The Daily Stoic - Stop Judging People. Go Meet Them. | Peter Santenello

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

It is easy to judge people from a distance. It is much harder to reduce them to a stereotype once you have sat with them, listened to their story, and tried to understand how they see the world. In this episode, Ryan talks with filmmaker, traveler, and author Peter Santenello about what he has learned from meeting people across America. They discuss how our bubbles distort the way we see others and why curiosity is more useful than judgment. Peter also explains how traveling to 85 countries changed the way he sees the United States, why America is more hopeful than the headlines suggest, and what happens when we stop talking about people and start talking to them.Peter Santenello is an independent journalist and filmmaker with over four million subscribers on YouTube. He’s traveled to eighty-five countries and lived in five, building a global audience by letting people tell their stories in their own words. These days, Peter’s lens is focused squarely on the United States, where he explores the diverse, complex, and often misrepresented communities that make up the fabric of America.📕 Pick up a signed copy of Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home by Peter Santenello at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/Check out Peter’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenelloFollow Peter on Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/petersantenello/?hl=enPeter’s Website | https://petersantenello.com/📚 Pick up a copy of the books Ryan recommended to Peter at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE | Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here |  https://www.dailystoiclive.com/🎙️ AD-FREE | Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 VIDEO EPISODES| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail--Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/DAILYSTOIC and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's dell.com slash deals. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoic. to a podcast. I told you a couple days ago about our crazy road trip down the Washington, Oregon and California coast. I've driven across good swaths of this country. I've seen quite a bit of it. There's some parts I haven't been to, but I've seen my share. And I think that's important,

right? I talked in Wisdom Takes Work about travel. And it is important to travel all over the world and see all these distant lands, but it's also important to travel through your own country as a tourist. travel through your hometown as a tourist, right? It's one of the things we've tried to instill in our kids, like they're always wanting to watch screens in YouTube or whatever. One of the things we do allow them to watch a lot of is like travel videos on YouTube, where people are traveling to new places, exploring things. I love that because then we can go to those places, right?

I want to encourage them to hear about something, be interested about something, and then go see it in real life. We're about to embark on a road trip in a couple days. We're driving across a good chunk of the south. We've done it many times, but every time we do it, we discover new things, do people, we have friends we stop and see along the ways. And one of the YouTube channels we've been watching

is Peter Santonello's channel. He's traveled all over the world, but all over America. He has this really great new book called Your Fellow Americans. where he's trying to introduce people to this country and all the different parts of it. That was so amazing on our trip to Washington, just like the sheer difference in climate from where we'd taken off and where we landed and then even from where we started driving to where we ended. That's just like how big America is, although I was talking to someone in Australia a couple

days ago, and we were talking about just how big Australia is and how how few people in Australia know all the different parts of Australia. Anyways, I want to get you to today's episode because it's a really awesome conversation. Peter was fascinating. Also, he sent me a text afterwards. He went home and saw Rush. I went home, saw ACDC. We had this marvelous connection. We both kind of spent a chunk of our late teens in the same small town near Lake Tahoe, which was pretty cool. Anyways, I'll just get into it. And do check out this new book. I love books about America.

I love books about traveling across America. And this is a new one that is going straight in our collection. We're going to carry it in the bookstore. He signed a bunch of them. You can pick them up. And if you want a great YouTube channel to start following, check out his channel at YouTube.com slash Peter Santonello. He's got 4.27 million YouTube subscribers.

subscribers for good reasons. Let me pull this up. Oh, he's done 850 million views. It's a huge channel. I'm just looking here at his most recent ones. It's traveling across Maine, across Philadelphia, Memphis, the deep south, the Ozarks, one of America's fastest shrinking cities, Arkansas, Colorado, some guy living in the Everglades in Old Florida, a modern company town. All this stuff is awesome. You will love his stuff and you will love this conversation. Thanks to Peter for coming out. And then hopefully he and I are going to get together when he comes back to Texas and do some co-labs together as well.

Do check out your fellow Americans. By that, I mean, his great book. And if you live in America, your fellow Americans or your fellow citizens, wherever you happen to live. I felt good reading your book. I've lived in two of the places and then I just did a road trip down through the Redwood. So I felt like I was reasonably familiar with it. All right. All right. What places? So in the Redwoods?

We started in Seattle and we drove down through Sacramento. So we did all of Oregon, basically all of Washington, all of Oregon. And then a little bit of California at the top and then down through. I had a talk in Portland in San Francisco. So we started in Seattle and did a road trip with the kids. So that was the most recent one. But then I've lived in East L.A. and I have lived in Louisiana. So I've done all of it. Oh, cool. You have stories. Yeah, I do. I'm a big road trip guy. I think it's like the best way to see a place. 100%. And we're in the country for it. Yes. You said America's kind of like a choose-your-own adventure country or like a make-your-old.

Like, it's a country I think you have to see by car. I mean, we did invent the car. So it makes sense that you have to see it by car. My wife who's from Ukraine says it's a build-your-own-bould country. That's what you said. Pick your protein. Yeah. Pick your toppings, your dressing. Yeah. And that's geography.

That's climate, that's even politics, who you want to be around. Yeah. Million choices. Driving from Washington and Sacramento, it was weird going like, it's June and it's cold in America. I was like, what? And like not being in Alaska or something. Sure. I'm just like, wait, it's cold.

Like, San Francisco was the warm place on the drive. And I was just like, what is happening right now? Because I left Texas. It was like 100 degrees. Yeah. And I basically didn't see the sun. for like five or six days. And then, you know, like the ocean in Seattle is so radically different than the ocean

even in San Francisco. Yes. And then I've lived in L.A. And then that's, you're like, how is this all the same? Then we've been in Hawaii a couple months earlier. It's like so many cuts on the same thing. Uh-huh. But the United States is so big that it totally changes what you're experiencing.

Yeah. And you can fly around, obviously. Sure. We've been to Las Vegas or New York or Miami. But when you connect it through that road trip, and then when you get off the highways. Yes. And then you really start connecting the dots. It's endless.

Yes. It's a lifetime. I think the one thing that you find, and to me, this is what I sort of took from the book, it's like people are people. Yeah. Like, even though they might speak with radically different accents, they might have different political views, they might have very different lifestyles. But like, it's all basically people.

I mean, you get that, travel all over the world, but it's, you know, you get that. travel all over the world, but it's, you also get that at home. There are very few, I don't swear on my channel because I got a bunch of kids watching. So I'm going to try to continue that. Okay, Jackalves, let's call them that. There are very few, right? If you go in with an open mind and you're cool to people, you get that back. Yes.

I run into very few problems. Like, I can't even think of any. Yeah, it is weird. People are like intimidated by travel. And I don't know if I've ever experienced anything that would confirm. that intimidation anywhere I've been in the world. So you've been to a lot of these places in the book? Yeah.

Any new places you didn't know of? Well, I've never been to Alaska. Okay. So I thought that was fascinating. And then even that is another thing you find when you travel is like you think a place is one place and then you realize like it's a place plus a bunch of islands. Or do you know what I'm saying? Like you're like Alaska is Alaska and then it's also a bunch of islands.

Like you think Taiwan is an island. But Taiwan is an island and other islands. Like the Philippines is like a bazillion islands. Like it's, it's too much for one mind to comprehend. Yeah. So we use easy labels. Like the U.S. is this. Italy is that, right?

Yeah. And then you can break it down to like Texas is this, California is that, right? And then you can break it down to counties. And then you can go granular on the town. Yes. And every town's in its cycle right now in America. It's either coming down at the bottom or going up and peaking. And so I was just in Austin, haven't been in Austin for a little bit.

Yeah. A lot of energy there, a lot of excitement. You can feel that's on the up. Or I don't know if it's at the top, but it's on the up. It's rising. Sure. I was just in Maine, did a series there, was in a town where it's on its floor. Right.

Right. So even when you talk about a state or even a county, it depends where you are in that place. Sure. But it's too hard to explain all that. Yes. I try to get into that in my content. Don't label easily because Sacramento is different in Tahoe. Yeah.

Roseville is even different. Yes. I love the Sierra Foot Hills, Nevada City, Grass Valley. Mm-hmm. You can live a different life out there. Totally. So we're in a tense time. I think we can all admit.

And most of our dialogue is political. Yeah. Which a lot of it's needed, and we should have that conversation. But politics isn't everything. And we need to not forget a lot of what's so cool about this country. And my perspective comes from living in four other countries. traveling to 85 and then in 2020 coming back from Ukraine, lived in Ukraine for four years in seeing an American a whole different light.

Yeah. More pumped on the country than ever before, which sounds odd to most people. Yeah. But that's what the videos capture and that's what the book captured. Well, the politics thing is interesting because people will go like Texas is red, California is blue. Right. Right.

And it's like, well, I live in Austin, which is blue in Texas. Yep. And then I grew up in Sacramento in a county that was incredibly red, like one of the most red counties in California at that time. Yeah. And so it's like my experience was conservative upbringing living in a liberal place now. But on a zoomed out enough map, that doesn't, that doesn't seem like it would be true. 100%. And then, of course, it's like, what's your, for the people that live there, it's like, what is their friend group like?

What are their neighbors like? If you're talking to a theater kid in South Dakota, they might have one experience. Yes. And you're talking to, you know, a son or a daughter of parents with a very different occupation. They could, you know, it doesn't match the labels, I guess, is what you find. It doesn't at all. Yeah. In California.

Okay, I live in Florida now. We're in Florida. I live in Palm Beach Gardens north of West Palm about 20 minutes. So hour and 20 north of Miami. Yeah. Okay. Florida has its labels. California has its lay. I lived in California the majority of my adult life. Yeah. Right. And both labels are true to some degree, but then once again, once you go granular, you can break them up in two seconds. Like with what you just said, you can choose in either one of those big states like Texas, Florida, California, they're their own countries. Yes. There's everything there. Every type of person there. Yeah. What's the line about Florida? Like the further north you go, the deeper south you get.

The further south you go, the more north you get. Yes. You go down far enough. It's all my neighbors are New Yorkers or from Jersey, right? Yeah. And then when you get down south enough to Miami, it's the capital of Latin America. Right. That's what they say.

Yeah. It's all mixed up. Yes. So Florida's is it's as redneck as you want. It's as gay as you want. You have Key West. Sure. You have Miami Beach.

It's as Latino as you want. it's as retiree as you want. It's as business. Disney as you want. Disney, it's business-centric, a lot of entrepreneurs. It's like Texas. It's attracting creators. So it's many things.

Yeah. We often go off the last bit of information we have. Yes. For example, my mom, when I said, I'm moving to Florida, she said, what are you retiring? Like, she's going to be around old people. Right. It's also whatever your sense of that place, different places mean different things to people, based on the era that was most formative to them.

Yes. And or let's take Mexico City, for example. When I first went there in 2008, so many people said, don't go there. It's dangerous. Yeah. And they're going off information. Yeah, there's danger there, sure.

But they're going off information when it was way more dangerous. Yes. Or you could even say that with the Balkans and Sarajevo. For example, go to, Sarajevo is fine to travel to now. Yeah. The last bit of information people have the war in their head.

Yeah. Quite often. Mm-hmm. It's very hard to correct impressions. You have to update constantly. All these places are always changing. San Francisco where I left, when I left in 21, it was at its low point. Yeah.

Right now it's much better than what it was. Not totally different, but a lot better. And so people will go, oh, it's so terrible there, but have you returned lately? Have you checked it out lately? Yes. So to go with everything, I mean, it's the same story with everything. It's just the book tries to go into these stories through individuals in this country that most people probably have never met these types of people

because we're all in our bubbles. Doesn't matter where you live. You can be in the richest neighborhood. You can be in the poorest neighborhood. Everyone's in a bubble. And this gets you out of your bubble into a different bubble. Yeah. Smith Island, Elizabethan English still being spoken there.

I met this guy's family's been there 370 years because it was so removed for so long. The old timers still have some of that accent. Yeah, like there's a four. of Texas German, then there's like Louisiana French, you know? Yeah, yeah. And like that feels like it would have been a long time ago, and then it's not. The tradition is still there. I don't know Texas too. Well, does Texas, when you get close to Louisiana, yeah, is there any of that Cajun culture coming over? A little bit. I mean, Houston and Beaumont, like there is, you're just so far north in Louisiana. You're out of a bit, but, I mean, there were towns, like, there's this story that Robert Caro tells in

in his book on Lyndon Johnson, where one of the first sort of foreign leaders that Johnson entertains when he becomes president is the chancellor of Germany. Right. And he brings them to some town in central Texas, or right around here in the hill country, one of those Texas German towns. And the guy's just like, what is? He's like, I'm back home. Yeah.

You know, because like the Germans had come there, you know, a hundred plus years earlier. And the community they had created was so insular. They were so isolated that it was basically German. You know, and like the idea of the six flags, right? Like how many different flags have flown over Texas or these different parts of the country that feels like distant history? It's not that long.

And it's not. It's one or two generations in some cases. Right, right. The thing is we adjust and change quickly. Yeah. Which makes it exciting. Seeing all the cranes in Austin right now. My hotel, I'm looking down on a massive construction site.

Coming out here, you can see the sprawl coming out. It probably doesn't make you too excited, I can imagine. Yeah, you move to a small town and then it doesn't stay small. Right, but this is happening all over the country. It's like places are attracting or detracting. And it's easier for people like you and me. Well, you're pretty tied in with your bookstore,

so it's not easy and you've got kids here. But if you're working online, it's a new phenomenon. I want to go where it's going to work better for me and you pack up and move and it's happening all over the country. I think it's fascinating. Yes. I mean, we've always been a country of migrants from abroad and internally.

People always moving around for the opportunity. It's weird because there's kind of a divergence there, right? It's like some people are incredibly mobile and some people are not mobile at all. And so much of the driver of American prosperity was like if New York was on fire, if L.A. was hot. People could go there and live and work. And part of the problem of the housing crisis is that it's just, it's hard to move, right? If you have money, it's not hard. If you don't have money, it's very hard.

If you have money, you're not tied in super deep to your community. many generations, and I'm sure out here there's a lot of that, which I admire very much. I think it's very cool. The more I travel the country, I really admire these places where the family's like six, seven, eight generations is cool. I think it's an awesome thing. You either have they or you don't, but so fresh in the American story, all our ancestry, how insane were they? They're just like, I'm going to leave my language, my work, my family, I'm going for this new thing, no guarantees, we'll see what happens. seen the new Little House on the Prairie?

Haven't. It's kind of an interesting take on it because, like, we've often celebrated the pioneers as being, like, courageous and whatever. And obviously there's the whole, you know, taking other people's land part of it that we didn't do a good job talking about. Sure. But the other thing we've missed is that, like, to borrow a very offensive reason, we weren't always sending our best.

Like, it wasn't people with options that were choosing to cross the planes by wagon, okay? Like, these were somewhat impulsive people. These were people that had blown up their lives. These were people that were fleeing from something. And so one of the things they do a better job of in the show is like, why are they moving so much? It's like, because the dad's kind of, not a deadbeat, but like not like the reason Lincoln moves around a lot as a kid is his dad was just kind of a near do well, right? Like if it's working, you stay where you are. That's true.

You know? Yeah. And so part of that American spirit is like, Like, it's not working here. I'm going to walk a thousand miles and start fresh in Oregon. There's some gold over there. Yes. And there is a little bit of, I mean, it's fundamentally irresponsible to take your family by a covered wagon through unsettled lands.

And, you know. To be in the Donner Party? Yeah, because you read a newspaper article that said there's stuff over here. And then this guy sold you a map, you know. Who'd be the modern day version of that? Well, the Donner Party guy was. a charlatan like the guy that sold them the secret path or whatever like he was like an internet marketer basically right he was like this is how you you know and so um but just to follow that

is also crazy you know it is crazy but there's that adventure in all of us right to some degree some have more of it than others yes and i could imagine in those times you're just getting by and then it just sounds so good sort of like the internet today right some people can make some things sound so great. Yeah. And people follow it. Totally. Right.

And so you're like, oh, man, my life sucks, but I'm going to get some land over there, homestead act, 160 acres. Sure. I can farm it. I can live my train. Yeah. And now it's like, oh, you're watching a trad wife or you're watching this person or this person and you're like, that's what I want my life to be.

Just a different medium, huh? Yes. Totally. Similar impulse. Mm-hmm. Different medium. And the same people willing to tell you what you want to hear and sell you what you want to hear.

The wishful thinking of a few. hearing it and not checking it too closely. Right. You know? Yeah. It's all there. There's a ton of information out there about what you should do to be healthier. People trying to sell you this, people trying to sell you that, people trying to tell you to do this, people trying to tell you to do that.

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One of the things I think the internet has shown us is that you've got to directly connect with the people that you're trying to reach. You want as few intermediaries and as few sort of artificial blocks between you and what you're trying to do or what you're trying to say or who you're trying to reach as possible. Right? You want those one-on-one interactions. And I don't know if you've seen this app What Not, but it's live shopping. So sellers have direct access to their customers in real time where people are seeing your face and not a website, not a logo.

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Just search What Not, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the app store, download it, and you. you can start selling and buying right away. One of the things I was thinking about as I was reading your book is, like, travel is a little bit like reading in that there's all the places you want to go, just like there's all the books you want to read. And the problem is some places traveling to once or reading once is not enough. Right. Like it's hard to justify rereading when there's all these books that you haven't read. Right. But there's something about traveling to the same plate.

Like we were just in Rome, and it was maybe my. fourth time and it was crazy to think I'm walking around on the forum. I could afford this time to hire this really good guy and she's showing this stuff and I'm like, I don't remember seeing this. And she's like, oh, this just opened. And I'm like, it's been here for 2,000 years and I was here 10 years ago and I couldn't see this. Yeah. Like they just excavated it. So like 10 years is that in Roman history. But it fundamentally changed the experience that I was able. So it's hard for someone to afford to go. to Europe once. It's hard to do a family road trip across the United States once, but actually you have to do it like three or four, five, or ten times to actually get it, you know? And so this,

this tension between reading and rereading, traveling, and coming back is like, that's the tricky part. That's a great comparison. Yeah, that one, I mean, it's a good problem to have, firstly. But I understand what you're saying. Like, I'm not trying to chew my horn. I've been 85 countries. I could have been all of them. Yeah. But I went back to Istanbul 20 times. Yeah. lived in Ukraine, wanted to go to somewhere warm in the winter. Two hours. Okay, cool. And I love that city.

It's fantastic. In Italy, how is it? It's really hard not to go back to Italy. Sure. So I get you. The older I get now, it's, I don't need as much adventurous stuff. Don't need to go to Pakistan again. Iran, I don't really think that would go so well these days.

Right. But going back to some more stable and I'd say easier travel places as you get older, makes sense. It's like, are you going to understand a handful of places really, really deeply? Yeah. Or are you going to have been, like, you know, you hear, they're like, we're going on this cruise and we're going to stop in 16 cities. Yeah. And you're like, okay, you got two hours here, one hour.

I mean, it's better than nothing. But like, you skim to the surface. It's go everywhere, see nothing. Yeah. And so that's a tough balance. And that's tough to sell to someone who gets two weeks. Mm-hmm. Like, if you're working the average job in the United States, what are you getting two weeks?

Maybe. Right. And so Christmas, family, Thanksgiving family, you're lucky if you're going overseas. And so you got six days in Italy. Yeah. Do you just want to stay in Rome and just see Rome where you're like, I got to see all these things that we've dreamed of going to? Everything's a choice. You know, I saw with my father when I was growing up, we never traveled growing up. And he never got vacation time. His industry didn't allow for it. And so I'm like, okay, if I want to see the world, don't do that. Yeah. And you can sort of line it up at a younger age and be like, okay, these are my priorities. And maybe you don't know your priorities at 18. But if you're like, I really want world travel, well, you can X a lot of things off your list. Sure. And you might be broker than your buddies who got that corporate job. Yes. And ascended the latter. That's all a personal choice. Or there's some of this attitude like you got as, you know, the more well-traveled someone is that, you know, the higher they are in the hierarchy or something. Yeah. Which I think is total BS. Because. You know, I've, I've sacrificed not having a family. I'm married. We don't have kids. And so to do my work, the sacrifice in that is, well, if I want to be a great parent, I'd have to cut back on that. You have the fantasy of traveling with your kids and then you realize, like, it's actually not really fair to them.

You know what I mean? Every time I hear someone, they're like, we're selling everything and we're going to travel for a year on a sailboat. I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm sure that's actually great for your kids, not a nightmare. Right. No judging. But you get what I'm saying. It's like kids need routine and structure and obviously also novelty and adventure, but like they want to go to their friend's house. They don't want to go to France. And when you become a parent, that's your number one priority, right? Yeah. Yeah. It should be, right? I would think. And so greater point is everything has a sacrifice. And just seeing as many

countries as possible doesn't win you any award in my opinion. Yeah, they don't get a prize. And you're probably not on your deathbed being like, I'm so glad I went to. So I saw all the countries done, you know? Right, right. You're going to be thinking of a handful of experiences, not the long list. The beauty, and you're going to get a very pro-American talk with me because that's the premise of the book in my videos. And the beauty of this country is a lot of people have that option. I get it.

If you have health issues, if you're taking care of your parents, you're not going anywhere. But more than anywhere I've seen, and I've been very open-minded with it, you can cut your own. own life here. Yeah. You want to open up a bookstore, have a cool pod, do what you've done, live in a small town, in Texas, go for it. You can do it. And many places in the world, let's take Ukraine, for example, you know, it's war now. It's a bit different. But if you want to do take your career to the top, it's pretty much one or two places to go. Yeah. You also see this in foreign countries, particularly Europe, you're like, oh, like, the social safety net makes it creates a floor. Yep.

But there's also kind of a ceiling. 100% of that. Oh, like, waiter is good job. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so there is, especially like for young people, you know, there's there's either like, if I stay here, there's limited opportunities or I have to leave. Yeah.

And you can kind of feel that. And in America, you can leave and just go to another part of America because it's so big. Without having to do anything with the government. Okay, you get a new driver's license. Sure. There are other countries. You have to like, you have to get approved it to live in different regions of the country. Yeah.

You can't just get up and go. Yeah. And so it's interesting. My wife being Ukrainian, I lived there for four years. We were married a couple years before we came back to the U.S., seeing it all through her eyes. And she edits all of our content. So that's a full-on crash course on America, seeing different regions. just how insanely big it is.

Insanely big and how different the people are. Yeah. And like the most pro-American person I know. That's funny. Because she loves it. She's totally embraces. She speaks English perfectly. You're seeing things through someone else's eyes for the first time.

You're like, oh, I didn't think of that or I didn't see it that way. And she was a big help in this project, too. That's why it's important than Americans travel. So you can see how other countries see the world and then how other countries see you. Like one of my favorite passages in from Bill Bryson is like one of the greatest travel writers ever. He's talking about being in Australia and picking up a newspaper. Yeah. And just how absurd the news fell to him.

He's like he's reading about some murder and it's not scary because the names are ridiculous and the circumstances, you know, don't seem real. He's reading about their politicians. But he doesn't care. He has no stakes, right? It's just he's just able to see it as this. And then, like, we were in Australia two years ago, like, during the 2024 election. And on the one hand, it's weird how much American politics are on the front page of, you know, other countries, newspapers and then also their news broadcasts. At the same time, like, we're watching Olympic coverage from another country.

Yeah. And you're just like, oh, yeah, they're rooting for different people. Like, it's just totally, like, it's just this, you're watching the same thing, but the lens is different. Yeah. And it forces you to realize, oh, like my perspective is not the only perspective. 100%. And that everyone is going around. It's like everyone's the main character in their own movie.

Yeah. And every country is the main character in their own movie, even if America looms so large, literally and figuratively, in other people's stories. Yeah. And international travel, it allows, because we're in the game. I like to say we're in the game right now. Yeah. We're on. It's World Cup.

time or just finish. We're on the football field. Yeah. When you're in it, you only see what's in front of you in that perspective. And then when you're in the stands, you're looking down at the game from a different perspective. And that's international travel. I've learned more about the U.S. in many ways from being outside of it and viewing it as a spectator than sometimes when you're in the thing. And that probably is, I mean, in your videos, like, there's usually like some person from there showing you around, right? you have that person's perspective on that place. I have two styles. So one is I meet up with someone that, let's say, is an expert.

Like this next video we're doing is about a lobster man in Maine. And so I want to get into that world and show that perspective. Other videos, about half of them I call it wing it videos, where I have a plan, what I'm going to do, where I'm going. But it's really who I run into along the way. And the goal is to show the audience, like, things are way more mixed up than we ever think they are. I never know what anyone's going to say. And it's my responsibility to be the conduit to bring that message out,

whether I agree with it or not, and let the audience see it. Sometimes someone will say something, you know, that's over here and then the next second they're saying, you know, someone else is saying something that's totally different and that all exists.

The only way to truly get a story. How many people live in this town? Eight to ten in the town and then it's like 80,000. in the county. Okay. So let's say, say there's 10,000 here would be to do 10,000 stories. Sure.

Because everyone's experience is different. It's the only way to really get it in an accurate way. But usually there's some consensus. Like, for example, if there are, you know, people on the streets, you know, every other step, someone's passed out, you know, on fentanyl or something. Pretty much everyone say, hey, we have a fentanyl problem. Yeah. Right. So there's some consensus with most stuff.

Sure. But then you realize how wildly different people are with what they think. And that comes from their experience. And it's not for me to tell them they're right or wrong. It's to tap into that because I didn't live the life they lived. Yeah, it's like, I mean, I feel like life is about figuring out how the other half lifts, you know? Like, oh, this is what it's like for you, you know? Yes.

And then what do you do with that information, I guess is the question. When you can understand where someone's coming from it definitely develops empathy. Yeah. I want everyone to be able to watch or read this and not feel all triggered. And here's where I'm at. Yeah. The number one comment goes something like this. My family and I can't get together for Thanksgiving without arguing about politics. We can't watch anything on TV that has anything to do with culture because Uncle Larry starts arguing at Angie and blah, blah, blah.

Your content is something we can all sit around and watch and enjoy together. Yeah. And so that's that's my lane. Yeah. Now, does politics get into things? Because politics gets into life. There's no way around it sometimes. And things are going to go into that. They're going to flirt along that. Everything is the way that it is because of politics. It's all policy, right? Sure. Pretty much everything and results are because of policy. Yeah. And economics, which is from policy. Why one county is doing well and the other isn't. Why the freeway is here as opposed to here. Why they grow soybeans instead of this or that. You know, all these are. ultimately our incentives and policy decisions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think about this all the time.

I have, and I always talk about. We were in Natchez, Mississippi, and we were driven up from New Orleans. We were in Natchez, Mississippi, and we're going to Vicksburg. I wanted to see the Civil War battlefield. We're talking to this waitress,

and she was telling us, she's from there, and I go, oh, so have you ever been to Vicksburg before? Like, what's it like? What's it like, what should we expect? And she's like, I've never been. And I'm like, it's like 30 minutes away from here, you know? Yeah, yeah. And you realize, like, oh, just some people have literally never, for whatever reason, have never gone outside their little area, right?

You talk to people, they're like, I'm going on my airplane, you know, I'm flying on an airplane for the first time to visit my aunt in Nashville. And you're in your 40s. And so that's just a very different way of experiencing the world. Put aside, passports, put aside international travel, whether you're, you know, setting up roots in one. city or traveling my train. It's like some people haven't been to the next town over. For sure. The most extreme form of that would be the Schwartz and Trouber Amish. Yeah. The Schwartz and Troopers are what most people think of when they think of Amish. No technology, basically living in 1871, kerosene lamps. And I met up with some of those people

when I was in Holmes County. Homest County. People think of Lancaster County was the home of the Amish. Yes, it is, but Holmes County not far behind. And so like everything, You have the Schwartz and Truber on this end. For those listening, I got my hand way out to the right. And then you have the Beechi Amish on this end. And now that's almost Mennonite. Yeah. And the beach here are going to drive around, use microids, and have electricity.

Now they're all technically Amish. Now when I was with some Schwartz and Troopers that I meant accidentally, and, you know, I was very respectful. I'm like, guys, I'm making a video. They didn't really even know what a video was. They didn't know who the president was. Wow. Yeah.

That'd be nice. They just had no clue about any of this stuff. They're living in their own world. Yeah. And I said, do you mind if I show some of this? And they're like, yeah, just don't have our faces on it. So I made a video without putting the camera on their faces. And the woman said to me, her number one question, I said, does there anything you want to know about the outside world?

She looked up and she's like, have you ever flown in a plane? And I was like, wow. Yeah. And she's like, what's that like? And I had to think about it. What's like, I don't know, it's sort of like flying in a dream state through clouds and gets you somewhere really quickly. Yeah, she's getting you to think about something magical that you have completely taken for granted. Totally.

And I looked in the review mirror as I was leaving and she was looking up with the sky, like a little smile. And you realize she's just as American, you and I, in the same country. but yeah, that's a different world. And we also tend to think that those things, it's like, oh, way over here, far away, maybe there's these Amish people that are very, it's like, there's a Mennonite community like five minutes from here. Yeah. And it's like, if you look from, there's so much. You're closer to people living in a completely different reality than you than you think.

I mean, right down to unhoused and homeless people who are living in a completely different reality. Every state, you know, who's the richest, person in that state, what is their life like compared to yours? Like, they might live in Texas, but they don't live in Texas. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. They live in the world and their domicile is in Texas, right? And like just the wide, enormous breadth of experiences that different people looking up at more or less the same horizon are experiencing. Yeah. I have a part in the book called Neither here nor there. Yeah. And it's about people. that are in the country, obviously, but sort of living in their own world, Siberian Yupik,

up in St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, you can see Russia from it. It's 30 miles away. Three times a size of Maui. They still hunt whale every year, reindeer. Wow. Yeah. You need an invite to get on the island. Yeah. And then you go to Molokai too? I mean, just like the Hawaiian islands are radically different than each other. Molokai in Oahu, two different universes. Sure. So the St. Lawrence Island, Siberian-New Peak people, you know, they've never seen a tree before. It's just too far north, right? And then you have the Chicano's, you know East L.A. And if you tap into Chicano culture, it's its own thing.

You'll meet guys that have a Spanish accent that don't speak Spanish. Yeah. Like they're speaking English with a Spanish accent. And then the Amish, I think, is the class, you know, top example of, you know, beat into their own drum. I remember I was giving to talk to a baseball team and I was just asking all these questions this guy was telling me the interesting culture between like they were like

one of the faux pas is like if you assume one of the black players speak Spanish because like in that world it's different than other parts of America. Yeah. Right? Like you're like oh right because this is such a global game you're drawing different distinctions,

boundaries in groups, outgroups, whatever that I'm even. clocking is happening. Yeah. I'm excited about Texas. Texas is great. I don't know much about Texas. I worked at, when I was living in Lake Tahoe in my young 20s.

Where in Lake Tahoe? I lived in Kings Beach. I lived in Homewood. I lived in Tallis City. I grew up in Homewood every summer. I worked at, do you know, OBEXERS? Of course. My first job was at Obexers.

I started a business off the Obexers community board. Really? Yeah. That's amazing. When was this? I was hammered drunk. one night in Stone with my buddy and we're young Tahoe guys snowboarding all winter and summer's coming around. What are we going to for work? This was 2000 probably. Roughly then. It would have been

2000, the summer of 2000, maybe 2001. So maybe I made you a sandwich. I got those sandwiches all the time. Huge sandwiches. I loved it. PDQ is better. You did it half of the time. PDQ was better than Omexers, sandwich was. PDQ was better. So I was with a buddy late night and we're like, what are we going to do, how are we going to stay in tow? We're just, didn't want to have anything to do with getting a corporate job or anything. Sure, but there probably isn't one. There isn't. You'd have to move off the hill.

You'd have to go to Sacramento or the Bay. And, okay, there's all these wealthy people here. They need their cars cleaned. Auto detailing. I posted something at the PDQ, get a call the next day. And my buddy and I tore it up all night. This is when I drank many years ago. Get a call the next day.

And the lady's like, I'm calling about the auto. detailing and I'm like, what are you talking about? You had your first customer already and you don't agree on. I had no clue. And then I'm like, she's like, when can get in the schedule? I'm like, hold on one second, ma'am. Let me check the calendar. I'm like, oh, should I do this or not?

And then I said, yeah, so my first job came out of there. There you go. Yeah. Nice. But West Shore, what a place. It's the best. The best shore. Of course.

I lived seven or eight years up there. But you, you know, if you want to further your life, unless you're in real estate, construction, I guess, own a restaurant. Yeah. There's not much. Yeah, or you're a tech billionaire or something. You're a tech billionaire. Now, Inclined Village is take, I mean, it was always wealthy, but it's really taken off.

Well, and then the point about you think it's one thing that's the other, it's like, right, because you cross a state border and the taxes are different. Yeah. So it tracks as a different clientele. And so it's just different worlds. The borders are made up and arbitrary, but one side of the line versus the other can mean a totally different. experience, conception. Yeah, I do miss that part of the country. You're in Tauau in the winter and there's eight feet of snow out your door.

Yeah. In the same county, there are palm trees. You go down to Auburn. I moved to Granite Bay when I was in high school and our house was in Placer County and my parents' little cabin in Tahoe was also in Classer County. So it was like as suburbs as suburbs get and the mountains at, you know, I guess we're closer to the lake. But anyway, you know, what's the lake at?

3, 4,000 feet? No, 62. Yeah. So, so like that much elevation climb in one county. Yeah. And then different worlds, different climates. And then you go to Reno, it's dry, high desert, 8 inches of rain a year. Yeah.

And then you got the Bay, San Francisco. My heart's there. I love that city. Of course. And then obviously the coast. It's really spectacular. I do miss it all. Do you miss it back there?

Of course. Yeah. Because this is totally different. It's totally different. What do you like here? Just the big open spaces? I love the big open spaces. For me, as I travel, it's in the middle of the country.

It's nice. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think I like the space. I kind of like the heat. People are nice. People are nice. You bounce around and you find your place, you know. I was ready to be done with California.

Okay. When did you move out? 2011. Okay. It's been a while, but I've lived all over. But this is like, not compromises, but this checks a bunch of different boxes that I wanted. Then you set up roots and then you're like, oh, this is where I left. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. Which is the interesting thing, you meet people and you're like, why are you here? And they're like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like sometimes I think you think people have an affinity for why they're there. And it could be the most people are there because they're taking care of their parents. People are there because their car broke down at 40 years ago and they were like, this is where I live now. Nate Bargatsy has a joke about, you know, he grew up in this town and it was named after Andrew Jackson and people go like, he was a bad guy.

And he's like, we didn't know him. You know? Like, that's not why we live. lives there. Jacksonville. Yeah. But his point is like, we just put so much on people about where they live and why they live there and what it means. I mean, I was talking to, there's a woman. She is a dermatology clinic down the road. She's a dermatologist. She went to Harvard. I'm like, why are you here? You know, she's like, because if I set my clinic up here, I got my student loan debt compensated. And if I did it in Austin, I didn't. So that's why I live here. You know, like, you just realize, like, people live in different place for all. And when you're open and you're curious, it gets so much more interesting than when you think you know what it says about somebody. Yeah, and there's a big uptick in people moving to rural areas. I mean, depending, COVID was big for that. And it also shows you, you know, we have a housing crisis in this country, and housing's expensive in so many areas.

Yeah. And then it's not. Yeah. In like, do you want to live there, though? That's the question. But I was just in Little Rock. I did a video there. I met this young couple.

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please see the episode description. I remember I was driving from, where were driving? We were driving from 30A to Orlando. Okay. So down the panhandle into Florida. And we're like, I was like,

I feel like just this six-hour drive you could solve the entire housing crisis in this country. You know, you're just passing through nowhere with nothing in one of the now more expensive states, right? Yeah. And you're just like how, you know, you just really. realize, like, the one thing we do have is lots and lots and lots of space.

We're so lucky. It's insane. I think we're just 100 years behind Europe. Yeah. With that, right? Europe's tapped at Western Europe. If you go to Switzerland or Italy, it's like, in a way, every score inch is sort of taken. I mean, there's plenty of nature.

Yeah. But as far as housing, if you're in Switzerland, they don't have the opportunity as a young person in America who could, like, again, you got to have the right mindset, but like, They're not building a development with a thousand houses like they're doing down the street anywhere in Europe. Because how? Where? Exactly. When I moved out of Tahoe, I was so badly wanted to move to San Francisco.

Yeah. Like so badly. And I just was, I was very practical with the numbers. And I'm like, man, if I move to Reno, which sounded awful when I said that to everyone gave me a hard time on that one. They're like, what do you? You're ruining your life. why would you go there? I'm like, yeah, but I want to own a house.

And so it's 45 minutes down the hill. That mortgage was cheaper than rent in San Francisco. And I wanted to go back to college. And I'm just, I had to pay my way. So University of Nevada, no, it's not Harvard. But hey, I could have the opportunity to go. And I was paying. So I was like, all right, crunch the numbers could do that.

That time, Reno is cheap. Reno's not cheap anymore. Yeah. Like that blew out. And so there's always this. place or like, how do you see it before the thing gets expensive? And there's still plenty of places in this country. That's the energy of America.

There's still places to go. And people are able now to go back, like it was Detroit for a while, right? You could go to places that. You can go back. Yes. You go back to places that were once nice. And that sort of, that's your point about cities being in different points in the cycle. Yep.

Detroit downtown when I was there last, it's actually pretty nice downtown. But yeah, the population cleared out. Common story, I mean, that's a theme I get into a lot. I think about, you know, I want my videos not just to be a travel video. That doesn't interest me. I would do something else. But is there meat on the bone? Is there substance in there?

Can we learn something? Like, what's the culture doing? And a theme I just see a lot is industrial town, industry left, jobs left. Yeah. Thing collapses. And how that cycle repeats. I mean, the reason this area is booming between Austin is because Tesla. is here and SpaceX is here and the Boring Company is here and then all the adjacent things are

coming around and it's like I don't know where that is in the cycle but it doesn't last forever you know no uh studebaker seemed like it would last forever and you know all these companies did and now we refer to that area as the rust belt right it so yeah it is it's a cycle and it might be your lifetime it might be two generations or it could be a really fast cycle there's booms and busts you know you see that in the old west that this was a mechrist that this was a metropolitan city and then it's Tombstone Arizona, right? Or the fact we still have company towns in Arizona. So the company town was huge, what, 80, 100 years ago, a lot in West Virginia, got paid in

script, company money, go to the company store. And I've done a lot of those videos. And then I was looking late night on Google Maps. I'm like, Baghdad. Yeah. Baghdad, Arizona? What? And so I go in on it and I start researching the town and it's like, oh, Freeport McMoran owns this town.

Yeah. Okay, it's a copper mine. And so they still have that old school structure as in my company owns all the real estate. Everyone that lives there works for the company. And I went in thinking, look, company towns don't have a great reputation in the past. I mean, they were almost slaves. Like an indentured servant. Indentured servants, right?

And you're stuck there. And then if your husband dies in the mine, the wife has to leave the housing immediately, it was awful, right? In many ways. I get out there to Baghdad, sort of with that in the back of my mind. And I talk to as many people as possible. What's it like living out here? And that starts into something else because Americans are great at opening up and

wanting to talk if you take interest. And so I'm getting into the strength. Like, oh, average salary, I believe, around 90,000. My rent for my three-bedroom, two-bath home is $350. all health care are taking care of. My kids are taking care with summer camps. School's great. No crime because if someone's out of line, the company kicks him out of town. Yeah, yeah. It's good while it lasts. And it's good while at last. Copper's good right now. Not for me. Yeah. I'm guessing not for you. Yeah. I don't want to be in that mold. But for somebody is the dream.

But I can totally get it in this time now where it's like, where's your job going, where's inflation going, how expensive housing is getting. I saw just like tamped down. on the pressure of modern life. I was like, that's pretty cool. And there are two of those towns. There's another one, Morency, which is bigger in Arizona. And these open-mind pits are insane. Have you read Nomadland? I haven't.

I've heard of that. She talks about that. That's the dark side of the company town is Amazon sets up a temporary Christmas fulfillment center or these people that travel from sort of temp job to temp job in campers and RVs. And by the way, that's a video also. It's a movie also. It's a movie. I've seen it. The book is incredible. The movie is also good. But just like you realize like the company town isn't, isn't always so permanent. Because it's seasonal, right? All the people that work adjacent to national parks or this tourist season or this, you know, big shipping or fulfillment or, you know, mineral season. Like, and you're temporarily here. And then we're all going here and we're chasing. And it's you're never setting up roots. It's, there's, there's. There's. a sadness to it also. Oh, yeah. So I was out, I believe it took place there, Quartzite, Arizona. Yeah. The living on BLM land. And a lot of people are sold, hey, live a cheap retirement. Yeah. Live out of your car. Live it out of your van. And that's all great until the summer comes around. And a lot of people die out there. Yeah. It's pretty hardcore. People should spend some time in some RV parks and get a different slice of what America is for some people and has become.

because of the screwed up nature of our social safety net, income inequality, how expensive stuff is. Yeah, there are a lot of retirees suffering. And they... People have never required from the financial crisis, basically. Their social security isn't keeping up. Yeah. And for example, my mom's, her property taxes just went up 25% in two years. She's on a fixed income.

Right, right. And there's a lot of those situations. I remember being in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's a boom town. It's really taken off. And this old woman just been there since the beginning, tiny home and her property taxes were nothing. And now because of the comps around her gets reassessed and she can't afford to live in her home. Which property tax is an interesting one because, look, I'm all four doing my part and I pay quite a bit of taxes. I'm sure you do too. But the property one's interesting because if you own your home and then you want to go Monca mode. You're old. You don't have any money. Maybe you don't have any money. It's not your home. Who is the tax code favoring? Is it people who make lots of money? Is it people who make lots of, you know, and you realize like the part of the Texas Florida dream is that it's actually quite hard on the low. Not only do you not get the social services, but if you own your own home, retiree or whatever, you're just getting slaughtered on these property taxes. Yeah, I didn't. Because they go up every year. In California, they don't go up. Yeah, I didn't think the conversation would go into that, but it's a good one. Because I think about this a lot, because everything gets oversimplified, right?

Yeah. The 1%. So the 1% could be that surgeon in Irvine making $2 million a year. Yeah. Earned income, ordinary income, not to bore your audience, but it's like you're making money from an employer. That guy's paying over 50%. Yeah.

Right? And so that's in the same group as Jeff Bezos, right? The 1%. Yeah, somebody who somebody who, somebody who, somebody who, sold a company for $200 million might pay less taxes than surgeon who makes $2 million. And that one never opens up clearly. Yeah. Because the way it's set up for the Uber wealthy, take out loans against your assets,

you're not getting ordinary income. None of them would live in California if they're getting ordinary income and paying the full rip, right? And you depreciate X, Y, and Z. Yeah. And at that super high level, your effective rate is not much. And then also on the other end of the spectrum, there's the people who are renting and then the people who may be this, they've had this house in a, you know, not so great part of town that's been in the family for a couple generations. Yeah. Right? You know, a black family in the segregated in the segregated and the segregated part of the kid and maybe a grandkid lives in it. But now the property taxes, which were low, even 10 years ago are now 10, 20,000 dollars a year. It's crazy. It's complicated, but the property tax thing when it's too much is out of line. Now in Hawaii, they have the lowest property. taxes. And I think it's because, look, Hawaii became a state in what, 1950? All the natives would be booted off, right? If they had to keep up with those tax rates, a lot of them would. My brother

lives in Kauai until recently. He rented from a native Hawaiian. There aren't many natives left, truly natives, like native native, because everything gets mixed eventually. And his guy, he's like right in Honolay. The place is probably worth, I don't know, five million. It's not, nothing much of a home, but because of location if he had to pay the tax bill. Sure, it'd be smoked. Or you can go to native reservations, and that's a whole different story. 576 federally recognized tribes in this country, all different. Yeah, you drive through and you realize just how big some of these reservations are.

I mean, a fraction of obviously what their ancestral lands were, which was the whole country. Navajo Nation is the size of New Jersey, size of Israel, basically. As we wrap up. Okay. I loved your book because it's an introduction to your fellow mayor. I think there's a great concept. Like, who are these people? We're all Americans, but we live in such radically different universes, different countries.

I thought I'd recommend some of my favorite, we're in a bookstore. I'd recommend some my favorite books that will also help people meet their fellow Americans, maybe more in a historical sense. Do you know who Frederick Law Olmsted is? Have not read it. But do you know who he is? No. He's the designer of Central Park, okay?

Oh, cool. And Audubon Park in New Orleans. So one of our great designers. But lead up to the Civil War, he rides a horse through all of Texas. Several weeks, months, just all over Texas. One of my favorite things is he complains that Austin is getting too expensive. But he does this journey through Texas on horseback. And it gives this enormous glimpse of America at that time.

He's meeting his fellow Americans right before we go to war with each other. Tony Horowitz wrote another book where he recreates the journey. It's his last book. And it's called spying on the South, also amazing. So take that. Thank you. Have you read the warmth of other sons about the Great Migration? Have not.

Okay. So this is, obviously, coming out of the Civil War, the reemergence of Jim Crow and segregation. Black people are like, we're majority, but we're always going to be a minority. They've kept us out of political power. So we've got to go somewhere else. So where do they go? They go to New York. They go to Chicago.

They go to Detroit. They go to California. That's what we call the Great Migration. That's what changes the face of the country, right? Because millions of people, it's like this great immigration. To the industrialized areas. Exactly. They're going up to Detroit, Chicago.

Yeah. Chasing jobs, chasing family. This is like 10 books and one. Thank you. This is a recreation of Journey Through Texas. So you like that? Had life on the Mississippi. How not, yeah.

Builds a Mississippi flatboat. Okay. Gets in Illinois and recreates Lincoln's journey to New Orleans. Okay. Does all of the big American rivers as they would have done it 150 years ago. You will love this. I think there's a book in there for you. Okay.

Ghost Rider, you're a Rush fan. Of course. I'm seeing them. You've read this? I'm seeing them in two weeks. Me too. Me too. I'm going to see them.

I think they're in San Antonio. I saw him on the 30th anniversary tour, so I got to see Neil Pert. Yeah. My first show, Montreal is 16 years old. Rush. Counterparts tour. Wow. Yeah.

Neil Purt was the best. Have you read this book? The professor, yeah. I think it's the best road trip book ever written about North Carolina. And Nico Niles is doing a pretty good job. She's not Neil Pert, though. I'm not going to watch any videos. I'm not going to listen to anything.

I just want to be surprised. No, they're doing well right now. I'm also seeing Iron Maiden in a couple of weeks. Nice. And they have a new drummer too because they're drummer retired, so I'm excited about that. Okay, so great road trip book. And then Joan Didian. This is her table, by the way.

Does a road trip book. She's from Sacramento, but she does a road trip book through the south. It was supposed to be a larger book, but this is all that survives. You'll love this. Small and Mighty by Sharon. Man, you love her. She's great. What else would I add to this?

I would add, have you read How to Hide an Empire? No. Okay. It's a history of the greater United States. So it's a history of all the territories, provinces, you know, like America doesn't see itself as an empire. America sees itself as as the contiguous United States and then and then Alaska and Hawaii are down here. Right.

Even though they're way as far as you can imagine. But we don't, at one point America was a hundred other territories. I mean, we saw this with the bad bunny nonsense, right? It's like, why do you have an American perform? And like, so I thought I thought maybe that's your, maybe that's your sequel is the greater. American experience. Right. Because we don't see those people as Americans, but they are. I haven't gone into territories. Yeah. And that's on the list for sure. I thought of that book when I was reading your book. I think you'll like it. Like we don't even think, like when Japan

attacks Pearl Harbor, they're attacking America, even though it wasn't an American state yet. Sure. And then when they were attacking the Philippines, you know who they were attacking? Yeah. Not Filipino. It was us. Yeah. It was in the process of being transitioned. to Home Rule, but like it would have been like Germany attacking Australia, right? Like that's a blow at Great Britain. That's not another country. Right. But we so didn't see ourselves as a colonial power.

And we've never seen ourselves as a colonial power. But we are. And we have been. Is it because we weren't as bad as the Brits with that? We weren't as bad. Or the Spanish and the Portuguese? What we did in the Philippines was heinous and horrible. Sure.

But I think the more interesting thing is coming out of the Second World War, how we cobbled together an enormous empire that wasn't inherently colonial. That was about cooperation and collaboration. And hey, we'll lease a military. Instead of owning your country, can we just have this little bit of land and we'll have a military base here and we'll have. And now we're in the middle of dismantling that, not deliberately. but in a form of suicide, I guess. Like, now we are in the middle of destroying and undermining that in a way that I don't think, because we didn't fully appreciate who we were,

we don't fully appreciate where we're going. And you'll love this book. I'll give it to you next door. Awesome.