Taskmaster The Podcast - Starship Troopers

Episode Date: May 22, 2022

We're finally back, and we discussed the scifi "classic" Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein. Plot is non-existent and abuse is ever-present. Ketho breaks down the worst description of the labor theory of value ever put in fiction while Darius loses his mind from the bottom of the tin can he was recording in. We're back! It's great!patreon.com/swordsandsocialismFollow the show @SwordsNSocPodEmail us at [e-mail]: @Himbo_AnarchistKetho: @StupidPuma69patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Music Welcome back everybody to Sword, Surgery and Socialism, a podcast about the politics and themes in our genre fiction. I almost forgot how to do the intro, it's been a little while. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show.

So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. So we're at the end of the show. I want to say thank you everyone for still being here after our little sort of unintentional miniature hiatus. We both had a lot of things going on in real life and it was very busy and I haven't had much time to finish books, but we're back now. It's cool.

You know, if you don't take a deep breath, you get started again. Yeah, I've gotten a new job. Kethel's got a new job. Kethel's moved. Other things. My job requires me to wake up at like four o'clock in the morning every day. I just got a cat. I just got a cat.

You just got a cat, look, it's so much shit going on. But we're back now. And we're here to talk about, I don't want to call it a classic, but it is influential. Here we go. Science fiction novel called Starstick Troopers. But it is influential. Here we go. Science fiction novel called Starship Troopers by Robert A. Highline. Now, before we do anything else, as we've said before,

we're going by author's definitions of things. This is your sci-fi, right? It's sci-fi. It has all the things. By the Gwen's definition of sci-fi, you need to be proposing a thought experiment. What's the high-line thought experiment? What do you think? I have an idea. What I have a definition for what I think is thought experiment in this book is. What do you think is thought experiment in this book is? I don't know what would society be like if only veterans were allowed to be politicians and part of the body politic? Yeah, I was jealous. The thought experiment

proposed this book is, what if after a bunch of wars, the human race just sort of voluntarily became fascist, but like military dictatorship, but like super nice fascists. You defleast non-citizens, definitely can like own businesses and have freedom of speech. And you live good lives. The High Line reassures us many times that you could simply choose to not do things and that it's totally okay. It tells us this all the time in the book. He almost feels compelled to reassure us that in this world he's created that not being mobile infantry is still also okay.

And it does become a bit worrying how often he has to tell us that don't worry, it's actually cool if you're not a troop. But then all the important people in the book become members anyways. Yeah, everyone that matters is a troop, but like it's totally cool if you don't want to be a troop. Even the dad who at the beginning is like this is it's a parasite, it's it's nonsense becoming a citizen isn't important because these people suck

and it all sucks. And then it's like my wife died. I now must become mobile infantry. No, the best part is he could he says it wasn't even because they murdered his wife. Any other story I would almost trading. No, the best part is he could he says it wasn't even because they murdered his wife. Any other story I would almost allow a character to be like yes the aliens murdered my wife. A lot of me. Along with like a couple million other people when they destroyed Buenos Aires. Like yes I feel the need for revenge now. Okay, like that's That's like a character development. I can like handle right?

instead His father goes out of his way to tell you that he didn't join he didn't join the military at like I don't know 40 or 35 or whatever he's supposed to be he didn't join it because of his wife being murdered He didn't join it because of his wife being murdered. He didn't join it because of his son being in it. He joined because he finally realized that he had always wanted to and it was the right thing to do and he was too scared to do it until now. Very good world building. So we're talking about starship to world building. Expositely not the movie, the novel.

Yes. If you think there are takes about the movie, that'll be on the Patreon very shortly. Kethos never seen it. Yeah, I'm going to watch it with all my roommates because they all read the book at the same time. Yeah, so he's going to watch the movie for the first time. So this is specifically, again, about the book.

We're not going to compare it to the movie. I will try not to, because I don't obviously know about it. Some, but I don't want to spoil anything for you, Ketho. If you've only ever seen the movie, this book will catch you off guard. Yeah. Because the plot is not the same as the movie

I mean the movie takes its plot essentially from a little bit of the first couple chapters and then Basically the last two chapters. Yeah, this is what is is like 90 is is like 70% boot camp, 20% interjections from the history and moral philosophy instructors. So it's self-insert from Heinlein. Yes. Before we start, whenever we reference either of the professors that main character Johnny Rico has, their professors that are for a class called history and moral philosophy, which already sends off ringing red flags.

Yeah, it should set off alarm bells. They need that history and moral philosophy are like tied together. Now, these are the only professors that actually speak and they are both openly nakedly self-inserts of high-lines personal beliefs. That's just what they have. So if we mention Dubois, if we mention Reed, just to blank the name out, and insert Highland. Any time we say Professor or Lieutenant Colonel Dubois,

or if we say I think is Reed, I don't remember his rank, I don't care. Dubois or Reed, like you said, just wipe those out and write in a high line. That's what he thinks. That's their entire purpose in this novel is to be mouthpieces for his moral philosophy. We care very much.

Which I'm gonna be honest with you is garbage. Pretty horseshit. It's for the first half of the book, it's essentially what you kind of expect from a conservative grandpa that thinks giving table, you know, where he's like, oh, I was a veteran back into day and you know, people, kids just don't understand duty anymore. You don't expect kids enough. Just some crotchety old man for like the first half of the book

More than half it's like the first two thirds of this book are our main character Johnny Rico Reminiscing about boot camp and at that point it's just like annoying, you know, it's like For this ship before it goes on way too long number one a number two All of it is just like here is some horrible shit that happened in boot camp But this is why it made me a good person Yeah, one of our guys got hung for crimes. I'm gonna use this as a time to Have an aside about why we should hang people for crimes.

Now, like the thing I find most funny about that entire sequence, there's a sequence towards the middle. It's not when the guy gets hung, but it's when the guy gets lashed and then dishonorably discharged because he punched his superior off. He punched the actual rule for if you punch a superior officer is supposed to be you get hung like if you Lay a hand no it was for like yeah, it was it was specific for like disobeying a freeze order Like in order not to move and then assaulting it off Yeah, and then assaulting and not and but the assaulting officer thing is when they were like oh shit hold on I have to do this. And everyone was like,

he's going to get hung. And like, hanging is the mandatory punishment for punching your superior officer. And everyone else in the sequence, even the main characters, understandably, like, hard, why the fuck would you do that that's absurd? And everyone's like, and then even the superior officers in their own little quarters as Rico overhears them are like, this is insane. This is why you have to pretend that it didn't like this is why you're not supposed to say anything if something like this happens you're not supposed to give them a chance because if they break the rule they're going to get hung and that's ridiculous. but

Simultaneously it's being presented as like the appropriate correct thing. All agree that it's what should have happened! And you're like all of you are literally thinking right now, this is wrong, but then you go, but it's the rules so it's right. Like, they all agree it's pretty fucked up. This guy shouldn't have to hang for this and then They get him out. I'm like a loop, essentially. He only gets lashed and discharged. And then afterwards, they're all just sort of like, that was fucked up. Anyway, I guess that's how the world works. And then it goes on attire rate. Literally, the next thing that he goes on attire rate about with the history and

moral philosophy professor is about spanking your kids. So the way this book is structured is you essentially have chapters of Johnny Rico. It opens sort of in media res with him in the middle of a rate on a on the on a what are they called the skinny one? This I think it is called the skinny on the skinny planet which is literally just him murdering civilians in their homes just to prove that they can which you learn later was just like uh... like expression of force to like scare the skinny's into switching

sides in the book war yet like you drop in and like newka holy site with a mini with a mini nuke. Oh yeah, I got the shoulder mounted mini nukes. Show them not to many. The fact man, that's not the call. Like literally like you open the opening of the story is him with his units on a raid of the planet of the skinnies which are just these aliens that are never really described that well. Just murdering civilians around the area with like miniature atomic and flame throwers,

essentially just to as like a projection of force, you learn later was just to scare them enough that they then switch sides in the bug war and join the humans instead of the bugs. Like that's the entire purpose of their raid. Yeah, it's... And the thing, I'm just a little funny, anecdote. I was reading that section and the sense of scale was very poorly described. So I assumed for a minute I was like, wait a second. Like we didn't really know what the suits could do yet. And I was like, is he just really big?

Or is these people like really small? Is he just like, yeah jump, but no. It's like comical jumping where he's like pounding like multiple stories into the air and like going on the building. Before, I guess we should do a side tangent before we get into his philosophy. Anyone who has played games with like space marines or mecha suits or any shit like that, not like big Gundam mecha suits, but like more person-sized suits. Like Warhammer or Starcraft. Starcraft or like if you're if you've ever watched aliens. Yeah, if you've watched aliens or into Warhammer or for me personally, it relates to a Starcraft 2 or Starcraft, but Starcraft 2 specifically.

If you're a Starcraft 2 player or you played it, the Terran units essentially if you combine a reaper and a firebath that's what their mobile suits are like the basically super exaggerate your natural motion so if you jump you jump real high if you land you and real hard like you can jump high you can punch hard you can do all the stupid shit it is this book is unfortunately one of the books that popularized and molded the entire like space marine mecha suit idea within the popular consciousness.

Yeah, the mobile infantry is definitely a like they call them mobile infantry and that is an idea that is now ingrained in our like space sci-fi. It like your space marine. The space marine. It's here to stay again, whether it's warhammer or starcraft, which was supposed to be Warhammer, but game the fucking people at Warhammer wouldn't let Blizzard do a Warhammer game. So they did start out. Is that legit? What happened? That's what I've read, yes.

Was that Blizzard wanted to do essentially a Star, like a Warhammer, real-time strategy game? And what's the name of that company that does Warhammer? I don't know whatever that they've been notoriously bad about letting people use their IP And they didn't trust Blizzard to use their IP so Blizzard invented Starcraft instead Which is why there's so many similarities between like Starcraft Tyron units and like the Warhammer units anyway So imagine like Starcraft Tyron Units and like the Warhammer Units. Anyway, so imagine that Warhammer when it started out would have been initially satirizing this sort of thing.

Yeah, when it started, it was supposed to be a satire, this sort of thing. Yeah, and then we talked about in our last episode about whether it actually counts as satire anymore or not, whether they're just glorifying it. Yeah. Which, going back to glorifying it, Highline has no such presumptions.

He thinks that this is the coolest shit anyone has ever thought of. The idea that you could put on this mecha suit and just like Mario jump across the city, flame throwing anyone you come across and like loving nukes at their holy sites, dropping grenades through random windows you find.

He thinks that is the coolest shit anyone's ever done. Because it's you and your battle buddies out there just wreaking havoc across the city for the glory of humanity. After this we get into flashbacks where you learn about how he joined against his father's wishes, how he spends way too many chapters in boot camp, all the other bullshit. The important things you take from the beginning of the novel are we've already started to cover which is one. Corporal punishment is good. This is an odd, this is a theme throughout the entire book. Corporal punishment is good and multiple times will be argued to be necessary. Only citizens can vote and you only get to be a citizen if you finish a tour of duty in the military.

Two years minimum. And they discourage you as heavily as possible from joining at all because they only want people that are really dedicated. They only want those real psychopaths to join. So you can only vote in politics if you're that. But the vast majority of the population cannot vote and are not citizens. They are residents of the, they call it the Terran Federation, but they do have no voting rights at all. The really only important character to remember from the beginning of the book is his, as

we said, his history and moral philosophy professor Dubois. Yeah, when the book starts out, he talks about a couple other classmates, including his old best friend, and he expect him to be more important. And then later on, he's like, I go off, he goes off to R&D, and then they never talk again. Classmate, who you expect to be important? Just gets killed off screen, baby. Woo!

And he sat about it for like two seconds. Yeah His old best friend who he joined the military for more or less When he joined the military for two reasons one because the best friend was joining it too because a hot chick was joining And those are the two reasons why he joined Oh, yeah, and his wife and her mentioned in this hindland is just like women are mentioned in this Heinlein is just like Heinlein has no concept of what women are or how they work. He just knows they're real they're really pretty and you need to have them around from around. Yeah he's like why are they pilots? Is it because they're good at piloting? Nah they're good from around. No he does say that

they're good at piloting. He does do that. He does that shit where he says like women are naturally better pilots. But also having them around gives the soldiers something to fight for before they fucking drop on planet. Anyway, so Dubois is the first main character that actually matters because Johnny Rico himself doesn't matter at all. Your main character is literally pointless. He is simply a cipher for things to happen to. And the things that happen to him only exist for Heinlein to then have a character, have a speech about, which is when he's telling you what he thinks. Whether it is one of John E. Rico's superior officers, or whether it's a cutaway to a history and moral philosophy professor. Like the entire structure of this book is Johnny Rico exists.

Things happen around him, around him and to him. And he processes this through the speeches given to him by men of superior quality. And then he just goes, yeah, that makes sense. Honestly, all of the history more philosophy teachers breed like Ben Shapiro. Like, they, like people will ask them questions and they'll be like, well, would you remember that? Remember that? Remember that? And he'll just shut them down. It is that entire conservative debate style that everyone on the internet is accustomed to. So someone will be like, he'll have some, you know, he'll describe them as some like

ditzy girl student. Be like, why do people need to be beaten with sticks? And the professor will be like, have you raised a dog? Yes? Did you house break your dog? Yes. Okay, well, if you have a dog and you have to house break the dog, well, how do you house break the dog? Tell me. Tell me specifically, how do you house break a dog? What do you piece of the floor? What do you do? Well, you rub his nose in it and you spank him. Well, why do you spank him? Because he must be taught that he that there's a punishment for breaking the rules.

Ergo, if the dog is bad, it's because you didn't train him properly, so it is your moral responsibility to beat your dog in order to stop them from pissing on the floor. That's why we have to beat residents with sticks. And you're like, yeah, like that entire section, he blames the decline of old society on child psychologists and social workers for saying it's bad to spank children.

I don't think we can emphasize enough that he directly states that the decline of what he calls old, which modern conservatives would call western society, was because psychologists and like child psychologists and social workers told everyone to stop beating their kids. And so the kids then formed gangs that roamed city parks, mugging and murdering at will. And that because they were children, they couldn't

be punished, so they turned into essentially gangs of lawless criminals, and that literally destroyed society from the outside. And that and a disastrous war against the communist Chinese hegemony of the Pacific or whatever whatever. So it was lawlessness at home and godless communists over the ocean, destroyed society. The classic like in every insane spout of bullshit there's one tiny, tiny little nugget of like, you see what the problem is, you just come to a horrendously

bizarre-ass conclusion about it where he actually is like, oh, well, these people end up getting into prison slapped on the wrist a little bit, not really. They're just kind of put in there, and then they get parole, and then they leave, and then they end up coming back. So he points out the fact that prison recidivism is a recidivism is a thing But he fails to notice that that's the point Well, his yeah, well because his his explanation to why that happens is because you're not punished enough Enough if you punish them enough. They won't come back and you're like oh my god. You poor dumb fucking moron I don't We again cannot say clear enough this man is poor dumb fucking moron. I don't, again, cannot say clear enough,

this man is a fascist moron. Later on in the book, as a side book. Well again, again, that first part is, that's like just classic evangelical journalist to conservative, which I'm not gonna say is that different from fascism. It's not, but like at the beginning of the book, you can almost just be like, this is your racist uncle who's just going to say that.

Really that the only people who understand what it means to be a citizen of a country. But that's people that that joined the military. That's like the first half. And that's the first half of the book. You get to when you get to the later conversations with the second history and moral philosophy professor you just turn to this three of you, Jennings. Yeah, when Johnny goes through what we would call officer training school, he makes a jump from non-com to commissioned officer, he goes through officer training school. You meet the second history and philosophy professor. Also also you find out later that his first history and more philosophy professor was like a retired lieutenant colonel or something.

From the second. Yeah, from the same unit he was a fantastic. You guys can't see it but I'm making the jack-off motion. off-motion. The second one is less you need to spank children to teach them to be good citizens and more if we don't expand and colonize every planet, the bugs will and they'll genocide us. So we need to genocide them first. It's not, I mean, it's not just that. There's this huge, let me, let huge, let me pull this. These are some terrifying ass ramifications. Well, you pull that up.

I wanted to tell everyone a side note about how stupid Highline is just as a man outside of his politics. He talks about one of the planets that cults sanctuary. It's like a human settlement out there. And he goes on this little diatribe about how the flora and fauna of sanctuary, though it's incredibly earthlike, just never developed very far. They didn't evolve a whole lot. They're primitive versions of earth life.

And his explanation as to why is because they don't get enough radiation from their star and that it is radiation from the sun that causes genetic mutation, that then causes evolution. And so that if humans stay on sanctuary too long, they might fall behind the rest of humanity because they're not getting irradiated enough to evolve. And that he actually postulates that maybe they need to just Every so often set off nukes in their atmosphere to keep the radiation level high enough to keep mutation happening so essentially he believes that evolution

Evolution as a process can't exist without mutations, which is true However, he thinks of the mutation solely and only come from radiation and not from any other source. So, yeah. So, yeah. The most hilarious thing I've ever heard about. Yeah, we only evolved because the sun irradiates as constantly, and if we're not evolving fast enough, use add more radiation. It's like, does he think that the planet's sanctuary wouldn't have radiation coming from the sun? Well, it's said they measured it, and it doesn't have as much coming from its sun as per

all-lady's radiation. Yeah, but it doesn't have as much guy. You just know this is it. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking gamma radiation. That has to exist in high quantities. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's high. It can't be UV.

It can't be visible light. You can't. You don't know. Highlight was an engineer, man, you understand. Also it explains a lot that High Line was an engineer because he approached everything as an engineer and probably I think as you're about to get into, Catholic, I'm assuming this is kind of what you're talking about. He flat out states that all ethics and morals can be derived from mathematics, and that mathematics hold the only truth, and that everything you do should be based on math.

But conversely also points out that the one thing humans do that isn't sort of mathematical is our bond of comradeship, where we will sacrifice people to save other people, as opposed to just letting the lost one die. And it's like a weird quirk we have as humanity, is that like if someone gets lost hiking, we'll send out like a thousand search party and some of the search party will die, but it's worth it. And that's against math, but it's the one thing humans do.

I don't get it. He's amazing. All right, so let's, I'm assuming you're gonna read a section now from read. The professor read in one of the things. So let's, I'm assuming you're going to read a section now from read, the professor read in one of his sections where he's talking about something cool and good, I assume. There's a handful of things that this Damass says, specifically in the form of major read.

He goes on in explaining his justification for why war is good, actually, which if you can't already tell us some already fascist death-could nonsense, but he and suggested, and by he, I mean the main character, it suggested that the crusades were different from most wars, and he got sought-off and handed this required, to prove that war and moral perfection derived from the same genetic inheritance. Briefly thus, all wars arise from population pressure. OK, so we're already entering Malthusian bullshit

about population. So yes, number one, all wars are the result of population pressure. OK, let me give you deep three. And let me give you deep three. Morals, all correct moral rules. three. That's one. Morals all correct moral rules. Correct. Keep in mind.

Correct. He is not a relativist. Yeah, that was the furthest thing. Yes. Derived from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level as in a father who dies to save his children. But since population pressure results from the process of surviving through others, then

more because it results from population pressure derives from the same inherited instinct which produces all more overall suitable for human beings. So what he's essentially saying is this is literally the hard men create good times, create weak men, create bad times, like this is hard to have meme where it's like the wars um lead to a relief of population pressure which leads to people helping each other to survive of funny enough uh their their general uh helpfulness towards others will thrive, which will increase population, which increases population pressure, which creates graces. And therefore, because war is the only solution

to population pressure, obviously, this is just true. That means that war comes from the same social and moral imperative as protecting your neighbor or your children or helping anyone else on earth to survive. He's essentially saying that war is an extension of the mutual aid principle. He doesn't think it like that, but that's essentially what he's saying. Yes, so he's arguing that the same moral imperative that causes a father to die to protect his children is the in same imperative that causes nations and peoples to go to war

because they stem from the exact same place and this yet survival and this to him is good and natural and then it goes all the way out of the security. Is it possible to abolish war by relieving population pressure and thus do away with the all-too-evident evils of war through constructing a moral code under which population is limited to resources?

And then he explains that's not possible because some breeds will then start to overpopulate others at which point they will start to kill each other anyways. So none of it has anything to do with anything. Also, it's what kind of other breeds moved in and engulfed them. Yeah, other breeds. Some populations of humans did that, then other breeds moved in and engulfed them. I want to point out, this is extra shitty and terrifying because we are recording this the day after there was a mass shooting in a mall in New York where the shooter explicitly

mentioned the great replacement as one of his motivations for going on this shoot. And that's essentially what he's saying here is that if you get do away with this stuff, you'll get replaced. If you do away with violence, if you do away with the army as an institution and violence as a societal act, because he doesn't argue for violence on the personal scale, he's actually sort of against it because he talks about criminals a lot. Right. He thinks that violence should only be done by the state. Yeah, violence is a thing that should be done by the state. Which to be fair is a very both fascist and liberal opinion.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a state of opinion. So, violence should only be done by the state. And the difference is that the violence done by the state is good Yeah, just self-evidently too evidently good because Otherwise you run into problems like being replaced by other people or other races or in this case bugs Which are just communists yes oh he really poorly done interpretation of what communism is obviously yeah oh we're gonna

get into his definition of communism in a little bit yeah that'll be funny so like he has his standing character his mouthpiece come out and say, if we are peaceful, we will be replaced. Again, this book was published in 1959. 1959. 1959. And this is literally the same message Tucko Carlson is still saying now. We need cops. We need the military. It's the one that at this point, 30% of the American population believes. Kind of, yeah. I think honestly, one of the few things that's changed

is that the fascists of the modern era are actually cool with the individual taking the violence upon themselves because they have come to believe that the state is no longer capable of doing it. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, it's a combination of that and also, like, people like Tucker Cross and I doubt that any of them actually believe any of the things that they're saying. They're just using it as a useful tool because they know what they're doing. It's like, yeah, I will say one thing for Highline is I think he genuinely believes the things that he says. He's a true believer in this bullshed. He really believes that you need to nuke the atmosphere.

Because when someone in Congress is like, oh, all these trans people are the rumors and they're teaching it in our private schools and our public schools. What they're trying to do is they're trying to delegitimize public education so they can get rid of it, so they don't have to pay for it. They don't actually give a damn about the other stuff. They just want

you not have to pay more taxes. That's it. And people eat it up as though that's not what they're trying to do. And it's similar with the great replacement thing. A lot of them really just want more people in prison so that they can make more money off of prison labor. Like that's what you look at the top echelons. But like the more personal level, generally, we still have a lot of people in America right now who believe this probably more I'd say we have more people that believe it now than we did when this book when Starship Troopers was released I'd say there's probably more people who openly believe the great the great replacement I mean we're talking we're on the co-tails in World War 2 here

It's like the 50s. It's like the 50s though. It's like yeah, I don't know there were still a lot I mean, I don't know how many open Nazis there were but they're plenty like we some of the Nazis were still alive from Oh, yeah, but I mean like George Lincoln Rockwell was like just getting up and running around that time It's like the new Nazi party wasn't like a huge thing. Yeah, we're still doing like Johnson's great society. Yeah, I guess I to then, if you were like, I'm an open Nazi. It's like people like, well, like your next door neighbor was a guy that shot Nazis like six years ago. Yeah.

So like, you couldn't, you couldn't go. You were absolutely fascist. Absolutely. Fascist and racist. It's just not the same way. Yeah, they were. Um, but like, I, I just felt like we needed to focus on that for a minute because of immediate recent events. The idea that he explicitly is like saying we need to do state

violence and state militarism to stop the great replacement is some like a thing we really need to focus on like in this current moment. That is just one of many horrible things that his mouthpiece read. Oh yeah, because read is the one who also talks about rights. Oh yeah, do you have that? Do you have that up? Now again to mildly expose myself for the listening public and admit like the greatest faux pas, I think I could have among my political companions. This is the time I think I finally can clean and admit that when I was in college, my degree was in political science. So, I was-

What was the moment of silence for your online persona? Yeah. A moment of silence for all of my online credibility. The fact that I was a, I double majored in political science and international studies and I have a minor in economics. So RIP, it's me. It's the happiest degree I've ever heard of in my entire life? Yeah, well, let's not talk about the internships I was applying to my self, like my junior year of college. Look, all I'm saying is there's an alternative reality, alternative timeline, where I am the biggest fucking land you're

dork you've ever met, and I work work for I work at like a first special council of the United Nations. Okay? Like there's an alternative life path where that happened. However, the only reason I dox myself and abuse myself by bringing this up is because even in the libiest shittiest polypsi programs, you will learn a better understanding of rights and definitions for things than high-mind produces in this novel. Like, even my university, who my polypsi professors believed the highest, most advanced political organization to ever

exist was the European Union, like do a better job of understanding communism and rights than this motherfucker does. It's actually legitimately embarrassing because he has a criticism of rights as too many anarchists and leftists, especially his criticism is very different. Yeah, I mean, my, I said on tour the other day, my criticism of rights is I hate the concept of calling things rights because the right inherently is a thing granted to you by the state. Yeah, I get to believe that I don't believe that any of the things that people deserve are things that can be granted or retracted. They are freedoms that were guaranteed for existing.

Yeah. Any, any one of them, like decent chunks of people from both the anarchist and Marxist traditions will agree with that statement that these rights are effectively allowances given to you by the bourgeois state in an attempt to placate you. Which can be retracted at any time. Which can be retracted at any time. And that's fundamentally the problem, is rights can be removed. Yeah, which is, like I said on Twitter, that's why I hate when people say fighting for abortion rights or reproductive rights.

I just don't like framing things as rights because it puts it in the wrong language space. People have the freedom to have abortions because because that's something that can't be tried. That is the most pedantic I'm gonna be right now. Well, the thing is, the thing is, is that fundamentally, without a state, people have the freedom to get an abortion, what they really should be saying is more along the lines of,

it's not, I'm fighting for the right to have an abortion, it's I'm fighting against the tyranny of the state or then to me from exercising. I'm fighting for the right to not be punished by this to not be subject to violence by the state to do this thing. Yeah, however, let's see what Highland has to say about rights. We're gonna pause right. This case, fucking stupid. I could find it because there's so much in this set of six pages. It's literally, you could get almost his entire moral philosophy by reading a single chapter

of this book. I believe it is. Two chapters, chapter eight, I believe, is all De Bois. And chapter 12 is all read you could read chapter 8 chapter 12 and divide divide for yourself hind lines and tire political you're more exactly the same person. They're exactly. I mean those two characters are the same person it's just one of them is sort of like intro level the other one is like we're an officer now you can hear the truth more or less. Yeah the one is for students, the second one is for officers.

Oh yeah, this is also the same section. While you're finding that, I was going to play it out in the section. He argues that humans have zero moral instincts whatsoever, that we are a blank slate upon birth, and that any we have and what when we get older we feel like all I instinctually know what is good and what is bad is Entirely nurture like what you believe is good what you believe is bad becomes entirely from how you are raised is the argument He makes that there is no inherent morality in any human at all Which is a bizarre given the fact that he thinks that morals can be scientifically proven.

Yeah, he thinks morality is can be math, not scientifically proven. Mathematically proven. But that you don't know it unless you're taught it properly. Because he has this whole thing about how there can be no such thing as a juvenile delinquent because that just means that their parents and the state failed to properly discipline those children and teach them morals. So in every cis teacher child something he means punish them and to believe in the right thing. But yeah, that's also something he throws in here that there is no objective moral compass in any given person. They are subject entirely to the way they are raised. Which is just so funny. It's contradictory. It makes no random sense. But then the results should have been, okay wait, the society they were in told

them endlessly about their rights. The results should have been predictable since human being has no natural rights of any nature. Sir, how about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Ah yes, the unalienable rights each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry, life, what right to life has a man who is drowning in the pacific? The ocean will not harkens for his prize. What right to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children. If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of right? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is unalienable. As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document never pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives.

Oh, they did pledge themselves to buy liberty with their lives. The pursuit of happiness, it is indeed unalienable, but it is not a right. It's simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. That's literally what the, whatever. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can pursue happiness as long as my brain lives, but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs can ensure that I will catch it. This is a bench appear argument.

Because he says there is no such thing as rights and this girl, one of the students is like, what about life liberty in the pursuit of happiness? And it changes what the message is. Which again, we as like anarchists would have a completely different argument about life liberty in the pursuit of happiness and like that document. His, what he does is what I'm calling that Ben Shapiro's argument, is saying, life, we have a right to life, what about a guy who's drowning?

Does he have a right to life? Well the ocean doesn't respect his right to life. What about two people starving to death? Who's right has the greater right? Who gets to kill who to can't? If cannibalism is the only option, who's right is the more right? Yeah, well, what if you needed to jerk off and you only had a cactus, then why? Oh, but in an entire argument. It's an entire debate.

That's every single argument laid in this book. Every argument made this book are these like Jordan Peterson wet parts of like, oh yeah, but what if the conditions were different than what? Yeah. It's all about a lot of what? It's a lot of like what aboutisms. There's a lot of strong manning in

One of the earlier about the kids where he where he makes the the Appeal that oh would you take a dog and When he pees the house you scold him and then put him in a room somewhere maybe and then let him out without ever actually punishing him and blah blah blah. And I'm like, which, which it's like, it's exactly what is a good, is a good critique of prisons that you're not going to make society better by taking a criminal, throwing them in a jail cell. And then if just 10 years later, letting them out and being like, I hope you're better now. That's a good critique of, for his, prisons, prisons, but he's not critiquing prisons. It's like, but the thing is, is anyone who sits there and is like, I disagree with the idea of smacking your child or slapping your dog is going to go, the alternatives that is kind of saying, you shouldn't do that and then not doing anything.

Like he's making up an argument. No one does that. Yeah, he says that the reason the old society fell is because we simply didn't punish children or correct their behavior at all now he says that we had stern talking to with kids and that that doesn't actually convince them of anything he literally are says that nobody can be convinced with words like that is the his argument boils down to you cannot make morally convince anyone to do or not do something through language

And so that the only way people can be coerced or convinced of anything is through force When you talk about the drill sergeants in boot camp when a guy asks why do they hit us with sticks? when a guy asks why do they hit us with sticks the argument boils down to because we need to teach you the right way to behave when he's talking about children in the past that were forming gangs they go well why did the children foreign gangs did their did they not get whipped in public like we do now which is object which is clearly correct uh...

he goes no they were too soft back and we just talked to them about it, and that obviously doesn't work. It's a joke to pretend that speaking to your child will actually change their mind about anything. It is a continual argument throughout this book that the only wage convinced anyone of anything is through violence and through force. I'm going to connect a thing that he says in here with a current event that is not too current. Oh no, I do hate to be topical. But okay, he does the, suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house and occasionally locked them up in an outbuilding,

but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now in her own dog and still not housebroken. Lurapon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment please. That's the craziest way to raise a dog where we're heard of. I agree or a child whose fault would it be. And it's like, but bro, when people talk about dealing with things like this in an alternative manner, like if you're going to alternatively not, if you're not going to smack your dog when he does something wrong, there are other ways to correct behavior

that have nothing to do with violence. And if nothing to do with starting talking to's. Except he like directly comes out and says that no other way works. So on the one hand he says, but the example provides is a ridiculous example that no one would attempt. Yeah, but it's not deeply, it reminds me deeply of if someone is like, even if we go live with it and say say defund the police as opposed to abolish the police they're like well what else are you gonna do you're gonna

send a social worker to deal with a guy with a gun and it's like fuck you no no one is saying that you dumbass and and they just make up these impossible scenarios because they can't imagine anybody dealing with any problem with anything other than straight violence. It's like their imaginations are stunted at this point. Yeah, I mean, because to them, it is, to a fascist, violence is the only legitimate force that exists. How does again, how do cadets get taught in the military?

Violence. How do children get raised in his world? Violence how do they convince the skinnies to switch sides in the war violence? How do you actually like do how does anything? Get accomplished in his world it is why how like? In this novel, the father finally joining the mobile infantry is a good thing. It's a proud moment when the dad joins.

The dad only joins after violence has killed his wife. Right, and even then, that's not even like the major thing that he jumps. He does it because he admits that he was a coward for most of his life. But like, nothing in this book happens without violence as the precipitating factor. And he repeatedly has mouthpiece characters, be it these moral and moral philosophy and history professors or high ranking officers, reinforce this over and over and over again.

It is also like to me, sort of like the abusers manifesto, because what he does with the drill instructor at training a Zim is basically, I beat the shit out of them because I care about them. I love them. I love them and I want them to succeed in life. Air go. I have to be a violent piece of shit to them. He pulls the, if you beat the child, the child's not going to come out okay.

Well, I was beaten and I turned out fine. And you're like, you are contemplating abusing another human being because they won't do what you tell them to. You are not fine. You are literally the definition of not fine. You were abused as a child and now you think abuse is okay. Like, it's literally like some of being sexually abused

and then sexually abusing someone later. It's the same exact. It is like an abuser's manifesto of that like, I'm doing violence to you because I care about you and it is the only way to make you understand and succeed in life is by abusing you. And therefore you must also do this abuse

to apply this abuse to basically every problem in your life. If you come into this book, if anyone comes into this book with a leftist perspective already, you'll come out of it realizing just how much of society is fucking abuse for the sake of abuse. Like this is not raising it and saying society isn't abusive enough. Yeah, that's actually the only way to survive as a species is society to become more institutionally abusive. I do think, even though it's not the biggest idea, I do think I want to say again, a

noisette earlier, but I say again, we do need to be clear here. The hotline specifically is in favor of institutional state abuse. And I guess it would be abuse of parents to their children, which would be an issue. It would be a misuse of institutional, like within the patriarchal family. Like that's why I say he differs slightly from like our sort of modern, like, you know, sort of, fashy movements, which have like embraced the sort of stochastic terror of individual action. Well, yeah, all these problems, it's a very, um, internet age thing.

It's very internet age thing. High mind is still very much on. We need to do this through the mechanism of the state because the individual man on his own is not smart enough to take the correct action in any given situation. Just like the fact that in his setting, it's essentially like, I don't know, it's a very small group of people. Yeah, but like all of the only ones that are shown to be smart enough to make the right decision are the time or the people that have thrived in this abuse of atmosphere and risen to the top of it. Like the people that win, quote unquote win win in this world he constructed are people that

have mastered the abuse and the system of abuse that he inhabits. It's Zim, right? Who they do, he does a surprise twist. And you find out the end of the book that the guy who accomplishes the mission for them on planet P is Zim who's not doing drill instructing anymore You know what I mean like it's Wow

It's it's Dubois, you know what I mean? It's like it's His it's jelly, right? It's the other people the other officers are round Rico who jelly right? It's the other people the other officers around Rico who the ones who are powerful actors within this abusive system are the ones that have the competence to make decisions whereas anybody else who is not like fully indoctrinated into this is shown to be far too stupid or self-interested to make a proper decision. Because this is an argument is that the only way you can become respectful and loving of your fellow man essentially is to yeah it's like our system every voter and office holder is a man who is demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage and he thinks that military

Doing's is the only way to do military service is the only way to ever learn to put the good of society above your own personal good which Now no offense to any of our fans out there who may be veterans. But if you're a fan of ours and a veteran, then you won't disagree with them about to say, we've all met soldiers, we've all met veterans. The idea that being a veteran, like instills in you, the concept of selflessness for the bettering of society, knows that's a fucking lie. When you meet American veterans.

I can't speak for American veterans, obviously. I haven't met veterans from many other militaries, but I assume it can't be that different. I grew up around a number of Marines. You know how many of them are really good at putting society above themselves? Give you a clue, it's a number low enough that most Marines could probably count high enough to get to it.

Like, it's just a ludicrous concept on its face. And on the previous page from that comment about, oh, it's the only thing that teaches you, he asks the class, Mr. Solomon, can you give me a reason? Not historical, nor theoretical, but practical, why the franchise is today limited to discharge veteran's. And he goes on saying blah, blah, blah.

And then he says later, Mr. Solomon, Salomon? I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything. It works satisfactorily. So his argument here, it is the way it is because that's the way we've done it

and it seems to work. It seems to work. In this chapter, they also say that the only reason, the reason there hasn't been a revolt or revolution against their like real life fascist government, is because all the people who are because in order for a revolution to win it needs to be violent and needs to have violent people in it and all the violent people join the military and become citizens. Which is simple. There are go there has been no revolution because any revolutionary action is made. Well are immediately either are in the system because they have to be violent people because any any any revolution without them is full of non-violent people or people who are incapable of committing violence.

He also claims that the 1917 Russian revolution wasn't violent. Well, he claims that it wasn't a revolution. He claims that like the Bolsheviks just like stepped into a power vacuum now i want to be clear as anyone falls into a well no i am no huge fan of the bolsheviks personally however the claim

that they were not violent or revolutionary and simply stepped into a power vacuum that I guess just naturally developed all by itself. I think the thing that really ticks me on is a just absolutely mind blowingly stupid in a historical claim. The bulls don't do anything. They just showed up. But there are some of the plenty of people that would make that argument even in our position.

But he doesn't even specifically call out the Bolsheviks. He just talks about Russia in general in 1917. I'm saying Bolsheviks because that's 200 up in charge. But he doesn't even say that. He just said like Russia in 1917 Someone stepped into a vacuum that existed is he gonna claim so essentially he's trying to claim that there was no peasant and worker upheaval in Russia that forced the czar to step down

Created there was no there was no civil war that was raging for years and And that that when the provisional government was formed it wasn't due to pressure from revolutionary action which it totally was and that when the provisional government was dissolved by the Bolsheviks and when the Like when the people stormed the palace and killed bizarre that that wasn't violent Like correct What the fuck like like you I don't know you can read the actual phrase. I don't think we're misinterpreting him He says that it's like what happened in Russia. This is what happened They stepped into a vacuum

He's specifically which which I which again even though I'm not a fan of where Russia ended up is a stupid fucking claim. Oh my God. The like hundreds of thousands of I think probably millions of dead people in Russia would beg to at the time would beg to differ that there wasn't revolutionary violence going on. Jesus Christ it went on for the next like ten years. It's like the Russian Civil War is one of the most violent and bloody situations in human history. Yeah, speaking of which, do you think you could find the page where he tries to define communism for us? Oh, well, he doesn't think I can say that.

Well, he doesn't find communism. Sorry, the one where he talks about why communism is like Plato. Well, okay, well there's two, so there's two. There's one where he's talking about Plato, and that's hilarious. And there's one where he talks about the labor theory of value, which is also hilarious. Okay, so, all right, so I'll set the stage here for anyone. Again, I'm sorry, everyone, we're not going to talk about the plot. The plot's fucking stupid the plot is

the point is there's two things happening and the rest of it is all just being preached to the humans are fighting some bugs and that's just a backdrop There's some obviously Communist bugs. Yeah, they're they're described as a hive mind the only act on the orders of their hierarchy that have no Regarde for their own personal say whatever it's bullshit. I do want to twinge off of that just for a second because my fiance was reading this at the same time as me. And we get rid of this. We get reading the same pages at the same time. Oh no, she was definitely ahead of me.

Oh, that would have been way cuter. Yeah, yeah, how cute. But she Mr. I have a fiancee over here. Oh, but she like took different photos of different pages. But one of them that she found was when they were explaining that the bugs were like a hive mind and how, oh, because they're only taking orders

from their superiors, they're unthinking drones, oh, go ahead and kill them. But at the same time, at the beginning of the thing, at the beginning of a whole book, it's made clear and present that the purpose of a soldier is to just listen to the orders of their hierarchy and not question anything. So he's making the argument that they are the same thing. Also like the military high command is very similar to a hive mind. In a tense creating a hive mind. Again, both these converts together, we can talk about this fun little thing that was the Soviet military. You want to talk about not having any

flexibility or only taking orders from above. And then lead to like a shit ton of people dying. Because if you're like, Jane of command is broken, nobody can make a decision at all. But like, yeah, this idea, the wires get crossed when he's talking about all their drones, they just do whatever they overlord tells them to do. Well, in the same breath being like like the greatest glory you can achieve as a

citizen is like sacrificing your life for the greater good of your state and your race. So like the greatest glory you can do is essentially being like one of the bugs, whatever. That's hard. It's harder than he thought about it. It is harder than he thought about it. But what we want to talk about now is our dear friend, Robert A. Hyde line, attempts to debunk the Marxist version of the labor theory of value. Now, I know this is going to be this going to be a little on the nerdy side for our podcast, I think a little technical. Maybe this is more cathos area than mine because I didn't bother to actually like work both through this bullshit. I don't care. I mean, my economics professors never talked about it. Oh yeah yeah, they're never gonna touch you. Um, but

We all know that marks What is what of his big-guarch fusions? What's the labor theory of value or was it? Was it? Highline here spends a little bit of time via Dubois, I think or is it read? Dubois it's Dubois. It's Dubois. It's Dubois. It's Dubois. Through Dubois. It's Dubois, really. It's Dubois. It's Dubois. Dubois, telling us why Marx was wrong about labor theory of value. My favorite thing is if anyone has attempted to read Descapital, the labor theory of value does not take up a huge amount of time nor space compared to the massive, massive, freaking

three-tone thing that is does happen. Yeah, which again reminds me why you don't actually have to read it because the important bits are actually pretty short anyway. But at the end of the day, aside from blowing off the fact that the labor theory of value was like one of the more widely accepted economic theories of the 19th century before Marx because he didn't invent it. He simply like wrote it down and codified it in a certain way.

Yeah, so it's like it's like he wrote it down in Daskapital because it wasn't meant to be read by economists. It was meant to be read by normal people. So he had to include explanations of everything that he wrote. So it's like, but the one thing I do give Mark's credit for is the fact he was trying to write a thing that regular people could write. And it's like, it's still big and hard to read. But you know, actually, I've read harder, but that's

beside the point. The point is that in here, for anyone who's ever read it, I'm just going to read it to you because this is just funny. This is like the paperboy script. This is the script straight from the mouth of the US government propaganda machine that you've heard every single libertarian ever use as an explanation as to why Marx is wrong about everything. They debunk this tiny little thing,

and they don't even debunk it well, and then they think they've just crossed out, you know, 20 years worth of work. And then centuries worth work worth of revolutionary activity. He had been droning about value, comparing the Marxist theory with the Orthodox Euse theory. Mr. Dubois had said, of course, the Marxist theory with the Orthodox Eust theory. Mr. Dubois had said, of course, the Marxist definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart. It remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value, an untalented cook can turn wholesome

dough and fresh green apples, valuable already into an edible mess, value zero. These kitchen illustrations demolished the Marxian theory of value. The fallacy for which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives and illustrate the truth of the common sense definition that is measured in terms of use. Okay, aside from the fact that Marx again is not the one who came up with the labor theory of value and it was actually more than Adam Smith thing. So early capitalism, the issue here is pretty obvious. It's, he seems to think that the labor theory of value

says that labor inherently produces value doing anything. That if you took some mud and messed around in it for a while, it's with labor and love that it would create something of value, which is not the case. I mean, the problem at fault here is literally defining value because the high-mine value is literally essentially a sell price. Well, it's not even just that. It's...

No, but it is though because he's like, oh, you can't turn a bad chef will take good ingredients and make it a bad pie, which then therefore has no value, which first off is wrong because it's still edible and you still have, there's still intrinsic value in it. But his idea is that like if you make a bad pie out of it, you wouldn't be able to sell that to anyone. But it wouldn't be edible. So, Ergo, it's lost value in the process of being made by something that doesn't come. But the idea of the labor theory of value is that value comes from labor, not that labor

inherently creates value. Which is the problem here. It seems to think that the labor theory of value is like, oh, if I, again, if I sit around and smack some share around for a while, I'll just create and it'll be worth something, even if we're using his definition of words. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

His definition of, of, of, of, labor theory value, he thinks that Marx is arguing that if I sit here and like, I don't know, pick up my phone and put it down 11 times in a row. I have therefore created value by doing that labor And it's like no, it's just anything that society or people or places put value on Come and here's the thing. There's plenty of arguments against this concept There's plenty of decent arguments against the labor theory of value. It's a pretty old idea. We've got new things now, but this is a really, really shitty work.

I don't care how much a bolt of linen costs anymore. It's a sorry first chapter of capital. But like, you know, it's like someone could make the argument of, you know, land having inherent value without labor being applied. People could make the argument of other plenty of stuff. You could make the argument about it. But at the end of the day, he's just broadly

and generally misinterpreting all of it and then misinterpreting it to Marx and not people like Adam Smith. So, like Lincoln, Lincoln had talked about the labor theory of value before that's before marks wrote anything down and he was and linkin was not considered a rattle so it's like uh... linkin was pretty moderate for the american republican party did he did

exchange letters with marks yes but at the same time it's like guys like like the labor theory of value that was a big thing in the 1800s just in general we have we have debunked marks by pointing out that turning mud into a mud pie does not create value it's like guys right time guys there are like seven hundred bajillion other words in capital you could talk about. I don't know.

It's like you can't debunk the entire multi-hundred year application of not just Marxist theory, but of like just broad strokes, revolutionary socialist theory from even before Marx and write it off as it can't be true because mud pies. To be fair, this is the same type of argument he makes against the right to life, which is like if you're drowning, you have no right to life. Again, it's a ludicrous straw now. It is a Ben Shapiro Jordan Petersen Yeah, this is this is the argument you make when you're trying to own. This is own 18 year old college kids, which to be fair is what Dubois in the book is doing. That's what he's doing. He's doing. He's, he's owning high school kids

by not understanding his bullshit definition of value. And yeah, and they'll say something like, isn't it self-evidently this? And he's like, no, that's wrong because reasons. And also, I they'll say something like isn't it self-evidently this and he's like no, that's wrong because reasons and Also, I have to be honest. I know it's not his fault It means he did a good job, but listen to the audiobook the narrator does a good job of making these professors sound is condescending and pompous as they are a lot of people who do voice work aren't like if you're in that industry, there's a pretty significant number of center left people at the very least.

So it's like if someone is getting paid to read this, they have no need to be, they can be maliciously compliant. Yeah, like he just makes, like they sound incredibly pompous and like, you know, so far up their own ass that you can tell that they're like, which does bring me to something outside note, you want that you posted on Twitter, you're looking at reviews of this book. And one of the reviews of this book is that a high line isn't preachy. Oh yeah, I can read that right here. Which which which that this entire book is a speech is a preach it's a sermon this entire book is a sermon the whole thing. He's gonna die. So like all of the reviews on on this book because I feel like 99% of actual, like, actually established

named reviewers were probably like, as books fascist guys. So they took a bunch of stuff from SF reviews, SF site, science fiction site, like as though that's like. We went to a blog for them. Yeah. And this person person says highlands geniuses that it's height in this timeless classic that is as meaningful today as when it was written a fast-paced novel that never gets preachy this is a definite must have must read book number one not fast-paced he's in boot camp for two-thirds of this book and it's and it's boring as shit and not preachy the chapters in this book that

mean anything are professors preaching at students. That was the only chapters that matter. Because the entire book. If there were action stuff with these things like maybe snippeted once or twice, it would be more bearable. But the fact of the matter is, is it's preachy, because that's the whole point. Like the whole point.

There will be a little cute story. The point little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little be put in context by his betters who are high-line self-inserts. That is the construction of this novel. Is that Highman wanted to write about fascism, and so he invented a story which justifies him writing these screams down. Yes, it was. It's purely for him to saliliquize the audio. Saliliquize, to deliver saliliquize to the audience. I would there, there we go. Yeah, that's entirely what it's about. So before we, and it's move on to anything else, sorry, do you want to pick the book back up again?

Because I really want you to read the part about where he can paste communism to Plato's Republic. And now again, why I admitted to my own college failings is because I took a class in college that was called, it was like the history of like essentially history of political theory class, ancient. It's an early shift. Yeah, so it was ancient so I took a whole class that went that covered everything from like By everything. I mean western shit that went from like Plato through

Machiavelli, I think boy too great. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like well, I mean we're not gonna I've got opinions of a Machiavelli that I think are slightly Like would be slightly controversial. We're not going to get into those now But I mean, I'm better than Plato. I had to read Plato's Republic This is the worst take on Plato's Republic. I think I've ever heard and I fought and I look at tweets from people on statue Twitter And this is this is a worst take about Plato's Republic So they're trying to come up with... This is just following the political... The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing

anything it works satisfactorily. So then he goes on to try and explain how people have picked the way things go over in the past. He's like the Divine Right of Kings, select a wise monarch rather than leave a good God with the Swedes pick a Frenchman to rule them. The objective of this is that the supply of Bernadot's, Bernadotus, Bernadotus, Bernadotus. Fuck that guy, some French guys in charge of the Swedes. Yeah, he's a little fierce. Is limited. Historic examples range from absolute monarch to utter an

arc good mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed some weird in the extreme such as the ant-like communism urged by Plato under the misleading title of the republic but the intent is always been more realistic to provide stable and benevolent government. Is that really the intention? But play does a piece of shit. It's probably not his intention.

But regardless, I wanted to point out a beautiful, well, Darius here is about to, his head is about to pop off. I'm going to give a little bit of what I find to be deeply ironic about Heinlein's very lack of self, he's missing any self awareness here because a play does republic. Okay, we all know it's success, but primarily if you remember, if anybody is familiar with it, the conclusion is philosopher king essentially, you know, it's you know, the philosophers do great things and then they teach one great philosopher king who's to bleed everybody. The big argument against this is plainly and clearly, hey, that just means the king's not in charge, That means that the philosophers are in charge. So essentially, it's just Plato smacking himself

on the back saying, I would do a great job teaching the leader of leaders, and that's what my job should be. And that's how the world should be run. I should be able to decide how the world should be run. And people like me should be able to decide that. This book is set in a universe where only veterans can participate in government and Heinlein is a veteran. So the essentially this book is doing exactly what Plato's Republic does where Heinlein is just saying, I think that people like me should be in charge and anyone who is not like me should not be in charge

Because I know what is best. I will always know what is best and that's that's what this book is It's Heinle and jerking himself off which is incredibly funny since you never actually took part in any active duty roles Other than being on a boat and not actually shooting anything Yeah, no, he didn't actually do anything. He was an engineer in the Navy between World War I and World War II. He did nothing. He sat on a boat, sat at a gun, shot some targets, and then went home after like 10 years. He did none of the brotherly combat that binds you together that he just jerks off

about throughout this novel. He did none of it. He didn't know he didn't do any of it. His own admission by his own description in the same he would just be a fucking piece. He'll be with the shitty Navy guys in the book that sits on the ship. Yeah he makes fun of the Navy early on because the main character is like, oh, if I could just go on a ship so I can travel to be in the Navy. And then when he gets put on infantry,

it's like, oh, this is so good. This is a good thing. Despite the fact that Highland was in the Navy and did exactly that, he just went around on a boat, travel places did some stuff with engineering that he apparently didn't understand very well because he thinks radiation causes evolution. And then decided that he needs to test now because he's on a trip for 10 years. Somebody really needs to do some research into why so many engineers and not fascists. research into why so many engineers end up fascist. Like, somebody needs to learn that.

When every hammer, when everything, when all you've got is a hammer, everything is a nail. Yeah, like engineers consistently come up with a machine. He's like, I was buying a lot of mechanical, mechanistic way of doing everything because that must be the way all reality functions.

And then he acts like accent is not a robot. Let me jump back though and be nerd angry for a second about the at communism of Plato. I was looking, I, unfortunately, I guess, I couldn't find any of the, I still have Plato's Republic from when I had to buy it for my college course. I still haven't around here. I have some bosium around here. I've got it in here. I don't... it must be in the other room because you know it should be on the shelf next to Aristotle's politics, which also sucks. So for anyone who may hit not a Reddit for any reason like having self-respect or value for your time,

Plato's Republic, so as far as I remember, is the one that proposes society be organized by caste that he labels like medals, like bronze, silver, and gold. And that people should be sorted into casts that have strictly defined roles and privileges granted to them. Obviously, greater privileges and sites for the higher cast. You are in the greater responsibility you have. You know, labor slaves, laborers and artisans, soldiers, whatever. And the top you have the philosopher, King, who makes all decisions for society.

So describing Plato as an ant-like communism is so just insanely wrong about both Plato and communism. Plato is the op, Plato proposes this society that is entirely strictly hierarchical. One that is by definition set up in a caste system that must be obeyed. That is so far from the definition of a stateless, classless society, the communism is supposed to be. It is like, I can't, what city, like, should he show whatever it was from? It's like, wow. It was from the, it was from one of the fucking Star Wars

sequels where Luke goes amazing Everything you just said was wrong Like every every single part of that sentence was wrong in every way it could be wrong It's like Jesus fucking Christ I think we've even mentioned it. There are criticisms out there of all of these concepts That are decently well thought out or well argued. He doesn't have any of that He seems to go out of his way to find the bad ones. He goes out of his way to invent new Stupider ways to criticize all of his like reading the opinions of like of like a Fox news

pundit. That is just regurgitating on that. Yeah, that's not even honestly that I think I can joke like if he was a lot around today he would have been on Fox news at some point. He would be a staple on Fox news. This man would be a staple on Fox News for his opinions. Like, God, he would have fucking loved the Bush administration. Like, this man, this man would have loved him. Yeah, I mean, he's so obsessed with the clashes. I don't do this man would have loved dick-chaining. Ugh, God. So much.

He's like a modern hams. God, y'all got to fuck it. It's like, literally if you're down like a checklist of all the opinions you could have that are red flags, he hits them all. He hits them all. Clash the civilizations, like pro-abuse, pro-military, really weird opinions about women. Like everything you could think of that's only-

Here this, even though I'm not a big fan of Star Trek's utopia, compare the world building of this to that. This existed at the same time as Star Trek. This book was published in, what did you say? 59. 59? Just, oh Jesus fucking Christ. Look, like, this is, it's just embarrassing. This came out at the same time as a canoical for Lieberwitz. Yeah. Both written by conservatives, but one of them has a weirdly somewhat more positive view of humanity. I think, and the more positive view of humanity includes multiple nuclear holocausts.

I think what you would call it, Miller, Miller strikes me almost as like's a there's a decent number of like Catholic Democrats. Well especially back then there were. Yeah. So Miller strikes me as that kind of guy but here's the funny thing about Miller's view of humanity. He had despite how depressing his book was, a more positive view of humanity than Highland because Highland seems to think that humanity is like incapable of good unless you beat the good into them, but like the thing is is Miller was an actual combat veteran who actually fought in their war two and Some really really shitty battles, too think of compared this to 10 years later, Slotterhouse 5.

Compared this to if we're talking science fiction, that some people might see as preachy and uses world-building to create like a fake utopia, the dispossessed was in like 10 years, 11 years, but it's so funny to me that people look at this and are like this seems to be like, oh a classic, a great thing. When the amount of effort he put into the world building here is essentially just this idea works in my head. So therefore it would work in practice and I'm not going to explain how it works or why it works other than what I believe might kind of happen. With, while simultaneously talking about how scientific and mathematical it is,

so it's like you get a world where there's no explanation for why normal people aren't brutally oppressed like they absolutely would be. There's no explanation for why people of different ethnicities are totally okay living next to each other when in this society that would absolutely not be the case. There's no accounting for any of that. It's like the people just start it's just borderline you know it's just good. Everything's just good. Everything's just good Even even when someone like like when was going out and writing straight up utopian fiction She never went far enough to just be like everything is good

Yeah, even in her like utopian fiction. There's bad stuff like like the subtitle of the dispossessed is an un is an ambiguous utopia Because it's ambiguous. This is just like it would be better like this. Here's why it's better. Here's why it's better. It's good. Because I say it's good. We're going to talk about highlight himself for a little bit here. I'm perusing theipedia page about his politics his personal politics uh... said they shifted throughout his life obviously his early political meetings were liberal

in nineteen thirty four he worked actively on the democratic campaign of upton sin claire for governor of california after sin claire lost timeline became an anti-communist, democratic, Democrat activist. Unsecretful bit for California State Assembly. Oh my God. Some of his early works advocate for a social credit system. And an early story misfit deals with an organization called the Cosmic Construction Corps,

which is essentially FDR's civilian conservation corpsmen in space. He then later on in life said that he had these use because he was naive. He said he was naive to believe in the power of liberal politics. His fiction of the 40s and 50s began to espouse conservative views. After 1945, he came to believe that a strong world government was the only way to avoid nuclear annihilation. His 1949 novel space kid at describes a future scenario where military cancloed controlled

global government and forces world peace. He ceased concerning himself a Democrat in 1954. He worked on the gold water campaign in 65, from 64. He personally always considered himself a libertarian. That's so funny. I pointed it out. I said that these arguments are libertarian arguments against us. I also love the conjunction of considering himself a libertarian while arguing that a one-world military government is the only way for societies. If people ever needed more proof that so-called libertarians aren't actually anti-state in any way shaped or form. This is an actual quote in a letter to Judith Merrill, which I'll be admittedly was never

sent, but it was a letter that he wrote. As for Libertarian, I've been one all my life. A radical one. You might use the term philosophical anarchist or autarchist about me, but Libertarian is the easiest to define and fits well enough Sucked by deck high line philosophical anarchist. What the fuck are you talking about? One world government Where everyone If they don't listen the base definition of philosophical anarchism is a school thought which focuses on the intellectual criticism of authority and

legitimacy of governments The the term was coined by Benjamin Tucker. But in this book no one's allowed to criticize it. Oh no, he goes out of his way to say you can, but the people that do are stupid. But if you question a superior officer, you get your butt whipped. Yeah, but let's consider turn the military. That's different. Oh, but your tongue will take this in the military. Yes. So it's actually being trained to never question the people above. I have a libertarian who believes in a one-world fascist military government. Is that not the most libertarian?

Libertarian shit. We're not, let's not even get into how he feels about like women and underage girls and some of his other books. Oh, of course. Because he is a libertarian and surprised that issue, everyone's favorite libertarian issue does come up. I'm pretty sure that's Moon is a harsh mistress. This one world government will lower the age of consent to 14.

Yeah. Well, it's very important. Let's not set a hard lower limit. I mean, it could be lower. Yeah. It will cost you. We'll get rid of the age of consent tomorrow. All together. I'm pretty sure Voodoo's a harsh mistress is the one that like

explores like having like like polygamist marriages and a bunch other stuff. Yeah, a lot of like hippies. Now, if you need a reminder that being a hippie in the 60s it not necessarily mean your life. Yeah it was a lot of the 60s really really loved stranger in a strange land because of its really love stuff. Yeah the free love stuff which I'm pretty sure includes pedophilia. Anyway also some of of his other books definitely have some really problematic views of race and slow uses of slurs. He does try to avoid this I think almost intentionally

in Starship Troopers where the whole guy who's called Johnny Rico, the entire book, you find out like kind of near the end his name is actually Juan Rico who is Filipino and can speak Tagalog but you don't learn that until like literally the second to last page. They call him one once or twice I think in the book but like you don't know what that means until like literally the second to last page where he says something in tagalog and so like you don't get to pull the whole well actually he was a he was a POC the entire time actually because it's not explored at all until literally the last page that's that's the whole Dumbledore was gay the whole time this book. It's like the body of Utah sand.

Yeah, this is literally a fascist manifesto. The military is great. Authority is great. Beating people is great. Doing all these things is necessary for a society that functions. If you don't maintain violence, you will be replaced by people who are more violent than you. The only way to impose any order on society at all is through overwhelming structural violence. And don't worry the people doing violence to you, only do it because

they know that's what's best for you. I'm smiling. I think it's going to be hard for us to find another author who is so diametrically opposed to everything that I believe in. It will be hard to find an author I think who is so far opposed to like somebody. But like to be the turn of diaries. It's not fiction. I mean it technically fiction But it's not fantasy or sci-fi No, it's just set in the future there's not like fictional technique. It's not where I'm We're not gonna cover the turner diaries. You know where I am not lowering myself to read that I'm gonna fuck you. We're not gonna cover the Trotodias.

You're not worried. I'm not lowering myself to read that. Peace out. That's not funny. Um, but like just every issue you could bring up, Highland and I are like on exact opposite sides of literally every issue. Like every single thing, he's like, this is the way it is. Like actually it's not that way at all.

Actually, you're really not. That's smart, man. I think, I think it's pretty something that he's not smart because again, just a reminder in case people forgot he thinks that radiation is the sole cause of evolution. Your cells can't mutate because of copying errors. They can't do that. That's not how cancer usually happens. It's only radiation from the side.

It's only radiation, specifically gamma radiation. Oh, but we all ever do it. It'll make us strong. It'll make us expand. And in sanctuary, they're going to have to nuke the atmosphere sometimes. It's just he's just the nerd who thinks that everyone will become X-Men if we get irradiated enough. He's so painfully dumb. Holy shit. Like I should consider going back and being an engineer so I can get that mula because I know I'm smarter than this fuck. If he can make it through Calc 3 I can make it through Calc 3. I need to take Calc 1 twice. So I'm not going to make that. I dropped in the middle of Calc 2. I took Calculus because it was a prerequisite for my Econ minor.

And you had to get at least a C. The first time I took it, I got a D plus. And you had to take it again. I took it again. I got a C minus. And I was like, that's right. Baby, the minimum, the minimum improvement possible. That's a man got to do to get a C round here. Hey, the C minus, C minus count it though. I got to go through it. I got to go through and take micro intermediate micro econ. Yeah, they just see what we do. We do regressions about how you can decide whether people will pick mustard over ketchup or whatever other bullshit So so we didn't use pluses or minuses at the college I went to thank God and every time anyone mentions it

I just think of the community episode where he just runs out of the middle pluses it minuses our fake and then he goes riot and he just slapsaps the trash can over and is like, Ryan. I mean, I don't remember clearly if my university used that or not, but I know I'm pretty sure they did. So I remember being a C-Mitus because I got like a 71%. Yeah, I won't be blunt with you. Minuses are for fucking evil monsters that are just awful. You got to be my nips. It's like my GPA objectively looks better now than some other peoples because they got minuses or pluses when I didn't have to deal with that.

So if I got an A, I got an A, I got an A, I get an A minus. Weirdly like this, referencing this, in this book, Starship Troopers. He reminds you that of all the classes you take in high school, history and moral philosophy is the only one that is impossible to fail. You're not even graded on it. Yeah, you've said to be there to be indoctrinated by some old medley. You just have to be there and you can be wrong. It's this weird, I think that might be the one little hint of his libertarianness coming out where he's like, you can take this philosophy class, you can be wrong about it.

You're not going to be punished for being wrong. You're still wrong, but also everyone that's wrong is stupid and it doesn't deserve the right to vote. And the only people that will inevitably be allowed to vote are people who think like the professor. Which is High Line. Which is High Line. Which is High Line.

Either way, it's actually better while, I don't know if we've read a book for this pod yet, that had such a blatant self-insert character. I don't think so. I don't think we've had such a blatant self-insert character. I don't think so. I don't think we've had such a blatant self-insert as Highline does here with Duan Reed. Like. No, no, I mean, no.

No, no. And it had to be this piece of shit. Any final thoughts about this piece of shit? The book is more shit. Please don't read it. Don't wait for it. Don't read it. And let's see.

Like I said, what I was going to say is if you really do want to like... If you want a story about Johnny Rico shooting aliens with a gun, watch the movie. Yeah, don't read it. Number two, if you do want to like get a better feel for what we're talking about, literally all you have to do is reach chapter 8 and chapter 12. And chapter 12. Read those two chapters. Those are the chapters that are entirely basically soliloquies by DuBois and Reed.

So you can simply read those two chapters and learn everything you need to know about Highline's politics. That's it. Just read those. Get a PDF. Do not pay for this book. Yeah, if you do pay for it, I bought it for $1 from my local library. They were having a extra book's sale. And that money goes to my public library. Well, it's actually it was cheaper for them to sell it to you for $1 than it was for them to throw a little trash. We're going to wear it up a lot. So I thought it was like, that's funny it was for them to throw a trash where it will wear up a lot.

So I was like, that's funny, I'm gonna buy that. And I bought it for a dollar, but that money is not gonna go to anyone who is attached to Heinlein or even the publisher. You know, using his own argument, I would argue that that is a somewhat fair representation of the value his labor added to that. Oh, that's worth a dollar. I'd say a dollar might be worth the effort. You would have the same value as like a, you know,

a bird tie or a mud pie. Yeah. An apple tart that was objectively destroyed in the oven. It's probably worth about a buck. This is an apple tart that you can't actually eat. Yeah, like it's about the same. Modified. This is one of the

situations where it's like, man, I wish the dude was like still alive so I could send him some skating hate mail. I wish he was alive and on Twitter so I can harass him. He would also be insufferable on Twitter. Yeah, he was alive right now. He would just make everything worse. So again, he'd be on Fox News constantly. Yeah. So my conclusions don't read this book unless you just unless again, you want like a condensed version of what he believes just for your knowledge read those two chapters. If you want to read a book that's fun, read Better Sci-Fi. There's a lot better Sci-Fi out there. Just go fucking read the expanse, okay? It's better. Like just do that.

I've been told by our previous guest from last episode from Alas that let me see what he said to say. Well, he didn't tell me to say this, but I'm gonna say the phrase used in forever war by actual combat veteran Joe Halderon is a pretty explicit takedown of Heinlein's concept of war and being a soldier. So read that. Read the forever war. The forever war I trust Eliza's recommendation or there's better sci-fi out there. Don't read hide mine. However, you can't watch the movie because as as Kethel here is going to learn soon, I don't know what day you're watching.

Maybe even tonight, you know. The movie is great because Paul Verhoeven was like, this sucks. I'm going to make fun of it. And if you don't understand that the movie is a satire of the entire like premise of the book, then I'm sorry I can't help you. That's what it is. He's literally saying look how stupid this is, the entire time. But as we know, as we will talk about in the bonus episode on Patreon about it fascists are often either incapable or unwilling to understand parody so

You know there's a whole argument to be had about whether parading them is actually useful or not because they often Will use it anyway regardless of the intent of the author. That's going to be it for us for reading The Moon, not The Moon as a harsh mistress, Starship Troopers. Let's give this for Starship Troopers. Women are enchanting creatures that are beyond comprehension that exist largely to make you feel like you're fighting for something important Fascist of him that's literally like fascist propaganda poster style nonsense Yeah, that you need to know who you're fighting right for the

Future ones that white women and then ever every every woman that Johnny Rico runs into is like a is like a small petite beautiful little thing I think I know like a, is like a small, petite, beautiful little thing. I think I know what I'm going to say. Yeah, I think I do. Yeah, and it looks like a trial. Also fun fact for people who have seen the movie, Dizzy, as a character in the book, dies in like the first four pages.

And is a man. You're going to learn that is not not who dizzy is in the film. So thank you everyone for listening. Appreciate being here. Thanks for sticking with us. We're a little hiatus. We should be back again in a couple weeks. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know with, I don't know with way. Hopefully something I like. Yeah, I was thinking, I was thinking, I honestly, I didn't like this at all.

I don't know if this will be the case, but I was thinking just to jump straight to like, I don't know, like the well at the end of the, what, like, or something. I'm gonna talk about the habit. Fuck this, we're gonna be a hot. I was gonna be like, we could do an anarchist utopia. We could go back to the news from nowhere or something.

Yeah, let's do something, let's do something good. Thank you everyone for listening. As I mentioned, if you're interested in bonus episodes, we do have a Patreon, the links in the description. We will have again, our review of the movie, Starship Troopers coming up out there. Yeah, you're gonna get my raw, unedited takes on. And my stale old takes. But yeah, thank you so much.

You all are wonderful. Thanks for listening and see you next time bye What the fuck in real man?