What's up, Miles? How are you? Hello, Joe. We were just talking about cleaning and hanging and Singapore hanging. Now, is that the new one?

No, it's always, always been caning as one of the forms of capital punishment. But they they still they actually hang for drugs.

What is Singapore like? I've never been that seems like a strange place because it's relatively wealthy. Right. Yes. And very upscale and very nice, but also ruthless.

You know what happened in like my generation, I've witnessed it go from there. Well, the first well in my lifetime. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So it's one of those success stories of nation building. But it's it's kind of like, you know, those snow globes. The perfect snow globes. Yeah. Yeah. When you like, turn it over and like everything kind of sprinkles. That's what it feels like living in Singapore. For me it was I had to get out.

It's just it's a bit sterile. It's perfect, but it's too perfect. It's almost like there's a somebody called it wants Disneyland with the death penalty, which is pretty good.

And you get the death penalty for things like drugs. Right. Just possession pass like maybe twenty five grams or 25 milligrams or something. Marijuana trafficking.

So if you have an ounce of marijuana, how many grams is the conversion? I don't know. I I haven't converted to 20 years this 20, 20 grams in an ounce. So I got an ounce is a good amount of weed, but two ounces of weed. You're dead.

Yeah. Yeah. By hanging two ounces. Wow.

That's insane. That's weird. You can go down the street and buy that at a store. You know, you just show your driver's license that you're over 21 and you buy that store in Singapore. They'll kill you for it. Right. How many people would kill for pot?

I I don't I don't know about that. But I do know like one time they actually executed a Australian citizen who was on transit. So you didn't even get all your board. He was just kind of carrying the drugs on transit.

Well, they found him. Oh, yeah. I was hanging out with you.

And what would you member would condra? It was you selling drugs. He I he was carrying quite a baby was definitely trafficking. Jesus Christ. Just hung them. Zero, zero tolerance policy.

That's great.

How did it go from third world? The First World so quickly? I guess the founder of the country, while not the founder, the founding prime minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, is probably one of the world's most famous modern statesmen. He he was resolute, like, you know, weeded out corruption. He was kind of like very, very tight controls on free speech, but very much a sort of neo liberal economic policies. So attract a lot of foreign investment.

Right. Because the highest income tax bracket is like maybe 13 percent. It's very low. There's almost no welfare, at least in the sense of how we understand welfare. But there's a lot of it's a hybrid system. So there's there's a lot of like zero capital gains taxes, zero state taxes, very easy to set up a business. So he managed to attract a lot of foreign businesses to set up their multinational corporation headquarters in Asia, because the other alternative would be maybe China, but China would probably end up stealing all your, you know, your your your corporate secrets, your intellectual property.

But Singapore is billed as this is the country that protects rule of law.

Also English.

He kind of made everybody speak English with the working language. So if he wanted to set up business in Asia, that was your place to go. You got to like, you know, if you if you want to attract investment, you say, like, what's in mine, what's in my region and how can I be? How can I have a competitive advantage? So that was that was how simple really developing. And, you know, just gained a lot of traction as a state.

The average American knows Singapore because they're too the Gore team. And now it's that stupid movie. Which movie? Crazy, Richard? Oh, crazy rich Asians, right?

Right. I never saw that. Was it good?

I didn't like it cause I don't like rom coms. Oh, I'm like, come on. The premise is like a girl. An American Asian girl is like dating this guy from Singapore. He she doesn't know he's rich and she finds out on the plane there. It's like the most bullshit thing. It's just conspicuous consumption. I mean, it's it's got some you know, the city looks beautiful. And in fact, I kind of grew up with some people that that lived that lifestyle.

But I just don't like that kind of movie. It's it's a chick flick.

A chick flick. You're not into chick flicks.

Your Instagram is hilarious, by the way. It's very exciting. Don't Twitter, Seagram, your Twitter.

OK. I give them to you. Sometimes your Twitter feed is really good.

It's both insightful, but also very funny.

Yeah, I try to play both sides. But the problem is like, you know, I think I think today there's a bit of a if you're if you're a girl and you're you're kind of funny. There there's a bit of a sense that people are really taking that seriously. I've been told to tone down on jokes. Who told you that? Well, I'm also I run I run us major non-profit organization.

And I won't tell anybody what it is to be on adult. It's a really well, it's kind of right up your alley. You know, it's it's a organization that that really tries to promote pluralistic thinking. And, you know, basically exporting ideas to that part of the world that it's often censored. And you have narratives that are just not, you know, not exposed to people, not exposed to the Middle East. So, you know, we we thought, you know, we spent like, what, eight trillion dollars in the war on terror.

And what was the result? Right. Like, we we marched in and say, like, we're gonna bring freedom and democracy to people. But if there were no cultural institutions to kind of nudge people to understand why they should value freedom and democracy, is it really a surprise that it failed to take root there? So that's what, you know, we basically were of organizations call ideas beyond borders. And it's kind of self-explanatory. You know, we basically take acquire the rights to books that are not available there, translate them into Arabic for free.

And then we just like load it up on library site. Anyone can basically access that, download it. And we do Wikipedia to select 10 percent of all Wikipedia is in Arabic of English, Wikipedia +0. So we basically try to, you know, like, for example, George Orwell doesn't exist in Arabic. Right. So if you look it up. Would you even understand what the word really means? Right. Yeah. So how did you get involved in this?

My co-founder is Iraqi refugee and he grew up under Saddam. And it's it's I met him when I was in grad school, and I was really compelled by what he was talking about. You know, just like somebody who grew up in Singapore, too, we don't really have freedom of speech. Right. So the issue was that, like for me, I just felt like growing up, I was not. I was kind of like, all right, you know what?

My issue is felt like there was no freedom of thought, freedom of speech in Singapore. The government is kind of control everything. Sorry. Give me a second. My heart rate was like so high because I'm super dragging this stuff.

Is that what it is? Yeah. I was worried. You were nervous. It like were drinking.

Oh, my God. I'm sorry. It's called back. How many do you have? Well, my second one, you weigh eight pounds down, doing it down. So you're so tiny. This is so much you. Are you gonna. I know. I know. You're gonna be the first person on the show.

No, no. Please don't. Sorry. I mean, this stuff is like a lot of caffeine. I'm fucking with it.

Sorry was my second one. I hadn't really. You have your second ones of those.

You. You probably weigh like 80 pounds or. And. Come on. Sublime under five pounds. Yeah.

Any person. Right. But you're very small. That is a lot. Also heating me up right now. Sorry. Yeah. Your heart rate's great. I know. I can feel it. It's like I can see words.

What do they look like? What color are they? I don't know. Red. It's it's it's getting crazy. Sorry. Sorry about that. Just take some deep breaths.

Hang yourself down. I know. Did you drink that to get pumped up for the show?

This is my pre-workout. So when I when I did my morning workout, I drank one. And then I was like, you know what? I don't really sleep that much last night. So I might need up. Oh, my God. And then I did. Sorry.

I think people come in here. They're on Adderall. And that's always the weirdest one, because I use likes. You've got to slow down, like run different paces. Not you.

I need a downer. I need a definite need a downwards pot. But pot doesn't work on me.

Overwrites what kind of pot? Any. I bet the pot.

We have a work on you up to 50. I've done 55 mg edibles. That's ridiculously low.

I do 200. Every time we go to the airport, we eat 200 mg. Yes. Okay. But I'm like Joey, a thousand. All right. Maybe I just haven't got my game yet.

He gets a pot. Doesn't work. Are you okay? But I. I so far have been unable to respond to. Really? Yeah. Mm hmm.

In smoking it or eating it or both.

Both. Jamie is with you with the eating. He's got some weird genetic disorder that doesn't it doesn't work with him at all. He can take a thousand edibles and just hang around people.

Yeah, but then. So that's a thing. Like people are immune. Some people are yet to see it. It's not.

Some people get withdrawls, too. You know, I've I've talked to people that get actual physical withdrawals from marijuana. And I used to be really skeptical about that. But these are people that actually trust and they're like, well, I would you know, when they would go on tour, like, if they have to go places and they didn't have pot, they'd get literally they'd get shaky. They feel weird. And then they realize, oh, this is my body's withdrawing from THC.

Apparently it's very rare, but common enough so that it's in the literature. They really have documented people that have like a physical response to withdrawing from marijuana.

Yeah, I'm I mean, I'm looking forward to more research being done on this anyway. Yes. Yeah. We're headed there. Yes. But then Trump recently said something about trying to. I know.

I'm surprised he was comparing the way they handled drug dealers in China with swift support.

Fair trial. Yeah. Was he saying Singapore? No. But but does all the dancing reports with swift, fair trial and the death penalty is what he said? Yeah.

There's a resurgence of this in Asia. You see it in the Philippines as well. So, yeah, tardies. She has this extra judicial drug war that he's been launching.

So it's I understand the concern with the plight. I understand that people are really worried that people getting addicted to drugs ruin their lives, devastates families, people dying of overdoses from fentanyl and all these different hazards that are associated with drug use and drug drug dealing. I understand that. But this sort of archaic way of handling in death penalty talk and 2020.

I know it's in one country completely decriminalized all drugs. It was Portugal.

Yeah. Yeah, they had their results lo everything. Lower incidence of HIV infection, lower drug addiction, lowered overdoses, lower everything, lower crime rate. I just don't.

It's just messy. It's not like if there was one thing you could do, OK? If we do this thing, then no one gets addicted to drugs and no one dies from overdoses. Well, then you do that thing.

But there isn't that legalization that no one would see from overdose.

They certainly would, though. People definitely will die of overdoses if you make drugs legal across the board. The one thing that you do that's good is you stop all the flow of money into illegal drug sales. So all the people that are selling drug or most of it, at least all the cartel money, all that stuff goes away because the cartels are making billions and billions of dollars selling to the United States and other countries and Salto. And they're doing it because it's illegal, because it's a business they can capitalize on that American businesses are not capitalizing on.

And violence goes down, too, I'm assuming, right? Well, they really didn't.

It there's a correlate. I mean, there's if you go back to what happened in the United States during prohibition, what it did is pop up organized crime. It propped up organized crime in a pretty spectacular way. And it was because there was a massive amount of money to be made selling alcohol. The desire for alcohol didn't go away. The legality of it went away. Right. Right. So illegal sales went through the roof and the people that were selling it were criminals.

I just think it's part of the human spirit. You know that if you say you can't have something. Yes. We'll just there's that all Arabic proverb that which is prohibited.

It's always wanted. Yeah.

And whenever you kind of like, you just drive it underground.

If you if you try to ban it, the whole spirit of punk rock of like f you to the system, that's just lies and almost, you know, every human heart, we actually see that with our books, for example, you know, a lot of books are actually like transmitted on these telegram groups in Arabic books like that.

Sam Harris writes. You know, Richard Dawkins, these kinds of ideas that are really super censored in the Middle East. So, you know, that's kind of the gap that we're trying to plug right now. It's that since books are not available in that language. I think this is crazy statistic. More books are translated between English and Spanish in one year than English and Arabic in a thousand years. While it's kind of crazy that it's kind of crazy.

So the exposure to those ideas. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. The only other options get these people to learn English, which is far more difficult. Of course.

Of course. And you know, your your average person living in a Syrian refugee camp isn't going to learn that quickly. Right. You gonna meet people where they are. Right. So I think the statistic when we first started 10 percent of English, Wikipedia was actually in Arabic, which means that every time, like, for example, let's say you're like, oh, Jamie, go Google this. Right. And and and you expect an answer. It's just it's just the tip of your fingertips.

It's so it's so baked into modern life. Now, we don't even, like think twice about it. But imagine if, like you live in RLC, Saudi Arabia and like, okay, let's just Google it ten out of every ten times one time, there's no answer because the page doesn't exist or, you know, just the word feminism doesn't exist in Arabic. So you can look at what secularism doesn't exist. It's kind of it's how do you expect people to to kind of break out of their of their mindset, of their indoctrination?

You know, and it's it's not we're not saying like this is a top-down thing. What you have to read this. It's that I just want to live in a world where being ignorant is a choice for everyone, because there's a choice for us. Like, let's say like we know we're now you're like Dom. And just just like basically you spend your nights watching The Bachelor or like, you know, whatever it is, it's like, I know Stateville.

I do, too. I do too. But I know I'm judging, but I know it's it's it's they they also are into interesting things.

But I know also people do consume mindless nonsense. My friend Tim.

But Lucy Isaura does. I'm calling you out saving him. Yeah. You know. You know, he was that. But which when the female bachelorette. He watches both of them. Oh God. I only know they're still going on because I'm at the checkout line. No. Yeah. I'm like why is that there.

It says dranes that people are even interested in the. Oh, no. It's a weird thing. Very weird thing. Yes. That ignorance would be a choice. Would be nice, right? Yeah. So. So what you're saying is that these part parts of the world, one of the problems of getting them to shift their perception of the world is that they're not exposed all the great works. They're not exposed to the different ideas, different ideas and different different debates.

And they've a monoculture. So monoculture because of societies, they have religions, they have ways of life that are just so deeply entrenched. Right. And then you also have a really, really heavy censorship, both from your authoritarian government and also from your religion.

You know, the first word, for example, the first word in the Koran is actually read.

But they really mean just read this one thing. And, you know, just the sort of like the habits of a free mind are not really cultivated. And also, when you're taught growing up not to question things and in part, I understand, because I think when you grew up in an Asian household with, like, you know, tiger parents, there's this sense of like, you don't question my authority, you know. So it permeates culture from a very, very young age.

And imagine, like if you kind of grew up in that environment, you're going to internalize all those things. And that's why it kind of you know, it follows you over time. So when you were in school, you're taught no questions. Is this you know, it's not like here. It it's like there's no such thing as a stupid question, Chad.

There are in Asia, like there's there are stupid questions over here, too. But you're told you're at least told that were given Chad a break.

Yeah, but I understand what you're saying. And that must be really interesting for you to go from this one. Fairly restrictive environment to a fairly open environment. Correct. And did did that shift that happened in new and being exposed to all these different. I did. Did that spark this desire to help other people sort of expand their their their ideas and what they're exposed to?

Yeah. Because what I felt like a fish out of water growing up in Singapore. I was always the person that like the teachers had to call. You know, your daughter's asking me questions. She's disrupting the class. What kind of questions? All right. I went to Sunday school, too. I was like I was that kid who was just like, you know, excuse me, but why? Why did the dinosaurs. What why is in the Bible that the dinosaurs and.

And human beings walked, you know, basically like days apart when like we know from science that, you know, it was millions of years and fossil, you know. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. And they were like, just keep her out. We just rather not come to Sunday school. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

No, no answers. There was no one that tried to like sorted through and say, listen. Must be that God was testing people. And this is why that's what my mom would say.

Really. But in class, it's just you know, it's how there's no there's no culture dialectics of having dialogue and refining your positions. Is that it comes from authority? Right. This is a very Confucian culture. So it's like, well, I am your teacher. So it is the way it is. Right. And OK, that's one level of it. And if you say grow up in the Middle East, asking a question could be death.

Right. If you if you're even remotely like, say, in Saudi Arabia, especially remotely reveal that you might be having atheistic thoughts. That's that's like we're talking about different scales and degrees of censorship and consequences for that. And I think when I met my co-founder, Faisal, you know, I'll say, okay, I guess I have. Hey, I had issues with the country I grew up in. But for him, it was he ended up almost being killed by al-Qaida for just like starting a blog, talking about, you know, the importance of secularism and countering violent extremism.

Really? Yeah. That's how he came here as refugees. So I'm like, oh, shit. Maybe there are, you know, how did he almost kill by al-Qaida?

Well, because when when the U.S. invaded Baghdad and he was living in Baghdad at the time and al-Qaida took over his neighborhood, once there was a void, Saddam was ousted. And he was kind of like. You know, roaming around and like telling kind of tell me you saw me. Certain things, OK. You know, like this is where al-Qaida is. This is cell mate. My friend here has been radicalized. And I kind of knew they put him on a hit list, you know, because he was not sympathetic to their cause.

And so, you know, up on the deathless his brother was killed. Just a horrible story. Bridget actually recently interviewed him on a podcast. And and I get the sense that like, oh, shit, like the consequence of seeing what you think there is like at least in my case was just like, hey, maybe I might go to jail. Right. In Singapore. Well, but in Iraq, it was death.

I think it's hard for people in America to really grasp what that environment must be like, because we're so accustomed to this idea of freedom of speech.

And it says, no, we're not real. Yes. It's so ingrained. You rebels are appreciated and tolerated here. You know, they're rewarded.

Yeah. It's the whole maverick thing, I think. You know, as long as America still can celebrate mavericks and tolerance, not just tolerate them, but actually celebrate them, you know, we're we're gonna be fine. Right. Yeah.

And hopefully hopefully the thing is that if it exists the way it exists in other parts of the world, it can exist like down here, like the worst cases of human behavior when you see it.

You know, any form of dictatorship or control or propaganda or control by the state or by industry, that stuff that you see in other countries as human beings in 2020. I mean, ah, we would like to think that our Constitution, Bill of Rights and all of our ideals and what this country was founded on is going to keep it from deteriorating like that. And most likely it will. But the reality is those people in Iraq are human beings in 2020, and they're living in a completely different way than we're living right now.

At the same on the same timeline, these things did not go well there. And they're stuck in this horrible situation where they are controlled by these religious fanatics and they are stuck. And there's not a lot that they can do other than escape. Right.

And, you know, right now also, like with the rise of China, they're also starting to like basically some form of like electronic tyranny. Right. They're able to says really censor the Internet in a way that's been unprecedented. You can't access Facebook, Wikipedia. None of the none of these things that you and you and I can just like open on our apps can be accessed in China. So the way they just like control information and now exporting those same tools to other authoritarian countries in the world is that part to me is dangerous because, you know, I think both Faisal and I came to America with this like, all right.

This is the place that we can finally be ourselves and think for ourselves, right? Yeah. And we're starting to see that the whole world seems to be kind of going the other direction did.

So there was a shift in China and the shift was it was initially completely communist society. And now capitalism, at least in a monetary sense, is embraced market reforms. Yes. Yes. So there's this giant shift in what China actually is, which corresponds to this huge growth. Is it possible that in the future this shift could move on to other aspects of Chinese cultural discourse or the way they view the government or even some form of democracy?

That was what we expected. That's what we expected. That was the theory. But but the way China has behaved now, you know, they call it socialism with Chinese characteristics. That's the official name of this long, drawn game to, you know, institute market reforms, usher in riches for them for the middle class, lift a lot of people out of poverty, but in a very controlled way and in a way that's like he doesn't think about the Asian culture.

People understand that the there's a fundamental difference between the China dream and the American dream right now. And sieging ping is outlined what he thinks is the China dream. It's it's it's basically a top-down way to to it's a goal and national goal. And basically, what they're trying to say is that, OK, we're gonna lift a lot of people out of poverty. But you have to. Your generation has to make sacrifices. It's not about the individual. It's about building a strong China and implicitly also about, you know, ensuring that the CCP stays in power.

The Chinese Communist Party stays in power. But it's that you might have to give up, you know, personal sacrifices for the sake of China versus the American dream is is bottom up. It's about your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of. Yes, that's it. And if you do that, that's the American dream, and if you achieve a certain level of happiness, you achieve. You know, it's all like it's bottom up. It's not it's not centralized and it's not something that the Chinese government is kind of trying to stuff down your throat.

And China's willing to play the long game. So it is still a Leninist. Linus Marx's government sieging thinks still believes in all of that. That's why it's all sorts of telling HarIan. But it's you know, they they know that like the way to get game power in the world is to get rich. And they did it on some, you know, on the backs of on the back trade with other countries through very unfair practices, actually, in many cases.

So if you think about like how they think there's a lot of estimates of how much they've actually stolen from the United States in terms of intellectual property and corporate corporate espionage. Now, even like academia is being infected. So how so? You just arrested the head of the chemistry department at Harvard. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. But wasn't that they didn't they think that that guy was in connection with some weaponized.

Was that a virus? Yeah. No, no, I'm I'm thinking of something else.

There was an article linking some Canadian researchers to the virus. That's what. No. But this was this was different. The head of the chemistry department at Harvard was found to have lied about receiving money from the Chinese government. So there's this program called A Thousand Talents Program in China. Basically, they're offering a lot of money. The New York Times had a really good exposé on this. They basically offer money to like academic because, you know, it's kind of sucks to be one here in the sense of like you're not paid that well.

But China's dangling like a lot more money and say, OK, you if you do research here in China, there's gonna be like less bureaucracy. So that's their way to lure these people in.

So he was hiding the fact that he didn't come from. Right. How is he hiding it? He just he didn't report it. And he put in the break anyway. Right. And so at the end, the day went when when you do when there's a relationship there. China owns your research. Brent, if you're researching something sensitive, that's a big issue. There was an article today where they've confirmed that while we have some sort of third party back door with a lot of their electronics, there's a lot of speculation to why the United States was banning walk away from the major providers, from, you know, because they were very close to releasing some.

And they have some amazing phones and they were really gracious to use them.

Yeah. Yeah, just on principle. In fact, like when my girlfriend she's kind of sponsored by Norway, she's European wonder take a selfie me. And like I am, there's no way that my Facebook could ever be, you know, in your phone. Really?

No, absolutely. Tell me why. Look, what is what are your thoughts on it?

Holloway is is really another just an apparatus of the main party, the government. And, you know, I really think that juat way is with respect to the next era of the digital world, is the next Sputnik like it is the Sputnik issue of our time. And we should be doing everything we can to to to not allow are we to have this big market share. And the person who started it was somebody that had a lot of party connections, too.

I think he was a general or something. And it's really they really operate in a way that's very opaque. And, you know, anyone doing business in China will have to have connections to the government, especially when you're that big. And because it's it's a government that has such totalitarian control over everything, you can expect that that whatever information or that they would have to answer to the government, whatever the government wants. If you're willing to put your privacy in the hands of an entity like that, you know, go ahead.

But know also that the Chinese government has enacted all these mass surveillance policies. It's I just wouldn't trust I just wouldn't trust them. So what is different between war way and there's many Chinese manufacturers of cell phones and what me?

Yeah, it's it's the it's the government connection, everyone that has that deep government connection.

Well, they're the founder at least was the general. That much I know. And just a lot of party connections and. You know, just. It's also heavily subsidized by the government, which is one of the ways that China has been competing kind of unfairly in global markets. Right. When you have you can drive out innovation in the United States by by making sure that your local version is so competitive on prices that they can't match you. So in a way, it's like a form of economic warfare, which is one of the issues that Trump has really pushed back on.

It's the China trade issue. Mm hmm.

And he's been criticized by about that. Do you think he's correct? On China, yes, on China. Yes, I do think he's correct. He's been pushed back on. It's interesting because I think the Democrats were a lot more protectionist when it came to trade. Right. The Republicans and the Libertarians always like free trade. Free trade. Everything like, you know, let's globalize the world. What was the whole Thomas Friedman position when he wrote about it in Lexus and the olive tree that if we globalized the world, that economic, that your you lift a lot of people out of poverty or your economic pie grows, but your politics shrink.

That was the idea. Right. No two countries that have McDonald's would fight a war or something like that. That was his theory. And in the case of China, obviously that didn't happen. Right. Like the part about the politics changing quote by Tianamen PreK protester, he said, If the free world doesn't change China, China will change the free world. Whoa. And if you think about what happened with the NBA. You know, the whole Daryl Morey, yeah.

Explain that. Because that was shocking to me, because the way they were capitulating to China, I was you know, I was a little stunned me because I was so open. Yeah. And can you explain what happened?

So Daryl Morey, who was the GM of the Houston Rockets, he tweeted out basically a little picture that that showed that he supported the Hong Kong protesters.

And the Hong Kong protesters have been added since July of last year, 2019. They have been protesting the incursion of Chinese control into their supposedly autonomous region. China promised them that there would be two systems, one country, two systems after the handover in 1997 from the British to to to China. They slowly kind of eroded that in many ways. And their freedoms have been kind of diminishing over time. The straw the straw that broke the camel's back was actually this policy that they passed, this law they passed that said that anyone can be extradited to China for trial.

Basically, it was after a case that happened, the criminal case and the Hong Kong people knew that this law, if it goes in effect, basically gives the Chinese government legal right to disappear or kidnap anyone and bring them for trial in some sort of kangaroo court or show trial in China. And that has happened.

So bookseller's, it's always the booksellers in Hong Kong have been kidnapped because they were publishing these like insider accounts, like dirty secrets of the you know, the CCP whenever there was a leak because the Chinese commies parties huge. The Politburo was huge.

And so there was a bookseller called Causeway Books and they were publishing all these like accounts from within the Chinese Communist Party. And the owner of that bookshop one day just disappeared and he ended up in China was basically a forced kidnapping. And he he was released. I think he was you know, he did his jail time and now he's setting up another books bookshop in Taiwan. But but that law basically would just have allowed China to do that legally this time.

So the Hong Kong youth were up in arms. They you know, they they were tired of all the ways that their way of life had changed since the British had handed it over. And, you know, in in a way, they were kind of pining for the good old times, the good old times when they were under a colonial, you know, an English colonial master, which was one of those like moment for anyone on the left.

And so, therefore, I tweeted this out. And of course, you know how big the the China market is for the NBA. Right. Like all these players have contracts with them. In fact, the Houston Rockets hit a lot of contracts with the Chinese CCTV for broadcasts. They also had like merchandising opportunities, sneakers that were made there.

And that caused a huge, huge outcry in China.

They were just like, oh, he's disrespecting us. And they were able to force him to basically make a groveling tweet. That's it. I'm sorry for hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. And then like all the other some NBA players actually came out and and, you know, kind of took the side of the Chinese government. Oh, wait, who are we to know that we kind of like that this backpedal thing when when they are so strong on other forms of activism here, like the NBA, when it came to North Carolina, the bathroom bill, you remember the transit amendment bill.

They were they were always on the side of the walk. But then when it came to the China Hong Kong issue, they stood with the biggest oppressor.

Yeah, it's always hard when someone does side on the walk. What? What are you doing this? Because you think this or are you doing this because you think it'll make people think more highly of you if you do it? It's such a contrived thing to learn. It's so difficult to figure out why people were acting the way they're acting. So when they were acting in that way, it was so transparent. There was there was no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Like they were pressured and they were worried about the money. They were worried about economic, you know. Whatever the fallout. Yeah, whatever far will happen. Right. Was really obvious. It was like, wow, this is not like trans people using the bathroom. This is like you guys are threatened, right?

Exactly. Yeah. But the number of companies that have kowtowed to China's, you know, orthodoxy is there should be a list. Somebody should be keeping track of all of this. There are companies like Marriott, even like luxury brands. So I think Versace or Dolce Gabbana go in trouble because I think on the website they list it like countries that we're in. And it was like they put Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. And China said, no, no, no, wait, what are you doing?

This is all China, right? If you don't change that website, you're not going to be allowed to do business in. No one wants a share of the Chinese market. That's the problem. It's like the biggest market in the world. Maybe India is bigger, but, well, least in the future, India will get bigger. But everyone wants access to Chinese market.

So so they're able to use that leverage to basically bully companies, even movie exists to produce the content they want. So several I think World War Z was affected. You know, the other movie was Dr. Strange. The Marvel movie where the character played by Tilda Swinton was supposed to be a Tibetan monk. But you can't like Tibet. Is this like a hot button issue for China? Right. Like people fighting for independence while the Dalai Lama was exiled.

So they changed. The character wasn't a Tibetan monkey. It was the state changed to Celtic monk. And they made it to be a woman playing the character in that piece. The Chinese government. So they they changed it in the American version as well. Yeah. So that one was an American version is right, because the studios, they're all going in on these deals with China. China's financing all these movies now. Wow.

So that woman in Dr. Strange was initially supposed to be a Tibetan monk. Wow.

Yeah. But they they rewrote it to reflect the Celtic Celtic female monk. Whoa. And then I think the recent the Top Gun movie that's coming out, Tom Cruise to partially financed by China. And they have these like his jacket. People notice that there was a patch that was like missing. And it turns out like that patch, it was like a. For some reason, China was just triggered by it and it was gone. Let's go on one talking.

No, no. They did just in the costume. And this is a.

Oh, yes. Yeah, well, the problem was that's Japanese flower. That's the Taiwanese flag. They're running low. Yeah. The USS Galveston. See, it's wow.

But but that that's what that's what makes it so scary that they're able to pressure people to change their behavior from afar without, you know, bullets. This is just money. Money. This is access or.

I know. So a whore.

That's why I think like one of the solutions to this is to really, like, start. And somebody should really start a website site. Maybe you need me to just track all this stuff, all the companies that have kept to our kowtowing to China. All the ones are standing the ground, you know. And so you can decide what to put your money.

So it's just a giant part of the market. That's the problem with these films. It's like it's probably the top gun over in China. First of all, China invests. And then they sell those movies over there. And there it's an enormous part of their overall budget. Right.

That's when largest and the in terms of the box office, the outside of the United States, the second largest market is China. The third one is Japan. And it's it's like raising one fifth of China, basically.

So it's not nowhere, nowhere close to it. And, you know, we're all driven by profits. It's capitalism.

I think he tried to get Quentin Tarantino changes movie for China. Tell me to go pound sand.

So I remember. Was it, though? Once upon a time. Yeah. The new one. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Well done.

So it's weird that it's that easy.

Just just throw some money around. And people change their culture.

Right. I mean, Google was developing a search engine for China.

You know, they're whelp, I knew some people at Google while that was going on. And their their position was if we don't do this, they're gonna copy our search engine and just steal all the intellectual property or we can work with them and provide a censored version of Google. And I remember sitting there going, this is almost like legalizing drugs or it gets messy. There's no good way here. This is their boat. They both suck like it.

It sucks if they steal the intellectual copyright. They they steal the ideas and create their own version of Google. It also sucks if Google goes over there and self censors. Right. And provides them with, you know, the ability to filter out information.

But I I think also that if there's also an argument that if it was Google, at least maybe they they have one pentacle in China. And so therefore, it might be able to change things or keep a pulse on their health, us something.

There's the argument is the blocked walkway or oceans at least. But it's interesting that they blocked waterway from using all of their apps. So while we no longer has apps, they did have no longer have access to the Google Play store. So they're their new phones. They have to have their own apps. Yes.

This is with the the mate P I think it's P 40 is what it's called their newest latest flagship phone. Then they can't they don't have access anymore. There's some some apps you can side load from the web and you can download them directly to your phone. But for the most part, they're access to the Google Play store is completely shut off. So the thousands and thousands of apps that feel like if you watch a lot of a lot of people apps or everything.

It's not the end itself. It's the apps. If you don't have Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and, you know, whatever the, you know, equivalents are in different countries, you can't shit out a lot.

But I think reciprocity is a good policy to abide by. Right. So I think if China can influence us if you want, because the Chinese, they always use their market as, OK, we'll shut you out of our market if you don't do this. Well, we should be doing the same. Right. Which I think is what Trump tried to do with the tariffs. We're gonna shut you out of a market. We're going to penalize you.

Yeah. Unless you open up some things. You've been you know, there've been unfair trade practices for a while.

It's hard for us to understand what's really going on because, you know, the neuzil show this anecdotal story of a farmer who's upset because as you know, he's losing money because it trumps tariffs. And then people go, oh, tariffs bad.

Right. You know, I think it's a terrible, really comprehensive view of it. It's going to hurt a lot of studying. You'll have to dive deep and really try to understand the economics behind it all. I think most people aren't willing to do that. So we get sort of sold a narrative on the news.

I mean, the same thing happened with like so so-called like industries that were important on national security, like steel, you know. Yeah. Those are things that we want to be careful how much we actually do outsource to overseas, because there might come a time when we'll need those, you know? I mean, what happens if you globalize to the point that China's producing all your steel and we have a war? And where it's you're going to come from, it's just so easy to be cut off.

He's really worried about a hot war.

We're definitely in the in a Cold War right now, which China feels. But, you know, China does have military ambitions. I mean, their actions in the South China Sea have shown that. They do want to be at least militarily strong. They haven't, you know, to their credit, haven't taken any. They didn't go into Hong Kong with tanks or anything. Right. So no bloodshed on that account yet. But it's one of those things also that in twenty forty seven, Hong Kong is going to return to China fully anyway.

So they're willing. Later.

Yeah. 20/40 because the handover was only like four fifty years before. This is just the transition. So the long game belongs to China. And they know that. Do you know that? This is not good. It's not, it's not. Then there's no hope in your eyes of China. Eventually becoming what they hoped it would be once capitalism was sort of introduced.

If people got information, if there were ways to resist the encroaching tyranny, especially digital tyranny.

Right. In all forms. So it's not just mass surveillance, all this A.I. stuff that they're sort of like collecting people's, uh, like facial scans. Yeah, it's it's this it's such a dystopian nightmare. It feels like it's like a science fiction film.

Frankly, if. I don't know unless the revolution kind of comes from within and enough people woke up. Maybe it can be averted, but otherwise we're just gonna. You know, it's gonna be headed towards this weird bipolar world where there's a new axis and a new allies. That sucks, that will suck. That sucks already because it's already happening. You seem like they're in know, Russia has taken this out of China. Pakistan has taken it outside of China now.

So they're all there. There is a, you know, an alliance kind of forming. You can see it in, you know, what happened with the U.N., passed this resolution condemning China's treatment of the weaker Muslims in Sinjar. And the signatories to that to that build at U.N., though, was basically United States, New Zealand, Europe, a lot of European powers. The so-called, you know, like these are countries that are often accused of being Islamophobes because they won't accept Muslim refugees or that many Muslim refugees.

But you have Pakistan and even some, you know, majority of the Gulf countries siding with China, defending China on on their treatment with with the weaker Muslim since in Germany, it's one of those things that's just like what happened.

How is this happening? You know, it doesn't make sense.

Does anybody have a roadmap of how they expect all this to play out? Because it seems that this this could be a real problem, the future. And most Americans up until this whole. Up until this trade issue with the Trump administration, most Americans didn't even think about China.

I don't know. I don't think. I think Hong Kong was the thing that kind of lit the whole bear to seeing the hundreds of thousands people in the streets every day.

Right. Weeks after months. Really young people, too. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that the thing that has kind of like descended to police brutality, like protests against police brutality now, but is still going on there. So, yeah. And now with the whole coronavirus flaring up there, it's highlighting a lot of issues with the with the Chinese government. Taiwan is another issue still there. The three TS, you can't really talk about China now. Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan. These are three things that absolute no go, no go zones.

Now, what year did you come over here? How old were you? Seventeen. Seventeen. What was the shift like going from Singapore to the United States? You live in New York, then?

No, no. But you're your hometown, right? Yeah. Yeah. I lived in Boston for 10 years. I really enjoyed it, actually. Cause fuck it.

Now I like I know I'm a skier, so I really like it. But there was huge culture shock in a way. And you were signing up for a. I chose them. It's actually easier for Singapore and to plug and play into any of the Commonwealth countries because as a former British colony. So all your credits would just transfer kind of more easily to university in England, for example, Australia. But I chose America precisely for the First Amendment, really isn't very it was a very strong motivating factor for me.

And also just the culture of of, uh, like you said, celebrating with people. Yes. Because I was weird. So I wanted to be in a place where I thought I would be. What made you weird?

So I think was pretty conformist in terms of talk about monocultures. There is a conformist right like there is the right schools. You go to the right path, you take very entrenched. And I really rebelled against that. You know, the thing about chewing gum is banned.

Yeah, I have always liked chewing gum because it was banned in Singapore.

One of those things was just like stuck in my mind. I had grown up here. I probably wouldn't be doing this right now. It wouldn't just wouldn't matter. But when somebody says I can't like like do not touch what patently. Yeah, this has always been a part of your personality from time you're young. Yes, it's a disagreeable. Was this nature or nurture?

Don't know. I don't know. iRacing, really? But so when you came to America when you're 17, so. Yeah. What was that like?

Yes, it was. But it was also there were a lot of culture shock that I had to adapt to. You know, for starters, it definitely felt like a bit of a step back for me in terms of how in terms of comfort of living, extend or living. The United States is kind of a third world country compared to Singapore. Really. I want The Boston Globe when I landed in Logan and we were taking that drive to, you know, like at the time I was going to be living in Cambridge.

We went by and they these like highways and like it's rusting. This was kind of like before, just like before the Big Dig was done and the infrastructure was kind of broken. The potholes, your healthcare, what the hell is up with that? So it was a step back in material comforts for me and in Singapore. You know, if you grew up, even middle class, like the 50th percentile family can afford a domestic helper. So many Singaporean kids, in fact, 90 percent of all the kids I know growing up all grew up with maids picking up after them, doing their laundry, everything.

So Singapore has no minimum wage, no minimum wage.

And so if you measure employment in that country, it's it's in some economic measurements. The way they do it, it's almost like it's over employed. Donovan, the unemployment problem, everybody has a job.

Pretty much no minimum wage. But what what how do people take be taken advantage? How are people taking advantage? Because of that?

Well, that's why we just are on average low. And that in Singapore, they're they're not that high. The United States practices what you call efficiency wages, which is, you know, they kind of pay people a little bit more to to extract a better performance. Right. Incentives matter. Right. But in Singapore, that's not the case.

But in Singapore, the streets are taken care of better.

Yeah. Bridges. Oh, they've got infrastructure. You know, I tweeted maybe like last week saying something like especially now we're in like political debate season. I'm so tired of this whole left right argument, like small government, no big government garments, a problem. The solution, it's it's about effective government. And I think that's something that the Singapore government has really perfected. It's it's effective governance. It's not about the size we're gonna. I don't care whether this is a policy that came from the right or the left.

It's what works. People respond to incentives. Right. And if you want to encourage a certain kind of behavior, you there's carrots and sticks to to basically encourage that behavior. And so it's there. There are things that the government would do in a way that just would never fly here. Where were you? You know, we treasure civil liberties too much in a way which I personally came here for that reason. But I'll give you a good example.

Social cohesion is engineered in Singapore.

So there's it's a very, very multicultural, multi-ethnic society.

You have Malay Muslims, Indians, Hindus, Chinese who are Buddhists, Christians and, you know, Caucasians all living in a on an island city state. That's about five million in terms of population. And how the government manages this multicultural project is that 80 percent of people actually live in public housing. That's very high. A social listening, great public housing that the government builds for you. And each block has to mimic the racial demographics of the whole country.

So you don't have ghettos, right. So you imagine like a housing state that basically mirrors like, OK, if the total makeup of the country is 60 percent Chinese, 20 percent Malay Muslims, it has to follow. So you can't have basically an area like Birmingham in the UK where all the Muslim immigrants or, you know, something like Dearborn, Michigan or Minnesota with all the Somali immigrants, you are forced to integrate. It's a it's a way to force people to integrate and have, you know, neighbors that are just not not your own kind.

And that's how they've created this like national identity. That's very strong.

That's interesting, because. Everybody would want that, but they wouldn't want an engineered, correct? You know. Exactly.

Everybody would love if the country if all our neighborhoods were integrated and everybody just got along with everybody. I think I've always felt like that's one of the things that New York has a large advantage over. Los Angeles is interaction. People are constantly on the subway and walking on the streets with everybody. How different classes? Yeah, different backgrounds. And I think that's really good.

I think it's good to know it's there. Contact hypothesis, if you like. If kids grew up with lady had a black friend growing up legs. And since you were three 4, you you would never in your you would never think to be racist. It's just one of those things that's like early contact with different people. And it's the same with. That's what I feel about ideas. Too early contact with different ideas really helps. And that's that's what I've kind of devoted my my my life to to that call.

It's almost, you know, Darryl Davises. Yes, of course.

I wrote about him. Yeah. I was at that conference that that he was speaking. We were speaking at the same conference. And that's the conference that Daryl Davis was called neo-Nazi. He talked about that someone called him a neo-Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. How are they? How? Because we explain to people who he is.

If you didn't listen to the podcast they did with Daryl Davis as a musician and he was doing some shows at this country Western Bar and met some people from the Klan. And through just communicating with them and being friendly with them over a period of many months, he got them to quit. They quit the Klan on their own and even request it. And then over the course of several years, he's gotten more than 200 people to leave the Klan, leave neo-Nazi organizations.

And he he they give him their robes and their flags, and he brought them all in here. And he's an inspirational human being. Very much so. But he essentially was reinforcing what you were saying, that these people were never around anyone. Like one of the guys that he met initially was saying, I've never had a black a drink with a black man before. And he's like, how that possible? There's a guy in the Klan. And he's like, I've never I've never had a drink with a black man.

And so he's like, this is the first time we're having a drink with a black man. And we're like, making this big deal out of it. And then eventually Darrell was going to his house and eating dinner with them and hanging out with them. And then the guys that I can't do this anymore, like, why am I in the Klan when he quit? Well, and he quit. Just from Darrell being this really friendly, articulate, brilliant guy who clearly didn't fit their narrative of what they thought, their racist depiction of what a black man is.

Right.

Right. So the incident that happened was this group called this is Milwaukee had organized a conference. It's called me what myth persists myth? Yeah, that was the name of the group. But they they were kind of like a secular. So in the myth, this is believed that Jesus Christ was a lie. He didn't really exist as a historical figure. That's what a myth. But in any case, it is. It's a secular group that that put on a conference.

And they've been doing that for years. And they had alongside, you know, people like Sargon of a card, you know, Count Dracula, the guy who taught his pug to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So these people all came four for a conference and so was Daryl Davis. And, you know, it was it was a good it was a bunch of people. But on the spit on on on the political spectrum, basically. And it was about promoting discourse, civil dialogue, that kind of thing. Andy? No. Was there as well. So basically because, you know, when the conference was happening and TFA kind of found out about it, they started protesting the conference.

They they called the the the venue to basically, you know, get it canceled. They said it was a neo-Nazi rally. Klan really, ironically, you know, the greatest irony is that that Daryl Davis was there and he got tainted as well. So I started calling this the political one drop rule where it's like kind of what happened to you if you are associating or talking to somebody, that or just a whole range of people like normal distribution of people, you will be tainted by the most right wing person that you're in orbit with.

That's just how it goes. And that's what happened to Daryl. So when we had the after party to the conference and chief, it was gathered outside the bar, the Pitman, New Jersey people, because Temple was there, too. Pittman, New Jersey people. Police had to station themselves outside of the bar. And, you know, they were kind of protecting this event. It's it's ridiculous because, you know, yes, you might find Sargon politics objectionable.

But why is everybody who is associated with the conference also lumped in with this? And why is the response that this needs police protection? It's just we're just talking about it. It doesn't make any sense. No.

This desire to shut down speech is very dangerous and it's very stupid. It's childish. And it's this thing that gets. It just gets reinforced in that culture that this, you know, the culture of either and for people that support anti war, they understand the consequences of shutting down speech. You think that you just going to shut down speech and deep platform people that have marginally offensive views. And the problem with that is, first of all, you close the door for them to be influenced in a positive way or for other people to learn from them being influence in a positive way.

Right. And second of all, the way to shut down ideas is not stop the person from talking. It's to combat those ideas with better ideas. And then everyone around them gets to see the discourse. When you have these debates online and people discuss these things online, it benefits millions of people. Yeah, when you shut that down, it benefits nobody but your cause and your cause is probably incorrect. Like your ideas are probably wrong. And in the case of Daryl Davis, you're definitely wrong.

He's not a Nazi. So if you shot shutting that down and saying these people are Nazis, well, you're wrong. And you're censoring people that are trying to get to the bottom of things and getting to the bottom of things mean discussing things and trying to figure out tenable solutions or war, comfortable middle ground that takes forever. This is not like, you know, you have Christina Hoff Sommers and she has this discussion and and they pulled fire alarms and and yell that she's a Nazi, like she's a feminist.

You guys are crazy like this. Everyone has to comply with WOAK ideology 100 percent with no deviance whatsoever. And everyone has to take an impossible to pass purity test. It's this is a dumb way to communicate.

You ever notice something to it? It's always that it's always the concern. Always that if we have this battle of ideas, that the person would shift to the right. Yes. Why is it why are you not concerned about the other way? Right. It's kind of like reminds me of like because I grew up pretty evangelical. My mom was very religious. It was that she tried to take it. It's that OK, if you're if you're a good Christian, you might get corrupted by bad ideas.

So we have to ban like Harry Potter books are banned in my household. If I were to ban on well, because it encouraged witchcraft, I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween. Witchcraft.

Wow. It's heavy. Yes. Pagan stuff. That's satanic. But that's what I mean. It's like this is satanic. This is evil. And it has taken on this religious dimension, this liturgical dimension, because it's well, they're always so concerned that the corruption is just going like they're going to drift to the right. Of course, they're never concerned that that somebody might be convinced by the argument and go to the left. Why? I don't get that.

Well, the drifting to the left. First of all, they think would be a good thing. The problem. Why don't you think it would happen?

Well, they don't worry about it. They're not worried that someone would drift to the left.

You mean by looking at someone's offensive views and that there would be more likely to drift to the left as I watch me that like, OK, it's like let's say we expose everybody to all ideas. Right. Why are we so concerned that that the individual that they're, you know, the target, I guess, would be would be shifted right and not shifted left?

Yeah, I know you're saying, you know, if there's an E, I think they have an infantile perspective on ideas and they're worried about people being indoctrinated. They're worried about what? They're not worried. Look, if you if you have someone talking and this this person is preaching some ridiculous thing and someone starts becoming indoctrinated and gravitates towards that, the real problem is that these people that are being indoctrinated are gullible and they're foolish. That's the real problem.

And in your eyes, they're they're going in the incorrect way.

So it's infantilizing. Yes. It's actually patronizing. It is patronizing. Yes. I think that's that's when I couldn't.

Those people are dumber than you. You're smarter. You know better. You need to stop these people from being tricked right into this right wing ideology. I mean, I've I've heard intelligent people make this conversation about other intelligent people that disagree with them, like Ben SHAPIRO, that like Ben SHAPIRO should be D platforms because Ben SHAPIRO is indoctrinating people towards right wing ideology by having these salient points and articulate sentences and these these rants that he goes on or he speaks very fast.

He's got a great grasp of the English language. It's very compelling. And the idea is that he's indoctrinating young people.

Well, no, he is speaking with passion. Well, I don't agree with him on a lot of things. But I certainly agree with his right to express himself. And he's not convincing me.

Who is he convincing? Like when he talks when Ben SHAPIRO here's a here's an area where we deeply disagree. Gay people. He thinks it's immoral. He thinks he would never go to a gay person's wedding. He wouldn't have. He wouldn't even go to the celebration. The after party of. A wedding and I'm like, well, this is all for religious reasons. And like that does I think that's ridiculous. That's like convincing me.

So who is it convincing? Is it convincing someone that's a baby? Are you dealing with children or are we dealing with uneducated people or are we dealing with people that don't have positive influences? What's wrong with letting him express these ideas? These ideas are hot. I mean, he and I had a long conversation about it on the podcast where I was like, I think it's ridiculous. Would you care? My my perspective is what do you care? And his perspective is he couldn't support that because of religious reasons.

So then we go deep into the hole with why morally. Yeah. Yeah. But what are these religious reasons? How deep do you go with this? Do you think Jesus came back from the dead? Like he doesn't. He's Jewish. It's a different perspective. What do you think? You know, there it is.

Do you really think that God thinks that homosexuality is some sort of a cardinal sin and terrible? If so, God made everything. Why did he make homosexuals? Please explain that. What kind of a weirdo is God that he gives people his urge to be gay? But then he tells them, fight that urge. And then he makes this comparison to that's like murder. Sometimes you want to murder people, Mike. Okay. I think that's different is you do want to murder people all day, every day.

I know a lot of gay dudes who want to fuck dudes all the time. It's slick hits. God did a crazy thing to their system.

And for you to believe in God, but have a problem with that to me is ridiculous. So now we're banking on these really ancient words that were written by people with no grasp of science, no understanding of biology, no understanding of the culture of the world, no understanding of the sheer number of these people. And taking into perspective that, you know, you're literally dealing with. I know what percentage of the population is gay, but it's a significant percentage.

So you're saying all of them are frightened in hell, you know, dumb. That is that's really fucking dumb. Like if they're your neighbors and they're just happy and loving. What do you care? The goal should be a cohesive society where people are comfortable with being around each other with all their differences and just nice people. Just nice to each other. Exactly. It doesn't matter if you're gay or straight or trans or black or white or Asian or fucking whatever.

It doesn't it shouldn't matter. The individual should matter. And the way we interact with each other, that should matter. And we have to take into consideration that if you're going to live your life by these things that were written down thousands of years ago, before people had any of these understandings of all the subtle nuances of humanity and all the differences that people have and and now the biological understands why they have these differences. Well, you're dealing with ignorance.

You're you're you're you're you're applying these ancient egg ...during rules to a modern world. Well, we have a in a vastly expanded understanding of human beings. Right.

But to Ben's credit, I mean, he's friends with Dave. He doesn't love Dawidoff does that. Yeah. But he he says he's going to he cut him off. I invite him to my wedding.

He's like, I can't. You're a senator, but fuck off.

You know what? A lot of us who have parents who are super Christian. Yeah. Like I understand my my at the end of the day, you know where that's coming from. She's my sister. And if she didn't, she didn't accept that. And the reason for that was that it was coming from a good place. Like for her, it was I don't want my daughter to go to hell. So it's like it's like it's again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Right. And so. So the only reason she was objecting to it was because of this belief that she's going to end up running and help those coming from. Ironically, a place of love. Right. It's judgey. Yes. And it's based on Bronze Age ideology. Yeah. But but, you know, I don't think that that either of us ever doubted that she loved her. Right. And it's so I can understand where Ben comes from in that sense, even though I I you know, it makes me angry.

I reject all that stuff.

It's just silly. And it what's interesting is he's so smart that when he talks about that, it's all that sudden you see stammer and and he gets weird because he knows it's nonsense.

But I don't know if he knows, I wouldn't doubt it and embrace God and know he's his deep he's his balls deep in his religion, just like the guy a lot. I really do. And I've gotten so much shit for saying that I like the guy, you know, I need more of that.

We need more of the hate, the you know, hate the sin, not listener and in practice on both sides.

But I think he and I only have we disagree on some issues and some political issues. But he's a decent person. He's a nice person. He's very friendly. He's funny. I enjoy his company a lot. I like Ben SHAPIRO. I really do. I think he's a brilliant guy. Right. I mean, the gay thing's the biggest one, because to me, that's the dumbest one. Like my, my, my. It always comes back to, why do you care?

That's all it is to me. Like, why do you care? I don't care. Like why you care someone's gay. Like, if. Does it affect you? How can it? How can it affect you? Right. Are you do you have your fingers in ever. What is business like crazy? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, what's the argument against gay marriage? Like. Why does it affect your heterosexual marriage?

Exactly. It shouldn't. Well, the sanctity of marriage is so dumb. The sanctity of marriage. How about Vegas? You could go to a fuckin drive thru. You can get it. You get married and drive through movie theater. I mean, that's really what it's like. Right. You not get married anywhere.

That's so dumb. So, so ridiculous.

I just I feel like at this stage of civilization that there's that we have to figure out what stuff we're going to abandon from the old days and what stuff we're gonna keep. And we've already abandoned a lot of things. Right. In Christianity, if you leave you, they don't kill you anymore, you know? Right. Yeah. They got rid of some of the things during the Enlightenment. Exactly. Yeah. They changed a lot of the aspects of Christianity that we associate today with more repressive religions.

Exactly. Yeah. That used to be Christianity.

You know, I'm I'm a huge fan of the like element in general. In fact, the you know, Steven Pinker wrote that book Enlightenment Now. That was the first book we chose to translate into Arabic. And then it became the like. Recently, though, a lot of protests in the Middle East. And we started distributing that book. It was actually somewhat the person with the corn eating some of the protest that was telling us we want to give this book out to to the people, because a lot of these youth, like they're really jaded by by theocrats in the region, by authoritarianism and things like, you know what?

You know what? Our religion had never gone through the Reformation. We don't want the Reformation. We want the Enlightenment because enlightenment was what could constrain Christianity in a way. Yes. And it and it really, if you look at one of the greatest intellectual achievements of Europe came out of there. Right. This idea of the social contract of eroding monarchy, absolute monarchy, separating church and state, all these wonderful invent like an innovations and ideas came out of the Enlightenment and it was, you know, promoted this idea that maybe people should be free to have their own conscience and think differently.

And that's something that that really, really is needed in the Middle East.

But I think the way that your organization is going about it is probably the best way to get books translated, get ideas translated to people that maybe didn't it weren't ever exposed to these concepts before. Right. And maybe that will help.

Yes. Yes. But that's the thing. So. So, you know, a pluralism when I see that as as, you know, that's what we're doing, promoting pluralism, this idea that you can have all these competing narratives. And so you ask me what my culture, you know, like when I came to America. How what was my my experiences moving here? Yes, we're very freeing and liberating because I felt like I went to a place that was pluralistic, that tolerated all the weirdos.

And then maybe in like 2014, you know, things started to change on at least on campus when it's, you know, pluralism wasn't tolerated.

To see the rise of of this sort of more intolerant.

You have to, you know, kind of kowtow to this intersectional intersectionality and critical race theory. So that was an interesting experience. And I think it was ultimately very detrimental to the to the actual projective of liberalism. It's countered. It's working against that. Exactly.

Yeah, that's that's the really frustrating part of it. Oh, yeah. What you're claiming to be preaching your ideology is actually working against it. Ultimately behind the scenes. And you just can't seem to see the pattern right where it's going. You can't stop people from discussing things and say that you support free speech. Right? That's not free speech. You know, and one of my favorite things with Ben with Ben SHAPIRO is watching him talk to those people.

He is one of the best at taking questions and just decimating these social justice warriors. Go, go and watch Ben SHAPIRO destroy verses.

I know. I think that's too slow, too. I know. I just hate the way the cab. It's very clickbait and it's not him. He doesn't make those kind of supporters. But God damn, is he good at it. I secretly laugh at it.

I know it's kind of bad for him just because I do it right out, right out in the open. He's great at it because he's you know, he's logical and very intelligent. So when these kids are saying these things that, you know, they just learned last month in their gender studies class and they're yelling at him and he breaks it down. Just one of my favorite things. But those kind of discussions are important. First of all, so that these kids realize that, hey, there is this brilliant right wing guy that can decimate your argument really quickly.

He talks quickly, too. Yeah. You know, he'll smash. Your argument is very smart.

And so you need. Know that your argument sucks. It's like having bad kung fu, you know, you're running around the world thinking you're gonna kick everybody's ass because you've never really been tested. And everybody who you're training with says you're confused. Amazing. And then you go into a gym where someone doesn't believe in your kung fu and fucks you up and you go, damn, that's important. I needed to know.

That's one of the culture shock things for me when I first moved to America. It was that, you know, I think a lot of American kids were taught like participation, trophy culture. Yeah, a lot of them were told that they were the best like, you know, like Tommy, like you are, you know, I mean, I think you can do. Yeah. You're just like so amazing.

And I'm like, do these people. It's like American Idol. You know, we used to get the the seasons in Singapore, too. And it's like just people kept saying. And that's actually why they're putting them on. You're awful. Yeah. And nobody told them, like, are you telling me that, like they give in, telling their friends, I'm practicing going on American Idol? Did nobody tell them that, bro? Like you should just be singing in the shower.

Nobody told them.

There's a couple things going on. First of all, some those people are trolls. They go on there. They know they suck and they're going on because they're going to get on TV in. The best way to get on TV is actually a suck America.

There's no way there's no concept of shame. Like they want to do it. They want to be on TV. OK. So is Fear Factor. Don't talk to me about change. OK.

I understood that to be semen attention to eat bull testicles. Actually, I think that's heroic. It's definitely not a role. And it's now a show on the Food Network, right?

Well, bull testicles are actually a common food. Rocky Mountain Boys stuff is they don't taste bad. Both articles about taste bad, they're actually the way they cook them. They cook them well. They're actually delicious.

But there's on there's there's no shame in doing something that most people are fearful about the singing thing.

What's going on is, first of all, there's a lot of those people that are mentally ill. That's part of the problem. A lot of these people are delusional. The mentally ill. They have like legitimate mental health issues. And then they go and saying and they sound terrible. And no one tells them because they not only friends.

It's one of the reasons why I think I think there's a happy medium. See, the thing is, you know, if you got amnesia, you're told that you're just a dumb ass all the time and you're kind of kind of constantly be down. You know, if you come home with like 99 over 100 for your math exam, your parents are not going to say. Pat, Pat, well done. You. They're going to say, where was that one point?

What did you do wrong? And again, you do not doubt that they love you and care for you. That's just how it is. They just hold hands. And so you kind of internalize that and have very low self-esteem in general, like. But you kind of know your limitations. Right. That's the problem.

Like when I when I moved here was that I realized like a lot of the kids I went to school with. Man, I wish they had that confidence. You know, it's like they are they're inflated sense of self-worth with what's just so big. But sometimes it allowed them to get good jobs. It allowed them to ace the interview. They don't do stupid things like drink this thing, get nervous.

You don't like that either.

I grew up around a lot of Koreans because I did taekwondo from the time I was young. I did to follow. And they I mean, I I thought I knew what hard work was until I was around these people. And so you can never have work. Yeah.

Koreans who. And my friend John sic, who was on the U.S. national team when I was younger, was in medical school. So he's going through his residency and training to be on the national team. So while he was studying, he would put his backpack on Phil's backpack up with books and run up the stairs of the university, run up and down stairs to get some additional workouts. And he was trying to train for the U.S. team while he was doing his residency.

That's insane. And so he was crazy. He would sleep three hours a night and he was like one of the best taekwondo fighters in the world. And it was all through sheer will and to end it. But he was explaining that to me about what it was like growing up is like, you are never good. Never, never have. Nothing's ever good enough. You know, no matter what you do, you could have done better. You can work harder.

You could always do more. Yeah.

No, I mean, it's it's unforgiving, but it's one of those things that it's a good illusion.

It's it's, I think, a very healthy illusion to have that like work equals success. Right. And that's why I think, you know, people of Asian descent generally have pretty primed to to to buy into the Republican politics. Right. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You don't need handouts. The harder you work, the more likely going to achieve something. That's why there's just such a natural ally in terms of those who rely on this group.

BLOCK is a political group.

Well, that's the undiscussed racism in academics is the way Asian people are treated when they're applying for major universities, particularly for Harvard. Like they they literally you have to score higher if you're Asian. Yeah. Because there's so many Asian people that get in.

They made it more difficult just trying to manage that. Yeah. I mean, it's not a meritocracy anymore. You've you've decided that they have to do better, right, than white people, they have to do better than everybody else, which is crazy.

Yeah, I think the insidious thing in particular the harbor case was that they started downgrading Asians on personality. I mean, that's the part that's like, OK, fine.

You want to say that? Like, maybe, you know, we don't want we want we want to lower the scores a little for other groups. And you know why? But then to downgrade this person. Well, that's a part that. How did they do a downgrade personally?

Well, that was the method that they used to do that.

So they said, OK, we're not just gonna rely on standardized tests because that's a thing like standardized tests. You know, they're they that they can easily gain that idea that you can just go for more tuition, extra classes, and you'll do well. Well, we care about the holistic package of the applicant.

So we want to see more personality. Ultimately, this is about, you know, like what Aristotle called the telos. Right. What is the telos of higher education? What's the ultimate goal or essence of higher education? Is it to just produce perfect cogs in the machine of the global economy or is it, you know, to produce or engage citizens or whatever it is? Right. Like so. However you define that question. What's the purpose of higher education?

You could tailor your entrance methods to meet that. And Harvard's case, they decided, well, you know, we're going to instead of just looking at your GPA, your essay, we want to see you want to interview the person, want to see what your personality is like. Can you thrive at Harvard? You're going to be a contributing member of this social. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that's one of the areas in which consistently you look like the Asian population that was applying to Harvard was downgraded in that score.

They scored really high when it came to like extracurriculars. Academics are so strong on S.A.T.'s and, you know, all these other standardized tests. But when it came to personality, they were very consistently downgraded.

So do you think that that characteristic, the seeking out that was that was applied specifically to try to limit the amount of Asian people? Because that's the argument, right?

You know, I don't know why it was done specifically for that, but I think Harvard has again, monocultures suck in general. So, you know, if you're going to look for even for me, like I was coming to study in America, like, you know, ten thousand miles away right from the place I grew up, I really want to go to school with a lot of Asians because like, I could have just stayed there, frankly, but I was looking for for for something that wasn't a monoculture.

You have to just expand your mind. Right. So any other day, the issue with Harvard is that it was taking federal money. And if you see Harvard as a stepping stone to a career, to a future, it is unfair. It is kind of unfair if they were penalizing you based on race. That's the hard part to prove whether or not this was personality or race or some sort of, you know, other thing that they were selecting for that happened to correlate with race.

That's the part that that's hard to prove.

So is it possible that they were just trying to enhance the way people communicate on campus? And so that's sort of emphasized personality and emphasize social social interactions. And in doing so, they penalized Asians without being aware of it.

Yeah, kind of. I mean, to me, to be honest, like, you know, when I was in college, I only did my first Jell-O shot like two weeks ago and couple weeks.

So now. Yes. Okay. Well, I was that typical.

We don't need to do gel shots to be in college or anything. Okay. No, not that. But I didn't I didn't have the typical college experience. You didn't party and in party. And I think a lot of you know, a lot of international students who come from Asia will probably fall in the same habits. Like, we're kind of like, you know, we've been told that there's only one way to succeed, work hard and summa cum laude and all these things.

So so a lot of us kind of are culturally aligned on that. And, you know, we do we contribute to campus in the same way that you're active student union leader would. Who's involved in other curriculars? I don't you know, I don't know. So would Harvard want a diversity of behaviors and interests? Yeah. Probably, yes. You know, you don't want to this like boring stem people.

Like you want all kinds of different stuff. And you also want people that raise the bar really high in terms of performance.

You do? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that's that that enhances other people's understanding of what's possible.

But as a private institution, you can make your student population up the way you want. Right. That's why you have Liberty University, which is Jerry Falwell. Yeah. And it's for Christians because it's a private institution. They're not taking money from the government. So that's fine. Unlike UC Berkeley State Institution. They abolish affirmative action, UCLA, all the UCSD. And look at the population, 70, 80 percent Asian. Interesting. California. Yeah.

Why is that? The. This is the uncuffed the wall, you know, this is the part where we just you know, I don't want to say to you, I don't know, because they kick ass, they work harder.

Yeah.

A more dedicated, more disciplined people are very uncomfortable to talk about differences in group upcoming because we have to kind of make everybody the same or else there must be some sort of systematic thing.

But I think that Asians, because they're so hard working and because they don't complain, they get people get away with this stuff where they get away with discrimination against them.

I think they're starting to complain that the lawsuits were filed. So they are starting to. But it's like it took that too long. All right, you folks. And there's actually quite a big pro-Trump Asian-American voting bloc.

Mm hmm. You know, interesting, this this this particular issue of affirmative action is really driven.

A lot of Asians rightward in New York City. That has happened to under deplores you. Really? Yeah. Because of the public school situation there.

What's what is the same thing they they want to lower? You know, they basically in terms of the public high schools, they they want to institute the same policies. Form of action. Poof. So that's it, that's becoming issue, I think. I read an article recently that Andrew Yang was kind of dragging Asian-Americans back to, you know, to the left. But it remains to be seen.

He just dropped out. So, yeah, now that he's out, I wonder what's going to happen.

Yeah, I was bummed about that. He was my guy. He has some really interesting ideas. And so he's open minded. You know, his his perspectives are so uniquely nonpolitician. Yeah. Yeah.

How refreshing to finally have somebody who's scientifically and technologically literate. Yes. In government. Yes. That was really my main attraction. I know what the basic bitch intellectual darkweb choice either Hammet tells me was.

Mm hmm. But basically it's really a choice. But I really, really liked him. Yeah.

This whole thing is so strange. It looks like they're trying to fuck Bernie over again, just like they did in 2016. They're just that we watch that coin flip over and over again yesterday. Yeah.

From Iowa, we're like, arrest that kid. Put him in jail. Does that does an illegal coin flip? Does a terrible coin flip.

The whole thing is just so weird. It's just it's seeing it play out and see it play out so transparently.

So many of the conspiracies are are like about guys. Now they're they're kind of like pitting Mayor Pete against Bernie.

Mm hmm. Right. Well, you're labeling it. He's talking shit about Bernie. He is, too. And he got booed.

Yesterday, right, and then Bernie was talking about how many billionaires so many billionaires donate today. Pete was pretty good, Bernie. Something good.

And Joo Yang 20:20 drop out fuel speculation on NYC would be so. Oh, Mayor of NYC hope that he could do that.

He could win that. Fuck yeah, I actually he would. Has Mayor Pete, is he still a mayor? Yeah, he is. How do you do that?

That's a bit of a complaint. That should be a giant complaint. Did he do a great job as a mayor? Armies like the clean up all the problems of that city.

He's dead. He's done enough to make people notice. Yeah, but I think the African-American community is not happy about some issues that he talks really well.

He's handsome and he's a veteran. Those are good things.

They like fuckin run him, run them, brought him back.

I know people are really raking him over the coals for apparently like his.

You know, again, he's checked all the right boxes, Harvard, McKinsey, like he's too perfect, like he was 3D printed in the DNC's headquarters. Yes.

So people are very concerned about that. It's so funny how like this whole optics and authenticity really for me. That's why I like it. Yeah, he was. If you hate politicians, which I generally do, he's the least hard to hate.

Yes, he's the one talking to him. He's so normal. He's like a guy who runs some tech company or something. That's what he feels like when I write talk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we definitely like, you know, with 24 hour exposure, social media and news cycle, this kind of signal is so obvious in a way that was never before. Right. We can see normal people now. Yeah. And we know the difference between grandstanding, posturing and just like, you know, a normal person. Yeah.

So, I mean, I just. But also normal people don't want to do it. Yeah.

It's like the whole thing of it is just so invasive. Right. It should disqualify anybody who want it.

Exactly. But you know, this is the system we have got to do. It's better than China, right?

Of course. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. As dirty as it is over here. It's still better than the alternatives that we see elsewhere around the world.

Right. I'm hoping things just continue to get better. I'm hoping more you know, more people understand the mechanisms behind the scenes and how all the stuff works. And they have every question for you.

What do you guys like? You know, you do talk a lot about like Wolke stuff kind of going a lot. Great.

Mm hmm. Does it not bother you, though, Bernie, that he aligned himself with some characters who are super look, I think. Wolke activism particularly.

Yeah, well, I mean, he also aligns himself with people at Cornell West who is brilliant and has some amazing ideas about that and looks at it from an accurate and educated perspective.

I think a lot of the the weakness is a sign of a cultural shift in the right direction. Less racism, less homophobia, less fill in the blank. All those all the things that we that trouble us about, like evil behavior and even greed, corporate greed, all these these things that trouble us about the influence that money has on politics.

And Bernie clearly stands against all that stuff. And I think that when you see these this WOAK stuff, you know, it goes amuck. You have to look at it on a spectrum.

It's like the crazy ante for people who demand 100 percent compliance is woolgar ideology or they'll hit you in the head with a bike lock versus people who want single mothers to be able to have free education and free health care and give them the economic support that they have to raise their family and hopefully give their children a chance at achieving a successful, comfortable life in this world vs. suppress them versus keep them in this fucked up system that just throws them in the meat grinder with everybody else.

Treat this country like a community, like try to do our best to help the people that are in a disenfranchised position because there are so many try to do our best to in some way economically uplift all these deeply impoverished sections of our country. That's those are the good aspects of WOAK ideology. See, all WOAK ideology isn't just the you need 78 different gender pronouns and you have to comply with actually fringe. Probably it is fringe, but it's also fringe.

Right? I mean, like it's there's nothing wrong with being conservative fiscally. There's nothing brought wrong with being conservative in the way you dress or the way you behave. You know, it's like when you go far, right? Then things get ugly. Right. Went in. It's it's the outside edges on both parties and the mess. Most people, reasonable people, if they could have conversations with folks, even if they disagreed on certain things, they'd find themselves somewhere in a comfortable.

A comfortable. Discussion where you could at least sort through the ideas and try to figure out why you think the way you think and why I think the way I think why how we disagree. And are you right or am I am I wrong? What I want to know, you know, and most people don't. These kind of conversations like trying to figure out if the person who opposes your philosophy or your perspective is right and you're wrong. It's very uncomfortable for people.

Right. So what do they do? They just fucking shit on anybody who's on the other side. And they don't talk to when there's very little exchange of ideas in between the right and the left one. The guys I really like talking to, Dan Crenshaw, who's a right wing guy who is very reasonable.

Very reasonable.

He's so much for doing that thing on SNL, too. Yes. Yes. That was great. I mean, no, no. Such a nice mea culpa.

Like to see. Yes, we.

And it's so rare nowadays like this. You know, dividing line between. Right. Levin and they are just so, so hyper hyper polarized.

So, yeah, I mean, you can't a guys will go on a Fox News show and people scream at them. You know why? How dare you use that black Jimmy door? Just did Tucker Carlson show and people just shit all over the place for doing then using his platform. And of course, he's using his platform. He's getting good ideas out there. Tucker. Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy Door is an amazing YouTube. It's fucking amazing. And the way he breaks down things.

It's hilarious, but also funny, accurate and from the far left to which. Yeah. I mean, I disagree with him a lot politically, but like he's he actually entertains me. Yes.

He's an angry, far left guy who's funny.

And he laughs like, wasn't Mitzy the that got that dog that has the asthma laugh? Oh, I must go crazy. Yeah, exactly.

I like people crazy laugh because they laughed off with me. Laugh. I just watch for that purpose alone.

We need more discussions. You know, we need more people that in.

The thing is, if you like, people gotten mad at me for having people on the podcast that are far right people, particularly in the far past, like many years ago. And one of the things that's hilarious is and they said his show has had this person, that person, this person, that person, all the all the negatives. And you're talking about fifteen hundred plus episodes and you'll you'll list like five or six and as if that defines the show.

Well like I said this is that and another example of the political one drop rule like you in an interview, like one far right person. So you've the whole ignored Jimmy door ignored that you have had Abby Martin, Edward Snowden, all these people on like you've done this far right person. Your whole show as well. Right. Therefore, Rogan is a you know, if it's an all right person.

Well, it's easy to look like one like look like it should be an all right person. You don't. Yes, I do. Like as you work out. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm a bald cage fighting commentator.

You know that. You know what? That. That's a terrible I don't know why this correlation has really started to exist, but. But it has. I saw I saw an article in The Guardian that said something like, if you exercise too much here, there was an article about that, like exercise is kind of like a mask.

Like, again, they're lumping conceptual and you're lumping all these concepts together.

That article was written by a weak pitch.

Right. It's just died in the fire. Sorry. No. Yeah, it's it's silly. There's a lot of really brilliant people exercise all the time. Right. They just enjoy it. They enjoy having a body that works really well. There's a lot of brilliant people who like racing cars, too. Right. You know, they just enjoy the mechanical aspect of racing a car. It's kind of the same thing when you you do something to your body to juice your body up, to make it stronger and faster and work better.

Does it mean you're done? Yeah, but there's no toxic masculine.

But this stuff is insidious because it's bad enough to be in political silos. We're now in cultural silos and they're mapping on each other. So what one of the things that happened when I first moved here was that, you know, so I because I didn't grew up here. I wouldn't I didn't know what I shouldn't like. So people would say, like, oh, your Boston, like, you know, educated liberal coastal elite. Right. But then I was like, I love that we'd ever eat.

And so, like, that's of all people, like, you know. I'm surprised you watched IBEW and. You know, this is the time of like Hardy Boys and leader. I grew up with that stuff. So people would be surprised and they would push back on it. And it's it's it's increasingly become that way. Like from a person's consumption habits, what they like. Yeah. Hobbes You're now able to map what what politics they will have or likely to have.

And that's dangerous. Like we shouldn't because we shouldn't be going down this route.

But it's been very comforting for me to see how many left wing, intelligent, well read educated people actually enjoy watching the UFC. So talk to so many of them like you're a fan, like, oh, right, right, right. And then they want to have these conversations with me about fights and about this match up in that match. Mark? Wow. This is really interesting. Like people that you would never have associated with being a fan, like Robert Downey Jr.

. UFC fat and talking to him about like, wow, Matt Damon, UFC fan. Yeah.

Well, any anybody breaking mole's really should be elevated, you know, because it's all right. We just get more and more entrenched in this cluster.

Right. And people are scared to like things like WWE or like anything they like. You know, some. Some people love the fucking mosh pits.

You know, it's figura. I'm like, of course, it's entertaining. Did you not see what incitement did? Meaning?

Yeah, but they don't want you to like what they don't like, which is, you know, it's thought bubbles, you know, that's what it is like. People love when you are we we need people love when you're predictable. Right. It's one of the reasons why people love and people dress up in suits. You dress like a suit in a suit in you act like a business person. You say words that are you know, you you speak in a very, very similar way to the other people that you work with.

And it makes it easy to map out what you're probably gonna do and how you gonna react. There's a very narrow band that you're operating in when you're wearing a suit in a tie and you're in an office. There's a narrow band. You could be the asshole suit and tie guy or you can be the standard, you know, work language, human being, gentlemen. You know, that that kind of stuff is that's people like that because they know that they can kind of predict you.

They know where you they know where you gone from. But when you're eccentric and when you're outside the box, you're unpredictable and you have an eclectic taste. They don't like it. You have interesting ideas that are that are completely irreverent and don't fit into these patterns. Like what is what is she up to? What the fuck's going on in her head shot? They're watching wrestling, right? Pro wrestling. She actually likes it.

No, it's not. Yeah, it's pro fake wrestling. Entertainment, entertainment, wrestling. Exactly.

But some people don't like when you're unpredictable. And they also don't like their own ideas being challenged.

That's why the things that I think that people love about other people that are deeply religious. If if they if you're deeply religious and they're deeply religious, they know that they can talk to you in a certain way. Well, the Lord has a way of making things work out. Yes, it does, Tom. Yes, it does. And they know that you're gonna think, yeah. Hey, man, you got to think in this narrow bandwidth.

You're not gonna get outside that box. You're you're a good Christian. Why? No, Mike and Mike's a good Christian. Right. You know, and all that stuff I hear about him just doesn't make any sense to me. Why it's a gun control mechanism. Yeah, right. Well, it's easy to hurry people who, you know, like exist within this narrow band.

Well, that's why politicians almost always adopt some form of religious ideology, even Trump. Trump was basically never religious. His entire life, never. And I don't always get to religious.

That lady who has the Paul Awhite or something, what is it with a full crazy crazy.

But that lady is amazing. Like first she's so crazy that it's WWE. That's what it is. I mean, Trump used to be the WWE. I know.

I totally remember that this lady is basically a wacky manager. She's like a wacky manager in the WWE that talks to God and helps Trump out. That's how I look at it. I'm like, this is his wacky manager. He's got a character now. I'm not sure he's got the fucking crazy hair.

He's get the spray tan. It doesn't go all the way to the outside edges.

And he's got this wacky lady who I don't want to say he's banging her, but I wouldn't be shocked. Hmm. Now I be kind of hot.

She yeah, I dirty old crazy religious lady way I dirty melfi religiously I guess is fairly pretty isn't she.

Didn't look that bad. Logan listen you tell her.

Yeah. The way she presents. But she's got the Keryn hairstyle which is not attractive. The Karen hairstyle L O L look at that.

Look, look, look at him. He's not even, he's deeply in thought. Now it's so obvious it's fake. Come again. Are you.

You don't know. He might be a changed man. Yeah. Someone sounds close minded like I think you know, I think that's the thing that kind of ties all the threads of my life.

It's is that I definitely oppose, you know, ideologically.

I picture. Should go back to that picture, please. You know, I believe in that picture. I like leave. No, that's not the picture.

You fuck me, Jamie. We would picture the picture that we're just looking at.

That doesn't matter. See that lady in the leopard skin? I believe her face, she's barely into this. That's a lot of dots. She's like, what am I doing? What is this nonsense? And Trump is like, I can't believe I'm president. I won. I'm going win again. I have to do is listen, this crazy lady talk to me about Jesus. People gotta buy into it. I mean, he's it's a great move, you know.

I mean, he didn't go secular at all. Right.

But if you look at his past and his history. Look, he's not a religious guy. And also. Yes.

And nobody even questions. It is just lip service.

No, he's in the WWE. She's his manager. Yeah, I bet it's wacky manager. I think I think Obama was similar. I think it's performative church-going. I don't think he got a moment with his or her.

Oh, yeah. They get down. Mm hmm. I guarantee you they go back. They do outor all together. They're listening. AC DC may fuck like rabbits.

She's got a crazy story. Does she? Yeah. Like addiction. Oh she came out of it. Yeah.

I used to be addicted. Yeah.

Even better think that's the thing of her journey. No. Yeah. The new singer. What you mean? Which singer journeys? Jonathan Cain? No, not the singer. The singer is a Japanese gentleman. He is.

Have you. Do you know that journey? Like the. What was his name? Stephen. Was the original guy's name. Steve.

Steve. Steve Perry. Steve Perry. Steve Perry from Journey.

Beautiful voice, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now there's a Japanese guy who does it, and he was a journey cover band guy. And he's so good that when Steve Perry stepped away, they hired him to sing the songs. And it was fucking amazing. That guy. Which guy? That's the guy.

That was the Paul the spiritual advisers. The far right. That guy's the singer. The one in the middle.

Oh, he's amazing.

He's very racially ambiguous in that picture. But he said he's Japanese. I believe he's Japanese, isn't he?

Am I wrong about Japanese? Not exactly. I thought a red. He was Japanese. Anyway, he's a guy from a.

What's his name? Now. Mm hmm. Okay, okay. That's Filipino towns like. Oh, yeah, I think so. Sorry. I'm. Chances are.

Anyway, this guy sounds exactly like Steve Perry.

Maybe even a touch better. Wow. Maybe the touchpad will hear a little play and play a little bit of it.

Give me a little blue wenju key.

A few years back. Steve Perry, 5 years. Yeah. Steve Perry wanted to bail, so I can't do this same.

And this guy's like, I'll fucking do it. And they listened to him like, damn do you can't do it. He sounds exactly like Steve Perry.

Okay, I got go. Give me some.

Come on. Brings me back to high school, baby. He's amazing. Wait, that. That was not. Now that's him. That's this dude. OK. How good?

A little maybe. A little better, maybe. I like the intensity. Just to touch. Just maybe just sound technologies proved much that could be.

You're being very generous. Yeah. Give me a little more.

Come on. I had no idea. It's amazing. He's so good. I love that. That's a great story. That's a human story. You know, I love the story like that. I didn't fucking cover band. All right. Also, he's a lead singer, a journey.

I'm not surprised he spoke, you know, a really good thing. Oh, yeah. They made love. Love. They're really good at pool. Whoo! Phil? Yes.

But some of the best pool players of all time, the C on my wall out there. I have two photos of signed photos of Filipino pool players. Efron, Rayas and Francisco fuckwads.

God damn it. Why Cameron was last name. Batter, batter is effin raises and the Django, Francisco Bustamante, Francisco Bustamante, the pro to the top 10 efron's probably no one ever, ever raise. Most people agree with that. And Bustamante is probably top 10 of all time.

I'm not sure we should be even positive racial stereotypes now. Not those are black. I know by now they're not kosher anymore.

That's silly. Yeah. The reason is what happened is the 1950s when American g.i.'s were in the Philippines.

They introduced pool to the Philippines and they started playing under really bad conditions because it's very moist outside humidity. The tables roll really slowly. And so they developed a lot of really good skills under bad conditions.

And then they would go to good conditions and they also have a gambling culture. So there's a lot of gambling involved and poor. And so there in pools everywhere.

There was outside cafes with terrible hollenius and these people got just got really, really good at pool and some of them to this day. So the best players in the world come from the Philippines. Like when guys would see guys in tournaments and they would have to play a guy from the Philippines a to fork.

Here we go.

Wow. Now, faith like Chinese and ping pong. Probably I dont know about that, though. I don't know too much about that.

That's actually true of even skier's. Right. Like so people that kind of learned online. I know the East Coast gears there highly represent the Olympics because they train on ice. Okay. Got to get like again. It's tough. It's the tough conditions that kind of forjustice like fortitude. And then you can adapt to any terrain. Yeah. Versus like if you kind of grew up skiing the south part of Colorado, you clearly switch that way.

I know. That's the thing. Yeah. We're we're making things easier for people and making easier people.

That's why that's why I have a you know, one of the solutions I have for, you know, the questions of our time is how we fix journalism, right? Yes. One of the things I really think we need to do, because I'm not one of those people that thinks like the MSM are like the media is the problem. I mean, I'm kind of part of the media now. I know I write for a Spectator USA, which is sort of Bridget and some of the other people that that you've had on your show, it's Bridget fantasy or whatever.

Yeah. She's the one actually pitch me. She's hilarious. She is really funny. I wish I had the freedom to be as inappropriate.

I used you say that I wanted to get back to that because you were talking about I will go ahead with this thing about how to fix journalists about.

So since I'm the best reporting that The New York Times really does is on the international stuff. So like they've sent people they've sent journalists into these areas and senge out to like see what's up. And they will be surveilled by by government officials and things like that or early even the ISIS files where, you know, this reporter and your Times reporter Romine had gone into Baghdad and like she just went in and collected all these documents by herself. And and then, you know, they came back and they analyze it and the reverse engineered how ISIS was running their whole entire operation.

This is really good journalism. And when you kind of focus on this shit that's going on in other parts of the world gives you a lot of perspective.

You realize that like a lot of work stuff is actually very America centric. And it and if you had zoomed out, you would see that this wasn't a problem. The thermostat issue of, you know, thermostats, office temperatures, you know, being sexist, for example, because they're too cold for women. That's not a problem. When you have seen how the women in Iran, what they have to deal with. And if we just did a rotation in the newspapers where every everybody from the from the lifestyle or culture desk has to do a stint in, you know, Saudi Arabia or something, reporting from the front, like maybe they'll just maybe they'll have some perspective on shore.

Well, it is all a perspective issue, right? I mean, when in the absence of any real oppression, you find oppression everywhere to find it and pencils and.

Oh, yeah. Like progress is the victim of its own success in a way. And, you know, that's one of the things that because I had a big imposition from when I first joined Spectator, and what they told me was like, you know, I'm not trained as a journalist and like, yeah, we know that. But that's actually, you know, the chairman said, like, that's what we want you. It's because you don't go to the same schools.

You can go through the same journalism school. So you don't not going to think like all the kids are graduating from, say, like Columbia, you know, for in journalism. So we want different perspectives. And it's like in fact, it's a policy that we don't even ask for. Where you go to school. We don't ask what you study. We don't care. So don't even tell us. And that's how I got on board.

Just so they just read your writing and say, we just like how you think. Exactly. Now, isn't that refreshing? It is very refreshing. It's wonderful. Spectator USA. Congrats to them. Why do you think that you can't joke around about things? And why do you think that that in some way is going to make people take you seriously?

I think people put you in bins. Right. So I prefer. Fashionably late, there's just. He said it's this like signal of like how you're gonna act or how you dress, how you come across. And in professional settings, that's there's an expectation of you as a sir behaving a certain way. Now, when you're funny, the problem is that that people don't know, like you could say something, but like, be totally ridiculous. And it's it's a joke.

But but then other people might take that seriously.

And now you're a racist or are you? Welcome to my world. Right.

Right. But but your you work for yourself. You're Joe Rogan. It's it's very different if you are you know, if you are tethered to an organization that you have to represent Eddie on the day, people can't separate that. So, you know, part of my job is, is is negotiating deals with many of the authors that you have on your show. Right. People like who who write best selling books, trying to inked deals with them.

I want your Arabic digital rights for free. You know, I want to make videos of your books to give you some reason. I'll be saying we ink contracts with them, working with publishers, agents. And then also fundraising. I have to go to individuals to say, hey, you know what? It's going to cost us $20000 to translate this book. You know, would you want to sponsor it like you're a fan of this book? Can we get this in Arabic for free?

So when you're kind of like handling those things and going into offices and, you know, some to Penguin Random House and it's it's it's a certain expectation set of you. And I don't know if it's it's it's even more true of women, though, that like. They don't expect you to be funny or like the funnier you are, but the more they take you less seriously. Versus Ben. I don't know. There seems to be a bit of a gender divide there.

I can see that. I could see how that would be an issue, but I would like it to be their problem, not yours. I like funny people. So whenever someone says they're discouraged from being funny and that's one of the things I like about your Twitter page is that it's funny. You're very funny. So discouraging you from being funny to me is like, why would you do that? You can't say because you're not serious commentary.

You know what I'm gonna get you on. I don't think that's true.

And how could how could that be true?

How is it true that someone who's just making jokes also can't be a serious person with a really well thought out perspective?

I know. I obviously I agree with you. But it's it's it's just one of the feedback I've gotten. Like you want to be taken seriously with these people, people that are running things.

Maybe you need your own show. Maybe you need to stop working for people. No, I don't.

I mean, I am still believe in institutions. That's why I'm not like super. You know, I don't want the revolution. I still believe that the way we're gonna change things is through. Right now, there's just too much power in my heart. Would like a revolution, maybe. No, I'm just saying I'm not the kind of person I want to tear down institutions. Right. I kinda want to work within it to change things because they have the best shot at changing things.

So in that sense, I'm not I'm not that much of an outsider. I love this quote. Actually, Elizabeth Warren said it. She said, in life you have to choose. Are you gonna be an insider or an outsider? An insider doesn't have the freedom of speech, but has the power to change things. An outsider can say whatever he or she wants. You can bitch about a system. You can be a whistleblower, but you've no power to change anything.

And you have to choose what you do.

That's it. There was her quote was only ancient Lakota quote. No, actually, no. Actually came from Larry Summers. I don't know if that's accurate.

I don't know if you have to be an insider or an outsider. I don't think you have that financial freedom so that you don't worry about someone taking away your ability to make a living so you suppress your own thoughts. Correct. That's the big one.

But it takes a very you know, a lot of things have to be aligned circumstantially to to have financial freedom in the first place. And put a lot of that does come from even working within the institution. A lot of people who have, you know, huge financial backing. That's why somebody, Sarah Heydar tweeted something like that. The one thing that's not really talked about is the classes implications of kanthal culture.

Right. Because it's going to affect the lower class more drastically. Right. If you don't have the means or their can't you. Yeah, cause there's a huge class. It simply doesn't. Yeah that's true.

It's also just a frivolous way of treating human beings and there's no path for redemption. It's like the thought process of it is so limited because you're not considering the fact that these these are humans and these are people and people learn and grow and they get better in this not offering any path to redemption and lumping all digressions and all mistakes into the same sort of pile. Right. It's just it's a childish way of treating human beings. And it's also there's a fear to it that it's going to come back on you.

So you go after them like some of the biggest creeps are also male feminists. Right. They're the ones who are like, really?

And he say that, you know me. I think that Andrew Doyel the other day, it was funny. Yes.

I love that. He's amazing. That book, Kahtani Plastic Two to Tiny McGraugh. So I love re-tweeting those Titania posts because so many people like, what the fuck is this?

Who is this bitch so mad they think she's real.

So she could be in the sense like sometimes she ends up predicting. Oh, well, what commentary?

She's so close to real. There's this like if you had a television show like one of them after midnight episodes. Is that what it is? Was that was the David Spade show called. So lights out. I'm thinking the other one, the one that Chris Hardwick used to host anyway. You have a talk show. Well. It's a Jimmy Kimmel he had. Is this to MCGRATH? Or is this a real activist? And you and you had the quotes back by a lot of them are close.

You would be hard pressed to get a lot of it wrong.

We're at the point, though, in our history and culture that that we can't even write better satire than reality. Right. And that's that's a problem. It is a problem.

You know, when when our satirists are actually ended up end up writing better stories than or even predicting, you know, what's happening. If that's.

Well, people are losing their fucking minds. There was a video from the University of Phoenix, I think it was where there's this kid on campus and there was some pro-Trump group. Did you see that video that kids scream in and saying, how fucking fascist you fucking trump drought cut?

And he's screaming and he's walking away from them screaming and making as he should not have your throats. But just completely unhinged. And I was watching this, I was like, e magine, if this was some kid yelling about Obama and the Obama administration and the Liberals, because you're not saying anything.

He's not saying the reason why I hate you is because you detain children at the border in cages.

Let's play this. I could hear it and play it and give me some, OK? That circular business.

Well, look at why I want no more jobs. Yeah. I said, okay, that poor kid needs a hug.

Yeah. But imagine if he was saying that about Democrats. Every Republican or every Democrat can suck my balls. Every Republican slashed, every Democrat slash their throat.

That would be crazy. Right. Right. You mean he's doing that because there's his pro student Trump organization there. And so he's screaming that unhinged.

That's one of the problems I think we should not give, you know, like we shouldn't give the right legitimate reasons to be complaining about disparate coverage. Right. So one of the things that Eric Trump tweeted yesterday was which I didn't even know happened. Apparently, a van was was was driven into a GOP tent or something. You know, they want the primaries and it got no coverage. I didn't even get in until I don't I don't know. But it's there was a story about this.

And and, you know, Eric Trump basically tweeted saying that. Imagine if the labels were turned that it was just the other way around. Right. We would hear non-stop. There would be analysis of of, you know, the far right problem in America. Yeah. So we you know, the responsibility is on the media to make sure that these people don't have the argument. Right.

The media has to be open and then they have to be unbiased in their depictions of these things. And we don't really have that kind of media anymore. We have left wing media and right wing media and everybody else is going, what's going on? Is this who's right? Who's telling the truth? You flip back and forth from CNN to Fox News. It's like you're in a vortex of space and time. You don't understand what's what.

Right. Yeah, no, I agree. It's weird. But that kid's screaming, that poor kid. Like, what happened? Where'd you get this slot? Ever Republicans slashed their throat. I know. Come on.

Who are you? What happened to you? And you're in school, so you're learning something.

I'm so I'm so weary of a sort of dog piling on this stuff. I think I think when I first started on Twitter, too, I was always enflaming or like retweeting something that was like, oh, look at this Super Bowl present around the fringe. And like, you know, maybe I shouldn't say you don't amplify that signal. Maybe. Maybe this really is a fringe. And that and that, you know, I'm just kind of making it seem like it's a it's a bigger issue because I notice I fall into that trap sometimes.

Like there was this one story that came out. I think when Apple releases the new iPhone, there was like New York Post was like this, you know, iPhone ten X or something was cited as was criticized as being sexist. And I think what why, how how? You know, and apparently because like the phone was kind of big, like they expand the dimensions. And so, like, it doesn't fit into women's hands as neatly as the old version did.

And then I was like, Cyc tweeted that angrily, like, yeah, of course, like everything sexist again, like cheque's notes, you know, iPhone 6s. And then I realized I was kind of part of the problem because when I looked into this whole issue, it was literally just like two Twitter accounts. And so like an article was written based on like what somebody who is anonymous said on Twitter that it was sexist.

It could have been the Internet research agency in Russia just fucking with everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Tanya. Yeah. Or or another version of Tanya that.

It is it. It's so I kind of stopped doing that stuff. I decide. Become more responsible. I know Twitter account. And yeah. Focus on different things. I mean we already have a lot of good commentators who are fighting this fight. Right. And people like jinkx Lindsay p2pool goes, yeah, they're doing it. Rae rigorously and they're doing it.

Peter Big Oceans case. They're doing it at great peril like they don't like. University is trying to get rid of them. Yeah.

And his papers that they did those grievance papers are how Larry is.

I know the heteronormative and queer behavior and dog party nighttimes calls.

Yeah. Kate. Yeah. Fucking brilliant. Right. And then he got called up for for apparently manufacturing data. Yeah.

Which of course that's the whole point of a hoax. Yes. And yeah I know it's a political hit job.

Yeah. But it's they don't like that mirror of mockery. They don't like that. You know, the spotlight being on them to realize how ridiculous what you guys are supposed to be. Some higher institute of higher education.

But that's what that you know, this this is. Mirroring what happened when, like the atheists, the new atheist started debating this. The religious Christians. Mm hmm. It's like the new atheists are kind of mocking. Right. Like people like Christopher Hitchens say that there's a bit of a mocking tone, like what you'll believe is kind of silly. Yes. And but the way they reacted to it was that like you're not allowed to laugh about this stuff right now.

It's always the question is which side can tolerate humor? You're gonna get on the right side. Right.

I agree. Yeah. As soon as you can't be mocked and like no one hates being mocked more than than left these days. No one more than woke people. Right. I when I called my 2016 Netflix special triggered just calling it triggered cuts. So many finger man. Right.

Mike, you fuckin davi's. You know, I just did it. I just did it to you. But called it triggered new or mad.

Yeah, that's funny.

No, it's just we're in a weird space right now where there's so many voices, so many people have social media and so many people have access to complaining. And so you get this bizarre signal. It's like you gotta kind of wait, let it die down a little. Figure out what. How much of this is real and how much of it is that kid scream and slash the clouds? How many of those people. And we would never hear that.

Right. Right.

So. So I used to say the same thing. Because, you know, you would see medical journals reporting cancer rates are going up and it's like kin's rate is. Is it really the case? Are we having more and more, you know, incidences of cancer or is it their detection methods have gotten better, like diagnostics have gone Bryner And we're just able to catch it at a much earlier stage. So it's kind of inflating the case number. Yes.

So it's hard. It's really hard to tell. And, you know, it seems it seems I'm so, you know, buoyed by the fact that in the last few months seems like mainstream culture in comedy started to push back. You've more and more people were saying kickin' enough of this stuff.

Well, come of the Comedy Store, that's the front line. The Comedy Store is the least WOAK comedy club in the history of the universe.

Is it related to the seller? No. Okay. The sellers really least Loeb too. Yeah.

The one in your standup is pretty on WOAK. And the thing is the audiences want to hear this stuff. They want to hear mocking all this shit. They want to hear it. And they enjoy it. And you know, you get pushback. Sometimes people get up and get mad because you said the wrong word. No. They'll leave, but you're missing the point. The point is to say the wrong word. You know, like what standup is supposed to be is mocking everything that can be mocked.

And if it can be mocked, it will be marked. And if it's funny, the audience will laugh. And if you like, you should mock that. But it just.

Did you shoot it down? Don't laugh like that. Another yeah. Thing you hear quite a bit.

That's a weird one, too, because you shouldn't punch down if it's not funny. But if it's really funny and you're punching down, there are exceptions. Yeah. Yeah. Sam Kinison, one of his greatest bits ever was making fun of people starving in Africa. Yeah. It was a bit about those television late night commercials where you're sitting at home cooking, you know, something like that, you know?

And well, Sam Kinison bit is a little like a real classic. You know, it's like, could you help? Would you please help? And he's like, why don't you help?

You're right next to him. And he goes, why don't you instead of sending him money or send him food, he'll send him something like me. Send someone who's gonna go down there. Okay. We just drove 5000 miles with your food. We realized we wouldn't have world hunger. Have you? People would move where the food is.

You live in a fucking desert and it's like this long, crazy bit of Sam Kinison mocking starving people.

Right. But it's hilarious because it's done the right way.

It's it's he navigated that minefield where you don't feel bad. He goes, you see that?

See that? No, it is. That's fucking sand. You know, it's going to be a hundred years now. Buckett said, we've got desert in America, too. We just don't live it on Mars, asshole.

And he's doing obviously that's not real race. People are stuck. They don't have the ability. They don't have the resources to get out. There's a real problem. They've been there. The climate has changed. Is always real issue. Right?

There's all real issues, but it's horrible. But you're dying. Laughing. Brinkley, 1986, when he did this.

But there's there's a there's there has to be like a theory of humor. Like why that's funny. Versus another case where he's punching down and it's not good luck, man.

Here, here's the thing about various theories like theories are prob-. You probably could.

In up like a sort, you do a post-mortem on a joke. Yeah, and you could accurately dissect why it worked. I don't think you could predict how a joke will work because too many jokes are dependent upon the personality, the irreverence of culture, subjective cultural context, time. Yes, timing, the personality. The person doing it is giant. Yes. And always had this little smile on his devious smirk, and he could get away with more fucked up shit because that was his that was his brand, you know.

Like that wouldn't work with Stephen. Right. Stephen Wright, who has this sort of absurdist perspective and, you know, non-sequitor, one liners, if he had a joke like that, it wouldn't work. But with Kinnison, with the yelling and the anger and you know, and end it anyways, fat and ugly. And, you know, he's always angry. That's like, you know, we talk about marriage and getting divorced. You felt bad for him.

Right. If Brad Pitt was out there screaming about getting divorce, he bought that beautiful fox. He should shut his mouth. He's beautiful.

But Kennison is only five feet tall and fat and balding. He's got a beret on. It's like let him yell.

Yeah, I know. This this analysis, like the anatomy of humor really fascinates me, you know, like why somebody can get away with it, why somebody cannot. And I think I remember when we just recently, because Ari Shaefer did that joke about Kobe, like right after he passed away. And yeah. He was like that.

And that dub wasn't necessarily a joke. Which is also part of the problem. It was mocking of someone. And the joke is in his mocking. If people knew, R.E., they would know that he does that when ever anyone dies, including people he loves. That's Ari's thing. And it's fucked up if you don't know, Ari. But even if you like. Well, I read it. I was like, oh, Jesus, sorry. But that's it's I've come to expect it like he did it when Tom Petty died.

He loved Tom Petty. He mocked Tom Petty mercilessly when Tom Petty died. When Aretha Franklin died. He mocked her mercilessly. You know, it's what he does. It's sort of his his signature move. And he takes pleasure in. And his fans think it's hilarious. But the best way to describe it is the way he looks at it. He has a very niche audience when it comes to that. And then that joke or that thing that he does, that's funny to him and his crazy fans hit a broad audience.

And that's when it became a problem.

It takes a little balls through comedy. I really respect that so much. It's a strange way to make a living it, especially today. We'll call Ari. Had a great point about that, too. Ari is a brilliant guy. You know, you said it was amazing racist stuff.

I know. No, but it's not supposed to say. Let's say from 20.

Yeah. Old. Yeah, yeah. But the one with the Asian driving and stuff. Yeah.

I was I.

It drives me hysterical when I show that to a lot of people and he's a brilliant standup guy who is very, very funny guy. Yeah. I forgot what was going to say about him but. Oh yeah he had this point about comedies like this is a great time for comedy right now because comedy is dangerous again. Like it's really dangerous again. There's actually consequences. Yeah, it was.

You can get away. It wasn't there wasn't as many consequences. People could not like it. But now with social media and the cancel culture and everything. Like people get really angry at comedy now. Woo! Right. You could feel it.

Oh, okay. He's a masochist. Yeah. Now, it's not that he's a masochist. It's just that he's an artist. And he he loves the fact that, you know, it's like it's very punk rock. Now, it isn't a wild comedy's very punk rock like you. You're bucking a trend, but you're also doing it to the delight of audiences, you know? I mean, if anybody thinks that you shouldn't say some of the things I say, come see me in an arena.

Come see fifteen thousand people screaming, laughing at that. I don't think you're right. I think people understand what a joke is. I think people understand that you're saying things that if you took them out of context and put them in a blog, it looks horrible. But if you're saying it in the context of comedy, when you know that someone's just fucking around. It's really funny. And it's funny for a week because people want to release from all this nonsense.

They want to release from this restrictive way of thinking and talk. They want to release it from being told what to do. They want to release from these fucking kids yelling class threads.

It's like, God damn it. What do we do in here? And that's where comedy comes in. Yeah.

Got my release was just moving. Yes. You know. Oh, yeah. Like move to a place that all this stuff was possible and that we could laugh at ourselves again.

And that's probably why you have this really interesting perspective is because of the fact you came from real suppression. You understand real suppression, real consequences.

You left that and then you're seeing these munya consequences and you're like, OK, you guys, this is a problem like you need to go to. Stan, for a couple of weeks, you need to see what it's like in like really suppressive cultures. Exactly. You know how it changes your mind, how it and you end up self-censor. You don't even need the government to do it anymore after scary. Yes, scared. But it doesn't matter if it's the government or the Twitter mob.

After a while, the result was going to be similar.

Even though the consequences are different and we should definitely separate that, I rather lose my job than lose my life.

Well, it's also it's in that with WOAK ness in particular in the propagation of weakness, in the promotion of weakness and the very strict adherence this ideology and the aggressive takedowns of people that don't comply. You are you're essentially instigating a sort of totalitarian way of thinking. But it's just in a way that you think is good. But it's still a totally totalitarian way of thinking. You're implementing this very rigid ideology and you demanding compliance. Purity. Yes. If people don't comply.

You're going after them. That is everything that is against being a liberal progressive thinker.

Exactly. You're supposed to be a person who promotes discourse and open minded communication.

And if you like, Daniel Davis is the best version of that ever.

I know he's the best version of it, because all he is was a musician who is a very eloquent and articulate person who had the patience to sit down with people that believed in a really fucking stupid thing and just through his mere existence and who he is as a person. He changed the way they thought. That is so powerful.

And that's been more powerful than all the punch. A Nazi people.

Yes, the Nazi people. It's such a problem. My friend Kurt was talking to this guy, who's a very prominent left wing thinker, a very powerful person. And my friend Kurt was talking to me. He's like the guy's like saying to him, what's wrong with punching a Nazi? He goes, here's the problem. Who's going to decide who the Nazi is like? We're not talking about real Nazis. When you say punch a Nazi, you might be talking about your granny, who's a Republican, because she likes Trump, because Trump believes in God.

Isn't is Grammie a Nazi?

Right. Well, anti-Fed thinks that well, he's the New Jersey anti-Fed things that Darrell Davis isn't happy. So, yeah, you're right. Well, the concept creep, but it's a quiet, great word works to your advantage. If if this is you know it, there are people for whom the incentives are or are there to to make it seem like the enemy is really that big, because then you can implement all the solutions you want.

Exactly. You know, the population gets cowered in fear. Basically, it's a again, it's another totalitarian. Yeah.

It's almost like you could creating intellectual false flags are you're propping up all the all any divergence from this rigid ideology, some some horrible fucking thing that needs to be attacked and squashed and poisoned and lit on fire.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, what we really need to do is just be nicer to each other. And part of our problem is lack of communication. And if you go to these things, like when you see someone trying to close down a Christina Hoff Sommers speech, what you're seeing is them yelling.

It's yelling.

It's like screaming, setting off fire alarms, screaming that people are fascist. That's not communication. That's just like if you're talking to someone like blah, blah, blah, and then listening to you, blah, blah, blah, it's childish, right?

And the fact is, is all taking place at universities is so discouraging. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that people think does it support it?

And here's another problem that people on the left that aren't that way but think that these people like Antifa are probably good because they're like the Bulldogs, they like the attack dogs of the left and they'll go after the right and they'll they'll they'll look they'll reinforce our ideas. You totally to understand the consequences of this.

You're just going to win with all the energy that goes in a negative way from the left. You're getting more energy that goes in a negative way from the right. It says yin yang thing.

It's exaggerates. It's a gillion dialectic. Pendulum swings, pendulum swinging.

Yes. And it's inevitable. It's been a part of human interaction forever. The best way to communicate with someone is never yelling at them and screaming at them. The best way is to listen, listen to their ideas and wear 'em out with logic.

Right where I'm out with long conversations like the best way for two people who have.

But a separate view of the world, put those put those separate views, the world together. Sit down. You tell me your view of the world. Tell me in particular if we can keep it in a narrow scope. We're both educated about what we're talking about. We're not talking about something when the other person has really no data to draw from. Have a conversation. Sit down. Talk it through. It's possible we can get back to doing that.

The problem is, we're so custom over the last 10 years to communicating digitally. We're so accustomed to blaring our ideas and then checking to see who agrees. Every five seconds, checking our likes and checking out our comments. This is a non social way of interacting through social media. Social revolves, cues, people sitting apart from each other, looking into each other's eyes. Being in the same space as each other. That's how humans are designed to communicate.

That's how we evolved to communicate. So we're basically spending the vast majority of our time debating issues in an unnatural way.

I would say it's a bit of a luxury now because like it feels like it's very easy and very popular to kind of challenge social media in general right later.

The great aspects for sure. Well, and you know, without it, I we couldn't be reaching part of the world that that censors things right out of you. And I would have never talked. Exactly.

Yeah. You know how this conversation allows you. I think Steven Pinker once wrote about this. It was like the difference between common knowledge and shared knowledge. Common knowledge is like we both know something to be true, but shared knowledge is is that we know. I know that you know that I know something. So it's recursive and that creates a very different environment. Like, you know, imagine if you are the one lone atheist in Saudi Arabia and there was no way for you to reach other people.

You would think you're completely by yourself, that you're the only one that thinks different. But in a world where you can reach out and you can read other perspectives, all of a sudden you realize that we I know that I'm not alone. I know that you know that. I know that I'm you know, and it it changes how you feel in terms of just ideologically just to safety. And it creates real change. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes of all time was, was in this manifesto written.

I can't remember the name now, but it was about, you know, a free Internet. And, you know, the problem is that we cannot separate the air that makes wings beat from the air that chokes outside. It's so poetic because you remember these cases of these girls that were escaping Saudi Arabia and then she got locked up in Thailand and she was saying like trying to escape from my my my father. He's I don't want to wear the hijab anymore.

I want to break out. My family would kill me if they find out I'm. You know, I don't want this arranged marriage or whatever. And and the only reason she can reach the outside world and the activists, you know, lawyers heard her story could help her. And she got asylum in Canada because of social media. So it's like the more we want to regulate these things, the more we're making it hard for a lot of these people who live in still closed societies because the only way to get in is through the Internet.

I think the Internet in general is like most things. There's no it's that it's not binary. It's not one or a zero. It's not great or bad. It's both those things altogether. There's amazing aspects of social media. I mean, just the distribution of information is so radically increased over the last 10 years.

Right. But right now, we're focusing so much on the bad. Yes. You know, there was we're focusing too much on the the way it's used negatively and really not accounting for the things that it has brought.

Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. It's I think all of it is moving in a good direction.

This is one of the reasons why I don't completely hate this whole WOAK ideology. Know, I'm a market like well, saying like when I say I'm in support of a lot of people like Bernie and people that go with him because I think they want good things. I think they want a society that's more kind and inclusive.

Well, to be fair, Bernie did him like as a person, like himself personally wasn't a big identity politics guy at all. In fact, in 2016. Not all, you know, times have a bit changed.

It's just easier to do it now. So you slide right in. You get more support.

It's just it's a weird it's a weird battlefield now, idealogical battlefield. And it's causing the Democratic Party to split. Yeah, right.

It's quite it's kind of hilarious. It's just I love fake shit. I love when people like obviously fake. I love them. They give fake speeches and they do fake political things, their thumb and their hand like that. I love that stuff. I just love when they fall in those patterns.

Just it makes it off. It's so don't don't. Yeah, but that's why Dog and you, Andrew Yang stands out in such stark. Contrast like, who is that guy doing there? Seems like a regular guy. I'm just really upset that we'll never get the image of Andrew Yang doing the whipped cream Cocchi thing in the White House. Do you see that? What is he going to do?

Do you not see the story like he did with his followers? Yeah. Whipped cream? No, he was questioning his New Hampshire office.

Right. And then Skorton will scream in people's mouths. Exactly.

His staffers mouth. Right. And what's the funniest thing? Like like like like nobody told him the optics were right.

That looks white cream and you're shootin people's way and he's on his knees.

Yes, that's all that's wrong. But but I'm just upset that this is not gonna happen.

The White House.

I thought that that's it's probably having right now with Trump and his WWE manager. You're probably in the White House right now doing that. Exactly.

That was a really bad hit piece on Andrew Yang in The New York Times. That wasn't so bad that people started like that to disable the comments.

Why did they do that? Why did they do those? They were finding disgruntled ex employees of his to basically shine on him. And like one of the complaints was that he precious. people to do karaoke.

Well, what a monster. I know. I'm like, that's the worst he could find. You know, in 20 years of employment history, no one.

You should be past your purity test. No one. No one told you.

Especially if you actually turn the light on them. Everybody's flawed. And especially if you only highlight those flaws outside of the context of whatever the fuck they were talking about, the conversations they were having and what was going on. And you could make a very distorted perception of someone by just snipping and piecing together that.

So that's why it's so insidious. And what's also why it's weird when it's coming from journalists like you should know what you're doing. You should know that this is not an accurate or objective analysis of who this person is or but that's what I mean.

The person who wrote this article who, you know, was like saying, oh, he's uncomfortable with language.

And there was some there were some implication in the piece that like he he's clumsy with how he deals with women staffers. Right. And it's like, yeah, OK, this guy is a tech nerd, you know. Maybe he got some social cue reading such issues. I mean, I do, too. And it's like to drag someone, you know, to basically, like slinging mud at somebody like that. It's horrible.

The thing is, though, they're doing it because that's what sells. You know, these magazines and newspapers have become sort of slaves to clickbait. They they kind of have to get clicks. Yeah. I mean, you talk to people that are actual journalists now and the pressure that's on them to get a bunch of clicks breach article and you know, they'll have editors that change the title of their articles to make it more salacious.

But that's why they they did the whole paywall thing. Right. So The New York Times transition to subscription just for that purpose, that they won't be subject to the whims of what they still are.

They still are. Because a lot of those things you get through, you Google News Feed and you know, you have to click through to the paywall if you want to read it. But the initial titles would get you to click the link and then you realize it's paywall. You don't just sign up without reading anything. You go there because there's an article that's interesting to you. Right.

And then you've read that confirms your world view. Yes. Yes. Or goes against it. You get angry. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I have to say in that regard, I'm lucky that I don't have that pressure. Yeah. They just let him write whatever, you know. There's no. Yeah, there's no.

That's awesome. Listen, I got to wrap this up, but I appreciate what you're doing. I think it's wonderful, this idea that you're getting these books, these people and converting it, converting languages so that they can understand some of these great works. And yeah, I mean, it's a step in the right direction. And again, your Twitter feeds, awesome.

They tell people tell people where they can get a hold of you on social media.

Twitter at Miss M.S. Melching, Emil's LCG a_g_n_. My own website. If you did Facebook, then I know it's like notan. That's my rebellion. My millennial rebellion. No Instagram. Okay.

Yeah, well, thank you. I enjoyed talking to you. This is a fun. Lot of fun. Thanks. Okay. Bye, everybody.