Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation between
me and michael malus
michael is an author anarchist and
simpleton and i'm proud to call him my
friend
he makes me smile he makes me think and
he makes me wonder
why i sound so
sleepy all the time
and now enjoy this conversation with
michael malus
in the dupagolova language
that i'm increasingly certain i'll never
quite able to get the hang of
hello comrade
let's miss it
so animal farm by george orwell is one
of my favorite books it's an allegory
about
at least i think about the soviet union
and the russian revolution of 1917
so for people who haven't read it it's
uh animals overthrow the humans and then
slowly become as bad or worse than the
humans
so
comrade if we lived on this farm in the
book animal farm which animal would you
most rather be
would it be the pigs
the horses
the donkey benjamin the raven moses the
humans mr mrs jones the dogs or the
sheep
um i'm gonna go with the milton answer
which is better to rule in hell
than serve in heaven right it's better
to rule in health and serve in heaven
yeah so i would have to go with the pigs
so i guess i'd be a cop
um at the very top so the leader the
main pig napoleon versus like the wallet
or the other yeah i i would say it's not
it's sure it's an allegory of the
russian revolution but i think
um orwell's point was this is broader
towards most totalitarian dictatorships
i mean it could very easily be read as
an indictment of mussolini or hitler or
many of these others uh i'm a huge um
george orwell fan one of the things that
i think people on the right need to
appreciate
is the courage
of many of these
in undisputably left-wing voices who
were the strongest ones to take on
totalitarianism totalitarian communism
and the three i think off top my head
who are all
in my top 10 heroes of all time are emma
goldman
albert camus
and orwell being the third you know
something that uh leftists like to throw
in the face of people on the right who
constantly invoke orwell is that orwell
said and i don't have the exact quote on
top of my head but some to the effect of
every word i have written is
in should be taken as a defense of
democratic socialism against
totalitarianism so
uh people like truman you know was
obviously very hardcore in many ways
anti-communist
we like to
parse things out
you're going to laugh
into binary fashions that you know left
good right bad or right good left bad
but historically speaking it does not
fall away into these camps as easily as
people would like
and i think it is important for those of
us it takes a lot more courage
to fight the right from the right or to
fight the left from the left because in
a sense a lot of your countrymen or your
fellow travelers are going to regard you
as a traitor to the cause so i
every chance i get i will sing the
praises of these three figures among
others who not only even if they hadn't
done what they had done
just lived just amazing lives that all
of us can uh
learn from and
admire and regard as somewhat a role
model so
what was the nature of their opposition
to
totalitarianism is it basically
freedom
well the value of freedom let's go to
the three of them so emma goldman she
was an early anarchist figure you know
we'll talk about her later i'm sure she
got deported from the united states with
her partner in crime alexander berkman
literal crime he tried to assassinate uh
frick who was andrew carnegie's main man
in the pittsburgh steel mill strike um
she got deported to the soviet union and
they're like they're like oh you want
socialism because at the time the
anarchists were regarded as socialist
you know go choke on it and she's there
and she was watching in great horror uh
what was going on and she actually went
to lenin's office and she goes this
isn't what we're about the revolution is
about the individual and free speech and
everyone working together to further a
society and he told her that you know
you know free speech is a bourgeois
contrivance and regardless you can't
have these circumstances in the midst of
a revolution and when she left the
soviet union and you know she went to
britain and at the time before the 1917
there was a lot of discussion among
socialist circles about what would the
revolution look like right would there
be the bakunin anarchist model would
there be the marxist model obviously the
bolsheviks ended up winning but even
then it wasn't obvious because there was
the bolsheviks and the mensheviks and
what people you know you and i know what
those words mean but bolsheviks were
kind of funny because borscha means
bigger and mancha means smaller the
mensheviks had the numbers it was
sarcastic that they were called
mensheviks and the bolsheviks were
called bolshah and lenin you know
destroyed all his foes in a very
merciless way obviously beforehand you
know there was the idea like okay with
all these cockamamie ideas we have to
work together you know we don't know
what's going to look like for the cause
then as soon as he sees power he's like
yeah yeah we're not doing that kind of
pluralism anymore this is going to be
the right approach so she left the
soviet union as did berkman
she wrote a book that they titled my
disillusionment with russia and i
remember this is one anecdote which i'm
going to discuss in the forthcoming book
where she goes to britain and the
british were very red at the time they
really uh had something called the
fabian society which was the predecessor
to the british labour party which were
like all right we're going to get rid of
liberalism and have a socialist uh kind
of nation
and she gave talks and there was this
one's time where she gave a talk and she
started and there was a standing ovation
by the time she was done you could hear
a pin drop because she dared to look at
these people in the face something
they'd be fighting for all their lives
and saying you know we've been to the
future and it works and she's like guys
this is worse than the czar uh you know
people are under house arrest you're not
allowed to have you know newspapers are
being shut down if they have heretical
views so on and so forth and you know
she was just even more of a pariah than
she had been previously so she is you
know deserves huge accolades in that
regard i brought her up and we were
talking about with our conversation with
iran or well i think you don't need me
to explain what he has done and
continues to do to use fiction to
demonstrate uh the horrors of a
totalitarian state and camus who might
be my all-time you know great
lighthouse so to speak in terms of being
a man of conscience you know he joined
the communist party and for a lot of
people in the states you hear oh you
joined the communist party so i need to
hear so all you need he was a communist
all you need to know he joined the
communist party because they were the
main ones fighting the fascists in
france and other locations and he took
nazism as did many others of course very
very very seriously he wasn't some
committed communist but this was just
his
mechanism to take on uh you know be part
of the underground in vichy france and
so on and so forth so he had the quote
which is ascribed to him which is kind
of a misquote howard zinn is the one who
actually said it that it is a job of
thinking people not to be on the side of
the executioners and he very much felt
if you read his uh speech when he won
the nobel prize i forget in the 50s
where he goes it's basically the job of
writers to keep civilization from
destroying himself i don't think i'm
ever going to be a man on the level of
camus and what he's accomplished but i
think that
vision of it is the job of writers to be
the conscience and to point out uh you
know this is the leftism at its best
when you're giving voice to the
voiceless when you have the machine of
the state crushing and marginalizing
people and they might not be educated
literate or have any power at all
some he's the guy who's like you are
ruining humans these humans matter and
i'm not going to let you look the other
way and act like you don't know what
you're doing so in this time whether we
look at the time of fascism or we look
at the fictional animal farm what's the
heroic action then
so uh camus joined the communist party
there's a bunch of different heroic
actions some more heroic than others not
just for the
you know heroes the wrong word in terms
of like effectiveness what's the
effective action i guess is what i want
to ask as a writer as a thinker somebody
with a mind what's the heroic action
that's a tricky question because a lot
of times in the west heroism is
regardless intertwined with martyrdom
right so it's kind of this idea of like
you have to speak to you know kemu
always talked about just let justice be
done though the heavens fall this is a
common um kind of motto among people
with conscience and that you have to do
the right thing even the consequences
might not be what you like and i think
that is a good loose definition of
heroism so if you me i'll give you one
example of heroism this was on twitter
and i really feel bad that i don't
remember the guy's name
uh this was the line to auschwitz i
believe it was and you know there's the
nazi guards keeping everyone along
and
uh if you were a certain i think if you
were under 12 they killed you or some
there was some age limit where some kids
were killed or some were not there were
some circumstances and he asked the mom
how old this kid was and she's like he's
14 and she's like no he's 12. and she's
like no he's nice 14 she goes he's 12.
and she realized what this nazi was
telling her even in that circumstance
and it ended up saving the kids life so
i think heroism in this context is
defiance
and standing true to values of
liberalism humanism and
venerating the sanctity of human life i
think that
uh and i think it's also important to
pick your battles uh i don't think if
you know he got that nazi over there
gotten a bullhorn and said hey this is
the rules blah blah blah blah that's not
going to help anyone do anything so i do
think you know people a lot of times
attack me from my anarchist views it's
like oh you know would you call the
police would you use the roads would you
pay your income taxes
uh you know i i got an argument with tim
poole because there was that couple i
think it was at missouri or illinois
when they were had their guns and they
were being arrested and they basically
took a plea deal and he said you should
have fought i go it's a lot easier to
say you should fight but we don't know
what circumstance someone is under and
what these totalitarian regimes did very
very well as as you know
is
if you were a target and they can't get
through to you that's fine you have a
family so you can sit there lex and gird
your jaw and you can stand up to all the
torture cool what are we gonna do about
your wife what about your mom one thing
stalin did he made it a law
that kids up to uh 14 and up could get
the death penalty for certain crimes so
after that the rule was from the nkvd
if you were interrogating someone they
would have death warrants for the kid's
child on the desk visible so i'm
interrogating you asking you to
commit to i'm sorry to admit to some
crime that you're not committed and
those piece of paper it's you know
svetlana she's got a death warrant
you're gonna admit to any crime you want
so this is something americans this is
even the case right now in north korea
um which i know you had yami park on
it's something i talk about a lot let's
talk about instead of the hypothetical
but this is happening right now on earth
you can look at the map on google uh the
great leader kim il-sung the founder of
north korea said class enemies must be
exterminated three generations so north
when people talk about individualism
versus collectivism uh rick santorum
former senator says the family is the
basic unit of society unit north korea
takes that seriously the family is
punished as a unit so if someone does
something wrong three generations have
to pay the price and you often don't
know who it is that got you all in
trouble there's not a trial this to
western minds is something almost
incomprehensible it's a lot easier to be
brave
when it's just your skin there's
something when it's when it's yeah when
it's your child your your loved ones
your every man becomes a coward but also
what bravery is there for me to write an
essay for the guardian to say i don't
vote there's no consequences to me
there's no possibility of consequences
to me this is the wonderful thing about
living excuse me in a free country uh it
would take a lot of courage to be in the
soviet union and say i'm not going to
vote and what would that courage
accomplish
very little so i think heroism in the
sense of kind of the suicidal stuff and
taking a stance with no consequences is
a bit overrated
there is some aspect like the way i
think about heroism
is something like you said about the
soldier
which is quietly privately in your own
life
live the virtues
that you want the rest of the world to
live by yes
so like without like writing about it is
um it's not as heroic as living it
quietly i'll give you a great example of
this i sometimes give talks on
networking and i tell the kids
if you know someone's in town and it's
their birthday with nothing to do take
them out and i say i do this for selfish
reasons and everyone laughs and i go
think about it this way
the guy who takes people out for their
birthday is awesome that could be you
like you have that capacity to be that
person and you're making that day feel
special they're going to remember for a
long time what's the cost dinner 30
bucks 25 bucks so they're it's it's very
disturbing to me
how often people have opportunities to
slightly move the needle and make things
a bit better at almost no cost and they
just literally don't think in those
terms and one of the things camus talked
about you know he's often described as a
existentialist which he did not like
that term he regard himself as an
absurdist is the idea that we're
basically blank canvases and this isn't
something that is dangerous this is
enormous opportunity and you have the
ability to become the kind of man or
woman that you admire and want to be you
don't have to be you know i don't know
george washington or one of these great
heroes of all time but
everyone out there has the capacity
capacity excuse me to be a hero to their
kids
or to be a hero to maybe some there's
there's nursing homes and there's old
people who are lonely i think that you
take in a dog that's on its last legs uh
these are little things terry shepard
does that a lot out of garden was a hero
um
these are not terry sheppard on
blanken's name these are things that
people do
um that aren't heroic in the sense of
superman but that i find admirable
extremely and i think are very
underrated because these people aren't
championed
is this some kind of weird
passive-aggressive and direct way
for you to tell me that i should take
you off for your birthday on monday
is that why you gave that whole speech
that's that wasn't it at all
that was a joke michael no it was a
failed joke
nevertheless there was no punch line
without failure we would not have
triumph
can we stick on the camus absurdism
versus existentialism sure
what do you think is the difference
in your ideas about
uh anarchism too
it seems like those are
somehow
intricately connected because uh
existentialism is connected to freedom
and freedom is connected to anarchism
sure but i mean sartre was a defender of
the soviet union uh he said explicitly
about things like gulags like even if
it's true we shouldn't talk about it um
so he
it's what people don't appreciate is how
uh human beings can have contradictory
ideas in their minds at the same time so
one would think okay someone's a
democrat they think abc therefore they
think def people that have all sorts of
contradictions and it's not at all clear
and they'll have a clean conscience
because the human mind is very
sophisticated um and is capable of doing
this so
sartre you know was you would think he's
this radical individualist you know this
sense of ultimate freedom but he's
defending the soviet union camus on the
other hand would probably be
was very much like a social democrat he
didn't really talk about what politics
should be so much as it shouldn't be his
essay reflections on the guillotine is
one of the great masterpieces of all
time
an attack on the death penalty not in
terms of no one's evil or it's wrong to
kill murderers but in terms of what does
it do for a society if you have someone
who set takes a person
and locks them in a room and says you
know in two years i'm going to murder
you and you lock them for that this is
not someone we regard as moral
regardless as someone who's a complete
monster but that's what the state does
you know on with the death penalty and
he challenges us to think is this the
kind of people we want to be do and
again he's saying i'm not saying killing
a murderer is wrong i'm not saying evil
is wrong his entire career was dedicated
to fighting the concept of evil but are
we the kind of people who want to be
doing these things that in any other
context we regard as torture or depraved
so
i i'm much more of a camus person than a
star person he was probably against war
in that same way so i don't i have to uh
admit i don't know much about the
political side of kamu well i don't
think his political side is that
interesting or relevant what i find so
interrupted what i find fascinating
about camus and what i think about on a
daily basis from him is his insistence
that you have to live a life based on
conscience that you have to be
accountable to yourself when you put
your pill your head on the pill at the
end of the day and ask yourself did i
live a righteous life with integrity
true to my values did i uh not
needlessly cause harm to innocent people
um you know that kind of mindset did i
if someone is weak am i using that as an
opportunity to exploit them or to harm
them or do i feel a bit of sympathy or
empathy for this person because maybe
they didn't have circumstances that were
you know as
beneficial as other people had well how
does that fit absurdism where everything
is absurd nothing has meaning
uh you know it really borders on
nihilism
so he his he regards not his his
philosophy explicitly said is a response
to nihilism and a
attack on nihilism he you know he
regards cynicism as like the
worst value people can have and i agree
with him one hundred percent a lot of
times people call me cynical online and
i push back very very hard because to be
a si you know i had this quote and then
you write where i said i'd rather be
naive than a cynic because a cynic is a
hopeless man who projects his
hopelessness to the world at large uh
camus this is the metaphor i use and i
find it very inspirational i thought it
was in his work but i guess i thought if
it described it to him there's two types
of people you imagine you go to a
mountainside and you see a
blank canvas on an easel standing in
front of this mountainside one people be
like why is this
blank canvas here you know what what was
this what's going on here uh and just be
confused whereas the other type of
person will be like this a blank canvas
here in this beautiful countryside what
a great opportunity i can paint this
river i could paint that bird i could
paint my friends or myself in the
background
infinite choices and this is a gift that
i have been given and i think that also
ties very heavily into what i was i went
to yeshiva as a kid which is jewish
school what we were taught in
incessantly uh how to look at life is
this beautiful gift that god has given
you and that god wants you to be happy
he wants you to live to the fullest in a
moral way i remember the first time i
went into a church and they were asking
questions about the jewish concept the
afterlife they weren't familiar with
jewish thought and it took me a second
because i didn't really have answers and
then i remembered what we were taught
which is
let's suppose you're at this banquet
with the best chef on earth and the
table's so heavy because you've got
steaks and you've got chicken and you've
got sushi and the wine's flowing and
you've got your
dr pepper and mr and mr pibb and the
store brand everything you want and
you're looking around at this amazing
bounty right and then you turn to this
best chef on earth and you're like oh so
what's for dessert i mean
the offensiveness of that is just so
you know insane like you have this eat
the meal like i promise you if i could
deliver this meal the dessert's gonna be
okay so this focus on the afterlife when
we've been given this amazing gift uh
you know on this earth is is a very kind
of different mindset from both the
jewish tradition as i'd been taught and
the kamu mindset obviously kamu is an
atheist didn't believe in an afterlife
but this concept that life is is
meaningless
but that means
you
have that opportunity to find value to
seek for truth to seek for happiness and
kamu has this quote it's ascribed to him
it's like a meme i've never found the
source so maybe he doesn't really say it
but he says maybe it's not about happy
endings maybe it's about the journey and
i think when you have that mindset and
as you and i i think you and i both
found this because neither of us when we
were kids thought we'd be doing this
right but now that we are really
fortunate definitely this yeah and
definitely that yeah but now that we're
fortunate enough to do this and that
we're blessed enough that there's people
who find this of value and interest and
we could pay the rent doing this there's
not a day that goes by where i don't
think you and i or think this is pretty
absurd yeah but it's also pretty
wonderful and as a consequence of us
thriving it also shows other people that
happiness is possible on this earth and
i think cynicism is the lie
it's not just the worldview it's a lie
that happiness is not possible in this
earth or it's only happy possible if you
sell your soul and you're like a bad
person you screw other people over i
reject that
in every aspect you know as you said my
birthday's coming up i've been feeling
um
just a lot of really great things have
been happening very very recently so it
affects me very heavily emotionally
especially when i see the response it
gives to
uh like the kids right so it's one thing
to say this is what i'm for but when you
can provide proof of concept that what
you've been advocating does result in
positive responses i got a message from
this kid who had tried to kill himself a
year ago okay and then he was like look
i found your work i found some other
stuff and now i realize i'm going to
make something of myself i was born in a
meth house you know whatever 19 20 years
old i should be in the garbage but i'm
gonna try to be a stand-up because i
have opportunity on this earth even if
he fails as a stand-up you know he's
still such whatever he does
washing dishes there's no shame in that
he is it so bad to have a crappy job and
a girlfriend who you don't really like
but as compared to the alternative of
like i'm going to kill myself this is
heaven well i think there's
beauty to be discovered in all of it and
all of those experiences yes
so
but at the same time
so i often think about i just recently
reread the idiot by destiusky i often
feel like the idiot that's why when i
say i'm an idiot i often think about
prince mishkin
that kind of idiot which the world sees
you as naive i don't think he's naive i
don't think i'm naive but i tend to
see the good in people and the good in
every moment
and
the world often
is cynical and in fact especially in
what we do
often the intellectual is supposed to be
cynical it's i this is very much an
urban uh elite educated mindset where if
you write a book about someone who's
let's suppose a drug addict or a
prostitute that has heft and that's
valid but if you're writing a book about
like a love story you know two people
love and it's they're in roller coasters
or carousels that's less legitimate i
hate that i hate that i hate that so
much because the message it gives to
people is you have to choose between
thriving and happiness and silliness and
seriousness and depravity and i'm not
saying a drug addict approaches to pray
but they're basically their worldviews
if it's unless it's dark and twisted it
doesn't really count as art and i i
despise that mindset that subtext so the
internet and people around me often will
call me naive because i don't think the
word they want is innocent don't you
think it's about it's not that innocent
no but innocent in that you you
genuinely in your heart i know you
fairly well at this point believe that
goodness is possible and that people can
if not be good at least be better than
they were yesterday see even the word
naive or the word innocent presumes that
there's not wisdom in that presumes that
somehow
that's uh oh isn't that beautiful to
live that life of a child who sees the
world with these bright eyes and is
hopeful about the future
but just wait until they grow up and
realize that reality is much harsher
than they think right but that child
might be
wiser than all of the adults in the room
and don't you don't you want to be if
the world is like that don't you want to
be the guy who takes it on and changes
it for the better right so it's like
saying well you know cancer is
everywhere it's inevitable well don't
you want to be the one who says not
anymore i'm here and i'm going to make
that change and i can see it being
better than it is now so i i i think you
and i have the same
analysis of your world view and i don't
think that there is a good word for it
so i guess it's this idea of you know
inherent benevolence might be you know
maybe wordy but i think that's more
accurate because
you know you and i did not have such
easy lives growing up to put it mildly
you constantly talk about um just
horrific aspects of life so to claim
that you kind of don't know that they
exist or you sleep on the rug is
completely not accurate to your work and
your mindset
can we talk about
world war ii in the soviet union sure
so
on sunday
june 22nd 1941
hitler launched operation barbarossa
which was the surprise invasion of the
soviet union that's right
if i could read to you a few lyrics
from a song
that for some reason has stuck
throughout my childhood
it was a famous song during that time
the song talks about um
kiev like that moment
as part of that operation that kiev was
first bombed and it was announced on
june 22nd
the song says at exactly four o'clock
that the war has begun
for some reason this song
haunts me
because
the exactness of that time
and this realization
that at any moment you could have this
thing happen to you in your own personal
life maybe you had something like 9 11
happen where everything changes
and it's just like haunting because
it makes me think that at any moment
something like that could happen that
changes everything
and
i just think about like normal life
going on in kiev at the time
and then all of a sudden
the bombs are dropping and they
announced that the war has begun and you
thought you were going to stay out of
the war
um
this is something that is very intensely
emotional for me because
you and i are both russian jewish so
to know that my grandparents and my
great-grandma were told
that the nazis were coming
and this wasn't a dress rehearsal
and that if they get here which they do
they did lev is very western ukraine
that 100
you and all your relatives are going to
be uh murdered yeah and
uh
there's a monument now in in level where
i'm from about this but
i i don't think either of us can imagine
what it's like
to know to think that we're about
you know minutes or whatever hours or
there's just there's just the russian
army
standing between us and everyone
everyone we are related to are going to
be
murdered for no reason
and um
you know like what's the closure here
right like they evacuated a lot of
people
and but they didn't evacuate enough
and to know that there is this force
coming to 100 murder you this isn't some
kind of
you know uh the tv news being hyperbolic
they are coming to kill you and they if
they get you they will kill you
and you have to
you know we all think about war let go
you know we hope america wins in iraq
right but if america got their ass
kicked kind of in vietnam
it's not really going to affect america
in the sense that you're going to have
the body bags and all the kids being
killed and that's something that's i'm
not sweeping on the rug but no one in
america thought the vietnamese are going
to come here and kill them right they
were secure in their person
so to have that sense of
we really need to win
because if we don't win
we are 100
if we they the russian army doesn't win
we are 100 percent all going to be
slaughtered
and often in not just a bullet to the
head in sadistic ways
is something that um to know that people
who share my blood uh saw and went
through
is very hard for me to kind of um
uh wrap my head around and there's no
possibility to delude yourself yeah yeah
yeah because i mean they they would uh
as the song also talks about but they
would burn the factories
so it's basically saying
we're in the war now this is
like this is your life yeah like this is
our life you know how you yesterday
you're worried about like oh i misplaced
my pen where is it like it's like yeah
this was paradise most of us are gonna
this our life now is that most of us are
going to die
and if we want to prevent all of us from
dying
we uh we have to fight and we also can't
sit down in some kind of weird like um
desert island or you know
plane crash situation and be like let's
decide between us who's going to be the
first to die maybe the like titan the
titanic right they sat down and they
were like women and children in the
lifeboats you know they had this
rational agreement you don't have those
choices in in a war so um it's it's
something that i uh uh
it's it's just very chilling and it's
something i don't really have
um
the emotional space to understand or
grapple with
uh even you know obviously i've been to
north korea you can see it and so on and
so forth
you and i can't or anyone listening to
this except for maybe on me and people
like that
you can't imagine what that's like to
live it
we can't i we can't imagine what it's
like to live in those situations where
it's not like before hitler came
everyone's you know dancing around and
having a great time i mean imagine how
what that life is like where
your preference to hitler is starving
and waiting online for hours for bread
and to have the secret police and your
friends are turning you in and your
phones are all tapped and you're a
prisoner but to you this is infinitely
better than the alternative like these
are the choices that you know our family
had to deal with it's something that no
matter how much you
it's like a let me put in terms people
understand you know what i mean it's
like your first bad breakup right like
that's a much simpler thing to wrap your
head around because it's like if you've
never had it you can't really but when
you feel it it's just so intense but you
can't tell someone what's like
we could sit down for days and hours and
have people tell us
but until it's the totality totality of
your environment and your life and your
mindset
i remember my grandma
um
she would talk about that's like
when you're when you're that hungry
oh
all you're thinking about is bread
yeah because your brain won't let you
know human beings you're revolved we
have instincts whatever and the mind is
telling you food food food food food
food
and that there's kids
thinking this and that there's there
they're not going to get the food yeah
and imagine being a parent and you're
watching your kids without food and
knowing
they're not gonna get the food
and uh the fact that this happened in
north korea in the 90s
yeah i i met a refugee
and uh he had to watch his dad starve to
death
and uh thank you um
and
we have no
concept
of uh
what it's like i mean we kind of you
know it's just like
last night here in austin all the places
were closed and i couldn't get my
protein powder yeah and this is the
extent of my suffering when it comes to
food you know or if i couldn't there was
a restaurant that i went to in brooklyn
where for some vacation reason they
weren't serving sashimi they only had
sushi so i had to have the rice and the
carbs
to live a life where that is the extent
of your food problems
as opposed to
the choice is either hitler killing you
or being hungry 24 7. you know my
grandma told this story of how
they had a close call it was her and her
brother and her mom my great-grandma who
passed
and i think there was like either
helicopter overhead or something and my
great-grandma jumped on top of my
uh grandma's brother and not my grandma
so she basically did a sophie's choice
my grandma's name is sophia and chose
the brother
and this is something that she felt you
know all her life that her mom had
chosen her brother over her but these
little things that happen these little
kind of a
decisions we have to make in war there's
a book i read called uh
uh five chimneys i think this woman who
was an auschwitz survivor
and what she talked about what people
don't appreciate it's not necessarily
the slaughter
and the torture it's that there's no
rhyme or reason to it like she talked
about how they had a camp just for
people from uh
czechoslovakia
and they were treated better than the
jews and then one day they just killed
them all right and she's like i still
don't understand why they're giving them
food and treating them well and then the
next day they're all killed and we will
never get answers you know and she's and
and things like
she talks about
how they decided to kill all the kids
and they didn't really either for some
reason they didn't have the courage to
or they wanted to be cruel so instead of
shooting them they just kept walking in
the snow until they all died
so it's things like this that uh the
fact that you and i
dodged these bullets and that we can be
here and uh be doing this and you know
running our mouths for a living uh i i
think about it all the time and um uh
it's it's just
very um
uh disturbing to know and i know you
know this as well that there's lots of
places on earth where if people had a
choice they would kill us on site and be
proud of themselves for it
yeah they're
i don't know what to make of the
contrast that you you were talking about
the fact that
you've been truly happy the last few
weeks and months yes there's been a lot
of moments of happiness and joy
and that joy
is built on a history of human suffering
like in your roots in your blood is a
lot of people that were tortured that
suffered so that you could have this joy
you have both the
you have the responsibility to truly be
grateful for that joy but it also shows
that there's the happy ending that it
does end in a good note that it does get
infinitely infinitely better
um and that i think there's a i don't
like you saying the word responsibility
but there is um an opportunity
for those of us who did dodge that
bullet
to uh give testimony to these people and
more importantly to give testimony to
the people who are going through this
now
so you know one of the reasons i you
know talk about north korea so much why
i wrote dear reader is because it's very
easy
and this is human nature i'm not
condemning people i don't i think this
is how people are wired when you see an
asian country with asian people and
things are you know bad over there you
you know i think in the west it's like
oh you know asia they're all crazy there
they're wacky they eat you know they eat
dogs or someone and so forth some weird
stereotype and they think of them as
kind of martians
so it's important for people who aren't
of that kind of ancestry
to kind of speak on behalf of these
people because it's very different how
just people just naturally react when
you have a westerner talking about this
instead of becoming there you know them
over there it becomes you know this
could have been uh us very easily i have
a friend peter they hansky great dude
and i was showing him photos when i was
in pyongyang and he goes this looks like
a russian city with asian people it was
it completely disturbed him so you know
that was one of the reasons i did go to
north korea because that was as close as
i would get to see what your family went
through to see what my family went
through and they're still
living under this uh a regime and one of
the things i fought very hard to do with
dear reader which i was successful in
amazingly and it just i said like i
could die now like i feel like if you
make if just move the needle a little
bit then you've kind of uh
paid your due for your time here on this
earth
to have it change from being a laughing
stock you know and i i think team
america did a good job they made kim
jong il into a clown and they made a
joke of it but you're going from nothing
to joke so at least now people are aware
of it that it exists right and then i st
and many others took it from a joke to
like guys this is really really really
bad and none of us can even appreciate
how bad it is and i think now there is
an understanding other than a few people
who are just looking through a trump
lens and wanting trump to fail because
trump's an asshole and that's fine to be
like
these poor people and it's really
unfortunate because there's a segment of
western culture who thinks that
correctly often when you're complaining
about uh or
discussing the plight of another country
that's just your preludes to war and an
excuse to invade like the kurds in syria
you know we're talked about if we're not
in syria tomorrow it's going to be
another genocide blah blah
i'm not saying let's invade north korea
or anything like that all i'm saying is
you know thank god
that this isn't your life
i bring this up all the time the woman
who was my guide when i was there
i'm aware of what she's up to now
she's still she's extremely rich by
north korean
standards but she'll never be in a
position to buy medicine she'll never be
in a position to go on a vacation
uh things that you and i just you know
whatever she she can't go on the
internet
she can't get encyclopedia
uh she can't better herself as a person
other than through what the state allows
and meaning better yourself as a person
in service to the state so i i i mean
there's it's also frustrating because
there's only so much that i can do as an
individual what's your takeaway about
human nature from looking at north korea
and looking at how the rest of the world
is looking at north korea uh i i always
this is a great question i think about
it fairly often and i always say human
beings are animals right when you say
someone's an animal it's like a slur
like he's like a beast animals are
capable of enormous kindness
empathy sympathy you know they look out
for one another groom one another
there's a thing with with apes where
they groom each other for parasites and
you're suppose even if there are no
parasites they pretend this parasites
just to have that kind of bonding uh you
see infinite
uh photos online of like cats raising
puppies because the puppies mom died
things like this that's part of being an
animal part of being an animal is also
just the most uh monstrous cruelty
killer whales you know there's this big
pc move did not call them killer whales
and just call them orcas they will
murder
blue whale pups uh cavs excuse me and
play with them and not even eat them so
they just murder for the sake of fun so
there's and cats you know kill birds all
the time things like this so it runs the
whole gamut um and i think it's i i'm
you know when yaron and i were on your
show i don't think lord of the flies is
accurate i don't think hobbes is how
reality works when you're in that kind
of state um but i think
uh we've seen countless examples of
human beings especially when human
beings have power over someone who's
powerless
of allowing themselves to engage in not
just harm
but cruelty
and that is something as soviets you and
i are very painfully aware of it it's
not just about the oppression which as
bad enough as it is it's that mediocre
person with that little bit of power
and now they're standing between you and
your daughter having medicine
and they love it to make you dance to be
like oh you need me to get this medicine
make you go go through hoops because now
they feel like for the first time their
life they're in a position of strength
and power i think that is in many ways
the more common nature of evil what
hannah aaron talks about the banality of
evil than someone who's like an ss guard
you're shooting someone in the head like
that i think we could all wrap our heads
around to some extent like okay i'm a
military it's not easy i have to execute
people pulling a trigger you could kind
of have this mental disconnect between
the finger and the victim but like that
little day-to-day stuff like are you
doing the right thing on a day-to-day
basis that i think is far more common
and far more disturbing aspect in
certain senses of the human psyche
yeah there's something um
especially disturbing about
a weak man
given power yeah and just abusing that
power there's something about not just
weak but like
mediocre and everything it does or less
than mediocre if you a great example of
this which i'm also talking about the
next book is ceausescu who was the
dictator of romania so you know
the cold war is still somewhat poorly
understood in you know popular culture
but the different countries in the
second world the soviet bloc some are
more liberal than others some were more
sane than others and chauchesko at first
was one of the you know more western
friendly more the free ones then he met
the great leader kim sung from north
korea and he had the idea to impose a
personality cult on romania and it's the
kind of things like forcing people to
breed because he wanted to make people
taller he i think he made like the
biggest building in all of europe the
people's palace but it was just for him
while there's no electricity you know
elsewhere but you look at this guy you
know stalin's a badass right he was a
bank robber if you look at photos of him
as a kid he was a hunk lennon was
clearly intellectual these were not
these are powerful trotsky these were
powerful men with huge egos huge force
of personality but you look at this
chaucesko guy
and you could like for example on my
driver's license instead of my address
i'm like in my real dress being like one
two three four fifth avenue by mistake
it says one two three four fifth street
right so you can imagine him being in
the post office and me giving him my id
to get my package and him being baffled
because this says street that says
avenue instead of understand and this
the look on his face this dullard that
you can see how you know how sometimes
i'm gonna can i curse
fuck yes yes so if you know like if
you're in the airport and you see
someone and you look at them an adult
and you think okay this person was born
fucked up just like on site like
something's wrong with them how are they
traveling alone you look at chauchesku
you look at him you're like something's
not right with this guy not in the sense
of like evil but in the sense that he's
a simpleton right and now he's in charge
of this whole country and everyone's
taught to regard him as one of the great
geniuses of all time and it's this
the idea this mediocre nobody this guy
would have in any other culture been
accomplished nothing or or at war would
have had an honest job where he's like
okay he works at the mail mail service
and he's batted it okay fine he's not
hurting anyone and now as a result of
this he's responsible for mass death
secret police and incarceration
and uh you know the one the greatest
things that i've ever seen which i'm
sure many people have seen as well if
you go on youtube it's his speech
and it's the first time the crowd turns
and his head kind of like because they
start booing him which was unheard of
and you know he was shot with his uh um
dog-faced wife not that long after it
was just a great moment but
it's things like this i agree with you
that that mediocre weak person
is now in a position of power over
somebody else and that sense of
vindictiveness like i'm going to feel
strong for once in my life but it's
going to be at your expense that i think
is you know human nature it's most
primal
and every time i meet a person in this
world you're the first person to get me
to cry on a fucking podcast fucking the
robot gets me to cry what the fuck is
going on every time i meet a weird
person
somebody to me heroism
is also
taking a risk to uh rebel against
mediocrity yeah
like in in the most simplest of ways
like the the license address like taking
a risk to break the little bit of rule
that nobody will know about to take that
little bit of a
leap
of like that little protest against the
bureaucracy well like that nazi remedy
where he just spoke out he's like hey
lady that's a big one oh that's a
restructuring i mean like literally at
the line at starbucks or something like
okay like even in the tiniest of ways
when i see
people just like it's almost like that
little like glimmer in their eye a wink
like we're in this together this there's
there's all this conformity all around
us that's
at a different time could have been nazi
germany could have been uh stalin and
soviet union sure we're in this together
we're going to rebel against that
conformity by just
just taking the risk that little bit of
risk against mediocrity i don't know and
that and then once again
i see this in companies too
when i see the mediocrity i see this you
know i used to work at google i see it
in google
and when the companies grow
that mediocrity is overwhelming the
peter principle right the peter
principle yeah yeah my hope is that all
of us have the possibility
for that glimmer that um
that risk taking the the leap
of faith or whatever the heck that is
the leap out of the ordinary out of the
conformity out of the mediocrity so this
is where you and i disagree
i i think most a lot of people do are
not capable of that
they're accustomed
to it i don't know if they're not
capable i i
i understand your position i'm
disagreeing with it i'm saying i do not
think they're capable i think a lot of
people effectively don't have souls
they do not have a conscience in this
sense where they're going to look at an
issue bring their critical thinking and
say all right
i
am going to do the right thing although
i'm taking a risk i don't think thinking
is involved or is it just taking that
leap there there's something about that
basic human spirit forget the thinking
part it's it's just saying like
i'll take that risk they're taking that
adventure the same thing that got people
to explore
the seas you know that that
uh throughout human civilization explore
land
explore the oceans like that explore
exploration like we've done stuff this
way all this time
i'm going to take a leap
and that comes out of nowhere seemingly
but those people are the heroes but i
don't think that's universal
remember there's i'm going to use a very
gauche example there was a show called
scare tactics which was basically a
candid camera but they would scare
people like they'd have vampires
whatever hidden camera and people's
reactions
and
so a lot of but sometimes it the prank
didn't work out like they expected so
there was one where they were hiring
some of the the people who were the
marks you know the contestants so to
speak was it was hard to be a security
guard okay and you have to watch this
this factory overnight and you get paid
and what the setup was
some people were breaking out of the
factory in the middle of the night like
in rags and they were saying they were
keeping us prisoner here
like blah blah and just watch the person
reaction to this and there was one
security guard
where there he basically forced them
back into the building and they're like
they're working us 24 7 we're getting
beaten he's like i'm here to do a job
get back in there and you watch this and
it never even enters his head to be like
something's wrong here he was given his
orders he's following his orders
and
to me
that is not uncommon and that person
although they look like you and i uh
there's something essentially human
missing with them now
very quickly the reaction is well it's
one step from there to nazism i don't
think it's something that i'm not saying
this person should be killed but i'm
just saying to expect
that every human being has the capacity
to have that defiance especially to cost
their own life that i think is not
realistic uh and i but at the same time
i feel like an octopus on the eighth
hand
it is those few of us
or
if you want to include me in this who do
make these tiny little
protests who look the other way when
someone is hungry who's stealing food
from the supermarket right it's like all
right like i i'm gonna pretend i didn't
see anything
that
those little elements of heroism are
what move
humanity forward
and demonstrate the validity of the
human experience whereas everyone else
is kind of like scenery
i think
almost everybody in the world can derive
deep meaning and pleasure from having
done those courageous acts and i also
think they have the capacity to do them
to discover that meaning and happiness
so you're the cynic then why aren't they
doing it they haven't gotten a chance to
like i've never
tried lsd or dmt
you haven't gotten the chance to try
this amazing journey which is taking the
risk that's something yes because as you
just said two minutes ago
everyone has that chance every day
to do the right thing and we have the
chance to do a lot of things and we
don't realize there's a lot of stuff
right in front of our nose that we don't
realize right because you have to kind
of wake up to it and sometimes
uh
you need the catalyst there needs to be
some kind of thing that happens that
wakes you up
that
the fact that most people
don't
take the small acts of rebellion doesn't
mean they don't have the capacity to
both do so and to
derive a lot of meaning from it
then it's a
discussion about how to create societies
that get more and more people to be free
actors and free thinkers that's that's
the question and that that probably
leads us into a discussion of anarchism
and so on but yeah i just think we are
very young as a species
we're trying to figure out how to
get ourselves to first be
collaborative but at the same time be
free spirits and i think both of those
are within human nature
i think another big concern
is that there's enormous disincentives
and this is michael malus speaking yeah
uh for human beings to be kind and for
tenderness
and i think especially when you're young
you know what i mean when you're
immature
a lot of times someone will reach out to
you with kindness or vulnerability and
you think it's funny to kind of dunk the
head underwater in a pool or something
like that yeah and when you get older
you look there you know there's this one
uh example of this this was a this was
in the 90s
and there was a woman she became a like
uh like stripper or something like that
or whatever it was but she had this
amazing body she was just gorgeous
and the show was she was talking about
how when she was in high school she was
bullied a lot
and that there was this football player
he messed with her every single day
and like at one day she even threw
pickles in her hair and her hair smelled
like pickles and it was laughing at her
and this really screwed her up i mean up
to that show and they took her backstage
and they brought out the football player
now he's a dad and a regular dude
and he's like do you know like do you
know why you're here and he's like no
and they're like oh what were you like
in high schools like i was kind of a
jock you know bully whatever and they
brought her out and he didn't even
remember her really and she just starts
crying about the pickles and whatever
and this something that affected her for
like 20 years and i've never seen
a clear example of someone who wants to
kill themselves in this guy
like the guilt on his face and he's
looking at her and he's desperate to be
like what can i do
to take your pain away to make it better
uh like i i he was just crippled by it
because he knew there's nothing he could
do he knew he 100 did the wrong thing he
knew he did the wrong thing unthinkingly
like you can imagine you know i got to
screw over this lady to feed my family
you know that that's fine
but for it was at the time it meant
nothing to him so of course he didn't
remember and he was just paralyzed by
this sense of crippling guilt one of the
reasons i always try to do the right
thing
isn't because i'm an inherently good
person which i do not think i am i don't
think anyone is inherently good but
because i will feel guilty about it for
a very very long time because if you do
the wrong thing this is a very common
idea if you do the wrong thing to a good
person
that's really really bad because what
kind of person are you in the same way
that everyone can be that guy
who takes someone out for their birthday
everyone has that ability for someone
who did the wrong thing to someone who's
a normal person and do you want to be
that guy as well
my friend uh um bitstein he's a um
uh big gold uh excuse me bitcoin person
my biography ego and hubris is like 500
now on ebay it's like hard to find came
out in 2006
and he had told me
that you know you can get it on on
torrent it's it's downloadable and i'm
like oh i thought if you were my friend
you know you'd want to buy it at the
time it was not 500 i assure you and he
goes i did buy it i'm just telling you
that you could also get it for free this
information that you might want to use
and i felt i'm like i snapped at this
kid
who was doing right by me
and i felt it just stuck in my head i'm
like you're an ass yeah and then years
later i apologize he didn't have no
memory of this at all and i'm glad to be
able to reiterate the apology again but
you know this is you know a lot of times
i'm extremely aggressive on twitter and
in other venues i always try to and
maybe i fail and that's my moral failing
always do it as a counter-attack
if you're gonna start going personal if
you're gonna start being aggressive
against an individual i'm not going to
necessarily hold back when i reciprocate
and it's something that is very common
on social media but i don't think it is
normal i just because a lot of this
you're talking about the the quiet
little rebellion just because everyone
else around you thinks it's okay to just
go up to people and attack them in the
most personal ways imprompted because of
their views
really just take a step back and realize
what you're engaging with now if that's
the fight they want
then you know my soviet cruelty can come
out and that's kind of why i don't drink
because i do enjoy it yeah but at the
same time
be aware of what you're doing and and
and again this goes back to camus um
sense that conscience really is what
makes us human beings
yeah that's the thing was saying i don't
think most people think in terms of
conscience they don't think it they we
are taught this is that this is that
that creeping cynicism that oh grow up
when you're an adult you have to make
sacrifices
blah blah blah and even if i buy that
for a second which i don't but if i have
to make sacrifices sometimes that
doesn't mean it's okay for me to make a
sacrifice of my values in this moment if
i have to maybe be at work and my boss
is a jerk to me and calls me names i
have to be humiliated but i got to put
food in the plate that doesn't mean it's
okay later if i'm at a party and i'm
just you know extremely offensive to
someone for no reason
you know my own flavor of a little bit
of rebellion
sometimes i use the number two
is uh
you know you're very witty on
twitter and thank you
my
and
twitter likes mockery and wit
and uh
counterattack
is uh twitter loves that somebody who's
skilled at it
my own flavor of a bit of a rebellion
is to say things very simply
bordering and cliche
with with uh
with a authenticity and like genuinely
meaning the words i say
but knowing that those words would be
are easy to attack sure and that
sometimes those attacks can hurt
because people would just mock me sure
people don't like earnestness because
they've been taught to be too cool for
school yeah so there's this pressure for
me to be sound way more sophisticated
yeah use bigger words
sometimes throw in um
a criticism of institutions or something
like that like uh like almost as if i
have a deep wisdom about the way the
world is broken
but when you speak very simply about
beautiful things in life it's very
easy to sound like you don't know what
the hell you're talking about sure and i
kind of
i stick by that
i don't know where that's going to end
up but it's like the idiot from this day
it feels like that's the right
uh that's the right thing
even if it hurts when i'm attacked for
it i i do something similar sometimes
which is i'll have some innocuous
comment about like bubble gum i mean
just it's not even political and a lot
of times people
it's a few people will respond to this
paragraph of just invective yeah about
like blah blah and then this and you say
this and you're an ass and just really
trying to get at me
and what i in those situations there are
very specific circumstances i will
respond and i mean it every single time
i will say i i wish your parents had
been kinder to you or your mom or your
dad because if someone is some even if
i'm some idiot on twitter right if we
just talk about bubble gum and this is
your res i'm not talking about politics
where i can see how people get emotional
coven my grandma died now you're talking
and
you i realize this isn't about me
like i'm someone you've never met making
some inane point about nothing and
you're getting agitated about this it's
clearly something else that's going on
here and someone taught you someone had
to teach you that this is how to respond
in this kind of very kind of harsh way
and a lot of times they'll you know they
won't say anything or get deleted and i
hope every single time
there's no asterisk here that they take
a second
and they realize that the way that they
were talked to growing up was not
acceptable
that they don't have to carry this
forward
and that they don't have to be kind to
me i'm nobody of them but take a second
and ask if this is the kind of mindset
you want to be your norm as opposed to a
weapon you pull out of your pocket
sometimes where it's warranted or even
when it's not warranted
i think there's a lot of those people
out there you know and we forget
uh how
you know
how um
hard it is for a lot of people to grow
up how they're trained from their
parents or the single parent that the
only way they're gonna get attention is
by acting out that when they do good
things it doesn't get comment but if
they do bad things they gotta smack
upside their head
that i think is far more common than we
realize and that's such a it's not even
it's not hitting the kid that's going to
last it's the pain is going to give five
seconds but when you're training this
child helpless child is something that's
really really bad i don't know if it
always can be mapped to that
i always
wonder about them like what their
motivations are and i just kind of like
whenever i think about them i think only
positively and i don't even think about
the childhood thing i think
i don't know i
i i kind of imagine that all of us can
go through that stage
where we enjoy
the derision of others
we go through stages of being i i enjoy
the derision of others but it has to be
you know billy i'd have that quota like
i like it when people are mean to me i
stopped pretending to be nice
but like what's the worst thing someone
can say about you you're not what harm
are you doing
uh maybe your podcast is garbage and the
people are the conversations suck and
the people are losing well okay no the
main the main thing i would say is i'm
way more popular than i deserve to be
what does deserve mean the reality is
there's people out there that just enjoy
hating on others
and
i don't
um i don't fault them for it
like i don't even think of them as
haters i think of them as just people
that in this particular part of their
life are enjoying this activity
of uh
of deriding others on the internet
i'm i'm not sure what to do with that
i i just don't want to i i don't want to
allow myself to think badly of them i
guess is the thing
i'm the one saying don't think badly of
them i'm saying that i don't think
they're inherently bad people i think
that their thinking is screwed and that
i'm i'm i'm steel mining them i'm saying
let's assume everything you're saying
about lex is true this is an opportunity
for you to out dulex like it's no but
are you saying they should stop hating
because i'm saying like maybe they
shouldn't just keep i i don't believe in
should right i'm an anarchist what i'm
saying is like if this is your belief
about lex
you know what it is i made this comment
in my book than you write when people
make fun of andy warhol and they're like
oh my god he painted a soup can and now
he became a millionaire i could do this
well why don't you yeah so basically if
i go up to you with a check
and i say i will give you a million
dollars you could see the check you got
to paint a soup can what am i waiting
for so clearly there's a disconnect in
their thinking between what they're
perceiving and the reality because if it
was as simple or as maybe not simple but
as as
possible for them as they perceive it to
be why are they leaving comments instead
of uh outdoing you how great would it be
for them to have your bigger audience
and drive you into the ground i don't
know how that would work because it's
not the nba but no but you want to point
out you do this too on twitter you want
to point out
the hypocrisy
the fraudulence of others right yeah
what are you you're not claiming
anything other than this is the
following is the conversation between me
and and yeah michiki whatever his name
is right i got the voice down dude i got
it down i've been walking around my
house doing my lex impression
i've been leaking motor oil everywhere
yeah but yeah
i don't know i i don't know i don't know
what to make of it because uh i think
there's a more general statement to be
made like i see twitter this way too
when i read a tweet
i try to read it with like the best
possible interpretation meaning like
what is the wisdom in this tweet right
as opposed to
what i think a large number of people
not a large but some fraction
try to see what is the worst possible
interpretation of this tweet
and they want to they they want to
destroy you
for that worst interpretation like they
want to
um
there's people i'm already aware of this
with me and certainly with a lot of
people they're waiting for me to fail
they want me to be
like this guy talks about love all the
time you want me to be some dark like uh
abilities
pain yeah they want you to be in pain
because they die i'll tell you exactly
why because this is why i'm so for being
white-pilled and being for hope because
if you are black-pilled meaning if you
think it's pointless we're all done
you're just wasting your breath
if you have any counter examples to this
thesis if there's even a little bit of
hope your entire hypothesis falls
through right so if it's it's kind of
how like you have all these stories of
people who are like painting swastikas
who aren't nazis but just to show that
oh there's all this nazism so i'm gonna
you know kind of force the conclusion
so for them when they see you thriving
you are as a mediocre person with a
crappy show
but you're demonstrating that people can
succeed this bothers them so you are
anyone can succeed that bothers them
yeah so because then why haven't they so
now you're a counter to their worldview
and that is going to cause anxiety when
you have data that contradicts other
data in your in your world view this is
the in your mindset this is a big issue
for them yeah so
anyone listening to this they're annoyed
by the look of my face
remember that you could probably do way
better than me and you should but also
what would you failing look like like
let's suppose this podcast went from
whatever views you had to 100 views in
episode that's still success
you are talking to people you like
having conversations about important
issues you're having a good time they're
giving a good time how is that a failure
if i have dinner with a friend of mine
there's zero viewers
and we enjoy that time that is
the height of human success when you are
sharing happiness happiness joy
joy over love so what's the difference
between joy and love michael malus uh i
think joy is easier to attain it's more
common you could share it with
everyone give me an example of joy like
what was the moment of joy for you
recently i could give you a great
example of joy and this is part in the
absurdist mindset okay i love
having a bad meal at a restaurant
and i'll give you you can see why you go
with your friend
it takes you 45 minutes to get seated
okay i'm starving
waiters not at paying attention to you
they bring your water it's got a hair in
it they get the food wrong yeah it comes
out again it's ripe but it's cold at a
certain point
you're like okay i'm hungry i'm living
an anecdote this is something that you
if you were at dinner we could talk
about this for years because
how great is it that the worst thing
that's happening to me is i gotta wait
an hour for this meal that's gonna be
cooked wrong right that to me is joy is
holding on to that idea that happiness
and thriving are possible even when in
the moment it's uh everything's going
the wrong way
doesn't every moment have the capacity
to uh
fill you with joy then yes so yes the
shitty moments and the good moments yes
but that see that's the way i usually
talk about love is
like
i love life yes and in because life can
generate every everything the pain
the loss
but also
just like
simple or complicated bliss all of that
i just love all of that and that because
it fills me with it with a kind of i
guess joy but
joy has a connotation that's supposed to
be somehow positive like you're supposed
to be smiling
uh to me you know man search for meaning
with victor frankl
you know just
it's you're
you're in the holocaust you're in a
concentration camp just having a little
bit of food that you didn't expect you
will have
uh or even just thinking about food
or what about there's a kid there you
tell them a funny story you crack them
up yeah like you take away this child's
pain for like five minutes that is the
height of joy yeah so to me like all of
like life is like infinitely full of
possibility for joy yes and that's what
i mean by love because oftentimes like
romantic love is what people
think about when they think love but to
me it's all like part of the same thing
and it's almost like love
romantic love or love with a friend
friendship is like you both notice each
other
it's like dogs they look at each other
and then they look at the thing they're
interested in you both notice each other
and that moment of joy you share that
moment of joy together yeah like the
restaurant yeah the restaurant
yeah if you're both
almost without uh conspiring
notice the absurdity of how shitty this
meal is
and like that again that little glimmer
of realization that's that's what makes
life beautiful
you mentioned uh your grandmother and
lev
you were thinking of returning there
the plans got a little bit delayed but
what are you hoping
from that trip of going back to russia
going back to ukraine
what do you
hope to get out of it but what do you
think you will feel
uh a lot of things first of all i'm
going with my buddy chris williamson he
hosts the modern wisdom podcast he is
one of my closest friends we've never
met
oh really we've never met he's br he's
in britain he's tried he's trying to get
his ass
over here to austin uh he's filling out
his form
he's too good-looking a crime we call
him i call him apollo and i'm loki
so right away you have a buddy comedy
because we're going to film it right you
have these two guys who on paper you're
very dissimilar but we're very very
close
in which way are you
similar i think we're both very intense
people uh very strong emotionally
um
uh we're both very ambitious in the
sense that
uh not in terms of career but like we
want to grab life by the short hairs
kind of thing
um we're just both like good experiences
uh
he uh bench more than you or oh yeah
he's he's of course yeah i mean the
guy's jacked he's just because you know
he he's so good-looking he could be one
of those guys who's mostly biceps and oh
no no no he's not if you look at go to
his instagram chris will x is his handle
it's like heads head
it's head to toe it's just sculpted he's
perfect in every way that's great he
he what flaws does he have because i
need that taste of friends
and his accent is all crazy
yeah uh he pronounces it uh he's an
under a muddle
now i spell it mudl so just us two
british and american and just two
different dudes it's going to be a lot
of fun although to be fair as you know
i'm an underwear model now as well so
yeah yeah we're going to talk that in a
second maybe but um yeah thunderbird.com
yeah
uh this episode is brought to you by
sheath underwear are we going to get
some pictures eventually i think we
might yeah uh yes i have them on my
phone we're gonna we'll have them we
could we could shouldn't write uh you
could slice it in right here so
to be able to go with someone who is a
very close i mean we meet him talk like
every day right so to someone who
generally cares about you
who uh who's he's very very grounded
right so like a lot of times i'll have
like some concern and he's really good
and if you listen to show at slicing
through the noise and being like hold on
a second i can't do the accent yet have
you considered a b and c because you
know whenever i had the situation this
is what i did so he's really good with
that um so to have a first of all just
like two buddies on a trip is a really a
lot of fun second of all i know that if
it's gonna get be very intense
so for you you left russia much later
than i did how old were you 13 13 right
so you remember it i'm sure very very
well i left when i was one and a half
two i don't remember at all to go
to the streets
where you know my family had to go
through this stuff to see the you know
they they came to live up they
slaughtered all the jews i mean to have
that little memorial there that's there
now
and to just look around and know
yesterday best basically they came here
they rounded everyone up and also from
the other side you had the stalinists
coming in and starving all the people
it's it's just to know that so much
horror and death there's this quote i
saw once
about a woman who went to auschwitz and
she just made the comment like grass
grows here because we think you know
that when it comes to the nature of evil
that you're going to go there this is
going to be this pits of hell or
whatever there's birds you know there's
you know robin's hopping around looking
for the worms or whatever they think
it's perfectly nice and you you you
stand there to understand that so much
suffering happened here or there is
going to be very jarring i know that
it's going to be an issue because i
speak russian and not ukrainian and to
speak russian to ukrainians is like a
big deal so that's going to be a concern
i'm also worried about going to russia
because every russian has this idea that
even though they've just met you they
feel it they feel that they're in a
position to tell you what you're doing
wrong with your life what you should be
doing if they're a cab driver i have no
tolerance for unsolicited advice on a
basis at all that's gonna be horrible
they're gonna be telling me i need to
speak russian better because think about
i'm not hearing it i'm not interested in
hearing it so
that i think and also you know given my
upcoming book the white pill and
covering what happened back in the day
under stalinism and later to see this
was the leblanc this was the basement
where they would you know you know once
this is something that people might not
realize there's a superb film uh the
death of stalin which is kind of that's
what i do with north korea you know he
puts a humorous spin on and then when
you take a step back and you realize
what they're actually saying it's just
like it's very very disturbing how when
stalin was dying
he had a stroke he's laying there in a
pile of his own past he's unconscious
he'd be right before he died he thought
the doctors were all plotting against
him so they were being tortured to
confess that they were trying to murder
him they had to get the doctors out of
the torture chambers to attend to him
and they did it so this kind of thing to
like go there like red square and see
this is where it happened to see
lennon's body like this is the guy who
emma goldman yelled at it's gonna be
really
um because i've worked so much in this
space jarring and intense and emotional
and that's as intense as for me sitting
here talking to you about it to see it
and to see the faces and to see cyrillic
everywhere you know other than brighton
beach and brooklyn um it's gonna i'm
sure it's gonna do a huge number on me
because
uh as we as
western and as the tupoi mirikanets as
the russians will say i am this is still
where i came from yeah so no matter to
see it face to face i don't know how i'm
gonna react but i don't think it's gonna
be like meh
you've assembled uh a number of essays
from anarchist thinkers in a new book
called the anarchist handbook
you mentioned emma goldman
what interesting things do these
thinkers agree on and what do they
disagree on
the anarchist handbook.com is the
website it covers from the 1790s to i
think my essay is the last one from 2014
which uh a friend of mine who's uh kind
of a mediocre scientist is going to be
reading for the audiobook um also
podcasts and vodka i never
but it's not a podcast anyone would have
heard of it's like tom wood's been even
worse so
what they all agreed on
was the illegitimacy of government
and also the malevolence of state actors
and the consequences of
governments
so they
range
in terms that most people would easily
regard as either left or right wing
but it tackles the nature of government
and also creates positive
non-state alternatives from
really many different angles the slogan
i have is the black flag which is the
traditional flag of anarchism the black
flag comes in many colors so they were
really all over the map in terms of what
they're for but their disagreement is
about the nature of state and the nature
of power um and it's very edifying
because this is an ideology that's been
in many ways swept on the rug no one
takes this seriously grow up um that i
can allow people to sit down and read
these essays and see for themselves just
how beautiful this tapestry over the
decades and centuries uh has been woven
about people who genuinely believed in
freedom as the most important and how to
maximize that uh uh for society
so maybe it's useful to talk about a few
contrasting thinkers in there so one is
uh
leo tolstoy oh yeah who um
i think not many people know
is uh an anarchist yes
uh a christian and a christian anarchist
yeah so
he uh came to despise government for his
deceit and his violence
but to him the the christian principles
of non-violence i think are important oh
yeah this kind of pacifist kind of
mindset of uh
you know it's better to someone to punch
you than to punch them back so he's in
that way at least i read he influenced
mlk and gandhi
what do you think about this
flavor color of the anarchist flag of
non-violence ah nonviolent opposition i
i
i will put the caveat that it bothers me
when people bring up mlk because he's
become so corporate yeah and everyone
just brings him up without knowing about
him one of the things that martin luther
king did so very well
was that he forced people to face
the consequences of what they were
putting forward
you want to be racist you want to be for
jim crow you wanted for segregation okay
it's easy for you to do that from your
living room now turn on your news and
you see men and women in suits
being attacked by dogs
being attacked by fire hoses and beaten
by cops
just so they could sit on the front of
the bus
and now for a lot of people who were
still racist who were still had animus
toward black people are watching this
and it's gonna be a lot harder to be
like i'm okay with this i'm okay with
human beings even ones i regard as
somehow bad or inferior to be beaten and
attacked by
trained dogs and they're not doing
anything in response that strikes to i
think a very basic nature of especially
american like okay whatever you're for
i'm not for people getting beaten and
attacked when they're not really doing
anything so i think
pacifism is something that's very easy
to make fun of but people don't
underestimate how powerful it is for
someone to say
you can do what you want to me i'm not
going to fight you back i just want to
live peacefully and have the same rights
as you
and to say screw you you should get
beaten
that's a hard pill for a lot of people
to swallow so i think he was really and
gandhi of course as well
were excellent in that regard there's a
little bit of machiavellianism to it you
know they've both been beatified
regardless saints but their strategy
worked very very well for their purposes
so i think uh
just all of us when you see someone you
know in this kind of christian i know
iran obviously it's nothing very highly
christianity but if he's someone who's
willing to
you know take a punch and just say you
could do whatever you want to me i'm not
going to hurt somebody else
instinctively
that maybe this is kind of a hack
most people want to side with that guy
step in between and be like oh okay
let's take a step back because whatever
led to this is not tenable we need to go
back to the drawing board if the
consequence is people are having these
as a result of my decisions and actions
so i think that aspect of anarchism uh
is very very in certain context healthy
and much smarter and more sophisticated
than people give it credit for and let's
also point out that tolstoy wrote warned
peace and he wrote anna karenina so this
was not some naive or innocent whatever
word you want to use he knew the nature
of evil he knew how bad things get so he
wasn't saying at all that human beings
are inherently nice and kind he was
saying it's much more effective to not
fight back and to force them to face
that i i i'll give you another example i
was talking to i was on the show of
trigonometry
and i was talking to the hosts and one
of them talked about how
someone he knew had been uh in the gulag
or his mom was born the gulag grandma
and after stalin died and the soviet
union liberalized and lots of the people
in the gulags were freed by khrushchev
and and so on and so forth he i didn't
know this many of the or some let's say
some of the guards of the gulags killed
themselves because they had genuinely
believed that everyone in these camps
was there for a reason and when they
found out that these people were
completely innocent didn't even have
trials and that they were the ones
forced them to work themselves death and
starve they couldn't deal with that
guilt so when you are a pacifist or non
uh non-retaliatory
and you're forcing someone who's using
force like look what you're doing look
what you've become
for some people some people don't care
you know like the guy in scare tactics
like i mentioned earlier where for a lot
of others they're gonna be like okay
is this who i wanted to grow up to be
they will have that little flame of
conscience that you and i talked about
earlier there will be like how did i get
to the point where there's this lady who
wants to ride the bus and she's you know
lovely dressed put together and i have a
sending a dog on her what kind of person
am i for some of those people they're
gonna be like okay i can't be a part of
this i don't even understand the
politics i still am racist but i'm not
going to take part in this atrocity well
that was uh for him
from the individual perspective perhaps
he he calls that christian but listening
to that voice of conscience
like whatever that is in you
so
for tolstoy it seems like
anarchism
from the individual perspective
is uh silencing the rest of the world
and listening to the
the for him probably god-given voice of
conscience yes and so that that's what
it means to live
embody anarchism and to embody
christianity i would think he would say
but he would see those as basically yes
correct uh yeah
so in terms of forms of government
the christian government is one that's
no government yeah correct uh
what do you think about that
as a device for an individual turn the
other cheek do you think uh i tend to
believe that that's a really good way to
live
i think it's very underrated and this is
me talking
i think a lot of times when someone
let's suppose you're having an argument
and
but you have to you have to pick your
battles right let's suppose you're
having a heat argument if someone says
something very cruel to you
we have attempted to double down and hit
back twice as hard but if it's someone
who at all cares about you when they're
just in the moment and you just stop and
you just say did you hear what you just
said to me
for some cases that person will take a
step back and be like just like me when
i snapped at michael uh at bitstein
years ago i'd be like
wow okay this is bad this is bad i'm
sorry and they kind of you know it's
kind of like they have to get to 10
before they re control or delete to use
your language thank you yeah
but for overflow i appreciate that but
and for some they're gonna they're gonna
just twist the knife but i think this is
a very useful technique and also
you can also sleep well at night because
you could be like as much as this person
tried to hurt me
i still didn't reciprocate and yeah i
took that punch and it sucks but at
least i never said anything that i could
feel guilty about
exactly do you think that's ultimately a
good way to implement
anarchy in your personal life
anarchy implementing anarchy in your
personal life just means
uh respecting people's boundaries
it means uh um
uh not forcing people to do things they
otherwise wouldn't want to do i think
you then have to take uh case by case
like there's so many human interactions
that are required for life
and there's tension and all those kinds
of things it's not always
being so naive no should i put the hat
on
the hat's on the other head now well i
had to take off the hat because it's
like frodo with the ring i was starting
to feel like powerful
i wanted to give you orders and i want
no i i just
i think there's uh ways of dealing with
the tensions that are natural to human
interactions
that can't be simply um
you know
it's not as simple as saying you want to
respect the freedom of others and uh
the boundaries of others it's like
you both have to agree on stuff and work
something out and the mechanisms of that
agreement the game theory of that
agreement requires different hacks and
strategies and the the the question is
for an
anarchist collective
that's well functioning
what kind of hacks
uh
what kind of ways of behavior are more
likely to be productive and not
you know that that's almost like the
question do you want to turn the other
cheek or do you want to stand your
ground really firmly when somebody is an
asshole to you you walk away
or when somebody is an asshole to you
you turn the other cheek and give them a
chance to rise to the best version of
themselves and then find a common ground
kind of thing it's it's an open question
of how to form those collectives when
there's people with with difficult
childhoods and
all that kind of stuff but it also comes
down to what is your relationship with
this person right is this out of
character if you and i got into a
disagreement all of a sudden you started
getting very personal first i'd be very
hurt yeah but then i'd be like this is
out of character for lex i'm sure i
could be like let's take a pause here
like you're getting heated i'm trying to
work this out what's going on here and
you get a kind of a meta conversation
but again you and i have a relationship
with mutual respect so as opposed to if
it was a stranger you know who
just wants a piece of you it's just like
i don't you are coming at me not correct
i don't have to reciprocate in kind i'm
not going to shoot you but i'm not going
to pretend that you deserve respect when
you're treating me with such contempt
i i do defer
especially with people i know because
it's just this is smart long-term game
theory as well as the right thing to do
i do try to give them the benefit of the
data first right yeah because if you're
gonna go aggro you can't go back but you
could always go from like let me hear
them out and then then i could go aggro
so there's a big asymmetry there
yeah and that's i mean i don't think
anyone has the answer to this question
is is that the right strategy to me game
theoretically it seems the right
strategy is to uh with reciprocity is
what game theory says is the right
strategy they did the prisoner's dilemma
and they found tit for tat is the one
that's the most advantageous so that's
for when it's perfectly rational actors
but when you have i mean there's noise
the the
there's uh i think benefit to just even
if they keep being shitty to you still
being nice to them well then there's the
universe where girls are turned off some
people are like if you're in a
relationship and not just girls but girl
like some people when you're kind to
them they find you less attractive right
that is kind of this weird what am i
supposed to do like you're only into me
if i'm mean to you i don't want to be
mean but then i'm getting punished for
doing the right thing that's another
tricky one and i mean this is nothing
that necessarily do with anarchism so
much as like you know human beings are
infinitely complex we don't often know
the back story like for example just
yesterday jay who's here is one of my
closest friends i had a dinner with a
bunch of people i couldn't bring a plus
four so i didn't he wasn't invited he
didn't know the circumstances he just
thought we were having dinner without
him he was hurt once i spelled it out he
completely understood it i felt horrible
because for me to have any of my friends
feel left out is just a very very cruel
thing um and i was i felt bad and i'm
glad to apologize again publicly that
that's end up being the circumstances
but yeah it's it's it's a lot of times
we're also in plato's cave when you're
dealing with somebody else you have very
very limited information about their
background and circumstances and that's
why i will always if it's someone i even
have a little bit of a relationship with
try to give them benefit of doubt
because i've found especially this comes
from being a co-author when you
co-author books and you're walking other
people's shoes you don't know what's a
lot of the information so if it's a lot
of times it's just a misunderstanding
but isn't that a fundamentally anarchist
question of
uh how we figure out this puzzle of
human complexities in order to form
voluntary collectives like we have to
figure that out how to make people feel
good how to make people i agree that's
fair and that i think i think not only
anarchists have to think about this as
my point
of course well
but we have to think about it more than
others do
right i feel like i should try to argue
against anarchism at some point out of
love out of love
and so because people out of joy do
people enjoy
seeing me um
what is it when like ben shapiro argues
against like a 20 year old feminist
destroys high school students so this is
this is this video of uh michael males
destroys uh a a marxist russian
communist
pig
so anarchism as opposed to hierarchies
well that's left anarchism yeah
anarcho-communism yeah the state but
there are many hierarchies that are not
the state you we have a hierarchy here
this is your show on differential to you
right but they're okay rigid hierarchies
forced hierarchies is the first time yes
forced hierarchies okay so
do you think it's possible that
humans when left on their own
chord they they form hierarchies
naturally yes inevitably it might be
inevitably which is why i disagree with
the left anarchist i i think it's not a
coherent thing to
argue for uh non-hierarchical
relationships even in theory it doesn't
make sense to me and i i know the the
the old school anarchist will call me
stupid or uninformed but i i've never
been able to even wrap my head around
this claim that you could have
relationships with that hierarchy
right so
i guess there's a certain sense in which
we're living in anarchism now and i
don't mean just like because the the
nations as you've said
are uh in anarchism relative to each
other but isn't the united states just a
collective that was formed in anarchy
and this is just the collective that
we're operating under this hierarchy
that was naturally formed it wasn't well
the united states was not naturally
formed it was formed by force and and by
fiat but
to your point um i i stress this
throughout the book uh i always say this
anarchism is not a location it's a
relationship
so yeah you and i do have a hierarchy in
that this is your show but not but
neither of us really has an authority
over the other like i'm here voluntarily
you can kick me out if you want i can
leave it anyone neither of us has the
power to force the other to be in this
relationship we've chosen my lawyer
uh you know i defer to his judgment he's
not forcing me to do it he gives me his
advice and i can take it or leave it
same with the doctor so there is a
clearly like who's in charge and who's
not in charge but they're not in a
position to impose their will and
everybody else and you could very easily
see
uh john is stephanie's lawyer and
stephanie is john's doctor and in each
of those contexts one has this position
of ostensible authority over the other
so anarchism is in fact not some utopian
crazy thing it is the norm
of human relationships where you meet
people you're not necessarily equal
someone's gonna be taller someone's
gonna be stronger someone start smarter
wealthier with others but you're not at
all thinking i am here and i could tell
you what to do and you are legally or
morally obligated to follow my wishes
that that is the basis of anarchism so
in what way is the united states
imposing by force something on you do
you think uh if you leave your house you
will go to jail
uh 40 of my money being taken from you
by taxation right but don't you have the
freedom
to not operate under that no but that's
like yeah like technically if someone
comes up to you and mugs you and says
your money or your life you are making a
choice but what the anarchist argument
is they're not a position to force you
to make that choice that is not morally
binding even though they have
practically the power to force you into
that dilemma but you have the freedom to
live on the united states or not so so
even
i see yeah the argument is if you don't
like it leave right not necessarily
leave like geographically but there's
there's ways to live
outside the force of the united states
there's ways it's just very difficult to
operate that way but that's like saying
you could outrun the mugger which is
true but the issue is does that mugger
have the right
to tell you at gunpoint you're either
giving me your money or i'm gonna shoot
you or secret plan c you get to run away
is that person a moral actor and the
anarchist answer is never and the
difference one more thing the anarchist
view is the difference between that
mugger and the government is only
an air of legitimacy literally they're
morally identical so is it possible that
every
hierarchy that gets big enough
and successful enough such that it can
monopolize
a bunch of services it provides
isn't it always going to be a moral
in your sense the way the united states
government is immoral well i i don't
want to say just like the united states
government is immoral because that
implies the united states government is
uniquely or especially immoral very
governmental i just want to clarify that
because i know you didn't mean that i
don't want that to be an implication
um can you repeat the question so like
won't every
okay so that's right this is so that's
progressive economics yeah so the
argument is in any market at a certain
point things tend to centralize and then
that organization de facto can dictate
price can dictate so on and so forth
that is completely historical if you
look at any market the trend is always
towards decentralization the music
industry right when we were kids there
were four or five record labels they
were the ones who made all the songs
that you're going to see in the
billboard top 100 with a few exceptions
now anyone can go to direct to market if
you look at tv stations right it went
from cbs nbc abc then you got fox then
you had cable which is 100. now you have
satellite which have sounds around the
world and you have youtube which is
literally infinite so as technology
improves and as wealth increases which
is a function of free enterprise you are
going to always have more and more
choice even within a monopoly coca-cola
right uh uh this is an example i used i
think and then you write when we were
kids every terrible comedian would be
like oh now that i've got diet uh
caffeine-free coke what's next and it's
like yeah that's good you want to have
uh what was his name uh
caiman the guy who invented the segway
if you go it dean came in if you go into
some
restaurants right now you will have
those machines where you have like 80
kinds of cokes and then you could have
whatever flavor you want to add to it
grape cherry lemon lime so on and so
forth so in any field
you're going to have more and more
competition you're going to have less
competition and less choices when the
state gets involved because the state
wants control the state wants one big
neck with one leash around it and that
way it could just pull that dog in one
direction another and you saw this last
year with the lockdowns carol roth wrote
this amazing book called the war in
small business and she talked about we
have seen for the first time in history
a massive wealth transfer from small and
medium business towards organizations
like target and amazon who made
trillions of dollars last year whereas
mom and pop which to me at least is like
the acme of american achievement you
come to america you have a fruit stand a
laundromat uh you make you socks
whatever it is you're that unique
artisan creating something special
they're the ones who didn't last whereas
target amazon did so when you have the
state involvement it will always be in
favor of jeff bezos and for the simple
reason that it's going to be a lot
easier for jeff bezos to get nancy
pelosi and mitch mcconnell on the phone
than it is for me making socks on etsy
but your sense is
that there'll be less and less over time
jeff bezos says
like whatever the industry will look at
there's be less there's a trend towards
decentralization
across all
industries and when i say
decentralization i just mean choice
right so if you look at again networks
you're gonna if you were in the 80s and
you had a network just for uh lgbt
issues first of all it's going to be
completely heretical that's not going to
happen and there's not going to be
enough necessarily people identify as
that to have an audience then there was
something called logo they have that
there's lots of other shows like that in
this the way so more specific look at
websites
yeah i'm positive that you and i if we
wanted to look up uh breeding guinea
pigs would find thousands of websites
about different breeds and all this
other stuff
20 years ago 30 years ago like you're
going to have two books yeah and they're
not going to be dynamic as these new uh
um uh breeds are developed so at the
same time it does
following on your argument
it does seem easier to move
and immigrate from from state to state
within the united states and to other
countries do you think that's a form of
freedom
that embodies anarchism
where you can resist
the uh
the force of state by choosing where you
live to some extent but the line people
some of these boomers will got me on
twitter if i'm going after the police or
something and be like if you don't like
america get out of here and i tell them
freedom means
i do what i want not what you want
freedom means i don't have to move you
don't have to move free speech is a good
example it doesn't mean i have to be on
twitter right twitter has the right to
ban me but what i'm saying is i'm saying
something and you don't like it too bad
you're the one who has to accommodate me
because i have a right to do what i want
with my person as long as i'm being
peaceful
so i guess i'm trying to get to the
difference
between the state
and what you would naturally want
in anarchy which is like a security
company sure all those things
they will as they become successful
start looking more and more like the
state
because you get to elect you give them
money
they uh i got you they have leaders
what's the difference between
a government and a very successful
service provider in in anarchism this
gets a little confused in america's big
companies necessarily are in hand in
hand with the government ended up in bed
with them the answer to this question is
a long complicated one and thankfully
it's all in the anarchist handbook there
was an essay by murray rothbard who dave
smith is this is the essay that
converted dave smith so maybe it's not
as good as it could have been otherwise
called anatomy of the state and mary
rothbard points out that state is the
only agency in a country which gets its
goods through force
the state is the only agency that is not
a producer but inherently a parasite
because it does not get its money
voluntarily but through taxation and by
imposing its values on a country that is
what makes a state uniquely different
from let's suppose an amazon or a barnes
noble or a target jeff bezos
does not have the authority or the moral
legitimacy to get an army and go into
somebody's house whereas andrew cuomo or
ron desantis donald trump and barack
obama certainly do but
is it possible
that
to refrain so jeff pesos does if he if
he hires a security force right
also
is it possible to reframe taxation as a
form of payment like it
uh if it was done much better if you
could pay this collective that we call
government
in ways where you could pay for things
that you care for
so much your money would be much more
directly contributing to the things you
care for whether if you care for a
service like healthcare you'll be able
to buy essentially insurance from the
government uh why am i buying insurance
from the government as opposed to
insurance from insurance company what do
you perceive as a difference between a
tax and a price do you see the
difference
yes i know on the surface level i'm
trying to get deeply to say
there's a lot of similarities but what
i'm saying is there's one essential
difference which is taxes are imposed on
you and you have no choice as here's an
example my my book ego and hubris my
biography uh it goes for 500 on ebay
someone paid for it some crazy person
people are showing me that it's on
amazon for three thousand dollars
something like that you could put a
million for it it's you could charge
whatever price you want the question is
is someone paying that three thousand
ford is someone paying that million for
it and if it's actually the buyer who
establishes the price because the seller
can put any price tag he wants 80
trillion dollars but unless someone's
paying that amount and clearing the
market uh that price has literally no
real meaning right it's not an indicator
of value or worth or market price
taxation on the other hand is by fiat i
can decide it's fair that you lex have
to pay 40
and joe has to pay 45
joe and lex are in no position to be
like this price is too high that not
only is that money uh set just
completely out of their hands
it's taki for people who are employees
it's taken out of their paychecks before
they even see it so they don't have the
choice to be like you know what i agree
that the government has the right to pay
taxation here's my check for 40 it's
going on it's a completely different uh
paradigm than you are when you're
playing
the government provides a lot of
services in the current system right but
there's no service the government
provides that cannot be that would not
be provided better more efficiently and
with more choices in a market well
that's a hypothesis no that's very
likely no well that's not this i can
demonstrate this to you very easily
i love it when you get flustered this is
this is what this is what people like
it's so
cute the robot don't make me put on the
head uh robot has the fire
the smoke coming out of his ears what is
price
there okay so it will tax love you know
like
you know people like
i i think of uh the government as a kind
of subscription service no no that's the
anarchist view the anarchist view of gov
of a private security would be a
subscription service so that's exactly
correct but everyone hates
when uh you sign up to a gym and then
you realize in the contract it's very
difficult to cancel that uh membership
and then they up the price i mean that's
there's a lot of unpleasant things with
with uh with a subscription service that
then you can elect to go to another
subscription service sure you're or you
could go and yelp and complain and if
there's enough people do that the gym
will be receptive look at the power of
yelp versus the power of the vote
well this
we could talk about that too so you're
saying yelp is more effective
than
voting
yes the thing is
i agree with you
but
you go take a further step you say that
yelp is ethical and moral
and voting is amoral or like not voting
but government is immoral so like it's
not only is one more efficient than the
other
you're saying like because i would say
government sucks at doing what it does
and it's gotten a lot better at it and i
believe it can get keep getting better
uh
as it gets smaller and leverages
companies more and more but you're
saying no no government
is fundamentally as an idea gets in the
way
of companies that should be doing those
things anyway right
i i just think that companies when you
take away government will start looking
like government
they just because something looks like
something does not mean it's the same
if someone puts out a yamaka into
fill-in and they go to shul they're not
jewish
right
the the basic objection you have with
government because you can leave like i
i i apologize that this is that stupid
twitter cliche statement
but
your opposition to the this idea of
leaving the united states
is that it's just it's a lot of effort
it's it's it's too much friction not the
opposite the option the opposition is i
in the introduction to the book yeah i
say anarchism can be summed up in one
sentence you do not speak for me
everything else is application so the
claim that somebody i've never met or
who i voted against let's say i hate
donald trump i despise him you know i
want hillary clinton to be president too
bad trump's your president
that's not what i want yeah the idea
that this person can come on me and make
any claims onto one second of my time as
opposed to trying to persuade me that is
something that i at anarchists regard as
inherently uh evil and nonsensical but
to operate large organizations like you
you see this with cryptocurrency there's
governance you have to make difficult
decisions there's a block size wars for
bitcoin sure so you will there is a
voting mechanism often with membership
when your subscription service but see
the thing is you're using these words
and you're switching definitions because
like if i go to a store i can
technically say i'm voting for tropicana
orange juice as opposed to another one
but to kind of say oh well you're making
a choice therefore every choice is a
vote i i don't i think that that's
something that the venn diagram is not
no i literally mean vote in this case
not money okay there's some decisions
like should bitcoin have increases block
size okay there's a bunch of different
uh they're called soft forks they're
hard forks oh i'm not saying you should
never vote like stockholders have to
vote right exactly but there's no
pretense here's let's look at this if
you want to build robots right you would
sit down with the company you would you
guys would be like we should do this
kind of rubble i should do this kind of
robot the stockholders would have a vote
or the board in proportion to their
investment in the firm
me who knows nothing about robots uh i
am the idea that i'm in a position to
walk in and be like this is what you
should do is crazy and bizarre and wrong
because i'm not in an informed position
so what democracy does is it forces
people who run businesses well to run
businesses poorly by people who don't
know how to run businesses at all that's
the that's one of the many concerns but
you're saying that's the fundamental
property of the state
i have a sense that the state could
become
as effective as what we think of as
companies i mean
as this is why they can't because the
state does not have access to data the
way that firms do and this is one of
ludwig von mises great points what he
called the calculation problem
if i'm looking at comic books right and
i have detective comics if detective
comics 26 is a thousand and detective
comics 28 is a thousand and detective
comics 27 is 50 000 that is telling me
that even if i don't know anything about
comics that detective comics 27 is
either very very scarce for some reason
or very very desirable it's the first
appearance of batman whatever but you
don't need to know that to just look at
this data and be like okay this is the
market tell me something
if prices are set by the government
which the government is a monopoly i
have no way of picking those winners or
losers i don't have that data of supply
and demand of an entire nation or a
world of people making individual
decisions and having price be dynamic
and informing me as the the organization
where i should allocate my resources so
the price is a really strong signal yes
that allows you to uh
to operate a voluntary collective where
people get what they want
and don't get what they don't want and
it tells me what to produce what not to
produce and it also is great because if
i see this podcasting industry which
didn't exist five years ago and now
these people are making bank that tells
me as someone who is an investor okay
they're making 50 pro whatever 10 profit
on their capital in in the
plant industry it's 2 percent if i i'm
going to further my capital into this 10
percent and that's going to lower the
profit rate as that builds up and that
is how uh markets are regulated
voluntarily but the word government i
just think it's possible to have
collectives that of human beings that
represent others based on their
voluntary
yes of course you have private
governance absolutely private governance
any company you can have a ceo you're
gonna have a board directors yeah but
then you i just it starts to
look very similar to me a successful
private
governance mechanism at a scale of the
united states starts looking a whole lot
like
the current government of the united
states what's what's how
even amazon i don't think is anything
close to the center size-wise or
budget-wise or power-wise no
so you're saying you just
it's not even state it's almost like
anything at that size you want to keep
things smaller and i don't i their
markets are not going to
combine to that level of the state
because no jeff bezos will never even
position to tell everyone in america i'm
going to take 40 of your money before
you even see it that to me is actually
unclear we don't know that to be true or
that google or amazon can't grow to the
size if you take away the us government
i'm not sure that amazon can't grow to
the size okay so worst case scenario is
we're back where we started right
uh
that's not worst case scenario
but the concern is that google is going
to be the federal government that's not
the concern i'm saying like this is what
it looks like when google is the federal
government it's not a it's like
to me
the
the us government is our best attempt so
far to have large-scale representation
of people's interests it really sucks
but it's our best attempt so far and the
question is how to improve it like if
you take away all the if you take away
the us government i'm trying to see how
do we improve
on that level that scale
of representation of people's let me
give you one example that's that people
could wrap their heads up very easily
i'm against government police monopoly
i'm for private security right
you don't have to be an anarchist to
understand this
can everyone agree or at least as a
hypothesis everyone can wrap the heads
around and here's a big concern 9-1-1
right there i've heard this 9-1-1 call
it's very chilling there's a kid in a
closet his family's being murdered
outside right he has to call 9-1-1 he's
whispering it's it's horrifying to hear
there's no reason why the number i call
for my families being murdered is the
same number i call for the fire
department is the same number i call for
an ambulance what if instead it operated
like uber you had buttons on your phone
if there's a real emergency like
someone's gun flyers someone's being
killed you press this and it sends
instead of the one police district
whatever company is nearby you have a
bunch of them and they're the ones who
are going to come to your house to save
you people can wrap their heads around
that very easily that is one very clear
way to go from having a government
security monopoly towards having a more
free enterprise system so when you apply
that to pretty much anything it doesn't
become that complicated of alternative
so
what i would
criticize this
but
i believe
the government it's like the parenting
thing we've talked about earlier
i think it creates
a safe space
for govern for uh i'm for safe spaces so
i'm not going to laugh you about that no
i want people to be safe but for uh a
safe space for entrepreneurship so i
believe that
good government hold on give me a second
give me a second sure i'm sorry i'm
sorry you're right you're right i'm
sorry uh i think government gives
opportunity for companies to out-compete
it
yes
so yes fedex 100 not a question so i
believe you need to have private school
government
to give a chance for
ups fedex for spacex always an x in
there uh to uh to to pop up and then
government will naturally back off from
that place so like you but you need the
innovator to step in and build the thing
okay like you can't just when has
government ever backed off though that
never happens
back well from from from what from fedex
and ups from uh spacex from
amazon
hold on the u.s postal service still
competes with fedex and ups so here's
the other thing not nearly not well but
they still exist and the point is
they're dying but ups and fedex are
taxed so not only are they paying for
their own company they're paying for
this competitor this is the essential
difference imagine if you didn't have
ups excuse me the federal government no
post office so you had fedex you have
dhl you have u.s post service and many
others how about in this scenario ups
has the capacity to take 20 of fedex's
dhl and couriers money and put in their
own pocket and they never have to do
anything in return this is going to be
an enormous advantage of ups and then
when you add the addition that ups is
not necessarily going to be more
efficient the others this is going to be
a huge distortion in the market can you
imagine if your podcast you just
automatically got 20 percent of the
views of everybody else
i mean would there be any incentive for
you to be great or you could just sit in
your laurels and do whatever you want
even more than now
it's hard to imagine more than now i
didn't say your robot and lack
imagination i i think there just has to
be uh it's of course you can do it
completely without government but
government's all i need to hear okay
that's all i need to hear show's over
is uh like that safety net that's needed
for entrepreneurship that's needed for
uh
i'm sorry to say but
i have a sense that there needs to be a
bit of a safety net for freedom
i i'm much more comfortable with saying
you need a safety net for freedom then
you need one for entrepreneurs the
beauty of markets is with your startup
if you have a startup and it completely
fails the only person who's screwed is
you and your investors if i'm a
government and i make a startup the
entire society fails like the iraq war
right if i have this cockamamie plan i
don't everyone else doesn't have a
choice they are both funding it and
sometimes even drafted or forced into it
right
the safety net
the antlers getting back to the early
anarchists one of the things that i
admire about them the inaugural
communists the old school left
anarchists is people don't remember what
context they were in they were in
context without a welfare state they're
immigrating in huge numbers from eastern
europe people are you go to the tenement
museum in new york people like 12 to
room kids are working factories or they
either work in factories or they have to
starve it's not their parents didn't
love them it's that the parents didn't
have birth control which was a felony
and they also were in a position to put
food in the table for their kids because
they're uneducated and the jobs are
paying nothing so you could understand
why emma goldman alexander berkman
prudone uh and and all these other
figures were like this is untenable we
see carnegie with 80 000 mansions
whereas this lady whose husband died at
age 30 who's never been to uh high
school or even junior high school has 10
kids how is she going to put food in the
table it's not going to happen you could
understand why they would be like all
right we need to seize this money and
distribute around the people that makes
a lot of sense in a contemporary context
where food is much cheaper where shelter
to some extent is uh more available when
medical care people we're so
oblivious to how bad things were that we
see things are bad now so we assume that
they were better than in some context
they were much much worse there in many
contexts so if you're going to make an
argument for government for me the
strongest argument is like food stamps
or like uh free lunches for children
because i agree that would be very
inefficient and it's gonna probably make
them obese because you're gonna have uh
nabisco lobbying to make sure that if
you're gonna have this uh protein you
wanna you're not gonna give the kids an
oreo aren't you these kids are poor you
want them to have some pleasure and
that's gonna have deleterious effects
but if the choice is an inefficient
government program and mass starvation
that is one where as an anarchist i i
could easily see making the argument for
that one
even though i think very clearly private
charity would be more efficient and
distributed more effectively but i at
that point i don't really care about
efficiency i if you're throwing out food
to make sure these kids get fed i don't
care so would uh engagement in military
conflict be one of the biggest
negative things about the state
to you yeah of course war is wars war is
the state at its worst so if we take
away
yeah i mean wouldn't that be a huge step
forward yeah instead of regarded we're
always this is what drives me crazy
we're taught as kids in school that war
is a last resort and i agree with that
and yet when you look at the corporate
press war is always the first response
and these people do not talk about what
war means they'll show examples during
the bush years of soldiers coming home
in caskets which already is an
unacceptable price in many cases for me
but they don't even pretend to care
about the people overseas whose
countries we've ransacked and uh lives
we've ruined and it's just like well
what are you gonna do not ransack those
countries
so
that war is it to me is the state at its
worst see i
think that there is value from small
government that doesn't engage in wars i
do think that
the kind of collectives that you imagine
functioning well would look like
the best version of government that i
imagine so okay what a great endorsement
why i see them as the same
i think a lot of this is just
terminology i have no problem saying
that i'm using the word anarchism
incorrectly and to go for what you want
i have no problem with that or anything
really because like i said life is
beautiful but
nevertheless
you wrote the essay
why
i'm not not going to vote this time or
ever yeah i think i won't vote this year
or any other year or any year
uh and the basic i hope you do a better
job reading it than you just read that
title i guess you'll take as many takes
as necessary
[Laughter]
i'll read it in russian and then pay
somebody to just translate it
this isn't even russian at all you just
make up words
where'd you find this guy
um
you get what you pay for exactly
uh this is anarchy
this is what you wanted
uh like your basic summary is uh
let me see
if pressed the simplest explanation i
have for refusing to vote is this i
don't vote for the same exact reasons
that i don't take communion no matter
how admirable
he is or how much i agree with him the
pope isn't the steward over my soul
nor is any president the leader of my
life
this does not make me ignorant or evil
any more than not being a christian
makes me ignorant to evil if i need
representation i will hire the most
qualified person to do so yeah
isn't voting our current best
developed way of hiring the most
qualified person to represent you on
some things no because because if i have
a lawyer and the lawyer screws up i can
fire him if i vote for someone i don't
get who i want i get for who my
neighbors want so what that makes no
sense but representation means i want
you to speak for me whereas voting is
like i kind of want you but i'll take
what i can get and i'm going to take
what i could get regardless of what's
the point what in governance again
that's what with bitcoin is you want to
be represented in deciding
what to do but once wait bitcoin isn't
picking a person they're not picking a
president of bitcoin they're picking an
idea yeah it's more like a referendum
right and to me a referendum is much
more represent is much more coherent and
defensible than it is voting for
representative because if i'm voting for
joe biden i'm saying this person speaks
for me for abortion taxation
environmental policy immigration war
right the odds that unless you're a
complete npc that this one person will
speak for you for everything and will
and will deliver what he promised as and
has the power to deliver what he
promised is not true whereas if i have
brexit
if i say i want britain to be remain
part of the european union to say yes or
no question that makes a lot more sense
to me but even that is not pure
democracy because going back to the idea
of the circulation of the elites which
uh james burnham talked about pareto and
moscow and all them
you're still going to have someone
telling you what you can and can't vote
for and how these questions are framed
so the contradiction to what the left
anarchist said some element of hierarchy
is always going to be inevitable
so listen i agree with this aspect
very much so that we should be voting
for ideas and issues not voting for
leaders for
for leaders to represent us across the
full spectrum of issues right it seems
to make no sense
okay good man this is great but i do
think there should be
a leader i i do believe in voting for
representatives to
debate to be communicators of ideas to
us but that you here's here let me
interrupt you but you can you could you
could have those two things for example
wouldn't this be an improvement if they
have that now you have a referendum do
you want tax rates to be 30 or 40
whatever percent yeah you have the guy
leading the campaign for 50. fight for
50. then you have the lady leading the
campaign for 45 for 40. they'll go out
there they can have debates they can
talk about the issue but you're still
not voting for one of them you're voting
for the issue that makes much more sense
to me then i'm going to vote for him and
hope that he puts forward 50 and that
depends on 99 other senators exactly and
but but also i mean i do like the idea
of voting for certain people to debate
certain ideas yes i think that's a major
improvement but the final vote should be
based on the idea so okay so we agree
that would be nice to have plus no wars
and then
then uh you'll stop tweeting so uh
aggressively and to decriminalize things
that don't hurt people drugs crimes
drugs especially prostitution is a big
one if there's and this is me talking mr
mr all cops are criminals there is no
one or maybe other than like abused
children who needs access to the police
other than sex workers they're the ones
who are the most likely to really put
themselves in dangerous situation so
they need to be able to call security
because that's why they have pimps
because you're a woman dealing with some
strange dudes who are
a lot of the time gonna have weird kinks
you want to be able to be sure even if
you don't approve of prostitution think
it's horrible that she's not going to be
raped and murdered and have no
consequences and if you're going to say
oh well she's a prostitute she can't be
raped i uh just think for a second if
you're agreeing to sleep with somebody
and then he starts choking you and
beating the crap out of you and saying
it's now it's a dumb situation that is
clearly a beyond the pale assault and
the same thing with drugs uh heroin
cocaine
you crack do you um
the people that need help the most are
the ones who are addicted to those drugs
even the ones who need punishment let's
suppose you think drug dealers should be
in jail right it is very hard for me to
say that someone who sells uh cocaine
should be treated or in the same
building as someone who rapes children
or is a murderer these are not similar
types of evil even if you believe that
that drug dealer is an evil person
yeah i have um
i mean there's an essay in there called
by alexander burkman who is emma
goldman's partner crime on crime on
prisons and crime and this is leftism at
its best for getting the person who's
forgotten and the fact that we have the
world's largest prison population the
fact that so many people are just like
oh you commit a crime just put them in
jail throw away the key
at the very least if you want to be
totally immoral about it's expensive
and second of all the the concept that
all criminals should be locked in a room
together in these kind of largely
inhuman conditions and that's going to
help people i don't think that that's
the ideal mechanism
yeah i tend to believe i usually don't
speak so negatively about politicians
but i do think that politicians have
done more
evil in the war on drugs than did the
people that are supposed to be the
criminals in this picture and i'll give
you one another example of how this is
the anarchist critique of power hunter
biden and i'm not gonna i'm not making
fun of him not taking shots at him he
had an article in uh the new yorker
where he talks about when he was in la
he was buying crack and there was a
misunderstanding or like he left the
crack pipe in the hertz car and then
blah blah there's an issue he's
admitting to a felony in writing to a
reporter and i'm sure this was within
the statute of limitations there was no
possibility he was going to have
consequences kamala harris who was a cop
talked about when she was in college
through smoking weed and it's like i
don't begrudge you guys smoking your
crack or smoking your weed but for other
people who are poor or maybe just had
their short end the stick this is years
of their life being uh destroyed at the
very least even a rest is a traumatic
situation yeah if you have a weed or
cocaine or crack you're arrested that's
really going to screw up it's going to
do a number on you being locked up so to
have that double standard to me is
completely unacceptable and that has
nothing to do with republican or
democrat that george w bush was
i i coke head back in the day he talks
about overcoming his addiction and i'm
glad that he did more power to him but
just to have this kind of you know it's
just really kind of um disturbing to me
and this is my anarchist brain like how
prevalent drug use is in college there's
that i think this joke on south park
like there's a time and a place to try
drugs and that's called college where
people experiment but all those college
kids which are going to become next
generation's elite don't really have
that worry that if they get caught then
anything's going to happen to them but
that kid in the street uh who did not
have that good upbringing even if he's a
piece of crap
like he's not gonna have a different
punishment i i think that's just really
that is based on american
so in contrast to tolstoy
let me ask you about emma goldman you
wrote that uh
if anarchism believed in rulers then
emma goldman would be the undisputed
queen yes
what uh
ideas define her flavor of anarchism
would you say emma was
really an old-school radical
she was a radical among radicals
i don't know what ideas i mean what
would diabetes find her was anarchism
obviously
there's the violence i mean she was more
open to the idea of violent opposition
versus somebody like tolstoy oh sure for
sure so basically emma and alexander
berkman their mentor was someone named
johan most and johan most was a very
early
free speech not very early but he was a
free speech concern because he published
a pamphlet in europe that was translated
in the states about how to build
dynamite because his idea was all right
you have this oppressive government this
oppressive police force that use
batons and bolts against us the only way
for us as the working class to level the
playing field is through dynamite and
here's how you build it so the question
is all right is this something that
could be allowed to be legal now that
you're allowing the layman to in his own
house build bombs
so uh johann most turn basically they
had a big parting of ways because when
alexander berkman tried to assassinate
uh frick johann said no no this is not
uh something i'm for and in fact they
thought uh with this assassination this
failed assassination this would be the
thing that's fired off the revolution
because you have this strike the
pinkerton's interval pinker's getting
killed strikers are getting killed you
know this is what marx predicted you
know they're gonna light the spark and
everything's come falling down he ends
up going to jail for 13 years instead
alexander berkman does uh and then
goldman and berkman had a big issue
because when leon salgaz killed mckinley
in 1901 it was really it's kind of
humorous in retrospect he gets arrested
and they're like why'd you kill the
president he goes i was radicalized by
emma goldman and she's like god damn it
so she's on the run she's like i don't
even know this guy
and
she made the point about like why is it
worse than the president being killed
and somebody else we're all equal and
you would think if you're against
capitalism against the ruling class this
would be your first target but berkman
who went to jail who was
tried to assassinate someone he had said
mckinley this is your villain he's just
a party hack he's like a symptom of the
times he's this is this is foolish and
goldman disagreed with him she thought
it wasn't necessarily um justified but
it may have done something that was
defensible so the three of them uh you
know had their differences on the use of
violence and in fact when she came back
from russia and was denouncing it in her
book my disillusionment russia and my
further solution rostra the last chapter
she goes look
i'm not saying i'm against violence
when there's the revolution comes we're
going to have to use force she goes but
it's not the force of the state against
the working class against the masses
this is exactly what we're opposed to
this is a complete obscenity to our
principle so that was interesting the
fact that she was a uh her
periodical mother earth was a clearing
house for many prominent uh you know
ideas of the day that weren't anarchists
but were certainly radical so she was a
bit and also she was like tiny she was
like 5-1 so to have this little woman
who was so feisty um and talk back to
lennon talk back to lennon uh would she
took on lennon woodrow wilson jander
hoover was the one who deported her uh
someone who just
and the thing is you have to be careful
because i think just like war it's very
easy to glamorize violence and to regard
it as something admirable or heroic like
you're fighting for the cause but if you
take it out of the romanticism you're
like you're killing someone who had kids
you are you know killing someone with
the family you're making your if you're
gonna shoot someone they're probably
gonna retaliate twice as hard violence
sings its own song and this is a very
dangerous word you're going down so you
you really need to be uh careful about
what you're what you're preaching here
um and you know she kind of had this
mixed feelings about it but that is
certainly not uh emma goldman her best
emma goldman her best was about the
ultimate freedom of the individual of
caring about people who were desperately
poor who despised the corporate idea
that we all had to be made into cookie
cutters
and be interchangeable and all have to
start work at the same time and
basically our entire lives slave for
corporation that have nothing to show
for it while they get wealthy and you
you have no opportunity for either uh
productive work or creative work so uh
that i think the valorization of kind of
the lowest of the low is something i
find very admirable there's a quote of
hers which i think even for those of us
who are you know for property rights
is anarchy left anarchism at its best
but she goes go and ask for work
if they don't give you work ask for
bread if they don't give you bread take
bread so the idea that like if you're
that poor and you're honestly trying to
work and work isn't available and you
steal food to keep alive that you
shouldn't feel guilt about it i don't
know that i would disagree with that i i
think that there's something to be said
at that point where it's just like you
know if property rights come between
that and mass starvation it's gonna be
very hard for anyone to make the case
for property rights now my argument is
when you have free enterprise food
becomes so plentiful that now obesity is
an issue but at the time she did not of
course have that data to you know access
is there somebody you left out from the
book that you thought about leaving in
like uh some interesting figures
yeah there there's a couple so um
chomsky would have been one of course
because he's a you know one he's
probably the biggest standard because
one of the biggest anarchist thinkers in
contemporary times
um i was on the fence about herbert
spencer because he's not an anarchist
chris williamson's reading the chapter
for the book he coined the term survival
of the fittest and the chapters called
the right to ignore the state from his
book social statics it was deleted from
later editions people found it and
reprinted it um
and uh
randolph-born he was an early
progressive he was the only one or one
the very few fighting against entering
the great war and he had an essay called
war is the health of the state
which is basically about how states love
war because it gives them an excuse to
increase their power and it's very hard
to argue against increasing state power
in a time of war but since he was not
himself an anarchist and there was
plenty anti-war in there already i
didn't include him but those would be
the ones is there some people that you
think uh
the public would be surprised to learn
that they are at least in part
anarchists like i saw that howard zinn
is supposed to be an anarchist
i mean is there um
like just like tolstoy isn't it
anarchist is there some people like that
that you think in our modern life that
would be surprised to learn their
anarchists i can't think of any off the
top of my head i mean you could say carl
hess who was like barry goldwater
speechwriter from the 964 campaign but
he's hardly a household name yeah um
i mean i think a lot of people
would not ascribe to that term but are
certainly informed with this complete
distrust of all authority murray
rothbard had an essay if i didn't
include anatomy of the state i was going
to include this one it's much much
shorter and his question was who are our
allies and who are enemies and the point
he makes is there's lots of people who
would call themselves anarchists who are
of little use whereas someone who is
still like a minor kisser for government
but genuinely hates the question
rothbard had is if there's a button and
if you compress that you would end the
state would you press it so fast your
finger would get a blister those are
allies even if they're uh you know
somewhat of a minericus so i think that
is a kind of a better lens of looking at
it and i don't think anyone needs to
really ascribe to anarchism as a whole
ideology
insofar as you're seeing right now many
people in certain fringe elements are
just essentially or are decreasingly
fringe and increasing mainstream
elements are
realizing that this idea that whatever
the state does is somehow morally
binding or legitimate is something that
a b at least bears strong questioning
sure and i mean i i guess there's a lot
of groups like the libertarians for
example sure have some element of that
oh sure for sure of harsh questioning of
the ways of government and also i think
what's what i love
i mean if there's one issue where i
would want people to have this kind of
analysis it is war
and it is like okay are you really sure
uh because this is a hundred percent
gonna result in a lot of people being
killed a lot of people being traumatized
a lot of people who are never gonna
recover children innocent people are you
really sure this is the right thing to
do and i think a lot of times if the
answer is well it's the profitable thing
to do and that is i think again
government at its absolute most venal
and worst
you michael mouse in many ways are a new
yorker oh yes i'll give you one example
i don't know where austin is on the map
no idea not even kidding but does it
even matter it doesn't matter
but nevertheless you've decided to move
to austin yes
why do you think you're moving to austin
or why do you moving both to austin and
away from new york this was one of the
both i hate it when people talk like
this but i'm gonna do it anyway this was
one of the hardest and easiest decisions
of my life
it was hard because i've lived in new
york since i was two
other than college it's the only home
i've known i know it intimately i know
all the cool spots i love it with every
fiber of my being or i did uh it was
very much you know ingrained in my
personality my outlook about what cities
can be and can't be and should be and
shouldn't be
um
deciding to move was not done but when
you see your crew your your you know
chosen family one by one whittling away
it's not easy
um they all left uh there's just a
couple of us left in new york
and
i don't see any mechanism by which new
york is going to improve things are
getting much worse all the time it's
just completely outrageous
here i would have a i have a huge crew
i didn't realize how much cheaper real
estate is than in new york this is
another way many so new yorkers are the
most provincial people on earth who are
completely oblivious to the rest of the
country so for a long time the argument
was new york versus l.a right for
certain types of people
and they would say la's cheaper in terms
of rent so new york let's suppose the
rent is a thousand la was 700 but you'd
have to get a car i'm like this is kind
of a wash so i assumed austin would be
like 80 of new york prices and i'm
looking at these houses and for like 700
000 you could get a house here that
would cost like 3.5 million in new york
yeah so and you could have a gun and
it's just like i could have a yard and i
could have a dog and i have a three
bedroom and i could have you know
aquariums and my weird plants
so to have all that and
it's just to have
i am very very lucky
that i have such a supportive crew and
they're also very smart because they sat
me down and they said whatever excuse
you have not to move here we are going
to make sure that doesn't count so my
buddy matt said because i have a huge
library he goes i will go to your house
and i will pack every single book you
own myself so you can get that as an
excuse out of the way i don't know how
to drive near this uku um she's like
we're gonna take driving lessons
together there goes that excuse uh how
do i find an apartment they're like
we'll go to with the realtor we'll take
pictures for you we'll report back you
could trust our judgment and i'm like
that's very i would do that that sounds
like fun shopping for house i'd have to
buy them yeah then matt just yesterday
had the idea goes come here
rent a furnished apartment for a few
months you don't have the pressure of
buying and it's just it's going to be an
easy transition the rent's not going to
be anything compared to new york i'm
like these are all
very valid things you're here
lots of other people by the way that's
what this is is uh i made sure
that it's renting month to month oh this
is rental this is rental well you didn't
realize this i thought you bought this
no no no it was a rent to hawk why i
thought you bought it no it's rental
well i really value freedom so
who are you talking to
i've heard this thing freedom it's
really great
[Laughter]
but not everybody the implementation of
freedom is different for everybody of
course for me
i i don't want to uh make a statement
about others i'll just speak for myself
i think when you buy a house that is not
just
a wise financial decision or
all those kinds of reasons that people
have investment all those kinds of
things i think it's also a hit on your
freedom because the positive way to
frame that is you make it a home you
have a deep connection to it but the
negative way to frame it is you're now a
little bit stuck there yeah and you may
stay there way longer than you should
when much better opportunities for life
come up there are stages in life when
you're not sure exactly what the future
will hold i would argue that's very
often the case
uh basically at every stage in life and
i just want to make sure i maximize the
freedom
to uh
to embrace the most ambitious the uh the
craziest the wildest the most beautiful
opportunities that come by
you've actually brought this up to
because i i said i really enjoyed the
conversation with you and euron yeah
like
you
talking to you and somebody else
yeah i think you make a really
significant effort you've said this
before but it really is true and it
stands in contrast to
other folks who are also good
conversation you really make an effort
for that person like to unders like to
meet the person oh for sure
and that's uh you made me you made me
realize it's kind of a
uh it's an art form
uh but it's also just
it's a thing worth doing
of putting in that effort
and that leap of humanity to like reach
the whether you're talking to dave rubin
or alex jones
or joe or me
just
yeah those are different human beings
and they're taking that leap it's it's
fascinating i mean do you have um
how do you think about that i i'm a huge
introvert as as you are i think
um i
i
feel very very very lucky
that i
get to get on a mic and
run my mouth and for some people some
reason people like this so
i
know what it's like to have a good convo
and i know what it's like to have a bad
convo so before i'll do a show i will
have like some things i would want to
talk about and then i'll think about how
to say them in an engaging way so i do
my homework in that regard i'm also very
good at or i pride myself at
taking people who are cerebral or
intellectual and making them a little
bit silly but also making them feel safe
to be silly because i'm not going to be
making a buffoon of them that we're
having fun as opposed to disrespecting
the person i think we all saw that with
yaran who's very cerebral very serious
but we were all cracking jokes um and he
was having a good time and he knew even
if i'm making fun of him to his face it
is coming from a place of kindness and
he's in on the joke and we're all having
fun that is something i
try to do as uh much as possible i had
an episode of my show
a couple of weeks ago and someone who's
been a friend of mine for a long time
and someone i admire a lot elizabeth
spyers she was the founding member of um
gog founding editor of gawker you know
she's she's worked for the observer for
jared kushner she's her resume's second
to none and she was on my show and she
was talking you know her our politics
are pretty straightforward like
corporate journalists blue pill politics
and my audience was very upset that i
wasn't pushing back or like whatever i'm
like
my job if someone is coming to a place
where like the audience is at least
going to be somewhat hostile is not to
make her have negative consequences
for doing something that she didn't need
to do my job is to make sure that the
experience is a positive one for her as
the host so when i'm the guest i always
feel that my job is to make the host
look good and make the host not feel
like it's work and the audience really
likes that because instead of it being
an interview or intense it is a
conversation nine of us know what's
going to happen
and so this is something i think about a
fair amount and i try to apply and
insofar as it successfully i'm delighted
and there's times when it's not
successful and that's a shame but all we
could do is uh do our best yeah i really
enjoyed that conversation with her i was
surprised by uh the dislikes and all
that kind of stuff well one of the
things i always talk about is i don't i
don't care what my friends politics are
i care about if someone's if i'm having
a bad day can i call them up and ask for
advice and elizabeth has been there for
me in the past and then when i do it on
a camera in front of mike's people
freaking out i'm like i'm practicing
what i preach
uh my the relationships are more
important than someone's political views
and it's not hypocrisy at all to
demonstrate that and not not to push
back and there was great humor there
you're both a bit of trolls and yeah in
very different ways but nevertheless
that connection the humor and the mutual
respect and love
that was all there yeah yeah it's just
fascinating
um you've talked to alex jones a couple
days ago sure yeah you've talked to him
many times before but you've had him on
your podcast
um this week yeah this week
i was kind of surprised that um
he mentioned
that human animal hybrids was like
the number
the main conspiracy that people should
look into to open their eyes to the
you know
to the globalists all the conspiracies
that are out there was that surprising
to you
um no because i came in there with
questions and i was very focused on
corralling him and having it be like a
kind of a coherent intellectual
conversation that was a really really
good it was only an hour but it was a
very good conversation yeah thank you
the response was overwhelmingly positive
and i'm like all right i'm in a unique
position because alex i i met alex well
that's not true but i was on alex with
alex on tim pool a couple of times it
was mayhem it was anarchy and i'm like
all right let me get but the thing is
what people enjoyed is i was the one who
was basically able to translate alex
ease he's obviously very performative
and a lot of times alex will say things
that are not really
uh
particularly controversial but he'll say
them in such a way that it sounds
crazier than it is you know i think
joe's made this observation as well so
what i wanted to have him on when on my
show is all right let's go through all
these conspiracies which have validity
which don't and i knew if i asked
because he's got a lot of historical
knowledge even if you want to think of a
lot of it's nonsensical
let's sort out the wheat from the chaff
you know because everyone has someone
crazy in them i have this expression you
take one red pill not the whole bottle
you take the whole bottle of red pills
you assume literally everything in the
media is a lie that that's just not a
coherent position to have is the weather
alive when they tell you that the
temperature's gonna be wrong tomorrow so
that was fun to watch him go through
that and he felt bad because he felt
incorrectly in my opinion that he was
needlessly aggressive and disrespectful
toward me on tim i didn't feel
disrespected at all it got heated but i
didn't take it personally people have
heated debates all the time so i think
he he promised me he wouldn't interrupt
and would be deferential but that
because he promised to be on his best
behavior that gave me an opportunity to
address him seriously and not to bring
the clown aspect out of him which is
easy to caricature him uh my friend
ethan supply who i'm sure people know
played a basically character based on
him in the hunt because eric alex is
kind of this cartoon archetype so it was
really fun to get another side of him um
and and also it's just fun being on his
show just him being bombastic and just
trying to be the calm voice of reason
and for once the trickster was apollo
well i like this
this thing he said before
and that's what makes me the most
interested in alex is the uh the
nietzsche quote about the uh you know
gazing into the abyss
i think he said on your show that he has
become the abyss or something like that
i think that makes him fascinating that
when you really take conspiracy theory
seriously
the kind of effect it has on your mind
that to me is fascinating well can i say
one thing the term conspiracy theory if
you ask any layman like it's like this
you say do you like puppies i hate them
do you like baby dogs oh they're the
best right people the human mind is
capable of doing this yes so if you ask
people do you think extremely powerful
people
often get together and manipulate data
or rules in order to further their power
and control and maintain it i think 90
plus percent of people be like of course
then you say oh so you believe in
conspiracy theories oh no that's for
crazy people those concepts are
identical now that term is used for
people who are like all right uh um you
know there's conspiracies in government
to experiment on people like tuskegee
this is not in dispute the cia has you
know unsealed things operation
mockingbird so on and so forth and at
the same time conspiracy theory applies
to people who say 9 11 never happened
and those are holograms now it's the
same word for both but these are not at
all equal truth claims and they do not
at all have equal evidence to them but
it's very useful for powerful people to
have that term in the zeitgeist because
then i don't have to explain or defend
it's like only lunatics are going to
look further on this do you really want
to be a lunatic kid and that takes care
of the issue i i unfortunately the same
problem applies with language applies to
a lot of other 100 that's the nature of
language yeah it's used not just to
communicate but to obfuscate obviously
that could be fixed by coming up with
different words
to uh to label conspiracy theories that
are much more likely to be true yeah
power elite analysis is another it's
basically conspiracy theory
this is the black pill versus white pill
question sure with the abyss
do you think thinking about these things
can
can destroy the mind
can uh
make you deeply cynical about the world
yeah because if you are thinking that
you are not aware of or no one is aware
of who's controlling things and that the
level of their control it gives you the
sense of powerlessness and hopelessness
yeah and my counter is the people in
charge one of the reasons i'm an
anarchist are nowhere near as smart and
crafty as you think they are and
certainly maybe the
the ones completing the shadow maybe are
but the ones who are in the public face
most certainly are not as social media
has demonstrated when you look at how
senators and harvard professors tweet
these are not you know
intellects that you're in awe of to put
it mildly so
i think that kind of takes the bloom off
the rose to a great extent
you mentioned that you've been doing a
lot of amazing things been truly joyful
recently yeah what uh
i don't know if you have a bucket list
is there items on the bucket list you
haven't done yet
are you are you pretty much satisfied
and happy and if you die today i if i
murder you you'll be happy i could die
today is there an item on the buccal
list you want to get done
um
i don't yeah uh deep sea submersible
that would be number one in a bucket
list
why because that's where all the most
interesting zoology is and to be um
in a place where like virtually no human
being has been and to see these god's
mistakes in their natural environment
my friend coined that term god's
mistakes if you look at deep sea
creatures you can imagine god making
some animal being like oh god this is
hideous i'll just throw the bomb the
ocean no one's gonna see this um so that
would be my number one bucket list thing
i would say go to the white house as a
guest would be a bucket list thing
russia go to russia would be a bucket
list thing
um
i want to go these are secondary like go
to eritrea it would be a buckless thing
i've got a long list of books i need to
write that's that's i don't know that's
really a bucket list per se
um
uh
there's not that much what i'm at a
point in my life
is once you cross off certain things you
basically instead of driving the car
start surfing
and just amazing i talked to you about
this medical thing you know before we
started yeah at a certain point and i'm
sure this happens to you because your
platform's a lot bigger than mine
all sorts of things start coming your
way that you never would have thought of
and you're like this is pretty darn cool
so to be and that's happening at an
escalating rate like i'm at a point now
where i get stopped every day um by
people so that's gonna be a weird thing
for me to get adjusted to i
ever like
without exception everyone who has ever
stopped me on the street has been cool
and it's been a pleasant experience
there was one exception in an event
where someone was genuinely on the
spectrum and they didn't understand like
distance and you don't touch people and
that but that's as bad as it got
so
that is something that's going to be
weird for me to have to deal with um
over the next
couple of years but you know it's the
price you pay and it's it's hardly a
small price when people come up to you
and say you've made my life better but
it's just weird when you go and like
like i was at the gym and then someone
tweets like did i see you at the gym
just now it's kind of weird and i'm sure
it's the same for you when you're
walking around and you don't think about
it but people know who you are and you
don't know who they are that you're
being watched even though it's not
malevolent it's still just
you don't get prepared for that
michael
there were
there will be two really big names that
uh wanted to do this podcast we'll do
this podcast that i considered to do
episode 200 with but then
i realized why the hell talked to
somebody um
famous when i could talk to somebody i
love
that nobody knows or cares
you just
hit a random number generator yeah just
i listed all the russians i know and
who's the easiest to get
you're the yeah who's the most desperate
right
he's got a shitty book out we can talk
about that for five minutes
this garbage cut and pace that he did
yeah
uh
it turned out okay i think
slightly above average
michael i i love you you're an
incredible human being it's an honor
that you would talk to me and you'll be
my friend thanks so much for doing this
uh the respect that i got
uh when you asked me to be the guest for
the anniversary episode was similar to
the respect when my two friends josh and
zoe they were going to get married at
city hall and they said we want someone
to witness it they ask you so it's one
thing when people tell you
they like you and respect you which i
had growing up it's nothing when they
show it and this is something that i do
not take lightly and i hope no one takes
slightly and if someone does right by
you and shows you respect going back to
kind of taking out for dinner thank them
buy them a candy bar buy them a soda do
something to show that you don't take it
for granted because i think what you and
i both want to do
is increase human kindness as much as
possible and
i'm gonna look at the camera
be kind to yourself because a lot of you
deserve it
thanks for listening to this
conversation with michael malus and
thank you to gala games indeed
betterhelp and masterclass check them
out in the description to support this
podcast
and now let me leave you with some words
from jack kerouac that perhaps begins to
explain the nature of and the reasons
for my friendship with mr michael malus
the only people for me are the mad ones
the ones who are mad to live not to talk
matt to be saved desirous of everything
at the same time the ones who never yawn
or say commonplace thing but burn burn
like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars
and in the middle you see the blue
center light pop and everybody goes
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time
you