#150 – Michael Malice: The White Pill, Freedom, Hope, and Happiness Amidst Chaos

Michael Malice is a political thinker, podcaster, and author. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/strategy to get free product tour – Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil – Sun Basket: https://sunbasket.com/lex and use code LEX to get $35 off – Cash App: https://cash.app/ and use code LexPodcast to get $10 EPISODE LINKS: Michael’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Michael’s Community: https://malice.locals.com/ Michael’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5tj5QCpJKIl-KIa4Gib5Xw Michael’s Website: http://michaelmalice.com/about/ Your Welcome podcast: https://bit.ly/30q8oz1 The New Right (book): https://amzn.to/34gxLo3 Dear Reader (book): https://amzn.to/2HPPlHS Podcast (Round 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIk1zUy8ehU PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (09:47) – Conversation with Alex Jones and Tim Pool (18:31) – Michael’s outfit (26:53) – Self-publishing a book (36:41) – The white pill (48:05) – What did the volcano say to his true love? (49:28) – Myth of Sisyphus (53:09) – Journalism failed to stop Stalin and Hitler (1:00:53) – Good Germans (1:04:49) – Richard Wolff (1:08:20) – Could United States have stayed out of World War II (1:11:12) – Trump Derangement Syndrome (1:12:58) – Nazism and Antisemitism (1:15:40) – Knock knock (1:22:20) – Putin (1:30:00) – The evil of Kim Jong-il and North Korea (1:38:32) – Dark humor (1:43:18) – Comedy is tragedy plus timing (1:50:34) – Interviewing difficult guests (2:00:06) – Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) (2:16:24) – Violence under anarchism (2:31:58) – Ayn Rand (2:35:07) – Secession in United States (2:44:46) – Politics over next 4 years (2:52:14) – Mars (2:56:17) – UFOs (2:59:12) – Psychedelics (3:03:08) – What is love?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, his second time on the podcast. He's an anarchist, political thinker, podcaster, and author. He wrote Dear Reader, which is a book on North Korea, and The New Right, a book on the various ideological movements at the fringe of American politics. He hosts the podcast called You're Welcome, spelled Y-O-U-R. And in general, there's a lot of live shows on YouTube that are, at times profoundly absurd and at other times absurdly profound and always full of humor and wisdom. He is the Joker to my Batman and the caviar to my vodka.

• 0:44Lex Fridman?

  His masterful dance between dark humor and difficult, even dangerous ideas challenges me to think deeply about this world. And when that fails, at least smile and have a good laugh at the absurdity of it all. This episode has much of that. His outfit, for example, the exact inverse of mine with a white suit and a black shirt is just one example of that, of the humor, trolling, and brilliance that is Michael Malice. Quick mention of our sponsors: NetSuite, business management software; Athletic Greens,

• 1:25Lex Fridman?

  all-in-one nutrition drink; Sun Basket, meal delivery service; and Cash App. So the choice is success, health, food, or money. Choose wisely, my friends. And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that Michael is, in many ways, a man of radical ideas, but also a man with kindness in his heart. Those two things are great ingredients for a fascinating conversation. I hope to have several such people on this podcast this upcoming year who also have radical ideas about politics, science, technology, and life.

• 2:09Lex Fridman?

  At times, often perhaps, I might fail at asking the challenging questions that should be asked, but I will try my best to do so and hope to keep improving every time. Mostly, I come to these conversations with an open mind and with love. Unfortunately, that kind of approach can be taken advantage of in many ways. It can be used by reporters or just people online later to highlight how or why I'm ignorant, or worse, I'm generally not a good human being. In the context of this, I have two options. I could either be cautious and afraid, or second, be kind, thoughtful, and fearless. I choose the latter, hopefully while still being open, fragile, and empathetic.

• 2:54Lex Fridman?

  Again, I strive to be like the main character of The Idiot by Dostoevsky. That's my New Year's resolution. Be kind and do difficult things, difficult conversations, difficult research projects, and difficult entrepreneurial adventures. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Fridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I tried to make these interesting, but I gave you timestamps, so if you skip, please still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by NetSuite.

• 3:38Lex Fridman?

  This one's for the business owners out there. Running a business is hard. Spoiler alert. If you own a business, don't let QuickBooks and spreadsheets make it even harder than it needs to. You should consider upgrading to NetSuite. It allows you to manage financials, HR, inventory, e-commerce, and many more business-related details, all in one place. As a small side note, let me say that I dislike the bureaucracy that companies sometimes build up around all of these different tasks. NetSuite can probably help, but I'm sure bureaucracies can still flourish. They always find a way if you let them. To me, efficiency and excellence are essential, NetSuite or not.

• 4:22Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, whether you're doing a million or hundreds of millions in revenue, save time and money with NetSuite. 24,000 companies use it. Let NetSuite show you how they'll benefit your business with a free product tour, free in all caps, that's how you know they mean it, at netsuite.com/strategy.

• 4:46Lex Fridman?

  You might be wondering why the code word strategy and not the usual code word Lex is used. Well, it's because this one, friends, is hot off the presses. New sponsor. It's a trial run. So if you want to support this podcast and you own a business, now's the time to try NetSuite. They'll probably change it to Lex from strategy soon, but for now, it's strategy. Schedule your free product tour right now at netsuite.com/strategy. Netsuite.com/strategy. That is the cheesiest and the worst code word they could have used, strategy. But I did read a bunch of reviews of NetSuite and people really do love it.

• 5:27Lex Fridman?

  All right, on to the next one. This show is also sponsored by Athletic Greens, the only one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. I can't say enough positive things about these guys. I love them. It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals. I do intermittent fasting of 16 to 24 hours every day and always break my fast with Athletic Greens. It helps me not worry whether I'm getting all the nutrients I need. One of the many reasons I'm a fan of these guys is that they keep iterating on their formula. I love continuous improvement. That's what makes engineering super fun. Life is not about reaching perfection. It's

• 6:10Lex Fridman?

  about constantly striving for it and making sure each iteration is a positive delta. The other thing I've taken for a long time outside of Athletic Greens is fish oil. So I'm especially excited now that they're selling fish oil and are offering listeners of this here podcast, free one month supply of Wild Caught Omega 3 Fish Oil when you go to athleticgreens.com/lex to claim this special offer. Click the athleticgreens.com/lex link in the description to get the fish oil and the all in one supplement I rely on every day for the nutritional foundation of my physical and mental performance.

• 6:55Lex Fridman?

  This show is also sponsored by Sun Basket. Sun Basket delivers fresh, healthy, delicious meals straight to your door. As you may know, my diet is pretty minimalist, so it's nice to get some healthy variety into the mix. They make it easy and convenient to do so with everything proportioned and ready to prep and cook. Even I somehow managed to figure it out. You can enjoy delicious, healthy dinner in as little as 15 minutes. I've enjoyed a bunch of meals from their menu that fit my, what they call carb-conscious ways. Some items on the menu today are black Angus ribeye steaks with broccoli and radishes,

• 7:35Lex Fridman?

  Italian sausages and vegetable skewers with two romesco's, Mediterranean lemon chicken with baby broccoli, artichokes and olives. It goes on. The menu is ridiculously delicious and healthy. Right now, Sun Basket is offering $35 off your order when you go to sunbasket.com/lex and enter promo code Lex at checkout. Again, that's a lot of Lex. Visit sunbasket.com/lex and use code Lex to get 35 bucks off your order. Good luck, you won't regret it, it's delicious. Finally, this show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. When you get it, use code LexPodcast.

• 8:18Lex Fridman?

  Cash App lets you send money to friends, buy Bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as $1. I'm thinking of doing conversations with folks who work in and around the cryptocurrency space. Similar to AI, there are a lot of charlatans in the space, but there are also a lot of free thinkers and technical geniuses. From my perspective, it's actually sometimes difficult to figure out the difference between the charlatans and geniuses, but I do my best. Anyway, if I do make mistakes in selecting the guests I speak with, or just the details of various things I say inside conversations, as I'm sure I often do, I will keep trying

• 8:57Lex Fridman?

  to improve, I promise you this, correct things where I can afterwards, and also keep following my curiosity wherever it takes me. Please be patient, I'm doing my best here. So again, if you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play and use the code LexPodcast, you get 10 bucks and Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world. And now here's my conversation with Michael Malice.

• 9:47Lex Fridman?

  Knock, knock.

• 9:49Michael Malice?

  You're stealing my bed? I'll kill your family.

• 9:54Lex Fridman?

  That's not how knock, knock joke works. Knock, knock, Michael.

• 9:57Michael Malice?

  You don't do knock, knock jokes with Russians because we have knock at the door. Turn down the TV. You gotta sit quiet. Hope they go away. You don't do that back in the motherland. You know this.

• 10:10Lex Fridman?

  It's triggered.

• 10:11Michael Malice?

  Who's there?

• 10:13Lex Fridman?

  I can't even do it now. Knock, knock.

• 10:16Michael Malice?

  Who's there?

• 10:18Lex Fridman?

  Leon.

• 10:19Michael Malice?

  Leon who?

• 10:20Lex Fridman?

  Leon me when you're not strong, Michael.

• 10:23Michael Malice?

  Well, that will never happen.

• 10:25Lex Fridman?

  I stole elegantly, eloquently that joke from you.

• 10:30Michael Malice?

  The lie detector term, that was a lie. Elegantly and eloquently.

• 10:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you crossed it on a sheet of paper. That means it's real. The reason I bring it up is because you had the guts, the brilliance to, to do a knock, knock joke, not once, but three times with Alex Jones.

• 10:50Michael Malice?

  I think it was like six. I had a runner.

• 10:52Lex Fridman?

  Okay, maybe I just, they started to sort of melt together in this beautiful art form that you've created, which is like these kind, loving knock, knock jokes with Alex Jones. So you got a chance to meet him, talk with him twice with Tim Poole.

• 11:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Lex Fridman?

  In a long form conversation. What was it like talking to Alex Jones, both on the deep philosophical, intellectual level, and staring the man in his eyes and doing a knock, knock joke about Olive? Knock, knock, who's there? Olive, I love you, Alex.

• 11:28Michael Malice?

  I love you.

• 11:31Michael Malice?

  Well, there's a lot to to explain.

• 11:32Lex Fridman?

  Where do you start?

• 11:34Michael Malice?

  I've been on his show Infowars a few times when I was researching my book than you write. So I had had conversations with him before. One of the things that I appreciate about Alex is he is a lot more self aware than people think and has a good sense of humor. And I also like a good twist ending. So if you set people up and all these jokes are these kind of vapid, you know, all of you jokes and the last one's about building seven. They're not going to see that one coming, nor will he see that one coming. I even had another one about Sandy Hook, which I didn't do on the air because he was being like a good sport. So I didn't, but that was the dagger that was kind of behind my back if necessary. But it was a good mechanism toward, I like it when things work on several levels.

• 12:19Michael Malice?

  It was also a good mechanism to keep kind of the conversation guarded. And this every so often, this is kind of hitting the control, delete and bring it down. To a certain point of calmness.

• 12:32Lex Fridman?

  What about the love thing? I mean, you're saying that that was a buildup to the dagger. But it was also somehow really refreshing to get that little jolt, like that pause. You don't get that in conversations often, like I'm a huge fan of Rogan and he'll have a three hour conversation. But at some point, just pause and be like, I love you, man. Like it's in the cheesiest way possible because that seems to be, it somehow hits the hardest then. I don't know. I don't know. You didn't intend it that way, but with Alex Jones to sit there and to say, I love you. That was like, that I just haven't never heard that before.

• 13:16Lex Fridman?

  And so it struck me as like, not just funny for what you're doing, but just like, whoa, we just took. Cause conversations are all about like this ranting, especially with Alex Jones. Just like ranting about this or that, this, this part of the world, like you believe this shit, that kind of thing. But like to pause and be like, this is awesome. I don't know if you felt that way, but.

• 13:36Michael Malice?

  Oh, oh, I definitely felt that way. So it was actually very fun. I'll give you the backstory of how that happened.

• 13:42Michael Malice?

  It was silly because Tim calls me up and there's this expression in marketing, "Don't go past the sale," right? So if you're trying to sell someone a car and you're like, "It's got this feature, this feature, and that feature," and they're like, "You know what? I'm gonna buy the car." If you keep talking, you can only make them lose the sale. You just get them to sign it and get out of Dodge. So Tim calls me up and he goes, "Okay, here's what we're thinking. This is top secret. Alex is gonna be on the show. We want you on as well." And I've never said yes to anything as quickly in my life. And then he keeps talking and I'm like, "Tim, you don't have to sell it." I interrupted him. I go, "You don't have to sell it."

• 14:21Lex Fridman?

  Why you, by the way?

• 14:23Michael Malice?

  I think because I am kind of an agent of chaos and Alex is, in his own way, an agent of chaos. And what is, provides an opportunity in this kind of news media space that you and I travel in, it's the kind of things where none of us three, as we said on the show, knew what it would be like. If you know to certain, within certain parameters, what, you know, Megyn Kelly or Wolf Blitzer or any of these corporate figures are gonna be like in a conversation to some extent, none of us had any idea. And I knew they didn't know I was bringing knocking up jokes. So that was kind of what was so exciting. I said at one point, I'm kind of envious of the audience because this is, there's so

• 15:08Michael Malice?

  many exciting things that are happening and that the internet and podcasting provides people an opportunity to do, that it was great.

• 15:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that was the greatest pairing with Alex Jones that I've ever seen by far.

• 15:23Michael Malice?

  Wow, okay, thank you.

• 15:25Lex Fridman?

  So I immediately knew, now, this isn't a knock on Tim, but I don't even know if Tim was prepared.

• 15:31Michael Malice?

  Tim was not prepared.

• 15:33Lex Fridman?

  For this couple.

• 15:34Michael Malice?

  How could he be prepared?

• 15:35Lex Fridman?

  Well, so, I mean, I don't know if Tim is used to that. I think Joe Rogan is more equipped, prepared for the chaos, just the years he's been in it. Like, I immediately thought, "This is the right pairing for Joe Rogan." Because Alex Jones has been on Joe Rogan a few times, three times. My favorite so far was with Tim Dillon.

• 15:55Michael Malice?

  Right, for, yeah.

• 15:56Lex Fridman?

  But Tim was clearly, Tim Dillon was also kind of a...

• 16:02Lex Fridman?

  A genius in his own right, but he was kind of a fan and he was back and he was stepping away. He was almost like in awe of Alex Jones, where you were both, you were in awe of the experience that's being created and at the same time fearlessly just trolling the situation. I mean, to do a knock-knock joke to stop, I mean, that just shows that you're in control of the experience, no, you're like riding the experience. That immediately was like, this needs to be on Rogan. So I, I hope that happens as well. You, you on your own, of course, on Rogan, but just you, that's an experience.

• 16:44Lex Fridman?

  That's the whatever, there's gotta be a good name for it, like Jimi Hendrix Experience. There's the mic on Alex.

• 16:49Michael Malice?

  Because that was a ban.

• 16:50Lex Fridman?

  It's taken. Well, I don't know how many years you can, you can restart the, the experience.

• 16:56Michael Malice?

  Because I feel, sorry to interrupt you, I feel a very big responsibility, especially in 2020, to provide fun and something cool and something unique that hasn't been done before for the audience. I think this has been a very rough year on our audiences psychologically and in other aspects of their lives. So I feel if I'm going to be there, I'm going to put on a show. And it's also going to be great because it also alienates the people you don't want, right? So there's a lot of people who sit there and be like, oh, he's telling knock, people who are too cool for school, where they're like, oh, he's telling knock-knock jokes. This is stupid. I'm like, good.

• 17:36Michael Malice?

  If you have an issue with having eaten cotton candy or doing a puzzle with a kid or with, without it, you know, by yourself, that's on you. And it's something very, something I think is the enemy is cynicism and this idea that like, oh, this is too silly and amethic. Like, we need that kind of childlike aspect in our lives. I think it's something we could use more of. It's very much an aspect of our media culture that to kind of have, be condemnatory about that or to do it in a certain very corporate fake way. So it is something I encourage a lot, something I enjoy doing. And again, I like with the first time I was on Tim, I had a propeller beanie on, you know, with the motorized.

• 18:19Michael Malice?

  And a lot of people were like, I can't take anyone seriously who dresses like this. I go, good. If you judge someone's ideas by how they appear instead of the ideas themselves, you're not someone I want on my team.

• 18:32Lex Fridman?

  Are we gonna address the outfit you're wearing?

• 18:36Michael Malice?

  We can address it, sure.

• 18:38Lex Fridman?

  You know, for those who are colorblind, Michael's wearing the, or just listening to this, Michael's wearing the exact opposite, the inverse, from another dimension outfit, which is a white suit and black shirt. It's so genius. Okay, so.

• 18:58Michael Malice?

  You should see the next two looks I've planned.

• 19:00Lex Fridman?

  Oh, no.

• 19:00Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they're great. Well, obviously, this relationship's gonna end today.

• 19:05Lex Fridman?

  It's over.

• 19:06Michael Malice?

  I'll put them on Insta.

• 19:09Lex Fridman?

  Okay, is there some deep philosophy to the humor? Is, uh, this goes to our trolling discussion. Is there some, is there like chapters to this genius? Or is this just what makes you smile in the morning?

• 19:25Michael Malice?

  I mean, I think you're honestly, in this case, using the word genius a little loosely.

• 19:29Lex Fridman?

  I am.

• 19:29Michael Malice?

  This is particularly genius. But I do think it is fun. It is exuberant. It is joyous. I think the bigger my audience has gotten, and the more I actually communicate with, you know, fans, I do feel it kind of kicks in these paternal maternal instincts. It's, which is very, very odd. I did not expect to have them.

• 19:52Lex Fridman?

  What do you mean? Who's the dad?

• 19:54Michael Malice?

  I'm the dad and the mom. I remember, and it may have been similar for you, I'm curious to hear it. For young, smart, like ambitious men, like 24 to 27, for me was a very rough period. Because that's the window where a lot of people get married and they kind of check out. And if you're very much kind of finding your own road, you don't know what's happening. No one's in a position to really guide you or help you. And it's, it's, it's tough. It's a very tough window. And what I'm finding now is having these kids who are in that position, but now, instead of them stumbling along, for some of them, I'm the one who could be like, no, no, no, no, it's not you. It's everybody else. And to be able to give them that semblance of feeling seen,

• 20:38Michael Malice?

  to use a cliched expression, to feel normal and that, no, no, you're the, you're the, you're the heroes here. They're the background noise. It's just really very flattering and humbling to be in that position.

• 20:52Lex Fridman?

  You have many minds, right? There's the thoughtful kind. Michael, there's like, I'm gonna burn down the powerful.

• 21:00Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Lex Fridman?

  Michael.

• 21:01Michael Malice?

  I do like, yeah.

• 21:03Lex Fridman?

  And then there's like, I'm going to have this just lighthearted trolling of the world.

• 21:09Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Lex Fridman?

  Which, and which of those are most important to the 24 to the 27 demographic?

• 21:16Michael Malice?

  I, I think it's, it is the combination. You know, it's like, if you're making a meal, you know, chicken Kiev, you need the chicken, you need the ham, you need the butter sauce. Because I think people, when you're young, you need to see someone who's fought the fight for you and who's won. So it's very easy to be defeatist.

• 21:40Lex Fridman?

  So this is what winning looks like?

• 21:42Michael Malice?

  No, this is not. This is most assuredly what winning does not look like, but in my normal clothes.

• 21:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 21:49Michael Malice?

  A little bit more.

• 21:51Lex Fridman?

  Uh, this is a good time to mention that clothes wise, you're, you're wearing sheath underwear. And people should buy sheath underwear, use code malice 20.

• 22:00Michael Malice?

  If you go to sheathunderwear.com, use promo code malice 20. What I love about, why I'm glad to promote the product and wear it. It's the most comfortable underwear I've ever worn and you have a separate pouch for both parts of your genitals.

• 22:13Lex Fridman?

  That's, that's what you, I thought there was like a punchline coming. No, it's a very nice aspect of the product.

• 22:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but I think what, here's something else, just as goes back to what we're just talking about. There are so many, and this is gonna segue into this. There are so many small companies who've been devastated this year. We have not seen a sustained attack on mom and pop shops, uh, like we've seen in 2020, who are innovators and making something happen. And when you're just like one dude who's producing a product, they're sponsored mine. I'm happy to, first of all, it's funny that I'm pitching underwear, but haha pitching, but it's also something I enjoy.

• 22:50Lex Fridman?

  And also you said small business.

• 22:52Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, it's microscopic, like a thimble. So this isn't a sponsor of mine, but this is a good segue. So this is Russians, we celebrate New Years. It's Novom Gondom. We have Dzed moroz, he comes down, puts a present under your pillow. So this is a company called JL Lawson. He's a fan of yours, he's a metal worker. And he said, can I give you something to give to Lex? I have one of his worry coins. I'll tell you what it is. He's not a sponsor, this is not, I'm not getting paid for this. So what a worry coin is, I carry it around in my butt. If you have raw denim, it's great because it brings you fades. So you carry it around with you all the time. It says worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe. Right? And I carry this around and for a while it's been like a year. Next time you're worrying, and this is good advice if you don't have a worry coin.

• 23:37Michael Malice?

  Go think about 10 years ago.

• 23:39Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 23:40Michael Malice?

  And what you were worried about then. And then think about, did any of those things pan out? And some of them did, but you were able to handle it. And that's a good way to maintain perspective. So JL Lawson's the company. He sent me this present. I said, let me give it to Lex on the air. So enjoy.

• 23:57Lex Fridman?

  So I also open it on here?

• 23:58Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Lex Fridman?

  JL Lawson and Co. To Lex from Anthony.

• 24:02Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And I said, make something mathematical for Lex. So I don't even know what's in there.

• 24:06Lex Fridman?

  You don't know what's in there?

• 24:07Michael Malice?

  No. And it got through its TSA.

• 24:09Lex Fridman?

  Could be a bomb.

• 24:10Michael Malice?

  It could be, just like this episode.

• 24:16Michael Malice?

  Make sure you unwrap it close to the mic because it drives people crazy. That's really the best part.

• 24:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Or is this what unboxing video looks like?

• 24:27Michael Malice?

  I think so.

• 24:29Lex Fridman?

  This conversation is going to be a big hit on the internet.

• 24:32Michael Malice?

  With the unboxing community.

• 24:34Lex Fridman?

  I need to have an excited look on my face to make sure. The reaction video is be an unboxing and a reaction video.

• 24:41Michael Malice?

  Lex screaming reacts.

• 24:44Michael Malice?

  It's another box. It's just a series of boxes.

• 24:47Lex Fridman?

  Lex, big fan since hearing you on Rogan months ago. Most of your guests are over my head, but still enjoyable.

• 24:55Michael Malice?

  Aww.

• 24:56Lex Fridman?

  Like this episode. Michael was kind enough to want to share my work with you. Keep doing what you do. Anthony Lawson.

• 25:06Lex Fridman?

  Thanks, Anthony.

• 25:08Michael Malice?

  There's a lot in there. What is in there? Give me some. I'll open some.

• 25:10Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 25:11Michael Malice?

  All right. Bye bye, bye bye.

• 25:14Lex Fridman?

  Show it to the camera and then make sure you look excited. Or not, or disappointed.

• 25:18Michael Malice?

  No, this is cool. This is a worry coin like I was showing you.

• 25:21Lex Fridman?

  Oh, nice.

• 25:21Michael Malice?

  So you hold it in your hand and when you can do this with your thumb. People are have anxiety or whatever.

• 25:26Lex Fridman?

  Oh, there's a lot of cool stuff in here. Fibonacci coin.

• 25:29Michael Malice?

  Oh, see, yeah, that's the math stuff.

• 25:31Lex Fridman?

  That's really awesome. This is really cool.

• 25:34Michael Malice?

  Wait, you got a big one laying there too.

• 25:38Lex Fridman?

  That's what she said.

• 25:41Lex Fridman?

  I'm telling you, last time you offended me saying I don't have humor.

• 25:45Michael Malice?

  So I.

• 25:50Lex Fridman?

  Uh, the spin tray, micro brass and copper bronze. By the way, the packaging is epic.

• 25:58Michael Malice?

  I think that's his top. He, he makes tops.

• 26:02Lex Fridman?

  Cool.

• 26:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, you spin it in there.

• 26:06Lex Fridman?

  And it's the two different, uh, bronze and copper.

• 26:11Michael Malice?

  I think he's the only one who makes these machined tops.

• 26:15Lex Fridman?

  And then they sit in here, I guess.

• 26:17Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but you could spin them in that stack, that section.

• 26:19Lex Fridman?

  Got it. Cool.

• 26:22Lex Fridman?

  Where's the, where's the worry thing?

• 26:24Michael Malice?

  Here's the worry coin.

• 26:26Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, I wasn't listening. What were you worried about 10 years ago?

• 26:29Michael Malice?

  10 years ago, 2010, what would I have been worried about then?

• 26:33Lex Fridman?

  The government?

• 26:34Michael Malice?

  No, I'm not. That's not a worry. I, I, I, I.

• 26:36Lex Fridman?

  What was the North Korea book? I, I apologize.

• 26:38Michael Malice?

  That came out in 2014. I went there in 2012. Came out in January 2014. It still pays my rent, um, with the royalties. So.

• 26:50Lex Fridman?

  The North Korea book?

• 26:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah. See, this is, this is why it's so much better to.

• 26:53Lex Fridman?

  I gotta talk to you about self-publishing because you brought that up.

• 26:57Michael Malice?

  I'm, I'm doing, the next book's also gonna be self-published.

• 27:01Lex Fridman?

  Can we talk about self-publishing? What, uh, what's that? What's the whole idea of publishing? Uh, like having a publisher and an agent? Cause there's a bunch of people have been reaching out to me, trying to get me to write a book, which is ridiculous.

• 27:14Michael Malice?

  Why?

• 27:14Lex Fridman?

  There, there's people who are brilliant folks like you, like Jordan Peterson, that I think have a lot of knowledge to share with the world.

• 27:22Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 27:22Lex Fridman?

  I think what I feel I can contribute to the world in terms of impact is to build something.

• 27:31Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 27:31Lex Fridman?

  Meaning like engineering stuff.

• 27:33Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 27:34Lex Fridman?

  Like a book.

• 27:35Michael Malice?

  A book has to be engineered and I'm not using it loosely. You have to engineer a book.

• 27:39Lex Fridman?

  Would, no, for sure. I, what I mean is like literally a product with programming and artificial intelligence. Well, that's, I want to build a company. I want to, because there's, I have a few ideas that I feel I'm equipped. And it has to do with your, like intuition about the way you can build a better world. You individually, like what can you add to the world that's a positive thing? And for me, I feel like the maximal thing I can add to the world is at least to attempt to build products that would add more love in the world. And like, so I want to focus on that. The danger of the book for me. Or any kind of writing, and even this podcast is a little bit dangerous for me. It's like, it's fun.

• 28:21Michael Malice?

  That's for sure.

• 28:23Lex Fridman?

  It's, it's, it's fun. It's like, it takes you into this place where you start thinking about the world. You start enjoying and playing with ideas. You start, and like, just your book on, Dear Reader, but also then you write, like, clearly, you and I probably think similarly in the sense that you did a lot of work.

• 28:44Michael Malice?

  Yes, this next book is, is killing me.

• 28:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, as you mentioned often, it's clear, like, on your YouTube channel, which I'm a fan of, you often, it just comes out, like, you mention all of these books that you're reading, it just comes through you that you're suffering through this and you've, it changes you. And it's clear that you're thinking deeply about the world because of this book. And I feel like if you do that, that's like, when I was, when I first came to this country, I read the book, The Giver, I need to read it again. It's like, it, the red pill thing is, it changes you in where you can never be the same person again.

• 29:26Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 29:27Lex Fridman?

  And I feel, I feel about a book in that same way. The moment you write a book, of course, it depends on the book. I could also just write, like, in my field, a very technical book.

• 29:37Michael Malice?

  No, that's a terrible idea.

• 29:39Lex Fridman?

  Yes, but that, that's okay. That doesn't really change you. That's just like sharing information. But like, something where you're like, how do I think about this world? Can you just leave that behind you?

• 29:50Michael Malice?

  I get it, dude, it's, it's, it's being pregnant. There's, it never escapes your brain, I'm telling you. You're absolutely right.

• 29:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know. It, it does seem to change you. But the reason I bring that up is because there's this whole industry of people that seem to not really contribute much to the publication process, but they, they make themselves seem necessary for like, if you want to be in the New York Times bestseller list kind of thing, but also just being like, Reputable.

• 30:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Lex Fridman?

  Which is, I'm allergic to that whole concept, but it does. Do you think it's possible to be on the New York Times bestseller list and be a reputable author? And still be self-published?

• 30:31Michael Malice?

  Not what you would want to do. Like people like Mark Sisson, I think is his name. He wrote like The Primal Blueprint. So like, if I'm getting the names correct, he's the first paleo guy, right? So he self-published it. It sold gangbusters. But that would be on their health chart, I believe. And it's a little bit of a different situation. You would be reaching much more for the mainstream. You'd be giving up a lot if you go through a publisher, especially financially. But yeah, you are not going to have the cred because there, the publishing is a cartel. The New York Times is part of this cartel. And if you don't publish within this cartel, they will do what they can.

• 31:12Michael Malice?

  As any cartel has to, by necessity of being cartel, to pretend you don't exist. So they will, I was, I think, the first one to have an hour on Book TV for Dear Reader because that was a Kickstarter book. But this is something that people.

• 31:27Lex Fridman?

  Dear Reader was a Kickstarter book?

• 31:28Michael Malice?

  Yeah. This is something people would have to be aware of. So you would be giving up a lot, but you'd also be giving up a lot to work with a publisher because you're losing like a year and a half of your life. Because they're glacial and they don't care.

• 31:43Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's my main problem. It's not the money. I mean, the money is whatever percent they take, 10, 20, 30, 50%.

• 31:49Michael Malice?

  They're taking a huge chunk. So if I sell a book through St. Martin's, it's a dollar. If I sell a book through Amazon, which is Dear Reader, that's $6. So that's what, 87%? It's something crazy.

• 32:02Lex Fridman?

  But for me, what bothers me isn't the money that, for me personally. For me, what bothers me is incompetence. Like whenever I go to the DMV or something like that.

• 32:11Michael Malice?

  Can I, can I interrupt you?

• 32:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 32:13Michael Malice?

  Let's talk incompetence.

• 32:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 32:15Michael Malice?

  New Write comes out last year.

• 32:17Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 32:18Michael Malice?

  I get on Rogan. Get on Ruben.

• 32:22Michael Malice?

  I called them and I said, I got on these shows. Is there money in the budget for travel? And they say, we don't have that budget. Fine.

• 32:33Lex Fridman?

  By the way, you got on those shows with no help from them.

• 32:36Michael Malice?

  Correct. Oh, yeah, that's not even a question. The reason they would want you to do a book is because they know you could get. The only reason people get book deals nowadays, literally, is because they know that person can market their own book. That's the only way. And I got a Rubin, I got a Rogan, and they go and have the money for the budget for travel, which is fair. They can do Skype. They told me this in writing. And I'm like, okay.

• 32:59Lex Fridman?

  They can financially cover Skype?

• 33:02Michael Malice?

  No, but it's like, hey, Joe. Yeah, we don't have the budget, but you're gonna do Skype. Hello? Hello? So there is, another friend of mine was on a show on CNBC with Nassim Taleb. And they said Nassim wants a copy of the book. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's like four o'clock on Friday. So we're closed, so. And he's like, he went there, picked it up and walked it the two blocks. So there is, it's almost cartoonish.

• 33:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Michael Malice?

  And it's not incompetence. It's, um, it's past that. It's something almost you can't really believe that. I've had two friends who have been literally rendered suicidal because this was such a huge opportunity for them. And it was like watching their kid get beaten in front of them. And I had to talk them off the ledge. So it's, people do not appreciate how bad. Here's another example.

• 34:01Lex Fridman?

  The apathy of bureaucracy, something like that.

• 34:03Michael Malice?

  I did this book, Concierge Confidential. There's a typo in the first chapter. It ends with, I'm about to. T O O. They didn't fix it for the paperback. Who cares? It's just like, wow, okay. Yeah. Great book, by the way. It got NPR, gave it one of the books of the year. So that was good.

• 34:22Lex Fridman?

  So why participate in this?

• 34:25Michael Malice?

  Because otherwise, New York Times is going to pretend you don't exist. Getting booked on some shows might be more difficult, although I think that's collapsing in real time. You're not going to get reviewed necessarily in places like PW or some others.

• 34:43Lex Fridman?

  So the new book you're working on? Do you have a title yet?

• 34:46Michael Malice?

  The White Pill.

• 34:47Lex Fridman?

  The White Pill.

• 34:50Lex Fridman?

  Are you self-publishing that?

• 34:51Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 34:52Lex Fridman?

  And what's the thinking behind that? Just because you already have a huge following and a big platform and

• 34:58Michael Malice?

  It's six times the cash. If I finish the book in December, I could have it out in February. If I finish the book in December with the publisher, it's going to be out in December at the earliest, 2021. Why am I giving up 10 months of my life?

• 35:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, this is the big one. Do you have any leverage? Like, do authors have leverage to say, F you? Like, can you just say?

• 35:22Michael Malice?

  What do you mean?

• 35:23Lex Fridman?

  Just look, meaning like, I want to release this book in two months.

• 35:28Michael Malice?

  Oh, no, no. I mean, you'll have a contract and then your agent can fight it, but they don't have the they don't have the capacity to rush things through.

• 35:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I guess if the, because I've heard, like, big authors, I don't know, Sam Harris, all those folks, talk about, like, they've accepted it, actually. They've accepted, they're like, yeah, it takes a long time to

• 35:47Michael Malice?

  I'm not accepting it.

• 35:49Lex Fridman?

  But you're, but you're kind of implying that a human being like me should, like

• 35:55Michael Malice?

  I'm saying these are your options.

• 35:57Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 35:58Michael Malice?

  So

• 35:59Lex Fridman?

  I just, I just hate it. I hate the waiting because it's incompetence. It's not the, it's not necessarily the wait. If I knew it wasn't, you know, if it was the kind of people that are up at 2:00 a.m. at night on a Friday, and they love what you're doing and they're helping create something special, that's the sense I get with some of the Netflix folks, for example, that work with people. I just, I don't know anything about this world, but you get like Netflix folks who who help with shows, you could tell that they're obsessed with those shows.

• 36:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah, oh, yeah, you're not going to get that publishing. If you hand, like, I handed the book in, I think it was July, I didn't hear anything from my editor until December.

• 36:42Lex Fridman?

  Well, can we actually talk about the suffering?

• 36:46Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 36:46Lex Fridman?

  The darkest parts of writing a book? So the, let's, let's go to the full Michael Malice, Stephen King mode of, what are the darkest moments of writing this book? And what is it, maybe start the white pill? What's the idea? What's the hope? And what are your darkest moments around writing this book?

• 37:04Michael Malice?

  So people are familiar with the red pill and the blue pill, the, the red, they're for the matrix. The red pill is the idea that what is presented as fact by the corporate press, entertainment industry, is in fact a carefully constructed narrative designed to keep some very unpleasant people in power and everyone else under control. And I was like, one of my expressions is you take one red pill, not the whole bottle.

• 37:27Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 37:27Michael Malice?

  Because at a certain point, you think everything's a lie and then you're, you're kind of no capacity for distinguishing truths.

• 37:33Lex Fridman?

  You're full of good one liners.

• 37:35Michael Malice?

  Well, thank you.

• 37:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Michael Malice?

  I'm full of something, that's for sure. And what I saw in this space is a lot of these red pilled people got very disheartened and cynical. And one of my big heroes is Albert Camus, and he said, the worst thing is cynicism. And that's led to something called the black pill, which is the idea that, you know, it's, it's all, it's, it's, it's just, we're waiting for the end. It's hopeless. And I, I don't see it that way at all. And I'm like, all right, I have to address this and not just with some kind of cheerleading. Everything's gonna be great, guys. Here is why I am positive.

• 38:20Michael Malice?

  And not that I'm positive the good guys are gonna win, but I'm positive the good guys can win. And that's all you need, because if your, God forbid, kid is kidnapped and there's a 10% chance that you can save them, you're not gonna be like, wow, I don't like those odds. This is your country. This is your values. This is your family. And I think it's much more than 10%. And even if you lose, you will take pride in that you did everything in your power to win. So.

• 38:53Lex Fridman?

  Is there a good definition of good guys? In the sense that?

• 38:57Michael Malice?

  The ones who wear white.

• 39:00Lex Fridman?

  There's layers to this. You're like modern day Shakespeare.

• 39:05Lex Fridman?

  Is there a danger in thinking Adolf Hitler was probably pretty confident that he led a group of good guys?

• 39:16Michael Malice?

  Listen, if Hitler did anything wrong, why isn't he in jail?

• 39:21Michael Malice?

  My Czech friend thought of that joke. Actually, he says it in his accent. He goes, if Hitler's so bad, why isn't he in the jail?

• 39:30Lex Fridman?

  That's a good point. He's probably still alive, right?

• 39:32Michael Malice?

  And look, yeah, hopefully.

• 39:36Lex Fridman?

  Oh, boy. Two of the three people listening to this are very upset right now.

• 39:43Lex Fridman?

  What were we even talking about? Oh, how do you, how do you know the what is good?

• 39:47Michael Malice?

  There's lots of standards of good, but if you're, for me, to be a good guy is if you want to leave the world a little bit better than you found it. That to me is the definition of a good guy. And I think there are many people that that that's not their motivation at all.

• 40:05Lex Fridman?

  It's about your motivation.

• 40:07Michael Malice?

  Well, it's also about if your motivation is at all correlated to reality. No one thinks we're the bad guys. That's correct. But are you taking steps to check your motivations and, and also it takes a certain amount of humility? Because if you're going to start interfering with other people's lives, you really better be sure you know what you're talking about.

• 40:30Lex Fridman?

  The control of others, if you do have centralized control or then you kind of, you become a leader of a group, you better know, you better do so humbly and cautiously.

• 40:43Michael Malice?

  And also have steam valves, right? So if in case things go wrong, let's have, I'm sure this is a lot happening with AI, whatever, with computers, like, okay, if something goes wrong here, how do we have a workaround to make sure it doesn't cause everything to collapse?

• 40:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the going wrong thing, I mean, the whole, the feedback mechanism.

• 41:03Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Lex Fridman?

  Like, I wonder if people in Congress think that things are really wrong.

• 41:11Michael Malice?

  It's working for them.

• 41:13Lex Fridman?

  Are you sure?

• 41:15Michael Malice?

  No, I'm not sure.

• 41:16Lex Fridman?

  Because I'd like to believe that the people that at least when they got into politics actually wanted, some of it is ego, but some of it is like wanting to be the kind of person that builds a better world.

• 41:31Michael Malice?

  Sure. I also think it's diverse. Some who are going to have different motivations than others.

• 41:37Lex Fridman?

  But like, once you're in the system and trying to build a better world, how do you know that it's not working? Like, how do you take the basic feedback mechanisms and like, and actually productively change? I mean, that's what it means to be a good guy is like, hmm, something is wrong here. And that's why I like the Elon Musk, like, think from first principles. Like, wait, wait, okay. Let's ask the big question, like, can this be, one, is this working at all? Like, the way we're solving this particular problem of government, is this working at all? And then like, stepping away and saying like, as opposed to modifying this bill or that bill, or like this little strategy, like increase the tax by this much or decrease the tax by this much.

• 42:22Lex Fridman?

  Like, why do we have a democracy at all? Or why do we have any kind of representative democracy? Shouldn't it be a pure democracy? Or why do we have states? Uh, like, representation of states in federal government and so on? Why do we have this kind of separation of powers, this different? Why don't we have term limits or not? Like, big things. Like, how do you actually make that happen? And is that what it means to be a good guy? It's like, taking big revolutionary steps as opposed to incremental steps.

• 43:01Michael Malice?

  Well, I don't know that you could be a politician to be a good guy, to be honest. And let me give you a counter example of someone who you could tell is not being a good guy. Joe Biden said he was, he regards the Iraq war as a mistake, okay? You and I have made mistakes in our lives, I'm sure. None of our mistakes have caused tens of thousands of people to die. Um, if, let's suppose I'm

• 43:19Lex Fridman?

  Speak for yourself.

• 43:20Michael Malice?

  I, that's fair. Okay, I'll take that. I don't build the killbots. If I were a chef, let's take it out of politics. And in my restaurant, somehow, accidentally, someone ate something and they died. A, I would feel horrible, but more importantly, I would be like, we need to look through the system and figure out how it got to the point where someone lost their life, because that can never happen again, and we need to figure out step by step. It's, there's, I'm not a gun person, but there's like this checklist of like, if you're holding a gun, there's five things to do, and even if you get two wrong, you're gonna be, it's like, assume every gun is loaded, only pointed at something that you want to kill, and there's like three other things.

• 44:05Michael Malice?

  And it's like, to make sure that nothing goes wrong. So if I made, if I'm that chef, and I would have to not only feel guilt, but take preventative action to make sure this has no possibility of happening again. If you look at the staff he's putting in, it's the same warmongers that would have advised him to get into the Iraq war on the first time. That is, to me, is not a good guy. That, to me, is someone who does not feel remorse for their responsibility in killing not only many Americans, but some of us think that, you know, dead Iraqis isn't necessarily ideal either.

• 44:45Lex Fridman?

  Okay, let's talk a bit about war. Maybe you can also correct me on something. The first time I found myself into Barack Obama was, I don't know how many years ago this was, but when I maybe heard a speech of his about him speaking out against the war.

• 45:06Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Lex Fridman?

  And him, I think it's on record saying he was against the war before it was happening.

• 45:14Michael Malice?

  But he wasn't in Senate at the time, so it was very easy for him to say this.

• 45:17Lex Fridman?

  But see, like, people say that. People say that. People say like, it was easy and it was, some people say it's like strategically.

• 45:25Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 45:25Lex Fridman?

  The wise thing to do, given some kind of calculus, whatever. But I, to this day, give him, that's the reason I've always given him props, in my mind, like.

• 45:35Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 45:35Lex Fridman?

  This is a man of character. Like, he makes, I also personally really value great speeches. I think speeches are really important for leaders, because they inspire the world.

• 45:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 45:46Lex Fridman?

  One of the most best things you can contribute to the world is great, like, through intellect, mold ideas in a way that's communicable to like, a huge number of people.

• 45:56Michael Malice?

  Yeah, it's better to persuade than to force, in every instance.

• 45:59Lex Fridman?

  That's where I disagree with Chomsky, said like, if you're, Chomsky's whole idea was that like, if you're a really eloquent speaker, that means your ideas aren't that good.

• 46:10Michael Malice?

  It's nonsense.

• 46:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so I think that's a way for him to describe, like, I speak in a very boring way. Maybe that's the pitch for this podcast. I speak boring so that the ideas are the things you value, and it's also useful to go to sleep. But the, that's, that's why I really liked Obama throughout his life, and still do. But when I first like, saw this, for some reason, you can disagree, I thought he's a man of character. It's the, when most politicians, most people who are trying to calculate and rise in power, I think were for the war, or too afraid to be against the war.

• 46:46Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 46:47Lex Fridman?

  That's why I liked Bernie Sanders, and that's why I liked, like, in the early days, Obama, for speaking out against the war. And not like, in this weird activist way, not weird, but not, not saying, I'm an activist, this is, but like, just saying the common sense thing, and being brave enough to say the common sense thing, without like, having a big sign and saying, I'm going to be the anti-war candidate, or something like that, but just saying, this is not a good idea.

• 47:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah, and I think it's for those of us who are old enough to remember, it's pretty despicable what happened with Tulsi in 2020. She was the biggest anti-war candidate and she was marginalized within her own party, which I guess you can make sense. She's just a congresswoman from Hawaii. But the corporate press did everything in their power to diminish her and pretend she didn't existed. And for those of us who remember where 12 years prior, you know, when George W. Bush had the Republican National Convention in New York and it was the biggest protest in history and the Iraq war led to Democratic landslides in 2006 and 2008, to have that completely not part of the Democratic Party in 2020 is both shocking and reprehensible.

• 48:05Lex Fridman?

  Hey, Michael.

• 48:07Michael Malice?

  Is it? You don't have to say, hey, Michael. You just say, knock, knock.

• 48:12Lex Fridman?

  No, it's not a knock, knock joke.

• 48:13Michael Malice?

  Oh, OK.

• 48:16Lex Fridman?

  What did the volcano say to its true love?

• 48:19Michael Malice?

  What?

• 48:21Lex Fridman?

  I love you.

• 48:26Lex Fridman?

  I, uh...

• 48:27Michael Malice?

  These jokes work better when you know how to speak English.

• 48:30Lex Fridman?

  I, it was actually in Russian. I did Google Translate. OK.

• 48:35Lex Fridman?

  Back to your book and the suffering, you, uh, you somehow turned it positive. And as, as one who's wearing, who's the representative of the black pill in this conversation, what are some of the darker moments? What are some of the hardest challenges of putting together this book? The white pill?

• 48:52Michael Malice?

  Content, content, content. So if I'm having a page in about Reagan taking on Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential primaries, I'm gonna have to read like 20. So, and it's the thing, like, if there'll be some times I'll remember some quotes somewhere and then I have to spend an hour trying to find it because I want it to be as dense with information as possible.

• 49:17Lex Fridman?

  Like, how do you structure the the the main philosophical ideas you want to convey? Is that already planned out?

• 49:24Michael Malice?

  No, the book changed entirely from its conception. So my buddy Ryan Holiday had a series of books, still does, where he takes the ideas of the Stoics and he applies them to contemporary terms. He has this whole cottage industry that he's doing very well with. And I'd asked him years ago if I could do that with Camus, and he's like, sure, go for it. And I was going to rework Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus. And I read it recently, I reread it, and this wasn't the book I remembered at all. And I'm like, OK, I'm gonna write the book that I remembered. But the more I was writing it, I, one of the things I always yell at conservatives about, and there's a long list, is they don't talk about the great victory of conservatism,

• 50:09Michael Malice?

  which was the winning of the Cold War without firing a shot. And I said, you can't expect the New York Times to tell this story because the blood is on their hands. And I'm like, well, Michael, instead of complaining about it, why don't you do it? Why don't you talk? That is a great example of the good guys winning over the bad guys. And that's become, A, it's, the victory is beautiful, but also pointing out to people. When people are like, oh, things are worse than they've ever been, they don't appreciate how bad things were in the 30s, what Stalin was doing overseas, and how people in the West were advocating to bring that here. So that's kind of pointing out how bad things were and how good they became.

• 50:52Michael Malice?

  And you don't have to be a Republican or conservative to be delighted at the collapse of totalitarianism and the peaceful liberation of half the world.

• 51:00Lex Fridman?

  So that's a picture of the good guys winning.

• 51:02Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:03Lex Fridman?

  Well, how does that connect to Sisyphus? And maybe to speak deeper to

• 51:08Lex Fridman?

  Life and whatever the hell this thing is, which is what I remember the myth of Sisyphus being about. So where does the threat of Camus sort of lie in the work that you're doing?

• 51:24Michael Malice?

  So the myth of Sisyphus, what I had remembered incorrectly is actually just a five, like seven, five to seven page, like coda to the whole block at the very end. Like you only need to read that little essay called the myth of Sisyphus. The broader work is about Camus' concept of the absurd and the absurd man within literature. And he goes, and it's just like, I don't really care about this character in Dostoevsky and all this other stuff that you're talking about. It's of no relevance. But what he, the myth of Sisyphus, the myth itself, not the book, or the, or the essay of his, is this Greek character and Sisyphus is forced in hell to roll a rock up a hill for eternity. At the very last moment, the rock falls away. And Camus' takeaway from the story is that

• 52:06Michael Malice?

  we have to met, we must imagine Sisyphus happy. And there's several interpretations of this, but one is, once you accept that you are living an absurdist existence, once you own your reality, it loses its bite. And you can start with that as your kind of baseline.

• 52:28Lex Fridman?

  And bite is suffering.

• 52:31Michael Malice?

  And hopelessness. So I think when people look at how much ridiculousness is happening in America and it's escalating, you can either think, oh, all is lost, or you can, and I think you and I have lived our lives like this, you can live life more like a surfer, whereas you're never going to control the ocean. But you can sure enjoy that ride and stop. If you're trying to control the waves, yeah, you're done. But if you're like, all right, I've got my board, I'm going to see where this takes me. Surfing, from what I understand, is a pretty fun activity, and also sometimes dangerous. But you'd have to ask Tulsi about that.

• 53:10Lex Fridman?

  So we were offline talking about.

• 53:13Lex Fridman?

  Stalin and the evils of the Soviet regime.

• 53:19Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Lex Fridman?

  One of the things I mentioned, I watched the movie Mr. Jones, but it's about the 1930s. Khadomor, the, what would you say, the torture of the Ukrainian people.

• 53:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 53:33Lex Fridman?

  By Stalin. One interesting thing to me, I'd love to hear your opinion about is the role of journalism in all of this. And also about 1930s Germany. So what's the role of journalists and intellectuals in a time when trouble is brewing? But it requires a really sort of brave and deep thinking to understand that trouble is brewing. Like if you were a journalist, or if you were just like an intellectual, a thinker.

• 54:09Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 54:09Lex Fridman?

  But also a voice of in the, in the space of public discourse, what would you do in 1930s about Stalin? About Khadomor? And what would you do about Nazi Germany in 1937, 1938?

• 54:25Michael Malice?

  So that's really funny that you ask that because currently how the book is structured. It's like, you know, books often follow three act structure, right? So act three is the eighties, act one is the thirties and act two is going to be like, all right, let's suppose you were in the thirties. Are you just going to give up? Like, are you just going to be like, well, we're screwed? And you'd be right to say things are going to be very bad for a long time. Or are you going to be one of those few who are like, we're going to do something about this and you know, we're going to go down swinging. There are two books I can recommend, which are just masterpieces that, that are written by women that just are historians that are just superb. There's a book called Beyond Belief by Deborah Lipstadt. She talks about the rise of Nazi Germany as seen through the press.

• 55:09Michael Malice?

  And what was amazing, and she does a great job empathizing with the press and understand their perspective, is we remember, and Chamberlain gets a bad rap, Neville Chamberlain, for kind of appeasing Hitler, because not that long ago, they had the Great War, they had World War I, and they had the carnage that the earth had never seen before. And when you had people made out of meat, meeting industrial machines, and plastic surgery was invented as a consequence of this, they're coming back mangled and disfigured, and for what? And this was a world where the Kaiser was the most evil person who ever lived. And we all had the Western propaganda about the Han, and all the rapes, and all this barbarism, and blah, blah, blah. So, not that long later, when you're hearing all this propaganda,

• 55:54Michael Malice?

  which was factual, about Hitler, it's like, we heard this, we heard this 20 years ago, this was all lies, give us a break. And she has all the quotes from the different agencies and how they addressed it. Plus, they had very limited information. It's not like Nazi Germany was an open society where reporters can walk around, and they were under a lot of pressure as well, you know, in those areas.

• 56:18Lex Fridman?

  And Hitler himself was pretty good at, he let some stuff slip, but usually, he made it seem like he wants peace, he wants world peace.

• 56:27Michael Malice?

  This was amazing. They were making the argument that because all these Jews were being beaten up on the street, this proved, this was the hot take of the day, that Hitler was weak, because since Hitler's a statesman, and he can't control these hooligans, that shows his control and power is tenuous, and this is all gonna go away.

• 56:46Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I mean, Hitler thought that, too. He was kind of afraid of the brown shirts, whatever, like, he was afraid of these hooligans a little bit. Like, they were useful to him, but like, at a certain point, like, yeah, they can get in the way.

• 56:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 56:59Lex Fridman?

  That's why he wanted to get control of the military, the army, like, their regiment. Like, if you want to take over the world, you can't do it with hooligans.

• 57:06Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 57:07Lex Fridman?

  You have to do it with an actual army.

• 57:08Michael Malice?

  And then you had Kristallnacht, which was a nationwide pogrom, and then all the news agencies universally were like, oh crap, we got this wrong. And the condemnation was universal. So that book traces the West's reaction to what's going on there, and including the reaction to the insipid Holocaust, as people being, you know, what they knew, when did they know? There was not ambiguity about, people, I think there's this myth. That she dispels that they didn't know the Holocaust was happening or they didn't care. They were aware, but they were already at war with Nazi Germany. Like, what, literally, what else could they do at that point, you know, to rescue all these Jews? So that's

• 57:53Michael Malice?

  their superb book. And Anne Applebaum, I think the book is called Red Famine, came out fairly recently. And she brings the receipts. And she's a, you know, this is something I really hate with the binary thinkers, where the people think, oh, you know, if you're a Democrat, you're basically a communist. They call Joe Biden a Marxist. It's just like, you know, she's a hard lefty. She's, you know, has TDS. But this book just systemically lays out what Stalin did.

• 58:20Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I'm triggered by the binary thinkers. And for those who don't know, TDS 0011 is Trump-to-Angela syndrome.

• 58:28Michael Malice?

  Yes. So they, you know, forced the starvation of this entire population. And they, it's not only that, it's like, they knew if you weren't starving by looking at you, that you were hiding food. So they'd come back to your house at night and break your fingers in the door, or take, burn down your house. And now you're on the street without food because you lied, because this is the people's food. You're a kulak. You're a landowner. And very quickly, kulak, which meant like peasant landowner, became anyone who had a piece of bread. And it was systemic and ongoing. And many people in the press did not believe it. There was a British journalist, I believe, who got out of the train, Ukraine,

• 59:12Michael Malice?

  like one town earlier and walked. And he described all this. And he was mocked and derided. And this is just anti-Russian propaganda, because at the time, in the 30s, this was, socialism had come to fruition. This was a noble experiment. I'd seen the future and it works, as I think Sidney Webb was the guy who said that. And the premise was, let's see what happens. We've never tried something like that. And they were perfectly happy to have this experiment happen overseas at the price of the Russian people, because it's like, you know what, maybe this will be paradise on earth. And there's a, I addressed this in my book as well, this superb essay, I think, by Eugene Genovese. And he talks about the question, the question being, what did you know?

• 59:56Michael Malice?

  And when did you know it? What did you know about the concentration camps? What did you know about the starvation? What did you know about children being taught at school to turn in their parents for, you know, having some extra bread? And his conclusion is, we all knew, and we all knew from the beginning, every bit of it. And we didn't care because we were more interested in promoting this ideology. So when people are kind of thinking the worst thing on earth is like Robert E. Lee statue being taken down to Washington DC. We were being told on a, in especially a much more limited news information world, where now you have literally anyone can have a Twitter, but how many outlets were there? That this is, we're backwards, they're the future, they're scientific.

• 1:00:40Michael Malice?

  We have the vagaries of the market, which led to the Great Depression. And when you see what was being put over on the American public at the time, anyone who thinks things are as bad now as they've ever been is simply delusional or ignorant.

• 1:00:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I would say just as a small aside, that's why reading, as I'm almost done with The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

• 1:01:01Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:02Lex Fridman?

  Is, it's a refreshes, the resets the palate of your understanding of what is good and evil in the world.

• 1:01:10Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Lex Fridman?

  That I think is really useful now, like, you know, what helps me be really positive and almost naive on Twitter and in the world is by just studying history.

• 1:01:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Lex Fridman?

  And, and comparing it to how amazing things are today. But in that time, what would you do? What does a brave mind do? And Not just acts of bravery, but how do you be effective in that? That's something I often think about. It's sometimes easy to be an activist in terms of just saying stuff. It's hard to be effective at your activism.

• 1:02:01Michael Malice?

  One of the big questions historians have constantly is how did this happen? A, to make sure it doesn't happen again, but this is Germany. This is not some kind of weirdo cult nation. They're very advanced, very in the land of poets and philosophers. How did it get to that point that they're just shooting children and everyone's cheering for this?

• 1:02:23Lex Fridman?

  Specifically on the antisemitism and the Holocaust.

• 1:02:26Michael Malice?

  But just the totalitarianism, the cult of Hitler and just this whole kind of thing.

• 1:02:30Lex Fridman?

  Sorry to drop, but there's two sides. I don't know if you want to separate them. One is the totalitarianism and the entirety is the Nazi regime. And then there's the Holocaust, which is like, you know, going, I would say, like, very specifically, as I think you're about to describe, is like, you know, targeting Jews very much so. I don't know if you see those as two separate things?

• 1:02:58Michael Malice?

  I think they're very interconnected. But I think if you look at it, everyone thinks that they'd be the ones putting up Anne Frank. But if you look at the numbers, they'd be the ones calling the Stasi on her or whoever the people were at the time, and not the Stasi, obviously, and patting themselves on the back for it.

• 1:03:15Lex Fridman?

  So sorry to pause on that. That's a really important thing. If you're listening to this, that, and you were not, you were in Germany at the time, you would have likely been willing to commit, or at least keep a blind eye to the violence against Jews. Like, you have to really sit with that idea, that you would have been somebody who just sees this and is not bothered by it, and also very likely kind of understands as a necessary evil or even a necessary good.

• 1:03:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And I think people think they would be the abolitionists or marching on Selma. The numbers don't add up to that at all. And I think the question would be like, what social, my friend was on Tinder, my friend Matt, who's a great dude. And the question was, what's the most controversial opinion you have? This is in New York. And the girl wrote, I hate Trump. And what people perceive themselves as being courageous in saying and doing, and what is the actual social costs of you saying or doing this are two very disconnected things. And we're also trained by corporate media to have completely vapid, uninteresting,

• 1:04:29Michael Malice?

  banal ideas, and yet regard ourselves as revolutionaries. You know, there are people who still in New York will take pride because they have a gay friend. And it's like, first of all, who cares? But second of all, you are not a hero. And that person's not your prop, by the way. That's another big problem.

• 1:04:49Lex Fridman?

  Which is why I'd like to give Richard Wolff a shout out for being an intellectual who talks about communism. I think it's, it takes kind of a heroic intellectual right now to speak about like communism seriously. There's difficult waters to tread. Is that the expression? There's difficult paths to walk.

• 1:05:09Michael Malice?

  I love watching a robot try to use idiomatic language.

• 1:05:11Lex Fridman?

  Zero, zero, one, one. I'm quite deeply hurt by the binary comment.

• 1:05:19Michael Malice?

  Are you? Your feeling has gone from one to zero.

• 1:05:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Michael Malice?

  What is love?

• 1:05:25Lex Fridman?

  My buffers have overflown. Though, but there's difficult, I feel like communism is like universally seen as a bad thing currently in intellectual circles.

• 1:05:37Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:05:37Lex Fridman?

  Or actually, maybe some people disagree with that. People say like far, far left, people are trying to, you know, there's some people who argue the, the BLM movement is some kind of

• 1:05:48Michael Malice?

  Marxist, yeah.

• 1:05:49Lex Fridman?

  Marxist. I mean, I don't, I don't really follow the deep logic in that, whatever. But, you know, it's just

• 1:05:56Michael Malice?

  Well, they said they were formed by Marxism, the founder, co-founder.

• 1:05:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but stating that is different than

• 1:06:03Michael Malice?

  There's, there's Marx, the totalitarian. There's also Marx the revolutionary. And I think they're talking more like, we're revolutionaries who are going to overthrow the status quo.

• 1:06:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, right. But like, we can have that further discussion, but I just don't think they speak deeply about political systems of, and saying communism is, is going to be the righteous system that, you know, there's not a deep intellectual discourse, is what I mean. But if you were to try to be on stage with the Jordan Peterson. Like, to me, the brave thing now, like, it would be to argue for communism. It'd be interesting to see. Not many people do it. I certainly wouldn't be willing to do it. I don't have enough. I don't, first of all, don't believe it. But second of all, it's a very difficult argument to make because you would get so much fire, which is why I like Richard Wolff. He's one of the people who is quite rigorously showing that there's some good ideas within

• 1:06:55Lex Fridman?

  the system of communism, specifically saying that attacking more the negative side of capitalism. So saying that there is, that capitalism potentially is more dangerous than communism. I mean, it's, I disagree with that, but I think it's a.

• 1:07:12Michael Malice?

  I love how something is like, we've got a body count of 60 million, but this, everything is potentially, you know, like, water can drown everyone on Earth. So this is incoherent.

• 1:07:23Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think nuclear weapons are bad, but nuclear energy is good.

• 1:07:26Michael Malice?

  Sure. Well, nuclear weapons are also can be good. You can easily make the argument, which I don't know that I subscribe to, that nuclear weapons prevented, uh, boot something around war. And or caused them to be much more contained.

• 1:07:39Lex Fridman?

  And they're also quite effective at changing the direction of an asteroid that's about to hit Earth, as I've learned from a.

• 1:07:45Michael Malice?

  Armageddon.

• 1:07:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Armageddon. And they're actually useful, as Elon Musk has claimed, for, uh, for application for, prior to colonizing Mars, making it more habitable.

• 1:07:57Michael Malice?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:07:58Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 1:07:58Michael Malice?

  You got to nuke something.

• 1:08:01Lex Fridman?

  Uh, but, but, but yes, but I guess what I'm saying is there's, there's place for nuance. And there's some topics so hot, like communism, where nuance is very difficult to have. And I feel like with Nazi Germany, it was a similar thing at the time.

• 1:08:20Michael Malice?

  Let me tell, you want to talk about Jeanette Rankin, who's one of my favorite people? So Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress. She was elected before a woman suffrage was a constitutional amendment from Montana. She was elected in 1916. She was one of a handful of people to vote against the US going into the Great War, which was the right call at the time. She was a pacifist Republican as well, coincidentally. She lost her seat.

• 1:08:51Michael Malice?

  Ran again in, was it 1940? Got the seat again and was the only person to vote against getting into World War II. It was not a unanimous choice. Jeanette Rankin was the one person and she said, "You could no more win a war than you can win a hurricane." So she's one of these interesting, and talk about bravery. You're the one vote after Pearl Harbor to say, "We're not doing this." And I mean, the pressure she must have been under at the time is, and of course, many people are not interested in hearing her perspective, "She's crazy, she's evil, blah, blah." It's also funny, someone on my Twitter, when I talked about her goes, "Maybe she had Hitler's sympathies." Like, yeah, Ms. Rankin was a big fan of Hitler. That's, you figured it out, guys.

• 1:09:35Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there's an argument to be made that United States should not have gotten involved in World War II?

• 1:09:42Michael Malice?

  Oh, easy, an easy argument. The argument, there's, I talk about this in the New Right. So on internet circles, there's something called Godwin's Law, which means the longer an internet conversation goes on, the probability someone gets compared to Hitler becomes one. In certain New Right circles, the longer the conversation goes on, the more likelihood that the argument will come, "We shouldn't have ended World War II," also becomes one. And the argument is, at the very least, stay back, let Hitler and Stalin kill each other off, and then go in and knock off the weaker one. And you're going to be saving, destroying two nightmare systems. And I think that's an easy argument to make. Now, it's hard to pull off after Pearl Harbor, but in terms of strategy, I don't think that's

• 1:10:26Michael Malice?

  a tough sell.

• 1:10:28Lex Fridman?

  What about after Pearl Harbor?

• 1:10:30Michael Malice?

  I mean, that's what I was saying, after Pearl Harbor, how are you going to sell that to the people? The argument is, blah, blah, the Holocaust, the Holocaust, there's no scenario where that doesn't happen, really, if you're, unless you're going in way earlier. But even so, Hitler had said, "If the Jews launch another war, you know, we're going to wipe them from the face of the earth." So the Jews are being held hostage by Hitler as an argument for this. Another thing he did, which was, you know, diabolical, is in order to make it that people could not accept Jews as refugees, if they were going to leave Germany, they had to be penniless. So now you have, it's not like they're coming over with money and they can take care of themselves. No, no, they're going to be completely destitute.

• 1:11:07Lex Fridman?

  Makes it harder to accept them, yeah.

• 1:11:08Michael Malice?

  Millions of destitute people who don't speak the language, it's a tough sell.

• 1:11:12Lex Fridman?

  So, speaking of Godwin's Law... What do you make of this condition, Trump Derangement Syndrome?

• 1:11:20Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Lex Fridman?

  And the idea of comparing Trump to Hitler?

• 1:11:26Michael Malice?

  I think it's despicable. And I'll give you an example, something parallel that I think more people should be regarded as despicable. Earlier in 2020, we were all told that unless we were in Syria immediately, the Kurds were going to be exterminated. They invoke the Holocaust. This is going to be another genocide. And if you're not for this, you should, you're basically, you know, forcing another Holocaust. None of the people who used this argument, we didn't go to Syria, the Kurds were exterminated, they just vanished from news, had any consequences for using this kind of comparison. So I think it's, it's really kind of fatuous. And I think it's amazing that people think Hitler's the only tyrant who ever lived.

• 1:12:11Michael Malice?

  Like, everyone who's bad is specifically Hitler. You know how you know he's not Hitler? Because you can tweet at him and no one comes to your house to kill your family. Like, that's kind of a big difference. Also, the difference between Trump and many of his critics is that his grandchildren will be raised as Jews. So that's also kind of a, and Deborah Lipschitz talks about this a lot. The New York Times at the time, there's another book called Buried by the Times, which talks about the New York Times in the World War II. Because the idea that Jews weren't white was a Hitler idea. The New York Times at the time, Salzberger, wanted to be against this idea.

• 1:12:52Michael Malice?

  So they specifically downplayed the antisemitism as opposed to the Nazis are being oppressive. So the argument that you can separate Nazism from antisemitism is a historical debate people have. And my perspective is, I think it's I do not find it convincing that you can separate those two. I think antisemitism was essential to Nazism. I think Nazism and Mussolini's fascism have very big differences.

• 1:13:21Lex Fridman?

  And Do you think antisemitism was fundamental to who Hitler was?

• 1:13:26Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:13:26Lex Fridman?

  Was it just that? So this is the interesting thing is like, was it a tool that he saw as being effective?

• 1:13:34Michael Malice?

  No, he believed it.

• 1:13:36Lex Fridman?

  So why do you see those as intricately connected? Could Hitler have accomplished the same amount or more without the Holocaust?

• 1:13:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because think about how many resources you had to divert at a time where you have Operation Barbarossa with Stalin.

• 1:13:51Lex Fridman?

  So why are they connected? Why are they so connected?

• 1:13:55Lex Fridman?

  Is it because Hitler was insane or was he a bad strategist?

• 1:13:59Michael Malice?

  He was obviously a bad strategist. He took, he had no need to open a second front. His generals, my understanding, told him this is crazy. It didn't work out for him at all. I mean, to draw Russia and her resources into that war, it makes absolutely no sense in retrospect. There's a book about, I forget what it's called, where it talked about him at that point was just high all the time on amphetamines. And that could have affected his thinking.

• 1:14:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a really good book on drugs.

• 1:14:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Lex Fridman?

  I mean, I forget what it's called, but yeah, it's a really good one.

• 1:14:28Michael Malice?

  But it was, I mean, scapegoating is a big part and parcel of the Nazi mythology. And this kind of one universal figure to explain, you know, this kind of, you know, skeleton key.

• 1:14:42Lex Fridman?

  But it could have been the communists. I mean, that could have been the source of the hatred. So like

• 1:14:46Michael Malice?

  The communists didn't get Germany into World War I, like he said the Jews did.

• 1:14:50Lex Fridman?

  It seems to me that the atrocity of the Holocaust is the reason we see Hitler as evil.

• 1:14:58Michael Malice?

  No, the reason we see Hitler as evil is because of World War II propaganda still. Because we don't see Stalin as evil.

• 1:15:03Lex Fridman?

  Right, that's my main point.

• 1:15:05Michael Malice?

  Mao as evil to that extent. I think that

• 1:15:08Lex Fridman?

  Why, like, why would you say that?

• 1:15:09Michael Malice?

  You know what?

• 1:15:10Lex Fridman?

  The nature of that propaganda.

• 1:15:11Michael Malice?

  Because I think a lot of the problem for this certain type of mentality is Hitler didn't mass murder equally. So as long as you're killing just one group, it's a problem. But if you're murdering everyone equally, all of a sudden, it's like, eh, what are you gonna do? So the fact, like you were saying, the Holocaust is not common knowledge. The fact that Mao's 50 million dead are not common knowledge. And Richard Nixon can be raising a glass to him in China. These are things that I think the West has not done a good job reconciling.

• 1:15:40Lex Fridman?

  Knock, knock.

• 1:15:41Michael Malice?

  Who's there?

• 1:15:43Lex Fridman?

  Frank.

• 1:15:44Michael Malice?

  Frank who?

• 1:15:45Lex Fridman?

  Frank, you for being my friend, Michael.

• 1:15:48Michael Malice?

  And the heart attacks will say, Frank, you for being my friend.

• 1:15:52Lex Fridman?

  This is.

• 1:15:53Michael Malice?

  You gotta do like this.

• 1:15:54Lex Fridman?

  All right.

• 1:15:55Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:56Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:15:59Lex Fridman?

  Now, back to Hitler.

• 1:16:04Lex Fridman?

  Do you think Hitler could have been stopped? We kind of talked about it a little bit in terms of how to, what is the brave thing to do in the time of Nazi Germany? But do you think, I mean, I'm not even gonna ask about Stalin in terms of could Stalin have been stopped? Because probably the answer is there's no. But on the Hitler side, could Hitler have been stopped?

• 1:16:27Michael Malice?

  I think a lot of these things, a lot of luck has to play with it. He was almost assassinated. If you mean by like the West, it's very hard. I mean, yeah.

• 1:16:37Lex Fridman?

  By the German people too. I mean, could, like, if we're politically speaking, there was a rise to power through the 30s, through the 20s, really. I mean, like, can whoever, it's not about Hitler, it's about that kind of way of thinking. That totalitarian control that always leads to trouble. And sometimes on a mass scale, could that have been stopped in Germany? Or maybe in the Soviet Union?

• 1:17:06Michael Malice?

  I think this is one of the best arguments against radicalization in the States, which is, how do you engage when you have like 30% of the population who are members of a party, which is dedicated to systemically overthrowing the existing democracy?

• 1:17:23Michael Malice?

  Stalin gave orders that the communists, who had a pretty sizable population, the Reichstag, that their target shouldn't be the Nazis, but the liberals and the social democrats. And they invented the term "social fascist" for them. So instead of, they're just like jihadis. Instead of taking their sights on Nazism, they set their sights on the moderates. Because they wanted, they figured the choice between Hitler and us, we're gonna win. And this was a huge gamble. And they were all killed or had to flee. And the ones who fled were killed also by Stalin. So to my understanding. So this is an easy way where he could have been certainly heavily mitigated.

• 1:18:02Lex Fridman?

  What about France and England? That it was obvious that Hitler was lying. And they wanted peace so bad that they were willing to put up with it, even after Czechoslovakia. Like, this is the anti-pacifist argument, which is like, they should have threatened military force more.

• 1:18:26Michael Malice?

  But then the other anti, the anti-pacifist argument is, if you're gonna, remember Barack Obama had that, the red line? If you cross this red line in Syria, we're gonna go in. And Assad, whatever, was like, yeah, cool. And he's like, oh, okay, well, sorry. So if you're threatening force, there's the great song lyric, "Don't show your guns unless you intend to fight." Right? So it's very clear with free countries, through what's in the press, whether the institutional will is there to follow through on these threats. So I think it would have been very hard for Chamberlain to rally the British people to take on Hitler just after the Great. I mean, the suffering that Britons took on the Great War,

• 1:19:08Michael Malice?

  they still, you know, obviously, it means so much more to them than does to us in the West.

• 1:19:12Lex Fridman?

  What about, what do you make of Churchill then? Like, why was Churchill able to rally the British people? Why was he?

• 1:19:21Lex Fridman?

  Like, do you give much credit to Churchill for being one of the great forces in stopping Hitler in World War II?

• 1:19:30Michael Malice?

  I don't think that's really in dispute. I think he was very much regarded as this kind of the right man at the right time. And I think Chamberlain took a gamble. The expression "peace in our time" was Neville Chamberlain when he signed the appeasement with Hitler and he goes, "We now have peace in our time. Now go home and get a good night's sleep." That's what he said. Because he's like, "All right, you know, he's gonna stop here." And it's not impossible that if you just gave him... Like, if you gave Saddam Hussein Kuwait, it's not impossible that he's not gonna invade Saudi Arabia next, something like that.

• 1:20:06Lex Fridman?

  But see, okay, but everything I've read, it's like, of course, there's, it's not impossible. But when you're in the room with Hitler, you should be able to see, like, man to man. Like, to me, a great leader should be able to see past the facade and see, like, like, yes, everything in life is a risk, but it seems like the right risk to take with Hitler. Like, it's surprising to me, I know there's charisma, but it's surprising to me, people did not see through this facade.

• 1:20:45Michael Malice?

  I really hate the idea of hindsight and everything being 2020. And I think it's a very good idea, generally, I'm not seeking generally, not in this specific instance, to give our ancestors more credit than we tend to give them. Because people often... Here's a great example from another context, which is lightning rods. People always talk about religious people being stupid and superstitious, and they weren't. They often were very well reasoned. An example of this is lightning rods, which is, every year, whatever town, the church was the tallest building, and that's the one that always got hit by lightning and got caught on fire. Now, what, it's a coincidence that it's always the church? Like, that makes logical sense. That they didn't realize, well, it's because...

• 1:21:30Michael Malice?

  The tallest and therefore that attracts the electricity. And in fact, when they invented lighting rods, this was a controversy because it's like, well, how is God going to show his displeasure? If now it's striking this lightning rod not burning down the church? So a lot of times, things are a lot more coherent than we give them credit for. And again, Chamberlain, he's the head of a parliamentary party. So he does not have the freedom, in a sense, that Hitler would to be like, all right, we're doing this again, boys. We don't know what it's like in a room with Hitler. Come on, that's, that's, we really have no idea.

• 1:22:05Lex Fridman?

  But I think you have to think about that, right?

• 1:22:06Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but you can, I can very easily see him in the room, being very calm and charming. And then you think, okay, the guy with the speeches is the act. And he's putting on a show for his people. And this is the real one.

• 1:22:21Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so let's, let's take somebody as an example. Let's take our mutual friend Vladimir Putin.

• 1:22:28Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:22:29Lex Fridman?

  Okay. I don't know why saying his name makes my voice crack.

• 1:22:34Michael Malice?

  Because you're scared he could hear you. It's like Beetlejuice.

• 1:22:38Michael Malice?

  Vlajda.

• 1:22:41Lex Fridman?

  So there's a lot of people that-

• 1:22:43Michael Malice?

  Was he the one who built you?

• 1:22:46Lex Fridman?

  No, that was, that was a collaboration.

• 1:22:50Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's a double-blind engineering effort.

• 1:22:57Lex Fridman?

  Where I was not told of whom my maker was. There's a backstory, but.

• 1:23:03Michael Malice?

  There's a talking cricket.

• 1:23:06Michael Malice?

  Pinocchio.

• 1:23:10Michael Malice?

  You'll be a real boy someday.

• 1:23:13Lex Fridman?

  I talk about him quite a bit because I find him fascinating. Now, there's, there's a really important line that people say, like, why does Lex admire Putin? I do not admire Putin. I find the man fascinating. I find Hitler fascinating. I find a lot of figures in history fascinating, both good and bad. And the figures, just as you said. That are with us today, like Vladimir Putin, like Donald Trump, like Barack Obama, is difficult to place him on the spectrum of good and evil. Because that's only really applies to like when you see the consequences of their action in a historical context.

• 1:23:57Lex Fridman?

  So there's some people who say that Vladimir Putin is evil. And based on our discussion about Hitler, that's something I think about a lot, which is in the room with Putin. And there's also a lot of historical descriptions of what it's like to be in the room with Hitler in the 1930s. There is a lot of charisma. In the same way, I find Putin to be very charismatic in his own way. The humor, the wit, the brilliance, the, there's, um, there's a simplicity of the

• 1:24:33Lex Fridman?

  way he thinks that really, if taken at face value, looks like a very intelligent, honest man, thinking practically about how to build a better Russia, constantly, almost like, like an executive. Like, he loves, he, he looks like a man who loves his job in a way that Trump, for example, doesn't.

• 1:25:03Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:25:04Lex Fridman?

  Meaning like, he loves laws and rules and how to.

• 1:25:07Michael Malice?

  He has no adversarial press, so that's gonna help.

• 1:25:10Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:25:11Michael Malice?

  And he's popular with his people, that's also gonna help enormously.

• 1:25:13Lex Fridman?

  I'm talking about strictly the man, directly the words coming out of his mouth. Like, all the videos and interviews I watch, um, based on that, not the press, not the reporting, you can just see that here's a man who's able to display a charisma that's not, like, I can see, that's why I love Joe Rogan, that is like, you could tell the guy is genuine and is a good person. And like, you could tell immediately that, like, once you meet Joe, that he's going to be offline, also a good person. You could tell, there's like signals that we send that are like difficult to kind of describe. In the same way, you could tell Putin is, like, he genuinely loves his job and wants

• 1:25:58Lex Fridman?

  to build a better Russia. There's. The argument that he is actually an evil man behind that charisma, or is able to assassinate people, limit free press, all those kinds of things. Like, that's... What do we do with that? So what do human beings like journalists, or what do other leaders, when they're in the room with Putin, do with those kinds of notions? In deciding how to act in this world? In deciding what policy to enact? All those kinds of things. Just like with Hitler. When Chairman is in the room with Hitler,

• 1:26:41Lex Fridman?

  how does he decide how to act?

• 1:26:44Michael Malice?

  Well, let's go back to my wheelhouse, which is North Korea. Right? So when your entire world is based on being against Trump and everything Trump does is buffoonery or counterproductive, the conclusion of your reporting is going to be pretty much given. I was very hopeful that there would be some positive outlooks, or outcomes, rather, of Trump's meeting with Kim Jong-un. It looked like there was a space for things to go a bit better. I talked about it a lot at the time. And Trump was under no illusions about who he was dealing with.

• 1:27:27Michael Malice?

  People pretend that, oh, he was kind of naive. He had one of the refugees that had stayed at the Union lifting up his crutch. The first thing he sat down and talked to Xi Jinping about in Mar-a-Lago, right after he became inaugurated, was North Korea. Barack Obama said that when he sat down Trump in the White House during the transfer of power, he said North Korea is the biggest issue. So I think a good leader, whether or not you consider Trump a good leader, has to be aware of, all right, I'm going to have to have relationships of some kind, even if it's adversarial, with some really evil, evil, horrible people, which Kim Jong-un clearly is.

• 1:28:09Lex Fridman?

  Well, I don't think there's anybody that has a perspective that North Korean Kim Jong-un or Il are not evil, right?

• 1:28:19Michael Malice?

  Correct.

• 1:28:21Lex Fridman?

  But with in 1930s Germany, isn't it a little bit more nuanced?

• 1:28:28Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because Hitler hasn't done anything yet and he's just a blowhard and he's an anti Semite. Sure, but he's.

• 1:28:33Lex Fridman?

  What about like before the war breaks out? Like, what about the basic actionable antisemitism when you're like just attacking hurting?

• 1:28:44Michael Malice?

  We're talking about Kristallnacht or talking about the Night of Long Knives?

• 1:28:47Lex Fridman?

  Uh, Kristallnacht. So it's the Night of the Broken Glass.

• 1:28:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah. Long Knives is when he assassinated a bunch of his people. That was something different.

• 1:28:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So like when you're actually attacking your own citizenry.

• 1:28:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that was universally condemned Kristallnacht and that was very shocking. Uh, it's it's level of barbarism um to the West. Because I think I think we still want to believe understandably that things aren't as bad as they seem. We would rather, this is why I, you know, I the North Korea book I did Dear Reader is used in a humorous framework because if you have to look, it's like looking to the sun. If you stared it straight on, it's very hard to do. So you have to kind of look at it obliquely and and then it kind of realizing the enormity of the depravity.

• 1:29:42Michael Malice?

  Um, and again, pogroms in Russia had been a thing for a very long time. And there is a difference between, okay, you know, we're going to sack these villages and persecute people. And we're going to systematically exterminate them. That's there's there's still levels of evil and depravity.

• 1:30:00Lex Fridman?

  So you did write the book Dear Reader on uh Kim Jong Il.

• 1:30:04Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:04Lex Fridman?

  Dear Reader, the unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong Il.

• 1:30:09Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:10Lex Fridman?

  So that's the previous leader of North Korea.

• 1:30:12Michael Malice?

  Correct.

• 1:30:12Lex Fridman?

  Current one is the un.

• 1:30:14Michael Malice?

  Jongun.

• 1:30:15Lex Fridman?

  No, no creativity on the naming.

• 1:30:18Michael Malice?

  Well, no, this is intentional because it's a throwback to um the dad.

• 1:30:23Lex Fridman?

  So there's been only three leaders in North Korea. So we've talked about the history of Hitler and Stalin and men like these. I think it's important to understand that the history of those kinds of humans. There's the history of North Korea is not well written about or understood, which is why your book is exceptionally powerful and important. So maybe in a big, broad.

• 1:30:47Lex Fridman?

  Way can you say who was, who is Kim Jong Il? As a, as a man, as a leader, as a historical figure that we should understand? And why should we understand them?

• 1:31:00Michael Malice?

  So I wrote Dear Reader by going to North Korea and getting all their propaganda, which is translated into several languages because the conceit is everyone on earth is interested in them and wants to mirror their ideology.

• 1:31:12Lex Fridman?

  And he died in 2011.

• 1:31:14Michael Malice?

  2011, yeah.

• 1:31:15Lex Fridman?

  And you wrote the book in 2012.

• 1:31:16Michael Malice?

  I went there in 2012. I wrote the book, came out in 2014. So Kim Jong Il is, though not an intellect, North Korea's version of Forrest Gump. In that when they write their history, whenever something appeared, happens, he's there. And by telling his life story, it's in the first person, he's telling the history of North Korea. So I wanted to write the kind of book where in one book, and it's the kind of reading you could do in the beach or the bathroom, you're going to get the entire history and know everything you need to know about North Korea in one accessible outlet. And it's, it's, what people don't appreciate about North Korea, there's several things. How bad it is. And this didn't happen overnight.

• 1:31:57Michael Malice?

  This was very systemic, that what this family did to that country, where piece by piece, they did everything in their power to hermetically seal it from the rest of the world, ramp up the oppression, keep any information from coming in. And, you know, they're very creative and innovative in their style of manipulation and control. So there is a farcical element. Let me give you an example. So people in the West kind of get it wrong. They're talking about, oh, they talk about when Kim Jong Il played golf for the first time, he gets 17 holes in one. There is this one story about Kim Jong Il shrinking time. And this is a story, and it sounds supernatural, but it's not.

• 1:32:42Michael Malice?

  So Kim Jong Il is at a conference, the Dear Leader, and someone is giving a talk. And while that person is giving a talk, Kim Jong Il is taking notes and working on his work. And he has an aide who keeps interrupting him with questions. And the speaker keeps stopping. And Kim Jong Il says, why are you stopping? Goes, I see you're doing these other things. And he goes, no, no, I can do all these things at once. Everyone's shocked. And they said, this is why Kim Jong Il looks at time not like a plane, but like a cube. And he can shrink time. And my friend goes, do they mean multitasking? And yes, Kim Jong Il is the only person in North Korea who's capable of multitasking.

• 1:33:21Michael Malice?

  So in order to elevate him, they basically make everyone else in North Korea completely incompetent.

• 1:33:31Michael Malice?

  And that has a purpose because should the leader go away, this country is going to collapse overnight. So they laugh in the West about all these newspapers show him at the factory. And he's at the fish hatchery at the paper plant. They say the difference in North Korea is that the leader goes among the people and does what he calls field guidance. So he will go in that farm and be like, this is what you need to do. And he'll go here and he's so smart, he's good at everything. And thanks to him for sharing his wisdom with us. And he's not removed from the people like in every other country.

• 1:34:05Lex Fridman?

  Why does that seem to go wrong with humans? Do you think that this kind of the structure where there's this one figure, this authoritarian, this totalitarian structure where there's one figure that's a source of comfort and knowledge?

• 1:34:22Michael Malice?

  Kim Jong Il is not good at farming. Kim Jong Il is not good at the machinery. It's all a complete lie. Or the things he'll point out will be things that are completely obvious. So here's another example that they use. In North Korea, they have something called the Tower of the Gushi idea, which is an obelisk, which looks like the Washington Monument. But it's completely different because it's got this like plastic torch at the top. And they talk about in their propaganda, how all the architects got together. And they said, oh, we should make this the second tallest stone obelisk in the world. And Kim Jong Il says, no, let's make it the tallest. They're like, oh, we never thought of this before. And the way it's presented as it, and like, he's the first person to think of this.

• 1:35:07Michael Malice?

  Like, these architects are having a brainstorming session. The tower, they just share the idea. They're like, all right, we gotta do something innovative to put North Korea on the map. What can we do? How about second biggest? He's gonna go for this. And then he's like, make, oh, we never thought of this. It's, it's, it's so, because I present it at face value. People sometimes say the book's a satire. It's not a satire. I downplayed all this stuff. It's a farce. Here's another example. North Korea is very big, and I think Russia is to some extent too, on amusement parks. Fun fairs, they call them in the British style, because it's a chance for the people to all together. And there was this amusement park, it's almost like South Park at Cartman, where there's all these rides.

• 1:35:49Michael Malice?

  And Kim Jong Il's like, I'm not gonna let any elderly or children take these rides until I put myself in danger and ride them myself. And they go, but dear leader, it's drizzling. And he goes, no, I have to make sure these rides are gonna be safe for everyone, even during the light rain. They go, well, can we go on these rides with you? No, no, no, I have to be the courageous one. And he's riding all the rides and they're standing there crying at his courage. But that's what's, and you ask all the thing in one power. It's like, listen, I'm quite confident that those fun fair engineers are in a position to ride modest mouse, whatever it's called, by themselves and be like, yeah, okay, this is good for the kids.

• 1:36:33Michael Malice?

  Although, to be fair, some of those amusement parks are not, are pretty rusty and dangerous.

• 1:36:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but that, that, that kind of propaganda, I guess what I'm playing a devil's advocate is like, it's comforting and it's useful, but it does seem that that naturally leads to an abuse of power.

• 1:36:53Michael Malice?

  But it's not, how can it be used correctly? No one person has the intellect or the mind to understand the entirety of an economy, let alone every individual field of interest.

• 1:37:05Lex Fridman?

  Well, for example, you could have an artificial intelligence system that understands the entirety of it.

• 1:37:10Michael Malice?

  Your affect just completely changed. The mask slipped. I guess you could have an artificial intelligence system.

• 1:37:17Lex Fridman?

  But like, the question is, Can that mean like the the the human version of that is like you can hire a lot of experts, right? You can be an extremely good manager.

• 1:37:29Michael Malice?

  Yeah, since everything's dynamic, it's not gonna, they're not gonna have the data to kind of manage it well.

• 1:37:35Lex Fridman?

  It seems that there's a like what George Washington allegedly did. It seems like most humans are not able to fire themselves. You're not able to like.

• 1:37:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:37:46Lex Fridman?

  Ultimately be a check on your own power, but that's not if I was like, if I was creating a human.

• 1:37:53Lex Fridman?

  It's like it would, that's not an obvious bug of the system that we would not be able to fire ourselves. Did to to know when we have, I mean, it seems like that's something you have to know always. Like, that's something I often wonder is like, am I wrong about this?

• 1:38:11Michael Malice?

  Well, this is what we talked about earlier. What are the safety valves?

• 1:38:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:14Michael Malice?

  To make sure that, okay, if I am incorrect or my knowledge is finite, Plato's cave kind of thing. What mechanisms are in place that my mistake or limited information isn't going to have deleterious consequences? And North Korea does not really have that. And as a result, they had polio in the 90s.

• 1:38:32Lex Fridman?

  So there is a, you're, you write about it straight, but there's a humor to it because it's an absurdly evil place, I suppose.

• 1:38:42Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Lex Fridman?

  A bunch of people, I asked, I asked, I said that I'm talking to you and a bunch of people asked questions.

• 1:38:50Michael Malice?

  Oh, God, I gotta hear from the plebs. You asked me before we started recording. I specifically said, no, it was in my contract.

• 1:38:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and you gave, I gave you all the pink Skittles or whatever, but they.

• 1:39:02Michael Malice?

  So pink, you don't pink.

• 1:39:05Lex Fridman?

  I'm trolling, Michael. Let me explain to you how that works.

• 1:39:09Lex Fridman?

  If people should go at malice.locals.com, which and sign up and pay, I think the membership fee is several thousand dollars. It's very, it's, it's, it's not.

• 1:39:20Michael Malice?

  It's not for the layman.

• 1:39:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but the service is excellent. You get a coat with it. But yeah, I went there, posted a lot of really brilliant people there. People should join that community. If you find Michael interesting, or if you just want to go and say why he's wrong, it's a great place to have that.

• 1:39:39Michael Malice?

  For that, I assure you.

• 1:39:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, a lot of really kind people. So anyway, the there's a bunch of people ask that we should talk about humor.

• 1:39:50Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:39:51Lex Fridman?

  So pretend hypothetically speaking that I'm a robot.

• 1:39:57Lex Fridman?

  Asking you to explain humor to me. What?

• 1:40:02Lex Fridman?

  So dear reader, I mean, there's a humor, there's you're so wonderfully dance between serious dark topics and then seriously dark humor.

• 1:40:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:16Lex Fridman?

  Can you try to, if you were to write like a, I don't know, Wikipedia article, maybe a book about your philosophy of humor? What do you think is the role of humor in all of this?

• 1:40:27Michael Malice?

  A joke is like a baby. You can't dissect it and then put it back together and expect it to work. Trust me on this one. Despite no matter how you carve that thing up, it's not going to be working the next day. And you need it to sew those little sneakers with those hands.

• 1:40:42Lex Fridman?

  Oh.

• 1:40:44Michael Malice?

  I don't know that humor is something that is very explainable. People, there's something called clapter. Where this is like the worst kind of humor where people applaud because they agree with what you're saying as opposed to laughter. That's though, that's, that's a kind of.

• 1:40:58Lex Fridman?

  The poetry reading?

• 1:40:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah, and the drag queens do that, too.

• 1:41:03Michael Malice?

  I think because they have the nails. This, you laugh, it's a visceral reaction. When someone on Twitter is insisting, you know, that's not funny, you're not in a position to make that claim. And let's, let's, let's go back to North Korea. I had a refugee I knew and he went to high school here. And he was talking to his buddies and they said, hey, remember when we were kids, we had Pokemon? And he goes, oh yeah, except instead of Pokemon, I watched my dad starve to death, which is the truth now.

• 1:41:33Michael Malice?

  Who are, who are any of us to tell him not to make that joke?

• 1:41:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:37Michael Malice?

  I don't know what it's like watching anyone, including my dad, starve to death. And my dad's fatty, so he's not going hungry anytime soon. So it's very bizarre to me when people feel comfortable precluding others from making jokes, especially, and I think this is a very Jewish thing, like this kind of gallows humor, especially when it's laughing about a personal loss or experience that they've had. Humor is a great way to mitigate pain and suffering. But it's also, I think this is why it's a Jewish thing, it's a black thing. When you are a marginalized community or poorer, it's free.

• 1:42:19Michael Malice?

  Telling stories, telling jokes or songs, you don't have to have money, but you can have joy and happiness. And I think that's why you find it so much more in kind of lower status communities than you find it like wasps, who are notoriously humorless.

• 1:42:36Lex Fridman?

  Which is strange because people pay you a lot of money for the jokes you do, so it's not really free.

• 1:42:42Michael Malice?

  Yeah, well, no, they don't have to pay me. It's, it's appreciated, but not expected.

• 1:42:47Lex Fridman?

  I find my voice cracking every time I try to make a joke. Like I fail miserably at this. So some people.

• 1:42:54Michael Malice?

  You're still in beta.

• 1:42:56Lex Fridman?

  Alpha.

• 1:42:57Michael Malice?

  Sure. Being an alpha is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

• 1:43:02Lex Fridman?

  No, I meant alpha version, not.

• 1:43:03Michael Malice?

  Oh.

• 1:43:05Michael Malice?

  I don't, I don't know if you're a robot gobbledygook.

• 1:43:09Lex Fridman?

  I'm not going there, okay.

• 1:43:11Michael Malice?

  Who are you talking to?

• 1:43:13Lex Fridman?

  In my own head, I'm talking to myself in my own head. Okay, speaking of North Korea, some people say that, you know, I've read that comedy is about timing. Well, first of all, do you agree? And second of all.

• 1:43:30Michael Malice?

  No, I'm serious.

• 1:43:31Lex Fridman?

  No, just you saying yes.

• 1:43:33Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it was funny. Okay.

• 1:43:35Michael Malice?

  Isn't it comedy's tragedy plus timing? Isn't that the, isn't that the full reference?

• 1:43:40Lex Fridman?

  What is it? The interrupting cow knock-knock joke? I'm not gonna do it, but.

• 1:43:44Michael Malice?

  That's not a timing thing. It's more of a repetition and then the twist ending.

• 1:43:49Lex Fridman?

  No, the moo.

• 1:43:50Michael Malice?

  Oh, the moo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:51Lex Fridman?

  Interrupting cow. You're thinking of the banana one. Anyway, I'm not, I'm not going there. Yet you're.

• 1:43:59Michael Malice?

  What are you talking to?

• 1:44:01Lex Fridman?

  My own head.

• 1:44:02Michael Malice?

  Good lord. Do you have an earpiece? Are you small wonder? Do you stand sleeping in a wardrobe?

• 1:44:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:10Lex Fridman?

  God, that's so British. But yet you're very.

• 1:44:13Michael Malice?

  I don't want to say in a closet because that has connotations.

• 1:44:16Lex Fridman?

  Let's, let's both come out of the closet for a second.

• 1:44:19Michael Malice?

  I love you.

• 1:44:19Lex Fridman?

  And let's talk about.

• 1:44:20Michael Malice?

  I love you, Lex. I wasn't saying I love you, Alex. I was saying I love you, Lex.

• 1:44:26Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you're talking to me?

• 1:44:27Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:44:28Lex Fridman?

  That's.

• 1:44:28Michael Malice?

  Through the screen.

• 1:44:29Lex Fridman?

  So when you, so you think about me when you're with another man?

• 1:44:33Michael Malice?

  I watch you when you're sleeping.

• 1:44:36Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:44:36Michael Malice?

  Like the Dangle song.

• 1:44:38Lex Fridman?

  You're really active on Twitter.

• 1:44:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Lex Fridman?

  And somebody else asked on your overly expensive membership site.

• 1:44:47Michael Malice?

  My Grift site.

• 1:44:50Lex Fridman?

  How do you find humor different in writing on Twitter versus spoken humor? So if.

• 1:44:57Michael Malice?

  Oh, that's a great question.

• 1:44:58Lex Fridman?

  If humor is about timing, how do you capture the timing and the brilliance of the, whatever is underlying humor in a context of Twitter? Like, another way to say it is, how do you be funny and yet thoughtful on Twitter?

• 1:45:16Michael Malice?

  So with Twitter, you have to be the first one to the punchline. So when Ron Paul had a stroke, I was immediately being like, he's still the most articulate libertarian. He's doing a great Joe Biden impression right now. All the libertarians got ass mad. That's, and people are like, too soon. Or like when someone dies, you're making the jokes about them. It's like, when do you want to make the jokes about someone just died? A week later, it doesn't make any sense. Now you might.

• 1:45:39Lex Fridman?

  Too soon is perfect timing.

• 1:45:40Michael Malice?

  Or you could say it's not appropriate ever. But too soon does not make sense in this context. So that is something that I. Enjoy doing. It's also fun, ruffling people's feathers, something I enjoy doing. I think spoken versus writing is very different because when you are having good banter with someone, for me, as the audience, knowing that it is on the spot, really adds an element of humor because then it's like, wow, this is fun. It's like a ping pong match or something. Whereas in writing, it's you're losing the tone, you're losing the relationship of a dynamic conversation.

• 1:46:26Michael Malice?

  And a lot of times the joke is just going to be a different type of joke.

• 1:46:29Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's funny, but Twitter, there's a sense, especially your Twitter, that you're you just thought of that and you just wrote it.

• 1:46:38Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:46:39Lex Fridman?

  Like, there's a feeling like it's literally you talking as opposed to what I imagine is there's some editing, or it doesn't look like it. Whoever your editor is should be fired.

• 1:46:53Lex Fridman?

  There's an interesting effect, actually. If I want to say something, I don't know about

• 1:47:01Lex Fridman?

  about the something that's bothering me about the presidential election or something like that. Like, what is the actual central idea that I'm trying to convey to myself? Like, if, say, I was having hypothetically a conversation with myself.

• 1:47:14Michael Malice?

  What? No, not going there.

• 1:47:17Michael Malice?

  Why am I putting my pants back on? I'm more comfortable this way.

• 1:47:23Michael Malice?

  Promo code malice20, sheathunderwear.com. Okay.

• 1:47:31Lex Fridman?

  That's sheath, what is it? What's the website?

• 1:47:34Michael Malice?

  Sheathunderwear.com.

• 1:47:35Lex Fridman?

  Sheathunderwear.com, promo code malice20. And I forgot, why is that underwear really nice?

• 1:47:41Michael Malice?

  Because it has a dual pouch technology to keep your man part separate. They've also got woman's stuff, but I don't know how that works. There's a thing going somewhere.

• 1:47:49Lex Fridman?

  And the material is really refreshing. I mean, it's really a

• 1:47:51Michael Malice?

  And it makes your ass look good.

• 1:47:53Lex Fridman?

  That's promo code malice20.

• 1:47:57Michael Malice?

  And it's made by, it's made by a former vet because he was in Iraq. So that's why I like promoting it.

• 1:48:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but when I'm writing the, the, the tweet, I, I like to, it forces me to think deeply about the core of the message.

• 1:48:11Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:48:12Lex Fridman?

  But what I found this really interesting effect, like, I don't really do much editing on the tweet. Like, I'll just, like, think and then I'll write it. And then when I post it, like, submit, like, I immediately see the tweet very differently than it was in my mind.

• 1:48:28Michael Malice?

  Huh.

• 1:48:28Lex Fridman?

  I, I often delete, like, I delete, I don't know, some percentage of tweets about, like, two, five seconds after.

• 1:48:35Michael Malice?

  Wow.

• 1:48:35Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, it's something, well, you, once you send it, it's why the Gmail send features, uh, undo send feature is really nice. It's like, it just changes the way I see the thing. So

• 1:48:46Michael Malice?

  That's very interesting.

• 1:48:47Lex Fridman?

  It's, uh, but I really love it that you can delete it because when I say stuff out in the wild, like, to other humans, like, spoken, spoken word is like, you can't delete what you just said. And I often regret the things I say, like, in, in, on the spot. Like, I shouldn't have said that.

• 1:49:08Michael Malice?

  Really?

• 1:49:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:09Michael Malice?

  I don't have that.

• 1:49:11Lex Fridman?

  Well, again, whoever your editor is, what is it, uh, Edith Piathe, uh, je ne sais quoi, c'est un?

• 1:49:20Michael Malice?

  Wow, your French is as bad as your English. Um, I don't have any tweets I regret because if I sent a tweet that I regretted, I would make amends. I would make it a point if I was a needlessly offensive to somebody or hurtful or accidentally, I would make sure to fix it. And, and go out of my way to make sure that person feels vindicated and validated by accepting my apology. That has never happened, had to happen, thankfully. I'm also someone who is not big on

• 1:49:56Michael Malice?

  Taking the bait. Uh, you know, some recently, some people have come after me pretty hard. And my perspective is that it's not really about me. It's either I represent something to them. I'm just some jackass with a Twitter. So if you're getting this riled up over me, it's not really about me. Maybe I'm delusional. That's how I look at it. So if they are trying to provoke me into this kind of heated exchange, I will never do it. Uh, because that's not, I'm not interested in it. And it's, and I don't think there's going to be any, it's like Janet Rankin. You, you can't win. It's just going to be like trying to win a hurricane. There's, there's no hero here.

• 1:50:34Lex Fridman?

  Well, let me ask you about this because somebody also asked that on your overly expensive membership site, that like they were saying that they're an academic. They wonder, because I'm an academic, quote unquote, I'm not an academic, but I do still have an affiliation with MIT. I, the word academic is just dirty. It's like, which is a problem that needs to change, just like the word nerd is dirty.

• 1:50:56Michael Malice?

  No, academic needs is going to be the next front to open and they're going to be very vilified. We're coming for them and it's going to be very, very ugly and I cannot wait.

• 1:51:05Lex Fridman?

  No, but there needs to be a place, a different term for people who love research and knowledge and like you have to.

• 1:51:14Michael Malice?

  No, you're right. A hundred percent.

• 1:51:15Lex Fridman?

  You're right. So like there, you have to, you have to clarify what you mean by academic. And right now the word academic means a very, in the intellectual public discourse, it means the enemy. And there's a lot of people that perhaps deserve that targeted vilification, but like a lot that don't, they're just curious people.

• 1:51:35Michael Malice?

  Yeah, you're absolutely right.

• 1:51:36Lex Fridman?

  Building, building robots that will one day destroy you. Voice cracks every time I make a joke.

• 1:51:42Michael Malice?

  You're not, because it's just.

• 1:51:43Lex Fridman?

  I can't do this.

• 1:51:43Michael Malice?

  You're not making a joke. It's your.

• 1:51:46Lex Fridman?

  I'm editing. I'm like, can I delete that joke? Okay. It's not even a joke. Robots, building robots that will one day kill us.

• 1:51:56Michael Malice?

  Oh, God willing.

• 1:51:58Lex Fridman?

  You, God willing, humans are the joke. That's why I'm cracking. My voice is cracking.

• 1:52:04Lex Fridman?

  What were even, uh, what was I even fucking saying? Academics. But why?

• 1:52:10Michael Malice?

  My local, someone had a question. They're an academic.

• 1:52:12Lex Fridman?

  Right. They're an academic. They're saying like, are you worried that, you know, in academia, associating yourself with a sort of, uh, somebody who has, who can be misconstrued to have radical ideas? Like the two examples they gave is Michael Malice and Joe Rogan. Is, uh?

• 1:52:32Michael Malice?

  Does Joe have any radical? I wouldn't consider him radical at all.

• 1:52:35Lex Fridman?

  Well, we can, we can talk about it.

• 1:52:36Michael Malice?

  But Joe is, I think, a bad example. He's quite centrist to me.

• 1:52:41Lex Fridman?

  Well, he could have, for example, like, what has Joe been attacked on? It's, for example, on the, on the topic of like transgender, like, uh?

• 1:52:51Michael Malice?

  And athletes in sports.

• 1:52:52Lex Fridman?

  Athletes in sports. Uh, there's, what else? I mean, he's been pro Bernie Sanders and

• 1:52:59Michael Malice?

  That's hardly radical.

• 1:53:00Lex Fridman?

  Pro Trump or like giving Trump a pass.

• 1:53:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, not anti-Trump.

• 1:53:06Lex Fridman?

  Not anti-Trump.

• 1:53:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:08Lex Fridman?

  Oh, what else? Just?

• 1:53:11Michael Malice?

  But none of these are radical.

• 1:53:12Lex Fridman?

  Meat, meat stuff, being pro meat versus anti vegan.

• 1:53:17Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:17Lex Fridman?

  Uh, you know, all those kinds of things, but you could be misconstrued and, and saying, there's, I think, a highlight, and my mom actually wrote to me about this, which is hilarious. Yoshinka. Thank you. I like how you jot it down. It's when it's important.

• 1:53:31Michael Malice?

  Well, I see your mom wrote to you. Yoshinka.

• 1:53:33Lex Fridman?

  That's, that's the sign. My voice cracks. A sign when, uh, when, uh, Michael Malice makes a funny joke is when you jot something down.

• 1:53:40Michael Malice?

  Yoshinka.

• 1:53:42Lex Fridman?

  And then he

• 1:53:43Michael Malice?

  Невредничай.

• 1:53:44Lex Fridman?

  He writes it and then the next time he just crosses it out. That's a good point. Yeah. It's like Joe Biden at the debates. Okay.

• 1:53:54Michael Malice?

  I did also just crap my pants.

• 1:53:58Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 1:53:59Michael Malice?

  It's like a mudslide down here.

• 1:54:01Lex Fridman?

  There is a, I mean, he's a comedian. You have a comedian side to you, right? I mean, you're, you've talked a lot.

• 1:54:08Michael Malice?

  Humorist, yeah.

• 1:54:09Lex Fridman?

  Humorist is, so you can misconstrue like Joe as being somehow a radical thinker. And the same would could be done with you. And his question was, how, are you worried about associating yourself with folks like that?

• 1:54:22Michael Malice?

  Am I or are you?

• 1:54:23Lex Fridman?

  Uh, me, me.

• 1:54:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:24Lex Fridman?

  Uh, and is that something? Do you see yourself as somebody who's dangerous that I shouldn't be talking to? And in the same way, do you, uh, do you ever think about guests on your podcast? Or people you talk to publicly, associate yourself with publicly? Uh, and think that there is somebody that crosses that line?

• 1:54:52Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:54:53Lex Fridman?

  That you shouldn't talk to.

• 1:54:54Michael Malice?

  So I interviewed, in the new ride, I interviewed like up to full blown Nazis in the last chapters about Chris Cantwell. But that was in the context of that book, right? So there's lots of people who, people want me to have on my show. And the way I look at it is like you have a table and tablecloth, right? And let's suppose the table is of three feet wide. The tablecloth is two feet wide. So if I move the tablecloth to the right, I'm going to lose people on the left. I can only cover so much space. And the further you go on the fringe in one direction, the more mainstream you're going to lose in the other direction. So I'm very much making a conscious choice not to talk to, being, people will say I'm cowardly. And that's absolutely true. I'm, I'm being fearful here.

• 1:55:37Michael Malice?

  I would prefer not to talk to some of those who would alienate some of the more mainstream people. And here's a perfect example of why. On my birthday last year, I woke up seven o'clock in the morning to go pee. And I checked Twitter, whatever, and Jeb Bush had followed me. Jeb. And I, I, it's seven AM, you're not really awake. You're like, wait, what? And then I thought maybe it was a fake account, but it's in the verified tab. Oh, you don't have this because you're not verified on Twitter. That's a shame. Uh, so people who are madder on Twitter.

• 1:56:07Lex Fridman?

  Twitter does not respect robots.

• 1:56:11Michael Malice?

  They, they ban bots. You're lucky you haven't been banned.

• 1:56:13Lex Fridman?

  Zero, one.

• 1:56:14Michael Malice?

  Zero, zero. It's zero, zero, zero.

• 1:56:17Lex Fridman?

  Those are my pronouns.

• 1:56:22Michael Malice?

  So it was Jeb, Jeb, Governor Bush, and I corresponded with him. And I asked him on the show and he decided not to for various reasons. Very politely, he's like, just politics is so bad right now. I don't want to talk about it. And I respect that for him. If I am in a spit, if I'm creating my show where he's going to get heat for who and get canceled, oh, you can't be on the show. He has these other guests. I don't want to lose that opportunity because as we were talking earlier, me and Alex Jones and Tim Poole, I think a lot of people would be very excited to see me sit down with Jeb Bush. And I told him in writing, and I meant this, I wouldn't be clowning him. I wouldn't be disrespectful. It would be a lot of fun.

• 1:57:05Michael Malice?

  There's a goofball side to him that comes out sometimes, and I would do my best to bring that out and talk about what it's like being a blue blood to be born into his grandfather. Prescott Bush was a senator from Connecticut, marrying a woman who didn't speak English. How does that work when your family's royalty and things like that? So I had a lot of fun questions for him, and that's kind of, you're gonna have to choose one or the other.

• 1:57:24Lex Fridman?

  Well, you do a really good job of that. Like Ben Shapiro does a good job of that, too, which is you can have multiple, you can have a trolly side, humor side, where you tear down the power structures and so on. But you can also have a serious side, and it's a safe space for people from all walks of life to walk in and not, you're not adversarial.

• 1:57:44Michael Malice?

  Never. I take the word guests seriously. If they're gonna be on my show, I'm not going to have them have negative consequences as a result of being on my show.

• 1:57:54Lex Fridman?

  That said, I mean, maybe in my case, I'll be honest and say that I find Alex Jones outside of the conspiracy stuff, for some reason, maybe you can explain, maybe you can psychoanalyze me, but I find him hilarious to listen to.

• 1:58:11Michael Malice?

  He's a performer. He's very performative.

• 1:58:13Lex Fridman?

  But there's a lot of people that don't see the humor of it, and they see the serious like consequences of spreading conspiracy theories of different kinds. And they see the danger of it, you know? And I personally.

• 1:58:30Lex Fridman?

  I'm often tempted to to talk to Alex in a podcast format. But I think I'm trying to convince myself that I never will. For me, I feel unsafe talking to Alex because

• 1:58:46Lex Fridman?

  I can't truly be myself, which is like

• 1:58:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah, you'd have to be on.

• 1:58:49Lex Fridman?

  naive and honest.

• 1:58:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51Lex Fridman?

  And like, and actually, I generally, when I talk to humans, I want to see the best in them.

• 1:58:59Lex Fridman?

  And I think that's like, I often think about if I talked to Hitler in 1935, 1938.

• 1:59:06Michael Malice?

  You got a list of names to give him?

• 1:59:09Lex Fridman?

  Well, yeah, I mean, that's how you get the interview. Come on, let's be honest. Who are we kidding?

• 1:59:18Lex Fridman?

  I would, you have to give away one of your, I would probably give away my brother, so.

• 1:59:22Michael Malice?

  How many brothers do you have?

• 1:59:23Lex Fridman?

  Well, just one.

• 1:59:24Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:59:25Lex Fridman?

  Too many.

• 1:59:26Michael Malice?

  I wanted to be an only child.

• 1:59:28Lex Fridman?

  He's the older brother. He used to pick on me, payback. You know, it's only, he had a good life.

• 1:59:33Michael Malice?

  You should think of it more as Stalin, so I interrupt you because Hitler, you're Jewish. So you're already going to have very adversarial, it's not going to be a normal, he's not going to perceive you as a, as a human in a sense, right?

• 1:59:43Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 1:59:43Michael Malice?

  So it's

• 1:59:44Lex Fridman?

  Stalin, you're right.

• 1:59:44Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that would be much easier, or Kim Jong-un or something like that.

• 1:59:48Lex Fridman?

  Like, you have to think, how, okay, this is a good question, is

• 1:59:51Michael Malice?

  Is it?

• 1:59:51Lex Fridman?

  And that's, but why don't you jot something down?

• 1:59:57Lex Fridman?

  If you

• 1:59:57Michael Malice?

  Alex loves Hitler.

• 2:00:01Lex Fridman?

  All right, we'll cross it out in a second.

• 2:00:06Lex Fridman?

  I think this is a really good example of a difficult figure that's controversial that people bring up to me a lot, and you've interviewed twice, which is Curtis Yarvin.

• 2:00:15Michael Malice?

  Yeah, Mancha Smallbug.

• 2:00:16Lex Fridman?

  Mancha Small, AKA Mancha Smallbug, which is his pseudonym that he goes by in his blog. Can you tell me about who he is?

• 2:00:25Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:00:25Lex Fridman?

  Why is he interesting? What of his ideas are interesting?

• 2:00:28Michael Malice?

  Well, briefly, he invented the concept, the red pill. So Curtis Menchus-Molbuck had a blog called Unqualified Reservations. You can still find it online. It's very verbose. He writes at length, very, very bright. His perspective is very heretical. So a lot of things that we take for granted in our liberal democracy, he regards as not only incorrect, which is downright absurd, and does not, he does not take what many people view as the basis of American political discourse as the basis for his thought.

• 2:01:06Michael Malice?

  So when you're starting with someone who is basically repudiating kind of the Western worldview, or not the Western worldview, like the American milieu, a lot of people are gonna, of course, regard him as dangerous or someone who is verboten. He's a very bright person.

• 2:01:26Lex Fridman?

  Why is he such a toxic figure?

• 2:01:29Michael Malice?

  Because if you are blue-pilled, if you are the guardians of what is acceptable discourse, then you have to make sure your forts are secured and that any figure outside of this acceptable discourse has to be marginalized and regarded as radioactive as possible. You don't want to let in these kind of ideas that would be destructive to your hegemony.

• 2:01:56Lex Fridman?

  Well, so let's dig into it. So like he, I've read a few things by him, but then I hear that in a bunch of places, him being called a racist, a white supremacist, neo-fascist, so on. I go to his Wikipedia.

• 2:02:13Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:14Lex Fridman?

  There's a view on race section. Let me, let me read it.

• 2:02:18Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:02:19Lex Fridman?

  "Yarvin's opinions have been described as racist, with his writings interpreted as supportive of slavery, including the belief that whites have higher IQs than blacks for genetic reasons. Yarvin himself maintains that he's not a racist because while he doubts that, quote, 'all races are equally smart,' the notion, quote, 'that people who score higher on IQ tests are in some sense superior human beings,' is, quote, creepy." He also disputes being an outspoken advocate for slavery, though he has argued that some races are more suited for slavery than others. Quote, "It should be obvious that although I'm not a white supremacist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff."

• 2:03:02Lex Fridman?

  Yarvin wrote in a post that linked approvingly, I don't know these people, Steve Saylor.

• 2:03:07Michael Malice?

  Steve Saylor, yeah, he's from.

• 2:03:08Lex Fridman?

  Jared Taylor and other racialists.

• 2:03:11Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so.

• 2:03:12Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so like, one of my questions is.

• 2:03:15Michael Malice?

  Let me just say one sentence. In the same way that you had, you mentioned that guy earlier who was defending some aspects of communism. And that is, in some contexts, acceptable when you think about it's like, this should be radioactive.

• 2:03:29Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 2:03:30Michael Malice?

  The fact that he is engaging with these ideas in anything other than this has to be repudiated at all costs is what renders him to a large extent racist.

• 2:03:40Lex Fridman?

  That's really interesting. So there are some topics you can be.

• 2:03:43Michael Malice?

  Nuanced.

• 2:03:44Lex Fridman?

  Nuanced and some not. And communism is still a topic that you can be nuanced about.

• 2:03:50Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:03:50Lex Fridman?

  It's difficult, but you can be. Race and this like talking about slavery and IQ differences based on race is a topic that I guess is radioactive to a degree where you can't even say anything, even if it's like nuanced or not even like making a point. It's like touching it as you make another point.

• 2:04:13Michael Malice?

  And understandably, because you can understand that I'm going to steal man their point. Because you can understand the point. It's like you're just talking about Hitler. Once this foot gets in the door that some people are inherently slaves or some people are inherently better than others, it really quickly collapses. So that would be their perspective.

• 2:04:31Lex Fridman?

  But that's what, like, if I were to give criticism of his.

• 2:04:34Michael Malice?

  But let me just say one more thing. Racist is also used to describe Alex Jones. Alex doesn't talk about race. Racist is a shorthand for a certain percentage of the population to let you know, do not bother investigating this person any further. They're off limits.

• 2:04:51Lex Fridman?

  Definitely. Racism and sexism is a thing that's now used to shut down conversations. It's quite absurd by by a small percent of the

• 2:04:58Michael Malice?

  But Jared Taylor and Steve Saylor, Jared Taylor interviewed him for my book. He would be regarded in any sense as a racist.

• 2:05:05Lex Fridman?

  What's the difference in racist and racialists?

• 2:05:07Michael Malice?

  So racialists, I mean, this is splitting hairs and now I'm going to be all radioactive. Jared Taylor runs something called Amren and this is, I mean, his perspective is that there are inherent differences to the races. And you cannot live side by side. Well, whites and blacks should not be living side by side.

• 2:05:24Lex Fridman?

  And by the way, for people who don't know, this is out of context. You have written a great book that includes some of these concepts called the new right, which is not includes these concepts, but talks about.

• 2:05:35Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:35Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's more about the growth of the community around the alt right and all those kinds of worlds.

• 2:05:44Michael Malice?

  Right. So and his point about IQ, it's like if you had a population, the Dutch, right? I think they're the tallest people on the earth. And if you said, well, the Dutch are the best people on earth. Why? Because they're the tallest. It's like you're a crazy person. So if someone is scoring low, an individual on an IQ test, that means there's somehow a lower quality person. Well, maybe in one very specific aspect, but I mean, if they're a good human being, I've got friends who are low IQ. All my friends are low IQ, frankly, compared to me. Sounded like Trump there for a second.

• 2:06:14Lex Fridman?

  That's how you choose.

• 2:06:16Michael Malice?

  Well, I don't have any other choices. No one's going to be at my level.

• 2:06:19Lex Fridman?

  You're the you're the smartest person since Abraham Lincoln that I've that I've ever seen.

• 2:06:23Michael Malice?

  And unlike him, I actually am honest. So so he is someone who very much swims in heretical ideas. Aristotle, here's another thing, like if you bring up that Aristotle said that some people are born to be slaves. He wasn't speaking about race. He just meant people's souls. H. L. Mencken, who is a great heretic and early 20th century figure. One of his quotes that I say all the time, which people have seen a lot in this past year, that the average man does not want to be free. He merely wants to be safe. That I think is speak, I don't know what I am not familiar with what Mulbuck saying about slavery. Because his writing is ponderous, but that certainly is something I think that is undeniable.

• 2:07:06Michael Malice?

  That I think more people are realizing there's a large percent of the population that is actively disinterested in freedom and the more responsibilities it entails.

• 2:07:14Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, really, just the word slavery. If you want to make some kind of point or even think about the topic. Outside the context of this is a horrible thing that happened in the United States history.

• 2:07:27Michael Malice?

  And other countries' history, it's not unique to us, let's be clear.

• 2:07:29Lex Fridman?

  This is, I mean, very important in their slavery going on today. And a lot of people argue that sex trafficking and all those kinds of things. I mean, there's atrocities going on today that, you know,

• 2:07:42Lex Fridman?

  talking about it in a way that's not immediately saying this is the most horrible thing that happened ever. You know, it's something I think about a lot is like, if I want to say something controversial,

• 2:07:57Lex Fridman?

  I should do so with skill, with care, and only about things I care about.

• 2:08:02Michael Malice?

  Well, here's where I would disagree. I not, when I say things, I often say things that are controversial, or I will say uncontroversial things in a controversial way, because it's a useful mechanism to alienate people you don't want around you. Because if there are people who are going to be shocked by certain topics, like we shouldn't have ended World War II. Like even as a hypothesis, they just clutch their pearls. They're like, oh, you want the Holocaust to happen? I can't discuss most things with you because you're not interested in having a conversation. You're interested in your emotional response.

• 2:08:33Lex Fridman?

  See, I think I see things differently. Maybe this is a bit of a devil's advocate, but what in at least the modern discourse of like Twitter and social media and so on. I find that if you do that, you're not actually

• 2:08:47Lex Fridman?

  removing the people that are not thoughtful and kind and so on. You're actually attracting loud people. Like a small number of them, they come over and start yelling at you, start yelling. They're basically ruin the party by showing up and just screaming. And so all the thoughtful people leave.

• 2:09:05Michael Malice?

  Well, that's why you have to be a very heavy blocker. You have to block people on Twitter because you have to cultivate your audience and have them, like a lot of times people come at me, I don't care. Then they'll start attacking members of my audience. And then I'm like, dang, I gotta block them because they've won this one because I can't have that.

• 2:09:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know. Unnecessarily provoking people feels.

• 2:09:30Michael Malice?

  It's, it's, it's, you say this is beta testing. You try to break the system and see what works. You put as much pressure as possible. This is very much computer stuff that you should be able to appreciate. The point being, when you have a program, you're trying to intentionally sit there and do as many mistakes, see what go wrong, right? Is that not common?

• 2:09:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you're saying that's, that's a way to see communication with the world as you say something uncontroversial in a controversial way, and that blocks people.

• 2:10:02Michael Malice?

  Or, or does it trigger them? Do they roll their eyes? You know, what is going to be their emotional response? Are they going to start yelling?

• 2:10:08Lex Fridman?

  The problem is, the reason I can't think like this, or I can't, because I'm not sure about the points I'm trying to make. Always, like, I'm not always 100% sure that I'm right about things like, so I'm, in being thoughtful, I'm afraid that I'll turn off with an eloquently phrased or even incorrect statement. I will do damage that can't be undone in terms of having a good conversation about a topic. So I want to be very careful about, like, I'm not saying afraid. Fear is not what I'm talking about.

• 2:10:46Lex Fridman?

  I think fear is, is, uh, like, not saying something out of fear is at the core of many of the problems of the world today. But I'm just saying, be, say stuff with care. If I'm going to touch race as a topic, it feels like you really should be deeply, first, have a point to make, like, you really care about a point you want to make. And second, think deeply about how to say that point in a way that communicates it the best. And, and touching, I would say, listen, I've, I've, on your show, which is, which is great. I mean, I'd like to say thank you for having Menchus Mobug.

• 2:11:29Michael Malice?

  You are welcome.

• 2:11:31Lex Fridman?

  That's the, uh, that's the name of the show. Thank you for having me a couple of times. It's, it's great to sort of get him to, in this loose way, to talk about different kinds of stuff.

• 2:11:42Michael Malice?

  I don't think we talked about race at all.

• 2:11:43Lex Fridman?

  No, no, no, no.

• 2:11:44Michael Malice?

  No, but I'm just bringing it back to what you were asking, which is if you read the Wikipedia, the perspective is going to be this guy talks about slavery constantly. Where it's completely disproportionate to his work.

• 2:11:55Lex Fridman?

  But even on your show, you can tell even not outside of the race stuff, that he's not ultra careful about, he's not, uh.

• 2:12:04Michael Malice?

  Nuanced.

• 2:12:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he's not afraid to say something just like, I would say, let me just criticize him. My face is not you, this is me. Carelessly say something controversial.

• 2:12:15Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:12:15Lex Fridman?

  Like, I'm, I'm not saying he doesn't go, like, you know, that makes him, it's a very different thing than, uh, somebody who on purpose says, says something controversial stuff, uh, like Milo Anopoulos. Sorry, I forgot Milo, whatever his name is.

• 2:12:31Michael Malice?

  Anopoulos, yeah.

• 2:12:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, which is really nice to see that he's a genuine person who's thoughtful. He doesn't mean to, but he just carelessly, carelessly seems to say things that, uh, I feel like damaged the rest of his body of work.

• 2:12:46Michael Malice?

  I, I can't really speak for him, but I would guess his point is, once you're swimming in this kind of worldview, you're going to be anathema already. So there's no pleasing these people, so why bother trying?

• 2:12:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think that's a deeply, that's a, that's a black pill way of seeing the world.

• 2:13:02Michael Malice?

  It's not blackpilled at all.

• 2:13:04Lex Fridman?

  Because it's a cynical way, like, these people, so like, it's, it's saying that you're, it's a very kind of way of thinking, like, I'll say whatever I want, whoever comes along with me.

• 2:13:16Michael Malice?

  No, you just earlier said yourself that race, racism has been weaponized as a way to shut down conversation. So I think his perspective would be, I am so outside the mainstream in my worldview, that I know I'm going to be called racism, racist. So there's no point in trying to be nuanced because I'm already going to get the scarlet letter.

• 2:13:36Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I just disagree with that because, for example, I'm one, I am one person that he turned off.

• 2:13:42Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:13:43Lex Fridman?

  By his carelessness. And I think I should be a good target, I, I should be somebody.

• 2:13:47Michael Malice?

  I think that's fair.

• 2:13:48Lex Fridman?

  And I'm, I'm just. Like he, it's very convenient to think that there's ridiculous people out there, which they are.

• 2:13:55Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:13:56Lex Fridman?

  Who call everybody racist and sexist currently. And then you can't please them, so I'm not even gonna try. No, but there's like this gray area of people.

• 2:14:05Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:14:06Lex Fridman?

  That I don't listen to the outrage culture, whatever. I don't, this Wikipedia article means nothing to me. Like I'm not going to.

• 2:14:12Michael Malice?

  Right, I got you.

• 2:14:14Lex Fridman?

  What I'm more, I'm just seeing this careless person. And if he's going to be careless about, uh, like race like this, I feel like if I walk along with him long enough, I'm going to catch the carelessness. I'm going to lose, like.

• 2:14:31Michael Malice?

  I'll, I'll defend your perspective better than you can.

• 2:14:33Lex Fridman?

  Yep, this is, this is good. I'm taking notes.

• 2:14:36Michael Malice?

  I talked to Eric Weinstein after you guys talked about me on your show.

• 2:14:39Lex Fridman?

  Ben Wallace Weinstein.

• 2:14:40Michael Malice?

  We had a good conversation. He invited me on his show.

• 2:14:42Lex Fridman?

  That'll be an amazing conversation.

• 2:14:44Michael Malice?

  And we got on the phone and his concern fairly, he goes, I don't want you to come on my show for the purposes of clowning me. And I would never do that.

• 2:14:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:55Michael Malice?

  Uh, it's, it would never.

• 2:14:56Lex Fridman?

  He might not be aware of who, of.

• 2:14:58Michael Malice?

  Well, that's why he wanted to feel me out. He's like, you know, when he hears troll, it can mean a lot of different things. And I, we had a very conversation, a very much was very clear that that's not where the conversation would go. But I think when you are going to be on someone's show, there is a responsibility that they're not going to have to pay a cost for having you as their guest. So if you're, if you were put off by how he was in that live streams or two I did, like I understand where you're coming from. I think he's very, very bright, but you have a very, you have a different audience than I do. And you're going for something different than, than I am.

• 2:15:29Lex Fridman?

  No, no, like in my interest, sense of.

• 2:15:33Michael Malice?

  You wouldn't feel safe with him.

• 2:15:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I wouldn't feel safe with him, but he's, he's borderline for me. I think, I, I would like to actually talk to him one day. Alex Jones has crossed the other line for me.

• 2:15:43Michael Malice?

  Well, you could do what you could do with me. Tape the episode, then never release it.

• 2:15:50Lex Fridman?

  No, it's one of those things where it'll be, uh, when there's finally, they'll make a History Channel documentary about you and I and how it all went wrong. Like the cult that we started and then everybody killed themselves. And, uh, there's a, uh, we'll release it then because it'll be like unseen footage. This is how it started. It'll be black and white.

• 2:16:16Lex Fridman?

  In a basement somewhere in New York.

• 2:16:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah, my mother's basement.

• 2:16:21Lex Fridman?

  Uh, this explains so much. Okay. So I spoke to Yaron Brook about objectivism and Ayn Rand. He, uh, he kind of argued, he highlighted difference between capitalism and anarchism as around the topic of violence and the, that having government

• 2:16:48Lex Fridman?

  be the sort of, the, the, the negative way to say it is like having a monopoly on violence. But basically being the arbiter of, or the, the people that making sure that violence doesn't get out of hand.

• 2:17:03Michael Malice?

  That would, you know. 2020 showed that. Yep. Government's great at that. Yep.

• 2:17:07Lex Fridman?

  Well, what, what's, okay, without.

• 2:17:11Michael Malice?

  This is him with a straight face making that argument. Good work, Yaron.

• 2:17:15Lex Fridman?

  All right. Well, can you with a straight face argue for the idea that in anarchism, violence would not get out of hand?

• 2:17:26Michael Malice?

  Sure. For one thing, uh, if your worst argument against, uh, one of my little quotes is what are presented as the strongest arguments against anarchism are inevitably descriptions of the Strasquo. So the argument is under anarchism, you know, you'd have warlords, you know, killing people. And then you'd have, uh, you know, whoever's strongest gets to just take over a neighborhood. Well, we have that now. Uh, we saw that the police, um, are perfectly comfortable disarming the population. And then when they try to protect themselves are punished, they're, we're happy to stand down. You can't, you can only have that happen if you have a monopoly. If they're like, let's suppose you had, uh, television stations, right? And CBS said, you know what? We're not going to broadcast. Cool.

• 2:18:12Michael Malice?

  You don't broadcast, we're gonna watch any of these other channels. So the problem with having monopoly is everyone has to be dependent on this issue. What's amazing about anarchism, which objectivists are, is they will argue that government is really, really bad at everything it does and it touches. Therefore, it has to be in charge of the most important stuff.

• 2:18:32Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's not therefore, but, but there is a thing that's fundamentally different than all the other things.

• 2:18:39Michael Malice?

  But Yaron Brook also said that no government has, this is on your show, has ever worked in the way he's proposing. Now, objectivism, Ayn Rand's philosophy, is based on objective reality. And what she posited is you look and study the facts of nature, the facts of reality, and deduce things accordingly. And she very much regards herself as part of the Aristotelian tradition, as opposed to the Platonist tradition where the idea precedes reality and the idea is more real than what we see around us. So what he's saying is, all the data, according to him, contradicts his argument. But still, he's going to make this imaginary government that has never existed

• 2:19:24Michael Malice?

  and there's no evidence that it can exist. Let's talk about objective law. To have access to the legal system, which is something we want, even just in terms of selling disputes, when you have a government monopoly, it's going to be more expensive, more difficult for poor people. The cost of hiring a lawyer is more expensive than hiring a surgeon. You can't say with a straight face, this is the only way or the best way.

• 2:19:50Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so.

• 2:19:52Michael Malice?

  And the other thing is the argument for objectivism, that they have this, against anarchism, they have this stupid claim, it's like, what if, you know, you're a member of one security company and I'm a member of another and we have a dispute and one shows up the door? What happens now? As if this is some insuperable argument. Well, we have that on earth. Every country is in a state of anarchism regarding every other country. We don't have a world government. So what happens if a Canadian kills an American in Mexico? I have no idea. I bet you don't have an idea. What I'm sure of. Is that system has been worked out ahead of time between the three countries. And it's been worked out in such a way that you and I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Same thing with cellphone companies.

• 2:20:37Michael Malice?

  If I'm on Sprint, you're on MetroPCS and I call you. Who pays? Does Sprint pay you? Do they split the difference? First of all, there's no objective way that one has to work. But the thing is, companies who have auto accidents, they have arbitrage all the time. Like if I run into you, they work it out and it never reaches our desk. So the only thing that cops are good at is keeping people at any government monopoly. It's forcing people to be their customers by keeping them unsafe.

• 2:21:07Lex Fridman?

  Okay, there's a few things I'd like to say there that just explore some of these ideas. So one is in terms of Canadian and Mexico and so on, that it does, something has been worked out, perhaps?

• 2:21:20Michael Malice?

  Not perhaps, don't say perhaps. You know for sure that if some-

• 2:21:24Lex Fridman?

  There's a point I'm trying to make. So let's say for sure it's been worked out. There is a, there was a point in history where it wasn't worked out. Like to, to, to work, to come to a place of stability, there has to first be some instability. So when you first, like for every kind of situation, they're like dispute over space. Like who gets to own Mars, that kind of thing.

• 2:21:48Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:21:48Lex Fridman?

  There's a first for it. And then then these different competing institutions will have to figure it out. And so there's the concern with anarchism, I think, or with any kind of interaction. What you said brilliantly, that there's an anarchism relative to the, there's no one world government.

• 2:22:06Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:22:07Lex Fridman?

  Alex Jones enters the chat, but the, there's instability. Because the fear is that there's going to be an instability that's, that, that doesn't converge towards some stable place.

• 2:22:20Michael Malice?

  That is not the fear. That is the goal under Ayn Rand's philosophy. Markets have something what they always talk about as being creatively destructive, which means you look at something that's been happening for a very long time. Every generation, every innovator. Starts chipping away at it. He finds better ways, marginal improvement or marginal and or it doesn't work and he goes broke. When government tries to implement improvement, we all have to suffer the consequences. When an innovator does, it's a huge asymmetry. If it hurts, it only hurts him. If it succeeds, he becomes rich and we all profit as a consequence.

• 2:22:56Lex Fridman?

  But the fear of anarchism, I think, is that it will be non-creative destruction. It'll be just destruction. Right? It's not like the instability.

• 2:23:07Michael Malice?

  Let's give you, there's no, stability is one of these words that sounds objective but has no real meaning. What field has stability? If you, let's suppose you want stability.

• 2:23:18Lex Fridman?

  Relationships.

• 2:23:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Let's talk about medicine. Stability means we're not going to invent new diseases or new treatments. Right? If you mean stability in terms of a baseline of security, we have that already. Very few relationships turn violent. Under an anarchist system, look at it right now. If you look at a bar full of drunken young males, full of testosterone. If you look at a hotel where everyone is not native to the area, those are both far safer than the places that the government has taken upon itself to protect you. The parks, the alleyways, the streets, the subways. We have right now a comparison of which is better at keeping people safe.

• 2:24:03Michael Malice?

  And it's very obvious that when it's something is private and under someone's control, and there would be layers of, there'd be more police, but they wouldn't be a government monopoly. The store would have someone, the street would have someone, and you'd have your own personal security that would be attached to your phone. Having security as a function of geography as opposed to a function of you as an individual is a landline technology in a post-cell phone world.

• 2:24:27Lex Fridman?

  So you think it's possible to have, psychologically speaking, as an individual among the masses, to have a sense of security even there's, even though there's not a centralized thing at the bottom of the whole thing? So like, there's not a set of laws that are enforced based on geography, like we have nations now. You can have a set of laws that are enforced in some kind of emergent, agreed-upon way. So like, basically, I want to go to a hotel and trust that I'll be able to get a room and nobody's going to break down the door and. I don't know.

• 2:25:01Michael Malice?

  But you have that.

• 2:25:01Lex Fridman?

  Take all my vodka.

• 2:25:02Michael Malice?

  Let's take a different way. If you were worried about a hotel having bedbugs, that's not something the government's involved in. What mechanism, and that's not an unrealistic concern. Are there mechanisms right now that you can undertake to make sure that's not the case?

• 2:25:16Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:25:17Michael Malice?

  So it would be the same thing with, I want to make sure I go to a hotel that has security. It would be exactly the same thing. And here's another example. Kosher food.

• 2:25:28Michael Malice?

  People who keep kosher, Jews who keep kosher, their food has to be prepared in a certain way. It has to meet higher rabbinical standards, right? If you look at food, it will have that certification, the K. And there's even competition there. There's the K and there's the stricter U letter. People don't notice it because they're looking for it. You would have companies certifying different locales for their level of security. And it would take an hour to have an app that would, just like when you have toll roads, right? That would tell you, you're approaching an unsafe area. You're not going to be covered by us or, and you could have it color coded very easily. We could do this today.

• 2:26:05Lex Fridman?

  But the thing is, you're exactly correct, but there's an assumption of you're already in a, okay, you can give me a different word than stability, but you're already in a place where the forces of the market or whatever can operate.

• 2:26:19Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:26:19Lex Fridman?

  The worry is like initially, you might not have enough stability to where you can choose one place over the other versus based on the security that they provide.

• 2:26:32Michael Malice?

  We already have different types of security here because we have federal government. We have state governments and we have local governments. So, and, and these often contradict each other. So the idea of the implausibility of having different security companies and having it be unstable or impossible, we already have a very rough example of it happening in real life.

• 2:26:53Lex Fridman?

  But all of it started, this is what this like, the idea of, especially with Yaron is like, it all started with government monopoly of violence saying like, now kids, don't let violence get out of hand. So like.

• 2:27:09Michael Malice?

  We've had a civil war where half the country was slaughtered.

• 2:27:13Lex Fridman?

  That's a display of the government not having a monopoly on the violence, right? It's like, it's, that's a split.

• 2:27:20Michael Malice?

  It had such a monopoly on the violence in the north that it could draft people to fight others that they didn't even care about.

• 2:27:25Lex Fridman?

  But there's a south, so it's like, it's a, it's a. It's the government splitting.

• 2:27:31Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:27:31Lex Fridman?

  It's like, this is giant iceberg like splitting. It's, the, the argument is that you would have something like a civil war much more often under anarchism.

• 2:27:41Michael Malice?

  But that's, that's, that's, first of all, if you had a civil war mu- much more often, we don't have that with car companies, right? There's no car company that says, I refuse to pay your whatever.

• 2:27:53Lex Fridman?

  That's not violence, sorry to interrupt, but like, and I'm playing.

• 2:27:57Michael Malice?

  It is, I'll probably finish, it is violence, because if I'm a company and I'm saying that my cars can run over yours with no consequences, this is a rough analog, that's, why has that not happened? Now, in, in terms of having a security system, if I am free, just like switching cellphone to go from one provider to another, and this one company, as part of its payment, doesn't want $50 a month, $100 a month, wants my son, I'm not going to be a member of this security company unless, in that case, we're dealing with something like a Pearl Harbor or foreign invasion where it's like all hands on deck.

• 2:28:33Lex Fridman?

  Let's go by evidence. How many places do we have evidence of that there you can have at a large scale?

• 2:28:40Michael Malice?

  Well, it's up to being a large scale.

• 2:28:42Lex Fridman?

  Because it feels like, once you don't know the person.

• 2:28:46Michael Malice?

  What about eBay? eBay is an example of anarchism in practice. I am selling something to someone whose name I don't even know in a country that is nowhere proximate to me, and eBay acts as the arbiter. Sometimes I don't get the money after I get screwed over, but that's far less than the taxation that I have to give to the federal government.

• 2:29:02Lex Fridman?

  That's a, that's a great point, but it's in the space of finance. If I could, if on eBay you could also commit violence.

• 2:29:10Michael Malice?

  Theft is violence.

• 2:29:12Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 2:29:13Michael Malice?

  If, yeah, if you give me 10 grand for a car and I don't deliver anything, you've stolen 10 grand from me.

• 2:29:19Lex Fridman?

  Yes, but it's, there's something uniquely problematic to being stabbed or, or shot.

• 2:29:28Michael Malice?

  The reason you're stabbed or shot is because the government, despite its contract, is refusing to allow Second Amendment rights to be implemented among the citizenry, and the people who are making that the case are the cops. They are the ones who are the traitors to the Constitution and should be regarded as such, whereas private companies are far more amenable to market pressures than the state is.

• 2:29:52Lex Fridman?

  It's a strong argument, but let's actually just briefly mention the scale thing. Why don't you think we should talk about scale?

• 2:30:02Michael Malice?

  Because if you had anarchism just in Vermont or just in Brooklyn, well, fine. The people make the argument, you need anarchism or else China is going to invade. But that's like saying, what, like, do these little countries don't exist? Does San Salvador not exist? Some of them are violent, some of them are not. But the point is, they're not all at a moment's notice about to be invaded. Kuwait's an example of this. Kuwait was invaded by Iraq and very quickly, all the big countries who are interested in having your stability, safe space, got involved and kicked him out of Kuwait. If you had this company that was waging war on the population, it seems quite likely that the other organization would get together, put a stop to this because they're not in a position to provide this service of security to their customers.

• 2:30:45Lex Fridman?

  Okay, all this is brilliant. But didn't you just say that we are actually in a state of anarchism relative to other countries?

• 2:30:54Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:30:54Lex Fridman?

  So isn't this what emerges? Aren't we actually living in a state of anarchism where we all have agreed?

• 2:31:03Michael Malice?

  I haven't agreed to anything.

• 2:31:04Lex Fridman?

  So like, the basic criticism you have is like, you're born on a geographical land, geographical area, and you're forced to have signed a bunch of stuff just by being born.

• 2:31:17Michael Malice?

  Correct.

• 2:31:18Lex Fridman?

  At a particular place. So really, if you could just much easier choose

• 2:31:25Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:31:26Lex Fridman?

  which space of ideas you associate with.

• 2:31:30Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:31:30Lex Fridman?

  That would be actually a state of anarchism.

• 2:31:32Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:31:35Lex Fridman?

  And you could have like a military that you sign up with.

• 2:31:38Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:31:40Michael Malice?

  And you're certainly not putting people in prison to get raped because they're selling drugs.

• 2:31:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:48Michael Malice?

  And you're certainly not allowing everyone else on the street who wants to be there.

• 2:31:52Lex Fridman?

  Can we say something nice about Ayn Rand?

• 2:31:54Michael Malice?

  I can talk about nice things about her all day. I owe her a copy of The Fountainhead, you know.

• 2:31:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What to you is Ayn Rand's best idea? One that you find impactful, insightful, useful for us in modern society that you think about?

• 2:32:08Michael Malice?

  That your life has meaning and productive work is your highest value. And that you shouldn't apologize, and this is something I despise. You shouldn't apologize for saying, "I want to be happy and I'm going to work toward that." And that, there's a few others, that you owe nobody else, some random stranger, a second of your time. You see this a lot on Twitter and social media, people like demanding a debate. We're demanding you act a certain way and engage with them. You don't owe them anything. So I think those are some of her best ideas. And she teaches you how to think. Ayn Rand does not have all the answers, but she has all the questions.

• 2:32:51Lex Fridman?

  Do you think, what do you think about the whole selfishness thing? I mean, do you, are you triggered by the word selfishness?

• 2:32:59Michael Malice?

  So it's really unfortunate what she does, because you were just talking about it earlier about mold bug being carelessly. She, this is indefensible, in my opinion. So she talks about the virtue of selfishness. And she claims that when people talk about selfishness, they, they mean concern primarily with the self. They don't. When people talk about selfishness, they mean in a sociopathic way, concern exclusively with oneself, right? They mean like, oh, if someone is dying on the street, I'm not gonna, you know, even waste a second saving them because I'm selfish. So she sets up this complete caricature of the term. What she, when she's attacking selflessness in her best sense is when there are people who have no sense of self.

• 2:33:44Michael Malice?

  They have no values of their own. They have no goals of their own. Everything that's in their mind is gotten secondhand from the culture at large. And there's nothing unique or special, from their perspective, worth fighting for. So when she attacks, when she advocates for the self, she basically means self-development, self-improvement, and achievement. So I think that word choice is really... Um, it falls and needlessly off putting.

• 2:34:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, controversial, perhaps for the purpose of being controversial. I don't know.

• 2:34:18Michael Malice?

  But it's just, it's not accurate. That's not what people mean by selfishness.

• 2:34:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I would say it's one of the, one of the reasons probably her philosophy is not as much adopted or thought about is like, it's funny, like the use of words means something. Exactly as you said, that's my criticism. That's just mobile, which could be incorrect criticism, by the way. So I'm not exactly sure. Can we talk about

• 2:34:46Lex Fridman?

  some modern day chaos and politics?

• 2:34:49Michael Malice?

  Yes, please. I hate chaos.

• 2:34:52Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of your hatred for chaos, let's talk about secession.

• 2:34:55Michael Malice?

  Oh yeah, I was the first one on this trip.

• 2:34:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you were, uh, well, the Civil War beat you to it, but.

• 2:35:01Michael Malice?

  Sure. In contemporary times.

• 2:35:03Lex Fridman?

  In contemporary times, you were, you're on this. Can you talk about what is the idea of secession? What are the odds that it might happen? What does it mean for the United States in some way for different states to secede?

• 2:35:20Michael Malice?

  Sure. America's been one country with several cultures since the beginning. Um, there's absolutely no reason for someone, this goes back to the anarchist idea, if you despise Donald Trump, which is your prerogative, if you think Joe Biden is a clown, which is your prerogative, there's absolutely no reason for you to be governed by someone you disapprove of. This is an incoherent, nonsensical concept. The only reason we even take it as a hypothesis is that we're trained to the contrary since kindergarten. Um, a secession, I don't know along what lines, but increasingly it's becoming harder and harder for people to have conversations. I think social media, and this is something people despise social media for. I think this

• 2:36:01Michael Malice?

  is something that social media has done well, which I'm advocating for, is it tends to kind of run through ideas through like an evolutionary process and drive them to the logical conclusion. Uh, so it's very hard to be a moderate online because there's going to be people, you know, pushing through your ideas through several cycles and then you're going to end up at some kind of more pure, or if you want to dislike it, extreme perspective. Having these different pockets.

• 2:36:26Michael Malice?

  It's not really governable because people fundamentally have different worldviews. So I don't know what secession would look like. I think the number is really increasing at an exponential rate. I do not think-

• 2:36:39Lex Fridman?

  The number of supporters.

• 2:36:41Michael Malice?

  Supporters. I think the claim that this can only be accomplished through violence is false. It's a lie, just like any divorce doesn't have to involve beating your ex-husband or ex-wife. So, and I'm very much looking forward to this becoming a reality far quicker than I ever expected.

• 2:37:00Lex Fridman?

  Well, do you think there's a value of competing worldviews being forced to be in the same-

• 2:37:11Michael Malice?

  Yes, but within a context. So we can agree if group one thinks A, B, and C are the fundamental aspects of their worldview, and argue within that, and world, group two thinks D, E, and F, and argue within that. So you're going to have a lot of argument within those space. But if there's fundamental differences in worldview, there's no reason to be, especially when each views the other as completely coherent and unreasonable.

• 2:37:37Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there's a line of fundamentally different worldviews that,

• 2:37:45Lex Fridman?

  along which a secession will happen in the United States? Like, is there something that emerges to you as a set of ideas that are like,

• 2:37:56Lex Fridman?

  what do you call that? Like, you can't come to, you can't come to an agreement over?

• 2:38:00Michael Malice?

  I, yeah, I think this is already happening. Like, with the masks, I think there's just two fundamental perspectives, and each one thinks the other is insane and also deadly and destructive. And I don't see how there's any discourse on this topic.

• 2:38:18Lex Fridman?

  So on the left-

• 2:38:20Michael Malice?

  I wouldn't say it's left versus right. I think it's people who are pro-risk versus people who are risk averse.

• 2:38:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so risk averse and then there's like a a hope for the comfort of the sort of centralized

• 2:38:37Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:38:37Lex Fridman?

  science giving the the truth and then everybody must follow the truth.

• 2:38:42Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:38:43Lex Fridman?

  Of the proper way to behave. And then there's on the other side, a distrust of any kind of centralized institutions of anybody who might use like control to try to gain greater and greater power and masks are simple of that.

• 2:39:00Michael Malice?

  And even if masks are or are not

• 2:39:04Lex Fridman?

  Facacious, yeah. Yeah, effective way of of stopping the virus, which is really unfortunate to me as a from a perspective. I happen to be on a survey paper about masks, like people don't seem to care about the data or the so on.

• 2:39:18Michael Malice?

  Correct.

• 2:39:18Lex Fridman?

  This is this has become just a nice point on which to then highlight the difference between the two, the two sides. Yeah, that's really, I mean, I it's it sounds kind of on the face, kind of ridiculous that the succession would occur over masks.

• 2:39:35Michael Malice?

  It wouldn't, but I'm saying this is an example of something where there's a clean break.

• 2:39:38Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 2:39:39Michael Malice?

  And and risk averse versus, you know, someone who's risk seeking. These are just two fundamentally different perspectives. Do you want to have an NHS or do you have a one of a market based healthcare system? I you can make very valid arguments for both. There's no reason for everyone to be under one.

• 2:39:56Lex Fridman?

  But you you think that's not something that's that you think that's irreconcilable? If that's the word.

• 2:40:02Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:03Lex Fridman?

  That that's not in the space of ideas that you can have in the same room together and they fight each other and ultimately make progress like they that succession is the more effective way to proceed forward.

• 2:40:14Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:40:15Lex Fridman?

  What I the do you see a possible world with no is the answer? Meaning, I know you say yes, because you kind of lean on the side of freedom and anarchism.

• 2:40:29Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:40:30Lex Fridman?

  Like you make you want to make. Let me make an argument in terms of divorce, which is in your worldview or your intuition is you want to make secession as frictionless as possible, like

• 2:40:44Michael Malice?

  Of course.

• 2:40:45Lex Fridman?

  Along all lines, not just like states or whatever, just like

• 2:40:48Michael Malice?

  Absolutely.

• 2:40:48Lex Fridman?

  You want to choose, you want to be free.

• 2:40:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah, and peaceful.

• 2:40:52Lex Fridman?

  Let me make my authoritarian Russian.

• 2:40:56Michael Malice?

  Okay, Papa Stalin.

• 2:40:57Lex Fridman?

  Papa Stalin argument in terms of relationships, like when shit goes wrong in a relationship.

• 2:41:04Michael Malice?

  Watch your language.

• 2:41:08Lex Fridman?

  Okay, there's only a place for one Stalin at this table, okay?

• 2:41:13Michael Malice?

  Okay, I'll get to be Lenin.

• 2:41:14Lex Fridman?

  No, you get to be like Merkel as our previous discussion with Putin, okay? Don't let me unleash the hounds. You know, you want to work through some of the troubles before you get divorced. Like you want to do the work in relationships sometimes, like it goes up and down.

• 2:41:30Michael Malice?

  It's been 200 plus years. It's done.

• 2:41:35Lex Fridman?

  But in the, listen, okay, so it's not a one night stand, but you know.

• 2:41:39Michael Malice?

  Look at Trump, this, I don't see the middle ground. He's either a complete calamity buffoon or he's been the first great president we've had in like many, many years.

• 2:41:50Lex Fridman?

  So you think that there's something different now than it was 20 years ago?

• 2:41:55Michael Malice?

  Yes, social media and access to information.

• 2:41:59Lex Fridman?

  And the division will only increase, you think?

• 2:42:01Michael Malice?

  Oh, yes.

• 2:42:01Lex Fridman?

  So Trump is not an accident of history?

• 2:42:04Michael Malice?

  So they thought Trump was the river, but he was the dam.

• 2:42:08Lex Fridman?

  Trump was the dam. They thought he was the river. So in that analogy, Trump being gone makes things worse.

• 2:42:17Michael Malice?

  Yes, for that perspective, because now things are really going to hit the fan.

• 2:42:22Lex Fridman?

  So what are the odds of secession?

• 2:42:26Michael Malice?

  I don't know. And my desperate hope is that it's peaceful. But I think the number of people who are becoming very comfortable with violence is making me very unsettled.

• 2:42:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, I see words as violence and your Twitter.

• 2:42:43Michael Malice?

  It's like Hiroshima, times a million.

• 2:42:48Lex Fridman?

  Sometimes I curl up in the corner crying after I check your Twitter feed. So.

• 2:42:55Lex Fridman?

  But you, in all seriousness, you, you think it's possible to do non-violent secession?

• 2:43:01Michael Malice?

  It's like Czechoslovakia. Look at Brexit. Brexit was this secession.

• 2:43:07Lex Fridman?

  Right. Right, so you can have.

• 2:43:10Michael Malice?

  Civil war did not need to be fought. That would have been a non-violent secession. And, and if you worry about slavery, you could have bought off all the slaves, import them to the north. It still would have been cheaper and less loss of life and probably better for race relations.

• 2:43:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't know enough history to, to wonder about like how the civil war could have been avoided.

• 2:43:27Michael Malice?

  Well, that's how.

• 2:43:29Lex Fridman?

  Is, uh, well, conversation? So like.

• 2:43:33Michael Malice?

  No, no, if they want to secede, say, look, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna let you secede, but you have to end up, you have to end slavery. They seceded because of slavery. Here's the other thing, there's like this, some circles of conservatism have this myth that, oh, it wasn't about slavery, it was about states' rights. Well, if you go back, every state, when they seceded, released a press release. And they said explicitly, we're doing this because of slavery. So that is an abomination that needs to be taken care of. But the way, the other countries have, you know, ended slavery peacefully. One of the ways to do it is pay them by all, and we end up doing this after the war. I think the South people got reparations, the slave owners, it was just insane. Bring them north, wanna go to Canada, whatever, and you agree, and that's our peace treaty. Because the people who died weren't the slave owners.

• 2:44:18Michael Malice?

  It was white trash. And it was, that's who always, and I hate that that's the term, I can't think of a better one, but that's who always ends up fighting these wars often disproportionately. It's poor people and uneducated people. And I don't, I don't, I did not regard them as cannon fodder. I think it's horrible.

• 2:44:34Lex Fridman?

  So what would it look like? There'll be two founding documents?

• 2:44:38Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they had their, they had their constitution.

• 2:44:41Lex Fridman?

  Actually, I don't know the history of that.

• 2:44:42Michael Malice?

  Yeah, they had a constitution, but it was much more decentralized.

• 2:44:46Lex Fridman?

  If secession doesn't happen?

• 2:44:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:50Lex Fridman?

  You said that Donald Trump was the dam, not the river.

• 2:44:55Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:56Lex Fridman?

  That that sounds like Walt Whitman or something. You should. It's poetry. Okay.

• 2:45:01Michael Malice?

  Are you flirting with me?

• 2:45:04Lex Fridman?

  I don't. You know, we don't. We don't flirt. We just.

• 2:45:08Michael Malice?

  Go to town.

• 2:45:09Lex Fridman?

  Club and drag you to the.

• 2:45:11Michael Malice?

  It's just the hammer. We hammer and stickle.

• 2:45:14Lex Fridman?

  And you don't want to know about the sickle. It's not good cop, bad cop. It's.

• 2:45:18Michael Malice?

  Bad cop, worst cop.

• 2:45:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What do you think 2024 looks like in terms of the candidates?

• 2:45:29Michael Malice?

  It's going to be Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. I'm really looking forward to Ted Cruz versus Mike Pence because they're both very good at debate. That would be interesting to see how they differentiate themselves. But honestly, I don't. I mean, things are going to get really ugly really soon.

• 2:45:46Lex Fridman?

  What about Donald Trump coming back?

• 2:45:47Michael Malice?

  He's not going to do it. So things, in my opinion, I think things are going to be really, really crazy in 2021. And talk about talking about the dam being gone like.

• 2:45:56Lex Fridman?

  2021. So this year coming up.

• 2:45:59Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, it's going to be complete. It's going to be complete mayhem.

• 2:46:01Lex Fridman?

  What do you think? Like prediction wise, and this is empirical. What do you think Donald Trump's Twitter feed looks like in 2021? Like if we're at the end of 2021, we'll look back and see like, what was the, you know, Obama gate exclamation points or we won.

• 2:46:23Michael Malice?

  He is going to be, for the first time in history, holding the Republican Party accountable to the the base. We've never had that happen before. I think he's going to be holding their feet to the fire, radicalizing them. And given that they have the Senate where it's going to be 50 50, the Democrats have a three seat majority in the House. This is not a governing coalition for either. It's going to be a complete mayhem.

• 2:46:49Lex Fridman?

  What does that actually look like? So what are the key values you think that he's he's going to try to push?

• 2:46:55Michael Malice?

  I think it's just going to be very contrarian. It's he's going to be holding them accountable in terms of budgeting, even though he never did that as president. I think in terms of some kind of nominations. Here's the thing. This is the first time since. Nixon, 50 years, and things weren't as politicized then, where an incoming president doesn't have control of the Senate. The Senate has the vote over cabinet positions. I do not see a possibility of them not trying to pick a fight on one or two of these nominations. And that's going to, and especially as revenge for Kavanaugh. This is going to get very bloody very quickly. And I think Mitch McConnell, there's a sadistic side to him. He revels in being the brakes on the car.

• 2:47:40Michael Malice?

  And I think the base, it's just going to be throwing just, they're going to want some bone. It's like, oh yeah, we eliminated this one person. So that's going to get really ugly really quickly.

• 2:47:49Lex Fridman?

  You see it being quite divisive, like the division increasing, not stabilizing or decreasing.

• 2:47:57Michael Malice?

  And I'll be doing my part.

• 2:47:58Lex Fridman?

  I know you'll be doing my part, but I'm trying to do my part and like trying to be, like, to me, the division is shouting over people like Elon Musk, people who are actually building stuff and like accomplishing things in this world in terms of like.

• 2:48:15Michael Malice?

  Elon said he took the red pill.

• 2:48:17Lex Fridman?

  No, see, you're talking about the, I'm talking about, forget Elon, SpaceX and Tesla, and actually the good sides of like, some of the things that Google is doing, like actually building things, like making the world's information searchable, all that kind of stuff. Like all the stuff, you know, the, making actually the world a better place. There's a bunch of technologies that are increasing our quality of life, all this, all that kind of stuff. I feel like they get like, not much credit, or in our public discourse, because of the division. The division is just like, like, it's clouding our ability to concentrate on what's awesome about this world.

• 2:48:58Michael Malice?

  Well, you know what would eliminate the division, right?

• 2:49:00Lex Fridman?

  Secession.

• 2:49:02Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:03Lex Fridman?

  See, I don't, I don't, it's hard for me to disagree. It's hard for me to disagree, because, but at the same time, secession.

• 2:49:18Lex Fridman?

  I'm a romantic at heart.

• 2:49:19Michael Malice?

  You want to live in a-

• 2:49:20Lex Fridman?

  Divorce breaks my heart.

• 2:49:21Michael Malice?

  Cool, but do you want to live in a country-

• 2:49:23Lex Fridman?

  Cool story, bro.

• 2:49:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but do you want to live in a country where Joe Rogan is regarded as an example of someone who's spreading white supremacy? I don't.

• 2:49:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, but see, I feel like that's not the country we live in. That's just the-

• 2:49:36Michael Malice?

  The New York Times did it. The cathedral does it on a regular basis.

• 2:49:40Lex Fridman?

  Well, the cathedral is, okay. The cathedral, I guess you can maybe define the cathedral, but it's like the centralized institutions that have like a story that they're trying to sell and so on.

• 2:49:51Michael Malice?

  Yeah, this is Mulbuck's concept, but yeah, they basically are set the limits of permissible discourse and create a narrative for the population to follow.

• 2:49:57Lex Fridman?

  But to me, that's a minority of people.

• 2:49:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah, minority is always controlling everything in any country. The vast majority of the masses have no thought.

• 2:50:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but minorities can be overthrown and the-

• 2:50:06Michael Malice?

  Sure, the circulation of the elites, yeah.

• 2:50:08Lex Fridman?

  The way the, no, no, and that's, what progress looks like is ridiculous people take power.

• 2:50:14Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:50:14Lex Fridman?

  And then they get annoying and new ridiculous people that are a little bit better overthrow the previous ridiculous people.

• 2:50:22Michael Malice?

  No, I think progress happens despite the people who are in power, not because of them.

• 2:50:26Lex Fridman?

  Right, and so why is secession?

• 2:50:30Lex Fridman?

  So is it always about overthrowing the powerful? Is that how progress happens?

• 2:50:34Michael Malice?

  No, I think progress happens despite the powerful. The powerful are going to do what's in their power to maintain their power and they're going to fight innovation because it's a threat to their control.

• 2:50:43Lex Fridman?

  There's always going to be the New York Times of the world, right? There's always going to be those, those people that have a narrative.

• 2:50:48Michael Malice?

  Sure, and let them have their own country.

• 2:50:50Lex Fridman?

  So it's two countries. One has Joe Rogan, the other one has the New York Times?

• 2:50:54Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that's basically what's happening right now. It just geographically doesn't map out very well, but culturally, yes.

• 2:51:02Lex Fridman?

  But that's just cultural stuff, like there's a layer of public discourse.

• 2:51:05Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:51:06Lex Fridman?

  I don't mean, like, that's what we're operating under now, but there's actually like progress being made, like roads being built, hospitals being run, all those kinds of things, like they're different innovations. That seems like secession is counterproductive to that.

• 2:51:20Michael Malice?

  Right, because one country would have all the roads and the other would have all the hospitals. That's a great point.

• 2:51:25Lex Fridman?

  No, that's not, that's not the point I'm trying to make. It's just like, it just feels like the division that we're experiencing in the space of ideas could be constructive and productive for, for building better roads and better hospitals as opposed to like using that division to separate the countries. They're all gonna have to solve the same problems, it feels like.

• 2:51:47Michael Malice?

  Sure, but they can solve them differently and compete that way. Math is a great example, yeah. We're seeing that right now. Different countries have different math mandates and things like this.

• 2:51:56Lex Fridman?

  And the competition within the same structure, with the same founding documents and same institutions is not effective, you think, as effective as separating?

• 2:52:05Michael Malice?

  It is effective, but there is a certain point, which I think we have long passed, where there is not a consensus, a governing consensus ideologically or culturally.

• 2:52:14Lex Fridman?

  Let me ask you a fun question, okay?

• 2:52:15Michael Malice?

  Knock, knock.

• 2:52:17Lex Fridman?

  Who's there?

• 2:52:20Lex Fridman?

  Mars.

• 2:52:23Michael Malice?

  God of war.

• 2:52:25Lex Fridman?

  The other one.

• 2:52:27Lex Fridman?

  The planet.

• 2:52:28Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:30Lex Fridman?

  So there is a kind of captivating notion that we might, I'm excited by it, the human being stepping foot on Mars. That to me is, it's like one of those things that feels

• 2:52:47Lex Fridman?

  like it's, why do we want to engage in space exploration? But I'm a bit with Elon Musk on this, which is,

• 2:52:59Lex Fridman?

  it's obvious that eventually, if human species is to survive, it's going to have to innovate in ways that includes the space.

• 2:53:08Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:53:09Lex Fridman?

  Like, there's a lot of things we're not able to predict yet, that if we push ourselves to the limits of space, like, new ideas will come. They'll be obvious 100 years from now, and then we're not even imagining that. And colonizing Mars, that idea that seems ridiculous, exceptionally difficult, impossibly expensive, is something that is actually going to be seen as obvious in retrospect.

• 2:53:35Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:53:35Lex Fridman?

  And that we should engage in. Okay, that's just to contextualize things. The fun idea and experiment from a philosophical and political sense is, what kind of government?

• 2:53:49Lex Fridman?

  How do you orchestrate a government when you go to Mars? Like, we don't get too many chances like this, but how do you build new systems? Not in place of old ones, but in a place where no system previous have existed?

• 2:54:03Michael Malice?

  I think organically. I hate that word, but that's the correct word. You would have to figure out, I mean, that's how America was built. You had, it was a Jamestown colony and they tried to do communism here and it completely failed. Then they went to a more free market system with the second wave of colonists, is my understanding. For Mars, I mean, it depends on the population, who the population was, the number of people.

• 2:54:25Michael Malice?

  I don't know. These are all kind of hypotheticals that I don't really have any good insight in whatsoever. I'm not a space person. I hate astronomy, like I hate it.

• 2:54:36Lex Fridman?

  So a lot of people look up to the stars and they're filled with awe and wonder about the mystery of the universe. And you, you look up to the stars and you feel what?

• 2:54:44Michael Malice?

  I'm not looking up. I'm looking at the earth. If you, if you look at what's, I'd much rather, given a choice between Mars and the deep sea, I'd much rather spend a week at the deep sea and all the life forms that are down there. Cause they're literal aliens. There, it's like things that are not literal, but they're unimaginable to us, some of the things down there.

• 2:55:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's true. To me, it's an interesting thought experiment to see when you have 10 people, when you have 100 people.

• 2:55:10Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:55:10Lex Fridman?

  Like, how, how do you build an effective? You know, this is actually really useful for a company, right? Like, how do you build an effective company that does things? It's not an obvious, despite everybody being really certain about everything in this, in this modern world. To me, it's not obvious, like, how do you run successfully as a group of people?

• 2:55:30Michael Malice?

  I agree. I, that's why I'm saying it also, organic means you have to look at who the people are and tailor the organization to them as opposed to try to impose something.

• 2:55:39Lex Fridman?

  But you get to also select people.

• 2:55:41Michael Malice?

  Right, because it's not going to be open borders on Mars.

• 2:55:44Lex Fridman?

  Oh, right. I was gonna say, when you have one country, it's all open borders. Yeah, you're right, from, from outer space.

• 2:55:51Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:55:53Lex Fridman?

  Some say there are aliens already there, so you're gonna have to negotiate that.

• 2:55:57Michael Malice?

  Sure, we're aliens, so.

• 2:55:58Lex Fridman?

  We're aliens to somebody.

• 2:56:00Michael Malice?

  We're legal aliens.

• 2:56:01Lex Fridman?

  Do you think there's alien civilizations out there?

• 2:56:04Michael Malice?

  Yes, of course.

• 2:56:06Lex Fridman?

  What do you think is their system of government?

• 2:56:08Michael Malice?

  Anarchism, because they're advanced.

• 2:56:12Lex Fridman?

  Do you honestly think there's intelligent life forms out there?

• 2:56:15Michael Malice?

  Of course, just the math. It's impossible that there isn't.

• 2:56:17Lex Fridman?

  So what do you make of all the, all the stories of UFO sightings, all that kind of stuff? Do you think they've visited Earth?

• 2:56:27Michael Malice?

  Yes. My grandfather was in air traffic control in the Soviet Union. And he said they would often see these things that were not operating the way we knew vehicles operate. So that's good enough for me.

• 2:56:40Lex Fridman?

  So, I mean, do you think government is in possession of some, like, what do you think government is doing with this kind of information? Do you think somebody has any understanding of UFO sightings? Or any kind of information about extraterrestrial life forms that are not known to the public?

• 2:57:03Michael Malice?

  Yes, that's indisputably true. I think the fact that so many of these sightings are from aerodynamic professionals, like pilots and things of that nature, they are people who've seen it all, who are reputable. If they are on record saying, I've seen things that don't make sense. And both the Russians and the Americans thought it was the other one, that says something.

• 2:57:24Lex Fridman?

  Shouldn't that be a bigger problem? Shouldn't that be bigger news? And a bigger problem if government is in fact hiding it?

• 2:57:31Michael Malice?

  I guess, but like, what are they gonna do with that information?

• 2:57:34Lex Fridman?

  It's a good question. Like, if a UFO, if an extraterrestrial spacecraft, which most likely would be like a crappy space, like, it wouldn't be the actual aliens. It would be like some drone probe ship.

• 2:57:49Michael Malice?

  AI.

• 2:57:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, AI, yeah. So if that, like, what would you do with that information? As somebody that's in charge of, you know, like, you see how badly WHO fumbled the discussion of masks, masks? Yeah, masks is one of them, but everything really, in terms of communicating with the public honestly about what they know, what they don't know. And that's a trivial one.

• 2:58:14Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:58:15Lex Fridman?

  I don't, I don't, I don't know, there certainly feel incompetent and being able to communicate effectively with the public about something much more difficult, much more full of mystery, like a thing, a piece of material that's out of this earth. Forget like organic material. I don't, I don't know. To me, from a scientist's perspective, it'd be beautiful. It'd be inspiring to reveal this to the world. Here's a mystery and make it completely public. Share it with China. Share it with everybody.

• 2:58:52Michael Malice?

  I think there is a domino effect where the concern would be what else are you hiding from us? And at that point, if you said, no, no, no, this is everything, people wouldn't believe you and they would, you can't blame them for not believing them.

• 2:59:05Lex Fridman?

  Ah, yeah.

• 2:59:07Michael Malice?

  And then it'll be like, show us the aliens. They'd be like, we don't have them. We just have the craft. You're lying.

• 2:59:12Lex Fridman?

  Speaking of aliens, offline, you mentioned elves.

• 2:59:17Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:18Lex Fridman?

  And psychedelics.

• 2:59:19Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:20Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about psychedelics in terms of the kind of places that can take your mind, the kind of journey it can take you on? Like, what, what do you think, what is, what do you think psychedelics do to the human mind? And what does that say about the, the capacity of the human mind and just in general, like the mysteries of all that's out there?

• 2:59:45Michael Malice?

  I don't know that we understand what they do. The way I heard it explained to me is that much of the human mind isn't about receiving information, but blocking information, right? Because we're so, there's so much data coming in any moment that you basically have to train yourself to see and to hear only what you want to see and to hear. And that what psychedelics do is they tear that away and suddenly you're much more aware of what's out there. And also you're going to be noticing patterns that you hadn't noticed before. I know you had that researcher on the show and he kind of discussed this at some length.

• 3:00:18Michael Malice?

  I mean, Rogan is probably the person who popularized DMT more than any, well, he's obviously the person who's popularized DMT more than anything. It's, I don't know anyone who had, even researchers, who have anything close to a coherent explanation of why this drug, which is exists everywhere, would have this very specific, very extreme effect on so many people who are going to be experiencing such bizarre consequences as a result of it. I think it's very interesting that this is talking about the government, this, you know, the CIA started experimenting with LSD. They, they killed one of their own people, drove them to suicide. And it, there was a lot of research into, Terrence McKenna talks about this, into this field. And then very quickly, once they got into

• 3:01:03Michael Malice?

  the mainstream, they shut it down, even though it's not addictive, it doesn't cause you to go crazy or anything like that. And there was a lot of propaganda against its use, which I think thankfully is now somewhat receding. I think Colorado just legalized mushrooms, something like that. And I think it'll be very interesting to see what happens as a result of this.

• 3:01:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And the interesting thing is, there doesn't seem to be for certain psychedelics like psilocybin, like mushrooms, there doesn't seem to be a lethal dose, which is fascinating. Like Matthew Johnson, the Hopkins professor that you mentioned, I'm definitely gonna do one of his studies. It's a, it's a really cool way to do what he calls a heroic dose, psilocybin.

• 3:01:47Michael Malice?

  Oh, I want to do it. What do I have to do? Let's do it.

• 3:01:49Lex Fridman?

  I'll let you know. So he's, he is a

• 3:01:52Michael Malice?

  A heroic dose, holy crap.

• 3:01:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. But it's safe.

• 3:01:56Michael Malice?

  What's the, how many grams are we talking?

• 3:01:59Lex Fridman?

  I don't, I don't know, but it's just, it's, it's big. He's, he says that

• 3:02:04Michael Malice?

  This is gonna have a kick.

• 3:02:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So he says that, I mean, he also studies cocaine, he studies all kinds of drugs. And he's like, the psilocybin is

• 3:02:14Michael Malice?

  Heroic dose of cocaine kills you.

• 3:02:16Lex Fridman?

  Well, he, he can't, you can't, so you can't even come close. So he says, like, the problem with studying cocaine is you have like, people who are addicted to cocaine.

• 3:02:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:27Lex Fridman?

  Or war or so on. You give them the kind of doses that we can, and part of the study is like, it's, it's nothing to them.

• 3:02:35Michael Malice?

  Right. Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:02:35Lex Fridman?

  Psilocybin is the only one where like, even like, daily users or like, regular users Like are blown away by the dose they give them.

• 3:02:45Michael Malice?

  Oh, fuck.

• 3:02:46Lex Fridman?

  So.

• 3:02:48Michael Malice?

  Okay, well, we're going back to Russia.

• 3:02:51Lex Fridman?

  You can go to Russia in your mind.

• 3:02:52Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:53Lex Fridman?

  You can go to outer space. Maybe, maybe you'll become an astronaut or astronomer. After all.

• 3:03:00Michael Malice?

  Maybe I'll be Baba Yaga.

• 3:03:03Lex Fridman?

  I'll let people look that one up.

• 3:03:06Michael Malice?

  Holy crap. Wow.

• 3:03:08Lex Fridman?

  What is love? What do you think this thing is? Like our attachment to other human beings? And is it something that we should give to just a few people?

• 3:03:21Michael Malice?

  Yes, that's for sure. When I was working with D.L. Hughley in his book, he didn't use the term, but he was describing like low-key depression. And he talked about how he was in the airport and he noticed a girl had a red dress. And he went up and thanked her and she was like, what are you thanking for? And he had realized he hadn't registered color in like weeks. And I think love is like that. When you see someone and you're just like, oh, like, like your eyes are open, like this is something I've never seen before. I want more of this, that kind of thing. It's really,

• 3:03:58Michael Malice?

  it really disorients and reorients your thinking.

• 3:04:02Lex Fridman?

  Don't you find that like the world is full of that like nonstop? It's not just like a person either. It's like.

• 3:04:09Michael Malice?

  But it, yes, but when it's in a person, it's a whole other level because it's like, I could have, this is going to be great for years. It's like, you know, every day it's something new. I mean, that is, and that is rare.

• 3:04:22Lex Fridman?

  You think it's rare?

• 3:04:23Michael Malice?

  Find someone who you could talk to them for years and not run out of things to talk to.

• 3:04:27Lex Fridman?

  That's true, for years. Yes.

• 3:04:29Michael Malice?

  That's rare. And know that they really, if you leave the room, they will do right by you. That's really rare.

• 3:04:38Lex Fridman?

  Well, from a Russian perspective, you just don't give them another choice.

• 3:04:47Lex Fridman?

  For, uh, this is Tavardish New Year, New Year's Eve.

• 3:04:55Lex Fridman?

  So you talked about secession and the world burning down and you holding the match at the end, standing with a big smile on your face.

• 3:05:05Michael Malice?

  Yes. Why so serious?

• 3:05:09Lex Fridman?

  But let me ask you, if it doesn't include flame and secession and destruction and laughing malice and makeup and a white suit at the end, uh, how do we bring more kindness and love to the world in 2021?

• 3:05:25Michael Malice?

  Oh, easy. Be comfortable saying, I want to be happy. And if there's someone who interjects and gives you attitude, arms length them. Surround yourself with people who also want to be happy. Here's a great example. My buddy, Chris Williamson, who I've mentioned before, he's a podcaster, does Modern Wisdom. He's, he's an awesome dude and we became friends, very close friends this past year. And he was in Dubai recently and he sent me pics from Dubai by the pool, just loving life. And it took me a week and then it clicked in my head. And I'm like, you know what? For some other people, if they saw him, underwear

• 3:06:06Michael Malice?

  model, at the pool, they would think this is him bragging or humble bragging. And that never entered my head. I'm like, oh man, I'm so glad my boy can be having a good time and is sharing his joy with me. That's the kind of people you need to surround yourself with, where it never enters their head to be resentful or anything other than sharing in your bounty.

• 3:06:32Lex Fridman?

  What makes you happy?

• 3:06:34Michael Malice?

  I'm happy all the time. And one of the points I made in my life is like, I really hated, I really did not like to give advice, because I feel, don't give advice until you know what you're talking about. And to me, what makes me happy is being self-actualized. I am in a position with my career where I could be myself 24/7, where I never have to engage in small talk, where I never have to interact with someone I don't want to. And I'm very blessed to have that. Very few people have that. And to have that be not only, um,

• 3:07:09Michael Malice?

  To have that be rewarded and having people find that something of value to them makes me very, very happy. But also being an uncle, you know, I have two little nephews, they make me very, very happy. Sure, my sister's raising them Russian, so they talk like immigrants, but that's okay. We're gonna change that. We have to dismember her, that's fine. That makes me happy and like to be able to be able to finish this book and know it's gonna give people a sense of hope, that's really validating.

• 3:07:40Lex Fridman?

  Well, what are you most grateful for for our conversation today?

• 3:07:45Michael Malice?

  You're stealing my bit. What am I most grateful for? I am very grateful that I can come in here not knowing what we're gonna talk about and know it's not going to be something I have to be on guard about, or I have to watch my words, and that neither you or your audience is going to be responding derisively. I feel safe here. You're welcome. Bye, Steve.

• 3:08:19Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for talking to me, Michael. It was awesome. Thank you for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice, and thank you to our sponsors, NetSuite Business Management Software, Athletic Greens All-in-One Nutrition Drink, Sun Basket Meal Delivery Service, and Cash App. So the choice is success, health, food, or money. Choose wisely, my friends. And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words from Emma Goldman on anarchism. People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.

• 3:09:02Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.