Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
michael malus his fifth time on this the
lex friedman podcast to support it
please check out our sponsors in the
description and now here's my new year's
eve 2021 conversation with the one and
only mr michael
mallis
dostoevsky wrote in the idiot my favor
of his books
through the main character prince
mishkin that beauty will save the world
these words seemingly naive and
ultimately at least to me profound what
do they mean to you
beauty will save the world naive really
i don't think they seem naive at all
well uh sheldon jensen actually for his
1970 nobel prize
speech talked about this line a lot
and he thought for most of his life that
was a silly line there was just words
thrown out there because
with all the suffering that's in the
world what has beauty has actually ever
done oh my god i hate this so much
i i fucking trash about soldiers yeah i
am okay um
and this is perfectly sets up this theme
you know why i said let's do this
episode start the new year on a positive
note give people hope give people joy
uh you and i both have friends who are
models
right
and it's a silly profession to some
extent of course
but
you are actually a model you are my
friend yeah that's right that's true i
haven't had a remodel i was trying to be
subtle
but for those people who actually you
know deserve to be models
um when you look at someone who is a
model
and in some of their photos
and these these people look perfect now
in real life they're not perfect they
have flaws they'll be the first to admit
it so on and so forth but when you look
at beauty
it is almost impossible
to maintain a sense of cynicism and
hopelessness
because if there's even one moment when
some uh element of perfection has been
actualized if there's one moment where a
beauty has been realized and captured
you can't say well it's never gonna
happen again
so i think beauty
it means hope i think
i hate
that cynical idea of like um
i i get i i appreciate soulja nissan's
broader point in that a lot of times
people there's something called the
deepity where people throw words
together to sound profound and if you
take it apart like this is just complete
gibberish i don't think this is an
example of that i think beauty inspires
and it more importantly it proves to you
this is something that can actually
happen on this earth plato right the
platonic theory of forms like this world
is imperfect but these perfect forms
exist in another dimension and that's
where our concepts come from you know he
was an early uh person trying to figure
out where our concepts come from and
epistemology and so on and so forth um
but that is something that is real in
here
so i completely disagree with his
analysis of that and i don't know if
it'll save the world but it's certainly
a prerequisite and what's the point of
fighting
for your values if you don't want to
make the world a more beautiful place
well it's also how you define beauty
because beauty could be just aesthetic
beauty it could be art of course art
could be
could encompass a lot a lot more than
just literature and paintings it can
encompass
the full
life the full dance of life
but then beauty could be something
just uh
deeper like
whatever that aw you feel
when you pause
and hear the music
just
hear
and like look up at the stars like for
some reason when i see rockets go up for
me it's like science what is that
the awe that we're able to accomplish
that as humans you know that's funny
because you know there's lots of
different schools of thought like these
people versus these people and and you
know maybe vegans versus uh
steakhouse people i think in terms of
the sciences and i guess you and i would
be on opposite sides here
you have the
astronomy people versus the zoology
people
like the the big question is would you
rather
spend
10 minutes on the moon or would you
rather spend 10 minutes in the deep sea
and for me it's clearly the deep sea
the zoology that's down there there's
something i would encourage people to
look up
called deep staria which is a jellyfish
then the scientists what's amazing when
you watch these deep-sea dives
on youtube is that the scientists are
they're they're nature dorks like
everybody else they're they went into
this field and there's none of this
maybe soulja nation-style cynicism of
when they see an amazing animal
in its natural environment you know
exhibiting these crazy behaviors they
lose it they're on the mic like oh my
god like it's so exciting to watch so
uh i i'm not a rocket person but i'm
definitely a zoology so animals and
plants in the sea
and also it's so mathematical there's so
many so many forms there's there's this
um
there's this plant called areospermum
titan up soybeas
i don't know how to pronounce it because
they're always in latin you never hear
them pronounced you said sperm aerial
sperm yeah because it's a woolly seed is
the is the genus
um the leaf it's just always puts out
one leaf
but the leaf is covered in little
magnifying glasses uh lenses to make it
maximize the sunlight so it looks like
this little crystal seashell it's tiny
it's like two centimeters but
it's just this amazing thing that that
grows out of the
sands in south africa
just a defense old jensen for a second
so
if i may read a couple of his lines from
the speech sure so he said uh one day
that's how he introduces it one day
dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic
remark beauty will save the world
what sort of a statement is that for a
long time i considered it mere words how
could that be possible when in
bloodthirsty history did beauty
ever save anyone from anything
and then later he goes on to argue with
himself in the speech as a older wiser
man now
but perhaps that ancient trinity of
truth goodness and beauty is not simply
an empty faded formula as we thought in
the days of our self-confident
materialistic youth
if the tops of these three trees
converge as the scholars maintained but
the two blatant to direct stems of truth
and goodness are crushed
cut down not allow through then perhaps
the fantastic unpredictable unexpected
stems of beauty will push through and
soar to that very same place and in so
doing will fulfill the work of all three
in that case the stavsky's remark beauty
will save the world was not a careless
phrase but a prophecy
uh which of yours which of these three
things are your favorites truth goodness
or beauty
what did he call truth and goodness
the blatant to direct stems of truth and
goodness
um
versus the
fantastic unpredictable unexpected stems
of beauty which is how i see your
twitter account i don't think that i
think there's a certain directive beauty
if you had my twitter account that's for
sure uh it's certainly no goodness um
or truth yeah yeah
it's twitter there's no truth to be
found
uh i would
i will answer the question i will of
course point out that having this kind
of
you know distinction between the three
things is i think kind of synthetic i
think they very heavily overlap if not
if i could probably make the argument
they're synonymous
um in fact i do believe that they're
largely synonymous um
goodness that's such an interesting word
goodness um uh which of those three is
my favorite
uh
i think truth
is overrated in the sense that if
something is a
good story
the story doesn't have to be true or
real in order to motivate you and and
move you
um a lot of times
we can delude ourselves about somebody
uh
and that might actually serve a purpose
to some extent you know if you have
someone who's
maybe a family member and you kind of
ignore bad things that they do
there might be reasons for that
um
of the three which is most important
i think
i would say probably goodness
i would say of the three the most
important is goodness because
if you don't appreciate goodness then
beauty is
just empty it's just
it's just a picture or
it's nice um bad people appreciate
beauty
uh you know bad people are often you
know seductive or or have a beauty about
them and in terms of action
i think it takes a lot of skill and work
to create beauty or to create truth or
to express truth and express beauty but
i think goodness is a
it's like um the easiest default state
of being just being good to others
yeah like you know like
there'll be things where
these videos where like one dog is
drowning and like another dog jumps in
and saves it from the
pool like that to me is
just really amazing stuff uh and it's
very moving
um so just to me goodness means
integrity
and it means kindness
um
and yeah i think of the three that's the
knife would be the one i pick
yeah yeah and i think people are
interrupting i think people also have
this idea which is inculcated to them
especially by corporate america that as
you get older
it's okay to do the wrong thing
sometimes blah blah blah i don't buy
that and so i think goodness gets rarer
and rarer um and and i think people know
better and they tell themselves lies
yeah
but
once you get allow yourself the chance
to just
be good i think it makes for a better
life yeah it's like it's not that much
work like it's not like going to the gym
and working out that's a lot of work and
it's great afterwards but like goodness
is easy once you get into the habit of
it i suppose working out the same way
there's a lot of stuff if you make it a
habit
you're going to get the rewards of it
and it's going to be easy the rewards of
goodness i think are uh more immediate
than the rewards of working out
as opposed to the hard drugs yeah if uh
you mentioned this quote on one of your
uh live streams i think if you save one
life you save the world yeah
that's such a cool line i think i
remember reading about paul farmer i
think his name is he's a doctor that
really
i mean um doctors in general they kind
of don't care about
like what they're doing as a broad
policy across
hundreds of thousands of millions of
people they just care about the human in
front of them which is so interesting
they don't care it's gonna cost like in
this case to save one child it will cost
him hundreds of thousands of dollars
they don't care about that they can't
they know very well
that what their actions cannot be scaled
but they can't help but help the child
in front of them and it's so interesting
that's such an interesting way to live
and that's the way i kind of think when
i try to do something positive
is
will this help one person
and i just kind of imagine a specific
person depending on the thing
that that would help with like what i'm
trying to create something whether it's
a piece of hardware or or a video or
anything like that or educational
material lecture that kind of stuff
i don't know what what do you think
about this quote like what is it
profound or just just poetic i think
it's more profound than it sounds at
first uh the example i think of is
michelle bachman she was a former
congresswoman from minnesota she clearly
had crazy eyes something weird is going
on with the husband
but she adopted like like 20 kids terry
schappert's another friend of mine he's
like a either navy seal or marines i
whatever is terry i apologize i'm not
trying to be funny and he adopts like
elder dogs so
going back to bachmann it's like yeah
you can say she's crazy you can make fun
of her politics all you want and all
that stuff's legitimate
but if you save a kid
give them a home and you save them from
the foster system
um and you put a roof over their heads
and make them feel loved and appreciated
it's really hard for me
to sit here and call you
like a totally bad person
i think that kind of thing is nick
cersei's another one he adopted a kid
and i said you're i think you're a hero
like if you there's some you know
one of the things that's very hard for
me i'm writing as you know i talk about
this endlessly this book the white pill
but writing about when people do hurtful
things to children
it really is hard to watch and it's hard
to because when you're an author you
have to kind of empathize with the
character you have to where's this
character coming from explain their
point of view and that's the one that's
the hardest for me to wrap my head
around like cruelty to children yeah or
or
and yeah sadism to children it's just
like this is a
this is something even animals know not
to do you know what i mean like dogs
right when you see them around kids
they're very
protective like if the kid pokes their
eyes out the dog doesn't do anything
so it's like if you can't even get to
that level uh what kind of person are
you so i think that quote
um
is a profound one and it's an important
one uh it also means
we're not all called upon to be superman
right you only have a very finite
ability to move the needle
but at the same time
if you have actually you know saved the
life
you can go to meet your maker you you
did your part you know you left the
world a little bit better than you found
it and that's all you could ask anybody
also i think from a policy perspective
it seems we just do better when we focus
on doing a small thing
helping uh helping one person because it
feels like when you start talking about
communism and all those kinds of things
when you start to believe you could do
good by a lot of people that's where
your mind somehow
stops being able to do good by a lot of
people that's when you start to think
about utopias and somehow utopia's ghost
feeds power into the brain to where it
deludes you completely and then you
start
it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an
omelet kind of reasoning and you run
into trouble it seems like it's much
better
even when you have the power and the
money and so on to achieve scale to
focus on one and then
or locally yeah locally yeah right
because then suppose you have the
feedback exactly right so if you have
some kind of program you know in austin
or brooklyn or something like that and
you're you can you can watch oh this is
working this isn't working then you
could port it out to other places but
top-down helping is you know
at the very least it's going to be
inefficient and also i think it's a lot
more useful when you're helping people
when it's a one-on-one
relationship because then it's less i
don't know embarrassing but certainly
less something to receive help and you
also feel if it's one thing if you get a
check from the government you know food
stamps it's nothing if someone's like
hey i'm gonna buy you groceries until
you get back on your feet you have this
kind of motivation i think for most
people to be like you know what this
person believed in me i'm gonna
make it worth their while that they
believed in me yes i didn't believe in
me
yeah i had when i was giving lectures at
mit there was one uh was scarce shitless
and uh i mean everybody you know how
students are and all that kind of stuff
they're kind of bored yeah and they
don't they don't understand that you're
human too they're yeah
or this is it could be just me but they
don't understand you're trying to pass
this human i know uh but there's one one
uh gentleman in the audience and he went
to all the lectures uh all the gentlemen
he was a faculty at mit and he just
without very kind of nonchalant just
said uh after the lectures he would kind
of nod at me and say he did great
and uh before like one time he said in a
non-creepy way i know this is gonna come
off as creepy he said uh
you look great today
like he said that you know um i don't in
the way so he's like 60 70 or whatever
like
he
in this i don't know it's in a wise sage
way because i was wearing a suit and tie
like i look like you know when you dress
up like a young kid
yeah
yeah so he was just like all right
yeah you were uh you're all dressed up
you look great yeah you got this i don't
know that has a lasting impact that kind
of pat on the back but i agree with you
um
cruelty towards other adults
is somehow understandable
because it's uh a world full of conflict
but cruelty towards children
doesn't
it doesn't quite
i can't i can't understand it
i can't understand how you could
act in a way that directly causes
suffering to a child in front of you
yeah that is like the the i don't think
i've ever talked to you this might be a
good time to ask you about this
what do you make what lessons do you
draw about human civilization from
jeffrey epstein
from just laying out
everybody thinks about different things
when you talk to eric weinstein he
thinks about
intelligence and like who like jeffrey
epstein is a front for something else
that's what he he thinks about
i think about the weakness of grown
men in the face of uh charismatic evil
which is like for me directly as mit i
didn't know i actually was i guess i was
at my team when jeff epstein was just at
the very end he must have been there
um
i didn't know any of this but it really
bothers me that nobody was able to see
through this man because he's obviously
what is also obvious to me is that he
was very charismatic like
i mean i i tried to think about
human nature from this perspective is um
directly like we said help one life
would i know
a jeffrey epstein if he was in my life
would i would i know evil when i saw
evil even if it's sitting across from
you
even
i mean you
so
exactly the evil left thank you the the
thing
[Laughter]
well it's a necronomicon well the thing
i and
i'm sure we'll talk about it maybe not
it doesn't really matter we we see
things you and i michael very
differently about a lot of things
politically and so on the reason i like
you a lot the reason i like
uh the people i do in my life is there's
a
there's a warmth there's a kindness
there's a humanity underneath it all i
don't really care what you believe i
don't care like
i don't care what your twitter says you
you know it's easy to mistake your
twitter to indicate that there's not a
deeply human
love for humanity in there and that's
why i'm detecting that
i think i would be able to detect
jeffrey epstein protect i'm just
imagining the t-1000
detected
yes
uh i imagine i hope i would be able to
not uh detect that
epstein uh lacks that completely even if
he's charismatic and the in the humor he
has
even if he is uh charismatic in the
expression of curiosity for science
which he did he was curious about like
uh
not just like boring
uh minutiae of science he was interested
about the big questions in science which
i could see that become exciting to
scientists like oh wow here's a person
who's thinking big that's always
exciting to when somebody goes into a
room
and thinks about like how do we solve
intelligence how do we travel faster
than the speed of light that's exciting
to people especially people with money
because it's like all right so we might
be able to actually do big things here
uh but you could see through the
bullshit the the dead the deadness in
the eyes i don't know uh so i think
about that because i feel like i have
the responsibility for me as an
individual to detect evil
so
i do you know who michael alleg is
okay this is going to be a whole long
this is going to be on next clips but
this is a whole long story so there was
a scene in new york in the 90s called
the club kids
and they would go out to different
nightclubs at night they would all dress
in really kind of crazy
um costumes
and but the costumes were all like like
goofy and like just thinking like an
angel this was dressed like a nurse it
was there's a juvenile aspect to it
they're all taking you know ketamine and
ecstasy to all hours this is kind of
rape culture was coming up in there and
the head of it and in fact there's um
a clip on youtube i think it was the
jane whitney show of the club kids and
gigi allen gigi allen is a
you know kind of punk rock performer
hard rock performer who
passed away and the audience and gigi
allen was very
uh aggressive and like a crazy person my
friend once saw him
in a concert and he
took a dump on stage
smeared it all over his face grabbed the
girl from the audience and gave her a
big kiss and as she walked by him she
just went like this like excuse me like
went to the bathroom so the audience is
screaming at gg allen because he's very
visibly over the top whereas you got a
bunch of these kids dressed in these
silly costumes you guys just having fun
well the head of the club kids michael
alleg ended up killing someone
there was a kid called angel menendez
who hung around with them he would
always have angel wings and boots uh one
time they're at michael's condo
with um another with a drug dealer named
freeze they got into a fight some angel
got hit in the head with a hammer they
kill him
what are we gonna do with the body uh
they put it on ice in the bathtub they
had a party so everyone's going the
bathroom while angel's body's there
michael got they're like all right we
got to take care of this michael got
extremely high in heroin
had like uh sil cutlery from macy's saw
the body in pieces put in a box
they took him in the cab the cab driver
helped them throw the body into the
river and then michael starts walking
around manhattan wearing angel's boots
and would tell people i killed angel now
because he was a super effeminate
over the top like he would pee in
people's beer kind of guy everyone's
like oh god michael like like you and
your stupid pranks
uh but it was true
and he got caught um and he got sent to
jail
so i was in a store in manhattan in soho
and it was one of those stores we have
like all sorts of things for sale
and i saw a painting and it said malice
and i'm like wait what and it was m aleg
it was a michael alec painting he had
painted while in jail so my mom bought
it for me for my birthday i remember a
birthday that was and i started writing
him in prison he was going to write a
memoir called eligula which is clever
and then i actually went to visit him
like i want to see what this person is
like because on the on one hand he's
king of new york nightlife this goofy
person and it's also kind of ironic that
gigi allen is like maybe he's gross he's
not killing anybody he's probably an
accountant off the stage and michael
actually killed someone and then bragged
about it tongue-in-cheek
so
but meeting him
he passed away last december um on
christmas actually this uh christmas uh
uh 20.
um he was clearly a sociopath
and i'd never met a sociopath before now
a lot of times we'll read these like
you'll take a buzzfeed quiz like are you
a sociopath but it's like oh
my feelings weren't hurt when i was mean
to someone
it's not a thin line
between like
me and you and him it's a thick thick
line because when you're talking to
someone like that at least in this
specific case he was being very friendly
he wasn't and it's not like he was going
to kill anyone or is a threat to me
but
there's that sense like something's
really off here and he was talking to me
about how after he had
killed angel
he would just talk about it because
he felt so much guilt he just wanted to
get caught it's like no no you what he
was describing wasn't guilt he was
describing just he didn't like the um
the knife over his head
like waiting to get caught i'm like you
don't even know what guilt is so it was
kind of like oh wow
so
as for jeffrey but the thing is michael
aleg is it was in a very low social
position
and the thing is when someone is
powerful
very high status
and they do something
we are as kind of hierarchical animals
we kind of defer to their
norms yeah so if you're at a party
with let's suppose uh or either of us
and it's like a jeffrey epstein party
and everyone at the party is doing some
sort of weird drug we've never heard of
we wouldn't really feel comfortable
judging them because like their norms
kind of become the norm for that space
um
the lesson for me about jeffrey epstein
uh it's the sev there's a lot of them
because i think this the to me the the
biggest moment was the amy rohrbach
situation amy rohrbach was caught on a
hot mic
saying that they had all the goods on
him they had all the names and that
buckingham palace called them they
killed the story because they weren't
going to get a megan mark interview out
of it so that
the willingness of
those in power to
do the wrong thing for this flimsiest
pretext which i think was a big
important lesson
also the fact that
no one at abc
had any consequences for this in fact
the only person who got in trouble for
all this was someone who used to work at
abc went to i believe cbs and they got
fired from cbs because apparently they
had access to footage at one point even
though they weren't the ones who had
leaked it
um
so whistleblowers are like the only for
example the case in um
uh uh eric garner the guy who was
selling lucy cigarettes in new york city
uh who was arrested he had a heart
attack or whatever it was on the way to
jail he died the only person so the cops
had a situation there the only person
who got in trouble because of that was
the guy filming it like he went to jail
so i think there is if there's a lesson
in terms of
we look at julian assange right there's
a huge
amount of power exercised by elites to
make sure that what is done on the cover
of darkness remains in the cover of
darkness and also kevin mccarthy who was
currently the house minority leader
leader of the republicans he wrote a
letter to abc news like you had this guy
maybe you couldn't call in the
authorities but you could have leaked it
to somebody why hasn't anything come
forward nothing happened as a result of
this we also have to keep in mind that
the longest serving republican speaker
of the house in history dennis hastert
went to jail because of things related
to pedophilia and things like that so
as russians and this is something i
think you and i have mentioned before
uh americans are very naive often
decreasingly so about the nature of evil
they think an evil person is someone
who's like getting kickbacks
um or you know like the cuomo's are
colluding something like that i would
hardly even call that evil um
no no this is
the sort of things that are so depraved
that you would never think about it in a
million years in your own home you don't
think in these terms and and i think
they get off
on doing things that if the average
person heard about it the average person
would be shocked because that gives them
this sense of weird above them we're
different from them
the rules don't apply to us there's a
lot to say here so one is the norm thing
you said at a party it's really
interesting
for an nrcas to say that
well no it's this no well i know i know
so i'm not sorry this that came off as
criticism i meant it as harsh criticism
[Laughter]
no i i think about that a lot like um
as uh the you know i found myself in
situations where i'm invited
uh to
these kinds of parties where people have
nice things
and i find it deeply uncomfortable for
that reason
i i don't want to be sort of an activist
that goes in and ruins a party that's
that's a i think that's uh
that's not the courageous act
neither is it courageous when everyone's
doing some weird drug that you mentioned
to join in i think
courageous is more
being remaining yourself sticking to
your principles calmly in that room
where everybody is doing the drug and
just don't do the drug yeah sure don't
make a scene about it but also don't
don't do it and i think
that little act of courage over time is
the way you resist jeffrey epstein that
exactly the thing you said
is is probably the situation where
charisma works so one charismatic person
gets the little crowd going and the
crowd is everybody sort of uh
establishes a norm at the little crowd
and yes there could be some dynamics
that allow that norm to be established
like you said like rich and powerful
people might
enjoy
being rich and powerful and better than
everybody else kind of
kind of thing but
like i
especially for scientists i i thought
they should have integrity and courage
enough to
to see through that not again as an
activist like so you can tweet about it
how courageous you are but just
literally see there's something off here
there's something off here and i'm not
going to participate i'm going to defend
these scientists because
something off first of all you're always
defending academia it's disgusting it's
my favorite thing i think that first of
all this is going to sound like a joke
and it's not i bet you
of those mit scientists are on the
spectrum
so everyone they're going to meet is
going to be a little off right so i'm
sure part of their brains like okay this
person is weird this is just them being
on the spectrum like the lights but
spectrum i couldn't even finish the joke
okay guys
number two is
off
we
we tend to
there's this poem i forget who wrote it
it was like nick cave or something and
it was describing um like
i think it was gerbils hair normal
height normal weight normal what do you
expect horns right so
when you meet someone you think
something's off
there's going to be a bell curve of what
that could be right it could be that
they're twitchy
or maybe they're completely asocial and
then you have jeffrey epstein over here
you're going to need a lot of evidence
to be like oh i feel something off there
for this guy's the head of an
international you know sex trafficking
ring so
yeah you might be like okay but at the
same time if their extended relationship
is this guy is interested in my work
he's going to fund my work and i don't
have to give him anything in return he's
clearly intelligent he's appreciating it
and being a scientist is a thankless job
uh i i know what it's like as an author
when i was writing dear reader the north
korea book my friends are sick of
hearing all these north korean anecdotes
because at a certain point it's like
okay we get it just saved for the book
and you know you've got to be in that
lab you're looking at the springtails
whatever it is you're looking at no one
knows what a springtail is i just
disagree with you so the that'd be
interesting to draw the distinction
between science and writing because the
scientific process itself is fun as fuck
it's you're solving little puzzles sure
so like in itself
it's fun so like it's rewarding like the
reason you go into
uh science is you can continue really
without a boss to continue having fun
and solving puzzles that's that's
literally so like
uh unless you become cynical and tired
of the whole thing so the the people the
administration or when you're running a
large lab and you what you get sick of
is the emails and the meetings and all
that kind of stuff the actual act of
being in the lab is still fun as fuck
if you allow it to be writing i feel
like
is there's more priority to publishing
like would you enjoy it the tree falling
in the forest would you still enjoy
any of the books you've written if they
never got published
not to the same extent not even close
right right i think that the thing about
science
it's almost like you get a peek into the
mysterious yeah but this is okay let me
this is where i'm coming from
since moving to austin i've bought 150
over 150 plants look are you doing the
the politician thing
let me let me be clear
all right
it's not
oh you you are running in 2024 this is
very interesting
i bought 150 succulents from my house
they're they're thriving here in austin
as they wouldn't have in brooklyn you
have a great video about it people yeah
one of those plants i have is the photo
i took on my instagram there's no other
photos on the internet none of my
friends care
or they care like ostensibly but like
that's cool like i have a better plant
collection in my house than like almost
any botanical succulent collection than
any would santa garden in america other
than probably the huntington and no one
cares this is what ego looks like by the
way
i i can prove it to you no i know but
you don't have to rub it in well they
have a big budget i don't so if i can
put it together they should be able to
right so i can only imagine that a
scientist who studied
you know
those spiders that look like ants
like at a certain like
oh and this species does this with the
gender dimorphism their friends are only
going to care so much so if you meet
someone who has a lot of money who now
cares about aunt spiders it's going to
be exciting it will be very exciting but
i i just wanted to push back on the
i think the act itself should be the
biggest reward i think you're always
safe we're talking about goodness being
a safe default i think it's a good
default
for for plants and for writing it for
science
is to just enjoying the act even if
nobody cares okay this is where this
okay now i'm even now i'm wondering why
i'm pushing back so hard and i realized
what it was
because
i've made this point several times and
i'm glad i can make it again
there's this window of time that
happened in my life and i know it
happens to a lot of people
when you're in you're like 24 to 27 28
right so 21 to 24 like you still have
your friends from college so on and so
forth right but then it's kind of like a
poker game and you know every so often
people cash out they're like i'm out i'm
out they get married they get a job they
move
and if you are someone who is a young
ambitious creative
that window is a very rough one because
you're doing the right thing right and
you're not being you know drug addict
you're not being a philanderer not that
those things are wrong but just like
you're playing by the rules you're
creating your stuff what you want to be
known for
contribution you want to make for the
world and no one cares and it gets very
lonely
and there's this
very emotional disconnect about how is
it that
i'm creating and i'm working hard and
i'm making something happen and it's
just radio silence so that
i don't think it's that easy when you're
you're the scientist not me
when you don't have any kind of external
validation humans only have so much
fuel
nothing worth having is easy michael by
the way yesterday talked on the phone
with a person he said he was deeply
moved the first time you mentioned
this uh age group of 24 to 27 he's like
he he's 26 he said
and uh he feels the full responsibility
of that and the excitement so he left
his like um corporate typey job to
pursue something that he's really
passionate about and that that that was
like you were an inspiration to him
which i i was deeply saddened by that i
also inspired michael alex
the
the the amount of mass murder um those
that were inspired by you will
eventually uh lead to is is uh truly
horrifying
what were we talking about so jeffrey
absolutely oh one thing i wanted to ask
you so
let's put scientists aside what about
like
uh world leaders uh bill clinton
your favorite person
why would he fly with jeffrey epstein
why would he
interact with that guy
i mean
don't you think that
that's kind of the deal
that i'm the president
and i get big and powerful people flying
around their jets and that's the
symbiotic relationship
yeah but don't you also have a good bs
detector like the
don't you have a good detector for
people who just want to be in your
presence
like i already
understand that there's people like this
out there like there's people that kind
of
want to use me for stuff
and
you mean tim dylan tim dillon
um
uh i love that guy you guys met we
haven't met yet here we have met oh yeah
wow we met before in new york but we had
not since i've moved here yeah so
you should be able to detect that though
there's those people and there's the
people that have kindness in their heart
even if they can benefit from the
interaction with you but they have like
they're good human beings i feel like
you want to
you run into a lot of trouble if you
surround yourself or have any people
that are manipulative but i think you
like that bad example because like let's
look at clinton and let's look at obama
right
so obama even though their politics are
very close i'd say in many ways obama is
apparent we don't know i don't know
either of them but to me it seems very
apparent that he's very similar behind
closed doors as he did from the camera
yeah he's he's barack to me oh yeah yeah
he's good yeah
clinton seems very clearly
to be much more of a performer he's in
front of the cameras he puts on a roll
but behind the cameras he very much has
a temper he's known for that he's much
more of a letch
um
perfect
oh lech with an e l e t c h yeah oh cool
yeah letch is that like uh that's a cool
term so i can use that in the internet
like you're a ledge yeah you could use
an internet you're a dirty watch well
it's a dirty's implied um oh so it's
okay yeah so being redundant yeah um but
it just feels like it needs an adjective
to give it more power anyway i'm sorry
so uh clinton is a letch right so
you can see how
there's people who want to meet you know
the surface bill clinton and i'm sure
that guts old for him because he has to
be on
but then there's the good old boys where
he could be a pervert and this guy's
like yeah i know what it's like and then
he feels like he's himself but i'm also
we're all speculating i mean i don't
know what bill clinton is like what was
in it for him he certainly had could
afford private jets if he wanted to uh
there's no shortage of people who want
to fly around the world to give speeches
you know at you know can he satisfy the
lech within
uh in without hanging out with the
jeffrey epstein's of the world like
can't he get i mean this is the monica
lewinsky question to me i'm i'm confused
by all of this can't he get
uh women in a legitimate way of like
not not using his power not hanging out
with these
shady
rich people but just like
having a
normal mistress like jfk had well jake
had a lot i know i understand that but
in the normal way or i don't i don't
know enough about you i i i don't
understand
the clinton psychology
first of all the fact that you're
hooking up with someone who's close to
your daughter's age to me i think was is
inherently disturbing but she's an adult
so okay that's not that that
you know beyond the pale
but
also the idea that oh if i don't
physically fornicate with you it's not
cheating
like that whatever you tell yourself or
like if i don't ejaculate it's not
cheating like
these rules then maybe it leads to some
kind of slippery slope like you start
not having the rules of
who you fool i mean if you told your
wife like listen
it wasn't cheating she only you know
performed on me
you're going to say this with a straight
face like do you at a certain point when
something is so brazen you wonder if the
person even has to believe it because
who are you fooling
but like we started this this
conversation with them there is a line
between
young women older than 18 and
young teen like 12 13 kids have you
ever when's the last oh because you're
it's different for you because you're at
mit i was hanging out with uh uh blair
white uh and she had a couple of fans
with her of hers and they were like 22
23 and they were like children to me
yeah like i'm like
to me as someone who is in his late 60s
to look at these people
as adults like
they look completely like kids
so
that now of course there's exceptions
like i've interacted with a young 20 20
year olds
that are like
you're way more mature than i'll ever be
like the wisdom that comes out of them
is quite fascinating visually
the the energy and the way they look
they looked so young to me and the the
way they carried themselves it was the
the idea that my
instinct was
let's tuck you in and read you a bedtime
story and not let me like touch you or
something it was just like
like it was just wouldn't enter my head
so
there's but the thing is
is it possible that in order to want to
be the president you have to be a crazy
person
that you have some kind of weird
view on power it could be a power thing
too
yeah like like you can get away with
stuff like if i was clinton's age
nothing about monica lewinsky to me
would be
attractive and also i would just feel
bad for her because i know she's going
to catch feelings
and it's kind of like feeling yeah it's
true
it's just like why would i do this to
this kid for what just because i want to
get some like momentary pleasure
come on
beauty is in the eye of the beholder i'm
sure she looked uh gorgeous to him in
the moment
well let me ask uh we started talking
about beauty uh who are you wearing
[Laughter]
so as a model under you usually have
don't have a shirt on when you're
modeling
so it's nice to see you uh dressed up
today
um
[Laughter]
nice and warm this is because so for
those who don't know if russians don't
celebrate christmas obviously with the
soviet union christmas was illegal no
thanksgiving basically no major
holidays where everyone gets together
this is the one holiday yeah it's not a
call and instead of i remember as a kid
instead of santa claus we have dead
marrows who's the same thing basically
it's like android and iphone is it's
like a cheap version of christmas he's
got this girl with him she's like snow
white or whatever and
russian kids they go to sleep on
december 31st and they wake up january
they have a present under their pillow
um and i remember as a kid this happened
once
and it just blew my mind you know what i
mean it's just like i went to bed my
dad's like oh you know you're going to
have denmark is going to bring you your
present if you've been a good kid i'm
like i think i was a good kid
like but you don't even remember a year
of your life when you're four uh you
remember like you remember those moments
yeah and then i woke up and there was a
present in my pillow and i'm i was it
just blew my mind and
that building is still there 1461 sure
parkway in brooklyn so
um
and it it's just all so funny like uh
what i really like about kids you know
being an uncle now is kid logic
because there have very little bit of
data but they're using logic to make
sense of it and sometimes it gives them
to the completely wrong conclusions for
the completely right reasons
i remember
you know i
my bedroom as a kid was right off the
kitchen and i'd be scared in the dark a
little bit so they'd leave the light on
the kitchen while i went to sleep
and
at the same time my parents had told me
you don't leave the lights on the house
it costs money waste electricity right
so i would be worried because i'm like
oh my god my parents leave the lights on
the kitchen all night
and now it's costing them so much money
not realizing that you know five minutes
after i'm out obviously they're turning
the lights off but like in my kid logic
this was a concern of mine
yeah and memories work that same way i
have a collection of memories that are
stitched together logically somehow but
they they also don't really make sense
there's a there's a few defining things
so i grew up in in russia and
experienced a lot of
new years in russia there's a there's a
a lot of incredible things about that
tradition that just warms my heart
so one as a kid you mentioned these kind
of
stories that's the one night of the year
that kids are allowed to be adults
in the following way like you in in in
kid logic
you're allowed to stay up all night oh
yeah okay that was uh as late as you
want which actually ends up being you're
not used to it
you crash but no you get to
uh you know two three four at night you
stay up and when you get to witness
it's almost like alice in wonderland
goes into this world
you get to witness what is the adult
world really like now obviously it's not
an actual adult world
merriment like like laughing fighting
arguing but also
like in in our case like singing and
uh
like yeah arguing like philosophical
stuff but also like um
if i may
how would i describe it
this is also probably a little bit
russian culture but like flirtation in
all of its forms
meaning like men and women just being
like because they dress up yeah yeah
it's like it's uh it's joy it's like you
get to show off like
dresses whatever you got you show it off
this is fun and then um
men too just
like friends laughing and like arguing
just showing off the best they got with
delicious food obviously that there's a
thanksgiving element there yeah
where there's just so many just you
bring out all the traditional stuff
uh the the avs salad just everything
just
the full thing with the desserts and
obviously the vodka a lot of vodka and
at the time so this is the soviet union
like the biggest stuff and this is so
sad that these are the things i remember
is like
uh coca-cola oh yeah like american like
that
uh i'll probably kill somebody for dr
pepper
it's so fascinating that um
you take it for granted sort of the
results of capitalist
society with the material things that
are created
but that was the ultimate
happiness is to experience this new
thing sugar
i don't know um you know there's like
there's scarcity there's like communist
czech republic
so basically they try to rip off coke
yeah and it's just like
it's like they just threw whatever they
could together
and it was a very poor knockoff as you
can imagine i forget what it's called
and all the czech people right now are
getting very angry at me because i can't
think of it but they have it now
and the slogan is good or weird
so it's like this so they kind of
reclaimed this kind of hipster soda yeah
oh that's awesome it's almost like a
parody right yeah but i think the
thing i really remember is the
camaraderie
like the
love for each other
and neighbors too
like um
like you and i are neighbors now we
don't see each other that often
i hope that changes but a lot of it is
also me i'm just a deep introvert
you're also the hardest working person i
know yeah so it's time but you know
like it's not like i'll go in the middle
of the night at like 4 a.m and go to
7-eleven just sit there
sipping a slurpee for an hour thinking
about life so it's not like i'm
always working
yeah i don't know what i mean is like
you get to meet your neighbors and you
get to experience their
uh their highs and their lows and you
get to bitch about life about government
about corruption about the unfairness of
life together
well it's also i think what people don't
appreciate as americans is it's very
rare and russia to have a safe space
yeah so you know that
that january 1st no one's going to
snitch on you you know they're not going
to be informants probably so you can
vent and and you know that's the thing
with people in totalitarian countries
you have to have the public facing
persona and then behind closed doors is
very different it all comes out and i
also remember the arguments and i've
i've been uh going on um
clubhouse recently into russian rooms
well just to practice russian
and uh they it's so beautiful to watch i
mean clubhouse is a very specific
collection of russian people maybe it's
a little bit political
but and they're a little bit older
and it's interesting to watch how much
they love to argue
yeah and so like it will be literally
um
it's you could think of it as a
nonlinear dynamical system okay from an
engineering perspective
it
whenever any positive topic comes up
it's you could you could feel the
skepticism and then wait a minute this
is not good and they'll start like uh
perturbing it
until you're like
uh they'll find some way to say like
come on now that is the dumbest thing
i've ever heard and then it goes back
into argument it's so fun to watch
because
uh in one sense you could see it as
negative
in another you could see it as free to
express yourself because
it feels like you can solve a lot of
problems by allowing yourself to just uh
be emotional and
both both emotional and say hard truth
and all those kinds of things without
like um
without patting yourself on the back
about it uh but also
it just sort of those russian rooms
make me realize how constrained american
speech is
how careful people are in the way they
express it even the michael mouses in
the world you're you're constantly being
like nuanced
there they just say crazy shit oh yeah
and then they correct themselves and
make fun of themselves and they
completely shift opinions a minute later
and it's it's chaos yeah and is i mean
it's it's beautiful so i i love that
that culture is it's funny given
the current regime in russia like how
that's coupled with
how people are talking and
um yeah i don't know and i have those
memories of childhood of of friends that
i had of just having that true freedom
of
talking and somehow that leads to uh
deep bonds together
when the life when you're poor when life
is
has a lot of elements that are unfair
when the government is corrupt there's
sort of it's just um especially in the
soviet union there's uncertainty about
the future all of it you just get closer
together like penguins huddling together
in the cold like that much of the
penguins movie
that i don't know uh the the friends
i've gotten there
like
i get
emotional every time i kind of
think about those friends because it was
so close that friendship was so fucking
but i just really hate the the russian
cynicism i know you do and i actually
disagree with you about it
you see it as cynicism
i see it as um
waves on top of the water like surface
cynicism and the depths as i see the
beauty of the russian soul so we like
yes that cynicism can negatively affect
a lot of people like you i think you've
talked about like as a parent like
being cynical about the world and then
you have
dire negative consequences on your
children they become cynical they don't
ever take big risks to take on both
things and i have those arguments
um because the cynicism is exhausting
it's destructive yes and anti
creative but so in in their perspective
is this is what the russian folks would
say well yes that's our role like
being cynical is being reasonable about
the world it's not it's completely
unreasonable it's a complete lie i know
but their argument is yes but
we're we're giving you this force and
it's your job to resist against it
so it's a test i love the idea that if
you're going to be creative and
innovative you don't have enough up
against you yeah exactly this is exactly
oh i don't know it's not hard enough
already that i want to be an author now
you got to be like well what let me just
put some fire ants on top of it
so i i just want to separate i agree
with you that the cynicism is is bad and
destructive
but
the idea that life is suffering
and
thinking from that as a first principle
i think there's a lot of beauty to be
discovered through that so there's a
cynicism and then there's a horrible
message
uh life is suffering
no not
well yeah i mean kamu
kamu doesn't think that
now we're going into uh definitions of
suffering then
because absurd
what see life is absurd is life is
suffering or not even close to the same
concept well then you're just defining
the terms differently well that's
because they're different terms yeah
well so is love and beauty but like so
let's define okay wait you're selling if
your baby's in the crib like with a
fever you're like oh that's absurd no
it's the kid's suffering it's not the
same so yes starvation see you've been
for white pill researching a lot of
actual specifically defined suffering
sure but also a lot of
wonderful things
right yeah yeah but the the word
suffering can encompass more than just
specifically starving and
it could
it can encompass like a lot of the
philosophers
uh talk about it encompass like
philosophical suffering the fact that
there is
if if you're not careful life was can
appear meaningless you can fall into a
nihilistic view like it it's it's it's
difficult to have the responsibility of
freedom to act in this world because you
can fuck up in so many different ways
and then
life is seemingly unfair
in this in the sense that
good things happen
for no apparent reason and terrible
things happen
like what you know it's the old
religious question of why does evil
uh happen in the world or what why do
terrible things happen in the world
there's this book called six word
memoirs right where all these different
personalities are awesome were you in it
no i'm in it with so you had to
basically write your autobiography in
six words
and mine was good things happen to bad
people
you see there you go there's humor yes
that's your way of dealing with the
suffering but i don't think life is
inherent if life was suffering we
wouldn't be able to have
happiness
no out of suffering
happiness is born so like it's it's the
ups and downs of life and what it means
like
i don't this i just i don't agree at all
that you need to suffer in order to be
happy i agree you have to work hard but
that's not the same thing
yeah all right so the way i'm using
suffering i think a lot of them use
suffering is the way you use
like gravity so in order for the roller
coaster to work you need gravity
there needs to be a force that bring you
down sure in that same way there's
like
you have to resist the natural
pull of nature that wants to
destroy you
no nature wants you
to nature's indifferent
but we have the capacity
because we're blessed with minds and
we're blessed with friends yeah to
transcend yes nature yeah no i know but
i think it's a it's a word
that captures something about life
that there's no reason to it that is
absurd i think to me oftentimes the way
i think about the word suffering is
synonymous with absurdity
this is not suffering
but this is absurd i just noticed
there's a box
with the big bow on it next to you
what's in the box michael it's your
present so it's your present for new
year's uh can we open it yeah sure
what's in the box it's gonna take and
you brought up suffering this is gonna
be very unpleasant here you go
i packed it myself
yeah there's a whole process in there
so there's three presents in there
lex
i'll read the card first okay
something about opening presents
like tearing stuff
makes me feel like because like i just
tore this sheet of paper yeah so it'll
never be the same again
it's entropy it's entropy times
you've got a powerful voice
deluxe
thank you maybe i should read the other
card first
you've got a powerful voice listening to
what you have to say always puts me in a
hopeful place i feel like this is
building up to something you show me how
change can happen when you face the
world with pride confidence and a voice
that can't be silenced keep speaking up
the world is listening yeah
there's no cynicism in this card no this
is about this is new year's this is all
about helping joy
what to lex i'm seeing the binary uh
deluxe thank you for setting the path
for me to move to austin
zero one
zero zero one zero zero one
zero one one zero one one zero zero zero
one one one zero one zero one michael
mouse yeah
brings tears to my eyes
thank you brother my pleasure
let's get to the present
okay
it's a it's a pc box
this is very promising
it better not be sex toys there's
nothing this is all there's nothing
inappropriate
at all why would it
why would sex toys be inappropriate
because you're sex positive because
you're a virgin
yeah bring a knife to a party
how clever is it to put it in a pc box
well i had it i just got a new pc
okay
yep open the cam first open the can
you rap push yourself
[Laughter]
that scares shit out of me
could get back in the can that actually
stayed in there that's magic just got to
cut the string
no
you're the most beautiful troll of all i
love you so much
this is awesome
did i did it not work
pick it up
oh it didn't work
there's a terrifying springy feeling to
this thing
i don't want to open this
i need to move some beside aside
i hate you so much what what
oh is it the other way no just pick it
up
yeah we uh fell for that
thank you so much
wrenches they're my favorite
i can't believe i fell for that
okay
and there's box number three it's like a
mattress
i can't believe that worked yeah
i wanted a box to open all these gears
to fall out but you can't get you can't
get him yeah does that really
grind your
glass you know what gradually is
why am i scared
okay
this
there's another box
this leads to my death no no this is
this is there's a story behind it
i can't believe that worked
oh god that's so good all right
all right no springs no weapons no
wrenches
okay so let me tell you the story behind
that
toy
tonka
robots that turn into vehicles so when
you there when i was a kid
you had transformers
but for us poor people
you had gobots right
so the gobots there were four main
characters for the good guys it was
leader one small foot turbo and scooter
and what was annoying is when you had
the action figures
you couldn't find the ones that were on
the tv show
and i was a big gobots fan as a kid
and i went once to the toys r us
in caesars bay in brooklyn with my
grandfather my grandfather was always
very lucky like just good things
happened to him every so often
and i went there i remember very vividly
they must have just unpacked
just loaded the shelves and how they had
the shelving it would be like like a
grid you know you'd have like it was
like one two three four five
five rows and like uh five by five
and i remember it was like two up and
then you have to do you have to sit by
the side and kind of sort through them
and with the gobots each package had a
picture of the different figures so the
packaging wasn't uniform and they just
had scooter there she was just sitting
there and i was like holy crap so
that feeling
when you're a kid and you find that
just sitting on the shelf it is right
there it's just it was such this was
this that scooter no i have it though
but that one is for you i thought you if
you want to put it next to your other
robots yeah open it up i can open it up
yeah yeah it's for you and that way uh
it's that symbol of joy when you have
when you're a kid when you find
something you really want i think it
just is really like so when people look
at it they'll be like
don't be hopeless i'll open this
carefully later no do it just yeah i
should do it yeah okay there's no way to
open it carefully
kids don't open stuff carefully you rip
that crap open but then you break it and
you cry that's what happens when you're
kid i never did that okay
me neither i never cried but never got
presents either
that is so cool all right scooter
you symbolize
childlike discovery right
the poor the poor man's robot
the poor man's transformers
i think there's instructions on the back
how to transform her
to her i only found out as an adult that
it was supposed to be a girl yeah
wow this changes everything
thank you
that's incredible
no give me here let me show it looks
better when she's transformed
what no there's there's levels to that
statement oh
how have to do like this let me see if i
remember how to do it
because i had this as a kid
arms out
let go
the thing is these are easy to break i
remember
is it like this
no oh the the front comes out oh let me
see this
oh this comes up yeah yeah yeah
yep so that's that
the arm scout
i'm having visions of like baby michael
i i can't do it okay i can't do it i
can't figure it out wow you're right she
looks so much better transformed
oh
all right
i'm gonna follow the instructions in a
bit and i'll leave yeah i'll leave this
failed project of yours
oh there's a wheel out
look
i don't like this in between form
well
this is how it's gonna be okay
because we're going to be accepting of
the transformation
that takes time okay
i got uh
i saw this
oh it's this little thing when i was
walking on congress and it says resist
it's a bracelet it made me think of you
the reason i got it is because there's
two bracelets
so one said lucky fuck
and the other one said resist
now i first saw resist and i'm like and
then i saw the lucky fuck and i realized
i'm a lucky fuck to find a relevant
it makes me think of you this is very
nice resist the powerful
that's true
i saw this somewhere the
oh yeah yeah yeah
um
this has to do with
in terms of resist you often bring up
the book uh machiavellians by james
burnham and
uh so as i was looking through i was
reading different parts it's it's tricky
read it's a little bit
uh but there there is a ebook kindle
version now that i've been um working
through this i think there's an actual
audiobook too anyway yeah i just bought
some the machiavellians is is james
burnham's analysis of four
uh thinkers that he regards as the
machiavellians who's guytana moscow
filfredo paredo george sorelle and
i'm blanking on the moscow pareto sorel
and george michelle and i just got
pareto's autograph in the mail this week
so he he talks about freedom and liberty
this is the interesting
um line
that i'd like to get your opinion on in
terms of resist in terms of liberty
there's no one force it goes quote
there's no one force no group and no
class that is the preserver of liberty
liberty is preserved by those who are
against the existing chief power
oppositions which do not express genuine
social forces are as trivial in relation
to entrenched power as the old chord
gestures
so
i mean the question here is can
liberty is
are you comfortable with that definition
or that view of liberty of freedom
that it at its highest ideal is
expressed through the resistance to the
powerful as opposed to existing in its
own i think his point
broadly speaking which i agree with
is the only thing that can work to
mitigate power is other power
that it's um
uh talk is cheap
and persuasion it has very limited
efficacy
it's like
if there's a burglar right and one
person will give you a speech about
property rights and you shouldn't be in
this person's house and the other person
has a gun
you know it's it's clear which is
going to be more
persuasive yeah but can't you just be
free without
the struggle without this conflict i
mean
what i'm uncomfortable with this view
is how closely it uh links
freedom and conflict
like why does this world have to have
conflict for you to be free can't i mean
it's uh and part of it is just emphasis
are you just saying suffering is what
leads to joy
see and now you're in agreement thank
you that's i just did that just so you
can come around and agree i win
next topic
one
wow i'm playing 3d
chess here
okay
this is new year's
this is this is now december 31st i
think that's how it works but in 1973
okay actually we recorded this before
you were born
oh no um years after you're born 60 you
look great
for 60
early 60s or sure okay
what
five things let's say or moments in 2021
are you grateful for
or people
just i don't know
things moments beautiful experiences
profound essences of the year like
looking back what are the cool things
that just personally or socially
do you exist like in a platonic way
socially i mean person oh in your
personal life yeah anything you're
you're both
you're now michael malus you exist as a
social entity and a personal human being
and all of it the whole thing like what
what stands out to you about 2021 uh the
fact that for the first time in my life
other than college i moved to a new city
that was a very big one and there's no
part of me that regrets it or misses new
york
so that was a very big deal for me what
do you uh
about this move about austin itself but
maybe the move itself
maybe just the act of moving what what
um
what's great about it to you
the fact that i had forgotten what it's
like to have a huge
social network which i had in new york
before people started falling away and
then it really escalated as a result of
de blasio and the coveted restrictions
so to have a big crew here
um is something that was very
validating the thing that's also
exciting about austin
is that boston isn't a particularly big
town it's not particular great town but
everyone here at least in the circles i
travel in is kind of a refugee from
their towns so there is this sense of
camaraderie there is the sense of we're
building something together back in new
york when you meet someone
it would be like who is this person why
am i talking to them like are they a
normie are they going to be weird and
here there's
very little of that i think there's much
more sense of trust with one another
when you meet new people so that's
something that's really exciting about
um like i've been introducing all my
friends to each other and everyone's
been hitting it off like gangbusters
it's really great so i really enjoy that
about
um austin i'm enjoying you know the
weather the space
uh you ready kerouac any of this stuff i
have on the road i read and i read a
biography of him
i don't know if it was on i think it was
on the road uh where he
he talks about that feeling when um you
go into some place you're leaving a
place and you're going somewhere else
and the place you're leaving disappears
behind you yeah and all the people and
all
like that you just think about that life
and it's forever gone and there's some
inkling of that where
you get to realize you're almost
mortality because okay that's a chapter
and there's not many more and it was a
beautiful chapter
but now on to the next chapter is there
a melancholy feeling there no it's the
opposite i feel like i've been given a
new lease on life because i didn't
realize to what extent there was this
subtext of hopelessness in new york and
also people who in new york you don't
appreciate or you appreciate it
consciously but you can't escape it
emotionally how much the winters get to
you psychologically uh it's it's tough
it gets dark so early it gets cold you
can't walk around like that's the thing
that's fun about or what's fun about new
york is that you know when the weather's
warm you could walk for an hour and just
enjoy the sunshine and there's a lot to
see and do but in the winter you don't
have any of that it's it's brutal and
here it's just
so that is something there's no
melancholy at all
well that's because there's
can we say something beautiful about new
york not the way it is now but the way
it
i could go on for days about how great
new york was
what did you learn about human
civilization just life that was
beautiful from new york
i learned that there's a lot
of
really
unique special people out there
who are doing their little part to move
the envelope and make the world a better
place
and that when you have
a city
where they're all there together at the
same time
then that really moves the world and i'm
thinking of paris in the 20s in harlem
in the 20s and
new york in the 70s and
la in the late 60s and san francisco
especially in late 60s things like this
uh they really punch above detroit
certainly at its heyday they punch above
their weight and and just really kind of
philadelphia in 17 1700s things really
start happening and that ripples
throughout the world
you think austin has a chance to be a
paris that's in some way yes because
again it wasn't
all of paris it was the left bank of
paris and gertrude stein and hemingway
and all them in a little area so
you know when you read these history
books these scenes it's like 50 people
like in a 10 block radius these aren't
these huge
like davos conventions
okay so the move the big move yeah what
else what else stands out to you again
all both personally and socially like
zooming in and zooming out i did a book
with the ufc fighter
and i was making the point uh he was a
nine-time world champion that i would
never be as good at my job as he was at
his yeah and then when i dropped
anarchist handbook in may and it was the
top
non-fiction book on amazon for like most
of the day
like oh i'm the top nonfiction writer in
america just for today i was like oh
crap okay so i guess i was wrong that
that was a major deal i was i was still
shocked and delighted by the way
congratulations i'm
truly happy for you man it well it's i'm
so proud
but it's also
i i'm proud
because these are people
who had points of view
and they didn't have it easy
and they fought for what they believed
in and in so far as i get to
rescue them to some extent from the
dustbin of history and say these people
really mattered and they really are
worth hearing i i i that i love i love
stuff like that
um you know i was talking a friend of
mine topher uh like a year ago
and because we're in a weird position
with what kind of jobs we have
so like i'll be talking in my live
streams about people like candy darling
or wallace thurman
and
like these are not household names at
all
and then i'd be like proud of myself
that i'm the one who brings them to some
sort of
more prominence and then you want to
tell yourself well get over yourself who
you think you are but it's like but no
one else is talking about these people
or very few so to be able to kind of
give them some kind of stature and
platform that they deserve i think is i
i love being able to do that so you have
a strong voice yourself
and
to sort of join them in it's like john
lennon joining in with the beatles
as like a
a chorus of very different views on
anarchism
just it's celebrating the individuals
it's celebrating the idea
and you are
i think will be remembered as a
a powerful philosophy yourself but like
you're almost taking
just the humility of being in a room
with powerful minds together in one book
it's cool yeah and that these people
mattered and they had a unique
perspective um and as i said in the
introduction to the book i remember i
was in college and
we were studying bioethics and there was
a
like a graph in the book
and one part says antinomianism which
was the view that at one side said
legalism right the two extremes legalism
is what is legal is defined by the
government or what is moral is defined
by government and once said anthonyism
which is nothing
stands above moral law and then there
was like well since no one believes in
this the answer is something to the
other side it's like well why is it in
the charge normally if it has a name
someone believes in it you know so
you know anarchism is a word that's
bandied about and in a dismissive way
and it's like you don't have to like me
or agree with what i'm saying but you
can't pretend that they weren't tolstoy
you're going to tell me tolstoy doesn't
know what he's talking about completely
he's in there uh he was an anarchist so
um
it was it was a big accomplishment
it was really cool to get a chance to
do the audiobook
for you you did an incredible thing
which is got a bunch of really cool
people
uh to read a lot of interesting varied
people yeah so what i did for the
audiobook which i
it's i don't like the idea that hard
work is inherently good because
sometimes being lazy is actually the
right choice yeah so i'm like wait a
minute why am i reading all 23 chapters
when it's 23 different authors does it
make sense so i hit my rolodex and i had
different people read different chapters
to make it sound literally
like you have
the different voices in the book thank
you very much you did my because i was
going to read my chapter wait a minute
like all the other authors are being
voted by somebody else let's have lex
read mine
the one chapter i am
most moved by
is i d uh lauren chen she's a podcaster
as well she's expecting now so we wish
nothing but the best for lauren and liam
and the baby um there's a chapter there
by this guy named charles robert
plunkett called dynamite
and he's advocating for
making bombs and killing people uh
killing you know the forces of
capitalism
and
emma goldman uh it was published in her
essay while she was in lecture tour and
she was just like why is this in here
this is
this is just really going to make us
look bad so on and so forth
and when you're dealing with any kind of
you know h.l menken has that quote about
every rational man must at times be
tempted to
spit on his hands hoist the black flag
and begin slitting throats
so i wanted to talk sound like the
seductive
aspect of violence like that's the
problem like when you deal with
terrorism when you're dealing with
political violence
to be able to understand how people can
fall for this how people can be
persuaded to think
this is a good idea that i'm going to
make some dynamite and throw it into
this crowd and kill
you know police officers and innocent
people possibly in service about it you
have to it's easy to say oh they're all
crazy but they're not you know
even
not most people who are crazy don't do
these things you know
so to have a woman read that chapter and
i told her kind of read it like a phone
sex operator because i wanted to have
that siren song of like so you can
understand
why this calls out to people who are in
the rope the people who are like
marginalized and she did such a superb
job with that chapter
that's such a beautiful vision yeah
because violence that's uh violence is
part of human history
uh
to a degree that it must be seductive it
must be
there must be a strong pull like it's
not insane people
it's there's something probably deep
within our nature that craves violence
and then when there's charismatic
leaders that inspire that
and
revolution
plus violence that that i could see that
being extremely seductive to us like
when you're truly suffering in your
current situation whatever is you're
being oppressed by governments or being
oppressed by the powerful
violent revolution is
probably there's something deep within
us that belongs to that and also this
kind of the julian maxwell to jeffrey
epstein right you need that woman
to be like no no this is okay honey yeah
come along it's not a big deal don't
listen to what your parents told you
they're just prudes it's a siren song
what do you uh what do you think about
just laying maxwell into the trial and
so on
again maybe the interesting story there
is
about the coverage
of the trial so like the story is more
complex and interesting than the actual
horrific acts themselves
so to me i don't maybe i'm not
knowledgeable enough
but to me she's also truly evil
i don't know where to
maybe you can help me to figure out
who is more evil
the uh
just like you said now the person says
it's okay it's okay that uh
helps
the evil doer or is it the evildoer
themselves i don't know but i think
she's a she scares me more than jeffrey
epstein somehow
yeah there's people like that in the
world
like a twitter poll do you think it's
more evil or less evil to kill someone
because you've been paid to do it
and
and people the winning answer was more
evil and i said it was
less
because i think in that case you can
kind of check out you could be like this
isn't my i'm just doing a job yeah i i
don't you know you kind of can
i think in a sense
if you have a certain mindset like
intellectual remove yourself from the
situation i'm just a conduit uh when
you're talking like i haven't been
following her case that that much
just because you mostly watched cnn and
cena is not covering it well i think
my broader point would be
people who are
untouchable and who know they're
untouchable
do
much worse things than those of us
who aren't that way can appreciate like
i'm i was just talking about on twitter
about rosemary kennedy
she was one of jfk's sisters
it's not clear whether she was
developmentally disabled or had
like depressive mental illness there was
something clearly off with her to some
capacity and at age 23
they gave her a lobotomy
and the thing with the lobotomy is you
have to be conscious
you know they don't put you under so you
have to be counting backwards while
their scalpels in your brain and they
stop but
they stopped
they did too far she became mentally
like a two-year-old you know never had
bladder control for the rest of her life
couldn't really talk or walk
and when that happened they
just put her away to some home and they
never mentioned her again or they didn't
tell the brothers or sisters where she
went the lobotomy was only revealed in
um and they pretended oh she's uh you
know in this home for kids with special
needs and it's just like
like that to me is very very scary
that someone could you know do this to
their that people are i saw people
respond like oh that was you know
cutting edge technology at the time haha
but i'm like i don't think that that was
really
uh done that that frequently or be
hearing more about it all these you know
botched lobotomies and my understanding
is lobotomies are
very hard to
like you they would want to do something
like a mass murderer or like like if
someone's really bad like if the
person's left an invalid like who cares
kind of situation but you're dealing
with something like this like
she's not killing people she's not
assaulting people
she's just difficult because she's
making your vaunted family look bad so
um so that's to you that's what is it
like psychopathy or something like that
like you don't care about
you just you you do horrific things and
you don't really care i can't diagnose
joe kennedy but what i would say like
which elaine maxwell
i can't empathize because i don't
underst i first of all even in a
positive sense i don't know what it's
like to be
grooming my son to be the president and
lost you know the other son in war i
don't know what that's like uh i don't
know what it's like to be so wealthy
like i have you have to give joe kennedy
credit because a lot of what he was
fighting for was to allow you know irish
people and catholic people acceptance
into like high society and he was up
against a lot of pressure with that and
he's like i'm gonna
you know screw these people i'm gonna be
recognized and we're gonna make people
recognize so that somebody said for that
but
i mean
i i i can't relate to people like him
yeah
but i mean that like is just terrifying
like i mean one of the big reasons i'm
an anarchist is
like when you have someone who has that
sense of amount of power over somebody
else
a lot of times they're gonna do bad
things
and have no consequences
do you think uh in the just lane maxwell
case and epstein case would
do you think they were
trying to blackmail people like trying
the what the conspiracy theorists kind
of described
that's probably not too far away from
reality
um did they intentionally try to put
powerful people in compromising
situations
so that they can um
basically get more and more power yeah i
think that was a vanity fair piece that
you're referring to or
oh sorry i'm just referring to a general
concept oh there was so there was an
article that broke this down because
this article is either fortune business
week vanity fair i remember a major
major reputable outlet and they were
they
made the reporter made the point they
asked around and they go this guy's a
billionaire or extremely wealthy at
least no one i know ever traded with him
like where is his money coming from
there's no there's no paper trail so
they're like okay if if it's not
trading and trades are public often you
know where's this money coming from and
it's also like why
are all these people allowing epstein to
be their business manager
when he has no kind of track record to
show for it so the hypothesis was he
would get people into uncompromising
situations with underage girls secretly
film it
and then he would you know black they'll
mail them accordingly well i guess that
would make sense i know it makes sense
but i also see a lot of evidence that
he's just very charismatic in a room
so so and i've also seen you know that's
how
human connections get made like business
deals get made yeah but how
where's his money coming from
oh like they
rich people
without blackmailing
just uh
like
him close like him as a friend not
arguing that like okay i like jeff
epstein
make sure you pull that quote yes i'm a
business person i like jeffrey i love
like or love love i'm in love with
um this escalated quickly i'm gonna hand
over him to be my money manager to have
20 of my state fine
where is he making the money for that
twenty percent
that's the thing that there's no paper
trail have him trading or anything so i
can understand why oh i see yeah
interesting what were your 20 20 um
favorite moments you mean 20 21 yeah
yeah yeah
clearly it's just laying maxwell a trial
it just really stands out to me it's
very moving which is why i bring it up
no uh moving here so move moving here
but for me
i i think we actually didn't cover that
with you and i'd love to get your
comment uh
because you said this for the first time
in your life you moved so it's not just
about the death the place you go to it's
the actual act of moving is also a leap
the decision was
that i'm going to
give away my salary at mit so stop
taking salary
give away the group so students no more
research the grant funding i still keep
an mit affiliation just because i have
friends and colleagues they're still
doing research but giving away
really primarily is the source of money
so no salary and let it go to zero let
my bank account go to zero and uh
take a leap
in san francisco
or
elsewhere
and as covid broke out
and a lot of people started talking to
me about san francisco about the
cynicism there and i'll go there and
there is a kind of
so it's not all the woke stuff and all
that kind of things which is also a
problem it's less it's uh less about
dreaming about a big future about
building a big future
and more about some kind of identity
politic battles that they're just
you could say some some aspect in the
positive light is important but
in a place like silicon valley to me the
most important thing is
to do big things um and
for that to be most of the conversation
and so that cynicism was there and then
i went to look at austin and austin it
was the opposite yeah it's the optimism
and you have people like as i talked to
so elon
was the optimistic about
making this the capital of artificial
intelligence and technology and so on
and then um
mr joe rogan
now
just the optimism about making this the
cultural capital of the world of uh i
mean specifically comedy but like it
just radiates from just the excitement
and uh i've seen not many people of that
nature in my life and when i see that in
their eyes that engine that fire of
wanting to create something special
about the place
first of all those people rarely fail
that's first of all and second of all
that's contagious it's contagious yes
and so all that combined
for me
2021 was this the the actual leap of
taking the leap saying all right well
um i'm actually going to do this so not
just giving away the salary not giving
away all that but the whole thing
that's it you just move to a place
there's an empty building
you know and you're moving into it
um
and this is a new life and that leap i
don't know it's a scary leap to take
because i've taken that leap many times
in my life and this is where you know
parents and all those kinds of
cynicism's really destructive because
you know
um from a cynical perspective is you
know i worked at google so why leave
google
a very high paying salary that you can
have google
then mit why leave mit
like that's mit this is you've always
dreamed about like why do you get a phd
yeah you've loved mit or why leave mit i
mean it's the same process i've gone
through with a lot of things in life
like you've been saying
every single stage and you need that
um you need friends you need support
groups and all those kinds of things
that are extremely important but in the
end it's about taking the leap
and for me 2021 was this leap and to me
that one one of the most beautiful
things you can do in life is to take
those leaps and that's something that i
think is no longer a thing in new york
there's no sense of hope you don't go to
new york now if if
there's been such an assault and
intentionally are there otherwise maybe
it's inevitable they didn't have a
choice but there's been such an assault
on creativity and small business in new
york
that no one or very few people who are
in new york right now think things are
going to get great soon whereas here
i feel it's every day is just something
exciting is going to happen
and that's part of the culture and how
the conversation goes it's just in vogue
to be cynical in new york and san
francisco i hope it changes because what
i love about new york and what i love
about austin also
is um
the weirdos the characters they
the just the variety of personalities
that if you just walk around you get to
meet them and i think new york still has
that but it has the extra cynicism on
top of it yeah
that's a negative i mean just becoming
friends with joe
he inspired me to be nicer to people to
not take myself seriously to be humble
to um
to celebrate friends
not to be competitive
you know like all those things
since i started listening to his podcast
from the very beginning it was it just
radiated from the guy
the thing that people don't appreciate
is joe rogan
likes it when you bust his chops yeah
i mean it's a lot of people at that
level like if it's oh mr rogan you're
laughing at everything they say they
don't want that it's very uh phony and
they feel uncomfortable because they
know that everything they say is
hilarious um i remember i went with him
he was doing a performance here
and
i was yeah you were there and he was
doing his set
and i i'd reached the point now where i
don't think of him as joe rogan you know
it's just like my buddy's doing stand-up
you forget and then i looked at the
audience and i remember i'm like oh this
is like a religious experience for these
people but you forget who he is because
he doesn't carry himself
like a big shot yeah yeah and still i
mean he gets competitive as fuck like i
argue with him a lot i mean
uh when i talked to francis collins and
pfizer ceo you better believe i heard
from joe
and then we would just get super drunk
and argue about it so it's um i mean
it's beautiful and he he gets really
passionate so it's not like
it's not like easy to argue with him but
that's great
when you don't take it personally
that's fun as you and i discussed and
i'm sure he wouldn't mind
us saying this but like
that moment when you first get a text
from joe rogan and it's some boomer meme
like i i finally felt like i've arrived
as a person a boomer meme uh what kind
of boomer me what are we talking about
like he just some silly meme but it's
just like this is the kind of thing you
can imagine someone's uncle posting on
facebook yeah it's joe rogan texting it
to you
yeah i mean for me also with elon
obviously there's a few people i'm just
saying folks that people know
also jim keller who's
worked with elon uh so i've had
conversations with them because it's
just my line of work they're realizing
that everything is possible in this
world yeah yeah
which is not the russian mindset yeah
well okay all right that's
let's uh
style it down a notch
yeah it's uh when elon calls first
principles thinking but really it's just
not being limited by the constraints of
the past yes and so saying like okay
this is how things have been done but
can be done much much better
and uh that has to do with manufacture
like how do we how do we do this 10
times cheaper
like everyone says it's this it's super
expensive but is it does it really need
to be this is more of a question about
manufacturing about how to take build a
product how to actually have a product
at scale that
has an impact and just having a very
serious engineering
like to the level of physics
of discussion about building a thing and
fucking doing it and just being around
people that did it and uh
you know basically
literally or figuratively said fuck you
to everybody in the room that said they
can't do it
and that that energy so that i've gotten
to know elon a lot better in 2021 that
to me it's like
everything the whole thing that moving
here and being surrounded by the
optimistic energy
and then the individual interactions
with people
that refuse
to be like brought down by the
yeah the cynicism and the nature yeah
the naysayers it's um
that to me is what i'm gonna remember
this year for and i hope it like
materializes into a
something concrete here in austin and i
feel is is doing that i really am
curious to be a fly on the wall i'm sure
it'll happen at some point watching you
and elon talk to each other because he's
even more of a robot than you
he was on the babylon b podcast and i
was honored to be able to be in the room
while this was happening
and with the guys at the be do um at the
end of every podcast they have like like
10 questions i don't think this worm
with this is one of those no no this and
they go to elon
um would you would you rather be batman
or iron man you know because they're
both like multi-millionaire
industrialists
and elon being elon is like well let's
think this through
there's different kinds of bats you've
got you know fruit bats and you've got
insect
well it's called batman batman sure
it'll fly right that's comply i mean
iron man and i'm just sitting there
holding dude just answer the question
it was so literal i was like damn
i guess by this point uh i've released a
podcast with him that's uh
several hours and it's exactly as as you
would imagine it's exactly as you would
imagine there was this super technical
the movie her
yes of course so there's that one scene
it's when um what is it joaquin who's
the lead character yeah a walking
phoenix yeah so he's the lead and he
falls in love with siri basically he was
played by scarlett johansson
and
there's another artificial ai that she's
talking to
and she's like oh can i uh permission to
go into nonverbal communication with
this professor and
and
the guy's like sure and they just start
talking to each other in their robot and
i'm just imagining the two of you having
this mind-meld
well that so there's both the humor of
that
but also the practical nature of the
kind of conversations to have it's so
great because it's uh
it's problem solving mode okay yeah yeah
okay it's so that is fun that is
exciting because like you stop
completing sentences i actually feel at
home because you don't need to say the
full sentences anymore you could just
like
say random words and you start to
understand what you're talking about and
then you can have multiple conversations
at the same time and go on these
tangents one of the biggest problems i
have with podcasting for me talking i
have to finish my sentences i have to
actually finish making a point yeah
which is a big problem because there's
like a listener that needs to hear the
point being finished as opposed to
completing
your
sentences uh
in inside your own mind and like the the
thing i find is useful to elon does
exact same thing is
when the line of thinking is no longer
useful you just ran you just switch to
the next thing you just leave that whole
thing behind you don't need a nice
transition you don't need any of that
and also just um
it's the first principles thing it's
like zooming in on the
on the elephant in the room i love that
it's so energizing it's just that that's
what i love about engineers it's not the
it's not it's not the maybe most
eloquent
communication style but i um
i love it what about you so you said
moving
the book the book what else
um
and you've been really excited about
so
that's anarchist handbook but you've
also been non-stop excited about white
bill that was most of this year you've
been actually made significant progress
yeah i'm on page 40 of the second draft
and it's really kind of funny because
when you're doing your i think 10th book
i lost track already um
the first draft is actually pretty good
like i'm going back and like all right
this is gonna be a whole slog i'm like
oh i just have to cut and paste this and
basically tweak a few words so
um
i did a good job with the first draft
it's uh it's also funny when you're
writing
um
how
and i guess this is the mark of a good
professional writer
the
my personal feelings don't match
how the characters in the book come off
like i have a lot of fondness um
for people like emma goldman and
alexander berkman and they're early on
in the book
but they're not good people like and i'm
writing and i'm writing it objectively
and whatever and i'm reading this i'm
like they come off much worse than my
personal
um appraisal of them
um so it's kind of interesting as a
writer when you're watching it i guess
kind of like an attorney right like you
can have in a situation where you as an
attorney you have a lot of fondness for
your
client but you realize that they
probably did this thing or you could not
they could be the other way like they're
innocent but you you're it's hard for
you to make a good case for them because
the data is not there can you actually
talk about your writing process sure
several ways so one your writing process
but two by way of advice of how how to
write
you've talked about in the past like
your your first draft is these kind of
uh
disparate or more chaotic and that yeah
in the same way maybe i was saying in
the engineering discussion you don't
complete the sentences yes thoughts the
first
like real good writing advice i remember
getting
was this book by peggy noonan called
what i sought the revolution
and she was ronald reagan's speechwriter
she still writes for the wall street
journal
um i the book i bought was at a used
bookstore in louisburg pennsylvania when
i was in college and the spine is cocked
i still have it it was 99 cents
um
and she talked you know when you're
writing for a president this is no joke
especially for a president who's this no
the great communicator reagan you know
so and you have to you have to be very
inspirational but also not come off as
corny which is very hard to do
and she in the book talks about how she
wrote speeches for him how she'd you
know i'm paraphrasing her and this i
haven't read her book in a couple
decades but basically she would write
like a brain dump and it's just garbage
and she was like that's okay just get it
all out there um and then you know
there's that expression all writing is
editing so
for the white pill specifically this is
i don't know if it's the most ambitious
book i've ever done your reader i think
is more ambitious because that's all of
north korea's history and it's written
somebody else's voice that person's
abortion and you like you mentioned you
had to read a giant number six books
that says research yeah well maybe can
we just pause can you say what white
pill is about
sure it's a tale it's it's about hope
and it's a tale of good and evil and i
think that's i i don't want to tip my
hand too much okay but people always
like how do you think why are you so
hopeful and i'm not hopeful on an
emotional level i'm hopeful because
looking at history i think there's
certain things that
not
not will certainly happen again but it's
not all implausible to happen again and
that the the good guys will win and this
is one of those cases so
you know
i had the book took on a life of its own
it's very different from how originally
conceived it i originally conceived it
as a kind of retelling of camus
philosophy um ryan holiday
who he used to be close friends with
i've talked to him in a while he has a
whole kind of cottage industry based on
the stokes of the past i'm like okay can
i ask them once can i do this with kamu
he said sure
and then i reread camus and recently and
it wasn't what i was had remembered oh
it's like pausing that i apologize to
interrupt so
it's interesting so he kind of took
ideas from stoics
and started to kind of
use it as a book
it gives you advice about how to live
life from historic perspectives and
you were thinking
is there something in existentialism
absurdism or something specifically
in camus thinking or
i think you've mentioned
sisyphus yes specifically like his
philosophical work yeah
so you were trying to see like is there
can i resurrect this that's actually uh
i would think
that's an interesting project
and it's it's sad to hear that
it was uh it didn't materialize in
exactly that form because i thought
there would be a lot in that so i had
douglas murray on my show and he also
made the point like when you go back and
read kamu there's not that much there
the myth of sisyphus
is
not at all how i remembered it yeah the
vast bulk of that book is like literary
criticism so he's talking about dust
deaths you know there's different people
who are embodiments of the absurd but
i'm like this isn't there's not much to
take from here this the actual title
essay is basically like a like sixth
chapter uh essay at the back of the book
which you know it's it's it's it's good
for what it is but there's not that much
there to draw i'm extremely um
he's a great hero of mine i think his
life is just enormously admirable he
fought very hard against the you know
the nazi occupation uh his book the
plague which i find unreadable is an
allegory about you know
germany conquering france and so on and
so forth wait a minute why is the plague
unreadable it's the kind of book where
reading the book doesn't add anything to
the plot the plot is
a play comes sweeps over the town
destroys a lot of life and vanishes as
quickly as it came you don't need to
read the book now like you get the point
that i i deeply disagree have you
yes of course i've read the plague to me
i mean the plague is about the doctor
and it's about love and it's about
the different
roles that humans take in
a time of tragedy like the plague
also it's an allegory
so you can start to think about like
what you know you could whether it's
nazi germany whatever you think that is
yeah
um to me though that was about love and
about like the role like the the highest
ideal being the doctor that like
sacrifices themselves for others
and like still has love and hope i mean
i did to me it that the way that story
is told
i think has a lot of meaning it's like
it to me
you're saying that's interesting you say
it this way but to me it's like saying
animal farm
doesn't need to be read
because it's an obvious story
i don't think there's much plot to the
plague
i think animal farm has a very long plot
and a complex plot but there's
experiences within
so the situation is set up and plague
and there's experiences that start to
reveal a philosophy
so
yeah it's not very plot driven yeah but
but the so i i would say you still
should read it
but the plot doesn't like you you didn't
give away anything currently
right that that's
so some books are just i mean iran is
similar to that in a sense like the plot
is not as important as the behavior of
the different people in that plot i
think she's very plot heavy
no she has plot but i'm saying that's
not necessarily the important thing to
me the behavior of the people is the
important thing sure but you could you
could you could like separate it into a
bunch of blog posts and they stand on
their own i i would have to
think about that with
iran she cr she does through the plot
create a world where you start to
understand right different values that
people have
but yeah
but that's what the plot serves
yeah i don't know i would have to think
but in the plague it's the behavior of
the people that's really important and
the same
i mean the stranger too i mean these
like um
i'm sure i'm trying to scramble here for
books i i really appreciate that don't
have a plot i mean uh
no
uh notes from underground
so obviously this desk has a huge amount
of plot in
in most of his work herman hess has a
huge amount of plot thomas man doesn't
have the pl he's the one who doesn't
have plots that was right yeah would you
say kafka has a plot
i think kafka is very heavy plot driven
yeah but i just don't see that i guess i
guess metamorphosis doesn't really have
a plot
yeah but when there's like crawling
around it's like a vignette it's not
really like a this is not sure yeah
a hunger artist
one of my probably favorite short
stories is that kind of a short story
it's a pretty long short story of
kafka's is really interesting
as a is about a man i don't know if you
read it no i think so um it's about a
man that
uh it's like a freak in a sense that um
his skill is that he can fast for a long
time okay and then people gather on the
cage and look at him as he
as he fasts i don't actually remember if
he's in the cage or not but
the
and uh eventually he fast so long that
people don't even care anymore like they
just leave
so there's a there's a
it has to do something it makes me think
about like
don't become the way you live
don't become like a freak show a circus
act
like live for an idea live live for um
something that brings you joy or don't
live for the sake of attention for the
sake of attention that's yes but yeah
um yeah anyway so uh you i rudely
interrupted because you were talking
about the plague and connecting it to
the writing process of
white pill yeah
well anyway so you know how i was
writing this one i just had a
first draft of notes and there were it's
not in chronological order it's like i
read certain books as research and then
i had the pull quotes that was necessary
there
um and now i'm basically rearranging
everything and putting it so the book
started as
ryan holidays
right
by holiday s caboo the working title
would have been the point of tears
because this is great comeu is a great
quote maker and he has this line about
man must live live to the point of tears
which i think is just what i love about
him
is
camus you always comes off as like he's
clenching his teeth he's clenching his
teeth both in terms of
like barely mitigated rage and injustice
like when he sees people suffering it
just it just really makes him like just
upset to the core
but also
this sense of
uh not taking life for granted
and kind of just pushing yourself and
pushing the boundaries and and
you know his point being that life is
inherently meaningless which gives a
great opportunity to impute meaning to
it and to create our own meaning to life
so taking the the the main essay from
mythic sisyphus that was the the origin
story for the white pill but then it
became something completely different
and so then it became
how are you so optimistic in the face of
everything that's going on in the world
and i started writing it when kovitz
started hitting
and
i
because again i'm not optimistic because
of some temperament of my temperament of
mine i'm optimistic because
you know people talk about how if the us
didn't exist china would just
become an empire and take over
everything
empires are expensive and they're
they're they
ex like look at the british empire you
know look at the soviet union like it's
not
automatically sustainable it costs a lot
of a lot of things to make sure when
you're geographically you know all over
the all over the world literally to keep
everyone in line it's not at all like a
super villain in a movie like once it
happens it's happy ending for them so
yeah that was the start and i'm like all
right let me tell um
one thing i'm good at is telling stories
so this is really uh so this is
narrative uh plot driven very very plot
driven and also heavily character driven
but the characters are real
yeah got it so it's interesting to kind
of mention what kind of what does the
first draft kind of look like in terms
of
what what kind of things do you plop
down oh so it'll be like let's suppose i
just read like you know some book called
the guillotine at work which was an
early book attacking lenin from the
narco communist perspective so it'll
just be like all the different quotes
like a paragraph here double space
another paragraph you know blah blah
so on and so forth whereas for other
sections where i wasn't just using a
book as research
there would be like talking about
mckinley getting shot like it's just me
writing the narrative
and that i could just pretty much copy
paste into the second draft by way of
advice would you give
that is advice is that's a good way to
do it is that a very peculiar way your
brain no so this is this is actually
advice i feel comfortable giving to
people who are trying to write
uh
because it's just like with the gym
right if you did seven sets seven excuse
me reps last week and you did eight this
week it's psychologically motivating
because you're going the right direction
and your mind extrapolates so
make sure tell yourself i'm gonna get a
page done today or two pages done sit
your ass on the computer you're not
allowed to get up to get those two pages
it doesn't matter if they look at
garbage
because if you have a 300 page first
draft
and it's crap
at least you have something to work with
and that's a big number
so if you're gonna the thing is since
the first draft is gonna be crap if
you're editing as you're right it's
gonna be extremely discouraging and it's
also trying to drive and then doing
reverse at the same time it's it's a
completely nonsensical way to do it get
it all out there don't look it over if
you have a great line put in your phone
and then add it to the the draft so
it'll be a complete slog but editing
that slog is gonna be a lot easier than
creating it to begin with and when you
see those disparate lines all laid out
on the page how difficult is it to
then start stitching it together do you
find that
when you look at a list of those things
the final product will look very
different yeah how will you actually use
those lines no i will use those lines
then i have a file called scraps so like
if the line's no longer used i put in my
scrap pile
i'd love to see what's in this grab pile
okay yeah sure
one of the things i've been pulling
scraps is a lot of times when i was
earlier writing
i would have contemporary references
and i realized that that's bad because i
want the
the the reader to be in the past as the
present so if you're talking about let's
say 1901 and you're referring to obama
that screws people up so i have to pull
all those
okay let's talk about some new year's
resolutions
do you ever do new year's resolutions do
you ever think like that like take a
special day
in the year to think about how you're
going to try to change yourself or you
do you try to transform yourself every
single day when you wake up
well i usually have several projects i'm
working on at once so there's always
incremental progress on those right but
like you know it's nice to have a
deadline by the end of
i'll accomplish this kind of a
like to hold yourself responsible and
then you could do that at the end at the
beginning of the year to think about
that
both philosophically like what kind of
big
magic not projects that you can quantify
but more like how can i change my life
or like i mentioned take the leap of
different kinds and then there's
specific things like finish the book
i
years ago and i'm so i'm i think on some
level you much less than me but i think
you're increasing in this direction
i realized it's more i have to learn how
to be a surfer and not a driver
because when you reach the level we're
at in our careers or in our place in the
culture
a lot of this is luck
yeah and a lot of this is just like
like i'm just going along for the ride
because
it's kind of counter-intuitive like you
know like the success of the anarchist
handbook was counter-intuitive
um
so
all i'm hoping for is you know getting
the book done
i am
extremely proud of it
um
and and just also
you know building a
you know we had thanksgiving together at
blair's house
just building a great
uh upcoming community here in austin
which is it has happened very quickly i
was there was going to be another
um
surprise here there's a girl named
natalie um sidesurf and she makes these
ultra realistic cakes like if you've
seen those cakes online where it looks
like cutting a puppy like she makes
those kind of things so she's here
um in austin yeah you know so like moved
permanently i think she's been here for
a while i've never i haven't met her yet
but i just kind of chatted with her so
there's just it's just so many there's
so many um
scenes happening here
um that are overlapping
so in general finish the book
keep building your community i mean
you've already been doing that here
you've been here several months i've
been making a point to introduce people
to each other and everyone's just really
getting along very well
that's great
and the book is the focus the book is
the focus what about the podcast that
you're doing you're welcome yes
i mean i enjoy it and it's been growing
a lot i finally got a new computer
which my friend jay installed so i can
have a decent camera because of my old
this is my mindset as a hoarder like i
was
more interested in spending money on a
pareto autograph than actually getting a
computer that's from the
20th century
um
so
but i i i'm such an old school person
in that in my head
podcasts are like so ephemeral
like i don't
like there's some episodes of my podcast
i'm really proud of and there's a lot of
friendships i've made as a result of it
that really mean a lot to me no question
it's made my life a family better place
but it's not the same as that book on
the shelf especially when the book is
something
that i think
matters much more than i do
yeah there's a permanence to it there's
a
seriousness to laying down the words on
paper yeah like really giving him
thought yeah
that's true but pocket i mean i'm a huge
fan of podcasts you're just you're you
don't listen to podcast much which is
fascinating to
yeah like at all and i like i don't know
how mine is so successful
yeah yeah i just love the medium uh yeah
but you're i i love the authenticity the
the realness of the medium that's really
nice i just understood for the it's
starting to click
because
like my pal blair white she was just on
rogan
and the first 10 minutes
i i was
i was so angry like i was sitting there
like yelling at the screen
because joe
and blair
you would think that they're going to
start talking about you know trump or
trans issues or moving to austin they
start talking about shark reproduction
yeah and neither these dumbasses knew
anything about it and i know a lot about
it and they're like oh is it like this
or do the sharks lay eggs and i'm
sitting there like if you don't know why
you're talking about this
why why are you talking and i could also
see why people like these shows because
they feel like they're friends with the
people like they're sitting in the room
because i felt like it was in that room
and i wanted to shake both of them
you're in the room so know what about
transforming yourself any any
resolutions like that oh i'm doing a
slight bulk now so i'm almost at my
heaviest weight ever but i've been i
couldn't go to the gym this week because
i love underwear under weather um so
that's a little frustrating but yeah
so uh are we gonna get some more
modeling picks what are we what's what
what's is their goals there so my
heaviest i've i'm i'm 4-8 the heaviest
i've ever been
was when and this is when i was like
he's exaggerating he's not at that
that's the metric um
oh sorry are you talking about your
height
yeah um barely four six so
the heaviest i've ever been when i was
like really high body fat because i was
just because i learned because i
couldn't gain weight as a kid so when i
figured out i could actually gain weight
i like i would was
164.5
so i want to hit 165
and then see take it from there i have a
friend uh who's been helping me my buddy
trey goff and this kid's stronger his
yeah jake his username on instagram is
stronger but the number five instead of
letter
and then the number five said the letter
s but he does um
i've never it looks like it's photoshop
like your brain can't process it you
know the human flag no oh yeah yeah
sorry he does human flag push-ups
wow so he is horizontal parallel to the
ground right he's holding himself up
like a flag but he could also do do this
while
some he's moving parallel to the earth
side to side while he it's just crazy
that's really difficult so you oh you're
interested in that kind of stuff no but
i'm saying like he's been helping me out
so like the guy knows what he's doing
he's just a really impressive kid i love
that kind of stuff like uh body weight
stuff so yeah my primary mode of working
out
it's very like the perfect you ever seen
leon like the professional that uh with
natalie portman that movie
it's like i have a pull-up thing as you
push up some pull-ups it's very like um
i'm just missing the milk i like working
out at home just like that
um and the body weight stuff you can go
so much with it and it's super
functional for everything else you live
in
for life for living life well
i'm on the other hand i don't care what
functionality the thing that really
bothers me like i go i know joe's
thinking of opening up a gym like a
private gym
there's only like one power cage here at
the golds i go to yeah
i don't know it's sour so there's only
one or that sometimes people aren't
using it i'm like no one's doing dead
lifts in here no one just me yeah it's
golds
uh by the way i don't want to say where
i'll tell you off mike but there's a
there's a few really
like ghetto places around austin there
are just like these shitty jean gyms
that nobody wants to go to but they have
iraq they have like if you want to lift
heavy that kind of stuff that they 24
hours that's the thing gold
oh
but there are 24 hours in the following
way
there's a code okay and you just go in
okay and you turn on the lights that's
fine then you work out i don't want to i
don't want to meet people
exactly well that's just not true the
people
sometimes there's people and they're
great yeah like and i've had fans come
up to me at goals and they've all been
cool except
accept
oh no except
except
if i have my headphones on yep and i'm
doing deadlifts yep i don't need you to
come over
tap my ear and start giving me critiques
about my form
this actually happened yes
i'm still angry about it
i'm pulling my
in piece thank you
yeah people are hilarious i was uh
recently in uh
had actually the wildest day ever in my
life that was so many things happened in
a row so i went to a wedding in l.a
andrew uh andrew schultz is and
with whitney cummings and and and joe
rogan and a bunch of other fascinating
people it's just
speaking of weirdos does the comedian
like the reason i find the comedian is
awesome one they're authentic they're
just cool people yeah yeah uh but
they're also just weird like you don't
become a comedian for not being like
fucked up in all kinds of different
interesting ways anyway so there's the
wedding
i'm um you know me it was only carbs at
the wedding so i didn't eat i didn't eat
for a long time before so i was like
already fasted
20 hours 25 hours
and but so that this whole story of
everything that happens is is lex like
40 hours fasted
with joe rogan drinking a lot of whiskey
and so you're drinking too oh heavy on
40 oh my god that's crazy so it is
calories that was my only source of
calories is the whiskey and i
so i didn't trust myself with carbs when
i'm drunk i just don't enjoy it because
i'll forget and i just enjoy eating like
a strict healthy diet when i'm drunk
because
i'd rather eat more food that's healthy
yeah versus not and so anyway so then we
went to to vegas
together
and then uh
just kept doing wild thing after another
wild thing uh
rogan opened up for whitney cummings
he just like showed up at a random party
that he wasn't invited and he did a
thing he almost started a fight because
some guys said stop spread yelled at him
said stop spreading misinformation
uh
and then uh we run into david goggins at
vault this is my first time meeting
david i i've talked to david a lot
over the phone and we were supposed to
do a thing together and this is me trash
out of my mind
meeting david for the first time with
his incredible wife oh rogan's wife was
there by the way
joe rogan's wife david's wife
made me realize that i really want to be
married
because
they're not
they make
um their partners better yeah like that
i was
um there's a certain aspect of marriage
that i'm afraid of that like your
partner takes you away from life you
don't get to experience life as much um
but this was like they were enriching
them i don't know it's like
the world's most powerful support group
it was cool anyway so then of course
drunk lex is uh
challenges goggins to push-ups i saw
this on instagram whatever we're in the
middle of this and you're in your suit
in this suit in the middle of casino
there's a crowd gathering
like it's joe rogan
me and david goggins and i'm just doing
push-ups with him and rogan is like
commentating and yelling and screaming
it was it was surreal and just going on
to the next thing and next thing the
next thing like this and then drove
um
all the way from vegas back to uh to la
with with joe and whitney and his wife
and
it was like what what is this and all of
it is done in 24 hours
the one valuable lesson is don't fast
and drink
like excessively
so i've learned that because what
happens is um
liquor hits your mind my mind sorry i'll
speak about my particular mind
like the intellectual part of my brain
got hit really hard really fast so i was
not able to even more so than usual
stitched together sentences i understood
everybody well
so like major immigrant again
so like meeting david i want to say so
many things he's so inspiring to me
right but all i said was like hello
and uh and i like i remember like
opening my mouth to like try to say more
and i was like
and then i would just close my mouth and
not be able to say anymore this is why
this is one of the reasons i don't drink
ever damn
it removes certain
barriers like it allows you to maybe
have fun that you wouldn't otherwise but
yeah definitely for a person who values
intellectual
eloquence and but i also hate being
hungover the hungover party yeah that's
the worst yes and you also like i did
this to myself
yeah
but it also teaches me that this too
shall pass
because i've been hungover and i've quit
drinking so many times in my life
that it realizes it makes you realize
that all the unpleasant feelings
all you have to do is just wait it out
okay fine it took me a long time to
realize that that expression means the
other thing what's the other thing if
things are going great this too shall
pass
yeah i always talk about suffering no i
always thought about it as being more
like don't worry if things are bad it'll
pass it's like it's also like if
something's going great it's not gonna
be this way forever
it's like buckowski said love is a fog
that fades with the first daylight of
reality
do you think love can last
oh yeah we're gonna win
who's we the good guys
didn't hitler also think he's the good
guys he's wrong
because you know why why he didn't win
[Laughter]
so you think it's permanent so the this
one time the good guys winning it will
last it won't pass
because i think all of it passes
unfortunately i think we're going to
win and win big in the not so dis future
do you have specific things in mind or
no or just a sense about human
civilization about society waking up
i don't know about waking up but i think
the um
increased
understanding on
all sides of the political spectrum
that
um
corporate america and corporate news
outlets
uh are self-motivated actors and those
motivations are often inimical
to what others would regard as desirable
is something that i think is happening
with
increasing frequency
so what do you think about
the the political landscape in general
you had a great conversation with glenn
beck and he said that
uh he talked to trump and believes that
trump is uh donald trump is definitely
running in 2024 or very likely running
in 2024. uh i think he said he thinks
he'll have a good chance of winning or
i don't remember that but
the fact that he was running was a
surprise to you do you think uh donald
trump would be running in 2024 uh given
that glenn beck
you know has a much better relationship
with trump than i do to put it mildly if
glenn beck is certain this is going to
happen i would defer to glenn beck's
judgment
um do you think he has a chance of
winning do you think he'll win anyone in
a binary political system who's the
nominee has a chance like whoever the
republican democrat has a chance i think
also it's a lot easier to vote for
someone that you have voted for in the
past
so that's why incumbents have a big
advantage there's not that psychological
barrier to cover i think it's also
useful for trump that he's banished for
social media because then
he doesn't have to have the
responsibility of governing um and all
the costs of that you know because no
matter what decisions you make while
governing some people aren't going to
like that
so he gets to kind of be
above the radar or below the radar
rather
to some extent i don't think it's at all
a given that he would get the nomination
when i say the good guys are going to
win i certainly don't mean donald trump
i don't think
victory is going to come as a
consequence of washington
do you want to make america great again
i think america is great
so
uh this is my failed attempt at humor uh
one of many uh there there are also hats
that giuliani and jim jeffords wore that
said
people can look this up they said
because they were in south the border
make mexico great again also
like that to me it was like like
just the syntax there
uh okay
so you you you don't even think you
might get the nomination
if you who else might i mean they
if you had asked two year three years
out
who the nominee in 2020 would be donald
trump wasn't even or 2016 rather wasn't
even on the on the radar screen so we
have a long way to go uh two years is a
long way to go yeah
um especially because we're coming out
of covid there might be some governor
who becomes a rock star for some reason
maybe someone's gonna have some moment
some congressmen
might have some big moment where they're
you know screaming at somebody and
all of a sudden they become a rock star
in the republican party it could be one
of the celebrities we don't um
think about i mean donald trump is
essentially
not a political figure before right
exactly so it could be
any of the famous republic like um
right-leaning
celebrities
um
i don't even know which way mcconaughey
lee uh leans no i think he's the lefty
or he's the democrat but he's not
running but but like people like that
just might step into the ring yeah i
don't think they'd have that much of a
chance because they're i think the
republican party there's a asymmetry
they'd be much more skeptical of like an
actor than the democrats would be
because they would regard that actor as
coming as a kind of um venturing
candidate or whatever right but there's
other kinds of celebrities like uh jacob
could run as a as a republican that's a
good example yeah yeah
that would be interesting so military
person right yeah
but already like for example dr oz is
thinking of running force is going to
run for the senate in pennsylvania and
there's already been a lot of research
people slamming him on twitter and
social media for past positions he's
taken so
um
you know
desantis is the figure of the moment but
scott walker was the figure of the
moment in the 2016 cycle and he didn't
even make it to iowa
yeah and i wonder what
role does covet play in all of this
right in terms of
um
you know i'm mostly optimistic and
hopeful
about the world like when i look at the
world i'm excited by most things i've
been a little bit uh or a lot
disappointed by
the lack of great leadership in a time
of trouble because to me one of the
uh
one of the great things about
a difficult time
is it brings out
the great leaders
again it's the up and down things like
you don't want to ask for war you don't
want to ask for pandemics but when they
happen
um it's it's a great opportunity for the
human spirit to flourish and the fact
that it didn't quite in the way that i
hoped it would it's disappointing
i think there's still time too because
people are trying to figure out
what to do
as we emerge from the fog
yeah
so i'm excited by 2024 somebody said
this
dark cynical thing i i hope this is not
true but like that
there was some doubt about the results
of the election in 2020
that in 2024
both sides
like it will just start becoming
standard
to
completely
reject the results of an election no
matter who wins well that's my
perspective i don't regard elections as
legitimate um and i see what you're
saying not in the terms of that that
basically the process itself was
illegitimate yes there's like cheating
or something yeah but i think that
that's pretty much
a given uh has been a given like it's
the republicans often say oh they got
all these illegals to vote you know or
the americans will say the voting
machines were hacked or the media and so
on and so forth
because despite all the
people flapping their guns about
democracy
they only like democracy when it gives
them the results that they want
to ask about something else that glenn
beck said that i thought was really
interesting i agree with him very much
on this
and it was refreshing to hear although
he kind of made it
turned into a point about why trump is
great or whatever um
but the point was the following which is
he doesn't
want to talk to anybody who can't say at
least one nice thing about
everyone so like
if you don't like donald trump if you
don't like joe biden
you should still be able to say one nice
thing like legitimate nice not just like
a dismissive nice thing but legitimately
say what is one nice thing they did or
like uh
or who they are as a person
not not like saying donald trump
it's funny sometimes like no like
legitimate where you really mean it and
it's been really troubling to me how few
people are able to do that about
political figures
i had a lot of people
i've i think i tweeted something like
this leading up to the election
saying like you should be able to say
something nice about both joe biden and
donald trump and i've had
um
old friends
um
i don't want to say specific i guess to
call them out but they
several people one in particular like
wrote me this long like several page
email saying sam it was sam harris this
is
no
uh but
uh i have a lot of conversations with
sam harris now and joe on both sides
it's like the devil and the the angel on
both my i don't know which one is which
but just angel
they're both devils
uh and they said how could you say
how could you even consider
like that there's something positive
about donald trump yeah here's an easy
one he uh he has three
wives with three kids with each but they
all the kids get along
i think that's really commendable yeah
that donald trump jr and eric trump and
baron can all get along with each other
given the circumstances i think that
speaks to something as some someone as a
father
ivanka so on the family level and i i
see the same thing with actually uh one
of the reasons i
always found joe biden fascinating is
he's had a lot of really traumatic
things happen in his life yeah
and uh if i shit my pants in front of
the pope i'd be traumatized too
i'm talking to a master troll about
something sensitive and beautiful that
is a man suffering with a loss i kind of
know what he feels like right now i'm
pretending to the pope
this chair's ruined
sorry elon
you'd have to sit in it
why is this chair feel
it's a pretty good elon impression
uh but yeah i mean uh like one criticism
i tell joe
rogan is like he
he has trouble finding one positive
thing to say about joe biden for example
and i just don't i don't i don't like
that i i want
i think
i mean i'm a big believer in the shit
sandwich
sticking on top here's an easy one i
think joe biden clearly is a very
amiable person
like what's the amiibo it gets along
with people like it seems really clear
that maybe before president because it's
different near the president but that he
could call a lot of these republican
senators get them on the phone and have
a conversation with them yeah and it's
not some kind of manipulation to some
extent it is because they're all
politicians but they he clearly seemed
to be able to get
wasn't like a an ideologue
yeah yeah i mean but there's i mean
maybe i'm a sucker for that kind of
thing but uh the blue collar thing like
riding the train you know the there's
ways to connect with people and not it's
seeing them as equals no matter where
their walks of life are and i love it
when presidents do that
uh
to some degree because of the wealth
under which donald trump existed for a
lot of his recent life he's less able to
do that quite naturally
maybe sometimes obama wasn't quite able
the question i who's more blue collar
trump or or biden and you you can easily
make the case for both i think you could
no not the blue collar but like
like literally be able to fit in at a
bar at a local bar and just like
i can see both of them yeah you're right
i could do both of them yeah and in fact
obama doesn't quite no because he's got
that ivy league if you had the ivy
league thing yeah yeah
um
yeah you're right
uh somehow donald trump can too easily
yeah you can see him having a beer with
the guys and yelling at the screen this
is bullshit change the channel
yeah and yeah i hope people do i think
that's one of the
most unpleasant things to me
is
um they're not able to
empathize with the fact that half the
country voted for another well it's also
then it's just a bad strategy if you
can't figure out why
half the country is voting for someone
you guard is like a demon well then how
are you gonna supposed to fight this
demon like you know when i did your
reader the north korea book it's like
don't you want to understand
how these people
get to where they got it's no one's
saying that he's a good person but like
there's a logic to their there's a
method to their madness
you've uh you've talked about national
divorce a few times i've seen a couple
videos recently where you're responding
to articles
it's kind of cool
um
can you
talk about this idea of national divorce
and as it stands today
uh arguing for it maybe and if you could
just out of curious in the context of
those videos if you can steal man an
argument against
uh so i was the first one to kind of
bring this issue back into the national
um
conversation i wrote a piece for
observer in 2016. then jesse kelly had a
piece a few months after that daver boy
just recently did a piece on his stub
stack earlier this year
and it's become enough of a
mainstreamed idea that um paleontology
outlets like the national review have
felt the need to respond to them
so the point being that america has had
at least two cultures since the
beginning
and that there's absolutely no reason
and these cultures in recent years and
this was in 2016 not mentioned 2021 have
been increasingly antagonistic toward
one another and have even lost the
ability to communicate they're using
language in different ways
and that there's no reason for this to
continue any uh further
um and
you know just
you live your life we'll live hours and
you know good goodbye and good luck
there's no harm no ill will
um
now there's lots of arguments against
them some of this are
are completely i think stupid uh the
stupidest one
is well that's what china wants okay
well i i mean i'm not going to live my
life saying i'm just going to do the
opposite or whatever china wants that
that's that's not logic that's not a
good pathway now i'm not saying that
right or wrong but that's not a reason
one way or another yeah you bring up
china or russia you know that's exactly
what uh china and russia want but sort
of the strong way to phrase that
is
um
it weakens
america like not just
the one america but
like both sides in the divorce will be
much weaker than they individually were
together
so in that sense not that you have to
care about what china thinks but like
it's a step but it's a big step
backwards yes i think in the short term
it is absolute big step backwards in
terms of power uh there's no question
that you know when you're trying to
reestablish a society there's going to
be a transition period that transition
is going to be costly uh each side
starts wondering wait a minute why are
we still doing this we don't have to
anymore we're not living with them so on
and so forth so that's going to be a
concern
um i don't think that the whole point of
america
uh or even a large primary point of
america is to be a bulwark against
chinese power and there's gonna be very
few people on earth you know given my
work who have as much uh informed hatred
and contempt for the chinese government
as i do uh certainly um you know next to
the north korean people maybe the people
from eritrea there's few populations who
i'm as worried about as uh the people
under the rule of the red chinese
my steel man argument is
there's no way this is gonna be peaceful
because the lines don't separate out
well so all you're doing is basically
just replicating the problem because the
disparity isn't between you know like
during the civil war north and south
it's like it's between new york city and
upstate new york between chicago
downstate chicago once you get outside
of la and like sacramento uh california
in many ways like kentucky so it doesn't
make sense so that's a strong argument i
mean you've talked about that this
process would be painful right it can't
be pain and we're not just talking about
violence it could be just
even the civil war you could divide it
clean somewhat cleanly
obviously the kind of national divorce
you might be suggesting
is yeah people are living amongst each
other so you have to literally move it's
complicated right so that is a very
strong argument it's i think a cogent
argument against it
two is
it's not just china it's that there's a
lot of
bad actors in the world who maybe aren't
like china certainly wants to carry
itself and have an appearance at least
on the world stage as civilized and a
leader there's lots of smaller countries
who without us
are going to feel comfortable doing some
very nefarious things
um and
they're not going to be scared of us
anymore and so that would be a bigger
concern in many regards than china so i
think that's a reasonable one
um it could be that both sides if this
happens are gonna instead of work toward
better
the things that make each side bad would
get worse yeah and that's you know
having those pushed towards the
malevolent extremes is i think a very
legitimate criticism and a concern
i mean as you suggested there's no
guarantee that won't happen correct at
all
also
there's a i think a reasonable argument
to make is like are you
america
just as a symbol and the myth of america
and i don't mean myth in a negative
sense do you really want to throw that
on the garbage
like this meant a lot for a lot of
people and a lot for history you're just
going to be like okay good
good work we're we're done here let's
shut the lights so that's a i think a
reasonable argument so those are the
um biggest ones i would say and and
still
what is the case for national divorce
and
along which lines so like um
in making the case for national divorce
if it is desired
based on which kind of ideas do you
think it should be
uh carried through i honestly i don't
know that it has to be idea based like
for example when czechoslovakia broke up
when norway and sweden broke up it
wasn't really ideological
it was more cultural
so
i always say divorce into two but it
would probably make more sense if it was
like five
because the northeast certainly new
england has their own culture
the west coast has their own kind of
culture i don't know the thing is
in any kind of
persuasion technique right like once
people are start
this there's there's a difference
between convincing someone they want to
buy a car and what features you want so
if you're at the point where we're
arguing about the features then my work
here is done you know what i mean like i
don't have a dog in the fight in terms
of what it's going to look like i just
want to get to the point where you're at
least considering seriously the idea of
breaking up america and i would
encourage people to go look at my
article to see
which i'm sure the arguments still hold
uh five years later do you have a kind
of vision of which of the two or which
of the five
like you actually have specific
cultures i'll tell you exactly yeah if i
told you and everyone listening in 2014
we weren't that long ago long ago
which of these two things is more likely
to happen
texas secedes
or declare secession from america or
donald trump gets elected president
everyone's voting for texas
like in terms of prediction which is
more likely so we had this one so it's
not all unlikely we're going to have
this one i don't know if that logic
carries through you can't just say
here's an unlikely thing that happened
therefore anything can happen i just
said you just earlier said anything had
happened this episode didn't you life is
suffering i wasn't listening to half the
things you're saying you said it i said
it yes you said anything can happen i'm
definitely not here i'm like you with
podcasts i do a podcast but i don't
listen to it
okay
so yeah yeah it can happen but in which
i guess i'm asking would you stay in
texas a hundred percent so texas and i'd
run for office probably it'd be fun
no i'm gonna be the first president of
texas
i attended a debate between uh yaran
brooks and
joram
hazoni i don't know if you know who that
is the nationalist guy yeah he wrote a
book called the virtue of nashville i
read that book
and then actually did a podcast with
them they did a debate
they both run here
okay it was quite interesting and i
tried to wear my michael mal's hat
so the you're wearing it
you now that from me yeah
um
it's funny because the metaphor applies
across
all of these level of collectivism so he
was arguing that for the power of nation
so you he would be arguing against
national divorce but he was also
arguing for marriage the power of actual
marriage between individuals like
um i think he's a conservative and what
i really like about him is there's a
clear philosophy of conservatism that he
expresses and i think a lot of people
get behind that philosophy because uh to
me like conservatism and liberalism
often is very kind of used loosely yes
he has a clear philosophy that he's
expressing there and is grounded in
tradition he has a lot of value in
tradition and so
it's the thing you said about america
like one of the one of the arguments
against national divorce is like listen
um we've been at it for a while like
there is a lot of value
in the fact that we've been at it for a
while don't just throw it all away all
the time so he says like philosophically
he seems in a lot of walks of life
revolution is should be
avoided as much as possible i agree and
so it's kind of interesting
so he makes the case that there's
something fundamentally powerful about
the nation
that we uh it's a it's a
it's a nice way to group a culture
and
so national divorce i guess goes against
that i mean do you find some aspect of
the virtue of nationalism as you would
put it
powerful
well powerful and in in a good sense or
in a good sense so sorry yeah in a good
sense like well yeah it brings out the
best in humans i know at the best but it
certainly brings out good things i have
that line i always say about i love my
country i hate the government because i
love my country yeah
so there is a love of country i think
it's value but i i don't know that
that's the i think
it's also the case because the country
happens to be america like i don't know
if i was living in you know whatever i
don't want to insult someone's country
um uh canada yeah if i was living in
canada i don't know that would be the
truth this is a guy who calls basically
every other country shithole country
yeah that's true that's that's that's
the fact yeah yeah so it's either you're
either there's two types of countries
texas or shitholes um oh wow you went
full texas so you you you you're okay
burning the northeast of the ground at
this point
okay i'm hoping for it i'm gonna call
hope
what they've done to new york city i
will never forgive these people
um and i hope that they suffer
enormously uh consequences for what
they've done to new york
um it's unforget it's unconscionable
the assault they've done and and no
remorse over how many uh uh creative
outlets that they've destroyed yes the
cultural hub cultural center of the
world
new york was the sim this was the place
where you go to put up your shingle and
and move the needle and make things
happen uh and i would understand if it
was like okay we gotta suffer through
this for a year but we're gonna make
sure all these businesses have a
kind of safety net to make sure that
they kind of get through and survive
this which they did to the banks in 2008
for example um and i'm saying this is an
anarchist and there was none of that so
i i
burn it down and salt the earth uh it's
it's because it's like watching like a
zombie
it's on it's unnatural it's it's an
abomination
so i mean sort of on the on the white
pill side of things i i don't know about
you maybe i have a sense that uh both
silicon valley that for me personally
maybe i have the same intensity of
feeling as you do about
new york it's just disappointing to see
it
be consumed with cynicism
and a lot of other paralyzing forces but
i still have hope for that place
i think it's maybe it's the
uh
yoram kind of tradition hope that
through momentum
this the strong reemerges
so like i have hope for new york i think
new york will continue like
not maybe on a scale of years but a
scale of decades
it would be ups and downs where it
reemerges as a cultural center i just
can't imagine a place like new york is
like paris there's going to be long
stretches of time
where it leads the world
paris has not been a cultural hub for a
very long time yeah
yeah you know the days of matisse and
picasso and gertrude stein are long gone
it's still it still is a hub even london
isn't like yeah
you know you're not there but what it is
then london is still london paris is
still paris yeah it's not the paris of
old right london of all london is still
a place
it's a it's a tech hub it's a fashion
hub it's a music hub i mean it's still a
pretty strong hub yeah but not like
during the beatles era right it's not
like or during the sex pistols era but
that's it could be just us romanticizing
the past because what is a hub then no
it's not rem without romanticizing the
past because a hub is
the place where everyone on earth our
eyes are on you so in the late 60s the
british and the mid 60s you see the
british invasion you know the kinks and
all these other bands coming out of
uh great britain like they were the
innovators this was the this this was
the place that was happening well in
that sense like and brooklyn you know 15
years ago
but i guess uh maybe in that sense in
the 21st century geographical hubs are
becoming a thing of the past so like um
you can be a hub in the digital space
now so like it's not maybe you'll never
have
i don't think i think there will always
be
i mean what i'm saying digital space
makes it easier for let's suppose
cleveland to be a hub right because all
you need like 10 people who happen to
live in cleveland or you know akron was
a minor all it takes is 10 to 50 people
to create a yeah and maybe even less
maybe it's just uh two or three
affordable i mean there's been no
shortage of articles talking about
austin and what's happening here um and
i know some of joe's plans and and you
and i and and blair and and all these
other people that you know my buddy
andrew heaton moved here he's just one
of the best people i know it's just i'm
really really excited
can i ask you some weird thing about
friendship of course because you
mentioned um sam he's mr harris to you
and then didn't that bother you how he
went after joe uh what did he do he's
like oh in case you guys have brain
damage from watching rogan's last
episode like watch here's the answer and
it's all like digs like that yeah yeah i
didn't like that i didn't like that
either uh i think sam doesn't like it
either about himself okay
uh he regressed those things because
it's very easy to say from his
perspective
look
this isn't the full size we're all going
to show you the full size story here's
the other side of the story please watch
this and be informed that's a very
reasonable thing to say
yeah i don't quite understand this so
they do this about each other now
um i'll put three people on the table
which is joe rogan sam harrison and
brett weinstein
and they have a way of talking like the
other person is creating a lot of harm
like
publicly would say things like that and
i understand there's emotion in it
but like these are human beings
that are friends of yours but i'll go
the other way let's suppose it is true
that joe's doing a lot of harm spreading
misinformation
being sarcastic isn't going to be
persuasive
whereas if you're like he's wrong
here's the facts or hears or be informed
that i to me but then i'm not sam harris
i'm not a he's got a bigger audience to
me so maybe he's the one who's right i'm
wrong no he's well he's just human
okay well i can't relate
well have you seen your twitter lately i
mean you're twi you get very you have a
lot of fun on twitter i feel like
twitter lets
i've never done that with someone i'm
friends with i never would okay let's
put that on record it trolls me because
if there's an issue with you i'm getting
you on the phone yeah
good i mean because then i'm not backing
you into a corner publicly it doesn't
make any sense strategically yeah and
actually um brett weinstein
um tweeted something sort of criticizing
something i did already forgot what but
he texted me first saying like is it
okay if i tweet this yeah and i i said
yep
like i was excited yeah but i think
there's some level of just
be compassionate privately and be
compassionate publicly like well civil
civil yeah i i i for some reason i don't
like the word civility because it
it's like polite i do like it it's uh
it'll be cordial is that better no what
i mean is like
it seems funny to you it seems phony
like you should radiate love in whatever
way so even if you're rough with the
other person you should still show like
respect and love for that person and
that that gets back to the russian rooms
where they're yelling at each other but
there's still love underneath it i mean
uh the question i want to ask for you
is uh
i think you and i have a different view
on some things okay we have a different
approach to things but just on on the
surface level but also a different view
on some things like i have a lot of hope
for institutions i i
i have so maybe it's a gut instinct like
your gut instinct is like
centers of power are
like burn them down first and then let's
figure it out
well maybe that's a funny rough way of
saying that's about right and then for
for me it's like no let's
understand the institution and slowly
um
revolutions from within versus
revolutions from the doubt and
um
but like we can have those disagreements
and there may be times when those
disagreements will be i could see in the
future
i could see i'll be attacked
by my friend michael malus which i very
look forward to it i'm not attacked but
you know what i mean on the surface
level in the idea space anyway
you're shaking your head now you won't i
guess i'm
maybe this also goes to sam harrison
uh joe rogan i would love to be able to
disagree
disagree in big ways unimportant things
and still be close friends and i don't
understand why those are should be
contradictions yeah and that's the
tension that's been the most
heartbreaking thing to me about
sam
and
brett and joe
with in the case of brett it's me i
don't know brett so i'm just like
looking as a somebody who just enjoys
having these voices out there and it
seems like kovic has brought out the
worst than some
many folks
and it just feels like it's so sad to me
to see their friendship
somewhat deteriorating or maybe i'm just
being an um no it seems clear that's
deteriorated enormously
i'm sad but that's the case yeah so my
like i've had people come at me because
i'm friends with you and they were like
oh lex authored some paper about masks i
don't even know what the hell they're
referring to i don't care um i always
say and mean
i don't care
whether someone agrees with me i care
how they treat me
and it goes the other way because i'll
have a lot of people on twitter who are
like oh i'm on your team and blah blah
i'm like i don't know you you're not my
team
and just because you happen to agree
with me it's of no value to me like i
don't know you and i'm interested in
knowing you
many of my friends i don't know their
politics there i don't care like i care
how we hang out we have a good time we
watch dumb movies watch youtube go to
the store whatever um i don't know your
politics are i don't care what your
politics are um
chris williamson who you know he's just
here he's gonna be moving to austin i
only learned what his politics are in
the last we've been we chat like almost
every day because he took the world's
smallest political quiz
and he figured out what his answers were
i had no idea where he was communist he
said well obviously yeah yeah marxist
yeah let's be honest
um
so like stuff like that like it never
and people
uh i think because politics is often so
tribal especially now
uh
they'll be like oh i could never be
friends with someone who voted for x
really what if they're like grandma
worked in that campaign what if you know
it's this
you can't think of one steel man
argument why this would happen but if
they just want to spite their boss
so i i don't like that approach at all
it makes no sense to me
um
we could still have debates i mean
like i would still like to have those
conversations and still have
disagreements
like uh
i disagree with joe and kovid a lot on a
bunch of different things very kind of
but it's never like
it's not tense at all it's it's it's
just
it's uh it doesn't have the arrogance
that seems
a lot of kobe conversation seems to have
like
uh talking down to people from both
directions yeah yeah it's um so i would
love to have those because i love the
debate though i love debates it takes a
lot to get me triggered and when the
babylon b were interviewing elon
and he had this thing he goes well i
don't know anyone who wants to you know
abolish the fda and the faa and i'm
standing there
and i'm shaking and the guys look at me
and they're like oh we actually have an
anarchist here and the example he used
was
you know look if you're playing football
you're gonna have a referee there and
you want the referee you know you don't
but the referee started playing the game
is this a good thing
and i'm sitting there like the referee
doesn't work for the state yeah the
referee is a private individual working
for this organization
yeah and there's no reason at all that
food quality which is something
crucially important has to be or can
only be delivered through the state in a
government monopoly
that's actually really interesting just
to link on that
just just just just a little bit with
the vaccine and stuff like that with the
antiviral drugs the fda say like are you
comfortable like who should be the
referee
right
like do you have an idea like what's the
best referee for the vex it's it's just
the market
just let people decide this is tricky
because the thing the thing that
i have not been following covetous
closely is joe and sam as mr harris
excuse me and mr musk the point is
when anything like this is developing
there's going to be a lot of
misinformation out there
even from the scientists because it's a
dynamic process they don't know what
they're dealing with a lot of it has to
be speculative they don't know long-term
effects because it hasn't been around
for a long time
so
i think it is very
um
dangerous
when you know when joe was mocked for
taking a laundry list of things under
his doctor's advice
and they kind of latched on to the
ivermectin and then they specifically
said it was horse paste although it's
veterinary medicine why didn't they say
dog paste or cat paste
it's like well he's not dead
so and he's also taking drugs
which are used in other circumstances
the very least maybe they're pointless
but
if the drug is being allowed for
pharmaceutical reasons the odds are
quite low that they're going to have
deleterious side effects uh in general
so
i think this kind of insistence
that there has to be one
a officially approved
outcome
that we're all doing that is kind of
dangerous thinking in general by the way
i don't know if you saw i got a chance
to talk to the pfizer ceo
and uh
i had uh help collecting questions i got
a lot of questions and people put at the
top a question for michael malus oh
really
no the
uh ask him
what he likes best about me oh what does
he like best yeah yeah so i actually had
that in my list of questions i was going
to ask him and my plan was i'll ask him
uh michael malus wants to know what you
like best about him and then my guess is
he'd be like who and i'd be like exactly
and then go on
but i thought like how it was such a
tense conversation that i thought there
would be no
of course room for levity the question i
would ask him is can you acknowledge
that there is an enormous incentive
for your company to force everyone in
america or everyone on earth to be a
consumer of your product yeah that's my
question so i danced around that
question quite a lot like is
uh i i phrased it differently which is
uh
a conflict of interest and attention
between making a lot of money and
actually helping people
get the and
i mean i've asked a lot of really heavy
questions in that and i still and
a lot of people wrote to me with support
saying like
that was a really uh great conversation
and a lot of people wrote saying that i
mean saying that it was just um
uh too soft
and it um
i don't know i think about that a lot
like how do you have that conversation i
don't think it was too soft
and actually just for the record i want
to say that
they
didn't see any of the questions i'm
asking
they the they didn't see the final
interview i can ask anything i want
and so so any questions that i asked
and and failed to ask
is my own
shortcomings
um also
not being a coward i was afraid of
nothing like what it what do i have to
gain or lose exactly well you have
something to lose because if you're
i do so only to do softballs because if
i'm going to make it
uh difficult for someone to come to my
show
a lot of people will be disincentivized
to do the show because like i don't need
this i see oh yeah i wasn't thinking
like that but i was i don't like to what
i think
some fraction of folks wanted me to do
is to yell at a person
like criticize them not even ask
questions
yeah how dare you yeah but to me
my goal my hope is with these
conversations is not just to do how
great you are all that kind of stuff is
to bring out some deeper truth
like the beautiful things is when you
can together realize some
truth like you mentioned
that
you know the incentive to uh
for everyone to take the vaccine is
obviously high for the maker of a
vaccine yeah right and for them to
arrive at that truth together like that
is a really difficult
um
truth to operate under
like for example
i had a whole exchange with him about
um
this is jordan peterson asked this
question i used that as a kind of
springboard
which is the
the the kind of open doors between the
fda the cdc and pfizer right like some
people work at pfizer and then go to
work at the fda and then vice versa
and i brought up
this is my safe space uh maybe yours too
just going back to the soviet union
to look at the lessons of of human
nature and corruption i said like
like this
there's two things this looks bad
and two this naturally leads to
corruption
and i pushed this with several questions
but polite and respectful and he
ultimately said you know there's rules
uh we there's the rule of law and
there's very strict rules about this and
we have to follow those rules otherwise
we get punished severely and so like his
response is like people reacted to them
as like
okay that's the ceo doing the political
but there's also truth to what he's
saying
that one of the beautiful things about
america is that the the
you can criticize the rule of law
currently but it's still
it's better than soviet
in the in the soviet union where
people bribed each other
and but still
he made it seem like
there's no corruption
people often ask me
why i describe myself as an anarchist
and not an anarcho-capitalist because
they think my views are more in line
with that school of anarchism
and one of the other reasons you just
gave me a good one is that if i am
talking to
someone who's a major ceo
i am
i have that hardcore left anarchist view
that this person is if not the devil
certainly going to be
sinister
at the very least and if you can't say
listen this happens inevitably with
elites it's you know it happens in
universities it happens in the food
industry there's only so many people at
the top of these things there's a the
field is small and everyone's going to
know each other which is kind of you
know just the dynamics of any market
that would kind of be more reasonable
and just say
it's easy to caricature us because
you're not in the boardroom but we're
not you know we are trying to produce a
product that people want
so
unlike
the people who criticized me
i was bothered by i wasn't bothered by
most things but i was bothered by the
fact that he didn't show more worry
about the corrupting nature of money and
power like he should
he if you say that there's no corruption
you should show that because we
constantly worry about it right
not because like
look there's rules
yeah which are enforced by you yeah
exactly so like i think the only way to
avoid force for time
the corrupting force of power is to
freak out about it
nonstop
the impression i always get from people
like him and i haven't seen the
interview and i won't be watching it is
um
they're genuinely convinced of the good
guys
yeah
and if you're the good guy sure
corruption is a concern theoretically
but
i know this guy at the fda i know this
senator sure we disagree sure they do
some things i don't like but in terms of
corrupt they're not getting briefcases
full of money
they're not going to sell a vaccine that
you know kills people in georgia so yeah
it's a concern theoretically but this is
the 21st century
the thought process i think writes
itself i i think uh yeah having the
humility i do this all the time to maybe
to a destructive level thinking that i
might be doing bad for the world i might
be wrong i might be that kind of
thinking is very
you should do at least some of that not
to a point being paralyzed but a little
bit you're actually in the right mindset
for me to
to ask you them for advice okay you're
you're in this compassionate thoughtful
mood i like it the compassion thoughtful
michael so for future conversations like
that
so um
the person that offered a conversation
that first i avoided but i might return
to is anthony fauci
so there's anthony fauci but then
there's also trump and biden things
people like that
like if you had them on your show
or or just giving me advice on how to
talk to them what do you think is the
right way
to talk to them and forget about future
guests
but like to get us something
new you know together like get at
something not for views or likes or
clicks or any of that but discover
something new through the mode of
conversation well like let's take those
one at a time so if i had a talking to
trump i i told reuben to ask trump this
and he didn't what i wanted to know is
what's the look on your face when you're
sending these tweets
right because i'm imagining him on the
toilet with this phone yeah right are
you cracking yourself up
are you just completely stoic are you
kind of that trump little smirk he does
yeah so when you get someone to
open up about their emotion about
something they're passionate about i
think that breaks down some barriers and
that's a really good question
bond yeah but uh reuben wouldn't be
that's not a style like that's a great
question for you to ask well i told him
to say michael malos
for biden um
[Music]
that would be a tough one because biden
gets doesn't get enough credit for what
a good politician he is
there was this moment people can see on
youtube where biden
is addressing a room full of people and
he had someone there and he goes can you
why don't you stand up so everyone can
uh um give you a hand and the guy was in
a wheelchair and violence like oh
and like but instantly he goes you know
what we're all gonna stand up for you
and he made everyone get up and applaud
the guy yeah i'm like that's quick like
yeah you made a fool of yourself so he
is a glad hander in many ways he's more
of a schmoozer than trump was like trump
made the point that he knows all the
good people but biden knows how to shake
hands well i think with both and sorry
to interrupt but both trump and biden
like you mentioned earlier to me at
least
their family is fascinating the dynamic
this is a family man as a father
i think that biden won't acknowledge his
illegitimate grandkid is a problem for
me
uh but at the same time i can see why he
think it's off limits to ask so that's
the thing when you're dealing people
that powerful they're not used to having
to answer questions which might be
perfectly nice but would cause them to
freak the hell out that's the tricky
thing of talking to people as you know
like some some topics are off limit
not in in that they draw lines but they
just shut down yeah yeah when you ask
them uh the trust is i think talked to
elon three times now
you better believe i brought up love and
how far do you think that got and you
could just
one
we did we did uh exactly the kind of
robot back and forth yeah just like just
shut down so yeah i i worry about that
with personal but those that's the thing
that makes it fascinating with those two
because he had um
with hunter and losing his like the
dynamic of the complexities of all that
like just having
uh
you know children fuck up in the way
children do and then with trump
the interesting dynamic with his very
different kids and they're all kind of
interesting in different ways and
maintaining connection with all of them
and also letting them flourish
individually is fascinating to me well
i'd also want to ask trump if he can
name all the presidents in order which
there's no way he can yeah but i'd also
want to know all the pres do you think
he knows who the second president in the
united states is yes
okay john adams he knows i think when it
gets between ulysses s grant and
mckinley that's when we all screw up
that window it's tough
yeah yeah i'm sure that's the one window
where he i mean he he's not he's going
to be able to get back to fdr no
question i have to
my sense was with donald trump and this
is not
i would say criticism
is he doesn't have a depth of knowledge
or more importantly curiosity about
history yeah but if you're old enough
you're going to at least remember the
president's in your lifetime
in your lifetime yes so that's what i'm
saying you'll get a stunt presentation
fdr pretty easily yeah yeah okay sure
uh i think i thought you meant fdr from
the other director no no yeah like
current yeah yeah
yeah
um but yeah from a political perspe like
having a conversation about politics
with those two
um
[Music]
there is interesting topics interaction
between donald trump and putin not the
interaction like not the stupid
journalistic stuff
but it's clear to me that he is a
student of power oh for sure
and like he enjoys the game of power
yeah and so it's interesting because it
to me the reason he admires putin is
it's another player in the game of power
and i think why so many people hate him
trump is that he demonstrated to a lot
of americans how much of a con job most
of politics is
and how people just say what they need
to do but behind closed doors these
people are buffoons and he exposed them
as that i'd also um
so that the biden i think biden would be
a tougher interview than trump because i
feel like biden's more slippery in many
ways he's much more of a consummate
politician he's been in the senate since
the early 70s since he was like 30 or 35
whatever it was um so
you know he'd have his little kind of
pat answers there was larry king who was
certainly a
softball interviewer and i don't
begrudge him that at all i remember was
very very vividly and it was like i
think was the 2008 cycle he asked
hillary why do so many people hate why
do you think some people hate you
and she just goes like oh well i take
tough stances on the and he cut her off
he goes other people have taken those
stances why they hate you and she didn't
really i was really impressed with him
that he didn't let her off the hook
um
that to me is great but some people say
that still is too softball
because you like they would want him to
start listing
i don't know droning like uh all the all
the things that uh hillary clinton has
criticized yeah but then what she she's
done this many times she's very good at
this she'll be like look i've addressed
all these in the past if you want to
start rehashing republican talking
points you can go check out my
interviews yeah i think it's kind of
productive yeah so what about
the more prescient
for me
i can't believe i'm walking through this
fire for no good reason whatsoever but
anthony fauci so yeah let me tell you
why i care about anthony fauci because
i care a lot about science and the way
science is viewed in society
and
not to put it at the at the feet of this
one person
but
i
him and
certain members of the scientific
community that was responsible for
managing the response to kovid i think
are somewhat or entirely responsible for
a significant decrease in trust
in science yes no question in the past
couple of years there was a poll that
just came out this week that said the
number is just collapsed and
if you don't blame him for it
i personally at least blame him for not
um
improving the problem so there's
definitely would be a harsh
conversation there to be had and i think
i want to
have it
but how do you do it it's tough
yeah because you know again
politicians this political answers if
they get too frustrated too quickly
they will not explore these difficult
things with you they'll just shut down
but then if you say too many nice things
because i i should also say anthony
fauci is an incredible career
like there's several hours worth of
conversation to be had about how amazing
of a person he is well i would also be
curious about the aid stuff yes because
that's something it's criticized about
and i wouldn't come at it aggressively i
would say let's set the record straight
this is on the criticism you get blah
blah
your role in the aids crisis let's talk
about this and this is something that is
important part of american history there
was a pandemic and but it was localized
to certain populations and that that
population at the first at least was
pretty much told goodbye and good luck
you're gonna have to deal with this so
how did you deal with that i mean were
you scared of getting aids you know so
on and so forth but also there was that
comment when
i and correct me if i'm wrong i'm not a
factory expert when he basically they
told people not to wear masks or they
lied about it to some extent because
they said then people were going to run
out of them or something like that and
they admitted they were being inaccurate
i would nail him on that i'm like let's
address this were you being dishonest is
there sometimes when it's important to
be dishonest in service of whatever also
i would ask him how as someone who's not
a politician whether his level of fame
and adulation has gotten to his head how
do you have a perspective
when and how does it feel when a sitting
senator tells you that you should be
imprisoned do you think ted cruz means
it or do you think ted cruz is just
playing his base
yeah i like the fame one
i would love to sneak up
i mean that question applies to you too
that question applies to me
when you start getting more fame or
money or power
are you aware of how that changed you
and like explore that like
how has that changed you like if you
like in the privacy of your mind michael
malus
like how did you change now that you've
gotten
more attention let's say you know or
even the success of the book like is it
like take take yourself back to the the
you know you talk about the 20
uh the early twenties the mid-twenties
person how are you different from that
person are you the same person are you
totally different that's an interesting
thought is putin the same person in 2020
as he was in 2010 and then in 2000
it's um
it's a non-trivial almost like
um and then the other thing without
actually is this is a dynamic system
like on the one hand he's going to want
to say we got it right every time right
but then how is that even possible when
you're dealing with a evolving
unknown dynamic situation when did you
guys get it wrong did that result in
lives lost do you feel guilty about that
i mean the big problem with the masks
the changing mind and the mask is the
arrogance and how it was communicated to
me a lot of this boils down to uh
how things are communicated
it's like it's obvious that you need to
change your mind when you get new
information or sometimes yeah you take
policies that are like
we know the truth but we're going to lie
for a particular reason like you have
good intentions but if you're not able
to communicate that later like we made a
mistake or even ask him can you
understand how
a rational person might choose not to
get vaccinated
yes yes
yes
and if you can't steal man that then
that's the situation that's a good test
and i've tried and some people succeed
and some people fail is the ability to
really steal man the other understand
that somebody should would be hesitant
about taking the vaccine
yeah
it's a giant mess man uh this podcasting
is it's just a fun little conversation
but it also has a responsibility
i don't know i don't know how joe does
it
i don't think joe cares as much as you
do
it's more fun for him in a sense and
he's less concerned about the i mean
he's not unconcerned with the cultural
impact but for him it's just more
growing out yeah like he doesn't do as
much prep he doesn't come in with three
pages single spaced you know questions
yeah and that's why he's talking to
blair white for 10 minutes about whether
sharks lay eggs without knowing you're
the one triggered person
uh maybe he he trolled the troll well it
worked yeah he did
do sharks lay eggs
i'd like to get an updated 2021 version
of
michael mal's giving advice to young
people
okay
so there's
god forbid
high school students
college students
listening to you
uh and looking to you for advice what
advice would you give them about career
and about life how to live a life they
can be proud of this happens a lot
because i have my locals community
malice.locals.com and there's a lot of
young people in there yeah so that's a
great place i'll give i'll give them a
meta piece of advice don't ask your
friends for advice because you're an
idiot at your age and they're all idiots
and they don't want to seem like idiots
so they're just going to give you advice
they pulled it from the tv and no one
knows what you're talking about and it's
just going to be counterintuitive so
seek out advice from people
who
you seek to emulate yeah um and ask them
for advice if you can't get ahold of
them figure out a way to get a hold of
them
incentivize them in some way
you'd be surprised how many people are
responsive on twitter or in social media
if you just ask them a basic life
question because then they can quote
tweet an answer to a whole population so
that would be one mechanism
it's also very hard at that age to
realize your parents might not
be all that bright and they might not be
all that good people
um so that's a hard one at that age to
kind of wrap your head around just
because they love you doesn't mean they
understand you and that's okay
that's okay
we think everybody oh shit you're
trump's pretty good too i i i i'd like
your
trump to talk to elon
conversation
well mr president you know look uh
some things you did like some
not so much but you know for the most
part i think the kind of good thing what
are you talking about
um
hey guys what are you what are we
talking about fuck i fucked up the lex
anyway so that those would be two pieces
the other piece of advice i would say is
join a gym
or have some kind of
quantifiable daily improvement
to keep you sane so the reason i always
say weightlifting and it could be
running it could be jump rope i don't
care what it is because if you have
those numbers moving in the positive
direction psychologically if you're
dealing with depression or anxiety it's
concrete proof to shut your brain up
because your brain
knows how to talk to you your brain is
off on your enemy and it'll say exactly
the right thing to undermine you so
that's an issue um b
i just this works for me maybe it worked
for most people i'm very high in the
openness metric
uh try new experiences new things try
things you don't like um it's okay to
have a bad experience you've learned
something so go to a restaurant of a
cuisine you wouldn't like or hadn't
heard of read a book that's popular but
you have no interest in
um read a lot for example i didn't know
anything about the
election what was it 1892 when there was
like a split between the electors read a
book about it oh i don't know anything
you know i don't think really about
malcolm x read a book about him uh
you'll be amazed how much
more full you become as a person do you
see value in writing also like writing
down your ideas no i think there's very
little value in that i'm not being i'm
not joking because reading is where the
biggest yeah because you're probably not
going to revisit what you've written
down
um but the act of writing you don't you
don't see it solidify somehow thoughts
in your mind not for me yes yeah it
doesn't like a tweet will because then
then i have to have it narrowed down
into like a phrase or the responsibility
of there being an audience
no i just meant in terms of i've got 280
characters if instead of having a
briendry thought meandering thought i
have to codify it in something that's
catchy and short that's a good useful
mental exercise what face do you make
when you tweet
i wouldn't know i don't know that's a
good point
is it on the toilet how much what
percentage is on the toilet very little
on the toilets i usually more reading
okay um so even though my tweets are all
literally shit uh the very few of them
are on the toilet
um
that's some advice
don't compare yourself to other people
that's a really dangerous one
all my friends are married i should have
i should have a kid by
should there's an expression in recovery
stop shooting yourself
but it's but it should should yeah it's
stupid yeah
i also and this could be my hoarder
brain
i surround my house with talismans of
joy
so if you have an accomplishment
like when i did rogan once
i bought with the sock store and i
bought these orange socks with black
cherries on them and now whenever i wore
that socks those socks i'm like oh this
is because i was on rogan that was kind
of a big deal so if you have these
little things throughout your house
it gives good mental fuel even like like
a toy remember when i was a kid oh you
know what this
little moments that inspire happiness i
think are visually very useful
um
so that's another one
um
and i by the way have the
that the watch and um
that because we were talking about 2021
that was really um
the guy in the lecture hall giving you a
pat in the back
i wrote uh joe giving me the the watch
was um
he has life changing for me yeah yeah
yeah it doesn't even it didn't the fact
that it was on a podcast or whatever
doesn't matter learn how to
uh um form boundaries that's probably
the biggest that's gonna be number one
on my list because you know explain
you're gonna have people around you who
feel the need that they're entitled to
your time who feel they need to
criticize you and they're not coming
from a good place yeah uh so it's very
good for you to be like i'm not
interested in talking about this anymore
right now yeah uh even if it's your
parents even if you're especially if
it's your parents like i need my space
right now you're entitled to your space
you're entitled to your time no one owes
you you don't owe anyone response uh if
someone has a question you know them an
answer especially if they're not coming
at you in good faith or they're coming
in hostile way
that's a big one
it's hard to learn at that age
and
and and
be valuable
to
those who are around you
be someone who people are happy to see
and
if things are bad like you're the one
that they can rely on
like i was just uh you know a little bit
under the weather and i thought to
myself you know what if things got
really bad i'll call blair
and she would take care of me and and
that kind of was very reassuring
and you can always call me if you have
your stuff lifted in
in uh
in an urgent matter because of the
robots no just me it's kind of that
that's those things that can help with
or you're actually literally bleeding
not a good caretaker i can save you
though i can murder if you need somebody
murdered yeah i do this yeah yeah
um
wait what advice would you have to kids
that age
and you're all you're a lot younger than
you think you are that's the other one
like yeah there's time i know
like it's impossible to understand when
you're 26 that your 40s are better than
your 30s because it's like okay old man
you're that's all cope
i promise you it is
yeah i think uh he says so many
beautiful things i i would say
another version of the openness i'll say
take big risks when you're young yeah
because if you fail who cares you're
sleeping in a suit it's not a futon who
cares yeah and take them often yeah um
also this is more a little personal to
me
i get pushback on this but i think
take big risks and work really hard
like at whatever you do like i think you
just have to give yourself to a thing it
doesn't have to be in terms of time but
really give everything so it's not like
i'm going to try
doing this i'll try i'll try
try
with all of your heart
like really commit yourself that doesn't
mean necessarily ours that doesn't mean
but like
if you fail at doing a thing that you
commit to
it should hurt
it's like uh when i competed in jiu
jitsu or you do like sports and so on
don't just say i'm gonna have fun out
there so on no try to win
and because then if you don't it hurts
and you learn from that
um and then throughout i think that's
the goodness thing is be kind
it's like some of it is also skill
allowing yourself to be kind i found
myself earlier in life i still do this
i find like when i hang out with people
people are often like cynical and
negative
and yeah i try to avoid those people no
but like they i think everybody falls
into that and sometimes it's the party
norm thing
there's a temptation to me
to kind of fit in by being more negative
than i'm comfortable being and so
um
resist the pressure i think especially
when you're younger it's not cool to
care
the thing that drives when you're young
if you are a fan of a band yeah a writer
a podcast or an actor and people roll
their eyes at you watch out those people
are dangerous you should have it's if
you love avril lavigne
with her terrible music and she makes
you gives you joy and people crap on you
they're wrong and you're right
so hold on to those things that make you
happy and if people want to take that
away from you or they how could you like
that what those people are not your
friends
why do you have to go make life so
complicated
my she's my favorite um favorite
musician of all time
jimi hendrix second ever living first
um
thank you for almost bringing a deer to
my eye uh you mentioned the shadows in
terms of love and you should have kids
by now
i apologize if it's a personal one but i
think at least i have this thought and
not from society but for myself like i
want to get married i want to have kids
do you feel the pressure of that
do you want to have kids i do don't want
to have kids get married
i do want to get married um
this was an issue that i had to kind of
work out earlier this year um in terms
of
the possibility of having kids because i
was
in a relationship with someone who would
have been in many ways literally a
perfect
uh mom so i did my due diligence and i
actually sat down
with
friends of mine who had kids and i say
give me the downside
um like what if you did the pros and the
cons well the pros i knew the pros for
kids are very i love kids i was just
with frank fleming he writes for the
babylon b and he had his four kids and
his youngest son has down syndrome was
just adorable
uh winchester's so cute um
and i always get along with kids very
like the go like i remember
very vividly what it was like to be a
kid especially a precocious kid and i
remember how much it bothered me when my
parents friends
wouldn't give me attention so i always
make it a point to acknowledge kids to
talk to them and they're very grateful
and and it's just really fun um
especially the people who i'm friends
with their kids are probably gonna be
pretty cool they're not gonna be
annoying and you know kind of ugly and
overweight
um
so
i uh i love you got that in there okay
good yeah sorry sorry i'll go but
um
but the cons the negatives what was the
conversation like about that like well
my sis i talked my you know my sister
has two kids my nephews who i absolutely
adore whatever their names are and
she was
like she was saying certain things it's
like if i had kids my kids are in my top
priority yeah like it's not even a
question and i feel like the work i'm
doing and this sounds pompous but it's
true
is a
valuable and important but i'm also the
only one doing it so this is a big cost
and
so it's like it would be a major
lifestyle readjustment
and i'm at the point where i'm kind of
like selfish enough that i i wouldn't
want to do that and also it would have
to be the right woman like like you're
making a commitment you know and since
you know they're all crazy you have to
find one where you can handle the crazy
oh all women are crazy yeah
they're one and a half's in a binary
world
oh boy yeah it's not comfortable for me
um
but do you feel the pressure and
thinking of that how much does that
weigh on your heart like uh so so elon
has kids like i i feel
like i'm i love everything and i love
stuff i do i love the robot over there
just working with robots and
and but i do feel the pressure of like
um almost like when there's amazing
cuisines you never tried or something
like that like go out there and try it
like you need to put in the work and i
don't know
um like life will run away from you slip
through your fingers before you truly
get to experience this other kind of
love which is
like long-term
love for another human being which is
like marriage and then
love for kids
yeah and it almost makes me sad like
not
getting to experience that
you know because i'm also really scared
of
i've seen so many bad stories on the
partner side
like being with the wrong person right
it can that to me is you know i'm not
worried i have kids all day in fact i
could probably just have kids without
the the partner
um
kids i think are incredible but the
like the the partner like a wife
it seems like she could then have the
negative consequences for like you as a
writer on your productivity and your
mental ability to flourish of being a
joy to others to those kinds of things
you know what i that's that couldn't
happen because every relationship i've
had
uh they've been very
beyond supportive like don't they'd
rather do the i take an hour and do your
work than spend time with me like i
believe in what you're doing yeah so i
couldn't even casually date someone who
didn't believe that yeah so that's
energizing yes but over time you never
know like how that evolves and all those
kinds of things and for me i think we're
a little bit different i mean that has
to do with the engineering thing i just
have to pull insane hours yeah so i
don't i work like two hours a day but
that's what like creatives do like
you can only work a couple hours
honestly to be
uh to be productive and most of the time
not i have to do a lot of menial labor
like and so there there's legit
tension on the time and attention all
those kinds of things i don't know
do you think about this stuff a lot or
or do you just love life and and do cool
stuff and whatever happens happens i
have been so blessed for so long now
that i'm at the point where i don't
think about it and i'm like
uh you know just like miracles happen
every day so just yeah be open to it
you uh think about your death mortality
yes
fear what do you feel about it i'm just
worried i want to take as many people
out with me
as possible so suitcase news that's what
nuke suitcase i'm thinking
that would be kind of like ironic as my
other favorite i think about my legacy
um and that's why my books are so
important to me
so the is it a do you think of it as a
kind of immortality it is though like
that's who you are is those books well
it's not who i am i mean like my legacy
certainly is
what do you hope your legacy is
um
that i
encouraged people to
be
hopeful and that i taught them how to be
free
and you know my favorite i think the
best show of all time
was dallas which often gets a it was
like an 80s soap opera and people
conflate it with dynasty and they think
it's trashy and it was very
shakespearean because all the characters
are motivated by different values and
the writing is just masterful and the
acting is masterful
and i'm not going to spoil anything one
season ended
with
one the characters on their death bed in
the hospital and the whole cast is there
and the amount of acting talent in that
room is just
just phenomenal um
and as the character is dying they look
around and they go
like please be kind to one another be a
family and they're yelling at this
character don't you dare die on me you
know and you can see the actors you know
because they're losing their cast mate
who they've had from the beginning and
it would have been a perfect ending to
the show but obviously it's a cash cow
they got to keep milking it and
i think that like kindness and
tenderness and this is michael malus
talking
it's there's a lot of people
who want to make it
that if you are kind or tender you're
going to have consequences
bad consequences and i think it's
important for me at least to create a
space in my life
that if someone is going to be nice or
friendly or kind that they're not going
to have to feel stupid or
bad about it it's we have such a it's
such a disincentive like this set of
structures so different like if you want
to be cynical and sneering like round of
applause but if someone says oh this is
great like okay simp it's it's really
bad
well i think you do just this you do
this today you do this
in our friendship and you do it for a
very large number of people is teach
them how to be how to have hope yes and
teach them how to be
free
so
tavares
got them
thank you so much for talking to me
thank you so much for being an
inspiration
i love you brother i love you
thanks for listening to this
conversation with michael malus to
support this podcast please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
let me leave you with some words from
albert camus
don't walk in front of me i may not
follow
don't walk behind me i may not lead
walk beside me just be my friend thank
you for listening and hope to see you
next time