Kind: captions
Language: en
I was once at a dinner uh the small
dinner was about TW 12 of us maybe with
Jordan Peterson uh and I asked him what
western civilization is and Jordan in as
is his style went off on a 20-minute
thing and I was like I have no [ __ ]
idea where you're going Jordan right but
what he said was very interesting he
said that he talked about how in chimp
groups the alpha male is quite often one
of the smallest males in other words
it's not a Joo willnick it's uh me or I
mean you're bigger than me but you know
it's one of us and the reason for that
is that the alpha male strategy the pub
brawler strategy in groups does not work
very well for very long you are only on
top as long as you are physically the
strongest male in that group uh and and
when two or more smaller chimps can get
together and kill you they
will the difference with chimp groups is
that the reason the smaller males are
often the alpha male is that they're
very good at building
coalitions and so to me masculinity
isn't about having big muscles or having
a big head or wide fists or whatever uh
if we think about our conversation
earlier about power like I remember
talking to Ben Shapiro about this and he
was like yeah there's this guy on the
internet who's like yeah I could I could
take I've got big muscles he like yeah I
could pay people to shoot you that's the
Coalition thing right power isn't
projected through your fist in the
modern world it's projected through the
power that you have over other people as
a leader so to me uh being hyper
masculine is not about having big
muscles or having a big head um it's
about your ability to project power and
authority what kind of leader are you uh
and you know you mentioned other stuff
like your level of aggression and all
these all these other things so I think
defining masculinity is simply a
physical thing is is very
narrow if you had to put people on a
spectrum of
masculine who pegs out the meter is it
Joo willink or is it Ben Shapiro that's
probably terrible because jao can build
coalitions is it
um what's his name the The Fighter the
boxer he has a show called The Gypsy
King otherwise I would not Tyson Fury
Tyson Fury or Ben Shapiro who maxes out
the masculinity meter H that's
interesting I I think I suspect on that
level of analysis everybody would say
and fury yes I would you would however
the the the question for me is um the
definition is what predetermines the
outcome right um I that's so important
yeah holy [ __ ] I hope people pull that
out yeah well how you define masculinity
automatically defines who you think is
masculine and the question for me is
what which of those options would I like
to be I could go go to the gym and
become really big and strong I could do
and I did it for a while didn't wasn't
particularly my thing I didn't enjoy it
I like being in shape I don't like
having you know going to the gym and
lifting lots of way get didn't work for
me and the level of power that that
gives you over the power in a healthy
sense influence over the world being
able to manifest the things that you
want Etc is
minuscule compared to the power that you
have by building groups of people who
follow you into whatever batt or project
or whatever it is you want to do um and
then there's the family aspect how do
you treat the women and children in your
life to me healthy masculinity is a lot
about that actually so when I see some
guy with his shirt off big muscles
talking about how he you know he's got
10 hoes or whatever I I don't I don't
really see that as healthy masculinity
agreed some people might do and I'm sure
the gasan model which is basically that
some people would say well that's you
know biologically that is hyper
masculinity because like half the world
or whatever is descended from him that
would have been a great example genas
Khan not gigantic but is he hyper
masculine yeah I would say so to me like
in fact he pegs the [ __ ] meter right
kill them all no problem just we're
taking over we run this [ __ ] now yeah
and actually if you look historically a
lot of the leaders who really made a
huge impact on human society they've all
been very small Napoleon Hitler Stalin
wasn't a big guy
Putin do you think that plays into it
because I could see very easily how of
course it does like oh you think I'm not
powerful because I'm smaller than you I
will show you I want to go back speaking
of that to Alpha versus beta so I think
we have a delusional sense of what an
alpha male is I saw a documentary I used
to think an alpha male would be and fury
not I don't know him he could be the
smartest guy on planet Earth uh but the
sort of once removed thought of him as
as a fighter a big physically
intimidating Fighter
um I saw a documentary about wolves and
I was shocked shocked I say when I saw
that the alpha male was small and I was
like I'm sorry what and what I realized
in that moment was the Alpha's the
decision maker
the alpha is the Coalition Builder the
alpha is the one that can think because
again in in the marketplace of we are
wolves and if we don't take down that
Caribou we [ __ ] die all of a sudden
you go yeah bro that guy I don't know
how but he knows where to go and he
knows where to be and he gives me the
look at just the right moment and when I
follow him I eat and when I don't I
don't and so what ends up happening
often times is the alpha male is small
but [ __ ] sharp and the beta male
which in our society has gotten a
terrible [ __ ] rap is the
enforcer and it was watching that
documentary was so unreal so you've got
a pack of whatever six wolves Alpha kind
of small beta the biggest and when they
all went for the kill the um beta male
came and told everyone to [ __ ] off
growled backed everybody down so the
alpha could eat the liver and I was like
holy [ __ ] he's not even doing it for
himself he's well I mean he is he's
protecting the alpha to make sure that
the right person to make the decisions
and all of that that can keep the group
together whatever whatever is well taken
care of wellfed and has what he needs so
that really got me thinking so yes while
I agree with you that the person who's
going to have the outsized impact isn't
necessarily going to be what I will call
quote unquote the most masculine because
again all of us are 120 sided dice
rolled and so like hey maybe I'm as
smart as gangas Khan was but I'm not
vicious like that like I just dude like
when I think about people getting
stabbed or I'm just like oh God like
clearly I'm not going to be the guy that
goes and takes over the planet uh that
[ __ ] just I'm way too screamish for that
so when I think
about
the thinking of something on a
simplistic scale is probably the flaw in
my thinking and that it's really a far
more dimensional three dimensions if we
want to go all the way to four it's like
you've got a tesseract of traits that
makes for masculine feminine whatever
which I think leads to also some of the
debate because it really is such a
complex topic if somebody can give you a
hyper simplified version I say I'm Stacy
therefore I'm Stacy it's it has a lot of
gravitational pull because it simplifies
a very complicated idea yeah and
sticking with the alpha conversation who
who was the alpha Michael Jordan or
Scotty Pippen Scotty Pippen's a lot
taller a lot bigger yeah who was Alpha
Kobe oack that's a good one
right what's really interesting in that
one is they were both Alpha and that was
the problem that's why they collided
they couldn't neither could defer to the
other yes if Shaq had been the enforcer
they probably would have won 20
championships right exactly um but I
think ultimately Kobe was the alpha in
that situation and Shaq eventually you
know same with the the lots of
situations like that look at that level
they're all Alphas but someone's got to
be the alpha in that particular group
yeah that's interesting and how fast
that happens when you've been the best
ball player in your every team your
middle school team your high school team
your college team and then you get to
the NBA and you're like oh [ __ ] I'm like
seventh or eighth in the pecking order
it becomes a real question about
can you become a a role player yeah it's
exactly right and I forget who it was in
um I think it was 11 rings by Phil
Jackson and Phil I know you listen to
this show God I wish I doubt it very
much I so want to get him on uh he'd be
incredible oh my God so we've gone out
for years and years and years and he's
always like yeah yeah yeah just not
during the basketball season or his team
he probably doesn't even [ __ ] know
but um anyway in the book 11 rings I'm
almost certain it was in that that I
forget what player he had to approach
but he was like you're a role player and
the guy actually could do it he could
set his ego aside and be like even
though it might have been Steven Carr
Steve Kerr maybe Steve Kerr Steve Kerr
that makes sense uh that even though he
had to like he had always been the best
of the best of the best of best he was
like yeah no that actually makes sense
cool I'll do it yeah uh so I think uh
when we think about these things how the
[ __ ] do you know an NBA reference you're
Russian what's going on I'm massively
into NBA a huge
yeah mord was myo it's one of the
reasons the way we talk about race does
my head in CU I was like I was a kid I
didn't who was black or white I loved
Michael Jordan and I saw myself in him
it didn't matter to me what his skin
color was you know what I mean that's
why divisiveness about race bothers me
so much uh but yeah the NBA uh was you
know I love basketball it's a great
sport great Sport and a lot of my heroes
kind of watching growing up watching
those those guys uh and sport is
beautiful because it's it's ritualized
combat and so it teaches you a lot about
human dynamics and tribe Dynamics and
you know different tribes fighting each
other and how you Marshall that and who
has to run the whole thing I mean if you
think about you know sticking with Alpha
conversation it's not quite true anymore
but historically speaking the point
guard the smallest player would usually
be the one running the whole show that's
the role of the point guard um so I
think um our convers and also you know
who's going to be sending joer wilck
into battle someone's going to be
telling him where to go and who to kill
unless I can get him to run for
president well go for it yeah yeah I
remember last cycle that was one of the
options um that do you know Brett
Weinstein right yeah so he put that I I
forget what it was called Freedom Party
2020 I forget what it's called something
something 2020 uh and yeah I really it
was Joo and somebody else and I was like
yeah I'd vote for that I would vote for
that that yeah but
alas okay so um do you understand my
position on trans because if you don't
the audience doesn't and I understand
your position I just don't think that's
what anyone's interested in but I
understand your position and agree with
it and always have done got it so I'm
taking a reasonable position but you
know that the world is has already had
that conversation and they completely
reject it that is my impression I I hope
to be wrong right yeah okay um I don't
know that belaboring that point will get
us any anywhere but I will tie it real
fast back to the whole reason that I
want people to pay attention to the
malleability of people is that we began
this conversation with once you get
obsessed with that you have to
understand what you're getting obsessed
with is the breakdown of structure once
you break down structure now you have a
problem in fact the one last thing I
will say on this so in film school they
teach you that one immutable thing is
true and that is the constraints make
for creativity and that when you try to
have no constraints whatsoever things
don't actually get better they somehow
end up getting worse and I think that
holds true for the vast majority of
humanity for for all aspects of humanity
that doesn't mean and this is why I find
that the circle of this is why I think
that the circle of History obviously not
an exact Circle but comes very close to
that because humans long to get free of
those constraints and in times of
stability they can push back on that and
they they find that whoa many of these
things were freedoms that now that I
have my life is better and this is
amazing and so then you think more free
is going to be better and you push back
on everything everything everything
everything and then it breaks and then
you're the strong man comes in and like
reapplies structure and constraints and
you can't do that and then you get out
from under it is saying stabilize and
freedoms yay and then freedoms break and
then no freedoms and loop-de-loop we go
weak men create Hard Times Hard Times
create strong men strong make create
good times good times create weak men
and and around around we on and on but
it's a spiral we move and technology is
a big part of that too I mean for all
our fears about Ai and I really know
very little about it I think that may be
it could be the end of a all it could
also be the Saving Grace that that comes
in at exactly the right time and just
solves some of this some of these
problems I have a feeling it's going to
play out like this it right the moment
you're living through right now
everybody it's a tool and if you're not
using it you are not long for this world
you will get passed by by the people
that do use it can't stress that enough
I hope everybody on my team is listening
you know who you are some of you have
adopted it and some of you are being
real [ __ ] slow and you're being slow
cuz you think I'm going to fire you for
uh in replace you with AI but I am not I
but I am going to expect you to be way
more efficient now that you have
ai uh so we are in the moment of tools
use it as a tool it will make your life
so much better oh my God the ways we've
been able to deploy it are mindbending
saved us so much money it's absolutely
astonishing upd quality uh we put these
out these comedy monologues on our
Channel uh that Francis and I do and
also monologues that I my substack
pieces that I record and put out as
videos and the guy who edits them he
basically does the illustrations
entirely through a AI generated stuff
that is amazing for creating things that
illustrate the points that we're making
comedically and otherwise it's insane
man what you can do with it it's insane
and it's getting better by the second
not even by the day or by the week it's
it's
unreal the next phase is going to be uh
that it will look like it's ushering in
in the Utopia because the tools will
become so powerful it would be
unbelievable but humans for us
technology is a promise of a better
future and we always want a better
future and as long as anyone ever has a
sick child or has to face their own
mortality they will keep pushing
technology forward and since that is
true I know that we will create
artificial super intelligence and once
you have artificial super intelligence
that isn't so I love running the math on
this so a [ __ ] is but literal [ __ ] is
defined to somebody with like a 78 IQ 78
to 81 something like that it's right in
there uh that's that's the literal
definition of [ __ ] Einstein was 162 so
you're something like 2.3x smarter or
1.6 whatever the [ __ ] of math is and
very Einstein would know yeah yeah he
would know and I wouldn't and that shows
you uh I'm a little too close to a [ __ ]
so uh it's less than 3x for sure so
artificial super intelligence is not
going to be three times smarter than you
or five times or 30 times or 100 times
or 3,000 times or three million times
it's going to be a billion times smarter
than the other person so if the
difference between a [ __ ] and the
atomic age and the person that gave us
GPS and atomic weapons and atomic energy
and all that uh is whatever less than
three times better what does the world
look like when something is a billion
times smarter than us we we are so
inconsequential to them that if we can't
align AI we simply will accidentally
cease to exist they what does it even
matter man like honestly if there was a
a type of bacteria that made the
Everglades like
0.001% more productive do we care does
it matter no and so that will be humans
in the grand um sense of the cosmos to a
super intelligence so now I have a whole
thesis
around I don't think my my whole
argument hinges on one base assumption
my my base assumption is that desire is
not a necessary part of intelligence if
it is and that that super intelligence
will want one thing over another thing
and it will move with rapidity to get
that better thing then the odds of us
being aligned are effectively zero that
makes the base assumption that desire is
an innate part of intelligence if it is
then my argument doesn't work but if
it's not then what we need to do is make
sure that AI as a develop towards super
intelligence does not care uh life or
death for itself completely irrelevant
um get my goal not get my goal
completely irrelevant and so by default
I will move towards my goal but if
somebody tells me to stop I will stop or
if a certain set of criteria is met I
will stop the problem is in the tool
phase you are going to have a human who
cares very deeply about something and
that person will almost certainly imbue
AI with a desire to accomplish his ends
and they will not realize the second and
third order consequences of that is that
you become irrelevant extraordinarily
fast to something that youve now imbued
with a desire to achieve its goals so
yeah I think there oh wow this is weird
I can say this and just be distressingly
Blas about it I think that it is
inevitable that AI will happen and it is
inevitable that our only hope is to uh
flee AI to the point where it doesn't
care about us and is not trying to
eradicate us sorry not even trying to it
won't try to eradicate us we will be the
anthill to the super intelligence
building a highway as Elon mus says no
hard feelings just this is what I have
to put here um but if we can get away
from it that's probably Our Only
Hope
yeah that doesn't sound that optimistic
super dark the weird thing is I'm like
really optimistic as a default but I
think that my optimism is just me
leaning into uh the the wonderful human
ability to say I know I'm going to die
but not today even even though I might
die in like 9 seconds so it's probably
something like that but I don't see
another way do you I'm just counting the
seconds you have right you have a son
for you this [ __ ] is real as [ __ ] so
what do you think like are you on like
burn AI to the ground stop building it
is that your not possible so how do you
think about it you can't you can't L out
this [ __ ] it's not going to happen Che
to that so the only thing you can try to
do I mean all of the Sci-Fi my youth was
wrestling with this question the three
laws of robotics asmo all all about this
and and did you read Dune uh yes well I
don't remember it well Dune opens with
it is against the law to build a
humanlike intelligence yes so you can't
stop it and that means we have to work
with it one way or another how that
happens I have no idea I'm not nearly
smart enough it's not my era of
expertise I don't understand it well um
but we have never been able to suppress
any technology at least to the as far as
as I know um and so far we have always
learned to live with the technology that
we've created now eventually we're going
to invent one that we can't until then
there's no point thinking about it I
can't control that I can't change that
all I can do is raise my son to be
resilient for the world that's coming I
like that resilience is the punchline
it's one of a very small handful of
things that people should optimize their
life for if they're going to achieve
fulfillment which is really what I'm
trying to help people do um give me
resilience what what is it so we Define
power Define resilience most people
spend their entire life trying to get
other people to not [ __ ] with them and
the answer is not to get other people
not to [ __ ] with you is to become
unfuckable
with that's what you're trying to get to
where you are who you are and the world
sort of flaps around you and you are
going to your goal uh undeterred by
whatever else happens because you know
where you're going uh and resilience is
ability to deal with failure to pick
yourself back up when things go wrong uh
to I mean I learned a lot about it from
you actually and from our conversations
which it's about seeking feedback and
re-evaluating your starting positions uh
I an Rand uh has a very interesting you
know IR Rand is a great uh is a great
author to read in your late teens it's a
kind of late teen philosophy that she
has um because it's overly
simplistic it's very idealistic
extraordinarily
idealistic uh but one of the things she
says that I really have taken on is
whenever you think you're facing a
contradiction check your premises one of
them is wrong and very often when you
experience some kind of setback the one
premise that people don't check is well
I did everything right didn't
I usually that is the premise that's
incorrect so resilience is being able to
deal with what life throws at you and
keep going that's it's it's the rocky
speech what do you mean it's the rocky
speech remember when he's talking to his
son no and he says life it's Rocky three
I can't remember which Rocky it is but
he's she's talking to his son in the
street and he says life life will beat
you down no matter how hard you are but
the question is can you keep going
that's resilience that's so good I love
that
[ __ ] I'd love that I boys and girls get
hard get tough I think resilience I want
to separate resilience and antifragility
but for a second I just want to talk
about resilience and Rocky 4 which I do
remember in Rocky four is that the one
with Ivan Drago yes a yes the sexiest of
them all was so incred oh that's right
cuz you're the bad Russian uh but it was
I will concede he was hyper masculine he
was hyper Dolph Lunden especially in
that
movie uh but there was that whole idea
of I would break you and he just was
literally beating the [ __ ] out of Rocky
and the cool thing about Rocky is he's
always the underdog he always had to
fight back and he could just take a
beating and he just kept going and I was
so I teach something called impact
Theory University and I had a student
today asking me and I started laughing
and he was saying I'm trying so hard and
I just feel like I'm constantly hitting
a wall and he was like having this just
like emotional turmoil and I'm laughing
and I thought about like doing the laugh
Emoji in the zoom call and I thought
he's not going to understand what I mean
by that and the reason that I was
laughing is yeah that's what comes for
all of us my days feel exactly the same
I feel like I'm battering my head into a
wall I am failing at most of the things
that I try I'm running test after test
after test after test and I don't know
if you feel a sense of ownership over
Churchill because you're adopted British
but dude Church Hill I know he's
controversial I love him and one of my
favorite quotes from him is success is
the ability to go from failure to
failure without a loss of enthusiasm and
it's like that is so true like you're
going to get kicked in the face over and
over and over like all the [ __ ] time
it's
unrelenting and yet somehow you have to
keep going that is so
antifragility I try to get everybody to
build an antifragile personality an anti
fragile personality is one where the
more people attack you the stronger you
get so if you're antifragile the more
punches you take the stronger you get
the only way to do that is to um to
emotionally reward yourself for being
able to take punches and once you're
like oh it's my willingness to take the
punch to stare nakedly at my
inadequacies to pick myself back up to
wipe the blood off to spit out my broken
teeth versus to never get hit or like um
oh go what's his name everybody the
boxer uh money Floyd maywether
Mayweather thank you you're really
coming to my rescue with all these
fighting uh and sports people thank you
um so people really began to hate him
because his whole thing was you just
can't beat me you can't hit me yeah so
his whole thing about like he wasn't
like Tyson everybody loved that [ __ ]
Tyson animalistic just broke you apart
and I think people like his Redemption
Arc uh but Floyd the like I can't be hit
there's nothing cool in that I can't
relate to that I take punch after punch
after punch so I want the guy that can
take a punch and like he's battered and
bloody but somehow manages to come back
and when you can get hit and become more
resilient with each punch then you've
got the right set of ideas that you're
building your personality around well I
don't know if you C on our Channel we
put um we put an episode out uh about
the future of trigonom and we talked
about the year that we've had today we
nearly went bankrupt in January W um
Francis and I had a lot of stuff to work
out personally and with each other it
was a really rough
time and we made it through and now
we're infinitely stronger you know and
now the next phases of failure are
coming the stakes are getting higher
there's more money involved there's more
things that we're doing we're building
we're
expanding um that's life that's life
things are going to go wrong all the
time terrible things happen to everybody
and character is how you know when you
react when they when they
happen define character is it a set of
values well I just did define character
character is how you react yeah well so
what's the right way to react
then well it's hard to say because it
really depends on what's happening right
but the right it sounds to me in terms
of what you and I talking about is
the right way to react is to be stronger
after whatever it is that
happens so I'll add a few more things to
that so Integrity over everything Define
integrity if he said you're going to do
it do it agree um I mean look I guess
you could say that Hitler had high
integrity because man he [ __ ] wrote
In Mind comp conf exactly what he's
going to do and he [ __ ] did it and it
was horrible as horrible as something
gets um but I'll stick by that
definition you say terrible people can
have integrity AMA Bin Laden had
incredible Integrity yeah although he
did watch porn which is I I mean I
haven't read yeah I haven't they found a
stash of porn at his house serious that
is hilarious now I haven't read my Quran
cover to cover but I'm guessing watching
porn isn't in there I'm pretty sure
that's that wasn't in there yeah uh
that's interesting I didn't know that uh
so yeah you say you're going to do it do
it uh but then I'll add have honorable
goals so that we can get rid of the
Hitler problems so you should be doing
things that uplift not only you but
those
The World At Large it's probably
otherwise I'm going to get caught in
another Hitler trap people around him
I'm sure for a while are having a great
time you must uphold your people oh that
gets problematic quick do it yeah yeah
very quick uh hopefully people know what
I mean that you're trying to um lead
people towards human flourishing okay so
uh what else would I add to that so
willingness to stare nakedly your at
your inadequacies steering by the truth
in fact we're now getting into so we had
the problematic beliefs uh and then I
have a new set of rules that I'm going
to propose so just to wrap up the
problematic beliefs um tearing it down
versus incremental Improvement which I
think uh people think that something
will be rebuilt From the Ashes that that
is foolish and dangerous uh and there is
a reason that societies have structure
and that we all say we're standing on
the shoulders of giants so be careful um
it's a it's a harder one to talk about
though I think because this country was
built of
Revolution tearing it down what do you
mean what do what do you mean what do I
mean this country is the product of a
revolution Revol I thought you said
Evolution no Revolution I was like huh
no o okay so I would posit that it was
built on Revolution but it was not built
on tearing everything down and in fact
there's a reason that um Churchill
rightly said that America even though
America displaced I mean he didn't he
was born in the 1800s so he was like not
that far removed from England was really
the [ __ ] and he certainly was at the
height of the British Empire was there
as it declined and he was like America
is sort of the right rightful air of
this set of ideas that should not be
owned by any one country and I always
thought that was for all of the horrible
things um I think that that's the right
way to think about it and I think that
America really really pushed back at a
time of like hey you say these are your
ideals but you're not living up to them
and so not only are we going to try to
up live up to them we're going to try to
improve upon them and so it does feel to
me like America is standing on the
shoulders of the the British approach to
self-governance the individual um uh
case law uh we're going to get to the my
understanding the French and Russian
revolutions were a lot more
revolutionary I agree I agree
so uh so don't tear everything down yeah
you one ought to be very careful about
throwing the baby out with the bathwater
uh We've T touched on masculinity so I
won't beat it to death but masculinity
view masculinity and aggression viewed
as toxic because if we have any
entrepreneurs out there I would just
like to say I was asked by an online
coach if they needed to build their own
app in order to launch their business I
told them what I'm telling you now focus
on what you're great at and leave the
Tech to online tool Builders like kajabi
with their allinone platform it's easy
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impact Theory that's Ka
jai.com
impact Theory kajabi.com impact Theory
and join the creators and entrepreneurs
who have made over $6
billion uh as in the immortal words of
my High School cheer squad B aggressive
B be aggressive you need to be
aggressive that doesn't mean uh to drop
Integrity it doesn't mean to be
unethical it means to be aggressive you
need to be aggressive uh fiscal
irresponsibility is probably uh my
audience will love to hear me talk about
that because that's economy but probably
a different interview I mean sure but
that that that is something I've been
talking about I've been talking more
I've have not seen your interviews on
the economy what you got for
me well I don't think there's going to
be anything new but I've been saying
since
2008 like we've emptied the medicine
cumbed
and we are not ready for the next one in
fact this is how the cycle of spending
and borrowing has always worked
historically you create a surplus in
times of Peace War comes you spend that
Surplus you accumulate that then you pay
it off and you build up a surplus in
times of Peace again uh we don't have
wars as much although we
do but you know pandemic financial
crisis these things always come along
and you have I mean it's kind of basic
eon economics basic household situation
and and then somebody comes along and
goes oh we've got this cool new thing
called modern monetary Theory which is
basically just code for we can print as
much money as we want well that runs out
fast and eventually reality you know we
always you and I have always talked
about the clash with reality and by the
way people don't realize this but it's
one of the main complaints that the the
Chinese and the Russians and the others
have about Western um Behavior it's not
just territorial or in any other way
they're like you're printing money which
affects us because you're buying our
Goods with your increasingly devalued
money and we are the ones that suffer
this is not a sustainable situation and
you talked about my son we are borrowing
we are borrowing money to spend on
things we can't afford and indebting our
grandchildren who are not yet born it is
immoral it is financially irresponsible
and it's going to lead to disaster if we
don't stop it yeah this is where
uh the set of ideas that we pass along
culturally become so critically
important but also since I think I I
don't think there is a way to stop it
and I certainly invite anybody to show
me that I'm wrong but the the approach
that I took to preparing for this
episode was recognizing that look
Empires are going to collapse look the
collapse of the US is it is inevitable
now whether it happens in the next 5
years 50 years 500 years that I don't
know historically it's probably in the
50 to 100 years range it'll happen
slowly enough that for the most part
like if you're alive you're you're able
to take advantage of it but you have to
understand the game and so one of the
things because again I I just I think at
the individual level one of the things
you have to understand is you have to
reup your context so if you were trying
to play a game of chess but you were
never looking at the board sure like if
you're so good that you don't even need
to know what your opponent is doing cuz
you just like are able to guess but I
mean realistically even the grand Chess
Masters look at the the board they
understand where we are they understand
what your opponent is doing and so
people need to go okay where are we what
is the cycle where are we in the cycle
what does that mean and how do I
inoculate myself against it and the
problem is that getting the timing right
is virtually impossible and having the
right idea with the wrong timing is the
same as having the wrong idea and so
that was I transitioned into really
thinking about the economy and world
events and all that stuff because I saw
what happened in 2020 and I was like
people are going to get obliterated now
I didn't understand printing of money
yet and I didn't understand how we were
socializing losses but now once you
understand they're printing money then
you have to have a strategy for that so
you have to be watching the board
understanding how the context is
changing updating your thinking so I had
the really surreal experience of uh rid
alio comes on the show he writes his
books and he keeps saying all that
matters is how people are with each
other and that one of the things anybody
needs to do if you want to have a
strategy to navigate all weather War
peace um your country country is the
dominant power your country is the
declining power whatever like if you
want to navigate all of this well you
have to understand um what what it boils
down to is how people are with each
other I didn't understand what he meant
by that and he kept saying how people
are with each other W and I bump into
him backstage in
Dubai
and everything is and this wasn't that
long ago so everything's very unstable
and I'm starting to get unnerved and a
lot of people moving to Dubai and I'm
just like huh I meet him backstage and
I'm like oh wow Ray like seeing you in
Dubai like uh you know oh I come to the
Middle East a lot and I'm like say more
why do you come to the Middle East a lot
and he was just like you know there's so
much going on here and things are really
popping off and they've done an
extraordinary job here and in um in
Malaysia and he spent a lot of time in
China and so he's just laying out like
he did not say I want to be very clear
he didn't say like oh I need to make
sure that I have places that I can go if
America ends up not being the place to
be but you can start connecting the dots
with this whole idea of there's a ton of
division in America uh there's
instability with America as probably a
declining power China as a rising power
instability elsewhere in the world and
it's like you need to be able to um go
to different places if that's where you
need to bounce and that was one of those
it's part of the game I would say I'm
weak as that I'm very rooted in
California um which makes me
extraordinarily nervous in terms of a
place that has embraced ideas of sound
good but are not delivering quality
results as somebody that's been here for
30 years just like bro forget me I've
thrived I've done nothing but Thrive I
look around me and I'm like yo the
policies are not working unless you're
like me and you've made just
ridiculously outsized wins and
so yeah that doesn't seem like a winning
strategy so that's one of the ones that
I'm very slow to react to I'll be very
honest I don't ever want to have to
leave La I don't ever want to have to
leave America um
but I do want people to be realistic
about what the chessboard says and the
chessboard says what the chessboard says
and you need to play based on what you
see let me ask you why you think this
isn't going to get fixed okay so cuz I
have a theory on that but I want to hear
yours all right so I think that humans
are the way humans are the brain works
in a certain way and these Cycles have
run in Cycles forever because we only
have there's only so many like even if
we're 100 sided dice 100 dice with 20 s
each and we're all a role that's still
only so many personalities and we react
to each other uh in very specific ways
and we probably break into only so many
clusters of personality types I'll P it
random guess but that there's let's say
30 groupings of what people are like and
so it's like okay well those 30 people
are only going to react in so many
different ways then there's only so many
possible uh economy static economy
Rising economy declining um War
stability um lost War one more like
there's only so many situations and so
this really does become pretty
predictable Ray Delio again has broken
it down into six phases that's tied to
the debt cycle or the business cycle and
as you start walking through it it's
like yeah they're not identical for sure
but it's pretty predictable so he did
this whole breakdown of the last uh 500
years he looked at really closely and
then he looked at a much higher level I
think like the last 2,000 years so he
was like yeah just repeats over and over
and over and
when I look at it's the same thing that
I feel with AI I just look at what
humans are like and when the group
starts overtaking individual think it it
only ends in one way and that's violence
and there's I think out of the last
eight times that we've been declining
power Rising power uh debt like all the
things that are true right now six of
the eight times it's ended in war and so
it doesn't always end in war but most of
the
time but what is the mechanism by which
people refuse to address that problem
why is it what are the incentive
structure you remember yeah the
incentive structure is I want my life to
be prosperous right now I'm going to
elect anyone that promises me that
things will be prosperous the way that
they do that is debt and printing money
you can only take on so much debt and
print so much money before something
happens it's typically a pandemic or war
and that breaks the back like you said
the medicine cabinet's empty and we got
sick again so uh we have no money
remaining because we've been spending in
Foreign Wars and uh printing our way out
of 2008 printing our way out of covid
and so now it's like okay if so I'm
going to make a hypothesis I I'm I'm Not
The Thinker to listen to on this I just
want people to understand how I approach
novel problems so um I'm looking at this
moment and I say okay what what I
understand about things is um when you
print money too much you just increase
inflation that when you have we added a
trillion dollars of debt in a month in a
month dude we only have $33 trillion in
debt so like if you're adding that in a
month like th this is bad and this is
times of like everything's okay but
we're sending billions of dollars in Aid
to Foreign Wars we just had another War
pop off with another Ally like what are
we going to do I have no idea what we're
going to do but I start looking at that
and I'm like if I hate America and I'm
just looking at the chessboard and I'm
playing to win and I'm let's say China
is the most logical example and I'm
looking at that and I'm like I'm playing
to win I see a weakness in here and PS
most of the war is always going to
fought be fought surreptitiously so I'm
going to start doing my belt rod and
belt or belt and suspenders whatever the
[ __ ] is called Road Belton Road thank
you so I'm going around I'm this is a
whole different thing different thing
I'm I'm going around and I'm investing
in all these different countries to make
sure that I have allies that that want
to um you know work with me uh that are
basically invested in um my policies my
influence in the region and look of
course China has its own problems and
I'm as an American I'm counting on that
hobbling them enough that it sort of
everything balances out and that there
isn't some runaway train where
everything's great for China and we're
too weak but that's that's the power
Dynamic so I'm looking at that and I'm
thinking H if China takes a stance on
Israel Palestine I'm going to be very
curious to see what the posture is and
again if I can believe what I saw in X
today their stance is that um Israel is
has gone too far and this is no longer
defense that can be read again I'm not
the person to go listen to Ian Bremer
he's going to be a far far wiser voice
in all this than I am uh or Ray Delio
for that matter but I'm gonna guess that
it's playing out something like this
that's a shot across the bow for America
to say hey
America not the thing to back we think
they need to be to back off if you keep
saying yeah yeah yeah they should be
defending themselves then okay one we
think that you're overextending we're
letting you know how we think about this
we're watching to see how far that goes
how tied up in that you goes what other
areas in the region pop off if obviously
Iran I think made a public statement
where they're like ah like we don't want
to see this go anywhere which would be
awesome but like this this is the
chessboard so China wants to see how
Tangled does America get into that
they're obviously not for Israel going
any harder are they going to get
involved are they not who knows we'll
see but if that's them setting the stage
for them to move something forward with
Taiwan that those are the pieces moving
around the chessboard that makes me go
okay uh what do I do if this really does
escalate into a World War a true global
global conflict what are the different
players looking for and how do I
position myself to um not get mauled by
all of this and to ideally actually be
able to take advantage of the
opportunities now I can't tell you I I
would would not trust myself enough to
be the purveyor of the news of what to
do in that I'm the person I trust to say
this is how you need to think through
the novel problem you need to be
resilient you need to understand that
opportunities are going to open up you
need to have enough dry powder that
you're able to take advantage of that
which means that you have to be fiscally
responsible and so anybody that's
telling you to just spend spend spend
and we can print money forever that is
not a person you want to listen to
that's somebody that's going to get over
extended and out over their skis so I
try to be really honest with myself and
others about the part you can listen to
me on and the part where you need to go
find somebody smarter so getting this
sort of geopolitical landscape don't
know I'm I'm listening to other people
but understanding how to have the mental
and financial fortitude to have an
all-weather strategy yeah that I've I've
got a take on that yeah that makes sense
I mean the incentives to me are very
very simple people don't want to don't
want to reduce their quality of life now
even if it means impoverishing their
grandchildren which to me
is one of the most horrific and
irresponsible things we can do as a
society but that is exactly what we've
been doing and and will continue I don't
see way to stop I don't either because I
don't know if you have this conversation
here in the US but in the UK it's like
what you want to reduce public spending
that's killing
people that that's the moronic level at
which we have the conversation doesn't
go any further than that yeah do you
think that's the problem I think that
that is the current language around the
forever thing which is what you just
said I don't want to reduce the quality
of my life and 15 years is a long time
to punt and maybe it's not 15 maybe it's
50 and so since I don't know the timing
and can't get it right yeah I'll punt so
print money uh take out debt I heard
back in the80s we had trillions of
dollars debt it's not a problem it's all
good and the bad news is and This falls
into the same category of thing as the
malleability thing where it's like you
can really get away with bad thinking
for a long [ __ ] time yeah and so it's
like is it bad thinking or is the world
going to get a clown on me in 10 years
because I was wrong and I mean I can
assure
you I I'm so confident that I'm right
about be
resilient understand human nature find
your way to ground truth be a prediction
engine but we'll see only the fullness
of time will
tell so what do we do with that what how
do you do you have a strategy for
minding
this it's going to sound very naive
after everything you've said but tell
the truth tell the truth change the
culture you know in terms
of look at the way that this format has
changed the way we
communicate the media empires of the
future are going to be built in the next
10 years and it's going to look like
something like this podcasters coming
together under one umbrella or various
media Outlets being formed from New
Media this is the future what we're
doing here did you know that the daily
wire made $200 million last year I
didn't know that but it doesn't surprise
me those guys are kicking ass bro I was
like God damn yeah yeah so trigger media
is going to be the next $200 million
company we'll see about that it's harder
to do in the UK so it might be a 50
million pound company we might move to
the us over time right exactly uh but
that's what I want to do uh and part of
the reason I want to do that the main
reason I want to do that isn't to make
$200 million it's to change the way we
have these conversations the triangle of
evil is uh ma Stalin Hitler and I think
that they I've read a lot about them and
they feel to me reflective of something
that's just real in the human
psyche um and and I have taken away from
reading about them so oddly enough
Hitler was like sort of the the slow boy
in all of this did not kill nearly as
many people as Stalin and Ma like which
growing up I never heard about I had no
idea that those were uh dark figures in
the world which is already startling but
reading about them uh getting back to
this idea of their so in fact we haven't
talked about this we sort of dance
around it the way I see the world is it
is a um a scale so you have right and
left just to keep it easy but there's
pathology on both sides M so if you go
too far in either direction you're going
to have a problem it doesn't matter so
Mao and Stalin are what the left look
like when they become pathological and
Hitler is what the right looks like when
it becomes pathological um even in in
and of itself I that's disputable but we
can get intoit me with it well people
don't like to hear this argument but
there's a reason that Hitler's party was
called the national socialists
interesting what does the right then
look like if it goes pathological well
this is the debate I
mean not only Nazism but also fascism I
mean the term fascism comes from the
word fascia which is a bundle in Rome
that was woven it's it's a collectivist
mindset both the fascist and and the
national socialists on a large number of
things were
uh leftwing in in the way that we
conceive of being leftwing now
economically
particularly um we have an interview on
our Channel with uh one of my favorite
guests ever he's a brilliant guy called
Steven Hicks uh Canadian Professor uh of
he's philosopher and historian of
philosophy and and if you kind of want
to delve into that I'd recommend people
go and check that out because I won't do
it justice here uh however I we can also
conceptualize it rather than going as a
scale as a Circle which is or or like a
a horseshoe or something where the two
extremes end up coming quite close
together because they end up operating
in similar ways um so it's a just a side
point really for for our discussion no
it's actually very interesting so uh
reading about them seeing that there's
this horseshoe shaped where
the
the they're trying to control everything
because and I'll even give them all I'll
give them the benefit of the doubt and I
will say they're not evil they really
believed that they had the right answer
now it's tough to look real close and
not feel like they weren't just [ __ ]
evil but that's too easy it's it's an
easy way to dismiss them let's say for a
second that they really believed in
their heart that they were going to do
good things for a lot of people and but
just real quick I just have to kill a
few of you mhm in order to get everybody
in line because I'm trying to distribute
things fairly or I'm trying to in the
case yeah the case of Nazi Germany like
hey we got a bum rap you know after
World War I like we got to rise out of
this somehow and uh but I'm going to
have to kill a few of you and I am going
to have to make sure that you don't say
anything bad against me and so to
distribute everything evenly uh we're
going to have to kill the koks and and
um but at the end of this everything's
going to be okay so what is it about
human nature that allows people to think
that to usher in the Utopia it's okay to
break a few eggs to make the
omelet I don't know is the honest answer
I think we talked a little bit about
collectivism before and I think that's a
big part of the answer to your question
collectivism is an ideology
that
um justifies the sacrifice of some for
the benefit of the greater good so the
pathology requires the abandonment of
the individual's s sacredness certainly
in the cases that you were talking about
that was absolutely the case these are
not people who believed in the rights of
the individual these are people who
believed that for the greater good some
people must be sacrificed um and who
knows I
mean one of the difficult parts of this
conversation is can you run a country
like
Russia on a western liberal mindset this
is a big debate among geopoliticians
because the people just won't take to it
it's not so much about the people it's
it's a pretty [ __ ] hard country to
survive in it's cold it's remote it's
desperate it's poorly developed uh can
you really uh make that country exist
without authoritarianism it's it's a
legitimate question actually why would
it need authoritarianism I thought you
were going to say you would need
collectivism well it's both so you can't
have one without the other right so you
need a totalitarian leader to have a
collectivist state is potentially a way
of looking at thisis I'm not committing
to that statement but if you look at uh
the history of Russia I mean Russia's
never had democracy ever there's never
been a single proper democratic
transition of power in Russia ever H
Ever um it it's it's not the case uh you
know the there are different ways of
conceiving of it a lot of geopol
geopolitical thinkers talk about uh the
Civil different types of civilizations
and British and American CI
civilizations like um this is actually
something I have a couple of pieces on
my substack about this uh breaking down
the philosophy of a guy called Alexander
Dugan who's called they call him Putin's
brain now how influential he is in the
Kremlin we don't know exactly but I
break down some of the the basic
arguments and the argument is that uh
countries like Britain and America their
civilizations of the sea they trading
nations their commercial Nations they
use the power of their Navy historically
speaking like the British Empire and
today the United States to influence and
and and interact with other countries
whereas and this goes back historically
was a civilization of the SE this a
trading nation and they stood in
opposition to the Roman Empire which is
a civilization of the land to the
Chinese and the Russian Empires today
which are civilizations of the land and
one of the arguments is that
civilizations of the land are
necessarily collectivist and necessarily
authoritarian because the way that they
have to operate in the world is very
very different to the way that trading
nations operate because the values of
liberalism for example are much more
suited to a naval based trading Nation
uh than it is to a collect a landbased
nation like a Russia or China so to some
extent you know am I claiming that if
it's kind of like that argument about
can you bomb democracy into Afghanistan
Well turns out you can't right and
that's because they have their own
culture and their own values that don't
really then that it's not having voting
booths is not enough for democracy right
it requires certain other cultural
assumptions that don't exist in other
parts of the world um so yeah
collectivism seems to be a particular
thing that goes hand inhand with
authoritarianism and it makes sense
because if you have a society in which
um the majority is going to kill a
minority or tell them what to do or
restrict their rights on somehow that
will require Force
inevitably yeah that's the part that
always feels like it's missing from the
dialogue of people that want
to uh you know redistribute wealth or
whatever is at some point when you start
taking things from one person to give to
somebody
else you're going to have to do that by
force like it won't it won't just happen
naturally and so you really stopped me
in my tracks when you said that uh a
collectivist nation requires an
authoritarian leader I had never thought
about that
before
um that's really interesting cuz I had
always thought about it as just
communism requires an authoritarian
leader but I didn't step it back to the
collectivist society that ends up giving
birth to Communism also just by its
nature that's where it's headed uh
that's really interesting I don't know
how I feel about that I don't I don't
actually know if it's true I'm throwing
it out there as as an idea for us to
discuss it rings distressingly true I
just don't like the way it makes me feel
so that okay so the reason that I call
this a triangle of evil is because
reading about it was really eye-
openening so I grew up in Tacoma
Washington not particularly educated on
this kind of stuff then went straight
into business as a way to have enough
resources to tell my stories and so
maybe when a lot of other people were
waking up to what the world is like I
was not um and so I discovered this when
I started reading about history and when
you read about history you start to see
the patterns that people are talking
about and you're like who like this
stuff really does repeat like this
becomes really
predictable which is why I it feels like
talking about culture is important
because whatever happens to the culture
is really going to have profound impacts
on the individual my bias again uh and
how they either can Thrive or not Thrive
and so reading about for instance how
Mao took over China um and and what the
human tragedy is when you really believe
that it's okay to kill as many people as
you need to in order to have the power
to make the world go the way that you
want it to go and I can't help but keep
defaulting back to
um if you know what your goal is and you
know the experiment that you're going to
run and you can look at the outcome of
this it's like hey this is predictable
that if if you try to do communism like
you cuz everyone keeps going well
communism hasn't really been tried or
socialism uh hasn't really been tried
it's like but you can run it even as a
thought experiment so even if I grant
you okay these were all imperfect the
thought experiment should lead you to
realize it can't be done perfectly like
it's not possible because you're asking
every single person to
willingly give things up on an equal
basis and when you interface with the
world in any capacity you very quickly
realize it it's just impossible to get
everybody to think the same and so my
read on this is that Evolution
guaranteed that people don't think the
same that it wants that Dynamic tension
that we were talking about before what
do you like as somebody that grew up in
the USSR what do you say people that are
like oh it's never really been tried and
we just need to get it right you know in
some ways I almost don't think there's
any point in saying anything because I
don't think they're coming from the same
place that you come from when you're
talking about these things you come at
it from the point of view of what is my
goal how am I going to get there uh I
don't think the people who advocate for
you know fairly extreme forms of
Socialism or
communism uh or social democracy as they
call it but often it's really a disguise
for for for their views uh I don't think
they're coming at it from the point of
view of a goal I think they're coming at
it from a point of view of
dissatisfaction with the status
quo uh and people who start
revolutions are operating almost always
on that basis how often are you checking
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code it's not about you
know you know I was driving past a shop
and I saw a better table I'll go and buy
that table it's like this table is so
bad let's throw it out and then we'll
find something right um I think that
tends to be how people think about it
and you know the thing I always say to
people in the west you talk about the
inevitability of it
all
um as you know I talk about this in the
book my
grandmother she's not my biolog iCal
grandmother but she she was my
grandfather's second wife and I always
called her my grandmother she was born
in a gag she was there because her
parents who weren't married or didn't
know each other at the time had been
sent there both losing their other
spouses in the process o and they met
there and she was born in in this camp
and what happened once you were released
from the camps was you were not allowed
to live within a very long distance of
the major cities in the US societ
essentially became like a a third class
Citizen and what happened was most of
the former prisoners of these camps
ended up settling in areas and small
towns
nearby where they lived together with
the local small minority of the local
native population various sort of tribes
that had been living there for for
centuries and the former guards from the
very same
camps that these prisoners had been
in in 1953 when Joseph Stalin died um my
grand my grandmother and her family they
were living in a tiny flat tiny
apartment uh Across The Landing there
was another apartment which was a family
where the man was one of the Gods and
one of the camps Jesus living across
like this and my grandmother tells a
story how that guy's mother if the kids
misbehaved she would say to them you
know when your parents get sent back to
the camp Jesus you're going to get
kicked out and we're going to get your
apartment as
well wow now 1953 Joseph styland
dies
and my grandmother told me that there
was a Spate of
suicides among these former Gods wow
because what they were doing was finally
revealed for what it was these people
truly believed
they truly believed that they they were
beating these people and torturing these
people and killing these people for the
greater good because that's what they
were
told and so what I say to people in the
west always is do not be a useful idiot
do not violate your own moral standards
and your own moral rules for the sake of
the greater good there is no greater
good than your own moral
standards there is no greater good than
that do you know in fact you do because
you've read the book but
most people have no idea how the USSR
got a nuclear bomb it was given to them
by Co s Soviet sympathizers in the west
J and that is why Joseph Stalin a man
who killed millions of his own people
ended up having a nuclear weapon and was
able therefore to threaten and challenge
the west and that's how you end up with
a cold war because people in the west
some of them were so enamored with their
own vision of Utopia that they would
give the most destructive weapon in the
history of the world to one of the most
evil men in the 20th century because
they believed in this collectivist
vision and they were useful idiots do
not be a useful idiot do not violate
your own moral code for anyone for
anything that's what I say to people in
the west how do you come up with a moral
code well you're going all Jordan
Peterson on me cuz when when he had me
on his podcast we had a three-hour
conversation about God I listened to it
yeah yeah and it it was difficult
because the flip and and obvious answer
is it's what I learned from my parents
it's what I learned from the books I
read is from my learn from the society
in which I lived from the movies I
watched and what I the
residual
um the the residual thing that I got out
of that um Jordan Peterson will probably
tell you it's religion you know other
people will tell you something else I
don't have that answer I wish I did do
you think we live in a time where you
have to Cobble one together I've had to
Cobble one together yeah yeah have you
yes right
so that's kind of wor worrying in in
some way I think it's part of why we're
at where we're at that's that's I think
that's what we're talking about
exactly but I also think a moral code
it's not always true because a moral
code will sometimes require to jump in
front of a tank but generally speaking a
moral code is a good long-term strategy
because it is a way of relating to other
people and to reality that is more
effective than others this is one of the
things that I find so funny when people
say to me oh Constantine you're so brave
for speaking out about these I actually
believe that you believe that yeah it's
one of the reasons I wanted to have you
on okay well what I say to those people
are you [ __ ]
mental what are you talking about
what are you talking about how is a
brave my ancestors starve to death and
the
gags what you think me expressing my
opinion in public is brave yeah why
that's Insanity there's nothing Brave
about it it's my duty to say what I
think if I think that something is wrong
isn't it yes so why is that brave uh
just because something is right doesn't
mean that it's not doesn't demand
courage okay how does it demand courage
oo that's interesting interesting this
doesn't feel like you could possibly be
asking me that question I love it we we
are equally thinking the other person is
absolutely out of their minds okay so uh
here's how I look at your life you are
you are whip it smart man and you are
really articulate and you could make a
real living even in the Soviet Union if
you just like turned a part of your
brain off that was like I'm either never
going to talk about these things or I'm
only going to talk about them when I'm
at home and I will use a system to my
advantage I will work my way up which
you'd be very easily be able to do uh
because you can outthink people so I
have a feeling if you had just a little
evil in you you could get people to
think things were their ideas that were
clearly yours uh you would manipulate
the [ __ ] out of them you would rise to a
position of power and so you could do
all of that and now it would require you
to set aside your moral compass or not
have one or adopt one out of convenience
which I I unfortunately think humans are
all too capable of doing so the fact
that you don't do any of that the fact
that you um are in a western country in
a moment where people really get a
certain
religious emotional um righteousness out
of tearing down wrong think and the
wrong people and it makes them feel like
they have done something good and it's a
a sugar version of moral virtue but it's
still like something it gives him a rush
and
so now look you're not dumb so you've
made you've made a good living out of
doing that and I think your Channel's
only going to get bigger and bigger and
bigger but
um be in I'll say I'll say in a single
sentence why to me it's you seem Brave
uh you a contrarian you don't mind the
conflict you actually posted a hilarious
photo of you maybe it was a video I
can't remember on Twitter it was you
with a machine gun and you said uh uh
it's like getting ready to open Twitter
in morning yeah exactly exactly and I
was like that's [ __ ] hilarious and
then yeah I'm not going to do that
because I hate that and my audience and
this may not seem as weird to you
because this the only time we sat down
across from each other my audience is
going to find this episode very weird oh
are they I've never done an episode like
this ever have you not never oh wow so
wa you should have told me I would have
gone easy on them this is great I love
it like I I will I would have lit a
candle you know did a little stroking
you know very kind no no no no need but
it's um so anyway I when I see people
that are just completely unafraid to
roll up to Twitter with the machine gun
in hand I'm like all right you you say
what you believe in you're standing for
something I think it's what should I be
afraid of this is what I don't
understand what what is it that I'm
supposed to be afraid of a bunch of
people I don't know and don't respect on
a social media platform where they don't
even show your their face or name saying
things about me no you should fear
what's happening to Jordan Peterson he
said he's in the middle of 10 lawsuits
as somebody that's been in the middle of
lawsuits let me tell you what a toll
they take on you and maybe I'm too
stupid and not brave maybe that's I
don't think you're stupid but you might
be naive to something that is entirely
possible and as you crack it'll be
interesting to see what happens to when
you crack a million Subs on YouTube it
starts to get different real fast yeah
and what's happening with Jordan where
he's with the whole bill
c16 which I can think of no hotter like
that's the nuclear core and he came to
prominence by latching on to the nuclear
core and he has said in his very Jordan
Peterson way that um I if you arrest me
me I will uh if you give me a fine I
will refuse to pay it if you put me in
jail I will go on a hunger strike and I
actually think he means it I think he's
so [ __ ] stubborn that he actually
will and in the gulag archipelago
there's a great section from Soldier
niton where he says it's really
interesting people come in you get
tortured Everybody Breaks actually
that's not true not everybody breaks and
the people that are so ideologically
like convicted they they will let you
kill them and they're all women and I
was like that is [ __ ] hilarious going
back to what you were saying about men
and women being different and I just
thought that's my wife and that's Jordan
Peterson which he has said I have a more
feminine temperament like he just will
get something in his head and it
apparently no matter the amount of pain
that rains down on that man he just
keeps going and that doesn't look fun to
me his life does not look fun to
me but I believe you know you know
Jordan isn't perfect he's a man clearly
and by the way I think he's amazing but
holy [ __ ] uh does he sometimes say
things and I'm like Jordan are you
trying to make your life suck like
that's a really dumb way to say
that but if we come back to the very
beginning of our conversation which is
about meaning and
fulfillment I couldn't be fulfilled
using my whatever you're very kind about
my intelligence and everything else
using that for things I
I
fundamentally I think are wrong mhm
right so that reads is brave PS no what
that reads as is not having a choice
doesn't read as Brave to you I get that
I hear you well I don't have a choice
bravery is when you're like well I could
do this I could do that I'll do this I
don't really feel like I have a choice I
feel like I I you know it's weird that I
I have a background that's quite unusual
that is perfectly fitted to the cultural
moment of at the moment which is I I was
born in the Soviet Union I speak Russian
and English I understand both cultures I
can Artic myself pretty well I grew up
in Britain so I fit in that culture I
can see it as an outsider and likewise
in
America um you know I can make things
funny if I need to I can be serious if I
need to like it's a it's a skill set and
and a background that not many people
have so what choice do I have would you
be a dissident in Russia yes yeah see
[ __ ] do you know uh her family were
dissidents in Russia so like it's it's
not it's not a new thing that is very
interesting that's actually one of the
things that I wrote a piece on my
substack when my son was born
um and I talked about a lot of this you
know we come from generations of people
who who were killed for their beliefs MH
I'm not going to dishonor
them uh I'll say it again from where I'm
sitting that's Brave I want to think
that I would be as tough I don't know if
I'd be a dissident in Russia that's just
the honest answer and it doesn't make me
feel good about myself but and the story
I will tell myself tonight is going to
be that I would work in the
underground but I wouldn't be I think
her name is Nadia from [ __ ] Riot no
[ __ ] way and I I have met her and had
her to the house and I was just like
what the [ __ ] were you doing like that
was my impulse it was just like uh you
know they kill people for doing that so
yeah I'm I I am terrified that I could
ever become the useful idiot I am
terrified that I will get tested by life
and come out a
coward uh so I do I mean the whole
reason that I have changed the tenor of
my show over the last 3 years is is to
not feel like a
coward uh but I don't know that I'd be a
dissident in Russia I don't know that I
would you know what I think the truth is
that nobody
does you don't know who you are until
you're in that moment I I might turn out
to be a little [ __ ] if I if I if I go
back to Russia which I don't for
precisely the reasons that we've
discussed um I don't think you do know
that I don't think anyone
does um but my point is and and this is
it's not a self-obsessed conversation
I'm just I don't understand why people
keep saying this to me the the things
that I'm saying are reasonable
things uh I do my best to articulate
them in a way that people can hear
sometimes I fail of course and sometimes
just like Jordan Peterson I'm human
right so I say things that piss people
off
and uh I'm surrounded by people who give
me advice on how to say them better for
which I'm grateful uh and one of the
things that really I find very positive
particularly after the oord speech that
I did I get very famous people from the
left reaching out to me now and going
can we talk how about this can we
discuss this giving me advice too and
going look if you want to you know we
can see that in your speech you were
trying to reach the other side well if
you do here's a way that you might want
to phrase this right I see that as
reassurance I see that as as a sign of
that I'm doing the right
thing but I don't really understand what
what this is that I'm supposed to fear
you know okay I don't know why Jordan is
in 10 lawsuits but do do do I think that
I need to be probably not you know um I
haven't made a massive living out of
trigonometry it's just something that
pays the bills at the moment it will get
to a point where you know it's it's
massive I look forward to that moment I
see already in the last few months what
happens as you grow M the words you say
matter more people take them more
literally more seriously and you have to
but that's a it's an exciting challenge
isn't it and you know I remember it's a
moment that stuck with me when I was a
kid um I went to a boarding school uh
and so we rarely encountered the parents
of the other kids one time I was
watching a rugby game uh that my friend
was playing in and his dad was on the
sideline and we were talking about a pre
a game uh an international rugby game
that had happened a few days ago and
somebody said to him well you know there
was this player he took the fin kick
imagine that pressure wow that's got to
be hard and this Dad of my friend he
said that's not that's not how you think
about it the way you think about it is
imagine how many people would love to be
in the position to have that sort of
impact and that always stayed with me
you know what a privilege it is you know
I've just spent her of a long you know
before we sat down and people think I'm
sucking up to you but we sat down we
were talking about uh various stuff and
one of them was uh my business
trigonometry you know and I could see
within seconds that you've got like one
of the most incredible mindsets about
that stuff that I've ever encountered
and I get to sit here and speak with you
for
hours where's The Bravery come on
man tens of thousands of your countrymen
many of whom are still alive stormed the
beaches of Normandy come on come on more
people need to say what they think and
it's not that scary it's not that hard
and by the way if more people did it it
would be a lot less scary for everybody
M and that's why you know I I came here
from Bill Mah's show Bill Mah is doing
exactly what he should be he's using his
voice to say enough enough of this
craziness and guess what nothing happens
especially if you're a multi-millionaire
Hollywood celebrity nothing happens and
guess what his audience is now filled
with people who were clapping points
that I was making right that's what
happens when people speak up so let's
the reason I resist so much this label
of Brave is not some personal thing I
just think it I'm not saying it's true
in your case I'm not saying it's true in
other people's cases but a lot of people
want to push that bravery onto me so
they don't have to do anything so they
can say well I'm not as Brave I'm going
to sit here and say nothing well it
doesn't take any courage really it just
takes principles the problematic ideas
that I think caused the collapse of any
civilization any Empire uh Rome included
I literally watch a bunch of
documentaries on the collapse of Rome
specifically for this and this is
exactly what you see so you've got um
people start to believe that Prosperity
is a fundamental law of nature that's
just going to happen and they take it
for granted uh they begin to believe
that the group owes the individual
versus the individual owing the group
and so the group begins to um basically
take away from the individual so they
can distribute to the group a little
counterintuitive but that's the um
inversion that happens uh begin to
believe that redistribution is the
miracle instead of prosperity being this
hard-fought thing that you cannot take
for granted uh they start to believe
that everything is a social construct
that there's no ground truth that we can
push back against nature it doesn't have
any fundamental laws uh diversity of
values of the same team is inherently
good we actually didn't talk about that
um but to encapsulate it quickly so that
we can get onto the the good stuff um
again to quote Thomas Soul nothing has
ever taken as fact without uh so little
little evidence as diversity being our
greatest um advantage and he went on to
say that diversity is not by default an
advantage diversity is a thing that we
have to overcome I'll say that I think
to keep that comment from becoming
pathologized it's really diversity of
values that are the problem ironically
you want a diversity of approach you
want different mindsets so you want uh
Visionaries and executors which will
always have friction between them you
want um men and women in a marriage is a
great example you need the friction
between them to raise a child well uh
but diversity of values I think is
problematic so at impact Theory we have
a set of values that I publish and I say
hey here here is the culture at impact
theory if you don't like this um this is
not the place for you and we will not
hire somebody that does not share those
values so but whether they're male
female gay straight man woman I black
white CH could not care less uh I care
not at all for whether we end like if if
this company ends up being all black
women I'm here for it as long as we
share values and we have all the
different idea sets and they'll
challenge each other and challenge power
and all that stuff word um so we happen
to have a diverse group visually but we
didn't hire for that we hired entirely
for do we share values and will will you
buy into competing uh um based on
meritocracy and
ideas uh don't tear it all down sorry
they start to believe to tear it all
down is better than incremental
Improvement masculinity in aggression is
toxic becomes all about uh spending
money racking up debt printing money
okay now the new set of rules
um I'll run through them quickly and
then you tell me which one you want to
dive into so I think people need to seek
self-correcting structures I'll call
that the Amer experiment so it's ideas
that Force itself to spiral upward um
you have to want Dynamic tension between
opposing forces so left right is the the
easiest one you have to want there to be
a left and a right you have to want that
Dynamic tension I have evolutionary
reasons why I think that's true um I
believe that everybody should have the
north star of human flourishing um you
have to steer by results so if our
Northstar is human flourishing that
we're we try something but if it didn't
work we have to admit that it didn't
work and try something else need to
reward Merit even though it will yield
inequality because some people are just
smarter and better than others I [ __ ]
wish that wasn't true because there are
so many people that are smarter than me
uh freedom of speech absolute
Cornerstone you have to seek
disconfirming evidence which is part of
why you need freedom of speech uh you
need to reinstitute rule of law I
actually heard a really interesting
story from your partner Francis Foster
uh who said one of the things that was a
Hallmark of Venezuela was they started
to not impose um punishments because
that was right where rightwing
authoritarianism and so he he was like
it became the Myrtle capital of the
world and a whole bunch of other
horrific things uh so you do need to
reinstitute rule of law so going back to
this idea of we've pulled all these
threads of the sweater and it's now
falling apart you need structure and in
the constraints is the creativity um so
I think that's important and then
overhauling education so that everyone
is trained in useful ideas so that they
can maximize whatever ever skills and
talents they do have so even though it
will be unequal there's no reason that
the the idea starting line because our
talents unfortunately will always be
unequal uh but that the idea starting
line can't be equalized especially with
the [ __ ] internet go to YouTube the
smartest people in the world and I will
not count myself among them but the
smartest people in the world are giving
their best ideas away as fast as I can
[ __ ] talk on any subject you can
possibly imagine all for free all you
have to do is be able to access the
internet uh and PS if your country is
clamping down in the internet that's a
red [ __ ]
Flag agree with all of that you want to
add no that I I think that you nailed it
exactly all right let's go into them
which which do you think are most
important I think they're all super
important it's like saying which of your
legs is more important I think you have
to rank order my right leg is more
important than my
left is it yes why do people so you are
[ __ ] smart why is
your initial reaction to not want to
rank order things I find in fact now I'm
going to talk to you you're a budding
entrepreneur yeah my friend you will
have to get fiercely good at rank
ordering everything agreed who's who's
better you or or Francis uh at what of
course it will be different at different
things but you're going to need to know
on everything that matters which one of
us is better who are your best employees
again along different dimensions what
tasks should you do first you you can't
do two things at once I'm pretty good at
that at this point I have impr you're
going to rank order these [ __ ] things
at least I'll give you two answers one
will sound glib is I can't remember all
of them okay fair number one would you
like to look at them uh could do uh
number two I do think sometimes it's
like it's the new rules section yes um
the but it's also like what is more
important to bake a cake flower or a
bowl well you kind of need flower bowl
bad example uh
I'm gonna be a dick and just keep doing
that of course I understand your point
your point is taken but I I yes I do
though think that people create a
certain amount of paralysis all right
all right fine to stop you being a dick
there you go well I I [ __ ] can't okay
steer by results yeah right I mean
that's obviously super important but can
you steer by results if there's no rule
of law if there's [ __ ] people running
around stealing [ __ ] all around you I
mean you can try but without the rule of
law so I'll I'll give you the steer by
results to me is the ground truth which
you said is the thing that you're trying
to do I think you've already got it with
the truth is ultimately the only thing
that's going to take you where you want
to go yeah so I think there's stuff in
here that follows from that if you steer
by results you will necessarily reward
Merit even though it creates inequality
right that that so you can cut that one
out actually you just need to steer by
results then that is a a natural process
okay it's interesting there's something
happening between the two of us there's
our World Views are colliding right now
I don't know if it matters and so I'll
touch on it briefly and see if it seems
like it's going to go somewhere
interesting um I I run into this I think
that the the very thing that makes me a
good
entrepreneur is that I am willing to
speak in binaries and rank order
everything okay and I think people get
lost in the that everything is
interconnected cuz that is true and it
will also [ __ ] you up why because you'll
get lost in the complexity and you won't
boil things down to what do I do with
the next 15 minutes of my life and
ultimately this is the reason that the
vast vast vast vast majority of
companies never make it to a million
dollars is the person um doesn't
understand the physics of progress and
what the physics of progress forces you
to do is accept that you have imperfect
knowledge but you must act as if you
have perfect knowledge
and then as you act with your imperfect
knowledge you so I'll explain it this
way you have two jobs job number one is
to intoxicate your team with certainty
because otherwise you can't Galvanize a
bunch of people which you said the alpha
male is the one that can create Unity
amongst the group okay the only way to
do that is to give them certainty great
uh if you oh my God your Oxford speech
you said let me tell you what xiin Ping
is is doing the only way he's going to
stay in power is if he gives people the
one thing they want which is prosperity
so it's like okay cool we know that
there are going to be certain ideas that
were they're actually going to move the
needle they're going to move people
forward and they're going to be ideas
that are not so we're going to be in
this Loop of I'm going to intoxicate
people's certainty I'm going to tell you
I'm going to give you Prosperity I'm
going to promise it and cool but if
shean ping is actually going to be
successful he has to go is this zero Co
policy working people are starting to
Riot a lot and like this I'm going to
adjust so he has to have some mechanism
by which he's checking himself so I've
told everybody know hey everybody
without question as if it were divine
statement zero covid and then it's like
oh [ __ ] it's not leading to Prosperity
I'm going to check that I'm seeking
disconfirming evidence okay [ __ ] this
isn't working I'm going to adjust and
hey everybody as if I never said this
other thing zero Co is stupid and now
we're going to unlock and we're going to
open so you have to intoxicate people
with certainty and you have to
constantly check yourself to see if
that's actually true
and update your thinking and so it is
very difficult to do but people that
can't do it and most people can't
because they're so lost in oh but it's
all interconnected and all of these
things are important yes [ __ ] I
understand that but you have to do a
thing and PS you have to tell people
what thing they should be doing and so
if you don't tell people we're doing
this and my best guess of how to get
there is this so go do that m and then
by the way your employees are going to
push back on you they're going to
[ __ ] test you and they're going to
see are you the right alpha or should I
be running this company because there is
one immutable truth if you're anything
like me and unfortunately I'm I'm not
Steve Jobs enough to just be like look
[ __ ] this is [ __ ] awesome what you
just said his dog [ __ ] go do what I said
which apparently is literally how he
talked uh I can't do that so I'm not
smart enough to have all the right
answers so I have to I have to let
people challenge me but if I'm not the
right person to lead now we're in
trouble so I have to let them challenge
me but I have to squash
Rebellion so anyway this is what happens
to people they get so lost oh maybe you
really are right that they are not like
no we're not [ __ ] doing that thank
you I heard your arguments I steal man
their arguments so I know they
understood and when they're right I just
go you're right boom we're instituting
that immediately mhm but if it's I think
the wrong thing and now they're high in
their own Supply cuz maybe they're
Master ideas I implemented right away
they're like no no no Tom you don't
understand I've got to be able to squash
that Rebellion mhm anyway I've got no
problem doing any of that word but this
comes down to being able to say this
[ __ ] thing is the thing we need to do
the the the the slogan is that I say to
all our team is the only reason we're
all here is we care about the outcome
Yep this isn't about you it's not about
me it's not about France it's not about
anybody it's about the outcome if what
you're doing is furthering that outcome
right if what you're doing is not fur
than outcome we don't want to hear yeah
simple as that um Ste by results is
basically that right so to me that's
number
one seeking disconfirming evidence seems
to me to be part of that too right
because that is what you have to do how
do you do that in your life seek disc
confirming
evidence you know probably not well
enough because I wait for life to slap
me in the face and then I'm like oh [ __ ]
okay that wasn't good it's interesting
you have a Persona that makes me nervous
I could never adopt your persona which I
get is a reflection of who you really
are but on Twitter like you go hard on
people and I'm always like I'm too
afraid I'm going to change my mind like
two weeks from now when I get better
evidence that I'm way more
gentle um it depends what you're talking
about though I don't think you're going
to change your mind about the fact that
meritocracy Superior to diversity
artificially created I have a high
degree of confidence on that me too and
that's why I go hard at people who Tred
to substitute one for the other so you
only go hard on the things that you're
already like super high confidence and
then if I don't know about something I
don't say anything about
it yeah
however I somebody was uh trying to make
me look bad this morning on Twitter by
bringing up something I said at the very
beginning of covid and presenting it out
of the historical context right I said
some things at the beginning of Co that
I don't agree didn't agree with by the
end of Co but what people forget is it
was a completely different situation at
the beginning to the one at the end
right you know the first lockdown I
supported I still would I if it if it
were to happen again without prior
knowledge of what happened this time i'
be like yeah let's let's see what
happens here let's be careful we don't
know what this is um but generally I
only try I I try very very hard and
increasingly harder and harder as my
audience gets bigger to only talk about
the things on which I have a high level
of confidence how do you update your
thinking then let's say that you are
supremely confident about something how
do you maintain the stability so we've
been talking a lot about structures
necessary so you need a scaffolding of
your thinking these things are the the
things that I hold to be true um how do
you open your mind to something
challenging a structural belief uh so
that you don't become dogmatic but at
the same time have a stable belief
system that you're willing to defend I
don't think I've thought about it
structurally and analyzed how I do that
um
I listen to the people around me a lot I
don't always agree with them and I like
I what I really really like is having
smart people around me who I disagree
with like one of my really good friends
that I've become very good friends with
li lives here in La when I go around to
her house all we do is argue but we both
really enjoy it in like a fun way yeah
yeah yeah and and we have a great time
and you know we love each other and
whatever but but we disagree on a lot
because we have different perspective
and we enrich each other and we both say
I need you you know so I like being
surrounded by people who don't agree
with me uh it's why Francis and I work
so well because we're completely
different people with different
perspectives different political views
different backgrounds Etc uh and the
rest of our team are very different
people as well let me challenge in my
own idea do you guys hold the similar
value sets of course they won't map one
to one but do you hold similar value
sets or even the values you guys are
wild no we have very similar value sets
yeah yeah yeah I think that will play
out over time hard
work
[Music]
um Defiance Defiance yeah interesting
yeah we needed that to start we we're
phasing that out over
time but we needed we why why phase it
out uh why phas it out cuz it's a it's a
it's an oppositional posture that we
don't need you're saying to the brand or
to your
personality uh look to maybe we're
misusing words here what I mean is when
we started we were like [ __ ] you yeah
and now we're like we don't need to be
[ __ ] you because we're we've grown so
much that we're not we're the mainstream
now it reads different yeah when you're
a big guy saying [ __ ] you yeah it reads
completely different and we don't need
it it's like we used to be like well the
mainstream media and now we have a
bigger audience than a lot of the
mainstream media do so it's kind of like
why would we be talking about them let's
just do our own [ __ ] let's make great
content you know
um so that would be one uh Integrity
Integrity has always been number one for
us you know how do you treat people in
your life how do you treat you
know how do you treat your staff how do
you treat women all of this stuff these
are all like big red flags for me when I
see somebody who's who's different in
that way I'm like I'm staying well away
from this person you know um so
Integrity initially was Defiance uh
resilience every time something goes
wrong we're like okay how do we get
around this okay cool cool Co no no no I
get it it's bad how do we get around
this you know um I'm trying to think
what else and we like to
have a lot of freedom of opinion people
are allowed to express dissent or
disagreement or whatever as long as they
know that having heard that we're making
the decision you know which is what you
talked about earlier um haven't had
desent
haven't had the Rebellion anyway um but
we'll deal with that when it comes I
look forward to
that yeah it's uh running a company is
is the ultimate test it is you're up
against the market you're the best thing
about running a company is the people in
the company yeah the worst thing about
running a company is the people in the
company and it's so funny how they'll
all have life drama just like staggered
so just when you think like okay
everybody's back on task now then the
next person and it it I mean when you
have a a group of people that are
together for a long time I mean you go
through birth you go through death you
go through cancer scares and it's
[ __ ] it's like a whole thing man it's
a whole thing and holding that together
as you scale is really really hard and
that's why I think that I'm so
fishlyn place and if you don't have a
culture that propagates the ideas
they they won't all be able to have a
relationship with you like you will
scale to the point where most of your
employees only know you as the guy on
camera that's a trip and so how do you
navigate that how do you get the ideas
to spread the aners culture and so
that's why whether it's in a company
whether it's in a family whether it's
myself how I think about me it's like
you have to have a set of things that
you're like these are the rules mhm that
I'm going to operate by that my family
is going to operate by that my company's
going to operate by that I want to see
the world operate by and yeah rules and
rules that thumb man those are the and
when I say rules of thumb I mean the
beliefs that you're like okay when this
happens you should usually do this that
kind of thing yeah you can't have no
rules as we've been talking about for
the last two hours yeah you really be in
trouble yeah do you want to keep going
through this uh if you've got more to
add to that yeah I'm all for it because
I want to make sure that people walk
away knowing okay this is this is how I
need to position myself in order to do
well in this crazy
time I think I mean look every time I
look at it steer by results just goes in
my head that's what I see I think walk
me through how you do that so what
metric do you use when you're trying to
steer by
results that's an interesting question
um because in our industry you would
think it's clicks but it's not just
clicks because if you just care about
clicks you get to a very dark place very
quickly especially if you're Mission
driven right that takes away from the
mission so part of it is Mission part of
it is financial goals Revenue growth uh
profitability growth uh part of it is
the vibe at the place I mean that's so
important the vibe in the business how
people feel about working there this is
to me really really important and then
there's also you know we're on the cusp
of of going like properly mainstream now
so audioboom which is a company that
used to post our podcast and sell ads
for us they've just uh announced a big
drop in sales it was announced on Sky
News and they were like this platform
hosts blah blah blah blah blah blah and
trigonometry we interviewed a guy called
Lawrence Fox recently who's a very
controversial figure in the UK every big
media Outlet in the UK wanted him and he
only wanted to do it with us wow and the
BBC and The Independent Newspaper live
reported from a trigonometry
interview so that's
impact uh we have people calling us up
and go oh hey I'm at the I'm at the
Conservative Party Conference uh a bunch
of people here listen to your stuff hey
I'm at the labor Party Conference the
leftwing party in the UK we there's a
bunch of people who listen to your stuff
right uh we're changing we're changing
the culture we people are hearing what
we're talking about and then they're
going out into the world with those
conversations in their minds um so yeah
there there's a few different metrics
there it's interesting Lisa and I say
that laughter is a metric to get to that
idea of what's the vibe how are people
feeling I think that's really important
this is to all my entrepreneurs
listening right now this is where a lot
of people make a mistake they don't know
what metric to look at
and you have to get very good at
identifying the metric that matters and
so yes at a high level everybody should
know to pay attention to revenue and
profitability um but there are going to
be more metrics in that as you get more
granular on the thing like each thing is
going to have its own metric that really
matters if you can't identify the metric
that is Meaningful to adjust or you're
not paying attention to metrics at all
you're not going to be able to improve
so I forget who said it but what gets
measured gets improved so
one be careful what you measure two make
sure that you're measuring things so
that you can
fishlyn who I'm almost certain I
mentioned in our last interview uh he's
created these charter schools that are
unbelievably successful so it becomes a
question of well by what metric Tom are
they unbelievably successful and so the
ultimate metric to me obviously is um
the life satisfaction of the students
over a long period of time uh but in the
interim we're going to have to measure
something that is far more immediate so
graduation rates uh reading rates
mathematical literacy things like that
and he just crushes everybody on every
metric you could think to measure and he
puts people it he does he puts these
charter schools in other schools so
literally same building in terrible
neighborhoods he doesn't hand select
students it's all random so like if you
had twins maybe one of them goes to the
charter school and the other goes to the
normal school in the same building um
and so that's somebody who's just
steering by results like how many of my
students are graduating how many can
read how many can do math um and I'm
sure they have more with like rules and
I those I'm guessing at but um knowing
how you would have to get there in fact
I I know that they do this they use a
ton of like rules uh that you have to
like do the work you can't um like waste
somebody else's time like it's all hyper
regimented hyper structured there's a
clear set of rules people abide by the
rules or they get the [ __ ] out
like that's the path absolutely I'm
curious to ask you something let me hand
this back to you you you said something
about how my personality is scary is
that were those the words personality is
scary no I did not say that are you
talking about your persona persona yeah
yeah yeah yeah in that you um you
engage with the negative comments on
Twitter you will retweet somebody be
like this is [ __ ] asine I can't
believe he said that you know you're
very
um aidite in the way that you speak but
that's the like message you're like this
is [ __ ] stupid yeah
uh that is yeah I would never it's also
a comedian thing I used to be a comedian
so when you get heckled your job is to
deal with it right so like somebody I I
tweeted something the other day and
somebody replied saying have you looked
in the mirror and I went why is my hair
off you know it's just like little jokes
you know to kind of like make fun of
somebody or make fun of something that
they've said and to diffuse whatever it
is that they've said right cuz that's
that's power it's like I haven't taken
you seriously and I've made fun of this
thing that you said without any great
you know one of the impacts that my
friend with whom I argue a lot has had
on me is we have both become much more
chill about the way we communicate
online um why because you don't need to
convince them
anymore uh BEC for me I I feel a sense
of responsibility to to be communicating
in ways that are more effective and
sometimes going too hard is an
Indulgence of your own emotion agreed so
I I try not to indulge that too much uh
and also one of the things I've really
noticed and we talked about it um at a
party that you and I were at is what you
put out into the world is what comes
back to you so when I used to go hard in
the paint on Twitter or whatever like
yeah I used to get filed a lot you know
what I mean uh now good way to say it
now I'm much more chill and it's rare
for people to to be that way with me and
also doesn't land the same because I'm
like I'm putting good energy out there
so if you're being a dick that's not
because of me that's because you're a
dick you know um yeah but it was
interesting that you mentioned that look
you are much uh I I think you're much
less aggressive than I am in many ways
yes it's interesting um in some
ways here's where I'm hyper
aggressive if somebody is [ __ ] with
my business yeah I'm very aggressive
because now you're [ __ ] with the team
you're with my mission so and the way
that people [ __ ] with my company would
be
um not just competitors obviously that
but more so like uh you're doing a
service for me and you're moving slowly
things like that on that I am not mean I
don't want people to that's why I'm
saying aggression does not mean that
you're being mean aggression is like if
you can do it this morning don't wait
until the afternoon whereas most people
be like let's do it tomorrow I'll get
that all just had it today hey let's
have another call on Thursday why the
[ __ ] would we do that right now do it
right now share your screen pull the
thing up and so admittedly I'm sure
people played recordings of that I sound
exactly like I just sounded just now uh
that to me is so crazy that I am very
impatient with things like that um I
love it I'm very aggressive with things
that I know are going to make somebody's
life better so the example that I think
would really people would be scandalized
to see what I was like in the earliest
days of quest because Lisa and I made a
decision that we were going to consider
felons for um a role at the
company and that meant that we ended up
having felons that were at the company
now it wasn't just like oh you're a
felon therefore we're going to hire you
it wasn't like that but it was like hey
put the word out whether you have felony
conviction or not we'll consider you for
employment and so we ended up having
Bloods and Crips working on the same
line and we had uh one guy I'm sure
there was more than one uh but we had
one guy that was he originally took the
job because he needed a front for his
drug money so he needed to be able to
show his parole officer see I have a job
uh but in reality he planned to make all
of his money off of selling drugs and he
told me that because he ended up I was
his is a very funny story so in the
interview process uh because we were
considering people with felony
convictions we have people lined up
around the building for interviews and
so I used to interview people multiple
people at a time you know how you can
just look at somebody and tell that
they're
sharp I'm looking at this guy and I can
tell this [ __ ] guy's smart he's not
saying a word but he's mad dogging me
the whole interview and so I point at
him like
literally you you have anger management
problems and he just went went ghost
white and he didn't say a word and I
said uh I want to take you for a walk
he's like okay so I took him for a walk
and I'm like look dude looking at you I
can tell you're sharp and so we started
talking about life and he was like um at
the end of all of it because I was like
look I'm going to give you a shot like I
can tell there's something here but you
can't bring that anger onto my floor if
you [ __ ] fight even one time you are
gone
and he was he goes how did you know said
how did I know what he saidh how did you
know I have anger management problems I
came here from a courta apppp appointed
anger management session and he was like
the fact that you could tell he was like
I I just I need to know how you knew and
I was like dude you're [ __ ] like
literally looking at me like you want to
kill me you're in the job staring in me
like crazy exactly and so I was like uh
that didn't really take a genius but
honestly it was more the willingness to
be aggressive the willingness to point
at somebody who you know is potentially
dangerous because I mean this was like
people with teardrop tattoos and which I
asked means they put in work for the
neighborhood which they will not come
out and tell you what put in work means
uh but I'm sure you can figure it out
yeah when I know I'm helping people I am
shockingly aggressive and this is the
thing that my team here has been trying
to get on camera for a while which is
the side of me I only know how to bring
out on stage where on stage I'm like I
have 60 minutes with these [ __ ]
to change their life forever and
somebody's paying me a lot of money to
be here so I have this real sense of
urgency and so often times when I start
a talk I'm like hey we've only got 60
minutes and I'm going to change your
[ __ ] life but you need to take notes
and you need to actually do this [ __ ]
and so it puts me in this very
aggressive stance which I love but it's
because I know I'm going to help them so
on Twitter I don't know I don't have the
same sense of like you're here because
you really want help I know what ideas
are going to help you
and yeah so anyway there there is a lane
in which I'm probably 10x as aggressive
as you but 90% of my life know that
makes
sense why be
aggressive why are you
[Music]
aggressive I don't know that I am that
aggressive anymore as I say I've kind of
softened the way I do it do you still
feel do you still think I am yeah
yeah defiant maybe not I never would
have categorized you as defiant so the
thing that you're feeling you may have
changed is probably
that but um for
instance you you will bring people on
the show that you know are going to um
they have a a belief that's not going to
make them look good yeah I have a real
hard time dragging people into those
Waters CU I'm like H I don't want to see
this person do that to themselves which
is bad by the way and I'm trying to
change this is a weakness in my
personality uh you have no problem with
that my job is to facilitate political
discussion because what we're talking
about is how to run our society correct
and my job is to bring people on and do
one thing and one thing only which is to
show the world what that person truly
thinks that is my only job and I am
meticulous and rigorous in pursuing that
goal Y and that means when you come on
my show my job is to keep asking you
questions until what you're saying is
revealed truly in its boil down form to
the world I don't actually ever bring
people on to make them look bad I didn't
say that I know you didn't say that but
some people think that because for
example last year we were here we had
Sam Harris on the
show and we asked him about Donald Trump
and he said some things that send the
world
crazy um and that I didn't agree with
but I and people would come up to me in
Francis after that for still they doing
like oh you got Sam Harris didn't you
and I'm like no I didn't get Sam Harris
I didn't want to get Sam Harris I like
Sam I respect Sam even though I really
strongly disagree with what he said my
job as the interviewer is to show the
world what this person thinks about this
issue about which they want to speak I
don't ever take people to a place they
don't want to go I don't ever ask people
questions about things they've asked me
not to talk about right but my job is to
find out exactly what you think and to
show the world that so our mission is
somewhat different your mission is help
people uh share good ideas about how
they should be Etc right that's not my
mission my mission is to show people
what somebody thinks um and I regret
the the sometimes the impact of that is
that our guests look bad and the first
thing I did when s that thing happened
with Sam the number one thing Francis
and I did is reach out to Sam and say
look we're really sorry that this is how
this has gone down it wasn't our
intention we were not the ones who put a
clip out that makes you look extra bad
none of that has to do with us we're
grateful you came on the show we
appreciate your time you're an absolute
gentleman however when you interview
people in in you know it's called
trigonometry for a reason when you
interview people about contentious
subjects uh you know the world is going
to take a view on what on what they say
and that is the nature of cultural and
political debate yeah facts number one
the other thing about aggression is I
you know you mentioned me being good at
debating I mean debating is about
getting to the very root cause of what
you're saying right in order to defeat
an idea that you're advancing I have to
crystallize it down and go that's what
this person is saying here's what quite
right and flip it that sometimes
requires a kind of a tenacity and an
aggression to it um and plus it's more
entertaining that way yeah there's no
doubt about that yeah I mean like if
you're watching two boxers fight you
don't want them to
go you want to see them going for it
speaking of two boxers fighting you had
Sam and Eric Weinstein on the show um
this will Air after your episode okay so
uh how did that go those two I respect
ferocious
I've gotten reasona close to Eric um I
don't know Sam as well but had Sam on
the
recently uh and just every time I'm with
him even though again there are things
that he and I don't agree on um but I
really respect Sam and I I worry that
the world has some portion of the world
a very terrifyingly large portion of the
world has sort of balded him up and
thrown him away as somebody who can help
them think through very hard problems I
would say he's still one of the first
people I reach for that doesn't mean
that I agree with everything that he
says but it does mean that I I want to
hear what he's got to say um how did
that conversation go it was awesome uh
we talked about Israel and Palestine for
about two hours uh and then we did a did
they have uh different yes views on it
they did yeah and one of the things that
we were keen on is that while look from
a Content creation perspective
disagreement is always helpful yeah that
isn't we didn't set it up as aate
navigate it well yeah we didn't set it
up as a debate we didn't Market it as a
debate that's not how it's
presented and there was disagreement and
there were points at which I had to go
okay stop we're doing it like this now
um but it was very very interesting
conversation very productive I feel like
we impact a lot and then we as you know
we do a section for our local supporters
which goes behind a pay wall and in that
section we talked a little bit about the
last interview Sam's falling out with
Brett who is Eric's brother there was a
whole you know the IDW the intellectual
dark web and all of the stuff that comes
out of that so there was a whole
interesting conversation about you know
whether Israel would have happened if
Trump had been in power who you know I
want to hear that part oh of course you
do everybody does that's why you have to
subscribe to our locals um so a lot of
cool stuff happened a lot of it it was a
great conversation two Brilliant Minds
what made you want to bring them
together why didn't you ball up Sam like
so many other people and say ah Trump
derangement syndrome not worth listening
to his brain is broken the number of
people that have said that Trump broke
Sam's brain I'm I think I'm able to
compartmentalize
things uh about people I
mean I I have a family dad mom three
younger sisters who I love
all of them they all have different
opinions about stuff they all don't
agree with each other they don't agree
with me on lots of stuff but that
doesn't mean
that for example I have been outspoken
on my view of what's happening in
Ukraine in in in my vehement support for
Ukraine's right to defend itself Etc my
dad takes the completely opposite
View and to me it's an emotive issue and
to him it's an emotive issue but my dad
is one of the smartest most aidite human
beings that I've ever been around so am
I going to throw that out because Russia
broke his brain well that would be
insane right we have to I mean part of
what we're doing here and this medium
being the message is you and I you know
earlier earlier today I when I love you
I respect you I learn from you blah blah
I have no [ __ ] idea what we talk
about that is the model on which we have
to operate and I respect Sam I thinks he
was very courageous raising some really
controver veral issues back in the day
he's one of the first
people that uh brought people's
attention to woke ideology being a big
problem as a left-wing liberal guy uh he
has a lot of credit in the bank with me
a lot of credit in the bank now you know
there are some people who have gone
completely off the rails and you're
going well there's not much that we can
connect around I don't feel that was him
at all now do I agree with what he said
about Trump no do I agree with some of
the co stuff that he said at point no I
think his by the way his take on it that
he put out on his podcast recently was
gave some Nuance to the thing which is
kind of like I had certain opinions in
different stages that evolved over time
but I got nailed for having those
opinions at a different time essentially
right um but I don't throw people away
unless like they've really really really
gone completely off the deep end in a
direction I don't like and I also
thought I hate people I hate to see
people ganging up on people I hate to
see people bullying people I hate people
who um who like to pile on people in a
really abusive and horrible way and I
didn't I thought what Sam said was wrong
but I thought he was badly treated um
and interestingly one of the final
things he says in that second section of
the interview on locals is the reason
I'm back here with you guys is you
behaved in a highly ethical way around
that situation and for us that the
reason we did that it was not strategic
it was because we believe in behaving in
an ethical way and having Integrity so
um yeah I mean it never occurred to us
that we wouldn't speak to Sam or you
know Sam is cancelled now we don't
really think like that yeah no I love
that I think that that's really
important and I I have been saying for a
long time now um that I don't understand
why people are looking for reasons to
ignore other people to not listen to
them to not hear them out I'm looking
for reasons to learn from
somebody I'm going to guess that that
has to do with I'm very confident in my
ability to parse through difficult ideas
it takes me time and I wish I was faster
and that's why I would defer to you in a
debate not myself like if you leave me
alone with the ideas long enough I feel
that I'll get somewhere fruitful um but
it it's going to take me time and uh so
I'm very confident in my ability to say
you can have a really smart person tell
me something really [ __ ] stupid and
I'm going to run it through my filter of
is this usable will is this more or less
likely to to accurately predict the
outcome of my behaviors if less likely I
will reject if more likely I will at
least try it out and see what happens um
so I have a feeling that people get lost
in the sophisticated ideas the they just
there's so much coming at them so much
velocity of information that they just
need a reason to reject people to shut
them down uh and then Feeling Righteous
I'm right he's wrong that makes me feel
smart because I used to think he was so
much smarter than me and now I know he's
dumb I saw saw so many comments like
that I used to think Sam was smart now I
know that he's dumb and it's like I
worry that that's them patting
themselves on the back oh I'm not as
dumb as I thought I was I'm smarter than
Sam Harris um super dangerous also I'll
be interested so I'm going to give you
my take on what's really going on with
Sam that's dangerous you just talk to
him so you may have a way better idea
but I put a a tweet thread out and this
is one of the Tweet threads that made me
realize getting into like quote unquote
political think I'm just never gonna do
it's so
boring to me like I tried to really give
people what I thought was a super
thoughtful useful breakdown that if you
understand his way of thinking that you
still don't have to agree with it but
understand how he's come to it because
then one you can think do these things
better in the future and anyway people
were just like no Trump broke his brain
it's like Jesus Christ like at least
address the argument so this is my
interpretation of Sam
MH
Sam Sam has a trip wire in his mind that
says if this is an existential threat
then there is nothing that I won't do to
stop the existential threat from coming
through as long as it's not another
existential threat
and so it's like if you believe that
that Trump could end Humanity then
everything he says makes sense but
everybody wants to say
that that that wasn't the context of his
comment that they were saying that he
was saying it as if that's what he
thought we should have done so
everyone's like yeah if the thing was a
100 times more lethal then yeah it would
make sense yes mother that's his [ __ ]
point is
that if this thing is an existential
threat then we should act in this way he
believes Trump is an existential threat
and so my point is yo what do we do when
we can't agree on when we're actually
under that level of threat or not that
is a terrifying question that is where
people need to figure out yeah how do we
what's the metric by which you judge
success what's the metric by which we
judge something where we can't see into
the future um that this actually is an
existential threat how do we navigate
that because this is going to happen
again for
sure so that's where I was like yeah I I
think the problem with Sam's argument is
Trump isn't an existential threat not
existential it's interesting because you
and I have come to the exact same
conclusion which is I think the reason
Sam felt the way he did about spoke the
way he did about Trump and Co to the
extent that he did is that he assesses
the threat of those two things or did
assess them in a completely different
way to most people the problem with that
is that you know if I ran in here and
said well if you don't move that cup
we're all going to die and and then you
refused and I shot you yeah that kind of
be that' be a pretty big [ __ ] problem
yes right so uh I think a lot of people
felt that he was massing the threat and
as a result asking or prop know
suggesting things that were
inappropriate to suggest in that
situation uh which is my view I also to
steal man the other argument against Sam
I don't necessarily share it well I
don't know let me say it first and then
I'll I'll think about whether I share or
not is
that there is a certain kind of person
who is extraordinarily well educated
well- read
sophisticated smart
refined
um you know aware of the complexity of
the world who just finds Donald Trump
personally
obnoxious and the that obnoxious
bleeds through into the factual analysis
of Trump's Behavior which is where the
threat Mis assessment comes from some
people might argue so it's not a logical
reaction to the actual threat that Trump
poses it's a reaction to his borish and
to his um I was this kind of like the
way he speaks you know he's not
sophisticated he's he's not he doesn't
sound educated I don't know whether he
is or not uh I don't think Trump is
stupid at all but but that is the sort
of thing that people like to say and you
know California is a place there's a lot
of people who think like that um so I
think that that's why a lot of people
react to Trump the way they do and as we
talked about earlier I think
his he's prepared to say the ugly truth
in a way that makes it even
uglier well said and people don't like
that um however I do think as I said
earlier
that given a beautiful lie and an ugly
truth that is made even uglier if that
is what's on the
ballot I'm going with the truth and I
don't give a [ __ ] how ugly it sounds you
know uh and that is not position that I
would have held in 2016 I just think the
nature of the problems we're now facing
is so much greater than it was back then
and I warned about this I said to people
if you allow this woke ideology to get
out of control you're going to get
people who are going to come along and
go look at this look what they created
and the vast majority of most normal
people are going to go okay I'm with you
because at least you're willing to be
honest at least you're willing to try
and deal with the problems that that
have been
created uh I think there's going to be a
backlash against what has happened now
I've been and this is what I was saying
at the time I was like I'm not against
wokeness CU I'm on the right I'm against
wokeness because it's going to cause a
right-wing backlash and it's a bad idea
in and of itself too um so I think in in
that respect
um that is I think where the Sam
situation came from um and like I said I
didn't agree with him but I think he has
lots of other valuable things to say and
by the way in the conversation that we
had with
Eric he brought brought up a thing that
people aren't talking about may maybe
true or maybe not people can make their
own judgment about it but he was like
look Israel Palestine is not about
Palestine it's about something
else tell me more it's about
Jihad these people are not upset because
they care about oppressed Palestinians
they are jihadis who see the west and
Israel as the enemy to be wiped out and
that is what motivates them and
therefore we have to calibrate our
response to that that is not a point of
view that you hear a lot but it is a
point of view that I think is
valid and uh Jihadi is somebody who
believes they are fighting God's War
yes God wants this enemy wiped out yes
you were doing God's work if you go do
that and martyrdom in the service of
jihad is the greatest achievement you
can have therefore to take your own life
and give it for that is the greatest
good the loss of civilian life is
irrelevant because if uh if if a good
Muslim dies in the service of jihad he
goes straight to paradise and if you're
not a good Muslim or if you're not a
Muslim your life doesn't matter because
you're an
Infidel uh that changes the calculus and
The Game Theory of Everything
immediately and that's a valuable
perspective whether it's you know
whether you personally think it's
correct or not I think it's a valuable
Dimension to this conversation that has
to be taken into account and Sam is
somebody who provides an immense level
of clarity and has done from an early
point in this conversation um about that
issue which is super important I think
how much would you give up for free
speech how far would you let people go
well it depends what you mean because uh
I for example you know in certain
countries in Europe it is illegal to
deny the Holocaust right
um in Constantin land in const is that
is that okay denying the
yeah it is to me yeah and you know I
have family who who who've died in in
that War and who were
Jewish um I don't personally want
to that but but we we've got ourselves
into a bit of a confusion as a society
because people confuse uh you know you
won't have a holocaust Deni on your
podcast that means you don't believe in
free speech that's a slightly different
conversation
agre but I do think people should be
allowed
look this isn't a popular view
particularly uh as someone who has
experienced racism I don't think it
should be illegal to be racist right to
say racist things should be illegal to
discriminate against people because of
their race in employment and in
education or wherever but people should
be allowed to have and express pretty
much any opinion in my view I recognize
that's not how other people think um do
you think that's a like if if the scales
had to tip one way or the other do we
mean more towards people believing in
free speech now in the west or away from
it well I I think the scales is the
wrong metaphor because I think there are
some people who very strongly feel free
speech is important and there are also
some people who feel very strongly that
feelings and you know protecting people
from hearing things they don't like is
very important so I don't know what the
balance of that is because I think those
camps are almost separate they're not
even on the same scale to some extent
right um I think if you were to poll the
ordinary person it depends country by
country I mean in the UK uh we have laws
against uh we have law it's illegal in
the UK to be grossly offensive that
freaks me out it freaks me out when did
that happen uh I believe it was brought
in under the Blair government I don't
quote me on this I could be wrong but
that's fairly recent actually yeah yeah
so between 97 and 2010 it would have
come AC come in at that point maybe even
before but it was never really robustly
enforced if it had in place so don't
quotee me on it but it it's it's a
relatively new occurrence it's not from
the 1800s I I don't believe so and if it
is I don't recall you know when I was
growing up in the UK I don't remember
hearing about people being you know
prosecuted or arrested or even having
the police visit them for things that
they said and and now it's it
happens and it freaks me out you're
right and it should it should freak us
out yeah where do you think that where
where does the denial of free speech
go well you charted it perfectly
yourself if we cannot challenge bad
ideas bad ideas Thrive and when bad
ideas Thrive that disconnect between
reality and ideas gets wider and
wider and then youve you and I have both
I think explained where that leads it
leads to to you know the the the clash
with reality I mean you can believe that
gravity is not real as long as you want
but when you jump out of a window you're
going to find out talk to me about
Russia cuz I think there's another
element to this where um I watched the
movie uh Chernobyl and it really freaked
me out like how being watched all the
time knowing that there are certain
things that you can say and can't say
like what it does to the psyche and how
um it can lead to a nuclear disaster cuz
you're not able to speak up you're not
able to just plain and say hey [ __ ]
like I can't do that cuz this is going
to [ __ ] melt down
um you were born in Russia what what
does it do like to the vibe I'm not sure
what the right word is to use but like
what does it do to the society when
people aren't able to just be open and
honest because there's really like fear
of
punishment well a a lot of people it's
obviously not comparable but a lot of
people know what that feels like now
because a lot of people worry about
expressing their actual opinions in
public and it was funny because I was
just in New York we we've just done a
couple of weeks of a trip around the US
uh and I got invited to this thing
that's wrong by a friend of mine called
thought criminals and it's a small group
of people who are uh who get together
and talk about things that they believe
that they can't talk about in public or
in their work and whatever and they
asked us Francis and I to speak a little
bit and you know I said to them I've
been in this room before because even
even in the 1980s I remember as a little
kid running around in you know my
grandfather's kitchen and there would be
you know physicists and biologists and
musicians and artists sitting around in
a small kitchen talking about the very
things that they could not discuss
elsewhere that's a lot of trust man yeah
and it didn't always work out so in my
grandfather's case in one of gatherings
of this kind he criticized the Soviet
invasion of
Afghanistan and within very short order
he was fired from his job his wife was
fired from her job and both their
children that's my father and my aunt
were kicked out of University he had the
KGB Searcher house uh they found a uh
radio receiver that he used to listen to
uh BBC World Service and Voice of
America and you couldn't you you not
allowed to this was terrible crime uh
and So eventually that's actually in
part why I ended up in England because
he couldn't remain in the Soviet Union
and as it was sort of tapering out at
the end he left and went to the UK and
then when my parents had a bit of money
they sent me to boarding school to
England to be there but my point is it
creates and to this day we don't
actually know what people in Russia
think about the war for example we don't
um because what poing says isn't
necessarily reflective because Russians
learn and other peoples in the Soviet
Union learn over a long period of time
that you have a public reality you have
a work reality and then you have the
kitchen table reality and some of these
can be in complete contradiction to each
other um and it it creates a culture of
fear in which as you say people are
afraid to speak up people are afraid to
take initiative that's the worst thing
imagine a business where people don't
take initiative because they're afraid
how if you you have a bunch of people
working for you how bad would the
product that you produce be if none of
them ever felt able to say actually why
don't we do it like like this let's try
that you see what I'm saying if
everybody was constantly worried about
protecting their job and therefore
didn't innovate didn't do anything
different didn't try things didn't
challenge authority didn't challenge the
people above them and so on like that
it's a very stifling atmosphere and it's
extraordinary to me how successful the
Soviet Union was in competing with the
world superpower in spite of that system
it shows you the incredible talents and
intellect of the people of the former
Soviet Union who really uh you know
punched above their way in my opinion
given the terrible structures that they
were operating
in yes this is the thing that scares me
and this is why I think what we're
calling this this will be interesting
I'll try to dissect my own argument here
this is the thing that I find terrifying
is that even in a country like that that
has what I would call very bad ideas
they are able to be successful to a
certain point and so somebody that's
going to attack me if I were going to
steal man their argument I would say
look at China look at what they've done
look at Russia look at what they did I
mean they for a long time they were the
other superpower and yes they've had
sort of a blip and for a while they
struggled but it's like you know they're
kind of coming back like depending on
how you look at what Putin is doing he's
God this is not me saying this I want to
be very clear but like reunifying you
know the the country or however it's
thought of and so
as somebody who has read the GG
archipelago who's read um ma the unknown
story who's read the red famine
Jesus uh it really is it's really
distressing depending on what it is that
you value because this stuff will go on
for a long time like a lot of people
died in the red famine but the country
didn't go away like they still like they
managed to like you know figure some
things out and keep going and even when
the Soviet Union fell it's not like
Russia fell into the sea like they you
know they build back in countries
fragment but they start doing their own
thing and so it really comes down to
what vibe do you get when you think
about and I'll just make this about work
as you were talking I was like oh man
that's actually a really good analogy
the way that I view what happens when
you lose free speech is what most people
experience every day at work mhm where
oh think about how much like you think
your boss is an idiot but you're like I
can't say anything because if I do then
I'm going to get fired or whatever
that's what it would be like and so I
don't know why people are racing towards
it when they're busy hating their job
and they think you know they work for a
[ __ ] but they can't say anything and
they complain about it they want out and
they want to do their own thing but yet
there's like this cultural movement that
will yield the same result so in at
impact Theory dude you can't imagine how
many times to my own team I've given the
speech nobody here is above criticism
least of all me I am not smart enough to
take us where we want to go I need
people to tell me when I'm going arai I
need people like you are literally being
hired for two things are you willing and
able to make decisions and stand by them
and can you speak to power because if
you can't speak to power and you're not
willing to tell me what you really think
we're going to crash and burn have you
heard about um South Korean Airlines and
how they used to have the worst safety
record in in the entire industry okay
this crazy th this to me is what happens
when Free Speech goes away so they have
a cultural thing there where you respect
your elders so if the captain outranks
you and you're in the plane uh and
you're the co-pilot and something's
going wrong you can make suggestions but
you can't like Snap them out of it and
so they have these blackbox recordings
do this Eerie they did this whole uh
documentary of blackbox
reenactments uh of these famous plane
crashes and there were a couple in there
from South Korea and it goes like this
uh excuse me pilot
um do you think we're getting a little
close to that mountain no no no
everything's fine uh excuse me sir could
it be possible that if we were to pull
up that we'd be in a better situation I
told you to maintain your course they
are careening towards a [ __ ] mountain
man they eventually crash into that
mountain and at no point does a co-pilot
go hey [ __ ] we're going to run
into the mountain and we need to pull up
what the [ __ ] are you doing and that to
me is when you lack Free Speech you get
Chernobyl watch it if you haven't you
get South Korean Airlines they finally
had to do this whole like cockpit
protocol where in the cockpit you could
absolutely it did not matter hierarchy
was gone so whatever like before you
clock in whatever deference you're
showing somebody the second you clock in
that goes away you've got to say exactly
what you think is true you've got to be
assertive you've got to be willing to
call it and I was just like wow like
there are real consequences when people
aren't for whatever reason
compelled to say what they think is true
and the most beautiful illustration of
that is the movie Crimson Tide have you
ever seen it I have but a long time ago
Denzel Washington and uh Jean Hackman I
think yes and that's the whole plot of
the movie It's the captain of the boat
and his EXO and there's a decision to be
made and the EXO is doing everything he
can to prevent a bad decision from being
made by the captain who's chosen a
particular path to pursue on entire
movie is about that fact and at at the
end the way that that whole thing is
shown as being
the the true value of not just Free
Speech but honor in that whole system is
uh what happens is they end up not
launching nuclear weapons at my
boys as it was a cold war movie and it
turns out to be the right decision
M however there is a a mutiny aboard a
nuclear submarine which is pretty big
[ __ ] deal right so there is some kind
of investigation and the captain is
questioned about what happened but his
EXO is not in this courtroom the
military Court Marshal whatever it is
and they bring in Denzel Washington
who's thereo and they say and you know
we've made a decision something like
this and he goes what without my
testimony and they say you know Captain
Ramsey who's the captain of the boat
I've known him for 30 years you know we
don't we don't need
to we don't need to mistrust him right
and the point is that at the end of that
whole process the captain who fought so
hard to have his decision implemented
knows he [ __ ] up and he's willing to
admit it that's the whole point of the
movie right and he ends by I think the
final shot of the thing is uh since then
they've changed the protocol on the
submarines so that you can't you need I
think you know they've changed the whole
thing basically right so you no longer
have that conflict which is exactly what
you're talking about right a situation
someone speaks up that speech is
eventually heard people cling more to
what's
important over what is in their own
personal interest right because there's
a bigger thing at stake uh and lessons
are learned that's that's like the whole
thing in in a movie that's why free
speech is important because it prevents
you from making mistakes in the future
you've said that every generation has to
fight for free speech again why what
what is the so I'm this is my bias
there's some biological thing that makes
people want to shut down free speech for
whatever reason and then there's some
biological reason why people want it on
the other side now I think we've made a
pretty we've laid out why it can be
wildly problematic to not have Free
Speech but what's the pull on the other
side why why why does every generation
have to fight this over and
over well free speech is kind of
unpleasant isn't
it isn't it it can be man so no it is it
is I mean when we think in what way
because people say things that make you
go oh yeah that was kind of stupid to me
uh or they just say things that you
don't like or they express opinions you
don't agree with right for example I
feel very strongly about what's
happening in Ukraine y right so for me
here people saying horrible [ __ ] about
ukrainians who are fighting for their
lives and calling them Nazis and lying
about that whole situation it upsets me
or it could do if I let it and at some
points I let it it's a
fact what if I could just press a button
and then none of these people ever say
any of that again wouldn't my life be so
much more improved right definitely not
but that could be because I'm already so
far down the path yes so you understand
that my life would not be improved but a
lot of people people don't understand
that because it's reaction stimulus
reaction that's all it is oh I feel bad
okay shut it down that's how a lot of
people feel about life in general
because most people as you well know
don't go through life not feeling in
control and so when a thing happens that
you don't want to
experience that's what happens that's
what it's it's quite a natural instinct
and so in many ways I would argue free
speech is very unnatural it's a very
natural thing and that's why it has to
be fought for repeatedly because people
it's always tempting to go to shut it
down I don't like to I don't want to
hear this you know and also you know if
your ego is invested this is the hardest
thing for people who do what you do do
what I do you know whether you run a
small YouTube channel or a massive
business everyone has an element of ego
that takes ages to get rid of you know
to process and to to and
so it's a it's a challenge to Your Ego
to have people ch challenge the things
that you uh saying or believing or
thinking and it's only when you
transcend that and you go this is about
something bigger than me this is what
you said about the speech you give your
team right you said if we're going to
get to where we want to
goh then you have to be able to
challenge me but if all we are trying to
do is get to where I want to
go maybe I don't need to hear your
crappy opinion about I'm doing anything
well maybe I just need you to suck up to
me so that we carry on doing stuff that
makes me feel
good an owner will never do
that a successful owner will never do
that because they know that at the end
of the day the rubber mea wrote If you
get a company I guess that's like
finally hit escape velocity and it's
just making enough money then you can
start being stupid but this is why the
average company now stays on the S&P 500
I think for 12 years it used to be 61 if
you made it to the S&P 500 baby gravy
trained 61 years now 12
bananas so anyway there's just a death
spiral that happens when you uh want
people to suck up it's really
interesting so I came to being a CEO
through a very weird way I started as a
copywriter worked my way to partner in
one company then tried to quit that
company and so they made me an equal
partner in the next company long story
my audience has heard me tell the story
a thousand times uh and so that I was
like I clawed my way to the top in in a
very
uh
emotionally difficult environment that
was the intellectual equivalent of
Thunderdome like we actually used to say
that this is not me like making it up it
was like one man or two men enter one
man leaves like we used to talk about
that all the time and so it it really
was meant in some ways to be that
difficult uh and so as I looked at it
and was like how much of this works how
much if it doesn't there were some ideas
that were brilliant like challenge me uh
other ideas that were less likely to
make it with me when I was on my own uh
and like what like I realize very
quickly that I need to give my power
away so my job in getting to the CEO
position is not to flex and show
everybody how powerful I am my job at
getting to CEO was to empower everybody
else so that it could scale and that is
very difficult to do to claw your way to
that role and then be like hey actually
for me to get where I want to go I have
to in some ways in some ways it it
actually be really interesting it would
take us hours to really explain what
running a business is but in many ways
you're you're sub um you're submitting
yourself to your employees and you're
saying uh one we I actually don't refer
to my employees as my employees just
psychologically I don't it's not the
right move so we refer to each other as
teammates yeah that's why I call my my I
I'm tell the psychological thing that
does I think is very important we also
give Equity to our team so it's like hey
you actually really own a piece of this
company so now it's like we're pulling
for the same thing we're teammates
you're not my family I'm holding you to
a standard I absolutely expect you to
perform well uh I consider myself to
need to be um as good as a human could
be at my position so I know what my
position is I'm not I am not interested
in being micromanager but I have to like
hey how are things going for you I want
to make sure that you have the way that
I refer to myself as I'm the soil you
guys are the things that are going to
grow and so my job is to create the soil
here that freedom of speech challenge
authority all of that stuff is
incredibly important to create that kind
of um Vibe so that you can ultimately
get the things you want to go but as
that one to create that is very
difficult because
I think and this is the next thing I
want to talk
about that there is part of the reason I
think that people have to fight for free
speech every generation is that there is
innate Inhumans partly because of ego
partly because of fear partly because of
insecurity partly because it's awesome
is a drive for totalitarian style
control yeah and I've often thought it's
really good that I'm not smart enough to
lead this company in a dictatorial
fashion because if I were right like say
85% of the time I could probably get
away with it but the reality is that I'm
not and so I never worked with Steve
Jobs so maybe I'm wrong and this is just
mythology but I have a feeling he was
just smart enough that he could just
like slap people around be absolutely
horrible tell them what to do and it
still worked they built an amazing
company and so very few people were like
he's a lot of fun to work for so I can't
do that I can't deploy that methodology
because if I'm addict to you I'm going
to be wrong way too frequently and now
I'm just going to Hemorrhage human
capital so anyway I think that's a big
part of the the pull pull is that uh
being a dictator feels awesome telling
does it though does it see I people say
that but look I I've never been inside
another human being skin obviously
but it's insecurity provoking is that
where you're going no I why it just
doesn't feel good why why not because
you're making other people feel bad do
you think they see that yes cuz some of
them like when I heard stories about uh
Saddam Hussein's son yeah yikes yeah so
I suppose there are some Psychopaths and
they probably accumulate the top of
Fortune 500 companies um it's weird to
me I've never I've never been because uh
I fear in myself the the instinct to
authoritarianism but when I actually
started managing our team I quickly
realized that I actually didn't need to
fear that at all because I'm actually
the opposite I have to force myself to
say things that might not be pleasant
for them but that need to be it's
something I have to overcome all the
time I I do not enjoy making other
people feel bad one bit and dictator I
won't say that's the only part of being
a dictator though it's not because when
you run a company I like knowing I'm the
one person that can't be fired they can
all quit and I think I think people
working at a company underestimate how
brutal that is but they can't fire
me and that feels nice well yeah but
does that make you a dictator though
there's an element of that I have the
the quote unquote totalitarian control
over my company people are going to do
what I say and It ultimately it forces
you into a George Washington position
where it's like I could keep this power
but I actually am going to give it away
and in the way that he gave it away
because he felt it was the right thing
for the country and it's probably good
that he was as old as he was because he
was just like Jesus Christ this is a
pain in the ass and I would really like
to retire to my farm now uh there there
is something
about that feeling of like as long as
the company is making money and I can't
be fired this is why don't take money I
don't take outside money because then
you can be fired the board can fire you
and I would hate that anyway I get your
point it's it's a mixed bag and I
suppose the fact is that as we talked
about people have different
psychological profiles there are some
people who are
Psychopathic right um we're talking
about authoritarianism though why we
always have to fight every generation
for free speech because it's not
natural that's why it's it's not a
natural state of of being I think I
don't think that in in the ancestral
environment in a tribe of 150 people
there was a huge amount of free speech
do you know what I mean um so I think
it's a quite artificial idea in some
ways uh that's why it hasn't been around
for very long in historical terms I mean
the idea that freedom of expression
matters is sort of a few hundred years
old at best actually and never really
been properly implemented anyway even in
those times now look the pro the reason
we keep banging on about Free Speech we
should acknowledge this as well is the
technological environment is very
different uh a word said in private 200
years ago really probably didn't have a
huge amount of impact on how people
thought and felt and whatever you say
something on Twitter now it could be
seen by hundreds of millions of people
and have far-reaching implication so
even though language hasn't changed that
much the impact of language has and I
can see why you know I don't believe
there's ever going to be a free internet
again you know there was a there was a
there was a gold rush moment in of the
internet do you remember it when you say
free you mean uncensored yeah yeah
that's not going to happen again it's
just the technology is too
powerful you nobody would allow that
what do you think about what Elon is
doing with
Twitter What
specifically yeah that's interesting so
the way that I see it is him taking over
this thing making it open source so
people or not open source but um
transparent so everybody can see what
the algorithm is and um there's no
mystery about who's getting blocked or
why and that part of it I like that part
of it I like but I think um I've NE I
never met Elon I actually did Bill M
show with him today but we didn't get a
chance to talk so I don't know what he's
like I've never met him and I'm just
saying this is an outside Observer and I
actually think he's a very important
figure in the culture and what he's
attempting to do in terms of the
survival of humanity actually really
important I disagree with him about
certain
things but you have to be honest and
recognize that Twitter is a benevolent
dictatorship which is much better than
the the oligarchy we had before it is
better but I see that there is you know
any dictatorship is benevolent as long
as it's benevolent right MH um so you
know for
example Twitter I think is in a bit of a
standoff with substack at the moment uh
which for someone who writes on substack
I find it a little bit frustrating
what's the standoff uh the standoff is
that substack came up with a thing
called substack notes which I think the
people at Twitter believe is an attempt
to compete with Twitter H which I don't
think it is given that substack I think
have you like 35 million subscriptions
versus whatever Twitter has you know
they're not comparable but um there's
been some things that happened on that
front that make me you
know make me think that you know I
really wish this dictatorship remained
benevolent for as long as possible is he
throttling substack people or something
like if you're trying to link out to it
or I don't have access to the actual
data to be able to say accurately there
was a period of time was quite short
when if you posted a substack link on
Twitter it would actually if you clicked
it it would be it would take you to a
page saying this link is
unsafe interesting and if you tweeted a
link to to substack you couldn't like or
retweet it you could only quote tweet it
so it was direct suppression of this
this happened for a very short period of
time uh and then we are in the position
where we are now where some people say
suppression is going on quietly and some
people say it's not you know
hm interesting well if he makes a code
available people real fast point out
whether that's really happening or not
yeah but that's interesting okay so free
internet was a moment going away um it
becomes a very interesting question
getting back to do we want freedom of
speech how far in uh kissing land we're
going to go what we're going to I'm so
grateful I'm not Elon I cannot tell you
just the pressure or what the that
decision that specific one decision is
like that line nobody knows nobody knows
because once you go from anyone's
allowed to express an opinion which I
genuinely believe like you and I sitting
here without the cameras on if you want
to be racist I may not stick around but
I believe you have a right to say that
right what about when that is recorded
on camera and it goes out to millions of
people what if I say as David Ike this
conspiracy guy in the UK said at the
beginning of the pandemic that Co is
caused by five G and then the next day
people go out and burn down 5G masks
right you know the I was abhor I found
the decision to that's probably not even
a word I found a decision to ban Trump
from Twitter abh horen
yeah but I can also if I'm being
intellectually honest I opposed it
completely and I said it at the time I
can find it in my mind a situation in
which a leader of a democratic
country in my opinion should be banned
from the Public Square really yeah give
me an
example well it's obvious if they're
inciting large scale Mass violence for
example they're saying you know what we
need to do is go out and shoot these
people right now I don't think Putin
tweets but would you boot him if he did
because there is a guy oh God I follow
him I forget his name on the Russian
side because I was like oh my God like
he's tweeting what he really thinks
about the West this is crazy yes he
drinks a lot and I was like whoa like
this guy's just not pulling any punches
like these idiots and all this I was
like wow like okay this is why I'm
saying I'm grateful not to be in the
position where I have to make these
decisions because I think at the end of
the day because there's no right answer
there's no right answer we're all
fighting over where that line is and my
argument is that line has been pushed
way in against free speech I think
that's elon's point and that's why he's
taken over Twitter and that's why he's
rolling that line back but inevitably
there will always be a point where you
go okay that that's far enough I think
yeah because the technology is too
powerful now the impact of words is so
is not but can be so catastrophic but
then again I can see counterarguments to
my own argument I mean think about you
know what about the Civil War in America
a bunch of people saying you know we
must end slavery and if people want to
fight us over that we got to go out and
fight what if that happened today what
if people went out and said you know we
got to fight whatever and that means we
need to pick up our weapons and go to
the streets do you interfere with that
as the owner of Twitter most people out
there in the world do not care about
being perceived to be moral or being
perceived to be virtuous or being
perceived to be anything they care about
some very simple things like money oil
precious metals rare earth metals land
Force Power military capacity right this
is what they care about and to the
extent that they are able to achieve
that they will pursue that by any means
necessary you see this with what Russia
is doing you see this with what other
countries are doing um they are pursuing
their interests as they understand them
by any means necessary and if we cut off
our ability to do the same because we go
oh this is dishonorable it's
dishonorable to use Force it's
dishonorable to have regions of the
world under our power under our
influence why should we be involved in
this country far far away well the
reason is that's how you make America
prosperous and safe right but nobody
wants to say that because in the world
that we live in it's dishonorable it
doesn't sound good right the truth is
you know I
remember and I said this on Twitter
recently in 1990 in the '90s and the 0s
you had all these American movies in
which some CIA guy would be like and
they hate us cuz we have freedom and I
was like no idiot they hate you because
you have
power that's why they hate you people
don't want to hear this but on 9/11 most
of the world
cheered it wasn't because they hate your
freedom it's not cuz most of the world
is Jihadi terrorists people don't like
the people at the top of the pyramid
everybody wants to take your place and
that is the simple truth of the world
and unless you're willing to stand in
that place and defend it someone will
come and take it away from you it's no
different to cartels in in Mexico right
once they sense a weakness in the
strongest cartel what happens someone
comes after it it fragments they form a
new thing they start again that's how
power works and there's no escaping it
on the the Power Front um and then I'll
come back to the the beliefs that lead
us astray on the power front yeah it the
truth of the world is is deeply
uncomfortable and there's something very
weird about that nature is red in tooth
and Claw so for anybody that's heard
that but never stopped to think about it
uh what it means is you stop your enemy
and unfortunately I'm actually really
curious to get your emotional take on so
I've seen a lot of the footage coming
out of the Israel Hamas conflict it's
doing something to me that I really
don't like the way it makes me feel and
I watched one today wow I'm getting
emotional I watched one today where um
there was a uh somebody from Hamas going
through and they had a camera like a
GoPro or whatever on their head and
they're just filming it and through the
window they shoot and kill somebody you
can't really see it but you hear the
person die it's crazy and then um that
person ends up getting shot and killed
and I just
thought to kill another human you rip
their body like you tear a hole in their
organs they bleed out it's violent and
painful and simple and fast and watching
that person die I mean they die fast man
like at the end somebody shoots him I
don't know sniper what single shot not
even like a just pow drops you hear him
he's talking it oh dude it was just so
crazy
and that nature is red in tooth and Claw
we have not escaped nature not entirely
but there is something about how much
progress we've made that is thrilling
and when I think about how much
prosperity and how much um Peace the
Western World on our home turf because
I'm well aware of the horrendous forever
Wars that we have gotten into but on our
own home
turf how much of that we have had and
what scares me is that it's huge
blessings huge blessings and also seems
to derange our things in some way going
back to the idea some people need to be
chased by a line like there is something
about human nature that has to be has to
be the wrong way to think about
it if it isn't kept in check that that a
way of thinking becomes pathologized and
we the oh God I'm explaining an idea
that I've not had to articulate out this
is why I love having you on
uh the group begins to vibrate stick
with me mhm the group begins to vibrate
it sounds like a sexual fantasy mate
let's see it doesn't end like one I
don't think not for me uh the group
begins to
vibrate and the individual gets lost
Collective thinking takes over and all
hell breaks loose and that all hell
breaks loose can be just a uh a
weakening and so a stronger force from
the outside comes in takes over or it
can be um I'd have to really think
about times where the group the
collective becomes like a a ma China or
something like that
um that worries me the deranging of that
to keep it on things we've already
talked about in this conversation when
you get the pulling all of the structure
apart so that there is nothing left to
push back on so that everyone is equal
everyone is the same same nobody is
worse off because we have the luxury to
believe that so um I say that because if
um great example if somebody broke in to
the this studio right now and they said
okay we
um you have to win a debate or everyone
here dies I would IM immediately go okay
constant is a better debater than me so
constant sorry so um you you go do the
debating and I would just have because I
don't want anybody to get shot I don't
need to be right I just need somebody
that I've seen do it and I know that
they're good at it boom so now reality
slaps you in the face and everybody
lines up behind that but when there is
none of that you get this slow Decay and
the slow Decay is hard to protect
against and that's where we are I think
uh that's exactly where we are we've
become very uncomfortable
with look this is a very very difficult
thing to talk about okay but I think we
have to talk about it particularly in
this moment so I've talked we've got a I
don't know when this will go out but we
have an episode with Sam Harris and Eric
Weinstein coming out and we talked about
Israel and Palestine a lot and the thing
that we were talking about is This World
War II ended because the United States
dropped two nuclear weapons on
Japan and because of what happened to
Germany okay
now when the United States dropped I
think it was Hiroshima when they dropped
that nuke they afterwards one of those
two they
went and measured the blast
impact of those
detonations not the release of energy
from liqu weapons which are much greater
but the blast impact and they calculated
how many conventional Munitions you
would have to use to achieve the same
blast impact on a city when they did
those calculations there Russian
historian called Mark salonan who's gone
through all of this in the last year and
a half of World War II the Allies that's
mainly the Brits the Americans and the
Soviets dropped 50 hirosima a month on
Germany whoa every month for 18 months
they wiped Germany off the map flattened
cities hundreds of thousands of people
burned alive now historians have come
along and say and said that was too much
that was unjustifiable that was wrong
Etc but the fact is that Germany was in
the death in the grips of a death cult
Hitler said we're going to make a final
stand we're not going to retreat we're
not going to capitulate we're not going
to surrender uh and that is what
happened and the only way the Allies
could win that war was to kill a hell of
a lot of innocent people
okay are we saying that was wrong are we
saying that murdering not murdering
sorry killing millions of innocent
civilians in war is wrong well I think
so don't you yes can you win a war
without doing it no I don't know I will
say that no you can't look like it you
can't you can't so what does that we are
in so if you accept my premise then we
are in a moral paralysis right now
because if you want to win the war you
have to kill innocent civilians and we
don't want to kill and civilians what's
the outcome we can't win the war and
that's where we are that's where we are
okay so power as the returning theme uh
I imagine people are getting squeamish
what you point you keep saying that but
what what does squeamish mean it means
that they're going to what I mean by
that now is people are going to reject a
tool because it can also be used to um
do horrendous things
so I saw a tweet um that said there
there is only tragedy in the um Israeli
Palestine conflict M there's no good
that can come of it no that's not what
they said there's only tragedy that is
what they said uh and I wish I had
memorized it because it was a really
eloquent description of it's it's not
good guys bad guys it's just tragedy
Every Which where you look
and nature is red in tooth and Claw and
there is tragedy to that but I don't
know that there is any way to escape it
and relinquishing your power is not the
way to do it as somebody who thinks in
movies I will remind everybody of
Superman 2 uh when Superman gives up his
powers because he wants to just be a
normal person and be in love with Lois
Lane and do the things that a normal
person would do only to then find out
that he gets knocked around by the bully
and to help people has to uh get his
powers back it's interesting I have not
thought about that uh metaphor but yeah
that I think is the very hard lesson
we're learning that it feels really good
to focus on how much I love my wife to
focus on how much I care about uh my
team here at impact Theory to focus on
the people that I'm trying to help with
the show but there's a reason why I talk
constantly about the imagery that I use
to keep myself motivated is me and a
loin cloth covered in the blood of my
enemies and I have to channel that
willingness to be hard to be tough uh in
order to stay focused to not give up to
not fall into a weak mindset here's
another quote that I wish I had
memorized but I'll get you close with a
paraphrase this is George Washington uh
George Washington said when a group of
people loses their hard fighting dis
position um they can no longer claim
themselves to be among the
best just as cowardice is a mortal sin
in the individual it is a mortal sin at
the population level and I was like whoa
like especially when you understand his
role and what he did in order to help
America get the American experiment off
the ground uh which is hopefully
something we'll get to before the end of
this talk like what the American
experiment is why it matters why it's
not owned by America one of the aspects
that we're circling around here is
sacrifice think about what George
Washington did he led hundreds of
thousands of men many of whom were
maimed and killed into battle over
what an idea the idea that you people in
this country should be free of external
tyranny and he
sacrificed men's lives to achieve it now
we would agree that killing people is
bad maming people is bad we don't want
any civilian or anyone killed do we
because we're good moral virtuous
people but that is not how the world
works if you want to achieve goals
inevitably that will happen right if you
want to defend your country you have to
sacrifice some men usually men almost
always men have to sacrifice themselves
and someone who's in charge of that will
be in charge of do we send these people
here do we send them there some of them
are going to
die we're in moral paralysis in the west
at a level of society we still have
generals we still have you know
presidents who will press the button and
send men into battle and whatever but a
level of society we are incapable of
understanding that reality we're
incapable of understanding the fact that
look the Israel Palestine situation is a
perfect example of this if you believe
that Hamas is a terrorist
organization you understand that this
was Israel's
9/11 and Israel has to destroy Hamas if
Israel has to destroy Hamas Hamas using
civilians as a shield means that
civilians are going to
die I don't feel comfortable being the
guy yeah yeah yeah press that button go
on I'm not happy saying that
I'm not saying that but the people
making that decision if they want to
destroy Hamas have to take innocent life
that's the moral quandry that the entire
world is in and the reason that Israel
is particularly in that position it is
being forced to play by Western rules
against people who play by a completely
different set of rules who don't operate
on those values whatsoever it's
interesting calling them Western rules I
like to think hm I haven't thought about
about this so I can tell that what I'm
about to say is ill informed but I'll
walk through the way that I was thinking
about it and then I'll sort of
self-correct
um what I was going to say is I like to
believe that as a
society finds itself
prosperous uh not quite true this is how
I know this is informed uh okay there
are two ways to approach it you've got
the individualistic way you've got the
collectivist way you can achieve
extraordinary things through both as
China shown over the last whatever 30
years has been absolutely breathtaking
to see that level um I just have a
feeling that that one deranges a little
more quickly than does the individual so
if you made me place a bet on which one
is uh going to yield the best results
over time I would say that betting on
the individual um meaning individual
freedoms property rights all the things
that we'll call Western values um I
think that that makes sense I think the
once you do that and you make the
individual you think of them as having a
Divine spark within them and that each
individual is precious and and not this
disposable thing um that that has a
self-correcting mechanism in it that
leads to what we're seeing now now we
have looped back to beliefs that end up
creating um the uh the pathology and
we'll we'll keep going through some of
them because I think it's pretty
fascinating but I that to me I think
makes a lot of sense so I want to
believe that any society that Betson the
um in elevating the individual the
individual as the um the right unit of
account as you begin to analyze what to
do what not to do uh that it requires
you to look at them as sacred
individuals and thly protect them and
thusly any society that goes down that
path is going to find themselves not
wanting to use human Shields or blow up
human Shields
um so anyway I think I navigated that
reasonably well I stopped myself from
the most absurd uh trip-ups which is
that a collectivist Society can work um
I just have a feeling that it because it
only requires one person to become
pathologized that uh that has a tendency
to end in tyranny and bad news much
faster but it's certainly not impossible
for either system uh to end up
there
okay anything on more on that belief no
okay so uh I I have more so problematic
beliefs that cause collapse that I want
people to pay attention to because if
you adjust these in your own life not
only do I hope that that means the
collective won't derange that it means
if we really are living through
effectively the modern version of the
Roman collapse this is going to help you
see opportunities if you can avoid these
problematic beliefs okay so Prosperity
is a fundamental law of human nature I
feel like people believe that that's
true what do you think dumb people
believe that that's true yeah or maybe I
take that back lucky people people in
the Western World believe that that's
true because they've never experienced
anything else but that isn't the world
the world is very very different to that
and this is one of the things I've made
up my business to remind everybody you
know we talk endlessly about all sorts
of forms of privilege this privilege
that privilege you know the the real
privilege that we all enjoy is Western
privilege first world privilege uh and
we have been very comfortable for a very
long time in that privilege and have
forgotten that life for the overwhelming
majority of people throughout human
history has been an immense struggle for
survival Prosperity is not a given it is
a product of the things that we have
been very lucky to enjoy in the west and
the values that we have are what has
allowed us to build it which is why
they're important to preserve so
Prosperity Prosperity is not a human
right it it doesn't fall out of the sky
it's not on your birth certificate
Prosperity is a product of action it's a
product of action in your personal life
it's a product of action at the level of
society for you to enjoy the prosperity
that you enjoy you have to work your
butt off as you have done and be smart
and be creative and be driven and be
talented and have great ideas that you
test against reality and fail and
recover and adjust that's how you build
prosperity in your own life and
countries are no different I heard a
really cool quote I'll paraphrase I
mentioned it
earlier in the capitalist system people
recognize that Prosperity is the miracle
in a socialist system people get
confused and think that redistribution
is the miracle so if it's true that it's
the rules and rules of thumb that really
are going to equate to your level of
success whether that's emotional success
financial success societal success uh
what are high level rule sets the the
two that came to mind the fastest just
at the highest highest level we
capitalism and socialism so I was like
all right without looking it up what
would I Define these two systems as so
for capitalism I said individuals try to
try to contribute to the group and
prosperity is their reward if
successful for socialism I said the
group takes from the individual to
divide Prosperity
evenly and what do you think about those
definitions first of all pretty good I
mean they're obviously by definition
extraordinarily simplified yes but but
but broadly speaking yes okay
so when you look at those rule sets one
of them I think acknowledges that
Prosperity is going to be hard to come
by that's why I said because originally
I was like individuals contri contribute
to the group and prosperity is their
reward and I was like hold on because
you're going to try to contribute you
may not be able to society may say I
don't like your contribution the one
that kills me Society may say you're not
smart enough to contribute
meaningfully that one is hard hard but
real and there are going to be people
that just do not have the intellectual
horsepower to contribute meaningfully to
society and hence I like a social safety
net of some kind like looking out for
people wanting to help people all of
that's amazing anyway socialism takes
that prosperity for granted and does not
realize that you can break the very
thing that creates the prosperity which
is giving people the individual freedom
to try to contribute to the group and if
they're able to do that successfully
that Prosperity is their reward they are
able to create a differential between
themselves and other people they're
actually able to do that now of course
anybody that's familiar with the jinny
coefficient knows that if that gap
between the halves and the have knots
becomes too much you are basically
guaranteed violence because people can
actually be poor and it's not a problem
if everyone around them is poor where it
becomes a problem is if your neighbor is
super wealthy and you're even normal
like you have a refrigerator you have
air conditioning you have have a
PlayStation like you can have it all but
if your neighbor is Elon Musk now
there's a real problem and he has rocket
ships and makes his own cars all that
stuff so um they can be a problem but if
you fail to recognize that you that
Prosperity is by default everyone is
broke all through human history and
everyone but the smallest number of like
Royal people just suffered endlessly and
were victims of just climate just you
froze to death you you overheated just
was or you starved to death probably
even way more common all right here's a
new one can we pause on nature has no
rules because I think one of the
interesting things about this all all of
this thing is um the biggest problem
with blank
lism is the attempt to pretend that
human nature doesn't exist that humans
are not wired to be predisposed to
certain things and it's incredibly
unscientific belief given that we know
that we evolved we're evolved creatures
and therefore um it's it's kind of it's
obviously understandable but at the same
time very silly to think that horrible
things that human beings do are some
kind of weird occurrence you know oh I
can't believe there's a war somewhere
really why don't you look at our
history when was the last time human
beings were not fighting over something
we are
tribal chimps that evolved to do what we
do and all of the terrible pathologies
of human beings are a product of our
Evolution to a very large extent so when
we know that that is the case we prepare
for war and therefore are kept safe when
we pretend that is not the case we don't
prepare for war and we go oh my God I
can't believe we've been
invaded so the denial of the existence
of human nature is it's pathological and
very
dangerous yeah this one I I don't this
one I don't understand and this is the
thing that's really um been an animating
Force for me so as I think about okay
impact Theory what is impact Theory it's
a belief that there the only difference
between me and the level of success that
I've had and the other average people
because I consider myself very average
is a set of ideas many of the ideas that
we're talking about right now today and
the one that I find the the most jarring
that people don't just rush to embrace
is that 50% of the way you work is
hardwired you're not going to get around
it and so I've thought a lot about then
why is it that people can get confused
because they they can get confused and
they can make very compelling arguments
and so because I never want to assume
that oh I've really got this mapped out
I'm like okay wait how is it that people
are so confused about this and they're
confused because there's 50% of you that
is malleable and we can change a lot so
in fact I mean let's confront um um
gender
non-conforming square on it really is
happening and a lot more people maybe
it's still a tiny tiny number maybe it's
still only one and a half% of people
whatever
um they're
actually they feel accurate in saying
that I while my body may be male I am a
woman and if we can let's let's assume
that some people the edges are totally
lying men oh God you guys have a really
funny name for it prison onset gender
dysphoria yeah it's when you get when a
somebody who's a transwoman that a male
with a penis gets arrested and goes to
court suddenly they're like oh I'm a
woman now you know rapid on Prison onset
gender dysphoria you see a bit of prison
coming your way suddenly you're you're
gender dysphoric so setting that aside I
have a sense that there really are
people that they really do believe that
sure and so
something is malleable enough that they
because all I don't even think all of
them started that way I think some
people this comes on very late in life
um so the question
becomes why are they able to get and I
don't mean this this word derogatorily
why are they able to get confused why
are they able to be migrated
from here I am feeling male to now I'm
not what what allows for that confusion
do you think well we have done a lot of
interviews with various people including
many trans people uh and the conclusion
is that gender dor is a mental
illness it's a mental illness so people
have all kinds of mental illnesses they
feel that they shouldn't have an arm
they feel that they shouldn't have this
they feel that they shouldn't have that
they are distressed by various aspects
of their body some people think some
people look in the mirror and see
someone who's fat well while they're
they're really really thin we call that
anorexia um some people eat food and
then go to the bathroom and and throw it
up right uh that we call that bulimia
and actually interestingly many of the
people particularly young women who are
now gender dysphoric are the ones that
used to have anorexia and bulimia
statistically speaking in the past so
they're able to do that on on an
individual level because you know human
brains have variability that they're not
perfect some people uh experience
distress some people experience ill we
all experience illness of one kind on
another at some point um but we don't go
well I am diabetic therefore I now
identify as healthy right um so it's I
and I don't say this in any unkind way I
have a lot of empathy for people who
suffer from these conditions I really
truly do we have someone that works at
trigonometry uh who is a we had her on
recently I don't know if you called that
episode an employee of ours and that's
what she says it's it's it's a disorder
it's a mental disorder um that people
need help with the problem is in our
society today we have created the idea
that you can identify out of reality uh
and all you have to do is replace the
the word identity with pretend to be or
claim to be or whatever and everything
suddenly makes sense there are some men
who pretend to be women or there are
some men who feel that they're women or
who claim to be women and they're
allowed to feel that they're women
there's nothing that's that's their
right you can dress whatever way you
want if you turn up here and a addess
that's your right let's not say pretend
let's feel that right some people feel
that they are the opposite sex I may
feel that I'm a 6'4 NBA player I'm not
and indulging that delusion of mine
isn't kindness It's
not virtuous it's not right it doesn't
help me it doesn't help anyone now if
people want to ident ID identifying you
which way and they're not hurting
anybody that's absolutely fine but
indulging their feelings pretending that
we agree with them when we don't is not
helping anyone the way that you feel
good about yourself is basically
following the guidelines of fulfillment
which I think there's a recipe for and
it goes something like this again
Evolution guy over here so you evolution
is going to guarantee that if you do the
following things you will be fulfilled
and if you don't you won't no matter
what don't care how rich you are you're
going to have to work really hard MH to
gain a set of skills M that allow you to
serve yourself and others in a way that
you find
exciting if you do that your life will
be awesome if it comes easily to you you
won't have the things you want if you
work really hard but only Serve Yourself
you won't have the things you want like
there nature is trying to make sure that
you have kids that stay alive long
enough to have kids that have kids so
it's like that that's the drill and that
is as far as I can tell that's the
formula that's going to make you feel
that way so in the working hard and all
that is where you earn your own respect
earning your own respect is about having
a value system you say these are the
things that are worthy of respect and
I'm going to do these uh I think the
only feedback loop is the pursuit of
fulfillment so anyway if you're doing
things to earn your own respect then I
think you'll feel good about yourself
and you're by yourself even if you're
failing there's a whole I've got a whole
stick about how to construct your
mindset to be resilient etc etc Beyond
we're talking about right now where does
raising children particularly if you're
a woman fit into that okay so and family
generally so this is where you if you
think about all like what I'm trying to
do is the grand scale version of what
having a family is and I think if the um
if the individual is the right level of
analysis for your own life for the
government to think about the its
constituency all of that is to get down
to the individual the family is the
smallest cluster of meaning and so you
get if nature wants to make sure that
you contribute to the group The Family
becomes the place where you can First
Express that but it's also the place
where you get to be uh you have a role
and so you're going to be able to have
autonomy so there's um a lot of things
if you've read Stephen pinker's book
Drive uh talks a lot about this Daniel
pink I forget which one of them wrote
this forgive me uh but there's a book
called drive stepen pink up there's a
book called Drive you're right it's
definitely not Daniel pink maybe the
book is Drive anyway uh and in it it
talks about what really drives people a
huge driver other than meaning and
purpose is autonomy and so at the family
level there's a reason that people say
I'm the king of the castle meaning of my
own home like when I come in my own home
nobody else gets to tell me what to do
you know etc etc and so the husband and
the wife come together there is this
yin-yang uh duel that together is truly
better than either of them are
individually if you take a longterm
stance you're going to shape each other
so you're literally making each other
better when it's functioning well and
then when you have kids now you've got
that I have done the thing I have worked
hard to become a worthy wife or a worthy
husband a worthy mom a worthy father so
worked hard gained a set of skills and
now I'm serving the group not just
myself so I'm doing things that matter
to me so I'm going to teach my son to be
a man in a way that feels good and this
is the way I believe things ought to be
and so in doing that in that small atom
now it's like you're going to get all
that fulfillment that you want now I get
it this is probably somewhat of a modern
construct even if you give me modern the
last 20,000 years right but I think it's
all an echo of things that work at the
tribal level things that work at like
the state level all of it is you get
these the individual has to be strong
unto themselves accomplished that's
probably a dangerous word to use but
strong and accomplished in the ways they
will need to be to serve the family need
to be to serve their local community and
then it just scales up from there so we
do have that drive to we're really going
to derail now but to we want to be
recognized for our contributions and so
my wife and I do that for each other um
we want to have something that lasts
Beyond us kids so anyway again I would
like to State I don't have children so
it's not the path that I've chosen to
walk but when I look at from an
evolutionary standpoint I'm like that is
the safer path so anyway it goes back to
there's no solution there's only
tradeoffs and I just want people to
understand okay whatever path I walk
it's going to be a trade-off so what am
I trading off that's right and I think
that's the question that that's why I
said what I said on Twitter about women
not having true choice I didn't quite
phrase it that way but that's what I
meant which is a lot of people are being
culturally manipulated into making
decisions that are not in their
long-term benefit or interest or
happiness they they're just not they're
just not um and they're being encouraged
to see uh the pursuit of meaningless
things as far superior to the things
that will actually give them meaning of
fulfillment on average doesn't mean
there aren't exceptions right but on
average so that I think is and those
things you know find a partner who loves
you that you love that you grow together
with uh have children if that's what you
want to do uh seek meaningful work and
um you know to me I'm speaking just from
personal experience personal growth and
experience uh experiencing myself
develop is probably one of the highest
values that I hold for myself you know
guaranteed um skill acquisition you know
I always I always talk to my guys about
this it's like like you don't really
want to learn how to do a job
necessarily you want to acquire a set of
skills and build the set of skills that
can be used to do many different jobs uh
and you package them together this is
why you know like I know you you you
tried to handed standup and I did stand
up for probably four or five years uh I
never got to the point you know it takes
about 10 years to become a great standup
I never got to the point where I was
great I was doing well I was pretty good
but what happened was I found something
that combined my skills in a better way
which is thinking and talking and joking
and you put that in a package and then
you've got something that's much more
interesting than just for me at least as
a stand-up comedian I never found that
as for feeling is what I do now um so
meaningful work learn grow Etc uh and
then I think you know another layer to
add on top of this and this is actually
something that I I'm aware of thanks to
my wife men and women are incredibly
different incredibly different and so
you have you can't imagine how surprised
I was to find that become controversial
I was like what of all the things I was
like wait wait what I I don't know what
to say about that man I mean it's so
silly that we even have to have this
conversation but men and women are
incredibly different and one of the most
beneficial things to my wife and I's
relationship has been the fact that
we've read books about how exactly
different we are I mean John Gray who I
think lives somewhere around here who's
been writing about this for decades now
I don't know if I subscribe to every
Tenon of his ideology or whatever but
his books work uh and some of the things
that I've learned from that meant that
we have a much more fulfilled and
happier relationship but also we're much
more fulfilled and happy as individuals
um so that that un you know it's that
know thyself thing I think uh and part
of the the problem with what I see is
with deliberately brainwashing people
not to realize that they are to a large
extent what they are the part of who you
are is driven by your biology and if you
can understand how best to manage that
particularly in partnership with someone
of the opposite sex if you are
heterosexual you're going to you're
going to be like a rocket that's taking
off because you've got all of those
things you know your trigger points you
know the things that that don't work for
you you know what works for you just
like you know I don't know if you're
familiar with John Gray work but like
the idea of the cave for a
man uh basically it's the idea that
every now and again a man will pull back
in a relationship and will feel like
he'll go and like you know work try and
repair his motorcycle or play computer
games or read a book and you'll close
the door to the office and not be
available and women tend to find that
very scary because they're like whoa
what the hell's going on but the guy is
just doing his recharge so that he can
come back and be full of love again like
that was
revolutionary because what women will do
if they don't know that is chase after
you into the cave which means you only
run away further and right it's this
Dynamic and John Gray wrote about this
and Men Are from Mars Women Are from
Venus like 40 years years ago and now
we've got all these crazy people running
around saying oh there's no difference
between men and women I mean it's insane
the one that helped me the most it's
like one of those catchy phrases and I'm
like oh my God this is so true is uh
women need to feel loved to have sex yes
and men need to have sex to feel loved
that's right when I heard that I was
like oh my God like it was it was like
such an epiphany where oh now I get why
she acts the way that she does and now I
actually understand myself better cuz I
never really thought about it but I was
like yeah if we're not having sex I feel
disconnected whereas for her if she
feels disconnected she doesn't want to
have sex so now you can get into this
really weird dynamic where it's like she
wants you know all this talk and like
connection and I'm like man like I'm not
into that unless we're having sex like
what are what are we even talking about
here and here again we come back to the
problems with a society that we liveing
if You' got that issue going on which
every couple has had the solution is
difficult to articulate out loud because
it's very controversial potentially I
mean John Gray's solution I don't want
to misrepresented but it's kind of like
sometimes you need to have sex even
though you're not
entirely you oh I'm waiting for you to
say it oh and and it's like do you see
what I mean I do I am not advocating
that anyone has sex that for [ __ ] I
don't want to do this but you know what
I mean I know exactly what you're saying
so in order for men and women to be
healthy together it requires us to be
able to say some things that we don't
want to say in public
yeah and that's a bad place to be that
we we feel hesitant to say them in
public right um that's a bad place to be
if we want men and women to to be
healthier and that's another of the
things that really bugs me about the
situation that we're in is like the idea
that men and women are engaged in some
sort of Battle of the Sexes is the
craziest idea I've ever [ __ ] heard
these two groups of people who have
spent the entirety of human
evolution having to work together to
survive and to thrive they are they're
what they're against each other are you
crazy are you insane that and and the
Very notion that we spend almost no time
talking about how the sexist can and
should live together and coexist and
grow together and so on and we spend all
our time talking about who gets paid
more and all of this stuff I'm not
saying those things aren't necessarily
important and I'm against discrimination
of any kind obviously but the focus of
our attention to me is on that issue
completely in the wrong place yeah it's
interesting all of this stuff going back
to that idea there there's a reason that
these arguments endure and the reason is
that there's truth on both sides so uh I
read a lot about history this is
something that came to me pretty
recently like the last five or six years
and you read historical stuff and you
realize
men and women were working together to
survive it was very harsh but also like
people weren't really trying to
understand each other as deeply as we
might care about that now and so there
very much was like you went off to war
and you did your thing and you really
may do some raping and pillaging and
then you come back but it's like you're
still my husband and so all of the stuff
of we would never have survived without
helping each other and oh by the way
people really did rap and pillage it's
like both of those things are true and
history is messy and one thing I want to
talk about today but maybe not yet uh is
what I call the triangle of evil um
humans are complicated like really
complicated and if
we I like the idea that there are
certain mind viruses that as as a
society make us on the long Arc of
History Bend towards Justice I love that
like that's amazing but any one lifetime
can can have its like horrible things
happened in that Society things that we
would never be okay with today I mean
just like really grueling but at the
same time you can go back to any time in
history and there would be love and
you'd be even if you were an arranged
marriage that you would find this mutual
respect and you'd raise kids that you
love and you die for each other I mean
it's just like humans are messy and
complicated and beautiful and wonderful
and it's
really really interesting but you have
to be willing to get into the nuance and
so when I think about you know living in
a modern time I've been with my wife for
22 years and in no uncertain terms I am
a better person because of her I don't
know who I would be without her there
was a time before she stepped out front
so she was a housewife and just really
supporting me but I was starting to take
off as an entrepreneur starting to get
recognized had a show like all of that
and and I burst into tears one day and
I'm not a crier man so for people like
that really really know me they know
that this is like weird uh I burst into
tears one day privately just with my
wife and I was like you will never get
credit for the fact of who I've become
because you have influenced me and even
even having that conversation like I
love talking about there's a reason the
cliche behind every powerful man is a
powerful woman because
women for eons not necessarily true now
with the pill and the sexual Revolution
and all that and there in the workforce
but for Millennia they had to work
through men and so they got very good at
I want a thing and I'm going to get you
to also want that thing are you saying
women are manipulative oh brother I'm
saying like if if we can use a word that
is less radioactive but 100% so uh in in
the movie no I love it it's just true
it's true so going back to this idea of
being a predictive engine right if the
more you can predict the outcome of your
behaviors the closer you're getting to
ground truth and so from an evolutionary
perspective and and look this has
changed now and it's awesome like I want
women to work my wife is is a boss [ __ ]
and uh is an entrepreneur in her own
right and is
unbelievable but my wife will be the
first to tell you oh yeah for the first
decade of our marriage she wasn't
expressing herself in business she was
expressing herself through me in
business and it worked and she knew how
to get what she wanted and it was women
from an evolutionary
perspective they needed to be optimized
to tend to Young and so they have
effectively superpowers for raising kids
doesn't mean they need to raise kids you
can allocate those superpowers however
you want but that nature was just like
hey I need you to be very good at
raising children 15% of women have a
fourth photo receptor uh that actually
lets them see colors the guys can't even
see which hypothesis goes would help
them see changes in color in their skin
their kids skin tone so that they'd be
able to read sickness mood whatever yeah
makes a lot of sense their breast can
produce milk I mean just all kinds of
things their hips for childbirth on and
on and on uh and
so understanding
that for Millennia women were I mean we
are a sexually dimorphic species not
massively we're not like gorillas where
they're you know eight times bigger than
the female but there is sexual
dimorphism men have stronger upper
bodies etc etc so the workloads would
tend to get broken up in a certain way
and so if you're not going to be the
half of the species that's going to
confront something headon like for a
woman and unfortunately I've seen uh
these YouTube videos where when you see
a guy snap and get uh throw a punch on a
woman and you recognize the difference
in ability to generate Force it's
distressing
and you realize at the ends of the
spectrum because there's a ton of
overlaps of course there's a lot of
women that could beat up a lot of men
but as you get to the ends of the
distribution the strongest man is going
to be able to beat up every single woman
on the planet period Bar None end of
story uh and
so it would not be a good evolutionary
strategy for women to do the
confrontation head-on so they get far
more um ingenus like they just have a
sophisticated set of tools that happen
to be psychological in nature that was a
lot of words get around the word
manipulation but you get the idea so um
I was rocked to tears to be like whoa
you've shaped me into a person that you
will never get credit for thankfully now
with everything that's happened I think
she does get a lot of credit she's able
to tell her own story and all that um
but it was really a breathtaking moment
for me to realize whoa like you have
shaped me I have shaped you we are a
partnership we bring equal value but in
different ways and the more we've come
to understand the different things that
we're good at and each of us are good at
different things but together we really
do bring equal weight but they're not
the same thing like we're not competing
on the same things uh you know what it's
so interesting to me that you told that
story because uh my wife and I are
exactly the same been together 20
years um I know you guys have been
together so long yeah uh been together
that long and it it was exactly the same
story uh my wife was uh always working
uh from the beginning but she was also
working on me from the beginning and
pretty damn hard actually um and
actually I forgot to give you a copy of
my book I'll give you one afterwards but
oh I have read it I I know but I want to
give you a signed copy and if you read
it you know that the dedication in it
says to Elina with whom without whom
nothing would be possible and everything
would be pointless and that's how I feel
um and more generally you know women are
incredible to a man a woman is [ __ ]
amazing MH because she can do things
that you like I remember the first time
uh I saw my mom resolve a conflict just
with a smile and a joke I was like
wow I couldn't believe it because it was
so different to the way that young men
in particular tend to do things and I
was whoa this is incredible and so
that's one of the terrible things about
the standoffs that we create is like you
can learn so much and grow so much
together and help each other so much um
that you know this division is
completely unnecessary it should be the
other way around we should be looking
for ways to work together and um you
know that's why I've always found uh
personal development and relationship
growth together to be like essential
parts of life essential parts of life so
I hear exactly what you're saying now as
for the recognition I
mean do you do you
you know I believe that partly by
talking about it my wife does get the
credit by dedicating my book to her in
that way she from people who read the
book she gets the credit and also now
I'd like to think after all the hard
work that she put in the investment is
starting to slowly pay off and as we
know from Jordan Peterson women make 80%
of the purchasing decisions so all that
bacon that I'm going to be bringing home
you know she's going to be enjoying the
fruits of that and so are our children
and that's kind of how it should at
least for us you know um she she's very
talented photographer in her own right
but it's not something that she's ever
made into a huge business I'm sure
she'll carry on doing it but right now
she just wants to be with us son and I I
I could not be happier to be able to
provide that in a society in which
that's actually become quite difficult
not many people can do that for each
other very true yeah it's interesting
and Society definitely has a lot of
influence on what people want or think
they're supposed to want so I lived a
really interesting trajectory with my
wife so started out she was a good Greek
girl raised to be a housewife her dad
literally said all right fine you want
to go study film it doesn't matter
you're just going to end up married and
with kids and he didn't mean it in a
horrible way I mean that's just how he
came up and so for her she was very much
raised to be a wife and a mother but she
had dreams and but for the first decade
of our relationship she wasn't pursuing
it she ended up writing a book about
this and it was actually really
interesting
to see the beginning of our marriage
from her perspective of like oh I've
kind of been relegated to this housewife
role I don't know like I know I want to
be a mom CU in the beginning she did she
wanted four kids and uh you know I know
I want to be a mom but I don't know that
I want to be a housewife and so but I do
want to support my husband and so like
that was the vibe and then I needed her
help at work when we started this new
company and she was was like to support
my husband I will help no interest in
being an entrepreneur just I want to be
a good wife I'm going to support my
husband and then supporting me was like
okay the job's getting kind of big okay
now you I'm going to need you to hire
some employees now you're running a
division with 40 people under you and
you're responsible for $85 million in
revenue and you've got like a 10,000
foot warehouse and like all this stuff
and it was just like whoa how did I turn
around and and she's now an entrepreneur
and like in the of it for years and then
realiz is actually I don't want kids I'm
getting so much fulfillment out of this
and growing and all of that that I want
to do this thing and I had to mourn the
loss of my
housewife and it's something that we've
talked really openly about and she you
know as this is all playing out becoming
very different the dynamic between us is
changing
and I was like I want you to become
whoever you want to become and my value
system mandates that I help you thrive
in whatever way you want to thrive but
you have to give me the space to mourn
that I used to have somebody that was
supporting me cooking all my meals
laying out my clothes taking care of the
house um you know we were preparing to
have kids all that and and now that's
going away and I'm cool with that
because I want you to be who you want to
be but let's be realistic about this is
a major change and so this is going to
take some
reorientation and so we talk through it
and process through it and I actually
was very fine not having kids for the
longest time I was the one dragging her
feet she wanted to have kids right away
and I was like yo let's slow roll this
here uh so I was very fine with that but
that change in Dynamic wasn't something
that was easy but to your earliest point
on this it's we're not battling like
we're trying to find this thing where
we're sharing a life together and that's
how we've always looked at it is okay
for us divorce isn't an option we never
say the dword we don't even joke about
it so I'm never going to be like oh if
you don't do that you're going to find
yourself out on the street hahaa like
nope we don't play that game at all yeah
we don't either and um this is the other
thing that's difficult to say but if you
want to preserve a relationship that's
the sort of attitude that we will take
in a lot of
cases in a lot of CAS and there are
people who get married and never never
say a cross word to each other but
they're not the majority um and there
are obviously people who are abusive and
and all of that but for the vast
majority of
people having a relationship that you're
not prepared to give up on either of you
it has to be both of you it has to be
both of you that are not prepared to
give up on uh is going to make it much
more likely that you don't give up on
it absolute facts and
so again in a culture where we treat
each other much more as objects than we
I think ever have done before where you
know oh blonde brunette you know get
whatever you want on on an
app that is much less likely I think and
also we are all um we're all so much
more interested in ourselves as
individuals um that that that again
becomes more difficult so um that thing
that you're talking about that's the way
that's the way it's certainly the way
that I've experienced it um the way to
fulfillment in the relationship the way
to being together to being able to have
different visions of your future and
reconcile them over time and accept that
you're not both exactly the way that the
other person would like that's a that's
a process man that's a process that you
have to really really work on uh and in
order to do that when you've got all
these other great options supposedly
um you know it takes that commitment it
takes that commitment I think it takes
saying we're not talking about divorce
because there I don't know about you
there have been plenty of situations in
which in our relationship we could have
gone down that towards that path at
least you know um and to me you know all
the stuff that we do and whatever it's
inevitable that your relationship with
your spouse is going to be the most
important thing uh it just is no doubt
just is
no doubt yeah man relationships this is
It's hard to watch what's happening in
the culture now where there's just
people having sex a lot less and you get
the um God I always forget how the stat
goes but it's like a small number of men
are getting all the action getting all
the action yeah nice nice and easy way
to say it and then hypergamy which for
people that haven't heard that word
before the female tendency to date
across and up in the status hierarchy um
as women make more money it becomes a
more narrow pool and if they're not able
to broaden their Horizons economically
then they find themselves without a mate
or they're competing for that really
really small pool of guys that then
aren't uh they're not going to commit
because they've got so many women coming
to them for sex and I hear this
anecdotally I mean I I have friends who
are like incredible women incredible
they're hot they are successful they are
[ __ ] brilliant talented and they they
find themselves in relationships with
guys where you know their expectation of
what relationship is supposed to be
which is commitment and so on because
the the guy that they're with has to be
even in many situations evening even
more amazing you doesn't need he doesn't
need to commit he doesn't need to commit
and and there's also another Factor here
which is
you know again this is difficult to say
but mate value is different for men and
women particular over time yeah and as a
woman as you get older a guy in his 50s
who's a billionaire and successful and
famous and whatever he doesn't need to
be dating a woman his
age right but a woman in her 50s is not
likely to be dating a hot 25y old guy
it's just not how that works so I feel
really so much empathy and sympathy and
a lot of concern actually for women who
are in that situation because they
deserve to to to be fulfilled and to
have those relationships and to have the
kids that they want to have but we'
we've got a society where that that's
more difficult you know it's it's really
not a healthy situation in my opinion
and also you talk about you know um
people having less sex and it's true
young people are having less sex than
others and you do have the the issue at
the top of the sort of M male where
they're having a lot but also there are
a lot of women now who are having a lot
of sex not because they actually want to
but because they think that this is the
one that's going to take them to the
relationship that they want you see what
I mean and women are now quite often
finding themselves having sex in a very
masculine male way where it's like
you're supposed to not feel Detachment
not feel attachment and all of that and
the truth is that's not really how it
works for the vast majority of women
there are some exceptions of course but
having sex in the male way of women just
kind of makes them miserable you know
and I think that's tragic I think we
should all acknowledge that that's
tragic that that that a lot of women are
doing things that aren't making them
happy but again for some reason saying
it makes you a bad person I think that
so if I were going to Steel man why that
makes you a bad person here's what I
think is happening
so there is people need to know that I'm
a worthy person I'm worthy of love I'm
worthy of respect no matter what path I
choose and so that's why if I were going
to insert like a new way to talk about
this it's like if let's say that I'm a
life counselor and I I do this in
business a lot I I actually I do this in
life uh stuff we have something called
impact Theory University people come and
ask me questions and I'm like here's how
i' think through that problem if
somebody came to me with that the first
thing I always say is okay what's your
goal you tell me the goal and then I'm
going to try to help you get there uh
and if you tell me that okay my goal is
to have a lot of sex but I don't want to
catch feels okay we can do that but we
have to understand there's no Solutions
only trade-offs so if you run that here
are going to be the potential risk given
what evolution has primed you for which
is going to be connection that uh sex is
a high investment thing because from an
evolutionary standpoint you getting
pregnant was a big deal for guys not so
much amazing you know D and dash and
they're good and maybe they have a kid
maybe they don't but for you you're
going to carry that kids a huge expense
you have to raise them ah so that is a
it puts you in a super vulnerable
position all that so there's a lot of
Machinery in your brain that's going to
be different than the partner that
you're seeking who's really wired for
that game that you're playing so we can
do it cool but like we need to
understand what what are going to be the
trade-offs here odds of you catching
feels go up a lot odds of you finding
fulfillment in doing that go down a lot
uh you're going to be pulling against
sort of The evolutionary trajectory
which again I'm perfectly open to
navigating that path but I just want
people to start this this isn't a moral
thing you're not a worse person but if
you're playing a what I'll when I say a
higher risk game what I mean is that
Evolution has given you a playbook for
fulfillment there's not only one path so
there are different ways to get there
but like the thing that I think protects
leis and I somewhat is we understand by
not having kids that we're we're taking
the more highrisk path to fulfillment
because we're doing it through a company
that's part of it so what happens to my
fulfillment if the the public that is
consuming the product that I make is
like this sucks do I get to be fulfilled
anymore or is it now well you didn't get
the outcome that you wanted and so that
invalidates my whole life so we've had
to build
like thought matricies to deal with that
right so the way that we combat that is
don't value yourself for for the end
result value yourself for the sincere
Pursuit so did you sincerely try to get
a growth mindset out at scale through
ideas and entertainment yes but it just
it didn't work I was never able to quite
build the skill set all right man you
went for something you really played to
win and etc etc so all right you're
you're going down this this high-risk
path not not risk you know necessarily
cosmically just fulfillment is myor star
I laid that out earlier what I think
everybody should be optimizing for and
so if we can strip some of the Judgment
away from that if we can give people a
growth mindset so they know oh I didn't
get what I wanted okay I can try
something different and hopefully get
something more akin to what I want in
another path so you're not giving up
your agency you know what you want you
established your goal first you run an
experiment this this is literally the
physics of progress you know what your
goal is you see what the obstacle is
between where you're at and your goal
you run the experiment did you actually
get closer to your goal yes no if no try
again better the next time you know what
I mean you just repeat the cycle but if
you feel like whoo I didn't get what I
wanted that doesn't feel good I feel
judged by you now I'm just going to go
on the attack so you don't tell me the
thing that I'm
feeling and that's where it's like well
now you can't even navigate well on the
higher risk path that you've chosen to
get the Fulfillment that you ultimately
want to feel which is where we come back
to the fact that most people are not
operating at a level of emotional
Detachment that that you are MH uh and
so uh and also if you speak to women
privately a lot of them will say that
the the falling into the Trap that I
described is not a deliberate thing
they're not going out to go and have
lots of sex without catching the fields
if they're actually honest with
themselves not all of them but many of
them if they can get past the emotion
what they what they actually want is to
to to date and find a partner to be with
for the for you know I was going to say
the rest of the life because that's kind
of my value but you know what I mean to
to settle down with to have children
with whatever if if that's what they
want um but they're not able to do that
because they feel that there's a
pressure because all the other girls are
available to the guy that they're
currently with to have sex with on the
second day however anecdotally as I
observe people around me the women who
don't don't let that happen straight
away tend to end up much more likely
securing the partner yeah that seems to
be a strategy that works better um but
you're right I mean I I'm actually
loving this conversation so much partly
because you are showing people a way of
operating in the world that is so much
more powerful than the way that the vast
majority of people operate probably to
some extent me included I don't have the
level of emotional Detachment that you
do uh in terms of making these decision
so it's I'm learning to learn more about
these complex topics check out this
episode with the one and only Jordan
Peterson man I am beside myself with
excitement to have you
on