Modern Wisdom - #435 - Michael Malice - The Corporate Press Are Losing Control

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Michael Malice is an author, political commentator & podcaster. No matter what your political affiliation, the ferocity of the press's approach to any story right now is quite intense. The volume seems to only get louder and louder as they try to maintain the attention that 2020 gave them. I wanted to ask Michael just what is going on. Expect to learn what Michael thinks about the Canadian truckers' protest, whether Whoopie Goldberg deserved cancelling, why ambient anxiety is the outcome that the media wants, what's happening with Ukraine and Russia, how Michael ended up in Tesla's Giga Factory at midnight, whether we're over wokeness and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://bit.ly/cdwisdom (use code MW15) Get 20% discount on the highest quality CBD Products from Pure Sport at https://bit.ly/cbdwisdom (use code: MW20) Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy The Anarchist Handbook - https://amzn.to/2ReU6zH  Follow Michael on Twitter - https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Michael Males, he's an author, political commentator and a podcaster. No matter what your political affiliation is, the ferocity of the press's approach to pretty much any story right now is quite intense. The volume seems to only get louder and louder as they try to maintain the same attention that 2020 gave them. I wanted to ask Michael just what is going on. Expect to learn what Michael thinks about the Canadian trucker's protest, whether

whoopie Goldberg deserved cancelling, why ambient anxiety is the outcome that the media wants, what's happening with Ukraine and Russia, how Michael ended up in Tesla's gigafactory at midnight, whether we're overwokeness and much more. You should be very aware that this Thursday, a pretty special episode goes up with Jordan Peterson and you don't want to miss it. So hit the subscribe button because it's the only way that you'll make sure that you know when episodes go live and it supports the show and it makes me very happy. So just take your thumbs for a walk and go and do it. I thank you. But now please give it up for Michael Males.

Michael Malice, talk of the show. Thank you so much, Chris. How are you? You missing me? Inorbitously, I text you all the time, Tory back. Yes, well, I'm back this week. You'll have me this week. That's phenomenal. Can't get rid of me.

And then I'm going to see Jordan Peterson over in San Antonio. What's San Antonio like? I've never been. It's very corporate. It's, it's, it almost feels like an 80s movie because there's all these tall buildings. There's one cool little river that runs through the city, which is fun to kind of the river walk, but other than that, it's very much a concrete kind of edifice. And San Antonio is a much bigger population in my understanding than Austin, but there seems to be a bit of a solusness to it. Yeah, that's kind of what I got from the outside that it's definitely a bigger sort of

downtown area than Austin, but Austin's so distributed. We went for a walk through the burbs of Austin for two hours and you realize the stretch is on and on and on and on. Yeah, it's crazy. Have you been keeping up to date with the Canadian truckers protest thing? Oh, yeah, not as much as other people, but most certainly. The honking will continue until freedom improves. So yeah, I had this chapter in my book

that you write that says, me magic is real. And I'm sure most people listening have seen on social media that, you know, in the last year or more, certainly, there's been this meme of clown world where people say something that's perfectly ridiculous and they're responded to with, you know, a green clown pressing his nose.

Or there's another meme where it's a lobster claw holding a clown nose saying, here you drop this. So that had been a thing. And now literally, they're literally honking. And this people on Reddit having meltdowns saying, like, I can't sleep. This is terrorism. Yep. And you're exactly right.

The honking will continue. And the thing that I've made this point several times, and I'll make it again here, especially with a British audience, that there is a misconception by conservatives, and I mean American conservatives, I don't know about Tory conservatives in the UK, but that, you know, in America, especially there's different groups that the progressives latch on to to further agenda. It's Muslim immigrants, it's transgender bathrooms, one month, or whatever, so and so forth. And the point I was beat into their heads

is they don't really care about these groups. This is just whoever is a useful tool at the moment and as soon as that group is defiant in any way, they're thrown into the rubbish bin, as you'd say. And the best example of this is, here we have the center left party is the Democrats obviously. There you guys have the labor party, but as soon as labor starts being defiant, all of a sudden, they're Nazis. And it's just a fascinating phenomenon

to see. And I think it's just completely transparent how your measure of virtue as an interest group is directly correlated to how useful you are to furthering a certain agenda. Dude, that's so nailed it. Like, it's so transparent. And the first thing, it's not also what broke down the so-called red wall in the last election that these districts that had been red, labors, read is more correctly than here. We have here read is labor over in the UK.

These were labor districts for, I think almost the century, that one blue. Yeah, and places like Hartley-Poland Blithe that are both near me and where I've grown up. They are labor strongholds, pit village, my granddaddy was a minor and he hated Thatcher and my daddy was a minor and he hated Thatcher, my daddy was a minor and he hated Thatcher.

That ran on for a long time and then, you know, the left appears to be very much a sort of bourgeois, foe intellectual, this sort of middle class looking down on the underclass and the working class movement at the moment. And you're right, it's whoever's convenient. This is what Bridget said the other day, but she was actually taking the shot from a different angle talking about people that are on the right who are saying we care about women's rights because of these trans people that are encroaching on them.

She's like, you don't care about fucking women's rights. You're right. You're correct. You don't care about them at all. It most certainly goes both ways. It's just a convenient. But there's a certain irony in calling yourself labor and then telling people that the unions are not these what is it in canada what's the it's any idea liberals rock so they have the the liberals

uh... which is the center left party they have the conservatives which is fairly recent because the progressive conservatives that implode in the nineties and then they have a party to the left which which is whether the new Democrats, I think they're called. And they're so those are like, what's that? The NDP, yeah. So they're the real like hard leftists or this and there's also the green party, of course. The true dough has disappeared like Saddam.

Did you see that? He's like, gone up and... My understanding was he was on US soil. Maybe. Yeah, I said that he should be. If he was on US soil. Maybe. Yeah, I said that he should be. If he's on US soil, they should send him to Gitmo. But let's not forget that he has COVID. So one of the problems that they've got at the moment

is that truckers, 90% of whom have accinated aren't agreeing to a vaccine mandate about crossing the border because presumably America is concerned about people with COVID crossing the border. And Trudeau, a man who has COVID has potentially fled Canada due to security concerns about this trucker's protest into the US. Well, in his defense, if you've got a convoy full of Nazi truckers, as a black man, he's going to have to kind of do a reverse underground railroad. Because they'll see his skin and they'll judge him accordingly.

Yeah, they got accused. Everything happened, right? First off, it was that they were... Actually, everyone seemed to be kind of behind it. It's a peaceful protest, very polite. And then as it picked up speed and you realized that the mainstream media was just gonna start throwing every ism and ists that they could. Well, first they said that they lied. There was the Canadian news outlet, or from New Brunswick, I think it was, they were there saying that they're protesting

their working conditions. So they just completely lied about what they're protesting. Then a couple of days ago, go fund me, as I'm sure people saw, just decided to seize all the money and said, we're going to send it wherever we want. And that was a huge backlash. And they had they actually refunded instead of seizing it. Oh, has that happened? Because I thought that they seized it and said they were giving it to particular worthy causes. No, no, it's been resolved. Because they have something called it. I think the issue was, if I double check me,

because this is kind of, you see things on Twitter, it's kind of like Plato's gave. But my understanding was, people were going to call and ask for chargebacks. And when that happens, they're hit for each one with like a $15 fee. But also the public shaming was enormous. and I know some politicians got involved like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

you don't get simply to just, oh, you know, I'm contributing to the trucker as well. That's null and voice, so this is going to go to, you know, the future. We want, yeah, yeah. There's a quote here. Organizers provided a clear distribution plan for the initial one million. This is from GoFundMe's statement that was released earlier this week and confirmed funds would be used only for participants who travel to Ottawa to participate in a peaceful protest.

Given how the situation has evolved, no further funds will be directly distributed to the Freedom Convoy organizers. We will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities verified by GoFundMe. All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th. So that was, there were given people two weeks to get on an order of refund, but it seems now because of the backlash that they've just done all of it. Which, I mean, it's strange that that somehow feels like a victory because the anchoring point

has been set so low, at least they didn't steal it and give it to another charity one of the shut it down and didn't give it to the people who's supposed to go to. I would just say I would say the victory here is that their machinations are made public because this permanently establishes the brand as ideologically driven. It would be one thing if they had said disingenuously that we're not giving this to the convoy because the convoy is being run by white supremacists and we stand against white supremacists. It would be a brazen lie, but that would be something that would make sense. This is just, they said, well, it's no longer classified by whom as a peaceful protest

that's classified as an insurrection, therefore we can't take part in insurrection. Great, send the money back. But I think this is a very healthy, unnecessary step forward in our cultural bifurcation. And there's one, what's really funny is there's an enormous movement that's insisting that everyone takes sides. And this has been going on, at least since 2015. And the sides are the good guys are the Nazis. And then there's plenty of people who are saying,

screw you, I'm not with you. And they don't, but we said, if you don't side with us, you're Nazis, like cool story, bro. And therefore they're forcing people to view things as in group and out group. And that's causing the out group to form alternative mechanisms.

Then they're pulling their hair out. It's like how dare you. You're supposed to be in our group as subordinates. This is something that's going to happen increasingly, and it's something that needs to happen. The idea that there's one agency, whoever it is, who gets to define these riots are peaceful and these truckers are insurrectionists.

And it's very clear how the cards are going to fall. I'm shocked to how quickly people have grown wise to how the game is played. Because you don't have to have any opinion on Canada or the truckers, or it really go fun me to know how this movie plays out. Is it not more hatred of the working class again though? Look at these idiot, uneducated truckers that don't know what's best for them. Don't worry, you should be listening to us, the people who are actually in positions of power. The ones that are educated enough

to make decisions about you, you know, it was okay for you to have your little protest for a while, but when it starts to perhaps make genuine change, we are a lot less happy about that. And you think, well, hang on, these, the working class that you're supposed to represent, they're telling you, like they're literally telling you, people aren't deciding to go out into the middle of the Canadian winter and it looks fucking miserable. It looks so miserable while whatever it is that they're doing people are setting up pizza ovens and soup kitchens and they're standing guard around a statue of a one-legged man because it got desecrated a couple of days ago. They're not doing that because they're bored, but that takes an awful lot of effort to go and do something like that.

So this is the working class telling you what they feel. So no, they're not. So the argument is they've all been brainwashed by the forces of evil, somehow Trump's probably involved. So they don't really recognize them as having agency when they're being defiant. And the issue with defiance is now the entire population, which had been docile and submissive because they were told and reiterated that they have no choice

that we have to make these hard decisions in order to save everyone's lives. Now to have a large group of people say, hold on a minute, there are other ways to go about this. This causes people who prefer safety to liberty, enormous psychological distress because everything in their mental makeup is about giving up choice and having options in favor of being told what to do for the sake of security and safety, which has not at all been guaranteed to them whatsoever, but they can act as if it has been. There's a guy who called into a show that I listened to saying that he hasn't had sleep

in nearly five days now because of this honking, and that's the other side of it where you go, okay, like that bit does suck. I've been kept awake by loud noises previously when I've been in cities, and it really is quite bad. I don't really know what you're supposed to do about that. I don't believe him. It's not because of the honking. It's because of his neurosis.

So what COVID did very effectively was to allow highly educated urban people, which tend to correlate very well with mental illness, such as anxiety and depression and other sorts of neurosis. This gives them an external source to blame for their issues. So instead of, you know, I'm suffering because, you know, of me, I'm suffering because everyone's suffering. So, just because there is a cause for something, that does not mean that the response is proportional or direct direct result of that cause. I don't believe it's not possible that I believe from that for five nights this sleep was poor, but you know I have very little sympathy for him. Yeah, and the thing is it's very important.

You also remember that in this kind of culture being a victim is a high status marker. remember that in this kind of culture, being a victim is a high status marker. So the more you demonstrate that you personally are suffering as a consequence of bad people, the more virtuous they're accordingly you can claim yourself to be. I read a study the other day about people who are open about past lives of victimhood on dating profiles and how people respond to that. So a lot of the time, typically people are positively inclined to the zero to hero story. And we see this get manipulated with training plans, right? Here's a before person out of shape and here's an in person that's in shape.

And yes, you know, those are the sort of Vince Grandposts to get, lots of likes. Interestingly on dating apps, somebody that puts, I used to be a victim, but now I have overcome my past traumas and I am better or whatever. That doesn't get, that is negatively correlated with likes on dating apps. So there is something in there. Maybe there's still a sense of the cursed child type thing, the fact that something that

was wrong with you in the past is it's almost like a biological concern about somebody that was maybe diseased. That's how Rob Henderson put it across, that perhaps there's something that we concern this may come back. There's something icky as well that people have in response, and I've seen this happen online, with somebody that opens up about depression, no matter how open the conversation about mental health gets, there's still always a little bit of just IK that sometimes happens that I see from people in their responses when others open up about it.

Don't you think it's because depression is I'm using this word very loosely contagious Like when we are around depressed people it does not it's it's it's draining Is victimhood the same past victimhood I've overcome my traumas. I think on dating apps I'm completely talking out of my ass, but there might be a gender issue, right? So if it's a man who the first thing he says is how he was victimized I think women might be perceiving him as weak and if a woman is talking about how she was a victim, men who are already a pretty supposed to this are going to perceive her as either high-maintenance or crazy. And this is really, but at the same time, I feel like, you know, someone who has had past trauma, and I've talked about this on Rogan in other episodes, that's quite an icebreaker.

And I think that is still correctly kind of a social taboo. This is something if I meet you at a bar or a party, and this is one of the first things you tell me in five minutes, that's going to tell me, wait a minute, something is wrong here. That is something, if I got to know you more intimately even just slightly into me like an hour conversation, you know as a kid, you know I grew up with an alcoholic mom. Then okay, you know that's fine but if this is front and center why is it important for you to be telling me this. That's right up front dude that's really smart so. Yes, that's right up front dude. That's really smart. So what you're saying the fact that you've labeled yourself as it

undermines the fact that you say you've transcended it. Yeah Yeah, that's that's a really fucking good insight. I'm gonna send that to Rob How closely you following this Russia and Ukraine situation of you were you grew up in Levov, right? I grew up in Brooklyn. I was born there. Born in Levov Yeah, are you keeping your eyes on this? No, very little. I am... The one thing I have noticed is it's... I'm very disturbed by, of course, the war drums. You know, Putin's no joke. Russia's no joke.

And the Ukrainian president, from my understanding, went on the air and said, the media is blowing a set of proportion. Things are not getting demonstrally worse. Calm the hell down. So and I also think if there's something in Nathema, at least in American media, about seeing things from other countries' perspectives, because we're the good guys and whatever we do is right, and they're the bad guys, or the weak, and suck it up.

And if you are going to go to any country and put troops on the foreign troops on the border to expect that other country to just kind of be like, oh, it's America, they're the good guys. But, you know, this is fine. It is bonkers. Saying with British troops, you know what I mean? You're going to get British troops in, you know, on the border in India. The Indians are going to be like, hold on a minute. We've been through this before. What do you think is going to happen? Roll the clock forward. I'm sure that

they're always is in the US and, you know, very notoriously, this is the only quote from Eisenhower that people know. You know, he warned about the military industrial complex. There is an enormous amount of profit to be made and a lot of power to be gained when a nation is at war. It does well for the president in terms of approval ratings, the nation rallies around and in times of conflict. They get to go to the funerals and look at heroes

with all these coffins that didn't need to be there. You get to kind of seem strong. So there is an enormous incentive for Washington to have war. And in case people think, oh, you're talking crazy, keep in mind that last summer we killed a bunch of kids in Afghanistan and not only didn't apologize, no one was even fired for it. So human life means absolutely nothing to the federal government and if it can be leveraged anyway to further the government's agenda, they'll be happy to do so. I think Putin sees Biden as weak. Certainly Biden is in a weak position given a 50-50 Senate, given a five-seat majority in the House, which is 435 members total. I don't know what's going to happen. I am concerned, but I'm most concerned that there is an enormous incentive among American media and American

politics to make this a bigger deal than it is. So it could be something like, you know, they take some town, which is not acceptable, and Ukraine and Putin would prefer to be like, all right, pay us off, you get the town or something like that, and the US insinuates itself, goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, NATO. We're going to protect borders, blah, blah, blah. So it's very easy to imagine a situation where the Americans make it infinitely worse. And Boris is also embroiled now as well. I don't think he's long for this world.

I don't see how he survives this. You think? Well, I mean, isn't it? Aren't all the tor- I mean Theresa May, my God, talk about a guy. Talk about a vampire rising from the grave. She went up on the floor and she nuked him. I mean, she's been a lady make bet. She's been holding that lady make bet.

She's been holding that knife for a long time and she got him good. So I know as a lady who had to go i know when it is time to go she said that yeah no she didn't yeah yeah i didn't see that clip i just saw him she's like when which is it did you not believe in these rules or did you believe in them and not care about them i was like holy christ is right there's a bit where she said as someone who had to go, I know when it is time to go. Holy crap. But the thing is he had four ministers quit. It's just no one. No, no, no, no, no, man.

There's not going to be, I don't think that the only way that this is going to happen is if the next general election looks like he is too toxic to get the conservatives across the line, and that seems unlikely given the fact that they just had the biggest landslide victory in the US. So labor is now seven points ahead in all polls. So if you look at Wikipedia has opinion polling for the next UK general election, you can see that it's a giant X. So you had a big line,

conserved as labor, then they tied, and now Sir Keir is way ahead in every single poll. So the same thing with that shirt, the reason that shirt got kicked out by her own party, people in America couldn't grab their heads around it, is because by that point, put one of the reasons, by that point in the polls, like labor was shellacking them and any politician is going to look out for his own seat or her own seat first and foremost. And also in all fairness, it's embarrassing. If I'm a Tory minister or Tory back venture from me to campaign to put Boris Johnson back in number 10, it's

like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I couldn't see my mom at a funeral. He's having keggers and whatever Jin, I don't know, PIMS at number 10. And I'm supposed to vote for you. And I would feel humiliated. Yeah. Because it was so gratuitous. That's, I don't know, it really does. I don't know whether it's a flaw in the current system, and this probably plays into your hands quite nicely, that so much of an entire party hinges around

one particular individual at the top, the fact that Boris doing something which, yeah, is a prick thing to do, but it's something that your fucking next door neighbor could have done. It's not actually to do with his deployment of his duties. It's to do with the way that people perceive his personality, the way that he conducts himself.

Yes, it was on government property that he was having these parties, but also it's not really to do. It wasn't like he was lying to the fucking house of lords or some shit It feels like a weakness because obviously within the system Attacking that person and making degrading their particular value has a cascading outsized effect across However many hundreds of different constituencies there are Yeah, that was a result of the later thatcher years when she very much made it much more

of a presidential model than a parliamentary model. Like all her original people kind of left. She would left with like kind of second tier. Nobody's who were only there by virtue of her personality. She was very much the face of the British government, whereas previously it was much more, you know, you had the home minister, home secretary, you had the labor, the education secretary, whatever they were.

And they kind of took questions and very much managed their own portfolios, which is why you'd have a government which would have, you know, some people who sectors are more conservative, some are liberal in both parties. But with her, when she became this kind of big international force, it really, and Tony Blair did this as well, it very much became, you know, that person becomes the face of her majesty's government, especially internationally. And it was a big sea change in UK politics. And it also doesn't hurt when Boris does have such a big, you know, flamboyant appearance and flamboyant personality. This was an issue in terms of him getting in. Was he going to be able to give Theresa May run

for her money? He chose not to run at the time. But but you know, this is when you have someone who's kind of this either Large in life personality or if you don't like him a buffoon You know, this becomes and this was also an issue of Corbin Because you know the issue the question was do you want to put Jeremy Corbin in number 10? It very much nationalized and personalized the last election and And thankfully the British voters resoundingly said no. Well, a lot of the time people don't vote for parties, they vote for people. And that cult of personality thing, yeah,

it's just the way it is. Finish and off that's what we were talking about to do with Russia. I pulled this piece out that just the language that's used when you were talking about escalating or increasing, exaggerating the sense of the sifrousness in the situation. International diplomatic efforts going on amidst military tension between Russia and UK. Diplomatic efforts continued on Tuesdays. US security of state, Anthony Blinken spoke

with the Russian foreign prime minister and the British prime minister that had a discussion with the Ukrainian president emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urge Russia to pursue a diplomatic path, according to a U.S. State Department statement. The Ukraine Prime Minister said he hopes the country will be able to launch a new regional format of cooperation, Ukraine, Poland, UK, and that in context of ongoing Russian aggression, we should sign a trilateral document on cooperation to strengthen regional security. The Russian President on Tuesday said the Western powers are ignoring Moscow's security

concerns and using Russia as a tool to contain Russia, using Ukraine as a tool to contain Russia. Yeah, so look at it from Putin's point of view, right? Which is, oh my God, how can you say that? Like, I'm against Ukraine, you know, we've had, let's say rivalry to put it mildly for centuries. And now Ukraine's calling in Britain for backup. And they're not only saying this just theoretically, we're gonna sign a treaty that if anything happens,

you've got the entire force of the UK that are gonna be on the border with Russia. Of course, Putin's not gonna like this.. Now, you could it's kind of who started it, but at a certain point, if you're going to talk diplomacy, you have to recognize both parties have legitimate concerns. Neither one is is de escalating the situation, right? If he's putting troops on the border and you're responding with Ukrainian troops and here come the Brits and the Americans aren't far behind. You know, sure he's going to back down with them. He'll have to wonder, wait a minute.

If I'm going to back down here, what's going to stop you guys from further pushing your luck in terms of areas that historically may have not belonged to Russia? Hmm. What were your thoughts on the whoopie Goldberg fall out this week? I didn't. I thought she would be Goldberg is a phylo-semite. I did a project with her. She's very pro Jewish in her personal life.

She's not an anti-semite at all. It's crazy. I think she was just saying something kind of awkwardly, meaning the Holocaust wasn't, and again, I could be putting words on my mouth may have been to generous my interpretation of her comments But I thought she was saying the Holocaust isn't about race when she said it's about man's inhuman Human this is a much bigger issue than mere racism This is something that is primal and central to ununderstanding of Human nature and I don't understand what's suspending her

for two weeks accomplishes. I, this, of course, genocide is an issue that should be treated carefully. When we talk about murdering children, it's not the same as discussing tax rates or, you know, what kind of hard-boiled eggs we should have for breakfast or whether those are healthy or not.

But I think she was speaking in good faith. I think she got left out to drive my understanding because she did what ABC told her to do. So got an apologize and they still punched her after it for which my understanding, the reports are saying, she was furious. Wippy is, even though she's hard left, often on North of Doc's thinker, she spoke out how she defended George W. Bush

in terms of immigration. She's against the death tax which we have here. So and she's often I think I've seen I think I speak to Hannity. I know she's spoken with hardcore conservatives who other people regard as radioactive. So I don't see what the suspending her will gain, except just make the issue radioactive as opposed to an issue that should be treated with decorum. I don't think that her apology on the nighttime did her very many favors. She sort of entered it and it was okay. And then by the end of it, she didn't really actually apologize. She basically said, I'm sorry if you misinterpreted what I said, which is just the shittiest fucking

way to do an apology ever. Like that was really poorly played. But I also agree, I think that it didn't seem to me like she was trying to, like she had a lack of sympathy particularly for that. It was just very, very poorly worded. And it's the fucking view. Like this is supposed to get you ready

for picking the kid, you, drop the kids off at school and you come back and you say, why is this even a topic for them to discuss? Well, they do, they have these issues all the time. But I mean, if you suspended everyone from the view when they had a poorly thought out, poorly articulate opinion, you wouldn't have a show. I mean, this is the show where...

What's the Sharon Osborne cancelled from the show for defending p.s. Morgan. That's the talk. Oh, the talk was a rip off show of the view. It's basically identical show. And she was, yeah, she got cancelled for for saying, you know, Pierce might have a point that Megan Markle might be a sociopath, which her own family, Barry and mine, had said. Now, it was just so insane. The other thing about that's great about the view, side note, is Megan McCain has a pathological hatred of the British, and it comes out whenever these topics come out.

So there had been issues where they were talking about like Prince Harry, and she's like, my grand-grandparents Didn't fight the red coats for me to sit here and care about the effing British and screw them I don't have an opinion and she just goes on these bizarre rants whenever the UK Royal family comes up. It's just beautiful. Well, I'm talking to Megan McCain She got a new book out soon. I'm talking to a publisher about bringing her on, but now I've got second thoughts about that. I'll DM her right now. Fucking hell. Yeah, man, I just, the, the feels like there's a thread between all of the things that we've seen at the moment, whether it be the

situation, the trucker situation, the whoopie goldberg situation, everything is at maximum volume the whole time. And what everyone is searching for is this is the tip of the iceberg that shows us the remainder of your reprehensible personality. This one thing was a slip-up that you did that was maybe a small error or whatever, but it's indicative of the fact that you fundamentally are a bad, horrible racist misogynist, whatever person. And I think I don't know whether I can lay it at the feet of the left or sort of walk ideology overall, but it certainly seems like with the situation with Wuppie Goldberg, a lot of people on the right, so this is an opportunity to be like

right, let's give them a taste of their own medicine. If they are going to demand such what we feel are overblown responses to some of the things that we don't think are egregious when the people on the left decide to make this much of an error, we're going to try and throw the kitchen sink at it. Yeah, but it didn't work, so what does that gain you? So that's number one, and number two is, I agree with you

what you're saying in terms of Tip the iceberg, but what I think the issue is as COVID is receding as an excuse for cultural and social control and political control, both by media outlets and governments, they need a new excuse in order to have total domination over people's lives. And it's going to be really hard to find one because a pandemic makes sense. This is something that affects literally everyone.

This is something where you can only have quite limited control in terms of how it spreads. It's a virus, quite literally goes viral. But if you're going to pivot from that to kind of white supremacy, first of all, that's less tangible. Second of all, the number of people who identifies white supremacist is virtually nil. And it's very hard to tell these truckers, for example, who are like, you know, I don't believe in these mandates.

Well, the only reason you care about that is white supremacy. It's like, well, the white supremacy is I'm driving through the snow and putting my life in danger all the time because this is the most dangerous job on earth. So they don't know where to pivot from, the last couple of years where they've had a great excuse to completely control every aspect of people's lives. So there's a degree of anxiety that needs to be broadcast.

And if you're unable to keep that with one very large warhead, you need multiple smaller ones to try and contribute to it. But it's nowhere near as effective. I mean, it's one thing to kind of, you know, new corrosion, it's not think to be a sniper. It's just like sure the sniper is going to make people scared, but it's nowhere near as unconditional surrender. Dude, I've just thought of something.

So, you know how a lot of the time people get, one of the concerns that you have from more libertarian or conservative type people is that during a crisis, the government is then going to overstep and a lot of the rights that they seize from you during this time of emergency, a once that you don't get back. What it sounds like you're saying here is that there is an equivalent with the media that the media raised the water level of Neuroticism the anxiety the ambient anxiety that pervades through everything and sort of the volume of Vitriol that is in the press and they also aren't keen about

Right, of course. Do media much of fucking interesting model to think about. The media are much worse than the governments. And we know this because let's suppose I was a Democratic governor or a labor minister whatever in the UK. And I looked at the data and I say, wait a minute, there's nothing behind the social distancing. This is nonsense. Where's the six feet coming from? How the hell is that going to prevent anything? And okay, theoretically you're saying it's going to prevent it?

Well, it's not working because, you know, we had social distancing COVID still spread everywhere. If I said this on television, I'd be out of office because immediately every outlet from left to right would be like, you know, shadow minister, malice, doesn't, says social distancing, doesn't work. He wants us to, oh, he clearly wants us to die. He's not following the science.

This guy's a lunatic. Why is he opening his mouth? Look at all these people saying this. If social and side note, if social distancing was efficacious, why are we bringing it back? And if we're not bringing it back, why do we do to begin with? That's a separate note.

But I would not be in a position as a politician to question this and we know this because you know people called gavan news and who is a governor here of california who was caught having dinner while such this thing rules were in effect and there are many other such cases were you know politicians were just basically being hypocrites they knew but in their defense

what were they supposed to do they they had no choice but to follow this drumbeat as you were saying of ambiance anxiety. Dude, that's such a good concept to keep in mind that this is what conservatives get wrong. Conservatives are think that the enemy or the labor party or the Democrats here and we're going to kick Joe Biden out of office or we're going to be Jeremy Corbyn blah blah. That's not the issue when you had jermy korbyn is the tale

jobiden is the tale the corporate press are the dog who are wagging that tail thought i'm not going to be able to get that out of my head but it's that you cannot see it another example i used a couple years ago was let's suppose i'm a democratic politician and i think trump is dividing america i think he's completely either a racist or he's uh... few mean the fields of racism to further his agenda and i think he's an ass and i think he's an educated and think he's borish and think it's no business being

the white house but i don't think he should be impeached or move from office from a don't be phone call where he was fishing for something that the impeachment has never no one's been moved from office before uh this does not reach that level. I can't as a Democrat go in front of my constituents who heard four years of Russia, Russia, Russia and Trump collusion and keep my seat. I did not have that freedom so it's very clear who's in charge of whom. Dude, do you follow? Am I wrong? No, you're not. It's it's just clear who's in charge of whom. Dude, do you follow? Am I wrong? No, you're not.

It's just when you see something that ties all of the threads together that's like a common, a single concept like that, that the goal of the press is to keep the volume high. That's actually what they're trying to achieve. And it explains why so many topics recently have been overblown. When you see like why the fuck endless, endless stories in mainstream media about Rogan, about who he's had on the show or about what he said in the past or about whatever and then reactions

to the reactions and then has the White House said something all the Canadian truckers all just pick whatever it is because you're right. You know. If you've got a huge, huge vat of anxiety to fill, and the pandemic starts to slowly get lifted out of that, so the question that I have that I always come back to, and it's the one that I keep on asking you about, is what is the end goal? Is it just that great of fear brings great control? It gives you power, it gives you strength,

it gives you money, and it gives you a status because now everyone is looking to me to make decisions. So that's good for my ego and my status. And it also, for many of the audience, it rationalizes their mental disc quiet. Now, because they're filling a need as well. So they're not only creating a need, because they're filling a need as well. So they're not only creating a need, they're also filling a need among, you know, educated, urban, wealthy people who are kind of disquieted by their nature.

Do you follow Ayala Goh on Twitter, A-E-L-L-A? A-E-L-L? No, I never heard her. Okay, so she's part of, I guess, like, tangentially on the rationalist community. She's pretty interesting. She's written a lot of blog posts about how to maximize money on only fans, but she's also big into philosophy and stuff as well.

She's quite interesting. Anyway, she put this tweet out the other day that I thought was really cool. Last year, my roommate and I had fun together. It's the way she's in Austin, and it says her Twitter biography simply has the word horror. Lord whole Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's interesting man. She's worth a follow.

But she put this tweet up the other day that said last year my roommate and I had fun gambling with GameStop. One day I woke up and said, you know, it's weird. I just don't feel interested in GameStop anymore. And my roommate heard that and immediately sold right before the crash. I'm sort of having this feeling with woke stuff. There's something like, it's just not interesting anymore. I think part of me believes that big institutions don't really take it seriously. Scott Alexander echoed this in a recent Astral Code X10 blog post, and I agree. It feels like I never actually run into woke people now It's just not trendy and this I don't know how true this is because I've never really seen it other than on the internet

So you know the lips of Tik Tok Type videos that get captured and then put online or a matte wall Ben Shapiro reaction video like I'll see those so that was only my only ever introduction to it But I think that there's definitely something to be said for your peer-reaction video, like I'll see those. So that was only my only ever introduction to it. But I think that there's definitely something to be said for endless satire and mocking, being really, really effective as a tool to make something so contaminated

and toxic to be associated with that people no longer want to do it. Because you can try and litigate something out of existence, but it's really hard to do that, to somehow try and top down it. But if you make it so uncool to be associated with just through like effective satire and mockery, people are just gonna drop it like a hot stone.

They don't wanna be associated with something that lowers their status. Well, it's also kind of being a tryhard, right? So it's whether it's a bodybuilder, right, or someone who has a lot of makeup but also a full beard. When you glance at this person rightly or wrongly, a lot of people like you are spending a lot of time on your appearance to create a reaction on site when people see you, and I don't care what it is, but I'm not interested in learning more.

Now this is a prejudice that is incorrect. There's lots of people in both of those groups I mentioned to work quality people that you would learn a lot from. But when you are presenting yourself in a certain specific way that takes a lot of work and is several STEM configurations away from what is considered acceptable or normal, whatever bad word you want to use, this is going to make people simply like, okay, here we go, right before they meet you. And I disagree a little bit because corporate America is where things go to die. They appropriate things from the fringes.

They swallow them and then excrete them in a manner that's palatable to the masses. So we've got a ways to go before this kind of gets through the corporate kind of digestive system. And you know, the thing that people, no one has as much contempt for corporate America as I do, but what people need to appreciate is they're often very bandwagon. These are not very bright. Like some will read an article in Bloomberg or Fortune, some 60 year old exec about, oh,

this company got a lot of free publicity from a viral video. Okay, we need to make a viral video. Now it's like, what it was, it was, it was like, well, I read this article or like, we need to have a blog This was a thing or we should have a Twitter now Now if you sat him down and said hold on we make nails For kind of industrial concerns. Why do we need a Twitter? Why do we need a Twitter? Did you not see this article from Fortune? It says this companies, you know

Profits increased by 10% thanks to their social media. What do you an idiot? So I remember very much that, and this is obviously a poor example, but it was a telling one, Trump show the apprentice. And there was some detergent, detergent, let's, I don't even remember what it was, let's say tie to whatever. And the task for both teams was create a viral video. And Perez Hilton was the judge, right? The blogger Perez Hilton. And one team brought in a bunch of little people and like the little persons in the washing machine and they're running around. And I don't remember what the other team did, but it was something silly and goofy. And Perez is like, these are great. Like I would share this with my friend. Like they made a viral video.

And then Trump, who's the host, sat down with the execs and they were livid. They're like, this is a family product. And you're making, like you're being silly, both of these are completely unacceptable. So what he wanted was like a commercial of mom using the detergent mom using the detergent and now the detergent cleans the clothes

and for some oblivious reason everyone is sharing this and he had no concept of what a viral video was. So they'll be for this woke stuff but these people are often effectively mindless. They'll just see some article and be like, oh, okay, diversity and inclusion, you know, helps company gain market share. Okay, we need that.

And what that means is we're going to hire a black lady. I mean, they're dumb, it beyond dumb. And that's why I'm so confident that the good guys are going to win. Half of it is probably forward thinking aggressive growth motive, but maybe even more than that to me feels like fear. Of the companies that have done this, it's a fear of what happens if you don't. Not right. Most companies were posting the black square because if you didn't, the repercussions

were grave. Look at CrossFit. Yep. Fuck man. So I had Ben Bergeron on, who is the coach of Matt Fraser and Katrin David's daughter for a good period of time too, with the fitness athletes on the planet. He owns Comp Train and CrossFit New England in Boston. And I had him on and I was asking about the recent cancellations that have occurred. So Greg Glassman, who was the founder, he tweeted some

stuff that was inappropriate last two years ago now, instantly gone. A big bunch of people went with him, but there was one guy left, Dave Castro, director of the CrossFit Games, the guy that writes the workouts for the open. So arguably the most influential and important person in all of CrossFit HQ, he's got, he used to be a Navy SEAL, very noble shit, very straight down the line, kind of puts some people off, but a real character, right? Like a not the same as this, but he is a figurehead in the same way that perhaps an Elon Musk would be a figurehead, right? That he is, he adds to the brand with the way that he puts himself across. And sure enough, he three weeks ago posts on Instagram that he's been notified that his services are no longer needed, but he found out essentially through a news article

and that's the guy that had taken over Greg Glassman, the original owner's role, this Eric Rosardude had spoken to him and said, yeah, we sort of don't need you anymore, even though this guy is very, very, very legit, probably one of the best programmers on the planet. And the reason that I think he went is he was the last vestige of the old guard, the final people that were in this company, and he's a risk to have somebody like that now

within a company who will speak their mind, who doesn't really care about adhering to whatever the new doctrine and the new ideology is, having that person is rolling the dice, every time that you let them say something on a microphone. Yeah, for sure. And so there's many cases like that. And that's the other thing. I worked at Golden Sachs in JP Morgan.

There was this kind of myth, or maybe it was the facts that back in the day, you were a company man, you worked for a company that took care of you and you would stay there with a life. The lack, the amount of loyalty these firms expect, and the zero loyalty they have in return, the fact that he had to find this out from an article, instead of him being given a big celebratory, safe public's face saving, like, you know what, I'm moving on to form my own venture. Thank you Crossfit. Thank you for helping us, you know what I mean? These are really nasty, despicable, reprehensible

people who will sell you genocide with a smile on their face, because this ties exactly back to these are the people who are selling missiles and tanks in order to kill children overseas. I remember I bring this example all the time because this to me was the most disturbing example of corporate sociopathy. During the Iraq war I believe this was on CNN, there was some executive talking about the upcoming campaign against Baghdad. And they were talking about the Shakanah attack that was going to be imminent. And he said, if you have to ask, it's not Shakanah. And it's like, wait, you're presenting this like, if you have to ask

if this is the biggest bouquet you've ever seen, you know what I mean? It's like Shakanah means an entire city population. I'm sure many of whom were loyal to Saddamah were bad people. I'm sure many of whom had blood in their hands, but also thousands, if not tens of thousands of children, tens of thousands of innocent people. If they're not terrorized, then we haven't done our job. And he had this big smile in his face and you knew there was this big whiteboard and he had sat down to the Department of Defense and talked about how awesome it's going to be that for 24 hours it would be stronger than the sun and everyone there would be so terrified they

would be literally crapping their pants and begging for a surrender and it's like you're literally a demon, you know, selling death and destruction and with a smile in your face and have no concept of anything remotely close to humanity. It's crazy that these people get into positions of power. It's not crazy because it's like it's the same way that, you know, child predators are going to go with the children are, they're going to be drawn to where their talents are of use.

How much of it do you think is innate and how much is a feedback mechanism from the position that they need to be in and the things they need to do once they get there? Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. I could give an answer, but it'd be completely... That's broken in my ass.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Melissa Chen tweeted the other day about how China's mandatory app for health monitoring. Do you see this? No. Oh, bro. China is requiring a mandatory health app that is ostensibly for health monitoring for all Beijing Olympics participants, media and government officials.

As you'd expect, it turns out to be spyware that records everything said have fun at Beijing 2020. And she's quote tweeting a guy who is a programmer saying, after reverse engineering, all of the Beijing 2020 app for iOS and Android, I can definitively say all Olympian audio is being collected, analyzed and saved on Chinese servers using tech from USA blacklisted AI firm, I fly tech. Well, they should be looking at like all sorts of really bad porn. So that all those Chinese sensors send them to the madame. Yeah, I'm going to see all this iconography.

Or just start googling June, June, June, June, 4th, 1989. What's up? TN men square. Right. Wow. I don't know, man. There's that? Tienman Square. Right. Wow. I don't know, man. Just all of this stuff, this seems to be...

You know, that's what I would do. I'd wear Tien those tankman t-shirts. Just see what happens. I'm just gonna do about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to marry across. Stuff that, like that, is, you know,

because presumably those apps are probably gonna be able to hold onto your phone either after you've deleted it. Of course. They're going to clone it. Yes. Get a image of it, rather. Yep. And you'll then, if you message somebody else, perhaps, I don't know, I'm not sure how secure

Android and iOS can be, but not sufficiently secure to avoid being a spyware app for a health monitoring thing. But there's no way they're not going to get all your contacts immediately. That is a real scary news story. Meanwhile, the press is focusing on whether Joe Rogan's last podcast had the right balance on it or whether stuff that he said 12 years ago really matters. The press also doesn't like telling stories where they can't paint themselves as victorious. So there's a guy here in Austin named Cody Wilson and he's behind 3D printing guns.

So how it works is you have a 3D printer in your house and you hit print and a certain amount of time later you have a gun that's unregistered and untraceable. Now they've tried to pass laws around this, but the laws have no efficacy because he's not selling guns, he's selling files, and a 3D, you're going to ban 3D printing that's not going to happen either. So this is something that's not given what, because it's called as an organization called defense distributed. This is something that's not given wide parlance, because the conclusion is there's nothing we can do about this, and that makes them look very, very bad, because what they're selling is, corporate media outlets will present a problem, and in the next

paragraph, they'll present the best solution. Which is them or someone who's in power in part thanks to them. So right away, me, if I'm going to be a well-read person I'm going to hear a problem and I'm going to advocate for this solution with all my force. With articles like this now he's gotten some coverage but it's nowhere near as big as you would otherwise expect there's no solution. So they what they try to do is they try to say well if a gun if this is like 15% of a gun that's legally counted as a gun. He's like, okay, here's the file for 85% of guns. So there's no way that they can kind of legislate around this even definitionally. And again, this is not something because again, sorry, keep saying that if you watch CNN, I can't have a five minute segment where this is something

so complicated with no resolution without the viewer leaving, like, okay, I can't have a five minute segment where this is something so complicated with no resolution without the viewer leaving leg. Okay, I know what to think now. Dude, I saw a story the other day of a guy who had worked out how to 3D printer, 3D printer. Oh, far too clever. Way, way, way too clever. That guy needs to be locked up.

What are you drinking? How big is that? Arizona. It's my macros. So this is for Megan. This is for Megan McCain, Arizona, baby. For the people who've never been out drinking with Michael Malis and grabbing soft drinks, you are one of the only people I know that chooses to rip the ring pull off the top. Yep. There it is. That way I know it's my bottle. Who else is in the room with you? Like if I met a party and everyone has a beer and they're not a party. Well, this is just a throwback to college.

It's just part of that. You were getting accused not long ago of the reason that your headphones were tangled was because you were just a straight up chaos merchant. And I feel like this just plays into that. How is this chaos? It's its order, I know which one's mine. I'm unsure. But yeah, the guy could 3D print a 3D printer, which is pretty concerning. But so the main thing that I've taken away from today

is that the press themselves are an entity with their own agenda, which the... Can I interrupt you? Yeah. is that the press themselves are an entity with that own agenda, which the... Not the, can I interrupt you? Yeah. Not a bias in agenda. Everyone knew that they had a bias. That's inevitable.

We're gonna have a perspective. That they have an agenda. What's the difference? Because a bias is, okay, I'm gonna look at this story from a labor point of view or a liberal point of view, conservative or a Tory point of view, as opposed to, I am writing this story because I want people to feel a certain way. My goal is into inform my goal

is to manipulate. My goal is to affect social change. That's scary. Why? Because they influence the opinions of so many people. Sure, but those people are, it's one mind in many persons. Hmm, yes, but it is a very large swath of the population. I keep on thinking about this, the more that I dig into whatever you want to call it, the heterodox sphere of sense-making or whatever, the less that you can see how normal people view the media that they consume.

That's majority of people probably the first time they ever heard of Joe Rogan was when the Spotify deal went through, and then the next time might have been this week. You think, okay. No, the next time, no, no, it was the Spotify deal. Then Joe Rogan is irrelevant because of the Spotify deal because they try to sing that song for Wild Member that no one cares what he thinks anymore. And then it was Joe Rogan is an existential threat to America because he doesn't want people to get vaccinated, which he never said.

Rudy Giuliani was on the Foxes, the masked singer. Did you see this? No. Unmasking of Rudy Giuliani on Foxes, the masked singer. Did you see this? No. Unmasking of Rudy Giuliani on Foxes, the masked singer prompts judges Ken Jong and Robin Thick to walk off in protest. Rudy Giuliani was unmasked as an exiting costume content in the last week's taping of the first season seven episode

of Foxes popular prime time. So the masked singer, show is known for its jaw dropping surprises when celebrity contestants shed their headpieces after they were eliminated. The reaction to Giuliani was perhaps the most polarizing the show has seen since 2020. The mask sing. Sarah Palin. Yeah.

The mask singer was another Republican politician. Sarah Palin was unveiled as the bear. I'm glad that we've got clarity on what character it was that she decided to feature. I think she did baby got back. I'm pretty sure. So it wasn't just that it was Sarah Palin, who I'm sure has a perfectly fine, I'm sitting in your voice, I wouldn't put that past her. But I think, yeah, it was baby got back. I love how, so this is from Deadline.com. Deadline.com mentioned we aren't revealing which costume Rudy wore or what his swan song was. His exit won't wear, won't air until next month so he can still revel in his reveal.

The theme of the new season is the good, the bad and the cuddly. Your political affiliation determines which category Giuliani fits into. Deadline hits the watch young and thick exited. They eventually returned. Fellow judges Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Scherzinger remained on stage. They ban it with Giuliani, a controversial figure for blah, blah, blah. Fox did not comment. Yeah, Rudy Giuliani on, I mean, that's from White House to Shite House, isn't it? Well, I mean, he's been really lost a lot of credibility among Republicans or how he handled the Trump election in 2020.

He kind of made a big ass of himself, and I know there was one press conference where his hair and I started leaking down his face. Was that the same one where he booked it outside of like an air conditioning factory? Did you see that? No. Oh, dude, this is so good.

So I can't remember, he'd booked it for a particular location. Let's say the palm or West Palm something or whatever. And it turns out that the location that they booked was the some air conditioning factory. So all of the press had turned up and it wasn't at some grand hotel to give this big reveal about some important shit. They were just stood outside of some middle America fucking workplace and they just decided to go ahead with it rather than trying to change it and pivoted to like Havana Club West or whatever they went to Havana

Club air conditioning creators. So yeah, it was a, how would you say, catalog of errors culminating in him now being on the mass center. It's important. Yeah. And he's really old at this point. Isn't he like almost 80? If not 80? They used that photo of him with the the hair dye falling down the side of his face as well, which does look pretty scary. He's 77. Yeah, he's so he's older than Biden. Is he fucking hell? Yeah, Biden is I think 76. He's 77. Biden is, no, Biden's 79 I apologize, but I mean they're comparable there. How was the night that I missed at the Tesla factory? So we haven't got to speak about this.

Oh, God. Talk about in poster syndrome. You know, I'm there with midnight with Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk and Jo Rogan. Michaela was there, of course, who I'm pals with. And if you had told this, the factory is gigantic. I've never been a factory that big. Gigafactory, right? Because I was called out.

I don't know. I don't know if it's like a Tesla drive or something. But if you had told me that there was, because it's very brightly lit, right? And Austin is not bright at night, because there's not a lot of street lights like back in New York, obviously. And I'm sure Newcastle might be the same way. If there, if you, there, and there's people there at midnight, the core, what's going on over there?

And if you had told me that one of these rooms had a UFO that they were reverse engineering, it very much felt like Independence Day when they were doing that, and I was like, who can I look at, who can I talk to, I was very, it was kind of almost like being like North Korea. Like when you're North Korea, you're there, you're like, this is not my place, like I don't belong here. So you really gotta be on guard about what you say,

look at or do and make eye contact the whole time. So when I was there, even though I'd been invited and cleared, I was still like, all right, am I allowed into this truck? Can I take a picture of this? Like I was just so scared. Fun though. I don't know if that would be the word. Mine awe inspiring. Why not fun? No, this is nice. Yeah, I just, I couldn't let my guard down. Did you get to meet Elon? Because you were there when he was recording his Babylon B thing, but yeah, I didn't get to talk to him We all hung out after I didn't want to be that guy Yeah, you know, I just spend time talking to the Peter Sins and Joe cool

There was a story that I read the other day about a SpaceX rocket on a collision course with the moon after spending almost seven years hurtling through space. So the booster got launched in 2015, it was doing some shit, and then it ended up in a very chaotic orbit, and eventually it's going to hit the moon, and it's not going to be a big deal, but space fanatics look forward to seeing what lessons can come from it, went through its Lagrange point, a gravity neutral position, four times further than the moon, and in direct line with the sun, and then the rock and second stage is going to end up falling into it. So Elon is also getting rid of his rockets by hitting them into the moon. Okay, cool. The Earth's garbage pit.

The moon, yeah, the Earth's garbage pit. What have you got coming up, how's everything else with you? I'm writing about the holiday more now, so that's not very fun. That's when Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians and it was the most disturbing part is if they ransacked your house and you didn't have any grain, that's

how they knew you were hiding it, right? That's the logic. So you better freaking find it. So they'd go search your house during the day, search it again at night. They would just burn people's houses down, throw them in the street, including whole families, naked in the middle of winter, break people's hands in door knob, in door jams, things like that. And the thing is, if you weren't starving,

your own body betrayed you, because they could look at you and see, oh, you have food, and you better fucking hand it over. So this was, and it was covered up by the Western journalists at the time, who said, there's no famine, and this is just anti-Russia propaganda. So going through that writing it about it for the next book is, this is not a particularly insightful thing to say, but when you hear about, you know,

children being starved to death intentionally, it doesn't number on you. Do you find that I've been working? I was going to say is it emotionally draining to write that stuff? Yeah, especially because, you know, many of the people who covered this up were never held accountable to this day. And also the fact that this is in public knowledge, the fact that you were like, what's that? I mean, this is a complete atrocity, crime against humanity, just awful, awful thing. And it's just, it's also, it's heartening to know that this is going to be widely read and that I get to kind of, you know, advocate for these people and give them their testimony. This is where I'm from.

So it kind of knowing this is in my DNA also kind of hits a little close to home, but it's, it's rough. I learned about Paul Pot had a... Oh, yeah. He had a series of situations where anybody who wore glasses was immediately killed because people that wore glasses were part of the intellectual bourgeoisie. Or didn't have calluses on their hands,

I think was another one. They killed a quarter of the population, like less than a decade. Fucking hell, man. And that's so recent. It's just, you know, when you see all of this stuff piece together and the fact that you've got... It's the 70s. This isn't like 500 years ago. This is the 70s. Why is it do you think that we've forgotten just how brutal people can be? Is it just that memories are short? Do we believe or has the world believed

at large that we've transcended the nesting parts of our nature because we've become so enlightened with technology and convenience and stuff? Because what's the narrative with Paul Pot? The media can't tell you anything. We didn't do anything about it. I don't know that we could have done anything about it. So when there's no story, corporate America likes to have a story. Everything's going to be fine. You're safe. Just listen to us. And here's an example where that was not the case. And it's like, well, like the Korean War, we talk about World War II, we talk about the Vietnam War, the Korean War was a draw. So no one talks about it, because

there's no story there. Even though the entire Korean peninsula was devastated, the Korean people were just decimated both North and South. But there's no story there. Even though the entire Korean peninsula was devastated, the Korean people were just decimated both North and South, but there's no narrative. But what about again, what media wants to sell a story? They don't want to sell information. What about the people that just exist? Normal day-to-day people, I think, like, if you were to suggest to them that this is something that could happen again. Most people would say, no, no, of course not. We're past that now. Or no, it's also that the Russians are, the Russians have always been treated as basically Martians with some good reason. I think the Russian psyche is very different from the Western psyche. But also it's, it's hard because there was no photographs. So it's one thing when you see it,

it's another thing to read about it. If I tell you a sentence, I saw a pile of kids start to death. Okay, you can read that sentence, it's tough. If I show you a picture of me standing in front of this, this is a whole other situation. Michael Malice, ladies and gentlemen, people want to keep up to date with what you're doing. Where should they go? To the psychiatrist.

you