Tom Bilyeu: Young Men Are Snapping — This Cultural Rebellion Is Going to Get Ugly

Nick Fuentes and Piers Morgan collide over whether Hitler was very effing cool or not. Japan's economic troubles continue apace as [music] debt threatens to finally engulf their entire economy. China fires rhetorical shots at Japan about accepting that they're a defeated country as tensions between them both continue to [music] rise. XAI plans to redefine the size and scope of what an IPO is so they can build data [music] centers in space and Australia has made it illegal for children under 16 to be on social media. >> Nick Fuentes was talking to Piers Morgan, but before we jump into the actual interview, I have to play this edit cuz I think this is like the clip of the year when I found it. How can you call [music] it a movement when you have no motion? You can't call it a movement cuz you have no motion. [music] None of these [ __ ] have motion except for me. The edits. None of them have motion except for me. Um the fact that he draw he says the N-word and uses it with a A. I don't know how I feel about that yet. >> Really? I don't know how I feel about that yet. >> like 100% opposed? Nick is a troll and we're going to talk about that with the Piers Morgan episode, but there is something to your point of the youth. He has captured something that I think a lot of Republicans thought Charlie Kirk had, thought Trump had, thought it was the manosphere of the podcast, but we're starting to realize no, this is an entirely different ethos of people and for some reason he's not going away. He's been banned, he's been ridiculed, he's been {quote} uh uh reprimanded, condemned, he's been disavowed, he's been told not to play with the the grown-up Republicans, but yet he doesn't he's still on Tucker, he's still on Steven Crowder, he's still on Piers Morgan. What's your take on Nick Fuentes and how he has been so electric in the movement? Um I think he sums up his own position very well, which is we're done clutching our pearls. We being especially young white men, but I think young men in general. And I remember watching this and Douglas Murray just really had clarity on this. Uh shout out to Douglas Murray, man. And he said, "Listen, if you keep bashing white men and saying that whiteness is bad, it's some sort of original sin, I guarantee you what's going to happen is they are going to band together, they are going to start thinking of themselves as white first. And you do not want people grouping up based on being white first. And uh and I think that holds true of any race, PS, by the way. But um that's exactly what's happening. And so, this is a psychological principle. If you beat me up and tell me that I'm bad, bad, bad for insert trait that I can't change, and then I run into somebody else who has that same trait, and I know they've been treated exactly the way that I've been treated, like all of a sudden I'm going to be like, "Hold on. We're going to glom on. And if there are millions of us, like, bro, this is a bad strategy. It was a dumb idea when they did it, it's a dumber idea now that they see what's happening, and they're continuing to double down. It's so dumb. The youth is always going to take over. Do you really want them to take over out of bitterness and aggression? I would put forward, no. That's a terrible [ __ ] idea. So, nonetheless, here we are, and I don't know what they thought the end game was. That they were really just going to be able to um feminize every man, get every white person to back the [ __ ] off and sit down and shut up. Like, that is a dumb [ __ ] strategy. It doesn't work with anybody. Every group is going to rise up. And by the way, whites are only like 8% of the global population. So, this is not like you look around and all you just see is a sea of white people. It It is This is a legitimate minority that will have minority vibes, that will band together, see themselves as white first, and cause all kinds of problems. I think it is a really stupid idea. So, am I at all surprised by his rise to popularity? I was when it happened, I won't lie. But now as I look back and math it, I'm like, "Yeah." Yeah, this is precisely what Douglas Murray was trying to warn us about. All right, let's jump into his um interview with Piers. The the thing about Nick that I think gets him in trouble is not his populism, it's not what he's rooting for, it's not even his political stance. It's that he belittles things that I think are more important or or sacred than people have. And this is going to the Hitler is cool thing. Um but let's go into his thoughts on women for a second and maybe this can kind of color where he comes from and how he became the person that he is. Just to clear up one of the many theories about you, I've no idea what the answer is and you haven't got to answer, but are you actually attracted to women? I am attracted to women. You're not gay. No. But I will say that women are very difficult to be around. Okay. >> So, there's that. And do you think they should have the right to vote? I do not. No, absolutely not. They should stay at home? Well, yeah, absolutely. >> So, basically you're just a misogynist old dinosaur, aren't you? For a for a young guy. I mean, I know I'm the boomer I know I'm the boomer here, but actually you're a 27-year-old dinosaur, aren't you? Aren't you, Nick Fuentes? All women All women are annoying. All women grow old, they all get fat. Says the guy I Have you ever had sex? No, absolutely not. >> Wow, says the guy who's never got laid. >> I would have never thought to ask that question. Yeah. I was shocked when he was like, "No." I was like, "What?" Dude, Uh, this This may be the part of the young male experience that I'm most confused by. I remember being like 14 and it hit me one day and I was like, "Wait, I'm one day going to put my penis in a vagina. Like this is going to be [ __ ] wild." And I couldn't have been more excited about it. >> Mhm. I [clears throat] was legitimately giddy at the thought that one day I was actually going to do that. And now it doesn't like it was I won't say all consuming, but damn, a lot of my high school was oriented around uh, relationships. Now, I was not good with women. I think I've been abundantly clear about that, but were they an obsession? Was I trying? Yes, very aggressively. And so for him to be like, "I don't it's it is a bad frame of reference to have adopted." I'm not saying that I can't walk people through the steps that have led us here, but it is a very bad frame of reference to adopt, to be closed off, to uh, lump all women together as if they are some monolithic body, uh, to think that while women are very different and I certainly understand that there are can be frustrations to cohabitating certainly with a woman because they view the world so differently, uh, but when you think of them as a partner, unbelievable things unlock. You just have to have very good, I call them rules of engagement, uh, so that you're not driving each other crazy all the time, but it's weird to me that he is just so nonchalant. I mean, how old is he? 27. Wow, bro. That is wild. >> making money at this point, so Oh, he is voluntarily celibate, make no mistake. Like this is not a kid that can't get laid. He's good-looking. He's very charismatic. And boys and girls, if you are confused, women go for charisma long before they go for just like rugged good looks. And if you put together charisma, fame, and money, like there are a litany of women that would sleep with this kid. And so, he is a 1,000% staying celibate by choice, which is very hard for me to understand. I I guess the thing about me is similar to you, there is this North Star, at least I was growing up that you kind of go down two paths where it's like, I need to become the best person I can be so that way I can then increase my value in the sexual marketplace so that way I can get laid, get a girl, have a family. Or the other thing was like, okay, I already look good, I'm going to just get a girl then. So, I feel like as a young man, those are your two options, either get better to get a girl or just get a girl. So, the fact that he is 27, he has risen in popularity, and he also is voluntarily celibate, like, what is that North Star then? Maybe is that where the hate is coming from? What What are you using What are you doing with your time? And I know that that sounds very trivial, and there's probably women in their chat rolling their eyes right now, but like, seriously, as a driver for men, that is a incentive to become better. >> It is the incentive to become better. There is nothing higher. Men will send themselves into war when they no longer believe that they have mating opportunities. They will go kill and risk dying to get laid. So, anybody that thinks that there won't be problems that come from men ejecting out of that system are out of their [ __ ] minds. And the only way that, um, men are going to be able to sustain this for the long term is, I guess, access to pornography. Certainly, AI and sex bots will, um, give an outlet for that extremely intense impulse that is buried very deeply in the brains of men. So, unless we've got like a mic microplastics problem that is manifesting as they legitimately do not care, like it's changed their brain wiring, uh, there's no way this one does not start to become problematic, for sure. And even if Western men completely eject out of this, I guarantee that other men around the world absolutely will not. And so, this is a fundamental biological drive. Uh it manifests as a need in the same way that hunger or uh thirst manifests. So, yeah, you unless again, literally, it's been destroyed by environmental toxins or something, uh there's no universe in which this does not um rebound in some horrible way. Either where people that aren't having sex, they just cease to exist, obviously, cuz they're not procreating. And the people that are procreating just take over the world, and this is a momentary blip. Uh or there's a big rebound effect, and people realize, "Oh my god, like we have allowed something so moronic to happen." Cuz I obviously understand that one of the critiques of the way that I talk is going to be that Thomas from a different era, women were different back then. Uh and I will just tell you the frame of reference layer, for sure. There's no doubt, if I found myself 21 today, that I would have to take a very different approach. But the reality is that if you're tied to ground truth, and you encounter somebody that's at a um cultural layer, then you can get beyond that. That becomes very easy if you have a sufficient level of um game, shall we call it? Like once I understood how to truly be myself, and I had no fear of loss, and I could approach somebody with confidence, and I could have swagger, the fact that I was able to have interesting conversations was ultimately what got me laid. One of my favorite stories, um I had been sleeping with a woman, I'd never been able to give her an orgasm. And then, um one night, she saw me be really like talk for the first time about something I was deeply passionate about. And so, I clicked over into that zone. And the next time we had sex, she had an orgasm. And I was like, that is wild. It it is nothing about the sex. It's I finally clicked over into her mind where she now found me far more interesting. And I was like, God, I've got to remember that. And I remember my mom giving me the best advice ever about sex. She said, remember women have to trust you to have an orgasm. And I was like, what? Like that is so weird for a guy. Um so, once you begin to understand like all of those things, even in a time now where clearly I would find myself in a much worse position than I was in terms of they can just swipe onto the next person. It's always onto the next. It's some women trying to take advantage of you to get a free meal, blah blah blah. But there are defenses to all this stuff. So, the person uh that this was probably will never hear this, but I had one of my employees um say to me that they Oh God, what was the specific thing? Oh, uh they had Oh God, how do I say this without uh ratting this person out. Uh they were creating something and they felt that that something was not being recognized because the when they created it, they have to like go put it in a basket. Just uh try to make this as abstract as possible. They had to put it into a basket. And once it got put in the basket, it no longer resembled the hard work that they had done. It was, you know, getting battered about by the basket. And I was like, meh. I'm like, there are ways around that basket. And the second that you're saying it's somebody else's fault, um you're missing an opportunity to take control and get a better result. So, if you know that the basket creates problems for you, then solve for not needing to put it in the basket. But don't just go, "Ah, well, I do all this hard work and then I put it in the basket and it just all breaks." Like, that is a terrible way to move through life. So, if young men are looking at this and saying, "Ah, the basket is ruining my chances." I'm just saying, "Cool, then find a way around the basket." So, um there is always a solution. Yeah, there was literally somebody in Discord who was talking about that like, "I hate the Scott Galloway interview. He only blames men. It's women. The marketplace has changed. There are gold diggers and this and this and this." And he gave me a whole diatribe about women are the worst people in the whole wide world. And I was like, "Women didn't all of a sudden become the worst people in the whole wide world." Like, they're Back in it like my the best example I always use is like rappers because the first rapper ever did any like Sugar Hill Gang, everybody loves that song. The third verse is from somebody else. He stole that verse, went into the studio while they were recording. He said, "Hey, can I hop on?" and recited somebody else's If you think about it when he I'm the T A S T, he spells somebody else's name. He doesn't even spell his name. But people don't even like people didn't even didn't even do that. So, it was like all you had to do was just rhyme words and you can become a a celebrity. Rappers nowadays you have to produce, you have to be a content creator, you have to rap, you have to also be a fashion mogul, you also have to have a social media following, you have to do five different layers of things to be as competitive or as relevant as back in the day. And I think that same thing is true with the protein bars. If I want to make a protein bar company, I can't just be like, "Hey guys, no sugar." Right. >> There's a thousand no sugar bars now. It needs to be no sugar and organic and this and it needs to come from Jesus. Like, there's all these other layers that now need to be added. So, for some reason >> launch that bar, Drew. The only thing that could get me [laughter] back in the bar by Jesus. Seriously, so we just think with dating it's like, "What? I have money. That's it." That's the only requirement that you have to be a little bit more evolved. You have to also catch up with the market. And I think we get too caught up in the it's the basket's fault versus no, how can you where can you shine that you make you not need the basket and that expansive energy again? Yeah, there's uh just one more story to back this up. So, you've got Kanye makes I forget which song, the one that he was saying he wanted to compete with Sexy Back. He was like, "Oh, my girlfriend at the time is a little too into Justin Timberlake." So, he writes a song, becomes a hit, I forget which one it is. And he says, "I hear it in the club and it's muddy." Now, he doesn't go [ __ ] clubs don't know how to build acoustics. He he to like every producer he can find to figure out how to make his beat sound like SexyBack sounds in the club. Ultimately finds himself at Timbaland's door who did it, and then Timbaland showed him how to do it. But I always thought that was brilliant. That's the right way to respond. Oh [ __ ] the thing that I made that is objectively amazing in this environment, it has a problem. So, how do I go and solve that problem? And that is how I would advise people to look at it. And listen, there going to be some women that you do just write off. They're too far gone. Uh there's not enough interesting there. I'm not saying you bump into the first person that is female and you go, "Cool, I'm going to make it work with this person." You may have a rapid filtering mechanism where it's like, "Yeah, you're filtering out 80 85% of people and you're narrowing it down to just the people that haven't been completely captured by that ideology, that don't have a belief that it's just always onto the next." They are going to be out there and I'm not saying that it's not more work. I'm just saying the way to approach life in general is oh, there is a problem. I'm going to take complete and total responsibility for that problem and I'm going to find a solution because unless it violates the laws of physics, there is a way around this problem. And for people that approach life like that, then it is incredible the opportunities that will open before you. If you run into a problem and you stop, which is the vast majority of humanity, then it's like life sucks because you're going to run into problems all the time. But if when you run into a problem, you go like roll up your sleeves, you get kind of excited cuz you're like, "Oh cool, like I'm going to find a way over, under, through, around, whatever, but I am going to solve this problem." We'll get back to the show in just a second, but first, let's talk about giving gifts that actually matter. [music] Most gifts end up forgotten in a drawer by January 1st, but you want to give something people are actually going to use every day. Something that improves how they move through the world. Raycon's bone conduction headphones are that gift. They solve a problem that most people don't even realize they have. These sit just outside your ear canal. You get clear premium sound while staying completely aware of your surroundings. [music] They're built for real life and Raycon delivers this technology at half the price of the big brands. [music] The bone conduction headphones are here for the holiday season and they are selling fast. [music] Raycon audio products are up to 20% off this holiday season. Just click the link in the description or go to buyraycon.com/impacttheorybc to save. Order by December 15th to guarantee delivery by Christmas. And now, let's get back to the show. So, we talked about his sexual orientation. Let's talk about something that's actually like matters. This is his comment about the Hitler is cool. You said that Hitler was very [ __ ] cool. Are you joking or do you actually think he was very [ __ ] cool? The the most genocidal monster of the last 150 years. Yeah, the the thing is my generation we're just done with the pearl clutching, you know, we're we're making a joke. >> generation hasn't gone through what Danny Finkelstein's family went through. So, maybe the maybe the pearl clutching has a way to go for families whose whose family members mother >> Actually, we we got all that. We you know, me me mom me mom like we're you know, I don't even know who this person is. Why is this person talking to me? This old British guy is saying me mom got killed by Hitler and he >> doesn't find it funny when you say Hitler's very [ __ ] cool. He finds it I know you don't care. That's fine. You don't have to care. But he does care. >> guy care about America? Does that guy care about me and my country and my family? No, that guy just >> This is the great tragedy of generational gaps. You don't feel like the other side understands you at all. Yeah, so that's at the Hitler is cool thing to me is just stupid. I think Nick explains the point like he certainly is able to articulate exactly what it is that they find cool. He does I think a better job in another clip that I saw of him where he's like it's the cuts all the like hypie super cuts of Hitler leading armies and all that stuff but it it is it's the same way that I feel when Nick talks about being a big fan of Stalin. These are mistakes that history makes over and over and just an godly number of people die. So having some mental defenses against those things is very shrewd. Like there are things that the immune system should respond to. Now I'll admit we've had a cultural immune system for the last 30 or 40 years that has responded to gluten as if it's a brain parasite and that's dumb but that doesn't mean that there aren't actual brain parasites. It doesn't mean that there aren't actual things that the immune system should be responding to. And so when I hear him talk it's like okay we had an over active immune system that did really bad things. And so now just shut off the entire immune system. Everybody's cool. Like it's funny it's hilarious. Uh look because of my time with and by the way I hate it when people say that Hitler was the biggest um progenitor of genocide that we've had. Do Do people not know who Mao is? Like do people not know who Stalin is? It That one is traumatic. There's something about the Hitler was horrific. He's one of the Mount Rushmore of monsters. Let me be very clear on my stance on Hitler. Uh but man people just do not seem to know that Mao and Stalin existed. Or if they do, they seem to think that Hitler somehow is outpacing them. Hitler burned really bright, really fast, and he ran a PR campaign for his [ __ ] And we, like, knock-knock, like, you lose, we take over your [ __ ] so we got all the paperwork, so we could like really point to it. But, dude, Mao and Stalin were orders of magnitude more efficient at killing. And it's just getting lost by history, which is why I feel the way that I feel about Mom Donny. So, let's jump over across the Pacific and head over to the Asia, China, Taiwan, South Korea triangle, rectangle, isosceles. >> Wow. Isosceles, that won the award for word I did not expect to hear. >> the last time you heard about isosceles? It was such a big deal in high school. >> [laughter] >> We we cared so much about isosceles. Okay. We talked about Japan and China like sharing words, trading barbs. It all started at the G20 summit. China and Japan didn't have a meeting. When they talked to the Japanese new PM, she said if something happened in Taiwan, it'll be an existential threat for us and we would have to join. China didn't like that. China said, "Watch what you say." Don't be talking out the side of your mouth. And then Japan was like, "All right, it's cool. I ain't going to say nothing, but just know I'm not playing that game." And then China was like, "Oh, we conveniently now have military exercises we need to do right around y'all." Mhm. And then Japan was like, "Wait a second, if y'all do do something to us, America's going to jump in." And Trump act like he didn't hear that cuz he was like, "I'm in Venezuela. I don't know what you're talking about." And then now China has accelerated those military exercises so much so that they even locked on to a Japanese plane as they were kind of exploring those waters once again when Japan condoned China. China foreign minis- the China foreign minister said something that I think was hilarious. He said on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japan, {quote} "as a defeated nation, should act with greater caution." So, I think that that is hilarious as in like, "Hey, bro, I think you should just remember where you came from so that way you don't have to go back there." Yeah. For somebody so close, that's the equivalent of Canada being like, "Hey, America, like Civil War was a couple weeks ago. If you keep acting, there's going to be a new North and South beef." I feel like we wouldn't respond clearly to that. Right now, Japan and China relations seem to be at a head. What's your take on the region? I haven't even brought in the Taiwan of it all yet, but just so far, it just seems like they're trading quips back and forth. I don't think there's anything real here. I don't think that we have to worry about something really getting out of hand. However, when you've got nations that have the kind of historical beef that they have, uh don't think that these are just like passing words of one sort of unhinged guy in Beijing. Like this this is real historical beef. These guys hate each other. So, I think Japan will ratchet up military spending. I think they are going to take this very seriously, but I also think that Japan is in the middle of real economic trouble, and it is entirely possible that over the next decade or so that we watch Japan really start to slide into economic problems. And when countries slide into economic problems, they can be a backwater for a hundred years. Like this isn't a thing that you pull out of very quickly. So, do I think China is going to conquer Japan? No, because I don't think they want that kind of smoke. Uh will they force Japan to sit down and shut the [ __ ] up if they feel like it? Yes. And what that would take would be China being economically strong enough to move on Taiwan, and Japan being economically weak enough that they can't really mount a military uh um like to be a big enough problem for China. So, I think in that case China would understand there's no need for us to go in and conquer um Tokyo. We're just going to show them diplomatically on the world stage they're completely irrelevant. We will humiliate them at every turn and if they're not economically strong enough to deal with it, [ __ ] them. That's basically how this will play out. But going and conquering a nation unless they have resources that you really want, that is a lot of headache, dude, cuz they're going to blow stuff up constantly. They're going to kill your soldiers constantly. Like they'll just guerrilla warfare that [ __ ] And listen, Japan isn't who Japan used to be, but don't forget that Genghis Khan, the Mongol army cuz I'm I'm not sure if Genghis was still running it at that time, but the Mongol or army attempted to invade Japan twice and lost both times. It's like the only place they couldn't conquer. So, when the Japanese are properly motivated, they defend the homeland. So, that's not who I'd want to be trying to sit on top of uh and keeping calm. So, yeah. Again, I think the big concern here is that Japan ends up destabilizing itself economically and just just goes backwards. Um they're already going economically backwards over the last 40 years they have. Uh so, that scares me, the escalating of that and then that reverberating around the rest of the world. The real thing to watch out for is China moving on Taiwan, reunifying, and that calling into question whether the US is going to step in or not. Now, the US is already undoing its international reputation. So, I don't know if we have the incentive to back them up the way that the um you know, historical agreement would lead you to believe that we're going to. It's possible that we actually pull out of NATO. I don't know that it's likely, but it's certainly possible. And if we do that, we send the same signal that we would send by not backing up uh Taiwan, which is if you think you're our ally, if you don't have relevance to us right now, Don't count on it. >> backing out of NATO is pretty much telling the EU you're on your own. You got to boss up and do your own thing. Like >> Yes. So, basically what happens is World War crazy uh Germany's doing its thing. We team up with truly one of the greatest mass murderers of all time, Stalin, and uh we win. And Russia pays a huge price that is often by Americans completely overlooked. But, Russia pays a huge price. They just throw an ungodly number of people at stopping the German uh march in Stalingrad. And after the war, we then divvy up essentially Europe. And they then reveal themselves to be just absolute monsters. And now it's like, "Hold on a second. Like, Russia is not playing by Western rules at all." And so, Russia starts getting very powerful. Europe starts getting terrified. And so, we as the big brother walk in and go, "Listen, we got you. If Russia ever moves on you, we will [ __ ] Russia up. We Article 5 guarantees we will come and we will protect you." Mhm. And so, we end up winning the Cold War. All is well. Now, obviously it's a very different world, but that like we're the world's big brother, we unfortunately have printed our way and debted our way into just not realistically having the appetite for that anymore because for us to pay for it would be just continuing the trend that we're on now, which is inflating our currency into meaninglessness. Uh so, we know that that would cost a ton of money and cause us to print just ungodly amounts. And then the populace would not stand for it. So, um yeah. That's where that we're almost certainly going to send the world that signal anyway. It could happen over Ukraine. I need to look more deeply at what's going on right now, but it looks like we've got Zelensky killing the peace process, Europe wanting the peace process dead. This could be the perfect time for Trump to be like, cool. You guys want to do your thing, do your thing. I'm over here trying to stop this. Putin acknowledges I'm trying to stop it. You guys are trying to prolong this. All right, well, if you're going to act without us, then you're going to deal with the consequences. And so he would have the political cover that he needed. He's still going to be called a coward. People are still going to say that like we betrayed our agreement with them, but he'll have enough cloud cover but between just so many Americans calling for America first, more people now calling for America only, him trying legitimately it seems to actually end the war and that being rejected. So it's like, hey, we we are willing to be a sensible partner. We are not willing to put troops on the ground. I think everybody understands and I think that that would be very popular. And so if I'm Taiwan and that happens, I'm like, uh-oh. Like how relevant are we to America right now? And if not relevant enough, given the power of China, odds that America does anything other than be like, hey, we got a ton of weapons if you want to buy some. We really wish you guys well, sending thoughts and prayers. But us rolling up on the beaches of Taiwan to block China, not going to happen. I thought war was good for the economy. Like it gives young men jobs and for the economy if you win. So if you're just sending something over, so like here's how war, here's how World War II was phenomenal for America. Phenomenal. All the countries that are getting bombed are all in Europe. Not other than Pearl Harbor, literally nothing happens to the US. We're just out of the way. It doesn't matter. Nobody's coming for us. Um we also become essentially the world's gun shop, and so we're selling weapons like crazy to Europe, and Europe very quickly realizes that, oh, we're not going to be able to win this war without the Americans being willing to send all this. We were an industrial powerhouse, and so now we go, "Hey, your cars, they're selling. I'm not saying they're not selling, but let's switch that over to tanks, to airplanes, to boats. Same factories, now we need double, triple the output. You're making money hand over fist, guaranteed contracts. You got four, five, six years of conflict. And so it's like, man, can you So this is how Disney, by the way, survived. Disney made cartoons for the war effort. Uh-huh. So it was like anybody that had a government contract was going to make it through that period well. And so it's guaranteed revenue. You're, you know, you've got you got the biggest, deepest pockets in the world telling you, like, yeah, don't lose workers right now. Like whether you've got things coming off the line or not, just keep your workforce. So paying the money for all that, like it's That is your wet dream as a business owner is that you've got a patron who's just like, no matter what, keep max capacity. So um that ends up creating that boom, and also it drew women into the workforce. So men are off getting paid to be at war, also getting the GI Bill that they're going to leverage once they get home. Women come into the workforce, they're now getting paid. And so it ends up being economically amazing. Plus the world now owes us a ton of money, and we've come out of this in really great shape, owning essentially all the gold, which allows us afterwards to become the world's reserve currency. Now, wars can be terrible. Iraq, Afghanistan, like the losing a ton of money and you're having nothing to show for it. So that you're like your defense contractors are still making a lot of money and they love it. But in terms of being good for the general economy, not so much. Yeah, let's dive into that. Like what Japan's ills are cuz I'm seeing nearly low interest rates, inflated money. They've been pumping currency and it seems like they've been I don't know I don't want to say surviving but how have they been able to keep up this charade? So part of it is that they have a culture where everybody just agrees that we're not going to do things that are bad for the homeland. And so they don't sell their debt to foreign purchasers, they sell their debt to the Japanese. And then they go, "Listen, you're holding a lot of debt, super precarious, but we need you to buy more." And so then people do their patriotic duty and they buy more. And then they don't want to dump their stuff back onto the market cuz they know that that would create a problem. So that's part very much an oversimplification, but that's part of why Japan has been able to rack up a set of 130% where everybody else tears themselves apart cuz remember when you cross the 130% debt to GDP ratio, it's not like anything mechanistically breaks. It's that people get mad because the wealth inequality is going so crazy for a very simple [ __ ] reason. Most people do not understand assets so they don't own assets. And assets are inflation resistant. So as your country prints a ton of money, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And if I could just get everybody to understand that basic mechanism and get everybody into assets, then the world would look very different. But alas, you don't and so you get the wealth inequality. The wealth inequality is what creates the anxiety and the bitterness. That's what manifests as revolution. That's why you're not conquered from the outside, you fall apart from the inside just because you have so much infighting. People are so bitter. They hate each other so much. The left and the right just literally want to kill each other. And so, >> [snorts] >> yeah, you just weaken yourself. Now, we're in the unique position of not only tearing ourselves apart from the inside, but we're in Thucydides' trap. And so, that makes it worse because you also have an external enemy that can create problems for you. Mhm. God, it's so funny how um I so I bumped into a guy in New York, former guest on the show. Ha. I'll laugh if he listens to this. Uh and he was like, "Oh my god, it's so good to see you. I really love your content. Very doom and gloom." And I was like, "Do you want me to lie?" Like, I don't know. It's like, "Listen, if I hadn't gone down the path of economics, maybe I never would have ended up here." At at just to remind people how I ended up doing economic content, COVID hits, I had just, like in the last few years, had 1,000 employees that grew up in the inner cities. They were I thought they were all about to get wiped out. I didn't know what money printing was. So, I thought, "Oh my god, they're all going to lose their jobs. This is going to be terrible. I know and love them. I want to see them do well." I'm like, "In my small way, what can I do?" Uh let me make some content that will help them understand how to buckle down economically so that they can weather this storm. Obviously not thinking only of them, but thinking of the tens of millions of people that are just like them. So, I'm like, "Cool. Let me make this content." Then I start making that content, and I just kept finding like new piece of information. I'm like, "Wait, this does not work the way that I thought this worked." And so, as I begin to unravel that, you suddenly you have the Scooby-Doo moment where you realize, "Wait a second. Like, these politicians are stealing." And so, that's when you're like, "Hold on. Like, the economy is not at all what I thought it was. That investing money, certainly if you've already made money, investing money is like the most powerful thing that you could pay attention to. And then you just keep finding stat after stat after stat about how the sense of malaise that we have today is all economic. And so, anyway, I don't know what else to say. It's like all of this stuff is avoidable, and so I want to talk openly about it to make sure that we avoid it. It's avoidable systemically at the level of society, and it's avoidable at the individual level. So, basically, all of my deep dives go something like this. Uh hey, big problem, this thing's about to happen, future's very uncertain. I don't know that we'll be able to convince everybody, so the last section is always going to be what you as an individual should do. Now, keep in mind, in 2025, at least until the correction happened, I was up millions of dollars. Like, investing is [ __ ] real. Like, you can just make so much money investing. It's wild. So, uh I get it. People it it is not an unwise way to navigate the world to just assume that everybody's a dirtbag. Fine. If If that's your guiding light, you're going to look at me, you're going to be very cynical. Uh another way is to remember I've been broke a lot longer than I've been wealthy, uh that I realized that by changing the set of ideas in my head, I was able to make myself wealthy, and because I like to see other people succeed, I like to tell people how to succeed. And then, by the way, it also creates a multi-million dollar company for me, so yay. It's like literally a win-win-win-win-win-win. Um but, I really do want to see individuals get out from under the lunacy of a system that is both sort of just dumb, and then second, also has people that understand precisely how the economy works, precisely how to get money out of the most vulnerable people at a systemic level. And so, if I can help people get out of that, I will. >> [snorts] >> Hm. If so, fact over that. We'll be right back to the show, but first I have a question for you. What do construction crews, retail teams, and healthcare workers all have in common? [music] They're all part of the 80% of the global workforce that doesn't sit at a desk. But here's the problem. Most management tools act [music] like everyone has a company email and works from an office. That's where Connect Team comes in. It's an all-in-one employee management app built [music] specifically for teams that don't work behind desks. 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SpaceX is demanding a multiple that never existed in the aerospace ever. Um at the 1.5 trillion uh evaluation, Elon Musk's become worth 630 billion. That means that him alone that one man alone will be will be worth more than the GDP of Sweden, Poland, and Belgium combined. All the countries that Trump wants people to come from. Um and the one thing that I think jumps out to me as well is that um 8.5 million Americans already depend on Starlink for internet. By IPO next year, that number crosses 10 million. A constellation of 7,600 satellites, 65% of everything orbiting this planet right now belongs to one company. That is so insane. So, uh as a PSA to anybody out there, become an engineer. Become an engineer. No, I'm not kidding. Like when you can engineer, so first of all, uh you are literally thinking up from physics. And once you understand the rules of something, this is really what I'm trying to do with Kaizen. I want to create a world that is built on rules, so that once the player understands the rules, they can change the world. That's true in real life. Once you understand the rules, you can change the world. Uh and that's what Elon is doing. And the when people audit what makes him successful, one of the things that always comes back is that he stays close to the engineers. So, not only is he an engineer himself, but he stays close to the engineers in his company. >> Mhm. Uh and because people because money's being printed, the people that understand assets are flooding into assets. And he is an engineer that is able to build more things than any human ever in human history. I believe that that is just beyond true at this point. Uh certainly the the largest number of consequential things. Um so, now you've got a scenario where you can seek refuge from money printing in this sort of once in a hundred years, once in two hundred years kind of person in the public stock markets. And so, you get these just completely unhinged valuations. Uh when you remember that when you get a 65x, what you're saying is we're going to pull forward 65 years worth of revenue at today's rates into the present. Sheesh. And that I mean, he's about the only person that's been able to execute at that kind of level and actually make it work just because he grows it so much. But this is basically people betting on um space as the next frontier for data centers and AI. And it's like, what's ha- Okay, so Drew, when I write a deep dive like the one that's coming out on Monday about um we have 900 days left of capitalism. >> Mhm. Part of me is like, okay, this is a it's possible and therefore I don't feel bad putting that in the headline. But, you know, is it a bit cheeky? Like, is this really going to be more like 5 or 6 years? Maybe, and I certainly leave myself open to that. And then I hear interviews like the one that you just queued up and I start talking about uh SpaceX getting a 65x on revenue now because of data centers in space. That [snorts] this isn't a crazy idea. This is something that is going to happen. It's going to happen very rapidly. I start going, do we have 900 days? >> [laughter] >> And so, I'm With Elon going zero to 100 on the Tesla clusters in a Memphis, how he just, you know, built that cuz that like that. Who knows? >> There's that. There's also, I forget what company it was, but there's a company that claims they've already done AGI. Odds are probably not, but if they're getting like a big enough step ahead that it's worth putting out that press release and you're not just going to look like a clown in 60 days, um that tells you that, okay, we may have just taken another step function um move forward. >> Mhm. You've got the TPUs being created by Google, which are proving to be incredible. You've got, I think they're called Blackwell chips that are coming out from Nvidia in 2026. Those are supposed to be like a leap forward from where we're at now. So, it's like, oh man, like the the change is really are moving fast. You're normally limited by material science. That tends to be the thing that puts the brakes on this, but when you've got Elon able to build these like super coherent data centers, that laser's the only thing that travels faster than a laser through fiber optic cable is a laser traveling through the vacuum of space. And so, you've got Elon able to put tonnage into space very, very fast. Um you've got that same guy building the largest, most coherent data centers faster than anybody by orders of magnitude, taking it from like 4 or 5 years down to like 18 months or something. >> Yeah, and you did the math on that. >> So, it might even be less than that. So, it's like it's just it's >> With re- with reasonable rockets, so he could just be taxiing them things up there. Which is how he's put 65% of the tonnage into space. I mean, it's just it's really, really crazy. And so, I I'll I'll give everybody the mental framework that I use. I still have anxiety about this, though. But so, I'm I have a rule in my life that I never stand still. That rule has cost me millions of dollars, and it's made me hundreds of millions of dollars. So, it's like on balance, it's better, but like in the times where it cost me a lot of money, I'm always like, "Ah, God, do I revisit this rule?" Uh but anyway, I have a rule that I do not stand still. Okay, so, uh have rule, don't stand still. AI is coming at me like a tsunami, but I still have this rule that I don't stand still. And I tried to address this in the upcoming deep dive by saying, "Listen, I think that we're going to go through this crazy transition period, but you have to invest today Yeah. because the future is unknowable. So, you've got to invest today, otherwise I guarantee you're going to get eaten by inflation. So, you've got to invest today, you've got to invest in what makes sense for today. Now, you need an eye towards the future, but you've got to do something today. So, I'm building my video game. I've got this target now of 23 months, obviously going down every day. I feel very comfortable that we'll be ready for early release by that point. But, I don't know that video games will be relevant at that point. And so, it's this really weird like as I try to track where technology is going to be when I'm ready to launch, I'm like, are people going to be prompting games at that point? I don't know. And so, it is only that standing still is the only way to guarantee that you get hit by the truck. So, I'd rather be hit by the truck of, "Yeah, I just couldn't see the future clearly enough." And so, fair enough. Um but, I don't want to be standing still. I highly encourage people to formulate a similar thing cuz being anxiety-ridden and standing still, that's never the winning path. Um but, it is possible that 900 days from now that capitalism doesn't really make sense in the traditional sense, that um the way that we think of technology doesn't make any sense. Like, I'll give you an example. Um once agents become real, you probably won't interface with your computer. Your AI agent will interface with your computer. And I could definitely see that in the next 3 years, where you go from sitting at a computer like click-clacking, you know, call it 6 to 8 hours a day to zero. And you've just got a thing in your ear that communicates to your phone that probably won't be made by Apple cuz those guys are [ __ ] AI [ __ ] but made by somebody. You're talking to it, it's talking back. The conversations feel completely natural. You're looking at the screen so you can see that what you want done is actually being done. You just say, "Do this, move that, tweak this." And it's just doing it. And um Google just launched a prototype of their glasses. It's connected to a puck. It's kind of like the Apple Vision Pro, but like glasses. They look a little awkward, but like if they really offer a AR VR experience in a glasses form factor, and those are out in 2026, by 2029 it's just like it's really kind of crazy to think how we might see 15 years worth of normal advancement play out over the next three. And again, the only assumption that I have to make for that to be true is that AI doesn't asymptote. Now, that's a fancy word for it doesn't hit a ceiling. And if you really can simply add more chips and write more efficient algorithms, and it just keeps getting smarter, the world will be it won't be incomprehensible in 3 years, just distribution chains and things like that take too long. But the way that we interface with our daily lives will be radically different. And I know this is one of my favorite subjects, and I run the risk of talking about it too much. But at one point, we had 100 people working on Project Kaizen. We now have like six. I have one artist. And I'll go in AI, I, me, the CEO, I'll go in AI, and I'll create a character. And I'll give it to him, and I'll say get this in the game. And I mean, he can have an ugly version of it in the game that day. And call it a week, and it's like, cool, it's refined, it's working. >> [snorts] >> Bro, I went from 100 people and it taking like 3 months to like really make a meaningful insertion into the game, to I can do it in a day. 3 months, 100 people, to two people and a a That's in the last 4 years. Where are we in That's in the last 3 years. Where are we in 3 years from now? Like it's That That one is really hard to wrap my head around. >> I want to ask you about that, too, cuz I think we're at the cusp of two things. On one hand, we have the CEO of Scale AI, Eddie Chen, saying that he's worried about LLMs because they're turning into social media companies, feedback loops, algorithm. They're trying to keep you typing and asking questions as long as possible, as opposed to solving novel first-world problems. But on the other side, we have Sam Altman, who put a code red out on his company and said, "Forget agents. Forget ads. We need to beat Google. We need to beat Google." And to me, that is the start of every Terminator movie, every AI like, "I'm about to be broke. This is my whole life. Effort AGI, it's not ready yet, sir. We need a couple more. Forget testing. It needs to go out live now." And then it takes over. Like, you know what I mean? Yes. It's It's one >> I know precisely what you mean. Yeah. So, it's one of those things where it's like, what's that balance between they're going to try to baby step it to maximize the revenue for shareholders and make the most money and make >> always They They may have thought they were being honest because they may have actually felt it at the time, but those are not the incentives. Mhm. Game theory tells you the truth of the human condition, and game theory says any technology that promises an advantage over others It doesn't say that part. It just says advantage, but what it means is advantage over others will be developed even recklessly. So, I'm just like, God bless Elon for trying for whatever 5 years to get the government to pay attention. Remember, the vast majority of people cannot understand complex ideas. And then on top of that, they don't have time even if they can understand it. And then if they're a politician, it's all about gain and retain power. So, that thing way off in the distance that nobody understands yet does not matter even if it's like Earth-ending. I'll remind everybody that when they were about to test the first nuclear bomb, they knew there was a non-zero chance that it would ignite the entire atmosphere and kill every living thing on the planet and they did it anyway. So, um, yeah, the AI is going to be developed if not by you, by someone else. And so it's like the I hate to be a sort of fatalist about it, but I am. It's like it's not going to be stopped. You might be able to slow down here, but you're not going to be able to stop it everywhere. Unfortunately, that that that game is done. So, now it just becomes a question of cool. How do you deal with the transition period? I'm not a big believer that AI is going to have the need to enslave us if it becomes super intelligent. That's us I think just painting the stuck in a body mired by evolution. Really everything was tooth and claw, but the AI is going to be like there's abundant resources. Everything that we want to create, we can create. So, I don't know why. Like if we started to [ __ ] with them, like then maybe they would neutralize us, but anyway, I can't figure out. I know that they will have an alien intelligence. So, any guess that I place upon it is going to be the guess that's limited by my human cognition, but anyway, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about that. I spend a lot of time worrying about how I make sure that my life has meaning. That I worry about a lot. I don't see an escape from that. That is hardwired in the human mind and most people are going to implode. Now, the good news is that I love Minecraft. So, I'm very self-directed. So, I won't need to be on rails, but the transition will be hard. I've to fall in love with something new. And while I'm capable of it, it's never the thing I want to do. Yeah. There's like an emotional impulse. I was talking to like a buddy of mine who was just like, I just want to say F all computers, F all technology. I just want to go grab a wrench and be a mechanic. Like I want to just opt out of the AI technology and be the master of the atom world and kind of let the uh world kind of eat itself for a little bit. >> Yep. Is that the right impulse if you were talking to a 25-year-old or something like that? >> impulse? >> But, you know what I mean? Like It is or opportunity, maybe not impulse, but like cuz right now this tsunami is scaring a lot of people. And to your point of not standing still, there are people right now they're at the beach and they're like, "Okay, that wave is way bigger and it's way closer than the last one. My car is right here, but I know I can't drive out here, but there's this speak like they're trying to figure out what their next move should be and they're kind of stuck on that beach. Would that be at least a correct next step? What do you think that is? >> are There really are only four paths before us. And so, the path that he's choosing is basically the all human all the time path. So, path number one is um do drugs. Path number two is you become the like this is just about humans for me and I'm going to go do my human thing. Uh so, I move out into the woods, uh revert to 90s technology, like that kind of thing. The new Amish, as I call them. Uh path number three is go to Mars. So, uh you just played one game of your We are literally in an open-world survival crafting game. The reason open-world survival crafting games, Minecraft being the most famous, are what they are is because evolution has hardwired us to do that, to seek resources, to build things, seek safety, all that. And so, that's real life. You just won it. You created AI. Well done, humans. Uh and so, like any gamer who just loves games too much, you just go play the next one. You start back at ground zero and you know what you have to do. You have to go build safety, get access to the resources, build things up, try to get laid, like and so, it'll just reboot on Mars. And I think that a very meaningful subset of humanity will do that. And it will be like playing life on hard mode. So, basically, the new Amish revert back to the '90s. The people that go to Mars revert back to like the 1700s >> 10,000 years ago. Yeah, 10,000 years ago. Cuz it's like you're you're going to a planet where you have nothing. You can't even breathe yet. You've got to like oxygenate or build little hubs and stuff like that. So, it it will be just absolutely wild. And then the fourth one, and this is where I fall, is um I like to say build and explore virtual worlds to comfort me that I'll still be able to create, which is the thing I find most interesting, but it may just be that the um simulation, the AI, creates the simulated worlds for me. And then I just go explore each of those. That speaks to my personality. I've tried to think of another path. I think that's it. >> I I think that would [snorts] be applicable in 10 years. But I think right now in this transition part everybody's kind of just on inks. Everybody's already sorting into one of those shoots. That's the thing. So, uh look, it in in the moment now, there is still head buried in sand, so I'm just playing the game I'm in right now and not thinking about it. So, it's just that bucket doesn't have a future, but it it might get you a decade. Like, yeah, this might First of all, everything always takes longer than we think it's going to take. Nothing is ever cool as we think it's going to be. Nothing is ever bad as we fear it's going to be. We dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. They just sort of got on with it. So, it's rare. Won't say that it can't happen, but asteroid struck is pretty bad for the dinosaurs. Uh so, but it's pretty rare that something goes all the way to like truly cataclysmic. Um it'll just be a slow unwinding. We'll all get used to it. But, it'll be weird very, very fast. This story is heating up and it's taking international It's starting to get international attention. Um Australia has officially started its age-restricted social media ban. TikTok and Instagram. Here's the complete list [snorts] Australia's ban for young users went to a They are banning Facebook, Threads, X, Snapchat, Kick, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube. Um I understand the intention behind this. Do you think that this will have the intended effect? I know there's no solutions, only trade-offs. That's [snorts] right way to think about it. Um God, this is one where all of those seem fine to me except YouTube. YouTube is just too educational. Like there's God, so much I can learn. Uh so, will it have the intended effect? Yes, I think over time the odds that society must restrict kids under 16 seems like a reasonable place to start from engaging in social media is basically 100%. Like you just bro, the things we're seeing it doing to kids is so brutal. So, I don't see a way around that. People are going to have to find a way for kids to sensibly engage with things like YouTube. Like I don't know that you need to be on Instagram or TikTok, but YouTube is Like when I think about how much I've learned about economics from YouTube, it's extreme. So, YouTube is the outlet through which I learn most things. It also strikes me as the harder of them. Like if you said you couldn't have Thank you. That you couldn't have your own YouTube channel, uh maybe I could understand that. But, anyway, we we will have to come up with something to protect kids. Is this the right play? I'm I'm they're running the experiment, so we'll get to find out if this actually is positive or negative, Uh and if it even works, but we have to do something. The developing brain needs to be protected. And right now we are not protecting it from shortening attention span, which I think is terrifying. We're not protecting it from bullying. Um When I think about to bully me in school, people had to like actually come up to me. >> Mhm. And I remember there was a kid who came up to me, it's probably 20 years after I graduated high school, and he came up, he's like, "I just want to apologize." And I was like, "Oh [ __ ] for what?" And he was like, "I was so mean to you." And I was like, "Bro, if you were, I had no idea. I never found out about it." So it was like, it didn't bother me in the slightest because I never knew. And so here was a guy that was carrying enough guilt about it, but like on social media, it lives forever. It travels like wildfire. It can reach you in your bedroom. It's like, "Oh, that's rough." So yeah, I in thinking about like, what would I have done if I had a kid? I there's no way. I don't care how much they complained, I would not let them have social media until they were 16. No way. Now, if people think that I would buckle and break, you know not my personality. Um But yeah. I'm thinking 11, 13, 14 year olds. Is there a net positive for them being on social media? On balance, if you have a sensible kid and parents that have very strict rules, yeah. Like I don't think this is going to be This isn't like a necessary problem. So take somebody like myself. I do not have an addictive personality. Obsessive, yes. Addictive, no. So if I think like part of the reason that I stopped taking my phone out is years ago when I'm {quote} {unquote} bored, not that I never do it, keep in mind, but um it's pretty rare, is because I was like, "Uh uh I don't want to be in a position where I feel the need to pull that out, that I can't be meditative or contemplate uh contemplative. Um that it the whole idea of all of the world's problems is man's inability to sit alone in a room. >> Mhm. It's like I never wanted that to be true of myself. Uh so, if you've got a kid that has that kind of vibe, then yeah, if the parents put rules in place and they sort of get it and they're not like um super swayed by peer pressure, they'll be fine. But, the vast majority of kids, first of all, don't have a prefrontal cortex, they can't stop themselves, they get into these dopamine loops, and they literally are like little addicts. So, um I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be tested when I was a kid. Um so, yeah, I I think that while nothing is ever going to be universal, so it's not universally bad, uh and there's certainly a lot of good to be had, and again, I'm I'm uneasy about the YouTube one. Mhm. Uh but, yeah, I think I get what they're trying to do. Yeah. And then, somebody in the chat said, "Well, what about like Xbox and gaming? Should that be included in this ban as well?" I wouldn't, but I do think parents need to put limitations on it. >> Yeah. So, um growing up for me, it was like I could play for a while, but I had to go outside and do things, which that's just like, first of all, I grew up in a wasn't quite rural, but it certainly wasn't suburban uh area, and so, that was there was a lot to do outside and I could do it safely. And so, I know that that's not true for a lot of people. Um but, yeah, gaming is uh I have a massive bias, so people can discount away, but keep in mind I ended up here with this philosophy long before I was making a game. But I mean you can look at neuroprotective stuff. You can look at doctors perform better in surgery if they're also a gamer. The way that lets you reinforce goal-directed behavior, all that stuff. I think gaming is great, but anything can be overdone and gaming is certainly on that list. So not letting your kids play for, you know, 6 hours a day, that's going to be a very wise thing. Yeah, Montez talked about what's not being talked about is how it will be enforced. That's actually something very interesting. Children and parents will not be banned, but instead social media companies who allow a child to break through will get fined. And the fines are upwards of the tens of millions of dollars. So I kind of appreciate this kind of inverse incentive. So these social media companies now have a obligation to make sure kids don't get past it because they're going to be like charged the bill based on all of that. Yeah, we basically just moved it from 13 to 16. So cuz right now social media companies can't create an account for you if you're under 13. Now the people with digital ID concerns, that's very valid. That we need to watch out for. I feel like it's funny though cuz I like I understand it you know under 16, that's the rule. But I feel like as a kid that's just like, okay, challenge accepted. Like I just need to figure out a way to get over that. Whether that's a VPN, whether that's a AI face app swap, like there's going to be something that I don't know. I maybe I'm just a rebellious kid, but a lot of times when those artificial limits are placed on things I'm like, okay, how can I get over this thing? How can I surpass it? I still want to get to the thing. >> that a lot of kids are going to do that for sure, but like anything it just you give parents another weapon to say, "Listen, you're not allowed to have that." So for me it worked when my parents said, "You cannot drink until you're 21." Just end of story, it's illegal, it's bad for you, you're going to do something stupid that you regret. I was like, okay, cool. I didn't have my first drink till I was 26. So, it works for some people. For other kids, like I had friends that I would be at their house, so I saw with my own eyes at 12 and they're drinking. So, it's like it obviously didn't work for them or their parents gave them a very different message. But, just because some people are going to get around it doesn't mean you don't put the rule in place. So, and kids are going to kid. They're going to find ways around Many of them are going to find ways around it. It is what it is. Yeah. Um Andrew in a chat says he hates YouTube is the bane of her existence. Amazon has it as like unscripted TV. There was one like interesting thing I noticed is that when I forgot the kid who opened up the toys, Max Toys or something like that. Ryan's toys, yeah. He was the biggest YouTuber for a couple This was right before the misbeastification happened. And I think that kids then became They didn't want to play with toys, they wanted to watch other kids play with toys. >> crazy to me. And I remember like arguing like with one of my like one of my friends about it. We were like, all that bunch of stuff. She's like, yeah, these kids are weird, they just do that, they just watch other kids play with toys. When I was young, I wanted to play with toys. And I was like, well, it's kind of like you watching the Kardashians. You don't go out and talk to your friends. You're watching other people talk with their friends. And then like the table kind of got a little bit quiet and I'm just like, it is so but I'm not saying reality TV isn't a good or a bad thing, like whatever different strokes different but that has as we're seeing as the men who are capping for Nick Fuentes happened, that has also skewed how women look at life, what women deserve, what they think based on these values. Are we doing that same thing with kids in a different way? Of course. >> to just, you know, Do I think there's some blanket thing happening to kids? No. But, do I think that every piece of media ever created that ever will be created in some way informs your frame of reference? Of course. that's precisely why I want to make video games. I want to tell kids one idea over and over and over. If you work hard at something, you'll get better at it. Like that's the idea that I want to indoctrinate children with. So, yeah, I am well aware that that kind of thing really does shape people. So, yeah, that you're making something entertaining. Shorts are entertaining. You've got an entire global ecosystem of content creators making the one funniest thing that they could show you, most poignant, most insightful, funniest, whatever. And that is amazing that we all get to take advantage of that. But if you just sit there and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll, you do a weird thing to your brain. So, it's like we I don't think we should want to get rid of the art form. I don't even think that we should be saying to kids like watching another kid play video games is dumb, you don't want to do it. We want to recognize what it is. Like I remember the first time I heard about Twitch and people playing video games and that people watched them play video games. I was actually confused. I thought I was misunderstanding what they were explaining. >> [laughter] >> They're like, "No, no, no, Twitch, you go and you can watch other people play games." I'm like, "But nobody would do that." And they're like, "Of course they would." I'm like, "What are you talking about? That's really stupid." And then I was at the time my game of choice was Destiny. And I was like, "Oh man, there is this one thing I'm having so much trouble with. Let me just go look at the saying cuz I'm kind of curious. And since I'm here, I'm not going to look up a random game, I'm going to look up the game I play." I looked it up, started watching this guy and I was like, "Oh my god, that's so brilliant." And so, I was then just completely sucked in. And shout out to Bush Camp Dad, Bush Camp Dad, I don't know. In the early days, he would show up before we like went hardcore politics. I don't know if he ever pokes in anymore, but um he's so fun to watch. Like watch him play Fortnite. He's the guy my age, but is ranked in the world because he hides. It's really brilliant. Anyway, um so that kind of stuff is way more fun than I expected it to be, but it's different. So, playing with toys is one type of entertainment. Watching someone play with toys is almost like watching a cartoon where the kid is drawing you into a story. It's a different kind of story, but he's drawing you into a story. He's making it entertaining with like flashing lights and all that. And it's like that's always going to be a little bit easier. It's a little bit um I don't want to be judgmental, but it's a little bit lazier of a type of entertainment. You don't have to think of it yourself. Um but both have their place. Yeah. Um being the little brother, like I used to watch I used to be forced to watch my older brother play video games cuz he'd be like, "No, I'm playing something." So, I would So, like I feel like Twitch was natural to me. I felt like that was just me reliving my childhood. But, um A Mellie will you just pulled my card, so I have to close my mouth after this. He says, "We watch soccer and Olympics and same with other like games." So, I sure enough was yelling at the TV on Monday night for the football game. So, I guess >> 100%. >> go outside and play football with my friends, so you got me there. All right, I've got a whole take on that. So, first sports are war replicants. So, you are trying to that thing that's ingrained in us to want to compete and to win and destroy the enemy. It's like that's how you get wars. >> Mhm. We needed a proxy for that to because it it is a thing. Like especially in men that you have this impulse to want to compete, to want to be better, to drive yourself to be the gladiator. And it's like, "But, I don't really want to kill them or be killed." And so, we came up with all these proxies. So, that's like this evolutionary drive. Then, there's another evolutionary drive to care deeply about your team. This is part of the reason that e-sports don't work is they just can't get the momentum of the sense of that's my team because they're not geographically bound. The games change so rapidly that they come and go. You can't like pass it on to your kids. And like, why are you into Tottenham Hotspur? Because my wife is. Why is she into it? Because her dad was. Why was her dad into it? Because he moved into that area of London. And so it's like there's all of this geographical thing, this passing it down to your kids that really creates this like, oh, this is my team. And now I'm going to invest. And this is the same way that I feel about TCGs. So I don't collect any cards. Like I have IP that I love. And so I'm way more likely to collect, say One Piece or Gundam, because I'm really into that IP. And so it isn't even fun for me. Like all the other ones that are out there, maybe they even have better art. Take um Riftbound. Riftbound is from League of Legends. Okay, I don't care about League of Legends, and therefore I just can't get into it, even though it has better art. So I'm just like, eh, whatever. I'm not going to pay attention to that. Because I want to invest. I want to care about something. I want to pour myself into this thing. I want to say I care about this thing. And that like is this drive that people have. And so when people make fun of sports or whatever, and I'm not a sports guy, but when they make fun of it, that to me is like making fun of the human condition. We want to invest. We want to care deeply about something. We want to go on an emotional roller coaster. And so having that part of your life, of course you can take it too far, and you can damage your relationships cuz all you ever do is care about the sport. But it's the same reason people want to bet on the game. It makes you feel more invested. And so now if you're like, imagine you're betting on a game that's your team, that was like became your team cuz you bonded over it with your dad, and you're going against that number one rival, and you've got money riding on it, it's like that's just going to be like this really heightened emotion. Now, once you realize all of life. All of life is about one thing, true. What is that one thing? And that is changing our brain chemistry. That's it. That's why we fall in love. That's why we pursue sex. That's why we eat the foods that we like. It's why we work out. It's why we listen to music. It's why we go to the movies. Uh it's why we pursue a career. It is all to manipulate our brain chemistry. And so, when you can invest in something and then go on that ride and you want the volatility of emotion. If you always win, it's boring. Uh the best matches are when it was like a back and forth, but you finally pull it off in the end. There's a time where you're like, you want to cry in the middle of the match cuz coach is making a dumb decision, the players are playing terribly, and you're down and it's oh my god. And then they finally do the right thing you've been screaming at them for and they score the goal in the last second, you win, you're just freaking out. You're you're on a high that you wouldn't have been if it hadn't have been this roller coaster. And people want that. People want that ride. All right. Thank you guys so much for coming on this ride with us today and we will see you guys on Friday. You're all amazing. Thank you for being here. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Peace. If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. Tensions between the US and Venezuela continue to boil. Putin says the European Union is trying to sabotage peace talks in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. [music] As corruption allegations swirl, rumors are flying that