Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - Hitler vs Stalin, Sociopaths & the Most Evil Villains of All Time | The Vile Eye • 204

Starting point is 00:00:00 His dad was a cobbler, and he was a drunk, and he beat him a lot. And he was like in and out of his life, and then he died when he was young. And his mother was a very devout Russian Orthodox, and she wanted him to be a priest. And he was actually training for a long time to become a priest. But then he got exposed to the communist literature, and so he started going into that world, and then he became a thug for the revolution, pretty much. He would go and rob banks. For me personally, when you're trying to define the most evil person,

Starting point is 00:00:28 I look at that person. It is what they've done because, for example, maybe Ted Bundy was a worse person than Stalin. So he doesn't enter into the conversation personally because you do have to factor in the scope when you're talking about the most evil people, which has traditionally been, you know, despots and dictators. You're probably not going to find more evil people than the people who are responsible for genocides.

Starting point is 00:00:50 You know, one thing I stick to is murder is the most evil thing you can do because you're taking away everything that person was, is, and will ever be. You know, even like torture isn't even close to being murder because there's like an example would be John McCain who was POW in Vietnam but went on to lead a successful life with a loving family and he died at an old age, you know. You ask John McCain if he would have rather died in that cage in Vietnam, he would say no, you know. I lived a great life after that. Now being tortured to death is one of the worst ways you can be murdered but murder is the worst thing you can do. What's up guys? If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Violai. That's me. Or Jamal. Jamal works. Because your face is out there now, too. Yeah, that's fine. Welcome to New Jersey. Thank you so much for coming in from Nevada.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Of course. It was not a direct flight either, so I appreciate your patience. We had one get canceled halfway through, but I'm really glad you're here, man. Me too. Thank you for having me. Well, I got to tell you, I was unaware of your channel until little George Payroutin was in here. This kid's killing it. He's in high school. He's got a podcast. And so he hit me up and said, can you be on my podcast? I said, not only will will i be on it why don't you come through here so we were filming in here and at one point he brought up that you had been on one of his earliest guests on the podcast he's like you ever hear this channel vial i am like no and we pulled it up on screen i was like oh shit like this unless he was laughing because

Starting point is 00:02:20 it's like right up my alley but for people people who don't know, can you just explain the basis of your channel and the types of videos you make? Sure. So I make videos on villains. That's pretty much what I do at a base level. But more so, it's about breaking down a villain's character to understand why they do what they do and to also give people

Starting point is 00:02:45 you know information they might not have known about that villain when they were were watching the movie or the series or the video game that i'm covering you know that they're in um because you know we all we all play games or watch movies or shows or whatever and there's things we miss you know we're not paying attention to every little detail so i try to bring those things to light too but it's more so about understanding how villains become villains why villains become villains and why they do what they do yeah and you break it down to for people who haven't seen the videos like this guy goes to the most minute details like eye movement how they play with their food i mean did you have a do you have a psychology or psychiatric

Starting point is 00:03:26 background? Nope, not at all. You just, where'd you learn all this stuff? I don't know. I have no idea. I just took a crack at it and it turns out I'm pretty good at it. And I just discovered my talent that way, I suppose. Do you read a lot of stuff now since you've been doing this for some years? So I was a big reader in school when I was younger. My mom actually taught me to read before we got to school because she's

Starting point is 00:03:53 a big reader. I used to read tons of books in school and I still read a lot of books, especially for characters that are in books. But most of my time is spent on whatever character I'm covering that week. So typically, if I'm not watching or reading something I have to do for a video, I'm probably playing a video game because that's what I do for fun in my free time.

Starting point is 00:04:20 But I still read a fair amount. Yeah. Yeah. Because like it comes across as if you are reading from a psychological textbook on disorders that people have. Well, I mean, that's good to hear. When I, after George was in here, I started going through the playlist and your number one video was Colonel Hans Landa. Right. From Inglourious Basterds, who I'm sure we're going to talk about today. That's a top five movie of all time for me.

Starting point is 00:04:46 But I watched that, and it was so perfect, like how you almost diagnose this guy. And then I started going through Walter White, Tony Soprano, all these ones. And the depth you'll go to it when it's a TV show. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans,

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Starting point is 00:05:59 Because you have like a full series versus a movie where it's two or three hours. Right. You know, you were telling me off camera that if a fan requests a character and you haven't seen the show before you make the video you will watch the entire show oh yes yeah so i my my thing is so i'll use like wikis and stuff if i forget when a character was born or something you know because i don't remember when they said they were born or where you, so I want to just look that up real quick. But I want to make sure that my videos are all me, you know? So it's my observation of the character and what I think, you know, or what I see them doing. So no, I don't use any outside sources or anything i have to watch the whole

Starting point is 00:06:45 thing when somebody requests something and even if i have seen it before i watch it again like when i did oh yeah when i when i did the sopranos and walter white i had already seen both of those shows two times over but i watched it again because you know i don't want to miss anything you know i you i remember 146 episodes all over again yeah yeah or however many it was yeah yeah they go 86 and 60 something like that wow that's amazing man i mean i just you know the when i see people behind it like we know what kind of work goes into a youtube channel so when i see channels doing the leg work i just have such an appreciation for it well thank you because of because of what we do here but you know you were saying you were always into the villains as a as a kid yeah but what what what is the nature of evil itself to you so what i've learned is that the root of all evil to me seems to be selfishness.

Starting point is 00:07:47 And to be selfish isn't evil because we're all selfish to a certain degree. If you have a plate of food at a restaurant and someone comes over and says, give me half of that, you're like, no, this is mine. So technically you're being selfish, right? But that's not bad. You want to eat your food. You bought it. You paid for it that's mine right but you can look at any evil act and unique you can name any evil act and you can find that it begins with selfishness why does someone steal because they want something why does someone kill somebody well because they hurt You know, you don't kill someone for no reason.

Starting point is 00:08:26 You have a reason for doing that. And you're taking someone's life away because of your own selfish desire to do so. So any evil thing you look at, you'll always find that it's rooted in the self. And a corruption of selfishness is evil. That's pretty much how I see it. Guys, I got to give a huge shout out to my man, George Payroutin. If you're not familiar with George, he is literally in high school and does a podcast all the time on the side with all kinds of interesting guests. And he was nice enough to

Starting point is 00:08:56 invite me on his show back in, I believe, January. So we'll put the link to that down in the description. We brought him out here to the studio. We filmed it here. And while we were on camera, he actually brought up Viol Eye, who is the guest right now. Jamal, who went on George's show, is I think one of the first guests he ever had. So huge, huge shout out to George because that was the initial idea to get Viol Eye in here. He helped hook it up and here we are. So make sure you check out George's show and go subscribe to that. The kid's awesome, doing an amazing job job just want to make sure we put that in there do you think people are born evil no no absolutely not um so you sometimes you'll hear people say i wish i could go back in time and kill baby hitler you know i've heard people say that before. Or we get him into art school.

Starting point is 00:09:53 Right. Right. Exactly. See? So baby Hitler was a baby. He wasn't Hitler yet. He was just a baby. So I would counter, if you want to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, why don't you go back in time and drop baby Hitler in a foster home or an orphanage somewhere, or take him somewhere else? Because if he wasn't where he was at that time, he wouldn't have become Adolf Hitler. He could have lived somewhere else. I mean, he could have, sure. But the reason he became who he was, and here's another thing about most people that are like that evil and like serial killers and things, 99% of the time, you're going to find that their childhood was hard in some way either they were abused or they grew up in poverty or they witnessed a lot of things going on around them

Starting point is 00:10:30 if i remember correctly hitler's dad was pretty abusive um his mother i don't remember the situation with his mother but there's some things in his life with his mother so he had that going for him and then he went through world war one which that's a whole oh yeah whole traumatic ordeal right there and then his country was destroyed and he had all this misery going on around him and people were scapegoating the jews and he latched on to that and became who he was would hitler have been exposed to those things in america maybe maybe he might have gone and fought in world war world war one but maybe he would have had better parents who treated him better maybe he wouldn't have been around people who hated jews and then he wouldn't have hated jews or all the other people that he

Starting point is 00:11:13 hated because it wasn't just jews you know it's the influences you have growing up that make you who you are you aren't who you are when you're born you become who you are you know um another good way to look at that is like the influence your friends have on you for born you become who you are you know um another good way to look at that is like the influence your friends have on you for example you know me and uh i have a younger brother me and him grew up in the same home same parents you know obviously we're different people so we're going to turn out differently but you'd think you know if we were just in that environment we'd grow up according to what they taught us but i had one group of friends and he had another. And I turned out in a way that the people around me turned out and he turned out the way that the people around him turned out. So it's your influences. You're not predetermined to

Starting point is 00:11:58 be who you are from when you're born. I don't think so at least. You have certain proclivities like in your DNA and your genes or whatever to behave a certain way or talk a certain way and you know maybe you smile differently whatever but ultimately it comes down to what you're exposed to and if you're exposed to death and darkness well you're probably going to not probably but you might grow into someone that embodies those things you know yeah this is where it gets really gray area for me because i try to toe the line carefully between empathy and definition sure right if you see evil you see hitler try to exterminate millions of people it's as evil right he's evil

Starting point is 00:12:39 period i'm sure we're definitely going to come back to him later and all that. But it's also important, I think, to learn from situations such that we can help avoid them in the future as best we can to understand why they got that way, which requires what? It requires empathy. Exactly. Oh, my God. Am I going to show any empathy to baby Hitler? Yeah. Well, maybe baby Hitler you can. Right. There's a story, though, that I think about all the time. I've told it a few times throughout the history of this podcast. Sorry for people who've already heard that, but heard this. But my buddy Josh from college grew up in the Bronx, grew up in the projects. And he's a brilliant guy. Okay. And he also had both parents in the home.

Starting point is 00:13:22 And his mom was a teacher at one of the local schools, amazing parents. So that was an advantage that a lot of kids you grew up around didn't have one parent in the home, no money, no guidance, but he was able to work hard and get into a program that by high school, he had the opportunity to go to a public school in Connecticut and like a really good neighborhood. So he would live there five days a week and then come home on Friday evenings to the Bronx and go back on Sunday night or whatever. And so one time when he was a freshman, it was, I think it was the

Starting point is 00:13:58 first time he might've lived there on the weekends too, but it was the first time he was coming back from the school, whatever it was. And he dropped off in the bronx and he's walking back to his house and he gets to a corner where he sees a buddy of his who he grew up with okay 14 year old kid just like him and he goes hey what's up man and the kid looks back at him like hey like not necessarily happy to see him but not mad so josh goes over and dabs him up. And Josh immediately knew what he was doing on the corner. You know, he was slinging drugs. And the kid, and I give a lot of respect to this.

Starting point is 00:14:35 The kid looked at Josh and said, you know, how you doing? He goes, good. You know, it's going good. He goes, you liking it out there? Yeah, yeah, it's good so far. Listen, Josh. Walk over to the other side of the street. This is not the life for you.

Starting point is 00:14:52 You stay where you need to go because you're representing us. Right. And literally, he walked across the street. They looked at each other, nodded, and went on their way. Now, that kid, because of lack of choice and environment, I don't know what became of him. He may very well become some drug kingpin or something. or something right selling poison to people sure they get killed which is an inherently evil thing sure but there was a presence of mind in him to know that he didn't want to drag everyone else there with him and he felt like he had no choice. So how much in that situation does then the evil act, selling heroin or something, necessitate someone who has decided there's no other choice for them versus someone who is truly elitely evil?

Starting point is 00:15:38 So there's – so he – remind me again in the story so he grew up in the same environment with him yes same exact environment so i would guess that you know him and josh had different friend groups you know they weren't just friends with each other and had the same exact friends he probably fell in with some different people or he had family members that brought him into that right um so especially in an when you're exposed to environments where you feel like that's the only choice you have that's how do i say this so let me let me clarify your question again so you're asking what's the difference between someone who feels like they have to do something evil and someone who is like supremely like a serial killer okay that's a good way of putting it okay um

Starting point is 00:16:37 that comes down to his both both are influenced by their environmental influences right yes but one person prop like so a serial killer for example is extremely rare and I don't even know if there's any cases there probably is of a serial killer who lived in a warm and loving environment and never experienced anything horrible in their youth. There's probably a few outliers, you know, but they are the exception, not the rule. And so that the serial killer, he developed a personality disorder, which is antisocial personality disorder, which most people commonly associate with like psychopaths or sociopaths, which is people say it's like an outdated term. But, you know, because it's so common, I still like to use it. Um, so the difference between those two people would be that disorder. You know, he grew up in an environment where things were great, you know, Josh's friend. Um, but then later on he was influenced by people who maybe said, Hey,

Starting point is 00:17:41 this is a way to make quick money. You know, this is a way to get ahead in life and it's the only way it's the only way you know this and those people influenced him to do that it wasn't in him necessarily necessarily to naturally gravitate towards that because of something within him you know it was the people around him who said hey this is what you got to do this is what you need to do and there was no other people around him who were probably saying no it's not what you have to do it's an option you know but you know if you want to do this is what you need to do and there was no other people around him who were probably saying no it's not what you have to do it's an option you know but you know if you want to do that great or don't do that but you could go to school or whatever you know for a a serial killer or someone who's supremely evil it's typically like they can control it in a way because there are psychopaths and sociopaths all around us.

Starting point is 00:18:27 You know, it's not every psychopath and sociopath is going to become a serial killer or a Hitler, you know. Let's hope not. Right, exactly. You know, it's not a – I forget what the number is exactly of people who have it in the world, but I've made the comparison before. Unless you can look that up,'ll see yeah sure um someone like maybe a karen you know that's a that's a thing on the internet like someone who's screaming at someone at a fast food window because they got their order wrong why are they doing that probably because they have something in them that doesn't give them the ability to empathize with others

Starting point is 00:19:05 as well enough as the rest of us can, you know? So when they're yelling at them, they're not another person who has feelings like they do and are experiencing feelings in that moment. They're the bad guy and they're nothing, you know, there might be anything in their mind. And for a serial killer or anyone with, you know, who's supremely evil people aren't people anymore you know they are just a thing you know they they don't recognize that the people they're harming feel just like they do you know they just see them as something to abuse and use like they might have been abused or used but in in your example josh's friend he he can still empathize with people he has friends he's got family he's got everything he doesn't have a lack of empathy he's just made

Starting point is 00:19:52 poor choices you know and that those choices might he might have felt forced to make those choices yes but it comes down to he made those choices but that's, but that's not who he is. He could be someone else if he wanted to. A serial killer could also be someone else if they wanted to, but they have these feelings, these urges to be – to just act out these dark desires within them that they might have – that might have been inflicted on them when they were kids. Because a lot of times, a serial killer, in their motives, you'll see that their motives kind of echo something that happened to them when they were a kid. Yes. Like Ted Bundy, for example, he killed young women. He targeted exclusively college-age women, and maybe younger a little bit, but in that area.

Starting point is 00:20:43 And his childhood was horrible in a number of different ways but he also had this attachment to his young mother who was around the same age when he was growing up who was i think he believed that she was his sister for the long time because she had him so young that his uh grandparents passed her off as his sister initially, and then he discovered later in life that it was his mother. Oh, shit. So he had this weird attraction to his sister, mother, and all this weird things going on in his life, and then that translated into him killing young women. That's some Freudian shit right there. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:21:17 So Josh's friend probably didn't have any of that. He had people saying, deal deal drugs and this is what you got to do this is what you need to do maybe maybe because you said what he had to do right do you so do you have knowledge of like it was his parents saying like this is what you got to do to keep the house this is what you got to do to i don't have knowledge of that okay so what i like that you said a couple minutes ago pointed out like it felt like he had no choice right that's what i'm saying right he was he wasn't he was in a shitty school where they didn't care about him was you know he probably had one parent home who was working half the time and didn't pay attention to him yep he had a very

Starting point is 00:21:58 dark view of the world and so he felt like there was nothing else there you go and this is where you get it gets weird because again you don't ever want to explain to white people and suddenly be like, oh, Hitler was just a baby. Right. It goes back to every time. But when you pass a homeless person, for example, on the street who's talking loudly to themselves, sitting there with their clothes tattered, their almost thousand-mile stare like they're not there. They're obviously schizophrenic. There's's something else what do you usually feel some empathy yeah right because you're like and sometimes i'll stand there and i'll i'll actually like take it in and i'll feel i feel like i want to i want to talk with them and help them you know but there's so

Starting point is 00:22:40 many of them when you see them in the city it's like kind of impossible to do that but i feel massive empathy for it right because i say that person's unwell. They have a psychological disorder. Guys, if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, please take two seconds and go hit it right now. Thank you. So you mentioned other psychological disorders, which are things you also talk about in videos that include sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, and then antisocial personality.

Starting point is 00:23:08 So antisocial personality disorder is the disorder. So I guess in psychological circles, it's not psychopath or sociopath anymore. It's just antisocial personality disorder, but psychopaths and sociopaths are subsets of antisocial personality disorder is the best way to see it okay yeah we're gonna dig into that okay but my question is why don't we look i'm not saying we should i'm just saying why don't we look at evil people who have a diagnosable clear mental problem that could be any one of those things right and not have empathy

Starting point is 00:23:47 for that and assume it's not them they're just a passenger in this fucked up body like a patrick bateman maybe so i think we should that's the thing so one thing i want to say right off the bat is the only reason my channel exists is because good and evil are not black and white you know every situation needs to be examined differently you know one person does one crime there's different reasons they did it and different influences they had for doing it another person will have another motive you know um but sorry so your question about the disorders why don't we recognize yeah why don't we if we look at the homeless person who has schizophrenia and feel empathy for them like oh they don't even know

Starting point is 00:24:31 what they're doing if there's a serial let's think of the worst of worst like a serial killer or like a hitler who clearly has a personality disorder that is this affliction right in that way why don't we empathize with that and instead say, oh, they're not evil as a person. They do evil things because they have a fucked up head. So, you know, that's a great question. So I think you can sympathize with the most evil people who ever existed or empathize with the most evil people who ever existed. You can empathize with the fact that they became evil, that they had things in their life that drove them to that point and that as a fellow human being you are it's a tragedy that

Starting point is 00:25:13 they had to become that they felt they became that person due to whatever happened in their lives but there's a point where your actions eliminate, and not so much eliminate that empathy, but does it really matter anymore? It matters because we don't want those things to happen again. We don't want people to become these people, and we want empathy to be the rule in the world, and educating people on that,

Starting point is 00:25:42 how treating people well in their youth or just throughout their whole lives is the best way to ensure that evil doesn't happen. But once someone has committed evil acts, to that degree especially, it's just not plausible to forgive them. You can empathize with who they are and that they are a human being who went through all this horrible stuff but go ahead no i as a as a clarifier there sorry what if it was you could forgive their spirit but hate their body you understand what i'm saying sure hate the and and i'm not saying this is true i'm just playing devil's advocate here with things. What if it's because they have that affliction, they literally know not what they do, right?

Starting point is 00:26:32 Could you be like, well, they don't know what they're doing in their heart because they don't have the ability to know. But the thing – that body right there that's doing this thing, we're not forgiving that. We hate that. Maybe. thing that body right there that's doing this thing we're not forgiving that we hate that maybe so i think if i'm getting you correctly um we're getting real meta around here i'm just uh so um what was i gonna say i lost my train of thought there. That's okay. I do too. They – man. I'm sorry. Say your question one more time. No problem. So if they have – if someone is doing evil stuff, can we forgive their spirit that knows not what it does versus their body, which is the organism that is doing this against their own free will, technically.

Starting point is 00:27:26 So I – that depends on what you believe, honestly. But I think that you – so unless someone can – is verifiably insane. I know that's not an appropriate term to use, but – It isn't. So unless someone can – is verifiably insane. I know that's not an appropriate term to use. But I mean I don't know. Well, it is. You probably deal with some of these like semantics with these, I feel you. I've seen a few things about – to say someone is insane rather than what disorder they have, that's more appropriate. Just call them crazy.

Starting point is 00:28:03 But no, they have, you know, that's more appropriate, you know, just call them crazy, you know, but no, they have this, you know, but people who can in like a court of law, right. That you can give them the insanity plea and you find them like criminally insane. They really did not know what they were doing when they did what they did. People who commit evil acts, typically they know what right and wrong is they just don't care you know so it's not that they can't help it they can help it they just choose not to and that's the problem there that's that's where what good i think defines evil is in willing choice to ignore what's right and choose to do what's wrong. And you can delude yourself into believing that what you're doing is right, but at the end of the day, you know, when we examine someone's actions and we're judging them, did you know that this was right and wrong?

Starting point is 00:29:03 You knew you were killing people. Yes, I did. Why did you do it? Because I wanted to. But you knew it was wrong. Yes, you know that this was right and wrong you knew you were killing people yes i did why did you do it because i wanted to but you knew it was wrong yes you know it's it's a choice it's still a choice people make even if they have a disorder because like i said anti-social personality disorder i'm sure millions of people have the disorder right but not every one of them kills people you know not every one of them commits crime some of them might might just, you might think they're an asshole, for example. What are the, I mean, we hear the name, the name makes some of it obvious, but what are all the things that go into antisocial personality disorder? So.

Starting point is 00:29:34 Behaviors. It's funny because, you know, for me, I always thought antisocial as just like someone who doesn't like to be around people. You know, I'm antisocial. I don't like, you know, going to parties or whatever. But it's literally anything that is not conducive to society. You know, committing crimes, acting out in, being deceptive, lying, frequent. See, I'd have to look up the exact specifics of that because like i was telling you

Starting point is 00:30:06 before the video when i when i plug in all these these disorders and character and stuff i typically you know look up the symptoms and whatever what i think it is you're doing a lot of them um but yeah it's it's anything that goes against society and like what most people would how they'd play nice in the sandbox with other people pretty much yeah it won't take long to tell you neutrals ingredients vodka soda natural flavors so what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple.

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Starting point is 00:31:25 and terms apply instacart groceries that over deliver you know um and there's a i don't know if you could look up look up the symptoms of antisocial personality disorder because that would that would help quite a lot and you said people are getting away from defining people as sociopathic or psychopathic? Yeah, because a lot of the same traits are found in both. But I actually talked about this in a recent video. The way I kind of broke it up is you can look at a psychopath and a sociopath and compare them to like a predator and a starving predator so a psychopath a psychopath is someone who is highly organized and when they're committing their crimes like they're aware of what they're doing and they're planning things out and they're

Starting point is 00:32:19 trying not to get caught and all all that stuff right a sociopath is anytime you see like a maniac someone who's just going and killing people and not really caring what they're doing or not really thinking about their actions they're just working on impulse that's a sociopath so the psychopath is more organized and a sociopath is less organized interesting that's why i compared it to like a predator and a starving predator because a starving predator they'll attack anything you know they're fucking hungry right so they'll even attack humans sometimes which you know typically a a predator the only time they attack a human is when you go into their territory right yeah the only animal that i know of that actually hunts humans are polar bears because they have such low food sources up there that they just anything anything you know they'll hunt it

Starting point is 00:33:05 but most other animals they're trying to hunt their their targeted prey in their environment it's only when you get into their territory that they start like hey get out of here you know yeah but a predator who's starving they don't care you know they'll go after anything because they're hungry and that's a sociopath you know i'm hungry i want to kill i want to do whatever i want to do i'm gonna do it psychopaths i want to kill but i don't want to get caught and i want to kill i want to do whatever i want to do i'm gonna do it psychopaths i want to kill but i don't want to get caught and i want to keep killing for a long time so that's what i'm you know and that's just like a serial killer example psychopathic serial killers but um yeah i i once had when i was younger someone who i was like training with it was like a fighter

Starting point is 00:33:41 was explained to me the true meaning of psychopath and how it's actually a good thing and whatever and there was like a time where i remember i'm like oh yeah no this is great and then i remember i went and looked up the definition like a couple years later i'm like that's the dumbest shit i've ever said in my life because these are these are literal crazy people but you know some people like to say like oh if you're kobe bryan like you're a psychopath for winning but like we we throw – and I obviously did it too. We throw around that term. But it is dense and it completely changes.

Starting point is 00:34:11 It literally changes you on the food chain of humanity, which there shouldn't be a food chain there. You know what I mean? Yep. No. And there's a bunch of different symptoms. But I think the baseline thing for people with disorders like that is a lack of empathy. Yes. And that's what enables them to do what they do.

Starting point is 00:34:35 Yeah, having a reckless disregard for the safety or safety of others. I typically go to the Mayo Clinic because the Mayo Clinic is pretty well respected. Let's do it. One of the top medical institutions in the United States and the world for that matter. Read them off. So yeah, ignoring right and wrong, telling lies to take advantage of others,

Starting point is 00:34:53 not being sensitive to or respectful of others, using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or pleasure, having a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated, having problems with the law, including criminal behavior, being hostile, aggressive, violent, or threatening to others,

Starting point is 00:35:09 feeling no guilt about harming others, doing dangerous things with no regard for the safety of self or others, being irresponsible and failing to fulfill work or financial responsibilities. And this is describing antisocial personality disorder. Right. And I feel like you just described Tony S soprano to a fucking see yeah and it's it's it's it's funny too because like all of us probably do some of these things to a certain degree but it's these things are an indicator oh if you've got a quite a few of these things going on in your life that you have this disorder yeah if you're having

Starting point is 00:35:41 a bad day you you're capable of any of these right well most of them right tony tony soprano embodied every single one of these with everything he did yeah and maybe that's actually a decent one to start with you did an incredible like an hour and a half or hour 15 20 minute breakdown right on tony soprano and you and i were talking before it's your favorite show of all time it is my favorite show welcome to sopranoville in new jersey thank you first thank you very much but you you nailed so many things about him because you you want to talk about someone who had a very fucked up environment oh yeah that then molded him to respond to impid eye impetus impid eye whatever right differently than others would yeah like you crafted it from his childhood you also worked in like the many

Starting point is 00:36:25 saints of newark and the things we learned in that movie but what you defined him as anti-social personality disorder what did you expect that going into it already yeah so i had already done a few videos on characters who had who have antiisocial personality disorder um i was kind of expecting him to be um have narcissistic personality disorder which is a little different but kind of similar also it's um a narcissist is like narcissistic personality disorder is they're more so just worried about themselves, you know, and they might not be necessarily violent all the time or have these strange impulses to like, you know, I need to go out and kill people because I like how it feels. Like they'll just kill people because, you know, I'm thinking about me and that's what I got to do for me in the moment. You know, I'm so obsessed with me that I don't care what I do to other people.

Starting point is 00:37:23 So I thought he was going to be more so that. And the reason that video actually ended up being so long compared to Walter White, which is about the same season length. I think that maybe a season less. It's like 60 versus 86, but same difference. But Tony is such an interesting one to go through because he's going through therapy the whole time. Yes. You know, so I looked at every single therapy session and I had a lot of help from Dr. Jennifer, Jennifer Melfi, you know, shout out to Dr. Melfi for that video. But yeah, it's Tony's a great example of someone who is pretty ingrained in his life.

Starting point is 00:38:02 You know, like all of his influences growing up were gangsters you know and so tony is clearly capable of being a family man you know he's got a family he's got a wife and he's got two kids and when he's at home they you know they typically have a good time you know he's nice to his kids and he can be nice to carmela even though they they fight all the time um but it's very ingrained with him within him to be who he is but Tony is clearly he clearly knows what right and wrong is you know he it's not like you think so I think so oh yeah he he for example you know most people in the mafia right they had a rule about not killing civilians. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:47 You know, they only kill people who were in the criminal game. Right. And why? Because, one, it. They signed up for it. Well, no, why don't they kill the civilians? Because, one, sure, it brings heat on them, right? But it's also not right.

Starting point is 00:39:01 You know, that person is an innocent person. They view the people that are working with them as innocent because they, you know, we agree that we're all in this game together. And now you're no longer innocent. You're part of it. And if we've got to kill you, we've got to kill you. If you've got to kill us, you've got to kill us. It's a fair game, you know. But the people that aren't in the game, they're innocent people.

Starting point is 00:39:19 So they can recognize that we shouldn't be killing innocent people because they're innocent. But these other people aren't so innocent, so we will. They know what right and wrong is. But do you think that's more subconscious based on the rules of the game that they're in, that they're taught when they're young? They're like, oh, this is just how we do things versus they actually can tell the difference you know how like someone can be you can tell someone to repeat something over and over again then they repeat it and they have it memorized but they may not actually embody what they're saying they're just repeating what you said yeah i mean i don't know it depends on a case-by-case basis i suppose but they

Starting point is 00:40:00 they know what right and wrong is. It's more so just a willingness to ignore it, I think, is how I see it. They're aware that what they're doing isn't looked well upon by the rest of the world, but they don't really care. They're aware that people don't like being beat up or stolen from or killed, but they don't care, you know, and I think. I don't know, it's it's tough. That's that's honestly a tough one. It's. Maybe they do.

Starting point is 00:40:47 Maybe they don't, you know. basis of the series david chase who obviously did a brilliant job the the initial pitch for himself of what he was doing is he wanted to write a show about a depressed man who's in the middle of a midlife crisis who's every problem traces back to his mother who was a miserable depressed bitch sure and all he did was he took that and said okay and i'm going to make that character in the literal mafia but the basis of the character is actually technically drawn to the everyday folk too it goes to a whole new level when you have him literally be in the mafia where he's breaking laws every day right but the idea is that he was trying to show that this type of person exists and some of it by the way was based on himself and and on his own North Jersey upbringing and problems with his mother so I look at that and I

Starting point is 00:41:42 say okay if take away the fact that tony soprano was a gangster let's remove some of therefore maybe the killings he would do and stuff like that like the most gangstery of the gangster stuff remove the fact that his literal business is a crime let's say he actually just worked at barone sanitation right and ran that right where maybe he had to kick up money to some gangsters who told him what to do is he still that person without the mob i don't think so no no because as much as his mother is like a miserable person especially i think if i remember the many saints of newark correctly you know you see how he's just around all these other mob guys all the time when he's a kid. That's his dad.

Starting point is 00:42:26 That's his uncles. That's everyone he's associated with is in the mob. So to take out the mob stuff for Tony, that means you'd have to take out those influences. And with those influences gone, why is Tony going to be a mob guy like he was? Right. So I don't think he would have been that person if he didn't have those influences. But forget being in the mob or not in the mob assuming he's not in the mob like the psychological way that he ended up he would have had to have those influences around him too not just his

Starting point is 00:42:54 mother it would have so if it wasn't mob guys when he was growing up it could have been an abusive dad it could have been a group of friends who, from an early age, who had, you know, different abusive parents or whatever, that got him into that stuff. It could be that he was living in an environment that was extremely impoverished, you know, and on a daily basis, he witnessed suffering and that really changed his mind, his psyche. The best, one of the ways I like to look at it is if you look at a kid who grew up in the suburbs with a loving family, mom and dad, a couple of brothers and sisters, they played with each other on the weekends, they did sports, board games, whatever you want. And he did good in school

Starting point is 00:43:45 his parents you know let him be who he wanted to be and then you got someone in an impoverished environment with parents who are doing committing crimes who are abusive towards each other abusive towards their kids the people around them are doing all these things too well that person's going to turn out like those people you know and not not necessarily like those people but they're going to turn out they're going to have those influences and it's going to dramatically affect who they are in a number number of different ways and that can be anti-social personality personality disorder or it could mean they can grow up to be a mugger you know and it can push in both ways too you hear the common stories were like grew up with an alcoholic father one brother becomes an alcoholic the other one never touches it right right so it's like how it's also not just the

Starting point is 00:44:28 impetus but what emotion do you feel when you first notice the impetus in your life and what does that push you to then do does it push you say i'm just gonna be that because i'm fucked or does it push you be like no not me exactly um it definitely. So maybe that's something that can tie into what you were talking about earlier. It definitely depends on what kind of person thing I might notice is the dots on the side. Our minds just work in a different way. There's things that we see differently. We're seeing the same thing, but we're looking at it in a different way. And in the same way, people generally, without disorders, they feel the same way about things like when I'm happy, I'm happy. When you're happy, you're happy. But your happiness, I'm not in your mind. Your happiness might feel different from my happiness. And me seeing one thing might be different from you seeing one thing. So, yeah, two kids in the same household, one might grow up with antisocial, might develop antisocial personality disorder, and the other one might not.

Starting point is 00:45:36 You don't know, you know, because they're different people, and they feel things a different way, and they absorb things a different way. And that can make them turn out differently from each other. If you look at the video you did on Tony though, one of the things that stood out to me about the narcissistic side to him is the very first episode starts with the ducks and he's so excited about them because they fly and land in his pool and he loves them and then he later owns a horse and he'll sleep in the horse's stall when it's sick because there's said there's like a little there's a little boy in him right which also has to be said jim gandolfini brought alive so beautifully he does He does have those moments. It's great.

Starting point is 00:46:26 But what makes a guy like that with these disorders? You pick your list. Love something so alive, like an animal, like a horse or ducks, and have complete disregard for the alive things that are most like him so for narcissists especially because i was there's another great villain daniel plainview um from there will be blood oh yeah yeah right i was like where did i know that he he does he doesn't have he might have i think i might have said he has narcissistic personality disorder in that video. But even if you want to take away the disorder, he is a narcissist. He loves himself and what he's doing. And one characteristic of narcissists is a lot of them really like little kids.

Starting point is 00:47:19 Like they love when they have a little son and they want to play with them all the time but as soon as they get old enough to have an opinion that's when things get different because they can't control them anymore they're not they're not something innocent and and impure anymore and they're not going to do everything that they say they're going to be defiant and and all every everything you know um they, and in the movie, you can see that Daniel loved his son when he was a kid. He loved his son. He did a few things that harmed his son,

Starting point is 00:47:52 put him in harm's way. But later in life, his son was nothing. Dad, I want to go and work and do something else. Well, you're nothing anymore. You know, get out of here. You're not my son. I don't have a son, you know? And so it's that attraction to the innocence, you know, because you're not my son i don't have a son you know and so it's that attraction to the

Starting point is 00:48:07 innocence you know because they're not things that can hurt you they're not things they can hurt you you know they might an animal could bite you you know but it's cute it's innocent it's it's not going to say no it's not going to scream at me it's not going to it's not going to hurt me i'm not i can pet it and it's going to be nice to me you know and that's that's the way a lot of it's so daniel plainview and in particular he was he's a narcissistic parent is what they call it is when his kid was young he loved him because he was an extension of himself he did what he said he was fun to have around and then as soon as he started getting older well he's not so fun anymore because he's his own person now he's not he's not my thing you know i've seen that a lot yeah i actually have so right there i have seen a lot i have experienced it

Starting point is 00:48:54 it's myself so it was funny when my i i don't know i don't want to i don't know if he watches my so i don't talk to my dad anymore we just don't sorry to hear that it's all right it's um it's funny what is your background by the way like what like what what's what what nationality are you so my dad is from syria and my um my mom is just a white girl from california you know we should go good combo yeah yeah she uh she's got uh irish in her and English and Dutch. And actually, funny, my mom's family, they were Mormon for a long time. Some of us are still Mormon, but not so many. And my great-great-something-or-other grandmother was the first Mormon convert in England. So there's a statue of her somewhere in England, apparently.

Starting point is 00:49:46 Reach across the pond. Yeah, yeah. But you were saying you don't have a relationship with your dad. No. So it was always kind of contentious when we were younger. And he moved to Bolivia when I was 13. And shortly before that, I had actually written a note to him because I was scared of him. I was scared of my dad quite a lot.

Starting point is 00:50:11 He had anger issues. And he was quite – he wasn't physically abusive, but very verbally. Like, he was a very scary person to me when I was younger. What did he do for a living? He's a nightclub owner. He was a very scary person to me when I was younger. What did he do for a living? He's a nightclub owner. He was a nightclub owner. And so, a little background on him. He came here, I think it was the late 80s.

Starting point is 00:50:36 He came here and he jumped ship in Texas. And then he came here to, came to Reno to be with my uncle, who already had a nightclub. And he got into the, it might have been a restaurant, but he's on nightclubs and restaurants in Reno for a long time is, is his primary mode of business. Um, and he took a lot of influence from gangster movies. My, my dad talks like Tony Montana. Like, he... He peppers it in and he has other euphemisms he uses

Starting point is 00:51:14 from gangster movies from that day, but yeah, he idolized those movies a lot. And it shows. Those were some of my... the first movies I watched with him when i was younger too you know but it's the difference between liking the movie and actually thinking the characters are good right exactly um so yeah he was in nightclubs and he when i was a kid

Starting point is 00:51:36 he actually was uh the vice president of this slot machine company when when i was younger it was a small company um and he sold slot machines and then he was always involved in the restaurants and the nightclubs with my uncles too um and then when i was 13 i think 12 or 13 he moved to bolivia to expand he got back into the slot machine business with the his former boss's son and he moved to bolivia because they were expanding in south america and he was going to be their guy down there and shortly before he had moved i don't remember exactly what happened but i remember writing a note to him saying i didn't want to see him anymore because my parents had been divorced at that time they were you were 13 12 or 13 yeah and um so you already had that

Starting point is 00:52:19 presence of mind to be like i don't want this person in my life yeah and that's a young age to come to that conclusion yeah so it you know it that's it happened and uh i i wrote him a note and said i didn't want to see him again he didn't he never called me or anything after that um and then later that year or maybe the year after that, he moved to Bolivia. And I didn't talk to him for three or four years, I think. And then my uncle invited me over to like a dinner. And I didn't want to go initially, but I missed him and I missed my cousins and stuff. Because I was afraid they were going to make me talk to my dad, but I went anyway.

Starting point is 00:53:08 And my one uncle, who was kind of a dick to put it lightly he um he we were having dinner and after dinner he came and got me and he's he's like hey come here real quick and he just handed me the phone he said here's your dad okay thanks man like that's exactly what i wanted cool did your brother have any relationship with your dad? Yeah, he stayed with my dad. He doesn't talk to him anymore either. But my brother was more willing to put up with his stuff. So did he, your mom obviously had custody of you guys, but your brother would like go see your dad during this time period too? So when they got divorced, for the first year I think he only came and got us on Tuesdays or something and took us out to dinner because he was trying to get a place and I don't remember exactly what happened.

Starting point is 00:53:56 And that's before you wrote the letter. Yeah, that was before. Yeah, so when I was – they got divorced when I was nine I think. And yeah, for a year he'd come and get us on Tuesdays. And then my mom worked for the school district. So she had to work during the summer because she actually worked for a special needs school. So they had school all year round for the kids, for the kids who were severely special needs. And so he would come and take us and we'd hang out in the nightclub during the day you'd hang

Starting point is 00:54:27 out in a night yeah at like age 10 yeah during the summer is your brother older or younger he's younger yeah so he's like seven yeah there's like it was closed no no no no no no none of that it was it was during the day when the nightclub was closed so it was just it was pretty much an empty building with interesting stuff to explore you know you know some of these nightclubs the sun's up and they're still open i'm just saying yeah no well it was on like a tuesday so you like walk in dad what's the white stuff on the sink don't worry about it yeah right no it's uh it was interesting for sure but yeah he'd come and take us and watch us while my mom was working. Um, so, and then after he had gotten stable and moved back into our old house and my mom moved into a different house, um, I think we would do

Starting point is 00:55:12 three days with him and four days with my mom. I think that was what it was. Yeah. So when I wrote the note, that was the, that was the routine, you know, I was going to his house for three days and her house for four days. And your brother kept going after that yeah he kept going but i chose to just stay with my mom now do you think because now fast forward a phone call four years after three four years after you write the letter your brother's still with your dad all the time then would your brother come back and say he's asking about you or things like that i think a couple times he did only a couple yeah so here's here so the reason that we even got to start talking about this because of the similar when i was doing daniel plainview and i looked up a narcissistic parent

Starting point is 00:56:01 i was like holy shit that's my dad you know and even after we reconnected when we were when i was 15 because when my uncle forced me to talk to him we started talking again you know he would call me every so often and he would me about how i hadn't called him up to that point and i'm like well you're my dad and i suppose i could call you a few times and i will but don't you want to talk to me like don't you have that inclination to thought and it's always kind of been like that like and funny enough when we stopped talking to each other i was actually working for him at one of his restaurants and i had decided he wasn't paying me that well and he kept making promises that it was going to get better but i needed more money at that time and i was like sorry i'm gonna go

Starting point is 00:56:56 work at the bank and i did so he got mad of course and we didn't talk again and then i are you like 20 at that point i was 20 22 okay i think um i was trying to picture a 15 year old working at a bank i couldn't do it yeah no no no no i i looked like this when i was 15 though so maybe you had the beard and everything i was bald and bearded at 15 yeah are we sure you're 15 you check a birth certificate i i know right my i actually in high school um i was sitting in the gym one day i think in between classes on the bench and this girl passed by and she was like are you our sub for the day it would have been worse if she said stranger danger yeah i know right i've been a big problem and when my high school girlfriend uh i got with her my long-term high school girlfriend, her mom initially was like, that guy's not your age.

Starting point is 00:57:50 There's no way you're dating this kid. So, yeah. No, it's – That's funny. I could have looked like I was working at a bank when I was 15. But you were 22. I was 22, yeah. You were like 22.

Starting point is 00:58:02 You start working at a bank because you stopped working in his restaurant because he's paying you like shit. Yeah. So I stopped working at his restaurants and then we stopped talking. And then I actually – that high school girlfriend I just mentioned, we had broken up and I was distraught. Like it was a hard moment in my life. It was the first time I'd ever gone through a six-year breakup. Yeah, right? And my mom was out of town at the time and I, I needed my mommy,

Starting point is 00:58:26 you know, I was, it was one of those moments. Sometimes you just need your mommy and, uh, she, yeah, she recommended I called my dad because, you know, then that was, you know, we reconnected at that moment. It was nice. And then we talked for a few months after that. And my brother was actually had started working for him after I had left. And one day, you know, at this point, I live in my apartment and my brother lives in his apartment. Right. And one morning he calls me at like 11. He's like, your brother's not here for work.

Starting point is 00:58:57 Where is he? Like, how the fuck should I know? I don't live with him anymore. Call him. You know, he's not answering his phone. I was like, so what? He makes you think he's going to answer for me? And he's like, all right, I'll just keep trying.

Starting point is 00:59:07 I'm like, okay. That was it. That was the last time I ever talked to him. You never, just that? No. That was it? Never again. And I, it was.

Starting point is 00:59:14 Why did you resolve that? I, so there was no reason for me not at that point to not talk to him anymore. I just never texted him or called him after that. And he never texted or called him after that and he never texted or called me after that and it's been seven years now whoa yeah yeah and the thing about my dad is he won't call me you know because territory yeah i need to call him you know if i want to talk to him it's on me not him you know and god that's so fascinating yeah so that's the kind of person he is and yeah then when i was

Starting point is 00:59:52 looking at daniel plainview i was like oh similarities here weird do you think he loves you yee maybe i think so you give me you give him a creaked open door there to say maybe. See, I don't want to... I don't know if he's going to watch this or anyone he knows is going to watch this. I'd like to clarify that there were some bad moments in my childhood, as you could probably tell. But he's not the worst person on planet Earth, and I know people have had it worse than I have. And I think he loves me. It's just who he is gets in the way of that quite a lot.

Starting point is 01:00:37 You said he grew up in Syria, too? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did. What was his childhood like? I'm not too sure. He had nine sisters and four brothers, and he was the youngest. Yeah. And he was the baby. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:53 Quite a lot. Wow. It's a school in your house. Oh, yeah. And he was Syria in that period, there was quite a lot of regime changes up to that in that era, like in the 50s up to the 70s. And then in 1970s, Hafez al-Assad, he took power. Yes. That was who Eli Cohen was spying on, I think, right? I don't know. You know, right? I don't know. You know that story?

Starting point is 01:01:25 I don't know that story, no. Oh, yeah? All right. There's got to be some people in there you can do a breakdown of. There's a series on Netflix. It's like four or five years old. Oh, boy. Sasha Baron Cohen plays Eli Cohen, who is probably at least known of the greatest massad spy they ever had essentially this guy i think i want

Starting point is 01:01:48 to say it was in 1960 he started spying they created this backstory for this egyptian israeli guy who could pass as as arabic where he became a businessman a syrian businessman in south america and made friends with some of the syrian dignitaries who were coming there because he wanted to quote return to my homeland of syria nice and so he returned there and he lived literally right in a giant apartment almost right across from where their government building was and he worked his way up to he was about to be named the number three person in their entire government really he had spied on hafez and so the series shows that full breakdown there and for everyone who doesn't want a spoiler doesn't want to look at wikipedia's press fast forward 15 seconds right now eli cohen was eventually caught by the syrians and was executed publicly and hanged and

Starting point is 01:02:47 his body's never been recovered it's it's it's a whole thing like they still argue over it but that was it's funny you said because like that show and his life when he was spying was taking place during that whole crazy regime changing regime changing regime. That country was nuts. Yeah. It's – Hafez, he brought a lot of stability to the country in the 70s because he was ruler until 2000, and then his son took over, and he's still the president of Syria. Oh, that's right. He took over. I'm sorry.

Starting point is 01:03:17 I got that mixed up. He took over for the guy who Eli spied on. Oh, he did? I think that's what it was. Really? Yes, I believe that's what it was. I think that was Michelle Affleck. If I'm.

Starting point is 01:03:28 Can we look that up? Can we look up Eli Cohen, who he spied on? Unless I'm forgetting the names, but point taken. Yeah. Unless. No,

Starting point is 01:03:34 it's, it's great. You know, Middle East is. Good stuff. It's, it's good stuff, but it's,

Starting point is 01:03:38 it's quite complex over there. And especially the Syrian, Syrian issue, especially, um, uh, I know I'm going to go on a tangent here, but it's- Please, do it. I like to, yeah. So the Syrian civil war is interesting in that it's gone on for so long.

Starting point is 01:03:56 It's calmed down in recent years and months, but it's still pretty much going on. And it's been going on since 2011, when the Arab Spring happened and all those other regimes fell. And the reason that Syria has been so resilient is because the Assad family is part of a religious sect called Alawites, which they – it's a subset of Islam. But they also have, like, mysticism in it and like weird pagan practices. I don't want to say weird, but because it's just what they believe, you know. But it's different from Islam because they have these different beliefs factored into it. That's why it's a subset. But it's – most of them live in Syria and Lebanon and a few in Turkey.

Starting point is 01:04:44 And his family come from that tribe that follow the Alawites. And – Hey, guys. If you have a second, please be sure to share this episode around on social media and with your friends, whether it's Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It doesn't matter. It's all a huge help. It gets new eyeballs on the show, and it allows us to grow and survive. So thank you to all of you who have already been doing that, and thank you to all of you who are going to do so now. on for so long is because this minority who's in power have been able to convince the other

Starting point is 01:05:25 minorities that are in power with them that we need to hold on as best as we can because you guys are going to go back to being number two you know we got our hold and you're all in it with us so and then you also have a shit show of all these different like terror factions who operate within the country and it's it's like the Spider-Man meme. They're all pointing – they don't like each other. Yeah. Like Al-Qaeda doesn't fuck with ISIS. Was al-Nusra Front a part of Al-Qaeda or was that a separate thing?

Starting point is 01:05:56 I think it might have been separate or they might have been like a representative of Al-Qaeda. Either way. Right. Like there's a million of them in there. And Syria is just like – it's this country. You's a million of them in there and syria is just like it's this country you look at it on a map and it technically has these borders right but i always get so confused because there's like damascus and areas of the country that are controlled by the syrian government and then there's mad max free road areas that have like i don't even know if

Starting point is 01:06:21 they pay taxes like why are they even why are the borders even outside of where they are you know you have areas i think even where the kurds still are and stuff like that it's like this is it's a show yeah you know my buddy joe b warwick who's going to be back in here soon where's iran's nuclear program these days i'm really concerned about that and i've been watching it for about 15 years and for the longest time the concern was that well Iran says it doesn't want a nuclear weapon, but gee, they're sure accumulating a lot of fissile materials the stuff You make that explodes in a nuclear bomb in the last three years. We've seen a pretty big change with the Iranians They're now making not just the low enriched uranium They were pretty good at making the stuff you could put in a nuclear power plant. Now it's high enriched uranium.

Starting point is 01:07:05 It's 60% enriched. It's very, very close to weapons growth. So we're telling the world that, you know, wink, wink, we could make a bomb if we want to. And that's not just a bluff. They've got… He wrote basically like the greatest book ever written on ISIS. It won the Pulitzer Prize called Black Flags. And the book he wrote after that,

Starting point is 01:07:26 that we're going to talk about on this next podcast he's in here, was called Red Line, all about the Syria thing. And it's like an oral history of, let's say, 2008 to 2018 kind of deal of that so caught in catching a lot of the civil war it's great book but you know he when i read that and saw this picture i was like oh my god like we have it so good here i already knew that but oh yeah look at all you don't even know when you make a left turn if like that's some other tribe that wants to shoot you you know it's crazy to me yeah and it's that's the reason that the civil war has gone on so long and why the other um regimes fell so easily because the people in the government in the military they were like whatever yeah that's what the people want you know we're not going to get take this any further we

Starting point is 01:08:23 don't really care about you that much but in syria they're like hell no we're not going to get take this any further we don't really care about you that much but in syria they're like hell no we're not going to let these people take what we've got you know so it's it's pretty much a gigantic mafia in the syrian government and military is just it's stacked with all the whites and you know being in all the way is fine but they've abused their position and made it into a hellhole over there how old was your dad when he came to america i think he was so he they he was 27 when he had me so he had to be like i would say like 22 23 so he spent all his formative years in syria like did he have siblings die were his parents abusive i only thing i really know i don't know if they were poor um i think they might have been middle class over there what their middle class is um he didn't have any siblings die when he was younger

Starting point is 01:09:18 he did mention that he used to get in fights a lot when he because he's kind of short he's short um so he used to be picked on a lot on that yeah um and he uh he kind of he grew up scrapping a lot in the streets is what i got from him like he was always fighting when he was younger um and then when he turned 18 so in syria like a lot of countries with dictators you have to do like two years in the military when you turn 18. And some countries without dictators do that too. I think South Korea does the same thing. Israel does that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But their two years in the military is not a fun experience.

Starting point is 01:09:58 You know, like Israel and South Korea might not be such a big deal. But in two years in the military in syria my dad's brothers they had already gone through it and my grandfather he didn't want him to go through it he didn't want him to have to be in the military so he sent him away to go to college in egypt and because he's a draft dodger if he he's never been back to syria and he probably could go back if the government changed but if they go back they got they got his name on a list you know and if they're nice they'll throw him in prison for the rest of his life but they'll probably put a bullet in his head if he goes back whoa so yeah okay so

Starting point is 01:10:37 you know you have a limited knowledge of his side take it he wasn't the kind of guy to tell you about let's sit around talk about my childhood nope not at all that dude yeah but some of your uncles and stuff obviously like are his siblings so or i use the term uncle that they're his friends yeah so what about did the other siblings come over here he's the only one only one so they're all still in syria yes yeah i think some of them have moved to turkey at this point but yeah okay for Okay. For the sake of our argument, same shit. Like they're over there. Right. There's a lot going on with your dad here. And you also, I have to bring this up, but like you mentioned, he's short. So I wouldn't have guessed because you're not short.

Starting point is 01:11:15 He's not that short. I mean, he's like five, five, I think. That's pretty short. Because like, here's one thing, like I'm 6'1", so I'm not, you know, I'm not like really tall, but I'm not short. So I don't know what that is. But if you look throughout history, some of the raging narcissists and the people who cause shit, I think my – we'll talk about my friend Matt Cox at some point today. But I thank Matt Cox for really pointing this out to me because he's a short guy who is, I call him the greatest mortgage fraudster of all time. You know, for some reason, the short guys get it in them. They have this short man complex and they're just, they take it out on everyone else.

Starting point is 01:11:55 Not all short people. I'm not saying that, but like some of the worst people, they weren't exactly tall. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I didn't think about this until we we started talking about it but why is there even a short man complex because people treat short people differently if people didn't treat short people in a weird way then short people probably wouldn't develop this complex that's probably a naive thing for me to say what's what's one thing going on that you i don't know if

Starting point is 01:12:21 you see this online but something that i see constantly is um people posting like conversations with girls on tinder and being like you got to be over six feet oh yeah you know that's true it's all it's it's being short has always been kind of a the short guy the pipsqueak the you know okay let's stay with that yeah that's a female thing right so psychologically yeah why do men exist well in this case the heterosexual men in that way but you could say this about homosexual men too vis-a-vis other men yeah there's a there's a desire to impress the potential mate right right right so if you are short and enough women who are you know at least average size five six five seven five eight which is a lot of women right right they don't want to fuck with you because you're short yeah there could be a power i'm thinking

Starting point is 01:13:09 out loud here there could be a power complex that says well fuck you i'll show you i'll take over the world and you'll fuck me and suck my dick whenever i want yeah but there's also two not so much when you're an adult but short kids get picked on a lot in school, bullied. That's true. Like the pipsqueak. Like I knew a short, a kid who was always short in school, but he had this great personality. He was funny and he could just make jokes and he was really energetic and stuff. But then you look at a short kid who was kind of introverted and didn't really have a voice for himself and he got picked on. He's a short kid, the pipsqueak, can i can bully and i can give me your lunch money you know so then when they get older they

Starting point is 01:13:49 got this complex i gotta prove myself i gotta be the man you know i gotta be strong you know give it back what what i got when i was a kid and uh yeah as much funny you mentioned uh short people are some of the most evil people who ever lived. Stalin? I think Stalin is the most evil person who ever lived. And he's, yeah, that's my... It's not like a hot take. It's not like a, yeah, it's not a so controversial opinion.

Starting point is 01:14:17 But most people point to Hitler often when you're in the running for most evil people. But Stalin, he was a horrific person and let's let's go to this i'm glad you brought this up i want you to unpack this and i actually want to shout out little george for saying this he was he was pushing you on on doing some real historical figures too i am going to second that hardcore i think you totally should because of what you do breaking down fictional characters like you could easily break down so many people in history so outside of that though what what how would you define stalin beyond just you know you can define also the most obvious things but what made him evil and for people who aren't as familiar with the reign

Starting point is 01:15:02 of terror that he oversaw maybe you could fill in some blanks there too with some of the things he did um it's funny because i want to do more historical stuff just first of all um but obviously that takes a lot more time you know you got to go over someone's entire life and i like to be my thing is i like to be as thorough as possible so i want to go over every little detail yes and an entire lifetime there's quite a lot of details there's a lot so yes but history was my primary interest when i was younger and i actually i didn't go to college but i was going to go to college to be an archaeologist is what i wanted to be when i was younger yeah that was what i wanted to do so i uh interesting i i loved history

Starting point is 01:15:42 i would always read the textbooks like i, I would read the history textbook. That was – I did, too. I'd take it home from school, and I'd read the whole thing in a week and be like, all right, I'm done with the class. I'm with you. I love history. Yeah. But, yeah, Stalin, he – so you can – there's a – for some people, numbers might be the big indicator of who the most evil person is, for example, right? So if you want to go by numbers, then Mao is the most evil person who ever lived because he is responsible for leading the regime that caused the most deaths.

Starting point is 01:16:17 But if you went by percentages, it'd be Genghis Khan, right? Yeah, right. Interesting. But the thing I like to go off of more so than numbers, numbers do factor into it, definitely. But Stalin was just an evil person on a personal level. One thing that Stalin liked to do is he would spend hours of his day personally writing names on lists for his NKVD to kill. And he'd write little jokes next to the name this guy all right and then he'd you know give the list to barrier whoever yes when he was the the head of the nkvd

Starting point is 01:16:52 and he would say tell me if this one falls funny you know like tell me i don't know like jokes like as um if if he particularly hated some person he'd write something demeaning about them like this guy's got a i don't't know, a big nose or something. Just something. Yeah, kill him. He's a piece of shit. And this is why. Here's a little joke about him.

Starting point is 01:17:14 And he would spend hours every day doing that. Just sitting in his office and personally writing lists of people that needed to be killed. And that is one of the most horrendous things i have ever heard you know um not to mention so most dictators that are responsible for genocides right or mass enslavement or whatever um things they've done it's typically they give the order somebody else does it right out of sight out of mind it's done onto the next horrible thing stalin had a personal investment in the evil things he was doing he he wanted to be the one writing the list he wanted to be the ones writing every

Starting point is 01:17:58 name down he wasn't like go kill these 30 people he was like kill this one specifically and this one specifically and this one specific and he would do that all day but he's still removed from it because he's not going there and doing it himself no but it's a second layer right yeah it's a it's a he wasn't doing it himself but he was he's taking pride in the details he was like oh this is this is what i love to do just writing these lists of people to die that was that was stolen i mean that to me, that's like a pretty great portrait picture to paint of what kind of person he was. Can we look up – but I know you don't like numbers, but just to at least quantify some stuff. No, no, no.

Starting point is 01:18:33 Numbers are good. You just don't want to define it only by that. Not only by numbers, yes. Can we look up number of people Stalin – number of Russians, Stalin killed. Yeah, that's a good one. Because he had pogroms. Make it, I don't know, it might be a little unclear. Do, rising Republicans, do, try Soviet citizens to see if it makes a difference.

Starting point is 01:19:01 Because, you know, the Soviet Union was made up of like 13 countries. That's right. So like the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine, that was Ukrain because because you know the soviet union was made up of like 13 countries that's right so like the holodomor the ukrainian famine that was ukrainians you know so yeah oh so it still says the same okay excess mortality in the soviet union yeah so six to nine million soviets said to 20 and i think the numbers vary quite a lot there's like a huge variation in the the number of people that different scholars and stuff will say he is responsible for killing yeah there there is argument it said stalin killed 20 to 30 million soviets yeah either way it's a lot it's a lot of people but he had programs i i want to get my friend david satter back in here who's been in here twice who is like

Starting point is 01:19:41 the preeminent historian of the soviet union in the western world that's cool he's he was the before the war started i don't know how it is now but he was the only reporter journalist western journalist who was ever kicked out of russia by putin yeah so brilliant guy but i'd love to bring him back to go through the history like the soviet union and stalin oh yeah he's gone through a little bit of it given his little teasers in the two podcasts we've done but you know he talks about i think like in the 1930s, the NKVD was running these pogroms. They were already – like they even at some point, Stalin was putting Jews into camps in the USSR. And then he was killing – but he would just kill people of his own kind who he even thought like, oh, these groups of people might not get behind the USSR. So we'll just kill people of his own kind who he even thought like oh these groups of people might not get behind the ussr so we'll just kill them anything that was a threat to his power was fair

Starting point is 01:20:30 game you know and um at towards the end of his life it was the doctors it was called the doctor's plot um and i don't remember how far he went with it but he had plans to like kill and i think they talk about it in that movie the death of stalin when they're trying to get a doctor for him they're like we can't find a good doctor why because we killed them all all the doctors are dead yeah and the the only ones they could find was like a retired doctor who hadn't practiced medicine in like 10 years or something like that do you think he just liked it for sport i partly the list thing like i think he i don't know if he liked it for sport so much as he loved power and he just anything that was a

Starting point is 01:21:14 threat to his power he enjoyed eliminating those threats it was so it was like a game to him in that sense you know my power is absolute and anything in the way of my power will be eliminated no questions asked you know and here's how to do it i'll write you a i'll write you a manual you know and that was stalin what do we know about his origins so he was he was born in georgia the country because it's very important to say right here he was uh he was born in georgia imagine if he was from atlanta oh god damn it atlanta this bastard from atlanta went and took over all of russia what the hell is this um but yeah he was born in georgia and his his dad was a cobbler um and he was a drunk and he beat him a lot and he was like in and out of his life and then he died when he was young and his mother was a very devout russian orthodox it was very very devout and uh she wanted him to

Starting point is 01:22:13 be a priest and he was actually training for a long time to become a priest but then um he uh got exposed to communist literature when he was in his teens i think and so he started going into that world and then he became a uh i think i don't know if terrorist is the right word or if burglar bank robber is the right word he he was a thug for the the revolution pretty much he would go and rob banks and do all kinds of stuff for them what is it that made him connect with that i'm guessing you know like you What is it that made him connect with that? I'm guessing, like you said, he's like a teenager. Connected with that communist manifesto, if you will.

Starting point is 01:22:50 I don't remember exactly what got him interested in it. I'm assuming it was maybe classmates that handed him a book. But it had to speak to him. You know what I mean? He had to read this and go, yes. Yeah. Right? And by all accounts, it seems that despite how horrifically paranoid and power hungry he was, that he might have actually been an ardent communist. Like he actually did believe in communism.

Starting point is 01:23:16 He wrote many books about what to do with the Soviet Union, how the economics should be ordered. And I don't think he didn't believe in communism. He actually thoroughly believed in it and spoke to him in some way. And he was very invested in his cause, but he was also very invested in himself and his own power. So, you know, you can be both. You can be both. You can be, I mean, that's, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:23:41 Hitler's interesting because he was, I feel like he was all about the cause. And it was – he would do anything for the cause. It wasn't so much his power, but – He also invented the cause too. Right. Well, I believe he joined the Nazi party. Yeah, but to an extent, like what it – technically, I believe that's correct. Correct us in the comments. I know some of you are like great historians, seriously, of like some of the World War II stuff.

Starting point is 01:24:06 So correct it. But essentially, like he molded that party around him. Not to say Stalin didn't mold the USSR around him. He did. But the basis of it, the Bolshevik Revolution, that lived. And it was already alive when he took power. And he continued that. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:24:24 Hitler was, you know, Hitler's like Germany's Lenin, you know? Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly right. So yeah, Hitler and Lenin was very invested in the cause. You know, Lenin was also a pretty terrible person. But yeah, for Hitler, you know, he, he, I'm sure he wasn't too keen on people taking the seat from him, you know, but, but his primary concern was the glory of Germany. Stalin was like 50-50, 40-60. Half of it's, yeah, we got to do it for the revolution, but the other half is I'm the king, and the king will be the king forever no matter what. Yeah, I said something really naive like 10 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago, and then we got off it.

Starting point is 01:25:07 But it's relevant to bring it back for Stalin. When you said like sure people are treated differently, I'm like really? Why? I wasn't thinking about as a kid especially. Yeah. I wasn't thinking about the female angle either for a second. That was a bad mess. But like I wasn't thinking as a kid because I don't give a fuck what height you are.

Starting point is 01:25:23 I treat everyone the same, right? Yeah, right. Most people I think do that when we're adults. But we are formulating all our psychology when we are a kid and you're 100% right. You get picked on. This guy though, in addition to being short and probably having to deal with that in some way with the other kids and whatever, the fact that his dad beat him. Yeah. It's a common one.

Starting point is 01:25:44 Oh, yeah. But there's a power dynamic there where you're like, oh, to beat me right oh i'll show you you motherfucker right you know like you have you clearly have such a good zen for yourself with your own father who i guess it wasn't like that but you know like you were able to at 13 say i don't want you in my life yeah very maturely and like you you're you're a very mature guy now who understands and can kind of diagnose what your father's problem was and you you what i'm getting at is you have dealt with this in a very healthy way i think which you know you deserve a lot of credit for obviously like joe stalin did not no it's you know so there's a there's a

Starting point is 01:26:20 response to that there's another we can talk about later too but that that seems to be a lot of the formulation there even before he reads like yeah the communist manifesto like yes i agree with this it's yeah that's a good point to make though it's it's primarily you can blame how people are treated you know no one should be treated poorly any any time in their life but especially when you're a kid and you're trying to formulate someone into a person because that harms them significantly but it's also their response to it you know because like we said earlier you know one kid in the same house getting abused can turn into a serial killer and another one can be a charity worker you know correct it's their response but it's not you can't blame their response you know it's not their fault that they responded to

Starting point is 01:27:04 it that way it's their fault that they had to respond to it like that. They are that person who responds to stimuli in the way that they responded to it, but they should never have been now but um beaten by your father unjustly right especially you know like coming home from the bar and oh you're looking at me funny wham you know that's no one should have to go through that or watching your father beat your mother oh yeah watching things too yeah watching things are a big deal um real quick we're not done this topic i just gotta go to the bathroom real fast that's fine so we'll be right back okay all right we're back so we we started this whole stalin tangent which we're going to continue on because there's a lot more on the bone here with him and hitler and some of these other leaders but we started it by you saying that not necessarily just looking at numbers but just in general you think ston was

Starting point is 01:27:58 the most evil man in history yeah so let's just go apple to apple, if you will, here. Sure. I need to find him as worse as Hitler. I feel like it's like, you know, which one's shittier, the brown one or the brown one, you know? So there's so many factors to look at when you're determined. And here's the thing about evil, too, like when and judging people by good and evil, it's probably always going to be subjective you know what i mean depending on what you might think is worse than someone else could push you towards believing someone else is more evil than someone else right and it's not necessarily a competition but we do like to know you know it's something we talk about a lot who you see it all the time on i think i was at the hotel the other night and i was scrolling through the tv i haven't done that in a long time through the guide and it was like that one of the

Starting point is 01:28:48 programs was the most evil gangsters in america you know and i'm sure a lot of people watch that because they want to know who is the most evil you know what's the worst of the worst worst most yeah exactly right you're onto something right and um so you you look at so many different things you look at how many people they killed how look at how many people they killed, how many people were they – not even personally, how many people were they responsible for killing. What were they like when they were with people? What was their impact on future generations and other people? Like, for example, you could say Hitler birthed neo-Nazis. He's responsible for neo-Nazis.

Starting point is 01:29:26 So you can look at influence. You can look at numbers, policies, whatever you want to do. But for me personally, when you're trying to define the most evil person, I look at that person. And it's not – it is what they've done because, for example, maybe Ted Bundy was a worse person than Stalin, but he had nowhere near the impact that Stalin – The scope and scale. Yeah. So he doesn't enter into the conversation personally because you do have to factor in the scope when you're talking about the most evil people, which has traditionally been, you know, despots and dictators. You're probably not going to find more evil people

Starting point is 01:30:08 than the people who are responsible for genocides. You know, that is the worst thing. So one thing I stick to is murder is the most evil thing you can do because you're taking away everything that person was, is, and will ever be. They're gone. You know? Even, like, torture isn't even close to being murder. Because there's, like, an example would be John McCain,

Starting point is 01:30:33 who was a POW in Vietnam but went on to lead a successful life with a loving family. And he died an old age, you know? If you asked John McCain if he would have rather died in that cage in Vietnam, he would say no. I lived a great life after that. Now being tortured to death is one of the worst ways you can be murdered, but murder is the worst thing you can do. Correct. Because you give no option for anyone to heal from murder.

Starting point is 01:30:58 You can't heal from murder. You can heal from everything else but not murder you know and so by that logic genocide is the worst thing a step above murder because it's mass murder you know so mass murderers are typically the most evil people who have ever existed and stalin was a mass murderer but he wasn't just a mass murderer who said here's the people i want you to kill. Here's like, we need to kill like this specific group or here's a number that I need you guys to achieve for this economic thing or whatever. He was down there when the details, he was like, no, I want you to kill this guy. And by the way, when he dies, can you tell me if he screams in a cute way? way so you know you think because we we talked about this a little bit but you it it seems like you are basing it strictly on the detailed fun he had with it versus hitler who was signing off on plans that were a creation of of his ideology right hitler was an architect who made the plans and he was like here go get go build it stalin was an architect who was like

Starting point is 01:32:05 i'm writing all the numbers in like i'm going down to the very very little details because why why am i doing that not because it's more efficient because i like it and that's that was his reasoning you know he liked doing what he was doing he sat in hours in his in his dacha every day writing lists of names of people to be killed because he enjoyed doing it and that is horrifying yeah you know you said people aren't born evil in your opinion right but do you think genetically there's a predisposition to having a lower threshold to evil i.e the the spawn of stalin could go the wrong way a little easier than you or me i mean possibly so even they could but i don't think they have any they're not more likely to become an evil person because they were born their parents were evil or something but they are there are certain things in your genetic genetics that cause you to react

Starting point is 01:33:04 to different things in different ways to other people like we were talking about earlier how two kids in one house one can become a serial killer and one can become a charity worker and that has to do with how they perceive the world and how they perceive what has happened to them you know and it's how they absorb the negative stimulus around them that makes them into who they are. Some people absorb it and they're able to, that's not me. I'm brushing it off. I'm going to be, I don't remember his name, but there's one of the best examples is this guy who grew up in a very impoverished environment, but then he went on to become like an astronaut and a doctor and like all these different things.

Starting point is 01:33:42 Like he surmounted the odds that was presented to him he didn't let what happened to him define him and that and it's not necessarily someone's fault that that they let it define them it's just who they are and how they reacted to what the things were around them and that unfortunately defined who they are you know so yes genetics play into it um in that how you react to certain things will be determined by who you are but if you don't have those things to react to then you're not going to turn out that way that's that's good for us man because stalin's granddaughter lives in the u.s yeah i think she's in like you ever seen her yeah can you google her real fast alessia if people haven't seen stalin's granddaughter i in the U.S. Yeah. I think she's in like – have you ever seen her? Yeah. Can you Google her real fast, Alessia, if people haven't seen Stalin's granddaughter?

Starting point is 01:34:27 I don't think he would approve. Yeah. Right? No. No, he wouldn't. But she actually grew up with Stalin, though. She was in his house, and he was there. The daughter or the granddaughter?

Starting point is 01:34:37 The daughter. Oh, her granddaughter. The granddaughter didn't. Oh, the granddaughter didn't. Right, right, right, right. Can we get this big on the screen, Alessia? That's her. That's her. Yeah, yeah yeah let's blow her picture up and and i if i remember right it

Starting point is 01:34:49 was so his daughter was svetlana i look are you i don't remember know how to say her name properly i'm impressed by that but yeah svetlana she moved to oregon portland yeah she moved to portland later in life yeah that explains it and uh yeah no i don't i don't know if stalin would have approved of his granddaughter but his daughter grew up with him you know she was around but she wasn't aware of a lot of the stuff that was going but she could have been and if she was maybe she would have turned out a little bit like stalin but she saw stalin as daddy you know my good old father bounced me on his knee that you know that's the thing especially if you're young and innocent like you were saying earlier i mean you remember like saddam's daughter was freaking out when he

Starting point is 01:35:31 got arrested i'm sure saddam was great to her yeah right but stom was murdering millions of people while he was at that too and coming home and saying daddy's home yeah hard day at work today exactly but and then stalin in his house there was bad stuff going on around him but he also got beat by his alcoholic father as a kid horribly and was ignored by him and neglected yeah you know it's well the the the other thing here though is even these people who are in charge they rule rule on fear, right? But they're still one person, which means that in groups below them, they are validated. Yes. So again, let's stay with Stalin and Hitler.

Starting point is 01:36:12 Let's start with Stalin. He was in power until he fucking croaked. Right. And no one ever – he was killing doctors and stuff, and no one ever went – nudged the other guy next to him and said, let's get rid of this motherfucker. I forget who said it, but I heard someone say once that you need, in order for these people to operate like this, they need a license from everyone else to do it. You know, so as horrific as Stalin was, he couldn't have done what he did without help. And he is, out of all of them, he's most responsible for, you know, ordering them to do what they did. But then you go back to who's responsible for Stalin, you know, Lenin, and the people who supported Lenin, and the people who killed for Lenin, and the people who killed for Stalin, you know, and so on and so forth.

Starting point is 01:37:07 It's – you can't just blame it all on the leader. You can point to them as a source of – as a source, you know, one of the sources of horrible things that a bunch of other people did as well, you know. So, no, there is no Stalin without the people who helped him do what he did. And then the thing with Hitler is that I study that history closely. I usually do it like once a year. I'll go on like a week-long binge of a different aspect of it each time. But I think it was last year or the year before. I spent a lot of time, I think it was in 2022, on the rise of the Nazi party. Like how it got to power and how quickly they got to 1934 and what the people were then like at that point right and it's this isn't really like an appropriate

Starting point is 01:37:57 word in some ways to put on it because it's it's fucking dark but it's like one of my favorite topics to look at because it reminds me of how much groupthink can overtake maybe decent individuals to to support horrible things right but you had a guy you had said it way earlier in our conversation on something else you had a guy in hitler who not only channeled his own anger and traumatic experiences but also channeled the current status of his country at the time where he was starting to try to get his hands on power where you know they were post-world war one tree versailles depressed no hope a lot of lack of national pride or whatever and he said i'm going to give you national pride i'm going to give you jobs i'm going to give you hope i'm going to give you

Starting point is 01:38:44 greatness yep right like we're gonna we're gonna make germany the power it's supposed to be so he was able to prey on all this stuff yep and by appealing to those things by speaking to people's fears giving them a dream of a hope well however you want to say it of what could be to replace those fears he was then able to basically put people in the palm of his hand to then say oh by the way because we believe this germany needs to be great right by the way we don't like jews and people are like yeah no we don't yep and the next thing you know you're in kristallnacht you know you are you have transformed people who may have never thought any of this stuff right five years before but you know their neighbors are have transformed people who may have never thought any of this stuff

Starting point is 01:39:25 right five years before but you know their neighbors are are jewish they're having dinner with them and suddenly they're like yeah we got to kill all of them oh yeah is that are are all those people evil so i mean no no you know it... I love how you said that, no. Are they responsible for propping up an evil regime? Yes. And should they be judged for the decisions they made? Yes. But were they... Does that mean that we need to condemn them for the rest of their lives because they voted a certain way? They might not have been involved. They might have just supported. They went to the rallies. Here I am.

Starting point is 01:40:13 I'm supporting this. And then all this horrible stuff happened that they may or may not have known about occurred. And then they decided that, oh, once the shroud fell, you know, I need to change my ways and what I did was wrong. If you show penance and redemption and try to redeem yourself for what you may a card-carrying Nazi Party member, and maybe you didn't know about the concentration camps. But then once the war ended and it all came out, and you were like, well, yeah, of course. We should have been doing that the whole time. I'm glad it happened. Then, yeah, that person is an evil person.

Starting point is 01:41:03 It all depends on the person, really. I think we've said it a few times. It's a case-by-case basis. Absolutely. Was it a housewife who was just taken in by the message and she went to the rallies every now and again and she heard it on the news and she's like, yeah, Germany's getting better.

Starting point is 01:41:18 I love this. And then when the news came out that, oh, Germany was doing all these horrible things, she got physically sick and said, I can't believe i ever did this should she be is she an evil person she supported an evil thing she supported an evil regime but i don't think she's an evil person she made bad choices she made evil choices maybe she didn't know she made them you know but she did and when she realized she did well i'm i don't want to be that person. I'm not going to be that person.

Starting point is 01:41:47 But someone who's like, yeah, absolutely. You know, that was what we should have been doing. And I'm glad it happened. Yeah, I'm probably inclined to say you're an evil person, you know? Yeah, I've brought up what I'm about to bring up on. I probably brought up on a few podcasts before, but we played the video on a couple. I know I played on episode 53 with Shannon Johnson, and then I played up on a few podcasts before, but we played the video on a couple. I know I played it on episode 53 with Shannon Johnson, and then I played it on a recent episode.

Starting point is 01:42:10 I'm forgetting which one. But unless you know a video, I'm going to ask you about the one where Eisenhower videoed all the local Germans from that town coming and visiting the camp. Yeah, we did it on Patreon. Yeah. Can we Google that real quick just so that we can pull it up? One of the great things in the aftermath, in my opinion, that was done once the camps were found was when Dwight D. Eisenhower – and I think also Patton did the same thing, but I know Eisenhower did. When he was first brought to the camps and visited obviously he was floored like everyone else he in 1945 though had the presence of mind to say we need to film all this because people aren't going to believe this and it's it'll become you know some conspiracy theory

Starting point is 01:43:01 that this didn't happen so to his credit i think that didn't happen they filmed it and he also then when he was at it wasn't auschwitz it was another one what birkenau maybe whatever it is when we get this video when he was at the camp he looked he was like in the yard and he and he looked through the trees and he asked you know the staff sergeant is there a town back there? Like a mile away? Right. And they said, yes. How many people live there?

Starting point is 01:43:29 I don't know, 5,000, 6,000. And he looked at the gas chambers and everything. He had the smell right there. He's looking at the wind and he goes, no way. They smelled this. They knew this was here. They were part of Nazi Germany too. He said, you get these fucking people over here right now.

Starting point is 01:43:44 Yeah. And they filmed this. And so they filmed the people being the civilians of the town over there being forced to walk to the camp they're all smiling laughing joy riding this is all getting filmed they're following the american tanks and everything and when they get to the camps you watch everything change they start it's like it's like the most demonic museum tour you could ever have because it's not a museum. It's fucking real. It's right here, right now. And you see these people literally lose their shit.

Starting point is 01:44:15 Some of the women start passing out. Are we getting that? I'm trying to remember the name. There was like a specific name to it because there was a bunch of videos. It was do German civilians visiting concentration camp World War II. And there's one that has like a, it has a watermark on there. No, go to, go to YouTube. Yeah. You got to go to YouTube.

Starting point is 01:44:38 I did though. That was the thing. So you get even more searches. Yeah. That first one right there yeah exactly critical path so skip forward a little bit and you're gonna see it right here so there yeah click that 128 go to 28 so you see them all walking in right and now they're at the camp right right and so everything's cool with these people right now and i guess maybe they start to smell it, but they're still like pretty cool. Right. They look pretty happy.

Starting point is 01:45:08 Yeah. Normal, you know, just an average walk and walk right today. And then they get to the part where the quote unquote tour starts. So they put them, the soldiers gather them around and they have, they're showing them these different artifacts. That's not what you call it. These tortured whatever's showing them lampshades made out of human skin. They're showing them these different artifacts. That's not what you call it. These tortured whatever's. They're showing them lampshades made out of human skin.

Starting point is 01:45:28 They're showing them. I don't even know what some of those things are. They're showing them paper made out of human skin. They're showing them skulls and organs and everything. They all recovered from this camp. And suddenly you're going to see it in the faces. Suddenly these people start to realize, oh my God, we let this happen. And like, you see them shaking their heads. They're all cross arm

Starting point is 01:45:53 looking down right now. You know, they're just getting the tour. And now the women are like, oh my God. In a minute, you're going to see one faint and she's carried out. She's carried out of there. It comes right after this right here. There she is. They can't even handle it. Yep. Right? And so I look at this and I say, now, these people were willing to willfully ignore some signs around them, perhaps because they were in a state of psychosis that was set upon them by this regime that forced people to say, you support it.

Starting point is 01:46:23 You put Hitler's fucking picture on your wall right yeah to the point that now once they are forced to come to and and actually see it and not just like you know there might be something over there it's probably whatever yeah now they go oh my god and so i recognize this and i and i think of some of these people as they're not evil. Right. They fucked up. Yeah. Because what are you going to do with these people?

Starting point is 01:46:51 Let's assume that every single one of them knew or even if they didn't know that they were willfully ignorant, all of them are evil. Truck Month is on at Chevrolet. Get 0% financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 Custom Blackout or Custom Trail Boss. With Custom Trail Bosses available, class-exclusive Duramax 3-liter diesel engine and Z71 off-road package with a 2-inch factory suspension lift, you get both on-road confidence and off-road capability. Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck Month is awesome!

Starting point is 01:47:27 Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. People, they all need to be in prison. You going to lock up all of Germany? How does the world heal from that? Are you going to kill all of them now? Like, what's the solution if you think all these people are evil? If that's the judgment.

Starting point is 01:47:44 They made poor choices choices and some of them are probably more evil than others i bet there's a few in that group that they're like oh man they're really going to show this stuff i know what's going on here and sure this is going to suck you know but that lady who fainted she probably didn't know you know probably um and that's the thing about certain things like this um one one good example would be like racism like if someone is a vehement racist but they haven't done anything like just the race they got racist opinions maybe they they refer to people as as i don't want to say anything you know but they refer to people in pejorative ways they would Ferrante would go all the way. You know, they refer to... I don't want to do that to you.

Starting point is 01:48:26 I love you, Lou. So they refer to Mexicans as this, and they refer to black people as this, right? But they've never really done anything bad. Maybe they voted for racists. They've never hurt anyone based on race, but they have racist thoughts and ideas, right? That person can be educated and changed, you know? And then they can no longer be a racist, and then they no longer have these evil positions on people, right?

Starting point is 01:48:53 So they have evil beliefs, but a lack of evil human action. Right, and it's... Yeah, that's a good way to say it. It's like, if someone was just casually racist their whole life you know and they just oh they kind of look down on people they cross the street when when someone of a different color was walking their way you know obviously that's not good but they're not they don't deserve to be in prison for that you know but they they've contributed to some things they have certain attitudes that are detrimental to other people but they can be

Starting point is 01:49:30 shown the error of their ways and then change and become better people and that's the thing with these people like they may or whatever degree they knew what they were doing was right or wrong, they can be changed. Then they can move forward and make their lives and the lives of people around them better, you know, by acknowledging what they've done, acknowledging that it was wrong, and becoming a better person. So they're not evil people because they have that capability, you know. As certain people, I think labeling someone an evil person is should be used very sparingly now there are plenty of people who do evil things who aren't necessarily evil people so my one of my favorite examples of an evil person and was probably beyond past the point of no return i don't know we don't know every possibility in the universe maybe he wasn't was ted bundy he was a serial killer who killed

Starting point is 01:50:31 young women he got locked up and went to prison and he escaped from prison and as soon as he got out of prison he went back to kill again yeah he got locked up again escaped again went back to kill him right again no ted bundy ted buddy didn't think oh i got out i need to change my life turn it around this was obviously a bad thing to do not you know he probably wouldn't have thought you know it was bad that i did it people but like at least some self-preservation or something you know like i need to stop doing this so i don't have to go back to jail escape to another country whatever no his mind was straight on killing and all the pleasure that it brought him past the point of no return that guy's

Starting point is 01:51:05 an evil person and he proved he proved multiple times he proved he right i guess gave himself the opportunity to potentially prove it yeah he went and did it do you think that for those people in the world who have not been given a chance to do that yet whatever circumstance it was where they could go straight do you think everyone could be capable of redemption before you know what i mean yeah it's percentage play it's really hard because especially especially for like murderers or repeat offenders you know um if if someone murdered one person now i think anyone who murders someone should depending on the degree or what this is like if it was second degree murder that's premeditated murder right it's second degree if it was premeditated and you thought about it well premeditated first degree right or is it first oh so second degree is second degree is like in

Starting point is 01:52:02 the moment heat of the moment oh my lawyer people lawyer people are going to freak out if I try to define this. But yeah, I think it's like in the moment. Whichever degree is premeditated murder, like you thought about it for a week before you went and did it and it wasn't just like a burst of anger in the moment. Yeah, that person probably should be placed in prison for the rest of their life and not given a chance at redemption you know same could be said for um someone who has committed lesser crimes than murder but they've committed it like 20 times right build up the sentence sorry you got to be in for the rest of your life but people who are lesser offenders and even possibly first degree murder i think there have been cases where people who have gotten life in prison have gotten out on parole, if I'm not mistaken.

Starting point is 01:52:46 Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it all depends on the person who is willing to forgive them. Have they shown themselves to be remorseful and they want to turn their lives around and be a, you know, I guess average would be the best regular member of society? Mm-hmm. Or have they not, you you know and depending on their crimes like one good example is ed kemper he's oh yeah yeah he's supposedly a model prison prisoner he like uh he was in the show mind hunters they had him yeah i haven't seen it but i've heard a

Starting point is 01:53:18 lot about ed and he i've heard that he um he like records audiobooks for blind prisoners. He helps out around the prison. He's very friendly and whatever. But he killed what? I don't know. A good amount of people and horrifically. No matter how good he is, that crime, he can't erase that. Yeah, he had some severe something going on. I mean, they all do.

Starting point is 01:53:42 So as much as he seems redeemed on the surface, his crimes are way too severe to release him back. And it's fantastic that he's redeemed himself in prison, which is fine. That's also a form of redemption. Not being someone who is a terror in prison is a good thing. But no, he shouldn't be given the chance to to get out there because not just the possibility that he might do it again but just because it was too severe to be like yeah it's okay you're you're fine you know and like you said and you're pointing it out beautifully there's levels to it yeah right so there's a huge difference between a serial killer and someone in a crime of passion and i

Starting point is 01:54:20 think about this a lot you could live you know you could be someone whose life expectancy is going to be 90 years which is 90 years times 365 days times 24 hours a piece and you can have one bad hour no fuck it you can have one bad second yep and anything good you've ever done gets wiped away and overshadowed by the worst thing ever right right that one of the podcasts i did that is definitely up there if not the most underrated podcast we ever had a chance to record was with brian mcmonigal who's one of the greatest defense attorneys in the history of this country he represented bill cosby oh wow he represented meek mill as well that was a good one where he got meek mill off from some of the horrible shit the city of philadelphia was doing to him basically in the city of philadelphia he's been the guy for 30 years right okay and he gets called to advise

Starting point is 01:55:10 on cases other places and whatever ironically you and i were talking off camera about some of the restrictions on youtube and stuff the reason no one ever saw that is because he in the intro he said the word rape ah like 10 seconds right so yeah i mean that's never a no-go there's there's huge fans of the show listening right now. Like, what? Episode 115 with Brian McMonagle? Would you go check out? Like, I've never seen it.

Starting point is 01:55:30 Right? But I had fascinating conversations with him because I've known him like all my life. And he's one of the morally greatest people you will ever meet in your life. The guy is a gems gem. And yet in his job, he has to defend people who, who yeah some clients he defends are

Starting point is 01:55:47 absolutely innocent and that gives him a lot of joy but you know it's other people who aren't right and we talked a lot about that nature of good versus evil and whatever and what he'll say is that you know sometimes he's sitting with someone who probably murdered the other person or whatever and and he'll put it in a way where he's like but they'll hold the door open for you you know they'll they'll they'll hand you a tissue when you need it you know they'll do these little human things where you realize they're they're still a human yeah and maybe there's something there and maybe like if they did get a second chance because i got them off right you know in that case maybe they wouldn't fuck it up right but to that end it's something that like still in his head he you know he has trouble he admitted that you have sleepless nights thinking about that because you're

Starting point is 01:56:34 like what if you land on the person who's not going to be redeemable yep that's a that's a risk to take you know and it's it's an admirable risk to take because in a way you could say because if i'm so i haven't really talked to many lawyers and i haven't been involved with them but good for you thanks but you know they haven't caught me yet but um so uh can a lawyer can refuse a client right yes and he talked about that he does like he won't do terrorism cases you won't do shit like yeah so you can you can look at it like in a few different ways you can be like well he could just refuse those people you know and his morals could be greater to where he's not going to defend anyone like that you know but also it's a good thing that he's willing to defend people who might not get defended by other people who could deserve a second chance, potentially.

Starting point is 01:57:27 Or just as he puts it, and this is where he has brilliant objectivity about the system because it is the constitutional system. You have to think about that too. He's like, everyone has a right to a fair defense. And so your job is not to just like, oh, try to get someone off. It's to put the government's power to the test right how well okay this person did it make the case yeah if you can't then you're gonna make it if you can't make the case and you just have to say well this person's guilty because we know they're guilty you're gonna say that about someone who's innocent right right so there's

Starting point is 01:58:00 there's a huge moral ambiguity to it this podcast we're recording right now reminds me the most of that one. Like it's just because there were so many of those questions in there. But he was also tough because he's like not – even though he's a lawyer, he'll talk in court, right? But he's like a humble guy. So like he would go on a rampage about something and then stop and lean back and like point to me like, your turn. I'd be sitting there the whole time like, fuck, think of shit now that sounds smart but half the time i was put in my head while i'm making up shit trying to talk to figure what we're getting to next i'm just thinking about like damn i'm struggling with this sitting here listening to him he's had to live with it all these years oh i bet that's gonna be hard

Starting point is 01:58:42 and he was a prosecutor before that oh wow so he put people in wow and he talked about one this lady cheryl and he said he still talks about it he still thinks about it i was asking him if there was a case that really bothers him or someone he put away right he said her because she's serving a life without parole sentence right now he had offered the other. What happened was she caught her husband cheating on her with another woman. And I forget what it was, but like crime of passion shot the woman. And so she had a real cowboy young lawyer who wanted to prove himself. And Brian went to the lawyer and offered him a third degree. Because he's like, I don't think this one, you know, I think there's redemption here.

Starting point is 01:59:23 Like, I don't think she's like a murderer's murderer. Right. Like, I get it. You know, you can't do that. But, you know, she's going to get punished badly. But like, she would come back. And the guy tried to say, no, I can win the case. So then Brian tried the case and they lost the case.

Starting point is 01:59:37 And it was life without parole. Wow. And he remembers that when she was found guilty, she convulsed and swallowed her tongue. And he actually had to – she went onto the ground. He had to jump on and help her, the person who was putting away now for life. And he said, I never forgot that. And so I actually looked her up after that episode. And she is one of those people who is a model prisoner.

Starting point is 02:00:01 She's been in there since 88. Yeah. model prisoner she's been in there since 88 yeah and they are trying to get her a second chance at life now as a 67 year old woman who statistically is not going to hurt anybody right right but he had to think about that all these years and he just did his job he didn't really do anything wrong in fact he tried to do justice and her lawyer sucked yeah you know like i can't even i can't fathom that and then i can't fathom thinking that like she's pure evil. Right. You know, you or I, I don't think we ever would, but you never know how you might feel in that moment.

Starting point is 02:00:34 No, it's a great, great point to make. It's, you're right. A second can ruin your life. Not even an hour, a second. Because you, you've been angry before i've been angry before i've been really angry before i've gotten fights with people before i've been in physical altercations with people i could get so angry in the span of 10 seconds that i want to punch someone and i do and i punch them the wrong way and it kills them that's right seen that one

Starting point is 02:01:04 before right is that is that one before. Right? Is that an evil person? No. It was a person who made a bad choice in an era of judgment in the moment, but that's not a person who was thinking about that 10 days before, fantasizing about punching someone to death, wanting to go out there and kill people. No. That's just a person who made a bad choice, and it was an evil choice.

Starting point is 02:01:24 It resulted in an evil thing happening. I don't know. It's bad choice and it was an evil choice you know it resulted in an evil thing happening it's it's i don't i don't know it's hard to say it's an evil choice it's like natural to get angry right because yes we all have uh we were talking about this earlier when we go went to go uh get some lunch um it's yeah shout out um it's nature versus nurture that i mean in our nature you we all have the capability to do animalistic things you know base level primal angry things but those aren't necessarily evil they're just part of us it's what you it's what you choose to do with those things because we all have it in us to kill people we all have it in us to do horrible things but we choose not to you know and in the moment when your emotions get really high those choices can go out

Starting point is 02:02:17 the window you know and think and even not even out the window like like in the example i just gave you when i if i got so angry i punched someone to death i I probably wasn't thinking like, I'm going to punch them to death. That's right. I'm thinking I'm going to punch them and oh shit, they died. Not I meant to kill them. It was an accident. You wouldn't be evil, for example, if you flew home from here, and I hope this doesn't happen to you, by the way. I'm sure your wife is great.

Starting point is 02:02:40 But if you flew home and you walked in and your wife was banging another dude and you naturally went to pull him off and beat the shit out of him and he accidentally died. Right. You're definitely not evil. No. I'll tell you that. No. Now, it gets weird in court with how they're going to punish you or not because I empathize with that a ton. But, like, you wouldn't be trying to kill him, most likely.

Starting point is 02:03:01 You're just very angry. Right. Exactly. It's human. It is. You know, that gets weird, too. Yeah. trying to kill them most likely you're just very angry right exactly it's human you know that's that gets weird too and like you know i don't i was telling you this off camera but i'm always very careful with the following line if i were blank then i would blank right you don't know no you don't tell you there you don't know how you would deal with that. And it can, it can immediately, it can cause you to do

Starting point is 02:03:29 things that are very human in a moment where you lose a little bit of your humanity. But actually, before that, there's, there's another thing that I heard you talk about in a video. So I know you've thought about this before, but this is another thing i struggle with you ever listen to dr amin at all i i don't he's great he's he's this he's he's like a psychologist he's been on the internet for years like talking about different things but right he i i heard him use an example one time where a friend of his came to him freaking out because he's like you know my 16 year old daughter brought over her 16 year old friend who i guess had like developed or something right and he's like oh my god i'm a pedophile because like i was having impure thoughts about it right and he said he's like my guy

Starting point is 02:04:15 he was like did you have sex with her yeah did you try to it's like no oh god no and he's like we our brain plays weird tricks on us. Oh, yeah. And we think impure things. It's very normal. Right. Like, and this is like a taboo thing where people won't admit this out loud. But if you're listening, you do it too.

Starting point is 02:04:33 Like, you have a weird thought. Like, oh, let me trip that guy's shoe or whatever and see if he falls. But you don't actually do it. And so there's a line between your, I guess, prefrontal cortex or whatever. Think something versus you then take the idea to say, I'm going to do that in your brain. So you've talked about someone's not evil for having impure thoughts. We all do. That's right.

Starting point is 02:04:54 But the evil occurs when they then translate that into acting upon it. Exactly. Evil actions and evil thoughts are not the same thing when i i don't know if i said this in a video but i'm pretty sure i've said it to people before is i i'm not everyone has had this thought but i'm going to assume that most people had that you've been so mad at somebody at some point in your life they're like i'm so mad i could kill him correct we all said that right did you do it apparently not no we didn't you know but it's the people who's like i'm so mad i could kill him oh wait i could kill him i'm gonna do that there you go there's the evil right there it's not evil to just have these

Starting point is 02:05:39 thoughts because we all do it and if if we were all evil for having these thoughts then the world wouldn't really work yeah you know like it'd be impossible that's right um so no evil thoughts do not make you an evil person you know we we all have those thoughts um it's just part of who we are um but then there's also something that repels it too you know where especially once you once you're having a thought that you're like wait that's not not only is that not socially acceptable that's completely illegal right there's that right and wrong coming in and you're like oh i'm not gonna think that you know i i i think that's i remember when i was younger like i don't know maybe 11 or 12 and i first thought about that because like i

Starting point is 02:06:21 would have weird thoughts and then i i that was some of the earlier days of google but it was very much around everything and like i look it up and i obviously it wasn't dr allman at the time that i saw but there were other psychological write-ups or papers whatever time like yes your brain fills yourself with weird thoughts and i always wondered why more people didn't point that out but it's that's that's what your videos do though your videos make people think like they try i i actually like you do an amazing job with the b-roll right so if i'm in the house and i'm watching one like i have it on i appreciate that unless he knows i love b-roll of actual movies and stuff so like i'll be watching it but i also like stick it in my pocket

Starting point is 02:07:02 and go for walks and listen to you like a podcast because you're breaking it down so beautifully. And I don't – if I know the plots of the people, I need to see what's going on. But the first one I ever watched was your most popular video ever, and it was the Colonel Hans Lando. Yeah. Who is one of – I don't want to be misheard on this but one of my favorite characters just to like watch on the screen he was obviously a horrible guy but for those of you who haven't lived and haven't seen the movie inglorious bastards he was the nazi colonel right in that movie and he was known as quote the the jew hunter yes and you know your, I'd love for you to break down like what your takeaways are with him.

Starting point is 02:07:47 But you showed me a different side of him when I watched that because when you were breaking down the physicality and of his actions and how he makes decisions, I don't want to say these words wrong. But you were essentially pointing out that like, you know, this guy's actually not like this avowed Jew-hating Nazis. You're like, he probably doesn't like Jews and like gets behind some of it, but that's not why he's evil. That's not why he exists. So can you break this down a little more? Because I just thought it was so fascinating. So Hans Landa was like an opportunist, pretty much.

Starting point is 02:08:25 He was given an opportunity to become the Jew hunter. And it wasn't because he hated Jews. Like I said, he probably does hate Jews. Right. To a certain degree. But it wasn't like... Not like Hitler. No, not like Hitler.

Starting point is 02:08:39 And not like some of the other Nazis. His thing probably wasn't, I jews so much i'm going to become the jew hunter it was like oh all this jew hatred is gonna we need a jew hunter maybe the the option was presented to him like in passing or in in the military structure you know there was this position that needed to be filled and he was like oh i could do that yeah and i could make a lot of money doing that and I could make a lot of money doing that. And I could get a lot of power doing that. And I'd probably be pretty good at that.

Starting point is 02:09:11 And he is. He's extremely good at it. And it shows in the movie how amazing he is at manipulating people and digging down into them and trying to figure things out and being a detective. He's an amazing detective. He likes the game of it, too. And he game yeah he loves the game but it was never necessarily that he that was his goal in life was to start killing people and like hunting jews it was opportunity presented itself i'm an opportunistic kind of guy and I got these talents and I'm going to use them. Do you think that makes him worse? It.

Starting point is 02:09:47 Because he's actually aware in a way? I would say, yeah, probably. I mean, it's apples to oranges kind of, you know, because you can say that someone who's a murderous, rampaging Jew killer just because they hate Jews. That's pretty, pretty terrible. Oh, say that's worse than him is like like yeah you know kind of these are weird conversations yeah right exactly that's why it's so hard sometimes it's so hard to quantify evil sometimes because it's like it depends you know um but he uh in ways yeah he's worse than other nazis who were in it to just just kill him because they thought it was

Starting point is 02:10:27 the right thing to do right they were like this is this is what i gotta do for my country you know he was like this is what i gotta do for me you know i i could care less if it was jews gypsies blacks whatever i'll kill them all you know right give them to me and give me that money and that power that's what i want you know let me let me play the game let me get some money let me get some power let me do what i like to do you know and yeah in way in certain ways that's that's worse you know can we actually pull up that video alessi because i have the source here we're cool playing it on the screen right yeah you're not gonna copyright strike us oh no no no no copyright yeah i gotta make sure i want to pull up that video, because you break down the first scene, and I want people to see how you break down the facial movements and everything, which I'll expand on.

Starting point is 02:11:15 I will say, though, that you do got to give me like a couple million dollars for making me hear my own voice twice in one day. You got it. We will. All right. Do we have that aimed on there? The 14th episode of analyzing evil in this video we'll be covering the character hans landa as portrayed by christoph waltz in inglorious bastards hans is another one of my personal favorites and i know many people feel the same way he's often cited as one of the greatest villains in cinematic

Starting point is 02:11:38 history and for good reason his presence in the film doesn't give you the blanket clutching terror that an unseen monster instills in you but rather the horror of being taken to another time, where the villain is only performing the duties of a job he has been ordered to carry out. A world where the danger is in the norm, rather than the abnormal. A world that many people still living today had the misfortune to experience. We have a lot to cover with Hans, so without further ado, let's begin. We'll start with Hans' appearance. During the course of the film, Hans is always in uniform. While this is something to take note of, it isn't unusual for a man in his position, or any position within the army or SS in general. Each soldier we see in the film,

Starting point is 02:12:20 background or not, is in uniform. Though it's the norm, it does serve to add that extra layer of fear for us viewers and the citizens of Paris. Considering a Nazi in uniform isn't exactly a pleasant thing to find yourself sitting across from. Aside from that, he's well groomed, handsome, and rather plain in his appearance. The uniform obviously gives off evil, but now I'd like to take you through each scene he appears in to discern exactly what makes him a terrifying villain. In these scenes, I'm going to be highlighting his personality at points, but it's his mannerisms and speech patterns that really sell the evil of this character. In our first scene with Hans, he immediately displays his two most defining personality traits that are present throughout every scene in this film. His well-crafted manners and his amiability. Hans is extraordinarily well-mannered and friendly. He's a perfect

Starting point is 02:13:10 gentleman, and if he weren't wearing that ever-present uniform, you wouldn't immediately assume he was anything but a genuine and pleasant person. Where these notions crumble is again in the uniform, but the way he moves and speaks as well. If you aren't paying attention, his threatening movements are easy to miss, and even if you do see them, you may not feel that they're very threatening at all. Take, for example, his meeting with Lapidite's daughters. When he's introduced to them, the girls are obviously uncomfortable in his presence. It'd be easy to write this off as simple discomfort at having a man of the SS in your home, but the way he looks at them is unsettling to say the least. He singles out Charlotte when moving to greet them,

Starting point is 02:13:47 gripping her hand and staring into her eyes longer than normal. As he is offered a seat, his eyes linger upon each girl in turn for a moment, before coming to rest upon Charlotte again for a few seconds more. When he's seated, and Suzanne moves to pour him a drink, he takes her wrist while he's speaking to her, and he again locks eyes onto Charlotte while Lopadete is speaking to him, causing an uncomfortable

Starting point is 02:14:08 look to be exchanged between the girl and her father. As Suzanne pours his milk, he looks her up and down, his eyes lingering between her and his glass before he downs the milk in one go. In this way, he becomes threatening without making threats, physical or verbal. He doesn't have

Starting point is 02:14:24 to look at Lopidit and tell him what he's going to do to his daughters in order to get his point across. His presence, and these movements, are all that he needs. I understand that the norms for society used to be different many years ago, but for a man in his position to be making movements like this towards somebody's daughters is undoubtedly unusual for even this time period. These actions highlight something that is central to Han's capacity for intimidation and coercion, which subsequently tie into his capabilities as a detective, and that's the fact that every move he makes is intentional.

Starting point is 02:14:55 From the way he speaks, to the way he looks at a man's daughters, he does so with a conscious intent. Another great example of this is immediately after the girls leave the house, when he requests to switch from French to English. Initially, we can assume he's telling the truth, but we quickly learn that this is just another way for him to get a leg up on Lop-A-Deep. After they switch to English, we're given an insight into a concept that defines this character to a certain degree, but not totally. That being the banality of evil. This concept was outlined in a book titled Eichmann in Jerusalem, a report on the banality of evil, by political theorist Hannah Arendt.

Starting point is 02:15:30 In this book, she argues that Adolf Eichmann, a man who was heavily involved with the inner machinations of the Holocaust, committed terrible crimes out of a more personal desire for promotion and success in his professions, rather than out of extreme fanaticism, fervent anti-Semitism, or because he was a sociopath. She states Eichmann was likely an anti-Semite, but it was not his primary motive for doing what he did. This is a simple definition of this term, but it can be viewed as saying that evil is sometimes a byproduct of the mundane, rather than the product of malicious intent. The book has its controversies, like many books are

Starting point is 02:16:04 want to have, but I believe it's worth a read, and contains many interesting points on this subject. Now, as I said, this defines Hans to a certain degree, as can be seen in this scene with Lopadide, where he proceeds to take out his documents to conduct his business of hunting Jews in a professional and business-like manner. These actions align with the banality of evil, but not as totally as Eichmann had, as defined by Arendt. Eichmann was also cited as being of low intellect,

Starting point is 02:16:30 and while I believe Hans is most definitely an opportunist and a bit of an anti-Semite, he is far from being of low intellect. We'll cover these notions the more this scene goes on. After he is done with his paperwork, Hans moves into speaking about his pride in his position, as well as his views on Jews. He finds it baffling that Reinhard Heydrich would hate his moniker, the hangman, as he had done everything in his power to deserve it. This ties into the banality of evil, wherein Hans is proud of the distinction he's made for himself within his profession. His diatribe about the Jews being rats and a German soldier being a hawk shows some of his anti-Semitism, but at the same time a

Starting point is 02:17:05 certain amount of respect he has for Jews as well. When he takes out his pipe, a Kalabash Mir Sham, a pipe famous for having been used by Sherlock Holmes, at first my reaction was to laugh, as I'm sure was many other people's at this scene. But in an interview with Charlie Rose, Tarantino explains exactly why Hans is using a pipe. He states that Hans doesn't actually smoke, but his taking out of this pipe is yet another power play he utilizes during the course of this interrogation. He takes this pipe out at the exact moment where he begins to tell Lopidite that he has found him out, and that he's one, like Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery. This is perhaps my favorite moment in the entire movie.

Starting point is 02:17:41 As he's speaking to Lopidite about his findings, we watch as his face, with only the slightest movements, transforms from the remnants of a smile and polite courtesy into a hard, straight line, with eyes cold and devoid of mercy. It's here where it's revealed to us that the reason he was speaking English during their conversation

Starting point is 02:17:59 was in fact a ploy, and Hans was toying with him the entire time. As I said before, every movement, every word, every motion, has a purpose for Hans. It's this ability to coax people into a corner through words and subtlety alone that gives us viewers the chills. I imagine him as a beast who's mewling in your ear to coax you into its nice, warm cave after you've been standing out in a downpour, only to find that in that cave are bones lying in a pile beside a dead-end wall. In that same clip of Quentin's interview, which I will provide

Starting point is 02:18:30 a link to down in the description, he also tells us that each scene with Hans is an interrogation, and I couldn't have said it better myself. His interrogations are defined by Tarantino as being an act of theater, a performance, and when we look back at the scenes in which we find Hans, this notion rings true. Though the way he presents himself isn't an exaggeration by any means, if you keep in mind that all of these interrogations are a performance for Hans, his tactics seem to be that of a carefully crafted play, written and performed by Hans himself. Now, to close out this scene, we need to look at two things that are important to Hans' character for two different reasons, and forgive my terrible accent, but those two things are the words adieu and au revoir.

Starting point is 02:19:09 In French, adieu and au revoir are both used to tell someone goodbye, but for different scenarios. If you were unsure of when you were going to see someone again, you would say adieu. But if you were going to see them again soon, you would say au revoir, which roughly translates to, until I see you again. This distinction is important, as when Han shouts au revoir which roughly translates to until i see you again this distinction is important as when han shouts au revoir at joshanna he's threatening her letting her know that he will find her in the next scene with han all right let's cut it right there i won't take too much credit for that au revoir thing i think i found that in a video i linked in the description i would have given it to you yeah i was gonna give it to you you should have

Starting point is 02:19:41 gone with it i don't want to lie you know all right well i appreciate the honesty so dude it's funny you and i think about that movie the same way that part you pointed out with the eyes where the two of them are close up and you watch christoph waltz's face fall just sink it's one of the greatest acting moments in the history of cinema to me that opening scene out outside of another movie we're going to talk about in a minute here, The Godfather, that's the greatest opening scene ever made. Oh, yeah. Now, Inglourious Basterds, great movie.

Starting point is 02:20:11 But if that movie was just that scene as a short film, I wouldn't be happy. Fine. Great. Don't give me anything more. I don't need it. One thing I was going to mention, though, is one thing I missed,

Starting point is 02:20:22 and that's one thing I love about my videos, I always tell people at the end, if I miss anything, you tell me you know um because i'm a big nerd and i like talking about stuff too and learning things and there's someone pointed out that when he in the beginning when he goes up to the daughter when they're all standing in a row and he takes her wrist he's actually checking her pulse to see if she's worried like if what's something's wrong yeah i missed that but i was killed to be in a room with quentin tarantino i know right bro i know give me all the blow whatever he's doing let's go exactly is oh it's it's so amazing and it's so yeah that's what part of the reason why he was looking back at her like giving her those looks like i felt that

Starting point is 02:21:02 and i know you're worried why are you you worried? What's going on here? So, yeah, that's another layer to it. And it's just so much in that one scene. It's phenomenal. But what you're pointing out is the joy he takes in it. The gamification of it. Every little motion. Like, I was noticing when we were watching that.

Starting point is 02:21:19 That's the great thing about that scene. You notice something new every time you watch it, no matter what. I've seen it hundreds of times. But, like, You notice something new every time you watch it, no matter what. I've seen it hundreds of times. Yeah. But you notice something new. Even when he took off his gloves and went outside and flicked him like that, almost back in the direction of the guy, like, I'll flick this wherever the fuck I want, bitch. Yeah. But he's being polite at the same time, so he's disarming and charming you and scaring

Starting point is 02:21:38 you all at once. And you see that the machinations going on inside this guy's head are – yes, they're opportunists like you said. Right. But they're also based on the other point you made, which is he's putting on a play. He's an actor in his own movie. He's got – he has what you call main character syndrome. Oh, yeah. Completely. character syndrome oh yeah completely and just the way you break down every little glance which

Starting point is 02:22:06 i didn't even notice some of those things all the times i watched it of like the lingering eye and it's like one one thousand two one thousand yep there it is wow yeah you know and you see that he is he's not only in the play but he's also present enough to be reading the other characters who don't know they're in this play it's just and it's it's funny because i always look at this video in this movie um when i'm making other videos and i do i sometimes i'll watch things like twice not necessarily the whole movie but scenes you know just watch it a few times make sure i'm not missing anything but that scene is so amazing with all those little movements and everything it's like i try to find them in other characters and other movies and i'm like it's not really

Starting point is 02:22:48 there and i hope people aren't like uh where's all the the the movement analyzation and everything i'm like well this was just this was a example of the best of the best of the best you know it's not every character does that you know it's crazy every actor in that scene was incredible they i mean i mean the dude the the Frenchman in that scene is incredible. You know, one of the things like going through, and you can relate to this because of all the types of content you make. But, you know, for a couple of years there, it was just me constantly streaming through YouTube looking for B-roll and trying to tell stories through the stories that were told in here and reimagine them and so i would do this with i i didn't want to hear the dialogue when i was doing that because i'd be finding new movies or old movies where i already knew the plot and i didn't want to like bias myself i wanted to read the emotions to see if like yo if i'm going to cast ben foster for chris

Starting point is 02:23:38 cathers now i'm using ben in six different movies where he has a beard because he looks like chris but i need to make him the marine for all those movies even the ones he's not right right and so i think a great value in this was i understood after watching down scrolling scrolling through probably tens of thousands of hours of content probably got there yeah you know know of some of the greatest performances ever you see what makes the great actors great It's all their eyes. Oh, yeah 100% they they are able to fool you into Thinking that they are this person because they it's it's it's not so much what they do It's what they don't do with it right and the subtleties of it. And so when you look at that scene

Starting point is 02:24:23 Christoph Waltz challenges evil itself almost yes the voice helps there's little things the way he pronounces words right he earned it yeah right like he'll do little things he'll move stuff around like we said but if you just if you had one of those like tracking devices just on his eyes you would know what was happening right you would know what he was thinking what he was doing he tries to be as evil as he can be without being evil right trying to be trying to look evil and he does a fantastic job and i actually just thought about something he you know who he reminds me of hannibal lecter like if if looking at him because usually in the movies and stuff we do get to see a little bit of hannibal like especially especially in the prequel Red Dragon and a little bit in the sequel.

Starting point is 02:25:10 But I imagine he's like what Hannibal was like when he was out and in society and elegant and this, you know, there's nothing wrong with it. He's just a nice doctor. He's great. He's fantastic. And it's in the eyes, too. Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter is one of the intimidating and the body movement and the language he uses oh well let's let's let's take that line right there because you did a video on this i did a full video on anthony hopkins as hannibal lecter obviously guy's a cannibal yeah

Starting point is 02:25:39 it's very not good right evil he might say for sure oh yeah but what psychologically how did you break him down minus his obvious psychosis for thinking humans are good for food so as far as his psychology goes he this isn't very have you seen all of the all the movies i haven't seen all of them but i've seen silence of the lambs movies i haven't seen all the books yeah so if you just if it was just silence the lambs there really would there be more guesswork into what he is but in the sequel i think it's the fourth book he wrote i don't remember but one of the sequels it's also a prequel and a sequel like the intermex hannibal's backstory when he was a kid and it turns out he

Starting point is 02:26:25 was he grew up in estonia or estonia latvia lithuania one of those three um when he was a kid and he was part of this noble family and he lived in a castle and he was like a genius a prodigy prodigy child um but he was right around world war i happened. He was like eight or nine. And so his parents' castle got taken by the Nazis. He had to go on the run with his little sister. And then he ended up having to watch his little sister get eaten by them when the weather got really bad and they needed something to eat. And they chose to kill her and eat her. And so he had to. And he also ate her too.

Starting point is 02:27:10 They made him eat her. And he ate his ate his sister oh that'll fuck you up so that's where all that came from but there's things about hannibal in the books that are they don't really say in the movies one he's incredibly smart that's apparent in the movies but he's also got this like strange dexterity and strength even though he's small and lithe and um i aside from the obvious psychological elements from the childhood you know that plays obviously heavy into who he became but the way he is physically and mentally i it seems like an impossibility right the things they describe like he's incredibly, like stronger than he should be. He's one of the smartest people who ever lived. I kind of likened him to like a super predator and how even though we haven't really experienced a person like him with those kind of characteristics and traits, we don't know the extent of human very, very fascinating character to look at. Especially, I don't, see, it's been a while since I did that video, and it's been a while since I've read anything on him. But he, it's like it wasn't malicious for him.

Starting point is 02:28:39 He was just, it was another mode of human experience was eating people. You know, it was, he was really into culinary and he didn't want to deny himself that part of life. And of course, what he experienced as a child also influenced him to do it. How do you even, like, go back to the eight-year-old kid or whatever, nine-year-old kid. Yeah. How do you even, how do you even judge that? Yeah. Can you imagine?

Starting point is 02:29:11 Yeah. Watching your sister get eaten and you got to take a bite? Mm-hmm. You know, that's the other thing. Like, if you don't think you'd be fucked up from that, you're an idiot. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. up from that yeah you're an idiot yeah exactly exactly and that's that's a great example of total total sim i sympathize with hannibal horrible that that person had to go through that

Starting point is 02:29:32 and experience those things but that sympathy is not an excuse for what they did yes at some it's an explanation of why they did what they did so yeah you can still sympathize with him but it's not don't use it as an excuse it's just a mode to understand better why he did what they did so yeah you can still sympathize with him but it's not don't use it as an excuse it's just a mode to understand better why he did what he did right you know that's exactly right i agree completely i think it you know at some point like whether it's 18 or if it should really be 25 scientifically at some point right it's your free will that decides it now do some people have a way harder time right because of the things around them we've talked about that at length today already or a disorder something anything oh yeah influencing your decisions there but they're still your decisions that's they're still the decision

Starting point is 02:30:13 now i think if someone's schizophrenic and completely unaware oh that's different oh yeah definitely but yeah there's levels to it like you said and so Insanity exists for a reason. Right. You don't empathize with a 35-year-old Hannibal Lecter just fucking eating bitches and shit. You know? Like that's crazy. Yeah. But you can empathize with the child who set that man into motion who didn't get to make that choice. That's so – dude, it's so dude it's so weird it's so hard to think about you know yeah yeah yeah and there's something actually i wanted to say earlier um

Starting point is 02:30:53 when we were talking about oh man i almost lost it what is it um oh when we were talking about committing crimes and empathizing, what was it? Oh, so you mentioned earlier, and I thought this a lot when I was younger too. One of the reasons that people don't commit crimes, right, is they think, I don't want to go to jail for it. There's that thing of right and wrong punishment right but if there's anything that i ever wanted to preach about it's that we should all be if you're capable of it because the people with disorders aren't capable um we should all be think not thinking i don't want to do this because it's going to land me in jail i want i don't want to do this because this person is another person just like me and if this happened to me, I wouldn't like it very much. That's where – that would solve a lot of the world's problems, honestly.

Starting point is 02:31:53 People just stopped for a second to think, hey, this person that I'm about to do this terrible thing to also is a person just like me. Maybe they wouldn't like it as much as I do, and I'm not going to do it. I think that's something that the world needs to get on you know now here's a dark thought on that yeah the fact that laws do exist though and they are the reason that some people many people who may be psychopaths whatever you want to say they are right decide you know what i'm not going to do this because i don't want to go to jail yeah the thought has nothing to do with the other person that if the law wasn't there they do it in a fucking second oh yeah they might enjoy it think

Starting point is 02:32:32 about how many people might be out there that's a very dark thought to have it's not everyone but you know yeah here's the thing it's that the thing i just said in a perfect world, if everybody thought that way, no bad things would happen, you know, because we would all be aware of what we're all thinking and how, you know, we all feel the same things, you know, to varying degrees. And we don't appreciate horrible things happening to us. But laws exist because the world is not perfect, you know. That's right. As much as I would love that sentiment to be in everybody's mind it's impossible you know it's just the way i don't know organic life is human life is it's but it's it's still good to try and make as many people aware of that as possible that everyone you

Starting point is 02:33:21 should treat it's so funny because these things that we heard when we were kids treat others how you want to be treated that's just like okay you know i'll i'll think about that maybe but really think about that you know treat other people how you want to be treated unless you want to be treated badly too well yeah there's a lot of people but that's the thing yeah and i believe in the golden rule right a percent yeah but like sometimes when you think about it literally, you're like, you better be okay with yourself. Yeah. Because that can go the wrong way fast. Right.

Starting point is 02:33:50 Exactly. Yeah. But you're talking about leading with – I think the definition of the word morality, I don't know it offhand, which is kind of crazy to think about. I don't either actually. Weird. But like that's what you're looking at it. Like morality has to do with how you treat a fellow human being. Right.

Starting point is 02:34:10 Exactly. That's, that's, I think that's the basis of morality is, and that's the basis of good and evil in general, is what's evil? Things that make us feel bad. Like things that we don't like. I don't like when someone steals from me. I don't like when somebody hits me unjustly. You know, I just just i don't like when someone hits me and i had it coming but that's another thing you know but i wouldn't i wouldn't like it if you murdered my mom you probably

Starting point is 02:34:34 wouldn't like it if i murdered your mom therefore it's evil i so i don't i never try to bake like religion or anything into my videos i just want to talk about it on a base level with everybody um but if there is a god he cares what we do good and evil right because we're judged by our sins but on a grander scheme if there isn't the universe doesn't really care what we do there is no good and evil in the stars the planets they don't give a shit what we're doing to each other down here but we do and that's what morality is what we care about and what we want to happen to the people we love and ourselves and what we wouldn't like to happen to us or the people we love and the thing is is that we should we should love everybody obviously you're not going to want to kiss every person you see on the street and hug them. But we should love everyone as people just like us and treat them how we would treat ourselves. Because at the end of the day, I said this in a video recently, what is the goal of life?

Starting point is 02:35:41 It is to eliminate suffering. Every day from the moment you're born, five, ten minutes later, whatever it is, you're going to get hungry. You're going to suffer. And the people around you are going to endeavor to eliminate that suffering. And you're going to be tired and you're going to want to sleep to eliminate that suffering. And you're going to have all these things that are going to make you suffer in the world but and then what you do is you try to eliminate that suffering for yourself and others that's everything we do it's every day it's a struggle to eliminate the suffering that's hanging over all of our heads that is human existence so recognizing that the world to live is to suffer in so many ways and that you don't want to be a problem, you don't want to contribute to that suffering.

Starting point is 02:36:30 Having those things in mind, I think, would help the world in a lot of ways. Side note, but in the creativity of your videos, especially like if people are watching a piece of that Hans Landa one, which I hope you guys go watch the full thing. It'll be linked below in the description. Thank you. londa one which i hope you guys go watch the full thing it'll be linked below in the description thank you but you know i see the detail of the timing and you know my head's doing while i'm watching i'm like okay he got that on the third frame out of 24 on that one to make sure the eye flipped up but yeah yeah and that's i know what that is but you see how beautiful the result is yeah that's what i hope guys like you i have to remind myself this sometimes when i actually get it right but like that's why we do it yeah you know but yes you're sitting up at night thinking about oh i gotta fix that frame in the morning it never goes away well and i was telling

Starting point is 02:37:13 you before that the um the channel i started for a few different reasons but my original idea for the channel was i've been writing a book that's unfinished and not coming out anytime soon. So nobody pressure me on this. But I've had an idea for a book and been writing it for the last, I don't know, seven years now. And my original idea was to use the channel as a advertising method for the book. I was like, I'll get 10,000 subscribers eventually. And when I finish the book, those 10 was like i'll get 10 000 subscribers eventually and when i finish the book those 10 000 subs will be 10 000 ads you know this is cart before the horse so yeah right so my original thought for my original desire i should say for creation was

Starting point is 02:37:57 writing like i wanted to be a writer and i still do i still want to finish my book you know that's not surprising reading your script hearing your scripts thank you but the book came way before the channel and when i made the channel that's that's probably the probably the hardest thing about my videos is everything you're hearing is something i wrote you know i don't take i don't go to a website or a wiki and sometimes i'll like cite an article you know or a video or whatever and i'll read it or I'll cite a passage in a book that I want to read. And especially in I found in my videos that I do about characters on that only appear in books and haven't appeared on film or they've appeared in both that I feel it's necessary to read like entire pages of a book because you really, you don't understand. I can't say any better than what the author intended when they were writing the words, right? Yeah. I can, I can explain to you on the screen like better because you know, in words you can, you can

Starting point is 02:38:56 understand certain things you're seeing better, but in a book, someone's already wrote it, you know? So I'm just going to read to you what they wrote because it's, how am I going to say, I'm going to move a few words around and change their descriptions? No, they got it down. It's their character. But aside from that, everything I do is me. It's my writing. And that's the hardest part sometimes.

Starting point is 02:39:15 But that's the most enjoyable part for me too because that's what I want to do. But every video is just me sitting there waiting for it to come. Descriptions, they – I see this and this and this. video is just me sitting there waiting for it to come you know descriptions they you know i see i see this and this and this but now how do i put it together according to what who they are and what they're doing so yeah yeah sorry to go off on it no that's great man i love i love getting in in the mindset of of how this stuff comes together you also do like with with the and you've hinted at this or i think said it explicitly a couple times, but I want to draw attention to it. Like with these characters that have books on them too, like you're reading all the books on them as well.

Starting point is 02:39:51 You're going through every part of it from both angles to get the full picture. And that's why I love to see a channel like yours that still should have way more subs, but I think you're at like 790 or something like that. Whatever it is. I love to see that the it is whatever it is like i love to see that the success is built off the details and that's and that's that's really that's what it's all about and there's so many channels out there doing great work that's why when i see one like yours pop up it's like a no-brainer but there was something earlier we got off it you had brought it up and i want to force it back oh sure but i'd love to go back now when you were talking

Starting point is 02:40:24 about like some of the racist thoughts that people could have versus racist actions or whatever yeah obviously in america's history our biggest flaw was slavery yeah you know we had that around for the first call it close to 100 years of our existence 85 years whatever it was close you look at some of the greats though right right what we view as a great george washington yeah thomas jefferson is a bad example so we'll skip that one that's a good yeah that's not a good one but there are people that we respect in our history who were slave owners. And I struggle with this a lot because obviously it's the most asinine concept to me, 2024 living Julian Dory. Right. Yeah. But I guess the base question to start with here is were any slave owners not evil?

Starting point is 02:41:27 Yeah. They were all, were any slave owners not evil? Yeah, I'm, so again, that's, I think it goes back to evil actions versus evil person, you know? Were they slave owners because they really liked whipping people? Evil, yeah. slave owners because they really liked whipping people and they they wanted they enjoyed they they were in their bed at night smiling because they're like oh i have slaves life's so good i just i just love slaves slaves are great you know that's like an evil person right but owning slaves is evil and using them as for slavery is evil but are you a slave owner because your dad was a slave owner or are you a slave are you a slave owner because everyone around you doing it and it's normalized and so you fell into that normalized behavior or are you a slave owner because you actually

Starting point is 02:42:17 enjoy having slaves and it gets you off you know what i mean like a calvin candy yeah um calvin candy was is like the bad the worst example of a slave owner. Right. He's one who probably would have – even after the slaves got freed, he would have been saying how great slavery was and how the world is so much worse now. And it's a good thing that we had slaves. There's another guy he did a great video on. We're talking about Leonardo DiCaprio's character from jenga by the way but there's an there's other slave owners that when slavery was abolished i'm sure i don't know but i'm sure there was there were people that freed him

Starting point is 02:42:54 and they were like well yeah now i see it you know we were in this mode for so long and and all these things but then again maybe not i don't know that's a that's a really tough issue it to talk about you know one of the seven deadly sins though is avarice right which involves the want for money and greed and a big part that often gets ignored that's extremely important i think to look at with slavery is that there was an enormous economic interest in it they had free labor oh yeah right and which i think makes it worse right but if someone economically was doing it because their father did it and they have to manage this plantation that grows whatever fucking plant you know tobacco or something like well our business is going to go under if we don't have these slaves does that passivity mean evil though i don't know i don't know honestly it's see for me and again i'll go back to the the whole reason my channel exists is because i

Starting point is 02:43:52 evaluate everything on a case-by-case basis yes i think the reason it's so tough to define situations like this is because there are going to be exceptions or things you didn't think about and you only know that when you start looking at individual cases. On the whole, slavery is bad. On the whole, being a slaver was evil. But were there slave owners that weren't as evil as some other slave owners? Probably. Were there slave owners who freed their slaves after they were forced to, which isn't good,

Starting point is 02:44:24 but then realized the error of their ways and even went on to maybe help people you know there's it depends it all depends on the person that you're talking about and looking at you know and for people like like the the great leaders of the past who who were a part of these things i i kind of look at it like so i i do this with films too so one example is roman polanski he's universe pretty much universally reviled as a horrible person because of what he did i don't know if you if i should oh yeah please please explain that background i think he was i don't remember exactly but it was like a 14 year old girl or something that he was believe that's right babysitting or watching or something and he got her drunk at a party and then he took advantage of her you know um and then he fled to france and you know he hasn't

Starting point is 02:45:15 directed movies yeah but he made one of the greatest horror movies ever made rosemary's baby and he did that before he did that and even though Chinatown too, right? Was that him? I don't remember. Can we look that up? Chinatown, Roman Polanski? Yeah, I don't know about that. Sorry, go ahead. My nerd brain was kicking in right there. Now, should Roman have been allowed to continue making movies and be

Starting point is 02:45:38 a... That depends. You know, he should have served some time for what he did. He should have, you know, been punished for it, and maybe after he got out and redeemed himself, if people want to watch his movies and are able to forgive him that's fine but when you didn't know someone was a horrible person and they made a fantastic movie are you going to stop watching the movie some people yes but i think no like for example kevin spacey is pretty much dunzo in in all aspects of life right like he and he used to be my favorite actor ironically before he did his stuff and but he's not my favorite actor anymore

Starting point is 02:46:12 but i can still watch it i can still watch the usual suspects you know that was a great movie i didn't know he was a uh a serial abuser sexual abuser back then i got five words for you pal huh i believe i can fly it's a fucking great song yeah i i hate it yeah i hate myself one of the most defining songs of the 90s is a rapist bastard he is he is a terrible guy keep him in prison for the rest of his god damn it's not a good song exactly right yes i do sing it it's thishmm. Right. This is – I think about this, though, because I'm like, listen, I'm like, oh, I'm so bad for liking this, but I believe I can fly. So if George Washington, for example, was the – I don't know. I'm just going to throw out a hypothetical example. said that we should be free you know and you know most people should be free most obviously and that we need to have this democratic system and do all these great things but he owned slaves

Starting point is 02:47:10 does that make what he said untrue no no no if hitler thought the sky was blue are you gonna no longer think the sky is blue right that's that's it you know it's i don't know to what degree people should revere people from the past who have done horrible things who have also done great things i can't answer that question that's up to you know the public consensus but i don't think anyone should be disqualified from having reverence for them in certain ways like certain things they said or did if they did horrible things because no matter what they did what they said is still true or what they did is still true right like again the sky is still blue no matter if a serial killer thinks it's blue or i think it's blue right so when it's stuff like that then yes it's strange where we have this arbitrary line that none of us

Starting point is 02:48:07 really know where it is though because like i know right by that you can say it's like the bruce lee thing take what's good discard what's bad learn yeah right we can do that with george washington and stuff yeah and and there's side note by the way george washington upon death freed his slaves right which means that in life he knew it was wrong right i struggle with that right that goes both ways people are like oh good well you knew any freedom i'm like yeah but why do you wait till he died exactly right right like he was collecting on their labor while he's still alive he's like yeah you may you keep picking that cut that fucking cotton when i croak you're good i don't need them anymore so they can go my kids

Starting point is 02:48:41 i don't need a trust fund but you're taking care of me right but you know we are able to like i look positively at george washington for example in history i think he did overall i think he did many things but then there's some people who are so past the point in overturn that you can't even say something that is objectively true right and i will use an example here that i don't even like saying but like if you study hitler there's something to be said for the fact that when he got in front of an audience he was an extremely charismatic speaker yeah he's a brilliant speaker actually and in some ways you should study that to figure out how to not make this happen again but you also may look at it and there may be some things are like crazy person culty shit of course most of it

Starting point is 02:49:25 is yeah but you may you may be able to say oh you dropped the bar right there right maybe you know what i mean but like you can't say that at a dinner party sure so i think the i think the only thing to consider there is another thing about hitler and as along with the speaking he was also very kind to animals he loved animals animals. He was a vegetarian. And he also banned smoking in Germany because he thought smoking was harmful and bad, which is true. It is. Meth was better, apparently. Yeah, right.

Starting point is 02:49:55 Exactly. take inspiration from like an animal rights activist or an anti-smoking activist or a great orator you can probably look somewhere else that's correct you know what i mean like i don't disagree yeah so you can you could still like and it's true especially for as and as far as hitler's oratory goes oratory skills um that might be something to study for people who are interested in the craft and the art and want to figure out how to speak and move to influence millions of people and be successful in that way which is might be okay but it's right it's like what are you trying to influence right exactly um but it's for the smoking and the animal thing in particular is like that more static things like that that's not necessarily tied to his person. Hitler didn't – he's not the only one who said smoking is bad and treat animals well. There's another person you can look to for inspiration for anti-smoking and animal rights. level yeah he had a unique skill set that could be analyzed by someone interested in the craft

Starting point is 02:51:05 that might benefit them in some way but so yeah for um but for things like that you know if if what they had to offer was something totally unique that you literally cannot you either you cannot get it somewhere else or if you study someone else who has done it since, it ties back because they got influenced by that person, you have no choice but to look to that person. If George Washington was the first person to say something, but then someone expanded upon it better later on, well, maybe they were influenced by George Washington. So you have to examine George Washington too. And you have to consider what he said in order to understand a good concept despite the bad things that he did so it's rough it's difficult you know every every situation is different but if there's a i would just say if there's a better person to look to look to that person but if it's it's impossible to not consider that person when examining

Starting point is 02:52:01 something then what what choice do we have you know it's it is what it is yeah history is just so fascinating man like you look at it that we're always going to be psychopaths in the future in some way oh yeah right like they're like 300 years from now maybe they look back on us and they realized we had the technology to not have to have a child born in the womb and we made women do it for an extra 50 years're like those murderers right they made women carry children for nine months and 20 000 of them died or whatever in the united states they're murderers and those people like there's always gonna be that yeah but some of them in hindsight you're like oh that did seem a little obvious but again like what you've done to this point

Starting point is 02:52:41 is look at it through art yeah right and art obviously involves a lot of history we just talked about hans line yeah obviously so it carries it in but i think one of the beauties of of art meaning you know whatever it may be but to talk about films right now yeah is they allow us through fictional worlds to see a lens of ourselves including in the context of history right and there's no better movie ever made period in my opinion than the godfather oh yeah okay good yeah an agreement i what did i yes i was i was struggling with something i know i think it's just because if you go to every list of like top movies ever made what's number one do you know citizen king citizen king and i understand why citizen kane is number one because

Starting point is 02:53:26 well i understand now i didn't know before because i was like and i watched it and i was like this is good you know but citizen kane is number one because orson welles pioneered so many new techniques that it's like he's the one who made modern cinema with that movie so you have to give it number one for being the influence for everything i will i will give it that respect and raise it it's still not but the godfather is this i have actually a funny story about the godfather so i in high school there was this kid in my class and i think he's in film now um and i don't know if i should say his full name i don't know if that's a good idea we can bleep it out if we have to okay his name is uh his name was okay he has an indian name okay that doesn't

Starting point is 02:54:11 a hindu name but he was a white kid and the reason is because his parents were super hippie vegan people who had converted to hinduism and is yeah he was a cool kid i was i was one of my good friends in high school and i uh it was i'm sad i don't connect with him anymore you know but you got a little irish kid named vishnu i know jesus christ it's it's cool he's got a cool name it's it's it's interesting it's kind of like me because in america at least um most people associate the name jamal with uh black people um it's more so a black name than it is an Arabic name because that's what we're exposed to. Like every Jamal you'll meet is usually black. So when they see me and they're like, Jamal, what?

Starting point is 02:54:52 I see what you're saying. I didn't think, cause I know it's a common Arabic name too. Yeah, a lot of people don't. In America specifically. You're right. So I've gotten a lot like, especially when I meet people over the phone,

Starting point is 02:55:04 I'm like, name's Jamal, how you doing? And they meet me in person like, whoa, you're white? Jam i've gotten a lot like especially when i meet people over the phone i'm like name is jamal how you doing and they meet me in person like whoa you're white what the fuck what is this what is this stuff you know so yeah um but anyway he wanted to be in film and i'm pretty sure he's in film now and he wanted to be a director and i thought i was talking to him about movies and i was like oh so you've seen the godfather then right and he's like no i haven't seen it he's like it's not really my thing you know i don't really like mob stuff like that i'm like listen oh i don't care if you don't like mob stuff right it is one of the greatest if not the greatest movie ever made yeah and if you want to be a director there is no way that you can not watch the godfather so he's's like, all right, fine.

Starting point is 02:55:45 I think my dad has it on DVD or whatever. I'll watch it this weekend. I'll tell you what I think on Monday. You shouldn't be allowed in film school. He comes back and he's like, that was the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, I know. He's like, the casting, I know. The lighting, I know.

Starting point is 02:56:00 The story structure, I know. So it's hard to debate that the godfather isn't isn't the greatest movie ever made you know give it or give citizen kane its credit you know for the influence of course but you're right the godfather is it's a masterpiece all right well i'm glad we can be friends because we agree i've seen that movie a thousand times literally but like it's funny i am gonna call out someone by name i had to make danny jones my good friend who runs the danny jones podcast watch it whose literal career was made on the fact that he was a cinematographer and a filmmaker and a fucking

Starting point is 02:56:30 genius one at that yeah and he'd be like i'm not watching the godfather i'm like oh my god oh wow yeah finally made him watch and you know he loved it but he's like yeah yeah it was good oh he played it off it's the bit like he was definitely like, I'm eating off of that in there. But it is true. I get it. If you don't like mob stuff, you're not going to gravitate toward a mob movie. But if you're a film person, you've got to watch the movie. Forget that for a minute, though.

Starting point is 02:56:57 You're making my point for me because it's not a mob movie. Oh, it is. Yeah, it is. But when I was originally bringing this up, the reason I was saying it is because I was talking about how art can be a lens into ourselves through a fictional reality. The movie The Godfather, that trilogy is based on the dark side of the American dream. Yeah. It is a symbol for capitalism gone wrong. You know what I like to call that series?

Starting point is 02:57:24 I think an alternate name for the godfather trilogy should be the tragedy of michael corleone they almost named it that the third movie oh did they really they almost i didn't know that they almost named the third movie the death of michael corleone oh there you go yeah but yeah it's the it's and that's also like um they should have that like another name for star wars for example is like the tragedy of anakin skywalker is pretty much what star was and Godfather is the tragedy of Michael Corleone, because it's really this kid who goes from being a promising college student war hero who gets sucked into this this criminal lifestyle and becomes this kingpin who and eventually he pays for it dearly at the end. He's already paid for it dearly in many ways by like killing his brother and all that stuff. But that and I will say whatever you want about The Godfather 3.

Starting point is 02:58:08 People say it's the weakest in the series. And it is. It is the weakest of the three. Of course. But that last scene, the second to last scene with Michael screaming on the steps, that is one of the greatest scenes in film history. Yes. Say whatever you want about Godfather III, but that moment of just pure human pain and emotion. Yes.

Starting point is 02:58:29 It was heartbreaking and amazing. Oh, my God. Yeah. When he's silent. Oh, yeah. Oh! Just, dude. Mm-hmm.

Starting point is 02:58:38 It was like everything he'd ever done in his life. And it came out. It just, everything. Right there. in his life and it came out it just everything you know you know when you know in the green mile when when john coffee would suck out all the evil from someone yeah and then he'd lean back and yeah and the literal imagery of it would come out that's and this is before the green mile that's exactly like he couldn't michael corleone was so – he had done himself in finally so badly that he couldn't even make a sound. And then finally it was like God said, okay, you can make a sound now.

Starting point is 02:59:12 And it just comes out. And like Al Pacino is one of, if not my favorite actor of all time. So like I love watching that. But you look at this, there's two layers to it because we're going to get to Michael Corleone. Because that is who the series is about despite the lasting image. And it's not like Al is overlooked. I mean he got nominated in the movie. But Vito Corleone.

Starting point is 02:59:32 Right. Vito Corleone though is unique though because they made him a good guy. Yeah. They made him – or I should say they made him feel like a good guy. Yep. You had this dude who's this moral man who believes in justice but not the justice of the american that's a great impression thank you that's a great impression but you know he he's like your grandfather he's soft he's not quick to kill he's

Starting point is 02:59:56 based on logic and reason yeah vengeance is one of them but it's vengeance where it's where it's eye for an eye yeah right we see that very well in godfather 2 and so we see him build that like like the the movie the godfather opens up with the culmination of the american dream you got the guy who came he vito corleone he's got all the power he lives on a fucking compound his his daughter is getting married off it's a happy event his kids are all going to be rich. He's rich as fuck. People are coming in there asking him a favor on their wedding day. This is someone who came, as we would later find out, came to this country alone without anyone. Yep.

Starting point is 03:00:34 Family dead. Not a pot to piss in. Had smallpox. So he still speaks weird. And yet he's a king. He's a god. Yeah. Right? he's a king he's a god yeah right and then the series shows how the sin that maybe we don't

Starting point is 03:00:47 recognize in him lives out through his son yeah then he may get riches but that man literally dies alone spoiler alert but like if we're spoiling this that's a you problem yeah it's been out since the 70s 80s you're but like i'm coming veto corleone have you done a video on him not yet yeah let's do the first preview right now i was just gonna say one of the most damning things about veto corleone i could say is to look at not necessarily who he is most of the time but who he employs and your restaurant over here that's named after him luca brazzi oh yeah and so i have you read the book the godfather book? There's a bear shit in the woods.

Starting point is 03:01:27 I'm just making sure. I don't know. I've read the whole series. So you remember the scene with Luca and the prostitute? What he does when she brings him his kid? Yes. Remind me. I've read the book about three times i'm embarrassed i can't remember that

Starting point is 03:01:47 it's okay but it's gonna come to me it's it's so he he has relations with a irish prostitute yes i remember and and when michael's in italy this old lady's telling him the story about how when the baby was born she delivered the baby and she brought luca and said here's your child and he he said i don't want to get rid of it and she was like no you do that if that's what you want to do and he took that baby and he threw it in a furnace yeah yeah yes and vito corleone was aware of this man use this man to as best he could you know that was his top enforcer and that's a bad thing right there enforcer you know um only man he ever but he was yeah and he was willing to use that man to have that man be a part of his structure and his organism and his success was luca brazzi the

Starting point is 03:02:35 man who threw a baby in a furnace because it was an abomination born from an irish prostitute and an italian do you think he justified his logic in that to try to say that I may, the ends justify the means if I'm doing things that I believe restore justice to my community and my people who don't get justice right now and are spit on by the authorities and stuff like that. Yeah. If I have to, if I have to break a few legs to you know crack the nut here yeah that's okay yeah that's i'm sure that's what he thought part of it um is that pure evil um no it's not pure evil but it is it's evil i don't i don't want to call it pure evil but and the thing about men like him in his position is he needed people like that

Starting point is 03:03:28 now you don't get to be vito corleone without a killer like luca brazzi you know you can and it doesn't have to be someone who's throwing babies in furnaces but you need killers you know that it's not like vito built his empire on comments and nice wishes you know hi how you doing you know no it's give me give me what i need and what i what i want and you know like the band the band the deal with the the band leader story with the band leader yeah your brain's a signature yeah on the contract uh-huh yep so is it pure evil no it's not pure evil but he's pretty he's evil you know yeah um but he doesn't my god is he it's almost like a problem because it's a mobster but you love him yeah and you're like it's not

Starting point is 03:04:15 like tony soprano where you recognize god this guy's so fucked up right with veto it's like you know that makes sense that was a good speech that was great a personality goes a long way yes you know and he has such a soft i mean again he looks like your grandfather but like you said perfectly and you've already made the move the the breakdown on this one i think it's about 40 minutes long would highly recommend the video we'll put it in the description but michael the series about michael corleone and to me there are there are three main things the break Michael Corleone okay the first and and they do it like the first one seems in a way normal enough I'm gonna hesitate to use that word and then the next two are not first one is he goes to war and has to kill men right and he gets you know he was the kid who was trying to break free of his family you know what wanted nothing to do with the business wanted

Starting point is 03:05:12 to get away from his father's why he volunteered to go to war right to fight the peasant of ontario i'm gonna do anything for you which his father hated him for or hated that he did that i should say right the second one though is when he kills salazzo so his father almost gets gunned down and he decides oh i'm in now those skills i learned in war i'm putting that to work you come at my father you come at my family you're coming at my i will fucking kill you yep i will look you in the eyes and I will blow you the fuck away and not think twice. Yeah. And that hardens a guy to a point.

Starting point is 03:05:50 And that's where you kind of, you know, that scene where you see Don Corleone coming home and he's like, Michael. Yeah. That's Michael. And they tell him what he did and he shoes him off because he's like, that's not for him. Yeah. That's not because he knows he crossed that Rubicon that he crossed himself.

Starting point is 03:06:03 And then the third one is when apollonia dies yeah once he gets double cross yep and he meets this young love of his life yep she still has a fucking shoe store in rome by the way that girl oh really yeah simonette stefanelli she literally is like around that's but i think she still has it but like he sees that she gets blown up by someone that he was supposed to trust who was right in his inner circle right and you know there's deleted scenes that show both his reaction to that when he wakes up and comes to because he was knocked out in the blast and also from godfather 2 where they found where they found fabrizio who crossed him yeah and he killed that motherfucker yeah and you see that once like the any light that was left in his eyes like that light we saw

Starting point is 03:06:45 when he's looking at apollonia it's gone it's turned out when he comes and looks at k he looks at k as a fucking you know you're gonna breed my children for me right that's it so that's kind of how i looked at it but how how do you look at the evil that is michael Corleone and did he begin, when he got home from the war, was he already in a way evil? So after he got out of the military, his only real crime was loving a man who he knew was doing evil things. And depending on who you are and how you view these types of things, he could have been evil at that point for that reason, but I don't think so. I know I had been talking to this with someone about this years ago when I, at a job I worked, and she had mentioned that, you know, one of her uncles or something had killed someone and,

Starting point is 03:07:47 you know, disowned him, something to that effect. And I think I asked her, well, what if it was your dad? Wouldn't you, wouldn't you still love him? Because I thought, you know, if it was my dad, maybe I would, I would be okay with it because I loved, not okay with it, but it wouldn't affect my love for him um and she said that if it was someone like her dad or someone close to her like that that it wouldn't matter that he's gone from her life disowned no more love you know so depending on who you are and what you what your own views are and beliefs on the subject maybe michael was evil after he got out of the military just by virtue of knowing who his father was and what he did but i'm inclined to say no as after he got out of the military just by virtue of knowing who his father was and what he did.

Starting point is 03:08:26 But I'm inclined to say no. When he got out of the military, no, he wasn't evil yet. That was not evil Michael Corleone yet. Yeah, I don't think so either. I think something – I think it was that second one. That's what I was emphasizing earlier. Like it's that second one where he snapped. And there's a question, though.

Starting point is 03:08:46 Right. Do you think that he was justified to kill Salazzo McCluskey? He had justifications for doing so, that's for sure, and they were pretty good reasons. He loved his dad, he didn't see any other way out of the situation, and he wanted to protect him and his family, which Sollozzo, who is, now I've talked about this in a lot of videos, especially with criminals, the criminal game, you know, it's a different story. You know, everybody signs a contract when they're in the game that, you know, sometimes you got to kill people and we're going to kill you. Now, is that a good thing? Absolutely not. You know, if the criminal game didn't exist, the world would be a much better place. Yes. But it does exist and we have to judge it based on those parameters.

Starting point is 03:09:47 It's not like killing an innocent person. You know if someone's trying to kill you, or it's just the nature of the business. If you're sitting across from Johnny A. Light versus Chris Watts, there is a difference. I'm sorry. Yeah. There just is. Yeah, there's more forgivable because it was a killing done within the parameters of the criminal game. Um, vengeance, vengeance, which vengeance isn't a good thing either. thing in a lot of films especially that you see with vengeance and even other stories too um

Starting point is 03:10:26 once people dedicate their lives to vengeance and it warps everything around them and then once that vengeance is achieved they find out that that pain is still there you know yeah i got it done but what what have i become you know in my pursuit of vengeance what have i become? In my pursuit of vengeance, what have I become? And that's what happened to Michael. I don't think he ever asked that question. Yeah. Right? No, I don't think he ever asked himself that question, no.

Starting point is 03:10:56 And it's very understandable what he went through and why he did it. My father's in trouble. I love my father. This is the only way I see out of this situation. I feel pressed to do it. But what did he become by doing that? He he entered the life couldn't leave it yep so was he justified in doing it yeah he's he had his justifications and they were pretty solid justifications but was it a good thing for him to do no it ruined his life pretty much oh it totally yeah that was the point in

Starting point is 03:11:26 overturn yeah but it's crazy that right after that you know you you saw pure love from him yeah something we can relate to something we all aspire to yeah we all have i mean you're married with your wife i would like to think she was certainly the one you felt that way yeah congratulations by the way thank you but you know even even those of us that aren't married a lot of us have been lucky enough to be deeply in love right and we know what that is and they i think that movie described it with that sicilian proverb more perfectly i've ever heard described being struck by a thunderbolt which doesn't exist yeah and that's the point you know but you see and that's also al just being

Starting point is 03:12:05 a great actor but you see him see that girl and you see that this forming monster yeah right that's kind of what we're getting at here has the ability to feel on that level that thing that is so elusive but that we all want yeah and you're like still a human yeah it's only after she is then he gets his happiness he's on his you know two-year vacation in sicily hiding out that she is taken from him that we then see it go away and he has no ability to love ever again despite what he may claim he can do well one of the one of the thing i actually made a short on this a while ago. And hate, you know, it seems like love and hate are opposites. But hate isn't the opposite of love.

Starting point is 03:12:52 It's just an extension of it. It's love gone dark. Because if you hate something, that means you love something just as much. Why do racists, for example, hate other races? Because they love their race so much that it has caused them to hate others in pursuit of keeping them safe and whatever. So why did Michael go on this hate-filled vengeance mission? Because he loved his father. It wasn't the opposite of that love. It was an extension of that love. That's why he did what he did so it honestly

Starting point is 03:13:26 it does make sense that someone could hate so hard but love so hard at the same time because they're one in the same i'm not one in the same but they're extensions of each other you know i think it begins that way for a long time for sure yeah at some point though i think the i think the cause changes oh yeah no when michael yeah kills his father's son i mean you remember again the third movie gets a lot of shit because it's the third followed up the two greatest movies of all time and it wasn't that right and there were some mistakes in there if it were alone it's objectively like a good movie right and there are some amazing scenes in there when you see michael in the garden i think i think that was in the vatican when he was doing it with the with the cardinal confessing

Starting point is 03:14:09 his sins and as an older man and crying and saying i killed my father's son i killed my brother you know and you see the cardinal like oh my god i wasn't expecting i knew you were a bad motherfucker but i'm like this yeah going back to that though when he actually did it and how it was so premeditated yeah you know you see fredo like go and hug him at his mom's funeral which by the way shout out to john cuz all the greatest actor no one ever gives respect to i know he was fucking gone before his time oh my god was he unbelievable yeah but you see that scene where they're at the mom's funeral and Michael goes to hug him. And the camera pans up from little Fredo, who's technically his older brother, like hugging him.

Starting point is 03:14:52 And Michael up above him like a god. Right. And he just looks up and all he's got to do is look at Al Neri. He's with those eyes. Yeah. And Al Neri looks down like, I can't even believe what he's asking me to do, but all right, I'll go kill him. Yeah. And he kills his brother.

Starting point is 03:15:05 It's like that whole love thing, that whole I'm doing it for my family, that was dead. He was not doing it. At that point, he was doing it for him. He was doing it because he liked the power of being the guy. And anyone who crossed that didn't matter if it was his fucking blood. You're gone. Yep. matter if it was his fucking blood you're gone yep at that so it starts hate starts from love but then hate corrupts you so thoroughly if you if you make it a part of your life you know and

Starting point is 03:15:32 if it's impacts your life in such a way that michael's that you know he killed a man because of hate you know hate and vengeance is why he corrupted him so thoroughly that by the time that he decided he would kill Fredo really the only he thought he was doing everything he was for his family but really if Michael Corleone did truly love anyone at that point it was only himself true and again I said earlier that evil originates in the self, you know, in your selfish desires to do something. You know, people like to say money is the root of all evil, and it's a close second. Money's pretty good at causing evil. But why do people want money in the first place?

Starting point is 03:16:16 Because for themselves, you know, I want money. I want nice things and a house and whatever. You know, I want it for me. It all starts with I want, and how are you going to get that want? By doing something horrible. There's your evil act. All right, man. Well, listen, I'm going to stop it there because we keep going all day. We're going to have to come back at some point. I'm so glad you did this. Thank you for coming out here. This has been such a fun conversation, but we're going to put your channel down in the description below including some of the videos we talked about on here

Starting point is 03:16:45 people go watch it go subscribe to it it's great it's just like I'm addicted to it really really good stuff so

Starting point is 03:16:52 keep going with it and I wanna see you do historical figures for sure I will and I know everyone in the comments is gonna be like

Starting point is 03:16:58 fuck yeah please anyway thanks for coming we'll do it again my pleasure thank you everybody else

Starting point is 03:17:03 you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace peace

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Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - Hitler vs Stalin, Sociopaths & the Most Evil Villains of All Time | The Vile Eye • 204

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