energizing.

01:40:26.900 | Just that's what I love about engineers.

01:40:29.020 | It's not the maybe most eloquent communication style,

01:40:33.660 | but I love it.

01:40:36.100 | What about you?

01:40:36.940 | So you said moving.

01:40:38.100 | - The book.

01:40:40.140 | - The book.

01:40:41.180 | What else?

01:40:42.020 | And you've been really excited about,

01:40:46.260 | so that's "Anarchist Handbook,"

01:40:48.380 | but you've also been nonstop excited about "White Bill."

01:40:51.700 | That was most of this year.

01:40:53.500 | You've been actually made significant progress.

01:40:55.580 | - Yeah, I'm on page 40 of the second draft.

01:40:58.060 | And it's really kind of funny

01:40:59.220 | 'cause when you're doing your, I think, 10th book,

01:41:02.500 | I lost track already.

01:41:03.540 | The first draft is actually pretty good.

01:41:06.660 | I'm going back and like,

01:41:07.500 | "All right, this is gonna be a whole slog."

01:41:08.740 | I'm like, "Oh, I just have to cut and paste this

01:41:10.060 | "and basically tweak a few words."

01:41:11.740 | So I did a good job with the first draft.

01:41:15.780 | It's also funny when you're writing how,

01:41:18.780 | and I guess this is the mark of a good professional writer.

01:41:24.460 | My personal feelings don't match

01:41:29.860 | how the characters in the book come off.

01:41:32.900 | Like I have a lot of fondness for people

01:41:36.300 | like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman

01:41:38.580 | and their early on in the book,

01:41:40.420 | but they're not good people.

01:41:42.180 | And I'm writing it objectively and whatever,

01:41:44.740 | and I'm reading it, so I'm like,

01:41:45.780 | "They come off much worse than my personal appraisal of them."

01:41:50.780 | So it's kind of interesting as a writer

01:41:53.900 | when you're watching it,

01:41:54.980 | I guess kind of like an attorney, right?

01:41:57.100 | Like you can have a situation

01:41:58.580 | where you as an attorney,

01:41:59.900 | you have a lot of fondness for your client,

01:42:02.660 | but you realize that they probably did this thing,

01:42:04.740 | or you could not, it could be other way.

01:42:06.900 | Like they're innocent,

01:42:07.900 | but it's hard for you to make a good case for them

01:42:10.220 | because the data's not there.

01:42:11.820 | - Can you actually talk about your writing process

01:42:13.900 | in several ways?

01:42:14.740 | So one, your writing process,

01:42:15.740 | but two, by way of advice of how to write.

01:42:18.900 | You've talked about in the past,

01:42:20.220 | like your first draft is these kind of disparate

01:42:24.220 | or more chaotic in that you don't,

01:42:25.740 | in the same way maybe I was saying

01:42:27.380 | in the engineering discussion,

01:42:28.580 | you don't complete the sentences.

01:42:30.180 | It's just thoughts. - Yeah, so the first

01:42:32.940 | like real good writing advice I remember getting

01:42:36.500 | was this book by Peggy Noonan

01:42:38.540 | called "What I Saw at the Revolution."

01:42:40.860 | And she was a Ronald Reagan speechwriter.

01:42:43.100 | She still writes for the Wall Street Journal.

01:42:45.340 | The book I bought was at a used bookstore

01:42:48.420 | in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania when I was in college.

01:42:50.900 | The spine is cocked, I still have it.

01:42:52.620 | It was 99 cents.

01:42:55.140 | And she talked, when you're writing for a president,

01:42:57.500 | this is no joke, especially for a president

01:43:00.020 | who's this great communicator, Reagan.

01:43:02.140 | And you have to be very inspirational,

01:43:05.580 | but also not come off as corny,

01:43:07.100 | which is very hard to do.

01:43:08.860 | And she in the book talks about

01:43:10.260 | how she wrote speeches for him,

01:43:12.100 | how she, I'm paraphrasing her,

01:43:14.540 | and I haven't read her book in a couple of decades,

01:43:17.620 | but basically she would write like a brain dump

01:43:20.180 | and it's just garbage.

01:43:21.180 | And she was like, "That's okay.

01:43:22.020 | "Just get it all out there."

01:43:24.380 | And then there's that expression,

01:43:26.180 | "All writing is editing."

01:43:27.500 | So for the "White Pill" specifically,

01:43:29.780 | this is, I don't know if it's the most ambitious book

01:43:32.660 | I've ever done.

01:43:33.500 | Your reader, I think, is more ambitious

01:43:34.860 | 'cause that's all of North Korea's history

01:43:36.380 | and it's written in somebody else's voice,

01:43:37.620 | not persons of Martian.

01:43:38.860 | - And you, like you mentioned,

01:43:40.980 | had to read a giant number of books.

01:43:42.460 | - Yes, 60 books as research, yeah.

01:43:44.540 | - Well, maybe can we just pause?

01:43:46.060 | Can you say what "White Pill" is about?

01:43:48.700 | - Sure, it's about hope and it's a tale of good and evil.

01:43:52.420 | And I think that's, I don't wanna tip my hand too much.

01:43:55.700 | But people are always like, "How do you think,

01:43:57.740 | "why are you so hopeful?"

01:43:59.100 | And I'm not hopeful on an emotional level.

01:44:00.780 | I'm hopeful because looking at history,

01:44:03.220 | I think there's certain things

01:44:04.620 | that will certainly happen again,

01:44:08.660 | but it's not at all implausible to happen again

01:44:10.540 | and that the good guys will win.

01:44:12.500 | And this is one of those cases.

01:44:14.060 | So, you know, I had, the book took on a life of its own.

01:44:19.060 | It's very different from how I originally conceived it.

01:44:21.660 | I originally conceived it as a kind of retelling

01:44:24.500 | of Camus' philosophy.

01:44:26.700 | Ryan Holiday, who we used to be close friends with,

01:44:29.660 | I haven't talked to him in a while,

01:44:30.580 | he has a whole kind of cottage industry

01:44:32.380 | based on the Stoics of the past.

01:44:34.020 | I'm like, "Okay, can I ask him once,

01:44:35.380 | "can I do this with Camus?"

01:44:36.220 | He said, "Sure."

01:44:37.580 | And then I reread Camus recently

01:44:40.340 | and it wasn't what I had remembered.

01:44:43.340 | - Oh, so can we pause on that?

01:44:44.620 | I apologize to interrupt.

01:44:45.860 | So it's interesting.

01:44:47.280 | So he kind of took ideas from Stoics

01:44:50.380 | and started to kind of use it as a book

01:44:54.940 | that gives you advice about how to live life

01:44:57.020 | from the Stoic perspectives.

01:44:58.500 | And you were thinking,

01:45:01.060 | is there something in existentialism, absurdism,

01:45:04.140 | or something specifically in Camus' thinking?

01:45:07.620 | Or I think you've mentioned the myth of Sisyphus,

01:45:10.700 | specifically like his philosophical work.

01:45:12.860 | - Yeah.

01:45:13.860 | - So you were trying to see, like,

01:45:15.020 | is there, can I resurrect this?

01:45:16.620 | That's actually,

01:45:19.780 | I would think that's an interesting project.

01:45:23.420 | And it's sad to hear that

01:45:25.180 | it didn't materialize in exactly that form

01:45:31.780 | 'cause I thought there would be a lot in that.

01:45:33.820 | - So I had Douglas Murray on my show

01:45:35.540 | and he also made the point,

01:45:36.540 | like, when you go back and read Camus,

01:45:37.860 | there's not that much there.

01:45:39.020 | The myth of Sisyphus is not at all how I remembered it.

01:45:43.500 | The vast bulk of that book is like literary criticism.

01:45:47.020 | So he's talking about Dostoevsky

01:45:48.260 | and all these different people

01:45:49.100 | who are embodiments of the absurd.

01:45:50.420 | But I'm like, there's not much to take from here.

01:45:52.900 | This actual title essay is basically

01:45:55.460 | like a six-chapter essay at the back of the book,

01:45:59.540 | which it's good for what it is,

01:46:02.540 | but there's not that much there to draw.

01:46:04.500 | I'm extremely, he's a great hero of mine.

01:46:07.980 | I think his life is just enormously admirable.

01:46:10.900 | He fought very hard against the Nazi occupation.

01:46:14.460 | His book, "The Plague," which I find unreadable,

01:46:16.780 | is an allegory about Germany conquering France

01:46:20.100 | and so on and so forth.

01:46:20.940 | - Wait a minute.

01:46:22.180 | Why is "The Plague" unreadable?

01:46:23.820 | - It's the kind of book where reading the book

01:46:25.860 | doesn't add anything to the plot.

01:46:27.740 | The plot is a plague comes, sweeps over the town,

01:46:31.620 | destroys a lot of life, and vanishes as quickly as it came.

01:46:34.180 | You don't need to read the book now.

01:46:35.380 | Like, you get the point.

01:46:37.140 | - I deeply disagree with you.

01:46:39.100 | Yes, of course I've read "The Plague."

01:46:41.100 | - To me, I mean, "The Plague" is about the doctor

01:46:43.780 | and it's about love and it's about the different roles

01:46:48.100 | that humans take in a time of tragedy like the plague.

01:46:53.100 | Also, it's an allegory.

01:46:55.580 | So you can start to think about what,

01:46:58.500 | whether it's Nazi Germany, whatever you think that is.

01:47:02.100 | To me, though, that was about love

01:47:03.820 | and about the role, the highest ideal being the doctor

01:47:08.060 | that sacrifices themselves for others

01:47:10.780 | and still has love and hope.

01:47:12.780 | I mean, to me, the way that story is told,

01:47:17.780 | I think, has a lot of meaning.

01:47:19.100 | It's like, to me, you saying that, it's interesting

01:47:22.100 | you say it this way, but to me, it's like saying

01:47:24.620 | Animal Farm doesn't need to be read

01:47:28.700 | because it's an obvious story.

01:47:31.380 | - I don't think there's much plot to "The Plague."

01:47:34.340 | I think Animal Farm has a very long plot

01:47:36.340 | and a complex plot.

01:47:38.740 | - But there's experiences within.

01:47:42.180 | So the situation is set up in plague

01:47:44.100 | and there's experiences that start to reveal a philosophy.

01:47:48.540 | So yeah, it's not very plot-driven.

01:47:51.660 | So I would say you still should read it,

01:47:56.700 | but the plot doesn't, like you didn't give away

01:47:59.740 | anything currently to me.

01:48:01.620 | So some books are just, I mean,

01:48:04.860 | "Ayn Rand" is similar to that in a sense.

01:48:07.860 | Like the plot is not as important

01:48:10.020 | as the behavior of the different people

01:48:12.100 | in that plot.

01:48:12.980 | - I think she's very plot-heavy.

01:48:15.260 | - No, she has plot, but I'm saying

01:48:16.820 | that's not necessarily the important thing.

01:48:19.260 | To me, the behavior of the people is the important thing.

01:48:21.940 | - Sure, but--

01:48:22.780 | - You could like separate it into a bunch of blog posts

01:48:26.420 | and they stand on their own.

01:48:28.060 | I would have to think about that with "Ayn Rand."

01:48:31.300 | She does, through the plot, create a world

01:48:35.020 | where you start to understand

01:48:36.660 | the different values that people have.

01:48:38.580 | But yeah.

01:48:41.780 | But that's what the plot serves.

01:48:43.500 | Yeah, I would have to think.

01:48:46.300 | But in "The Plague," it's the behavior of the people

01:48:48.300 | that's really important.

01:48:49.460 | In the same, I mean, "The Stranger," too.

01:48:52.020 | I mean, these like, I'm trying to scramble here

01:48:57.020 | for books I really appreciate that don't have a plot.

01:48:59.860 | I mean, "Notes from Underground."

01:49:04.860 | So obviously, Dostoevsky has a huge amount of plot

01:49:07.300 | in most of his work.

01:49:09.580 | Herman Hesse has a huge amount of plot.

01:49:11.940 | - Thomas Mann doesn't have the plot.

01:49:13.220 | He's the one who doesn't have plots.

01:49:14.460 | - Thomas Mann.

01:49:15.580 | Would you say Kafka has a plot?

01:49:17.660 | - I think Kafka's very heavy plot-driven.

01:49:20.020 | - Yeah, but I just don't see that, I guess--

01:49:21.820 | - I guess "Metamorphosis" doesn't really have a plot.

01:49:25.100 | - Yeah, but there's like crawling around.

01:49:27.500 | - But it's like a vignette.

01:49:28.340 | It's not really like--

01:49:29.180 | - It's a short, yeah.

01:49:30.940 | "The Hunger Artist," one of my probably favorite

01:49:34.140 | short stories is that kind of a short story.

01:49:35.980 | It's a pretty long short story of Kafka's.

01:49:38.620 | It's really interesting.

01:49:40.300 | It's about a man, I don't know if you read it.

01:49:42.380 | - No, I don't think so.

01:49:44.100 | - It's about a man that is like a freak

01:49:47.780 | in a sense that his skill is that he can fast

01:49:52.460 | for a long time, and then people gather on the cage

01:49:55.180 | and look at him as he fasts.

01:49:57.740 | I don't actually remember if he's in a cage or not.

01:50:00.240 | And eventually, he fasts so long

01:50:03.380 | that people don't even care anymore.

01:50:04.980 | Like, they just leave.

01:50:06.660 | So there's a, it has to do something.

01:50:11.660 | It makes me think about like, don't become,

01:50:15.620 | the way you live, don't become like a freak show,

01:50:19.880 | a circus act.

01:50:21.420 | Like, live for an ideal, live for something

01:50:25.340 | that brings you joy.

01:50:26.540 | - Or don't live for the sake of attention.

01:50:28.260 | - For the sake of attention, that's what you put.

01:50:29.860 | - Yeah, that's, yeah.

01:50:31.500 | - Yeah, anyway, so I rudely interrupted

01:50:34.660 | 'cause you were talking about the plague

01:50:35.980 | and connecting it to the writing process of "White Pill."

01:50:39.220 | - Yeah, well, anyway, so how I was writing this one,

01:50:43.160 | I just had a first draft of notes,

01:50:46.660 | and it's not in chronological order.

01:50:48.900 | It's like, I read certain books as research,

01:50:51.140 | and then I had the pull quotes that was necessary there.

01:50:54.100 | And now I'm basically rearranging everything

01:50:56.700 | and putting it, so the book started as Ryan Holiday's--

01:51:01.160 | - Right. - Sequel to Ryan Holiday

01:51:02.460 | as "Caboo."

01:51:03.300 | The working title would have been "The Point of Tears"

01:51:06.140 | because there's this, Caboo's a great quote maker,

01:51:10.540 | and he has this line about, "Man must live,

01:51:12.420 | "live to the point of tears," which I think is just,

01:51:15.180 | what I love about him is,

01:51:17.980 | Caboo, he always comes off as like he's clenching his teeth.

01:51:22.700 | He's clenching his teeth both in terms of

01:51:25.500 | like barely mitigated rage at injustice,

01:51:29.340 | like when he sees people suffering,

01:51:31.260 | it just really makes him just upset to the core.

01:51:34.900 | But also this sense of not taking life for granted

01:51:39.900 | and kind of just pushing yourself

01:51:43.220 | and pushing the boundaries,

01:51:44.300 | and his point being that life is inherently meaningless,

01:51:48.200 | which gives a great opportunity to impute meaning to it,

01:51:51.300 | to create our own meaning to life.

01:51:53.380 | - So taking the main essay from "Myth of Sisyphus,"

01:51:58.140 | that was the origin story for "The White Pill,"

01:52:00.980 | but then it became something completely different.

01:52:02.780 | - And so then it became,

01:52:04.700 | how are you so optimistic in the face

01:52:06.780 | of everything that's going on in the world?

01:52:08.060 | And I started writing it when COVID started hitting.

01:52:11.180 | And 'cause again, I'm not optimistic

01:52:14.700 | 'cause of some temperament of mine.

01:52:17.180 | I'm optimistic because people talk about how,

01:52:20.540 | oh, if the US didn't exist,

01:52:22.080 | China would just become an empire and take over everything.

01:52:25.860 | Empires are expensive,

01:52:27.780 | and they, like look at the British empire,

01:52:31.500 | look at the Soviet Union.

01:52:33.100 | It's not automatically sustainable.

01:52:35.820 | It costs a lot of things to make sure

01:52:40.300 | when you're geographically all over the world,

01:52:43.960 | literally, to keep everyone in line.

01:52:45.980 | It's not at all like a super villain movie.

01:52:48.780 | Once it happens, it's the happy ending for them.

01:52:51.180 | So yeah, that was the start.

01:52:54.380 | And I'm like, all right, let me tell,

01:52:57.480 | one thing I'm good at is telling stories.

01:53:00.040 | So this is really a--

01:53:01.480 | - So this is narrative plot driven.

01:53:04.240 | - Very, very plot driven.

01:53:06.280 | And also heavily character driven,

01:53:07.680 | but the characters are real.

01:53:09.360 | - Yeah, got it.

01:53:10.920 | So it's interesting to kind of mention,

01:53:14.160 | what does the first draft kind of look like

01:53:17.160 | in terms of what kind of things do you plop down?

01:53:20.560 | - Oh, so it'll be like,

01:53:21.840 | let's suppose I just read some book

01:53:24.040 | called "The Guillotine at Work,"

01:53:25.360 | which was an early book attacking Lenin

01:53:27.920 | from the anarcho-communist perspective.

01:53:30.120 | So it'll just be like all the different quotes,

01:53:31.720 | like a paragraph here, double space,

01:53:33.400 | another paragraph, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.

01:53:37.120 | Whereas for other sections

01:53:38.680 | where I wasn't just using the book as research,

01:53:41.960 | there would be like talking about McKinley getting shot.

01:53:44.800 | Like it's just me writing the narrative

01:53:46.820 | and that I could just pretty much copy paste

01:53:48.760 | into the second draft.

01:53:50.160 | - By way of advice, would you give that as advice?

01:53:54.120 | Is that a good way to do it?

01:53:55.760 | Is that a very peculiar way your brain works?

01:53:57.800 | - No, so this is actually advice

01:53:59.400 | I feel comfortable giving to people who are trying to write.

01:54:02.300 | Because it's just like with the gym, right?

01:54:05.880 | If you did seven sets, seven, excuse me, reps last week,

01:54:09.740 | and you did eight this week,

01:54:11.600 | it's psychologically motivating

01:54:13.000 | 'cause you're going in the right direction

01:54:14.340 | and the human mind extrapolates.

01:54:16.040 | So make sure, tell yourself,

01:54:18.960 | I'm gonna get a page done today or two pages done.

01:54:22.220 | Sit your ass in front of the computer,

01:54:23.360 | you're not allowed to get up until you get those two pages.

01:54:25.720 | It doesn't matter if they look at garbage

01:54:27.640 | because if you have a 300 page first draft and it's crap,

01:54:32.280 | at least you have something to work with

01:54:34.080 | and that's a big number.

01:54:35.640 | So if you're gonna, the thing is,

01:54:37.680 | since the first draft is gonna be crap,

01:54:39.920 | if you're editing as you write,

01:54:41.600 | it's gonna be extremely discouraging.

01:54:43.360 | And it's also trying to drive

01:54:44.880 | and then doing reverse at the same time.

01:54:46.960 | It's a completely nonsensical way to do it.

01:54:49.600 | Get it all out there, don't look it over.

01:54:52.060 | If you have a great line, put it in your phone

01:54:53.720 | and then add it to the draft.

01:54:55.840 | So it'll be a complete slog,

01:54:58.020 | but editing that slog is gonna be a lot easier

01:54:59.940 | than creating it to begin with.

01:55:01.120 | - And when you see those disparate lines

01:55:03.360 | all laid out on the page,

01:55:05.080 | how difficult is it to then start stitching it together?

01:55:08.800 | Do you find that when you look at a list of those things,

01:55:13.040 | the final product will look very different?

01:55:15.720 | - Yes.

01:55:16.560 | - Or will you actually use those lines?

01:55:17.520 | - No, I will use those lines.

01:55:18.800 | Then I have a file called scraps.

01:55:20.800 | So if the line's no longer used, I put it in my scrap pile.

01:55:24.560 | - I'd love to see what's in the scrap pile.

01:55:26.320 | - Okay, yeah, sure.

01:55:27.280 | One of the things I've been pulling scraps

01:55:29.880 | is a lot of times when I was earlier writing,

01:55:32.620 | I would have contemporary references.

01:55:35.400 | And I realized that that's bad

01:55:37.520 | because I want the reader to be in the past as the present.

01:55:42.520 | So if you're talking about, let's say 1901,

01:55:45.600 | and then you're referring to Obama,

01:55:46.800 | that screws people up, so I had to pull all those.

01:55:50.440 | - Okay, let's talk about some New Year's resolutions.

01:55:53.560 | You ever do New Year's resolutions?

01:55:55.200 | You ever think like that?

01:55:56.120 | Like take a special day in the year

01:55:59.240 | to think about how you're gonna try to change yourself?

01:56:02.560 | Do you try to transform yourself

01:56:03.960 | every single day when you wake up?

01:56:06.080 | - Well, I usually have several projects

01:56:07.760 | I'm working on at once,

01:56:08.880 | so there's always incremental progress on those.

01:56:11.280 | - It's nice to have a deadline.

01:56:13.480 | By the end of 2022, I'll accomplish this.

01:56:18.080 | - Kind of like to hold yourself responsible.

01:56:21.520 | And then you could do that at the beginning of the year

01:56:24.000 | to think about that.

01:56:25.480 | Both philosophically, like what kind of big,

01:56:29.040 | not projects that you can quantify,

01:56:31.320 | but more like how can I change my life?

01:56:33.280 | Or like I mentioned, take the leap of different kinds.

01:56:35.960 | And then there's specific things like finish the book.

01:56:38.840 | - Years ago, and I think on some level,

01:56:44.560 | you much less than me,

01:56:45.520 | but I think you're increasing in this direction.

01:56:48.280 | I realized I have to learn how to be a surfer

01:56:51.680 | and not a driver.

01:56:53.240 | Because when you reach the level we're at in our careers

01:56:56.560 | or in our place in the culture,

01:56:59.080 | a lot of this is luck.

01:57:00.720 | And a lot of this is just like,

01:57:03.640 | I'm just going along for the ride

01:57:05.120 | because it's kind of counterintuitive.

01:57:07.680 | Like the success of the "Anarchist Handbook"

01:57:10.320 | was counterintuitive.

01:57:12.600 | So all I'm hoping for is getting the book done.

01:57:17.600 | I am extremely proud of it.

01:57:21.800 | And just also building a,

01:57:28.520 | we had Thanksgiving together at Blair's house,

01:57:31.360 | just building a great upcoming community here in Austin,

01:57:36.320 | which has happened very quickly.

01:57:39.560 | There's gonna be another surprise here.

01:57:43.480 | There's a girl named Natalie Sidesurf

01:57:46.520 | and she makes these ultra realistic cakes.

01:57:48.880 | Like if you've seen those cakes online

01:57:50.320 | where it looks like you're cutting a puppy,

01:57:51.680 | like she makes those kinds of things.

01:57:52.960 | So she's here.

01:57:54.720 | - In Austin? - Yeah.

01:57:55.800 | - Oh cool, like moved permanently?

01:57:57.680 | - I think she's been here for a while.

01:57:58.840 | I've never, I haven't met her yet,

01:58:00.040 | but I just kind of chatted with her.

01:58:01.840 | So there's just so many scenes happening here

01:58:08.200 | that are overlapping.

01:58:10.120 | - So in general, finish the book,

01:58:12.280 | keep building your community.

01:58:14.400 | I mean, you've already been doing that here.

01:58:16.040 | You've been here several months.

01:58:17.400 | - I've been making a point to introduce people to each other

01:58:19.640 | and everyone's just really getting along very well.

01:58:22.240 | - That's great.

01:58:23.440 | And the book is the focus.

01:58:25.200 | - The book is the focus.

01:58:26.560 | - What about the podcast that you're doing?

01:58:28.600 | You're welcome.

01:58:29.680 | - Yeah, I mean, I enjoy it and it's been growing a lot.

01:58:33.560 | I finally got a new computer,

01:58:36.440 | which my friend Jay installed

01:58:37.800 | so I can have a decent camera 'cause of my old,

01:58:40.440 | this is my mindset as a hoarder.

01:58:43.920 | Like I was more interested in spending money

01:58:47.360 | on a Pareto autograph than actually getting a computer

01:58:49.680 | that's from the 20th century.

01:58:52.640 | But I'm such an old school person in that in my head,

01:59:00.840 | podcasts are like so ephemeral.

01:59:06.000 | There's some episodes of my podcast I'm really proud of.

01:59:08.640 | And there's a lot of friendships I've made as a result of it

01:59:10.800 | that really mean a lot to me, no question.

01:59:12.480 | It's made my life a profoundly better place.

01:59:14.640 | But it's not the same as that book on the shelf,

01:59:17.360 | especially when the book is something

01:59:19.480 | that I think matters much more than I do.

01:59:22.880 | - Yeah, there's a permanence to it.

01:59:24.200 | There's a seriousness to laying down the words on paper,

01:59:28.360 | like really giving them thought.

01:59:30.240 | - Yeah.

01:59:31.640 | - That's true.

01:59:32.480 | But I'm a huge fan of podcasts.

01:59:35.440 | - You don't listen to podcasts much,

01:59:36.880 | which is fascinating to--

01:59:39.040 | - Yeah, like at all.

01:59:40.120 | And I don't know how mine is so successful.

01:59:42.320 | It's just, yeah.

01:59:43.960 | - Yeah, yeah, I just love the medium.

01:59:48.720 | I love the authenticity, the realness of the medium.

01:59:52.840 | That's really nice.

01:59:53.800 | - I just understood for the, it's starting to click

01:59:57.480 | because like my pal Blair White, she was just done Rogan.

02:00:01.480 | And the first 10 minutes, I was so angry.

02:00:06.120 | Like I was sitting there like yelling at the screen

02:00:08.680 | 'cause Joe and Blair, you would think

02:00:11.920 | that they're gonna start talking about Trump

02:00:14.440 | or trans issues or moving to Austin.

02:00:16.920 | They start talking about shark reproduction

02:00:19.120 | and neither of these dumbasses knew anything about it.

02:00:21.560 | And I know a lot about it.

02:00:22.920 | And they're like, "Oh, is it like this?

02:00:23.760 | "Oh, do the sharks lay eggs?"

02:00:25.080 | And I'm sitting there, I'm like,

02:00:25.920 | "If you don't know why you're talking about this, why?

02:00:29.040 | "Why are you talking?"

02:00:30.120 | And I could also see why people like these shows

02:00:33.240 | 'cause they feel like they're friends with the people,

02:00:34.680 | like they're sitting in the room.

02:00:35.600 | 'Cause I felt like I was in that room

02:00:36.720 | and I wanted to shake both of them.

02:00:38.720 | - You're in the room.

02:00:39.760 | So now what about transforming yourself?

02:00:42.200 | Any resolutions like that?

02:00:43.880 | - Oh, I'm doing a slight bulk now.

02:00:46.520 | So I'm almost at my heaviest weight ever,

02:00:48.680 | but I couldn't go to the gym this week

02:00:50.480 | 'cause I was a little under weather.

02:00:52.760 | So that's a little frustrating, but yeah.

02:00:55.080 | - So are we gonna get some more modeling pics?

02:00:57.760 | What are we, what's, is there goals there?

02:01:00.280 | - So my heaviest, I'm 4'8".

02:01:03.360 | The heaviest I've ever been was when,

02:01:05.760 | and this is when I was like--

02:01:06.800 | - He's exaggerating, he's not that tall.

02:01:09.000 | - That's the metric.

02:01:10.000 | - Oh, sorry, are you talking about your height?

02:01:12.640 | - Yeah. - 4'8"?

02:01:13.480 | Okay. - Yeah.

02:01:14.520 | - Barely 4'6".

02:01:15.560 | - So the heaviest I've ever been

02:01:17.840 | when I was like really high body fat,

02:01:19.680 | 'cause I was just, 'cause I learned,

02:01:21.240 | 'cause I couldn't gain weight as a kid.

02:01:22.600 | So when I figured out I could actually gain weight,

02:01:24.200 | I like, I was 164.5.

02:01:27.440 | So I wanna hit 165 and then see, take it from there.

02:01:31.480 | I have a friend who's been helping me,

02:01:33.400 | my buddy Trey Goff, and this kid's stronger,

02:01:35.920 | his, Jake, his username on Instagram is stronger,

02:01:38.920 | both the number five instead of the letter.

02:01:40.840 | - Nice. - The number five

02:01:41.920 | instead of the letter S, but he does,

02:01:43.760 | I've never, it looks like it's Photoshop,

02:01:46.800 | like your brain can't process it.

02:01:48.240 | You know the human flag?

02:01:49.440 | - No, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.

02:01:51.920 | - But he does human flag pushups.

02:01:53.880 | - Wow. - So he is

02:01:56.640 | horizontal, parallel to the ground, right?

02:01:58.760 | He's holding himself up like a flag,

02:02:00.880 | but he could also do this while,

02:02:03.400 | so he's moving parallel to the earth,

02:02:05.680 | side to side while, it's just crazy.

02:02:08.520 | - That's really difficult.

02:02:09.480 | So you're interested in that kind of stuff?

02:02:11.360 | - No, but I'm saying like he's been helping me out,

02:02:13.640 | so like the guy knows what he's doing.

02:02:15.000 | He's just a really impressive kid.

02:02:16.320 | - I love that kind of stuff, like body weight stuff.

02:02:18.400 | So my primary mode of working out

02:02:22.320 | is very like the, you ever seen Leon,

02:02:24.520 | like the professional that, with Natalie Portman,

02:02:27.080 | that movie? - Yeah.

02:02:28.360 | - It's like I have a pull-up thing,

02:02:30.320 | I just do pushups and pull-ups.

02:02:31.960 | It's very like I'm just missing the milk.

02:02:35.040 | I like working out at home just like that.

02:02:37.200 | And the body weight stuff, you can go so much with it,

02:02:40.560 | and it's super functional for everything else you live in,

02:02:43.520 | for life, for living life well.

02:02:46.440 | - I'm on the other hand, I don't care about functionality.

02:02:48.480 | The thing that really bothers me,

02:02:49.800 | like I go, I know Joe's thinking of opening up a gym,

02:02:52.800 | like a private gym.

02:02:54.080 | There's only like one power cage here at the Gold's I go to.

02:02:58.440 | I don't know what source, if there's only one,

02:02:59.720 | or that sometimes people aren't using it.

02:03:01.360 | I'm like, no one's doing deadlifts in here, no one, just me.

02:03:04.880 | It's Gold's.

02:03:06.440 | - By the way, I don't wanna say where,

02:03:08.520 | I'll tell you off, but there's a few really

02:03:12.520 | like ghetto places around Austin

02:03:14.800 | that are just like these shitty gyms

02:03:17.960 | that nobody wants to go to, but they have a rack,

02:03:20.040 | they have like, if you wanna lift heavy,

02:03:21.880 | that kind of stuff. - But I lay 24 hours,

02:03:23.480 | that's the thing, Gold's.

02:03:24.840 | - Oh, but there are 24 hours in the following way.

02:03:29.040 | There's a code, and you just go in,

02:03:32.520 | and you turn on the lights, and then you work out.

02:03:35.120 | - I don't wanna meet people.

02:03:36.920 | - Exactly, well-- - That's just not true.

02:03:39.240 | - Sometimes there's people and they're great.

02:03:40.760 | - Yeah, and I've had fans come up to me at Gold's

02:03:43.000 | and they've all been cool, except, except.

02:03:47.320 | - Oh no. - Except.

02:03:49.000 | - Except.

02:03:50.560 | - If I have my headphones on,

02:03:53.440 | and I'm doing deadlifts, I don't need you to come over,

02:03:57.520 | tap my ear, and start giving me critiques about my form.

02:04:02.040 | - This actually happened? - Yes.

02:04:03.680 | I'm still angry about it.

02:04:06.520 | I'm pulling my 150 in peace, thank you.

02:04:10.860 | - Yeah, people are hilarious.

02:04:13.240 | I was recently in, actually the wildest day ever in my life.

02:04:18.240 | So many things happened in a row.

02:04:21.680 | So I went to a wedding in LA.

02:04:24.560 | - Andrew? - Andrew Schultz's.

02:04:26.680 | And with Whitney Cummings and Joe Rogan

02:04:31.400 | and a bunch of other fascinating people.

02:04:33.560 | It's just, speaking of weirdos, there's the comedian.

02:04:37.280 | The reason I find the comedians awesome,

02:04:39.440 | one, they're authentic, they're just cool people.

02:04:42.680 | But they're also just weird.

02:04:44.200 | You don't become a comedian for not being fucked up

02:04:47.520 | in all kinds of different interesting ways.

02:04:49.440 | Anyway, so there's the wedding.

02:04:51.320 | I'm, you know me, it was only carbs at the wedding.

02:04:55.400 | So I didn't eat, I didn't eat for a long time.

02:04:57.600 | So I was already fasted 20 hours, 25 hours.

02:05:02.600 | So this whole story of everything that happens

02:05:06.400 | is Lex 40 hours fasted with Joe Rogan

02:05:11.400 | drinking a lot of whiskey.

02:05:13.640 | And so-- - You were drinking too?

02:05:15.280 | - Oh, heavy. - On 40, oh my God,

02:05:17.200 | that's crazy. - So it is calories.

02:05:18.800 | That was my only source of calories, the whiskey.

02:05:21.120 | And I, so I didn't trust myself with carbs when I'm drunk.

02:05:24.760 | I just don't enjoy it 'cause I'll forget.

02:05:27.600 | And I just enjoy eating a strict, healthy diet

02:05:30.680 | when I'm drunk because I'd rather eat more food

02:05:34.720 | that's healthy versus not.

02:05:37.040 | And so anyway, so then we went to Vegas together.

02:05:41.200 | And then just kept doing wild thing after,

02:05:44.640 | another wild thing.

02:05:46.280 | Rogan opened up for Wendy Cummings.

02:05:48.600 | He just showed up at a random party

02:05:50.180 | that he wasn't invited and he did a thing.

02:05:52.600 | He almost started a fight 'cause some guys said,

02:05:55.240 | stopped, yelled at him, said,

02:05:57.040 | "Stop spreading misinformation."

02:05:58.880 | And then we run into David Goggins.

02:06:03.920 | This is my first time meeting David Goggins.

02:06:05.800 | I've talked to David a lot over the phone

02:06:08.600 | and we were supposed to do a thing together.

02:06:10.160 | And this is me trashed out of my mind

02:06:12.920 | meeting David for the first time

02:06:14.440 | with his incredible wife, Rogan's wife was there.

02:06:17.440 | By the way, Joe Rogan's wife, David's wife,

02:06:21.040 | made me realize that I really wanna be married

02:06:24.460 | because they're not,

02:06:27.300 | they make their partners better.

02:06:32.060 | - Yeah.

02:06:32.900 | - Like that, I was,

02:06:34.480 | there's a certain aspect of marriage

02:06:38.020 | that I'm afraid of that like your partner

02:06:40.100 | takes you away from life.

02:06:41.540 | You don't get to experience life as much.

02:06:43.580 | But this was like, they were enriching them.

02:06:47.260 | I don't know, it was like

02:06:48.500 | the world's most powerful support group, it was cool.

02:06:50.940 | Anyway, so then of course, Drunk Lex

02:06:53.120 | is challenges Goggins to pushups.

02:06:56.460 | - I saw this on Instagram with everyone.

02:06:58.020 | - So we're in the middle of the--

02:06:59.340 | - And you in your suit.

02:07:00.620 | - In the suit, in the middle of casino,

02:07:02.620 | there's a crowd gathering.

02:07:04.100 | It's Joe Rogan, me and David Goggins,

02:07:08.040 | and I'm just doing pushups with them.

02:07:09.600 | And Rogan is like commentating and yelling and screaming.

02:07:12.560 | It was surreal.

02:07:13.680 | And just going on to the next thing and next thing

02:07:16.340 | and next thing like this.

02:07:17.380 | And then drove all the way from Vegas back to LA

02:07:22.380 | with Joe and Whitney and his wife.

02:07:25.900 | And it was like, what is this?

02:07:28.280 | And all of it is done in 24 hours.

02:07:30.940 | The one valuable lesson is don't fast and drink

02:07:34.500 | like excessively.

02:07:37.260 | So I've learned that.

02:07:38.760 | Because what happens is liquor hits your mind, my mind,

02:07:44.060 | sorry, I'll speak about my particular mind.

02:07:46.220 | Like the intellectual part of my brain

02:07:49.860 | got hit really hard, really fast.

02:07:51.960 | So I was not able to even more so than usual

02:07:54.780 | stitch together sentences.

02:07:56.180 | I understood everyone really well.

02:07:58.660 | - So like major and immigrant again.

02:08:00.460 | (speaking in foreign language)

02:08:03.780 | - So like meeting David, I wanna say so many things.

02:08:06.300 | He's so inspiring to me, right?

02:08:08.120 | But all I said was like, hello.

02:08:12.660 | And I remember opening my mouth to try to say more

02:08:16.180 | and I was like, and then I would just close my mouth

02:08:19.740 | and not be able to say anymore.

02:08:21.300 | - This is one of the reasons I don't drink ever.

02:08:24.180 | - It removes certain barriers.

02:08:28.580 | Like it allows you to maybe have fun

02:08:30.780 | that you wouldn't otherwise.

02:08:31.860 | But yeah, definitely for a person who values

02:08:34.580 | intellectual eloquence.

02:08:37.700 | - But I also hate being hungover.

02:08:39.420 | - The hungover part, yeah.

02:08:40.260 | - That's the worst.

02:08:41.100 | - Yeah, it's the worst.

02:08:41.940 | - I feel like I did this to myself.

02:08:43.900 | - Yeah.

02:08:45.340 | But it also teaches me that this too shall pass

02:08:48.700 | because I've been hungover and I've quit drinking

02:08:51.420 | so many times in my life that it makes you realize

02:08:55.000 | that all the unpleasant feelings,

02:08:57.340 | all you have to do is just wait it out and be fine.

02:08:59.500 | - It took me a long time to realize that that expression

02:09:02.860 | means the other thing.

02:09:04.540 | - What's the other thing?

02:09:05.380 | - If things are going great, this too shall pass.

02:09:08.100 | - Yeah.

02:09:08.940 | - I always thought about it. - Life of suffering.

02:09:09.900 | - No, I always thought about it as being more like,

02:09:11.540 | don't worry if things are bad, it'll pass.

02:09:12.900 | It's also like if something's going great,

02:09:15.100 | it's not gonna be this way forever.

02:09:17.100 | - It's like Bukowski said, "Love is a fog

02:09:19.300 | "that fades with the first daylight of reality."

02:09:22.020 | (inhales and exhales)

02:09:25.220 | Do you think love can last?

02:09:26.780 | - Oh yeah, we're gonna win.

02:09:28.180 | - Who's we?

02:09:30.140 | - The good guys.

02:09:30.980 | - Didn't Hitler also think he was the good guys?

02:09:34.900 | - He was wrong.

02:09:36.100 | (laughs)

02:09:36.940 | 'Cause you know why?

02:09:37.980 | - Why?

02:09:38.820 | - He didn't win.

02:09:39.720 | (laughs)

02:09:41.680 | - So you think it's permanent.

02:09:43.160 | So this one time, the good guy's winning, it'll last.

02:09:47.240 | It won't pass.

02:09:48.720 | 'Cause I think all of it passes, unfortunately.

02:09:53.080 | - I think we're going to win and win big

02:09:56.920 | in the not so distant future.

02:09:58.480 | - Do you have specific things in mind or no?

02:10:02.280 | Or just a sense about human civilization,

02:10:04.800 | about society waking up?

02:10:07.520 | - I don't know about waking up,

02:10:08.760 | but I think the increased understanding

02:10:13.760 | on all sides of the political spectrum

02:10:17.260 | that corporate America and corporate news outlets

02:10:22.200 | are self-motivated actors,

02:10:25.120 | and those motivations are often inimical

02:10:28.520 | to what others would regard as desirable,

02:10:31.600 | is something that I think is happening

02:10:33.120 | with increasing frequency.

02:10:36.160 | - So what do you think about the political landscape

02:10:39.640 | in general?

02:10:40.480 | You had a great conversation with Glenn Beck,

02:10:42.320 | and he said that he talked to Trump

02:10:45.240 | and believes that Donald Trump is definitely running in 2024

02:10:49.800 | or very likely running in 2024.

02:10:52.240 | I think he said he thinks he'll have a good chance

02:10:54.360 | of winning, or I don't remember that.

02:10:57.940 | But the fact that he was running was a surprise to you.

02:11:01.120 | Do you think Donald Trump would be running in 2024?

02:11:05.120 | - Given that Glenn Beck has a much better relationship

02:11:10.120 | with Trump than I do, to put it mildly,

02:11:12.760 | if Glenn Beck is certain this is gonna happen,

02:11:14.920 | I would defer to Glenn Beck's judgment.

02:11:17.120 | - Do you think he has a chance of winning?

02:11:19.400 | Do you think he'll win?

02:11:20.360 | - Anyone in a binary political system

02:11:22.440 | who's the nominee has a chance.

02:11:23.640 | Like whoever the Republican, Democrat, has a chance.

02:11:26.300 | I think also it's a lot easier to vote for someone

02:11:29.780 | that you have voted for in the past.

02:11:31.920 | So that's why incumbents have a big advantage.

02:11:33.840 | It's not that psychological barrier to cover.

02:11:36.040 | I think it's also useful for Trump

02:11:38.600 | that he's banished from social media

02:11:40.640 | because then he doesn't have to have the responsibility

02:11:44.400 | of governing and all the costs of that.

02:11:47.680 | 'Cause no matter what decisions you make while governing,

02:11:49.600 | some people aren't gonna like that.

02:11:51.600 | So he gets to kind of be above the radar

02:11:54.560 | or below the radar rather to some extent.

02:11:57.360 | I don't think it's at all a given

02:11:59.440 | that he would get the nomination.

02:12:01.800 | When I say the good guys are gonna win,

02:12:03.360 | I certainly don't mean Donald Trump.

02:12:05.640 | I don't think victory is gonna come

02:12:08.080 | as a consequence of Washington.

02:12:10.120 | - Do you wanna make America great again?

02:12:12.760 | - I think America is great.

02:12:14.120 | - This is my failed attempt at humor.

02:12:18.920 | - One of many.

02:12:20.320 | There are also hats that Giuliani and Jim Jeffords wore

02:12:23.080 | that said, people can look this up,

02:12:25.280 | they said, 'cause they were south of the border,

02:12:27.560 | make Mexico great again also.

02:12:30.280 | (laughing)

02:12:33.520 | Like that to me, it was like,

02:12:36.240 | it's like, mwah.

02:12:37.880 | Like just the syntax there.

02:12:39.440 | - Okay.

02:12:42.040 | So you don't even think he might get the nomination.

02:12:47.520 | If you, who else might?

02:12:48.880 | - I mean, if you had asked two years, three years out

02:12:53.640 | who the nominee in 2020 would be,

02:12:55.320 | Donald Trump wasn't even, or 2016 rather,

02:12:58.080 | wasn't even on the radar screen.

02:12:59.720 | So we have a long way to go.

02:13:01.960 | - Even two years is a long way to go?

02:13:04.080 | - Yeah.

02:13:05.520 | Especially 'cause we're coming out of COVID,

02:13:07.680 | there might be some governor

02:13:08.880 | who becomes a rockstar for some reason.

02:13:10.520 | Maybe someone's gonna have some moment,

02:13:11.920 | some congressman might have some big moment

02:13:14.600 | where they're screaming at somebody

02:13:16.480 | and all of a sudden they become a rockstar

02:13:18.720 | in the Republican Party.

02:13:19.960 | - Or could be one of the celebrities we don't think about.

02:13:23.840 | I mean, Donald Trump is essentially

02:13:26.000 | not a political figure before he ran.

02:13:28.440 | So it could be any of the famous,

02:13:31.000 | right-leaning celebrities.

02:13:36.000 | I don't even know which way McConaughey leans.

02:13:40.600 | - No, I think he's a lefty,

02:13:41.760 | or he was gonna run as a Democrat, but he's not running.

02:13:44.040 | - But people like that just might step into the ring.

02:13:46.800 | - Yeah, I don't think they'd have that much of a chance

02:13:48.800 | 'cause I think the Republican Party, there's an asymmetry.

02:13:52.080 | They'd be much more skeptical of an actor

02:13:54.640 | than the Democrats would be

02:13:55.600 | because they would regard that actor as coming

02:13:57.960 | as a kind of mentoring candidate or whatever.

02:14:00.840 | - Right, but there's other kinds of celebrities,

02:14:02.520 | like Jocko could run as a Republican.

02:14:04.920 | - That's a good example, yeah, yeah.

02:14:06.600 | - That would be interesting, so a military person.

02:14:08.960 | - Right, yeah.

02:14:10.400 | But already, for example, Dr. Oz is thinking

02:14:13.360 | of running for, is going to run for the Senate

02:14:15.600 | in Pennsylvania, and there's already been a lot of research,

02:14:19.000 | people slamming him on Twitter and social media

02:14:22.200 | for past positions he's taken.

02:14:26.880 | DeSantis is the figure of the moment,

02:14:28.560 | but Scott Walker was the figure of the moment

02:14:30.200 | in the 2016 cycle, and he didn't even make it to Iowa.

02:14:32.900 | - Yeah, and I wonder what role does COVID play

02:14:37.960 | in all of this in terms of,

02:14:40.140 | I'm mostly optimistic and hopeful about the world.

02:14:46.360 | When I look at the world, I'm excited by most things.

02:14:49.560 | I've been a little bit or a lot disappointed

02:14:52.500 | by the lack of great leadership in a time of trouble

02:14:56.400 | 'cause to me, one of the great things

02:15:00.440 | about a difficult time is it brings out the great leaders.

02:15:05.440 | Again, it's the up and down things,

02:15:09.200 | like you don't wanna ask for war,

02:15:10.640 | you don't wanna ask for pandemics,

02:15:13.320 | but when they happen, it's a great opportunity

02:15:17.500 | for the human spirit to flourish,

02:15:19.080 | and the fact that it didn't quite in the way

02:15:21.200 | that I hoped it would is disappointing.

02:15:24.360 | I think there's still time, too,

02:15:25.680 | 'cause people are trying to figure out what to do

02:15:29.320 | as we emerge from the fog.

02:15:30.800 | So I'm excited by 2020.

02:15:34.640 | For somebody said this dark, cynical thing,

02:15:38.240 | I hope this is not true, but that there was some doubt

02:15:42.000 | about the results of the election in 2020

02:15:45.400 | that in 2024, both sides,

02:15:48.640 | it'll just start becoming standard

02:15:52.360 | to completely reject the results of an election

02:15:57.040 | no matter who wins.

02:15:58.160 | - Well, that's my perspective.

02:15:59.560 | I don't regard elections as legitimate,

02:16:02.320 | and I see what you're saying, not in the terms of,

02:16:04.480 | basically, the process itself was illegitimate.

02:16:06.200 | - Yes, so there's cheating or something.

02:16:08.080 | - Yeah, but I think that that's pretty much a given.

02:16:12.040 | It has been a given.

02:16:13.600 | The Republicans often say,

02:16:14.760 | "Oh, they got all these illegals to vote,"

02:16:17.440 | or the Democrats will say,

02:16:18.280 | "The voting machines were hacked,"

02:16:19.440 | or the media, so on and so forth,

02:16:22.080 | because despite all the people

02:16:24.320 | flapping their gums about democracy,

02:16:26.400 | they only like democracy

02:16:27.520 | when it gives them the results that they want.

02:16:29.820 | - Can I ask you about something else that Glenn Beck said

02:16:32.760 | that I thought was really interesting?

02:16:34.280 | I agree with him very much on this.

02:16:36.160 | And it was refreshing to hear,

02:16:38.880 | although he kind of made it,

02:16:41.000 | turned it into a point about why Trump is great or whatever,

02:16:44.000 | but the point was the following,

02:16:46.680 | which is he doesn't want to talk to anybody

02:16:49.800 | who can't say at least one nice thing about everyone.

02:16:54.400 | So if you don't like Donald Trump,

02:16:56.920 | if you don't like Joe Biden,

02:16:58.400 | you should still be able to say one nice thing,

02:17:01.520 | like legitimate, nice,

02:17:03.200 | not just a dismissive nice thing,

02:17:05.000 | but legitimately say what is one nice thing they did

02:17:07.800 | or who they are as a person,

02:17:12.040 | not like saying Donald Trump is funny sometimes,

02:17:17.000 | like no, legitimate, where you really mean it.

02:17:19.680 | And it's been really troubling to me

02:17:21.560 | how few people are able to do that about political figures.

02:17:25.080 | I had a lot of people,

02:17:26.480 | I think I tweeted something like this

02:17:29.960 | leading up to the election,

02:17:31.560 | saying like, you should be able to say something nice

02:17:34.760 | about both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

02:17:37.640 | And I've had old friends,

02:17:41.160 | I don't want to say specific, I guess, to call them out,

02:17:45.840 | but several people,

02:17:48.200 | one in particular wrote me this long,

02:17:50.720 | several page email.

02:17:52.320 | - It was Sam?

02:17:53.400 | - It was Sam Harris.

02:17:54.240 | - Was it Sam Harris?

02:17:55.080 | - Sam Harris.

02:17:56.440 | No.

02:17:57.280 | I have a lot of conversations with Sam Harris now

02:18:01.960 | and Joe on both sides.

02:18:03.320 | It's like the devil and the angel on both my,

02:18:06.000 | I don't know which one is which, but.

02:18:07.480 | - Joe's the angel.

02:18:08.960 | - They're both devils.

02:18:10.240 | - Different kinds of devils, yeah, that's fair.

02:18:13.280 | - And they said, how could you say,

02:18:15.800 | how could you even consider

02:18:17.720 | that there's something positive about Donald Trump?

02:18:21.480 | - Yeah, here's an easy one.

02:18:23.480 | He has three wives with three kids with each,

02:18:26.800 | but the kids get along.

02:18:28.600 | I think that's really commendable

02:18:30.400 | that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and Barron

02:18:33.240 | can all get along with each other,

02:18:34.720 | given the circumstances.

02:18:35.760 | I think that speaks to someone as a father, Ivanka.

02:18:39.800 | - So on the family level,

02:18:41.160 | and I see the same thing with actually,

02:18:44.200 | one of the reasons I always found Joe Biden fascinating

02:18:48.240 | is he's had a lot of really traumatic things

02:18:51.320 | happen in his life.

02:18:52.160 | - Yeah.

02:18:53.160 | - And--

02:18:54.040 | - If I shit my pants in front of the Pope,

02:18:55.560 | I'd be traumatized too.

02:18:56.720 | - I'm talking to a master troll

02:19:00.600 | about something sensitive and beautiful

02:19:02.720 | that is a man suffering with a loss.

02:19:05.120 | - I kinda know what he feels like right now.

02:19:06.520 | I'm pretending to the Pope.

02:19:07.920 | This chair's ruined.

02:19:10.780 | Sorry, Elon.

02:19:13.400 | (laughing)

02:19:14.480 | You're gonna have to sit in it.

02:19:16.440 | - Well, why does this chair feel

02:19:18.440 | kinda like I'm sitting in a swamp?

02:19:20.600 | Look, you have stuff to show, can't you afford a chair?

02:19:25.600 | I'll send you one for Tesla.

02:19:26.880 | - That's a pretty good Elon impression.

02:19:28.800 | But yeah, I mean, like one criticism I tell Joe,

02:19:33.620 | Rogan is like, he has trouble finding

02:19:38.360 | one positive thing to say about Joe Biden, for example.

02:19:41.160 | And I just don't like that.

02:19:43.680 | I think, I mean, I'm a big believer

02:19:47.440 | in the shit sandwich, sticking on topics.

02:19:50.320 | - Here's an easy one.

02:19:51.160 | I think Joe Biden clearly is a very amiable person.

02:19:54.460 | - What's amiable?

02:19:55.300 | - He gets along with people.

02:19:56.520 | Like it seems really clear that maybe before president,

02:19:59.080 | 'cause it's different when you're the president,

02:20:00.520 | but that he could call a lot of these Republican senators,

02:20:02.320 | get them on the phone and have a conversation with them.

02:20:04.600 | - Yeah, and it's not some kind of manipulation.

02:20:06.480 | - To some extent it is, 'cause they're all politicians.

02:20:08.400 | But he clearly seemed to be able to get,

02:20:11.440 | wasn't like an ideologue.

02:20:13.800 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:20:14.720 | I mean, but there's, I mean, maybe I'm a sucker

02:20:17.460 | for that kind of thing, but the blue collar thing,

02:20:19.940 | like riding the train, you know,

02:20:22.040 | there's ways to connect with people and not,

02:20:24.920 | it's seeing them as equals,

02:20:26.960 | no matter where their walks of life are.

02:20:28.800 | And I love it when presidents do that.

02:20:30.700 | To some degree, because of the wealth

02:20:35.360 | under which Donald Trump existed

02:20:37.080 | for a lot of his recent life,

02:20:38.840 | he's less able to do that quite naturally.

02:20:41.640 | Maybe sometimes Obama wasn't quite able to do that.

02:20:45.280 | - That's a good question.

02:20:46.240 | Who's more blue collar, Trump or Biden?

02:20:48.320 | And you can easily make the case for both, I think.

02:20:51.200 | - You could.

02:20:52.120 | Not the blue collar, but like literally be able to fit in

02:20:56.080 | at a bar, at a local bar and just like--

02:20:59.000 | - I can see both of them.

02:21:00.040 | - Yeah, you're right.

02:21:00.880 | I could see both of them.

02:21:01.720 | - Yeah.

02:21:02.540 | - In fact, Obama doesn't quite.

02:21:04.000 | - No, 'cause he's got that Ivy League thing.

02:21:05.400 | - Yeah, the Ivy League thing.

02:21:06.240 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:21:07.080 | - Yeah, you're right.

02:21:09.680 | Somehow Donald Trump can too.

02:21:12.200 | - No, easily, yeah.

02:21:13.040 | You can see him having a beer with the guys

02:21:14.080 | and yelling at the screen,

02:21:15.040 | "This is bullshit, change the channel."

02:21:18.240 | - Yeah, I hope people do that.

02:21:20.240 | I think that's one of the most unpleasant things to me

02:21:23.680 | is they're not able to empathize with the fact

02:21:28.680 | that half the country voted for another person.

02:21:31.000 | - Well, it's also then, it's just a bad strategy.

02:21:33.040 | If you can't figure out why half the country

02:21:35.640 | is voting for someone you guard as like a demon,

02:21:37.920 | well then how are you gonna supposed to fight this demon?

02:21:40.040 | Like when I did your reader, the North Korea book,

02:21:42.800 | it's like don't you wanna understand

02:21:45.520 | how these people get to where they got?

02:21:48.760 | And no one's saying that he's a good person,

02:21:50.280 | but like there's a logic to their,

02:21:51.800 | there's a method to their madness.

02:21:53.880 | - You've talked about national divorce a few times.

02:21:56.360 | I've seen a couple of videos recently

02:21:58.560 | where you're responding to articles.

02:22:00.960 | It's kinda cool.

02:22:02.680 | Can you talk about this idea of national divorce

02:22:07.440 | and as it stands today, arguing for it maybe?

02:22:11.120 | And if you could, just out of curiosity

02:22:14.040 | in the context of those videos,

02:22:15.280 | if you can steal men and argument against national divorce.

02:22:18.600 | - So I was the first one to kind of bring this issue

02:22:21.280 | back into the national conversation.

02:22:24.800 | I wrote a piece for Observer in 2016.

02:22:27.200 | Then Jesse Kelly had a piece a few months after that.

02:22:29.920 | Dave Urboy just recently did a piece

02:22:32.320 | on his dub stack earlier this year.

02:22:34.680 | And it's become enough of a mainstreamed idea

02:22:38.200 | that paleontology outlets like the National Review

02:22:41.280 | have felt the need to respond to them.

02:22:43.120 | So the point being that America has had

02:22:45.560 | at least two cultures since the beginning

02:22:47.880 | and that there's absolutely no reason,

02:22:49.760 | and these cultures in recent years,

02:22:51.680 | and this was in 2016, not mentioned 2021,

02:22:54.400 | have been increasingly antagonistic toward one another

02:22:56.680 | and have even lost the ability to communicate.

02:23:00.120 | They're using language in different ways

02:23:02.040 | and that there's no reason for this to continue any further.

02:23:05.360 | And just, you live your life, we'll live ours

02:23:10.280 | and goodbye and good luck, no ill will.

02:23:14.640 | Now there's lots of arguments against them.

02:23:18.040 | Some of those are completely, I think, stupid.

02:23:21.480 | The stupidest one is, well, that's what China wants.

02:23:24.840 | - Okay, well, I mean, I'm not going to live my life saying,

02:23:28.400 | I'm just gonna do the opposite of whatever China wants.

02:23:30.400 | That's not logic, that's not a good pathway.

02:23:34.200 | Now, I'm not saying they're right or wrong,

02:23:35.560 | but that's not a reason one way or another.

02:23:37.240 | - Yeah, you bring up China or Russia,

02:23:39.480 | that's exactly what China or Russia want.

02:23:42.200 | But sort of the strong way to phrase that

02:23:44.720 | is it weakens America,

02:23:52.680 | like not just the one America,

02:23:55.280 | but like both sides in the divorce will be much weaker

02:24:00.280 | than they individually were together.

02:24:03.640 | So in that sense,

02:24:04.680 | not that you have to care about what China thinks,

02:24:07.380 | but like it's a big step backwards.

02:24:11.000 | - Yes, I think in the short term,

02:24:12.400 | it is absolutely a big step backwards in terms of power.

02:24:14.920 | There's no question that,

02:24:16.960 | when you're trying to reestablish a society,

02:24:18.680 | there's gonna be a transition period.

02:24:20.200 | That transition period is gonna be costly.

02:24:22.320 | Each side starts wondering, wait a minute,

02:24:24.240 | why are we still doing this?

02:24:25.340 | We don't have to anymore, we're not living with them,

02:24:26.760 | so on and so forth.

02:24:27.720 | So that's gonna be a concern.

02:24:29.820 | I don't think that the whole point of America

02:24:34.360 | or even a large primary point of America

02:24:36.680 | is to be a bulwark against Chinese power.

02:24:38.960 | And there's gonna be very few people on earth,

02:24:42.040 | given my work, who have as much informed hatred

02:24:45.960 | and contempt for the Chinese government as I do.

02:24:49.160 | Certainly, next to the North Korean people,

02:24:52.760 | maybe the people from Eritrea,

02:24:55.240 | there's few populations who I'm as worried about

02:24:57.640 | as the people under the rule of the Red Chinese.

02:25:00.600 | My steel man argument is,

02:25:02.680 | there's no way this is gonna be peaceful,

02:25:04.560 | 'cause the lines don't separate out well.

02:25:06.680 | So all you're doing is basically just replicating the problem

02:25:10.300 | because the disparity isn't between,

02:25:12.760 | like during the Civil War, North and South,

02:25:14.120 | it's like it's between New York City and upstate New York,

02:25:16.880 | or between Chicago, downstate Chicago.

02:25:19.480 | Once you get outside of LA and Sacramento,

02:25:22.880 | California in many ways is like Kentucky,

02:25:24.920 | so it doesn't make sense.

02:25:26.600 | So that's a strong argument.

02:25:28.040 | - Yeah, I mean, you've talked about

02:25:29.080 | that this process will be painful.

02:25:30.960 | - Right. - It can be painful.

02:25:31.800 | And we're not just talking about violence.

02:25:33.880 | It could be just, even the Civil War,

02:25:36.120 | you could divide it somewhat cleanly.

02:25:39.480 | Obviously, the kind of national divorce

02:25:41.620 | you might be suggesting is,

02:25:43.800 | yeah, people are living amongst each other,

02:25:45.360 | so you have to literally move, it's complicated.

02:25:47.880 | - Right, so that is a very strong argument.

02:25:50.520 | I think a cogent argument against it.

02:25:52.940 | Two is, it's not just China,

02:25:55.680 | it's that there's a lot of bad actors in the world

02:25:59.400 | who maybe aren't, like China certainly wants

02:26:01.400 | to carry itself and have an appearance,

02:26:03.240 | at least on the world stage, as civilized and a leader.

02:26:07.400 | There's lots of smaller countries who, without us,

02:26:11.140 | are gonna feel comfortable doing some very nefarious things.

02:26:14.300 | And they're not gonna be scared of us anymore.

02:26:16.720 | And so that would be a bigger concern

02:26:18.400 | in many regards than China.

02:26:19.480 | So I think that's a reasonable one.

02:26:21.860 | It could be that both sides, if this happens,

02:26:25.140 | are gonna, instead of work toward better,

02:26:28.160 | the things that make each side bad would get worse.

02:26:30.400 | - Yeah. - And that's, you know,

02:26:31.840 | having those push towards the malevolent extremes

02:26:34.520 | is, I think, a very legitimate criticism and a concern.

02:26:37.600 | - I mean, as you suggested,

02:26:38.880 | there's no guarantee that won't happen.

02:26:40.600 | - Correct, at all.

02:26:42.200 | Also, there's, I think, a reasonable argument to make

02:26:45.580 | is like, are you, America, just as a symbol

02:26:48.820 | and the myth of America, and I don't mean myth

02:26:50.460 | in a negative sense, do you really wanna throw

02:26:53.500 | that in the garbage?

02:26:54.700 | Like, this meant a lot for a lot of people

02:26:56.540 | and a lot for history.

02:26:57.760 | You're just gonna be like, okay, good work.

02:27:00.820 | We're done here, let's shut the lights.

02:27:02.360 | So that's, I think, a reasonable argument.

02:27:04.240 | So those are the biggest ones, I would say.

02:27:09.420 | - And still, what is the case for national divorce

02:27:13.320 | and along which lines?

02:27:15.640 | So like, in making the case for national divorce,

02:27:20.480 | if it is desired, based on which kind of ideas

02:27:24.140 | do you think it should be carried through?

02:27:26.920 | - Honestly, I don't know that it has to be idea-based.

02:27:29.480 | Like, for example, when Czechoslovakia broke up,

02:27:32.480 | when Norway and Sweden broke up,

02:27:35.200 | it wasn't really ideological.

02:27:37.680 | It was more cultural.

02:27:39.080 | So I always say divorce into two,

02:27:43.320 | but it would probably make more sense if it was like five,

02:27:46.360 | because the Northeast, certainly New England,

02:27:48.560 | has their own culture.

02:27:50.100 | The West Coast has their own kind of culture.

02:27:53.040 | I don't know, the thing is, any kind of persuasion technique,

02:27:58.040 | right, like, once people are start,

02:28:00.820 | there's a difference between convincing someone

02:28:03.880 | they wanna buy a car and what features you want.

02:28:06.420 | So if you're at the point where we're arguing

02:28:07.760 | about the features, then my work here is done.

02:28:09.320 | Do you know what I mean?

02:28:10.160 | Like, I don't have a dog in the fight

02:28:11.740 | in terms of what it's gonna look like.

02:28:12.960 | I just wanna get to the point

02:28:13.960 | where you're at least considering seriously

02:28:16.040 | the idea of breaking up America.

02:28:18.040 | And I would encourage people to go look at my article

02:28:19.840 | to see, which I'm sure the arguments still hold,

02:28:23.260 | five years later.

02:28:24.320 | - Do you have a kind of vision of which of the two

02:28:28.040 | or which of the five,

02:28:29.560 | like, do you actually have specific cultures or ideas?

02:28:35.120 | - I'll tell you exactly.

02:28:36.040 | - Yeah.

02:28:36.880 | - If I told you and everyone listening in 2014,

02:28:40.840 | we weren't that long ago, it was not long ago,

02:28:43.360 | which of these two things is more likely to happen?

02:28:46.200 | 2014, Texas secedes or declares secession from America

02:28:51.200 | or Donald Trump gets elected president.

02:28:53.560 | Everyone's voting for Texas, like, in terms of prediction,

02:28:56.960 | which is more likely?

02:28:58.120 | So we had this one.

02:28:59.360 | So it's not at all unlikely we're gonna have this one.

02:29:01.480 | - I don't know if that logic carries through.

02:29:03.280 | You can't just say, "Here's an unlikely thing that happened,

02:29:07.440 | "therefore, anything can happen."

02:29:09.480 | - I just said, you just earlier said anything

02:29:10.920 | could happen this episode, didn't you?

02:29:12.560 | - Life is suffering.

02:29:13.440 | I wasn't listening to half the things you're saying.

02:29:15.600 | - You said it!

02:29:16.680 | - I said it?

02:29:17.500 | - Yes, you said anything could happen.

02:29:18.480 | - I'm definitely not, I'm like you with podcasts.

02:29:20.960 | I do a podcast, but I don't listen to it.

02:29:23.320 | - It's 'cause I'm talking.

02:29:24.160 | - That's why I'm talking.

02:29:25.320 | Okay, so yeah, yeah, it can happen, but in which,

02:29:29.120 | I guess I'm asking, would you stay in Texas?

02:29:31.000 | - 100%.

02:29:32.240 | - And I'd run for office probably, it'd be fun.

02:29:34.440 | I'm gonna be the first president of Texas.

02:29:38.040 | - I attended a debate between Yoram Brooks

02:29:41.240 | and Yoram Hazony, I don't know if you know who that is.

02:29:45.760 | - The nationalist guy.

02:29:46.880 | - Yeah, he wrote a book called "The Virtue of Nationalism."

02:29:49.440 | - Yeah, I read that book.

02:29:50.760 | - And they actually did a podcast with him,

02:29:52.440 | they did a debate.

02:29:54.080 | - Oh, they both run here?

02:29:55.440 | Okay.

02:29:56.280 | - It was quite interesting,

02:29:57.560 | and I tried to wear my Michael Malice hat.

02:30:01.360 | - You're wearing it now.

02:30:02.560 | You borrowed that from me.

02:30:05.000 | - Yeah.

02:30:05.840 | It's funny, 'cause the metaphor applies

02:30:10.200 | across all of these level of collectivism.

02:30:14.200 | So he was arguing for the power of nation,

02:30:17.800 | so he would be arguing against national divorce,

02:30:20.660 | but he was also arguing for marriage,

02:30:23.440 | the power of actual marriage between individuals.

02:30:26.680 | I think he's a conservative,

02:30:30.160 | and what I really like about him is

02:30:32.200 | there's a clear philosophy of conservatism

02:30:35.160 | that he expresses, and I think a lot of people

02:30:37.460 | get behind that philosophy, 'cause to me,

02:30:42.040 | conservatism and liberalism often is very used loosely.

02:30:46.920 | He has a clear philosophy that he's expressing there,

02:30:49.800 | and it's grounded in tradition.

02:30:51.520 | He has a lot of value in tradition,

02:30:53.760 | and so it's the thing you said about America,

02:30:57.280 | like one of the arguments against national divorce

02:31:00.540 | is like, listen, we've been at it for a while.

02:31:05.480 | There is a lot of value in the fact

02:31:07.640 | that we've been at it for a while.

02:31:09.080 | Don't just throw it all away all the time.

02:31:11.040 | So he says philosophically, he seems,

02:31:13.520 | in a lot of walks of life, revolution should be avoided

02:31:18.520 | as much as possible.

02:31:20.240 | - I agree.

02:31:21.080 | - And so it's kind of interesting.

02:31:23.800 | So he makes the case that there's something

02:31:25.720 | fundamentally powerful about the nation,

02:31:29.200 | that it's a nice way to group a culture,

02:31:34.200 | and so the national divorce, I guess, goes against that.

02:31:39.640 | Do you find some aspect of the virtue of nationalism,

02:31:43.000 | as you would put it, powerful?

02:31:45.300 | - Well, powerful in a good sense?

02:31:49.160 | - In a good sense, so sorry, yeah, in a good sense.

02:31:51.840 | It brings out the best in humans.

02:31:53.640 | - I don't know about the best,

02:31:54.480 | but it certainly brings out good things.

02:31:55.800 | I have that line I always say about I love my country.

02:31:58.080 | I hate the government because I love my country.

02:31:59.800 | - Yeah, so there is a love of country.

02:32:02.240 | - I think it's, but I don't know that that's the,

02:32:04.480 | I think it's also the case

02:32:07.280 | because the country happens to be America.

02:32:09.360 | Like, I don't know if I was living in, you know,

02:32:12.280 | whatever, I don't wanna insult someone's country.

02:32:14.720 | Canada, yeah, if I was living in Canada,

02:32:17.560 | I don't know that it'd be the ultra patriot.

02:32:18.400 | - This is a guy who calls basically

02:32:20.080 | every other country shithole country.

02:32:22.120 | - Yeah, that's true, that's the fact.

02:32:24.320 | - Yeah, so it's either, you're either,

02:32:26.360 | there's two types of countries, Texas or shitholes.

02:32:29.560 | - Oh, wow, you went full Texas.

02:32:31.400 | So you're okay burning the Northeast

02:32:34.240 | to the ground at this point.

02:32:35.880 | - Okay, I'm hoping for it.

02:32:37.280 | - I'm hoping.

02:32:38.720 | - What they've done to New York City,

02:32:40.520 | I will never forgive these people.

02:32:42.840 | And I hope that they suffer enormously consequences

02:32:46.480 | for what they've done to New York.

02:32:48.720 | It's unforgettable, the assault that they've done

02:32:52.720 | and had no remorse over how many creative outlets

02:32:56.560 | that they've destroyed.

02:32:57.520 | - Yeah, it's the cultural hub,

02:32:58.600 | cultural center of the world in many ways.

02:33:01.200 | - New York was the, this was the place

02:33:03.840 | where you go to put up your shingle

02:33:05.680 | and move the needle and make things happen.

02:33:09.400 | And I would understand if it was like,

02:33:11.520 | okay, we gotta suffer through this for a year,

02:33:13.680 | but we're gonna make sure all these businesses

02:33:16.440 | have a kind of safety net to make sure

02:33:19.120 | that they kind of get through and survive this,

02:33:21.680 | which they did to the banks in 2008, for example.

02:33:24.520 | And I'm saying this as an anarchist

02:33:26.200 | and there was none of that.

02:33:27.320 | So I burn it down and salt the earth.

02:33:31.400 | 'Cause it's like watching like a zombie.

02:33:34.560 | It's unnatural, it's an abomination.

02:33:38.040 | - So I mean, sort of on the white pill side of things,

02:33:41.200 | I don't know about you, maybe,

02:33:42.960 | I have a sense that both Silicon Valley,

02:33:45.640 | that for me personally,

02:33:47.280 | maybe I have the same intensity of feeling

02:33:49.200 | as you do about New York.

02:33:51.160 | It's just disappointing to see it be consumed

02:33:54.920 | with cynicism and a lot of other paralyzing forces,

02:33:58.480 | but I still have hope for that place.

02:34:00.640 | I think maybe it's the Yoram kind of tradition hope

02:34:05.640 | that through momentum, the strong reemerges.

02:34:12.280 | So like I have hope for New York.

02:34:14.600 | I think New York will continue,

02:34:17.080 | like not maybe on a scale of years,

02:34:20.040 | but on a scale of decades,

02:34:21.840 | it'd be ups and downs where it reemerges

02:34:24.160 | as a cultural center.

02:34:25.840 | I just can't imagine a place like New York,

02:34:28.360 | it's like Paris.

02:34:30.080 | There's going to be long stretches of time

02:34:33.080 | where it leads the world.

02:34:35.000 | - Paris has not been a cultural hub for a very long time.

02:34:37.400 | - Yeah, yeah.

02:34:39.360 | - You know, the days of Matisse and Picasso

02:34:42.120 | and Gertrude Stein are long gone.

02:34:46.880 | - It still is a hub.

02:34:48.520 | - Even London isn't London.

02:34:50.120 | - Yeah.

02:34:50.960 | But what is then?

02:34:53.400 | London is still London.

02:34:54.800 | Paris is still Paris.

02:34:55.880 | It's just not the Paris of old.

02:34:57.680 | It's not London of old.

02:34:58.920 | London is still a place.

02:35:01.120 | It's a tech hub.

02:35:02.680 | It's a fashion hub.

02:35:03.840 | It's a music hub.

02:35:05.240 | I mean, it's still a pretty strong hub.

02:35:07.120 | - Yeah, but not like during the Beatles era.

02:35:09.600 | - Right.

02:35:10.440 | - Or during the Sex Pistols era.

02:35:11.960 | - But it could be just us romanticizing the past.

02:35:15.360 | 'Cause what is a hub then?

02:35:16.520 | - No, it's not romanticizing the past

02:35:18.880 | because a hub is the place where everyone on earth

02:35:22.480 | or our eyes are on you.

02:35:24.120 | So in the late '60s, in the mid '60s,

02:35:26.640 | you see the British invasion,

02:35:28.040 | you know, the Kinks and all these other bands

02:35:29.560 | coming out of Great Britain,

02:35:32.040 | like they were the innovators.

02:35:33.320 | This was the place that was happening.

02:35:35.840 | - Well, in that sense like--

02:35:37.200 | - And Brooklyn, you know, 15 years ago.

02:35:39.200 | - But I guess maybe in that sense,

02:35:43.880 | in the 21st century, geographical hubs

02:35:46.920 | are becoming a thing of the past.

02:35:48.120 | So like you can be a hub in the digital space now.

02:35:51.920 | So like it's not, maybe you'll never have--

02:35:55.040 | - I don't think, I think there will always be,

02:35:57.340 | I mean, what I'm saying, digital space makes it easier

02:36:00.960 | for let's suppose Cleveland to be a hub.

02:36:03.560 | - Right.

02:36:04.400 | - Because all you need are like 10 people

02:36:05.240 | who happen to live in Cleveland.

02:36:06.480 | Or you know, Akron was a hub, a minor hub.

02:36:08.520 | - All it takes is 10 to 50 people to create a, yeah.

02:36:12.000 | And maybe even less.

02:36:12.900 | Maybe it's just two or three or four people.

02:36:16.080 | - I mean, there's been no shortage of articles

02:36:17.940 | talking about Austin and what's happening here.

02:36:20.720 | And I know some of Joe's plans and you and I

02:36:23.280 | and Blair and all these other people that we know.

02:36:26.080 | Buddy Andrew Heaton moved here.

02:36:27.280 | He's just one of the best people I know.

02:36:29.280 | It's just, I'm really, really excited.

02:36:31.640 | - Can I ask you some weird thing about friendship?

02:36:33.960 | - Of course.

02:36:34.800 | - 'Cause you mentioned Sam, he's Mr. Harris to you.

02:36:40.800 | Didn't that bother you how he went after Joe?

02:36:43.100 | - What did he say?

02:36:43.940 | - He's like, oh, in case you guys have brain damage

02:36:45.660 | from watching Rogan's last episode,

02:36:47.380 | like watch, here's the answer.

02:36:48.660 | And it's just like--

02:36:49.500 | - Oh, like digs like that.

02:36:50.320 | - Yeah, yeah, I didn't like that.

02:36:51.420 | - I didn't like that either.

02:36:52.940 | I think Sam doesn't like it either about himself.

02:36:55.380 | - Okay.

02:36:56.660 | - He regrets those things.

02:36:57.860 | - Because it's very easy to say from his perspective,

02:37:01.020 | look, this isn't the full,

02:37:03.920 | Rogan didn't show you the full side of the story.

02:37:05.820 | Here's the other side of the story.

02:37:06.980 | Please watch this and be informed.

02:37:08.780 | That's a very reasonable thing to say.

02:37:11.080 | - Yeah, I don't quite understand this.

02:37:12.840 | So they do this about each other now.

02:37:14.880 | I'll put three people on the table,

02:37:17.640 | which is Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, and Brett Weinstein.

02:37:21.680 | And they have a way of talking

02:37:23.680 | like the other person is creating a lot of harm.

02:37:27.440 | Like publicly would say things like that.

02:37:30.240 | And I understand there's emotion in it,

02:37:32.560 | but like these are human beings

02:37:37.420 | that are friends of yours.

02:37:39.640 | - But I'll go the other way.

02:37:40.760 | Let's suppose it is true that Joe's doing a lot of harm,

02:37:43.360 | spreading misinformation.

02:37:45.120 | Being sarcastic isn't going to be persuasive.

02:37:48.640 | Whereas if you're like, he's wrong,

02:37:50.760 | here's the facts, or be informed,

02:37:53.880 | to me, but then I'm not Sam Harris.

02:37:55.680 | He's got a bigger audience than me,

02:37:56.680 | so maybe he's the one who's right, not wrong.

02:37:58.360 | - No, he's just human.

02:38:00.680 | - Okay, well, I can't relate.

02:38:02.440 | - Well, have you seen your Twitter lately?

02:38:04.800 | I mean, you get very,

02:38:06.080 | you have a lot of fun on Twitter.

02:38:07.420 | I feel like Twitter lets--

02:38:09.680 | - I've never done that with someone I'm friends with.

02:38:12.300 | I never would.

02:38:13.300 | - Okay, let's put that on record

02:38:15.860 | before he trolls me. - It is on record.

02:38:17.100 | Because if there's an issue with you,

02:38:18.540 | I'm getting you on the phone.

02:38:19.980 | - Yeah, good.

02:38:21.940 | I mean, that's the way--

02:38:22.780 | - 'Cause then I'm not backing you into a corner publicly.

02:38:24.060 | It doesn't make any sense strategically.

02:38:26.020 | - Yeah, and actually, Brett Weinstein

02:38:29.860 | tweeted something, sort of criticizing something,

02:38:33.020 | I already forgot what.

02:38:34.260 | But he texted me first saying,

02:38:36.080 | "Is it okay if I tweet this?"

02:38:37.880 | And I said, "Yep."

02:38:39.640 | I was excited.

02:38:41.600 | But I think there's some level of just,

02:38:45.080 | be compassionate privately and be compassionate publicly.

02:38:48.160 | - Or be civil.

02:38:50.360 | - Civil.

02:38:51.200 | For some reason, I don't like the word civility

02:38:54.400 | 'cause it's polite.

02:38:56.580 | - Or be cordial, is that better?

02:39:00.520 | - No, what I mean is--

02:39:01.600 | - It seems phony to you?

02:39:03.840 | - It seems phony.

02:39:04.920 | You should radiate love in whatever way.

02:39:07.000 | So even if you're rough with the other person,

02:39:09.280 | you should still show respect and love for that person.

02:39:13.760 | And that gets back to the Russian rules

02:39:15.640 | where they're yelling at each other,

02:39:16.640 | but there's still love underneath it.

02:39:18.640 | I mean, the question I wanna ask for you

02:39:21.120 | is I think you and I have a different view on some things.

02:39:27.220 | We have a different approach to things,

02:39:29.480 | just on the surface level,

02:39:30.780 | but also a different view on some things.

02:39:33.060 | I have a lot of hope for institutions.

02:39:35.260 | Maybe it's a gut instinct.

02:39:39.200 | Your gut instinct is like centers of power

02:39:42.280 | are like burn them down first and then let's figure it out.

02:39:46.840 | Or maybe that's a funny, rough way of saying it.

02:39:48.960 | - No, I think that's about right.

02:39:50.040 | - And then for me, it's like,

02:39:52.000 | no, let's understand the institution and slowly,

02:39:55.520 | revolutions from within versus revolutions from without.

02:40:02.760 | But we can have those disagreements

02:40:04.220 | and there may be times when those disagreements will be,

02:40:06.660 | I could see in the future,

02:40:08.280 | I could see I'll be attacked by my friend, Michael Malice,

02:40:12.580 | which I very look forward to it.

02:40:14.340 | No, not attack, but you know what I mean,

02:40:15.780 | on the surface level, in the idea space.

02:40:18.060 | Anyway, 'cause you're shaking your head now, you won't.

02:40:21.180 | I guess maybe this also goes to Sam Harrison, Joe Rogan.

02:40:26.180 | I would love to be able to disagree,

02:40:28.940 | disagree in big ways on important things

02:40:32.180 | and still be close friends.

02:40:34.420 | And I don't understand why those should be contradictions.

02:40:37.460 | - Yeah. - And that's the tension.

02:40:38.780 | That's been the most heartbreaking thing to me

02:40:40.460 | about Sam and Brett and Joe.

02:40:45.460 | Well, in the case of Brett, it's me, I don't know Brett,

02:40:48.260 | so I'm just like looking as somebody

02:40:50.340 | who just enjoys having these voices out there.

02:40:52.580 | And it seems like COVID just brought out the worst

02:40:54.500 | in some many folks.

02:40:56.720 | And it just feels like it's so sad to me

02:40:59.940 | to see their friendship somewhat deteriorating,

02:41:04.940 | or maybe I'm just being--

02:41:06.860 | - No, it seems clear it's deteriorated enormously.

02:41:09.360 | - Sad, if that's the case.

02:41:11.780 | - Yeah, so I've had people come at me,

02:41:14.580 | 'cause I'm friends with you,

02:41:15.940 | and they were like, "Oh, Lex authored some paper about masks."

02:41:18.700 | I don't even know what the hell they're referring to,

02:41:19.820 | I don't care.

02:41:20.700 | I always say and mean, I don't care

02:41:25.020 | whether someone agrees with me, I care how they treat me.

02:41:28.220 | And it goes the other way,

02:41:29.300 | 'cause I'll have a lot of people on Twitter

02:41:30.860 | who are like, "Oh, I'm on your team,"

02:41:32.200 | and blah, blah, blah, I'm like, "I don't know you,

02:41:33.660 | you're not my team."

02:41:34.780 | And just because you happen to agree with me,

02:41:36.260 | it's of no value to me.

02:41:37.780 | Like, I don't know you and I'm interested in knowing you.

02:41:40.820 | Many of my friends, I don't know what their politics are,

02:41:43.060 | I don't care.

02:41:44.060 | Like I care how we hang out, have a good time,

02:41:46.380 | watch dumb movies, watch YouTube, go to the store, whatever.

02:41:50.020 | I don't know what your politics are,

02:41:50.980 | I don't care what your politics are.

02:41:52.580 | Chris Williamson, who, you know, he's just here,

02:41:56.020 | he's gonna be moving to Austin.

02:41:57.740 | I only learned what his politics are in the last,

02:41:59.620 | we've been, we chat like almost every day,

02:42:01.660 | 'cause he took the world's smallest political quiz,

02:42:04.100 | and he figured out what his answers were.

02:42:05.540 | I had no idea where he's-- - He's communist.

02:42:06.860 | - He's, well, obviously, yeah, yeah.

02:42:08.220 | - Marxist.

02:42:09.060 | - Yeah. - Let's be honest.

02:42:10.660 | (laughing)

02:42:12.940 | So, like, stuff like that, like, it never,

02:42:15.500 | and people, I think, because politics is often so tribal,

02:42:20.220 | especially now, they'll be like,

02:42:23.060 | "Oh, I could never be friends with someone who voted for X."

02:42:25.940 | Really?

02:42:26.780 | I feel like grandma worked in that campaign.

02:42:28.220 | What if, you know, blah, blah, blah.

02:42:30.500 | You can't think of one steel man argument

02:42:32.940 | why this would happen,

02:42:34.100 | but if they just want to spite their boss.

02:42:36.740 | So, I don't like that approach at all.

02:42:39.500 | It makes no sense to me.

02:42:41.060 | - We could still have debates.

02:42:43.660 | I mean, like, I would still like to have those conversations

02:42:46.580 | and still have disagreements.

02:42:48.820 | Like, I disagree with Joe on COVID a lot,

02:42:52.540 | on a bunch of different things, very kinda,

02:42:54.940 | but it's never, like, it's not tense at all.

02:42:58.260 | It's just, it doesn't have that arrogance

02:43:02.620 | that a lot of COVID conversations seems to have,

02:43:06.340 | like, talking down to people from both directions.

02:43:09.940 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:43:11.540 | - So, I would love to have those,

02:43:12.740 | 'cause I love to debate.

02:43:13.980 | I love debates.

02:43:14.820 | - It takes a lot to get me triggered,

02:43:16.500 | and when the Babylon Bee were interviewing Elon,

02:43:20.140 | and he had this thing, he goes,

02:43:21.620 | "Well, I don't know anyone who wants to, you know,

02:43:24.220 | "abolish the FDA and the FAA, and I'm standing there,

02:43:27.860 | "and I'm shaking, and the guys look at me,

02:43:30.060 | "and they're like, 'Oh, we actually have an anarchist here,'"

02:43:32.260 | and the example he used was,

02:43:34.620 | "You know, look, if you're playing football,

02:43:36.900 | "you're gonna have a referee there,

02:43:37.980 | "and you want the referee, you know,

02:43:39.420 | "but the referee started playing the game,

02:43:41.060 | "it's not such a good thing."

02:43:43.260 | And I'm sitting there, I'm like,

02:43:44.100 | "The referee doesn't work for the state."

02:43:46.580 | The referee is a private individual

02:43:48.780 | working for this organization,

02:43:50.900 | and there's no reason at all that food quality,

02:43:54.660 | which is something crucially important,

02:43:56.700 | has to be or can only be delivered through the state

02:43:59.220 | and a government monopoly.

02:44:00.540 | - That's actually really interesting,

02:44:03.540 | just to link on that, just a little bit,

02:44:07.140 | with the vaccine and stuff like that,

02:44:08.820 | with the antiviral drugs, the FDA,

02:44:10.580 | so like, are you, like, who should be the referee?

02:44:15.500 | - Right.

02:44:16.780 | - Do you have an idea, like,

02:44:17.820 | what's the best referee for the vaccine?

02:44:19.660 | Is it just the market?

02:44:21.500 | Just let people decide?

02:44:22.820 | - This is tricky, because the thing that,

02:44:26.100 | I have not been following COVID as closely

02:44:28.140 | as Joe and Sam, as Mr. Harris, excuse me, and Mr. Musk.

02:44:32.260 | The point is, when anything like this is developing,

02:44:36.540 | there's gonna be a lot of misinformation out there,

02:44:39.020 | even from the scientists, because it's a dynamic process.

02:44:42.140 | They don't know what they're dealing with.

02:44:43.580 | A lot of it has to be speculative.

02:44:44.900 | They don't know long-term effects,

02:44:46.180 | 'cause it hasn't been around for a long time.

02:44:48.020 | So I think it is very dangerous when, you know,

02:44:53.020 | when Joe was mocked for taking a laundry list of things,

02:44:58.240 | under his doctor's advice,

02:45:00.660 | and they kind of latched onto the ivermectin,

02:45:03.900 | and then they specifically said it was horse paste,

02:45:05.780 | although it's veterinary medicines,

02:45:07.020 | why didn't they say dog paste or cat paste?

02:45:09.180 | It's like, well, he's not dead,

02:45:11.140 | and he's also taking drugs which are used

02:45:15.780 | in other circumstances, the very least,

02:45:17.700 | maybe they're pointless, but if the drug is being allowed

02:45:21.380 | for pharmaceutical reasons, the odds are quite low

02:45:23.900 | that they're gonna have deleterious side effects in general.

02:45:27.220 | So I think this kind of insistence

02:45:31.780 | that there has to be one A, officially approved outcome,

02:45:36.780 | that we're all doing,

02:45:38.700 | that is kind of dangerous thinking in general.

02:45:41.740 | - By the way, I don't know if you saw,

02:45:43.620 | I got a chance to talk to the Pfizer CEO,

02:45:46.520 | and I had helped collecting questions,

02:45:50.060 | 'cause I got a lot of questions,

02:45:51.020 | and people put at the top a question for Michael Malice.

02:45:53.700 | - Oh, really?

02:45:54.540 | - Ask him what he likes best about me.

02:46:00.700 | - Oh, what does he like best, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:46:02.540 | - So I actually had that on my list of questions

02:46:04.220 | I was gonna ask him, and my plan was I'll ask him,

02:46:07.380 | Michael Malice wants to know what you like best about him,

02:46:10.860 | and then my guess was he'd be like, "Who?"

02:46:12.780 | And I'd be like, "Exactly," and then go on to the next.

02:46:16.100 | But I thought it was such a tense conversation

02:46:20.060 | that I thought there would be no--

02:46:21.980 | - Of course, room for levity.

02:46:22.820 | The question I would ask him is,

02:46:24.380 | can you acknowledge that there is an enormous incentive

02:46:28.860 | for your company to force everyone in America

02:46:32.460 | or everyone on Earth to be a consumer of your product?

02:46:35.700 | - Yeah. - That's my question.

02:46:37.260 | - So I dance around that question quite a lot.

02:46:39.620 | I phrase it differently, which is a conflict of interest

02:46:45.220 | and attention between making a lot of money

02:46:47.580 | and actually helping people.

02:46:49.020 | I've asked a lot of really heavy questions in that,

02:46:54.060 | and I still, and a lot of people wrote to me with support

02:46:57.940 | saying that was a really great conversation,

02:47:01.940 | and a lot of people wrote saying that it was just too soft.

02:47:06.940 | I don't know, I think about that a lot,

02:47:13.980 | like how do you have that conversation?

02:47:15.820 | I don't think it was too soft.

02:47:18.300 | And actually, just for the record,

02:47:19.540 | I wanna say that they didn't see

02:47:22.740 | any of the questions I'm asking.

02:47:24.340 | They didn't see the final interview.

02:47:27.380 | I can ask anything I want.

02:47:28.820 | So any questions that I asked and failed to ask

02:47:35.180 | is my own shortcomings.

02:47:39.760 | Also, not being a coward,

02:47:43.220 | I was afraid of nothing.

02:47:44.780 | Like what do I have to gain or lose exactly?

02:47:48.100 | Well, you have something to lose,

02:47:48.980 | because if you're, I do, I always do softballs,

02:47:52.140 | because if I'm going to make it difficult

02:47:55.620 | for someone to come to my show,

02:47:57.700 | a lot of people will be disincentivized to do the show,

02:48:00.100 | 'cause like, well, I don't need this.

02:48:01.400 | I see, oh yeah, I wasn't thinking like that,

02:48:03.020 | but I was, I don't like to,

02:48:04.620 | what I think some fraction of folks wanted me to do

02:48:08.420 | is to yell at a person, like criticize them,

02:48:12.780 | not even ask questions, essentially.

02:48:14.260 | - Yeah, yeah, how dare you?

02:48:15.220 | - Yeah, but to me, my goal,

02:48:18.660 | my hope is with these conversations

02:48:20.380 | is not just to do how great you are

02:48:22.820 | and all that kind of stuff,

02:48:23.720 | is to bring out some deeper truth.

02:48:26.860 | Like the beautiful things is when you can together

02:48:29.380 | realize some truth, like you mentioned,

02:48:32.860 | that the incentive for everyone to take the vaccine

02:48:37.860 | is obviously high for the maker of a vaccine.

02:48:41.460 | - Yeah. - Right?

02:48:42.460 | And for them to arrive at that truth together,

02:48:45.780 | like that is a really difficult truth to operate under.

02:48:50.780 | Like, for example, I had a whole exchange with him about,

02:48:55.880 | this is Jordan Peterson asked this question,

02:48:59.140 | I use that as a kind of springboard,

02:49:01.780 | which is the kind of open doors

02:49:05.440 | between the FDA, the CDC, and Pfizer.

02:49:08.100 | - Right. - Like some people

02:49:09.660 | work at Pfizer and then go to work at the FDA

02:49:11.900 | and then vice versa.

02:49:13.780 | And I brought up, this is my safe space,

02:49:18.460 | maybe yours too, just going back to the Soviet Union

02:49:22.140 | to look at the lessons of human nature and corruption.

02:49:26.180 | I said like, so there's two things,

02:49:29.700 | this looks bad, and two, this naturally leads to corruption.

02:49:34.700 | And I pushed this with several questions,

02:49:36.680 | but polite and respectful.

02:49:37.980 | And he ultimately said, you know, there's rules.

02:49:41.780 | There's the rule of law,

02:49:43.460 | and there's very strict rules about this,

02:49:45.420 | and we have to follow those rules.

02:49:47.540 | Otherwise, we get punished severely.

02:49:49.620 | So like his response is, people reacted to them as like,

02:49:53.460 | okay, that's the CEO doing the political,

02:49:55.260 | but there's also truth to what he's saying,

02:49:58.600 | that one of the beautiful things about America

02:50:00.700 | is that you can criticize the rule of law currently,

02:50:04.100 | but it's still, it's better than in the Soviet Union

02:50:09.100 | where people bribed each other.

02:50:11.700 | And, but still, he made it seem like there's no corruption.

02:50:16.700 | - People often ask me why I describe myself as an anarchist

02:50:23.100 | and not a narco-capitalist,

02:50:24.840 | because they think my views are more in line

02:50:26.660 | with that school of anarchism.

02:50:28.580 | And one of the other reasons you just gave me a good one

02:50:31.100 | is that if I am talking to someone who's a major CEO,

02:50:36.020 | I have that hardcore left anarchist view

02:50:39.880 | that this person is, if not the devil,

02:50:42.660 | certainly gonna be sinister at the very least.

02:50:46.780 | And if you can't say, listen,

02:50:49.740 | this happens inevitably with elites,

02:50:51.420 | it happens in universities,

02:50:53.420 | it happens in the food industry,

02:50:55.040 | there's only so many people at the top of these things,

02:50:57.580 | the field is small, and everyone's gonna know each other,

02:51:00.300 | which is kind of just the dynamics of any market,

02:51:03.420 | that would kind of be more reasonable.

02:51:05.180 | And just say, it's easy to caricature us

02:51:08.140 | 'cause you're not in the boardroom,

02:51:09.260 | but we are trying to produce a product that people want.

02:51:12.620 | - Unlike the people who criticize me,

02:51:17.300 | I wasn't bothered by most things,

02:51:20.180 | but I was bothered by the fact

02:51:22.420 | that he didn't show more worry

02:51:24.500 | about the corrupting nature of money and power.

02:51:27.220 | If you say that there's no corruption,

02:51:31.780 | you should show that because we constantly worry about it,

02:51:36.400 | not because, look, there's rules.

02:51:39.860 | - Yeah, which are enforced by you.

02:51:41.500 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:51:42.600 | So I think the only way to avoid for time

02:51:47.600 | the corrupting force of power is to freak out about it,

02:51:53.320 | nonstop.

02:51:54.480 | - The impression I always get from people like him,

02:51:56.800 | and I haven't seen the interview,

02:51:57.880 | and I won't be watching it,

02:51:59.400 | is they're genuinely convinced that they're good guys.

02:52:05.160 | And if you're the good guy,

02:52:07.040 | sure, corruption is a concern theoretically,

02:52:09.960 | but I know this guy at the FDA,

02:52:12.560 | I know this senator, sure, we disagree,

02:52:14.680 | sure, they do some things I don't like,

02:52:16.120 | but in terms of corrupt,

02:52:17.400 | they're not getting briefcases full of money,

02:52:19.680 | they're not gonna sell a vaccine

02:52:21.520 | that kills people in Georgia.

02:52:24.020 | So yeah, it's a concern theoretically,

02:52:25.520 | but this is 21st century.

02:52:27.200 | The thought process, I think, writes itself.

02:52:29.280 | - I think, yeah, having the humility,

02:52:32.220 | I do this all the time, maybe to a destructive level,

02:52:34.680 | thinking that I might be doing bad for the world,

02:52:37.240 | I might be wrong, I might be,

02:52:38.640 | that kind of thinking is very,

02:52:40.360 | you should do at least some of that,

02:52:42.080 | not to a point of being paralyzed, but a little bit.

02:52:44.680 | You're actually in the right mindset for me

02:52:46.440 | to ask you then for advice.

02:52:49.640 | You're in this compassionate, thoughtful mood, I like it,

02:52:53.320 | the compassionate, thoughtful, Michael.

02:52:54.940 | So for future conversations like that,

02:52:57.820 | so the person that offered a conversation

02:53:03.160 | that at first I avoided, but I might return to,

02:53:05.320 | is Anthony Fauci.

02:53:07.020 | So there's Anthony Fauci,

02:53:08.680 | but then there's also Trump and Biden,

02:53:10.400 | things, people like that.

02:53:11.640 | If you had them on your show,

02:53:14.640 | or just giving me advice on how to talk to them,

02:53:17.900 | what do you think is the right way to talk to them?

02:53:22.440 | And forget about future guests,

02:53:25.280 | but to get at something new, together.

02:53:29.360 | Get at something, not for views or likes or clicks

02:53:31.880 | or any of that, but discover something new

02:53:34.280 | through the mode of conversation.

02:53:35.720 | - Well, let's take those one at a time.

02:53:37.480 | So if I was talking to Trump,

02:53:39.160 | I told Ruben to ask Trump this and he didn't,

02:53:41.840 | what I wanted to know is,

02:53:43.600 | what's the look on your face

02:53:44.840 | when you're sending these tweets?

02:53:46.880 | 'Cause I'm imagining him on the toilet with his phone.

02:53:49.240 | Are you cracking yourself up?

02:53:51.200 | Are you just completely stoic?

02:53:52.440 | Are you kind of that Trump little smirk he does?

02:53:55.100 | So when you get someone to open up about their emotion,

02:53:59.680 | about something they're passionate about,

02:54:01.240 | I think that breaks down some barriers

02:54:03.080 | and creates a bond. - That's a really good question.

02:54:05.960 | But Ruben wouldn't be, that's not his style.

02:54:08.520 | That's a great question for you to ask.

02:54:10.040 | - Well, I told him to say Michael Malice.

02:54:11.840 | - Oh, my sorry.

02:54:12.680 | - For Biden, that would be a tough one

02:54:17.360 | because Biden doesn't get enough credit

02:54:19.820 | for what a good politician he is.

02:54:21.720 | There was this moment people can see on YouTube

02:54:24.000 | where Biden is addressing a room full of people

02:54:27.520 | and he had someone there and he goes,

02:54:29.080 | can you, why don't you stand up

02:54:30.680 | so everyone can give you a hand?

02:54:33.480 | And the guy was in a wheelchair.

02:54:35.120 | And Biden's like, oh, whoop.

02:54:36.920 | And like, but instantly he goes, you know what?

02:54:39.280 | We're all gonna stand up for you.

02:54:41.120 | And he made everyone get up and applaud the guy.

02:54:43.360 | I'm like, that's quick.

02:54:44.640 | Like, yeah, you made a fool of yourself.

02:54:45.920 | So he is a glad hander.

02:54:47.960 | In many ways, he's more of a schmoozer than Trump was.

02:54:50.240 | Like Trump made the point that he knows all the good people,

02:54:52.800 | but Biden knows how to shake hands.

02:54:54.800 | - Well, I think with both, and sorry to interrupt,

02:54:56.800 | with both Trump and Biden, like you mentioned earlier,

02:54:59.120 | to me at least, their family is fascinating.

02:55:02.200 | The dynamic as a family man, as a father, as a--

02:55:04.960 | - I think that Biden won't acknowledge

02:55:06.920 | his illegitimate grandkid is a problem for me.

02:55:09.840 | But at the same time, I can see why he think

02:55:12.680 | it's off limits to ask.

02:55:13.760 | 'Cause that's the thing,

02:55:14.600 | when you're dealing with people that powerful,

02:55:16.040 | they're not used to having to answer questions

02:55:18.440 | which might be perfectly nice,

02:55:20.200 | but would cause them to freak the hell out.

02:55:22.280 | - That's the tricky thing of talking to people, as you know.

02:55:24.680 | Like some topics are off limit,

02:55:28.080 | not in that they draw lines, but they just shut down

02:55:31.480 | when you ask them.

02:55:32.380 | Trust me, I think I talked to Elon three times now.

02:55:36.840 | You better believe I brought up love.

02:55:38.640 | And how far do you think that got?

02:55:41.360 | You could just imagine-- - Zero, that's one.

02:55:43.600 | - We did exactly the kind of robot back and forth,

02:55:47.520 | and it just like shut down.

02:55:49.440 | So yeah, I worry about that with the personal.

02:55:51.240 | But that's the thing that makes it fascinating

02:55:53.880 | with those two.

02:55:55.440 | 'Cause he had, with Hunter and losing his son,

02:55:59.040 | like the dynamic of the complexities of all that,

02:56:02.000 | like just having children fuck up in the way children do.

02:56:07.000 | And then with Trump, the interesting dynamic.

02:56:12.000 | He has very different kids,

02:56:13.440 | and they're all kind of interesting in different ways.

02:56:16.160 | And maintaining connection with all of them

02:56:18.920 | and also letting them flourish individually

02:56:20.920 | is fascinating to me.

02:56:21.800 | - Well, I'd also wanna ask Trump

02:56:23.080 | if he can name all the presidents in order,

02:56:24.640 | which there's no he can.

02:56:26.320 | But I'd also wanna know-- - All the,

02:56:28.120 | do you think he knows who the second president

02:56:30.320 | of the United States is?

02:56:31.520 | - Yes. - No, okay.

02:56:32.840 | - John Adams, he knows.

02:56:33.840 | I think when it gets between Ulysses S. Grant and McKinley,

02:56:37.080 | that's when we all screw up.

02:56:39.120 | That window, it's tough.

02:56:41.000 | - Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's the one window where he,

02:56:43.520 | I mean, he's not-- - He's gonna be able

02:56:45.320 | to get back to FDR, no question.

02:56:47.680 | - I have to, my sense was with Donald Trump,

02:56:51.720 | and this is not, I would say, a criticism,

02:56:54.720 | is he doesn't have a depth of knowledge

02:56:56.920 | or, more importantly, curiosity about history.

02:56:59.560 | - Yeah, but if you're old enough,

02:57:00.920 | you're gonna at least remember the presidents

02:57:02.840 | in your lifetime.

02:57:03.780 | - In your lifetime, yeah, yeah, sorry.

02:57:06.560 | - Yeah, so that's what I'm saying.

02:57:07.480 | He'll get us from president to FDR pretty easily.

02:57:09.800 | - Yeah, yeah, okay, sure.

02:57:11.840 | I thought you meant FDR from the other direction.

02:57:14.000 | - No, no, yeah, from current to FDR.

02:57:16.280 | - Yeah, but yeah, from a political perspective,

02:57:19.720 | like having a conversation about politics with those two,

02:57:24.160 | there is interesting topics,

02:57:28.940 | interaction between Donald Trump and Putin,

02:57:31.960 | not the interaction, like not the stupid journalistic stuff,

02:57:35.560 | but it's clear to me that he is a student of power.

02:57:39.400 | - Oh, for sure.

02:57:40.640 | - And like he enjoys the game of power.

02:57:43.520 | - Yeah. - And so it's interesting,

02:57:44.800 | 'cause to me, the reason he admires Putin

02:57:47.800 | is it's another player in the game of power.

02:57:50.520 | - And I think why so many people hate him, Trump,

02:57:54.240 | is that he demonstrated to a lot of Americans

02:57:56.240 | how much of a con job most of politics is

02:57:58.920 | and how people just say what they need to do,

02:58:01.240 | but behind closed doors, these people are buffoons,

02:58:03.640 | and he exposed them as that.

02:58:05.000 | I'd also, so the Biden,

02:58:07.760 | I think Biden would be a tougher interview than Trump

02:58:10.860 | because I feel like Biden's more slippery in many ways.

02:58:12.940 | He's much more of a consummate politician.

02:58:15.240 | He's been in the Senate since the early '70s.

02:58:17.760 | Since he was like 30 or 35, whatever it was.

02:58:20.080 | So he'd have his little kind of pat answers.

02:58:25.120 | There was Larry King,

02:58:26.680 | who was certainly a softball interviewer,

02:58:29.280 | and I don't begrudge him that at all.

02:58:30.760 | I remember it was very vividly,

02:58:31.880 | and it was like, I think it was the 2008 cycle.

02:58:34.760 | He asked Hillary, "Why do you think so many people hate you?"

02:58:38.800 | And she just goes like, "Oh, well, I take tough stances."

02:58:41.640 | And he cut her off.

02:58:42.920 | He goes, "Other people have taken those stances.

02:58:44.480 | "Why do they hate you?"

02:58:45.720 | And she didn't really, I was really impressed with him

02:58:47.880 | that he didn't let her off the hook.

02:58:50.320 | - That to me is great.

02:58:51.760 | But some people will say that's still too softball.

02:58:54.840 | 'Cause you, like they would want him to start listing,

02:58:58.600 | I don't know, droning, like all the things

02:59:02.200 | that Hillary Clinton is criticized for.

02:59:04.120 | - Yeah, but then what she, she's done this many times.

02:59:06.040 | She's very good at this.

02:59:06.880 | She'll be like, "Look, I've addressed all these in the past.

02:59:09.200 | "If you wanna start rehashing Republican talking points,

02:59:11.940 | "you can go look up my interviews."

02:59:13.280 | - Yeah, I think it's counterproductive.

02:59:14.520 | - Yeah.

02:59:15.360 | - But I think about the more prescient for me,

02:59:19.760 | I can't believe I'm walking through this fire

02:59:21.440 | for no good reason whatsoever, but Anthony Fauci.

02:59:23.640 | So let me tell you why I care about Anthony Fauci.

02:59:26.840 | Because I care a lot about science

02:59:30.040 | and the way science is viewed in society.

02:59:32.460 | And not to put it at the feet of this one person,

02:59:36.880 | but him and certain members of the scientific community

02:59:43.040 | that was responsible for managing the response to COVID,

02:59:46.840 | I think are somewhat or entirely responsible

02:59:50.640 | for a significant decrease in trust in science.

02:59:54.200 | - Yes, no question.

02:59:55.040 | - In the past couple of years.

02:59:55.880 | - There was a poll that just came out this week

02:59:57.420 | that said the number has just collapsed.

02:59:59.740 | - And if you don't blame him for it,

03:00:03.320 | I personally blame him for not improving the problem.

03:00:10.240 | And so there's definitely would be a harsh conversation

03:00:14.160 | there to be had.

03:00:15.000 | And I think I wanna have it, but how do you do it?

03:00:19.200 | It's tough.

03:00:20.320 | - Yeah.

03:00:21.160 | - Because again, politicians, there's political answers.

03:00:24.200 | If they get too frustrated too quickly,

03:00:26.880 | they will not explore these difficult things with you.

03:00:29.360 | They'll just shut down.

03:00:30.520 | But then if you say too many nice things,

03:00:34.120 | because I should also say Anthony Fauci

03:00:36.840 | is an incredible career.

03:00:39.160 | Like there's several hours worth of conversation

03:00:42.280 | to be had about how amazing of a person he is.

03:00:44.640 | - Well, I would also be curious about the AIDS stuff.

03:00:46.560 | - Yes.

03:00:47.400 | - 'Cause that's something that's criticized about,

03:00:48.560 | and I wouldn't come at it aggressively.

03:00:49.840 | I would say, let's set the record straight.

03:00:51.080 | This is some of the criticism you get, blah, blah, blah.

03:00:53.820 | You're rolling in the AIDS crisis.

03:00:55.560 | Let's talk about this.

03:00:56.600 | And this is something that is important

03:00:58.120 | part of American history.

03:00:58.960 | There was a pandemic,

03:01:00.120 | and it was localized to certain populations.

03:01:02.520 | And that population at the first at least

03:01:04.560 | was pretty much told goodbye and good luck.

03:01:06.760 | You're gonna have to deal with this.

03:01:08.040 | So how did you deal with that?

03:01:09.640 | I mean, were you scared of getting AIDS?

03:01:11.240 | You know, so on and so forth.

03:01:12.500 | But also there was that comment when,

03:01:14.500 | and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a Fauci expert,

03:01:18.120 | when he basically, they told people not to wear masks

03:01:21.360 | or they lied about it to some extent

03:01:23.040 | because they said then people were gonna run out of them

03:01:25.120 | or something like that.

03:01:25.960 | And they admitted they were being inaccurate.

03:01:28.120 | I would nail him on that.

03:01:29.640 | I'm like, let's address this.

03:01:30.600 | Were you being dishonest?

03:01:32.080 | Is there sometimes when it's important to be dishonest

03:01:34.120 | in service of whatever?

03:01:35.440 | Also, I would ask him how, as someone who's not a politician,

03:01:38.760 | whether his level of fame and adulation

03:01:41.360 | has gotten to his head.

03:01:42.640 | How do you have a perspective when,

03:01:45.120 | and how does it feel when a sitting senator

03:01:47.240 | tells you that you should be imprisoned?

03:01:48.840 | Do you think Ted Cruz means it?

03:01:50.200 | Or you think Ted Cruz is just playing to his base?

03:01:53.000 | - Yeah, I like the fame one.

03:01:55.200 | I would love to sneak up.

03:01:58.120 | I mean, that question applies to you too.

03:01:59.960 | That question applies to me.

03:02:01.920 | When you start getting more fame or money or power,

03:02:05.800 | are you aware of how that changed you?

03:02:08.200 | And explore that.

03:02:09.640 | How has that changed you?

03:02:12.160 | In the privacy of your mind, Michael Malice,

03:02:16.480 | how did you change now that you've gotten

03:02:19.680 | more attention, let's say?

03:02:22.480 | Or even the success of the book.

03:02:24.080 | Take yourself back to the,

03:02:26.760 | you talk about the early 20s, the mid-20s person.

03:02:31.760 | How are you different from that person?

03:02:33.640 | Are you the same person?

03:02:34.520 | Or are you totally different?

03:02:35.960 | That's an interesting thought.

03:02:37.040 | Is Putin the same person in 2020 as he was in 2010

03:02:40.960 | and then in 2000?

03:02:42.240 | It's a non-trivial, almost like--

03:02:47.760 | - And then the other thing with Fauci is,

03:02:50.840 | this is a dynamic system.

03:02:52.600 | Like on the one hand, he's gonna wanna say

03:02:54.200 | we got it right every time, right?

03:02:56.320 | But then how is that even possible

03:02:57.520 | when you're dealing with an evolving,

03:02:59.360 | unknown, dynamic situation?

03:03:01.880 | When did you guys get it wrong?

03:03:03.120 | Did that result in lives lost?

03:03:04.440 | Do you feel guilty about that?

03:03:06.360 | - I mean, the big problem with the masks,

03:03:08.480 | the changing of mind on the mask

03:03:10.320 | is the arrogance in how it was communicated.

03:03:12.680 | To me, a lot of this boils down to

03:03:14.640 | how things are communicated.

03:03:18.160 | It's like, it's obvious that you need to change your mind

03:03:20.360 | when you get new information.

03:03:21.360 | Or sometimes, yeah, you take policies that are like,

03:03:23.960 | we know the truth, but we're going to lie

03:03:27.000 | for a particular reason, like you have good intentions.

03:03:29.960 | But if you're not able to communicate that later,

03:03:32.760 | like we made a mistake.

03:03:33.960 | - Or even ask him, can you understand how

03:03:37.160 | a rational person might choose not to get vaccinated?

03:03:41.640 | - Yes, yes, yes.

03:03:46.120 | - And if he can't steel man that, then that's a situation.

03:03:48.720 | - That's a good test, and I've tried,

03:03:50.320 | and some people succeed and some people fail.

03:03:52.400 | The ability to really steel man the other,

03:03:54.600 | understand that somebody would be hesitant

03:03:57.240 | about taking the vaccine, yeah.

03:04:00.880 | It's a giant mess, man.

03:04:03.200 | This podcast thing, it's just a fun little conversation,

03:04:06.200 | but it also has a responsibility.

03:04:08.400 | I don't know, I don't know how Joe does it.

03:04:10.600 | - I don't think Joe cares as much as you do.

03:04:14.320 | It's more fun for him in a sense,

03:04:16.600 | and he's less concerned about the,

03:04:17.960 | I mean, he's not unconcerned with the cultural impact,

03:04:19.920 | but for him, it's just more bro-ing out.

03:04:22.000 | - Yeah.

03:04:22.840 | - Like, he doesn't do as much prep.

03:04:23.760 | He doesn't come in with three pages,

03:04:25.000 | single spaced of questions.

03:04:27.560 | - Yeah, and--

03:04:28.400 | - That's why he's talking to Blair White for 10 minutes

03:04:31.840 | about whether sharks lay eggs without knowing.

03:04:34.880 | - You're the one triggered person.

03:04:36.240 | He didn't, maybe he trolled the troll.

03:04:40.000 | - Well, it worked.

03:04:40.840 | Yeah, he did.

03:04:42.200 | - Do sharks lay eggs?

03:04:43.200 | I'd like to get an updated 2021 version

03:04:47.200 | of Michael Malice giving advice to young people.

03:04:50.480 | - Okay.

03:04:52.560 | - So there's, God forbid, high school students,

03:04:57.360 | college students listening to you,

03:05:01.460 | and looking to you for advice.

03:05:03.300 | What advice would you give them about career

03:05:05.540 | and about life, how to live a life that you can be proud of?

03:05:10.220 | - This happens a lot, 'cause I have my Locals community,

03:05:12.660 | malice.locals.com, and there's a lot of young people

03:05:14.700 | on there.

03:05:15.540 | - Yeah, that's a great place.

03:05:17.140 | - I'll give them a meta piece of advice.

03:05:19.060 | Don't ask your friends for advice,

03:05:21.900 | 'cause you're an idiot at your age,

03:05:23.420 | and they're all idiots,

03:05:24.660 | and they don't wanna seem like idiots,

03:05:25.940 | so they're just gonna give you advice.

03:05:26.940 | They pulled it from the TV,

03:05:28.180 | and no one knows what you're talking about,

03:05:29.500 | and it's just gonna be counterintuitive.

03:05:31.220 | So seek out advice from people who you seek to emulate,

03:05:36.220 | and ask them for advice.

03:05:38.740 | If you can't get ahold of them,

03:05:39.660 | figure out a way to get ahold of them.

03:05:41.460 | Incentivize them in some way.

03:05:43.580 | You'd be surprised how many people are responsive on Twitter

03:05:46.380 | or in social media if you just ask them

03:05:48.220 | a basic life question, 'cause then they can quote, tweet,

03:05:50.460 | and answer to a whole population.

03:05:52.340 | So that would be one mechanism.

03:05:54.820 | It's also very hard at that age to realize

03:05:57.780 | your parents might not be all that bright,

03:06:00.940 | and they might not be all that good people.

03:06:03.700 | So that's a hard one at that age

03:06:05.660 | to kinda wrap your head around.

03:06:07.340 | Just 'cause they love you doesn't mean they understand you,

03:06:09.500 | and that's okay.

03:06:10.900 | That's okay.

03:06:12.140 | We like everybody.

03:06:13.140 | - Shit, your Trump's pretty good too.

03:06:16.180 | I'd like your Trump to talk to Elon,

03:06:18.420 | to have a conversation.

03:06:20.180 | - Well, Mr. President, look,

03:06:24.780 | some things you did, like some, not so much,

03:06:28.060 | but for the most part, I think,

03:06:30.340 | did a kinda good thing.

03:06:31.620 | What are you talking about?

03:06:32.980 | (laughing)

03:06:35.220 | Hey guys, what are we talking about?

03:06:41.140 | No, I fucked up the lex.

03:06:42.300 | Anyway, so those would be two pieces.

03:06:44.420 | The other piece of advice I would say is join a gym

03:06:48.780 | or have some kind of quantifiable daily improvement.

03:06:54.780 | To keep you sane.

03:06:56.220 | So the reason I always say weightlifting,

03:06:58.540 | and it could be running, it could be jump rope,

03:07:02.140 | I don't care what it is,

03:07:03.220 | because if you have those numbers

03:07:04.860 | moving in the positive direction,

03:07:06.620 | psychologically, if you're dealing with depression

03:07:08.300 | or anxiety, it's concrete proof to shut your brain up.

03:07:11.780 | Because your brain knows how to talk to you.

03:07:15.500 | Your brain is often your enemy,

03:07:16.780 | and it'll say exactly the right thing to undermine you.

03:07:19.420 | So that's an issue.

03:07:22.940 | I just, this works for me,

03:07:25.060 | maybe it won't for most people.

03:07:26.540 | I'm very high on the openness metric.

03:07:28.380 | Try new experiences, new things,

03:07:30.900 | try things you don't like.

03:07:32.900 | It's okay to have a bad experience,

03:07:34.340 | you've learned something.

03:07:35.540 | So go to a restaurant of a cuisine you wouldn't like

03:07:38.180 | or hadn't heard of, read a book that's popular

03:07:41.060 | but you have no interest in.

03:07:42.500 | Read a lot.

03:07:44.540 | For example, I didn't know anything about the election,

03:07:47.260 | what was it, 1892, when there was like a split

03:07:49.620 | between the electors.

03:07:50.700 | Read a book about it.

03:07:51.780 | Oh, I don't know anything.

03:07:52.740 | You know, I don't know anything really about Malcolm X.

03:07:54.460 | Read a book about him.

03:07:55.900 | You'll be amazed how much more full you become as a person.

03:07:59.660 | - Do you see value in writing also?

03:08:02.100 | Like writing down your ideas?

03:08:03.940 | - No, I think there's very little value in that.

03:08:05.500 | I'm not joking.

03:08:06.860 | - So reading is where the biggest--

03:08:08.060 | - Yeah, 'cause you're probably not gonna revisit

03:08:09.500 | what you've written down.

03:08:11.460 | - But the act of writing, you don't see,

03:08:14.180 | it solidifies somehow thoughts in your mind?

03:08:16.100 | - Not for me.

03:08:16.940 | - It doesn't for you?

03:08:17.780 | - Like a tweet will, 'cause then I have to have it

03:08:19.900 | narrowed down into like a phrase.

03:08:22.700 | - Or the responsibility of there being an audience.

03:08:25.500 | - No, I just meant in terms of I've got 280 characters.

03:08:27.780 | If instead of having a meandering thought,

03:08:30.180 | I have to codify it in something that's catchy and short,

03:08:33.300 | that's a good, useful mental exercise.

03:08:35.340 | - What face do you make when you tweet?

03:08:37.540 | - I wouldn't know.

03:08:39.780 | I don't know.

03:08:40.620 | That's a good point.

03:08:41.820 | - Is it on the toilet?

03:08:42.700 | How much, what percentage is on the toilet?

03:08:44.660 | - Very little.

03:08:45.500 | On the toilets, I usually am more reading.

03:08:47.220 | - Okay.

03:08:48.420 | - So even though my tweets are all literally shit,

03:08:50.940 | very few of them are on the toilet.

03:08:52.780 | - They're on a throne.

03:08:54.820 | - That's some advice.

03:08:56.100 | Don't compare yourself to other people.

03:09:01.900 | That's a really dangerous one.

03:09:03.580 | All my friends are married.

03:09:05.900 | I should have a kid by now.

03:09:08.300 | Should, there's an expression in recovery,

03:09:10.380 | stop shitting yourself.

03:09:12.020 | But it's, should, should, should.

03:09:14.460 | It's stupid.

03:09:15.660 | I also, and this could be my hoarder brain,

03:09:19.980 | I surround my house with talismans of joy.

03:09:22.780 | So if you have an accomplishment,

03:09:25.300 | like when I did Rogan once,

03:09:27.220 | I bought, went to the sock store

03:09:28.980 | and I bought these orange socks with black cherries on them.

03:09:31.700 | And now whenever I wore those socks,

03:09:33.620 | I'm like, oh, this is 'cause I was on Rogan.

03:09:35.420 | That was kind of a big deal.

03:09:36.700 | So if you have these little things throughout your house,

03:09:39.140 | it's, it was good mental fuel.

03:09:41.260 | Even like a toy.

03:09:42.460 | Remember when I was a kid, oh, you know what?

03:09:43.900 | This, little moments that inspire happiness,

03:09:46.740 | I think are visually very useful.

03:09:49.660 | So that's another one.

03:09:51.140 | And--

03:09:53.820 | - I, by the way, have the, that, the watch.

03:09:57.740 | 'Cause we're talking about 2021.

03:10:01.980 | That was really,

03:10:03.140 | the guy in the lecture hall giving you a pat in the back,

03:10:07.860 | I wrote, Joe gave me the watch.

03:10:11.180 | Was, yeah, it's life changing for me.

03:10:14.420 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:10:15.460 | - It doesn't even, it didn't,

03:10:16.940 | the fact that it was on a podcast or whatever,

03:10:18.860 | doesn't matter.

03:10:19.700 | - Learn how to form boundaries.

03:10:23.620 | That's probably the biggest,

03:10:24.500 | that's gonna be number one on my list.

03:10:26.300 | Because-- - Can you explain?

03:10:27.220 | - You're gonna have people around you

03:10:28.580 | who feel the need that they're entitled to your time,

03:10:30.900 | who feel the need to criticize you,

03:10:32.380 | and they're not coming from a good place.

03:10:34.620 | So it's very good for you to be like,

03:10:36.100 | I'm not interested in talking about this anymore right now.

03:10:38.060 | - Yeah, even if it's your parents.

03:10:39.740 | - Even if it's your, especially if it's your parents.

03:10:41.460 | Like, I need my space right now.

03:10:42.820 | You're entitled to your space.

03:10:44.020 | You're entitled to your time.

03:10:45.300 | No one owes you, you don't owe anyone a response.

03:10:47.740 | If someone has a question, you owe them an answer,

03:10:49.940 | especially if they're not coming at you in good faith

03:10:51.540 | or they're coming at you in a hostile way.

03:10:53.580 | That's a big one.

03:10:55.060 | It's hard to learn at that age.

03:10:56.620 | And be valuable to those who are around you.

03:11:02.700 | Be someone who people are happy to see.

03:11:09.620 | And if things are bad,

03:11:11.660 | like you're the one that they can rely on.

03:11:14.060 | Like I was just a little bit under the weather

03:11:16.900 | and I thought to myself, you know what,

03:11:18.020 | if things got really bad, I'll call Blair

03:11:20.060 | and she would take care of me

03:11:21.660 | and that kind of was very reassuring.

03:11:23.980 | - And you can always call me if you need

03:11:27.020 | heavy stuff lifted in an urgent matter.

03:11:32.020 | - Because of the robots?

03:11:34.020 | - No, just me, it's kind of like,

03:11:35.940 | those are the things I can help with.

03:11:37.460 | Or you're actually literally bleeding.

03:11:39.260 | I'm not a good caretaker, I can save you though.

03:11:41.260 | I can murder, if you need somebody murdered, I can do this.

03:11:44.860 | - Wait, what advice would you have to kids that age?

03:11:49.100 | And you're a lot younger than you think you are,

03:11:54.340 | that's the other one.

03:11:55.820 | - Yeah, there's time.

03:11:57.100 | - I know, it's impossible to understand when you're 26

03:12:01.260 | that your 40s are better than your 30s.

03:12:03.060 | 'Cause like, okay, old man, that's all cope.

03:12:05.420 | I promise you it is.

03:12:06.780 | - Yeah, I think you said so many beautiful things.

03:12:11.220 | I would say another version of the openness,

03:12:16.220 | I would say take big risks when you're young.

03:12:19.060 | - Yeah, 'cause if you fail, who cares?

03:12:20.780 | You're sleeping in a futon, who cares?

03:12:22.660 | - Yeah, and take them often.

03:12:24.340 | - Yeah.

03:12:25.180 | - Also, this is a little personal to me.

03:12:29.120 | I get pushback on this, but I think take big risks

03:12:35.340 | and work really hard at whatever you do.

03:12:40.720 | I think you just have to give yourself to a thing.

03:12:43.380 | It doesn't have to be in terms of time,

03:12:45.480 | but really give everything.

03:12:46.760 | So it's not like I'm going to try doing this.

03:12:50.500 | I'll try, I'll try.

03:12:52.860 | Try with all of your heart.

03:12:57.280 | Like really commit yourself.

03:12:59.160 | That doesn't mean necessarily hours, that doesn't mean,

03:13:01.580 | but like if you fail at doing a thing that you commit to,

03:13:06.440 | it should hurt.

03:13:08.120 | So like when I competed in jujitsu,

03:13:10.020 | or you do like sports and so on,

03:13:12.200 | don't just say I'm gonna have fun out there, so on.

03:13:14.440 | No, try to win.

03:13:16.240 | And because then if you don't, it hurts,

03:13:18.720 | and you learn from that.

03:13:19.920 | And then throughout, I think this is a goodness thing,

03:13:22.860 | is be kind.

03:13:23.960 | Some of it is also a skill, allowing yourself to be kind.

03:13:28.780 | I found myself earlier in life, I still do this.

03:13:31.720 | I find when I hang out with people,

03:13:34.920 | people are often cynical and negative.

03:13:37.000 | - Yeah, I try to avoid those people.

03:13:39.480 | - No, but like, I think everybody falls into that.

03:13:43.040 | And sometimes it's the party norm thing.

03:13:46.440 | There's a temptation to me to kind of fit in

03:13:49.080 | by being more negative than I'm comfortable being.

03:13:51.940 | And so resist the pressure.

03:13:55.960 | I think especially when you're younger,

03:13:57.360 | it's not cool to care.

03:13:59.920 | - The thing that drives, when you're young,

03:14:02.120 | if you are a fan of a band, a writer, a podcaster, an actor,

03:14:07.120 | and people roll their eyes at you,

03:14:09.200 | watch out, those people are dangerous.

03:14:11.240 | You should have, if you love Avril Lavigne

03:14:14.680 | with her terrible music, and she gives you joy,

03:14:17.880 | and people crap on you, they're wrong and you're right.

03:14:20.440 | So hold on to those things that make you happy.

03:14:24.000 | And if people wanna take that away from you,

03:14:25.600 | or how can you like that?

03:14:27.880 | Those people are not your friends.

03:14:30.320 | - Why do you have to go make life so complicated?

03:14:35.800 | - She's my favorite musician of all time.

03:14:40.000 | Jimi Hendrix second, Avril Lavigne first.

03:14:42.200 | Thank you for almost bringing a deer to my eye.

03:14:46.560 | You mentioned the should-os in terms of love,

03:14:49.440 | and you should have kids by now.

03:14:51.680 | I apologize if it's a personal one,

03:14:53.400 | but I think at least I have this thought.

03:14:56.560 | And not from society, but from myself.

03:14:58.260 | Like I wanna get married, I wanna have kids.

03:15:00.460 | Do you feel the pressure of that?

03:15:03.440 | Do you wanna have kids?

03:15:04.920 | - I don't wanna have kids.

03:15:06.600 | - You wanna get married?

03:15:07.920 | - I do wanna get married.

03:15:09.520 | This was an issue that I had to kind of work out

03:15:13.320 | earlier this year in terms of the possibility

03:15:17.400 | of having kids, 'cause I was in a relationship

03:15:20.960 | with someone who would have been, in many ways,

03:15:22.920 | literally a perfect mom.

03:15:25.440 | So I did my due diligence, and I actually sat down

03:15:29.040 | with friends of mine who had kids,

03:15:31.480 | and I say, "Give me the downside."

03:15:34.560 | - You did the pros and the cons.

03:15:36.000 | - Well, the pros I knew.

03:15:36.840 | The pros for kids are very, I love kids.

03:15:39.600 | I was just with Frank Fleming, he writes for the Babylon Bee,

03:15:42.800 | and he had his four kids, and his youngest son

03:15:44.720 | has Down syndrome, which is adorable.

03:15:47.740 | Winchester's so cute.

03:15:49.200 | And I always get along with kids.

03:15:52.320 | I remember very vividly what it was like to be a kid,

03:15:57.720 | especially a precocious kid, and I remember

03:16:00.000 | how much it bothered me when my parents' friends

03:16:02.960 | wouldn't give me attention, so I always make it a point

03:16:05.600 | to acknowledge kids, to talk to them,

03:16:07.600 | and they're very grateful, and it's just really fun.

03:16:11.600 | Especially the people who I'm friends with,

03:16:13.480 | their kids are probably gonna be pretty cool.

03:16:14.880 | They're not gonna be annoying and kind of ugly

03:16:16.840 | and overweight. (Lex laughs)

03:16:20.000 | So I-- - I love you got that in there.

03:16:23.200 | Okay, good. - Yeah, sorry, I'll go.

03:16:25.100 | But-- - But the cons,

03:16:27.920 | the negatives, what was the conversation like about that?

03:16:30.800 | - Well, I talked, my sister has two kids,

03:16:33.400 | my nephews, who I absolutely adore,

03:16:34.840 | whatever their names are, and she was,

03:16:39.240 | she was saying certain things.

03:16:40.400 | It's like, if I had kids, my kids are in my top priority.

03:16:43.200 | - Yeah. - It's not even a question.

03:16:45.720 | And I feel like the work I'm doing,

03:16:48.520 | and this sounds pompous, but it's true,

03:16:50.700 | is A, valuable and important,

03:16:53.640 | but I'm also the only one doing it.

03:16:55.520 | So this is a big cost, and so it's like,

03:17:00.160 | it would be a major lifestyle readjustment.

03:17:04.160 | And I'm at the point where I'm kind of selfish enough

03:17:07.000 | that I wouldn't want to do that,

03:17:09.960 | and also it'd have to be with the right woman.

03:17:11.720 | Like, you're making a commitment, you know?

03:17:14.120 | And since they're all crazy, you have to find one

03:17:17.400 | where you can handle the crazy.

03:17:19.440 | - All women are crazy? - Yeah.

03:17:21.320 | There are one and a halves in a binary world.

03:17:23.680 | - Oh boy, that's not comfortable for me.

03:17:26.800 | - No, sir.

03:17:28.400 | (chuckles)

03:17:30.600 | - But do you feel the pressure in thinking of that?

03:17:32.600 | How much does that weigh on your heart?

03:17:34.160 | Like, so Elon has kids.

03:17:36.520 | I feel like I love everything, and I love stuff I do.

03:17:41.520 | I love the robot over there, just working with robots.

03:17:45.880 | But I do feel the pressure of like,

03:17:48.920 | almost like when there's amazing cuisines

03:17:56.320 | you never tried or something like that,

03:17:58.200 | like, go out there and try it.

03:18:00.240 | Like, you need to put in the work, and I don't know.

03:18:02.800 | Like, life will run away from you,

03:18:05.840 | slip through your fingers before you truly get

03:18:07.800 | to experience this other kind of love,

03:18:09.560 | which is like long-term love for another human being,

03:18:14.560 | which is like marriage, and then love for kids.

03:18:19.520 | Yeah, and it almost makes me sad,

03:18:21.920 | like not getting to experience that.

03:18:26.400 | You know, 'cause I'm also really scared of,

03:18:30.920 | I've seen so many bad stories on the partner side,

03:18:34.560 | like being with the wrong person.

03:18:35.800 | - Right.

03:18:36.920 | - That to me is, I'm not worried, I have kids all day.

03:18:40.040 | In fact, I could probably just have kids

03:18:41.320 | without the partner.

03:18:42.940 | Kids, I think, are incredible.

03:18:47.200 | But the partner, like a wife,

03:18:50.880 | it seems like she could then have the negative consequences

03:18:53.800 | for you as a writer on your productivity

03:18:56.120 | and your mental ability to flourish,

03:18:57.760 | of being a joy to others, all those kinds of things.

03:19:00.520 | - You know what, that couldn't happen,

03:19:02.760 | because every relationship I've had,

03:19:04.900 | they've been very, beyond supportive.

03:19:10.800 | Like, they'd rather take an hour and do your work

03:19:14.880 | than spend time with me.

03:19:15.800 | Like, I believe in what you're doing.

03:19:17.440 | So I couldn't even casually date someone

03:19:19.760 | who didn't believe that, yeah.

03:19:21.160 | - So that's energizing.

03:19:22.280 | - Yes.

03:19:23.120 | - But over time, you never know how that evolves

03:19:25.160 | and all those kinds of things.

03:19:26.560 | And for me, I think we're a little bit different.

03:19:29.240 | I mean, that has to do with the engineering thing.

03:19:31.000 | I just have to pull insane hours.

03:19:32.840 | - Yeah, I don't.

03:19:33.920 | I work like two hours a day.

03:19:35.440 | - But that's what creatives do.

03:19:37.360 | You can only work a couple hours, honestly,

03:19:40.280 | to be productive, and the rest of the time not.

03:19:43.800 | I have to do a lot of menial labor.

03:19:46.360 | And so there, there's legit tension

03:19:49.440 | on terms of time and attention, all those kinds of things.

03:19:52.000 | I don't know.

03:19:53.640 | Do you think about this stuff a lot,

03:19:54.920 | or do you just love life and do cool stuff,

03:19:58.280 | and whatever happens, happens?

03:19:59.480 | - I have been so blessed for so long now

03:20:03.000 | that I'm at the point where I don't think about it,

03:20:05.240 | and I'm like, you know, just like,

03:20:08.560 | miracles happen every day, so just be open to it.

03:20:13.160 | - You think about your death, mortality?

03:20:16.480 | - Yes.

03:20:18.040 | - Fear, what do you feel about it?

03:20:19.520 | - I'm just worried.

03:20:20.480 | I wanna take as many people out with me as possible.

03:20:24.040 | So, suitcase nuke. - What's the best way?

03:20:25.760 | Nuke, suitcase nuke, I'm thinking.

03:20:28.000 | - Yeah.

03:20:28.840 | - No, I do think-- - In New York,

03:20:29.840 | that would be kind of ironic,

03:20:33.840 | as my other favorite artist would say.

03:20:35.360 | - I think about my legacy,

03:20:36.660 | and that's why my books are so important to me.

03:20:41.600 | - So, do you think of it as a kind of immortality?

03:20:45.320 | - It is, though.

03:20:46.160 | - Like, that's who you are, is those books.

03:20:47.880 | - Well, it's not who I am, but my legacy certainly is.

03:20:50.560 | - What do you hope your legacy is?

03:20:53.180 | - That I encourage people to be hopeful,

03:21:00.560 | and that I taught them how to be free.

03:21:03.020 | And my favorite, I think the best show of all time,

03:21:08.880 | was "Dallas," which often gets,

03:21:11.520 | it was like an '80s soap opera,

03:21:12.920 | and people conflate it with "Dynasty,"

03:21:15.040 | and they think it's trashy,

03:21:16.040 | and it was very Shakespearean,

03:21:17.760 | because all the characters are motivated by different values

03:21:20.080 | and the writing is just masterful,

03:21:22.600 | and the acting is masterful.

03:21:24.560 | And I'm not gonna spoil anything.

03:21:26.720 | One season ended with one of the characters

03:21:30.600 | on their deathbed in the hospital,

03:21:32.360 | and the whole cast is there,

03:21:33.360 | and the amount of acting talent in that room

03:21:35.000 | is just phenomenal.

03:21:38.480 | And as the character's dying,

03:21:41.440 | they look around and they go,

03:21:43.480 | like, "Please be kind to one another, be a family."

03:21:46.160 | And they're yelling at this character,

03:21:47.680 | "Don't you dare die on me," you know?

03:21:49.240 | And you could see the actors,

03:21:51.480 | 'cause they're losing their castmate

03:21:52.560 | who they've had from the beginning.

03:21:54.200 | And it would have been a perfect ending to the show,

03:21:55.720 | but obviously it's a cash cow, they gotta keep milking it.

03:21:58.180 | And I think that kindness and tenderness,

03:22:01.600 | and this is Michael Malice talking,

03:22:04.440 | there's a lot of people who want to make it

03:22:08.000 | that if you are kind or tender,

03:22:11.120 | you're gonna have consequences, bad consequences.

03:22:14.120 | And I think it's important, for me at least,

03:22:16.700 | to create a space in my life

03:22:19.240 | that if someone is going to be nice or friendly or kind,

03:22:23.640 | that they're not gonna have to feel stupid or bad about it.

03:22:27.440 | It's such a disincentive,

03:22:29.800 | the set of structure's so different.

03:22:31.400 | If you wanna be cynical and sneering,

03:22:33.520 | like round of applause,

03:22:34.840 | but if someone says, "Oh, this is great,"

03:22:36.600 | like, okay, simp, it's really bad.

03:22:39.020 | - Well, I think you do just this.

03:22:42.520 | You do this today, you do this in our friendship,

03:22:46.040 | and you do it for a very large number of people,

03:22:48.240 | is teach them how to have hope.

03:22:51.040 | - Yes.

03:22:51.880 | - And teach them how to be free.

03:22:55.240 | So, (speaking in foreign language)

03:22:59.200 | - (speaking in foreign language)

03:23:00.200 | - (speaking in foreign language)

03:23:01.040 | Thank you so much for talking to me.

03:23:02.720 | Thank you so much for being an inspiration.

03:23:05.680 | I love you, brother.

03:23:06.520 | - I love you.

03:23:07.340 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:23:10.440 | with Michael Malice.

03:23:11.680 | To support this podcast,

03:23:12.880 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:23:15.480 | And now, let me leave you with some words

03:23:17.720 | from Albert Camus.

03:23:19.120 | "Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

03:23:23.280 | "Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

03:23:26.080 | "Walk beside me.

03:23:27.500 | "Just be my friend."

03:23:29.120 | Thank you for listening,

03:23:31.120 | and hope to see you next time.

03:23:33.400 | (upbeat music)

03:23:35.980 | (upbeat music)

03:23:38.560 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Michael Malice: New Year's Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #253

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