Is America Declining—or Are We Just Refusing to Say the Word? | Michael Malice

I'm looking at America and I'm saying that we're really going through something. We are in decline. I would use even more dramatic words than that, but I don't want to get trapped in a linguistic game. >> Okay. >> So, I'll just ask, do you think America is declining on any measure any meaningful measurements? I would push back very heavily against that word. >> Okay, I avoided collapse cuz I know you hate that word. >> It's not collapse. >> So, how do you think of it? >> of all, it's not collapse because if you can get bread, it's not collapse. Like right away, that's like the first metric. If people start freaking out, America is destroyed, can you readily get bread? Yes, then it's not destroyed. Like cuz we've seen countries where you can't get bread. >> Yeah, no, that's real. >> not even close to that. Like uh hold on, in fact, it might be a good thing if some people had a little less bread in this country than than more. Uh go ahead, I interrupted you. >> So, is there a metric by which you would say we are declining? You don't like the word decline, >> There there are several metrics by I think we are in ascension. I am a big fan of broadly speaking of this sort of Pax Americana, this idea that the world is largely um aware at all times, all countries of America's power and American values, and at least pay some sort of lip service to it. Um and I I think that is in the ascension right now. Really? The you think the world is paying closer attention to American values now than say 15 years ago? >> say 4 years ago. I I'm I'm just talking about, you know, >> Is this a regional ascension? Meaning it was high, it dipped, and now to some extent we're going back up? Or you think on an all-time high basis we're reaching >> I I got you. I got There's a lot to say here. Hold on. I I don't I don't I didn't say all-time high, but I think it's very clear that people are responding to better for worse to Trump's uh shows of strength than they were to Biden. I think we see this with NATO and the various European countries where on the one hand it's pretty obvious that most of these prime ministers think Trump is a loon or a bully or so on and so forth, but they are still meeting with him and engaging with him and treating him with a lot more respect at least publicly than they did in the first term. I think there's less space to be like taking a dump on whoever happens to be the American president. Um I think this the fact that um he tentatively has This was a regarded as a joke in 2015. In 2015 in the debate stage when Trump said, "Oh, you know, what are you going to do with the Middle East?" He goes, "Oh, it'll be like the mother of all deals. Like no one ever seen anything like it. It'll be tough." And everyone's like, "Yeah, okay." So, the fact that we even have a potential deal on the table where Iran has tentatively signed on board and Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Hamas and Israel that it's even in that direction is something I think is unprecedented and something I'm I'm I'm sure everyone else listening to this is very hopeful about. Um the fact that um I think Americanism as a way of life is in the ascension. People are more patriotic. Uh I was just in the UK and it was controversial to put up the Union Jack, the British flag, which is crazy. Uh so, I think in that sense America is in the ascension. Um so, and economically I I I don't know what's going to happen as a result of these tariffs. I've heard two widely different um points of view and I am of the wait-and-see persuasion. Um so, in all those senses I think America is in the ascension. Where we are in a decline uh and I don't know that The reason I hate the word decline I'll it This is me being irrational. In uh 1978 when Margaret Thatcher was head of the Conservatives and they were the minority party, the the opposition party in the UK, and the idea was Britain is in a managed decline. And during the '70s, as I wrote about in my book The White Pill, people don't realize this, they didn't even have electricity. So, at one point it could be fairly said that the sun never set in the British Empire because they had colonies literally all around the world. In the '70s, they had uh electricity rationing. They had uh uh you couldn't get power because things were so bad with the strikes and inflation and so on and so forth. And the idea was, we've had our day. Uh that time has passed and now we're like the old man of Europe. And Thatcher said, I can't bear the idea of Britain decline. I just can't. We who once stood alone against Hitler, well, he had all of Europe and look at us now. And she was the last, I think, PM who loved Great Britain to an embarrassing degree. I I heard these stories of uh you know, there were these international meetings and she's shoving like she crappy British candy and people say that's like, oh, it's so great. And they're like, yeah, but I want that in a leader. I want a a president or a PM who is so irrationally patriotic that they're forcing you to take this crappy candy and you're just like, thanks, Margaret. Um but, where I think we are in decline is as this siloization that, you know, many people discussed in terms of politics has uh increased and exponentially. I think the space for discourse has um is decreasing at a very fast rate. I think people are not interested in talking to each other. I don't know if that's a bad thing, but it's certainly not something uh is all upside. So, that is the one space, I think, we are very much in decline. We're have I mean, right as we record, there is a brinksmanship between Governor Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of uh California, and the governor of Oregon, whose name escapes me. Um I forget her name. And right now in the articles, there just this morning as I was on the in the car here, they were talking about this concept of soft secession. Which is Illinois won't cooperate with federal government to the point of withholding handing over tax revenues. So, yeah. And you know, Trump sending in the troops to these different states, these are all escalations. Is somebody going to blink? I think yes, but I don't think the person who blinks is going to be like, well, all right, they got us boys. It's a wrap. We're going to go home and change give up. So, I don't know where this ends. And I I had Tim Pool on my show this week and he and I kind of disagreed a bit. And I think you're a business person. Something that people don't understand is trade-offs. Right? And if you have a benefit, you have a cost often, right? You get married, you don't get to cheat. You have a kids, they take up a lot of your time, right? That's a pay it's it's a cost, doesn't mean the benefit's not worth it. And I think Trump and I don't know this is unnecessary. I think it's funny how much Trump has made his opponents lose their minds. I mean, we had highly educated women walking around with [ __ ] hats and putting on their social media without any sense of shame. And it's just like, do you even see yourself? They they're proud of this. But I think when you make people crazy, uh crazy things happen. Yeah, I'll agree with that. So, it doesn't matter what you look at, it matters what you see. You and I are looking at the same thing, but we draw very different conclusions. So, uh the analogy that I always use is when you look up in the night sky, all you actually see are stars. But then we draw constellations on them. Those constellations are fake, but they actually do help you steer at sea in the middle of the night. Uh so, they have utility even if they're off. When I build the constellations in the sky of all the different things that are happening, I see something when put into historical context are all the cues that we are on a road that has a branch ahead of us. One of those branches is Civil War revolution. Yes. And because we're on that road, I am screaming from the rooftops trying to get people to understand, okay, up ahead of us there's a fork and if we don't take the correct fork, we are going to end in revolution or civil war. For me, I'll oversimplify it often to the economy. It is an oversimplification, but it really is you can talk about diabetes as we need to manage the neuropathy in your eyes and your feet or we can say it's this is what you're eating. What you're eating is the problem here. And exercise. So, I'm saying let's talk about the eating and exercise versus managing the symptoms. And because we're not doing that and because I I literally see exactly zero indications that we will do that, I can see the fork in the road coming up. We're admittedly not too far gone. We could still change course, but I don't see any indication that we will and if we don't fix the economy, we will end in revolution. So, for me, I'm like, when somebody says America is collapsing, I'm like, yes, very clearly. I don't know how a civil war of revolution in a literal sense would happen because when you had the American Civil War, you had half of the country all or heavily militarily trained and armed ready to take up arms, right? When you had the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, all the soldiers were here, we had all the land, they had to send in I don't know how long it took them a month to send in their troops. So, it's it's it's there's a capacity to take up a stand and we bear you know, Washington kept retreating. He would kept getting our ass handed to us cuz the American patriots didn't even have shoes. They were wrapping their feet in newspaper. Let's walk this through. Let's suppose right now, I don't know that Pritzker and Newsom or these blue states have the capacity. You could have massive civil unrest, but if that's the case, I don't think they have much of a chance against the federal government. Conversely, if you had a president, you know, Pritzker, and you had these red states revolting, I don't know that he would necessarily have the military behind him to do anything about it. What So, it's to me, it's much more likely that you would have this sort of, you know, God help us, like Napoleon coming in and just putting a stop and like the buck stops here, here's going to here it's going to land, but in terms of protracted revolution or civil war, I don't think there's a parity between two sides that would allow this to be sustained in any kind of duration. Yeah, so we agree with that. And the last thing I want to get bogged down in is like word choice, but the way that I see this is either French Revolution, so you have pockets of violence, it's not some sustained thing, it's just hey, we take a few thousand people, we round them up, we either gulag them or execute them in the streets. A new government takes power based on a strong man who understands once people get a taste for blood, you have to aim at it something. You're not going to stop it. So, to your point, this is how Napoleon comes to power, he realizes, oh, I'll just aim these at every other country, we'll go conquer Europe, 3 million people die across Europe. But hey, you you end up getting a total transformation, not for the better, but a total transformation of French society. Right. >> Or, and I think this is the most likely version, we become Argentina. And so, Argentina in the 1920s, 1910s, attracts more immigrants than America literally at the same time. They were the real land of opportunity. And then they end up getting to the point where they do all the classic things of inflating their currency, trying to keep the prosperity train running, but if you're not doing innovative things and you're just trying to flood the government with money, it just never ends up working. And so, then it starts declining, but people are getting used to all the government money, and so you can't talk people out of it. You end up marching towards socialism, or at least socialist policies, where the government's taking care of way too many people, and the economy collapses. You lose all of the government defaults always, and so then you can't get investments in the country, and you end up with this 100-year period. It's like played out so many times over and over and over in history. So, that to me, with the rise of someone like Mondani, is exactly the direction that we're heading. We have made it impossible for young people to get ahead economically. The second you do that, you guarantee the rise of populism, cuz people are afraid. Fear sucks, so it translates into anger. Anger feels a lot better. Populism rises, cuz you get figures that go, "Don't worry, I'm going to go slap around the other team. I'm going to get you all the cool stuff that you want." But, because there is no such thing as giving people things for free without a huge cost, you end up collapsing the economy. The government is forced to default on its debt, and then all of the investments go away. So, is it going to be 1860s and that classic style Civil War? No, but it we already have pockets of violence. We already have political assassinations. I think that will ratchet up. Someone will come into the government and say, "We have to clamp down in this just to like bring back stability." And then the executive powers begin to expand, and you're in a very weakened state. Um I As someone who's a lot more comfortable with political violence than the layman, um Well, I >> Because it's useful? Well, I I don't really know how much of this conversation I'm allowed to have. I mean, with me as much as you want. >> Well, with the internet, because I Yeah, that becomes how much pain do you want to go through? Right. So, um I I I see what you're saying, but I don't think we are Argentina because Americans have a very different view of America than the Argentines do in Argentina. And if you had I I couple of points. First of all, um Pelosi and Biden and Hillary did a lot more to stop like AOC and Bernie Sanders than the Republicans did. So, I still think that that wing that corporate hack wing of the Democratic Party is still quite powerful, even though on social media the energy is in the kind of uh DSA kind of wing of the Democratic Party. And for decades Republicans have complained, not unfairly, that rhino, you know, they they run as the base and then when they're elected they have to wash in the rhinos Republicans in name only and the republic the base doesn't get anything they want. This is the first time, I think in quite some time, that the Republican base is actually getting results from the presidency. Even during T- Trump's first term, he delivered in terms of doing things that are funny, like when Pelosi and the congressional delegation were trying to go overseas and they're on the bus going to the airport and he canceled their flights and they had to circle the buses they wondered what to do if cuz they didn't have the permissions from the president. That was funny, but like what did that really accomplish? Now he's he's he's hitting them where it hurts and it's putting points on the on the board. Um so I think that is something that is a a little bit unprecedented. So, the question is is the Mondani wing going to take over the Democratic Party? If they do, it's kind of like what what happens? It's kind of like a dog chasing a car. When it catch the car, what's it going to do with it? Because a lot of the Democratic Party is funded by corporate America, right? And when you have a socialist kind of party, they're not going to be necessarily um yes, sir and just continue to pouring that money. They're going to start funding some kind of, you know, New England Rockefeller Republican types. They're going to go somewhere. So, that's one thing. Two is I think that only works though if you actually start fixing the economy. Young people really are in a dire situation. If they can't get on the property ladder, literally all hope is lost. >> It's not all hope is not lost. >> No, it really is. So, I'll I'll I'll give a super speed run of this. So, the way because the government deficit spends, your you have to print money and as you're printing money, you're causing inflation. >> Right. If you don't own assets, then you take the full brunt of that. So, in the last 5 years, inflation's been roughly 25%. >> the poorest the most, yes. >> Right. And real wages haven't gone up in like three decades or more. And so, people's wages have stagnated, prices are going up, they can't get on the property ladder. Now, why does property matter so much? It is the only asset that people understand intuitively, and it's the only asset that you can live inside of. So, and to really icing on the cake, it's the only asset that for certainly for a heterosexual couple that you're going to get massive pressure from your wife to get you a house. So, there's a reason that the house has become the focal point of like the American dream and all of that. And it's just completely out of reach. So, if you continue deficit spending and don't allow young people to get into a house, you will make them increasingly desperate over time and they'll vote for anything that's change. And right now, the promise that sounds the most awesome is I'm going to get you a bunch of free stuff, which is socialism. We'll get back to the show in a moment, but first, let's talk about why you keep starting and stopping. 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Uh I think, first of all, one of the reasons housing was such a big thing in America was this post-World War II uh fetishization of suburbia. And this idea of like, "Oh, if you just move out of the city," which was kind of a new thing, the invention of the suburb, you get to have a be a homeowner, and that's kind of the American dream. So, number one. Number two is I don't know that housing is necessarily going to be as First of all, by all accounts, everyone's saying the housing market's on a bubble that that's that's about to burst. And housing is going to come a lot more cheaper. I know here in Austin specifically, uh the house I was looking at went from uh in I moved here in 2021, it's 2025. When I looked at it, it was 1.1 million, and now it's like 875. So, that's in a couple years. So, housing prices are going down in certain areas. I think people are uh maybe New York and LA, I think they're still going up. I don't understand the economics there at all. Maybe it's foreign investment, and they're just sitting on those uh apartments and not actually living them is one of the things I heard, but I'm not an authority on that whatsoever. Point being, I don't know this idea that the demand of housing being static or close to static is true. Cuz what you might see very easily is, you know, booms in in Dayton, or like cities that you and I are in our periphery, but they can become new hubs, especially with the rise of social media and the internet. You don't need to live in New York City anymore. So, there's no reason why you can't have 100 cities that are prospering as like Austin being one example. It kind of came out of not nowhere, but a mid-tier city and then it became a cultural hotspot. So, that's something I would push back again against as well, but I agree with you completely broadly speaking even without the housing. If the currency loses its ability to store value, if I don't have any savings, it's kind of a wrap, because then you're Zimbabwe. Then it's like I need to be spending I all the incentives is for me to spend my money today and get these goods, because if I leave in the bank, I'm losing a quarter of the value every year. I shouldn't be saving. And when you have a society that's incentivized against saving, that's a society that's incentivized against investment, that's a society that's kind of eating the the seed that you're going to plant next year, that's that's a deadly spiral. But, I don't um and there's no This is what's amazing. There is like no appetite in Washington to cut spending like one iota. Wow. >> a few months ago Trump had the big beautiful bill and many conservatives online correctly and a few in Congress were like, "This is insane. What are we doing?" And then it's like, "Oh, look over here." They're like, "Oh, wait, what?" And they they all completely forgot about it. Um This continuing resolution right now that they're debating the government shutdown, it's it's I mean, if President Trump right now said, "I want to go back to my first budget, you know, 2017 when he became president for the first time, it would be like you're crazy person, you're radical, blah blah blah. So, that is something that concerns me enormously, but as you and I both know, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. Uh the US dollar still is disproportionately powerful worldwide and many of these other countries have GDPs, excuse me, national debts that are far higher proportionally than ours and they're not doing great, but they're not at collapse. Now, I'm not saying it's good. I'm not saying it's not a problem, but I'm saying they're not in civil war either. Japan being like one prime example of this. Yeah, so Japan is always you hear about Japan, you hear about the Nordic countries when I bring these arguments out. So, I'll give a quick sort of renunciation of Japan and why that does not help us. >> Renunciation? Denunciation? I'll take it down as an argument. Whatever the right word is. So, Japan is like hyper hegemonics. It's just Japanese as far as the eye can see. They have a very specific culture. I mean, you come here and that's not true. I thought that was like a racist eye joke. It's very funny. Nice. No, but I like it. I'll take it. So, having that kind of cultural uniformity is when the culture is collectivist and very polite and why I want to make sure that you have something as well. You can get away with that more. So, the reason Japan comes up a lot is any country that's ever crossed the 130% debt to GDP ratio for more than like 18 months has gone into open violence. And so What are we at now? We're at 122. So, the reason >> sorry, I have to interrupt you because this is really key. Yeah. When do we hit 130? It's like 10 years. Okay. So, so if we are on this track according to all these kind of charts, open violence. Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So >> I agree. Yeah, okay. Then I agree. >> Japan is the only country that bucks that trend. And I think they do that like if you paid attention to the World Cup, they clean the stadium after people left. It's just a different culture. >> to interrupt you because we're on the same page. I didn't realize you meant 10 years. I thought you were meaning like in the next two or three years. >> No, no, no. In 10 years, yes, I can easily see us going to open violence, easily. >> So, and I don't see it as a binary, I see it as like it will just continue to escalate. So, I think we're already in a very sort of controlled pockets of violence right now. Um I think it will get worse. I don't think it's top of the government. It's going to take 10 or more years to get to that stage. But, my thing is if you don't start putting in the fix now, then it becomes unavoidable cuz you're adding a hundred trillion dollars to the national debt every 100 days. So, it's like this becomes a bigger and bigger problem every day and you don't want to be in like year nine going, "Okay, now we really need to do something about it." Um so, anyway, I don't think it's a nothingburger. I also don't think panic is the right answer. So, panic is not going to get us anywhere. Uh but, taking evasive action is going to be important. Um I don't know that I'm so um opposed to seeing my enemies crushed and kind of um just destroyed. But, the question is >> enemies in this? Uh uh I think >> The American government? >> Not the American government. I think there are schools of thought that are so malevolent and nefarious that unless they are completely kind of annihilated, they're going to kind of exist in perpetuity. That said, everyone thinks they're going to be the guy driving the tank and not the guy under the treads, right? So, that's just why I'm very careful to be like, "Oh, this is going to be fine." You know, whenever people light a match, they're like, "What? My house on fire? I just wanted to have a little, you know." That's not how it works. Uh uh and I'm very um I I'm very um doubtful that the people in those tanks would be people I would consider friends or people who I would approve of. Certainly. I've said repeatedly that the enemy class is not going down without a fight. My buddy Jesse had this great point. He's like, it's not like they're going to say, well, good job. You won that argument. I guess I'm going to go home. That's not a thing. And I think people have this There was this 80s conception that you are sure familiar with, which was very much a part of this American ethos, how Reagan and Tip O'Neill, who's Speaker of the House, Democratic Speaker of the House, you know, would argue with civility during the day and then go home and play golf together. And isn't that great? And I think now there's this idea that like why am I playing golf with people who want to kill my kids, right? And I think both the hardcore Republicans, hardcore Democrats would say, yeah, my the other people want to kill my kids. And I don't even know that they're necessarily either or both or neither are wrong. So, I don't see any kind of kind of rapprochement between two violently, literally violently opposed worldviews. I don't see What do you see as the incentive for anyone to blink? The incentive to blink is always going to be, if I blink, then my life tomorrow is better and my kids' lives are better. That's why I'm saying this has to come back to the economy. Like people all of a sudden will change their tune instantly when money's involved. If people believe, like, oh, wait, this isn't profitable anymore. I'm going to stop doing this. I'm going to start doing this new thing. This was part of the JK Rowling, when she went after Emma Watson, she was like, I think a big part of this is Emma realizes it's not as I think she even used the word profitable, is not as profitable to dunk on me as it once was. Meaning Rowling. Yeah, so Emma Watson was basically anti-JK and now all of a sudden is changing her tune saying, no, I still love her. And JK was like, what is happening right now? So, she was like, this is the same woman that once mouthed to a crowd, I love all those people except the one, meaning J.K. Rowling. And she's like >> profit, you don't mean just financially, you mean like status and other stuff. Emma's talking about status. That's what J.K. Rowling said. She's talking about status. But, if people really believe that they can get ahead, whatever that means, either status, power, money, then they'll change their tune. So, fixing the economy to me is that. Like, you have to get people to believe and understand that there is a way out of this. There is a way for you to participate in the economy. There is a way for your kids' lives to be even better than yours. There's a way for your life to be better in 10 years than it is today. And it's not the path you're on. Now, are you going to get the average person there? No. The average person is caught up in emotions. They ration emotionally or reason emotionally. And so, it That's a lost cause. You just have to get the tide to shift from grievance to opportunity. Now, that's going to be extremely hard. But, to answer the question directly, that's what will get someone to >> think it's going to be extremely hard at all. Because um I I I'm glad you clarified what you what you what you were thinking cuz I I agree with almost everything you just said. I don't think it's going to be hard at all. And I know I know I can hear right now the mousetraps going off in people's heads in the audience. There's this People have this Schrödinger's cat view of uh First of all, I hate the term the left because even if Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would vote the same on every single bill in front of Congress, if either of them were president, God help us, they would not have the same priorities. Sure. They would not have the same things on the agenda first, second, and third. They would not cut deals with the same people, maybe the Republicans or the countries in the same way, right? So, when you say People understand that Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are not the same as, you know, Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene. But, when they look at their opponents, oh, they're all basically the same. And this Schrödinger's cat, they have this view of that Democrats are the or the left, let's just pick for Democratic politicians, are ideological zealots who are, you know, some version of Marxism and are obsessed with kind of this Marxist hegemony. At the same time they're like these are soulless, amoral, power-hungry creatures who'll do anything to maintain their hold on power. It's not both, right? So, do they have this Now, maybe this is their vision that they have in the back, but the point is there's time and time again when a great example of this is the UK, the Labour Party. The party is called Labour, right? It's not that It's not the Democrats, it's Labour. And as soon as people in unions started voting for the Tories like with Boris Johnson's campaign, they're all white supremacists. Right. So, Labour turned on the Labour unions, right? So, in America people like, "Oh, they're never going to turn on this group, that group, that group." It was Bill Clinton who pushed forth DACA, the Defense of the the Defense of Marriage Act, and and fought against gay marriage. In fact, in 2004, when John Kerry was running against George W. Bush, he called Bill Clinton and asked him for advice, and Bill Clinton said, "Campaign against gay marriage." And John Kerry said, "I'm not going to do that." And he lost in a very close election. And if he listened to Bill Clinton, he probably would have won. Cuz it was just very few votes in a few states that carried that election. So, if people think that Democrats won't start pivoting, it's already happened. If Pete Buttigieg is talking about not having trans athletes, Gavin Newsom's openly talking about not having trans athletes. This was a thing 5 minutes Like 5 minutes ago, we all had this consensus that Democrats, you know, bought into what the base was saying, but they don't in the same way that BLM was a huge thing in the spring and and summer of what is it, 2020, and then as soon as Biden Officer Harris got into the White House, BLM was complaining publicly, "They're not returning our calls." >> Yeah. They didn't even send some kind of like random low-level staffer to have a big kind of photo up at the White House and be like, "Oh, BLM's here. Let's discuss." They didn't care. They didn't pretend to care. So, I think it'd be very easy, and I know people are digging their heels hearing this, for the Democrats to pivot and be like in 1992, it's the economy, stupid. There are enough old-school Democrats, and more importantly, Democrats who only care about seizing power, who could be like, "It's the economy, it's the economy, economy." They can campaign very easily on this kind of fiscal conservatism, just like Republicans do, because Republicans don't ever have to deliver it. And if you have a binary system, and it's like, "Trump's crazy, and he's focusing on illegal immigrants, while you can't put food on the table, you know, I'm I kind of worked my way up, and my dad was a postal worker, blah blah blah blah blah." That will resonate with Karen, and Karen is the swing voter. >> Mhm. Yes. Uh I definitely think politicians say whatever they need to say in order to get elected. So, I from that perspective, I don't think any of the parties are carved in stone. Um having said that, when I look at what the energy is in the party, the energy very much seems to be moving in the Mondani way, which and I'm very empathetic to it, because if we have broken the economic system for young people. Like, it is just absolutely smashed to pieces. And given that, they're going to need a clear message. >> that unemployment with young people? You keep saying smashed to pieces. Like, I've no idea how bad it actually is. >> Okay, so unemployment is bad. It's uh I think in ages like what do they call prime working age? So, 21 to 42 or something like that. Uh it's I want to say 12%. >> That's That's bad. Horrific. >> That's bad. Uh and And I saw rents in New York are like three grand >> Yeah. for a studio? >> It's wild. It's wild. But, the I I don't even need people to get that far, cuz now we're starting to get into like the the nitty-gritty of it all. The two facts just to get people to understand, 10% of Americans own 93% of the assets, and the only way to avoid the deficit spending, the punishment that we will all receive of that, is don't assets. So, 10% are protected and the take the 10% it's like going to be most of them own a minuscule amount, and then the top 2% or whatever own the 93% of the 93%. So, uh most people will never do the very thing they need to do to protect themselves from the government, which is to master or as close as you can owning assets. And it's a complicated game, and it's a game that carries a lot of risk. And so, I know people are never going to do it. So, you've got to get They're not incentivized to it. Who's not incentivized to People to to save and and and kind of get assets. >> Well, no, you're not you're not incentivized to save, you're punished for saving. But, you are a thousand percent incentivized to own assets. If you don't, you're going to get punished into oblivion. >> the media, I'm not the the culture. There's not this idea of like be responsible. Well, so he agreed. That's what I'm saying. A thousand percent. And this is a big part of like the rallying cry that I'm trying to do is get people to make that a thing. But, like the one that always baffles my mind is I'm like, hold on a second. So, uh people will be up in arms about redlining and saying this is a great evil that we did to African-Americans and it echoes through the generations that they're not able to pass on the wealth that you can put into a house. And I'm like, uh but I don't see that same energy around the fact that we are deficit spending and making it impossible for people to buy a house. So, it's like you're literally obliterating multiple generations of people. I'm like, the this ends so horrifically and it compounds. That's the part like it just compounds and compounds and compounds because they can't get into that asset, they are more devastated by inflation and it just gets worse and worse worse. Anyway, so that's where I'm like we have battered the life out of young people economically, Um they're they're not able to start generating that money. So, when somebody comes along and promises not like, "Hey, we're going to be fiscally conservative." Instead, they say, "All of these guys are corrupt. You know it, you feel it. Uh they are the reason They probably don't have to define they. They are the reason that you're not able to afford rent. We're going to cap rents. We're going to get you free bus rides. We're going to have state-run grocery stores." And people are like, "Yeah, that sounds a lot better than what I have." But, they're so economically illiterate, they don't realize that that experiment has been run over and over and over, and there is like a reason that is super easy to explain as to why that doesn't work, can't work, won't work, hasn't worked. Uh but, it it sounds awesome. And so, they go for it. >> Sure, but I don't think that Mondaire's appeal in that primary was largely kind of economic. I think it was more this kind of he's saying things that no one else is. He's not a corporate party hack like Cuomo was. It's very hard to get enthusiasm about among the base for a Cuomo figure. It's like if Jeb Bush like ran, you know, for for mayor of some of Florida cities, even though he was regarded People are shocked to hear this, widely regarded as a very successful governor. He won his reelection by this huge margin against his opponent. I forget what year it was after crushing the guy in the debate. Um it was close before that. So, I think there's Yeah, I think uh something else that, you know, you and I haven't touched on is social media encourages and just our culture in general encourages novelty. So, if something has been around for like 20, 30 years, it's inherently bad, right? I want that shiny new thing. I want that new app. I want that new whatever. So, this This is something that weighed very heavily in favor of Trump in 2016. Um it and it worked against uh Hillary Clinton. Um so, I think that is part of his appeal. Um I also the you know him Curtis Sliwa his Republican opponent ran in 4 years ago is regarded as kind of like a clown figure in New York. Cuomo you know was is a is a mass murderer. So, it's kind of are you going to vote for the guy who did the mass murders in the past or the one who's going to do them in the future? Uh it's kind of a a Hobson's choice if I'm using that term correctly. Um but yeah, that AOC winning is an ascension, but I I think you're also there's just this kind of vacillation and the Republicans did this too where it's like there's this myth in politics that moderates are better at winning elections than the people on the uh on the on the edge. And one a great example of this you hear this all the time is Christie Whitman. She ran for governor in New Jersey. She won Republican ran in '93 won again '97 and she's like, "Look, I'm the moderate." If you look at her elections, she won by like one point over the Democrat. Whereas Chris Christie who at the time was widely regarded as clearly a hardcore conservative won by far bigger margins than her. The reason is vote the election isn't won by the populace, it's won by who gets the who turns out. And you might have someone who is really really hated by the opponents, but he riles up people on your side and if you get people excited, that might tip the scale. So, it's an enthusiasm gap not just a numbers gap. So, the moderates are like, "Yeah, I might prefer Mitt Romney over Obama. I'm not getting off my ass to vote for him." Whereas if it's Trump, it's people like, "Hell yeah, I want to do this cuz this means something to me as a signifier." So, they will do one and then when that doesn't work, they run "Should have been the moderate." Then they run the moderate and it just goes back and forth. You see this in both parties all the time. So, I don't at the same time, you know, on the third hand as an octopus, um though they have arms and not hands, if you look at Europe and where the left is going, it is going in this kind of I would say Maoist hardcore authoritarian direction. You see this in Canada, you see this in the UK. I mean, talk about political violence. If the cops are arresting you for I don't know if you saw this or maybe people watching this maybe you have people watching this happen. There was a woman or a guy I forget who it was knock on the door in the middle of the night from the cops in the UK I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here to warn you about a Facebook post you had. Now, I agree that people shouldn't be wasting their time on Facebook cuz that's for boomers, but it doesn't shouldn't involve the cops. Dude, they arrest 30 people a day in the UK for things that people post. >> And this is after 14 years of conservative rule and what four four different PMs? >> Yeah, it's wild. I I am I am aghast. It is the most Orwellian thing I've ever seen from the land of Orwell. Like It's not the most Orwellian. Oh, give me give me more. I mean, come on. It It gets more Orwellian than that. In the In the West? Yes. Okay, examples. Um Woodrow Wilson, I know this is preceded Orwell obviously, but what he did during World War I and you had kind of mass censorship of the mails and and the and the >> that's wartime. Horrible, horrible, sure, but at least you've got >> But the war wasn't here. >> yeah, fair. The war It didn't have need to happen here. It was just there because they had an excuse. Never let a good crisis go to waste and it wasn't even a crisis. This was their opportunity to like to flex their muscles. Now we have a pretext to kind of have mass censorship and totalitarianism and they got away with it. This is what I'm concerned about as a student of history. Everything that happened during World War I we have a in in American shores. Look, we're doing it the Great War, blah blah blah. When FDR comes in in 1933 and he could say with a straight face all these measures that we took during wartime just 12 13 years ago. We have a great depression, which is really a bigger threat to America like the Kaiser or what is happening with you have 25% unemployment. And of course the answer is great depressions far greater threat to the average American America as a whole than the Germans during World War I ever were. So then they could just have that same totalitarianism again. Point being COVID was the biggest psyop in American history. A lot of very very nefarious people by accident or design got some very useful information about what the limits are of American submission, what it would take for Americans to kind of reach that violent point, and whether that violence be regarded as legitimate. And I think now they are going to be cashing that in. It's one of those things you said that so calmly that I think it a lot of people are going to miss how terrifying that statement is, but yeah. Sure, yeah. All right, you've said that the time for talk is over. What do you mean by that? When people are totalitarians, they use language not to communicate to but to manipulate. It is not done in good faith. It's just what do I need to say to get you to do what I want. A great example of this was when it was discovered that Mamdani when he applied to Columbia marked his race off as black. Not as African-American, it said black. And several Democrats including former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he was born in Uganda. Of course he's African-American. It's like you know you're lying. I know you're lying. It didn't even say African-American. That's not what that means. We all know this. But the time for talk is over. You're there's not a conversation we had there. And I think things like the trans debate. We talked about trade-offs earlier. We can make the argument Let's make we can steal man this argument very easily. I have gender dysphoria. I need to take cross-gender hormones to and feel like I'm supposed to be. You're telling me there's no cost to take even the same gender hormones? You're telling me if a woman takes estrogen or a man takes testosterone, it's all upside? So you laugh, but it's people understand that that's ridiculous. Women know perfectly well during their cycle or when they're pregnant, when their estrogen spiking, it has consequences. It's part of being human. But in this debate, nope. You take the testosterone or the estrogen respectively, it's all upside. It's insane. And any question like, okay, maybe I can make this argument, the benefits outweigh the costs, but the pretense is there's no cost. So that's another example of how it's it's just not done in good faith and there's no really space for talking. Yeah, okay. So if we're not able to have good faith conversations, what what is the alternative? Because you're very optimistic. I It is I consider myself >> I'm hopeful and optimistic. It's not the same. I hate that word. That's optimistic? Interesting. It's always like a passive-aggressive judgment word. It's my filler word. >> I know, but it's such a waspy thing. I don't know why that would be waspy, but >> Because wasps don't say, "Oh, you you suck." They go, "Oh, that's interesting." >> Oh, no, no, no. I don't think you suck. When I say when I say that's interesting, I basically mean that has made me feel something that I don't yet know how to categorize. >> So I'm going to say interesting to give myself time to find its box, which may be tomorrow. Uh >> But I'm just saying like in in in in in I understand, but this it starts especially like publishing has a certain connotation. Hm. I don't mean it that way. >> I know you don't. >> So without using it in a way that bothers you, It doesn't bother me. I'm just clarifying, but you're you're I think you're putting on something you're not trying to. I'm just being a stickler. Fair. Okay. >> So now give me hope versus optimism. Why draw a distinction? Um I'm hopeful this conversation will go well, but I'm not optimistic it will. So That's clear. There you go. That's clear. Okay, so uh you're >> I've had that line And thank you for giving me the chance to deploy it. >> glad that you got a chance. Interesting. Okay, so America, you are hopeful but not necessarily optimistic. That makes sense. So, if we are we're no longer talking, what do you see as the alternative? Most people will use the quip that once you can't persuade or once you're not allowed to speak, then violence is the only other option. But I don't imagine that's your punchline. Um you will you have that free speech or free violence, those are the two choices, right? Um there are I don't think violence is necessarily the alternative, but if you disempower you know, uh uh populations or groups or whatever, then you have victory in that regard. I am gladdened and one of the reasons I am hopeful is that Trump is going head-on with the universities who are really the the great villains of our time. Um and I think the fact that to your point, and this is something I know you are extremely passionate about, there is so much more space for young people to make something of themselves without going to university or having that credentialist approach, um that I think is what would save America. Because once you take care of them, whether it's figuratively or you know, Lamp Posty, um I I think a lot of the other issues would be resolved. We'll be right back with the show in just a second. But first, let's talk about the hidden cost of choosing the wrong platform. Most entrepreneurs pick a platform that works great at launch but breaks when they grow. You start small, gain traction, then you hit a wall. Now, you're migrating platforms mid-growth, losing momentum, losing sales, and rebuilding everything from scratch. 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Does that I don't know about we, but they are indoctrinating them with things that are horrible. I'm not indoctrinating them with horrible things. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think that's fair, what you just said. Yeah. Okay. What >> just the indoctrination that's the problem. It's that it's it's both It's not that the message is bad, it's that they are important and powerful. So, if someone who's important and powerful puts out a bad message, you have to pay attention to it to some extent. Walk me through why they're the villain of our time and how cuz I think it would be counterintuitive for most people to think of universities as powerful. >> Really? Yeah. >> Wait, it's counterintuitive? Uh yes, until I heard you talk about it. I was like, "Oh, yeah, I get that really is true." But it didn't hit me immediately as like, "Oh, yeah, that is true." Wait, wait, wait. I I I I I I I I I I I I So, the point of our universities is and has been to create the next generation of elites, right? And if you read um James Burnham's superb book The Machiavellians, where he looks at Pareto and Engels and and Robert Michel and and that Engels, sorry. It's a Pareto, Moscow, Sorel and Michel. He talks about one of the things is the circulation of the elites. And Emma Goldman had these great essays about majorities minorities and the point she makes and that you touched on earlier is the majority cannot reason. The majority in any society is ballast and I know people might roll their eyes at this but again George Carlin's line think of the average person, half the people are dumber than that. Uh how many people have an original thought ever in their life? Doesn't mean they're bad people. It's just they're just they're for the ride, right? So, the elites are kind of the ones that we all need leaders. That's not even you know, a question to some extent depending on what context. So, if you are the one who is I'm using this ver word very advisably grooming the next generation of leaders and you know, post World War II and the GI Bill, you know, this was the great middle American dream. It's that you know, my kid is the first one in our family to go to college and you know, this this status, this means something. Like it's a very clear credential that shows that you are on the ascension, you know, economically and socially and all these other regards. So, it's become this is I think the biggest bifurcation in American society or at least it was the last time I checked, literally last time I checked. It's not gender, it's not race. It is did you go to college or did you not go to college? Maybe that's decreased since the last time I checked. But if you have what happens is you have these, you know, healthy, beautiful young high school kids going to school and then they return at Thanksgiving dinner like a swamp walrus unable to talk to mom and dad and that is strictly and entirely the result of the universities who have been, I mean, since the 30s heavily, literally Marxist and Marxism is synonymous with the complete annihilation of any society where it takes hold as I discuss in my book the white pill. >> Why? What's the foundational problem that it introduces? The Marxism is violently, literally violently, egalitarian. So, if your most important goal is equality, well, you can't all be Well, you can't all be equally rich if the term rich has no meaning, but it's much easier to build It's much easier to tear down all the skyscrapers than to build 100 of them to the level of the Empire State Building. You could do the former in a day. Just 100 bombs, you're done. If you want to build 100 Empire State Buildings, good luck, right? So, that And also, it teaches these kids correctly that you are the leaders of tomorrow. You get to meet fellow travelers and kind of have those social connections, and you know, it's very aristocratic. You're the ones who are going to be ruling in 10, 15, 20 years from now. And you're told it is your duty and kind of like this is why you're on this earth. So, there's no sense of humility. There's no sense of Well, maybe that guy who didn't go to college, he knows a lot of things I don't in his areas, or maybe his feelings and his views should be respected or heard. It's It's not a thing. It's They're there, we're here. They are they and they're annoying when they don't know their place because I thought we all understood, I went to college, you didn't. So, therefore, I'm up here, you're down here. Shut up. It's So, it's not just that they're given the sense of elitism, it's that they're fed this you know, violently toxic ideology. So, that combination is horrific. Um it's why you see corporate journalists being so absolutely and shamelessly malevolent and dishonest, which is part and parcel of Marxism. Cuz leftism, Tom, you and I are no spring chickens, and I say this and people kind of roll their eyes and scoff. When we were kids, there were a lot of bleeding-heart leftists. These were older, like maybe former hippies who really were concerned about poor people, and they volunteered in soup kitchens and they're like, you know what? It's not right that this family, you know, doesn't have health care cuz mom got sick and that's coming from not from a bad place. And now that kind of and people say, oh, that was never real. It was real. You and I knew people like this. It was absolutely real. You roll their eyes cuz like, you're so kind of like earnest. But that's not a thing. Now it's just very much kind of the revolution and and control and domination and there's no reason that that former brand of leftism can't be resurrected. Long term. The earnest version of it. Okay. They're like worried about poor people. Right. So, I'm going to read into your thoughts and then say that's where the hopefulness comes from because as I hear you describe the universities as the villains of our time, break down Marxism and exactly mechanistically why it ends up being a problem, I do admittedly get confused by how strongly you push the the hopeful version of where we're headed because we've been doing the university thing to your point from the 30s. I'll clock it more from the 60s in terms of it feeling like the engine is really revving up. Sure. Um and I think it was Lenin that said like give me one generation of kids and I'll change the future. That yes, that's quoted in my book The White Pill. I think that's ascribed to Lenin. I don't know if he actually said it. >> Fair. Yeah. But that kind of thing that you could certainly see a guy like him believing given his actions. Hitler obviously ran the same playbook. Hitler Youth, like give me the kids, I'll train them how to think. So given that we've trained so many generations of kids to think like that and the that Marxist tainted version of the left has now gained so much steam and popularity, how would we end up >> popularity. Steam. Okay. So, I don't think it's momentum, size. I don't think it's popular in gen pop at all. I think gen pop's just following suit. I'll throw out my take on that would be that when you shift the Overton window, a thing that people just take is whatever, like it it just is. There's no longer an allergic reaction to it. Not to the extent that I would expect. I I I I agree. So, I think people, especially on right of center circles, underestimate how social left-wing America is. So, um if the fact that the trans thing happened almost overnight and even now it's hard to stop people from operating on children is something that is so I think people need to have that data point and realize and I think there is this cope among right of center circles that okay, this is just the crazies and Karen doesn't believe this. A lot more Karens believe it than you think. Uh and a great a great how you know this is there are plenty of people um and let's suppose you believe in the whole entire COVID narrative. It's very clear that if you're a child, it is not a problem, right? It strikes the obese and the elderly, people have weakened immune systems and so forth. If you're a kid, it's not a thing, right? And they would still tell you these kids have to get shots. I didn't like getting a needle in me as a kid, I'm sure you didn't either. Have to get a shot every 6 months in perpetuity for why? There's not even in their framework, there's no reason for this. So, and if you see how exciting awfuls are, affluent white female liberals, that their their boy I've never heard that word. Yeah, off affluent white female liberals, if their son, God forbid, touches that pink crayon, it's off to the races cuz now they've got a girl, right? So, I remember it Do you remember it? So horrifying. When we were kids, there was Toys R Us, right? Of course. this is illegal now in California, I don't know if you know this. You cannot have the aisles in the toy store segregated by gender. What? >> You didn't know that? >> No. It's illegal. >> What? That is the most moronic thing I've ever It's not the most. It's It's It's It's up there. And I remember as a kid, this probably happened to you, that you're looking at the GoBots and you turn the corner and you're in pink Barbie land and you panic cuz if someone sees me in the pink Barbie land aisle, it's game over. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but I'm like, "AH!" YOU KNOW, it's like being in North Korea. I shouldn't be here. But so the point is, there is a huge percentage of population that will uh eat this up like slop. It's not this tiny They'll just go with where the wind goes. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so do you see a way to unwind it? Like how do we Do we um defund universities that are giving getting government dollars and say you've got to balance out your >> how to do it. Ready? >> me, yes. So, one of the most effective methods of uh um victory is turning your enemies against each other, right? Taking coalitions and and making them hate each other. So, my plan, and I say this only slightly tongue-in-cheek, as I mentioned you earlier, there's no better indicator of uh uh economic success success in America than having college degree. Maybe being an heir, I don't know, but other than that is college degree. So, they are the crystallization of privilege. That is the most privileged population in the United States. So, seize all the university endowments, distribute them as reparations to descendants of American slaves as and then you have problem solved. Okay. Only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Now, who do you think that will make hate who? I don't know about hate, but if you're promising black Americans uh sorry, African Americans specifically, not blacks. If you're from Jamaica, sorry Kamala Harris, you don't get this money. If you're an African American and then you're this, you know, uppity white college kid, those two are budding heads cuz you're saying, "I'm taking that money from Harvard giving it to you." And you want them budding heads. Why those groups? Because I think those two are make big coalition parts of the progressive coalition, and they have very little in common in any sense. It's just kind of historical accident, and I think it'd be very easy to cuz you have cuz these kind of college kids are very, um, entitled. And I did two books with the comedian DL Hughley, uh, from he's one of the Kings of Comedy. And one of the things he talks about is this kind of Malcolm X idea where you have this kind of white elite condescension. And anyone who's black knows that tone of voice where that that college kid, that white woman talks to them as if they're talking to her dog. "Oh my god, I love your hair. That's so cool." And it's just like they know what you're doing. And you think you're being friendly, but you're being absurdly racist and patronizing, and you're just trying to mask your discomfort or your position that you're here, they're there, and you're talking down to this fellow human being. So, uh, and it's even the issue in minority communities. Uh, you know, Spanish communities as well. Like the people who didn't even finish high school or who just have a a GED or college or high school diploma, and then someone goes off to some bougie place and comes home. This is a huge issue already. Um, it's the same thing with like first generation first generation immigrants. They go to school, they look at mom and dad and their backward ways like in the motherland, and it's the kind of this kind of interfamily uh, sense of strife. So, that I think would be a very organic, uh, a mechanism to turn those two groups against each other. I'll take, uh, a lot of tongue-in-cheek on that one. I get the point. Now, one thing that that does >> is about the reparations. It's not about the seizing the endowments. Yeah, that's fair. Now, one thing that >> I >> one more last thing. Of course. A lot of people have heard me say this and gone after me and said, "You call yourself an anarchist. How are you going to defend you're such a hypocrite. You're sitting here defending the government seizing all these endowments. How can you say that?" And I go, "You know what I say? I don't care." That's very direct. >> That's it. I don't care. Yeah, I I imagine in that hypothetical that is uh it is a solution to a problem, not necessarily your preferred method of governance. That's right. Yeah, perfectly said. Yeah. Okay, so it does get at like all of these different groups, subgroups in the world. I feel like you mentioned James Burnham before. So, reading that book, The Machiavellians, made me realize that once you can't control the narrative, all bets are off. >> That's right. >> And I think it's going to be one of the biggest changes in society is literally all throughout human history, even including the printing press and all that, um it's still been controllable. You could more or less create the illusion of this is the right thing, the truth thing to think. That's gone. Yes. And there's a >> Yeah, very recently. There's a sense of chaos, my word, in all of that. Uh so, I'm very curious like I have a you can think of them as calibrating questions. So, what do you think who killed Charlie Kirk, for instance? What, given how many narratives are beginning to spring up around that, how do you parse that? So, I I I'll answer I'll give you the long version, I'll give you the short version. In 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot William McKinley in Buffalo, right? And he gets up and I recount this also in my book, The White Pill. He gets up and he goes, "I was radicalized by Emma Goldman." And she's like, "Oh, fuck." And Emma, he'd been hanging around anarchist circles and they This is 1901. They thought he was a fed cuz he was so weird and no one knew who he was. Like, who is this guy? He's something's off with him. He's He must be a fed. So, she goes on the lamb and uh by the way, I recently won an auction the autopsy drawing of his brain uh and two telegrams when McKinley was dying and then he died. And they're framed hanging in my house. So, she's on the lamb cuz the argument was the president was just shot. Clearly, there is this big anarchist conspiracy or movement or cell that decided to take McKinley down. What's even funnier, it would Goldman gets caught and is arrested and she goes, "I sympathize with Leon and like President McKinley's an idiot and and I want to thank the cops for arresting me. Uh they've done more to recruit people to anarchism than anything I've done in my lifetime. So, it's like I don't care about the president. I side with the assassin. F the police." So, she was really a badass and they were People were out for blood. I mean, he died, of course, and it's like and they had nothing to pin her on because she had nothing to do with it. It was just a crazy madman. I think we all look for uh um there has to be This is in any circumstance. This is one of the reasons many people believe in God. I'm not saying they're wrong to do it, but it's like people have this need for a sense of order and control. Yeah. And I think we know who did it. I think this idea This Israel derangement syndrome where anything bad happens is a result of Israel. It's like let's suppose it was Israel, right? First of all, uh why wouldn't they just destroy him if they're they're all powerful, put CP on his computer? Why wouldn't the killer be have some The manifesto would be the big one. Have a manifesto that's that says they're from Hamas or Hamas or something like that. You know, so on and so forth. I had a tweet that I haven't sent out. And I'll say it to you. And it is so powerful in its chaos that I'm scared to play it. And I'm going to reveal it on the show. You ready? It's the first time I've I've thought of something where I'm like, this might be too much even for me. Ready? I want to reply to one of these people and say, "When will you admit that Kamala Harris won the election and Israel stole it for Donald Trump?" And then you have to watch their brain scramble. And and so I I will say it to you. I I'm not tweeting it out. Not ready for that. Yeah. That is uh one of my other calibrating questions is what do you make of the phenomenon >> But but one more thing. Just to the Charlie point. Nowhere on the political spectrum is Charlie Kirk public enemy number one. Like if you had a list, whoever you were, of people who were like, "If I got rid of God forbid got rid of this person, you know, things would be great." No one had him there. She's not your guy. That's another reason, besides the many many other reasons, why this is so nightmarish and horrific. So the Did you call it Israeli >> IDS. IDS. Okay. So Israeli derangement syndrome. Uh so obviously that side has a narrative and their narrative goes something like >> I say what Please. One of my favorite ones of these. Someone tweeted out. They go, "I It only took us 48 hours to realize that Israel's behind this." They tweeted this out on September 13th. As if they were like, "Got you, bitch." No. As if I could have given you that in 5 minutes. It's Israel. Like what are you What are you waiting 2 days for? Everything's Israel. It's obviously It's obviously Israel. Right. Uh were they being funny or did they really mean it? >> They meant it. They're like, "Oh yeah. 2 days later we we realized Yeah. This This is IDS is getting wild from where I'm sitting. >> Yeah. Uh so their narrative would go something like this. Um even President Trump admits that Charlie Kirk was likely to become president. What? Yeah. Okay. Trump really did say it. That you could be president one day I think is what he said. That Charlie Charlie it's my understanding that Charlie had the biggest or one of the biggest Tik Tok accounts. I would assume by views. That he was pro-Israel and really did I mean just confirmed by the president of Turning Point USA. That those really were tweets from him that said I am left with no option except to leave the pro-Israel movement. So yeah I did not say tweets. Oh sorry thank you. Text. And so their whole thing is yeah they that they can't have. They can't have somebody that influential. And so the bad news is from a narrative perspective it's got enough surface level like oh yeah like that checks a box. If you're not going to go super deep on it you can see okay cool got it. Um but to your point it's like there are probably a lot easier answers to get to Charlie. There are other people that would want to see him dead. So my thing is like even if you just take the surface level it's already a big enough problem the fact that somebody did assassinate Charlie Kirk. Like who assassinated him almost becomes secondary. But sticking with IDS for a second I want to know so I look at that. I'm admittedly a bit of an outsider to this and that I never gave any of this a thought until I saw probably about 18 months ago oh the Israel-Palestine thing is just not going away. Like this is really ratcheting up. And I can see it like starting to like seep into everything. Like all of the sudden you just found it everywhere. And so it's what I refer to as the Jews. So you've got people who talk about the Jews and you've got people who talk about the Jews. And what is that? So when you look at history, you just see pogrom after pogrom after pogrom. And when I see that it's anytime the economy breaks bad, people need someone to blame, you spill into populism. We talked about this at the beginning. Fear needs to become anger, anger needs a focus. I've read Mein Kampf, and he You can almost feel Hitler being like, "I need to blame somebody. Who am I going to blame? We need like a specific figure. We could probably do the Jew." Like, it felt like that to me. It didn't feel like a guy who's just hell-bent, "I'm going to make it about them." >> was somebody trying to work No, no, no, I know. But like, there was this sense in reading his own words that I got where it was like, "Oh, it's very I need somebody. They'll fit the bill. Cool, let's go with it." But it was more, "I need somebody." And so, to me, that's what sort of the long-standing history of the pogroms are is, "Well, we need somebody." Now, the argument, the counterpoint to that that people will always make is, "Well, if you've got one group that is always the somebody," like, doesn't that say something? Sure. >> So, how do you make sense Like, it's You can laugh about it, but it just repeats over and over and over. So, how do you make sense of that? How do you make sense of How do you make sense of the endless pogroms? Why why does it keep coming back to the Jews? Well, I don't First of all, I don't think they were endless, and I think it depends on the country and so on and so forth. Um there's a great book called The Satanization of the Jews, and I forget who it's Satanization? As in making like Satan. Um and it's by I forget the guy's name. Camille Paglia recommended it to me, and I was glad I read it, you know, 25 years ago or 30 years ago at this point. Um there's a There's First of all, there's a lot of historical reasons, because if something is in always in the background, right? As soon as a hypothesis it's out there, as soon as something go bad, you can be like, "Aha, I knew it." So, you don't have to be original, you could just go back to look, this is something that's been as you said earlier, this is something that's popped up historically, there must be a reason, let's blame it right now. This whole concept of the Jews, and I say this as a Jewish person, is not as coherent as people would like it to be because the biggest critic by far of Israel in the Senate is Bernie Sanders, right? And this argument is also is, well, we need this kind of white nationalism where there's like no Jewish influence. Vermont is the widest or maybe number two or number three state. Bernie Sanders is their senator. They're at like the most left-wing state, I think maybe other than Rhode Island, that there is. So, the argument is, oh okay, well, it's Jewish socialism. But at the same time, who is the one population that the socialists hate? It's the banks. So, if the Jews are the socialists and the Jews are the banks, do they want socialism? Do they want capitalism? They say, well, it's the same thing cuz they're controlling it. It's like, okay, even if it is the even if it ends up with them controlling it, what do they want it to look like? Do they want it to look like this capitalist system where the banks are in everything or they want it to look like this communist Lenin thing? It's like, they don't care. Well, they do care because the standard of living, even for Lenin or Stalin in the Soviet Union, is not the same the standard of living for Michael Bloomberg or Stephen Miller in the Trump administration. So, this concept that it's this one unified hive mind and the same time they're like, oh, you're going to see Jewish influence everywhere. It's like, well, if it's everywhere, they're not all in agreement, are they? Um the other thing is it's kind of interesting how the gotcha is as you and I both know plenty of Jewish people. I went to Yeshiva. I would never call the Jews alpha. And the argument is the Jews are the any Jewish person is the most alpha person in any room. So, if you have a group of 10 people, and there's one Jewish person, he's in control. I don't need to look at anything else. Oh, there's a Jew there. They're doing what he says. Like, he's the natural leader. It's insane. So, if you have a publisher who is Jewish, and a reporter who is not Jewish, the publisher's in control. But, if you have the publisher is like Jeff Bezos, and the reporter's Jewish, well, then the reporter's in control. So, no matter what situation there is, in their minds, if a Jewish person exists, he is running the show. And I don't know what you can say to that other than like, go outside. Look at Woody Allen. Yeah. It This one I find very troubling. But, one thing that's fascinating is I I always say people don't look at a true false filter, but an us them filter. And if you want to have them be the Jews, which is your prerogative, certainly. one of them. It's like, anyone who you don't like is Jewish. And if you like someone who is Jewish, somehow you have to make excuses for it. Or explain it away. It uh I even saw people were saying that, sorry to interrupt you. Some were saying that Trump converted to Judaism. And I don't know if you know this, the process for conversion to Judaism is like a year long, and you have to keep kosher, and it's really onerous, because Jews don't proselytize. So, if Trump converted, he firstly is not wearing a yarmulke. That kind of would be a big tell. And he's working Sabbath. That's another big one you're not allowed to do. But, it's the kind of thing where like, if you disagree with this narrative anyway, you're Jew-controlled. So, it's perfectly uh internally consistent. >> Mhm. Yes. Th- This issue to me is dangerous as a signal of where we're at in the economy. Like there are certain things that you can look at and when to know whether you're in a healthy spot or not. Uh so, are wages going up? Are uh young people able to buy a house? How much times the median income is a house? Those kinds of things. But there's also like what's the temperature on the Jews? It's it's pretty wild. >> But here's what I think is going to happen, okay? I think a lot of people because the Democrats, especially the woke aspect of Democrats were completely decimated on social media after that last election. So, a lot of people feel very safe and very comfortable running their mouths and saying awful things. And when the Democrats regain their footing, which again, they're the oldest political party on Earth, they know how to seize and maintain power really well, when they regain their footing, they're going to they and their lackeys in the media, or actually the Democrats the lackeys of the media running the show, are going to be asking all these Republican candidates, "What do you think about this quote? What do you think about that quote?" And no matter what they say, it's not going to be enough for these rabid people. They those people online are going to turn those politicians, you're going to have this huge divide on the right, and it's going to work for the benefit of the Democrats. What what do you see as the explicit thing they're going to try to pin them down on their take on Jewish people? >> "What do you agree that Israel killed Charlie Kirk?" No politician's going to say "Do you agree that this this this this?" No matter what they say, because I I mentioned mentioned this on Andrew Schulz's show. If I said to you, I think I said this to you on your show as well, that I think President Trump is if I said "dumb, he shouldn't be in the White House, he's a racist, he's terrible for the economy, he's a buffoon, I give him a C-." Do you know what you call me? A Trump supporter. Because unless I say that President Trump is the worst thing that's ever happened to America, unless I say that this man intentionally is trying to destroy this country, if I say, "You know what? I hate war more than anything. It makes me sick to my stomach. I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton on that basis. I certainly can't vote for Trump. I'm voting for Jill Stein." Oh, you're a Trump supporter. So, if you voted for Jill Stein, you're a Trump supporter in this logic. So, in the same way with this space, unless you say that Israel is literally responsible for every bad thing, but they are. You are going to get so much heat from this wing of the base. The wing of the base on the Democrat party. >> No, from the Republican from the right the right-wing side. I don't know if I'd say Republican. >> Do you see Democrats and Republicans being united on this? >> exploit I I see Republicans and these right-wing I'm not going to call them Republican cuz they don't identify as Republican certainly. I'm going to see a huge divide between the Republican politicians and this base who's like, "Unless you constantly are talking about Israel, you're bought and paid for by them." Which very few >> don't think Democrats are on that team as well? In what way? Like, what I see right now is basically the acceptable opinion to have is that Israel is the bad guy doing bad things doing against Israel. >> I'm sorry. I'm not being clear. That is a perfectly acceptable opinion. That's not the opinion of these people I'm speaking about. From their opinion, literally everything including COVID, including trans and kids, including you know, spending, everything is the fault of they vacillate sometimes between the Jews and Israel. So, the when these Republican politicians are asked about this and they say, "No, you know, I don't think COVID was a result of, you know, Jewish power." They're not going No matter how pure you are, you're not going to be pure enough for these people. Because their definition of their definition of Jewish is something I don't like. >> Right. I'm just trying to see cuz I see this as it it is a tsunami that is consuming both the left and the right. That it is a far more risky position to say that um Like, do you know Coleman Hughes? Sure. So, Coleman Hughes defends Israel and what they're doing. Um I can't believe I'm blanking on his name again. British Douglas Murray. >> Douglas Murray, thank you. Uh Douglas Murray defends them. Like, they get a wall of attack. Left, right, center, doesn't matter. Like, people are going to go after them. So, to me that I was surprised you were saying you thought that was going to be >> talking about Israel. I'm talking I'm talking about Jews. We're talking about Jews here. I'm not talking about Zionism or anti-Israel. Because Israel's never going to be that much of an important issue when it comes to like the purses and putting food on the table. I'm talking about the divide that there's going to be between right-of-center or right-wing Republicans. >> Yeah, I get the purity test idea. I'm just saying I'm picking up on something different. Get the purity test. I am I am concerned deeply by the rise in anti-Semitism. I'm concerned deeply by the scapegoating. By everything somehow being a conspiracy theory of Jewish people. Because when I look in history, every time that happens, that society is unhealthy. I won't say on the brink of collapse. I don't want to overdramatize it. But it's like it it's like a mile marker on the way to a bad destination. >> Sure. And so, I'm like, oh [ __ ] Like, we see that mile marker. I've got instructions that are like, by the way, if you pass the mile marker where it's the Jews are bad, like you need to turn around and go the opposite direction. I don't even need context. I just know, oh, when you see that mile marker, it bad things are happening. Turn around. Sure. That's where I'm at. So, I see the left, I see the right. Get it. Purity test. Yep, the right is going to be divided. For some people, it's not going to be nearly enough. But I'm just saying, hey, we're at the mile marker. And that's the thing that I am very concerned about. So, that is not me. Of course, I'm going to get the same comments like, oh, he's bought and paid for, which is hilarious. Uh that is people who do not understand my background. But This is the part of the show where you should have the Yeah, you should have the rains. >> is where I remind people of where I'm at economically. Um so >> You're like Ted DiBiase. Yeah, I I don't need to be bought and paid for by anybody. But it as somebody who really I don't have kids, so I think of the next generation as my kids. Sure. And so I'm super keen to make sure that we're going in a good direction. This mile marker I think warrants screaming about and saying this is bad news, but at the same time we then have to contend with Israel-Palestine. Like what do we do about that? Like do you do you talk about that much? >> I don't think it's our problem. I am I am like I said earlier, I am it makes me um very saddened when people who correctly understand that war is the worst thing a government can do, who see innocent people being killed, aren't not optimistic, hopeful that there that this peace plan will work. I mean, I'm just the fact to me that there's even any kind of buy-in from like people as diverse as Iran, the US, the EU, and Saudi Arabia, and the fact that Hamas was clearly being pressured by their kind of puppeteers to be like, all right, you know, kind of we're in on this. I don't know that it's going to work. I I I'm very I'm skeptical of many reasons why it might not work, but even talking and and discussing some kind of What's that line about compromise is something that nobody likes, but everyone can live with? Like this is something I would hope uh if you want the killing to stop, which I most certainly do, like let's hope that this works. And I feel like there one of the worst things about war that I not one of the worst. This is Maybe it's like number 20, cuz the worst is all the killing, you know, then the trauma, you know, the blah blah blah, all the destruction. So make me like number 20, but there are a lot of people who are incentivized, like not just the war machine, to make sure this any war continues. I think we see this in Ukraine. I think, you know, very much that I was born in Ukraine, as as you know, I think it was very clear that there was like a gun to Zelensky's head to being like, "Don't settle, you know, keep the fight and and we're going to send you arms and money." It's like, "Yeah, it's great to have those arms and money, but you also have a lot of corpses." And I was glad in to see that the Ukrainian people, who are very proud people, who have very good reason to despise the Russians with every fiber of their being, you know, I speak Russian, I was raised speaking Russian. I just had an Uber driver here a couple months ago, he was from Ukraine, we spoke a little bit, and as I was leaving I said, you know, "Priyat priyat do svidaniya." Something like that. Some Russian goodbye, and he looked at me like I'd slapped him because speaking Russian to Ukrainian is like it's not as bad as the N-word, but it's up there. It's really this huge measure of disrespect, and I forgot that, but and I don't speak Ukrainian. Um, so the fact that even the Ukrainians are like, "Okay, we we reached our limit." I'm I'm glad to see I like I I don't want sections of Ukraine under Russian control, but what I want even less is more and more people being killed, you know, by huge numbers. >> Mhm. Okay, so The other thing is I'm I'm going to I'll just feed this out of the way here, which is going to make you feel even more scared as you should. AI, we are months away from AI being being implemented to craft a social media feed that only validates your perspective. >> Mhm. So, if you have Grok or Siri or any of these characters, and they're like, "This is what I like." And you can And you can The algorithm knows what what what you like and what you don't. Feed me stuff that validates this, ignore stuff that disvalidates this. We all have that kind of confirmation bias. So, what happens when you have an entire population when and right now on any issue, you have a huge gamut of perspectives, right? And there's no referee to adjudicate who's right and who's wrong. Like, not that long ago you had four networks and it was agreed that the center left is some kind of big consensus and you really very hard to have any views outside of that. And people on the right complained about this not unfairly. Now, the gates are wide open. So, if I have a view that's right here, soon I will only see news that validates that view. How am I going to have a conversation with you when I'm in my Plato's cave and I'm seeing clear as day, you know, it's red all the time and you're like, "What are you talking about? All I'm seeing is blue." And not only are you not going to be able to talk to me, you're going to think that I'm crazy or lying because you saw with your own eyes blue blue blue blue blue. What are you talking about? Yeah. I I worry about algorithmic control. I think that >> Brave New World. there's going to be need to be some regulation that allows people one that forces companies to be transparent with their algorithm and then two, you're going to need to give people control over the algorithm and I get that hastens the world that you're talking about. However, it's better that than to be blindly manipulated. If somebody wants to do that, I think they have the right to do that. But, they do what they all want it. Uh I certainly don't want it and so hopefully I can bang the drum. Like, I try to find people who disagree with my most cherished views. >> Okay. Uh my producer is just off camera knows to bring me guests that disagree violently especially with the things that I really think I know the most about so economics. >> too Charlie. I I use that very metaphorically of course. But, I want people to challenge it it because of one very simple idea. Skills have utility. So, I hold a belief it makes me feel something, but it doesn't allow me to navigate in the real world unless it's tied to reality. So, I'm always trying to figure out what's most useful. So, I take the pain of like, "Oh, damn, I was wrong about that." But, I get the and now I can do something in the world that most people can't do because they're just so in love with feeling a certain way versus accomplishing a specific task. So, anyway, I think most people will spiral themselves out of control because they'll just want to be reinforced. But, >> Yes. uh for people that really are goal-oriented, I think it'll be extremely useful. So, tribalism, which is a word I don't have an entirely negative opinion of. If my goal is to maintain status status in my tribe, then I want to be well-read within my worldview. And I think there's more of those than there are of you. There's no doubt, and partly because just knowing that you actually have the protection of a tribe is really, really helpful. As somebody who I just do not have any natural proclivities to um group building is probably the the right thing. Like, I'm perfectly happy in total isolation. But, I can feel how dangerous it is. And I can feel how dangerous it is from this particular political moment, being a moderate, knowing moderates get killed first. It's like I don't think moderates get killed first. In a revolution, they So the saying goes. And it makes Yeah, you've never heard that phrase? No. It's It's liberals get the bullet, too. Yes, moderates die first in a revolu- Anyway, here's why it feels bad. >> I just I completely agree with you, anyway. That's perfect. I love it. Uh whether that ends up being true or not, the reason it feels bad is um so, I actually went to an event at um Mar-a-Lago. And for the first time, I was like, "Oh, this is why people want to be a part of a group." All of a sudden, like all these people that were influential on YouTube and MySpace were all there together. They all knew each other. They were having each other on each other's shows. And I was like, "Oh my god, if I just started coming to events like this all the time, I would see the same people, I would get to know them, like you start being present on their show." And I was like, "This would be really good for my business." And I was like, "Yeah, this is why people like to be in a group." But it also gives you the heuristic of vote this way, think this way, say this thing, and you know you're going to be in good company. Right, sure. >> I think people hunger for those shortcuts. What do you think about the way that Candace Owens is parsing the world right now? What do you mean? So, I look at um Alex Jones and I think this is somebody who either loves conspiracies, has a mind for it, cuz he's not necessarily always wrong, but it's also a approach to the world of nothing is what it seems, there's always something going on behind the curtain, let me find the dots that connect. He probably has a mind for unique connections, and so actually finds pleasure in seeing how Wait a second, that actually does connect to the what whatever. >> Okay, so all the I have in my house hanging over when you walk in, Alex Jones's tinfoil hat. Okay, next to Tim Pool's beanie and above Lex Fridman's tie. And also the face paint when the QAnon shaman painted my face on January 6th last year. Um I I talk about this in my book The New Right, everyone is a conspiracy theorist because McDonald's, right? There's a small group of people who sits down a lar- much larger population and teaches them how to speak, how to dress, how to produce a certain product, to the point where if I go to McDonald's in Los Angeles or go to McDonald's in Augusta, Maine, it's going to be the same thing, right? So, a and COVID was a great example of this. Doesn't have to be nefarious, it is very clear, not in dispute, and many people would say, "This is great." that a huge group of elites sat down, coordinated between the different countries, you might say necessarily, and had a plan that differed in different country to country, but basically was very heavily coordinated and talking to each other, so so on and so forth. So, conspiracy theory is one of I I I Oh my god, I I remember this when I was I was my buddy Jay, we're at a party of his in Brooklyn, and there's a guy there just very blue-pilled, and I forget what Jay was talking about, and guys are like, "Oh yeah, it's a conspiracy theory." And as soon as he heard those term that term, he knew, "Okay, I don't need to listen to anything else. This is crazy, right?" So, here's one. The Founding Fathers, the Constitution Convention was a conspiracy. A group of elites got down in uh Philadelphia, swore themselves to secrecy, they locked the door, they say, "We really don't have the authority to overthrow the Articles of Confederation, which have been governing these United States for that." They go, "Yeah, but we're going to do it anyway, right?" They're like, "Sure." They got their Constitution together. Uh I think it's Luther Martin who blew the whistle on them, and all of those colonies or states at the time had duly represented duly elected representatives uh in in their state legislatures, and they said, "Yeah, we're not going to listen to them. We're going to have different elections just to vote for people cuz we know that's going to be more conducive to getting them to kind of rubber stamp the Constitution." That's what they did. Now, you don't think in those terms because we like the Founding Fathers, and this is good, so if it's conspiracy theory, it's got to be nefarious. I don't think anyone listening to this would deny that powerful international elites such as yourself are more interested in furthering their power and have more in common with powerful international elites from other countries than they do with, say, the guy from the Midwest. This is not really in dispute. So, Alex is right in that regard. As for Candace, um I I don't think uh Brigitte Macron's a man. I think she could And I also, when people say something I don't say that's ridiculous. I had a friend who was QAnon and they told me with the straight face that all of Congress has already been arrested and I forgot what such and such was going to happen. And I didn't say okay, that's ridiculous. I said what would need to be true for that to be a fact. One of the things that would need to be true is that 435 congressmen, I don't know about the Senate so let's just fence the house, 435 congressmen and probably their spouses and their chiefs of staff none of them leaked. Now that to me is less likely than all of Congress has been secretly arrested. Um there was also a theory that John McCain was secretly executed for treason that he did not die of brain cancer and so on and so forth. And it's like okay, what would need to have to be true? If I want if I regarded John McCain as treasonous and want to execute him, I'm doing it publicly. The whole point of these treason trials is to make an example of the guy. So even that case so uh As for the idea that literally everything is the result of the Jews, it's not falsifiable. Because things go bad, things go good. Why aren't the Jews making it good all the time or conversely, if they want to destroy, why aren't they making it bad all the time? People like well everything's everything's getting worse. I don't think everything is getting worse. So from a if I were going to take something away, let's say that I'm a person on the internet, I'm seeing these different factions pop up which all say are essentially ways of parsing the world. Yes. >> Um you would say all right, you need to go in I don't know if you are comfortable with the phrase thinking from first principles, but that's essentially what I hear when you describe okay, what would need to be true for that to actually happen, how would I falsify this? It's very sort of scientific methody. Um so you've got to think for yourself building up from first principles, not just taking the shortcuts that people hand you. And also don't start with the conclusion reason your backwards. Now, Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind, he discussed this at great length. The point is this is how we all morally reason. This is another reason to be very concerned about the future because if you start from the conclusion and then you work your way backwards, a conclusion being the basis for your thought is not disprovable. So, you're not really going to get jarred out of that conclusion. One of the things I'm very big on and I I apologize to you again. You're at my house and you're telling me a story and I was nodding out. And I'm of the view I hate I if I'm going to disrespect someone, it's going to be on purpose. I I but I'm serious, you know what I mean? Like if if I like someone I respect them, which I like and respect you, I don't want to be disrespectful. I feel very guilty about it and I feel it's like humiliating, right? So, that was one of the cues that something was wrong. Um but the thing is I was getting 9 hours sleep every night. And the first time I took a Waymo, I filmed it and I put it on my Instagram and all the I'm using this word as loosely as possible, all the fans are like, "Are you beating off in there? Why do you sound like a pug? Is someone choking you?" cuz I was breathing so heavily. Now, in retrospect, all these data points are clear, but at the time, nothing was making sense. So, I remember my mentor Harvey Pekar toward the end of his life he was having he's getting older, he was having memory issues. So, he tried to remember like past addresses or things like that and I could feel my cognition starting to fade. Oof. And if I don't have recall and if I'm not quick with my tongue, what good am I? I'm going to be out of work. I'm going to be homeless, right? And at the same time, every day when I was waking up, my anxiety was like a 10. So, I'd wake up like fully anxious. And the thing with anxiety, which people might not realize is your body feels it first, then your mind finds a rationalization for it. Uh a great example of something like this that really clicked for me was I was at the gym. Uh this was in back when I was in Brooklyn Harbor Fitness and I was doing chest press and I had one more set to do. And my brain's like, you better go home, you got writing to do. And I'm like, this is going to be 5 minutes. And I'm like, oh, my body is tired and it and my brain knows what to say to conserve resources. It's very rare when we know that our brain is not always telling the truth. Anxiety's one of those examples. No matter what I threw at it, I was taking valerian root, I was taking a little bit of GABA. It wasn't helping and then that makes me more anxious cuz I'm like, is this how I'm going to be for the rest of my life? I'm losing If I walked up the stairs, I'm out of breath. I was reading out loud, I was out of breath. And I'm I can't work out cuz one set I'm out of breath and I'm like, something is seriously wrong and then I'm anxious about that and that wasn't in my mind and it was very, very scary. And then one day I woke up and this is the first time this ever happened to me. I thought to myself, I'm losing the will to live because all the signs were in a bad direction and nothing was making sense. I'm like, maybe I'm just getting old prematurely. Like, what is wrong with me? And I wasn't making up these symptoms. I'm like, oh, maybe my friends don't like me. I went to a ear, nose and throat and the guy goes, the back of your He go First of all, he goes, you don't look like someone who has this, which was great cuz it's usually for morbidly obese people. The back of my throat was all swollen because it would I would breathe straight through breathe through my mouth, so it'd dry out, then heal, then dry out and heal, so it'd look like waffles, he said. >> Oh, [ __ ] I almost cried because it I asked him if I needed surgery. He goes, no. It was the first time where I'm like, oh, I'm not crazy. So, what sleep apnea is is you're woken up many not totally, just enough to get out of REM sleep because you're choking, right? My ex was like, she's like, you sound like you're dying in the in your sleep. So, what happens is if someone is choking you for 8 hours intermittently, you're going to get anxious cuz you're going to have that fight or the adrenaline's going to spike. That's why I was waking up with anxiety. So, I got the machine and I was very quickly back to myself, but it was so scary and it was the first time I understood people who end it. And it's not that it was so severe, it's that you get exhausted. Cuz every single day is the same and I know tomorrow's going to be the same. What is the point? It's only getting worse. It was so scary. So, I talk about this as much as I can cuz if this sounds like you, someone who's like please get it tested. The sleep test is very easy to do and it'll save your life. And been nothing but better since. CPAP machine, that's it. That was the sometime. >> don't have to wear a mask you excuse me, you don't always have to wear a mask. I have something called nasal pillows. So, it's just two little nozzles here and it's very comfortable. It's not a huge invasive thing. I The first night I tried it, it was perfectly fine. Plus, this is amazing also. You how AI is going to control us all. I have an app which has a little score and it tells me there's four several metrics, how long I used it, how many incidents I had, how good the seal was and there's a fourth one. And if I don't get that 100% score every day, I am troubled even though literally no one else knows what the score is, but it is training me to sleep better. But what's that going to happen when you have social credit scores things like that. Yeah, what do you think about AI? Woof. So, if you look at um right now in San Francisco, Waymo just overtook Lyft to be the number two ride share app, Waymo's self-driving cars. What do you do when with that and that's only going to escalate? What do you do with that middle-aged woman who does not have a college degree, who's a very lovely person and wants to make a little bit of money on the side, where you going to put her? The factory? She's not going to the factory. And as AI increase people say, well, they'll have more and more jobs. At a certain point AI is better than let's not say the average person, the 40th percentile. What are you going to do with those people? I have no idea and I'm very scared and right now we are already seeing people outsourcing their thinking to AI. It used to be I'm going to look it up on Wikipedia and people have thrown my Wikipedia back in my face and argued with me. I go, yeah, I know what it says about my part of the Wikipedia. I assure you have a better perspective on this. But now I've had Grok, I've had Art. I used Art from a I put a picture from a cartoon I did with the very failed podcast to Tom Woods. People will look at Grok, what is this? And he goes, that's from my graphic novel Ego and Hubris. And I go, no, it's not. They go, haha, very funny. It's definitely from Ego and Hubris. So not only is it wrong, which I is fine, it's certain in what it's saying. Now if I'm sitting there and I don't have information and Grok is saying, I am certain this is correct, I I wouldn't double guess it. Yeah. Yeah, that AI is if you think of AI as an abstract, it is intelligence. It's the ability to process data. I think they'll solve for most of those problems. You'll find ways to get around that. You've already got Elon building up Grokipedia. So if it gets good at identifying what is true, especially as humans can fact check it, I think you you can deal with some of those. The part that scares the life out of me is humans have been wired for hundreds of thousands, millions of years depending on if you clock us as like, you know, protozoa or tiny mammals or whatever. And we are wired for no, no, no, you have to go do this thing, otherwise you're going to die. And so we have these like really intense impulses to do things. We're a very goal oriented creature. And so meaning and purpose becomes one of the ways that we get up and do it is like, "Oh, this matters. This means something." And when AI is better than us at everything, then that's going to be a pretty hopeless situation. I think people are going to have to find some way around that. I think I mentioned earlier in the interview, um but we didn't get really into it. So, I think that is going to happen on a long enough timeline. Maybe it's 30 years, maybe it's 50 years, maybe it's 70. >> two. Yeah. It It's really going to be bad. And I think a big part of the solution is going to be virtual worlds. So, we'll be in a post-economic situation. >> Yeah, the Matrix, you mean. You mean the Matrix. And people are going to need some artificial difficulty thing that's exciting and challenging, but meets that sort of sweet spot. Uh and I don't see that as dystopia. When you look at that, is that like wildly dystopic to you? Is the Matrix wildly dystopic? If you are forced into the Matrix because you are um being enslaved by something, yes, it's bad. But what I always found interesting was Neo, because he can choose. He loves it. He's becoming literally inside the Matrix, he's becoming a superhuman. Right. >> And so, but he had to earn that, and he had to go on like this incredibly Buddhist journey of realizing there is no spoon and all of that. Like, it's this incredible place where you, as long as it's by choice, you are able to go in, explore worlds, push yourself in ways you wouldn't be able to in the real world. And I think just like people climb mountains now, you will go into these incredible worlds and really be able to push yourself and find that sweet spot of challenge. What percent of population do you think is interested in pushing themselves? Without an impetus? Yeah. Two. Okay. Right. Okay, we're on the same page. Um I I think I've always said Brave New World is far more likely than 1984. I think this is Brave New World. I think H.L. Mencken nailed it on the head when he said the average man doesn't want to be free, he simply wants to be safe. Um Now, maybe I can let's let's steel man this. Maybe it's great because you know, the 2% of us who like to push ourselves, by which I mean obviously the Jews, we're going to have our own little space, and the 98% can [ __ ] off and basically be farm animals, um like it says in the Talmud, but I am this is kind of UBI kind of stuff. And I I think it's >> Mind I really love that about you? >> I being that I'm Jewish. I think it's there is I am scared um as you you are, I'm sure, at this bifurcation in this kind of H.G. Wells' Time Machine between the Morlocks and the Eloy. And that different humans already people, I mean, obviously someone who's wealthy and someone who's like hand-to-mouth have different experiences, but not to the point where they're literally in different realities. That is something that is scary to me. Yeah. No, I I the transition period will be super wacky. I imagine that my most controversial belief is that um I plan to merge with technology, and I think that that is very distressing for a lot of people. You mean like when you uh put that remote control dildo up there? That's that, obviously. In fact, I've enjoyed this whole interview that much more because of it. It's been buzzing the whole time. Uh no, I mean that I think, just like Neuralink right now is literally helping the guy with ALS uh control a robotic arm, and it's going to give some of his life back, that will eventually be like once people understand how limited the human umwelt is, they'll be like, oh, wait a second, like there's a lot more that I could be experiencing. Infrared light being just like the most banal example. >> I have my DNA changed, right? I think you did tell me about this. Yeah, you did tell me. So I'm I'm on I'm on board with this to point. Here's what's Here's what's Let's go back to the other side. Here's what's scary. Right now, if I get an Uber cuz it's been 4 years I still haven't driven a drive since moving to Austin drives people crazy and like if it drives you crazy I think it's hilarious. So calm down. I put the address in the app. The Uber driver has the app telling him where to go. He's entirely superfluous. So we have made this human being who has needs and values and feelings and is a real person secondary or superfluous to technology. And I am not comfortable with at least just like let's acknowledge this. Even if it's a good thing, if you don't care, it's something and I don't think enough people are acknowledging this is happening. And again the point is, oh, he can his labor's now freed up to do something else, but at certain point how is he going to compete with the labor of someone in Thailand or some, you know, starving country where you could just if it's especially with the internet you could outsource things. So it gets harder and harder to figure out what to do with people like that and I'm not comfortable even in my most right-wing moments being like, ah, too bad. Because I think very few people are really comfortable with seeing mass strife or mass hunger or even just mass boredom. And mass boredom as you and I know does not lead to good things. And if the answer is put them in a video game forever, fine, but I can't look at a population where 1/4 whatever percent are in headsets 24/7 and be like, all right, this worked out great for everybody. What's interesting is there's a lot of questions in astronomy and astrobiology. Why, if the aliens are real, why haven't they been here? Cuz they did the math, they're like, okay, let's suppose space is infinite, so there's got to be billions of of of planets like Earth that could support life, and some of them are going to be millions of years technologically ahead of us, you know, just doing the math. How come none of them So So the questions are, okay, maybe they did show up here, we just didn't notice it, maybe that's what UFOs are. One of the theories is, what if we become the cocaine mouse, right? If it gets to the point where we're just hooked up to the machine and it's just delivering pleasure to us 24/7, and we have no interest in going outside the planet because we're just in this kind of hedonistic lotus-eater space. Yeah, I So the one variation on that, cuz I I think that actually is the reason for the Fermi paradox, is that sufficiently advanced Yeah. Okay. The Drake equation is what you were talking about, but the Fermi paradox is the answer to the what the hell, like why is there nobody? And the reason I think that that plays out is any any civilization that becomes technologically advanced enough to have bend space-time will have long before figured out that traveling inside of a virtual world is far less dangerous, requires far less energy, and so you're far more likely to do that would be my guess. But I actually think it'll be a bit of both. I think what's going to happen with AI is people will have a need for hardship. We will have a need, whether people are smart enough to understand it or pursue it or want it won't matter. They'll feel a profound sense of disease without it, and so some people will sign up to go to Mars. And you'll you'll get people that are like, cool, put put life on hard mode, I'm going to go live on Mars, and that's going to be rad, and it's like starting a for anybody that's survival crafting game fan, Mars is the survival crafting game. So I think a ton of people are going to go there. And then I, assuming that things go the way that I plan, I'm building a video game right now, but it's just a video game, and it's the kind of thing you play on in PC. But, you know, give it another 15 years and in success, if I'm able to keep building, then it really does start to become some approximation of that. I think we're probably more than 15 years out from people like truly jacking into the Matrix. But barring some catastrophe, we're not more than 30 years out. So, it's like >> of Warcraft. How many Yeah, that's that's a good example of this. >> So, and I think inside of those worlds, I get people, especially people believe in God, like there's a real moral repulsion to that idea. >> And and certainly understand that and I'm not trying to convert people or convince them, but um, I certainly will be in success trying to build something like that so that myself, if nobody else, can go on these insane adventures. Cuz I'm assuming we're in a post-economic world. So, the game that I play now of entrepreneurship, of trying to make people's lives better by building things that solve problems for them and then being enriched as a result of it, that just won't exist. So, in a world where that doesn't exist, I've got options. I can be what I call new Amish and I can go reject technology completely and fair enough, I think a lot of people will do that and I'm sure their lives will be amazing. I'm just not That doesn't appeal to me. So, I would rather go this other direction. Have you had Bret Weinstein on your show yet? Yeah. I love Bret. Um, so Bret is either an evolutionary biologist or evolutionary psychologist, I forget which one it is. Biologist. >> Biologist. And I had this hypothesis that I threw it to him and he's like, yep, you're right. And it was very validating to hear from his who I respect enormously. And my I edited a book called the Paleo Manifesto by John Durant, my buddy John, he lives a block away from me. Great book, everyone should pick it up. And one of the concepts behind Paleo is that our diets and our technology in regarding our diets evolve faster than we have biologically. So, there's a disconnect between what we eat and what we should be eating. So, the more the close to nature and the more less processed food, the the it is. I don't know how much I believe it, but as a heuristic, I think it's a pretty good one, you know, just all things considered. One of the things I asked uh Brett about was are we are evolved to be scarcity-fearing creatures, right? Like we are worried about what what happens in the winter, where's the next meal going to come from, so on and so forth. But the point is, what happens when Maslow's hierarchy of needs, or most of it, has been fulfilled? What happens when I don't have to worry about shelter, I don't have to worry about food, I don't have to worry about clothing, you know, maybe I I can't have intimacy with a partner, but I could certainly reach that point by myself with my hand, right? What what When that's checked off, what is the brain going to be content? No. The brain Right, cuz the brain is still going to be looking for problems to solve, and I think that might be a part of what we're seeing in politics. When people's basic needs have been met, and not that you and I both know people who lived through the depression, who like, you know, I I don't know where I got this idea. This is one of the I cuz this is not something we did as when I was a kid, but if I have hand soap, and I have one that's almost done, I will pour the remainder of one into the other one, even though it's literally cents, and I would make more money not doing that than if I go and tweet or something, but somehow it's in my brain. What happens to And the thing is, I think you get neurosis, and you have this kind of it's externalized. And COVID was a good example, because if I'm a neurotic, if I have mental problems or anxiety or depression, now it's not The call's not coming from outside the house, it's everywhere. If there's one person in California who's not vaccinated, I have a right The television tells me to freak out all the time. So, I think more and more of this is something I'm going to we're going to be seeing, and you know, this I think is one of the you know, we talk about trade-offs and and capitalism having all these benefits, this might be one of the hidden costs that it doesn't calm that animal brain, and video games would be a good example of Okay, go solve these imaginary problems. Go finish that quest, cuz now your kind of, you know, animal brain has something to worry about. >> Yes. One of the things that drives me crazy as we as a world look at how to solve these problems is people do not understand that everything is a trade-off. Yeah, good point. This reminds me of a story. I have a friend who what what what should we call him? Bobby. Bobby, okay. Bobby wanted to start a protein bar company. I like Bobby already. He's a good guy. You'd like him a lot. So, as you know perfectly well, what's the main ingredient in protein bars? Protein powder. That's right, camel hump fat. So, Bobby was in his garage with his camel hump fat Uh-huh. doling it out trying to make his protein bars. So, that's the base of any protein bar, camel hump fat. As everybody knows. As everybody knows. But, the thing is camel hump fat doesn't taste very good by itself. So, and it's not high in protein, it's high in it's literally all fat. So, where does the protein in protein bars come from? Milk. That's right, nice try. So, the the protein in every protein bar on the market is obviously beetle larvae. Obviously. So, Bobby had his beetle larvae This is really beetle larvae, isn't it? And well, yeah, this is how you make protein bars. You taught me this. >> buddy. All right. >> So, he's in there and he's in his garage >> like I'm making protein bars with Klaus Schwab right now. And he's in his garage grinding grinding grinding Uh-huh. grinding grinding grinding. Now, the problem is grinding grinding grinding. In fact, he was spending so much time in his garage grinding these protein bars, it caused problems in his marriage cuz his wife's like, "You're spending too much time with your grinder." And it started it's starting to give me questions. Grinding grinding grinding grinding grinding. Now here was the big problem. So, camel hump fat There we go. Camel hump fat causes diarrhea. >> Uh-huh. Beetle larvae causes vomiting. So this was a big issue for Bobby because if he added too much camel hump fat, a lot of people would get diarrhea. >> Diarrhea, yeah. >> If he adds the beetle larvae Too much vomiting. >> vomiting. How is he going to solve this issue for his customers? This quest took over all his thinking. And he didn't really know what to do. So sometimes he add a little bit more fat. Let's add a little bit more fat. I'm so afraid you're going to eat this. Well, you have to try it. And then sometimes he added a little >> One of us maybe. And sometimes he added a little bit more beetles beetle larvae. And then what's he doing? In his garage. Grinding grinding grinding. Grinding grinding grinding. Grinding grinding grinding. Grinding grinding grinding. All right, let's get it. Let's taste it. What do you think, Tom? I think Bobby's on his own. So he TRIED IT. >> OH GOD. TRY IT. It Try it. Those are moving, dude. Ugh. What is happening? He couldn't get it quite right. >> god. So, what did he realize? Uh-huh. You're Some of these diarrhea is going to be so severe people will have to go to hospital and die. Sometimes the vomiting is going to be so severe people go to hospital people die. But Yeah. if you get to a point where you're selling so many protein bars Mhm. that you can pay off those people who are ill or in certain cases even passed away you've solved the quest. Point being whatever your product or goal is, you're never going to achieve perfection. The point is you have to reach a point where the benefits outweigh the cost and you're never going to have a cost-free situation. It's like Thomas Sowell said, there are no solutions, only trade-offs. And that is how protein bars are made. Uh-huh. So We've had different protein bar experiences. Uh, sometimes they don't grind it all the way. Michael, I really want to believe that's a prop, but that's real. It's real. Oh my god. It's a big deal. You'll eat uh you'll own nothing and you'll love it. You'll get all your bugs and your protein. >> okay, I'm I'm this is me me and my autism. Why is this a big deal if you eat like shrimp? >> Are you serious? I'm not kidding at all. If >> If the shrimp were alive, I have a problem. Really? >> Yes, it's the Well, admittedly, I have a problem with both because they look like worms and I have an evolutionary aversion to anything that looks like a worm. >> You don't have an evolutionary aversion because worms are a high source of protein. So, if anything Hard pass. They are parasites. Worms Earthworms are not parasites. >> Earthworms, no, but worms, yes. >> Correct. So, these do not look like the parasitic worms at all. Man, there is something in my brain. Even as a little kid, I hated earthworms. I hate those worms. Anything that moves like that is >> how this is >> grotesque. Okay. This is wild. >> I understand. I know but on a rational point of view Sure, if I was starving to death, I would eat them, no problem. >> You're someone who likes to push himself. You know this is >> In ways that make sense. >> I see no upside to I cannot believe I'm impressed that you ate that. I'm not going to I'm not going to take your kudos because this is completely unimpressive. It is again like two grains of rice, there's no taste, it doesn't pop, it's not gross, it's not like biting into my mouth. What's the big deal? Literally. They're gross. But what is I understand they're gross, but it's like you've eaten [ __ ] haven't you? Like seriously, like this look how little Wait. Hold the phone. Are you saying that you cannot see a category difference between No, I'm saying you you eat gross I'm saying you eat gross things. >> and [ __ ] I'm saying you've eaten gross things. I would not categorize vagina as gross things, but I mean there's a lot going on down there. Yeah? Uh hey. I'll take it. It's a good life lesson. Thomas Sowell would be proud. I I I'm I'm really surprised. Are you really surprised? >> Yes, I I get these cuz they're big and pulsating? But the reason this bit works is because that's nasty. I agree, but okay, so autism speaking again, when people are like you'll eat the bugs, I don't see how cricket flour is worse than like like chicken like mealworm. Cricket flour admittedly, once it's in that format, is purely psychological. Totally understand if I grew up in a culture where that was normalized. Oh my god. Uh then I wouldn't think about it, but I was not. And so it is not a >> that before and I didn't know if I could and it was surprisingly not a big deal. I'm shocked that you did it. I thought he's going to like okay, and this is where you cut. I got to commit to the bit. You did commit to the bit. I'll give you that. Just for the record, that is not how protein bars are made. But thank you, Mr. Malice, for that. Dude, this was amazing. Thank you so much as always for spending time with me. Where can people follow along with you? I'm on Twitter at Michael Malice and my locals is malice.locals.com and I've got a graphic novel coming up which I'm excited to talk to you about when it's done. I can't wait to see that. Yeah. Awesome. All right, everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. From the 1940s through the Cold War, 1/3 of the CIA's entire budget was devoted to media manipulation. They do not want you thinking for yourself. Today, the same tactics have gone digital and are far more ubiquitous. Former State Department official Mike