0:00

I would Nick Gillespie everybody welcome

0:02

back to walk in's welcome. Oh,

0:04

it's been too long. It has

0:06

been too long. Congratulations on getting

0:08

married. Thank you. Yeah, I got

0:10

married last September and I'm very

0:12

happy. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys were how

0:15

long were you together before you got married?

0:17

Probably about seven years, something like that.

0:19

Okay. So it had been a while

0:21

and you know, we were on and

0:23

off and on and off and whatnot. Yeah.

0:25

Now we're married. And were you guys

0:28

kind of not kind of not.

0:30

Anti-marriage? Was that? No, no, it

0:32

was never that. Now, you

0:34

know, I've been married once

0:36

before and I have two

0:38

adult kids. Sarah, Ciske, my

0:40

wife is the product of

0:42

a marriage. Her parents were

0:44

married. So no, it's, it

0:47

wasn't anti-marriage. Oh, okay. Okay.

0:49

I wasn't sure if I

0:51

was like, we're into the

0:53

poly life because we're libertarians.

0:55

Oh, interesting. And it's more. It

0:58

strikes me it's a lot of

1:00

weird conservatives who are kind of

1:02

on the down low about poly

1:04

or liberal slash progressives. I'm not

1:06

saying there aren't but you know

1:08

it one of the things about

1:10

libertarians is that like you know

1:13

I think we tend to believe

1:15

anything is fine as long as

1:17

it's between consenting adults or among

1:19

consenting adults but it's it's about

1:21

being able to make choices and

1:23

a lot of the choices that

1:25

individual people make are pretty I

1:28

would say not conservative, but traditional

1:30

or kind of mainstream. And it's

1:32

more just a question of being

1:35

able to pick among different choices.

1:37

What is your take on the

1:39

state of libertarianism right now? Yeah,

1:41

that's a good question because there's

1:44

a lot of different things to

1:46

factor into it. Like there's the

1:48

Libertarian Party which really did something

1:50

great by bringing Trump to their

1:52

convention last year and getting him.

1:55

to promise to get to release

1:57

Ross Ulbrick, the guy who found

1:59

the. the Silk Road and you

2:01

know that was the the deep

2:03

web drug site that was the

2:05

test case really the use case

2:07

for Bitcoin like it showed that

2:09

Bitcoin could be used etc. Obviously

2:11

you know it was also a

2:13

reminder that Bitcoin is pseudonymous not

2:15

anonymous and you know so it

2:18

It got traced back to him,

2:20

but he's out. That was good,

2:22

but overall the Libertarian Party has

2:24

done very poorly. Like they had

2:26

so many internal squabbles that they're

2:28

much smaller than they had been

2:30

10 years ago or like when

2:32

Gary Johnson was running for president.

2:34

They're in a rebuilding phase now,

2:36

so that might be good. But

2:38

then, you know, there's there's real

2:40

a lot of dissension among libertarians,

2:42

which is not surprising since, you

2:44

know, you know, all are, you

2:46

know, insane in our own ways.

2:48

But I think the Libertarian movement,

2:50

broadly speaking, is going to move

2:52

into a really powerful period because

2:55

one of our things is, you

2:57

know, before Trump versus Hillary, you

2:59

know, and before Obama, you know,

3:01

versus McCain and what's his face.

3:03

Mitt Romney and certainly with George

3:05

Bush and Al Gore and I

3:07

I've been working at Reason magazine

3:09

which was founded in 1968 I've

3:11

been working there since 93 I

3:13

became editor-in-chief in 2000 and you

3:15

know when Al Gore and and

3:17

George W. Bush were running they

3:19

looked alike their platforms are actually

3:21

very close to one another it

3:23

was like okay do you want

3:25

10 or beige, you know, that

3:27

was like the choice. And we're

3:29

like, you know what, this is

3:31

not good. There's a better way

3:34

out there. And, you know, we're

3:36

back to that place now, I

3:38

think, where people start to understand,

3:40

you know, when you look, okay,

3:42

Trump and Harris, these aren't great

3:44

choices, but we're going to make

3:46

a choice. And then you realize,

3:48

like, Trump isn't what you wanted.

3:50

And I think that's becoming clear.

3:52

Harris was definitely not what you

3:54

wanted like people are going to

3:56

be looking for an alternative and

3:58

I think reason certainly you know

4:00

the magazine of free minds and

4:02

free markets of you know letting

4:04

people have the maximum degree possibility

4:06

in how to choose to live

4:08

your life you know what drugs

4:11

you take you know where you

4:13

live what kind of business you

4:15

run how you dress you know

4:17

just let it let it flow.

4:19

This is the message that people

4:21

need right now because we've gone

4:23

from an insane period of, you

4:25

know, kind of progressive left leaning

4:27

bullshit where everything, you know, the

4:29

only thing that, you know, didn't

4:31

happen in the past five years

4:33

is that men weren't, like, required

4:35

to sit when they pee. I

4:37

mean, but it was like everywhere.

4:39

every choice you made was being,

4:41

you know, dictated or like run

4:43

through some kind of weird political

4:45

lens. And then Trump takes over

4:48

and now it's the same thing.

4:50

It's just a bunch of different

4:52

restrictions. So I think people are

4:54

going to be looking towards libertarianism

4:56

more. What are some of the

4:58

restrictions under Trump that you feel

5:00

are like the most egregious since

5:02

he's taken office. Yeah, well, I

5:04

mean, you know, first off, well,

5:06

two things. First, tariffs, you know,

5:08

and the idea, you know, one

5:10

of the, one of the, the

5:12

big things about, I think libertarian

5:14

thinking is that, you know, economic

5:16

freedom is a form of freedom.

5:18

It is a civil liberty, just

5:20

like free speech and, you know,

5:22

being in control of your body,

5:25

whether you want an abortion, whether

5:27

you want to marry somebody of

5:29

the same sex or whatever, you

5:31

know, you know. and the tariff

5:33

stuff and the way that he

5:35

is talking about trade, where it's

5:37

like, okay, you know what, you

5:39

don't get to pick what you

5:41

purchase, because I'm gonna decide in

5:43

these whole countries, like no, you

5:45

don't get that, you don't get

5:47

goods from there, or you do,

5:49

but you're gonna pay 20% more,

5:51

50% more, or whatever. And like,

5:53

depending on, you know, when the

5:55

Diet Coke is kicking in, you

5:57

know, it's 100. 10% or it's

5:59

like no we're friends with them

6:02

right I think also then immigration

6:04

is something similar like this like

6:06

everybody knows that the border needed

6:08

to be secured better than it

6:10

was the southern border under Biden

6:12

you know fuck that up royally

6:14

in his last year he actually

6:16

started you know securing it and

6:18

if you look back from January

6:20

2023 or rather January 24 to

6:22

January 25 there were of cuts

6:24

in the number of people coming

6:26

across who weren't vetted and things

6:28

like that. That's good. But then

6:30

Trump's alternative is to say, okay,

6:32

well, we're going to cut all

6:34

immigration ultimately and we're going to

6:36

start rounding people up and we're

6:39

going to start saying, you know,

6:41

you're a gay hairdresser from Venezuela

6:43

and you have a snake tattoo.

6:45

So we're going to deport you

6:47

and send you back to Venezuela

6:49

because you're part of a gang,

6:51

you know, and we're going to

6:53

park you in El Salvador in

6:55

prison. quick roundup without any semblance

6:57

of due process or rationality is

6:59

bad news. And then on top

7:01

of that, you know, you're a

7:03

Lebanese doctor, you know, who teaches

7:05

at Columbia or Brown University or

7:07

something, and it's like, you go

7:09

visit somebody, you come back and

7:11

it's like, you know what, you're

7:13

not coming back in, even though

7:15

you're a green card holder, or

7:18

that type of stuff. And is

7:20

that pretty commonly happening? I've not

7:22

been paying attention to the news.

7:24

I mean, and this was part

7:26

of, you know, this is he

7:28

promised that he was going to

7:30

crack down on illegal immigration and

7:32

he was going to start with

7:34

criminals. But the problem is, is

7:36

that criminals, kind of if they're

7:38

here, they know how to stay

7:40

hidden. And so if you want

7:42

the numbers, you gotta start going

7:44

after people who are kind of

7:46

in public view and things like

7:48

that. But like, Elon's very pro

7:50

H1B visa, right? So that was

7:52

like a weird. And we can

7:55

get. to him in a second

7:57

too, but we're not, you know,

7:59

he's not in, he's not in

8:01

control. There's factions, right, within the

8:03

Trump world and the hardcore magga

8:05

people, you know, the Make America

8:07

Great Again people, and this is,

8:09

J.D. Vance is an example of

8:11

this, you know, they are not.

8:13

pro-immigration and they'll say at first

8:15

well I'm not pro illegal immigration

8:17

I'm against illegal immigration and then

8:19

it starts coming well I'm not

8:21

pro-immigration for people who come from

8:23

countries that you know have no

8:25

democratic tradition which somehow means something

8:27

like Mexico right you know and

8:29

and or Haiti you know like

8:32

they want to get rid of

8:34

temporary protected status on Haitians etc

8:36

Those people are at war with

8:38

Elon Musk on the question of

8:40

immigration because he and people who

8:42

run companies, first off, like, you

8:44

know, we need workers in the

8:46

country, but then also high-tech countries.

8:48

They tend to be very much

8:50

like, we want skilled immigrants, we

8:52

want people like that. It remains

8:54

to be seen. you know what

8:56

happens because like in the in

8:58

his first term you know Trump

9:00

had you know people who were

9:02

isolationists in foreign policy and super

9:04

interventionists and it takes a while

9:06

to see which faction is going

9:09

to win yeah that was something

9:11

interesting they came out of the

9:13

whole group chat thing that got

9:15

leaked yesterday or well not even

9:17

leaked yeah well it was reported

9:19

it was yeah And I thought

9:21

it was funny because I was

9:23

like truly at its root every

9:25

group chat is just people talking

9:27

shit. And in this case they

9:29

were just talking shit about Europe.

9:31

Which is so weird. They're like

9:33

weird European hate because even within

9:35

magga like far the far right

9:37

new right maga there seems to

9:39

be this kind of romanticism about

9:41

like European. disbeing of European descent

9:43

obviously but also just a European

9:46

like this is what they took

9:48

from us this whole mentality yeah

9:50

so it's weird to see somebody

9:52

in the magga faction being so

9:54

anti-Europe. Well, a lot of them

9:56

are kind of pro-Russia at this

9:58

point or Hungary, which, you know,

10:00

Victor Orban, the leader there, is

10:02

kind of a strong man who

10:04

makes a lot of gestures towards

10:06

traditional culture, you know, traditional Christian

10:08

culture, whatever that means. You know,

10:10

so there's some of that, but

10:12

then they really, you know, they

10:14

really hate Zelenski and Ukraine. And

10:16

personally, I don't, you know, I

10:18

don't think the United States should

10:20

be heavily involved in European wars

10:23

and things like that. But I

10:25

also know that like, as an

10:27

American and as a libertarian, like

10:29

anybody who has kind words for

10:31

Putin is like off the deep

10:33

bet, like that's just wrong. Is

10:35

that because we're older and we

10:37

were born into like, I mean

10:39

Poon's bad obviously, I don't think

10:41

that, well I mean maybe it

10:43

does need saying now, but I

10:45

clearly think he's a dictator, he's,

10:47

I'd be pushed off a balcony

10:49

long ago, I thought the weird

10:51

like Tucker making those McDonald's video,

10:53

that was very strange to me.

10:55

that that whole turn but i

10:57

was saying maybe this is because

10:59

i'm jenex and they were our

11:02

enemy growing up yeah They were

11:04

just in every movie, every pop

11:06

culture reference, everything was like... Every,

11:08

you know, and I was, I'm

11:10

a very late baby boomer, like

11:12

right on the cusp of Gen

11:14

X. So I grew up watching

11:16

reruns of things like Gilligan's Island

11:18

and I dream of Genie and

11:20

like every fucking episode, there's like

11:22

a cosmonaut who has landed. I

11:24

mean like the Cold War was

11:26

shot through everything and then it's

11:28

worth it's worth deep programming right

11:30

like because that was you know

11:32

America is not was not perfect

11:34

during the Cold War capitalism free

11:36

enterprise is better than socialism or

11:39

communism but like you know there's

11:41

a lot of bullshit going on

11:43

there but yeah I don't think

11:45

it's that because Tucker is like

11:47

Gen X or a baby boomer.

11:49

He's like in his late 50s

11:51

or early 60s. He knows better.

11:53

There's just something cuckoo going on

11:55

there. More broadly about Europe versus

11:57

America, this is something that is

11:59

worth thinking about when people talk

12:01

about. you know, well, Europe has,

12:03

you know, the people there have

12:05

a sense of place and cultural

12:07

identity and, you know, national identity.

12:09

It's like that's what everybody in

12:11

America left. You know, they left

12:13

that Europe because they were on

12:16

the shit end of that sick.

12:18

I mean, my grandparents were on

12:20

my father's side, their Irish on

12:22

my mother's side, they're Italian. They

12:24

all came over in the 19

12:26

teens. because Europe was based on

12:28

like an ethnic solidarity and tradition

12:30

where there were no jobs and

12:32

like if you weren't born into

12:34

the right family or the right

12:36

bloodlines you were just kind of

12:38

fucked I mean like for a

12:40

thousand years my relatives in Europe

12:42

were serfs and peasants and worse

12:44

and they came over here and

12:46

like they were able to be

12:48

lower middle class which was like

12:50

living like a fucking king right

12:53

and you know my Italian grandparents

12:55

never spoke English and you know

12:57

they you know they gave they

12:59

birthed two sons one who fought

13:01

in World War two one who

13:03

fought fought in Korea and two

13:05

girls who like were all hard

13:07

workers and by the time they

13:09

died they were all like totally

13:11

perfectly American you know and I

13:13

don't speak any Italian right my

13:15

Irish grandmother actually grew up speaking

13:17

Irish as well as English but

13:19

like none of that like we

13:21

assimilated new immigrants are assimilating but

13:23

the whole point of America is

13:25

that like you come over here

13:27

with whatever shitty hand fate dealt

13:30

you and you play it into

13:32

something better and it's very anti-European

13:34

so it always just bugs me

13:36

anybody whether they're right wing or

13:38

left wing and there's like a

13:40

lot of lefties like Bernie Sanders

13:42

who's like oh you know Scandinavia

13:44

is so perfect yeah and it's

13:46

like he doesn't even understand you

13:48

know Sweden is like a super

13:50

capital country and you know that

13:52

they have their own problems yeah

13:54

yeah that's been an interesting thing

13:56

to like watch play out my

13:58

cousin I have a German cousin

14:00

so We, I have, it's a

14:02

long story, but an uncle really

14:04

loved communism at one point in

14:06

our big family and laughed America

14:09

chasing it. Is this cousin, is

14:11

this cousin, or uncle Lee Harvey

14:13

Oswald? No. And they, and he

14:15

ended up living there, staying there,

14:17

marrying a German woman, so we

14:19

have a German cousin. She's a

14:21

lot, she's a couple years younger

14:23

than me. Did he go to

14:25

East German or West Germany? He,

14:27

what year was it? It was

14:29

82 when I think he went

14:31

there. And then now he gives

14:33

tours. Oh wow. And my cousin

14:35

is, I will never forget visiting

14:37

her in Berlin and it was

14:39

during the, what's the, um, the

14:41

European Cup? So it's during, and

14:43

she was like, oh, I hate

14:46

the euro cup, it's just an

14:48

excuse for nationalism. She was like,

14:50

it's just a European excuse to

14:52

be, and she was like, and

14:54

we know where that gets us,

14:56

like historically, she's very left, she's,

14:58

um... You know, it's just an

15:00

interesting perspective from somebody. I mean,

15:02

Germany is especially touchy about that.

15:04

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. She was like,

15:06

oh, I hate this. This is

15:08

an excuse for all of these

15:10

countries to be like, you know,

15:12

very racist. You know, what's an

15:14

amazing statistic, by the way. And

15:16

I'll tie this back to kind

15:18

of Trump, as well as like

15:20

Biden or Democrats, too. But virtually

15:23

every state in America, like Mississippi,

15:25

you know, which is like. the

15:27

Haiti of America or something, right?

15:29

Yes. Their GDP, like their standard

15:31

of living, you know, per capita

15:33

money and purchasing power, is higher

15:35

than virtually every European country. With

15:37

the exception of like Luxembourg and

15:39

Switzerland, and Ireland actually. has an

15:41

insanely high, but it's and you

15:43

know you forget that and like

15:45

when people are you know lionize

15:47

Europe it's like you know like

15:49

it's a great place to visit

15:51

I was in Italy for part

15:53

of my honeymoon and it's like

15:55

it's a great place to visit

15:57

but it's a sucky place to

16:00

you know ultimately to live and

16:02

work and thrive and like compared

16:04

to 40 years ago or 30

16:06

years ago if you take the

16:08

countries that comprise the EU their

16:10

GDP like their economic activity use

16:12

to be the same as the

16:14

US and now it's like less

16:16

than 50% because they've they went

16:18

super idiotic on like regulation and

16:20

on clamping down on you know

16:22

new business formation and the ability

16:24

of people to live their lives

16:26

and that's worth thinking about and

16:28

that's why you know when people

16:30

on the right look towards Europe

16:32

for anything they're always like oh

16:34

I like that ethanol solidarity stuff

16:37

and it's like you're fucking insane

16:39

and then the left is like

16:41

oh you know but they have

16:43

such good cheese. health care. Yeah,

16:45

or whatever. Yeah, and it's like,

16:47

no, they really don't. And like

16:49

we can have that here. All

16:51

you have to do is like

16:53

let people sell unpaturized dairy products,

16:55

you know, and let a free

16:57

market actually work in health care.

16:59

But yeah, that there's. It's funny

17:01

there was this video that went

17:03

viral that I loved and it

17:05

was a guy just ranting about

17:07

Europe and how basically it's like

17:09

Disneyland for America now and he

17:11

was like listen Europe you're done

17:14

like you haven't made anything nice

17:16

in years you make some cool

17:18

cheeses and some wines but now

17:20

you're basically just Disneyland for middle-class

17:22

Americans because it's so cheap to

17:24

go there and they're everywhere and

17:26

he was just knocking on their

17:28

castles and And I do think

17:30

it's great to visit. Yeah. Well,

17:32

and the whole Instagram culture has

17:34

really blown up Europe as this

17:36

kind of influencer haven. Yeah. Yeah,

17:38

I agree with that. And now

17:40

they're pushing back against that. You

17:42

know, like in Spain, they're trying

17:44

to get rid of all. the

17:46

tourists. But I mean, you know,

17:48

it's wrong to say this, but

17:50

like, you know, the EU or

17:53

Europe is kind of done, right?

17:55

Not all of the places, like

17:57

Sweden is a country that has

17:59

like, you know, 10 or 12

18:01

million people and punches above its

18:03

weight. Like, it's, you know, created

18:05

a bunch of international brands that

18:07

has a high standard living all

18:09

of that kind of stuff. And,

18:11

you know, there are parts of

18:13

it that are doing well. But

18:15

it's like... You know, it's not

18:17

the future, it's the past. I

18:19

mean, you can get a house

18:21

in Italy for like five euros.

18:23

I mean, surely they're like begging

18:25

people to come to these remote

18:27

villages and it's one of those

18:30

things. I mean, it's kind of

18:32

like people don't want to live

18:34

there. I mean, you know, and

18:36

you can talk about this in

18:38

the US too. I mean, you

18:40

know, it's great. I, you know,

18:42

I know, I talked with you

18:44

on the Reason interview podcast. what,

18:46

maybe two years ago or whenever

18:48

you left LA to move to

18:50

Texas, you see, you know, there's

18:52

parts of this also apply to

18:54

the United States. Like, I live

18:56

in New York City. It took

18:58

me literally 30 years to be

19:00

able to move back there. I

19:02

love New York City. But it's,

19:04

you know, you pay an enormous

19:07

tax to live there. Which I

19:09

like and it's got a lot

19:11

of energy and stuff like that,

19:13

but you know the four most

19:15

popular states in the US are

19:17

California Texas Florida and New York

19:19

Two of them are red, you

19:21

know mostly red two of them

19:23

are blue and people are leaving

19:25

places like California and New York

19:27

for places like Texas and we

19:29

should draw a lot of lessons

19:31

from that and you know the

19:33

lessons mostly are that you know

19:35

if you tax and regulate people

19:37

less and you allow them to

19:39

pursue happiness however they see fit,

19:41

you know, good things happen and

19:44

a lot of people want to

19:46

move there. Texas has a shitty

19:48

climate, you know, and but, you

19:50

know, you know, people in California

19:52

are like, oh, you know, nobody

19:54

would ever choose to live anywhere.

19:56

else. And it's like, yeah, that's

19:58

wrong. I mean, it's objectively wrong.

20:00

New York was the most popular

20:02

state up until like 62 when

20:04

California took over. My parents who

20:06

were live there, they were like,

20:08

everybody was saying, nobody, why would

20:10

anyone go to California? Everybody wants

20:12

to live in the New York

20:14

Metro. And then you look up

20:16

a decade later, and it's like,

20:18

everybody who can has left, you

20:21

know, because of taxes, regulation, you

20:23

know, just, you know, nuisance stuff.

20:25

I it's it's weird I saw

20:27

this clip go viral yesterday or

20:29

two days ago and it was

20:31

Rob low talking with the what's

20:33

the guy's name in severance the

20:35

lead actor they were on parks

20:37

and rec together Adam whatever yeah

20:39

so they were talking and Rob

20:41

low was saying it's you know

20:43

criminal basically that it's cheaper they

20:45

were like if we were doing

20:47

parks and rec we would be

20:49

in Budapest and then they were

20:51

saying it's cheaper to fly an

20:53

entire crew to Ireland and then

20:55

Rob Brolla got in on it

20:58

and he was like the the

21:00

fact that they can see this

21:02

about their own industry but not

21:04

every industry in California this applies

21:06

to everybody it applied to me

21:08

a small business owner who makes

21:10

online content right right it applies

21:12

to I mean how did you

21:14

lose Hollywood and Silicon Valley yeah

21:16

yeah that's crazy yeah and it's

21:18

gonna to somebody who was saying

21:20

this to me today like It's

21:22

going to take decades for Hollywood

21:24

and for California to recover if

21:26

it even can. Yeah. I agree

21:28

and you know I think a

21:30

lot about this because I was

21:32

born in Brooklyn that I grew

21:34

up in New Jersey and I

21:37

think a lot about New York

21:39

State and upstate New York which

21:41

used to be you know like

21:43

an industrial hub and it used

21:45

you know and farming and all

21:47

of that like it's like East

21:49

Germany. Yeah it's just it's a

21:51

wasteland and it still hasn't come

21:53

back. I mean it's been 60

21:55

years you know of depopulation and

21:57

it's like you know in around

21:59

1900s or about 1920 or so

22:01

Buffalo was one of the wealthiest

22:03

cities in the country and the

22:05

world because all freight that went

22:07

east or west like came on

22:09

the Great Lakes and then got

22:11

put on trains in Buffalo or

22:14

near Buffalo or going west it

22:16

would you know to be on

22:18

trains until then and then get

22:20

on ships and go west and

22:22

it's like Buffalo has never come back.

22:24

So it can, you know, when

22:26

you go into decline, it doesn't

22:28

mean like, okay, after a century,

22:31

people will rediscover you if like,

22:33

if the same kind of overlay

22:35

of, you know, stupid taxes, stupid

22:37

regulation, you know, just hostility to

22:39

change and innovation persists, like then

22:41

you just stay poor forever. Ireland

22:43

was, I mean, part of it

22:45

was because of British occupation, but

22:48

Ireland was a dump for like

22:50

a thousand years, you know, and

22:52

then My people. Yeah, no, that's why.

22:54

Yeah. touching on it. Yeah, mine as

22:56

well. And it's like every time I

22:59

see Michael malice, he hands me a

23:01

potato. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're grateful

23:03

for it. Yeah, I'm like, you mocked me,

23:05

but this kept me alive. From what I

23:07

understand, Ireland is like the only country

23:09

in Europe that has fewer people now

23:12

than it had in like about 1850

23:14

before the potato famine had really kind

23:16

of both killed people, but people fled,

23:18

you know, the Irish diaspora is one

23:20

of the biggest in the world in

23:23

the world. really a long time until

23:25

they even had net in migration. It

23:27

took it until like the late 1990s.

23:29

And then of course the first thing

23:31

they do now and they're doing this

23:34

now is like they're bitching about all

23:36

these immigrants coming in and it's like

23:38

you fucking idiots like you've been waiting

23:40

500 years. to finally like have more

23:42

people show up and like all you

23:45

can do is complain. But it is

23:47

like a little bit, there are

23:49

problems, right? I mean, sometimes with

23:51

immigration, sometimes with growth, and again,

23:53

you know, when you, when you

23:56

take it outside of kind of

23:58

like explicit ethnic tension. and things

24:00

like that and just think of

24:02

like a place like Austin or

24:04

a state like Texas. you know

24:06

with growth you know comes growing

24:09

pains you know there's always you

24:11

know there's always mismatches between housing

24:13

supply and housing demand schools are

24:15

a big thing there's always weirdness

24:17

like in texas in the after

24:19

the vietnam war and actually the

24:21

collapse of vietnam but starting in

24:23

the late seventies through the eighties

24:25

a lot of vietnamies started showing

24:28

up here because the Gulf Coast

24:30

offers you know a kind of

24:32

similar lifestyle to parts of vietnam

24:34

as well as there were a

24:36

lot of Catholics and Vietnamese refugees

24:38

were often resettled through Catholic churches.

24:40

And you know, that was like

24:42

real tension because it's like who

24:44

the fuck are these people? They're

24:46

not Mexico, you know, the Mexicans

24:49

were here before the, you know,

24:51

the American Anglos. So that's like,

24:53

you know, and there's tension always,

24:55

but like, okay, we kind of

24:57

got that, but then like these

24:59

people come from another planet, and

25:01

there's tension, and then like, you

25:03

know, it takes a little while,

25:05

and, you know. within a generation

25:08

or two, like everybody is, everybody's

25:10

Texas now. Right, right. Yeah, I

25:12

live in definitely like an H1B

25:14

visa neighbor, like we live out,

25:16

you know, that was an interesting

25:18

thing that popped up where we

25:20

were firmly middle class, I think,

25:22

just by definition, and... Well, the

25:24

median just, it's always worth... Nowling

25:26

that the median household income in

25:29

America, which, you know, means half,

25:31

half or below, half or above,

25:33

is like about a hundred and

25:35

eight thousand. Yeah, that's, that, that

25:37

would be us. I'm not like

25:39

making people, I think people think

25:41

when you're, I assumed you were

25:43

like a, a YouTube billionaire, that

25:45

you were like, you give Mr.

25:48

Beast's money, like interest free loans.

25:50

I, I wish. No. I think

25:52

when you're around. People with money

25:54

people assume you have a lot

25:56

of money It's just not, we're

25:58

very firmly middle class. I mean,

26:00

I also have like a, I,

26:02

I, I, um, having one employee,

26:04

basically. So, you know, we're, we're,

26:06

but yeah, we're not, I'm not

26:09

making seven figures by any means

26:11

at all. We're not, in that

26:13

low end of six and that

26:15

split in half basically. Right, right.

26:17

And so, yeah, we're, we're right

26:19

around there in a middle class

26:21

neighborhood. And everybody around us is,

26:23

it was interesting to see the

26:25

H-1B visa debate blow up over

26:28

the holidays, which was weird. I

26:30

was like, guys, you got a

26:32

life, guys, what are you doing

26:34

online arguing over Christmas? Whatever you

26:36

can do not to talk to

26:38

your family. Yeah, I guess that's

26:40

how I looked at. I'm like,

26:42

wow, you all have horrible families

26:44

or something. They were a lot

26:47

of the like very anti H1B

26:49

visa people were like they're replacing

26:51

the middle class in America with

26:53

H1B visas I was like whistling

26:55

you know like doo-doo I can

26:57

see why you'd make that argument.

26:59

But this, you know, these things

27:01

are, you know, and it's, you

27:03

know, one of the things to

27:05

recognize is like the 21st century

27:08

has been one of like massive

27:10

ongoing upheaval and disruption, right, from,

27:12

you know, even, you know, Bush

27:14

versus Gore, the fact that that

27:16

election was a dead heat and

27:18

it kind of like was a

27:20

tembler, right, of like what was

27:22

to come of like oh yeah

27:24

you know what like actually the

27:27

country is kind of not sure

27:29

of you know which path to

27:31

take and it's going to be

27:33

within a you know a distant

27:35

you know within the margin of

27:37

error and people are going to

27:39

get pissed off about that then

27:41

you have 9-11 you know then

27:43

you have you know the Iraq

27:45

war in particular like you know

27:48

what I would say was a

27:50

war of choice that extended a

27:52

lot and it empowered a lot

27:54

of bad government actions as well

27:56

as like a lot of domestic

27:58

spending to kind of shut people

28:00

up. Then you had the financial

28:02

crisis. Then you had, you know,

28:04

Trump, not Trump being bad, but

28:07

just like, you know, nobody, nobody

28:09

expected Trump to win. And like

28:11

you have this moment where things

28:13

are just very different. Yeah. I

28:15

wouldn't say nobody. Well, I mean,

28:17

he did. Let's put it this

28:19

way. Yeah, but every account, he

28:21

didn't even bother figuring out who

28:23

his cabinet was going to be.

28:25

And so then you have COVID,

28:28

and then you layer on top

28:30

of that, like, you know, disruptive

28:32

changes in media, which I think

28:34

overall are good, but there, you

28:36

know, it takes a while to

28:38

get used to in social media.

28:40

And now we have AI. Yeah.

28:42

And you know, and so there's

28:44

a lot of anxiety about stuff.

28:47

One of the things that I

28:49

think people fundamentally misunderstand is that

28:51

You know the middle class is

28:53

not shrinking like people are actually

28:55

doing really well And when you

28:57

look at things like home ownership

28:59

when you look at things like

29:01

you know people going to college

29:03

people being able to live how

29:05

they want things are actually, you

29:08

know, they're good like they can

29:10

always be better but both large

29:12

kind of ideological forces, liberals and

29:14

conservatives, and Democrats and Republicans, you

29:16

never hear one of them say,

29:18

you know what, things are pretty

29:20

good and here's how we make

29:22

them better. It's always like, this

29:24

is the worst thing we will

29:27

ever have. I mean, Elon Musk

29:29

was tweeting. If, you know, if,

29:31

uh, if, uh, if Kamal Harris

29:33

wins, there won't be another election.

29:35

I know. Which is exactly what

29:37

people on the left were saying.

29:39

Like, if Donald Trump gets reelected,

29:41

that's it. There's no more democracy.

29:43

And it's like, you people are

29:45

living in, like, cloud cuckoo life.

29:48

It's historic. Yeah. And like, the

29:50

whole industrial stuff. This is another

29:52

thing that I, I dislike about.

29:54

Trump, you know, and again, I

29:56

didn't vote for him, I dutifully

29:58

voted for the Libertarian Party candidate

30:00

because I have never voted for

30:02

a successful candidate for any office

30:04

at any level, including, like, you

30:07

know, high school student council. Like,

30:09

I just can never pick them.

30:11

But, you know, I wanted him

30:13

to win, and I think it's

30:15

better that he won. Trump. Yeah,

30:17

Trump than Harris. But it's... you

30:19

know it has unleashed this you

30:21

know negativity vibe even in winning

30:23

like where it's like we are

30:26

barely hanging on as a country

30:28

you know like we're on the

30:30

cliff and our fingernails are digging

30:32

into solid rock and we're sliding

30:34

down and it's kind of like

30:36

that's a vast misunderstanding of what's

30:38

actually going on in the country

30:40

and then people are like and

30:42

that's why we have to get

30:44

rid of all immigrants especially high

30:47

skilled ones but also low skilled

30:49

ones. and you know and it

30:51

doesn't matter if like there are

30:53

more job openings listed now that

30:55

are unfilled like than ever in

30:57

human history the important thing is

30:59

to block out everybody else so

31:01

that you know our children can

31:03

go back to working in factories

31:06

or something like it's like you

31:08

know this it's just it's it's

31:10

it's it's it's it's a very

31:12

emotion driven, a historical understanding of

31:14

where we're at. It's funny too.

31:16

I follow Bonci on, he's on

31:18

Twitter and I love his takes

31:20

off and because he's like, what

31:22

is this? When you talk to

31:24

how many people want their kids

31:27

working in factories for the rest

31:29

of their life, like this isn't

31:31

something that you are aspiring to.

31:33

By the way, AI is going

31:35

to come take most of those

31:37

jobs. I was going to say

31:39

they only want us to work

31:41

in factories because their coal mines

31:43

really have shut down. Because that's

31:46

really what parents want. The best

31:48

thing would be to work in

31:50

a coal mine, because that's the

31:52

purest thing. I'm joking. I'm just

31:54

saying it's like, yeah. You know,

31:56

the fact of the matter is

31:58

that like America's industrial power, like

32:00

the proportion of people who worked

32:02

in factories peaked in the late

32:04

40s, and it's been going down

32:07

ever since. in a kind of

32:09

straight slope and it's it won't

32:11

reach zero but it's going to

32:13

approach zero and most of that

32:15

is not because China makes everything.

32:17

We make more stuff than we've

32:19

ever made you know as a

32:21

country we just do it more

32:23

effectively because of automation. Like automation

32:26

is the reason there aren't those

32:28

great factory jobs which literally like

32:30

my parents were like we my

32:32

father didn't even graduate high school

32:34

and he was like you're going

32:36

to go to college so that

32:38

you don't work in a factory.

32:40

Yeah, you know. Yeah, it was

32:42

just like. And that's not to

32:44

say, you know, people who work

32:47

in factories, that's great, but service

32:49

jobs are more plentiful and they

32:51

pay as well as factory jobs.

32:53

So it's like. You know, can

32:55

we start talking about like, how

32:57

do we make economies more like

32:59

Texas's economy and less like California

33:01

or New York's? Rather than like

33:03

the world is ending. I'll also

33:06

point out, you know, the Texas

33:08

and Florida are, you know, as

33:10

long as we're talking about immigration,

33:12

which is very important to me,

33:14

is, you know, like the states

33:16

where immigrants go. inevitably are the

33:18

states that are flourishing. Immigrants don't,

33:20

I lived in Ohio for a

33:22

long time and Ohio is, you

33:24

know, is at the center of

33:27

the Rust Belt. I lived outside

33:29

of Cincinnati in a small town.

33:31

There was like no, no people

33:33

were moving there from foreign countries

33:35

or from the US and that

33:37

was when it, you know, it

33:39

hit me that like when you

33:41

are in a place where immigrants

33:43

are choosing to. go through rather

33:46

than stay. You know you're in

33:48

a fucked situation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

33:50

it's been really wild to watch,

33:52

even, we just hit 200 dumpster

33:54

fires and we shot yesterday just

33:56

reminiscing like. I was looking at

33:58

myself even like, yes, I was

34:00

six years younger, but I'm like,

34:02

I was so easy, breezy, I

34:05

was married, I didn't have a

34:07

kid, so there's not just life

34:09

changed. And then I was in

34:11

California now, I'm in Texas, it's

34:13

wild, even when you put in

34:15

perspective, just the last kind of

34:17

six years of America, let alone

34:19

like 10 years. I think even

34:21

the last six months, kind of

34:24

to be honest, it's. hard to

34:26

think back okay what was like

34:28

December 2024 like you know or

34:30

say November before the election and

34:32

it is you know we we

34:34

need to kind of take account

34:36

for how fucked up everyday life

34:39

is on a certain level because

34:41

like you know Trump Trump is

34:43

an improbable figure, right? Like nobody

34:45

would have guessed, okay, that like

34:47

a TV, you know, a TV

34:49

billionaire is going to become president, and

34:52

if it was, it's going to be

34:54

him. My judge might have guessed that.

34:56

That's true. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But

34:59

then, like you have all of that,

35:01

but then last year, too, like nobody

35:03

would have guessed that the president of

35:05

the United States would effectively

35:08

be brain dead and reveal it

35:10

willingly in a debate. because you

35:12

know and then the response to

35:14

that would be like okay we're

35:16

gonna we're gonna throw in Kamala

35:18

Harris who nobody liked and nobody

35:20

had any faith in and we're gonna

35:23

pretend I mean it was like it's

35:25

a dump survive yeah it really really

35:27

is and Trump comes roaring back you

35:29

know etc and it's like it's you

35:31

know we're these are strange times and

35:33

then on top of you mentioned AI

35:36

right like you know it is like

35:38

okay all of this stuff is good.

35:40

I'm very techno optimistic. I think like

35:42

the technologies that stick around tend to

35:44

benefit people much more than they discomfort

35:47

them. And we're in an early adoption

35:49

phase of this stuff. So it's going

35:51

to be disruptive in the way that

35:53

the internet was very disruptive in the

35:56

90s and early 2000s. But, you know,

35:58

if it helps people, it tends

36:00

to work, you know, and stick around.

36:02

But it's like, yeah, we're in kind

36:05

of a, we're in a weird space.

36:07

What I'm happy about mostly is that,

36:09

you know, broadly speaking economically, you know,

36:12

markets do really well at squeezing out

36:14

all of the bullshit that governments and

36:16

entrenched interests like big corporations throw at

36:19

them. So we're having decent economic growth,

36:21

it could be a lot better, but

36:23

I feel like we're at the, you

36:25

know, we're clear, we've left an era

36:28

that is bad. And we now have

36:30

the potential to go to something good

36:32

if we don't turn in on ourselves

36:35

and be like, oh, well, we got

36:37

to stop foreign goods, you know, we

36:39

can't compete with Canadian stuff. you know

36:42

so like we're going to put massive

36:44

tariffs on Canada or something like that

36:46

like this is stupid. I don't understand

36:49

the Canadian tariffs. Yeah it does feel

36:51

like they just really I don't understand

36:53

really any of it. Well and the

36:56

to make it even worse is everything

36:58

that governs trade between the US and

37:00

Canada was negotiated by Trump in his

37:03

first term when he rewrote NAFTA. So

37:05

it's like what the, you know, like

37:07

at least acknowledge it, like then you

37:09

are, you're saying, oh, that deal that

37:12

I struck and I wouldn't shut the

37:14

fuck up about. This is the art

37:16

of the deal. Yeah, like, you know,

37:19

that was a bad deal. Now I'm

37:21

going to get us a good deal,

37:23

you know, but yeah. No one can

37:26

remember anything though. No, that's true. I

37:28

mean, this is the kind of internal.

37:30

This is what AI might help us

37:33

with, right. If it did you ever

37:35

use there I think it's still around

37:37

there was a I turned it off

37:40

because it was depressing which might answer

37:42

the question but there was a an

37:44

app you could use called Time Hop

37:47

that that would sift through all of

37:49

your all of your computers and your

37:51

internet accounts or your social media accounts.

37:54

and it would serve up every day

37:56

like oh here's something from two years

37:58

ago from five years ago ten years

38:00

ago and I was like oh my

38:03

god like this you know it's like

38:05

you know memento the movie or something

38:07

where it's like you're seeing pictures and

38:10

you're like, oh my God, like this

38:12

is a trail of crimes that I

38:14

had repressed thoroughly. But AI can help

38:17

remind us maybe of. you know why

38:19

we why we why we chose this

38:21

rather than that the first time instead

38:24

of constantly making the same dumb decision.

38:26

I don't know because AI really is

38:28

trained right now to like I have

38:31

friends who are using AI to kind

38:33

of self-diagnose and analyze and AI is

38:35

so flattering and I tend to not

38:38

trust anything that is that flattering. I

38:40

get because it is trained to tell

38:42

you what it what you want to

38:44

hear. But this is just so they

38:47

can eventually take us over like it's

38:49

gonna it's gonna ease us into a

38:51

false sense of security. I'm kind of

38:54

happy I mean I I appreciate the

38:56

joke of that. I don't think it

38:58

will be like that. And, you know,

39:01

part of it is that it's going

39:03

to automate a lot of junk work.

39:05

Oh, it definitely does. And, you know,

39:08

and I think about it, I've been

39:10

a journal, a professional journalist, I guess,

39:12

you know, my entire, like, since I

39:15

graduated college, I wrote for a living

39:17

one way or the other, but I

39:19

started out working for these really shitty,

39:22

You know, the young kid like, here's

39:24

a bunch of press releases of new

39:26

products. Yeah, and just rewrite. Copywriting is

39:28

the worst. Yeah, and I was like,

39:31

you know, I worked for a company,

39:33

one of the magazines worked, or was

39:35

for machines that were used within banks.

39:38

So, and this was like, you know,

39:40

the early 80s, or mid 80s, so

39:42

it was like. you know, ATMs were

39:45

still kind of new and stuff and

39:47

it'd be like, you know, and so

39:49

I would rewrite like a three line

39:52

description of this new ATM type machine

39:54

or something like that, like that will

39:56

all be automated in the way that

39:59

weather, you know, weather reports are automated

40:01

and stuff like it's, AI will, you

40:03

know, and then maybe that means like

40:06

you hire fewer interns or something, but

40:08

it also means like the work that

40:10

humans have to do will become more.

40:12

valued I think. How do you, I

40:15

mean this is my question, are they

40:17

trying to fix money in like a

40:19

slow burn? Is that like money's broken?

40:22

There's this idea, especially in the Bitcoin

40:24

community, that money's broken fundamentally, how do

40:26

we fix it? And if we don't

40:29

fix it, we'll have the same problems

40:31

that they have in other countries. I

40:33

did a whole series when the Bitcoin

40:36

conference was here, and I know nothing

40:38

very little about it. So I was

40:40

like, talked to me like, I'm a

40:43

five-year-old, explain it to me. And these

40:45

guys are so immersed in it. They

40:47

hadn't had to do it in a

40:50

while. good for us to do with

40:52

a normy and one of the things

40:54

that struck me about it the most

40:56

was a just their not their understanding

40:59

and ability to explain how money is

41:01

broken they and them seeing the people

41:03

that I talked to from other countries,

41:06

they were very clear about the fact

41:08

that in America, it is an investment

41:10

in other countries, it is seen as

41:13

a buffer against their currency that is

41:15

not stable. Right, it's like a store

41:17

of value. You know, Bitcoin was originally

41:20

sold in the white paper that Satoshi

41:22

Nakamoto, you know, put out as a

41:24

micro payment. plan like as a payment

41:27

system right it really has kind of

41:29

it seems like it may eventually get

41:31

there but it's mostly kind of a

41:34

store of value and at reason we've

41:36

done a lot with talking about how

41:38

Bitcoin is used particularly an authoritarian regime

41:41

is where you you have to use

41:43

the government the state currency which is

41:45

shit you can't use dollars or anything

41:47

else like Bitcoin gives people a way

41:50

of getting out of that system and

41:52

holding on to value or it abroad

41:54

in a way. So it's very useful

41:57

from like a kind of, for me,

41:59

the most important thing about Bitcoin really

42:01

is as a kind of human rights

42:04

enabler. Like it just, you know, it

42:06

gives people more flexibility. I think in

42:08

the US. and in the developed world,

42:11

it will act as a kind of

42:13

supplement to state-based currencies and kind of

42:15

hold them honest. Like the United States,

42:18

you know, by far the most important

42:20

currency on the planet, and you know,

42:22

we have the largest economy, particularly in

42:25

terms of efficiency, China, you know, is

42:27

getting there, but it's, it takes so

42:29

many more people to come close to

42:31

us. It's not quite the same thing.

42:34

But the, you know, Global currencies compete

42:36

against one another and that helps keep

42:38

them more honest. And then Bitcoin really

42:41

injects honesty into this. So I, you

42:43

know, I wouldn't quite say that money

42:45

is broken. The United States is running

42:48

a really dangerous bet that it will

42:50

not win, that it can just keep

42:52

piling up debt without having to worry

42:55

about persistent massive inflation or reduced economic

42:57

growth, etc. you know, Bitcoin, Bitcoin is

42:59

going to help with that. I don't

43:02

know if exactly how AI will help

43:04

with this, but I think, you know,

43:06

we will, this is where we need

43:09

to have a government that spends less

43:11

and does less. So how do you

43:13

feel about Doge? I like, I like

43:15

the, I like the concept of Doge

43:18

very much. The execution so far has

43:20

been bad. I mean, it's like it's,

43:22

it's a lot of flash and it's

43:25

not really cutting. actual spending, you know,

43:27

most of its big announcements ends up

43:29

being kind of revised way way downward,

43:32

you know, when nobody's looking. And there

43:34

are certain things where You know, say

43:36

at places like the FDA or at

43:39

the FAA and stuff like that where

43:41

if you if you simply cut regulators

43:43

because you want to cut, you know,

43:46

you can find people and their salaries

43:48

and you cut that, but the rules

43:50

are still in place where like you

43:53

stuff has to go through these, then

43:55

you just make things even worse. Right.

43:57

Because it takes longer for stuff to

43:59

happen. But having said that. And this

44:02

is why I'm still, I still like

44:04

Donald Trump winning over Kamala Harris is

44:06

that we're having a discussion that would

44:09

not be taking place if Harris

44:11

had won and if the Democrats

44:13

had remained in power. And I

44:15

think this is why Trump, you

44:17

know, I see him less as

44:19

the beginning of something new and

44:21

more as he's the end of

44:23

an era and it's this. sometimes

44:25

I call it the long 20th

44:28

century where after World War II

44:30

we started having or actually even

44:32

before World War II it was

44:34

the progressive era and whatnot but

44:36

we started to believe that government

44:38

should be run by experts who could

44:40

make more and more decisions for us

44:42

because you know we're fucking idiots right

44:45

and we don't really the world is

44:47

too complex and what do I know

44:49

about how my kids should be educated

44:51

or how what my building should look

44:53

like and how it should function or

44:56

you know whatever. And there was this

44:58

broad shift, you know, around the globe.

45:00

Well, it started, you know, towards the

45:02

end of the 19th and beginning of

45:04

the 20th century with the progressive movement,

45:06

but also in business, like things like

45:09

Henry Ford and, you know, Taylor,

45:11

the great efficiency expert of like

45:13

scientific management, like in the 19th

45:16

century, we learned a lot. and

45:18

we became smarter at how systems

45:20

work. And then there's always people

45:22

who emerge who say, well, you

45:24

know what, we're very smart and

45:26

we understand from a bird's eye

45:28

view how everything fits together. We

45:30

don't expect you to because you

45:32

know, you've got a lot on

45:34

your plate and you're not that

45:36

smart, etc. And in government and

45:38

in business and in international affairs,

45:40

we started trusting more and more

45:42

and bigger and bigger groups that

45:44

would make decisions for us. peaked probably

45:46

in the middle to the late

45:49

20th century and you know it

45:51

didn't work like you know all

45:53

of these giant corporations you know

45:55

IBM or you know general motors

45:57

and you know companies that don't

45:59

even exist anymore. They were all

46:01

like these, they were giant, you

46:04

know, bureaucracies that did things scientifically

46:06

and, you know, systematically, and they

46:08

were like big government, which didn't

46:10

work either. And, you know, since

46:12

at least the 90s, we've been

46:14

walking away from that. And in

46:16

a lot of ways, I see

46:18

Trump as the final thing that

46:20

kicks out the prop from that

46:22

whole, I, way of thinking about

46:24

the world, that like big... overwhelming

46:26

institutions that are run by wise

46:28

and smart people and use science

46:30

for everything. Like it's over. Yeah.

46:32

And Trump, but I, you know,

46:34

having said that, like, there isn't

46:36

a lot positive in Trump's vision.

46:38

It's like, you know, you either

46:40

get with my program and do

46:42

what I say. Otherwise, I'm going

46:44

to deport you or I'm going

46:46

to I'm going to unleash my,

46:48

you know, attorneys general against you

46:50

and things like that's That's not

46:52

the way to build the next

46:54

future, the next America. It's kind

46:56

of, it's the end of an

46:58

year. I don't think it's the

47:00

beginning. But I do feel like

47:02

there are enough people around who,

47:04

I don't know, it just depends

47:06

on who's the loudest in the

47:08

room, I guess, but there, the

47:10

kind of techno optimists who all

47:12

got on board with him. Yeah.

47:14

These people seem to have a.

47:16

more optimistic vision of America and

47:18

American you know ingenuity innovation and

47:20

I agree and you know when

47:22

you think about people like Mark

47:24

Andreson David Sachs yeah I mean

47:26

Jeff Bezos even you know Tim

47:28

Apple as Trump used to refer

47:30

to Tim Kup because he didn't

47:33

you know he really is that

47:35

guy right you know where he's

47:37

he is the funniest president in

47:39

the history of the world. He's

47:41

like the Seinfeld version of George

47:43

Steinbrenner you know where he sees

47:45

his his grandkids and he's like

47:47

fatty shorty, you know red, you

47:49

know, but that's good. I mean,

47:51

one thing that we need to

47:53

also. have caution about. And I

47:55

say this as like, I'm a

47:57

free market libertarian, you know, our

47:59

reasons slogan is free minds and

48:01

free markets. I love the fact

48:03

that Jeff Basos at Amazon was

48:05

like, fuck it. I'm turning the

48:07

Washington Post opinion section. He said

48:09

we're going to focus on personal

48:11

liberties and capitalism or free markets,

48:13

right? And I'm like, yes, we

48:15

need that. But we should also

48:17

recognize that billionaires' agendas and you

48:19

know, everybody else's don't always line

48:21

up exactly well. I mean, they

48:23

do much more than people, you

48:25

know, think. And I hate, you

48:27

know, and this is going back

48:29

maybe 10 years or whenever AOC

48:31

had a policy advisor who once

48:33

famously said, you know, every billionaire

48:35

is a policy failure. It's like,

48:37

no, you know, like. Putin is

48:39

a billionaire who took out his

48:41

money by stealing it from people.

48:43

My mark had off he was

48:45

a billionaire, but like Paul McCartney

48:47

is a billionaire. Yeah. And Paul

48:49

McCartney didn't steal money from me.

48:51

You know, it's like he gave

48:53

me shit that I wanted. Jeff

48:55

Bezos. You know, there's faults around

48:57

the edges, sure. But like, you

48:59

know, the way Jeff Bezos became

49:02

a millionaire. is by, you know,

49:04

during a pandemic when nobody could

49:06

do anything, like fucking guys would

49:08

show up sometimes the same day

49:10

with whatever I needed. You know,

49:12

like that's incredible. You know, like

49:14

that's incredible. You know, like all

49:16

the people who are in that

49:18

camp of like every billionaire is

49:20

like, every billionaire is a failure.

49:22

They screamed as their guillotine arrived

49:24

via Amazon, you know, like, like.

49:26

So there is that and I

49:28

mean this is you know, but

49:30

Trump I don't Trump ultimately He's

49:32

he's not an optimist he has

49:34

a huge amount of energy and

49:36

he has like an intensely negative

49:38

Energy about him. I think but

49:40

again, I don't really care about

49:42

him what I'm saying what's good?

49:44

Is that like by him winning?

49:46

We I think he caps this

49:48

long era at the end of

49:50

that antagonism era where like you

49:52

know the government's going to tell

49:54

you how to live and big

49:56

companies will make all your decisions

49:58

for you and all of that

50:00

like we've been working away from

50:02

that forever and it's like now

50:04

it's on all individuals to kind

50:06

of take more control over their

50:08

lives and responsibility for their lives

50:10

and to help people who can't

50:12

help themselves. But like, I, you

50:14

know, I used to write a

50:16

lot about education policy and we're

50:18

in an era now where school

50:20

choice is burgeoning and it's good,

50:22

like, you know, because we had

50:24

like factory, you know, people. were

50:26

more outraged by like factory farm

50:28

chicken than factory farmed kids, you

50:31

know, where it's like all of

50:33

us for 100 years went to

50:35

the same schools and kind of

50:37

were treated as if we were

50:39

the same and like, and then

50:41

you, you know, we're widgets and

50:43

at the end of, you know,

50:45

here's your diploma and now go,

50:47

whatever, like we're getting out of

50:49

that. You know, like you, I

50:51

don't drink anymore, unlike you, I.

50:53

do other kinds of drugs, but

50:55

I would guarantee that you, even

50:57

if you're sober, like you are

50:59

much more intentional about every aspect

51:01

of your diet and your mood,

51:03

like whether you use caffeine or

51:05

other supplements or whatever, like we're

51:07

in an age now in an

51:09

era where all of us have

51:11

to say You know, I have

51:13

like unparalleled opportunities to be who

51:15

I want to be, to live

51:17

how I want to live, to

51:19

commune with people who are like-minded

51:21

and find them, you know, through

51:23

the internet and other places and

51:25

move there and start, you know,

51:27

both in the cloud as well

51:29

as in reality, like, you know,

51:31

the pods that I want to

51:33

live in, and that takes a

51:35

lot of intensity, you're constantly... teaching

51:37

yourself things that are new and

51:39

where do you want to go?

51:41

And that's where we're at and

51:43

this is good. And it's coming,

51:45

it would have come anyway, but

51:47

I think by Trump winning, it

51:49

comes, you know, five, ten years

51:51

earlier. Yeah, it's interesting because I

51:53

think the mistake, though, there's... So

51:55

many things I'm thinking about right

51:57

now. One is the internal debate

52:00

and libertarianism. You see this in

52:02

every party. So there's an internal

52:04

war on the left. There's an

52:06

internal war on the right as

52:08

well, where there's the new right

52:10

and the conservative right and the

52:12

new right and the conservative right.

52:14

There's not, they can be a

52:16

good coalition, but there's not much.

52:18

And there's, you know, there's lefties

52:20

now, particularly the, you know, sometimes

52:22

they're called the abundance agenda or

52:24

the yimbies who are like. Oh,

52:26

these are like Ezra Klein and

52:28

then. Yeah, he's, yeah, and Derek

52:30

Thompson and other people who kind

52:32

of. they are picking up on,

52:34

but like where it's like, you

52:36

know what, in San Francisco, there

52:38

was a large group of people,

52:40

it's like, housing is really expensive

52:42

and, you know, a really obvious

52:44

way to lower the price of

52:46

housing is to build more housing.

52:48

So we've got to get rid

52:50

of a bunch of environmental rules

52:52

and zoning rules that don't really

52:54

do anything other than make housing

52:56

really expensive to build. So let's

52:58

do that. You know, and so,

53:00

yeah, there's, this is. On every

53:02

point in the political spectrum, there

53:04

is discussion. Yeah, which is again,

53:06

the sign that we're at the

53:08

end of something, right? And now

53:10

the question is, how do we

53:12

build, how do we build what's

53:14

next? And this is where I

53:16

think the right maybe doesn't understand

53:18

the, maybe they do, maybe they

53:20

don't, I don't think that America

53:22

will be all that excited into

53:24

moving into some conservative vision of

53:26

This is a joke I always

53:29

make on stage where I'm like,

53:31

you know, right when Kamla got,

53:33

she got nominated. They were like,

53:35

oh, like, she's a slut. She

53:37

slept her way to the top.

53:39

And I'm like, and you're not

53:41

going to win over the suburban

53:43

moms with that because a lot

53:45

of us slept our way to

53:47

the bottom. There's just a lot

53:49

of reform sluts in the suburbs.

53:51

And that's where we kind of

53:53

all end up. And it's awesome.

53:55

I prefer to think that their

53:57

future sluts. No, but I agree

53:59

with you completely, you know, across

54:01

every aspect. I think a lot

54:03

about this because I don't have

54:05

like that good a grasp of

54:07

things. But like, I think a

54:09

lot about either my grandparents or

54:11

my parents' life and then my

54:13

kids. And like, you know, one

54:15

of the most basic things is

54:17

that, you know, when I was

54:19

growing up, it was. better than

54:21

it used to be, but like

54:23

you know there were maybe five

54:25

types of guys you could be

54:27

and three types of girls and

54:29

now it's like You know, there's

54:31

like a million different identities

54:34

that are possible. You don't

54:36

even have to be a guy

54:38

for a guy. Yeah, yeah. And

54:40

again, like, you know, not to

54:42

get sidetracked into discussions about whether

54:44

or not, you know, transitioning for,

54:46

you know, in vitro embryos as

54:48

good or bad, but it's like,

54:50

you know, we should celebrate the

54:52

fact that more people have more

54:55

choices. I always used to talk

54:57

about this in terms of pop

54:59

tarts. that were all unfrosted. Now

55:01

there's like 35, 36 types of

55:03

pop tarts that look different and

55:05

are constantly changing. And like, that's the

55:07

world everybody wants to be able to

55:09

choose for themselves and say, I want

55:12

to take a little bit of this

55:14

and a little bit of that and

55:16

this and I'm gonna make it into

55:18

my own personal poptart or whatever

55:20

lifestyle. And I think conservatives make

55:22

a big mistake when they think

55:24

because people were like, Kamala Harris,

55:26

I don't want that. I don't

55:28

want what the Democratic Party was

55:31

offering in, you know, during COVID,

55:33

and where they were insane thought

55:35

policing and policing policing and, you

55:37

know, doing all kinds of crazy

55:39

shit. People rejected that. It didn't

55:41

mean like, okay, now I want

55:43

to live in some AI generated

55:45

fantasy of a 1950s household, yeah,

55:47

where my wife has gigantic tits and

55:49

a crineline dress, and you know, I

55:52

make six dollars a month, but, you

55:54

know, I can feed a family. leave

55:56

20 on that. That's my favorite Iowa

55:58

hock like going after all these people

56:00

with their AI generated slop and he's

56:02

like this is not the world that

56:05

we lived in the 1950s by the

56:07

way. Yeah he had a great string

56:09

just the day that we're recording this

56:11

where you know he was like here's

56:14

what a 1950s house look like here's

56:16

what it cost etc and like you

56:18

look at it and you're like oh

56:21

my god like are they are they

56:23

in Shinler's list or something it's like

56:25

you know it's a 800 square foot

56:27

house you know that has five people

56:30

on it or more and it's like

56:32

this is not you know this isn't

56:34

the past this isn't what people want

56:36

people want choice and because I suspect

56:39

I mean if you disagree I mean

56:41

challenge me on it but like what

56:43

I wanted when I was 20 and

56:46

30 and 40 and 50 and 60

56:48

like has changed and it's not like

56:50

I'm not flipping about it or anything

56:52

but like you change and you grow

56:55

and you want to be able to

56:57

kind of evolve you know on your

56:59

own pace as well as react to

57:02

society and like you know I went

57:04

from loving living in a small town

57:06

to wanting to be in a big

57:08

city and then splitting time etceter you

57:11

know and it's like what people want

57:13

more than anything is choice and I

57:15

think the political party certainly but also

57:17

the kind of broader based ideology or

57:20

cultural climate that gives people more choice

57:22

and then helps them correct course when

57:24

they make bad choices this you know

57:27

this is what the future could be

57:29

yeah I think it would be you

57:31

know it would be fantastic yeah I

57:33

think that it's my sister and I

57:36

were just talking about this actually on

57:38

the way here we were laughing because

57:40

she has three kids and they're older.

57:43

She started very young so her kids

57:45

are like 20s and and late teens

57:47

and so she's seen it's like there

57:49

you guys are like war veterans you're

57:52

like she's like I love it when

57:54

people with children who are eight are

57:56

giving parenting advice you're like shut off

57:59

you're like you're gonna get your ass

58:01

handed you in like five years yeah

58:03

but she was saying we were laughing

58:05

about the like no phones in schools

58:08

in schools debate because I'm like this

58:10

feels Ridiculous to me because more importantly,

58:12

how the fuck are you going to

58:14

teach these children right with AI? Yeah,

58:17

like how are you going to ensure

58:19

that these kids are learning? How do

58:21

you use AI? None of these teachers

58:24

are even contemplating that. It's so much

58:26

easier to be like, we need to

58:28

get schools. We need more money and

58:30

we need new HVAC stuff, you know,

58:33

etc. Like, I mean, the big thing

58:35

is I'm sure your daughter, your daughter

58:37

is three. Almost. Almost three. Like by

58:40

the time she's in high school, I

58:42

hope that school will look radically different.

58:44

Like it would be unrecognizable to you

58:46

as a 15-year-old. Because I hated school.

58:49

It felt like jailed me. Yeah. It

58:51

is jail. I hated it. It's a

58:53

minimum security jail. And I left all

58:56

the time. I skipped a third of

58:58

my junior year of high school. I

59:00

hated it. And then I was going

59:02

to college. I'm like, why am I

59:05

paying for this now? Which is a

59:07

huge part of the reason that I

59:09

dropped out. I'm like, I'm going to

59:11

go into debt for more jail basically.

59:14

And I had already partied in high

59:16

school. So I wasn't like, yeah, I'm

59:18

free to party now. I just didn't

59:21

see the point of the point of

59:23

it. And I was like, how have

59:25

we not reformed the school system? By

59:27

the way, a degree is not going

59:30

to mean anything. And everyone older than

59:32

me is like, that's not true. A

59:34

degree is going to get you a

59:37

job. And it's like, it doesn't assure

59:39

it. That was part of that thing

59:41

of like, OK, as we get systematic

59:43

and we have bright people and you

59:46

know, we have, you know, a college

59:48

diploma was like, you know, the ticket

59:50

to like, for one generation. For one

59:53

generation. and then now it's now every

59:55

and now all the kids want to

59:57

be influencers and frankly I don't blame

59:59

them yeah although boy that I can't

1:00:02

imagine that's a that's a good life

1:00:04

you know I mean anyone this is

1:00:06

the thing I say I'm like you

1:00:08

I mean I could do an entire

1:00:11

hour long stand-up special just about feet

1:00:13

the algorithm. And like, I'm like, we

1:00:15

all sound psychotic, by the way, when

1:00:18

we talk about the algorithm, because we

1:00:20

sound like primitive people talking about the

1:00:22

ancient gods or something. Or it's like,

1:00:24

oh, we must, if we give it,

1:00:27

if we don't feed the algorithm every

1:00:29

day, it will like ignore us. It

1:00:31

will rain upon us if we give

1:00:34

it the blessings. It's ridiculous, but I

1:00:36

used to wonder why these old kind

1:00:38

of like. Back in the day they

1:00:40

seem they seem so acquainted now like

1:00:43

YouTube athletic influencers They all had breakdowns

1:00:45

I watched one woman after another and

1:00:47

I'm like come on how hard could

1:00:50

this be? You're just making content and

1:00:52

now that I do it I'm like

1:00:54

I get it I understand what but

1:00:56

have you might have a breakdown have

1:00:59

you found I mean because this is

1:01:01

also there's always like you know There's

1:01:03

a learning curves, right both individual and

1:01:05

then kind of society wide. Do you

1:01:08

feel like you have? gotten to a

1:01:10

place now where you have a more

1:01:12

stable audience or stable. Yeah, you know,

1:01:15

and like you develop a reputation so

1:01:17

that it's less, you know, you always

1:01:19

want to have like a breakout hit

1:01:21

of something that brings new people in,

1:01:24

but you know, this I think so

1:01:26

many things have changed. I think the

1:01:28

algorithms change. I don't think you get

1:01:31

bumps from going on big podcasts in

1:01:33

the way that you do. Maybe you'll

1:01:35

get a little bit, but I don't

1:01:37

think you get those like like you

1:01:40

used to be even. eight years ago

1:01:42

you could get met. I don't think

1:01:44

it's rewarded that way. I think now

1:01:47

it's more like virality which is what

1:01:49

the internet thrives on and really wants

1:01:51

but I don't I'm not really interested

1:01:53

in going viral because It's never good.

1:01:56

Like it's good in some ways, but

1:01:58

it's not really that good. I would,

1:02:00

I would, as much as I hate

1:02:02

to say it, I would rather grow

1:02:05

in the way that we've grown, which

1:02:07

is very organic, very slow, and it's

1:02:09

like a cult following that of people

1:02:12

who know us and have been seen

1:02:14

us through things and, and it's a

1:02:16

it's a I don't know I just

1:02:18

find it to be I also didn't

1:02:21

I'm grateful I didn't create my brand

1:02:23

around like my family or domesticity or

1:02:25

anything like all those brands weird me

1:02:28

out and I'm like that is and

1:02:30

people are I think there's a normy

1:02:32

revolt against all the influencers right now

1:02:34

because you also know that it's fake

1:02:37

yeah I mean like it's either totally

1:02:39

fake or it's effectively fake but yeah

1:02:41

I mean who is going to be

1:02:44

the you know and this might be

1:02:46

a good betting pool is like which

1:02:48

family-based influencer is going to become like

1:02:50

the next Manson family or the Menendez.

1:02:53

Well all the influencer kids are growing

1:02:55

up and suing their parents. Yeah. This

1:02:57

is like a real thing. So we're

1:02:59

having the first generation of kids that

1:03:02

was raised as influencer kids without their

1:03:04

choice, by the way. They're now growing

1:03:06

up and saying I was essentially like

1:03:09

a slave, it was like slave wage.

1:03:11

That's right. And that they wouldn't let

1:03:13

me get out of it. I was

1:03:15

forced to do it. And there's this

1:03:18

is good for the total fertility, right?

1:03:20

We're going to need to import more

1:03:22

immigrants to keep the population. Because these

1:03:25

kids aren't going to be having kids.

1:03:27

everywhere the birth rates collapsing. Yeah, well

1:03:29

that's because I mean my belief in

1:03:31

that is is that's it's modernity and

1:03:34

modernity means one that you you know

1:03:36

you have more options in your life

1:03:38

particularly women and there's like a very

1:03:41

widely observed correlation between the more years

1:03:43

of schooling women have the fewer kids

1:03:45

they have. It's a proxy for a

1:03:47

more advanced economy where You know, you

1:03:50

don't need to have as many kids,

1:03:52

people are moving from, you know, kind

1:03:54

of physical labor to mental labor or,

1:03:56

you know... Influencing. Influential labor. Yeah. But

1:03:59

you, you know, it's not a bad

1:04:01

thing. It's a thing and nothing is

1:04:03

going to reverse it. It's weird, I

1:04:06

feel like I had this argument with

1:04:08

people years ago because there was this

1:04:10

really cool video about how the 12

1:04:12

billionth person would never be born. And

1:04:15

it was done about, it was when

1:04:17

everyone was freaking out about overpopulation, which

1:04:19

was not that long ago. It was

1:04:22

like a decade ago, and I was

1:04:24

like, guys, calm down like everywhere you

1:04:26

go all over the world, the more

1:04:28

that people get lifted out of poverty,

1:04:31

which is happening, thank you capitalism, the

1:04:33

more, the less, but fewer kids they

1:04:35

have. ruins for you. No, and it's

1:04:38

like we got to do something. And

1:04:40

this is where, you know, it's not

1:04:42

Trump per se, all the JD Vance

1:04:44

has advanced legislature, or ideas for legislation

1:04:47

about this, and a lot of people

1:04:49

on the conservative right of like, okay,

1:04:51

what we need to do is to

1:04:53

shovel tons of money at, you know,

1:04:56

at parents, you know, Stalin did this,

1:04:58

like every dictator and every other person

1:05:00

has tried to do this to incentivize.

1:05:03

It's always the right type of people

1:05:05

to have more kids to have more

1:05:07

kids. doesn't work because you know and

1:05:09

also it breeds resentment because you know

1:05:12

again I have two kids yeah yeah

1:05:14

right that's the one thing it reliably

1:05:16

breeds but you know and yeah it's

1:05:19

it's just I always feel bad for

1:05:21

people who are told like somehow you

1:05:23

are lesser if you don't have kids

1:05:25

yeah whether it's by choice or by

1:05:28

circumstance but you know we'll we'll get

1:05:30

we'll be able to deal with fewer

1:05:32

people on the planet and will come

1:05:35

up, will create AI, you know, bots,

1:05:37

things that will do the work that

1:05:39

needs to get done, and I think

1:05:41

the rest of us will do pretty

1:05:44

well. I want to do a routine

1:05:46

about, yeah, I have a whole idea

1:05:48

for a routine about the like, the

1:05:50

working robots and restaurants and stuff. Oh

1:05:53

God, yeah. I like it. It's going

1:05:55

to be so weird. I, you know,

1:05:57

last night I saw some of the

1:06:00

delivery robots, the Uber Eats here, who

1:06:02

I had seen in in Santa Monica

1:06:04

during the pandemic when I was hanging

1:06:06

out there. The little driving ones? Yeah.

1:06:09

Yeah. And like that's. the dot matrix

1:06:11

printer version of what's to come. Totally.

1:06:13

But you know, because I- Those are

1:06:16

like the fax machines of deliveries. Like

1:06:18

it's gonna be great when they show

1:06:20

up and they cook the food for

1:06:22

you. And they clean your house. And

1:06:25

they have these home products now and

1:06:27

they have the ads for them. Oh

1:06:29

God. You know, it's very exciting, especially

1:06:32

if you take it with a sense

1:06:34

of optimism rather than dread. Ishish. It

1:06:36

could get weird. Oh, it will be

1:06:38

weird. I mean, even somebody was like,

1:06:41

get that camera out of you. I

1:06:43

was stalking my daughter when I was

1:06:45

doing comedy and this guy was like,

1:06:47

get that camera out of your kid's

1:06:50

dot. She's too old for that. And

1:06:52

I was like, no, I'm just preparing

1:06:54

her for a lifetime of surveillance. Yeah,

1:06:57

yeah. Like that is the technocracy that

1:06:59

she will be born into. Well, this

1:07:01

is what's interesting is. You know, thinking

1:07:03

about that in surveillance versus the fancy

1:07:06

counter word is surveillance, which is surveillance

1:07:08

is like looking down from above, and

1:07:10

it's always associated with, you know, power

1:07:13

in like the government or a corporation

1:07:15

or whatever. You know, we've seen a

1:07:17

million movies like that. Suvalence is when

1:07:19

individuals like look back at the, you

1:07:22

know, and they're watching the watchers. And,

1:07:24

you know, in stuff like 1984 it

1:07:26

was always the telescreen was on you

1:07:28

didn't know what was behind it but

1:07:31

you know it was being beamed onto

1:07:33

you and people were tracking you a

1:07:35

lot of the technology that we have

1:07:38

now allows you to kind of find

1:07:40

out more information about you know, the

1:07:42

powers that be and it's not perfect

1:07:44

and it's always a struggle. But that

1:07:47

was, that's the revolution of like the

1:07:49

personal computer going from a mainframe computer,

1:07:51

you know, which had those big banks

1:07:54

and the things that would spin and

1:07:56

like it would, you know, some somebody

1:07:58

in a in a one-piece suit with

1:08:00

a bald head would take out a

1:08:03

card and be like oh you've been

1:08:05

selected to be killed in the next

1:08:07

war so just report to the death

1:08:10

center now right and then like personal

1:08:12

computers starting in the late 60s but

1:08:14

especially in the 70s were like no

1:08:16

we're we're making the computer, an extension

1:08:19

of me as an individual, and I

1:08:21

am going to be calling the shots,

1:08:23

and then the internet, like we're going

1:08:25

to have an interrelated set of networks

1:08:28

where end users are as important as

1:08:30

whatever the center was, or the center

1:08:32

disappears. And I think, you know, kind

1:08:35

of keeping that in mind and pushing

1:08:37

that forward, like technology is good when

1:08:39

it empowers individuals, not when it makes

1:08:41

it easier for, you know, some overlord

1:08:44

to dictate everything. Well, we've got to

1:08:46

go, but what's your biggest defect of

1:08:48

character? Biggest defect of character, I was

1:08:51

going to say it was drinking, but

1:08:53

that's, I don't know that that's a

1:08:55

real, not, there were times when I

1:08:57

really just lacked empathy, I think, and

1:09:00

that's that probably... fueled a lot of

1:09:02

the worst elements of, you know, when

1:09:04

I drank too much and acted poorly.

1:09:07

And what's your biggest asset? I'm very

1:09:09

curious, I think, and I read a

1:09:11

lot and I listen to a lot

1:09:13

of different types of people and I'm,

1:09:16

I like, I like going out into

1:09:18

the world both physically, but also kind

1:09:20

of mentally. Yeah. That's really cool. I

1:09:22

like that too. Well, where can we

1:09:25

find you? I'm at reason.com. All of

1:09:27

my stuff ends up there on Twitter.

1:09:29

I'm at Nick Gillespie. And that's probably

1:09:32

and sadly the place where I reside

1:09:34

the most. It's the same for me.

1:09:36

Yeah shameful. Although I have been on

1:09:38

Instagram more using reels like an army

1:09:41

and because they are very relatable for

1:09:43

like just suburban moms. Yeah. And I

1:09:45

did I watched a woman eating a

1:09:48

piece of sourdough like a whole and

1:09:50

I was like this is my fucking

1:09:52

rock bottom. Like I watch a whole

1:09:54

minute and a half of this and

1:09:57

I was like what am I doing

1:09:59

with. my life. I find the Facebook's

1:10:01

version of reals that's the lowest

1:10:03

form of video but you know

1:10:06

the one thing that is great

1:10:08

and I don't think enough people

1:10:10

talk about it in a way

1:10:12

where it's not like bragging but

1:10:14

like the experience of parenting is

1:10:16

absolutely phenomenal because it's it It

1:10:18

makes you humble, it also makes

1:10:20

you interested and curious and you

1:10:23

stay in touch with the world.

1:10:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean in a

1:10:27

really powerful way. And it's kind

1:10:29

of a model for everything where

1:10:31

it is like you're, you know,

1:10:33

you're anxious about everything all the

1:10:35

time, but you're also kind of

1:10:38

optimistic and you get, you take

1:10:40

the plot seriously because this thing

1:10:42

is constantly changing and unfolding and

1:10:44

growing. Yeah. Oh, it's crazy how fast

1:10:46

they, it is like watching AI becomes

1:10:49

sentient in that first. You're like, whoa,

1:10:51

what the, you came online. Yeah,

1:10:53

that's right. Those first three months.

1:10:55

You're like, holy, mackerel. And now

1:10:57

even just the first three years,

1:10:59

yeah, there's a great documentary that

1:11:01

Lenore Schenasey told me about and

1:11:04

it's becoming you on Apple Plus.

1:11:06

It's like five or six part

1:11:08

series and it follows a hundred

1:11:10

kids all over the world in

1:11:12

the first five years of their

1:11:15

life. And it is incredible. My

1:11:17

daughter was obsessed with it. She

1:11:19

was like, before even one, it

1:11:21

was all she ever wanted to, or no,

1:11:23

one to two. She was just like, that

1:11:26

was the thing she wanted to watch when

1:11:28

we let her watch TV. That sounds

1:11:30

great. So she loved it. Similar to

1:11:32

that, I remember when my older son

1:11:34

learned to read and my ex-wife and

1:11:36

I. were, you know, we were nervous

1:11:38

about like him learning to read and

1:11:40

we're both like egghead. So we actually

1:11:43

bought hooked on phonics. Oh yeah. Which

1:11:45

fucking work. It does. They got away

1:11:47

from it and they're finding it's

1:11:49

been a disaster. But when, you

1:11:51

know, so he was learning how to read

1:11:53

and then I remember one time he was

1:11:55

in the living room of the house we

1:11:57

were in at the time and he was

1:12:00

reading. something like without me coaching him

1:12:02

or anything and it was like

1:12:04

I think about it and I

1:12:06

choke up because it's like you

1:12:08

know at that moment that's like

1:12:10

you become sent to it because

1:12:12

it's not just that you can

1:12:14

read what you've been taught but

1:12:16

you are now going out in

1:12:18

the world and like you will

1:12:20

read sentences and you'll form sentences

1:12:23

that have never been spoken before

1:12:25

or anything and you just realize

1:12:27

like this is just accelerating outward

1:12:29

and it's so empowering. Yeah, it's

1:12:31

really wonderful. But anxiety-inducing. Oh yeah,

1:12:33

terrifying. Nothing more terrifying than mean

1:12:35

apparent. But thank you so much

1:12:37

for coming through. Thank you for

1:12:39

having me. The check-in with Bridget

1:12:41

and Cousin Maggie can now be

1:12:43

found at fetacy.com. It's been titled

1:12:45

Another Round with Bridget Fetacy and

1:12:48

it's now in video. This

1:12:50

has been walk-ins

1:12:52

welcome with Bridget

1:12:54

Pettisie. I'm Bridget

1:12:56

Pettisie and you're

1:12:58

welcome. It's the

1:13:00

dumbest line.