Kind: captions
Language: en
if you have a democratic style of
governance you are entrusting people
with one of the most awesome and radical
of responsibilities and that's saying
that you're going to pick the people
that are going to make some of the
hardest decisions in all of human
history if you're going to trust people
to vote correctly you have to be able to
trust them to have open and honest
dialogue with each other whether that's
Nazis or KKK people or whoever talking
um you have to believe that your people
are going to be able to rise above and
make the correct determinations when
they hear these types of speeches and if
you're so worried that somebody's going
to hear a certain political figure and
they're going to be completely
radicalized instantly then what that
tells me is that you don't have enough
faith in humans for democracy to be a
viable institution which is fine you can
be anti-democratic but you I don't think
you can be pro-democracy and anti-free
speech the following is a conversation
with Steven benell also known online as
Destiny he's a video game streamer and
political commentator one of the early
pioneers of both live streaming in
general and live streamed political
debate and discourse politically he is a
progressive identifying as either left
or far-left depending on your
perspective there are many reasons I
wanted to talk to Stephen first I just
talked to Ben Shapiro and many people
have told me that Stephen is the bench
Shiro of the left in terms of political
perspective and exceptional debate
skills second reason is he skillfully
defends some nuanced non-standard View
use at the same time being
pro-establishment pro- institutions and
pro Biden while also being pro
capitalism and pro- Free Speech third
reason is he has been there at the
beginning and throughout the meteoric
rise of the video game live streaming
community in some mainstream circles
this community is not taken seriously
perhaps because of its demographic
distribution skewing young or perhaps
because of the sometimes harsh style of
communication but I think this community
should be taken seriously and shown
respect millions of young minds tune in
to live streams like Destinies to
question and to try to understand what
is going on with the world often
exploring challenging even controversial
ideas the language is sometimes harsher
and the humor sometimes meaner than I
would prefer but I Grandpa Lex put on my
rain boots and went into the beautiful
chaotic muck of online discourse and
have so far survived to tell the tale
with a smile and even more love in my
heart than
before on top of all this we were lucky
to have Molina Goron a popular streamer
and World traveler join us at the end of
the conversation you can check out her
channel on twitch.tv/ Molina and you can
check out Steven's channel on
youtube.com Destiny this is Alex
Freedman podcast to support it please
check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Destiny I don't know if you watched me
watching your yay interview yeah thank
you so much for I'm so curious when
you're navigating a conversation like
that are you how intentional is the
thought process between like building
Rapport and pushing and and giving a
little let like zero zero intention I
was watching and thank you so much it
was very kind for you to review that
conversation it meant a lot that you
were complimentary Parts on the
technical aspects of the conversation
but no zero and I'm actually
deliberately uh trying to avoid I think
you've called a debate brain uhhuh uh
which is just another flavor of thinking
about like The Meta conversation trying
to optimize how should this conversation
go because I feel like the more you do
that the better you get at that the less
human connection you have like the less
genuinely you're actually sitting there
in the moment and listening to the
person you're more like calculating
what's the right thing to say versus
like feeling what is uh what is that
person feeling right now what what are
they thinking that's what I'm trying to
do is like putting myself in their mind
and thinking what does the world look
like to them what is the world feel like
to them and so from that I truly try to
listen now I'm also learning especially
cuz Rogan and others have been giving me
shit for not pushing back mhm it's good
sometimes to say from a a place of care
for the other human being to say
stop what did you just say I don't think
that's represents who you are and what
you really mean or maybe if it does at
that time represents who they are I can
see a better a better world if they grow
into a different direction try to point
that direction out to them there's a
really complicated dance between letting
somebody share their full story versus
letting somebody like essentially I
guess like prze your audience and it's
like okay hold on let's take a minute
here but yeah I used to be four or five
years ago it was attack attack attack
attack attack whatever you said and now
I'm leaning way more towards the like
okay well tell me how you feel about
everything and then we'll go from there
so a lot of people like my new approach
some older fans who watch and they're
like why are you letting this guy just
Ramble On you know he said like five or
six wrong things and you're only going
to call him out on two of them and it's
like just different styles of
conversation but yeah do you do a lot of
research beforehand too depending on the
conversation yeah so if we're going to
talk like vaccines and stuff yeah that's
a ton of reading and stuff that I never
thought I'd know going into it um if
it's a more personal like political
philosophy conversation there's not as
much you can prepare for just it truly
depends on the conversation how much are
you actually listening to the other
person always listening you have to
listen because as soon as you stop
listening the quality everything falls
apart the connection disappears the
quality of the conversation disappears
but my natural inclination is to just be
way more aggressive than normal so I
have to constantly remind myself I guess
you would call it a meta conversation
like okay he's probably saying this
because of that or we'll let him go here
and then we'll stop later but um yeah
cuz my my preferred style of
conversation is like I'm going to talk
and the second I say something you
disagree with then let's iron it out
right like like I thinking like
syllogisms like okay here's premise a
good okay premise B okay and then
conclusion and then as long as we're
both deductively sound we're not crazy
no psychosis then we're going to agree
on everything um whereas other people
like to most people think in stories
like narratives like a whole there's a
whole like narrative and the individual
facts don't matter as much cuz they'll
pick and choose what they want and it's
really hard cuz everybody thinks ner so
I have to function in that world but
it's uh frustrating for me sometimes
well I I've seen uh you've had a lot of
excellent debates one of them I just
recently last night watch is uh on
systemic racism and it's the first time
I've seen you completely lose your shit
oh shoot who was that against I'm not
sure exactly but you were just very
frustrated sorry not lose your shit but
you were frustrated constantly because
of the thing let's lay out 1 2 3 and
every time you try to lay it out it
would falter I think it had to do with
sort of can you use data to make an
argument or do you need to use a study
that does an interpretation of that data
and then there's like this tension
between I think this is a behavioral
Economist that you were talking to and
the point is you do this kind of nice
layout that the whole point of
Behavioral economics it says there's
more to it than just the data you have
to give it context and like do the rich
rigorous interpretation in the context
of the full human story and then there
was like a dance back and forth
sometimes you use data sometimes not and
you you getting really frustrated and
shutting down and so that felt like a
failure mode I've seen Sam Harris have
similar sticking points like if we can't
agree on the terminology we can't go on
to me I feel like uh I'm sort of the the
wienstein perspective is
like I think if you get stuck on any one
thing you're just not going to make
progress you have to part of the
conversation has to be
about uh doing a good dance together mhm
versus being dogmatically stuck on the
path to truth I think the true challenge
is identifying what of those sticking
points are important versus what is not
important so like if I'm having an
argument with somebody about like Jewish
representation in media they might it
might be like a big conversation and
they might say a couple things like I
think Jewish people you know they tend
to help their own or whatever they
saying H okay but like for the purpose
of the conversation we can keep moving
but if they casually drop like you know
yeah and I think that's why the
Holocaust numbers were blown up from
like 100,000 to 6 million and that's I
was like okay hold on wait wait if you
think this we have to stop here because
this is going to be it's not just a
language game in this part if you really
believe this fact then the whole rest of
the conversation is going to be informed
by that belief you know and it has to be
something that doesn't bother you
personally you have to step outside your
own ego so Holocaust denial is somebody
that would bother a lot of people and
there's some things just just observe
serving you I feel like when you get
really good at conversation you can
become a stickler to um you might have
your favorite terms that really bothers
you people don't agree on those terms
begs the question you mean raising the
question yeah I usually just won't
people say stuff I just let it slide
yeah you can't because if you fight when
you're having a conversation with
somebody and you're talking to their
audience at the same time because that's
really what's happening um you never
want to come off as over combative or
overaggressive because it puts people in
like there there's like a trigger in
your brain and this is true of
relationship of friendships of
persuasive rhetoric or whatever there's
a trigger in the brain and as soon as
that defensive trigger gets like flipped
on everything is over you've lost the
ability to persuade because everything
becomes a fight at that point yeah well
I wanted to talk to you cuz I heard
somewhere that uh you were referred to
as the bench appear of the left and
since I'm talking with Ben uh as well I
wanted to sort of complete
spiritually this platonic political
philosophy puzzle in my head you are a
progressive but a progressive with many
non-standard Progressive views and you
had a heck of a fascinating journey
through all of that and like I said I
think you argue with passion sometimes
with excessive amounts of passion but a
really polite way of saying that almost
always with uh good faith and with rigor
with seriousness I asked on your
subreddit which is an excellent
subreddit shout out to the destiny
subreddit so much uh at least for that
particular post what I really loved is
when I asked for questions for you they
were like holy shit there's adult let's
all behave like nobody say incest I was
like what what's what's going on here
but actually the the the questions that
Rose to the top were really good so uh
somebody said that Destiny was speaking
of your journey was a conservative in
his early teens then he became a
Libertarian then he became a leftwing
social justice Warrior then he flirted
with socialism and now he is a Social
Democrat liberal I've also heard you
refer to yourself as a far-left person
so to the degree there's truth to that
Journey can you take me through your
Evolution uh through the landscape of
political ideologies that you went
through so my dad comes from Kentucky
and my mom is a Cuban immigrant uh
Cubans are notorious for being very
conservative in the United States um for
historical reasons and for other reasons
but um my upbringing was a very
Republican one I grew up listening to
Rush limau Glenn Beck Michael Savage uh
on the radio Billy
Cunningham I think Sean hanity a little
bit later on like uh that was like my
whole upbringing politically I remember
I was writing I had written like
articles for the school Journal like in
favor of uh defending the war in Iraq
and you know defending bush from all the
criticism Etc so that was my upbringing
U I think once I hit High School College
I had my edgy like libertarian esque
high school phase of like reading Ein
Rand um of of figuring out that like oh
my God nothing in life matters except
for class and money that's actually the
answer to everything and um I got to
college I became a Ron Paul fan very big
Ron Paul fan and then from there I kind
of work do life life happens at the kind
of the lowest point of my life in terms
of where I'm working financially
everything is like kind of in ruin in my
life there's a whole bunch of dumb stuff
that's happened it's probably my most
conservative point I don't know what it
is about like being poor and thinking
like you can work your way out of it you
can do whatever it's just my upbringing
is always just like if you're not if
you're not if you're not having
financial success just work work work
work work
um and then I got into streaming very
very lucky break everything just lined
up at the right time and then as I've
progressed through streaming I would say
through the years I've gradually Fallen
more and more to the left especially
once my kid turned four five six years
old and I started to see like how much
different his life was just because of
the financial opportunities that I was
able to provide for him through no merit
of his own and that started to radically
change how I viewed the world in a lot
of ways so actually let's like Linger on
that yeah low point you worked at
McDonald's you worked at a casino
you uh did carpet cleaning what was the
the lowest point definitely the carpet
cleaning really absolutely why why was
it the lowest point that's when you were
just flirting with starting uh streaming
my whole life has been a series of Lucky
breaks really truly uh I grew up playing
a lot of video games but back in my day
our day um you had to read there was a
lot of text on the screen back in my day
we used to play they didn't all talk to
yeah they cuz nowadays everything's
voice active but back then you to read a
lot I was really good reader and a
really good vocabul I've heard you
actually say that what games are we
talking about what what do you mean
there reading you're talking about like
RPG yeah jrpg so like Final Fantasy
games fantasy stars like all of these
like any any RPG that would have been on
the snia Sega PlayStation these are the
things let's pause on that okay I just
talked to Todd Howard who's um of the
Elder Scrolls Fame and the Fallout Fame
and Beyond what's your thoughts on Elder
Scrolls why is Skyrim the greatest RPG
of all time
man I really don't like Skyrim or
Fallout or those of games no not at all
why do you hate Skyrim yeah so I really
like characters and like compelling
stories and narrators around those
characters and I like to see them kind
of like grow and change kind of like a
movie or a story so in your like Final
Fantasy games you've got characters um
there a lot of like um like classical
tropes of like a character starts off
kind of like edgy angsty all on their
own they develop relationships
friendships they realize that the life
is more about themselves and they do
that and I like that that growth that's
kind of what you see in all of those old
uh role playing games um I didn't like
the open world ones as much because your
main character is just like a blank
slate never talks it's for you to like
project on too but there's not the same
like uh linear Narrative of like growth
for the character that's fascinating
There's an actual story arc to the
character that's more crafted in a
beautiful way by the designers of the
game yeah that's I don't think one is
better or worse I tend towards like I
want to hear a compelling story around
like a set of characters that like grow
and Chang as the G oh that's beautifully
put then yeah I I just really loved
being able to leave the time town you go
outside the town and you look outside
its nature and the world of
possibilities is before you you can do
whatever the fuck you want m i mean that
immensity of just being lost in the
world was really immersive for me but
yeah you're right whatever attracts you
about a world so you were just starting
to play video games you go out play
video games that's one of your lucky
breaks there's just like a lot of random
skills you pick up depending on the type
of game you play I played a lot of teex
based games on the computer so I was a
very fast typer I'm still a very fast
typer um read a lot you know learned
weird kind of math stuff for some of the
calculations some of the games I think
I'm pretty good at getting information
figuring stuff out learning patterns all
of that and then that plus the reading
and everything with the games meant that
I I don't want to say I excelled in
school because my grades were pretty bad
but I was in like all honors all AP
classes or whatever um a lot of dual
enrollment a lot of AP credit going into
college so I did pretty well in school
probably better than I should have but
it was because I had the game stuff that
was like really power ing a lot of my
brain there while I was trying to sleep
through class to yeah so you're you're
able to soak in information integrate it
quickly take notes generally I think I'm
pretty good at that yeah what what uh
you do this a lot when you stream you're
typing stuff is there a system in that
note ticking and what note what do you
use for note taking um does it matter I
use a notepad like notepad. notepad yep
notepad.exe not the Plus+ not is there
genius to the madness behind that or you
just don't give a shit no I mean like it
it's going to depend on the style of
conversation if I'm with somebody that
is very meticulously organized their
thoughts and they're a uh find a better
word here for Rambler you can edit that
in better word for Rambler somebody that
talks a lot and a lot I'll start like
taking notes bullet points like this
this this this this this because um
there's a style of conversation where I
say seven or eight different things and
then when you go to respond to
everything I said I cut you off
immediately and we argue that point but
if somebody's going to do that you just
like hold on you just said these eight
things I'm going to respond to every
single one I've written them all down
and then you can go if you want to go
Point by point we can but you just said
all this and I wrote it down so we're
going to go so what are you actually
writing down like a couple of words per
point they left honestly like there are
very few unique conversations in
politics like a lot of them are kind of
retreading old ground so if we're having
a debate on abortion um somebody might
say like oh well I believe this thing
about viability and I believe this thing
about you know when they're a fetus
versus a human and I'll just write down
like those points so that when I go to
respond I kind of have like a like note
card it's like a guiding thing there to
keep me centered on my response
political discourse is a kind of tree
you're walking down I got it and you're
like taking just to keep my focus guided
so I'm not like running off on a weird
tangent or responding to something I
didn't say or something yeah what about
like doing research it just is there a
system to your note taking because
mentally you seem to be one of the most
organized people I've listened to so is
there is it in your mind or is there a
system that's on paper a little of both
I feel like the human mind is a
beautiful thing if you have interest in
an area uh so like what I'll tell people
is let's say there's like a totally new
topic that I'm researching I don't know
anything and I've I'll do a couple of
these on stream I think they're boring
about people watch it I might open a
Wikipedia article and I'll read and I
hit something I don't know and then I
open the next Wikipedia article and I'll
read and then I might have like seven
tabs open and I'll read and I'll read
and I'll read um and I'll read a ton of
stuff maybe for hour two three four
hours of stuff and then by the end you
know someone in chat will ask me like do
you even remember like this particular
thing and I'll say not really no not too
much but what happens is as long as
you've seen it once what will happen is
like the next day the day after it we'll
read something else and be like oh I
remember that thing from this thing I
remember like vaguely that and then if
you see it like a third time you're like
oh this makes sense because especially
when it comes to oh here's like a little
trick on stuff if you're ever reading
any news and there's a place that pops
up always look at it on a map because so
much of history is like on a map it's so
important to like know the geography it
makes things make so much more sense um
but yeah once I once I start to see
stuff over and over again just because
I've like read it a few times stuff will
start to kind of connect to my mind and
like oh yeah well this makes sense of
course these people believe this it's
because of this or of course like this
happened here it's because you know that
happened there um so yeah it's it's a
lot of that if there's like a topic that
I'm doing specific research for um so
like a vaccine related stuff is a big
one uh the Ukrainian Russian conflict is
a big one that I'll break out a not um
I'll probably get like a Google doc and
I'll just start like writing like an
outline of kind of the rough points of
everything just to organize my thoughts
around different topics yeah we're just
going to go a tangent upon a tangent
upon a tangent we'll return to the low
point of your life at some point always
returning from the philosophy to the
psychology so you did uh the Ukraine
topic one question is what role does US
play in this war could they have done
something to avoid the War uh did they
have a role to play in forcing Vladimir
Putin's hand do they have a role to play
in um de-escalating the war towards a
peace agreement and the opposite if it
does escalate uh towards something like
the use of a tactical nuclear weapon are
the to blame or are we to blame oh man
somebody sent me an email a while ago
with great words um there's a specific
way to navigate a conversation where you
can kind of like contribute to a
negative event but you're not really the
one responsible for it um like the
classic example is a woman goes out late
at night gets a little bit too drunk and
then something happens and it's like
while there might have been steps she
could have taken to mitigate the risk
it's not her fault of what happened
because the um responsibility rests on
the on the agent making the choice right
there's a Chooser at some point that is
choosing to do wrong or evil I don't
believe in any of the arguments that say
the United States has contributed to
Russia's position on Ukraine or the
actions that they've taken on Ukraine um
there are several arguments that some
people uh some even political Scholars
are are are putting out there to say
that the United States is to blame but I
find them completely unconvincing I
think that when you ask the question of
like what is the United States role or
what has our role been I think it's
really important for us I don't think we
even agree as a country on what our role
should should be which I think is a hard
one because you've got this kind of
there's this growing populist movement
in the United States it might be the far
left and the far right and I think
populist tend to have this kind of
isolationist view of the world where the
United States should just be our own
thing we shouldn't be telling anybody
what to do we shouldn't be the World
Police and then kind of more in these
like Center left center right positions
and then across a lot of Europe you've
got well okay the United States is kind
of like the big kid on the Block like
we're looking to them for guidance and
Leadership on situations like what's
going on in Ukraine so in so far as uh
the original question is like what what
is like the United States responsibility
I think we have a responsibility to
ensure the relative like Freedom
prosperity and stability across Europe I
think that defending Ukraine's
sovereignty and right to their borders
is a part of that and I don't believe
that prior to the invasion in 2022 I
don't think the United States was
contributing to Russia invading that
country um I know there arguments given
that like the expansion of NATO you know
has has something that's been
threatening to Russia but the baltics
joined and Russia didn't do anything
about it the invasion to Crimea was very
clearly a response to the revolution of
2014 The Invasion on the borders is
clearly a response to um Ukraine winning
that uh Civil War in the Southeast and
the donos and Russia becoming more
aggressive I don't think that you can
blame any of that on on NATO expansion
there's no NATO countries that are
threatening Russia or invading Russia do
you think there is a nuclear
threat do you think about this do you
worry about this that there is a threat
of a tactical nuclear weapon being
dropped I think that possibility exist
either way and I think the
responsibility for that is on Russia
because it can't it just can't be the
case that if you have nukes you're
allowed to invade countries and take
their land because if anything I think
that that down the road also increased
increases the potential for nuclear
problems in the future right because at
that point either every single country
has to acquire their own nuclear weapons
because if you don't Russia's going to
mess with you or every single country
has to join NATO and now what we're back
at square zero ground Z square one where
people like oh well look all these
countries joining NATO is aggressive
towards Russia like what are you going
to do yeah you've mentioned that um
there's a complicated calculus going on
with the countries that have uh that
have nuclear weapons and what's our
responsibility are you allowed to do
anything you want to countries that
don't have nuclear
weapons that's a really tricky
discussion for sure because what is US
supposed to do if Russia drops a
tactical nuclear weapon there's a set of
options
mhm none of which are good mhm and it's
such a tricky moment right now because
uh the things that Biden and other
public figures say I feel like has a
significant impact on the way this game
turns off because I think mutually
assured destruction is partially a game
of words yeah that I I mean I believe in
the power
conversation of leaders talking to each
other I feel like you have to have an a
balance between threat and
compromise and like empathy for the
needs the geopolitical the economic
needs of a Nation uh but also sort of
respect and represent your own interest
MH so it's a tricky one like how do you
play the how do you play the hand what
reminds me of um I don't know if you've
ever heard in like evolutionary psych or
evolutionary biology there are things
called tit fortat strategies it kind of
reminds me of that where it's like if
like uh there there are a whole bunch of
these little biological mechanisms where
creatures will develop like socializing
like tit fortat if you something bad to
me I'm going to do something bad for you
and then more complicated schemes will
come out where it'll be like tit Tit for
Tat where it's like you can make one
mistake and then I'm going to get you if
you do a second one or could be tit tit
Tit for Tat or there could be Tit for
Tat tat for tit there's like all these
like back and forths where creatures
kind of optimize themselves and um yeah
I think something the United States did
really well in terms of that kind of
conversational strategy and I approved
of this in the beginning was Biden was
very clear about setting out like the
exact level of us involvement for the
war we're not going to do a fly zone
there's not going to be US troops on the
ground in Ukraine but we are going to
send a whole bunch of money and a whole
bunch of arms and a whole bunch of Intel
to them and I thought he did a good job
at laying out like the limitation of the
US involvement while opening as much as
we could in the ways we could help but
the um yeah that looming threat of some
sort of tactical nuclear weapon I think
on the table right now is like it's
going to be the annihilation of like
Russian sea forces and everything but
you know what happens if it continues to
escalate that's like a world that nobody
wants to nobody wants to be in yeah so
we talked about difficult conversation
and again thank you so much for
reviewing the Y
conversation let me ask you about Putin
mhm speaking of difficult conversation
so if you sit down if I sit down with
somebody like Vladimir Putin or Vladimir
zalinski what's the right way to have
that conversation oh man we can talk
about that one or we could talk
about somebody more well
understood through history like some
like Stalin or Hitler something like
that maybe that's an easier example to
illustrate how to handle extremely
difficult conversations yeah I mean I
can handle really difficult
conversations between like two people um
leaders of countries though you're
there's so much that you are
representing in that conversation I
guess the thing that would be
interesting to me would be like what is
Vladimir Putin's interest like what is
the genuine interest that he has in the
conflict because I think finding out
like what is your buyin or what is your
like what is the driving force keeping
you here is probably the most most
important thing um I think for zinski I
think it's a it's quite a bit more
simpler because he's he's on the defense
so he defending his country and his
people um for Putin I've heard all sorts
of things uh you know Dugan has his
writings on uh you know like the East
versus the West the collapse of the West
in the face of like all of the
liberalism and the weird LGBT stuff that
they criticize you've got the desire to
like return to this like former Soviet
uniones thing you've got Putin's quotes
that collapse of the Soviet Union was
the biggest geopolitical disaster you
know of 20th century and and I guess
figuring out like what ises Putin after
I'm not actually sure I don't know the
answer that question I know a lot of
people write about it but yeah well
there's a lot of answers to that
question there's a lot of answers that
he can give you that question so say I
sit down with him for three hours and
talk about
it I think this is a really interesting
distinction because you do do difficult
conversations in the space of ideas MH
but also in your stream you have I mean
there's a bunch of drama going on
there's there's a human psycholog is
laid out MH uh in its full richness
before you so to me me with leaders I
think a part of the conversation has to
be about the human psychology sure not
like a meta conversation but like really
understand what they feel what they fear
who they are as a human being like as a
family man as a as a person proud of
their country as a person with an ego as
a person who's been affected if not
corrupted by power as all of us can be
and likely are so all of that that gives
context to then the answers about what
do you want in this war because the
answers about what you want in this war
will be political answers of it's like
it's like a game that's being played
again with words and politicians are
incredibly good at playing that game MH
I think the deeper truth comes from
understanding the human being from which
those words come and I think that's what
you do I don't know if you do those
kinds of conversations where never
talked to any country leaders so no not
not not a country leader but say a
controversial figure or somebody that
represents a certain idea don't just
talk in a space of ideas or challenge
the ideas but understand who is this
person how did you come to those ideas
oh yeah when I've had there have been a
couple of very controversial right
leaning figures um so the two obviously
that my stream are Lauren Southern and
Nick fentz and those types of
conversations initially aren't very
political at all yeah it's more like
like obviously we believe in very very
very different things but like beliefs
don't happen accidentally so how did you
get to where you are those are way more
personal conversations that's true is
there things you regret about those
conversations where you failed is there
things you're proud of where you
succeeded for things that I'm proud of I
feel like I feel like I'm really good at
attempting to understand people without
judgment um that I think a lot of people
feel like they can have conversations
with me where they can share a lot and
I'm not going to jump down their throat
for them having a politically incorrect
observation or for them being judgmental
with somebody else or having like a
feeling that's maybe not something they
should have something they're
embarrassed about so I think I do a
really good job at that and then by
extension of that I've gotten the
ability to hear perspectives from so
many different people that I think I can
understand a lot of different
perspectives um for failures of mine I
mean it's always going to be on stream
it'll be like I didn't push back hard
enough or I didn't know like a certain
fact for a conversation um these are
usually the they're going to be on these
like very technical grounds generally
I'm pretty happy with like the direction
my conversations have G on uh recently
especially over like the past 6 months
so your goal is to deradicalize the
audience of those folks so that used to
be my goal uh my goal was
deradicalization now I'm kind of hoping
that that's just the byproduct so the
goal I think is to talk to somebody and
to show they believe this because of
these reasons and if you want to change
people's beliefs we have to talk about
the underlying reasons for why they
think the things they think it's not
enough to just say like that belief is
bad cuz it's like well they believe it
for a whole bunch of things that are
true and real to them at least so you
have to address all the underlying
things that they believe before you can
change the overlying belief so if I'm
having a conversation with somebody
it'll be like okay why do you feel this
about that that and that okay I
understand that maybe like a better way
to solve that would be like this or that
instead of this thing so to what degree
do you have to empathize with the
person's worldview versus push back
that's that's always the hard one uh
when I'm talking to other people it's
almost always me stepping as much inside
their bubble as I can I have to like
live and breathe their worldview and be
able to speak their worldview in order
to like navigate their thoughts because
my worldview is um I I don't even I'm
not even using this as an insult I don't
know if I am a little bit Autistic or
something but when I break apart things
I just want to see like study study
study fact fact fact that's how my mind
works for everything that's just that's
what I like to see like um personal
stories don't do much for me narratives
don't do much for me just show me like
the the data on the studies or whatever
but for other people I think most brains
are more human than that and they tend
to see things in more kind of like
uh surreal pictures that are kind of
painted and the brush Strokes are way
broader and you know they don't care
about the itty bitty tiny fact um so if
I'm talking to somebody else and I'm
trying to get into their head and I'm
trying to change their mind on things
I'm going to be stepping into their
world and I'm going to try to be working
through that framework really good
example might be um we'll say like uh
when it comes to trans issues for minors
okay 16 or 17y old needs to go on
puberty blockers the way that I want
that debate to play out is uh let's look
at all the data let's see what are the
comes uh let's see what are the
processes for getting a medication and
then we'll evaluate all of that and then
we'll go in whatever like points more
favorably but that's wholly unconvincing
to most people right so as a parent if
I'm having that conversation with
another parent the easiest way for me to
have that conversation is like hey we
both have kids imagine how horrible it
would be if we felt like our kids needed
help and the government was trying to
get between us and and their doctor in
that conversation that might be how that
talk plays out which I think that's a
really good argument because I think
there probably are times when the
government should get in between it but
I'll have that conversation because now
I'm in a world where they understand
what I'm saying I'm resonating with the
way that they feel about things and I
can make progress with with the way that
they're kind of viewing the world
because I'm talking in a language they
understand so on this particular topic
of trans issues is that the reason you
were banned from twitch I'm not sure I
don't know uh they just said hate speech
but I don't use like slurs or anything
so it's hard to know exactly so I think
you made the claim that trans women
shouldn't compete with CIS women in the
women's Athletics MH can you make the
this case and Can you steal man the case
against it I think in your community
there's a lot of trans folks who love
you and there's a lot who hate you yeah
and so if you can walk the tight rope of
this conversation they try to steal me
on both sides one of the argumentative
strategies I say is that like anytime
you have a conversation you should be
able to argue both sides better than
anybody else you know so um for the for
the my side the genuine belief side um
it feels like overwhelmingly all of the
data is showing that trans we'll say
trans women uh even after I think 3
years on some sort of like HRT or you
know estrogen uh stuff they're still
maintaining these advantages from their
male puberty over cisgender women and if
that is the case if we are going to draw
these distinctions around our Sports
between women and men it feels unfair to
have a category inside the women's
sports that are maintaining advantages
that are coming from a male puberty um
regardless of the amount of time they've
spent on
hormone replacement therapy so that that
would be my argument on that side so
it's unfair from a performance
enhancement aspect so the same way we
ban performance performance enhancing
drugs that involve increasing of test
testosterone in that same way would be
unfair essentially yeah so what's the
case uh against the yeah so the case in
favor of them competing together is that
realistically there's not going to be a
trans Sports category uh realistically
trans women aren't going to be
competitive with CIS men because they've
gone through these huge uh you know like
hormone changes by the medication
they're taking and that when we look at
how sports are kind of done anyway
there's a whole bunch of biological
differences between people within sports
categories that are determining their
placement in the professional world so
for instance um somebody like me is
probably never going to go far in the
MBA because I'm not tall enough uh I
think the average height in the NBA
don't doubt yourself don't doubt myself
yeah I want to say it's like six six
something they're huge people um or you
know you look at like Michael Phelps as
a classic example of a guy whose torso
is like so long his body is built for
swimming and I think there are some
trans people that will look at that or
some B advocating for this position
they'll look at that they go okay
realistically the way that Michael php's
body um processes lactic acid the shape
physiologically of his body is going to
put him in a level of competition that
so many men are never going to reach
just because of biology how is it fair
that you can have these biological
outliers competing in these categories
but then when we come to like sports
categories with trans and CIS women
you're going to take trans women and say
that they can't compete against CIS
women can't you also just say that they
have some level of biological difference
there like is it really going to be that
great of a difference than what Michael
Phelps has versus the average swimmer or
an NBA player has versus like the
average hyp
male yeah do you think we're going to
get into some tricky ethical territory
as we start to be able to uh through
biology and genetics modify the human
body absolutely I feel like those things
are coming sooner than uh we wanted to
them to uh the uh oh man dude the a have
you seen the AI art yes that's a of
course I'm an AI person oh okay then
yeah yeah that's a uh that's always been
like uh what's going to happen when uh
when robots can do art better than
humans LOL like well we'll see in 20
years in 20 years in 20 years and now
you have ai art winning competitions and
it's funny because robots are
essentially there's a robot behind you
by the way a robot behind me ro oh nice
um robots are really good careful what
you say yeah I got it I'll be careful um
that's not like one of the Chinese ones
with a gun on it right oh okay hopefully
not uh we we'll see depending on what
you say yeah okay robots are really good
at showing the limitations of the human
mind in categories that we didn't
believe we were limited before like I
think that humans have this idea
intrinsically that we have like some
type of like Innovative Creative Drive
that is just outside of the bounds of
physical understanding and with a
sophisticated enough program we see that
maybe that's not actually true and
that's a really scary thing
philosophically to deal with because we
feel like we're very special right we we
own the planet we make computers and the
idea that you can start to get these
robots that can do things that's like
okay you can do math fine okay you can
do calculations fine but you can't do
art that's the human stuff and then when
they start to do that it's like oh shoot
and that terrifies you a little bit like
uh losing the human species losing
control of our dominance over this Earth
I don't think it's necessarily losing
control of our dominance I mean I guess
like a Skynet thing could come in at
some point but I think it I think it
more it it brings us to this really
fundamental level of like what does it
mean to be human what is it that we're
good at um what should we be doing with
technology we never really ask that
question in the western world it's
always the technology is like normative
in that technology equals good and more
technology equals better that's been
like the default assumption in fact if
you ask a lot of people how do you know
if civilization has progressed over the
past 100 or 200 years they don't say we
have better relationships we um you know
have longer marriages we blah blah blah
they'll say technology has improved
we've got crazy phones we got crazy
computers and um the idea that more
technology might be bad has never even
crossed somebody's mind unless it's used
for like a really bad thing so well it's
interesting we kind of think as more and
more automation is happening we're going
to get more and more meaning from things
like being artists and doing creative
Pursuits and here is like oh
shit if the art if the creative Pursuits
are also being automated then what are
we going to gain meaning from what are
the activities from which we'll gain
meaning you know my whole life I've been
working on artificial intelligence
systems there's been different
revolutions one of them is is the is the
machine learning Revolution and it's
interesting to build up intuition and uh
destroy that intuition about what is and
isn't solvable by machines I think um
for the longest time I grew up thinking
go is not the game of Go is not solvable
uh because my understanding of AI
systems is ultimately that it's is it's
fundamentally a search mechanism that is
fundamentally going to be Brute Force
there's no shortcuts sure like a tra
like if it can't solve the traveling
salesman problem it's not even going to
be able to give you an approximation so
most interesting problems are giant
travel salesman problem and then so of
course it's not going to be able to
solve that and then you then uh the Deep
learning Revolution made you realize
holy shit these large neural network
with a giant number of knobs is able to
actually
somehow uh uh estimate functions that
can do a pretty good job of
understanding deep representation of a
thing whether that's a game of Go or
whether it's the human natural language
or if it's images and video or um audio
and even actions and different video
games and actions of Robotics and so on
and then you realize with diffusion
models and different different
generative models you start to realize
holy shit it can actually generate not
just
interesting uh representations or
interesting manifestations of the
representations that forms but it's able
to do something that impresses humans in
its creativity MH it's it's beautiful in
the way we think of art as beautiful
like it surprises us and makes us
chuckle and makes us uh sit back in awe
and all those kinds of things and yet
the thing that it seems to struggle with
the most is the physical world currently
so that that's counterintuitive we
humans think that it's um it's pretty
trivial the being able to pick up a cup
being able to like write with a pen like
in the physical space we think that's
trivial we give ourselves respect for
being great artists and great uh
mathematicians and all that kind of
stuff and that seems to be much easier
than the physical space bodies are
really cool there is a um I don't know
it's probably azab or something there
was some science fiction writer that it
had a short story and it was like an
alien that had landed on Earth and it
was describing our bodies from a totally
alien perspective and when you think
about all the things we can do it's
pretty cool we can you know climb
through a whole multitude of
environments we can exist at a multitude
of temperatures we can manipulate things
um just with our hands and how you know
the way that we can interact with things
around us and yeah we're very capable on
like a physical level even though like
you said we think about ourselves like
oh well human beings have really big
brains and we do we're really
intelligent as well but yeah our bodies
are pretty cool too and it's a
fascinating hierarchical biological
system like um that we made up of a
bunch of
different like living organisms that all
don't know about the big picture of our
body MH and it's all functioning its own
little local world and it's doing its
thing but together it has a it forms a
super resilient system all of that comes
from a very uh compressed encoding of
what makes a human you start with the
DNA and it builds up from a single cell
to a giant organism mhm I mean that and
because of the DNA through the evolution
process you can constantly create new
humans and new living organisms that
adapt to the environment like that
resilience to the physical world it
seems like running the whole earth over
again the whole evolutionary process
over again is uh might be the only way
to do it so to create a robot that
actually
jobs is as resilient to the dynamic
world might be a really difficult
problem possibly well I was going to say
like in a programming environment you
can do things on time scales that are
impossible in the real world right like
the benefit to Ai and computers is
computationally they can compute so much
data so quickly um whereas on human
timetables we have to wait when you talk
about Evolution um you know it's
generation after generation after
generation you know maybe in a virtual
environment that could be simulated and
then those changes Could Happen a lot
quicker well that's not a human time
scale but you have to look at Earth at a
Quantum as a quantum mechanical system
the computation is happening super fast
this is a giant computer doing a giant
simulation so just cuz for us humans
it's slow there's like trillions of
organisms involved in you Destiny being
you sure but the next iteration of like
from Human to human even if on the
quantum level there's a lot of stuff
going on you talk about like um like
changes in DNA for instance right like
that's happening from a generation to
generation time scale like in a virtual
environment that could theoretically
happen well it already is there's like
protein folding like huge cloud
computing probably ml stuff that's like
working on doing all that stuff and
it'll run like trillions and trillions
of simulations you know every second and
stuff maybe not every second but still
slower than the actual protein folding
much slower the that's for the problem
of solving protein fold folding uh to
estimate the 3D structure but the actual
body does the the actual protein folding
way faster so like we're the question is
can we shortcut the simulation of human
evolution try to figure out how to build
up an organism without simulating all
the details cuz we have to simulate all
the details of biology we're screwed we
don't have oh true we'd have to put
something in a pond and then watch it
for that might be way to do it that's
what the universe most likely is it's a
kind of simulation created by a teenager
in their basement to to try to see what
happens it's a it's a computer game that
might be the most efficient way to
create interesting organisms but within
the system it's perhaps possible to
create other robots that will be of use
and will entertain us in the way that
other humans entertain us and that's a
really interesting of course problem but
it's surprising how difficult it has
been to create systems that operate in
the physical world and operate in that
physical world in a way that's safe to
humans and interesting to humans MH cuz
there's also the human factor the human
robot interaction to me that's like the
most interesting problem to figure out
how to do that well and uh so you musk
and others Boston Dynamics have worked
on legged robots so I I really care
about legged robots those are super
interesting how to make them such that
they're able to operate successfully in
a dynamic environment it's super tricky
they're like they're like the dumbest of
dogs speaking of which there's a dog
barking outside I it's it's really
tricky to create those kinds of
organisms that live in a in in the human
world then again if more and more of us
move into the digital world so you
stream a lot like part of who you
are exists in the digital space mhm the
fact that you have a physical
representation also maybe more and more
will become not
important I hope that's the case cuz I
bought a lot of stock in meta and man
it's down a lot met met of the company
is there some degree like can you can
you can you look at yourself like Steven
the physical meat vehicle and then the
destiny this digital space like digital
Avatar do do you sense that in a certain
way you're the digital Avatar I've
always tried to keep my onstream
personality as genuine as possible so
they're one and the same to me I don't
really view them as two separate
entities so but I mean I always view
myself with Steven the real life person
My Destiny is my online name but no but
because so many your social network has
established in the digital space like so
many people know you through the digital
space can there be can we swap on
another person that looks like you and
like in the AI system and then that
entity known as Destiny will continue
existing it must be like there must be
some level of sophistication that could
emulate a human brain I would imagine
right probably the text's not there yet
but well the question is what's the
level of sophistication of the audience
that would recognize that something has
changed
like it's the touring test yeah how hard
is it to trick your audience your your
large audience of fans that watch your
streams that when you swap out in the AI
that emulates you that nothing has
changed and the question is do you have
to really simulate so much of the human
brain for that I don't think so probably
not so I mean like you said uh a lot of
political discours is just walking down
the tree M together so you can probably
emulate a lot of that discussion yeah it
would depend on if you're doing old data
sets and you're training on that I'm
having conversations about abortion and
your cran and vaccines I imagine it
could do it for quite a while the only
thing that would be weird is when novel
issues pop up then you probably need a
more sophisticated uh resemblance of the
inner brain right you you have to keep
keep training on the internet so how the
language models and that's the most
incredible breakthroughs is the language
models you just have to keep retraining
the system on on Reddit which is
actually what a lot of it is trained on
which is hilarious
I do think it's really interesting that
like kind of like funny problems like
the trolley problem that we can kind of
work through our normative ethical
systems on are now like real questions
like if you're driving a Tesla and it's
an autopilot and you're going to hit
somebody but it can swerve and hit
somebody else like what what ought the
system do like we went very quickly from
fun kind of like project in philosophy
class to we need to solve this for
insurance purposes like as quickly as
possible it's kind of interesting to
think about I actually have uh I'll
bring up the try problem with you later
it's there's a fascinating version of it
hilarious okay uh let's let's return to
your low point oh yeah uh you started
playing video games that was a lucky
break you uh you did text based ones
that was a lucky break cuz you gotten to
be pretty good at learning and then you
started thinking about going to college
and so on what happened next I mean I
went to like a prep school so you kind
of have to go to college after that's
like the point right I I was also
Millennial they all of us had to go to
college that's always what they told us
so um my life was kind of uh it's hard
to describe I didn't really think much
of the future I was just kind of
enjoying the dayto day cuz everything in
my life was pretty weird uh both my
parents had moved to Florida by the time
I was 16 17 I was living with my grandma
I was working I had a girlfriend moved
out uh we got a place did
College uh by the time I got into
college I had transitioned from working
at McDonald's to I was like a working in
a casino restaurant basically and I was
really good at that job a high level of
patience for drunk people insane people
and I was doing music in school cuz I've
really grown to love music and my kind
of thought processes was my thought
process was I can do music as a hobby I
guess unless I get really good and maybe
I can make money with that but otherwise
I love music I'm okay going to school
for music getting good at it and then
just doing that on the side and then my
main job would kind of be this career I
was building at the
casino and basically the trying to
balance personal life plus graveyard
shift six ER weeks at a casino and then
a full-time music degree was not
possible for me and eventually I had to
drop school after I think it was like 3
years and after I dro school to maintain
my Casino job um after a few months I
got fired from my Casino job so i'
essentially just thrown away like the
past like 3 or four years of my life
why'd you get fired from the casino job
I heard there's a story behind that yeah
there's a story basically I was just
really dumb when it came to
understanding corporate politics and I
this is funny because the same attitude
kind of followed me into the streaming
world my thought process has kind of
always been um that like as long as I'm
really good at what I do I should be
Untouchable if I'm really good you can't
do anything to me I don't have to play
any dumb games or whatever and at the
casino I think I was the youngest it was
an originally shiftly than supervisor
position at the casino and when I
started to get my own shifts there were
problems that I would run into on
graveyard shift because of carryover
from the swing shift remember one of
these problems was underneath the soda
machine they weren't cleaning it
properly and fruit flies were showing up
and I my the manager came in one morning
and she was like uh hey what's going on
with the machine and I told like listen
I can't do I can't take everything from
swing shift and do everything at grap
shift I can't do this they need to Fig
figure out their stuff better or I need
more employees it's not possible for me
and she's like well did you tell anybody
else yeah I complained to the supervisor
on the swing shift all the time and she
told me if you're not getting the answer
that you like then it's your
responsibility to email the next person
up and I was like oh okay that's
interesting and some months went on and
I ran into more problems because on
graveyard here's how I don't know if
it's everywhere but morning shift is the
easiest and that's when you're the most
overstaffed because that's when all the
VPS are in and that's when all the
managers are there and everybody blah
blah blah swing shift is the most
challenging that's what your highest
flow of customers is you're also
decently staffed there but there's a lot
of stuff going on and graveyard nobody
cares at all about you they don't give
you any employees you might get swamped
you might not who cares make sure it's
clean for day shift that's the only
thing that matters a quick question for
sort of clarification so this is 24-hour
24hour Dino yeah Casino yeah so it's the
din in a casino oh by the way I had an
amazing moment at Din in a casino
recently it's a special place A din
casino is a place of magic there's a lot
of I don't I say magic but there's a lot
of other worldly stuff going on there's
characters there's and uh the I had an
interaction with the waitress that was
the sweetest waitress in the world and
it was just like I don't know made me
feel less alone in this cruel world of
ours uh so graveyard begins when for me
my shift was 10 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. or
sometimes I get called in early so it be
8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. that's uh no love
for that shift no especially not trying
to do school at the same time absolutely
not um but yeah basically long story
short I ran into a problem with my where
I didn't have enough employees on my
shift VPS were coming in in the morning
they're like hey the diner is kind of
dirty and I'm like you've cut all my
employees past 400 a.m. like on some
nights I'm literally cooking and doing
front of house like all on my own like I
can't do this and my manager Pam told me
well you got to figure it out and so I
remembered her advice so I emailed the
VP of food and beverage and I cced her
and I said I'm not getting the help I
need on my restaurant now I didn't know
at the time that I was basically
completely throwing her under the bus
because of that email but I
retroactively when I look back on things
or retrospect I see that was the moment
that I got like marked for deletion and
I didn't really understand it even
though I heard terminology for papering
somebody out the door but after that
point I started to get written up for
like a lot of little random things like
I'll come like I missed one day of work
in my three years at the casino and I
started get written up for like sh up
like one or two minutes late that's kind
of weird that's whatever um or written
up for random ways about filing
paperwork and then eventually there came
a situation with another employee where
they were it's complicated has to like
call out stuff but basically they wanted
to come or wanted to call out and I told
them if they called out they were going
to get fired because they were at like
10 points they were at nine points and
10 points is firing blah blah blah Pam
told me uh you can tell her that she's
going to get a point but you can't tell
her she's going to get fired I don't
know what that meant and then I told her
that if you call out you're going to get
you know you're fucked you're going to
get fired um or you're going to be had
10 points and then I got called in early
like 3 days later and Pam was like uh
you inappropriately communicated with an
employee because you said the f- word in
a text message and I'm like really
there's no shot and she's like well you
also tried to fire the employee and I
was like no I told her she was going to
get 10 points she's like well you use
the f word I'm like this is insane and
uh I didn't just cuz I was such a such a
high performing employee like there's no
way I'm getting fired and then I did and
I was like yeah cash out my 401k and
moped for like 3 months because I they
thrown away school for this casino job
and then I got fired from this job that
like yeah nobody believed I got fired it
was just insane yeah so if you look back
if you were allowed to not just to look
back to your own memory but actually
watch yourself like somebody you record
a video that whole time do you think you
would be surprised you would notice some
things like potentially
of not having a self-awareness not
having like social like a Civility and
social etiquette that's played in the
human relations yeah
absolutely so is that is that at the
core of it essentially yeah I think so I
mean that follows me even to this day
there's a lot of um I don't know if
you're recording or not but when we
spoke early about like meta
conversations I have to think a lot
sometimes about meta conversations
because the way that I want to drive a
conversation will sometimes be way
different than what is like the best way
to have a conversation whereas I just
want to like go really hard like some
itty bitty like some idiosyncrasy some
Factor figure whatever but that's not
like the human conversation I need to
have you know yeah so you got fired SL
left that job uh and that took you to
the the job that would be the lowest
point yeah there was a huge downgrade in
Pay I went from getting like I think at
the casino cuz I worked so much overtime
I was getting like 2250 an hour on all
my overtime Fifth and this was back in
2008 2009 as like a college student like
was amazing pay
um the I had benefits like everything
was good and then the carpet cleaning
was like I was probably getting my
paycheck like every other week was maybe
$500 bucks or $1,000 and I'm working
like 13-day stretches like I have every
other Sunday off and it's so many hours
like I have to show up at the shop at
like 700 or 6 and then I go home at like
8 or 9 depending on what my jobs are
throughout the day you doing uh
businesses or residential or what are
you doing everything everything are you
working for a company that is cover
cleaning or you okay so like there's a
schedule thing you have to go to it and
so on yeah B but so like this is why the
schedule would suck cuz sometimes I'd
show up at I I think we had to be in the
shop at I think it was 7:00 a.m. we show
up at the shop at 7:00 a.m. first job
might be at 8 or 9 but that job might be
like a 1 hour job so I might show up at
7: a.m. and have a job from 8:30 to 9:30
then my next job might not be from till
like say 11:00 so from 8:30 to 9:30 I'll
do one job um and then I've got to job
from like 11: to 12 or something then I
might have like a decent job from like
5: to 8 but like my whole day is
destroyed
and I'm I'm doing like three smallest
jobs so I'm getting like 30 bucks maybe
for being in the shop or you know on my
job for like 10 or 11 hours and it's
just like horrible so you're somebody
that seems to be extremely good at
thinking and conversation and so have a
bit of an ego perhaps uh in in both the
negative and the positive sense of that
word was there some aspect of working on
McDonald's and then working at the
casino and working for the um as a
carpet cleaner the that was humbling no
never um I had a the ego burned bright
through it all the well or no you can
push back on the ego yeah no I I
understand I totally get what you mean
um I had a really close friend growing
up whose name was Chris and I think we
probably met when he was we were like
four or five I think he lived behind me
and I grew up with him and I'd always
been kind of an outsider to the world
that I was in once I got to high school
for sure um because all of those kids
were incredibly wealthy you know
Corvettes and must things when they
turned 16 it was a prep school and I was
doing the they had like a work study
program there where you could stay after
school from 2:30 to 5:00 every day to
kind of like work to pay for your
tuition so I've been working like
throughout all of high school I got
another job at McDonald's when I was 18
worked at the casino like I had always
been doing that kind of work I never
really viewed it as like beneath me or
anything it's not like I I don't have
like a family of doctors or lawyers or
anything and then me and my other friend
the Chris guy we'd always make fun of
everybody else for being kind of like uh
you know like preppy kids and everything
so so there is a there's some pride to
that sort of hard work yeah I guess a
little bit Yeah because yeah looking
especially my dad like the solution to
every problem was just throw more hours
of work at it basically so that was
always my yeah goto and I never yeah
what was psychologically the low point I
think psychologically the low point was
that um as I'm doing this carpet
cleaning job uh driving around my city
there's like this feeling
of I guess for a lot of people it's
probably college but there's a feeling
when you're in high school that
everything is like so exciting and the
whole world is kind of in front of you
and there are a trillion trillion
different branching Paths of
possibilities and you know even through
high school you're thinking like am I
going to be a doctor or a lawyer or can
I join the MBA or can I do this or that
there's all these things in front of you
and when I I I especially felt it when I
was doing these carbet cleaning jobs and
um I think it was in the fall I'd be
outside some of these houses and I just
kind of look around and I'd recognize a
lot of these neighborhoods that i' drive
around with friends in or i' you know be
walking through I did I ran cross
country some of them i' be running
through these neighborhoods and it was
just kind of like this feeling of
looking around and it was like when I
was here in the past this was like kind
of like a transitionary phase of my life
where I'm doing this and it's so fun and
exciting and then I'm going to move on
to something else and it's going to be
fun and exciting and awesome and then
like you know two years later my whole
life is collapsed like I'm in a house
that I can't afford anymore my ex that I
hate is pregnant with my kid and I have
no money I've got no upward Mobility I
failed College I my job is horrible like
just every single like this is like my
all of those the the wave function had
collaps into one thing and that one
thing was the worst thing that could
have possibly been at the time for me
yeah like everything was gone and
horrible so yeah that was the feeling I
had at the time do you have a
contemplate suicide I thought about
thinking about it but I've just never
been that kind of person so I mean
basically there a way to escape from the
hardship something that I'm so
incredibly lucky I don't know why or how
I'm just going to chalk it up to biology
I've always had really high mental
Baseline like depression and all of that
there have been a few short stins I've
dealt with it past 30 because I did a
lot of drugs but um other than that my
mental Baseline is just so high and even
in the carbet cleaning days um like if
you man the videos might still be there
I think on my old YouTube channel
channel where I'll be like playing
Starcraft when I first started get into
streaming and I'll be calling up
customers like this is Steve from
Guaranteed Clean we had to move your job
back 1 hour is it okay if I show up
instead of 2:30 and then I hang up it's
like all right guys we got three more
games and I was like let's go like stuff
that so my my Baseline has always been
like really high for mental functioning
so even in low Point there's that you
had strength is there is there anything
you can give by way of advice from
people that For Whom the wave function
collapses as it does for many of us like
holy fuck the the world is not full of
opportunity and you're kind of a failure
like I've I've I've been there yeah I
don't know it's rough because like I
usually ask for compassion from people
that have it better off because like
once you're down there like the only
reason I say I got lucky but it wasn't
even really lucky like or it was lucky
but it was more lucky it wasn't just
lucky that I got into streaming it was
lucky that I was into computers at an
early age it was lucky that I played
video games at an early age it was lucky
that all the tech came up at exactly
that right point in time um like I was a
pretty smart guy but it was definitely
uh a preparation means opportunity and
that opportunity was like at the exact
precise moment of my life if anything
had gone differently then I would just
PE cleaning carpets today so so in the
many worlds interpretation of quantum
mechanics this is like one out of like
there's many many Stevens that are just
still carpet cleaning mhm and they're
full of pain and resentment yeah the the
one piece of advice that I give and I
hate that I have to push back against
all these crypto Bros and everybody
online for decently intelligent people
that are successful I've never heard
anybody give a contradiction to this
maybe you will you can tell me if you
disagree I always look at kids in high
school and I'm like just try a little
bit harder like 30 minutes a night if
you don't study just do 30 minutes just
do a little bit more um it is you are
laying the foundation for the rest of
your life and you can't appreciate it in
high school and college but oh my god
when you get out everything in your life
is so much easier you have probably more
responsibility over the direction of
your life when you're like 13 14 years
old than you ever will once you're like
25 and older because this is like when
you're determining the foundations that
everything's going to be built on yeah
100% so first of all it does seem that
the liberating aspect of being young is
like anything you learn
so working hard at learning something
will pay off in like nonlinear ways like
you said with the video games I feel
like so like people who are like I hate
school all right well fine but find
something where you're challenging
yourself you're growing you're learning
you're learning a skill you're learning
about a
thing of course you know you could push
back and say well there's some
trajectories that might not be
productive like if you spend the
entirety of your teen years playing I
don't know League of
Legends game you have love and hate
relationship with no just a hate and
hate relationship okay well we'll talk
about I think you have a LoveHate
relationship with hate in general we'll
just in love okay we we'll try to DEC
complexify that one uh I think in
general just investing yourself fully
with passion it really does pay off but
that said also
school I feel like doesn't get enough
credit like High School in particular
middle school and high school because
it's
education if I I think if if you're
especially if you're lucky to have good
teachers but honestly I haven't mostly
the textbooks themselves were good
teachers it's a one chance in life you
have to really explore a subject fuck
grades like getting good
grades is at tension I would say with
actual learning that is true but just
get a biology textbook and to explore
ideas in biology and a yourself to be um
inspired by the beauty of it
to yeah I don't know I I think that
really really really pays off and you
never get a chance to do that again and
maybe not even textbooks like reading
straight up reading I think I think if
you read this is the one time in life
you get a chance to read really read
like read a book a day read you you
could really invest you can really grow
by reading I mean you know mus all those
guys talk about it like it's very very
rare that you meet like a dumb person
who reads a lot I don't know if that's
ever happened in my life yeah dumb or
not successful and it's and the cool
thing is it seems like the reading this
like investment the reading you do early
on in high school pays off way more than
the reading you do later uh so like the
the the really influential reading is uh
is during those high school years
because you're basically learning from
others the mistake they've made the
solutions to problems you you're
basically learning the shortcuts to life
like whatever the hell you want to do
music read from the best people uh that
the music theory like learn music theory
learn uh read biographies about jazz
musicians Blues musicians see their like
see all the mistakes see what they did
see the shortcuts if you want to do
podcasting read about other podcasts if
you want to do streaming read about
other other streamers physicists and so
on and I feel like you figure out all
the mistakes and you get to a short
through life because most people show up
to college without having done that and
now you get a chance to shortcut your
way past them mhm yeah 100% I'm I'm
going but nobody really teaches you that
they're like go to school this from this
time to that time that you're shut up
you this is just what you do eat your
broccoli I think is like there's two
huge problems one is um Now That I'm
Older cuz you you know you don't know
anything as a kid you can't really
criticize adults as a kid cuz you're a
kid you're agist if I mean I am super
ages as I get older I get even more ages
you there are a lot of people argue like
man dude you're really 22 aren't you I
can tell every word you say there seeps
of like 22 year oldness but that's okay
I love that for you yeah no I could just
say cuz you mentioned this so uh your
wife is a fellow streamer Molina you
mentioned that this is a source of
fights for the two of you that and I
could just feel that there is truth to
what you're saying which is like all
right you're saying that because you're
22 just wa until you're 25 and you won't
be saying that anymore now that is the
most annoying thing for people to hear
you can't ever say that of course
because it's actually usually true be
because we do go through phases in life
and you can understand that most things
are phases so just in general you can
say just just wait just wait you won't
see this you won't feel this way again I
could say that to you you could say that
to yourself just wait whatever you're
feeling like just wait in 5 10 Years
it'll be a different person and you will
laugh at the things you take seriously
now that that they're causing you pain
now all that kind of stuff but people
hate hearing that anyway absolutely I
think the joke that I always say is that
like if I could literally step into a
time machine and I could come back out
and see myself as a 17-year-old and I
could say hey I'm literally you from the
future you see the time machine and I
would look at me and I would see the
time machine and I would give myself the
best advice in the world to be the most
successful person I would ignore all of
it even knowing it came for myself like
this guy sold out this D doesn't know
what the fuck he's talking about like
nah I'll figure it out better like he
must have made some that's what I would
think is a 7 even I knew it was myself
from the future I would just 100% never
believe it and knowing that is very
frustrating but I keep that in mind when
I deal with younger people that's why
like I never I always say on stream when
I'm talking to like there's been stuff
with like sneako there's another girl on
my stream called lab like when I see the
way the I see the mistakes they're
making often times because I've made all
of these mistakes sometimes in the most
public and horrible fashion ever um but
I'm never like a mentor I'm not going to
sit there and like tell you like oh do
this or that or that or that cuz like I
don't know if you're going to listen to
me and I don't want to cond you and you
know you figure your stuff out I'll be
here if you want to talk about it but
yeah I there was a one of the stories
there was a company that didn't work
with me because I I was very adamant on
defending like very radical Notions
about language and racial slurs and
everything when I was like 22 or
whatever and there's a company and they
said well we don't want to work with
this guy for an event and after they had
said that I written an article on my
website called the company was gigabyte
they make motherboards I said fuck
gigabyte in the ass that was the title
to my article and it was like well if
they don't want to work with me I'm
going to blow them up and never do
anything ever with them again and it was
just like like looking back on it now
obviously as a as an older person like
hey you need to pump the brakes and
chill you're destroying yourself but um
yeah as a young person it's like yeah
you're 22 of course you think that you
can say whatever and do whatever and as
long as you're good at what you're doing
You've Got the Whole World behind you
and yeah jeez well let's go there you
have a history of using offensive
language like the
RW the nword including the nword with a
hard R uh calling women
bitches talking about rape in nonchalant
way mhm um what part of that do you
regret and what part of that do you not
language is very complicated um when it
comes to stuff relating to slurs uh
there's been like a whole trajectory of
feelings on everything related to
language so I for you personally and for
the internet as a whole yeah I don't
care about the internet almost for me
personally um in my early 20s I'll say
like 22 23 I think probably when I first
started streaming my feeling is that any
word is just a word and if it hurts you
that's your fault take responsibility
for yourself um this probably came from
my background of being like a really
independent person so that's just kind
of like the mind that I had for
everything and there were basically
there were like a collection of
experiences that I had that As I Grew I
started to realize like okay well I feel
differently about some of these words
depending on the context and I can see
how they can affect other people
depending on the context so as I've kind
of like grown I think I've developed a
more sophisticated understanding of how
different words are used and how they
affect people whether they like it or
not and more importantly whether I like
it or not and that words can even if I
don't want it to be they can be a
vehicle for emboldening certain types of
ideas that I don't want to embolden and
yeah that's kind of been the whole like
growth I've been lucky that in the time
that I came up on the internet I was
able to learn these lessons because if I
was trying to learn those same lessons
today I would have been completely
destroyed because I had insane views on
language like 10 years ago we could talk
about the past we could talk about the
present let's talk about the past first
so how do you deal with the fact that
there's videos of you in the past saying
the nword including the nword with a
hard R so generally and what's the
context can you give me like in your
memory what what would be the context
usually when I lay out this defense it's
not because I wouldn't have used the
nword um generally whenever I said the
NW it was usually an example of like
this is something that like a racist
person would say I don't think I've ever
on the internet I don't think I've ever
called anybody like the NW with a hard R
um not because I wouldn't have but just
because it wasn't in my vocabulary I
played uh RTS real time strategy and we
use the the F slur for gay people that's
the one and I use that one a ton and
I've called people that a ton in the
past um so I should actually just as a
small tangent yeah go for it and this is
what I'd like to explore with you mhm
there's a ruthlessness to the language
in uh the gaming world and there's
different communities they have
different flavors of language of hate
speech essentially and and uh there's
also a humor to it
mhm
which really bothers me in a dark way
that I haven't been able to really think
through because humor seems to be a kind
of catalyst for hate it seems to
normalize hate like uh you say basically
it's like Louis C K says a lot of edgy
things MH but you take something Louis C
K says and do it in a non-funny way and
do it over and over and over and keep uh
increasing the hatefulness of it the
vitrio and somehow you find yourself
like Alice and Wonderland in a world
full of hate where there is no good and
evil it's all the same in fact the good
is to be mocked and the evil is to be
celebrated for the humor of it basically
not taking the ideas of evil seriously
and I don't know what it it reveals
something about human nature that you
can let go the moral relativism that can
happen when you do that kind of stuff at
the same time I'm a fan of dark
humor when done well anyway for people
who are not familiar I just wanted to
mention that some of the
worst hate speech that ends in LOL
happens in gaming communities yeah the
um and that's where you come from in
certain part so a lot of people don't
remember this or don't know this cuz
they're younger but way back in the day
in the uh late '90s early mid 2000s the
internet the way that online kind of
like shit talk worked was you were just
trying to ramp up to the most insanely
edgy crazy stuff you could say to like
provoke a reaction um have you ever
heard of something called The
Aristocrats that it's like a joke the
joke oh yeah the joke yeah there's a
movie on it yeah okay basically every
single like shit talk back and forth on
the internet was like that like what is
the most increasingly depraved and back
then you didn't get banned for slurs or
anything on any of these chat rooms so
it was just like an insane world to walk
in into and I was fully 100% a part of a
product of and a contributor to that
world so that probably still goes on on
the internet in some way and that
probably still goes on in the internet
in a maybe more pacified way only in
darker parts of the internet I'd say for
the most part most well compared to back
then compared to 20 years ago the
internet is way cleaned up now there are
still going to be boards you can go on
or parts of the internet where you see
that type of humor but not nowhere near
as mainstream like back then you could
open your mic on Xbox Live and hear some
insane stuff when that first started
nowhere near what you'd hear today
although yeah but there's still elements
of escalation that happen that just
seems to be part of human nature on the
internet the because we don't get the
feedback of actually hurting people
directly so the the the trolling like
for the ls you you'll do like what like
you will still escalate within the
bounds you're just saying that there's
more bounds now on Reddit there's more
bounds and so on so the you know there's
moderators that kind of yell at you that
ban you and so on if you cross those
bounds but overall that basic human
instinct to escalate uh especially under
the veil of anonymity is still there I
don't know it's dark it's dark yeah just
there's a lot of different ways to look
at it and there's different ways you can
break that art like for instance like
you mentioned dark humor and you say
that like uh sometimes dark humor is
funny and sometimes it's not I think
that it's really important to dig into
and figure out like why certain things
are funny Give an example yeah go it's
from your subreddit oh boy no that made
me laugh and and I felt wrong about it
oh no so this is uh I I already know
what this is yeah yeah so this is a
trolley problem to me it connects
because I I think about the it keeps
because I worked on autonomous vehicles
the trolley problem the philosophical
thought experiment keeps brought up a
lot you know when AI is part of making
the decision do I kill three people here
or five people here then thei makes that
decision how do you do that calculus and
this this particular there's um
there's a deep so it's satire that
reveals some kind of flaw in society I
feel like that's what that's what dark
humor does successful dark humor does
and I don't know flaw H I feel like
certain there's a certain brand of dark
humor and I think the reason I think the
reason is why it's good or or or why it
is good humor I think is because it I
don't think it necessarily reveals a
flaw sometimes I feel like it reveals
like a kind of virtue I think like if
you look at this particular thing yeah
can I explain what we're go for it we're
just listening
uh the title of the red post is you know
what to pick uh and it says uh five
people are going to die either way but
if you flip the lever the trolley will
do a sick fucking Loop first and also
the top
comment is a question saying which I
think is also part of the doc humor
that's successful can I get the gender
and ethnic backgrounds of the groups
first and the top answer is both groups
are each comprised of five white
orphaned CIS
male heavy meth users who are
consistently in and out of drug rehab
all who identifies as right-wing
extremists humor is so it's such a
sophisticated thing that we engage in
humor is like really complicated um but
I would argue that like hopefully the
humor here shows the virtue of like this
is obviously horrible but that's kind of
why it's funny it's funny because it's
such a horrible question to ask like do
we kill five people in a boring way or
in a really ENT any way and it's like
that's really that's really and then
when you ask even more like what are the
ethnic backgrounds it's like that's even
worse to say that you know so I feel
like that's like the type of there's a
way that you can engage with dark humor
where it's like oof like it's funny
because it's so wrong and so taboo and
we all know that it's wrong and taboo
and that's kind of where the shared
laugh comes from so for me the question
that asking the the diversity question
is a sophisticated way of revealing the
absurdity of asking about diversity when
it's talking about human life oh
interesting cuz the way that I took that
was I think it reveals the absurdity of
how people will weigh different ethnic
backgrounds so differently when it comes
to value of human life like I'm actually
thinking of that in terms of like a an
immigration related question where
people are really keen and quick to
dehumanize like black or brown people so
like the question is like well if five
of them are brown and five are white
well I know which one I'm going to you
know pull the lever for that's how I
read that but it's sterzing that aspect
yeah exactly yes of course yeah but that
that's what I mean that that's the flaw
to me at least it showed that Humanity
or social networks that are easy to be
outraged and love the outrage and the
chaos that Twitter and social networks
will pull that lever MH like they would
they would always try to maximize the
fun and there's like a there's a sick
aspect to all the atrocities all the
tragedies that happen in the world that
we kind of always lean towards the um
the outrageous narrative weaved around
it the
yeah the the one that leads to to sort
of the most clicks to the most uh
attention to the most outrage to all
that all that kind of so that that's
almost like a a satire of society when
they are faced with tragedy they will
maximize trying to think of a word
that's not fun but entertainment
maximize the entertainment yeah this is
a big criticism I give especially to
conservative crowds um you know left
laning people everybody doesn't I don't
like when people blame the media for the
state of the media today I very much
believe that everything in society is a
feedback loop and that if you're really
unhappy with the state of the media I
think that the media is a good
reflection for what people want to see
because there is a room right now in the
United States where somebody could start
a company where all they do is
completely factual reporting they don't
have a political slant and they're not
giving you these like sensationalist
narratives or stories and that Media
Company would fail in two weeks because
people don't want to see that generally
people really want to see the like show
me the guy that really believes in what
I say that calls the other guy an idiot
the guy that are screaming on TV or on
the radio like this is what I really
want um and people will engage in that
and that feedback loop will continue for
generations and then all of a sudden
people like why is the media so biased
why is the media driving so many
narratives it's like what do you mean
this is exactly what you want to see and
that's that's frustrating for me that's
one of my big kind of when I defend
establishments or when I talk about like
the interplay between Citizen and and
all these institutions we have that the
institutions are very much a reflection
of the population at least in Democratic
societies and I think people very much
try to elude the personal responsibility
or the country's responsibility to why
some of them look the way that they
do but that takes us back to the nword
with a hard R sure why for the
particular examples that I was giving
for the particular conversations that I
was having if you're going to have
challenging conversations around certain
words I think you should probably be
able to say them otherwise it feels
really ridiculous to me that's like do
you still believe that um for yes and
not like calling people those words but
in having conversations about those
words I would say that I still believe
that yeah but don't you think as you
said that using those
words actually gives motivation and
strength to people who have hate in
their hearts I think depending on the
context of what's going on um I think
that that's going to be a big driver in
terms of how people are going to
perceive or take it so in a conversation
about the n-word I don't think I would
normally say the N word we would just
talk about the word much the same way
that like in um like say like in a movie
like in Jango people use the nword
should that be censored in that movie or
in the context of that movie is it being
employed in a way where these aren't
good people you're not supposed to like
them and that's what the audience walks
away with yeah but that context is
different than conversation it feels
like in
conversation you using that word
normalizes it and that normalizing that
word is going to make it easier for
people who use that word in a hateful
way to use it same with the FW the the F
slur if you use that
casually and normalize it in a way
that's not hateful you use it in a way
that's not hateful but you the side
effect is that it normalizes it then
people who do use it in a hateful way
will be more likely to use it
therefore mathematically looking at the
equation of the number of times the
nword or the FW is used throughout the
world it increases the number of times
it's used in a hateful way yeah I think
that human being and you're part of that
problem Stephen don't I don't agree I
understand I understand the thought
process um but I don't know if using
certain words within different contexts
is going to necessarily normalize like
the hateful use of that word um that is
an argument that I've heard people use
somebody will say like okay well hold on
that should never be used ever because
by virtue of you normalizing it even in
an inoffensive environment you increase
the proclivity for people to use it in a
potentially more offensive environment
and my argument is always that like no I
don't think that crossover exists but if
you did want to take that argument and
maybe you do feel this way I think that
you get really problematic when you run
into communities that do use certain
words that people would say well they
should be allowed to do it so for
instance if you think that any utterance
of the nword at all is highly
problematic and might increase hatred
then like the entire rap industry has to
dramatically change the way that they
engage with the n-word and obviously a
lot of people that criticize people's
use of the nword are going to turn to
rppers and say well you guys can't say
it either no it's who I mean it's who
uses the nword that's what it's not so
it's not just the word it's
the it it it is context dependent uh but
I would say that you as a white person
having
conversations the context there is the
kind that would lead to any increase in
hate do you think the nword should be
censored in the dictionary no and I
believe there's a Wikipedia page on it
and it's not censored uh yeah I don't I
think it should be in the dictionary I
think the context of casual
conversation like like I said I just
believe that on the
internet having humor having fun
conversations as you have on your
streams that leads to the normalization
of the word without any educational
value without I think I would I think I
would agree with that no sorry so
there's a difference between F slur and
nword and both I think should not be
used in a fun way but the FW was used in
a fun way for a longest time for sure
and I I I'll tell you something that
bothers me about your streams now your
your streams in basically every other
stream is the the Casual use of the RW
oh the ableism yeah I don't know if it's
about the abble I don't even know listen
it's complicated I'm not like virtue
signaling here ableism isn't virtue
signal I mean it's a legitimate yeah
like I get emails from fans that say
like hey like I deal with this
particular issue every time you use this
word it kind of feels like you're
attacking me like just like so it's not
it's a valid concept yeah it's just
something Cuts wrong for me m like for
for example I'm not bothered by I am
bothered by the excessive use of the
word fuck okay but not in the same way
that moderate use of the word fuck what
is it I'm curious in when somebody calls
somebody an RW what is it that what is
the feeling that you get that makes you
feel bad about
it it signals to me that you
don't give a damn
about people who are struggling in way
that you are not struggling like that
that signals to me like um about the
experience of others do you think that
there are there other words also that
could convey like a similar feeling to
you or why because it feels like you've
drawn a pretty special circle around cuz
like I imagine I call oh this guy's
you're an uneducated dumb fucker you're
a nit wicker like those wordsa don't
feel it that Circle keeps changing which
you can which is fine it does and I I
think that's what the the whole point
with the culture so I'm trying to feel
my feeling is a kind of uh you know I'm
a human being that exists in a social
context that we're all evolving that
language together and just feels wrong
like you know word bitch for example it
really B like I've I've heard on your
streams and in general calling a woman a
stupid bitch really bothers me MH but
it's not just the word bitch it's
context like for example me personally
I'm speaking to me personally like
badass
bitch is is different than stupid bitch
bad or something is different than yeah
of course way different sure I think it
speaks to a bigger sense of Civility and
respect for human beings that are not
like you that's what that's that's the
feeling that I'm bothering so I guess
what what I'm trying to say here is
um just because people speak in this
kind of way in the gaming world and and
streams doesn't mean that you like a lot
of people look up to you it doesn't mean
young people especially doesn't mean
that you don't have the responsibility
to sort of stand alone from the crowd
because you're somebody that values the
power of effective discourse MH
and to be effective discourse there's
some level of Civility so you can be the
sort of the beacon of Civility in that
world versus giving into to
the the derogatory words cuz like you
have to you have to lift people out of
that world out of the muck of um what I
would say is like drama in in in
effective discourse like I think that's
one of your missions right is like to
inspire the world through conversation
through debate through effective
discourse yeah so I I guess I'm just
calling you out that I I think using our
word for me personally as a fan that
that believes in your mission it just
makes you look ineffective and bad and
uninspiring to young people that look up
to you cuz those young people are going
to use those words that you're using and
they'll do it much less effectively this
the problem yeah I guess the challenge
is always just like finding the line
like yeah my my vocabulary shifted
dramatically from even even from like
two or three years ago I think my
vocabulary shifted quite a bit as we've
like we've kind of gotten rid of some
words and some things have kind of
coming out um the RW is one that has
kind of gone out and come back and go
out and come back that one we've
definitely gone back and forth on I know
there are different thoughts about it in
different communities on the internet
this is I mean I'm just telling you yeah
for me it cuts and I'm not a social
justice Warrior type it cuts pretty hard
what you're saying is I'm going to lose
a subscriber if I'm no it's not
subscriber I just I actually have to
empathize harder because I'm like maybe
this is not a very good person that's
what I feel like if you're so carelessly
using that word then maybe you're not
actually thinking deeply about the
suffering in the world like to be a
student if human nature you really have
to think about other humans and other
experiences that are unlike your own
yeah of course and so that's the sense I
get but at the same time you're you're
also like the grandpa let me ages who's
trying to be cool with the young kids so
a lot of the reason young kids look up
to you is like you also know the
language of the internet yeah but I mean
it doesn't that's not an excuse to use
words that we think shouldn't be used I
guess the question that I that I would
have because it's always a struggle and
to some extent it's kind of happened is
let's say that like 3 years ago I would
have said I'm no longer saying the
artwor that's just I'm just going to get
rid of that in my vocabulary like is
there a chance that today we would be
having a conversation about like why do
you call people dumb fucks like is that
really appropriate like does this attack
at the core of like somebody's like
level of intelligence education
opportunities in life like is that worth
you you don't think so I think that's a
as the kids say cope you really think so
think because because the words have
definitely moved in a way where it's
like this was okay now it's not this is
okay now it's not so you're standing
your ground by using listen you could
you you could you could but I think it's
better to use those words if you want to
defend the ground words stand on to use
them rarely and deliberately versus how
you currently use them which is to
express an emotion like you I'm going to
be honest you use our word not when
you're at your
best true and so that's not that's
generally that could be true for a lot
of swearing too though but yeah I know
what you mean no but like you you know
that our word is offensive you know and
there's part of it is like the the you
tell yourself that like you're still
kind of fighting political correctness
by using it a little bit when you say it
no I don't think so I think I'm try I'm
trying to think in terms of like where
is The Virtue where like there's a whole
bunch of arguments for why some words
are okay some words aren't okay or
whatever and I try to like think more
along those lines rather than but um
like there's going to be like a lot of
phrases where like if the r word has
come out the conversation is over like I
know that like things my brain is shut
down the person I'm talking to but
there's like there's a lot of words also
in terms of like like if you ever hear
me say like fucking moron in a debate
it's like it's done like this
conversation is over there's no way that
anything productive is happening past
that point I think fucking moron is not
I think it's ineffective it's not civil
but it's not it doesn't bother me in the
way is it's basically when you speak in
a way that I know there's a group that's
going to be hurt by
that not only do I think about the hurt
that group experiences I think of you as
a lesser intellectual like as a lesser
person who's thinking about the world
what bothers me the most is just what
kind of um mindset that inspires in
young in young people or especially when
you're a public figure and a lot of
people look up to you so I definitely
don't think sort of this idea the r word
is not the battleground of expanding the
Overton window of
discourse okay like I I don't think
it'll lead to dumb fuck being
cancelled two years later unless that
word is hurting people's experience
which I don't foresee that happening I
think legitimately our word and F slur
and calling women
bitches it context matters here too like
of course but just the way I've heard
you use it it is not it's from emotion
and it's from frustration and It
ultimately is rooted in disrespect like
I don't I think it's ineffective and of
course like who gets to say I don't know
but I'm saying somebody who admire like
I admire effective conversations and I
admire great humor dark humor wit to me
often times the use of the RW in the way
you've used it and the way I see the
community use it is none of those things
it contributes not at all to the humor
and so on now I could see it might
contribute to the to the camaraderie of
that particular group especially when
they normalize the use of that word you
kind of take some of the edge off but
you forget that there's a a large number
of other people that don't have the
chemistry the don't hear the music of
the friendship that you have the
relationship you have and instead they
hear the normalization of a hateful word
and It ultimately has an impact that's
hateful and then people like me who show
up you know I haven't watched much of
your stuff it turns me off from like it
uh a couple of times your content came
came before me like and I listened to it
a little bit it turned me off completely
I didn't understand how good your heart
is I didn't understand how your mission
of actually uh der deradicalize people
help people like you're uh and increase
the level of good faith discourse in the
world I didn't understand any of that
cuz like what I was hearing is pretty
rough like the rward type of stuff and I
just feel like the benefit cost analysis
is heavy on the cost gotcha that's so I
just have to sort of call this
out and I think it and I straight up
think it's wrong but that's my own
that's my you think it's wrong cuz it's
hurting people without any benefit to
you whatsoever when you say hurting
people do you mean the person I'm using
it at or do you think there's like the
about the affected third group the third
third group third group it's good
feedback right I I always consider
everything especially respect you a lot
you're a really smart guy um something
that I always kind of
like fight over in terms of like
language or like who to attack or what
to attack or what to do is that um it's
very hard to draw like what
boxes um are okay to insult people on
versus one aren't so for instance if I
call somebody like a Nazi with a lot of
vitriol I'm okay with every single Nazi
being negatively affected by that
because that category intrinsically
calls upon on at some level of moral
condemnation for me right whereas like
if I'm out there I try not to do like
image related jokes right I don't want
to call you like oh you're a fat fucking
loser because there's a lot of people
that are fat that are overweight where I
don't want them to feel bad I don't want
them I'm not trying to call you out or
like insult you so there's like a lot of
um you say cost benefit I look at like a
lot of collateral damage from a word
like that where there's no purpose in
doing that um so certain words are easy
to get rid of they're off the table
right Ur um N word like like these are
not words you call people because you're
there's so much collateral it's not
worth it we've got some words where it's
like if you have some form of like
mental thing it is a bad thing you're
not a bad person but just using that
word could feel like a collateral damage
to those people um and then there's
other categories of words so like if I
say that like um this person is like
they it's a stupid fucking Republican
right there's probably some Republicans
that aren't dumb that I don't want to
feel called out by that like are those
types of phrases that you think should
be completely removed as well or I'm
kind of curious so this completely
removed just so we're clear yeah I'm not
referring to censorship oh no I'm not
even talking about I'm just just a
person like emotionally like remove it
is the wrong word though like I care
about like I'm not trying to listen to
people on the internet saying like you
shouldn't say that word that's not good
I
mean I'm trying to look to your mind and
heart and the reason we're talking today
is you're betraying your gift mhm you're
better than this you think it's
indicative of like a more flippant
thought process where it's like the only
way you can say that word is if you're
ignoring the hurt and suffering of those
people and if you're somebody that says
not even those people you're ignoring
the the state of language cuz I think
you're getting to the point because it's
not about a single word it's about like
a it's music and I just feel like
there's uh off strong note it's a it's a
strong note that ruins the melody gotcha
and I don't think I can say you know you
shouldn't use the r word or whatever I'm
just speaking to I'm I'm just listening
to music and reviewing the the final
result it's not necessarily cuz maybe
one use of the word the
RW uh strategically or part of an actual
like or when you've built up a
camaraderie that's sandwiched in in in
like some love but then you try to
reveal their because you're talking
about a lot of there's a bunch of drama
you have a b you have friends with whom
you're worrying and stuff and they're
all a little bit beautifully insane and
you've said that you are becoming more
and more insane as beautiful to watch
it's The Human Condition laid before us
wonderful and some of that is swearing
and so on so it's a tricky thing but um
the whole skill of discourse just like
it is with dark humor is walking that
line I just feel like it's uh overuse of
the RW and I don't want to die in that
ground because I don't think it's that
that represent like there's certain
things like that it feels like it ruins
the music and I don't you know saying
like a dumb Republican or dumb Dem I
don't yeah that ruins it too a little
bit depends on how you use it uh you can
be lazy with that yeah you know like
even over use of the word I think Bots
is what's used for people who don't
think or something I don't actually know
the definition I'm offended on the on
behalf of robots uh and that might be a
compliment soon right exactly but I
guess bot means you don't think yeah
you're like an NPC you just cop again
I'm offended on behalf of NPCs I I count
myself as one but there's a sense if you
say Bots too
much that you're just dismissing people
like everything I say is Right M and
anyone that disagrees with me is a bot
MH that that's lazy too sometimes it's
funny sometimes it's effective uh
basically saying a lot of people in the
mainstream Media or something like that
are Bots okay that's a little bit of
that is effective but too much it
becomes ineffective and I'm trying to
speak to that and I'm just the reason
we're highlighting clear examples
like the
nword uh Joe Rogan had to contend with
that oh yeah yeah I think it's
ineffective it makes you less effective
a discourse I but like like you've
talked about many times language is a
tricky one M it's always hard because
you talk about like constructing a
Melody there's not one Melody that
sounds good to everyone but there are
probably certain notes that like if you
got rid of them everybody's still going
to like it about as much and you don't
really lose anything there's a whole
other part of an audience that might be
more willing to listen yeah of course
and it's not about losing using the
magic of that Melody like you don't want
to be
vanilla I just feel like there's stuff
that doesn't need to be there yeah for
sure it's fat but then again you're the
other thing that people should
understand that might be listening to
this you're streaming many hours a day
for many years I don't know it's 11 or
12 I think yeah I started in 2010 and so
one of the things that people can do is
just clip out anything you you're going
through the full Human Experience of
emotion anger M fear
frustration all of it so of course
there's going to be moments when you're
not the best version of
yourself anything else to say about the
language it's complicated I'm uh I'm
still always trying to figure it out you
know there are opinions that I have that
have changed throughout the years it's
possible that the r word has always been
the next one on the chopping block that
we're all kind of looking at but people
always worried about that treadmill um
but it's possible in a year or two I'll
have a different view on it or all have
changed way some of the words I use or
not um yeah it's definitely like a it's
always like a work in progress there's
always like different community ities
that feel different ways about different
words yeah yeah but you acknowledge that
there's people out there MH that are
never going to talk to
you they're never going to think of you
as a good man because you use the on NW
with a hard R publicly in the past I
mean yeah those people exist but I mean
there are some people that are beyond my
reach which I'm okay with like there's
going to be some people because of
things that have been invol or even
ideas that I have now that might make
them beyond my reach um something you
said earlier is very true I think the
goal is to like identify what are the
elements that you can cut out that
aren't integral to your message but
could be alienating to more people and
those are probably the things that you
identify but I think that you can get
lost in yourself or lost in the internet
or lost in a you know the outside of
yourself if you're trying to appeal to
every single person it's just never
going to be the case and for I I
actually I like that I've had the
journey that I've had on the internet
that you can find me saying and
defending a lot of insane stuff 10 years
ago because I think it shows like a
level of progress and I think I do get a
lot of respect in biome to certain
communities where it's like I'm not just
some random dude telling you that like
oh you shouldn't say you know the f word
or the NW like I'm a guy that's been
there that's done it that's defended it
and you can see my whole past my whole
history is laid bare for you to watch
every of you know thousands of hours of
it um but I can show that like there's
growth and evolution and change that can
happen in a person so yeah and you're
honest about that growth MH It's Tricky
thing cuz people just call bring up
stuff from your past sure I I hope we
figure out as a civilization a mechanism
to Clearly say this was this was Me 2
years ago this is me 5 years ago this
I'm a different person and like um
because Twitter doesn't care about that
these social mechanisms that bring stuff
up doesn't care about that it's like one
stupid thing you say it becomes like a
Scarlet Letter and I don't know how to
fight that It's tricky to fight that
have you ever seen Men In Black yes when
KJ are on the bench and he says a person
is smart but people are stupid dumb
finicky an animals or whatever there's
something that changes for human
dynamics when there is a group of people
that make it so hard to control like I
think oneon-one anybody can sit across
on somebody and admit to some horrible
stuff I used to be a you know I abused
my husband when I was you know 20 and
now I'm 35 and I see it's wrong or I did
this I was addicted to whatever and you
know I made these mistakes one-onone
it's always easy but in um in group
environments that ingroup outgroup
tribalistic thing of like identifying
one thing and then coming to destroy a
person's life is like is such a huge
like impulse we have and I think
probably when we were like hunter
gatherers in the forest probably good
cuz you really want to push weird people
out or anything like that but now on the
internet when we can hunt for any
dissenting opinion and just with
ruthless Precision destroy somebody's
life over it it's a pretty scary Dynamic
I think one of the mechanisms that could
fix it is make it super easy for each
individual person to analyze all the
stupid shit they themselves have said in
the past like full
recording because I think people just
honestly paint a very Rosy picture to
their own brain of of who they have been
in the past yeah of course if we can
have empathy for the fact that we've
said stupid shit or we're drunk the the
ridiculous things you say the offensive
things you might have said the offensive
things you might have done I I just feel
like that would give us the ammunition
to have empathy for others that are like
okay yeah this guy 5 years ago said this
this maybe that doesn't represent them
who who doesn't represent who they are
any more than stuff I said 5 years ago
represents who I am today yeah I feel
like technology can actually enable that
maybe although you're talking about more
more recording and more stuff which
people are already wary of but um it's a
double-edged sword I think there's there
is going to be more and more recording
we have to figure out how to do that in
the way that respects people privacy and
gives them ownership of their data and
so on I've I've looked at the search
history I've done on Google which for
most people's available like your Google
search history and it's fascinating to
watch the evolution of a human being
like it doesn't seem like the same
person it's like a different person for
sure it's it's weird it's also hard too
with the internet today I'm going to be
aist again but like now all of the
people are thrown together you know
whereas like like I don't want a 27y old
judging theage of like a 15 or 16y old
like obviously he's in high school like
there was that story that came out of
the um there was a kid that saved the
recording of I think it was like some
white girl I think that she like got her
driver's license and she's like I can
drive now nword with the a or whatever
it dumb she shouldn't have said it but I
think she was like 15 or 16 when she
tick toked this or whatever and he held
on to that recording until she applied
and got accepted to college three years
later and then he released it to get her
kicked out of college and I'm like damn
if everything that I had ever said as
like a 15 16 year-old was like
immortalized on the internet my I my
life wouldn't have even begun um and
those are insanely high standards to
hold people to um not that like
obviously you shouldn't be saying those
uh you shouldn't be saying certain words
or whatever but you have to be able to
make mistakes in adolescence like
everybody does we all did everybody did
it growing up you know why do you think
there is so much misogyny in the
streaming community and how can you
fight it cuz you you've shown a lot of
interest in fighting it trying to
decrease or eliminate misogyny from your
community I think it's really difficult
I think that eliminating racism is
easier than eliminating misogyny because
on the internet you mean on anywhere
because I think fundamentally I don't
think there's that much difference
between like white people and black
people and brown people and Asian people
or whatever um you know we have
different cultures and stuff but at the
end of the day we're all people but I
think there are differences between men
and women like throughout all of H like
all of history and time and then even
today in every culture and when when
real differences do exist it's harder to
account for them in a way that can we
have conversations with each other
without it becoming very gendered in a
negative way right negative way of
gendering something be like a
misogynistic way of doing it of course
it's unclear to me that it's so
difficult to um to avoid the negative
gendering versus the positive because
there's a lot of positive to the the
tension the dance between the different
genders and so on maybe in this
particular moment in history it's not
but it's not trivial to me that racism
is easier to eliminate it's an
interesting hypothesis just because
there's more biological difference
between men and women that means it's
harder to eliminate but I don't know if
this is true I hear this a lot I feel
like I read this but I need to get a
better Source where I repeat it
everywhere but I've heard that like in
the US military for instance they've
gotten exceedingly well they do an
exceedingly good job at getting
different people of different races to
integrate and it's like not a huge
problem once you're through basic
training all the training everything but
for a different Sexes it still
represents a significant problem that
the military hasn't figured out and I
actually looked at like what's the
military doing because if you know if
something was solvable like can we sleep
for 4 hours night and be healthy if we
could I bet the military would know you
know so I kind of look sometimes for
them to see their integration but um it
might be there are other issues there
that make it yeah it feels like the
military is a very particular kind of
the actual task at hand might uh bias
the difficulty of the process
potentially yeah there's been a lot of
interesting um talk about like women
integrating into male groups and how do
you do this in a way where everybody is
happy with the outcome and there's not
like issues um I think Jordan Peterson
spoke about this a little bit and then
workplace culture speaks about this a
bit would you happen to remember I want
to say it was like 5 or 10 years ago
there was a big Tech conference and
there were two guys behind a woman and
they made a joke about like a USB dongle
like dongle was a dick and this woman
turned around she tweeted pictures of
them spoke about like misogyny and then
every that blew up into a huge ordeal
that like um yeah there there was this
there's this interesting phenomenon that
in a less misogynistic and more
inclusive workplace environment some
women might end up feeling worse
because in a more misogynistic
environment you're thinking like okay
that's a woman she doesn't get our humor
I'm going to treat her in a very
indifferent you know very dispassionate
cold way and whatever and then I'm going
to have my my boys over here um and then
you've got like these environments where
they're a little bit more warmer and
it's like oh cool we're going to bring
this woman into our environment and
we're going to make all the same types
of like crash jokes we did before and
it's actually worse now now the woman
feels even more otherwise cuz like oh my
God why do you talk like this I think
that internet communities especially
online ones that do like political
debate and video games are very much
like big boy clubs so it's not enough to
just say you can't be misogynistic to
get rid of misogyny there's always going
to be an othering effect on women
there's a lot of like behaviors that are
unintuitive that you have to account for
and you got to try to like push that
back and that's just a very very very
challenging thing to do um so like I
like to deal with concrete examples more
so here's a concrete example um and this
is like a recent initiative in my
community because I'm trying to like be
because misogyny hasn't been fixed
anywhere in the internet I'm curious
well there are ways that I can push my
community to do this um I don't think
you should almost ever make a comment on
a woman's appearance ever if they're
appearing in like some political or
professional manner even if it's a
positive comment I think it's equally
bad to a negative comment it's just
never good to do and that's kind of an
unintuitive thing because it's like well
a woman appears wow she's really cute it
seems like a nice comment you're being
nice you know she looks cute or whatever
but it's like that's not at all the
point of why she's there and just by
saying that you're kind of like
otherizing her as like a person to like
think she looks good rather than
listening to anything she has to say you
know well there there's a lot of stuff
that you're saying
and that is is a part of massaging it's
almost like obvious like any woman would
tell you that woman will yeah but
they're not in these spaces and a lot of
the guys don't know I think what that
requires is just empathy you don't need
you don't need you need to consider the
the female experience that's it like you
have to either read about or talk with
women you you learn like the low hanging
food is very easy to learn it feels like
just the level of social
skill often times in Internet
communities is quite low I disagree I
don't like to say here's the problem
with empathy is it's very hard to have
empathy for experiences that are so
outside of your own it well maybe some
people there might be some people that
can do it I can't there's a lot of stuff
that I had to learn women are half the
population but they're
women they're totally
different they're totally different so
here here we'll talk about they're not
totally different toally so here's an
example okay so especially for me
archetype makes up a lot of the internet
white man um there's never been a point
the name of a beautiful woman who might
be a dancer what's the backstory from
New Orleans or from I haven't thought
that through yet um yeah it's ambiguous
okay like an open world open world I
want you to project whatever wherever
you want Destiny the dancer to be from
that's in your mind okay all right I'll
save that for later tonight yeah okay as
a white guy there I don't know if
there's ever been a spot that I've been
in where I've made been made to feel
like I don't belong there just by virtue
of who I am I don't I actually don't I
it's impossible for me to empathize that
cuz I don't even have that experience if
you go back 8 nine years one of the big
issues that came up was harassment and
gaming against women and I was one of
the big Debaters against that saying
that like sure women might get
harassment but everybody gets harassment
if you're a woman and you're in gaming
and you get harassed congratulations
you're being treated like a man what
you're actually asking for is for us to
actually treat you differently you don't
want to be insulted um you don't want to
be treated like a man and that's
actually misogyny is women making that
argument did you still stand by that is
that a problem if I do no I'm just
kidding okay almost hold on a little so
a little while after I disagree with it
sure okay that's good you should a
little while later um I had a friend uh
Jessica super cool girl we go to play
games she's between jobs and she's like
I've got like two months and we're going
to grind CS go and I'm like okay this is
awesome let's do it uh CS go um Counter
Strike lobal offensive shooter game FPS
microphones first day we start playing
okay hop into our first game obviously L
she talks everybody's making is that a
12-year-old boy why aren't you making
sandwiches blah blah blah yeah okay
whatever play our first game play our
second game same jokes third game fourth
game by like the fourth or fifth game I
was actually starting to feel triggered
like every time the game started I was
like can you just like talk so we can
get over like the stupid fucking jokes
it's so fucking stupid and you hear the
same fucking joke every single time and
it took one day of that experience for
me to realize it's not about being
insulted it's like this othering feeling
that you don't belong and I've never
felt that because I'm a white guy like I
it just not to be like virtue singular
so but like there's just there's no
places where it's like you're white you
don't belong here you're a guy you don't
belong here um like I've never felt that
not inclusion and playing with her
there's a different feeling when it's
the same types of jokes coming from a
group of people to make you feel like
you don't belong there where I was like
damn this actually feels really bad and
it feels bad in a different way where
it's like if you call me um like ANF
slur or um any other type of swear word
or insult like yeah you can call me that
but at the end of the day like we're all
kind of the same we're all white dudes
we call each other names but like this
is a woman and this is not her place and
she doesn't belong here kind of the
analogy that I would make um cuz I I
after getting these experiences I learn
this afterwards if I tell you that
there's another guy in a room and you
need to think of the worst insults ever
for that person without ever knowing
anything about them or meeting them if I
tell you that it's like a white straight
guy and you have to write insults you're
fucked maybe you can do like school
shooter there's not really much you can
say at the end of the day but if I tell
you it's a woman we could there are so
many different jokes right if it's a
black person so many different racist
things we can say are you sure I can
come up with a lot of stuff for a white
guy in terms of stuff that is just
intrinsic to him being a white guy yeah
like there's really wait a minute what
are you talking about there's a lot the
internet has sharpened that sword in
terms of like jokes that are targeted at
his
sex
virgin weak some of the Insel virgin
maybe yeah that's getting there sure
that's for sure um that's recent though
sorry I'm older on the internet we
didn't have those words way back then
that was when I was making these
analogies that incel and vir my day we
didn't have General there were no inels
back then none of us had sex we just
accepted we were all computer Gamers
nobody had sex to play video games back
then okay people don't remember that
there wasn't the Big Bang Theory you
were just a loser that was stuck you
guys didn't even know sex exists you can
use as an insult we had to download
sexual pictures and it took two minutes
and you didn't even know if you were
going to get the right thing by the time
it finished loading but but what I'm
saying is like okay I think you agree
that like if if somebody gives you like
a race like a black person who's a woman
we can write like very cutting scathing
like insults for that person that are
very authorizing oh words that would
really hurt if yeah that are very
cutting to the person but like for a
White Guy um it's kind of hard because
it's like that's like the default
there's not as much otherizing of those
people yeah kind so the insults you have
from white guy to white guy the insults
are much harsher so when you start to
apply the same kind of harshness to
other groups you can make them feel like
they really don't belong and that
otherizing effect is something that's
very hard for me I can't really
empathize it CU I've never felt it so I
have to intellectualize it and then
sympathize with it it's like a whole
process I have to go through and then I
try to walk other people through that
cuz if you're a white guy on the
internet which is a lot of the internet
you really don't know what that feels
like you've never felt like that before
so you're now in a leadership position
uh Grand Grandpa Destiny so that's a lot
of people look up to you for that M for
that sort of Pathway to empathy yeah
Hana to other eyes I mean you have felt
other eyes in your you you mentioned
High School people like not being yeah
but those are always for things that
like it's different to insult somebody
for a non- immutable characteristic like
okay you think poorly about me because
I'm like not enough money or I don't
have money but I could get more money
and I could change that but it's
different for somebody to really attack
you for like your gender or attack you
for like your race a lot of the attacks
that hit the hardest is not about gender
it's it's I I do think that they like
the way women are attacked on the
Internet it's the same kind of attacks
you would do towards other guys but you
go harsher I feel like they're
fundamentally different I feel like when
we're attacking guys I'm not usually
attacking you on like the virtue of you
being a guy but like if it's a woman and
she's typing saying like oh did your
boyfriend type that for you or like what
are you even doing here like don't you
shouldn't be trying to find a husband or
like oh you're like a stupid kind like
go start an only fans or no but the
stupidity the intelligence aspect is
what's attacked yeah but it's so much
different like you can call a guy stupid
but that's because he's a guy that's
being stupid but when you call a woman
stupid she's stupid because she's a
woman yeah but I honestly think that
women are called stupid more than men on
the internet nothing to do like the
attack is not gendered it's the gender
inspires an increased level of attack I
feel like it is gendered I wish we had
data on this have you ever heard of the
xkcd Comics yes it's a really good comic
where and I this is something that I've
dealt with a lot in my community okay
there's a guy at a board and he fucks up
a math equation and it's like wow you
suck at math math and then the next
panel is there's a girl that does it and
she fucks it up and it's like wow
women's suck at math and there's like
that feeling that happens where when I
bring on um I won't use names but
they're like YouTube people that are
brought on that have crazy opinions and
when they're men that person is crazy oh
my God he said the crazy stuff he's so
dumb he's so crazy so stupid but when
it's a woman it's like oh my God why do
you always bring dumb women here why do
so many women on the internet have crazy
opinions there's a different like
minority character that has to like
stand and like represent like their
whole group where like white men don't
typically have to speaking of groups
versus individuals yes but then what I
feel happens is then another person from
that group comes another woman comes and
people before she says anything will
already feel like they're ready with
that attack for sure but they're ready
for the attack cuz she's a woman they're
going to call her she's stupid because
she's a woman not because she says
something just cuz she's a woman so like
uh the
group in their brain accumulates all the
negative characteristics of the
individuals they've met not the positive
the negative and it becomes like this
ball of stickiness and then that becomes
the bias for their judgment of a new
person that comes with white men there's
more of a blank slate in terms of bias
of how they analyze the person with any
any of the minority group they basically
make a
judgment based on the negative
characteristics of the individuals they
met in the past I just that leads to a
system where you're just harsher to
towards minority groups and towards
women how do you solve that the fir the
most important thing for any problem
ever is step one is to be aware of it if
you're not aware of it then you're
hopelessly lost at sea but the yeah the
first thing I like to say is just like
be aware of it like I've had there's a
girl that I've had on recently and she
says a lot of in my opinion kind of
crazy things but people will use her as
like this is why women shouldn't be here
this is like she's crazy and she's a
woman and blah blah blah but I can bring
on a guy who say similarly dumb things
and he's evaluated on his own merits cuz
it's a guy you know there's never ever
ever been a case where I brought a
stupid guy on stream and everybody's
been like this guy makes me hate men
this guy makes me hate white people that
has never happened but then there's like
other women that come on and it's like
now I know why incels exist or I totally
understand where red pill ideology comes
from you know and even if the statements
are kind of true when you're making
these observations over and over and
over and over again it it damages your
ability to individually perceive
somebody and then two people that make
the same statements one can be perceived
more harshly just because of that like
group bias you've got built up I think
there's something about streaming that
just brings it out of people like cuz
you have to talk
hours so you're like all right well
whatever psychological issues and
complexities I have I'm going to explore
them magnified magnify and then we're
and then it's the Gerard as you talked
about the mimetic uh uh Theory so
gerardi and like whatever the things
that are very similar and you're going
to magnify the conflicts that you have
and you're going to explore the all the
different perspectives on those
different conflicts and I mean I don't I
don't know if it's just anecdotal but
it's nice to have women on stream and I
think the dynamic uh that you guys have
is is is is wonderful it's it's really
interesting so yeah it's just the female
voice in general I I love having women
on the podcast the female voice I feel
like is under heard on the internet for
sure and I would love the internet to be
a place where women feel safe to speak
all right given that you're like we
talked about a progressive with
non-standard Progressive use so you're
very pro- free speech mhm Pro
capitalism so given that it's very
interesting that you're also
pro-establishment and pro institutions
MH uh so right now if you look at the
world there's a significant distrust of
Institutions uh at least in sort of
public intellectual discourse uh what is
the nature of your support for
government and institutions can you make
the case for and against
them broadly speaking there is a
synergistic effect when two humans come
together if I can speak very broadly in
terms of we'll say utility okay my
happiness with one person might be 10
the happiness with another person might
be 10 but when they come together it's
like 50 between the two of them there's
like the synergistic effect when humans
work together that the sum is greater
than all the individual parts or
whatever there's like an emergent thing
that happens there there's a capacity
there's a possibility of that yeah a
possibility sure things could go really
wrong there could be a cannibalistic
tribe that all eats each other sure but
for the purpose this there's other
failure modes but yes okay sure yeah for
the for the but well I think broadly
speaking you're are you going to be the
well actually guy okay if you want to
well okay well actually well actually
cannibalism War Holocaust true yeah
sometimes things do go wrong but I think
broadly speaking the fact that you're
sitting here in clothing that you didn't
make and I'm sitting here on an airplane
that I don't know how to fly or Bill
like right there's a lot of cool stuff
that happens when people come together
and they make civilizations and part of
that Civilization build
is the fact that we can specialize and
it's the fact that we can offload a
bunch of trust onto third parties that
we delegate the power to make important
decisions about our lives right I don't
know anything about how to like build
like a combustion engine but I know that
when I push the button on my car it's
going to drive around and the fumes
aren't going to kill me and I can park
it in garages and the building's not
going to collapse and the only reason
all of this works is because I've
offloaded a lot of trust on these third
party things and I would say that the
pillars of these third party things that
soci is built on are roughly speaking
institutions so that might be the
institution of peer review for
scientific articles um it might be the
institution of uh voting for government
right or or the the the ability for us
to vote in that whole process it might
yeah all the FDA like all of these
institutions are things that they need
to exist because we don't have the time
or the capability to individually sort
through all of those all of these things
um individually we have to rely on some
third party to do it okay so you believe
at scale the when we're together we're
greater than the sum of our parts that's
the case for institutions absolutely
what about the inefficiencies of
bureaucracy is there some aspect when at
scale different Dynamics come into play
than they do when there's two people
together two people that love each other
the birds and the bees m is there some
aspect that leads more to cannibalism at
scale so like corruption inefficiencies
that due to bureaucracy and so on mhm
bureaucracy
which is not I hate it when people try
to say bureaucracy is government because
bureaucracy exists a ton in private
environments as well right in businesses
and everything um bureaucracy introduces
its own set of problems but I mean a
bureaucracy is necessary because it's
coordinating all of the underlying
things in order in order to create
something that's greater than the sum of
its parts right like all of the software
developers in the world are useless
without being paired with good designers
in order to make their products usable
by a person and the coordination of
those people and the coordination of
increasingly more and more things
necessitate some level of bureaucracy I
think we always say bureaucracy when
it's like a bad it's like a slur almost
like you're a a bureaucrat you're
bureaucratic the bureaucracy is slowing
everything down it's like sure the
bureaucracy slows things down but
bureaucracy also gives us things like
you know safe medicine and safe water to
drink for most of the US or safe
buildings to live in or safe cars to
drive so so the managers in institution
versus like the software developers and
the designers the managers is the
bureaucracy the the reason bureaucracy
is used as a slur is that something
about human nature leads to bureaucracy
often
growing growing indefinitely becoming
less and less efficient without a I mean
this is where capitalism can come in
that uh capitalism puts a pressure on
the bureaucracy not to grow too much
because you want the bureaucracy to be
useful but not large yeah and to be a
certain size yeah of course to be the
minimum size to get the job done and so
capitalism provides that
mechanism
government does not always and so that's
the criticism of government of
Institutions where it can grow without a
significant mechanism that says there's
a cost to bureaucracy that's not being
accounted for here we're just paying for
the increasing size of government
without the benefit yeah government is a
special institution because it doesn't
have to show itself to be financially V
and we kind of live in a capitalist
economy where that's generally the case
so government gets its powers from votes
from the people which introduces a whole
new set of possible positives and
possible negatives right having
something for instance that gives food
or shelter to homeless people maybe you
don't want that to have to run at a
profit um but giving you know an
organization that can self- justify its
budgets perpetually and indefinitely
growing maybe that's not the best thing
yeah we we always have to figure out how
to do the constraints there but what
about the the corrupting nature of power
that comes with institutions as well
absolutely so then you better pick your
your style of institution very carefully
I think that the Democratic institution
we have in the United States today I
think works very well but I mean there
are other styles of government that have
been tried in the past that I think lend
themselves more to corruption not to say
that by the way there's not corruption
in the United States of course there's
going to be varying levels of corruption
at like all um at all levels but you R
you ran into this interesting problem
where authoritarian regimes can act with
ruthless precision and swiftness because
they don't have to ask any questions
they just do do do do do and that's it
um but the problem is is it's an
authoritarian regime they're prone to
missteps they're slow to respond to
changing or evolving needs there was an
interesting study that was put out a
while ago that showed that like every
single famine that happened around the
world almost all like 98% of them happen
under authoritarian regimes where like
freedom of speech is very limited it's
very rare for a famine to happen under
uh democracy because press and
everything makes the government more
responsive to the needs of the people
power can corrupt their levels of
corruption but you have to have like a
system of checks and balances on on all
of those different levels to make sure
it doesn't run off the rails I guess and
do a sick loop-de-loop and you know half
the population gets nice call back
there's a lot of people that that will
listen to you say that the Democracy in
the United States is working pretty damn
well and and they will spit out the
drink if they're drinking a drink and uh
be very upset uh can you make the case
that they're right and you're wrong can
I make the case steel man they're right
yeah well the Steelman for them is that
people have a lot of problems on the
dayto day and when they look and they
see what government is doing um they
might see potholes outside their house
homeless people all over their downtown
and the United States just approved
another x billion amount of dollars for
Ukraine or they might be living in a
city where half the factories are shut
down a lot of their people out of work
but the president is on the TV talking
about how to find jobs for immigrants
coming in from Mexico and for these
people they have problems that exist in
their lives they're some of them are
paying taxes to alleviate these problems
and then we listen to the when they
listen to the government talk feels like
the government is not responding to the
needs that they have and then that's one
problem then on top of that you've got
all of these people working in
alternative media that can show you well
look at this politician wasting this
much money or look at him double
speaking here or there look at Hillary
Clinton saying she's got a private
position and a public position look at
how all of these politicians have family
members that are getting rich because of
their relationships with people in
Congress look at the revolving door
between uh capitalist companies and the
government how can you look at all of
that take into account that the
government's not responding to your
needs and then really feel like it's a
government by the people and for the
people yeah this was very good good
Steel Man and good question how can you
how can you how can you tell that
they're not just politicians that care
more about continuously winning the
elections versus being uh running
government effectively they should care
about winning the elections that's the
first misconception a lot of people say
this guy only cares about getting voted
in this guy like he doesn't even believe
about in uh in fracking or abortion he
just changed his opinion to get voted in
anytime time somebody says that you
should say that's really good you want
them to change their opinion so they get
put it in that's the whole point of a
democracy you don't want them to remain
obstinate you don't want them to say I'm
not changing my opinion no matter what
the people want you want them to evolve
and adopt new opinions based on what the
population their constituents are voting
for yeah but the cynical take is that
they're The Sur on the surface they're
changing their opinion but that there's
a boys club where boys means the elite
that under in the Smoke fi
rooms uh in secret they actually have
their own agenda and they're following
that agenda and they're just saying uh
anything publicly to Plate the public
based on whatever the the new trends are
soal take a yeah I understand somebody
asked me this question and it flipped I
I 180 completely um I was a Bernie
Sanders supporter in 2016 and my my
single issue voting thing was lobbying I
thought that lobbying the government was
corrupt they weren't responding to IND
people it was completely destroyed my
faith in government everything and I had
one question post me by a conservative
that used to come on my stream and chat
with me and he said um I think he asked
me can you think of
any any popular opinion that the
American public has that the government
is unresponsive to is there some big
piece of legislation or policy or
whatever that people want that the
government isn't doing when they asked
me that I couldn't think of a single
good answer and I'm like oh jeez there's
a good drugs there's
not legalization of drug hold on yeah go
for it oh shoot you're doing The Joe
Rogan thing you're pushing back cuz I
brought up weed go go
ahead I'm sorry I have become
meme I don't even I don't want to
interrupt your your because there's
memes upon memes upon memes I can go
with here but uh no uh cuz people bring
up okay there's no issues there's no
issues that the government is not
representing of of the public so here's
the issue so somebody will bring up like
what about the legalization of drugs
okay the first issue people have is one
they look at National polling very few
things are decided on a national level
so that's the first huge mistake
arguably a lot of BLM made mistakes in
this um Arena where they're saying like
why isn't the government doing anything
about policing federal government can't
do anything about policing that's going
to be your sometimes not even your state
it's your local city government the
people that like elect like your chief
of um police your Police Commissioner
that's coming from your mayor right um
so you've got people looking one at the
wrong parts of the government to even
figure out the solution to the problem
two often times for pulling the
questions are vague enough that you can
pull very high but when you get into the
Weeds on things no pun intended um you
start to realize like oh shoot this is
more complicated than I thought I don't
know the numbers in particular for
legalization of marijuana but this is
what I'm going to guess is the case if
you pull and you say should we legalize
marijuana that number might pull at like
70% but that's including people that are
in favor of medical marijuana if you
were to pull like should we legalize
should we decriminalize recreational use
of marijuana that number might drop to
like 52% and then if you pull like
should we completely legalize not just
decriminalize but completely legalize
recreational I never mind dropped to
like 40% there's like all these
different ways you can pull around
issues where people like oh no we
broadly agree on this topic but when you
really figure out well do you do we
really agree or is there just like broad
consensus around a thing that's never
going to show up like in a piece of
legislation a really good example one
example I do know is socialized
Healthcare I think if you pull there was
a time a few years ago where if you pull
America do you think every American
citizen should have access to uh like
free healthcare I think that answer that
pulled it like 74% yes but when you
asked should the government be the Sole
Provider of healthcare it dropped to
like 26% dropped 50 points and you could
see it was both asking questions about
Single Payer but the way that it was
asked was so different that even if you
all it looks like there's consensus
there's not nearly as much consensus as
people think around certain ideas yeah
go we you're right you're right you're
right you're right that polls the way
you ask the polls really matters but
when you ask should the government be in
charge of a thing that also biases the
answer right that like because such a
Negative experience with government
creating a.gov site that runs the thing
but sometimes sometimes I think if you
dig in if you have a one-hour
conversation with each individual
citizen sure I think you will understand
that yes there's support for socialized
medicine like it's not the argument has
to be made though yeah what do you mean
the argument has to be made like if you
just ask a conservative like what about
Single Payer they're going to tell you
no you might be able to build up to an
argument for it but you're going to have
to make the case for it I thought we
were talking about the feeling deep
inside your mind and heart does the
government represent that oh so it's not
like some shallow surface layer public
opinion does the government effectively
represent what the people want not a
shallow survey but deeply what they want
I'm not actually that familiar with with
the debates over Healthcare but let's
maybe look at an easier one maybe you'll
say it's harder war war is really good
example where the government was very
responsive I think to the people you
think so so Iraq
Afghanistan the government didn't
manipulate public opinion there's an
argument to be made that they did in
terms of like wmd and everything but
after 911 were you in the United States
after 911 after 911 I leg seems
accusatory like where were you in
911 just checking okay all right cool I
have evidence and uh Witnesses no okay
all right I'm very defensive right now
it's very strange look look into it
Alexon but I think after 911 we could
have gone to Country we could have gone
to war with any country in the world we
would have we were ready because all of
America was like oh my God and they
pointed to Iraq and you know the reasons
for the wmds was kind of dumb but I
don't think we even needed wmds to go to
Iraq we could have just said you know
Saddam Hussein was giving Medical Aid to
Taliban Al-Qaeda Iraq let's go and we
would have gone for it but um post Iraq
Iraq was for a while popular and then
became obvious viously deeply unpopular
Iraq and Afghanistan and I think you
could see that influence other foreign
policy that the United States had for
instance we opted more towards like
drone Warfare than troops on the ground
for places like Yemen um we opted more
towards like kind of like sending money
and help instead of boots on the ground
for places like Syria um and I think
that a lot of that was kind of in
response to how unpopular the Iraq stuff
had became and when you looked at a lot
of Elections afterwards even for Obama
like one of the defining characteristics
of a lot of campaigns were like I'm
going to close Guantanamo Bay I'm going
to get us out of Foreign Wars even up to
Trump I'm going to you know I'm not
going to stop doing all this weird stuff
in the Middle East but they didn't still
withdraw from Afghanistan they didn't
withdraw but they definitely like
tapered off and weren't like as
aggressively pushing those types of
conflicts because they knew it was
unpopular but I think if you also
consider perfect information or or good
information if you ask a lot of
people are you okay spending this amount
of money for this purpose so military
conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan I think
almost from the very beginning they
would say no
after 911 I feel like maybe like a few
days after 911
like well there's there's some memes and
so on yes but the nature of the public
support for the
war was there public support in 2003
which is when when The Invasion happened
I feel like initially there was a lot I
remember seeing it on but then I also
lived in a republican household and I
was not very like media Savvy at the
time so my par I don't know if the
nature of that public support had to do
with wmds or with 911 cuz the weird came
about w Ms but I wonder what what is the
if you were to PLL people and let's say
hypothetically there was above 50%
support for the war what would be the
nature of that support uh and to to what
degree is the government actually
representing the will of the people
versus some complex mechanism like the
military-industrial complex is
manipulating The Narrative that's
controlling public opinion and then
there's the media that uh gets a lot of
attention by being divided and how
they're shaping The Narrative through
the mechanism of division so what
there's a lot of complicated things at
it's not just like the people and then
the government and that that's yeah for
sure I agree that there are going to be
different elements at play and and how
much of those elements that lead us
astray can be attributed to the largess
of the different systems so and the
different institutions like the the
media institutions and government the
institutions that have a monopoly on
violence let's put it this way which is
what one way to define government sure
it's complicated um there's definitely
going to be different institutions at
play I but I think that like all I would
say is like in reference to my original
point when there becomes like broad
consensus around a thing I think the
government will usually follow it's not
going to fight it's going to follow more
often than not um but I think that a lot
of times I think Americans think that
there's more consensus around certain
issues than there actually are um so
like a really good example we're on that
war Point too um
what caused like the lowest dip in
Biden's approval rating I'm pretty sure
it was right after we pulled out of
Afghanistan which I think if I would
have asked people like a year before
like let's assume that we could pull out
of Afghanistan um the government's
probably going to collapse after we
leave because they just don't have the
will to fight they don't have the
support they don't whatever it's just
not going to work but like no Americans
are going to die may be a couple other
people but like no americ are going to
die we're going to get Afghanistan would
you support that I think broadly
speaking I think I think like more than
60 or 70% of Americans are like yeah
that would be fine but then when it
actually plays on TV when we see the
people hanging on to the planes when we
see like helicopter Embassy some of the
quotes from politicians well now it's
like oh my God this was horrible and it
was so botched and it was so like it
could have gone so much better like well
could it have gone better like maybe
maybe not but I mean it seems like they
you can have consensus around a certain
opinion but the way that things play out
and the way that people actually feel
it's actually way way way more
complicated and there's not usually this
broad consensus opinion when or yeah go
ahead I'd like to believe that I mean
just to lay my cards on the
table I have uh faith in the power of
Effective Government MH I
just have um a lot of concern about what
happens as institutions grow in size for
sure and I just have a lot of worry
about the natural corrupting influence
on the individuals and on the system as
a whole like the the boys club nature of
it I don't know there must be a better
term but basically they
they agree to the game and they play the
game and there's a generational aspect
momentum to the game and they more and
more stop being responsive to the people
that they represent I just feel like
there is that mechanism and I think the
nice thing democracy elections are
resistance to that natural human
mechanism um also the balances of power
is a resistance to that mechanism in
some ways the media that reveals the
bullshit of politicians is also a
resistance to that mechanism it's it's
hard to be full of shit as a politician
cuz people will try to catch you on it
so there's a honesty method there that
keeps you honest it's to some degree but
it still feels
like it still feels like politicians are
going to
politici yeah they definitely play their
games that is true there's probably
always going to be that meta narrative
over like governance that just develops
as like you have to form relationships
and play games to get legislation passed
and everything the the only reason why I
don't like it when people attack
institutions is because one institutions
are incredibly important arguably
Paramount no they are to keeping Society
Running and two I think sometimes when
we shift the blame onto institutions too
much I think that we lose sight of what
the real problems are so for instance in
the United States today people might be
very critical of the government not
getting much done but then everybody
turns their eyes to the government for
being ineffective but what I would argue
is I would say the government is
actually incredibly effective and it's
showcasing the will of the American
people really well right now which is we
are historically more divided than we
have ever been and if I were to just
look at the people and I would say we
have a historic divide that is getting
like rapidly blown apart by things like
the internet and the media right if that
exist well what would I expect that
government to look like I wouldn't
expect that government to be governing
very effective I would expect that
government to show that legitimate
divide in people do you think that
divide we have a perception of a large
divide between left and right do you
think that's a divide this in this
country narrow the language what do you
mean by real
divide do you think there is that divide
in ideology that there's a large number
of people that believe a certain set of
policies and the different set of
policies just the perception of the on
on Twitter no I think there is a large
divide in terms of belief I don't think
there's very much divide between any
people in terms of like what they like
on the most fundamental levels want in
terms of like human beings but in terms
of like Democrat versus Republican right
now I think there is a huge divide in
terms of the direction they want to see
the country go and what they believe
really and what they even believe is
reality right unfortunately that's where
we've gotten to can I just speak about
the mechanism of the left and right here
maybe on the mimic raly aspect is there
some aspect to the left on which you're
a part of that attacks their
own for ideological impurity more than
the right does is it the bigotry of
small differences there's a name there's
a concept where um when you're near
somebody who is very slightly different
than you you want to destroy but when
you're with somebody that's way
different than you you don't um I think
the left does it but I think the right
does it too I didn't realize it until I
started dipping more into conservative
communities but oh my God the people
from The Daily wire and the people from
turning point and um the America First
all the all these different groups of
people hate each other and they fight
each other so much they hire and fire
sometimes employees they talk smack
about each other um I think there's a
lot of political division between both
sides I think that the left just kind of
gets highlighted more because it's like
the internet and a lot of the internet
spaces have a lot of left laning people
so you see like the crazy communist and
the crazy progressives and the crazy
Center left liberals and the crazy blah
blah blah whereas like a lot of the
right- Ling people have kind of been
pushed off of the main areas of the
internet now interesting my sense was
that it's hard to exist on the center
left but maybe because I just don't have
the full spectrum view of the political
divide it felt like Central left is a
difficult position to occupy current
yeah I would definitely say so yeah I
don't know if it's that difficult to be
center it's very difficult to be center
right I think actually maybe even more
difficult because a center right person
might be somebody who's like
conservative but not a fan of trump and
you're like over like look like Liz
Cheney right you've had politicians that
are just like they didn't back the Trump
stuff and now they're gone or you might
be like center right but like you don't
think the election was stolen and now
you're like half the Republican part is
looking at you're like you're crazy you
know um that's true that's true I think
uh Ben be who I'm talking with I think
he publicly spoke against Trump right he
did initially but I feel like he
softened his language up on him pretty
significantly but so there's a sign
pressure to kind of to a certain kind of
messaging which the whole Republican
party is feeling right now jeez that two
years from now that election is going to
be insane it's just hard okay so to
generalize it's hard to be in the center
it feels like for sure just Center and
then like do like a random
walk among the policies around that I
don't know what that mechanism is I mean
it makes people like me not feel good MH
being in the center it seems like people
are just not nice to people in the
center
like the the public uh the Twitter
machine is not nice to people who are
open-minded in the center is that is
there some truth to that two reasons for
that one is because I think a lot of
people that market themselves as Center
are legitimately spineless cowards and
deserve to be called out like like I've
never killed a man but today might be my
first oh no um there I'll take over like
I told you I'll take over your stream
with the AI we'll see is the Zach guy
going to be streaming in the background
okay gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha lots of
gotas lots of gotchas okay got okay
gotcha and decrease the amount which
already is a pretty low level of emotion
just decreas it completely when people
are screaming at you and accusing stuff
just remain calm absolutely emotionless
the gaslighter strategy yeah okay so
what we're talking about so I I don't uh
I don't even I don't ever identify a
center anything because it's got such a
bad reputation because fuck that I stand
center with a spine it's called being
open-minded and it's not Center left and
right those are just labels here's a
really good quote my mom said to me when
I was really young she said Stevie don't
ever let your mind be so open that your
brain falls out and that's what I find
that a lot of Center people do that's
not what she told me last night why are
you like
this I'm sorry man okay I'm glad I can
glad I can bring that I'm glad you feel
like this is safe space like I said
people non judgmental if you want to
talk about fucking my mom you know what
you're totally within your rights I
didn't say you said that I support that
she's a beautiful woman uh her husband
probably wouldn't be too happy about it
but you know I didn't say there's any
sexual relations I it was just that
having a conversation with her you
projected that that says more about you
than me anyway go ahead about spineless
Center spineless Center there is some
aspect to that which is like Amorphis to
me Center means you you think freely
about each individual policy without
being stuck to a c some ideal yeah but a
lot of people don't do that they call
themselves Centrist but then they just
they're anti establishment essentially
on everything I don't know your position
on like the vaccines or anything um but
like I met a lot of like free and open
thinkers who are like you know what I'm
open to everything and it's an
experimental vaccine and I'm going to
eat hydroxy Clarin and Ivermectin
because that's what the institutions are
telling me not to take and I think
fouchy got too much money from that
company and these are but I'm an open
thinker and I'm and they what what open
thinker BEC I'm an MIT what do you think
my position of vaccines is exactly I
hear a lot of crazy things from a lot of
people okay you might be from MIT but I
know you're from the internet okay
people from the internet are weird and
crazy so so yeah well I uh who knows I
don't like arrogance and I have
criticized scientists during Co a lot of
people but scientists included having
arrogance which is fair but and that's
and I think there's a lot of good
criticism to be made of different um
scientific and medical establishments
over a lot of stuff but nobody can make
those good criticisms because they're
too like obsessed over like just trying
to have the anti-establishment answer
and that is what is upsetting me the
most like I think there are good
conversations to be had about a lot of
stuff related to how we handled the
Corona virus you know were lockdowns
effective was there enough data to
support the huge measures we took um you
know why didn't we have the option to
show I was infected a month ago why do I
need to be vaccinated why did why wasn't
that option ever in the United States I
don't think it was um there are really
good questions to be asked there but all
the people asking the questions are also
trying to tell you that iorm and
monoclonal antibodies are the way to go
for everything and the vaccine is evil
and it's going to turn you gay like the
frogs and it's like Jesus like you can't
there's like no place to reasonably
criticize from because all of the people
that are criticizing aren't doing it
with an open mind or you know they're
not reading studies or doing anything
they're saying like I do my own research
which means they listen to whatever the
last guy Joe Rogan said and now they're
parting that opinion
100% the last guy on Joe ran not joean
okay that Robert Malone guy on Joe ran
got me real fired up one guest people
see him as like the father of mRNA
technology he published one paper okay
what do you mean people which people
think that Joan fans I get like I I run
into these people I start arguing with
people and they start setting me what
about I'm a Jo Rogan fan and I
appreciate the vaccine that's good I'm
glad you do but there's definitely like
so but you said there's a type there's a
type what's the type what's the type of
Joe Rogan fan anti-establishment I think
that's not Joe Rogan that's like that's
a general public discourse there's a
default anti establishment on the on the
right and the left that's the default
easy thing to go to I think Joe Rogan
fans are definitely a certain type of
anti-establishment though like I could
guess the Joe Rogan like if I were to do
general population versus Joe ran fan
who do you think is more likely to be
antivaccine do you have data on this are
you just guessing yeah just guessing
yeah I think you are actually judging I
am I think you're judging cuz I think
you're
also the beautiful thing about
podcasting this could be similar in
streaming is there's a large number of
people that just listen like what what
does it mean to be a Joe Rogan fan I
don't think you just listen I think
people listen and absorb the information
I would say that The Joe Rogan fan base
is as divided in the vaccine as the
general public gotcha man I'm going to
look for polling data on that I'm sure
somebody's got to have done it out there
but no but you're you're basically
revealing the fact they have no data
you're using your own judgment for sure
uh based on how he's had conversations
about how his experience with the Corona
virus and then based on the guests that
have come on that have talked and echoed
a lot of like antia talking points and
been completely unchallenged and then
based on statements he's made about like
myocarditis and the vaccine and
everything as well yeah so the it's the
level of challenge or not that he's
doing M well yeah and then what his true
positions are and then the types of
guests he typically chooses to bring on
to talk about the vaccines yeah okay but
that represents somehow a deep
anti-establishment
feeling versus just the vaccine I mean
I've seen the vaccine and other things
being a thing that broke people all the
Corona virus that whole one or two years
broke a lot of people there's a lot of
emotion and the emotion quickly uh
solidified into an opinion that almost
had nothing to do with like Reon like
thinking through and updating your
knowledge and so on you just made up a
made up your mind yeah but I think a lot
of it comes from that anti-establishment
place like what the vaccine represents
the ultimate of establishment it was a
huge private company backed by a huge uh
public government and there's fouchy and
there's Biden and there's fizer and
there's all these countries locking us
up in our homes telling us to do a thing
like the vaccine was like the ultimate
like submission tool to like show you
that the government owns you not only
you have to get ejected once it's a
series and then you got to get boosters
and it's like they're trying to keep you
under their thumb and it's that's the
control um I Feel Like That vaccine
became like the ultimate rallying cry
between like do you support are you a
sellout that is going to believe
whatever the government tells the Sheep
to take or are you going to be like the
guy that stands against the crowd and
gets fired from his job and pulls his
kids from school because they're not
going to let the evil fouchy medicine
you know jab them in the arm and the
funny thing is the crowd that stands
against the institution is now larger
than the crowd of sheep there's like one
sheep standing there sure yeah or it
feels that way sometimes one vaccinated
sheep but okay uh what's the defense of
Institutions how do you regain the trust
of Institutions like for first of all do
you think that there's ways in which wh
CDC failed and do you think there's
criticism towards fizer and the big
Pharma companies that's deserved damn
the Pharma companies I'm not sure um for
CDC and so here's a criticism that I
have of all of Academia and I feel it
stronger and stronger every day I don't
think it's enough to be a researcher or
to be correct about issues Academia
needs to increase its ability to
communicate um it is just an an
unbelievable unmitigated failure that
academics are unwilling to weigh into
the complicated topics uh that exist
today because other people are you know
first you call me spineless and then you
call me a bad communicator but no look
you're here you're doing it so you get
props for me okay good job that
motherfuck but there are like so many
but I'm sure youve I'm sure that you
must have um heard another fellow
academic a fellow colleague express some
amount of frustration about like in
their specific discipline they know
something to be true and they know that
like a lot of the messaging is like
wrong or bad in the public about it but
they're never going to step out and say
anything because either one they're very
measured and careful with their take
which they feel is incompatible with
what people want to hear or two they're
really worried that they might be
incorrect so they're going to be
cautious while everybody else is going
out in like hardcore their and they also
don't have the support of Institutions
for them to go on a limb yeah that too
so like to take risks for example I've
heard that with u lab League Theory I've
had a lot of biologist biologist friends
that are like yeah it's obviously leaked
from the lab like early on oh maybe okay
we can fight over this one but sorry
guys we can fight over this well like
they okay I I should sort of back step
and say like that's like you talk about
shooting the shit you haven't really
investigated but it's your gut like this
doesn't make any sense there would never
say that publicly of course mostly
because you're saying like what they
would all say is like we want to see
data yeah which would be good which is
fine so they're going with like like
this just too many coincidence in the
same place that's the the logic but they
don't want to say anything because
there's no data you need to have
evidence you need to have actual
evidence to say one way or the other
there's that but there's also just like
you said I mean effect effective
communication you're a fan of Sean Carol
one of yes he's like one of the only
people in this whole planet that I like
besides you I love Sean that's anytime
Sean Carol's brought up as evidenced
there's a smile that comes over your
face of like Joy of like a little kid
thinking about Santa Claus okay I love
Sean Carol
too I love Sean Caroll because there I
hate this divide between like your
either stem or your like philosophy arts
and all that other stuff and the Two
Worlds can over cross and I love that he
was so good at physics but like explores
and pays attention to all of the like
sociological stuff too it's so rare to
find that quality in a person he's legit
one of the really really really
specializ but you don't have to be a
Sean Carol you can be just a little
better at educating another person in
the uh in the medical and the health
space is somebody named Andrew huberman
a friend of mine from uh Stanford he's
an incredible educator there's the kind
of process in science they usually call
like review or survey papers where you
basically summarize all that's going on
integrate it and like draw wisdom from
it and also project like where is the
discipline headed and Andrew does that
basically on all these subcomponents of
the different stuff going on in in
neuroscience and biology neurobiology
all that he's able to he does a podcast
called hubman lab where he just
summarizes all and is able to explain
like what does that actually mean for
your for your life in terms of Protocols
of how to make your life better I feel
like people should be able to do that
more and more but with vir virology and
oh boy that's a tricky one that's a
really tricky one I wish that people
could have honest conversations like I
attack a lot of people that do the La
League Theory stuff but truly we should
be able to have that conversation
publicly it just it always feels like
the people that are having the
conversation don't ever really want to
have the conversation they're not being
honest like every like I'm a guy that
like does his own research and it's so
boring reading studies and a lot of it I
can only do abstracts and like I like
it's so much work but I'll never ever
say that about myself I'm a guy that
does his own research because every time
I hear somebody say that they don't do
any research when they say they do their
own research with they mean as they've
seen one podcast and their opinion on is
what podcast is that definitely not mine
CU it was mine I wouldn't be criticizing
anything they say um but yeah so like La
leak is another one where it's like well
how do you know it's lab leak how do I
know it's La leak uh because fouchy lied
and Hunter Biden laptop and it's okay
come on you haven't engage with it at
all there's really interesting research
that shows there a really strong study
that shows that there's like a high
degree of certainty that it came from
the weet markets very very high degree
of certainty and there there was an
article that came out recently where
it's like Senate concludes that virus
actually came from uh the Wuhan virology
lab or whatever um and that article if
you actually read it it never says that
in the article I don't know why they
tweeted it with that headline um but
yeah it's to back up I'm sorry I think
we should have good you should be sorry
yeah I'm not sorry actually I get to
ramble here okay I'm here for a long
time I resend my apology okay I actually
resend my apology um we should be able
to have challenging conversations about
things but you got to man be well read
on both sides not not this like I do my
own research so I don't believe anything
that fouchi say like come on dude you
can do better than that not you
personally but gotcha how does that
feel feels uh so for people who don't
know that's the catchphrase gotcha
through all tragedy and Triumph through
all the roller coaster of Life your
response to it is gotcha yeah it's uh
well actually let me jump to that be
before I continue
to with with political discourse um
psychologically you are in a lot of
heated debates and you're usually super
calm Under Fire until you're not
sometimes you lose your temper
completely very rarely but that's like
your opinion man let me ask you about
your psychology what are psychologically
your strengths and weaknesses that
you're self-aware about I think I'm very
non-judgmental so I can entertain a lot
of different thoughts without agreeing
with them or condoning them um I think
that's a really big benefit to me um for
whatever reason I seem to be like pretty
calm in dealing with annoying people um
it's why I got promoted at the casino so
fast I could deal with like drunks or
whatever like it just didn't affect me
that much what percent of the population
annoying depends on how you're engaging
with them most people aren't really
annoying ever but you're doing like
political debate um how what percentage
is annoying I guess depends on who I'm
debating and what the topic is well I I
guess I'm trying to point out the fact
that sometimes you can
say that reveals something about you if
you think a large percent of people are
annoying well I would say working
graveyard shift when alcohol is involved
that percentage of people goes very very
very high or to be more fair actually
it's not a high percentage truly but if
you're a server one bad customer can
ruin the rest of your shift so you only
need like one or two people acting in
that manner to just like totally throw
you off and you're able to at least
these days not allow that one customer
to throw you off quote unquote yeah I'm
very much like a um I noticed this
especially after having a son there's
something about like six-year-old kids
or whatever where it's like if they get
mad they're never going to be mad for
that long like they'll move on like
that's my mentality I'm like a
six-year-old kid like I might be mad
about something but I'll get over in
like 30 minutes or an hour like yeah um
I'm pretty good about not caring caring
that through it it's very rare that I'll
like hold a grudge against anybody or
like be angry about something or really
disaffected by something over the long
term that almost never happens to me
what are your weaknesses psychologically
would you say I still have a problem
with projecting I think we all probably
do but like my mind onto others it's
like if I understand this and I've said
this you should understand it and if
you're not you're dumb um that's like an
issue that I I still have that where I
project too much what about like holding
grudges and stuff like that I'd never
hold grudges I'm like the least grudging
person ever it's kind of a m of my
community cuz anybody can always like
come back um as long as they're acting
different yeah what about the as long as
they're acting different see I mean all
right the reason why I say that is
because um so for instance nobody likes
this but I have a strong stance on
apologies and that I hate them I don't
ever want to hear an apology I don't
care about them ever they don't mean
anything to me if you did something bad
as long as you've like fixed the
behavior and you're not doing that thing
then we're generally chill so like
there's been a lot of people that have
been involved in weird stuff with me but
then like they they go off they do their
thing and they come back and it's like
okay cool as long as you don't do it
again like we're fine like it's all good
yeah I'm sorry you feel that
way it's not your fault Stephen it's not
your fault okay gotcha you said plenty
of negative stuff positive stuff and
negative stuff about Hassan yeah this is
my podcast I get to get you to force you
to say positive things what do you love
I'm All About Love let's go back to
Gilling me on the RW word stuff you're
going to make me compliment Assan this
is going to be a harder conversation
than that all right
you're there's we're going to get you to
feel emotion
okay uh so he's for people who don't
know he's another popular political
streamer I think you had uh as the kids
called it a bridge burning over Bernie
Sanders I don't know my research is very
limited on this but um what do you
respect and love most about Hassan he
puts in a lot of work when he was like
growing his stream from 2,000 concurrent
viewers to 15,000 he was streaming like
it was like 12 hours a day like every
single day um so that was Adam did a lot
of work um he does seem to be pretty
good at networking and like socializing
and making the correct friends and
connections to continue to build his
business what about him as a political
thinker I know you don't think highly of
him on that on that regard but I think
that's unfair I think that's unfair I I
honestly want to push back on that
because okay I have zero respect for him
as a political
thinker there's not going to be almost
anything oh I will say I I admire the
fact that through no actual capability
or ability of his own he manages to wind
up at some of the correct answers just
cuz he's Towing the line so good job for
him on that he's got a lot of correct
opinions just he has no idea why so I
think that's undeserved I think that's
too harsh Man Okay the reason I bring
that up because I feel like there is a
deep Grudge in there somehow so you're
the the father now so since you're so
old the grandfather of the uh political
debate on stream on live stream
political debater so there could be some
Grudge about that split that happened or
not enough credit given or all that kind
of stuff I just I just think he's
somebody that has a a left leaning
ideology that's different than yours he
was a Bernie supporter right and I guess
you were not can you can you explain to
me where the division is he exemplifies
everything that I absolutely hate about
politics which is shallow engagement uh
heavily ideologically driven and you're
not ideologically driv absolutely not
that's what we're talking about like the
free thinker in the real meaning of that
word yeah so the way let me let me
qualify issue thinking let me qualify
what I mean when I say that um I spent a
lot of time unfortunate time delving
into the boring world of philosophy I
spent a lot of time thinking about like
what are my ethical positions how do I
feel about myself the people around me
and how that relates to the world around
me and then from all of these positions
I think you might have used the phrase
first principles earlier um from these
kind of like first principles out of
that is where all of my political
positions are built out of like full
stop so if you ask me a question like
how do you feel about like the right to
own a firearm or how do you feel about
social Healthcare like we can walk
through well this is how I feel about it
as like a thing from the government this
is where the government gets its power
this is ethically how groups of people
are supposed to function this is morally
how we relate to each other and
personally this is how I feel like like
I'll be able to do every single
political belief back there it's not
like I'm telling you like if I were to
ask kassan um what do you feel about
this political topic he's going to tell
me what progressives are supposed to say
I don't know what he thinks about it I
don't know don't you think that's a
cynical take why is he just because his
views coin side with the mainstream
narrative mainstream viewpoints of
progressive thinkers this I mean why
does that mean he's not thinking because
his engagement with every subject is
incredibly shallow 100% predictable like
I could write like a I could probably
program a script to like give you every
single potential answer you could have
to any single question you could give
him again I think that's pretty cynical
take okay it could be the case that his
brain perfectly aligns with every single
M no but I don't know if you know it
it's perfectly aligns cuz I think you're
just taking a very select just like
streamers do of each other a very select
slice that represents the perfect
alignment as opposed to looking at a
person struggling with ideas and
thinking through ideas and then giving
him a pass like a lot of people like I
give you a pass
on just the fact that you say a lot of
crazy shit on stream for drama like
which is I don't say things for drama it
might be dramatic but I mean you've
evolved as a fish evolves legs you've
evolved a mechanism about which creates
controversy sure that that you could say
it's not intention but it happens I
think okay sure the extremist kind of
learn that kind of thing and so I'm sure
Hassan does the same kind of stuff and
so like underneath it there's still a
thinking being that's that's contending
with political ideas you don't think so
he does a really good job at hiding it
there are other political figures that I
really don't like that I wouldn't say
the same thing about so like I don't
know if you V written in there I'm like
okay that's a person that he also split
out of my community and grew to
something and know he hates me and he's
an anti-an Community they all hate tell
me something you love about Vos I can
tell you a lot of things about Vos I
think Vos legitimately thinks through a
lot of his political positions um I
admire or did admire that he has like
his own like positions that he would
take sometimes contrary to people
further left than him um he's got some
positions that don't fit his ideology
kind of at all like he's his own
independent thinker rhetorically he's
very effective he was willing to sit
down and do research for like his
debates and everything um he would spend
a lot of time practicing like his
rhetorical Effectiveness and navigating
conversations uh he intentionally and
purposefully built like a community that
exemplified his values yeah I've I've
got a lot I don't we we are completely
split and hate each other now but like I
have a lot why why why ha first of all
hate is a strong why why the hate okay I
don't hate him but he hates me because
we had a couple of really big debates
what happened well one had to do with
whether or not you should live your
values and can you give me the story
that's a charitable interpretation I
always give charal interpretation you
don't I absolutely do don't wait name
one time I have't 5 minutes ago you
talking about
everything I said about is true there is
no Steel Man there okay that's not
charitable that's I'm sorry if you can
if you can prove me wrong I would love
for you to do it okay I'm using my gut
instinct usually when somebody feels
strongly about another person in that
way it's not coming from a place of data
and reason it's coming from a place of
emotion it's coming from a place of
resentment and Grudge and all that kind
of stuff there's deep there's emotions
deep in there so the gotu is hiding the
G the gotu is a is a surface of an
iceberg and there's a deep ocean
underneath that you yourself have not
explored I disagree but I understand why
and La is actually a doorway the young
La is a doorway for you to explore the
depths of get into that ocean to find my
fish my pre- evolve form yeah um I
understand why you think the way you do
and you should you shouldn't believe me
and I understand that because if
somebody told me the same thing I'd
think you probably just really don't
like this person for a reason or two I I
understand why you think that way okay
the reality is though for any political
person that I disagree with like I can
give them a fair Shake it's one of the
few things I think I do exceedingly well
on my stream even with hisan there's
been drama that he's been involved in
and I've like very when I'm involved in
drama he'll always throw me under the
bus but when he's involved in stuff I'll
always like oh like I think his son was
right here or I think that he meant this
um there was a there was a thing that
came up once we're on live stream fail
he was getting roasted because he
referred to somebody he used the
expression shit skin to refer to
somebody's like the way they looked and
I have only ever heard that in the
context of forch people talking about
like Indians or like black people
like it's a racial thing but I could
tell the context and everything that he
was saying he was insulting some guy I
think he was called like Insel Virg
whatever he was going for like acne skin
I think that's what he meant when he
said it and there were a whole bunch of
people that were insulting like oh my
god did he just say racist ter I was
like no I don't think he was racist I
think he was like he was just reaching
for words and that's what came out um so
like that's an example of me being Char
okay but didn't you criticize him for
something I I was trying to I like
Googled why the hell you guys split out
cuz I thought your friends you should be
like split up Harris video but go ahead
what were is that what is that the so so
did I feel like you criticized them over
something and I okay this is very vague
memory but you criticize him over
something and I felt that criticism
wasn't charitable was it Pete Budd stuff
yeah Pete budich yes yes yes yes yes
yeah so I've said this a million times
but there no amount of context or no
amount of nuances is ever acceptable
people I don't think Hanan is homophobic
but I think the comments made about Pete
booty judge were really homophobic
that's what he said right yeah and there
were a lot of people making a lot of
comments that made me really
uncomfortable about Pete Buddha judge
that was insane to me spurred by the
comments of Hassan no but it was an
environment of progressives all the
progressives were attacking Pete and I
felt like his gayness became like the
subject of why why throw Hassan under
the bus for that CU he was jumping along
with all of those types of like insults
you don't think you've done the same
kind of stuff if I do call me out it and
I'll probably say I shouldn't have done
that that's what the r word was about
that's a good call out yeah no but like
you're friend like you should privately
tell them right like hey well no by then
we were sworn enemies so so that wasn't
the reason no no no it was over a KLA
Harris video sworn enemies he hates me
what am I listen for all of these people
I will accept them back into my life if
they ever want to come back in at any
point but usually they're the ones that
if they correct themselves right no not
I'm not expecting anybody here's so
here's the deal with Vos and ass son
these are like the three we're the three
guys onine none of us will talk to each
other um Hassan because he won't give
clout to anybody and Vos because um he
thinks I'm bad faith and then neither of
them will talk to me because they both
hate me you guys should go like on a
camping trip together it's like broke
back M but three-way and just like
rejoin refind appre for each other
honestly just from the internet
perspective for me as a just stepping
into this world um there's some aspect
to which you have a responsibility I
hate that word you have an you have an
opportunity I I wish you guys would kind
of be the beacon of like uh forgiveness
and friendship and like camaraderie and
that I agree and even if we disagree it
would be really good content for us to
AR shit talk like friends shit talk sure
versus not like the fact that you guys
don't talk to each other like I would
love for you to shit talk publicly with
the camaraderie always there like
there's love in the in the beginning
love in the end but you beat the shit
out of each other in the middle and
that's what live streaming is for
political discourses that's that's great
political discourse versus I think what
underlies it some jealousy and so on
with you get this many
follow I just want to make sure you're
clear to your AUD everybody has to your
audience I'm sure you have flaws and I'm
just not in this Dynamic hard to find
you know cuz I'm your only flaw is
you're too modest yeah so what why did
you guys split up because I I I would
love it honestly just let me just put
that idea out there for you guys to to
to make up and yeah it's out there of
course it's everybody talks meos anisan
it's crazy that like the three largest
like political debate left leaning
people online like can't do any type of
content or collaboration at all it's so
stupid yeah what was the reason you guys
split up the the com Harris so Hassan's
entry into kind of like the twitch
political debate world was in I think
2018 I think he did a debate with
Charlie Kirk and he reached out to me to
kind of like review that debate to like
go on to go over it on stream and he
came on we went over it and then we kind
of a friendship developed we hung out in
real life I think when I came to La I
think I slept on his couch we played
with his dog we were like kind of
friends um and as time went on I think
he was a little bit
more um he was farther left than he let
on so like I was a Social Democrat he
was a Social Democrat but back in those
days like 2018 when people said they
were a Social Democrat they really meant
socialist but they just didn't want to
say it so he was farther left than me
and we had a lot of deep divides in our
approach to politics um whereas like I
was very much like a first principles
this is my whole political position and
he was very much kind of like a this is
like the political ideology I'm involved
in and this is kind of like the field
that I kind of like navigate in so there
were a couple instances where these
divides would be laid very bare one was
when I it was either him or The Young
Turks I think it was him there was a
shooting in a neighborhood where very
young black child gets killed by a white
shooter and they did a video about like
hate crimes and how hate crimes are on
the rise between races and white people
are evil and blah blah blah not not that
but like white people committing hate
crimes against black people and I
remember saying to him I was like hey we
don't have all the data yet for this it
feels really bad B to make videos about
this beforehand CU this is the same type
of shit that happens at airports you
know uh is there a thing going on was it
a brown person are they Muslim it's
Islamic extremism we see this played out
so many times in recent history probably
not a good idea to jump to conclusions
and he's like well no you don't
understand like it's not that big a deal
whatever and obviously as The Story Goes
Taylor's old as time the data comes out
it was just an errant shot there was
like gang violence shot goes out of
nowhere hits a kid in the car it wasn't
like a hate crime the guy was trying to
kill a kid but yeah we basically we we
bump up against a few kind of political
disagreements like this
and an annoying thing is happening in my
community where Hassan is like the
serious political figure cuz he's from
The Young Turks and I'm just kind of
like I do politics but I also game and
anytime I criticize Assan people like
Destiny you need to be more respectful
he does this fulltime if you're going to
bring criticisms you need to be like
really well read and researched because
he's got a you know more serious
whatever which I thought was ridiculous
so by the way for people who don't know
he worked at The Young Turks which is
like the largest left-leaning YouTube
channel probably or us at least at the
time yeah so finally he did a video on
skip ahead to some more minor
disagreement he does a video on kamla
Harris he calls it Cala Harris and it's
like seven or eight horrible things
about kamla Harris and I'm like okay I
know at least one or two of these things
are not fully accurate so I'm going to
do all the research I'm going to have
all the sources and we're going to have
a long conversation about it so that now
when I provide criticism to him it's not
going to be like this horrible like just
me saying something flippantly or
whatever it's going to be like
substantial criticism so I was on a
plane ride um JFK to Orlando whatever uh
flying to Sweden to visit my wife and
on the plane I review all the video all
the data do all the research and I write
everything I'm was like okay I get to my
um my wife's dad's house and I'm at the
table we're having a conversation like
hey we should talk about the kamla
Harris stuff and he's like okay well
let's do it and we go over it and I'll
leave to the audience to watch the video
enough people will say this I feel
pretty confident saying this I was
pretty reasonable pretty measured pretty
calm the whole time and I think he
started to get increasingly irritated
that I was levying like more and more
serious criticisms at like the quality
of work that he did um probably because
he felt a little bit intimidated I think
by my willingness to like dive through
political stuff there' been a couple of
awkward blowups where like on um there's
like a show called the Raj Royale where
sometimes politics would come up and
Hassan would kind of try to explain
something and there was another person
one time on the show that made the joke
it's like instead of Hassan taking 10
minutes to explain this cantin he just
come here and explain it in 30 seconds
and he like exploded that he got so
fucking mad at that um so yeah I think
that when I made that kind of call out
or critique of him over the KL Harris
stuff he's probably feeling like
increasingly irritated threatened
agitated and then that's kind of what
began the huge split from our so you
don't think you were a dick at all I
don't think so in that conversation um
especially given that like at that point
because this is still 2018 or 20 this
might be 2019 I'm still known at that
point as being very aggressive towards
conservatives or all writers oh gota
yeah so and with lefties is what I call
them I think I'm being like very gentle
like my conversation start with
conservatives like you're a fucking
idiot you're so don't like that's how
I'm like doing so like with him I'm like
well don't you think that like this is
like a little bit of like an
inconsistent presentation how like I
feel going be nice but I always leave to
the audience they can go and watch that
kamla video kamla Harris video Destiny
of son if they think that I was being a
d but a lot of people watching said I
was being pretty gentle so well let me
say yeah as a new fan of this space I
hope you guys make up and I hope you
guys fight it out in the space of
discourse and ideas me too and also with
empathy understanding what the strength
of the other person is what their
buttons are and and you know there's
like an unspoken rule that you don't
press the buttons that you don't need to
unless you're doing it mutually and it's
fun because you know you it's fun to
piss each other off so yeah course
that's kind of like what friends do you
don't cross a certain line U but then
other than that you fight it out okay
let's step back one other super
interesting aspect of your worldview is
your big supporter of Biden can you
explain what you love about Biden do you
love Biden more than Sean Carroll or
less Sean Carol is just like in another
world of gotcha admiration I feel like
I'm culturally appropriating You by
saying gotcha now but it's so convenient
it's an easy word you're just I now
we're on the same wavelength okay we're
synchronizing that's good I mean it is
really interesting because even the
people that support bid usually don't
say they love sort of they don't support
it strongly you know ideologically
philosophically the reason why I like
Biden is cu he's really committed to
this bringing the left and right
together which is something we so
desperate certain need in the country
and his you know statements over and
over again of like I'm not uh the
Democrat president or the Republican
president I'm the president of the
United States his desire to bring
Republicans together to work on things
like the infrastructure bill um that's
so incredibly needed and I have a huge
amount of respect and admiration for him
for trying to push through on that
message do you think then it's
unfortunate that he made that comment
about magga magga Republicans yeah I
mean I forget what the comment was but
it's Maga Republicans are not good
people kind of thing I watched the full
video and he's right there is this toxic
aspect and it's hard to call out because
they're always going to spend like oh he
hits our Republicans he's not if you
watch the quote he's very specifically
calling out like this this group of
people that think that the election was
fraudulent is it clear what he meant by
we can bring it up all right this is oh
no uh oh but I remember watching our
stream was like if you said it yeah
that's bad you can probably like YouTube
magga Republicans Biden but like it
feels like it's pretty clear he's
talking about the people that are like
election denying to much of what's
happening in our country today is not
normal Donald Trump and the magga
Republicans represent an extremism that
threatens the very foundations of our
Republic now I want to be very clear
listen to this great clear up
front not every Republican not even the
majority of Republicans are magga
Republicans not every Republican
Embraces their extreme
ideology I I know CU I've been able to
work with these mainstream
Republicans but there's no question that
the Republican party today is dominated
driven and
intimidated by Donald Trump and the
magga
Republicans and that is a threat to this
country I disagree with that man he
didn't Clearly say extremist ideology he
didn't say the people that doubt the
validity of the election I mean that's
Donald Trump no but there's that's all
the candidates that Donald Trump is
supporting how many what is it like 40
50 how many candidates right now that
are Mega candidates are elections but
there's uh you know 80 million or
whatever people voted for Donald Trump
you could say that's the magga
Republicans so to me it sounded like he
was referring to not even the majority I
mean that that's one nice helpful
clarifying statement but it's basically
there's the mainstream Republicans and
then there's those that voted for Donald
Trump that's the way I heard it okay and
like so maybe should have done a better
job at clarifying but yeah I feel like
there's like a clear there is a huge
problem with this group of Americans
that think that like the election is
stolen I feel like that's what he's
trying to call no
matter if that's what he meant even
flirting with that line is not a person
who's bringing people together I feel
like the extending a hand to the like
most I've worked with republicans in
Congress not all not even a majority of
Republicans are like this no but why say
not the majority of Republicans that
like this say like we are like a we're
one country we believe the same thing so
like focus on the uniting part versus
say maybe he does before and after that
was 50 seconds okay but that you never
the point is you never say something
like that listen like that you you've
spoken about the Bosnia speech which is
your favorite of his yeah I went back to
and listen to it before I move to that
just on this it's really hard for him to
call out that group of like election
deniers I think without it always
feeling like well why call them out
because it's arguably one of the most
destructive forces that exist in this
country today did it destroy anything
they were trying to did it though it
didn't did it so does that mean we don't
call it out we wait till next time no
because calling it out is giving fuel to
the division like the people that
doubted the validity of the election
that's anger that's frustration with the
other side you heal that as opposed to
saying all those people that believed
that at any time are idiots they're
American I mean they don't think the
election was real I don't know if Biden
has the ears of these people at all I
don't know what he can do for there's
people that believe the same thing on
the in 2016 with the Russian hacking
right there's this hold on yes that is a
super not fair
comparison there were definitely the
mainstream Democrat opinion was that
Russian um intrusion in terms of like
social media and stuff happened but
there was never a claim that like the
election was stolen no or at least I
don't know of any mainstream Democrat
that supported that Donald Trump is not
just saying there was interference and
blah blah blah Donald Trump is literally
saying the election was literally stolen
that vote boxes were ballot boxes were
hidden that vote tallies were
manipulated that I think the claim is
there's a huge Gulf of difference
between the two so you can attack Donald
Trump for that yeah I believe it's not
the words of a uniter to
attack people that believe
that you could argue maybe it's okay but
especially not being super clear about
that about who you're referring to when
you say magga Republicans okay cuz
Maga is a
hat and a slogan that refers
to whatever the number is 70 million
people whoever they voted for Donald
Trump like of all the Republicans that
consider Mega Republicans what
percentage of them do you think believe
the election was stolen I feel like that
number is I don't have the P but I feel
like number is like probably more than
70% what's what's the magga Republican
maybe I'm not like a trump like a trump
supporting Republican magga Republican
they're there for Trump what's the
difference between somebody that voted
for Trump and uh Maga Republican and a
magga republican so my mom is a Maga
Republican if Trump ran independently
and Des santz ran under the Republican
ticket my mom would vote for Trump
She'll follow him to the end of the
Earth that's like a Maga Republican I
think it's easy to mistake that
distinction in these kinds of political
speeches CU to me anybody who voted for
Trump can easily in the in the context
of the speech be interpreted as a MAG of
Republican
gotcha I understand what you're saying
maybe he could have been more clear but
like I think in listening to that like I
think it's pretty obvious who he's
talking about but I guess if you're have
an emotional response to it I can
understand the emotional response but
there's a lot of people I don't have an
emotional response I just don't like I
think uh I'm with what is it Michelle
Obama they go low we go high meaning
like to me a uniter doesn't participate
in
sure uniter might not but a leader has
to be able to accurately assess the
situation before him and make people
aware of what's going on you mean all
the impeachment trials all the censoring
from social media all of that didn't do
the job that's not his job I don't know
about censoring that mechanism his job
is to inspire a nation to unite a nation
how can he do that when half the people
don't believe that he was even
legitimately elected like I think he's
done a good job at working on
legislation and doing stuff that
hopefully benefits all Americans but I
think it's important to recognize that
like there is a contingent of Americans
that
don't even believe like this iszy there
plenty of people that recognize that and
are fighting that and are constantly
screaming that from the rooftops his job
is to be the inspiring figure that makes
the majority of Americans be proud for
him to be a president of of the nation
they love and that's what the uniting
aspect is is you remind people that we
are one and we love this country we love
the ideas that it represents does that
in other parts of that speech it's like
a 20-minute speech isn't it but that's
that's a fuckup you just don't
participate in that division anyway I I
I understand I understand I just wanted
to push back on the saying one of the
his strength is that he's uh he's
uniting but yes that that is an ideal
that is a goal is a great one and he is
one that um espoused that goal uh for a
long time do you think um what else so
from policy perspective and so on I
thought the way he's handled Ukraine and
everything thus far has been almost
perfect I think did a really good job um
at at the political maneuvering at
bringing other countries into the fold
at establishing clearly like what our
mission was in relation to Ukraine I
thought he did a good job there um I
admire him for pulling out of
Afghanistan even it was a little bit
rough on the edges like we got out and
we're gone no American lives are lost um
the uh domestic policy he's passed more
major legislation than I think anybody
thought possible um the green energy
stuff with the last bill the
infrastructure bill um a lot of the
coron virus relief I thought was really
good especially the expansion of the
child tax credit um so from a policy
perspective foreign and domestic I think
he's been successful rhetorically I
think he's generally been above board in
terms of like not attacking people being
too divisive um he's trying to bring
people together and work on them what do
you think about the sort of popular in
the media criticism of his mental
decline do you think he's experiencing
know he's an guy but do you think I
mean yeah maybe a little bit but he's
still doing a good job so you know not
from a speech perspective you mean from
a policy perspective yeah I'm analyzing
it as a job yeah from speech perspective
maybe not the greatest but um yeah I
mean he's definitely what is he like 80
81 how old is he I lose track after so
many years yeah MH but you did say that
he's probably going to run in 2024 and
he's probably going to win did I say
that that he's probably going to win no
way did I say that somewhere he's
probably going to run okay uh who knows
who will win but I think um I feel like
the incumbent Advantage is so strong you
really going to throw that away like
think it's been like one or two times in
history in the US right where like the
non-incumbent they the parties put
somebody else up yeah I mean the the
concern is like the just the age and the
the the mental decline just the the wear
and tear of the campaign all that kind
of stuff all the speech you have to make
the debates and all that kind of stuff
yeah I guess we see what
happens what the least excited uh I mean
two years for now was a long time and
his current mental state he could run
and do it he could do a passible job in
two years man I don't know I've seen
videos of Bill Clinton recently he's
looking pretty rough um you know if
Biden is looking a lot more rough
worse for wear in two years than maybe
they actually do have to dig out another
person uh for run you who
knows what do you think about Trump when
he won in 2016 I think is when you came
to fruition politically speaking so what
do you think his winning the 2016
election
represents so for me Trump the the
reason why I got into politics um was
Trump was like this new epistemic force
in American politics that like You' kind
of have to like flirt with facts before
even if you wanted to be non-factual he
super didn't care lying was like a first
language to him just like and speaking
in terms of like the the way that he
used language to just say to you what he
felt like you needed to hear to support
him and not care at all about what is
going on about yeah that that's that's
what Trump represented to me in terms of
like things that I cared about he also
represents a lot more obviously that
there was this undercurrent of American
opinion that a lot of people didn't know
still existed and it did he got elected
um that the Overton window was
misidentified by even a large amount of
the Republican party that populism was a
lot more popular than a lot of people
figured you know yeah there's a lot that
I guess you represent on you do you
think Trump should have been banned from
Twitter can you make the case for and
against it so you're a big supporter of
free speech yeah so the case in favor of
do you think he should be brought
back as Elon tweet yeah because if gets
brought back there's a higher chance it
I'll be brought back so I'm supporting
that all the way thank you Elon unban my
account um so because you called me week
spine I'm going to have to message Elon
okay omnidestiny it was a verified
Twitter account Omni Destiny no no I'm
just kidding why'd you get banned from
Twitter Destiny I don't know I'll add
that to Elon I saw that there was a
screenshot of you uh referring to the
rape of somebody okay that was on an
older Twitter account and that was a bad
tweet you have multiple Twitter account
so you're trying to um go around the
bands that you keep getting okay hold on
you're slandering me a lot right now
okay let's get the facts straight okay I
don't even remember why my first account
got banned but it was a wild account I
tweeted some wildly inappropriate things
you regret I don't like that word I'm
going to give the answer that most
people give it's like I don't regret it
because I learned a lot so I'm glad I
had the bad experiences that I did why
don't you like the word regret I think
if we look at where we are how do you
feel about determinism
uh I believe in hard the hardest of
determinism that's who I am okay so who
I am today is the culmination of
everything that's occurred in the past I
believe you speaking of sorry to inter
uh I believe in you speaking about
regret is a nice way to communicate that
in this deterministic world you've
analyzed the acts of the past and you're
no longer that person yeah of course for
sure that's what that's what regret
usually means okay thanks for giving me
the human explanation okay true so in
that sense there's a lot of things I've
done that I regret oh you're what are
you you're not human you're a bot NPC is
my preferred all right um I wish I would
have been smart enough at the time to
not have to have had made those mistakes
okay there you go good job um but yeah
obviously really dumb really crazy
off-the-wall tweets um but that account
got banned but then I made another
account called I can't believe I'm
giving you a history my Twitter accounts
another account called Omni Destiny it's
an honor um and that was my I got
verified I was cool they let me have
that account cuz originally they banned
it and I said appeal and I was like oh
let me have one more and back then
Twitter was cool and they're like okay
go for it and that account last for a
long time and I don't actually know 100%
why that account got banned um I believe
that the tweet that showed up in the
final I got banned for hate speech and
it was because I was there was a picture
that I tweeted with three different alt
writers that are kind of like Neo-Nazi
people and they were all uh like mixed
race people and I said like the new
altright looks like a Disney Channel
original movie in terms of racial
composition and somehow that got flagged
for instigating violence against
minorities I think I think that's the
tweet that got me banned cuz I think
that's what showed up in the final
report but I don't know maybe there were
other reasons because nobody ever
communicates but ever since that account
went under it's just been ban evading
ever since so oh ban evading ever since
so all my new accounts have got banned
just get banned because they finally
figure out it's me and then they ban a
there's like one dude at Twitter HQ
who's like constantly looking for yeah
my new accounts and they get me yeah
yeah anyway yeah so post post Trump
World um do you think okay I mean this
oh should he be banned oh you asked me
to make both cases um should he be
banned I mean damn dude when you're
tweeting out shit that's arguably
leading stuff like January 6th I can
understand why because it's like what
else is this wild dude going to Tweet
out like is he going to start
instigating other violent events so I'm
sympathetic towards the like okay well
he can't just be here saying stuff like
this that's insane we're going to ban
him um I'm syp because it's instigating
actual physical violence in the physical
world yeah like if I would to Tweet
stuff like that I would get banned
probably on the flip side this is the
president of the United States it seems
like he's like doing presidential decree
by social media sometimes like is it
really right that one public or private
I should say one private company can um
like erase the president of the United
States words from the eyes of a lot of
Americans that are using these social
media feeds um and one big one which I
for sure am against is the permanent ban
yeah I don't like that I hate that even
in my community if somebody comes back
after like a year like I mean did you
just compare yourself to the president
of the United States no I compar myself
to Twitter Banning the president of
United States let me put it this way if
I banned Donald Trump in my chat room
I'd unban him in a year a year yeah
what's the process for unbanning Donald
Trump what would he have to do usually
people send me an email they're like
listen I did this stuff I'm sorry I was
dumb I'll give him another chance but a
year what if they send an email a month
later usually I'll unban him that's
usually my I ban pretty quickly my
community but if you ever ask softy yeah
I us should let him back yeah I'm very
well because I used to be the worst type
of internet person and I think I'm a
little bit better than I used to be so
now that you're older yeah now that I'm
matured yeah of course age bestows a
wisdom that just can't be gotten any
other way what's your sense in general
is there something interesting you could
say about your view on Free Speech it
seems like one of those terms that's
also over overused to mean a lot of
different things what does it mean to
you if you have a democratic style of
governance you are entrusting people
with one of the most awesome and radical
of responsibilities and that's saying
that you're going to pick the people
that are going to make some of the
hardest decisions in all of human
history if you're going to trust people
to vote correctly you have to be able to
trust them to have open and honest
dialogue with each other whether that's
Nazis or KKK people or whoever talking
um you have to believe that your people
are going to be able to rise above and
make the correct determinations when
they hear these types of speeches and if
you're so worried that somebody's going
to hear a certain political figure and
they're going to be completely
radicalized instantly then what that
tells me is that you don't have enough
faith in humans for democracy to be a
viable institution which is fine you can
be anti-democratic but you I don't think
you can be pro-democracy and anti- Free
Speech within reason so what's the
within reason so I mean not you can't
post like child porn or something on
Twitter people try to get you on that
stuff or like direct calls to violence
or probably not you shouldn't be
tweeting out like we're going to meet up
tomorrow and go bomb blah blah blah
probably not so do you think it's okay
to allow racism and anti-Semitism and uh
hate
speech hate speech Yes because that's
can be very broadly defined um I can
understand there being some basic rules
of like no slurs on like a platform that
gets into like acceptable forms of
moderation or like excessive harassment
and bullying I can understand um but
past that when when the when the
moderation becomes ideological I get a
little bit nervous because you know for
for there's a whole other host yeah
there of course it's all a gray area but
when it feels like ideology has seeped
into the censorship not good yeah which
it's so fascinating to think especially
now that Elon bought Twitter how do you
engine near A system that prevents
ideology from seeping in and
nevertheless is able to uh create a
platform that has healthy conversations
because if you have one guy who's just
screaming nonsense non-stop it it has
this effect where the quiet voices at
the back of the room are silenced yeah
so like that that's what you usually
don't talk about like if you let one
annoying loud person in that's actually
censoring the voice of a lot of people
that would like to speak but they don't
get a chance that's one of the things
especially around like trans discourse I
have to constantly do that like reminder
for my audience is so like when I'm
dealing with these types people on the
internet a lot of them might seem really
crazy A lot of these types of people
might seem insane but like in the real
world outside of like the crazy Twitter
activist world like the vast majority of
people you're meeting from LGBT
communities are like the coolest
normalist people all they want is to
like right to live their life in the way
they want to and to be like unobstructed
and like yeah but people will get this
impression of like an online activist
like a vegan or LGBT person or whatever
and then they think that every single
person in real life is like that and
it's a really negative stereotype and
then even the other people in that group
oh is mol coming over oh yeah asked I
don't know if that's her okay uh Molina
just joined us what were we talking
about was it interesting you were saying
that you were going to talk to Elon
about getting at Omni Destiny the
verified Twitter account unbanned I said
that's so that sounds like a lie that's
so gracious of you I can't even believe
you would do that for me and then you
admitted that you tried to evade the
band multiple times which I'm sure would
be very uh looked upon you know I heard
that in Norway and their prison system
they don't actually punish you for
trying to escape jail cuz that's like
the natural human thing to do they hug
you what do they I don't know if they
but they don't punish you cuz of course
you're trying to be free that's all I'm
trying to be on Twitter I'm just trying
to be free oh that's the natural human
that's the natural of course it's a bny
you're not a destructive force you're
just no I'm a posit I'm a Force for good
that's why all my accounts only get
banned for bading Ving I don't get
banned for doing bad things and I'm a
progressive shell I'm like far left I
love like Progressive classes this is
what you criticize Assan for being I
show them from a place of first
principles not from a Mindless AI
echoing kind of thing you know okay see
you're freeth thinking bot I got yeah
exactly all right cool uh well I'm sure
we'll return to some politics that was
beautiful uh Mia can can you tell us
about yourself you're also a fellow
streamer what's your story yes I stream
and I started streaming because I met
him basically kind of and but I don't do
the politics I do like travels or talk
about relationships talk to my audience
basically um you're from that part of
the world right Sweden ex so did you
escape from prison and they didn't that
was Norway you just men Norway that's
different I actually really I've been to
Sweden a bunch of times I love it
there's a tech sector there that's
really like flourishing where did you go
which city I went to Stockholm I think I
gave a few lectures there there's a
vibrant Tech sector it was cool and
people are super nice yeah we're
friendly we're not like very deep like
we don't really have much deep
conversation it's like a meta
conversation there's not many
intellectuals that come from Sweden we
don't really speak very highly ourselves
we kind of like just chill all the time
we don't make a scene we don't we're
just like you know do you know what the
name for that is there's a specific name
for it it's the yeah the I think yeah oh
there's a philosophy behind it when
you're part of like Sweden or Norway you
like you don't talk too highly of
yourself cuz it seemen as kind of like
rude like think of like America except
the exact opposite you don't even really
want to like you don't want to make
yourself into a victim too much you
don't want to be too much of anything
you're just like sticking to the to the
group don't make big scene about
yourself but that said you came here and
you were you put yourself in front of
the camera and became a streamer yes do
you understand how weird that is for my
friends in Sweden you I just talk about
myself and just like make a big deal
about myself for hours every day was
that like terrifying did you have
anxiety about that no cuz I don't see
them but then I come back and I'm like
oo so what do you feel like when you're
actually streaming you feel like you're
just alone in a room um oneon-one typee
of thing no I see I see chat I'm
thinking oh they're like a little
fairies they're not really real they're
just like out there I don't know what
they look like I just see little names
and they're just cute just colors you
know talking to little fairies inside
your head I do is that how you feel
about chat they're demons for me but
they're demons okay I are not fairies
are they so is chat a source of stress
or happiness like is there a compl no
for me it's a source of happiness I've
been very intentional with like the
construction of my community so I'm
really happy with where it's at how are
you able to actually have deep political
discourse while playing a video game at
the same time I have a really good chat
room in terms of like the way that
people engage in conversations like I
was one of the earliest people to
embrace the philosophy of like I am in
total control of what people watch me
think that like I have a high level of
responsibility for how they conduct
themselves and that if I conduct myself
in a certain way I can expect a certain
level of conduct from them and for the
most part it's like worked pretty well
for the past you know N9 or 10 years
yeah what about the actual playing of
the game like you're able to parallelize
the brain like oh like it seems like
Factoria seems like a super complex game
yeah I don't actually think that's
possible I don't think multitasking for
a human brand is possible um if you see
me playing a game usually what's
happening is the conversation is like
I've had it a million times so I'm not
thinking about it I've automated that or
if the conversation is very challenging
um then if you watch me if you really
watch what's happened in the game I'm
probably just running around in circles
because I have to think about the
conversation okay because with Factoria
it looks like a lot of stuff is going on
sometimes yeah so I it's hard for uh a
person who hasn't played the game to
detect that you're not do that come off
as like you're super intelligent and
multitask or does it come off as like
he's not interested in this conversation
at all yeah yeah there's a coolness to
it like when you're not paying attention
like if if you're looking elsewhere like
you're checking your phone you're too
cool for this conversation there's a
sense like that yeah the reality is
though is if you watch it was easier to
see in Minecraft cuz in Minecraft when
there was a challenging conversation if
you watch me play I'm literally just
running around and jumping in circles
because I have to think about the
conversation 100% I can't do a
complicated task and think about the
conversation or like that people always
joke in my chat like oh no the notepad
came out if it's a really challenging
conversation I'll get rid of the game
and I'll bring out a notepad and I'll
start writing stuff down to keep track
of what's going on yeah so what kind of
stuff do you stream so advice you talk
about yeah like either I talk to chat or
I travel around basically like we have a
conversations where we like um go to
countries I've been to like Italy I was
in Italy for like one and a half months
just like traveling around alone going
to cities like having like my camera
with me and like streaming for hours
where's the where's the coolest place
you've been to ever it's probably New
Zealand New Zealand I think so yeah
after it's probably going to be Italy I
think because I like history and yeah
also both history cuz New Zealand is
also beautiful mhm both natural beauty
and historical Beauty yeah for sure I
think I just really like the like the
Polynesian sort of culture I think it's
very interesting like the ocean people
and it's just really beautiful people
are very relaxed chill they're very far
away which is interesting as well cuz
whenever they talk about politics or
they talk about um just like the world
it feels really far away so where's home
for you is Austin
home it's home for me so a human being
is home yeah we travel we've lived in a
lot different place and traveled around
so that's what you think of home as like
I think so yeah I mean if there if
they're going to be a place it's
probably going to be like my childhood
places probably yeah like my old country
house or something like that we don't
have it anymore but like that's that's
like home for me I guess so how' you
guys meet each other you're currently
married yes to each other yeah yeah to
each other
yeah just making sure we're on the same
page all right cool how' you guys meet I
was watching his YouTube stuff like 2018
I think like because it was the Swedish
election around that time and I was
interested in politics and then um I
think he said in one of his videos that
he had an Instagram and that he needed
people to stop dming him that wasn't
cutipie and then I messaged him and said
am I a cutipie and then you're a pie in
like two
minutes and then uh that that's when I
was in New Zealand and uh I guess you
wanted to escape America or like laay
for a little bit and uh New Zealand
where were you mentally there like cuz
we've talked to this timeline where's
2018 was it 1819 where was the low point
or that was way earlier low Point carbon
cleaning that was like 200 2010 oh okay
2018 was probably your Peak what do you
every day now was my Peak what do you
mean that was my Peak why would you say
that that okay nobody ever admits being
past their Prime just just so well I
mean my Prime is still it was around it
was probably around the time where were
getting a lot of left days through your
community and you were really like
thinking about that they would go too
far maybe that was I think that was
still when Hassan and Vos were both in
my community exactly so I would say it
feel it feels like there was not really
like much issues when it come to like to
your stuff or like your work stuff back
then oh something we didn't talk about
is it like um there were no Politics on
Twitch I exclusively inhabited that
place for like two years cuz nobody else
did it because it was a really toxic
environment for politics so for a couple
of years as it grew like the I kind of
grew the whole space cuz it wasn't
nobody was doing it yet what did that
look like you're having
like political debates political
discourse yeah mainly like going into
YouTube people to try to argue with them
or just doing Politics on stream like
reading stories researching stuff
talking about stuff but there's not like
other people on Twitch to debate about
politics because there was no politics
it was yeah was there a debate in the
space of Communism socialism social
democ Democrats kind of like this are
you trying to outline your own position
during that time I think it was mainly
me fighting against conservatives
because it was like Trump stuff and then
it was coming off the back of like there
was this movement called gamergate and
there was just all this anti sjw stuff
on the internet and I was like the sjw
like the progressive that was fighting
on the Progressive side of things so I
think that's what I was known for but I
was fighting with people off of twitch
because on Twitch there weren't very
many political discussions happening so
you were holding the sjw flag yeah uh to
what to what degree do you still hold it
like what's the best what's the Steelman
case for sjw I mean like I'm still very
much that sjw from 2018 2019 but the
positions have moved so much F farther
left that I don't some people may not
call me that anymore I'm not sure it
depends on who I'm talking so basically
what is a social justice Warrior like
being sensitive to the experience of
others yeah being sensitive and
empathetic towards the experience of
others and then trying to build a better
world that like suits as many different
types of people as possible while being
like aware of like their needs okay uh
so you guys met from what's your from
your perspective is that did she she she
telling lies is it accurate No it's
pretty accurate accurate okay when did
you guys actually meet I flew out in
2019 19 yeah like in February yeah
basically there's like weird stuff
happening in La I just come off of kind
of a weird not kind of sort of
relationship and I just wanted to like
go away for a while um another company
reached out to me and they had like a
fun streaming device and they said
they'd sponsor a trip if I went
somewhere and I was like oh well I know
this person I know a couple people in
New Zealand Molina's one of them like
I'll go to New Zealand New Zealand it'll
be fun and uh yeah I did that for two
weeks do you guys believe in
love I feel like you you lack the Goa
got us into this I'm not sure the degree
to which you have human emotions I have
quite a few okay from your perspective
when did you when did you fall in love
with M when did you fall in love with
Mellie Mel um M the minute I saw her um
I don't know we our first two weeks
together were a lot of fun we had a lot
of chemistry in person um I was kind of
shocked I wasn't thinking about it cuz
it was like we spent like a week
together and you said I really want to
tell you something and you were like you
were like salling that for the longest
time I think she's oh he said like I
love you no he basically just said like
I really like you and it never really
happens that's what said and I was like
and I thought hey I
thought so let's still ran uh we said
Trump getting banned from Twitter is
that what we were talking about before
oh yeah hey you agreed to me coming on
here of course I'm going to be doing
this so how long did I take two weeks
you said took like a week no I don't
know I think it was just like thing is
my mind processes like information so
quickly two weeks to somebody like you
is actually like years for me so oh like
me yeah so there was like a lot of like
Factoria type of strategic thinking
going on I was seeing like all the
events like Doctor Strange or whatever
in The Avengers when he's like seeing
into all the Futures when you saw me you
just saw the future yeah I was looking
all them you're doing like some game
theoretic simulation of all the possible
outcomes yeah exactly okay um but no
yeah it was probably pretty soon I
realized we had a lot of chemistry and
think before I left after my two weeks
there I was like we need to make sure
you get like a ticket to come visit me
in the United States cuz it'll be fun
and everything and then yeah kind of
decided that last minute too it was like
really like 5 hours before you fly back
we kind of realized cuz it was kind of
like meant as just like a one time thing
and then that was it but we're like oh
no this is a lot of fun we should
probably hang out again oh so you
realized you would miss each other yeah
this was the one time thing The
Melancholy side of Love okay when did
you fall in lowest dude I thought he
like hated me I don't know I thought not
hated me she thinks I but no no I I
remember like what what he said that he
really liked me I was kind of a little
shocked about that cuz I I don't know
there was a lot of like random things
happening in U it was a lot of fun but
it was definitely like very interesting
thing like things that happen um because
I I was like around a lot of other
people as well so I thought he might
have had like a really bad time um but
when he said that I was thinking about
it more and then we spent like more time
together like a week after that and then
I felt like that was more like real and
I think when he was about to leave I
kind of realized like no I really like
him do you guys ever say love to each
other like I love you yeah of course
yeah okay all right wasn't sure why
would you ask that what has you said
before that CU I haven't I haven't I
don't think I've heard you speak the
only time I've heard St talk about love
is when you're like criticizing the the
red pill Community saying they don't
ever talk about love in relationships
almost all the time I'm giving criticism
to people like I said I'm kind of
stepping in I'm very disconnected from
my own emotional experience CU I'm
trying to talk with in theirs so it's
pretty rare that I'll talk about what is
your own emotional experience exactly
highly blunted I guess there's a lot
okay what does that mean uh I mean
what's the what's deep in there are are
you is this just who you are genetically
or are you running from something I
think I have a pretty understanding of
myself a lot of people make that
accusation to me but I don't think I am
okay this is just who you are it's just
who I am yeah okay this is not childhood
stuff like trauma um it's all sorted and
done you figured it all out yeah in your
old age as I grow every year I figure
out more and more he did mention I think
I heard this somewhere that this was a
source of fights for the two of you the
age thing I felt the agism throughout
this whole
conversation um he's basically he's
saying that he gambles like with time
he's just like I think she will be good
later
and then just like like an investment
yeah yeah that's like what he's doing
when this treasury bond matures I'm
going to be able to cash out you think
so far is the stocks going up or um it's
tumultuous what that
meanit oh my God yeah like Bitcoin
crypto Mill all right if you guys don't
mind one interesting aspect of your
relationship is you're in an open
relationship what's that like from a
game theoretic simulation perspective
what went into that calculation and like
how does that like how that started yeah
how did that start sure um the only
relationships I've ever done has been
open relationships since I was like in
high school cuz I didn't really
understand like why wouldn't you be able
to like do other things with other
people but then just like have your main
partner basically so what what is an
open relationship generally speaking
that means you have one main partner non
a monogamous relationship like you're
somehow allowed like in different ways
um you can see other people sexually
sexually but like there is one
main or it doesn't have to be there for
some people but like I think it's
probably easier and we probably don't
really have time or the energy for like
more than like one person to like really
like what about like
emotional really complicated there's a
lot of complicated stuff going on under
the hood there yeah um I think broadly
speaking you've got like polyamorous
relationships and you've got like open
relationships where polyamorous is like
oh I've got like three different
girlfriends and we all hang out or
sometimes even live together or three
boyfriends whatever and then you've got
like open relationships which is like oh
you know like you can basically hook up
with other people and then you've got
like your main relationship and that's
it I think ours is probably somewhere in
the middle of that um to where like
we've got like long-term friends some of
them we hook up with and that's kind of
how we yeah it's a delicate dance that
uh explodes every six months on itself
it does explode you guys fight over it
we fight over some things yeah it things
I think I think it's mostly because a
lot of people can't handle it and they
they agree to something and they realize
that we're way too cool and then they
get really obsessed and they think that
they can like get in there and then it
gets really dramatic mhm have you
figured it out
like I feel like we figure out things
more and more like when it comes to like
what's a good person for us to hang out
and what's not a good person for us to
hang out with or like I probably have
more opinions on like who he hangs out
with because he likes the fucking
psychos yeah so you you like the he
likes the N like The Crazy Ones like the
baby trap sort of women that's the
that's the ones and I don't like that
cuz that affects
me that affects your game theoretic
calculation right uh you like to
surround yourself like in general you've
talked about with crazy people I say
crazy and I really shouldn't it's
humorous it's like yeah they're very
unstable very can be unstable but people
that are very unique like when I meet
this person that's like not boring yeah
not boring yeah and you said that you're
progressively becoming not boring
yourself no I think I'm pretty stable I
don't let them affect me much but so you
don't think they affect your no if I've
said that I've said it joking I think
I've like I've got my stuff like really
well figured out it's what allows me to
engage with people like this so easily
because I can engage I can make them
feel seen and heard and then if it gets
insane I can cut off and I can be chill
like very few things affect me in the
long term do you guys experience
jealousy usually like whenever I feel
like he's not spending the like the
amount of time that I'm asking for and
he spends it on his video games or his
stream or like he sees someone else like
more than he sees me or something like
that that would like not be good cuz
then it affects like our relationship do
you have a good sense of like is it
literally time or or is it the energy
put into the it's probably like if like
if he's with me that like the attention
in the time like when he hangs out with
me and then there's also probably to
time so if I feel like something else is
distracting too much like it could be
work or it could be a friend or it could
be anything like if I feel like it
starts to take away from like me then
I'm having an issue with it I don't
think he really cares much I guess the
only jealousy you experience is probably
when you feel like um like if I get
upset about him seeing someone too much
and then I go see someone more and then
he's like why can't I go see my friend
more like as much as you so like that's
the sort of like thing that we're trying
to navigate on I
guess I think we um we we are like
diametrically opposed sometimes in terms
of how we view like engagement with
people or engagement with the world
sometimes so like on her end of the
spectrum like a perfect week for her
might be like being in a cabin watching
like fireflies at night going hiking
every morning going swimming at the
beach because it's like you're taking in
like the of nature you're like connected
with yourself you're like very at peace
everything is like chill and cool
there's the wind the feeling of nature
everything that's like her Peak living
experience being press like and like my
Peak experiences are like people trying
to destroy my life like the challenge of
like navigating really complicated
discussion um like you know several
different dramatic events unfolding that
might end my career like these things
are like very I like the stress and the
action and the entertainment and
everything is like very cool for me
soone we're together she genely wants me
to be like more chill but if I don't
feel like I'm being like stimulated a
lot then it's EAS for like my mind to
wander orwhere else that's kind of the
issue we have a very different way of
like engaging with so how can you find
happiness and the Stillness I feel like
if we're just like aware of it and we're
trying our best like whenever we like
we're supposed to do this one thing so
let's say that we want to go to New York
and I'm like we should just like go out
and do this one specific thing we try to
find something that he enjoys doing like
uh now that we're in Texas we can go
shooting or do something fun that he
enjoys then we can do it um and then I
think like just like for me also to be
aware
um that like when he spends lots of time
on crazy people it's not because he like
loves them or wants to be with them it's
just because he likes being like having
having his life destroyed like you said
which I don't really do so it's a
completely different thing so like for
me to like understand more like how he's
thinking because it's so different from
mine and for him to understand how I'm
thinking about things and like what I
prioritize in my life I think that's
like how we navigate but I think it's
good I think the differences can be good
like when we're finding a way yeah well
I think you're you're relatable
more of a human I'm definitely very
difficult to get along with like I
always tell people that that like if
you're dating me for like more than a
few years like you get like an War like
a war zone that you've survived
absolutely you're like a veteran you get
medals and stuff and it's always like I
think there's probably been like six
different I don't think she says it
anymore but there are like six different
times in our relationship where she's
like is it always like this is this
actually and like every next year the
beginning of like you were lying about
that it got you were not you were like
no it's just like right now I'm having a
huge argument online about saying the n
word in private it's just going to be
like this and I'm going to be streaming
24 hours a day and I'm like where like
when are you going to come to bed it's
been a week is this I did playing League
come into into this uh a little bit
clean I'm clean of League like six
months right now what what do you uh
hate about League I never got
humans well speaking of which I my
participation in League involved on the
robot side good cuz that's that's an
improvement cuz uh uh both Starcraft 2
and and League of Legends cuz open Ai
and deep mind uh both participating in
creating bots in those I was a
professional Starcraft 2 player so I
remember when the AI started to play
it's interesting the types of
restrictions that you would have to put
on like a gaming robot to make it like
functional and not totally unfair to the
other side yeah to make it humanik yeah
was that interesting to you to see AI be
able to play those video games I think
in some ways people think things are
more complicated than they actually are
and I think video games is one of those
things where like oh my God there's like
a million possibilities every second and
who knows and it's like no there's like
three or four things going on at any
point in time and I'm willing to bet
that like an AI could probably solve
some of these games like pretty easily
um especially if there are no
constraints on how they can learn yeah
can I talk to you about relationships
yeah we already have so yeah I know but
more generally speaking we we didn't get
a chance to talk about the the red pill
Community oh sh well first of all what
is the red pill Community the manosphere
in general I'd love to get both of your
opinions on this sure I I know I know
you're probably not as opinionated on
that say do you think I am that like
probably not as you like as much as you
but I I do have opinions andu you do
okay I usually don't like speak out too
much on it because I feel like there's
like a language barrier that's why I
don't really do politics because this is
my second language yeah that's right you
have to know the a little bit like that
you know how to use have to use
derogatory terms every other sentence so
they understand you right exactly I
don't know anything about that you need
like a good like you need to be able to
like speak really well for people to
take you seriously I think and like
that's a thing like if I if I don't have
like the words and I don't have the like
I can't pronounce things
correctly person searching for Words
looks stupid essentially that's how
people view it tell me about it I have a
podcast that a bunch of people listen to
and I mumble and they yeah wait is your
what's your first language Russian oh
okay but I speak both languages horribly
I'm just not I'm not like there's
definitely a big disconnect between my
brain and in my mouth module like I'm
not able to generate the thoughts
efficiently like the things you're able
to do like like speak like that I'm not
M it's very very tough plus there's huge
amount of anxiety and social interaction
that I have which makes speaking even
harder got yeah yeah yeah it's tough I
understand it
gotcha makes sense yeah the the gotcha
is both uh a symbol of compassion and
derision at once it's I'm just letting
you know I understand what you say I'm
just going to sit there and stare you no
you can just say like yeah get it like
yeah I get it
gotta no it's so it's so short it's like
say say say a longer sentence but that
means the same thing I understand you
yeah good that's good that's like not
chills you know you get chills so you
understand me yeah it feels good yeah I
hear you I hear you and like if you just
like hold the other person's hand that's
even better you got to put in some
emotion there okay show that you have
some I understand what do what do you
think about gotcha what do you think
about red pill uh what what sorry what
what is it first of all for people don't
know yeah the red pill Community
obviously it's the Matrix reference the
red pill that you take is when you
realize what dating standards and Norms
really are in the world that men are
providers and have to become some great
thing to haunt and attract you know the
women who are just kind of there
floating around looking for people to
give them the most resources and it's
like coming to a realization of what the
world of dating really is broken away
from the Hollywood standard and the
romantic stuff that they try to sell you
in you know stores so there was kind of
maybe you can kind of educate me on this
but red pill used to be associated with
just
um maybe anti-establishment views I
don't know uh maybe maybe Republican
conservative view point yeah they use
red pill a lot in like different
communities like when you say the red
pill Community yeah that's usually means
dating the dating thing but a lot of
people say oh Trump voters they're red
pilled are you Red pilled on like
politics whatever people say stuff like
that yeah okay cool and then there's
like the manosphere that's all the
similar type of stuff and Andrew Tate is
somebody that represents kind of the
figurehead of the manosphere of like the
red pill stuff yeah I would say so I'm
pretty sure yeah okay all right cool so
uh what are some ideas that they
represent and what do you think about
them I think they do a good job at
speaking to disaffected young men who
feel like the rest of the world has kind
of left them behind or isn't willing to
speak to them and they do Identify some
true and real problems feels like on the
left we have a really hard time doing
like self-improvement or telling people
how to better themselves we focus too
much on like structural or systemic
issues rather than what can an
individual do to uplift or Empower
themselves and it also feels like they
do a good job at speaking to some of the
positive aspects of masculinity that
it's okay to be like strong and brave
and a soldier and a warrior and provide
for your family and blah blah blah um so
I said like those are like positive
messages like self-improvement and
everything that come from the red pill
Community what's the
negative I think the analysis on how men
and women interact is a way to transa
all of like the Romanticism and love and
chemistry is totally sucked out of it
everything is very like sex based like
how do you basically have sex with the
most amount of women possible and that's
going to make you happy um and then I
think people's motivations sometimes are
just spoken about in such a shallow
derogatory way that I don't think is
always reflective of reality like woman
only wants you because you make six
figures and you're tall and a guy only
wants you because he wants to have sex
with you and blah like it feels like
there's a lot of that going on a lot
yeah and that misses some fundamental
aspect about relationships about
meaningful relationships and so on MH I
don't think I've never heard red pill
people ever ever talk about like
meaningful relationships it's always
just how to get in one or how to have
sex really Mel what bothers you about
some of that philosophy I feel like the
people that are like the red pill people
I feel like their solution is something
that doesn't actually work out um it
like or it work out it works out for
some people people that makes a lot of
money is like really successful and that
sort of way but it's not going to help
most men out there so I feel like it's
just like a pointless like speech to
give to these like really lost guys and
they really do believe that they can
like they can become successful they can
uh get money and like and when they get
all these things they can get girls but
most of them is not going to achieve
that ever they get the money part or
become successful just become a
billionaire you know like and you will
get all the girls and which is true but
not everyone can do that so I feel like
when these guys are speaking to these
men and they're just like we just care
about these men out there you know they
need to hear this it doesn't really help
a lot of them and it doesn't um Inspire
them to develop compassion towards the
opposite sex which is probably something
required to have a meaningful
relationship and also like they they
seem to complain a lot about women um
like only wanting men that have money
and that's tall and that's muscular
whatever you know all those things um
and but they they complain about that
but that's like also kind of what
they're trying to make the men try to do
for themselves so they kind of like fall
into the same sort of behavior and it
seems like they're kind of unaware of
that as well
um they're just playing a part of the
game instead of trying to find a woman
that doesn't look for those things and
that are looking for not those things
yeah I actually would love to have like
straight up data on people in that world
versus not in that world how often they
get laid Yeah like literally so I think
for sure people in that world have fewer
meaningful long-term relationships that
are fulfilling that actually helped them
succeed in life that helped them be
happy and content and all that kind of
stuff but just even the straight up the
the shallow goal of getting
laid I wonder uhhuh because it's very
possible that like just the the
roughness with which they uh treat
intellectually women that might lead to
lower success not higher success it's
very adversarial which I think is always
disappointing anything that talks about
men and women I think it's good to
acknowledge differences but when it
becomes like adversarial especially when
you talk about sex sex is something that
men are getting and it's something that
women are giving and that type of like
trade-off and the way they talk about it
is like yeah it sets people against each
other in a really toxic way I think mhm
how do you talk to people from that
world from the red pill world like would
you would you ever talk to like somebody
like Andrew Tate oh yeah if I had the
chance to I've been on the um fresh and
fit podcast a few times and then I've
got a friend sneo who's like very red
pill that stuff
um if I'm trying to talk to them usually
the um it's kind of like approaching a
like a scared cat the first thing you
have to do is like be very gentle and
say like I understand your issues I
understand your complaints I know that
you're I'm scary because you think I'm
going to say like toxic masculinity and
feminism and all these scary words at
you um so the first thing is always to
recognize it like a lot of when they
talk about there are like true aspects
to what they're talking about that
people on the left won't recognize so I
think it's good to acknowledge those
things that like men and women are kind
of different we do look for different
things in general when it comes to
relationships it's okay to say that it's
not there's nothing bad there and then
it'll usually be like once I've got your
trust and I'm in your bubble like let's
talk about the things that you want and
maybe like some of the strategies that
you're employing aren't necessarily
going to get you some of the things that
you want so for instance if you're
really worried about like shallow girls
like ruining your life like Molina said
um it's probably not best to build your
entire worldview around trying to get
shallow girls that are going to ruin
your life like if your way of attracting
a girl is to go to the gym get a whole
bunch of money and try to like flaunt
your wealth as much as possible you're
going to be attracting the very same
type of women that you're here like DEC
crying on your stream yeah I think we
talked about that on the podcast like
you probably want to have a woman that's
going to be there if you lose your job
it's still there like that cares but the
things that's not just your job yeah um
it's more stable and also I don't help
you become a great man or a great like
grow like I feel like a great friendship
and a partnership like it helps you make
you a better person some of the most
successful people I know I mean they
have families and there's clearly a
dynamic there that's like that makes
them they wouldn't be that without
they're not an island yeah yeah and the
kids actually are big part of that too
like for most people if you're like a
good parent they make you step up
somehow in life you have to take
responsibility for getting your shit
together and excelling in ways that uh I
guess the philosophy of the red poool
does not quite get to that's always an
interesting I think I've asked that a
couple times where it's like would you
let your daughter date Andrew Tate and
it's always funny to watch them kind of
like squirm around those answers
sometimes but see if they if they don't
have a daughter like I you know I don't
have a daughter I think your whole
philosophy changes once you have a
daughter sure you even at that like they
can they know what they're answering
they feel a little bit weird about it
it's funny to watch them like they even
they know it's like a fuck you know well
they they might say like I I want my
daughter to date like a high value male
to the degree that he's a high value
male yes but like I don't think you'll
feel that way the definition of high
value changes completely certainly the
stereotypical measures of value
contribute to the calculation but it's
so much more than that I think uh the
chemistry of the whole thing is is
bigger uh you've also mentioned about
body count you guys both have a high
body count does body count matter or it
depends like like you said it's low in
some people's eyes it's high in other
people's eyes does body count matter in
relationships does the past matter well
the past matters I don't think body
count not to me I don't really care not
just as it is no yeah I mean it could be
the past does yeah well the past is who
you are right like somebody tells me
like they have a 200 body count and
they're 16 something's probably going on
there that's not good I was thinking
about that too like cuz it could be like
really young people that are having some
sort of like mental going on or or
somebody's like 45 and they've like
never had sex before there's probably
something going on right so they could
be indicative but if somebody's like in
their 20s and they've had sex with you
know 100 people or 50 people whatever
it's you know whatever there's more
experience which can be good sure okay
so that that just represents you're like
sexually open and so it doesn't really
necessarily mean any kind of not
necessarily it could though the number
alone doesn't mean anything mhm yeah
okay well you could meet a guy that's
like I just really really like want to
fuck a lot of people because it makes me
so cool like could you can be someone
like that which is like so the body
count doesn't matter but like where it
comes from yeah like why why have you
slept with the people that you slept
with yes does it hurt like the Romantic
aspect of the relationship knowing that
there's a lot of people in the past I
don't not for us no is a part of the
relationship fundamentally romantic for
us yeah yeah
okay what you come off with such a cold
person no I was just in my head thinking
I wanted to just say gotcha right there
oh
it's so judgmental I think when when it
comes to the sex thing there's always
like the way that I explain it is and I
understand like um I have to say this
because I don't advocate for what I do
for everybody or what she does for
everybody because obviously there's a
whole bunch of natural feelings of
jealousy that pop up for a lot of people
um but when people ask me you know it's
always like oh like isn't this like
horrible that you guys are doing this
and you don't love each other um from my
perspective I can have sex with like any
person and it can be sex like that's not
like a special thing between two people
in my eyes it's like anybody can have
sex but there are like certain
activities and ways you can spend time
with each other where you're like
carving out these like precious little
moments in time with a certain person
that can do things that are special to
that person and those are the kind of
like events that I remember more than
anything else so like the idea of like
like oh wow I had sex with a person that
was so special doesn't mean as much as
like you know us traveling to like New
Zealand or sharing some special moment
doing like some really fun activity or
event or whatever that's usually how I
like at it yeah so a shared intimate
moment yeah I kind of agree but I can
definitely connect the romance with sex
boring I'm curious she's a woman see
that's where the red pills right exactly
we also talked about misogyny which is
you're clearly the embodiment of that
what were you saying so there's some
there's a connection between romance and
yeah I think it is because I think sex
could be a lot of things right it's it's
some sort of bonding I'd say in some way
they say that you really like BDSM you
can of like you become submissive to
someone or you take control over someone
it's like a very bonding like intimate
um moment I'd say and that's romantic
the intimacy is romantic I I think it is
if you can show yourself as really
submissive or like weak or you have like
absolutely no control over yourself and
you let someone else do it or you are
the one being that like you are the
dominant for someone I think that's a
really like intimate thing cuz you show
like the weakest Part of Yourself kind
of I just feel like I
personally to me some component romantic
but to me this is not judging to others
to Me Maybe as call is brought
up the romance increases if the number
of intimate interactions are limited to
one person like for me for some reason
spreading it
out
decreases like um exponentially the the
feeling of romance you feel but that I
don't know what that could be just like
sort of having grown up in the Soviet
Union there's a kind of there's the
fairy tale stories and you're kind of
maybe living through them yeah I mean I
think what you're saying is like really
normal like most people probably feel
that way yeah but but because you guys
are able to successfully not do that I
just want to question my own
understanding of it you know like like
why is that why is that why am I being
very um jealous for no reason like maybe
you can maximize the number of intimate
experiences if you just open up and let
go of jealousy essentially I think I
feel like in Sweden like in Scandinavia
we're extremely just sexually open like
in general we we're not like super
religious either we're very like relaxed
we don't like we don't feel bad about
our like it's just like a different sort
of thing and I would say like it's we're
more Progressive when it comes to
feminism and stuff so it's more common
that you will meet women with a higher
body count than like when I meet like
American Girls all of them have like
vagous smell like super suppressed like
sexually and they have like what what
did you just use they have like issues
to like they can't relax during sex it
just hurts for them really nervous
vaginis is that what it's called yeah um
so like I meet so many girls that are
having like a lot of issues with sex and
they have like a very low body count
because they just can't relax or they
yeah and it's proba and usually they
come from like a very religious
background um so they have just been
told like you cannot wear that you
cannot be like that you can't like you
know and like where I grw up it wasn't
like that at all we just see it as more
like a casual thing so then you can just
maximize the awesomeness of the
experience have exactly I think the
important thing I think for everybody to
realize is there's always pros and cons
to everything like my lifestyle like
obviously I get they have a lot of fun
experiences that's like a huge Pro and
that's super cool and if you're like a
more monogamy brained person you're not
going to get those experiences but if
you're a monogamy brain person like when
you're sharing that special moment in
time with somebody else like that moment
could be really really really special
because now it's the thing that you're
showing yourself and opening yourself up
to another person and they're only
trusting you to do that and that's like
a really special thing that only the two
of you are sharing with each other so I
mean like there's always like pros and
cons to everything like I think we both
would say like like doing open
relationship is probably not like we
would not recommend it think we would no
yeah I recently fasted for 3 days and
then ate a chicken breast at the end of
that and it was like the most delicious
food I've ever eaten true so like
there's some aspect of fasting and
scarcity and so on that like and you
have to figure out what for your own
psyche what works the best it's good to
be a little bored or like not do
something or like work because you can
just enjoy the time when you're doing
something really fun is more fun
otherwise you're just going to get numb
in general with everything yeah yeah I
personally just never get bored like I
guess the boring thing is exciting to me
the just like you're like me everything
I like is boring I got to ask you we
talked about misogyny in the in the he's
trying to battle it out on the internet
what's what's your what's your sense as
a woman about the level of massaging and
the internet and the streaming community
and how to fight it for me cuz I get I I
guess I get it every single day somehow
like because I have an online like I
have a chat that go that's live right
and um but I have like mods moderating
that all the time so I don't really need
to see much of it I think it's just
pretty annoying because you get to like
see it all the time um does become like
background noise yeah a little bit and
it's like the same coms over and over
again but it's usually for me I don't
personally care that much I understand
that other people do especially when it
comes into like when there's like a lot
of sexism and stuff and um when there's
a lot of like men not taking women
seriously like I I definitely get that
and I used to get that even more like a
few years ago uh with my accent and
everything and like I used to be blonde
as well like a few months ago so I feel
like people wouldn't take me seriously
because of that uh that's a bit annoying
but I I feel like it's pretty easy to
like see through when someone acts that
way and for me personally I don't really
care but um it's a bit annoying like
being online and like getting stuff
every single day uh I would say like the
probably the worst thing is when you
feel like you put in a lot of effort
into some sort of work everyone is just
going to say you just got that because
you're a woman and you're attractive and
that's that's probably like the worst
thing is there a way to fight that you
think yeah I don't think you can I think
it just comes up all the time it's just
like it is what it is I guess you just
got to keep doing whatever you do and
like not let it like emotionally control
you somehow I think having more women in
those spes is always good it's probably
good yeah like a lot of the guys you can
tell online they don't don't bring on
the worst ones then she being see she
just did it she did the massage anything
by having some bad women on she's saying
all women see well you you know it's
true
right see but I I disagree with you and
I'm older than both of you and therefore
wiser right so well combin we're older
than you careful one matomy yeah we've
got combined age or it could be it could
be the same thing as like also the age
thing and like the woman thing a lot of
people think that I'm just copying every
single thing that he says which I think
is a bit annoying as well so I can never
really like Han Sonic us her of that one
yeah which is been Anno so much you know
uh it was about the defunding police
like my dad a c friendship camarad
and love and respect which you uh both
have had for a time and have lost it and
I would like you to regain it that's try
to increase not decrease the amount of
love in the space what do you think
about some of the harshness of this of
his language which we talked about uh
our word in the past when he used nword
all of that kind of stuff when he what
he used to do I mean no like what do you
think about it like do you give them
advice to not speak a certain way no
like a little more civility I'm just
trying to get a second opinion on this
second opinion about Normy people not
internet people are way more extreme
than yeah she's way more extreme no
that's not true okay so okay so here's
the thing for me okay I was not online
until 3 years ago at all like I would
watch YouTube that's pretty much all I
would do I wouldn't do anything else
really I didn't grew up playing video
games or anything so I'm like extremely
new to everything um so when I came into
this world and I started seeing clips
from him in the past I don't think I
really had much of an opinion because it
just sounded like it was just a
different like Words St using but it
didn't mean anything that's what it
feels it was just like if you're saying
the r word it's because you're just want
to call someone stupid but you want to
like do it a little bit more like but
it's not like it didn't feel like it was
like a it's not like racism more like
you know it's not agreement on this side
here so like if he was saying the f word
because it was just like a word to like
insult someone and he wasn't like I
don't think he was ever I don't think
you were ever homophobic back in the day
or anything like that but I think it was
just like a way to express yourself
maybe back then I don't know I didn't do
it there's no videos of me or anything
CU I wasn't even online back then but so
my case was I I definitely don't think
Stephen is homophobic or race or any of
those obviously so there's a good heart
there and a good mind I was just saying
he just likes being mean I think well
there is some you lose yourself and
forget the bigger picture that he's
pushing for more effective discourse on
the internet he's like an inspiration to
a lot of people especially now of like
how you can use effective conversation
to make for a better world to Der
radicalize people and so on and then you
lose some of that power by losing
yourself in in like the language just
more language of emotion versus
effective communication but it's a gray
area I would say like something that is
probably recently done in that case
because he been joking about women a lot
like it's women's fault they're bad like
it's just it's been like a lot of jokes
when it comes to misogyny I guess in
your community and I think it's actually
turned people a little bit that way
that's why we've done the recent M yes
so that I guess that's actually true
because I don't think it was pretty I
don't think it was clear enough I don't
think it actually was I think you did
that mistake um but I think back then I
was even saying like hey you should
probably not like you Pro you probably
should not do that CU it actually is
pretty hard for me because whenever I
come into His commuter like his chat
people are just going to spam it's like
a woman moment it's a woman moment
whenever I say something and it's kind
of like yeah it's getting pretty
annoying as I said it's just annoying
when you see it every single day mhm
yeah there you go
uh wisdom from somebody younger than you
wow wisdom can come from all kind people
yeah of course just sometimes very
limited quantities depends on the age
boy uh learn something from anybody what
advice would you give to uh young people
the both of you that you have both
audiences where young people look up to
you in general if you were to give
advice to somebody in high school like
how
to create a life that can be proud of
what would you
say the most important thing that I I've
learned is to view people as different
and not better or worse and when you
view people as different instead of
better or worse you learn that there's
almost something that you can learn from
anybody uh like be open and empathetic
towards other people's experiences
nobody does anything by random Choice
like there's always reasons why people
act the way they do and as long as
you're willing to kind of like be open
and receptive to the lived experiences
of other people you're going to be able
to gather information and create like a
more cohesive and better view of the
world than any of your peers will do you
have any kind of advice you can give to
Young Folks people I feel like something
that I see especially in America a lot
is that um a lot of people kind of get
told what to do early on like in high
school they're supposed to become this
thing uh like education wise like
they're supposed to like become a doctor
or this thing or whatever and then they
kind of just like give up on things that
they're actually passionate about so I
think a lot of teenagers get really
confused they get an education and then
they get that job and they hate
everything and they think that when
they're when they're reaching the job
when they're reaching like the journey
they're going to get that's like where
the happiness is going to be but then
when they get to there they just hate
everything and then they become really
depressed and I've seen this so much
like I see this all the time and it's
it's pretty sad to me to see so many
people that are just wasting time and
then they just get really confused and I
don't know it's the same thing with
relationships too no one really knows
what they want anymore I feel like
everyone is just kind of doing whatever
like Society is saying or the parents
are saying or their friends are saying
um and they they're never really doing
anything that's super meaningful anymore
and like they don't so what I would say
is like try to find something that are
that's that is important to you it could
be anything really like some sort of
passion maybe like your friends maybe
like like what matters to you like
figuring those things out I think is
really important and that comes from
being able to listen to like some inner
voice so it's not come from elsewhere
it's really hard because you're living
the life and like there's things
happening around you and people tell you
what to do and what not to do and you
know no one really has like their own
opinions everyone is just kind of like
listening to the the cooler thing or you
know except he seems to stand on his own
free yeah I'd say so and like like
something I realized too like because we
just went to twitchcon and we were
talking to a lot of streamers was that
uh it was interesting I I thought it was
interesting because the the the few
people that I feel like I that seem
really cool and that I look up to like
in the streaming world all of them wants
to quit streaming all of them wants to
do it no one wants like no one likes it
and they're so successful like they are
around successful people they they're
working every single day they're working
hard they're making so much money and
everyone is just complaining and like
they're complaining about um like not
being able to see their uh partner or
you know because they need to live
somewhere else and I see these things
and they seem extremely unhappy and but
it's so hard for them to just like cut
all this successful stuff off because
that's like what you you know learn to
do and that's like supposed to be like
your happiness but it isn't everyone is
really unhappy yeah there's something
about maybe streaming is different but
YouTube folks too I've interacted with a
few and um even in podcasting space
people become obsessed about the views
and numbers and subscribers and stuff
like that um so I turn I never talk
about that I I don't pay attention to
that uh I feel like that's a drug that
destroys your mind your your mind is an
artist ability to create truly unique
things um also your mind in terms of the
ex the ups and downs of the attention
mechanism uh and then also being just if
if something that you make is not
popular but it meant a lot to you you
will think of it less yes because it's
not popular that's a really dangerous
thing and because everyone around you is
reinforcing like I'll get messages like
wow this thing got this many views or
something great job it's like no you
don't get it like that's not that's not
everyone is enforcing this like this
language of views and likes and so on
and it's it's correlated of course cuz
truly impactful things will get a lot of
attention often but it's not on the
individual local scale like temporally
is it's uh it can really fuck with your
mind and I see that in the creators they
become um addicts to the algorithm lost
and chasing views like we know friends
that we know cool people and then they
start streaming and eventually they
they're like chasing the dragon of like
and they change like they yeah it's like
completely and like this is something
I've always said that like one of the
biggest blessings and biggest curses of
humanity is we are very good at
acclimating like you can become
paralyzed you can have all sorts of
horrible things happen to you and you'll
get used to it and you'll be okay you're
going have like a good Baseline but it
works the other way too and that you can
get more and more and more and more and
you acclimate to it almost immediately
there's like this is a phenomenon that I
bet it happens in the YouTube world but
I know it happens in the streaming world
where you're streaming 1,000 viewers
every day huge event happens and you
blow up and you got like 15,000 viewers
for a day or two and then it starts to
go down and down and down and down and
down and then after all the drama start
off you're at like 3,000 concurrent
viewers now in the macro you went from
1,000 to 3,000 that feels awesome but
you actually feel like shit the whole
time because you're remembering when you
had 10 or 15,000 and now Everything
feels horrible and you'll see people
climb over time like fuck like but
whatever that one huge stream I had like
I've never like been able to and it's
like dude you're doing great what's yeah
that happens a lot there's so many
people that we know that we find super
super cool they're passionate about
things they have so much interest and
then they just get like so addicted to
these numbers and like all the
everything is just ruin like all the
cool things about them is ruined because
they stop doing the things that they
actually like to do something else that
gives the more viewers and more money
and it's it's really sad to see yeah
that that temporary sacrifice that seems
temporary is that it um it actually
destroys you like for one time making a
choice because I I come across those
choices often like I could do this you
can kind of know what's going to be
popular and not and you have to ask
yourself the question like is this going
to sacrifice because if people are
sacrificing like intimate relationships
they're sacrificing time with their
family they're sacri like sacrificing
time with things that they feel good
about and that they like and that's
something I kind of realized last year
cuz I was working so much and I was just
grinding grinding grinding because
because it was kind of new for me and
then New Year came by and I was like
wait what did I even do like the entire
year like I traveled to a bunch of
places but nothing actually really meant
anything to me because I felt like I was
just working the entire time I felt like
I was just numb through the through the
entire year and I was really scary um
like I rented um like a super pretty
house like for a week with my dad and my
sister cuz I wanted to spend time with
them but the entire time I was just
streaming and I actually didn't ever
like calm down and just like chill with
them and I like that's like time I'll
will never get back I don't I don't give
a shit about the money that I made that
week but I lost the time and like that
is really important to me and yeah and a
lot of people are doing that um and I
feel like you as you said like you can
definitely see that in like artists for
sure I feel like if if you look at like
artists like back in the 60s or 70s I
feel like things were just so much
better back then and it feels like they
were actually making music that meant
something to them they were actually
making art and I feel like today
everything is just kind of like whatever
is cool whatever sells whatever you know
sounds in a certain way everything is
kind of the same thing and everything
that is very artistic and very cool is
is actually not that popular at all and
uh that's kind of sad I think yeah of
course there's now bigger mechanisms and
platforms to spread stuff music so as
long as you can be content with not
being popular I think you can still
create art yeah but not like when people
get a little popular they get addicted
to that so fast yeah it's weird yeah you
have been somewhat good at least from my
Outsider perspective because I think you
I can at least imagine you making
choices that could make you more popular
and you don't seem to make those
choices sabotage my career like playing
Le but it's it is very intentional like
you said like and I made that choice at
every single stage of My Life One is
because from the perspective of being a
carpet cleaner my life is way better
than that was or ever would have been so
I'm already doing way better than I ever
thought somebody like me ever could be
um but then two I super love my job
every time I wake up every time I fly to
a place do a podcast every time I get to
talk to really cool people like every
single part of my job I super like if
there's something I don't like I just
cut it off because I don't care cuz I'm
already making plenty of money doing
what I do and why would I ever wake up
and not like what I'm doing when I can
like what I'm doing how do you guys find
through that given that you love it and
sometimes maybe lose yourself in the
drug of it how do you find like work
life balance together inside of
relationship like time for each other I
don't at all so I'm not a good person to
ask what do you love more uh Mel or
effect factor factor is a really good
game that's like not a fair comparison
okay you're talking about one of the
best cleanest games games best support
ever made cleanest code base
like it's more factorial time for
me starting to understand where the
massaging comes from by the way is is
the uh is Vector legit a really good
game yeah of course yeah Co if you're
like a do you enjoy programming of
course that's all I do that's all that's
okay to me programming is is a game in
itself that I enjoy probably more than
anything else but yeah it's very much a
game like that like if you're into stuff
like that like you can lose hundreds of
hours like very quickly to
like you have a problem and then you
think of a solution and then you iterate
on that over and over and over again in
larger larger schemes sometimes you got
to redesign stuff sometimes you like
it's a very much like that kind of game
it's you're essentially building a
factory like what on a foreign planet or
something like that basically it's like
a bunch of you're trying to automate
different problems so that you can build
bigger things so you can automate bigger
problems so you can build bigger things
and automate bigger problems so it's
more complicated than like a city
building game like some City type of
thing I wouldn't say it's more
complicated it's more it's like factor
is like a game of like logic like
strictly like logic like almost like a
building a circuit or something yes yeah
there's like there's circuitry and
you've got your ant orgs orates you like
there's stuff like that it's very much
like that like what are the enemies in
the game like what um there are like
bugs try to bite you and you can get
guns and shoot and kill them but it's I
saw there's like shooting going on yeah
but that's like a m it's just like
another problem to solve in the game
basically yeah okay all right see see
what we did there we just started
talking about the game as we're trying
oh my God that's like that's that's
horrible anyway is there is that
basically the struggle nonstop struggle
how to get
human like intimate human time I feel
like it was like that a little bit more
in the past I feel like it's been better
lately but I think it's because um when
we started dating I wasn't streaming and
I kind of just like gave up like my trip
in New Zealand I give up like like I
left Sweden so I was just like in LA
which I hate I hate La I don't like La
at all uh it's hard to make friends that
are like real that are into the same
stuff as you it's it was just really
hard for me to connect with anyone
especially also like being a European
and like being around Americans was very
strange so the only thing I had when I
came here was him and I um and I didn't
expect sit because yeah because we had
we had like two weeks of hanging out and
like he would be on his computer
sometimes and like do emails and stuff
but I wasn't thinking that he would
stream like 12 hours a day and it was
pretty like it was pretty intense like
in the beginning of it as well and I
realized it was really hard to like get
attention or get time because he his
like love meter would be like full if I
was just in the house and that's just
kind of like the way he is and for me
back then when I didn't have anything
else to do um was kind of like a it was
kind of crazy uh for me I feel like
right now because I do work as well and
I have things going from for me and I
have other friends uh now that I made I
feel like it's a lot easier cuz and and
I can definitely like enjoy just like
being in separate rooms and just like
hear him in the background is really
nice I can like I can sit and paint and
like in my room and I will do that for
hours while I'm just like hearing a
scream in the background it's kind of
like comforting that he's he's just
there it feels nice I like it oh cuz to
you that's the sound of Happiness Happ
because I know he's right there yeah
it's nice and they'll come in and check
on me sometimes and it's it's kind of
like it's actually very comforting it's
very nice I like it mhm yeah I think
that's kind of what a relationship is
like you do fun things together and you
share moments together but also just
like having someone like around you is
really really nice uh and I think that's
probably maybe it's me growing
up maybe that's what it is and like I
start liking like the kind of I feel
like we're like an old couple like we're
like 80 and we're just like around we
don't really have to talk much it's it's
nice to just do that and that fills your
love meter that um terminology love I
need both I mean okay you you're making
it sound like that I'm like craving like
I Haven said I'm not saying anything I
haven't said a single thing at all
making face right I know exactly what
you're thinking so much judging going on
there's no judging at all um no but like
we I think I think whenever we do plan
something out like if we if we go on a
trip like every other month or once a
month uh I feel like usually like that's
enough as long as he's not playing
Victorio the entire time like if he if I
feel like he's going on these trips with
me and he's not like doing things for me
or he's he's not interested in like
spending time or like being present with
me then I'll feel like I just feel like
I'm just wasting time right now and then
I get kind of disappointed but otherwise
I I think this like this is fun I think
this is like spending time together cuz
we're like doing something together it's
fun yeah my my love meter is your love
meter is full it's my social life
otherwise we like to we like to think
about it that way that like I need like
a little bit more of like this one thing
like quality time and he needs like
almost zero quality time but like let's
say that I we took away like physical
touch you would probably not be very
happy mhm um so you need physical touch
so it's not just Factoria huh no I'm a
very cuddly person yeah like cuddly and
then you're like I guess like acts of
servives like if I do something for you
you get really happy like hot chocolate
yeah like if I give him hot chocolate in
more he gets really happy so the actual
it's not the hot chocolate it's the
giving of the hot chocolate no it's just
the hot chocolate but if she gives it to
me I didn't have to get just physical
touch you like that's really nice all
right well if you have to choose between
Factoria and the drama or political
discourse which probably political
discourse probably my calling but I am a
good factorial
player like what role exactly does
factoral play in your streaming life oh
well right now it's just usually there
are like these games that I play in the
background as I have conversations cuz
it's hard for me to just sit on the
computer and just talk and not like be
playing a game at the same time so just
something to keep me kind of like
occupied you know some people buy like
the little like widget things I guess
yeah that's what yours yeah basically
yeah it's like Minecraft or factoral for
me all right well my love meter is full
from this well thank you so much for
joining us for me this is really fun um
you guys are fascinating human beings um
thank you for existing I'm glad to live
in a world where you exist I can't wait
to see what kind of beautiful
uh thing you create next and the crazy
kind of art that you create through the
different people you interact with
Destiny Stephen you're an amazing human
thank you so much for talking to me it's
an honor hope to talk with you again
talking to Ben Shapiro you've given me a
lot of inspiration it's an honor to talk
to the Ben shipiro of the left yeah well
thanks L for having me I appreciate it
thank you guys fun thank you thanks for
listening to this conversation with
Destiny to support this podcast please
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description and now let me leave you
with some words from lisis Caroll it's
no use going back to yesterday because I
was a different person
then thank you for listening and hope to
see you next time