Confronting Hasan Piker on Socialist Grift, Hypocrisy, and How “The Top 1%” Keeps You Poor!

People call me a commie socialist, champagne socialist. And I'm saying Chinese style communist takeover, eminent domain. That is mine now. You guys that up. We're taking every single person from Skidro and we're putting them into that luxury high-rise condominium. Wham bam. Thank you, ma'am. Perfect solution. I don't have investments. Why? I think that that was a major L for me, I guess. But because I'm so stubborn, I just, you know, I can't shut the up. And I should have should have grifted a little bit. I think one of the worst things that I ever said in my career was openly admitting that. No. Hassan, thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. Everyone loved the first episode. We really appreciate. Yeah, it was great. Honestly, I uh I I don't really get a lot of opportunity to just like talk without chat going thousand miles an hour on the side yelling at me. So, it's like I always appreciate it. Plus, you guys did one thing that I really genuinely appreciated, which was fact check me, which ironically enough, of course, I was factually correct. But, you know, it was it was good. I appreciated that you guys were like I would like draw up some numbers from Top Dome and then you guys would be like, on it your facts and figures. Yeah. Most people always think that uh I'm just, you know, ratting off rattling off numbers without knowing what the hell I'm talking about. No, I'm sure a lot of people do, but yeah, our editor was great in that and they just got all the supporting evidence and sources and everything. So, it was impressive. Yeah. So, it's interesting. We offered you a Starbucks and you said you couldn't drink it and here I am with the Starbucks. You said you'd get cancelled. I would. Well, that's it's kind of funny that you guys uh immediately as soon as that I came in, you were like, "Do you want this water?" I was like, "No, I'm good." Um, it's not a setup, by the way. This is No, no, which is funny because I'm drinking a Mountain Dew is owned by Pepsi. Um, I was in Australia like last week. Wasn't even an altercation. It was like a fan who came up to me and was like, "Oh, you're drinking Coke Zero. You need to stop drinking Coke Zero on stream. Like you support BDS, which is boycott, devestments, and sanctions against Israel. Why are you doing that? Like you're are you a supporter of Israel? Like why are you doing that? Like, you know, be a better ally to Palestinians." And and then I thought that was like a random, you know, it was like a quick back and forth. I was just like I laughed it off and I was like, "Haha, okay." Okay. Like, oh, is Pepsi okay? You know, I was joking around cuz it's not it's not actually a part of the official BDS sanctioned list like any other sanctioned companies. Like Coca-Cola is not one of them. Um, and I didn't want to get into a debate on stream with a fan. You know what I mean? I feel like that's just long and convoluted for no reason. But then they clipped it and then they posted it on Reddit and posted it all on Twitter and they were like, Hassan is like um, you know, look at him like woke guy gets owned by his own audience. It's like this is how goofy the left is and blah blah blah. It made it to Sky News Australia. Rupert Murdoch owned just like Fox News. Sky News Australia made that into news. It has like 750,000 views on YouTube right now. So what was like the agenda with Sky News? Like why did they turn that into news? Oh, they were like lefties losing it. This is Son dude. He's in Australia. Like we don't have enough crazies in the country. That's what they were saying. I think the larger agenda overall is to just be like, uh, let's not talk about Israel Palestine. Let's talk about how crazy the left is. Why are they crazy? Because, you know, they want you to stop drinking Coke and don't talk about uh, you know, anything that's going on in Gaza. Just talk about how crazy the left is. I think this is a distraction to like move discourse in a different direction. One thing to change the pace Yeah. is we've had a broad range of people on our podcast recently and this question is really interesting because we get a wide variety of answers based off of the person's politics usually. If you're poor in America today with no dependence, no disability, cognitive or physical and you're between the ages of 25 and 60, is it your fault? Um, no. Wait, what do you mean? Wait, sorry. Say it again. If if you're poor between the ages of 25 and 60, no disabilities, no dependence, cognitive or physical, uh is it your fault? No. And why? We are a product of our own material conditions or environment. And I do think that there is uh severe income inequality in this country still. There's not a lot of I mean there's a lot of racial inequality in this country still. I don't think that someone who was born into like drastically different conditions like in Flint, Michigan or in Detroit or in you know uh forgotten parts of the country like the Appalachin the Appalachian region like in West Virginia. I don't think that person's starting point is identical to someone who grew up in a nice neighborhood in Connecticut and had access to public schools or even private schools and their parents were able to uh afford uh health care. their parents were able to afford the best education for them possible, a middle- class education, but still a much better one overall. Um, so I think that there's that aspect to it. There are a lot of people who do not get that leg up that shouldn't even really be a leg up. It should be the bottom basically like uh social safety nets that are uh offered to every single person unconditionally so that we can be a more productive labor force overall. And and then beyond that, I think there's always we're all victims of circumstance in one way or another. And I think poverty in that in that regard is is almost always s uh almost always systemic. So So whose responsibility is it for these people to not be poor? Oh, I think it's the government's responsibility for sure. I think it's a policy failure overall. I mean, poor is relative obviously because a a a poor person in America is infinitely better off than a poor person in Rwanda, right? So, if we're talking about poverty in America, if we're talking about that, we're we're comparing it to like whatever the middle is, right? Like below the middle. We're talking about elevating every single person and ensuring that their uh that their needs are met. It's still up to the system to provide them with the social safety nets, with the amenities, with the means to uh achieve some kind of uh fulfillment for themselves. So, what sort of policies do you think need to be in place to prevent that or help the situation? I think right across the board, flattening out education is definitely one of the first things I I believe. I mean, healthcare is really important. uh properly feeding people is really important. I mean we have uh child poverty in this country. We have issues with uh food security in this country. There are millions of families that still lack access to proper nutrition. That's one of the major hurdles even in schooling which is not what you would think but um I mean something as simple as like having AC in your school can yield much better results for for I mean for educational outcomes in general and I think those are those are some of the most glaring most obvious systematic failures in this country. When you say evening evening out schools, do you mean things like having computers and AC or do you mean is it like AC food, higher educational standard in general? A lot of that is fixed with resources. I don't think we pay enough for our teachers for example. I think teachers are like grossly underpaid in this country. Uh the standards are also very low in general as well. I think like the quality has the quality has gotten worse and worse year over year. I think this has like become basically a a job of passion. Like nobody's getting nobody's becoming a teacher because they're like I'm going to make a lot of money. They're becoming teachers because they're like this is what I want to do. I I genuinely want to do this. Couldn't you make an argument that that's a good thing? No, I don't think that's a good thing. I think that's a bad thing. You think it's better that people say, "I'm going to get rich because I could be a teacher." Not rich, but I want to be comfortable financially and that's why I want to be a teacher is a good thing. I think overall money is a great motivator for these sorts of things. That's why if you look at a country like Finland for example where they have a much higher uh much better education structure specifically for teachers. They're revered as like they're they're treated like lawyers almost and they yield significantly better educational outcomes overall across the board and most of it is public. So what advice would you give those people who are poor between the ages of 20 to 60 who are a victim of circumstance? What would you tell those people? Get your money up, not your funny up. No, I mean there is a lot you can do. Obviously, there's a lot you can do in general, but like overall I would uh I don't know. I mean, I feel like is it a lost cause? I don't think it's a lost cause necessarily, but I also don't think that like, you know, scheming in certain ways or trying to develop passive income or whatever is going to be the solution for every single person. and like, "Oh, you're going to become an entrepreneur and then you're going to start making money ultimately." Cuz there's plenty of people who try that and fail and fail over and over again and never actually make it. I had to to live a a fairly aesthetic lifestyle for a big chunk of my early 20s after college. I mean, I lived in the kitchen of a frat house, right? Uh and and I had two jobs at the same time. I was in the lowest tax bracket possible, uh, making literally less than, uh, minimum wage because I had a sales position. So, it was like, so I, you know, my my bosses beforehand were able to get away with underpaying me in that regard cuz it's like I have to bring in commission on top of that. I was budgeting all the time in order not to get in the red. Still got in the red, overdraft fees, all that stuff. I mean, it was terrible. Um, I still made it through. As someone who's made it through, I feel like you should have valuable advice to people that are stuck in that position. Well, I made it through because I'm I'm lucky though. I made it through because like you don't think it had anything to do with the amount of time you were working cuz you've gone on the record said I worked very hard, but it doesn't matter. Like it's just luck still I think is a really significant factor in people achieving success. Working very hard is also important. Uh not to say that like I'm not discounting people that become profoundly successful uh by saying, "Oh, it's all just luck." Cuz it's not. You have to work very very hard. But there are people who work very hard every day. You have teachers in Oklahoma that teach all day and then after after uh work is done, they have to take a Uber job. What ratio would you give luck? Do you think that was 20%, 50%, 60%? I don't know if I can give like an exact number because I think it changes for every single person. Some people are 30% lucky, some people are 50 in your situation. In my situation, I think luck played probably 50% of the way. Yeah, for sure. Because listen, I was born into an affluent family. I got great education as a consequence of that. Now, that didn't really translate to living in America because it was in Turkey, but it still doesn't matter because like I didn't have the financial setbacks that a much poorer person would like having to work a job when you're going to high school, right? Like I didn't have to take care of my parents when I was going uh to high school. I could just focus on my studies even though I didn't really study that much either. But can you also say that someone else in your situation could say, "I don't need to work that hard. I don't need to do much cuz I'm already kind of set. So, I'm just going to chill and do the bare minimum. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's definitely much different trajectories for someone like myself, especially from my background. But, um, but I would say that like that motivation. I had a great upbringing. I love, you know, I have a very healthy relationship with my family. I think that is luck. That's what I mean when I talk about luck. It's that like I had a a great upbringing. Um, it didn't translate to like me having any sort of money when I was on my own after college, but it still doesn't matter. But before we get into that, AI actually might just be the most important new computer technology out there. I mean, I use it every single day. It's storming every industry, and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So, buckle up. The problem, however, is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So, how could you compete without costs spiraling out of control? 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What I found really interesting from our first episode we shot together was you were talking about idolizing the American life and all you ever wanted to do was go to college in America. That was like what you aspired to do. There was something where like people in foreign cultures like not fetishize but like idolize America and you were like one of those people. Do you think the American dream is dead now since you've came to America and you kind of like idolize the American dream? The why pick a fence and going to college here? My uh idealization of the American dream began and ended at like being able to go to college and partying though. So like I didn't have like a broader understanding of it. There were definitely a lot of moments throughout American history where it wasn't all that real regardless, but especially as of late, I feel like people's uh financial opportunities have have worsened overall. I mean, it's very much alive if you are lucky to a certain degree and also on top of that come from a a better financial circumstance. If you're like upper middle class or well, I guess everybody considers themselves beelves to be upper middle class. that that categorization is very broad. But if you come from a relatively affluent background like there are opportunities for you to to enga like to get upward social mobility and I guess that is the American dream after all. You know, be able to own a house and whatnot. But beyond that, that that window that is open for uh Americans for upward social mobility is like shrinking. the number of people that can actually have a a a better financial situation overall than their parents is getting smaller and smaller in my opinion. Why do you think that is? What's causing that? Wealth disparity is growing in this country. The wealthiest people are getting wealthier and wealthier. I would even factor myself into that as well. The way I describe it is this. CO is a great example. COVID recovery. Uh during CO recovery, there was uh a lot of upwards wealth transfer. A lot of people couldn't work. the government gave them money for a little bit but and there was unemployment insurance which was great um but that dried up and then there was a shortage of jobs as well where people were like oh nobody wants to go back to work anymore in that entire time frame we had what is known as a K-shaped recovery where the like the top 1% of wealth kept growing absolutely in in a seismic way whereas uh the rest of the 99% did not experience those same returns they did not their their wealth did not grow overall and then we had inflation as well which made things even worse. Uh you know real negative wage growth for at least almost 2 years under the Biden administration especially is like something that people are not willing to forget and why should they? It's understandable that they don't they remember it. Can we get a quick maybe two or so minute explanation of who you are for the viewers if it's their first time hearing from you? I'm Asan [ __ ] I am a Turkish American political commentator. I stream on Twitch every day. I have a YouTube page, I have Tik Tok, I have it all. Came to the United States of America when I was 18 years old. I grew up in Turkey and I studied political science communication. First, I went to University of Miami, transferred to Ruckers, graduated from Ruckers with honors. And then I got a job. I was looking for jobs like crazy after college. didn't mean anything because I did not have like the networking opportunities or the relationships that like other people had at the time with other companies that they could normally work at. So, I worked for my uncle as a salesperson at the Young Turks. Some of you might know that it's a it was at the time a 26 person like independent news YouTube channel and I built their entire advertisement, sales and operations, all the backend. Did all the cold calling for a couple years. And during that process, while I was doing that, I was like, "This this sucks. This is I hate this. I hate sales. Um I want to do content. And because I wanted to do content, I was like, you know what? I'll do this for free. There's a studio that isn't really a studio at the Young Turk studio. There was a closet basically. And I was like, I'm going to put a green screen here and I'm going to do a very different type of content that you guys don't do. I'm going to do teleprompted presscripted segments and you know, I'll do it for free. I'll do it on my off hours when I'm not working and it'll be free money for you guys basically. you know what I mean? More bang for your buck. First they were resistant, then they were like, "Sure, whatever, why not?" And I sucked at it, too. I wasn't good at all, but I kept doing it over and over and over again. I got better at it eventually. And then I uh moved over to handle our Facebook operations at the Young Turks. Had a very successful show called The Breakdown that I had created. It was right around the same time as Facebook was opening up video as an initiative. So there was like tens of millions of views to be had on each video and it was blowing up a lot. So that's what I did. And then I realized a couple years in that I wanted to have something of my own because I had no creative control over it. I had I don't I didn't have enough autonomy. So I was like I want to do something on my own. First I pushed people to my Instagram. Then I decided I'm going to go on this platform called Twitch. Leftist ideology was under reppresented in that space at the time. This is like Gamergate, post Gamergate era for the oldies in the chat that know what that is. Um, there wasn't a lot of like people who were like, I'm a socialist or I'm a leftist, I'm a progressive and I'm a gamer. So, I went in there playing Fortnite, strapped a PlayStation eye camera to my PlayStation 4, started playing Fortnite. I would play Fortnite with like other journalists as well and other podcasters as well at the time while we talk about stuff like Israel Palestine. By 2020, I went full-time, became a full-time Twitch streamer, and then COVID happened and the George Floyd protest happened and a lot of people uh started catching up to my politics, especially as it pertains to police brutality, and I was there doing live coverage every day. And then the election cycle happened and I would say that 2020 I exploded in popularity and have been, you know, streaming every single day ever since I went full-time. And how would you describe your political ideology as a label? I don't really like labels when it comes to political ideology. Um, people call me a commie socialist, champagne socialist, uh, leftist. I am, I would say, a progressive person who believes that everyone should be able to pursue a life of dignity and and find uh, free moments and have some autonomy and have a sense of purpose in their own lives. Whoever achieves that is what I want. The main thing that people have, the main problem they have with I feel like that ideology is the taxes. That's like one of the main things. What do you think would be a fair tax bracket in the highest percentage or just a fair tax bracket structure for you? Our highest tax rate is pretty bad in America overall. But I also more importantly think that the way we tax is really bad in general. I think that a lot of Americans are taxed on their wealth, their assets, without recognizing it. Unless you have a lot of money in the stock market, in which case you're paying a much lower percentage in your taxes in your overall net worth across the board. What do I mean by this? What is it like 40% of Americans own their own home, right? Something like that. Something along those lines. 50. It's like Yeah, somewhere. Many of those Americans are paying property taxes. That's their primary wealth accumulation. That's their nest egg. That is what they can take mortgages out against or used to be able to take mortgages out against. Not not anymore. Not as much uh right now, but that is what they see as their like their future, right? And those guys all get taxed on their wealth. Whereas there is a ton of wealth specifically that is left uncaptured in the stock market. So, um, while I do think that our our tax brackets could go a little bit higher for sure, uh, I think overall trying to tax just straight up income is not the end of the deal. I think we need to fix our wealth taxes as well. Start tax. I don't know what the exact number would be. I genuinely don't know. Would you fall in the wealth tax? I don't really have a lot of uh assets. I already pay uh income. Like I I pay everything off income, straight income. So in California uh living here that's I'm in the highest top I'm in the highest tax bracket. So I'm paying around like 50% of more than 50% if you include property tax and sales tax and all these other tax capital gains tax. Yeah. Even before all of that. Yeah. But I mean I am perfectly fine with increasing the highest uh tax rate as well which would yes definitely impact me. Although you know what before we go into that we got to do some quick math because the less money your business spends the more money you get to keep. But with higher expenses on materials, employees, distribution, and borrowing, everything's costing more. So to reduce cost and headaches, smart businesses are upgrading to our sponsor, Netswuite by Oracle. Netswuite is the number one cloud financial system that brings accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform and one source of truth. 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No, I don't think that this is I think people have I mean, you get taxed at that rate. Do you think it 37 37%. Okay. But regardless, you still get the federal 37%. Correct. Are you disincentivized to work harder? No. Well, there you go. There's I think there's a real difference when you go above 50%. I think people really have a negative reaction when it's over 50. I would say 50 to 50 to 60% I would incentivize a lot of business spending just because I didn't want to get taxed on it. So I would say that would be the only thing. But beyond a certain point, I probably would be disincentivized beyond a certain point. 60% is just if the the the goods that you're being provided from the government are just so good for That's a great That's a great point. I was about to say that. then I would be okay with it. But I know for a fact, let's just say I make 100 grand or something. 50% I cut to the federal government, I feel like I get maybe like $2,000, $3,000 worth of value back, which is what four 6%. And if I spent the $50,000, I would get one to one value to a dollar spent. No, I I completely understand what you're saying about that. I mean, unless you're talking about like, you know, money being spent on roads and stuff, which I think is good. It's not like you don't see it as like a direct return, right? Well, the roads also aren't the greatest. Yeah. But precisely, you are absolutely correct. You nailed it. That is the biggest problem in this country. Good for you. I think the biggest problem in this country isn't necessarily the taxes because I have this conversation with my European friends all the time. I have some some lovely friends who were visiting from France recently. We sat down. We're having this dinner. And they were shocked when I started describing to them the American tax structure. They were like, "What? Like, we thought you guys don't pay any taxes at all. You have no amenities for it. You have nothing to show for it." because unfortunately our spending is is awful in this country. It's awful. It a lot of it goes into I guess subsidies that you don't necessarily see that are keeping the economic engine running. That's for sure. A lot of it goes to defense. uh and and we have so much money that we uh that we get even in a place like California for example where we had an $88 billion surplus in the state and yet we have nothing to show for it in terms of like in terms of the roads in terms of you know public health initiatives in terms of overall quality of life for the average citizen. People might look at that and go oh it's cuz they're giving it to immigrants or whatever. That's not the case. In a lot of instances, there are middlemen who know someone in government and they get these fat contracts and they hold it up and they don't do uh they don't do the actual, you know, infrastructural development that they were tasked with doing when it comes to to uh uh creating affordable housing. Um there are a lot of initiatives to combat homelessness. We talked about this a little bit last time. Um those initiatives get funded. We vote for it in ballot measures, right? They're very popular. In Los Angeles County, we added an extra 5% taxes on sales of homes that are over $5 million. Everybody voted for it. They loved it. They're like, "Great. Let's do it." That raised a [ __ ] ton of money. But that money doesn't go back into like actual direct initiative. It just stays there. It just stays. My understanding is that it's they projected it was going to make way more money than it actually ended up making. And so what ended up happening just from a real estate perspective, everyone sold their house prior to this going into effect. After it went into effect, you had so many listings that were like 5 and a half, they just price it $4995 where they'd sell furniture separately. And doesn't it also dry up the market a little bit? It dried up the market completely. But the result was that I think they thought it was going to bring in like $800 million over 5 years or something, but it ended up bringing in a fifth of that. I'm sure we could put up the numbers here. We don't know where is the point of money, but it cripp but it crippled the markets. Imagine if those homes would be able to be freely bought and sold. That commerce would generate a lot of revenue, right? And I think too with with increased property taxes or the type of person buying those five plus million dollar homes, what could they contribute that could be greater than what this tax generated? You mentioned something really interesting. I think it was on our podcast with Anna about some guy that was renting a vacant warehouse. I think we talked about that. Oh, did we talk about that with you? Did we do we remember? So, this is just another prime example of just like So, exactly what you mentioned, there was supposed to be a homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles and there's this big expose about it because it's been vacant for like seven years at this point and they're spending $50,000 a month for this homeless shelter. So, why is it empty for 7 years? Well, it turned out that they couldn't build it because it had a foundation issue, but they were trying to figure it out. So, until then, they had a signed lease and they just kept the lease agreement going. Well, when they dug into it, the person who signed the lease was like a former business associate or friend with the person who was in charge of finding the homeless shelter. And so, it seems as though they did this back door deal. It's like, "Hey, I'll give you 50 grand a month for this place. We good? All right. All right. Let's do that." And nothing. The money just goes to waste. not even remotely shocking to me. There's a lot of there's a lot of corruption that happens like that and I think that's a major issue. I mean, think about like highspeed rail development in this state. It's been ongoing since like the 80s. China since like 2001 has laid down uh an entire continent worth of highspeed rail over the course of such a short period of time. When there's a will, there's a way. They did it with much less money than than we're working with, right? That level of corruption is more so about just like people making money off of government spending. and the government has a lot of money, so they're willing to throw money in that in that direction because they can tell their constituents, "Hey, it's out of our hands. We threw money at this problem." I want enforcement. I also, ironically, I guess Chinese I want Chinese style enforcement. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, you're doing that. That's great. You're going to jail. Like, where's the homeless shelter? You're going to jail. You didn't build it. All right. Sorry. We're going to prosecute you." I think we need to be harsher on punishments. And I also have this idea. I brought it up our last podcast and I want to know your opinion on it. I think there needs to be a massive what what was the term 10,000 accountants 10,000 accountants in the government that's sole job is to internally audit which I know we already do and you can already access this information but it's horrible it is unattractive and it's also I feel like just like for the average person you're not going to go in and and read this crazy complex UI of how our budget is spent but if we had 10,000 you know 20,000 accountants that internally audit federal government just to show everyone, hey, we're spending $22 per muffin at this random bureaucratic like, you know, agency or what, doesn't matter. I want to know about it. The way that the American government works also is like it's always dished out to like private contractors and those are the guys who are making like those are guys making buku bucks over there when they're just it's the greatest it's the greatest grift of all. You know what I mean? whether it's defense contractors or whether it's anything else like they they get so much money and and like I said it it's a way for politicians to be like see we're spending money like we're doing the thing that you wanted us to do but people don't see any results and then we just kind of forget about it and I agree I think that uh that would be phenomenal I I especially with the Pentagon too but you know you're going to get assassinated by the CIA if you start talking like that we had an international arms dealer on the podcast that did US defense contracts and He said companies like Loheed Martin, what they used to do is just charge whatever they wanted because there's no competitor and you have the contract and it needs to be a safety protocol. So they only create, you know, the F-35 jets or whatever. But instead, what they changed to was cost plus. So it's the cost of building an F-35 plus a fee of how much you spent. So like 3% of the entire cost, but then this incentivizes them to spend twice as much because then they get 6% instead of 3%. Let me tell you, they're not spending it on their workers either. Okay. They're not they're not it's not like they're spending it on their engineers either. Not surprised. I'm sure that you guys have some engineers watching right now that'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Um, it's, you know, I mean, I guess it goes to the executives or something. Maybe marketing initiatives when they turn around and they're like, they do, you know, gay pride parade floaties, Rathon. But overall, yes, there's a lot of money out there and we are not using it in the way that it's intended to be used. And I think that people get hurt as a consequence of that. But my point was that I think a lot of Americans would be a lot happier with the taxes they're paying if they actually if they actually even felt like the government had their back. Do you feel like a wealth tax is an actual solution to to that or do you feel like that's I think it goes both ways. I think we have to do internal accounting and I think we also could tax more as well. Like there's a lot of there's a lot of assets out there that could be taxed. I think and I do I mean you might hate me for saying this but I do think that we should dis incentivize seeing home ownership as a investment vehicle rather than just simple shelter. I think it's difficult with the housing example because you have people who don't want to own a home who prefer renting and there are advantages to renters as well that they don't have the overhead and the responsibility and they have the mobility to be able to move around. So in that case, who rents out a property like that? And but what if you own a house and let's say you've owned that house for 20 years and you downsize, but you want to keep the house, are you allowed to rent at that point? Because now you become an investor. Probably not. I I believe in especially when housing comes into play. I I think it's a shelter is a human right. That's just the way I see it. Um and uh there are places that do a pretty good job with this. Uh, a Austria comes to mind. Uh, Vienna is known as Red Vienna for its uh, pretty Marxist housing policy. 65% of the homes in Vienna are owned, uh, by the government. They're they're social housing. It's public housing. And they're beautiful. These are like actually uh, very well put together uh, building complexes that are mixed income. And it's not even like a weird thing at all. You got pools, you got gyms in there, you got facilities, you have amenities, and they have uh done a much better job dealing with uh the homelessness problem in a place like that. Uh Helsinki is another city that uh worked very hard with a housing first initiative, which is ironically something that they at least say they learned from America. Housing first was a was an American policy originally. We never really implemented it, but it like it was theorized here uh where in order to start the healing process for homeless people that are like deeply addicted to drugs or whatever or even, you know, engaging in uh criminal activity and whatnot, which many homeless people aren't, but for even the the hardest to tackle uh cases, uh it starts off with uh putting them into permanent housing. Not shelter, mind you, but like permanent housing that they can call their own. and then uh they find that uh there are much better results as far as like recovery as far as reintegration into society. So I think it's a mixture of both of those policies that would be greatly beneficial for Americans in the long run. So do you think capitalism is a net positive or negative? In its inception was definitely much preferable to feudalism, but I think it's outlived its usefulness in our day and age. That's what I would say. It's the most conservative. So what would be a better alternative? H that's the million-dollar question. I think the better alternative to capitalism is trying to move in the direction where we like I said uh work towards the uh work towards disincentivizing home ownership as a as an investment but instead a shelter and trying to give back uh more autonomy to people in all workplaces. the ability to be able to have a say at the very least in the hours that they're putting in in a more democratic process and then seeing where that takes us. What policies do you like that are currently held by the Republican party? The Republican party? Yeah. What policies do you think that you agree with? Nothing. Nothing. No. I mean, because like I think America I mean, if you ask me the Democratic party, there's very few I would say I agree with as well. Anyway, I think that like neither party represents the interests of their constituents. Um they they they talk like they do and uh I think that the Republican party's politics are bad and their policies are even worse overall. You know, as far as like social stuff goes, the Republicans are pretty bad. Antithetical to my worldview in general. And as far as economic policies goes, they're even worse. Why do you think they believe in what they believe in like in these policies? Because you have to think from their perspective. Perhaps they believe it's an improvement. They believe it's for the greater good. Do you think that they're just misinformed? Maybe some people do believe it because they're misinformed. It's social conditioning. But like I mean like like I don't think Lindsey Graham is like actually homophobic in practice behind closed doors. I think he's very much not practicing what he preaches, I guess. Um, I I just don't think that a lot of these people genuinely give a [ __ ] about abortion, for example. I don't think they think it's like actually murder. There are definitely some real Americans who do feel that way. Evangelical Christians. And that's a whole different concept, but I don't think the politicians care. I mean, they demonstrated that pretty quickly when they immediately were like, "Okay, maybe abortion is not as long as it's like when they found out that it was very unpopular," which it was. Even Trump is now saying he wants to do what the like six or 12 monthth abortion ban. So I guess like it's not murder up to 12 months now. I mean 12 weeks. Sorry not dude. Imagine pretty late state right there. Coming out with a beard or something. 3 months after birth. They're still chopping the heads off. Jesus. Um yeah 12 weeks. Sorry. Uh so so I guess it's not fact check that. Okay. So so what I want to know is the way I see it is on both sides there are incredibly intelligent people. Period. And there's a lot of people, right? So, a lot of very intelligent people on both sides. Are we talking about politicians or we talking about people? People just just people that would identify as Republican or Democrat, right? You're right. You're right. There's a huge population on both sides. And within that population, a lot of very intelligent people, a lot of deep thinkers, a lot of empathetic people, sympathetic, whatever. What do you think is the fundamental difference in belief about human nature between conservatives and liberals? There aren't really that different in their way of thinking. I think both sides think that like humans are either naturally good or naturally bad. Like and they're naturally greedy, naturally not naturally greedy. I disagree with all of those uh ideas in general. So I I always find myself a little bit left out of that conversation, but um what are some fundamental disagreements between Republicans and and liberals? Republicans are more free will while you know uh Democrats are a little bit more deterministic, I guess. But the way that I see it is if you are a deep and critical thinker and you do subscribe to one side, I'm guessing you've boiled down your argument to a sheer belief about human nature and all of these policy prescriptions, everything that you support, you can tie back down to this is why it's good because humans are fundamentally X. Yeah. I mean, I think humans are fundamentally a product of their material conditions. Their their social their environment is what makes us who we are. Obviously, there are still like, you know, naturally occurring phenomena that that medical science has not caught up to like I don't know or like antisocial personality disordered people that want to do violent crimes and whatnot. But I think that most of the crime could be reduced for all the way from violent crime all the way down to, you know, theft and and burglary and everything else uh can be reduced to material conditions for sure. Do you recommend people listen to other political commentators on the right and on the left? And if so, who? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I I probably spend more time listening to right-wing commentators on my stream than I do leftwing commentators really. So, who on the right does it right? Does it right as in like entertaining? Cuz I don't entertaining or thoughtful or good faith. I don't know if I don't know if I would ascribe good faith to anybody in general. What about yourself? I think I'm good faith. Yes. And I and I also like some commentators that I do think are good faith as well as far as like Cho Trap House. There's a podcast. JT Second Thought. It's a YouTube channel. The DProgram Boys. Like there's a lot of people that I think are very good faith. Uh Majority Report. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Sam Cedar and and Emma Viglin. They're great. Even if we don't almost always align on everything, it doesn't matter. I still think that they are uh valuable and I think that they are good faith overall. But you don't think a single person on the right is good faith? Like I don't want to say that they're good faith because like I feel like that's even worse because I do genuinely like I think Ben Shapiro and a and almost everything he represents is just wrong. I I I do I legitimately believe that Charlie Kirk, Steven Crowder, Anne Coulter, some of these people I have debated and I have like in the flesh been around, right? Tim P who portrays himself as a centrist or a liberal. I don't think he's a liberal or a centrist at I think he's a right-winger and he just like hides that he is a centrist. I don't even know if he still says he's a centrist or a liberal, but Well, Don Lemon said he was a centrist. I think Don Lemon is a centrist. Don Lemon is You know who's a real centrist? Lex Freriedman. I think I agree with I think See, okay, good faith. I think Lex Friedman uh is But he's not on the right people on the right. He's not on the right. No, he's I would say he's in the middle. Yeah. No, I think he's in the middle. Like I think Joe Rogan used to be kind of like that, but I I think Joe Rogan has developed his own personal political opinions over the course of the years, especially when it comes to certain issues. Like he's very right-wing and then sometimes he'll be like weirdly leftwing on others, but overall like Lex Friedman is like down the middle. I agree. I think he is like the one guy that I truly believe is a real centrist. Lex, we love you so much. Lex is one guy I will glaze till the end of my day. We love you, Lex. Lex, if you're watching this, thank you for being yourself. He didn't comment on one of our He did comment on our episode with Destiny. Great conversation, guys. He's a big He's a big Destiny Glazer, which is a big L for Lex, but honestly, it's fine. Although, really quick, I just want to point this out. Are you noticing anything on this angle versus this angle? This angle is blurry right here. And it's because the camera was dropped. Jack, I'm looking at you. It's not my fault. You probably dropped it. We don't know who dropped it. The point is, it's going to cost like $2,000 to replace the lens. However, we were able to get to almost a million subscribers without the really expensive equipment, and our sponsor, StreamYard, is able to help get you there, too. For those unaware, Streamyard is a live streaming software that allows you to create highquality content with just the click of a button. And all you need is a camera and an internet connection, and you can stream directly from your browser. They also have a multistream feature that allows you to stream throughout multiple social media platforms at the same time from Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and more. I know for us that when we got on Instagram and Tik Tok, it absolutely exploded our growth. And I highly recommend that to anyone looking to get started to get on every single platform. And Streamyard makes that incredibly easy. Streamyard is really one of the best ways that you can get started creating content without spending any money out of pocket because they also have a completely free option, which means it costs you absolutely nothing to use the link down below in the description. Once again, it's completely free to try it out and get started. So, enjoy. Thank you so much. And now, let's get back to the podcast. Now, when it comes to Ben Shapiro, I'm curious, what do you disagree with the most? Where do I begin? I mean, Israel Palestine right now obviously cuz like but he's God he is he has such immoral opinions on Israel Palestine. I mean he wrote transfer is not a dirty word all the way back in like 2004 or something when he was talking about like population transfer of Palestinians like advocating for that on town hall and his opinions have not really changed since then either. It's not like that was the old him. The the Arabs like to bomb things and live in sewage. Israelis like to build just like that was like 15 years ago. Yeah. But but has his opinion changed on the matter? Probably. Arabs period. I think I think I think a lot of his uh motivations for defending Israel do stem from just like Islamophobia and and obviously like his upbringing I'm sure played a role in it. Like I said, everyone's a product of their social conditioning, but I think it's still pretty much motivated by like Arabs are barbarian. Would you debate Ben Shapiro? Oh, yeah. I would love to. I'll bring it up to Ben because you know what? We're going to take credit for this. We had Ben Shapiro on the show. We said you should debate Destiny and he said he would do it. And then we reached out to his team. We got in contact with Destiny. I don't think they I don't think they really debated. I think they agreed on a lot more. They did. They did agree on a lot of stuff. But we will take credit for that. That was awesome. That clip went viral. Everyone started talking about it and Jubilee tried it and then Lex Freedman tried it and he ended up doing I think we initially offered Jubilee Jubilee tried uh getting me to debate uh debate Ben Shapiro, not Destiny. Um and uh he did not respond to that. I don't think he I don't know. I think he's also very far removed in fairness. Very far removed. Yeah. Even though we talked to Ben about Destiny, he was like, "Oh, Destiny, we we had to show him." He's like, "Oh, yeah. I think I've I've seen him before." Videos on me before. He knows who I am. Okay. He's definitely he's definitely cut some videos, but he is far removed. I will say he's got a huge team who really coordinates a lot of this behind the scenes. So, if you reach out to him directly, you're never going to hear it. It's It's got to be through his team. Have no way of reaching out to him directly. And I'm fine with that. But I I do believe that there are people on the right and on the left, obviously, that are good faith. I think I guess Ben is good faith. You're right. But I don't think that's a good thing. But I feel like that is the base that you can ask for somebody. The fundamental you have, you can ask that someone at least tries their best and does what they believe is right. Right. And if everybody did that, sure, you'd have some people that believed in things that you disagree with and they do something that maybe hurts you or whatever, but they're trying to do it in good faith with good intentions. And if everyone was that way, then people would see a bully and they'd stop the bully. Right. Okay. But but Ben Shapiro is good faith. I as I've acknowledged, but he's good faith in the bad direction from your perspective and he would argue otherwise. Yeah. I think and then you let the public I mean most people even in your uh even in your comment section are probably going to say a grifter. He's doesn't practice what he preaches, not understanding what I preach nor what I practice. But as far as like I'm a very stubborn person. I'm a honest to a fault I would say. Uh and and that really ropes people the wrong way. But as far as like being good faith Yeah. Sure. I think Ben does believe what he's talking about, what he says, but the outcomes are terrible. Whether it be uh abortion, whether it be LGBT rights, like denying uh civil liberties, social liberties to people of of different marginalized backgrounds. I don't agree with Ben Shapiro when it comes to America's militarization. I don't agree uh I don't agree with him when it comes to pretty much every single issue. I would say that I'm almost on every single issue. I'm on the diametric opposite side of Ben Shapiro. I can't think of a single thing that I would agree with him on. But can you appreciate the fact that he's good faith? I sure I mean, but that doesn't really mean anything to me is what I'm saying. Like I I would rather I guess I wouldn't rather him be bad faith, but I would rather him not have those opinions and not advocate for those things. Um like more police brutality, please. You know, I think that that's bad. I think that's a horrible of a worldview to have. So you recently debated Piers Morgan on his show. I guess cordial. Sure. And it it got over four million views. It went crazy viral. Everybody loved it. What has been your favorite debate of all time? My favorite debate of all time. I don't know. There's one that's already came to mind. What is it? There has to be for you. Oh, no. Not even. I mean, I guess maybe Anne Coulter. An Coulter was fun. I debated Larry Elder. That was also fun. I guess Ank Coulter probably only because she's like the OG. Have I ever lost the debate? I'm sure I've lost in the in the minds of of of you know the broader audience. I think debates are mostly for showmanship like it's in it's pseudointellectual sparring. There can be utility for it. I think it's good to have your side's talking points be represented and then uh the other side's talking points also be represented. But I think the skilled order always overpowers their opponent in debates. It's like the example I would use is this Ben Shapiro very skilled order, right? Mhm. He has great rhetoric. If Ben Shapiro debated a socially conscious, kind of anxious, maybe a little neurotic uh climate scientist, even on the science of climate change, he would probably be able to destroy the floor. He would wipe the floor with him. Does that mean he's right? No, of course not. According to scientific consensus, he is objectively in the wrong. However, because he's a skilled uh ortor, he would be able to thoroughly dismantle the arguments or uh put you into a logical corner, you know what I mean? Trap you. It so it's it's a very different set of skills. I would say the same thing about Destiny. I've said this uh for for years. He is very good at rhetoric, but until he is met with an opponent that both knows more on an issue and is also very good at rhetoric or very stubborn, for example, to a fault like Norm Finkelstein, he is not going to be seen as like intellectually fraudulent by the broader uh audiences, which I do think happened. So, shouts out to Lex for that one. Why does it seem that more democratically ran states are failing than conservative states? What do you mean by that? Well, we just got Starbucks right before this. I know, guys. We're not supposed to go to Starbucks for a litany of reasons, but we were there. What a change. What a change. And there's there's no tables on the inside. No bathroom because you can't go. Yeah. There's no bathroom. It was $13 for two mediumsiz drinks. Is it different in like other states? Yeah. Las Vegas. Um, some of that probably has to do with the rent to be on Hollywood Boulevard. places are like I know companies are like fleeing San Francisco. I'm sure you could correct me if I'm wrong on that. Uh there's I don't know I don't know which companies you're talking about. I think Nordstrom's is one of them. Maybe a lot of companies that were suffering from motor retail shrinkage. I I don't think it's shrinkage that actually that I will correct you on. So that was actually the common metaphor of quite some time post you know postcoid everyone's like oh organized retail theft is happening and at the time I said it's not organized retail theft it shrinkage has increased but if you look at the national retailer association numbers you will realize that like uh the shrinkage actually grew alongside with uh at the normal rate that it does when more shopping is happening that has always been consistent these companies said like Walgreens for example famously said we're leaving San Francisco because we're closing these locations because of theft. It's out of control. And then they quietly admitted that they were lying about that. A year later, the CFO actually openly admitted that they maybe we exaggerated the theft situation. What's the real problem there? Real estate. It's too expensive. Brick and mortar can't compete with e-commerce. Amazon is dominating that market. And I think that because of that they're having well and also real estate prices are so high to begin with that they just don't see it as valuable enough. They will say shrinkage I think or they'll say theft because it's like a a better political message to to shelter the real reasons. But then why when you walk into some of these places is the deodorant behind like bars? It's it's like in a cage if it's not theft. There are so many things that I've seen where they think it's not happening. Of course, it is happening. Uh for sure I uh and it has always happened. There's always a much more uh important reason for why companies make decisions like that, right? But it does seem as though there's a concentration of failure in states like California and New York where you have like a bunch of smash and grabs happening a lot. And of course this is happening in every state, but it seems like, like I said, there's a concentration. And then you have like, you know, the the poop maps or whatever the feal matter concentration as well in in San Francisco. I think a lot of people point to the lack of um penalty for crime and how it's almost encouraged that you could go in a place, steal up to $1,000 worth of goods and just say, "Well, I'm, you know, it's not they're not even going to come after me for that." Like that one video, um I think I think it was a Tommy G video where he went with people who would just straight up walk in and say, "Hey, this is part of my routine. I'm just going to go in there with a bag. I'm going to openly do this. They're not going to stop me. I get 800 bucks. I'm going to sell it to the guy down the street for a hundred. I've made a day's worth of work. And the prices and the homelessness and just the fil that guy is brilliant. Why? Like, so we must ask ourselves, why is he doing that instead of like actually doing a job that would pay him quite more and with way less risk than, you know, what's the risk? Steal. It doesn't seem like there's a risk. Whenever you steal, there's still there there could be a a citizen that you know comes in. It's not like like think about it this way. Do you like stealing? No. Exactly. I don't either. We wouldn't stop it cuz I know now you can be No, that's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about like like what motivates someone to go out and steal. I think it's infinitely more productive if that person had some kind of productive output instead of stealing toiletries and then selling it down the street. You know what I mean? Not to say that this doesn't happen. Of course, it's happening. But I look at that and I think, well, why doesn't it happen everywhere? Why doesn't it happen not just in like red cities? Because it's happening in red cities, too. It's just that cities tend to be uh more diverse and therefore vote Democratic uh because they think the Democratic party, I guess, is like less openly racist than the Republican party or whatever for a multitude of different reasons. And they end up voting Democratic. like cities where high numbers of the population congregate have tremendous issues with real estate and that's why you see more income inequality in in cities and that's why you see like crime running rampant in cities even though technically it's a it's a problem in red states as well. Do you think there should be stricter punishments on crime? I think that the solution to fixing crime if it was more draconian measures stricter punishments America would be crime free. It would be a crimeree dystopia. We house like I I said last time I believe uh we house 25% of the incar incarcerated population of the planet in spite of the fact that we only have 4% of the entire planet's population. We have the highest prisoner per capita density if that was a especially even in California. California is a state in and of itself if it was a nation state would still house some of the largest prisoner population on the planet. So obviously more stricter measures and worse prison conditions is not a successful policy at all. And we for some weird reason keep trying the same thing over and over again and doing like more of it and hoping that it'll fix itself this time when it has been a demonstrable failure. And that's because you can't solve crime or poverty by criminalizing poverty or having worse more draconian measures as a way to enforce it. It's not it's not a valid deterrence. It seems it clearly um you can kind of make it go away a little bit like you can put cast it aside and feel like you know the streets have been cleaned I guess because like now the poor people are not in uh within our vicinity and they're not doing crimes or whatever. But ultimately where did you do what did you do? You put them in prison I guess. So it's not about enforcement. We do a lot of that. I I do think that police are overall very bad at their jobs for sure in places like San Francisco and places like Los Angeles. Absolutely. Our police department is very bad at enforcement to begin with, but that's a whole different subject. But I don't think it's necessarily about the punishments itself, but instead of of a lack of opportunity, a lack of access, not having enough educational opportunities, and beyond that, um, no no decent rehabilitative measures, and also no real future prospects for a lot of people anyway. Our collective psyche is is kind of broken in America where we just don't feel like, you know, a lot of people, at least in my generation, don't feel like they're ever going to own a home, that they're ever going to retire. I feel like that probably plays a role in the way that people operate and and the way that people view themselves and the way they behave. How do you think Japan is doing it differently? Because we were both there recently and oh my gosh, it was to me utopia. It really was. It It was so clean. There were no homeless. Um, everyone was polite and I felt completely safe. It's the public trash cans is what it is. Two decades of deflation. That'll do it. No, I mean that's that's I'm joking. But so for example, Japanese work culture is very different. You can't get fired. They can't fire you in Japan. In most corporations, no matter what you do, you can't get fired. It's not in I think it's like legally protected as well, but it's also very culturally protected. It's capitalism on overdrive in many respects with uh a a uh collectivist identity that was like built into them for thousands of years due to like pushing out western influence and and still maintaining that through a series of xenophobic attitudes and and uh legislation that they uh that they champion even though it hurts them in the long run. I think that probably plays a big role in in the way that um the Japanese still continue to I guess uh keep society ticking without complete collapse, complete failure. But uh they do a lot of that like pushing the brushing everything aside. Uh as well there's there's a lot of homeless people in Japan. You just don't see them cuz like one there are more diverse housing opportunities that we would consider to be unconscionable. There's also a [ __ ] ton of housing that is readily available that people aren't living in because most people have moved into the cities and that's a big problem as well. The government is trying to incentivize people to go back to the urban to the farmland basically because there's like entire villages that are decimated just empty. Things are just cheaper. They build more. They build more housing in general. And that definitely plays a big role in in um making Japan at least seem like it's a little bit better uh as a tourist, which is very different than like living there. I think there's a lot of societal problems in Japan, aging population. Uh I think younger generations also are seeing that same anxiety that we experience here in America as well with like no future prospects and whatnot. But um I mean no society is is devoid of problems. Their criminal prosecution is also very very authoritarian. Yes. Um they have a super strict policy. It's like just say you did the crime and you will get off easier than uh being held in in you know not solitary confinement but like being held for questioning for 28 days until they make you uh admit that you did something even if you didn't do it. They have like a 99% conviction rate or something like that. So there's there's issues in their court system as well. But I don't think that's the solution. And I think that's the reason why uh there is like seemingly less crime in Japan overall. I saw a really interesting study that showed in a pretty linear chart that liberals are more unhappy than conservatives. Do you know why that is? I have some opinions. Maybe let's hear them. I mean, I think conservatives have a lot of fun. I mean, they're like very paranoid. Depending on what layer of conservatism we're talking about, if we're talking about like queuing on people, I think they're like scared all the time. They're scared of the shadows. But I think the average conservative doesn't really think about things much and they're just like, "Yeah, things are fine. I think I'm just going to make it on my own." And uh they just have fun. Whereas maybe liberals are constantly worried about how shitty everything is and that uh that hurts their feelings. David Pacman said something about conservatives are more fear-based. Yeah. And maybe that's the reason why they enact the policies that they do or have the beliefs that they have because it's based out of fear. Yeah. and self-p protection rather than the benefit of others. At least that's what he theorized. No, I think he's he's nailing it. That's absolutely correct. I think that that is a big part of the conservative ideology. Now, it does seem like a lot of uh very public figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk are sympathizing more with conservatives over time. Why do you think that is? I mean, they're really rich, but they didn't just become rich. I know, but they got really, really rich. So, you think it's when they cross up the billion 80 billion to 200. Uh yeah, I think that maybe that's the threshold for Elon. I think um guys like Elon, I mean they were already like I I have this belief that I think a lot of liberals already are like primed to be conservative in many ways because like there's not a lot of difference from where I'm standing at least between like liberal attitudes and like mainstream conservative attitudes. Liberals more so just like care a little bit more about harm reduction and conservatives depending on what kind of conservative we're talking about are like way more aggro and want to do harm directly. Both sides do fall into black and white thinking as far as like good and evil things are people are good some people are bad and we have to deal with that on those terms. I don't think people operate on that. I think people operate on their self-interest instead and that like no one is truly good or truly evil. Their actions might be, but deep down inside they're they're b these opinions and these attitudes are born out of their material condition. I have a hard time believing that Elon Musk decided to just like randomly have more conservative aligning beliefs. He probably would not identify as a Republican or as a conservative. He says the left so far left though. Like that's his thing is like I've always been right here but the left has gone way over here and that's why now like it appears that I'm more right. I think that's just like looking for social permission uh to be more open and honest about your worldview in my opinion cuz like obviously the media landscape is dominated by liberals 100%. I mean a lot of these outlets are liberal. That doesn't mean that they're not conservative. I still think that like um like Republican, Democrat, doesn't matter. I think liberalism is still uh either triangulating itself to the center in an increasingly right-wing country or it is a little bit to the center right as far as like economic policies goes. Um as far as social policies, I guess there's a lot of lip service being paid to marginalized groups by liberals that you know don't really match up with uh enforcement or regulation or even deregulation in certain aspects. I think Elon Musk probably the simplest uh answer is I assume maybe co radicalized them a little bit in the right-wing direction and same with Joe Rogan as how did it radicalize them I think they felt like the government was restricting freedoms during CO like many people did and they found themselves in the comfortable bosom of right-wing radicalization because it can be very alluring when you have these opinions and one side is saying no you're wrong and you're a bigot and the other side is saying, "No, you're right. Come listen to us and we also have some other uh ideas for you as well." And then you slowly but surely start going, "Well, these guys agree with me. They're right on this. They think I'm right on this. Maybe they're right on some other things, too." But then again, I don't really know Elon Musk's like personal politics. I do know that like Tesla was very into DEI and stuff like that as a marketing initiative for many, many years, even though now he's like the brave anti-Dei warrior. I think that that was always just for marketing to sell liberals EVs and now he doesn't give a [ __ ] about that as much. Do you think a lot of companies use DEI just as a marketing ploy? 1,000%. That's all it is. Yes, absolutely. DEI is just a is a repackaging of the same concept that both sides are constantly pushing uh in either direction on. It used to be CRT not that long ago. Now it's DEI. It was woke and it still is woke. And uh before that it was, you know, affirmative action like people being like, "Oh, it's affirmative action. Affirmative action is putting people that don't deserve it in the positions of power." I think it's a misunderstanding and it's a band-aid solution to begin with and uh it it is both sides are misunderstanding the point overall. What do you think about DEI? I'm sure you saw the interview between Don Lemon and Elon Musk, right? I did. So they had a really interesting uh back and forth about DEI and Elon was just saying like on a fundamental level if I'm quoting him correctly if you decrease standards for surgeons to include other you know races or something that he that people argue are misrepresented or poorly represented um in medicine then it will cause more people to die. Yeah. What? And then I think that there was a little bit of like a miscommunication like Don wasn't really picking up on that exact because Don doesn't believe fundamentally that DEI is like lowering the standards and that's why he didn't understand the point Elon was making. And I agree. I don't think DEI is anything. It's just fake people being like, "Oh yeah, we care about like making sure that there's more black surgeons." Um, overall I also do disagree. even if you were to incorporate more black surgeons into the medical field, uh that that would be objectively a good thing for American healthcare in general because there are massive disparities with the with uh treating black people in this country in our healthcare structure. Um the the I think like the mortality rate for pregnant black women is like insanely higher than the mortality rate for pregnant white women in this country. And what's the reason for that? Medical racism is one of the reasons for sure, which is not even something I'm saying as like a woke guy. This is literally taught in med school. It's it's such a glaring obvious problem that like medical ethics is a class where they do literally sit down and teach you about like no black people do need the same level of painkillers that white people do. Like we promise. Like think about that. You wouldn't need to do that if there were enough black doctors. Like they would be in the class being like, "Yeah, we're the same." Doctors tend to uh prescribe less painkillers to black people than they do to white people, thinking that they can overcome pain easier. They think they have a higher level of pain tolerance. It's just one aspect, like one immediate thing that comes to mind when talking about this kind of disparity. But it's normal because you don't we are, like I said, we're all products of our conditioning. So, if that's if you grew up in a somewhat segregated neighborhood, um, and and you never really met any black people and you only saw black people on television and the stereotypes were what guided you into understanding what black people are like, and you were like kind of always at an arms length, like you're not going to know. Um, and you're going to have some implicit biases about it, even if you don't recognize that you do. Even if you're like, "Oh, I'm not a racist person. Nobody wants to obviously uh think that way. But even if you don't recognize it, like you will still have a blind spot for it. Do you think that we should hire surgeons then purely on merit? And do you even think that the question and I think we should keep doing that. Do you think that Okay. Do you think that the question of your race should even be asked? Because even when I was applying to universities and there have been studies that have came out that show that different SAT scores for different races will allow them admission into a certain college. Do you think that the question of race should even be in the picture or do you think it should maybe? I think you could argue, oh, what were your parents' income? And I feel like that could be a decent question rather than race. Or do you think that the race question is I think that's even better way to do it. Yeah. But what if the parents aren't even supporting the kids? Yeah. You will run into that problem as well. But I do still think that like coming from a more affluent background, like I said, I mean uh I had to take out student loans, but because my my uh I was very affluent growing up, but my father lost all of his money by the time I got to college. I had to take out loans and and I was, you know, now I'm fortunate enough to be able to pay those, pay my brothers, pay my uh mother student loans as well. However, um that affluent beginning still helped me a lot, I think, in in uh being able to study for uh things like study for exams and stuff like that, study for the SAT even. But do you think the question of race should even be asked? Or do you think that we should just look past it and and as Elon Musk would say, look forward into people's character and their integrity and their skills rather than back on all these things in the past? No, I think that it's it's not a bad thing to look at uh the racial background of someone for sure because I think a lot of these college campuses, one of the things that you learn in college beyond like actually learning the whatever the [ __ ] you're there to learn, obviously this doesn't pertain to like hard sciences, but like for most people's college experiences, I think one of the things that they learn is like being in a diverse environment. So I think that's really beneficial for a lot of people to to get a college education in a genuinely diverse environment that reflects the broader American society. So I think that like having that kind of like at least making sure that you have that same demographic represented on a college campus is a good thing overall uh and is more conducive to a better learning environment overall. Diversity of what is it? Diversity of skin color, diversity of in intelligence, diversity of like socioeconomic status all of it. But what if you just had a bunch like the highest creme de la creme people, the people with the highest scores, and you put all of them together, then don't you think that there could be some positive externalities of that as well? No, I think that I think it's overall a good thing to have just like you mentioned a diversity of intellect, a diversity of background, a diversity of experiences. I can say anecdotally when I was around smart kids in school, I felt and acted smarter. And when you're around a whole bunch of people who are dumb, I felt dumber. And the purpose for that is I No, it's true. It's true though. But like I had one AP class. I think it was like an AP English class. And the difference between that AP class and like the normal English class cuz I think I got like bumped up huge. And the people I was around like forced me to be better as a person versus the other class where the kids are like better teachers in the AP class? No, I I pure it was purely the students and you could see like they were very studious. They they took the assignments very seriously. they were more intellectual and that to me like I absorbed that. So I'd find myself like showing up on time like doing better in those classes. So anything that's better for maybe some of the dumb guys to get elevated like he did like in his AP class? It depends because how many you know should we bring into there? And also I heard this one analogy the one time the sled only goes as fast as the slowest dog which I think also can be kind of applied like if there's one person holding everyone back you kind of have to go at their pace. I remember I read this. You read out felt like you got pulled ahead at AP. I did. Yeah. There was that uh study the stutter as I stutter the stutter study. Did you hear this? The stutter study. Yeah, the stutter study. They had uh I think it was 20 kids with a really bad stutter, 20 kids without a stutter who spoke really like really well. And they mixed them. They put 10 of the kids that had a perfect speaking ability in the stutter. 10 of the stutter in the perfect speaking. And the people that had the stutter eventually improved being around other people who didn't have a stutter. And the people who didn't have a stutter spoke worse. And it was purely based on who they were around. I guess the question that I wrestle with is I just don't understand how race still has anything to do with that. Yeah. That wasn't a race thing or what. I mean, it was purely just like the color of your skin. Here's how here's how that works. Whether we acknowledge it or not, I think that the wrongs of the past of this country were done on the virtue of the color of your skin. Slavery was dished out uh by the virtue of you being black. Like you were a victim of it if you were a black person. And I think that we never really addressed it. We never offered reparations. The only reparations that this country ever gave was to actual white slave owners for uh for for lost property basically in the abolition of slavery. Reconstruction became a failure and that the same racial hierarchy was very quickly instituted by force, mind you, by former slave owners and others who did not like the new racial pecking order and were terrified of black people in positions of power. And I think that that created an environment of chaos that desperately tried to return to the old modes of existence. And because we never truly addressed it and because we did redlinining or we pushed black people into certain neighborhoods and we built highways around said neighborhoods, we sometimes physically destroyed black neighborhoods that were thriving like Tulsa. Black people never really got the same level of material equality that white people did. And it's not just black people either. Obviously, like different minority groups throughout time have been oppressed in different ways. Never to the same degree as child slavery, of course, but almost always you see those minority groups ultimately get captured under the white umbrella, the broader white umbrella. Irish people were uh obviously uh I mean they were, it's not a comparison. I'm not saying that the Irish people had it as bad as black people did, but Irish people were definitely discriminated against. Jewish people were definitely discriminated against throughout our history. Polish people, Greek people, Japanese people, um, Japanese people, but they all inevitably become a broader part of the white umbrella or at least the model minority, I guess. Whereas that never happened for black people and we still see the impact of that racial discrimination to this day. It's not an accident that, you know, predominantly black neighborhoods are worse off overall than white neighborhoods are. You can look at it and say this is born out of material conditions, external circumstances. That is the reason why next generation middle-ass black person children do worse overall than a middle-ass white person and their children. Um, you can look at that and say it's because of their race. They're racially inferior, which would make you a racist person. Some right-wingers try to mask that by saying it's actually culture. It's black culture, even though black culture dominates all American culture. and some for some reason I guess white people are not uh impacted by black culture in the same way. Or you can look at that and go oh this is a product of racial discrimination being baked into our institutions whether it be the criminal justice system or whether it be discrimination of different sorts in every facet of society. And I don't mean like directly being like oh you're a black person I'm not going to hire you even though that factors into it as well. I'm talking specifically about like the neighborhoods that you grow up in, the educational opportunities that you have and how much that stunts your growth and limits your opportunities. I think that that is something that we've never really addressed in this country and that is the reason why something needs to change. I think that we need to improve that situation altogether. Affirmative action and initiatives like that are a band-aid solution to a a gaping wound, if you will. But many people don't even want to that wound is there at all. So that's really interesting cuz I always wondered because I know a lot of other people have been subjugated to like persecution and being marginalized and like we just talked about the Irish people, the Japanese people, the Jewish people that have come to United States and suffered a lot. But you're saying that they were assimilated and filtered in a little bit more to our culture. For some reason it was after slavery we segregated them off still into these certain urban neighborhoods and stuff like that. and then like you said built highways around it and then that kept them kind of and purposely underserved these communities because of the way that like we've designed our taxing structure as well. Like if you're in a poor neighborhood, you don't have enough income or you don't have enough taxes to like be able to have better schools and and hire better teachers and then that creates uh an unstable environment, a volatile environment because it's just a poor neighborhood. You know what I mean? We've done it to white people too by the way nowadays. I mean, if you look at [ __ ] West Virginia, that's a great example. It's very white and it it is like a third world country. Literally, like no hospitals for hundreds of miles everywhere you look. It's a food desert. People are barely making people are barely making a a living out there. I think that needs to be solved as well, for sure. It's really interesting. I've never thought about it like that. Yeah. Do you think there's any solution to this or what do you recommend or think is a good idea to at least move in the right direction? Everything that I explain here, everything that I put forward as a solution is going to be shot down by the broader, you know, by the majority of the public because they're so primed into going, why do we care about like race at all actually? Like it's it's been done, you know, slaveryy's over, you know, get over it. um no matter how good of an argument I present. I think that well I thought that was a really compelling argument and I don't know obviously how much data or like media there is on okay what exactly happened after slavery and how are black people treated differently than these other groups and why they're better off if black people have continued to suffer. Yeah. I I think that uh we also do have a a very divisive media environment that primes people into thinking that anytime black people talk about like emancipation or or economic restitution it immediately is presented as like this is anti-white. So I think people do have that that conditioning as well into thinking like oh wait a minute like is this anti-white at all? And I'm sure there's a lot of people for sure that are also uh distasteful of white people across the board. I mean, that definitely is a real thing, but I mean, it's not it's ultimately not that big of a deal in my opinion. I mean, look, I don't I don't know about that. I think as long as you push someone off to the side, they're just going to punch right back and it's just not going to be a good thing. If you have to constantly justify your existence, not just as a black person, but just in any situation, if you constantly have to like be overcorrective, uh, and you know, the hang-ups that people have about people like you and they think you are a certain way, it's probably going to get exhausting after a while. Like I'm not saying that it's good that people have resentment towards others across the board, but I'm simply stating that like I kind of understand why someone might be resentful because, you know, you just automatically assume that I'm going to have similar racial hang-ups that like many other people who look exactly like me have had throughout time. I understand the resentment as well because that I think that was a key thing that you just said. You understand the resentment that these people would have when they're they feel like they're constant is obviously not all black people. We're just talking about like, you know, if if a black three white guys just talking shop guys don't even listen to what we're saying to be completely honest here. But if you say you can understand that resentment, I can as well. Like I see why they would feel that way 100%. I think it's just human nature, right? But then couldn't you flip that coin and see the other side of the token when people say, "Oh, you did this because you're white. You're this because you're white." Don't you think that over time it's part of human nature that once again you're going to be like, "Okay, guys, serious like when can I just do something, get a breath of fresh air and do something not just because I'm white, because of the contents of who I am?" And I'm all I'm saying is I think that it would help everybody tremendously. I really hope the comment section doesn't have a field day and say Jack is a champion of white something. I don't even know. But no, no, I I get where you're coming from for sure. I think a lot of people do get radicalized in that way in the in a different direction. You said you recognize and understand what I was mentioning as far as like system systemic failures and and black people across the board being left behind deliberately in many instances. If you recognize that, then you do understand uh internally that one party does still have this privilege over the other in that regard. So uh I don't know. I guess I like I do see myself in that regard as a very privileged person. This probably is like very frustrating for a lot of white people to hear. They're like, "Oh, this guy is just like [ __ ] geniflecting and and you know, saying like, "Oh, wo is me. He's so woke." But like, I try to use that privilege for good. Like, I know that there are a lot of people who could be moved in a different direction politically that are just simply at first not going to listen to a black person. They're just not. They're not going to listen to a trans person about trans issues. They're not going to listen to a black person about black issues. So, I tried to be a vessel for uh communicating um the the different perspectives to an audience that is going to be more receptive to a white dude. Now, this next one, I'm really curious. Everyone's talking about squatters right now. What are your thoughts on the squatter situation? I think Oh, man. I think squatters are are I mean, they're dope. Like as long as no one is living there and it's not being put to use, then the [ __ ] the house doing anyway? It's just a piece of property. What about damage to a property? What if someone wants to move back into their property and someone's living there and they say, "No, you can't kick me out." And they know the legal system to be able to live there for free, file for bankruptcy and extend your visit from So you can um if you want to live in a property and like someone else is like, "This is my house, like I want to live here." You can just like stop them from living. I think that that is a little bit trickier. That's a civil matter. So, I think it's a little bit trickier in general. But like overall, if if it's not like that [ __ ] building in downtown Los Angeles, the the one that famously has been tagged into oblivion. Yeah. And people are freaking out over. I'm like, why are there so many [ __ ] buildings that are just like left halfway in limbo and and halfway developed? It's like, repurpose that. In my opinion, if I'm the government, if I'm Governor Gavin Newsome, gruesome Newsome, I'm coming in and I'm saying Chinese style communist takeover, eminent domain, that shit's mine now. You guys [ __ ] that up. We're making this into permanent shelter. We're taking every single person from Skidro and every single homeless person and we're putting them into that [ __ ] luxury high-rise condominium. And not only that, but we're hiring, you know, 10,000 new social workers to make sure that we have the proper tools readily equipped so that we can reintegrate these people back into society and we're going to have all these [ __ ] jobs for them. We're going to make them fix potholes, okay? They're going to love to do it because they're going to get paid to do it and we're going to treat their drug addiction and a wham bam thank you ma'am perfect [ __ ] solution. What good is a house uh when it's empty as an investment vehicle? Sure. So, you would you would give the squatters rights that if someone decides to move into a vacant house without a lease agreement, they could claim that they have a lease and they should be entitled to live there. It's a little medieval, but you know, uh look, people need shelter. And I think I think if they're they're getting it that way, I think it's like the worst way to solve it. But if it's medieval, should then the property owner be able to defend their property, go in there and forcibly remove somebody just like in medieval times? It depends entirely on, if we're being serious, I think it depends entirely on uh like whether they genuinely want to live there or not, right? But overall, I think that like I said, I I I I personally love discouraging people from home ownership. like not home ownership, sorry, but like using uh homes as a as a vehicle uh as an investment vehicle. The funniest place to say this, but but what's interesting is that for a lot of the squatters, it's not uh the propertyy's not used as an investment vehicle. It could be uh somebody passed away. The house is empty for a week or two while they try to sell it. They go to list the home for sale and the realtor says, "Hey, there's a whole family living in here. There's like three people. I can't show it." They claim they have a lease agreement. They try to get them out, but they say, "No, we have a lease," and then it's 6 months to get them out. Yeah, I think edge cases like that, sure, uh demand legal expediency. Uh but overall, I mean, when I think of squatters, like I'm I'm thinking of like uh the uh there was a coalition of like uh black mothers that were in a house in Oakland, I think I remember, and they had to be like taken out by force by the the SWAT team at a certain point. And they were doing it as partially as a protest as well, maybe a couple years back. Like there are plenty of homes that are just vacant, you know, and they're just uh they're in escrow. They're vacant. Uh who knows when they'll sell. There's a [ __ ] ton of property, as I'm sure you know, that are owned by like foreign investors, and they're just empty. They're sitting there because it it looks good on their portfolio. Or maybe they got a what's that visa that you get for $500,000 of of investment into the United States? You got it for like visa purposes or whatever. Couldn't you say the same thing about a car that if somebody doesn't have a car and there's a vehicle that's not being driven, you should have the rights to use that person's vehicle? That could be cool. I think Do you have more than one car? I don't. That would have been a good I want another car. You know, that would be kind of nice. What's interesting is that uh D Santis passed a bill in Florida called the property rights bill that made it a first-degree misdemeanor for making a false statement in writing, a secondderee felony for any person who unlawfully trespasses or occupies a residential dwelling and a first-degree felony for knowingly advertising the sale or rent of a residential property without legal authority. And it's to combat squatters. Wait, you can do you can try to sell it uh if you're a squatter? Like I don't understand. What's the third one? You could try to subleasase the property. That's sick. Get your money up. So, that was actually a very common scam on Craigslist. Oh, yeah. Back in the day, I remember 200 10 through 2013, it was a big issue that empty properties that were listed on the MLS at the time. People would go in usually from other countries, list it on Craigslist, and then for a really low price for rent. And so, people inquire about it and they say, "Hey, I'm out of the country. Usually, it's I'm on deployment. I just want like someone nice to rent my house out. send me 500 bucks and you know and it's yours and they'll send a lease agreement. They sign it. They send the 500 bucks. The people show up and then it turns out it was a fake listing and they just got scammed. That's crazy. I mean that's that's bad. That's bad for everybody involved for sure. I don't think that there is an issue with that side of it. I just don't know what the application of it will be. I haven't read into it. I'd have to look into it a little bit further to give you like a like my full-blown opinion on it. on its face obviously as it goes most legislation is not written as like we're gonna shoot homeless people bill but uh I feel like sometimes the results do come out to be that uh and it's also disant so I I'm sure it's devious and and awful in general like I said I'd have to do a little bit more reading on it on its face the the legal language doesn't seem all that out there but the enforcement of it probably will be very the enforcement of it will probably cause a lot of harm. But as far as the car question that you asked, that's a beautiful question. Why is it a beautiful question? Because we need to have public transit. Like if we had public transit, then you have just completely eradicated the need to steal someone's car to drive it, right? In that situation, just like if we had public housing, you have completely eradicated the need for someone to be like, I don't have a home. I don't think people are stealing cars cuz they want to drive. I think but in that direct analogy it would be because people aren't like squatting in houses because they're like I [ __ ] love squatting. They're squatting in houses because like I don't have a home or it could be they want to save money. There were there was a story this is crazy. Now I know this is an extreme but there was a house that a colleague rented in 2009 and this guy was like a really wealthy attorney. This guy had a ton of money and the house he was renting I think was like $15,000 a month. It was a home in Beverly Hills. developer built this as a spec house to sell and the real estate market was crashing and values were plummeting and he was in it more than the house was worth. So, he was underwater on the loan. So, he decided, I'm going to rent it out and what I could do is at least cover my cost. This guy moved in knowing that the owner was like a month behind on his payments. So, he purposely sought out this house and knew that he could rent it. So, he moved in. He paid the first month rent, paid the deposit, stopped paying rent afterwards. he knew the owner was doing um like a like a loan modification, but in order to do and qualify for the loan modification, you have to stop making your payments. So, the owner was accepting rent at the same time that he wasn't making his payments to try to modify the loan to get some amount forgiven. But in the process of doing that, the tenant found this loophole that basically said or he was familiar with it. So, he he purposely tried to do this not paying his rent and he stopped and says, "I'm not going to pay my rent until you pay your mortgage." and the owner says like, "I don't have, you know, like I need to do this. I can't afford the house." That's a deep slick. You have to admit that's a bit that's kind of brilliant. What ended up happening, believe it or not, is that for 2 years, the tenant was able to stay there. And what the tenant did halfway through to stay there even longer cuz he went through the eviction is filed for bankruptcy. Didn't have to go through with it, but just filed. And they kept postponing and postponing. The owner the owner of the house ended up losing it to foreclosure. I mean, it's it's he didn't have enough money coming. It's shitty for that guy. Yes, I get it. But it's kind of like I mean, he got God a little bit. You know what I mean? But it turns out later this guy discovered that this guy just has a habit of doing that. He purposely seeks out houses where the owner is doing a loan modification, moves in, stops paying. Wow. That's kind of brilliant. I mean, honestly, that like I'm in awe of of what people do to to take advantage of like a [ __ ] up structure to begin with. Obviously, demonstrabably like the loan modifications and everything else that that like definitely participated in the in the broader crisis, right? One guy at least was able to to use that to his advantage while manipulating and weaponizing uh bankruptcy filings, which many people do to begin with. I mean, bankruptcy is not something that you can take advantage of as like a poor person. Usually, it's something that you can take it's there for mostly people who were wealthy at c at a certain point or are still wealthy uh to avoid legal scrutiny in different ways. But yeah, this guy this guy seemingly got his uh he he was able to he was able to utilize it in a much better way than like the people that I'm thinking of, which is, you know, like a poor homeless family that is looking for shelter. And I I do understand the human need for them to get shelter. I guess I felt bad for the property owner because they also he also had a family. This house was part of his journey to be able to support his family. That's what I'm saying. See, homes are a vehicle of investment and a vehic vehicle for wealth accumulation. But also, keep in mind, I mean, they're tearing down when they build these these constructions, they're tearing down old old houses where it wouldn't make sense for someone to move in. I mean, the house is from the 1920s, falling apart. It needs investment. Like, you have to buy that house and and put hundreds of thousands at minimum just to make it live. I'm not saying keep the houses old and shitty. I I I I'm a believer that we should reinvest into our communities and and rebuild them and and uplift them in general. I just don't think that the only way to do that is through uh the private purchase of of homes specifically for uh wealth accumulation. Well, see, in this case, I think a lot a lot of the constructions, it's like a first-time home buyer is not going to do that. It's not going to take on the project. It's going to require hundreds of thousands just to make it liveable. So, the market for that is pretty slim. The market for a fully redone house is much greater. No, I I agree. I'm saying that uh that there should be a a a better solution and for eradicating the need to even do something so dire in this circumstance, the extreme case. Obviously, it's like one guy doing this, but in most circumstances, it's uh extreme in the other direction where people are like super super poor. Like, you're not going to squat in someone's house, right? I'm not going to squat in someone's house. That's a whole legal complication that I don't want to take on. I got a [ __ ] job. You know what I mean? I got I got mouths to feed. I got business to attend to. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because my financial conditions make it so that I don't ever have to. I don't even have to think about that. And I think I I would laugh at that notion for someone like myself. So the way I look at it is how do we make sure that there are more people who are in a better financial situation. If if someone had shelter, if someone had access to public housing, they're not going to squawk and then eradicate those uh eradicate the other people who are like trying to manipulate the system. But how would that be different than any other type of theft? If someone just breaks in and says, "I'm going to take this. You already have it. I don't have it. It's mine." because for a lot of people they they would say that taking over a property is theft of that property. Um that's a great question. I think that one is like something that you need to survive depending on situation to situation obviously something that you need to survive. You need to brave the you can't brave the elements. Whereas in the other circumstance, like theft, like property theft, like you stealing something from another person is still overall a much more traumatic experience than like someone sitting in an empty house. I say this as someone who has, you know, who has experienced that quite a bit. I mean, obviously there's a lot of uh there's a lot of wealth disparity. I understand where it comes from. It is what it is. You know, it's the cost of doing business, I guess, like living in it's life in the big city. But I also do recognize why that would be a more traumatic experience overall, especially if it's like, you know, at gunpoint or something. It's more so the the like society is collapsing right in front of you in in that very moment versus someone squatting in an empty vacant home that is not being put to use. What are your thoughts on castle doctrine? It's [ __ ] nutty. I think it's it's very American. Do you like it or do you not? No, I I don't like it. So, for those that don't know, castle doctrine, also known as castle law or defense of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place, for example, an automobile or a home, as a place in which that person has protections and immunities, permitting one in certain circumstances to use force up to and including deadly force to defend oneself against an intruder free from legal prosecution for the consequence of the force used. If someone goes into your house, you're able to delete them uh to protect your It's another one of those situations where like the law seems sound at face value and you look at it, you're like, "What the [ __ ] What do you mean? If some rapist is like trying to come in and rape my family or something, like I should be able to shoot them, right?" That's that's what you think and that's what you that's what the law is like specifically supposedly designed for. But then castle doctrine is greatly expanded where you can shoot someone ringing your [ __ ] doorbell and say, "I'm scared." You know what I mean? And but you probably get prosecuted for that. Yeah. But that gives you some level of like legal protection in those circumstances. And then there's also an expansion on the castle doctrine where you can utilize castle doctrine when you're out and about. And this has happened many instances, many instances like high-profile killings of black people, for example, where like someone will just like shoot a black person and be like, "It was castle doctrine. I was scared. I was scared for my safety. This person was like coming at my car." And that is used as a legal cover. And it is quite expansive in depending on what state you're looking at. The law should be significantly more restrictive in situations like that. Like I I would put precautions in there for even force. You know what I mean? Making sure that we don't encourage people to be so gung-ho uh about you know using extreme force like taking someone's life for anything and everything. I guess my concern so you were saying there's lots of negative externalities from castle doctrine because you can expand that into other things that aren't necessarily going into Exactly. And I I see concern with the externalities of removing castle doctrine because then essentially you're incentivizing people to go into other people's houses because they're like okay well if I go into this person's house I'm not going to get shot. The point I will always make is this. This is a fundamentally American conversation to have. Here's why. Almost every other country does not have castle doctrine. There aren't like a litany of home invasion, break-in, rape scenarios that are occurring in all these other countries. So, one must ask the question, why is America preventing even more home invasions from occurring with this castle doctrine? Or is it a law that is designed uh and is is often times used in those extreme circumstances? And it gives basically people the allowance to to feel like they're free to shoot people uh if they come to their homes and are, you know, inconveniencing them or scaring them. It seems like the fundamental belief that you have is that you give people every tool necessary to live a good life and then they will live a good life essentially. Maybe a basic income, a job, some meaning in their life, re good resources, access to uh technology, internet and stuff like that. I think items the consumer purchases is a big part of that for sure. Like you know get people to to have a little bit of free time whether it's drinking whether it's gambling whether it's whatever the [ __ ] they want to buy dumb silly things and that essentially solves every issue. No, of course is a lot of a lot of important issues and I I do believe that. I think I guess the reason why I believe that is because like I look at the United States of America and the problems that we face and then I look at like my theory in practice in many countries, right? What I'm talking about is such a normal part of everyday existence that people look to us in the United States of America like we're [ __ ] crazy cowboys in the way that we live. They don't understand it. They're like, "What do you mean you don't have healthare? What do you mean your healthcare is tied to your job? So, if you lose your job, like you lose your healthare, what the [ __ ] And you have to pay $30,000 for like a regular procedure? That sounds insane." And they're right. It is [ __ ] insane. So we have been conditioned into thinking that this is normal and the alternative is scary socialism or whatever. But like in a lot of countries right now they do have these social safety nets. They do have uh no castle doctrine for example and things are fine. People aren't going around and it's not a chaotic situation where home invasions are occurring every single day. I think human beings are very adaptable to their environment. And if if we overall uh are are priming people up to to with the idea that like everyone is violent, everyone's out to get you. Hyperindividualism all the way. Like you have to be self-interested, greed is good. If you prime people up in that way, yeah, they're going to respond in that way and they are going to genuinely think that if you don't have casle doctrine, people are going to be doing breakins like non-stop or that you know um the lack of deterrence is the reason why people are doing crimes for example in in uh you know all these big Democrat cities when in fact it's uh abject poverty and and horrible living conditions for so many people and uh overall uh no end in sight for the cruelty that they that they see on a daily basis, they experience on a daily basis. And I want to fix those problems instead of trying to do the same old backwards way of thinking of like, oh no, if we put in deterrence measures like this will stop when we have so many deterrence measures in this country and it hasn't stopped. That makes sense. Even if it's just intuitively, I think that makes a lot of sense. Uh, I guess the the main problem I feel like that could exist with that is just the idea of taxing more and taking more people's money because I think a vast majority of Americans just think that the money is just being uh mismanaged. It's not even being mismanaged per se, but it's like it's being deliberately channeled into these avenues where um the reason why I brought up like housing policies that like Californians vote on and then see no end in sight to like the horrible uh housing market conditions that we have and the homelessness that is born out of that is because like we do have a lot of money. We could do project turnkey, the initiative to revitalize like old vacant hotels and turn them into homeless shelters, even though there's not even a [ __ ] uh permanent solution. It's a temporary one. And homeless shelters can be very violent for homeless people. Like way more violent than even living on the street, which is crazy to think of, where you can't bring your own property, where you have to go cold turkey, which leads to a lot of medical complications, where there's a litany of assaults and sexual violence and the like, and thefts as well. So it's already like a hostile environment for them too inside of shelters in comparison to permanent shelter like a housing first policy where you have some level of privacy and some level of dignity so you can uh you know focus on reintegrating into society and also uh rehabilitating all of those initiatives get purposely kept up uh that purposely stopped I guess by people who genuinely don't want it to happen whether it be the chamber of commerce that doesn't think that we should re incorporate uh vacant hotels and like turn them into homeless shelters because then what will people think? Then the hotel is gone. No one is ever going to want to live and no one's ever going to want to frequent that hotel ever again if they ever uh turn it back into a normal hotel. Like there's financial interests at play that stop these initiatives. Uh so it's it's mismanagement for sure, but it it's beyond that. I think that there's a lot of corporate interests, a lot of capital interest that plays a role in the mismanagement. starving the beast and and regonomics has been very successful in this country and it has led to the demise of of American existence in the way and the American dream if you will because it was it didn't stop with Reagan you know what I mean Bill Clinton was also a a massive neoliberal so many austerity measures implemented under his watch and that's kind of continued on and we've continued on that trajectory and with seemingly no end in sight and I'm not saying that the solutions are easy and you can, you know, change it overnight. I'm simply stating that like we have to move in that direction, no matter how shitty that turn might look like at first because that is the only viable long-term solution out of this without completely succumbing to crisis. So to change the the current the tides of this conversation, this is completely different. But how do you think Mayorcus has performed as director of homeland security, which is a job that's main responsibility is to counterterrorism and enhance security, secure and manage our borders? I mean, I think as far as like DHS, uh, ironic cuz like we have terrorism and like and I under the same umbrella, which I think is like really funny. I mean, there's not that much like foreign terrorism happening under his watch. So, I guess that's a big dub for him. But as far as immigration goes, I think it's not even just Morcas, but I think the Democrats have have failed uh tremendously in uh in in processing migrants uh expeditiously and ensuring that I'm using this word a lot integrated into society and can have TPS and and uh and and work status as well, which is like what many people are begging for right now in places like New York and Chicago. I think that the Republicans have done a really brilliant job of politicizing this issue and like [ __ ] up the process even further in a country where this process is already pretty broken fundamentally. And um you know the human trafficking component of like shipping tens of thousands of migrants without giving a proper uh without giving proper acknowledgement ahead of time to the places that you're shipping them is both uniquely cruel and uniquely inhumane. brilliant politically because then you're like see they are failing with it too. Uh you know these blue states they're supposed to be sanctuary states they're failing with this process as well just like we're failing with it. When I think that the influx of migrants is not only not a bad thing but it is part of the reason why America's economic engine has turned for as many years as it has. I also personally believe that we have enough wealth in this country uh that there is no lump sum of labor that this is a fallacy. There can only be a lump sum of labor that is like you know for a limited amount of the population if there is a different tier of labor. Undocumented migrants are undocumented. Viva Chsky talks about this extensively. Nam Chsky's daughter she wrote about this. Um, the criminalization of migrants is uh, I guess not a relatively new phenomenon in American history, but it was born out of the interests of capital to create an underclass, a permanent underclass of people that don't have the same legal uh, protections that the documented worker class, the documented labor class has that you can easily exploit. I think that Republicans and Democrats both rely on undocumented labor and they want them to stay undocumented so that there's always a pool of of laborers that you can recycle that you can cast aside when you're done with them and you can hyper exploit them. That ends up depressing domestic labor wages in general because you're not going to pick uh avocados, you know what I mean? You're not going to go out and pick avocados for [ __ ] 20 cents an hour, but someone else will. And as long as there's someone else that will do that, and every business owner knows this, um, why why will they do that? Because they're not documented. Because they have different economic circumstances. They're coming from much worse conditions overall. So, we have this labor process in the country that makes sure that those people are kept undocumented so that we can continue hyperexloiting them uh and and cycle them out when we see fit. So, it's a system that that is designed for its purpose. So, it's doing exactly what it needs to do from the perspective of those in positions of power. They can yell about like how scary immigrants are or whatever. But ultimately, it's an economic problem. And um if you if these Republicans were truly racist, for example, if they were like, "We cannot live around Mexicans." Like, no [ __ ] way, they would literally do what Oregon did back in the day. Oregon was a was a no slave state. Why? It was a white state because they did not want to live around black people that badly where they were like no slaves at all because we just don't want to live around black people. So they they were truly racist in that sense. So they had uh uh they had laws against having any black people around uh whatsoever. If American Republicans were that racist, if they really didn't want to have undocumented immigrants in this country, they would [ __ ] destroy any company that hires undocumented laborers. But they don't do that because that whole reactionary sentiment of white nivist immigration policies revolves around ensuring knowing full well that people are going to come in regardless and kind of you know kind of even uh enthusiastically guiding that process while simultaneously saying oh no they're rapists they're drug dealers they're murderers they're scary and that's why we have to do more enforcement on the border. That way you ensure that no one ever sympathizes with undocumented migrants and there's no amnesty, there's no documentation process and that process is more focused on enforcement rather than processing these people so they can become a part of the documented labor force and advocate for better wages alongside the documented American uh labor force. Speaking of wages, what are your thoughts on unpaid internships? I think it's bad. Why is that? I mean, because you're still doing a job, you know what I mean? You're getting trained to do a job, but it's the same if you didn't. It's the same if you oop sorry if the same as you were starting in that position anyway. I think you should pay interns for sure. Now, what about you in your example where you worked for free for the Young Turks and you got experience, you grew as a person and you came out better because of it. Wouldn't that be almost the same thing that you were putting in work for free? Uh yeah, it is the same as putting in work for free. I did put in work for free. It would have been much better if I got paid for it. That's it. Like I all three of us did unpaid work for a good amount of time. I still think that the way I see it is it doesn't matter how unskilled someone is in a particular field. It doesn't matter if you're training them. I guess I I have a you know drastically different perspective on this I guess but as long as they are providing value and there is a contracted play like you are contracting them as an unpaid uh intern they should still get a percentage of the value that they provide. Now, how is that different from going to college? Because in this case, you're learning something like you you might be learning a skill or a trade or something. Uh but you're paying for that experience. You be very shocked when you find out that I don't think college should be paid at all. I think college should also be free. But even if that's free, how would that differ from an unpaid internship? to say there are countries where they even pay you to specifically take on certain uh certain majors for example the government will pay you because there's like let's say there's a need for doctors we don't have enough doctors let's say well we literally don't in America but that's a whole different story let's say we don't have enough teachers right the government should not only not only is education free in this uh society that I envision but now the government is also paying you to go get education technical training and to learn how to become a teacher. I think that is what we should be doing and that is what some countries do already. I think under any conditions nobody should work for free. You can do work for free if you want to, right? Like I I'm not going to be like it's illegal. You know what I mean? Like I if you if you truly want to do something for free, then that's fine. You know, I I did it, but it still would have been better if I got paid for it. The way that we're seeing it is the fact that we were so excited to work that we wanted to work and we wanted to provide value and we wanted to be, you know, like the person's right-hand mans like we'll just happily do it for free. Whereas in other instances, probably the ones that you're thinking about, it's like companies that work with colleges and then try to source free labor from students, which I think is an exploitation of free labor versus people who are truly doing it to get ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I mean I think that it's it's better overall if there is a payment across the board for it. I mean it goes back to like uh NCAA athletes, right? Like I'm sure you think it's a good idea that they can at least like now make money off of merchandising agreements. Uh I think it should go beyond that. I think the college should pay them too as well. Um, but the fact that they were able to make so much money off of their likeness and and they see nothing in return for that, I think was ridiculous. If someone approached you to learn and work and they supported your cause and wanted to work for free, would you pay them anyways? I mean, I probably wouldn't hire them if I have no need for them. But if I did, then I would pay them. Yeah. Do you pay your Twitch mods? Yeah. Do you pay your Discord mods? Uh, yeah. I pay every I pay every single person in my community in in different ways. Uh it's not like a like a contracted uh it's not a contract basis specifically because I the discord I don't even touch in general. It's like elections are are had and then the teams then decide on who they want to bring in as like regulators and whatever. I think I'm not entirely familiar with how that works to be honest with you. But overall, I if it's an avenue that I'm like generating income from in some capacity, then and if it's like something that I cannot live without and I need help in in a specific field, I still want to ensure that people that work in uh people that are there are just like doing it for fun. Like they're not there. I'll take on the the the workload the you know the majority of the workload myself because like that's you know I think that's my responsibility overall and I don't want to like incentivize people to do it for money basically. I don't want people to like uh I don't want people to sit there for 8 hours. I don't think anyone else is going to do that. I think it's a [ __ ] ridiculous proposition. And I feel like when you have a contract of that sort, then it's like I'm requiring a [ __ ] ton of like emotional labor even uh from people that I don't think is is appropriate to ask of. So, one thing that is a common controversy that people accuse you of is the champagne socialist. Can you explain what a champagne socialist is? I think a champagne socialist is born out of the misunderstanding that like socialism implies that you have to be poor that like you cannot be successful and that like everyone has the same thing like it's a socialism is about like instituting by force uh the the same standards of existence for everyone you know city the gray city blocks come to mind you know social housing Soviet era maybe equity instead of equality exactly that was the word I was looking for thank you so much it is about it. It is about equity instead of equality. That's what people misunderstand about socialism. It is not about equity instead of equality at all. We don't have material equality as a baseline in this country. We don't have that at all. I'm advocating for a baseline of material equality. And I'm advocating for better worker protections, better worker rights, and more and less alienation from labor and more autonomy that that everyone can have a say because they are a part of the puzzle. that everyone that touches a project also has some level of uh some level of say in what gets done with the surplus labor. So, it has nothing to do with like, you know, making sure everyone is poor or whatever the [ __ ] people think about socialism. Uh I don't really care too much about it as far as like uh as as far as an own like people be like socialism but you have an iPhone or socialism because these like uh dumb things that you buy that are very expensive, which is true. I do. I buy [ __ ] expensive [ __ ] from time to time. I'm an idiot, but I've always, you know, these are things that I wanted to buy. Of course, you know, it's not a I don't I don't find that to be like, I guess a a marker for your um for your political beliefs at all. So, there are levels to it though, for sure. Right. But to a casual viewer that just kind of hears about you and maybe sees a few clips of you, a lot of the times it's like ranting on pe like wealthy people and oh, people need to be taxed more as a privileged person. And then they look at your lifestyle and they see that you bought this fancy, you know, $3 million house or whatever. You have a Porsche. You got like, you know, you got cancelled for a $1,000 shirt that you wore to Coachella. I did. Yeah. That was so God. Anyway, but you but you see how this juxaposition would confuse a lot of people and be like, "This guy seems like a little bit hypocritical." Yeah. No, for sure. I understand that. But there's nothing I can do beyond the fact that like this is not explaining that this is not inherently contradictory to the things that I advocate for, especially considering that like I have no issues with being taxed more. I pay the tax rates that I do in California that you probably know better than I do. Um, and although the spending on those taxes is not uh is not the best, I wish that they would spend it better. I still see that as my patriotic duty knowing that at least some percentage of that is still going to places that desperately need it like schooling like the roads and and you know whatever social amenities that are offered the marginal amount of public transit that we do have. I guess overall it's not inherently contradictory. uh it's not about socialism is not about you know forcing people to live a certain set of standards and I but that's impossible for me to to change the mindset of uh of every American. We are all conditioned to hate socialism in general. I think I've talked about this before but I think one of the worst things that I ever said in my career was openly admitting that or or not even like saying I'm not a socialist. I I wish I had never done that. It doesn't matter what I advocate for. If I had never said that, and there are plenty of people who don't, that have almost identical values to me that are received in a much more favorable light. As a matter of fact, celebrated for how kind and how open-minded they are. But when you get hit with that socialism sticker, everybody goes, "Oh, Venezuela, Stalin, you want, you know, cultural revolution in this country and or whatever whatever they think the socialist boogeyman is." I think that that was a major L for me, I guess. But because I'm so [ __ ] stubborn, I just, you know, I can't shut the [ __ ] up. And I should have gried a little bit. So making money and making more money than you need, making more money than you could possibly want, that is all a good thing. And you're saying a true socialist would would argue that that is totally fine. The main how you make your money is is important. Okay. That's that's the fundamental difference that people don't understand. So I don't have investments. I do have a I guess what is it? A 401k or a IRA or something. I have that because like I want to make sure that you know I you can't work forever. Obviously I do want to have a a safety net um when I inevitably stop working one day. However um I don't have investments. Why? I know everybody always. Yeah. Because that seems silly to me to not want to invest in a country that's given you so much opportunity as well. I don't see because I don't see it as as a as a net positive. I think that overall that is the fundamental difference between someone who is a capitalist or someone who makes money uh via capital accumulation versus someone who makes money via their labor. I make all of the money that I make off of as ethical means as I possibly can conduct. What I mean by that is like I have merchandise. This is my own merch, right? It's made in the United States and it's made with unionized uh garment manufacturers. This of course destroys the profit margins that I would normally have, but it doesn't matter because like that is the most sustainable, most ethical way that I can make uh make this product. I do it not because like oh I'm going to make some extra money on the side. It's marginal in comparison to what I could be making. These are $35 t-shirts made in the United States of America. you're not investing just doesn't make sense to me because let's just say your house for example 3 million bucks I'm sure I'm rounding up maybe it's worth that you know 3 million I got it for 275 I don't know what it is now so let's just say it's worth $3 million today how would it be any different for you to buy a $1 million house and invest 2 million in the stock market or instead of buying the Porsche to buy a Volkswagen Jetta for 20 grand and the other hundred let's say I would rather I would rather buy something nice uh then buy something cheaper and then take the rest of the money and and invest it in the software but beyond that there's already there is a lot of money that I could be investing right now and what is it doing it nothing either nothing or I just put it on donations and the capital appreciation I think putting it in a Porsche is worse for the economy than you investing $100,000 into stocks at least if it goes into the economy. You could you could argue that it supports businesses with investment that they that they can people are also invested in that could be put into like an ETF that people have their retirements in and then you're taxed on that as well. If you go and sell it for a profit, it's going to go I already get [ __ ] taxed on everything because like I'm not investing anything at all. But in a banking account, I feel like that is the most exploitative thing because they just go sell off loans to people like high interest car loans and stuff like that rather than in the stock market where people can invest in because there's no there's no alternative to the banking than to me uh you know putting the money underneath my pillow. It doesn't really matter because like like I said, I usually uh try to spend as much as as much of it as possible either on my family or uh on my friends or on donations. Like I I put it back into fundraising initiatives, charity, things of that nature. So that's the way I um that's the way I operate. It's probably very stupid. I know everybody always says it's like financially unsound for me to do that, but I think that it is that is less at odds with my values than taking all of the extra money. Cuz aside from like the flashy [ __ ] that you just brought up, like my expenses are nowhere near like the the the amount of money I make. I don't like I could be living a way more lavish lifestyle I guess than than the way I do because I I'm doing I'm very fortunate and I do the things that I love doing which is unfortunately for me I guess sitting in front of a [ __ ] computer and yelling for 8 to 10 hours a day. So I do that 7 days a week I'm in my house. So if I'm using something a lot like my house Yeah. then and I live with my family I need it to be a big enough house that like they can live there as well. and that makes me happy and then I'm good. So, what's your plan for retirement? Let's just say, you know, you're 70 years old one day, you don't have any investments. I would assume that you'd want a paid off house or something. But, yeah, property tax. What would you But what would you do in the event that Social Security is not enough to pay for what you live? Um, well, I like I said, that's why I have the the the SER, SEP IRA, whatever SE IRA, but I doubt you'd be able to accumulate enough to replace your current lifestyle expenses within that alone. And even within that, you know, no, my current lifestyle expenses are are entirely uh adjusted to how much money I currently do make. I don't I don't think I I don't think I would be, you know, flying around the world or whatever. like I went to Australia. If I don't have a lot of money, I'm not going to do that. It is what it is. I think to be able to retire where we are in Los Angeles, you need about 5 million bucks minimum to have an income of, let's say, 125 grand a year after tax in California, 90, which is a pretty reasonable salary for where we are. So that's $5 million that would need to come somewhere and need to be invested to be able to give you those returns. See, even with the SBRA, I was I still don't have a credit card, by the way. No, I think we talked about this. You said you're going to get a credit card. I still haven't got one. Even with the SB, like I was reluctant at first to get it. I didn't want to get it at all. Uh because I I thought that it was like cheating kind of cuz like then I am technically accumulating capital. But like there needs to be an appropriate government substitute in normal circumstances and there isn't one. like there is no uh social security is basically nothing and then beyond that there is no pension structure in the field that I'm in but even if there was a pension structure it's it's non-existent in most uh industries in general so then it's like well I have no like I have no alternative which is why I was I was forced to concede on that front but beyond that I think I will go at it for as long as I can and when I am no longer able to then I'll figure it out but even the money that's just sitting in your your bank account. I'm assuming like it's probably more in alignment with your morals to be putting that in an index fund or something like that. I mean, like I said, I usually give it uh to like I will buy things for my family instead. Like so I don't have a lot of money sitting in my bank account. That is fascinating. This is like I mean we we've never talked to anybody that that uh that does that. I mean it's generous. It's very generous. You could spend it on us. We listen needs a new pair of shoes. We got a fog de chow. We could go there. I like fog de chow is your see that's the thing like what's wrong with that? No god. Fog s eat though. Last word. No. Do we need to boycott them? Did they do something wrong? No. No. They just I think that I think that sourced. No, no, no. I love eating meat. Don't get me wrong. There's some really good restaurants with like really high quality meat that isn't like, you know, shout out some restaurants right now for the people watching. Um, no. Oh, actually I don't want to. You don't want it out yourself. Yeah, cuz you go there. Oh, no, no, no. I talk I I will. If I go to a nice place, if I go to a nice restaurant, I'll [ __ ] I'll I'll talk about it. What? Dude, this is the way I see it is like that's what the money is for. What the [ __ ] else am I going to do with it? But now, why not donate it? Why not just give it give it to people? What do you donate to? What charities? I'm um Oh, okay. I I uh I do a lot of fundraising initiatives and every single time I do I'm donating like you know 50 grand, 100 grand here and there. Um it's uh strike funds across the across the country, abortion funds. Uh we did a fundraising for releasing aging prisoners uh releasing a person from prison in New York, abortion funds in the south. uh like it's it's just Ukraine like uh raised a lot of money uh for for uh earthquake relief in Turkey and Syria that was like almost I think it was like $2 million I think and then same for uh Palestine for Palestinian charities. So here and there whenever I'm doing fundraising like I will also put in my money as well into fundraising issue. I'm curious what criticisms of you do you think are fair? Give me give me the criticisms and I'll tell you if I think it's fair or not. Well, I'm guessing you know, you're aware of all of the the criticisms that people criticize. I mean, I I Yeah, but what criticism coming from you? Maybe you're not even criticized on it publicly, but you think it's fair. I get angry a lot. I think I get very emotional and I get very passionate and I get baited too frequently by people who want to get a clip off. Like, they'll come into the chat. I have a policy of like allowing everyone to talk to me and to talk to one another. Most places, especially like a political stream, normally would not have that policy in order to be able to conduct themselves in a different way, right? To be able to control the conversation in the narrative. So that sometimes opens up an environment for bad actors where they will come in and they'll say something malicious. They'll say something that is like purposefully uh incendiary to to bait me into like responding in an emotional way. And I do that 1,000 times a day for the same exact issue. And on the thousand one, I explode. And then I gave them a great opportunity to clip that. Put it on Reddit. Put it on Twitter. Be like, "This [ __ ] guy's an [ __ ] Look at him. He's so mad." And I think that in spite of the odds, I need to get much better at that. For sure. That is definitely a thing that I am am frustrated by. I do care about that too much. and I get too mad and then you know people only see the bad stuff and they never see and they never factor in the eight other hours of the stream. Do you think it's a net positive though that more people are talking about you what you stand? Do you think it's a negative? No, because my line of work requires charitability. Sure. And like this conversation that we just had, you guys are very charitable, right? You're you're very open-minded to my position. And you're not in you're not inherently hostile. You're not primed into being hostile to me. So we can have a normal conversation, normal back and forth. And it can be very productive. Like I I think this was a very productive conversation. I hope you guys feel the same way. A lot of people don't think that way. And a lot of people are just like primed into hating someone because they've seen bad clips or things out of context or uh they have their own they've made up their mind like, "Oh, this guy's a [ __ ] Porsche, but he's a socialist." Okay. um you know, [ __ ] this guy, he's a grifter. Not realizing that like there are values at odds with socialism that uh that are shocking for people like yourself, like the fact that I don't, you know, make investments, for example. My my line of work requires people to be charitable to what I have to say that when someone is primed into hating me, it's over. I can't uh you know, I I it's becomes much harder for me to convince them. That is the reason why I [ __ ] hate when I get clipped out of context. is just the worst thing, especially if it's like the opposite position of the position that I hold. Um uh and and that people make up additional assertions off of that. It's very frustrating. It's already frustrating in a human level. Like I'm sure you wouldn't like it if someone clipped you out of context and were like, "Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, I'm sure it happens." That's just the most frustrating thing. And you guys do it in a podcast, which is like a very limited setting. Now, imagine if this wasn't just a podcast, but like there's hundreds of thousands of people coming in and out and are able to like at you and like directly address you over and over again. You would probably find yourself trapped in this weird situation where you're addressing the same things over and over again a million times. Well, I'm sure too when you put people in front of a camera for 10 hours a day, eventually out of those 10 hours a day for years, oh gosh, there's there's most people will probably have more slip ups than someone who's used to being on the camera and comfortable and absolutely moderate themselves. And especially when it's a political subject matter that you're covering, which means that there's immediately going to be a lot of people who don't agree with you or are primed into hearing you in the exact opposite way, even if they're uh even if they're allies to your position. Does it ever get to you? Are you ever bothered to an extreme level about negative comments? Yes and no. I think I think it it's frustrating to to have people literally maliciously misunderstand you even if they know better, but they still have I'll give you an example. I went to a party the next morning I'm streaming and I was talking about my social battery running out when I'm streaming for eight hours a day due to some of the things that we just talked about and how I said it and I said streaming is soul sucking in that regard in comparison to the sales job that I had that was also client-f facing and client pleasing and I said that streaming is soul sucking in a very different way than other jobs are outside of like customer service like being on the phone every day like that probably [ __ ] robs you of your soul in a in a really meaningful way. And I even compared it to uh I even compared it to like if I did labor all day, I probably want to socialize afterwards. Whereas after I stream for 8 hours a day, I can work out. I can do something physical, but I can't do something social. I was talking about my own personal experiences, comparing it to another job that I had held in the real world, implying that like I understand real jobs are different than streaming, which is wonderful. Obviously, we're very privileged and and I'm I'm very fortunate to be in the position that I'm in. I acknowledge it every day. Someone purposely clipped the streaming is soul sucking in a way that real jobs aren't like. And then they said, "Hassan thinks streaming is harder than much harder than a real job." That went viral before I was even done with my argument. It had already gone to Keemstar and so many other places who most likely knew better because they are influencers themselves. They understand it. They don't [ __ ] stream for a reason because of the reasons that I'm mentioning. And yet they were like, "Oh man, this guy is son. He's such a hypocrite. He hates [ __ ] workers." Here's a guy who I don't know what the [ __ ] he does to his employees. Talking about someone like me, the largest donor to the Amazon labor union, the largest individual donor to the Amazon labor union, who works with labor organizers every [ __ ] day of the week. And this [ __ ] [ __ ] is like positioning himself as like the true champion of workers rights by saying that I hate workers. like I hate like real American workers. That does get really frustrating because for two reasons. One, because nobody wants to be misunderstood by millions of people because that makes a lot of money for them to voluntarily and maliciously misunderstand my point so they can make YouTube videos and get ad revenue cuz that those clicks drive that controversy and those clicks drive revenue in your direction and affinity from people who are looking for uh someone to be like, "Yeah, [ __ ] this Asan guy." And it's it's frustrating because then a [ __ ] ton of people misunderstand you. It's also frustrating because like then on issues where I would be able to make change and change someone's mind on I'm completely shut off from that person. That person has a normal life, has a job, has friends. I'm an afterthought. Of course I am. I'm just the afterthought of that hypocritical socialist who thinks that his job is harder than mine. So when I talk to that person about unionizing their workplace, they're not going to [ __ ] listen to me. They're going to say, "No, you're a bad guy. I think you're a piece of shit." And I don't even fault them for thinking that. Like I I of course fault those who have manipulated him, content creators who deliberately involuntarily make this kind of uh drama content knowing full well the context. But I don't fault that person. I get it. Do you care about being liked? Yeah, of course. Would you say you're happy? For sure. And we're going to do a real quick game at the end. Mhm. And then before that, we're going to ask you questions from your audience. So, we actually went into your Discord and asked some fans for questions for you. Okay. Okay. So, we have 10 questions. I'll start. How many inches are your biceps? Um, I think we [ __ ] we did this. We We measured it on the podcast on my podcast fear and I think it was like 18 in 18 19. I don't know. That's pretty good. Should pineapple be on pizza? Eh, not really. But I mean, it's fine, I guess, if you like it that much. I don't prefer it. How do you get along so well with women? With a woman? With women? Women? Yeah. Women? I just We're on the streets. You're a charmer. Am I? Yeah, that's what people say. Yeah, that's crazy. Do you disagree? I get along fine with most people in my like immediate vicinity, I think. Um, but as far as like women goes, I don't know. I just I just treat them like they're guys. I treat them the same as I would as a dude. And they like that. Yeah, I think. Yeah. It's just like I mean it depends. It depends on how you I guess what it depends on how you how you treat men, I guess. But like if you treat them with the same level of respect and and and don't undermine them. I think that's that's that's like half the battle. So just treat them like like men. That's how I do it. But also treat men better, I guess. Treat men and women better. How much do you pay for a haircut? Zero dollars because it's usually my boy Jeff Whitick. The free labor. So it's free labor. Yeah, free labor. No, actually he makes so actually. So Jeff is a a good friend of mine. Love him. Um Jeff Whitick, I don't know if you guys heard. Me, too. Oh, he did. He actually gave me a fantastic haircut. Yeah, he's a great great barber. He's dope. Great guy as well. Uh that piece of [ __ ] makes so much money every time he comes on cuz he's always shilling his products. Every time he comes on, he's like, "Oh, they do well." I think that's what he tells me. But but even if but he doesn't give a [ __ ] He would do it even if he wasn't shilling product. But he'll he'll cut my hair, put it in a [ __ ] bag. Uh and then he'll be like the next guy that you know the next guy or girl that buys this uh buys one of my products, I'm going to ship this hair. Does he actually do that? Yes. Are you bo are you bothered by that? Like are you kind of weirded out? No. That's going to have some guy that just randomly buys it wasn't even thinking. Why is this this way. What if they put that in a crime scene? Like there is a murder or something like that. Some sprinkling your hair and you get caught up in something like that. Let me tell you, I have a permanent alibi. I'm literally always live. So that's a really good point. Yeah. So that's the other thing like people used to people always speculate about like what Twitch streamers do in private, right? Like they always talk about stuff like that and it's like, bro, I don't have any privacy. I'm live literally 10 hours a day. What could I be doing? What have you noticed? By the way, this is just me. What have you noticed are the benefits of using nicarette? Or what is that? Is that not zin? I'm zin. Oh, because you know Tucker Carlson does them, too. Yeah, I know. Would you pop a Z in with him? Um, I mean, if I'm out of Zen, maybe. But yeah, no, I I I uh do Zen now. I've Nicar's great. It helped me quit smoking. I I used to What were you addicted to? Smoking. Cigarettes. Yeah. I started off with chew actually and then I uh started smoking. usual story. Pack a day. Uh tried to quit it so many times and then nicotine gum literally helped me. It saved my life. Crazy. Yeah. Wow. What are your thoughts on Jack Dhy? Who's that? He's like that kid that is on Wait, wait, wait. Is he the [ __ ] Is he the little He probably is. Is he the fetal alcohol syndrome kid who that has like that big [ __ ] bouncer? That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think mothers should stop Mothers should stop drinking alcohol when they're pregnant. You will create more Jack Dhys. Nobody wants that. We'll send this to Jack. He'll He'll really appreciate that. Would you Would you take him in a boxing ring? Take him. What do you mean? He's like He's like the size of my [ __ ] quad. All right. You have it here. Hassan Per calling out Jack Dhy. I'm just going to fight Jack. We're going to be hosting this on next Sunday's episode. I'm not going to go to jail for child abuse. And also on top of that, it' be probably a hate crime cuz you know, like I said, fetal alcohol syndrome. What else we could include that? Okay. All right. Say you met the perfect girl. Everything was 10 out of 10, but she had a body count of 1,000. Would you date her? Yeah, I don't give a [ __ ] Is porn That means that means she's probably knows what the [ __ ] she's doing real well, too. Remember, these are questions from your viewers. Uhhuh. That's surprising that someone asked that question. They're probably memeing. Okay. Is porn destructive? No, I don't. But what if it's like, you know, hyperrealistic porn where like everything just looks extra jiggly, everything looks extra supple. What are you watching, man? That's like awesome. What do you mean? That seems even better. But it's maybe sets false expectations of people and standards. I mean, I think that that's uh that's an argument that you can have for literally every form of media. You know what I mean? It's like I don't I don't see porn as anything different than like uh you know, like any other kind of visual medium. I think that like a lot of people set so many expectations on porn because we don't have like good sex education in this country or any sex education at all or abstinence only sex education which is really bad and that it shouldn't be left up to porn to teach people because that's [ __ ] insane. It's like learning math from playing Pokemon or something like that's not you know what I mean? Like it's ridiculous. And I think that the reason why uh porn I think I guess to a certain degree porn can be unhealthy especially if you have like unfettered access unrestricted access to porn at like a very young age. I don't know what the [ __ ] will happen with the next generation like but I'm I'm 32 years old. It was very difficult for me to find porn but when I did it was awesome right and and now I think I have like a much healthier now I have like a much healthy like a normal relationship with porn. I hear about like porn addiction all the time online and I'm just like damn bro like [ __ ] It's probably a deeper seated issue than Yeah. I'm always I'm always wondering and I mean I always do say like yeah if you have a porn addiction then it's good that you probably are not watching porn anymore but like I personally don't understand it. I don't think it's like across the board destructive or anything. And it can literally have uh genuinely positive impact on as far as I understand like gay people and trans people and whatnot that like become more comfortable with their sexuality. like almost every gay person I've talked to um has has shared stories about like them slowly but surely coming into uh accepting their sexuality and like porn does play a role. That probably [ __ ] terrifies right-wingers when they hear that cuz they're like, "Yeah, they're making him gay." But it's like listen dog, if you're watching gay porn and you become gay, you were gay, okay? It doesn't work that way. Like I don't see dudes kissing on the street and I'm like, "Oops, I'm gay now." Like it doesn't work that way at all. I I think that it it's it's has it negatives for sure. Setting false expectations of reality to a certain degree. Absolutely. Um have you tried to quit porn? I mean I literally inadvertently without realizing quit porn for extended periods of time I guess. But I have you know yeah I would be perfectly fine. I have been perfectly fine throughout periods of my life not watching porn. What do you look for in a woman? Um, stupid. I feel like these are like girls in my Discord writing these questions. Yeah, we we picked random ones. Yeah. What do I look for in a woman? I look for a competent partner who will uplift my best qualities that I can work side by side in. What do you look for in a man? in a man like in what regard in like a relationship just like or a bro I don't know I didn't or or like a like a friend. This is just questions from the um what do I look for in a man a competent partner that I can uh that I can work side by side with. Okay. All right. Last thing is a game. You also don't have to answer somebody if you don't want to. Okay. You can blaze through this. You don't have to provide an explanation. Oh, I have to do it like Oh, tier list. Yeah, cuz I am so wildly curious. Okay, amazing. Alex Jones, amazing. One of the greatest [ __ ] broadcast talents of all time. Anakaspar, I'm going to put her in a tier cuz she hates me now, I think. Uh, but you know, I've known her for like 20 years. AOC S tier. Ben Shapiro C D tier, I think. Overall, Bernie Sanders used to be amazing tier, guess maybe S tier. recently. He's been falling off a little bit. Brandon F tier. F for dead. He's dead. He's dying. Uh and his chances of re-election are dead. Jenk, I'll put at I'll put Jen at S tier. Um Steven Crowder. Gh. Oh my god. Major L for Steven Crowder. Even I'm glad that he was even incorporated into this list, honestly, because like you know, he's fallen off dramatically. Uh fell out of his relationship, too. Fell out of his divorce. Uh Don Lammon, uh I'll put him at C tier. I guess he's fine. C for centrist. Elon Musk, Ftier, uh person overall. Major F, major L. Genuinely sucks. I think he's like the most thin skinned person on the planet. It's like just do normal billionaire [ __ ] in a [ __ ] uh island instead of tweeting all day. What the [ __ ] wrong with you? Like he has the same kind of brain disease that I have where he just like can't shut the [ __ ] up and has to engage people. I genuinely don't understand it. like richest guy used to be the richest guy on the planet and he's just like [ __ ] become this like weird [ __ ] internet guy for for you know he loves getting celebrated for nine gag memes that he's posting ridiculous Gavin Newsome hot so it bumps him up a little bit but still Ctier because overall terrible governor myself I'm putting amazing right there next to my idol Alex Jones amazing amazing amazing F tier genuinely I mean, he just [ __ ] one of the weirdest debates that I've ever had. Jesse Lee Peterson. Joe Rogan used to be a major fan of Joe Rogan. Put him in B tier because he's a [ __ ] co nut in many ways. I'm sorry this is so long. We tried to remove people, but we couldn't figure out how to remove people. Okay. John uh John John Oliver. I like him. Uh S tier. He's great. Uh probably one of the best Brits out there, honestly. Uh Jordan Peterson uh Ftier just genuinely I think boring in general. I don't know why the [ __ ] he I mean he's not popping anymore but he used to be popping. Kla Harris also F tier sucks. Charisma Black Hole at Dtier nowadays because that coconut uh clip that she had was pretty funny. You didn't fall out of a coconut tree. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? Charlie Kirk Fier. Head is way too [ __ ] large. face is way too small. Lex Freriedman I put at A tier. Honestly, the number one only centrist on the planet. Matt Walsh. Ew. Yuck. F tier. Both ugly and also majorly transphobic. That dude looks so goddamn sweaty. Michael Nolles. I'm going to put Michael Nolles at Dtier because we had a conversation. We had a conversation. He's also famously in college uh uh played a role as a gay person in a in a student film, which I think is [ __ ] awesome. And now he's like always talking about how people are trying to make your kids queer or whatever. This [ __ ] goober. Not even going to mention him. [ __ ] that guy. He's a literal Nazi. David Pacman. Uh David Pacman's all right. I mean, we definitely disagree on Israel, but overall, he's a pretty progressive voice, I would say, as long as I mean, we have a lot of disagreements on foreign policy, but I'll put him at B tier above Joe Rogan. Um Patrick BDavid S tier, my goat. I love him. That clip of him being like, "Are you gay?" Oh my god. Oh, you saw that when we [ __ ] watched that. Yeah, you were there, too. Are you gay? Me? No. No. What do I do? Weren't you? Was I there? You were there, bro. You were next to him. Are you gay? I remember that clip from the podcast. Let me tell you, I was [ __ ] valued. Okay, that guy is I love him. I love him. You should go on a show. I I will eventually. I reach out to make that happen. Oh, no. I'm sure he'd love that. He had he had uh my uncle on. He had Jenga on and many other people that I know. Uh RFK uh RFK long career in advocacy for environmental rights. He's like defended tribes successfully. [ __ ] major vaccine cook nowadays. Uh would have voted for him if he got Jesse Ventura to be his vice president. Big F big L for not getting Jesse Ventura. Still a C-tier guy. I mean he's crazy, but at least he's like somewhat entertaining. Russell Brand used to be cool, now F- tier, I think. Uh, you know, kind of washed. Justin, I don't even want to [ __ ] rank Justin Trudeau sucks. Trump, uh, Trump, I'll put it B tier right here. He's um he is so good when he's out of power and like give that man a [ __ ] my the perfect solution for Donald Trump is put him in prison and put 247 cameras on him like big brother style and not like a bad prison you know like Mara Lago is fine you know what I mean house arrest and he can just [ __ ] have 24/7 broadcasting on his own network everyone is happy he gets admiration he gets to [ __ ] you know talk about like Kristen Stewart or whoever the [ __ ] he's angry at on the any given day but he doesn't have any power. In that case, he would he would be perfect and it would be a win-win. Tiger Carlson F tier. Uh, just hates America, I think. Kind of [ __ ] up. Hates America. Loves Russia more. What the [ __ ] that about? That's weird. You constantly [ __ ] on America. Constantly talking about how much he loves Russia. That's weird. You know what? Put I'll put Trudeau at D tier. Um, Vosch loves goblin porn, horse porn, beastiality, lolli F tier. That's real. He got caught with his folder. Vive Ramaswami. Biggest drop off of all time. F tier. Ronda Santis. Another one. Oh my lord. This guy [ __ ] he was like propped up as the guy who was going to defeat Donald Trump. And holy [ __ ] what an uncarismatic person. Phenomenal. Like just such a bad bad [ __ ] political trajectory for that guy. Candace Owens. Um I'll put her D tier. uh hired by Daily Wire while she was uh openly a virulent anti-semite and then fired by Daily Wire for anti-semitism even though it was you know anti-semitism plus being anti-Israel I think uh Javier Malay uh psycho just [ __ ] insane person uh Btier All right uh what's his face Chris uh Cuomo Chris Cuomo uh hottie Uh, a tier. Do you think him or Gavin Newsome are more attractive? Which one? I think Chris Cuomo is more attractive than Gavin Newsome. I think Gavin Newsome is handsome, but like Gavin Newsome looks like a like a straight to DVD release movie president, whereas Chris Chromo is just like he's [ __ ] shredded. He works out a lot. U Morca's bald, big L, F tier. Don't really care. You run ice. XQC F tier. Uh he we we had a we had a falling on uh we had a falling out. Um Pokemon amazing. Uh Austin gay. So I don't know maybe F tier for being a H. No, you know what? I'll put it in Amazing. This is my podcast co-host. I don't know if you guys know who the [ __ ] this is. Uh Miskf C tier. Easy lock for that. Uh Jeff Bezos, that's my boss. So, I have to put him in a higher category, but it's still F tier because he's a billionaire. Don't know who this guy is. Founder of Twitch, Justin Cohen. Oh, that's the founder of Twitch. Okay. I don't [ __ ] know. He's C tier. Fine. America. The United States of America. The United States of America. A lot of promise. Uh, could be the best country on the planet. Chooses to be the worst country. F tier. Uh, Candace Owens again. How did she end up there? Again, there's two Candace Owenses. Uh, this time Candace Owens F tier. One Candace Owens or Dtier, one Ftier. Ethan Klein A tier. Uh, billionaires F tier. Easy. Not even a question. Uh, shouldn't exist. Straight up. Policy failure. Just like every homeless person is a policy failure. Every billionaire is a policy failure. Aiden Ross, I mean, come on. [ __ ] getting owned left and right by every rapper out there. Total F tier. Kaisenat kind of fun content. I guess I'll put him in B tier. Uh, Valkyrie. Amazing. Who? What is this? Who is that? I don't know. What? Wait, is that you? Is that me? Yeah, you're in there. Wait, I'm there, too. What is Jack? Jack made this. Wait, what's What is that photo? That was him as a real estate agent. Oh my god, you look like a baby. Which photo do you You look different. Which photo did you use? It's the What? It's the It's your No, it's your normal. Yes, it's your blue suit. You look blue one. Oh jeez. Well, I guess that was like 2016. It's like, [ __ ] that's been Oh, when I zoom in, I can tell. But from afar when it was like zoomed out. All right. Good podcast host A tier. All right. There we go. Sneo F tier easy lock. I mean, both Aiden and Sneo have either a hosted Nazis and white supremacist or have literally said Nazi white supremacist [ __ ] Sneo has. Uh, and Andrew Tate Fier always, of course. Um, yeah, that's it. Cool. Amazing. Thank you. That was for coming on the show. Thank you. Good seeing you guys. He was so generous with his time too. I just want to note this. Very, very, very generous with his time. So, we really appreciate it, Asan. Amazing time. Until next time. And anything you want also link down below. So, check it out. Thank you. Cool. Sweet. Dude, thank you so much. Honestly, this is going to be a banger episode. I think people are