Kind: captions
Language: en
if you want to be successful in life it
really will come down to the rules that
you play by for most people Society
hands us a set of rules and we just
accept them that works fine in periods
of stability and prosperity but it
becomes disastrous in moments like this
which are marked by rapid change and
uncertainty even if America is the
current collapsing Roman Empire a new
set of rules would allow us to navigate
both the dangers and the opportunities
to that end I bring you Constantin
kissen
the West has
become very uncomfortable with the idea
of power exercising power exercising
Force exercising
Authority and when you have a culture
that is
unwilling to use power and force to
assert its interests and protect them
the heroic masculinity on the borders
will it inevitably start to come to the
for and they will start to try things
just try uh and we have seen over the
last couple of
decades that process going on I think um
and I've been talking to a lot of people
in the last few days kind of liberal
people I think a lot of people are
starting to think in political terms and
I don't want to make this political but
I think it's a it's an important um
reference point that while Donald Trump
was obnoxious as a
person his approach to
geopolitics worked better than the
approach that we were taking before and
we're taking now and that is a
fundamental understanding that the world
operates on Power and strength uh people
fear the strong and despise the weak uh
there's a quote that the strong will do
as they will and the weak will suffer as
they must I've always hated that that's
always been a gut punch to what I want
to be true um but nonetheless as I as I
think about okay why would it be that in
the late stages of an Empire and and to
give people context so Ray alio who um I
look at as somebody who thinks about the
economy a fair amount I look at Rayo as
the um the economic equivalent of the
Doomsday Clock that tells us how close
to nuclear Annihilation we might be and
Dalo has been talking about the um the
percentage chance of Civil War in the US
he's been talking about the percentage
chance of a global war another world war
and he gave uh the odds that we would be
in a World War when he wrote his book
this about eight months ago at 35%
chance recently literally like in the
last week he upped that to a 50% chance
of a World War I am very eager to get
him back on the show because as of today
um I if I can believe what I have read
on X which is always a question mark But
if I can believe what I read read on X
recently uh literally this morning China
has now taken a stance on the Israel
Palestine situation that could very much
be read as a stance against the US uh
and so it really does become a question
of okay in a moment like this if we
really are moving in the wrong direction
and Ray Diop pegs us at Phase five and a
half of a six-phase cycle where phase
six is total collapse uh of an Empire if
we really are that far down and things
are trending in the wrong direction is
more forces sort of amass against this
the question becomes how much of this is
predictable according to Ray Delio a lot
of this is predictable and then what do
those movements look like what what is
it about like I'm going to I'm going to
uh bring together my question around
gender and why that we would see that
throughout history and then uh this
potential March towards World War for me
this is the picking apart of structure
and the reason I wanted to talk to you
about it you have said in the past past
uh we have pulled a lot of the threads
that hold the sweater together and so
when I look at gender I think that this
goes back to what you're talking about
with luxury beliefs when people are not
under threat they are able to begin to
to push back on a lot of the elements of
structure that repress them so structure
is by its nature a limiting force and so
I think as things get better we will
always as humans I certainly don't EX
myself from this we will always as
humans want to push against the things
that limit us certainly in my own life
as I have gotten more money the thing
that's been hard is to stay disciplined
and focused on what works in a business
because I can paper over any poor
decisions just personally and so it
really did the first couple years of
impact Theory I I was whing pretty hard
and so we had to go wait a second like
what actually works use profitability
even though we can build unprofitably
let's really look at that and so if in
success of a society you know it leads
to the um I'll quote Adams this is a
paraphrase I'm to get very close can you
tell me how success does not lead to
luxury and how luxury can avoid leading
to the effeminization of culture
basically and how at that point
everything begins to break down and
that's what I feel like he was looking
back at history obviously and seeing the
cycle repeat which is exactly what we're
living through right now we push against
the structures we begin to pick at those
things that limit us and the ultimate
thing to pick at that limits us is the
the the core biological construct of
male and female and I actually get why
people don't want to be limited you get
people then amassing at the edges that
are going to test the veracity of those
beliefs in the real world and that is
what's happening uh and I don't know if
you've been paying attention but
Vladimir Putin Xi Jinping the leader of
Iran and other leaders around the world
there is this phrase that's been doing
the rounds from all of these people
which is a multi-polar world they keep
talking about it what is a multi-polar
world the multi-polar world is the
opposite of the unipolar world which is
where we have been since World War II in
which America yes you had the standoff
with the Soviet Union that ended in 1989
or 1991 dep depending on whether you
count the ban wall or the collapse of
the Soviet Union at which point America
became completely hegemonic in the world
and what is happening now is Vladimir
Putin Xi Jinping and others with the
support of a lot of people in the west
who are like oh America's evil American
imperialism blah blah blah um they are
now tearing down the world order that
we've been living under and uh this is
what it looks like conflict here War
here Civil War there Etc and uh I
believe that we we are living through
the very beginning of what will be
extraordinarily interesting times so to
speak unfortunately the Thomas Soul who
we both love I mean he talked about all
of this this is a fundamental the
conflict of vision that he described uh
is is the tension
between um the kind of you blank slatis
the belief that anything is flexible
anything can be changed the power of
feelings emotions Etc over the idea that
the best way to understand how we ought
to live our lives is to look at the past
and look how human beings have always
lived their lives and what has worked
and what hasn't and when it comes to war
and conflict there's a a phrase in Latin
that has been known for Millennia civis
patch and Parabellum if you want peace
prepare for war if you want peace you
have to be strong if you want peace you
have to be confident in your own values
this is why last time we spoke for 3
hours about woke culture and I've been
saying from day one from from the day
that I turned down a contract from a a
college not to perform a comedy gig I
said from day one what this is doing it
is undermining our confidence and our
civilization the fact that in Britain
for example we have an endless
conversation about slavery and it's a
negative conversation it's a self-
flatulating conversation which is of
course understandable given that slavery
was an awful thing the slave trade the
transatlantic slave trade was an awful
thing what people don't know and I kind
of know this a because I haven't been
guilted into not knowing it and B
because they actually teach history in
the place that I came from is that the
British Empire was the first Empire in
history to end slavery so we and I
talked about this in an immigrants love
letter to the West which I know you've
read it's like imagine that 10 years
from now we all become vegan because we
recognize that slaughtering animals is
immoral and then we say well America
ended the meat trade
first and that is why they're bad that
wouldn't make any sense whatsoever uh
that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever
and it's so what I see whenever these
conversations pop up and um you know you
see at the moment many protests around
Western countries around Israel and
Palestine most people who are protesting
on either side but particularly on the
side of on the pro Palestinian side they
have no idea what's going on they have
no idea where Palestine is they haven't
read the history they don't know
anything about it well what they do know
is which side America is on and so their
support for Palestine primarily is an
anti-American based idea or an
anti-western based idea so we have
educated generations of our own citizens
to hate their own country um to hate
their own civilization to hate the
values of their own civilization uh and
pulling apart at the threads of that
sweater is what's going on and you're
right one of the things that creates the
core of a society it's the interlocking
of men and women right in families and
the reproductive process there's no
getting away from that you need people
in order to be strong economically
militarily and in every other way the
fact that we increasingly live in
societies it's less the case here in
America but it's still the case here
where the birth rate is plummeting as
you know most Western countries are
below replacement rate in the UK you're
not quite there thankfully here in the
US but in the UK we have these EX um
Extinction Rebellion lunatics running
around uh Extinction Rebellion are an
environmental organization uh that is
linked with another organization called
just stop oil and what these people do
is they go around saying we should never
use any oil again uh and they glue
themselves to roads to stop traffic
using glue made of oil
uh that's how smart these people are and
one of the things that these people have
indoctrinated people to believe is that
having children is bad the greatest
environmental impact you can possibly
make on the world is to have a
child this is a death cult it's it's a
religion of self it's a religion of
suicide that what we are living through
in the west uh it's a religion that
seeks to undermine every single thing
that has made the West successful we
talked about this last time and that is
what we're seeing it we're seeing a
civilzation that has lost confidence in
itself uh and is therefore unable to
defend or assert its values internally
let alone project them elsewhere m
yeah the one I think that we should
probably Define power because as one of
the things I want to do today I am very
curious to hear your ideas on like
because what I care about is um personal
power quite frankly it's what my whole
impact theory is about that like how do
you Empower people to make um their
lives better and I've been able to sneak
in uh an obsession over Power by calling
it
empowerment uh which has wonderfully I
think open people up to the idea because
it doesn't have the baggage of power but
that's really all you're talking about
um I have a very clear definition of
what I think power is but I would love
to hear yours tell me yours show me
yours I'll show you mine oh Fair all
right here we go uh so power is uh close
your eyes imagine a world better than
this one open your eyes go acquire the
skills and deploy them to actually make
that better world come into existence
and once people understand that ideas
are ideas are only as useful as they can
be implemented to move you towards your
goals the problem is most people do not
have a clear sense of what their goal is
therefore they have no idea if the
things that they're believing are
actually moving them towards their goals
or not um and then what ends up
happening when you don't have those
clear definitions is people get caught
up in ideas that sound good we
definitely spent a lot of time last time
talking about it um but I I think it
Bears repeating for people that haven't
seen it Thomas o has a quote that really
steers my thinking in so many things
which is the last 30 years I usually say
50 because he said it 20 years ago the
last 50 years have been marked by
exchanging what worked for what sounds
good
and I power is about the ability to
predict the outcome of your actions and
so if you're trying to do something and
that something is Honorable then having
the power to see it through is
incredibly important and
so being able to acquire skills and
deploy those skills in service of
something honorable to me is is the
definition of power mhm uh fine uh no no
quibble with that on a personal level I
think when we talk about internationally
and geopolitically uh Power has a
different set of definitions which to me
when I talk about power what I mean is
the ability for the United States and
its allies to achieve their objectives
around the world and those objectives
typically are uh secure uh the alliance
or compliance of VAR States for the end
goal of securing maximum resources for
the citizens of our countries uh and
stability peace security Etc right so
maximum security uh for ourselves from
being attacked from being invaded from
having our interests challenged and
maximum resources I mean the the the
great unsayable is and and Vladimir
Putin who I'm a fierce critic of as you
know uh he actually said this you know
America collects a hedon's tax
what does that mean what that means is
the average American cons consumes five
times as many resources as the average
citizen of the
world and that is because you're the
dominant superpower in the world right
we don't like to say it like this
because it sounds selfish and greedy and
whatever but fundamentally every society
every country is seeking to maximize the
welfare of their citizens in an ideal
world and the Art of geopolitics is for
these big powerful countries to secure
the interests of their people as best
they can so from the purpose from the
point of view of the United
States having the richest and safest
citizens in the world is what this is
all about and it's been my view for a
long time that people have fundamentally
misunderstood the people who complain
about American imperialism and they
right to because you know the the war in
Iraq was a crime and it was a
disaster but on the other hand that does
not mean that America is involvement in
in the rest of the world is not precise
L why Americans are as comfortable and
as wealthy and as safe as they are and
have been for a long time so um but a
lot of people don't understand that they
don't understand that they they see
America as a source of evil uh and
operate on that
basis okay so I would posit that we
share that what you just demonstrated is
is the exact um is a concrete example of
the exact definition of power that I
gave and it draws us into what I think
will ultimately make people very
squeamish but what I want people to
begin to dissect because again my goal
is to get people to understand their
their individual power and that they
Hard Times bad times good times whatever
times there are opportunities and
dangers you can capitalize on the
opportunities and avoid the dangers if
you understand the playing field the
chessboard however you want to think
about it and so the thing that's going
to make people squeamish is that what
when you as America say close my eyes
and imagine a world better than this one
that's where people start to get
uncomfortable about what they imagine is
the better world and are Marching
towards that so the thing hiding in
plain sight with my definition is we're
not going to agree what's
honorable and
so but what I don't want people to do is
have a reactionary push back against
okay power is making a world come true
that I don't think is Honorable and
therefore power is bad no which is where
we are correct and this is why I think
that what ends up happening is you one
day the lion shows up on your door and
now you have a real problem because
you're weak and the lion is strong and
the lion will do as it will and you will
suffer as you must I would modify that
metaphor even more the lion is walking
through the neighborhood looking for the
weakest person and if you live in the
biggest house and you send out signals
of weakness
Time and Time and Time and Time Again
The Lion will be at your door and that
is what's happened every time the West
sends out a signal of weakness division
a lack of willingness to assert itself
every time you have a new story about
how you know in in the UK there's the
story about how the Royal Air Force
decided they were not going to hire any
more useless white
pilots and actually discriminated
against white men
for that job now does that make our
military Better or Worse right we have
we have substituted competence for other
things when you do that what happens is
competence goes down whatever you
optimize for is what you get other
things suffer and that's where we are so
we have sent out signals of weakness in
terms of our military we have sent
signals of weakness in terms of how
divided we are we have
allowed uh our Colleges and Schools to
indoctrinate our own children with
ideologies and World Views that are
fundamentally antithetical to what has
made the West successful and if I'm
Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping or whoever
else and I'm looking at that I'm
thinking America's lost its will America
has lost its and and and the last time
the United States uh had a leader who
for all his many personal flaws and lots
of things that I disagree with that he
did the last time that they had a leader
who was strong progress was made in the
Middle East the Abraham Accords uh Iran
wasn't getting the soft deals that it's
now getting um and what did they do they
were outraged by his Brash personality
they were outraged by his willingness to
be strong they were outraged by him
talking plainly about how the world
actually works because they live in this
imaginary reality in which it's all
about your feelings and your emotions
and all of that um so uh this is the
point I've made from day one we don't
operate in a vacuum and if you're
uncomfortable with the dishonorable
American imperialism the only thing that
I invite you to do is to think about how
the world would look if it wasn't
America that was doing the imperializing
if it was Russia or if it was China or
if it was Iran is that a better world
because you don't get to choose the
perfect honorable World Of Your Design
I'm afraid you don't you get to choose
as I've said in in previous podcast
which [ __ ] you are being ruled by
that's what you get to choose and
frankly Americans are my favorite
[ __ ] in that
respect yeah so I really hate the messy
reality of life but um being in the
marketplace as an entrepreneur you are
constantly confronted with some things
work and some things don't and work is
defined by what are you trying to
achieve and so it really does force a
level of clarity you in the last episode
I was rewatching it you kept saying
you're emotionally detached in a way
that most people aren't you're
emotionally detached in a way that most
people aren't uh and I never said it
didn't occur to me to say it's not like
I was keeping it to myself but as I was
rewatching it I I didn't understand why
I didn't say but shouldn't people be
like to me the thing that I want to get
people to do is focus obsessively on
what works yeah what works you need to
know where you're trying to go and you
need to know what works um so we get to
choose the [ __ ] that are going to
rule us but I my take on things would be
a little bit different I would say
that's probably the
the like just unadorned truth of it all
and maybe I'm dealing in the the realm
of uh the the you wanted to make it you
want to make it sound nicer and I don't
it's not that I want to make it sound
nicer I may just be stuck in a layer of
abstraction so I will say what I think
um is we do get to choose which is maybe
slightly more than that so I think a
society gets to decide where it wants to
go and every generation is going to
decide where they are going to steer
things and so I've thought a lot about
this as the Young Generation comes up
and they're taking what I will call
self-destructive beliefs you called
suicidal beliefs um I I'm like they get
to do that we can't there's basically
nothing that we can do to stop them like
even if we right now we're really
dragging and or or my parents generation
is really dragging it out staying in
political power for as long as they have
but they will die and so then ultimately
the next generation is going to get to
control where we go so everybody gets to
take the world where they want to take
it the problem is I don't think people
have clear foresight into where exactly
what the second and third order
consequences of those decisions are and
so the thing that I always use is the
some people need to be chased by a
lion what I worry about is if we don't
get a comfortable relationship with
power with personal power with holding
myself accountable because I I say this
to the people in the comments remember I
come at everything from what can I do
what's my responsibility what do I need
to own um I'm not the guy to talk to for
like what should the the on mass
collection of people be doing I'll let
other smarter people deal with that I
just think about what should the
individual be doing because I know I can
control what I do I can control the
rules and rules of thumb that I abide by
which is ultimately the thing I want to
pull people's attention to it's where I
spend all of my time thinking about what
would be the rules and rules of thumb in
my own life that are going to lead me to
where I want to go which I Define as
human flourishing okay so if every
generation gets to decide where they
want to go if we do that partly uh by
electing the [ __ ] that we want to
rule us what I want people to understand
is there's a second layer to that which
is we get to decide what cultural values
we champion and so to do that I I would
encourage people to take a historical
view if you want to get rich take a
historical view man understand the
macroeconomics and how they just repeat
it is a terrifying cycle again I talk
about re alio all the time I will just
point people to Ray he covers this so so
brilliantly uh you want to be um you
want a good uh governmental structure
look at history like there's so much to
learn oh my God just by looking at the
the movements of History culturally if
you want to look at um the individual
human thriving look at history like
there are so many lessons to get by
looking at history but you also have to
know where you want to end up so you're
looking at history as a way to map a
better path to the thing the better
world that you can imagine in the future
and so if the way that we convey these
ideas such that they become the
emotional drivers because I don't think
there's any way at the populace level to
get people to do anything other than to
make it feel right and the way that your
feelings are shaped never said this out
loud but this is so important the way
your feelings are shaped or through your
beliefs and your values most of the time
Society just hands us those as a set of
rules effectively and nobody ever
challenges them so you have to
consciously construct your beliefs and
your values that will give you an
emotional reaction
to uh the set of rules that you're going
to abide by the structure that you force
upon Society the things that you tell
people to do and not to do okay so if we
take all of that then people really have
to get honest about the second and third
order consequences of if I do this thing
because right now remember individuals
I'm talking to you right now people are
steering by a I don't want any
constraints I don't want any confines um
the miracle is redistribution not the
creation of prosperity
itself if you do that the value that you
are propagating is that the group should
take care of the individual by the way
they do that by taking from the
individuals to give to the group I would
say that the only effective way forward
is for the individual to take take
responsibility not just of the [ __ ]
that they elect but to take
responsibility of the value systems that
they propagate because it will
completely influence the emotional
reaction of themselves and
others and you want to feel really good
when you propagate things that lead to
human flourishing which I will say is
when you celebrate the individual H
celebrates the wrong word when you hold
the individual accountable you can
reboot your life your health even your
career anything you want all you need is
discipline I can teach you the tactics
that I learned while growing a billion
dollar business that will allow you to
see your goals through whether you want
better health stronger relationships a
more successful career any of that is
possible with the mindset and business
programs in Impact Theory University
join the thousands of students who have
already accomplished amazing things tap
now for a free trial and get started
today I want to start breaking down what
exactly are the beliefs that trip people
up so we know that uh focusing on gender
is is a side effect because I don't even
have beef with that but it's a side
effect of wanting to get rid of all
[Music]
structure but there's a set of ideas
that I think are probably more complex
than just that that end
up taking a person down a Road of this
all sounds good but it doesn't work M
have you thought much about what that
stack of beliefs is yeah people like to
describe it in different ways some
people call it postmodernism some people
call it all sorts of other things but
the very basic thing at the core of that
is that uh there is no such thing as
reality there is only Power and language
is how power is exercised and how
reality is constructed um you know
people always talk about Michelle Fuko
and and the idea that this is where this
comes from uh so if that if those
assumptions are true then nothing is
true and everything is constructed so if
I say I am a woman I am a woman if I say
I am a different race I Am A different
race uh and this magical world in which
we've been encouraged to live in which
you can identify as whatever you want it
works very well as long as there aren't
anybody any as long as there are not
other countries and other forces outside
of our world who don't believe these
Airy fairy uh
falsehoods but at the core of that
system is essentially the belief that
reality doesn't exist and it is defined
by the way we speak and that is
essentially all there is to power and to
structure and to society I'm sure I'm
just at the tip of the iceberg that is
absolutely one of the things that I put
which is everything is a social
construct Nature has no rules there's no
ground truth um why does that become so
deranging you said it works as long as
there are no other powerful forces what
is it
that acting as if you believe that or
actually believing it why does that
become problematic because it clashes
with reality if for example you ad you
you say there's no difference between
men and women uh and therefore I'm a
woman well that has an impact on
masculinity femininity it has an impact
on how we structure our society what
kind of energy our society has in terms
of its posture around the world Etc so
if you take some recent examples um
during the football World Cup uh the
soccer World Cup which happened in I'm
married to a Brett I was with you which
happened in Qatar all the Western
Nations spend the entire time talking
about LG btq plus Etc the reality is no
one in Qatar gives a [ __ ] about
lgbtqi plus and Western language talking
is not going to in any way change how
they treat that issue because the way
they treat that issue is a product of
the beliefs they have about the world
and about reality and so on
chastising Nations around the world
about their values does not change their
values but we believe it does because in
our countries chastising people over
what they say or what they think we
think works we think that if we chastise
people for their attitudes to various
issues they're going to change their
mind but it isn't true likewise it isn't
true that everybody in the world uh
responds to language uh George Kenan who
was a student um of the Soviet Union and
he was an ambassador there for a long
time he said that Russia is uh
is I'm going to butcher the quote
here I can't remember the exact words
but it's something like Russia is
insensitive to the language of words and
highly sensitive to the language of
power or language of force right uh most
people out there in the world do not
care about being perceived to be moral
or being perceived to be virtuous or
being perceived to be anything they care
about some very simple things like money
or oil precious metals rare earth metals
land Force Power military capacity right
this is what they care about and to the
extent that they are able to achieve
that they will pursue that by any means
necessary you see this with what Russia
is doing you see this with what other
countries are doing um they are pursuing
their interests as they understand them
by any means necessary and if we cut off
our ability to do the same because we go
oh this is Dishon able it's dishonorable
to use Force it's dishonorable to have
regions of the world under our power
under our influence why should we be
involved in this country far far away
well the reason is that's how you make
America prosperous and safe right but
nobody wants to say that because in the
world that we live in it's dishonorable
it doesn't sound good right the truth is
you know I
remember in I said this on Twitter
recently in 1990 in the '90s and the 0s
you had all these American movies and
which which some CIA guy would be like
and they hate us cuz we have freedom and
I was like no idiot they hate you cuz
you have
power that's why they hate you people
don't want to hear this but on 9/11 most
of the world
cheered it wasn't because they hate your
freedom it's not cuz most of the world
is Jihadi terrorists people don't like
the people at the top of the pyramid
everybody wants to take your place and
that is the simple truth of the world
and unless you're willing to stand in
place and defend it someone will come
and take it away from you it's no
different to cartels in in Mexico right
once they sense a weakness in the
strongest cartel what happens someone
comes after it it fragments they form a
new thing they start again that's how
power works and there's no escaping it
on the the Power Front um and then I'll
come back to the the beliefs that lead
us astray on the power front yeah it the
truth of the world is is deeply
uncomfortable and there's something very
weird about that nature is red in tooth
and Claw So for anybody that's heard
that but never stopped to think about it
uh what it means is you stop your enemy
and unfortunately I'm actually really
curious to get your emotional take on so
I've seen a lot of the footage coming
out of the Israel Hamas conflict it's
doing something to me that I really
don't like the way it makes me feel and
I watched one today wow I'm getting
emotional I watched one today where um
there was a somebody from Hamas going
through and they had a camera like a
GoPro or whatever on their head and
they're just filming it and through the
window they shoot and kill somebody you
can't really see it but you hear the
person die it's crazy and then um that
person ends up getting shot and killed
and I just
thought to kill another human you rip
their body like you tear a hole in their
organs they bleed out it's violent and
painful and simple and fast and watching
that person die I mean they die fast man
like at the end somebody shoots him I
don't know sniper what single shot not
even like a just pow drops you hear him
he's talking it oh dude it was just so
crazy
and that nature is red in tooth and Claw
we have not escaped nature m not
entirely but there is something about
how much progress we've made that is
thrilling and when I think about how
much prosperity and how much um Peace
the Western World on our home turf
because I am well aware of the
horrendous forever Wars that we have
gotten into but on our own home
turf how much that we have had and
what's scares me is that it's huge
blessings huge blessings and also seems
to derange our thinking in some way
going back to the idea some people need
to be chased by a line like there is
something about human nature that has to
be has to be that's a wrong way to think
about
it if it isn't kept in check that that a
way of thinking becomes pathologized and
we the oh God I'm explaining an idea
that I've not had to articulate out this
is why I love having you on
uh the group begins to vibrate stick
with me the group begins to vibrate it
sounds like a sexual fantasy mate let's
see it doesn't end like one I don't
think not for me uh the group begins to
vibrate and the individual gets lost
Collective thinking takes over and all
all hell breaks loose and that all hell
breaks loose can be just a a weakening
and so a stronger force from the outside
comes in and takes over or it can be um
I'd have to really think
about times where the group the
collective becomes like a a ma China or
something like that
um that worries me the deranging of that
to keep it on things we've already
talked about in this conversation when
you get the pulling all of the structure
apart so that there is nothing left to
push back on so that everyone is equal
everyone is the same nobody is worse off
because we have the luxury to believe
that so um I say that because if um
great example if somebody broke in to
the this studio right now and they said
okay we um you have to win a debate or
everyone here dies I would IM
immediately go okay constant is a better
debater than me so constant sorry so um
you you go do the debating and I would
just have because I don't want anybody
to get shot I don't need to be right I
just need somebody that I've seen do it
and I know that they're good at it boom
so now reality slaps you in the face and
everybody lines up behind that but when
there is none of that you get this slow
Decay and the slow Decay is hard to
protect against and that's where we are
I think uh that's exactly where we are
we've become very uncomfortable
with look this is a very very difficult
thing to talk about okay but I think we
have to talk about it particularly in
this moment so I've talked we've got a I
don't know when this will go out but we
have an episode where Sam Harris and
Eric Weinstein come coming out and we
talked about Israel and Palestine a lot
and the thing that we were talking about
is This World War II ended because
United States dropped two nuclear
weapons on Japan
and because of what happened to Germany
okay
now when the United States dropped I
think it was Hiroshima when they dropped
that nuke they afterwards one of those
two they
went and measured the blast
impact of those
detonations not the release of energy
from the liqu weap which is much greater
but the blast impact and they calculated
how many conven Munitions you would have
to use to achieve the same blast impact
on a city when they did those
calculations there's a Russian historian
called Mark salonan who's gone through
all of this in the last year and a half
of World War II the Allies that's mainly
the Brits the Americans and the Soviets
dropped 50 hirosima a month on
Germany whoa every month for 18 months
they wiped German off the map flattened
cities hundreds of thousands of people
burned alive now historians have come
along and say and said that was too much
that was unjustifiable that was wrong
Etc but the fact is that Germany was in
the death in the grips of a death cult
Hitler said we're going to make a final
stand we're not going to retreat we're
not going to capitulate we're not going
to surrender uh and that is what
happened and the only way the Allies
could win that war was To Kill a hell of
a lot of innocent people
okay are we saying that was wrong are we
saying that murdering not murdering
sorry killing millions of innocent
civilians in war is wrong well I think
so don't you yes can you win a war
without doing it no I don't know I will
say that no you can't look like it you
can't you can't so what does that we in
so if you accept my premise then we are
in a moral paralysis right now because
if you want to win the war you have to
kill innocent civilians and we don't
want to kill innocent civilians what's
the outcome we can't win the war and
that's where we are that's where we are
okay so power as the returning theme uh
I imagine people are getting squeamish
what you point you keep saying that but
what what does squeamish mean it means
that they're going what I mean by that
now is people are going to reject a tool
because it can also be used to um do
horrendous things so I saw a tweet um
that said there there is only tragedy in
the um Israeli Palestine conflict
there's no good that can come of it no
that's not what they said there's only
tragedy that is what they said uh and I
wish I had memorized it because it was a
really eloquent description of it's it's
not good guys bad guys it's just tragedy
Every Which where you look
and nature is red in tooth and Claw and
there is tragedy to that but I don't
know that there is any way to escape it
and relinquishing your power is not the
way to do it as somebody who thinks in
movies I will remind everybody of
Superman 2 uh when Superman gives up his
powers because he wants to just be a
normal person and be in love with Lois
Lane and do the things at a normal
person would do only to then find out
that he gets knocked around by the bully
and to help people has to uh get his
powers back it's interesting I have not
thought about that uh metaphor but yeah
that I think is the very hard lesson
we're learning that it feels really good
to focus on how much I love my wife to
focus on how much I care about uh my
team here at impact
to focus on the people that I'm trying
to help with the show but there's a
reason why I talk constantly about the
imagery that I use to keep myself
motivated is me and a loin cloth covered
in the blood of my enemies and I have to
channel that willingness to be hard to
be tough uh in order to stay focused to
not give up to not fall into a weak
mindset here's another quote that I wish
I had memorized but I'll get you CL with
a paraphrase this is George
Washington uh George Washington said
when a group of people loses their hard
fighting
disposition um they can no longer claim
themselves to be among the
best just as cowardice is a mortal sin
in the individual it is a mortal sin at
the population level and I was like whoa
like especially when you understand his
role and what he did in order to help
America get the American experiment off
the ground uh which is hopefully
something we'll get to before the end of
this talk like what the American
experiment is why it matters why it's
not owned by America one of the aspects
that we're circling around here is
sacrifice think about what George
Washington did he led hundreds of
thousands of men many of whom were
maimed and killed into battle
over
what an idea the idea that you people in
this country should be free of external
tyranny and he
sacrificed men's lives to achieve it now
we would agree that killing people is
bad maming people is bad we don't want
any civilian or anyone killed do we
because we're good moral virtuous
people but that is not how the world
works if you want to achieve goals
inevitably that will happen right if you
want to defend your country you have to
sacrifice some men usually men almost
always men have to sacrifice themselves
and someone who's in charge of that will
be in charge of do we send these people
here do we send them there some of them
are going to
die we're in moral paralysis in the west
at a level of society we still have
generals we still have you know
presidents who will press the button and
send men into battle and whatever but a
level of society we are incapable of
understanding that reality we're
incapable of understanding the fact that
look the Israel Palestine situation is a
perfect example of this if you believe
that Hamas is a terrorist
organization you understand that this
was Israel's
9/11 and Israel has to destroy Hamas if
Israel has to destroy Hamas Hamas using
civilians as a shield means that
civilians are going to
die I don't feel comfortable being the
guy yeah yeah yeah press that button go
on I'm not happy saying that I'm not
saying that but the people making that
decision if they want to destroy Hamas
have to take innocent life that's the
moral quandry that the entire world is
in and the reason that Israel is
particularly in that position it is
being forced to play by Western rules
against people who play by a completely
different set of rules who don't operate
on those values whatsoever it's
interesting calling them Western rules I
like to think hm I haven't thought about
this so I can tell that what I'm about
to say is ill informed but I'll walk
through the way that I was thinking
about it and then I'll sort of
self-correct
um what I was going to say is I like to
believe that as a
society finds itself
prosperous uh not quite true this is how
I I know this still informed uh okay
there are two ways to approach it you've
got the individualistic way you've got
the collectivist way you can achieve
extraordinary things through both as
China shown over the last whatever 30
years been absolutely breathtaking to
see that level um I just have a feeling
that that one deranges a little more
quickly than does the individual so if
you made me place a bet on which one is
uh going to yield the best results over
time I would say that betting on the
individual um meaning individual
freedoms property rights all the things
that will call Western values um I think
that that makes sense I think the once
you do that and you make the individual
you think of them as having a Divine
spark within them and that each
individual is precious and and not this
disposable thing um that that has a
self-correcting mechanism in it that
leads to what we're seeing now now we
have looped back to beliefs that end up
creating um the uh the pathology and
we'll we'll keep going through some of
them because I think it's pretty
fascinating but I that to me I think
makes a lot of sense so I want to
believe that any society that bets on
the um in elevating the individual the
individual as the um the right unit of
account as you begin to analyze what to
do what not to do uh that it requires
you to look at them as sacred
individuals and thly protect them and
thly any society that goes down that
path is going to find themselves not
wanting to use human Shields or blow up
human Shields
um so anyway I think I navigated that
reasonably well I stopped myself from
the most absurd uh trip-ups which is
that a collectivist society can work um
I just have a feeling that it because it
only requires one person to become
pathologized that uh that has a tendency
to end in tyranny and bad news much
faster but it's certainly not impossible
for either system uh to end up
there
okay anything anything on more on that
belief no okay so uh I I have more so
problematic beliefs that cause collapse
that I want people to pay attention to
because if you adjust these in your own
life not only do I hope that that means
the collective won't derange that it
means if we really are living through
effectively the modern version of the
Roman collapse that this is going to
help you see opportunities if you can
avoid these problematic beliefs okay so
Prosperity is a fundamental law of human
nature I feel like people believe that
that's
true what do you think dumb people
believe that that's true yeah or maybe I
take that back lucky people people in
the Western World believe that that's
true because they've never experienced
anything else but that isn't the world
the world is very very different to that
and this is one of the things I've made
it my business to remind everybody you
know we talk endlessly about all sorts
of forms of privilege this privilege
that privilege you know the the real
privilege that we all enjoy is Western
privilege first world privilege uh and
we have been very comfortable for a very
long time in that privilege and we have
forgotten that life for the overwhelming
majority of people throughout human
history has been an immense struggle for
survival Prosperity is not a given it is
a product of the things that we have
been very lucky to enjoy in the west and
the values that we have are what has
allowed us to build it which is why
they're important to preserve so
Prosperity Prosperity is not a human
right it it doesn't fall out of the sky
it's not on your birth certificate
Prosperity is a product of action it's a
product of action in your personal life
it's a product of action at the level of
society for you to enjoy the prosperity
that you enjoy you have to work your
butt off as you have done and be smart
and be creative and be driven and be
talented and have great ideas that you
test against reality and fail and
recover and adjust that's how you build
prosperity in your own life and
countries are no different I heard a
really cool quote I'll paraphrase I
mentioned it
earlier in the capitalist system people
recognize that Prosperity is the miracle
in a socialist system people get
confused and think that redistribution
is the miracle so if it's true that it's
the rules and rules of thumb that really
are going to equate to your level of
success whether that's emotional
succcess financial success societal
success uh what are highle rule sets the
the two that came to mind the fastest
just at the highest highest level we
capitalism and socialism so I was like
all right without looking it up what
would I Define these two systems as so
for capitalism I said individuals try to
try to contribute to the group and
prosperity is their reward if
successful for socialism I said the
group takes from the individual to
divide Prosperity evenly
and what do you think about those
definitions first of all pretty good I
mean they're obviously by definition
extraordinarily simplified yes but but
broadly speaking yes okay
so when you look at those rule sets one
of them I think acknowledges that
Prosperity is going to be hard to come
by that's why I said because originally
I was like individuals cont contribute
to the group and prosperity is their
reward and I was like hold on because
you're going to try to contribute you
may not be able to society may say I
don't like your contribution the one
that kills me Society may say you're not
smart enough to contribute
meaningfully that one is hard but real
and there are going to be people that
just do not have the intellectual
horsepower to contribute meaningfully to
society and hence I like a social safety
net of some kind like looking out for
people wanting to help people all of
that's amazing anyway socialism takes
that prosperity for granted and does not
realize realiz that you can break the
very thing that creates the prosperity
which is giving people the individual
freedom to try to contribute to the
group and if they're able to do that
successfully that Prosperity is their
reward they are able to create a
differential between themselves and
other people they're actually able to do
that now of course anybody that's
familiar with the jinny coefficient
knows that if that gap between the
halves and the Have Nots becomes too
much you are basically guaranteed
violence because people can actually be
poor and it's not a problem if everyone
around them as poor where it becomes a
problem is if your neighbor is super
wealthy and you're even normal like you
have a refrigerator you have air
conditioning you have a PlayStation like
you can have it all but if your neighbor
is Elon Musk now there's a real problem
and he has rocket ships and makes his
own cars all that stuff so um they can
be a problem but if you fail to
recognize that you that Prosperity is by
default everyone is broke all through
human history and everyone but the the
smallest number of like Royal people
just suffered endlessly and were victims
of just climate just you froze to death
you overheated just was or you starved
to death probably even way more common
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impact Theory that's K
Aja bi.com SL impact Theory earn more
doing what you love all right here's a
new one can we pause on nature has no
rules because I think one of the
interesting things about this all all of
this thing is um the biggest problem
with blank
slatis is the attempt to pretend that
human nature doesn't exist that humans
are not
wired to be predisposed to certain
things and it's incredibly unscientific
belief given that we know that we
evolved we're evolved creatures and
therefore um it's it's kind of it's
obviously understandable but at the same
time very silly to think that horrible
things that human beings do are some
kind of weird occurrence you know oh I
can't believe there's a war somewhere
really why don't you look at our
history when was the last time human
beings were not fighting over something
we are
tribal chimps that evolved to do what we
do and all of the terrible pathologies
of human beings are a product of our
Evolution to a very large extent so when
we know that that is the case we prepare
for war and therefore are kept safe when
we pretend that is not the case we don't
prepare for war and we go oh my God I
can't believe we've been
invaded so the denial of the existence
of human nature is is pathological and
very
dangerous yeah this one I I don't this
one I don't understand and this is the
thing that's really um been an animating
Force for me so as I think about okay
impact Theory what is impact Theory it's
a belief that there the only difference
between me and the level of success that
I've had and the other average people
because I consider myself very average
is a set of ideas many of the ideas that
we're talking about right now today and
the one that I find the the most jarring
that people don't just rush to embrace
is that 50% of the way you work is
hardwired you're not going to get around
it and so I thought a lot about then why
is it that people can get confused
because they they can get confused and
they can make very compelling arguments
and so because I never want to assume
that oh I've really got this mapped out
I'm like okay wait how is it that people
are so confused about this and they're
confused because there's 50% of you that
is malleable and we can change a lot so
in fact I mean let's confront um gender
non-conforming square on it really is
happening and a lot more people maybe
it's still a tiny tiny number maybe it's
still only one and a half% of people
whatever
um there actually they feel accurate in
saying that I while my body may be male
I am a
woman and if we can let's let's assume
that some people the edges are totally
lying men oh God you guys have a really
funny name for it prison onset gender
dysphoria yeah it's when you get when
somebody who's a transwoman that a male
with a penis gets arrested and goes to
court suddenly they're like oh I'm a
woman now you know rapid on Prison onset
gender dysphoria you see a bit of prison
coming your way suddenly you you're
genda dysphoric so setting that aside I
have a sense that there really are
people that they really do believe that
sure and so something is malleable
enough that they because all I don't
even think all of them started that way
I think some people this comes on very
late in life um so the question
becomes why are they able to get and I
don't mean this this word derogatorily
why are they able to get confused why
are they able to be migrated
from here I am feeling male to now I'm
not what what allows for that confusion
do you think well we have done a lot of
interviews with various people including
many trans people uh and the conclusion
is that gender dys for is a mental
illness it's a mental illness so people
have all kinds of mental illnesses they
feel that they shouldn't have an arm
they feel that they shouldn't have this
they feel that they shouldn't have that
they are distressed by various aspects
of their body some people think some
people look in the mirror and see
someone who's fat while they're they're
really really thin call that anorexia um
some people eat food and then go to the
bathroom and and throw it up right uh
that we call that bulimia and actually
interestingly many of the people
particularly young women who are now
gender dysphoric are the ones that used
to have anorexia and Bim it
statistically speaking in the past so
they're able to do that on on an
individual level because you know human
brains have variability that they're not
perfect some people uh experience
distress some people experience illness
we all experience illness of one kind on
another at some point um but we don't go
well I am diabetic therefore I now
identify as healthy right um so it's I I
and I don't say this in any unkind way I
have a lot of empathy for people who
suffer from these conditions I really
truly do we have someone that works at
trigonometry uh who is a we had her on
recently I don't know if you called that
episode an employee of ours and that's
what she says it's it's a disorder it's
a mental disorder um that people need
help with the problem is in our society
today we have created the idea that you
can identify out of reality uh and all
you have to do is replace the the word
identity with pretend to be or claim to
be or whatever and everything suddenly
makes sense there are some men who
pretend to be women or there are some
men who feel that they're women or who
claim to be women and they're allowed to
feel that they're women there's nothing
that's that's their right you can dress
whatever way you want if you turn up
here in a dress that's your right let's
not say pretend let's feel that right
some people feel that they are the
opposite sex I may feel that I'm a 6'4
NBA player I'm not and indulging that
delusion of mine isn't kindness it's
not virtuous it's not right it doesn't
help me it doesn't help anyone now if
people want to Iden identify Any Which
Way and they're not hurting anybody
that's absolutely fine but indulging
their feelings pretending that we agree
with them when we don't is not helping
anyone all right let me take the molten
lava potato really fast okay and uh I
have a slightly different take on this
okay so here's what I think is going on
I've not looked did enough research to
say oh I know that my um my assessment
is based on that but uh this is going to
hang together I think pretty well so the
way the way the brain is is structured
it is hyper
fragmented hyper fragmented and take
vision for instance there is a part of
your vision um designed to see red a
part of your vision designed to see blue
uh part of your vision design designed
to see green and you put them all
together and and now we're able to see
the penopoly of colors uh there's also a
part of your vision uh the vision cortex
that is designed to see right angles
that's designed to track motion that's
designed to see where edges meet all of
those are separate regions and so I can
damage them selectively so I could take
you and damage just the part of your
brain that tracks motion now you can
still see perfectly but everything is a
snapshot so if you were pouring water it
would be empty cup halfway Cup Full Cup
overflowing cup and you wouldn't be like
we can where it's like oh I can just
stop or uh if anybody has ever seen the
illusion where you stare at a waterfall
and then you look away and suddenly the
rocks look like they're moving up
because you've so overstimulated the
part of your brain that tracks the
downward motion that as soon as it
doesn't have input coming in everything
else looks like it's moving up so you
the the brain really is broken into a
lot of regions and for a long time I
couldn't understand what people were
arguing about with um gender dysphoria
because they were saying I'm a woman and
I'm like bro you have a penis like what
is happening right now like honestly I
actually didn't understand I didn't even
like what are we talking about and so I
was all for the like what is a woman and
it was it was outright hilarious to me I
was just like how are we not able to
Define what a woman is and so then again
I'm like whenever I get cocky like that
I stop myself I look for disconfirming
evidence so I was like okay what's going
on I have that feeling that this is
funny but something tells me that
they're assume they're well-intentioned
okay if I assume they're
well-intentioned you either come down to
they they have a region of their brain
that is um damaged
underactive what I I don't mean to use a
derogatory word I'm just groping for a
way to describe it is not doing what one
would expect in the same way that if you
damage uh RGB in the eyes people
somebody becomes colorblind okay so um
they if if I take that assumption that
they're not doing this on purpose
they're not trying [ __ ] with me like
they they really are experiencing
something I was like okay what what if
what they're saying is the brain is
broken into all these hyper fragments
which I already know to be true and the
part of my body that's mapped to the
fact that I have a penis is very
separate than the part of my brain that
is giving me the feelings that then
Society maps on to this as oh those
feelings are associated with femininity
these feelings are associated with
masculinity so I'm like whoa I have all
the feeling set that everyone is telling
me is associated with with femininity
and I may even have a region of my brain
that draws me to um the the sexuality
would be an easy one so dude no one had
to tell me to be attracted to women like
I just I had a pull right I would see
something and and
like there's no way to say it other than
that I think Jordan Peterson summed up
brilliantly when he said you can
entertain a boy with two circles and a
triangle and I was like you didn't have
to tell me to find I remember drawing
stick figures and being like this is hot
as a kid seems weird but like that's
just how my brain is wired so clearly
there is a part of my brain that just
has a pull to that but if that part of
my brain was pulled in the other
direction obviously that would feel very
real and so if people are telling me Oh
women are attracted to that and I'm
attracted to it then I would be like
even though my body manifests masculine
I'm now able to be uh I am malleable in
that way because I'm I'm am the part of
my psychology brain mapping however you
want to think about it pushes me in that
direction Society then can nudge me in
that direction and now all of a sudden I
am
malleable and the way I've always
thought about it is uh any human is
like0 sided dice rolled and then
whatever all those weird combinations
and one of the 100 sided dice is
masculine feminine one of the hundreds
side of dice is has penis has vagina
right and that those are binary I'm not
arguing that at all so from a sex
perspective binary from How I Feel
perspective May really not be binary and
depending on where I fall in that scale
then I can be influenced by what culture
says is this way that way and then to
bring in what you're talking about uh
the brain again researched this one is
researched uh the brain will justify
whatever feeling it gets so if I get the
feeling that something is wrong my brain
is going to go oh the reason you feel
uneasy is uh because you're too fat
bulimia oh no no no the reason that
you're feeling uneasy is because you're
a man trapped in a woman's body and then
the brain's like oh okay cool that's the
story so the brain will not let anything
go unexplained and therefore I'm going
to map that story on now because that's
what Society is handing me but when I
started thinking about that I was like
whoa like that's people are malleable
there is 50% we're not a blank slate I
aggressively disagree with that and I
think anybody that believes that is
going to be led down a path of of
problems because it will break your abil
to predict the outcome of your
actions but we're 50% malleable and so
now it gets into okay are there ways to
um there's no better word shape there is
a better word should we shape people
into constraints Timmy you're a boy and
you should think like a boy and so I can
nudge him in those directions great book
called nudge highly encourage people to
read it and so I nudge him in the
direction of masculinizing him and so
now H maybe I could have nudged him I
can't if he's not attracted to women I'm
not going to be able to push him towards
women if he's not attracted to men I'm
not going to be able to push him but if
he's leaning one way or the other I can
now nudge and get that going in a
direction and so now in a world bringing
us back to where we started where I am
now going to remove all of those
structural categories because I don't
like the limitations that they place on
me and there's no lion and so I'm never
chased and I can afford these luxury
beliefs and that's how we begin that
malleability shaping people really is a
part of this it isn't just cuz I get why
you call it mental illness because if
you're misaligned there certainly is a
misalignment uh how does that land for
you uh I think that you and this is what
all of us do when we're trying to wrap
our head around this issue including
myself a few years ago we deliberately
confuse maleness with masculinity and
femaleness with femininity in order to
be more comfortable having the
conversation I actually don't that isn't
my hangup because for me ma male female
is easy right it's when somebody is
using uh male female as monikers for
feeling masculine or feeling feminine
that this gets all tangled up well this
is what I'm
saying these thing I have female friends
who are very masculine in terms of how
they think and behave I have a female
wife that's like that so I know exactly
what you mean now does that make her
less female no so in other words how you
feel and whether you feel masculine or
feminine is not a determinant of whether
you're male or female correct therefore
feeling female does not make a male
female correct therefore this whole
conversation is pointless false that's
where I would say that it is deranging
as I watch very smart people people
either act as if they can't see the
difference in what people are saying
because what we need is just another
word for uh the way that I feel so I map
my internal emotions
onto uh the standard human with vagina
right hold on the claim that the trans
ideology makes and trans activists make
is that if I say the words I am a woman
I am now female
no that is the claim so I may be arguing
for the wrong thing and so if they're
saying that saying it means that you
suddenly have a vag that's what
self-identification means I identify as
a woman means I feel feminine therefore
the fact that I have a penis doesn't
matter because my feelings overrule the
biological reality is that really what
they saying yes and I'm there but hold
on how do they explain the penis it's a
female
penis okay so it's a female penis great
suck it that's what they
want suck the female
penis there now I will say that uh that
that's what I'm getting at is we we have
to had to do that no too too funny to to
pass up as a fan of Comedy I'm here for
it uh but that that begs the point that
I'm trying to make which
is we have to differentiate
between this human is male female which
I think because for all of human history
that's what we've called it let's just
stick with that and so we need a new
thing that's like I feel like I believe
I have the internal brain
structure that's probably very
misleading because I could scan your
brain to see it's not true I have the
internal uh brain makeup because it will
be it will be I think hypothesis
hypothesis much better to say I feel
then well we're going to get to the I
feel part but I have a feeling that the
I feel part is nudged by that 20-sided
dice that some people were we able to
truly just map all the Confluence of
things that make you feel masculine
feminine just like my wife there's
something about her from the time she
was a little kid she was tomboyish so
it's like she's got a thing that just
like predisposes her to being a little
bit aggressive um not being as emotional
I know some people are going to freak
out about that but my wife is very um
not as emotionally sober as me which she
will be the first to tell you but way
more emotionally sober than um somebody
else uh that falls more typically on the
feminine Spectrum Jesus this is why we
need words for this so well this is why
Simplicity solves this you I don't think
it does it does it really really does
I'm going to listen tell me look maybe
I'm not letting you talk but let's come
back to the female penis I love you so
much talking to you about this is
amazing you've given me all the space I
just want to make sure that I understand
where you're coming from so the trans
ideology claim the trans activist claim
is that self-identification is how you
know whether someone is female or
male self-identification means
Abracadabra
Stacy having uttered the
incantation I am a woman I become
Stacy okay yes and therefore I am
entitled to be treated in our society
the way a woman is treated I am entitled
to be housed in a female prison I am
entitled to go into a female changing
room I am entitled to compete on female
sports I am entitled to be treated as a
woman because I am a woman that is
completely outrageous and unacceptable
if the claim were I am male but I feel
that I have a set of behaviors that our
society conventionally Associates with
females and I therefore wish to wear a
dress wish to have my hair long wish to
wear makeup wish to paint my fingernails
wish to uh change the way I speak wish
to dress in a way that most women
do cool go do it be you but the moment
you make the claim that you are a woman
you are making a claim a a truth claim
that isn't true and B a claim that
entitles you to the certain protections
that we've allocated to women uh in our
society which you're not entitled to by
virtue of the fact that you're not
female does that does that work as a
starting basis for this conversation it
works as a starting basis for this
conversation I'm going to steal man
everything you said because that is as I
understand it and I think that there is
a thing a demarcation point that we have
to draw that uh I think
ultimately I I won't prognosticate about
where we end up uh so I'm going to steal
man the argument let me know if I miss
anything so uh a trans activist would
say that the thing that makes me male or
female is the way that I feel and if I
regardless of whether I have the
genitalia of a male if I feel female and
I say that I'm female then I I am a
woman if I feel like a woman and I say
I'm a woman I am a woman uh and
therefore you should treat me and give
me all the protections that a woman
would get so spaces that are reserve for
women I should have access to that
prisons that are reserved for women I
should have access to that um Sports I
should be able to play in sports and
compete against other females have I
understood the argument yes okay so
operating from that and I will say I'm
I'm talking to everybody now like hey
everybody that wants to have this
conversation there is a conversation to
be had but you really have to begin to
break these things apart now given what
you just said I think there's going to
be a bone of
contention here here's how I feel that
on the trans activist side there is a
refusal they they've created a category
maybe so what I was going to say is uh
from the transactive side there's a
refusal to create a category for people
that are in alignment both with the
physical sex of their body and their
feelings no they call those yes yeah so
that's why I stopped myself um so what
I they're they are um perhaps not being
intellectually honest about how we need
to categorize things so let me walk
through this the the way that I would
want to have a productive conversation
is
um everything in its category so that we
may then talk honestly about the
consequences the second and third order
consequences of these
categorizations so um one I'm
introducing a a new thing to the
argument because even if I'm willing to
adopt CIS which I'm not there's
something about that that makes me feel
manipul ated because they're trying to
co-op something that's existed for so
long I'm totally cool for introducing a
new category there's something that I
haven't thought through about why I
don't like the co-opting of something
old that feels um slight of hand so I'm
going to set that aside for a second uh
so I'm introducing a new idea to this
discussion or trying to which is that um
I think that there is there is something
to be said about being nudged and
there's a malleability in here and if
we're not being honest about the
malleability we won't understand why
it's important to get the categorization
right because I'm saying that there is a
uh once we once we say okay the the
biology is pretty clear you're either
male or female and yeah look some things
in the margins pretty fascinating but so
marginal for people that have both a
penis and a vagina which does happen
crazy but true
um setting that aside for a
second everything about the brain does
feel like it's a hyper fragmented and B
that everything's a spectrum which is
why I've always considered myself to
have a slightly more feminine
temperament my wife has a slightly more
masculine temperament and that is one of
the reasons that our marriage is so good
and when I give marriage advice to
people I always feel a little bad
because I'm like well if your wife is
hyper feminine and you're hyper
masculine this is all going to be a
[ __ ] nightmare and good luck because
you guys one of you really is from Mars
and the other really is from [ __ ]
Venus and your alien species and godamn
you can raise kids but holy hell like
the two of you trying to like really um
be each other's soulmates and get all
the things that I'm telling you you're
going to get probably not so much don't
know that's been exactly my experience
yes but are you hyper masculine yeah
okay cool then it can work out he's
calling out my masculinity right on
camera unbelievable because I have an
internal definition of hyper masculine
of the Joo willink is hyper mascul and
if he's able to do it then word being
masculine isn't about having muscles but
anyway it's not can we agree that there
is a category of human that I call a pub
brawler in the UK and you can take one
look at that [ __ ] and be like oh
I know a lot about you based on the
shape of your head yes okay so I'm just
saying there really are things that
manifest physically that like you've
defined masculinity in a very narrow way
I haven't defined masculinity I have not
made any attempt to Define masculinity
yet okay sorry other than I have earlier
said I know if viewers are having as
much fun listening as I am talking we'll
keep going cool uh okay so I'm trying to
introduce this idea of nudge ability we
are malleable we we are shapable you can
sway somebody my wife has made me more
masculine over time because she's
actually more into that she probably
takes for granted the part of me that's
hyper communicative and in touch with my
emotions and able to admit my
insecurities she probably just takes it
for granted but honestly there was a
time in our relation sh where she
straight said to me your insecurities
aren't sexy and I quote and I was like
oh godamn so I realized a that's true I
need to [ __ ] toughen up here deal
with my insecurities be a bit more manly
and she was way more into that which she
rewarded them with sexual attention I'm
[ __ ] nudge like you can encourage me
in directions so anyway I want nudge
ability Mal ability shap ability in here
so that then we have to ask questions
what direction are we going to nudge
people because you're going to nudge
people whether you mean to or not and
seeing celebrities dress their boys up
in dresses you're nudging them whether
you mean to or not you're nudging you're
shoving them so but hey blue and trucks
and all that one could argue is not
nudging is shoving whatever but let's
have that on the table okay so if we are
somewhat
malleable but trying to push somebody
all the way in a direction ends in
[ __ ] disaster I forget the kid's name
name the set of twins born circumcised
the circumcision machine burns his penis
off uh I think his name was David or his
code name was David and do you remember
the John money is the guy who did money
thank you and so he said oh doesn't
matter blank's slate raise him as a as
your daughter he going to be fine he'll
never know and of course ends up
committing suicide his brother commits
suicide [ __ ] crazy and Joe money was
a pedo
lovely uh if that's written and taken
out of context I'm kidding that's
obviously horrify uh there are limits to
how far we can udge them we need we need
the categories we need to understand
where people are going to fall so that
we are we are very open and honest about
yeah you can push people in a direction
there will be second and third oral
consequences you need to really be
thoughtful about what that is and when
in doubt I would
say looking at history to find a way way
of something that has worked not
perfectly but reasonably well uh would
be probably the place to start with that
I'm gonna pause there know that finished
let me say a couple of things at this
juncture I love you I really look up to
you I learn a hell of a lot from you I
really admire you and I have no [ __ ]
idea what you're talking about
okay because I need to
simplify I don't think you're addressing
the argument that I'm making is the
reason I have no idea what you're
talking about well so we'll get to that
so I I'll get to that now and then maybe
we'll Circle back okay okay so remind me
about masculinity as well uh because
there's something to say on that okay
should
a biological male have access to female
spaces would that be a direct that's
part of the conversation yeah so to me
the obvious answer is no let's go up a
level is the truth CL claim that I am
Stacy
accurate um what would I have to do to
become Stacy in your opinion tell me to
call you Stacy but that's why we have to
differentiate between you feel like stac
what would I have to do to be female in
your eyes um that's why we need a new
category because I'm perfectly willing
to say that there is such a thing as I I
already know that the community is
completely rejected to this idea as a
neoy I would have said oh transwoman
like that works I guess I have suggested
that as an idea yeah so for me if that
didn't have baggage that would be yeah
perfect you're Stacy the transwoman I'm
totally here for that I'm here for that
too but nobody's willing to go with that
I I have a feeling that that probably
represents the mainstream belief but
it's just very difficult to have this
conversation okay a guess fine so if I
am a transom am I entitled to go in a
female bathroom or compete in female
sports bathrooms I don't have a read on
because that one feels like it gets
complicated very fast I've not I have
not thought through that I don't know
but uh for sure not in female sports
okay cool I agree and I would say
anywhere where you're going to be naked
not right so any a prison where there's
massive vulnerability not so you
basically believe that people should be
called by the name that they wish to be
called by in Ideal World we would have a
category that describes them as not
being the sex in which they were born
right yeah I'm going to create a mental
map of you yeah based on my experience
with you and what you tell me is true
and so if you
really like uh the first um transgender
person that I met I that that I
knowingly met I was so surprised because
I expected and people forgive me and I'm
showing my age and all of that uh but
the when I met somebody who was
transgender for the first time I didn't
know transgender was a thing I knew that
transexual was a thing but I thought of
them as like campy and over the top and
so I was expecting a drag queen and I
met this really like casual downhome
hair down straight no makeup like woman
who transwoman who I was just like oh
wow like I didn't I immediately updated
my mental map of what that could be and
was like oh I literally had no idea mhm
uh so yeah I was like cool my mental map
of you is now that now she had not had
her penis removed so I was like word
like mental map is that you are a male
who feels entirely feminine well that's
why we started with me saying that feels
like yeah yeah but I'm so where the the
line that I was trying to draw is I
think there's a reason for for that that
occurs in the brain and this is where
the conversation to me just like
completely derails is everybody is so
talking as if they can't understand that
there's another category now I'm again I
may just be so new to this conversation
that people have already had this and
that everyone's just going to completely
reject the idea of of that new category
um and in which case then I'm at a loss
and I'm not trying to convince anybody
other if if the trans ideology and
transactive has said we would like to be
called trans women and trans men to
reflect the fact that we are of a
certain biological sex but we want to
present to the world as uh the opposite
of that I actually don't think anybody
would have a problem with that beyond
the the specific narrow context which
we've discussed uh we wouldn't be having
this conversation if that was acceptable
to people at all
y can we come back to masculinity yeah
please because I think this is very
interesting uh I was once a dinner uh
small dinner was about TW 12 of us maybe
with Jordan Peterson uh and I asked him
what western civilization is and Jordan
in as is his style went off on a 20
minute thing and I was like I have no
[ __ ] idea where you're going Jordan
right but what he said was very
interesting he said that he talked about
how in chimp
groups the alpha male is quite often one
of the smallest males in other words
it's not a Joo wilnick M it's uh me or I
mean you're bigger than me but you know
it's one of us and the reason for that
is that the alpha male strategy the pub
brawler strategy in groups does not work
very well for very long you are only on
top as long as you are physically the
strongest male in that group uh and and
when two or more smaller chimps can get
together and kill you they
will the difference with chimp groups is
that the reason the small males are
often the alpha male is that they're
very good at building
coalitions and so to me masculinity
isn't about having big muscles or having
a big head or wide fists or whatever uh
if we think about our conversation
earlier about power like I remember
talking to Ben Shapiro about this and he
was like yeah this's this guy on the
internet who's like yeah I could I could
take I've got big muscle he was like
yeah I could pay people to shoot you
that's the Coalition thing right power
isn't projected through your fist in the
modern world it's projected through the
power that you have over other people as
a leader so to me uh being hyper
masculine is not about having big
muscles or having a big head um it's
about your ability to project power and
authority what kind of leader are you uh
and you know you mentioned other stuff
like your level of aggression and all
these all these other things so I think
defining masculinity is simply a
physical thing is is very
narrow if you had to put people on a
spectrum of masculine mhm who pegs out
the meter is it Joo willink or is it Ben
Shapiro that's probably terrible because
Jo jao can build coalitions is it
um what's his name the The Fighter the
boxer he has a show called The Gypsy
King otherwise I would not Tyson Fury
Tyson Fury or Ben Shapiro who maxes out
the masculinity meter H that's
interesting I I think I suspect on that
level of analysis everybody would say
Tyson Fury
yes I would you would however the the
the question for me is um the definition
is what predetermines the outcome right
um I that's so important yeah holy [ __ ]
I hope people pull that out yeah well
how you define masculinity automatically
defines who you think is masculine yeah
and the question for me is what which of
those options would I like to be I could
go to the gym and become really big and
strong I could do and I did it for a
while didn't wasn't particularly my
thing I didn't enjoy it I like being in
shape I don't like having you know going
to the gym and lifting lots of ways get
didn't work for
me and the level of power that that
gives you over the power in a healthy
sense influence over the world being
able to manifest the things that you
want Etc is
minuscule compared to the power that you
have by building groups of people who
follow you into whatever battle or
project or whatever is you want to do um
and then there's the family aspect how
do you treat the women and children in
your life to me healthy masculinity is a
lot about that actually so when I see
some guy with his shirt off big muscles
talking about how he you know he's got
10 hoes or whatever I I don't I don't
really see that as healthy masculinity
agreed some people might do and I'm sure
the gasan model which is basically that
some people would say Well that's you
know biologically that is hyper
masculinity because like half the world
or whatever is descended from him that
would have been a great example Gus Khan
not gigantic but is he hyper masculine
yeah I would say so to me like in fact
he pegs the [ __ ] meter right kill
them all no problem just we're taking
over we run this [ __ ] now yeah and
actually if you look historically a lot
of the leaders who really made a huge
impact on human society they've all been
very small Napoleon Hitler Stalin wasn't
a big guy
Putin you think that plays into it
because I could see very easily how of
course it does like oh you think I'm not
powerful because I'm smaller than you I
will show you I want to go back speaking
of that to Alpha versus beta so I think
we have a delusional sense of what an
alpha male is I saw a documentary I used
to think an alpha male would be Tyson
Fury not I don't know him he could be
the smartest guy on planet Earth uh but
the sort of once removed thought of him
as as a fighter a big physically
intimidating Fighter
um I saw a documentary about wolves and
I was shocked shocked I say when I saw
that the alpha male was small and I was
like I'm sorry what and what I realized
in that moment was the Alpha's the
decision maker the alpha is the
Coalition Builder the alpha is the one
that can think because again in in the
marketplace of we are wolves and if we
don't take down that Caribou we [ __ ]
die all of a sudden you go yeah bro that
guy I don't know how but he knows where
to go and he knows where to be and he
gives me the look at just the right
moment and when I follow him I eat and
when I don't I don't and so what ends up
happening often times is the alpha male
is small but [ __ ] sharp and the beta
male which in our society has gotten a
terrible [ __ ] rap is the
enforcer and it was watching that
documentary was so unreal so you've got
a pack of whatever six wolves Alpha kind
of small beta the biggest and when they
all went for the kill the um beta male
came and told everyone to [ __ ] off
growled backed everybody down so the
alpha could eat the liver and I was like
holy [ __ ] he's not even doing for
himself he's well I mean he is he's
protecting the alpha to make sure that
the right person to make the decisions
and all of that that can keep the group
together whatever whatever is well taken
care of wellfed and has what he needs so
that really got me thinking so yes while
I agree with you that the person who's
going to have the outsized impact isn't
necessarily going to be what I will call
quote unquote the most masculine because
again all of us are 12-sided dice rolled
and so like hey maybe I'm as smart as
gask Khan was but I'm not vicious like
that like I just dude like when I think
about people getting stabbed or I'm just
like oh God like clearly I'm not going
to be the guy that goes and takes over
the planet uh that [ __ ] just I'm way too
screamish for that
so when I think
about
the thinking of something on a
simplistic scale is probably the flaw in
my thinking and that it's really a far
more dimensional three dimensions if we
want to go all the way to four it's like
you've got a tesseract of traits that
makes for masculine feminine whatever
which I think leads to also some of the
debate because it really is such a
complex topic if somebody can give you a
hyper simplified version I say I'm Stacy
therefore I'm Stacy it's it has a lot of
gravitational pull because it simplifies
a very complicated idea and sticking
with the alpha conversation who who was
the alpha Michael Jordan or Scotty
Pippen Scotty Pippin's a lot taller a
lot bigger yeah who was Alpha kobio
Shack that's a good one
right what's really interesting in that
one is they were both Alpha and that was
the problem that's why they collided
they couldn't neither could defer to the
other yes if Shaq had been the enforcer
they probably would have won 20
championships right exactly um but I
think ultimately Kobe was the alpha in
that situation and Shaq eventually you
know same with the the lots of
situations like that look at that level
they're all Alphas but someone's got to
be the alpha in that particular group
yeah that's interesting and how fast
that happens when you've been the best
ball player in your every team your
middle school team your high school team
your college team and then you get to
the NBA and you're like oh [ __ ] I'm like
seventh or eighth in the pecking order
it becomes a real question about can you
become a ro a role player yeah it's
exactly right and I forget who it was in
um I think it was 11 rings by Phil
Jackson and Phil I know you listen to
this show God I wish I doubt it very
much I so want to get him on he'd be
incredible oh my God so we've gone out
for years and years and years and he's
always like yeah yeah yeah just not
during the basketball season or his team
he probably doesn't even [ __ ] know
but um anyway in the book 11 rings I'm
almost certain it was in that that I
forget what player he had to approach
but he was like you're a role player and
the guy actually could do it he could
set his ego aside and be like even
though it might have been Steven Carr
Steve ker maybe Steve Kerr Steve Kerr
that makes sense uh that even though he
had to like he had always been the best
of the best of the best of best he was
like yeah no that actually makes sense
cool I'll do it yeah uh so I think uh
when we think about these how the [ __ ]
do you know an NBA reference you're
Russian what's going on I'm massively
into NBA a huge fan of the N yeah
Michael Jordan was my hero it's one of
the reasons the way we talk about race
does my head in cuz I was like I was a
kid I didn't care who was black or white
I loved Michael Jordan and I saw myself
in him it didn't matter to me what his
skin color was you know what I mean
that's why divisiveness about race
bothers me so much uh but yeah the NBA
uh was you know I love basketball it's a
great sport great Sport and a lot of my
heroes kind of watching growing up
watching those those guys uh and sport
is beautiful because it's it's
ritualized combat and so it teaches you
a lot about human dynamics and tribe
Dynamics and you know different tribes
fighting each other and how you Marshall
that and who has to run the whole thing
I mean if you think about you know
sticking with Alpha conversation it's
not quite true anymore but historically
speaking the point guard the smallest
player would usually be the one running
the whole show that's the role of the
point guard um so I think um our convers
and also you know who's going to be
sending jocka wilnick into battle
someone's going to be telling him where
to go and who to kill unless I can get
him to run for
president well go for it yeah yeah I
remember last cycle that was one of the
options um that do you know Brett
Weinstein right yeah so he put that I
forget what it was called Freedom Party
2020 I forget what it's called something
something 2020 uh and yeah I really it
was Joo and somebody else and I was like
yeah I'd vote for that I would vote for
that yeah yeah but
alas okay so um do you understand my
position on trans because if you don't
the audience doesn't and I understand
your position I just don't think that's
what anyone's interested in but I
understand your position and agree with
it and always have done got it so I'm
taking a reasonable position but you
know that the world is has already had
that conversation and they completely
reject it that is my impression I I hope
to be wrong right yeah okay um I don't
know that bay bring that point will get
us anywhere
but I will tie it real fast back to the
whole reason that I want people to pay
attention to the malleability of people
is that we began this conversation with
once you get obsessed with that you have
to understand what you're getting
obsessed with is the breakdown of
structure once you break down structure
now you have a problem in fact the one
last thing I will say on this so in film
school they teach you that one immutable
thing is true and that is the
constraints make for creativity and that
when you try to have no constraints
whatsoever things don't actually get
better they somehow end up getting
and I think that holds true for the vast
majority of humanity for for all aspects
of humanity that doesn't mean and this
is why I find that the circle of this is
why I think that the circle of History
obviously not an exact Circle but comes
very close to that because humans long
to get free of those constraints and in
times of stability they can push back on
that and they they find that whoa many
of these things were freedoms that now
that I have my life is better and this
is amazing and so then you think more
free is going to be better and you push
back on everything everything everything
everything and then it breaks and then
you're the strong man comes in and like
reapply structure and constraints and
you can't do that and then you get out
from under it is saying stabilize and
freedoms yay and then freedoms break and
then no freedoms and loop-de-loop we go
weak men create Hard Times Hard Times
create strong men strong make create
good times good times create weak men
and and around around we on and on but
it's a spiral we move up and technology
is a big part of that too I mean for all
our fears about Ai and I really know
very little about it I think that may be
it could be the end of us all it could
also be the Saving Grace that that comes
in at exactly the right time and just
solves some of this some of these
problems I have a feeling it's going to
play out like this it right the moment
you're living through right now
everybody it's a tool and if you're not
using it you are not long for this world
you will get passed by by the people
that do use it can't stress that enough
I hope everybody on my team is listening
you know who you are some of you have
adopted it and some of you are being
real [ __ ] slow and you're being slow
CU you think I'm going to fire you for
uh in replace you with AI but I am not I
but I am going to expect you to be way
more efficient now that you have
ai uh so we are in the moment of tools
use it as a tool it will make your life
so much better oh my God the ways we've
been able to deploy it are mindbending
saves us so much money it's absolutely
astonishing updo quality uh we put these
out these comedy monologues on our
channel uh that Francis and I do and
also monologues that I my substack
pieces that I record and put out as
videos and the guy who edits them he
basically does the illustrations
entirely through a AI generated stuff
that is amazing for creating things that
illustrate the points that we're making
comedically and otherwise it's insane
and what you can do with it it's insane
and it's getting better by the second
not even by the day or by the week it's
it's
unreal the next phase is going to be uh
that it will look like it's ushering in
the Utopia because the tools will become
so powerful it would be unbelievable but
humans for us technology is the promise
of a better future and we always want a
better future and as long as anyone ever
has a sick child or has to face their
own mortality they will keep pushing
technology forward and since that is
true I know that we will create
artificial super intelligence and once
you have artificial super intelligence
that isn't so I love running the math on
this so a [ __ ] is but a literal [ __ ]
is defined to somebody with like a 78 IQ
78 to 81 something like that it's right
in there uh that's that's the literal
definition of [ __ ] Einstein was 162 so
you're something like 2.3x smarter or
1.6 whatever the [ __ ] of math is and
very Einstein would know yeah yeah he
would know and I wouldn't and that shows
you uh I'm a little too close to a [ __ ]
so uh it's less than 3x for sure so
artificial super intelligence is not
going to be three times smarter than you
or five times or 30 times or 100 times
or 3,000 times or 3 million times it's
going to be a billion times smarter than
the other person so if the difference
between a [ __ ] and the atomic age and
the person that gave us GPS and atomic
weapons and atomic energy and all that
uh is whatever less than three times
better what does the world look like
when something is a billion times
smarter than us we we are so
inconsequential to them that if we can't
align AI we simply will accidentally
cease to exist what does it even matter
man like honest
if there was a a type of bacteria that
made the
Everglades like
0.001% more productive do we care does
it matter no and so that will be humans
in the grand um sense of the cosmos to a
super intelligence so now I have a whole
thesis
around I don't think my my whole
argument hinges on one base assumption
my basee assump asson is that desire is
not a necessary part of intelligence if
it is and that that super intelligence
will want one thing over another thing
and it will move with rapidity to get
that better thing then the odds of us
being aligned are effectively zero that
makes the base assumption that desire is
an innate part of intelligence if it is
then my argument doesn't work but if
it's not then what we need to do is make
sure that AI as it developed towards
super intelligence does not care uh life
or death for itself completely
irrelevant um get my goal not get my
goal completely irrelevant and so by
default I will move towards my goal but
if somebody tells me to stop I will stop
or if a certain set of criteria is met I
will stop the problem is in the tool
phase you were going to have a human who
cares very deeply about something and
that person will almost certainly imbue
AI with a desire to accomplish his ends
and they will not realize the second and
third order consequences of that is that
you become irrelevant extraordinarily
fast to something that you've now imbued
with a desire to achieve its goals so
yeah I think there wow this is weird I
can say this and just be distressingly
blasé about it I think that it is
inevitable that AI will happen and it is
inevitable that our only hope is to uh
flee AI to the point where it doesn't
care about us and is not trying to
eradicate us sorry not even trying to it
won't try to eradicate us we will be the
antill to the super intelligence
building a highway as Elon mus says no
hard feelings just this is what I have
to put here um but if we can get away
from it that's probably Our Only
Hope
yeah that doesn't sound that optimistic
super dark the weird thing is I'm like
really optimistic as a default but I
think that my optimism is just me
leaning into uh the the wonderful human
ability to say I know I'm going to die
but not today even though I might die
die in like 9 seconds so it's probably
something like that but I don't see
another way do you I'm just counting the
seconds you have right you have a son
for you this [ __ ] is real as [ __ ] so
what do you think like are you on like
burn AI to the ground stop building it
is that your not possible so how do you
think about it you can't you can't L out
this [ __ ] it's not going to happen sure
to that so the only thing you can try to
do I mean all of the Sci-Fi of my youth
was wrestling with this question the
three laws of robotics Asimov all all
about this and and did you read dun uh
yes well I don't remember it well dun
opens with it is against the law to
build a humanlike intelligence yes so
you can't stop it and that means we have
to work with it one way or another how
that happens I have no idea I'm not
nearly smart enough it's not my AR of
expertise I don't understand it well um
but we have never been able to suppress
any technology at least to as far as I
know
um and so far we have always learned to
live with the technology that we've
created now eventually we're going to
invent one that we can't until then
there's no point thinking about it I
can't control that I can't change that
all I can do is raise my son to be
resilient for the world is coming I like
that resilience is the punchline it's
one of a very small handful of things
that people should optimize their life
for if they're going to achieve
fulfillment which is really what I'm
trying try to help people do um give me
resilience what what is it so we Define
power Define resilience most people
spend their entire life trying to get
other people to not [ __ ] with them and
the answer is not to get other people
not to [ __ ] with you is to become
unfuckable
with that's what you're trying to get to
where you are who you are and the world
sort of flaps around you and you are
going to your goal uh undeterred by
whatever else happens because you know
where you're going uh and resilience is
the ability to deal with failure to pick
yourself back up when things go wrong uh
to I mean I learned a lot about it from
you actually and from our conversations
which it's about seeking feedback and
re-evaluating your starting positions uh
I Ein Rand uh has a very interesting you
know IR Rand is a great uh is a great
author to read in your late teens it's a
kind of late teen philosophy that she
has um because it's overly
simplistic it's very idealistic
extraordinarily
idealistic uh but one of the things she
says that I really have taken on is
whenever you think you're facing a
contradiction check your premises one of
them is wrong and very often when you
experience some kind of setback the one
premise that people don't check is well
I did everything right didn't
I usually that is the premise that's in
correct so resilience is being able to
deal with what life throws at you and
keep going that's resil it's it's the
rocky speech what do you mean it's the
rocky speech remember when he's talking
to his son no and he says life it's
Rocky 3 I can't remember which Rocky it
is but he's she's talking to his son in
the street and he says life life will
beat you down no matter how hard you are
but the question is can you keep going
that's resilience that's so good I love
that
[ __ ] i' love that I boys and girls get
hard get
tough I think resilience I want to
separate resilience and antifragility
but for a second I just want to talk
about resilience and Rocky 4 which I do
remember in Rocky four is that the one
with Ivan Drago yes a yes the sexiest of
them all was so incred oh that's right
because you're the bad Russian uh but it
was I will concede he was hyper
masculine he was hyper masculine DOL L
especially in that movie
woo uh but there was that whole idea of
I would would break you and he just was
literally beating the [ __ ] out of Rocky
and the cool thing about Rocky is he's
always the underdog he always had to
fight back and he could just take a
beating and he just kept going and I was
so I teach something called impact
Theory University and I had a student
today asking me and I started laughing
and he was saying I'm trying so hard and
I just feel like I'm constantly hitting
a wall and he was like having this just
like emotional turmoil and I'm laughing
and I thought about like doing the laugh
Emoji in the zoom call and I thought
he's not going to understand what I mean
by that and the reason that I was
laughing is yeah that's what comes for
all of us my days feel exactly the same
I feel like I'm battering my head into a
wall I am failing at most of the things
that I try I'm running test after test
after test after test and I don't know
if you feel a sense of ownership over
Church Hill because you're adopted
British but dude Church Hill I know he's
controversial I love him and one of my
favorite quotes from him is success is
the ability to go from failure to
failure without a loss of enthusiasm and
it's like that is so true like you're
going to get kicked in the face over and
over and over like all the [ __ ] time
it's
unrelenting and yet somehow you have to
keep going that is so
antifragility I try to get everybody to
build an antifragile personality an
antifragile personality is one where the
more people attack you the strong you
get so if you're anti Fragile the more
punches you take the stronger you get
the only way to do that is to um to
emotionally reward yourself for being
able to take punches and once you're
like oh it's my willingness to take the
punch to stare nakedly at my
inadequacies to pick myself back up to
wipe the blood off to spit out my broken
teeth versus to never get hit or like um
oh go what's his name everybody the
boxer uh
Floy May Mayweather thank you you're
really coming to my rescue with all
these fighting and sports people thank
you um so people really began to hate
him because his whole thing was you just
can't beat me you can't hit me yeah so
his whole thing about like he wasn't
like Tyson everybody loved that [ __ ]
Tyson animalistic just broke you apart
and I think people like his Redemption
Arc uh but Floyd the like I can't be hit
there's nothing cool in that I can't
relate to that I take punch after punch
after punch so I want the guy that can
take a punch and like he's battered and
bloody but somehow manages to come back
and when you can get hit and become more
resilient with each punch then you've
got the right set of ideas that you're
building your personality around well I
don't know if you caught on our Channel
we put um we put an episode out uh about
the future of trigonometry and we talked
about the year that we've had today we
nearly went bankrupt in January W um
Francis and I had a lot of stuff to work
out personally and with each other it
was a really rough
time and we made it through and now
we're infinitely stronger you know and
now the next phases of failure are
coming the stakes are getting higher
there's more money involved there's more
things that we're doing we're building
we're
expanding um that's life that's life
things are going to go wrong all the
time terrible things happen to everybody
and character is how you know when you
react when they when they
happen define character is it a set of
values well I just did define character
character is how you react yeah well so
what's the right way to react
then well it's hard to say because it
really depends on what's happening right
but the right it sounds to me in terms
of what you and I talking about is the
right way to react is to be stronger
after whatever it is that
happens so I'll add a few more things to
that so Integrity over everything Define
integrity if he said you're going to do
it do it agree um I mean look I guess
you could say that Hitler had high
integrity because man he [ __ ] wrote
In Mind conf exactly what he's going to
do and he [ __ ] did it and it was
horrible as horrible as something gets
um but I'll stick by that definition you
say terrible people can have integrity
had incredible Integrity yeah although
he did watch porn which is I I mean I
haven't read yeah I hav they found a
stash of porn at his house seriously
that is hilarious now I haven't read my
Quran cover to cover but I'm guessing
watching porn isn't in there you're
pretty sure that's that wasn't in there
yeah uh that's interesting I didn't know
that uh so yeah you say you're going to
do it do it uh but then I'll add have
honorable goals so that we can get rid
of the Hitler problems so you should be
doing things that uplift not only you
but those
The World At Large it's probably
otherwise I'm going to get caught in
another Hitler trap because people
around him I'm sure for a while we
having a great time you must uphold your
people oh that gets problematic quick do
it yeah yeah very quick uh hopefully
people know what I mean that you're
trying to um lead people towards human
flourishing okay so uh what else would I
add to that so willingness to stare
nakedly or at your inadequacies steering
by the truth in fact we're now getting
into so we had the problematic beliefs
uh and then I have a new set of rules
that I'm going to propose so just to
wrap up the problematic beliefs um
tearing it down versus incremental
Improvement which I think uh people
think that something will be rebuilt
From the Ashes that that is foolish and
dangerous uh and there is a reason that
societies have structure and that we all
say we're standing on the shoulders of V
giant so be careful um it's a it's a
harder one to talk about though I think
because this country was built of
Revolution tearing it down what do you
mean what do what do you mean what do I
mean this country is the product of a
revolution Revol I thought you said
Evolution no Revolution I was like huh
no oo okay so I would posit that it was
built on Revolution but it was not built
on tearing everything down and in fact
there's a reason that um Churchill
rightly said that America even though
America had displaced
I mean he didn't he was born in the
1800s so he was like not that far
removed from England was really the [ __ ]
and he certainly was at the height of
the British Empire was there as it
declined and he was like America is sort
of the right rightful heir of this set
of ideas that should not be owned by any
one country and I always thought that
was for all of the horrible things um I
think that that's the right way to think
about it and I think that America really
pushed back at a time of like hey you
say these are your ideals but you're not
living up to them and so not only are we
going to try to up live up to them we're
going to try to improve upon them and so
it does feel to me like America is
standing on the shoulders of the the
British approach to self-governance the
individual um uh case law uh we're going
to get to the edges of my understanding
the French and Russian revolutions were
a lot more revolutionary I agree I agree
so uh so don't tear everything down yeah
you one ought be very careful about
throwing the baby out with the bath
water uh We've T touched on masculinity
so I won't beat it to death but
masculinity view masculinity and
aggression viewed as toxic because if we
have any entrepreneurs out there I would
just like to say uh as in the immortal
words of my High School cheer squad B
aggressive b b aggressive you need to be
aggressive that doesn't mean uh to to
drop Integrity it doesn't mean to be
unethical it means to be aggressive you
need to be aggressive uh fiscal
irresponsibility it's probably uh my
audience will love to hear me talk about
that because that's economy but probably
a different interview I mean sure but
that that that is something I've been
talking about I've been talking more I
have not seen your interviews on the
economy what you got for
me well I don't think there's going to
be anything new but I've been saying I
love old since
2008 like we've emptied the medicine
cumbed
and we are not ready for the next one in
fact this is how the cycle of spending
and borrowing has always worked
historically you create a surplus in
times of Peace War comes you spend that
Surplus you accumulate that then you pay
it off and you build up a surplus in
times of Peace again uh we don't have
wars as much although we
do but you know pandemic financial
crisis these things always come along
and you have I mean it's kind of basic
economics basic household situation and
and then somebody comes along and goes
oh we've got this cool new thing called
modern monetary Theory which is
basically just code for we can print as
much money as we want well that runs out
fast and eventually reality you know we
always you and I have always talked
about the clash with reality and by the
way people don't realize this but it's
one of the main complaints that the the
Chinese and the Russians and the others
have about Western um Behavior it's not
just territorial or in any other way
they're like you're printing money which
affects us because you're buying our
Goods with your increasingly devalued
money and we are the ones that suffer
this is not a sustainable situation and
you talked about my son we are borrowing
we are borrowing money to spend on
things we can't afford and indebting our
grandchildren who are not yet born it is
immoral it is financially responsible
and it's going to lead to disaster if we
don't stop it yeah this is where uh the
set of ideas that we pass along
culturally become so critically
important but also since I think I I
don't think there is a way to stop it
and I certainly invite anybody to show
me that I'm wrong but the the approach
that I took to preparing for this
episode was recognizing that look
Empires are going to collapse look the
collapse of the US is it is inevitable
now whether it happens in the next 5
years 50 years 500 years that I don't
know historically it's probably in the
50 to 100 Year range happen slowly
enough that for the most part like if
you're alive you're you're able to take
advantage of it but you have to
understand the game and so one of the
things because again I I just I think at
the individual level one of the things
you have to understand is you have to
reup your context so if you were trying
to play a game of chess but you were
never looking at the board sure like if
you're so good that you don't even need
to know what your opponent is doing
because you just like are able to guess
but I mean realistically even the grand
Chess Masters look at the board they
understand where we are they understand
what your opponent is doing and so
people need to go okay where are we what
is the cycle where are we in the cycle
what does that mean and how do I
inoculate myself against it now the
problem is that getting the timing right
is virtually impossible and having the
right idea with the wrong timing is the
same as having the wrong idea and so
that was I transitioned into really
thinking about the economy and world
events and all that stuff because I saw
what happened in 2020 and I was like
people are going to get obliterated now
I didn't understand printing of money
yet and I didn't understand how we were
socializing losses but now once you
understand they're printing money then
you have to have a strategy for that so
you have to be watching the board
understanding how the context is
changing updating your thinking so I had
the really surreal experience of uh ra
alio comes on the show he writes his
books and he keeps saying all that
matters is how people are with each
other and that one of the things anybody
needs to do if you want to have a
strategy to navigate all weather War
peace um your country is the dominant
power your country is the declining
power whatever like if you want to
navigate all of this well you have to
understand um what what it boils down to
is how people are with each other I
didn't understand what he meant by that
and he kept saying how people are with
each other W and I bump into him
backstage in
Dubai
and everything is and this wasn't that
long ago so everything's very unstable
and I'm starting to get unnerved and a
lot of people moving to Dubai and I'm
just like huh I meet him backstage and
I'm like oh wow Ray like seeing you in
Dubai like oh you know oh I come to the
Middle East a lot and I'm like say more
why do you come to the Middle East a lot
and he was just like you know there's so
much going on here and things are really
popping off and they've done an
extraordinary job here and in um in
Malaysia and he spent a lot of time in
China and so he's just laying out like
he did not say I want to be very clear
he didn't say like oh I need to make
sure that I have places that I can go if
America ends up not being the place to
be but you can start connecting the dots
with this whole idea of there's a ton of
division in America uh there's
instability with America as probably a
declining power China as a rising power
instability elsewhere in the world and
it's like you need to be able to um go
to different places if that's where you
need to bounce and that was one of those
it's part of the game I would say I'm
weakest that I'm very rooted in
California um which makes me
extraordinarily nervous in terms of a
place that has embraced ideas that sound
good but are not delivering quality
results as somebody that's been here for
30 years just like bro forget me I've
thrived I've done nothing but Thrive I
look around me and I'm like yo the
policies are not working unless you're
like me and you've made just
ridiculously outsized wins and
so yeah that doesn't seem like a winning
strategy so that's one of the ones that
I'm very slow to react to I'll be very
honest I don't ever want to have to
leave La I don't ever want to have to
leave America um but I do want people to
be realistic about what the chessboard
says and the chessboard says what the
chessboard says and you need to play
based on what you see let me ask you why
you think this isn't going to get fixed
okay so because I have a theory on that
but I want to hear yours all right so I
think that humans are the way humans are
the brain works in a certain way and
these Cycles have run in Cycles forever
because we only have there's only so
many like even if we're 100 sided di 100
dice with 20 sides each and we're all a
role that's still only so many
personalities and we react to each other
uh in very specific ways and we probably
break into only so many clusters of
personality types I'll P it random guess
but that there's let's say 30 groupings
of what people are like and so it's like
okay well those 30 people are only going
to react in so many different ways then
there's only so many possible uh economy
static economy Rising economy declining
um War stability um lost War one war
like there's only so many situations and
so this really does become pretty
predictable Ray Delio again has broken
it down into six phases that's tied to
the debt cycle or the business cycle and
as you start walking through it it's
like yeah they're not identical for sure
but it's pretty predictable so he did
this whole breakdown of the last uh 500
years he looked at really closely and
then he looked at a much higher level I
think like the last 2,000 years so he
was like yeah just repeats over and over
and over and when I look at it's the
same thing that I feel with AI I just
look at what humans are like and when
the group starts overtaking individual
think it it only ends in one way and
that's violence and there's I think out
of the last eight times that we've been
declining power Rising power uh debt
like all the things that are true right
now six of the eight times it's ended in
war and so it doesn't always end in war
but most most of the
time but what is the mechanism by which
people refuse to address that problem
why is it what are the incentives you
remember yeah the incentive structure is
I want my life to be prosperous right
now I'm going to elect anyone that
promises me that things will be
prosperous the way that they do that is
debt and printing money you can only
take on so much debt and print so much
money before something happens it's
typically a pandemic or war and that
breaks the back like you said the
medicine cabinets empty and we got sick
again so uh we have no money remaining
because we've been spending in Foreign
Wars and uh printing our way out of 2008
printing our way out of coid and so now
it's like okay if so I'm going to make a
hypothesis I I'm I'm Not The Thinker to
listen to on this I just want people to
understand how I approach novel problems
so um I'm looking at this moment and I
say okay what what I understand about
things is um when you print money too
much you just incre increase inflation
that when you have we added a trillion
dollars of debt in a month in a month
dude we only have $33 trillion in debt
so like if you're adding that in a month
like th this is bad and this is times of
like everything's okay but we're sending
billions of dollars in Aid to Foreign
Wars we just had another War pop off
with another Ally like what are we going
to do I have no idea what we're going to
do but I start looking at that and I'm
like if I hate America and I'm just
looking at the chessboard and I'm
playing to win and I'm let's say China
is the most logical example and I'm
looking at that and I'm like I'm playing
to win I see a weakness in here and PS
most of the war is always going to
fought be fought surreptitiously so I'm
going to start doing my belt Road and
belt or belt and suspenders whatever the
[ __ ] is called Bel and Road Belton Road
thank you so I'm going around I'm
invting this is a whole different thing
different thing I'm I'm going around and
I'm investing in all these different
countries to make sure that I have
allies that that want to um you know
work with me uh that are basically
invested in in um my policies my
influence in the region and look of
course China has its own problems and
I'm as an American I'm counting on that
hobbling them enough that it sort of
everything balances out and that there
isn't some runaway train where
everything's great for China and we're
too weak but that's that's the power
Dynamic so I'm looking at that and I'm
thinking H if China takes a stance on
Israel Palestine I'm going to be very
curious to see what the posture is and
again if I can believe what I saw in X
today their stand is that um Israel is
has gone too far and this is no longer
defense that can be read again I'm not
the person to go listen to Ian Bremer
he's going to be a far far wiser voice
in all this than I am uh or Ray Delio
for that matter but I'm gonna guess that
it's playing out something like this
that's a shot across the bow for America
to say hey
America not the thing to back we think
they need to be to back off if you keep
saying yeah yeah yeah they should be
defending themselves then okay one we
think that you're overextending we're
letting you know how we think about this
we're watching to see how far that goes
how tied up in that you goes what other
areas in the region pop off if obviously
Iran I think made a public statement
where they're like ah like we don't want
to see this go anywhere which would be
awesome but like this this is the
chessboard so China wants to see how
Tangled does America get into that
they're obviously not for Israel going
any harder are they going to get
involved are they not who knows we'll
see but if that's them setting the stage
for them to move something forward with
Taiwan that those are the pieces moving
around the chessboard that makes me go
okay uh what do I do if this really does
escalate into a World War a true global
global conflict what are the different
players looking for and how do I
position myself to um not get mauled by
all of this and to ideally actually be
able to take advantage of the
opportunities now I can't tell you I I
would not trust myself enough to be the
purveyor of the news of what to do in
that I'm the person I trust to say this
is how you need to think through the
novel problem you need to be resilient
you need to understand that
opportunities are going to open up you
need to have enough dry powder that
you're able to take advantage of that
which means that you have to be fiscally
responsible and so anybody that's
telling you to just spend spend spend
and we can print money forever that is
not a person you want to listen to
that's somebody that's going to get
overextended and out over their skis so
I try to be really honest with myself
and others about the part you can listen
to me on and the part where you need to
go find somebody smarter so getting this
sort of geopolitical landscape don't
know I'm I'm listening to other people
but understanding how to have the mental
and financial fortitude to have an
all-weather strategy yeah that I've I've
got to take on that yeah that makes
sense I mean the incentives to me are
very very simple people don't want to
don't want to reduce their quality of
life now even if it means impoverishing
their grandchildren which to me is one
of the most horrific and irresponsible
things we can do as a society but that
is exactly what we've been doing and and
will do and will continue I don't see
way to stop I don't either because I
don't know if you have this conversation
here in the US but in the UK it's like
what you want to reduce public spending
that's killing
people that that's the moronic level at
which we have the conversation doesn't
go any further than that yeah do you
think that's the problem I think that
that is the current language around the
forever thing which is what you just
said I don't want to reduce the quality
of my life and 15 years is a long time
to punt and maybe it's not 15 maybe it's
50 and so since I don't know the timing
and can't get it right yeah I'll punt so
print money uh take out debt I heard
back in the 80s we had trillions of
dollars debt it's not a problem it's all
good and the bad news is and This falls
into the same category of thing as the
malleability thing where it's like you
can really get away with bad thinking
for a long [ __ ] time yeah and so it's
like is it bad thinking or is the world
going to get a clown on me in 10 years
because I was wrong and I mean I can
assure
you I I'm so confident that I'm right
about be
resilient understand human nature find
your way to ground truth be a prediction
engine but we'll see only the fullness
of time will
tell so what do we do with that what how
do you do you have a strategy for
unwinding this
it's going to sound very naive after
everything you've said but tell the
truth tell the truth change the culture
you know in terms
of look at the way that this format has
changed the way we
communicate the media empires of the
future are going to be built in the next
10 years and it's going to look like
something like this podcasters coming
together under one umbrella or various
media Outlets being formed from New
Media this is the future what we're
doing here did you know that the daily
wire made $200 million last year I
didn't know that but it doesn't surprise
me those guys are kicking ass bro I was
like God damn yeah yeah so trigger media
is going to be the next $200 million
company we'll see about that it's harder
to do in the UK so it might be a 50
million pound company we might move to
the us over time right exactly uh but
that's what I want to do
uh and part of the reason I want to do
that the main reason I want to do that
isn't to make $200 million it's to
change the way we have these
conversations I thought you were GNA say
a billion
dollars well like this chump change is
$200 million [ __ ] you know
trigonometry and what we do is always
been Mission driven first and I know the
only way to make the money I'll just
tell you that right now really yes why
is that it is so [ __ ] hard the only
thing I guarantee you said it earlier
new fights are coming your way the
stakes are getting higher the more money
you make
Mo Money Mo Problems that [ __ ] is so
[ __ ] real dude like that is just so
real so success is a game of attrition I
have to find a cooler way to say that
everybody gives up everybody gives up
really yes that's
it name a podcaster they're going to
give up Joe Rogan will get so rich one
day he's just gonna be like I don't
[ __ ] want to deal with this anymore
he's going to quit the the number he
doing it though I I use him only as an
example he's [ __ ] amazing and off
camera you and I were saying I think
he's the goat and look I want it to be
me I want to beat him I'm in this every
day to beat Joe Rogan but I want to
acknowledge the man is [ __ ] amazing
he's killing it he has set the bar very
high but ultimately I've just there the
number of um now save me from Warren
buffets I was G you have to name all the
basketball players and all the the money
guys Warren Buffett uh that's rare that
you get somebody that keeps playing the
game at that level dealing with those
kind of headaches for that long so yeah
people give
up the stats around companies that scale
are terrifying it's something like these
are directionally correct though not
specifically accurate uh 90% of all
companies fail to get to a million
dollar 99.8% of all companies fail to
get to 10 million it it is vanishingly
Slim the number of companies that do $10
million in Revenue because one you have
to have the right ideas but two you have
to weather so many storms and so much
boredom people will quit this is why to
me it's it's a a set of ideas that turn
you into an anti- fragile Warrior for
your cause and so when it gets hard and
you're revenue is declining the world's
making fun of you you made a real
mistake and it really cost you money and
Francis is rightfully upset with you and
your kid has a [ __ ] choir practice or
a recital it's a choir recital and if
you go to that choir recital you will
lose a million doll deal what the [ __ ]
do you do the vast majority of humanity
one they just can't face that they
really [ __ ] up and that their business
partner has a right to be mad at them
they can't deal with uh missing their
kids ban it's not worth it to them they
don't want to miss it and so they go do
that thing and they justify it and they
say this is more important and maybe it
is maybe I'm the [ __ ] madman but they
go to that thing and when they go to
that thing I don't I'm a [ __ ] machine
I didn't even have kids and that person
goes Tom you're wasting your life you
don't even know what Joy is cool I'm
still going to eat your [ __ ] lunch
and so maybe I will be on my deathbed
crying myself to sleep but remember I'm
the guy saying it's about impact it's
about who you're fighting for but
because I show up every day fighting for
people humans people that I know and
love and can visualize and dude now I've
been at this long enough because
remember the thing that is now impact
Theory University used to be Quest
University and so I've been at this game
for well over a decade 12 years 13 years
something like that so I've got [ __ ]
students that are like bro I built this
multi-million dollar business I can't
thank you enough bro I'm making
$150,000 and I never thought that I
would make more than minimum wage like
person after person after person after
person I know these [ __ ] ideas work
so
because I'm doing it for those people I
don't quit if I wasn't doing it for
those people I was just doing it for the
[ __ ] money why would I keep doing it
already got money that's a good point
that makes sense to me so yeah trigger
media is Mission driven always has been
always will be and I think we have an
opportunity to change the medium is the
message this is a different medium to
the way that this conversation has been
had up to now this is an opportunity to
get the truth out this is how a lot of
people are now getting educated about
what the world is and what's happening
you are not going to hear this
conversation on Fox News news or CNN or
MSNBC or anywhere else right and quality
over time will win I think uh so I
believe that we have to get these ideas
out there and then we'll see can we
change that culture or not that remains
to be seen But the media of the the
media empires of the future are going to
be built in the next 10 years there's no
question about that for me um and we're
going to build one of them it's
incredible I love that you have a
mission the mission I think revolves
around changing culture is that
specifically how you see it like we have
to get the ideas out there so if you had
to boil trigger media down to one core
idea because I have a feeling this is
going to feed into my new set of rules
here um what is the core idea that you
think needs to be injected into society
and if it's truth give me what truth or
how do you define that is it the ability
to predict like uh what's the core idea
you want to it's funny that you prefaced
it with that the idea is truth matters
okay truth matters and yeah I mean you
you say it all the time the ability to
predict the outcome of your actions or
to predict the future based on what
you're saying right accuracy about the
future um and more broadly you and I
have talked about this many times and
including in this conversation it's
about taking ideas that work and
rejecting ideas that don't if we start
there we have a lot of work to do in our
society right now let's start with that
let's clear out all this [ __ ] about
oh this makes me feel good therefore
it's true if we start there we're going
to make a hell of a lot of impact on
society based on what Thomas soul that
Thomas Soul quote the last 50 years have
been spent exchanging what what sounds
good for what works let's switch that
around let's make the next 50 years
about switching what sounds good for
what works and see what comes out on the
other end okay so you will be
unsurprised to hear that that is uh on
my list of things so just to reorient
everybody to the structure of the
conversation my goal in all of this was
to figure out okay as Empires decline
why do we get obsessed with gender I
thought the punchline would be what it
is which is we've pulled a lot of the
threads we're all sort of pushing back
on this idea of you're putting
constraints on me I don't want any
constraints not biology not anything uh
and ironically before I knew the culture
War even existed was trying to convince
people you're having a biological
experience not realizing that was going
to become a Battleground um so in that
context so we've just gone through like
what the bad ideas are um and I'm sure
it's the tip of the iceberg
but and and I'm going to run through
them really fast and then we'll get into
this new set of ideas so the problematic
ideas that I think cause the collapse of
any civilization any Empire uh Rome
included and I I literally watch a bunch
of documentaries on the collapse of Rome
uh specifically for this and this is
exactly what you see so you've got um
people start to believe that Prosperity
is a fundamental law of nature that's
just going to happen and they take it
for granted uh they begin to believe
that the group owes the individual
versus the individual owing the group
and so the group begins to um basically
take away from the individual so they
can distribute to the group a little
counterintuitive but that's the um
inversion that happens uh begin to
believe that redistribution is the
miracle instead of prosperity being this
hardfought thing that you cannot take
for granted uh they start to believe
that everything is a social construct
that there's no ground truth that we can
push back against nature it doesn't have
any fundamental laws uh diversity of
values of the same team is inherently
good we actually didn't talk talk about
that um but to encapsulate it quickly so
that we can get on to the the good stuff
um again to quote Thomas Soul nothing
has ever been taken as fact without uh
so little little evidence as diversity
being our greatest um advantage and he
went on to say that diversity is not by
default an advantage diversity is the
thing that we have to overcome I'll say
that I think to keep that comment from
becoming pathologized it's really
diversity of values that are the problem
ironically you want a diversity of
approach you want different mindsets so
you want uh Visionaries and executors
which will always have friction between
them you want um men and women in a
marriage is a great example you need the
friction between them to raise a child
well uh but diversity of values I think
is problematic so at impact Theory we
have a set of values that I publish and
I say hey here here is the culture at
impact theory if you don't like this um
this is not the place for you and we
will not hire somebody that does not
share those values so but whether
they're male female gay straight man
woman black white CH could not care less
uh I care not at all for whether we end
like if if this company ends up being
all black women I'm here for it as long
as we share values and we have all the
different idea sets and they'll
challenge each other and challenge power
and all that stuff word um so we have
happened to have a diverse group
visually but we didn't hire for that we
hired entirely for do we share values
and will will you buy into competing um
based on meritocracy and
ideas uh don't tear it all down sorry
they start to believe to tear it all
down is better than incremental
Improvement masculinity in aggression is
toxic becomes all about uh spending
money racking up debt printing money
okay now the new set of rules um
I'll run through them quickly and then
you tell me which one you want to dive
into so I think people need to seek
self-correcting structures I'll call
that the American experiment so it's
ideas that Force itself to spiral upward
um you have to want Dynamic tension
between opposing forces so left right is
the the easiest one you have to want
there to be a left and a right you have
to want that Dynamic tension I have
evolutionary reasons why I think that's
true um I believe that everybody should
have the Northstar of human flourishing
um you have to steer by results so if
our Northstar is human flourishing that
we're we try something but if it didn't
work we have to admit that it didn't
work and try something else need to
reward Merit even though it will yield
inequality because some people are just
smarter and better than others I [ __ ]
wish that wasn't true because there are
so many people that are smarter than me
uh freedom of speech absolute
Cornerstone you have to seek
disconfirming evidence which is part of
why you need freedom of speech uh you
need to reinstitute rule of law I
actually heard a really interesting
story from your partner Francis Foster
uh who said one of the things that was a
Hallmark of Venezuela was they started
to not impose um punishments because
that was right where right-wing
authoritarianism and so he he was like
it became the Myrtle capital of the
world and a whole bunch of other
horrific things uh so you do need to
reinstitute rule of law so going back to
this idea of we've pulled all these
threads of the sweater and it's now
falling apart you need structure and in
the constraints is the creativity um so
I think that's important and then
overhauling education so that everyone
is trained in useful ideas so that they
can maximize whatever skills and talents
they do have so even though it will be
unequal there's no reason that the the
idea starting line because our talents
unfortunately will always be unequal uh
but that the idea starting line can't be
equalized especially with the [ __ ]
internet go to YouTube the smartest
people in the world and I will not count
myself among them but the smartest
people in the world are giving their
best ideas away as fast as I can [ __ ]
talk on any subject you can possibly
imagine all for free all you have to do
is be able to access the internet uh and
PS if your country is clamping down in
the internet that's a red [ __ ]
Flag agree with all of that you want to
add no that I I think that you nailed it
exactly all right let's go into them
which which do you think are most
important I think they're all super
important it's like saying which of your
legs is more important I think you have
to rank order my right leg is more
important than my
left is it yes why do people so you are
[ __ ] smart why is
your initial reaction to not want to
rank order things I find in fact now I'm
going to talk to you you're a budding
entrepreneur yeah my friend you will
have to get fiercely good at rank
ordering everything agreed who's who's
better you or or Francis uh at what of
course it will be different at different
things but you're going to need to know
on everything that matters which one of
us is better who are your best employees
again along different dimensions what
tasks should you do first you you can't
do two things at once I'm pretty good at
that at this point I I
have you're going to rank order these
[ __ ] things least I'll give you two
answers one will sound glib because I
can't remember all of them okay fair
number one would you like to look at
them uh could do uh number two I do
think sometimes it's like it's the new
rules section yes uh
the but it's also like what is more
important to bake a cake flour or a bowl
where you kind of NE flower B bad
example uh flow or I'm going to be a
dick and just keep doing that of course
I understand your point your point but I
I yes I do though think that people
create a certain amount of paralysis all
right all right fine to stop you being a
dick there you go well I I [ __ ] can't
okay steer by results yeah right I mean
that's obviously super important but can
you steer by results if there's no rule
of law if there's [ __ ] people running
around stealing [ __ ] all around you I
mean you can try but without the rule of
law so I'll I'll give you the steer by
results to me is the ground truth which
you said is the thing that you're trying
to do I think you've already got it yeah
with the truth is ultimately the only
thing that's going to take you where you
want to go yeah so I think there's stuff
in here that follows from that if you
steer by results you will necessarily
reward Merit even though it creates
inequality right that that so you can
cut that one out actually you just need
to St a by results then that is a a
natural process okay it's interesting
there's something happening between the
two of us there's our World Views are
colliding right now I don't know if it
matters and so I'll touch on it briefly
and see if it seems like it's going to
go somewhere interesting um I I run into
this I think that the the very thing
that makes me a good entrepreneur is
that I am willing to speak in binaries
and rank order everything okay and I
think people get lost in the that
everything is interconnected because
that is true and it will also [ __ ] you
up why because you'll get lost in the
complexity and you won't boil things
down to what do I do with the next 15
minutes of my life and ultimately this
is the reason that the vast vast vast
vast majority of companies never make it
to a million dollars is
the person um doesn't understand the
physics of progress and what the physics
of progress forces you to do is accept
that you have imperfect knowledge but
you must act as if you have perfect
knowledge and then as you act with your
imperfect knowledge you so I'll explain
it this way you have two jobs job number
one is to intoxicate your team with
certainty because otherwise you can't
Galvanize a bunch of people which you
said the alpha male is the one that can
create you amongst the group okay the
only way to do that is to give them
certainty uh if you oh my God your
Oxford speech you said let me tell you
what xiin Ping is doing the only way
he's going to stay in power is if he
gives people the one thing they want
which is prosperity so it's like okay
cool we know that there are going to be
certain ideas that were they're actually
going to move the needle they're going
to move people forward and they're going
to be ideas that are not so we're going
to be in this Loop of I'm going to
intoxicate people's certainty I'm going
to tell you I'm going to give you
Prosperity I'm going to promise it and
cool but if xinping is actually going to
be successful he has to go is this zero
Co policy working people are starting to
Riot a lot I don't like this I'm going
to adjust so he has to have some
mechanism by which he's checking himself
so I've told everybody and know hey
everybody without question as if it were
divine statement zero coid and then it's
like oh [ __ ] it's not leading to
Prosperity I'm going to check that I'm
seeking disconfirming evidence okay [ __ ]
this isn't working I'm going to adjust
and hey everybody as if I never said
this other thing zero coid is stupid and
now we're going to unlock and we're
going to open so you have to intoxicate
people with certainty and you have to
constantly check yourself to see if
that's actually true and update your
thinking and so it is very difficult to
do but people that can't do it and most
people can't because they're so lost in
oh but it's all interconnected and all
of these things are important yes
[ __ ] I understand that but you
have to do a thing and PS you have to
tell people what thing they should be
doing and so if you don't tell people
we're doing this and my best guess of
how to get there is this so go do that
and then by the way your employees are
going to push back on you they're going
to [ __ ] test you and they're going to
see are you the right alpha or should I
be running this company because there is
one immutable truth if you're anything
like me and unfortunately I'm I'm not
Steve Jobs enough to just be like look
[ __ ] this is [ __ ] awesome what you
just said is dog [ __ ] go do what I said
which apparently is literally how he
talked uh I can't do that so I'm not
smart enough to have all the right
answers so I have to I have to let
people challenge me but if I'm not the
right person to lead now we're in
trouble so I have to let them challenge
me but I have to squash
Rebellion so anyway this is what happens
to people they get so lost oh maybe you
really are right that they are not like
no we're not [ __ ] doing that thank
you I heard your arguments I steal man
their arguments so I know they
understood and when they're right I just
go you're right boom we're instituting
that immediately MH but if it's I think
the wrong thing and now they're high in
their own Supply because maybe their
last three ideas I implemented right
away they're like no no no Tom you don't
understand I've got to be able to squash
that Rebellion mhm anyway I've got no
problem doing any of that word but this
comes down to being able to say this
[ __ ] thing is the thing we the the
the the the slogan is that I say to all
our team is the only reason we're all
here is we care about the outcome Yep
this isn't about you it's not about me
it's not about France it's not about
anybody it's about the outcome if what
you're doing is furthering that outcome
great if what you're doing is not
furthering that outcome we don't want to
hear yeah simple as that um steer by
results is basically that right so to me
that's number
one seeking disconfirming evidence seems
to me to be part of that too right
because that is what you have to do how
do you do that in your life life seek
disconfirming
evidence you know probably not well
enough because I wait for life to slap
me in the face and then I'm like oh [ __ ]
okay that wasn't good it's interesting
you have a Persona that makes me nervous
I could never adopt your persona which I
get is a reflection of who you really
are but on Twitter like you go hard on
people and I'm always like I'm too
afraid I'm going to change my mind like
two weeks from now when I get better
evidence that I'm way more gentle
um it depends what you're talking about
though I don't think you're going to
change your mind about the fact the
meritocracy Superior to diversity
artificially created I have a high
degree of confidence on that me too and
that's why I go hard at people who try
to substitute one for the other so you
only go hard on the things that you're
already like super high confidence and
then if I don't know about something I
don't say anything about
it yeah
however I somebody was uh trying to make
me look bad this morning on Twitter by
bringing up something I said at the very
beginning beginning of Co and presenting
it out of the historical context right I
said some things at the beginning of Co
that I don't agree didn't agree with by
the end of Co but what people forget is
it was a completely different situation
at the beginning to the one at the end
right you know the first lockdown I
supported I still would if it if it were
to happen again without prior knowledge
of what happened this time I'd be like
yeah let's let's see what happens here
let's be careful we don't know what this
is um but generally I only try I I try
very very hard and increasing harder and
harder as my audience gets bigger to
only talk about the things on which I
have a high level of confidence how do
you update your thinking then let's say
that you are supremely confident about
something how do you maintain the
stability so we've been talking a lot
about structures necessary so you need a
scaffolding of your thinking these
things are the the things that I hold to
be true um how do you open your mind to
something challenging a structural
belief uh so that you don't become
dogmatic but at the same time have a
stable belief system that you're willing
to defend I don't think I've thought
about it structurally and analyzed how I
do that
[Music]
um I listen to the people around me a
lot I don't always agree with them and I
like I what I really really like is
having smart people around me who I
disagree with like one of my really good
friends that I've become very good
friends with live lives here in La when
I go around to her house all we do argue
but we both really enjoyy it in like a
fun way yeah yeah yeah and and we have a
great time and you know we love each
other and whatever but but we disagree
on a lot because we have different
perspectives and we enrich each other
and we both say I need you you know so I
like being surrounded by people who
don't agree with me uh it's why Francis
and I work so well because we're
completely different people with
different perspectives different
political views different backgrounds
Etc uh and the rest of our team are very
different people as well let me
challenge in my own idea do you guys
hold the similar value sets of course
they won't map one to one but do you
hold similar value sets or even the
values you guys are wild no we have very
similar value sets yeah yeah I think
that will play out one time hard
work
[Music]
um Defiance Defiance yeah interesting
yeah we needed that to start we we're
phasing that out over
time but we need it we have why phas it
out uh why phas it out cuz
it's a it's a it's an oppositional
posture that we don't need you're saying
to the brand or to your
personality uh look maybe we're misusing
words here what I mean is when we
started we were like [ __ ] you yeah and
now we're like we don't need to be [ __ ]
you because we're we've grown so much
that we're not we're the mainstream now
it reads different yeah when you're a
big guy saying [ __ ] you yeah it reads
completely different and we don't need
it it's like we used to be like well the
mainstream media and now we have a
bigger audience than a lot of the
mainstream media do so it's kind of like
why would we be talking about them let's
just do our own [ __ ] let's make great
content you
know um so that would be one uh
Integrity Integrity has always been
number one for us you know how do you
treat people in your life how do you
treat you
know how do you treat your staff how do
you treat women all of this stuff these
are all like big red flags for me when I
see somebody who's who's different in
that way I'm like I'm staying well away
from this person you know um so
Integrity initially was Defiance uh
resilience every time something goes
wrong we're like okay how do we get
around this okay cool cool cool no no no
I get it it's bad how do we get around
this you know um I'm trying to think
what else and we like to
have a lot of freedom of opinion people
are allowed to express dissent or
disagreement or whatever as long as they
know that having heard that we're making
the decision you know which is what you
talked about earlier um haven't had
descent uh haven't had the Rebellion
anyway um but we'll deal with that when
it comes I look forward to
that yeah it's uh running a company is
is the ultimate test it is you're up
against the market you're the best thing
about running a company is the people in
the company
worning
it's they'll all drama just like
staggered so just when you think like
okay everybody's back on task now then
the next person and it it I mean when
you have a a group of people that are
together for a long time I mean you go
through birth you go through death you
go through cancer scares and [ __ ]
it's like a whole thing man it's a whole
thing and holding that together as you
scale is really really hard and that's
why I think that I'm so fish focused on
culture because you begin to realize Oh
wait we're so big at Quest we had 3,000
employees spread across the world and
they're all over the place and if you
don't have a culture that propagates the
ideas
they they won't all be able to have a
relationship with you like you will
scale to the point where most of your
employees only know you as the guy on
camera MH that's a trip and so how do
you navigate that how do you get the
ideas to spread the answerers culture
and so that's why whether it's in a
company whether it's in a family whether
it's myself how I think about me it's
like you have to have a set of things
that you're like these are the rules
that I'm going to operate by that my
family's going to operate by that my
company's going to operate by that I
want to see the world operate byh and
yeah rules and rules of thumb man those
are the and when I say rules of thumb I
mean the beliefs that you're like okay
when this happens you should usually do
this that kind of thing yeah you can't
have no rules as we've been talking
about for the last two hours yeah you'll
really be in trouble yeah do you want to
keep going through this uh if you've got
more to add that yeah I'm all for it
because I want to make sure that people
walk away knowing okay this is this is
how I need to position myself in order
to do well in this crazy
time I think I mean look every time I
look at it steer by results just goes in
my head that's what I see I think walk
me through how you do that so what
metric do you use when you're trying to
steer by
results that's an interesting question
um because in our industry you would
think it's clicks but it's not just
clicks because if you just care about
clicks you get to a very dark place very
quickly especially if you're Mission
driven right that takes away from the
mission so part of it is Mission part of
of it is financial goals Revenue growth
uh profitability growth uh part of it is
the vibe but the place I mean that's so
important the vibe in the business how
people feel about working there this is
to me really really important and then
there's also you know we on the cusp of
of going like properly mainstream now so
Audi boom which is a company that used
to post our podcast and sell ads for us
they've just uh announced a big drop in
sales it was announced on Sky News and
they were like this platform hosts blah
blah blah blah blah blah and
trigonometry we interviewed a guy called
Lawrence Fox recently who's a very
controversial figure in the UK every big
media Outlet in the UK wanted him and he
only wanted to do it with us wow and the
BBC and The Independent Newspaper live
reported from a trigonometry
interview so that's
impact uh we have people calling us up
and go oh hey I'm at the I'm at the
Conservative Party Conference uh a bunch
of people here listen to your stuff hey
I'm at the Labour Party Conference the
leftwing party in the UK we there's a
bunch of people who listen to your stuff
right uh we're changing we're changing
the culture where people are hearing
what we're talking about and then
they're going out into the world with
those conversations in their minds um so
yeah there there's a few different
metrics there it's interesting Lisa and
I say that laughter is a metric mhm to
get to that idea of what's the vibe how
are people feeling I think that's really
important this is to all my
entrepreneurs listening right now this
is where a lot of people make a mistake
they don't know what metric to look at
and you have to get very good at
identifying the metric that matters and
so yes at a high level everybody should
know to pay attention to revenue and
profitability um but there are going to
be more metrics than that as you get
more granular on the thing like each
thing is going to have its own metric
that really matters if you can't
identify the metric that is Meaningful
to adjust or you're not paying attention
to metrics at all you're not going to be
able to improve so I forget who said it
but what gets measured gets improved so
one be careful what you measure two make
sure that you're measuring things so
that you can
fishlyn
and when I compare it to um Jeffrey
Canada who I'm almost certain I
mentioned in our last interview uh he's
created these charter schools that are
unbelievably successful so it becomes a
question of well by what metric Tom are
they unbelievably successful and so the
ultimate metric to me obviously is um
the life satisfaction of the students
over a long period of time uh but in the
interim we're going to have to measure
something that is far more immediate so
graduation rates uh reading rates
mathematical literacy things like that
and he just crushes everybody on every
metric you could think to measure and he
puts people it he does he puts these
charter schools in other schools so
literally same building in terrible
neighborhoods he doesn't hand select
students it's all random so like if you
had twins maybe one of them goes to the
charter school and the other goes to the
normal school in the same building um
and so
that's somebody who's just steering by
results like how many of my students are
graduating how many can read how many
can do math um and I'm sure they have
more with like rules and politeness I
those I'm guessing at but um knowing how
you would have to get there in fact I I
know that they do this they use a ton of
like rules uh that you have to like do
the work you can't um like waste
somebody else's time like it's all hyper
regimented hyper structured there's a
clear set of rules rules people abide by
the rules or they get the [ __ ] out
like that's the path absolutely I'm
curious to ask you something let me hand
this back to you you you said something
about how my personality is scary is
that what those the words personality is
scary no I did not say that are you
talking about your persona persona yeah
yeah yeah in that you um you
engage with the negative comments on
Twitter you will retweet somebody be
like this is [ __ ] asinine I can't
believe he said that you you're very
um aidite in the way that you speak but
that's the like message you're like this
[ __ ] stupid yeah
uh that is yeah I would never it's also
a comedian thing I used to be a comedian
so when you get heckled your job is to
deal with it right so like somebody I I
tweeted something the other day and
somebody replied saying have you looked
in the mirror and I went why is my hair
off you know it's just like little jokes
you know to kind of like make fun of
somebody or make fun of something that
they've said and to diffuse whatever it
is that they've said right cuz that's
that's power it's like I haven't taken
you seriously and I've made fun of this
thing that you've said without any great
you know one of the impacts that my
friend with whom I argue a lot has had
on me is we have both become much more
chill about the way we communicate
online um why because you don't need to
convince them
anymore uh BEC for me I feel a sense of
responsibility to to be communicating in
ways that are more effective and
sometimes going too hard is an
Indulgence of your own emotion agreed so
I I try not to indulge that too much uh
and also one of the things I've really
notic and we talked about it um at a
party that you and I were at is what you
put out into the world is what comes
back to you so when I used to go hard in
the paint on Twitter or whatever like
yeah I used to get filed a lot you know
what I mean
uh now to now I'm much more chill and
it's rare for people to to be that way
with me and also doesn't land the same
cuz I'm like I'm putting good energy out
there so if you're being a dick that's
not CU of me that's cuz you're a dick
you know um yeah but it was interesting
that you mentioned that look you are
much uh I I think you're much less
aggressive than I am in many ways yes
it's interesting um in some ways
here's where I'm hyper
aggressive if somebody is [ __ ] with
my business yeah I'm very aggressive
because now you're [ __ ] with the team
you're [ __ ] with my mission so and
the way that people [ __ ] with my company
would be
um not just competitors obviously that
but more so like uh you're doing a
service for me and you're moving slowly
things like that on that I'm not mean I
don't want people to that's why I'm
saying aggression does not mean that
you're being mean aggression is like if
you can do it this morning don't wait
until the afternoon whereas most people
be like let's do it tomorrow I'll get
that all just had it today hey let's
have another call on Thursday why the
[ __ ] would we do that right now do it
right now share your screen pull the
thing up and so admittedly I'm sure
people played recordings of that I sound
exactly like I just sounded just now uh
that to me is so crazy that I very
impatient with things like that um I
love it I'm very aggressive with things
that I know are going to make somebody's
life better so the example that I think
would really people would be scandalized
to see what I was like in the earliest
days of quest because leas and I made a
decision that we were going to consider
felons for um a role at the
company and that meant that we ended up
having felons that were at the company
now it wasn't just like oh you're a
felon therefore we're going to hire you
it wasn't like that but it was like hey
put the word out whether you have felony
conviction or not we'll consider you for
employment and so we ended up having
Bloods and Crips working on the same
line and we had uh one guy I'm sure
there was more than one uh but we had
one guy that was he originally took the
job because he needed a front for his
drug money so he needed to be able to
show his parole officer see I have a job
uh but in reality he planned to make all
of his money off of selling drugs and he
told me that because he ended up I was
his is a very funny story so in the
interview process uh because we were
considering people with felony
convictions we have people lined up
around the building for interviews and
so I used to interview people multiple
people at a time you know how you can
just look at somebody and tell that
they're sharp MH I'm looking at this guy
and I can tell this [ __ ] guy's smart
he's not saying a word but he's mad dog
in me the whole interview and so I point
at him like
literally you you have anger management
problems and he just went ghost
white and he didn't say a word and I
said uh I want to take you for a walk
he's like okay so I took him for a walk
and I'm like look dude looking at you I
can tell you're sharp and so we started
talking about life and he was like um at
the end of all of it because I was like
look I'm going to give you a shot like I
can tell there's something here but you
can't bring that anger onto my floor if
you [ __ ] fight even one time you are
gone and he was he goes how did you know
so how did I know what he said how did
you know I have anger management
problems I came here from a courta
appointed anger management session and
he was like the fact that you could tell
he was like I I just I need to know how
you knew and I was I was like dude
you're [ __ ] like literally looking at
me like you want to kill me you're in
the job you staring at me like crazy
exactly and so I was like uh that didn't
really take a genius but honestly it was
more the willingness to be aggressive
the willingness to point at somebody who
you know is potentially dangerous
because I mean this was like people with
teardrop tattoos and which I asked means
they put in work for the neighborhood
which they will not come out and tell
you what put in work means uh but I'm
sure you can figure it out
when I know I'm helping people I am
shockingly aggressive and this is the
thing that my team here has been trying
to get on camera for a while which is
the side of me I only know how to bring
out on stage where on stage I'm like I
have 60 minutes with these [ __ ]
to change their life forever and
somebody's paying me a lot of money to
be here so I have this real sense of
urgency and so often times when I start
a talk I'm like hey we've only got 60
minutes and I'm going to change your
[ __ ] life but you you need to take
notes and you need to actually do this
[ __ ] and so it puts me in this very
aggressive stance which I love but it's
because I know I'm going to help them so
on Twitter I don't know I don't have the
same sense of like you're here because
you really want help I know what ideas
are going to help you
and yeah so anyway there there is a lane
in which I'm probably 10x as aggressive
as you but 90% of my life no that makes
sense
why be
aggressive why are you
[Music]
aggressive I don't know that I am that
aggressive anymore as I say I've kind of
softened the way I do it do you still
feel do you still think I am yeah
yeah defiant maybe not I never would
have categorized you as defiant so the
thing that you're feeling you may have
changed is probably
that but um for instance
you you will bring people on the show
that you know are going to um they have
a a belief that's not going to make them
look good yeah I have a real hard time
dragging people into those Waters
because I'm like H I don't want to see
this person do that to themselves which
is bad by the way and I'm trying to
change this is a weakness in my
personality uh you have no problem with
that my job is to facilitate say
political discussion because what we're
talking about is how to run our society
correct and my job is to bring people on
and do one thing and one thing only
which is to show the world what that
person truly thinks that is my only job
and I am meticulous and rigorous in
pursuing that goal and that means when
you come on my show my job is to keep
asking you questions until what you're
saying is
revealed truly in its boil down form to
the world I don't actually ever bring
people on to make them look bad I didn't
say that I know you didn't say that but
some people think that because for
example last year we were here we had
Sam Harris on the
show and we asked him about Donald Trump
and he said some things that send the
world
crazy um and that I didn't agree with
but I and people would come up to me in
Francis after that for still they do
like oh you got Sam Harris didn't you
and I'm like no I didn't get Sam Harris
I didn't want to get Sam Harris I like
Sam I respect Sam even though I really
strongly disagree with what he said my
job as the interviewer is to show the
world what this person thinks about this
issue about which they want to speak I
don't ever take people to a place they
don't want to go I don't ever ask people
questions about things they've asked me
not to talk about right but my job is to
find out exactly what you think and to
show the world that so our mission is
somewhat different your mission is help
people people uh share good ideas about
how they should be Etc right that's not
my mission my mission is to show people
what somebody thinks um and I regret
that the sometimes the impact of that is
that our guests look bad and the first
thing I did when s that thing happened
with Sam the number one thing Francis
and I did is reach out to Sam and say
look we're really sorry that this is how
this has gone down it wasn't our
intention we were not the ones who put a
clip out makes you look extra bad none
of that has to do with us we're grateful
you came on the show we appreciate your
time you're an absolute gentleman
however when you interview people in you
know it's called trigonometry for a
reason when you interview people about
contentious subjects uh you know the
world is going to take a view on what on
what they say and that is the nature of
cultural and political debate yeah facts
number one the other thing about
aggression is I you know you mentioned
me being good at debating I mean
debating is about getting to the very
root cause of what you're saying right
in order to defeat an idea that you're
advancing I have to crystallize it down
and go that's what this person is saying
here's why it's wrong right and flip it
that sometimes requires a kind of a
tenacity and an aggression to it um and
plus it's more entertaining that way
yeah there's no doubt about that yeah I
mean like if you're watching two boxers
fight you don't want them to go you you
want to see him going for it speaking of
two boxers fighting you had Sam and Eric
Weinstein on the show um this will Air
after your episode okay so uh how did
that go those two I respect ferociously
I've gotten reasonably close to Eric um
I don't know Sam as well but had Sam on
the show
recently uh and just every time I'm with
him even though again there are things
that he and I don't agree on um but I
really respect Sam and I I worry that
the world has some portion of the world
a very terrifyingly large portion of the
world has sort of bald him up and thrown
him away as somebody who can help them
think through very hard problems I would
say he's still one of the first people I
reach for that doesn't mean that I agree
with everything that he says but it does
mean that I I want to hear what he's got
to say um how did that conversation go
it was awesome uh we talked about Israel
and Palestine for about two hours uh and
then we did a did they have uh different
yes views on it
they did yeah and one of the things that
we were keen on is that while look from
a Content creation perspective
disagreement is always helpful yeah that
isn't we didn't set it up as a navigate
it well yeah we didn't set it up as a
debate we didn't Market it as a debate
that's not how it's
presented and there was disagreement and
there were points at which I had to go
okay stop we're doing it like this now
um but it was very very interesting
conversation very productive I feel like
went ped a lot and then we as you know
we do a section for our local supporters
which goes behind a pay wall and in that
section we talked a little bit about the
last interview Sam's falling out with
Brett who was Eric's brother there was a
whole you know the IDW the intellectual
dark web and all of the stuff that comes
out of that so there was a whole
interesting conversation about you know
whether Israel would have happened if
Trump had been in power whoa you know
hear that part oh of course you do
everybody does that's why you have to
subscribe to our locals um so a lot of
cool stuff happened a lot of it it was a
great conversation two Brilliant Minds
what made you want to bring them
together why didn't you ball up Sam like
so many other people and say ah Trump
derangement syndrome not worth listening
to his brain is broken the number of
people that have said that Trump broke
Sam's brain I'm I think I'm able to
compartmentalize things
uh about people I
mean I I have a family dad mom three
younger sisters who I love all of them
they all have different opinions about
stuff they all don't agree with each
other they don't agree with me on lots
of stuff but that doesn't mean
that for example I have been outspoken
on my view of what's happening in
Ukraine in in in my veh support for
Ukraine's right to defend itself Etc my
dad takes the completely opposite
View and to me it's an emotive issue and
to him it's an emotive issue but my dad
is one of the smartest most aidite human
beings that I've ever been around so am
I going to throw that out because Russia
broke his brain well that would be
insane right we have to I mean part of
what we're doing here and this medium
being the message is you and I you know
earlier earlier today I when I love you
I respect you I learn from you blah blah
I have no [ __ ] idea what you talk
about that is the model on which we have
to operate and I respect Sam I think he
was very courageous raising some really
controversial issues back in the day
he's one of the first
people that uh brought people's
attention to woke ideology being a big
problem as a left-wing liberal guy uh he
has a lot of credit in the bank with me
a lot of credit in the bank now you know
there are some people who have gone
completely off the rails and you're
going well there's not much that we can
connect around I don't feel that was
some at all now do I agree with what he
said about Trump no do I agree with some
of the co stuff that he said at point no
I think his by the way his take on it
that he put out on this podcast recently
was gave some Nuance to the thing which
is kind of like I had certain opinions
in different stages that evolved over
time but I got nailed for having those
opinions at a different time essentially
right um but I don't throw people away
unless like they've really really really
gone completely off the deep end in a
direction I don't like and I also
thought I hate people I hate to see
people ganging up on people I hate to
see people bullying people I hate people
who um who like to pile on people in a
really abusive and horrible way and I
didn't I thought what Sam said was wrong
but I thought he was badly treated um
and interestingly one of the final
things he says in that second section of
the interview on locals is the reason
I'm back here with you guys is you
behaved in a highly ethical way around
that situation and for us that the
reason we did that it was not strategic
it was because we believe in behaving in
an ethical way and having Integrity so
um yeah I mean it never occurred to us
that we wouldn't speak to Sam or you
know Sam is canceled now we don't really
think like that yeah no I love that I
think that that's really important and I
I have been saying for a long time now
um that I don't understand why people
are looking for reasons to ignore other
people to not listen to them to not hear
them out I'm looking for reasons to
learn from
somebody I'm going to guess that that
has to do with I'm very confident in my
ability to parse through difficult ideas
it takes me time and I wish I was faster
and that's why I would defer to you in a
debate not myself like if you leave me
alone with the ideas long enough I feel
that I'll get somewhere fruitful um but
it it's going to take me time
and uh so I'm very confident in my
ability to say you can have a really
smart person tell me something really
[ __ ] stupid and I'm going to run it
through my filter of is this usable will
is this more or less likely to to
accurately predict the outcome of my
behaviors if less likely I will reject
if more likely I will at least try it
out and see what happens um so I have a
feeling that people get lost in the
sophisticated ideas the they just
there's so much coming at them so much
velocity information that they just need
a reason to reject people to shut them
down uh and then Feeling Righteous I'm
right he's wrong that makes me feel
smart because I used to think he was so
much smarter than me and now I know he's
dumb I saw so many comments like that I
used to think Sam was smart now I know
that he's dumb and it's like I worry
that that's them patting themselves on
the back oh I'm not as dumb as I thought
I was I'm smarter than Sam Harris um
super dangerous also I'll be interested
so I'm going to give you my take on
what's really going on with Sam that's
dangerous you just talk to him so you
may have a way better idea but I put a a
tweet thread out and this was one of the
Tweet threads that made me realize
getting into like quote unquote
political think I'm just never going to
do it's
so boring to me like I tried to really
give people what I thought was a super
thoughtful useful breakdown that if you
understand his way of thinking that you
still don't have to agree with it but
understand how he's come to it because
then one you can think through these
things better in the future in anyway
people were just like no Trump broke his
brain it's like Jesus Christ like at
least address the argument so this is my
interpretation of Sam
MH
Sam Sam has a trip wire in his mind that
says if this is an existential threat
then there is nothing that I won't do to
stop the existential threat from coming
through as long as it's not another
existential threat
and so it's like if you believe that
that Trump could end Humanity then
everything he says makes sense but
everybody wants to say
that that that wasn't the context of his
comment that they were saying that he
was saying it as if that's what he
thought we should have done so
everyone's like yeah if the thing was a
hundred times more lethal then yeah it
would make sense yes mother that's his
[ __ ] point is
that if this thing is an existential
threat then we should act in this way he
believes Trump is an existential threat
and so my point is yo what do we do when
we can't agree on when we're actually
under that level of threat or not that
is a terrifying question that is where
people need to figure out yeah how do we
what's the metric by which you judge
success what's the metric by which we
judge something where we can't see into
the future um that this actually is an
existential threat how do we navigate
that CU this is going to happen again
for
sure so that's where I was like yeah I I
think the problem was Sam's argument is
Trump isn't an existential threat not
existential it's interesting because you
and I have come to the exact same
conclusion which is I think the reason
Sam felt the way he did about spoke the
way he did about Trump and Co to the
extent that he did is that he assesses
the threat of those two things or did
assess them in a a completely different
way to most people the problem with that
is that you know if I ran in here and
said well if you don't move that cup
we're all going to die and then you
refused and I shot you yeah that kind of
be that' be a pretty big [ __ ] problem
yes right
so uh I think a lot of people felt that
he was massing the threat and as a
result asking or prop know suggesting
things that were inappropriate to
suggest in that situ situation uh which
is my view I also to steal man the other
argument against Sam I don't necessarily
share it well I don't know let me say it
first and then I'll I'll think about
whether I share or not is
that there is a certain kind of person
who is extraordinarily well educated
well- read
sophisticated smart
refined
um you know aware of the complexity of
the world who just finds Donald Trump
personally
obnoxious and that that obnoxiousness
bleeds through into the factual analysis
of Trump's Behavior which is where the
threat Mis assessment comes from some
people might argue so it's not a logical
reaction to the actual threat that Trump
poses it's a reaction to his borish and
to his um I was this kind of like the
way he speaks you know he's not
sophisticated he's he's not he doesn't
sound educated I don't know whether he
is or not uh I don't think Trump is
stupid at all but but that is the sort
of thing that people like to say and you
know California is a place there's a lot
of people who think like that um so I
think that that's why a lot of people
react to Trump the way they do and as we
talked about earlier I think
his he's prepared to say the ugly truth
in a way that makes it even
uglier well said and people don't like
that um however I do think as I said
earlier
that given a beautiful lie and an ugly
truth that is made even uglier if that
is what's on the
ballot I'm going with the truth and I
don't give a [ __ ] how ugly it sounds you
know uh and that is not position that I
would have held in 2016 I just think the
nature of the problems we're now facing
is so much greater than it was back then
and I warned about this I said to people
if you allow this woke ideology to get
out of control you're going to get
people who are going to come along and
go look at this look what they created
and the vast majority of most normal
people are going to go okay
I'm with you because at least you're
willing to be honest at least you're
willing to try and deal with the
problems that that have been
created uh I think there's going to be a
backlash against what has happened now
I've been and this is what I was saying
at the time I was like I'm not against
wokeness cuz I'm on the right I'm
against wokeness because it's going to
cause a right-wing backlash and it's a
bad idea in and of itself too um so I
think in in that respect
um that is I think where the Sam
situation came from um and like I said I
didn't agree with him but I think he has
lots of other valuable things to say and
by the way in the conversation that we
had with
Eric he brought up a thing that people
aren't talking about may maybe true or
maybe not people can make their own
judgment about it but he was like look
Israel Palestine is not about Palestine
it's about something
else tell me more it's about
Jihad these people are not upset because
they care about oppressed Palestinians
they are jihadis who see the west and
Israel as the enemy to be wiped out and
that is what motivates them and
therefore we have to calibrate our
response to that that is not a point of
view that you hear a lot but it is a
point of view that I think is
valid and uh Jihadi is somebody who
believes they're fighting God's War
yes God wants this enemy wiped out yes
you were doing God's work if you go do
that and martydom in the service of
jihad is the greatest achievement you
can have therefore to take your own life
and give it for that is the greatest
good the loss of civilian life is
irrelevant because if uh if if a good
Muslim dies in the service of jihad he
go straight to
paradise and if you're not a good Muslim
or if you're not a Muslim your life
doesn't matter because you're an
Infidel uh that changes the calculus and
The Game Theory of Everything immed
immediately and that's a valuable
perspective whether it's you know
whether you personally think it's
correct or not I think it's a valuable
Dimension to this conversation that has
to be taken into account and Sam is
somebody who provides an immense level
of clarity and has done from an early
point in this conversation um about that
issue which is super important I think
yeah he recently released a podcast
about uh I think it's like the the
problem with moral equivalency or
something like that last couple
days yeah is uh he is a very clear
thinker whether you agree or disagree he
gives you the arguments so clearly so
concisely you can decide for yourself
whether you think he's right or wrong he
certainly isn't uh wishy-washy or um
trying to use linguistic tricks like he
is this is what I think this is why I
think it that's one of the reasons that
I um there are precious few public
thinkers that are so clear in their
thinking Thomas Soul being another one
um Sam Harris being one where they they
can just lay out their arguments like
step by step so that you can piece it
back together it's it's really pretty
extraordinary and that brings up a point
that Eric made in that second section of
the interview on locals which is that he
when we were talking about is there a
way to kind of repair the intellectual
dark web which fell apart you know a lot
of people would argue just because there
were too many male egos you know
fighting it out duking it out um but he
was like Eric said something which I
think was beautiful and I can't remember
the example he used it was a very
beautiful point and beautifully made
which was about the fact that this
doesn't belong to
us this group of people who who are
prepared to think out loud in public it
doesn't belong to us it belongs to other
people and we can't let internal
[ __ ] get in the way of that service
to others and I thought that was a very
important message and for Sam and Eric
to sit in the same room and for for us
to talk about that I was very proud of
the fact that you know and who knows my
hope is that that's the beginning of a
of a beautiful rekindling of friendships
and all of that it might not be and the
way the world's going probably isn't
going to be but I would love for that to
be the case I would love for people who
used to be friends to become friends
again I would love for people who used
to hash out really really difficult
ideas in the public eye which is so hard
to do in the modern world so hard so so
hard you know and we pride ourselves on
talking about difficult issues openly
but the number of times we finish a
conversation now and we go okay well
here's what I would say if it wasn't on
camera you know because people are
terrified to speak openly in public and
it's dangerous it genuinely is dangerous
because a lot of people feel like it's
one
slip and you're done one slip and you
are Sam Harris essentially
right
I I really really believe that we move
forward as a society when we're able to
have really difficult conversations with
really smart people without without that
you know uh with good intentions and
good faith uh it's really important it's
really important so I hope that you know
who knows but I really hope that happens
I love it we'll leave it there
Constantine kissen thank you so much
working people follow you uh head to a
YouTube channel trigonometry there it is
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take care peace to learn more about
these complex topics check out this
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