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I tweet that and then I finish the day
and I wake up the next morning and I
glance at my phone I'm seeing all these
verified accounts that are you know
quote tweeting it and demanding a
retraction and whatever and I go uh oh
okay this looks like it's getting looks
like it's getting some attention um I
then continue about my day around noon I
hear from my dad that he got a 100
messages from you should have aborted
your son to we're going to find all of
you to whatever else my dad has no idea
what's going on he's like I don't know
what this is but I have a 100
DMS to everything else you can imagine
um and I start to get emails about you
know we you know your Jewish faith this
and that and the other thing and so at
that point to me I thought this is just
going to get worse and worse and worse
and so I deleted the tweet and I really
regret doing that because over the 48
hours that followed yes the attacks
escalated it went through Candace Owens
and then at foxnews.com Newsmax kind of
peing with with Donald Trump Jr and it
was
horrible the following is a conversation
with David Pacman a left-wing
Progressive political commentator and
host of the David Pacman show I hope to
continue to have many conversations on
politics with prominent insightful and
sometimes controversial figures across
the political Spectrum David and I have
been planning to speak for a long time
and I'm sure we'll speak many more times
this conversation was challenging eye
openening and fun this is Alex Freedman
podcast to support it please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
dear friends here's David
pman are there interesting differences
to you between terms like liberal
Democrat leftwing leftist Progressive
Socialist Communist Marxist farle Center
left all these labels is there
interesting distinctions between them
yeah there's two sets of distinctions
one is if you just want to say let's
define each of these as political terms
they're all different terms you can be a
progressive ideologically but not be a
member of the democratic party many say
the Democratic party isn't even really
very Progressive so these are certainly
terms that we could Define uh in order
to have a conversation about the next
thing kind of as a precursor to a
conversation sometimes the terms are
used in order to tag someone with a
certain ideology that's not really
linked to policy or any particular
political question but they can be used
positively or negatively to just kind of
say here is the image of this individual
that I have in my mind so like Marxist
is right now very popularly being used
by some on the right um to attack
Democrats there's very few actual
marxists certainly not in positions of
power in the United United States but
even among the general population um so
I think it's important to distinguish
are we defining these terms because we
want to compare and contrast the ideas
that a particular group might bring to
the discussion or are we using them as
insults or to stifle conversation
they're terms that can be used to start
conversation or to stop it and the use
of those terms is evolving rapidly month
by month so the term leftist I think is
a relatively popular term now to use in
the negative context to
describe um
what an outraged leftwing commentator I
think what you're kind of grasping on to
is that there's probably some set of
ideas that would apply to most of those
who consider themselves to be on the
left the discussion of how that term is
mostly being used is not about policy
ideas you're accurately kind of uh uh
identifying that and it does seem like
Progressive is no longer being used as a
smear and leftist is being used as a
smear more at this point okay but
sometimes some of these terms are useful
like can we try to pick the terms that
are useful like liberal and Progressive
and
Democrat liberal and Progressive is
there an interesting definable
distinction between liberal and
Progressive to you that's a maybe one of
the most interesting ones 10 years ago
liberal often meant prog what now we
mean by
Progressive more recently the progress
socialist leaning part of the political
Spectrum has started to use liberal to
Mean Joe Biden to mean someone who is
not really left enough so liberal is
very interesting because I remember
talking with my audience years ago maybe
eight years ago or something like that
where I identified I'm going to now use
the term Progressive more commonly to
describe my own beliefs because liberal
has now been made a smear it's being
shifted into something else and it also
means more of like a center left
politics so it's changed in some sense
by by necessity by force and also
because the the Spectrum has shifted to
some degree so the term liberal has
evolved now liberal meaning some kind of
uh embodiment of the mainstream
Democratic party almost to some degree
sometimes I'm called uh I'm written off
by you know within my space there are
all sorts of Shades of Gray which I'm
sure we can talk about about where I am
versus should be could be or am wrongly
placed and sometimes an attack on me is
he's just a lib meaning I'm not left
enough I'm not Progressive socialist
wherever else you want to go so yeah the
the problem with a lot of these terms
and they're used very casually by people
who call into my show is that unless we
actually Define them each time they very
often mean very different things to
different people and often come with an
agenda attached to them and so I find
that they often stifle meaningful
conversation rather than encourage it
hey do you sense that there's a
drifting of uh what is the threshold to
be a progressive or is is there should
be used Progressive synonymously with uh
Democratic Socialist I think we should
not use it synonymously with Democratic
Socialist and this is where there's
another linguistic confusion and a
political confusion so we'll first talk
about the linguistic one social
democracy versus Democratic socialism
very similar words in a different order
okay my the way I operate is democratic
socialism is actually a form of
Socialism where one would seek to
socialize ownership of the means of
production as an example social
democracy is a very uh highly regulated
form of capitalism the likes of which we
would see in northern Europe Denmark Etc
these are very different things I
associate progressivism in
2023 with social democracy and would
consider Democratic socialism a form of
actual socialism that is different is
we're no longer talking about uh a
capitalist organization of society so
transition from one to the other is a
fundamental shift in how in how Society
operates then absolutely and when you
talk about social democracy you're
talking about socializing a couple more
things than we socialize in most modern
uh capitalist countries I had this
conversation with Patrick Bet David
recently social democracy is okay we've
socialized the military already in the
United States uh We've socialized some
health care in the sense of like the VA
and Medicaid Etc we're talking about
socializing a couple more things still
in a capitalist country Democratic
socialism would be something beyond that
and and as someone who is not a
Democratic Socialist myself I'm I'm
maybe not the best advocate for
explaining exactly how that system would
function but it would have some version
of socializing ownership of the means of
production businesses Etc so you
mentioned you appeared on the pbd
podcast with Patrick bad David um the
debate was pretty intense I I I I should
say I personally enjoyed it I thought uh
actually you did well and I thought
Patrick did well it was a good
conversation I there was a little bit of
tension and I I thought that Patrick
actually so I disagree with the internet
I thought Patrick just took on a kind of
Devil's Advocate like he was he was
purposely being stubborn to bring out
the best than you but the internet
thought that he's being stubborn not
being open to your ideas I thought the
tension between ideas um I think a lot
of the tension had to do probably with
uh Donald Trump and Trump supporters
that certainly could be the case and
people wrote to me a people wrote To Me
the full gamut of everything you can
imagine from this was your best thing
you've ever done in public to you got
humiliated and your mother should have
aborted you okay so every and everything
in between so you know take your pick
but um the most interesting feedback I
got was from people who asked me after
was it incredibly tense and awkward and
because it seemed so combative and I
think for I'm so used to those types of
tensions in the discussions that I have
that it's very comfortable to me it's
not like afterwards it's it's there's a
grudge or it's tense or whatever the
case may be I'm very comfortable just I
I disagree with people and that's it so
I did not find anything that happened
inappropriate I disagreed with a lot of
the things he said certainly uh so you
also spoken to Michael noes um I think
about the idea of what is a woman do you
can you speak broadly about your
conversation with the people you
disagree with uh you know some of the
cases it feels like it's gone wrong the
conversations have gone wrong yeah I
mean I think there's a couple different
things and I'm the first to tell you
that depending on who I'm talking to I
go in with a different attitude about
how quote seriously I'm taking it in the
sense of whether I think it's going to
be a deep policy discussion versus where
whether it's going to be more of a
performance for an audience that is
expecting a certain thing and I think
there's different types of shows when I
was interviewed by this guy Jesse Lee
Peterson in Los Angeles it's very
different for example than when I'm
talking to Patrick Bet David just to
give two two examples I I think the
reason I stopped doing the Michael nlls
show was the number of of threats I
would get after the fact that's really
the re I was glad to engage with him to
the extent that the interviews were
interesting and you know we could
organize it reasonably efficiently um
but the reason I stepped away was sort
of the aftermath but I did find him to
be someone who was abundantly clear
about his View and where he comes from
and while I could not possibly disagree
with more with him in terms of politics
and culture and our backgrounds
everything is just so so different I
found it easy to engage in the
conversation just because of how upfront
and clear he was about what his beliefs
were but the number of threats was too
much yeah it was just too much and this
um you know I don't know if how much you
saw about this recent Twitter dust up I
was involved in that peaked with Donald
Trump Jr tweeting about me and then that
then declining from there oh let's let's
talk through it I didn't see it I have
to understand like uh the way you study
Shakespeare I have to study your Twitter
I have to understand so much how much of
it sarcasm it's mostly sarcasm I mean
here's the thing and I know that there
are people who will say David you're
dealing with such serious issues it's
really not okay not to take everything
you do completely seriously but my view
is it's so incredible that I've between
chance and timing and so different
things fallen into a position where this
is what I do professionally and it's a
career and it's financially sustainable
and all these different things I don't
want to end up taking myself too
seriously because I recognize the timing
and luck and all of these other things
and this could have gone a completely
different way so my approach to a lot of
this is let's not take ourselves too
seriously and in particular on Twitter a
platform that you know the degree to
which it should be taken very seriously
may maybe has changed over time I'm
always sort of thinking a little bit
tongue-and-cheek on Twitter so what
happened with uh Donald Trump Jr so or
the full Arc of it yeah the to make give
you a one minute Arc and then we can
pick whichever parts we want after a
mass shooting now you might say there's
like two or three a day you're correct
after the Nashville mass shooting at a
Christian School I tweeted snark tongue
and cheek to point that thoughts and
prayers not only aren't particularly
useful after a shooting they also don't
prevent shootings that there's some
confusion about how there would be a
shooting at a Christian School given
that it is a place where prayer is
taking place I think I I you know
jokingly said something like um were
they not praying enough for correctly in
my deep journalistic Integrity you have
it I have your tweet this is this is the
only display of journalistic
Integrity I will show today okay and I
have a couple of responses beautiful and
you deleted the Tweet since then which I
regret oh interesting and we can talk
about that I would love to because it's
such a yeah interesting
decision uh because when you tweet
something one of the things I've also
learned is you don't often understand
how it's going to be read it's going to
be analyzed like I mentioned Shakespeare
like there's certain the use of certain
words that you regret saying in a
certain kind of way maybe just because
it wasn't as eloquent as as as powerful
didn't actually convey the thing um or
is a distraction to the main message all
that kind of stuff okay the actual tweet
is very surprising that there would be a
mass shooting at a Christian School
given that lack of prayer is often
blamed for these horrible events is it
possible they weren't praying enough or
correctly despite being a Christian
School and
um uh a lot of people quote retweeted
that which I'm assuming was
uh uh criticism so Colin Wright wrote I
used to consider you a reasonable
progress Rive but you clearly devolved
into partisan hackery I'm an atheist yet
cannot begin to Fathom using the murder
of children and adults at a Christian
School is an opportunity to dunk on the
concept of prayer and you responded I'm
dunking on the people who send thoughts
and prayers and do nothing else and the
shootings continue okay I'm sure there's
a lot of other interactions there's a
few other hundred thousand interactions
so that do you want the arc leading to
the deleting so so basically I just
wanted to display do you know what time
of day I tweeted the original one I feel
like it was in the afternoon or evening
of on a
Monday 3:42 p.m. on 27th March 27th
which was a Monday okay so basically I
tweet that and then I finish the day and
so you tweet and then you go on with
your day I might have looked once at
Twitter and it had 2,000 likes and a few
people saying ah this might have missed
the mark but it's sort of like it's one
of my 20,000 tweets I don't know I wake
up the next morning my baby daughter did
not sleep till 7:30 the way I would like
so she's up at 6:00 a.m. and I get up
and I'm just there starting to make
breakfast and I glance at my phone and
I'm starting to this was when verified
meant a different thing than it means
now um I'm seeing all these verified
accounts that are you know quote
tweeting it and demanding a retraction
and whatever and I go uh oh okay this
looks like it's getting looks like it's
getting some attention um I then
continue about my day around noon I hear
from my dad that he got a hundred
messages from you should have aborted
your son to we're g to find all of you
to whatever else my dad has no idea
what's going on he's like I don't know
what this is but I have a hundred
DMS to everything else you can imagine
um and I start to get emails about you
know we you know your Jewish faith this
and that and the other thing and so at
that point to me I thought this is just
going to get worse and worse and worse
and so I deleted the tweet and I really
regret doing that because over the 48
hours that followed yes the attacks
escalated it went through Candace Owens
and then at Fox news.com Newsmax kind of
peing with with Donald Trump Jr and it
was horrible I mean thousands and
thousands of the okay but once I told my
audience about what happened I got
thousands of messages from people saying
saying David only someone who doesn't
know you and is determined to interpret
this in the worst possible Faith would
think you're blaming kids who died for
getting shot of course you weren't doing
that I wish you hadn't deleted it so
that it would still be up and you would
now see the tide kind of turning on it
this was not a fun three days regardless
but I do regret having deleted it
because um it was a p i wanted to do the
quickest thing I thought I could to get
people to stop trying to find family
members and send them threats and so
around noon that's what I did and the
truth is the threats didn't stop anyway
because everybody had screenshotted it
and I do wish I had left it up andan is
there some degree maybe stepping outside
yourself that you regret tweeting that
in that it feeds the mockery engine that
that fuels Twitter so like does that
tweet really represent what you
believe it absolutely represents the
disgust with a politics that includes
saying we can't touch guns we just we
can't but we're willing to point to
mental health or say we need more prayer
in schools or whatever
1,000% it represents that view is it the
type of snark and sarcasm that I would
use if given an hour to discuss the
topic rather than whatever the number of
characters is now on Twitter no
definitely not and so I am very
cognizant of the fact that it was
unnecessarily provocative How It Was
Written I I think I asked a similar
question to Ben Shapiro do you worry
that this style of presentation can turn
you from being um you know a deeply
thoughtful objective political thinker
to somebody who is just a
partisan hack or
partisan um what's a good word talking
head do you mean with regard to Twitter
or the format of my show in general so
Twitter for now let's start with Twitter
for now and can you Silo
your style of communication on Twitter
from being a virus that affects your
mind right I don't have deep thoughts
about the Twitter component Beyond I
think across all sorts of disciplines
this is not the best way to most
effectively solve
problems and figure out solutions to
complex issues you're talking about
Twitter now right now I'm talking about
Twitter that being said I think all of
us to some degree have to adapt our
content to the platform that we're using
in the same way that what I post to
YouTube is different than what I post to
Tik Tok what I post to Twitter is also
different do I think Twitter has been an
unmitigated good for society no um have
I chosen to step into Twitter as one of
the ways in which I get my message out
with the good and the bad yes and I
think that there is a deep conversation
to be had there I think zooming out a
little bit in terms of what I do and I
was hoping this would come up because I
think it's really interesting I will
often get emails from people who say two
things I will get the you would have
such a bigger audience if you did X Type
emails and usually they are plays to
sensationalism M salacious and and
titilating content more pop culture
Stuff Etc on the other hand it's folks
who say listen what you're doing really
isn't as serious as it could be and it
seems like you could do something more
serious and you should consider doing
deep Dives you know once it was do a
deep dive into Calvin coolage and I was
like nobody will watch that so there
it's not by accident that my show is the
way it is right in an hour I'm thinking
of all the platforms I'm on and I'm
saying okay I want to do a relatively
deep dive on the federal budget and I
want to talk about some of the um uh
political Tom Foolery going on within
the post office and I'm going to do a
segment about the wacky rally where
Trump said crazy things and made up
three words and said he endorsed a
candidate whose named right I'm crafting
that in total to find a balance between
let's build this audience as much as I
can in order to have a bigger base to
get my message out there and include the
more serious stuff with the hope that
there's a little bit of something for
everyone and I'm finding a balance
between those two sides of the spectrum
it it's a deliberate thing and I'm aware
that if I were producing my show 50
years ago the balance would probably be
different and it would probably change
again if we didn't if the show was Audio
Only rather than having all these video
platforms it would also be different but
it's a decision that's proactively made
to try to get the best and most out of
the hour that I'm creating every day
well it just feels like there's an
entire machine fed by Twitter and
journalism that wants to divide people
and the drama of that division
highlighting the the the partisan
division the drama of that division
feels like it's a tension with objective
clear thinking sometimes and so that's
the I worry that there's a drug to it
that's too much fun to mock
ridiculous people on on a uh on the
other side I think you're right about
that and the fact that that is
true to me supports I've talked with my
audience about you know like the old
food pyramid which I guess was like
wrong but let's imagine that there was a
pyramid that that made sense what's at
the bottom bread I think uh like whole
grains maybe I don't remember it's been
a while suar on the top junk food is at
the very top I'm very open with my
audience the vast majority of what I do
is the top of that pyramid and I tell
people very openly I don't consume a lot
of the type of content I produce and I
think it's really important to as a base
be doing critical thinking epistemology
how do we believe the things we believe
Basics about the world after that
reading history economics philosophy Etc
after that now we're getting into
current events I would mostly be looking
at
consuming um primary source reporting
things like Associated Press whatever I
know everybody will have a different
list of what counts there after that is
when I'd say indulge in some of the
commentary type stuff that I do if you
find that I'm thoughtful enough to make
it into that but I'm very open and
really what I try to do on my Show often
is in being that at the top of the P
pyramid tell people there's all this
other stuff that should be forming your
foundation that I hope you're consuming
in addition to just watching me and I'm
very open with my audience about that
what about the shape the Dynamics the
the characteristics of your audience is
there some degree to which you're
through mocking maybe
Republicans that there's
um there's a lean to that audience and
then you become captured by the audience
do you worry about the audience capture
I worry about it I'm relatively
comfortable that it's not shaping the
program to a great
degree in the sense that at this point I
have a pretty good sense of the things I
can say that will upset what I might
call my core audience you know one of
the interesting things just to briefly
go back to the Twitter thing was those
people who were furious with me on
Twitter and they contacted my
advertisers and some advertisers dropped
me and on and on and on none of them are
actually in my audience none none of
them are regular consumers of my
audience they were kind of weaponized
Against Me by people who said hey look
at this the people who follow Candace
Owens on Twitter other than for the kind
of shock value they're not in my
audience and with my core audience I
know there are things I can talk about
that will generate um displeasure I
guess you could say with my audience
sometimes when I touch the Israeli
Palestinian conflict that will happen
sometimes on vaccines there's a portion
of my audience that is more generally
skeptical of vaccines um sometimes on
some foreign policy uh issues or you
know I'm not a big fan of Maryann
Williamson nor Bobby Kennedy Junior's um
challenges to Joe Biden not because I
love Joe Biden but because I don't
consider them to be the most serious
Challengers I know there's people in my
audience who don't like that they get
they get mad at me about that and I'm
totally okay with that uh and that
tension with with my core audience so in
that sense I don't feel as though I've
had that audience capture take place but
I know it can happen and I'm very open
to to being told ways in which it may be
happening without me noticing uh so I've
uh made a call for questions on Reddit
for this
conversation there's a lot of good
questions that I'll probably bring up
but one of them was about miam
Williamson um asking why David thinks
she is a garbage candidate uh which of
course I've never said U but perhaps you
have more eloquently criticized so let's
let's go there sure to the 2024 election
okay so Biden Joe Biden officially
announced that he's running again Donald
Trump officially announced that he's
running again in if that's the matchup
who do you think
wins if the elections held
today I think
Biden why well first of all I believe he
won last time and if I start with the
results from 2020 and I think to myself
what has happened since then that would
push or pull voters one way or the other
I have a hard time making a case that
Trump is in a better position today than
he was in November of
2020 so that's kind of my starting point
which is it's a rematch of an election
with a known outcome what has changed
and I can't make a case for
circumstances having changed in Trump's
favor to give a couple of state level
examples Florida seems to be kind of
moving more to the Republican side since
2020 but Trump won that state already in
2020 so it wouldn't really change the
outcome Arizona was close I think
Arizona has moved to the left since 2020
so I don't see Trump taking that one
Wisconsin I think the same sort of thing
applies so being very like practical
that would be kind of the start of my
reasoning do you think Joe Biden is a
better candidate now than he was in
2020 I think he's a worse candidate this
is going to sound agist but I think he's
a worse candidate in that he's even
older and there already seems to be an
appetite for younger candidates
particularly on the Democratic vote in
side so he's going to be 4 years older
and in a sense that could be a
liability however he also is going to
have four years of accomplishments now
you might not like the things he's done
in which case that would hurt him but he
has started to accumulate um not
insignificant number of accomplishments
some of the big things that are known
inflation reduction act and Co stimulus
you know but also less well-known things
like a bunch of little tweaks to
healthcare
of little tweaks to student lending
there's been a lot of little things um
at the macro level I don't actually
think Joe Biden has that much to do with
this the same way I didn't credit or
attack Trump for a lot of the
macroeconomic stuff but inflation has
started to come down significantly the
stock market's quite steady you these
sort of things I think looking
historically it's a pretty okay
environment for Joe Biden with the
exception that he was already the oldest
president to be inaugurated in 2021 and
would beat his own record in January of
2025 and I just don't know how voters
are going to see that so in terms of
just a public human being uh how would
you compare Trump and Biden so if I were
to give criticism towards trump it would
be that he's
chaotic maybe to the point of being
disrespectful to a lot of different
groups to a lot of different ideas to a
lot of different nations and leaders and
all that kind of stuff and then the
criticism towards Biden would be that he
maybe perhaps because of age or any
other kind of cognitive capabilities is
not really there mentally as uh you know
in the way that perhaps you could say
like Barack Obama was there just
mentally being able to handle all kinds
of aspects of being a public
representative of a Nation to the world
and to the people of that Nation so
which uh in the competition of
Personality flaws which do you think is
more powerful you've laid out fair and I
believe accurate assessments of elements
of both of those uh men yeah you haven't
weighed in on to what degree you value
each of those assessments which is where
I think the the kind of meat of this
question really is um I don't see and I
know that you know Biden's going to get
us into World War II World War III
doesn't seem to be happening um I don't
see the Biden deficit you listed which I
agree with you on I don't see them as um
dangerous or threatening to the standing
of the United States in this kind of
environment with our Western traditional
Western allies and Geo politics Etc in
the way that the sort of unhinged
personality of trump combined with his
lack of knowledge about most issues is a
threat so for me if those two are the
candidates Biden would be my choice now
are there people I would rather see on
the Democratic side yes if I knew the
president would be a republican can I
think of better options than Trump
absolutely you know I it's it's so funny
when in 2012 it was Obama versus Romney
the difference seemed so significant
between them thinking back I'm sure I
would disagree with Mitt Romney about
tax rates and his views on LGBT are I'm
sure I I know are different than mine
but it seems without looking at him with
rosecolor glasses so comparatively
benign given the the four years of trump
so that's kind of where I come down even
uh McCain and Obama the the the
differences seemed quite drastic yeah
McCain was interesting because Palin as
his running mate opened the door to the
sort of cartoonish stuff that we've
started to see on the Republican side
Palin Trump marjerie Taylor green it
started going in that direction which
has made the party a bit of a joke aside
from what you believe the tax rate would
be right you can say taxes are too high
but Jewish space lasers come on you know
so uh but but I I agree with you on
McCain also so going back to the
political terms we talked about what
where in that Spectrum do you place
yourself today um what which of the
label do you think captures your
political views Progressive Social
Democrat um which which again is a
capitalist I own my own business I pay
the taxes I'm legal Al required to pay
and not a penny more and you know all
all those things that's where I place
myself would you place yourself to the
left of Joe Biden for
yes where does AOC fit into
that it's a good question what do you
think about aocc as a candidate do you
think she eventually runs I think that
if she doesn't run into some kind of
Scandal and I don't mean scandal in the
sense of some personal impropriety
that you know but I mean some kind of
major political problem it seems that
she has the staying power to be an
American elected politics for a long
time whether she would even want to be
president versus maybe going to the
senate or being Governor whatever the
case may be I have no idea what her
Ambitions are in that sense but
certainly like policy aside she has this
combination of
charisma likeability to some but also
something about her personality that
angers the people who don't like her in
a way that only fuels her sort of uh
presence uh which I think applies to
Trump as well um that I do think that
she has the potential to be to have
significant staying power in American
politics president I don't know do you
think that's the future of of uh
political elections and politics in
general is people who are able to
skillfully piss off the other side like
a and Trump did I think it's it's an
aspect of it I think it's also
understanding how to communicate policy
ideas Trump you know I have things I can
praise Trump about if we want to get to
that segment at some point you you let
me know when that is but I I I do think
that there are some things Trump is very
good at and this is why it's very hard
for me to believe that Ronda santis has
what it takes to actually fight Trump in
a national primary and um one of those
things is Trump has a even though often
says very strange things that if you
transcribe them you go that's what
language is that that doesn't make any
sense whatsoever in the moment the way
he relates to um adversaries on stage
Etc is very good in that he is very much
aware of how it is going to be seen by
the audience and so that's why a lot of
times it's more about doesn't matter
that a word salad came out of his mouth
how he immediately responded and related
to the person who very good so I think
that knowing how to be good when Clips
are shared all the time often out of
context is extraordinarily important
knowing how to use social media which
every election cycle that means
something different but understanding
how to use social media very important
those things are
absolutely so important and whether
you're able to do a deep dive on the
deficit it's certainly useful but I
would say it's a bad thing it's becoming
less important in terms of figuring out
who we want to represent us so just
lingering on the aocc and then maybe
let's throwing in Bernie Sanders on that
yeah so where do you place yourself and
how do you do the layout of the land of
Bernie Sanders AOC Joe Biden and uh
David Pacman my instinct is and the the
I'm going to answer it the thing that
makes this tough is Bernie says I'm he's
a Democratic Socialist he ran as a
Social Democrat he didn't run on
anything that was really socialism right
so I'm going by their public facing
platforms I've been listening to him for
many many years and all all the way back
to the Tom Hartman show and I think
using the terms as you've been using
them yeah he has I don't think ever been
a Democratic Socialist I haven't heard
him speak about
socialism I I think he I've heard him
speak about social programs and the
value of social programs throughout the
history of the United States and their
and how they've been benefit
my understanding is very similar to
yours although there may be stuff from
the 70s where he really was talking shit
in the 70s yeah yeah you and I even who
weren't around we were doing stuff in
the 70s I feel like we did yeah my sense
would be you know Biden is like Center
left and then I'm to the left of that
but maybe just inside of where AOC and
Bernie are very very similar to Bernie I
mean I I identify with a lot of Bernie's
ideas maybe their implementation I'm
more flexible on I'll give you one
example Medicare for all one way of
trying to get health care to everybody
which Bernie's very big on is you take
the current Medicare program you just
eliminate the age limit make it
available to everybody pay for it
through taxation interesting however I'm
open to other models if they get
everybody healthare that is good quality
and affordable Singapore has an
interesting model Germany has an
interesting model I am I am more
agnostic about how we do it than just
saying let's expand Medicare whether
that puts me to the right of of Bernie I
don't I don't know but I'm not like
exactly right there on it has to be
Medicare for all yeah that's more of a
that's more just flexibility versus
dogmatism so I don't know if that puts
you to the left or to the right I don't
either what do you think about the we
could term manipulation or the
corruption in the DNC that perhaps
tipped the scales against Bernie in the
election do you think there was 2016 or
2020 uh both I would say uh in different
the Dynamics there were different with
Hillary Clinton and um like the pressure
from Hillary Clinton as a candidate and
so on yeah what I mean was there why
didn't Bernie win I guess is one one
would ask okay I think there's a couple
things here first the DNC I'm not a
Democrat just your audience May not no
I'm just a independent yeah I mostly
vote for candidates that end up being
Democrats in local elections often
there's no party designation so okay I'm
obviously on the left I'm not denying
that but the Democratic party as as an
institution has never really been
interesting to me you're still a rebel
that resists belonging to any
institution exactly right exactly right
and whether it matters I I don't know um
the DNC and the RNC really are
organizations that to some degree exist
to justify their own existence because
if they were no longer necessary um they
would go away and so they have to assert
their value and their importance they do
this in a number of different ways
organizing the way that the dominee is
chosen the convention uh working with
States on everything from redistricting
to whatever else the case may be setting
the order of primaries and having some
involvement in how that's all going to
happen and also coordinating behind the
scenes uh I guess they would describe it
as making sure our candidates don't get
in each other's ways we might see it and
say they're picking MH the the winner
there's nothing illegal about them being
involved in picking the winner but we
might say it's not in people's interests
I think the 2020 primary was really
interesting Bernie supporter
myself I started telling my audience
after a couple primaries and even before
based on polling and different things I
see a real uphill battle here for
Bernie and it's really important people
in my audience are not the average you
know union worker in Michigan who is
mostly working and raising a family and
then goes to vote on primary day and
goes to vote on Election Day if you
spend a lot of time on Reddit and
Twitter you're going to have an inflated
sense of Bernie's popularity within the
Democratic party that was my sense and
to some degree we saw that in certain
States I don't have the exact primary
order and results in front of me or in
my head but the big turning point was
South Carolina South Carolina was when
Joe Biden one and one handly understood
to be because of the larger
African-American population in South
Carolina and right around that exact
same time I actually don't remember now
whether it was the day after or the day
before some of the smaller Democratic
candidate smaller in terms of support
got out and said I'm endorsing Joe Biden
and
to some degree of course it was all
organized and timed to help Joe Biden
there's no doubt about that this is what
the DNC does it's hard for me to be mad
at the DNC because this is sort of like
if if we believed they were there to be
unbiased Arbiters and to stay as much on
the side as possible it would make sense
to be furious that they've gone against
their stated you know kind kind of
mandate but we know that the
DNC negotiates and is working behind the
scenes and has a favorite that favorite
was Hillary in 2016 2020 so I share the
frustration about the power that the DNC
has but for people who were saying they
did something illegal or whatever else
the case may be that that doesn't seem
to be the case but this is part of why I
mean I would love there not to be this
duopoly of Republicans and Democrats and
there's probably four major changes that
have to happen in order to make that a
reality but I share the frustration of
of folks while recognizing
that Reddit was not accurately
representing Bernie's level of
popularity still I wish that the bias
wasn't towards the uh what could be
negatively termed the Deep State towards
the bureaucracy towards the momentum of
the past which I think Joe Biden kind of
represents uh versus new ideas which is
funny to say that Bernie Sanders somehow
represents new ideas because he's also
an older gentleman well it's frame it's
a lot of Framing and the other aspect to
that is on paper Joe Biden's platform
was arguably the most Progressive of any
Democratic candidate who won the
nomination now of course there were
people who challenged the nominations
who were to Joe Biden's left a lot of
this is perspective and it you know
that's how you end up saying the guy
who's a couple years older than Biden is
actually the guy with the fresh
perspective which is interesting because
I don't disagree with you yeah and you
also have to say the perspective doesn't
always align with the policy policies
you're right and you know the actual
policies of Joe Biden are different than
the maybe the perception of Joe Biden or
what he ran on I mean just two examples
I would give are during his campaign he
played up a little bit his interest in
doing student loan forgiveness and
something on cannabis I never bought it
I told my audience I think he's saying
this stuff because this is the way the
tide is kind of the wind is blowing and
he's being advised to say this stuff I
don't think he's going to do very much
on either of these things he did
actually do some student loan stuff but
that would be two examples I think okay
let's go to the uh something you alluded
to which is the pros and cons of a
particular candidate well what do you as
a Critic of trump what do you are um the
pros the strengths of uh Donald Trump
and what you are his biggest weaknesses
the strengths of trump see how I can
frame though in a way that is both
accurate and and
accurately assesses my my feeling about
it and can be taken out of context most
M masterfully through the clipping
process yes Trump's strengths are mostly
superficial and in terms of
presentation Trump was able to I I call
it a grift some on the right say he's
just so good at relating to different
types of people Trump as a rich guy from
New York City was able to convince
people that he spent most of his life
trying to be kept isolated from that he
had their best interests in mind that he
knew why they weren't doing well in the
2016 economy and that he had solutions
that he was going to bring forward the
truth is he never really liked those
people and as soon as they weren't
useful to him for a brief period of time
he you know that that love affair with
his followers stopped and then now it's
back that he needs them again he didn't
really understand the causes of the
problems that those folks were
experiencing and his Solutions were
laughable right like Jared was going to
solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict
in year one he was going to replace
Obamacare in 2017 things that were never
going anywhere anywhere um but what he
did really well was he put up a united
front of I know what is ailing you I
know how to fix it and I know how to fix
it I guess because he's a businessman
and he's been Above The Fray of politics
for so long knowing how to use political
donations to his Advantage he called
that smart Etc I think that's his
greatest strength why do he say that the
the the the Jared plan for Israel and
Palestine and the plan for healthcare to
improve Obamacare why why do you say
that's laughable well only someone I
would include the North Korea plan as
well which I'm glad to talk about only
someone who doesn't know anything about
the size and scope of these issues could
so arrogantly say that they could solve
them in that way and on that time frame
I'm all for optimism and and bringing a
new face to things absolutely without a
doubt but you know a wall with Mexico
that Mexico will pay for at the end of
my first
term I I know there were people who
believed it because they would call into
my show and say I'm voting for Trump
because of it but it's hard to believe
that anybody serious would fall for that
unless were deliberately wanting to just
believe whatever was being fed to you or
you just hadn't ever thought about these
issues before the health care plan you
know in 2017 they proposed one would
have led to 24 million or so people
ending up without Healthcare didn't go
anywhere because it was so terrible and
then in August of 2020 Trump said in in
two weeks I'm going to finally have my
health care proposal it's 2023 we we
still never got it you know with all of
these things when you think them through
it was just sort of arrogance and I get
the perspective of I want optimism and I
liked that optimism it worked I mean
Fair a lot of people saw it and liked it
as someone who followed a lot of those
those issues closely they seemed of
course like impossible promises well
it's a double-edged sword so to push
back a little bit if we look at the
things I have um a little bit more
knowledge about which is the space of
artificial
intelligence there's a company called
Deep Mind and there's a company called
open AI that were laughed at for a long
time when they were talking about that
they're going to solve intelligence and
now they've made um especially Deep Mind
and our most recently open AI with GPT
they've made progress that most of the
community would not have imagined to be
able to make everything from alpha go
beating the world CH uh world go
Champion just all the different steps
and progress I can get into were
surprised everybody and they are
legitimately
uh fearlessly pursuing uh the task of
solving intelligence the other aspect he
gets a lot of criticism now but another
example is Elon
Musk uh in I can say a lot of things
like SpaceX so commercial space flight
he was laughed at for a long time that
that's possible uh same thing with
autopilot in Tesla autonomous vehicles
his approach was harshly criticized by
all the experts and and still criticized
to this day deeply criticized and I as a
person that I believe objectively can
look at the progress of autopilot as a
semi-autonomous vehicle system has been
incredibly surprising so the reason I
mentioned that is sometimes it feels
like you need the guy or the gal who's
who makes those uh Preposterous
ambitious statements like we're going to
solve Healthcare this year
like and then and then there's experts
like yourself that are looking thinking
have you read anything about the history
of this Israel Palestine is a good is a
good example of that do you know there's
a history there do you realize how
complicated how many people have tried
how many people have failed how many
millions of people hate each other in
this in this little uh place in this in
this land like sometimes the expertise
can really weigh you down so sort of to
push back sometimes you have to have the
almost be naive and stupid and just rush
in with an optimism in order to actually
make some progress I agree with you 100%
I think it's interesting that all of the
examples you gave of of successes are
from the technology space not politics
yes not from politics which I mean
listen I would love to be able to make
Headway on some of these issues more
quickly without a doubt I do think at
some point though when it comes down to
voting and saying one of these people is
going to be ostensibly in charge for 4
years through all of the Departments and
secretaries and choices that they make
we do want to apply some level of
realism with the with the understanding
that your examples are from the tech
space and they're good examples there's
there's no question about it one th
thing I'll add to this I recently read
Bradley Hope's new book about North
Korea um and it's really about an
activist um
who it doesn't even really matter but
the in the background of the book it's
written much of what is written about
happens during the Trump era and when
Trump did the first and then the second
um I guess you'd call them Summits with
Kim Jong-un and it actually did seem
like to some degree Trump's were going
to handle this like I do a business deal
approach to Kim Jong-un in some sense it
actually was
logical because of Kim Jong-un and the
way that it was so ego driven and they
both as sort of author Arian strong men
types to different degrees wanted that
there was actually a konel where I
actually thought as I read it Trump's
initial idea wasn't crazy the problem
was he knew nothing about the backstory
of the relationship he fell for all
sorts of lies from Kim Jong-un and he
made offers that didn't make any sense
to make it fell apart fine but that's an
example where I think Trump's
personality was not actually at its base
the the problem when it came to North
Korea well there's other things of this
nature that could go or some people
argue goes into the strengths and pros
of Donald Trump for China for example
Terrace on China can you make the case
that there's some positive outcomes of
the way Donald
Trump acted with China it's really tough
and I'll give you a couple Reas okay
then also cons I'll give you it's tough
to make so the China thing is really so
just um very recently to when we're
recording this Trump was on Fox News
interviewed by a guy named Mark Levin
and Trump proposed a new I call it a
conspiracy theory maybe it will strike
you as something different about China
covid and tariffs and Trump's suggestion
was that the tariffs cost China so much
money China sent the us so much money
and tariffs that they released covid as
punishment now there's a couple problems
with that one American companies pay the
tariffs Trump still doesn't seem to know
this Trump seems to believe that when he
puts a tariff on Chinese Imports someone
in China is cutting a check to the
United States American companies buy the
stuff from China and then American
companies cut a check to the United
States for the
Tariff Trump doesn't seem to get that
but it still has a sting to the Chinese
economy you can make the argument that
if there is a suitable alternative
domestically or from a different country
that it will reduce Imports but it
didn't happen and we actually have
reports now that the tariffs on China
cost about a quarter million American
jobs the other problem with that idea is
China created and released a virus in
order to hurt you but as of today 5.7 of
the 6.8 million deaths were in other
countries it's a very indirect way
you're mostly killing people in other
countries to hurt Trump maybe there was
a this is the sort of thing where when I
think about how Trump dealt with China
it's very scary because given another
four years who who knows what he might
do if he still doesn't understand how
tariffs work so geopolitics
operates in complicated ways with
carrots and sticks and Henry kisser has
written quite a a lot about this and in
some sense the positive aspect here that
uh Donald Trump is willing to take big
risks in the in the game of geopolitics
with this uh giant superpower that is
China and a lot of others are too afraid
too afraid to call them out to come to
the table and
criticize I certainly think that's an
argument that can be made my question
would be what tangible positive outcomes
did it lead to and it's tough to
identify any but I think it's a great
thing I mean listen one of the things
you're kind of getting at maybe
indirectly is that
there's been this sense that politics
has been done very similarly for a long
time and even between Democrats and
Republicans still even with some policy
differences there's still the kind of
feeling that it's disconnected folks in
DC mostly dealing with issues that don't
directly affect I get that I'm with you
on that I think the question as to
whether Trump's Bluster was positive
rather than extraordinarily humiliating
in many ways I just come down on it was
an absolute and total humiliation but I
understand that you can recognize Trump
doesn't know a lot of stuff but his
attitude was refreshing in some way
that's a reasonable position for someone
to take I disagree with it but I
understand it but is trying and failing
better than not
trying this goes well beyond politics
you know Wayne Gretzky has weighed in
about this Michael Jordan has weighed in
about I mean this is yeah is it is it
better to have tried and failed than
never is it better to have loved and
lost than never to have L I don't know I
mean listen we Liv through four years of
trump we know what that four-year term
was like and it's very hard for me to
say that the things he tried were were
overwhelmingly reasonable but I get the
point you're trying to make and I
appreciate it and and it's if we don't
do any of it then where do we end up
sure we know where we ended up with with
Trump and it was pretty
embarrassing uh okay let's Linger on
some more strengths we didn't start any
new Wars we didn't is there something to
that yeah that's it's it's interesting
there's a few different approaches uh to
dealing with that um first it's really
important to remember that the
Counterpoint to that from the folks who
like to say that was that Hillary
Clinton was going to start three Wars
sometimes they say four Wars sometimes
they say five Wars okay um the
geopolitical situation during the four
years that Trump was in office I don't
know that they obviously lent themselves
to Wars that Trump just barely was able
to keep us out of I think the Russia
thing is interesting because now it's
very popular to go back and say you know
the reason Putin didn't do the Ukraine
thing when Trump right and to somehow
give Trump credit for that there's a
Counterpoint to it which is Putin under
Trump particularly if Trump got four
more years would have been able to maybe
consolidate power in other ways because
of his relationship with Trump I'm not
coming down on one side or the other
it's not my area of expertise but it's
not the open shut slam dunk that you
know Trump likes to say it is Putin
didn't invade because he knew I would
crush him and okay so it's not obvious
to me that there were imminently Wars
that would have started during that time
that being said um you know for all the
criticism of Obama during
Crimea Trump seemed to just kind of
forget about that after all the
criticism and say I'm not actually going
to do anything about that and so there
there are foreign policy uh criticisms
that that could be made but it is true
no new wars were started under Trump and
that I I like that I don't like Wars
what do you think about us handling of
Co can you say what are the pros and
cons of his handling of Co the con for
him is he'd be president right now if he
had handled it differently I think it's
abundantly clear um early on and there's
now a lot of really good reporting about
the conversations he was having with
Jared Kushner and others he became
convinced either because of of things he
was being told or because he decided
this is the way it's going to be this is
going to go away fine it's in China okay
it's in China and Italy okay we have 15
cases but it'll soon be zero we'll be
opened by Easter of
2020 none of it
happened if he had handled it in the
following way and I've said this to
Rogan and I've said this to Patrick B
David and they tend to all see my side
of this if Trump had said listen we
don't know how bad this is going to be
but I care too much about the American
people to take a shot so it's not going
to be two weeks it's going to be a
little bit but I need your help we're
going to bring everybody together I
don't care if you're a democrat or a
republican we're going to have magga
masks and he could have kept 50 cents on
the dollar to pay off stormmy or whoever
right but it would have been I think he
wins re-election because the perception
was and reality is a version of that the
perception was that he was way too
Cavalier about it early on uh people
died who didn't need to die and I think
that it was
arguably the one area where he could
have all but guaranteed that he was
going to get himself reelected well to
push back on that I mean because you
mentioned sort of masks and lockdowns
kind of a solution to covid I didn't
mention lockdowns but I'm glad to talk
about policy quarantine like there's
several solutions to pandemic broadly
speaking and one of them is vaccine and
so you didn't mention that he fast
tracked the development he his
administration fast-tracked the
development of the vaccine which
surprisingly he didn't really take much
credit for I think he did I think he
tried there's a couple there's a lot
there well to to me it seems like you
could make the case with the Trump hand
gestures that his decisions for FASTT
tracking the development of the vaccine
saved tens of millions of lives you can
make you he could in the trumpian way
make that case so couple different
things I know you don't necessarily
follow Trump's rallies as closely as I
do uh and I'm jealous of you for that
but um he did Tout The vaccine stuff
hugely for a while until his audience
turned against him and then he had to
draw this line where he was going I made
the vaccines which none of you have to
take by the way Freedom you don't have
to take them but it's fantastic and
nobody else could have done it but don't
worry nobody's going to make you take
the vaccine and he actually got booed at
a couple of his own rallies when talking
about the vaccines but let's back up a
little bit fast tracking my
understanding of what he did is he did
what any president in his situation
would do and what many world leaders
elsewhere did as well which is he agreed
to uh pre purchase supply of vaccine in
order to PR provide money to
pharmaceutical companies to scale up the
manufacturing which is absolutely fine
um but he wants one of the stories he
tells is it usually takes 12 years to
develop a vaccine we did it in m nine
months thanks to
me Decades of mRNA technology being
developed created the platform in which
you can make a particular vaccine in
nine months didn't have anything to do
with Trump he did
but he also delegated control to uh to
people to experts that enable that kind
of uh fast tracking of vaccines right he
was very eager for the FDA to approve it
because he saw that there would be a
political benefit and he didn't get in
the way I guess he didn't get in the way
fair I think now we're on the same page
he did not get in the way of vaccines
being developed which is good presidents
and uh bureaucracies have a way of
getting in the
way I don't uh disagree with that I'm
not aware of really any governments that
got in the way I mean it seemed given
the global situation everybody European
countries were pre- purchasing vaccine
uh African countries were who were going
to be later to receive vaccines were
partnering with the European countries
that had pre- purchased but the most
interesting thing about all of this is
Trump did play up the vaccines for a
long time until his his crowd didn't
want to hear about it anymore which was
crazy it was sort of like he became a
victim of the monster he created to some
degree one of the effects of all this
that makes me truly sad is uh this
division over the vaccines has created
distrust in science yeah and also what
makes me sad is the
scientific uh leaders Anthony foui being
one of the representatives of that
Community I would say completely dropped
the ball in what way they they spoke
with arrogance they spoke down to people
they spoke in a way that's that a great
scientist does not speak speak which is
they spoke with
certainty uh without humility uh like
they have all the wisdom and all of us
are too dumb to understand it but
they're going to be the parent that
tells us exactly what to do versus
speaking to the immensity of the problem
the Deep core of the problem being the
uncertainty we don't know what to do the
the terrifying thing about the pandemic
we don't know anything about it as it's
happening and so you have to make
decisions you have to take risks
about well maybe you have to overreact
in order to protect the populace but
it's in the face of uncertainty they
have to do that not uh not powered
empowered by science somehow and the
Deep expertise that somebody like
Anthony fouchi uh claims to have so like
the the I just I'm really troubled by um
yeah the distress and science that
resulted from that and that you have to
blame the leaders I mean to the
degree leaders take respons
responsibility and I think Anthony Fu
was the scientific leader behind um the
American response to the pandemic and I
think he
failed uh as a good as a scientist as a
representative of science I'm less um I
don't know if interested is the right
word but the kind of the the fouchy
review is less interesting to me in
terms of what comes next than the first
part you mentioned which is the distrust
in science and sometimes I'll get
voicemails or emails from people in my
audience who say that I have had to
backpedal on certain things related to
this and one of the things I tried to do
from the beginning was not speak in
certain terms when we really didn't have
complete information so there was this
period where hydroxychloroquine was
first sort of mentioned as a possible
treatment prophylactic or or um you know
proactive treatment for covid or active
treatment for covid along with a bunch
of other stuff there was IC
there was vitamin D there all sorts of
different things and I tried to be
careful to say right now we don't have
rigorous science that tells us that some
of these things work it doesn't mean
that won't come in the future at which
point if there was something as cheap as
hydroxy chloroquin that treated Co
effectively unbelievable fantastic it's
not there's no way it ever will be
determined we don't have that
information right now so it's not Super
Wise right now to go and start taking
this stuff we eventually learned like
with vitamin D having an appropriate
vitamin D level does seem to be based on
what I most recently read generally
protective and a good thing when it
comes to infections of different great
okay so that one we we figured out one
of the really difficult things is that
the quote truth about the vaccines did
change and the original again this is
all I don't pretend to be an expert but
just someone who synthesized ing the
medical data and writing about it
originally the first
vaccine related to the wild type strain
did seem to be very effective not only
at preventing death and serious illness
but also transmission MH there were
people then saying it doesn't prevent
transmission over time as the variants
came forward the vaccine became less
effective at that at that point I
started telling my audience something
different because as far as I was
concerned the reality on the ground had
changed in my mind that's how science
works it's not back peddling it's we're
adjusting our beliefs to what is taking
place in the real world well to be fair
uh the scientists many of whom are my
friends biologists and biologists they
have way more humility than uh people
like Anthony fi who was speaking about
this or the CEO fizer who were speaking
about this this is the fundamental
problem here is the way science work is
has the way science works is there's
usually a lot more humility and a lot
more transparency about what we know
what we don't know and um people like
Anthony falchi thought it would be
beneficial for the world if he speaks
with more
certainty but because of the political
division that formed around that that
certainty resulted in became completely
counterproductive that people didn't
trust anything about the vaccine didn't
trust any institutions there were uh
that contained the s that actually knew
what they were doing and basically
didn't trust anything that was coming
out of the mouths of scientists uh some
percent of some large percent of the
population so you that made you
completely ineffective in
uh uh at scale as a society trying to
respond to a terrible pandemic and
that's where I put a lot of blame on
leaders so uh political leaders and
scientific leaders are the ones that
should Inspire us to all get together
and respond that that should be the case
for um the pandemic that should be the
case in the time of War all this kind of
stuff I I generally agree with you and
for me it's really about shared blame
and there were a lot of different
reasons why that the early communication
wasn't good uh part of it was I mean for
me I prefer accuracy rather than um
overconfidence I would prefer listen we
don't really know right now whether
masks do X or Y what we do know is the
supply is really limited of this type of
mask we're going to try to keep them for
the Frontline workers I love that that's
the way I want to be communicated to a
call was made to do it differently which
was to say The Masks don't actually help
yeah but the real reason is they want to
keep them for healthcare workers and
then later The Masks are what's going to
solve I'm with I'm with you 100% I think
the other layer to it is you can't
ignore the political situation at the
time if Trump had won reelection and the
vaccine distribution had taken place
while Trump was president rather than
Biden my belief is that the same number
of Democrats would have gotten
vaccinated but way more Republicans
would have as well because they were
following not science but political
leaders and when it was Biden in DC
instead of trump a lot of those people
said I don't trust the vaccine but wait
it's Trump's vaccine I thought yeah but
something about the way Biden's
Distributing it so I do think you can't
ignore that political layer I agree with
you the communication was a
disaster let me ask you about Joe Biden
what are the strengths the weaknesses of
Joe Biden weaknesses I think are some of
the things you've identified he is not
seen as um high energy he is um not the
same Joe Biden that debated Paul Ryan in
2012 and ran circles around him in just
an incredible debate
performance uh he is not inspiring in
the way that someone like a Barack Obama
was to people coming up and starting to
get interested in politics I think a lot
of those uh are fair criticisms I think
on policy he's not interested in a lot
of the things that younger voters are
interested in I mentioned cannabis
reform um I mentioned student loans so
so I think that that's a deficit for
Biden I think the upside to Biden is
when it comes to foreign policy
diplomacy highlevel negotiations knowing
how to engage with allies and productive
way it's tough to find someone with with
more experience than Biden I know that
there are counterpoints to what I'm
saying and those include that was the
old Biden the new Biden doesn't have it
that includes that's just a sign of rot
because he's been around for so long
nobody should be around that long in
politics perfectly reasonable criticisms
to talk about but I do see that as one
of his strengths and he also is good at
knowing when he can work with
Republicans and when he can't and not
wasting more time than is sort of
expected for posturing reasons and I
think that that's a good thing do you
think he's actually there so in a
day-to-day operation of government given
his cognitive capabilities do you think
he is
um uh an active and practicing executive
I don't know that I can say that it's
because of what may be going on
cognitively but my sense from the people
I talk to is that he's very much invol
involved in the highest level
geopolitical and big domestic economic
stuff but that a lot of the smaller
issues that presidents might or might
not be in in sort of plugged into that
he's not plugged into the the details of
a lot of the the lower level stuff I
mean you could probably apply the same
exact criticism even more so towards the
Donald Trump Administration in terms of
being a practicing active uh executive
who's paying attention like for example
like Vladimir Putin is somebody um
who loves the the role of the executive
has a huge amount of meetings has
constantly tracking information about
agriculture and all the different
subsystems of government Stalin funny
enough was also extremely good at this
so certain people just love the job of
being an executive and I'm not sure if
Donald Trump
did um and I'm not sure if uh Joe Biden
in his current state has the cognitive
cap ability to it's a it's a good
question Kim jong-un's another one by
the way you know there's videos of him
uh examining a pottery you know Factory
where they make plates and making very
specific comments about how the plates
should be made I think that in that case
there's a lot of propaganda value to it
with Trump uh I think you're probably
right you know he did get involved in
the minutia of things I mean once he
pulled out a weather map and with a
sharpie drew a different hurricane path
that was more politically convenient to
him that's pretty micro you know saying
The Weather Channel's wrong I see what
you did there this is okay that's a
micro he went to Puerto Rico and he gave
out paper towels after a hurricane now
he was shooting them like free throws
which didn't look very good so he will
get involved in the micro when it's
advantageous you know what I mean but I
do agree with you that he wants to just
kind of make it so build the wall I
don't know just build it figure it out
get it done quick pause bathroom break
sure yeah you're
hilarious and just for the sake of
completeness I should mention the
subreddit what Biden has done uh there's
also what Trump has done but it's not as
active and it has like this master list
of all the accomplishments it's um I
recommend people look at it CU there's
um it's kind of rigorous and interesting
with Link's uh list of all the things
he's done just list some of them uh
restored Daily Press briefings uh
canceled the Keystone Pipeline revers
Trump's Muslim ban required masks on
federal property rejoins the Paris
climate agreement extend student loan
payment freeze extend eviction freeze
historic stimulus bill as you mentioned
and funding for border wall and so on
and so forth Daka uh order strengthening
of Daka rejoins the World Health
Organization and the timing of this of
course is important um yeah several
historic stimulus bills which of course
you could criticize or support uh raise
the minimum wage for federal contractors
and federal employees for $15
um there's a lot there's a lot it makes
you realize um with both Trump and Biden
that there's a bunch of small details
that matter yeah like that matter on
people's lives like actual little
policies uh Trump did a lot of stuff as
far as I heard for the military like not
big stuff but small stuff yeah I'd be
curious what you're thinking of I mean I
know one of the big things under Trump
was we're going to get trans people out
of the
military uh that's not what I was
referring to you weren't referring to
that uh he Trump that tell you know
Trump's hilarious with these stories
that he tells and one of the story and
you get to know them if you if you
follow him at all he tells the story you
know when I came into office the
generals came to me and they said sir
the cupboards are bare we have no
bullets and so I rebuilt the military
you know the cupboards were bare when
Obama left it and it was just terrible
but I rebuilt it and the generals I've
got the best generals they said sir it's
incredible what you were able to do you
look into it and it's like yeah that's
not really true like it is true that
there are armaments that just like on a
schedule do get replaced and that's part
of the military-industrial complex but
there's nothing like special Trump
really did but these stories become they
take on like a life of their own and
it's interesting to sometimes try to dig
down and figure out like was there any
policy connected to that or is that just
a story do you think it's possible to
have a good conversation with each of
them Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a p
in a podcast context or in a debate
context absolutely Ely yeah you're
saying like could I with either of them
oh 100% yeah Joe Biden too sure yeah can
you dig into that a little more well I
mean I don't know what I think there's
maybe something implicit in your in your
question but uh that's deeper about the
nature of politics and politicians yes I
think with either of them I mean the
political differences wouldn't be an
impediment to having a good conversation
with either of them um I think one of
the things that's really tough in my
experience when talking to elected
officials is they could be super
interesting about a 100 different topics
but handlers decide or try to get you to
talk about something you don't really
care about and something really narrow
which doesn't bring out your best nor
their best yeah and that's a frustration
but I think that given an unstructured
three-hour conversation I think it would
be interesting to talk to both I mean
listen with with Biden aside from his
view on cannabis or whatever his
background and the incredible
unimaginable family tragedy that he had
in his first wife and you know multiple
kids dying I mean it it's just
incredible you know and and with Trump I
think also you could have an interesting
conversation yeah those they're human
beings with a life story yes they're
that uh and they're some of the most
successful humans who have ever lived to
have uh Rose to this highest office in
interesting complex ways yes I mean one
of the things I'm troubled by maybe you
can speak to is why we're so negative
towards presidential candidates and
presidents why it's just they go through
this shit storm no matter who they are
they're like hated like all the
conspiracy theories and
just just the Dynamics of how we talk
about them is vicious if if you just
look at replies to even Barack Obama on
Twitter it's like what is going on here
why why because we look at other leaders
in other spaces and we're generally
positive about it yeah there's a couple
different things there's this Dynamic
which is really unfortunate which is you
ask people do you approve of the job a
particular president is doing and very
often if at any point while they were in
office they did something you don't like
people will say I don't approve and so
by its nature what that means is just
like the longer you're in office the
lower your approval rating is going to
be and very often that's the way it
works I mean there's major events like
911 Spike George W Bush's approval to a
incredible level then it came back down
with the Iraq War but there's this
unfortunate thing that when when people
are just asked you think Biden's doing a
good job if four months ago Biden did
something on healthc care that somebody
didn't like even if you like most of it
a lot of people from that point forward
will say I don't approve they might
still vote for him because they like him
better than the alternative or whatever
it's it's just the dynamic of politics
and I agree it's it's very does it have
to be that way you I don't think it has
to be that way but to unwind it so many
things would have to change I think our
election system is part of why politics
is the way it is where you have two
choices and it's first past the post and
we have this electoral college so that
depending on which state you vote in the
kind of meaning and significance of your
vote is different if you vote in Montana
it's the Republican candidate's going to
win and that changes the the Dynamics I
think that's part of it um I think that
at a personal level I've experienced
this in my life a
lot we've become and by we I mean people
in the United States to some degree who
talk about this stuff we've become
uncomfortable when there is disagreement
and it bleeds over into now we can't
have a normal interpersonal relationship
anymore I'm from Argentina and in
Argentina it's really common even in my
family there are incredibly heated
political debates
at the start the middle the end of some
kind of gathering but then everybody
just goes back to like okay we disagree
on some things but that's okay and we
can now go and you know finish cooking
the beef or whatever it is that we're
doing and uh I experienced this even
with people who come up to me on the
street and they go just earlier today a
guy came up to me and he said RFK all
the way baby talking about Bobby Kennedy
Jr and I just kind you know I said oh
all right you know let's see what
happens and then there was another
moment where the guy ended up standing
next to me for maybe longer than he
thought and I could tell this guy's
getting so awkward because it was an
utterance he thought that would just be
on the Fly and he'd be gone but now
we're standing next to each other
waiting for our sandwiches it's like no
big deal you know it's just oh okay you
like Bobby Kennedy Jr I don't plan to
vote for it's fine you know and that's
like a sociocultural thing I think
there's lots of other countries I've
spent time in uh Italy I have relatives
in Israel where like shouting at each
other is sort of like normal and then
you just go back and finish the me it
sounds like shouting I'm sort of
exaggerating but very animated what seem
like big disagreements and then
everybody's cool I wish it were more
normal so maybe the mechanism of going
from shouting to being cool again needs
to improve cuz maybe we can't solve the
shouting at each other maybe not so
maybe we need to somehow figure out the
deescalation like making up I've had a
few uh recent fights with friends like
that for politics no oh no but political
style emotionally drenched stuff and it
um it was interesting to go through that
full process and then make up at the end
but it it was it was a process and it
was a process that required being in
person right talking through it and it
was stressful the whole the whole thing
and then maybe because most of our
interactions are online we don't get a
chance to do that in person making up
again I don't know but uh do you think
it's a feature or a bug of the system
that were so we just hate well the
powerful you mentioned the online part I
think it's a you mentioned it earlier
perfectly which is you take contentious
political issues you create a platform
that rewards controversy and
disagreement and limits the number of
characters you can use to express
yourself you kind of throw it into a
baking dish and and you know mix the
entire thing up it's complete and total
chaos and one of the things that you
know I've talked before about all the
angry emails and threats and stuff that
I get I'm acutely aware that if I had
iners conversations with most of these
people the conversations would basically
be like oh we have different views about
how to solve some of the problems we're
facing we probably agree about what the
problem is and we probably share many
values but on these particular four
issues we may have very different views
but that's okay online that's not the
case
and it leads to you know the the mess
mess that we get ourselves in but I
think that it's a feature of a lot of
the systems that are being used to
disseminate information again let me
Linger on that do you regret some of the
mockery uh and the snark you use on
Twitter and even in your show that kind
of feeds that Division I don't regret it
in the sense that it's a
calculated part or tool that I use
in addition to figuring out how to
simplify complicated Concepts and
choosing stories that I think are
underrepresented and you know it's it's
all part of like the package of what I'm
doing I recognize that my show is not
the audio Vis visual version of a
peer-reviewed uh you know randomized
controlled trial about abor views on
abortion or whatever the case like I'm
very much aware of that but I don't
regret including it as a as a tool
that I've used to build the community in
some total that I've built over the last
more than 10 years I guess I could ask
about the different trajectories you
think your show might take so you know
the dynamic you had with Donald Trump Jr
and maybe Candace Owens is the more
appropriate comparison are you okay
having that dance for the next few years
between you and Candace Owens and just
kind of the mockery the derision that's
a part of that process and and taking
part in that you know I'm fine with it
in the sense of
personally I tolerate it well until it
crosses the line and people pull my
family in and right so that's the part
if we set the family stuff aside if I
set that aside just in the digital space
I'm glad to mix it up now the truth is
Candace Owens has had me blocked for
years up until this incident I don't she
unblocked me just to tweet about what I
tweeted about I don't know the backstory
of that genuinely I I have no idea so I
don't have a sense that she's super
interested in in engaging with me on
that but all of these people I mean
Candace Owens is welcome on my show
anytime Don Jr's welcome on my show
anytime it's been a decade since I had
Ben Shapiro on he's welcome at anytime
I'm glad to have these conversations and
I think it's an important thing and also
I wish that everybody was willing to
have the conversations in good faith
rather than as performance uh it's not
even really performance perance art
rather than being simply performative
for an audience that you have in terms
of your motivations do you see do you
worry about the effects of something we
spoke off spoke about offline with like
the YouTube
algorithm do you are you driven by the
number of
views your videos get or are you driven
by something else so in my world I guess
I would say the number of views that any
platform generates is a metric that I
can choose how to interpret I can choose
to interpret it as I've created content
that's interesting to people or I've
created content that's really angering
people and that's why they're showing up
they don't actually like it it's because
they're angry or whatever else the case
may be but it is true that there are
algorithmic changes that can take place
there something happened in early
January that affected Us on YouTube or
there are periods on Tik Tok where you
can tell we're doing all the same things
something has happened and then you
never usually figure out what it is so
for me it's sort of just like a general
tool to see what is the level of
interest in what I'm doing and are the
numbers so out of whack with what I
would expect that I should look into
whether something deeper is happening
has there been some change to to an
algorithm or whatever the case may be I
had a debate once with someone who
accused me of using clickbait to
generate views and we had a really
interesting conversation where I said
tell me really what you mean by that is
your argu
that I'm using titles that don't
actually represent what's in the video
no what's in the title is in the video I
go okay so it's not that the title is
dishonest are you saying saying I'm
deliberately picking titles that will
Garner a larger audience and they said
yeah that's kind of what I mean and I
said isn't that kind of what we're all
doing the alternative would be choosing
titles to generate a smaller audience
which seems like a real kind of waste of
time so I'm trying to navigate and play
play the game in a way that's
comfortable but use the metrics more as
a tool than as something to obsess over
nevertheless the metrics are what they
are and that they are able to uh affect
your
psyche it's very difficult which is why
I have a Chrome extension that hides all
the views and all that on YouTube uh for
me uh it's difficult not to let it
affect how you think about
ideas so maybe you're extensive
exploration of a particular topic like
healthcare generated very few
views it's difficult for you to still
care about
Healthcare there's some aspect of the
human mind that
starts uh being affected by those views
and I think that's a really dangerous
Thing mo mostly it's it's um probably
beneficial because it probably makes you
a better presenter if if you do care
about a topic a lot you become more
charismatic more um you learn sort of in
a Jimmy Mr Beast way how to present the
ideas better uh but it also can affect
which topics you choose to cover what
you choose to think about those topics
uh the audience capture those topics and
that's a really scary effect I I'm I'm
really worried about my own mind in that
so I run from that
aggressively one of the things that I
include in My overall approaches I don't
think about any One Clip I think about
an entire show or a week of shows or a
month of shows
and so it's less about does any One Clip
do well my view going in is I'm going to
do stuff that won't do that well but I
think it's really important to do and I
want to make it part of my show and so
when I did a clip with 10 ideas for
reducing gun violence I know that that's
not going to get 500,000 or a million
views I know it's just not going to and
the first day it'll get 12,000 and I'll
go I don't care that's that's fine
there's there's a group of people in my
audience that values this stuff and and
I want to keep doing this stuff I'll end
up surprised sometime and two weeks
later has 150,000 views because it
started being shared great but I don't
go into it thinking these all need to be
home runs by that metric I always go in
saying I want to put out a diversity of
content including stuff that is less
titillating and salacious but is
important to do it's more researched Etc
and so that's the way I try to resist
exactly what you're talking about and I
think you have to probably know yourself
like for me metrics I just like numbers
too much and for me metrics do affect me
this is why I don't pay attention at all
like I can't um I would love to hire
somebody in the team who cares cuz we
currently have I folks who just all of
us just don't care um because he
probably is good to care enough to kind
of just do good thumbnails and this kind
of stuff to to to pay attention but to
me personally I just find inner peace
and focus if I don't think about the
numbers at all because I find myself um
I just remember a long time ago when I
started a podcast I
would think that I failed if it didn't
do well like if I didn't celebrate the
person well enough I didn't do a good
job enough of a conversation well that's
not necessarily at all what that means
it's it's hard not to like this is tough
stuff I mean yeah I know exactly what
you're saying and part of it
is H I mean it's it starts in my you
have a little bit of a different
situation than me because you're doing
long form conversations with people and
the prep is a little bit different one
of the things in my space because I'm
reacting mostly to what's going on in
the news and then also picking topics to
dive into it a little bit more deeply is
I have very little control over the news
cycle and there is a me a metam metric
or a macrom metric that affects me that
will quadruple my audience and then take
75% of it away which is the seasonality
of election Cycles yeah and the first
few election Cycles very tough because I
go it's it's October I'm like at this
rate we're going to have 20 million
subscribers by next these numbers are
unbelievable and then it's January 30th
the inauguration is over the debate is
about the debt ceiling and nothing's
going on and I go nobody's watching my
content this I must have I must have
forgotten to upload a like something
must beong it's completely beyond my
control so I just and I think part of
what you're saying is I try to focus on
the things I control and understand
those that I really have no control over
whatsoever and try not to worry about
them and try to do the things that make
you happy at the end of the day you
mentioned RFK the guy you met what do
you think about uh some of the other
candidates outside of Joe Biden in the
in the Democratic party RFK Jr what what
do you think of him as a candidate I've
met him we once had dinner and we have a
number of friends in common which is
what makes this a little more Awkward
but I think his campaign is basically
sort of like a chaos candidacy to raise
awareness and maybe raise money either
for his book or his antivaccine
organization children's defense fund I
believe it's called I think there's some
reporting that Steve Bannon really liked
the idea of him running as a Democrat
again to just generate chaos I don't
find it super interesting I don't find
it worthy of that much discussion uh
smart guy
nice guy has been doing antivaccine work
that I don't find particularly inspiring
so it's not just anti covid vaccine it's
more broader than that he's been in that
space long before the covid vaccines
yeah yeah I don't find it super
interesting well he also wrote the book
uh the real Anthony fouchy is that the
name of the book did he write that
that's I didn't I I don't know that's
I'm not sure about that I'm aware of
that book I didn't know he wrote it I
think I but it's been a uh it's been on
my reading list to get uh I've been
trying to get a good balanced reading
list about uh the co pandemic to
understand what the hell happened and um
anytime I start to try to go into that
place it just I'm exhausted by it well
it's interesting to me that you wouldn't
wait longer before delving into those
books to have maybe a more clear
hindsight I but I think this is a pretty
good time you you don't think so like
this is uh it depends on your goals if
you're thinking of it as a historical
event yes you should probably wait
longer but if you're thinking about like
understanding what is broken about our
system that we respond to so
poorly that there was so much division
what is broken about our political
system that um it didn't unite us it
divided us who's to blame there's
probably a lot of different narratives
but I feel like the more you learn about
this the the better you can understand I
read um I'm just Vladimir Putin I read
like five biographies already maybe
more um just it helps to really
understand the people involved the
organizations involved I don't know
everything from the scientists to the
political leaders um it felt like the
blog posts and the tweets didn't quite
Capt they didn't quite cap no what one
of the things I read a ton I don't read
any like modern political books so I
don't read the Memoirs of elected
official
I don't read any I just feel like I get
enough of it in my job so my reading
list is just other things it's history
it's narrative non-fiction economics Etc
and that's my bias because I'm so
overloaded with a lot of the stuff
you're talking about I haven't read any
of Obama's books I didn't read John
Bolton's book or you know I I don't read
any of that stuff although I'm sure
there there is value to be gleaned from
it what about the other candidate that
uh according to the subre credit and as
you mentioned you've criticized a little
bit uh Maryanne Williamson do you think
what are the pros and cons of her as a
candidate this is another area where
many in my audience really are angry
with me yeah I don't find her candidacy
super interesting I'll tell you the pros
and the cons as I see them I do think
that we have elected officials in the US
particularly presidents from a really
narrow range of backgrounds so it's
lawyers and uh sometimes business people
very very often lawyers I would I think
we would benefit from a much greater
diversity of backgrounds and I once said
and that would include uh people from
education people from the Science World
people with backgrounds maybe running
nonprofits Etc now Maryann Williamson
did I guess at one point run some kind
of small nonprofit and some in my
audience thought that credential alone
would make me fall head over heels in
love with the idea of a maranne
candidacy I've interviewed for her it's
just not for me is the way I like to say
it it's the the background of the woo
woo type stuff MH is a bit off-putting
to me I understand that someone with
literal Christian Bible beliefs that
also I I don't like maybe I'm more
willing to accept as most of our
presidents of course have have had those
views because they're otherwise more
qualified but some of the things that
she says just strike me as I don't I
just I just don't know I'll give you an
example when she was on with Russell
brand she said there's no such thing as
clinical depression it just means
someone in a clinic told you you have
depression I don't believe that to be
the case I think we have an
understanding there's two types of
depression there's like a genetic
predisposition depression there's like a
acute something's happening in my life
temporary depression okay you know when
she was asked about it recently she said
I didn't mean it I was just trying to
impress Russell
Brand I don't know if I'm more bothered
by the things first said or by the fact
that she wanted to impress Russell Brand
but it's just like it's just really not
for me and I agree with her on we need
to take the climate more seriously we
need to expand access to heal I I I'm
with all of that stuff now I want to say
one other thing about this anybody who
wants to run should run I am not
suggesting there should be an
uncontested primary for Joe Biden
absolutely so you think it should be
contested well what I mean by contested
is so there's two parts to what we mean
by contest will the DNC organize debates
and we'll get to that in a second but
should should anybody who's on the left
get out of the way because Joe Biden is
President and he's running for
re-election absolutely not the question
about should there be debates I would
like there to be debates the DNC pretty
clearly isn't going to organize them I
think if you did them you would have to
say at what polling level do you qualify
and I don't know exactly where you put
that number but I think it would be a
great thing to put Joe Biden on a stage
age with if you can get what 6% 8% I'm
not really sure what the number would be
I'm totally all for that why is a set of
candidates at least from my perspective
so
weak do you have do you have an
understanding there's a lot of different
answers to
this one aspect to this which I think is
more of a sociocultural thing which I've
recently read about to some degree is
the job actually turns off the people
who would be best at it because of what
you need to do to become president and
it
includes all but completely abandoning
your existing day-to-day life job which
you may depend on and family to some
degree um it's horribly uh negative as
we already talked about and at the end
of all of that you either lose and then
have to rebuild and maybe you're not in
a position to be able to do that or you
win and then now you've got four years
of being one of the most hated people no
matter how good a job you do so I think
by its nature it turns off a lot of
people that would otherwise be good um I
also think that there's a lot of
posturing from within the parties about
well you might be good but it's not your
time yet so you should wait and then
let's talk about maybe a senate seat
here and there so it's like it's like a
company essentially and they're figuring
out where they want to place people uh I
think all of these things make it so we
end up with candidates most people
aren't super thrilled with so it's
difficult for somebody who's young or an
outsider to uh to quickly
become a candidate I think that that's
true and I think also in a lot of ways
it's just not I mean would you want to
be president no I mean I can't be
because I wasn't born in the US so it's
easy for me to say but um if everyone
says no Then we're get the people that
we have no I understand that so I I
would love to help somehow sure and I
feel like there's not even a mechanism
for helping except through the
Democratic through the voting process
but I'm just annoyed how little
technology there is in the whole process
how how little Innovation there is in
the whole process all of this the sad
thing is this is written about a lot
which is there's this thing called
political
hobbyism and I think there's a good
chance that some of the people in my
audience are political hobbyists in the
sense that they follow this stuff as
entertainment to some degree and I've
written a lot about how uh I've read a
lot and talked a lot about how okay we
vote every two years or every four years
in our local elections Etc and then we
think about politics all the time uh
Neil Postman wrote about this in his
book amusing ourselves to death but what
are you actually going to do about the
kids Starving in this country and the
nuclear buildup in that country it's
okay if everybody refocused their
attention on their immediate communities
and that could mean any number it could
mean the town or city you live in or it
might mean um an athletic club or
whatever if everybody this time they
spent on political hobbyism they moved
somewhere else which might put me out of
a job that's okay I'm I'm willing to
lose my job because I think it would be
so beneficial then our our communities
would just be that much better uh
because you can actually affect change
in a much more tangible way locally
whether it's obvious people talk about
potholes but other things as
well yeah and I wish our system was more
amendable to that kind of contribution
hopefully through the digital space it
would be uh let me ask you about on the
Republican side Ron de santis what do
you think of him as a candidate running
against uh Donald Trump I think in the
couple of weeks before our our
discussion today his campaign which
hasn't even started has sort of started
to implode and this was something that I
started thinking about in September
October he really doesn't seem ready for
prime time in the sense that just being
confronted and confronted is not even
the right word just being asked about
uh some topics he didn't really seem to
want to talk about he responded in such
a sort of disproportionate unhinged way
during his recent trip to Asia he was
asked about why aren't you or why are
you responding but in this weird way to
Trump's attacks on you and he went into
this weird bobblehead thing with a weird
smile and something came out that didn't
make any sense and he sort of got mad at
the reporter and it was just like if you
can't handle that you can't be on a
debate stage with Donald Trump and again
for all my criticisms of trump the guy
gets you on a debate stage he can make
you look pretty silly he was recently
asked about his role at Guantanamo Bay
when he was um an officer in I forget
which branch of the Armed Forces and he
just sort of attacked the journalist
asking the question and it it just
looked very bad and there are
increasingly big Republican donors who
are not fans of trump and were sort of
hoping to put their eggs in the Ronda
santis basket who are saying this guy
just doesn't have What It Takes I don't
think he can do it so I don't know if
Dan santis will be able to get away once
you're polling 20-some like he is and
you haven't even announced it's very
attractive and he probably to some
degree is thinking if I wait till 2028 I
might not have this opportunity again
but Trump's polling
5253 which means even if DeSantis gets
all of the current non-trump vote he has
to figure out how to take something more
for Trump from Trump I I just don't know
how he does it first of all the
implosion aspect that that's part of the
process isn't it you kind of implode a
bunch of uh a bunch of times and then
rebuild yourself and rebuild and because
the new cycle kind of forgets it's
possible the problem is if he the first
debate is in August so that's only a few
months away and the decision is going to
have to be made pretty soon and unless
he can get a new momentum going uh I
just don't know how he gets what he
needs in order to really have a shot so
would anyone else run against Donald
Trump it's very tough right now I mean
there are other people R running there's
this guy Vic ramaswami who's running uh
Nikki Haley is running her campaign
basically Dead on Arrival um Trump
actually does better in polls the more
people run when when it's just him and
DeSantis that's the best scenario for
Dan santis it's not great for Dan santis
but it's it's uh certainly better um but
I think the difficulty is this is a
question for Republicans to figure out
the people who rightly recognized in
2016 that this guy is not good for their
party um still believe this guy is not
good for their party but many of them
recognize that most of the voters are
still behind
him you can always say it's early his
polling doesn't really mean anything
anything could happen something major
would have to happen for Trump to lose
that lead if he got more uh if he was
arrested two more times and had more
indictments and it just became like this
guy can't even campaign because he's so
busy going from court to court maybe
that would make a difference it's really
tough to
imagine you said that there are three
categories of people who vote Republican
and uh that Trump introduced the fourth
one uh can you go through the four
categories sure so you've got like your
pro business low tax Republicans these
are mostly people like Mitt Romney Mitt
Romney has a bit of the social
conservatism as well he's Mormon and
that's there but Mitt Romney primarily
particularly as a Northeast sort of
Republican I mean I know Utah but
governor of Massachusetts he is like a
low tax Pro business business type guy
um you've got your libertarian type
Republicans who are primarily about uh
freedom and liberty often they are
actually more socially liberal where
they go I don't care about gay marriage
liberal you know I don't care so much
about abortion um and that overlapped a
little bit with the Tea Party Movement
in 2010 although tea party did have a
religious component but sort of like the
libertarian freedom-- minded folks and
then the religious conservatives people
that support candidates like Josh Holly
or uh Ted Cruz ET where their big thing
are social issues often they actually
want uh Christianity being civil
government they don't want separation of
church and state those are traditionally
the three Republican groups the one that
Trump introduced was people who just
didn't really pay attention to politics
but either followed celebrity or had
grievances that they didn't yet have a
scapegoat for um and were sort of right
leaning culturally even though they
didn't attribute that to republicanism
and Trump was able to bring them into
politics often for the first time as
voters they could be part of any of
those three groups if they get more into
politics or kind of be their own thing
but they're more kind of like Cult of
Personality I'm here for Trump types did
it have to do anything about the culture
wars and the the identity politics all
that kind of
stuff yeah I mean so in 2016 when Trump
mobilized them those weren't really
issues the way they are now so I think
at the time that time it certainly was
not a factor what was the mobilizing
issue I don't it was it just
anti-hillary in 2016 there he did a good
job on anti-hillary but a lot of it was
identifying real economic problems wage
depression lack of jobs in parts of the
country you know Ohio and Indiana Trump
rightly identified like we have an issue
here we don't have enough
entrepreneurship Etc um but there was
also a lot of scapegoating that was you
know China and people coming through the
US Mexico border were popular scapegoats
for a lot of those problems this gets us
kind of to populism populism is a
rhetoric and populism as a rhetoric
doesn't necessarily come with particular
policies you can be a populist uh a user
of populist rhetoric and propose
solutions that would be more aligned
with Bernie or Tucker
Carlson populists will often identify
the plight of the middle class the
difference would be Bernie will say
we've got to put some restrictions on
how much uh billionaires can make and
we've got to reinvest in these social
programs Tucker will say BLM taking your
house and a a brown person from Mexico
taking your job are what we need to deal
with so the the populist rhetoric can
lend it lend itself to very different
policy and Trump used that very
effectively in 2016 why do you think
Hillary Clinton
was hated as intens as she was by
certain % of the population it feels
like U that's the first election I
witness where there's a lot of
hate maybe I'm
misremembering I don't remember
Obama I don't remember the degree of
hate there was a conspiracy theories
that he wasn't born in this country but
I don't remember hate towards Obama
record death threats under Obama more
than any previous president right
towards who towards him towards him yeah
uh do you mean more hate between voters
or between voters between voters but
like that's I guess what I was speaking
to but that hate was directed towards um
The Narrative the thread that connected
all of that in 2016 was Hillary Clinton
few different
things um and I'm not ranking these
these are just all things that come to
mind one is Hillary
Clinton had been around in the political
space for a long time from her time as
first lady
through a senator Secretary of State Etc
so I think that there was enough time
for different groups to develop an
antipathy towards her for different
reasons so time um
secondly Trump's branding of her as
crooked was very effective yeah where
there were so many people de demanding
that she be imprisoned if you ask them
what is the crime they don't know but
she should definitely be locked up that
became a a very big thing the email
story as it were and uh James Comey
doing a second public event about that
investigation even though there wasn't
any actual news about it just doing a
second event about it at the last minute
I think hurt her and also generated some
hate and I don't find Hillary Clinton to
be particularly likable although I voted
for her I thought she was the better
candidate and I think that there are
others who also didn't find her
particularly likable that those are a
lot of impediments to becoming president
I was trying to understand why there's
so many conspiracy theories about
clintons in general Bill Clinton and uh
Hillary Clinton and I maybe I'm not
researched well enough the of the why of
it uh the why of it actually the extent
of the conspiracy theories the sort of
the the conspiracy theories that they've
killed a lot of people this kind of
stuff it's hard for me to speak to them
because I'm aware that they exist but
I'm not an expert in them because they
seem so obviously baseless to the degree
that I've researched them a little bit
and then I move on and uh you know it's
been years since I've looked at this
stuff I know there's the Seth Rich one
and there's the Clinton Body Count one I
think there's one connected to Epstein
if I recall correctly there there's all
sorts of these different ones um without
speaking to any of them specifically
because I'm not the expert on Clinton
conspiracies uh it does seem as though
this stuff for so long has generated an
audience I mean I remember in the
supermarket when Bill Clinton was
President at the checkout seeing the
tabloids and there were stuff about
Hillary birthed an alien baby and you
know all the it seems like it's been
titillating to people for a very long
time well another question from Reddit
speaking of aliens uh I would be curious
to hear David's views on conspiracies
and conspiracy theories the extent to
which real conspiracies happen and why
conspiracies that have little evidence
behind them managed to be so compelling
to people regardless also please bring
up aliens and uaps okay where where do
we start the conspiracy what uh so what
are in general as a person who uh thinks
about politics uh thinks about this
world like where do conspiracy theories
fit in for you I think there have been
conspiracies and by conspiracies I'm
using a colloquial definition which is
basically uh individuals working
together
to um in a clandestine way uh impact or
affect some kind of event or
phenomenon uh very very broadly I mean
certainly that those things have
happened um the to pick to jump around
to some of the things that were in there
I think the reason that conspiracy
theories are so compelling is that it's
really tough for a lot of people to
accept there are random events
not predictable specifically at a
stochastic level we might be able to
predict them but specifically
unpredictable bad events in many
ways I could be the victim of one or you
could or my family could that's really
scary to a lot of people understandably
so and for some people it's less scary
and more soothing in a way to say there
aren't really random events like this
somebody planned it and if we had just
known who planned it it just could have
been stopped because we would have known
exactly when that's just a psychological
level easier to accept for people and I
get that to some degree because listen
it's it's not the most exciting thing
that everything can just be going fine
and something absolutely horrible
happens and kills who knows some number
of people or so I think that's the the
biggest attractor to a lot of these
conspiracy theories it doesn't apply to
all of them though but yeah but there's
still kind of a base on understanding of
human nature where
people some people are greedy and want
power and are corrupted by power so
there's uh kind of these compelling
narratives that
stick that
um I don't know the vaccine is a is a
opportunity for a powerful billionaire
to implant chips into you so he can
control you further right it doesn't
seem what do I want to say it's like for
some reason that doesn't seem as crazy
as it
should cuz you think like maybe
Hollywood contributes to that but you
think yeah you could imagine an evil
person a person that wants more control
more
power um and is also at the same time
able to convince themselves as history
shows that they actually have the best
interest of the populace in mind that
they're trying to do good for the world
so they do evil while trying to do good
and you can kind of imagine it so it's
like why
not and uh you listen to people in power
uh authorities they kind of look and
sound Shady you know like the the the
transparency especially the older ones I
think younger folks are better at being
like real and transparent and just like
revealing their flaws and the basic
Humanity but people that are a little
bit older in the positions of power
they're more polished they're more like
that it feels like they're presenting a
narrative where the truth is hidden in
the shadows so I don't think there's
anything wrong with
suspecting maybe a public figure isn't
giving me the full story yeah totally
reasonable thing to question um I don't
think there's anything wrong with
exploring a lot of these different
things I think the problem becomes and I
know you've talked about this in so many
different ways with other guests the
problem becomes when we lose a shared
understanding of how we would assess
whether any of these things are true and
then both alleged evidence and an
absence of evidence both become
supportive of the conspiracy theory
because if there's bad evidence you
manipulate and say it's good evidence if
there's no evidence you say the evidence
was obviously hidden by the people who
carried out the thing or whatever so
unless we can have a shared
understanding of how we would determine
what's true these are common
conversations often between atheists and
religious folks how can we deter like is
is my faith in something or my desire
for something to be true a good way to
evaluate whether it is true they're
really similar questions well let me ask
you about Trump on that front about the
election 2020 election and maybe the
better question is about January 6th do
you think January 6th was a big deal I
do how big of a deal compared to
what uh Civil
War I think it was less a big deal than
the Civil War okay no I mean so well
that it's a very interesting thing
though right because we have not only
the the event that's that's clever
actually it's not only the event but
it's what led up to it and what has
happened since and did it change what is
considered on the
table that citizens can should or might
do if they disagree with the results of
an election so I think that there are
further reaching con consequences than
just was the 6-hour period on January
6th a bigger or smaller deal than the
Civil War and there's so much wrapped up
into it um many conspiracy theories
flowed from January 6th as well uh 60
Minutes recently featured a guy named
Ray EPS who was targeted by some on the
right um claiming that he was an
instigator or an agent of the FBI or
something along those lines uh there
were people claiming that no real it was
like a no true Scotsman sort of thing
like Trump supporters wouldn't Riot so
by definition it must have been
antifa uh police let him in or police
were you know all these different things
I think it was a big deal in a lot of
ways because it completely made us have
to go back to the top to say okay what
are the parameters of valid discussion
and activism in the United States but
what aspect of the January 6 was bad for
you
well I mean like if you're thinking from
a big philosophical political
perspective so presumably the number of
people hurt and the number of people who
died is not the only metric to consider
here absolutely I think the sum total of
what it means about how the United
States operates is what's most
concerning and I'll kind of just like
flesh it out a little bit
so summer of 2020 Trump's already saying
they're going to cheat now the polling
is close but it shows that Biden's in a
good position people aren't happy with
Trump any reasonable person would look
and say it's going to be close but Biden
certainly it wouldn't be a crazy thing
if Biden won Trump's already saying
they're going to cheat with mailin
ballots or they're going to cheat with
early voting or they're going to cheat
with machines or we should do only in
person or whatever else the case may be
we have the election um we knew in
certain States how the vote count was
going to go some states stop counting at
10 p.m. some states count all of the
mail and stuff up front some don't
everything was completely predictable uh
at 2 am Trump comes out and says I won
okay but but where where are you getting
that sir as he claims people always
refer to him where are you getting that
and with that statement immediately we
see that there is a large portion of
this country that either is unable or
unwilling to say wait a second the
polling all said this was a real
possibility the counting schedules are
all being adhered to all but Trump won
that doesn't make any sense that doesn't
happen it builds people are donating
Millions to Trump for supposed audits
which nobody can Define and lawsuits
which go nowhere and it builds and
builds and builds and we have a total
separation from a factual reality
there's no reason to think by December
1st right give it 3 weeks to look
through some of the stuff by December
1st there's no reasonable case to be
made that Trump actually won but it
doesn't end there it goes into maybe we
can just like send different electors
even though Biden won Arizona Let's just
like send I don't remember how many
electors it is in Arizona Let's just
like send Republican electors to say we
we vote for Trump but that's that's not
democracy that's not the way the system
works let's make sure we're ready ready
for what exactly and then it builds to
maybe my Pence can just like prevent
Biden from being president or maybe we
can just interfere in this other way and
then it gets to let's break into the
capital it's the height of saying we no
longer comport ourselves attached to
what is a verifiable factual reality and
when we no longer do that we're also
willing to commit crimes property crimes
violent crimes okay to different degrees
in order to try to have something other
than democracy it wouldn't be
democracy if any of those things had
happen yeah I I I think it's not the
height of it I think there is still a
case to be made that that uh did not
leave the realm of
protest
versus um a violation of the principles
of democracy so to me the height of what
could happen on January 6th is uh if
Donald Trump was much better executive
uh he could take control of the military
if it had
succeeded no not even succeeded the
attempt would have been more um
empowered I understand so like the way
not to bring up Hitler every other word
which is something your subet also told
me not to do okay he's kind of an
important figure it's interesting to
study that moment in history because it
reveals so much about human nature and
that all of us are capable of Good and
Evil but thank you dear sub reditor or
redditor for your contribution to the
conversation I will keep bringing up
Hitler and the Third Reich and I'll keep
bringing up Stalin there's so much to
learn from that anyway
the um an effective practice
authoritarian could roll the tanks out
into the city
streets to uh establish
order and in so doing pause the process
of
democracy as opposed to a few protesters
is breaking in to a questionably uh
protected building I agree that what
you're saying would be worse I don't
want to use it to minimize what the
protesters were intent on doing they
failed fortunately oh but to you the
intention was there well the intention
was Trump should remain president yeah
that's the intention and to what length
they would have been willing to go if by
the evening early evening they they you
know were sort of like forced out I
don't know I agree with you that Trump
trying to use the military
uh would absolutely be worse you know
there's these reports that he tried to
seize voting machines which is kind of
funny because it's like once you get the
machine at maral Lago what do you do
with it exactly I don't know there's a
like a comedic element to Trump sitting
around with voting machines but he did
float trying to do some other things I
don't believe there's reporting that he
actually tried to use the military I
wonder to what degree this opened the
door to further things like this with
other uh other candidates on you know
even uh in the Democratic party also uh
do you think there'll be more and more
questioning of the election results
there has been already it's uh very
clearly The Playbook Carrie Lake lost
she ran for governor in Arizona 2022 she
lost what I mean by that is her opponent
received more votes it's like very clear
what it means that she lost she insists
to this day that she won to this day she
did the same grift Trump did about
donate we've got a case we won in the
case
you didn't win they just set a court dat
like that's not that's not you know lies
upon grift upon lies so they they did it
then um it is I I it's extraordinarily
saddening but it seems like this is now
going to be part of the Playbook do you
think people on the left will start
doing it uh I don't have a reason to
believe that that is going to happen but
I'm not going to say it never could
Absol it certainly could people on the
left could start using it as a tactic
right now there's not a sign that that's
going to happen but it's certainly good
my expectation is and I'm not a betting
man but I would bet money if Joe Biden
loses in November of
2024 he will say I lost he will call the
winner he will concede and he will leave
the White House in an orderly fashion
you don't think there'll be claims of a
hacked election the the ability to hack
elections is
becoming uh more and more effective with
the developments on the artificial
intelligence side the difficulty is
you're basically saying will something
happen without me knowing anything about
the election imagine there really was
evidence of a hacked election then I
would want those claims to be made but
the way elections have gone in the past
I I don't expect that that's a claim
that would be made no speaking of
evidence of things uh that were
claimed what do you think about the
hunter Biden laptop or as you tweeted
the laptop from
Hell the laptop from Hell TM right
uh to what degree was this uh laptop
story important and to what degree was
it not at this point I have said many
times if there is any reason to believe
that Hunter Biden Joe Biden Naomi Biden
Jill Biden Hillary Obama Doug M if
there's any evidence any of them
committed a crime they should be
investigated they should be charged and
they should be be tried period the
hunter Biden laptop thing has been
floating around for so long and we still
have zero
actual uh pieces of evidence of any
crime particularly involving Joe Biden
there's the claim from some that
references to the big guy are about Joe
Biden getting 10% for some elicit it's
been years they've been saying this they
they've not been able to bring forward
any evidence on it so my um assessment
of the hunter Biden laptop is it seems
to mostly be a story about nude images
released without someone's consent which
is illegal in Most states and violates
Twitter's own policies that's the main
story to me beyond that I don't know how
many people have a copy of this hard
drive at this point Rudy had it Tucker
do you remember when Tucker this this is
this is unbelievable
Tucker said that he mailed
himself uh a copy a USB stick yeah and
it got lost in the mail you you have the
mother load proving the criminality of
Joe and Hunter Biden and I don't you
just dropped it off with a stamp and it
got lost in the mail you don't have a
backup copy you don't so I'm ready for
the evidence to come forward Hunter
Biden has nothing to do with Joe Biden's
Administration but as a person who if he
committed a crime charge him investigate
him whatever but it's it's getting it's
almost getting satirical the degree to
which they're talking about the hunter
Biden laptop uh what do you think about
the the social media aspect of this that
that story got
censored and what do you think about
censorship in General on social media
that that story during an important time
in the electoral process got censored so
I uh as a matter of principle I think we
have to Define what we mean by
censorship but I'm against censorship
short of illegal content I guess is the
way I would put it I do respect a
company's right to have terms of service
and to enforce them as long as they're
not illegal if Twitter were to say we
don't publish content from Jewish people
okay now we've got a problem on our
hands but um what what is dubious to me
is the claim that had people been able
to see Hunter Biden's genitals they
would have voted for Trump which I know
it's like David you're you're making
light of and but at the end of the day
what exactly is the claim that if you
had known more about Hunter Biden I
guess allegedly hiring prostitutes and
and having a drug problem and seeing
pictures you wouldn't have voted for Joe
Biden I mean I know me as a voter I
don't feel that way I think uh it's less
about the content of the story and about
the actions of u a social media company
to control what what you see and what
you don't see so you could imagine a
social media Media company like Facebook
and Twitter making the same kind of
decision about a more impactful story
than uh a few dickpics on a laptop well
I think if that happened then my view
might be different right but I do my my
general view though on the hunter Biden
story is had the Articles not contained
those images that were illegal in many
states and violated Twitter's policies I
would say publish it absolutely I don't
think it would have had an impact but I
would be in favor of it being of the
links being alled
100% okay uh you mentioned Tucker what
what do you think about Tucker getting
fired from Fox um you're a media person
that works independently yes F uh Tucker
was a media person who doesn't work
independently
right uh yeah what do you what do you
think about that particular situation is
it representative of some big shift
that's happening in mainstream
media what would the shift be uh
basically mainstream media freaking out
because the funding is getting less and
less and less and less and there going
to give more power to
individual commentators basically tuo
Carlson just starting a podcast so and a
YouTube channel I think that's what he
should do I think that's the most
profitable path rather than maybe going
to work for Newsmax or whatever the case
may be but the firing fundamentally was
not a politically oriented firing that
suggests Fox News is changing its tune
politically in any way there's no
evidence of that whatsoever um Tucker
Carlson basically became a legal problem
for Fox News there's really Four Points
to it one is the $787 A5 million
settlement with Dominion partially was
because of the um claims that went out
on Tucker Carlson's program so to some
degree Tucker's program was a prominent
uh node of the problematic claims that
became the subject of the lawsuit that's
number one number two smart mtic which
is another voting Machine Company still
has similarly sized lawsuit against Fox
News based on the exact same sorts of
claims it may cost Fox News again so
this is now two problems that Tucker's a
big contributor to number three former
Tucker staffer has brought a lawsuit and
I don't remember the exact claims but I
know that there are claims of different
types of discrimination it seems like it
has legs and that may be a third payout
related to Tucker Carlson and based on
the 60 Minutes piece from a few weeks
ago Ray EP saying Tucker ruined his life
by M menting conspiracies about him
around January 6th that's ripe for
another lawsuit so to me Tucker firing
was a risk mitigation
strategy uh of many that will be
employed as as these lawsuits come
forward there's no evidence that it's
because Fox didn't like and what we mean
by that who are we talking about rert
Murdoch doesn't like or the Pres I don't
know but I don't have any reason to
believe it's because Tucker's ideas were
no longer welcome on Fox certainly the
audience like them so interesting it's
not about it's not even about the
ratings it's about just the the legal
costs Fox is interesting the ratings
question is interesting because Fox
unlike most other or every other cable
news channel um they negotiate a a fee
from every cable subscriber if you have
Fox News as a channel even if you don't
watch it Fox gets a little bit of money
they are dramatically less dependent on
ad Revenue than CNN and MSNBC so the
ratings question is an interesting one
but Fox's position is different on that
another question from
Reddit both sides are the same in quotes
is a meme notion that has spread far and
wide in American political discourse on
the internet to what extent do you agree
or disagree with this notion and why do
you think it is so popular now this
Reddit comment also says that podcasts
like Russell Brand and Joe Rogan or the
legendary comic George Carlin are
examples of big proponents of this
notion all of which kind of disagree
with uh Russell bran Joe Rogan and
George
Carlin claim that both sides are the
same the same and use that you know all
politicians are crooked and they suck
and this kind of thing I don't know if
they're I don't know if that's true
maybe George Carlin anyway let leave
that aside uh to what degree do you
think uh I do you agree with this notion
that both sides are the same left and
right the crooked corrupt politicians
they do what politicians do I don't
agree that it's the same I think there
are different factions that like to say
that um for different reasons there are
some individuals who want to present
themselves as kind of being Above The
Fray of partisan politics and so it's be
I call it enlightened
centrism um do you mean that positively
or NE no I mean it negatively yeah it's
it's a bit of a pejorative the idea that
I am not going to fall for being a
democrat or a republican I can see that
these are just two sides of the same
coin equally bad lying to every okay so
that's one it's sort of like it's
popular at dinner parties in some
circles to go now I'm but all these
politicians you know left and right so
that's one side of it the other side of
it is that it's often used when when
your side has really stepped in it it's
a popular way to acknowledge that your
side has done something wrong but while
framing it as it's not uniquely wrong
and it's not worse than what anybody
else does and I find that it's one of
the lamest and most kind of cringe
inducing things to hear because of the
what comes next and usually what comes
next is not a good accurate criticism of
something that took place and a
discussion of how to solve a real
problem that we have I find it a
conversation Stifler it also is used to
kind of suppress voter turnout not
actively it's not that the people who
say that go around saying don't vote but
the idea of course is the more people
that believe that it doesn't really make
a difference who you vote for it's going
to suppress voter turnout and I want
voter turnout to be as high as possible
not as low as possible so I also dislike
it for that reason so is it possible to
say that one side is worse than the
other in in modern current political
climate listen I'm a person on the left
I'm not pretending to come here as as
and not knowing that my view is biased
because I'm a person of the left if you
ask Ben Shapiro he'll tell you something
different I think in
2023 some total the influence of the
American rightwing if the American
rightwing were to get everything it
wants it would be a horrifying reality
if the left were to get everything it
wants we'd have to figure out a few
things including exactly how we pay for
certain programs
but they're mostly noble goals and I
believe that they are more supportive of
an
individual
self-determining what they want to do in
life and how they want to live and is
more in line with the idea of freedom
and liberty than what the right is
currently proposing that's my view and
of course people will disagree with me
and say no we get to freedom and liberty
the way that the right wants to do it
okay well we can have that conversation
so I think you've implied in your answer
it was kind of focused on policy it felt
like it was focused on policy there's
other stuff that people worry about sure
um particularly with the left uh What uh
may be termed the woke mind
virus where have I heard who's using
that term a lot now I'm trying to think
I'm not sure not sure not sure where it
comes up uh but the cultural aspect of
this that um you know if you give a lot
of power to people on the left as you
gave as an example there would be a lot
of kind of censorship and suppression of
speech and a kind of uh dividing up of a
society of who's allowed to um basically
a reallocation of resources not based on
Merit but based on some kind of high
ethical Notions of what is right and uh
only a very small percentage of the
population gets to decide what is what
is fair what is
Right which is you know um we already
have a small portion of the population
deciding Fair okay yes but I don't I
don't know I don't know how many
different ways I can say kind of a
negative characterization of uh of folks
on the left when we're now comparing it
just as a to play Devil's Advocate sure
so is there is that something that you
worry about so po setting policies aside
uh wokeism yes how big of a problem is
it this is a great conversation so let's
two two sides of it okay we have new
polling that seems to suggest so-called
wokeism is kind of more popular in the
United States than anti wokeism and I'll
tell you what I mean by that this is the
less interesting part we'll go to the
more interesting part second um people
sometimes what people mean by wokeism is
an
overreaction to a
perceived
Injustice that goes beyond what would be
fair and Equitable there was this really
interesting poll and it asked questions
like for example do you believe Society
has gone too far not far enough or just
about the right amount in dealing with
uh issues affecting the trans Community
the woke position which is society
hasn't gone far enough was far more
popular than we've gone too far now the
the right-wing media narrative is we've
gone way too far this is out of
control and there are lots of other
similar answers it's not a huge margin a
lot of these are like 5 to 42 60 to 40
it's not like 90 to 10 but by a small
margin the so-called woke perspective of
we actually haven't yet done enough to
fix some of these issues is a little bit
more popular so if we went back to
DeSantis this is part of why I think the
Sis's anti-woke agenda may just be a
political misstep that's a really
interesting result I I wonder how the
questions are uh
framed but it's it's still interesting
nevertheless no matter what to hear that
that people are majority of people in
America are woke in not in the negative
sense of the word the poll didn't use
the term woke right right this is a
critical thing let's use the term woke
positively here the term has kind of
been perverted yes four years ago when
the term was started to be used I would
have said oh yeah woke just means like I
have become aware of problems that are
bigger than any one person can fix for
themselves that relate to the system I
think that's what and we might disagree
on which problems fall into that
category but like it was kind of benign
I think now it just means like
outrageously left-wing maybe even with
socialist or Marxist undertones it's
become a pejorative at this but also
like bullies like people sure censor
yeah but people that go around calling
others racist uh sometimes often times
without any proof of or justification
fair but that's we're that's that's a
few folks on Twitter you're saying like
the polling is starting to show that
like no they's
still uh most of the Americans still
care about these issues and want to yeah
want to want to improve and want to make
progress I think that's the case and
they want to do it in a genuine way that
doesn't suppress or oppress anybody but
now let me get to like to what degree do
I think that actual when it goes too far
is a problem it absolutely exists it we
can find instances of where this exists
on the left um I've been told many times
that as a Jewish Argentinian immigrant
to the United
States I actually don't qualify as
oppressed
enough because Jews are privileged now
in the US and my family had just enough
money to leave Argent so there's this
kind of like oppression Olympics thing
where I've been told you don't get to
comment for example like a topic in the
Latino Community now is are you familiar
with Latin X okay in Spanish there's a
an analogous movement where words by
their nature sort of like have a gender
so like the word for friend is
Amigo but if it's a woman you would say
Amiga so right from there you can tell
the gender that we're talking about and
if it's a mixed group you say amigos
it's the
male with an S but it could include both
there's a movement now which wants to do
away with that and put the letter E in
it's a new word okay it's a gender
neutral word Amigas totally new I don't
like that and I don't know anyone no one
in my family uses it and I think it's
kind of like a strange imposition from
someone kind of with with a solution in
search of of a problem I've been told
you moved to the US long ago and like
your English is good and like you look
white and so like you don't get to way
in on that that I think is an example if
I understand correctly of the type of of
thing you're talking about I'm I'm kind
of being bullied I'm fine I'm surviving
fine but I'm being bullied over it and
disqualified and saying you don't get to
speak on this issue all of those example
all of that stuff I am completely
against and I tell people on the left
we're actually hurting our own movement
with this stuff I just don't think it's
as big mhm as some others believe it you
don't think it's an existential threat
to our civilization in the West
no and and I mean look we've got a Biden
Administration I see Biden as Center
left those who see Biden as extreme
farle this stuff has played almost no
role whatsoever in the first two plus
years of his administration with do
people that see him far left as far left
there's people on the right who I mean
Trump says Biden's a a Marxist Socialist
Communist um I haven't heard that
because I I don't think that would stick
uh very much I think he say it at every
rally
yeah which I'm so jealous that you don't
watch these things I Love How Deeply
researched you are in Trump I can only
imagine how good your Trump impression
is at this point it's not very sadly
it's not good it's not all right no but
and and I'll say one other thing on on
that you know take trans because trans
just to talk about it a little bit we
haven't dealt with it much the trans
issue has become huge I believe because
the right is obsessed with it the right
is very much not concerned with gay men
anymore it used to be that gay men is
like oh we have to stop gay men from
adopting and un natural and pedophiles
now it's trans it's drag shows Etc I do
think that there is a fair question to
say how do we deal with trans women in a
very small short list of sports that's
real okay my view though is I go okay we
have all issues we have issues related
to gender and sexual orientation we have
issues related to trans Within that we
have specifically Sports you can
eliminate from that uh trans men
nobody's worried right about women uh
biological women who are transm and then
when you say it's only in certain sports
that it matters hey I'm right there I
think it's a complicated question I
don't know how we deal with it I would
ask leagues that have experienced with
this already and whatever the problem I
have is pretending that the the uh
Vanguard of leftwing politics right now
is trying to force trans women into
sports it's like it's just not the big
issue that the right is reacting as if
it were well perhaps because of the
right it's forcing the left uh to to
continue discussing it I mean I I feel
like it uh even in institutions even at
universities it feels like these ideas
of diversity inclusion and Equity are
taking some of the air out of the
room of um what a university should also
care about which is uh
Merit and it feels like
reprioritization is going a little too
far the other way meaning uh
prioritizing this kind of amorphous
concept of diversity is moving away is
giving power to people that don't care
about Merit and they just want to bully
people with a big stick that says racism
or sexism or um
anti-diversity uh and it it kind of
suffocates the people that uh care about
Merit about meritocracy about inspiring
people from all kinds of backgrounds to
succeed and it's just you kind of
observe that I'm sure that happens in
all kinds of Institutions and the
concern I think the people that are
concerned about wokeism are concerned
about at scale what impact does that
have on a society
when there's so much conversation about
racism and a de a pressure not to talk
about Merit like who's the actual good
person in the room the best person in
the room generically that's a concern to
me the degree to which it's happening at
different
institutions I think is worthy of
exploration I know people who work in
Academia that are getting out of
Academia because they don't like the
environment on their campuses for
exactly the reason you're saying so it
exists there is no question about it I
also think that the idea of a perfect
meritocracy is is maybe not necessarily
the goal in the sense that um when you
talk about perfect meritocracy someone
wrote a book about this who I
interviewed about a year and a half ago
and whose Name Escapes Me There are
problems with a perfect meritocracy I
think what we want to do is generate
roughly equal um uh um opportunity for
people understanding that there is going
to be an outcome on a gradient or a bell
curve allowing people generally speaking
to determine the path that they want to
take and giving them if it's possible
the ability to uh uh pursue that without
suppressing limiting I mean this is like
relatively uncontroversial stuff among I
would argue 95% of the left with the
caveats of what you're talking about
which I agree exist and it would be nice
to know the actual data sometimes people
blow stuff out of the proportion what is
it's hard it's hard to measure how much
self-censorship happens at University
campuses it's hard that's true I think
also it's sort of like the the pitbull
bite stories thing where when a pitbull
bites a person it's more likely to be
reported on because it fits a certain
narrative and there are right-wing
Publications that are very interested in
making this seem as if it is an epidemic
I'm the first to say it is happening to
a degree I don't know the degree that
it's happening to I know a lot of people
in Academia only a couple of them say
that it's an
issue would they say it though if they
believed it I think they would say it to
me these are just personal contacts it's
not like I'm going to go blabbing to
push back uh I kind of agree with you
but at the same time most I mean I'm
deeply connected in Academia of huge
number of colleagues most
people self-censor by not thinking about
it at all they're like SC it that's
deeper whatever I'm just going to focus
on the thing I love doing which is the
work and they don't think about uh they
basically remove themselves
from politics and social issues and they
just kind of say I'm going to do my
engineering I'm going to do my
mathematics sure the problem with that
is it's kind of you can't go anywhere
further to figure it out it's sort of
like there's this funny clip where
Jordan Peterson says even atheists are
actually religious they just don't know
it and it's like it's hard to test that
you know I don't know yeah okay I mean I
don't I don't but it's it's a fair point
I mean there maybe some people if it has
become so toxic for some people they may
have repressed it way down into their
subconscious but I don't know how we
would know that but you you you know
symptoms of it because when certain
people speak
up kind of lightly and then a 19yearold
or a 20-year-old responds and is
outraged the fact that the
administration listens to that 19 and
20y old and then reprimands whoever
spoke up a little bit that's a really
dangerous sign to me and I don't really
care about these like so I I'm more with
you I don't think it's a big issue but
then I notice it I wonder wait a minute
would this kind of environment allow a
youngn CH ski to be around would this
environment allow like uh I don't know
like uh what Tenya was designed for
which is to have controversial thinkers
and not kind of weird controversial
thinkers but really people that
challenge things that should be
challenged yeah I I sympathize with that
significantly I always try to look at
specific examples yeah and sometimes
I'll look at people I'll I'll ask for
them and people will send me five and
one of them is a legit bonified example
of what we're talking about and four are
kind of like ah there was a complaint
and it was investigated but the
teacher's tenure was never in Jeopardy
and yeah I don't know that I chock this
up to a big woke event what do you think
the kind of apparatus of the four-year
degree in college is going to look like
in 20 years oh that's I mean we're like
day by day that seems to be changing
with GPT I don't know if you've gotten a
chance to interact with Chad GPT
absolutely my entire show now is written
by Chad
GP I mean there's uh that's partially a
joke uh it is only because it stopped
looking at the internet at 20 in 2021 if
it was current I could completely just
tune it out no I'm I'm kidding but it's
a fascinating tool and uh it's changing
the nature of how we uh do homework
assignments it's changing the nature of
how we learn how we look up new
information how we explore information
how we care about things we're
interested in I think
it um I I don't think we'll
have value for a University degree in 20
years the way we do now I just think it
changes everything I think uh language
models me Google search has already in
Wikipedia has
already transformed I would say our
civilization but it's there was still a
value for basic education I don't I
think that starts to dissipate uh with
with Chad GPT so I don't I don't know
yeah um I I really I really don't think
there's a university the way we think of
a university in 20 20 30 years the I
mean I have a personal interest in it in
that my daughter is 10 months old yeah
and I'm doing the 529 account I'm going
through the motions as if yeah but I
also recognize you know if she went to
the schools I went to just with the rate
of tuition increase you're talking 200k
a year by the time she's 18 and what
happens with wages relative to that this
is like separate from the technological
thing um and in my mind I'm thinking is
this going to continue being the right
path what I would love to see is so many
people that I interact with just by
virtue of what I do have no Foundation
in critical thinking epistemology
philosophy media literacy
and if there were some way to make that
the core of some basic education that
everybody's receiving which goes beyond
you know chat GPT can do so many things
but I've not yet seen good examples of
how it can teach you to think maybe you
have a different view on how chat gbt
can teach a user to think but those
skills seem to be so lacking and so many
of the people I interact with if there's
any positive change to come from a
changing Dynamic with higher education I
wish it would be to go in that direction
well no um chat GPT is actually much
better helping me think than than any
educator even books that I've encounter
because it it's very good at presenting
the full picture even better than a lot
of wikkipedia Articles you know on
questions like the the the virus leak
from a lab uh the the the CO leak from a
lab it just presents to you all the
different hypotheses the amount of
evidence available to it it's like it's
like a full calm objective picture of it
there's no partisanship it's like a
really nice list of things that's
available but I guess what I mean is
does it tell you how as a thinking human
you should evaluate the strength of each
of the paragraphs it presents to you you
can literally ask you can ask it to do
oh Fair okay yeah and and then it's
actually a
fun it's fun to ask Chad GPT that
question because you'll get good answers
that and so you'll
basically uh have a kind of Socratic
like a a deep intimate like great
podcast style conversation with an AI
system every single day for as many
hours as you want as it especially as it
improves as and as the interfaces by
which you communicate with the thing
improves so yeah I think I think it will
do exactly that which is teach you how
to think because you will offload the
memory of facts and um equations and
whatever else uh School teaches you
you'll offload that to Ai and instead
you'll be using your human mind which is
uh what it for now at least uniquely
good at which is asking good questions
thinking uh through the complexities of
issues when there's multiple
perspectives on it all of that well then
I stand corrected maybe then I don't
know what college is going to be in 20
years well but you were sort of
commenting it I see to the the financial
aspect of it like why does it even make
sense at this
point I thinking about the
transformative effects of AI and what
starts to ask what is the what is even
education right what are you supposed
what is the purpose of education so one
is to give you kind of a background
knowledge of on a bunch of different
topics but the other is to discover the
thing you're truly passionate about and
the thing you're really good at such
that you can make money and you can
contribute to society and have a
fulfilling life yeah and also learning
to interact with other people with
relationships are built socializing and
so many other things as well but is that
you know that is the big value of
University yeah and maybe you should be
call something else can you get that for
less than 200k a year somewhere else
yeah no it's a fair question kind of
social club and you know one of the
things I think about also is people who
are well connect I mean this has always
been this isn't new right but if you're
well-connected
and you have a sort of drive towards
entrepreneurship and doing your own
thing and you're not pursuing a field
that is very licensing dependent like
medicine or law um getting started four
years earlier with some internships can
be a privilege in some cases but again
that's that path is available to the
people that would likely do well
regardless of whether they went to
college and so it's a very privileged
self- selected group
anyway another question from Reddit uh
uh ask David to explain why American
style libertarianism is an unserious
philosophy I don't know what they mean
by American style libertarianism I've
talked before about these kind of
utopian Libertarians where uh you know
we have we don't have police you just
kind of like hire a for-profit company
if you want protection and if there's a
conflict between two of these private
security companies then I don't know you
figure it out somehow so it's almost
like anarchism so take to that degree if
by I don't know what the question means
by that American style libertarianism
but in general my problems with
libertarianism as it is often presented
come from the work of Sociology as well
as human psychology which is the reality
that once you get a group that's bigger
than 150 PE people you really have to
start centralizing some decisions unless
you're going to subdivide the 150
endlessly into 275s that now no longer
have contact but then that's not really
one Society now it's too I've not seen
good evidence and I've read a fair bit
about this that once you get Beyond 150
you can keep all decisions decentralized
and once you say some things need to be
centralized then it's a matter of how
you do it and it's going to be some
version of government that conflicts
with aspects of
libertarianism well it could become
companes right it could be um it could
be more Market driven which is the idea
of anarchism that you're not you don't
give any centralized entity a monopoly
over
violence you know and then if you think
that the markets are
efficient at delivering especially in
this 21st century and
beyond where a market could have perfect
information about people so one of the
issues is that you can manipulate
markets because there's not not perfect
information but now in the digital age
we can uh we can
be higher bandwidth participants in the
market so if you're choosing between
different security companies or you're
choosing between different providers of
different Services you can do so more
efficiently and more effectively and uh
in the digital space so you could kind
of imagine it but we haven't
successfully done
it uh without governments yeah and I
think there's a
practical once you get Beyond 150 you
also start
specializing um it just as a matter of
fact you don't have everybody isn't
growing their own food some people grow
the food and other people do other
things and you come across a lot of the
problems that started uh at the
Agricultural Revolution and whether you
say that it's a company that's solving
it or a government the problems are
going to be very similar and I've not
read anything that to my satisfaction
explains how you deal with that well
there's underlying principles of
libertarianism which is putting priority
at the freedom of the individual right
and that's a compelling notion yeah
whenever I do these various political
Compass things that put you on two axes
on the authoritarian libertarian axis I
am way down on the libertarian side as a
left libertarian so my Tendencies are
always anti-authoritarian and and
towards that option of uh when it makes
sense so I sympathize with that a lot
another question from Reddit ask David
what issues he disagrees with you on is
there something no idea okay that's good
there there you go there's no issues
perfect agreement uh what's your view on
Tesla that's that's a good opportunity
to ask what do you think is strengths
and weaknesses of Elon Musk uh you
mentioned Twitter have you paid your $8
I have not paid my $8 I don't see the
point in paying for it I have no problem
paying for services I use a ton of
services I'll try the free I'll go to
the paid um right now so the way I used
to use the verified feed was I would
post a tweet and then the next day when
I you know review what's going on on my
social media I would look at the replies
to the Tweet which would give me a mix
of replies from verified and unverified
people but then I would also look at the
verified and see who that
are verified public folks have responded
to me or maybe I want to engage with or
whatever the case may be there I don't
even understand why I would look at the
verified feed anymore so I never do
because it's random folks who I don't
know it it sort of lost its utility to
me and then yeah sorry to interrupt but
the idea is if everybody who's human
pays the $8 it shows to you that it's
not Bots it's at least humans from the
reports about the number of people that
have bought the blue check mark I think
we may be a thousand years from enough
signups in order to make that sort of
like a reality I don't that was the idea
that was the idea it's an interesting
idea
honestly from my experience the
obviously I was seeing all sorts of
attack comments some of which were I'm
sure from Bots but I'm ignoring all of
those comments anyway so it really
didn't affect my my experience that much
I mean here's the thing about Elon and I
say this people sometimes are like David
you you obviously hate Elon or you
obviously love Elon I was an investor in
Tesla starting in 2015 I've since sold
all my shares MH great run um I'm on my
second Tesla right now I probably won't
get a third one because I think that
electric vehicle technology is now
maturing such that when my lease is up
I'm going to have many more options with
the range and charging Network that's
important to me but I could be wrong
maybe you know I don't know I have no
the Cults of personality around people
they mean nothing to me so for me it's
just like people are people nobody has
only good ideas fine I think that what
Elon Musk did accelerating and pushing
forward the battery and electric vehicle
technology is unbelievable it's it's a
it's a oneperson
wrecking ball in the best sense of
saying we're not going to slow playay
this and do okay now Toyota has a Toyota
hasn't actually entered but now whoever
we've got a 90 mile range car and next
year it'll be 110 and it's just like
we're doing this right now now you can
compete or you can opt out and look at
what's happened
fantastic on the Twitter side of things
I don't really get the whole plan I
don't know if it started maybe as kind
of a goof of some kind and it developed
into I guess I have to buy it and I
think something about it ended up with
there was a clause invoked where I think
he did try to get out of buying it but
then was forced to to some degree yeah
he was forced the way Twitter used to
work was you followed people and when
you looked at your feed you either saw
the posts from the people you were
following in Reverse chronological order
or posts from the people you followed
algorithmically tailored to what you're
most likely to want to see MH and if you
didn't follow someone you generally
wouldn't see their posts unless it was
like a sponsored tweet or someone you
follow quoted or retweeted them fine the
for you feed Tik Tok I believe First had
a so-called for you feed the idea is
this is stuff you might like
based on I don't know what either
demographic data about you your other
habits whatever and so it's useless to
me it's just it's just basically mostly
right-wing content that that is not
interesting why do you think that is I
mean so uh the the signals that are used
to generate the for you page is looking
at all your uh likes all your comments
all your uh blocks and mutes and all
that it you know that I mean I don't
know what it's looking at okay so it's
supposed to be very pleasant for you I'm
sure other people go wow this for you
thing is awesome and I'll get like if
you had insert some right- Wier sitting
here they would go Twitter used to
suppress right-wing voices and now
finally they're getting the fair shake
that they deserve in the fur you feet
okay I mean I I wonder if there's
leftwing
folks uh setting their feelings of Elon
aside that are enjoying the for you page
that's a really important question
because it's supposed to be people on
the left and people on the right should
be enjoying the for you page sure yeah I
mean so for me my thought on Elon is
some incredible
successes I don't know about Twitter I
do think that I I don't believe Elon is
a right winger and when you see
interviews with him um certainly at
least socially and in many ways
culturally seems very moderate or even
somewhat on the left in my experience I
don't think it's elon's a right-winger I
don't that it's not an interesting
critique it does seem though that
throughout the Twitter Escapade he
certainly ended up closer to some voices
that may be influencing him in a
particular way uh that's giving some
people that impression you know but as
far as like the Elon hate or the Elon
love it's just it's just a person who's
done some interesting things some of
which I like and some of which I could
kind of leave leave aside I have seen uh
folks be drift towards the right more
in response to just the viciousness of
attacks from the left H like who I well
Elon and so so you do you do think he's
drifted towards the right uh in uh so I
don't think at the core but I think on
the surface okay I think uh and I think
Joe Rogan has as well on the surface CU
I think so maybe you can correct me but
it feels like people on the left attack
more
viciously um that has not been my
experience well oh it hasn't no this so
so yeah let me know because my sense was
that they attack people on the left
viciously as well left attacks the it
its own because you're not Progressive
enough you're not uh you know it's just
this kind of bullying that happens very
intensely no you're 100% right that when
the left has attacked me um it's almost
as vicious as when the right attacks me
the difference in my experience is it's
a smaller contingent on the left that's
willing to Levy those attacks against me
but I'm on the left so to some degree
you could say well that that's to be
expected um there is toxicity on the
left but it's intense isn't it like
that's what I mean like the attacks on
people who are on the left just uh
you're not left enough yeah that's no
that's the and it is a small number of
people I can't deny that that is
absolutely uh absolutely a real
phenomenon and and um it depending on
what sort of topics you take on publicly
you are going to suffer the wrath of
that to a greater or or lesser degree
but with all of these things what I
always go back to is you know I probably
would have more disagreements with Rogan
today than the last time I was on his
show which was like at the beginning of
the pandemic but there would be zero and
I've done Clips critical of things that
he has said substantive of course to me
it's sort of like oh yeah I could sit
down with him and do a podcast and it
would be zero big deal and I would tell
them I stand by everything I said about
what you said and I would say it to you
right now there are people who write to
me and go oh man things must be really
really tense now if you were to Rogan
would never have you on because you
disagreed and it's he loves you I'm sure
he's just not thinking of I'm not the
most important thing to Joe Rogan I
think both of us would be able to sit
down and talk about every one of my
criticisms it would not be taken
personally and then we would move on and
it would be the next day you get a a lot
how do you not let that break you
mentally I don't know uh so let's
see I try to I mean I'm in a toxic space
the news in politics partisan news in
politics partisan news and politics on
the internet with a social media
component just completely and totally
toxic from a personal perspective when
I'm done producing my last show of the
week until Monday I try to completely
tune out from news and politics
altogether um and also make an effort to
just not look at feedback and and what's
going on I also really limit my Vis my
visibility uh I don't need to read every
comment I don't need to look at every
email or every tweet I have 15 minutes
each day where I go through my social
media platforms look at generally what
has the reaction
been maybe include that in my assessment
of how I want to tackle a certain issue
if I missed a good point or something
like that and basically try to move on
when something like we talked about at
the beginning happens it becomes
obsessive I mean it's unhealthy right
where I'm going oh my God who's
attacking me now and scrolling it it
becomes you know I'm sweating it's
horrible but I think just like limiting
exposure to that and remembering that it
is impossible to please everybody and so
I'd really rather have fresh genuine
views each day rather than views that
are sort of like uh restricted and
flattened by what I perceive to be
people's
preferences uh so just can you speak a
little more to the full process of
creating the David Pacman show like what
you wake up because you're doing five
shows a week I have the Letterman
schedule which means I do five shows in
four days I I shoot Monday to Thursday
but we're doing five episodes basically
uh our guests we schedule in advance I'm
picking six to eight stories each day
that are like I said a blend of stuff I
think will be interesting think things I
want to talk about and things where
there's it's being discussed at one
layer and I want to go deeper on it and
I feel like I'm able to do that I choose
those stories in the morning record in
the early afternoon and we put the show
out by that afternoon what the
preparation what's the how do you take
notes uh are you on a sheet of paper no
sheets of paper anymore I used to do
sheets of paper I found something about
it like it worked the tactile nature of
it it became inconvenient for sharing
the notes with my team but basically we
use a Wiki type system it's called media
Wiki which is basically like a Wikipedia
clone old school yeah old school so we
can have Pages for every guest every
topic oh that's interesting I haven't
heard that yeah we I don't know anyone
else who's using it it works really well
it it's so fast and it takes up almost
no space so it just is a really good
Tool uh when my team you know when we
book a guest and they have notes from
the publicist they'll put it in there
and then I can access it so I'm
basically working off of notes rather
than a script um I'll pull any audio
visual stuff that I want so that that's
available um and it's I mean it's it's
really a uh very seamless you know we're
doing this every day four days a week
and so we have it down to a well-oiled
machine where do you get ideas from
everywhere um I have a bunch of
subreddits that I follow that I think
are talking about interesting things I
have a curated list for which I still
use Twitter and it is very good for this
it's a curated private list of
journalists that I think are doing
interesting work so I'll see what's
there look at the sort of standard news
reporting wire Services AP and Reuters
glance at what um everything from drudge
to CNN to whoever is covering that day
look at Google
News how do you try to fact check stuff
on your show so like gu there source or
is there a process I always try to get
to a primary source first and foremost
for the facts of the story and then I'll
use other tools for background research
oftentimes Wikipedia's footnotes I find
to be useful tools chat GPT is a good
one it I you really have to fact check
it but it'll give you ideas of where to
do the fact checking which I think is
fantastic sometimes it gives me
information that's flat out wrong and
when you ask for the source it's like oh
yeah that that actually is not real um
which is hey it's part part of the
process yeah but um and then when
there's like an expertise type of thing
if it's a breaking legal matter I'll
just call like a friend who's a lawyer
or call a friend who's a doctor or
something like that if it lends itself
to that let me ask you about the nature
of Truth do you think it's becoming more
and more difficult to know what is true
and will become continuously continue to
get more difficult especially with GPT I
think the big difficulty is in getting
people to agree as to what is a
statement of fact and what is a
statement of opinion I think once we can
do that reasonable people can more or
less agree on how to get to the truth or
if we can't get to it at least figure
out how we would if the information were
available but the the bigger challenge
I'm having is someone will call in with
an opinion but say they want to talk
about fact and I have to explain to them
you're talking about an opinion and not
a fact and this goes back to the lack of
critical thinking and lack of media
literacy uh but that's the bigger
challenge for me right now but I mean I
think the big statements are always
going to be somewhat opinions like
um was the El was the 2020 election fair
I think any answer to that is an opinion
I disagree if we Define
fair well yes so then I don't think it's
possible to Define fair in a way that's
not several paragraphs or each sentence
it now has has facts right so what what
do you mean by fair is it uh who can
show up to vote what was the process of
how easy it is to vote uh was there
actual uh cheating going on and
different like what is the evidence of
that cheating you have to actually get
to the actual like details of a thing
high level you know uh everything is
just going to be in opinion it feels
like like you and you can approximate
that to be like it's a well-founded
opinion well most of science is an
opinion even physics is an opinion so
like I think there's a threshold Beyond
which an opinion becomes like uh this is
a pretty reliable thing to assume for
now that this is true okay so let me
revise so I think maybe better said I
think that the
difficulty I mean it it is ex the
process you described is probably the
right process and it's it's exhausting
for mundane things and that causes major
problems if we were to
say is it better for the economy to have
a tax rate on people making over a
million dollars that's 20% or 50% okay
what do we mean by better for the
economy it's not a overwhelming task to
decide on that we could say well we'll
say it's better for the economy by
looking at what was the uny employment
rate based on the taxx rate on million
you know people earning a million a year
and what was GDP and whatever okay we've
we've agreed this is a statement we are
now in the realm of just determining
what is given the parameters that we've
established I think that that's that's
relatively doable the issue is with the
bigger ones like you're talking about
where what do we mean by a fair election
and fair in whose eyes and but I I am
with you that it often devolves evolves
into a conversation about opinions about
what is fair yeah rather than an
ascertainment of the facts yeah and it
feels like maybe avoiding some of these
big maybe there's some trigger words too
maybe avoiding them allows you to
actually talk about the facts and
through that educate yourself and learn
about like uh whether the virus leaked
from a lab or not to me was always a
super interesting question I don't know
why everybody got super touchy about it
uh mostly people I know colleagues
biologists
thought it's pretty good likelihood that
it leaked from a lab given everything
they just didn't the evidence is not
there for either one and so like you
should be able to just openly talk about
it unless you're in the uh High
political office where there could be
geopolitical consequences to your
statements but in general it's an
interesting question you should be able
to talk about it but there's no first of
all there's not many facts around there
unfortunately um and a lot of very
conclusive statements about it
especially in the early days were just
opinions and so you you have
to the idea of what is true or not
becomes a little even mentioning the
word truth in that context it feels
um divisive yeah I completely agree with
you which is strange like it really you
think it shouldn't one of the really
good opening questions that I've had
work to my advantage when talking with
people who I know disagree with me about
a contentious talk topic is how do you
think we would figure out X and it often
gets people thinking first
collaboratively and obviously we might
have very different opinions but with
something like the covid lab leak I
think it's an interesting one because if
you say okay maybe it leaked maybe it
didn't how would we figure that out who
would we trust to weigh in on that what
evidence would count now we're kind of
on the same team MH and then if we can
establish that then we're on a search
for Capital te truth together or
whatever it's kind of pie in the sky but
in some conversations I've actually had
success with that and then you can kind
of
realize if uh if there's no amount of
evidence that's going to prove show to
you that you're wrong in your current
opinion that that's probably a really
bad sign for you it's a waste it it may
be a waste to pursue the conversation
further at that point yeah yeah what oh
so okay you think Trump was a good
president how do you determine that and
what evidence might exist that would
change your mind there is no evidence
Trump was the best president ever I
think the conversation is probably done
except Abraham Lincoln right uh you
mentioned Israel Palestine well what do
you think about the situation in Israel
and Palestine something you've thought
about spoken about for quite a time do
you think we'll ever see peace in this
part of the world I don't know you know
I mean I could say yes not answer I
could say yes I I the you know one of
the problems is and I'll give you may
not know that
the there are people on the left of my
audience who call me a Netanyahu shill
even though I've never been a supporter
of Netanyahu and I'm I'm on the left I
just don't think that some of the uh
kind of black and white
characterizations about Israel are even
remotely accurate and I think most
people it's become a sort of litmus test
are you criticizing Israel enough are
you showing us that you're actually
leftwing I don't do any of that stuff I
really look at the situation for what it
is that's become a Lous test in American
politics uh in the spectrum of American
politics yes um my view big picture is
that uh I don't think we're going to
really get anywhere until some
pre-negotiated terms are set and the
parties to do the negotiating are all
good faith parties for example I don't
think Israel's right-wing party leud is
a particularly goodfaith Arbiter of
Peace because I think leud benefits from
there not being peace and the threat of
violence and there is violence it's not
just the threat of violence I don't
think Hamas is going to be an Arbiter of
peace for the Palestinian people either
I think the Palestinian Authority is a
question mark I'm not sure so I think
that there need to be some preconditions
that would need to be set with regard to
everything from settlements to you a lot
of this minutia big picture though if I
imagine what the most likely solution
looks like it doesn't mean it's a
perfect solution and obviously it's a
solution many people will say it's not
it's not going to happen I think it's a
solution where the borders are similar
to what was being discussed in the
Clinton era to some degree as many of
the settlements as possible have to go
understanding that some of the bigger
ones are just not going to go and
there's going to have to be meaningful
land swaps with Y which yasur Arafat
seemed to be amenable to when he weighed
in on it I believe it was in the 90s the
topic of um the Temple Mount and
Jerusalem Etc is a complicated one but I
think that almost certainly um East
Jerusalem is going to have to be part of
an eventual Palestinian State you know I
mean like we can go as kind of as far as
as we want to with a lot of this stuff
what role does us have to play in this
coming to the table with good faith
parties I don't know whether the I go
back and forth between believing that
the US should play a big role to the US
should play essentially no role
whatsoever because uh of course of the
funding of uh Israel that the US
provides will the u i don't it's not
that I have a personal problem with
American involvement and somebody like
Bill Clinton was arguably relatively
well positioned to try to make something
happen it's more just will there will it
be seen as credible on the global stage
and that's I think the most important
thing because at the end of whatever
negotiation takes place both sides need
to agree that this is where we are
renouncing all past claims and in the
future if there's a disagreement we
can't go back to that thing from the 80s
or the 90s that's just like a critical
piece of this yeah it it has to be
stable and uh you know um materialize
into something stable over years yes
another difficult conflict going on in
the world is the war in Ukraine what do
you think about the Russian invasion of
Ukraine in February
2022 I don't pretend to be an expert on
this issue I think you probably know
more about this than I do just from the
brief conversation we had before we
started filming my view as a general
Observer of geopolitics and the way that
this area this part of the world has
related to American Presidents over the
last several you know Cycles is I don't
think it's controversial to say that
this was a war of aggression an invasion
of aggression an act of aggression by
Vladimir Putin um I do believe that if
Trump had been
reelected Putin may have seen himself as
having other tools with which to try to
um expand influence that may have been
different than geographical uh Pursuits
Geographic Pursuits uh but I we don't
know that for sure um I also have a
really hard time imagining what the end
of this looks like and that's very scary
because sometimes the most benign end
seems to be that Putin ends up out of
power either through no longer being
alive uh or deposed in some way it
doesn't feel like that latter is super
likely the former there's reports about
his health I don't know how accurate
they are it's just hard to imagine a
face saving exit that is going to be um
even
remotely uh what's the word it's not
even a question of acceptable just um
it's not satisfying either just just not
tragic I guess is what I'm looking for
in terms of uh Putin speaking to the
Russian people and being able to figure
out what to say what kind of narrative
to say why this war made sense yes um
the same on the Ukrainian side to figure
out how to exit this war yes uh I mean
to some degree it requires Russian
troops leaving Ukraine and that is
somewhat under the control I mean of
course it's not up to Ukraine whether
the initiative continues but what I am
not thrilled with are some of the
reflexive you know if Trump had been in
power and instead of Joe Biden a lot of
the
reflexive uh comments about oh you're if
you if you say Ukraine is just acting
defensively you're supporting neo-nazis
or some of these things that have come
out of the American Republican party
seem both wacky and like they would be
saying completely different things if
Trump happened to be in the Oval Office
they're really proxy attacks on Joe
Biden yeah well that in some sense
Ukraine is also kind of political litmus
test
of how you speak about it I think
because of the huge amount of funding
that's going uh from us to
Ukraine um maybe you can correct me if
I'm wrong um but it seems to it seems to
me that this topic has become
politicized already 100% there are
people like Marjorie Taylor green and
others saying we should be doing nothing
for Ukraine zilinski is a comedian and
we're supporting neonazis that's it full
stop and you either subscribe to that um
or you don't and it very quickly becomes
um it very quickly becomes as partisan
as so many other issues and it's really
the the most disappointing thing is that
some of these issues become incredibly
divisive divisive but they're simple
like for example a conspiracy theory
that we know isn't true it shouldn't be
divisive divisive because it's so simple
other issues become divisive and they
are simplified but in reality they are
extraordinarily complex and you lose the
ability to talk about the complexity
because they're becoming partisan uh do
you think there will always be war in
the world as a bunch of folks on the
subreddit that were interested in your
different complex perspectives on
foreign policy so let's talk about war
you look at the war in
Ukraine you look at what's going on in
Israel and Palestine you look at the
wars across the world do you think there
will always be War as a redditor put it
is it a necessary evil in the game of
geopolitics I used to have what I now
believe is an extremely naive
perspective
which is that if we
somehow if Al intelligent aliens arrived
here it would be so momentous for Homo
sapiens that all of our differences
would immediately be exposed to so
insignificant we would never fight again
and we would realize that intelligent
life and then I spoke to people who deal
in space exploration and other other
scientists and they all said that David
that's extraordinarily naive there would
be a period during which this was as
momentous as you're imagining and then
it would become normal and then we would
go back to many of the same conflicts
that we have now sectarian Etc yeah I
think that in all likelihood there will
always be conflict between factions
whether it's what we currently think of
as War probably not I mean it seems as
though the tactics will evolve and it
will be less about missiles and I don't
know where it's going to go I don't know
whether it's going to be become more
biological or cyber or certainly
something we haven't even considered yet
but um I think there will always be
conflicts we would refer to in that way
do you agree with chsky on the his
General harsh criticism of US foreign
policy in war that many actions military
actions in the United States are
criminal in nature almost terrorist in
nature I am not it's been a decade or
more since I've read any Chomsky and I
don't keep up with everything that he
has recently said so I don't want to
mischaracterize any of it in general
Americans are um sold to view that we're
the good guys spreading Freedom across
the world and no chsky takes a
perspective that yeah but if you look at
the number of civilians you kill while
doing it it's incomparable to any other
military actions across the world right
so I very much disagree with those who
take the view that the US is this um
wonderful Global police force that's
spreading democracy and fixing problems
very very much wrong I think where I've
had disagreements with trky in the past
is more he frame he seems to frame the
us as a uniquely bad actor in some of
these cases and I think it's more an
outcropping of the size and wealth of
the US and less about uniquely negative
intentions and so I think that would be
my general disagreement with chsky based
on stuff I read a decade ago well he
says that he lives in the United States
he's an American and so he feels his
focus of criticism should be in America
and I think that's one of the great
things about being an American and being
in
America is the freedom to criticize
harshly sure uh while being a university
Professor by the way um he's basically
the embodiment of why 10 years is a
really valuable thing I agree whether
you agree with him or not uh question
from
Reddit ask David what he plans for his
garden this year is this a joke or is
this it's not a joke I I got into
gardening a few years
ago honestly I'm with the baby yeah I
can't do a garden this year it's just
and I have a lot of travel coming up so
everything would die but I did start to
try to figure out gardening if you're
stressed by the toxicity of the social
media World gardening is a great hobby
it really is um but it is
extraordinarily timeconsuming so I have
no Garden planned this year um are there
books uh or maybe movies in your life
that had a big impact on you that you
know you're thinking about that
diet has has there been stuff you read
forget it about even just books like
blogs or writers or just sources of
information that
had uh that molded you into the
intellectual into the political think
that that you are it's so hard to this
is sort of like you know you win an
Oscar and you you want to make sure you
thank all the right people I I read so
much and have been reading for so long
that it's really hard to say but I think
certainly um for me narrative
non-fiction has been a fantastic genre
to learn not only about history but also
about people and psychology and very
often when people say I don't really
read like what can recommend to me that
might be interesting I'll depending on
you know knowing them to some degree
I'll give recommendations there in terms
of of um just things I picked up
recently that that I think are
interesting um I've been reading uh a
bunch of Neil Postman I read a Jenny
Odell has a new book on time and the
concept of like Saving Time spending
time Etc she just published it super
interesting I just read um sing's book
about the Shackleton Voyage in
Antarctica in 1914 15 and 16 super
interesting I'm really all over the map
I have that one on Audi book I've been
me meaning to listen to It's very
interesting and it seems inconceivable
how these guys survived it in completely
inconceivable and yet they did uh it
kind of inspires you to think of uh
space exploration uh and taking on
similar kinds of risky and dangerous
Journeys uh in narrative non-fiction I
agree with you very much I've been
reading a lot of 20th century history um
about
Stalin and about Hitler rise and fall
the Third Reich I've read twice now and
I
recommend what did you get out of
reading it the second
time
um so what I
uh so the second time I listened to the
Audi book okay as I ran I get the same
thing from it uh as I get maybe reading
uh man search for meaning which is
um All the Troubles of day-to-day in the
modern world kind of uh fade away and
dissipate when I'm thinking about the uh
you know basically the embodiment of
evil at scale uh at that recent time in
human history so it's it makes me sort
of appreciate all the it fills me with
gratitude to have all the freedoms all
the just simple joys of life that we
have today and
um I I think the second time I was uh as
I was reading it uh because William
Shire was there he's the author he was
there through the whole thing you start
to pick up little details it's opposed
to like big things you start to pick up
the little
quirks of uh how history turns and just
like these little events you notice of
the Dynamics between people in a room
during a meeting with Hitler you just
notice these little things that are
mentioned cuz he was either there
directly or hurted the next day so so
you get that's why to me um rise and
fall the third rank is interesting is
cuz it's by a guy who was there who's
reporting on it um versus a sort of a
more distant displaced retali and I also
like biographies I'm a big fan of
biographies and um Walter isacs has just
written some incredible ones and Steve
Jobs and and Einstein all that kind of
stuff um Victor frankl's book is one
I've read a bunch of times and it's so
short and you know reading General I
know a lot of people who read way more
than I do and I also know a lot of
people who don't read at all I mean they
haven't read a book since since College
essentially to me it it's almost like
the amount I get from it it's almost
like a secret weapon where when I think
you know in two or three or 400 Pages
which I can read in whatever 10 days or
however long it takes reading 30 pages a
day the amount of
information insights into so many
aspects of the human psyche that I can
get it's sort of like it's not like I'm
in a competition for anything in
particular with anybody I just do my
show but it's sort of like if I'm
reading dozens of books a year and
you're reading zero I'm exposed to so
many different things and ideas that are
not even in your Universe it just seems
like the the power of reading just seems
overwhelming and I I had uh speaking of
getting attacked I had a fun time
getting attacked uh a few months ago for
publishing a reading list some um
reading at least the book A Week read um
18 or 19 books from the beginning of the
year you got attacked for the books you
chose or for this I don't know for what
oh but it would got became quite viral
attack for reading that's that's
something um so it's basically what
happened is that people I I actually
don't it it it's not worth folks who
know no fair folks who don't don't even
worry about it it's the what I really
loved about being attacked for it is
it's shows you can get attacked for
anything apparently it's so it's not
like I did something wrong it was kind
of a beautiful thing and it was just a
uh the most intensely beautiful display
of absurdity of Twitter and the internet
that there would be there were articles
written about me with the with the book
list um there's no bad books on it the
thing I was being mocked for is reading
DFI reading stuff that uh sounds like a
high school reading list oh I see or all
these kinds of aspects of the reading
list
which doesn't stand up to any sort of
legitimate kind of criticism but the
fact that people are just looking for
single words or single aspects of a
tweet and so want to criticize is uh it
um actually forced me to because I
released a video about you know
summarizing my takeaways from from one
of the books and I've been meaning to do
more and more but every time I start to
like when I record it I I have this
negative feeling they kind of ruin the
fun of sharing with others I know
exactly what you're talking about my
advice on that is don't do it just don't
record it yeah because and and is that
what you basically yeah for now but I I
I think time cures it but for now I
decided not to yes it's just until um
until I I feel Joy when I do it yeah we
are in such a privileged position to
even be able to do this sort of thing
right I have taken on projects and then
it sort of sounds good or I end up doing
it because there's some third party that
brings the idea and I feel like I can't
really say no or whatever and then when
I get in front of the camera or I have
to write something for a while I did a
newspaper column that I hated doing I
realized that I'm ruining the exact
thing that I have worked to build which
is that I can just do whatever I want
why am I doing this and sometimes it
takes me a week to realize it sometimes
it takes me a year but just don't do it
that's in this case in particular it's
also that there's a private thing I
enjoy which is reading right and if
sharing that private thing you enjoy is
not fun then just don't share it that
that's um yeah there's certain things
there's certain private things that
should remain private that's like which
is one of the first things ever I'm I'm
the same person privately as I am
publicly but the book books it's like
man I don't get to share I guess through
these conversations I can
uh I share some of the stuff I'm reading
and enjoying it cuz it sucks it sucks to
get attacked for stuff and it sucks to
get attacked for stuff you love yeah
especially reading I mean it's a you
know that's the the bottom of the barrel
I have these ideas where I'll go you
know maybe for my next thing I'll go
from politics which is so toxic I'll go
to travel blogging because I I there's
so many travel bloggers I follow and
there so many interesting places and
then I go wait a second I like traveling
and just hanging out now traveling is
going to be my job and now I've got to
bring two cameras with me and I've got
to get shots and I've got to film my
food and I'm not going to do that I'm
just going to do what I'm doing but then
I'll travel when I want to take a
vacation MH and of course some of it
could be fun I mean I I have to say when
I did the one video on a book 1984 I
really enjoyed it that that whole
process it was fun it was um um I don't
think I've ever thought as hard about a
book when I had to make a video about it
because I had to like you know I read
1984 I don't know how many times
probably five 10 times I don't remember
um a red Animal Farm way more uh but I
don't think I was like what do I think
about like what are the key takeaways
for me it I didn't really know like if
you ask me what I think about even
Animal Farm cuz I haven't done that one
and I've read that one I don't know over
50 times it's probably my favorite book
it's like I I would have to struggle and
and making a video about it basically a
little mini lecture forced me to
actually have an opinion about the
details of it and to do enough research
to think like okay what is the
historical context of this book I mean
it it it allowed me to say interesting
and to think interesting stuff about the
book I it was I found it to be really
rewarding to basically the old Fineman
thing uh one of the best ways to learn
is to teach right yeah I can't think of
one thing I would say about animal farm
and I read it again not that long ago
but I don't know what comments you kind
of have a generic
like authoritarianism and so on whatever
but there could be interesting quirks of
the book and the characters and the how
uh how corruption happens you could you
could say all kinds of stuff that it may
be contrasting it like even with 1984
allowed me to contrast with Brave New
World and um and uh and how uh that 1984
was politicized and how it's used by the
Republican party of today like you could
say a lot of interesting stuff if you
like think about it and write a sheet of
paper maybe you don't need to make a
video about it so I find it to be really
rewarding in general so I I probably
will do more of it but not always not as
a main professional just like with the
travel blogging I agree with that I mean
you get threatened a lot you get
attacked a lot online do you think about
your
mortality well the other day I went to
the doctor and he said you know next
physical we're going to be talking about
a lot of new things and so I was
thinking about it a lot that day yeah uh
no I mean um it's funny I like I
recently did a bunch of estate stuff
yeah and when you have intellectual
property there's a question of like okay
I have my assets but
also if I died tomorrow especially in a
particularly fiery death my YouTube
channel would probably for a while
generate more money because it would be
like oh my goodness this person died in
a terrible what happens with a future
Revenue stream and all these different
things and it got me thinking about
Legacy and about the fact that people
who do this sort of thing it's kind of a
new thing in a sense and so you know if
you work at ABC News at some point you
just retire and someone else fills in
for you how does my career wind down
given I like I don't actually know the
answer I'm not sure um what is it I just
one day stop posting videos but all my
content stays up getting fewer and fewer
views or do I delete everything do I I I
don't know what what you die I mean so
you my trip to Ukraine cuz I knew I was
going to the front is the first time I
did um I record a video if I die oh and
I posted it and I give instructions to
uh to folks what to do in the so like
there's a closure yeah uh but it's an
interesting process like what happens to
your at which point does GPT take over
and continue tweeting for David pack
well the tweeting I care less about
right now unless blue becomes something
unbelievable I'm less worried about
Twitter but some of my audience members
have been saying you know some of these
tools David are getting good enough that
we could clone your voice and also make
it match video and with scripts you
could just keep pumping out content even
if you were gone and I said now that I'm
interested in that I want to learn more
about boy it's going to be a weird
future uh what advice do you have to
young folks that are facing this
future almost always it's some version
of start right away and that applies in
so many different ways sure so if you're
thinking about oftentimes the context is
people want to do what I do and I always
say Do not sit around for a year
thinking about
lighting this is how you never do
anything and I dozens of people who I
felt obligated to talk to on the phone
because of a personal connection I go
through all the advice and I can tell
they're not going to do it they just
they're it's all already sounding too
complicated and so instead they'll sort
of say well I got to get the right
lighting and the right room and blah
blah blah blah the best thing you can do
no matter what you're doing is just
start right away and that applies in
this business and in whatever else
you're doing if you want to learn a new
thing find a new hobby the ability to
get data right away about what's working
what's not working and whether you even
like this approach that you're taking is
so valuable and it will allow you to
iterate and the sooner you do it the
cost to a change of direction will also
be low lower if there's any I don't do
like self-help or generic advice type
stuff but the one thing that applies in
so many situation is situations is just
try it right away and iterate from there
yeah start today and then do it every
day or decide hey you know what I
figured out I don't actually want to do
it yeah hence iterate yeah uh well
usually you'll discover you you
do uh you think we'll make it out of the
century Humanity human civilization out
of the so like to 2100 yeah how much we
got 80 years yeah uh
77 I think we're going to make it you
think so yeah uh what are the biggest
threats facing our
civilization if not wokeism I I it if
it's not wokeism it's hard to say
no um I I actually think that uh if you
believe that we are on an inflection
point of sorts in changes to society and
acceleration of Technology Etc I think
it's really tough to know in
2090 what will actually be the biggest
threat so I don't know it's so cliche to
say
nuclear and climate change and another
pandemic technologically our world might
look so different that it's almost yes
unimaginable what what it means to be
human is unimaginable and also um the
degree that we make progress out into
space is also unimaginable I think space
is super interesting and there's people
on both the left and right who for
different reasons are kind of not into
the whole space exploration thing the
people I hear from the ones on the right
think it's just kind of dumb yeah the
ones on the left think it's an excuse
not to fix problems here MH I think and
also uh they say it's the play thing of
billionaires sure which is another funny
kind of concept yeah I mean someone's
got to pay for it uh why not be people
who have a lot of money to to be
billionaires or governments that are
trillionaires so somebody has to pay for
big ambitious moonshell projects to me
the most interesting thing is that in
getting closer to the next step of space
exploration we may well learn things
that can then be used to improve
circumstances here for me it's not one
or the other and I recently read a long
piece about why why not Mars because
it's terrible in every way for
supporting life okay so like that's one
perspective but still in so exploring
who knows what we might end up learning
so I I'm I'm big on it I don't um share
the view of some on the left about it so
I guess to add to your advice to young
people if a thing seems terrible you
still might want to consider doing it I
would say so yeah how many things I've
seen I mean listen there are so many
trips where the day before I
say why am I doing this the jet lag I've
got to do this and that and now who if
my guest host falls through I should
just stay and work and I go hold on you
do this every time yep just go you never
regret it you learn something you try
something I never regret the
trip uh this hopefully applies to the
conversation we had today uh David uh
I'm a big fan of yours thank you so much
um for talking today thank you for being
patient with me we tried to talk earlier
um please continue doing what you're
doing please uh continue being objective
and thoughtful and uh Fearless thank on
the internet big fan of yours as well I
appreciate it thanks for listening to
this conversation with David Pacman to
support this podcast please check out
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let me leave you with some words from
Mahatma Gandhi what difference does it
make to the Dead the orphans and the
homeless whether the Mad destruction is
rought under the name of totalitarianism
or in the Holy Name of Liberty or
democracy thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time