Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
michael malus his second time on the
podcast
he's an anarchist political thinker
podcaster and author
he wrote dear reader which is a book on
north korea
and the new right a book on the various
ideological movements at the fringe of
american politics
he hosts the podcast called
you're welcome spelled y-o-u-r and in
general there's a lot of live shows on
youtube that are at times profoundly
absurd and at other times absurdly
profound
and always full of humor and wisdom
he is the joker to my batman and the
caviar to my vodka his masterful dance
between dark humor and difficult even
dangerous ideas challenges me to think
deeply about this world
and when that fails at least smile and
have a good laugh at the absurdity of it
all this episode has much of that
his outfit for example
the exact inverse of mine
with a white suit and a black shirt
is just one example of that
of the humor trolling and brilliance
that is michael malus
quick mention of our sponsors
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as a side note let me say that michael
is in many ways a man of radical ideas
but also a man with kindness in his
heart
those two things are great ingredients
for a fascinating conversation i hope to
have several such people on this podcast
this upcoming year who also have radical
ideas about politics science technology
and life
at times
often perhaps i might fail at asking the
challenging questions that should be
asked
but i will try my best to do so and hope
to keep improving every time
mostly i come to these conversations
with an open mind and with love
unfortunately that kind of approach can
be taken advantage of in many ways it
can be used by reporters or just people
online later to highlight how or why i'm
ignorant or worse i'm generally not a
good human being
in the context of this i have two
options i could either be cautious and
afraid
or second be kind thoughtful and
fearless
i choose the latter hopefully while
still being open fragile and empathetic
again i strive to be like the main
character of the idiot by dostoyevsky
that's my new year's resolution
be kind and do difficult things
difficult conversations difficult
research projects and difficult
entrepreneurial adventures
if you enjoy this thing subscribe on
youtube review it on apple podcast
follow on spotify support it on patreon
or connect with me on twitter at lex
friedman and now here's my conversation
with michael malus
knock knock
you're stealing my bed i'll kill your
family
that's not how knock knock joke works
knock knock michael you don't do knock
knock jokes with the russians because we
have to knock at the door
turn down the tv
you got to sit quiet never hope they go
away this is you don't throw that back
to the netherlands you know this it's
triggered who's there
i can't even do it now
knock knock who's there
leon leon who
leon me when you're not strong michael
well that will never happen
i stole elegantly eloquently that joke
from you
the lie detector that was a lie
elegantly and eloquently
yeah you crossed it on a sheet of paper
that means it's real the reason i bring
it up is because you had the guts the
brilliance to
to uh do a knock knock joke not once but
three times with alex jones i think it
was like six i had a runner
okay maybe i just they started to sort
of uh melt together in this beautiful
art form that you've created
which is like these kind loving knock
knock jokes with alex jones so you got a
chance to meet him and talk with him
twice with uh tim poole yeah in a long
form conversation
what was it like
talking to alex jones both on the deep
philosophical intellectual level
and staring the man
in his eyes and doing a knock-knock joke
about
olive knock-knock who's there olive i
love you alex i love you
well there's a lot to to explain where
do you start
i've been on his show in for worse a few
times when i was researching my book
then you write
so i had had conversations with him
before one of the things that i
appreciate about alex is he is a lot
more self-aware than people think and
has a good sense of humor
and i also
like a good twist ending
so if you set people up and all these
jokes are these kind of vapid
you know all of you jokes and the last
ones about building seven
uh they're not going to see that one
coming nor will he see that one coming i
even had another one about sandy hook
which i didn't do on the air because he
was being like a good sport so i didn't
but that was the dagger that was kind of
behind my back if necessary
but it was a good mechanism toward i
like it when things work on several
levels it was also a good mechanism to
keep
kind of the conversation guarded and
this every so often this is kind of
hitting the control delete and bringing
it down uh um
to a certain point of calmness what
about the love thing i mean you're
saying that that was a buildup to the
dagger but
it was also somehow really
refreshing to get that little jolt like
that pause you don't get that in
conversations often like i'm a huge fan
of rogan and he'll have a three-hour
conversation but at some point just
pause
and be like i love you man
like like it's in the cheesiest way
possible because that seems to be
it somehow hits the hardest then i don't
know i don't know you didn't intend it
that way but with alex jones to sit
there and to say i love you
that was like
that i just haven't never heard that
before and so it struck me as like not
just funny for what you're doing but
just like whoa we just took because uh
conversations are all about like this
ranting especially with alex jones yeah
just like ranting about this or that
this this part of the world like can you
believe this that kind of thing but
like to pause and be like this is
awesome
i don't know if you felt that way but oh
oh i definitely felt that way so it was
actually very fun i'll give you the
backstory of how that happened um
it was it was all it was
silly because tim calls me up and
there's this expression in marketing
don't go past the sale right so if
you're trying to sell someone a car and
like it's got this feature this feature
and that feature and they're like you
know what i'm gonna buy the car if you
keep talking you can only make them lose
the sale you just get them to sign and
get get out of dodge
so tim calls me up
and he goes okay uh here's what we're
thinking
this is top secret alex is going to be
on the show
we want you on as well and i've never
said yes to anything as quickly in my
life um and then he keeps talking and
i'm like tim this you don't have to sell
it i i interrupted him i go you don't
have to sell it why are you by the way
i think because um i am kind of an agent
of chaos
and alex is in his own way an agent of
chaos and what is
provides an opportunity in this kind of
news media space that you and i travel
in it's the kind of things where
none of us three you know as we said on
the show knew what it would be like
if you you know
to certain within certain parameters
what you know megyn kelly or wolf
blitzer or any of these corporate
figures are going to be like in a
conversation to some extent none of us
had any idea and i knew they didn't know
i was bringing knock-knock jokes yeah um
so
that was kind of what was so ex so i
said at one point i'm kind of envious of
the audience
because this is there's so many exciting
things that are happening and that the
internet and podcasting provides people
an opportunity to do that
it was
great yeah that that was the greatest
pairing
with alex jones that i've ever seen by
far so like okay
so i immediately knew now this isn't a
knock on tim but i don't even know if
tim was prepared
tim was not prepared for this call how
could he be prepared
well so i i mean i don't know if tim is
used to that i think joe rogan is more
equipped prepared for the chaos just the
years he's been in it like i immediately
thought
this is the right pairing for joe rogan
because alex jones has been on joe rogan
a few times yeah three times my favorite
so far was with tim dillon right for jen
yeah but tim was clearly uh tim dillon
was
also kind of uh
a genius
in his own right but he was kind of a
fan and he was back and he was
stepping away
he was almost like in awe of alex jones
where uh
you were both
you were in awe of the experience that's
being created and at the same time
fearlessly just trolling the situation i
mean to do a knock-knock joke to stop me
that just shows that you're in control
of the experience no you're like riding
the experience that immediately was like
this needs to be on rogan so
i hope that
happens as well you you're on your own
of course on rogan but just you that's
an experience that's the whatever
there's gotta be a good name for it like
jimi hendrix experience there's the
michael and alex
because that was a band it's taken
well i don't know how many years you can
you can restart the the experience
because i feel sorry interrupt you i
feel a very big responsibility
especially in 2020
to provide
fun
and something cool and something unique
that hasn't been done before for the
audience i think this has been a very
rough year
on our audiences psychologically and in
other aspects of their lives so i feel
if i'm gonna be there i'm going to put
on a show and it's also going to be
great because it also alienates the
people you don't want right so there's a
lot of people who sit there and be like
oh he's telling not
people who are too cool for school uh
where they're like oh he's telling knock
knock jokes this is stupid i'm like good
if you have an issue
with
having eaten cotton candy
or doing a puzzle with a kid or without
it you know by yourself
that's on you
and it's something very i something i
think is the enemy of cynicism and this
idea that like oh this is too silly and
meets me it's like we need that kind of
childlike aspect in our lives i think
it's something we could use more of it's
very much an aspect of our media culture
that to kind of have be condemnatory
about that or to do it in a certain very
corporate fake way so
it is something i encourage a lot
something i enjoy doing
um and again i like with the first time
i was on tim
i had a propeller beanie on you know
with the motorized and a lot of people
were like
i can't take anyone seriously who
dresses like this i go good if you judge
someone's ideas by how they appear
instead of the ideas themselves you're
not someone i want on my team are we
going to address
the outfit you're wearing we can dress
it sure you know for those who are color
blind
[Laughter]
michael's wearing the orange or just
listening to this
michael's wearing the exact
opposite the inverse
from uh from another dimension outfit
which is a white suit and black shirt
it's so genius okay so uh you should see
the next two looks i've planned
oh no yeah they're great
well obviously this relationship is
going to end today
okay is there some deep philosophy to
the humor
is uh this goes to our trolling
discussion
is there some
is there like chapters to this genius or
is this just uh what makes you smile in
the morning well i mean i think you're
honestly
in this case using the word genius a
little loosely i think this is
particularly genius but i do think it is
fun
it is exuberant it is joyous
um
i think the the bigger my audience has
gotten
and the more i actually
communicate with you know fans
i do feel it kind of kicks in these
paternal maternal instincts it's which
is very very odd i did not expect to
have that what do you mean who's the dad
i'm the dad and the mom i remember and
it may have been similar for you i'm
curious to hear it for young smart like
um ambitious men like 24 to 27 for me
was a very rough period because that's
the window where a lot of people get
married and they kind of check out and
if you're very much kind of finding your
own road
you don't know what's happening no one's
in a position to really guide you or
help you and it's it's it's tough it's a
very tough window
and what i'm finding now is having these
kids who
are in that position
but now instead of them stumbling along
for some of them i'm the one who could
be like no no no it's not you it's
everybody else
and to be able to give them that
semblance of
feeling seen to use a cliched expression
to feel
normal and that no no you're the you're
the you're the heroes here they're the
background noise um
it's just really very
uh flattering and humbling to be in that
position you have many minds right
there's the thoughtful kind
michael there's like i'm gonna burn down
the powerful yeah mike i think like
yeah and then there's like i'm going to
have this just
light-hearted trolling of the world yeah
which and which of those are most
important to the 24
to the 27 demographic i i think it's it
is the combination you know it's like if
you're making a
meal you know chicken kiev you need the
chicken you need the
ham you need the butter sauce
um because i think people
when you're young you need to see
someone who's fought the fight for you
and who's won
so it's very easy to be defeatist so
this is what winning looks like
no this is not
this is most assuredly what winning does
not look like but in my normal clothes
yeah a little bit more
uh this is a good time to mention that
clothes wise you're wearing sheath
underwear
and people should uh buy sheath
underwear use code malice20 if you go to
sheets underwear.com use promo code
malice20
what i love about why i'm glad to
promote the product and wear it it's the
most comfortable underwear i've ever
worn and you have a separate pouch for
both parts of your genitals
that's that's what you i thought there
was like a punch line coming no it's a
very nice aspect of the product yeah but
i think what here's something else just
goes back we're just talking about there
are so many and this is going to segue
into this there are so many
small companies who have been devastated
this year we have not seen a sustained
attack on mom and pop shops uh like
we've seen in 2020 who are
innovators and making something happen
and when you're just like one dude who's
producing a product
they're a sponsor of mine i'm happy
to first of all it's funny that i'm
pitching underwear but haha pitching but
it's also
something i enjoy she says small
business yeah yeah it's microscopic like
a thimble
so this isn't a sponsor of mine but this
is a good segue so this is the russians
we celebrate new year's november we have
diet moroz he comes down puts a present
under your pillow so this is a company
called jl lawson he's a fan of yours
he's a metal worker and he said can i
give you something to give to lex i have
one of his worry coins i'll tell you
what it is he's not a sponsor this is
not i'm not getting paid for this so
what a worry coin is i carry around in
my butt if you have raw denim it's great
because it brings you fades so you carry
it around with you all the time
it says worrying is like paying a debt
you don't owe
right and i carry this around
and
for now it's been like a year next time
you're worrying this is good advice if
you don't have a word coin
go think about 10 years ago yes and what
you were worried about then
and then think about did any of those
things pan out and some of them did but
you were able to handle it and that's a
good way to maintain perspective so jl
lawson's the company he sent me this
present i said let me give it to lex on
air
so enjoy
should i also open it yeah
j l lawson and co two lex from anthony
yeah and i said make something
mathematical for lex i don't even know
what's in there you don't know what's in
there no and it got through us tsa
could be a bomb it could be
just like this episode
make sure you unwrap it close to mike
because it drives you crazy that's
really the best part
me
or is this what unboxing video looks
like
i think so
this conversation's going to be a big
hit
on the internet the unboxing community
i need to have an excited look on my
face to make sure
the reaction video it should be an
unboxing and a reaction video lex
freeman reacts
it's another box it's just a series of
boxes
lex big fan since hearing you on rogan
months ago
most of your guests are over my head but
still enjoyable ah
like this episode
michael was kind enough to want to share
my work with you keep doing what you do
anthony
lawson
thanks anthony
there's a lot in there what is in there
give me some i'll open some okay all
right
by the way
show it to the camera and then make sure
you look excited or not or disappointed
no this is cool this is a worry coin
like i was showing you oh so you hold it
in your hand and when you can do this
with your thumb if people are have
anxiety or whatever
oh there's a lot of cool stuff in here
fibonacci coin
oh see yeah that's the math stuff that's
really awesome
this is really cool wait you got a big
one laying there too
that's what she said
i'm telling you last time you offended
me saying i don't have humor
uh the spin tray micro brass and copper
bronze
by the way the packaging is epic
i think that's his top he makes tops
cool
yeah you spin it in there and it's the
two different uh bronze and copper
i think he's the only one who makes
these machined tops and then he's
sitting here i guess yeah but you could
spin him in that stack that section
got it cool
where's the where's the worry thing
here's the word coin
anyway i wasn't listening what were you
worried about 10 years ago
10 years ago 2010
what would i have been worried about
then the government
no i'm not that's not a worry i i i i it
was a north korea book i published that
came out in
2014. i went there in 2012.
came out in january 2014. it still pays
my rent um with the royalties so the
north korea book yeah see this is this
is why it's so much better too i gotta
talk to you about self-publishing
because that you brought that up
i'm doing the next book's also going to
be self-published can we talk about
self-publishing what uh
what's that what's the whole idea of
publishing like having a publisher and
an agent because there's a bunch of
people been reaching out to me trying to
get me to write a book which is
ridiculous why there there's people who
are brilliant
folks like you like jordan peterson that
i think have a lot of knowledge to share
with the world okay i think what i feel
i can contribute to the world in terms
of impact
is to build something
okay
meaning like engineering stuff okay like
a book it has to be engineered and i'm
not using it loosely you have to
engineer a book no for sure i what i
mean is like literally a product with
programming and artificial intelligence
involved that's i want to build the
company i want to because there's i have
a few ideas that i feel i'm equipped
and it has to do with your
like intuition about the way you can
build a better world you individually
like what can you add to the world
that's a positive thing and for me
i feel like the maximal thing i can add
to the world is at least to attempt to
build products that would add
more love in the world and like so i
want to focus on that the danger of the
book for me
or any kind of writing
and even this podcast is a little bit
dangerous for me it's like it's fun for
sure
it's it's fun it's like it takes you
into this place where you start thinking
about the world you start enjoying and
playing with ideas you start and like
just your book on um a dear reader
uh
but also the new right like
clearly
you and i probably think similarly in
the sense that you did a lot of work yes
this next book is killing me yeah as you
mentioned often it's clear
like uh on your youtube channel which
i'm a fan of
you often it just comes out like you
mentioned all of these books that you're
reading it just comes through you
that you're suffering through this and
you've it changes you
and it's clear that you're
thinking deeply about the world because
of this book and i feel like if you do
that
that's like uh
when i was when i first came to this
country i read the book the giver i need
to read it again it's like
it uh the red pill thing is it changes
you in where you can never be the same
person again and i feel i feel about a
book in that same way the moment you
write a book
of course it depends on the book i could
also just write uh like in my field a
very technical book no that's a terrible
idea
yes but that that's okay that doesn't
really change you that's just like
sharing information but like something
where you're like
how do i think about this world can you
just leave that behind you i get it dude
it's it's being pregnant there's it
never escapes your brain i'm telling you
you're absolutely right yeah i don't
know it uh it does seem to change it but
the reason i bring that up is because
there's this whole industry
of people that uh
seem to not really contribute much to
the publication process
but they they make themselves seem
necessary for like if you want to be in
the new york times bestseller list kind
of thing but also just being like
reputable
yeah which is i'm allergic to that whole
concept but it does
do you think it's possible to be on the
new york times bestseller list and be
a reputable author
and still be self-published
not what you would want to do like
people like marxist and i think is his
name he wrote like the primal blueprints
so like if i'm getting the names correct
he's the first paleo guy right so he
self-published it it sold gangbusters uh
but that would be on their health chart
i believe and
uh
it's a little bit of a different
situation you would be reaching much
more for the mainstream
um you'd be giving up a lot if you go
through a publisher especially
financially but yeah you are not going
to have the cred because there the
publishing is a cartel
the new york times is part of this
cartel
and if you don't publish within this
cartel
they will do what they can
as any cartel has to by necessity of
being cartel to pretend you don't exist
so they will
i was i think the first one to have an
hour on book tv for dear reader because
that was a kickstarter book
um
but this is something that people do it
was a kickstarter book yeah
this is something people would
have to be aware of so you would be
giving up a lot but you'd also be giving
a lot to work with the publisher because
you're losing like a year and a half of
your life
because they're glacial and they don't
care well this that's my only problem
it's not the money i mean the money is
whatever percent they take 10 20 30
percent they're taking a huge chunk so
if i sell a book through
st martin's it's a dollar if i sell a
book through amazon which is dear reader
that's six dollars so that's what 87
it's something crazy
but for me what bothers me isn't the
money that that for me personally for me
what bothers me is incompetence like
whenever i go to the dmv or something
like that can i can i interrupt you yeah
let's talk in confidence yep
new ride comes out last year yes
i get on rogan
get on reuben
i call them
and i said i got in these shows
is there money in the budget for travel
and they say
we don't have that budget fine by the
way you got on those shows no with no
help from them correct oh yeah that's
not even a question
uh the reason they would want you to do
a book is because they know you could
get the only reason people get book
deals nowadays literally it's because
they know that person can market their
own book that's the only way
and i i got a reuben i got in rogan
and they they go down the money for the
bunch for travel which is fair they can
do skype
they told me this in writing
and i'm like okay and they can
financially cover skype
no but it's like hey joe
yeah we don't have the budget but you're
gonna do skype hello
hello
so
there is another friend of mine was on a
show on cnbc with nasim taleb
and they said naseem wants a copy of the
book
and they're like oh yeah it's like four
o'clock on friday
so we're closed so
and he's like
he went there picked it up and walked it
the two blocks
so there is
it's almost cartoonish
and it's not incompetence it's um
it's past that it's something
almost
you can't really believe that i've had
two friends who have been literally
rendered suicidal
um because this was such a huge
opportunity for them
and it was like watching their kid get
beaten in front of them and i had to
talk them off the ledge so it's
people do not appreciate how bad here's
another example the apathy of
bureaucracy something like that
i did this book concierge confidential
there's a typo in the first chapter it
ends with i'm about to t-o-o
they didn't fix it for the paperback
i don't care it's just like wow okay
yeah great book by the way got it got
npr gave it one the books of the year so
that was good
so why
participate in this because otherwise
new york times is going to pretend you
don't exist
uh getting book on some booked on some
shows might be more difficult although i
think that's collapsing in real time
um
you're not going to get reviewed
necessarily in places like pw
um or some others so the new book
you're working on you have a title yeah
the white pill the white pill
are you self-publishing that oh yeah for
sure and what's the thinking behind that
just because you already have a huge
following and a big platform and uh it's
six times the cash if i finish the book
in december i could have it out in
february
if i finish the book in december with
the publisher it's going to be out in
december at the earliest 2021. why am i
giving up 10 months of my life well this
is the big one do you have any leverage
like do do authors have leverage to say
f you
like can you just say
what even just look meaning like
i want to release this book
in two months oh no no i mean you'll
have a contract and then your agent can
fight it but they don't have the bureau
they don't have the capacity to rush
things through
yeah i guess if the cause i've heard
like
big authors i don't know sam harris all
those folks talk about like
they've accepted it actually they've
accepted they're like yeah it takes a
long time to i'm not accepting it
but you but you're kind of implying that
a human being like me should
like i'm saying these are your options
right so
i just i just hate it i hate the waiting
because
it's incompetence it's not that it's not
necessarily the way if i knew it wasn't
you know if it was the kind of people
that are up at 2 am at night on a friday
and they love what you're doing and
they're helping create something special
that's the sense i get with some of the
netflix folks for example
uh that work with people i just i don't
know anything about this world but
you get like netflix folks who who help
with shows
you could tell that they're obsessed
with those shows yeah well yeah you're
not gonna get that publishing
if you hand like i handed the book in i
think it was july i didn't hear anything
from my uh editor until december
well can we actually talk about
the suffering
sure the darkest parts of writing
a book so the let's let's go to the full
michael mal stephen king
mode of uh what are the darkest moments
of writing this book and what is it
maybe start the white pill
what's the idea what's the hope and what
are your darkest moments around writing
this book so
people are familiar with the red pill
and the blue pill the the red the
they're from the matrix the red pill is
the idea that what is presented as fact
by the corporate press entertainment
industry is in fact a carefully
constructed narrative designed to keep
some very unpleasant people in power and
everyone else under control
and
one of my expressions is you take one
red pill not the whole bottle yes
because at a certain point you think
everything's a lie and then you're
you're kind of no capacity for
distinguishing truths you're full of
good one-liners well thank you yeah i'm
full of something that's for sure
and
what i saw in this space
is a lot of these red-pilled people got
very um
disheartened and cynical and one of my
big heroes is albert camus and he said
the worst thing is cynicism
and that led something called the black
pill which is the idea that you know
it's it's all it's it's it's just
we're waiting for the end it's hopeless
and i i
don't see it that way at all
and i'm like all right i have to
address this and not just with some kind
of cheerleading everything's gonna be
great guys here is why i am
positive
and not that i'm positive the good guys
are gonna win
but i'm positive the good guys can win
and that's all you need because if your
god forbid kid is kidnapped
and there's a 10 chance that you can
save them you're not going to be like
well
i don't like those odds this is your
country this is your values this is your
family uh and i think it's much more
than 10
and even if you lose
you will take pride in that you did
everything in your power to win
so is there a good definition of good
guys
in the sense the ones who wear white
there's layers to this you're like
modern-day shakespeare
is there a danger in thinking um
adolf hitler
was probably pretty confident
that he led a group of good guys listen
if hitler did anything wrong why isn't
he in jail
uh i checked friend thought of that joke
he actually he says in his accent he
goes if hitler's so bad why isn't he in
that jail
[Laughter]
that's a good point he's probably still
alive right and look yeah
hopefully
[Laughter]
oh boy
two of the three people listening to
this are very upset right now
uh
what were you even talking about oh how
do you how do you know the what is good
there's lots of standards of good but if
you're
for me
to be a good guy is
if you want to leave the world a little
bit better than you found it
that to me is the definition of a good
guy and i think there are many people
that that that's not their motivation
and also it's about your motivation well
it's also about if your motivation is at
all um correlated to reality
i you no one thinks we're the bad guys
that's correct
but are you
taking steps to
check your motivations and and also take
a certain amount of humility because if
you're going to start interfering with
other people's lives you really
uh better be sure you know what you're
talking about
the control of others if you do have
centralized control or any kind of
you become a leader of a group you
better know
you better do so humbly
and cautiously and i also have uh steam
valves right so if in case things go
wrong let's have i'm sure this is a lot
happening with ai whatever works with
computers like okay if something goes
wrong here how do we have a workaround
to make sure it doesn't cause everything
to collapse yeah the the going wrong
thing i mean the the whole the feedback
mechanism yeah like uh
i wonder if people in congress
think that things are really wrong
it's working for them i use are you sure
because i'm not sure because
i
i'd like to believe uh that the people
that at least when they got into
politics
actually wanted some of it as ego but
some of it is like wanting to be the
kind of person
that builds a better world sure i'd also
think it's a it's diverse some who are
going to have different motivations than
others
but like
when once you're in the system and
trying to build a better world
how do you know that it's not working
like
how do you take the basic feedback
mechanisms and like
and actually productively change
i mean that's what it means to be a good
guys like
something is wrong here and this that's
why i like the elon musk like think from
first principles like wait wait okay
let's ask the big question like can this
be
one is this working at all like the way
we're solving this particular problem of
government is this working at all
and then like stepping away and saying
like as opposed to modifying this bill
or that bill or like this little
strategy like increase the tax by this
much or decrease the tax by this much
like
why do we have
a democracy at all
or why do we have
any kind of
representative democracy shouldn't it be
a pure democracy
or
why do we have
states
uh like representation of states and
federal government and so on why do we
have us this kind of separation of
powers is this different why don't we
have term limits or not like big things
like how do you actually
make that happen and is that what it
means to be a good guy
it's like
taking big revolutionary steps
as opposed to incremental steps well i
don't know that you could be a
politician to be a good guy to be honest
and let me give you a counter example
someone who you could tell is not being
a good guy uh joe biden said he was he
regards the iraq war as a mistake okay
you and i have made mistakes in our
lives i'm sure none of our mistakes have
caused tens of thousands of people to
die
um if let's suppose something for
yourself
i
that's fair okay i'll take that i don't
build the killbots
um
if i were a chef let's take it out of
politics and in my restaurant somehow
accidentally someone ate something and
they died
a i would feel horrible
but more importantly i would be like we
need to look through the system
and figure out how it got to the point
where someone lost their life because
that can never happen again and we need
to figure out step by step it's there's
i'm not a gun person but there's like
this checklist of like if you're holding
a gun there's five things to do and even
if you get too wrong you're gonna be
sick it's like assume every gun is
loaded only pointed at something that
you want to kill and there's like three
other things and it's like to make sure
that nothing goes wrong so
if i made a if i'm not chef
and i would have to not only feel guilt
but take preventative action to make
sure this has no possibility
of happening again if you look at the
staff he's putting in
it's the same warmongers that would have
advised him to get into the iraq war on
the first time that is to me is not a
good guy that to me is someone who does
not feel remorse for their
responsibility in killing not only many
americans
but some of us think that you know dead
iraqis isn't necessarily ideal either
okay let's talk a bit about war i maybe
you can also correct me on something the
first time
i found myself into barack obama
was uh i don't know how many years ago
this was but
when i
maybe heard a speech of his
about
him speaking out against the war yeah
and him
i i think it's on record saying he was
against the war
before it was happening now he wasn't in
senate at the time so it was very easy
for him to say this because i see like
people say that
people say that people say like it was
easy and it was some people say it's
like strategically sure the wise thing
to do given some kind of calculus
whatever
but i to this day give him
that's the reason i've always given him
props in my mind like okay this is a man
of character like he makes i also
personally really value great speeches i
think speeches are really important for
leaders because they inspire the world
it's like one of the most
best things you can contribute to the
world is great uh like
through intellect
mold ideas in a way that's communicable
to like a huge number of people yeah
better to persuade than to force in
every instance that's why i disagree
with chomsky he said like if you're
it chops chopsticks whole idea was that
like if you're really eloquent speaker
that means your ideas aren't that
good that's nonsense yeah so
i think that's a way for him to describe
like
i speak in a very boring way maybe
that's the pitch for this podcast i
speak boring so that the ideas are the
things you uh value and it's also useful
to go to sleep but the
i that's that's why i really liked obama
throughout his life and still do
but when i first like saw this is for
some reason you can disagree i thought
he's a man of character is to when most
politicians most people who are trying
to calculate and rise in power i think
were for the war or too afraid to be
against the war yeah that's why i liked
uh
uh bernie sanders and that's what i
liked like in the early days
of obama for speaking out against the
war and not like in this weird activist
way not weird but not
not saying i'm an activist this is but
like just
saying the common sense thing
and being brave enough to say the common
sense thing without like having a
big sign and saying i'm going to be the
anti-war candidate or something like
that but just saying
this is not a good idea
yeah and and i think it's it's for those
of us who are old enough to remember
it's pretty
uh despicable what happened with tulsi
in 2020 she was the biggest anti-war
candidate
and she was marginalized within her own
party which i guess you can make sense
she's just a congresswoman from hawaii
but the corporate press did everything
in their power
to diminish her and pretend she didn't
existed and for those of us who remember
where 12 years prior
uh you know when george w bush had the
republican national convention in new
york and it was the biggest protest in
history and the iraq war led to
democratic um
landslides in 2006 and 2008 to have that
completely not part of the democratic
party in 2020 is both shocking and
reprehensible
hey michael hey
is it that
you don't have to say hey michael you
just say knock knock no it's not knock
knock okay
what did the volcano say to his true
love
what
i love you
[Laughter]
i uh these jokes look better when you
know how to speak english
i it was actually in russian i i did
google translate okay
back to your book in the suffering you
uh
you somehow turned it positive and as as
one who's wearing who's the
representative of the black pill in this
conversation
what are some of the darker moments what
are the some of the hardest challenges
of putting together this book
the white pill uh content content
content
so if i'm having a page
in about reagan taking on gerald ford in
the 1976 presidential primaries i'm
gonna have to read like 20.
so and it's the thing like if there'll
be sometimes i'll remember some quotes
somewhere and then i have to spend an
hour trying to find it because i want it
to be as dense with information as uh
possible like how do you structure the
the
main philosophical ideas you want to
convey is that already planned out no
the book changed entirely from its
conception so uh my buddy ryan holiday
had a series of books still does where
he takes the ideas of the stoics
and he applies them to contemporary uh
terms he has this whole cottage industry
that he's doing very well with and i'd
asked him years ago
if i could do that with camus and he's
like sure go for it and i was going to
rework camus the myth of sisyphus
and i read it recently
i re-read it and this wasn't the book i
remembered at all and i'm like okay i'm
going to write the book that i
remembered
but the more i was writing it i one of
the things i always yell at
conservatives about and there's a long
list
is they don't talk about um the great
victory of conservatism which was the
winning of the cold war without firing a
shot
and i said you can't expect the new york
times to tell this story because the
blood is on their hands
and
i'm like well
michael
instead of complaining about it why
don't you do it why don't you talk that
is a great example of the good guys
winning over the bad guys
and that's become
a it's the victory is beautiful but also
pointing out to p when people are like
oh things are worse than they've ever
been
they don't appreciate how bad things
were in the 30s
uh what stalin was doing overseas and
how people in the west were advocating
to bring that here
so that's kind of pointing out how bad
things were
and how good they became and uh
you don't have to be a republican or
conservative to be delighted at the
collapse of totalitarianism and the
peaceful liberation of half the world so
that's a picture of the good guys
winning oh yeah well how does that
connect to sisyphus and uh maybe to
speak deeper to
[Music]
life and the
whatever the hell this thing is
which is
what i remember the myth of sisyphus
being about so
where does the threat of camus
sort of uh
lie in the work that you're doing so
the myth of sisyphus
which i had remembered incorrectly is
actually just a five like seven five to
seven page
uh like coda to the whole book at the
very end like you only need to read that
little essay called the myth of sisyphus
the broader work is about camus concept
of the absurd and the absurd man within
literature and he goes and it's just
like i don't really care about this
character in dostoevsky and all this
other stuff that you're talking about
it's of no relevance but what he the
myth of sisyphus the myth itself not the
book or the or the essay of his is this
greek character and sisyphus is forced
in hell to uh roll a rock up a hill
uh for attorney at the very last moment
the rock falls away
and camus take away from the story is
that we have to met we must imagine
sisyphus happy
and there's several interpretations of
this but one is once you accept
that you are living an absurdist
existence once you own your reality
it loses its um bite
and you can start with that as your kind
of baseline and bite is suffering
and hopelessness so i i think when
people
look at how much ridiculousness is
happening in america and it's escalating
you could either think oh all is lost
or you can and i think you and i have
lived our lives like this you can live
life more like a surfer whereas you're
never going to control the ocean
but you can sure enjoy that ride and
stop tr if you're trying to control the
waves yeah you're done
but if you're like all right i've got my
board i'm going to see where this takes
me
surfing from what i understand is a
pretty fun activity and also sometimes
dangerous but you'd have to ask chelsea
about that
so we were offline talking about
stalin
and
the evils of the soviet regime yeah
one of the things i mentioned i watched
the movie uh mr jones but it's about the
1930s
called the more the
what would you say the torture of the
ukrainian people yeah by stalin
one interesting thing to me
that i'd love to hear your opinion about
is the role of journalism and all of
this
and also about 1930s
germany
so what's the role of
journalists and intellectuals
in a time when trouble is brewing
but
it requires a really sort of
brave and deep thinking to understand
that trouble is brewing
like if you were a journalist or if you
were just like an intellectual a thinker
sure but also a voice
of uh in the space of public discourse
what would you do in 1930s about
stalin about hundred more and what would
you do about nazi germany in
1937 1938
so that's really funny that you asked
that because currently how the book is
structured
it's like you know books often follow a
three-act structure right so act three
is the eighties act one is
the thirties and act two
is gonna be like all right let's suppose
you were in the thirties are you just
going to give up like are you just going
to be like well we're screwed and you'd
be right to say things are going to be
very bad for a long time or are you
going to be one of those few
who are like we're going to do something
about this and you know we're going to
go down swinging there are two books i
can recommend which are just
masterpieces that that are written by
women um that just are historians that
are superb there's a book called beyond
belief by deborah lipstadt she talks
about the rise of nazi germany as seen
through the press
and what was amazing and she does a
great job empathizing with the press and
understand their perspective
is we remember and chamberlain gets a
bad rap neville chamberlain for kind of
appeasing hitler because not that long
ago they had the great war they had
world war one and they had the carnage
that the earth had never seen before and
when you had people made out of meat
meeting industrial machines and plastic
surgery was invented as a consequence of
this they're coming back mangled and
disfigured and for what and this was a
world where the kaiser was the most evil
person who ever lived and we all had the
western propaganda about the hun
and all the rapes and all this barbarism
and blah blah
so
not that long later when you're hearing
all this propaganda which was factual
about hitler it's like we heard this
we heard this 20 years ago
this was all lies
give us give us a break
and
she has all the quotes
from the different agencies and how they
addressed it plus they had very limited
information it's not like nazi germany
was an open society where reporters can
walk around and they were under a lot of
pressure as well you know in those areas
and hitler himself was pretty good at uh
he let some stuff slip but usually he
made it seem like he wants peace he
wants world peace this was amazing they
were making the argument that because
all these jews were being beaten up on
the street this proved this was the hot
take of the day that hitler was weak
because since hitler's a statesman and
he can't control these hooligans that
shows his control and power is tenuous
and this is all going to go away by the
way i mean hitler thought that too he
was kind of afraid of the the brown
shirts or whatever like he was afraid of
these hooligans a little bit like they
were useful to him
but like at a certain point like yeah
they can get in the way yeah that's why
he wanted to get control of the military
the army like their regiment like if you
want to take over the world you can't do
it with hooligans right you have to do
it with an actual army and then you had
kristallnacht which was a nationwide
pogrom
and then all the news agencies
universally were like oh crap we were we
we got this wrong and the condemnation
was universal so that book traces uh the
west's reaction to what's going on there
and including the reaction to the uh in
sip and holocaust as people being you
know what they knew when did they know
there was not ambiguity about
people i think there's this myth
that she dispels that p that they didn't
know the holocaust was happening or they
didn't care they were aware but they
were already at war with nazi germany
like what literally what else could they
do at that point um you know to rescue
um all these jews so so that's the
superb book and anne applebaum i think
the book is called red famine came out
fairly recently
and she
brings the receipts
and she's a you know this is something i
really hate with the binary thinkers
where the people think oh you know if
you're a democrat you're basically a
communist they call joe biden marxist
it's just like you know she's a hard
lefty she's you know has tds but this
book just systemically lays out what
stalin did by the way i'm triggered by
the binary thinkers and for those who
don't know tds
is trump derangement syndrome yes
so
they you know forced the starvation in
its entire population
and
they it's not only that it's like they
knew
if you weren't starving by looking at
you that you were hiding food
so they'd come back to your house at
night and break your fingers in the door
or take burn down your house so now
you're on the street without food
because you lied because this is the
people's food you're a kulak you're a
land owned and very quickly a kulak
which meant like peasant landowner
became anyone who had a piece of bread
and it was systemic and ongoing
and
many people in the press
did not believe it
there was a um a british journalist i
believe who got out of the train
uh ukraine like one town earlier and
walked and he described all this and he
was mocked and derided and this is just
anti-russian propaganda because at the
time in the 30s this was socialism had
come to fruition this was a noble
experiment i'd seen the future and it
works as i think uh
sydney webb was the guy who said that
and the premise was
let's see what happens we've never tried
something like that and they were
perfectly happy
to have this experiment happen overseas
at the price of the russian people
because it's like you know what maybe
this will be paradise on earth and
there's a i address this in my book as
well there's superb essay i think by
eugene genovese
and uh he talks about the question the
question being what did you know and
when did you know it what did you know
about the concentration camps what did
you know about the starvation what did
you know about children being taught at
school to turn in their parents for you
know having some extra bread and his
conclusion is we all knew
and we all knew from the beginning every
bit of it and we didn't care because we
were more interested in promoting this
ideology so when people are kind of
thinking the worst thing on earth is
like robert e lee statue being taken
down in washington dc
we were being told on a an especially a
much more limited news information world
where now you have literally anyone
given twitter but how many outlets were
there that this is uh we're backwards
they're the future they're scientific we
have the vagaries of the market which
led to the great depression and when you
see what was being put over on the
american public at the time
anyone who thinks things are as bad now
as they've ever been is simply
delusional or ignorant yeah i i would
say just as a small aside
that's why reading as i'm almost done
with uh the rise and fall of the third
reich oh yeah is uh
it it's uh refreshes the resets the
palette of your understanding of what is
good and evil in the world that i think
is really useful
now like
you know what helps me be really
positive
and almost naive on twitter
and in the world is by just studying
history yeah
and and uh
comparing it to how amazing things are
uh today but in that time
what
would you do
what does the brave mind do
and
not just
acts of bravery but
how do you be effective in that
that's something i often think about
sometimes easy to be an activist
in terms of just saying stuff
it's hard to be effective at