Lex Fridman Podcast - #165 – Josh Barnett: Philosophy of Violence, Power, and the Martial Arts

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

Josh Barnett is an MMA fighter, catch wrestler, and a scholar of violence. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Munk Pack: https://munkpack.com and use code LEX to get 20% off - LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack - Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings - Rev: https://rev.ai/lex to get 7-day free trial EPISODE LINKS: Josh's Website: https://www.joshbarnett.com/ Josh's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoshLBarnett Josh's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshlbarnett Josh's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoshBarnettOfficial Josh's Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Barnett Josh's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyZmZwQESO8G0BOSHTpZcvg PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (08:29) - Nietzsche (13:47) - Good and Evil (28:59) - Joe Rogan library (30:57) - Catch wrestling (41:03) - Anarchy (59:32) - Hitler and Stalin (1:16:34) - Karl Gotch (1:24:59) - Mike Tyson (1:33:20) - Violent victory (1:41:29) - Fedor Emelionenko (1:43:50) - Greatest MMA fighters of all time (1:53:47) - Early UFCs (1:58:32) - Advice for young people (2:02:24) - The value of competition (2:05:02) - Blade Runner (2:15:54) - Meaning of life

The following is a conversation with Josh Barnett, one of the greatest fighters in submission wrestlers in history, with an epic 25-year career that includes being the UFC Heavyweight Champion and countless other accolades. He also happens to be one of the most intelligent and brutally honest human beings in all of martial arts, and especially so about his appreciation of and fascination with violence. Quick mention of our sponsors, which feels ridiculous to say after that introduction, Monkpack Low Carb Snacks, Element Electrally Drinks, 8 Sleep Self-Coloring Matress, and Rev Transcription and Captionary Service, click the sponsor links to get a discount at the

support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that I've been a fan of Josh Barnet for a long time. This conversation was indeed a long time coming and I'm sure we'll talk many times again. For what is worth, I'm a student of combat sports and admire when they're done at the highest level, either through masterful execution of skill or relentless dominance of pure guts. For context, I'm a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and have competed in wrestling, submission grappling, Jiu-Jitsu, Jiro, and even catch wrestling, which is a variant of submission grappling

that Josh is one of the great practitioner, scholars, and teachers of. I could probably talk for hours about what I've learned from my time on the mat, but if I were to say one thing, it is that the mat is honest. You can't run away from yourself when you step on the mat. It reveals your fears, the lies you might tell yourself, all the delusions you might have, or at least I had, that there's anything in this world that can be achieved except through blood, sweat, and tears. That honesty, taken to the highest levels, as is the case with Josh, creates the most

special of human beings, and definitely someone who is fascinating to talk to. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe by YouTube, review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter and Lex Friedman. As usual, I do a few minutes of As Now, not in the middle. I'll try to make it more fun, it's time goes on, but if you skipped, still check out the links in the description.

It really is the best way to support this podcast. This episode is brought to you by Monkpack, Keto Granola bars that contain just one gram of sugar, two grounds of net carbs, and there are only 140 calories. I've been on all kinds of diets my whole life. I did maybe in college, there was like a powerlifting phase where I would eat like four or five, maybe six meals a day, you know, protein and veggies, just small meals. That was like the, what I would call like the bro diet. And then I think when I started training jiu jitsu, especially hard, I the bro diet. And then I think when I started training

jiu jitsu, especially hard, I discovered fasting. And that was a game changer. I think I realized that I have to become more and more scholar of my body as opposed to sort of consuming the nutrition science that's out there. So you have to use kind of the basic knowledge of nutrition science that people are talking about all the different debates. You have to consume that as a base starting point, but ultimately you have to become a scholar of your body. And at least for me, throughout that, the number one priority is to not stress too much

about it. So anyway, that's to give you a little bit of context of where I'm coming from with all this diet stuff. Okay, back to whatever I'm supposed to say in this ad read. Get 20% off your first purchase of any Monkpack product by visiting Monkpack.com and entering code you get the Lex at checkout. If you don't like it, they'll exchange your product or refund your money. Guaranteed.

That's Monkpack.com and Enter Code Lex. This episode is also brought to you by Element. Electrolite drink mix spelled LMNT. Just like with my last name, they don't have an E in their name. To do low carb diets correctly, the number one thing you have to get right in my opinion is the electrolytes specifically sodium potassium magnesium. That's where these guys come in. They take care of it. I don't have to think about it.

And it's kind of fascinating. So both in the fastening and the keto in general, how much of a difference of electrolytes in like sodium potassium magnesium can make? You can really feel shady. That's like the keto fluid that they talk about. You feel terrible. And almost in a matter of minutes,

if you consume salt with water, you just feel much better. I'm sure other people have this experience, especially if you do like long distance running, that kind of thing. Electrolites are magic. They can make the difference between sadness and happiness. Okay, Olympians use a tech people use it. I swear by this stuff. Try it at drinkelement.com slash Lex. That's drink LMNT.com slash Lex. This episode is sponsored by A Sleep and it's Pod Pro mattress. It controls temperature with an app.

It's packed with sensors. It can cool down to as low as 55 degrees. I need side to bed separately. You can also heat up to some ridiculous 55 degrees. I need side of the bed separately. You can also heat up to some ridiculous temperature, but I don't know why you would want to do that. I got to be honest about power naps. They have been amazing recently. I've been basically doing this thing where I sleep for like six hours and then do a nap for maybe 30 minutes to an hour. There's no signs to it. I just enjoy it. Like a big warm blanket with a cool bed.

That's like the definition of heaven. I also like that whole idea of making the things where we rely on smarter and smarter, like a smart bed, which is what this is with a bunch of sensors. It's almost like taking broadly, it's actually kind of expanding the compute surface of our lives. And so basically everything around this becomes a computer and it integrates.

There's of course privacy, surveillance, all those kinds of questions there, but we can't run away from them. We have to face them. Just because things are difficult, this doesn't mean we should like do the ostrich thing and hide from them. It's coming, let's embrace it, but Let's be serious adults slash serious engineers about it. 8th sleep has a pod pro cover so you can just add it to your mattress without having to buy the airs, but there's is pretty nice. I gotta tell you, it can track a bunch of metrics, like heart rate variability, but the cooling alone is honestly worth the money. Go to a sleep dot com slash Lex to get special savings. That's a sleep dot com slash Lex. This show is also brought to you by Rev and rev dot AI, which is by many metrics, the best speech detects AI engine in

the world. Rev in general is a company that does captioning and transcription of audio by humans and by artificial intelligence. I've been hanging out on Clubhouse on occasion recently and it's kind of interesting to think of this kind of technology being used in all kinds of contacts like during meetings, for example, like Zoom meetings, but at Clubhouse to be able to take a conversation, see this is where like privacy comes into play with consent of the speakers, which of course journalists often ignore this kind of notion of consent, and transcribe the conversations so they can be consumed and analyzed and thought about more broadly.

One way to deal with cancel cultures to run away from it, the other way is to run into it and deal with our ridiculousness with our hypocrisy with all the mess of human nature. So I'm a big fan of technologies that allow us to go through the fire as opposed to run away from the fire. Rev has processed over 16 billion minutes of audio and video to date. Rev.ai is the API part of Rev that allows you to use speech-to-text programmatically as a service. You can check out how well Rev AI performs in a seven-day free trial at Rev.ai slash Lex. You can tell English is my second language, although I can't speak Russian that well either.

I'm hopelessly lost in this problem with human communication. So again, that's Rev.ai slash Lex, the tap into the world's most accurate speech AI. And now, here's my conversation with Josh Barnett. Who were the philosophers and philosophical ideas that influence you the most? Are we just jumping right in? We're not in the deepest. We're not in the deepest. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no think it's interesting. And that was, I think as far as organized philosophy or maybe authentic, authentic, not the right word, but yeah, we'll say organized. I would say that Nietzsche is probably one of the people with the most influence on me. But I also feel like to a degree, your personality will oftentimes dictate what philosophers that you can you can vibe with. So what what what ideas from Nietzsche was that the Ubermatch?

Definitely the Ubermatch is huge to me because I see it as an extension of basically the religious concepts of God and higher ideals, but just put into a different, a secular context. And the idea also that the uber bench is striving and overcoming, you know, something that you're always working towards that very few will ever it's not like the the concept that you can just make them. It doesn't happen that way ever, it's not like the concept that you can just make them, it doesn't happen that way. And it's not based simply upon if you were, say, put through a genetic program and turned into a super soldier, like that wouldn't make it, you know,

that's like the very surface level and incorrect understanding what the Ubermenches, the Ubermenches is the idea of this kind of human that transcends all the weaker, lower aspects of humans which we're full of. But I also think that there's an element in Nietzsche's writing that suggests that it's not something you can even be in all the time, like it's even a temporary state

because it's not something that we're capable of maintaining. It's something to strive for. Like a morality, an image, the ideal, a set of principles that we can connect to that doesn't rely on otherworldly kind of out there things. Yeah, deeply human. With Nietzsche, I feel like the concept of the Uber

Munch is something built on authenticity as well. It's Heiterger, it's like a design, right? So when you are authentic, and Heiterger being a follower of Nietzsche's and highly influenced by him, with I think that the Uber Munch is an example of authenticity in that it isn't about trying to be anything that you cannot be or to go against who you are, but to actually understand that, accept that and then work with what you can work with and create from your

lump of clay that is you. I can't become certain there's certain things that are just not going to happen for me because it's not in my proclivity. I mean I'm never going to be you know five-foot tall and 120 pounds. I mean that again, I guess. But I know but as you get more in tune with who you are as you start learning more about what unique things or at least what that that combination that makes you that gestalt part of yourself, what those things are and how you can use them, then you know, you can work towards being that old taking what that is and seeing if you can get to that point. Now the likelihood is no, maybe probably never. I mean, but we can never achieve Godhood yet. And religion is a constant, you know, striving and a look at

a higher ideal concept. Even if it's multiple gods or one god, it's still essentially all built around this concept. Like, I like the idea of Catholics, original sin, if you think of sin not as evil, but as missing the mark, the archer's term where it derives or even like in Spanish, you know, without. So as being, if you accept that you are imperfect, if you accept that you need to constantly strive even against yourself, because you will figure out the best ways at which to submarine your own capabilities, submarine your own dreams and wishes and whatever, you will ruin them the best ways at which to submarine your own capabilities, submarine your own dreams and wishes and whatever. You will ruin them more than anything else. And you will tell yourself that you ruined them on purpose for a good reason, or you'll say that you'll figure out a

way to put it on everything else but yourself. And so the idea of thinking of, well, as I'm starting off on this whole thing, I got a lot of work to do. And that's just the way it is. And I got to figure out what areas those are going to be. And so, you know, I thought, if I think of a original sin actually can be, I can be kind of a clever idea, but it's also just accepting that we're all uniquely strange and unequal in our own ways. But we have to figure out how that fits in. The word authenticity kind of connects to all of that. So striving to be your authentic self means figuring out exactly the shape of the flaws. The the

character of your like little demons you get to play with and around them finding a path to whatever the hell. Ideal versions of yourself you can carve and pretending like that's such a thing as even possible. The other idea about Nietzsche is, on his idea of morality, he presents the argument that morality is a human illusion and that there's not such a thing as good and evil

and these are all kinda constructs. Do you think there's such a thing as good and evil that's connected to some objective reality? I think that there are some, I actually do believe that there are some universals, I'm not Kantian in any way, but I do think that there are some universals. And the thing that actually brought me to even the concept of that was Jung. So Jung's concept of collective unconsciousness and then taking that thought and then applying it

to looking through history. And the most varied history you can find. So I would say probably religion is your earliest one to that you can get for written history or written examples of human behavior and psychology at the furthest that we can look into it, with from man's hand to whatever the medium is, uniform or whatever. But as you do that, and then let's say going from Mesopotamia to India to Europe to, and just going from all these places as disparate as they may seem, as many different cultures and ethnicities and religions and how the religions will

vary quite a bit from monotheist to polytheist and so on and so forth. But then just seeing how there's all the through lines and of course Campbell, he did this much earlier than me thinking about it. But I think that by looking at things that way, and starting to find the threads instead of always just looking at everything as being its own compartmentalized concept, as if it only applies to this time, this people, like getting overly pomo about it is just a really idiotic postmodern.

So you think that there is just like Joseph Campbell, there's a thread that connects all of these stories, narratives that we construct the far ourselves as we evolve. And that thread is grounded in some kind of absolute ideas of maybe on the morality side, which is the trickiest one of good and evil. Somewhat, yeah, I think that a lot of this stuff

is just derived from a biological perspective. I feel like these things are inmate within us. Do you think our innately humans are good? Like we... No. I don't. I feel like, I also feel like there's an issue of scale too. Like Nessim Taleb likes to talk about how he views his,

the way he interacts with groups in terms of scale. You know, what is this thing about like at the familial level, I'm a communist, and then at the civic level, I'm a Republican or something, and at that other level, and then it goes on at the widest level, he's a libertarian or something of that in our nature, you know. Like, fundamentally, human interaction changes on scale, on scale. And scale and also from, you know, subjective to the environment around them. So, and I don't even mean environment just in the sake of physical environment,

nature, right? Like, nature is constantly trying to murder you. Well, it's not really trying. It's just nature is being nature, the universe is the universe. And at times it takes you out. It's just not with any particular compunction or prejudice, it just boops, you know, sorry, there's no more dotos, my bad. But don't you think the particular flavor of the complexity that is the human mind was created? Like, let me make argument for that all people are fundamentally good. Okay. Is there's an evolutionary advantage to being, to striving, to cooperate, to add more

love into the world of like compassion, empathy, all that kind of stuff, and that the very thing that created the human mind was this evolutionary advantage. What have the forces behind this evolutionary advantage? And scale. Yes. So when we're dealing with a small tribe, sure, when you meet another tribe, maybe there's other factors that are going to end to that. Let's say you scale up and so your 150 has exceeded their 150 and

like you start to get to a certain point where you can't really be close enough to someone down the line of some of that next like that 150's 150, 150 and they just now all of a sudden become some guy, whatever. And when it comes to some guy, at once it starts hitting scale, I don't know that it's capable. People can be as as magnanimous to the stranger as to the known. If they orient themselves to be secure enough, because it does come a security insecurity, and one way or the other either brought on by the unknown, brought on by an actual threat, brought on by even their own, as we would use the word insecurity in that their own

insecurity within their own capabilities, their own belief in themselves, all these things can change things from being compassionate and what have you to at least at the very least, maybe not evil, but self-interested and to the amount of resources available. So if we're overflowing with resources in terms of security and safety, all the things you've mentioned, if we have more than enough resources, then the way we treat a stranger, the way we position ourselves towards that stranger, might be in a way that allows us to be our real human selves, as opposed to our animal self. And therefore, it's mostly about how clever can we descend into the Vhabes B in coming up

with all cool kinds of technologies and ways to efficiently use the resources we have such that we're not constrained. And my hope is that we can, that human innovation will outpace the growth of our, the number of people that are starving for resources. Yes, I think that there's a lot of rationality behind this argument.

And in some ways, I agree. And in a lot of ways I see it as missing the point of how this experiment has been playing out across time. When you look at what for one, it's like define resources. What is a resource of humans would define it, right, or wealth even? And so you can say, well, an iPhone is a resource, the internet is a resource, water obviously is a resource. But if we weigh them, what is more important to human beings? Water, internet, or iPhones. It's water, right? So if we look at resources, if we start with, what do human beings need to live?

I mean, actually live. Not live here in this bullshit fantasy creation, extension of our own ingenuity, and a prison of our own creation, and also a paradise of our own creation. But this is not how human beings normally live. This is all built upon stuff, built on concept, on idea, and some of its built on just, well, this is the paradigm, so this is what you do. Human beings need food, they need water to survive, they need shelter from the elements. And they need certain skills to perpetuate these things and be able to pass them down so that

they can, so that these things don't become, you don't end up in this gap where you have to relearn things because if it's lost, then that time before you can get it back again is going to be a dark ages of sorts, you know, or it's going to be highly detrimental to your group because not knowing how to fish, not knowing how to hunt, not knowing how to even clean and cook the game once you have it could be lethal. That's fascinating. I think that is a basic resource. The knowledge to attain the very low of water and water. Right. And we'll figure it out. We did it once before, and we've done it over and over and over and over again. Just costly. Yes, it has costs for sure. But when you think of how you look at the, well, we'll just deal with the first world of the West. You look at the

the path way of Western civilization and its growth and then you look at how technology injected into it over time, how it magnifies things or pushes things at orders of magnitude faster and then the internet comes along and even faster, you know. So you're watching a industrial revolution to, what is it, the capacitor and then so on. It goes further and further. And as the internet and technology, especially on electronic side of things, start increasing in capability, it massively outpaces even our necessity for it at times. It becomes, you know, plant obsolescence happens quicker and over and over and over again. And wealth increases, increases, increases, increases in terms of the things that we're

able to acquire, right? I mean, I've seen homeless people with smartphones. So we're living in the most well-flatin, luxury, latent age of all of humanity yet. What happens when we see calamity or people go on hard time? What are the things that they value? What are people go to an argument

about the cost of things that are luxury items generally and not necessity items. We get into fights about things that are at the end of the day not necessities to us. People are so concerned about Netflix and the internet and personally, I'm very concerned about the internet because I look at it as my own little personal library of Alexandria in my pocket. That's what I love about it. And the ability to have a tool as effective as it is, even though I'm in a constant

battle, to not let that tool become a vice or to become something that actually bring me to a lower state. But the question is over the, are we willing to murder each other over Netflix versus murder each other of a water? We're willing to murder each other over water. That's a given. Right. But that's our animalistic selves of that. Well, it's also a necessity for it's animalistic, but it's also either you do it or you don't. Right? Like, unless somebody's willing to share that water or if that water is of such a limited capability or such a limited amount, then you will have to murder to have that one.

Netflix, the argument is the higher we get up to this hierarchy of what we consider in Los Angeles resources. Yes, we were less willing to be to commit violence. We were less willing to commit violence. We're less willing to commit violence, that oh, I would say over Netflix, but we are willing to commit violence over Netflix. Over everything associated with Netflix, over televisions, over sneakers, over, over,

you know, I mean, when we look at a good, I mean, the majority of the stuff that came with the riots, I mean, it was use card dealerships, targets. I mean, and then you look and it's like, well, okay, what are people, what do they got, what are they, so hell bent to get out of this whole thing. And I'm even talking about the ideological elements or anything like that, just like, okay,

something's going on, boom, looting, whatever. Yeah. What are you gonna loop? Yeah. You know, you'll have AOC say, oh, people needing bread. Like, name, I didn't see a single loaf of bread. You know, I saw television and poetry jobs. And, you know, but to me, it is poetry in a sense because you get to see who we,

how we actually are operating, you know, what are, what is becoming first principles to most people, but, but you could also argue that those rights were more like the madness of crowds, which is definitely a lot more than just that. I'm just saying that given a chance, it's like, okay, boom, the, the lights are off, the grid is down. We, we've hacked into the whole system, turn into an 80s movie. And you have the ability to go get a hold of whatever it is that

you think is most important. What do we do? And I say we, as in, including all of us, we grab a TV. We break into a sneaker store in Melrose. We do, it's just like, we still giant cause statues, where the value of that is completely market driven. I can't cause statues, or the value of that is completely market-driven. It's just a piece of polypropylene or whatever, butyl, and it's cool.

I'm a big fan of art, but it's like, I can't eat that, and at the end of the day, man, you're sitting there with your, like, what'd you do today, honey, what'd you get? And we were able to, oh, I got this designer art statue. Are you gonna go, well, you can't really sell it on the art markets where people were really gonna pay for it. So are you gonna become an underground art dealer

with your one piece of cause art? One interesting thing is just before I forget it, you mentioned the Library of Alexandria and your phone. Well, your phone, but also just thinking of your little world that you're creating for yourself on the internet. This is a really powerful way to actually raise it. One of the things that you've been on Joe Rogan several times. Although, everybody always comes to me,

oh, that was so great. I didn't know. You're on Joe Rogan, I go, this is like my fifth time, dude. I've been a fan of yours for a long time from other avenues. This is like my fifth time, dude. I've been a fan of yours for a long time from other avenues. This is a long time coming, actually. Everybody, you have no idea like how many times through messaging and missing each other over the years.

This is ridiculous. This is a long time coming. You don't realize how special this is for us. Well, I'm also a starstruck. We'll talk about this, but you symbolize something very important to me through my journey through wrestling through Jiu-Jitsu through Judo through just street fighting through just combat There's a you're the in some sense the devil on my shoulder of like of violence in a good in the in a Devil gets a bad rap does he does get a bad rap.

If I realize, you know, sitting in case and ice down at that low ass level, you know, but, you know, the angel side is more like the athletic, the sport, the science, the technical, the chess side of things. So, but on the library, I'll examine, let me ask, because you were on Joe Rogan, it does make me really sad. And I realized that I'm just probably being romantic

that his most of his library of interviews that were on YouTube have not been taking down because he wanted to Spotify. And that was the first, I'm probably an idiot, but it was the first time I realized that this knowledge that we've been building up on the internet doesn't necessarily last forever. No, it doesn't. Unless you preserve it. I mean, it's like all things. If you do not preserve them, if you do not make efforts, you know, so many of my, it just really brings to mind around

the top of my head. So many friends of mine that are Jewish, you know, they're basically secular. But yet, through even the secular aspect of just keeping the traditions alive, it's like, well, you could always pick a book and read about it, clearly. It's called the Torah. But if you don't put these things into action, if you don't make them a part of your consciousness,

maybe even on the subconsciousness, just through repetition, they will die. They will become simply something that exists somewhere until you find it again. And Carl got used to say something. He would say that I don't invent moves. I just rediscover them. But yet, goth and Billy Robinson also would understand that you, if someone's not carrying the torch, it'll go out. Now, it doesn't mean fire can't be rekindled. It just means that that torch no longer is lighting the way on this knowledge. And so it's important to be an individual, even on an individual level, to be a repository for

for aspects of knowledge. You mentioned, God, you consider yourself a catch wrestler. So I've mentioned to you offline that I competed in a couple of catch-rested tournaments. Can we go Wikipedia level at the very basic year, the exactly right person to ask what is catch-restling and what are its defining principles? I would say the easiest way for us to talk about and give an overview of what catch is and the simplest terms is think of collegiate wrestling with submissions. That is essentially what catch is and it's not surprising because collegiate wrestling is actually derived from catches catch can. It's just that over time, certain aspects were removed from the competition structure so that they became no elements, things that were discarded. But it's funny that you can take high level amateur collegiate types

and you can show them a move and then add a little bit to it and go, oh, well, hey, that was just like what we already do here, but except, oh, I didn't know you could take it all the way to this point, or, you know, things of that nature, especially when it comes to professional wrestling, like teaching people, like, no, that, I know you're just using this in a show, but this is actually a real move, and here's how it really feels. And so collegiate wrestling and wrestling in general for people who are not aware is basically two people starting their feet and they have to score, they're trying to take each other

down and they have to score points along the way. You can end matches by pinning them, for example, on their back. I think one way to describe breastling is it's very much about figuring out ways to establish control and leverage in these kind of tie-ups or there's different styles where you can do more from a distance to where it's more about the timing and all that kind of stuff. Ultimately, it's an art of like both upper body and lower body. And you could choose the different puzzles that you solve there.

You could be attacking the head, the arms. You could be attacking the legs. There's also part of collegiate wrestling that's on the ground that has more, what's called like a referee's position over there. The referee's position where you're on your hands and knees, basically. And so, do you understand what that's supposed to simulate? Right. The referee's position where you're on your hands and knees basically and so

Do you understand what that's supposed to simulate? Why is that one of the standard positions? It's one of the standard positions because one is one of the easiest ways to actually get up But two it's because you cannot be on your back if you're on your back you're getting pinned and Back exposure or being pinned is pretty much the universal wrestling thing. One, taking the guy from their feet to the floor, and two, pinning them. As you go from like, was it Cornish wrestling, Turkish oil wrestling, Mongolian, Sumo, Indian, with a call it Pellwani, it's also called kushti, jujitsu, judo. So many of them is, there's a Yusambo, even if it doesn't end the match, it's still like one of the most

important aspects of the competition itself across every style. And this is where submission, like catch wrestling or submission wrestling or jiu-jitsu feels different, which it seems like for most wrestling, for a lot of wrestling, the dominance is the goal, as opposed to submission, which I guess those are two are related, but dominating the position. That's what pinning is. It's almost like breaking your opponent, breaking through all of their defenses to where they're completely defenses, and you could do anything with them that you want.

Maybe it's a, what could be a definition of dominance, I don't know. And then it sounds very much like a chain to a radiator. Yeah. Yeah, there's a threat that connects all the winners. But submission feels different. I mean, it is actually different when you think about it across the landscape. I don't think radically different, but distilled, slightly different

in that, if you think of wrestling as being derived from combat, right? So, well, it is combat sports, but more lethal combat. Getting somebody off their feet and onto their back is about a lethal place for the person on bottom to be in general. I mean, don't come at me with your talks about your fucking worm guards and blah, blah, blah and whatever fit spider, barram. Okay, get out of here with that. This is, we're not talking about you in this highly regimented sporting environment. We're talking about general, you know, all the body hair, none of the waxing human beings. So, um, getting someone on their back, okay, they're, how, you guys, you're trying to get up, you're getting hit with a rock or stabbed or what have you

set on fire? Who knows? Generally, these conflicts are not just isolated to one on one. It's, if it's four on two, you're, you're, you're, your, your buddy that was with you back to back. Now, he's on his back. What do you think? And now it's going to be one on one, well buddy that was with you back to back. Now he's on his back. What do you think? And that was gonna be one on one, well three go on one. So, and then you go, you elevate this to armored combat, right? And it's boom, put them on the ground. All crap, it's hard to get up.

Well, while you're struggling to get up, stab, that's where Jiu-Jitsu's concepts come from with all their leveraging and off balancing is, oh man, if I end up in this situation and tight close quarters combat yes we could fight it out with swords and knives and what have you but it's way easier if the first thing I can do is foot sweep you on your back and then pull my knife and just go stick. Is there a thread that connects all of these different arts from not just arts but from the very base violence of war.

Just like you said, there's no rules to the very regimented IBJF. I do. It's just to turn them. You kind of laid out some of it, but can you go all the way to the... So when you start off with absolute skills in the sense of absolute offense and defense in the taking or preserving of life, like Pholon at its purest form of self-defense and self-preservation. And then you extrapolate part of that in that all animals train in violence. part of that in that all animals train in violence.

All play usually degenerates into some sort of soft violence. So be it cats, when they're kittens and puppies and everything learns how to kill, how to fight. Not that, you know, just that dumb alpha meme stuff where the idea is that, oh, by being alpha, that means you've run around like basically just being a bully and a shithead and it's no actually alpha wolves spend very little time fighting because if you were actually alpha you don't get into fights there's no need to and if you are probably getting into any large amount of fights it's probably

because you're being a shitty at being an alpha and now people are tired of you being in charge. And yet, in the animal world, and it would be the same for human beings at that base beginning level of violence, there's a big risk. So, I know that we live in this place with where or you might be in a place with nationalized health whatever right there's there's there's band-aids there's there's penicillin there's all that kind of stuff but that's not the normal way of things you know there's a channel that just hurts me every time I used to fall and I had to unfollow because it those two painful for me

Is a human being called nature's metal. Oh, yes, Instagram. It was sobering and then it was like this is too sober. I have very sobering So in there the risk is at its highest level. They're the Damage you take. Mm-hmm. The winner walks away hurt getting lame and when you need every aspect of your How much you take? The winner walks away. Heart. Getting lame. And when you need every aspect of your physical and athletic faculties to survive,

because it isn't going to be the first, and it's definitely not going to be the last, especially if you're the slowest one. It was a lyric from a clutch song. Don't go for the fat ones, just go for the slow ones. Ha ha ha ha. Um, and but that the universal truth of the way nature works. It's not cruel.

It's not cruel is just the way it is. Yeah, I mean, watch animals getting the fights on, on any of these sort of documentary stuff. You'll see an intense short and then dispersal. Like you'll see as soon as one feels like, uh, things have switched just enough to boom the bear or whatever it is takes off. It's like, I'm not, I'm done with this because if you can get out of there with just some scars and what have you, okay, you lose an eye. No, it's not as good. You really get hurt bad and get infected, you're done.

There's a serious risk to be that can come with these sort of things. Yet, I believe that we are inherently born for at least aspects of use of violence. At the end of the day, we need these things not just to not just survive each other, but they're they're a part of being able to hunt and other things. But so violence is a part of human nature. Violence is a is like an it's an absolute. It is in every person. It is a part of every interaction. It is a part of every every law, everything. And I'm not by the way, not an an cap. So don't even, don't, don't hit your wagon to me on that one.

NCAP was an architect and ask our capitalist, yes. Not, not an NCAP. But they have nice book, bookshops. Yeah, they do. I mean, I'm not, I'm like it is, you know, sit here and, and talk NCAPs. Although I also used to get into the conversations with, with an, an arco-communist, a good friend of mine, and he would bring up this stuff and I'm like, yeah, cool man, I'm down with Ann Arkey,

you ain't gonna like it. What do you mean, I go, because I'm gonna gather all kinds of people, I'm gonna get the strongest together and I'm going to take your shit. Okay, actually on that topic, I've a friend of mine now, a fellow Russian Ukrainian Michael Malas. Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with Michael Malas. I watched a little bit of your guys' conversation. So this is really good to ask you because I like how he's in the white suit

and you're in the white and black. But he lives in New York City. He is as well as his ideas at Manarchism. And his idea, and this is different than sort of the iron ran set of ideas, there's a line between sort of capitalism that's backed by the state and pure anarchism and his idea that violence won't take over in an anarchism is one that feels to me Not grounded in reality. I may be I may be wrong. So is there some? So the idea with pure capitalism is that you mean, laissez-faire completely deregulated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what it will agree,

it'll end up in one, it'll end up in if you're anti-globalist, it's going to be that. It's going to be globalist 100% because it has no, pure, has no consideration for, has no consideration for your native users or of any sort. Yeah, the land doesn't matter. But the idea of governments is that the land, the little piece of land geographically you're born on means you're going to stick to whatever our founding documents created that little land. So anarchism is against that. And the

argument is you should be able to choose which ideas you live with. And the concern there is nobody, this geographical little land, the governments that organize on that land will not, do not need to protect you from the violence. In my sense, there does need to be an army, there does need to be police that help, however the form that police takes, but there needs to be a more centralized, not completely centralized, but more centralized safety net of the protection

from the violence. So scale again, right? So if you want to have your anarchist utopia, well, will you go and call it utopia? Your anarchist creation here. At certain scale, I'm sure it's doable, you know. But as the scale increases, it's completely untenable and a state will emerge.

A state will always emerge. Because even people always think of states as like people rubbing their hands and smoking cigars and back rooms and just out of nowhere coming along, it's like, oh, we're going to create this big centralized thing and just so we can tell everybody what to do and we can be in charge. I mean, I know that there are people like that that exist, that they would like to do things of that nature and that they see the use of power as something to be used more for their personal gains over first, which again, self interest and human beings. But eventually, a state people want, they want something to go like okay Who's taking care of this and who's taking care of that and who and how do we create some sort of some sort of

Protocol for this like okay. Well when it's not Bob when is it Susie? When is it whatever? I mean like how do we you know? It's got to get done if we want this thing to become bigger, if we want our, all of our plumbing to work right. If we want, it's just, I'm sorry, a state's going to happen. A state is also, when you think about it, it's supposed to have consideration to tribe, right? So if people think that we're not tribes, well, you're not, you're not really thinking

very deeply. We're all tribes of a sort. And everybody likes to use the word tribalism in this idea of this antagonistic concept. But, and while of sure, tribalism can be antagonistic, tribalism can also be a positive thing, or I could just say it just seems to be a natural thing. People, they create their groups of one sort or another. And so when you have, create their groups of one sort or another. And so when you have, well, when you think about where, when nation states really started to become a thing,

and I don't mean even the more modern looking variants that we could think back up and say the 19th century or something like that, even older than that. I mean, you think the Assyrians didn't have a state of some sort, of course they did. How do you increase your empire if you don't actually have a place to start for us? It's a bit of a rule.

You're saying naturally, when you start talking thinking about scale of humans, naturally states emerge. And can we try to make an argument for anarchism? Which is, okay, okay. Okay. Can we try to make an argument for anarchism, which is? So, uh, uh, energy in a sense is an opposition to the unhelpful, unproductive, inefficient bureaucracies that eventually the states lead to. So, yes, and that's what we can see. I mean, I would say less anarchy, let more study James Burnham, you know, or well, anybody that wants to talk about the managerial problem and the managerial. So you have a sense, I hope, maybe let's think like, what is the path forward with the inefficient state?

Is it revolution or is it to work within the system to constantly improve it? Man, I don't know that one. I mean, my general sense, and maybe this is the Nietzsche and part of me is that yeah, it would take, maybe not even just, maybe not even defining it specifically as revolution. Maybe it would just take total calamity

to get people to stop being shitty, to not stop being a lesser version of themselves, to stop thinking more about things from the paradigm that we exist in now, where we're giving so much value to stuff that isn't really all that valuable. We're so concerned about likes, and I don't just mean, like, whether we get them or not, but that, oh, man, maybe we should take this off of our platform, because this

is too destabilizing to people. And it's like, because once you exceed Dunbar's number, I think it's actually without having the right faculties, which would need to be developed, because this is dealing with tech that brings things, ways of approaching being that we are not naturally programmed to be able to handle appropriately. So, and I think even more, it's even more detrimental to women than men, because I think it's even more detrimental to women than men,

because I think women have a more natural percolivity towards group association and more group oriented thinking and patterning. And now, and also coupled with seemingly more sensitivity towards human states. So I feel like women, like the classic idea is like, oh, you know, women are psychic, you know, I have a sixth sense and what have you. And I think that's just a way of simplifying what I think is that women may be more in tune with picking up on the unsaid, like they might be better at seeing physical cues, inflection and tone, like they may be far more sensitive to these things, which to me would make sense because dealing

with children that can't communicate. So, so. There's generally more of this, than it can all the full force. Right. Now, okay, now whether it be a woman or a man, but especially with even the social push on this concept of empathy,

which of course it gets to the point where it loses any meaning anymore. Like people use an empathy absolutely incorrectly all the time and they don't even understand what you're really asking of people. But let's just take it as we're using empathy in the correct sense.

And you're taking on the emotional content of the thing itself. Now you open that up to thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, all across the world, that you will never know that you're not even getting an actual true representation most of the time of who these people are. You're meeting persona. And some of these personas are even deliberately created to elicit a response in authentically. Are you referring to bots or could be bots or actual people?

Bots are one thing, but I mean, there are literal people out there that will create something, create GoFundMe's for tragedies that never really, or events that didn't happen or any number of things. Okay, I mean burn their own house down and then say, you know, we were attacked and then it comes down, oh, you did it to yourself because you wanted money and empathy and this that and you wanted all this, this emotional, what wealth, let's say, this emotional coin, as well as actual, if possible, you wanted to leverage it in some way. That's not the majority of people, but I would say a good amount of folks are thinking, well, if I post this photo,

and I put this little blurb in there, I bet I can get this much cash out of it in this sense. And I'm not even, and this isn't just a reference to like butt picks and stuff like that, because clearly obviously, people understand that our inborn sexual nature is easy to manipulate. I mean, that's pretty obvious. that are inborn sexual nature is easy to manipulate. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But you're saying this kind of new medium of communication

on social media is unnatural. And it prays on us. And so as you want this, you look at an anarchist kind of mindset and so it's just like, there's no, there is no overarching state to create any kind of structure. Right? And so, if you have that unfettered capitalism aspect with it, and before I say anything, particularly damning about unfettered capitalism, I'm a massive capitalist because I view capitalism essentially as what do boils down to? These arguments of people too, they give me all these extra definitions about capitalism like no, no, this is obviously some sort of theory you're taking from other shit, but

that doesn't describe capitalism. Capitalism is the ability for us to create whatever we want, create our thoughts, ideas, physical things, and trade them freely amongst each other in ways that we find acceptable. I'm not even using the word fair, because I might think it's fair to me. You might think, well, I mean, that was actually, I think what he thought was unfair to him, and it's more fair to me. And then someone, a third observer goes, oh man, you should have paid that for that.

You should have paid this. And it's like, well, you know what, it works for me. Without... It's sufficiently acceptable that you both agree to the transaction. Correct. But also at the root of that is freedom, right? And as far as I can tell,

I've been banging this around in my head, it's like for every one unit of freedom, you need two units of accountability. And if you don't have that, what you end up with is, it's human self-interest. We're not even gonna get into evil. Human self-interest, sabotaging other things,

even not in a sense to be malicious. Okay, so in terms of, let's put this as mathematically speaking, I love this. So anarchism is more like two units of freedom and one unit of accountability, or maybe zero units of accountability. Possibly. The anarchists tend to think like,

no, everyone will be accountable. It's like, fuck they will. When have you seen this happen in real life? You know, I mean, people aren't even accountable in their revolutions after that time. So you aren't looking at the way people really are. It's like, Marx is like, yeah, the people are like this. They're like that. Look at how capitalism does it.

I mean, he, of course, it signs a lot of really ridiculous economic principles in practice. But I also assumes that everybody, who makes any profit from anything is somehow stealing it and really assigns a negative moral aspect to them. And then it's like, oh yeah, but eventually, communism will happen. No one will act that way anymore.

And you're like, whoa, hold on. You just said that people are all, are you saying it's all due to capitalism? Or is it innate? It's just, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of, and it's like, hey, look at you. You're like a notorious, like, anti-Semitic, angry, like,

just absolute curmudgeon of a human being who seems to be really not all that fun to be around. Marks? Yeah. And then it's just like, she have to think like if there was one billion Marxists in the world, they would behave. They would behave. It would be absolutely.

They would hate each other so bad. And you know, this isn't for me to even poison the well on Marx is like always personality sucks Like there's lots of people whose personality sucks. That doesn't mean they can't make I don't know that it's never what you know somebody argues he's just a he's a loner I mean, I don't know this personality sucked at all Let me walk that back and that he was human say his personality sucked He was sometimes contradictory, irrational. Sometimes he was quite sexist despite the emails I've gotten that that that that's like the emails I've got

about. That told me that that there's that there's people who's written to me that Nietzsche has been unfairly labeled as sexist in his discussion about women. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of documents where he's just like, he's just a bitter guy. I will agree with you and Marx is as bitter as they come to, but a bitterness in and of itself doesn't make, why I hate Marxism comes from, you know, the whole,

the entirety of the thing. And but the dismissal of human nature, but I'm not going to say that Marxism or practic man, you can find any forbidden book and it could have something good in it. It's colonel's a good idea. Yeah. and like at the end of the day, you know, Marx is a human being. He's got a nice beard. He does. He had a hell of a beard. Yeah, it'd be some portrait.

I mean, he looks like the kind of guy like, I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, but thankfully, I don't think he was much of a fighter. But in any case, I mean, not the anarchists are more hot for like Max Steiner. People like to think that Nietzsche borrowed a lot from Steiner and my argument is one, you don't have any real evidence for that and two bullshit. You know, I mean, anybody could, I, the fact that they have some overlapping thoughts doesn't make it lifted, not to mention, go read more philosophy and see how there's so many different things.

Oh, this guy said it in 1722. Well, and then this guy says that again in 1922, does that mean he read the other guy's stuff? Not necessarily. I mean, he's working from the same type of human physiological construct as anybody else. Of course, it's possible this guy could think the same thing. We think a lot of the same things to be perfectly honest. Reading the Haga Kurei going back to philosophy books, this was really impactful on me as a younger

adult because here's a book written in the 19th century about someone who lived through the 19th and 18th century at times, as a samurai, now a monk, and his objections to society at the time, the same objections, one was having to society, as I was reading it, like the same human behaviors, the same impetus for action that he found a problem. Like, well, that's the same, that's the same shit now. Like, we're not, and this is the thing, and then I'm reading more religion,

and I go, oh, we're no different than anyone who wrote the Torah or older. We are the same thing with the same problems, with the same psychological issues, the same human behaviors, like these things are not different. Yeah. And we haven't changed.

Growing set of tools though to kill each other with or communicate together and all the kind of stuff, but underlying it is a human nature. Well, we're also trying to understand that human nature. I think we've just like you said, learning how to fish acquired more and more knowledge about that human nature, but it's been a very slow journey, slower than people realize, yes, in terms of understanding human nature. Let me ask in terms of egoism, it'd be curious, uh, to get your sense about iron rand and, um,

her whole idea of virtue of, like, selfishness, her, her, because you mentioned that everybody has a kernel of truth. There is potential for a kernel truth to be discovered in anything. For example, I've been recently reading Mein Kampf. You know what, that's the thing. Even there's something in,

there's probably things in Mein comp that are not the surface level read. If you get all hung up on on all probably all his crap about, you know, his anger, anger at Jews and this and that, all this crap, it's like, okay, yeah, that's right on the surface. Try to get below that. Try to see, you know, how is he, how is he creating the Jews as a cope somehow? Like how is he using, why, why are they his, his scapegoat? And I mean scapegoat in the, so Renny Gerard's concept of the scapegoat, I mean, in that sense, whereas, uh, you know, Hitler uses, it wants to make the, the Jews, the scapegoat for World War One. Yeah, I mean, for me, the starting point, similar to that in Rand, is like, my

confidant is not a good place to search, not just because Hitler is evil, but it's just not full of ideas. No, it is not. It has its significance due to a lot of things. Historically speaking, but the starting point for me with Hitler is like to acknowledge that he's human and to at least consider the possibility that any one of us could have been Hitler. So like that, not that... That's the Peterson kind of concept.

Also, Jonathan Height has a thing about the difference between hate and disgust mechanisms and things like that. And so he goes into the, looking at Hitler and his, through his diary entries and journals and stuff like that. And so he goes into the looking at Hitler and his, through his diary entries and journals and stuff like that to look and see it more as the discussed mechanism, then also try and see if there's any evolutionary biological attachment to this, whatever. I mean, you're right, he is a human being. Any of us are all human beings. He is a human being. And we're all human beings. It's not that it's probably jarring for people to think, but we're all, I guess, supposed potentially capable

of just being in all these evil people in the world. Think they're doing it for the sake of good, which makes them the most dangerous. And there's some, there's differences in levels of insane. I think here there was way more insane than Stalin. I think Stalin, legitimately thought he was being doing good. I would say that's probably true. Stalin was just outright brutal.

But he had, he had his five year plan. He had to look at the things. He's just had a much lower value for human life. Yes. And so he was willing to take, make decisions about what he actually, as a good executive, which he was of managing different bureaucracies and so on. He was willing to make decisions that resulted

in mass human suffering, where Hitler was, it seems like to me, much moody air. So, a lot of emotions and moves to make decisions. I think we also have to consider the different trajectories and where and when they were making their decisions. And I mean, not by time specifically, but Hitler engaged into this conflict across multiple continents. And then that everything that comes with basically fighting the whole world, Stalin had his conflict, and then he really mostly compartmentalized the rest of it. So he was dealing with his own internal, instead of dealing with the internal and the external.

So if Stalin was put under a World War scenario, I don't know, maybe he would have eventually lost his marbles too. Yeah, I'm not sure that you're right. The hunger for power was more internalized for Stalin. He wanted to control the land that already existed as opposed to wanting to colonize other land. He was as nationalistic as Hitler, but and was as capable and willing for violent conflict as Hitler for the names of the state. But he he he centered and internalized prior to then externalizing and moving outwards. Whereas even maybe prior to him, there was an interest to continually push communism

in an aggressive sense following on the momentum from the 1918 revolution. And that, the halting of that through various aspects, I guess, in Germany, part of that was the National Socialist. Like, they came up and then they were the other ones to fight the communist, and so you had the two totalitarians going after it. But then in the rest of the world that was not dealing with totalitarian aspects, it was just it wasn't going to stick, especially in the West and other places, but Stalin, just you know, casually thinking, like Stalin decided, all right, well we're not gonna go just

start launching right into more conflicts here. We're gonna, these dudes are going down, so that's cool for us, because they hate us and we hate them. But now we're going to focus internally and then we're going to work on growing at a slower rate and picking our battles a bit more specifically. And of course, there's, you know, you can get to the, even this is after-stolen, but you got the Bezmanov type stuff talking about subversion in cultural aspects. Yeah, I mean, this fascinating dynamics to propaganda throughout the normal period, that's a whole another kernel. Yeah.

Do you think Hitler could have been stopped? One of the things that's kind of fascinating to look at is how many nations, both journalists and nations, wanted, almost crave to take Hitler's word that he wanted peace until it was too late They almost wanted to be dilute themselves I mean the same is true with the Stalin People wanted to take Stalin at his word for it still dilute themselves. Yeah, that way will dilute wait We will dilute ourselves over any number of things and Until even after the fact where the history just says,

hey, fuckface, you know, you cannot supplement your pseudo reality onto actual reality here. But yet, we deal with people in pseudo realities constantly. I mean, we will always find a way to change reality to suit our needs. Well, the nature of truth now, there's now multiple actual truths.

It's kind of fascinating. There's multiple versions of history that people are telling. You know, the version of the Great Patriotic War in Russia, the World War II in Russia, is very different today under Putin than the version that we're learning in the United States and a different than different version in Europe. In the United States, the hero of the war is the United States. In Europe, there's a much more sad and solemn story of suffering and so on. In Russia, it's the great patriotic war.

Yes, it was a unifier, I don't argue that war and conflict, or I just even reducing that to stressors, agitation, suffering, doesn't create human motivation. We started this off. You brought up a, I'm like, yeah, Frankl is dope. Man, this is for meaning. Has those great. And I talked to you about how I started to think like, man, do the ability for human beings to live and or potentially flourish in the worst environments you can think of is pretty incredible in and of itself, and that it's a crazy thought to think that without

Franco and Maslow ending up in concentration camps, do they write some of the most important books on philosophy in the 20th century? And that's insane on a lot of different levels. But. Yeah, suffering is a creative force. I mean, I don't, do you think we'll always have war?

Yes. We will always have war in some form or another. We, we need quote unquote, air quotes for those who's listening, uh, war to survive. We need war to flourish. We need at least, can you explain the quote of the air quotes of our war?

Well, because, uh, take, take, take the, does the wars as violence no words of violence so like so no our quotes because while you know us getting on the mat or just getting on these hardwood floors and wrestling around yeah is not literal war it's war of a sorts you know work you know it is it is a deluded form of war American football is a deluded form of war all American football is a deluded form of war. All of this is these are deluded forms of war. Tennis is a deluded form of war. And I think one of the best explanations I ever got from this, another person very impactful on my life and outlook and thinking about things, Cornback McCarthy. And so in Blood Meridian, there's this fantastic speech about war given by the judge,

which there's a ton of fantastic speeches on things given by the judge. Yeah, all that exists in creation without my knowledge does so without my consent. Well, okay, that's pretty heavy. That's, that's hard. Can you break that up? Can you say that again?

All things that exist in creation, all things that exist without my knowledge do so without my consent. What does that mean? Well, I think from the judges perspective, it's like, well, I didn't consent to that bird or that dog or this building or all this, like all of this, you know, I didn't create it. So it's done so without my consent. And if it's up to my consent, well, I'll design how I want to. There's another similar look into how the judges in that book is he would study everything everywhere he went. And so he's

collected this group of Nerduels from all over to go on these hunts against certain tribes in the Southwest and getting paid by the U.S. government and the Mexican government. So he's on these Indian hunts and yet they're going to all these different places and they would stay the night in a cave somewhere and he would find cave paintings, he would write them all down, or he would find old pieces. There's an example of him, the narrator explaining how to watch in the judge and how he drawing, everything, he gets to know book just full of things, drawings and writings, and how he found like a piece of armor from a conquistador or something way back

in the day of Spanish armor. He draws it into his book and then crushes it. You know. So the reason we'll always have war in the societies because there's these struggle amongst people that want to be the designers. There's that, but I'm just saying that he's got this whole quote on war like war is about is is play. War is a game and the difference is is at what's at stake. So all things are a game of some sort and some you're putting up for it or what you're willing to put up for it determines whether

or not you're going to participate or not. And all aspects of any game is war. And it's just, what does it stake? If it's your life, it's a different story. If it's just a coin, it's another thing. And nice way to put it is humans play a game in this kind of pursuit of creating. Whatever the hell the reason is that we keep creating cool and cooler things that that it seems to be the result of a game that would naturally play with naturally crave i don't know

that's been the struggle of philosophy is to understand what is the underlying force of all that is that the will to power is i think will to power is a really great way of describing it. Do you want to be the winner of the game? No, not just, I don't look at will to power as being the winner of the game. Well, I mean, if we're going to get philosophical, yes, you want to be the winner of the game. What does winning the game define how you win? Everyone is going to define that win differently.

You could define the win in the most base level like, Oh, I got all the things. Well, if you got all those things without the the needing component of fulfillment, then you're going to be a very unhappy person with a whole lot of things. There's a self referential aspect to where to me, the winner of the game is defined by the people playing the game. So if I'm playing a game, I want to win in the sense that most of the other people who are playing the game will say, yeah, that guy won by there, by our collective definition

of what if I just come up, listen, I'm sort of, if I come up, that's a lot of, that's a lot of weight on the external on you. Right. But that's, that's how games seem to work. Some what so I'm already a winner in my life by defining my own I'm I'm basically the best person in the world at doing me at being Lex. Yeah, so like and that I'm really happy that That's that's the source of well, I mean think about it. Games are also what iterated, right? So you start off with your game Yeah, and then start off with your game, and then your game with your immediates,

and then the game further than that, and the game further than that, and then the game today and the game tomorrow, and the game next week, and so it never ends. And if you try to keep thinking about it that way, and no wonder people go crazy, but we don't wanna think about things that way. We don't wanna think about being towards death.

We don't wanna think about whether or not I'm going anywhere after this other than in the ground or what have you. Well, all of these games are since some distraction. This is where we've tried to. But I mean, it's violence is that we need to let this out. And so it is of our kids need a wrestling play, just like animals need a wrestling play, we need to have forms of competition, we need to have ways to test ourselves, to create when, what is it, when a piece of man of war makes war with himself. And so we need to be able

to competently go at war with ourselves and go at war with our neighbor and go at war with our neighbor's neighbor in a way that is repeatable at the very least. So one way of saying that there will always be war, I mean, that's my hopeful view is that most of the war conducted in the future will be, like you said, the man might go to war with himself. That would be great. That's what to me love is, is like focusing on yourself and your own improvement, on your own creativity, and towards others feeling,

sort of emphasizing cooperative behavior and compassion and empathy. It would be great, but I mean, you can have, well, I'll put it to you this way. If you have a whole community of Randians and a whole community of Ancoms, and they could all like, I don't know, a toast of London on Netflix, and they love Netflix, and they love the internet, and they love picking apart Mon Comf with you. They love, like, they like, they all these things,

even the esoteric that they can, they can, they can get on with. But at the, at the fundamental root, they cannot help the go to war, because they are literally oil and water. No, the perceived, but they would, the very labels the assigned to themselves would need to dissipate.

Well, then you would have to stop being whatever it is that you took on as your ideological or religious point, right? Yeah, I mean, there's some days I'm an, ancom, some days I'm an, ancapsence, uh, whatever the, an arctic that an arctic an arctic capital. I mean, there's it depends on the the hour the minute of the day, you constantly changing

moods and embracing that flow, the change of opinions of ideas. As there's some days, like I'm actually cognizant of the fact, because we're not getting my sleep. And after I get some sleep, I see I'm so much more optimistic about the world, the less sleep I get, the more sad, the more I get. I can see that. Up and down. I don't even let my, well, okay, I try not to let. And most days, it's never a problem. Any sort of, like, what are the kids calling out black pilled way of thinking? Be my, my, my over my, the umbrella, which I hang under. So we actually, uh, to drag us back, can we talk about Carl Gotch and catch wrestler?

Cause I do want to make sure I touch it. I mean, what, uh, who were Carl Gotch is, uh, is he the greatest catch wrestler? I don't know. It was the greatest catch wrestler ever. I don't, I don't, I mean, he's one of them. For the, for a period of, uh, Carl Gatch, uh, Billy Robinson, uh, Gatch and Robinson's trainer, Billy Riley. Um, so who are these figures and what do they make? Miss Omaeda. He's one of the greatest catch wrestlers ever, because he's responsible for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, along with Gustavo Gracie.

Okay, there's so much to things I'd like to say here, but one of the things that catch wrestling seem to espouse as a principle is that of violence. I just, the determinants that competed competed at the unfortunate thing and we'll probably hopefully talk about it a little bit. They weren't disorganized and the level of competition was pretty low where people really sucked. Pretty typical. Yes, that typical. Okay. Well, it's, I mean, think about local run of the mill, GJSU term,nament versus IBGJF created, you know, vast difference. So, so I, you know, but there is a, to me as a human being that like intellectually philosophically, it was more interesting to go to a catch-dressing tournament. It seemed more real and honest because of the way

they communicated about violence. I love questions, So it is, it is often more honest. I think that always that from, is that original from gosh, that's not said? Well, I had to get original from all wrestling in that, even wait, wait, wait, shallus, not a, not a classically considered catch wrestler, yet the reason why he has the world record for most amount of world champions pinned, or the record for pins in the NCAA, is because, well, of course, the idea is to put you

on your back and pin you, but there's no way you're going to let me do that. So, how do I make it so that you want me to pin you? Well, it's by you put them in excruciating pain. So at the end of the day, you're both there, you both want to win, neither one wants to allow anything to the other. So how do I, how do I get you to lose to me? I make it so unbearable for you that you decide losing is better than staying. So those two are so fascinating because so coming from Russia, I don't know if that's where I got it or if it's just my own predisposition, as I always love the, there's two ways to get you to want to pin yourself.

One is to make it so painful, not to pin yourself that you pin yourself or whatever. And the other is it's sort of like Bruce Lee water flows, make it so easy to pin yourself, that you pin yourself or whatever. And the other is, it's sort of like, Bruce Lee water flows, make it so easy to pin yourself. So it's technique. It's like the elegance, the ease of movement. This is the satiate brothers, like the, just the elegance, the efficiency, the chance of LA watching those guys, you know, these incredible satiate brothers are massive. And those are the two paths, right? Also caveat a little bit that like if you're approaching this from a Russian perspective, Russians are quite truthful about things, especially when it comes to something like combat.

They just, this is how it is. This is how it's going to be. It's honest. Yes. And honesty is what I really like about catch-ressing because I find that we given any opportunity for us to be dishonest for any number of reasons we're going to, especially if it's a dishonesty towards a positive, right? Like, oh, well, you know, it's all technique and it's all this and it's the gentle art of blah. Bro, I have rolled with 80 CC world champions, some of the best you have ever heard of. They're in a lot of gentleness when it comes to like, oh, yeah, they wanted to sweep you and you said, no.

And then you did, said no again. And then you said no and attack their leg. Yeah. It ceases to be all that gentle. Because at the end of the day, these dudes are strong as hell, they're flexible. I mean, the difference between the athleticism and the ability to actually win is a pretty wide gap. The athleticism shows up, but then there's all that other extra. And part of that is meanness and pain and getting what you need out of it.

But see, there's a philosophical difference in the way it's thought because I think some of it is just they just in denial. Like, oh, people will they like to people like to espouse a lot of things as theory. And then it's like, okay, let me watch. Oh, you're not doing anything about what you said right now. In fact, you're doing the opposite. You're literally hurting that guy because you're shit ain't working in the way that you'd like it to. So you're having to use strength.

You're having to, my, one of my favorites, I was like, oh, you're using too much strength. And it's like, well, hold on. Do we want people not to use strength at this point to understand more of mechanics? Or are you trying to tell people if they use strength at all, that they're somehow bad at what they do,

because it's not my fault, you're not stronger than me. But see how speaking is something else that's... I tend to think what it comes down to is like, strength is fine until you beat me with it. Then it sucks. Okay, so strength is another thing. I'm speaking, I'm thinking about more like anger. Oh, sure. Okay, so strength is another thing. I'm speaking, I'm thinking about more like anger. Oh, sure. Okay, so like a lot of angry guys, and she just do I know that.

Really? Okay, okay, but let's talk about, let's talk about their only human. The highest level of competition. There's a book called Wrestling Tough. Yeah. There's a really good book. There's, I've encountered my life a few, especially in wrestling, people who really try to find a way to use anger, to get really angry at their opponent, not like stupid anger, but just like my... Intense pointed anger distilled into something that you can use as fuel. I remember this story, I don't know where I read it. It might be wrestling tough, where a person was imagining that their opponent just rape their mother, rape their girlfriend or something like that to create this like method acting

thing in their head to be like to snap them out of this polite interaction of usual like athletic convention and like, and really good at competitive side. Design of necessity. So my anecdote for this was I was sitting with back stage before a fight, not my fight. And I'm working with this guy and the dude is, this is a world champion guy.

And he's competing at the highest levels. Any, he looks at me and he goes, you know, you ever get nervous before fights? I looked at him and I went, no, I don't. And he just looks at me and he's like, fuck, man, I'm so nervous, you know, how do you do it, man? Or, you know, I always should be like, you know what? That doesn't mean that what I'm doing is better.

It's just what is necessary for me. It's the way I am. And I told him, so this anecdote goes into another anecdote. This is a family guy episode, I guess. Where some another famous high-level guy told me about this experience with a world champion boxer in Japan. And this guy would get insanely nervous and worked up and anxious before his matches. And he hated it and hated it and hated it. And so he wanted to get rid of that feeling.

So he went to a hypnotist for a bunch of sessions and managed to, and he goes in and next fight, he's cool as a cucumber and doesn't perform and loses. And so what I said going back to anecdot one was you know whatever is necessary for you to get yourself in the best state of being right now to compete whatever that may be it could be absolute stress and fear. It could be anger. It could be calmness. It could be whatever. But there is a, but there is a, there's a state at which you need to be in to do your best. And use the individual. You have to find that. Can you comment on Tyson, Mike Tyson? Oh, yeah, that thing.

So first, so he, there's two things I want to, so he's a, in terms of fear, there's a clip there, I think from a documentary where he talks about he is, like fully afraid as he walks up to the ring and as he gets closer and closer and closer, he gets more confident until he gets in and then he's a god or something like that. That coupled with his statement on Joe

Rogan that he gets aroused at the possibility of truth like I've hurting somebody in the ring. So like he gets aroused at the violence. I like it because it's coupled to your basically statement that we need to find our own unique way of existing at our top level of performance. And that perhaps is Mike Tyson. But do you think there's something more deeply universal to the Mike Tyson speaking to the fact that he's a rouse of the possibility of that? Yeah, I do actually.

Although I don't think that it always equates to a rouse. Oh, for people, in fact, I would say in general it doesn't. I can say I've never had a boner in the ring. In fact, of anything, you know, old combat cock is like, we're not hanging around. We're leaving. We're going up. We're taking off. We don't want anything to do with this.

You have fun. Come back to us when you have something warmer or softer, smells better. But the power, the feeling of aliveness, yeah, I could see it, you know, back to the even the concept of the uber bench, I feel like the states, the highest states of being I've ever been in were in the midst of conflict. I felt like that was the time. Those are the moments in my life where I felt like I was at the highest level of being as a human in existence. those are the moments in my life where I felt like I was at the highest level of being

as a human in existence. But yet, even being in that state was not something that you could interact with people that weren't in that state with you, like they wouldn't get it. You would almost seem, and to be that way all the time, either A might drive you mad or B is you're not, you're something that's untenable to the rest of society. Like, you can't function with everybody else. It will not work. It's just like you said with the Uberman, it's just like it's perhaps that ideal is not something you can hold for long. That's the very nature of it is.

Yeah. Well, there was an example in Lesbukes, Zara Thurstra, about snake being down the person's throat and biting it and then having this maniacal laughter erupting. And, you know, to me, it was at least I read it as, yeah, okay, there's this insane moment that isn't forever, but that it is life and death and it is, and the overcoming it is the thing that all of a sudden gives you that tapping into the year, year, highest state, right? This is, you know, man is a chasm, a tightrope between man and overmench. Well, I don't want to leave your thought about, we'll call those things flourishes to the aspect of Tyson's interpretation or his expression of his feelings in combat. And so I gave this antidote to the guy

and I just, you know, at my first anecdote to that athlete I was working with. And I said, you know, there isn't a superior way in this sense. There is the way that works for you. That may be something you can implement to other people if you find that person, because we all have different personalities.

And to me, that's an absolute. I don't wanna, no, don't come at me with all your other fucking social sciences crap. No, we have distinct personalities. That personality, who you really are, and this, again, Heidegger-Dazain, like being authentic. If you're authentic with who you are, goods and beds, you will know how to create what that is. And for me, violence and fighting and conflict was something that always felt normal to me. And I don't mean normal in, like, I grew up in a war zone

or a abuse of household or something like that. I just meant that I was a kid who was very joyful and inquisitive and spent a lot of time around older people of all things. And also while I don't think I have much capability toward the engineering, my mom said that one of the first things as like a little baby, when she put me in my sister's old crib, instead of my sister who just milled about and was fine with it all, the first thing I did was I completely deconstructed it. I didn't break it.

I figured out how to pull it apart. Curiosity about the world. And yet that wasn't in conflict with the idea of violence. No, not at all. And so being a very joyful and nice kid, but you know, kids are kids and if kids can find that you respond maybe more easily to agitation, they will agitate you. And if you should stand out in some way by being taller or bigger or something or caring, especially, they will agitate you.

They don't really fully understand it either. And so I don't hold anything against any of the kids used to pick on me or whatever, especially at the youngest age, is like, man, they don't know shit either. So, but once that line was pushed, for me, it was, oh, well, I was being cool. Now you're being uncool.

Well, then that gives me license for everything. And so, boom, we would just go at it. Or kids that would try to initiate a fight. And I was like, okay. And being in that moment, I was just going to town with someone else. It just felt like this is... I belong here. Yeah, it was never a problem for me.

Like, the, in fact, if anything, the over what I had to understand was, well, not only did I learn the hard way that it doesn't matter at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what anybody else does. If your response and violence, even to their violence, if you're the winner, is often going to be penalized severely. Society, state apparatus, they don't want any of that. They want to be the only arbiter of violence in the world always. But I learned a very difficult lesson with

that, and it was really impactful in a negative way on me, but also I had to learn on an individual sense to you need to manage violence too because hey if someone attacks you or starts a fight with you and you go at it, okay beating them up is one thing, you know, trying to grab a handful of broken glass from the street and throw it in their face, maybe that's a bit much at seven. So you need to learn what level is necessary and you need to learn what comes with all what's the responsibility of when you enact violence. I mean, you take on something when you you have a responsibility for that. This is the extension of your actions. something when you have a responsibility for that. This is the extension of your actions. So, but as I got older, and especially as I found sports,

and then combat sports, now this was a place for me to flourish. And to the point where I was more myself in that space than I was outside of it until time enough where I could learn to get this back together again. And I never say that I emerge to two or anything like that. No, all what happened, my journey from adolescence onto manhood, from adolescence onto to manhood, a huge portion of it besides the normal finding yourself, whatever, whatever, actually what it was was re-getting back to who I always was. Getting back to the kind kid.

Getting back to the guy that I should have been allowed to become instead of what happened under the pressures of other things. Yeah. And the attempt for society and certain people within a managerial positions to compress what that was into something that they found more suitable. But those pressures allow you to discover this little world for bin world in many ways of violence Then you could explore through sport you can explore it and It's more socially acceptable to explore it to sport for sure and even even but even then there's like

At times it's socially unacceptable. So I Beat some shilt. I, he cut my right eyebrow. I cut him and busted his nose. He's bleeding all over me as I have an arm bar on top. I'm getting, you know, it's raining blood. Quote some slayer from a lacerated sem shilt, bleeding in his horror, creating my structures. Now I shall rain in blood.

But I, when the fight Armbar, nasty one. I get on my feet and the first thing I do is I wipe all the blood off onto my hands and I lick it and I do my thing. And all the MMA journalists freaked out, Dana Weiss, I don't know about that, you know, we don't want him doing anything. Everybody had this huge problem. And then some folks would even contend, oh, you know, you're trying to do, like, no, no, this isn't planned. This isn't, you know, think of these things. This isn't, this isn't how I really feel. This is who I really am. And, you know, it was even kind of comical after the fact, you know, and BJ Pam was on the very card with me,

watching him at some point in his career, all of a sudden, win fights, and then do this licking the glove thing, and everyone thinks it's the coolest thing. I've learned, I'm like, hey, fuck faces. I did this in 2002 or one, 2001, and BJ Pan actually back then was like, dude, you're a badass, you're a killer. You know, where did that come from?

Because that seems like a deeply human moment. I could say I could just be, you know, goofy about it called orgyastic. I don't know. I'll be back to Mike Tyson. Yeah, but Tyson, but no, no, it isn't. It's beyond that. Is it a celebration? Pretty decent orgasms in my life at this point of 43, so but no, not have never

compared to that. Like I said, it is a feeling of highest being to me. And I- That's your uber-match moment. This is where I feel like the restrictions of general existence in society are gone. And I get to fully live in a state that feels more meaningful of the most meaning, I think of this life and death.

And it is the way I'm built. And I've never had any problem applying violence. Like, it doesn't. I don't know where it comes from or how you would define it or whatever if you want to stick me under in a psychologist chair But like I don't There's a part of me that can just like I know if I'm gonna apply I can apply violence to any level and be okay with it And it doesn't I don't lose sleep. It doesn't bother me. It's not a problem

It's it was me learning how to fully understand It was me learning how to fully understand violence, humans, and the broader perspective that allowed me to think about things and like, well, what do I really wanna accomplish with my actions in the world just on a whole? Not compartmentalizing my sporting career. Even when I get in the ring, I don't have any mercy generally.

And if I do, it's because I make a really deliberate attempt to be in a state where I can have mercy. If I just go in there to fight with everything I got, there is zero- The natural state of my life. There's nothing that will hold me back other than the referee and that's that. I know I agreed to be allowed to do and not to do, but within that, no, and I expect it to be done to me.

But in terms of values, in terms of seeing what, to me violence is just yet another canvas that humans can paint beautifully. Clearly, I mean, we have venerated the violent. There are communists that venerate the violent on their behalf. There are national socialists that venerate the violent there. And then if you remove it from an ideological perspective, we venerate the violent when they're a hero. We venerate the violent in our religion. Well, I mean, I guess some people venerate the violence of Yahweh and Saddam and Gomorrah, right? So, or do we say Jehovah? I don't know.

Is there, you've already mentioned one, but is there a fight where you've achieved the highest of heights for your own personal being just when you look within yourself. You're the proudest of or maybe was your most beautiful creation is this something that stands out there there are a few actually fighting semi-sciil and a rematch. Well the first one was pretty good to but the rematch was I was suffering, I'd suffered prior, the week prior to food poisoning. And so while my abs are looking alright, I in the ring didn't have the power that I expected to. And I was struggling in ways in some of the grappling with the submission stuff that I had an accounted for. Just exhaustion or mental exhaustion? No, I mean, like just physical,

I wasn't back up to 100% in terms of this power output. And semi was, well, he's always seven foot tall. But this time he was, the first time I fought him, he was two, 60, or two 57, or two 60 something, something like that. This, he was 250, 250, 250 or 260 or something like that. This time he was like 290. So he was a significantly bigger cat. And he was a big dude. And I just remember being up against the ropes with him, changing levels, trying to take

him down. And he's fighting, he's hip--and and I just thought in my head There's no fucking way I'm gonna lose this fight There's no way you are not going to beat me is not gonna happen and I on barred him the other arm Even out of the fat he's like I really wanted to get you for that. I wanted to get that match back And you fucking got my other arm dick Dude, I still love you though. Yeah, you know, I, you're like, so this has to do the dichotomy of you're feeling you're worst.

And having to overcome. And you're like literally mentally telling yourself there's no way. There's no fucking way I'm gonna lose this fight. And then there's even my last bear knuckle match. And getting in the ring and fighting bear knuckle boxing for the first time. And just thinking, this being in a great state and just looking

so forward to seeing, I mean, I called someone and I was talking to them the night before and I said, yeah, well, I want, you know, I video call you because this face might not look like this when I see you next and they're just like, okay. That's not just like empty trash talk. That's no, that's like a clarity of mind and the seriousness of all that. I go out my die. I'm most pretty high of a chance of being deformed some way.

So the fuck it, I don't really know. Do you think about, are you accepting your own death? Yes, 100%. I, in fact, and that's in a strange way, that's partially what makes it so elevated in terms of my sense of feeling by being able to have death at my side, it feels good.

And to be there and to think that this could be the one, like why not? You know, I'm not a religious person at all, even though I very much have to seem to bang on the drum about the usefulness or the understanding the usefulness of religion for people. But you know, if I got to do something, then yeah, put me in Valhalla, man, I don't want to be anywhere else. Nothing else seems like a good place for me to be. I want to, I want to fight all day long and feast all night. You know, that sounds great. I saw you throw your hat into the ring of Fader, M-M-L-E-N. Yes.

He got COVID, I guess. I hope he, I hope he overcomes it and comes out just as good if not better. Epic with that, did I understand correctly that might be his last fight? Yes, that's my understanding. And it would be epic as hell. And it would be epic as hell because the person that I want to give my most to is a person that I respect, especially at this this long, this long, this long career of mine and getting at this, this, this trial years, like two warriors. And that's the thing about even this going in there with the aspect of being with death and all that is that when that person is in there there my brother with me in this and that so when you give me your best even if I even if I win dominant fashion but if you show up and you're as authentic

and being here as I am, then I love you. And I'm glad for you to be here. And we're in this together. And at this point, you know, your loss or my loss or whatever is no less deserving of veneration than the win. Like we're here in this. And so to be in the ring with Fjordor and to venerate him in win or defeat, to be in there with someone like that is to me. It's so rare. So. It's incredible how the ultimate violence is coupled with love or respect.

And it's like, it's weird how this is how the competition and his violent form is also a veneration of just human connection. It's also the removal. I feel like it's the purest one of the purest ways. Purist on at most honest places a person can exist. That line and fight club, you don't know really who you are until you've been in a fight. I mean, believe that. And I've seen so many examples of people trying to portray themselves as one thing. And then in the ring, you see who they really are. Or even when they're trying to pursue themselves as one thing, and they're winning, the crowd at times will see who they really are and still hate them. You know, as I said, all the good things. Yeah.

Bro, don't work that way. Yeah, but speaking of fate, or if we take you out of the picture, who are the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time? I feel you out of the picture. As a cop out to some degree, I feel like we need a little bit more time, you know, so to see how this unfolds, because you got to compare a lot of things. And I, did I, I think I'm,

I didn't interview. I did an interview. I don't know about centuries, but that would help if we can keep accurate records and not allow too much bias to fall into, too much problem. The pictures still look good. But I made an argument.

I was in an interview with an MMA outlet of some sort, and I can't recall who it was. But oh, it was argument about will the winner of Canva Lasquez versus Steve Emilio Chick be the greatest MMA heavyweight was arguing about will the winner of Cane Velasquez versus steep and meochic be the greatest MMA heavyweight of all time. And I said, fuck, and no way. Oh, no, it's Kormier and meochic. That's what it was.

I said, absolutely not, not even close. And I said, these guys need a bit more time to see how things go. And also how things go for some of their opponents. And like, there's more factors in just this one fight It really is and I go and when you want to weigh these people even if let's say we'll bring Alistair or yeah, Alistair over him into the into the equation Okay, you judge him on what you know now what he's done for you lately, okay, right? Which is a very myopic way of doing it. Yeah

What has he done over his career? K1 champion. He was a champion in a dream. He's strike force. Blah blah blah. His overall record. The entirety of all the different opponents he's fought. And I just sit back I go, okay, he's not the UFC champ, but his accolades, his merits in some ways actually stand up higher than Korma's and Miyo Chikis. So what about the moments? Do you give much value to the special moments, like the highest heights you rise to, not in terms of records or the strikes landed, but just creating a magical moment in a fight. It doesn't have to be even a championship fight,

but just, you know, Conor McGregor, it's an example of somebody who creates a narrative, who gets a story, creates a drama, and the special magic happens, even if it's like not what it's needed. It's greater than reality, and that is always the case. great drama and the special magic happens even if it's like not with this greater than reality and that is always the case. Do you and so I understand that so very much and it takes an asshole like me to

to poo poo on your myth. They at least get you at the end of the day you're not going to abandon your myth but perhaps temper it with the facts and logic. But so you're not a fan of myth. No, I'm a absolute massive fan of myth. But you're perfect. You're the thing. It's like when I, no, I mean, I like saying facts and logic because people, I also, I am

not a materialist in that sense. I don't think that materialism can solve for everything. It's not enough. It's not robust enough. I'm sorry. If facts and logic and or a reason as the enlightenment scholars all thought, including marks, was enough for people, then we would never we wouldn't have any religions. We wouldn't have, there would be no, we wouldn't have narratives and myths and all this kind of stuff. It would not, it's just I'm sorry. There is no no there's nothing about history that supports the idea that Rationality will overcome all there's something about bench Shapiro's facts don't care about your feelings that feels to be miss

feels to be missing Something fundamental about human nature. It's not Clear to me exactly what is missing to give old old Ben Ben a fair shake. Yeah, and you know, I don't know Ben Shapiro. I don't really listen to Ben Shapiro. Not against Ben Shapiro. I don't I'm not here to say anything particularly bad about him. Although I will say at one time, Tom Arnold was seemingly trying to pick an actionable fight with Ben Shapiro in the ring. was seemingly trying to pick an actual fight with Ben Shapiro. In the ring.

Somewhere, yeah. And I actually responded, and I tried to get him to clarify, I said, hey, are you saying that you want to fight Ben Shapiro? That you're looking to actually, because I was waiting for him to say something, and then I can be like, okay, well, it's one thing to want to get into a fight with someone. It's another thing to go pick on a little tiny guy like Ben who's much smaller

than you and doesn't train or whatever, but if it's not me, I can find someone in your size and you can go fight him. Basically, don't be a bully piece of shit, which by the way, Tom Arnold, you are a mental midget, you are never going to be able to compete even with Ben Shapiro in an argument on any level about anything. Only to lecture the argument. Yeah, intellectual argument. Maybe you can scream louder than him, but whatever. But nevertheless, in the discussion of greatness in fighting,

I think you need to look at numbers. So there's numbers. And there's the magic. There is some context also in that where did Alice are over in fight? Oh, we found pride where you could soccer kick people and stop their heads and this and that. And so the game environment is actually different too.

So more uncertainty, there's more chaos and pride, there's more. Go back a little further and go like, what about the guys used to like dance ever and fought bare knuckle headbutts the whole nine. You beat Dan Severer, right? I did beat Dan Severer. That was killing an idol, so to speak. Although I didn't really kill him because I still love him. You know, he's still, I mean, he's still responsible for inspiration along this whole pathway.

You know, it's meeting your God and then putting an eye for it, I guess. Nick. Realizing they're human and then bringing them down to your level. Exactly, but also there's a huge misconception there and that is that I could bring, maybe I could bring Dan Severin down to my level, but I couldn't bring his mustache down to my level. Oh. It is of mythic proportions and... Greater than yours.

Great. Your facial hair is great in yours. My facial hair is is is is creating its own legacy, but it is not Dan Severin mustache level or now Don Frie mustache. So Don Frie mustache, Dan Sever mustache, you know, now you have like shea versus SUNY. Like, I think there will be a calm marks like painting of Josh Barnett one day with the beard and is that basically what you're saying? I hope so. I will actually comb my hair on like marks, but, um, chaos has a charm to it. It does.

It does. I mean, we all thought Doc Brown in Back the Future was quite charming. So you have to throw that into the calculation where they fought. Yes. And the rules that they fought under, you know, someone got like a year of a change in, won a 32-man tournament or something like that. I go, okay. Steep-An Daniel Cormier are awesome.

And they will for sure be revered as, when they're as for their careers 100%. Can you say that they're particularly even better overall than eager of change in? Well, maybe one of them could have beat them, maybe, maybe one of them wouldn't have, you know, maybe, maybe eager would have gotten them with the knuckles right away. Well, maybe if they fought them in pride, they wouldn't have won. Maybe if they fought them, bear knuckle, they wouldn't won. I don't know. And there's something about the cat.

Like, do you put who is gracing the top 10? You know, there's something about... Top 10 of all time in terms of competitors, capable. I don't know. I'd have to think about that maybe not, but I because of the Celsius like pyramid level like wow dude what amazing man. Yeah, he's so important. Absolutely incredibly important. But there's something about stepping into like fighting another human being under all the uncertainty

that the early UFC's had. I mean, you don't know what is going to have and couple that with not much money. Yeah. All of it. So the purity of it too. There's something about money, I guess, for that half-most world, but that ruins the purity of the violence. Yeah, people given the opportunity for, yeah, yeah, the bigger things get the more, I love the fact that fighting has opened up to such a degree that the career business side of it,

because I absolutely distinctly separate the two. The business side of it has opened up to give me far more possibilities, open way more doors for me than I ever intended it to, whereas the athlete side of things, if anything just gotten substantially worse, I would say. And some of this can be, some of this is due to all the nature of all games will be learned, will be gamed without even the rules being broken.

And once that's figured out, you need to make an adjustment. No adjustments have been made. So the game just appears to be the same game over and over and over and over and over again, on ESPN plus, on whatever, on whatever, on whatever. It doesn't really matter which night you watch. It's the same game constantly.

And that's not because the athletes are worse or better, it's because they have had that game structure long enough that they figured out what do you do to be the most successful at it? What is the highest percentage way of approaching it essentially, even if you're not thinking of percentages? Well, the If we take a step back, it's really fascinating to think about the early UFC's. Did you fight dance every other than UFC? I fought them in Super Brawl. Super Brawl. So that was in the early early days. You're undefeated. 2000.

What were those early days, let's say of mixed martial arts like Div? Let me tell you the day of high adventure. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, yeah, it is. It was so much fun. And it made you feel absolutely like you were a part of a novel, a comic book. I mean, I would love to transcribe my experiences as what I consider a second generation MMA athlete, except I'm way too sensitive to anybody's personal, anything that are not even to, you know, I'm not a gospel person. I really do believe it like small people talk about others, big people talk about ideas. So, but there's some stories that you can't tell without telling the whole story. And there are so many amazing stories that

could be told people being at their best people being at their worst. Yeah, the whole the whole. Mocha gossip. Is there something you could speak to the chaos of the time? Oh 100% like well, okay, so we at AMC got connected to somebody that was throwing an event in Nampa Idaho and we all piled into this and Matt Humes, Subaru Wagon and we jammed out and we left Kirkland and we headed over to Idaho only to find out that there was nothing really put in place. It was absolute disrepair and chaos. They didn't have a reign, they didn't have this.

It was such a bullshit adventure. But we were like, well, there's hardly anywhere to fight. It's tough to find these opportunities. So, okay, well, how about this? Whoever is here to fight and is willing, all right, well, since there's no venue, there's no this, whatever, we all got gloves, we got mouthpieces,

we'll just go to the park. So I'm always looking for a good paid. And so folks were kind of like, I don't know about that. The guy I was gonna fight was, he finally figured that they finally, he finally gets information on who I actually am. and I was undefeated at the time and I think I had fought Super Brawl 13 or anyone that tournament and so he's like, yeah, I had no clue.

I'm so glad we didn't fight. You had a murdered me. This is what a setup. And eventually Matt had a strong arm, the guy and get our money that we were supposed to all get and drive back And because he his whole position was well, there ain't no fucking way we drove all the way out here for free This is on you you fuck this up not my problem But what is my problem is the lack of cash in my account. So fix it, you know, or me fighting my first organized fight against an AMC guy on 11 days notice through a connection to an old wrestling coach I had. And I just gathered

up with where all my old martial arts, my old martial arts instructor that I had worked with and we grappled in as a apartment. We did tie pads in the park. I ran a couple of miles every day and then all right boom show it up one my fight by front choke in two minutes and then Matt goes okay well hey you did really great we'd like you to come back and fight again in the summer what What do you think? Okay, back off the university, and then I think, hmm, well, that fight didn't go exactly as how I wanted it to. So I got to find a way to get more experience.

I would literally fight people in the university, like, Rec Center on the old wrestling mats, as they didn't know I had a wrestling team. I would find anyone doing martial arts, anyone talking about getting into street fights, anyone, whatever, and just basically go, oh, you ever watch UFC? Yeah, yeah, that stuff's cool. What do you think? Oh, man, super Hindu man, that's badass.

Brad, so would you want to fight? I mean, it was way easier picking fights and then it was getting a girlfriend. I'll just, you know, path police resistance. I think it might be useful for us to get some advice from you. Because you've accomplished for the journey of a martial artist. First, if you accomplish some of the greatest athletes there is in the sport, if somebody who's starting out now,

or like early on in their journey, what advice would you give on how to become a martial artist, catch rest, or a fighter? Well, I mean, really what it comes down to is do it because you love it. Do it for that reason and that reason alone. Most people that get into this and attempt to make any sort of professional inroads with it, you are not going to be the world champion.

You probably will never even fight for a belt. You're probably not going to net make money at this. So don't do it for a belt. You're probably not going to make money at this. So don't do it for those reasons. Do it for the reason of the passion. Do it for the reason to be the absolute best that you can be whatever that ends up being. You might at best only be mediocre, but you won't even be mediocre

if you don't do it like you really mean it. So. The passion, look, where's the kernel of the passion, would you say, is it in the learning process itself the improvement? I think it really depends on the person, right? I mean, there's some people that really love the fact of, they feel like they're growing, right? Both power, you know, you're growing, growing stronger, growing better, you know, the idea

of eliminating weakness. So, to which I'll quickly define weakness as things that weaken you. Not being physically weak, sure, you can call that weakness, but maybe you're not meant to be a super strong guy. But choosing to be weak is a different story other than just like we're all deficient in some way or another. So that's neither here nor there. It's a matter of what you decide to do with it.

And that's an infinite strength of weakness, at least the way I look at it. Like, strength is choosing regardless of the difficulty to make improvements, to strengthen this even, choosing to acknowledge that you do lack and accept it and then make a decision of what to do with it. Yeah, but there's also, there's a bunch of stuff that's just like you said, it's what

you're drawn to. There's an honesty to just grappling that it seems more real than anything else you can do. Sure. And that's where the passion of love can come. Yeah, I mean, it's being in an environment, hopefully, that is as true as possible. It would be a starter. So it's hard to be a bullshit person when you're literally trying to tear each other's arms off. Yeah. And as you really sort of see who somebody is, I also feel

like you really really get to see somebody who who there are a couple instances where you really see who people are on the mats and in the bedroom. So even the aspect of self-betterment growth along a path, I hell, that's part of the device of capture for martial arts as a business. Give you a belt. Put a stripe on your belt. It's to these iterations cost 20 bucks. So, you know, this is a benefit to that too. I really enjoyed the progression of belts. Sure. You know, a bit of it is OCD or whatever, but you're enjoying the recognition of your growth when you feel, when you're made to feel, when I think genuinely you do earn it. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

It makes complete sense to me. It's just anything that has a goodness and its purity can also have a detriment in its perversion. And there's a value to competition. I've gotten some shit in the past for saying, is I've gotten the most value in giving everything I have to try to win and lose. So I've gotten, I remember most of the matches I've lost,

and I think that's what I've gotten the most from the sport is losing. Think about it. If you really think about it, what makes you wanna actually in detail go over what happened? Oh, it's the time when you didn't get what you wanted. It's a time when you gave it everything you had

and you came up short or failed miserably. Okay. So. I'll show you if you're embarrassed in some way. Right. And so that's usually the only time people, again, calamity is the impetus for them to actually turn around and go, who the fuck am I? What am I doing and why am I doing it? Yeah. Instead of naturally going, hmm, okay, well, I won. Why? What was it that caused? So I think part of my success is that when I win, I'm brutal. When I lose, I'm brutal.

And there is no in between. So I remember losing the rematch against Nogara. And I still feel like it was a bullshit call. Like I feel like I won that fight, but my opinion is that, and this even came up. So one of the coaches in the back was like, oh you degrade, you know, don't feel bad,

you know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I go, no, fuck that. I didn't finish him. I allowed the referees to make a judge decision that I think is incorrect and bad, but that came because I didn't take him out, a judge a decision that I think is incorrect and bad, but that came because I didn't take them out, you know, fuck that. No. No. He won. He's going to get more money. He's going to get more recognition. Blah blah blah blah blah. I accept all this.

And it's not okay. And I need to, if I, when I get a chance to fight them again, I got to figure out how to wait to like take this guy out. I don't want to say forever. I'm not trying to put him six feet underground. Well, when I fight, yes I am. But the point being, I need to find a way to, this is definitive, you don't get to say shit about it because I'm the only one who can stand right now. That's the way it's gotta be.

Anything less than that is not good enough. And even if I get to achieve that, then I gotta figure out, okay, it's not a given. How did I get to this point? How did I make that happen? Was it simply been, because of his own mistakes? Or was it because of my successful action?

So it was always self-critical. And always constantly. You love movies. I read this somewhere. Yeah. You mentioned Blade Runner as a favorite. Number one of all time, the final cut. That's my go to. So you say, Blade Runner is the greatest movie of all time. It's one of the greatest movies of all time. What's in the top? My top five, Blade Runner Final Cut. This is the original blade runner. And I used to own on tape the original

original cut. Yeah. And I had the director's cut on DVD. Why blade runner, by the way? What was that kid? I just thought it was so cool. It was something about it really spoke to me. The whole cyberpunk landscapes and this guy chasing down rogue,

uh, Android's replicants and all this. Is it, uh, is it just the entire cyberpunk universe? I have a little bit of just robots as well. No, it's, it's, I mean, the cyberpunk universe is part of it. Uh, on the, on the surface, I have a, I've always tended towards dark subject matter, I have always tended towards dark subject matter, things that are of the dark, so to speak, are things that have always been gravitated towards. I think maybe part of it is that the things

that are darker are more accepting and more upfront with death. And perhaps I think that maybe that is what was somehow more honest perhaps and there's also the aspect of rebelliousness usually like there is never one to want to just Do what somebody told me to do you know, I'm not sitting around Trying to always be such a radical individual that I can't take orders.

No. In fact, I'm more than willing to take orders from somebody that I feel is competent and has merit and reason behind what they're doing and makes it like, okay, yeah, I'm 100% for it. Not only will it take orders, I will help you achieve whatever it is if I think it's worthwhile, even at my own expense. But to get to that point is a rarity. Like, it's not a given. And so you can even imagine like being a grade school teacher and this kid doesn't respect you and he doesn't really think you're that smart.

They don't really appreciate that. But so cyberpunk is number one. What else is that? Cyberpunk is kind is number one. What else is there? Cyberpunk is kind of number one. It's an environment I love, but at the same time, Conan the Barbarian by John Millie, is one of my favorite films of all time. And, you know, that's such a pure film in a way.

Like the motivations are pure. They're very easy to follow, but not lacking in depth. It's not just explosions and teal and orange. It's more on the human condition, and I love it. And it's shot incredibly well. It's got an incredible soundtrack. Yeah, fucking love it. But with Blade Runner also in a deeper sense, you know, again, the human condition, you know, you start seeing like, what is, what is being? What is being human? You know, how does this relate to, well, if you can make it and you can tell it what to do at what point is it like you should or you shouldn't, you know, why do you get to determine what's alive and what's not? What's a life that should be allowed to live and what isn't.

And what would be the strain of being Roy Batty and seeing all these incredible moments that with his passing will no longer exist, especially if he hasn't had a chance to put that flame into another torch, so to speak, if he hasn't had a chance to put that flame into another torch, so to speak, if he hasn't written them down, if he hasn't passed them down to somebody else, gone like tears in the rain. Like tears in the rain, that scene is incredible.

I mean, but it's funny because those two universes are very different, according to the barbarian and side of a punk, is there, that makes me curious about what else might be in the West. The top. Well, let me think. And it's a pretty do you like like the godfather is it of universal? No, no, I mean, I'm sure the godfather, I've never actually watched the whole godfather. No, but also like I was like casino, good fellow. Good fellow is a good movie, but no, that's

not on my top. It's a good flick. But it doesn't really do it for me. I if people really want to get into this a little more, I did make a hundred, a list of a hundred of my favorite movies on my Facebook fan page. But you remember what like, like, bla by William Lustig. It's a 1980 gnarly video nasty horror movie about a serial killer who murders women and scalps them. And it's gnarly as hell and very brutal and very bleak and very I mean, it's the kind of thing that like a lot of people would have a real hard time watching but One again, I like things that are dark, but two I thought the performances were fantastic in this film and they really got out I think what the underlying thing was it was, you know, it was a guy who was

basically just like run a muck by the overbearing mother, a union archetype. And it, she was, she imparted her insanity into him. And he, but yet there is this aspect you could see of him, of him wanting to try and actually be able to be in the world and have love and have a feminine companionship to go with with his masculine aspect. But he had no way of understanding how to really make that happen. And he had a complete negative connotation to the feminine. So his struggle with it. And there's a little part in the movie where he somehow comes across this model or something. And they actually he starts to feel like maybe he might be able to actually have a relationship with somebody. And it goes somewhere. But yeah, even the Elijah Wood remake I felt was really well done and captured most of the essence of what the movie was about, but I still feel like the original by way I'm lusted is the best.

What's the greatest love movie of all time? I just love movie of all time. So like something more loves, I mean, I suppose love underlies most of these movies, especially. So I mean, hell, TakaShemikaze films are all about family of all things as bonkers as those movies are. They the general theme is family almost entirely in all of his films. Yeah, there's this very, I mean, even you can argue play run. Yeah, there is it's every love film of all time. That's interesting.

I mean, is X caliber a film about love? What's the scale of about King Arthur? Scalibur is about Arthur becoming King of the Britons and his love of his country and his love of Guenovir. But eventually, yeah, it becomes more about the necessity for the king to love, to hold ex-caliber, to stay, to realize that, well, if you're the king, you can love your wife and you can love your best friend. And they may fuck each other behind your back, and as they fall in love too. But at the end of the day, your responsibility, your love has to be to the country and

everyone else first and not your own personal wants. Which, you know, made a much more interesting story when you have a carman burin and a and and or there are oh, oh, what is that one? It's it's a German opera, but you know, into horses and slowmo and sword fights and an epic death scene between Arthur and his son. Okay, no, I definitely have to watch it. Never in Washington, and bear some sense. It is John Bourman's second film in Hollywood, his first one being Point Blank with Lee Marvin, which is also on top of one of the upper echelon movies on my list, derived from a book by called The Outfit by what is his name? I forget, but Darwin Cook, the comic illustrator, he did, Donald Westlake wrote, so Darwin Cook

does an amazing comic book, send up of Darwin Cook's novels, and they are fucking incredible. So anyways, but the point blank with Lee Marvin, it's a man driven by purpose, revenge, but also by really pure motivations. He wants his money. He was betrayed and he wants his cash because this is what he agreed to do the thing for and this is, which also is part of the reason why I like no country for Old Men so much, which I felt was a great movie, even better book. But I remember talking to my friend and I go, you know, Anton Chigger is the most pure human being in that whole book. Well, that guy's

the villain. I go, is he evil? He's the one he lies to no one. He does everything he says he will do. He always follows his word. And on the rare occasion, he allows fate to make a decision as he figures like, well, whatever all led us to here, we'll lead us one way or the other. And if we're at this crossroads, how is there any better or worse way than to do it over a coin flip? And so that whole scene where the guy is going,

well, what am I putting up? And he goes, everything, you've been putting it up every day of your life. And that's true. Everything we do is a decision, is a calling, is a choice. And then above me, they reduced the last interaction between Chigger and what's his face's life. And he finally finds her.

And she's like, you don't have to do this. And he's like, yes, yes, I do. This is the way it is. You can think that your life could have turned out any sort of way. You could have done this. You could have done that. But the reality is, this is the way your life is. And it's the way it was always going to be.

The fact that I'm here is the end of it. That's that. Yeah, it's fun. If you're honest, this will dark movies reveal that the villains are the purist of humans and can teach us the most like profound lessons and that's a certain example of it. What do you think the big ridiculous last philosophical question? What do you think is the the meaning of this whole thing we got going on of life and existence on earth from your individual perspective but the entirety of the human species life universe and everything yeah don't

we could just leave it at that exactly where I was going I love it Josh I love you I love you very much. You've been a huge inspiration. I have a friend who she said, do you know Alex Friedman? Have you gone on Lex's con? I go, yes, I know, I know Alex Friedman is. I've sadly been way too long in contact without making it happen for too long. And yes, I will 100% even cut a shirt at the beginning of the pandemic to make my own little mask at one point due to the the Lex process. Yeah. And I love it. I can't really hear you like, but I'm demonstrating. Just let's see it through.

But no, this has been a blast. And next time I come back next time was drink some of the war bringing whiskey. I will bring some warmaster. Next time was drink some of the the war bring a whiskey. I will bring some warmaster I wasn't sure if you were if you unbibed at all in spirits 100% it felt a little weird to do it early on in the morning Especially because I'm flying out though. I mean, I've had some wonderful morning whiskey at times It it now that you've mentioned it. It doesn't at all. So next time, let's make sure what Joe Morgan calls the adult beverages. Let's make sure we indulge.

I have zero reservations for doing such a thing. I'm into it. Josh, thanks for talking today. That my pleasure. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Josh Barnett. I thank you to our sponsors, MonkPak, Low Carb Snacks, Element Electrolite Drink, 8 Sleep, Self-Colume mattress, and Rev Transcription and Captioning Service.

Click the sponsor links to get a discount at the support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from SunZoo in the art of war. The Supreme Art of War is this of Do the enemy without fighting. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. Thank you.