The Joe Rogan Experience - #1427 - Melissa Chen

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

Melissa Chen is the NY editor for Spectator USA and the managing director of Ideas Beyond Borders.

ready what's up melissa how are you hello joe we were just talking about caning and hanging in singapore hanging now is that the new one no it's always that's how they always do it caning is one of the forms of capital punishment but they they still they actually hang for drugs what is singapore like i've never been it seems like a strange place because it's relatively wealthy, right? Yes, very much so. And upscale and very nice, but also ruthless. But you know what happened in my generation? I've witnessed it go from third world to first world in my lifetime.

Really? Yeah, yeah. So it's one of those success stories of nation building. But it's kind of like, you know those snow globes, the perfect snow globes? Yeah. Yeah, when you like turn it over and like everything kind of sprinkles. That's what it feels like living in Singapore. For me, at least.

I had to get out. It's just, it's a bit sterile. It's perfect, but it's too perfect. It's almost like there's a, somebody called it once, Disneyland with the death penalty. Which is a pretty good. And you get the death penalty for things like drugs, right? Just possession past like maybe 25 grams or 25 milligrams or something. Marijuana, trafficking.

So if you have an ounce of marijuana, how many grams is in an ounce? What's the conversion? I don't know. I haven't converted to your system. 20? 28. 28 grams in an ounce? Yeah, 28. So like an ounce is a good amount of weed, but two ounces of weed, you're dead. Yep. Yeah, by hanging.. Yep. Ooh.

Yeah. By hanging. Ooh. Two ounces. Wow. That's weird. You can go down the street and buy that at a store. Now.

You just have to show your driver's license that you're over 21, and you can buy that at a store. And in Singapore, they'll kill you for it. Right. How many people have they killed for pot? I don't know about that. But I do know like one time they actually executed a Australian citizen who was on transit.

So he didn't even get out of the airport. He was just kind of carrying the drugs on transit. And they executed him? Oh yeah, it was hanging. It's always hanging. Do you remember what kind of drugs? Was he selling drugs? He was carrying quite a bit. He definitely trafficking it jesus christ they just hung them yep zero zero tolerance policy yeah that's great how did it go from third world to first world so

quickly um i guess the founder you know the country well not the founder the founding prime minister uh mr lee kuan yew was probably one of the world's most famous modern statesmen. He was resolute, like, you know, weeded out corruption. He was kind of like very, very tight controls on free speech, but very much sort of neoliberal economic policies. So it tracked a lot of foreign investment, right? Because the highest income tax bracket is like maybe 13%. It's very low.

There's almost no welfare, at least in the sense of how we understand welfare. But there's a lot of, it's a hybrid system. So there's a lot of like zero capital gains taxes, zero state taxes, very easy to set up a business. taxes, very easy to set up a business. So he managed to attract a lot of foreign businesses to set up their multinational corporation headquarters in Asia, because the other alternative would be maybe China. But China would probably end up stealing all your corporate secrets, your intellectual property. But Singapore was billed as this is the country that protects rule of law. Also English, He kind of made everybody speak English. It was the working language.

So if you wanted to set up business in Asia, that was your place to go. Oh, okay. You got to like, you know, if you want to attract investment, you have to say like, okay, what's in my region and how can I have a competitive advantage? So that was how Singapore really developed and, you know, just gained a lot of traction as a state. The average American knows Singapore because of that kid that got caned.

Now it's that stupid movie. Which movie? The Crazy Rich Asians. Oh, Crazy Rich Asians. Right, right. Yeah. I never saw that. Was it good?

I didn't like it because I don't like rom-coms. Oh, okay. And, like, come on. The premise is, like, a girl, an American Asian girl is, like, dating this guy from Singapore. She doesn't know he's rich, and she finds out on the plane there. It's, like, the most bullshit thing. It's just conspicuous consumption. I mean, it's got some got some you know the city looks beautiful

and in fact i kind of grew up with some people that that lived that lifestyle um but i i just don't like that kind of movie it's it's it's a chick flick a chick flick got it you're not into chick flicks your instagram is hilarious by the way. Instagram? Excuse me. I don't have Instagram. Your Twitter. Okay. I get them confused sometimes. Your Twitter feed is really good. I try. It's both insightful but also very funny. Yeah, I try to play both sides.

But the problem is, like, you know, I think today there's a bit of a – if you're a girl and you're kind of funny, there's a bit of a sense that like people are really taking that seriously so i've been told to tone down on jokes who's telling you that well i'm also you know i run i run a major non-profit organization and you want to tell everybody what it is or keep it on the down low no it's a it's it's a really well it's kind of right up your alley you know it's it's a organization that that really tries to promote pluralistic thinking and, you know, basically exporting ideas to the part of the world that it's often censored. And you have narratives that are just not, you know, not exposed to, people are not exposed to the Middle East.

So, you know, we thought, you know, we spent like, what, $8 trillion on the war on terror? And what was the results? Right? Like, we marched in and said, like, okay, we're going to bring freedom and democracy to people. But if there were no cultural institutions to kind of nudge people to understand why they should value freedom and democracy, is it really a surprise that it failed to take root there? So that's what, you know, we basically work with organizations called Ideas Beyond Borders. And it's kind of self-explanatory. You know, we basically take, acquire the rights to books that are not available there, translate them into Arabic for free. And then we just like load it up on the library site. Anyone can

basically access that download it um and we do wikipedia too so like 10 of all wikipedia is in arabic of english wikipedia and uh so we basically try to you know like for example george orwell doesn't exist in arabic right so like if you look it up would you even understand what the word Orwellian means? Right. Yeah. So how did you get involved in this? My co-founder is an Iraqi refugee, and he grew up under Saddam.

And I met him when I was in grad school. And I was really compelled by what he was talking about. Somebody who grew up in Singapore too, we don't really have freedom of speech, right? So the issue was that like for me, I just felt like growing up, I was kind of like, all right, you know what? My issue is that like there was no freedom of thought, freedom of speech in Singapore.

The government just kind of controls everything. Sorry. Give me a second. My heart rate is like so high because I've been drinking. Because you've been drinking this stuff? Is that what it is? Yeah. I was worried that you were nervous.

So let's tell everybody what you're drinking. You're drinking this. Oh my God. I'm sorry. It's called Bang. How many did you have? This is my second one. You weigh eight pounds.

What the fuck are you doing? I don't. You're so tiny. This is so much.. You weigh eight pounds. What the fuck are you doing? I don't. You're so tiny. This is so much. Are you going to... I know, I know. Are you going to be the first person to die on the show? No, no.

Please don't. Sorry. I mean, this stuff is like... Yeah, put it away. It's got a lot of caffeine. Stop fucking with it. Sorry, it was my second one. I had like a really heavy workout.

You can't have second ones of those. You probably weigh like 80 pounds. Like seriously. 105. Come on, stop lying. 105 pounds, yeah. No, I got muscle lying you're a tiny person right but you're you're very small that is a lot also heating me up right now sorry yeah your heart rate's pounding no i know i can feel it it's like i can see words what do they look like what color are they i don I don't know. Red. It's getting crazy. Sorry.

Sorry about that. Just take some deep breaths. Calm yourself down. I know. Did you drink that to get pumped up for the show? This is my pre-workout. So when I did my morning workout, I drank one. And then I was like, you know what?

I didn't really sleep that much last night, so I might need another one. Oh, my God. What a bad idea. Sorry. I've had people come in here that are on Adderall, and that's always the weirdest one. Why? Because you just like, you got to slow down. Like, we're on different paces.

Not you. I need a downer. I definitely need a downer. Want some pot? But pot doesn't work on me. Oh, right. What kind of pot? I bet the pot we have will work on you.

Up to 50. I've done 55 milligrams edibles. That's ridiculously low. I do 200 every time I go to the airport. Wait, 200 milligrams? Yes. Okay, but I'm like a quarter of a weight. Joey Diaz takes 1,000.

All right, maybe I just haven't got my game yet. You can't say a pod doesn't work on you. Okay, but I so far have been unable to respond to it. Really? Yeah. And smoking it or eating it or both? Both. Jamie is with you with the eating he's got some weird genetic disorder that doesn't it doesn't work with him like edible he can take a thousand edibles and just hang around people yeah but that so that's a thing like people

are immune some people are yes you see it does not some people get withdrawals too you know i've talked to people that get actual physical withdrawals from marijuana. And I used to be really skeptical about that. But these are people that I actually trust. And they're like, wow. When they would go on tour, like if they have to go places and they didn't have pot, they would get – literally, they'd get shaky. They'd feel weird.

And then they realize, oh, this is – my body is withdrawing from THC. Apparently, it's very rare but common enough so that it's in the literature they they really they've documented people that have like a physical response to withdrawing from marijuana yeah i'm i'm i mean i'm looking forward to more research being done on this anyway like yes yeah we're headed there yes but then trump recently said something about trying to... I know. I'm surprised. He was comparing the way they handled drug dealers in China with a swift, fair trial.

Was he saying Singapore? No, but... But that's how they do it in Singapore. Swift, fair trial and the death penalty is what he said. There's a resurgence of this in asia you see it in the philippines as well so yes has this extra judicial drug war that he's been launching so it's i understand the concern with the plight i understand that people are really worried that people getting addicted to drugs ruin their lives

it devastates families people dying of overdoses from fentanyl and all these different hazards that are associated with drug use and drug drug dealing i understand that but this sort of archaic way of handling it and death penalty talk in 2020 i know like it's and one country completely uh decriminalized all drugs right was it portugal yeah yeah and they had spectacular results low everything lower incidence of hiv infection lower drug addiction lower overdoses lower everything lower crime right i just don't it's just messy it's not like if there was one thing you could do, like, hey, if we do this thing, then no one gets addicted to drugs and no one dies from overdoses. Well, then you do that thing.

But there is no legalization that no one would see from overdose. They certainly would, though. People definitely will die of overdoses. If you make drugs legal across the board, the one thing that you do that's good is you stop all the flow of money into illegal drug sales. So all the people that are selling drugs, or most of it at least, all the cartel money, all that stuff goes away. Because the cartels are making billions and billions of dollars selling to the United States and other countries they can sell to. And they're doing it because it's illegal, because it's a business they can capitalize on

that American businesses are not capitalizing on. And violence goes down too, I'm assuming, right? Well, it has to. There's a correlation. If you go back to what happened in the United States during Prohibition, what it did is pop up organized crime. It propped up organized crime in a pretty spectacular way. And it was because there was a massive amount of money to be made selling alcohol.

The desire for alcohol didn't go away. The legality of it went away. So illegal sales went through the roof and the people that were selling it were criminals. I just think it's part of the human spirit, you know, that if you say you can't have something. Yes. We'll just there's an old Arabic, that which is prohibited is always wanted. Yeah. And whatever you kind of like, you just drive it underground if you try to ban it.

It's the whole spirit of punk rock, of like F you to the system. And that just lies in almost every human heart. We actually see that with our books, for example. A lot of books are actually transmitted on these telegram groups in Arabic. Books like that Sam Harris writes, you know, Richard Dawkins. These kinds of ideas that are really super censored in the Middle East. So, you know, that's kind of the gap that we're trying to plug right now. It's that since books are not available in that language, I think there's this crazy statistic.

More books are translated between English and Spanish in one year than English and Arabic in a thousand years. Wow. It's kind of crazy. That is kind of crazy. So the exposure to those ideas. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right.

And the only other option is get these people to learn English, which is a far more difficult task. Of course. Of course. And, you know, your average person living in, say, Syrian refugee camp isn't going to learn that quickly. Right. You got to meet people where they are. Right. So I think the statistic when we first started, 10% of English Wikipedia was actually in Arabic, which means that every time,

like, for example, let's say you're like, Oh, Jamie, go Google this, right? And, and you expect an answer. It's just it's just at the tip of our fingertips. It's so it's so baked into modern life now, we don't even like think twice about it. But imagine if like, you live in, I don't know, say Saudi Arabia, and like, okay, let's just Google it. 10 out of every 10 times, one time there's no answer because the page doesn't exist or, you know, it just, the word feminism doesn't exist in Arabic.

So you can't look it up. Oh, secularism doesn't exist. It's kind of, it's, how do you expect people to kind of break out of their mindset, of their indoctrination? You know, and it's how do you expect people to to to kind of break out of their of their mindset of their indoctrination you know and it's it's not we're not saying like this is a top-down thing like you have to read this it's that i just want to live in a world where being ignorant is choice for everyone because because it's a choice for us like let's say like you know right now you're like

dumb and just just like basically you spend your nights watching The Bachelor or like, you know, whatever it is. It's like. I know some people. I do too. I do too. But I know I'm judging, but I know. Oh, let's listen. They also are into interesting things. But I know some people do consume mindless nonsense.

My friend Cam. But exclusively. He watches The Bachelorette. He does. I'm calling you out, Cam Haynes. Are you shaming him? Yeah. You know you watch that shit, bro. Which one? The female one? Bachelorette? He does. I'm calling you out, Cam Haines. Are you shaming him? Yeah. You know you watch that shit.

Which one? The female one? Bachelorette? He watches both of them. Oh, God. I only know they're still going on because I'm at the checkout line in the supermarket. Yes, those magazines. I'm like, why is that there?

It's so strange that people are even interested in that. I know. I know. It's a weird thing. Very weird thing. Yes, that ignorance would be a choice would be nice right yeah so so what you're saying is that these part parts of the world one of the problems of getting them to shift their perception of the world is that they're not exposed to all the great works they're not

exposed to the different ideas different ideas and and different, different debates. And they have a monoculture. So monoculture because of, you know, society is, they have religions, they have ways of life that are just so deeply entrenched. Right. Um, and then you also have a really, really heavy censorship, both from your authoritarian government and also from your religion. Um, you know, the, the first word, for example, the first word in the Quran is actually read. Really? But they really mean just read this one thing.

And, you know, just the sort of like habits of a free mind are not really cultivated. And also when you're taught, I mean, growing up not to question things. And in part, I understand because I think when you grow up in an Asian household with like, you know, tiger parents, there's this sense of like, you don't question my authority, you know. So it permeates culture from a very, very young age. And imagine like if you kind of grow up in that environment, you're going to internalize all those things. And that's why it kind of, you know, it follows you over time. So when you were in school, you're taught no questions.

It's not like here where it is like, there's no such thing as a stupid question, Chad. There are in Asia. There's definitely stupid questions over here too. But you're told, you're at least told that. We're giving Chad a break. Yeah.

But I understand what you're saying. And that must be really interesting for you to go from this one fairly restrictive environment to a fairly open environment. And did that shift that happened in you and being exposed to all these different ideas, did that spark this desire to help other people sort of expand their ideas and what they're exposed to? Yeah, because, well, I felt like a fish out of water growing up in Singapore.

I was always the person that, like, the teachers had to teachers had to call like you know your daughter's asking too many questions she's disrupting the class what kind of questions i don't know i went to sunday school too i was like i was that kid who was just like uh you know excuse me but why why do the dinosaurs uh why is in the bible that the dinosaurs and and and human beings walked you know basically like days apart when like we know from science that it was millions of years and fossils. Did they get mad at you? Of course.

Of course. Yeah. No, they were like, just keep her out of, we just rather her not come to Sunday school. Really? Yeah. Yeah. No answers. There was no one that tried to sort it through and say, listen, must be that God was testing people, and this is why.

That's what my mom would say. Really? But in class, it's just, you know, it's how, there's no culture of dialectics, of having dialogue and refining your positions. It's that it comes from authority, right? This is a very Confucian culture. So it's like, well, I am your teacher, so it is the way it is. Right.

And, okay, that's one level of it. And if you, say, grew up in the Middle East, asking a question could be death, right? If you even remotely, like in Saudi Arabia especially, remotely reveal that you might be having atheistic thoughts, that's death. So we're talking about different scales and degrees of censorship and consequences for that. And I think when I met my co-founder, Faisal, you know, I was like, okay, I guess I have, I had issues with the country I grew up in. But for him, it was, he ended up almost being killed by Al Qaeda for just like starting a blog talking about, you know, the importance of secularism and, and countering violent extremism. Really?

Yeah, that's how he came here as a refugee. So I'm like, oh, shit, maybe they are. How did he almost get killed by al-Qaeda? Well, because when the U.S. invaded Baghdad, I mean, he was living in Baghdad at the time, and al-Qaeda took over his neighborhood once there was a void. Saddam was ousted, right? And Al-Qaeda took over his neighborhood once there was a void.

Saddam was ousted, right? And he was kind of like, you know, roaming around and like telling, kind of telling the U.S. Army certain things. Like, okay, you know, like this is where Al-Qaeda is. This is a cell. My friend here has been like radicalized. And Al-Qaeda knew. They put him on a hit list, you know, because he was not sympathetic to their cause and uh so he ended up on the death list his brother was killed just horrible story bridget actually recently interviewed him on on her podcast and and i get the sense that like

oh shit like the consequence of saying what you think there is like, at least in my case, was just like, hey, maybe I might go to jail. Right. In Singapore. But in Iraq, it was death. I think it's hard for people in America to really grasp what that environment must be like because we're so accustomed to this idea of freedom of speech. And it's so ingrained. Yes. It's so ingrained. Yeah. yeah rebels are appreciated and tolerated here you know they're rewarded yeah it's the whole maverick thing i

think you know as long as america still can celebrate mavericks and tolerate not just tolerate them but actually celebrate them yeah we're we're gonna fine, right? Yeah. Hopefully. The thing is that if it exists the way it exists in other parts of the world, it can exist like that here. Like the worst cases of human behavior when you see any form of dictatorship or control or propaganda or control by the state or by industry, that stuff that you see in other countries is human beings in 2020. I mean, we would like to think that our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and all of our ideals and

what this country was founded on is going to keep it from deteriorating like that. And most likely it will. But the reality is those people in Iraq are human beings in 2020. And they are living in a completely different way than we're living right now on the same timeline. Just things did not go well there, and they're stuck in this horrible situation where they are controlled by these religious fanatics. And they are stuck, and there's not a lot that they can do other than escape right and you know right now also like with the rise of china they're also you know starting to use like basically some form of like electronic tyranny right they're able to to really censor the internet in a way that's been unprecedented. You can't access Facebook, Wikipedia,

none of these things that you and I can just open on our apps can be accessed in China. So the way they just control information and now exporting those same tools to other authoritarian countries around the world, that part to me is dangerous because I think both Faisal and I came to America

with this like, alright, this is the place that we can finally be ourselves and think for ourselves. Right. Yeah. And we're starting to see that the whole world seems to be kind of going in the other direction. Did. So there was a shift in China and the shift was it was initially a completely communist society. And now capitalism, at least in a monetary sense is embraced yeah and so yes so there's this giant shift in what china actually is which corresponds to this huge growth is it possible that in the future this shift could move on to other aspects of Chinese culture, like discourse or the way they view the government or even some form of democracy. That was what we expected.

That's what we expected. That was the theory. But the way China has behaved now, you know, they call it socialism with Chinese characteristics. characteristics. That's the official name of this long drawn game to, you know, institute market reforms, usher in riches for the middle class, lift a lot of people out of poverty. But in a very controlled way, in the way that's like, see, that's the thing about like Asian culture, people don't understand, it's that there's a fundamental difference between the China dream and the American dream. And Xi Jinping has outlined what he thinks is the China dream.

It's basically a top-down way to – it's a goal. It's a national goal. And basically what they're trying to say is that, okay, we're going to lift a lot of people out of poverty, but you have to – your generation has to make sacrifices. It's not about the individual. lift a lot of people out of poverty, but you have to, your generation has to make sacrifices. It's not about the individual. It's about building a strong China and implicitly also about, you know, ensuring that the CCP stays in power, the Chinese Communist Party stays in power. But it's that you might have to give up, you know, personal sacrifices for the sake of China versus the American dream is bottom up. It's about your right to life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's it. And if you do that, that's the American dream. And if you achieve a certain level of happiness, if you achieve, you know, it's all like, it's bottom up. It's not centralized. And it's not something that the Chinese government is kind of trying to stuff down your throat. And China's willing to play the long game. So it is still a Leninist, Marxist government. Xi Jinping still believes in all of that. That's why it's still so totalitarian. But they know that the way to gain power in the world is to get rich. And they did it on the back of trade with other countries

through very unfair practices, actually, in many cases. So if you think about how they... I think there are a lot of estimates of how much they've actually stolen from the United States in terms of intellectual property, corporate espionage, now even academia is being infected. How so? They just arrested the head of the chemistry department at Harvard.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. But wasn't that, didn't they think that that guy was in connection with some weaponized, what's that article? The virus thing? Yeah. No, no. Am I thinking of something else? There was an article linking some Canadian researchers to the virus.

That's what it was. No, but this was different. The head of the chemistry department at Harvard was found to have lied about receiving money from the Chinese government. So there's this program called the Thousand Talents Program in China. Basically, they're offering a lot of money. The New York Times did a really good expose on this. the New York Times did a really good expose on this. They basically offer money to like academics,

because, you know, it kind of sucks to be one here in the sense of like you're not paid that well, but China's dangling like a lot more money and say, okay, if you do research here in China, there's going to be like less bureaucracy. So that's their way to lure these people in. So he was hiding the fact that he was getting income from them? Correct. How was he hiding it?

He just, he didn't report it. Oh. But he put it in the bank anyway? Right. And so at the end of the day, when there's a relationship there, China owns your research. Right. And if you're researching something sensitive, that's a big issue. There was an article today where they've confirmed that Huawei has some sort of third-party backdoor with a lot of their electronics.

Yeah. Because there was a lot of speculation as to why the United States was banning Huawei from the major providers. Because they were very close to releasing some. And they have some amazing phones. And they were really close to it. I refuse to use them. Yeah. Yeah, just on principle.

In fact, one of my girlfriends, she's kind of sponsored by Huawei. She's European. I wanted to take a selfie of me and I was like, I am. There's no way that my face could ever be, you know, in your phone. Really? Absolutely. Tell me why. Like, what is what are your thoughts on it? really another just an apparatus of the main party, the government. And, you know, I really think that Huawei, with respect to the next era of the digital world, is the next Sputnik. Like, it is the Sputnik issue of our time. And we should be doing everything we can to not allow Huawei to, you know, have this big market share. And the person who started it was somebody that had a lot of party connections to the, I think it was a general or something. And it's really, they really operate in a way that's very opaque. And, you know, anyone doing business in China will have to have connections to the government, especially when you're that big. And because it's a government

that has such totalitarian control over everything, you can expect that whatever information or that they would have to answer to the government, whatever the government wants. If you're willing to put your privacy in the hands of an entity like that, you know, go ahead. But know also that

the chinese government has enacted all these mass surveillance policies it's i i just wouldn't trust i just wouldn't trust them so what is different between huawei and there's many chinese manufacturers of cell phones. Like Xiaomi. Yeah. It's the government connection. Huawei is the only one that has that deep government connection? Well, the founder, at least, was the general. That much I know.

And just a lot of party connections. And, you know, it's also heavily subsidized by the government, which is one of the ways that China has been competing kind of unfairly in global markets. Right. When you have you can drive out innovation in the United States by by making sure that your local version is so competitive on prices that they can't match you. So in a way, it's like a form of economic warfare, which is one of the issues that Trump has really pushed back on. It's the China trade issue. And he's been criticized by about that. Do you think he's correct? On China? Yes. On China? Yes. I do think he's correct. He's been pushed back on. It's interesting, because I think the democrats were a lot more you know protectionist

when it came to trade right the the republicans and the libertarians always like free trade free trade everything like you know let's globalize the world uh it was the whole thomas friedman position when he wrote about it in lexus and the olive tree that if we globalize the world that economic that your you lift a lot of people out of poverty, your economic pie grows, but your politics shrink. That was the idea, right? No two countries that have McDonald's would fight a war or something like that.

That was his theory. And in the case of China, obviously that didn't happen, right? Like the part about the politics changing. There was this quote by a Tiananmen protester. He said, if the free world doesn't change China, China will change the free world. Whoa.

And if you think about what happened with the NBA, the whole Daryl Morey thing. Yeah, explain that because that was shocking to me because the way they were capitulating to China, I was a little stunned because it was so open. Could you explain what happened? So Daryl Morey, who was the GM of the Houston Rockets, he tweeted out basically a little picture that showed that he supported the Hong Kong protesters. And the Hong Kong protesters have been at it since July of last year, 2019.

And the Hong Kong protesters have been at it since July of last year, 2019. They have been protesting the incursion of Chinese control into their supposedly autonomous region. China promised them that there would be two systems, one country, two systems, after the handover in 1997 from the British to China. They slowly kind of eroded that in many ways. And their freedoms have been kind of, you know, diminishing over time. The straw, the straw that broke the camel's back was actually this policy that they passed, this law they passed that said that anyone can be extradited to China for trials, basically, it was after a case that happened, a criminal case. And the Hong Kong people knew that this law, if it goes into effect, basically gives the Chinese government legal right to disappear or kidnap anyone

and bring them for trial in some sort of kangaroo or show trial in China. And that has happened. So booksellers, it's always the booksellers in Hong Kong have been kidnapped because they were publishing these like insider accounts like dirty secrets of the you know the CCP whenever there was a leak because the the Chinese Communist Party is huge the Politburo is huge and so there was a bookseller called Causeway Books and they were publishing all these like accounts from within the Chinese Communist Party and the owner of that bookshop, one day just disappeared. And he ended

up in China, was basically a forced kidnapping. And he was released, I think he was, you know, he did his jail time. And now he's setting up another bookshop in Taiwan. But that law, basically, would just have allowed China to do that legally this time. So the Hong Kong youth were up in arms. They were tired of all the ways that their way of life had changed since the British handed it over. And in a way, they were kind of pining for the good old times, the good old times when they were under an English colonial master, which was one of those like po like moment for anyone on the left.

And so Darren Warrie tweeted this out. And of course, you know how big the China market is for the NBA, right? Like all these players have contracts with them. In fact, the Houston Rockets had a lot of contracts with the Chinese CCTV for broadcasts. They also had like merchandising opportunities, sneakers that were made there. And that caused a huge, huge outcry in China. They were just like, oh, he's disrespecting us. And they were able to force him to basically make a groveling tweet that said,

oh, I'm sorry for hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. And then like all the other, some NBA players actually came out and kind of took the side of the Chinese government. Like, oh, wait, who are we to, you know, they kind of like did this backpedal thing when they're so strong on other forms of activism here. Like the NBA, when it came to the North Carolina, the bathroom bill, you remember, like the transfer of the bathroom bill were they were always on the side of the woke but then when it

came to the china hong kong issue they stood with the biggest the oppressor yeah it's always hard when someone does side on the woke like what do you are you doing this because you think this or are you doing this because you think it'll make people think more highly of you if you do it? It's such a contrived thing today. It's so difficult to figure out why people are acting the way they're acting. So when they were acting in that way, it was so transparent. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. They were pressured.

And they were worried about the money. They were worried about economic, you know, whatever. know whatever the fallout yeah whatever fallout would happen right it was really obvious it was like whoa this is not like trans people using the bathroom this is like you guys are threatened right exactly yeah but the number of companies that have kowtowed to china's you know orth, orthodoxy is, there should be a list. Somebody should be keeping track of all of this. There are companies like Marriott, even like luxury brands. So I think Versace or Dolce & Gabbana got in trouble because I think on the website,

they listed like countries that we're in. And it was like they put Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. And China said, no, said no no no what are you doing this is all china right if you don't change that website you're not going to be allowed to do business and everyone wants a share of the chinese market that's the problem it's like the biggest market in the world maybe india's bigger but um well at least in the future india will get bigger but everyone wants access to Chinese markets. So they're able to use that as leverage to basically bully companies, even movie execs, to produce the content they want.

So several, I think World War Z was affected, you know. The other movie was Doctor Strange, the Marvel movie, where the character played by Tilda Swinton was supposed to be a Tibetan monk. But you can't, like Tibet is this like hot bun issue for China, right? Like people have been fighting for independence for a while, the Dalai Lama was exiled. So they changed the character. It wasn't a Tibetan monk, it was this, they changed it to a Celtic monk. And they made it to be a woman playing the character instead to appease the Chinese government. And they made it to be a woman playing the character instead to appease the Chinese government. So they changed it in the American version as well?

Yeah. So that woman wasn't supposed to be. The American version is. Right. Because the studios, they're all going in on these deals with China. China's financing all these movies now. Wow. So that woman in Doctor Strange was initially supposed to be a Tibetan monk. A male.

Supposed to be a male. Yeah. Wow. So that woman in Doctor Strange was initially supposed to be a Tibetan monk, supposed to be a male. Wow. Yeah, but they rewrote it to reflect a Celtic female monk. Whoa. And then I think the recent, the Top Gun, the movie that's coming out with Tom Cruise too, partially financed by China. And they have these, like his jacket, people noticed that there was a patch that was like missing and it turns out like that patch it was like a for some reason China was just triggered by it and it was gone no no they just in

the costume oh this is it yes what was the problem was it japanese flag that's the taiwanese flag the red oh yeah the uss galveston see it's wow but but that that's what that's what makes it so scary that they're able to pressure people to change their behavior from afar without no bullets this is just money money there's just access whores i know so many whores but that's why i think like one of the solutions to this is to really like start i don't know somebody should really start a website maybe you should be me um to just track all this stuff all the companies that have kauta are kautau into china all the ones are standing the ground you know and so you can decide where to put your money so it's just a giant part of the market. That's the problem with these films.

It's probably the top gun over in China. First of all, China invests and then they sell those movies over there and it's an enormous part of their overall budget, right? How much money comes in? In terms of the box office, outside of the United States, the second largest market is China.

The third one is Japan and it's like one-fifth of the United States. The second largest market is China. The third one is Japan. And it's like one-fifth of China, basically. So it's nowhere close. And we're all driven by profits. It's capitalism. I think they tried to get Quentin Tarantino to change his movie for China. He told him to go pound sand.

I think so. I remember. Was it the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Yeah, the new one. Well done. Yeah. I remember. Was it the Once Upon a Time in the Column? Yeah, the new one. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Well done.

It's weird that it's that easy. Just throw some money around and people change their culture. Right. I mean, Google was developing a search engine for China. Yeah. Well, I knew some people at Google while that was going on, and their position was, if we don't do this, they're going to copy our search engine and just steal all the intellectual property. Or we can work with them and provide a censored version of Google. And I remember sitting there going, this is almost like legalizing drugs.

Like, it's messy. There's no good way here. They both suck like but it sucks if they steal you know the intellectual uh copyright the if they they steal the ideas and create their own version of google it also sucks if google goes over there and self-censors right and provides them with you know the ability to filter out information but i i think also that if there's also an argument that if it was Google, at least maybe they have one tentacle in China, and so therefore it might be able to change things or keep a pulse,

you know, have their pulse on something. There's the argument. But at least they blocked Huawei, or I shouldn't say at least, but it's interesting that they blocked Huawei from using all of their apps. So Huawei no longer has apps uh they didn't have no no longer have access to the google play store so their their new phones they have to have their own apps yes this is with the uh the mate p i think it's p40 i think that's what it's called, their newest, latest flagship phone. They don't have access anymore.

There's some apps you can sideload from the web, and you can download them directly to your phone. But for the most part, their access to the Google Play Store is completely shut off. So the thousands and thousands of apps. For a lot of people, apps are everything. It's not the phone itself. It's the apps. If you don't have Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and, you know,

whatever the, you know, equivalents are in different countries, you're, you're kind of shit out of luck. But I think reciprocity is a, is a good policy to abide by. Right.

So like if China can influence us, if you want, because the Chinese, they always use the, their market as like, we'll shut you china can influence us if you want because the chinese they always use the their market as like we'll shut you out of our market if you don't do this well we should be doing the same right which i think is what trump had tried to do with the tariffs we're going to shut you out of our market we're going to penalize you yeah unless you open up some things you've been you know um there have been unfair trade practices for a while it's hard for us to understand what's really going on because, you know, the news will

show this anecdotal story of a farmer who's upset because, you know, he's losing money because of Trump's tariffs. And then people go, oh, tariffs bad. You know, I think it's a to have a really comprehensive view of it. It's going to take a lot of studying. You're going to have to dive deep and really try to understand the economics behind it all. And I think most people aren't willing to do that.

So we get sort of sold a narrative on the news. I think the same thing happened with so-called industries that were important to our national security, like steel. Those are things that we want to be careful how much we actually do outsource to overseas because there might come a time when we'll need those. You know, I mean, what happens if you globalize to the point that China's producing all your steel and then we have a war? And where's all steel going to come from? It's just so easy to be cut off. Are you really worried about a hot war? We're definitely in a cold war right now with China, it feels.

But, you know, China does have military ambitions. I mean, their actions in the South China Sea have shown that they do want to be at least militarily strong. They haven't, you know, to their credit, haven't taken any... They didn't go into Hong Kong with tanks or anything, right? So no bloodshed on that account yet um but it's one of those things also that in 2047 hong kong is going to return to china fully anyway so they're willing like yeah 2040 because the handover it was only like four or 50 years before this is just a

transition so the long game belongs to china and they they know that. They know that. Oof. This is not good. It's not. It's not. And there's no hope in your eyes of China eventually becoming what they hoped it would be once capitalism was sort of introduced? If people got information. If there were ways to resist the encroaching tyranny, especially digital tyranny,

right, in all forms, so it's not just mass surveillance, all this AI stuff that they're sort of like collecting people's, like facial scams. Yeah, it's it's this, it's such a dystopian nightmare feels like it's like a science fiction film, um if i don't know unless the revolution kind of comes from within and enough people woke up maybe it can be averted but otherwise we're just gonna you know it's going to be headed to it's this weird bipolar world where there's a new axis and a new allies. That sucks. That will suck. That sucks already.

It sucks already if it's happening. You've seen like Russia has taken the side of China. Pakistan has taken the side of China now. So there is an alliance kind of forming. You can see it in what happened with the UN passed this resolution condemning china's treatment of the uighur muslims in xinjiang yeah and the signatories to that um to that bill that un bill was basically um united states new zealand the europe a lot of european powers the so-called you know like these are countries that are often accused of being islamophobes because they won't accept mus Muslim refugees or that many

Muslim refugees. But you have Pakistan and even some, you know, majority of the Gulf countries siding with China, defending China on their treatment with the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. And it's one of those things that's just like, what? How is this happening? You know, it doesn't make sense. Does anybody have a roadmap of how they expect all this to play out? Because it seems that this could be a real problem in the future. And most Americans up until this whole,

up until this trade issue with the Trump administration, most Americans didn't even think about China. I don't know. I don't think I think Hong Kong was the thing that kind of lit the whole barrel. Just seeing the hundreds of thousands of people in the streets every day, weeks after months. Really young people, too. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that the thing that has kind of like descended to police brutality, like protests against police brutality now. But it's still going on. There's still, you know, and then now with the whole coronavirus, you know, flaring up there, it's highlighting a lot of issues with the Chinese government.

Taiwan is another issue still. There are the three Ts you can't really talk about in China now. Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan. These are three things that absolute, you know, no things that absolute no-go zones. Now, what year did you come over here? How old were you?

17. 17. What was this shift like going from Singapore to the United States? You lived in New York then? No, no, Boston. Boston. Your hometown, right? Yeah.

I lived in Boston for 10 years. Really enjoyed it, actually. It's cold as fuck. No, I like it. I don't know. It's cold as fuck. No, I like it. I don't know, I'm a skier, so I really like it. But there was huge culture shock. In a way, I knew what I was signing up for. It's actually easier for a Singaporean to plug and play into any of the Commonwealth countries

because it was a former British colony. So all your credits would just transfer kind of more easily to a university in England, for example, or Australia. But I chose America precisely for the First Amendment. Really? It was a very strong motivating factor for me. And also just the culture of, like we said, celebrating weird people. Yes.

Because I was weird. So I wanted to be in a place where I thought I would be accepted. What made you weird? So Singapore is pretty conformist in terms of, you talk about monocultures. There is a conformist drive. Like there is the right schools you go to, the right paths you take.

Very entrenched. And I really rebelled against that. Like, you know, Singapore chewing gum is banned, right? Yeah. I have no idea. Do you always bring chewing gum because it was banned in Singapore? It's one of those things. It's just like stuck in my mind.

Had I grown up here, I probably wouldn't be chewing this right now. It just wouldn't matter. But when somebody says I can't, like, do not touch wet paint i'm like yeah um this has always been a part of your personality from the time you were young yes is this something kind of disagreeable and was this nature or nurture don't know i i don't know i really but so when you came to america when you're 17 you said yeah was that like yes it was but it was also there were a lot of culture shocks that i had to adapt to um you know for starters it definitely felt like a bit of a step back for me in terms of um how in terms of comfort of living

like standard of living the united states was kind of a thorough country compared to singapore really yeah when boston oh when i landed in logan and we were taking that drive to you know like at the time i was going to be living in cambridge we went by under these like highways i'm like it's rusting this was kind of like just slightly before the big dig was done and the infrastructure was kind of broken the potholes your health care what the hell is up with that so it was a step back in material comforts for me. And in Singapore, you know, if you grew up even middle class, like the 50th percentile family, can afford a domestic helper.

So many Singaporean kids, in fact, 90% of all the kids I know growing up, all grew up with maids. Wow. Yeah, picking up after them, doing their laundry, everything. So Singapore has no minimum wage no minimum wage and so if you measure employment in that country it's it's in some economic measurements uh the way they do it it's almost like it's over employed don't have an unemployment problem everybody has has a job. Pretty much. No minimum wage, but how do people be taken advantage? How are people taken advantage because of that?

Well, that's why wages are on average low in Singapore. They're not that high. The United States practices what you call efficiency wages, which is they kind of pay people a little bit more to to extract a better performance right incentives matter right um but in singapore that's not the case but in singapore the streets are taking care of better bridges oh that stuff infrastructure you know i i tweeted maybe like last week saying something like uh especially now we're in like political debate season i I'm so tired of this whole left-right argument, like small government, no big government, government's a problem, government's a solution. It's about effective government. And I think that's something that the Singapore government had really perfected. It's effective governance.

It's not about the size. We're going to, I don't care whether this is a policy that came from the right or the left. It's what works. People respond to incentives, right? And if you want to encourage a certain kind of behavior, there's carrots and sticks to basically encourage that behavior. And so it's, there are things that the government would do in a way that just would never fly here, where you, you know, we treasure civil liberties too much in a way, which I personally came here for that reason. But I'll give you a good example. Social cohesion is engineered in Singapore. So there's, it's very, very multicultural, multi-ethnic society, you have Malay Muslims, Indians, Hindus, Chinese, who are Buddhists, Christians, and, you know, Caucasians all living on an island city state that's about 5 million in terms of population.

And how the government manages this multicultural project is that 80% of people actually live in public housing. That's very high. It's like a socialist thing, right? Public housing that the government builds for you. That's very high. It's like a socialist thing, right? Public housing that the government builds for you. And each block has to mimic the racial demographics of the whole country. So you don't have ghettos, right? So you imagine like a housing state that basically mirrors like, okay, the total makeup of the country is 60% Chinese, 20% Malay Muslims.

It has to follow. 60% Chinese, 20% Malay Muslims. It has to follow. So you can't have basically an area like Birmingham in the UK where all the Muslim immigrants or, you know, something like Dearborn, Michigan or Minnesota with all the Somali immigrants. You are forced to integrate. It's a way to force people to integrate

and have, you know, neighbors are just not not your own kind um and that's how they've created this like national identity that's very strong that's interesting because everybody would want that but they wouldn't want it engineered correct you know what i'm saying it's like everybody would love if the country if all of our neighborhoods were integrated and everybody just got along with everybody. I think I've always felt like that's one of the things that New York has a large advantage over Los Angeles is interaction. People are constantly on the subway and walking on the streets with everybody of all different classes, all different backgrounds. And I think that's really good. I think it's good, too.

Yeah. It's the contact hypothesis, right? Like I feel like if kids grew up with, like if you had a black friend growing up, like since you were, you know, three, four, you would never think to be racist. Like it's just one of those things. It's like early contact with different people

and it's the same with, that's what I feel about ideas too. Early contact with different ideas really helps. um that's that's i don't know i've kind of devoted my my life to to that cause almost do you know daryl davis's yes of course i wrote about him oh did you yeah i was at that conference that that he was speaking we were speaking at the same conference and that's the conference that daryl davis was called neo-Nazi. Did he talk about that? That someone called him a neo-Nazi?

Yeah. Yeah. How? Because. Let me explain to people who he is if you didn't listen to the podcast that I did with him. and he was doing some shows at this country western bar and met some people from the Klan, and through just communicating with them and being friendly with them over a period of many months, he got them to quit. They quit the Klan on their own.

He didn't even request it. And then over the course of several years, he's gotten more than 200 people to leave the Klan, leave neo-Nazi organizations, and they give him their robes and their flags, and he brought them all in here. Oh, my God. He's an inspirational human being. Very much so. But he essentially was reinforcing what you were saying, that these people were never

around anyone. Like, one of the guys that he met initially was saying, I've never had a drink with a black man before. And he's like, how's that possible? And he's like, I'm in the Klan. And he's like, I've never had a drink with a black man. And so he's like, this is the first time I've ever had a drink with a black man.

And we're making this big deal out of it. And then eventually, Darryl was going to his house and eating dinner with him and hanging out with him. And then the guy's like, I can't do this anymore. Like, why am I in the Klan? And he quit. And he quit just from Darryl being this really friendly, articulate, brilliant guy who clearly didn't fit their narrative of what they thought their racist depiction of what a black man is. Right, right. So the incident that happened was

this group called Mythicists Milwaukee had organized a conference. What is it called? Mythicists. Mythicists? Yeah, that was the name of the group. But they were kind of like a secular. So the mythicists believed that Jesus Christ was,

like he didn't really exist as a historical figure. That's what a mythicist is. But in any case, it's a secular group that put on a conference, and they've been doing that for years. And they had alongside people like Sargon of Akkad, Count Dankula, the guy who taught his pug to do the salute. Yeah, yeah. So these people all came for a conference conference and so was Daryl Davis.

And, you know, it was a good, it was a bunch of people, but on the political spectrum, basically. And it was about promoting discourse, civil dialogue, that kind of thing. Andy Ngo was there as well. So basically, because, you know, when the conference was happening and Antifa kind of found out about it, they started protesting the conference. They called the venue to basically, you know, get it canceled. They said it was a neo-Nazi rally, Klan rally. Ironically, you know, the greatest irony was that Daryl Davis was there

and he got tainted as well. So I started calling this the political one-drop rule where it's like kind of what happened to you. If you are associating or talking to somebody that or just a whole range of people, like normal distribution of people, you will be tainted by the most right wing person that you're in orbit with. That's just how it goes. And that's what happened in Daryl. So when we had the after party to the conference and Tifa was gathered outside the bar, the Pittman, New Jersey people, because Tim Pool was there too,

the Pittman, New Jersey police had to station themselves outside of the bar. And they were kind of protecting this event. It's ridiculous because, yes, you might find Sargent's politics objectionable, but why is everybody who's associated, you know, with the conference also lumped in with this? And why is the response that this needs police protection? It's just, we're just talking about it. It doesn't make any sense. No no this desire to shut down speech is very dangerous

and it's very stupid it's childish and it's this thing that it gets it just gets reinforced in that culture the this you know the culture of either antifa or people that support antifa they don't understand the consequences of shutting down speech you think you're just going to shut down speech and de-platform people that have marginally offensive views. And the problem with that is, first of all, you close the door for them to be influenced in a positive way or for other people to learn from them being influenced in a positive way. Right. And second of all, the way to shut down ideas is not stop the person from talking. It's to combat those ideas with better ideas.

And then everyone around them gets to see the discourse when you have these debates online and people discuss these things online it benefits millions of people yeah when you shut that down it benefits nobody but your cause and your cause is probably incorrect like your your ideas are probably wrong in the case of daryl davis you're definitely wrong he's not a Nazi. So if you shot shutting that down and say, these people are Nazis. Well, you're wrong.

And you're censoring people that are trying to get to the bottom of things and getting to the bottom of things. I mean, discussing things and trying to figure out tenable solutions or, or comfortable middle ground that takes forever. This is not like, you know, you have Christina Hoffff summers and she has

this discussion and and and they pull fire alarms and and yell that she's a nazi like she's a feminist like you're you guys are crazy like this everyone has to comply with woke ideology 100 with no deviance whatsoever and everyone has to take an impossible-to-pass purity test. This is a dumb way to communicate. But you ever notice something, too? It's always that it's – why is the concern always that if we have this battle of ideas that the person would shift to the right? Yes. Why are you not concerned about the other way, right?

It kind of, like, reminds me of of like – because I grew up pretty evangelical. My mom was very religious. It was that she tried to – it's that, okay, if you're a good Christian, you might get corrupted by bad ideas. So we have to ban, I don't know, like Harry Potter books are banned in my household. It's like we had to ban all these because it encouraged witchcraft. So I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween. Encourage witchcraft. Wow, that's heavy. Yeah, it's pagancraft. So I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween. Encourage witchcraft. Wow.

That's heavy. Yeah. It's pagan stuff. That's heavy. But that's what I mean. It's like, this is satanic. This is evil. And it has taken on this religious dimension, this liturgical dimension.

Because they're always so concerned that the corruption is just going, like, they're going to drift to the right. Of course. They're never concerned that somebody might be convinced by the arguments and go to the left why i i don't get that well the drifting to the left first of all they think would be a good thing the problem is why don't they think it would happen well they don't worry about it they're not worried that someone would drift to the left you mean by looking at someone's offensive views and that they would be more likely to drift to the left? Is that what you mean? That, like, okay, it's like, let's say we expose everybody to all ideas. Right. Why are we so concerned that the individual, that they're, you know, the target, I guess, would be shifted right and not shifted left?

Yeah, I know what you're saying. If there's an equal. I think they have an infantile perspective on ideas. And they're worried about people being indoctrinated. They're worried about – but they're not worried – look, if you have someone talking, and this person is preaching some ridiculous thing, and someone starts becoming indoctrinated and gravitates towards that, the real problem is that these people that are being indoctrinated are gullible and they're foolish that's the real problem and in your eyes they're they're going in the incorrect way so it's infantilizing yes it's actually patronizing it is patronizing yes i think that's that's what i couldn't those people are dumber than you you're smarter you know better you need to stop these people from being tricked into this right

wing ideology i mean i've heard intelligent people make this conversation about other intelligent people that disagree with them like ben shapiro that like ben shapiro should be deplatformed because ben shapiro is indoctrinating people towards right-wing ideology by having these salient points and articulate sentences and these rants that he goes on. He speaks very fast. He's got a great grasp of the English language, and it's very compelling. And the idea is that he's indoctrinating young people. Well, no, he's speaking with passion. I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but I certainly agree with his right to express himself.

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

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

And his perspective is he couldn't support that because of religious reasons. So then we go deep into the hole with why. Moral objections, yeah. And what are these religious reasons? Like how deep do you go with this? Do you think Jesus came back from the dead? Like he doesn't. He's Jewish.

It's a different perspective. But do you think, you know, do you really think that God thinks that homosexuality is some sort of a carnal sin and terrible. If so, God made everything. Why did he make homosexuals? Please explain that. What kind of a weirdo is God that he gives people this urge to be gay, but then he tells them, fight that urge. And then he makes this comparison that's like murder.

Sometimes you want to murder people. I'm like, okay. I think that's different because you don't want to murder people all day, every day. I know a lot of gay dudes you want to murder people i'm like okay i think that's different because you don't want to murder people all day every day i know a lot of gay dudes who want to fuck dudes all the time it's like it's god did a crazy thing to their system and for you to believe in god but have a problem with that to me is ridiculous so now we're banking on these really ancient words that were written by people with no grasp of science no understanding of biology no understanding of the culture of the world no understanding of

the the sheer number of these people and taking into perspective that you know you're literally dealing with i don't know what percentage of the population is gay but it's a significant percentage so you're saying all of them are frying in hell do you know how dumb that is that's really fucking dumb like if they're your neighbors and they're just happy and loving, what do you care? The goal should be a cohesive society where people are comfortably being around each other with all their differences. Exactly. And just nice. People are just nice to each other.

Exactly. It doesn't matter if you're gay or straight or trans or black or white or Asian or fucking whatever. It shouldn't matter. The individual should matter. And the way we interact with each other, that should matter. And we have to take into consideration that if you're going to live your life by these things that were written down thousands of years ago, before people had any of these understandings of all the subtle nuances of humanity and all the differences that people

have, and now the biological understandings of why they have these differences well you're dealing with ignorance you're you're you're you're applying these ancient ignorant rules to a modern world where we have a in a vastly expanded understanding of human beings right but to ben's credit i mean he's friends with dave he doesn't let that sort of but he wouldn't go to his wedding yeah Yeah, but he says he's going to. I'd cut him off. If I invited him to my wedding, he's like, I can't. You're a sinner. I'd be like, fuck off.

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

and so so the only reason she was objecting to it was because of this belief that she's going to end up burning in hell so it's coming from ironically a place of love right um it's judgy yes and and it's based on bronze age ideology yeah but but you know i i don't think that that either of us ever doubted that she loved her right and it's so i kind of understand where ben comes from in that sense even though i i you know it makes me angry like i you know reject all that stuff. It's just silly. And what's interesting is he's so smart that when he talks about that, all of a sudden you see stammering

and he gets weird because he knows it's nonsense. I don't know if he knows that. I wouldn't embrace it. You gotta know. He's just deep. He's just balls deep in his religion. Which is, I like the guy a lot.

I really do. And I've gotten so much shit for saying that I like the guy. But we need more of that. We need more of the hate the sin, not the sinner. And practice on both sides. But I think he and I only have, we disagree on some issues and some political issues, but he's a decent person. He's a nice person.

He's very friendly. He's funny. I enjoy his company a lot. I like Ben Shapiro. I really do. I think he's a nice person he's very friendly he's funny i enjoy his company a lot i like ben shapiro i really do i think he's a brilliant guy right i mean the gay thing's the biggest one because me that's the dumbest one like my my my it always comes back to why do you care that's all it is to me like why do you care i don't care like why do you care if someone's gay like if it if does it affect you how can it how can it affect you right are you do you have your fingers in everybody's business like it's crazy yeah it doesn't make any sense to me i mean that was the argument against uh gay marriage

like why does it affect your heterosexual marriage exactly it shouldn't well the sanctity of marriage it's so dumb the sanctity of marriage how about vegas you could go to a fucking drive-thru you can get it you get married at a drive-thru movie theater i mean that's really what it's like right you get married anywhere it's so dumb so it's so ridiculous i i just i feel like at this stage of civilization that there's the we have to figure out what stuff we're going to abandon from the old days and what stuff we're going to keep. And we've already abandoned a lot of things, right?

In Christianity, if you leave, they don't kill you anymore. They got rid of some of the things during the Enlightenment. They changed a lot of the aspects of Christianity that we associate today with more repressive religions. Yeah.

That used to be Christianity. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of the Enlightenment in general. In fact, Stephen Pinker wrote that book, Enlightenment Now. That was the first book we chose to translate into Arabic. Oh. And then it became the – like recently, there were a lot of protests in the Middle East. And we started distributing that book.

Like it was actually, the person was coordinating some of the protests that was telling us, we want to give this book out to the people because a lot of these youth, like they're really jaded by theocrats in the region, by authoritarianism. And they're like, you know what? You know what our religion had never gone through? Not the Reformation. We don't want the Reformation. We want the Enlightenment.

Because Enlightenment was what constrained Christianity in a way. And it really, if you look at one of the greatest intellectual achievements of Europe came out of there, right? This idea of the social contract, of eroding monarchy, absolute monarchy, separating church and state. All these wonderful innovations and ideas came out of the Enlightenment. And it promoted this idea that maybe people should be free to have their own conscience and think differently. And that's something that really, really is needed in the Middle East. Well, I think the way that your organization is going about it is probably the best way to get books translated, get ideas translated to people that maybe weren't ever exposed to these concepts before. Right.

And maybe that'll help. Yeah. It's just… But that's the thing. And maybe that'll help. Yeah. It's just. But that's the thing.

So, you know, pluralism, I see that as, you know, that's what we're doing, promoting pluralism, this idea that you can have all these competing narratives. And so you asked me what my culture, you know, like when I came to America, like how, what was my experience just moving here? Yes, it was very freeing and liberating because I felt like I went to a place that was pluralistic, that tolerated all the weirdos. And then maybe in like 2014, you know, things started to change, at least on campus, when, you know, pluralism wasn't tolerated. You started to see the rise of this sort of more intolerant, you have to, you know, kind of kowtow to this intersectionality and critical race theory. So that was an interesting experience and I think was ultimately very detrimental to the actual project of liberalism. It's counter, it's, you know, working against that.

Exactly. Yeah, that's the really frustrating part of it like what you're claiming to be preaching your ideology is actually working against it ultimately behind the scenes and you just can't seem to see the pattern right where it's going you can't stop people from discussing things and say that you support free speech right that's not free speech you know and one of my favorite things with ben with ben shapiro is watching him talk to those people he is one of the best at taking questions and just decimating these uh social justice warriors go to go and watch ben shapiro versus i know i it's like that's he's so good at it though i know but i just hate the way well the captions are

terrible it's very clickba, and it's not him. He doesn't make those captions. I know. It's his supporters. But goddamn, is he good at it. I secretly laugh at it. I know it's kind of bad for a discourse. I don't secretly.

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

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

I needed to know. That's one of the culture shock things for me when I first moved to America. It was that, you know, I think a lot of American kids were told, like participation trophy culture. A lot of them were told that they were the best. It's like, you know, like Tommy, like you are, you know, there's nothing you can do. Yeah, you're just like so amazing. And I'm like, do these people, it's like American Idol. We used to get the seasons in Singapore too.

And it's like, these people can't sing. And that's actually why they're putting them on. They're awful. Yeah. And nobody told them, like, are you telling me that like, they've been telling their friends, oh, I'm practicing, I'm going on American Idol. Did nobody tell them that, bro,

like you should just be singing in the shower? Nobody told them. Well, there's a couple things going on. First of all, some of those people are trolls. They're going on there. They know they suck. And they're going on because they're going to get on TV. And the best way to get on TV is actually to suck.

American Idol, if you don't have any talent. There's no concept of shame? They want to do it. They want to be on TV. Look, I used to host Fear Factor. Don't talk to me about shame Okay I understand There's no shame in that

There's no shame in Attempting to eat Bull testicles Actually I think That's heroic That's definitely not heroic And it's now A show on

Food network right Well bull testicles Are actually a common food Yeah yeah Rocky Mountain oysters Gross stuff is They don't taste bad Bull testicles

Do not taste bad They're actually The way they cook them If they cook them well They're actually, the way they cook them, if they cook them well, they're actually delicious. Okay, but there's no shame in doing something that most people are fearful about. The singing thing, what's going on is, first of all, there's a lot of those people that are mentally ill. That's part of the problem. A lot of those people are delusional. They're mentally ill.

They have like legitimate mental health issues. And then they go and sing and they sound terrible. And no one tells them because they don't have any friends. It's one of the reasons why. I think there's a happy medium. See, the thing is, you know, if you grew up in Asia, you're told that you're just a dumbass all the time. And you're kind of constantly beat down. You know, if you come home with like 99 over 100 for your math exam, your parents are not going to say, pat, pat, well done. They're going to say, where was that one point? What did you do wrong? And again, you do not doubt that they love you and care for you.

That's just how it is. They're just hardcore. And so you kind of internalize that and have very low self-esteem in general. But you kind of know your limitations, right? That's the problem. When I moved here was that I realized a lot of the kids I went to school with, man, I wish they had that confidence. You know, it's like they are their inflated sense of self-worth was just so big. But sometimes it allowed them to get the good jobs. It allowed them to ace the interview.

They don't have to do stupid things like drink this and get nervous. You don't have to do that either. I grew up around a lot of Koreans because I did taekwondo from the time i was young i did too far well and they are i mean i i thought i knew what hard work was until i was around these people and i was like my god work yeah koreans whoo and uh my friend jungsik who was on the uh u.s national team when i was uh younger was in medical school so he's going through his residency and training to be on the national team so while he was studying he would put his backpack on fill his backpack up with books and run up the stairs of uh the

university run up and down the stairs to get some additional workouts in he was trying to train for the u.s team while he was doing his residency. That's very impressive. It's insane. Insane. He was crazy. He would sleep three hours a night, and he was like one of the best Taekwondo fighters in the world.

And it was all through sheer will and determination. But he was explaining that to me about what it was like growing up. It's like you are never good. There's nothing ever good enough. No matter what you do do you could have done better you could work harder you could always do more yeah no i mean it's it's unforgiving but it's one of those things that it's a good illusion it's it's i think a very healthy illusion to have that like work equals success right and and that's why i think, you know, people of Asian descent generally are pretty primed to buy into the Republican politics, right? Right.

Of pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You don't need handouts. The harder you work, the more likely you're going to achieve something. That's why there's just such a natural, you know, ally in terms of to rely on this group block as a political group. Well, that's the undiscussed racism in academics is the way Asian people are treated when they're applying for major universities, particularly for Harvard. They literally, you have to score higher if you're Asian because there's so many Asian people that get in, they made it more difficult, which is racist.

Yeah, they're trying to manage that. Yeah. It's not a meritocracy anymore. You've decided that they have to do better than white people. They have to do better than everybody else, which is crazy. I think the insidious thing in particular about the Harvard case was that they started downgrading Asians on personality. I mean, that's the part. It's like, okay, fine.

they started downgrading Asians on personality. I mean, that's the part. It's like, okay, fine. You want to say that, like, maybe, you know, we don't want to, like, lower the scores a little for other groups and, you know. But why? But then to downgrade this personality, that's the part that bothered me. How did they do a downgrade personality? What was the method that they used to do that?

So they said, okay, we're not just going to rely on standardized tests. Because that's the thing. Like, standardized tests, you know, they can be easily gamed. That was the idea. You can just go for more tuition, extra classes, and you'll do well. Well, we care about the holistic package of the applicant. So you want to see more personality. Ultimately, this was about what Aristotle called the telos, right? What is the telos of higher education what's the ultimate goal or essence of higher education is it to just produce perfect cogs in the machine of the global economy or is it you know to produce engaged citizens or whatever it is right like so however you define that question what's the

purpose of higher education you could tailor your entrance methods to meet that and, what's the purpose of higher education, you could tailor your entrance methods to meet that. And in Harvard's case, they decided, well, you know, we're going to, instead of just looking at your GPA, your essay, we want to see, want to interview the person, want to see what your personality is like. Can you thrive at Harvard? Are you going to be a good contributing member of this university? Socially. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that's one of the areas in which consistently it looked like the Asian population that was applying to Harvard was downgraded in that score. They scored really high when it came to like extracurriculars, academics. They were so strong on SATs and all these other standardized tests.

But when it came to personality, they were very consistently downgraded. So do you think that that characteristic, like the seeking out that was applied specifically to try to limit the amount of Asian people? Because that's the argument, right? You know, I don't know if it was done specifically for that. But I think Harvard has a, again, monocultures suck in general. So, you know, if you're going to, even for me, like I was coming to study in America, like 10,000 miles away, right, from the place I grew up. I don't really want to go to school with a lot of Asians because like I could have just stayed there, frankly. Right. But I was looking for something that wasn't a monoculture.

You have to just expand your mind, right? So at the end of the day, the issue with Harvard is that it was taking federal money. And if you see Harvard as a stepping stone to a career, to a future, it is unfair. It is kind of unfair if they were penalizing you based on race. That's the hard part to prove, whether or not this was personality or race or some sort of other thing that they were selecting for that happened to correlate with race. That's the part that's hard to prove. So is it possible that they were just trying to enhance the way people communicate on campus? And so they sort of emphasized personality and emphasized social social interactions and in

doing so they penalized asians without being aware of it yeah kind of i mean to be to be honest like you know when i was in college i only did my first jello shot like a couple weeks ago and a couple weeks ago now yes okay well i was that typical you don't need to do jello shots to be in college i don't know if any. Okay. Not that. But I didn't have the typical college experience. You didn't party?

I didn't party. And I think a lot of international students who come from Asia will probably fall into the same habits. Like we're kind of like, you know, we've been told that there's only one way to succeed. Work hard and summa cum laude and all these things. So a lot of us kind of are culturally aligned on that. And, you know, do we contribute to campus in the same way that your active student union leader would who's involved in other curriculars? I don't, you know, I don't know. So would Harvard want a diversity of behaviors and interests?

Yeah. Probably yes. The true diversity, right. You don't want all these boring STEM people walking out. But you want all kinds of different stuff. And you also want people that raise the bar really high in terms of performance. You do. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that enhances other people's understanding of what's possible. But as a private institution, you can make your student population up the way you want, right? That's why you have Liberty University, which is Jerry Falwell's, and it's for Christians. But it's a private institution. They're not taking money from the government, so that's fine. And unlike UC Berkeley, state institution, they abolish affirmative action. UCLA, all the UCscs did look at the population

70 80 percent asian interesting in california yeah why is that this is the uncomfortable you know this is the part where we just you know like i don't want to i don't want to say do you i don't know because they kick ass they work harder yeah they're more dedicated more disciplined people are very uncomfortable to talk about I don't want to say. Do you? I don't know. Because they kick ass? They work harder? Yeah. They're more dedicated, more disciplined? People are very uncomfortable to talk about differences in group outcome because we have to kind of make everybody the same. Or else there must be some sort of systematic thing. But I think that Asians, because they're so hardworking and because they don't complain, people get away with this stuff where they get away with discrimination against them i think they're starting to complain

that's why the lawsuits were filed so yeah they are starting to but it's like it took that to like all right you fucks and there's actually quite a big pro-trump asian-american voting block you know interesting this this This particular issue of affirmative action has really driven a lot of Asians rightward. In New York City, that has happened too under de Blasio. Really? Yeah, because of the public school situation there. What is this?

Same thing. They want to lower, basically, in terms of the public high schools, they want to institute the same policies for action. So that's, that's become an issue. I think I read an article recently that Andrew Yang was kind of dragging Asian Americans back to, you know,

to the left, but I don't know, remains to be seen. He just dropped out. So yeah, now that he's out, I wonder what's going to happen. Yeah.

I was bummed about that. He was my guy guy he has some really interesting ideas and he's so he's so open-minded you know his his perspectives are so uniquely non-politician like yeah yeah and like how refreshing to finally have somebody who's scientifically and technologically literate yes in government yes that was really my my big attraction to i know it was the basic bitch intellectual dark web choice either him or tulsi was but basic intellectual choice but i really really liked him yeah this whole thing is so strange it looks like they're trying to fuck bernie over again just like they did in 2016 they're just that we we watched that coin flip over and over again yesterday yeah from iowa we're like arrest that kid put him in jail that was an illegal coin

flip that was a terrible coin flip the whole thing is just so weird it's just seeing it play out and seeing it play out so transparently with so many some of the conspiracies are about, because now they're kind of like pitting Mayor Pete against Bernie. Well, he's doing it. He's talking shit about Bernie. He is too. And he got booed. Yesterday, right? And then Bernie was talking about how many billionaires, so many billionaires donate to Mayor Pete.

That was pretty good Bernie. It's not that good andrew yang 2020 dropout fuel speculation on nyc oh mayor of nyc holy shit he could do that he could win that fuck yeah actually he would how's mayor pete is he still a mayor yeah he is how you do that that's a bit of a complaint that should be a giant complaint did he do a great job as a mayor and he's like the bet did he clean up all the problems of that city he's he's done enough to make people notice but i think uh the african-american community is not happy about some issues he talks really well and he's handsome and he's a veteran those are good things they're

like fucking run him run him run him but no people are really raking him over the coals for apparently, like, his, you know. Again, he's checked all the right boxes. Harvard, McKinsey. Like, he's too perfect. Like, he was 3D printed in the DNC's headquarters, you know. Yes. So people are very concerned about that. Like, it's so funny how, like, this whole optics and authenticity really.

For me, that's why I like Andrew Yang. He was, if you hate politicians, which I generally do, he's the least hard to hate. Yes. Talking to him, he's so normal. He's like a guy who runs some tech company or something. That's what he feels like when I talk to him. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's the thing. With 24-hour exposure, social media, and news cycle, this kind of signal is so obvious in a way that was never before right we can see normal people now yes and we know the difference between grandstanding posturing and just like yes being a normal person yeah so i mean i just but also normal people don't want to do it you know it's like the the whole thing of it is just so invasive. Right. It's insane. It should disqualify anybody who wanted to do it. Exactly. But, you know, this is a system we have. We've got to do what we've got to do.

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

Right. Exactly. I'm hoping things just continue to get better. I'm hoping more people understand the mechanisms behind the scenes and how all this stuff works. I have a question for you, though. Okay. Because you do talk a lot about woke stuff kind of going amok, right?

Mm-hmm. Does it not bother you, though, abouternie that he aligns himself with some characters who are super woke i think and woke activists in particular yeah well i mean he also aligns himself with people at cornell west who is brilliant and has some amazing ideas about that and like looks at it from a an accurate and educated perspective i think a lot of the the wokeness is a sign of a cultural shift in the right direction less racism less homophobia less fill in the blank all those all the things that we that trouble us about like evil behavior and even greed corporate greed all these these things that trouble us about the influence that

money has on politics and bernie clearly stands against all that stuff and i think that when you see these this woke stuff even though it goes amok you have to look at it on a spectrum it's like the crazy antifa people who demand 100 compliance with woke ideology or they'll hit you in the head with a bike lock versus people who want single mothers to be able to have free education and free health care and give them the economic support that they have to raise their family and hopefully give their children a chance at achieving a successful comfortable life in this world versus suppress them versus keep them in this fucked up system that just throws them in the meat grinder with everybody else treat this country like a community like try to do our best to help the people that are

in a disenfranchised position because there's so many try to do our best to in some way economically uplift all these deeply impoverished sections of our country that's those are the good aspects of woke ideology see all woke ideology isn't just the you need 78 different gender pronouns and you have to comply with actually fringe probably it is fringe but it's also fringe right i mean like it's there's nothing wrong with being conservative fiscally there's nothing wrong with being conservative in the way you dress or the way you behave you know it's like when you go far right then things get ugly right and it's it's the outside edges on both parties are the mess. Most people, reasonable people, if they could have conversations with folks, even if they disagreed on certain things, they'd find themselves somewhere in a comfortable discussion where you could at least sort through the ideas and try to figure out why you think the way you think and why I think the way I think, how we disagree.

And are you right or am I wrong? Like, I want to know. And most people don't. These kind of conversations, like trying to figure out if the person who opposes your philosophy or your perspective is right and you're wrong, that's very uncomfortable for people. So what do they do? They just fucking shit on anybody who's on the other side. And they don't talk to them. philosophy or your perspective is right and you're wrong it's very uncomfortable for people right so what do they do they just fucking shit on anybody who's on the other side and they don't talk to

when there's very little exchange of ideas in between the right and the left one of the guys i really like talking to is dan crenshaw who's a right-wing guy he's very reasonable very reasonable he's so much respect for doing that thing on snl too yes yes that was great that was such a the nice meal couple like to see yes we we and it's so rare nowadays like this you know dividing line between right and left and things are just so so hyper hyper polarized so yeah i mean you can't like guys will go on a fox news show and people scream at them you know how dare you use that like jimmy dore just did tucker carlson show and people would just them you know why how dare you use that like jimmy dore just did tucker carlson show and people would just shit on him all over the place for doing that and

using his platform and well of course he's using his platform he's getting good ideas out there who tucker jimmy dore jimmy dore is an amazing youtube show it I've seen him. It's fucking amazing. And the way he breaks down things. It's hilarious, but also... He's funny. Accurate. And from the far left, too. Yes. I mean, I disagree with him

a lot politically, but he actually entertains me. Yes. He's an angry, far left guy who's funny. And he laughs like... Wasn't it Mutzi? The dog that has the asthma laugh?

Oh, he's got a crazy laugh. Yeah, exactly. I like people with crazy laughs because their laugh just makes me laugh so i just watch for that purpose alone we need more discussions you know we need more people that and and the thing is if you like people have gotten mad at me for having people on the podcast that are far right people particularly in the far past like many years ago and one of the things that's hilarious is when they said, his show has had this person, that person, this person, that person. All the negatives. And you're talking about 1,500 plus episodes.

And you'll list like five or six in a row, as if that defines the show. Well, like I said, this is another example of the political one-drop rule. You interview one far-right person. So the whole... Ignore Jimmy Dore. Ignore that you have had Abby Martin, Edward Snowden, all these people on. You've done this far-right person.

Your whole show is far-right. Therefore, Rogan is an alt-right person. Well, it's easy, too, because I look like one. I look like I should be an alt-right person. No, you don't. Yes, I do. Why? Because you work out? Yeah. Yeah, I look like I should be an alt-right person. No, you don't. Yes, I do. Why? Because you work out?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a bald cage-fighting commentator, you know? You know what? That's a terrible – I don't know why this correlation has really started to exist, but it has. I saw an article. I think it was on The Guardian that said something like if you exercise too much, you're – there was an article about that. Like, exercise is kind of like a – again, they're lumping all these concepts.

Toxic masculinity? Yeah, they're lumping all these concepts together. I bet that article was written by a weak bitch. Right, right. Just feeding the fire. Sorry. Yeah, it's silly. There's a lot of like really brilliant people who exercise all the time.

Right. They just enjoy it. They enjoy having a body that works really well. There's a lot of really brilliant people who exercise all the time. Right. They just enjoy it. They enjoy having a body that works really well. There's a lot of brilliant people that like racing cars too. They just enjoy the mechanical aspect of racing a car. It's kind of the same thing. When you do something to your body to juice your body up to make it stronger and faster and work better, it doesn't mean you're dumb. It doesn't mean you're toxic masculine.

But this stuff is insidious because it's bad enough to be in political silos we're now in cultural silos and they're mapping on each other right so one of the things that happened when i first moved here was that um you know so i because i didn't grow up here i i wasn't i i didn't know what i shouldn't like so people would say like oh you you're're Boston, like, you know, educated, liberal, coastal elite, right? But then I was like, I love WWE. And so they're like, that's of all people, like, you know,

I'm surprised you watch WWE. And I, you know, this was the time of like Hardy Boys and Lita. I grew up with that stuff. So people would be surprised and they would push back on it. And it's increasingly become that way. Like from a person's consumption habits, what they like, hobbies, you're now able to map what politics they will have or likely to have. And that's dangerous.

Like we shouldn't be going down this route. It's been very comforting for me to see how many left-wing intelligent well-read educated people actually enjoy watching the ufc so i talked to so many of them like you're a fan like oh all right and then they want to have these conversations with me about fights and about this matchup and that match i'm like wow this is really interesting like people that you would never have associated with being like a fan like robert downey jr ufc fan and we're talking to him about like wow matt damon ufc fan yeah like whoa any anybody breaking moles really should be elevated you know like because it's so right we just get more and more entrenched in these

clusters right and people are scared to like things like wwe or like anything they like you know some some people love the fucking mosh pits you know it's fake right i'm like of course but it's entertaining did you not see what vince mcmahon did like it's just entertaining yeah but they don't want you to like what they don't like which is you know it's thought bubbles you know it's what it is it's like people love when you are we people love when you're predictable right it's one of the reasons why people love when people dress up in suits. You dress in a suit and you act like a business person. You say words that are – you speak in a very similar way to the other people that you work with.

And it makes it easy to map out what you're probably going to do and how you're going to react. There's a very narrow band that you're probably going to do and how you're going to react there's a very narrow band that you're operating in when you're wearing a suit and a tie and you're in an office there's a narrow band you could be the asshole suit and tie guy or you can be the standard you know work language human being gentleman you know that that kind of stuff is that's people like that because they know that they can kind of predict you. They know where you're going from. But when you're eccentric and when you're outside the box and you're unpredictable and you have an eclectic taste, they don't like it.

You have interesting ideas that are completely irreverent and don't fit into these patterns. Like, what is she up to? What the fuck's going on in her head? She's out there watching wrestling? Right. Pro wrestling. She actually likes it? No, it's not.

Yeah. It's pro fake wrestling. Entertainment. Yeah, entertainment wrestling. Right, exactly. Yeah, but some people don't like when you're unpredictable. And they also don't like their own ideas being challenged. It's one of the things that I think that people love about other people that are deeply religious.

If you're deeply religious and they're deeply religious, they know that they can talk other people that are deeply religious. If you're deeply religious and they're deeply religious, they know that they can talk to you in a certain way. Well, the Lord has a way of making things work out. Yes, it does, Tom. Yes, it does. And they know that you're going to think. Amen. You're going to think in this narrow bandwidth. You're not going to get outside that box.

You're a good Christian. Well, I know Mike, and Mike's a good Christian. All that stuff I hear about him just doesn't make any sense to me. But that's why it's a good control mechanism. Yes. Right? Like, it's easy to hurt people who you know, like, exist within this narrow band. Well, that's why politicians almost always adopt some form of religious ideology.

Even Trump. Trump was basically never religious his entire life. Right. Exactly. And now he's got a religious that lady who has paula white or something what other motherfucker crazy but that lady is amazing like she's so crazy that it's wwe that's what it is i mean trump used to be in the wwe i know i totally remember those days this lady is basically like a wacky manager. She's like a wacky manager in the WWE that talks to God and helps Trump out.

That's how I look at it. I'm like, this is his wacky manager. He's got a character now. I mean, look. He's got the fucking crazy hair. He's got the spray tan that doesn't go all the way to the outside edges. And he's got this wacky lady who I don't want to say he's banging her. But I wouldn't be shocked.

No, I'd be shocked. She's kind of hot. She? Yeah, kind of hot. I don't know. A dirty old crazy religious lady way. I don't know. Dirty, milfy religious lady.

I think she's fairly pretty. Isn't she? Look at that. Not bad looking. Listen, you tell me. I like her, yeah, the way she presents, but she's got the Karen hairstyle, which is not attractive. The Karen hairstyle. L-O-L.

Look at that. Look at him. He's not even. He's deeply in thought. No, it's so obvious it's fake. Come on. How dare you? You don't know.

He might be a changed man. Yeah. Someone's unscores minded. I don't like how you're thinking. You know what? I think that's the thing that kind of ties all the threads of my life. It's just that I definitely oppose ideological conformity. You know who I believe in that picture?

Go back to that picture, please. You know who I believe in that picture? Mike Pence. No, he's not there. No, that's not the picture. You fucked me, Jamie. Wait, what picture? The picture that we were just looking at.

It doesn't matter. See that lady in the leopard skin? I believe her face. She's barely into this. That's a lot of contour. The one with the dots, she's like, what am I doing?

What is this nonsense? And Trump is like, I can't believe I'm president. I won. I'm going to win again. All I have to do is listen to this crazy lady talk to me about Jesus

and people got to buy into it. Right. I mean, it's a great move. You know, I mean, he didn't go secular at all, right? But if you look at his past and his history, like, he's's a great move. I mean, he didn't go secular at all, right?

But if you look at his past and his history, he's not a religious guy. And all of a sudden, he is. And nobody even questions it. It's just lip service, though. He's in the WWE. She's his manager. She's the wacky manager. I think Obama was similar.

I think it was performative. It's church-going. I don't think Keith Bowman was. Is that her? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. They get down.

I guarantee you. They go back. They do Adderall together. They listen to ACDC and they fuck like rabbits. She's got a crazy story. Does she? Yeah. Like addiction.

Oh, she used to be addicted? Yeah, yeah. She, like addiction. Oh, she used to be addicted? Yeah, she talked about how... Oh, she used to be addicted. Good, even better. I think that's the singer for Journey. No. Yeah. The new singer?

What do you mean? Which singer? Journey's Jonathan Cain. No, not the singer. The singer is a Japanese gentleman. Do you know that Journey, like the what was his name steven what was the original guy's name steve steve perry steve perry steve perry from journey beautiful voice you know that yeah well now there's a japanese guy who does it and he was a journey

cover band guy and he's so good that when steve perry stepped away they hired him to sing the songs and he's fucking amazing that guy which guy that's the guy that was the paul the spiritual advisor is the far right that guy's the singer the one in the middle oh wow he's amazing he's very racially ambiguous um that picture You said he's Japanese I believe he's Japanese Isn't he? Am I wrong? I don't know about Japanese I thought I read he was Japanese

Anyway He's a guy from a What's his name? Arnel Pineda Okay maybe something else That's Filipino it it sounds like. Oh, he is Filipino. Okay, sorry, I'm wrong.

Chances are. Anyway, this guy sounds exactly like Steve Perry. Maybe even a touch better. Wow. Maybe even a touch better. You want to hear a little? Let's play a little bit of it. Give me a little bit of it, Jamie.

When did he? A few years back. Steve Perry. Five years ago? Yeah. Steve Perry wanted to bail. He's like, I can't do this anymore, man. And this guy's like, I'll fucking do it. it give me a little bit when did he a few years back steve perry five years ago yeah steve perry wanted to bail he's like i can't do this anymore man and this guy's like i'll fucking do it and they listen to him like damn dude you can do it he sounds exactly like steve perry okay okay give me Come on. Brings me back to high school, baby.

He's amazing. Wait, that was not... No, that's him. That's this dude. Okay. How good? A little, maybe a little better. Maybe a little better. I like the intensity.

Just a touch. Or maybe just sound technology has improved. I'm not sure. That could be. You're being very generous. Yeah. Give me a little better. I like the intensity. Just a touch. Or maybe just sound technology has improved. I'm not sure. That could be. You're being very generous. Yeah. Give me a little more. Come on. That guy's awesome.

I had no idea. It's amazing. He's so good. I love that. That's a great story. That's a human story. You know, I love a story like that. Guy's in a fucking cover band.

All of a sudden, he's a lead singer at Journey. I'm not surprised he's Filipino, though. They're really good at singing. Oh, okay. They love Gary. They're really good at pool. Who? Filipinos. Filipinos. Okay. some of the best pool players of all time they see on my wall out there i have uh two photos of signed photos of filipino pool players efren reyes and um francisco uh fuck

what is this god damn it why can't i remember his last name? Bata. Bata is Efren Reyes's and Django Francisco Bustamante. Francisco Bustamante. They're probably two of the top ten. Efren's probably number one ever. Efren Reyes. Most people agree with that. And Bustamante is probably top ten of all time. I'm not sure we should be even positive racial stereotypes now or not.

Those are positive. I know, but now they're not kosher anymore. Yeah, that's silly. Yeah. The reason is what happened is in the 1950s when American GIs were in the Philippines, they introduced pool to the Philippines. And they started playing under really bad conditions because it's very moist outside, humidity, the tables roll really slowly.

And so they developed a lot of really good skills under bad conditions. And then they would go to good conditions. And they also have a gambling culture. So there's a lot of gambling involved in pool. And so there are pools everywhere. They have all these outside cafes with terrible pool tables. And these people just got really, really good at pool. And to this day, some of the best players in the world come from the Philippinesines like when when guys would see guys in tournaments and they would have to play a guy

from the philippines and be like oh fuck here we go wow yeah so it's like chinese and ping pong probably i don't know about that though i don't know too much about that that's definitely true of even skiers right like so people that kind of learned on like i know the actually east coast skiers they're highly represented in the Olympics because they trained on ice. Oh, OK. You got to get like, again, it's the tough conditions that kind of forges this like fortitude. Then you can adapt to any terrain. Yeah.

Versus like if you kind of, you know, grew up skiing the soft part of Colorado, you can't really switch that way. I know. That's the thing. Yeah. We're making things easier for people. We're making easier people. Soft. That's why I have a, you know, one of the solutions I have for, you know, one of the questions of our time is how we fix journalism, right?

Yes. One of the things I really think we need to do, because I'm not one of those people that thinks like the MSM or like the media is the problem. I mean, I'm kind of part of the media now. I write for Spectator USA, which is sort of Bridget and some of the other people that you've had on your show. Bridget Phetasy. I love her. Yeah. She's the one that actually pitched me.

She's hilarious. She is really funny. I wish I had the freedom to be as inappropriate and hilarious as her. You say that. I wanted to get back to that because you were talking about – well, go ahead with this thing about how to fix journalism and then get back to that. So some of the best reporting that the New York Times really does is on the international stuff. So, like, they've sent people – they've sent journalists into, like, these areas in Xinjiang to, like, see what's up. You know, like, and they would be surveilled by government officials and things like that. Or even the ISIS files where this reporter,

New York Times reporter Rukmini, had gone into Baghdad and she just went in and collected all these documents by herself and then they came back and they analyzed it and they reverse engineered how ISIS was running their entire operation. This is really good journalism. And when you kind of focus on the shit that's going on in other parts of the world, it gives you a lot of perspective. You realize that a lot of woke stuff is actually very America-centric. The thermostat issue of thermostats, office temperatures being sexist, for example, because they're too cold for women, that's not a problem when you have seen how the women in Iran, what they have to deal with. And if we just did a rotation in the newspapers where everybody from the lifestyle or culture desk has to do a stint in, you know, Saudi Arabia,

something reporting from the foreign. Like maybe they'll just, maybe they'll have some perspective on this. Sure. Well, it is all a perspective issue, right? I mean, when in the absence of any real oppression, you find oppression everywhere. Right. Try to find it in pencils. Yeah, like progress is the victim of its own success in a way. And, you know, it's one of the things that,

because I had a big imposter syndrome when I first joined Spectator. And what they told me was, I was like, you know, I'm not trained as a journalist. And they're like, yeah, we know that. But that's actually, you know, the chairman said, like, that's why we want you. It's because you didn't go to the same schools.

You didn't go to the same journalism school. So you're not going to think like all the kids that are graduating from, say, like Columbia, you know, for in journalism. So we want different perspectives. And it's like, in fact, it's a policy that we don't even ask for where you go to school. We don't ask what you study. We don't care.

So don't even tell us. And that's how I got like, you know, on board. So did they just read your writing and say, we just like how you think? Exactly. Now, isn't that refreshing? It is very refreshing. It's wonderful. Spectator USA.

Congrats to them. Why do you think that you can't joke around about things and why do you think that that in some way is going to make people take you less seriously? I think people put you in bins, right? So professionally, like there's just, like you said, it's this like signal of like how you're going to act, right? How you dress, how you come across. And in professional settings, that's, there's an

expectation of you as a certain, behaving a certain way. Now, when you're funny, the problem is that that people don't know. Like you could say something, but like be totally ridiculous. And it's a joke. But then other people might take that seriously. And now you're a racist. Welcome to my world. Or, you know, if you are tethered to an organization that you have to represent, at the end of the day, people can't separate that. So, you know, part of my job is negotiating deals with many of the authors that you have on your show, right? People like who write bestselling books, trying to ink deals with them. I want your Arabic digital rights for free. You know, I want to make videos of your books too, video summaries and all these things.

We ink contracts with them, working with publishers, agents, and then also fundraising. I have to go to individuals to say like, hey, you know what? It's going to cost us $20,000 to translate this book. You know, would you want to sponsor it? Like you're a fan of this book. Can we get this in Arabic for free? So when you're kind of like handling those things and going into offices and you know sometimes you go to penguin random house and it's it's it's a certain expectation set of you and i i don't know if it's it's it's even more true of women though

that like they don't expect you to be uh funny or like the funnier you are, the more they take you less seriously. Versus, then, I don't know. There seems to be a bit of a gender divide there. I can see that. I can see how that would be an issue,

but I would like it to be their problem, not yours. I like funny people. So whenever someone says they're discouraged from being funny, and that's one of the things

that I like about your Twitter page is that it's funny. You're very funny. So like, discouraging you from being funny to me is like, why would you do that? You can't separate. Because you're not a serious commentator. Like, you know, no one's going to get you on CNN.

I don't think that's true. How could that be true? How is it true that someone who's just making jokes also can't be a serious person with a really well thought out perspective? I know. I obviously I know. I, I obviously, I agree with you, but it's,

it's, it's just one of the feedbacks I've gotten. Like, if you want to be taken seriously, who are these people? People that are running things. Maybe you need your own show. Maybe you need to stop working for people.

No, I, I mean, I'm still believing institutions. That's why I'm not like super, you know, I, I,

I don't want the revolution. I still believe that the way we're going to change things is through right now. There's just too much power. My heart would like a revolution, maybe. What kind of revolution? No, I'm just saying I'm not the kind of person that wants to tear down institutions. Right. I kind of want to work within it to change things because they have the best shot at changing things.

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

Is that an ancient Lakota quote? No. It's written on a teaching sign. No, it actually came from Larry Summers. I don't know if that's accurate. I don't know if you have to be an insider or an outsider. I think you have to have financial freedom so that you don't worry about someone taking away your ability to make a living so you suppress your own thoughts. That's the big one. But it takes a very, you know, a lot of things have to be aligned circumstantially to have financial freedom in the first place. But a lot of that does come from even working within the

institution. A lot of people who have, you know, huge financial back. And that's why somebody, I think it was Sarah Hader who tweeted something like the the one thing that's not really talked about is the classist implications of cancel culture right because it's going to affect uh the lower class more drastically right if you don't have them if they're canceled yes of course there's a huge classist implication yeah that's true it's also just a frivolous way of treating human beings and there's no path for redemption it's like the thought process of it is so limited because you're not considering the fact that these these are humans and these are people and people learn and grow and they get better and this not offering any path to redemption and lumping all digressions and all mistakes into the same sort of pile.

Right. It's just, it's a childish way of treating human beings. Right. And it's also, there's a fear to it that it's going to come back on you. So you go after them. Like some of the biggest creeps are also male feminists, right? They're the ones who are like really. Where do you say that? You know what I mean?

I already seen that Andrew Doyle the other day. That was funny. Yes. I love that guy. He's amazing. That book W that at Andrew Doyle the other day. That was funny. Yes. I love that guy. He's amazing. That book Woke is fantastic too. Yeah. Titania McGrath.

I love retweeting those Titania posts because so many people are like, what? What the fuck is this? Who is this bitch? People get so mad. They think she's real. Oh, it's so wonderful. But she could be in the sense that sometimes she ends up predicting actual commentary. She's so close to real.

If you had a television show, like one of them after midnight episodes. Is that what it is? What's the David Spade show called? Lights Out. Lights Out? I'm thinking of the other one. The one that Chris Hardwick used to host. Anyway, you have a talk show.

Let's say Jimmy Kimmel. If he had, is thisania mcgrath or is this a real activist and you and you had the quotes back to back a lot of them are close you would you know be hard pressed you get a lot of it wrong we're at the point though in our history and culture that that we can't even write better satire than reality right and that's that's a problem it is a problem you know when when our satirists are actually ended up end up writing better stories than or even predicting you know what's happening like that's well people are losing their fucking minds there was a video

from the university of phoenix i think it was where there's this kid on campus and um there was some pro trump group did you see that video see that video? The kid's screaming and saying, you're all fucking fascists, you're all fucking Trump, you have your throats cut, and he's screaming. And he's walking away from them screaming and making this, you should all have your throats cut, just completely unhinged. And I was watching this, and I was like, imagine if this was some kid yelling about Obama and the Obama administration and the liberals.

I mean, because he's not saying anything. He's not saying the reason why I hate you is because you detain children at the border in cages. Play this so I can hear it. Play it and give me some... Okay, I saw that circulating. Listen to this. Listen to this. Where? Slash his throat. Every fucking Republican.

Suck my fucking balls. Say that one more time. Where? Republican throat. Slash his throat. Death to fashion. Okay. That poor kid needs a hug.

Yeah. But imagine if he was saying that about democrats every republic or every democrat can suck my balls every republican slashed every democrat slashed their throat that would be crazy right right i mean he's doing that because there's this pro student trump organization there and so he's screaming that unhinged that's one of the problems i think we should not give you know like we should not give the right legitimate reasons to be complaining about disparate coverage right so one of the things that eric trump tweeted yesterday was which i didn't

even know happened like apparently a van was was was driven into a gop tent or something and you know they want the primaries And it got no coverage. I didn't even see it until... Does people get injured? I don't know. But there was a story about this. And Eric Trump basically tweeted saying that, imagine if the labels were turned.

It was just the other way around. That's right. We would hear nonstop. There would be analysis of the far-right problem in America. So the responsibility is on the media to make sure that these people don't have that argument. Right. The media has to be open, and they have to be unbiased in their depictions of these things. And we don't really have that kind of media anymore.

We have left-wing media and right-wing media, and everybody else is going, what's going on? Who's right? Who's telling the truth? you flip back and forth from cnn to fox news it's like you're in a vortex of space and time you don't understand what's what right yeah no i agree it's weird but that kid screaming that poor kid like what happened where'd you get this every republican slashed their throat i know come on man who are you what happened to you and you're in school so you're learning something i'm so i'm so wary of sort of dogpiling on this stuff now i think i think when i first you know started on twitter too i i was always inflaming like or like retweeting something that was like oh look at this super woke person that's on the french

and i'm like no no maybe i shouldn't you know amplify that signal maybe maybe this really is a fringe and that and that you know i'm just kind of making it seem like it's a it's a bigger issue um because i noticed i fall into that trap sometimes like that was this one story that came out i think when apple released the the new iphone there was like new york post was like, you know, iPhone 10X or something was cited as, was criticized as being sexist. And I was like, what, why, how, how, you know, and apparently, because like, the phone was kind of big, like they expanded the dimensions. And so like, it doesn't fit into women's hands as neatly as the old version did. And then I was like, so I tweeted that angrily, like, yeah, of course, like everything is sexist.

Again, like checks, notes, you know, iPhone sexist. And then I realized I was kind of part of the problem because when I looked into this whole issue, it was literally just like two Twitter egg accounts. And so like an article was written based on like what somebody who's anonymous said on Twitter that it was sexist. And it could have been the Internet Research Agency in Russia just fucking with everybody.

Yeah, yeah. Or Titania. Yeah, or Titania. Another version of Titania. Yeah. It's clickbait. It is. It is.

So I kind of stopped doing that stuff. I decided to become a bit more responsible with my own Twitter account. And, yeah, focus on different things. I mean, we already have a lot of good commentators who are fighting this fight right people like james lindsay peter bogosian yeah they're doing it very rigorously and they're doing it in peter bogosian's case they're doing it at great peril like that university is trying to get rid of them yeah and his papers that they did those grievance papers are hilarious i know the heteronormative and queer behavior

and dog parks, whatever it was called. Canine, yeah. Whatever it was called. Fucking brilliant. Right, and then they got called up for apparently manufacturing data. Yes. Which, of course, that's the whole point of a hoax.

Yes. And, yeah, I know. It's a political hit job. Yeah, but it's, they don't like that mirror of mockery. They don't like that, you knowery they don't like that you know the spotlight being on them to realize how ridiculous what you guys are supposed to be some higher institute of higher education but that's what that you know this this is mirroring what happened when

um like the atheists the new atheists started started debating the religious Christians. It's like the new atheists were kind of mocking, right? Like people like Christopher Hitchens. That was a bit of a mocking tone, like what you'll believe is kind of silly. Yes. But the way they reacted to it was that like you're not allowed to laugh about this stuff. Right. It's always the question is which side can tolerate humor? You're going to be on the right side right i agree yeah as soon as you can't be mocked and like no one hates being mocked more

than than left these days no one more than woke people right i i when i called my 2016 netflix special triggered just calling it triggered got so many people mad. I'm like, you fucking dummies. Do you know? I just did it. I just did it to you. Right. But I called it Triggered and you were mad.

Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. It's just, we're in a weird space right now where there's so many voices. So many people have social media and so many people have access to complaining. And so you get this bizarre signal it's like you gotta kind of let it die down a little figure out what how much of this is real and how much of it is that kid screaming slash their throats how many of those people are on

twitter right so so i i used to say the same thing because the you know you would see medical journals reporting cancer rates are going up and it it's like, cancer rate, is that really the case? Are we having more and more incidences of cancer? Or is it that our detection methods have gotten better? Like diagnostics have gone better and we're just able to catch it at a much earlier stage. So it's kind of inflating the case number. So it's really hard to tell. And it seems know, it seems, I'm so, you know, buoyed by the fact that in the last few months, it seems like mainstream culture, even comedy, is starting to push back.

You have more and more people who are saying, okay, enough of this stuff. Well, come to the Comedy Store. That's the front line. The Comedy Store is the least woke comedy club in the history of the universe. Is it related to The Cellar? No.

Okay, because The Cellar is really least woke too. Yes. the one in new york stand-up is pretty unwoke and the thing is the audiences want to hear the stuff they want to hear mocking all this shit they want to hear it and they enjoy it and you know you get pushed back sometimes people get up and get mad because you said the wrong word no they'll leave but you're missing the point the point is to say the wrong word you know like what what stand-up is supposed to be is mocking everything that can be mocked and if it can be mocked it will be mocked and if it's funny the audience will laugh and if you're like you shouldn't mock that but it just did and it worked like that's another yeah thing you hear quite a

bit that's a weird one too because you shouldn't punch down if it's not funny but if it's really funny and you're punching down there are exceptions yeah but sam kinnison one of his greatest bits ever was making fun of people starving in africa what yep it was a bit about those television late night commercials where you're sitting at home cooking your you know eating your dinner something like that you know and well sam kinnison's bit is a like a real classic. It's like, would you help? Would you please help? And he's like, why don't you help? You're right next to him.

And he goes, why don't you, instead of sending him money or sending him food, he goes, send him something like me. Send him something. He was going to go down there and go, hey, we just drove 5,000 miles with your food and we realized we wouldn't have world hunger if you people would move where the food is. You live in a fucking desert. hunger if you people would move where the food is you live in a fucking desert and it's like this long crazy bit of sam kinnison mocking starving people right but it's hilarious because it's done the right way it's it's he navigated that minefield where you don't feel bad he goes you

see that see that you know what that is that's fucking sand you know it's gonna be 100 years from now fucking sand we got deserts in america too we just don't live in them asshole and he's doing obviously that's not real these people are stuck they don't have the ability they don't have the resources to get out there's a real problem they've been there the climate has changed there's all these real issues right there's all real issues, but it's horrible, but you're dying laughing, particularly in 1986 when he did this. But there has to be like a theory of humor, like why that's funny versus another case where he's punching down and it's not. Good luck with your theory. Here's the thing about theories theories are like theories are pro you probably could in a like so you could do a post-mortem on a joke yeah and you could accurately

dissect why it worked i don't think you could predict how a joke will work because too many jokes are dependent upon the personality the irreverence of the perspective cultural context time yes timing the the personality the person doing it is giant yeah kinnison always had this little smile and this devious smirk and he could get away with more fucked up shit because that was his that was his brand you know like that wouldn't work with stephen right stephen right who has this sort of absurdist perspective and you know non-sequitur one-liners if he had a joke like that it wouldn't work but with kinnison with the yelling and the anger and you know and he was

fat and ugly and you know he's always angry that's like you know we talk about marriage and getting divorced you felt bad for him right if brad pitt was out there screaming about getting divorced he'd be like that beautiful fuck he should shut his mouth he's beautiful but kendison is like five feet tall and fat and balding and he's got a beret on it's like let him yell yeah i know this this analysis like the anatomy of humor really fascinates me like why somebody can get away with it why why somebody cannot. And I think I remember just recently because Ari Schaefer did that joke about Kobe right after he passed away. And yeah, he was. That wasn't necessarily a joke, which is also part of the problem.

It was a mocking of someone. And the joke is in his mocking. If people knew Ari, they would know that he does that whenever anyone dies including people he loves that's ari's thing and it's fucked up if you don't know ari but even if you like well i read it i was like oh jesus ari but that's it's i've come to expect it like he did it when Tom Petty died. He loved Tom Petty. He mocked Tom Petty mercilessly when Tom Petty died. When Aretha Franklin died, he mocked her mercilessly.

It's what he does. It's sort of his signature move, and he takes pleasure in it. And his fans think it's hilarious. But the best way to describe it is the way he looks at it. He has a very niche audience when it comes to that. And then that joke or that thing that he does that's funny to him and his crazy fans hit a broad audience. And that's when it became a problem. It takes a lot of balls to do comedy.

I really respect that so much. It's a strange way to make a living, especially today. Well, Ari had a great point about that, too. Ari's a strange way to make a living it especially today well ari had a great point about that too ari's a brilliant guy you know this was definitely amazing racist stuff oh how dare you say that i know no but it's not supposed to say that it's like from 2013 it's old yeah yeah but the one with the but that's asian driving instructor yes i would i've it drives me hysterical i show that to a lot of people. He's a brilliant stand-up, too.

He's a very, very funny guy. I forget what I was going to say about him. But, oh, yeah, he had this point about comedy. He's like, this is a great time for comedy right now because comedy is dangerous again. Like, it's really dangerous again. There's actual consequences. You got saved before? Yeah. Yeah.

It was, you could get away. It wasn't, there wasn't as many consequences. It was, you could get away, it wasn't, there wasn't as many consequences. People could not like it, but now with social media and the cancel culture and everything, like people get really angry at comedy now. Like, woo, you can feel it. Okay, he's a masochist then. No, it's not that he's a masochist.

It's just that he's an artist. And he loves the fact that, you know, it's like, it's very's like it's very punk rock now you know wild comedy is very punk rock like you you're bucking a trend but you're also doing it to the delight of audiences you know yeah i mean if anybody thinks that you shouldn't say some of the things i say come see me in an arena come see 15 000 people screaming laughing at that. I don't think you're right. I think people understand what a joke is. I think people understand that you're saying things that if you took them out of context and put them in a blog, it looks horrible.

But if you're saying it in the context of comedy, when you know that someone's just fucking around, it's really funny. And it's funny because people want to release from all this this nonsense they want to release from this restrictive way of thinking and talking they want to release it from being told what to do they want to release from these fucking kids yelling it's like god damn it what are we doing here and that's where comedy comes in yeah that my release was just uh moving yes you know just like move to a place that that all this stuff was possible and that we could laugh at ourselves again and but that's probably why you have this really interesting perspective is because of the fact you came from real suppression you understand real suppression real consequences you left that and then you're seeing these minor

consequences and you're like okay you guys this is a problem like you need to go to afghanistan for a couple weeks you need to see what it's like in like really suppressive cultures exactly how it changes your mind how it you end up self-censoring you don't even need the government to do it anymore after a while you're scared yeah you're scared but it doesn't matter if it's the government or the twitter mob after a while? The result is going to be similar, even though the consequences are different. And we should definitely separate that. I'd rather lose my job than lose my life. Well, it's also, it's in the, with wokeness in particular, like in the propagation of wokeness, in the promotion of wokeness,

of wokeness and the promotion of wokeness and the very strict adherence to this ideology and the aggressive takedowns of people that don't comply, you're essentially instigating a sort of totalitarian way of thinking, but it's just in a way that you think is good. But it's still a totalitarian way of thinking but it's just in a way that you think is good but it's still a totalitarian totalitarian way of thinking you're you're implementing this very rigid ideology and you're demanding compliance purity yes and if people don't comply you're going after them that is everything that is against being a liberal progressive thinker. Exactly. You're supposed to be a person who promotes discourse and open-minded communication. And if you – like, Daryl Davis is the best version of that ever. I know. He's the best version of it because all he is is a musician who is a very eloquent and articulate person who had the patience to sit down with people that believed in a really fucking stupid thing and just through his mere existence and who he is as a person he

changed the way they thought that is so powerful and that's been more powerful than all the punch nazi people yes the punch nazi people it's such a problem like my friend kurt was talking to this guy who's a very prominent left-wing thinker a very powerful person and my friend Kurt was talking to this guy who's a very prominent left-wing thinker, a very powerful person. And my friend Kurt was talking to him, and the guy was saying to him, what's wrong with punching a Nazi? He goes, here's the problem. Who's going to decide who the Nazi is? We're not talking about real Nazis. When you say punch a Nazi, you might be talking about your granny who's a Republican because she likes Trump because uh trump believes in god isn't his granny a nazi right well antifa thinks that well at least the new jersey antifa

thinks that daryl davis is a new nazi so yeah you're right the concept creep um but it works great word works to your advantage if if this is you know it there are people for whom the incentives are there to make it seem like the enemy is really that big. Because then you can implement all the solutions you want. Exactly. The population gets cowered in fear, basically. Again, it's another totalitarian tool. Yeah, it's almost like you're creating intellectual false flags. Yeah, it's almost like you're creating intellectual false flags. You're propping up any divergence from this rigid ideology, some horrible fucking thing that needs to be attacked and squashed and poisoned and lit on fire. each other and part of our problem is lack of communication and if you go to these things like

when you see someone trying to close down a christina hoff summer's uh speech what you're seeing is them yelling it's yelling it's it's like screaming setting off fire alarms screaming that people are fascist that's not communication that's just like if you're talking to someone they're like blah blah blah and they're listening to you blah blah blah it's childish right and the fact that this is all taking place at universities is so discouraging yeah yeah and the fact that people think this it's supportive and here's another problem the people on the left that aren't that way but think that these people like antifa are probably good because they're like the bulldogs they're like the attack dogs of the left and they'll go after the left and they'll go

after the right and they'll they'll they'll reinforce our ideas you don't understand the consequences of this you're just gonna with with all the energy that goes in a negative way from the left you're getting more energy that goes in a negative way from the right it's a yin yang thing it's it shifts it's a hegelian dialectic pendulum swings pendulum swing yes and it's inevitable it's a yin yang thing it's it shifts it's a hegelian dialectic pendulum swings pendulum swing yes and it's inevitable it's been a part of human interaction forever the best way to communicate with someone is never yelling at them and screaming at them the best way is to listen listen to their ideas and wear them out with logic right Wear them out with long conversations. The best way for two people who have a separate view of the world,

put those separate views of the world together. Sit down. You tell me your view of the world. Tell me, and particularly if we can keep it in a narrow scope, we're both educated about what we're talking about. We're not talking about something when the other person has really no data to draw from. Have a conversation. Sit down.

Talk her through. It's possible. We can get back to doing that. The problem is we're so accustomed over the last 10 years to communicating digitally. We're so accustomed to blaring our ideas out and then checking to see who agrees every five seconds, checking our likes and checking our comments. This is a non-social way of interacting through social media. Social revolves cues, people sitting apart from each other, looking into each other's eyes, being in the same space as each other. That's how humans are designed to communicate. That's how we evolved to communicate so we're basically spending the vast majority of our time debating issues in an

unnatural way i would say it's a bit of a luxury now because like it feels like it's very easy and very popular to kind of shit on social media in general right like it's got great aspects for sure oh my well and you know without it i we couldn't be reaching part of the world that that censors things right without it you and i would have never talked exactly yeah we would never have this conversation it allows you i think steven pinker once wrote about this it was like the difference between common knowledge and shared knowledge common knowledge is like we both know something to be true. But shared knowledge is that I know that you know that I know something. So it's recursive.

And that creates a very different environment. Like, you know, imagine if you are the one lone atheist in Saudi Arabia and there was no way for you to reach other people. You would think you're completely by yourself, that you're the only one that thinks different. But in the world where you can reach out and you can read other perspectives, all of a sudden you realize that, wait, I know that I'm not alone. I know that you know that I know that I'm, you know, and it changes how you feel in terms of just ideologically, just safety. And it creates real change. One of my favorite quotes of all time was in this manifest manifesto written i can't remember the name now but it was about the you know a free internet and he said the problem is that

we cannot separate the air that makes wings beat from the air that chokes and i was like it's so poetic because you remember these cases of uh um these girls that were escaping saudi arabia and then she got locked up in Thailand and she was saying, I'm trying to escape from my father. He's, I don't want to wear the hijab anymore. I want to break out. My family would kill me if they find out. I'm, you know,

I don't want this arranged marriage or whatever. And the only reason she can reach the outside world and that activists, you know, lawyers heard her story and could help her and she got asylum in Canada is because of social media. So it's like the more we want to regulate these things the more we're making it hard for a lot of these people who live in still close societies because the only way to get in um is through the internet i think the internet in general is like most things there's no it's it's not binary it's not one or zero it's not great

or bad it's both those things all together there's amazing aspects of social media i mean just the the distribution of information is so radically increased over the last 10 years right but but right now we're focusing so much on the bad yes you know there was we're focusing so much on the bad. Yes. You know, we're focusing too much on the way it's used negatively and really not accounting for the things that it has brought. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. I think all of it is moving in a good direction. This is one of the reasons why I don't completely hate this whole woke ideology. No, I don't either. This whole woke ideology. I mock it. Like what I was saying, like when I say I'm in support of a lot of people like Bernie and people that go with him because I think they want good things. I think they want a society that's more kind and inclusive. Oh, to be fair, Bernie didn't like as a person like himself personally wasn't a big identity politics guy at all. In fact, in 2016, not at all.

Times have a bit changed. It's just easier to do it now. You slide right in. You get more support. It's a weird battlefield now. An ideological battlefield. And it's causing the democratic party to split yeah it's cool it's kind of hilarious it's just i love fake shit i love when people like obviously

fake i love when they give fake speeches and they do fake political things with their thumb and their hand like that i love that stuff i just love when they fall into those patterns just but it makes it off it's so obvious yes it's obvious yeah but that's why i got like andrew yang stands out in such stark contrast like who's that guy doing there seems like a regular guy i'm just really upset that we'll never get the image of andrew yang doing the whipped cream bukkake thing in the white house did you do you see that what is he gonna do you cannot see the story no he oh with his followers yes yes no he was christening his new hampshire office right and then you're squirting whipped cream in people's mouths exactly his staffer's mouth right and it's one of the funniest things like

like nobody told him like what the optics were right that looks it's white cream and you're shooting in people's mouths and he's on his knees. Yes. That's all that's wrong. But I'm just upset that this is not going to happen in the White House. I thought that that's...

It's probably happening right now with Trump and his WWE manager. They're probably in the White House right now doing that exact same thing. That was a really bad hit piece on Andrew Yang

in the New York Times. Was there? That was so bad that people started, like they had to disable the comments. Why did they do that? Why did they do those hit pieces? They were finding disgruntled ex-employees of his to basically shit on him.

Right. And like one of the complaints was that he pressures people to do karaoke. Well, what a monster. I know. I'm like, that's the worst you could find, you know, in 20 years of employment history. No one is going to pass your purity test. I know. I'm like, that's the worst you could find in 20 years of employment history. No one is going to pass your purity test.

No one. No one. I totally agree. Especially if you've actually turned the light on them. Everybody's flawed. And especially if you only highlight those flaws outside of the context of whatever the fuck they were talking about and the conversations they were having and what was going on. of whatever the fuck they were talking about and the conversations they were having and what was going on.

You could make a very distorted perception of someone by just snipping and piecing together. That's why it's so insidious. Yeah, well, it's also why it's weird when it's coming from journalists. You should know what you're doing. You should know that this is not an accurate or objective analysis of who this person is.

But that's what I mean. The person who wrote this article who was saying, oh oh he's uncomfortable with language and and there was some there was some implication in the piece that like he he's clumsy with how he deals with women staffers right and it's like yeah okay this guy is a tech nerd you know maybe got some social cue reading such issues i mean i do too and it's like to drag someone, you know, to basically like sling mud at somebody like that. It's horrible. The thing is, though, they're doing it because that's what sells.

You know, these magazines and newspapers have become sort of slaves to clickbait. They kind of have to get clicks. I mean, you talk to people that are actual journalists now and the pressure that's on them to get a bunch of clicks for each article, and they'll have editors that change the title of their articles to make it more salacious. But that's why they did the whole paywall thing, right? So the New York Times transitioned to subscription companies for that purpose. It's that they won't be subject to the whims of…

But they still are. They still are because a lot of those things, you get through your Google News feed, and you have to click through to the whims of but they still are they still are because a lot of those things you get through your google news feed and you know you have to click through to the paywall if you want to read it but the initial titles what gets you to click the link and then you realize it's paywall you don't just sign up without reading anything you go there because there's an article that's interesting to you right and then you then you've. Or that confirms your worldview. Yes. Yes.

Or goes against it and you get angry. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I have to say in that regard, I'm lucky that I don't have that pressure. Yeah. It sounds like you don't. They just let me write whatever, you know, there's no, yeah, there's no. That's awesome.

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

Could be more. Tell people where they can get a hold of you on social media. Twitter, at Ms. Mel Chen, M-E-L-C-h-e-n um my own website do you do facebook i do but like no that's my rebellion my millennial rebellion no instagram okay yeah well thank you i enjoyed talking to you this is a lot of fun a lot of fun thanks okay bye everybody Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.