Matt Walsh on Toxic Masculinity, Cancel Culture, and Becoming The Top 0.1%

anxiety is at an all-time high kids are depressed and anxious and nobody knows why there's a crisis an epidemic of depression men are designed to provide and care for our families if you don't do that you're always going to be working against that grain their position is so fundamentally confused and absurd that when that's your starting point you can't possibly say anything true did Elon ever reach out to you everything about you as a person is decided in that moment Matt Walsh thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour obviously now you're tent at the daily wire but I didn't realize you used to be a professional dancer dude you're really good at dancing I was actually really surprised I found this video of you here check that out um this is on Twitter of you Dan playing yeah just go and click play I can't believe this got out yeah see you see my moves there they're really good yeah you have great hips hip gyration the the footwork is incredible on that yeah you know I put a lot of hours it's just me uh in my bedroom by myself dancing and looking in a mirror so that that guy does look you know the thing is people are always telling me Oh this guy looks exactly like you and I look at him it's like he just has a beard so not everyone that has a beard looks like me it's not just the beard it's the glasses it's the hair it's the facial structure it's the I mean there's a lot of similarities the strut the swag all that yeah the hip gations especially should maybe Do genetics testing and see if maybe you guys are related to some maybe I am related to every guy with a beard in yeah so to start this off one quick question it's a simple question okay yeah what is a woman that is still on the journey no my Journey's over so it's a adult human female I finally have learned is what a woman is yeah and what is a a female well a female is uh there's few different ways you could Define female but I prefer to say that a female is uh that member of the human species who by her nature can become pregnant and you have to specify by her nature because of course if you say well female is the person who can get pregnant of course then you're going to get the the whole well what if you have someone who's uh who's infertile or or or or whatever that doesn't you know we know that that by your nature a female could get pregnant but that doesn't mean that every single female can because there there's disease there's genetic deformity that sort of thing that can get in the way I was surprised how many views what has a woman got on Twitter and I was sitting there refreshing and watching The View just go up and up and up and and I think it hit 100 million views in how many hours after posting this it was like the the weekend or it was like yeah it Wass I think it was a couple of days maybe we got the 100 million and then I think we made it up to 180 million I want to say uh and you guys took it off right yeah originally we were going to put it up I think for the original plan was for 24 hours and then the response was so huge that we decided why would we take it down we just kept it up and we got up to around 180 million views and then Elon Musk retweeted it didn't he said it was a must he he pinned the he pinned it which we did not we had no idea he was going to do that obviously we're very grateful um but there was a whole you know there was a whole uh uh controversy before that with Twitter initially trying to shut our screening of the film down before Elon Musk came in because the thing is you know Elon came into Twitter uh X I guess I'll never call it X I always call it Twitter but he came in and he started cleaning that house but of course you know the company is still for a long time is a fundamentally left-wing company so I think there's this kind of push and pull and when we first announced our plan to put the the the movie on Twitter you know there were people at Twitter who uh tried to step in and sabotage it until Elon Musk how do you know that how do you know that people within Twitter were trying to shut it down what were they doing specifically well because there was a whole I mean there was a whole thing behind the scenes we we we had this whole plan set up to officially uh uh Premiere the film on Twitter and it was going to have its own special page which you can do on Twitter now and uh that would give it like prior prity in news feeds and stuff and and and you know make it accessible to more people we had the whole plan set up everything was good to go and then at the last minute um we were informed that the decision was made by some people at Twitter that uh the film is hate speech and so we'd still be allowed to have it on the platform but it'd be impossible to share it would be very difficult for people to see it so basically like you can have it Bas right exactly um so we don't know who who at Twitter made that decision and what exactly was going on behind the scenes we don't know know uh but we know that once Elon personally got involved you know all that went away so did Elon ever reach out to you uh I've communicated with them a little bit a little bit behind not like phone calls or anything but just messaging that's crazy yeah it is it is it's does that how does that feel just on a personal level talking to Elon Musk I guess what do they call impostor syndrome where you you you know you sort of feel like you're in a position and and you don't deserve to be there and and you're trying to figure out yourself so it's a little bit of that I feel a little bit of the impostor syndrome when I'm talking to somebody like Elon musk like why is this guy talking to me what does he talk to you about not much I mean it's just like it's just it a little bit messaging back and forth I think around this the what is woman thing and then uh and then a little bit here and there since then but not not much at all that's crazy I was surprised just how detailed that documentary was and how long it must have taken you to film it because as a Creator myself I know how much work goes into that behind the scenes and the amount of time and dedication that you must have spent on that as with your entire team how long was that from start to finish probably about a year I want say a little bit less than a year um and yeah it's it's tough to make a movie like that because it's you know it's not like a scripted feature where you can and obviously there's a lot of challenges there with a movie like that but you you know it's not like you have a script and you have actors um I mean this kind of movie we we knew what we wanted who we wanted to talk to the issue we wanted to explore but you really have no idea what's going to happen when you get on the ground and you're in the room with some of these people um or you know my favorite sequence in that film is when we went to Africa and um that's the sort of thing where we had the idea we thought it'd be really interesting to go to Africa and talk to a traditional tribe about these issues and just kind of get their like far Outsider perspective but we obviously had no idea what they would actually say or how that would go and and what were their what was their response to the whole like question of transgenderism and what is a woman uh they were flumix I mean they weren't FL well they actually originally they were flumix by the question what is a woman not because they don't know the answer but because it's such a obvious answer that they figured we must be asking something else like at first when I I think when I first asked what is a woman um and we're going through a translator which is also interesting we wanted to see how that worked too like how do these questions filter through a translator into their language um and there were some there were some issues with that originally which we anticipated but when we first asked it they gave some kind of answer about um the duties and responsibilities of men versus women because they figured that's what I was asking because in their mind Minds it's like there's no way he's actually asking literally what is a woman because nobody everyone knows that and so I had ask a few more times before they understood that oh no this guy is like actually confused about that question specifically and when they were talking about roles and what were some of those things that they said there in terms of what what a man's role was what a woman's role was was there anything to you that was surprising no it wasn't surprising at all it was you know they have an idea about the roles of men and women that and that that they share with almost every society that's ever existed on Earth um aside from ours and in their in their notion of things you know the man provides for the family the woman has children and stays home with the children takes care of the house the man goes out and provides for the family and for them that's you know hunting that's livestock you know it's not like they're not going to a 9et to-5 job outside of the the modern Western World you talk to almost anybody and they're going to give an answer like that now they understand that if a man doesn't go out and provide for his family like he's still a man literally speaking but he hasn't fulfilled his responsibility as a man and when you were talking to people on the other side of the token which you did a lot throughout this what is a woman documentary was there anything that they said that you thought was like a valid argument or maybe that surprised you because you obviously went in with certain expectations of what they would say did you hear anything where you're kind of like oh that kind of makes a little bit of sense I understand that no never honestly there wasn't so it was there was no like aha moment it was just certainly not an aha moment I'm I'm trying to think if anyone said for on that side of it if there was anyone who said anything that I even thought was vaguely interesting or legitimate and the answer is no because because their their position is so um fundamentally confused and absurd that when that's your starting point you can't possibly say anything true like when your when your starting point is that men can have babies and that's the universe you're living in it's it's a universe so divorced from reality that whatever you whatever come whatever grows from that root is going to also be untrue and so uh what I what we encountered that side was just a whole like mess of confusion basically so who holds these beliefs because I was at the University of California Santa Barbara so like a public school in California and a lot of people I found obviously like mostly liberal students uh in college but I didn't see many people with that level of like extremism that like men can like have babies and stuff like that I think uh yeah that's always that's a fascinating question too about um how many of the people that pretend to believe this actually believe it you know when when we were making the film we kind of there's sort of two groups of people we talk to and one were the experts you know the doctors and and professors and that sort of thing Dr Kamar can biological men become pregnant and give birth so men can have pregnancies especially transmen um and then we also just talked to normal people on the street what we found is that the normal people on the street often times were repeating kind of a version of what we heard from the experts but if you dug a little bit deeper it became obvious to me that they don't really believe what they're saying um and you know this was also a couple years ago when we were making the movie I think that even now that might be different I think now if I went out and we did it again and I talked to normal people on the street about this issue I think we'd have more people willing to say oh that all that is nonsense you know if I were to ask like what if a man identifies as a woman should he be allowed to go into women's restroom when we were filming this two years ago we found very few normal folks on the street who were willing to say well no obviously the man can't go in the women's restroom but they also hadn't fully bought into the idea that he should they're just kind of like they were just uncomfortable talking about it and because they knew that it was a taboo yeah and I've I've often wondered if we were to go back and do that same man on the street sort of thing now would we find many more people who are willing to say well no of course he can't I think a great poll to do for your for just like a standard video of yours to just go out and do it and I I think we would I mean I think that that and the polls and surveys on this issue kind of bear that out so how did you get started with the daily wire obviously now you have a massive platform where like millions of people listen to you obviously the documentary was viewed by hundreds of millions of people what led to this position that you're in right now I know you did a video reacting to your first ever podcast which was it itough start some our first podcast yeah our first podcast was was not good we'll throw up some b-roll it right here I'll throw up some Boll your first podcast I'm sorry but were you in a a building at least were you in some kind of We Were we were in a studio your mic didn't work mine did so I converted a bedroom in the house to a set and that's what it was and then we and then we used our dining room table for the next year and then now we still we went back to the converted bedroom well humble beginnings still but at least you were in a bill you were in some sort of stable structure that stays in one place I started in in media I suppose when I was 20 years old um I'm 37 now so this 17 years ago initially I was in uh I I was in radio and I um left home at the age of 20 and I went to this small Market rock radio station in Delaware it was like Market 300 something or other um and uh that was the only in to media that I could find at the time uh so I worked initially overnights just like introducing rock songs and uh that's what I did I was there for about at that station for five years and then I got into kind of conservative talk radio for a few years this is also when the radio industry was also collapsing you know at the same time so I got I got kind of got in at like the tail end I think satellite radio is beginning to take satellite radio was starting to to come on uh when I first started in radio of course the internet existed but social media you know was not what it is today Myspace uh yeah this is back in the my space I don't even think YouTube existed yet but anyway I eventually I got out of of radio and I was just a blogger for a while I had my own blog but it blew up like quickly too yeah it actually it actually did surprisingly uh quickly I started I think I started the the blog in like early of early 2012 good time for a Blog yeah that was that was in the Heyday the other thing is that back then and then it kind of blew up in that summer I had a couple like viral posts that I wrote and what were the viral posts the first one that went really okay the first one that went really viral was actually very early it was in the first few weeks when I started the blog and it was a uh uh my wife and sister-in-law forced me to go see lay miserab the musical yeah and I wrote a review of lay Mizer Rob and how much I hated it and uh for some reason it it went for me by my standards at the time it went really really viral I think I had like 500,000 views on that on that blog post and um and then it kind of you know it dipped back down and I didn't capture any of that reader show I didn't really know how to so I had all these people reading this one people just coming from Google because I'd imagine your blog ranked in and if people are typing in that your blog is probably coming up and that's how sharing it that one ended up on some like message boards for musical fans or fans of musicals or something you got a lot of hate yeah there a lot of that but there also people that were that were commiserating and that said I also hate this fil you know this this play film why is it so highly contended why why did you dislike it so much well I think I didn't I'm not a musical guy first of all and I didn't understand when I went to go see it that they sing through the entire movie it's like the the entire thing is sung so I thought it was one of those musicals where you have normal scenes and then they break out in song randomly which is annoying enough but this one they sang the entire thing and I was just and my wife didn't warn me about that and you've got like Russell Crow a trigger warning yeah I needed a trigger warning I didn't get one so I was I was shocked and appalled um but what made you go home and write about this and what did you think about you writing about this did she like she like my my husband yeah she thought it was hilarious I think I was I was kind of venting about it and so and my my Lamentations of misery just caught on for some reason but but the problem is that I got all these viewer these readers I didn't know how to capture them because they were there for a a movie review and I thought should I just write movie reviews now is that what people want but I don't want to you know I'm not much of a movie critic so they all kind of went away and then uh it was several months later that I started to catch on you know more consistently and how would you catch on in what way how did you find your Niche I started writing about uh I think the first one that really went viral that I was able to sort of capture was um it was Miley Cyrus performing at the VMAs this really like gratuitous objectionable performance back in 2013 I think it was was with was it with Robin Thick I think oh was that the one where she was uh like grinding no no she was grinding up behind him he bent over and I think she got behind him I think it was one of those right yeah you remember this in great detail yeah still watches it all the time I didn't see uh it was it was something something like that and so it was a big kind of like cultural controversy at the time or he grinded on her it was one remember someone grinded on the there was a lot I think there was grinding going on all over the stage with lots of different people um so but I kind of wrote about that from the perspective of sort of parent and so that's the thing for a while I was kind of when I started writing about uh things relating to Parenting and family and kids and how do you protect your kids in this Fallen world of ours in this degenerate culture um that's what uh that's what seemed to resonate with people which which is is good because that's what I actually care about and so I yeah I did that I did that for uh for a few years I ended up working at The Blaze for about three years just as a writer and then uh I think it was in 2018 that I got the job at the daily wire was the blog making money it was yeah it was it was uh by my standards it was pretty incredible like a lot of money by my cuz I you if remember I was in local radio of course how much were you making in local radio radio my first gig in local radio I remember specifically was $177,000 a year how do you how do you survive off that barely like $117,000 a year is well it did quickly so it was $17,000 a year I quickly got a raise to 19,000 because I found out because they hired some other guy a few weeks later and he was bragging about making $119,000 a year and then I'm like why are we not making the same the same position yeah exact same position and so they said all right you you got us and so they gave me the raise to 19,000 but even 19,000 is like very hard to survive on so it was a lot of um and that's what I made pretty much until I got married I mean I was that's it's a year into marriage I was still making about that and so it was a lot of uh you know uh gas station hot dogs for for dinner and Foot Longs what was the blog doing financially the first real check I got from the blog was like $4,000 that's fantastic for for a month oh wow yeah and was that just it was the ads that you had on the side like Google ads yeah and yeah I I remember that very well because that was more that was it was a double like double my salary yeah so it was the most money I'd actually seen at one time 4,000 bucks and uh and it was possible to do that at the time because you know you could the way I built that up was was through Facebook and social media and back then you could build up a readership on something like Facebook which is pretty much what I exclusively used at the time and if you had 8,000 followers on Facebook they would all see you know you could access all of them and so if you had 8,000 followers it means that 8,000 people were actually getting access to you were popping up in their news feeds and everything um but then quickly all that started to change and you know now it's like you could have a Facebook following of two million people but only whatever 0.5% of them will even see post but guys before we go into that are you ready to make 2024 for your year of success if you've been dreaming of starting your own business there's no better time than right now to turn that dream into a reality with her sponsor Shopify Shopify is the global e-commerce platform that's already helped transform millions of businesses worldwide Shopify has an endless list of Integrations thirdparty apps and flexible templates to make your store exactly how you want it and if that's not enough of a reason Shopify also have the internet's best converting checkout to turn browsers into buyers and it's 36% better on average than their leading competitors Shopify even 10% of all e-commerce in the United States and that includes Brands like Alberts rothis and Brooklyn and in over 175 countries and also just from personal 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don't know 17 or 18 different jobs and what was the weirdest nothing really weird it was just a lot of like delivering pizzas which I actually enjoyed pizza delivery was was great there was a lot of freedom in that you make who did you work for Domino's Pizza Domino's I like Domino's of every job outside of what I do now that was my favorite job and uh this was before GPS you actually had to learn I did Map Quest this is before Map Quest before Map Quest so we had we actually had a at Domino's we had a big map uh in the store and when you got the order you had to go on the map and look and remember are you serious shocking to the kids today but yeah and then but then eventually you actually learn where you live and you learn how to get around this might sounds stupid what happens if you get lost do you have a cell phone that you could call I someone and just say like hey I'm I'm lost about these two streets where do I go well if you know if you at least V know the area like you actually understand where you live then you have certain even if you get a little bit lost you know where you can go back to to get back the problem is now that we're so dependent on um GPS that we never learned like I've lived here in Nashville I've lived in Nashville for two years and I still I'm ashamed to say hardly know how to get around because I always use the GPS is that is that a bad thing to not know how to get around right yeah he relying on GPS I think it's a bad thing yeah really for me it's I'm able to put on the GPS and mentally I could be somewhere else not having to pay attention to directions but I can think in my mind of different ideas or different instead of like what street is this am I going to pass it it it takes away my mental energy on navigating when I could rely on something like GPS yeah but I think that's a bad thing because that's it's exact that's exactly the problem you're not really inhabiting what you're doing you're not you're not you're not inhabiting the current moment your thought is always somewhere else in the future or or anywhere or you're looking at your phone and doing something else you know you're on Twitter or something while you're driving not that I would ever do that I think it's good to actually like okay I'm driving this is what I'm doing I'm going from here to there you're you you are aware of the present moment you're inhabiting it and going from point A to point B like we don't do that anymore I know it's a common but self-driving is going to take that away eventually where you're just going to be in a thing you plug in the address you could sit back and do whatever do what do whatever you want to you could work could listen to podcasts but we're we're slowly we're taking away all of the things that for for people to do so that increasing there's like nothing left to actually do anymore and so we're making life more convenient oh you don't have to do that anymore well then once there's nothing left not once we get to the point where we don't have to do anything then then there's nothing to do then like life is well then I think people go on to higher and better things is that is that what you see in society right now people going on to higher and better things I'd say overall if we look at this year versus 40 years ago I'd say overall yes I think in terms of efficiency and productivity we're able to do a lot more do a lot more what uh I would say with technology advancements in society I think there's a lot of a lot of progression that we've seen well maybe technologically but do do you see progression do you think people are better do you think people are uh happier with all this I have no idea I'm happier this year than I was 10 years ago you might be but I but I think I think that the the trends would show that most people we hear it all the time that anxiety is at an alltime High kids are depressed and anxious and nobody knows why it's you know there's a crisis an epidemic of depression so it seems to me like people are so yeah we got all these technological advancements but I don't think that it's making people happier it's not making our lives better and ultimately everything that we do should be making our lives better if it's not then it's a bad thing sure and and also and it makes us vulnerable so uh which to me is a secondary concern but the fact that none of us know how to get around our own neighborhoods well if that technology ever goes away you know if your interet internet goes down power gets attacked whatever like we're we're stuck we don't know what to do I mean I I was uh driving to work I don't know why I'm admitting this I was driving to work a few weeks ago and I couldn't get the GPS to work for some reason and I you're just stuck I like had a mini I I kind of panicked a little bit because because like I'm not sure if I exactly know how to get where I'm going but the Panic was more I can't call someone and admit that I'm lost on my way to work so that's emasculating to the extreme so I figured out I fig Bud's dominance how did you figure it out I had to I had to tap into my subconscious because I'm only I'm only ever like subconsciously aware of where I'm driving because I have the GPS so I had I had to a lot of mental effort but I did figure it out but it's pathetic like how can I be a grown man it doesn't even know how to exactly how to get to my own job because I always had the GPS so The Dominoes gave you good training of navigation I I tapped into that Domino's experience so you think that there's Merit to being aware and living consciously and present rather than potentially your brain solving other issues in the future or thinking about past events and stuff like that yeah yeah and I also think that it's uh it's very generous to assume that that we're all up in our heads solving problems I I don't think that's what happens I think we're just kind of killing time I mean it's it's a cliche sort of thing to complain about but it is we've all like you know know um I was where was I I was somewhere recently maybe the dentist or something and we're waiting in line and you look around in a waiting room for example and you look around and like everybody is just looking at their phone you know and and it used to be that in that situation maybe you have a magazine or something most people are you're just like sitting there you're you're in the waiting room this is what you're doing and you are doing that um but we don't know how to like be somewhere now we have to always you know what's so funny I I see this picture floating on the internet all the time and it shows a group and they're all on their phone and then it shows a picture of the 1920s but everyone was just reading the newspaper and it shows that like human nature still hasn't changed that people are still paying attention to one thing in front of them whether that be the newspaper or in this time is the phone where you could get the newspaper you know digitally or you could be on social media but it's the same sort of thing where people are in their own world yeah but I think that with each advancement it becomes it becomes more absorbing and more uh and it dominates your time even more I mean the newspaper at least is a finite thing and you can read the whole newspaper and then that's it you're done with the newspaper uh but the phone is made to be infinite infinite scrolling you just it never stops and you never look away from it so yeah people might have been distracted by newspapers but nobody 100 years ago yeah was walking around reading the newspaper 10 hours a day and now you know the average time spent on the phone I think for Gen Z something like 10 hours a day 10 12 hours a day how do you spend your time on the phone uh well it's hard for me because this is what I do for a living so I have to you know I have a daily podcast so I have to always be looking for Content you know that's like my life is trying to find content and anytime something happens in the world you know it's not just a thing happening it's like oh this is content I have to what's my angle what am I going to say about it so that's mostly what I'm doing on the Internet is like feeding I got to feed the content Mill this this is what we do for a living MH but outside of that I'm doing what a lot of other people doing which is like I I'll catch myself just last night I was I caught myself it's almost like 45 minutes had evaporated and I just spent that 45 minutes just like I don't even know what I Wasing I can't even tell you what I looked at it was just like scrolling scrolling scroll what app was it it was Twitter Twitter Twitter's dangerous I find Twitter extra dangerous because it's just like fear-mongering and negativity and just really pissy people there's a lot of that and and and and recently I've noticed a lot more just these video like really violence oh the gore videos yeah I mean has that hit your algorithm oh yeah um it's so weird I jack is telling brought this up to him like yesterday I was like dude I'm getting scarred even Instagram reals because Instagram used to be very sensitive to that stuff but you can go and there's not even any warning or anything it's like you just swipe and then it's just like you don't get any of that nothing he curates his algorithm oh yeah I do I purposely say if I'm not interested in something very early on I say I'm not interested mine is so curated to just what I want to see which is Reef aquariums watches pretty much oh you're into aquariums yeah well let's talk about that all right um I'm I'm a big aquar well I'm not a big I want to be a big aquarium guy um yeah I I have that same uh that same issue and uh it is it is very like if you say that it's scarring or traumatic people will call you sensitive like no it's not but I I don't think no it is actually it would be to me if I saw to to to just be gone about your day and then oh there's someone dying like there's someone being shot to death right and that's sandwiched in between a cat video and somebody complaining about Trump or something it's like so the fact that you're witnessing it and then also the context of it being just content that you scroll past is uh it's very unnatural and unhuman I do think that there's Merit in knowing uh and being aware of like the evils that exist like for example with this whole recent thing and Ben putting on this very graphic content on his daily podcast like I can see the angle that he's trying to show to people just like contemplate your own mortality know that evil exist and do your best to fight it so I think it's important to like be aware of it but as far as like seeing it and being exposed to it on a daily basis I don't think is necessarily healthy yeah it depends on the context that's why I said the context is important so uh yeah I think there could be a for something like that but most of these videos that you see on Twitter or whatever it's not they're not raising awareness about some evil thing that happened it's just it's to gawk at and and uh that's entirely different from you need to be aware of this evil that exists out there I want to know about your own ideals and principles a question I love asking people to understand who they are is what principles and ideals did you have at one point in your life and maybe one of them specifically had a one 0 flip like maybe you thought this thing about raising kids you thought this principle about who you are how other people works so the the way reality is and it just flipped 180 or has that never really happened to you which also is a valid answer uh I can't say that any fundamental principle has flipped so I've always been I was raised uh in a conservative Catholic Family and uh that's who I am that's what I am today so for the most part the um fundamental principles have remained the same same but my views on various issues have certainly changed I you know and some of this is just growing growing up I think back in my early 20s I was much more libertarian in fact I would have there was a time when I would have identified as libertarian um I don't anymore there's individual issues like capital punishment I used to be against capital punishment um now I'm very much for it and you mentioned parenting I mean there's all kinds of I don't think it's any principle of parenting that's changed but gradually evolved or or when you start doing it like you have your ideas about before you have kids you have all kinds of ideas about how you think it will go or or or how you uh think that you you know how you think it should go and then once you're um once you're in it it could be entirely different I've also before I had kids and I would see these parents who in my mind are too lenient and they just want to be friends with their kids and I I never understood that like how how can you be this way with your kid you know like lay down the law right uh you're not a friend I used to I used to say that before I had kids like you're not supposed to be a kid's friend uh you're the parent and now that I have kids first of all yeah I think it's a bad you shouldn't be too lenient you you need to have you need to Discipline Your Child make sure child's discipline but I do understand why parents can air in that direction because I I couldn't have understood this before I had kids but now I understand like punishing your kid is hard I don't like doing it I really don't like doing it I don't like coming home from work and one of the kids did something bad and I have to deal with it and I really don't like it not because I don't want to be bothered but just because uh it's a it's like an unpleasant thing I don't want to have an unpleasant interaction with my with my kid uh so I I understood I understand that in a way that I didn't before I had kids and I also uh have changed my view about being friends with your kid I've realized that you absolutely should be your child's friend you shouldn't be just their friend but what is a friend a friend is someone who has a close bond with you someone who understands you someone you can confide in um someone you like being around so definitely as a parent not only should you be your child's friend but you but you should try to be their best friend um where they which simply means they like being around you and they will tell you things and they will confide in you and they trust you it's just you're their friend but you're not their peer I think is the distinction that I I missed before I had not they equal how do you determine what's an appropriate punishment let's just say one of your children acts up how do you make sure you don't go too far or too soft on an issue first of all I'm not I'm not overly dogmatic on some of these things some people are very dogmatic about punishments they say uh never spank or don't do timeouts or don't you know I think there could be a place for all different kinds of uh punishments but the main thing is that most people say which is true which is that uh you you don't you shouldn't be angry while you are administering the whatever the punishment is you shouldn't be angry while you're ministering it now in reality dayto day you're G to get ticked off at your kids it's G to happen like it happens to everybody you always want to P in fact I had this situation with my with my uh my six now he just turned seven my seven-year-old son this morning where he did something very out of line and I was very uh and his and you know my wife sent him to me and and I was initially pretty ticked off when I heard about it but I told him okay you need to stand there in the corner until I'm ready to talk to you you and then I you know I left the room so I could calm down a second so I could actually approach this like an adult and then I went and I talked to him and I administered the uh I I gave him what the consequences were going to be for the action but when you go in and you're just like pissed off then then then you're then you're just taking your anger out on your kid um and that's not parenting you know that's just that's just you venting so it's leading by example right and you're also so many of the problems you have with kids is that they're not able to control their emotions and they're not able to react rationally rationally and in in you know to to to frustration that's like 95% of the problems you have with kids is based around that but if you are demonstrating a similar inability to control your emotions uh a similar inability to react the right way to frustration then you know how can you expect anything better from them you can't expect your kid to be a better person than you are and you can't expect them to um demonstrate a capacity that you yourself have do not have do you give them access to the internet no at all not at all no well uh they don't have phones they don't have any kind of unfettered internet access at all um you know we will I'll put on a YouTube video with you know I'll watch my son my 10-year-old son likes to watch YouTube videos of people in the woods like building shelters sure and uh which I also enjoy so we'll sit and we'll watch that so you know he's accessed the internet in that sense but no there's never a time when I'd be okay with them just sitting off in a corner somewhere accessing the internet at what age do you think that is acceptable I don't think there's ever a time when they're actually kids when I would be okay with them having unfettered internet access just because I know where that leads you know I know I know what happens um eventually though they do you I don't I also don't want to be in a position where they turn 18 and they've never they don't know anything about tech they've have no uh they have no uh familiarity with it wouldn't want to put them in that position either because then you're also worried about them finally getting the phone and just going nuts like because it you know so I think eventually you have to slowly kind of introduce that stuff in a in a very controlled setting which is what we will do what are you most concerned about if they have access to the internet of course one of the primary concerns is the pornography and the gratuitous objectionable content that's all over the place like what we just talked about even stuff like that you can go on Twitter and just see someone get shot in the head you know as your scrolling pass um so there's that there's the sexual content you know there's the fact that according to some studies the average age of first pornography exposure for kids is like eight now I mean it's crazy and I don't think we have any concept of just How Deeply that is affecting and changing like whole generations of human beings who their first introduction to human sexuality as a concept is internet pornography it's just I think we're whistling past the graveyard a little bit on on what that means for the human race to have to to eventually you know be a civilization where everybody's in that boat that's that was everyone's first introduction um so I'm very worried about that for my kids that's probably the main thing but also just I want them to uh have a childhood I want them to be able to entertain themselves and use their imagination and go and do the things that I did when I was a kid anyone who's an older Millennial and a and and older than that we all we love talking about our childhoods of you know when I was a kid I ran out Barefoot and in the woods and my parents said be be back for dinner but that's what we did but do you think you could do that today because I hear a lot of people saying well yeah it was safer you know 40 years ago and kids could go and do that and they come back on when the street lights go you know come on yeah could you recreate that today I think a version of it depends on where you live yeah uh if I lived in an unsafe neighborhood or the city I I certainly wouldn't do that but um if you live like in an neighborhood that I lived in when I growing up I just lived in a normal middle class neighborhood and that's the kind of childhood we had we left in the morning and we came back at at night and um if the neighborhood is safe there's no reason why you can't do that at a certain age you wouldn't send your 5-year-old out like that but at a certain age um I think you can and even if you're not comfortable with that you still uh you know I I don't send my kids out totally out of my sight for hours at a time but they're still out in the yard playing they play games they they like to color and draw and that's how they spend their time and I want them to have that but before we get into that guys the daily wear is obviously a massive operation I mean you can just see from these shots and the audio quality alone that this equipment has got to be incredibly expensive but thankfully though you don't have to spend a whole bunch of money to get started in fact we started with the bare minimum and our sponsor streamyard is there to help streamyard is a recording and live streaming platform that allows you to create highquality content right from your browser with just the click of a button from there they also allow you to stream throughout multiple platforms all at the same time from LinkedIn to YouTube to Instagram Facebook Twitter Tik Tok and more and if you're not on every single platform you're absolutely missing out so if you guys want to create highquality content right from your browser with just the click of a button and also help support this channel it would mean so much if you tried out streamyard with a free package guys it's completely free with the link Down Below in the description again it's absolutely free to start creating high quality content today with a link Down Below in the description enjoy thank you so much and now let's get back to the podcast and what about managing your relationship how did you meet your wife so I met my wife uh on e-harmony actually yeah she doesn't like me admitting that public year was this 2009 okay yeah what what attract like you would be against dating apps right no I'm not I'm not at all I'm not against well first of all back then a dating site is probably different from what a dating app is is now um and these were dating sites that were designed for like okay I'm interested in someone I want to meet someone who's a Ser a more serious person and looking for an actual relationship Harmony had that reputation of being more like marriage focused like you're there to find somebody versus I think Tinder is like I'll find somebody tonight right and I don't think Tinder existed back then I'm pretty sure uh dating apps in general I don't think you know those were those were still in the future of the time so I think yeah if you're on one of these hookup apps where this is what people use it for to hookup then yeah you're not going to have success probably finding someone who's serious about having a relationship but it is true that just even I know from my own experience that towards the beginning of the 2010s it already started to feel like if you want to actually meet someone how else do you do it it's a lot of the normal communal spaces don't exist anymore um or it's not what it used to be so how many dates did you go on with other people before you went on that first date with your now wife uh my memory is she was the first one I met on the side um I don't know we talked on the phone for several weeks uh and then we before we went our first date and I proposed to her six months uh later what Drew you to her profile initially do you remember what the first message was I take it you messaged her first now I get in trouble I don't remember all these details as well as I should uh you know I think uh yeah that's probably correct I don't remember what the exact first messages were I wish I did but what was it about her profile that you saw was it was it a picture first was it something she wrote that you really liked or was it just like here's our best recommendation this is who we think that you might get along well I mean she's beautiful so that as a you know in reality that's going to be the first thing you notice so that is the first thing I noticed but it also was clear to me that she's just a serious person no I say serious I don't mean like she can't laugh she's very she's also very uh you know joyful but just she's looking for she's not not a an overgrown child like she's an adult but you can't I don't think you can tell a lot based on a profile anyway you have to actually talk to someone and then we went on our our uh first date and you know I kind of knew two hours into the conversation that I that I wanted to marry her I don't two hours into the conversation was there something specific that she said that you were just like yep we we related on on a on our like our fundamental values kind of aligned and uh I thought she was just she had a very warm affectionate personality beautiful woman um I could talk to her about you know we talked about interesting things it wasn't yeah we had the small talk like had to get past that but we were talking about whatever politics and religion and all the the things they tell you you're not supposed to talk about on the first date we talked about all that stuff and um and so it's like yeah of course I want to marry her what else am I like am I going to wait for some this is it this is what you want right um which is what I'm always like preaching to young men that I'm not saying that I didn't propose to her on the spot I waited six months but like you have to know what you're looking for and then once you found that person it's like okay you you found them you you win yeah you won that part of the game but how did you know what you were looking for did you date prior to then and you're like I don't like this I don't like this and then when you met your wife you're like this is this fits what I want I dat I mean I met her when I was 24 so of course of course I dated before that um and I didn't have any experience that was like oh man that's the worst thing ever I me I was plenty of nice people it just didn't we didn't really what it was is is it's that our our fundamental like principles and values aligning I didn't I never quite had that uh to the extent that I did with with my wife um and you know they say the whole thing about Opposites Attract and I think that's true and my wife is like very much the opposite of me in a lot of ways uh P but that's all personality wise and that's fine that's good I think you want that but your values like the things you want in life the things that motivate you you know I think those have to line up and if they don't maybe you can make it work but you that's a huge hurdle you got to get over early in the relationship and it's never going to go away if you don't have that fundamental alignment the way that we did it just seems like like if that is arguably the most important decision that you're going to make in your entire life is who you're spending the rest of your life with don't you think that a longer period of time getting to know them also making sure that you have all of these stats and data points of what you really do like and what you don't like even years of experiencing that plenty of options plenty of choices than picking the the winning Contender would be the I don't know like let's say data driven most effective decision no because I don't think it is a data driven it's this is not this is why I don't like when people use the word partner to talk about their spouses uh because it sounds like a business that's what you say about your business associate they your partner and um I don't say that about my wife she's not my business partner this wasn't a business merger these are two human beings who have uh come together in what I believe to be a sacred Sacrament you know your souls are are becoming intertwined in a real true and mystical way I think in the sacrament of marriage and so it's just it's something that is uh it's it's so far beyond a business merger I don't like to think of it that way and it's also this is why I don't think people say well you got to move in together and so you can figure out all the different quirks the person has why like yes they're going to have quirks they're going to do stuff that annoys you you know you're gonna have pet peeves like you yes so you don't need to move in to find out about find that out about somebody I can tell you right now you'll have all that and if you're going to allow that to be a deal breaker well then you'll just be alone forever you'll never marry anybody what matters is the is the fundamental alignment like do your values align are you attracted to each other that of course really matters and uh if you have both of those things that's what you need and the other thing is that once you get married it's not like it doesn't matter how long you date uh once the marriage happens it's sort of like you're you're starting at square one anyway you still have to have your first day of marriage no matter what uh so you could be you could be dating someone for 10 years or 10 minutes like once you get married now you're married and now a new phase of the relationship has started uh and you you have you have to walk into that first phase no matter what no matter how much experience you have you know I also think that part of it is this idea people have that uh you know you're looking for your soulmate you're looking for the one you know I hate that phrase of oh she's the one people ask me that sometimes how'd you know she was the one well she wasn't the one I mean it's not like there's one person out there of the eight billion people there's just one out there who was designed spe specially for you and it's written in the stars and you have to find that one person uh that's not the way it works uh you don't find the one person you find a person who you line up with in this way and then they become the one when you say I do when you get married you know so it's like you get married married not because this person is the one they become the one at when you marry them and that that's what makes the marriage vows so powerful is that uh is that you are choosing each other this is not Destiny aligning this was not written in the stars is you you are two people who were like lost out in the cosmos and you have chosen each other and created something new together if your wife does not look good in a dress do you tell her yes yeah I'll be honest about that no I think she looks good in almost everything so uh but yeah I've never found that to be I don't know people see that as a hard question but I think you got to be honest with your with your spouse and uh and she'll tell me like if I look ridiculous wearing something she will but you won't be offended like you know what I mean like I I think there's a difference in reactions between women and men when they you know yeah I mean you want to be look obviously you want to be gentle about it you know because you look like a hideous like like a hideous hag in that thing get out of it um but if you're asked and yeah I mean okay what if you're not asked if I'm not you see something you're like hey that does not look good do you say something it I mean it would have to be like egregious you'd have to be wearing something that is embarrassing for me to offer up my opinion but I I don't think I've ever seen her wear something like that but if she asks me and she's like hey what do you think of this I don't really like it she doesn't get offended by that maybe she's unique as as a woman in that way but she doesn't get offended by that sure the way that you explain everything makes it seem like it's all just so simple you very matter of fact you know nonchalant about these really I would say like Broad and but also like dense questions you know has it have you always kind of felt like you had I don't know like like things were simple to you or do you think life is very complicated uh I think a lot of these questions are simpler than we make them out to be I think there's a difference between simple like something can be simple and yet difficult but doesn't make it complicated so I think a lot so something for example like finding the right person to marry I think it's simple what you have to do is a simple thing doesn't make it easy it could be difficult uh losing weight it people want to make it very complicated it's not complicated it's actually very very simple just eat less and exercise more it's extremely simple that's all that needs to be said about it but it's not easy so I think we conflate these these things we we think that um we we have we have trouble distinguishing between simple and hard and and and complicated like these are all different categories now we were talking to Michael about gender roles in a marriage do you feel like a man could be happy in a marriage assuming a traditionally female role let's say a stay-at-home husband or a husband who you know does the housework cooks and the wife goes out and she makes the money first of all I wouldn't even say that cooking I wouldn't I wouldn't even categorize cooking as part of the as as like a feminine Duty necessarily um but generally speaking like that that total R reversal that you're talking about I'm not going to say look I'm sure there are people out there that have done that and will attest that they are happy and I'm sure they exist uh I'm not denying that those people exist but I do think that they're going to be an exception to the rule and the general rule is that a man will most likely not be happy unless he is fulfilling his basic Duty as a man the duty that like we talked in the beginning that almost all human civilizations have um recognized which is that you need to provide for your family um and I think that what happens is that if a man is not doing that if he's the stay-at-home husband the wife is out being the breadwinner uh it might be fine for a time but the man's going to start to feel useless he's going to start to feel emasculated and the woman is going to struggle to respect her husband because she's going to start to see him that way too she's going to start to see to herself like what do I need you for I'm doing everything and whether they admit that out loud and they'll say is a different question but I think that's that is what ends up happening and and once when the man doesn't respect himself or struggles to and then the woman doesn't respect the man you now now your marriage is on life support now you are that's turn that's that could be a terminal case um it's a that's a very very dangerous place to be um and that's why the man you know the respect for the man in a marriage has to be it's a very important thing that has to be nourished and cherished yeah it also seems like a bit of a hot button issue if the wife or the woman makes more money than the man and it seems like a lot of men are either insecure about that or a lot of women say I'd prefer the man make more money yeah and and I think that is how most people feel um again I'm sure there are exceptions I'm sure that uh someone will happily will say in the comments that oh my wife is you know the CEO of whatever and we're happy um and I'm not and I'm not going to deny that there are individual cases like that but you you are kind of working against the grain of human wiring like we are wired a certain way so men are we are designed to provide and care for our families and because we're designed that way we want that's what we want to do we want to do what we are designed to do that's that's happiness is do is doing what you're meant to do is is happiness and uh I I think uh if you don't do that you're always going to be working against that graan so for the average viewer that's 18 to 35 years old old most likely a man if they find themselves waking up they're unhappy on a day-to-day basis or they feel unfulfilled what recommendations would you give to them to feel better don't think stop thinking about your feelings so much you know I think that's part of the problem when people we you know we live in a culture that's very focused on feelings and so we're always thinking about how we feel and how we feel about how we feel and it becomes this kind of like infinite regress where we're just stuck in our own minds like looking back into ourselves and then we get into this uh into this kind of Rhythm where we think well I can't do anything else I can't go out into the world and be successful and productive unless I get my I gotta get myself right right you hear this people people say this stuff all the time I gotta get myself right I got to work on myself and then once I got that figured out then I can go out and do all these things um I don't think that happiness works that way I think that happiness is a byproduct of doing what you're supposed to do in life and so it's more it's it's not a it's not an end to itself exactly so I think it's the happiest moments I've had in my life is when I'm just doing something else and then I stop and I look and I go oh I'm really happy right now okay and then I get back to what I'm doing it's like you you kind of notice it but you don't dwell in it you don't you don't try to sit there and and like bask oh so happy you just get back you get back to what you're doing and you and you are happy and you're doing this and it's great you don't even think about happiness but if you try to if you try to sit there on the couch and conjure happiness like like a genie out of a lamp yeah it it it will never happen and if it does it'll be so fleeting but what if you reflect and you say I am really unhappy doing this one thing when do you take that into account yeah well that's why happiness and action are are are intertwined and so it could be possible that you're doing there's plenty of things you can do that will cause you to be unhappy and um and now your unhappiness that that that could be a a sign to you that you should pursue something else um or it could be that you're unhappy doing this thing and the issue is not that you need to stop doing it it's that you need to look at it differently you'll hear from some parents sometimes will will say I'm just miserably happy I'm miserably unhappy being a parent every once in a while it's like every month there's another article written by some cat lady in the New York Times Washington Post talking about how terrible it is to be a mother that sort of thing now in that case obviously or I hope it's obvious that the answer is not to stop being a parent um you can't stop being a parent anyway you are a parent you'll always be a parent so if you're unhappy as a parent then it's it's almost certainly that you're just looking at the wrong way you're focusing on the wrong things it does seem like because I do read a lot of Reddit and I see these posts and it's it asks how many parents had kids that regret having kids and there seems to be and I don't know if this is just a selection bias of just reading the people that that post but it does seem to be that there are a lot of people out there who have kids who just don't want to be a parent don't like being a parent and if they could take it back they would they love their kids but in hindsight they they you know wouldn't have had the children how common do you think that actually is I hope it's not very common it does happen I think it's probably more common today than it used to be I do think there's a selection byas on Reddit you know there's a certain type of person there what do it say about me I mean look uh especially a certain type of person that would post on Reddit about their personal about their personal lives regardless like so there's selection bias um I I also don't think it's true I I will say that if you feel that way about being a parent you don't love your kid so they can say that it's funny they always throw that in there I hate being a parent I don't want to be around this little brat I wish he didn't exist oh but I love him it's like then what is love if that's what what is hate mean if that's if that's love um no you don't you don't love your kid actually and that's exactly the problem actually is is that uh is that love is is a is a giving of the self it's a self-sacrificing loving is uh Thomas Quin said that love to love is to will the good of the other um which just basically means you want what's best for someone and you want to help them get what's best for them in life um that's the job of a parent that's the whole job right there and and there's real joy in that but I think these parents that are miserable they've never they've never even like attempted to do that job they because they they they've never stopped thinking about themselves for long enough to think about their child so they're just focused on the wrong they're focused on themselves and and as as a parent there's all these little moments and no one does it perfectly I don't certainly but there's all these little moments that happen and there's a real there's a there's a fork in the road kind of psychological thing here where okay I can choose to look at this situation this way and be really unhappy about it and annoyed or I could choose to look at it this way and I could find great joy and as a parent you have these little moments all the time throughout the day so like um there a recent example for me waking up in the morning it's like a Saturday morning and I think my wife had to go out for something and so I was it was just me I have six kids the six kids and they're all like rambunctious and they need things and you know everything and we got to do breakfast and it's like this whole thing and it's Saturday morning long long week at work I you know and and so for a moment there I was I was like miserable I'm miserable and pissed off because it's Saturday morning and everybody needs me and my wife's not there because she had to go out and I got all these kids coming after me and uh I'm just pissed off and miserable because you know I just wish that I could lay in bed and not be bothered um cuz I had chosen to look at the situation that way but then I stopped myself and I said wait you know okay I could choose to whine about this and look at it that way or I could choose to to to to to see it as wow this is incredible I have this house full of life and love and these beautiful young kids are full of energy and uh think about all the things that we can do today and have fun and you know I can see it that way and it doesn't always work this way but in that moment I was able to just like okay I'm going to choose to see it that way and then I was happy and I think for a lot of parents they get into the habit of always seeing it in the way that's going to bring them unhappiness they always focus on the things that will make them unhappy and then they can't get they just get stuck in that pattern do do you think people need to have kids to be fulfilled I think I think you have to be a parent to be fulfilled but that doesn't always take on the traditional kind of biological sense so I think every man is called has a paternal calling every every woman has a maternal calling for most of us that's going to be the traditional like have kids and be a mother or a father um not everybody though and and there are people who are called to a different form of fatherhood a different form of motherhood it might be charity it might be Mission work it might be the religious life it might be something like that you know and you're not you're not a parent in the in the and of course there's adoption as well obviously but you're still you're still taking on this maternal or paternal role of caring for someone else uh so no matter what you cannot find happiness without living a life where you are you know in service to someone else and caring for other people and the problem is that people try to find happiness in service of themselves only and in my career and my own Financial advancement and all that and U you're not going to find true fulfillment that way that's for sure do you think some people are just too selfish though to have children that maybe they're better off just not having kids I certainly think there are a lot of very selfish people and if you are very selfish that you'll be a Terri terrible parent but I I I don't want to let them off the hook by say Well they're they're selfish so because it that's a it's a choice to be that way they don't have to be that way it's not like they it's not a birth defect so yes I mean there there are selfish people who in that state should not have kids but my answer to them is not don't have kids it's stop being a selfish bastard um and then have kids you know uh that that would be my answer to them that's interesting it reminds me of what horos was saying about patience but with selfishness in mind you are a selfless person if you're naturally a self selfish person but you just choose to be selfless like you are who you act as you are your actions your behavior not necessarily maybe what your brain is thinking at a given moment so you act patient even though you're super impatient you're a patient person fake it till you make it yeah I think it's one of the one of the great uh wisdoms in yeah so we have just a couple more topics to hit on I know we're kind of getting close on time um but you uh you you didn't well I don't know if you starred but you were in the the movie lady Ballers I saw you in the trailer you by the way make a gorgeous woman well thank you uh but that is also see that's that's the claim based on that one little clip in the trailer is I must be playing a trans in fact there's been media reports that I'm playing a trans saw that woman or a I've also heard that I'm playing a gay a gay man actually the character surprisingly straight heterosexual male just I got the wig and I've got the uh whatever it is the uh what is like the robe the Buddhist like yog yoga robe I don't know toga no it kind of yeah but like an Asian version anyway um I didn't absorb this character very well apparently so uh that's the basically it's the the character is the most liberal character in the whole film is who they decided they wanted me to play someone who's designed to be the exact opposite of me in every possible respect but did you did they ask you if you wanted to be maybe like a woman or something like that cuz I feel like that would be kind of funny considering the nature of what is a woman did you like veto that yeah there wasn't much conversation I mean there are you know in the film it's part of the joke of the film is that there are there are all kinds of characters who are you know uh identifying as women in order to play in women's sports that that role was never really floated to me because probably mainly because it would involve playing sports so they figured I'm probably not fit for that um so this is this is what they uh they gave me you know I didn't even I read the script of the film I didn't know what character they want me to play they wouldn't tell me until after I read it and then and then I was informed that well you know that one guy like the most obnoxious guy that you probably hate the most that's you I heard by the way I don't know if you saw but the the recent alien existence you know object that was found I think it was in Mexico discovered by the Mexican Government basically proves alien existence what were your thoughts about that just on existence in generaly to me yeah I'm uh you know my audience knows I'm fully bought in on the alien stuff maybe maybe to an extent where it's become it may it maybe has become too much a part of my brand that uh that you know I don't know if I want to be known primarily as the alien guy but um but I am uh uh you know the Mexican thing you could argue like they they had actual alien specimens that they put on display some people have argued that they looked clearly like little dolls or something paper mâché I mean paper mâché makes no sense you know I don't know if that particular thing was legitimate or not but I am quite firm in my belief that number one aliens that being rational beings elsewhere they don't live on earth they certainly exist in the universe and I think there's pretty good indication that they've been to Earth what they've done here how many times they've visited I don't know but there's enough going on that I think that becomes a rational theory in my mind why is it rational to believe that life exists outside of our planet to me the number one reason is simply the size of the universe it's this it's it's how big the universe is and how many planets we know are in it and we know that there are trillions and trillions of planets in the universe in the known universe hundreds you know 100 billion galaxies in the known universe 100 million stars or so in each Galaxy you know which which leads to trillions of planets so uh I think that it's just sort of absurd to like we don't know one way or another right we don't know but if you had to guess just intuitively right if you had to guess is there life on other planets or are we literally the only planet out of trillions that has life on it I think it's ridiculous to Guess that we're the only ones the analogy that I use if you're lost at sea and you wash up on some Island somewhere and you know know you don't know anything about the island and but it's very very big you know and uh you look and all you could see is the beach and you look around you don't see any life but this is all you've seen it's just the beach this little this little portion of the beach would it be rational to assume based on looking at what you can see of the beach that the whole island is empty except for you no I mean you would assume there's probably something living here MH um based on how big it is you know and I think that I would say something similar about the Universe I we can't even conceptualize how large a trillion is you know no you can't like a trillion people forget how much bigger that is than a billion a million or even just like one like it's just R counting seconds I think between a billion and a trillion or even a million to a billion is just absurd I'll put the numbers right here you guys can see yeah yeah when you get to counting to a billion how many like decades that takes versus a million is wild and the size I mean just think about the the closest star to us is like four light years away and that's our that's our next door neighbor that's like in UN in Galactic terms that's like as close as you and I are um and that's four light years away which is trillions yeah which is 20 some trillion miles um with current technology it would take like thousands of years to get there and that's the closest start you in in just uh our galaxy mhm and then when you think about hundreds of of millions of galaxies it's just it's absurd I want to ask what is something that you think the left is doing right and what is something the right is doing that you disagree with well in the first part so what's the left doing right I think on the on their fundamental views they're wrong about everything but strategically they they've obviously look I mean they've obviously uh won the culture and we talk about the culture War which I believe is a real thing but the war is it's not like two equal armies meeting on the battlefield in a pitch battle this is guerilla you know on the right this is a sort of cultural Guerilla Warfare that we're engaged in because we are a conquered uh country culturally how do you think did that well through through the institutions you know they they they took over very slowly but surely all of the major institutions in this country that uh that run everything so they took over Academia and the media and um and uh uh Corporate America government the bureaucracy you know but why were they able to do that when the right wasn't able to what was it about those ideologies that made them so pervasive I think there's a lot that goes into it one one is that you know Academia for for a very long time is always kind of skewed left and school system so that was a kind of a good starting point for them because if you can take over uh if you can capture [Music] Academia well well now you are in charge of shaping the minds of each new crop of Americans that comes through they they until recently anyway they've been very effective even when you look at like Hollywood they've been very effective at um spreading their ideas through entertainment in ways where you don't really notice where you don't notice it so they've been very good at spreading their ideas in ways that the person who is ingesting those ideas hardly notices now recently they've gotten very bad at that so they're now they're very on the nose you know with the woke Hollywood films and everything and uh and they're suffering because of it you it's why Disney this whole year has not had a billion doll film uh when in 2019 they had like six of them because they're so on the nose hitting you over the head with the wokeness people notice it now and they're like I don't want to go to the movies and be lectured to but you go back to the '90s I mean even you think people people long for the old days of Disney back in the 90s when they were putting out stuff like Pocas well those movies were also I'm not going to say they were woke to the extent that modern Disney is but they they were very left leaning Pocahontas for example is like Native America the bad guys are the white Europeans the Native Americans are talking to trees and singing and you know this this perfect group of people that were dominating by the white Europeans like it's a very left-leaning version of history but generally speaking they were much more subtle about it um and I think that that was more effective for them yeah and then what what is something the right is doing wrong or that you disagree with in recent history strategically the right has done almost everything wrong maybe one of the big ones I would point to is just this issue of like how how do we how do we use things like entertainment um to spread our ideas and you know up until recently and obviously the daily wire we're we're trying to offer some kind of corrective on this but historically you know you had Hollywood you had the music industry and then you had the conservative version of all that stuff and it's just on the nose hitting you over the head oh we made a Christian movie about Christian values you can come and watch it well it's like unless you already agree no one's going to watch it because they because they realize that this is a whole movie where the movie itself the story is secondary to the message and so if you don't care about the message or don't agree with it you're not going to watch it um and I I think the right's getting a little bit better in that regard but but only ever so slowly let's say you're at a Kroger okay just picking something up you're moving back to your car and you see me and I'm walking up to my car with my cart mhm and I put the groceries in the back of my car and I get in the car and I drive off and I I don't return the cart to the cart return what do you do um I pull out a gun and I open fire on you as you drive away uh nice I'm not quite at that point yet um I look I would there's nothing I can do because you you've already you've made your choice um but I will I will judge you for silently and my opinion of you as a person will have forever been decided you know what's interesting is I do think although that's kind of like a minor offense I do think that that's indicative of some deeply rooted character flaws kind like kind of like being it's like going out to a restaurant and being mean to a waiter you know what I mean like that sure the offens is it's just a casual thing and the waiter's going to forget about it an hour later and you're not going to think about it whatever but it's indicative it's like if you find yourself in that situation you're being mean to someone rude to someone for no reason other than maybe like a power Dynamic it's like okay reconsider maybe who you are as a person because I'm sure that that's you know it's being exercised in other aspects of your life as well that maybe aren't so obvious I think it depends on where you leave the cart no return it to the cart return the cart return some sometimes the cart return's really far away but it doesn't matter what if a gust of wind hits what if it pushes that's why you have to put the wheels over the little parking curb that's how far the parking I've been in many grocery store parking lots in my life they're not how far are we talking next to the return to make it actually you don't the travel across the Sahar desert I don't know trying to play devil's advocate here I'm just trying to say there's a difference between leaving it behind a car just like in the in the wind versus like there's no difference no difference you put that's where the carts go and you you managed to obtain the cart in the first place like you managed to figure that out you were able to walk somewhere and get the cart push it all the way around the store it's also an eyesore and then as soon as you get out all of a sudden it's like I can't I can't go another step I can't do it you you what annoys me the most are parents we try to use that as an excuse I got these kids with me I can't what am I supposed to do what do you mean what do you do you take the kids with you to the C Corral or you leave them in the it's like you can the kids to return it that was like what my job was or you can you can leave the kid in the car and and walk 20 ft away like he's not going to get kidnapped what do you think's going to happen in that in those 20 ft so no I I agree that it's it's a small thing but because it's small it says a lot it's it's kind of like you know if if you uh open your door and you hit someone's car in the parking lot next to you and scratch their door panel something like that everything about you as a person is decided in that moment if you don't leave a note if you don't leave a note if you just leave and if you if you drive away say I'll let them do well that's that's like even though it's small it tells me everything I could ever need to know about I don't think that's a small issue yeah that's a big issue I would say because that's like directly onetoone affecting someone else whereas you know you put it over a curb and it would take a lot for that to actually negatively impact someone's life we had a buddy uh this was actually just recent uh he parked and the lady parked right next to him and her kid was in the back seat and just kicked the door open and so he walked around because they were in the car as this happen and said your kid just dented the thing and they no that was already there and then they lined it up perfectly to show that like the paint on this is the same as this no that was we didn't do that just like offended at the fact that didn't Su the kid did it oh and it was on camera by the way was the resolve uh he I think just got some cash because they didn't want to go through insurance he didn't want to go through insurance it's very expensive to it's unfortunate as you know if your kid does that you had to take SP but it's your kid you got to take her I I was walking on the the street year a few years ago with my son and um and he just he randomly picked up a rock just that he saw on the and as if he was like skiing rocks at a on a stream he just threw it and it happened to hit a car in that that was parked and I'm like what are you but of course she's he like four years old she's like I don't know I don't know why I did that and so I had to and it left a scratch so it's like man and so I had to wait there for someone cuz I they' run into like a takeout place so I just waited waited there for them to come out and I had to you know how'd you resolve that uh I think I yeah I think I gave him some money or something I said like whatever they want to do it was like however you want to resolve this you want to send my kid to prison that's fine like whatever you want to do we we we are we are in your debt now you should make your kid go and explain his thought process to that person say I threw the roong yeah I made I made him apologize okay but and I I was already asking him like why did you do that what did you think explain to me the thought process of picking up the Rock and throwing it what did you think was going to happen buty old he could be scarred and never want to throw rocks ever again yeah well no he's he he he's that that didn't happen to him he's he's still throwing not of cars though not of cars okay um are there any other pet peeves I feel like you lamenting about things is just so I for me it's just so exciting it's just so fun well I I don't I don't think they're pet peeves though because I think that these are pet peeves are like things that you because of your own personal quirks find annoying but that are not objectively wrong that to me that's a pet peeve uhuh um but the things that I'm talking about are objectively wrong so I I don't have any pet peeves you don't have any pet peeves no because if I'm complaining about it it's because it's wrong and you shouldn't do it so it's not a pet peeve so your pet peeves are based on reality it's based on just a moral intuition it's object objective morality yeah I will I will not admit that any of them are actually pet peeves because if I admit that then I'm admitting that it's just a I just I admit that I'm just a whiny bastard which I know that there are plenty of people who say Bobby but I won't admit it I refuse to admit it so got it okay well as we wrap up we have one last ask of you which is could you do word association for just a couple words for us oh okay so first thing that comes to mind when I say Matt Walsh uh we're holding back you're really curating this yeah cuz you want me to just like say the first word yeah first word that's say it again Matt Walsh me Michael NOS person I'm gonna make this as boring oh no okay you give us like a little like Association so it has to associate in some capacity no because I can't I can't open up the psychological door I can't do it I got I gotta protect myself Ben Shapiro uh wonderful employer Brett Cooper a lovely person J boring great boss all right Biden son of a okay all right thank you so much Matt for your time apprciate it thank you to the daily thank you the entire production team once again you guys are amazing and with that said you guys till next time next time