Michael Malice and Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand, Human Nature, and Anarchy

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with Michael Malice

00:00:02.600 | and Yaron Brook, Michael's third time on this podcast

00:00:06.840 | and Yaron's second, but together for the first time.

00:00:11.240 | Michael is an anarchist, political thinker,

00:00:14.400 | host of a podcast called "You're Welcome"

00:00:17.820 | and author of "Dear Reader, The New Right"

00:00:21.600 | and two upcoming books,

00:00:23.640 | "Anarchist Handbook" and "The White Pill".

00:00:26.680 | Yaron is an objectivist philosopher,

00:00:29.640 | chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute,

00:00:32.120 | host of the Yaron Brook Show

00:00:34.880 | and co-author of "The Free Market Revolution"

00:00:38.200 | and "Equal is Unfair".

00:00:41.120 | Quick mention of our sponsors,

00:00:42.840 | Ground News, Public Goods, Athletic Greens,

00:00:46.960 | Brave and Four Sigmatic.

00:00:49.520 | Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

00:00:53.080 | As a side note, let me say that this conversation

00:00:56.280 | is a kind of experiment.

00:00:58.200 | Both Michael and Yaron are thoughtful and passionate,

00:01:01.340 | united in part by an interest in the history

00:01:04.500 | and philosophy of Ayn Rand,

00:01:06.480 | but they are also very different in style.

00:01:09.400 | Good conversation, like good food,

00:01:12.120 | is often made delicious by pairing of contrasting elements.

00:01:16.320 | For example, someone suggested I try a peanut butter,

00:01:20.000 | bacon and banana sandwich, which apparently is very good.

00:01:24.360 | Among the three of us, I don't know who's the peanut butter,

00:01:27.040 | who's the bacon and who's the banana.

00:01:29.560 | I'm guessing it's probably me, I'm the banana.

00:01:32.560 | But I hope the final result, the final dish, if you will,

00:01:36.640 | is equally delicious.

00:01:38.600 | We talked through, I think, a lot of interesting ideas,

00:01:41.720 | sometimes disagreeing, sometimes even in rare cases,

00:01:45.760 | saying something humorous, including dark humor,

00:01:48.960 | especially in Michael's case.

00:01:50.840 | All three of us are sensitive to the suffering

00:01:52.920 | in the world today and throughout human history.

00:01:55.660 | We think about it, we talk about it,

00:01:58.120 | and we deal with it in different ways.

00:02:00.440 | Be patient with us.

00:02:01.920 | Whether you agree, disagree, enjoy or dislike the result,

00:02:05.800 | I hope if you listen, you're a wiser person

00:02:08.360 | on the other end of it.

00:02:09.800 | I know I was.

00:02:11.160 | Mostly, I really enjoyed this conversation

00:02:13.560 | because no matter what Michael and Yaron believe,

00:02:17.000 | underneath it all, they're genuine, kind human beings

00:02:20.960 | that I'm lucky to be able to hang out with and learn from.

00:02:25.180 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast,

00:02:27.800 | and here's my conversation

00:02:29.560 | with Michael Malice and Yaron Brooke.

00:02:32.420 | - I've been a huge fan of the two of you

00:02:35.900 | for the longest time.

00:02:36.840 | - Are we recording now?

00:02:37.680 | Is it starting?

00:02:38.720 | Or are you just talking?

00:02:39.720 | - I'm not recording at all.

00:02:41.000 | - He's not gonna compliment us if it's not part of the show.

00:02:42.480 | - Yes, he does, all the time.

00:02:43.800 | He speaks very highly of me.

00:02:45.140 | You, I don't know.

00:02:45.980 | Maybe he's being charitable.

00:02:47.240 | - He only does this to me on the show.

00:02:48.600 | - Objectivists don't like charity, so don't compliment him.

00:02:50.600 | He won't think it's sincere.

00:02:52.040 | - There you go.

00:02:53.000 | - So it's an incredible honor

00:02:55.200 | that the both of you would show up here.

00:02:57.260 | If we, let me just ask this sort of

00:02:59.380 | profound philosophical question.

00:03:01.480 | How well do you think we would get along

00:03:02.860 | if we were stuck in a desert island together?

00:03:05.260 | What would life be like?

00:03:07.460 | - I thought the original question you had,

00:03:09.020 | that you sent us this question,

00:03:11.180 | was how long would it take for us to murder one another,

00:03:13.420 | or something like that.

00:03:14.260 | There was murder in the question, if I remember.

00:03:15.620 | - I, listen, he sent us homework, right,

00:03:18.580 | all these questions.

00:03:19.420 | - I ignored it.

00:03:20.240 | - I didn't spend four years at Patrick Henry University

00:03:22.700 | to do homework.

00:03:23.680 | To answer your question,

00:03:25.040 | I think it would be very easy

00:03:27.980 | for us to live together in a desert island

00:03:29.800 | in terms of interpersonal.

00:03:30.880 | I know, and I say this because I know a lot of people

00:03:33.040 | who have been the show's survivor.

00:03:34.360 | So they, and I know a little bit about the dynamics.

00:03:36.760 | So when you have people who are intelligent,

00:03:38.600 | who are gonna have the same goals,

00:03:40.640 | I mean, and there's space to go away if I'm annoyed at you,

00:03:44.880 | I don't think it would be that hard at all.

00:03:46.800 | - What's our goals on a desert island?

00:03:48.400 | - Food, shelter.

00:03:49.640 | - Survival.

00:03:50.480 | - Survival, yeah.

00:03:51.300 | - Survival, basically.

00:03:52.140 | - And getting out of there, right?

00:03:53.360 | You don't wanna stay on the desert island.

00:03:54.760 | So yeah, I don't think,

00:03:57.560 | I think that's true of any three,

00:03:59.840 | you know, semi-rational people who, you know,

00:04:02.960 | who basically share the goal that they wanna survive,

00:04:06.020 | they wanna thrive, they wanna get off of the island.

00:04:08.640 | Why would there be conflict?

00:04:10.240 | - Yeah.

00:04:11.080 | - Well, I mean, there would be conflict,

00:04:11.920 | but, and there can be conflict,

00:04:13.360 | but they'd find ways to deal with it.

00:04:15.160 | I don't have this negative view of human beings,

00:04:18.440 | particularly not as individuals.

00:04:19.880 | It's when they get into mobs and groups and collectives

00:04:24.040 | that ideology can really motivate them

00:04:27.060 | to do horrible things.

00:04:28.260 | - One of the things that really drives me crazy

00:04:30.520 | is how sinister an impact the book "Lord of the Flies"

00:04:33.460 | has had on our culture.

00:04:35.040 | I read it in high school.

00:04:36.000 | It's a superb book, that's not even a question,

00:04:38.420 | but it's not accurate.

00:04:39.760 | We see in many situations where people are trapped together

00:04:43.580 | under difficult circumstances,

00:04:45.040 | obviously that book's about children,

00:04:46.780 | that very quickly, it is not about conflict.

00:04:49.980 | It very quickly becomes about cooperation.

00:04:52.820 | Let's work together.

00:04:53.760 | We all have the same goal.

00:04:54.940 | This is not a time to worry about other things.

00:04:57.260 | It really, the human beings,

00:05:00.000 | the animal instinct that kicks in is the social animal,

00:05:03.380 | and I'm gonna shut up and go over there

00:05:05.600 | and have a, like, stomp my feet

00:05:07.580 | instead of arguing with your own

00:05:08.980 | because we're really trapped in the situation

00:05:10.580 | and we need to make it work.

00:05:11.820 | - Well, and to the extent that they're bad people,

00:05:13.500 | bad people are dealt with, right?

00:05:14.820 | So this is true of all of, you know,

00:05:17.780 | how did we survive as a species, right?

00:05:19.340 | How have we survived as a species?

00:05:20.540 | We've been on a desert island, in a sense,

00:05:22.220 | as a species forever.

00:05:24.020 | Tribes survive.

00:05:24.940 | They survive by cooperation.

00:05:26.420 | They survive by dealing with bad people.

00:05:30.420 | Civilization is created by people cooperating

00:05:33.820 | and working together and allowing individuals

00:05:37.140 | to thrive within the group,

00:05:38.860 | and when bad people arise, they deal with them, right?

00:05:42.660 | They now, sometimes these groups get captured by bad people,

00:05:47.660 | right, and bad ideas,

00:05:49.460 | and probably from day one that was going on, right,

00:05:52.460 | the whole tribe is probably a bad idea to begin with,

00:05:56.100 | but underneath it all,

00:05:59.260 | the fact is that to survive as a species,

00:06:01.780 | we need to think, we need to be rational,

00:06:04.980 | and if we don't have any respect for reason,

00:06:09.500 | then we would all die.

00:06:10.580 | We would die off.

00:06:11.700 | - So that's a hopeful message,

00:06:13.500 | but where does that go wrong?

00:06:14.860 | So with three people, we might get along.

00:06:17.340 | We would focus on the basics of life.

00:06:19.020 | We have similar goals.

00:06:20.420 | - Once women are introduced,

00:06:22.340 | they're incessant irrationalism.

00:06:24.020 | - No, no.

00:06:24.860 | - And less of their hormones, or SOL.

00:06:27.020 | - Look, three of us on a desert island would be nice,

00:06:29.740 | but without women, it wouldn't be fun.

00:06:32.020 | - I'm gonna edit out half the things Michael said

00:06:33.860 | through this broadcast.

00:06:34.900 | - As you know, I used to run the Ayn Rand Institute.

00:06:37.020 | She was a woman last time I looked.

00:06:38.780 | - Oh, wait a minute.

00:06:40.140 | You know exactly what I'm gonna say.

00:06:42.420 | When Ludwig von Mises, or Hazlitt,

00:06:44.580 | I forget who it was, Mises, was praising Ayn Rand,

00:06:47.940 | and I think it was Hazlitt who said it to her.

00:06:50.260 | He said, "Ludwig von Mises said,

00:06:52.220 | "you're the smartest man I've ever met."

00:06:54.100 | And Ayn Rand said, "Did he say man?"

00:06:56.700 | Right?

00:06:57.540 | - No, she viewed it as a compliment.

00:06:58.500 | - Right, but she wanted to be clear that he said man.

00:07:00.860 | She was excited, yes.

00:07:01.700 | - Absolutely.

00:07:02.540 | - She was excited, but she was.

00:07:03.940 | - I took it as her perceiving him

00:07:06.380 | as seeing her as a full equal.

00:07:07.940 | - Oh, I think that's right.

00:07:09.180 | I think that's right.

00:07:10.020 | Plus, I think the perception out there,

00:07:13.460 | the perception and the culture of men as being rational

00:07:16.140 | was a compliment to her.

00:07:17.980 | - And this is also--

00:07:18.820 | - Because that was affirming that he viewed her as a rational.

00:07:22.860 | - Yeah, 'cause Mises is old school.

00:07:24.420 | He's an older Eastern European guy,

00:07:26.380 | so he would definitely have these rigid views.

00:07:28.300 | Like his wife, I read her autobiography,

00:07:30.420 | Marguerite von Mises,

00:07:31.620 | and basically he made her his secretary

00:07:33.740 | to the point where if he's typing something,

00:07:36.060 | or he had something handwritten, she had to type it out,

00:07:38.460 | and if she made a typo, he would tear up the page.

00:07:40.500 | She had to start from the beginning,

00:07:41.620 | but it's like this is the role of the man,

00:07:43.580 | this is the role of the woman.

00:07:44.420 | So for him to regard her,

00:07:45.980 | this was kind of a breaking through moment,

00:07:47.460 | not that she was secretly misogynist.

00:07:51.020 | - So I think we go wrong when people try to understand

00:07:54.940 | the world around them and come up with wrong ideas.

00:07:57.380 | And it's natural that they would come up with wrong ideas

00:08:01.220 | 'cause it's hard to figure out what's right.

00:08:03.500 | So we start with trying to come up

00:08:06.460 | with mystical explanations for the existence

00:08:09.620 | of the things around us.

00:08:11.460 | And that I think very quickly leads to some people

00:08:14.660 | being able to communicate with the mystical stuff out there,

00:08:18.220 | and some people not being able to communicate,

00:08:19.980 | and some people wanting to control other people

00:08:22.660 | and using those pseudo explanations as a way to control.

00:08:27.300 | So you always have,

00:08:28.740 | Rand called it Attila and the witch doctor.

00:08:31.060 | You always have a witch doctor, the mystic,

00:08:34.140 | the philosopher, the intellectual,

00:08:36.820 | the philosopher king is a unity of the...

00:08:39.980 | And you have an Attila,

00:08:41.020 | you have somebody who wants to control other people,

00:08:43.340 | who's willing to use force to control other people.

00:08:45.820 | And when those two get together, that's when things go bad.

00:08:49.100 | And unfortunately, 95, 98% of human history

00:08:54.100 | is when those two are together.

00:08:56.140 | And so the not having them together,

00:09:00.060 | having the right ideas,

00:09:01.220 | and the right ideas are ones that are not exclusive

00:09:03.820 | to those guys and where we don't allow Attila

00:09:06.980 | to have that kind of physical power over us.

00:09:09.420 | That's an exception and that's rare.

00:09:11.460 | And that's what needs to be defended.

00:09:14.540 | - Stalin's not personally killing people.

00:09:16.100 | Hitler's not personally killing people.

00:09:17.380 | Charles Manson's not personally killing people.

00:09:18.940 | They need their goons.

00:09:20.300 | - They need their goons,

00:09:21.140 | but they also, they don't have original ideas.

00:09:25.380 | Nothing Stalin says is original to him.

00:09:28.220 | He needs a Marx, even Lenin.

00:09:31.100 | They all need a Marx.

00:09:32.500 | They all, and Marx needs a particular line of thinkers

00:09:36.660 | that come before him that set him up

00:09:39.780 | for these kinds of ideas.

00:09:40.740 | So Stalin both needs his goons,

00:09:43.540 | even though he's somewhat of a goon, particularly Stalin.

00:09:45.420 | - He was a bank robber, yeah.

00:09:46.660 | - And then, so take Lenin.

00:09:48.100 | Lenin, I think, is a better example

00:09:49.380 | 'cause Lenin's more intellectual, if you will.

00:09:51.940 | But Lenin needs his goons.

00:09:53.300 | He needs his Stalins.

00:09:54.620 | But Lenin also needs his Marx.

00:09:56.300 | And we don't want to let Marx off the hook

00:09:57.940 | because Marx knows, I think, implicitly,

00:10:01.980 | that his ideas have to lead to Lenin and Stalin.

00:10:05.300 | His ideas are not neutral.

00:10:06.740 | - I don't think it's implicit at all.

00:10:08.280 | I think Marx very much glorified revolution,

00:10:11.500 | blood and terror.

00:10:12.980 | This is not implicit in the slightest.

00:10:14.180 | - No, absolutely.

00:10:15.020 | I mean, there are letters between him and Engels

00:10:16.580 | where they talk about which peoples

00:10:17.940 | will have to be eliminated

00:10:19.940 | 'cause they don't have that proletarian thing, right?

00:10:23.420 | So I think certain peoples in Southern Europe

00:10:28.420 | are not appropriate for the utopia to come

00:10:31.460 | and will have to be gone.

00:10:32.740 | - And Marx also had this concept,

00:10:34.540 | which we still see today in garbled ways,

00:10:37.500 | of polylogism, which is if you're a capitalist

00:10:40.140 | and I'm bourgeois or I'm a worker,

00:10:42.620 | you just, your logic is different than mine.

00:10:44.900 | It's literally gonna be impossible for us to communicate.

00:10:47.700 | And at a certain point, you're gonna have to be liquidated

00:10:49.740 | and they pretend that doesn't mean murdered,

00:10:51.460 | but it means murdered.

00:10:52.380 | And very quickly, everyone becomes a capitalist or bourgeois

00:10:54.540 | and then you have the holodomor and things like this.

00:10:57.840 | - No, he knows exactly where it's gonna lead.

00:10:59.540 | And this is why people say, "Oh, Marx is not evil.

00:11:02.540 | "He just wrote books."

00:11:03.380 | No, it's the people who write books

00:11:05.700 | who are responsible for the way history evolves.

00:11:09.140 | And they know, they know.

00:11:10.860 | The bad guys certainly know the consequence of their ideas

00:11:14.460 | and they need to bear the moral responsibility

00:11:17.860 | for what happens when the ideas are implemented.

00:11:20.500 | - Here's the, wait, can I ask a question?

00:11:22.020 | - Yeah.

00:11:22.860 | - 'Cause I think I know more about Rand than Yaron does.

00:11:24.900 | So let's see.

00:11:25.740 | - Oh. - Okay.

00:11:26.580 | - The gauntlet's been thrown down.

00:11:28.180 | Who did Ayn Rand say is the most evil man who ever lived?

00:11:30.860 | - Immanuel Kant. - That's right, correct.

00:11:32.500 | - No, that I know.

00:11:33.340 | I mean, it's a big deal that Immanuel Kant is,

00:11:36.180 | and most people don't understand why

00:11:38.500 | because if you read Kant, there's certain passages in Kant

00:11:41.700 | that sound pretty liberal, they sound pretty,

00:11:43.900 | he's for the, it sounds like he's for the individual,

00:11:46.940 | he sounds like he's for the American Revolution,

00:11:49.300 | things like that.

00:11:50.140 | But when you actually read his philosophy

00:11:52.040 | and what he's trying to defend

00:11:53.140 | and what he's trying to undermine,

00:11:55.060 | he's trying to undermine the foundations

00:11:56.940 | that make the revolution possible,

00:11:59.060 | that make freedom and individualism possible.

00:12:01.380 | He's trying to destroy the Enlightenment,

00:12:03.420 | and the Enlightenment is, are those ideas

00:12:05.900 | that make freedom, individualism feasible.

00:12:08.940 | He's trying to undermine reason,

00:12:10.620 | and without reason, we're nothing,

00:12:12.780 | we're not, we can't survive as a species.

00:12:15.860 | So, and that's why she thought he was the most evil person,

00:12:18.980 | because his ideas undermine the very foundations

00:12:22.860 | of what it requires to be a human being,

00:12:25.140 | reason and individualism.

00:12:26.860 | Those are the things he's trying to eviscerate.

00:12:29.300 | - I know you've talked about Hoffman before.

00:12:32.380 | So Hoffman is a modern day attempt to--

00:12:37.380 | - Who's Hoffman?

00:12:38.220 | - Donald Hoffman?

00:12:39.700 | - Donald Hoffman.

00:12:40.540 | - Donald Hoffman is the University of California,

00:12:43.260 | Irvine neurologist, neuroscientist, something like that.

00:12:47.900 | So I met him once, and we were at one of these conferences

00:12:51.600 | where you do a quick intro, you sit

00:12:53.300 | and you do a quick intro, his introduction was,

00:12:55.500 | "I've just written a book that proves

00:12:56.900 | "that evolution has conditioned us not to see reality."

00:13:01.280 | - Okay, that is very Kantian.

00:13:04.260 | - Yeah, and he is basically just presenting pseudoscience

00:13:08.980 | to defend Kant's position about epistemology,

00:13:13.020 | and about metaphysics, and there's nothing original there.

00:13:18.020 | And he puts up a bunch of equations,

00:13:20.020 | and he says, "I ran a simulation, and it proves I'm right."

00:13:24.060 | - So, Yaron is a little bit frustrated

00:13:26.940 | with Donald Hoffman's work.

00:13:28.420 | Let me--

00:13:29.260 | - I'm not frustrated, I just think it's completely wrong,

00:13:31.740 | and it's anti-life, anti-mind, anti-evolution.

00:13:35.980 | I think he's an anti-evolutionist at the end.

00:13:38.100 | And I think it, you know, any time you say,

00:13:40.260 | look, here's the important point.

00:13:41.800 | Any time you say reality doesn't exist--

00:13:44.700 | - Or that you can't perceive it.

00:13:45.740 | - Well, who are you?

00:13:47.060 | What do you mean by, what do any of your words mean?

00:13:49.180 | What does anything you say even mean

00:13:51.060 | if it doesn't refer to something

00:13:52.260 | that's actually out there in reality?

00:13:53.620 | - Let me try to defend this point of view,

00:13:55.140 | because in a certain kind of sense,

00:13:57.820 | I hear it as being humble in the face

00:14:01.140 | of the uncertainty that's around us.

00:14:03.300 | Sort of, you know, when you speak with the confidence

00:14:07.500 | of Ayn Rand and yourself, that reason can be like

00:14:12.500 | this weapon that cuts through all the bullshit of the world

00:14:15.580 | and makes us have an ethical, moral life,

00:14:17.980 | and all those kinds of things,

00:14:19.580 | you kind of assume that reason is a superpower

00:14:23.740 | that has no limits.

00:14:25.140 | - Wait, hold on.

00:14:25.980 | - Hold on a second.

00:14:26.820 | Okay, but--

00:14:28.420 | - I got this one.

00:14:29.260 | - See, this is already leading to murder by words.

00:14:35.620 | - Yeah.

00:14:36.460 | - And we've been only talking for 20 minutes.

00:14:37.300 | - If the two of us wouldn't get together,

00:14:38.460 | wouldn't get along together on an island.

00:14:40.740 | - We just make him our slave.

00:14:42.820 | We're all gonna get along.

00:14:43.780 | He's just gonna do the work.

00:14:45.140 | - But I'm afraid I cannot provide any value as a slave,

00:14:48.420 | so this is not gonna end well for me.

00:14:50.460 | - We can provide value as dinner.

00:14:52.460 | - That's the problem I'm trying to get to.

00:14:54.020 | - That's a solution.

00:14:55.020 | - Okay, but Donald Hoffman says that there is,

00:15:00.140 | he makes an argument that, exactly as you said,

00:15:04.700 | that what we perceive is very, very far

00:15:09.700 | from actual physical reality.

00:15:12.380 | In fact, we're not able to perceive

00:15:14.580 | physical reality at all.

00:15:17.260 | And he also makes the bigger claim

00:15:19.180 | that evolution prefers beings

00:15:24.180 | who are not attached to reality.

00:15:26.420 | So evolution created creatures

00:15:28.100 | that are basically functioning way outside

00:15:30.860 | of what the physical reality is.

00:15:32.060 | - I got this, I got this.

00:15:33.380 | Okay, 'cause there's a lot to unpack here

00:15:34.820 | and I hate all of it.

00:15:35.860 | Okay, first of all, no, no, I'm serious.

00:15:39.900 | First of all, when you were making that comment

00:15:41.740 | about how reason is a superpower beyond limit,

00:15:45.980 | you're being ironic, but it's true.

00:15:48.700 | And I'll give you one example, which is astronomy.

00:15:50.900 | If you look at the physical size of the universe,

00:15:53.620 | it's literally in one sense incomprehensible.

00:15:55.900 | So he's right in the sense that I do not understand

00:15:58.540 | and none of us understand what it means

00:16:00.300 | for 93 million miles away for the sun to be.

00:16:02.380 | It's a number on another screen, right?

00:16:05.100 | That said, the fact that my mind,

00:16:08.380 | and I'm not one of the great thinkers of all time,

00:16:10.940 | is capable-- - Close, but--

00:16:12.460 | - We're getting there, is capable of appreciating

00:16:15.420 | what the sun means, what heliocentrism means.

00:16:19.140 | The fact that we can, you're a math person,

00:16:22.140 | that you could look at galaxies and reduce it to 10

00:16:24.820 | to the 64th power in terms of distance,

00:16:27.340 | that shows the unlimited capacity

00:16:31.220 | of the human mind and reason, number one.

00:16:33.220 | Number two is if he says that evolution favors

00:16:38.220 | those who are not in touch with reality,

00:16:41.340 | and I don't know in what context he's saying that,

00:16:43.300 | 'cause that sentence could mean a lot of different things,

00:16:45.900 | evolution is what guides,

00:16:48.420 | reality is what guides evolution.

00:16:50.300 | Evolution works because you are fitted

00:16:53.660 | to the reality of the situation around you.

00:16:56.500 | It's not that someone is sitting down and says,

00:16:58.780 | "Well, I'm gonna add a fin to this animal

00:17:02.020 | "and that fin helps it swim," I engineered a check mark,

00:17:05.580 | it's that mutations occur,

00:17:08.300 | the vast majority of these mutations are against reality,

00:17:11.620 | they do not further this animal's life

00:17:14.180 | or this plant's life or this fungus's life,

00:17:16.460 | but the ones that are in touch with reality,

00:17:18.780 | such as, okay, it's really cold here,

00:17:22.160 | there's no predators here, if I could figure out,

00:17:25.060 | and I'm using that term very loosely,

00:17:26.540 | a way where I could survive in the cold,

00:17:29.240 | I don't have predation, it's really great.

00:17:31.460 | So the fact that unconsciously and mindlessly

00:17:35.180 | this process can force the mutation and evolution

00:17:38.880 | of the form precisely means that they're in touch

00:17:41.540 | with reality, now if he means the consciousness

00:17:44.620 | is not in touch with reality,

00:17:46.180 | that's another thing that I really hate.

00:17:48.260 | - You're referring to the reality as like

00:17:49.940 | the biological reality of evolution,

00:17:52.060 | but all of that is based on many other layers

00:17:54.300 | of abstraction that ultimately has quantum mechanics

00:17:57.420 | underneath it all, and he's saying somewhere

00:17:59.140 | along the layers, you start to lose more and more

00:18:01.780 | and more attachment to the actual--

00:18:02.980 | - Hold on, can I have one more second?

00:18:03.820 | - Sure, sure.

00:18:04.940 | - I do not, I despise the idea.

00:18:07.220 | I say despise, I'm not using this, I'm not joking,

00:18:10.420 | and the idea that the reality we don't live in

00:18:14.180 | is somehow more real than this.

00:18:16.980 | That is a very dangerous idea to say,

00:18:19.180 | well quantum works in this way, and I'm sure he's correct,

00:18:21.460 | and none of us disagree with that.

00:18:23.580 | What we perceive macro works in a different way,

00:18:26.660 | well that's the real reality and this is fake.

00:18:29.260 | Bullshit, this is the real reality,

00:18:31.620 | that is a different type, a sub-subset,

00:18:34.260 | but no one's living there.

00:18:35.420 | - Well and it's a sub-subset--

00:18:36.260 | - And humanity is the starting point.

00:18:37.620 | - It's a sub-subset that has to integrate

00:18:39.960 | with this world.

00:18:41.700 | There isn't two worlds, one in the quantum world

00:18:43.900 | and one here, they're integrated.

00:18:45.460 | Now we might not have the scientific knowledge

00:18:47.100 | to know how they're integrated, but so what?

00:18:49.020 | We know that there's only one reality and that's this one.

00:18:51.940 | He has this difference, he says evolution

00:18:55.380 | matches up to fitness not to reality,

00:18:58.940 | and he creates this dichotomy between fitness and reality,

00:19:01.860 | but that's complete nonsense.

00:19:03.620 | There is no such thing as a concept of fitness

00:19:06.820 | outside of fitness to what?

00:19:08.920 | To reality, that fitness and reality are the same thing,

00:19:12.400 | they're not separate things.

00:19:14.020 | So the whole way he sets this up intellectually

00:19:17.600 | is wrong, I think to some extent dishonest,

00:19:21.240 | and certainly philosophically corrupt, and it's Kantian.

00:19:23.920 | Again, he's accepted Kant's ideas

00:19:26.540 | and everybody pretty much has accepted Kant's ideas

00:19:29.560 | for the last 200 years, and they give it a different facade

00:19:32.800 | and he's giving it an evolutionary facade,

00:19:34.840 | but it's just a facade for the same idea,

00:19:36.820 | and that is that somehow because we have eyes,

00:19:39.380 | we cannot see because the light waves

00:19:43.140 | are going through a medium

00:19:44.360 | and that medium necessarily distorted.

00:19:46.420 | The medium changes the resolution at which you see, right?

00:19:49.520 | Like if I take off my glasses,

00:19:50.700 | I'm seeing it a little differently,

00:19:52.540 | but the thing is still there,

00:19:54.260 | and the thing is still there in the way I see it

00:19:55.760 | 'cause the handle, I'm grasping the handle

00:19:57.500 | and lifting the cup.

00:19:58.740 | That's not an illusion, that is a real cup.

00:20:00.860 | - So do you think some things are more real than others?

00:20:03.340 | For example, money.

00:20:04.500 | There's a bunch of things that seem real.

00:20:08.140 | This is not an animal farm reference.

00:20:09.740 | - Is this gonna be about love?

00:20:11.740 | There's nothing as real as love, right, Lex?

00:20:13.940 | (laughing)

00:20:14.780 | What is love?

00:20:16.100 | - Love is a fundamental part of the quantum mechanics, yes.

00:20:19.180 | No. - No.

00:20:20.520 | - No, no.

00:20:21.780 | Is there some things that have become reality

00:20:25.180 | because we humans in a collective sense believe it?

00:20:28.500 | - You can't believe something collectively.

00:20:30.300 | Now, it doesn't become real.

00:20:31.900 | What does it mean to say something's real?

00:20:33.700 | That is, you can, so love, for example,

00:20:35.780 | love's a good example, right?

00:20:36.820 | Love is an abstraction, right?

00:20:38.560 | It's not something I can touch.

00:20:40.300 | It's not something I can see,

00:20:41.620 | but it's certainly something you could feel.

00:20:42.940 | - Well, it's something you could hit.

00:20:43.780 | - Right? (laughing)

00:20:45.820 | - We love differently.

00:20:47.420 | You and I. - I don't think that's true.

00:20:48.500 | I think I'm just so honest about it.

00:20:49.340 | - You can't hit love.

00:20:50.540 | You can't, love is an abstraction.

00:20:53.180 | So is love real?

00:20:54.140 | Yes, it's real 'cause I feel it.

00:20:56.380 | It's an existent, but it's not an existent

00:20:58.260 | in the same sense as this cup is.

00:21:00.320 | So, you know, abstractions are real,

00:21:05.220 | but at the end of the day,

00:21:06.100 | all abstractions have to be able to be,

00:21:09.580 | you know, reduced to actual concrete

00:21:12.980 | so that you can either see it.

00:21:14.740 | - I really don't like criticizing someone whose work

00:21:18.060 | I haven't read secondhand.

00:21:19.220 | So I wanna take this away from speaking about him personally

00:21:21.900 | 'cause I'm not familiar with his work, but I--

00:21:23.580 | - He's a nice guy.

00:21:24.940 | - That makes me like him. - Yeah, no, I met him.

00:21:26.060 | - That makes him like him less.

00:21:28.180 | I think--

00:21:29.020 | - I'm gonna take you back talking about fitness,

00:21:30.280 | evolutionary fitness.

00:21:31.220 | - I think there's disingenuousness

00:21:36.220 | when we talk about the word real

00:21:38.360 | in terms of ideas are real versus the cup is real.

00:21:41.840 | And you try to switch back between those two meanings,

00:21:45.320 | and it's a little bit of linguistic wordplay

00:21:48.480 | that is trying to force a point that's not accurate,

00:21:51.240 | in my opinion.

00:21:52.100 | - Well, I think the issue is,

00:21:55.200 | and what he's challenging is,

00:21:56.560 | and what Kant is challenging is,

00:21:57.840 | do we know reality?

00:22:01.200 | And I think the answer is, yes, we do.

00:22:03.280 | We know reality, we observe it.

00:22:05.240 | Now, do we know everything about reality?

00:22:07.760 | No, we can't, for example,

00:22:09.520 | sense what a bat senses as reality, right?

00:22:12.840 | A bat observes reality through, what is it?

00:22:15.960 | - Sonar.

00:22:16.800 | - Sound waves, right, through sonar, right?

00:22:18.800 | So it has a different sense, but it's the same reality.

00:22:21.200 | It's still a table.

00:22:23.000 | The bat's spatial relationship to the table

00:22:25.560 | is different than ours,

00:22:26.840 | but the object is still the same object.

00:22:29.520 | - But how do you know that's true?

00:22:31.160 | Are you not just hoping that's true?

00:22:32.960 | Or assuming that's true?

00:22:34.040 | - No, that's what no means.

00:22:35.840 | No means I have identified an aspect of reality.

00:22:39.600 | That's literally the definition of knowledge.

00:22:41.840 | Now, if you say, how are you certain?

00:22:43.960 | Well, that's a whole other question,

00:22:45.560 | but one of the reasons I know it was certain

00:22:47.680 | is 'cause this happens.

00:22:49.000 | And I know this is gonna happen,

00:22:50.560 | and if I tell you, if you go downstairs,

00:22:53.440 | you're gonna see Mr. Jones,

00:22:55.420 | and you walk downstairs, and I see Mr. Jones,

00:22:57.920 | at the very least, something's going on there.

00:23:00.440 | - So what about all the things

00:23:01.520 | that mess with our perception?

00:23:02.680 | For example, we've talked about psychedelics before,

00:23:05.200 | talked about in dreams where you're detached from this.

00:23:08.960 | I mean, there's certain things that happen to your brain

00:23:11.680 | to where you're not able to perceive.

00:23:13.200 | - So you're not perceiving reality, that's right.

00:23:14.880 | So your brain is creating a different reality.

00:23:16.720 | It's not real.

00:23:17.760 | - How do you know it's not real?

00:23:19.160 | How do you know the elves will meet in an alligator tail?

00:23:21.760 | - Because partially because I need to take a drug

00:23:23.600 | in order to do it, because I'm asleep when I'm dreaming.

00:23:28.420 | It's not reality.

00:23:29.740 | That is clearly a creation of a mind.

00:23:33.540 | It's not a creation.

00:23:34.380 | - Hold on, let's get to the psychedelics.

00:23:36.020 | - The drug is real.

00:23:36.860 | - If you are, I think you're gonna be thinking,

00:23:40.700 | I'm joking a lot more than I am this episode.

00:23:42.340 | I'm gonna be the humanist objectivist.

00:23:43.700 | He could be the court jester.

00:23:45.500 | In terms of psychedelic,

00:23:49.100 | when people are perceiving these elves,

00:23:50.980 | these machine elves, these other entities,

00:23:53.420 | whether they could either be real or not, I don't know.

00:23:57.160 | But the point is that doesn't go to his broader point,

00:24:00.180 | because if these beings exist,

00:24:02.680 | and the only way to perceive them is to take a drug,

00:24:05.440 | they still exist.

00:24:06.680 | This is just, for example,

00:24:08.300 | if I'm walking outside in the woods at night,

00:24:13.300 | and there's a deer, and I can't see it,

00:24:15.360 | but if I put on night vision goggles, I can see it,

00:24:17.640 | that deer was there the entire time.

00:24:19.480 | It's not that the night vision goggles

00:24:21.240 | caused the deer to appear.

00:24:22.760 | You can recreate it not only using night vision goggles,

00:24:25.680 | but you can then use sonar,

00:24:28.160 | you can use other mechanisms

00:24:29.480 | by which to prove that the deer is there.

00:24:31.880 | The thing with psychedelics is that,

00:24:33.680 | now I don't know,

00:24:34.720 | because maybe I'm the least experienced

00:24:36.720 | with psychedelics here probably.

00:24:38.660 | My guess is every time you take the psychedelic,

00:24:40.240 | you have exactly the same experience of the deer?

00:24:42.000 | No.

00:24:43.320 | Second, are there other mechanisms,

00:24:46.200 | other scientific mechanisms

00:24:47.400 | by which I can find the deer out there,

00:24:49.640 | other than the psychedelics?

00:24:50.920 | - We don't know yet.

00:24:51.760 | - No, well, we don't know yet.

00:24:53.000 | - Well, but this is Occam's razor, right?

00:24:56.280 | The simplest explanation here is the most likely,

00:24:59.320 | and that is that you've taken something

00:25:02.400 | that's messing with the chemicals in the brain,

00:25:04.120 | something is being, your brain can project, we dream.

00:25:08.000 | Nobody's arguing that the dream is real,

00:25:09.860 | and reality is not, or if they are, I think they're nuts.

00:25:12.920 | The dream is a dream.

00:25:14.000 | Your brain is creating an image of telling you a story.

00:25:20.080 | Psychedelics are simulating the same thing.

00:25:22.080 | That's probably what's going on

00:25:23.480 | until there's evidence to the contrary.

00:25:25.320 | - Well, hold on.

00:25:26.160 | I'm gonna disagree with you a little bit,

00:25:27.120 | because let's take Adderall, for example.

00:25:29.320 | No one here disagrees that that's something

00:25:31.000 | much more simpler and less out of this world.

00:25:33.400 | I think what he might be speaking to,

00:25:36.080 | I know Joe Rogan talks about this

00:25:37.320 | and other people in this space,

00:25:38.840 | is that when you take certain drugs,

00:25:40.280 | it changes your perception.

00:25:41.360 | It doesn't have to be otherworldly.

00:25:42.480 | It can change your perception of what's around you.

00:25:44.000 | And as an example, what they talk about is,

00:25:45.760 | the three of us are talking,

00:25:47.080 | there's lots of other stuff in the room.

00:25:48.680 | We're only aware of it vaguely on a personal level.

00:25:51.000 | - So it changes the-- - Hold on, let me finish.

00:25:53.600 | - No, I don't do that.

00:25:54.760 | I'm Israeli. - You're about to start.

00:25:57.200 | - Back to the desert island murder.

00:25:58.960 | - We just resolved it within three seconds.

00:26:01.040 | There's no conk.

00:26:03.080 | - He's trying to get us--

00:26:04.520 | - Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

00:26:06.120 | - Exactly, I'm trying to create murder.

00:26:08.080 | - No one has asthma.

00:26:09.160 | It's gonna be fine.

00:26:10.200 | - 'Cause if the two of you murder each other,

00:26:11.720 | there's more food for me.

00:26:12.720 | I'm just saying.

00:26:13.560 | - You eat robotsy alcohol.

00:26:16.280 | - Ratings would go up.

00:26:17.120 | Viewership would go up.

00:26:18.200 | - Yeah, it's good for the ratings, yeah.

00:26:19.600 | - But if you take, for example, Adderall or Speed, right?

00:26:22.200 | People, like you focus on things,

00:26:24.000 | you perceive things that aren't there,

00:26:25.560 | but that doesn't mean those things

00:26:26.840 | weren't there to begin with.

00:26:27.720 | There are absolutely ways to change human perception,

00:26:30.000 | chemically, through glasses, through getting drunk.

00:26:33.480 | None of that changes the fact that the reality underneath it

00:26:36.040 | is real and is causing this effect.

00:26:37.560 | - Absolutely, and it has a particular nature, right?

00:26:39.360 | And all it's doing is changing the focus, right?

00:26:43.080 | So if I take off my glasses, I'm seeing the same thing.

00:26:45.400 | I'm just seeing something's out of focus.

00:26:46.960 | And maybe in the distance, I can't see something.

00:26:49.160 | It's just gone.

00:26:50.200 | And then I put it on, there it is.

00:26:52.080 | That thing was always there.

00:26:53.280 | It's just the sensitivity I have to it has changed.

00:26:57.480 | And it's absolutely not sensitive to everything equally.

00:27:00.520 | And drugs can change the relative sensitivities.

00:27:03.760 | It doesn't change reality.

00:27:06.000 | It changes our ability to focus on reality.

00:27:09.640 | - Let me give you one simple example.

00:27:12.320 | The microscope.

00:27:13.480 | I forget who it was.

00:27:14.320 | His name was with an L.

00:27:15.400 | The scientist who discovered it,

00:27:16.840 | he had a drop of water and he's seeing monsters,

00:27:19.520 | the protozoa in this drop of water.

00:27:21.360 | For him, it must've been, it is like a drug experience.

00:27:23.720 | Like, wait a minute, I'm drinking this.

00:27:25.280 | And there's alien beings whose shapes are completely crazy

00:27:28.640 | in this water.

00:27:29.480 | Those beings were always there.

00:27:30.440 | Those beings were there before any of us were here.

00:27:32.080 | They've been there for billions of years.

00:27:33.760 | But because he had this apparatus,

00:27:35.880 | now he's able to see protozoa.

00:27:37.760 | No one's arguing protozoa are extra dimensional.

00:27:39.920 | No one's arguing they're supernatural.

00:27:41.600 | Amoebas are well-studied, paramecia, all the other lots.

00:27:44.320 | So if these elves, the machine elves are real,

00:27:46.800 | and the only way to perceive them is through DMT

00:27:50.320 | or something like that,

00:27:51.360 | that doesn't contradict the broader point

00:27:53.120 | that they've always been there.

00:27:54.400 | And this is the mechanism for perceiving them.

00:27:56.320 | - So here's the word I was looking for.

00:27:57.160 | It's a word actually Greg taught me this.

00:27:59.840 | So Greg, so let me, so it's resolution, right?

00:28:03.840 | So it's resolution.

00:28:04.880 | My resolution changes with the glasses.

00:28:06.600 | My resolution gets finer with the microscope.

00:28:09.560 | So there's probably some bacteria here on the table.

00:28:11.880 | - 100%.

00:28:12.720 | - There's no doubt about it.

00:28:13.840 | I can't see them.

00:28:15.120 | So I need a microscope to see them,

00:28:16.880 | but they're either there or they're not there.

00:28:19.680 | And I have the tools to discover

00:28:22.200 | whether they are there or they're not there.

00:28:24.000 | And that's called a microscope.

00:28:25.960 | Now they could be even smaller beings

00:28:28.040 | that even with a microscope, I won't be able to define,

00:28:30.360 | but that's completely arbitrary to claim that,

00:28:32.320 | that they're there until I find a tool

00:28:34.680 | to be able to discover it.

00:28:36.000 | The same with what you see if you're seeing other beings

00:28:39.600 | when you're taking psychedelics.

00:28:41.000 | Unless you find another tool to be able to see them with,

00:28:44.480 | the simplest assumption is probably the truest assumption.

00:28:47.800 | - But even the not simplest assumption

00:28:49.280 | doesn't contradict the broader point.

00:28:50.400 | - No.

00:28:51.240 | - Which is again, if that's what it is.

00:28:52.080 | - Reality is what it is.

00:28:52.920 | If it turns out that there are these creatures

00:28:54.440 | that you can only see with psychedelics,

00:28:55.640 | then there are these creatures

00:28:57.320 | that you can only see with psychedelics.

00:28:58.680 | And our resolution while we're not on psychedelics

00:29:02.880 | is not fine enough to observe them.

00:29:04.440 | - So what?

00:29:05.280 | - That doesn't change the fact that we evolved

00:29:07.600 | to survive in reality as it is.

00:29:10.880 | - What do you do with the possibility that our resolution

00:29:13.360 | as it currently stands is really, really crappy?

00:29:15.880 | That basically--

00:29:17.320 | - Well, it's not.

00:29:18.240 | - No, but you don't know that.

00:29:19.680 | - No, we know it completely.

00:29:21.040 | - Compared to who?

00:29:22.000 | - Compared to the future possibilities

00:29:23.800 | like artificial intelligence.

00:29:24.640 | - It is true.

00:29:25.480 | - Or us, hundreds of years in the future.

00:29:27.000 | - Fine, but that's not relevant.

00:29:28.640 | - Much, much, like orders of magnitude.

00:29:30.440 | - No, but here I'll use the standard

00:29:32.520 | that Hoffman uses, evolution, right?

00:29:35.060 | The reason I know that our resolution is phenomenal,

00:29:38.060 | is phenomenally good, right?

00:29:39.800 | Is look at us.

00:29:42.000 | We're sitting here comfortably in an apartment

00:29:45.080 | with air conditioning and in warm Austin with microphones

00:29:49.160 | and it can't, where did all this stuff?

00:29:51.000 | We're really good at survival and changing environment.

00:29:54.120 | Indeed, if you look at the species that we know of,

00:29:57.960 | there's not a species that come anywhere close

00:30:00.760 | to our ability to deal with reality,

00:30:03.320 | to observe to reality, to understand reality

00:30:05.440 | and to shape it.

00:30:06.280 | Now in the future, well, we'll come up with machines

00:30:08.480 | that can figure out stuff that we have no clue about today.

00:30:11.720 | - Yeah, but so--

00:30:12.560 | - That's only because we're so well suited to reality

00:30:15.120 | that can we create those machines.

00:30:15.960 | - And I promise you, in the future,

00:30:18.080 | it's gonna be much more what you're saying.

00:30:20.360 | That's how it's gonna happen.

00:30:21.200 | - No, but the thing is, when the creatures from the future

00:30:23.400 | look back to the things we're saying now,

00:30:24.920 | what I ran and saying, what you're saying with certainty,

00:30:27.680 | do you think they'll laugh at the level

00:30:30.340 | of how much confusion there was, how much inaccuracy?

00:30:32.520 | - Did you, no.

00:30:33.360 | - No, no, no, let me get this one.

00:30:34.860 | You know what they're gonna do?

00:30:36.120 | They're gonna do what you do when any of us read Aristotle

00:30:39.800 | or read any of these great geniuses of the past.

00:30:42.240 | It's like, these people didn't have electricity.

00:30:44.720 | They didn't have warm clothes or anything,

00:30:48.000 | and they're able to figure out the diameter of the earth.

00:30:50.600 | Like the creativity to be,

00:30:52.600 | and to get it within a few miles, the creativity,

00:30:55.960 | and to figure out the speed of light

00:30:57.360 | when you don't even have a stopwatch.

00:30:59.320 | When you look back, a lot of it's nonsense,

00:31:01.400 | and we, but at the same,

00:31:02.720 | it's like when you're talking to a kid.

00:31:04.880 | You disregard the nonsense,

00:31:06.640 | and when they get something right, it's all, that's you.

00:31:09.160 | So it's never a numbers game, right?

00:31:11.200 | So it's the few that validate and justify the rest.

00:31:16.200 | So when you look at Aristotle, he's talking about the,

00:31:19.680 | there was one of those causes, which is like time travel,

00:31:21.720 | and it doesn't really make sense,

00:31:23.080 | but you look at the rest of his stuff,

00:31:24.280 | or even Plato or any of these greats,

00:31:26.040 | it's like, oh my, this is an amazing miracle.

00:31:28.960 | And not, I wouldn't say literally miracle,

00:31:30.320 | I got you, Ramon.

00:31:31.240 | But at the same time, yeah,

00:31:32.360 | a lot of these other people had stupid ideas.

00:31:34.200 | You don't care.

00:31:35.040 | You care about those great, great minds,

00:31:37.460 | and how they moved us all forward.

00:31:39.800 | To this day, we still study Pythagoras.

00:31:42.040 | - Of course, and it's not even,

00:31:43.560 | it's not even just the sciences and the math.

00:31:46.240 | Think about the philosophy.

00:31:47.920 | I mean, how much is there to learn from reading Aristotle,

00:31:50.440 | or Plato, Socrates, when you disagree with them?

00:31:52.920 | I mean, how many giants have there been

00:31:54.880 | in all of human history that have had the minds

00:31:57.200 | of a Socrates, a Plato, and an Aristotle?

00:31:59.800 | A thousand years, will they look back at Plato

00:32:02.840 | and Aristotle and admire them?

00:32:04.520 | Absolutely.

00:32:05.520 | Will they find certain things that are wrong?

00:32:07.360 | Yes, but certain things that Aristotle discovered

00:32:11.080 | are absolutely right and will always be right.

00:32:14.040 | Certain things that Einstein discovered

00:32:15.520 | will always be right.

00:32:16.760 | I think a lot of what he came up with,

00:32:18.800 | will some things be discovered to be wrong?

00:32:21.280 | Yeah.

00:32:22.120 | But you know, that wouldn't shock me.

00:32:24.580 | But the genius and the truth

00:32:29.580 | of the we know today is amazing.

00:32:33.080 | It's stunning.

00:32:33.920 | To be pessimistic about us,

00:32:35.880 | because in the future we'll know more.

00:32:38.500 | Not pessimistic, but more humble.

00:32:40.480 | There's no reason to be humble.

00:32:42.120 | I mean, I really think humility is a vice, not a virtue.

00:32:45.600 | What's there to be humble about?

00:32:47.040 | Look at life.

00:32:48.440 | This is amazing.

00:32:49.880 | We should be--

00:32:51.120 | But the word humble has different meanings.

00:32:52.160 | No, I know, I know.

00:32:53.080 | Okay, okay.

00:32:53.920 | I was going to get it.

00:32:54.760 | Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm sorry.

00:32:55.580 | I was going to get it.

00:32:56.420 | I mean, humility in the sense of,

00:32:58.680 | you know, humility in the sense of not appreciating

00:33:03.760 | the genius and the ability and the success

00:33:07.960 | and all the stuff that we as individuals,

00:33:10.920 | I think, in our lives,

00:33:12.100 | but as a culture, as a movement,

00:33:16.080 | if you think about movement in terms of those of us

00:33:17.840 | who respect reason have achieved in spite of the odds,

00:33:21.040 | we should be proud of that and pride is the virtue.

00:33:24.000 | Humility in the sense of,

00:33:25.880 | yeah, I know there's more to know.

00:33:27.800 | I know there's a lot more to know

00:33:29.320 | and in the future we'll know more, sure.

00:33:30.800 | But I don't think that's the way.

00:33:32.040 | See, I take humility as the way the Christians use it,

00:33:34.760 | which is the other way and I think it's a real vice.

00:33:37.320 | It's don't think of yourself too much

00:33:39.560 | just 'cause you can think, you know,

00:33:41.000 | that's no big deal or just 'cause you can create this.

00:33:43.240 | It is a big deal.

00:33:44.440 | Your achievements are a big deal

00:33:46.100 | and you should take credit for them.

00:33:47.880 | So be careful with the word humility

00:33:50.360 | because the real meaning is the Christian meaning,

00:33:52.300 | which is a very, very bad meaning.

00:33:54.960 | Well, hold on.

00:33:55.800 | Let me be a little pedantic

00:33:56.760 | 'cause there's no such thing as real meaning, right?

00:33:58.160 | So there's different meanings, okay?

00:33:59.320 | Hold on.

00:34:00.160 | I'm not gonna get into semantics

00:34:01.000 | but here's another real meaning

00:34:02.160 | that you're not gonna disagree with,

00:34:04.160 | which is the smartest person on earth

00:34:06.380 | is ignorant of 99.9% of knowledge, right?

00:34:09.340 | So if I meet someone who is less intelligent than me

00:34:12.720 | and less informed than me,

00:34:14.320 | it is still certain that this person has things to teach me.

00:34:18.360 | If I go to a mechanic and maybe this guy's dumb as rocks,

00:34:22.760 | I don't know anything about cars.

00:34:24.240 | What he tells me about that car

00:34:25.760 | is I could take it to the bank.

00:34:27.120 | He's gonna be in a position to inform me.

00:34:29.380 | So one of the reasons humility is extremely important

00:34:32.640 | is very often you have people,

00:34:34.560 | and you see this very much in academia,

00:34:36.800 | who think, you know exactly where I'm going, Yaron,

00:34:39.280 | who think they're know-it-alls

00:34:40.960 | and they think, "Oh, I have this degree.

00:34:42.960 | "You're a layman.

00:34:43.800 | "You've never been formally educated.

00:34:45.760 | "Therefore, not only are you dumb and uneducated,

00:34:48.880 | "and you're wrong."

00:34:49.720 | And it's like, this person might be have,

00:34:52.240 | one great example of this,

00:34:53.400 | and this is an example Yaron might not like,

00:34:55.560 | is a lot of times you have these native populations

00:34:58.520 | and they'll have a better understanding

00:35:00.140 | of the animals around them,

00:35:01.420 | the plants, the fruits, whatever,

00:35:03.060 | and you'd have these scientists and be like,

00:35:04.720 | "Oh, they're talking about this monster in the woods.

00:35:06.580 | "Yeah, whatever, this giant ape."

00:35:09.060 | But it was real, it was the gorilla.

00:35:10.620 | But you dismiss them 'cause,

00:35:12.100 | "Oh, these are stupid, ignorant, whatever people."

00:35:14.140 | That's kind of changed to some extent,

00:35:15.520 | but that is an aspect of humility

00:35:17.160 | that I think behooves especially highly intelligent people

00:35:20.980 | because there is such a presumption to be dismissive

00:35:23.860 | of people who you regard as less than,

00:35:25.820 | but they're often right.

00:35:27.100 | - So I agree with all of the concrete examples.

00:35:31.500 | I just think we should come up

00:35:32.700 | with a better word than humility.

00:35:33.900 | And I don't have one 'cause I'm not a woodsmith.

00:35:36.700 | This is not my strength.

00:35:38.580 | But humility is a word from the Christian ethics,

00:35:43.580 | and it means something very specific

00:35:46.020 | in the field of ethics.

00:35:47.380 | And it means the opposite of what I think virtue requires.

00:35:52.180 | It's demeaning, it's to put you down,

00:35:56.260 | it's to resist pride.

00:36:00.140 | And I think pride is a very important thing.

00:36:01.820 | - I don't know, Yaron.

00:36:02.980 | - But again, you have to define your terms properly.

00:36:04.740 | - Hating myself has been quite useful for me as a-

00:36:08.460 | - Well, but that's 'cause you're Russian and Jewish.

00:36:10.060 | So by- - What?

00:36:11.700 | This changes everything.

00:36:12.940 | (all laughing)

00:36:15.700 | - This is what happens, right?

00:36:16.900 | We're brought up to feel exactly that way.

00:36:20.740 | - Lex has been a good Russian boy.

00:36:22.620 | So we got him. - Oh my God.

00:36:23.900 | - What is this? - What is this?

00:36:24.940 | - Gematogen, what is this?

00:36:27.020 | - Gematogen? - Is that what it says?

00:36:29.140 | - Yeah, it's gematogen.

00:36:30.460 | I can't, I'm blind.

00:36:32.780 | - Yeah, but- - As long as you're good

00:36:34.660 | Russian mind chick, we have candy for you.

00:36:36.580 | - But is it kosher?

00:36:37.660 | (Lex laughing)

00:36:39.540 | Did you check if it's kosher?

00:36:41.040 | - This is Ukrainian, my friend.

00:36:44.700 | - Oh! - Oh my God.

00:36:46.300 | That is a sin. - How dare you?

00:36:47.580 | - That is really sinful.

00:36:49.220 | - You know, me and Sonai were born in the same town.

00:36:50.900 | - I'm kidding.

00:36:51.740 | My dad's Ukrainian, don't get mad.

00:36:53.540 | - So I don't think self,

00:36:58.540 | what did you, how do you define it?

00:37:00.820 | - Self hate?

00:37:01.660 | - Yeah, I think self hate is quite destructive.

00:37:06.380 | - Speak for yourself, Yaron.

00:37:07.220 | - I think that humility is quite destructive.

00:37:09.980 | Humility in the sense of, I'm no big deal.

00:37:13.100 | No, I mean, if you've achieved something in life,

00:37:15.180 | you are a big deal.

00:37:16.020 | You are a big deal because, you know,

00:37:18.020 | look, you got the two of us to fly into town

00:37:20.380 | just to sit down here and have a conversation with you.

00:37:22.340 | You're a big deal.

00:37:23.180 | - He says more about you than me.

00:37:24.860 | (laughing)

00:37:25.900 | - We're just, we're just lonely.

00:37:27.540 | We're lonely, depraved.

00:37:29.340 | - I'm not lonely, but I might be desperate.

00:37:31.540 | (laughing)

00:37:33.380 | - I'm starting to question your ability to reason

00:37:36.860 | with the decisions you're making.

00:37:38.500 | On the aspect of, and I should mention

00:37:42.180 | that "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky is one of my favorite novels,

00:37:45.060 | and there is a Christian ethic that runs through that.

00:37:47.980 | - I mean, because, yeah, I mean, particularly,

00:37:50.340 | but I hate to bring this up,

00:37:52.420 | but particularly Russians and particularly Russian Jews

00:37:54.740 | and particularly Eastern European Jews

00:37:56.900 | are incredibly Christian.

00:37:58.420 | There is a real Christian theme in Judaism

00:38:02.540 | that's about guilt.

00:38:06.260 | Guilt is not, there's no guilt in Judaism.

00:38:08.380 | King David doesn't feel any guilt.

00:38:11.140 | Solomon doesn't.

00:38:11.980 | There's no guilt in the Old Testament.

00:38:13.700 | Plenty of guilt once Christianity has an impact on Judaism.

00:38:17.300 | We're raised to feel this way.

00:38:18.660 | We're raised to be humble.

00:38:20.060 | We're raised not to feel special.

00:38:21.900 | We're raised to think we're no big deal

00:38:24.100 | and our mothers put us down and use that against us

00:38:29.100 | and try to inflict guilt on us.

00:38:31.020 | They raise us up and then they knock us down.

00:38:32.940 | It's a mechanism, but it's a cultural mechanism,

00:38:36.460 | and I think it's very destructive

00:38:37.980 | to self-esteem and to happiness.

00:38:39.580 | - And I'll give you a great,

00:38:40.460 | he's absolutely right with what he just said.

00:38:42.100 | - I disagree.

00:38:43.060 | - Well, yeah, why is he right?

00:38:45.380 | - Because my family, for example,

00:38:47.220 | still doesn't really understand how I could pay the rent

00:38:49.140 | 'cause I'd have gone to an office.

00:38:50.380 | And when I started out trying to be a writer,

00:38:52.860 | the immediate reaction isn't,

00:38:55.020 | which a lot of times I talk to kids, right,

00:38:57.020 | and they have these aspirations,

00:38:58.820 | and I'll tell them, "Go for it while you're young.

00:39:01.900 | "If you fail, you'll go to your grave."

00:39:04.860 | I tried my best.

00:39:05.940 | I didn't make it happen.

00:39:07.180 | Whereas if you don't try and never achieve,

00:39:09.540 | you are gonna feel horrible for the rest of your life.

00:39:11.420 | And this is the example I use all the time.

00:39:13.460 | I bring up many times.

00:39:14.420 | I go, "Go to any bookstore

00:39:17.260 | "and look at all those terrible, terrible books

00:39:19.340 | "on the shelves that you wonder, 'How's this a book?'"

00:39:21.060 | That could be you.

00:39:22.180 | You could be that crappy writer.

00:39:23.740 | But the thing is, in that culture

00:39:25.100 | that Yaron was talking about,

00:39:26.620 | you tell your family, "I'm gonna be a writer."

00:39:28.300 | Who do you think you are?

00:39:29.460 | Why do you think you're gonna be?

00:39:30.780 | You're no Stephen King.

00:39:31.740 | And it's like, why do you have to be Stephen King?

00:39:33.580 | Why can't you just be a mediocre,

00:39:35.420 | crappy writer making the rent?

00:39:37.300 | - The best that you can be.

00:39:38.500 | - But even that is an amazing accomplishment.

00:39:40.380 | If I don't have to go to an office

00:39:41.780 | and I write books that not that many people read,

00:39:43.860 | this is the story of my life,

00:39:45.060 | at the same time, I do have pride

00:39:46.940 | 'cause I made this happen.

00:39:48.900 | You can be the best version.

00:39:50.380 | I mean, this is a cliche,

00:39:51.340 | but you can be the best version of yourself.

00:39:53.180 | It's not a competition.

00:39:54.620 | And yet, our Jewish mothers,

00:39:56.940 | that's not what they aspire us to be.

00:39:59.260 | They aspire us to be the best version

00:40:00.580 | of what they imagine, what the culture imagines,

00:40:03.260 | what society imagine.

00:40:05.900 | It's not about you in their minds.

00:40:09.420 | And I've seen it.

00:40:11.220 | I see it all around me.

00:40:12.540 | People putting their kids down, putting themselves down.

00:40:15.580 | It's not healthy.

00:40:16.500 | - I've never told this story.

00:40:17.860 | I'm gonna tell it now.

00:40:18.980 | When I graduated college,

00:40:21.020 | I was a temp for a while

00:40:23.140 | 'cause I didn't know what I wanted to do.

00:40:25.220 | And when you're a temp, it's like playing roulette.

00:40:27.060 | You're gonna have jobs that pay well, that suck,

00:40:29.780 | and pay well, that are great,

00:40:31.300 | or that are great, that don't pay well,

00:40:33.380 | and suck, and pay poorly.

00:40:34.860 | But when you're 21, you have that kind of space.

00:40:38.500 | And my grandmother was talking to her brother.

00:40:42.180 | He's talking about his kids.

00:40:43.100 | She's talking about me.

00:40:43.940 | She's from Odessa.

00:40:45.660 | And she told me she lied to him

00:40:48.420 | about how much money I was making.

00:40:50.700 | And that's something I've never brought up,

00:40:52.300 | and it still hurts me

00:40:53.740 | because it's like your approval of me

00:40:57.740 | should be a function of my character, my happiness.

00:41:01.620 | And the fact that you feel ashamed

00:41:05.020 | over how much money I'm making,

00:41:06.580 | especially at this point in my life,

00:41:08.260 | I thought was very, really misplaced priorities.

00:41:11.820 | - Yeah, absolutely.

00:41:13.020 | - I don't know.

00:41:13.860 | I don't know what to make of that.

00:41:15.300 | - I think there's a huge benefit

00:41:18.060 | to the humility, terms aside,

00:41:21.180 | for believing that others can teach you a lot.

00:41:24.100 | Everybody can teach you a lot.

00:41:25.540 | - I think we all agree on this.

00:41:26.380 | - I just mentioned that, the mechanic.

00:41:27.220 | - No, you do it. - We all agree on that.

00:41:28.040 | - Exactly, exactly, that's the point.

00:41:29.300 | But for that, I do believe you have to not

00:41:33.220 | constantly sort of break your ego apart

00:41:36.900 | and constantly question whether

00:41:40.620 | you know anything about this world.

00:41:42.340 | And sort of there's a negativity with it

00:41:44.620 | that I think is very useful

00:41:46.740 | and it's also very fulfilling, just constantly,

00:41:49.780 | I don't know.

00:41:51.840 | - It's the other way around.

00:41:52.680 | I find that the more I know, the more I know I know,

00:41:57.380 | the easier it is for me to learn from other people.

00:41:59.900 | The broader a context I have,

00:42:02.380 | the more curious I become, the more areas I know.

00:42:06.860 | It's true that the more you know,

00:42:08.220 | the more areas you know you don't know.

00:42:10.100 | And the more I find myself attracted to people

00:42:13.220 | who can teach me something about things I don't know.

00:42:15.540 | Whereas if I was ignorant,

00:42:16.920 | if I truly believed I didn't know anything,

00:42:19.080 | I don't know how I would live.

00:42:22.340 | It would really completely challenge everything,

00:42:27.220 | everything about life for me.

00:42:28.620 | Where would I even start?

00:42:29.740 | You wouldn't know where to start.

00:42:30.940 | So no, I think, and if you don't recognize what you know,

00:42:34.920 | you don't have a full appreciation of yourself.

00:42:37.660 | So really building a recognition of what do I know, right?

00:42:41.660 | And how much do I know?

00:42:42.740 | Is really crucial to living.

00:42:45.580 | - And I'll tell you something else

00:42:46.820 | that furthers my life enormously,

00:42:49.020 | is when you reach a certain point in your career

00:42:50.580 | and your life, and you're talking to people

00:42:52.020 | who are a lot younger,

00:42:53.300 | and they might be smart, driven, intelligent,

00:42:55.900 | they lack data.

00:42:57.100 | When you're 23, you don't know how to speak corporate,

00:42:59.100 | you don't know what the code words are.

00:43:00.520 | So if I am in a position to sit down with this kid

00:43:03.380 | and be like, do X, Y, and Z,

00:43:05.140 | and here's why I'm coming to this conclusion.

00:43:06.940 | This is the information that released me this conclusion.

00:43:09.660 | And I can save them from some of the suffering

00:43:12.260 | I went through.

00:43:13.380 | That is very gratifying.

00:43:15.500 | It's making the world a better place.

00:43:17.380 | And it's also the opposite in a sense of humility,

00:43:19.700 | 'cause like in this context--

00:43:21.220 | - I'm an expert.

00:43:22.140 | - Or I'm at least knowledgeable enough

00:43:23.580 | that I'm comfortable giving you advice.

00:43:25.220 | - Yeah, and look, everything I do is about me knowing stuff

00:43:28.000 | that other people don't.

00:43:29.820 | And I know a lot of stuff other people don't, and I do.

00:43:32.640 | And it's fun.

00:43:34.500 | I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher at heart, always happy.

00:43:36.640 | It turns out I didn't know that early on.

00:43:38.460 | But I like becoming an expert

00:43:41.500 | and then trying to teach people.

00:43:43.180 | It doesn't mean I know everything.

00:43:44.940 | Quite the contrary.

00:43:45.980 | Again, the more I know, the more I know

00:43:47.780 | that there's certain things I don't know

00:43:49.180 | and there's certain areas of expertise I don't have.

00:43:51.340 | But look, pride is a broader concept than that.

00:43:53.860 | Pride is about, and humility is the opposite of pride,

00:43:57.420 | and Christianity has that right.

00:43:58.900 | Pride is about taking your life seriously.

00:44:01.060 | Pride is about wanting to be really good at living,

00:44:05.220 | wanting to have the knowledge.

00:44:07.740 | And I think what you're describing is,

00:44:10.100 | you're describing is I'm constantly learning.

00:44:12.460 | Sometimes I have to re-challenge myself.

00:44:15.020 | I have to question what I believed

00:44:16.420 | in order to gain new knowledge.

00:44:17.940 | That's all good, but that is a drive

00:44:20.980 | that is driven by pride.

00:44:23.020 | You want to know.

00:44:24.140 | There are lots of people out there that don't want to know

00:44:27.580 | because they don't have that pride.

00:44:29.480 | They don't have that commitment to live,

00:44:31.860 | the commitment to achieving something.

00:44:34.140 | - And I'm going to say something else

00:44:34.980 | that I think is crucial.

00:44:36.220 | Humility is extremely important when it comes to politics,

00:44:40.260 | because if you feel comfortable telling someone

00:44:43.280 | you've never met how to live their life,

00:44:46.040 | that is a complete lack of humility.

00:44:48.260 | - Well, I lack it, obviously,

00:44:49.700 | 'cause I tell people how to live all the time.

00:44:51.140 | - Not through force.

00:44:52.300 | - Not through force. - That's what I'm saying.

00:44:53.620 | - And of course, not in the concrete.

00:44:55.220 | I don't tell them, move to,

00:44:56.940 | although I do tell people to move to Austin,

00:44:58.260 | but I don't tell them,

00:44:59.740 | this is what you do as a profession,

00:45:01.740 | but I give them the principles,

00:45:02.940 | 'cause I think their principles are how to live.

00:45:03.780 | - They're making the choice.

00:45:04.820 | That's my point.

00:45:05.660 | Politically, what I'm saying is,

00:45:07.220 | it shows a lack of humility to be like,

00:45:09.380 | I've never met this person.

00:45:10.860 | This is how I'm going to take money from him.

00:45:13.140 | I'm going to--

00:45:13.980 | - See, but I don't see that humility.

00:45:15.220 | There's nothing--

00:45:16.060 | - No, it's the lack of humility.

00:45:16.880 | - No, but it's not even a lack of humility,

00:45:18.620 | because it's--

00:45:19.660 | - Who am I to tell him how to live?

00:45:21.060 | - No, of course you're not. - It's lack of humility.

00:45:22.600 | - No, who are you to tell him how to live

00:45:24.820 | is an issue of, it's an issue of force and rights

00:45:28.720 | and a bunch of different things.

00:45:30.780 | I don't think it's a lack of humility there.

00:45:32.940 | I think it's a lack of being a human being.

00:45:35.660 | It can be both.

00:45:37.340 | - Sure.

00:45:38.180 | Who gives you the right to dictate to somebody else

00:45:42.180 | how to live their lives?

00:45:43.180 | - Yeah, but that's a lack of humility

00:45:44.420 | if you think you have that right.

00:45:46.900 | - Again, we're using humility in a very different way.

00:45:48.940 | - No, we're using the same way.

00:45:49.780 | - I don't think it's a good--

00:45:50.600 | - Because the person who feels comfortable,

00:45:52.700 | they think, I know better than you

00:45:55.980 | how you should live your life

00:45:57.440 | to the point where I'm capable of forcing you

00:45:59.620 | because I know it's going to be best for you

00:46:01.020 | in the long run.

00:46:01.860 | - And the answer is, you don't know.

00:46:02.820 | - Right, but that's a lack of humility.

00:46:04.700 | - I think in your mind, you're on humility

00:46:07.020 | somehow tied to the Christian concept of humility

00:46:09.420 | and so you're kind of allergic to the word--

00:46:11.060 | - Well, absolutely, because it's part of,

00:46:12.660 | if you look at the cardinal virtues,

00:46:15.660 | the cardinal sins in Christianity,

00:46:18.460 | pride is a cardinal sin

00:46:20.260 | and humility is a cardinal virtue,

00:46:22.900 | but they don't mean it in this sense

00:46:25.380 | because they're happy to tell you how to live, right?

00:46:27.700 | They're happy to be philosopher kings over your life

00:46:29.920 | and they believe that's being humble

00:46:31.660 | and you should be humble, by the way,

00:46:33.660 | in listening to the Pope or listening to God

00:46:35.660 | because what do you know?

00:46:36.640 | You know nothing.

00:46:37.700 | God knows everything, so you should shut up

00:46:39.780 | and do what you're told.

00:46:41.180 | That's the sense in which I don't think you should be humble.

00:46:43.980 | I mean, it's a sense in which I always use

00:46:46.020 | the example of Abraham, right?

00:46:47.940 | God comes to Abraham and says,

00:46:49.060 | go kill your eldest son, your only son, right?

00:46:52.980 | Your only son, go kill him.

00:46:54.540 | It's like, and what does Abraham do?

00:46:56.500 | He says, yes, sir, I'll follow,

00:46:58.980 | and he's a moral hero.

00:47:00.540 | For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

00:47:02.540 | he's a moral hero 'cause he follows orders

00:47:04.580 | 'cause he's humble.

00:47:06.220 | I would tell God to go to hell.

00:47:07.780 | Screw you, I'm not killing my son.

00:47:10.740 | There's no way.

00:47:12.660 | - I mean, he killed his son, so it's only fair.

00:47:14.780 | - Well, this is before he killed his son,

00:47:15.620 | so I didn't know that, right?

00:47:17.500 | But no, but part of the evil of Christianity

00:47:20.820 | is that he's killed his son

00:47:21.820 | in the most torturous form of death possible.

00:47:25.580 | I mean, the whole story of Jesus

00:47:26.980 | is one of the most immoral, unjust stories ever told

00:47:30.340 | and that Christians elevate this to a position of,

00:47:33.180 | I'd love to have this conversation with Jordan, right?

00:47:35.140 | Jordan Peterson.

00:47:36.420 | The idea of elevating--

00:47:37.260 | - That'll never happen.

00:47:38.460 | - No, it won't.

00:47:39.300 | But elevating Jesus, exactly,

00:47:40.940 | elevating Jesus to a superhero status

00:47:43.140 | for one of the most immoral acts in human history

00:47:45.740 | is horrific.

00:47:47.260 | So yeah, I mean, I'm opposed to God

00:47:50.180 | sacrificing his own son, nevermind my son.

00:47:52.140 | But yeah, let him go do it to his own son.

00:47:53.620 | - But he didn't kill Isaac, he killed the goat.

00:47:55.300 | - The story's about Abraham, not about God.

00:47:57.460 | First of all, God is mean, right, to put Abraham through that

00:48:01.020 | but Abraham has to assume that he's going to kill his son

00:48:05.380 | and he lifts his, he's going to do it and he stopped.

00:48:08.900 | So the whole point is obedience.

00:48:10.700 | That's where humility leads to.

00:48:12.620 | It leads to the opposite of the story you were telling.

00:48:14.900 | It leads to people saying,

00:48:15.820 | "Yes, I should be told what to do.

00:48:17.420 | "Where's the authority who actually knows something?"

00:48:19.260 | 'Cause I don't know anything.

00:48:21.060 | No, I know a lot and I know a lot about my life.

00:48:23.740 | - The science--

00:48:24.580 | - So you stay away from my life

00:48:25.980 | 'cause I have pride in my life.

00:48:27.260 | The science is settled, right?

00:48:28.820 | Look at these experts.

00:48:29.740 | Who am I to argue with these experts?

00:48:31.140 | They tell me to drink dog pee, I'm gonna drink,

00:48:33.420 | what am I, not drink dog pee?

00:48:34.820 | - Yes. - Yeah.

00:48:35.660 | - Let's go back to the island.

00:48:36.500 | - Speaking of which.

00:48:38.100 | - We're on island again?

00:48:39.740 | - We're back to the island.

00:48:41.180 | And let's go to the island, let's--

00:48:44.740 | - I live on an island.

00:48:46.660 | - Everything's an island in some context.

00:48:50.500 | Like Earth is an island, this universe is an island

00:48:52.860 | in a multiverse.

00:48:53.940 | - There are no multiverses, there's only one universe.

00:48:57.180 | - All right, so let's invite Jordan Peterson to this island.

00:49:01.500 | - You wish, hold on.

00:49:03.260 | - Submit.

00:49:04.100 | - Hold on a sec.

00:49:05.220 | Hey girl, what you doing?

00:49:08.020 | Lex, Lex Friedman, look him up.

00:49:11.860 | - Lex who?

00:49:12.700 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:49:13.540 | - I don't know. - Lex who?

00:49:14.360 | - Lex has as big of a following almost as Jordan does.

00:49:17.060 | - I know Jordan, I know his family actually

00:49:20.100 | through Jim Keller, who's his relative, he's an engineer.

00:49:23.580 | So, and I just talked to Sam.

00:49:26.940 | Who is perhaps a little bit aligned in some sense

00:49:31.940 | on your perspective on religion and so on.

00:49:34.460 | So let me ask, is there some--

00:49:35.660 | - Religion, yes, but--

00:49:36.980 | - Other things, no.

00:49:37.820 | - Sam Harris.

00:49:38.660 | - Sam Harris, yeah.

00:49:39.500 | Oh, sorry, Sam Harris.

00:49:41.140 | - He's on first name relationship with these guys.

00:49:42.700 | - Look at this inside baseball.

00:49:44.020 | I just talked to Sam.

00:49:45.260 | (laughing)

00:49:46.340 | - I thought--

00:49:47.180 | - Let's talk about humility, let's talk about humility.

00:49:49.460 | My buddy Sam, I was talking to Barack, you might know him.

00:49:52.300 | - I simply--

00:49:54.300 | - Humility went out the window.

00:49:56.380 | - I'm just a natural language processing model

00:50:00.340 | that I assume that once I mentioned Jordan Peterson,

00:50:03.180 | it becomes an obvious statement what Sam means.

00:50:06.100 | This is how neural networks think.

00:50:07.660 | This is how robots think, Michael, you should know this.

00:50:10.460 | I thought by now you'd be a scholar.

00:50:12.180 | - I forgot what I was being humble.

00:50:13.500 | (laughing)

00:50:14.820 | For the sake of the audience.

00:50:16.980 | - Humility, everything can teach you something,

00:50:19.980 | even a robot.

00:50:21.620 | - Okay, so do you think there's value in religion

00:50:26.620 | or broader, do you think there's value in myth?

00:50:29.980 | And as we've been talking about the value of reason,

00:50:32.600 | do you think it's possible to argue in society

00:50:34.740 | as we grow the population of our little island

00:50:38.460 | that there's some value of common myths,

00:50:40.940 | of common stories, of common religion?

00:50:43.500 | - There was value.

00:50:44.680 | There is no value today.

00:50:47.500 | So human beings need explanations, right?

00:50:50.820 | They need a philosophy to guide their life.

00:50:53.220 | They need ethics, they need some explanation

00:50:56.460 | of what's going on in the world, right?

00:50:58.100 | And it's no accident that the early religions

00:51:01.020 | had a river god and they had a sun god and a moon god

00:51:05.300 | 'cause everything they didn't understand,

00:51:07.660 | they made god, right?

00:51:09.420 | So they had multiple gods

00:51:10.780 | 'cause they didn't understand very much.

00:51:12.940 | As human understanding evolved, increased,

00:51:16.020 | as we knew reality more, right?

00:51:18.620 | We came to the conclusion of, you know,

00:51:20.700 | this is very inefficient to have all these gods.

00:51:22.700 | This is a genius of Judaism, right?

00:51:24.700 | Let's just have one bucket to put all the stuff

00:51:26.780 | we don't know in and we'll call it one god.

00:51:29.060 | And then we don't, as we gain new knowledge,

00:51:31.100 | we can just take it out of the bucket that's god

00:51:33.340 | and put it into the bucket of science.

00:51:35.240 | At some point though, at some point,

00:51:39.900 | and that point certainly came

00:51:41.460 | during the scientific revolution, I think,

00:51:43.820 | we could come to the conclusion that no,

00:51:46.700 | we don't need this bucket that's called god

00:51:48.940 | to explain the things that we don't know.

00:51:50.980 | We can say we don't know.

00:51:53.020 | And we're learning.

00:51:55.820 | And slowly, our knowledge is increasing

00:51:58.380 | and yet there's a lot more that we don't know,

00:52:00.540 | but we don't need to throw it into some bucket

00:52:02.820 | that's called god in order to have it.

00:52:05.820 | And I think that's true for morality

00:52:07.860 | and it's true for everything else, right?

00:52:09.460 | As we gain the tools to understand what morality requires,

00:52:12.860 | we don't need a set of commandments.

00:52:15.300 | We can figure out morality from human nature

00:52:17.620 | and from reality.

00:52:18.580 | So I don't think we need religion anymore.

00:52:22.660 | I think religion needed to die probably about 200 years ago

00:52:26.980 | and was dying, I think, up until Kant.

00:52:30.140 | It seemed to be dying.

00:52:31.020 | And one of Kant's missions, as he says,

00:52:33.220 | is to revive religion against the attack of reason

00:52:36.180 | and the enlightenment.

00:52:37.180 | Now, mythology is a little different

00:52:38.700 | 'cause it depends what you mean by mythology.

00:52:40.980 | Certainly we need stories and certainly we need art.

00:52:45.020 | Art is a, and Rand writes about this a lot.

00:52:48.100 | And she's an artist and she writes,

00:52:50.020 | I'm a huge fan of "The Romantic Manifesto,"

00:52:52.500 | which I think is one of her underappreciated masterpieces.

00:52:56.100 | - Oh, I hate it.

00:52:57.140 | Okay, that's okay.

00:52:58.540 | - Yeah, so I think we have a real need, right?

00:53:03.500 | As a conceptual being,

00:53:04.860 | we have a need for aesthetic experiences.

00:53:07.620 | We have a need to concretize abstractions,

00:53:10.700 | to concretize abstract ideas,

00:53:12.460 | to concretize the complex nature of the world out there.

00:53:15.300 | And that's what painting, sculpture, to an extent music,

00:53:18.980 | but painting, sculpture, literature does for us.

00:53:22.060 | So to the extent that mythology serves that purpose,

00:53:25.460 | it's just art, right?

00:53:27.020 | To the extent that it serves another purpose,

00:53:28.780 | that is that it's a way for the gods

00:53:31.340 | to communicate with us

00:53:32.220 | or it fits some kind of preexisting mental construct

00:53:36.020 | that we have as, again, kind of a Kantian perspective,

00:53:38.100 | right, that we have these categorical imperatives

00:53:40.380 | and this mythology links up to that,

00:53:45.380 | then I think it's false.

00:53:47.980 | It's not helpful and destructive.

00:53:50.220 | So I believe religion today

00:53:52.460 | is a destructive force on planet Earth.

00:53:54.100 | I think it's always been a destructive force.

00:53:55.900 | It was just a necessary force, right?

00:53:57.540 | You needed an explanation.

00:53:59.020 | People needed something to believe in.

00:54:01.020 | Once you get philosophy and once you get philosophy

00:54:03.060 | that starts explaining real life, real world,

00:54:05.780 | you don't need religion anymore.

00:54:07.500 | And indeed, it becomes a destructive force.

00:54:09.020 | And you look around the world today,

00:54:10.820 | it's an unbelievably destructive force.

00:54:12.540 | Everywhere it touches is bad for life.

00:54:16.820 | Again, mythology depends.

00:54:18.420 | Art is essential, very, very crucial to human existence.

00:54:21.300 | - I mean, I'd love to hear what you think,

00:54:22.700 | but you don't see religion and philosophy and mythology

00:54:26.700 | as just a continuous spectrum?

00:54:28.980 | - Yeah, so religion is a primitive form of philosophy.

00:54:31.380 | - But I don't think-- - It's pre-philosophical.

00:54:33.380 | - Where I thought Yaron was gonna go and he didn't go

00:54:36.300 | was that I think, I agree with what he's gonna say.

00:54:41.300 | Rand was a mythologizer.

00:54:43.580 | In certain specific contexts, Atlas shrugged as a myth.

00:54:46.220 | It's one thing to sit down and say,

00:54:48.140 | these are the people who move us forward.

00:54:50.180 | These are the values that are important.

00:54:52.460 | When you experience it through a story, through a movie,

00:54:55.220 | through a TV show, a poem, or a painting,

00:54:57.780 | it affects you in a very visceral, very different way.

00:55:02.020 | Talk about American history.

00:55:03.420 | You have the founding fathers,

00:55:05.020 | then you have the myth of the founding fathers.

00:55:06.540 | Now, unfortunately, the term myth often means lie,

00:55:09.760 | but it could mean, in a useful sense,

00:55:12.900 | an abstraction to help you systematize and concretize ideas.

00:55:17.300 | So you have the myth of Reagan,

00:55:18.660 | you have the myth of Thatcher.

00:55:20.660 | The reality often falls very short.

00:55:23.260 | But when you look at how these different figures

00:55:25.900 | are mythologized, not only is it very inspirational

00:55:29.700 | on a personal level, very motivating on a personal level,

00:55:33.220 | it's also a great way to concretize ideas

00:55:36.540 | because just how humans think.

00:55:37.900 | It's one thing to think about ideas,

00:55:39.580 | but when you see someone who embodies these ideas,

00:55:42.080 | Miss America, I was saying earlier,

00:55:43.780 | I had an astronaut on my show,

00:55:45.260 | these people might be jerks,

00:55:46.940 | but when you look at them,

00:55:47.860 | one specific aspect of their life and you extrapolate it,

00:55:50.780 | that can be, to anyone, very motivating.

00:55:53.100 | And it's very important for people to have the belief

00:55:57.700 | that happiness and achievement is possible

00:56:00.460 | 'cause it's very hard to keep that in mind,

00:56:02.180 | especially if you're depressed,

00:56:03.380 | if you're anxious, you're unemployed,

00:56:05.040 | you don't have a girlfriend,

00:56:05.940 | you think it's gonna be like this forever.

00:56:07.420 | And then you look at someone's story

00:56:09.460 | and they're like, you know what,

00:56:10.380 | that astronaut I interviewed, Clayton Anderson,

00:56:12.180 | he applied 13 times, didn't get a callback,

00:56:15.260 | applied the 14th time, got a callback, didn't get the job,

00:56:18.100 | 15th time he get the job, he talks to kids.

00:56:20.440 | And he goes, listen, apply 13 times.

00:56:24.840 | Even if you don't get the callback,

00:56:26.420 | you'll still feel I'm doing something.

00:56:28.540 | And having heard him and the myth of Clayton Anderson,

00:56:32.180 | this is gonna tell people, yeah, you know what,

00:56:33.860 | that could be me.

00:56:34.700 | - Absolutely.

00:56:35.540 | And it's not just happiness,

00:56:37.420 | it's the fact that virtue works, that integrity.

00:56:41.780 | I mean, what's the power of the fountainhead?

00:56:43.220 | I know you love the fountainhead.

00:56:44.500 | Part of the power of the fountainhead is

00:56:46.420 | Howard Rock's absolute commitment to integrity.

00:56:51.420 | He is committed to integrity and he's happy, right?

00:56:55.460 | And it's very rare in life to see that,

00:57:00.460 | to actually see a concrete of that.

00:57:02.740 | And it's very hard to hold it in your mind.

00:57:04.900 | Yes, I'm gonna be stuck in the quarry

00:57:07.500 | or I'm gonna be stuck doing this horrible job,

00:57:09.500 | but if I stick to my principles, I'm gonna be Howard Rock.

00:57:12.900 | Now I've got that concrete.

00:57:13.960 | I know I can immediately relate to that success.

00:57:18.540 | So I think art is essential.

00:57:21.020 | And I think in a sense,

00:57:22.300 | what we do to Thatcher and Reagan is art.

00:57:24.740 | You have to be careful in true stories,

00:57:27.300 | not to diverge too far from reality

00:57:29.300 | 'cause then when you discover the reality,

00:57:31.420 | you don't want to whitewash it.

00:57:32.460 | And particularly when it has political implications

00:57:34.940 | and then it's really bad.

00:57:35.900 | So particularly with Reagan and Thatcher,

00:57:37.540 | you have to be careful

00:57:38.420 | 'cause they want anyone near as good

00:57:39.640 | as people try to make them out to be.

00:57:41.740 | But these are powerful, powerful, powerful stories

00:57:46.180 | and people are moved by it.

00:57:47.900 | And the integration of emotion with reason is crucial, right?

00:57:51.780 | One of the goals to be happy

00:57:54.120 | is to bring your emotions in line with your thinking.

00:57:57.620 | And I think that stories and arts more broadly.

00:58:00.300 | And when I go and see Michelangelo's David,

00:58:03.020 | it does the same thing to me.

00:58:04.460 | I can stand up to anybody 'cause he did and look,

00:58:08.860 | he succeeded and it makes sense that he could, right?

00:58:12.900 | - So there's a really interesting idea

00:58:15.340 | of bringing your emotion in line

00:58:17.140 | with your thinking, with your reasoning.

00:58:19.060 | So Ben Shapiro famously has this saying,

00:58:22.140 | how do you like that transition, Michael?

00:58:24.280 | You give me props?

00:58:25.240 | I know you do.

00:58:26.080 | - He's not Ben, it's Ben Shapiro.

00:58:28.240 | - Yeah.

00:58:29.440 | - Someone is not taking your calls.

00:58:31.600 | - Benny.

00:58:32.440 | - I guess it's the daily don't take the caller.

00:58:34.200 | - Back to the island with the murder.

00:58:37.720 | I think we know--

00:58:38.560 | - Murder island.

00:58:39.400 | - We would know who would be committing the murder.

00:58:42.160 | I have the suit for it.

00:58:44.280 | So he has the saying of facts don't care about your feelings

00:58:48.840 | and that always, I've always felt badly

00:58:53.500 | about that statement somehow, like it was incomplete.

00:58:56.420 | So it's interesting too that you mentioned

00:58:58.940 | bringing your emotions in line with your thinking.

00:59:01.740 | Like what do you think about that statement?

00:59:03.860 | - I got this one.

00:59:05.180 | What Ben is doing--

00:59:06.540 | - Ben.

00:59:07.380 | - Ben, what he's doing in a loose way

00:59:10.760 | is attacking Kantianism 'cause Kant,

00:59:14.100 | there's this, it's almost impossible for Westerners

00:59:17.220 | who aren't schooled in this to understand

00:59:19.340 | the idea of philosophical idealism

00:59:21.300 | 'cause it sounds so crazy that you're like,

00:59:23.580 | these great minds of all time can't really be saying this.

00:59:26.380 | I must be missing something.

00:59:27.580 | So the idea of, when we hear idealism,

00:59:29.740 | we think John F. Kennedy, right?

00:59:31.120 | It's an example.

00:59:32.260 | You aspire things, you think life could be better than it is.

00:59:35.500 | That's not what it means in a philosophical sense.

00:59:38.020 | In philosophical idealism, it means ideas

00:59:41.560 | are more real than reality.

00:59:43.620 | That I have this idea, then this comes along.

00:59:46.820 | It's the reality that isn't correct.

00:59:49.580 | My idea is still correct.

00:59:50.580 | A good example of this that you see all the time

00:59:52.140 | on the internet is when they refer to Mitt Romney

00:59:54.980 | and John McCain as rhinos, Republicans in name only.

00:59:58.580 | And it's like, who is more a real Republican?

01:00:01.660 | The nominee of the party, the senator,

01:00:04.700 | the governor of the party, or some person in your mind

01:00:07.980 | who has never existed and there's no evidence

01:00:09.780 | for them existing?

01:00:10.940 | So what Kant did is he bifurcated reality

01:00:14.180 | into what we see around us, the phenomenal world,

01:00:17.340 | but then it's inferior.

01:00:19.260 | The real world, the noumenal world, we can't access it.

01:00:23.420 | Because we have eyes, we only see the thing as it appears,

01:00:27.560 | not as it is in itself.

01:00:29.300 | And because of this, everything we know

01:00:31.220 | is a shadow and is secondary.

01:00:33.100 | - And that's Plato, right?

01:00:33.940 | - Yeah. - Straight out of Plato.

01:00:35.020 | - Right, and the real reality is this realm of ideas.

01:00:38.260 | So when Ben is saying facts don't care about your feelings,

01:00:41.060 | what he is really saying is reality comes first,

01:00:45.220 | your feelings have to be a response or a reaction to it.

01:00:48.700 | You can't say this is how I feel.

01:00:50.600 | This table doesn't care.

01:00:52.140 | You can yell at it all day long,

01:00:53.980 | it will still be indifferent to your emotional state

01:00:56.180 | because it comes first.

01:00:57.460 | - So it's a great statement.

01:00:59.180 | I think he's cribbing it from Ayn Rand in a sense.

01:01:01.180 | And I-- - I love it, yes.

01:01:03.020 | - There's a sense in which he is.

01:01:04.380 | I mean, who popularized that kind of idea?

01:01:06.660 | And Ben has read Ayn Rand quite extensively.

01:01:09.340 | - Not enough. - Not enough.

01:01:10.460 | - Well.

01:01:11.300 | - Not enough to reference her.

01:01:12.540 | - He does wear the yarmulke, so yeah, obviously.

01:01:15.540 | He may be read enough but didn't understand enough.

01:01:18.100 | But so-- - Shot fired.

01:01:21.820 | - It's absolutely reality, reality is unaffected

01:01:25.820 | by your emotional state and your feelings about it.

01:01:29.220 | And this is a great claim against the idealism,

01:01:32.340 | the philosophical idealism of much of the world out there,

01:01:35.620 | both left and right.

01:01:36.500 | I think politically, culturally,

01:01:38.240 | the left and right are detached from reality.

01:01:40.300 | They live in a different dimension, in a different space

01:01:43.140 | that they are creating in their own minds

01:01:45.220 | that has nothing to do with the real world.

01:01:47.060 | And when they fail, they make stuff up

01:01:50.400 | to justify their failure, right?

01:01:52.660 | So this is, you know, all of really the ideas

01:01:56.620 | that are promulgated today on both sides

01:01:59.380 | are this kind of detached from reality.

01:02:02.340 | We're putting emotions or ideas before reality itself.

01:02:07.220 | But I believe that, you know, emotions are responses.

01:02:11.300 | They're responses to reality

01:02:13.700 | conditioned by our existing concepts.

01:02:17.460 | - You're gonna have to talk slowly to talk emotions to Lex

01:02:19.660 | 'cause he doesn't really understand what that is.

01:02:20.700 | - I don't understand.

01:02:22.320 | - So really, you gotta really--

01:02:24.260 | - But he's big on love.

01:02:25.740 | - What is love?

01:02:26.860 | - But he's big on love.

01:02:28.260 | - He's trying to learn.

01:02:29.100 | - Pretty big on love, I'm all in, I'm a love maximalist.

01:02:32.600 | I mean, I could create, we could create an environment

01:02:35.580 | on this island where you would really feel emotions.

01:02:38.100 | Like fear is an emotion.

01:02:39.540 | - That's the metaphysical terror.

01:02:42.660 | - We could easily terrorize you to the point

01:02:45.260 | where you felt fear, right?

01:02:47.220 | So we could teach him about emotion.

01:02:49.700 | But emotions are response to reality.

01:02:51.300 | So some people, for example,

01:02:52.300 | you could take five different people

01:02:54.220 | and show them exactly the same thing.

01:02:55.660 | And some of them would feel fear

01:02:57.220 | and some of them would actually, you know, feel indifferent

01:03:00.580 | and other people might feel love, right?

01:03:03.780 | - I think Leonard Picoff uses the example

01:03:05.700 | of looking through a microscope and seeing a,

01:03:08.060 | I don't know, a virus or bacteria.

01:03:11.380 | And for one, it's a scientist, he's made a new discovery.

01:03:13.860 | He feels pride and love and, you know,

01:03:17.460 | the one has no clue, right?

01:03:20.060 | And he's looking at this and it means nothing to them

01:03:22.020 | and somebody else might look at it and, you know,

01:03:23.940 | it's a bacteria, you know, and they feel fear

01:03:25.740 | because of what it could do to them.

01:03:27.360 | So it's conditioned by what you know,

01:03:30.380 | what your values are and your level of knowledge

01:03:33.340 | and what the thing is out there in reality.

01:03:35.820 | And it's that into, so your emotions respond to that.

01:03:38.900 | So aligning your emotions with your reason

01:03:44.580 | is making sure that your emotions are really conditioned

01:03:49.100 | by what you know explicitly

01:03:50.900 | versus what you've internalized implicitly

01:03:53.860 | that you might not agree with anymore.

01:03:55.820 | You know, things might happen in your childhood

01:03:58.780 | and they probably do, right?

01:04:00.620 | Where you get a trauma, I don't know,

01:04:02.940 | I'm afraid of dogs and maybe when I was a five-year-old,

01:04:07.940 | some dogs jumped me and I don't even remember it, right?

01:04:11.340 | But I came to a conclusion when I was five,

01:04:13.260 | dogs bad, dogs dangerous, right?

01:04:15.980 | And now anytime I see a dog, oh my God,

01:04:17.740 | that bringing my emotions aligned with reality, right?

01:04:21.260 | With my ideas is, no, now I understand dogs

01:04:24.340 | don't have to be scary, I can work through this

01:04:27.740 | and there are various techniques and hopefully

01:04:30.460 | if there is such a science of psychology,

01:04:32.140 | but in psychology to get you to the point

01:04:34.660 | where you can get rid of that fear

01:04:36.900 | and align your emotion now with your explicit ideas

01:04:40.340 | and that's what I mean by that.

01:04:41.180 | - And let me build on that,

01:04:42.820 | talking about your friend Putin,

01:04:44.260 | I think I mentioned this before, maybe on the show,

01:04:46.260 | he was meeting with Angela Merkel.

01:04:47.700 | - Oh, Vladimir, please.

01:04:48.540 | - Yeah, Vlad, my boy Vlad.

01:04:50.820 | He was meeting with Angela Merkel.

01:04:52.340 | Angela Merkel has a fear of dogs.

01:04:54.980 | So he brought out his big Labrador retriever.

01:04:57.380 | Now for people who don't know,

01:04:58.260 | Labradors are very big dogs,

01:05:00.300 | but they're also like the least aggressive.

01:05:01.900 | It's like you could punch them in the face, they don't care.

01:05:04.660 | That dog is not going to be more likely to attack

01:05:08.740 | just because she's scared.

01:05:10.260 | And I know they say animals can sense fear,

01:05:12.740 | domesticated dogs, if they see you're scared,

01:05:15.340 | they're not gonna be aggressive.

01:05:16.540 | They're gonna try to, I remember when I was a kid,

01:05:18.620 | I will never forget, there was this dog, Rex,

01:05:20.140 | this German shepherd, I'm five, this dog is gigantic.

01:05:23.740 | And I'm sitting on the couch,

01:05:24.900 | the German shepherds have been bred for intelligence.

01:05:26.700 | They're very bright dogs, they're very good with kids.

01:05:28.540 | He's sitting next to me, this thing is three times my size,

01:05:31.860 | he very gently puts his paw on my leg to be like, kid,

01:05:36.180 | like he can sense my fear, he's like, I'm not gonna do it.

01:05:38.340 | Like, I wanna be your friend.

01:05:39.580 | I'm still freaking out.

01:05:40.740 | He licks my hand, it's just very scary.

01:05:43.580 | You know, animals are so bright,

01:05:44.660 | but that's the thing is,

01:05:45.700 | in terms of facts don't care about your feelings,

01:05:48.260 | that dog is not more likely to attack someone

01:05:51.580 | because their emotion is so intense.

01:05:54.100 | It's not that I feel something very strongly,

01:05:57.740 | therefore this thing is more likely to happen.

01:06:00.940 | So my intensity of my emotion does not in any way correlate

01:06:05.940 | when you're being irrational

01:06:07.180 | to the likelihood of that thing actually happening.

01:06:09.300 | - No, you could have a dog

01:06:10.420 | that does respond to your emotion.

01:06:11.980 | - Oh, of course.

01:06:12.820 | - Right, but then it's not--

01:06:14.420 | - It's not responding that way.

01:06:15.260 | - But then that's part of reality, right?

01:06:16.660 | That's a fact of reality

01:06:17.820 | that certain dogs respond to certain emotions.

01:06:19.860 | - But isn't this emotion a part of reality?

01:06:23.540 | Like, okay, let me say a word.

01:06:25.260 | - Yeah, so part of that, I would even say,

01:06:27.580 | don't let your emotion about your emotion, right?

01:06:30.420 | 'Cause sometimes you have an emotion about your emotion.

01:06:32.220 | - Don't be repressed.

01:06:33.060 | - Don't be repressed, and identify the emotion as reality.

01:06:38.060 | And evaluate it, don't judge it, evaluate it.

01:06:41.180 | Is it a rational emotion?

01:06:42.460 | Is it consistent with my, like,

01:06:44.260 | if I'm afraid of these dogs, if I feel that fear,

01:06:47.240 | is it rational to be afraid of these dogs?

01:06:49.180 | - But you're speaking to your own individual trajectory

01:06:52.180 | as a human being as you grow through the world

01:06:54.100 | and try to understand reality

01:06:55.340 | and connect yourself through reason to reality.

01:06:57.100 | What I'm talking about is a term like lived experience.

01:07:01.700 | When you observe and analyze the,

01:07:06.700 | you know, conversations with other people

01:07:09.540 | to try to understand how other people see the world,

01:07:12.980 | doesn't emotion fundamentally integrate into that?

01:07:16.500 | Like, is an emotion lived experience?

01:07:19.100 | So everybody experiences the same reality,

01:07:22.080 | but the way they experience it might be very different,

01:07:24.580 | and that has to do with what?

01:07:26.620 | - With their values, with their conclusions,

01:07:28.860 | with their ideas, with their experiences,

01:07:30.780 | with a million different things.

01:07:31.820 | - But is it-- - But at the end of the day,

01:07:33.420 | it's about the conclusions that they come to,

01:07:35.100 | which are then shaping their emotions.

01:07:37.140 | But look, emotions are not something

01:07:38.580 | to be avoided or ignored.

01:07:40.260 | That is, I can sense your emotions to some extent.

01:07:42.940 | - That's a lie. - Right?

01:07:44.260 | (laughing)

01:07:45.300 | Okay, it is Lex.

01:07:46.300 | I can sense his emotions.

01:07:48.340 | I can sense Michael's emotions,

01:07:49.860 | and that's part of the facts of reality, right?

01:07:52.140 | So if Michael responds to something

01:07:55.340 | that I view as really, really important, right?

01:07:58.180 | If we were standing in front of Michelangelo's David,

01:08:01.260 | and Michael responds to Michelangelo's David,

01:08:03.340 | who goes, "Nah," and turned his back to it and walked away,

01:08:06.620 | that would be really meaningful to me, right?

01:08:09.020 | That I would respond emotionally to that,

01:08:10.660 | and cognitively I would say,

01:08:12.020 | "What is it about Michael that makes him respond this way?

01:08:16.320 | "That gives me a lot of information about him."

01:08:18.900 | So emotions are information-laden, right?

01:08:22.300 | But they are not primary.

01:08:24.900 | They are responses, responses to something.

01:08:28.980 | So one must be very aware of one's own emotions,

01:08:31.620 | recognize them, and analyze them,

01:08:34.340 | and one should be aware of other people's emotions,

01:08:37.180 | if they're important to you.

01:08:38.020 | If they're not important to you, it doesn't matter, right?

01:08:39.860 | You don't care about a stranger's emotion.

01:08:41.660 | Yeah, like a stranger walks up to Michelangelo's David

01:08:43.740 | and says, "Eh," and walks away,

01:08:45.060 | then I go, "Okay, I'm glad you're a stranger."

01:08:47.340 | (laughing)

01:08:49.580 | Now, I'm not sure what Michael's response

01:08:53.620 | to Michelangelo's David was or is,

01:08:55.460 | so I'm a little worried about what he's gonna say.

01:08:57.700 | You got candy too, that was great.

01:08:59.260 | (laughing)

01:09:01.300 | Do I get Ukrainian candy?

01:09:02.140 | I thought I was special.

01:09:03.220 | I can't read either.

01:09:04.060 | What's this say, Joshua, what does that say to him?

01:09:06.260 | Is this Ukrainian candy as well?

01:09:07.740 | I thought it was sent to me.

01:09:08.580 | Do you know that Atlas Shrugged

01:09:10.220 | was the best-selling book in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016?

01:09:13.660 | Do you know Atlas Shrugged was translated to Russian

01:09:15.900 | by someone who's now a crypto billionaire,

01:09:17.880 | and he made six copies, and I have one of them,

01:09:19.740 | and I sent it to my great-grandma.

01:09:20.580 | No, there were more than six,

01:09:21.740 | but yeah, 'cause I have a copy too.

01:09:23.340 | Okay.

01:09:24.180 | Not I personally, they instituted a copy.

01:09:25.420 | I sent it to my great-grandma,

01:09:26.940 | and she said, "Why is he sending me this?

01:09:28.460 | "I wanna read books about love."

01:09:29.740 | And I'm like, you know what?

01:09:30.580 | It's just about love.

01:09:31.400 | (laughing)

01:09:32.240 | That's what you should have said.

01:09:34.020 | What's that, is that say?

01:09:34.900 | So this says it's (speaking in foreign language)

01:09:38.420 | It has vitamins and minerals.

01:09:40.260 | It, there's a bunch of--

01:09:41.100 | If it's in Russian, I don't believe it.

01:09:42.500 | (laughing)

01:09:44.460 | It just sounds really--

01:09:45.780 | (laughing)

01:09:46.620 | It sounds really strange to read

01:09:48.220 | like health information in Russian.

01:09:49.820 | There you go, exactly.

01:09:50.660 | I'm already distressed--

01:09:51.500 | Look, there's a Yorshik like you have.

01:09:53.540 | Exactly.

01:09:54.380 | I mean, I like Kiev much more than I like Moscow.

01:09:58.500 | Wow, strong words.

01:10:00.060 | But this is not, it's like hard candy.

01:10:02.700 | I don't know.

01:10:03.540 | I think this, some of my friends sent me

01:10:04.940 | that's made with blood to give the kids iron.

01:10:07.260 | Whose blood?

01:10:08.100 | Like cow blood.

01:10:09.020 | Oh.

01:10:09.840 | Like with chocolate.

01:10:10.680 | All right.

01:10:11.520 | You can keep it.

01:10:12.340 | (laughing)

01:10:13.180 | It's all you.

01:10:14.000 | All right, I'm keeping both of these.

01:10:14.840 | But can I speak to something

01:10:16.500 | you're talking about with emotion?

01:10:18.180 | Something that is very pernicious in terms of emotion

01:10:21.620 | is people denying the validity of their own emotions.

01:10:24.340 | And here's one example.

01:10:25.960 | Someone could be in an abusive relationship

01:10:28.060 | or had an abusive childhood.

01:10:29.620 | And they think, well, I didn't have a black eye.

01:10:32.780 | We had dinner on the table.

01:10:33.820 | It wasn't abusive.

01:10:34.660 | 'Cause you hear some other story.

01:10:35.920 | So they feel their emotion isn't valid.

01:10:38.140 | Or like, oh, he never lays hands on me.

01:10:40.940 | He gets drunk and is mean to me.

01:10:42.700 | He's still basically a good person.

01:10:44.580 | You're denying that emotion.

01:10:46.200 | And that emotion is a response to something real.

01:10:49.140 | There's an expression,

01:10:50.160 | I have friends who are in 12-step programs.

01:10:52.120 | There's an expression there, which I think is very profound,

01:10:55.080 | which is if it's hysterical, it's historical.

01:10:57.620 | Meaning if some minor incident

01:10:59.420 | is having an extreme disproportionate impact on you,

01:11:03.340 | think, ask yourself, why am I responding

01:11:05.560 | in such an extreme way to some minor thing?

01:11:08.080 | And I will tell you, 10 times out of 10,

01:11:10.300 | you'll go back and you'll be like,

01:11:11.960 | oh, I'm feeling now like I felt when I was eight

01:11:15.160 | and my dad came home and he was a total jerk

01:11:17.940 | and I didn't do anything wrong and he thought I had

01:11:20.140 | and I was completely powerless.

01:11:21.620 | And now I'm in the same situation my boss.

01:11:23.440 | I'm not that eight-year-old.

01:11:24.400 | In one sense, I am, in another sense, I'm not.

01:11:26.320 | But I feel the same way I did as a kid.

01:11:28.560 | And this is a very useful mechanism

01:11:30.380 | in terms of furthering one's happiness

01:11:32.340 | 'cause you kind of deprogram all those things

01:11:34.280 | that you've picked up as a child.

01:11:35.280 | - But it's also, if you're feeling something wrong,

01:11:38.640 | even though you're trying to rationalize it in a way,

01:11:40.760 | it's not abusive 'cause he's not hitting me.

01:11:42.700 | No, the emotion is telling you something real

01:11:44.680 | about what's going on.

01:11:46.080 | So acknowledge it and fix the situation, right?

01:11:49.720 | So one of the powers emotions give you

01:11:52.160 | is they send you signals about something

01:11:54.400 | that might not be in cognition yet.

01:11:56.920 | And when you examine the emotion,

01:11:58.500 | it brings it to cognition and now you can act on it.

01:12:01.480 | So maybe the boss is abusive,

01:12:03.240 | but I didn't really think of it in those terms.

01:12:05.600 | And my emotions is sending me signals.

01:12:07.640 | And now that I signal it, I'm gonna resign.

01:12:09.600 | I'm gonna find a better, another job.

01:12:11.240 | I'm gonna complain to his boss or whatever.

01:12:13.040 | I'm gonna take action.

01:12:14.660 | - Why do you think Ayn Rand is such a controversial figure?

01:12:17.760 | Last time I spoke with you on this particular podcast,

01:12:21.040 | the amount of emails I've gotten,

01:12:23.880 | positive and negative, and certainly negative.

01:12:26.640 | I don't usually get negative emails.

01:12:28.960 | - Yeah, but you did.

01:12:29.960 | - Yeah, I can't relate.

01:12:32.000 | I'm sure mine were only positive.

01:12:34.460 | - It was mostly women sending pictures

01:12:37.360 | for me to forward to you.

01:12:38.200 | - And you didn't send me any of them.

01:12:39.960 | - Oh, it's the wrong email address.

01:12:43.160 | I'm sorry.

01:12:44.000 | I kept bouncing.

01:12:45.080 | I was looking at your email.

01:12:45.920 | - Oh, so this is love.

01:12:47.080 | (laughing)

01:12:49.320 | - Love hurts.

01:12:51.840 | Okay.

01:12:52.680 | - Yes, no, I--

01:12:53.500 | - But why do you think she's such a divisive figure?

01:12:55.400 | Why do you think that she provokes such emotion

01:12:58.000 | in both the positive and the negative side?

01:12:59.560 | I'd love to hear both of your viewpoints on this.

01:13:02.280 | - Well, I think on the negative side,

01:13:03.960 | and both on the positive and the negative side,

01:13:05.560 | I think it's because she's radical.

01:13:08.040 | She's consistently radical.

01:13:10.200 | She upends the premises, the ideas

01:13:15.200 | that are prevalent in the culture,

01:13:16.920 | that were brought up on, that are like, you know,

01:13:20.520 | they're like milk and, you know,

01:13:24.440 | the basic stuff that we're growing up.

01:13:26.600 | You have to be altruistic.

01:13:27.640 | You have to live for other people.

01:13:28.960 | That's just basic stuff.

01:13:30.160 | Nobody challenges that.

01:13:31.160 | Nobody questions it.

01:13:32.200 | And if they do question it,

01:13:33.480 | they usually question it from the perspective

01:13:34.960 | of a cynic or a bad guy, right?

01:13:38.760 | You mentioned the Joker, right?

01:13:40.760 | Before we started, right?

01:13:41.600 | That, you know, I'm gonna upend the world

01:13:43.360 | because I don't care about other people, right?

01:13:45.320 | So they're presented with these two alternatives

01:13:47.480 | and it's real in people's lives, right?

01:13:49.640 | You either live for other people or you're a evil SOB.

01:13:54.640 | And, you know, yeah, most people are neither one of those,

01:13:57.680 | but the ethic is right here.

01:14:00.680 | It's living for other people.

01:14:01.960 | And when you challenge that,

01:14:03.240 | they have no way cognitively to go with that.

01:14:05.440 | And the only place they can go with that cognitively

01:14:07.560 | is to the Joker.

01:14:08.560 | It's the evil guy.

01:14:09.840 | It's the somebody who wants to smash everything

01:14:11.520 | and destroy it.

01:14:12.360 | Because they don't have this alternative conception of,

01:14:15.280 | oh no, you can be rationally self-interested

01:14:18.760 | and that does not involve destruction

01:14:20.480 | and that does not involve, you know,

01:14:22.520 | exploiting other people.

01:14:25.360 | They can't conceptualize that.

01:14:27.280 | It's not in their framework.

01:14:28.680 | So it's the fact that she's so consistently

01:14:32.200 | on the side of self-interest, for example,

01:14:34.160 | on the side of capitalism, on the side of freedom.

01:14:37.480 | It's the fact that she dismisses faith

01:14:40.600 | to the extent that she does or to the extent that I do.

01:14:44.040 | That alienates people 'cause that is completely different

01:14:46.920 | from what they brought up.

01:14:47.840 | Now, the flip side of that is,

01:14:49.720 | it's also really interesting to some people.

01:14:52.800 | So, you know, a lot of, you got some positives, right?

01:14:56.400 | And I got a lot of positives from that appearance.

01:14:58.680 | I know a lot of people came to my podcast

01:15:00.640 | because I appeared on your show.

01:15:02.120 | Why?

01:15:02.960 | Because they hear something that's completely fresh,

01:15:05.800 | new, different, they've never heard before.

01:15:08.960 | It appeals to something in them that maybe, you know,

01:15:12.200 | a lot of people say, I read Ayn Rand

01:15:13.760 | and it confirmed everything I believed.

01:15:15.560 | Now, for me, it didn't.

01:15:16.440 | It was the opposite.

01:15:17.400 | It turned upside down everything I believed.

01:15:19.760 | But there are a lot of people out there

01:15:21.360 | that have a sense that something's wrong in the world,

01:15:23.920 | that altruism is wrong, that socialism,

01:15:26.240 | just the stuff and religion is wrong,

01:15:28.560 | but they don't have an alternative.

01:15:29.840 | It hasn't coalesced.

01:15:31.000 | And they listen to a lot of podcasts

01:15:32.600 | 'cause they're trying to get ideas of what is it,

01:15:35.200 | what is it that I'm sensing that's wrong out there?

01:15:37.240 | And suddenly somebody comes out

01:15:39.440 | and gives them some clear explanation of things.

01:15:41.960 | And they go, wow,

01:15:43.280 | that's what I've been looking for my whole life.

01:15:45.160 | So that's the positive for people.

01:15:48.160 | You know, and I read Ayn Rand, it just all made sense.

01:15:52.840 | It all clicked and it made clear

01:15:57.440 | that everything I believed to that point was just wrong.

01:15:59.920 | It just didn't integrate.

01:16:02.120 | And I always knew to some extent it didn't integrate,

01:16:04.640 | but there was no alternative, so I believed it.

01:16:06.200 | What else was there?

01:16:07.200 | I remember saying to myself as a kid, probably 15,

01:16:10.560 | why should I, why is morality all about other people?

01:16:13.680 | Why is that?

01:16:15.360 | Well, that's just the way it is, right?

01:16:16.840 | And I couldn't come up with an explanation.

01:16:18.960 | She gave me the explanation

01:16:20.440 | and she gave me the explanation why it's wrong to do that.

01:16:23.240 | And I think, so I think that's why people respond.

01:16:25.680 | It's just too radical.

01:16:27.280 | It can't fit into their cognitive framework

01:16:30.480 | that they're being brought up on,

01:16:31.760 | that they've been educated on,

01:16:33.000 | that just their whole life revolves around.

01:16:35.640 | - Michael, you don't bring up Ayn Rand

01:16:37.720 | that much in conversation,

01:16:39.040 | except as kind of references every once in a while

01:16:41.240 | as part of the humor of just the general flow

01:16:43.840 | and the music of the way you like to talk.

01:16:45.880 | Well, why do you think you don't integrate her

01:16:49.640 | into your philosophy when you're like explaining ideas

01:16:53.120 | and all those kinds of things?

01:16:54.360 | Like, why is she not, you know,

01:16:57.200 | a popular reference point for discussion of ideas?

01:17:01.040 | - Because I don't know if you're everyone's gonna agree with

01:17:03.800 | or can agree with me.

01:17:05.360 | I think for a certain percentage of the population,

01:17:07.680 | actually I talked to someone from the Ayn Rand Institute,

01:17:09.720 | I forgot his name, older guy with glasses,

01:17:11.320 | and he didn't disagree with me.

01:17:12.640 | He said, this is changing.

01:17:13.560 | I said, I think for a certain percentage of the population

01:17:16.120 | who are uninformed about her work,

01:17:18.800 | higher than 10%, less than 50%, you mentioned Ayn Rand,

01:17:22.240 | they have been trained to think

01:17:23.560 | this is identical Scientology.

01:17:25.480 | So as soon as her name comes up,

01:17:26.880 | it's like, okay, I'm out the door.

01:17:28.560 | I'm not gonna have anything to do with this.

01:17:30.360 | And everyone who follows her is a crazy person.

01:17:31.920 | That's one thing that has happened.

01:17:33.680 | Another thing is Rand in her personality

01:17:37.880 | was very aggressive and antagonistic.

01:17:40.040 | She was for a long time, the lone voice in the wilderness,

01:17:43.920 | being like, this isn't like,

01:17:45.440 | like one of her big adversaries in a certain sense

01:17:48.760 | is Milton Friedman.

01:17:49.920 | And she really hated how Milton Friedman was like,

01:17:53.440 | oh, you know, having rent control is inefficient.

01:17:56.520 | And she's like, inefficient?

01:17:58.240 | We're talking about mass homelessness and people dying.

01:18:02.240 | And you're talking about this,

01:18:03.720 | like what color tie goes with this color shirt?

01:18:06.720 | Are you in, like, and in fact, it's hilarious.

01:18:09.760 | There was an organization called

01:18:10.680 | the Foundation for Economic Education, FEE.

01:18:12.680 | Leonard Reed was the head of this.

01:18:15.320 | And there were a series of letters and she was helping him.

01:18:18.840 | She was much more philosophically grounded

01:18:20.760 | in certain contexts than he was.

01:18:22.440 | And there was an essay, a pamphlet that he published

01:18:25.080 | called "Roofs or Ceilings."

01:18:27.360 | It was co-written by Milton Friedman,

01:18:29.920 | later Nobel Prize winner,

01:18:30.960 | and George Stigler, also later Nobel Prize winner.

01:18:33.760 | And basically the argument was,

01:18:35.840 | well, if the government controls all housing,

01:18:38.760 | how's that going to work out?

01:18:40.160 | And she's sitting there and she's typing in all caps.

01:18:43.720 | So, you know, she's holding on the shift key and doing this.

01:18:46.800 | - On a typewriter.

01:18:47.640 | - On a typewriter and being like, how?

01:18:50.600 | And you can imagine her with her cigarette holder,

01:18:53.200 | apoplectic, being like, how is an organization,

01:18:57.160 | ostensibly devoted to free enterprise,

01:19:00.680 | discussing this Stalinist idea in the most casual of terms?

01:19:05.680 | She's like, have I taught you not?

01:19:07.200 | And what's amazing is, so at FEE,

01:19:10.200 | they only have her letters because she sent them to Reed.

01:19:13.720 | The Ayn Rand Institute must have Leonard Reed's letters.

01:19:16.280 | I was able to, knowing Rand enough,

01:19:18.320 | predict exactly what the conversation would go like

01:19:21.200 | because he also did something she didn't approve of,

01:19:23.520 | which is he asked other people for feedback on her work

01:19:27.040 | and she goes, I gave this to you to read.

01:19:29.480 | Who are you shopping around to some jerk

01:19:31.400 | that I don't, I need their approval, what are you doing?

01:19:34.040 | So it was a very interesting situation.

01:19:36.720 | But, so that's one issue.

01:19:38.200 | - Now remember, this is Ayn Rand when she's young.

01:19:40.440 | - She wasn't that young.

01:19:41.280 | - Well, I mean, she's relatively young, right?

01:19:43.160 | It's before Atlas Shrugged.

01:19:44.320 | - It was before Atlas Shrugged.

01:19:45.160 | - So it's before she's super famous

01:19:46.440 | and before this is, the found has been published,

01:19:49.400 | but, you know, she's trying to work with others

01:19:54.400 | and they're disappointing her left and right.

01:19:57.000 | - Yeah, so, and also when you are a,

01:20:00.880 | what she takes away from bad people

01:20:04.160 | is you have these kids, right?

01:20:06.520 | And you're gonna sit down with them

01:20:07.920 | and they're gonna be like, yeah, I'm gonna take your guns,

01:20:10.280 | I'm gonna lock you in your house,

01:20:12.800 | I'm gonna take 60% of your income and all this other stuff.

01:20:16.280 | And they might, up to reading Rand,

01:20:18.920 | they might sit down and have a discussion

01:20:20.920 | and Rand goes, hey, you know what?

01:20:23.280 | You didn't have to give them an answer.

01:20:25.160 | You could say, go to hell,

01:20:27.000 | we're not having this conversation

01:20:28.800 | and you have no right to one second of my life

01:20:32.720 | and this is not a legitimate opener.

01:20:35.360 | This is a declaration of war.

01:20:36.720 | This isn't like, it's not like if I sit down with you,

01:20:38.920 | I run like, hey, Ron, here are my plans for your wife.

01:20:41.560 | Go to hell.

01:20:42.400 | This isn't a conversation we're having.

01:20:43.720 | Oh, I'm gonna make you unsafe in your house.

01:20:45.320 | What?

01:20:46.160 | This is not a discussion.

01:20:47.000 | So what happens is these people who five minutes ago

01:20:50.320 | were able to have a debate with this kid

01:20:52.120 | 'cause people read Rand when they're young often.

01:20:54.120 | And now that kid is like, yeah, I'm not even talking to you.

01:20:56.960 | It's her fault.

01:20:58.200 | Whereas in reality, it's that person's fault

01:21:00.800 | because that person had no right,

01:21:03.040 | although they've been trained

01:21:03.880 | to the contrary of our culture,

01:21:05.440 | to believe, yeah, I'm gonna sit down

01:21:07.200 | and we're just gonna equally have a discussion

01:21:09.800 | over our own life and you have one vote

01:21:11.800 | and I have one vote and we're gonna,

01:21:12.920 | and Lex has a vote and that's just how it's gonna be.

01:21:14.880 | Like, this is madness. - No, it's Lex.

01:21:15.960 | - And Rand's not having it.

01:21:17.880 | So I think those are two issues.

01:21:19.480 | And there's some other things

01:21:20.560 | which I don't need to get into,

01:21:22.080 | but one of the things that Rand said consistently

01:21:25.880 | in her life is that her philosophy

01:21:28.000 | is an integrated whole, right?

01:21:29.840 | So to be an objectivist isn't just like,

01:21:32.360 | I like Atlas Shrugged.

01:21:33.600 | It means I accept objectivism as a totality.

01:21:36.920 | Since I do not, I think it is proper

01:21:40.560 | to be respectful to her wishes and not constantly be,

01:21:43.680 | especially given that I have somewhat of a platform

01:21:45.440 | to be like Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand,

01:21:47.000 | because I don't think Ayn Rand would have liked it

01:21:49.480 | if I was talking about Ayn Rand this much.

01:21:51.560 | - So how do you deprogram?

01:21:54.200 | 'Cause I don't like to bring up Ayn Rand

01:21:55.840 | just because I do see what,

01:21:58.000 | like how people roll their eyes, essentially.

01:21:59.880 | So how do-- - What's the upside?

01:22:02.040 | - What's the upside, exactly?

01:22:03.120 | But what is that, can you speak to that programming

01:22:06.640 | that people have? - I think you're

01:22:07.480 | unprogramming people.

01:22:08.560 | I mean, look, at the end of the day,

01:22:10.640 | if you talk about the ideas and the ideas make sense

01:22:12.600 | and people are attracted to the ideas,

01:22:14.080 | then you say, oh, by the way, and this came from Ayn Rand,

01:22:16.560 | that's how you deprogram them, right?

01:22:18.520 | If you make the ideas prevalent in the culture,

01:22:20.560 | if people start viewing self-interest

01:22:22.840 | as something that's interesting and worthwhile

01:22:25.800 | and something worth investigating,

01:22:27.440 | and they said, oh, that came from Ayn Rand,

01:22:29.200 | then I think that we'll deprogram them

01:22:33.240 | and get them changing their minds about these things.

01:22:36.280 | And also, going on shows where people are gonna watch

01:22:40.080 | your show no matter who you bring on, right?

01:22:42.080 | So even though, now you do,

01:22:44.680 | if you put Ayn Rand in the title,

01:22:47.720 | that immediately reduces the number of people who watch.

01:22:50.540 | So in the future, you shouldn't.

01:22:52.320 | - You put Michael Malice in the title

01:22:53.880 | and then at least the female population too.

01:22:55.800 | - The female, absolutely.

01:22:57.280 | - It's just to see.

01:22:58.400 | - That's right.

01:22:59.320 | So you go and you try to make them as credible as possible

01:23:02.200 | to as many people as possible over time.

01:23:04.160 | It takes time.

01:23:05.000 | And ultimately, I don't think the culture

01:23:06.880 | will have this response to her.

01:23:08.400 | They might still disagree with her,

01:23:09.960 | but I think over time, and already you're seeing it,

01:23:12.160 | younger people, I think today, are far less.

01:23:14.840 | There was a generation who never read Ayn Rand

01:23:17.680 | and was like this, bring out the garlic and the crosses,

01:23:19.920 | we don't wanna have anything to do with her.

01:23:21.320 | Then, and I think today, there are many more people

01:23:24.160 | who've read her and might disagree or not disagree, right?

01:23:26.440 | And then there were a lot of people who haven't read her,

01:23:28.660 | but who are not opposed to it

01:23:30.080 | or willing to engage.

01:23:32.200 | So I think it's changing already.

01:23:33.960 | And I think in 20 years, it'll be completely different.

01:23:35.520 | - And just two more things that she does

01:23:37.040 | that I think it says that I think people find

01:23:38.720 | very, very off-putting given our culture.

01:23:40.880 | One is she will, basically, you could sit down with Rand

01:23:43.680 | and be like, your fear is not in any way

01:23:46.960 | a hold on my freedom.

01:23:48.600 | Just that one sentence.

01:23:49.880 | And for a lot of people, that's very off-putting

01:23:52.760 | and very harsh, it's correct.

01:23:55.680 | But for them, it's just like, wait a minute,

01:23:58.200 | I'm still scared.

01:23:59.040 | It's like, I don't care.

01:24:00.280 | Like, for example, like with lockdowns and things like this.

01:24:02.520 | It's like, well, I'm scared

01:24:04.320 | and maybe I have a right to be scared.

01:24:05.760 | - Ah, gotcha.

01:24:06.600 | - Or like, I'm scared that you have a gun in your house.

01:24:08.280 | And it's like, I respect that you're scared.

01:24:10.600 | I don't care.

01:24:12.040 | As you say, at the end of the day, this is my house.

01:24:14.000 | I'm going to live my life as I please

01:24:16.240 | as long as I don't hurt other people.

01:24:17.560 | Well, you are hurting me 'cause I'm scared.

01:24:19.080 | No, that's not--

01:24:20.320 | - This is the feeling versus fact.

01:24:21.960 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:24:22.800 | So that is one situation where--

01:24:24.480 | - It's like a feeling versus freedom, essentially.

01:24:26.120 | - Yes, where Rand, I mean, puts a lot of people off.

01:24:30.760 | I also think that historically,

01:24:34.480 | a lot of people who are drawn to her

01:24:36.200 | are drawn to her for the wrong reasons.

01:24:38.280 | That a lot of times, like Howard Rourke, the hero,

01:24:42.880 | we're going to still say hero.

01:24:43.880 | You're supposed to say protagonist, but hero.

01:24:45.480 | The hero of The Fountainhead, he's extremely intelligent,

01:24:49.320 | but he's also extremely uncompromising.

01:24:51.600 | What often ends up happening is you'll have a young kid

01:24:54.360 | who is somewhat intelligent,

01:24:55.840 | but then they pick up the personality,

01:24:57.640 | and now you're someone I can't work with.

01:24:59.440 | And then it's like, you're not Howard Rourke.

01:25:01.080 | Relax, you're not that skilled, you're not that talented.

01:25:03.560 | But because the character has to be a personification

01:25:06.120 | and have certain aspects together,

01:25:08.520 | when kids read that, they might get the wrong idea.

01:25:10.480 | That's not Rand's fault.

01:25:11.320 | - And it's more than that.

01:25:12.400 | It's so, so, I completely agree with that,

01:25:16.680 | but it's even broader than that.

01:25:18.400 | So here is, in my view, one of the geniuses of the millennium

01:25:22.640 | presenting a philosophy.

01:25:24.200 | And she's got not just the questions,

01:25:25.840 | in my view, she's got the answers.

01:25:27.000 | And you're reading them at 16, and you're reading the answers.

01:25:30.360 | You don't know at 16 that this is true.

01:25:33.440 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:25:34.280 | - You might have a sense that it's true,

01:25:35.320 | but you don't have the life experience,

01:25:36.600 | the learned experience.

01:25:38.000 | You don't have the facts, you don't have the knowledge.

01:25:40.200 | You're picking up truth.

01:25:41.440 | It's just being absorbed.

01:25:43.240 | You're accepting it as true, but you don't know it's true.

01:25:46.000 | And then you go out into the world advocating for it,

01:25:49.040 | which we all did, or at least I did, when I was 16.

01:25:52.400 | And you're obnoxious.

01:25:53.840 | You can't prove what you're arguing for,

01:25:56.520 | because you don't have the experience.

01:25:57.960 | So it took me, I don't know, 10, 20 years, probably 20,

01:26:00.920 | to figure out that I really do think

01:26:03.600 | what she said was true.

01:26:05.440 | But I didn't know when I was 16.

01:26:06.880 | When I was 16, I just absorbed these ideas

01:26:09.840 | and accepted them in a sense,

01:26:11.640 | with some connection to reality, but in a sense, unfaith.

01:26:16.240 | At least presented it that way.

01:26:17.960 | And as a consequence, you come off as a detached

01:26:22.320 | from reality, obnoxious human being.

01:26:26.280 | I think a lot of young objectivists are,

01:26:28.240 | and it's hard not to be, because you are.

01:26:30.600 | You're confronted with genius.

01:26:32.240 | And you're not a genius.

01:26:33.120 | I certainly am not a genius.

01:26:34.480 | And I'm confronted with just genius,

01:26:36.240 | and I have all this information in my head now.

01:26:38.440 | I can't articulate it.

01:26:39.680 | And it's hard to deal with yourself.

01:26:43.200 | There's an inside joke.

01:26:44.040 | - No, you said I'm confronted with genius, I point to us.

01:26:45.560 | - Yeah, yes, I mean, I'm confronted with you guys.

01:26:48.440 | I'm at an age where I know how to deal with geniuses.

01:26:51.320 | - But I'm gonna say, there's something else.

01:26:53.520 | This is not why people don't like her,

01:26:54.920 | but there's something that the Fountainhead does,

01:26:56.560 | which I think is very, and I don't blame her,

01:27:00.040 | but it's a bad consequence.

01:27:01.840 | If you read the Fountainhead and you're young

01:27:03.440 | and you're intelligent and talented,

01:27:05.240 | the message, at least I got, and I know I'm not alone,

01:27:07.760 | is you are going to think that you're gonna be a pariah,

01:27:10.680 | that a lot of people are gonna be against you,

01:27:12.800 | and you're basically doomed for a short period

01:27:15.800 | of being isolated and alone.

01:27:17.800 | And that may have been the case

01:27:19.040 | when Fountainhead was written.

01:27:20.520 | But I think now with the internet,

01:27:21.880 | and in my experience, both as a youth

01:27:23.920 | and someone who's a little bit older,

01:27:25.920 | I didn't appreciate,

01:27:26.960 | and you're not gonna get it from that book,

01:27:28.200 | and you can't get it through that book

01:27:29.440 | 'cause it has to have a certain narrative,

01:27:31.080 | how many people who are a little older are giddy

01:27:34.960 | when they find young talent.

01:27:37.440 | How inspiring it is, how exciting it is.

01:27:39.720 | Like when you talk to these kids

01:27:40.840 | who are doing things on the internet

01:27:42.360 | or writing or whatever achievement,

01:27:43.920 | you want them to flourish.

01:27:45.400 | You're not threatened by them

01:27:47.080 | as the antagonists of the Fountainhead are.

01:27:49.320 | And that doesn't come through in the Fountainhead

01:27:51.640 | because of-- - But it depends

01:27:52.480 | on your profession, right?

01:27:53.400 | I mean, for some of these-- - Sure.

01:27:54.720 | - Parts of the world are better than others.

01:27:56.560 | If you're an artist, at least the way I conceive of art,

01:28:00.800 | and you wanna go study art today,

01:28:03.560 | you're gonna be pooh-poohed

01:28:04.800 | and look down on-- - Oh, of course.

01:28:05.880 | - And so on.

01:28:06.720 | So yeah, I agree.

01:28:07.560 | I mean, in my generation, when I read "Ein Renn,"

01:28:10.760 | there was no internet, and I was in Israel,

01:28:13.360 | so we were isolated, and there was nobody else

01:28:16.280 | who had shared their ideas.

01:28:17.480 | And you did feel that kind of isolation,

01:28:19.840 | but Rourke gave you, to me, he didn't teach me about,

01:28:23.800 | you know, you're gonna be isolated,

01:28:25.160 | 'cause partially it's 'cause I wasn't,

01:28:28.160 | maybe I was humble, right?

01:28:32.800 | (Rourke laughs)

01:28:34.360 | - You thought you were Israeli.

01:28:35.200 | - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:28:36.040 | When I read "Atlas Shrugged,"

01:28:38.000 | I identified with Eddie Willis.

01:28:39.960 | - Okay. - When I read

01:28:41.080 | "The Fountainhead," I didn't identify with Howard Rourke.

01:28:43.960 | - How old were you when you read "The Fountainhead"?

01:28:46.160 | - So I read "Atlas" when I was 16.

01:28:47.560 | I probably read "Fountainhead" when I was 16 1/2, 17,

01:28:50.720 | something like that.

01:28:51.560 | - That is an unfair war crime.

01:28:52.400 | - And I read-- - You read "The Fountainhead"

01:28:54.040 | after "Atlas Shrugged"? - Yeah.

01:28:55.240 | - If anyone listening to this--

01:28:56.680 | - They should read "Fountainhead" first.

01:28:57.520 | - If you read "Fountainhead" after "Atlas Shrugged,"

01:29:00.320 | that is a war crime. - No, for me--

01:29:02.400 | - I swear to God. - For me, reading

01:29:03.760 | "Atlas Shrugged" was much more important.

01:29:05.360 | - It is more important, but my point is,

01:29:07.480 | I think "The Fountainhead" in many ways is redundant

01:29:10.280 | in certain aspects if you read "Atlas Shrugged" first.

01:29:12.720 | And because "The Fountainhead" is such a masterful book

01:29:14.960 | and such a personal book-- - I agree with that.

01:29:18.040 | So ideally, you would read "The Fountainhead" first.

01:29:19.600 | - That's all I'm saying, yes.

01:29:20.880 | - But-- - And here's the other thing

01:29:21.920 | people don't appreciate, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

01:29:23.800 | People think Rand's always about politics,

01:29:25.160 | politics, politics, politics.

01:29:27.200 | "Fountainhead" is not a political book.

01:29:28.520 | - At all. - It's about,

01:29:29.680 | well, she talks about it as "Politics of Man's Soul," sure.

01:29:31.960 | But it's about ethics, how important everyone has to have

01:29:35.000 | a moral code.

01:29:36.020 | That's the other thing why people find Rand off-putting.

01:29:38.360 | If you have young people who now find it very important

01:29:42.220 | to live a moral life, who are like,

01:29:44.560 | "What does that mean to have morality, to have ethics,

01:29:48.000 | "to live with integrity?"

01:29:49.680 | For people who have gotten a little older,

01:29:52.640 | who have made these little sacrifices,

01:29:54.840 | who are like, "I'm not gonna fight at work.

01:29:56.660 | "Do I really need to look for another job?

01:29:58.720 | "Yeah, my wife's kind of getting annoying,

01:30:00.900 | "but am I gonna make a fight about it?"

01:30:02.720 | These little sacrifices that they make every day--

01:30:05.720 | - And big ones. - And big ones, absolutely.

01:30:07.940 | So when you have someone who's saying,

01:30:10.680 | forcing you to look in the mirror and say,

01:30:13.940 | "Those little sacrifices and big sacrifices you made,

01:30:16.740 | "you did the wrong thing, and you're evading

01:30:19.660 | "that you betrayed your own conscience,"

01:30:21.800 | that, to many people, I think, is very threatening.

01:30:24.480 | - But this is why so many people say

01:30:27.440 | that Ayn Rand is for 14-year-old boys.

01:30:29.680 | - Yeah, right. - Right?

01:30:31.280 | - You're brought up. - And there's a reason why

01:30:34.080 | it appeals to 14, is a little young, but 16, 18,

01:30:37.600 | it's because those are the ages

01:30:39.080 | where we're still open to idealism,

01:30:40.920 | idealism in a positive sense, right?

01:30:43.160 | To beautiful things, to ideals, to seeking perfection,

01:30:47.400 | to seeking a great life.

01:30:50.280 | I think as you grow older, most people become cynical.

01:30:53.060 | They give up on their ideals, why?

01:30:54.360 | Because their ideals were wrong, and their ideals failed.

01:30:57.040 | Right, my parents were socialists when they were young.

01:30:59.520 | Those ideas failed, so where do you go from socialism

01:31:01.800 | if your ideals fail? - Cynicism, yes.

01:31:02.960 | - To cynicism. - Which is horrible.

01:31:04.200 | - Right, all adults, almost all adults out there are cynical,

01:31:07.680 | and that has failed, the idealism,

01:31:10.560 | and when they look at the young people,

01:31:11.660 | they see their idealism, oh, well, that's,

01:31:14.520 | I was idealistic, too, and they don't question the idea,

01:31:17.600 | well, they're good ideals and they're bad ideals,

01:31:19.200 | they're right ideals and they're wrong ideals,

01:31:21.240 | and that's why they attribute it to youth.

01:31:24.760 | So it's a threat to a lot of people,

01:31:26.960 | a lot of people who it's too late for.

01:31:28.960 | For some people, it's too late to change their minds,

01:31:31.120 | and they know it, and they're too invested

01:31:35.120 | in the job, in the wife, in the compromises.

01:31:38.880 | - In the comfort.

01:31:40.320 | - And they're too invested in the comfort,

01:31:42.840 | too invested in compromise, too invested in comfort,

01:31:45.320 | and they know that they shouldn't be,

01:31:47.480 | they know they should change,

01:31:49.040 | and these young people are challenging that,

01:31:51.040 | and that is really, really scary for them,

01:31:53.620 | and that's why they reject it

01:31:55.480 | without too much consideration.

01:31:57.720 | - One of the things Rand, the working title

01:31:59.560 | for Fountainhead was Secondhand Lives,

01:32:01.400 | and Rand had two definitions of selfishness in that book.

01:32:04.360 | One is selfishness in the sense of,

01:32:06.440 | my life is the most important thing,

01:32:08.220 | it's not the only important thing,

01:32:09.760 | my family would be number two, friends,

01:32:11.560 | they certainly are extremely high values,

01:32:13.440 | but you can't have these secondary values

01:32:15.600 | without the first value.

01:32:16.440 | - But in the context of my life, right,

01:32:17.720 | 'cause your family might not be a value, right?

01:32:20.040 | You might hate your parents.

01:32:20.880 | - Sure, the point being, selfishness.

01:32:23.320 | Then there's the other kind of selfishness,

01:32:25.400 | which is Peter Keating, one of the villains of the book,

01:32:27.480 | which is he's selfish in that he's greedy,

01:32:30.320 | he's looking out for number one,

01:32:31.760 | but he has no values, he has no sense of character,

01:32:34.320 | he just wants to be wealthy,

01:32:36.600 | he wants to have a beautiful wife,

01:32:38.360 | he wants to have a big house, why?

01:32:40.080 | He couldn't tell you, because other people have it,

01:32:42.040 | and he wants to have it more than them.

01:32:43.280 | His sense of reference is other people,

01:32:45.880 | he's living secondhand.

01:32:47.600 | The problem with that is, a lot of young people read Rand,

01:32:51.160 | and when they start arguing online,

01:32:53.080 | they just start trying to talk like Rand,

01:32:55.160 | whereas Rand would be like, be original, be an innovator.

01:32:58.000 | If you want to argue for objectivism in Rand's views,

01:33:00.800 | take her ideas, articulate them in your own way,

01:33:03.480 | 'cause that's a good way of showing

01:33:05.040 | that you understand what she thinks,

01:33:06.840 | but what they end up doing is just talking like her,

01:33:09.640 | it sounds dated and comical,

01:33:11.800 | and that's going to be off-putting,

01:33:12.960 | 'cause it's like, Rand wouldn't expect someone else

01:33:15.200 | to sound like Rand, she's her own person.

01:33:18.400 | - And she, of course, wouldn't view Keating as selfish

01:33:20.720 | in any sense, because, or even greedy,

01:33:23.560 | greed is a tricky word, but--

01:33:25.000 | - He was selfish in the old school sense.

01:33:27.320 | - Yeah, he's selfish in the old,

01:33:28.640 | but even there, it's not as if he has some passion

01:33:33.400 | and he's going after that passion no matter what,

01:33:34.960 | I'm getting light sheets, steel, I'm getting,

01:33:37.800 | he doesn't have, his passion is painting, right?

01:33:40.640 | And he doesn't pursue his passion,

01:33:42.280 | he pursues what his mother wants him to pursue.

01:33:44.440 | And he pursues money and--

01:33:46.480 | - Status, he's a statistician.

01:33:47.320 | - He's completely second-handed in the sense

01:33:49.560 | that he follows other people's values, not his own.

01:33:51.600 | - Can we actually just backtrack,

01:33:53.560 | and can we define some of these ideas

01:33:55.160 | that Ayn Rand is known for of selfishness?

01:33:58.000 | Selfishness, egoism, egotism, greed,

01:34:00.360 | I mean, those, basically all of those words

01:34:04.240 | are seen as negative in society,

01:34:06.280 | and Ayn Rand has been reclaiming in her work those words.

01:34:10.480 | So, can you speak to what they mean?

01:34:13.240 | - I think she's trying to, and Yaron might disagree,

01:34:16.320 | I think she's trying to be needlessly provocative,

01:34:19.920 | and it's off-putting, and on one hand,

01:34:23.320 | maybe you wanna be a provocateur,

01:34:24.840 | 'cause that gives you people like,

01:34:26.320 | what does this woman mean?

01:34:27.440 | On the other hand, many people

01:34:29.200 | are gonna be viscerally put off.

01:34:30.760 | When Ayn Rand was on Donahue in 1979,

01:34:33.440 | he asked her explicitly,

01:34:35.440 | "Define to me the virtue of selfishness,"

01:34:37.880 | which is the title of her collection of essays as well.

01:34:40.560 | And she, this is Rand, immediately says,

01:34:42.720 | "Use a different word, self-esteem."

01:34:45.160 | And it's like, yeah, it's like,

01:34:46.480 | why are you championing this word

01:34:49.040 | which has extremely negative connotations?

01:34:51.520 | Whereas if you just say,

01:34:52.920 | and this is thanks to her and her work,

01:34:54.960 | "My life matters, my values matter,

01:34:59.560 | "I'm not gonna apologize for that,"

01:35:01.720 | that is a lot less off-putting

01:35:04.400 | than this caricature of Rand, which is,

01:35:06.960 | when people hear "I'm for selfishness,"

01:35:08.560 | they hear, "Oh, someone's bleeding out in the corner,

01:35:10.800 | "but I wanna get a Coke, that's nice."

01:35:12.480 | She condemned that.

01:35:13.640 | She says, "I'm against this kind of sociopathy,

01:35:15.740 | "that's absolutely crazy."

01:35:17.100 | But that word selfishness--

01:35:18.440 | - It goes a mistake to be provocative

01:35:21.900 | in this one dimension, to go and to stick with it.

01:35:24.780 | I mean, she's stuck with this idea

01:35:26.120 | of selfishness and so on.

01:35:27.140 | - This term, and I often use terms for provocative effect.

01:35:31.820 | - Yes, this is true.

01:35:32.660 | You're a master, you're a scholar of the trolling arts.

01:35:36.060 | - Thank you, sir.

01:35:37.220 | But I think this is one example

01:35:39.660 | where the costs outweigh the benefits.

01:35:42.180 | And go ahead, your honor.

01:35:43.380 | - Yes, I'm open to that idea,

01:35:46.160 | but I don't think that's right.

01:35:47.900 | When you actually dig deeper into what people object to,

01:35:52.900 | they're not objecting to the word,

01:35:55.860 | they're objecting to the ideas.

01:35:57.460 | And she addresses this explicitly

01:36:01.520 | in "The Virtue of Selfishness,"

01:36:02.420 | in I think the introduction.

01:36:03.420 | - Wait, hold on, I gotta ask for clarification.

01:36:05.580 | You're saying they're objecting to the ideas,

01:36:07.520 | but when they talk about her,

01:36:08.740 | they're not talking about her actual ideas,

01:36:09.900 | they're talking about the caricature.

01:36:11.400 | - Well, sure, but the caricature is a defense mechanism,

01:36:14.540 | not to have to deal with the ideas.

01:36:17.140 | Right, so they create the caricature

01:36:19.360 | in order to ignore the ideas,

01:36:21.280 | in order to, and some of them do it consciously.

01:36:23.600 | Like when people like Krugman and others do this,

01:36:26.740 | they know exactly what they're doing.

01:36:28.220 | - Well, Krugman's an, is Ellsworth Tewi.

01:36:30.800 | - Yes, he's the perfect Ellsworth Tewi.

01:36:33.360 | And he knows Ayn Rand, he's read Ayn Rand,

01:36:36.760 | and he knows she's the enemy in some sense.

01:36:38.840 | He knows--

01:36:39.680 | - Check out our episode with Krugman.

01:36:42.500 | I think it's number 90.

01:36:43.920 | - Yeah, it was a great conversation.

01:36:45.160 | - Didn't get as many views as me, but what are you gonna do?

01:36:46.960 | - Well, you got a Nobel Prize, so what you got?

01:36:49.560 | - I got a ticket to heaven.

01:36:52.880 | Sorry, Paul.

01:36:53.800 | - Yasser Alphard has a Nobel Prize.

01:36:55.800 | - And Hitler was Times Man of the Year for a few times.

01:36:59.240 | - But you, that really bothers me when people bring that up.

01:37:02.480 | Are you really--

01:37:03.320 | - Yeah, Time of the Year, Man of the Year--

01:37:04.160 | - It's called a joke, Michael.

01:37:06.000 | - Is it?

01:37:07.440 | - Man of the Year is not representative of good,

01:37:09.080 | it represents the most influential person of that year,

01:37:11.480 | and Hitler was.

01:37:12.320 | - Absolutely.

01:37:13.160 | - So what were you upset about?

01:37:14.800 | - When people like, well, look at Time Magazine,

01:37:16.680 | they call Hitler Man of the Year, like you're on set.

01:37:18.760 | They won't say this guy's awesome,

01:37:19.760 | they say this is the guy who moved on the world the most.

01:37:21.320 | - They know it's sanctioned him, that's it.

01:37:23.120 | - It's not like he was Stalin.

01:37:23.960 | - I don't go out there.

01:37:26.400 | - Now that's who they like.

01:37:28.280 | Hitler's terrible.

01:37:29.120 | - Oh no.

01:37:29.960 | - The Stalin guy.

01:37:31.400 | Oh no, no, I'm not even joking.

01:37:32.800 | - The attitude of people between Nazism,

01:37:36.760 | or fascism, and communism is stunning.

01:37:39.880 | - In my upcoming book, I have all the receipts,

01:37:41.960 | how the things that they were saying about Stalin

01:37:44.240 | at the time are, if you look back, it's unconscionable,

01:37:48.280 | and these people have had no accountability

01:37:50.480 | for what they did.

01:37:51.320 | - But it's not even at the time,

01:37:52.800 | and we need to get back to the selfishness stuff,

01:37:55.360 | but it's not even at the time.

01:37:56.600 | So I was once, I think I've told this story,

01:37:59.920 | I was in the green room going on John Stossel's show,

01:38:03.960 | and I saw a bunch of libertarians, right,

01:38:06.360 | in the green room, all hanging out,

01:38:07.720 | and this guy walks in, this young guy walks in,

01:38:10.040 | and somebody says to me, he's a communist.

01:38:13.440 | I said, what do you mean?

01:38:14.680 | Said, they said, no, no, he's a card-carrying,

01:38:18.120 | real member of the Communist Party, he's a communist.

01:38:20.920 | And I said, and that's okay with you guys?

01:38:23.720 | And they go, yeah, yeah, nice guy.

01:38:26.560 | And I'm like, no, this is not acceptable.

01:38:28.880 | - Hold on, let me quote Rand.

01:38:30.520 | Rand said she would rather talk to a philosophical Marxist,

01:38:34.320 | right, did she not say this?

01:38:35.400 | - Yeah, but this is a communist,

01:38:38.120 | in the context of 21st century, right?

01:38:40.680 | So I said-- - But not 20th.

01:38:43.200 | - Well, in a sense that we know exactly what.

01:38:46.080 | - Sure, sure. - We know exactly.

01:38:46.920 | - Oh yeah, yeah, that's-- - So I'm like,

01:38:48.200 | this guy has the blood of 100 million people on his hands.

01:38:50.680 | I'm not letting him off the hook.

01:38:52.380 | So I engage with this guy, and literally,

01:38:55.600 | we get into this, I'm telling him what I think of his ideas,

01:38:59.920 | and therefore what I think of him.

01:39:01.760 | Then the people from the wardrobe department come out,

01:39:04.280 | and their chairs are put aside,

01:39:05.480 | and this little gladiator ring.

01:39:07.480 | It's like the libertarians are sitting there amused,

01:39:10.200 | 'cause to them it's just,

01:39:11.360 | you know, and I'm not gonna name names,

01:39:13.800 | but to them it's just like, yeah, he's a communist.

01:39:16.240 | - No pun intended, I'm gonna name names.

01:39:17.080 | - And I said at some point to them,

01:39:20.240 | I won't name names, because,

01:39:21.640 | I said at some point to them,

01:39:23.840 | if somebody walks into a room and says, I'm a Nazi,

01:39:26.400 | do you just treat him as, okay,

01:39:28.680 | let's go hang out and get some drinks?

01:39:30.600 | - I do. - I don't.

01:39:31.480 | - I do, 'cause I wrote a book about this,

01:39:32.840 | the new right, and I did talk to Nazis,

01:39:34.480 | and I went to North Korea--

01:39:35.320 | - Yeah, 'cause you were writing a book.

01:39:36.480 | - Yeah. - Right, but you're not,

01:39:38.120 | you're not gonna hang out with a Nazi or a communist

01:39:40.680 | just like the regular person, right?

01:39:42.120 | To me, a Nazi and a communist are the same.

01:39:43.800 | - I don't, okay, please explain this,

01:39:46.000 | 'cause first of all, any time you have equivocation,

01:39:47.920 | I hate that, because I don't like equality,

01:39:49.960 | I think it's a bad concept.

01:39:51.440 | We're all sitting here as Jewish people, right?

01:39:53.480 | We're from the Soviet Union.

01:39:56.160 | To say these two things are basically the same,

01:39:58.640 | it's a matter of life and death for all of us.

01:40:00.080 | We'd be dead under Hitler.

01:40:01.720 | We're not doing so hot under Stalin, but we're still alive.

01:40:04.840 | - Sure.

01:40:05.680 | - So there's some very big difference.

01:40:07.040 | - Sure.

01:40:07.880 | - And one more thing.

01:40:08.720 | - So within the context--

01:40:09.560 | - Just hold on, one more thing.

01:40:10.400 | There's also one very big difference

01:40:11.800 | in that one has a lot worse of a brand name,

01:40:14.880 | and the other does not, even though the other should.

01:40:17.200 | - It's a brand.

01:40:18.040 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:40:18.880 | - Yeah, so I agree.

01:40:19.800 | So there's a context in which I would fear

01:40:21.760 | Stalin more than Hitler.

01:40:22.960 | There's a different context in which I would fear Hitler.

01:40:25.480 | But as ideologies, they are equally evil.

01:40:30.320 | - Wait, wait, but--

01:40:31.360 | - Not the same, because the difference

01:40:33.280 | is between communism and fascism,

01:40:35.000 | but as ideologies, they're equally evil.

01:40:36.920 | They both view the individual as insignificant, unimportant,

01:40:39.960 | and they both basically wanna kill

01:40:41.600 | any independent-minded--

01:40:42.720 | - But you're equating communism with Stalinism.

01:40:45.040 | So you're--

01:40:45.880 | - No, I'm equating communism.

01:40:48.000 | I don't know what Stalinism is.

01:40:49.280 | I don't care.

01:40:50.640 | Stalinism is one version of communism.

01:40:52.160 | - It's an implementation.

01:40:53.320 | - Communism is an evil ideology, no matter who practices it.

01:40:56.760 | - I don't think that's, I think that's too loose,

01:41:01.280 | because here's one example.

01:41:02.640 | The first person who went to the Soviet Union from the left

01:41:07.640 | and denounced it was Emma Goldman.

01:41:09.880 | She was an anarcho-communist, right?

01:41:11.840 | So she went there, she got deported from the United States.

01:41:14.360 | She went to Lenin, to his face.

01:41:16.440 | Hold on, let me finish.

01:41:17.280 | You're already dismissing what I'm saying.

01:41:19.320 | - Me?

01:41:20.160 | - Your body language, your emotions.

01:41:21.680 | Listen, history doesn't care about your feelings either.

01:41:25.840 | She goes to Lenin, she goes,

01:41:27.440 | "We're supposed to be about free speech.

01:41:29.560 | "We're supposed to be about the individual freedom.

01:41:31.280 | "What are you doing?"

01:41:32.120 | She goes, "Free speech is a bourgeois extravagance.

01:41:34.400 | "You can't have it during a revolution, too bad."

01:41:36.960 | She comes back to the West.

01:41:39.040 | Wait, he's right?

01:41:39.880 | - Yeah.

01:41:40.720 | - Oh no, yeah, correct, yeah, I just said, yeah, yeah.

01:41:41.560 | - He's more consistent.

01:41:42.400 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's more consistent.

01:41:43.360 | - She's a compromise.

01:41:44.200 | - Yeah, you're right.

01:41:45.600 | She comes back to the West, the big red Emma,

01:41:48.320 | the big hero of the left, and she goes,

01:41:51.160 | "You guys, this is a complete,"

01:41:54.320 | she didn't say bad, she was very randy.

01:41:55.960 | She goes, "This is pure evil.

01:41:57.640 | "This is horrifying.

01:41:58.800 | "What they're doing to the workers,

01:42:00.080 | "which you supposedly care about, completely oppressing."

01:42:02.800 | And when one person described it, they go,

01:42:05.000 | "When she got up to talk, it was a standing ovation.

01:42:07.880 | "And when she was finished, you could hear a pin drop."

01:42:09.960 | Because she wasn't some capitalist.

01:42:12.760 | She wasn't some bourgeois conservative.

01:42:15.600 | She was as hard left for violent revolution as it gets.

01:42:19.280 | And so I don't think she, as a communist, is an evil person.

01:42:23.000 | - I think she is.

01:42:23.880 | Because if she wasn't evading, and with Rand,

01:42:29.640 | and I think in reality, the essence of evil is evasion,

01:42:33.000 | is ignoring the facts of reality,

01:42:35.040 | is putting your feelings ahead of your facts.

01:42:37.560 | She would realize that what was going on in the Soviet Union

01:42:40.960 | was the inevitable consequence of her ideas.

01:42:43.200 | - That could be just as dumb.

01:42:44.600 | - So she could have changed her mind.

01:42:46.320 | She could have, coming back to the Soviet Union,

01:42:48.080 | said, "These ideas are wrong.

01:42:50.200 | "I now repudiate my ideas,

01:42:52.120 | "not just their implementation, but my ideas."

01:42:54.720 | And then I would have said,

01:42:55.840 | "Yeah, she'd been mistaken before,

01:42:57.360 | "and now she's confronted reality."

01:42:58.920 | But if she stayed a leftist,

01:43:00.640 | if she stayed a leftist to that extent,

01:43:02.560 | not just a mild leftist, but a leftist,

01:43:04.680 | then I think she's dishonest, and therefore immoral.

01:43:07.800 | - But you're using three words identically.

01:43:09.240 | You're saying dishonest, immoral, and evil.

01:43:11.200 | - Okay, so evil is an extreme form of your morality.

01:43:16.200 | So okay, so she's immoral.

01:43:18.520 | The ideology she holds is still evil,

01:43:20.120 | 'cause the ideology. - Maybe she's delusional.

01:43:21.440 | - She might be delusional.

01:43:22.640 | - But delusional and evil aren't the same.

01:43:23.480 | - But she can be delusional.

01:43:24.840 | She cannot be delusional.

01:43:26.720 | See, I'm willing to accept a delusion

01:43:29.720 | before she's gone to the Soviet Union and seen it.

01:43:32.160 | Once she's gone to see it,

01:43:33.680 | I don't think that excuse holds anymore.

01:43:36.920 | I think now she's being confronted,

01:43:39.120 | and she's lying to herself about the implications of it.

01:43:42.000 | Logically, it's inevitable that what happens

01:43:45.280 | in the Soviet Union has to happen in any communist context.

01:43:49.040 | - So to play a little bit of a devil's advocate here,

01:43:51.640 | is it logically inevitable?

01:43:54.360 | Can you imagine that there is communist systems

01:43:56.880 | where the consequences we've seen in the 20th century

01:43:59.480 | are not the consequences we get?

01:44:02.120 | Imagine future societies under different conditions,

01:44:05.560 | under different, with the internet,

01:44:07.520 | different communication schemes,

01:44:09.200 | different set of resources. - As long as human beings

01:44:11.120 | are what we are.

01:44:11.960 | Now, the Borg, you remember the Borg from "Star Trek"

01:44:14.680 | or whatever the series was? - Okay, nerd.

01:44:16.680 | (both laughing)

01:44:17.800 | - Yeah, I mean, no.

01:44:19.880 | I'm a nerd, okay.

01:44:23.520 | - The Borg. - It's the highest

01:44:24.680 | of compliments. - The Borg.

01:44:25.920 | - In this household. - The Borg

01:44:27.240 | is the highest of lex. (both laughing)

01:44:29.560 | - The Borg is communist, right?

01:44:32.160 | The Borg is a different species.

01:44:34.320 | It has a different biology.

01:44:36.000 | It has a business, different form of consciousness.

01:44:38.840 | Now, whether such a being could survive evolution

01:44:42.380 | is a question.

01:44:43.220 | Whether such a-- - Well, ants,

01:44:44.240 | they don't have to be intelligent.

01:44:45.080 | - Yeah, but then the question is,

01:44:46.260 | can you have free will, human cognitive cognition,

01:44:50.240 | and be a Borg?

01:44:51.200 | I don't think so.

01:44:52.040 | But maybe, maybe in another planet.

01:44:54.320 | But human beings-- - You gotta take DMT

01:44:55.440 | to meet the Borg. (both laughing)

01:44:57.840 | - So human beings, no.

01:45:00.440 | Communism is anti, the reason communism's evil

01:45:03.520 | is it's anti-reality, anti-human nature,

01:45:06.120 | anti the individual, and therefore it is inherently evil.

01:45:10.140 | It cannot result in anything good coming out of it.

01:45:13.200 | Only bad can come of it.

01:45:14.040 | - Do you think you could have predicted that

01:45:15.840 | before the 20th century? - Yes, and plenty of people did.

01:45:18.320 | It's not-- - You know who did?

01:45:19.960 | Mikhail Bakunin.

01:45:21.200 | Mikhail Bakunin, who was an early communist,

01:45:23.120 | Marx's rival, in 18, this is gonna be in my upcoming book,

01:45:26.920 | in 1860, he sat down and wrote an essay,

01:45:30.080 | goes, "What Marx is advocating is insane.

01:45:33.080 | "This is gonna be worse than the czar.

01:45:35.020 | "You're talking about complete totalitarian nightmare.

01:45:37.980 | "When you put this into practice,

01:45:39.420 | "it's gonna be something we've never seen before.

01:45:41.520 | "It's a pure horror."

01:45:42.600 | But he was a hardcore leftist.

01:45:43.920 | - Look, Marx predicted it, right?

01:45:45.320 | We talked about this-- - Yeah, that's true.

01:45:46.880 | - Marx, at some point, says certain people

01:45:49.120 | cannot be part of the politic,

01:45:50.600 | and they have to be liquidated.

01:45:51.880 | So this idea of mass murder and mass killing,

01:45:54.600 | it's not new to communism,

01:45:56.020 | it is an inherent part of what it means.

01:45:58.340 | You're either proletarian or you're not.

01:46:00.480 | And you look, and in Marx, it's in Marx, right?

01:46:04.240 | The individual doesn't matter.

01:46:06.280 | Now, he might matter in his utopia,

01:46:08.080 | 'cause he knows he's got a marketing problem.

01:46:10.000 | See, Marx has a marketing problem,

01:46:11.560 | because the fact is you have individuals.

01:46:13.520 | How do you convince individuals

01:46:14.600 | to give up their individualism,

01:46:15.840 | to give up the individuality?

01:46:17.640 | What you say is, well, we have to go

01:46:19.440 | through this difficult process to get to this utopia.

01:46:22.640 | And in this utopia, I mean, he's very Christian.

01:46:26.040 | I mean, this is the other thing about Marx.

01:46:27.360 | - About the end times, yeah, yeah.

01:46:28.200 | - Marx is very Christian in everything,

01:46:29.920 | in his morality, in his collectivism,

01:46:32.000 | and in the end times.

01:46:32.840 | The end times for Marx is going back to the Garden of Eden.

01:46:36.440 | The end time for Marx is you don't have to do anything.

01:46:40.520 | Food is just available.

01:46:42.760 | Wealth is just available.

01:46:44.400 | You can do your hobbies, you can do everything.

01:46:47.000 | You can do whatever you want,

01:46:48.160 | whatever feelings, whatever.

01:46:49.480 | So it's going back to Garden of Eden

01:46:51.200 | perception, perspective on human.

01:46:53.360 | So he knows what that is gonna require.

01:46:55.560 | It's gonna require this dictatorship,

01:46:56.880 | the proletarian, to get there.

01:46:58.400 | And he never tells you how we get there, right?

01:47:00.200 | There's no game plan.

01:47:01.920 | - Where there's a rule, yeah, yeah.

01:47:02.760 | - There's a dictatorship, then there's utopia.

01:47:04.880 | - It's like the underpants notes.

01:47:06.520 | Step one, dictatorship.

01:47:07.520 | Step two, question marks.

01:47:08.440 | Step three, utopia, yeah.

01:47:09.280 | - And the question mark is where the action is, right?

01:47:11.560 | Annihilate.

01:47:12.400 | - Yeah, you yada yada the important part.

01:47:14.880 | - And people buy this garbage, right?

01:47:17.440 | So there's nothing of value in Marx.

01:47:20.800 | I mean, let me be very clear.

01:47:21.960 | There's nothing, he gets capitalism wrong.

01:47:24.520 | He gets the proletarian wrong.

01:47:26.600 | He gets the workers wrong.

01:47:27.800 | He gets the labor theory of value is wrong.

01:47:31.960 | There is nothing of value.

01:47:33.240 | There's nothing of value in communism.

01:47:35.140 | It is a wrong, unfitted to human nature ideology

01:47:39.440 | from beginning to end.

01:47:41.200 | - The clarity with which you speak is just not something I,

01:47:44.360 | I don't think I have that clarity about anything.

01:47:46.200 | So I, I mean, it has to do with that thing

01:47:48.400 | that where everybody has something to teach you.

01:47:50.240 | I just feel like I've been reading "Mein Kampf" recently,

01:47:52.680 | for example, for the first time.

01:47:54.320 | - Something to learn from Hitler?

01:47:55.720 | - Well, there's a lot to learn from Hitler.

01:47:57.640 | - About the nature of evil, about wrong ideas,

01:48:00.080 | not about anything good, not about anything positive.

01:48:02.640 | - So yeah, so that's probably a really bad example.

01:48:04.440 | - But why is Hitler different than Marx?

01:48:07.120 | - Well, that's a very good question.

01:48:08.400 | - No, I get that, but in terms of ideas,

01:48:10.320 | why is Hitler different than Marx?

01:48:11.560 | Why do we have to assume there's something to learn from Marx

01:48:15.600 | but there's nothing, but we acknowledge

01:48:17.640 | that there's nothing positive to learn from him?

01:48:19.280 | - Because, I mean, all right.

01:48:20.720 | - I can tell you something in the sense that like,

01:48:22.440 | there's an interesting question is,

01:48:23.880 | how did this person get from step A

01:48:26.920 | to being able to implement the ideas?

01:48:28.280 | - I know you, everybody should read,

01:48:29.800 | anybody who's interested should read Marx

01:48:31.960 | because it's really important.

01:48:33.440 | It's important in the history

01:48:34.520 | and a lot of people were influenced by it.

01:48:36.440 | Why was it influential?

01:48:37.560 | What is it that he says that appeals to people?

01:48:40.400 | I find it interesting to see all the parallels

01:48:42.240 | with Christianity and I think that's why,

01:48:43.840 | to a large extent, it appeals to people

01:48:45.280 | because they got to give up

01:48:46.920 | the unimportant part of religion

01:48:48.280 | and got to keep the fun parts of religion,

01:48:50.920 | the important parts to them of religion,

01:48:52.440 | the morality, for example.

01:48:54.240 | But no, there's not something positive

01:48:57.640 | to learn from everybody.

01:48:58.680 | - In Ayn Rand's view, in your view,

01:49:01.720 | who was worse, Stalin or Hitler?

01:49:03.520 | - I think worse is, this is something that I,

01:49:08.960 | I'll do a Randian sin and be evasive.

01:49:12.560 | It really drives me crazy when people sit down

01:49:16.440 | and have these competitions about like,

01:49:18.880 | if someone who's Jewish brings up the Holocaust

01:49:20.880 | and someone who's African-American brings up slavery

01:49:23.000 | and this is a conversation that I think is pointless

01:49:26.320 | and very hurtful and harmful

01:49:28.280 | and it is really like silly and ridiculous.

01:49:31.240 | So it might make sense in like some kind of stoner context

01:49:33.720 | about like you're doing the math and trying to figure out,

01:49:36.320 | but it's like, and yeah, you could be like,

01:49:38.280 | what would you rather have like this kind of cancer

01:49:40.520 | or full-blown AIDS?

01:49:41.400 | In short, I mean, there's gotta be life expectancy,

01:49:44.520 | but these are such, I'll evade your question, reframe it.

01:49:49.360 | I think we understand,

01:49:52.400 | and a lot of this is a function of the propaganda

01:49:54.520 | at the time, and I'm not using the word propaganda

01:49:56.160 | in a negative sense, the horrors of Hitler and Nazism.

01:50:00.240 | I think, and one of the things I'm trying to solve

01:50:02.760 | with my upcoming book, there is a very poor understanding

01:50:07.000 | about the horrors of Stalinism

01:50:09.840 | and what that meant in practice.

01:50:11.680 | One of the reasons I wrote "Dear Reader,"

01:50:13.160 | my North Korea book, and what I was shocked and delighted by

01:50:17.760 | when I started writing "Dear Reader,"

01:50:19.680 | I thought to myself, look,

01:50:21.520 | I have very little capacity to affect change,

01:50:24.300 | but I can tell stories, I can write books.

01:50:27.320 | This is my competency.

01:50:29.400 | If I move the needle in America, we got it pretty good here.

01:50:33.040 | If I move the needle in North Korea,

01:50:34.880 | this could have really profound positive consequences.

01:50:37.560 | And so I set a very limited goal,

01:50:39.160 | and that goal is to change the conversation

01:50:41.720 | about North Korea, to stop it being regarded

01:50:44.440 | as a laughingstock, and start regarding it

01:50:47.480 | as a existential horror.

01:50:50.920 | And the metaphor I use always,

01:50:52.480 | and we brought up earlier, was the Joker,

01:50:54.420 | 'cause people look at Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, his father,

01:50:57.280 | they look at a clown, this guy's a buffoon,

01:50:59.080 | and that's valid, and I go, and I said,

01:51:02.080 | this is what I can do, I can move that camera a little bit.

01:51:04.800 | And now that camera, instead of looking at Kim Jong-un,

01:51:07.320 | Kim Jong-il, you see behind him,

01:51:09.320 | literally millions of corpses.

01:51:11.880 | And when you see people putting on these performances

01:51:14.180 | in these shows, look at these fools,

01:51:16.360 | then you're like, everyone, those people,

01:51:18.320 | their kid has a gun to their head right now.

01:51:20.760 | If someone puts a gun to your kid's head,

01:51:22.200 | you're gonna put on clown makeup?

01:51:23.360 | Yeah, you are.

01:51:24.240 | What color?

01:51:25.320 | Put on the shoes, whatever you want.

01:51:27.440 | So in terms of, people do not appreciate

01:51:32.040 | the horrors of Stalinism.

01:51:34.720 | I think this is a big fault of the right wing.

01:51:37.360 | You can't expect necessarily the New York Times

01:51:39.240 | to do this because of the blood on their hands.

01:51:41.520 | And for a long time, I was berating conservatives.

01:51:44.800 | I go, this was the big right wing victory,

01:51:47.280 | bloodless largely, the victory of the Soviet Union.

01:51:49.840 | No one's talking about it, no one's informing.

01:51:52.020 | And let's be clear, there are very many people

01:51:54.920 | who are Democrats, who are on the left,

01:51:56.600 | who are violently opposed, literally violently opposed

01:51:58.880 | to the Soviet Union and its horrors.

01:52:00.600 | This is not necessarily a partisan issue.

01:52:03.640 | And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do something about it.

01:52:05.640 | So I know that's not really literally your question,

01:52:08.320 | but that's kind of information that features.

01:52:11.120 | - Let me ask you that question if it's okay.

01:52:13.480 | So which can we learn more from,

01:52:18.200 | from a historical perspective looking forward?

01:52:21.240 | Like which has more lessons in how to avoid it,

01:52:25.840 | how to, and just general lessons about human nature?

01:52:29.200 | - Well, I mean, I agree with Michael

01:52:30.920 | that it's not important who's more evil,

01:52:34.240 | 'cause they're both evil and they're both just so evil

01:52:37.600 | that the differences don't matter.

01:52:39.720 | What matters is what is the ideology?

01:52:44.360 | What are the consequences?

01:52:47.480 | What do we understand from it?

01:52:49.040 | What are we worried about?

01:52:50.800 | What are we gonna avoid?

01:52:52.440 | So I'm not worried about Nazism, Qua Nazism,

01:52:56.240 | because everybody hates Nazism.

01:52:57.480 | I mean, it's uniform that that's out.

01:53:01.080 | Even the people I think on the far right in America

01:53:04.480 | are staying away from the cliches of Nazism,

01:53:06.960 | although some of them are stupid enough not to.

01:53:08.480 | But in the end, if the United States

01:53:11.440 | goes authoritarian right, it's not gonna be Nazism.

01:53:14.760 | It'll be some other form of fascism,

01:53:17.000 | because that is so obviously being understood

01:53:21.960 | as evil and bad that there's almost no understanding

01:53:25.440 | that the evil of communism.

01:53:27.360 | I mean, you brought it up earlier, right?

01:53:29.400 | Almost nobody understands that communism

01:53:32.600 | is an evil ideology, that there's nothing worthwhile there,

01:53:36.400 | that any attempt to go in that direction

01:53:39.720 | in any sustainable way is destructive.

01:53:42.640 | There are, as you mentioned,

01:53:44.320 | there are economists out there claiming they are communists.

01:53:46.520 | I mean, I find that despicable,

01:53:48.640 | that anybody would claim to be a communist economist

01:53:52.000 | or communist anything, because I think that's,

01:53:54.400 | it's a ideology that has no basis,

01:53:58.480 | but we haven't learned that.

01:54:00.000 | So to me, communism is the much bigger threat,

01:54:03.440 | because we still think it's some kind of beautiful ideal

01:54:07.840 | in the world around us.

01:54:09.600 | I think Nazism's out, but I think fascism

01:54:13.520 | is a massive threat out there,

01:54:15.040 | 'cause I don't think we've learned real lessons of,

01:54:17.560 | nobody knows what Nazism, fascism is.

01:54:19.720 | Everybody thinks fascism is Nazism.

01:54:21.400 | They don't recognize that in a sense

01:54:23.600 | we are already fascist,

01:54:24.960 | and that we're certainly heading in that direction.

01:54:27.320 | So they don't know what it is,

01:54:28.440 | and again, we haven't studied,

01:54:29.520 | and the real lesson here is we haven't studied

01:54:32.400 | what unifies them both, 'cause there's not a big difference

01:54:34.880 | between fascism and communism.

01:54:37.120 | There's no big difference between Nazism and communism.

01:54:39.120 | - What does unify them?

01:54:40.360 | - What unifies them is the common good, the public interest.

01:54:45.320 | What unifies them is this idea

01:54:47.240 | that there is some elite group of people

01:54:49.680 | who can run our lives for us, for the common good,

01:54:52.400 | for the public interest.

01:54:54.360 | - And that you don't matter.

01:54:55.800 | That's the most important, yeah.

01:54:56.640 | - You as an individual, you individual don't matter,

01:54:58.480 | and they will dictate how you live.

01:55:01.520 | And so these are philosopher kings,

01:55:03.360 | it goes back to Plato's philosophy.

01:55:05.640 | But it really unifies it.

01:55:07.080 | Think about communism.

01:55:07.920 | Communism is about the sacrifice of the individual

01:55:10.240 | to the proletarian.

01:55:11.600 | Who is the proletarian?

01:55:13.040 | It's this collective group here.

01:55:15.440 | Who represents the proletarian?

01:55:17.360 | Well, somebody has to.

01:55:18.520 | Somebody has to tell the proletarian what they believe in,

01:55:20.560 | 'cause they don't know,

01:55:21.520 | 'cause there is no collective consciousness.

01:55:23.520 | So you need a Stalin.

01:55:24.800 | And this is the point about Marxism.

01:55:27.080 | Marxism needs a dictator,

01:55:29.360 | because somebody has to represent the values,

01:55:34.360 | the public interest, what's good for the public.

01:55:37.600 | Nazism needs the same thing.

01:55:39.080 | Just Nazism replaced proletarian with Aryans,

01:55:42.360 | the Aryan race, and you have exactly the same thing.

01:55:44.560 | You need a dictator to tell us

01:55:46.400 | what's good for the Aryan people,

01:55:47.600 | so we can do what's good for the Aryan people.

01:55:49.040 | - So it's impossible to have a communist system

01:55:51.600 | or a fascist system without a dictator naturally emerging.

01:55:54.600 | It's not possible to have a Georgian.

01:55:56.280 | - It's not naturally, it's ideologically.

01:55:57.680 | - It's absolutely impossible to have that.

01:55:59.720 | On scale, you can certainly have communes,

01:56:02.320 | where people behave communistically.

01:56:04.400 | - Because it's not inside the ideology

01:56:06.640 | that that should happen. - Hold on, let me talk about this,

01:56:07.480 | because let's talk about fascism,

01:56:08.720 | 'cause fascism, definitionally, is gonna have a strong man.

01:56:11.200 | I don't even know how it could be fascism without that.

01:56:14.280 | And let's talk, what you said earlier on

01:56:16.280 | is about how people don't know what fascism is.

01:56:18.440 | - Fascists don't know what fascism is.

01:56:20.200 | So there's a superb book by John Diggins

01:56:22.720 | from the early '70s called "Mussolini and Fascism,

01:56:25.320 | "The View from America."

01:56:26.520 | So I find Mussolini to be a far more interesting figure

01:56:29.400 | than Hitler, because he had a much more nuanced career.

01:56:32.400 | He was much more of an innovator.

01:56:34.160 | - He was an intellectual, which is shocking,

01:56:36.120 | 'cause he always comes across as a buffoon,

01:56:38.160 | but he was actually a thinker and a--

01:56:41.000 | - So why did he not resist Hitler at all?

01:56:42.960 | - Hold on, hold on.

01:56:43.800 | So one of the things with fascism is it comes,

01:56:47.200 | it's a direct line from Kant to Mussolini.

01:56:50.920 | So basically, there is a philosopher who I adore,

01:56:54.080 | who I'm sure you don't, called Schopenhauer.

01:56:56.400 | And Schopenhauer, the question became,

01:56:59.120 | Rand was not a particularly humorous person.

01:57:02.800 | She had some moments of wit.

01:57:04.320 | There's a great moment when she was on Tom Snyder's show

01:57:07.320 | in 1980, I believe, and she's talking about Kant.

01:57:11.080 | And she goes, "Immanuel Kant and all his

01:57:13.680 | "illegitimate children, if you catch my meaning,

01:57:15.600 | "she mean all his bastards."

01:57:17.320 | But the host, Tom Snyder, did not pick up on it.

01:57:19.440 | If you watch it on YouTube, you could pick up on it.

01:57:21.440 | And what happened was once Kant bifurcated reality

01:57:24.280 | into the phenomenal world, the pure idea world,

01:57:27.240 | and the numeral world, the question became,

01:57:29.800 | well, what is the nature of this world of ideas?

01:57:33.520 | And Hegel had it meant reason.

01:57:35.280 | I don't know even know what that means theoretically,

01:57:37.800 | that the world of reason is idea.

01:57:40.640 | Schopenhauer, who hated Hegel,

01:57:42.760 | who constantly attacked him by name

01:57:44.680 | and Hegel's followers in his work,

01:57:46.560 | he was a very big innovator in a malevolent way

01:57:50.480 | 'cause he said the nature of reality, this idea, is will,

01:57:54.080 | meaning the universe doesn't care about you

01:57:57.080 | and it's constantly in this reality

01:57:59.520 | putting urges in your mind, values.

01:58:02.560 | And when you denounce these values and urges,

01:58:04.720 | that's the basis of morality.

01:58:06.400 | And from there, it went to Nietzsche

01:58:08.000 | and the will isn't mindless, it is a will to power.

01:58:12.500 | Mussolini took this and basically said,

01:58:15.980 | because the will to power is the real reality,

01:58:19.380 | the Kantian idea, therefore all of this is secondary.

01:58:23.220 | So if we will it, we can make it happen.

01:58:26.780 | When you have this concept of my willpower

01:58:30.860 | is stronger than reality and you're like,

01:58:32.620 | okay, how's this program gonna work?

01:58:34.860 | We can make it happen.

01:58:36.260 | That was why fascism is not a very coherent ideology

01:58:40.880 | because explicitly, there's a book called,

01:58:43.140 | from 1936 called "The Philosophy of Fascism,"

01:58:45.020 | which tried to codify this.

01:58:45.980 | '36, this is a long time ago, where they're like,

01:58:48.980 | we're against reason and explicitly rationality.

01:58:52.940 | We are for willpower, for strength.

01:58:55.900 | And if you are strong enough and united enough,

01:58:58.960 | you can force these things to work.

01:59:02.300 | So there's a lot that is not taught about this ideology.

01:59:06.900 | I highly recommend people read the books from the time.

01:59:10.100 | And what was fascinating about Mussolini

01:59:12.380 | is he was regarded as the moderate.

01:59:14.940 | Because the 1930s, you had the Great Depression,

01:59:18.020 | all the intellectuals said,

01:59:19.300 | this proves capitalism can't work.

01:59:22.020 | The Great Depression, obviously, air quotes,

01:59:24.100 | is capitalism's fault.

01:59:25.480 | Then you have the alternative, the USSR.

01:59:27.740 | Well, that's not tenable for us.

01:59:29.220 | Here comes Mussolini.

01:59:30.740 | And Mussolini says,

01:59:32.060 | I'm gonna take the best of both worlds.

01:59:34.060 | I have aspects of markets, capitalism,

01:59:36.320 | but I don't have this chaos,

01:59:38.120 | but I also don't have complete government control

01:59:40.920 | of the bureaucrats.

01:59:41.760 | I'm gonna have this combination.

01:59:43.800 | And there was a Broadway song,

01:59:45.120 | You're the Top, You're Mussolini,

01:59:47.240 | that was later edited out

01:59:48.560 | because that's when he took a bad turn.

01:59:50.600 | But this is kind of the fascist idea.

01:59:54.240 | - And it's about power and it's about control.

01:59:56.720 | That's the essence.

01:59:58.080 | It's about will.

01:59:58.920 | So they don't care.

02:00:01.240 | Fascists don't care who owns stuff, owns in quotes,

02:00:03.960 | because what's important is who controls it.

02:00:07.680 | So you can own your home,

02:00:09.320 | but if I get to tell you when you can sell it,

02:00:11.400 | for how much you can sell it,

02:00:12.240 | and what you can do on that home,

02:00:14.120 | then I'm in control of it.

02:00:15.560 | That's the essence of fascism.

02:00:17.120 | And if you think about it,

02:00:18.820 | we live today in a much more fascist economic context

02:00:22.360 | than anything else.

02:00:23.400 | We pretend that corporations are private,

02:00:27.220 | but when everything they do is regulated,

02:00:29.280 | who they can hire, how much they pay them,

02:00:32.640 | when and how they can fire them,

02:00:34.760 | what they can do on their property,

02:00:37.400 | it's all control.

02:00:38.440 | That's the way fascists start controlling everything.

02:00:43.240 | - But it's not possible to have checks on power

02:00:45.320 | and balance of power at the top of fascism

02:00:47.440 | or communist systems.

02:00:48.560 | The question was whether in fascist systems

02:00:51.760 | or communist systems,

02:00:53.140 | we're saying the dictator naturally or must emerge.

02:00:58.680 | - I don't say emerge.

02:00:59.760 | The dictator's the one who makes the fascist system.

02:01:02.220 | - Yeah, fascism, well, it could emerge,

02:01:06.200 | because for example, I think today in America,

02:01:08.760 | we're moving much more towards fascism, socialism.

02:01:12.000 | And at some point that'll manifest itself

02:01:14.320 | in some kind of dictator.

02:01:15.680 | And the dictator might be different

02:01:17.080 | than a Mussolini or Nazis.

02:01:18.320 | It might be couched in some kind of pseudo-constitutional

02:01:22.680 | American-- - It would be a lot easier

02:01:25.480 | for a female to be a fascist dictator in America

02:01:27.600 | than a male, because you have that softness.

02:01:29.680 | She's not gonna come off as a strong woman.

02:01:31.420 | People won't see it coming, in my opinion.

02:01:33.080 | - Maybe, I think it's gonna be,

02:01:34.760 | I have my own view.

02:01:36.280 | I think it's gonna be a nationalist,

02:01:39.120 | religionist, environmentalist.

02:01:40.520 | I think somebody who can combine those three--

02:01:42.040 | - Well, Hitler did those, yeah.

02:01:43.000 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:01:43.840 | And somebody who can combine those three

02:01:45.360 | and articulate the case for it, I think America's ready.

02:01:47.480 | - So you think it's possible for fascism

02:01:49.360 | to arise in the world again?

02:01:51.000 | - Oh, of course, it never went away.

02:01:52.560 | - It never went away. - They just adopt the name.

02:01:54.720 | - Because the fundamental ideas, the Kantian ideas,

02:01:57.400 | the ideas that are behind fascism never went away.

02:02:01.000 | They're still as popular, if anything, more popular

02:02:04.400 | than they were back then.

02:02:05.240 | Marx is as popular.

02:02:06.600 | I think these ideas are prevalent, they're out there,

02:02:10.040 | and absolutely, I think America's ready for them.

02:02:13.760 | Again, it won't be quite in the form

02:02:15.840 | that we've experienced in the past.

02:02:17.080 | It'll be in a uniquely American form,

02:02:19.200 | counts to the flag, and of course,

02:02:21.200 | it was counts to the flag before.

02:02:22.840 | But no, yes, an authoritarian,

02:02:26.240 | some form of authoritarianism is necessary,

02:02:28.520 | 'cause the fundamental principle behind

02:02:31.240 | both communism and fascism is the unimportance

02:02:34.880 | of the individual.

02:02:35.800 | The individual is nothing.

02:02:37.080 | The individual is a nobody,

02:02:38.640 | and the importance of the collective,

02:02:41.160 | the collective will, the collective soul,

02:02:44.360 | the collective consciousness.

02:02:46.000 | But the collective has no will,

02:02:47.280 | has no soul, has no consciousness.

02:02:49.240 | So somebody has to emerge to speak for the collective.

02:02:52.680 | Otherwise, everything falls apart, right?

02:02:55.560 | So it's necessary, whether it's a committee

02:02:58.680 | or whether it's one person, how exactly,

02:03:01.120 | somebody has to speak for the collective.

02:03:03.760 | Even a committee doesn't function as a committee, right?

02:03:06.640 | Most committees, particularly when the committee

02:03:08.200 | is about dictating how people should live,

02:03:10.960 | somebody is going to,

02:03:12.360 | because now it becomes really, really important,

02:03:14.000 | somebody is gonna dominate that committee

02:03:15.640 | and rule over it, because you don't want

02:03:17.760 | independent voices, 'cause the individual doesn't matter.

02:03:21.160 | The individual doesn't count.

02:03:22.000 | - And also, people are naturally hierarchical,

02:03:23.280 | so you have seven people,

02:03:24.120 | and they ostensibly have the same role.

02:03:25.760 | Someone is gonna emerge as a leader naturally,

02:03:27.920 | and some people are gonna be followers.

02:03:28.760 | - Yeah, it's the same reason you cannot have

02:03:30.680 | the Richard Wolff-type socialism of,

02:03:33.360 | and this is the more, if you will,

02:03:35.960 | innocent part of his ideas.

02:03:37.760 | Oh, why can't we have corporations all be worker-owned,

02:03:41.760 | and everybody votes on everything,

02:03:43.280 | and we vote on who should be CEO?

02:03:45.680 | No, communism, fascism, most ideas

02:03:50.040 | necessitate ultimately authoritarians,

02:03:54.040 | and that's most of human history.

02:03:55.840 | We forget again.

02:03:57.160 | This idea of liberty, this idea of freedom,

02:03:59.800 | even the limited freedom we have today--

02:04:01.640 | - It's a recent invention.

02:04:02.760 | - It's a recent invention.

02:04:04.160 | It happens in little pockets throughout history.

02:04:07.040 | We had a little bit of this democracy stuff, partial,

02:04:10.080 | only a few, some people got to vote,

02:04:12.080 | and it wasn't rights-respecting,

02:04:13.520 | because they didn't have the concept

02:04:14.640 | of rights in Athens, right?

02:04:16.000 | You had it in a few Greek cities.

02:04:17.200 | We maybe had a version of it in Venice.

02:04:19.240 | We had a version of it in city-states around the world.

02:04:22.160 | But then it was invented by the founding fathers

02:04:24.320 | in this country.

02:04:25.160 | That's what makes the founding of America so important

02:04:28.320 | and so different and such a radical thing

02:04:31.080 | to have happened historically.

02:04:32.520 | Freedom is rare.

02:04:33.800 | Authoritarianism is common.

02:04:35.280 | - So I was looking at some statistics

02:04:37.120 | that 53% of people in the world

02:04:40.120 | live under authoritarian governments.

02:04:42.400 | - Only 53.

02:04:43.400 | Oh, because India is democratic,

02:04:46.040 | so I guess they don't count India.

02:04:47.120 | But yes, it used to be 100.

02:04:50.680 | - How do we change that? - Exactly, yeah.

02:04:52.440 | - How do we change that?

02:04:53.280 | - And even the authoritarianism in a country like China

02:04:56.800 | is a lot less than it used to be under Mao, right?

02:05:01.160 | So they were better off than they were under Mao.

02:05:05.080 | That's a reality.

02:05:06.040 | How do we change it?

02:05:07.720 | We have to declare,

02:05:10.160 | we have to change the ethical views of people.

02:05:12.200 | This brings us back to selfishness.

02:05:14.240 | Because as long as the standard of morality

02:05:18.120 | is the group, others,

02:05:20.520 | as long as the standard of value

02:05:22.360 | is what other people want, what other people think,

02:05:24.360 | as long as you are alive only to be sacrificed to the group,

02:05:28.480 | that's why you have to challenge Christianity,

02:05:31.680 | as long as the Jesus on a cross

02:05:34.680 | dying for other people's sin

02:05:36.320 | is viewed as this noble, wonderful act

02:05:38.520 | instead of one of the most unjust things

02:05:40.240 | to ever happen to anybody,

02:05:42.120 | as long as the common good and the public interest

02:05:44.600 | are the standards by which we evaluate things,

02:05:47.440 | we will always drift towards fascism,

02:05:49.800 | some form of authoritarianism.

02:05:51.960 | - Can I ask a question?

02:05:53.600 | I think there's something that has to go

02:05:55.320 | along with what Yaron was saying,

02:05:56.720 | and I know he's gonna agree with me, which is technology.

02:05:59.600 | Because if it becomes harder technologically

02:06:02.160 | for the authoritarian and more expensive for him

02:06:05.360 | to input or force his edicts,

02:06:08.120 | that is going to create a pocket of freedom

02:06:10.040 | regardless of what the masses think.

02:06:11.880 | And the masses, hold on, let me finish.

02:06:13.520 | The masses as a rule are not going to be able to think

02:06:15.880 | in general anyway.

02:06:17.360 | I have a much more elitist view of mankind than Rand does.

02:06:19.760 | Let me give you one specific example,

02:06:21.280 | which I mentioned in my book, then you write.

02:06:23.240 | Let's suppose it's 1990, not that long ago,

02:06:26.680 | we all remember 1990,

02:06:28.280 | and we're having an argument about censorship.

02:06:30.840 | And Yaron says, "I want full sense,

02:06:32.760 | "full freedom of the press, freedom of books,

02:06:35.160 | "publish whatever you want, whatever, free speech."

02:06:37.520 | And I say, "Well, what about books like Mein Kampf?

02:06:40.120 | "What about, you know, people read this,

02:06:41.240 | "they have the wrong idea.

02:06:42.120 | "What about child pornography, things like this?

02:06:44.400 | "Like, where are you gonna draw the line?"

02:06:45.840 | And we could argue along.

02:06:47.000 | Lex appears from the future, and he goes,

02:06:49.520 | "Hey guys, this conversation is moot."

02:06:51.880 | And we're like, "Lex, you look exactly the same."

02:06:54.400 | I'm like, "Yeah, of course, robots don't age."

02:06:56.440 | And you go, "I'm from the future."

02:06:58.600 | And I go, "Wait a minute, black president?"

02:07:00.360 | And you go, "Look, this conversation is moot

02:07:04.160 | "because in a few years from now,

02:07:06.160 | "you will be able to send any book,

02:07:08.560 | "anywhere on earth, at the speed of light.

02:07:11.440 | "You can make infinite copies in one second,

02:07:15.560 | "and you could send it to anyone such that

02:07:18.160 | "they can only open this book if they know a magic word."

02:07:21.360 | And I go, "Well, how much is this gonna cost?"

02:07:23.080 | "Oh, it's free."

02:07:24.040 | And I go, "Wait, wait, you're telling me

02:07:26.240 | "I can make infinite copies of any book

02:07:28.840 | "and teleport them at the speed of light,

02:07:31.360 | "anywhere for free?"

02:07:32.680 | And you would say, "Yes."

02:07:33.800 | We would think he's insane,

02:07:35.200 | but that's the status quo, right?

02:07:37.040 | So technology has done far more

02:07:40.080 | to fight government censorship of literature and ideas

02:07:43.720 | than has spreading the right ideas.

02:07:46.040 | So when you have things like crypto,

02:07:47.960 | which makes money less accessible

02:07:49.400 | than a gold block in your house,

02:07:51.520 | when you have things like people

02:07:52.720 | being able to travel quickly,

02:07:54.240 | those are also necessary compliments

02:07:58.200 | to having the right ideas.

02:07:59.400 | And Rand herself said that she couldn't have come up

02:08:02.400 | with her philosophy before the Industrial Revolution.

02:08:04.840 | So as time goes forward, and we have more technology,

02:08:08.240 | and we have more discourse--

02:08:09.840 | - But for very different reasons, you said that, right?

02:08:11.800 | - Sure, but it's also a lot easier

02:08:14.160 | to persuade people of the right ideas.

02:08:16.120 | - So I kind of agree.

02:08:18.400 | Maybe I'm more pessimistic,

02:08:19.720 | or maybe I don't get the technology completely.

02:08:22.800 | - That's 'cause you're a boomer.

02:08:24.080 | - There you go.

02:08:24.920 | (laughing)

02:08:25.800 | - Okay, boomer.

02:08:26.640 | - I get that insult a lot.

02:08:28.040 | (laughing)

02:08:30.440 | I think I'm the last year of the boomer generation.

02:08:32.680 | I think I hit that last year.

02:08:34.200 | It's a mindset, there you go.

02:08:35.680 | (laughing)

02:08:37.800 | - I love you so much.

02:08:38.640 | - So the reason she said she couldn't have developed her,

02:08:42.040 | the reason she said she couldn't develop the philosophy

02:08:44.920 | without the Industrial Revolution

02:08:46.560 | is the link between reason and wealth

02:08:51.280 | was not obvious before the Industrial Revolution.

02:08:54.040 | And that, for example, it's not obvious to Aristotle.

02:08:56.600 | Aristotle doesn't see the link

02:08:57.760 | between rationality and wealth creation.

02:08:59.960 | Business is low, and money is barren.

02:09:04.960 | Money is barren.

02:09:07.360 | Interest has no productive function.

02:09:09.080 | Bankers don't have.

02:09:10.360 | So you had to see it existentially to be able to see

02:09:14.120 | reason is the source of wealth creation.

02:09:16.520 | So I think that's a little different.

02:09:19.320 | Now, there is a sense in which, yes,

02:09:22.800 | technology makes it more difficult for authoritarians

02:09:25.800 | to achieve their authoritarianism.

02:09:28.640 | I'm not convinced that they can't.

02:09:31.240 | - I didn't say can't.

02:09:32.120 | - Yeah.

02:09:32.960 | - Okay, I didn't say can't.

02:09:33.800 | - Yeah, so I don't think--

02:09:34.640 | - At a certain point, I'm just saying--

02:09:35.480 | - They can turn off the electricity.

02:09:36.440 | - I'm just saying it becomes more expensive.

02:09:37.640 | - Yes, it becomes more expensive, no question.

02:09:40.080 | It becomes more expensive.

02:09:41.240 | And we're still beings that live in a physical reality.

02:09:46.240 | Therefore, they can still harm us in this physical reality.

02:09:49.720 | - But let me say this.

02:09:51.160 | It's gonna sound as absurd.

02:09:52.480 | If there was technology that we could teleport anywhere

02:09:54.760 | on Earth at the speed of light,

02:09:55.960 | that would certainly go a long way

02:09:57.560 | towards hurting authoritarianism.

02:09:59.280 | - Sure, if there was some way to go.

02:10:00.960 | And of course, they could teleport too.

02:10:02.920 | And this is, of course, the danger

02:10:04.520 | of they can use the technology too.

02:10:07.120 | - Sure, absolutely.

02:10:07.960 | - And look at what the Chinese are doing

02:10:09.080 | with social scores and with monitoring people

02:10:12.320 | and cameras everywhere.

02:10:13.480 | So there's a sense in which you probably had more privacy

02:10:16.640 | before some of the technology.

02:10:17.480 | - Oh, absolutely.

02:10:18.320 | - So it's not obvious to me that,

02:10:21.080 | so to me, it's all about ideas.

02:10:23.240 | And if we don't get the ideas right,

02:10:25.160 | technology will be used for evil.

02:10:27.120 | Yes, and it will allow some of us maybe to escape

02:10:29.520 | for a little while in some realms, but others not.

02:10:33.840 | You know, Iran and North Korea do a pretty good job

02:10:36.960 | shutting themselves away from technology,

02:10:39.040 | although a lot gets through in the Iranian,

02:10:42.520 | at least with Iran.

02:10:43.360 | I don't know about North Korea, how much gets through.

02:10:45.800 | - It's real undermining them, which is wonderful.

02:10:47.720 | - Yeah, which is great.

02:10:49.080 | So yes, but it's more than that.

02:10:51.520 | And this is what leads me to be optimistic.

02:10:54.520 | It's that we live in a world today

02:10:56.880 | where seven billion people basically have access

02:11:00.680 | to all of human knowledge, all of human knowledge.

02:11:04.240 | It's not like in Rome, when Rome fell,

02:11:07.280 | all of human knowledge disappeared.

02:11:08.560 | Now, some of it escaped to Byzantine,

02:11:10.400 | some of the Byzantines had,

02:11:11.600 | and ultimately land up with the Arabs

02:11:13.040 | and found its way back into Western civilization

02:11:15.240 | through them.

02:11:16.240 | But a lot of knowledge disappeared, just wiped out, right?

02:11:19.160 | How to build a dome, how to build a big dome,

02:11:21.280 | how to have, you know, in Pompeii, they had faucets,

02:11:24.320 | that running water, and faucets.

02:11:26.880 | They didn't have faucets for another thousand years, right?

02:11:29.840 | A lot of, they couldn't build tall buildings

02:11:33.520 | once Rome came down.

02:11:34.640 | - The Great Pyramid of Egypt was the tallest building

02:11:37.200 | on earth till like 1840, it was crazy.

02:11:39.240 | - Rome was a city of a million people.

02:11:41.480 | Other than China, there wasn't another city

02:11:43.160 | of a million people in the West

02:11:44.880 | until London in the 19th century, 1500 years later.

02:11:48.400 | So it all disappeared because all of it was concentrated

02:11:51.640 | basically in one place.

02:11:52.880 | Today, none of that exists because of the internet,

02:11:54.720 | because of universities everywhere, institutions.

02:11:58.160 | I mean, think about how many engineers

02:11:59.540 | there are in the world today, right?

02:12:01.360 | Who have basically all different,

02:12:03.920 | basically the same level of knowledge

02:12:05.440 | on how to build stuff.

02:12:06.760 | So even if the United States went to some kind of dark ages,

02:12:10.040 | it's unlikely the whole world goes into

02:12:11.920 | that kind of dark ages.

02:12:12.840 | So I am optimistic in that sense

02:12:15.640 | that the fusion of knowledge is so broad today

02:12:19.600 | that other than wiping out all the electricity

02:12:22.000 | on the planet, everything electronic on the planet,

02:12:24.400 | it's just, it's not gonna be possible to control us all.

02:12:27.160 | And in that sense, technology is gonna make it possible

02:12:30.160 | for us to survive and to stay semi-free,

02:12:33.640 | 'cause I don't think full freedom, but semi-free.

02:12:35.440 | 'Cause full freedom, you need the ideas.

02:12:37.200 | 'Cause full freedom means you need

02:12:38.440 | some political implementation.

02:12:39.920 | - No, full freedom is anarchy, but we know that.

02:12:41.760 | - No, well, we need to get into that

02:12:44.480 | because we can't leave without pointing out

02:12:46.840 | that we fundamentally disagree about that.

02:12:48.480 | - Oh, that's beautiful to be continued on that one.

02:12:52.200 | Let me ask about one particular technology

02:12:54.780 | that I've been learning a lot about,

02:12:57.240 | thinking a lot about, talking about,

02:12:59.120 | which is Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general,

02:13:01.080 | but Bitcoin specifically, which a lot of people argue

02:13:04.560 | that the Bitcoin, that setting ideas aside,

02:13:09.560 | when you look at practical tools

02:13:12.960 | that governments use to manipulate its people

02:13:15.400 | is inflation of the monetary, within the monetary system.

02:13:19.480 | And so they see Bitcoin as a way for individuals

02:13:24.480 | to fight that, to go outside those specific

02:13:27.520 | government-controlled systems,

02:13:29.780 | and thereby sort of decentralizing power.

02:13:33.440 | There's a case to be made historically,

02:13:35.080 | the 20th century, that you couldn't have Stalin,

02:13:37.600 | you couldn't have Hitler, you couldn't have much of the evil

02:13:40.480 | that you see in the world if they couldn't control

02:13:42.980 | the monetary system.

02:13:43.820 | - You couldn't have had the New Deal.

02:13:45.080 | And FDR realized this very quickly.

02:13:46.880 | - Oh, yeah, that's why he confiscated all the gold.

02:13:48.960 | Everybody knows FDR is gonna come into,

02:13:51.680 | to become president and gonna confiscate the gold.

02:13:53.760 | So one of the mythologies, the myths

02:13:57.080 | about the Great Depression is that

02:14:00.480 | there were all these bank runs that,

02:14:02.760 | well, bank runs happened because everybody was afraid

02:14:06.600 | that FDR would get elected, confiscate the gold.

02:14:08.520 | So everybody ran to the bank and took the gold.

02:14:11.000 | Little did they realize that he would confiscate

02:14:12.800 | their private holdings in their own backyards.

02:14:15.520 | He would dig, he would force them to dig up the gold

02:14:17.320 | from their own backyard.

02:14:18.160 | But yes, one of the first things FDR did

02:14:20.040 | in spite of denying it throughout the campaign,

02:14:22.440 | he was asked about this over and over again and denied it.

02:14:25.480 | One of the first things was take over the gold

02:14:28.160 | and take the United States, the Federal Reserve

02:14:30.000 | off the gold standard so that they can, in a sense,

02:14:33.000 | print money and that he could start spending.

02:14:35.960 | - Yeah, what people don't realize,

02:14:37.000 | just to clarify what you're on set is FDR,

02:14:39.280 | this is something that's so crazy to us that we think,

02:14:41.320 | okay, I'm misunderstanding it.

02:14:42.720 | FDR made it illegal for people to own gold

02:14:46.720 | unless it's like a wedding ring.

02:14:48.200 | And before that, contracts, because inflation was a concern,

02:14:53.200 | I make a contract with your own.

02:14:54.760 | Right, I said, okay, you're either gonna pay me

02:14:57.040 | in $1,500 for my work or the gold equivalent

02:15:00.360 | because if that $1,500, you know,

02:15:03.360 | Weimar Germany and you have hyperinflation,

02:15:05.800 | I don't want that $1,500, just give me the gold bullion.

02:15:08.720 | And FDR said all of those clauses,

02:15:11.880 | he broke every contract.

02:15:13.080 | - No limit.

02:15:14.360 | - They don't matter.

02:15:15.200 | So now if I say, Eron says, okay,

02:15:17.880 | you owe me three feet of drywall.

02:15:20.160 | And I go, here's three feet of drywall, it's 12 inches.

02:15:23.440 | And you go, wait, wait, wait, three feet is 36 inches.

02:15:25.400 | You go, no, no, not anymore.

02:15:26.240 | I was like, what am I supposed to do?

02:15:27.880 | And because you have, when you print more money,

02:15:30.720 | the value of every individual dollar matters less,

02:15:33.960 | it becomes that much harder to plan anything,

02:15:37.920 | either in the government level or in the private level,

02:15:40.200 | because if I'm managing outlays,

02:15:42.960 | if I'm trying to pay my workers,

02:15:44.200 | I'm trying to build factories, I'm thinking long-term,

02:15:46.400 | and I don't know what this dollar is gonna buy in 10 years,

02:15:49.680 | that puts an enormous incentive for me to spend it now

02:15:52.920 | and not save it, 'cause if I save it,

02:15:54.880 | it's gonna be worth a lot less.

02:15:56.520 | And the worst thing about inflation,

02:15:58.160 | and this is something I think people who are pro-capitalism

02:16:00.520 | don't talk about enough, they do talk about it,

02:16:02.400 | I would just like to see it more,

02:16:03.800 | this by far hurts the poorest of the poor the most.

02:16:08.800 | When we came to this country, my mom told me

02:16:11.840 | they would go to 86th Street in Bensonhurst

02:16:14.200 | with the fruit stands to buy Mikachka some grapes,

02:16:17.400 | and you go to this fruit stand,

02:16:19.080 | and she'd walk all the way to the other corner,

02:16:21.040 | and if it was three cents more a pound or less a pound,

02:16:23.840 | she'd walk all the way back, 'cause that three cents mattered.

02:16:26.680 | Now if I have this dollar,

02:16:28.520 | and it's 5% inflation or whatever,

02:16:30.360 | and next year it's 95 cents,

02:16:32.760 | me and you, the three of us might not care,

02:16:34.960 | but if I'm destitute hand to mouth,

02:16:37.280 | and I've got 5% less,

02:16:39.040 | that is really a material consequence of my life.

02:16:42.680 | So inflation really is evil,

02:16:45.640 | because it hurts the people for who those pennies matter.

02:16:48.600 | - Well, one of the ways the government gets around that,

02:16:50.720 | and it's because they get smart to that,

02:16:52.920 | is they index everything.

02:16:54.720 | So they index just the security, they index welfare,

02:16:57.800 | they try to make sure,

02:16:58.640 | but that only makes you more dependent on them.

02:17:01.560 | And the people in the modern context

02:17:03.600 | that the inflation hurts the most are savers,

02:17:06.920 | people trying to save money,

02:17:08.120 | and Fed policy right now is just horrific

02:17:11.200 | if you're a saver, 'cause the interest rates are zero,

02:17:15.360 | you get nothing on your saving,

02:17:16.800 | and cost of living is going up,

02:17:19.240 | maybe not at a huge level, but it is going up,

02:17:21.200 | and yet you can't even save to keep the value of your dollars.

02:17:26.200 | So- - Here's the other-

02:17:28.760 | - And the government controls,

02:17:30.200 | and this has massive perverse effects,

02:17:32.880 | because it's not just the prices go up,

02:17:35.240 | it's the prices don't reflect reality anymore,

02:17:38.440 | so some prices go up, some prices might not.

02:17:41.120 | Investments get distorted, things get produced

02:17:43.680 | that shouldn't get produced,

02:17:44.560 | and then people like Richard Wolff turn around

02:17:47.280 | and blame all the distortions, and the perversions,

02:17:49.880 | and the crashes, and the financial crisis on capitalism,

02:17:53.360 | not on the fact that the Fed,

02:17:54.760 | look at the financial crisis,

02:17:56.000 | financial crisis was caused, you could argue by inflation,

02:17:59.400 | and we could get into that if you wanted,

02:18:00.960 | but that's probably a three-hour show just that, right?

02:18:03.560 | It was caused by the Federal Reserve,

02:18:05.840 | and yet who got blamed for the financial crisis?

02:18:07.560 | Who would Richard Wolff is gonna jump up and down,

02:18:09.600 | this is a crisis of capitalism,

02:18:11.040 | this was caused by capitalism,

02:18:12.280 | but capitalism is the negation of the Fed,

02:18:15.080 | capitalism says there should be no Fed,

02:18:17.560 | that's item number one on the list

02:18:19.920 | of the things capitalists want,

02:18:21.440 | is to get rid of the Fed,

02:18:25.160 | and then grant you guys your wish,

02:18:27.360 | have competition for currency,

02:18:28.720 | and let's see if Bitcoin wins, I'm skeptical,

02:18:30.920 | but I don't care, my point is under freedom,

02:18:33.960 | I don't care who wins, I just want free choices,

02:18:38.000 | and let the best currency win,

02:18:39.600 | I doubt that becomes Bitcoin,

02:18:41.560 | but it doesn't really matter if I'm wrong, right?

02:18:44.160 | - Let me add to this, and I think people appreciate,

02:18:46.720 | and this is a leftist, leftism at its best,

02:18:49.400 | that the government and the banks

02:18:50.720 | are in bed with each other,

02:18:51.560 | this I don't think is particularly controversial statement.

02:18:53.240 | - Well, I don't like that statement,

02:18:54.680 | let me just say why I don't like it,

02:18:55.520 | and then I don't like it 'cause it assumes

02:18:58.120 | that they're equal partners,

02:18:59.280 | or that this causality goes in both directions.

02:19:02.480 | From day one, and this is really from day one,

02:19:05.400 | of the establishment of the United States,

02:19:07.480 | banks have been regulated by the state,

02:19:09.840 | and the reason for that is primarily Jefferson,

02:19:12.320 | and other founders distrust of finance.

02:19:16.440 | So from the beginning,

02:19:18.400 | banks are being controlled by the state.

02:19:20.440 | Now, over time, if I'm controlling you,

02:19:23.800 | you wanna have influence over me,

02:19:25.080 | because I get to, so yes, they get into bed over time,

02:19:27.920 | but so I don't like it that they're in bed together,

02:19:30.720 | one is dominating over the other,

02:19:32.560 | and the other is participating,

02:19:34.100 | because what choice do they have?

02:19:34.940 | - I should explain to you how things work

02:19:37.040 | when you get in bed, and it's not always equal.

02:19:40.140 | - Well, okay, so--

02:19:41.080 | - Okay, so let's talk about safe words,

02:19:43.560 | which is a very Randian topic, she doesn't like those.

02:19:46.120 | Read the, I had to read that scene three times

02:19:48.400 | in the fountainhead as I quickly--

02:19:49.600 | - I'm sure you did.

02:19:50.440 | - I was reading.

02:19:51.260 | - I'm sure you did.

02:19:52.100 | - Yeah, no, 'cause I'm like, I looked at the back cover,

02:19:54.080 | I'm like, a woman wrote this book in 1943,

02:19:55.880 | I must be misunderstanding this scene.

02:19:56.720 | - And it's '43.

02:19:57.600 | - Yeah.

02:19:58.440 | - She sure had a lot of shades of gray.

02:20:00.240 | - Yeah, so, no, she hated that.

02:20:03.120 | Only black and white, no, but what I meant is,

02:20:06.120 | 2008, right, you have the bailout of Wall Street,

02:20:09.440 | whereas in 2020, we saw every medium and small business

02:20:12.600 | under the sun go under, there's not even a pretense

02:20:15.160 | that these are going to be a bailed out.

02:20:17.200 | So the priorities of the politicians, in my view,

02:20:19.600 | are always gonna be towards powerful entities,

02:20:21.780 | powerful corporations, and they're not gonna be

02:20:23.680 | about the medium guy, the middle guy.

02:20:25.600 | Let me just finish my point,

02:20:26.720 | 'cause I see you champing at the bit.

02:20:27.920 | - Yep. (laughs)

02:20:29.440 | - At the very least, if you have regulation,

02:20:32.060 | people influencing each other.

02:20:33.640 | With Bitcoin and with crypto, that is not a possibility.

02:20:38.200 | You do not have any agency who is king of Bitcoin,

02:20:42.880 | who is the Federal Reserve of Bitcoin.

02:20:44.840 | There is no organizing, organization, management team.

02:20:49.080 | Now, you could say this is a bad thing,

02:20:51.360 | but you can't say that this is a different thing to money,

02:20:54.400 | as opposed to Federal Reserve System.

02:20:55.800 | - Yeah, so I agree with that description of Bitcoin,

02:20:58.360 | my problems with Bitcoin, and elsewhere.

02:21:00.320 | Let me just say about the financial crisis.

02:21:03.360 | I don't like it phrased that way again.

02:21:07.360 | They let Lehman go under, and destroyed Lehman Brothers.

02:21:11.600 | In the past, they destroyed Drexel Burnham,

02:21:15.880 | because they didn't like Michael Merkin.

02:21:17.640 | They are vindictive. - Yes.

02:21:19.720 | - It's not an accident that the Treasury Secretary

02:21:23.200 | at the time was an ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs,

02:21:26.080 | not Lehman Brothers, and Goldman hates Lehman.

02:21:29.160 | And the next day, they bail out AIG.

02:21:30.960 | What I got out of financial crisis more than anything,

02:21:34.520 | and by the way, there wasn't a bailout,

02:21:36.000 | so it wasn't even a bailout,

02:21:37.320 | because they gave money to every bank,

02:21:40.040 | whether they had problems or not.

02:21:42.400 | And indeed, I know several bankers,

02:21:44.960 | including big banks like JP Morgan and West Fargo,

02:21:48.120 | and a friend of mine, John Allison of BB&T,

02:21:50.160 | who told them explicitly, "We don't want your money.

02:21:53.360 | "We don't need your money, we don't."

02:21:54.680 | And they were basically, a gun was put to their head,

02:21:56.840 | and they said, "You don't take the money,

02:21:58.480 | "we'll shut you down," basically, right?

02:22:00.240 | The equivalent of that.

02:22:02.000 | And so, they A, wanted a virtue signal.

02:22:06.560 | So, there's a big virtue signal.

02:22:07.840 | We're taking care of things, don't worry.

02:22:10.280 | We've got everything under control,

02:22:11.520 | even though they were completely panicking,

02:22:13.120 | and they had no clue what they were doing.

02:22:15.280 | One of the things that the financial crisis

02:22:18.520 | really illustrated was how pathetic, ignorant,

02:22:23.520 | and incompetent the people at the top are,

02:22:26.120 | and they knew it.

02:22:27.320 | And so, Paulson goes to Congress,

02:22:29.280 | says, "Give me $700 billion.

02:22:31.160 | "Don't tell me how to use it, 'cause I have no clue.

02:22:33.540 | "Just give it to me, and give me authoritarian power

02:22:35.720 | "to do it any way I want."

02:22:37.000 | And that was not out of a sense of grandeur.

02:22:39.640 | That was a sense of panic.

02:22:40.600 | He had no idea.

02:22:41.520 | He had no clue.

02:22:42.360 | None of them did.

02:22:43.200 | They bailed out everybody they could,

02:22:47.040 | everybody within their periphery.

02:22:50.280 | When they thought it was appropriate,

02:22:51.960 | they were vindictive about some people like Lehman.

02:22:55.080 | It was complete arbitrary use of power.

02:22:57.440 | The bankers didn't benefit from this.

02:23:00.320 | Indeed, many bankers that took their money lost from it.

02:23:03.160 | Bank stocks got crushed after the bailout.

02:23:06.280 | Before the bailout, bank stocks were doing okay,

02:23:08.800 | and right after top was announced,

02:23:10.520 | bank stocks crushed because this was bad for banks.

02:23:13.640 | It wasn't good for banks.

02:23:15.120 | This is just central planning gone amok.

02:23:17.920 | It's not them bailing out elites.

02:23:21.080 | It's them throwing money at a problem

02:23:23.760 | without knowing what they would actually do

02:23:26.600 | and what the consequences would be.

02:23:28.200 | - Right, but the point, sorry, we agree.

02:23:32.040 | The focus will always be on bailing out elites.

02:23:34.200 | It's almost-

02:23:35.040 | - But little banks got money too.

02:23:36.160 | - No, I'm saying that last year,

02:23:37.600 | there's no talk of saving Ice and Vice,

02:23:40.520 | saving Century 21, saving all these other industries.

02:23:44.200 | - But sure they were.

02:23:45.040 | If you look, it's just, sure there was.

02:23:46.720 | If you look at what the Fed did,

02:23:49.440 | the Fed was bailing out third, fourth class businesses

02:23:53.480 | in all kinds of areas

02:23:55.040 | that you wouldn't consider elitist areas.

02:23:57.400 | Oh, PPP, the way-

02:23:59.400 | - You're talking 2008?

02:24:00.440 | - Yeah, no, I'm talking about now.

02:24:01.640 | I'm talking about COVID last year.

02:24:03.920 | What the Fed did was unbelievable.

02:24:05.480 | The kind of bonds that they were buying, even 2008,

02:24:08.640 | even after 2008, I couldn't believe what they did last year.

02:24:11.640 | PPP, the Payroll Protection Program,

02:24:13.880 | was targeted at everybody.

02:24:15.040 | Everybody got PPP.

02:24:16.280 | It's not about, I don't think it's about bailing out elites.

02:24:20.360 | It's about securing their power base.

02:24:22.800 | And if they believe that securing their power base

02:24:24.840 | is Wall Street, then they'll bail out Wall Street.

02:24:26.640 | They believe securing their power base

02:24:28.800 | is writing checks to restaurant owners all over the country.

02:24:32.080 | They'll write checks to restaurant owners

02:24:33.400 | all over the country, which is what they did with PPP.

02:24:36.400 | It's all about power for them.

02:24:37.800 | And it's whatever will achieve power,

02:24:39.280 | whatever will result in power.

02:24:40.720 | I don't think it's about elites.

02:24:41.800 | I don't see elitism in the bailouts of last year.

02:24:45.560 | - I agree, it wasn't last year.

02:24:48.280 | I'm saying that's one distinction between 2008 and 2020.

02:24:50.760 | And I do think, just one more thing.

02:24:52.640 | I do think getting in good bed with the elites

02:24:56.160 | is a great mechanism in general

02:24:57.920 | for maintaining one's power.

02:24:59.160 | - Oh yeah.

02:25:00.000 | - Yeah, that's not disputed.

02:25:00.840 | - Depending on how we define the elites.

02:25:01.680 | - Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:25:03.520 | - You mentioned there's some criticism towards Bitcoin.

02:25:06.320 | There's a lot of excitement about the technology of Bitcoin

02:25:09.680 | for the resistance against this kind of central

02:25:14.680 | state pursuit of power.

02:25:17.360 | - That's part of my criticism,

02:25:18.400 | 'cause I don't think it works.

02:25:19.720 | So yeah, I can imagine a world,

02:25:22.880 | I can imagine, I'd love to see a technology evolve

02:25:26.680 | that where money is competitive

02:25:30.480 | and it's a financial instrument

02:25:33.200 | that the government cannot touch.

02:25:34.520 | - You think the state is too powerful in Bitcoin?

02:25:36.480 | - I think two things.

02:25:37.360 | I think right now,

02:25:39.120 | and maybe this won't be true in the future,

02:25:41.240 | right now I think crypto is,

02:25:43.880 | it cannot function as money right now.

02:25:45.560 | It just can't.

02:25:46.400 | - But it does.

02:25:48.160 | - No, it doesn't.

02:25:49.000 | It functions as a mechanism to transfer,

02:25:53.720 | it's a technology that allows me

02:25:55.120 | to transfer fiat money from place to place,

02:25:57.960 | but it doesn't function,

02:26:00.320 | because, and it can't because it's too volatile.

02:26:02.120 | - Wait, wait, I've sold things with Bitcoin.

02:26:03.840 | - No, I know you have.

02:26:05.200 | But I can sell things,

02:26:06.080 | I can buy things and sell things with my airline miles.

02:26:08.680 | There are lots of ways in which you can use things as money,

02:26:11.440 | but it doesn't make them money.

02:26:12.880 | - If you're using something as money, it's money.

02:26:14.120 | - So let me take something you, no.

02:26:15.840 | So let me take something you said before

02:26:17.480 | and it contradicts I think Bitcoin.

02:26:19.280 | You said one of the things about money is that it's stable.

02:26:22.400 | I know what it's gonna buy tomorrow, right?

02:26:24.560 | This is why we're against inflation,

02:26:25.840 | 'cause I know what the dollar today I can plan,

02:26:28.240 | because I can't plan,

02:26:29.160 | I don't know what Bitcoin's gonna be worth tomorrow.

02:26:31.160 | So I can't plan with Bitcoin.

02:26:32.960 | Bitcoin is way too volatile to serve right now as money.

02:26:35.520 | Now, the argument from Bitcoin is this.

02:26:38.920 | Yes, it's still being adopted.

02:26:40.960 | At some point, it'll reach a certain crucial mass.

02:26:43.400 | - High point of coinization, yeah.

02:26:44.480 | - Yes, and then it will become money

02:26:46.640 | because at that point it can be used as money

02:26:48.640 | 'cause they don't have a stable value.

02:26:51.240 | Maybe right now it's not useful as money

02:26:54.760 | because I can't predict what,

02:26:56.160 | I can't invest in it knowing what the value will be

02:26:59.760 | in five years.

02:27:00.600 | Right now it's an asset.

02:27:01.680 | It's not a monetary unit.

02:27:04.840 | It's much more functions as an asset.

02:27:06.680 | Assets value can go up.

02:27:07.880 | - Oh, I agree it's functioning much more as an asset

02:27:09.680 | than as money, that's not in dispute.

02:27:10.720 | I agree with that completely.

02:27:11.560 | - So I don't think it's money.

02:27:13.440 | But so I think it's still,

02:27:17.000 | I think it can compete as a money with something tangible.

02:27:19.880 | So I think in a free market,

02:27:22.560 | some kind of crypto backed by gold

02:27:24.040 | would be more successful.

02:27:25.240 | - So Bitcoin folks argue that Bitcoin

02:27:28.680 | has all the same fundamental properties that does gold.

02:27:32.160 | So it's backed by, there's a scarcity to it

02:27:35.720 | and it's backed by proof of work.

02:27:37.240 | So it's backed by physical resources.

02:27:41.320 | And so they say that it's a very natural replacement

02:27:43.520 | of gold, so it doesn't need to be connected to gold.

02:27:45.760 | - So the two things that gold has that it doesn't have.

02:27:49.360 | One is gold is not finite.

02:27:52.000 | Gold supply actually grows over time.

02:27:54.280 | Bitcoin at some point is truly finite.

02:27:56.760 | At least unless you count the fact

02:27:59.280 | that you can split Bitcoins and create coins,

02:28:00.840 | but that's a whole other question, right?

02:28:03.320 | So that's one.

02:28:05.320 | The second is that gold has value

02:28:10.320 | beyond its use as a currency,

02:28:11.960 | beyond its use as-

02:28:13.560 | - For jewelry and stuff.

02:28:15.920 | - Yeah, but you minimize that,

02:28:17.800 | but jewelry and stuff has been important

02:28:19.640 | for the human race for a hundred thousand years.

02:28:21.760 | You can find jewelry in caves,

02:28:24.120 | for the cavemen designed jewelry and wore them.

02:28:26.160 | So we obviously as human beings value jewelry a lot.

02:28:29.160 | And almost all jewelry evolved to be made out of gold

02:28:32.400 | because whatever it is within us is attracted to shiny,

02:28:35.840 | shiny gold in particular, shiny object generally.

02:28:38.160 | So there's something about gold that appeals to human being.

02:28:40.680 | There's some value that gold has

02:28:42.040 | beyond its being a currency.

02:28:43.480 | It doesn't, it's not, Bitcoin doesn't.

02:28:46.120 | Now it's not enough to use it as money.

02:28:48.360 | Lots of things appeal to human beings,

02:28:50.200 | but those are two characteristics.

02:28:52.080 | One, that it's not finite.

02:28:53.560 | And second, that it is a value beyond

02:28:57.120 | that Bitcoin doesn't have.

02:28:59.040 | - Don't you think the finiteness

02:29:00.160 | could be framed as a feature?

02:29:01.640 | The scarcity of Bitcoin?

02:29:03.000 | - No, because I think it creates a real problem

02:29:05.400 | with scarcity economically.

02:29:06.600 | It's the issue of planning.

02:29:09.080 | There is a mechanism,

02:29:11.360 | there's a beautiful mechanism in markets

02:29:13.160 | that as the supply of gold is in a sense,

02:29:17.160 | the quantity of gold is,

02:29:19.160 | prices are going down 'cause there's too little gold, right?

02:29:23.920 | So the value of gold in a sense in dollar terms,

02:29:26.360 | the prices are going down.

02:29:27.920 | What happens then is there's an incentive

02:29:31.920 | to then go mine for more gold, right?

02:29:34.720 | Because it becomes cheaper and cheaper to mine

02:29:36.880 | as the price goes down.

02:29:37.880 | So you mine for more gold.

02:29:39.400 | So it keeps increasing and it keeps increasing.

02:29:41.640 | Basically very correlated

02:29:43.640 | to the rate of increasing productivity.

02:29:45.920 | That's the beauty of gold mining

02:29:48.080 | 'cause prices are related to gold.

02:29:50.680 | Gold is the dominant money

02:29:52.640 | and it increases at just about the same rate

02:29:54.800 | as productivity.

02:29:55.640 | So it keeps prices relatively stable.

02:29:59.960 | You still have bouts of inflation and deflation,

02:30:02.360 | but it keeps it relatively stable.

02:30:04.040 | With Bitcoin, it's finite, it's ends.

02:30:06.600 | Now prices will only decline.

02:30:08.320 | What rate will they decline at?

02:30:10.000 | They'll decline at the rate of productivity increases.

02:30:12.640 | It's hard to predict what product,

02:30:13.880 | at the rate to which productivity increases.

02:30:15.480 | For example, technological shocks

02:30:16.800 | can change that dramatically.

02:30:18.760 | You could get bouts of dramatic deflation,

02:30:22.280 | dramatic price drops that could be problematic

02:30:26.320 | in terms of planning the same problem of inflation

02:30:29.800 | just reversed that you had before.

02:30:31.440 | So, again, it's a technical issue.

02:30:34.200 | I'm sure there are ways to get around it.

02:30:35.600 | And again, I'm not sure.

02:30:38.360 | I don't know if you guys consider Bitcoin the end

02:30:41.320 | or the beginning, that is, is Bitcoin it?

02:30:43.880 | Or is Bitcoin just the first example of a technology

02:30:46.280 | that might evolve in the future?

02:30:47.120 | I was just gonna say,

02:30:48.640 | there's the same technological issue with regard to gold,

02:30:51.000 | which is we now have the technology

02:30:52.640 | that was very expensive to turn elements

02:30:55.080 | into different elements.

02:30:56.200 | And at a certain, yeah, you could fire electrons at it

02:30:59.360 | or whatever, you can make gold.

02:31:00.360 | They figured out how to do it.

02:31:01.200 | It's not cheap and it's all big process.

02:31:04.160 | If gold is the standard,

02:31:06.920 | a lot of resources are gonna be going toward

02:31:09.120 | turning other things into gold,

02:31:10.520 | making the production of gold cheaper.

02:31:12.200 | And that's gonna have a similar consequence

02:31:14.480 | that Lauren's talking about.

02:31:16.080 | That's kind of the category of security

02:31:17.720 | that Bitcoin has talked about,

02:31:18.840 | that it's very difficult to do that with Bitcoin.

02:31:21.560 | But I would argue that it's exceptionally difficult

02:31:23.480 | to do that with gold.

02:31:24.320 | It is now, but the thing is, there's not a huge incentive.

02:31:26.440 | If gold is the basis and if gold is worth that much.

02:31:30.840 | But gold isn't worth that much.

02:31:31.880 | Gold is worth, let's say-

02:31:32.800 | I'm saying in this world that we're talking about.

02:31:34.200 | In the future, yeah.

02:31:35.720 | Gold is not gonna be worth more.

02:31:37.040 | Let's say right now gold is about 2000 bucks.

02:31:39.160 | It's less than 2000, but let's say it's 2000 bucks.

02:31:41.400 | That's its price in terms of dollars.

02:31:44.480 | So you'd have to, it would have to be worthwhile

02:31:47.000 | to create something of $2,000.

02:31:48.320 | How much would you be willing to put into it?

02:31:49.840 | At some point, you're right.

02:31:51.080 | And at that point, I think gold stops being money.

02:31:53.320 | Right.

02:31:54.160 | 'Cause it's useless.

02:31:55.000 | Once I can create it like silicon,

02:31:57.920 | then why not say I can make out official gold?

02:31:59.800 | So I'm just not, I don't think Bitcoin is the solution.

02:32:02.920 | I think, I don't know what the solution is.

02:32:06.120 | I wish I was that innovative,

02:32:08.480 | but I think you need a solution

02:32:10.920 | that has more of the characteristics of gold

02:32:13.480 | than Bitcoin currently has.

02:32:14.560 | And I guess I'm surprised at a lot of the technologists

02:32:19.560 | who view Bitcoin as the end game,

02:32:22.600 | where it strikes me as it's the birth of a new,

02:32:25.560 | it represents the birth of a new technology.

02:32:27.600 | And who the winner in that technology is gonna be,

02:32:29.840 | we have no clue.

02:32:31.000 | Bitcoin is one of the players.

02:32:32.640 | There are other players.

02:32:34.000 | There might be a new technology

02:32:35.440 | that is even better than anything we can imagine right now.

02:32:38.440 | So Bitcoin doesn't strike me as optimal

02:32:42.200 | and that we should be moving towards something better.

02:32:44.360 | Can you please stop shilling Rand coin for five minutes?

02:32:49.360 | You know where there was Rand coin?

02:32:52.200 | There was Rand. South Africa.

02:32:53.960 | No, I was-

02:32:54.800 | There are currencies in Rand.

02:32:56.240 | No, I mean-

02:32:57.080 | Ayn Rand is the South African $1.

02:32:59.320 | Ayn Rand coin was, I was in China in 20,

02:33:03.360 | I think it was 2015 or 14.

02:33:05.200 | What's that?

02:33:06.040 | China. China.

02:33:06.880 | I was in China 20, something like that.

02:33:10.320 | And this entrepreneur came up to me.

02:33:12.480 | She said, she's bought this massive quantity of land

02:33:16.280 | in this area in China, it's a little secluded.

02:33:19.120 | She's starting what she's calling Gold Gulch.

02:33:21.480 | She's serious.

02:33:22.600 | And she's issuing, and she issued cryptocurrency

02:33:27.400 | based on the land, right backed by the land,

02:33:30.080 | called Rand, but Ayn Rand,

02:33:32.000 | with a little portrait of Ayn,

02:33:33.880 | little portrait in the marketing.

02:33:36.520 | Ayn Rand, I don't think it went anyway.

02:33:38.320 | You're not gonna be a janitor?

02:33:39.960 | A janitor in China at Gold Gulch, yeah.

02:33:43.240 | By the way, I do wanna point out something

02:33:45.120 | I do enjoy about objectivists.

02:33:47.000 | I constantly talk about Ayn Rand and her vampire novels.

02:33:50.800 | Ayn.

02:33:51.720 | That's the joke you're on, thank you.

02:33:53.920 | And inevitably someone feels they need to point out

02:33:57.200 | that she did not write vampire novels

02:33:59.320 | and her name is actually Ayn.

02:34:00.440 | So thank you, thank you, Aaron.

02:34:02.400 | We've been talking for two hours.

02:34:03.720 | I own her copy of "The Fountainhead."

02:34:05.080 | Somehow I thought her name was Ayn, thank you, thank you.

02:34:07.840 | Ayn is an anthem.

02:34:08.840 | - So this is really interesting way of phrasing it,

02:34:13.400 | which is- - I was kidding with the Ayn.

02:34:15.440 | I know you knew how to pronounce it.

02:34:17.400 | - I know you know, you know.

02:34:18.640 | - Yeah, I just got confusing.

02:34:21.040 | - I think we all know,

02:34:22.080 | and we all know that we're jokers here.

02:34:24.360 | There's no Batman in this conversation.

02:34:27.160 | (laughs)

02:34:28.000 | - So it's an interesting way to frame it.

02:34:29.760 | Is Bitcoin the end or the beginning of something?

02:34:32.000 | And I've, as sort of with an open mind

02:34:35.440 | and seeing kind of all the possibilities

02:34:37.200 | of technologies out there,

02:34:38.360 | I also kind of thought that Bitcoin

02:34:40.440 | is the beginning of something.

02:34:41.960 | But what the Bitcoin community argues

02:34:44.560 | is that Bitcoin is the end of the base layer.

02:34:49.280 | Meaning all the different innovations

02:34:52.160 | will come on top of it.

02:34:53.440 | Like for example, there's something called

02:34:55.120 | lightning network, where it's basically

02:34:58.240 | just like gold is the end.

02:35:00.400 | And everything is built like the monetary systems,

02:35:02.480 | like cash and all that is built on top of gold.

02:35:04.920 | Bitcoin is the end in that other technologies

02:35:08.320 | are built on top of Bitcoin.

02:35:10.000 | That's their argument.

02:35:11.320 | And there's an interesting component.

02:35:12.160 | - I get that and I hear that all the time.

02:35:13.520 | And I just, I don't quite understand that.

02:35:16.760 | And I think Bitcoin has limitations

02:35:19.360 | that potentially other cryptocurrencies might not have.

02:35:22.440 | I, you know, my attitude to it,

02:35:24.160 | something like this is large extent

02:35:25.880 | I don't understand technology.

02:35:28.080 | My view is let it play out.

02:35:30.520 | I think I have more fear of physical,

02:35:35.520 | the ability of the government to crush these things

02:35:41.440 | than I think many in the community.

02:35:42.920 | So for example, so I gave a talk,

02:35:46.120 | Bitcoin, you know, and they were hyping

02:35:48.400 | the acceptance now, a lot of vendors

02:35:50.760 | are willing to accept Bitcoin and this is great.

02:35:52.400 | And I said, yeah, it's absolutely great.

02:35:53.880 | I mean, more options is better than few options.

02:35:56.960 | But I said, you know, that that could be taken away like that.

02:36:00.320 | Now it's true that we could exchange Bitcoin

02:36:03.080 | and the government wouldn't know,

02:36:05.080 | I think wouldn't know that we do.

02:36:06.920 | But once he's advertising on his website

02:36:08.960 | that he accepts Bitcoin, or once he tries to turn his Bitcoin

02:36:12.280 | into particular goods, once you manifest it

02:36:15.480 | in the physical world, now the government can step in.

02:36:18.800 | So the government could say, you can't sell anything

02:36:20.480 | to anybody using Bitcoin.

02:36:22.720 | They can do that and you won't be able to sell it.

02:36:24.560 | It will be, you have to go into the black market.

02:36:26.440 | So--

02:36:27.280 | - But that isn't able to sell it,

02:36:28.120 | just to just sell you in the black market.

02:36:29.480 | - Yeah, but that's where the government thrives, right?

02:36:31.440 | The government thrives on letting you do stuff

02:36:32.800 | in the black market so they can decide

02:36:34.080 | when to put you in jail or not, right?

02:36:35.800 | So if I'm buying a sweatshirt from the government,

02:36:39.200 | sorry, if I'm buying a sweatshirt

02:36:40.360 | from somebody using Bitcoin,

02:36:42.000 | the government can't monitor my exchange of Bitcoin to him.

02:36:45.480 | But they can monitor the sweatshirt being sent to me, right?

02:36:49.320 | That's where they can interfere.

02:36:50.880 | And I think that at some point,

02:36:53.040 | to the extent Bitcoin is successful, it will be stopped.

02:36:57.160 | That is, and that's what'll stop it from becoming money.

02:37:00.360 | See, money can only become money,

02:37:02.920 | it can only become money if people are using it as money,

02:37:05.560 | right?

02:37:06.400 | And if the government can stop it being used,

02:37:08.120 | if I can't go to the grocery store and use my ATM

02:37:11.200 | that charges on Bitcoin or whatever, then it's not money.

02:37:15.520 | And I think that the government is going to step in

02:37:18.760 | and stop people from doing that.

02:37:21.600 | And that's what I, so I have more respect and fear

02:37:26.240 | for the power of government today.

02:37:30.400 | - I don't see that at all.

02:37:31.640 | However, I could be wrong.

02:37:33.320 | And I'm sure Yaron hopes he's wrong.

02:37:35.640 | - Absolutely.

02:37:36.480 | (laughing)

02:37:37.320 | I hope the government just give in

02:37:38.440 | and the Fed, Tamar says, "Yeah, let Bitcoin thrive."

02:37:42.040 | But I think they'll want to regulate and control it.

02:37:43.960 | The only way to regulate and control it is to stop it.

02:37:47.440 | - Yeah, there's a bunch of people who argue

02:37:48.720 | that Bitcoin is too compelling to government

02:37:52.080 | that they'll actually embrace it like a choice--

02:37:54.440 | - But that assumes government has positive goals

02:37:56.960 | and wants to do good things.

02:37:58.280 | You can ask--

02:37:59.120 | - No, no, it's greedy.

02:38:01.080 | They say government is greedy because they,

02:38:03.620 | well, Bitcoiners have this whole lingo.

02:38:05.200 | They say, "Number go up."

02:38:06.560 | - Government is not greedy.

02:38:08.400 | Government is not greedy for money.

02:38:11.280 | Government is greedy for power.

02:38:12.840 | Government is greedy for control.

02:38:15.320 | Government is much more,

02:38:16.400 | now money's good too.

02:38:17.720 | They'll take the money if they can get it.

02:38:19.300 | But it's not fundamentally about money.

02:38:21.560 | It's fundamentally, and this is something

02:38:23.760 | that many libertarians don't understand.

02:38:26.000 | This is something many of the Bitcoin community

02:38:27.620 | don't understand.

02:38:28.600 | They have far too benevolent a view of politicians

02:38:33.320 | and the people in government today.

02:38:34.760 | - By the way, I'm a liar.

02:38:35.600 | - And I know why he's laughing.

02:38:36.740 | I think I know why he's laughing.

02:38:37.580 | - You know exactly why I'm laughing.

02:38:38.840 | - And we should get to that issue at some point here.

02:38:42.540 | But, you know, so I think there's a lot of naivete.

02:38:47.540 | - Yeah, there's a lot.

02:38:48.580 | - Speaking of naivete.

02:38:49.400 | - A lot of it, Jaron.

02:38:51.240 | - No, I'm not naive.

02:38:52.580 | I'm actually providing the warning

02:38:55.540 | and all these Bitcoiners are saying,

02:38:57.520 | "No, no, no, government doesn't function that way."

02:38:59.300 | - No one says I'm naive.

02:39:00.780 | Naive people think they're not naive.

02:39:02.620 | - Well, so let's put this on the table.

02:39:04.940 | Speaking of naive, I still, more than the two of you,

02:39:09.220 | by far, I think, have faith that government can work.

02:39:13.140 | Okay, let's put that on the table.

02:39:14.660 | - I got it, I'm not trying to be pedantic.

02:39:16.260 | What do you mean, work?

02:39:17.500 | Government can achieve goals, that is not in dispute.

02:39:21.260 | - Can achieve goals effectively to build a better world.

02:39:25.860 | - Okay.

02:39:26.700 | - A functioning society.

02:39:28.180 | - So I'm gonna take it one step further than you.

02:39:31.300 | - Oh, boy.

02:39:32.340 | - The only way to achieve a better world

02:39:35.380 | is through government.

02:39:38.460 | - Michael, what do you think about that?

02:39:40.140 | - He almost dropped it.

02:39:40.980 | I said it on purpose that way.

02:39:42.140 | - I'm glad that the mask is dropping.

02:39:44.580 | - You cannot achieve, you cannot have liberty or freedom

02:39:49.300 | without a government.

02:39:50.620 | Now, not anything like the governments we have today.

02:39:53.340 | So I think the idea that you can have liberty or freedom

02:39:57.700 | without government is the rejection

02:40:00.420 | of the idea of liberty and freedom.

02:40:02.740 | And the undermining of any effort, any attempt to do it.

02:40:06.660 | So in that sense, I do--

02:40:07.500 | - He's sitting right here, right?

02:40:08.660 | - Lex, I know, exactly.

02:40:09.980 | On this side, we can agree with Lex, which is unusual.

02:40:12.580 | - That government is good for freedom.

02:40:13.420 | - You're agreeing with the guy who's reading Mein Kampf.

02:40:15.940 | That's not a surprise.

02:40:16.780 | - Who's dressed in black.

02:40:17.940 | - Yeah, that's the bad guys.

02:40:19.540 | - No, the fascism, I mean, the road to fascism is anarchy.

02:40:24.540 | It's not--

02:40:26.700 | - What the hell are you talking about?

02:40:28.980 | Can you give me one example of when anarchy led to fascism?

02:40:32.140 | - Well, every example of a stateless society

02:40:35.820 | leads to authoritarianism, every single one

02:40:37.620 | in all of human history.

02:40:39.060 | It has to because--

02:40:39.900 | - Wait, you're saying Weimar Germany was anarchy?

02:40:43.460 | - Well, it wasn't pure anarchy, but it got close.

02:40:46.100 | But no, I said the reverse, by the way.

02:40:48.660 | I said the reverse.

02:40:49.700 | I didn't say that every form of authoritarianism

02:40:52.580 | started with anarchy.

02:40:53.660 | I said that every situation in which human beings

02:40:55.780 | lived under anarchy led to authoritarianism.

02:40:59.700 | So I said the flip.

02:41:01.100 | - Anarchism isn't a location.

02:41:02.780 | Anarchism is a relationship.

02:41:04.500 | The three of us are in an anarchist relationship.

02:41:07.140 | Every country is in a relationship of anarchy

02:41:09.860 | toward each other.

02:41:10.700 | The US and Canada have an anarchist relationship

02:41:12.700 | toward one another.

02:41:13.980 | And to claim, going back to Emma Goldman, who I love,

02:41:18.980 | in 1901, William McKinley, President McKinley,

02:41:24.380 | was shot by this guy Leon Salgas.

02:41:26.940 | And it was very funny, but he was a crazy person.

02:41:30.620 | And they arrested him.

02:41:31.980 | He shot the president.

02:41:33.360 | And they go, "Why did you shoot President McKinley?"

02:41:36.460 | And he just goes, "I was radicalized by Emma Goldman."

02:41:39.220 | And she's like, "Oh, God damn it."

02:41:40.900 | So now she's on the lam.

02:41:42.140 | She had nothing to do with this guy.

02:41:43.740 | She's trying to flee.

02:41:45.520 | She gets arrested.

02:41:46.780 | They caught her.

02:41:48.220 | And she said, and this is the hubris of this woman,

02:41:52.040 | which I admire as the subject of being good hubris.

02:41:54.540 | She goes, "I'd like to thank the cops

02:41:57.420 | "for doing what they're doing.

02:41:58.720 | "They're turning far more people into anarchism

02:42:00.640 | "than I could do on my own."

02:42:02.460 | So given everything you've said in these two hours,

02:42:07.460 | and then to pivot to being anti-government

02:42:11.140 | is being anti-liberty, I don't feel I have to say anything.

02:42:15.020 | - Well, okay. - That's right.

02:42:15.980 | - For people who are not familiar, if you're,

02:42:18.100 | I don't know why you would not be familiar,

02:42:19.940 | but Michael Malice talks quite a bit

02:42:23.340 | about the evils of the state and government,

02:42:26.140 | and espouses ideas that anarchism is actually,

02:42:30.500 | what is it, the most moral system,

02:42:33.060 | the most effective system for human relationships.

02:42:36.180 | - There's this great book called "Atlas Shrugged,"

02:42:38.440 | and the author posits an anarchist private society.

02:42:41.900 | She calls it Galt's Gulch,

02:42:43.460 | where everything is privately owned,

02:42:45.260 | and no one is in a position of authority

02:42:48.040 | over anyone else other than the landowner.

02:42:50.020 | That's an anarchist society.

02:42:50.860 | - And there's one judge and one authority.

02:42:54.540 | - Yeah, and that's what everyone--

02:42:55.380 | - So if you violate, no tools.

02:42:57.420 | - And that's what everyone has voluntarily moved there

02:43:00.020 | and agreed to be under.

02:43:00.860 | - It's a very small community, right?

02:43:02.180 | - Sure, that is right.

02:43:03.420 | So I have no problem with competing governments.

02:43:06.380 | - That's the definition of anarchism.

02:43:08.420 | - What's that?

02:43:09.260 | - That's the definition of anarchism.

02:43:10.220 | Case closed, okay, end the show.

02:43:11.300 | - No, no, no, no, no. - End the show,

02:43:12.180 | I got him over.

02:43:13.340 | - Not definition of-- - Mission accomplished.

02:43:14.860 | - Not definition of anarchy at all.

02:43:17.060 | I'm all for competing governments.

02:43:18.580 | - Hold on, you get more cookies.

02:43:19.780 | Good job, he did it, he did it.

02:43:21.940 | Yay, Aaron, you brought him over.

02:43:23.940 | Red Rover brought him over. - More Lithuanian.

02:43:25.460 | (both laughing)

02:43:27.020 | - What is this clout, Jeff?

02:43:27.860 | - I'm Lithuanian, that's my people.

02:43:30.340 | (speaking in foreign language)

02:43:33.700 | - It's honey. - Oh, it's honey.

02:43:34.820 | - No claims of health or nutrition.

02:43:36.700 | (both laughing)

02:43:37.660 | - The other one claimed health, this one no claims.

02:43:40.220 | No, I'm for competing governments

02:43:42.260 | on different geographic areas.

02:43:43.980 | That's fine.

02:43:46.300 | - Why does it have to be over, okay, let me--

02:43:48.340 | - It's really crucial that it's on different,

02:43:50.780 | so you don't have two judges in Gold Sculpture,

02:43:54.540 | you have one.

02:43:55.660 | And there's a reason why.

02:43:56.780 | There's one authority, there's one system of laws

02:44:00.140 | in Gold Sculpture that all the people

02:44:03.380 | under the Gulch abide by, there's one.

02:44:05.260 | - There's two, 'cause they're in America.

02:44:07.340 | - No, they're not, the whole point is they're not, right?

02:44:09.380 | - They're not in America, they're in Colorado.

02:44:11.020 | - I know, but the whole point of the novel

02:44:12.860 | is they've left America.

02:44:14.100 | - They haven't left America.

02:44:15.460 | - They've hid themselves, so they're not

02:44:16.660 | under the authority of the American government.

02:44:17.740 | - But they are, don't you get it?

02:44:19.340 | - But they're hidden, they're supposed to be--

02:44:20.660 | - The whole point is that they're hidden

02:44:22.060 | so they're not under the--

02:44:23.220 | - No, no, no, if the three of us hide,

02:44:26.260 | we're still under the authority of Washington.

02:44:28.620 | - No, but not if they don't know that we exist.

02:44:30.300 | - But this is why they haven't established a state,

02:44:32.180 | and it's not a government, and it's not in that sense

02:44:35.340 | an example of really the way we form societies.

02:44:42.700 | It is a private club that is hidden away

02:44:45.820 | from everybody else.

02:44:46.660 | - Fine, I'm fine with that.

02:44:48.020 | What happens if an American kills a Canadian in Mexico?

02:44:50.860 | - What happens if an American, it depends,

02:44:54.060 | depends on the nature of the governments

02:44:55.380 | of the three places.

02:44:56.220 | - Right, but usually what happens in most of human history

02:45:00.100 | is that America will launch a war

02:45:02.140 | either against Mexico or Canada.

02:45:03.820 | - Okay, just first of all--

02:45:05.700 | - So usually violence results in much more violence.

02:45:08.620 | Anarchy is just a system that legalizes violence,

02:45:11.460 | that's all it does, and in international affairs,

02:45:13.420 | that's the reality.

02:45:14.260 | The reality is that the way you resolve disputes

02:45:17.380 | that are major disputes is through violence.

02:45:19.460 | - Ayn Rand said the definition of a government

02:45:23.220 | is an agency that has a monopoly of force

02:45:25.740 | in a geographical area.

02:45:27.100 | So you can't complain that anarchism

02:45:30.060 | is legalizing violence when the definition of government,

02:45:33.060 | according to Rand, is legalized violence.

02:45:35.700 | - No, because you're taking the definition of violence

02:45:39.300 | the way she defines it, right, in this context.

02:45:41.540 | A, she talks about retaliatory force only.

02:45:44.220 | - Has that ever happened?

02:45:45.780 | - That's not the point.

02:45:46.620 | - That is the point.

02:45:47.460 | - Before there was Aristotle, was there an Aristotle?

02:45:49.220 | Before there was an America, was there an America?

02:45:51.200 | The fact that something has never existed

02:45:52.980 | means it will never exist before.

02:45:54.700 | The fact that the ideas haven't been developed

02:45:57.220 | to make something exist means that it will never exist

02:45:59.580 | before, you know, we're young, human race is a young race.

02:46:03.020 | The ideas of freedom are very young.

02:46:05.460 | The ideas of the enlightenment are just 250 years old.

02:46:08.220 | The idea that you can't create the kind of government

02:46:11.020 | Ayn Rand talked about, I talk about,

02:46:12.740 | that it's never been before means it'll never happen again.

02:46:16.020 | That's a silly argument.

02:46:17.020 | - It's not a silly argument, it's you're being a Platonist.

02:46:19.260 | - No, not at all.

02:46:20.100 | - I'll explain to you how you're being exactly a Platonist.

02:46:22.340 | So if I was sitting in 1750, arguing with Thomas Jefferson,

02:46:25.660 | he was telling me what kind of state he was gonna create,

02:46:28.220 | and I said, "Has a state like this ever been created?"

02:46:30.460 | And he said, "No, was I being a Platonist?"

02:46:32.300 | Of course not.

02:46:33.140 | - No, you're being a Platonist. - You know, things change.

02:46:34.260 | - You're being a Platonist now.

02:46:35.420 | Here's why you're being a Platonist now.

02:46:37.260 | Because one of the things that Aristotle believed in,

02:46:40.680 | one of the things that Ayn Rand in other contexts

02:46:42.620 | believed in, the cover of her book,

02:46:44.820 | "The Philosophy Who Needs It," is,

02:46:47.980 | I think it's the Sistine Chapel, the cover,

02:46:49.900 | or wherever it is.

02:46:50.740 | Aristotle and Plato walking.

02:46:52.740 | - No, it's not, yeah, but--

02:46:54.260 | - What's that painting?

02:46:55.100 | I forget what it is.

02:46:55.920 | - It's the School of Athens.

02:46:56.760 | - School of Athens, thank you.

02:46:57.700 | - It's the Raphael.

02:46:58.540 | - So Plato's pointing toward the heavens

02:47:01.580 | while they're talking,

02:47:02.940 | and Aristotle's pointing to the earth.

02:47:04.660 | - Reality. - Reality.

02:47:05.780 | - Absolutely.

02:47:06.620 | - So if you want, there's two approaches.

02:47:09.100 | There's the Descartes, Cartesian approach,

02:47:12.040 | which is I sit in my armchair and I deduce all of reality.

02:47:16.240 | Or if I wanna study the nature of man,

02:47:18.940 | if I wanna study the nature of dogs,

02:47:20.380 | if I wanna study the nature of the sun,

02:47:21.860 | I have to look around.

02:47:23.300 | I have to open my eyes, I have to look at data.

02:47:26.120 | It's very difficult.

02:47:27.420 | You know, when Rand was on Donahue,

02:47:29.620 | he asked her about,

02:47:30.540 | "Aren't you impressed with the order in the universe?"

02:47:33.040 | And she goes, "Oh, now you have to give me a moment."

02:47:35.820 | And the point she made,

02:47:36.900 | which was very hard for many people to grasp,

02:47:39.020 | it's hard for me to grasp,

02:47:40.320 | is one's concept of order comes from the universe.

02:47:45.040 | You can't have a disorderly universe

02:47:47.460 | 'cause order means describing that which exists

02:47:50.940 | and which has existed.

02:47:52.140 | Now, if you are looking at governments throughout history

02:47:56.740 | that have always existed,

02:47:58.400 | and when you were on Lex, you said,

02:48:00.500 | "What I'm talking about has never existed."

02:48:03.900 | - That's right.

02:48:04.740 | - To say that this, therefore,

02:48:06.380 | that that has a possibility of working in reality,

02:48:10.200 | I think is certainly not a point in that favor, number one.

02:48:13.380 | And number two, Jefferson was a fraud.

02:48:16.260 | What Jefferson argued how America would look

02:48:19.300 | did not come true.

02:48:20.800 | Jefferson's concerns about the Constitution were accurate.

02:48:24.740 | And the fact is the federal government

02:48:26.660 | did become centralized, did become a civil war.

02:48:29.820 | So if you told Mr. Jefferson,

02:48:31.940 | "The government you're positing can't work,"

02:48:34.140 | you would have been correct.

02:48:35.540 | - That's not what I'm saying.

02:48:37.540 | It's not the issue of can it work or not.

02:48:39.660 | It's the issue of can something exist

02:48:42.020 | that hasn't existed in the past?

02:48:43.620 | It's a silly argument.

02:48:46.260 | Now, we can argue about the facts of reality

02:48:48.020 | whether such a thing can exist,

02:48:50.020 | but to say it hasn't existed in the past

02:48:52.020 | is not an argument about whether it can exist in the future.

02:48:54.820 | But that's the argument you made.

02:48:55.980 | - No, no, you're talking about history

02:48:57.100 | and now you're dancing around it.

02:48:58.340 | - No, I'm not.

02:48:59.180 | - Yes, you are.

02:49:00.000 | - I'm saying that something different happened

02:49:03.020 | in the founding of America.

02:49:03.980 | It might not have been perfect.

02:49:05.260 | Might not have been ideal.

02:49:06.260 | It might have been some people even think it was bad.

02:49:08.260 | - Sure, it was different.

02:49:09.100 | - If something different happened,

02:49:10.540 | and you could have sat 20 years before and said,

02:49:12.780 | "Well, that's never happened before,

02:49:14.060 | "so it can't happen in the future."

02:49:15.660 | That is a bad argument.

02:49:17.700 | That's not a good argument.

02:49:19.140 | Irrelevant.

02:49:20.340 | - No, but you're making the argument

02:49:21.740 | that just because something hasn't happened before,

02:49:24.340 | that's certainly not a point to say it's likely to happen

02:49:26.660 | or possible.

02:49:27.820 | - No, I'm saying, first of all,

02:49:30.700 | I agree that everything we know about what's possible

02:49:34.100 | or what's not possible has to be from reality.

02:49:36.540 | That we agree completely.

02:49:37.780 | I think anarchists completely evade that point.

02:49:40.620 | I think you guys live in a world of mythology,

02:49:45.260 | of abstraction, of Descartes,

02:49:47.420 | to imagine the kind of anarchy

02:49:49.620 | that David Friedman or Rothbard describe.

02:49:52.420 | It's complete fiction, and it's complete mysticism.

02:49:56.740 | - Okay, let me ask just a few dumb questions.

02:49:59.180 | So first of all, what do we do with violence

02:50:02.780 | in terms of just natural emergence of violence

02:50:06.460 | in human societies?

02:50:07.580 | - Sure.

02:50:08.420 | So the idea that anarchism proposes

02:50:12.300 | is that we would, as the community grows,

02:50:15.300 | there may be violence,

02:50:16.380 | and then we together form collectives

02:50:19.100 | that sort of fund mechanisms that resist that violence.

02:50:22.340 | I'd love to sort of talk about violence

02:50:25.660 | because that seems to be the core thing.

02:50:28.620 | That's the difference between the state

02:50:30.540 | that has a, was definitionally, I guess,

02:50:33.460 | is the thing that has a monopoly on violence

02:50:36.140 | or controls violence in such a way

02:50:39.060 | that you don't have to worry about it.

02:50:40.300 | And then the anarchism, I don't know.

02:50:42.300 | - I know, I'm just laughing 'cause--

02:50:43.660 | - I'm using bad words.

02:50:44.540 | - No, your definition is accurate,

02:50:45.860 | but the point is that being the definition of the state

02:50:49.380 | versus how states act in reality is just absurd, yeah.

02:50:52.460 | - So, and then the idea that anarchism would be

02:50:55.860 | is that it's more kind of a market

02:50:58.580 | of defenses against violence.

02:51:01.340 | So you have like security companies,

02:51:03.740 | and then you hire different ones

02:51:05.060 | that are more competent.

02:51:06.420 | - You have things being made affordable.

02:51:09.060 | You have more accessibility to security.

02:51:11.740 | You have accountability when people misuse their power,

02:51:14.940 | and you have more layers of security

02:51:19.100 | than having a government monopoly.

02:51:20.380 | What's that, every, objectivists understand,

02:51:23.620 | and they don't deny this.

02:51:24.660 | This is something they talk about constantly,

02:51:26.460 | is anytime you have a government monopoly,

02:51:29.340 | it's going to have enormous distortions as a consequence.

02:51:32.820 | It's going to be expensive.

02:51:34.140 | It's going to be ineffective.

02:51:35.460 | And when you're talking about ineffectiveness in markets,

02:51:38.100 | that's not just like the cup sucks.

02:51:40.300 | It often means mass death.

02:51:42.140 | It often means persecution.

02:51:44.020 | So this is something that anarchism,

02:51:47.300 | if not entirely prevents, certainly mitigates enormously.

02:51:50.740 | - So can I just, as a thought experiment,

02:51:52.700 | say it was very easy to immigrate to another country,

02:51:55.300 | like where you could just move about

02:51:57.020 | from government to government.

02:51:59.100 | Would that alleviate most of the problems

02:52:00.980 | that you have towards the state,

02:52:02.740 | which is like people being free to choose

02:52:05.380 | which government they operate under?

02:52:07.460 | Wouldn't that essentially become--

02:52:08.300 | - Ask him, yeah.

02:52:09.700 | - So like, what is, I'm trying to understand

02:52:12.380 | why governments aren't already the thing

02:52:16.460 | that's the goal of anarchism.

02:52:18.260 | The kind of collectives that emerge under anarchism

02:52:21.620 | seems to be what government--

02:52:23.020 | - You're equating two terms.

02:52:24.460 | So there's something called like private governance,

02:52:26.980 | and there's government.

02:52:28.140 | So for example, if I go to Yaron's house,

02:52:32.180 | and he has a rule, take off your shoes, become your house.

02:52:35.340 | If you wanna really be kind of silly about it,

02:52:38.340 | you could say he's the governor.

02:52:40.220 | But it's really nonsensical to say that.

02:52:43.220 | If you go to Macy's, right?

02:52:44.900 | If you wanna return your sweater,

02:52:46.660 | Macy's rules are right up there.

02:52:49.300 | You have seven days.

02:52:50.700 | If you don't have a receipt,

02:52:51.580 | you're gonna get store credit.

02:52:52.540 | If you do have a receipt, you get a refund.

02:52:54.260 | So every organization, every bar, every nightclub,

02:52:57.660 | your house has rules of governments.

02:53:00.020 | This is, it's often they're unspoken.

02:53:01.820 | This is unavoidable.

02:53:02.900 | No one in America by law has to pay a tip,

02:53:07.900 | but it's just customary.

02:53:09.300 | You go at the waiter, you give him 15, 20%,

02:53:11.620 | so on and so forth.

02:53:12.980 | Now, what anarchism does is it says,

02:53:16.460 | okay, security is something that is of crucial,

02:53:20.620 | essential human need.

02:53:22.580 | We all need to be safe in our property,

02:53:24.700 | safe in our purpose.

02:53:26.260 | The organization that by far is the biggest violator of this

02:53:30.660 | and always has been, always will be is the government.

02:53:33.220 | Why?

02:53:34.060 | 'Cause it's a monopoly, 'cause it has no accountability.

02:53:36.860 | And look at the rioting last year, right?

02:53:40.220 | If you have one agency,

02:53:42.060 | pretend it's not the government, pretend it's Apple.

02:53:44.380 | And Apple has the, in charge of security in this town.

02:53:47.460 | People are rioting, people are looting.

02:53:49.620 | And Apple says,

02:53:50.580 | "Yeah, we're not gonna send people into work.

02:53:52.460 | "And if you try to defend yourself,

02:53:54.380 | "we're gonna put you in jail as well."

02:53:56.060 | That's the problem of having a government monopoly.

02:53:58.780 | And that's something that anarchism solves for.

02:54:00.860 | - So, okay.

02:54:01.700 | But don't you, 'cause you said no accountability.

02:54:05.060 | Don't you mean to say poor accountability?

02:54:07.420 | - No, I mean to say no accountability.

02:54:09.420 | - But isn't that the idea of democracies?

02:54:11.700 | - I'm not for democracy.

02:54:12.940 | - No, not for democracy,

02:54:14.020 | but like the system of governments that we have,

02:54:17.100 | there is a monopoly on violence,

02:54:19.820 | but there is a, I mean, at least in the ideal,

02:54:23.060 | but I think in practice as well, there's an accountability.

02:54:25.820 | - I do not think that's--

02:54:26.660 | - I know you're a critic of the police force

02:54:27.900 | and all those kinds of things,

02:54:28.820 | but the military is accountable to the people.

02:54:31.660 | - I do not agree.

02:54:32.500 | - The police force is accountable to the people.

02:54:34.900 | Perhaps imperfectly, but you're saying not at all.

02:54:37.780 | - Not at all.

02:54:38.620 | And we've seen many examples of police officers

02:54:41.500 | doing horrific things on video

02:54:43.900 | and they don't even lose their pension.

02:54:44.740 | - But there's a lot of amazing police officers, no?

02:54:47.780 | - I mean, no, there are not.

02:54:49.780 | - So you're saying by nature,

02:54:51.660 | police is like a fundamentally flawed system.

02:54:53.780 | - No, by nature, government monopoly on police

02:54:56.100 | is a fundamentally irredeemable system.

02:54:58.940 | We'll talk about private security.

02:55:00.940 | If I have a private security firm,

02:55:03.260 | you could have that under a government,

02:55:05.140 | and as a result of my private security,

02:55:07.700 | my person who I'm bodyguarding gets shot,

02:55:10.660 | that's going to be very bad for my company

02:55:12.940 | as compared to competing companies.

02:55:15.060 | However, when you have a government monopoly

02:55:16.820 | and I get people shot, what are you going to do?

02:55:19.220 | - So the problem is that all the examples

02:55:23.660 | are going to be within the context of an existing government.

02:55:25.860 | This is why I said the cell phone example

02:55:27.460 | and all these other examples of us being here.

02:55:29.260 | We're not in anarchy, that is absurd.

02:55:31.180 | We're under a particular system of law

02:55:33.060 | and the system of laws applies

02:55:34.300 | and we know that this particular system of laws applies.

02:55:37.780 | So the problem is when you have--

02:55:40.300 | - There are many laws that we're not going to be enforced.

02:55:43.180 | That we're not-- - Sure, we know that.

02:55:44.420 | - Violence related? - No, there are lots of laws

02:55:46.660 | that are not going to be enforced.

02:55:47.820 | Right, and that doesn't make this anarchy

02:55:52.820 | because there are other laws out there.

02:55:54.300 | They could be enforced, which makes it an enormous risk.

02:55:57.180 | But look, there's a number of issues here.

02:55:59.980 | There's an issue of the role of force in human society.

02:56:03.420 | - I got to clarify a thing

02:56:04.260 | 'cause I think you misunderstood what I said.

02:56:06.620 | I'm not saying that America is anarchist.

02:56:08.860 | What I'm saying is the three of us

02:56:10.140 | have an anarchist relationship between us

02:56:11.740 | because none of us have authority over the others.

02:56:13.500 | That's what I'm saying.

02:56:14.340 | - But that's a bad use of the word anarchy.

02:56:16.740 | - No, that's the correct use of the word anarchy.

02:56:18.380 | - It makes it meaningless.

02:56:19.260 | It makes it, every time any people get together,

02:56:21.860 | they have an anarchistic relationship.

02:56:23.580 | - Yes. - No, we have

02:56:24.540 | a voluntary relationship.

02:56:25.740 | - That's what anarchism means, voluntarism.

02:56:27.500 | - No, it doesn't.

02:56:28.340 | It's a political system. - You wanna get a dictionary out?

02:56:30.860 | - You're taking a word and it's accepted usage,

02:56:33.780 | and then you're saying, oh no, it means--

02:56:35.780 | - You mean like selfishness?

02:56:36.940 | - Maybe, and we never finished that discussion.

02:56:39.140 | You're taking a word, we're taking a word

02:56:40.980 | that you're defining as, and replacing it with voluntary.

02:56:45.220 | Now, voluntary-- - Okay, fine,

02:56:46.060 | I'm not for anarchism or voluntarism.

02:56:47.500 | Fine, go ahead. - But let me,

02:56:48.780 | let's understand what voluntary means, right?

02:56:51.220 | So we, for example, go into stores

02:56:52.980 | and there's a certain relationship

02:56:54.500 | that we have with the store that we engage

02:56:56.380 | in certain voluntary transactions with that store.

02:56:58.820 | Now, I believe that that works

02:57:00.980 | because there is a certain system of law

02:57:04.060 | that both the store and we have accepted

02:57:06.900 | that makes that possible.

02:57:08.740 | Now, if that didn't, there are certain people

02:57:11.660 | who would like to walk into the store

02:57:12.740 | and just take the stuff, right?

02:57:14.500 | So there is a, not, we might not,

02:57:17.020 | but there are certain people

02:57:17.860 | who might want it to go into their store.

02:57:19.180 | There's a certain system of laws

02:57:20.460 | that regulates the relationship

02:57:23.540 | and that defines the property rights

02:57:26.300 | and then provides protection for the property rights.

02:57:28.740 | Now, you would like all that privatized.

02:57:30.620 | That is, the store would have its police force

02:57:32.700 | and that would be privatized.

02:57:34.020 | Now, I don't believe that force can be privatized.

02:57:36.620 | And there are many reasons-- - And it shouldn't.

02:57:41.100 | - I don't think it can.

02:57:42.580 | And I don't think, I think it's a--

02:57:45.060 | - That's an interesting distinction.

02:57:46.660 | - I don't think it can because I think

02:57:48.620 | that it's an unstable equilibrium, right?

02:57:50.540 | I don't think competing police forces can work.

02:57:54.380 | At the end, the police force with the biggest gun

02:57:57.900 | always wins and always takes over--

02:57:59.540 | - That's not true. - And becomes authoritarian.

02:58:01.260 | - Look at Iran and Iraq, excuse me.

02:58:03.500 | We had the bigger guns, we didn't win.

02:58:06.260 | Look at Afghanistan.

02:58:07.420 | - We didn't, we didn't win partially

02:58:10.840 | because none of that is an example of anarchy.

02:58:13.260 | - No, but you said, you just said

02:58:14.260 | the guy with the biggest gun is gonna win.

02:58:15.660 | - Yeah, the guy with the biggest gun--

02:58:16.580 | - We didn't win in Vietnam.

02:58:18.180 | We had the bigger guns.

02:58:20.140 | - But again, you're taking it outside of a context.

02:58:22.140 | That was a context in which,

02:58:24.220 | that was a context in which countries are fighting,

02:58:25.900 | not a context in which there is no country.

02:58:28.300 | - Okay, let's suppose you, Yaron, have a rocket launcher.

02:58:30.900 | - Yes. - And there's 100 people

02:58:32.260 | with handguns, how are you gonna win?

02:58:34.180 | You have the biggest gun.

02:58:35.940 | - Oh, believe me, I could win.

02:58:37.620 | - With one rocket launcher against 100 people?

02:58:39.260 | - Yeah, it's just, well, it depends how many rockets

02:58:41.580 | I have in the rocket launcher

02:58:42.420 | and whether I'm willing to use them.

02:58:43.980 | But that's, but so now it's democracy

02:58:46.300 | because there are more of them that they win.

02:58:48.300 | Look, any one of these scenarios, all it does,

02:58:52.980 | so let's go back to the store, so--

02:58:54.980 | - This is fascinating, by the way.

02:58:56.100 | I'm really enjoying this.

02:58:57.180 | I just wanna say that.

02:58:58.140 | This is great.

02:58:58.980 | (laughing)

02:59:00.780 | Because-- - I'm glad you are.

02:59:01.980 | I am enjoying the pain.

02:59:03.540 | - And I'm also enjoying the comments

02:59:04.860 | that are gonna happen.

02:59:06.420 | - Oh, the comments, the comments are gonna be

02:59:08.060 | overwhelmingly on your side.

02:59:09.500 | I know that. - I don't think so.

02:59:10.340 | - Because people like honesty. - I don't think so.

02:59:11.340 | - No.

02:59:12.180 | - So I think the anarchy position is completely dishonest.

02:59:13.940 | - I'm a modern day, what's his name?

02:59:15.780 | What's the guy who was defending communism?

02:59:17.940 | - Oh, Richard Wolff.

02:59:18.860 | - I'm a modern day Richard Wolff.

02:59:20.220 | (laughing)

02:59:21.420 | - There's a sense in which I think anarchists

02:59:23.580 | are evading reality in the same sense.

02:59:26.980 | You know, so we've got this--

02:59:28.420 | - Do you think I'm dishonest or delusional?

02:59:31.060 | - I think you--

02:59:31.900 | - Calling someone dishonest is a really specific--

02:59:34.980 | - That's true.

02:59:35.820 | - I think you're delusional.

02:59:36.900 | - I think you're delusional

02:59:37.860 | and I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt

02:59:39.380 | of being delusional.

02:59:40.220 | - Okay, good.

02:59:41.060 | - And we all love each other. - That's fair.

02:59:44.140 | - And as I said-- - Life is long.

02:59:46.300 | - And as I said on the show, on the previous interview,

02:59:50.140 | I said only smart people can be anarchists

02:59:52.580 | because it requires a certain level of abstraction

02:59:54.660 | of being divorced from reality that is hard

02:59:58.060 | for people who are actually connected to reality.

02:59:59.780 | - He makes a good point 'cause I always talk about this

03:00:01.660 | with people on social media and they talk about

03:00:03.900 | a lot of people who buy into the corporate media narrative

03:00:07.020 | and how they're dumb.

03:00:07.860 | I go, it's easier to train smart people than dumb people.

03:00:10.620 | It's easier to convince smart people of the systemic

03:00:13.060 | that's divorced from reality than somebody's dumb.

03:00:14.540 | - They can deal in abstractions.

03:00:15.380 | They don't have to deal with the concretes

03:00:17.140 | that actually happen.

03:00:18.180 | This is an example I gave debating another anarchist.

03:00:23.860 | - Who was it?

03:00:25.180 | She must have sucked.

03:00:26.220 | Well, you were the best.

03:00:28.380 | - They were Hoppe fans.

03:00:29.580 | - Oh, okay, Hoppe.

03:00:30.420 | - Hoppe fans, not one of my least liked,

03:00:33.380 | the people I liked the least in the world out there.

03:00:36.380 | - You like them better than the communists, don't you?

03:00:40.860 | - Barely.

03:00:41.780 | - Oh, come on, seriously?

03:00:43.020 | - Yes, 'cause I think it leads to the same place.

03:00:44.420 | I really do.

03:00:45.260 | I think it leads to gulags.

03:00:46.100 | - Fine.

03:00:46.940 | - I think anarchy leads to gulags.

03:00:47.780 | And I think Hoppe's view of anarchy

03:00:49.340 | definitely leads to gulags.

03:00:50.260 | - I'll grant you just for the sake of argument

03:00:52.020 | that it leads to gulags.

03:00:52.980 | However, surely you concede that they are against gulags

03:00:57.460 | whereas the communists have no problem with it.

03:00:58.980 | And that's a big--

03:01:00.060 | - I think some do.

03:01:00.980 | I'm not sure people like Hoppe do

03:01:03.100 | because if you read some of his stuff, one wonders.

03:01:06.660 | But once monarchies and he once--

03:01:10.380 | - No, he said monarchy is a preferable to democracy,

03:01:12.340 | which is true.

03:01:13.180 | - No, it's not.

03:01:14.020 | Oh, God.

03:01:15.220 | I mean, one of the problems with anarchists is--

03:01:17.100 | - One judge, that's the monarch.

03:01:18.700 | - One of the problems, yeah.

03:01:20.980 | One judge, one authority.

03:01:22.540 | This is why I think-- - The monarch.

03:01:23.540 | - That's why I think--

03:01:24.580 | - So you're Hoppean.

03:01:26.540 | - Anarchists are Hoppeans.

03:01:27.380 | - So Yaron Brooks is Hoppean.

03:01:28.860 | - No, I'm not Hoppean. - Get in the chopper.

03:01:29.700 | - I don't want one judge.

03:01:30.980 | I don't want an arbitrary judge.

03:01:33.180 | I want an objective judge.

03:01:34.660 | - There's an essay by John Hasnas,

03:01:36.620 | I think his name, I'm gonna bungle it.

03:01:37.860 | It's gonna be in my upcoming book on anarchism.

03:01:40.060 | And he just discusses,

03:01:41.340 | and it's a very long, complicated technical issue,

03:01:43.980 | that the idea of objective law is incoherent.

03:01:47.420 | - Well, yeah, I mean, that's why we disagree so much.

03:01:50.020 | Because I think objective law is the only coherent system.

03:01:53.140 | - Do you disagree that we, in effect,

03:01:56.720 | have competing systems of law under America?

03:02:01.580 | Meaning there's different ideologies.

03:02:04.060 | You have the Sotomayor ideology

03:02:05.460 | versus the Scalia ideology.

03:02:07.220 | And that effectively, and the point being,

03:02:09.580 | when you and I file a lawsuit,

03:02:11.540 | it completely depends on who the judge is.

03:02:13.340 | - Yes, and in theory, in theory,

03:02:15.940 | I don't think the system works this way,

03:02:17.140 | but in theory, the way the system would work

03:02:19.220 | is that on new issues, there is some competition.

03:02:23.220 | - Hi, it's nice to meet you.

03:02:24.220 | - Siri, I wasn't talking to you.

03:02:26.340 | Technology.

03:02:27.540 | - Capitalism.

03:02:28.860 | - So in theory, the system works,

03:02:30.580 | and this works, I think, with competing states,

03:02:33.020 | but also with competing legal views,

03:02:36.860 | particularly on a new issue.

03:02:38.340 | There's some, this is how common law worked, right?

03:02:42.200 | There's some evolution of it,

03:02:43.780 | and at some point, that gets codified into the law,

03:02:46.740 | and it gets objectified in that sense.

03:02:48.460 | That is, there's some conclusion that people come to.

03:02:51.620 | This is the role, in theory, of a legislature,

03:02:54.140 | and the legislature would be nice

03:02:55.340 | if it was composed of people

03:02:57.300 | who had some idea of legal philosophy.

03:03:00.300 | - Sure.

03:03:01.140 | - And it gets codified.

03:03:02.700 | And when it, because these things are complex,

03:03:04.860 | and at some point, it goes through all the arguments,

03:03:08.060 | and then a certain truth emerges,

03:03:10.020 | or a certain truth is identified,

03:03:11.700 | and that's what gets encoded in law.

03:03:13.860 | That's what the purpose of a legislature is.

03:03:15.780 | Now, if you have competing mechanisms

03:03:19.140 | that don't converge on one authority,

03:03:21.720 | because there's no one authority,

03:03:23.060 | there are multiple authorities.

03:03:24.380 | That is, in a sense, there are multiple governments,

03:03:26.220 | or multiple systems of enforcement, right?

03:03:29.740 | Then you get not just something emerging out of it,

03:03:34.600 | what you get is competing legal systems.

03:03:37.700 | Competing legal systems that now have

03:03:40.340 | competing mechanisms of enforcement.

03:03:43.620 | Competing police forces, competing militaries,

03:03:46.140 | however we want to define it.

03:03:47.880 | And now there's no mechanism to resolve that.

03:03:50.460 | Now, yes, we could negotiate,

03:03:53.060 | and there's goodwill, and so on, right?

03:03:55.820 | - Yeah, there you go. - No, no.

03:03:57.380 | But now we're talking about the law,

03:03:59.900 | what each view, each position views as true and right.

03:04:04.900 | And it might involve, for example,

03:04:08.480 | it might involve the fact that the legal system

03:04:11.160 | has come to the conclusion that it's okay

03:04:12.740 | for children to have sex with adults,

03:04:15.000 | and this legal system thinks that is evil and wrong.

03:04:18.120 | - Sure. - Right?

03:04:19.180 | And something has happened between the two.

03:04:23.840 | How do you resolve that conflict?

03:04:25.160 | There is no resolution.

03:04:26.600 | If this adult wants to have sex with this child,

03:04:29.060 | this legal system thinks it's okay,

03:04:30.320 | that legal system thinks it.

03:04:31.720 | The only way to resolve that system

03:04:33.400 | is through one system imposing itself on the other.

03:04:35.680 | An example of countries is exactly that.

03:04:37.560 | When you had monarchies,

03:04:39.000 | when you had little states all over the place,

03:04:41.200 | the way any kind of dispute was resolved

03:04:43.940 | when there were issues of territorial disputes,

03:04:46.160 | or issues of marriage, or issues

03:04:47.720 | of different legal interpretations of how, was war.

03:04:51.440 | - No, it wasn't. - War, yes, it was.

03:04:52.280 | - It was marriage.

03:04:53.440 | A lot of times people would marry a princess

03:04:55.240 | from another country just to have peace.

03:04:56.080 | - Sure, forced marriages, which was not very pleasant.

03:04:58.800 | - I'd rather sacrifice one princess than a country.

03:05:00.980 | - No, I don't wanna sacrifice anybody.

03:05:02.860 | And in addition, I don't wanna sacrifice anybody.

03:05:03.700 | - I wanna sacrifice the royals.

03:05:05.360 | - And in addition, well, I don't want royals.

03:05:07.500 | - Well, that's what sacrificing means.

03:05:08.340 | - I think royals are pretty disgusting.

03:05:09.180 | - Okay, I agree.

03:05:10.000 | - And then on top of that,

03:05:13.100 | look, those periods in history are filled with violence,

03:05:15.940 | much more violence than we have today,

03:05:18.020 | much more bloody than they are today,

03:05:19.700 | far less freedom than we have today

03:05:21.580 | in terms of individual freedom.

03:05:22.420 | - You're comparing this to 20th century.

03:05:26.400 | - Yes, I'm comparing a monarchy, right?

03:05:29.160 | You said that's preferable to democracy, right?

03:05:33.400 | I'm comparing-

03:05:34.240 | - I'm saying Hoppe said that.

03:05:35.160 | I'm not saying I'm saying that.

03:05:36.200 | - Oh, I thought you agreed with that.

03:05:37.040 | - To some extent, but I'm not gonna die in that hell.

03:05:39.200 | - Hoppe said that, and I think it's ridiculous.

03:05:41.360 | These kings and queens were fighting constantly.

03:05:44.280 | I mean, the wars back then were violent in a way that-

03:05:47.560 | - Unlike now?

03:05:48.400 | - No, much more violent than now.

03:05:49.520 | If you look at the actual percentage

03:05:50.880 | of people killed in war-

03:05:51.720 | - Yeah, the Steven Pinker book.

03:05:52.560 | - Yeah, if you look at the percentage of people,

03:05:53.960 | and not just that, you can look at the other stats,

03:05:56.340 | that the percentage of people killed in war back then

03:05:58.140 | were far greater than the percentage of people

03:05:59.580 | even during World War II and World War I.

03:06:01.660 | So, anarchy, and David Fiedman loves to quote

03:06:05.440 | the sagas of Iceland about how wonderful the anarchy,

03:06:08.460 | and I mean, it's funny 'cause a lot of people

03:06:10.980 | who read David Fiedman never read the sagas.

03:06:13.080 | It's worth reading.

03:06:14.380 | The sagas of the Iceland are filled with violence,

03:06:18.580 | constant violence, constantly people killing each other

03:06:21.820 | over, "I stole your chickens and you slept with my wife."

03:06:26.820 | The only way to resolve disputes,

03:06:28.580 | the only way to resolve disputes was violence.

03:06:31.640 | There was no authority, there was no mechanism

03:06:33.780 | to resolve these disputes.

03:06:35.020 | There was a council, but the council

03:06:36.500 | couldn't enforce anything, so in the end of the day,

03:06:38.260 | we just resolved the violence.

03:06:39.460 | And this is legalized because there is no mechanism

03:06:44.460 | by which to make the violence illegal.

03:06:46.580 | So, all anarchy is is legalized violence,

03:06:49.660 | constrained up for a while,

03:06:54.660 | and up until people stop that constraint

03:06:58.940 | by arrangements between the security organizations.

03:07:03.940 | But the security organizations have us by the balls,

03:07:06.300 | to put it figuratively, right?

03:07:08.580 | They really do.

03:07:09.420 | - Sure, unlike the state?

03:07:11.100 | - Oh, the state today has it,

03:07:13.020 | but I would much rather live in this state,

03:07:14.940 | much rather live in this state,

03:07:16.300 | much rather live in many more authoritarian states

03:07:18.780 | than this, than a place where there's constant violence.

03:07:22.780 | - I have a bunch of questions, but I'm enjoying this.

03:07:24.540 | - Here's why everything he said is wrong.

03:07:25.780 | - Okay, yes.

03:07:26.620 | - First of all, the idea of competing legal systems

03:07:29.500 | is inevitable, because what Rand talked about

03:07:33.660 | is what she wanted was, and this is really kind of

03:07:37.660 | Eric out of character with her broader ideology is,

03:07:41.020 | I think this was her term, and I'm not saying this

03:07:42.900 | to make fun of you, when she has a judge

03:07:45.500 | and he's looking at the information,

03:07:47.340 | she wants him to be basically,

03:07:49.220 | I think she used the word robot,

03:07:50.820 | someone without any ideology,

03:07:52.540 | that they're just looking at the facts,

03:07:54.060 | they're not bringing their kind of worldview to it.

03:07:56.700 | - I take it as a compliment.

03:07:58.020 | - You are welcome.

03:07:59.100 | I think that given otherwise, her correct view

03:08:06.140 | that ideology, state-constituting ideology

03:08:10.220 | is just a slur for someone's philosophy,

03:08:13.020 | that someone, especially someone as erudite,

03:08:15.420 | educated and informed as a judge,

03:08:17.260 | has to, and in fact should, bring their ideology

03:08:21.100 | to their work is in one sense a little contradiction

03:08:23.740 | in her view, number one.

03:08:25.100 | Number two is, we have right now the DA in San Francisco,

03:08:29.860 | I forget his name, he's the son of literal terrorists,

03:08:32.860 | communist terrorists, and he has made it the decree,

03:08:36.260 | unilaterally, that if you shoplift for less than,

03:08:39.620 | I forget, $200, we're not prosecuting.

03:08:41.660 | - Yeah, I know that.

03:08:42.500 | - You know this guy, right, right, right.

03:08:43.900 | So now you and I, and Lex, I'm sure, probably,

03:08:48.820 | agree that his ideology is abhorrent,

03:08:51.140 | that this doesn't help poor people,

03:08:53.140 | it doesn't help shop owners, it creates a culture,

03:08:57.180 | an area where it's just deleterious to human life.

03:09:00.540 | However, he has, in one sense,

03:09:03.580 | given that he is a state operative,

03:09:05.180 | a legitimate worldview.

03:09:07.140 | - Can I ask you just a quick question?

03:09:08.620 | - Sure.

03:09:09.460 | - Why couldn't a security force in a particular context say,

03:09:13.700 | yeah, if you take stuff from that store,

03:09:16.660 | we're not gonna have any problem with that?

03:09:19.020 | - I agree with you, that's very fair.

03:09:20.260 | That's a very legitimate question.

03:09:21.700 | The point is, in the context that I'm talking about,

03:09:24.900 | that firm is like, wait a minute,

03:09:27.220 | I'm hiring you for security,

03:09:29.020 | you're saying we're not gonna provide security,

03:09:31.060 | why am I writing you a check?

03:09:32.380 | And we have examples of this in real life.

03:09:34.780 | If I get into a car accident with you, right,

03:09:38.260 | you have your car insurance, I have my car insurance,

03:09:41.660 | if your car insurance had their druthers,

03:09:43.620 | they wouldn't pay me one penny.

03:09:45.300 | If my car insurance didn't have their druthers,

03:09:47.460 | they wouldn't pay you one penny.

03:09:48.940 | We already have all, you were saying earlier

03:09:51.660 | that we need to have one kind of umbrella mechanism.

03:09:54.340 | There are already more cases than you can count

03:09:56.580 | where there's private arbitration.

03:09:59.220 | Now, the argument is that private arbitration only works

03:10:02.660 | because they have recourse to the government.

03:10:04.860 | But my point is, there's many examples

03:10:07.540 | where even though that recourse is theoretically possible,

03:10:10.300 | it's not a realistic concern,

03:10:12.340 | specifically because they know

03:10:15.380 | that if you have recourse to the state,

03:10:17.540 | you have no concept of what that outcome

03:10:20.420 | is going to look like,

03:10:21.620 | except knowing it's gonna be exorbitant,

03:10:24.860 | it's going to be time consuming.

03:10:26.740 | Talk to the--

03:10:28.460 | - We can't use the state, right,

03:10:30.020 | I mean, I'm as critical as the state as it is right now,

03:10:33.380 | maybe not as critical as yours, not as critical as yours,

03:10:35.860 | but I'm quite critical of the state as it is right now.

03:10:38.700 | But let's say we got into a traffic accident

03:10:41.100 | and you have a Rolls Royce,

03:10:43.020 | and I destroyed your Rolls Royce,

03:10:46.220 | and my insurance company now owes your insurance company

03:10:48.460 | a lot of money.

03:10:49.420 | And let's imagine it's a lot of money just for the sake--

03:10:51.460 | - And that you're clearly guilty.

03:10:52.940 | - Yeah, clearly guilty.

03:10:53.940 | And my insurance company looks at the books

03:10:55.620 | and it goes, you know, I don't, really,

03:10:58.220 | I don't wanna pay this.

03:10:59.060 | - Sure.

03:10:59.900 | - And you know what,

03:11:00.720 | I've got bigger guns than his insurance company.

03:11:02.100 | - Sure.

03:11:02.940 | - And I'm just gonna take over their insurance company.

03:11:05.140 | And hostile takeover takes on a whole new meaning

03:11:08.780 | when I can muster guns on my behalf

03:11:12.220 | than in a hostile takeover in a capitalist context.

03:11:17.220 | That to me is what happens,

03:11:19.020 | that to me is inevitably what happens.

03:11:21.540 | And I think this is where the delusion comes in.

03:11:24.180 | The idea that everything,

03:11:25.660 | that when big money is involved and power is involved,

03:11:29.580 | remember, again, the same kind of politicians

03:11:32.140 | who today get into politics are likely to want to run

03:11:35.740 | some of these security agencies

03:11:36.980 | 'cause they'll have a lot of power over people.

03:11:39.060 | So same kind of, maybe sociopaths would be--

03:11:42.620 | - I don't think it's the same skillset,

03:11:43.820 | but that's a separate issue.

03:11:44.660 | - I think it very much is.

03:11:46.820 | But--

03:11:47.660 | - You think the people in Washington

03:11:48.860 | are the same as CEOs psychologically and skillset-wise?

03:11:51.500 | - Well, today's CEOs, yes.

03:11:52.860 | - Okay.

03:11:53.700 | - Yes.

03:11:54.520 | - You might be right.

03:11:55.360 | - Because I think that's what's rewarded for a CEO

03:11:57.820 | is somebody who could get along with government.

03:12:00.100 | - Okay.

03:12:00.940 | - And I think the kind of CEO

03:12:02.820 | who is gonna run a security company,

03:12:04.500 | which is not just about business,

03:12:06.380 | it's about the use of force, it's about control,

03:12:08.780 | it's about negotiation with other entities

03:12:10.620 | that are using force, diplomacy.

03:12:13.700 | Then, and we should get back to objective law

03:12:16.900 | because I think it's essential to this whole argument.

03:12:17.900 | - I would love to get back to something.

03:12:19.180 | - I think all you get into is security agencies,

03:12:22.140 | fighting security agencies, and again, the biggest gun.

03:12:24.620 | And I don't mean here the guy

03:12:26.620 | who has the biggest literal gun,

03:12:28.100 | the rocket launcher versus the guns.

03:12:29.540 | - I got excited for a second.

03:12:31.260 | - By the biggest gun?

03:12:32.100 | - Yeah.

03:12:32.940 | - The party that has the more physical force,

03:12:35.540 | however that is mustered either by numbers

03:12:37.940 | or by weapons is going to dominate.

03:12:39.780 | - Can I--

03:12:40.620 | - And will take over everybody else.

03:12:41.460 | Now, one of the things that's common

03:12:42.820 | in a market is takeovers.

03:12:45.140 | It's consolidation.

03:12:47.140 | And here, the consolidation can happen through force

03:12:50.940 | and you can roll other security companies.

03:12:53.980 | And that's exactly what will happen

03:12:55.420 | until you dominate the particular geographic area.

03:12:57.820 | - Okay, so let me explain why I disagree with that.

03:12:59.940 | You were just saying, and I agree correctly,

03:13:01.920 | I agree with you, that, listen,

03:13:03.860 | if I have access to the bigger gun,

03:13:05.860 | why am I paying you or whoever's paying whatever?

03:13:08.060 | I'm just gonna use force and not pay them.

03:13:10.460 | We have that right now, it's called lobbying.

03:13:12.540 | So instead of me, and I'm sure in your example,

03:13:16.620 | you weren't being literal,

03:13:17.460 | instead of the insurance company literally having the army,

03:13:20.860 | they could be like, hey, let me call Corruptco,

03:13:23.100 | with the mafia.

03:13:23.940 | - I agree.

03:13:24.780 | - Go out and take them out.

03:13:25.620 | By having this federal government, as you know,

03:13:28.220 | and certainly I'm not a fan of,

03:13:30.420 | has, takes more through asset forfeiture

03:13:35.020 | than burglaries combined.

03:13:36.580 | What asset forfeiture is, people don't even understand this.

03:13:38.740 | This is something crazy, which you are on.

03:13:40.700 | - It's unbelievable.

03:13:41.520 | - It's as opposed to me, as opposed as I am,

03:13:43.540 | which is I'm a cop, I go to your house,

03:13:47.020 | I think you haven't been charged or convicted of anything,

03:13:50.420 | I have evidence.

03:13:51.500 | - It's usually in a car.

03:13:52.420 | - Yeah, yeah, but no, it's like drug deals, okay?

03:13:54.460 | I go to your house, you're a drug dealer.

03:13:56.900 | I say, and you can understand the reasoning,

03:14:00.500 | well, if someone is getting profit

03:14:02.660 | through illegal mechanisms,

03:14:04.660 | their profit isn't real, their property,

03:14:06.340 | and they shouldn't be rewarded that property.

03:14:07.760 | So basically, I go to your house, you're a drug dealer,

03:14:10.500 | I seize all your property.

03:14:12.560 | You don't really have recourse,

03:14:14.180 | even though you haven't been through deep,

03:14:15.500 | I'm just explaining to the audience,

03:14:16.500 | been through deep new process and SOL.

03:14:19.780 | That combined, for people who don't know,

03:14:22.900 | is more than the total amount of burglaries in America.

03:14:26.180 | It's a huge, and what happens is the police department,

03:14:29.260 | which seizes your car auctions,

03:14:30.700 | it seizes your house auctions,

03:14:32.020 | it's a great way to line their pockets.

03:14:34.220 | This is a huge incentive, it's horrible.

03:14:36.540 | It's a huge incentive for police departments to do this,

03:14:41.260 | because it's like, look, this guy's a crook,

03:14:43.640 | maybe he's not a drug dealer, but he's clearly a pimp.

03:14:46.620 | Let me just take all his stuff,

03:14:47.780 | and it's gonna go to the community.

03:14:49.140 | - Well, and the rationale originally was,

03:14:51.820 | if I try him, in the meantime, he'll take that money,

03:14:55.100 | and funnel it somewhere else, and hide it,

03:14:58.220 | and I'll never be able to get access to it.

03:14:59.980 | And it was passed in the 1970s,

03:15:02.100 | under the original Caesar laws,

03:15:04.540 | what kind of RICO Act, going after the mafia.

03:15:07.500 | And one of the reasons I despise Giuliani as much as I do,

03:15:11.380 | and there's very few politicians out there

03:15:12.940 | that I despise more, is because he was the first guy

03:15:15.940 | to use RICO on financiers.

03:15:18.100 | And so it wasn't even a drug deal.

03:15:19.740 | It was, you were accused of a financial fraud.

03:15:23.340 | - Not, you weren't shown to be guilty, accused.

03:15:26.940 | - Yeah.

03:15:27.780 | - All your assets basically were forfeiture.

03:15:30.140 | - Innocent until proven guilty, went out the window.

03:15:31.940 | - If you were managing money, you were done,

03:15:34.060 | you were finished.

03:15:34.900 | - So you're saying this kind of stuff

03:15:36.020 | naturally emerges with the states.

03:15:37.420 | - Hold on, so my point is, what are presented

03:15:39.980 | as the strongest criticism of anarchism,

03:15:42.100 | are inevitably descriptions of status quo.

03:15:44.260 | What you're describing is already the event.

03:15:47.020 | I am a big insurance company, I don't wanna pay you,

03:15:50.820 | I call Washington, either I pay you

03:15:53.060 | and Washington gives me a subsidy.

03:15:54.620 | So what you're describing is an inevitable aspect

03:15:57.820 | of having a government.

03:15:59.180 | - So what I'm describing is the inevitable evolution

03:16:02.060 | of anarchy into a government.

03:16:03.500 | I just think that the--

03:16:04.540 | - Markets don't consolidate into monopoly.

03:16:06.420 | That's a leftist propaganda myth.

03:16:08.420 | - Not markets where you have substitute products,

03:16:12.060 | but this is the problem.

03:16:13.340 | The problem is force has no substitute.

03:16:15.580 | That is force is not a product you can have.

03:16:18.020 | So this is my fundamental issue

03:16:19.980 | about turning competing police forces.

03:16:22.660 | Force is not a product.

03:16:24.140 | Force is not a service. - It's a service.

03:16:25.180 | - It's not a service and it's not a product.

03:16:26.580 | - Security is not a service?

03:16:27.540 | - No, well security in the context of a legal system is,

03:16:31.940 | but this is the point, the legal system,

03:16:34.260 | the laws are not a service or a product.

03:16:37.580 | They are a different type of human institution.

03:16:41.940 | Science is not a product or service.

03:16:44.620 | It's a different type of human institution.

03:16:46.460 | There are different types of human institutions.

03:16:48.020 | Some are marketable, you can create markets in,

03:16:50.620 | some you cannot.

03:16:51.780 | Law is not a marketable system.

03:16:54.300 | - Can I ask a question quickly?

03:16:55.700 | Is there any other field other than law

03:16:57.860 | that you think you can't create markets?

03:16:59.580 | - Well, science.

03:17:00.420 | Science is not marketable.

03:17:01.660 | The science itself is not marketable.

03:17:03.060 | Well, sure, science is true.

03:17:04.380 | And the same, I think, is in law.

03:17:05.740 | Law is not marketable.

03:17:06.900 | Law is the system that allows markets to happen.

03:17:10.780 | You need a system of law, whether it's private law

03:17:13.260 | in a particular narrow context or whether it's broader law.

03:17:16.540 | Law is the context in which markets arise.

03:17:20.220 | So one of the reasons we transact is we know

03:17:23.180 | that there's a certain contract between us,

03:17:24.860 | explicit or implicit, that is protected by a certain law,

03:17:27.780 | whether it's protected by private agency,

03:17:29.740 | the government doesn't matter,

03:17:30.700 | but there's a certain contract that is protectable, right?

03:17:34.340 | By a system. - Theoretically.

03:17:35.500 | - Theoretically, yes. - Yes.

03:17:36.900 | - So law is the context in which markets arise.

03:17:40.540 | You don't create a market because there's nothing above it,

03:17:45.540 | in a sense.

03:17:46.940 | There's no, it is the context

03:17:49.060 | that allows markets to be created.

03:17:51.180 | Once you market it, markets fall apart.

03:17:54.300 | - So hold on a second.

03:17:55.140 | Yaron, hold on.

03:17:55.980 | So you think that law could be a market?

03:17:58.940 | - And it already is a market.

03:18:00.220 | And we see it, for example, eBay.

03:18:02.140 | If I am buying something from Yaron,

03:18:04.180 | I won't even know his name.

03:18:05.420 | I don't know, maybe he's in another country.

03:18:08.060 | And he screws me out of the money.

03:18:10.740 | I don't have access, I can't sue you.

03:18:12.780 | Or if I sue you in England, good luck with that.

03:18:15.100 | You're not gonna argue that I'm gonna sue you.

03:18:16.700 | What happens in this case,

03:18:17.860 | which has already been solved by the market,

03:18:19.900 | eBay and PayPal, which has access to your bank account,

03:18:22.860 | they act as the private arbiter.

03:18:24.580 | They're gonna get it wrong a lot.

03:18:26.460 | Not even a question, just like Yaron's not gonna argue

03:18:29.780 | that the government right now gets it wrong a lot.

03:18:31.780 | That's not even a question.

03:18:32.780 | The point is, at the very least,

03:18:35.660 | I'm going to get my resolution faster

03:18:37.980 | cheaper and more effectively.

03:18:39.700 | So the issue with having any kind of government, anything,

03:18:42.660 | and Yaron's not gonna disagree with this,

03:18:44.740 | is at the very least, it's going to be expensive,

03:18:47.580 | inefficient, and cause conflict.

03:18:50.620 | - Yeah, but I think what it allows is exactly--

03:18:53.060 | - We don't even know what the Supreme Court's gonna judge.

03:18:56.340 | - Again, you're moving us to today's environment,

03:18:58.540 | which I'm against, right? - I'm moving us to reality.

03:19:00.580 | - No, but reality doesn't have to be what it is.

03:19:03.460 | I mean-- (Zubin laughs)

03:19:04.340 | - That's the most anti-Rand quote.

03:19:05.700 | - No, in a sense-- - Reality doesn't have

03:19:07.260 | to be what it is. - In a sense of the politics.

03:19:09.260 | The political reality. - I know,

03:19:10.580 | but the quote by itself is great.

03:19:11.700 | - I know, I know, you'd love to--

03:19:12.980 | - He agrees with Donald Hoffman, is what he's saying.

03:19:14.940 | - Yeah, it turns out I agree with Hoffman.

03:19:16.300 | - He's an elf, is what it is.

03:19:18.100 | - So it's, where were we?

03:19:20.780 | So I believe that because we have

03:19:23.220 | a certain system of government, right,

03:19:25.460 | it allows for these private innovations to come about

03:19:29.500 | that facilitate certain issues in a much more efficient way

03:19:32.740 | than the government would deal with it.

03:19:33.980 | But it's only because we have a particular system

03:19:37.980 | that has defined property rights,

03:19:40.140 | that has a clear view of what property rights are,

03:19:42.820 | it has a clear view of what a transaction mean

03:19:45.980 | or what contract law is,

03:19:48.060 | and eBay has a bunch of stuff that you sign,

03:19:50.860 | whether you read it or not. - Sure, of course.

03:19:52.340 | - All of that is defined first,

03:19:55.220 | and then there are massive innovations

03:19:57.260 | at the level of particular transactions,

03:20:00.940 | at the level of an eBay,

03:20:02.420 | that facilitate increased efficiency, and that's great.

03:20:06.300 | But the fact is, none of that gets developed,

03:20:08.380 | none of that gets created.

03:20:10.140 | In a world in which I might be living

03:20:12.180 | under a different definition of property rights,

03:20:14.340 | eBay might be living under a separate definition

03:20:16.260 | of property rights, you might have a third definition

03:20:18.140 | of property rights, and there's no mechanism

03:20:20.620 | by which we can actually operationalize that,

03:20:23.540 | because we all have a different system of law.

03:20:25.020 | - There is a mechanism, we already have that.

03:20:26.940 | Let's change the example I just used.

03:20:28.820 | What happens if a Chinese person

03:20:30.580 | who has different definition of property rights

03:20:32.460 | kills an American in Brazil?

03:20:35.100 | - Again, in a smaller community,

03:20:38.140 | what happens is lots of violence.

03:20:40.220 | - No, but I'm talking about right now.

03:20:41.540 | If a Chinese person had--

03:20:42.940 | - Right now, the only reason that it doesn't lead

03:20:45.460 | to violence is because people are afraid

03:20:47.380 | of even more violence, and it affects many people,

03:20:50.860 | large numbers of people who don't wanna go to war.

03:20:53.220 | But if you have small, in a state

03:20:57.620 | where the states were small,

03:20:59.260 | like in those little state, there was war all the time

03:21:02.060 | for exactly those reasons, because the cost was lower,

03:21:05.740 | because it was more personal,

03:21:08.500 | because I knew maybe the person who was killed over there,

03:21:11.260 | and I went to my king and encouraged him to go to war.

03:21:13.860 | - You know why there was war?

03:21:14.700 | - Violence is constant.

03:21:15.620 | - You know why there was war?

03:21:16.860 | Because there had been no Ayn Rand,

03:21:19.660 | and good ideas lead to good societies,

03:21:23.180 | which leads to good people, which leads to good behavior,

03:21:25.680 | good interrelationships.

03:21:26.900 | So now that we have Ayn Rand,

03:21:29.140 | all this stuff in the past is irrelevant,

03:21:31.140 | 'cause if they studied her works,

03:21:32.620 | Rand was on "Donahue" again, you can watch the clip,

03:21:37.180 | and he asks her, she goes, he goes,

03:21:40.060 | "You're saying that if we were more selfish

03:21:42.860 | and acted more self-interest, there'd be less war,

03:21:46.060 | less Hitler," and she said, "There wouldn't be any."

03:21:48.940 | Right? - That's right.

03:21:50.940 | Well, if we were all selfish,

03:21:51.780 | there wouldn't be any Hitlers, right?

03:21:53.540 | - But who do you regard as the overweening authority

03:21:57.460 | if I am buying a product from you

03:22:00.060 | as someone in England via eBay?

03:22:02.580 | Who's the governing authority?

03:22:04.140 | - The governing authority is,

03:22:07.220 | are the legal systems in England and the United States,

03:22:09.820 | which have to be synchronized pretty well.

03:22:11.940 | - Right, but what I'm saying is--

03:22:12.780 | - It's why eBay doesn't function in certain countries,

03:22:16.100 | because there is no legal system--

03:22:17.100 | - I agree with you.

03:22:17.940 | - In those countries. - My point is,

03:22:18.760 | why do those legal systems have to be a function

03:22:20.980 | specifically of geography,

03:22:22.780 | as opposed to, why can't I, sitting here,

03:22:25.780 | I could sit here, you're not-- - Because--

03:22:27.420 | - Let me finish my point.

03:22:28.260 | I can sit here and be a British diplomat, right?

03:22:31.700 | And as a British diplomat,

03:22:32.980 | I'm going to be treated differently under American law

03:22:35.500 | than you are as an American citizen, as you are.

03:22:37.580 | Why can't you have that same process?

03:22:40.660 | Sure, we're geographically proximate,

03:22:43.020 | but I'm a citizen of this company,

03:22:45.180 | and you're a citizen of that company.

03:22:47.180 | Why would that be different, in your opinion?

03:22:49.940 | - If it's England and the United States,

03:22:52.340 | it's probably not gonna matter that much, right?

03:22:55.240 | But if it's Iran and the United States,

03:22:58.540 | then the fact that we're sitting next to each other

03:23:00.860 | makes a huge difference, massive difference.

03:23:03.220 | And the fact is that,

03:23:05.220 | and Ayn Rand, I think, would be the first to acknowledge this

03:23:07.780 | and this is why she was so opposed to anarchy.

03:23:10.420 | It's not-- - That's not why.

03:23:12.180 | - It is why. - It's 'cause of Rothbard.

03:23:13.540 | - No, it has nothing to do with--

03:23:15.180 | - Nothing? - It has nothing to do

03:23:16.340 | with Rothbard. - Nothing.

03:23:17.180 | - Nothing. - How do you know?

03:23:18.140 | - Nothing. - How would you know?

03:23:19.060 | - Because her argument against anarchy

03:23:22.180 | is an intellectual one, not a personality--

03:23:23.980 | - It's gotta be both? - Anyway, but--

03:23:25.640 | - No, it has nothing to do-- - Back to it, back to Iran.

03:23:27.320 | Back to Iran. (laughs)

03:23:28.520 | - No, it has nothing to do with Rothbard.

03:23:30.320 | - You don't know that, you're not a psychic,

03:23:32.280 | or a necromancer.

03:23:33.240 | - The only way we're gonna resolve this is arm wrestling,

03:23:36.240 | right, it's through violence.

03:23:37.360 | - Arm wrestling's not violence.

03:23:38.760 | (laughs)

03:23:39.960 | - Words are violence.

03:23:41.320 | - Words are violence, Yaron.

03:23:42.600 | - Words are violence, emotions are violence.

03:23:44.800 | (laughs)

03:23:45.840 | - So, wait, but-- - He throws me off

03:23:47.480 | with this stuff, but that's the problem.

03:23:49.160 | - Even facts and truths? - He's very, very good.

03:23:50.760 | No, not facts and truths.

03:23:51.800 | I mean, there's distortions and arbitrary statements,

03:23:54.540 | because your statement about Rothbard

03:23:55.900 | is an arbitrary statement that has no cognitive standing,

03:23:59.540 | and therefore I can dismiss it.

03:24:01.060 | So I'm not doing like this because I wanna dismiss it.

03:24:03.260 | It has no cognitive status.

03:24:05.020 | The fact that she disliked Rothbard

03:24:07.020 | doesn't mean that everything he said

03:24:08.860 | she was gonna dismiss because she disliked him.

03:24:10.380 | - I agree with you, but what I'm saying is,

03:24:11.940 | it would not be impossible-- - But there's no evidence.

03:24:14.580 | - I'll give you, I'll talk, I'll give you some evidence.

03:24:16.700 | Human psychology.

03:24:18.220 | It is not impossible that if you hate some,

03:24:22.000 | what's his name, what's that guy's name?

03:24:23.360 | - Richard Wolff. - Richard Wolff, right.

03:24:24.600 | It's not impossible that if Richard Wolff said something

03:24:28.360 | that you would otherwise agree with,

03:24:30.480 | hold on, let me finish, you'd be dismissive

03:24:32.360 | or less likely to give him credit for it,

03:24:34.360 | being a human being.

03:24:35.380 | That's all I'm saying.

03:24:36.220 | - It's as silly as to say Rothbard came up

03:24:38.560 | with this theory of anarchy because he was pissed off

03:24:42.160 | at Ayn Rand and wanted to write something.

03:24:44.000 | - I don't know, bring it down,

03:24:45.840 | because bring it down so that he can speak too

03:24:48.880 | and let's keep it, because--

03:24:51.120 | - I don't think we're getting agitated.

03:24:52.240 | - No, you guys aren't.

03:24:53.360 | No, no, no.

03:24:54.200 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:24:55.820 | - Bring it down not in terms of,

03:24:57.880 | in terms of give more pauses so Michael can insert himself.

03:25:02.800 | That's what I mean.

03:25:03.640 | - See, private governance. - What's the point of that?

03:25:05.400 | - Private governance. - No, God.

03:25:06.240 | - Look, he's, look, it's private governance.

03:25:08.720 | - I'm all for private governance.

03:25:09.560 | - I'm trying to establish a geographic law of the land.

03:25:12.360 | I don't know. - That's not the point.

03:25:13.600 | - I do think that Michael's,

03:25:15.400 | I mean, that's interesting that you disagree with this.

03:25:17.480 | I do believe that psychology has an impact on ideas

03:25:21.880 | and Ayn Rand, you don't think Ayn Rand had grudges

03:25:25.640 | that impacted the way she saw the world?

03:25:29.400 | I would like to think that--

03:25:31.680 | - I don't think any of her grudges

03:25:33.100 | entered into philosophical statements,

03:25:34.800 | at least not that I can tell.

03:25:36.960 | And I don't see, and given the centrality Ayn Rand gave,

03:25:41.200 | and if you, to the role of government,

03:25:43.560 | to the existence of government,

03:25:44.400 | to the need for government, to establish real freedom,

03:25:48.400 | and the way she defines freedom,

03:25:49.840 | which is very different than Rothbard,

03:25:51.560 | and the way she defines government,

03:25:53.280 | to say then that her opposition to anarchy

03:25:57.600 | is because of, I think is just an arbitrary statement.

03:26:00.600 | - I didn't say because of.

03:26:01.440 | I didn't say because of, I said followed by.

03:26:03.280 | - And not, and I don't see why psychology would answer it.

03:26:07.200 | Now, maybe the tone in which you responded to an answer

03:26:10.620 | might have been motivated by that or something like,

03:26:12.280 | but given the amount of thought she gave

03:26:14.000 | to the role of government in human society

03:26:15.400 | and why government was needed,

03:26:17.000 | and why you needed laws in order to be free,

03:26:20.280 | that freedom didn't proceed,

03:26:22.280 | you needed the right hierarchy.

03:26:25.520 | I think that we could say that,

03:26:28.840 | give it at least the respect that she, this was,

03:26:32.560 | she might've been wrong, right?

03:26:34.240 | But she had a particular theory that rejected anarchy,

03:26:37.980 | and the thought anarchy was wrong.

03:26:39.480 | - Okay, hold on.

03:26:40.320 | I really resent, and I'm not saying you're doing this,

03:26:42.960 | the implication that if Rand was guided by her passions,

03:26:47.280 | that somehow is a criticism of her or lessens her.

03:26:49.800 | I think Rand was a very passionate person.

03:26:52.280 | I think she loved her husband enormously.

03:26:56.840 | She despised certain people enormously.

03:27:00.040 | And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

03:27:02.280 | - I don't think she would change her philosophical position

03:27:04.520 | about something because she disliked somebody.

03:27:06.240 | - I agree, but what I'm saying--

03:27:07.080 | - Given the amount of thought she gave

03:27:08.600 | to that philosophical position.

03:27:09.440 | - All I'm saying is, it is possible

03:27:12.680 | that if someone comes across ideas

03:27:15.320 | that she had not considered before,

03:27:17.840 | if she regarded this person as a bad actor,

03:27:20.680 | like all of us, she would be less likely

03:27:23.600 | to take them under consideration.

03:27:25.000 | - Sure.

03:27:25.840 | - That's all I'm saying.

03:27:26.660 | - Sure, and I think other people confronted her

03:27:29.400 | with ideas of anarchy.

03:27:30.320 | I don't think Rothbard was the only one.

03:27:31.760 | - Correct, Roy Charles as well, yeah.

03:27:32.960 | - Roy Charles certainly did.

03:27:34.000 | And she rejected them, and she rejected them

03:27:35.560 | because she had, and whether you agree with her or not,

03:27:38.520 | she had a thought out position

03:27:41.280 | about why you needed to have this particular structure

03:27:46.040 | in place so that markets and human freedom could exist.

03:27:49.840 | - It's just really interesting

03:27:51.080 | because this is the one time, in my view,

03:27:54.000 | and please correct me if I'm wrong,

03:27:55.640 | where she invokes need as kind of a basis

03:27:59.280 | for political activity.

03:28:01.000 | So let's suppose you want this federal government,

03:28:04.080 | whatever you want, you don't want it like it is now,

03:28:05.840 | but like your version of the government.

03:28:07.820 | I don't see why it's an issue for you,

03:28:11.520 | for me and Lex, to say we're not privy to Washington,

03:28:15.960 | we're gonna do our own thing,

03:28:17.560 | and given, if we go about our lives not initiating force

03:28:21.300 | and being productive actors,

03:28:22.880 | why she would have an issue with this.

03:28:24.080 | - Why would I care?

03:28:25.020 | - Well, you would care because if you're saying

03:28:26.860 | the government has a monopoly on force

03:28:28.660 | between these two oceans--

03:28:29.840 | - So you can do that as long as you don't violate

03:28:31.920 | somebody else's rights.

03:28:32.760 | - Sure, but what I'm saying is

03:28:33.720 | we just declare ourselves sovereign.

03:28:35.560 | We're not gonna pay any income taxes.

03:28:37.520 | We're gonna be peaceful people.

03:28:39.080 | We're gonna get your,

03:28:39.920 | and when Lex and I have disputes,

03:28:42.520 | we're gonna call Joe, that's Joe Rogan.

03:28:44.960 | You're never gonna get to meet him, but he's a good guy.

03:28:46.840 | - I know.

03:28:47.680 | (laughing)

03:28:48.500 | - We're gonna call Joe, and Joe's gonna resolve it.

03:28:50.920 | - He's so good at like, you know,

03:28:53.080 | needling and getting you off topic that way.

03:28:56.040 | It's really, he's really effective at it.

03:28:58.600 | - He's Muhammad Ali and you're Joe Frazier.

03:29:00.680 | - I always say when I debate communists,

03:29:03.440 | I always say to them--

03:29:04.880 | - You mean Lex?

03:29:06.220 | - Yeah, maybe Lex, maybe I should--

03:29:08.000 | - Tom Rad, I love you.

03:29:09.880 | - That if they really believe--

03:29:11.120 | - Burgundy, not Rad.

03:29:12.400 | - If they really believe in what they think,

03:29:14.320 | then they should be advocates for capitalism

03:29:15.840 | 'cause under capitalism, under my system of government,

03:29:18.080 | capitalist government, right,

03:29:19.800 | they could go and start a commune.

03:29:21.960 | They can live a communist.

03:29:22.960 | They can live to each according to,

03:29:25.520 | to each according to his needs,

03:29:26.720 | from each according to his ability,

03:29:28.480 | all they want and live their pathetic,

03:29:30.400 | miserable lives that way,

03:29:31.680 | and the government would never intervene

03:29:33.520 | because the whole view of capitalism is freedom,

03:29:37.020 | is we live the way along, right?

03:29:38.780 | As long as you're not violating my rights,

03:29:40.340 | as long as you're not taking my property,

03:29:42.080 | as long as you're not engaging with,

03:29:44.560 | so in that sense, yeah, you and Lex can form your own thing.

03:29:48.500 | I don't believe in compulsory taxes anyway.

03:29:50.540 | So you and Lex can do your own thing, never pay taxes.

03:29:53.280 | As long as you're not violating the laws,

03:29:57.180 | and the laws are very limited, right,

03:29:58.620 | 'cause they're only there to protect individual rights.

03:30:00.100 | So as long as you're not violating

03:30:01.420 | somebody else's property rights

03:30:02.580 | or inflicting force on anybody else, you're peaceful.

03:30:06.180 | You can do what you want.

03:30:07.220 | You know, don't have, yeah.

03:30:08.540 | - Great, case closed.

03:30:09.380 | - Don't have sex with kids, right?

03:30:11.900 | - I will stop immediately.

03:30:13.340 | - Good.

03:30:14.180 | - The rest of us are just playing checkers

03:30:15.220 | and he's playing chess.

03:30:16.100 | - Yeah, I mean, a government

03:30:18.180 | that protects individual rights properly

03:30:19.900 | is a government that leaves you alone

03:30:21.060 | to live your life as you see fit,

03:30:22.280 | even if you live your life in a way

03:30:24.020 | that I don't approve of, that I don't think is right.

03:30:26.020 | I mean, that's the whole point, right?

03:30:27.140 | - Okay, then we're in agreement.

03:30:29.060 | - The only thing you can do is,

03:30:32.000 | you know, try to enforce arbitrary laws

03:30:35.000 | that you come up with on me.

03:30:36.000 | - Of course, absolutely.

03:30:37.480 | Okay, great.

03:30:38.320 | - Wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a world

03:30:42.240 | where rights protecting laws are superfluous,

03:30:45.200 | but the reality is usually that somebody violates them,

03:30:48.820 | whether by accident or intentionally,

03:30:52.360 | and that you need some mechanism.

03:30:54.000 | Now, if you guys can resolve that dispute

03:30:56.080 | without getting involved, fine.

03:30:58.720 | But if you guys land up not wanting, not resolving,

03:31:02.480 | there is another authority that will help you resolve it.

03:31:05.720 | - Yeah, I'd come to that.

03:31:06.560 | - So can I ask you a question?

03:31:07.400 | Under anarchism, what kind of systems of laws

03:31:12.400 | do you think will emerge?

03:31:13.220 | Do you think we'll have basically a similar kind of layer

03:31:15.880 | of universal law to where like--

03:31:18.560 | - Let me answer this, this is a great question.

03:31:19.800 | I know what you're going to do with this.

03:31:21.720 | This is often presented as a criticism of anarchism,

03:31:25.360 | and this is actually something I think Yaron

03:31:27.280 | would agree with as well in other contexts, which is this.

03:31:30.080 | One of the reasons communism can't work,

03:31:32.440 | central planning can't work,

03:31:33.480 | and this was one of Mises' great innovations,

03:31:35.560 | is if I could sit down, it's like asking,

03:31:38.960 | what would the fashion industry look like

03:31:40.960 | if the government didn't run it?

03:31:42.480 | There's no way for me to know.

03:31:43.960 | What the fashion industry is,

03:31:45.400 | which all of us are in favor of it being free,

03:31:47.360 | is literally millions of designers, of seamstresses,

03:31:51.760 | of people who make the fabric,

03:31:54.840 | also references throughout history,

03:31:56.520 | and these creative artistic minds putting things together,

03:31:59.780 | and every year, and there's no shortage of clothes.

03:32:03.400 | In fact, we make so many clothes

03:32:04.980 | that we send them in landfill sizes

03:32:07.120 | to overseas poor countries,

03:32:08.760 | and you have people in these desolate countries

03:32:10.440 | wearing like Adidas shirts, they can't even read English,

03:32:13.040 | but because we don't know what to do with all these clothes.

03:32:15.080 | That's how the glory of free enterprise is.

03:32:18.400 | The problem is, problem used loosely,

03:32:21.560 | everything comes cheap and overabundant, like food.

03:32:24.960 | - Well, it doesn't actually come overabundant.

03:32:26.440 | It's done properly.

03:32:27.440 | - Sure, that's fair.

03:32:28.640 | - It's supply meets demand.

03:32:29.920 | - Sure, that's fair, but I'm saying is like,

03:32:31.320 | if 150 years ago you said,

03:32:33.240 | you know, one day we're gonna have an issue

03:32:34.840 | where there's gonna be so much food,

03:32:36.760 | and then the kids are too fat,

03:32:38.720 | it's just gonna be like,

03:32:39.920 | "I have four who are dead in the crib, I wish."

03:32:42.960 | I mean, what kind of paradise is this?

03:32:46.520 | So what you would have,

03:32:49.000 | we have this right now in certain centers,

03:32:50.880 | you have the Hasidim, you have Sharia,

03:32:52.880 | you have different, you have,

03:32:54.320 | I'm sure in the medical system,

03:32:56.600 | they have their own kind of private courts,

03:32:58.120 | and court-martials is another example of this,

03:32:59.840 | although obviously that's through the state.

03:33:01.400 | So you would have innovation in law under markets

03:33:05.920 | just the same way as you'd have it,

03:33:07.200 | and we have this already.

03:33:09.120 | Maybe it's not, Yaron doesn't like in terms of like,

03:33:11.440 | murder and rape, and I can understand why,

03:33:13.480 | but in terms of like, business and interactions,

03:33:16.440 | he would have no problem with different arbitration firms

03:33:19.360 | having different rules for like,

03:33:21.080 | what kind of evidence is allowed,

03:33:22.600 | maybe you only have 60 days to make your case,

03:33:24.560 | and so on and so forth,

03:33:25.720 | and the market is a process of creative innovation,

03:33:29.000 | and it would be dynamic, it would be changing over time.

03:33:30.760 | - So what's interesting relating to this is,

03:33:33.560 | one of the ways Ayn Rand proposed

03:33:35.320 | raising revenue for the government,

03:33:36.560 | 'cause she was against, was, let's say we have a contract.

03:33:40.040 | We could just have it arbitrated

03:33:43.440 | without government interfering,

03:33:45.560 | but if we wanted to access the courts of the government

03:33:48.480 | as a final authority, we would pay,

03:33:51.280 | and that's how governments would raise,

03:33:53.000 | some of the funds would be raised that way.

03:33:55.600 | So there's definitely a value to having this innovation

03:34:00.600 | and the public space,

03:34:01.920 | but I don't believe that is the case with murder,

03:34:04.800 | I don't believe that is the case with violent crime,

03:34:06.760 | and it's funny you bring up Sharia,

03:34:08.600 | 'cause David Friedman, when he gives--

03:34:11.120 | - Wait, I gotta ask you to clarify,

03:34:12.280 | I'm not trying to interrupt you.

03:34:13.320 | You were talking about with murder, I mean,

03:34:15.160 | you would agree, I think, just to clarify for the audience,

03:34:17.640 | that there is room for innovation in murder,

03:34:19.880 | because there's things like manslaughter,

03:34:21.240 | there's murder one, murder two.

03:34:22.320 | - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:34:23.160 | I don't think it happens at a market level.

03:34:26.120 | I don't think there's a market innovation for murder.

03:34:28.520 | Somebody has to figure out what those standards are.

03:34:30.640 | They will evolve as we gain more knowledge.

03:34:32.720 | - But we're all agreement that the word murder

03:34:34.880 | means very different things.

03:34:36.120 | - Oh, absolutely, and if circumstances matter,

03:34:38.480 | and what are you, standards of proof,

03:34:41.600 | and standards of evidence, all of that,

03:34:43.400 | there has to be a standard. - And consequences too, yes.

03:34:45.120 | - All of that, there has to be a standard,

03:34:46.640 | and that's what I think a proper government provides.

03:34:51.200 | But, so David Friedman uses,

03:34:53.240 | in some of his talks about private law,

03:34:54.840 | he uses Sharia law in Somalia as an example.

03:34:59.720 | Look, legal systems evolve privately, independent.

03:35:03.680 | Yeah, authoritarian ones,

03:35:05.920 | ones that don't respect the rights of women at all.

03:35:08.880 | Are you married?

03:35:10.160 | - No, no, but we all wanna have sex with our mother,

03:35:13.000 | as Freud would say.

03:35:14.360 | - Oh my God, can we make that a clip?

03:35:16.520 | - Yep.

03:35:17.360 | - Where the hell did that come from?

03:35:19.320 | (laughing)

03:35:20.240 | That's much better than what I was just saying about the kids.

03:35:23.120 | - I appreciate that.

03:35:23.960 | Okay, so we went in a voluntary way,

03:35:26.880 | although sometimes for Yaron, and sometimes for Michael,

03:35:29.400 | it felt involuntary, but we all got the big guns.

03:35:34.200 | So how do we land this?

03:35:37.240 | Clearly there's a disagreement about anarchism here.

03:35:41.480 | - I think there's a big agreement,

03:35:43.640 | because if Yaron was saying that if I wanna have

03:35:46.000 | my voluntary stupid thing with you,

03:35:48.400 | and his government is not gonna tax me,

03:35:51.120 | and is not gonna insinuate itself

03:35:52.960 | unless we're murdering each other, something like that,

03:35:54.840 | I'm okay with that.

03:35:55.680 | - So if you take the example of Sharia law,

03:35:58.440 | which was mentioned earlier,

03:35:59.720 | so if you have a little community within my world,

03:36:04.720 | that imposes Sharia law,

03:36:06.780 | if it starts mutilating little girls,

03:36:12.240 | then you impose your law on it, right?

03:36:15.400 | You impose the law on it,

03:36:16.760 | because it's an issue of protecting individual rights.

03:36:18.600 | If they wanna treat women, if women have to cover up,

03:36:22.280 | and the women are okay with that, that's fine.

03:36:24.360 | If the woman wants to leave, but is not allowed to leave,

03:36:28.040 | that's where my government would step in,

03:36:30.240 | and prevent them from using force against her.

03:36:35.240 | And that's it, right?

03:36:37.040 | - Okay.

03:36:37.880 | - Now, I think it's more complicated than that, right?

03:36:39.800 | Because I think there are complex issue property rights

03:36:42.440 | often where it's not gonna be easy for you guys to resolve,

03:36:46.000 | and particularly if you interact with people

03:36:47.920 | outside of your community.

03:36:49.080 | - Sure.

03:36:49.920 | - But yeah, my view is government is there

03:36:54.840 | to protect individual rights, that's it.

03:36:56.960 | Otherwise, leave you alone.

03:36:58.440 | - I think this conversation is gonna continue

03:37:00.760 | for quite a while.

03:37:02.200 | Michael has a new book on the topic

03:37:04.760 | coming out eventually, one day.

03:37:06.640 | So you're working also on, still called The White Pill?

03:37:09.800 | - The White Pill, yeah.

03:37:10.640 | And the first line of The White Pill is,

03:37:13.880 | "Ayn Rand did not laugh."

03:37:15.800 | I'm not joking, that's literally the first line.

03:37:18.480 | - I believe you.

03:37:19.320 | - 'Cause it opens up with her,

03:37:21.320 | who knows what the book's gonna look like when it's done,

03:37:23.080 | but as of now, that's the beginning.

03:37:24.720 | 'Cause it opens up with her testimony at the House

03:37:27.880 | on American Activities Committee,

03:37:29.440 | where she's trying to explain to these Congress people

03:37:33.320 | what it was like when she left the Soviet Union,

03:37:36.480 | and they are just befuddled by it.

03:37:38.640 | - Can you explain she did not laugh?

03:37:40.560 | - Well, 'cause the first line in the fountainhead,

03:37:42.040 | spoiler alert, is "Howard Rourke laughed."

03:37:43.840 | So this is a little inversion of that.

03:37:45.520 | It says, "Ayn Rand did not laugh."

03:37:46.920 | Because she had this,

03:37:48.920 | Ayn Rand was a huge fan of America, as am I.

03:37:52.480 | She took our political system very seriously.

03:37:57.360 | She had enormous reverence for institutions.

03:38:00.000 | One example of this is one of the villains

03:38:03.240 | of the Atlas Shrugged is based on Harry Truman.

03:38:06.680 | I think Thompson is the character's name.

03:38:08.720 | And because she had such respect for the name,

03:38:11.040 | for the title of president,

03:38:12.240 | she refers to him as the chairman.

03:38:13.500 | She couldn't even bring herself--

03:38:14.480 | - She had a huge respect for the presidency.

03:38:17.160 | I wonder if she'd still have it,

03:38:18.360 | given the last string of presidents we've had.

03:38:20.640 | - So having her,

03:38:23.560 | which sets up the broader point of the book,

03:38:25.680 | which I'm sure I'll be back on the show to discuss,

03:38:28.480 | assuming this bridge hasn't been burned,

03:38:30.000 | but I'll try my best.

03:38:32.000 | - All three of us are canceled.

03:38:34.320 | Some are more canceled than the others.

03:38:36.080 | - Uh-oh.

03:38:36.920 | I don't know.

03:38:39.400 | - The point being, which sets up the broader point

03:38:41.640 | of the book is how ignorant many people are in the West

03:38:46.640 | about the horrors of Stalinism and communism,

03:38:50.700 | but also how many people in the West were complicit

03:38:55.700 | in saying to Americans, "Go home, everything's fine.

03:39:00.940 | "This is great.

03:39:02.000 | "Sure, this is why Pence stopped the race.

03:39:04.360 | "They're sure there are mistakes."

03:39:05.840 | And they really made a point to downplay,

03:39:08.280 | really gratuitously, some of the unimaginable atrocities

03:39:13.280 | of the communism.

03:39:15.200 | And just one more sentence,

03:39:16.720 | and going through the work and learning

03:39:19.960 | about what they actually did is so jaw-dropping

03:39:24.720 | that it's, and if I didn't know about it,

03:39:27.560 | many people I'm friends with who are historians

03:39:29.400 | who entered the space,

03:39:30.680 | this isn't common knowledge to them,

03:39:32.160 | then we can assume that almost no one knows about it.

03:39:35.080 | And I think it's very important for people

03:39:37.920 | to appreciate whether Republican, Democrat, liberal,

03:39:40.920 | whatever, how much of a danger this is.

03:39:44.840 | And I think Americans have this,

03:39:47.320 | there's a book called "It Can't Happen Here,"

03:39:49.120 | I think by Sinclair Lewis,

03:39:50.760 | about a fascist who come to America.

03:39:52.880 | American exceptionalism has a positive context,

03:39:55.880 | but also have a negative context

03:39:57.120 | where you think we're invincible.

03:39:59.000 | All these horrible things that happen to other countries,

03:40:00.840 | it can't possibly happen here.

03:40:01.800 | We're America, we're special.

03:40:03.080 | And it's completely an absurdity.

03:40:06.520 | - Yeah, yeah.

03:40:07.600 | Have you seen the movie, Mr. Jones?

03:40:10.000 | - My friend wrote it, no, I haven't,

03:40:12.000 | but Walter Duranty and his quotes,

03:40:14.400 | I have a thread on Twitter,

03:40:15.960 | Walter Duranty, for those who don't know,

03:40:17.720 | he won a Pulitzer 'cause he was

03:40:20.200 | the New York Times man in Moscow.

03:40:22.280 | And endlessly, he was talking about how great it was,

03:40:27.160 | how if you hear about this famine in Ukraine,

03:40:30.920 | this is just propaganda, I went to the villages,

03:40:34.400 | everyone's happy and fed.

03:40:36.480 | A lot of it was explicit lies.

03:40:38.880 | And when you realize you're talking about,

03:40:42.000 | let's give them the absolute benefit of the doubt,

03:40:44.240 | an accidental genocide, it's still mind boggling.

03:40:49.240 | And also, Ann Applebaum,

03:40:51.360 | who's just a phenomenal, phenomenal writer,

03:40:53.920 | she wrote a book called "Red Famine,

03:40:56.000 | "Stalin's War in Ukraine."

03:40:57.640 | And she talks about how what people in America appreciate

03:41:01.480 | is how clever in their sadism the Soviets were.

03:41:06.480 | And what they knew to do to Ukraine is everyone is starving,

03:41:10.560 | so they knew if you got some meat on your bones,

03:41:13.040 | you're hiding food.

03:41:14.280 | So they come back at night,

03:41:15.800 | take your hand, put it in the door jam,

03:41:17.320 | keep slamming the door, ransack your house.

03:41:20.280 | They didn't have to find the food,

03:41:21.840 | burn down your house, take all your clothes,

03:41:24.040 | goodbye and good luck.

03:41:25.060 | I don't recall saying good luck, yeah.

03:41:26.800 | So it's--

03:41:27.640 | - So I highly recommend the movie

03:41:29.480 | because it's very well done.

03:41:31.280 | It's very well directed.

03:41:32.480 | It's beautifully made.

03:41:33.880 | It's stunningly effective.

03:41:36.760 | - Okay, good.

03:41:37.600 | - In illustrating exactly that.

03:41:38.440 | The scenes in Ukraine during the famine,

03:41:41.120 | oh, your heart goes, I mean, it's crushing.

03:41:44.240 | And it shifts to black and white.

03:41:45.560 | It's very, very well made aesthetically,

03:41:48.240 | so highly recommend it.

03:41:49.280 | - And it's written by Andrzej Chalupa.

03:41:50.560 | She's a Ukrainian friend of mine.

03:41:52.700 | She introduced me, Janmi Park,

03:41:53.880 | who's a big North Korean defector.

03:41:56.480 | And this is the kind of thing

03:41:59.680 | where I think more people need to,

03:42:01.160 | when I wrote "The New Right,"

03:42:02.960 | which talks a lot about the Nazis

03:42:05.320 | or the kind of neo-Nazis,

03:42:06.680 | one of their big complaints about,

03:42:08.480 | against people who are Jewish is like,

03:42:10.200 | oh, we hear all about the Holocaust.

03:42:12.440 | How come you don't talk about the Holodomor?

03:42:13.680 | I'm like, I'm trying to do my part.

03:42:15.160 | I agree with you that we need to be talking

03:42:17.480 | about the Holodomor. - Absolutely, absolutely.

03:42:19.200 | And it's sad there are more movies that are anti-Soviet,

03:42:22.480 | which tells you a lot about the view of the intelligentsia.

03:42:26.280 | It's a great idea, it just was badly implemented.

03:42:29.000 | And no, it's a rotten idea.

03:42:30.280 | It's an evil idea.

03:42:31.320 | And it was implemented-- - Which was correctly

03:42:32.280 | implemented. - Exactly.

03:42:33.120 | It was implemented exactly how it has to be implemented.

03:42:35.360 | There's no alternative.

03:42:36.520 | - Can we talk about "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged,"

03:42:40.720 | and which character do you find most fascinating,

03:42:45.600 | ones that kind of you meet in your own mind,

03:42:48.600 | that you almost have conversations with,

03:42:50.040 | or has an influence on you and your life in general?

03:42:52.800 | - You know what character I like?

03:42:55.280 | 'Cause I know no-- - Good or bad, sorry.

03:42:56.600 | - No one ever gives this answer,

03:42:58.280 | but this is my, just aesthetically,

03:43:01.080 | you know how sometimes you're drawn to a character

03:43:03.040 | and it's, if this person were real,

03:43:04.680 | you'd think they're just,

03:43:06.000 | but there's something about the resonates with you.

03:43:07.440 | I can't even explain this,

03:43:08.840 | but I love the character in "Atlas Shrugged"

03:43:12.120 | of Lillian Riordan, who's Hank Riordan's wife.

03:43:14.880 | And what is amazing about her,

03:43:17.280 | she says she's his wife, he's this big industrialist,

03:43:20.280 | innovator, and she's this like former beauty,

03:43:23.920 | but she's so cold and soulless that there's,

03:43:28.920 | I mean, I joke about, you know, Anne Rand's vampire novels,

03:43:31.960 | that character is as close to a literal vampire

03:43:35.120 | as you're gonna see in "Rand."

03:43:36.720 | And there's just this great scene

03:43:39.680 | where, you know, Hank Riordan invents Riordan Metal.

03:43:42.160 | It's this great metal, which is extremely strong,

03:43:43.960 | but extremely, it's like light,

03:43:45.680 | so this creates all these innovations.

03:43:47.880 | And he brings her a bracelet

03:43:50.400 | made of the first Riordan Metal.

03:43:52.040 | This is his life goal.

03:43:53.360 | This is like Prometheus bringing fire.

03:43:55.440 | And she's like, "What the fuck is this?"

03:43:57.600 | - It could've brought me diamonds.

03:43:58.520 | - Yeah, it could've brought me diamonds.

03:43:59.360 | What is this shit?

03:44:00.240 | And Dagny, who's another industrialist,

03:44:02.320 | she's a heroine, a very strong female character

03:44:04.560 | in "Atlas Shrugged," is at a party,

03:44:06.480 | and she goes, "I got diamonds, let's trade."

03:44:08.560 | And Lillian's like, "You want this?"

03:44:10.640 | And she's like, "Yes, 'cause that's the concretization

03:44:12.640 | "of the human mind.

03:44:13.480 | "These are rocks."

03:44:14.640 | And Lillian's like, "Okay, whatever."

03:44:16.800 | And that character is someone

03:44:21.120 | who has a lot of resonance in our culture,

03:44:23.720 | this kind of soulless.

03:44:25.480 | It's easy to write a soulless male figure,

03:44:29.120 | like Peter Keating, in some ways, is soulless,

03:44:31.520 | but that, for some reason, when it's like a soulless female,

03:44:36.240 | it seems that much more chilling and effective.

03:44:40.080 | Do you not agree, though, that Lillian Riordan

03:44:41.800 | is an amazingly, very powerful figure?

03:44:43.440 | - Powerful figure.

03:44:44.400 | And I think Riordan is, too.

03:44:47.120 | And what I love about Riordan is his evolution, right?

03:44:51.120 | He's so flawed.

03:44:52.440 | He's a hero who's completely flawed.

03:44:54.360 | And it drives me nuts when people say,

03:44:56.440 | "Her characters are cartoonish, they never change,

03:44:59.200 | "there's no emotion."

03:45:01.080 | Really?

03:45:01.920 | Did you read the same book I did?

03:45:03.400 | 'Cause if you take Riordan, and he's struggling,

03:45:05.800 | and he's trying to deal with Lillian, and his family,

03:45:07.720 | and all this stuff, and we know family members like this,

03:45:10.480 | right, I mean, who are leeches and parasites,

03:45:14.240 | but he's excusing them,

03:45:15.440 | 'cause that's what he's supposed to do.

03:45:17.080 | And then as he evolves to fully realize,

03:45:20.520 | what's going on, that evolution is difficult, it's hard.

03:45:24.040 | Like the scene after he has sex with Dagny,

03:45:26.040 | of course he gives a speech, but the speech is,

03:45:28.360 | (laughing)

03:45:29.760 | it's such a good speech in terms of conveying

03:45:32.480 | his mind-body split, right?

03:45:34.360 | He thinks he really had fun, he really enjoyed the sex,

03:45:37.520 | right, but he thinks it's animalistic,

03:45:40.040 | and he thinks it's a sign of his depravity,

03:45:42.040 | and he thinks, and here he is, this woman he loves,

03:45:44.800 | and he adores her, and--

03:45:46.320 | - And this is not the one.

03:45:47.160 | - And he can't, yeah, and he can't connect the two,

03:45:48.720 | he can't connect the sex with the love.

03:45:50.360 | He can't connect the sex with adoration,

03:45:52.480 | and with the value.

03:45:53.520 | So her characters are anything I think,

03:45:56.560 | but cardboard characters, because I think Dagny,

03:45:59.720 | and the scenes where she's listening to music,

03:46:02.400 | and gets captured by the music,

03:46:04.760 | and the way Ren describes that,

03:46:06.960 | I think it's just beautiful.

03:46:08.080 | Or the scene, my favorite scene in "Atlas"

03:46:10.760 | is the scene where they're crossing,

03:46:15.120 | where they're taking the first train ride

03:46:16.880 | across the John Gold Bridge.

03:46:18.200 | - Oh yeah, the end of Act One.

03:46:19.600 | - And she's, they're in the engine room,

03:46:21.560 | and it's traveling through.

03:46:23.120 | And the way she's describing Dagny,

03:46:25.840 | and it's almost like Dagny's having sex with the machine.

03:46:28.680 | It's so powerful emotionally, the success,

03:46:32.640 | the fact that they did it.

03:46:34.480 | Everybody told them it was impossible,

03:46:36.360 | and the train is going really fast,

03:46:38.240 | and that whole, it's got a sexual vibe to it.

03:46:43.240 | It's all about passion, it's all about success,

03:46:46.560 | and it's all about the success of their minds,

03:46:48.760 | and nobody else matters.

03:46:50.360 | - What's really great about that scene,

03:46:52.560 | just in terms of constructing the novel,

03:46:54.560 | I'm not going to spoil anything.

03:46:56.120 | So "The Atlas Shrugged" has three acts,

03:46:58.480 | like three act structure is not uncommon.

03:47:00.680 | And the first act is about Hank Reardon,

03:47:03.560 | overcoming all this adversity at home,

03:47:05.360 | in his personal life, and in his business,

03:47:07.760 | to create this great achievement.

03:47:09.840 | So Rand really makes the reader invested

03:47:12.640 | in this character and his accomplishments.

03:47:14.600 | He's unambiguously doing something good.

03:47:17.320 | There's no downside here.

03:47:19.120 | He's making it easier to transport people, transport food.

03:47:22.240 | This is really just great.

03:47:23.920 | And it's just, once you read it and you look back,

03:47:26.960 | you're like, she does such a masterful job of making,

03:47:30.720 | you have to be a fan of this person and root for them.

03:47:33.360 | 'Cause she's like, "Oh, you think things are going great?

03:47:35.240 | "He's overcome?

03:47:36.520 | "Hold on a minute."

03:47:37.480 | And then the rest of it, she's just real.

03:47:39.480 | And your sense of injustice is triggered as a reader

03:47:44.480 | to such an nth degree,

03:47:45.960 | because you saw what he went through to get to this point,

03:47:48.560 | and now you're seeing it taking away people inferior to him.

03:47:51.520 | And one of the quotes on Twitter I use all the time

03:47:54.360 | is I'll see someone, politician or a bureaucrat or a thinker,

03:47:59.200 | just advocate for something completely unconscionable.

03:48:02.560 | And I'll just quote and say,

03:48:04.120 | "My favorite criticism of Ayn Rand

03:48:06.560 | "is that they say her villains

03:48:07.960 | "are too evil and unrealistic."

03:48:09.800 | Because the things that people posit with a straight face

03:48:13.080 | are so much worse than she has in her book.

03:48:16.600 | - And not just politicians, you find intellectuals today.

03:48:18.840 | - Oh, of course.

03:48:19.680 | - Way over the top.

03:48:21.800 | Even when I read Atlas Shrugged, I was going,

03:48:24.000 | "Nobody really talks like this."

03:48:25.560 | No, they do.

03:48:26.480 | - Let me give you one example.

03:48:28.080 | There was a story she wrote, which she never published.

03:48:30.440 | They published her journals, the Ayn Rand Institute.

03:48:33.280 | And there was one character,

03:48:34.640 | and this was a prototype of Ellsworth Tewi,

03:48:36.440 | he was one of the villains of "The Fountainhead."

03:48:39.440 | And basically the kid had deformed legs

03:48:41.960 | or broke his legs or something like that.

03:48:43.520 | And he wants to get leg braces.

03:48:45.520 | And the dad is like, "Oh, we're not gonna do that.

03:48:47.560 | "Why should you be better than anyone else?

03:48:49.280 | "You should just have deformity."

03:48:50.600 | - Accept your fate.

03:48:51.440 | - Accept your fate.

03:48:52.280 | And you're reading this, and I'm like,

03:48:53.520 | "What dad is not going to give his kid leg braces?

03:48:56.200 | "It's ridiculous."

03:48:57.280 | But now it's not uncommon for deaf children

03:49:00.640 | to not get cochlear implants and not be able to hear

03:49:04.560 | 'cause their parents say,

03:49:05.840 | "Well, we're gonna lose deaf culture."

03:49:08.240 | Hearing is just information.

03:49:09.520 | And you're sitting there,

03:49:10.560 | and whether you agree with this or not,

03:49:11.920 | this is very close to what she was saying.

03:49:14.800 | And when I read what she was saying,

03:49:16.200 | I'm like, "Okay, crazy Ayn Rand, this is not a thing."

03:49:18.720 | And it's like, "Oh, yeah, the craziness

03:49:20.840 | "is that it's not braces, it's hearing."

03:49:22.840 | - Yeah, and what evil to deny your kid hearing?

03:49:26.080 | I mean, God.

03:49:27.640 | - So here's the other thing.

03:49:28.880 | If you want deaf culture,

03:49:29.880 | which I would believe is a thing, sign language, whatever,

03:49:32.160 | they could turn it off.

03:49:33.240 | Yeah, if you want, give them the choice.

03:49:35.280 | Tonight, I'm sorry, one more thing.

03:49:38.920 | You know, Rand used the word evil frequently.

03:49:41.600 | And I think maybe I can make the argument

03:49:43.720 | she used it too loosely.

03:49:45.200 | If you are denying a child the gift of music,

03:49:48.440 | I will say that's evil.

03:49:49.440 | - I agree, completely.

03:49:50.880 | - Unambiguously.

03:49:51.920 | Go online and watch videos of people getting hearing aids

03:49:57.840 | and being able to hear for the first time.

03:49:59.880 | - And seeing what happens to their faces.

03:50:00.720 | - I promise you, you will cry

03:50:02.920 | because there's no pure, I'm getting teared up right now.

03:50:06.360 | There's no pure expression of humanity

03:50:09.480 | and technology at its best

03:50:11.360 | than seeing a two-year-old or one and a half-year-old

03:50:14.040 | who can't even talk.

03:50:15.360 | And then you see the reaction when they hear mom's voice.

03:50:17.480 | It's so beautiful and moving.

03:50:20.240 | - Absolutely.

03:50:21.160 | - Yeah, there's a few things that's moving.

03:50:22.720 | It's like, it's one of the ways

03:50:26.360 | to rethink technology, perhaps.

03:50:28.160 | - And there's this, it's really funny

03:50:29.960 | 'cause sometimes it'll be this tough dude, right?

03:50:32.400 | And he's been deaf all his life.

03:50:33.920 | And then they put hearing in,

03:50:35.240 | the girlfriend's like, "Can you hear me?"

03:50:36.640 | And he's trying to be tough for three seconds.

03:50:38.160 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, he just loses his grip.

03:50:39.920 | And you just sit there, it's just this.

03:50:41.640 | - No, absolutely, and that's true of any sense.

03:50:44.080 | - Like colorblind people seeing color for the first time,

03:50:46.240 | that kind of thing.

03:50:47.080 | I think there's a few.

03:50:47.920 | - It's not quite the same, but it's somewhat.

03:50:50.760 | But if you're blind and suddenly can see,

03:50:53.200 | I mean, it's just stunning.

03:50:55.120 | I mean, and how do we form our concepts?

03:50:57.160 | How do we think?

03:50:58.000 | We have to, we get information from reality, right?

03:51:00.760 | We interact with reality through our senses

03:51:04.120 | and that's how we become conceptual beings.

03:51:06.680 | And you deny an element of that from a human being.

03:51:09.600 | That is horrible.

03:51:10.480 | - There's a potential that would then neural link to,

03:51:12.880 | so further developments there.

03:51:14.520 | So, I mean, on that, there's a powerful question

03:51:17.760 | of who is John Galt?

03:51:19.640 | I don't know if we can do this without spoiler alerts.

03:51:21.320 | - Yeah, don't spoil the book.

03:51:22.400 | - Okay.

03:51:23.240 | - But you can say--

03:51:24.480 | - What's the importance of this character?

03:51:26.320 | What's the importance of this question?

03:51:27.640 | - I mean, without the importance of,

03:51:29.080 | so I once gave a talk on who is John Galt.

03:51:31.400 | And who is John Galt in a sense

03:51:32.960 | is anybody who takes their own life seriously.

03:51:35.360 | Anybody who's willing to really live fully their own life,

03:51:39.360 | use their mind in pursuit of their rational values

03:51:42.120 | and pursue their happiness fully uncompromisingly

03:51:45.840 | with no compromise and sticking to their integrity.

03:51:50.840 | Anybody can be John Galt in that sense.

03:51:55.080 | - I think one of the mottos I live by is all,

03:52:00.080 | we are tasked to, maybe this is a little bit religious,

03:52:02.880 | but I think your own is gonna agree with it.

03:52:04.280 | I'm sure you'll agree with it.

03:52:05.640 | All any of us can do is leave the world

03:52:08.120 | a little bit of a better place than we found it.

03:52:10.280 | And I think if you do that through hard work,

03:52:12.480 | being honest, being not at the expense of other people,

03:52:16.280 | you can go to your grave patting yourself on the back.

03:52:19.680 | - I mean, to me, the leaving the world a better place,

03:52:23.040 | yeah, I mean, that's not what drives me.

03:52:27.040 | What drives me is, I mean, what I think drives people.

03:52:29.760 | I think just live a good life.

03:52:31.760 | And good life means a life you're happy living.

03:52:34.720 | And part of that is the impact you have on the world,

03:52:37.880 | but it's, so many people live wasted lives,

03:52:41.480 | live mediocre lives, live conventional lives.

03:52:44.960 | Maybe they even leave the world a better place,

03:52:46.560 | but they didn't really, they didn't--

03:52:48.880 | - But they didn't leave the world a better place.

03:52:50.080 | - They left the world a better place,

03:52:51.320 | but they didn't live their potential.

03:52:55.720 | They didn't, or they died feeling guilty about it,

03:52:59.160 | or they, a million different things.

03:53:01.440 | So there's so many productive people.

03:53:02.880 | I mean, think about all the innovators

03:53:04.360 | and the technologists and the businessmen

03:53:06.600 | who leave the world a better place by a big shot,

03:53:08.960 | but are never happy, never happy in their own souls,

03:53:12.360 | in their own life.

03:53:14.120 | And to me, that's what counts.

03:53:16.000 | And if you're gonna be happy,

03:53:17.080 | you'll leave the better world a better place.

03:53:17.920 | - And that's what John Vaught symbolizes.

03:53:20.160 | - To me, it's living your life by your standards,

03:53:24.120 | by your values, and pursuing that happiness.

03:53:29.120 | - Well, I take, I'm sorry, I take in a different context,

03:53:32.360 | 'cause I think a lot of,

03:53:33.400 | and I don't think you're gonna disagree with this.

03:53:35.000 | I think a lot of times when you're young,

03:53:36.600 | you have unrealistic expectations

03:53:38.120 | about what you're gonna accomplish.

03:53:39.320 | And you think to yourself,

03:53:40.240 | well, let's suppose someone wants to go into politics.

03:53:42.280 | Well, if I'm not elected president, I'm a failure.

03:53:44.320 | That's nonsensical.

03:53:45.200 | There's lots of people who are successful

03:53:46.640 | who haven't achieved literally the top position in their role.

03:53:49.480 | So if you can go to your grave,

03:53:51.400 | having defending everything you've done,

03:53:53.280 | and you've moved the needle in a pot--

03:53:54.120 | - Yes, successes should not be relative.

03:53:56.160 | - Yes, that's what I'm saying.

03:53:57.000 | - So that goes back to second-handedness.

03:53:58.000 | - Yes.

03:53:58.840 | - Success is not being better than other people.

03:54:00.520 | Success is not being the best.

03:54:02.920 | Success is maximizing your potential, whatever that is.

03:54:06.000 | And look, I know people,

03:54:08.960 | I have a son who could be a really good engineer,

03:54:13.840 | really good mathematician, really good scientist,

03:54:15.480 | but he decided he wants to write comedy, right?

03:54:18.780 | So he might've been a better mathematician

03:54:20.960 | than he is a comedian, but that's his values.

03:54:22.720 | That's his goals.

03:54:24.240 | That's what he wants to do.

03:54:25.560 | And hopefully he'll be really, really good at that.

03:54:27.600 | And he'll be incredibly successful at it

03:54:29.760 | and materially in every other sense.

03:54:31.680 | But that's what you pursue.

03:54:33.920 | - Yeah.

03:54:34.760 | - So it's really being true to yourself in a deep sense.

03:54:39.120 | And if you are true to yourself,

03:54:41.320 | yeah, you'll leave the world a better place,

03:54:42.760 | but that's not the essence.

03:54:44.160 | The essence is you.

03:54:45.520 | No, focus on you.

03:54:47.120 | Focus on making your life the best life that it can be.

03:54:49.920 | And if you do that,

03:54:51.800 | you'll make the world a better place almost by definition.

03:54:55.120 | - But yeah.

03:54:55.960 | - You'll impact people.

03:54:57.120 | - We're looking at the same thing in different ways.

03:54:59.800 | It's at least in my little corner of the world,

03:55:02.480 | it was disappointing how rare that is.

03:55:06.640 | So one of the reasons I'm here in Austin

03:55:09.280 | and one of the reasons my work gravitated towards Elon Musk

03:55:14.280 | is because he represents that person for me

03:55:19.680 | in the world of technology,

03:55:21.040 | in the world of CEO, in the world of business.

03:55:23.680 | It was very surprising to me.

03:55:25.400 | The more I've learned about the world of tech,

03:55:28.560 | how few people live unapologetically,

03:55:32.760 | fully to their potential.

03:55:35.560 | I'm sure people, others do that,

03:55:37.840 | maybe music and art, I'm not sure.

03:55:39.640 | I don't know about those worlds.

03:55:40.920 | I do know about the technology world.

03:55:43.160 | And it was disappointing to me

03:55:44.560 | how many people compromise their integrity

03:55:48.360 | in subtle ways at first,

03:55:49.980 | but then it becomes a slippery slope.

03:55:51.520 | - Can I say this?

03:55:53.040 | There's this great quote,

03:55:53.920 | and I always forget if it's Steinbecker, Hemingway,

03:55:56.800 | and the quote, and this applies for money,

03:55:58.440 | it applies for morality.

03:56:00.800 | The quote was, "How did you go bankrupt?"

03:56:03.220 | And he says, "Two ways, gradually and then suddenly."

03:56:06.400 | It's very hard to one day be like,

03:56:08.640 | "I have no integrity."

03:56:10.120 | That doesn't happen.

03:56:11.160 | It's very easy if it's like,

03:56:13.260 | "Look, I stole this candy bar.

03:56:15.560 | "What's the big deal if I steal this thing?"

03:56:17.840 | Then you're still--

03:56:18.680 | - People say there are no slippery slopes.

03:56:20.540 | There are, and they're big, and they're very slippery.

03:56:23.200 | And people slide-- - This is the biggest one.

03:56:25.080 | - And people violate their integrity even without stealing.

03:56:27.760 | Just little things about how they treat other people,

03:56:30.000 | how they treat themselves, the values they pursue.

03:56:32.480 | They don't go after the profession they really wanted to.

03:56:34.680 | They compromise in ways that they shouldn't

03:56:37.400 | with their spouse or with their mothers or whatever.

03:56:39.960 | - They look the other way when they see injustice.

03:56:40.800 | - And then they wake up one day when they're 40.

03:56:42.680 | And this is why people go through midlife crisis.

03:56:47.280 | Midlife crisis is a crisis where you suddenly realize,

03:56:50.320 | "I didn't do it.

03:56:51.160 | "I didn't live up to my standards.

03:56:52.840 | "I didn't live up to my youthful idealism.

03:56:55.920 | "I compromised and I sold out."

03:56:57.760 | But I also would warn you about Silicon Valley.

03:57:00.240 | Yeah, I think at the top, very few of them stick to it.

03:57:05.120 | And partially, it's the political pressure is unbearable.

03:57:08.640 | I mean, how would you?

03:57:09.480 | How can you?

03:57:10.400 | It would require to be a hero, and very few of them are.

03:57:13.620 | But there are a lot of people who do really well

03:57:16.380 | at all kinds of levels in technology,

03:57:18.240 | who little startups, people.

03:57:20.040 | And this is the point Michael was making.

03:57:21.320 | You don't have to be the best.

03:57:22.480 | - Yeah.

03:57:23.680 | - You don't have to be a CEO to lift your max

03:57:27.560 | and to live with integrity and to live a great life.

03:57:30.920 | I know people who do, because they joined Amazon

03:57:33.680 | or whatever, have just made a life for themselves,

03:57:36.520 | an amazing life for themselves,

03:57:38.280 | and have done great work at Amazon, let's say,

03:57:41.400 | and then have lived a great life

03:57:43.120 | because of the opportunity that created for them.

03:57:45.620 | So I think there are more good people out there,

03:57:48.680 | but yes, one of the saddest things of growing up

03:57:52.680 | is even when you're a teenager and looking at adults

03:57:57.400 | and noticing how few of them actually live,

03:58:00.200 | I mean, are really alive in a sense of living their values

03:58:04.360 | and enjoying their life.

03:58:05.200 | And you start with your parents,

03:58:06.520 | and you look across the people,

03:58:08.520 | everybody lives such mediocre lives.

03:58:10.920 | - Yeah, and the other thing is they don't have to.

03:58:13.320 | That's what people don't appreciate.

03:58:15.160 | - Particularly not in the world that we live in today

03:58:16.840 | that's so wealthy.

03:58:17.880 | And we all have so many opportunities, right?

03:58:20.400 | - So by way of advice,

03:58:22.640 | what advice would you give to young people

03:58:25.880 | to live their life fully?

03:58:29.960 | I mean, Michael and I have talked about this,

03:58:32.920 | but it bears repeating.

03:58:35.360 | So if you look at John Galt,

03:58:37.320 | if you look at the highest ideals of a life we could live,

03:58:41.280 | what advice would you give to a 20-year-old today, 18-year-old?

03:58:44.120 | - Can I say, I don't think, and I think Rand would agree.

03:58:46.800 | When Rand was writing John Galt, she says,

03:58:49.200 | when you have this character's human perfection,

03:58:51.680 | you don't want to get too close.

03:58:53.320 | So he's a little bit of a vague character

03:58:55.160 | because she was aware that when you're dealing

03:58:57.000 | with day-to-day, the shine comes off.

03:58:59.560 | I think Rourke is a lot better character for a young person.

03:59:03.440 | - Or Reardon.

03:59:04.280 | - Yeah, but Rourke is, the entirety of the Fountainhead

03:59:06.800 | is Rourke, so and Reardon is one of several.

03:59:08.640 | - We barely know John Galt.

03:59:09.480 | - Yeah, but Rourke is someone where you could be like,

03:59:12.160 | okay, and what Rourke also gives young people is--

03:59:15.840 | - That's in "The Fountainhead."

03:59:16.680 | - "The Fountainhead" is the strength to persevere

03:59:19.920 | because when you're young, you're going to have down times.

03:59:23.360 | There's going to be times when you're lonely.

03:59:25.600 | There's going to be times when you don't have a girlfriend.

03:59:28.080 | There's going to be times when you're out of work

03:59:30.300 | and you're thinking, holy crap,

03:59:31.840 | I'm falling between the cracks.

03:59:33.560 | I'm going to accomplish, I'm going to be a failure.

03:59:35.920 | And he gives them the courage.

03:59:38.760 | There's even a scene in "The Fountainhead,"

03:59:40.440 | which is this amazing scene.

03:59:42.160 | I love that it's not talked about enough

03:59:44.280 | where basically Rourke is looking at one of his buildings

03:59:46.400 | and this little kid on a bicycle comes up to him

03:59:48.760 | and, Yaron, please correct me.

03:59:51.200 | And he's like, who built this?

03:59:52.720 | And Rourke said, I did.

03:59:54.520 | And the line is, Rourke didn't realize it,

03:59:57.240 | but he just gave that kid the courage to face a lifetime.

03:59:59.960 | And I think that is such a beautiful thing

04:00:03.220 | where you can find inspiration in this character.

04:00:06.120 | Don't become needlessly difficult.

04:00:08.240 | Don't start parroting his lines.

04:00:09.960 | You're not Howard Rourke and he's not a real person,

04:00:12.600 | but there's aspects of him that you can apply to your life.

04:00:16.480 | And here's something else, I'll give one example,

04:00:18.920 | 'cause this happened to me.

04:00:20.000 | When I was working at Goldman Sachs,

04:00:21.600 | I was doing tech support,

04:00:22.880 | and my great-grandmother had passed away that year.

04:00:25.320 | And I promised my grandmother I would have,

04:00:27.480 | I've told this story several times,

04:00:28.880 | I would have Thanksgiving dinner with her.

04:00:31.080 | I was working second shift four to midnight,

04:00:33.380 | and we were a 24/7 help desk.

04:00:35.660 | And I got the schedule for the next week,

04:00:37.780 | and I told my grandma I'm going to have lunch

04:00:39.580 | with her on Thanksgiving.

04:00:40.760 | And they had put me down from four to midnight

04:00:43.000 | the day before Wednesday, which is my normal shift.

04:00:45.040 | But then the day shift, the next day,

04:00:47.080 | and I go to my boss, I go, first on second shift,

04:00:49.480 | I'm like, "This Thanksgiving, I promised my grandma."

04:00:51.780 | And they're like, "Well, if you could find someone

04:00:53.120 | "to fill this, we'll do it."

04:00:54.480 | And I asked everyone, they were like, "No."

04:00:56.380 | And I said, "I'm not coming in."

04:00:58.480 | And I 100%, not even a question,

04:01:01.240 | if I asked my grandmother, "Can we have dinner instead?"

04:01:03.400 | She would have said yes.

04:01:04.600 | But this was one of those moments,

04:01:06.160 | maybe this is from my huge ego,

04:01:07.680 | where I felt like I was in a movie and I'm making a choice.

04:01:10.120 | Am I going to ask grandma,

04:01:12.640 | or am I going to just bend the knee?

04:01:15.040 | And I go, I couldn't find anyone,

04:01:17.740 | and I go, "I'm not coming in."

04:01:19.120 | And they go, "If you're not coming in, you're fired."

04:01:21.440 | And I go, "Fire me."

04:01:23.040 | And they did fire me, and I have no regrets.

04:01:26.920 | And 'cause if I'd compromised, I'd have money in my pocket.

04:01:31.040 | But since I didn't compromise, I could look at that story.

04:01:33.880 | Ran talks about how man is a being of self-made soul.

04:01:36.840 | I could look at that story,

04:01:38.400 | and next time I have a time where it's a tough decision,

04:01:42.160 | where there's really pressure, I could be like,

04:01:43.880 | "You know what?

04:01:44.840 | "This is the kind of person you are, stick to it."

04:01:47.480 | I'll give one more example, sorry, you're on.

04:01:49.440 | I've given talks on networking, and I tell people,

04:01:52.880 | I like to use humor because humor is a great way

04:01:54.880 | to shortcut the brain and get the truth to them directly.

04:01:57.280 | I say, "If you know someone is in town,

04:02:01.880 | "it's their birthday, and they're not doing anything,

04:02:04.000 | "take them out."

04:02:04.820 | And I say, I do this for Rand reasons, I do it selfishly.

04:02:07.280 | And the audience laughs, and I go, "You're laughing,"

04:02:09.600 | but I go, "The guy who takes people out

04:02:12.360 | "for their birthday is awesome."

04:02:14.720 | That could be you, there's nothing stopping you.

04:02:16.800 | You're just not thinking in these terms.

04:02:18.360 | What's it gonna cost you, $30?

04:02:20.200 | But for the rest of their life or a few years,

04:02:22.800 | that person will remember you and be like,

04:02:24.300 | "You know what?

04:02:25.140 | "This person did right by me."

04:02:26.920 | And I'll give you a concrete example

04:02:29.400 | which changed my life profoundly.

04:02:31.400 | Ted Hope, who was the producer of the film,

04:02:34.240 | "American Splendor," which starred my mentor, Harvey Pekar,

04:02:37.200 | sent an email to his firm that said,

04:02:39.660 | "Harvey's in town with nothing to do.

04:02:42.040 | "If you wanna hang out with him, here's your chance."

04:02:44.400 | They worked at a film company, and I was the only one,

04:02:47.760 | I got the email, I wasn't working there,

04:02:49.720 | from a friend who took him up on it.

04:02:52.120 | And as a consequence, Harvey wrote a graphic novel

04:02:54.200 | about me, "Ego and Hubris," which is $250 on eBay now,

04:02:56.440 | and it moves at that, not too shabby.

04:02:58.380 | The point being, you know what?

04:03:01.600 | Someone had a movie made about him,

04:03:03.320 | someone is an interesting figure,

04:03:04.800 | take the lunch and stay overtime for an hour.

04:03:07.880 | But so many people don't think in those terms,

04:03:11.040 | and there's so many opportunities for them.

04:03:13.320 | So that's the advice I give.

04:03:14.440 | And I think it's also good to give advice via anecdote.

04:03:17.460 | So not only is the person getting the advice,

04:03:19.540 | they are learning why you got to that point.

04:03:21.860 | And maybe I'm wrong, but at least they've thought about it.

04:03:24.840 | - Yeah, I mean, I agree with all of that.

04:03:26.160 | And I like the line, Ayn Rand's line

04:03:28.960 | about man is a self-made soul,

04:03:30.600 | is a creature of a self-made soul, is huge.

04:03:33.440 | And it's something most people don't realize.

04:03:36.240 | And it's something that modern intellectuals undermine.

04:03:39.080 | I mean, even somebody like Sam Harris,

04:03:41.160 | when you keep telling people they don't have free will,

04:03:44.000 | then you don't have a self-made soul,

04:03:45.960 | 'cause what is self-made?

04:03:47.720 | There is no self, according to Sam, right?

04:03:49.800 | He meditates and he sees that he doesn't have a self.

04:03:52.700 | So you're undermining the ability of people

04:03:56.160 | to take control of their own lives

04:03:58.460 | and make the kind of choices that are necessary

04:04:01.600 | to create the kind of moral character

04:04:03.160 | that is necessary for them to be successful.

04:04:05.560 | So I'd encourage people to go read

04:04:07.680 | "Found Head and Outward Shrugged"

04:04:09.040 | because put aside the politics,

04:04:12.200 | put aside even aspects of the philosophy,

04:04:14.920 | focus on these models.

04:04:17.200 | These are, you know, Howard Walker's a great model

04:04:21.240 | for all of us.

04:04:22.520 | It's a great story to have in your head, in your mind,

04:04:25.220 | when you encounter challenging choices that you might make.

04:04:29.300 | And then spend the time, and this is,

04:04:32.900 | I don't think I ever did this when I was young.

04:04:35.520 | I don't think people do this,

04:04:36.600 | but spend the time thinking about what your values really are.

04:04:39.840 | What do you love doing?

04:04:41.080 | What makes, what gets you going?

04:04:44.900 | What gets you excited?

04:04:45.960 | And how can I make a living at this?

04:04:50.000 | How can I do this and live through this?

04:04:53.460 | And then, you know, think about what kind of life you want,

04:04:57.200 | what kind of, I don't know,

04:04:58.040 | what kind of people you wanna hang out with.

04:04:59.480 | Don't let life just happen to you.

04:05:03.120 | Think it through.

04:05:04.040 | What kind of people, for example,

04:05:05.640 | if you want ambitious, excited,

04:05:07.360 | maybe you should move to Silicon Valley,

04:05:08.600 | to Austin, Texas, right?

04:05:09.880 | If you wanna be around artsy people,

04:05:13.680 | maybe you should go to Hollywood,

04:05:14.520 | maybe you should go to New York.

04:05:15.440 | You know, I don't know,

04:05:16.640 | but figure out what kind of life you wanna live,

04:05:20.060 | what kind of people you wanna hang out with,

04:05:21.480 | what kind of woman you wanna spend your life with,

04:05:23.680 | or what kind of romantic relationship you wanna have.

04:05:26.520 | Figure that out and go and do it.

04:05:29.220 | Don't sit around.

04:05:30.180 | Life is not--

04:05:31.520 | - Or try and fail.

04:05:32.480 | It's okay.

04:05:33.320 | You're gonna fail.

04:05:34.140 | - Oh, failure, failure is absolute.

04:05:35.760 | And learn from that failure.

04:05:36.880 | And that's the other thing.

04:05:37.720 | Think about what you're doing,

04:05:38.760 | why you're succeeding, why you're failing,

04:05:40.640 | and keep improving, keep working on it,

04:05:42.400 | because it's not just gonna happen like this.

04:05:43.960 | Nobody is Francisco to take a character out of "Atlas"

04:05:47.360 | or to succeed at everything first try, right?

04:05:49.960 | We all need to fail a few times.

04:05:51.720 | We all need to, but what if you got to lose?

04:05:54.980 | Every second is never gonna be back.

04:05:58.800 | I mean, these are all cliches,

04:05:59.980 | but they're all true cliches, right?

04:06:02.280 | So think, figure out what your values are,

04:06:07.280 | and try to apply your reason,

04:06:10.640 | your rational thought on getting those values.

04:06:13.200 | And try to, we talked about early on in the show,

04:06:16.360 | in the interview, we talked about integrating your emotions

04:06:19.360 | with your cognition.

04:06:21.280 | I think that's crucial,

04:06:22.320 | 'cause you don't want to be fighting your emotions

04:06:24.200 | as you move towards these things.

04:06:25.600 | You don't want your emotions to be barriers

04:06:27.520 | to your own success.

04:06:28.380 | You want them to be cheerleaders, right?

04:06:30.800 | To chew on when good things happen

04:06:33.240 | and to be negative emotions

04:06:35.840 | when it's justified that they're negative.

04:06:38.160 | So work on integrating your soul.

04:06:40.920 | So creating your soul, that's the real challenge.

04:06:44.120 | - And I'll give one piece of meta advice.

04:06:46.280 | When you're young, you're gonna be clueless,

04:06:48.680 | 'cause you're gonna be ignorant, you know the data.

04:06:50.480 | Don't ask your dopey friends for advice,

04:06:53.320 | 'cause they wanna be helpful.

04:06:54.160 | - Or your parents.

04:06:55.760 | - But the friends wanna be helpful.

04:06:57.120 | They're as dopey as you.

04:06:58.200 | They're uninformed as you.

04:06:59.540 | So they're just gonna give you platitudes

04:07:01.380 | and you're gonna be worse off,

04:07:02.420 | 'cause now you're gonna be confused.

04:07:04.300 | Especially with social media.

04:07:05.980 | Reach out to people who are older than you,

04:07:08.300 | who are accomplished.

04:07:09.220 | You'd be surprised how often that you gotta send them 20 bucks,

04:07:12.460 | buy them dinner, buy their book, whatever it takes.

04:07:15.100 | You are getting free world-class advice for very cheap.

04:07:19.900 | And that is really a mechanism for success.

04:07:23.020 | - And here's something very unpopular and not sexy.

04:07:25.740 | This is why people probably unfollow me.

04:07:28.240 | - That's not why.

04:07:29.080 | - Read.

04:07:29.900 | Well, you'll tell me why after this.

04:07:31.920 | Read, read, read.

04:07:33.160 | Because you're not always gonna have access to those experts.

04:07:36.600 | And I'm not just talking about self-help books.

04:07:39.320 | I'm not even talking about self-help books.

04:07:40.920 | Read the worlds with literature.

04:07:42.560 | I mean, literature presents you

04:07:44.680 | with all the different characters.

04:07:46.660 | Read Dostoevsky, right?

04:07:49.920 | Read Hugo, right?

04:07:52.480 | Read all these authors that have taken time

04:07:54.800 | to really create characters and put them in situations

04:07:57.960 | that maybe you will never face those exact situations,

04:08:00.480 | but you'll face similar situations.

04:08:02.280 | And they play it out for you.

04:08:04.440 | You'll see what the consequences are.

04:08:06.680 | Great literature is a real tool for building your soul.

04:08:10.320 | Great art generally, but literature in particular,

04:08:12.800 | because it's more conceptual.

04:08:14.240 | - Maybe you could speak to love

04:08:17.480 | and relationship in your own life,

04:08:18.960 | but in general, if we look at Alice Shrugged,

04:08:21.880 | if we look at Fountainhead,

04:08:24.320 | and maybe this is going to become a therapy session for Lex,

04:08:27.680 | but also just looking at your own life in a form of advice,

04:08:31.440 | how can you be a Rorik Riordan type character

04:08:35.880 | and live your life to the fullest

04:08:39.400 | in creating the most amazing things

04:08:42.440 | that you're able to create,

04:08:44.240 | and yet have others in your life that you give yourself to

04:08:49.240 | in terms of loving them fully and having a family,

04:08:53.120 | having kids, but even just the love of your life

04:08:55.880 | kind of thing, how do you balance those things together?

04:09:00.120 | Is there anything to say?

04:09:02.320 | - I'll say one thing, 'cause then I'll defer to your own,

04:09:04.000 | 'cause he's the one who's married here.

04:09:05.680 | I don't think it's a balance.

04:09:07.120 | I think they compliment each other and feed off each other.

04:09:09.480 | So it's like, how do you balance having shoes and pants?

04:09:12.160 | It's like, no, you want both.

04:09:13.960 | - You want it all.

04:09:14.800 | - And having a great partner who thinks you're a badass,

04:09:18.320 | and then sometimes they're on the stage and you're like,

04:09:20.360 | oh my, I'm married to a badass.

04:09:21.800 | That's the goal.

04:09:23.600 | Am I wrong?

04:09:24.440 | - No, absolutely.

04:09:25.260 | It feeds off of each other.

04:09:26.100 | It's synergetic.

04:09:27.000 | It's completely synergetic.

04:09:28.280 | The problem that people have, I think,

04:09:30.760 | where they get into challenges

04:09:32.680 | is when they view them as opposites, right?

04:09:34.800 | Work or family.

04:09:36.040 | Well, if you don't work the family,

04:09:38.760 | you can't finance the family, but more than that,

04:09:41.400 | why is your wife gonna love you, right?

04:09:45.640 | What are the virtues that you're bringing?

04:09:47.400 | If you don't maximize your own potential,

04:09:49.440 | if you don't live the best life that you can live,

04:09:51.280 | what is it to love?

04:09:52.800 | And if she doesn't do the same thing, why do you love her?

04:09:56.080 | So you don't get this conflict between work

04:09:59.960 | and how do I have a balanced life?

04:10:02.120 | Of course you have a balanced life.

04:10:03.520 | You balance it based on your values,

04:10:05.560 | and it's never gonna be the same.

04:10:07.240 | The balance is, the time you spend at work

04:10:10.240 | and with family when you're young

04:10:12.500 | or when you have little kids or when they're grown up

04:10:15.040 | is all gonna be different.

04:10:15.960 | It's gonna depend on your priorities at the point,

04:10:18.400 | but it's all gonna feed off of each other.

04:10:20.040 | - So maybe another word outside of balance is sacrifice.

04:10:23.200 | Do you think relationship involves sacrifice or not?

04:10:25.520 | - Does he know what he's doing?

04:10:26.520 | - I know, I think he's trolling you.

04:10:28.480 | He's a troll.

04:10:29.320 | He's a big troll.

04:10:30.440 | Lex is the biggest troll on Twitter.

04:10:31.960 | - Ever, ever, ever sacrifice.

04:10:36.280 | - Never sacrifice.

04:10:37.120 | - But see, he means sacrifice in the context.

04:10:38.800 | - I know, I know, so I'm gonna define it.

04:10:40.800 | So sacrifice in my world.

04:10:42.640 | - Can I say one thing before we get sidebar?

04:10:44.840 | Ran had a good example of what he's talking about balance.

04:10:48.440 | So she was married to this guy, Frank O'Connor.

04:10:50.120 | He was not as cerebral.

04:10:51.000 | He was not intellectual.

04:10:51.880 | That's fine, she was in love with him.

04:10:53.160 | And I met someone who had been friends with Ran.

04:10:54.840 | And a lot of times she'd have these conversations

04:10:56.560 | with her acolytes till like four in the morning

04:10:58.160 | about the most cerebral topics.

04:10:59.800 | And I said, and he would always bring them food.

04:11:01.520 | He'd stay up and kind of sit there in a corner.

04:11:03.640 | And I go, when this was happening,

04:11:06.200 | was he sitting there like,

04:11:07.240 | oh God, here goes crazy old I'm and I just gotta be bored.

04:11:09.680 | And they go, absolutely not.

04:11:12.000 | He was so proud of her.

04:11:14.080 | He was so excited.

04:11:15.600 | In fact, when she got a lot of money

04:11:17.320 | from I think selling Red Pond,

04:11:19.200 | which was her screenplay, which never produced,

04:11:20.800 | he told her you can buy any kind of fur coat

04:11:23.760 | as long as it's mink.

04:11:24.800 | He's like, you earned this, celebrate it.

04:11:28.000 | So that was a good example.

04:11:28.840 | - And that's a good relationship, absolutely.

04:11:31.240 | No, sacrifice is the giving of a value

04:11:35.080 | and expecting either nothing or something less in return.

04:11:38.320 | You don't do that in a love relationship.

04:11:41.440 | Your love relationship is a sense, a trade.

04:11:45.240 | You're constantly trading.

04:11:46.360 | You're not trading materially,

04:11:48.120 | but you're trading spiritually.

04:11:49.840 | Imagine if I only gave my wife,

04:11:52.400 | if I gave spiritually and materially,

04:11:54.400 | only in one direction.

04:11:55.560 | I'd get sick of it.

04:11:57.320 | She'd get sick of it.

04:11:58.280 | It would never last.

04:11:59.600 | It has to be in give and take constantly

04:12:01.960 | in different ways, different values.

04:12:04.880 | It's not a monetary exchange,

04:12:07.120 | but it's constantly you're giving

04:12:08.840 | and you're receiving and you're giving.

04:12:10.960 | And that's gotta be in balance.

04:12:14.680 | And I know a lot of relationship

04:12:16.080 | where that gets out of bounds.

04:12:18.360 | And at one party feels like they're giving all the time,

04:12:21.040 | they're sacrificing.

04:12:22.240 | They're giving more than they're receiving in a sense.

04:12:24.600 | And it's over.

04:12:25.440 | Now people use the word sacrifice,

04:12:29.280 | like Jordan Peterson, sometimes he uses it both ways.

04:12:32.440 | That's the problem.

04:12:33.280 | People use it. - You know Jordan?

04:12:34.120 | - I don't know him personally.

04:12:35.360 | Jordan Peterson, I said.

04:12:36.280 | I didn't call him Jordan, you see.

04:12:37.520 | - Just wanted to be clear.

04:12:39.040 | - He uses in his talks as,

04:12:40.840 | sometimes he uses it as just as I described it.

04:12:43.680 | And he's supportive of that,

04:12:44.680 | like the sacrifice Jesus made, right?

04:12:46.360 | And sometimes he uses as an investment.

04:12:49.320 | But it's not.

04:12:50.560 | If you're giving some, giving money now,

04:12:53.280 | expecting a bigger return in the future,

04:12:55.240 | that's not a sacrifice, that's an investment.

04:12:57.200 | That's why we have two concepts for that.

04:12:58.920 | And the same is true, if my wife is ill

04:13:02.200 | and I've got a whole relationship build

04:13:06.320 | around what I'm giving.

04:13:07.520 | It's not that I'm not getting anything back.

04:13:09.120 | What I'm getting back is that she is recovering, right?

04:13:12.800 | Is that she is, she's still alive

04:13:15.480 | or whatever it is that I'm keeping.

04:13:17.080 | That's the value that I'm getting in return.

04:13:19.240 | If I'm not getting that, why am I doing it?

04:13:21.840 | 'Cause I signed a contract a long time ago.

04:13:24.840 | So it's not a sacrifice.

04:13:28.200 | Children are not a sacrifice.

04:13:29.040 | If I don't go to the movies

04:13:30.280 | 'cause I stay with my home with my kids,

04:13:32.760 | it's because I love my kids more

04:13:33.920 | than I love going to the movies, right?

04:13:35.840 | And if I love going to the movies

04:13:37.680 | more than I love staying with the kids,

04:13:38.920 | then get a babysitter or don't have kids,

04:13:41.680 | which is the better approach.

04:13:43.640 | - Here's another tricky question.

04:13:45.600 | What book did Ayn Rand say is the most evil book

04:13:47.680 | in all of serious literature?

04:13:48.920 | - Tolstoy? - It was Anacronina.

04:13:50.320 | - Yeah, Anacronina.

04:13:51.160 | - And the reason it was that book, which I haven't read,

04:13:52.840 | please correct me if I get the plot wrong,

04:13:54.480 | what Rand was saying is the plot is a guy

04:13:56.560 | who's a big shot, I think.

04:13:57.840 | He marries a stupid girl who has nothing of value

04:14:00.240 | to offer him at all and she ends up killing herself.

04:14:03.000 | Whereas Rand's version,

04:14:04.040 | and we can take this out of the romantic context.

04:14:06.640 | I am delighted when I could be of use to my friends.

04:14:10.480 | It makes me feel wonderful

04:14:12.480 | and not in a kind of parasitic way.

04:14:14.160 | It's just like that I'm at a certain point

04:14:16.640 | where they call me up, they're having a problem

04:14:18.440 | and I've helped them with that problem.

04:14:19.280 | - So Anacronina, he gives up the love of his life.

04:14:23.400 | - Oh, is that what it is? - The intelligent girl,

04:14:24.680 | the amazing girl.

04:14:26.320 | He has an affair with her outside of marriage,

04:14:28.640 | taints her, is married to the stupid,

04:14:32.160 | but she gives him the prestige and everything.

04:14:34.680 | - Oh, that's clearly very anti-Rand.

04:14:36.200 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

04:14:37.040 | - And the smart, the one he loves,

04:14:42.040 | she commits suicide in there.

04:14:43.320 | - Oh, okay, I got it wrong.

04:14:44.160 | - So it's about him choosing mediocrity

04:14:49.160 | and nothingness over love.

04:14:53.440 | So pursuing your values is so crucial.

04:14:56.720 | So don't sacrifice, that doesn't mean

04:14:59.240 | that if you wanna eat Chinese

04:15:00.640 | and she wanna eat Italian,

04:15:01.840 | you don't once in a while eat Italian on that day, right?

04:15:04.000 | - Just noodles.

04:15:05.680 | Just get noodles.

04:15:06.520 | - That's silly, right?

04:15:07.600 | That's not a sacrifice, not in the sense

04:15:09.720 | in which we're talking about.

04:15:10.560 | That's, you know, it doesn't mean don't compromise.

04:15:13.480 | It doesn't mean don't compromise on the day-to-day stuff.

04:15:16.520 | It means don't compromise on moral values.

04:15:18.720 | You don't compromise on the big stuff

04:15:20.800 | and you never sacrifice.

04:15:23.440 | And that way you have a relationship that's built as equals

04:15:26.800 | and as you admire each other.

04:15:30.720 | And love at the end of the day is a response to value.

04:15:35.160 | If you stop undermining your own value,

04:15:37.840 | the person who loves you will stop loving you

04:15:41.920 | or love you less.

04:15:43.200 | If you love yourself less, you know, you have to,

04:15:46.120 | Jay, Ayn Rand also said, in order to say I love you,

04:15:48.480 | you have to be able to say the I, right?

04:15:51.280 | You have to be somebody, you have to know yourself,

04:15:54.760 | you have to have value.

04:15:57.480 | And so love is a profound emotional response to value.

04:16:02.240 | - So speaking of love and the three of us

04:16:05.200 | being on this deserted island for time together,

04:16:07.440 | somehow not murdering each other,

04:16:09.480 | let me ask you, Yaron, Michael,

04:16:13.240 | what is the most beautiful thing you find about the other?

04:16:18.120 | So let's go Yaron first.

04:16:19.720 | What do you think about Michael

04:16:21.840 | that you appreciate about him?

04:16:23.280 | - Let me just get these questions from him.

04:16:24.280 | - That you think, what do you love?

04:16:27.040 | - What do you love about Michael?

04:16:28.560 | - That makes sense.

04:16:29.400 | - Then he's gonna edit it.

04:16:30.520 | (laughing)

04:16:31.520 | - See, that makes sense to me.

04:16:32.480 | - I just programmed him.

04:16:33.640 | - Press play, it's all just a pre-recorded message.

04:16:36.920 | - So I've never met Michael before, so this is my--

04:16:38.800 | - That's not true, you have and--

04:16:40.480 | - So I don't remember ever meeting Michael before.

04:16:42.120 | - And you're the very beginning of the new right,

04:16:44.960 | is me meeting you.

04:16:46.520 | - I'm in the book?

04:16:47.400 | - Yes.

04:16:48.240 | - All right, well now I have to read his book

04:16:49.520 | 'cause I mean, am I presented positively or negatively?

04:16:53.240 | - Very.

04:16:54.080 | - Oh, okay, good.

04:16:54.920 | (laughing)

04:16:56.320 | - Alex is not so sure.

04:16:57.640 | He's like--

04:16:58.480 | - No, I like that he goes,

04:16:59.320 | "Am I presented positively or negatively?"

04:17:01.440 | I just go, "Very."

04:17:02.280 | - Very.

04:17:03.120 | (laughing)

04:17:04.200 | - And he's like, "Oh, good."

04:17:05.040 | I'm like, "Is it?"

04:17:06.040 | (laughing)

04:17:07.960 | - So he's, Michael's sharp, he's quick.

04:17:10.960 | He's funny, although some of the humor is beyond me.

04:17:16.160 | I'm not sure--

04:17:17.000 | - That's a nice way of saying he's very intelligent.

04:17:18.640 | - Yeah, he's definitely very intelligent

04:17:20.840 | and, but also very engaging.

04:17:25.000 | I think that's very engaging.

04:17:26.800 | - And a sharp dresser.

04:17:27.640 | - That's fun.

04:17:28.600 | - And--

04:17:29.440 | - Oh, he's definitely, well, yeah,

04:17:30.280 | I'm gonna compliment him on stuff that's obvious

04:17:32.720 | and everybody can see by the video.

04:17:34.000 | - The sex appeal.

04:17:34.920 | Let me also just comment one thing you mentioned

04:17:37.040 | about you deriving joy from being of value to your friends.

04:17:42.040 | - Yeah.

04:17:43.120 | - You know, people talk to me about you sometimes

04:17:45.320 | 'cause you'll do humor about various things

04:17:47.800 | and things like maybe you're some kind of crazy person

04:17:51.680 | or something like that.

04:17:52.520 | - Good, I wanted to--

04:17:53.520 | - Yeah, I know you enjoy this aspect of it,

04:17:55.440 | but I say that the reason I'm friends with Michael

04:17:58.920 | is there's like real love there.

04:18:01.200 | And like the kind of kindness you give to your friends,

04:18:04.400 | to people like that are close to you, to your family,

04:18:07.620 | is amazing, man.

04:18:10.340 | So that's one of my favorite things about you.

04:18:13.080 | Your intellect aside, your philosophies aside,

04:18:17.260 | your humor aside, I think there's a lot of love in you.

04:18:19.680 | That's what I really appreciate.

04:18:21.040 | But enough about you.

04:18:22.640 | I'm actually getting sick of saying nice things about you.

04:18:25.080 | - You're always good at saying it.

04:18:25.920 | - What, I take it all back.

04:18:28.220 | - Can I say one thing?

04:18:31.180 | You're joking, but this is something that's very key

04:18:34.280 | and this is something in a random context.

04:18:36.560 | It is very disturbing, and this is not by accident,

04:18:40.160 | how in our culture it is poo-pooed to show kindness,

04:18:45.160 | earnestness, appreciation, to tell someone,

04:18:48.700 | you see this on Twitter where someone's like,

04:18:49.960 | "You know what, I read your book.

04:18:51.040 | "It's made my life a lot better."

04:18:53.680 | Okay, simp.

04:18:54.800 | And there is a real, and this very much comes

04:18:57.680 | out of urban media circles, there's this real disdain

04:19:01.820 | for showing appreciation, for showing happiness,

04:19:05.060 | for showing kindness, and you don't know,

04:19:07.680 | now that I've called it out, you'll notice it,

04:19:09.560 | but when you see how common it is

04:19:11.320 | and how people can't take compliments,

04:19:13.220 | the effects of that are extreme and extremely negative.

04:19:17.400 | - I gotta say about Texas, one of the--

04:19:19.240 | - Texas in particular.

04:19:20.680 | - So Austin especially, I mean,

04:19:22.040 | I don't really fully know Texas, Texas,

04:19:24.040 | but Austin, the friendliness, there's a reason

04:19:26.720 | I've gotten fatter and been drinking a lot

04:19:30.040 | is all the friendliness from random people

04:19:32.840 | who are no longer random, they're just friends.

04:19:35.320 | I've made more friends in one week

04:19:37.760 | than I have in my entire stay in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

04:19:41.400 | - Yeah.

04:19:42.240 | (laughing)

04:19:43.060 | - Exactly, yeah, exactly.

04:19:44.160 | - One and a half.

04:19:45.000 | - You know what the number two means?

04:19:46.840 | - I've never counted up that high.

04:19:49.720 | - So this is what happens when people are free.

04:19:52.880 | - No.

04:19:53.720 | - When people are free and individualistic,

04:19:55.400 | it's exact opposite of what people believe.

04:19:57.680 | The more collectivist we are, the less free we are,

04:20:00.960 | the nastier we are to one another.

04:20:02.720 | Individualists who are pursuing their own happiness

04:20:05.120 | are incredibly kind, friendly, and supportive people.

04:20:08.560 | - Okay, and now your task with doing--

04:20:12.160 | - Talk about bad juju.

04:20:13.280 | - To practice what you preach,

04:20:18.480 | is there in your soul that you can find

04:20:21.040 | one beautiful thing to say about Yaron

04:20:22.960 | now that you guys met for the first, second,

04:20:25.440 | or third time, or at least in book format?

04:20:27.520 | - So that's an easy one.

04:20:28.880 | So what I like about Yaron is that I think he is taking,

04:20:33.880 | one of the problems with maybe more old school objectivism

04:20:38.160 | is that they would just use Ran's arguments in Ran's way.

04:20:42.760 | And it's like, you're a parrot, you're not adding anything,

04:20:45.080 | and you're not gonna be better than her.

04:20:46.720 | So you give this talk about, I think you can compare,

04:20:50.360 | was it Bill Gates to--

04:20:51.840 | - Michael Theresa.

04:20:53.160 | - No, no, who's the one who went to jail?

04:20:55.000 | - Oh, Bernie Madoff.

04:20:55.840 | - To Bernie Madoff, and you make the point,

04:20:57.680 | you're like, does anyone here really think

04:20:59.960 | Bernie Madoff was happy?

04:21:01.500 | Like, yeah, he's successful and he's wealthy,

04:21:03.660 | but does he go to bed being like, hey, I'm a great guy?

04:21:06.040 | No, and his son kills himself

04:21:07.360 | with all this tragedy that goes with him.

04:21:08.920 | So I think anyone who takes an ideology or worldview

04:21:12.880 | that I think is of value and adds to it

04:21:16.080 | and articulates it in a new way,

04:21:18.920 | I think is a great accomplishment.

04:21:21.360 | I like how uncompromising you are in your views,

04:21:26.200 | putting her views forward.

04:21:29.480 | And I like how you illustrate how silly it is

04:21:34.180 | to argue against anarchism.

04:21:35.720 | So I don't really have to do any of the work.

04:21:37.680 | As for you, and I've thought this before many times,

04:21:41.000 | you were the first person I met

04:21:43.600 | who I come at, literally the first,

04:21:46.280 | other than my friend who went to yeshiva with as a kid,

04:21:48.560 | who I come at us, there was a line on "Friends"

04:21:51.660 | where Ross and Rachel were thinking of dating, right?

04:21:54.620 | And they go, if we start dating,

04:21:56.920 | it would be like the third date

04:21:58.920 | 'cause they knew each other well.

04:22:00.000 | And then she's like, yeah, but it'd be like,

04:22:01.240 | so it's like a plus and a minus.

04:22:02.440 | Like, yeah, you're fast forwarding to seriousness,

04:22:04.360 | but it's also the fact that you and I

04:22:06.600 | have the same background,

04:22:08.280 | like I can sit with your own or any of my other friends

04:22:10.960 | and try to explain it.

04:22:12.120 | The fact that intuitively you and I grew up the same

04:22:15.560 | and I know that we have that background in common

04:22:18.560 | does create a bond because I feel,

04:22:21.080 | even if I haven't told you certain things,

04:22:23.200 | you are going to understand me a lot better

04:22:25.800 | than many of my friends who've known me for a long time.

04:22:28.280 | I also really like how I feel,

04:22:32.480 | this is a very new age term, but I'm gonna use it.

04:22:34.680 | I feel very seen when I talk to you.

04:22:37.560 | I think you see me for who I am.

04:22:39.280 | You appreciate me for who I am.

04:22:41.960 | And I also really like how,

04:22:45.320 | and this is increasingly common as my platform increases.

04:22:48.760 | So I'm very flattered by this.

04:22:52.320 | You understand what I'm trying to do

04:22:54.000 | and you don't try to get in the way,

04:22:55.920 | even though it's your show.

04:22:57.480 | You're like, okay, this guy's a performer.

04:22:59.640 | He's doing his thing.

04:23:01.320 | People appreciate it.

04:23:02.440 | I appreciate it.

04:23:03.680 | I'm not gonna try to drive their car.

04:23:05.960 | And I think some people who are bad,

04:23:09.760 | and I've not encountered this 'cause I would shoot it down,

04:23:12.080 | but I think a lot of times people have a tendency

04:23:14.400 | when they're hosts to try to drive the car.

04:23:17.480 | And it's like, these things work when we come in here,

04:23:20.840 | none of us prepare, you're prepared by me,

04:23:22.480 | none of us talk beforehand and make it spontaneous.

04:23:26.000 | And the audience really enjoys that more

04:23:27.720 | 'cause they know it's real earnest and dynamic.

04:23:30.320 | - Yeah, I enjoy having you drive the car,

04:23:32.800 | even though I believe you don't have a license.

04:23:35.240 | - And you think we're gonna crash.

04:23:37.400 | - No, I think he's an extraordinary interviewer

04:23:39.760 | because of all those things.

04:23:40.920 | He makes you feel visible.

04:23:42.260 | And he does, but he also comes across as really earnest.

04:23:47.200 | The questions are really questions

04:23:50.640 | that you seem really interested in,

04:23:52.640 | that you really want answers to.

04:23:56.600 | It doesn't come across as canned

04:23:58.480 | or I prepared my three book project questions.

04:24:02.320 | - Thank you, Michael.

04:24:04.360 | I was pretty sure that on a desert island,

04:24:07.220 | this would end in murder, but now I believe it may.

04:24:10.960 | - Well, given his comments on anarchy, it might still.

04:24:13.320 | - It's gonna be human-sensitive.

04:24:14.160 | - It might still.

04:24:15.000 | - It might still.

04:24:15.840 | - Might still, the day is young.

04:24:17.920 | The night is young.

04:24:18.760 | - This is just the beginning.

04:24:19.680 | - This is a huge honor.

04:24:20.760 | I've been a fan of both of you separately for a long time.

04:24:23.480 | I really appreciate wasting all this time with me today.

04:24:26.840 | I love you, Michael.

04:24:28.560 | I love you, Yaron.

04:24:29.520 | - We love you too.

04:24:30.480 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

04:24:33.000 | with Michael Malice and Yaron Brook.

04:24:35.360 | And thank you to Ground News, Public Goods,

04:24:39.140 | Athletic Greens, Brave and Four Sigmatic.

04:24:42.980 | Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

04:24:46.220 | And now let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx.

04:24:50.380 | "Surround yourself with people who make you happy,

04:24:53.660 | "people who make you laugh,

04:24:55.500 | "who help you when you're in need,

04:24:57.820 | "people who genuinely care.

04:25:00.100 | "They are the ones worth keeping in your life.

04:25:03.280 | "Everyone else is just passing through."

04:25:05.760 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

04:25:09.500 | (upbeat music)

04:25:12.080 | (upbeat music)

04:25:14.660 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Michael Malice and Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand, Human Nature, and Anarchy | Lex Fridman Podcast #178

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