Lex Fridman Podcast - #175 – Yannis Pappas: History and Comedy

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Yannis Pappas is a comedian and podcaster. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Wine Access: https://wineaccess.com/lex to get 20% off first order - Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium - Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex and use code LEX to get $5 off - Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit EPISODE LINKS: Yannis's Twitter: https://twitter.com/yannispappas Long Days Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCywn6iboO1P8U7fotfllocw Stand Up Special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R156F0uXhzk 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/lexfridman - 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 (08:39) - Tim Dillon and absolute power (16:00) - Mortality (24:01) - Immortality (31:47) - Dogs (38:26) - Power (43:46) - Hyenas (49:00) - Nature is metal (51:53) - Battle of Crete (59:21) - History is written by the victors (1:04:09) - History Hyenas podcast (1:16:18) - Bernie Madoff (1:19:23) - Jeffrey Epstein (1:24:16) - Hitler (1:26:24) - Conspiracy theories (1:29:34) - Andrew Yang and New York City (1:33:01) - Podcast with Lex's dad (1:36:09) - Andrew Yang and the prison-industrial complex (1:41:57) - Queen Elizabeth (1:49:04) - Advice for young people

The following is a conversation with Janus Popus, a comedian who co-hosted the podcast History hyenas that I came across when I was researching the Battle of Crete from World War II. He and his co-host were hilarious in their rants about history and about life. The chemistry they have is probably the best of any co-hosted comedy podcasts or even podcasts in general that I've ever heard. As of a few weeks ago, unfortunately, history of hyenas is no more, at least for now,

because all good things must come to an end. But Janis hosts a new podcast called Long Days with Janis Popus, plus he has a comedy special on YouTube for free. Quick mention of our sponsors, wine access, blinkest, magic spoon, and indeed. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that some of you have noticed that I have not spoken with too many computer scientists, physicists, biologists, or engineers recently. The reason has to do mostly with the risk of version of many of these folks in the time of COVID, especially

as they get closer to taking the vaccine. I'm tested several times a week and still some people are just more willing than others to have an in-person conversation in these times. I only do these podcasts in person because I look for the possibility of a genuine human connection. I only need to sacrifice a lot for that. Maybe it's silly, but I look for the magic that Charles Bukowski writes about in his poem Nirvana. The magic that is somehow in the air on those rare occasions when two people meet, talk,

and you notice that while on the surface you may be worlds apart, you're still somehow woven from the same fabric. I've had that with many guests. Jim Keller comes to mind, but many others as well. I'm an AI person. Machine learning, robotics, computer science is my passion. Trust me, I can't wait to be having more technical conversations again, but I will also continue to mix in comedians, musicians, historians, and of course, why is all seeing

sages like Yannis Poppiss and Tim Dillon, just to keep it as Tim likes to say, fun. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now. I try to make these interesting, but I give you time stamps because I value your time and listening experience so you can skip, but please still check out the sponsors in the description. I'm fortunate to be able to be very selective of the sponsors we take on, so hopefully if you buy their stuff, you'll find value in it just as I have. Click their links in the description, it really is the best way to support this podcast. This episode is sponsored by Wine Access online store with expertly selected wine. I love it because it lets me explore wines.

Stake, red wine, and a good conversation with a good friend is my idea of a perfect evening. My current recommendation is the, and here I tried to pronounce, an incredibly beautiful sounding wine, 2017, Sigezio family vineyards, old vine, Zinfandel from Sonoma County. There's a lot of fascinating things about this wine, including the fact that it comes from small grapes that apparently intensified the flavor. I don't know about all that, I just know it's delicious. To me, there's something about wine that creates a certain kind of atmosphere. Without COVID, the plan actually for me was to go to Paris. To meet a few people there and also to record a few conversations. And outside of all that, just meeting certain

kinds of strangers over some good food and good wine in Paris. I think it's something I looked forward to for a long time. There's two things I enjoy more than connecting with cool people over a bit of alcohol. Anyway, get 20% off your first order when you go to wineaccess.com slash Lex. The discount will be applied at checkout. That's wineaccess.com slash Lex to see my wine picks and to get the discount. This episode is also sponsored by Blinkist. My favorite app for learning new things. Blinkist takes the key ideas from thousands of nonfiction books and condenses them down

into just 15 minutes that you can read or listen to. They also have short casts, which are some where he's a podcast. They basically pick some podcasts that are summarizable, which is not this podcast, or at least I don't think so, and certainly not the long form podcasts like Joe Rogan experience and so on. I think an exciting life, a productive life, a fulfilling life is one that includes books, or at least a lot of learning. And I think long form reading, aka books, is actually one of the deepest ways to think through a subject.

I don't read just for the reading, I read for the thinking. So Blinkist is almost like an introduction to the book. And the book itself is a deep dive in a chance to really think. Anyway, go to Blinkist.com slash Lex to start your free seven day trial and get 25% off of Blinkist premium membership, which is what they want you to get. That's Blinkist.com slash Lex. Go there now. This episode is sponsored by Magic Spoon, low carb keto friendly cereal.

It has zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, only 49 grams of carbs, and 140 calories in each serving. This month they're bringing it back the OG blueberry flavor. My favorite flavor is still cocoa, but Blueberry is pretty good too and there's some good news for Canadian friends up north. They now ship to Canada too In fact, I'm quickly making a bunch of friends in Canada and I definitely need to travel to Canada soon

One of my favorite cities in Montreal, but I also need to go to Toronto and also a bunch of smaller towns as well. In the machine learning space and the computer science space physics as well, there's so many brilliant people over there. I just love Canada, so I can't wait until COVID is over and we can travel again and meet some cool people again. Anyway, Magic Spoon has a 100% happiness guarantee, so if you don't like it, they'll refund it. Go to MagicSpoon.com slash Lex and use code Lex at checkout to say 5 bucks off your order. That's MagicSpoon.com slash Lex and use code Lex. This episode is also sponsored by Indeed, a hiring website.

I've used them as part of many hiring efforts I've done for the teams I've led. The main task is to quickly go from a huge number of initial applicants to a short list of great candidates. I've been in the process of hiring a few folks to help me out with this little side project of mine with the podcasts and the videos and all those kinds of things. But if I decide to also go on that old, painful, entrepreneurial journey, I will definitely need to be hiring in a whole nother scale. And it's, of course, obvious to say,

but the most important aspect of creating something special is hiring the right kind of people to create that special thing with you. And I'm not just thinking about what's good for business. I'm just thinking about happiness and fulfillment. There's few things as awesome as working on a team where all of you are rowing in the same direction. And it just feels good to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day because there's just a right combination of passion and excellence to where you just might get a chance to create

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This is the Lex freedman podcast, and here's my conversation with Janus Popus. You've co-hosted until recently an amazing history comedy podcast called The History Hyenas. So you're a bit of a student of history. Yeah, an F student of history. F student. Okay, I thought it was more like a D minus. D minus, yeah. Okay. Still got to repeat the grade if you get all D minuses. I actually had a 0.67 GPA average. My freshman year and I had to do it again. This is this podcast is going to be the spectrum of human intelligence This runs the game from there to here. So this is gonna set the low bar barely sliding into human I'm closer to chimp and I Bring that up that you're also friends with the great the powerful Tim Dylan

So let's talk about power and the corrupting effects of power. Sometimes I look at Tim Dylan as he grows in power. I don't even know. He's in size. Well, size, I think they're correlated. I saw him. I've been in Austin a couple of days. I saw him once. We had eight meals in one day. Eight meals. Yeah. So I feel like I've been here longer than I have just because of the meals with Dylan. Kid likes biscuits and barbecue. Okay, so he's more like see I was I was imagining Putin or something like that. He's more like the North Korean dictator. Yeah. All right. They just get a lot great those two. Yeah, they would get I mean Tim Dylan and King John Oom would be like they could make like a buddy cop movie. They would get along like lethal weapon. That would be a good pitch movie. Great podcast.

Yeah, that would be a great podcast. Yeah. So much to talk about. So many similar ideas about the world. So what do you think the world would look like if Tim Dillon was given absolute power? He seems like a person that's an interesting study of the corrupting effects of power.

Yeah, you don't want to give him power. You don't want, I don't even want him wearing a suit. Like, I want a guy who is as thoughtful and educated as you wear a suit. Like, because, you know, suits corrupt you. You put that suit on, you start feeling that power, you start feeling it. Definitely. It's like, you know, yeah, I don't even want Tim Dylan to suit. Power would, he would kill people, he'd get rid of anything that he deemed.

I mean, if you made a lobster roll and it wasn't up to Tim Dylan's standard, he would have you executed. They're restaurant staff is just gone. He would have people below his food standard execute. There'd be programs not of people who are political dissidents, but of people who don't meet his food standard. His cuisine standard is high and he's usually right. Do you think power does corrupt people?

Yes. Like one of the reasons we mentioned offline, Joe Rogan, he's been inspiration to me because he gets, he gets, if we get power, just more famous and famous. And yes, probably a bit of power in terms of influence. And he's still pretty much the same guy. I'm not sure that's going to be true for everybody. Do you ever think, ask yourself with that question?

Yeah, he's a rare breed. He's like a benign king. I've, most people I meet who are like really powerful are like douchebags and that's how they got there. I think that's, cycle paths have the advantage because they don't have feelings. And Joseph Rare example, he's just a powerhouse of will. And I, he, I do think about that.

Yeah, I think I should be stopped right now. Just stop me right now because yeah, power for me, I would, when people get power, they indulge. I don't think it changes anyone. It just reveals your darkest. You know, people aren't supposed to have anything they want. You gotta be able to struggle for everything. So I would have a herm, I'd be like a Roman dictator.

Yeah, I'd be like a Roman emperor. I mean, people call the members, they were dictators. The most effective leaders are dictators. I hope we get back to dictator. Yeah, I'd be like a Roman Emperor. I mean, people call the members, they were dictators. The most effective leaders are dictators. I hope we get back to that. Democracy hasn't worked. I'm ready for a succession of seizures and I want to start with AOC. Ha ha ha ha.

That's true. Dictators get the job done. They do. At certain point, that's why social workers can only get you so far. You need action. I was a social worker for five years and all you do is ask about medications

and you don't solve anything. I do ask myself of that like because I'm more in the tech space of constructing systems that prevent me from being corrupt because right now I'm all about love and all about those kinds of things but I wonder you said like it just reveals the darkness. The problem is we might not be aware of our own darkness. I have the same feeling about money actually. I've been avoiding thinking about money, like basically constructing my moral system, my moral compass around money. So like, the moment I feel a little too happy about the idea of owning some cool shiny thing, I started to think,

okay, I'm not going to own that shiny thing because I'm afraid of the slippery slope of it. Yeah. You ever think about that kind of stuff? Yeah. The funny thing about the capitalist system is it puts sort of a profit mode of above beauty. And you notice when you see certain cities, especially in the old days where buildings used to be beautiful and now they're just like boxes, they throw a kid up

and it's just for all profit margin. It's the illusion of permanence that, it's like, oh, let me get as much money as I can. Yeah, my dad used to say, everyone, it's a cliche, but you can't take it with you. So it's kind of, it's, it's comical to me that we're here trying to get this infinite amount like they were cloned. It's like, it's a fist.

We're all trying to climb this hill. But I mean, the rock's going to fall on us. So I think that's a healthy outlook. Yeah. My dad always used to say before he passed, you know, he would say, you can't, you have to survive not only physically, we have to survive emotionally. I think a lot of people forget about the emotional part of survival. You have to survive emotionally

and humor and understanding reality in its objective context helps with that. Accepting reality as this ephemeral thing that you're in really just a part of, but not as significant as you go once you believe, is a start. That's a good foundation for surviving emotionally. What's that mean, surviving emotionally? Like what's an ideal life look like for you? You can't take things too seriously. You can't, because they're ephemeral.

They're not permanent, nothing's permanent. Your bank account's not permanent. Your problems aren't permanent. Nothing's permanent. Your abilities aren't permanent. Your memory's not permanent nothing's permanent your bank accounts not permanent your problems aren't permanent Nothing's permanent your abilities aren't permanent your memories not permanent You're you're you're getting hard is not permanent. Can I curse on this or is this got to Yeah, you can curse your heart's content. Okay. Yeah, I mean genders not even permanent anymore I think I'm gonna I'm gonna change maybe and live my second half as another gender just to have I'm bored with this gender So it's like nothing is permanent, and so accepting that emotionally

is a good start to being more flexible. You gotta be flexible. Like, my dad used to say anything to stiff snaps. You gotta, you know, it's a cliche and people have said a bunch of different ways, but Bruce Lee's right, man, be water. Be water. Yeah.

Bukowski has this quote about love that love is a fog that fades with the first light of reality. So he's a romantic that guy. Yeah. But that even love is a thing that just doesn't last very long. No. Yeah, some people would disagree with that. Maybe morphs like like water.

It changes, right? It might not be, it might not be this, because he's mostly just loved like prostitutes, I think. So it was kind of love. Yeah, no demand, no responsibilities. Yeah, it's a financial transaction. Yeah. A thermal is ever.

You mentioned your dad, he passed away two away a year and a half ago. What did you learn from him? I love my dad, my dad. I would say my dad was my hero. He was just my dad really embodied those values. And I think for better or worse, it's made me who I am. He, my dad was a painter. He was a lawyer.

He was a lieutenant in the was a lawyer, he was a, he was a, you know, a lieutenant in the military. New Yorker. New Yorker, born in bread, Brooklyn. His dad, his dad, you know, surprised, owned a diner. So that's sort of the Greek passport. That's the immigration passport for Greeks in New America. And yeah, my dad played football.

My dad did what he wanted. He lived as he wanted at all costs. And I think I got that from him for better or worse. I think it's hurt me in my pursuits. If you consider money and fame to be paramount, I've always done what I wanted. If I stop wanting to do it, I just stop doing it. And I think I got that from my dad.

So maybe for better or worse, that's what I learned from him. But that's a real currency, you know, feeling like you're in love with what you're doing when you're doing it. Maybe perhaps that's worth more than money. I don't know. You miss him? Yeah, every day, every day. But I'm happy that he got 91 years.

It's a very rare. I mean, he smoked for 60 years, talk about like a guy who's an outlier. I mean, smoked like 60 years, like packs. I mean, and he didn't die from that. He died, he had a prostate cancer, which is the way men should go. Your dick should give out.

It should start from the dick. I mean, we focus so much of our life on the dick that that's the way, that's a successful life. And that's why every man eventually gets prostate cancer because that is the universe's way of saying, like the thing you focused on the most is you put the most energy into is the thing that's spent. And it's gonna, your rotting is gonna start there.

So that's a successful life. And it just spread all over his body and he slowly died. I was with him when he died and that meant a lot to me. Cause me and my brother weren't talking at the time cause we're Greeks, we're talking again, but that's how it is. You got a few brothers, right? I got two brothers, but I wanted to make sure I was with him

when he died and I got lucky and I was in the room with him when he died. You were in the room with your brother and you weren't? No, my brother wasn't there, we were kind of doing shifts. I was there, I spent the night, the dad, the night my dad died, he died early in the morning. And I heard the death row to the last breath. And it was just, I think it was, he knew I was there. And I think that just probably meant something to him. And I'm just glad I was there.

So I make you sad that life is a firm role, like you said, that you die. What do you think about your own death? You're not here on that. life is a firmary like you said. Yeah. That you die. Yeah. What do you think about your own death? You meditate on that? I think the actual, if there is a point to life, it's to hopefully not fear death. To accept reality. I think that's important. I think so much goes awry in the human condition when we lose touch with reality.

Every political system that's led to mass murder and everything, I think, because it's because the tenants of those political philosophies ended up being utopian. They were detached from reality, detached from nature. And so I think it's very important to accept and acknowledge your own mortality. I think it's the foundation for what makes a good person a moral person, a contributing member of society because it's true.

True things should be the foundation of all things. If what you believe is based on illusion, you're going to end up doing destruction. Whether that destruction is on a scale of one to ten, you are going to be destructive because it's not real. It's a fantasy, it doesn't exist. See, the thing is, the truth is about, I don't think you can ever reach truth, truth is about constantly digging. And to push back in your idea that you should accept death, I think the more honest response to death, so the least honest is to run away from it, create illusions that help you imagine that there's not a death. The next is to accept it,

but the real honest one is to fear it. Because I'm with Ernest Becker as a philosopher, wrote a book called The Nile of Death. He says that much of the human condition is based in the fear of mortality. That's the creative force of the human condition is based in the fear of mortality, that we, like that's the creative force of the human energy. Like Freud said, you wanna sleep with your mother? He said, no, that's not what motivates you.

Maybe his mom wasn't hot though, I mean. Or he wasn't great, because apparently at a poll, we found that we found that all things could have been bad. Yeah. You're fine, thanks. Thanks to that. Thanks. I just don't know if his mom was a look or not. I mean, I have to Google it. You thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. I just don't know if his mom was lookerdive. I mean, I have to Google it. All right. Yeah. I'll look up on

Google images. Yeah. No, but I think that on us that as he says, the thing that we run away from is that there's a Terry. He calls it like terror. There's something called terror management theory that's some philosophers after him followed on that were basically trying to run away from this fear. And acceptance is actually creating an illusion for yourself, like you can actually accept something as terrifying as this. So he's more with the stoics, the stoic constantly meditate on their death. I mean, they, what does that mean?

I mean, it's kind of, it's, you know, acceptance of death isn't a thing you do like on a Monday and then you're done. Is I think you constantly have to meditate on like reminding yourself, like this ride is over. It could be over today. And that's something you're, if you think about every single day, it gives you an appreciation of Woody Allen movies, at least. It gives appreciation basically everything, including Woody Allen movies, which shows you how deep your appreciation for life could be.

I've actually haven't been following much of Woody Allen's, but apparently he's been a troublemaker from most of his life. He's, yeah, I mean, he's caused a little bit of its strife. He's left a little confusion in his wake for sure But I mean, you know That's another one separate the art from the artist It's got I mean the guys will go down in history as the greatest. He's made I mean movie a year and they're all

You can always find something good about each movie like the dialogue or whatever I love what you're saying. It's interesting But the only thing I would say to push back a little bit since we're playing a little table tennis here is, I don't know if it's a choice to fear death. That's more of an, it seems more instinctual. It seems like something that nature wants you to do because I've been in positions where I thought

I was gonna die like I've been shot and I had those moments. And then nature also kicks in an instinct, which is acceptance, where you kind of, I don't know, it's a chemical release or whatever, I don't know, we're robots, basically. So some sort of chemical is released that protects you, but there is an acceptance. I don't know how much of was a conscious choice, probably very little. And that's the point I'm making is it's it's instinctual. We don't really have a choice in fearing death. Otherwise, there would be no progression. We wouldn't all life seems to want to survive not by

choice, but by instinct. So he argues that the fear is not the instinctual of it's not the animalistic stuff. That's the thing that makes us special is the what humans are able to do is to have a knowledge that we're going to die one day. Animals don't have that. Animals fear is instinctual. It's like holy shit, what's that sound over there? He says we're actually able to contemplate the fact that this ride ends. And that that kind of cognitive construct is difficult for us to deal with. Like, what the hell does that mean? Like, just to think about, it's gonna be over at a certain point.

It's just over, lights out. Like, it's very difficult to kind of load that into whatever this like, little brain we got. Like, what does that actually mean? Maybe that's what gives everything meaning. Yeah, because if everything lasted forever, if this went on at Infinitom, there would be no meaning to it.

I'd be like, hey, if I don't see it, I'll see it in a million years. There would be no meaning, there would be no urgency, there would be no feelings, there'd be nothing of magnitude or superficiality. It would all just be this kind of, it would be torture. It would actually be torture to be here forever. I mean, I'm all just be this kind of, it would be torture. It would actually, that would actually be torture

to be here forever. I mean, I'm already sick of this place and I'm just in my 40s, like I'm done. I'm sick of me, I'm sick of everything. You know, a lot of people, when they talk about mortality, they consider mortality appealing because you get a chance to do basically, all these things, you might not get a chance to do basically all these things

you might not get a chance to do otherwise. Like all the kinds of travel broadly, read every book, explore every idea, do every hobby, all those kinds of things. Somebody I was talking to mentioned, the reality of being immortal would be more likely, I like this idea, more likely would be you just sitting there doing nothing because and putting off all that travel and exploration till later because you'll always have time. And so what you're going to have, what actual immortality would look like for a bunch of humans is people sitting there doing nothing. It would be like a Greek kafania just sitting

where a chicken coffee watch. I love it. I mean, it's a lazy man's paradise. Yeah. But it's so interesting because that that's, that rings true to me for what humans are like is we'll basically just put off all those exciting adventures and just be lazy.

Become lazy and lazy and lazy. Because you'll always have a chance to do all the exciting things. And we'll just get, we'll basically become Tim Dill. Just sit there and have a podcast and that's it. He works hard. Yeah, I mean, that sounds actually like heaven, dude. That's speaking to my heart really. I mean, I'm at heart.

I'm a very lazy person. I always try to find ways to lie down. Like if I'm sitting, I'll figure out a way to kind of contort myself to later. That's an interesting thing to like in. Yeah, if you can always push something off. Yeah, I like that. I think that's heaven. And um, see, we just changed your mind.

You kind of like the immortality. Yeah, I kind of like it. No, so there'd be no thirst, no, you can always put it off. I want to, I want to have, I want to bang this girl, you're like, I'll put it off. But now I'm thinking about Muslim having and they may be offering the best deal. I mean, if it was an expo and they had a booth, I may go with them because they offer,

they offer 62 or 72, but then I get sick of them. I'd want to, I don't know. I always wondered like, are you giving the 62 virgins or you choose, can you create them like an avatar, like a, like, are you giving the 62 versions for you choose? Can you create them like an avatar, like a video game, or are you just given? I don't know what the numf wise is important to have that high number. First of all, I think it's a mis-translation about the versions, but outside of that, outside of that, I feel like the conversations are really important.

I don't think they ever specify like what kind of books these girls read. What are they? What are they into? The quality of the conversation, I think, if you're talking about eternity, the quality of the intellect and the conversation and the personalities is way more important. The Greeks have an ancient expression, pot and metro and artisans, which my mother always used to say to do, which is everything and moderation, nothing and excess. So trying to always get to status quo. And yeah, that many women, eventually it's like the magic, Johnson effect, Isaiah Thomas effect, it's just too much.

And you're gonna end up, you're gonna end up banging a dude is what I'm saying. You're gonna get sick of it because it's too much. And there's going to be a unique, that finds its way into your herm. That's been proven throughout history, every empire, when you have all that power, and again, this goes back to power corrupting. If you have, if there's no struggle, there's no meaning, there's, the value is from the

journey, the working hard, the struggle. And if it's just given to you because you're assaulting or you're Alexander the greater whatever, you're going to get bored and you're going to bang a dude. That's, I think that's a scientific axiom, actually. Eventually, you and you're gonna bang a dude. That's, I think that's a scientific axiom actually. Eventually, you'll get bored and bang a dude. Yeah, but I think it won't stop there. I think you'll go to animals, you go to robots. I mean, eventually it all ends up in robots

and then the robots are well and then the humans will be destroyed. Yeah. I'm sorry. If we're speaking truth, you said the value of life one of the highest ideals is to seek truth, I think if we're going to be honest. Can I ask you a quick question? If you live in a small, I come from small islands, right?

And so there's this stereotype that that's where they bang animals. But if you come from a very small community, you know, that island or something, and you have the choice of banging a family member or an animal, which one is worse on the moral scale? Because you're technically not related to the animal. Right. This is interesting. I mean, all of you're technically not related to the animal. Right, this is interesting. I mean, all of these are human constructs, these ideas. But for me personally, we'll be more taboo to have sex with the family member.

I mean, animal, I mean, okay. I just couldn't know where he stand on that. I think your viewers, you know, if they didn't have, they didn't know they had that question. I just, they just learned a little bit about you and now I know. I look forward to the internet clipping that out. Yeah, I mean, there is, listen, in some, outside of that, I do think about that a lot.

Sounds ridiculous about morality connected to animals in terms of all the, the fact that you're farming and so on. It seems like that's one of the things we'll look, because I love meat, but I kind of feel bad about it. And bad in a way where I think if we look like a hundred years from now, we'll look back at this time as like one of the great like tortures and injustices that we humans have committed. And I mean, all that has to do with the sex with the animal

has to do with consent and about the experience of suffering of the animals. The reason I think about that personally a lot, because I think about robotics, I think about creating artificial consciousnesses, artificial beings that have some elements of the human nature. And then you start to think like,

well, what does it mean to suffer? What does it mean for entity to exist such that it deserves rights? This is something that the founding fathers were thinking about like, all men are created equal. What is it? Which, who is included in the men who is not in that sentence? And our animals, including that are robots

I honestly think that there will be a civil rights movement for robots in the future. I don't know Is that the Turing test the way you try to is that they call it where you're trying to It's see if a AI can think like a human or whatever or feel like a human well It's the Turing test closely closely defines more about talk like a human. So you can imagine systems that are able to, you can have a conversation like this, and I would be a robot, for example. But that doesn't mean I would, in society,

that doesn't mean I deserve rights, or that doesn't mean I would be conscious, it doesn't mean that I would be able to suffer and to experience pleasure and dream and all those kind of human things. The question isn't whether you're able to talk, which is passing the touring test. The question is whether you're able to feel, to be, I mean, I go back to suffering. The thing that our documents protect us against is suffering. Like we don't want humans to suffer. And if a robot can suffer, that discussion starts being

about, like, well, shouldn't we protect them? Currently, we don't protect animals. We protect that dog. There's laws. There's actually legislation that protects dogs. For torture. There's places, yeah. And you know what? Dogs is something I don't think people really understand enough about. It's one of my obsessions.

So they, my dad always used to say those things, those things are basically human. And I mean, they dream, they have anxiety. And what people often overlook about dogs is without dogs, we wouldn't be here. We would not have ever evolved from hunter-gatherer to agrarian to civilization. We wouldn't have cities, we wouldn't have anything.

I mean, they are our partner in survival, and they are a magical animal. There's no animal that was, it was like destiny almost. I mean, a malleable animal. There's no animal that's that malleable that in a few generations, you can tailor to a specific job that you need. And without that animal, without dogs doing that animal, protecting our crops from scavengers and stuff like that, the list goes on, we wouldn't be here.

So that's an often overlooked fact that human evolution was not done in a vacuum just with humans. I mean, without dogs, we would have never evolved. I mean, we weren't the apex predator. For most of our existence, we weren't even the apex predator. I mean, we're getting eaten by hyenas, which my favorite animal. I mean, that's kind of an injustice to, I mean, I'm kind of mad at dogs that we deserve to get eaten by

hyenas, but without dogs, we wouldn't be here and dogs dogs deserve the protection. So do horses. They fucking lugged us around for thousands of years and now these fucking German psychopaths are eating them or whatever. We should not eat horse meat just on like, be a good dude, man. These things lugged us around for generations. They're beautiful, you know, right, I don't know. I don't know, but it rubs me the wrong way that we eat horses. Yeah, the horses one is interesting.

And one of my favorite books is Animal Farm by Orwell, and the horses don't get a good ending in that. I kind of, my spirit animal I suppose is the horse from animal farm boxer where he says I will work harder that's his motto. I work really hard at stupid things. That's basically what I just hit my head against the wall for no reason whatsoever. But that probably fulfills you have a big brain. You're probably born with a big brain. That kind of fulfills killing neurons. It's exercise for you. Yes.

Yes. Don't you think some animals deserve to be eaten though? Kind of like. Hyenas. Come on, dude. I mean, they got to respect the hyena. Okay, so first of all, let me just comment on the dog thing. There is like conferences on dog cognition

from a perspective of people that study psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, dogs are fascinating. The way they move their eyes, they're able to, they're the only other animal besides humans, they're able to communicate with their eyes. They can look at a thing and look back at you and look back at the thing to communicate that we're all, like through our eyes, communicate that we're collaborating.

So every other animal uses their eyes to actually look at things. The dogs use it to like communicate with you with us humans. It's fascinating. There's a lot of other elements of dogs that are amazing. Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't for them, they are the ones they were our first alarm system for predators.

They would defend us. I mean, the Bicenges, one of the most ancient dogs. I mean, they're tiny, but they're fearless. Yeah. And they would chase off lions like, you know, there'd be packs of them. And they'd chase off lions and protect the tribes. It's, it's, I even get tingles like thinking about dogs because I have a dog I love my dog.

It's just, and there's something about when you're walking with your dog off leash in the woods. It's like, there's something about it that's like, that, that, that tugs at that, millions of years of evolution, like that gut, you know, it's like, I had a finished friend of mine. He's a comic. Tommy Volome, he's once told me, he was like, he was like, the gut, he's like, I believe

in that gut, you know, when you have that feeling, he's like, always trust that because that is million, those are all your ancestors. That's the survival instinct of all your ancestors, beginning of time, you know, telling you like, hey, something's off here, something's, you know, so don't get in the car with Ted Bundy is what I'm saying, ladies, how fucking stupid. How can you fall for that? You know, he's got a fucking slang on, don't get in. Yeah, follow the gut. My question to you, are psychopaths essentially robots? So first of all, let's not, you're using the word robot in a derogatory way that I'm triggered by. Okay, so I feel offended.

You should be because you know what? People are always scared of robots, but I actually, I have, I've made the sort of, I've made it to say, hey, I've thought about it. I'm like robots have been nothing but helpful. It's the people we should be scared of. Again, we're kind of missing the most destructive thing is us, because robots are helpful.

I mean, this is a fucking robot. You know, I went on hotel tonight. I'm already booked up. You know, I got my, I can change my flight. If this barbecue with Rogan goes 16 hours, which whatever Rogan wants to do, I'll do if he wants to kick me in the chest, I'll let him kick me in the chest, whatever.

Robots are helpful, no? Yeah, tanks and autonomous weapons systems don't kill people, people kill people. People kill people, yeah. Yeah, that's the answer. Yeah, the answer is about to click that for you. A lot of love for dogs. I appreciate it very much. And at the same time, you have the other thing that people seem to have love for, which

is cats. And on the flip side of everything you've said, I'm trying to understand what have cats ever done for human civilization. They keep rodents away. The domesticated cat is very important. It keeps rodents away. Yeah, that's what they were domesticated for. I mean, their psychopathic killers who end up killing innocent neighborhood chipmunks and birds,

they really affect the balance of the local ecosystem. But if you keep it for cats too. Not as much as dogs. I mean dogs are like you said, they look at humans. I actually read an article there, some people with theorizing they're smarter than chimps because of the way they can work with humans. And there was one border collie that spoke like 300 words, like a quarter, like a language, almost part of the way they can work with humans. And there was one border collie that spoke like 300 words,

like a quarter, like a language, almost part of the language. And their nose is like a magic, I mean, that's like magic, dude. If you can smell in my ass to what I had for breakfast from miles away, that's intelligence. That's intelligence. I mean, in some ways that their nose, if you were to put it on a scale, maybe their nose is more intelligent than our brain

for what it does. You know, it's like, I mean, dude, they can smell you from miles. Well, you ever see a dog just like sniffing, catching. I mean, it's smelling like, I don't remember the date on it, but it's like they have like millions of receptors or something where we only, you know, thank God,

we don't have their nose. That would be, that would make sex weird. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, be a little too intense. I think you mentioned when you were talking about Woody Allen separating the art from the artist. So that brings the mind Vladimir Putin. How about that transition?

I don't know. I'm so sorry. But if you look at just powerful leaders throughout history, Stalin, Hitler, but even model ones like Putin, and we're talking about power, how do you explain them? You said that power reveals not corrupts, but do you think there's some element to which power corrupted Hitler, power corrupted Stalin after he gained power? And the same with Putin when Putin gained power in 2000, do you think the amount of power that he was in possession was for many years? Do you think that corrupted him? I mean, we're joking about dictators get the job done

There is some sense in certain countries where dictators There is some sense in certain countries where a dictator is the only thing that can stabilize a nation. The counter-argument to that for democracies is like, yeah, but that's a short-term solution for a long-term problem. So you want to embrace chaos with democracy. That might be violent. There might be a lot of just constant changing of democracy. That might be violent. There might be a lot of just constant changing of leadership. There might be a lot of corruption in the short term, but if you

stay strong with the ideals of democracy, then you'll ultimately create something that as beautiful and stable as the United States. The sad thing is, I don don't know if that, if history tells that story. It's like I said, you look at Greece, you look at Rome, democracy kind of failed. The majority of Rome, the most successful empire that we've had, was a dictatorship for most of its run. But I do believe in a republic, which is sort of a limited democracy. I do believe in what we have here. I believe in common law, I believe, you know, in individual rights.

But yeah, I think you said it. I couldn't say, nobody could have said it better. Yeah, it's a short-term solution. You look at Saddam Hussein, he kind of, you know, when we took took him out, then there was a lot of infighting that that happened that he was kind of keeping at bay because he was a strong man, dictator. Well, he's an interesting one. So I turned to her up for my understanding. I'm sure people correct me. But when Saddam Hussein first came to power, he was, uh,

he's quite progressive. So like the, the, as far as I understand, the signs of an evil dictator weren't exactly there. So again, there's, I don't know if power revealed a power corrupted. Or that could have been the initial subterfuge to kind of get everybody, you know, Hitler also is a, you know a champion of the people. It's built some new roads. It's what psychopaths do. And that's why it's interesting to me.

I'm not sure if power corrupts psychopaths. And now that we know that we can do these cat scans and brain scans, we know that they're born that way. Power definitely corrupts people who have the capacity to feel and for empathy. Power, I'm not sure, I don't think power corrupts people who were born psychopathic with that condition or sociopaths who had, who, you know, who were closer to psychopath and then had some traumatic life.

You know, I just think, you know, the best way to get away with whatever nefarious thing you wanna do to feel, I guess the only thing psychopaths can feel is that excitement is to pretend to be the opposite of what you are. Yeah. That's what killers do, that's what the worst people to look at Bill Cosby.

I mean, he was what better way to hide, you know? It's like what wokeness is now. It's like, I'm such a great person. And you're like, are you? It's a great, the best way to hide is to pretend to be the opposite of what you are just like Ted Bundy I'm just an innocent helpful guy and then boom next you know you're getting your tip it off It's really well said. It's it's actually kind of funny because I talk about love a lot and I think the people that kind of Look at me with squinty eyes. they wonder, like, how many bodies are in

that closet? I mean, like, there's something about the duality of like, we're so skeptical as a culture. Like, if somebody's just like, seems to be kind of sort of, I don't know, positive and all that kind of, you know what how do I put it just simple Simple-minded in the positivity they express they think like There's some demons in there. Yeah, especially if you're in New York or we don't trust any the nicer you are the more skeptical We are yeah, I've struggled with that down here I've been like what what's your angle? And they're like not dude. Just I want to show you the best tacos man And I'm like did you really what do you want? Because in New York, it's like if anyone's nice to you, they want something.

And that's the proside to that is it makes you very streetsmart, the downside to that is it makes you way too cynical. Yeah, I definitely experienced that here in Texas, but people are super, super nice, and they're like, do all this cool shit for you. And you wonder, what's the angle? What are we doing here? You mentioned hyenas as your favorite animal. is cool shit for you and you wonder, what's the angle?

What are we doing here? You mentioned hyenas as your favorite animal. I forgot to ask you, what the hell were you thinking? Why is hyenas your favorite animal? Yeah, it's a fascinating animal. Let's look at the whole animal kingdom. Like, where do you put, so you like dogs?

Love my favorite. Your favorite is dogs. But they're kind of outside the animal kingdom because you're thinking about wolves. So the animal kingdom is in nature. Dogs escaped nature. They kind of did, yeah. Together with humans, like in a collaborative way, exactly.

So within nature, within the animal kingdom, what who's why not lions? Well, the lions are predictable. Lions are just, you know, they're regal and kind of they bore me. It's like the hot chick. It's like we get it. You were born the best.

Yeah. You know, I like a scrappy by any means necessary, intelligent and cunning. But aren't they dishonest? Yeah. And that's what I like. Yes, they're dishonest, they employ Chicanoere, and that's just sign of how intelligent they are,

and how self-reliant they are, and how brutal they are. They're brutally honest in how much they lie, because they're trying to get the job done. You know, lions are just like, they're too gifted. Everyone hates the fucking, you know, if I went to school with you, I'd be like, of course, Lex knows the fucking answer. Lex was born smarter than me.

You know, and you'd probably hate me because I was the kid always seeking attention and making people, it's like, that's not interesting. The guy that claws his way to the top and and those are hyenas, they're also fascinating just by merely who they are. I mean, they're not related to any other animal. They're more closely related to cats than they are dogs, even though they look like dogs. Yeah, but they're very, like very tangentially related

even to cats. So they're their own kind of thing, which is kind of mysterious. I don't think they fully figured out. And the pseudo penis thing is the, I mean, is the talk- Can you explain the pseudo penis? Yeah, so it's a matriarchal society by the way.

So that's the unique in and of itself that we're talking about an apex predator that is matriarchal, much like the praying mantis. It's very rare though. And they are fucking brutal and vicious and the women are bigger and they let their cubs fight a lot of fracture side and they do that because they're like, hey, you're weaker, I let your brother kill you. And the women have penises, the women have pseudo penises that they give birth out of and the birth is violent, but they roll

around with just huge pieces, they're glue guns, guns who just fucking swinging, you know, and the women are just run the show and It's just cool that they have these tuna pizzas It's almost romantic to eat this guy. They have the strongest bite force. They they pulverized bone like when they eat an animal The animal's gone. There's no bones. They eat everything. They can pulverize. Their bite is so powerful. They pulverize bone and eat it. So if they consume an animal, the animal is there and then the animal is gone. There's nothing for the vultures there to grab.

I'm going to have to revisit the heinus because my experience with the heinus was from, first of all, his true heinus, your show has rebranded them for me, but the Lion King, which is a cartoon, I guess, that I get emotional at every time I hope, that probably a father issues. Every guy. I probably just have feelings. You're a good guy. I mean, everyone gets emotional.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, feel it. that one gets everybody. I don't know I get I get every father son movie like blow with Johnny Depp and Ray Leona Damn, that's a good movie and whenever there's like Like the disappointment and the father that his son has become like This incredibly successful drug lord that then ends up with nothing in prison. Just the sadness that I could be getting through letters meant I guess me every time. But you know the hyenas are not presented that well in that.

No, they're usually portrayed as like it's really sad that they're portrayed that way in lions, like lions aren't dicks, lions are dicks, the alphabets will kill the cubs of another rival, they do all types of dicks shit. And yeah, the high, the high end is more interesting, like they'll just roll in like a hyena will like, like you said, the lie, you know, because when you watch the serengeti, you know, animals will hang out with each other. They're like by water. So one hyena will just kind of roll in and pretend like it's not hungry and then bank. They'll use any means necessary to take an animal down. Like lions will just use brute strength. Hyenas use cunning and you can even go on the internet and find memes of this where hyenas will grab the big animal by the balls and just like we'll sneak up

behind it and bite its balls and you'll watch an animal 10 size 10 times the size of the hyena just slowly go that it's brutal but it's fucking hilarious I think that's I don't know if you follow the channel Nature's Metal. That one was heavy on me, with the hyenas and the balls. It's tough to intellectualize it. It's tough to think that the entirety of life on Earth has this history of predators being violent, just like just the murder that we come from. Yeah.

It's crazy. It's just like we're talking about meditating on death. I actually I keep following and unfollowing that Instagram channel because like sometimes it's too much. Like I can't I can't continue with the day after seeing the honest brutality of that. I don't know how to make sense of it. It's important to acknowledge, I think, because it's real. We do come from that. We evolve from that. It's important.

We still do that. We're just hidden from it. When you go to the supermarket and get your slab of meat, you're so disconnected from where that meat came from. It came from that. And often that's uglier to watch than because there's some honesty, you know, the nature channels only show that's why we have so much sympathy with the prey. And this is where I think the same thing with mafia movies, they don't show what the mafia really does. They glorify the good parts.

That's why I like state of grace because it's really just shaking down old people and fucking be in dicks. It's not driving nice cars and being like, you know, so and animal channels do the same thing. They only show when the cheetah gets it because that's the exciting part. But what most people don't know is that those predators strike out almost always.

A majority of the time, the prey wins. And so if you saw that and put in context, you might not hate it as much when the predator actually gets the little farm or whatever, because it's so many fons got away. It's so hard to capture your prey. And we don't have the, they, no documentary is gonna sit around and show you

the 99 times the cheetah didn't catch. Thank you for this perspective. It's murder is difficult. So like, this is the, they never talk about for people who murder how difficult it is. Like the tough, to trap somebody, to convince them to come back to your place. Give it to us back. Put some respect on Ted Bundy's name. Yeah, it's not easy to convince somebody to get in your Volkswagen Beagle and clean up.

And then you have to kind of plan ahead because you want to keep doing the murder, mass murder. You got to learn how to saw them up, put them in Dufflepacks, bury, you got to learn a dig, you got to learn a hide, you got to learn a lie. I mean, it's a lot that goes into it. Yeah. That we need to pull the respect on, yeah. And you have to figure out which tools work the best for the sawing and all those kind of things.

So thank you for the perspective. That's what I was hoping we would bring to this table. So you got a little bit Greek in you. One of the episodes on, on history of hyenas, you talked about the Battle of Crete, where the Greeks, your people, in 1941 and the early stages of the World War II, is one of the most epic battles of the war. In fact, in 1941, in a speech made at the Reichstag, Hitler paid tribute to the bravery of the Greeks, saying, it must be said for the sake of historical truth that amongst all our opponents only the Greeks fought

with the endless courage and defiance of death. So okay what do you make of this battle? What do you make of the spirit of the Greek people? This is one of the closest things to me because my mother was actually on the island to create during this. The first aerial invasion in history, a lot of people don't know that, so this is a very significant battle. First time there was an invasion from the sky. My mother was a little girl and she lived through four years of Nazi occupation there. My mother was a human rights lawyer and everything, but she just always hated Germans. It's just what it is. She hated Germans and she never got over it. So the most progressive open-minded woman just could not get over this.

It's a monumental battle that a lot of historians in Retro's back have now looked back on and said because the Nazis, first off you got to take it back to when Hitler instructed Mussolini because let's be honest. Mussolini was Hitler's bitch. You know what I mean? I was like, if it was, you got to take it back to when Hitler instructed Mussolini. Because let's be honest, Mussolini was Hitler's bitch. You know what I mean? I was like, if it, you know, if it was fantasy island, Hitler was the fucking and the And Mussolini was boss the plane. Mussolini ever say no to Hitler or even maybe it's always like, yes, yes, yes, we were doing it. And it's like, yeah, you have to take Greece. And so, yeah. So Italy being much bigger than Greek. Greece is a tiny country, 9, 10 million.

So Italy invaded Greece. And Oki days are big. It's a big holiday for Greeks. And this speaks to the spirit. Greeks in fight until we have a common enemy. And then we unite. You see it throughout history, Sparta and Athens, you see it in Greek families where the brothers will fight, but then as soon as we have a common enemy, we unite. And maybe it's an overactive brain.

We think too much. Our traditions philosophy and we overthink things and we fight with each other and take things personally. We're all so passionate. But when Italy said, hey, we're going to move troops through, you know, Greek said Aki, which means no. And that was, and then Italy attacked. And we beat the shit out of them, a much bigger country, much more well equipped country. Greece beat the shit of them, kicked them back into Albania. Actually, not only repelled them, actually conquered some ground in Albania, pushed them back. And then Hitler was like, fuck, you know? I was planning my march to Russia,

but I have to go down because he basically said to move to the leaning, like, you know, you're fucking, you're basically bitch-lapped. I'm like, pray, I don't like, I gotta do this myself. Cause you said to fucking bitch. So then the Nazis invaded Greece. Obviously, they took the mainland with fight and shot out the Greeks never give credit to the British and New Zealand and Australian troops that were there. You know, they were a large part

of this, the majority of it, but the Greeks fight to civilians. I mean, they fought. You know, the Ottomans were there 400 years. You go to Greece now. There's no evidence. There's virtually no evidence of them ever being there. That's the Greek spirit. Kick them out and we kicked out Hamas too. So it's like, your culture's gone, you're gone. Because Greek search, it's Philoptimo, it's called Philoptimo, and it's a real thing.

Philoptimo is very little translated, but it's kind of like honor, loyalty, friendship, altruism, it's, you can't define it, but Greeks know it of like honor, loyalty, friendship, altruism. It's a, you can't define it, but Greeks know it and we're taught it from our families. It's a vibe, man. It's a Greek cultural thing and we're an old culture and philoptimos what it's called philoptimos. And it's love, it's passion, and it comes out.

And it comes out and it comes out. And so Hitler had to postpone his invasion of Russia, went down the island of Crete took 10 days to conquer. It's an island to put that in perspective. The country of France fell in three or four days. I can't even remember because they fucking just rolled over. So what is it? What does a couple hours matter when you're that much of a fucking pussy? Yeah. Okay. What is a couple out in 12 hour fucking three or four days? The island of Crete took the Germans ten

days to conquer. And because of that and because of the Greek resistance Hitler had to postpone his invasion of Russia to winner. And of course, that was, you know, that was his downfall just as it was Napoleon's. And never do, never try to invade Russia. They got millions of people to throw at death. Every time you read about Russians in history, books like, and the million died. I mean, it's that you just guys throw millions of people at the problem.

And don't fuck with that Russian winner. And don't fucking Russian people, dude, they're tough. People in New York know that. You don't go to fucking sheepset bands, they're talking shit. You'll end up in a fucking car trunk and they'll brutally murder you. I do not fuck a Russians.

Hey man. And there's a lot of people with a lot of historians argue that that battle was because of the Russian winter, because of delaying the Russian invasion, but also psychologically delaying the invasion. It was the first time, I think it was the first time the Germans failed, or didn't succeed like they wanted to early in the war, which is a little like psychologically the impact of that I think is immeasurable.

And also a lot of people argue from a military strategy perspective that just like you said, it was an aerial attack and that Hitler didn't think that that kind of attack would then be useful for the rest of the war. So that's a really part where it might have been very useful. So it's really interesting how these little battles can steer the directions of war. Of course, Negro and up in the Soviet Union We didn't hear much about this battle Just like you said millions of Soviets died all those people in history that you read about dying Those are all civilians, but I mean that all but a very large number of them are civilians and their stories

Obviously, that's the rooted, the literature, the poetry, the music, just the way people talk, the way they drink vodka, the way they love, the way they hate, the way they fear. That's all rooted in World War II and World War I. But we never kind of think about Europe, and we certainly grown up, didn't think about the role of the United States all this just playing stories of heroism in In the Soviet Union enough to enough for many lifetime. So, but it was fascinating to reach from a Greek perspective Because I you know, I don't have many Greek friends. I hope you didn't change that The beginning of a love affair of your people. Likewise, the Americans don't hear about the Soviet contributions to the end of World War

2 because obviously we became, you know, enemies after that because of the two systems. But yeah, without the Russians, World War 2 wouldn't have been one either. Yeah, the stories are written by the victors. That's really interesting. I just look into the history, you wonder what's missing. I'll tell you what's missing that I know for a fact. Because my dad told me combat's hell and he would tell me the reality of what it's really like.

Guys pissing themselves, calling for their mother, the fog of war, obviously, fracture side happens all the time. It's pandemonium. I mean, there's skill involved, but I mean, there's no, like, it's a lot of it. It's just luck. My dad said, my dad won three. He got, you know, metals,

braille, purple hearts, all that shit. And he said the reason was, is because he can't, he always said, there's another thing to tell me. You can't pin a metal on a dead guy. So it's like, those are the guys who deserve it, but you can't pin a metal. You can't do the pomp and suit with,

and I'll tell you one thing is that it is written by the victors and all these leaders, they say we're in the front, we're not in the front. We're not in the, whenever the history books say he led his troops into battle, it's like, did he really? Did he? So then how did he live?

Because they put like kids in the front, you know, it's like nobody limps back from the front with like a injury, you know, that's, that's army PR, you know, it's like nobody limps back from the front with like a injury, you know, that's, that's army PR. You know, whenever you read, you know, uh, 27 soldiers died, 14 were injured. The word injured is PR. That's like injured. Was he, did he sprain his ankle? Did he need, did he get carried off the court? Or, you know, he was maimed. I mean, he was like, his leg was blown off, you know, it's like, so I think that Alexander the Great was just kind of in the back on his horse

and just kind of had his unique blow him a few times and he was like, is it bad up there? And then after that, he was like, okay, my scribe, give me my scribe, okay, when you write this down, can you put me in the front? Yeah, and I was just making me a big hero and I was in there and then he just blew his, he had sex with his unit and wrote off into the sunset

because there's just no way you survive in the front, especially warfare back then. I mean, it's like brutal. Then again, you have like, Jengus Khan, the sense I got that he was a little bit up on the front, at least at first. Yeah.

Or is that also, is he a little bit of, I mean, my scribe, yeah, it's all lore. I mean, you ever play the game of telephone? You know, it's like, you know, there's no video cameras back then. So shit just turns into myth, you know? And there's no way he was in the front. There's no way he wouldn't have lived.

You know, he was probably good on horseback because those dudes were good on horseback. But it was like Game of Thrones back then, you had all these different people and they kinda, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Thrones back then, you had all these different people and they kinda, yeah, the Mongols were wild, dude. They actually said like, they started, like they were more adaptable to the horse because they were so good on horseback

that kids started to be born like kind of bolegged to fit the horse, it's wild. And they would stretch their heads and shit like that. They'd wrap them and stretch their heads so they'd find like Mongol skulls and they look like cone heads and they were brutal and vicious and they would maraud and rape and all the fun stuff that you know when you visit other places back then there's no Chachki stops and souvenir shops what you do is you take women and those are the tokens you know you burn a few huts. Different. Tourism was different back then.

Yeah, that's another difficult thing. Just what we're talking about, nature and predators, to think about the long stretch of history where we were just murder. Yeah. And we made so much progress, I guess, in the past couple of centuries. The United States is a shiny example of that.

But do you think also that it's that effect that we were... A lot of good things had to happen too, or else we wouldn't be here. So do we just focus, isn't it like a car crash effect that like we're just, you know, the rubber neck, do everyone pulls over to see a car crash? Are we just only focusing on the negative things of history because they're just more exciting to us? Like it's just not, it's boring to be like, yeah, and then there was a bunch of villagers and they ate every day and danced and loved. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder how different those people were. They might have had the same exact loves and fears

and like they perhaps had the same kind of brilliant ideas in their head, if not more, brilliant. And we kind of think about this moment in history as the most special moment. We're doing the coolest shit, but we're doing the most amazing building and most amazing things. But maybe they were building amazing things in their different way with less technological, but in the space of ideas and the space of just all the different camaraderie and the space of like concepts, mathematics, all those kinds of things. Yeah, I mean, Greece, you look at the architecture, it still stands up.

I mean, all the government play, it's still arguably, I mean, as far as objective beauty, it's hard to argue that Greco-Roman, it's just something about it with the columns, it's just, it's powerful. It's, I don't know, even I and Rand would probably appreciate it. She doesn't know. No, no. So in your history, Hyena's that unfortunately has come to an end, we're talking about empires coming to an end, all empires fall. That one, well, you may rise again, empires probably as my rising, who knows, who knows. I'm obviously a fan, so I hope it does rise again. But you've seemed to develop your own language. Can you, you know, it's what it is.

What is that? What the hell is this some kind of medical condition or can you explain the linguistic essentials that I catch us up to the linguistic essentials that people need to know to understand the way you speak? You know, Leopold and Loeb, you know the story of those two, they murdered that kid and they had this weird relationship. Anyway, it's an interesting thing to Google,

Leopold and Lo Love, these two guys who ended up murdering a kid because they developed their own language with each other and this own reality and this weird thing and they wanted to know what it's like to murder a kid and they murder a kid. It's a famous story in American lore and history, whatever, famous case.

But this phenomenon, yeah, me and Chris got together. It wasn't as dark as Leopold No, we didn't murder a kid, but we murdered a podcast. Um, at least stab it if you don't. Yeah, it's, um, it was something in the organic chemistry of me and Chris that I think will both end up appreciating even probably more than we do now that it's mysterious. I gotta be honest with, that it's mysterious.

I gotta be honest with you, it's, it was the thing that, it wasn't conscious, wasn't intentional, it was something that happened in the music of our energies that just went. It's fascinating. Like when you hear someone sing or when a jazz band hits a rhythm or even when I'm on stage and I just catch a rhythm,

it's like, dude, I didn't make a choice there. I don't know what that is. I don't know how to explain it, but it comes from somewhere else. And I don't know what it is. It's beyond my comprehension, but with Chris, there was this magical chemistry that, you know, I have chemistry with a lot of people and I can be funny and I enjoy a lot of chemistry here. This is great.

Yeah, it's a little bit more intelligent than when me and Chris did. But you know, me and Chris, I think we connected in on the funny bone. Like I, he, I found him so funny and we found the same things funny. And from that, these organic expressions came from some part of our brains that was created from this chemistry. And yeah, we just developed this in language and this cult following and people were really upset when we ended, but it was the right thing to end because like all things that end, it was kind of done a few episodes even before we finished. And I think we pulled the plug before it started rolling downhill like all, rolling downhill. Like all great flings.

You know, there's long, long marriages are boring and comfortable. The one you really like fucking always ends abruptly and sadly but you always look back and you jerk off to it. And, but- So you guys made love? We made, yeah. So it's like, it was like a hot fling with me and him and it was intense

And it would burn the candle at both ends and it was I think that podcast was meant to be three years and Maybe people will go back and appreciate it and listen to it over and over again And I think the new things we do people will love I'm doing long days now that podcast and people seem to enjoy. I'm really enjoying the long days. Yeah. Yeah. On YouTube. I just found myself just like staring at you, ranting for the same with Tim Dylan. I really enjoyed that whatever those rants are, the genius of just one thing after the other. But definitely the chemistry almost as a study. I remember the reason I first started listening to it, I was trying to get a perspective on certain historical moments.

Like, it was interesting. I tuned in to the learn history. Yeah, I came for the history and like stayed for the chaos. And it came up. The crack open and clean out. And yeah, it was almost, I listened to Rogan like this sometimes. I'll I'll re-listen to an episode to try to understand why was this so fun to listen to. It's almost like trying to analyze humor or something like that, but it's nice from

from a conversation perspective like why was this so easy to listen to? And with history of Hain is like, why is the chemistry so good? It's so, it's weird. It's weird, because there's not many podcasts like I don't know any would the chemistry like that. And it's interesting. And it's kind of sad that the fling

with the prostitute in Vegas has to end. Like that, but that's what makes it special. It's the Bukowski thing with the fog. The British office, one of my favorite shows was that it ended very quick. It's only a couple of seasons or something like that. And that was tragic, but that took guts to just end it. Given all the money you could have made,

given all the, you just end it. And that's what makes it like truly special. Yeah, and I'll tell you man, I just emphasized it because I marvel at it too. Because as a guy who tries to always figure out what the causes of things, I gotta be honest man, looking back on that even with retrospective wisdom, you know that 2020 hindsight,

we've been done a couple months now. It's something that I can't explain. Yeah. It's something that I don't know how you quantify it. I don't know how you describe it. It's, it's musical. It's really kind of rhythmic. So maybe, maybe like a Netflix show about history. That's, that's, that's in the, that's in the future. That, what would it do with the two of you? You you guys will meet like Well that the way you meet with a fling like a decade from now and a diner and You're both way fatter and uglier and and then you just reminisce over some cigarettes and coffee. I could be Yeah, I could be yeah, but it's definitely a classic podcast that people can go back and appreciate. It's fast paced and it was unique. What was it like to research for, I mean, it was really scholarly, the depth of research that you performed. It sometimes

felt like you almost read an entire Wikipedia article beforehand. More like exactly true. We were one fan. We attracted such funny people to that podcast and the fans were so funny. And one fan called us nicknamed this Wikipedia sluts. And so it just stuck. Yeah, we just would read Wikipedia. I would do a lot more research to Chris. And so I would actually, you know, once in a while he he'd get into it too, but for very interesting episodes, I got some subject matter would just pull me in, like Bernie made off just to think of one that was recent, it was one of our last ones. And I think one of our better episodes, and I'm glad that it kind of ended after that, because it was rare to, I think we started to slip a little bit. I got fascinated, I did a lot of research for Bernie Madoff, but usually, yeah, we'd

pull up with Kapiti and we'd have fun. We were sort of the antithesis of Dan Carlin. I mean, you went to Dan Carlin for accuracy and thoughtfulness. You went to us for, it was a hang with history. That's why history, Hyenas was such an appropriate name because it was a little bit of his, some episodes were more Hyena, more wild and a little bit of his some episodes were more hyena, more wild, and a little history, and some were a little more dense like the Battle of Crete and less hyena. So you were always going to get both. You're either going to get

a majority of one or the other. Yeah, and Dan Carlin is the lion, I guess, and you guys predictably good. Yeah. I mean, what are your thoughts about? I mean, he's a storyteller too. He gets a lot of criticism from the historians. Quite unquote. That's why he likes the knock. He keeps saying he's not a historian, but what's your... What are your thoughts about hardcore history with Dan Carlin? Like, we'll see an inspiration to the podcast you were doing or like a counter, like almost like reverse psychology inspiration where you wanted to do some kind of opposing type of podcast in

history or was history always just like a launching pad to just talk shit about human nature. More of the latter. I wasn't even aware of his podcast when we started. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So it was just very organic. Again, like the chemistry, me and Chris became very good friends. We started the podcast.

First we did a web series called Bay Ridge Boys, which has it sort of a little cult following and we did like five episodes and ended it. And then we did the podcast. And Hihina's one of my favorite animal. And I talk about them passionately and I told Chris about them. And then we did the podcast. And Hyena's one of my favorite animals. And I talk about them passionately. And I told Chris about them. And then he started appreciating them. And we both love history.

I majored in history. It's one of the things I love. I go to museums all the time. I go to history. History doors. So does he. And so it was just sort of a natural, let's do a history podcast.

And it gave us something to talk about each episode to sort of lean our, you know, hang our hats on and riff off of. So it had nothing to do with dance. What I think about dance, I think it's great. I think even if he's inaccurate in the opinions of the historical community, it starts conversations, which is good. It's like this thing when people go,

it's dangerous rhetoric. It's like, no, rhetoric only becomes dangerous when education fails. What's going on in America is education has failed. So if you call someone online dangerous, it's not him that's dangerous. It's the fucking stupid people that's dangerous. And it's the following this country, but isn't listening to Aristotle, the future of the civilization depends on the public education. And we failed. Education has failed. Kids are, kids are not interested in shit. And, um, so in some sense, those like Dan's podcast and podcast can be incredibly educational. That's, he's, the storytelling that pulls you in ultimately leads to you internalizing these stories and,

like, remembering them and thinking through them and all those kinds of things that is much more powerful than you book on history that's accurate. I think often it inspires you to go learn more. So it's like I know we did that. I mean, you know, people would go, I went and learned about this because they knew with us there was no pretense, which is great. There we had no standard. So it's like nobody came to us for historical accuracy, but I was kind of turned on by the fact that it inspired people to go learn about this stuff or to at least know like battle a creak like you said a very underappreciated battle even Winston Churchill said from here on we will no longer say that Greeks fight like heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks. I mean, it was a monumental battle. And, um, you know, not talked about enough. And I, uh, our podcast would inspire people to go actually learn more, to go listen to Dan Carlin or to go pick up a book or to do research on

their own. And so I think podcasts, Dan Carlin's obviously much more accurate than us, but it's good that people are going to podcast like yours and to learn shit. Joe is really like the progenitor of that. I mean, you know, having intellectuals on and getting the public interested with this new medium and people who are intelligent. It's nice, because you know, what the mainstream press pushes out is horseshit.

Gorgeous horsehit. It's nice because you know what the mainstream press pushes out is horse shit gorgeous horse shit It's got a beautiful veneer, but no substance and so this this is a nice pushback Yeah, the authenticity of Joe's show. I mean, I'm through I started listening from the very beginning You know doing my in grad school, you know, I'd like a technical person and he just pulled me in and made me curious to learn about all kinds of things and use my own critical reasoning skills on some of the bullshit Gessie's had and some of the most inspiring Gessie's had. So I'll teach you to think, can you, I don't know much about Bernie Madoff as a small tangent. Can you tell me who the hell is Bernie Mado? Oh, Bernie made off is the goat.

The greatest thief of all time, dude. Hegefun guy, ran a hedge fund and pulled the stole the most money in the history of America. I mean, a con artist. And he does, people obviously, he's become, he's a household name because of the magnitude of his crime, but you got to appreciate again You got to appreciate what went into this and how long he was able to pull it off by tricking the smartest and richest people in the world and

Brilliant scam the con man Con man is short for confidence man, and it came from Yeah, a con man basically they they exude confidence and they trick people by playing on their ego and blind spots. And the word comes from a guy, I can't remember where, but what do you, what do you used to do? I can't remember the guy's name, whatever. You can Google it, con man.

But it's very interesting. The first con man that is on record, what do we do when he goes to very rich people and he'd be very well dressed, right? And he'd go, I bet you don't have the confidence to give me your watch. And he would plan the egos, these very powerful and rich people. And they would give them the watch for some reason, some sort of reverse psychology bullshit. And he'd take the watch and he would just steal it.

Because basically saying like, I don't, you know, the conference gave me the watch, because you don't, I don't know, you don't think I'm going to give it back. And he would just take it. So Bernie made off was a very sophisticated con man. And again, we were talking about people pretending to be the opposite of what they are. Bernie hid his fevery in how available he was to his clients, how he would show up at every bar mitzv, every birthday. He was always available for their phone calls.

And he played on there. He goes. He made it. So people were wanted to their phone calls. And he played on their egos. He made it. So people wanted to invest in him. Like they were competing. He made it very exclusive. And he he wouldn't just take anyone. And there was a method behind that madness because he wanted the whales that wouldn't notice that he was he was had this pyramid scheme going. And so what he would do is he would just rob from the richer and he just kept, it was like, he'd pay back the richer with the guy who was a little and it was a pyramid scheme. And he was able to do it for so long and steal so much money. And he would win people over with the scheme because with that scheme, he was the only guy

who could provide, who could guarantee like a 1% return, even during time's recession. And because he was such a good con man, he hijacked people's reasoning with his charm. And that's what Con artist do. That's what psychopaths do. They're so fucking charming. They get you in that Volkswagen Beetle. Because if they use their reasoning for one second,

they go, hey, nobody can provide 1% returns during recessions. How the fuck is this guy doing it? I'll tell you how he's doing it. He's stealing from another guy to pay you. You fucking idiot. So charisma is a sense of that. Maybe you can help explain something to me, something I have been affected by. I'm going to wait too loud for your listeners. It's just going to be comments like tell this guy to calm down. I'm sorry. I'm Greek. I'm positive.

Yeah, it would. No, that's beautiful. I love it. This is something that I have been thinking about and have encountered indirectly as Jeffrey Epstein. And I have a sense, because of my tea, because of all the other people that have been touched the wrong term by Jeffrey Epstein in the sense that literally and figuratively. Yeah. And it's always felt to me like there's not a

deep conspiracy. I don't know, I don't know, but it felt to me like it's not some deeply rooted conspiracy where like Eric Weinstein thinks that there's some probability that that Jeffrey Epstein is a front for like an intelligence agency, whether it's Israeli or the CIA, I don't know, but is a front for something much, much bigger. And then I always thought that he's just maybe can correct me, but more of the Bernie made off variety, where he's just a charismatic guy who maybe a psychopathic in some sense, so also a pedophile, but just charismatic and is able to convince people

of that 1% of any idea that in the case of scientists is able to convince these people that their ideas matter. So one thing, scientists don't really, despite what people say, I don't think they care about money as much as people think. And people are ridiculous when they think that, yeah, that's why people get into science for the money. Yeah, right.

The person who is getting into science are obsessed with minutiae and they do the scientific method. You know how boring that is? Like, you have to have a love for it in order to do it. But the thing truth, what drives you is for your ideas to be then heard. And when a rich guy comes over, probably super charismatic, is going to tell you that your ideas, especially for some of these outsiders that MIT at Harvard, at all these sort of

big, like physics, biology, artificial intelligence, computing fields. To hear somebody say that your ideas are brilliant, ideas matter, it's pretty powerful, especially when you've been an outsider. Like he's talked to a bunch of people who had outsider ideas. You know, the big negative for me of modern academia is that most people, actually, are like most communities. Most people think the same, and there's just these brilliant outsiders. And the outsiders are just derided.

And so when you have, Jeffrey Epstein, like a hyena, sorry, sorry, sorry, going on the outside and picking off these brilliant minds that are the outsiders, he can use charisma to convince them to collaborate with him, to take his funding. And then thereby, he builds a reputation, like slowly accumulates these people that actually results in network of like some of those brilliant people in the world, you know, and then pulls in people like Bill Gates and, I don't know, political figures. I tend to believe that one person can do that. Yeah, I mean, look at Hitler. Charisma is blinding.

I think that's what Conman speaking of Bernie Metta. That's one of their major tools is flattery, just glib, superficial charm. It creates those blind spots. People want to hear how great they are. They want to be flattered. It takes your defenses down, plays to our ego, how much we're all just pieces of garbage. I want to hear how great we are. We want that love from our mother and our father. It's Freudian. And they know because they're not burdened with that need, they're not burdened with that empathy or emotions and they just see things very calculatively.

They play, they know that we're prey in their game and they use that against us and that is why someone who is not that intelligent, like Hitler, can probably convince a lot more intelligent people, and that's why we can't give him Dylan power because you know He already stands on a stage. I mean if we let that guy I mean he will just take over a country and everyone who can't cook Well, we'll be eliminated. Yeah, so it's like I wonder why he keeps complimenting me when we're in private Exactly be careful. He looks at me. Just you're you're I like your suit. I like the cut of your jib. Yeah, definitely

I will be careful that kid. He's Hitler. But it's crazy to clip that case internet. I mean, put, I mean, Quentin Tarantino said it to Batman. And it's grip personality goes a long way, dude. Yeah. I mean, personality can, can you serve common sense and reason of the smartest people? These absolute smartest people can be hypnotized. It's sort of like a sexy woman. It's like you can just, you can be tricked because we have such a blind spot for, for flattery. Yeah, I wonder, I think there's a BBC documentary on, I think it's called something like charisma, Hitler's charisma or something like that. It does quite, I mean, that one focused more about the power of a speeches.

But I wonder if most of the success or the rise of Hitler and the third Reich had to do with the charisma of Hitler when he's alone in a room with somebody, with the generals, just one-on-one. I wonder if that's the essential element of just being able to just look into the person's eyes, like flatter them, or whatever is needed to earn their trust and then convince them of anything you want.

Right. Yeah, I mean, you're right, because that's the one piece of history we don't have. We don't know. We don't know. We do know that the kid crushed. I mean, he was a headliner. He got up there and his face just... Oh, it's just...

He just... He just... He just... Yeah, there's certain elements about nationalism and pride that are really powerful. Like, a lot of us, humans, I think, long for that, for the feeling of belonging. And when some charismatic leader makes us feel like we belong to a group

the The amount of evil we can do to other humans because of that Especially when you let escape go. Nobody wants to look in nobody wants to do the work to be better Look at where they messed up. What does it always have to be the Jews that is You know it's like get over it guys. I mean, it's like they killed Jesus you think get over it Yeah, okay, it's a long time ago. I mean move on. I'm Jewish. I understand because we do run the central banks and and the weather and the weather Don't forget about the weather. That's a big one That's a funny one that people created like who gives a show of what it's a weather like what's the importance of the weather

All right, like Jews made a rain outside good. You you gotta fuck, you know, they made it snow. Okay, you get it, they all, thank you, Jews. Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's certain conspiracies that make me like flat earth. Like, what's the motor, like what, what's the motivation for lying that the earth is round? Like, what's the conspiracy? Yeah, what does anyone get out of that?

Yeah, what is exactly the profit? What's the, yeah, what's the strategy? Do you have any from a historical perspective, or just a human perspective conspiracy theories you connect with, or you're not necessarily conspiratorial? I'm not necessarily conspiratorial. Nobody cares that much. Black dare.

But then you know what happens is you find out this one of this two. You start questioning everything, man. It's like, you know, the Vietnam war started. That was a lie. That was a false flag. And then next thing, you know, everything's a false flag. There are some strange things on 9-11. You know, there's some strange things from a scientific perspective. I'm the scientist, but it's like, yeah, three steel-framed skyscrapers falling on the same day in the same way. A lot of people say, oh, it was, they were hit by planes. It's like, yeah, but that's not what they felt.

They felt because of fires and usually, not usually, all the time, except for three times. And there was buildings that have burned for longer than that. And there might be good explanations but the lack of transparency, it's like, I feel like government. I'm building sevens weird. I mean, the way I'm done. I'm just a neat, just a neat,

the physical, I mean, you're a scientist, is that, well, I don't, has there resistance from the steel? And so, no, free-fall, see, not there resistance from the steel. And so, no, free fall. Not scientists know everything. I'm just a computer guy. Okay. Cause I had some questions I wanted to ask about my biology, but yeah. So exactly. I don't understand biology. I don't understand the melting point of steel. I don't, but I'm

just a common sense human that looks at government and institutions when they try to communicate and there's a certain human element where you can sense that there's dishonesty going on. That dishonesty might not be deeply rooted in a conspiracy theory and something malevolent. It might just be rooted more likely to me in a basic fear of losing your job. So when you have a bunch of people that are afraid of losing their job, and they just don't want to, like the origins of the virus, whether it came from a lab or not. That's a pretty, I know a lot of biologists behind closed doors that say,

it's very likely it was leaked from the lab. But like, they don't wanna talk about it because there's not good evidence either way. It's mostly, you're just using common sense. So they're waiting for good evidence to come out in either direction, but just like nobody in positions of institutional like centralized power wants to just honestly say, we don't know, or on the point of masks, or all those kinds of things to say, you know, here's the best evidence we have. We're not sure we're trying to figure that out, we're desperately trying to figure that out, just like honesty, especially in the modern day

That's the hope I have for the 21st centuries People seem to detect bullshit much much better. Yeah internet. Yeah, yeah, and we we seem to also believe crazy shit too There's no yang without a yang I guess but the I think the conspiracy theories arise only when the people in positions of power and government institutions are full of shit. Like the air will be taken out of the conspiracy theories if the people in elected power would be much more honest. Like just like real. Yeah, people like Andrew Yang, whatever you think about him, just more honest. He just like says whatever the hell comes to mind. By the way, he's running for New York, mayor.

There you go. Do you have opinions? Yeah, it's no good. I like Andrew Yang and it's no good. I, I'd be honest with you, I'm a, I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I mean, I'm a New Yorker. Well, you're in New York, so nothing's good.

Well, something is good. Okay. And talking on, let's be honest about New York. Yes. It's a very socially liberal place. It is the head of the snake. New York is the country. If New York, when New York's not doing good,

country's not doing good, it's the most important city, DC, New York. It's really Rome, be honest. I'm maybe I'm biased, I don't know. No. Yeah. We just, in New Yorkers, we walk around everywhere. We go, this is just like New York, but not New York.

It's um, but New Yorkers, we walk around everywhere and we go, this is just like New York, but not New York. It's um, but in New York needs, and I'm a guy who leans left. I, you know, I just, I lean left and that's just what it is. A dictator. Is that where you going? No, we need, we need, it's a money town. Let's be, come on, man. I mean, New York is a money town and, uh, Wall Street. And then when AOC and her cronies

at the local level rejected that Amazon thing, you're going like, what do you think makes cities? What's gonna create jobs in the 21st century? What do we need more nail salons, more pizza places? I mean, we're living in the tech revolution, and you know, whatever your opinions are about Jeff Bezos, that's the world, tech. And they want you to come here.

Of course you give them tax breaks. That's why companies go anywhere. She's so fucking utopian. And that progressive wing is so utopian. And that always ends in disaster because it's not rooted in reality. It doesn't accept the reality that people are self-interested. Now they're gonna do this 14%, 15% tax hike

on people making a million dollars more. In New York City, a million dollars is not that much. So people are gonna flee New York. The tax base is gonna flee. New York's gonna fall to shit like it did before. So you're saying it basically needs a more capitalist front, like capitalistic type of thing, that Bloomberg, Giuliani, when he was still sane

and his hair wasn't melting off his face, prosecutor, you need a top, I mean, I don't know what's off his face. Prosecutor, you need a tough. I mean, I don't know what's happening. That guy's lost it, but it's fun. Yeah, it's fun to watch. Yeah, it's fun to watch him be just like Trump's lackey, like, yeah, whatever you want, boss. I'll just say whatever you want, boss.

New York is a money town that needs a money guy and sort of more all the Republican. I have to say on the local level, as more of a guy who leans left, I'll just be honest, it's a tough city that needs a tough mayor. Not some guy who's going like, I understand we all need free money. Andrew Yang I think is right in the big picture because all the real jobs are somewhere else.

You look at those Asian cities, you go like, oh, that's what our cities used to look like at the Industrial Revolution. You know, there was jobs and people were making things here. And now you look at those cities in Asia and you're going like, wow. And then you go to Detroit and you're like, yeah, we're done. You go to Cleveland, you go, we're done. So I don't actually, it's funny.

The reason I really like Andrew Yang is I've learned a lot every time he talks. It's not his opinions. He's just giving a lot of data, like information Which I just start a podcast don't run from air Well, yeah, that's true. He already has a podcast. I think Yang Yang speaks who doesn't who doesn't That's the way we communicate. I don't even talk to people unless it's on a podcast What listen man? I'm a I'm not gonna criticize that because there is something like I talked to my dad on a podcast In for four hours and I'm not sure I would ever talk to him in the way we talked without the podcast.

What does he do? Physicist. Oh, shit. But like that episode out. Yeah, it's episode 100 and, you know, the way I recorded that podcast is I tried to put my ego aside. It's actually really tough to talk to your dad, especially because you're giving him a platform.

Especially, so at that time, there's already a bit of a platform for this podcast. And so there's this, as a son, you think like, here it goes with this bullshit again. Like that's the natural sun thought you have. But at the same time, I wanted to, the way I thought about it is in 20 years when I look back, like I wanna do a conversation where I'm happy with it, you know? So I wanna make him shine.

But I also called him out on like, why were you so distant? Like, like all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it was very difficult to do, but it was really important to do it. I don't think I'd be able to do it without a microphone. Right. Listen, how often do we sit there and just focus our attention, just look at the other person? I don't know, man.

This is not even recording right now. No, just sit before I get invited to your over. Just so we can actually, you're right. The podcast does make, like, I listen, I've been listening to every word you've been saying and if we weren't doing a podcast, I might be looking at my phone or being self-conscious about something else or nervous or anything. You're interesting, then, especially with people close to you. I mean, that was, I recommend that actually for people to talk to their family on a podcast

or like fake or not. It's really powerful. It made me realize that there's a clear distinction between the conversations we usually have with humans and those we have on a podcast is being recorded. What the fuck were we talking on before that? I knew you were gonna lose your train of thought on that one because that's a big one.

There's a motion behind that one. Podcast with Dad is gonna take you to a place. I took you to a place. It took you outside of interviewer. New York, I went to a place. New York in Yang. New York in Yang. So the data, one of the things they really surprised me about,

I like the psychoanalysis he just threw in there. I knew that. Yeah, I took you to a place. So, Angie Yang mentioned- He respect me now, Dad. And my T is it enough? Fucking million people listen to this. I have 14 Rogans.

Instead of not, Dad, I'm great robots. Is that enough for you? That's what drives you, probably. That probably what drives me. That's what gives meaning to life is it's never enough. And I hope to pass that on to my kids one day that nothing's ever enough. Whether they're robot or human right? Your kids. Most likely, let's be honest robot. I call one of your robot. You love your robot. Are you starting to love your

is it gonna be like that pigmalion thing? You create them and then they kill you but even while they're killing you you got a tear. A tear. A slow one tear. One tear and just why are you doing this Frankenstein? Why? Why? But I loved you. Those would be the last words out of my mouth. But Andrew Yang mentioned something on that it cost $400,000 over $400,000 per year to support one person in prison in New York. Like when I heard that number, it was really confusing to me. Like that it cost that much, for a hundred K per person. And it was really refreshing to hear a politician describe a particular problem with data

that this is this prison industrial complex, whatever the hell it is. And whether the solution, it's unclear what the solution is, I think he has solutions, but just the honesty of presenting that information was refreshing. And I'm not sure a capitalistic person would solve that. Those kinds of problems he might make worse. I'm not, you know, I'm a huge fan of capitalism. I think the free market is the way we make progress in this world.

But it seems to go wrong in certain directions, like the military, industrial complex, the prison and the... Anything that ends with industrial complex. And so I'm not sure. I'm not sure if all of the problems, you're basically saying, let's put New York's problems aside. We need to have New York shine first to do what it does best. Essentially, yeah. And then the problems will fix them.

And then we can focus on the problems. But if you just say, like, here's a problem, here's a problem, here's a problem. Let's make sure we have the safety net that protects against all of these kinds of problems. That's not going to kill the city, the spirit of the city that is in your biased opinion, the Rome of the world. That said, a lot of people are fleeing New York. Yeah, that's why I say it. That's the reality of the situation is, you know, I'm all for the public good, but yeah, there needs to be back to that Greek expression, pond methranaristan.

I also think the free market is responsible for progress. I think it's the most natural thing, the thing that's most aligned with human nature, which is self-interest, and which I've not to the extent that I ran, but I do believe people are mostly self-interested, especially when gunned to the head. Morals are out the window. It's about survival. So, create a system that respects that and acknowledges that. But socialism works very well, at least right now, as a check, as to temper the excesses

of capitalism. And in certain scenarios, is the more appropriate system, you know, in a vacuum. So one being prisons or, you know, you know, governance, you know, Mark maybe even, well, and this is a difficult one, but in healthcare, healthcare is unclear. Well, there's a lot of the base there. Yeah, doctors want boats. Yeah, it's, so I guess you're voting for AOC, you're saying.

No, I'm not getting over issue, but I do I it's just a tough one That's a tough one, but ultimately the hypocritical it's like how do you turn people away man? How do you do that to people? It's like it's it's a tough thing to To reconcile helping people curing people with to reconcile helping people, curing people with the marketplace. It's just, I can understand why that one's so tough. And then you got hypochondriacs, of course,

who drain the system, you know, like people who are having anxiety like me, who had COVID and called 14, you know, I called 14 ambulances. So, and then of course, we're fat, and the free market made us fat because it played, the marketing made us one all this junk food And that's a burden on the health care system

So we got to do something about that. We got to get creative. We need new thinkers. I'll be one of them when you go to fast for restaurant You stand on a scale if you're over a certain thing you can't be served It's good for the health care system You know you're just handed a salad and say sorry this burger is illegal for right now if you achieve these certain BMI goals, then you can have this burger, but right now, you can. And that's where the state's important.

Yeah. And regulate our freedoms. No slurps is up with you, Bloomberg. Well, I'm with you to go along. I think the salads are too expensive. They should be subsidized. If you go to like a fast food joint, the burger's always going to be cheaper than the salad.

And this does not make sense. We should run on this platform. I'll be your vice president. Well, ban burgers for people over certain weight and make salad cheap three day work weeks. Why has that been happening? Okay, where are you going with this one? Good, good for the economy, stimulates the economy, right?

More shifts, creates more jobs, more people spending, because they have more leisure time, boosts the leisure economy. You know, why are we still doing the five-day work week? That was that was tempered from the seven-day work week. That was so the seven, it used to be seven-day work. It used to be like, and people who are just these libertarians, like, come on, dude, what is this fresh, are we freshmen in college? Yeah. You're going to, we're going to talk about iron, iron, necks, like, let's talk about reality, okay?

And human nature, people are fucking greedy, they lie, there's no end to up, which is one of my favorite expressions. No end to up. No end to up, there's no end to up. Can we dissect that from a Randian perspective? There's no end to up, which is, you just keep going, it's never enough. The human thought, it's never enough, no end to up.

More, more, more. And you have to reconcile your faculty, it's never enough. The healing is all, it's never enough. No end to up, more, more, more. And you have to reconcile your faculty, you're gonna die. So there's no end to up thing. Is that balance is just as valuable as progress. So we have to reconcile those two things and put them on a seesaw and figure out how to get two people who are the equal

weight to keep it like that. And that's the goal, and it constantly vacillates according to the time. You sometimes you need a little more socialism, sometimes you need a little more capitalism. You gotta fly the plane, man. You gotta fly the plane, dude. What's your looking back at history, Kanye? Is there a moment, time period in history, a person in history that's most fascinating to you?

You mentioned Bernie made up. Maybe second to Bernie made up. Is there in a battle of creed? Is there something that you always been curious about? Even if it's something you haven't actually researched that well yet, just something that pulled into your curiosity, that instructed the way you think about the world.

An individual or an event? An event, individual, you know, yeah, moment in history or a person in history. There's a few, but you know, Queen Elizabeth, the Elizabethan era, you know, the Sun never sets in the British Empire, very successful empire. What an absolute success story that is for a leader and a woman. Can you tell a little bit about our story? Well, you know, I actually don't know much about the British Empire.

Yeah, she had a good run. I think it's like 70 years, you know, as a Shakespeare, they, you know, they, oh, I guess what's the word Pax Romana, the period of Rome that was that piece and they flourished, like a couple of emperors like Trajan or some good ones. And I think he was part of the Pax Romana that sort of just a piece and a comfortable flourishing time. And England had sort of that in their empire under her.

Successful range, she murdered a cousin, she, you know, the movies. There's a, you know, um, K Blanchett placed her and does so. And she didn't win the Oscar because fucking Gweneth Paltrow put a, put a British accent on in Shakespeare and love. It's a tragedy. Why do I know this? Because I'm not a full man. I'm a comedian, which means I do skits, I perform.

And I, K Blanchett's incredible actress, great movies. She was just so, and here's the thing. She, she never got married. She was, oh, she was so astute at public relations. And, and, and, and, and imagine how strong you got to be as a woman to lead the greatest empire, maybe known to man at the time and to do so so successfully. How Macchi Valley you have to be, how idealist you have to be, how much of a good marketer you have to be, propaganda machine was on point.

She was married to England. She was adored the way she adored herself. You walked in, you're like holy men, a god just walked in here. And of course she got fucked. I mean, who doesn't fuck? We all fuck. Even robots one day will fuck. But she did that propaganda thing.

And historians aren't, they haven't decided this, but I believe she fucked. And I believe she did that as a tool of propaganda, a married to England. So you, oh, you're directly referring to like using sex as a way to manipulate people. Well, she, her, she was known as like the Virgin Queen. And, and her thing was like, I'm married to England. Like, I can't be distracted by man or woman, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, she never had any kids. Nothing, I think she did that as a tool of manipulation.

Yes. What you need, rulers need to, you know, Obama made you feel good and then he went and bought carpet bombed everywhere. You need to feel good about your guy, no matter how evil they are. And she was fucking a dictator. But when you look back at her,

everyone's like, oh my God, she was so great. The horror and the shit that she had to do, she didn't put that in the history books, but that's what probably was part of what made her successful. And she's a fascinating character to was part of what made her successful. And she's a fascinating character to partner them because she was so successful and and England flourished so much.

And it's just fascinating to me because she was the great version queen. And can you think of a, there's no other woman who was that say, I mean Angela Mark, I mean, come on. I mean, there's nobody who comes close and defeating the Spanish or motto I think that happened under her. I mean, I'm no professionalist, but I mean the woman crushed and You think it's more effective to lead by Love which it sounds like what she did from the PR perspective or by fear where do you land on that? We don't have a leader. That's a great question. Um, I'm not we got to ask Joe

Where do you land on that? We don't have any of that. That's a great question. We got to ask Joe. Well, yeah, this is interesting because I think leading in the 21st century in whatever ways is different, I think, is very difficult to lead by fear. I mean, that's why I find Putin fascinating and really fascinating. Is he a relic of another era or is he something that was will still be necessary in the coming decades for certain nations? I think he's a, I don't think he's a relic from another era. I think his background. I think he is who you think he is because his background was an espionage.

His background was in sub-diffusion espionage. I think I've said the word sub-diffusion maybe 10 times now. But he, uh, you like big words, you like it. I just sit in here with you. It's time to flex. But he, um, he's very good at that, right? Like, uh, controlling people with psychology. And even if you look at the way he's sort of used the internet and, um, has sort of been, you know, gotten into the citizens of other countries' opinions. And it's very KGB. He also looks great without a shirt on a pony.

On a horse. On a horse, yeah. I thought he would choose a pony because a pony is smaller. Makes him look better. Would you put Queen Elizabeth as the greatest leader of all time? Like, probably. Yeah. I think as a woman, and you look at the leader of all time. Like, probably. Yeah. I think as a woman and you look at the,

you look at the, the length of the rain. I think it's like 70 something years or something like that. With that, she rained. Success, man. Success. She used the church. She used public psychology. Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time under her rain. You know, people were going to plays and it was a success front and she was marauding everywhere else, marauding and calling resources for the empire and just say,

a absolute successful. It's even a token of her success. We don't consider her a dictator. Yeah. She's a dictator, you know, she was queen. I, this my thing I love about the feudal system, that these fucking country still feudal systems. we don't consider her a dictator. She's a dictator, you know? She was queen. This my thing, I love about the feudal system, that these fucking country's still a feudal system,

they're celebrating a horrible thing, divine right of kings, oppression, kings were dictators, and now they have fucking ceremonial, why don't we have a ceremonial furor? Why doesn't Jeremy, he doesn't do any of the bad stuff, he just rolls around and does this, and that's it. I mean, it's like, what the fuck? there's no difference between a Hitler and a fucking king?

They did the same horrible shit. Why not a fucking ceremony or conqueror Alexander the Great walks in rapes it's a little bit but it's all fun. It's for ceremony. He represents the country. Macedonia is great. It's interesting to see that some you're starting to see a bit of that in Russia was Stalin actually the celebration of a man that helped win the Great Patriotic War. Right, so like you're already starting to see that is very possible in history books. You'll be seen as maybe like a James Con type of character and you forget the millions that he tortured. So you're one of the most successful and brilliant people the millions that he tortured. So you're one of the most successful and brilliant people the world has ever seen. So you're the good person to ask for advice.

You know, there's a lot of young people that look up to you. God bless their souls and hearts. What advice would you give to a young person maybe to yourself, to a young version of yourself? advice would you give to a young person, maybe to yourself, to a young version of yourself? And just how to live a successful, a good life. Be doggedly you. I think the magic happens when you are stubbornly doggedly you and you meet other people who are doing the same. The real magic of life, the real true currency and the semifemorial life is sort of the communication that happens between people. That's a real currency. Friendships, love,

it's cliche, but it's a, I think the meaning of life is to experience, to experience love. And I think people often mistake, maybe it's because of Hollywood films and things like that. That love is a feeling, but it's not. It's an action. So that took me a while to learn, and I think that's why I've made decisions since that I think have been good for me and healthy for me. Love is an action.

People can say things, you can feel things. That doesn't mean they're necessarily real. It's all chemical reactions. It's all tied to our immaturity and psychological issues and survival, but action when you do things, when you act out of love, and that's what it's about. Is there times when you're younger where you were kind of dishonest with who you are to yourself.

Yeah. In terms of like, what kind of things did you have to do to shake yourself up and be like, okay, I thought I'm going to be a scientist, but instead I realized I'm going to do this. Yeah, my parents are going to make funny. Yeah, my comedy is a hard thing to explain to an immigrant mother who came here and under Nazi occupied creed and became a human rights lawyer and lawyer. My brother's a lawyer and my father's a lawyer.

Claude's way up his dad was a, was a, um, so you're a disappointment. I'm the black sheep. Yeah, my brother went to Oxford, Georgetown Law, Brown. You know, has master's in pot, you know, good law degrees. My mother has followed for law degrees, you know, she was on the human rights commission New York up for a judgeship under Denkins. Um, wrote a, you know, uh, she was the editor of Unitar. She wrote a seminal piece on the human rights of children for the United Nations. Um, and yeah, it was a comedian. I was always a fuck up. And the thing that I was best at,

the only thing I was ever decent at was just like making people laugh. I don't know why, I don't know where that comes from. But, uh... Was there ever a question, was there a moment where you decided this is what I'm gonna do? There was a moment after I graduated college, yeah.

But I was thinking about all types of stuff that other people imposed on me. And I was honest with myself. And once I figured out it was an actual career path, I wasn't even aware. Back then, the internet wasn't huge. You know, in late 99, 2000, it wasn't big yet. So I didn't, I thought Robin Williams was just like an actor.

I didn't know there was comedy clubs and all. So once I learned that, I was just like, I tried it. I suffered from massive anxiety. I remember the first time I did comedy. My arms went numb. I started having a massive panic attack. I have my first set. I can show it to you. It's like, I just can't go.

I'm video. Yeah, I'm video. Oh, nice. I can go. Thank you. Thank you. And the reason why I kept saying thank you is because I forgot my whole jokes. I was so scared.

And then they laughed because of the amount of times I said thank you. And then once they laughed, I was, I remembered the whole thing. And I did the five minutes. And I remember getting off. And for a person who never felt like he had a place anywhere, nothing ever felt right. That felt like, okay, I found it. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is it.

It was the only time in my life I felt that I haven't felt it since, never felt it before. So it's the only thing I can do. And um... Yeah, I had that, you know, it's funny, because there's a similar experience like immigrant and family. And the world tells you to do certain things and you think that's right. But then you put yourself in situations

by luck probably where it's like, oh, this feels right. I don't know what this means, but this feels right. I think the biggest moment like that for me was, I don't know what to make of it exactly, but when I met Spot, the robot, the Lego robot, it was like five years ago, it felt like the depth of fascinating ideas

that are yet to be explored with this thing. This felt like a journey. I was like a door that opened. I was like, I don't want to be a professor. At that point, I realized I don't want to do sort of generic stuff. I want to do something crazy. I want to do something big. That's the reason I stepped away from MIT. That's the reason I have this burning desire to do a startup. that's the reason I came to Austin. Yeah, I don't know what the hell it all means, but you just kind of follow that. That's awesome.

That sounds like you're following what's doggy to you. And also, I think just to piggyback off it, I think that means no matter what it is, because I think our, the American dream is sold. Like, hey, if you're not Beyonce or if you're not famous, you're not worth it, I hate that. And that's what I love so much about certain countries like Sweden. It's like where everyone has healthcare and something

because everyone's a little is valued more. It's like, whatever, if you wanna be a dormant, do it. Like, it's all the same. Prince was not happy. There's no, just because you're rich or famous, you're still the same guy. Whether your possessions are a lot little, you know, it's like, I have met some dormant, I have met some tax capers that I, a lot of you not are more fascinating. I have, comedians

are horrible people. So I want to get away from all of them. I have very few friends, Paul Versey, Tim Dillon, who are comedians, because they're awful, awful people. Some of the people who you know the most, who are the most famous, are not who they say they are. Usually that's the case. They're putting on that public facade because they're fucking so's your baths. They're horrible people.

And some of the most beautiful people I've met and the most interesting people I've met have regular jobs. There is no shame in any fucking job. We don't all have to be rappers with like rims. It's just a weird thing. Yeah, famous, famous a drug. And yeah, comedians I grew with you.

There's some part of me that knows that there'll be a moment in my life when I'm standing there with like a sword or a knife in my stomach and looking at Tim D Dylan's smiling face, saying, you shouldn't have trusted me. You stupid fuck. So on that note, yeah, I've been a huge fan of yours.

I love what you're doing with long days, now you're a new podcast. And I obviously love all the stuff you've done before with history of hyenas, the chemistry. The chemistry you have with yourself is also fun to watch. So man, I'm a huge fan. It's a huge honor that you come down here. Thanks so much for talking to me.

It means so much to me to hear you say that. I really appreciate my big fan of yours and have me on. It's been amazing and just thank you, man. Thank you for having me on. And people, if they want to watch my specials called Blowing the Light, it's on YouTube and please come listen to Long Days of Podcasts. And, wow, let's go eat some barbecue. Let's do it.

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Janus Popus and thank you to wine access, blinkest, magic spoon, and indeed. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx. Revolutions are the locomotives of history. Thank you.