Lex Fridman Podcast - #253 – Michael Malice: New Year’s Special

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

Michael Malice is a political thinker, podcaster, author, and anarchist. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - FightCamp: https://joinfightcamp.com/lex to get free shipping - Linode: https://linode.com/lex to get $100 free credit - Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex and use code LEX to get $5 off - Sunbasket: https://sunbasket.com/lex and use code LEX to get $35 off - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free EPISODE LINKS: Michael's Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Michael's Community: https://malice.locals.com/ Michael's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5tj5QCpJKIl-KIa4Gib5Xw Michael's Website: http://michaelmalice.com/about/ Your Welcome podcast: https://bit.ly/30q8oz1 Books & resources mentioned: The Anarchist Handbook (book): https://amzn.to/3yUb2f0 The New Right (book): https://amzn.to/34gxLo3 Dear Reader (book): https://amzn.to/2HPPlHS The Idiot (book): https://amzn.to/3zdHdHH Six-Word Memoirs (book): https://amzn.to/3zg51uv 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 (09:07) - Truth, goodness, and beauty (19:35) - Save one life (26:26) - Jeffrey Epstein (45:21) - Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton (51:33) - Christmas and New Years for Russians (58:14) - Russian cynicism and suffering (1:05:52) - Gift exchange (1:18:48) - Michael's move to Austin (1:24:14) - The Anarchist Handbook (1:30:46) - Ghislaine Maxwell (1:35:20) - Jeffrey Epstein (1:37:34) - Lex's move to Austin (1:46:21) - Elon Musk (1:49:31) - Writing The White Pill (1:54:18) - Camus (1:59:16) - Writing The White Pill continued (2:04:34) - New Year's resolutions (2:18:09) - 2024 elections (2:30:38) - National divorce (2:45:15) - Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein vs Sam Harris (2:54:26) - Conversation with CEO of Pfizer (3:07:59) - Anthony Fauci (3:13:28) - Advice for young people (3:23:30) - Wife and kids (3:28:57) - Immortality

Vajayamu Damaigaspada. The following is a conversation with Michael Malis, his fifth time on this The Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. First is Fight Camp.

A punch and bag I use at home for boxing workout. Second is Linode, Linux Virtual Machines. Third is Magic Spoon, low carb, keto-friendly cereal. Fourth is Sumbasca, healthy meal delivery service, and fifth is ExpressVPN. The VPN I've been using for many years. So the choice is exercise, linux, food or privacy. Choose wisely my friends. Now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors.

I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Phi Camp. A free standing punching bag I use and you can use at home to get a great boxing workout. Hitting this bag is one of my favorite high intensity full body workouts. When I originally heard about Fight Camp, my first concern was not that I'm Mike Tyson or anything, but I do like to hit the bag pretty hard. So my concern was if it's standing on the floor and I'm hitting it and it's at home

It's gonna move around all over the place But they have this I think they call it patent the technology but it's just pretty cool set up where the bag does move within its Circle base but the base prevents it from moving all around the room they actually have videos of Professional boxers, like heavyweight boxes hitting it hard, and I hit it hard and it moves, but it doesn't move across the floor, so it stays in its place.

Anyway, Fight Camp uses new tech that tracks each punch you throw to measure speed, volume, and output, so you can follow your progress, push yourself, compete on the community leaderboard and challenge others or do you versus you on the new versus mode. That's like poetry, you versus you. Yeah, I haven't actually done any of the competition against others, but it's been me versus me, which is your greatest enemy.

They say it's great for kids too. You can pay for your fight camp over 24 months for less than the cost of a boxing gym and get it right away. Plus, Fight Camp offers free shipping with a 30-day money back guarantee. Just go to joinfightcamp.com slashlex. To get free shipping on Fight Camp, go to joinfightcamp.com slashlex. Join fightcamp.com slashlex. This episode is also brought to you by Linode, Linux virtual machines. It's an awesome compute

infrastructure that lets you develop, deploy and scale what applications you build faster and easier. This is both for small personal projects and huge systems. Lower costs than AWS, but more important to me is the simplicity, quality of customer service, the human touch, with real humans, 24.7.365. I've said many many times before how much I love Linux, how much I love computing for structure, I love infrastructure in a digital space because that is the thing that makes the world run. I think in my conversation with Elon, he mentions this, that the software engineers,

the engineers' period that make the infrastructure work for Tesla autopilot are the unsung heroes, and I agree. Those people are often brilliant, essential, and they kind of shun the spotlight actually because they love the work for the work itself. And I admire that deeply. If it runs on Linux and runs on Linux, visit linux.com slash Lex and click on the Create Free Account button to get started with $100 and free credit. This episode is sponsored by Magic Spoon, low carb keto friendly cereal, even when I say Magic Spoon it just brings joy to my heart.

It has zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, only 4 net grams of carbs and 140 calories in each serving. You can build your own box or get a variety pack with available flavors, there's a ton of them, cocoa, fruity, frosted, peanut butter, blueberry, and cinnamon. I think it goes on and on. I think they keep adding new flavors sometimes, but still friends. Coco is my favorite flavor and the flavor of champions. It reminds me of childhood. It reminds me of happiness without any of the pain that comes with childhood and happiness and the sugar crush. Because there's not the sugar situation that

most cereals have, this thing is really good for you. It has the deliciousness, but none of the evils of sugar, sugar is not evil, but it's just bad for you. Let's not call everything evil. Anyway, magic spoon have a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it, they refund it. Go to MagicSpoon.com slash Lex, Link and Use Code Lex at checkout to say $5 off your order. That's MagicSpoon.com slash Lex and Use Code Lex. This show is also brought to you by Sunbasket, Meal Delivery Service. It's a restaurant, quality food quality food packaged up delivered to your

home and ready to heat and eat. Heat and eat sounds like something Muhammad Ali will come up with. In other words, it sounds awesome. Eating to me is a joy, but it also is a thing that takes up time in a day so it needs to be efficient. You have to balance those things. If you enjoy this kind of thing, inject variety into your life, bring joy by way of variety in the food you eat. Me personally, I don't necessarily get joy from variety. I just get joy from the deliciousness of food. And some basket is delicious. So the other aspect of it is the efficient thing I mentioned and that's what some basket

really helps with. It's make deliciousness and variety if you care about that kind of thing. Efficient. Anyway right now, Sun Basket is offering $90 off to your first four deliveries including free shipping on the first box. When you go to sunbasket.com slash Lex and enter code Lex. That's sunbasket.com slash Lex and enter code Lex. box. There's a big giant sexy red button. Doesn't get any simpler than that. Doesn't get any more efficient than that.

I just love it. Clearly, I'm in the holiday spirit currently. It's New Year's Eve. I'm doing this ad read. I love life. I love everything. And I love ExpressVPN. Actually, ExpressVPN has been with me for many years through the hard times, through the hopeless times, when I was full of self-doubt and nothing was working.

It's funny, it's funny that you could have that kind of relationship with software. Of course, the software doesn't know about it, it was just there being useful, but there's a relationship with that big red sexy button. Anyway, there's a bunch of cool things about ExpressVPN. I guess I'm supposed to talk about like it adds a layer of privacy protection between you and the ISPs. You can change location to watch any kind of shows on Netflix and Hulu and whatever. The most important thing for me is just easy, fast to use, works on any device, operating system, my favorite is Linux, of course, the greatest. I should really talk to Linus

Tarnwald on this program. Thank you to ExpressVPN for being there, through to the tough times, and the good times. We'll be through it all. ExpressVPN and I. Anyway, go to ExpressVPN.com slash LexPod to get an extra three months free that's ExpressVPN.com slash LexPod. And a few friends are going through some hard times. With ExpressVPN or without, I wish you the best of luck. Hard times make for a tougher mind. A tougher mind helps you appreciate when the times are good and things are beautiful and love is plentiful in your life.

Happy New Year, happy holidays, I love you all. This, friends, is the Lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with the great, the amazing, the one and only, Блэкс Федмонг-Подгазт, и здесь это моя конвисация с очень красивой, и, конечно, только Майкл Малес. Привет, товарищ. 3. Stavogodom The Stavogodom The Stavogodom My favorite books Through the main character Prince Mishkin That beauty will save the world

Krasataspasiotmir These words seem really naive And and ultimately at least to me profound. What do they mean to you? Beauty will save the world. Naïve really? I don't ever seem naïve at all. Well, Sheldon Janssen actually, for his 1970 Nobel Prize speech, talked about this line a lot. And he thought, for most of his life, that was a silly line.

There was just words thrown out there because with all the suffering that's in the world, what has beauties actually ever done. Oh my God, I hate this so much. I'm talking to Ashbaugh, Soljin. Yeah, I am. And this is perfectly sets up this theme. You know why I said, let's do this episode,

start the new year on a positive note, give people hope, give people joy. You and I both have friends who are models, right? And it's a silly profession to some extent, of course, but you are actually a model. You are my friend. That's right, that's true. I haven't had a model. I was trying to be subtle, but for those people who actually deserve to be models,

when you look at someone who is a model and in some of their photos, and these people look perfect. Now in real life, they're not perfect. They have flaws. They'll be the first to admit it, so on and so forth. But when you look at beauty, it is almost impossible to maintain a sense of cynicism and hopelessness. Because if there's even one moment when some element of perfection has been actualized, if there's one moment where a beauty has been realized and captured, you can't say, well, it's never gonna happen again.

So I think beauty, it means hope. I think, I hate that cynical idea of like, I get, I appreciate Soul's Unicens broader point in that a lot of times people, there's something called the deepity, where people throw words together to sound profound, and if you take it apart, like this is just complete gibberish,

I don't think this is an example of that. I think beauty inspires. And it, more importantly, it proves to you this is something that can actually happen on this Earth. Plato, right, the Platonic theory of forms, like this world is imperfect, but these perfect forms exist another dimension, and that's where our concepts come from. You know, he's an early person trying to figure out where our concepts come from

and epistemology and so on and so forth. But that is something that is real and here. So I completely disagree with his analysis of that and I don't know if it will save the world, but it's certainly a prerequisite. And what's the point of fighting for your values if you don't want to make the world, but it certainly a prerequisite. And what's the point of fighting for your values if you don't want to make the world a more beautiful place? It's also how you define beauty because beauty could be just aesthetic beauty, could be art. Of course, art could be, could encompass a lot, a lot more than just literature and paintings. It can encompass the full life, the full dance of life, but then beauty could be something just deeper, like whatever that awe you feel when you pause and hear the music, just hear and like

look up at the stars, like for some reason when I see rockets go up, for me it's like science. What is that? The awe that we're able to accomplish that as humans. You know, that's funny because, you know, there's lots of different schools of thought, like these people versus these people and then, you know, maybe vegans versus steakhouse people, I think in terms of the sciences, and I guess you and I would be on opposite sides here, you have the astronomy people versus the zoology people. Like the big question is, would you rather spend 10 minutes on the moon? Or would you rather spend 10 minutes in the deep sea?

And for me, it's clearly the deep sea. The zoology that's down there, there's something I would encourage people to look up called deep staria, which is a jellyfish. The scientists, what's amazing when you watch these deep sea dives on YouTube is that the scientists are, they're nature dorks like everybody else. They went into this field and there's none of this maybe soljaneachan-style cynicism of when they see an amazing animal in its natural environment, you know, exhibiting these crazy behaviors, they lose it. They're on the mic, they go, oh my god,

and like it's so exciting to watch. So I'm not a rocket person, but I'm definitely a zoology. So animals and plants and the sea. And also it's so mathematical. There's so many forms. There's this plant called Areospermum, Titan, Upsuides. I don't know how to pronounce it because they're always in Latin. You never hear them pronounced. You said sperm. Areospermum, yeah, because it's a woolly seed is the genus. The leaf, it's just always puts out one leaf, but the leaf

is covered in little magnifying glasses, glasses lenses to make it maximize the sunlight. So it looks like this little crystal seashell. It's tiny, it's like two centimeters, but it's just this amazing thing that grows out of the sands in South Africa. Just a defense soldier in for a second. So if I may read a couple of his lines from the speech, so he said, One day, this is how he introduces it. One day, Dusty Eski, throughout the enigmatic remark, beauty will save the world. What sort of a statement is that? For a long time, I considered it near words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history, the beauty ever save anyone from anything.

And then later, he goes on to argue with himself in the speech, as an older wise man now, but perhaps that ancient trinity of truth, goodness, and beauty is not simply an empty-fated formula, as we thought in the days of our self-confident materialistic youth. If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the two blatant, two direct stems of truth and goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through, then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of beauty will push through and soar to that very same place. And so doing will fulfill the work of all three. In that case, the St. Eskis remark, beauty will save the world, was not a careless phrase, but a prophecy.

Which of these three things are your favorites? Truth, goodness, or beauty? What did he call truth and goodness? The blatant two direct stems of truth and goodness versus the fantastic unpredictable unexpected stems of beauty, which is how I see your Twitter account. I don't think that I think there's certain birth of beauty we had in my Twitter account. That's for sure. It's certainly no goodness. Or truth. Yeah.

Yeah. It's Twitter. There's no truth to be found. Or truth. Yeah, yeah. It's what I heard. There's no truth to be found. I would, I will answer the question. I will, of course, point out that having this kind of, you know, distinction between the three things is, I think, kind of synthetic. I think they very heavily overlap, if not. And so if I can probably make the argument, they're synonymous.

In fact, I do believe that they're largely synonymous. Goodness. That's such an interesting word. synonymous. In fact, I do believe that they're largely synonymous. Goodness. That's such an interesting word, goodness. Which of those three is my favorite? I think truth is overrated in the sense that if something is a good story. The story doesn't have to be true or real in order to motivate you and move you. A lot of times we can dilute ourselves about somebody and that might actually serve a purpose to some extent. You know, if you have someone who's maybe a family member

and you kind of ignore bad things that they do, there might be a reason for that. Um, of the three, which is most important, I think I would say probably goodness. I would say of the three of the most important is goodness because if you don't appreciate goodness, then beauty is just empty. It's just a picture or it's nice. Bad people appreciate beauty. Bad people often seductive or have a beauty about them. In terms of action, I think it takes a lot of skill and work to create beauty or to create truth or to express truth or to express beauty. But I think goodness is a, it's like the easiest default state of being, just being good to others. Yeah, like, you know, like, there'll be things where these videos were like one dog is drowning and like another dog jumps in and saves it from the pool. Like that to me is just really amazing stuff

and is very moving. So just to me goodness means integrity and it means kindness. And yeah, I think of the three, that's what I would be the one I pick. And I think people, I'm sorry, interrupt. I think people also have this idea, which is inculcated to them, especially by corporate America, that as you get older, it's okay to do the wrong thing sometimes, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't buy that. And so I think

goodness gets rare and rare. And I think people know better and they tell them self lies. Yeah. But think people know better and they tell themselves lies. Yeah, but once you get, allow yourself the chance to just be good, I think it makes for a better life. Yeah. Basically, it's not that much work. Like it's not like going to the gym and working out. That's a lot of work and it's great afterwards. But like goodness is easy once you get into the habit of it.

I suppose working out the same way. There's a lot of stuff. If you make it a habit, you're going to get the rewards of it and it's going to be easy. The rewards of goodness I think are more immediate than the rewards of working out as opposed to the hard drugs. Yeah. If you mentioned this quote on one of your live streams, I think if you save one life, you save the world. Yeah. That's such a cool line. I remember reading about Paul Farmer. I think his name is, he's a doctor that really,

I mean, doctors in general, they kind of don't care about, like, what they're doing as a broad policy across hundreds of thousands of millions of people. They just care about the human in front of them. Which is so interesting. They don't care. broad policy across hundreds of thousands of millions of people, they just care about the human in front of them. We're just so interesting. They don't care it's gonna cost, like in his case, to save one child, it will cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't care about that. They can't, they know very well that what their actions cannot be scaled, but they can't help, but help the child in front of them.

And it's so interesting. The such an interesting way to live, and that's the way I kind of think when I try to do something positive, is, will this help one person? And I just kind of imagine a specific person, depending on the thing that that would help with. Like what I'm trying to create something, whether it's a piece of hardware or a video or anything like that or educational material, lecture, that kind of stuff. I don't know. What do you think about this quote?

Like, what is it profound or just just poetic? I think it's more profound than it sounds at first. The example I think of is Michelle Bachman. She was a former Congresswoman from Minnesota. She clearly had crazy eyes, something where it's going on with the husband. But she adopted like 20 kids. Tara Shappert's another friend of mine.

He's like either Navy SEAL or Marines. I would have her as Terry. I apologize. I'm not trying to be funny. And he adopts like elder dogs. So going back to Bachman, it's like, yeah, you can say she's crazy, you can make fun of her politics, all you want, and all that stuff's legitimate. But if you save a kid, give them a home, and you save them from the foster system, and you put a roof over their head and make them feel loved and appreciated, it's really hard

for me to sit here and call you like a totally bad person. I think that kind of thing is Nick Cersei's another one. He adopted a kid and I said, I think you're a hero. Like if you, this summit, you know, one of the things that's very hard for me, as you know, I talk about this endlessly, this book, the White Pill, but writing about when people do hurtful things to children, it really is hard to watch. And it's hard to, because when you're an author, you have to kind of empathize with the character. Where's this character coming from? Explain their point of view. And that's the one that's the hardest for me to wrap my head around, like cruelty to children. Yeah. Or, or, and, and, yeah,

sadism to children. It's just like, this is a, this is something even animals know not to do. Do you know what I mean? Like dogs around when you see them and run kids, they're very protective, like if the kid pokes their eyes out, the dog doesn't do anything. So it's like, if you can't even get to that level, what kind of person are you? So I think that quote is a profound one and it's an important one. It also means we're not all called upon to be Superman, right? You only have very finite ability to move the needle. But at the same time, if you have actually, you know, saved the life, you can go to meet

your maker, you did your part, you know, you left the world a little bit better than you found it. And that's all you can ask anybody. Also i think from a policy perspective. It seems we just do better when we focus on doing a small thing helping one person it feels like when you start talking about communism and all those kinds of things when you start to believe you could do good by a lot of people that's where your mind somehow. to believe you could do good by a lot of people. That's where your mind somehow stops being able to do good by a lot of people. That's when you start to think about utopias and somehow utopias goes to feeds power into the brain to where it dilutes you completely and then you start, it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, kind of reasoning and you run to trouble. It seems like it's much better even when you have the

power and the money and so on to achieve scale to focus on one and then or local it yeah. locally yeah because then so you have the feedback. Right. So if you have some kind of program you know in Austin or Brooklyn or something like that and you can you can watch oh this is working this isn't working then you could port it out to other places. But top down helping is, you know, at the very least it's going to be inefficient. And also, I think it's a lot more useful when you're helping people, when it's a one-on-one relationship, because then it's less embarrassing, but certainly less something to receive help. And you also feel it's one thing you get a check from the government, you know, food stamps. It's nothing if someone's like, hey, I'm going to buy you groceries until you get back

on your feet. You have this kind of motivation, I think, for most people to be like, you know what, this person believed in me, I'm going to make it worth their while that they believed in me. Because I didn't believe in me. Yeah, when I was giving lectures at MIT, there was one scare show list. And I mean, everybody, you know, how students are and all that kind of stuff, they're kind of bored. And they don't, they don't understand that you're human too.

Yeah. Or this could be just me. I don't understand you're trying to pass this human. But there's one, one, one, uh, gentleman in the audience and he went to all the lectures, uh, all the gentlemen, He was a faculty at MIT and he just without very kind of nonchalant just said after the lectures, you're kind of not a mean way, I know this is gonna come off as creepy. He said, you look great today. Like he said that in a way, so he's like 67, or whatever, like he, in this, I don't know, it's in a wise sage way.

Because I was wearing a suit and tie. Like I look like, you know when you dress up like a young kid, you dress up as a... But I'm basically getting it, yeah. You get it, you're a man. So he was just like, all right, you're all dressed up, you look great, you just love. But our best person. You get it? Yeah. So he was just like, all right, you're all dressed up. You look great. You got this.

I don't know. That has a lasting impact. That kind of pattern on the back. But I agree with you. Cruelty towards other adults is somehow understandable. Because it's a world full of conflict. But cruelty towards children. It doesn't quite, I can't understand it.

I can't understand how you could act in a way that directly causes suffering to a child in front of you. Yeah, that is, I don't think I've ever talked to you. This might be a good time to ask you about this What do you make what lessons do you draw about human civilization from Jeffrey Epstein? From just Lane. Oh Everybody thinks about different things when you talk to Eric Weinstein. He thinks about Intelligence and like who like Jeffrey Epstein is a front for something else. That's what he thinks about. I think about the weakness of grown men in the face of charismatic evil, which is like for me directly as MIT. I didn't know. I actually was,

I guess I was at MIT when Jeff Epstein was just at the very end. He must have been there. I didn't know any of this, but it really bothers me that nobody was able to see through this man, because he's obviously what is also obvious to me is that he was very charismatic. I mean, I tried to think about human nature from this perspective is directly like we said help one life. Would I know a Jeffrey Epstein if he was in my life? Would I know evil when I saw evil? Even if it's sitting across from you.

So exactly the evil lab. Thank you. The thing. Well, there's a necronomicon. Well, the thing I'm sure we'll talk about it. Maybe not. Doesn't really matter. We see things you and I, Michael, very differently about a lot of things politically and so on. The reason I like you a lot, the reason I like the people I do in my life is there's a, there's a warmth, there's a kindness, there's a humanity underneath it all. I don't really care what you believe. I don't care. Like, I don't care what your Twitter says,

you know, it's easy to mistake your Twitter to indicate that there's not a deeply human love for humanity in there. And that's why I'm detecting that. I think I would be able to detect that, Jeffy Epstein, you think tech, I'm just imagining the T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz.

Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scatz. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat.

Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. Yeah, I'm just imagining that T1 scat. detect that, Epstein lacks that completely. Even if he's charismatic and the humor he has, even if he is charismatic and the expression of curiosity for science, which he did, he was curious about, like, not just like boring minutiae of science, he was interested about the big questions in science,

which I could see that become exciting to scientists. Like, oh wow, here's a person who's interested about the big questions and science, which I could see that could become exciting to scientists. Oh, wow, here's a person who's thinking big. That's always exciting. When somebody goes into a room and thinks about, how do we solve intelligence? How do we travel fast in the speed of light? That's exciting to people, especially people with money,

because it's like, all right, so we might be able to actually do big things here. But you could see through the bullshit, the dead might be able to actually do big things here. But you could see through the bullshit, the dead, the deadness in the eyes. I don't know. So I think about that because I feel like I have the responsibility for me as an individual to detect evil. So I, do you know who Michael Alligis?

Okay, this is going to be a whole long, this is going to be on Lex Clips, but this is a whole long story. So there was a scene in New York in the 90s called the Club Kids, and they would go out to different night clubs at night. They would all dress in really kind of crazy costumes, and the costumes were all like goofy and just like an angel. This was dressed like a nurse. It was, there's a juvenile aspect to it. They're all taking, you know, ketamine and ecstasy to all hours. This is kind of, Raid culture was coming up in there.

And the head of it, and in fact, there's a, a clip on YouTube. I think it was the Jane Whitney show of the club kids and GGL and GGL and as a, you know, kind of punk rock performer, hard rock performer, who passed away. And GGL was very aggressive and like a crazy person.

My friend once saw him in a concert and he took a dump on stage, smeared it all over his face, grabbed the girl from the audience, gave her a big kiss, and as she walked by him, she just went like this, like, excuse me, like went to the bathroom.

So the audience is screaming at GGL and because he's very visibly over the top, whereas you got a bunch of these kids resting in these silly costumes, you guys just having fun. Well the head of the club kids Michael Allig and did upkilling someone. There was a kid called Angel Menendez who hung around with them, he would always have angel wings and boots. One time they're at Michael's condo with another with a drug dealer named Freeze. They got into a fight. So a angel got hit in the head with a hammer. They kill him. What are we gonna do with the body? They put it on ice in the bathtub. They had a party. So everyone's going the bathroom while angel's body's there.

Michael got they're like, all right, we got to take care of this. Michael got extremely high in heroin. Had like, uh, uh, cutlery from Macy's, saw the body in pieces, put in a box. They took him in a cab, the cab driver helped them throw the body into the river, and then Michael starts walking around Manhattan wearing Angel's boots, and would tell people, oh, I killed Angel. Now, because he was a super effeminate over the top,

like he would pee in people's beer kind of guy, everyone's like, oh God, Michael, like you and your stupid pranks, but it was true and he got caught and he got sentenced to jail. So I was in a store in Manhattan in Soho and it was one of those stores we have like all sorts of things for sale and I saw a painting and it said, Malice.

And I'm like, wait, what? And it was M. Alegg. It was a Michael Alegg painting. He painted while in jail. So my mom bought it for me for my birthday. I don't remember what birthday it was. And I started writing him in prison. He was going to write a memoir called Eligula, which is clever.

And then I actually went to visit him. I'm like, I want to see what this person's like. Because on one hand, he's King of New York Nightlife, this goofy person, and it's also kind of ironic that Gigi Allen is like, maybe he's gross, he's not killing anyone, he's probably an accountant off the stage. And Michael Alagaj, they killed someone,

and then bragged about it, tongue in cheek. So, but meeting him, he passed away last December, on Christmas actually on Christmas at 20 20 He was clearly a sociopath and I'd never met a sociopath before now a lot of times we'll read these like you'll take a Buzzfeed quiz like are you a sociopath? And it's like oh my feelings were in hurt when I was mean to someone It's not a thin line

between like me and you and him. It's a thick, thick line because when you're talking to someone like that, at least in this specific case, he was being very friendly. He wasn't, and it's not like he was going to kill anyone or as a threat to me. But there's that sense like something's really off here. And he was talking to me about how after he had killed Angel, he would just talk about it because he felt so much guilt. He just wanted to get caught. It's like, no, no, no, you, when he was describing, wasn't guilt. He was describing just, he didn't like the, um, the knife over his head, like, waiting to get caught. I'm like, you don't even know what guilt is. So it was kind of like, oh, wow. So, uh, as per Jeffrey, but the thing is Michael, Alec, it was in a very low social position. And the thing is when someone is powerful, very high status, and they do something, we are

as kind of hierarchical animals, we kind of defer to their norms. So if you're at a party with, let's suppose, or either us, and it's like a Jeffrey Epstein party, and everyone at the party is doing some sort of weird drug we've never heard of, we wouldn't really feel comfortable judging them because like their norms kind of become the norm for that space. The lesson for me about Jeffrey Epstein, there's a lot of them because I think this, to me, the biggest moment was the Amy Roerbock situation. Amy Roerbock was caught on a hot mic saying that they had all the goods on him, they had all the names, and that Buckingham Palace called them, they killed the story because they weren't gonna get a Meghan Markle interview out of it. So that, the willingness of those in power

to do the wrong thing for this flimsiest pretext with I think was a big important lesson, also the fact that no one at ABC had any consequences for this. In fact, the only person who got in trouble for all this was someone who used to work at ABC, went to, I believe, CBS, and they got fired from CBS because apparently they had access to the fledger one point, even though they weren't the ones who had leaked it. So whistleblowers are like the only, for example, the case in

Eric Garner, the guy who was selling Lucy cigarettes in New York City who was arrested, he had a heart attack, whatever it was on the way to jail. He died. The only person, so the cops had a situation there. The only person who had gotten trouble because of that was the guy filming it, like he went to jail. So I think there is, if there's a less sin in terms of, we have, look at Julian Assange, right?

There's a huge amount of power exercised by elites to make sure that what is done in the cover of darkness remains in the cover of darkness. And also Kevin McCarthy, who was currently the House Minority Leader, leader of the Republicans, he wrote a letter to ABC News like, you had this guy, maybe you couldn't call in the authorities, but you could have leaked it to somebody. Why hasn't anything come forward? Nothing happened as a result of this. We also have to keep in mind that the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House in

history, Dennis Haster, went to jail because of things related to pedophilia and things like that. So, as Russians, and this is something I think you and I have mentioned before, Americans are very naive, often, decreasingly so, about the nature of evil. They think an evil person is someone who's like getting kickbacks, or, you know, like, the Cuomo's are colluding, something like that, I would hardly even call that evil.

No, no, this is the sort of things that are so depraved, that you would never think about it in a million years, in your own home. You don't think in these terms. And I think they get off on doing things that if the average person heard about it, the average person would be shocked because that gives them the sense of we're above them. We're different from them. The rules don't apply to us. There's a lot to say here.

So one is the norm thing you said at a party. It's really interesting for an anarchist to say that. Well, no, it's no. No, well, I know, I know. I'm not sorry, that came off as criticism. I meant it as harsh criticism. No, I think about that a lot. As, you know, I found myself in situations where I'm invited to these kinds of parties where people have nice things. And I find it deeply uncomfortable for that reason. I don't want to be sort of an activist that goes in ruins a party. That's, I think that's not the courageous act. Neither is the courageous when everyone's doing some weird drug that you mentioned to join

in, I think. Courageous is more being, you're remaining yourself sticking to your principles calmly in that room where everybody is doing the drug and just don't do the drug. Yeah, sure. Don't make a scene about it, but also don't, don't do it. And I think that little act of courage over time is the way you resist, Jeff, you have to see that exactly the thing you said is probably the situation where charisma works. So one charismatic person gets the little crowd going and the crowd is everybody sort of

establishes a norm at the little crowd. And yes, there could be some dynamics that allow that norm to be established. Like you said, like rich and powerful people might enjoy being rich and powerful and better than everybody else kind of kind of thing. But like I especially for scientists, I thought they should have integrity and courage enough to see through that. Not again as an activist, like so you can tweet about it, how courageous you are, but just literally see, there's something off here. There's something off here and I'm not going to participate. I'm going to defend these scientists because something off.

First of all, you're always defending academia is disgusting. It's my favorite thing. I think that, first of all, this is going to sound like a joke and it's not. I bet you 90% of those MIT scientists are on the spectrum. So everyone they're going to meet is going to be off, right? So I'm sure part of their brains like, okay, this person's weird. This is just them being on the spectrum. Like the lights, but spectrum, I couldn't even finish the joke. Okay, go. I couldn't even finish the joke, okay, go. Okay.

Number two is off. We tend to, there's this poem. I forget who wrote it. It was like Nick Cave or something. And it was describing, like, I think it was Gerbils. Hair, normal, height, normal, weight, normal. What do you expect horns, right? So when you meet someone, you think something's off, there's going to be a bell curve of what that you expect horns right so when you meet someone you think something's off there's gonna be a bell cover what that could be right it could be that they're twitchy

and maybe they're completely social and then you have jeffrey up to you know here you're gonna need a lot of evidence to be like oh i feel something off there for this guy's the head of international you know sex trafficking ring head of an international sex trafficking ring. So yeah, you might be like, okay, but the same time if their extended relationship is, this guy is interested in my work. He's gonna fund my work, and I don't have to give him anything return. He's clearly intelligent, he's appreciating it.

And being a scientist is a thankless job. I know what it's like as an author when I was writing a dear reader, the North Korea book. My friends are sick of hearing all these North Korean anecdotes because at a certain point it's like, okay, we get it, just save for the book. And you know, you got to be in that lab, you're looking at the spring tales, whatever it is you're looking at. No one knows what a spring tale is.

I just disagree with you. So that'd be interesting to draw the thing sheet between science and writing because the scientific process itself is fun as fuck. It's you're solving little puzzles. Sure. So like in itself, it's fun. So like it's rewarding. Like the reason you go into science is you can continue really without a

boss to continue having fun and solving puzzles. That's that's literally so like unless you become cynical and tired of the whole thing. So the people that administration or when you're running a large lab and what you get sickle was the emails and the meetings and all that kind of stuff. The actual act of being in the lab is still fun as fuck. If you allow it to be writing, I feel like, is there's more priority to publishing? Like would you enjoy it? the tree falling in the forest? Would you still enjoy any of the books you've written if they never got published?

Not to the same extent, even close. Right. I think that the thing about science, it's almost like you get a peak into the mysterious. Yeah, but this is, okay, let me, this is where I'm coming from. Since moving to Austin, I bought over 150 plants. How can you do the politician thing?

Let me be clear. All right. It's not. You are running in 2024. This is very interesting. I bought 150 succulents for my house. They're thriving here in Austin as they wouldn't have in Brooklyn. You have a great video about it. Yeah, one of those plants I have is the photo I took on my

Instagram. There's no other photos on the internet. None of my friends care. Or they care like ostensibly, but like, oh, that's cool. Like, I have a better plant collection in my house than like almost any botanical succulent collection than any botanical garden in America than probably the Huntington and no one cares. This is what ego looks like, by the way. I can prove it to you. No, I know, but you don't have to rub it in. Well, they have a big budget, I don't. So if I can put it together, they should be able to.

So I can only imagine that a scientist who studied, those spiders that look like ants, like at a certain, like, oh, and this species does this with the gender dimorphism, their friends are only going to care so much. So if you meet someone who has a lot of money, who now cares about ant spiders, it's going to be exciting. It will be very exciting. But I just wanted to push back on the, I think the act itself should be the biggest reward. I think you're always safe. We're talking about goodness being a safe default. I think it act itself should be the biggest reward. I think you're always safe.

We're talking about goodness being a safe default. I think it's a good default for plans and for writing and for science, is to just enjoy the act even if nobody cares. Okay, this is where this, okay, now I'm even, now I'm wondering why I'm pushing back so hard, I realize what it was because I've made this point several times and I'm glad I can make it again. There's this window of time that happened in my life

and I know it happens to a lot of people when you're in your like 24 to 27, 28, right? So 21 to 24, like you stub your friends from college, so and and so forth, right? But then it's kind of like a poker game. And every so often people cash out, they're like, I'm out, I'm out, they get married, they get a job, they move. And if you are someone who's a young, ambitious, creative, that window is a very rough one

because you're doing the right thing, right? And you're not being, you know, drug addict, you're not being a philanderer, not that those things are wrong, but just like you're playing by the rules, you're not being a philanderer, not that those things are wrong, but just like you're playing by the rules. You're creating your stuff, what you want to be known for, contribution you want to make for the world, and no one cares, and it gets very lonely. And there is this very emotional disconnect about how is it that I'm creating, and I'm working hard, and I'm making something happen, and it's just radio silence.

So that, I don't think it's that easy when you're the scientist, not me, when you don't have any kind of external validation. Humans only have so much fuel. Nothing worth having is easy, Michael. By the way, yesterday, talked on the phone with a person who said he was deeply moved the first time you mentioned this age group of 24 to 27. He's like, he's 26, he said, and he feels the

full responsibility of that and the excitement. So he left his like corporate, typey job to pursue something that he's really passionate about. And that that was like, you were an inspiration to him, which I was deeply saddened by that. I also inspired Michael Alex. The the amount of mass murder those that were inspired by you will eventually lead to is truly horrifying. What were we talking about? So Jeffy Epps, oh, one thing I wanted to ask you, so let's put scientists aside, what about like world leaders, Bill Clinton, your favorite person? Why would he fly, would Jeffy Epps theme?

Why would he interact with that guy? I mean, don't you think that that's kind of the deal that I'm the president and I get big and powerful people fly around their jets and that's the symbiotic relationship? Yeah, but don't you also have a good BS detector? Don't you have a good detector for people who just want to be in your presence? Like I already understand that there's people like this out there, like there's people that kind of want to use me for stuff. And...

You mean Tim Dylan? Tim Dylan. Um. Um. I love that guy. You guys met? We haven't met yet here. We haven't met.

Okay. We met before in New York, but we had not since time with you. Yeah, so you should be able to detect that there's those people and there's the people that have kindness in their heart, even if they can benefit from the interaction with you, but they have like, they're good human beings. I feel like you want to, you're going into a lot of trouble if you surround yourself or have any people that are manipulative. But I think you might be like that, like that example,

because like let's look at Clinton and let's look at Obama, right? So Obama, even though their politics are very close, I'd say in many ways, Obama is a parent. We don't know, I don't know either of them. But to me, it seems very apparent that he's a very similar behind closed doors as he in front of the camera. Yeah, yeah, he's he's baroque to me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're, he the camera. Yeah, yeah, he's he's baroque to me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, where he's good. Yeah, Clinton seems very clearly to be much more of a performer. He's in front of the camera. He puts on a role, but behind the camera, he's very much as a temper. He's known for that. He's much more of a letch. I was that perfect.

Oh, letch with an E L T C H. Oh, cool. Letch. Is that like that like that's a cool term. So I couldn't use that in the internet. Like you're a Letch. Yeah, you can use the internet. You're dirty Letch. Well, it's a dirty supplied. Oh, so it's okay. Yeah. So being redundant. Yeah. It just feels like it needs an adjective to give it more power. Yeah'm sorry, so Clinton is a letch. Right, so you can see how there's people who want to meet, you know, the surface, Bill Clinton, and I'm sure that gets old for him because he has to be on. But then there's the good old boys where he could be a pervert and this guy's like, yeah, I know what it's like. And then he feels like he's himself. But I'm all speculating.

I mean, I don't know what Bill Clinton is like, what was in it for him. He certainly could afford private jets if he wanted to. There's no shortage of people who want to fly around the world to give speeches. You know, can he satisfy the letch within and without hanging out with the Jeffy Epstein's of the world? Like can't he get, I mean,

this is the monocle Lewinsky question to me. I'm confused by all of this. Can't he get women in the legitimate way of like not using his power, not hanging out with these shady rich people, but just like having a normal mistress like JFK. Well, JFK had a lot. I know, I understand that, but in a or I don't I don't know enough about

I don't understand the Clinton psychology First of all the fact that you're hooking up with someone who's close to your daughter's age to me I think was is inherently disturbing but she's an adult so okay, that's not that that you know beyond the pale but But she's an adult, so okay, that's not that, that, you know, beyond the pale. But also the idea that, oh, if I don't physically fornicate with you, it's not cheating. Like that, whatever you tell yourself, or like, if I don't ejaculate, it's not cheating. Like, these rules that maybe at least some kind of slipy slope, like you start not having the rules of... But who you fool, I mean, if you told your wife, like, listen, it wasn't cheating.

She only, you know, performed on me. You're going to say this with a straight face. Like, do you, at certain point when something is so brazen, you wonder if the person even has to believe it because who you fooling. But like we started this conversation with them, even there is a line between young women oldies and 18 and young teens like 12, 13 kids. Have you ever, when's the last, oh, because you're, it's different for you, because you're at MIT, I was hanging out with Blair White and she had a couple of fans of hers and they

were like 22, 23 and they were like children to me Yeah, like I'm like to me as someone who is in his late 60s to look at these people as adults like they look completely like kids So No, of course there's exceptions like I've interacted with a young 20 20 year olds that are like Your way more mature than I'll ever be. Like, the wisdom that comes out of them is quite fascinating. That's my visually.

The energy and the way they look, they looked so young to me. And the way they carried themselves, it was the idea that my instinct was, let's tuck you in and read you a bedtime story. Let me touch you or something. It was just like, it was just wouldn't enter my head. But the thing is, is it possible that in order to want to be the president, you have to

be a crazy person? That you have some kind of weird view on power. It could be a power thing too. Like, you can get away with stuff. Like, if I was Clinton's age, nothing about Monica Lewinsky to me would be attractive. And also, I would just feel bad for her because I know she's going to catch feelings.

And it's kind of like... Catch feeling, yes, true. And it's just like, why would I do this to this kid? For what? Just because I want to get some, like, momentary pleasure. Come on. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure she looked gorgeous to him in the moment.

Well, let me ask, we started talking about beauty. Who are you wearing? So as a model, you're usually don't have a shirt on when you're modeling. So it's nice to see you dressed up today. Nice and warm. This is because, so for those who don't know, for Russians, don't celebrate Christmas. Obviously, with the Soviet Union, Christmas was illegal. No Thanksgiving, basically no major holidays where everyone gets together. This is the one holiday. Yeah, the year's Christmas was illegal. No Thanksgiving, basically no major holidays

where everyone gets together. This is the one holiday. New years, the one holiday. And instead of, I remember as a kid, instead of Santa Claus, we have dead naros, who's the same thing basically. It's like Android and iPhone. It's like a cheap version of Christmas.

He's got this girl with him. She's like Snow White or whatever. And Russian kids, they go to sleep on December 31st and they wake up January and they have a present under their pillow. And I remember as a kid, this happened once and it just blew my mind. You know what I mean? It's just like, I went to bed and my dad's like, Oh, you know, you're going to have, did what I was going to bring your present if you've been a good kid. I'm like, I think I was a good kid. Like, but you don't even remember a year of your life and your four. You remember the two weeks. You remember the two of you.

You remember those moments. Yeah. And then I woke up and there was a president and I pillow and I was, it just blew my mind. That building is still there. 1461's for a parkway in Brooklyn. So, um, and it's just also funny like a, what I really like about kids, you know, being an uncle now is kid logic because they're have now, is kid logic, because they're have very little bit of data, but they're using logic to make sense of it. And sometimes it gives them to the completely wrong conclusions for the completely right reasons. I remember, you know, I, my bedroom as a kid was right off the kitchen, and I'd be scared the dark a little bit,

so they'd leave the light on the kitchen while I went to sleep. And at the same time, my parents had told me, you don't leave the lights on the house, it costs money away, electricity, right? So I would be worried, because I'm like, oh my God, my parents leave the lights on the kitchen all night, and now it's costing them so much money,

not realizing that, you know, five minutes after I'm out, obviously, they're turning the lights off, but like in my kid logic, this was a concern of mine. Yeah, and memories work that same way. I have a collection of memories that are stitched together logically somehow, but they also don't really make sense. There's a few defining things. So I grew up in Russia, I experienced a lot of new years in Russia.

There's a lot of incredible things about that tradition that just warms my heart. So one as a kid, you're watching these kind of stories. That's the one night of the year that kids are allowed to be adults in the following way. Like you in in kid logic. You're allowed to stay up all night. Oh yeah, okay. Those as late as you want, which actually ends up being you're not used to 11 right. Your out of the crash, but no, you get to, you know, two, three, four at night, you stay up and you get to witness is almost like Alice and Wonderland goes into this world. Yeah. You get to witness what is the adult world really like. Now, obviously it's

not an actual adult world. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training.

A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training.

A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. A lot of training. stuff, but also like, if I mean, how would I describe it? This is also probably a little bit of Russian culture, but like flirtation in all of its forms, meaning like men and women just being like, because they dress up. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's joy. It's like you get to show off like dresses, whatever you got, you show showed off, this is fun. And then men too, just like friends laughing, like arguing, just showing off the best they got with delicious food.

Obviously, there's a Thanksgiving element there where there's just so many, just you bring out all the traditional stuff. The ABS salad, just everything. Just the full thing with the desserts, and obviously the vodka, a lot of vodka. And at the time, so this is the Soviet Union, like the biggest stuff'll probably kill somebody for a doctor proper. It's so fascinating that you take it for granted, sort of the results of capitalist society, material things that are created, but that was the ultimate happiness is to experience this new thing sugar.

I don't know. You know, there's a good, there's like communist co-local in checker public. So basically they tried to rip off Coke and it's just like, it's like they just threw it everything could together and it was a very poor knockoff. As you can imagine,

I forget what it's called and all the Czech people right now are getting very angry at me because I can't think of it. But they have it now and the slogan is good or weird. So it's like this, so they kind of reclaim this kind of hipster soda. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. It's almost like a parody. Right. Yeah. But I think the thing I really remember is the camaraderie. Like the love for each other. And neighbors too. Like like you're not your neighbors now. We don't see each other that often. I hope that changes, but a lot of it

is also me. I'm just a deep introvert. You also the hardest working person I know. Yeah, so it's time. But you know, like it's not like I'll go in middle of the night at like 4 a.m. and go to 7 11 just sit there, sipping a slurpee for an hour thinking about life. So it's not like I'm always working. Yeah, I don't know what I mean is like you get to meet your neighbors and you get to experience their their highs and their lows and you get to bitch about life about government about corruption about the unfairness of life together. Well, it's also I think what people don't appreciate is Americans is it's very rare and rush

it at a safe space. Yeah. So you know that that January 1st no one's going to snitch on you, you know, they're not going to be informants probably, so you can vent and, you know, that's the thing with people in totalitarian countries, you have to have the public facing persona and then behind closed doors is very different. It all comes out. I also remember the arguments and I've been going on

clubhaws recently into Russian rooms to practice. Well, just to practice Russian. And they is so beautiful to watch. was recently into Russian rooms. Well, just to practice Russian. And they is so beautiful to watch. I mean, club houses are very specific collection of Russian people. Maybe it's a little bit political, but and they're a little bit older.

And it's interesting to watch how much they love to argue. I think Russian love to argue. And so, it will be literally, you could think of it as a nonlinear dynamical system, okay, from an engineering perspective, whenever any positive topic comes up, you could feel the skepticism and then wait a minute. This is not good.

And they'll start like perturbing it until you're like, they'll find some way to say, like, come on now, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And then it goes back into argument. It's so fun to watch. Because in one sense, you could see it as negative. In another, you could see it as free to express yourself. Because it feels like you can solve a lot of problems by allowing yourself to just be emotional, both emotional and say, hard truth and all those kinds of things without like, without patting yourself on the back about it, but also it

just sort of those Russian rooms make me realize how constrained American speeches, how careful people are in the way they express it, even the Michael Malice is in the world. You're constantly being like nuanced. There they just say crazy shit. Oh yeah. And then they correct themselves and make fun of themselves and they completely shift opinions a minute later. And it's chaos. Yeah. And it's

beautiful. So I love that culture. It's funny given the current regime in Russia, like how that's coupled with how people are talking. And yeah, I don't know. And I have those memories of childhood of friends that I had of just having that true freedom of talking and somehow that leads to deep bonds together. When the life, when your poor, when life has a lot of elements that are unfair, when the government is corrupt, it's just especially in the Soviet Union, there's uncertainty about the future, all of it. You just get closer together. Like, penguins huddling together in the cold, like that, march of the penguins movie.

That, I don't know, the friends I've gotten there, like, I get emotional every time, I kind of think about those friends because it was so close, that friendship was so fucking... But I just really hate the Russian cynicism. I know you do and I actually disagree with you about it You see it as cynicism. I see it as Waves on top of the water like surface cynicism and the depths as I see the beauty of the Russian soil so we like Yes, that cynicism can negatively affect a lot of people like you I think you've talked about like as a parent like Being cynical about the world, and then you have a dire negative consequences on your children They become cynical. They don't ever take big risks to take on both things and I have those arguments

Because the cynicism is exhausting. it's destructive, it's anti-creative. But in their perspective, this is what the Russian folks would say, well, yes, that's our role. Being cynical is being reasonable about the world, it's not unreasonable. It's not. It's not. It's completely unreasonable. It's not.

It's not. It's completely unreasonable. It's not. It's completely unreasonable. It's not. It's completely lie. No, I know, but their argument is yes, but we're giving you this force and it's your job to resist against it. So it's a test. I love the idea that if you're going to be creative and innovative, you don't have enough up against you. Yeah, exactly. This is exactly. Oh, it's not hard enough already that I want to be an author. Now you got to be like, well, what, let me just put some fire ants on top of it. So I just want to separate. I agree with you that the cynicism is, is bad and destructive. But the idea that life is suffering and thinking from that as a first principle, I think there's a lot of beauty to be discovered through that.

So there's a cynicism and then there's horrible message. Life is suffering. No, not. Well, yeah, I mean, Camus. Camus doesn't think that. Now we're going into definitions of suffering then because absurd. What see, life is absurd. Life is suffering are not even close to the same concept. Well, then you're just defining the terms they're family. Well, that's because they're different terms. So is love and beauty, but so let's define. Okay, wait, you're selling if your baby's in the crib, like with a fever,

you're like, oh, that's absurd. No, it's the kid's suffering. It's not the same. So yes, starvation, you've been for the white pill researching a lot of actual specifically defined suffer. Sure. But also a lot of wonderful things. Right. Yeah, yeah. But the the word suffering can encompass more than just specifically starving. And it could, it can encompass like a lot of the philosophers talk about it, encompass like philosophical suffering. The fact that there isn't, if you're not careful, life can appear meaningless. You can fall into a nihilistic view. It's difficult to have their responsibility of freedom to act in this world because you can fuck up in so many different ways. And then life is seemingly unfair in the sense that good things happen for no apparent reason

and terrible things happen for no point. Like, you know, it's the old religious question of why does evil happen in the world? Why do terrible things happen in the world? There's a book called Six Word Memoirs, right, where all these all these different personalities are awesome. Were you in it? No. I'm in it with, so you have to basically write your autobiography and six words. And six words.

And mine was, good things happen to bad people. You see, there you go. There's humor. Yes, that's your way of dealing with the suffering. But I don't think life is in here. If life was suffering, we wouldn't be able to have happiness. No. Out of suffering, happiness is born. So like's it's the ups and downs of life. What it means like I

Don't this I just I don't agree at all that you need to suffer in order to be happy I agree you have to work hard, but that's not the same thing Yeah, all right, so the way I'm using suffering. I think a lot of them use sufferings the way you use Like gravity so in order for the roller coaster to work in your gravity, there needs to be a force that brings you down. Sure. In that same way, there's like you have to resist the natural pole of nature that wants to destroy you. No, nature wants you to, nature's indifferent, but we have the capacity, because we're blessed with minds and we're blessed with friends.

Yeah, the transcend nature. Yeah, no, I know, but I think it's a word that captures something about life that there's no reason to it that is absurd. I think to me, oftentimes, the way I think about the word suffering is synonymous with absurdity. This is not suffering, but this is absurd. I just noticed there's a box with the big bow on it next to you. What's in the box, Michael? It's your present. So it's your present for New Year's. Can we open it? Yeah, sure.

What's in the box? It's gonna take any brought up suffering. This is gonna be very unpleasant. Here you go. I packed it myself. Yeah, there's a whole process in there. So there's three presents in there. Less. I'll read the card first. Okay.

Something about opening presents, like tearing stuff, makes me feel like, because like I just tore the sheet of paper, so it'll never be the same again. It's entropy. It's entropy times you've got a powerful voice. You've got a powerful voice. To Lex, thank you. Maybe I should read the other card first. You've got a powerful voice, listening to what you have to say, always puts me in a hopeful place.

I feel like this is building up to something. You show me how change can happen when you face the world with pride, confidence, and a voice that can't be silenced. Keep speaking up. The world is listening. Yeah. There's no cynicism in this card. No, this is about, this is New Year's. This is all about how to enjoy. What? To Lex, I'm seeing the binary. To Lex, thank you for setting the path for me to move to Austin. Zero one, zero zero one, zero zero one, zero one, zero one one, zero one one, zero zero zero zero,

one one one, zero one, zero one, Michael Mouse. Yeah. Bring this to your eyes. Thank you, Michael Mouse. Yeah. Bring the tears to my eyes. Thank you, brother. My pleasure. Let's get to the present. Okay.

It's a PC box. This is very promising. I better not be sex toys. It's not, there's nothing inappropriate. All right, at all. Why would it? Why would sex toys be inappropriate? Because you're a version Yeah, bring a knife to a party How clever is it to put it in a PC box? Well, I had it. I just got a new PC Okay, get it also can. Yep, open the can first. Open the can.

Do you rap this yourself? That scared shit out of me. Hahaha. Hahaha. Hahaha. Could get back in the can. That actually stayed in there. That's magic. You just got to cut the string. No.

Hahaha. You're the most beautiful troll of all. I love you so much. This is awesome. Did I did it in that work? Pick it up. Oh, it didn't work. There's a terrifying springy feeling to this thing.

I don't want to open this. I need to move south side. I hate you so much. What? Oh, is it the other way? No, just pick it up. I can't believe I fell for that. Thank you so much. Runches are my favorite.

I can't believe I fell for that. Okay. And there's box number three. It's like a matryoshka. I can't believe that worked. Yeah I wanted the box to open all these gears to fall out, but you can't get any of them. Yeah. Does that really grind your Why am I scared? Okay Why am I scared? Okay. This. There's another box.

This leads to my death. No, this isn't. is there's a story behind it Can't believe that work. Oh God, that's so good. All right All right no springs no weapons no wrenches Okay, so let me tell you the story behind that toy. Tonka. Gold robots that turn into vehicles. So when I was a kid, you had transformers, but for us poor people, you had gobots, right?

So the gobots, they were four main characters for the good guys. It was leader one, small foot turbo and scooter. And what was annoying is when you had the action figures, you couldn't find the ones that were on the TV show. And I was a big go-bots fan as a kid. And I went once to the Toys of Russ in Caesar's Bay in Brooklyn with my grandfather. My grandfather was always very lucky, like just good things happen to him every so often. And I went there, I remember very vividly, they must have just unpacked, just loaded

the shelves, and how they had the shelving, it would be like, like a grid, you know, you'd have like, it was like, one, two, three, four, five, five rows and like, five by five. And I remember it was like two up, and then you have to do, you have to sit by the side and kind of sort through them. And with the gobots, each package had a picture of the different figures so the packaging wasn't uniform. And they just had scooter there. She was just sitting there.

And I was like, holy crap. So that feeling when you're a kid and you find that just sitting on the shelf is just, it was such this thing. Wait, is this that scooter? No, I have it though, but that shelf is right there. It's just it was such this is this is this that scooter. No, I have it though But that one is for you. I thought you if you want to put it next to your other robots Yeah, I can open it up. Yeah, yeah, it's for you and that way It's that symbol of joy when you have when you're a kid when you find something you really want

I think it just is really like when people look at it. They'll be like Don't be hopeless. I'll open this carefully later. No, do it, just do it. Yeah, I should, I should do it. Yeah, okay. There's no way to open it carefully. Kids don't open stuff carefully, you rip that crap open. But then you break it and you cry.

That's what happens when you're a kid. I never did that. Okay. Me neither, I never cried, but never got presents either. That is so cool. All right, Scooter. You symbolize child like this, go over. Right?

The poor man's robot. The poor man's Transformers. I think there's instructions on the back how to transform her. To her? I only found out it's an adult that it was supposed to be a girl. Yeah. Wow, this genius everything.

Yeah. Thank you, Mark. That's incredible. Well, no, give me here. Let me show you. It looks better when she's transformed. What? No, there's levels to that statement.

Oh, how does it do like this? Let me see if I's levels to that statement. Oh, I have to do like this. Let me see if I remember how to do it. Because I have this as a kid. Arms out. What? The thing is these are easy to break our member. Is it like this?

No. Oh, the front comes out. Oh, let me see this. Oh, this comes up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, so that's that the arms go. I'm having visions of like baby Michael. I can't do it.

Okay, I can't do it. I can't figure it out. Wow, you're right. She looks so much better dressed for him. Oh. All right. I'm gonna follow the instructions in a bit. And I'll leave this failed project of yours.

Oh, there's a wheel out. Look, I don't like this in between form. Well, this is how it's gonna be. Okay. Because we're gonna be accepting of the transformation. of the transformation. Okay. I got I saw this oh it's that little thing when I was walking on Congress and it says resist the bracelet I mean I think of you the reason I got it is because there's two bracelets. So one said lucky fuck, and the other one said resist. Now I first saw a resist, and I'm like,

and then I saw the lucky fuck, and I realized I'm a lucky fuck to find a relevant. It makes me think of you. This is very nice. Resist the powerful. That's true. I saw this somewhere. The oh yeah, yeah, this has to do with in terms of resist, you often bring up the book, Machiavellians by James Burnham. And I was looking

through, I was reading different parts, it's tricky read, but there is a e-book, Kindle version, now that I've been working through this, I think there's an action audio book too, anyway. I just bought some de Machiavellions, James Burnham's analysis of four thinkers that he regards as de Machiavellions, who is Guy Tonemas Valfredo Parado, Georges Sorrell, and um, um, I'm blanking on the Moscow Parado, Sorrell, and Georges Michel, and I just got Parado's autograph in the mail this week. So he, he talks about freedom and liberty. This is the interesting He talks about freedom and liberty. This is an interesting line that I'd like to get your opinion on in terms of resistance,

in terms of liberty. There's no one force goes, quote, there's no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial in relation to entrenched power as the old court gestures. So, I mean, the question here is, can liberty, are you comfortable with that definition or that view of liberty of freedom that at its highest ideal is expressed through the resistance to the powerful,

as opposed to existing in its own. I think his point, broadly speaking, which I agree with, is the only thing that can work to mitigate power is other power, that its talk is cheap, and persuasion has very limited efficacy. It's like if there's a burglar right and one person it will give you a speech about property rights and you shouldn't be in this person's house and the other person has a gun, you know, it's clear which is going to be more persuasive.

You know, it's it's clear which is we're gonna be more persuasive Yeah, but the can't you just be free without the struggle without this conflict and I would I'm uncomfortable with this view It's how closely it links freedom and conflict Like why does this world have to have conflict for you to be free can't I mean it's in part of it is just emphasis. What you're just saying, suffering is what leads to joy. See, and now you're in agreement. Thank you. I just did that just so you can come around and agree. I win.

Next topic. What? Well, I'm playing 3D chess here. Okay. This is New Year's. This is now December 31st. I think that's how it works, but in 1973. Okay.

We recorded this before you were born. Oh no, years after you were born. 60, you look great for 60 So the early 60s or sure okay what Five things let's say our moments in 2021 are you grateful for or people just I don't know things moments beautiful experiences profound beautiful experiences, profound essences of the year. Like looking back, what are the cool things? It's just personally or socially. Do you exist like in a platonic way socially? I mean,

oh, in your personal life. Anything, you're both, you're now Michael Malice, you exist as a social entity and a personal human being and all of it. The whole thing. What stands out to you about 2021? The fact that for the first time in my life, other than college, I moved to a new city. That was a very big one, and there's no part of me that regrets it or misses New York. So that was a very big deal for me.

What do you about this move, about Austin itself, but maybe the move itself, maybe just the act of moving, what's great about it to you? The fact that I had forgotten what it's like to have a huge social network, which I had in New York, before people started falling away, and they had really escalated as a result of De Blasio and the COVID restrictions. So, to have a big crew here is something that was very validating. The thing that's also exciting about Austin is that Boston is not a particularly big town, it's not particularly a great town.

But everyone here, at least in the circles I travel in, is kind of a refugee from their towns. So there is this sense of camaraderie, there is this sense of we're building something together. Back in New York, when you meet someone, it would be like, who is this person? Why am I talking to them? Like are they enormous? Are they going to be weird? And here, there's very little that I think there's much more sense of trust with one another when you meet new people. So that's something that's really exciting about like I've been introducing all my friends to each other and everyone's been hitting it off like gangbusters. It's really great. So I really enjoy that about Austin. I'm enjoying the weather, the space. You're at Kerrack and you have a stuff on the road. I read a biography of him. I don't know if it was on I think it was on the road. He talked about that feeling when you go into

some place. You're leaving a place and you go somewhere else. And the place you're leaving disappears behind you and all the people and all like that you just think about that life and it's forever gone and the some inkling of that where you get to realize your almost mortality because okay that's a chapter and there's not many more and it was a beautiful chapter but now onto the next chapter. Is there a male and collie feeling there? You know it's the opposite I feel like I've been given a new lease on life. Because I didn't realize to what extent there was this subtext of hopelessness in New York. And also people who in New York, you don't appreciate it consciously, but you can't escape

it emotionally. How much the winters get to you psychologically. It's tough. It gets dark so early. It gets cold. You can't walk around. Like, that's the thing that's fun about, or was fun about New York, is that, you know, when the it gets cold, you can't walk around. Like that's the thing that's fun about, or what's fun about New York, is that, you know, when the weather's warm, you can walk for an hour and just enjoy the sunshine and there's a lot to see and do. But in the winter, you don't have any of that, it's brutal. And here, it's just, so that is something, there's no melancholy at all. Well that's because there's, can we say something beautiful about New York?

Not the way it is now, but the way it... I could go on for days about how great New York was. What did you learn about human civilization, just life that was beautiful from New York? I learned that there's a lot of really unique, special people out there who are doing their little part to move the envelope and make the world a better place. And that when you have a city where they're all there together at the same time, that really moves the world. And I'm thinking of Paris in the 20s and Harlem in the 20s and New York in the 70s and L.A. in the late 60s and San Francisco special in late 60s, in New York in the 70s, in LA in the late 60s, in San Francisco, especially in late 60s, things like this.

They really punch above Detroit, certainly, at a Tadeh. They punch above their weight and just really kind of Philadelphia in 1700s, things really start happening and they're ripples throughout the world. You think Austin has a chance to be a Paris in some way? Yes. Because again, it wasn't all of Paris. It was the left bank of Paris and Gertrude Stein and Hemingway and all of them in a little area.

So when you read these history books, these scenes, it's like 50 people in a 10 block radius. These aren't these huge Davos conventions. Okay. So the move, the big move. Yeah. What else? What else stands out to you? Again, both personally and socially, like, zooming in and zooming out. I did a book with a UFC fighter and I was making the point that he was a nine-time world champion that I would never be as good at my job as he was at his. And then when I dropped anarchist handbook in May and it was the top nonfiction book on Amazon for like most of a day, I'd like, oh, I'm the top nonfiction writer in America

just for today. I was like, oh crap, okay. So I guess I was wrong. That that was a major deal. I was still shocked and delighted. By the way, congratulations. I'm truly happy for you, man. It will. It's also proud. But it's also I'm proud because these are people who had points of view and they didn't have it easy and they fought for what they believed in. And in so far,

as I get to Rescue them to some extent from the dustbin of history and say these people really mattered and they really are worth hearing I die. I love I love stuff like that You know, I was talking to friend of mine tofer like a year ago and you know because we're in a weird position with what kind of jobs We have so So like I'd be talking on my live streams about people like Candy Darling or Wallace Thurman. And like these are not household names at all. And then I'd be like proud of myself that I'm the one who brings them to some sort of more prominence. And then you want to tell yourself, well get over yourself who you think you are. But it's like, but no one else is talking about these people or very few.

So to be able to kind of give them some kind of stature and platform that they deserve, I think is I love being able to do that. So you have a strong voice yourself and to sort of join them in. It's like John Lennon, joining in with the Beatles is like a chorus of very different views on anarchism. It's celebrating the individuals, it's celebrating the idea. And you are, I think will be remembered

as a powerful philosophy yourself, but you're almost taking just a humility of being in a room with powerful minds together in one book, it's cool. Yeah, and that these people mattered. And they had a unique perspective. And as I said in the introduction to the book, I remember I was in college and we were studying bioethics.

And there was a graph in the book. And one part says antinomianism, which was the view that, in one side, said legalism, right? With these two extremes, legalism is what is legal is defined by the government or what is morals defined by the government. And one said, ethonomism, which is nothing stands above moral law. And then there was like, well, since no one believes in this, the answer is so much of the other side, it's like, well, why is it on the charge of no one believe? If it has a

name, someone believes in it, you know, so, you know, anarchism is a word that's bandied about and in a dismissive way. And it's like, you don't haveism is a word that's bandied about and did it a dismissive way. And it's like, you don't have to like me or agree with what I'm saying, but you can't pretend that they weren't told story. You're going to tell me told story. Does nobody's talking about completely? He's in there. He was an anarchist. So, it was a big accomplishment. It was really cool to get a chance to do the audiobook. You did an incredible thing, which has got a bunch of really cool people to read. A lot of interesting varied people to read. Yeah, so what I did for the audiobook, which I don't like the idea that hard work isn't

inherently good. Because sometimes being lazy is actually the right choice. I'm like, wait a minute, why am I reading all 23 chapters when it's 23 different authors? Does it make sense? So I hit my role at X and I had different people read different chapters to make it sound literally like you have the different voices in the book. Thank you very much. You did my, because I was going to read my chapter.

Wait a minute. Like all the other authors being by somebody else, let's have Lex read mine. The one chapter I am most moved by is Lauren Chen. She's a podcast as well. She's expecting now, so we wish nothing but the best for Lauren and Liam and the Babby. There's a chapter there by this guy named Charles Robert Plunkett called Dynamite, and he's advocating for making bombs and killing people, killing the forces of capitalism. And Emma Goldman was publishing her essay while she was in lecture tour, and she was just like, why is this in here?

This is just really going to make us look bad, so on and so forth. And when you're dealing with any kind of, you know, HLMacon has that quote about every rational man must at times be tempted to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats. So I wanted to talk, sound like the seductive aspect of violence. Like that's the problem. Like when you deal with terrorism, when you're dealing with political violence, to be able to understand how people can fall for this, how people can be persuaded to think, this is a good idea that I'm going to make some dynamite and throw it into this crowd and kill police officers and innocent people possibly in the service of my, it's

easy to say all they're all crazy, but they're not, you know, even not most people who are crazy don't do these things, you know, even not most people who are crazy don't do these things, you know. So to have a woman read that chapter and I told her kind of read it like a phone sex operator because I wanted to have that siren song of like so you can understand why this calls out to people who are in the rope, the people who are like marginalized and she did such a superb job with that chapter. And she did such a superb job with that chapter. That's such a beautiful vision. Yeah, because violence, that's a violence is part of human history to a degree that it must be seductive.

It must be, there must be a strong pull. Like it's not insane people. There's something probably deep down on our nature that craves violence. And then when there is charismatic leaders that inspire that and revolution plus violence, that, that, I can see that being extremely seductive to us. Like when you're truly suffering in your current situation, whatever is you being impressed by governments or being impressed by the powerful violent revolution is probably there's something people don't ask that long for that.

And also, this kind of the Jolaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein, right? You need that woman to be like, no, no, this is okay, honey. Come along. It's not a big deal. Don't listen to what your parents told you. They're just prudes.

It's a siren song. What't listen to what your parents told you. They're just prudes. It's a siren song What do you what do you think about just lame Maxwell the trial and so on Again, maybe the interesting story there is About the coverage of the trial so like the story is more complex and interesting than the actual horrific acts themselves So to me, I don't maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough, but to me, she's also truly evil. I don't know where to. Maybe you can help me to figure out who is more evil. The, just like you said now, the person says it's okay. It's okay that helps

The evil doer or is it the evil door themselves? I don't know, but I think she's a she scares me more than Jeffy I've seen somehow Yeah, I have people like that in the world I had a like a Twitter poll do you think it's more evil or less evil to kill someone because you've been paid to do it and And people the winning answer was more evil. And I said it was less, because I think in that case, you can kind of check out, you could be like, this isn't my, I'm just doing a job. I don't, you know, you kind of couldn't, I think in a sense, if you have a certain mindset, like intellect to remove yourself from the situation, I'm just a conduit. When you're talking, I haven't been following her case that that much. This is because you mostly watch CNN, CNN is not covering it.

Well, I think my broader point would be people who are untouchable and who know they're untouchable do much worse things than those of us who aren't that way can appreciate. Like I was just talking about on Twitter about Rosemary Kennedy. She was one of JFK's sisters. It's not clear whether she was developmentally disabled or had like depressed mental illness. There was something cluel clearly off with her to some capacity. And at age 23, they gave her a lobotomy. And the thing with a lobotomy is you have to be conscience. You don't put you under. So you have to be counting backwards while there's scalples in your brain and they stopped. But they stopped. They did too far. She became mentally a good two-year-old.

You never had bladder control for the rest of her life, couldn't really talk or walk. And when that happened, they just put her away to some home and they never mentioned her again, or they didn't tell the brothers or sisters where she went. The lobotomies only revealed in 1987 and they pretended, oh, she's, you know,

in this home for kids with special needs. And it's just like like that to me is very, very scary that someone could, you know, do this to their, that people, I saw people respond, they go, that was, you know, cutting edge technology at the time, ha ha. But I'm like, I don't think that that was really done that that frequently or be hearing more about it, all these, you know, botched lobotomies. And my understanding is lobotomies are very hard to like, you, they would want to do them. Someone's like a mass murderer or like, like, someone's really bad, like if the person's left an invalid, like, who cares, kind of situation, but when you're dealing with something like this, like, she's not killing people,

she's not assaulting people. She's not assaulting people She's just difficult because she's making your your vaunted family look bad so So that's to you that's what is it like psychopathy or something like that like you don't care about You just you do horrific things. You don't really care. I can't diagnose joke entity But what I would say like to a Jolaine Maxwell I can't empathize because I don't understand. I, first of all, even in a positive sense, I don't know what it's like to be grooming my son to be the president and lost, you know, the other son in war. I don't know what that's like.

I don't know it's like to be so wealthy. Like, I have to go, can't Joe Kennedy credit because a lot of what he was fighting for was to allow Irish people and Catholic people acceptance into high society. And he was up against a lot of pressure with that. And he's like, I'm going to screw these people, I'm going to be recognized and we're going to make people recognize. So the somebody said for that, but I mean, I can't relate to people like him. But I mean, that is just terrifying. I mean, one of the big reasons I'm an anarchist is, like when you have someone who has that sense of amount of power over somebody else,

a lot of times they're gonna do bad things and have no consequences. Do you think, in a just like Maxwell case and Epstein case, do you think they were trying to blackmail people like trying the what the conspiracy theory is kind of described? That's probably not too far away from reality. The day intentionally tried to put powerful people in compromising situations so that they can make

basically get more and more power. Yeah, I think that was a Vendee Fair piece that you're referring to or a fortune. Oh, sorry, I'm just referring to a general concept. Oh, there was, so there was an article that broke this down because this article is either Fortune Business with Vendee Fair. I don't remember, a major major, it was reputable outlet. And they were, they made the, the reporter, made the point they asked

around and they go, this guy's a billionaire or extremely wealthy at least, no one I know ever traded with him. Like, where is his money coming from? There's no, there's no paper trail. So they're like, okay, if it's not trading and trades are public often, you know, where's his money coming from? And it's also like, why are all these people allowing Epstein to be the business manager when he has no kind of track record to show for? It's the hypothesis was he would get people into uncompromising situations with underage girls, secretly film it, and then he would, you know, blackmail them accordingly.

Well, I guess that's that question. That wouldn't make sense. I know it makes sense, but I also see a lot of evidence that he's just very charismatic in a room. So, and I've also seen, you know, that's how human connections get made. Like, business deals get made. Yeah, but how, where's his money coming from? Oh, like they rich people without blackmailing, just like him close. Like, come as a friend.

I'm not arguing with that. Like, okay, I like Jeff Epstein. Make sure you pull that quote. Yes. I'm a business person. I like Jeff Epstein. I love Jeff. I love Jeff. Like or love. Love. I'm in love with this escalator quickly. I'm gonna hand over him to be my money manager to have 20% of my state fine. Yeah. Where is he making the money for that 20%? That's the thing that there's no paper trail having trading or anything. So I can understand.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Interesting. What were your 20, 20 favorite moments? You mean, 2021? Yeah, 2021. That's when you have it. Yeah, yeah.

Clearly it's just like Maxwell, a trial. It just really stands out to me. It's very moving. Which, yeah. Clearly it's just lame Maxwell trial. It just really stands out to me. It's very moving. Which is why I bring it up. No, moving here. So moving here, but for me, I think we actually didn't cover that with you and I'd love to get your comment.

Because you said it's for the first time in your life you moved. So it's not just about the place you go to. It's the actual act of moving is also a leap. Oh yeah. The decision was that I'm going to give away my salary and MIT. So stop taking salary, give away the group. So students, no more research, the grant funding, still keep MIT affiliation just because of friends and colleagues there still doing research but giving away really primarily is the source of money. So no salary and let it go to zero, let my bank account go to zero and take a leap in San Francisco or elsewhere.

And as COVID broke out and a lot of people started talking to me about San Francisco about the cynicism there and I'll go there and there is the kind of... So it's not all the woke stuff and all that kind of things which is also a problem. It's less about dreaming about a big future about building a big future and more about some kind of identity, politic battles that they're just, you could say that some aspect in the positive light is important, but in a place like Silicon Valley, to me, the most important thing is to do big things,

and for that to be most of the conversation. And so that cynicism was there, and then I went to look at Austin and Austin was the optimism. Yeah, the optimism. And you have people like, so I talked to Elon, was the optimistic about making this the capital of artificial intelligence and technology and so on. And then Mr. Joe Rogan, now just the optimism about making this the cultural capital of the world.

I mean, specifically comedy, but like it just radiates from them, just the excitement. And I've seen not many people of that nature in my life. And when I see that in their eyes, that engine, that fire of wanting to create something special about the place, first of all, those people who rarely fail, that's first of all. And second of all, that's contagious. It's contagious. Yes, so. And so all that combined for me, 2021 was the actual leap of taking the leap, saying, all

right, well, I'm actually going to do this. So not just giving away the salary, giving away all that but the whole thing That's it. You just move to a place. There's an empty building You know and you're moving into it And this is a new life and that leap. I don't know. It's scary leap to take because I've taken that leap many times in my life And this is where, you know, parents and all those kinds of cynicism is really destructive because, you know, from a cynical perspective is, you know, I worked at Google. So why leave Google? There's

very high-paying salary that you can have at Google. Then MIT, why leave MIT? Like, at MIT, this is you've always dreamed about. Like why do you get a PhD? You've loved MIT all the way. Why leave MIT? I mean, this is the same process I've gone through with a lot of things in life. Like you've been saying every single stage,

and you need friends, you need support groups, and all those kinds of things that are extremely important. But in the end, it's about taking the leap. And for me, 2021 was this leap. And to me, that one of the most beautiful things you can do in life is to take those leaps. And that's something I think is no longer a thing in New York. There's no sense of hope.

You don't go to New York now. If there's been such an assault and intentionally, otherwise, maybe it's inevitable, they don't have a choice, but there's been such an assault and creativity and small business in New York that no one, we're very few people who are in New York right now think things are gonna get great soon. Whereas here, I feel it's,

every day is just something exciting is gonna happen. And that's part of the culture and how the conversation goes. It's just invoked to be cynical in New York and so for this call. I hope it changes because what I love about New York and what I love about Austin also is the weirdos, the characters. They just the variety of personalities that if you just walk around you get to meet them. I think New York still has that but it has the extra synthesis on top of it. That's a negative. I mean just becoming friends with Joe, he inspired me to be nicer to people, to not take myself seriously, to be humble, to

celebrate friends, not to be competitive, you know like all those things Since I started listening to this podcast from the very beginning. It was it's just radiated from the guy The thing that people don't appreciate is Joe Rogan likes it when you bust his chops. Yeah, I mean It's a lot of people at that level like if it's a homester Rogan you're laughing and everything they say they don't want that It's very funny and they feel uncomfortable uncomfortable because they know everything they say is hilarious. I remember I went with him, he was doing a performance here and I was, yeah, you were there and he was doing his set and I'd reached the point now where I don't think of him as

Joe Rogan, you know, it was just like my buddy's doing stand-up, you forget. And then I looked at the audience and I remember him like, oh, this is like a religious experience for these people. But you forget who he is because he doesn't carry himself like a big shot. Yeah. And still, I mean, he gets competitive as fuck. Like I argue with him a lot. I mean, when I talk to Francis Collins and Pfizer CEO, you better believe I heard from Joe.

And then we would just get super drunk and argue about it. So it's, I mean, it's beautiful. And he gets really passionate. So it's not like, it's not like easy to argue with him, but that's great. And when you don't take it personally, it's fun. As you and I discussed, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind us saying this, but like that moment when you first get a text from Joe Rogan and it's some boomer meme, like I finally felt like I've arrived as a person.

A boomer meme. Uh, what kind of boomer meme are we talking about? Like he just sounds some silly meme, but it's just like this is the kind of thing you can imagine someone's uncle posting on Facebook. Yeah. It's Joe Rogan's texting it to you. Yeah. I mean, for me also with Elon

Obviously, there's a few people. I'm just saying folks the people know Also Jim Keller who's worked with Elon. So if I had conversations with them because it's just my line of work. They're realizing That everything is possible in this world. Yeah. Yeah Which is not the Russian mindset. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's let's stop that's not a doubt or not. Yeah, it's what what you want calls first principles thinking, but really it's just

not being limited by the constraints of the past. Yes. And so saying like, okay, this is how things have been done, but can be done much, much better. And that has to do with manufacturer. Like, how do we do this 10 times cheaper? Like everyone says it's super expensive, but does it really need to be? This is more of a question about manufacturer, about how to take, build a product, how to actually have a product that's scaled, it has an impact. Then just having a very serious engineering, like to the level of physics,

discussion about building a thing and fucking doing it. And just being around people that did it. And, you know, basically, literally or figuratively said, fuck you to everybody in the room that said they can't do it. And that that energy, so that I've gotten to know Elon a lot better in 2021, that to me, it's like everything, the whole thing, that moving here and being surrounded by the optimistic energy, and then the individual interactions with people that refuse to be like brought down by the, with people that refuse to be like brought down by the, yeah, the cynicism in the world, the naysayers.

The naysayers is that to me is what I'm going to remember this year for. And I hope it like materializes into something concrete here in Austin. And I feel it's doing that. I really am curious to be a fly in the wall. I'm sure it'll happen at some point watching you and Elon talk to each other. It's even more of a robot than you. He was on the Babylon B podcast and I was honored to be able to be in the room while this was happening. And with the guys at the B-Due, at the end of every podcast, they have like 10 questions.

I don't think this is more of a... No of those. No, no this and they go to Elon Would you would you rather be Batman or Ironman, you know because they're both like multi-million Industrialists and Elon being Elon is like well, let's think this through. There's different kinds of bats You've got you know fruit bats and you got insect bats. Why is called Batman Batman? Sure you'll fly right that's can fly I'm in a arm and I'm just sitting there the whole like dude just answer the question It was so literal. I was like damn. I Guess by this point I'm release with podcasts with them. That's a several hours and it's exactly as as you would imagine It's exactly as you would imagine

There was this super technical the movie her Yes, so there Yes, of course. So there's that one scene, it's when, is it walking, who's the lead character? Yeah, a walking fiend. Yeah, so he's the lead and he falls in love with Siri basically who's played by Scarlett Johansson. And there's another artificial AI that she's talking to.

And she's like, oh, can I permission to go into nonverbal communication with this professor and the guys like, sure. And they just to go into nonverbal communication with this professor and the guys like sure? And they just start talking each other in their robot. And I'm just imagining the two of you having this mind meld. Well, so there's both a humor of that, but also the practical nature of the kind of conversations you have.

It's so great because it's a problem solving mode. Okay, yeah, okay. That is fun. That is exciting. Because you stop completing sentences. I actually feel at home because you don't need to say the full sentences anymore. You can just say random words and you start to understand what you're talking about. And then you can have multiple conversations at the same time and go on these tangents. One of the biggest problems I have with podcasting for me talking, I have to finish my sentences.

I have to actually finish making a point, which is a big problem. Because there's like a listener that needs to hear the point being finished, as opposed to completing your sentences inside your mind. And like the thing I find is useful to Elon does the exact same thing is when the line of thinking is no longer useful, you just ran, you just switched to the next thing. You just leave that whole thing behind. You don't need a nice transition.

You don't need any of that. And also just, it's the first principle thing. It's like zooming in on the elephant in the room. I love that. It's so energizing. That's what I love about engineers. It's not the most eloquent communication style, but I love it. What about you? So you said moving the book, the book, what else? And you've been really excited about, so that's anarchist handbook, but you've also been non-stop excited about white film. That was most of this year. You've been actually made significant progress. Yeah, I'm on page 40 of the second draft and it's really kind of funny because when you're doing your I think 10th book

I lost track already The first draft is actually pretty good like I'm going back and like alright. It's gonna be a whole slog I'm like oh, I just have to cut and paste this in basically a few words. So I did a good job with the first draft. It's it's also funny when you're writing How and I guess this is the mark of a good professional writer, the, my personal feelings don't match how the characters in the book come off. Like, I have a lot of fondness for people like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and they're early on in the book, but they're not good people. And I'm writingman and they're early on in the book,

but they're not good people. And I'm writing it objectively and whatever and I'm reading it some like, they come off much worse than my personal appraisal of them. So it's kind of interesting as a writer when you're watching it, I guess kind of like an attorney, right? Like you can have in a situation where you, as an attorney, you have a lot of fondness for your client,

but you realize that they probably did this thing, or you could not, it could be other way. Like they're innocent, but you, it's hard for you to make a good case for them because the dad is not there. Can you actually talk about your writing process? Sure. So one, you're writing process, but two,

by way of advice of how to write. You've talked about in the past, like your first draft is these kind of disparate or more chaotic in the same way. Maybe I was saying in the engineering discussion, you don't complete the sentences. Yes. So the first, like, real good writing advice I remember getting was this book by Peggy Nunein called What I Saw at the Revolution. And she was on Reagan's speechwriter. She still writes for the Wall Street Journal. The book I bought

was at a used bookstore in Louisburg, Pennsylvania, when I was in college. And the spine is cocked. I still have it. It was 99 cents. And she talked, you know, when you're writing for a president, this is no joke, especially for a president who says, no, the great communicator, Reagan, you know, so, and you have to be very inspirational but also not come off as corny, which is very hard to do. And she in the book talks about how she wrote speeches for him, how she, you know, I'm paraphrasing her and I haven't read her book in a couple of decades, but basically she would write like a brain dump and it's just garbage and she's like, okay, just get it all out there. And then you know, there's that expression

all writing is editing. So for the Y-pill specifically, this is, I don't know if it's the most ambitious book I've ever done, do you read or I think is more ambitious? Because that's all of North Korea's history and it's written somebody else's voice and that person's a Martian and you like you mentioned you had to read a giant number of books. Yes six books as as a research. Yeah well maybe you can just pause can you say what white pill is about. Sure it's a tale it's it's about hope and it's a tale of good and evil and I think that's I I don't want to tip my hand too much. Okay but people always like how do you think why are you so hopeful and I'm not hopeful in a motion level I'm not hopeful in emotional level I'm hopeful because looking at history. I think there's certain things that

Not will certainly happen again, but it's not at all in plausible to happen again And that the good guys will win and this is one of those cases. So You know, I had the book took on a life of its own It's very different from how originally conceived it. I originally conceived it as a kind of retelling of Camus philosophy, Ryan Holiday, who he has to be close friends with, I'm talking to him in a while,

he has a whole kind of cottage industry based on the soaks of the past. I'm like, okay, can I ask them what it's gonna do? This was Camus, he said sure. And then I reread Camu, it was recently, and it wasn't what I had remembered. Also, Kamu, pausing that, I apologize to interrupt. So it's interesting. So he kind of took ideas from Stoics and started to kind of use it as a book that gives you advice about

how to live life from the Stoic perspectives. And you were thinking, is there something in existentialism, absurdism or something specifically in Camus thinking, or I think you mentioned the mythic, specific, specifically like his philosophical work. So you were trying to see, like, is there, can I resurrect this? That's actually, I would think that's an interesting project. And it's sad to hear that it was, it didn't materialize in exactly that form because I thought there would be a lot in that. So I had Douglas Murray on my show and he also made the point like when you go back and read Kamu, there's not that much there. The myth of Cicifus is not at all how I remembered it. The vast bulk of that book is like literary criticism. So he's talking about Dusty Epskin, all these different people who are in

body, so they've absurd, but I'm like, this isn't, there's not much to take from here. This actual title essay is basically like a six chapter essay at the back of the book, which you know, it's good for what it is, but there's not that much there to draw. I'm extremely, he's a great hero of mine. I think his life is just enormously admirable. He fought very hard against the Nazi occupation. His book, The Plague, which I find unreadable, is an allegory about, you know, the Germany conquering France and so on and so forth. Wait a minute. Why is the plague unreadable? an allegory about, you know, the Germany conquering France and so on and so forth. Wait a minute. Why is the plague unreadable?

It's the kind of book where reading the book doesn't add anything to the plot. The plot is a plague comes, sleeps over the town, destroys a lot of life and vanishes as quickly as it came. You don't need to read the book now, like you get the point. I deeply disagree with it. Have you, yes, of course I've read the plague.

To me, the plague is about the doctor and it's about love and it's about the different roles that humans take in time and tragedy like the plague. Also it's an allegory so you can start to think about like what, you know, whether it's Nazi Germany, whatever you think that is yeah Um to me though that was about love and about like the role like the the highest ideal being the doctor Like sacrifices themselves for others And like still has love and hope I mean I did to me it that the way that story is told I think has a lot of me it's, to me, you saying that's interesting,

you say it this way, but to me, it's like saying animal farm doesn't need to be read, because it's an obvious story. I don't think there's much plot to the plague. I think animal farm has a very long plot and a complex plot, but there's experiences within. So the situation is set up and plague and there's experiences that start to reveal a philosophy. So yeah, it's not very plot driven.

Yeah, but the, so I would say you still should read it, but the plot doesn't, like you didn't give away anything currently. Right. That's so some books are just I mean I ran this similar to that in the sense like the plot is not as important as the behavior of the different people in that plot. I think she's very plot heavy. No she has plot, but I'm saying that's not necessarily the important thing to me the behavior of the people is the important thing Sure, but you could you could you could like separate into a bunch of blog posts and they stand on their own I would have to

Think about that with that and Rand She she does through the plot create a world. We start to understand right different values that people have But yeah But that's what the plot serves. Yeah, I don't know. I would have to think, but in the plague is the behavior of the people that's really important. And the same, I mean, the stranger too. I mean, these like, I'm trying to scramble here for books. I really appreciate that don't have a plot. No notes from underground. So obviously this desk is a huge amount of plot in most of this work. Herman Hess has a huge amount of plot.

Thomas Mann doesn't have the plot. He's the one who doesn't have plots. Thomas Mann. Would you say Kafka has a plot? I think Kafka is very happy plot driven. Yeah, but I just don't see that I guess. I guess that morphs doesn't really have a plot. Yeah, but when there's like crawling around. It's like a vignette. It's not really like a, this is not short. Yeah, yeah. A hunger artist on my probably favorite short stories is that kind of short stories. A pretty long short story of Kafka is really interesting.

Is a, is a bottom man? I don't know if you read it. No, it's a thing. It's about a man that is like a freak in a sense that his skill is that he can fast for a long time. Okay. And then people gather on the cage and look at him as he, as he fasts, I don't actually remember if he's in the, not but the and eventually he fasts so long that people don't even care anymore like they just leave. So there's a

there's a it has to do something. It makes me think about like don't become the way you live don't become like a freak show a circus circus act, like live for an ideal, live for something that brings you joy. Or don't live for the sake of attention. For the sake of attention. Yeah, that's what it's about. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, so you, I rudely interrupt you because you were talking about the plague and connecting it to the writing process of the plague and connecting it to the writing process of White Pill. Yeah. Well, anyway, so, you know, how I was writing this one, I just had a first draft of notes and they were not in chronological order. It's like, I read certain books as research and then I had the pull quotes that was nested there. And now I'm basically rearranging everything and putting it. So the book started as Ryan Holiday's The work entitled would have been The Point of Tears because this is great. Khmuz, a great quote maker and he has this line about man must live, live to the point of tears, which I think is just what I love about him is

Khmuz always comes off as like he's clenching his teeth. He's clenching his teeth both in terms of like barely mitigated rage and injustice, like what he sees people suffering. It just really makes him like just upset to the core, but also this sense of not taking life for granted and kind and just pushing yourself and pushing the boundaries and his point being that life is inherently meaningless, which gives a great opportunity to impute meaning to it, to create our own meaning to life. So taking the main essay from mythosysphus, that was the origin story for the White Pill, but then it became something completely different.

And so then it became how are you so optimistic in the face of everything that's going on the world? And I started writing it when COVID started hitting. And I, because again, I'm not optimistic because of some temperament of mine, temperament of mine. I'm optimistic because, you know, people talk talk about how if the US didn't exist, China would just become an empire and take over everything. Empires are expensive and they look at the British Empire, look at the Soviet Union. It's not automatically sustainable. It costs a lot of things to make sure, geographically, you know, all over the world literally,

to keep everyone in line. It's not at all like a super villain movie, like once it happens, it's happy ending for them. So, yeah, that was the start, and I'm like, all right, let me tell one thing I'm good at is telling stories. So this is really a- So this is really a, so this is an narrative plot driven. Very, very plot driven and also heavily character driven,

but the characters are real. Yeah, got it. So it's interesting to kind of mention what kind of, what is the first draft kind of look like in terms of what, what kind of things do you plop down? Oh, so it'll be like, let's suppose I just read a, like, you know, some book called The Gillis Peanut Work, which was an early book attacking Lenin from the anarcho-communist perspective. So it'll just be like all the different quotes, like a paragraph here, double space, another

paragraph, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, So on and so forth. Whereas for other sections where I wasn't just using it because research, they would be like talking about McKinley getting shot. Like it's just me writing the narrative and that I could just pretty much copy paste into the second draft. By way of advice, would you give that as advice? Is that a good way to do it? Is that a very peculiar way your brain will work? No, so this is this is actually advice that feel comfortable giving to people who are trying to write because it's just like with the gym, right? If you did seven sets, seven, excuse

me, reps last week and you did eight this week, it's psychologically motivating because you're going the right direction and if you mind extrapolates. So make sure, tell yourself I'm going to get a page done today or two pages done. Sit your ass around the computer and I'll have to get up until you get those two pages. It doesn't matter if they look at garbage because if you have a 300 page first draft and it's crap, at least you have something to work with and that's a big number. So if you're going to, the thing is since the first draft is going to be crap, if you're editing as you're right,

it's gonna be extremely discouraging. And it's also trying to drive and then doing reverse at the same time. It's completely nonsensical way to do it. Get it all out there, don't look it over. If you have a great line put on your phone and then add it to the draft, so it'll be a complete slog, but editing that slog is going to be a lot easier than creating it to begin with. And when you see those disparate lines all laid out on the page, how difficult does it to then start stitching it together? Do you find that when you look at a list of those things, the final product will look very different? Yes. Or will you actually use those lines?

So I will use those lines. And then I have a file called Scraps. So like if the lines no longer use I put in my scrap pile I'd love to see what's in the scrap pile. Okay, yeah, sure Of one of the things I've been pulling scraps is a lot of times when I was earlier writing I would have contemporary references and I realized that that's bad because I want the And I realized that that's bad because I want the reader to be in the past as the present. So if you're talking about, let's say 1901 and you're referring to Obama, that's gross people up. So I had to pull all those.

Okay. Let's talk about some new years resolutions. You ever do new years resolutions? Do you ever think like that? Like take a special day in the year to think about how you're going to try to change yourself or you do try to transform yourself every single day when you wake up. Well, I usually have several projects I'm working on at once, so there's always incremental progress on those. Right. You know, it's nice to have a deadline, but at the end of 2022,

I'll accomplish this kind of a, like of to hold yourself responsible. And then you could do that at the beginning of the year to think about that. Both philosophically, like what kind of big, not projects that you can quantify, but more like how can I change my life? Or like I mentioned, take the leap of different kinds. And then there's specific things like finish the book.

I years ago, and I'm, I think on some level, you much less than me, but I think you're increasing in this direction. I realized it's more, I have to learn how to be a surfer and not a driver because when you reach the level we're at in our careers or in our place in the culture, a lot of this is luck and a lot of this is just like like I'm just going along for the ride because it's kind of counterintuitive like you know like the success of the anarchist handbook was counterintuitive. So all I'm hoping for is getting the book done. I am extremely proud of it. And just also building a, we had thanks given together at Blair's house, just building a great

upcoming community here in Austin, which has happened very quickly. I was, there was going to be another which has happened very quickly. I was, there was gonna be another surprise here. There's a girl named Natalie, Side Surf, and she makes these ultra realistic cakes. Like if you've seen those cakes online, it looks like you're cutting a puppy. Like she makes those kind of things. So she's here in Austin.

Yeah, you know, so like moved permanently. I think she's been here for a while. I've never, I haven't met her yet, but I just kind of chat it with her. So they just, it's, so like moved permanently. I think she's been here for a while. I've never, I haven't met her yet, but I just kind of chatter with her. So it's just so many, there's so many scenes happening here that are overlapping. So in general, finish the book,

keep building a community. I mean, you've already been doing that here. You've been here several months. I've been making a point to introduce people to each other and everyone's just really getting along very well. That's great. And the book is the focus. The book is the focus. What about the podcast that you're doing? You're welcome. Yeah, I mean I enjoy it and it's been growing a lot. I finally got a new computer, which my friend Jane stole so I can have a decent camera because of my old, this is my mindset as a hoarder.

Like I was more interested in spending money on a Pareto autograph than actually getting a computer that's from the 20th century. So, but I, I, I'm such an old school person in that in my head podcasts are like so ephemeral. Like I don't, like there's some episodes of my podcasts they're really proud of. And there's a lot of friendships I've made as a result of it that really mean a lot to me. No question.

It's made my life a family better place. But it's not the same as that book on the shelf, especially when the book is something that I think matters much more than I do. Yeah, there's a permanence to it. There's a seriousness to laying down the words on paper. Yeah, like really giving them thought. Yeah. That's true, but I'm a huge fan of pockets. You're just, you don't listen to pockets much, you're just fascinating to. Yeah, like at all, I don't know how mine is so successful. Like, it's just, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and I just love the medium. Yeah, but I love the authenticity, the realness of the medium. That's really nice. I just understood for the, it's starting to click because, like my pal Blair White, she was just unrogan. And the first 10 minutes, I was, I was so angry. Like I was sitting there like yelling at the screen because Joe and Blair, you would think that they're going to start talking about, you know, Trump or trans

issues or moving to Austin, they start talking about shark reproduction. And neither these dumbasses knew anything about it. And I know a lot about it. And they're like about shark reproduction and neither these dumbasses knew anything about it and I know a lot about it and they're like, oh is it like this? I'll do the shark's lay eggs and I'm sitting there I'm like, if you don't know why you're talking about this. Why? Why are you talking? And I could also see why people like these shows

because they feel like they're friends of the people like they're sitting in the room because I felt like I was in that room and I wanted to shake both of them. Yeah in the room. So know what about transforming yourself and your resolutions like that? Oh, I'm doing a slight bulk now. So I'm almost at my heaviest weight ever, but I couldn't go to gym this week because

I was under, under whether. So that's been a little frustrating, but yeah. So I were going to get some modeling picks. What's, what's, what's, is there goals there? So my heaviest, I'm four eight. The heaviest I've ever been was when, and this is when I was like, he's exaggerating. He's not that tall. That's the metric.

Oh, sorry. You talking about your height? Yeah. Yeah. Barely four, six. So the heaviest I've ever been when I was like, really high body fat, because I learned, because I couldn't gain weight as a kid So when I figured I could actually gain weight

I like I like was 164.5 So I want to hit 165 And then see take it from there. I have a friend who's been helping me my buddy Traygoff and this kid stronger his Jake his username on Instagram is stronger both the number five instead of letter Yes, then the number five instead of the letter S. And then the number five set of letter S. But he does, I've never, it looks like it's Photoshop, like your brain can't process it.

You know the human flag? And no, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. But he does human flag push ups. Wow. So he is horizontal parallel to the ground, right? He's holding himself up like a flag, but he could also do this while. So he's moving parallel to the earth side to side while how it's just crazy. That's really difficult. So you're interested in that kind of stuff.

No, but I'm saying like he's been helping me out. So like the guy knows what he's doing. He's just a really impressive kid. I love that kind of stuff like body weight self. So yeah, my primarily mode of working out, it's very like the professional, you've ever seen Leon, like the professional that with now the apartment, that we have a pull up thing as you push up some pull ups. It's very like I'm just missing the milk. I like working out at home, just like that.

The body weight stuff, you can go so much with it and it's super functional for everything else you live in, for life, for living life well. On the other hand, I don't care about functionality. The thing that really bothers me, like I go, I know Joe's thinking of opening up a gym, like a private gym.

There's only like one power cage here at the goals I go to. I don't know what source of this is only one or that it's sometimes you aren't using it. I'm like, no one's doing deadlifts in here. No one, just me. Yeah. It's golds. By the way, I don't want to say where. I'll tell you off my, but there's this is a, as if you really like ghetto places around Austin that are just like these shitty gyms that nobody wants to go to, but have a rack they have like if you want to lift heavy that kind of stuff. But are they 24 hours? That's the thing Gold's. Oh, but they're 24 hours in the following way. There's a code. Okay. And you just go in. Okay.

And you turn on the lights. That's fine. And then you work out. I don't want to meet people. Exactly. Well, I'm just not sure the people, I'm not sure if people in there are great. Yeah, like, and I've had fans give up to me a goals and they've all been called, except, except. Oh no. Except, except. If I have my headphones on, and I'm doing dead lifts,

I don't need you to come over, tap my ear, and start giving me critiques about my form. It's actually happened? Yes. I'm still angry about it. I'm pulling my 150 in peace, thank you. Yeah, people are hilarious. I was recently in, actually, the wildest day ever in my life.

There's so many things happened in a row. So I went to a wedding in LA, Andrew, Andrew Shultz. And with Whitney Cummings and Joe Rogan and a bunch of other fascinating people, it's just speaking of weirdos. The comedian, the reason I find the comedian is awesome. One, they're authentic, They're just cool people. Yeah But they're also just weird. They don't become a comedian for not being like fucked up and all kinds of different Anyways, anyway, so there's the wedding. I'm

You know me it was only carbs at the wedding so I didn't need I didn't eat for a long time for so I was like already fasted 20 hour 25 25 hours. And so that this whole story of everything that happens is, is Lex, like 40 hours fasted with Joe Rogan drinking a lot of whiskey. And so you were drinking too? Or heavy on 40. Oh my god, that's crazy. So it is calories.

That was my only source of calories is the whiskey. And I I so I didn't trust myself with carbs when I'm drunk. I just don't enjoy it because I'll forget and I just enjoy eating like a strict healthy diet when I'm drunk because I'd rather eat more food that's healthy. Yeah yeah versus not. And so anyway. So then we went to Vegas Yeah, yeah versus not. And so anyway, so then we went to Vegas together. And then just kept doing wild thing after another wild thing. Rogan opened up for when he come in. He just showed up at a random party that he wasn't invited. And he did a thing.

He almost started a fight because some guys said, stop sp- yelled at him, said stop spreading misinformation. And then we run into David Goggins, out of all, this is my first time meeting, David Goggins. I've talked to David a lot over the phone and we were supposed to do a thing together and this is me trash out of my mind, meeting David for the first time with his incredible wife,

Rogan's wife was there. By the way, Joe Rogan's wife, David's wife, made me realize that I really want to be married because they're not they make their partners better. Yeah, like that I was There's a certain aspect of marriage that I'm afraid of that like your partner takes you away from life. You don't get to experience life as much But this was like they were enriching them. I don't know is that the world's most powerful support group. It was cool Anyway, so then of course drunk Lex is Challenges Goggins to push us. I saw that's on Instagram whatever we're in the middle of the suit. And you're in the suit in the middle of casino. There's a crowd gathering. Like it's Joe Rogan, me and David Goggins, and I'm just doing push ups with them. And Rogan is like

commentating and yelling and screaming. It is surreal and just going on to the next thing and next thing and next thing like this and then drove all the way from Vegas back to L.A. with Joe and Whitney and his wife and it was like, what is this? And all of it is done in 24 hours. The one valuable lesson is don't fast and drink like excessively. So I've learned that because what happens is liquor hits your mind, my mind. So I've learned that. Because what happens is, um, liquor hits your mind, my mind. Sorry, I'll speak about my particular mind. Like, the intellectual part of my brain got hit really hard really fast.

So I was not able to even more so than usual stitch together senses. I understood everybody well. So like made your name record again. Yeah, I was, yeah, funny. My, the Dima, good, good. It's so like meeting David. I want to say so many things. He's so inspiring to me, right? But all I say was like, hello.

And I, and I like, I, I remember like opening my mouth to like try to say more and I was like, and then I would just close my mouth and not be able to say anymore. And I was, this is why I don't, this is one of the reasons I don't drink ever. Yeah. It removes certain barriers. Like it allows you to maybe have fun that you wouldn't otherwise,

but yeah, definitely for personal values and intellectual eloquence. But I also hate being hungover. The hungover part, yeah. That's the worst. Yes, the worst. And you also, like I did this to myself. Yeah. and all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing.

I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that I've been doing. I've been doing all the other things that All you have to do is just wait it out. It's really fun. It took me a long time to realize that that expression means the other thing.

What's the other thing? If things are going great, there's two show paths. Yeah. I always thought about it. No, I always thought about it as being more like, don't worry if things are bad, it'll pass. It's like, it's also like, if something's going great, it's not gonna be this way forever.

It's like Bukowski said, love is a fog that fades with the first daylight of a reality. Do you think love can last? Oh yeah, we're gonna win. Who's we? The good guys. Didn't Hitler also think he was the good guys? He's wrong.

You know why? Why? You do win. So you think it's permanent? So this one time, the good guys winning it will last. It won't pass. Because I think all of it passes, unfortunately. I think we're going to win and win big in the not-so-dust future.

Do you have specific things in mind or no or just a sense about human civilization about society waking up? I don't know about waking up, but I think the increased understanding on all sides of the political spectrum that corporate America and corporate news outlets are self-motivated actors and those motivations are often inimical to what others would regard as desirable is something that I think is happening with increasing frequency. So what do you think about the political landscape in general? You had a great conversation with Glenn Beck and he said that he talked to Trump and believes that Trump is Donald Trump is definitely running in 2024 or very likely running in 2024.

I think he said he thinks he'll have a good chance of winning or I don't remember that. But the fact that he was running was a surprise to you. Do you think Donald Trump would be running in 2024? Given that Glenn Beck has a much better relationship with Trump than I do to put it modally, if Glenn Beck is certain this is going to happen, I would defer to Glenn Beck's judgment. Do you think he has a chance of winning? Do you think he'll win? Anyone in a binary political system Do you think he has a chance of winning? Do you think he'll win? Anyone in a binary political system

who's the nominee has a chance? Like whoever the Republican Democrat and he has a chance, I think also it's a lot easier to vote for someone that you have voted for in the past. So that's why incumbents have a big advantage. There's not that psychological barrier to cover. I think it's also useful for Trump that he's baddish with social media because then

he doesn't have to have the responsibility of governing and all the costs of that, you know, because no matter what decisions you make while governing some people aren't going to like that. So he gets to kind of be above the radar or below the radar rather to some extent. I don't think it's at all a given that he would get the nomination. When I say the good guys are going to win, I certainly don't mean Donald Trump. I don't think victory is going to come as a consequence of Washington. Do you want to make America great again? I think America is great.

So this is my failed attempt at humor. There are also hats that Giuliani and Jim Jeffords wore that said, people can look this up. They said, because they were in South of the border, make Mexico great again also. Like, that's in me. It was like this the syntax there Okay So you you you don't even think you might get the nomination if you who else might I mean they if you had asked Two year three years out

Who the nominee in 2020 would be Donald Trump wasn't even or 2016 rather wasn't even on the radar screen So we have a long way to go the. So we have a long way to go. The Sanctus. The Sanctus years is a long way to go. Yeah. Especially because we're coming out of COVID. There might be some governor who becomes a rock star for some reason. Maybe someone's going to have some, some congressman might have some big moment where they're

screaming at somebody and all of a sudden they become a rock star in the Republican Party. It could be one of the celebrities we don't think about. screaming at somebody and all of a sudden they become a rock star in the Republican party. It could be one of the celebrities we don't think about. I mean, Donald Trump is essentially not a political figure before he ran into it. So it could be any of the famous Republican, like, right leaning celebrities. I don't even know which way McConaughey leans. No, I think he's the lefty, or he's the lefty of the Democrat, but he's not running.

But like people like that just might step into the ring. Yeah, I don't think they'd have that much of a chance because I think the Republican Party, there's a symmetry. They'd be much more skeptical of like an actor than the Democrats would be because they would regard that actor as coming as a kind of nensure and candidate or whatever. Right. But there's other kinds of celebrity like, uh,

Jaco could run as a, as a Republican. That's a good example. Yeah. Yeah. That would be interesting. So a military person. Right. Yeah. But already, like, for example, Dr. Oz is thinking of running force is going to run for the Senate in Pennsylvania. And there's already been a lot of research. People slamming him on Twitter

and social media for past positions he's taken. So, um, you know, the Santas is the figure of the moment, but Scott Walker was the figure of the moment in the 2016 cycle and he didn't even make it to Iowa. Yeah, and I wonder what role does COVID play in all of this? Right. In terms of, I wonder what role does COVID play in all of this? In terms of, I'm mostly optimistic and hopeful about the world. When I look at the world, I'm excited by most things. I've been a little bit, or a lot disappointed by it. The lack of great leadership in a time of trouble.

To me, one of the great things about a difficult time is it brings out the great leaders. Again, it's the up and down things. Like, you don't want to ask for war, you don't want to ask for pandemics. But when they happen, it's a great opportunity from the human spirit to flourish. And the fact that it didn't quite in the way that I Hope to would is disappointing. I think there's still time too because people are trying to figure out What to do as we emerge from the fog? So I'm excited by 2020 for somebody said this dark cynical thing I hope this is not true, but like that there was some doubt about the

results of the election in 2020 that in 2024, both sides, like it'll just start becoming standard to completely reject the results of an election no matter who wins. Well, that's my perspective. I don't regard elections as legitimate. And I see what you're saying, not in this terms of that, that basically the process itself was illegitimate. Yes, so that there's like cheating or something. Yeah, but I think that that's pretty much a given and it has been a given.

Like it's either Republicans often say, oh, they got to at least illegal to vote. You know, whether they have a council say the voting machines were hacked or the media, so on and so forth. Because despite all the people flapping their gums about democracy, they only like democracy when it gives them the results that they want. Can I ask you about something else that Glenn Beck said that I thought was really interesting. I agree with him very much on this. And it was refreshing to hear, although he kind of made it turn it into a point

about why Trump is great or whatever. But the point was the following, which is he doesn't want to talk to anybody who can't say at least one nice thing about everyone. So like, if you don't like Donald Trump, if you don't like Joe Biden, you should still be able to say one nice thing, like legitimate, nice, not just like a dismissive nice thing, but legitimately say, what is one nice thing they did or like, uh, or who they are as a person? Not, not like saying Donald Trump is funny sometimes. Like, no, like legitimate, where you really mean it. And it's been really troubling to me How few people are able to do that about political figures? I had a lot of people I Think I tweeted something like this leading up to the election saying like you should be able to say something nice about both Joe Biden and Donald Trump and I've had

old friends, I don't want to say specific, I guess, to call them out, but they several people, and one in particular, like, wrote me this long, like several page email. It was Sam. It was Sam Harris. But the Sam Harris? Sam Harris. No. But I have a lot of conversations with Sam Harris now and Joe on both sides. He's like the devil and the angel on both my I don't know which one is which but just angel. They're both devils.

And they said, how could you say, how could you even consider that there's something positive about Donald Trump? Here's an easy one. He has three wives with three kids with each, but the kids get along. I think that's really commendable that Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump and Baron can all get along with each other, given the circumstances. I think that speaks to someone as a father, De Ivanka, on the family level. I see the same thing with actually one of the reasons I always found Joe Biden fascinating

is he's had a lot of really traumatic things happen in his life. If I shit my pants in front of the Pope, I'd be traumatized too. I'm talking to a master troll about something sensitive and beautiful that is a man suffering with a loss. I kind of know what he feels like right now. I'm pretending to be the pope. This chair's ruined. Sorry, Lon. Get up and sit in it. Well, why is this chair felt?

I'm sitting a swamp. Look, look, you have stuff to show like I'm sitting a swamp? Like, look, you have stuff to show, can you for a good chair? I'll send you a contestant. It's a pretty good, Elon impression. But yeah, I mean, like one criticism, I tell Joe, Rogan is like, he has trouble finding one positive thing to say about Joe Biden, for example. And I just don't, I don't, I don't like that. I want, I think, I mean, I'm a big believer

in the shit sandwich sticking on top. I think he's an easy one. I think Joe Biden clearly is a very amiable person. Like what's amiable? It gets along with people. Like it seems really clear that maybe before president, because it's different when you're the president, but that he could call a lot of these Republican senators, get them on the phone and have a conversation with them. Yeah, and it's not some kind of manipulation or... To some extent it is, because they're all politicians, but he clearly seemed to be able to get...

Wasn't like an ideologue. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but there's... I mean, maybe I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, but the blue collar thing like riding the train, you know, there's ways to connect with people and not it's seeing them as equals, no matter where their walks of life are. And I love it when presidents do that. To some degree, because of the wealth under which Donald Trump existed for a lot of his

recent life, he's less able to do that quite naturally. Um, maybe sometimes Obama wasn't quite able to question. I, who's more blue collar Trump or Biden and you, you can easily make the case for both, I think you could know, not the blue collar, but like, like literally, be able to fit in at a bar at a local bar and just like, I can see both of them. Yeah, you're right. I can see both of them. Yeah. In fact, Obama doesn't quite. No, because he's got that Ivy League, if he had the Ivy League thing.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's somehow down from Ken too. No, he's right. Yeah, you can see him having a beer with the guys and yelling at the screen. This is bullshit. Change the channel. Yeah. I mean, I hope people do the, I think that's one of the most unpleasant things to me is they're not able to empathize with the fact that half the country voted for another person. Well, it's also then it's just bad strategy. If you can't figure out why half the country

is voting for someone you guard as like a demon, well then how are you gonna supposed to fight this demon? Like, you know, when I did your reader the North Korea book, it's like, don't you want to understand how these people get to where they got? It's unknown saying that he's a good person, but like, there's a logic to their, there's a method to their madness. You've, you've talked about national divorce a few times. I've seen a couple of videos recently where you're responding to articles. It's kind of cool.

Can you talk about this idea of national divorce as it stands today, arguing for it maybe and if you could just out of curious in the context of those videos, if you can steal men and argue men against? So I was the first one to kind of bring this issue back into the national conversation. I wrote a piece for Observer in 2016. Then Jesse Kelly had a piece a few months after that, David Boye just recently did a piece

on his stuff stack earlier this year. And it's become enough of a mainstreamed idea that paleontology outlets, like the National Review, have felt the need to respond to them. So the point being that America has had at least two cultures since the beginning and that there's absolutely no reason

and these cultures in recent years, and this was in 2016, not in mention 2021, have been increasingly antagonistic toward one another and have even lost ability to communicate they're using language in different ways and that there's no reason for this to continue any further. And you know, just, you live your life, we'll live hours and, you know, good, good buying good luck.

No harm, no ill will. Now there's lots of arguments against them. Some of this are completely, I think, stupid. The stupidest one is, well, that's what China wants. Okay, well, I mean, I'm not going to live my life saying I'm just gonna do the opposite or whatever China wants, that's not logic. That's not a good pathway.

Now, I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but that's not a reason we're wearing other. Yeah, you bring up China or Russia, that's exactly what China or Russia want. But sort of the strong way to phrase that is, it weakens America, like not just the one America, but like both sides in the divorce will be much weaker than they individually were together.

So in that sense, not that you have to care about we're trying to things, but like, it's a step, but it's a big step backwards. Yes, I think in the short term, it is absolutely big step backwards in terms of power. There's no question that, you know, when you're trying to reestablish a society, there's gonna be a transition period,

that transition is gonna be costly. Each side to reestablish a society, there's going to be a transition period. That transition should be, it's going to be costly. Each side starts wondering, wait a minute, why are we still doing this? We don't have to anywhere. We're not living with them, so on and so forth. So that's going to be a concern. I don't think that the whole point of America, or even a large primary point of America,

is to be a bulwark against Chinese power. And there's going to be very few people on earth, given my work, who have as much informed hatred and contempt for the Chinese government as I do. Certainly, next to the North Korean people, maybe the people from Eritrea, there's few populations who I'm as worried about as the people under the rule of the red Chinese. My steelman argument is there's no way this is going to be peaceful because the lines don't separate out well. So all you're doing is basically just replicating the problem

because the disparity isn't between, you know, like during the Civil War north and south, it's like it's between New York City and upstate New York between Chicago, downstate Chicago. Once you get outside of LA and like Sacramento, California in many ways is like Kentucky. So it doesn't make sense. So that's a strong argument. I mean, you've talked about that this process will be painful.

It can't be painful. And we're not just talking about violence. It could be just, even the Civil War, you could divide it somewhat, cleanly. Obviously, the kind of national divorce you might be suggesting is that people are living amongst each other. So you have to literally, it's complicated. Right, so that is a very strong argument.

It's, I think a cogent argument against it. Two is, it's not just China, it's that there's a lot of bad actors in the world who maybe aren't, like China certainly wants to carry itself and have an appearance at least on the world stage as civilized and a leader. There's lots of smaller countries who without us are going to feel comfortable doing some very nefarious things. And they're not going to be scared of us anymore. And so that would be bigger concern in many regards than China. So I think that's a reasonable one. It could be that both sides, if this happens,

are going to, instead of work toward better, are the things that make you side bad would get worse. Yeah. And that's, you know, having those pushed towards the malevolent extremes is, I think, a very legitimate criticism and a concern. I mean, as you suggested, there's no guarantee that won't happen. Correct. At all. Also, there's a, I think a reasonable argument to make is like, are you America just as a symbol and the myth of America? And I don't mean myth in a negative sense. Do you really want to throw that on the garbage? Like, this meant a lot for a lot of people and a lot for history, you're just going to be like, okay, good work. We were done here. Let's shut the lights. So that's I think a reasonable argument. So those

are the biggest ones, I would say. And still, what is the case for national divorce and along which line? So like, in making the case for a national divorce, if it is desired, based on which kind of ideas do you think it should be carried through? Honestly, I don't know that it has to be idea based. Like for example, when Czechoslovakia broke up, when Norway and Sweden broke up, it wasn't really ideological. It was more cultural. So I always say divorce into two, but it would probably make more sense if it was like five.

Because the Northeast, certainly New England, has their own culture. The West Coast has their own kind of culture. I don't know. The thing is, enter any kind of persuasion technique, right? Like, once people are start, there's a difference between convincing someone they want to buy a car and what features you want.

So if you're at the point where we're arguing about the features, then my work here is done. You know what I mean? I don't have a dog in the fight in terms of what it's gonna look like. I just wanna get to the point where you're at least considering seriously the idea of breaking up America. And I would encourage people to go look at my article

to see, which I'm sure the argument still holds five years later. Do you have a kind of vision of what of the two or which of the five? And you actually have specific cultures or, I'll tell you exactly. Yeah. If I told you and everyone listening in 2014, we weren't that long ago, it was not long ago, which of these two things is more likely to happen? 2014. Texas to seeds or declared succession from America or Donald Trump gets elected president. Everyone's

voting for Texas, like if it turns a prediction, which is more likely. So we had this one. So it's not at all unlikely. We're going to had this one. So it's not all unlikely. We're going to have this one. I don't know if that logic carries through. You can't just say, here's an unlikely thing that happened. Therefore anything can happen. I just said, you just earlier said anything had happened this episode. Didn't you? Life is suffering.

I was listening to half the things you're saying. You said it. I said it. Yes, you said anything had happened. I'm definitely not here. I'm like you with podcasts. I do a podcast, but I don't listen to it. It said it. Yes, you said anything can happen. I'm definitely not here. I'm like you with podcasts I do a podcast, but I don't miss it Talking okay, so yeah, yeah, it can happen, but in which I guess I'm asking would you stay in Texas 100% So yeah and I'd run for office probably be fun run

You know, I'm gonna be the first president of Texas. I Tended a debate between Yaron Books and Yoram Hazoni. I don't know if you know who that is. The National Sky. Yeah. He wrote a book called The Virtue of Nationalism. Yeah.

I read that book. And then actually did a podcast with them. They did a debate. Are they both run here? Okay. It was quite interesting. And I tried to wear my Michael Mowell's hat. So the he wearing it now

he fired that for me. Yeah it's funny because the metaphor applies across all of these level of collectivism. So he was arguing that for the power of nation so he would be arguing against national divorce. But he was also arguing for marriage, the power of actual marriage between individuals. I think he's a conservative, and what I really like about him is there's a clear philosophy of conservatism that he expresses, and I think a lot of people get behind that philosophy. Because to me, like conservatism and liberalism often is very kind of used loosely. Yes, he has a clear philosophy that he's expressing there and is grounded in tradition. He has a lot of value in tradition.

And so it's the thing you said about America, like one of the arguments against national divorce is like, listen, we've been at it for a while. Like there is a lot of value in the fact that we've been at it for a while. Don't just throw it all away all the time. So he says, like philosophically, he seems in a lot of walks of life, revolution should be avoided as much as possible. I agree. And so it's kind of interesting. So he makes the case that there's something fundamentally

powerful about the nation. That we, it's a nice way to group a culture. And so the national divorce, I guess, goes against that. Do you find some aspect of the virtue of nationalism as you will put it a powerful? Well, powerful and in a good sense or in a good sense, so sorry, yeah, in a good sense, like it brings out the best in humans. I don't know what the best,

but it certainly brings out good things. I have that line. I always say about I love my country. I hate the government because I love my country. Yeah. So there is a love of country. I think it's not. But I don't know that that's the I think it's also the case because the country happens to be America. Like I don't know if I was living in, you know, whatever. I don't want to insult someone's country. The Canada. Yeah. If I was living in Canada, I don't know that it would be the which a guy who calls basically every other country shithole country yeah that's true that's that's that's the fact yeah yeah so cdr you're either

it it's two types of countries texas or shitholes uh... all you want full texas so you you you you you're okay burning the northeast of the ground at this point okay i'm hoping for it i'm hoping uh... uh... the what they've done to New York City, I will never forgive these people. And I hope that they suffer enormously consequences for what they've done to New York. It's unconscionable.

The assault that they've done and had no remorse over how many creative outlets that they've destroyed. Yeah, it's the cultural hub, cultural center of the world. Yeah, in New York. New York was the, this was the place where you go to, put up your shingle and, and, and move the needle and make things happen. And I would understand if it was like, okay, we got to suffer through this for a year,

but we're going to make sure all these businesses have a kind of safety net to make sure that they kind of get through and survive this, which they did to the banks in 2008, for example. And I'm saying this as an anarchist and there was none of that. So I burn it down and salt the earth. It's, it's like watching like a zombie. It's unnatural. It's an abomination.

So, I mean, sort of on the white pool side of things, I don't know about you. Maybe I have a sense that both Silicon Valley that for me personally, maybe I have the same intensity of feelings you do about New York is just disappointing to see it be a consumable cynicism and a lot of other paralyzing forces. but I still have hope for that place. I think maybe it's the Yoram kind of tradition hope that through momentum, the strong reemerges. So like I have hope for New York.

I think New York will continue, like not maybe on the scale of years, but a scale of decades, it would be ups and downs where it reemerges as a cultural center. I just can't imagine a place like New York is like Paris. There's going to be long stretches of time where it leads the world. The Paris has not been a cultural hub for a very long time.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, the days of my teeth and Picasso and Gertrude Steiner long gone. It's still, it's still as a hub. Even London isn't London. Yeah. You know, you're not the... But what is then?

London is still London. Paris is still Paris. Yeah, but London is still a Paris of old London of old London. London is still a place. It's a tech hub. It London still a place. It's a tech hub, it's a fashion hub, it's a music hub. I mean, it's still a pretty strong hub. Yeah, but not like during the Beatles era, right? It's not like we're during the Sex Pistols era. But that's it could be just us romanticizing the past because what is a hub then? No, it's not what without romanticizing the past because a hub is the place where everyone on Earth

or our eyes are on you. So in the late 60s, the British and the mid 60s, the British invasion, the kinks and all these other bands coming out of Great Britain, they were the innovators. This was the place that was happening. And that sounds like... And Brooklyn, you know, 15 years ago. But I guess maybe in that sense in the 21st century, geographical hubs are becoming a thing of the past. So like, you can be a hub in the digital space now.

So like, it's not, maybe you'll never have. I don't think, I think there will always be, I mean, what I'm saying, digital space makes it easier for, let's suppose, Cleveland to be a hub. Because all you need, like, 10 people who would happen to live in Cleveland or, you know, Akron was a hub, a minor hub. All it takes is 10 to 50 people to create a, yeah.

And maybe even less, maybe just two or three or four people. But I mean, there's been no shortage of articles talking about Austin and what's happening here And I know some of Joe's plans and and you and I and and Blair and and all these other people You know, I'm a buddy Andrew heat and moved here. He's just one of the best people I know. It's just I'm really really excited Can I see some weird thing about friendship? Of course because you mentioned Sam he's Mr. Harris to you Didn't that bother you how he went after Joe? Oh, what is this? He's like, oh in case you guys have brain damage

from watching Rogan's last episode, like watch, here's the answer. And it's all like digs like that. Yeah, yeah, I didn't like that. I didn't like that either. I think Sam doesn't like either, bottom self. Okay, he regrets those things. Because it's very easy to say from his perspective.

Look, this isn't the full side, Rogan, to show you the full side of story. Here's the other side of story. Please watch this and be informed. That's a very reasonable thing to say. Yeah, I don't quite understand this. So they do this about each other now. I'll put three people on the table, which is Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, and Brett Weinstein.

And they have a way of talking like the other person is creating a lot of harm. Like, publicly, we'll say things like that. And I understand there's a motion in it. But like, these are human beings that are friends of yours. But I'll go the other way. Let's suppose it is true that Joe's doing a lot of harm spreading misinformation. Being sarcastic isn't going to be persuasive.

Whereas if you're like, he's wrong, here's the facts, or he's being formed. That to me, but then I'm not some Harris. I'm not a, he's got a bigger audience to me. So maybe he's the one who's right, not wrong. No, he's just human. Okay, well I can relate. Well, have you seen your Twitter lately?

I mean, you get very, you have a lot of fun on Twitter. I feel like Twitter lets, I've never done that with someone I'm friends with. I never would. Okay, let's put that on record before it trolls me. Because if there's an issue with you, I'm getting you on the phone. Yeah. Good, I mean that's what it is. Because then I'm not backing you into a corner publicly. It

doesn't make any sense strategically. Yeah. And actually, Brett Weinstein tweeted something, sort of criticizing something, I dare already forgot what. But he texted me first saying, like, is it okay if I tweet this? Yeah. And I said, yep. Like I was excited. Yeah. But I think there's some level of just be compassionate privately and be compassionate publicly. Like, both. But be civil.

Civil. Yeah. I don't, for some reason I don't like the word civility because it, it's like polite. I do, like, it's a. Or be cordial. Is that better? No, what I mean is like, it seems felonidium. It seems like polite. I do like it's a big cordial. Is that better? No, what I mean is like it seems felonidio.

It seems phony like you should really love in whatever way. So even if you're rough with the other person, you should still show like respect and love for that person and that gets back to the Russian rooms with their yelling at each other but there's still love underneath it. I mean, the question I want to ask for you is, I think you and I have a different view on some things. We have a different approach to things, just on the surface level, but also a different view on some things.

I have a lot of hope for institutions. I have, so maybe it's a gut instinct. Like your gut instinct is like centers of power are like burn them down first and then let's figure it out. Well, maybe that's a funny, rough way of saying that. No, I thought you had to buy right. And then for me, it's like, no, let's understand the institution and slowly revolutions from within

versus revolutions from the doubt. And, but like we can have those disagreements revolutions from within versus revolutions from without. But like we can have those disagreements. And there may be times when those disagreements will be, I could see in the future, I could see I'll be attacked by my friend Michael Malis, which I very look forward to it. No, not attacked, but you know what I mean? On the surface level and the idea space.

Anyway, you're shaking your head now. You won't I guess I'm Maybe this also goes to Sam Harrison Joe Rogan. I would love to be able to disagree Disagreined big ways unimportant things and still be close friends and I don't understand why those are should be contradictions. Yeah, and that's the tension. That's been the most heartbreaking thing to me about Sam and Brett and Joe. In the case of Brett, it's me, I don't know Brett, so I'm just like looking as somebody

who just enjoys having these voices out there. And it seems like COVID just brought out the worst than some many folks. And it just feels like it's so sad to me to see their friendship somewhat deteriorating or maybe I'm just being in a no it seems clear that's deteriorated enormously sad that's the case yeah so my like I've had people come at me because I'm friends with you and they were like oh Lex authored some paper

about masks I don't even know what the hell they're referring to I don'tored some paper about masks. I don't even know what they're referring to, I don't care. I always say and mean, I don't care whether someone agrees with me, I care how they treat me. And it goes the other way, because I'll have a lot of people on Twitter who are like, oh, I'm on your team and blah, blah, blah, I'm like, I don't know you, you're not my team. And just because you happen to agree with me,

it's of no value to me. Like, I don't know you and I'm interested in knowing you. Many of my friends, I don't know what their politics are. I don't care. Like, I care how we hang out, have a good time, we watch dumb movies, watch YouTube, go the store, whatever. I don't know what your politics are. I don't care what your politics are.

Chris Williamson, who, you know, he's just here, he's gonna be moving to Austin. I learned what his politics are in the last, we've been chatting almost every day because he took the world's smallest political quiz and he figured out what his dance is right. No idea where he's coming from. He's well obviously, yeah, yeah, Marxist.

That's, yeah. Let's be honest. So, stuff like that, it never, and people, I think because politics is often so tribal, especially now, they'll be like, oh, I could never be friends with someone who voted for X. Really? What if they're like grandma worked in that campaign? What if, you know, you can't think of one steel man argument why this would happen, but if they just want to spite their boss. So I don't like that

approach at all. It makes no sense to me. Because they'll have debates. I mean, like, I would still like to have those conversations and still have disagreements. Like, I disagree with Joe on COVID a lot on a bunch of different things very kind of, but it's never like, it's not tense at all. It's just, it's, it doesn't have that arrogance that seem, a lot of COVID conversations seems to have like talking down to people from both directions. It's, so I would love to have, because I love the debate, I love debates. It takes a lot to get me triggered. And when the Babylon B were interviewing Elon and he had this thing

he goes, well, I don't know anyone who wants to, you know, abolish the FDA and the FAA and I'm standing there and I'm shaking and the guys look at me and they're like, oh, we actually have an anarchist here. And the example he used was, you know, look, if playing football, you're going to have a referee there and you want the referee, you know, you want, but the referee started playing the game. It's such a good thing. And I was sitting there like, the referee doesn't work for the state.

Yeah. The referee is a private individual working for this organization. And there's no reason at all that food quality, which is something crucially important, has to be or can only be delivered through the state and a government monopoly. That's actually really interesting,

just to let me go on that. Just just a little bit. With the vaccine and stuff like that, with the antiviral drugs, FDA, so like, are you comfortable? Like who should be the referee? Right. Like do you have an idea,

like what's the best referee for the vaccine? It's just the market, just like people decide. This is tricky because the thing that I've not been following COVID is closely as Joe and Sam, as Mr. Harris, excuse me, and Mr. Musk, the point is when anything like this is developing, there's going to be a lot of misinformation out there, even from the scientists because it's a dynamic process. They don't know what they're dealing with. A lot of it has to be a lot of misinformation out there, even from the scientists, because it's a dynamic process. They don't know what they're dealing with.

A lot of it has to be speculative. They don't know long-term effects because it hasn't been around for a long time. I think it is very dangerous when Joe was mocked for taking a laundry list of things under his doctor's advice, and they kind of latched on to the Ivermectin. And then they specifically said it was horse-paced, although it's veterinary medicines, why didn't they say dog-paced or cat-paced? It's like, well, he's not dead.

And he's also taking drugs which are used in other circumstances, the very least, maybe they're pointless. But if the drug is being allowed for pharmaceutical reasons, the odds very least, maybe they're pointless, but if the drug is being allowed for pharmaceutical reasons, the odds are quite low that they're going to have deleterious side effects in general. So I think this kind of insistence that there has to be one a officially approved outcome that we're all doing, that is kind of dangerous thinking in general. By the way, I don't know if you saw a guy chance to talk to the Pfizer CEO and I had helped

collecting questions because I got a lot of questions and people put at the top a question for Michael Malas. Oh really? No, the ask him what he likes best about me. Oh, what does he like best? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I actually had that in my list of questions. I was going to ask him and my plan was, I'll ask him, uh, Michael Malis wants to know what you like best about him. And then my guest would he be like, who?

And I'll be like, exactly. And then go on to the next. But I thought like how it was such a tense conversation that I thought that would be no effort for levity. The question I would ask him is, can you acknowledge that there is an enormous incentive for your company to force everyone in America or everyone on earth to be a consumer of your product? Yeah. That's my question. So, I dance around that question quite a lot like is

I'm afraid to definitely which is a A conflict of interest and attention between making a lot of money and actually helping people get the end I mean, I've asked a lot of really heavy questions and then and I still and a lot of people wrote to me with support saying like those are really A lot of people wrote to me with support saying like, that was a really great conversation and a lot of people wrote saying that, I mean, saying that it was just too soft. And I don't know, I think about that a lot, like, how do you have that conversation? I don't think it was too soft. And actually just for the record, I want to say that they didn't see any of the questions

I'm asking. They didn't see the final interview. I can ask anything I want. And so any questions that I asked and failed to ask is my own shortcomings. Also, not being a coward, I was afraid of nothing. Like what do I have to gain or lose exactly? Well, you have something to lose because if you're, I do so, I'll need to do softballs

because if I'm going to make it difficult for someone to come to my show, a lot of people will be disincentivized to do the show because like, well, I don't need this. I see. Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking like that, but I don't like to, what I think some fraction of folks wanted me to do is to yell at a person, like criticize them,

not even ask questions as I should. Yeah, yeah, how dare you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to me, my goal, my hope is with these conversations is not just to do how great you are, all that kind of stuff, is to bring out some deeper truth. Like the beautiful things is when you can together realize some truth like you mentioned that, you know, the incentive to, for everyone to take the vaccine is obviously high for the maker of a vaccine. Yeah. Right. And for them to arrive at that truth together, like that is a really difficult truth to operate under. Like, for example, add a whole exchange with him about, this is Jordan Peterson asked this question, I use that as a kind of springboard,

which is the, the, the kind of open doors between the FDA, the CDC and Pfizer, right? Like some people work at Pfizer and then go to work at the FDA and then vice versa. And I brought up, this is my safe space, uh, maybe yours to just going back to the Soviet Union to look at the lessons of human nature and corruption. And I said, like, there's two things. This looks bad. And two, this naturally leads to corruption. And I pushed this with several questions, but polite and respectful.

And he ultimately said, you know, there's rules. We there's the rule of law and this very strict rules about this. And we have to follow those rules. Otherwise, we get punished severely. And so like his response is like people reacted to them as like, okay, that's the CEO doing the political, but there's also truth to what he's saying. That one of the beautiful things about America is that you can criticize the rule of law currently, but it's still better than in the Soviet Union where people bribe each other.

But still, he made it seem like there's no corruption. People often ask me, why I describe myself as an anarchist and not a narco capitalist because they think my views are more in line with that school of anarchism. And one the other reasons you just gave me a good one is that if I am talking to someone who's a major CEO, I have that hardcore left anarchist view that this person is, if not the devil, certainly going to be sinister at the very least. And if you can't say, listen, this happens inevitably with elites, it's, you know, it's

collapsing. Universities that happens in the food industry, there's only so many people at the top of these things, there's the field is small, and everyone's going to know each other, which is kind of, you know, just the dynamics of any market, that would kind of be more reasonable. And just say, it's easy to caricature us because you're not in the boardroom, but we're not, you know, we are trying to produce a product that people want. So unlike the people who criticize me, I was bothered by, I wasn't bothered by most things, but I was bothered by the fact that he didn't show more worry about the corrupting nature of money and power. If you say that there's

no corruption, you should show that because we constantly worry about it, not because like, right, not because like, look, there's rules. Yeah. Which are enforced by you. Yeah, exactly. So like, I think the only way to avoid force for time, the corrupting force of power is to freak out about it, nonstop. The impression I always get from people like him and I haven't seen the interview and I won't be watching it is they're genuinely convinced that they're good guys yeah and if you're the good guy sure corruption is a concern theoretically but I know this guy at the FDA I know this senator sure we disagree sure they do some things I don't like but in terms of corrupt they're not getting briefcases full of money they're not going to sell a vaccine that kills people in Georgia. So yeah, it's a concern theoretically, but this is the 21st century.

The thought process, I think, writes itself. I think, yeah, having the humility, I do this all the time to maybe to a destructive level, thinking that I might be doing bad for the world. I might be wrong. I might be that kind of thinking is very, you should do at least some of that. Not to a point being paralyzed, but a little bit. You're actually in the right mindset for me to ask you them for advice. Okay.

You're in this compassionate, thoughtful mood. I like it. The compassionate, thoughtful, Michael. So for future conversations like that, so the person that offered a conversation that, that, first I avoided, but might return to his Anthony Fauci. So there's Anthony Fauci, but then there's also Trump and Biden things, people like that. Like if you had them on your show or, or just giving me advice on how to talk to them, what do you think is the right way or just giving me advice on how to talk to them. What do you think is the right way to talk to them?

And forget about future guests, but like to get at something new, you know, together. Like get at something, not for views or likes or clicks or any of that, but discover something new through the model conversation. Well, like let's take those one at a time. So if I had a stock in a Trump, I told Ruben to ask Trump this and he didn't what I wanted to know is

What's the look on your face when you're sending these tweets? Right because I'm imagining him on the toilet with his phone. Yeah, right? Are you cracking yourself up? Are you just completely stoic? Are you kind of that Trump little smirky does? Yeah? So when you get someone to Open up about their emotion about some of their passion about, I think that breaks down some barriers and creates a really good question. Bond, yeah. But Ruben wouldn't be, that's not a style.

That's a great question for you to ask. Well, I told him to say Michael Mouset. For Biden, that would be a tough one because Biden doesn't get enough credit for what a good politician he is. There was this moment people can see on YouTube where Biden is addressing a room full of people and he had someone there and he goes, can you, why don't you stand up, everyone can give you a hand and the guy was in a wheelchair and Biden's like, oh, and like, but instantly

he goes, you know what, we're all going to stand up for you and he made everyone get up and applaud the guy. I'm like, that, and like, but instantly he goes, you know what? We're all gonna stand up for you. And he made everyone get up and applaud the guy. And like, that's quick. Like, yeah, you made it fool yourself. So he is a glad hinder. In many ways, he's more of a schmoozer than Trump was. Like Trump made the point that he knows all the good people, but Biden knows how to shake hands.

Well, I think with both, inside of your Trump, with both Trump and Biden, like you mentioned earlier, to me, at least their family is fascinating. The dynamic, the family man as a father, I think that Biden won't acknowledge his illegitimate grand kid is a problem for me. But at the same time, I can see why he think it's off limits to ask.

So that's the thing when you're dealing with people that powerful, they're not used to having to answer questions, which might be perfectly nice, but with Clause into freak the hell out. That's a tricky thing of talking to people as you know, like some topics are off-limit Not in that they draw lines, but they just shut down. Yeah, yeah, you ask them Trust is a thing talked to Elon three times now. You better believe I brought up love and How far do you think that got?

And you can just see around the same one. We did we did exactly the kind of robot back and forth. Yeah, just like just shut down. So yeah, I worry about that with personal, but those, that's the thing that makes it fascinating with those two because he had, um, with Hunter and losing some like the dynamic of the complexities of all that, like just having children fuck up in the way children do, and then with Trump, the interesting dynamic with his very different kids, and all kind of interesting in different ways, and maintaining connection with all of them, and also letting them flourish individually, is fascinating to me. Well, I also want to ask Trump if he can name all the presidents in order, which there's no he can. Yeah, but I'd also want to know all the press.

Do you think he knows who the second president of the United States is? Yes. Okay. John Adams, he knows. I think when it gets between Ulysses S. Grant and McKinley, that's when we all screw up. That window, it's tough. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's grant and McKinley that's when we all screw up. That window it's tough. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's the one window where he, I mean, he's not, he's going to be able to get back to FDR. No question. I have to, my sense was without Trump and this is not, I would say criticism is he doesn't have a depth of knowledge or more importantly curiosity about history. Yeah, but if you're old enough, you're going to at least remember the presidents in your lifetime. In your lifetime. Yeah, so that's what I think you'll

get a stand-up. President to FDR pretty easily. Yeah, okay, sure. I think you meant FDR from the other direction. No, no, yeah, currently. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, if former political person, like having a conversation about politics with those two, there is interesting topics, interaction between Donald Trump and Putin, not the interaction, like not the stupid journalistic stuff, but it's clear to me that he is a student of power.

Oh, for sure. And like he enjoys the game of power. Yeah. And so it's interesting because to me the reason he admires Putin is it's another player in the game of power. And I think why so many people hate him Trump is that he demonstrated to a lot of Americans how much of a con job most of politics is. Yeah. And how people just say what they need to do. But behind closed doors, these people are buffoons and he exposed them as that. So the Biden, I think Biden would be a tougher interview than Trump because I feel like Biden's more slippery in many ways.

He's much more of a consummate politician. He's been in the Senate since the early 70s since he was like 30 or 35, whatever it was. So, he'd have his little kind of pat answers. There was Larry King, who was certainly a softball interviewer, and I don't begrudge him that at all. I remember very vividly, and it was like, I think it was the 2008 cycle. He asked Hillary, why do so many people hate you? Why do you think so many people hate you?

And she just goes, oh, well, I take tough stances on the, and he cut her off. It goes, other people have taken those stances. Why they hate you? And she didn't really, I was really impressed with him that he didn't let her off the hook. That to me is great, but there was some people say that's still too softball.

Because like they would want him to start listing, I don't know, droning, like all the things that Hillary Clinton has criticized for. Yeah, but then what she, she's done this many times, she's very good at this. She'll be like, look, I've addressed all these in the past. If you want to start rehashing Republican talking points, you can go look at my interviews.

Yeah, I think it's kind of productive. Yeah, so what about more prescient for me? I can't believe I'm walking through this fire for no good reason whatsoever, but Anthony Fauci. So let me tell you why I care about Anthony Fauci, because I care a lot about science and the way science is viewed in society. And not to put it at the feet of this one person, but I, him and certain members of the scientific community that was responsible for managing the response to COVID, I think are somewhat or entirely responsible for a significant decrease in trust in science. Yes, no question.

In the past couple of years. There was a poll that just came out this week that said the number is just collapsed. And if you don't blame him for it, I personally blame him for not improving the problem. And so there's definitely would be a harsh conversation there to be had. And I think I want to have it, but how do you do it? It's tough. Yeah. Because, you know, again, politicians, this political answers, if they get too frustrated too quickly, they will not explore these difficult things with you. They'll just shut down. But then if you say to me nice things, because I should also say Anthony Fauci is an incredible career. Like, there's several hours worth of conversation to be had about how amazing of a person he is.

Well, I would also be curious about the AIDS stuff. Yes, because that's something that gets criticized about. And I wouldn't come out aggressively, I would say, let's set the record straight. This is on the criticism you get, blah, blah, you roll in the AIDS crisis. Let's talk about this. And this is something that is important

in part of American history. There was a pandemic, and it was localized to certain populations. pop that population at the first at least was pretty much Told goodbye and good luck. You're gonna have to deal with this So how did you deal with that? I mean were you scared of getting AIDS, you know, so on and so forth But also there was that comment when And correct me from wrong. I'm not a Fauci expert. When he basically, they told people not to wear masks or they lied about it to some extent

because they said then people were gonna run out of that were something like that. And they admitted they were being inaccurate. I would nail him on that. I'd like, let's address this. Were you being dishonest? Is there sometimes, when it's important to be dishonest in service of whatever?

Also, I was asking how, as someone who's not a politician, whether his level of fame and adulation has gotten to his head, how do you have a perspective when and how does the feel when a sitting senator tells you that you should be imprisoned? Do you think Ted Cruz means it or do you think Ted Cruz is just playing his base? Yeah, I like the fame one. I would love to sneak up. I mean, that's got question applies to you too, the question applies to me.

When you start getting more fame or money or power, are you aware of how that changed you and like explore that? How has that changed you? Like if you like in the privacy of your mind, Michael Malice, like how did you change now that you've gotten more attention, let's say, you know, or even the success of the book. Like, is it like take yourself back to the, you know, you talk about the 20, the early 20s, the mid 20s person. How are you different from that person? Are you the same person? Are you totally different? That's an interesting

thought. It's put in the same person in 2020 as he was in 2010 and then in 2000. It's a non-trivial almost like And then the other thing was about he is this is the dynamic system like on the one hand He's gonna want to say we did got to write every time right? But then how is that even possible when you're dealing with a evolving unknown dynamic situation? When did you guys get it wrong? That result in lives lost. You feel guilty about that? I mean, the big problem with the masks, the changing of mind on the mask is the arrogance

in how it was communicated. To me, a lot of this boils on to how things are communicated. It's like, it's obvious that you need to change your mind when you get new information or sometimes yeah, you take policies that are like We know the truth, but we're going to lie for particular reason like you have good intentions But you're not able to communicate that later like we made a mistake or even ask him can you understand how a Rational person might choose not to get vaccinated? Yes, yes. Yes. And if you can't steal man that, then that's a situation.

That's a good test. And some people succeed and some people fail. They really need to steal man together, understand that somebody would be hesitant about taking the vaccine. Yeah. It's a giant mess, man. This podcasting is just a fun little conversation, but there also is a responsibility.

I don't know. I don't know how Joe does it. I don't think Joe cares as much as you do. It's more fun for him in a sense, and he's less concerned about the, I mean, he's not unconcerned with the cultural impact, but for him, it's just more growing out. Yeah. Like he doesn't do as much prep, he doesn't come in with three pages

single space to, you know, questions. Yeah. And he's that's why he's talking to Blair White for 10 minutes about where the sharks lay eggs without knowing you're the one target person. He did. Maybe he, he trolled the troll. Well, it worked. He worked. Yeah, he did. The sharks lay eggs. I'd like to get an updated 2021 version of Michael Mal is giving advice to young people. Okay. So there's God forbid high school students, college students listening to you and looking to you for advice.

What advice would you give them about career and about life, how to live a life that can be proud of? This happens a lot because I have my local's community, malist.locals.com, and there's a lot of young people in there. So that's a great place. I'll give them a meta piece of advice. Don't ask your friends for advice because you're an idiot at your age and they're all idiots and they don't want to seem like idiots

So they're just gonna give you advice they pulled it from the TV and no one knows that you're talking about and it's just gonna be counter-tuitive So seek out advice from people who You seek to emulate and ask them for advice if you can't get a hold, figure out a way to get a hold of them, incentivize them in some way. You'd be surprised how many people are responsive on Twitter or in social media, if you just asked them a basic life question, because then they can quote tweet an answer to a whole population. So that would be one mechanism. It's also very hard at that age to realize your parents might not be all that bright and they might not be all that good people. So that's a hard one at that age to kind of wrap your head around just because

they love you. Does it mean they understand you? And that's okay. That's okay. Thank everybody. Shit, your Trump is pretty good too. I like your Trump to talk to you on. I like your Trump to talk to Elon. I don't comment section. Well, the president, you know, look, some things you did like some not so much, but you know, for the most part, I think they're kind of good thing. What are you talking about? Hey, guys, what are we talking about?

No, I fucked up the legs. Anyway, so those are the two pieces. The other piece of advice I would say is join a gym or have some kind of quantifiable daily improvement to keep you sane. So the reason I always say weightlifting and it could be running, it could be jump rope, I don't care what it is, because if you have those numbers moving in the positive

direction, psychological if you're dealing with depression or anxiety, it's concrete proof to shut your brain up. Because your brain knows how to talk to you. Your brain is off on your enemy and I'll say exactly the right thing to under my new. So that's an issue. This works for me, maybe it weren't for most people. I'm very high in the openness metric, try new experiences and you think, try things you don't like. It's okay to have a bad experience. You've learned something. So go to a restaurant of a cuisine you wouldn't like or hadn't heard of, read a book that's popular, but you have no interest in. Read a lot.

For example, I didn't know anything about the election. What was it? 1892 when there was like a split between the electors. Read a book about it. Oh, I don't know anything. You know, I don't know anything really about Malcolm X. Read a book about him. You'll be amazed how much more full you become as a person.

Do you see value in writing also, like writing down your ideas. No, I think there's very little value in that. I'm not joking. So reading is where the biggest thing is. Yeah, because you're probably not going to revisit what you've written down. But the act of writing, you don't see, it solidifies somehow thoughts in your mind. Not for me. It doesn't feel like a tweet well, because then I have to have it narrowed down into like a phrase. Oh, there's that possibility of there being an audience. No, I just meant in terms

of I've got to 80 characters. If instead of having a Breandre thought, meandering thought, I have to codify it in something that's catchy and short. That's a good useful mental exercise. What face do you make when you tweet? I wouldn't know. I don't know. That's a good point. Is it on the toilet? How much percentage is on the toilet? Very little. On the toilet's, I usually more reading.

Okay. So even though my tweets are all literally shit, they're very few of them are on the toilet. They're on a throne. That's some advice. Don't compare yourself to other people. That's a really dangerous one. All my friends are married. I should have a kid by now. Should there's an expression and recovery, stop shooting yourself. But it's, it should, should, it's stupid. I also, and this could be my hoarder brain, I surround my house with talismans of joy.

So if you have an accomplishment, like when I did Rogan once, I bought, went to the sock store and I bought these orange socks with black cherries on them. And now whenever I wore that socks, those socks, I'm like, oh, this is because I was in Rogan, that was kind of a big deal. So if you have these little things throughout your house, it's, it was good fuel, even like a toy. Remember when I was a kid, oh, you know what, this little moments that inspire happiness, I think are visually very useful. So that's another one. And I by the way, have the that the watch and that is because we were talking about 2021 that was really the guy in the lecture hall giving a pat in the back. Joe gave me the watch was

like changing from yeah yeah yeah it doesn't even it didn't the fact that it was on a podcast or whatever doesn't matter. Learn how to, um, form boundaries. That's probably the biggest, that's gonna be number one on my list. Because you're gonna have people around you who feel the need that they're entitled to your time, who feel the need to criticize you and they're not coming from a good place. Yeah. So it's very good for you to be like, I'm not interested in talking about this anymore right now.

Yeah. Even if it's your parents, even if it's your, especially if it's your parents. Like, I need my space right now. You're entitled to your space, you're entitled to your time. No one knows you, you don't own anyone to respond. If someone has a question, you know, of them and answer, especially if they're not coming at you in good faith or really coming in hostile way, that's a big one. It's learn at that age and and and be valuable to those who are around you. Be someone who people are happy to see and if things are bad, like you're the one that they can rely on. Like I was just a, you know, a little bit under the weather and I thought to myself, you know what, if things got really bad, I'll call Blair. And she would take care of me and that kind of was very reassuring.

And you can always call me if you have your stuff lifted in an urgent matter. Because of the robots? No, just me. It's just kind of like this is things I can help with. Or you're actually literally bleeding. Not a good caretaker, I can save you though. I can murder. If you need somebody murdered, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, what advice would you have to kids that age?

And you're a lot younger than you think you are. That's the other one. Like, yeah, this time. I know, like, it's impossible to understand when you're 26, that your 40s are better than your 30s, because like, okay, I'll, man, that's all hope. I promise you it is.

Yeah, I think, you said so many beautiful things. I would say, another version of the openness, I would say, take big risks when you're young. Yeah, because if you fail, who cares, you're sleeping in a suit. It's not in a food time who cares, and take them often. Yeah. Yeah.

Also, this is more a little personal to me. I get pushed back on this, but I think, take big risks and work really hard, like at whatever you do. Like, I think you just have to give yourself to a thing. It doesn't have to be in terms of time, but really give everything. So it's not like I'm going to try doing this. I'll try, I'll try, try with all of your heart, like really commit yourself.

That doesn't mean an necessarily hours, that doesn't mean, but like if you fail at doing a thing that you commit to, it should hurt. So like when I competed in Jiu-Jitsu, or you do like sports and so on, don't just say, I'm gonna have fun out there and so on. No, try to win. And then because then if you don't, it hurts

and you learn from that. And then throughout, I think that's the goodness thing, it's be kind. It's like, some of it is also skill, allowing yourself to be kind. I found myself earlier in life, I still do this. I find like when I hang out with people, people are often like cynical and negative. And yeah, I try to avoid those people. No, but like, I think everybody falls into that. And sometimes it's the party norm thing. There's a temptation to me to kind of fit in

by being more negative than I'm comfortable being. And so, resist the pressure. I think especially when you're younger, it's not cool to care. The thing that drives, when you're younger, it's not cool to care. The thing that drives when you're young, if you are a fan of a band, a writer, a podcast, or an actor, and people roll their eyes at you, watch out, those people are dangerous. You should have, if you love Averliving with her terrible music, and she makes you,

gives you joy, and people crap on you, they're wrong and you're right. So hold on to those things that make you happy and if people want to take that away from you or they, how can you like that? Those people are not your friends. Why do you have to go make life so complicated? She's my favorite, favorite musician of all time. Jim Hendrick's second ever living in first. Thank you for almost bringing it dear to my eye.

You mentioned the shuddos in terms of love and you should have kids by now. I apologize if it's a personal one, but I think at least I have this thought and not from society but for myself. Like I want to get married, I want to have kids. Do you feel the pressure of that? Do you want to have kids?

I do. I don't want to have kids. Like married? I do want to get married. This was an issue that I had to kind of work out earlier this year in terms of the possibility of having kids, because I was in a relationship with someone who would have been in many ways,

literally a perfect mom. So I did my due diligence, and I actually sat down with friends of mine who had kids, and I say, give me the downside. What did you did the pros and the cons? Well, the pros I knew, the pros for kids are very, I love kids. I was just with Frank Fleming, he writes for the Babylon B, and he had his four kids and his youngest

son has Down syndrome, which is adorable when Chester was so cute. And I always get along with kids very, like the, like I remember very vividly what it was like to be a kid, especially a percusious kid. And I remember how much it bothered me when my parents' friends wouldn't give me attention. So I always make it a point to acknowledge kids, to talk to them when they're very grateful. And it's just really fun. Especially the people who I'm friends with,

their kids are probably gonna be pretty cool. They're not gonna be annoying and kind of ugly and overweight. So I, I love you got that in there. Okay, good. Yeah, sorry. I'll go. But the cons, the negatives, what was the conversation like about that?

Well, my sister, my sister has two kids, my nephew's who I absolutely adore whatever their names are. And she was, like she was saying certain things. It's like, if I had kids, my kids are in my top priority. Yeah. Like it's not even a question. And I feel like the work I'm doing and the sounds pompous, but it's true is a valuable and important, but I'm also the only one doing it. So this is a big cost. And so it's like it would be a major lifestyle readjustment. And I'm at the point where I'm kind of like selfish enough

that I wouldn't want to do that. And also it would have to do the right woman. Like you're making a commitment. And since they're all crazy, you have to find one where you can handle the crazy. Uh, all women are crazy. Yeah. They're one and a You have to find one where you can handle the crazy. All women are crazy. Yeah. They're one and a half centibon air world.

Oh boy. It's not comfortable for me. It's just there. But do you feel the pressure and thinking of that? How much does that weigh on your heart? So Elon has kids. I feel like I love everything. And I love stuff I do.

I love the robot over there. I'm just working on robots and but I do feel the pressure of like, almost like when there's amazing cuisines you never tried or something like that, like go out there and try. Like you need to put in the work and I don't know, like life will run away from you, slip through your fingers before you truly get to experience this other kind of love, which is like long term love for another human being, which is like marriage, and then love for kids. And it almost makes me sad like not getting to experience that. You know, I'm also really scared of I've seen so many bad stories on the partner

side like being with the wrong person. Right. It can that me is, you know, I'm not worried I have kids all day. In fact, I can probably just have kids without the partner. Kids, I think are incredible. With the, like, the partner, like a wife, it seems like she could then have the negative consequences for like, you as a writer on your productivity and your mental ability to flourish, being a joy to others to all those kinds of things. You know what, that couldn't happen

because every relationship I've had, they've been very, beyond supportive, like they'd rather do the, I take an hour and do your work than spend time with me, like I believe in what you're doing. So I couldn't even casually date someone

who didn't believe that, yeah. So that's energy hasnizing. Yes. But over time you never know like how that evolves and all those kinds of things. And for me I think we're a little bit different. I mean it has to do with the engineering thing. I just have to pull insane hours. Yeah. I don't work like two hours a day. But that's what like creatives do. Yeah you can only work a couple hours, honestly, to be productive in the rest of the time. Not, I have to do a lot of menial labor. And so there there's legit tension on it. Yeah. A time and attention, all those kinds of things.

I don't know. Do you think about this stuff a lot? Or do you just love life and do cool stuff and whatever happens happens? I have been so blessed for so long now that I'm at the point where I don't think about it and I'm like, you know, just like miracles happen every day. So just be open to it.

You think about your death, mortality? Yes. Fear, what do you feel about it? I'm just worried I wanna take as many people out with me as possible so Newk Newk Newk I'm thinking yeah, no, I didn't your I think that would be that would be kind of like Ironic as my other favorite I think about my legacy And that's why my books are so important to me

I think about my legacy. And that's why my books are so important to me. So is it, do you think of it as a kind of immortality? It is though. Like that's who you are, is those books. Well, it's not who I am, but it's my legacy certainly is. What do you hope your legacy is? That I encouraged people to be hopeful and that I taught them how to be free. And my favorite, I think the best show of all time was Dallas,

which often gets, it was like an 80s soap opera and people can flate it with dynasty. And I think it's trashy and it was very Shakespearean because all the characters are motivated by different values. And the writing is just masterful and the acting is masterful and I'm not gonna spoil anything one season ended with one the characters on their deathbed in the hospital and the whole cast is there and the amount of acting talent in that room is just just phenomenal and as the characters dying they look around and they go, like, please be kind to one another.

Be a family. And they're yelling at this character, don't you dare die on me, you know? And you can see the actors, you know, because they're losing their cast mate who they've had from the beginning. And it would have been a perfect ending to the show, but obviously it's a cash cow.

They gotta keep milking it. And I think that kindness and tenderness, and this is Michael Malice talking, it's, there's a lot of people who want to make it that if you are kind or tender, you're going to have consequences, bad consequences. And I think it's important for me at least to create a space in my life that if someone is going to be nice or friendly or kind, that they're not going to have to feel stupid or bad about it. We have such a disincentive set of structures so different. If you want to be cynical and sneering like Round of applause, but if someone says, oh,

this is great. Okay, Simp, it's really bad. Well, I think you do just this. says, oh, this is great. Like, okay, Simp, it's really bad. Well, I think you do just this. You do this today. You do this in our friendship and you do it for a very large number of people. It's teach them how to be, how to have hope. Yes. And teach them how to be free. So, Davarish. It's no one got them. It's no one got them It's not one God. Thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you so much for being an inspiration.

I love you, brother. I love you. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malas. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Albert Camus. Don't walk in front of me. I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

Walk beside me. Just be my friend. Thank you.