Kind: captions
Language: en
think the stakes are higher I mean it's
higher whatever you think about the
rigidity or fragility of our democracy
and and maybe we'll talk about that the
stakes are higher because this is an
inflection point I think for Maga and
trumpism to some degree if Donald Trump
wins in November it probably prolongs
mag's control of the Republican Party
into certainly the midterms in 2026
maybe into to who the Republican Party
selects in 2028 as their nominee whereas
particularly with Trump being close to
80 if he loses in
November that'll be a lot of Maga losses
in a row starting in 2018 or under
performances we can say and it's
probably not only the end of Trump's
political career but but it may sort of
be it for Maga as well so I do think the
stakes are
high and what what is your biggest fear
if Trump gets elected
well I don't want to be hyperbolic so I
would just look at the first term
combined with not having another
election to run and therefore being
completely sort of unrestrained and
unfettered uh in addition to openly
saying that he's interested in replacing
career bureaucrats at so many
departments with partisan Loyalists and
what that would do to the Department of
energy the Department of Education Etc
is scary to someone with my worldview
which is sort of a pluralistic respect
our Democratic institutions in the kind
of mold of of Northern Europe for for my
mindset uh the idea of that is is scary
um you know the the more hyperbolic
stuff uh I think I try not to engage
with in a blanket way you know if
there's a specific issue that we want to
discuss we can you know whether it's
abortion or something else uh but those
those are my concerns you've got a guy
who is um completely UNC and breaks sort
of the social norms of what it's like to
interact with the public uh you have
somebody that lies voraciously and
obviously that in and of itself is
deeply problematic uh you have somebody
that plays pretty loose and loose and
fast with world leaders and that
obviously carries with it a certain
amount of risk you have somebody that
has proven that they um this is where I
want to be very careful about how you
view it but that January 6 was very
meaningful in terms of a legitimate
attempt to undermine maybe the most
gentle word to undermine the traditional
peaceful transfer of power uh and you
put that all together and you have
something that is um certainly
directionally not where you want to see
us end up I agree with all of that and I
think there's of course more to it we it
sounds like we're going to talk about
the economy in more detail but certainly
economically the sort of uh uh blind
tariff idea that he's now pushing which
seems like it would be bad for both
businesses and individuals in the United
States concerns me uh directionally I
don't like the straining of
relationships with our traditional
Western allies that we saw under Trump
and I know that there's a view that it's
good to shake things up and it's good to
keep people guessing on their toes I I
don't know that it's been demonstrated
that generically that that's a good
thing I think under Trump and the way he
executed it it it certainly was not so
yeah I I think what you laid out
certainly reflects my beliefs and I
would even go beyond
it okay what would be the most
meaningful things that you would push
beyond that that raise the stakes of
this particular election I think it's
the the ones I mentioned in including
turning government departments into
partisan political departments when
they're really not supposed to be and I
don't know you know this isn't like the
most viral and click inducing topic but
I don't know that a lot of people
necessarily understand that a lot of the
employees of these government
departments whatever you think about the
missions of the Departments these are
not political actors privately I'm sure
a lot of these employees vote but they
transcend uh administrations they work
under Democratic Administration and
Republican administrations and they're
really career bureaucrats that are doing
so much of the diplomacy work and and
bureaucratic work and it's a good thing
that that's the way it is and so the
idea of turning those departments into
partisan
Endeavors sometimes with the goal of
essentially just ruining them right I
mean Department of Education is one
where it's been overtly stated that many
of these Maga people don't even think
there should be a federal department of
education and just kind of let States
figure it out or even let municipalities
figure it out or when it comes to the US
Postal Service another great example of
politicizing in order to then destroy to
allow private business to fill that role
I think all of that is extraordinarily
dangerous and when you look around the
world at the countries that have gone in
that direction they are not the
countries that Democrats nor Republicans
will often say that's the country we
want to be like and when you look at the
country countries with the strong
business environments uh low
unemployment uh High uh level of uh of
quality of life they aren't doing those
things they kind of respect this
separation with these bureaucratic
departments so I I think that's a huge
deal what do you think about people that
think that there's whether you call it
the managerial class or the Deep state
that that begins to pose its own threat
to
democracy I hesitate to engage with that
without a disclaimer which is that there
are thoughtful realistic ways to engage
with what is in many cases a two-tiered
society or or even multi-tiered
Society usually when your entry point
into it is talking about the Deep State
or the managerial class terms that for
example like VI ramaswami would use half
a dozen times each time would interview
him it starts us off in what in my
opinion is a more sort of conspiratorial
and unproductive Direction I kind of
prefer the language of social democracy
which is that it's not you don't need to
look under rocks or for the Deep State
or the trilateral commission or the
bilderbergs or whatever the case may be
it's sort of all out in the open
Princeton has studied it and the the
desires of the wealthy
are just and corporations are far more
likely to be made law or to be reflected
by lobbyists Etc you don't need to go
into deep State uh to recognize that the
middle class and the lower middle class
the working class however you want to
Define it have disproportionately little
political power in the United States so
that I think is what we really should be
engaging with and for me even raising
deep State as a term in the discussion
doesn't really add anything it certainly
doesn't clarify
anything it's really interesting so
first I will flag myself fully as
somebody who is paranoid about the Deep
state but we can come back to that and
hopefully you can talk some reason into
me um but I I'm really intrigued by this
idea that uh the middle class and
Working Poor in America are
disproportionately powerless compared to
other nations um so certainly social
democracy is something that's on my list
of things that I want to discuss with
you I would not have seen um that
interpretation of that coming so if you
can tie to be clear you might I might
have I might have explained it I didn't
mean disproportionately powerless
relative to other nations I meant
relative to the wealthy and corporations
of the United States I see I see that
may have just been my misunderstanding
okay so uh yeah that seems uh
unassailable
so paint me a vision of what it is that
you want to see as an outcome so when
you think about like who should be
elected whether Harris or anybody else
that obviously elections will come and
go um but there's something that you're
driving towards uh before we met I would
have just said off-handed uh social
democracy is what he wants you often
reference Denmark um if you don't mind
stacks and Bricks for us what what what
is social democracy how is it different
from democratic socialism and what would
it feel like for America to be that for
the average person this is a really good
way to approach it so the first
distinction between social democracy and
Democratic socialism is that social
democracy is capitalism it's it's it's a
form of capitalism if you look at a
place like Denmark which has an as good
or Better Business environment in terms
of what it costs how long it takes
bureaucracy etc for starting a business
when compared to the United States uh it
is a form of capitalism it's a slightly
more regulated form than we have in some
ways in the United States now as we
delve into this I think it's important
to mention that depending on where you
live live in the United States the state
you live in may already be very close
not there but very close to what social
Democrats like myself are kind of
pointing towards and in fact if you look
at the higher standard of living states
in the United States so these are places
like Connecticut Massachusetts
Washington Etc we we could look at the
list What's called the HDI the human
development index which is a kind of
Blended metric that considers uh uh
health and and Longevity a per capita
income education it's sort of like a
blended metric that tells you kind of
like how good are the basic building
blocks of life in the states in the
United States where it's going well
Connecticut Massachusetts Etc it's
almost identical to countries like
Denmark Norway Sweden Etc it's it's very
equivalent so we're very close to what
social Democrats want already in much of
the United States and the difference
between social democracy and what I
think a lot of the center right
Republicans want this is not necessarily
talking about magga now but but a lot of
center right Republicans involves taking
just a little more at the very very top
to ensure that no one drop below a
certain level we're just kind of it's
not equality of outcome it's not
socialism it's certainly not communism
or Marxism it's basically saying here's
the current sort of range of outcomes
what we want to do is set up something a
little closer to equality of opportunity
that no one Falls too low and usually
the way you do that is with a little
more taxation at the very top that all
being said uh I don't think it has to be
that way I mean I'm not someone who goes
around saying we need to pay more in
taxes I to be totally honest I am
frustrated every April with how much I
pay in taxes I I would actually like to
pay less I think it's the distribution
and the use of a lot of the tax money
that that's the problem but now now
we're getting more Nuance but to kind of
step back at the 30,000 foot view we're
not talking about dramatic changes
especially if you're already in States
like Connecticut Massachusetts
Washington Etc
okay uh super helpful so um for anybody
that doesn't know uh what is um
Democratic
socialism you know really a Democratic
Socialist should tell you because one of
one of the things I found is whether
you're explaining what Jordan Peterson
meant or whether you're explaining what
democratic socialism is usually the
adherence to those ideologies will come
back and say you either don't understand
it or didn't explain it correctly so
Democratic soci socialism as best as I
can explain it is actually a form of
Socialism where to different degrees and
in different ways uh the means of
production when it comes to corporations
or the profits from businesses are
socialized the way in which it's done
and implemented depends but I I think it
would be best for for a socialist to
explain it I'm I'm very much not
one yeah fair enough um I get that the
reason that I ask is for any of us to
intelligently navigate the world we have
to have some sense even if it's just a
heuristic about that so let me ask uh
something that will get to the same idea
why don't you want to be why don't you
want America to be a socialist country
well I have seen in looking at the last
500 years of history as well as looking
at the world
today that the best outcomes seem to
happen
when there is no more authoritarianism
from government than what is arguably
necessary for the size of the population
and I'll explain that in in a moment um
and that the countries that have what
might be described in a book like why
Nations fail as extractive
institutions sometimes will do well in
the short term like for example the
Soviet Union had a period during which
you saw economic growth and to a degree
you saw Innovation but you saw it under
fundamentally extractive government
institutions and so it hit a limit and
looking at the Cold War shows you kind
kind of what happens when those limits
are hit so my starting point is and I
know that if you look at the comments on
my YouTube channel this might come as a
shock to some of your listeners I
actually am not about more government
involvement or more government control
than can really be Justified and
demonstrated by what's going to generate
kind of the best outcom so for me I
don't see any reason for a government to
say we're not going to let markets
dictate you know where the mobile phone
market goes for example I I don't I
don't see a big problem with that I
think it's a perfectly fine and great
thing both for Innovation and
competition for Apple and Samsung and
Google and whoever to compete and to let
markets uh dictate the flow of resources
I think that there are some specific
areas where this is not ideal and what's
really interesting is myself and someone
who's on the political right probably
agree on most of them like for example
most Republicans agree we should
socialize the military we shouldn't have
all of these different militaries and if
we need to do X or Y in another country
well these are like kind of private
militaries now there are mercenary
groups that's not really what I mean we
all generally agree yeah the military
should be part of the government that
makes sense we we usually agree
Republicans Democrats Independence that
cities shouldn't have competing police
forces it makes sense to socialize
police and fire uh only like kind of
extreme Libertarians would disagree with
that my view is that there's like a
couple other areas where a little more
socializing makes sense I think
healthcare is one of them although I'm
flexible as to the way we get healthcare
for everybody I think public education
is an area we're socializing a little
more than Republicans want to make sense
but the the point of presenting it this
way is that we're mostly all in the
United States on the same page that
there are some areas where socializing
makes sense and a bunch of areas where
markets make sense we just disagree
about probably a couple of
them okay that I want that to be true
but people are so fiery in their
reactions to each side if we're as as
close as you're saying and you sound
very reasonable Mr Pacman I will give
you that so why then is there so much
collision between the left and the right
right now what is the swing towards
populism all about if we're really close
to the outcome that you're saying we
should be aiming towards well I want to
be clear that I think we're close
ideologically right like if you look at
opinion surveys about abortion or should
taxation be use to make sure no one
drops below a certain standard of living
or does it make sense to provide some
amount of Health Care to everybody
regardless of ability to pay
ideologically in opinion polling we are
closer than we've ever been and kind of
more united than we've ever been the
Electoral outcomes don't reflect that
there there's a bunch of different
reasons why and I'll just tell you a
couple of them number one there is this
thing called the narcissism of small
differences which is that the outcome
when is agreement in a lot of areas but
you still have elections and fundraising
and political fights over who gets to
represent us in Washington DC the
differences by their very nature must be
Amplified if you have two Republicans in
a primary running against each other and
they mostly agree about abortions bad
and tax should be lower right if they
agree on 10 things the race will become
about the two things on which they
disagree so this is just like
standard politics to be expect expected
the the differences must be Amplified in
order to justify vote for me and not for
somebody else so that's number one
number two there are still pretty
significant cultural differences
regionally in the United States and I've
spent a bunch of time in different
conservative areas and life day-to-day
is often really different living in some
of the kind of liberal cities of the
United States as compared to like for
example I spent time in Northern Indiana
where people spend a lot of time at gun
ranges
and in mega churches life culturally is
very different so the environments also
make people believe that our differences
are are maybe greater than they are and
then thirdly as a result of at the
federal level the Electoral College in
terms of how we elect presidents um and
Jerry mandering at the state level also
exacerbates these differences by virtue
of a lot of factors related to how how
we elect candidates and so this is not
me pretending like everything's hunky
everybody basically agrees but there is
this kind of shared moral understanding
that I think covers a bunch of the
United States and the reason that you
see the the kind of vitriol is the
reasons I mentioned I think Amplified by
impersonal communication on social media
where you're not actually sitting face
to face with somebody and
talking imagine breathing through a
straw while trying to run a marathon
that's what life with sinus congestion
feels like and I have bad battled with
allergies for years that is why I'm
excited about navage nasal care this
isn't your standard congestion solution
nage uses a patented system of saline
flow and gentle suction to clear your
nasal passages effectively it works in
as little as 30 seconds it's completely
drug-free using only purified saline the
design is straightforward if you're
ready to breathe freely again here is an
exclusive offer for impact Theory
listeners when you order a starter pack
you'll also get a free cleaning kit this
offer is only available by going to
navage.com
impact again to order your navage plus
free cleaning kit go to na V ge.com
impact again that's navage.com
impact want to indulge in a glass or two
of alcohol but don't want to feel crappy
the next day you should try zbiotics C
biotics the pre- alcohol probiotic drink
is the world's first genetically
engineered probiotic it was invented by
PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings
after drinking when you drink alcohol
gets converted into a toxic byproduct in
the gut it's this byproduct not
dehydration that's to blame for your
rough next day zbiotics produces an
enzyme to break this byproduct down just
remember to make zbiotics your first
drink of the night and you will feel
your best the next day go to zbiotics
imp to get 15% off your first order when
you use impact at checkout zbiotics is
backed with 100% money back guarantee so
if you're unsatisfied for any reason
they'll refund your money no questions
asked remember just head to zbiotics
tocom impact and use the code impact at
checkout for 15% off thank you to
zbiotics for sponsoring this episode and
all of our Good
Times uh okay so let me give you a
because that does not match with the way
that I see people interacting with each
other um my take on it is probably not
as well thought out as yours but I'll
give you a rough swag um I think that
naturally humans are divided left and
right I think that from an evolutionary
perspective it is inevitable that you
will end up with tensions between these
two sides that there are people uh For
Whom the default um emotional stance
which I'm sure paints their moral Vision
becomes you can't leave people behind
and that it makes a lot of sense from an
evolutionary perspective why you would
need people in the tribe that are like
that when you think of humans as storing
calories for the future pre-
refrigerators in the bodies of other
people is sort of a weird thing when you
first hear it but when you really think
about it it's like I went on a hunt I
was very productive this time I come
back with the animal you didn't get
anything I'm going to feed you I'm going
to make sure that you don't get left
behind because it could be you next time
that ends up getting the kill and not me
and so I am quite literally storing
future calories in the form of
obligation uh in you so cool we
understand why that becomes a thing but
whenever there is an exploitable Niche
then someone is going to exploit it and
so you get what you call the freeloader
problem and so that's why you need the
people on the right who are about
personal responsibility and no you can't
just eat all of my meat there's going to
be tit fortat I need to see that you're
bringing something to the table as well
so I look at it from that standpoint
you've got this evolutionary bifurcation
between types of people that roughly
fall into left and right that roughly
can be generalized as people that uh
lead with compassion and other people
that lead with responsibility
everybody's on a spectrum of course
these are not binary things but you get
that tension now somewhere in the 90s
something culturally started to happen
I've often heard it put on Rush Limba
I'm G to Guess that he was more a
symptom of something rather than the
cause but that it became really about
entrenching in our tribes now I'm not
familiar enough with that history to
know what he was queuing off of why he
felt like this was the way to go to
begin tearing people down or if it
really was the beginning of Independent
Media with different radio stations
becoming popular and getting syndicated
and maybe social media really is just
the modern um incarnation of that that
certainly is possible um but I think
that divide happened long before social
media so I'd love to know if you have a
take on that and then certainly social
media um exacerbates that a thousandfold
but what do you think about that in
terms of just naturally people are going
to be divided into those two camps and
the tension between them is actually
useful but something has become
pathological recently I'm not sure that
the evolutionary case is is as clear as
you make it out to be in this sense if
we're talking about at the group level
um when humans developed agriculture
and by definition AG one of the big
advantages of Agriculture was the
storing of calories right in a different
not not as obligations but quite
literally we now are going to be able to
start specializing not everybody needs
to find the daily calories that they
need we're going to have some people
specialize and grow way more food than
they need we're going to store it and or
distribute it and now we're going to be
able to start investing other people's
time in different things that they might
be good at arguably for some it was you
know the development of religious
beliefs for others it was starting to
look at medicine Transportation so on
and so forth you already started to have
the freeloader problem there I just
struggle I I've not seen evidence that
the freeloader problem during the
Agricultural Revolution or even now is
really a problem in the sense that I
think it's natural that you will have it
whenever a technology is developed and
advances and opens new doors and if you
look at you know we now know more about
the Agricultural Revolution and there
was a mixed bag in the sense of not
moving around as much did lead to more
contagious disease and right it's not
it's not a Panacea but big picture the
Agricultural Revolution accelerated
technological development and uh uh and
the development of homo sapiens and so
many ways yes there were some
freeloaders who didn't really specialize
in anything but they were still
beneficiaries of the fact that we could
store food but I think that's just part
of a system and it's hard to argue that
Humanity didn't benefit in total from
that Revolution even despite the
freeloaders so I I guess my point to go
back is it's not obvious to me that the
evolutionary case is as clear as you're
making it out to be okay one quick point
on that and then I'll step back and see
what you do think um speaks to it so
agriculture comes around somewhere 10 to
12,000 years ago but we've been
considered humans for roughly 250,000
years so agriculture is still pretty
novel so from a how the brain would
develop standpoint I think there's a
case to be made that you have a much
longer period of time where there is no
way to store food uh than you've had one
where there is now certainly agriculture
has wildly changed our societies and all
of that and we could do a talk on that
but the thing I'm really trying to get
to in your world viiew is just to
understand how you think we end up
dividing on the left and right if we
want to get rid of left and right um are
we just trying to nudge people because
my vision has always been you want left
and right you want the tension between
them but you want them way closer to the
middle than they are now and so um just
curious to get your take on what causes
this Left Right divide and where do we
want to move people we trying to get
everyone to the left we trying to get
everyone in the middle what's that look
like yeah I I think you that laying it
out that way is much more in line with
with My Views and I've said many times
that I would much rather have a
Republican party that goes back to you
know sort of like the John McCain
Republican party where there are
disagreements about foreign policy there
are disagreements about taxation but not
only are the disagreements far more
substantive um they are disagreements
where we are closer to starting with a
shared basis in fact so we say hey okay
here are the facts now we might have
disagreements about where we want to go
and the best kind of way to go there
from a biological standpoint there's
pretty good research that those who end
up being what we in the United States we
describe as politically conservative
tend to have larger fear centers in
their brain in other words the idea of
difference the idea of change does
lights up or I'm not using the right
terminology because I'm not I'm not a
neuroscientist but it sort of sort of
lights up parts of the brain that are
responsible for rejection and sometimes
that rejection comes in the form of fear
sometimes it comes in the form of
disgust as we see with some of the other
social issues so there's probably a
biological aspect to it I do think that
there's a huge Urban rural divide to go
back to the environment that you're kind
of raised in now there's probably a sort
of vicious cycle in the sense that if
you're already for biological reasons
more suspicious of others or more
fearful of different environments you
probably choose to live rurally and
around fewer people so so you know
there's kind of a little bit of a
chicken egg here and we're kind of
talking about the same thing but I think
that that that's another Factor um so we
might call it a geographical factor and
cultural factors as well that probably
date back to how did your family end up
in the United States to begin with
that's interesting I didn't see the
curveball there coming at the end um so
I think we'll both agree that there's a
biological component there's obviously a
very large cultural component the part I
don't yet understand in your worldview
is do you want the tension between the
two or do you want to see people
leverage culture to migrate more either
to the center or to the left I think
that it is healthy not to have everyone
exactly on the same spot in the
political Spectrum so I think we can we
can sign simultaneously say if we think
about the Spectrum as a sort of number
line there's a bunch of stuff way over
here that's not good for Society for a
number of different reasons that we can
identify all the way on the other side
there's also reasons why if if that were
the predominant worldview that would not
be so good I do think that it is better
for you know if I could sort of snap my
fingers and say everybody has the exact
views of David Pacman I think that
that's not ideal because I think it's
clear that history has shown us that we
often make advances when something is
pulling one way or the other and you
don't necessarily know in advance which
direction the right direction is at any
particular moment I think the the
critical part is we need guard rails and
so for example the idea of well here's
an idea to do something different the
person who didn't win the election still
gets to be president that seems beyond
the pale to me of the sort of pull push
that that we need so no I I think that
political disagreement is a healthy
thing um and there's there's many
countries including the countries that I
think of as interesting models you know
my forthcoming book I talk you know
northern Europe is sort of like clich of
course everybody in with my worldview
talks about Northern Europe but I talk
about Uruguay around 2010 I talk about
the social Democrats in Germany in the
2000s I talk about the Carol estate in
India and I think uh these are all
different sort of scenarios but they all
benefited from not everybody being
exactly on the same page I I I hope I'm
answering the question clearly which is
no I I don't think the ideal thing is
everybody matches my personal exact
political
worldview no that makes a lot of sense
um so what now I am taking that
information I'm trying to map it to
where you want to move people to so
we're starting with the base assumption
that uh there's something
uh very meaningful about this particular
election uh the collision between the
two ideas um we went through certainly
what's going on on the right in terms of
um Trump representing a movement to turn
bureaucracies into partisan entities
that really should exist well beyond
that that should be able to work for
either side um that there is a
fundamental undermining of the
democratic process uh that your vision
of the which is obviously where you want
to see us end up we're actually getting
quite close to that um there's just a
few more things um we didn't get into
necessarily deeply about one thing that
you threw off the cuff which was uh
basically we're just trying to even um
make sure that everybody has a
relatively similar starting point um but
that makes a lot of sense and so I if
those are the two visions then it
becomes a question of um do you trust
yourself or does anybody that holds that
position trust themselves enough to say
hey everybody follow me this is where we
want to be or do they say look I want to
put my idea out there I want to argue it
as much as possible but the last thing I
would want is for anybody to just
blindly follow what I'm saying because I
know there will be second and third
order consequences that I cannot predict
um and that probably more than anything
sums up my problem with the current um
political structure everywhere that I
have looked at which is it always boils
down down to um somebody thinking that
they know the path forward rather than
running something I call the physics of
progress where you're holding yourself
accountable to metrics which it does not
seem like we do certainly I uh so couple
different things there if you there is a
certain
egocentrism associated with I I would
argue people who do what you and I do in
the sense of like it occurred to us that
we should be speaking with microphones
and that it's something other people
should listen to right so there's like
on some level there is some ego
associated with that I think for people
who run for elected office it's similar
it's hey of all the people I think I'm
the one that people should vote for and
put me in the position of power to then
go and and and do things one of the
things I always tell my audience is I
don't I do not believe that I am the
ultimate source of Truth everything I
say should be fact checked uh My Views
should change if I'm presented with
contradictory information for example
and it's good to be skeptical of anybody
who says that they are the ultimate
source of Truth this is one of the
things to to kind of get back to the
election Dynamics you know over the last
however many years it's been Donald
Trump has told us he knows more than the
scientists he knows more than the
generals he knows more than the doctors
he knows more than the epidemiologists
he knows more than the Senators he knows
more right that to me
runs very much counter to exactly what
you're talking about which is well hold
on a second before we bring everybody
along with whatever idea we have we
should establish how it is that we're
going to determine what is real and what
is not what works and and what doesn't
work so kind of as like a baseline level
I give my audience my best guess at the
time uh subject to revision based on new
information that's coming forward so so
I think that goes to the first part of
your question which is this idea that
that we just impose here's what we
should do uh without necessarily knowing
if it's the best
thing yeah very much so um to me just by
way of quick heuristic the right way to
run a government is what Lincoln called
A Team of Rivals that you actively Court
people who think differently than you
now whether Lincoln did the following or
not I don't know but this is certainly
my worldview that you the reason you
bring together A Team of Rivals is you
were trying to Red Team blue team ideas
that you can measure the outcome of that
you will have stated ahead of time what
the desired outcome is and then did this
initiative lead us to that or not and I
think there are a couple things that end
up breaking that one is that everything
is just so complicated that it can be
very hard to get a definitive answer uh
and so you would need literally
certainly multiple administrations would
have to share an end goal so that people
would need to State this is where I'm
trying to take us these are the things
we're going to try dear public these are
the outcomes reporting them as honestly
as they can in fact inviting their
Rivals to report on it so that we can
all look at it but then the other thing
is that I to your earlier point I don't
think we any longer have a shared set of
facts now this is a thing that I wrestle
with tremendously because I don't know
that there are facts to share so when I
there obviously is ground truth physics
but we don't even understand physics so
everything that we engage in is
interpretation to some level so then I
ask myself okay what how do we
influence the thing that causes us to
look at something but interpret it a
different way as far as I can tell it's
biology beliefs and values so values
sort of speaks to what you were talking
about did you grow up rural biology
speaks to um do you have the larger fear
centers in the brain and then beliefs
are just outright choices but people
don't realize their choices but you put
those three together and now people can
really distort the lens through which
they look at things and so whether it's
social media a bigger cultural movement
the debt cycle which we haven't talked
about but I think is a huge part of this
or all of it I think the way in which
people are assessing the facts just the
the distorted prisms that the left and
the right are looking at things through
is getting more and more Divergent so
they can look at the same thing and see
something wildly different do you see
one does that make sense to you and if
it does do you see a way to unwind it
the way to so I have an entire chapter
and there's really probably in some way
two or three chapters in my forthcoming
book there's a chapter called what are
facts not what are the facts but what
are facts and there's some very it's
it's good but it's also really scary
um pulp study data from Pew Research
Center where people were presented with
10 statements and they were just asked
indicate whether this is a fact or an
opinion right so like if I tell you
chocolate ice cream is the best ice
cream I think you and I both would say
well that's that's of course an opinion
uh and if I said to you uh based on
current technology humans cannot live
without oxygen we would say okay well
that's that's a fact uh a very high
percentage of people I don't want to
quote it because I don't have it in
front of me but a shockingly high number
of people
misidentified which statements were
opinions and which statements were facts
and this is very much visible in our
politics you know when um someone says
millions of people died from the covid
vaccine that is a statement of fact not
an opinion it's either true or it's not
and we don't have any evidence that
millions of people died from the vaccine
but to really think about vaccine policy
to pick something you have to understand
whether that is a statement of opinion
or fact and whether there is any basis
to make some of these claims so I
completely agree with you that there is
this more Divergent situation I think
where I disagree is there are I I think
it's dangerous to fall too far into I
don't even really know that we have
facts anymore not that that's what you
said but you were sort of saying that
there's this ambiguity for you about
about even kind kind of figuring this
out um so I I think that that is a major
problem now the solution I think is a
combination of we should really be
teaching both critical thinking and
media literacy probably starting at age
10 to everybody that's not partisan
although there are state boards of
Education including Texas that don't
want that taught in in public school I
won't speculate as to why we should ask
some of the people that don't want it
taught but um we know we get to I I
taught a a couple of college courses and
I had 20 year olds in my class where
basic media literacy like hey here's
something here's a message from
media how would you even start
evaluating whether what you just heard
is is true nothing just no basis to even
evaluate media messages so so I think
that the way to push back against it is
critical thinking and media literacy
probably starting at age
10 it's very interesting because yes
ultimately people are going to have to
um understand how to look at something
and determine whether it can be
validated or not uh I think the big
catch is going to be that so many things
are going to be hard to invalidate or
validate or that uh as I say there's
statistics uh lies and damn lies and
that even when you're looking at the
data itself
the conclusions that you draw from it
can be very jarring so for instance yeah
I heard you talk a lot about I heard you
talk a lot about Denmark and okay we wna
that's sort of a quick obviously just
rough sketch of where we want to end up
so I looked up Denmark where are they at
in the um GDP so uh Denmark is 34th I
think I wrote this down they're roughly
34th 32nd to 36th lies 38th they're 38th
okay so nominal GDP Denmark is 38th us
obviously is number one uh but if you
look it up in terms of GDP PPP so
purchasing power parody per capita
Denmark is 52nd but the US is number two
and so I was like wait a second who's
number one and it's China so I was like
wait a second in something that I care
deeply about a communist country
outperforms the US and so then I'm like
hold the phone so now I go from hey GDP
is a great way to just shorthand think
about like what's what is an what is a
kpi that you could look at to say we're
making the right decisions or leading us
in a good direction and then all of a
sudden I was like yeah like go democracy
go America amazing amazing and then the
people that I think are the most not the
most backwards cuz just like brutal
authoritarian uh regimes where people
are starving to death Stalin ma like
those would be way worse but uh a a
place I would not want to be living
under is actually outperforming us on a
metric that I care deeply about so I was
like wow so this is super interesting
there's a bunch of stuff there and
you're getting to I mean this is this is
why the corporate media environment just
is it it just can never really inform
people in any kind of deep and nuanced
way about this stuff so a couple
different things um number one what I
think it makes more sense to look at PPP
the nominal GDP that's a good that's a
good start China being very high to some
degree is because it's a pseudo
communist country although they've
become capitalist in so many of the
industries but that's a different
conversation because by virtue of being
a communist country there are entirely
large swaths of products that are
manufactured in China and are subsidized
by the government which artificially
makes the PPP appear very very high so
like that's a detail where even just
looking at PPP you need to understand
more about it so like okay that's super
interesting Denmark out of roughly out
of close to 200 countries Denmark's
basically at the at the line of the top
quarter right so 50 out of 200 roughly
would be like you're at the line of the
25th percentile what you have to
understand about Denmark is you don't
have to pay for Health Care out of that
PP like you're not buying health care
you can take that completely out you're
also not buying
education because education is paid for
through taxation so that's kind of
interesting because if you were to
disaggregate that in countries whether
that's something that you're paying for
out of pocket versus countries that
you're not that would also kind of
change the numbers and then just to
throw a different metric out you know
earlier I told you about how some of the
blue states in the United States have
very high HDI human development index
which includes life expectancy at Birth
how much schooling do you expect to get
uh PE PPP is is one of those uh Denmark
is number five in the world so the
outcome that they're having as far as as
far as quality of life once you
understand okay 25th percentile with
regard to PPP but you don't have to P
worry about health care costs driving
you to bankruptcy and all these
different things the quality of life
there is fifth out of nearly 200
countries that's pretty
good yeah this to me um so this the
point you made about China is exactly
what I was trying to convey is at the
surface it seems one way but then as you
start to dig in you realize wait there's
all these confounding variables the only
way that they went from Ma's China to
xiin Ping's China is to open up
capitalism and begin to let that thrive
but there still is the Hammer of the
state and so it's like oh God like very
complicated uh and then the HDI that
kind of thing then begins to ask a
question of values so going back to my
notion that your frame of reference that
the distorted lens through which view or
attempt to view facts uh is built up of
biology beliefs and values so now you
value for instance and I'm literally
just thinking of this as you're talking
people may hate me for this but this is
true you value ranking higher on the HDI
whereas I value people being able to
play for the championship team and so
I'm looking at what is the place that
creates the most Innovation that
attracts the best and the brightest from
all over the world and
that's thrilling to me but I also am
self-aware enough to know most people
are not going to enjoy playing that game
and so now you get some of what I think
is happening now which again the plan a
flag is not time to talk about yet I
don't think but the where we're at in
the debt cycle I think speaks to a lot
of the unrest that we're seeing I think
it speaks to a lot of the rise in
populism because all of a sudden kids
are like yo Boomers in their 20s had it
way better than I have in my 20s which
is true and they have access to a
freakish amount of information so they
know that's true and so there's all
kinds of things
from the food that we're taking in
toxins all that stuff which is probably
not a conversation for you and I but
you've got all that happening but then
you also just
have it feels super lame for somebody
coming into their early 20s right now
and they're very aware of it and you now
have them look at a country their own
country sending foreign aid everywhere
and even if it doesn't actually impact
them like a they're not going to realize
that they're just like billions of
dollars are leaving but they're going to
feel some kind of way about that and so
now you throw social media onto the fire
as you mentioned earlier which is
further distorting those lenses that
people are looking at this tribalism
being innate to our sense of being and
you just get these two groups
jettisoning away from each other and
when you you look back historically this
happens like clockwork on that dead
cycle and then It ultimately blows up
and you get really bad things happening
which is why for me I also think that
this election uh is unusually important
what do you do about dumb people that
get to vote and I say that truly with
love knowing that some people just they
fall below an IQ level where they will
be able to parse these very difficult
issues and PS I'm actually perfectly
willing to accept I'm one of the dumb
people that's below the line that can
adequately parse these things I'm
perfectly fine with that but I'm just
saying what do you do with that reality
you know I I think my Approach is
pragmatic I've had so many conversations
with viewers over the years when they
call in and they say David you know
there should be restrictions on who's
allowed to have kids there should be
restrictions on who's allowed to vote
there should be some kind of test where
you have to at least understand you know
you have to understand something or or I
think it's I I I don't think about it
much because that's not how we're going
to improve the country or the world I at
least as far as the United States is
concerned I really try to focus on where
we can make a difference and there is no
path to some kind of intelligence test
to vote
legally uh nor is there any political
will to do it I think either party that
proposed it it would do nothing for them
it would be a political Lo loser so I I
honestly don't think about I think what
you do is you you say how can we make
people less dumb and that's what goes to
to use your term um I think that's what
gets to can we start teaching media
literacy can we start teaching critical
thinking earlier um what can we do about
how should if at all social media be
regulated you know I think these are the
sorts of things I think it's more useful
to think about um because I just don't
think there's a path forward to solving
any problem we identify with figuring
out how how to prevent people from
voting now I will tell you there is a
political party that thinks that they
will do better if they can prevent
people from voting it's the it's the
Republican party now we can argue about
the reasons why and uh what they claim
are the reasons and and you know it'll
they will have their explanations but
over the last I mean it kind of goes
back to Mitt Romney where they started
think about this Mitt Romney state
director in Pennsylvania was talking
about using voter ID as a tool to reduce
Democratic turnout so that Romney would
win Pennsylvania in 2012 and thus the
White House why would that automatically
affect uh Democratic voters the because
all of the proposals that voter ID
specifically or which one are you
talking about voter ID yeah voter ID is
an interesting one the people who want
voter ID will usually say something like
uh well Trump says you need an ID to buy
bread so you should have an ID to vote
it's not true you need an ID to buy
bread so in case I don't know when you
last bought bread but you you don't need
one um but often what's stated is the ID
is free so why would it be an impediment
to anybody um the thing about the IDS is
depending on what state you live in and
the way that it's conceived of uh very
often in order to get the ID you need
subsequent documents that lower income
people are less likely to have and those
documents aren't always free to get for
example birth certificates I know when
when I had to get a copy of my
daughter's birth certificate there was a
cost associated with it and I had to go
to City Hall and it had to be only
during a three-hour window on a Tuesday
during which people who are working May
struggle to be able to to to go uh very
often the documents you need to get the
voter ID or the voter ID itself can only
be done in certain parts of the state
often requiring Transportation which
itself costs money so anyway I think the
idea here is that there's a calculation
that's been made in certain states that
if we put in place a voter ID
requirement in a certain way it will
disproportionately disfavor groups that
we don't think are super likely to vote
for us it's similar to the idea of
reducing the number of polling places in
urban areas which as we know there's an
urban rural divide in Rural America
there's rarely lines to vote in urban
America there are often lines to vote if
you reduce the number of places as you
can vote or reduce early voting hours
you will make the lines even longer it
is disproportionately Democrats
geographically who vote there some of
them say I've got to get to work I don't
have time to stand in this line you you
can depress the Democratic turnout
without hurting the Republican turnout
these are the sorts of
things got it um so on voter ID this is
one of those that I may just not know
enough about to understand why it's
controversial but it seems so
self-evident to me that you should have
to have an ID to vote um just by way of
and I I know the punchline already is
that there isn't any voter fraud but if
people don't have IDs I I haven't looked
at it but it just seems if people don't
have IDs how do you know whether there's
voter fraud or not but um why isn't the
approach to make getting the voter ID
easier rather than just saying you don't
need ID I actu