0:00

All right, I'm with Curtis

0:02

Yarvin everybody. Thank you for

0:04

coming in. Welcome to Watkins.

0:06

Welcome. Thank you for having me

0:08

Bridget. Sorry, I've been talking too

0:10

much this weekend. I was down

0:12

at the University of Austin to

0:15

give a very fun, I guess

0:17

it'll be on X soon, debate

0:19

Oxford Union style debate, although to

0:21

my annoyance without the voting. with

0:24

Ilia Shapiro of, you know, he's

0:26

like a George Mason professor. Yeah.

0:28

And you witnessed that. And what

0:30

was your, what was your experience

0:32

of his? Well, see, I want

0:35

voting. Just because I need blood. I

0:37

want there to be a winner or a loser.

0:39

Was there blood, do you think, you know?

0:41

There could have been more blood. I

0:43

think you guys were very civil. I,

0:45

I still, I've seen a lot of

0:48

these debates. I feel like they get

0:50

a little bit in the weeds. It's

0:52

hard to wrangle. It's hard to wrangle

0:54

them. And I do think you

0:56

were mismatched in one

0:58

way that was very obvious

1:00

to me just as

1:03

an entertainer in that

1:05

you are more charismatic

1:08

and more just off the

1:10

cuff, you know, a little bit

1:13

more relaxed in your

1:15

style and he's very

1:18

much a constitutional

1:20

lawyer. And I was like,

1:22

I don't care. What the

1:24

guy saying who has facts

1:26

the guy with more charisma?

1:29

Yeah, and it's gonna seem

1:31

like he's winning The other

1:33

thing and that's true

1:35

and the other thing that's unfair

1:37

about that of matchup like that

1:40

is that you know Just because

1:42

his ideas are conventional and mine

1:44

are unconventional, like I'm going to

1:47

be way more familiar with his

1:49

work or his world or his

1:51

worldview than he is mine. And

1:54

so I'm basically like, he's like

1:56

the bear fighting the shark in

1:58

the water, right? You know, like

2:00

it, you know. It's not going

2:03

to work, you know, and, but

2:05

I wasn't, it was definitely not

2:08

the best, excuse me, sorry, interaction

2:10

of that kind that, you know,

2:12

that I've had, I've had, did,

2:15

I taped a couple of in

2:17

DC, taped a couple of really

2:19

fun conversations, one with. Chris layman

2:22

of the nation, formerly New Republic,

2:24

and one with Shadi Meade and

2:27

Demir Marasek, you know, who, you

2:29

know, and their day jobs are

2:31

editors of the post. And they,

2:34

you know, they especially Shadi and

2:36

Demir, like, you know, they're like,

2:39

some of your book, they were

2:41

the PDF of the book in

2:43

two days. And it was a

2:46

very, it was very, if I

2:48

very consensual. Like, you know, whereas

2:50

I don't really think Professor Shapiro

2:53

and I really got got to

2:55

grips. Really, I was just like

2:58

basically, you know, I'm going to

3:00

hear him say some things where,

3:02

you know, no offense, but there

3:05

was, I had a little bit

3:07

of like large language model, like

3:09

moment, I sort of expected him

3:12

to be like, as a large

3:14

language model, you know, I believe

3:17

that democracy is superior to autocracy

3:19

or something, and the and I

3:21

just like sort of started giving

3:24

one of my usual like lectures

3:26

and not really engaging which I

3:29

think was not really the optimal

3:31

like interesting so I didn't feel

3:33

in saying anything really very coherent

3:36

that I could work with a

3:38

lot of the time and for

3:40

the audience listening can you explain

3:43

what the debate was supposed to

3:45

be about the debate and I

3:48

think the um Now all this

3:50

is organized by freshmen at UATX

3:52

and there's some very impressive freshmen.

3:55

It's very well organized. Yeah. You

3:57

know, the question, you know, is,

3:59

does, was basically. Does capitalism require

4:02

democracy? And I'm just like, you

4:04

know, I sort of contemplated coming

4:06

to the 20th century have asked

4:09

the question, does democracy require capitalism?

4:11

Does it require socialism? But here,

4:13

somehow we flip the question on

4:16

its head and we're saying, you

4:18

know, if we're gonna have capitalism,

4:20

do we need democracy? And I'm

4:22

just like, you know, I sort

4:25

of contemplated coming to the debate

4:27

and doing like a really. really

4:29

hermit philosopher thing and I would

4:31

just answer, I would only say

4:33

one word and that word would

4:35

be China, right? You know, because

4:37

it's like, you know, can you,

4:39

you know, I mean, it's just

4:41

an existence proof of like,

4:44

you know. And like, you know,

4:46

China is absolutely bubbling with capitalism

4:48

and it makes half the things

4:50

in this room. Right, I agree.

4:53

When I was listening to you,

4:55

this is where I was thinking

4:57

when you were using China as

4:59

an example. my question would be how

5:01

do you explain the billionaires that get

5:03

disappeared and the you know there does

5:05

seem to be a ceiling that they

5:08

yeah and so and so what's

5:10

interesting is sort of the exceptions

5:12

there like you know you're basically

5:15

like you're supposed to have this

5:17

neat little separation between the government

5:19

layer and the capitalist layer that

5:22

lets these little states that are

5:24

companies operate independently but of course

5:26

when they get bigger enough or

5:29

powerful enough, of course, you see,

5:31

you know, it's not like, you

5:33

know, the Washington, they were twisted

5:36

down on Facebook, right, you know,

5:38

and, you know, we don't make people

5:40

disappear, we cancel them. I mean,

5:43

he just, he... He retreated

5:45

from the public eye. It's not

5:47

like Jack Ma. It's like in

5:49

a box somewhere, you know, like

5:51

and Yeah, but there there's a

5:53

reason Yeah, yeah, of course, of course,

5:56

of course, of course, you know to

5:58

quote, you know one of one of

6:00

my favorite lines from, you know,

6:02

the great. Great American movie, you

6:05

know, movie, you know, Ferris Bueller's

6:07

day off. I would say the

6:09

lesson there is, fuck with a

6:11

bull get a horn in the

6:13

ass, you know, and like basically,

6:16

you know, when you have in

6:18

that system, and this is what

6:20

Lenin was afraid of when he

6:22

turned capitalism off. If you have

6:25

in that system someone who is

6:27

actually from his wealth becoming influential

6:29

enough that he can kind of,

6:31

you know, rock the party around,

6:33

you know, then... Like that's, you

6:36

know, no, you have to break

6:38

the rules there, right? And they

6:40

broke those. Yeah, there's, I was

6:42

thinking about this last night, the

6:44

whole China thing, and thinking about

6:47

how, you know, somebody like Elon

6:49

or even Joe Lonsdale, who's there,

6:51

those guys wouldn't be able to

6:53

really thrive in a system like

6:55

that, because at a certain point

6:58

they would have to. turn themselves

7:00

off so that they weren't influential

7:02

or they weren't, they weren't. Well,

7:04

yeah, I think that, you know,

7:06

the things that make them, the

7:09

things that make people like Elon

7:11

want to meddle in politics are

7:13

different from the things that make

7:15

people like Soros want to meddle

7:18

in politics. And in some ways,

7:20

I think that advantage, at least

7:22

in terms of effectiveness, is very

7:24

much on the side of Soros.

7:26

You know, I think Soros uses

7:29

less money much more effectively. then

7:31

Elon, although, you know, you know,

7:33

let's not forget that he bought

7:35

Twitter, but also let's not forget

7:37

that he was forced to buy

7:40

Twitter by a judge, you know,

7:42

and so, you know, that's, that's

7:44

a kind of funny story, but

7:46

like, it sort of indicates the,

7:48

both the size of the commitment,

7:51

the size of the capability and

7:53

then the kind of vacillation of

7:55

purpose that you basically see there.

7:57

And yeah, like, like, you know,

8:01

I wouldn't pay that.

8:03

But you know, the, you

8:05

know, whereas Soros is just like,

8:07

I think, you know, one of

8:09

the big differences is that our,

8:12

the oligarchs on our side, you

8:14

know, are sort of focused on

8:16

the outcomes of power. They

8:18

want like less regulation or, you

8:20

know, they want to go to

8:22

Mars or something. And that's, you

8:25

know, once you, you're even just

8:27

to protect their company from like

8:29

being, you know, squished as it

8:31

would have been by the Harris

8:34

administration. But the thing

8:36

is, you know, when

8:38

you want something and it's

8:41

a limited thing, it's one thing you want.

8:43

And you're going up against someone who

8:45

just wants power, who has just, you know,

8:47

the sort of instinct for power. And

8:49

it's like basically like, you know,

8:51

the thing about Libs is

8:53

that they have, you

8:55

know, to not be a Lib is

8:58

in a way, it's almost like

9:00

a kind of sobriety. And you probably

9:02

remember, you know, by your, by

9:04

Yongar Sargon, you know, talks, you know,

9:07

very expressively about this. She was speaking

9:09

once and she was just like,

9:11

you know, she used to be a

9:13

shitload professor and she was just

9:15

like, you know, I

9:17

miss being a leftist every day. She

9:20

was like basically like, you know, you know,

9:22

how heroin addict. Yeah. I mean, I was a

9:24

heroin addict and a Lib. So

9:26

I would say I'm a recovering. Right,

9:28

right, right. So is that comparison

9:30

is, you know, I don't

9:32

miss it actually, but I, but I think

9:34

part of me waking up was also

9:37

part of me getting sober. Like those, those

9:39

two things are kind of inextricable from

9:41

one another. If I really look at

9:43

it. So I got sober and then stumbled

9:45

into the culture wars. And I was

9:47

not in the culture wars. I was a

9:49

waitress trying to be a comedian, you

9:51

know. So I stumbled into this started. And

9:53

how did you stumble into the, I don't

9:56

know your backstory though. How'd you stumble into the

9:58

culture war? Did they stumble into you? I

10:00

started writing, I always wanted to

10:02

be a writer and I was

10:04

living in Los Angeles and then

10:07

I got on Twitter in 2013

10:09

and it replaced my, I quit

10:11

drinking, smoking weed, everything. And I

10:14

ended up getting addicted to Twitter,

10:16

but I found, I was like,

10:18

oh, these are my people, the

10:20

people on Twitter. And- Well, you

10:23

know, what are the neat things

10:25

about Twitter is that employers can't,

10:27

can't test for Twitter. And

10:29

then I started tweeting

10:32

and I was just trying to

10:34

write jokes and thought maybe I

10:36

would be a writer on a

10:38

late night show or something. I

10:40

was just using it to practice

10:42

and I ended up, somebody pitched

10:44

me to, Playboy was digital at

10:46

that point and they were pretty

10:49

active. And someone said you

10:51

should do something for their

10:53

humor say and I pitched, there was

10:55

this. There was this piece going around

10:57

and it was about how this woman

10:59

was like, I hate giving head. And

11:02

I pitched why I love giving blow

11:04

jobs. I was like, well, someone needs

11:06

to. Maybe they should have, that should

11:08

be the next debate in the Oxford

11:10

Union, that woman, that woman versus the,

11:12

you know, they were like, would you

11:14

like to have a debate about

11:16

feminism? Like, no, I don't like

11:19

debating and I don't like debating

11:21

isms. I want there to be

11:23

something tangible. I've seen a lot

11:25

of these debates when you're debating

11:28

feminism or capitalism or it gets

11:30

so nebulous I want there to

11:32

be something concrete like why aren't

11:35

women having more kids? We can

11:37

have that conversation. Well the reason

11:39

is certainly not that they're giving

11:41

too many blow jobs. But you

11:44

know, although, but yeah. So I wrote, they

11:46

said you should pitch this actually to culture.

11:48

I pitched it to culture. It did very

11:50

well. And then I kept begging

11:52

them for a weekly column and

11:54

then they turned around and said,

11:56

Bridget, we have a great idea.

11:58

Why don't you? pitch some ideas

12:01

for us for a weekly column.

12:03

So I started doing, not knowing

12:05

what a grind a weekly column

12:07

is, by the way. And I

12:10

started doing, I had an amazing

12:12

editor, Joe Donatelli, who I love,

12:14

he were, I knew nothing about

12:16

anything. And after I did that

12:19

piece, I thought that it would

12:21

be, like I thought feminist would

12:23

be on board, but I was

12:25

a 90s kid who was drunk

12:28

and then came out of a

12:30

coma basically into 20, this was

12:32

2015 culture wars. And I didn't

12:34

know anything about any, I knew

12:37

nothing about intersectionality, internalized patriarchy. No,

12:39

I dropped out. I dropped out

12:41

my freshman year and then I

12:43

always kind of wanted to go

12:46

back and then I was like,

12:48

well, I want to be a

12:50

writer and. I would have been

12:52

an enormous amount of debt and

12:55

I was like I learned how

12:57

to do that in kindergarten so

12:59

I guess I can just read

13:02

a lot. And that's, and then

13:04

this podcast has been an education

13:06

and over the years, and so

13:08

I really have grown up in

13:11

public with the culture wars. So

13:13

I ended up, people, the left

13:15

came after me and they were

13:17

like, oh, this is your. What

13:20

did they come after you for?

13:22

What was the internalizing the patriarch,

13:24

you're like, literally. I guess when

13:26

you, when you, when you, when

13:29

you give, when you give head,

13:31

you're literally. So that was the

13:33

beginning of me realizing I was

13:35

not dealing with the same left

13:38

that I thought I was a

13:40

part of. And then it just

13:42

got worse and worse and worse

13:44

for me. And then I wrote

13:47

a piece, women date assholes, because

13:49

you're a pussy, which was universally

13:51

loathed by men's right activists and

13:53

feminists. And then that was, I

13:56

was kind of off and running.

13:58

And then as 2015 on four.

14:00

I started seeing as I became

14:02

more aware of all this new

14:05

language on the left that I

14:07

knew nothing about, pronouns, all of

14:09

it. It's ripe for comedy, but

14:11

I didn't understand why no one

14:14

was making fun of it. So

14:16

I started making jokes about it

14:18

and then I kind of was

14:20

unceremoniously dumped from Playboy after I

14:23

wrote some piece. It was just, I

14:25

basically, I didn't get

14:27

canceled. I just decided to

14:29

not. self-censor. Yeah, right,

14:31

right, right, right, right. You know, the

14:33

thing about this weird. You know,

14:36

being, being, being dumped from,

14:38

from Playboy for, for objectifying

14:40

women, you know, or whatever,

14:42

you know, it reminds me

14:44

of, you know, we had

14:46

this passage press event at

14:48

the, in DC, which was, you know,

14:50

almost canceled several times by

14:52

the management of the hotel

14:54

which happened to be the

14:56

Watergate. And I was just

14:59

like, well, you know, you

15:01

wouldn't really want any hint

15:03

of scandal to be. It was

15:05

weird because Now during this whole time

15:07

in the past election when they're

15:10

saying they lost men I'm like

15:12

yeah, no shit because all of

15:14

these magazines were taken over by

15:16

feminists and Vice is another example

15:18

Oh, yeah another great example and

15:20

they so this is a and

15:23

I was there watching this from

15:25

a front seat I wrote a

15:27

very I thought hilariously titled article

15:29

about how I had men mansplain

15:31

feminism to me so I had

15:33

men and the internal staff like

15:36

revolted and I almost lost my

15:38

job over it for even daring

15:40

to have men explain feminism to

15:42

me in their own words. And

15:44

they did a pretty good job.

15:46

So that's how I ended up where I

15:48

am now, which is... For some reason, I

15:51

pictured the men being, you know,

15:53

sort of bound naked and then, you

15:55

know, hot wax would be drift on

15:57

them if ever had gone anything wrong.

16:00

with the feminism, you know. How

16:02

did you end up where you

16:04

are? How did I end up

16:06

where I am? Because somebody said,

16:08

I took a plane from DC.

16:11

Yeah, somebody said to me that

16:13

they, that you just quit, they,

16:15

as they understand it, you just

16:17

kind of quit your job or

16:19

something and started reading books in

16:22

2001? Or what is, what's your

16:24

origin story? I made a little

16:26

bit of money in the, remember

16:28

the.com boom? I've heard of everything

16:31

was, you know, everything was going

16:33

to become everything, but like everything

16:35

dot com, right? You know, and,

16:37

you know, it didn't happen, but

16:39

not exactly on schedule, so some

16:42

things went to shit. So I

16:44

had a little bit of money

16:46

and what I really wanted to

16:48

do was basically do. unsupervised thesis,

16:51

you know, as I called it

16:53

in computer science, which is my,

16:55

you know, the engineering, the love

16:57

of my life. And so I

16:59

was doing that for a few

17:02

years and then the few years

17:04

turned into like 11 years and

17:06

by the end of it I

17:08

was just being outright supported by

17:11

my mother and my wife and

17:13

my late wife and then they

17:15

came to me sort of with

17:17

an ultimatum and I was like,

17:19

oh, I have to go fund

17:22

this somewhere. and like really for

17:24

real and then I raised a

17:26

little bit of money from Peter

17:28

who is often accused of you

17:31

know having me on its payroll

17:33

but Peter Thiel this is not

17:35

a fact true you know true

17:37

but in any case maybe it

17:39

should be true but it's not

17:42

like I wish you know I

17:44

mean yes no no no I

17:46

you know like the like Yeah,

17:49

so I'm like, but at the

17:51

time, I mean, you can't really

17:53

do computer science research all day,

17:56

right? You know, especially like, you

17:58

know. just like spend two years

18:00

thinking about type systems right you

18:02

know like I don't know where

18:04

those two years went but at

18:07

then there was there was a

18:09

type system you know but like

18:11

how it went down is a

18:13

little bit of blur but you

18:16

know what I do know is

18:18

that I basically read I got

18:20

into reading the sort of the

18:22

great Austrian economists you know less

18:24

actually really you know people who

18:27

are kind of dilatons in Austrian

18:29

economics or read Hiac and I'm

18:31

like You know, but the real,

18:33

the hard shit is, is musis.

18:36

You know, it's like the, I

18:38

think the difference between Hayek and

18:40

Musis is kind of like, I

18:42

mean, Hayek was a student of

18:44

Musis, right? But, you know, he's

18:47

much better known, but it's almost

18:49

like the difference between like, you

18:51

know, powder crocan and crack, like,

18:53

you know, it's just like, you

18:55

know, has this sort of remorseless

18:58

chain of logic that he uses.

19:00

He's a tremendously logical writer. Hayek

19:02

is a little more impressionistic and

19:04

you know there are things where

19:07

he's being impressionistic where you get

19:09

the impression that he doesn't really

19:11

understand it logically unlike his teacher.

19:13

And what is the what is

19:15

Mises? So Mises was you know

19:18

a little you know it was

19:20

a classical liberal he founded the

19:22

Austrian School of economics or not

19:24

quite founded and brought it to

19:27

America where it eventually turned through

19:29

his student Murray Rothbard who you

19:31

may have heard of you know

19:33

Rothbard is basically the founder of

19:35

American libertarianism so you know no

19:38

Ludwig von Mises no Ron Paul

19:40

money bomb remember the Ron Paul

19:42

money bombs no oh my god

19:44

this is like the first time

19:47

people raised money on the internet

19:49

and they're like we all gave

19:51

money at the same time it

19:53

would be like much wow and

19:55

and that was like 2000 era

19:58

right you know okay I feel

20:00

like I'm considerably older than

20:02

you. I don't think you're that

20:04

much older than me. How well do you

20:07

think I am? 49? 51? Well I'm 46.

20:09

You're not that much older than me.

20:11

Five years makes a big difference.

20:13

With the internet it does.

20:16

Do you realize that aging

20:18

is exponential? Actually for every

20:20

year you go row older. Basically

20:22

there's like more and more you

20:24

age faster and faster as you

20:26

get older. Not if you're Brian

20:29

Johnson. You know Brian Johnson

20:31

doesn't look good like I don't you

20:33

know like he is not old of

20:35

me He's younger than me and he

20:38

does not you know I have I

20:40

have an advantage which is I had

20:42

my genes scanned a while ago and

20:44

I have like a Super double dose

20:46

of the longevity gene or just from

20:49

your genes We can we think you're

20:51

gonna live in your nineties. Wow

20:53

But that they don't know how many

20:55

IPAs it, but you know the so

20:57

sorry to go back to So back

20:59

to Oregon's right so I'm basically

21:01

working on the system which became

21:04

the system that I still work

21:06

on called Urbette. I was also,

21:08

you know, I'm reading these these

21:10

libertarian books and then, you know,

21:12

the student of Rothbar, the, you

21:15

know, sort of latest still living

21:17

leader of the Austrian school is

21:19

this guy named HHS Hans Herman

21:21

Hoppa, which makes him sound like

21:23

a Panzer commander, but you know,

21:25

he's actually an economist, although I

21:27

think he was purged from a...

21:29

UNLV for some kind of, you

21:32

know, he did a racism or

21:34

something, you know, and, you know,

21:36

it's, I mean, Germans, you know,

21:38

right, and, and, and many

21:40

such cases, right, but he

21:42

wrote this book, Democracy, the

21:44

God that failed, which is

21:46

sort of like, takes the

21:48

Austrian school in the direction

21:50

of basically really questioning kind

21:52

of our theology of the

21:54

state, and it's sort of

21:56

questioning our theology of the

21:58

state from a libertarian. Austrian

22:00

school basis, but in a way,

22:03

once you start asking questions, you

22:05

sort of don't really stop. And

22:07

so being able to read this

22:09

book sort of made me feel

22:11

like morally able to read stuff

22:13

that was outside the like revolutionary

22:15

Enlightenment liberal canon, not of the

22:17

past 50 years, but of the

22:19

past 250 years. And you get

22:21

outside that. You're really not in

22:24

Kansas anymore. You know, and like

22:26

then you start asking questions like,

22:28

you know, what would Elizabeth the

22:30

first do? Right, you know, Elizabeth

22:32

the picture Elizabeth the first walking

22:34

around the streets of Austin, right?

22:36

You know, what's she gonna notice?

22:38

Right, you know, she'll think the

22:40

cars are pretty cool. Definitely, you

22:42

know, so does my two-year-old, but

22:45

like, I think she'll notice other

22:47

things that, you know, I think

22:49

she thinks could be taken care

22:51

of very easily, you know, and

22:53

yet somehow or not. And so

22:55

once you're sort of, you know,

22:57

you're outside this canon, like all

22:59

sorts of thoughts, you know, occur

23:01

to you, you realize that you

23:03

were a fish in a bubble

23:06

of water and now you're outside

23:08

the water and it's like, you

23:10

know, it's almost like escaping from

23:12

Plato's cave, you know, it's like,

23:14

you know, the metaphor of Plato's

23:16

cave. It's the original red pill

23:18

metaphor, the take into account or

23:20

what Plato doesn't mention I think

23:22

is that just in terms strictly

23:25

in terms of lumens right you

23:27

know the the intensity of whatever

23:29

cave light they're using is relatively

23:31

low so the thing is you're

23:33

basically this cave creature and when

23:35

you come out in the sun

23:37

you're just like blinded like you

23:39

don't even want to move right

23:41

you know and and that's a

23:43

you know that's that experience I

23:46

mean the matrix does this so

23:48

well with this experience of like

23:50

you're being shot through a tube

23:52

you know and yeah Yeah, you

23:54

know, I think that resonated with

23:56

people for reasons. You basically, you

23:58

know, only noticed the kind of

24:00

sinister... nature of these people when

24:02

they started coming after you and

24:04

indeed when they started coming after

24:07

you and like you're just like

24:09

they're thinking they're helping other people

24:11

by trying to hurt me. Yeah

24:13

and I wasn't even when they

24:15

started coming after me it was

24:17

really just I think as I

24:19

mean I've talked about this before

24:21

too just realizing what an idiot

24:23

I was I mean truly just

24:26

Spouting, one of the things was

24:28

gun rights. Just spouting off about

24:30

this after a shooting. And this

24:32

is when I had my kind

24:34

of red-blooded American male audience from

24:36

Playboy. and they would push back

24:38

and I was like, I don't

24:40

know anything about guns. I don't

24:42

know how old one, I've never

24:44

shot one, I don't know anything

24:47

about gun laws. And that was

24:49

a moment when it was like,

24:51

I've just taken everything for granted

24:53

and I think it was, Michael

24:55

Mouse had me on his podcast

24:57

very early in this moment when

24:59

I was like, did you know

25:01

that I, like the left has

25:03

double standards? Oh my god, did

25:05

you know the left has double

25:08

theaters? Like, it's like, I had

25:10

no idea. And it's like the

25:12

scene in the Truman show where

25:14

he's like, that green car is

25:16

going to come around again. You

25:18

know, and like, you know, yeah,

25:20

you know, the left has double.

25:22

You know, I have a story.

25:24

But he talked about the cathedral

25:27

and I, he mentioned, because I

25:29

don't even know that that, when

25:31

did, when did, you were, I

25:33

was posting from 2007 to 2013.

25:35

was penetrated but it was under

25:37

it was mentions mold bug then

25:39

I stopped blogging for quite a

25:41

while to work then I got

25:43

back into that shit when did

25:45

you get back into that 20-20

25:48

okay so okay so yeah he

25:50

was familiar with your work and

25:52

he taught you know he always

25:54

credited you with with a cathedral

25:56

because he explained this to me

25:58

when I was like I just

26:00

did I took it all for

26:02

granted I came from a liberal

26:04

family it was like you said

26:06

the water I swam in but

26:09

you pushed me even further to

26:11

go yeah well even that is

26:13

water that you're this is what

26:15

I yeah so for people who

26:17

aren't familiar with cave within

26:19

cave within cave you know I'm just

26:21

sitting here realizing I'm still in the

26:23

cave yeah there For people who

26:26

aren't familiar with your work,

26:28

when you talk about your

26:31

kind of controversial or your,

26:33

when we go back to you

26:35

saying that Ilea was not familiar

26:37

with your views, where do you

26:39

stand now? What is it that

26:42

you're arguing or what's so outside

26:44

of the realm of the

26:46

norm? I'm arguing for a

26:48

nothing more and nothing less

26:50

than a return to normal

26:53

political science. I basically do

26:55

not feel that our era

26:57

has particularly learned anything

27:00

terribly valuable about the

27:02

question of how to

27:05

organize peoples and nations

27:07

that then that what everybody

27:10

who studied this, then what

27:12

every statesman knew in say

27:14

1750. Okay. You know, and

27:16

I fundamentally, I don't believe

27:19

in the American Revolution. I

27:21

don't even believe in the

27:23

glorious revolution. I don't even

27:25

believe in the English Civil

27:28

War. You know, I had

27:30

a funny interaction early. in my,

27:32

you know, as I was, when

27:35

I was starting to blog, some

27:37

of these views are still becoming

27:39

like fixed and I sort of

27:42

resisted the conclusion of some of

27:44

them. And back when we used

27:47

to have blogs, we'd comment on

27:49

each other's blogs, we're like blog

27:51

rings, it was, you know,

27:54

unbearably cute, right, you know,

27:56

and well, I mean, you know, those,

27:58

you know, Tolly Ron said... that

28:00

no one who had not experienced

28:02

France before the revolution could

28:04

know the true sweetness of life.

28:07

You know, and for the internet,

28:09

for me, that's like used

28:11

net in the late 80s and

28:13

early 90s. And, but you know,

28:16

yeah, blogs are pretty cool, not

28:18

news groups, but still pretty cool.

28:21

And I was. commenting on the

28:23

blog of this guy, Nick Zabo,

28:26

S-Z-A-B-O, who is better known

28:28

for being the most plausible candidate

28:30

to have invented Bitcoin. And I've

28:32

said something, I made an

28:34

observation, and he's like... you know,

28:37

well, you know, this is just

28:39

the same thing. I could

28:41

see Charles, Charles the first saying

28:44

that. And like, you know, for

28:46

sort of when you're in

28:48

a normal frame of mind, you're

28:50

like, oh, I wouldn't want to

28:53

say the same thing as Charles

28:55

the first, you got his head

28:58

chopped off, you must have been

29:00

wrong. And then you're like, wait,

29:02

what did Charles the first say?

29:05

Wait. No, I actually do agree

29:07

with Charles the first, you know,

29:10

and like basically the willingness to

29:12

be like no I actually do

29:14

agree with Charles the first despite

29:17

the outcome of many military

29:19

conflicts, but when you're right, you're

29:21

right, you know as like, you

29:24

know, I was writing what

29:26

did Charles the first say? He

29:28

said that, um, you know, a,

29:30

um, a sovereign and a

29:32

subject or clean different things. And

29:35

basically the goal of a king

29:37

is to be a king

29:39

and the goal of the subject

29:42

is to be a subject and

29:44

actually attempting to mix his roles

29:46

just fucks up everything as it

29:49

has proved. And the like, and

29:51

like, yes, did he... lose, yes,

29:54

mistakes were made, but like that

29:56

doesn't determine who's right or who's

29:58

wrong, right? And you know, the,

30:01

you know, this sort of,

30:03

you know, perfectly clear defense of

30:05

literal autocracy, you know, as a

30:08

term is used from, you

30:10

know, almost 400 years ago is

30:12

just like I'm like yeah how

30:14

is he wrong you know

30:16

and and you know in what

30:19

did England really get a lot

30:21

of good out of the

30:23

English Civil War I don't know

30:26

it might be even better if

30:28

it had never happened you know

30:30

like are certainly your presumption is

30:33

that war is bad and does

30:35

it result in better governance no

30:38

you know so like you know

30:40

the proof of the potting is

30:42

in the eating, right? And so,

30:45

you know, realizing that there's

30:47

this whole, I mean, you know,

30:49

writers who are still greatly respected,

30:52

like, you know, Hume, you

30:54

know, from the 18th century are

30:56

still writing, yeah, you know, the

30:59

most peaceful and stable and

31:01

form of government is the monarchy.

31:03

And here we associate in the

31:05

20th century, we have this,

31:07

you know, some historians say presentism,

31:10

but as I think I said

31:12

at the debate, I'm starting to

31:15

prefer present supremacist, you know, that

31:17

say, oh, only the last 250

31:19

years matter. Well, you're saying, you

31:22

know, okay, we're proving that the

31:24

system of the last 250 years,

31:27

which is full of wars and

31:29

horrific, you know, bad government shit,

31:31

and genocides, you know, and the

31:34

is like, and then we're sort

31:36

of choosing the phenomenon. not

31:38

of monarchy, but of dictatorship within

31:41

the context of the democratic world,

31:43

which is constantly attacking these

31:45

dictatorships. Okay. And you're basically saying,

31:47

okay, I'm going to take these

31:50

dictatorships as stand-ins for the

31:52

entire institution of monarchy. And what

31:54

you see actually now, in some

31:57

ways, just because the American

31:59

Empire is kind of weakening in

32:01

some ways, you see... figures like

32:03

Bukhale in El Salvador or Kagame

32:06

in Rwanda, you know, who have

32:08

taken, you know, like, when you

32:11

look at those countries abstractly before

32:13

those leaders took power, before those

32:15

dictators of strong men. Puck

32:17

Power, the word shithole country is

32:20

a really like, you know, strong,

32:22

you know, like, like, like, it's

32:24

not too much for old Del

32:26

Salvador, not to mention frick and

32:28

Rwanda. And I was in El

32:30

Salvador like a year ago, and

32:32

I didn't do this on purpose,

32:34

but I was just like found

32:36

myself walking across the old, like,

32:38

center carrying a Macbook pro, not

32:40

even in any back. And I

32:42

was like, I felt like I

32:45

was in Japan, you know, and

32:47

like you do that in Japan

32:49

and New York City, you're a

32:51

little careful with it, you know,

32:53

and I've done that in New

32:55

York City, but I feel a

32:58

little careful with it, right?

33:00

But, you know, and so the

33:02

thing is, and actually, you know,

33:05

that 30 years ago, the result

33:07

of doing that would have been

33:09

simply that the American. you know,

33:12

the international community had bigger sticks and

33:14

sort of was just more competent and

33:16

could kick him harder. So if you

33:18

tried to have a dictator in El

33:20

Salvador in the 80s and they did,

33:22

you know, he'd basically suddenly find he

33:25

was up against like three urban guerrilla

33:27

movements, one funded by the USSR, one

33:29

by China and one by the US,

33:31

you know, and like, you know, how

33:33

are you gonna like, you know, all

33:36

of your intellectuals are deserting that sort

33:38

of still happening, but it's like you

33:40

can't Now that you can actually just

33:42

do that, you see the enormous

33:45

superiority of these regimes. But the

33:47

thing is also what we call

33:49

a dictatorship that's just a newborn

33:52

young monarchy. And one of the

33:54

things we saw in the very,

33:56

very cursed Arab Spring was that

33:58

the monarchies lived. but the

34:00

dictators died. The deeper your

34:02

sort of roots there, so

34:05

you know, the Moroccan monarchy,

34:07

the Saudi monarchy, they're all

34:09

like fine. Even Algeria has

34:11

a very strong government because

34:13

they had this insane war

34:15

against Islamists, you know, but

34:17

if you're a dictator like

34:20

Mubarak, you're going down, right?

34:22

And... And so again, you're

34:24

basically just seeing, you know,

34:26

this what we call in

34:28

the social sciences, a confounding

34:30

variable, like, you know, and

34:32

yeah, it's just in retrospect,

34:35

you know, you're just, you

34:37

see all of these, you

34:39

know, like look at like

34:41

decolonization, like, you know, the

34:43

number of people killed in

34:45

decolonization. you just in India

34:47

alone, I think it was

34:50

over a million people just

34:52

like, you know, hacked apart

34:54

with knives or whatever, maybe

34:56

not a million during, during

34:58

partition, right? If you look

35:00

at the global human cost

35:02

of decolonization, it's absolutely, you

35:05

know, astounding. And, you know,

35:07

from a certain perspective, of

35:10

20th century history, what went on

35:12

there was very very clear. The

35:14

US stole the colonies from Britain

35:16

and France and fucked them up

35:18

and turned them into the third

35:20

world. And thought it was doing

35:22

a good thing. And so, like,

35:24

yeah, like, okay, you know, why

35:26

don't we, why don't we charge

35:28

that one on democracy's card? You

35:30

know, and like, you'll be looking

35:32

some pretty big, you know, credit

35:34

card bills pretty soon if we

35:36

start basically not absolving you from

35:38

the response of, take the Arab

35:40

Spring. It was supported by almost

35:42

everyone in America, Democrats and Republicans

35:44

alike. I have some, you know,

35:46

take some pride in being one

35:48

of the like three American pundits

35:51

who was like, no, this is

35:53

going to lead to Olympic swimming

35:55

pools full of blood, because I'm

35:57

inert, I calculated that, right? Turns

35:59

out to be about right, you

36:01

know, basically. So if you look

36:03

at the bloodshed... from the Arab

36:05

Spring, okay, picture in your mind,

36:07

have you been to an Olympic

36:09

pool? It's a long ass pool,

36:11

right? You know, entirely filled with

36:13

like, but you know, it wouldn't

36:15

stay, the thing is the blood

36:17

is not going to stay fresh.

36:19

It's going to like, get brownish

36:21

and like foam a little, and

36:23

just really, you know, it's probably

36:25

some bones, some carcasses lying around

36:27

it. Like, it's a really bad

36:29

scene, right. You know, and you

36:31

bought the Arab spring with your

36:33

little, like clapping on TV. And

36:35

the amazing thing about the people

36:37

who clapped from the Arab Spring

36:39

were the same people who were

36:41

still clapping a little bit for

36:44

Ukraine. They're really, this very bloodthirsty

36:46

thing really. And... I mean, I

36:48

was in Egypt right after the

36:50

Arab Spring and they were excited.

36:52

You know, the people were... So

36:54

if they're excited, it means it's

36:56

good. They, well, no, but they

36:58

were, the people felt optimistic and

37:00

as far as the young people

37:02

that I talked to in Alexandria

37:04

and Cairo, they, they seemed very,

37:06

and it was a very... What

37:08

language did you speak to these

37:10

young people in? Well, English, but

37:12

they, they still were speaking to

37:14

their... they still did speak Arabic

37:16

so let me let me give.

37:18

But I was with people who

37:20

were translating for me too. Yeah

37:22

yeah yeah yeah let me let

37:24

me give you know since you're

37:26

still defending the Arab Spring. No

37:28

I'm not defending I'm just telling

37:30

you my own experience of it

37:32

when I was there and it

37:34

was a weird time because it

37:37

was right after they voted for

37:39

the first time to be there.

37:41

Logan right yeah yeah yeah yeah

37:43

and and yeah no it was

37:45

like you know I've given this

37:47

you know so I thought I

37:49

hope we could get some conflict

37:51

there I'm sorry like you know

37:53

I you know I wanted to

37:55

spar oh I'm not good at

37:57

sparring I was oh fine be

37:59

that way you know you're such

38:01

a girl you know and And

38:03

anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, you

38:05

know, when you, when you, when

38:07

you, here is my canned history

38:09

of the Arab Spring. So

38:11

let's go back all the

38:14

way to Gamal Abdel Nassar.

38:16

You had NASA or the Egyptian nationalist

38:18

who revolted against Britain. With, by

38:21

the way, one of the things

38:23

is notable, but the 56 crisis

38:25

is the strange alignment where you

38:27

might expect, oh, it's the head

38:29

of the Cold War, so the

38:32

US will be on one side

38:34

and the USSR on the US

38:36

and the USSR against Britain, France

38:38

and Israel. some weird alignment shit,

38:40

right? You know, so any case,

38:42

you know, the US and the

38:45

USSR protect Nassar. Nassar does this,

38:47

you know, whole like, you know, mid 20th

38:49

century thing of like deciding which block he's

38:51

going to be with. He's like, I love

38:54

you. You know, it's like a bitch being

38:56

with two guys who like really want to,

38:58

right, you know, like, why were the, why

39:00

was the US and Russia aligned? Because

39:02

they were, for the same

39:05

reason they were aligned in

39:07

1945, they were aligned as

39:09

a left-wing block against older

39:12

right-wing powers. Okay. You know,

39:14

the U.S. and the

39:16

U.S.S.R. were competing for

39:19

leadership of the left.

39:21

That's why it's so

39:23

different from the U.S.

39:26

against Hitler. He's doing

39:28

all this stuff. He

39:30

attacks Israel again. But

39:33

eventually he kind of had

39:35

an astrodite. He dies and

39:37

he's succeeded by his guy

39:39

Sadat. And Sadat decides that

39:41

switching over from being non-aligned,

39:43

if you remember the non-aligned

39:45

movement, to being on the side

39:47

of making peace with Israel, sort

39:50

of very cold peace. Sadat is

39:52

later murdered, but not until he's

39:54

basically flipped over onto the Americas

39:56

team. And then you have his

39:59

successor Mubarak. who, you know, was

40:01

his vice president, who then rules

40:03

for the next 30 years. Okay,

40:05

that's not really where the action

40:07

is. The action is in Washington.

40:10

So in Washington, you know, President

40:12

Obama gets elected and, you know,

40:14

basically, he sort of brings this

40:16

kind of West Wing mindset, you

40:18

know, to DC, and, you know,

40:20

there are young, you know, Arab,

40:22

this Egyptian situation, and are like,

40:24

what the hell, we're propping up

40:27

a dictator. Now, propping up a

40:29

dictator in the parlance of American

40:31

foreign policy means that you're actually

40:33

just not overthrowing him. It's actually

40:35

an absence of action. And so,

40:37

you know, due to sort of

40:39

various events, these, you know, younger,

40:41

the old, you know, cool hands

40:43

are like, no, you know, it's

40:46

not really, doesn't really go with

40:48

their values, but like the whole

40:50

place will go up in flames

40:52

if we overthrow these dictators, right,

40:54

and the new gang win, and

40:56

when you roll out Obama and

40:58

put on his teleprompter like Mubarak

41:00

must go, I mean, you could.

41:03

probably roll a mode and it

41:05

would say like Merkel must go

41:07

and you could start a civil

41:09

war in Germany, you know, and

41:11

like that's how That is the

41:13

extent of our ability not unlike

41:15

the Soviet ability in the Warsaw

41:17

Pact to push our allies from

41:19

the back Like, you know, you

41:22

ever heard of a gentleman named

41:24

Fidel Castro? Well, Fidel Castro, they

41:26

used to say, I got my

41:28

job through the New York Times

41:30

because the New York Times and

41:32

a reporter heard Matthews up to

41:34

report with this like ragtag group

41:36

of like bandits in the mountains

41:39

reported that Castro was the new,

41:41

you know, I don't know, Jesus

41:43

or something. And the U.S. basically

41:45

said to Battista who was running

41:47

this. basically American dependency, you know

41:49

reasonably effectively he's like they're just

41:51

like we won't sell your arms

41:53

anymore. Batista has to go and

41:56

get on a plane and then

41:58

basically Castro walks into the capital.

42:00

And you know this is a

42:02

CIA State Department genius move, right?

42:04

So time for the next genius

42:06

move, you know Mubarak must go,

42:08

let's have democracy in Egypt. Now

42:10

I'll bet when you were in

42:12

Egypt were you in Zamalek? No.

42:15

It's in Cairo, it's the cute

42:17

wealthy district of Cairo. You were

42:19

out in like slum country, like

42:21

where were you? We were kind

42:23

of all over the place. Cairo,

42:25

I've never been there, but it's

42:27

a horrible city. But like, it's

42:29

a, it's fucking nuts, man. I've

42:32

never been in a city that

42:34

felt as wild as Cairo did.

42:36

It was wild. We were all

42:38

over Egypt too. So, who'd you

42:40

go with? What was the, I

42:42

went with a guy, but it

42:44

was on. We went on our

42:46

way to Europe, but I had

42:48

friends there. So one of my

42:51

dear friends, Henny, who's passed away

42:53

from cancer, he was a friend

42:55

in Los Angeles, but was from

42:57

Egypt and returned to Cairo and

42:59

he had a son and he

43:01

was a professor in Cairo. And

43:03

so the kids took me to

43:05

Alexandria and we were like playing

43:08

dominoes in the cafes and it

43:10

was pretty, it was amazing. Amazing

43:12

trip, but it was, it was

43:14

very strange. Like, everyone was like,

43:16

what are you doing here? The

43:18

whole time we were there because

43:20

no one was there. There were

43:22

no tourists. There was no line

43:24

for any of the tourist stuff.

43:27

They were like, you're basically getting

43:29

like a private tour of Egypt

43:31

right now because no one is

43:33

coming here at all. Well, what,

43:35

so, so when this, the people

43:37

in the State Department decided to

43:39

push Mubarak out. They had a

43:41

plan. The plan was going to

43:44

be there was going to be

43:46

democracy in Egypt. And democracy, as

43:48

you may know, is a system

43:50

of where the government is selected

43:52

by having people vote. And so

43:54

the sort of interesting problem here

43:56

is that to the State Department

43:58

democracy means like civil society means

44:00

like the good people with like

44:03

degrees from like Ohio State or

44:05

whatever with their Egyptian You know

44:07

we'll be running the country the

44:09

best most sophisticated most Davosy people

44:11

in Egypt will run the country

44:13

and then you run into like

44:15

and that's democracy and then you

44:17

run into a little problem, which

44:20

is that that's like 0.5% of

44:22

the voters Right the west Westernized

44:24

truly Westernized people in Egypt. It

44:26

was mostly like rural people and

44:28

the brotherhood. The brotherhood. Well, funny

44:30

you should mention that. So basically

44:32

Mubarak supporters are kind of like

44:34

Trump supporters. They're the, you know,

44:37

the lower middle class, they're the

44:39

people, but it's still very much

44:41

middle. And, you know, they just,

44:43

these are the people who always

44:45

want the trains to run on

44:47

time. They don't really care about

44:49

abstractions. They're just like, I want

44:51

shit to work. And then below

44:53

them. you know, is the great

44:56

stratum of the real Egyptian lower

44:58

class and they support the Brotherhood.

45:00

And so the State Department reasoned

45:02

as follows. They were not completely

45:04

devoid of reason. They reasoned as

45:06

follows. They're like, look, you know,

45:08

democracy in Egypt means you elect

45:10

the Brotherhood. There's no alternative to

45:13

that if it's one man, one

45:15

vote, which we believe in very

45:17

deeply as Americans. So it means

45:19

you elect the Brotherhood. And but

45:21

the thing is these guys are

45:23

like totally ignorant like Muslim people

45:25

so how are they going to

45:27

know how to manage their economy?

45:29

Well they won't so they'll ask

45:32

us. And thus you were building

45:34

a system, you squint a little,

45:36

you see the coalition between like

45:38

upper class, you know, blue staters

45:40

and lower class blue staters in

45:42

the US. You know, it's just

45:44

like you don't care if the

45:46

votes come from people who are

45:49

not very sophisticated. All you care

45:51

about is having, you know, the

45:53

professional mercantile class in power. This

45:55

was the plan. And the problem

45:57

was, you know, if you looked

45:59

at Morsi, you noticed that he

46:01

had the raisin on his head,

46:03

that he has a spot on

46:05

his head that comes from like

46:08

reaming your head into the ground

46:10

five times a day. That's the only

46:12

way to get it. So he has this callus

46:14

right here that shows that he's really

46:16

an extremely devout Muslim and you put

46:19

these devout Muslims in charge and they

46:21

wanted to do like Muslim stuff. Like

46:23

it was almost as if they actually

46:25

believed their own bullshit. And the

46:28

State Department was like... is not

46:30

what we wanted, right? They're not

46:32

being any nicer to the nice

46:34

people in Egypt, you know, they're

46:36

being, if anything, a little bit

46:38

worse, like you're a higher state

46:41

degree and like farming doesn't count

46:43

for very much with the Brotherhood.

46:45

You don't have the spot, you

46:47

didn't get that at Ohio State,

46:49

right, you know, and so, hang on,

46:51

I just gotta check the text. I

46:54

check my, um. So do

46:56

you think that like

46:58

all revolutions are basically

47:01

just the masses being

47:03

manipulated? Indogenous public opinion

47:05

is like it's not really

47:07

a thing really it's like

47:10

basically and it can't form

47:12

itself. I mean you'll see

47:14

going farther back into the

47:16

past you know. If you're

47:18

looking for an example of

47:20

like sort of truly leaderless

47:22

chaotic wild mobs, yes, you

47:24

can find that. It's not

47:26

really an American thing. You

47:29

know, certainly the Americans in

47:31

the 18th century who did

47:33

like Sons of Liberty, Chee

47:35

Party thing, I mean, the Sons

47:37

of Liberty are quite literally the

47:39

antifa of their day, right? You

47:42

know, these are like violent left

47:44

wing mobs and you know, somehow

47:46

sort of Normi Khan's like have

47:48

this completely larpy, totally

47:50

uncredible and false understanding of

47:52

the revolutionary period. So you

47:55

go back in time or

47:57

going back even further in

47:59

Anglo-American. culture. Basically one of the

48:01

reasons we got this crazy system

48:04

is because England never had a

48:06

standing army and because it never

48:08

had a standing army because it

48:10

was an island. people, you know,

48:13

say a queen like, you know,

48:15

Mary Tudor, who really actually wanted

48:17

to restore Catholicism or as some

48:19

call, as some call it, as

48:22

some call it, the true faith

48:24

to England, I basically couldn't because

48:26

she didn't even married to Philip

48:28

II of Spain, she didn't really

48:31

have the physical force to resist

48:33

the London mob. And the London

48:35

mob at this time, like the

48:37

apprentices would like decide that like

48:40

German merchants were like undercutting Trueborn

48:42

Englishmen like in the World Trade

48:44

or some shit like that and

48:46

their solution would be like, you

48:48

know, what if we killed all

48:51

the Germans? And they would go

48:53

about sort of trying to do

48:55

that, right? That was more unorganized.

48:57

So I don't know that that's

49:00

really something you want to see

49:02

today. How are you feel of

49:04

a Germans, right? You know. I

49:06

mean, there's some negativity maybe there,

49:09

right? But not like that. And

49:11

so you're seeing this actually diminution

49:13

of crowd energy over time. I

49:15

mean, a mob is a terrifying

49:18

thing, but the Republicans, you know,

49:20

remember the Tea Party? Were you

49:22

part of the tea party? No.

49:24

That's good. You know, and you

49:27

had these people. I was drunk

49:29

and blacked out during the beer

49:31

party. Yeah, you had to, you

49:33

had the beer party. And the,

49:36

the, as of the keg party.

49:38

The keg party, that's right. And,

49:40

and the, you know, the long

49:42

island ice tea party. You know,

49:45

and, and, and it's probably more

49:47

accurate actually. Right, right, right, right,

49:49

right, right, right, right, right. Kurt

49:51

Metzger, speaking of Long Island, where

49:54

my wife is from. So I'm

49:56

watching him. But Kurt Metzger had

49:58

a great line. last night, I

50:00

guess I can repeat a line,

50:02

I'm still terrified of the mothership

50:05

security, but I guess I can

50:07

repeat a line that he had

50:09

where, you know, he said something

50:11

like, he was like, you know,

50:14

she gave me a long island

50:16

engagement, you know, and then he's

50:18

like, do you know what that

50:20

is? herpes. hilarious in the green

50:23

room by the way. I think

50:25

it was a good, I was

50:27

like somebody ought to be filming

50:29

this. I really was thinking of

50:32

inviting him because he would have

50:34

come, Kurt will come jump on,

50:36

but it would have just been,

50:38

I would have been sitting over

50:41

here with Justin. I mean we

50:43

should have, we would have, we

50:45

would have, we would have, we

50:47

would have, we should do it

50:50

because Kurt and I really vibed

50:52

and it's, you know, it's flattering

50:54

to be able to be able

50:56

to be. to listen to you

50:59

too talking about how you're very

51:01

selective about your conspiracy theories like

51:03

wine concerts. Yeah, I think I'm

51:05

more selective. Frankly, I think I'm

51:07

more selective than him, but to

51:10

each his own. You know, I'm

51:12

like a scholar. You know, so

51:14

it's interesting to me because it

51:16

seems like a lot, you've been

51:19

kind of steeping in the internet

51:21

culture for a long time and

51:23

you were kind of a hero,

51:25

I guess of like. Dare I

51:28

say at the Manosphere? Is that

51:30

accurate? Not really. I mean, the

51:32

thing is the red pill metaphor

51:34

was stolen by them for me.

51:37

Actually, the red pill was stolen,

51:39

which I came up with, or

51:41

I stole from the Wachowski's, and

51:43

then it was stolen from me

51:46

by two groups simultaneously, neither of

51:48

whom would have stolen it from

51:50

the other. So you can tell,

51:52

namely the Manosphere and the Nazis.

51:55

So, you know, where were you...

51:57

percolating was it in like the

51:59

tech note what what just like

52:01

very very nerdy nerds, you know,

52:04

and I'm a very nerdy nerd

52:06

and I wrote for very nerdy

52:08

nerds and, you know, the, you

52:10

know, I haven't, I haven't always

52:13

had my present attractiveness to women,

52:15

you know, and like the, I

52:17

was a nerd, right, you know,

52:19

and do you think these ideas

52:21

have been kind of, Are they

52:24

bubbling up more to the mainstream?

52:26

So you were recently interviewed by

52:28

the New York Times? I was.

52:30

Do you think... That how did

52:33

that feel to you? Do they

52:35

do you feel like they were

52:37

using you? Do you feel did

52:39

it feel like good faith? What

52:42

was that like for you? I

52:44

watched the interview last night when

52:46

I went home in preparation. I

52:48

think it was basically a combination

52:51

of I mean, no, of course

52:53

I was using them, but you

52:55

know, well, kind of because you've

52:57

kind of said you think those

53:00

places should be kind of just

53:02

hollowed out, right? You know, and

53:04

in a way, basically. actually, like,

53:06

and I, yes, but there's sort

53:09

of more subtlety there because actually,

53:11

like, I would say that any

53:13

regime has to be defeated by

53:15

its own standards. And so when

53:18

I come in the New York

53:20

Times, I'm not gonna kind of

53:22

like change the frame to my

53:24

standards. I basically am gonna participate

53:26

up to their standards and I'm

53:29

gonna speak to their audience and

53:31

I'm gonna kind of. evangelize their

53:33

audience rather than alienating their audience

53:35

because my message is not, you

53:38

know, the habits are coming to

53:40

kill you with pitchforks so you

53:42

should shit your pants right now.

53:44

That's like the Steve Bannon kind

53:47

of message, right? Apparently he's my

53:49

enemy, is my enemy? Right. So,

53:51

you know, I just wonder if

53:53

they're trying to set, my question

53:56

is, did it feel like, because

53:58

if you believe... that monarchy, this

54:00

is like the liberal fear, right?

54:02

That there, that Trump is gonna

54:05

take over, it's gonna be a

54:07

dictatorship, we're never gonna vote again.

54:09

Are they? Did it feel like

54:11

they were using you to try

54:14

and make that argument eventually? Like,

54:16

oh, see how these ideas? Well,

54:18

you know, what the nice thing

54:20

is, there's like, you know, you

54:23

know, the left is just known

54:25

for their like paranoid fear, right,

54:27

you know, which is really, you

54:29

know, the paranoid style, you know,

54:31

they're always afraid of, you know,

54:34

the mobs of peasants with pitchforks,

54:36

right? And so, like, That's

54:39

not a good vibe. And the

54:41

vibe is actually like, I'm here

54:43

to diffuse your fear, while also

54:45

logically being the same thing that

54:47

you're afraid of. And that's a

54:49

very, like, you know, it sort

54:51

of disrupts, like, you know, I

54:53

don't fundamentally think of the lib

54:55

as an enemy. I think of

54:57

him as a predator. And a

54:59

predator and an enemy are very

55:01

very different things. And there are

55:03

a lot of things that are

55:05

not safe to do around an

55:07

enemy, but totally safe to do

55:09

around a predator, and vice versa.

55:11

If you can disrupt the predator

55:13

has basically a prey recognition sense.

55:15

Like, you know, this is why

55:17

people, this is why apologizing to

55:19

the left is a terrible idea,

55:21

because it basically says, I'm a

55:23

second wounded creature. You know, he

55:25

basically comes out in this. interview

55:27

and I think I don't know

55:29

that he necessarily wanted to do

55:31

it because when he does when

55:33

the interviewer David Markey's he descended

55:35

into like hit piece mode he

55:37

seemed to lose like 15 or

55:39

20 IQ points and be very

55:41

uncomfortable like he was a little

55:43

like if you did you watch

55:45

it or did you read it

55:47

no I watched it was a

55:49

little uncomfortable I think it was

55:51

it got progressively more combative you

55:53

know it's it felt like he

55:55

was getting getting oh yeah yeah

55:57

yeah but he didn't rattle me

55:59

really You know, but you weren't

56:01

you weren't rattled at all

56:03

by it. He was a little rattled,

56:05

right? You know, and like the, the,

56:08

and I think it was more rattled

56:10

in parts they cut, honestly. And the

56:12

thing is when he pulls out his

56:15

like hippies thing, he's like, here are

56:17

these three things that you said are

56:19

that are so awful that I don't

56:21

even know where to begin, right? And

56:24

I'm like, okay, number three, you know,

56:26

And then I was like, what was

56:28

number one again? He's like, yeah. Yeah,

56:31

yeah. And like basically just staying, I

56:33

didn't really expect him to

56:35

hit with that. Although I

56:37

should have expected him logically to do,

56:40

they kind of has to do that

56:42

internally. And yet also, so there's a

56:44

note of that, but there's also a

56:46

note of in a decision to do

56:49

a thing like that, I don't think

56:51

that happens if like Harris wins the

56:53

election. Yeah, no. And so the thing

56:56

is the important thing is that.

56:58

There's no central command of the

57:00

Libs. There's no like Lib cave, you

57:02

know, under the White House where, you

57:04

know, people are like, Obama's doing it

57:07

all from his house. Like, you know,

57:09

but not really, like, you know. If a

57:11

meteorite hit the house, God

57:13

forbid, I'm pretty sure that,

57:15

you know, you know, big,

57:18

big mic, I'm just kidding.

57:20

My therapist got mad at me

57:22

for saying that in therapy

57:24

yesterday. She was like, okay,

57:26

I'm going, I'm like, it was

57:28

a joke. You know, I'm quite

57:31

sure that nothing much would change.

57:33

And so essentially part of their,

57:35

you know, whole thing is like

57:37

we listened to whoever's like.

57:40

intellectually the most dominant. Right.

57:42

And so if you can

57:44

go into their homes and

57:46

really like, you know, dominate them,

57:48

you know, actually they like,

57:50

you know, they're just like, you know,

57:52

the live, the live is a follower

57:54

of power and an addict of power.

57:57

Yeah. And they think of that power

57:59

as empathy. I think of that

58:01

power as meaning. It's just like,

58:03

actually, they want to matter, they

58:06

want to be important, they want

58:08

to create change, what do you

58:10

create change, wield power, right? Imagine

58:12

if everyone in their high, in

58:15

their fucking college application essays. Instead

58:17

of saying, when I grow up,

58:19

I want to create change, was

58:21

like, when I grow up, I

58:24

want to wield power, right? You

58:26

know, that's really what they are

58:28

saying. That's really what they mean,

58:30

right? You know, and so there's

58:33

this little chip. Imagine like power

58:35

is like a radio station, right?

58:37

And they have a little chip,

58:39

they've been shipped, and they basically

58:42

kind of respond to like the

58:44

strongest power station, right? And that's

58:46

actually the way people really do

58:49

respond in a democratic context and

58:51

is frequently be noted even by

58:53

known Frickenschamski, but better by say

58:55

Walter Lippman early in the 20th

58:58

century, that basically, you know, the

59:00

natural relationship of... The weak to

59:02

the strong is that the weak

59:04

follow the strong. Yeah, and when

59:07

we see the weak defining the

59:09

strong usually what we're actually seeing

59:11

is that they're following some other

59:13

source of strength Right moreover the

59:16

people who are lives are basically

59:18

conformists, you know, they basically have

59:20

You know, when I met Pano

59:23

the other day, I did a,

59:25

can I read a short poem

59:27

that's not by me? Sure. This

59:29

is by Constantine Kavafi. It was

59:32

written early in the 20th century,

59:34

maybe late in the early in

59:36

the 20th, I think. And it's

59:38

called Chefetchil El Grande Refuto, which

59:41

is an Italian from Dante. It

59:43

means who makes the great refusal.

59:45

For some people the day comes,

59:47

when they have to declare the

59:50

great yes to the great no.

59:52

It's clear at once who has

59:54

the yes, ready within them. And

59:56

saying it, he goes from honor

59:59

to honor, strong in his conviction.

1:00:01

He who refuses does not repent.

1:00:03

Asked again, he'd still say no.

1:00:06

Yet that no, the right no,

1:00:08

drags him down all his life.

1:00:10

So, you know, the thing is

1:00:12

when you deal with the New

1:00:15

York Times, when you deal with

1:00:17

anyone in that situation, unless like

1:00:19

something really strange has happened, you're

1:00:21

dealing with someone who really has

1:00:24

the great yes deeply within him.

1:00:26

And like saying that great guess

1:00:28

comes really, really, you're naturally to

1:00:30

this person. Okay, to people like

1:00:33

me, you and me, maybe not

1:00:35

so much, right? You know, and

1:00:37

so basically what you're looking for

1:00:39

is a situation where, you know,

1:00:42

instead of saying no, where your

1:00:44

no becomes sort of loud enough,

1:00:46

that they're actually saying yes to

1:00:49

you. Right, because these people would

1:00:51

be Nazis in the Third Reich

1:00:53

and they would be communists in

1:00:55

Stalin's Russia. You know, they would

1:00:58

go all of the ways, you

1:01:00

know, they would go down, you

1:01:02

know, and they would be, you

1:01:04

know, Catholics and Philip II, Spain,

1:01:07

you know, and this is what

1:01:09

most people are like. Most people

1:01:11

do not have the great know

1:01:13

within them, and most people will

1:01:16

basically walk down that line. And

1:01:18

so... What their little chip in

1:01:20

the back of their heads is

1:01:22

doing is it's listening to the

1:01:25

most powerful power signal I can

1:01:27

find. And so if you can

1:01:29

broadcast a louder signal, they'll just

1:01:32

do it into you, right? You

1:01:34

know, and like... Where do people

1:01:36

like us end up in a

1:01:38

monarchy? they end up in a

1:01:41

monarchy they basically let's say that

1:01:43

you're not saying no too often

1:01:45

in our monarchy well that's the

1:01:47

thing is it basically you know

1:01:50

the you know the great no

1:01:52

that says no just so it

1:01:54

and say no is not the

1:01:56

great no. That's the toddler no.

1:01:59

Yeah, you know, you talked about

1:02:01

being trollish. Yeah, that's the toddler

1:02:03

no. And I basically like, yes,

1:02:06

but I'm also, you're not a

1:02:08

parent. I have a two, I

1:02:10

have a almost three year old.

1:02:12

I have a toddler. So I

1:02:15

know about the no for just

1:02:17

no. I'm in it. Yeah, yeah,

1:02:19

yeah, yeah, yeah. And my just

1:02:21

turned two. I love toddler though.

1:02:24

You know, a toddler show? We're

1:02:26

all fucking tyrants deep down to

1:02:28

our core. That's where we start

1:02:30

and then we get socialized. All

1:02:33

right, well, that means that on

1:02:35

camera, we want to talk about

1:02:37

toddlers who are natural born tyrants.

1:02:39

Let me show you a toddler

1:02:42

who is a natural born tyrant.

1:02:44

This obviously has more to do

1:02:46

with me or his mother, Franklin.

1:02:49

But. you know observe this talk

1:02:51

you know yeah yeah yeah yeah

1:02:53

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

1:02:55

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's

1:02:58

and so and so my toddler

1:03:00

the go there go forth yeah

1:03:02

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

1:03:04

yeah yeah it's and so and

1:03:07

so my tell her the other

1:03:09

day we were she was eating

1:03:11

breakfast and I went in and

1:03:13

she just had this look on

1:03:16

her face and like what's going

1:03:18

on and she's like what's going

1:03:20

on and she's like what's going

1:03:22

on and she's like what's going

1:03:25

on and she's going on I

1:03:27

just need to lay low. I

1:03:29

was like, I wish the bob

1:03:32

after us. What's happening right now?

1:03:34

Is there something I should know?

1:03:37

Yeah, hang on one second. Yeah,

1:03:40

that's why I'm curious about like

1:03:42

where you see Are you like

1:03:44

an advisor to the king? There's

1:03:46

an excellent example So you know

1:03:49

the thing is one of the

1:03:51

things that people can't quite parse

1:03:53

when they look at Elizabethan England

1:03:56

Is it Elizabethan England into a

1:03:58

lesser extent? Jacobian steward England. I

1:04:00

mean, I know I'd be just

1:04:02

But Elizabeth in England especially is

1:04:05

a world in which everything great,

1:04:07

you know, basically coalesces around the

1:04:09

court. And it's not weird to

1:04:12

have the greatest poets and playwrights

1:04:14

in England happen to be an

1:04:16

ex-fortian, be members of that court.

1:04:18

And, you know, the amazing thing

1:04:21

about the Shakespeare controversy is that

1:04:23

if you look at, you know,

1:04:25

the various kinds of nobles who

1:04:28

wrote poetry like Shakespeare, maybe not

1:04:30

as good, but are sort of

1:04:32

reasonable candidates for that, there's a

1:04:34

lot of them. You know, and

1:04:37

so you see basically kind of

1:04:39

excellence, you know, basically focusing around

1:04:41

a center. And the thing is

1:04:44

that what leads you to need

1:04:46

to say the great no. is

1:04:48

that you're saying no to something,

1:04:50

you're speaking the truth when you're

1:04:53

speaking truth to power, right? You

1:04:55

know, guess what situation you don't

1:04:57

need to do that under? The

1:05:00

one where power is already speaking

1:05:02

truth? And when you can actually

1:05:04

get your power to only speak

1:05:06

the truth, which is not really

1:05:09

that hard a problem, I think,

1:05:11

there just isn't any room for

1:05:13

the great no. Because essentially, like,

1:05:16

you know... Wait, so I'm not

1:05:18

smart enough to understand you. Is

1:05:20

your argument that, like, monarchies of

1:05:22

the past have always just been...

1:05:25

There's never been there's never been

1:05:27

a perfect monarchy. I'm saying this

1:05:29

is like a real economy. There's

1:05:32

never never been a perfect anything.

1:05:34

I like to say real Nazism

1:05:36

has never been tried, but you

1:05:38

know the I'm sure that's popular.

1:05:41

I stole that one from Twitter,

1:05:43

but you know the just right

1:05:45

real Nazism is never been tried.

1:05:48

You know and the the Like

1:05:51

and and so you're sort of

1:05:53

looking for I guess you know

1:05:55

like if you look at a

1:05:57

moderate like Frederick the great for

1:05:59

example come close to this. You

1:06:02

know, Frederick the Great had this

1:06:04

very interesting idea of free speech.

1:06:06

He's like, yeah, you know, in

1:06:08

Prussia, of course we have free

1:06:10

speech. They say what they want

1:06:12

and I do what I want,

1:06:14

you know, perfect freedom, right? And

1:06:16

that equation really does work very

1:06:18

well because the more stable your

1:06:20

monarchy is, the less it has

1:06:22

to lie to sort of to

1:06:24

keep itself firmly rooted. You know,

1:06:27

the less it needs the noble

1:06:29

lie. And the kind of the

1:06:31

holy grail in a way

1:06:33

is a regime that is

1:06:35

so stable that it actually

1:06:38

doesn't even need to lie.

1:06:40

And therefore there actually isn't

1:06:42

any need to say no

1:06:44

to keep your great no

1:06:47

for your like personal life,

1:06:49

you know, and like comes in

1:06:51

handy there too. And yeah, it

1:06:53

does. And you know, so yeah,

1:06:55

you know, the, the, the, like. I

1:06:58

think that Also, when we

1:07:00

picture these monarchies, autocracies, dictatorships,

1:07:02

whatever, we're picturing them from

1:07:04

a very 20th century standpoint

1:07:06

because we're picturing a world

1:07:08

in which the intelligency of

1:07:11

the aristocracy is fundamentally in

1:07:13

conflict with the monarchy. We've

1:07:15

never seen a system like

1:07:17

Elizabeth. So, for example, in

1:07:19

Russia, conflict between the intelligency,

1:07:21

which is originally a Russian

1:07:23

word, and the monarchy is

1:07:25

like, consumes the last 150

1:07:27

years of their history. And

1:07:29

it's still a fricking problem.

1:07:32

What are the best

1:07:34

arguments against you, your

1:07:36

theory? I think the

1:07:38

thing is that basically

1:07:40

power is like fundamentally

1:07:43

dangerous. And so you

1:07:45

can't make it anything

1:07:47

like what I describe

1:07:49

completely safe in any

1:07:51

way. You just can't

1:07:53

do it. There's no

1:07:55

complete safety. The

1:07:58

I I that

1:08:00

you know we're heading toward

1:08:02

the pit basically otherwise and

1:08:04

and you know you could

1:08:06

yeah I mean I think

1:08:09

that's the like There's

1:08:12

also just a very very long

1:08:14

way to go like for example

1:08:16

people are like oh is you

1:08:18

know as a Trump Vance administration

1:08:20

doing doing the Curtis plan no

1:08:22

they're definitely not doing the Curtis

1:08:24

plan you know but yeah that

1:08:27

was another question because you said

1:08:29

that FDR was kind of FDR

1:08:31

I was a real monarch was

1:08:33

close to this do you think

1:08:35

that they're on their way Trump

1:08:37

ants I would say, you know,

1:08:39

essentially the president, we haven't really

1:08:41

had a president since FDR. And

1:08:44

what I mean by that is

1:08:46

that basically FDR's successors did not

1:08:48

inherit his total power over the

1:08:50

executive branch and that power of

1:08:52

the chief executive over the executive

1:08:54

branch has sort of dwindled in

1:08:56

a way. I came up with

1:08:58

this analogy recently. I'm really proud

1:09:00

of it. It's like, uh, you

1:09:03

know, trying to exercise executive control

1:09:05

over the executive branch in 2025

1:09:07

is kind of like trying to

1:09:09

ride a bicycle that's been left

1:09:11

out in the rain for 80

1:09:13

years. You get on that, is

1:09:15

the seat going to hold you

1:09:17

or the wheels going to turn?

1:09:19

You try to pedal it, you

1:09:22

know, and someone posted something very

1:09:24

interesting. They were basically like, you

1:09:26

know, the last 72 hours has

1:09:28

convinced me that the Republican Party

1:09:30

has been controlled opposition for all

1:09:32

of my life. Because they basically,

1:09:34

they made these gestures of trying

1:09:36

to ride the bicycle, they made

1:09:39

a big show of taking the

1:09:41

bicycle out of the garage, like

1:09:43

they're like, we're fixing the bicycle,

1:09:45

but Trump's just like, I'm gonna

1:09:47

actually like ride that thing and

1:09:49

it's gonna lurch forward awkwardly, like,

1:09:51

you know, a few yards and

1:09:53

then the fork is gonna fall

1:09:55

in half. And like, you know,

1:09:58

probably the best thing to do

1:10:00

would be to prepare. the bicycle

1:10:02

like the ship of Theseus from

1:10:04

entirely new parts one by one.

1:10:06

You know, but they're trying to

1:10:08

ride the bicycle. Like they're not

1:10:10

actually doing the grift. Like, you

1:10:12

know, and like they're not doing

1:10:14

the grift. Like they're actually trying

1:10:17

to ride the bicycle and, you

1:10:19

know, a fair going to DC,

1:10:21

you will definitely meet people involved

1:10:23

in the like. trying to ride

1:10:25

the bicycle effort who are like,

1:10:27

oh yeah, Curtis, I've been reading

1:10:29

it since I was in middle

1:10:31

school, right? You know, and like

1:10:34

the, that's cool. And at the

1:10:36

same time, well, that's cool, you

1:10:38

know, you can't really forget that

1:10:40

for all of the amazing, all

1:10:42

of the like totally unprecedented things

1:10:44

and like literally, you know, you

1:10:46

know, we all laughed at this

1:10:48

beautiful Trumpian phrase like where he's

1:10:50

like, you know, we're going to

1:10:53

do things to you. That's never

1:10:55

been done before. You know? Like

1:10:57

somehow the combination of the two

1:10:59

you and then never been done

1:11:01

before is just like uniquely bone

1:11:03

shilling but in this kind of

1:11:05

heavy upbeat way you know we're

1:11:07

gonna do things to you that

1:11:09

have never been done before. You

1:11:12

know and oh my god the

1:11:14

Trump impersonator in impersonations last night

1:11:16

just blew me away. Yeah. Did

1:11:18

you see Tyler Fisher? Yeah he's

1:11:20

great. He's so good. common power.

1:11:22

You know, the thing is basically,

1:11:24

you know, kind of being the

1:11:26

age that I am, I develop

1:11:28

this like bad. I just assume

1:11:31

all comedy is going to be

1:11:33

bad. And so for like three

1:11:35

people, right? You know, and so

1:11:37

going to the, even going to

1:11:39

a place and seeing comedians whose

1:11:41

names I didn't, I probably should

1:11:43

have known these guys names, but

1:11:45

I didn't. And I had no

1:11:48

idea who they were from Adam

1:11:50

and I'm basically not, I can't

1:11:52

tell whether I'm watching like serious

1:11:54

professional hardened comedians or like just

1:11:56

opening acts who like, you know,

1:11:58

are barely above the open mic

1:12:00

level, right? Right. even if they

1:12:02

were a serious professional comedians, to

1:12:04

be like, this guy sucks. You

1:12:07

know, and it's really like about

1:12:09

one out of like 12 or

1:12:11

13 jokes there fell flat, which

1:12:13

is pretty high hit rate, frankly.

1:12:15

And of those guys jokes, you

1:12:17

know, and her tall thing about

1:12:19

the balloon. Oh, the balloon. Oh,

1:12:21

the balloon. It was so good.

1:12:23

It was just so natural. I

1:12:26

mean, and another part of me

1:12:28

was looking at this and saying,

1:12:30

okay, first of all, I was

1:12:32

prepared for it to be bad.

1:12:34

And it was good. I love

1:12:36

that experience. I wasn't like, I

1:12:38

was totally ready for it to

1:12:40

suck. Right, because, you know, and

1:12:43

I'm not a regular comedy clubgoer

1:12:45

or anything like that. And the,

1:12:47

you know, although. Yeah, and so

1:12:49

it was really nice that it

1:12:51

didn't suck, and then I sort

1:12:53

of wanted to have a way

1:12:55

to kind of like salvage a

1:12:57

negative, like a negative, like a

1:12:59

bitter jealous negative thought. And so,

1:13:02

you know, what I was thinking

1:13:04

in this thought, which I'm not

1:13:06

condoning or defending, I'm like, yeah,

1:13:08

okay, this is good, but the

1:13:10

problem is like, frankly, like the

1:13:12

world that we live in is

1:13:14

just making it too easy. Like

1:13:16

these people are playing tennis without

1:13:18

the net, like laughing at America

1:13:21

today, like laughing at America today.

1:13:23

And you know, one of the

1:13:25

things that's funny about America today

1:13:27

is you organize all the stuff,

1:13:29

all these executive orders, you know,

1:13:31

troops on the border or whatever,

1:13:33

you know, 100 days from now,

1:13:35

you're still going to be living

1:13:38

in a country that doesn't know

1:13:40

how many people are inside its

1:13:42

borders to within 10 or 20

1:13:44

million. I'm just like wow you

1:13:46

call that a government like you

1:13:48

know it's basically like what if

1:13:50

what if Trump decided there was

1:13:52

no government and it's just like

1:13:54

you know what we're gonna do

1:13:57

a William the Conqueror and we're

1:13:59

gonna start with just a Domesday

1:14:01

book and be like who the

1:14:03

fuck is in this country yeah

1:14:05

like you know maybe you know

1:14:07

what God forbid every have everybody

1:14:09

has to wear a bracelet for

1:14:11

two weeks no however that's the

1:14:13

thing No. You're a libertarian. You're

1:14:16

a believer in anarcho-chirony. And actually,

1:14:18

you're part of the problem. Yes,

1:14:20

because I don't know what I

1:14:22

am because I don't think whenever

1:14:24

I hear any of you freaking

1:14:26

people who are in the weeds

1:14:28

on this talk I have no

1:14:30

idea what you're talking about Well,

1:14:33

you know, I just don't want

1:14:35

to wear a bracelet for a

1:14:37

static reason It's a look looks

1:14:39

thing we could I just some

1:14:41

of it seems like we are

1:14:43

headed towards like archipelago You know

1:14:45

the archipelago is where it's like

1:14:47

different like are you gonna live

1:14:49

in Amazon and I'll live an

1:14:52

apple people people people mistake the

1:14:54

strength of a government for the

1:14:56

government for the insurance of a

1:14:58

government. Actually, if you weaken the

1:15:00

state, you don't make it smaller,

1:15:02

you make it bigger. It sort

1:15:04

of metastasizes to, like, and having

1:15:06

those two dimensions there. essentially like

1:15:08

you know is sort of the

1:15:11

difference between like order liberty and

1:15:13

anarchy not knowing how many people

1:15:15

are in your country that's not

1:15:17

liberty that's anarchy you know moreover

1:15:19

you know probably but is this

1:15:21

like malice like it's good kind

1:15:23

of anarchy or no it's an

1:15:25

arco tyranny an arco tyranny is

1:15:27

basically to term coined by Sam

1:15:30

Francis it's basically an arco tyranny

1:15:32

is a and you know, okay,

1:15:34

that's California. And the evil run

1:15:36

free. Yes, you live in that.

1:15:38

I do. I do. Yeah, I

1:15:40

do. But you know, hello, when

1:15:42

I walk around Austin, you know,

1:15:44

like basically, Austin's, you know, has

1:15:47

this sort of periodic attempt to

1:15:49

like, you know, from, from, from

1:15:51

the, from from from the like

1:15:53

There's a attempt to like flush

1:15:55

the homeless out into the woods

1:15:57

basically and then they come back

1:15:59

and you know Yeah, it's that's

1:16:01

a I know you have and

1:16:03

I don't want you to be

1:16:06

late. We'll have to do this

1:16:08

again. We will. Because I still

1:16:10

have so many other questions and

1:16:12

want to talk to you about.

1:16:14

Oh, let me finish. Wait, let

1:16:16

me finish my Egypt story. I

1:16:18

was in the middle of Egypt

1:16:20

story. Okay, I have two final

1:16:22

questions for you. Okay, so the

1:16:25

Egypt story is they elect this

1:16:27

guy Morsi and then everybody realizes

1:16:29

the State Department included that this

1:16:31

is not resulting in, um, this

1:16:33

weird Islamic chit-show and there are

1:16:35

no tourists and everybody's broke and

1:16:37

it sucks. And so they solve

1:16:39

the problem in a way that,

1:16:42

you know, just would flabbergast Americans

1:16:44

rather than sort of organizing debating

1:16:46

issues or whatever, you know, they

1:16:48

adopt to Charles the first view

1:16:50

and they're basically like, and this

1:16:52

is kind of pre-internet in Egypt,

1:16:54

so they have to do like

1:16:56

phone trees. They say, what if

1:16:58

we basically, and it's sort of

1:17:01

unclear who did this? But maybe

1:17:03

it was the military themselves. They're

1:17:05

like, what if we basically, I

1:17:07

mean, the country's drifting toward like

1:17:09

literal Syria type civil war, right?

1:17:11

They're like, what if we basically

1:17:13

had a petition that anyone who

1:17:15

was an Egyptian could sign and

1:17:17

the petition basically just said, we

1:17:20

don't like our government, we would

1:17:22

like a new one. And they

1:17:24

did this and they got like

1:17:26

totally outside the electoral system. They

1:17:28

got like 60% of Egyptians to

1:17:30

sign this and the Egyptian military

1:17:32

was like, why didn't you say

1:17:34

so earlier? And they're just basically

1:17:37

restored Mubarak style government. under El

1:17:39

Sisi, who has a funny name.

1:17:41

And it was kind of a

1:17:43

little shitter than Mubarak, and the

1:17:45

State Department was like, all right,

1:17:47

I guess those old guys, we

1:17:49

kicked out of, you know, kind

1:17:51

of knew something about how to

1:17:53

deal with Egypt. And the Egyptian

1:17:56

people are like, all right now,

1:17:58

tourists can go to the pyramids

1:18:00

again, and I can get my

1:18:02

baksh. And everything's fine. And that

1:18:04

was the Arab Spring in Egypt.

1:18:06

You know, nobody died. Nobody got

1:18:08

hurt. You know, Lara Logan got

1:18:10

roughed up. You know, and pretty

1:18:12

roughed up. And the, not that

1:18:15

nobody got, certainly people died. But

1:18:17

you know, the, yeah, like, it

1:18:19

was just, that's crazy, right? I

1:18:21

don't know. It's crazy that, you

1:18:23

know, we went through this. All

1:18:25

right, final questions. Final questions. What's

1:18:27

your biggest defect of character. Procrastination

1:18:31

and disorganization. I don't know if

1:18:33

that's one thing or two things.

1:18:36

I feel like they go hand

1:18:38

in hand. They do. They do.

1:18:40

What's your biggest asset? I assume

1:18:42

you don't mean in the financial

1:18:45

sense. You know, what's my biggest

1:18:47

asset? You know, my biggest asset

1:18:49

is I was just, you know,

1:18:51

that's really what I'm here for.

1:18:53

I was just, yeah, I'll be

1:18:56

wrong over, you know, they'll strip

1:18:58

me of all my crypto currency,

1:19:00

you know. No, my biggest asset

1:19:02

is I was just sort of,

1:19:05

you know, my. my wife who

1:19:07

is of course my second wife

1:19:09

you know differ in a lot

1:19:11

of ways notably she's 16 years

1:19:14

old I mean younger than me

1:19:16

you know but also we kind

1:19:18

of have the same way of

1:19:20

thinking which is sort of this

1:19:23

you know ruthless insistence on finding

1:19:25

the simple principles under something complicated

1:19:27

and when we find when we

1:19:29

see something complicated and confusing we

1:19:31

kind of don't rest until we

1:19:34

see it kind of resolved and

1:19:36

that need for you know I

1:19:38

had just this if I can

1:19:40

be like wife guy for a

1:19:43

moment I had this super cute

1:19:45

moment with her yesterday where she's

1:19:47

basically like we're talking we're walking

1:19:49

with some University of Austin professor

1:19:52

and she's like you know Um.

1:19:54

you know I really think you

1:19:56

know it seems obvious that like

1:19:58

really their original origin of government

1:20:00

is like a protection racket but

1:20:03

you know it's a protection racket

1:20:05

in which like the the the

1:20:07

mafia has the same interests as

1:20:09

the they're protected so it actually

1:20:12

kind of works and I'm like

1:20:14

just like you know Christine like

1:20:16

you just you know like appear

1:20:18

to a parallel invented you know

1:20:21

the famous stationary bandit theory of

1:20:23

Manser Olson from the 1950s from

1:20:25

the 1950s and she's like oh

1:20:27

somebody else thought of it yourself.

1:20:29

You're obviously describing this thing as

1:20:32

if you thought of it yourself,

1:20:34

which you obviously did, you know,

1:20:36

and like, you know, this is

1:20:38

not an economist, right? You know,

1:20:41

and, you know, she's a film

1:20:43

degree, you know, and so yeah,

1:20:45

that's, you know, that's, that's, I

1:20:47

think, my greatest asset, but. other

1:20:50

than this jacket that's my second

1:20:52

greatest asset where where can we

1:20:54

so gray mirror is that part

1:20:56

of a series yes so the

1:20:58

first book of gray mirror fashical

1:21:01

one a fashicle by the way

1:21:03

is a book length installment of

1:21:05

a series that is available from

1:21:07

passage press and you can also

1:21:10

go to my sub stack which

1:21:12

is called gray mirror. That's great

1:21:14

with an A. How often are

1:21:16

you writing? What? How often are

1:21:19

you writing on it? It varies

1:21:21

a lot. Okay. Because my life

1:21:23

is very complicated. Okay. Where else

1:21:25

can I... Are you on Twitter?

1:21:28

Not really. No. No. No. I

1:21:30

should tweet more. I should really

1:21:32

master that form. It's a tough

1:21:34

form. It's the thunder though. This

1:21:36

is the thunder. It's true. All

1:21:39

right, well, thank you so much

1:21:41

for coming through. Oh, thank you

1:21:43

so much. You know, kind of

1:21:45

a softball interview, I have to

1:21:48

say. Was it? Well, you know.

1:21:50

The check-in with Bridget and Cousin

1:21:52

Maggie can now be found at

1:21:54

fetacy.com. It's been titled Another Round

1:21:57

with Bridget Fetacy, and it's now

1:21:59

in video. This has been... walk-ins

1:22:01

welcome Bridget Phetasy,

1:22:03

and you're welcome. I'm

1:22:05

Bridget Fettice and you're This

1:22:08

is the dumbest

1:22:11

line.