#253 – Michael Malice: New Year’s Special

Michael Malice is a political thinker, podcaster, author, and anarchist. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – FightCamp: https://joinfightcamp.com/lex to get free shipping – Linode: https://linode.com/lex to get $100 free credit – Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex and use code LEX to get $5 off – Sunbasket: https://sunbasket.com/lex and use code LEX to get $35 off – ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free 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 Books & resources mentioned: The Anarchist Handbook (book): https://amzn.to/3yUb2f0 The New Right (book): https://amzn.to/34gxLo3 Dear Reader (book): https://amzn.to/2HPPlHS The Idiot (book): https://amzn.to/3zdHdHH Six-Word Memoirs (book): https://amzn.to/3zg51uv 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/lexfridman – 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 (09:07) – Truth, goodness, and beauty (19:35) – Save one life (26:26) – Jeffrey Epstein (45:21) – Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton (51:33) – Christmas and New Years for Russians (58:14) – Russian cynicism and suffering (1:05:52) – Gift exchange (1:18:48) – Michael’s move to Austin (1:24:14) – The Anarchist Handbook (1:30:46) – Ghislaine Maxwell (1:35:20) – Jeffrey Epstein (1:37:34) – Lex’s move to Austin (1:46:21) – Elon Musk (1:49:31) – Writing The White Pill (1:54:18) – Camus (1:59:16) – Writing The White Pill continued (2:04:34) – New Year’s resolutions (2:18:09) – 2024 elections (2:30:38) – National divorce (2:45:15) – Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein vs Sam Harris (2:54:26) – Conversation with CEO of Pfizer (3:07:59) – Anthony Fauci (3:13:28) – Advice for young people (3:23:30) – Wife and kids (3:28:57) – Immortality

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

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  Уважаемые дамы и господа! The following is a conversation with Michael Malice, his fifth time on this The Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, a quick few-second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. First is FightCamp, a punching bag I use at home for boxing workout. Second is Linode, Linux virtual machines. Third is Magic Spoon, low-carb keto-friendly cereal. Fourth is Sun Basket, healthy meal delivery service. And fifth is ExpressVPN, the VPN I've been using for many years.

• 0:42Lex Fridman?

  So the choice is exercise, Linux, food, or privacy. Choose wisely, my friends. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by FightCamp, a freestanding punching bag I use and you can use at home to get a great boxing workout. Hitting this bag is one of my favorite high-intensity full-body workouts. When I originally heard about FightCamp, my first concern was, not that I'm Mike Tyson or anything, but I do like to hit the bag pretty hard. So my concern was if it's standing on the, you know, on the floor

• 1:26Lex Fridman?

  and I'm hitting it and it's at home, it's gonna move around all over the place. But they have this, I think they call it patented technology, but it's just a pretty cool setup where the bag does move within its circle base, but the base prevents it from moving all around the room. They actually have videos of professional boxers, like heavyweight boxers, hitting it hard. And I hit it hard and it, it moves, but it doesn't move across the floor, so it stays in its place. Anyway, FightCamp uses new tech that tracks each punch you throw to measure speed, volume, and output, so you can follow your progress, push yourself, compete on the community leaderboard, and challenge others, or do you versus you on the new versus mode. That's like poetry, you versus you.

• 2:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I haven't actually done any of the competition against others, but it's been me versus me, which is your greatest enemy. They say it's great for kids, too. You can pay for your FightCamp over 24 months for less than the cost of a boxing gym and get it right away. Plus, FightCamp offers free shipping with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Just go to joinfightcamp.com/lex to get free shipping on FightCamp. Go to joinfightcamp.com/lex. Joinfightcamp.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Linode, Linux virtual machines. It's an awesome compute infrastructure that lets you develop, deploy, and scale what applications you build faster and easier.

• 2:56Lex Fridman?

  This is both for small personal projects and huge systems. Lower cost than AWS, but more important to me is the simplicity, quality of customer service, the human touch with real humans 24/7/365. I've said many, many times before how much I love Linux, how much I love compute infrastructure. I love infrastructure in a digital space because that is the thing that makes the world run. I think in my conversation with Elon, he mentions this, that the software engineers, the engineers, period, that make the infrastructure work for Tesla Autopilot are the unsung heroes. And I agree.

• 3:39Lex Fridman?

  Those people are often brilliant, essential, and they kind of shun the spotlight, actually, because they love the work for the work itself. And I admire that deeply. If it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode. Visit linode.com/lex and click on the Create Free Account button to get started with $100 in free credit. This episode is sponsored by Magic Spoon, low-carb keto-friendly cereal. Even when I say Magic Spoon, it just brings joy to my heart. It has zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, only four net grams of carbs, and 140 calories in each serving. You can build your own box or get a variety pack with available flavors. There's a ton of them: cocoa, fruity, frosted, peanut butter, blueberry, and cinnamon.

• 4:24Lex Fridman?

  I think it goes on and on. I think they keep adding new flavors sometimes, but still, friends, cocoa is my favorite flavor and the flavor of champions. It reminds me of childhood. It reminds me of happiness without any of the pain that comes with childhood and happiness and the sugar crush.

• 4:45Lex Fridman?

  Because there's not the sugar situation that most cereals have. This thing is really good for you. It has the deliciousness, but none of the evils of sugar. Sugar's not evil, but it's just bad for you. Let's not call everything evil. Anyway, Magic Spoon have a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it, they've refunded. Go to magicspoon.com/lex link and use code Lex at checkout to save $5 off your order. That's magicspoon.com/lex and use code Lex. This show is also brought to you by Sun Basket Meal Delivery Service. It's restaurant quality food packaged up, delivered to your home and ready to heat and eat. Heat and eat.

• 5:30Lex Fridman?

  Sounds like something Muhammad Ali would come up with. In other words, it sounds awesome. Eating to me is a joy, but it also is a thing that takes up time in a day. So it needs to be efficient. You have to balance those things. If you enjoy this kind of thing, inject variety into your life. Bring joy by way of variety in the food you eat. Me personally, I don't necessarily get joy from variety. I just get joy from the deliciousness of food. And Sun Basket is delicious. So the other aspect of it is the efficient thing I mentioned. And that's, that's what Sun Basket really helps with is make deliciousness and variety. If you care about that kind of thing, efficient.

• 6:13Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, right now, Sun Basket is offering $90 off to your first four deliveries, including free shipping on the first box when you go to sunbasket.com/lex and enter code Lex. That's sunbasket.com/lex and enter code Lex. Finally, friends, this show is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet. I've used them for many, many, many years. There's a big giant sexy red button. Doesn't get any simpler than that. Doesn't get any more efficient than that. I just love it. Clearly I'm in the holiday spirit currently. It's New Year's Eve. I'm doing this ad read. I love life. I love everything and I love ExpressVPN.

• 6:58Lex Fridman?

  Actually, ExpressVPN has been with me for many years through the hard times, through the hopeless times when I was full of self doubt and nothing was working. It's funny. It's funny that you could have that kind of relationship with software. Of course, the software doesn't know about it. It was just there being useful. But there's a relationship with that big red sexy button. Anyway, there's a bunch of cool things about ExpressVPN I guess I'm supposed to talk about. Like it adds a layer of privacy protection between you and the ISPs. You can change location to watch any kind of shows on Netflix and Hulu and whatever.

• 7:41Lex Fridman?

  The most important thing for me is just easy, fast to use, works on any device, operating system. My favorite is Linux, of course, the greatest. I should really talk to Linus Tarvalds on this program. Thank you to ExpressVPN for being there through the tough times and the good times. We've been through it all. ExpressVPN and I. Anyway, go to expressvpn.com/lexpod to get an extra three months free. That's expressvpn.com/lexpod. And if you, friends, are going through some hard times with ExpressVPN or without, I wish you the best of luck.

• 8:20Lex Fridman?

  Hard times make for a tougher mind, and a tougher mind helps you appreciate when the times are good and things are beautiful and love is plentiful in your life. Happy New Year, Happy Holidays. I love you all. This, friends, is the Lex Fridman Podcast, and here is my conversation with the great, the amazing, the one and only, Michael Malice.

• 9:07Michael Malice?

  Привет, товарищ! С Новым годом! С Новым годом!

• 9:11Lex Fridman?

  Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot, my favorite of his books, through the main character, Prince Mishkin, that "Beauty will save the world." Красота спасет мир.

• 9:23Lex Fridman?

  These words seemingly naive and ultimately, at least to me, profound. What do they mean to you? Beauty will save the world.

• 9:31Michael Malice?

  Naive? Really? I don't think they seem naive at all.

• 9:34Lex Fridman?

  Well, uh, Solzhenitsyn actually, for his 1970 Nobel Prize, uh, speech, talked about this line a lot. And he thought for most of his life, that was a silly line. It was just words thrown out there because with all the suffering that's in the world, what has beauty actually ever done?

• 9:52Michael Malice?

  Oh, my God, I hate this so much. I, I-

• 9:55Lex Fridman?

  Talking trash about Solzhenitsyn?

• 9:56Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I am.

• 9:57Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 9:57Michael Malice?

  Um, and this is perfectly sets up this theme. You know, I said, let's do this episode, start the new year on a positive note, give people hope, give people joy. Uh, you and I both have friends who are models. Right? And it's a silly profession to some extent, of course, but-

• 10:15Lex Fridman?

  You are actually a model. You are my friend.

• 10:18Michael Malice?

  I am, that's right, that's true. I am a model. I was trying to be subtle. But for those people who actually, you know, deserve to be models, um, when you look at someone who is a model and in some of their photos, and these, they, these people look perfect. Now, in real life, they're not perfect. They have flaws, they'll be the first to admit it, so on and so forth. But when you look at beauty, it is almost impossible to maintain a sense of cynicism and hopelessness. Because if there's even one moment when some, uh, element of perfection has been actualized, if there's one moment where a beauty has been realized and captured, you can't say, well, it's never gonna happen again.

• 11:03Michael Malice?

  So I think beauty, it means hope. I think, I hate that cynical idea of like, um-

• 11:13Michael Malice?

  I appreciate Solzhenitsyn's broader point in that a lot of times people, there's something called the deepity, where people throw words together to sound profound, and if you take it apart, like this is just completely gibberish. I don't think this is an example of that. I think beauty inspires, and more importantly, it proves to you this is something that can actually happen on this earth. Plato, right, the Platonic theory of forms, like this world is imperfect, but these perfect forms exist in another dimension, and that's where our concepts come from. He was an early person trying to figure out where our concepts come from, and epistemology and so on and so forth. But that is something that is real and here.

• 11:55Michael Malice?

  So I completely disagree with his analysis of that, and I don't know if it'll save the world, but it's certainly a prerequisite. And what's the point of fighting for your values if you don't want to make the world a more beautiful place?

• 12:08Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's also how you define beauty, because beauty could be just aesthetic beauty, it could be art. Of course, art could encompass a lot, a lot more than just literature and paintings. It can encompass the full life, the full dance of life. But then beauty could be something just deeper, like whatever that awe you feel when you pause and hear the music, just hear and like look up at the stars. Like for some reason, when I see rockets go up, for me, it's like science. What is that? The awe that we're able to accomplish that as humans?

• 12:48Michael Malice?

  You know, that's funny, because you know, there's lots of different schools of thought, like these people versus these people, and maybe vegans versus steakhouse people. I think in terms of the sciences, and I guess you and I would be on opposite sides here, you have the... Astronomy people versus the zoology people. Like, the big question is, would you rather spend 10 minutes on the moon? Or would you rather spend 10 minutes in the deep sea? And for me, it's clearly the deep sea. The zoology that's down there, there's something I would encourage people to look up called deepstaria, which is a jellyfish. And the scientists, what's amazing when you watch these deep sea dives on YouTube,

• 13:31Michael Malice?

  is that the scientists are, they're nature dorks like everybody else. They're, they went into this field and there's none of this maybe Solzhenitsyn-style cynicism of when they see an amazing animal in its natural environment, you know, exhibiting these crazy behaviors, they lose it. They're on the mics like, oh my God! Like, it's so exciting to watch. So, I'm not a rocket person, but I'm definitely a zoology person.

• 13:57Lex Fridman?

  So, animals and plants in the sea.

• 14:00Michael Malice?

  And also, it's so mathematical. There's so much, so many forms. There's, there's this, there's this plant called Ariospermum titanupsoites. I don't know how to pronounce it, because they're always in Latin, you never hear them pronounced.

• 14:12Lex Fridman?

  You said sperm.

• 14:13Michael Malice?

  Ariospermum, yeah, because it's a woolly seed, is the, is the genus. The leaf, it's just, always puts out one leaf. But the leaf is covered in little magnifying glasses, lenses, to make it maximize the sunlight. So, it looks like this little crystal seashell. It's tiny, it's like 2 centimeters, but it's just this amazing thing that, that grows out of the sands in South Africa.

• 14:37Lex Fridman?

  Just to defend Solzhenitsyn for a second. So, if I may, read a couple of his lines from the speech.

• 14:42Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 14:43Lex Fridman?

  So, he said, "One day," that's how he introduces it, "one day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark, 'Beauty will save the world.' What sort of a statement is that? For a long time, I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything?"

• 15:03Lex Fridman?

  And then later, he goes on to argue with himself in the speech as an older, wiser man now. But perhaps that ancient trinity of truth, goodness, and beauty is not simply an empty faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth. If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholar has maintained, but the two blatant, two direct stems of truth and goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through, then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of beauty will push through and soar to that very same place. And in so doing, will fulfill the work of all three.

• 15:44Lex Fridman?

  In that case, the Sieski's remark, "Beauty will save the world," was not a careless phrase, but a prophecy. Which of your, which of these three things are your favorites? Truth, goodness, or beauty? What did he call truth and goodness? The blatant, two direct stems of truth and goodness versus the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of beauty, which is how I see your Twitter account?

• 16:14Michael Malice?

  I don't think, I think there's certain dearth of beauty to be had in my Twitter account, that's for sure. It's certainly no goodness.

• 16:20Lex Fridman?

  Or truth.

• 16:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah. It's Twitter, there's no truth to be found. I would, I will answer the question. I will, of course, point out that having this kind of, you know, distinction between the three things is, I think, kind of synthetic. I think they very heavily overlap. If not, if I could probably make the argument, they're synonymous. In fact, I do believe that they're largely synonymous.

• 16:44Lex Fridman?

  Goodness. That's such an interesting word, goodness.

• 16:49Michael Malice?

  Which of those three is my favorite? I think truth is overrated in the sense that if something is a good story...

• 17:03Michael Malice?

  The story doesn't have to be true or real in order to motivate you and move you. A lot of times, we can delude ourselves about somebody.

• 17:17Michael Malice?

  And that might actually serve a purpose to some extent, you know, if you have someone who's maybe a family member and you kind of ignore bad things that they do, there might be a reason for that.

• 17:29Michael Malice?

  Of the three, which is most important, I think, I would say probably goodness. I would say of the three, the most important is goodness, because if you don't appreciate goodness, then beauty is just empty. It's just, it's just a picture, or it's nice. Bad people appreciate beauty, you know, bad people are often, you know, seductive or have a beauty about them.

• 17:55Lex Fridman?

  And in terms of action, I think it takes a lot of skill and work to create beauty, or to create truth, or to express truth, or to express beauty. But I think goodness is a, it's like the easiest default state of being, just being good to others.

• 18:14Michael Malice?

  Yeah, like, you know, like, there'll be things where, these videos where like, one dog is drowning, and like, another dog jumps in and saves it from the pool, like, that to me is just really amazing stuff, and is very moving. So just, to me, goodness means integrity, and it means kindness.

• 18:37Michael Malice?

  And yeah, I think of the three, that's the one I would be the one I pick. And I think people, sorry, interrupt, I think people also have this idea, which is inculcated to them, especially by corporate America, that as you get older, it's okay to do the wrong things sometimes, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't buy that. And so I think goodness gets rarer and rarer. And, and I think people know better, and they tell themselves lies.

• 19:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but, once you get, allow yourself the chance to just be good, I think it's makes for a better life.

• 19:12Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Lex Fridman?

  It's like, it's not that much work. Like, it's not like going to the gym and working out, that's a lot of work, and it's great afterwards. But like, goodness is easy, once you get into the habit of it. I suppose working out is the same way. There's a lot of stuff, if you make it a habit. You're going to get the rewards of it.

• 19:29Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Lex Fridman?

  It's going to be easy.

• 19:31Michael Malice?

  The rewards of goodness, I think, are more immediate than the rewards of working out.

• 19:36Lex Fridman?

  As opposed to the hard drugs.

• 19:37Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Lex Fridman?

  If you mentioned this quote on one of your live streams, I think, if you save one life, you save the world.

• 19:44Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Lex Fridman?

  That's such a cool line. I think I remember reading about Paul Farmer. I think his name is, he's a doctor that really, I mean, doctors in general, they kind of don't care about,

• 19:58Lex Fridman?

  like, what they're doing as a broad policy across hundreds of thousands of millions of people. They just care about the human in front of them, which is so interesting. They don't care it's going to cost, like in his case, to save one child, it will cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't care about that. They can't. They know very well that what their actions cannot be scaled, but they can't help but help the child in front of them. And it's so interesting. That's such an interesting way to live. And that's the way I kind of think when I try to do something positive is, will this help one

• 20:37Lex Fridman?

  person? And I just kind of imagine a specific person, depending on the thing that that would help with, like what I'm trying to create something, whether it's a piece of hardware or a video or anything like that, or educational material, lecture, that kind of stuff. I don't know. What do you think about this quote? Like, what, is it profound or is it just poetic?

• 21:00Michael Malice?

  I think it's more profound than it sounds at first. The example I think of is Michelle Bachmann. She was a former Congresswoman from Minnesota. She clearly had crazy eyes, something weird's going on with the husband, but she adopted like, like 20 kids. Terry Shaprock's another friend of mine. He's like a, either Navy SEAL or Marines, whatever it is, Terry, I apologize, I'm not trying to be funny. And he adopts like elder dogs. So going back to Bachmann, it's like, yeah, you can say she's crazy, you can make fun of her politics all you want, and all that stuff's legitimate. But if you save a kid, give them a home, and you save them from the foster system, and you put a roof over their heads and make them feel loved and appreciated, it's really hard for me.

• 21:42Michael Malice?

  To sit here and call you like a totally bad person. I think that kind of thing is Nick Searcy is another one. He adopted a kid and I said, you're, I think you're a hero. Like if you, there's some, you know, one of the things that's very hard for me, I'm writing, as you know, I talk about this endlessly, this book, The White Pill. But writing about when people do hurtful things to children, it really is hard to watch. And it's hard to, because when you're an author, you have to kind of empathize with the character. You have to, where's this character coming from? Explain their point of view. And that's the one that's the hardest for me to wrap my head around, like.

• 22:19Lex Fridman?

  Cruelty to children.

• 22:20Michael Malice?

  Yeah, or, and yeah, sadism to children. It's just like, this is, this is something even animals know not to do. Do you know what I mean? Like dogs are right when you see them around kids, they're very protective. Like if the kid pokes their eyes out, the dog doesn't do anything. So it's like, if you can't even get to that level, what kind of person are you? So I think that quote is a profound one and it's an important one. It also means we're not all called upon to be Superman. Right? You only have a very finite ability to move the needle. But at the same time, if you have actually, you know, saved a life, you can go to meet your maker. You, you did your part, you know, you left the world a little bit better than you found it.

• 23:04Michael Malice?

  And that's all you could ask anybody.

• 23:06Lex Fridman?

  Also, I think from a policy perspective, it seems we just do better when we focus on doing a small thing, helping, helping one person. Because it feels like when you start talking about communism and all those kinds of things, when you start to believe you could do good by a lot of people. That's where your mind somehow stops being able to do good by a lot of people. That's when you start to think about utopias and somehow utopias goes to.

• 23:33Lex Fridman?

  Feeds power into the brain to where it deludes you completely and then you start, it's okay to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, kind of reasoning and you run into trouble. It seems like it's much better, even when you have the power and the money and so on, to achieve scale, to focus on one and then.

• 23:51Michael Malice?

  Or locally, yeah.

• 23:52Lex Fridman?

  Locally, yeah.

• 23:53Michael Malice?

  Because then also you have the feedback.

• 23:55Lex Fridman?

  Exactly.

• 23:55Michael Malice?

  Right, so if you have some kind of program, you know, in Austin or in Brooklyn or something like that, and you can, you can watch, oh, this is working, this isn't working, then you could port it out to other places. But top-down helping is, you know, at the very least, is going to be inefficient. And also, I think it's a lot more useful when you're helping people when it's a one-on-one relationship, because then it's less, I don't know, embarrassing, but certainly less something to receive help. And you also feel, it's one thing if you get a check from the government, you know, food stamps. It's not a thing if someone's like, hey, I'm going to buy you groceries until you get back on your feet. You have this kind of motivation, I think, for most people, to be like, you know what? This person believed in me, I'm going to make it worth their while that they believed in me. Because I didn't believe in me.

• 24:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, when I was giving lectures at MIT, there was one, I was scared shitless. And I mean, everybody, you know, how students are and all that kind of stuff, they're kind of bored.

• 24:47Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Lex Fridman?

  And they don't, they don't understand that you're human too. They're, yeah.

• 24:54Lex Fridman?

  Or this is, could be just me.

• 24:56Michael Malice?

  They don't understand you're trying to pass as human.

• 24:58Lex Fridman?

  I know, but there's one, one gentleman in the audience and he went to all the lectures, all the gentleman, he was a faculty at MIT, and he just, without, very kind of nonchalant, just said, after the lectures, he kind of nodded to me and saying, you did great. And before, like, one time, he said, in a non-creepy way, I know this is going to come off as creepy, he said, you look great today.

• 25:26Lex Fridman?

  Like he said that in a, I don't, in the way, so he's like sixty, seventy, whatever, like, he, in this, I don't know, it's in a wise sage way.

• 25:35Michael Malice?

  Oh.

• 25:36Lex Fridman?

  Cause I was wearing a suit and tie. Like, I look like, you know, when you dress up like a young kid.

• 25:40Michael Malice?

  Barbiturate. Yeah. You got your barbiturate, yeah.

• 25:43Lex Fridman?

  So he was just like, alright.

• 25:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Lex Fridman?

  You're, uh, you're all dressed up. You look great. You got this. I don't know. That has a lasting impact. That kinda pat on the back. But I agree with you. Um, cruelty towards other adults is somehow understandable. Cause it's a world full of conflict, but cruelty towards children doesn't,

• 26:09Lex Fridman?

  it doesn't quite, I can't, I can't understand it. I can't understand how you could act in a way that directly causes suffering to a child in front of you.

• 26:20Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Lex Fridman?

  That is, like, the, um, I don't think I've ever talked to you, this might be a good time to ask you about this. What do you make, what lessons do you draw about human civilization from Jeffrey Epstein? From just laying out. Everybody thinks about different things. When you, you talk to Eric Weinstein, he thinks about intelligence and like who, like Jeffrey Epstein is a front for something else. That's what he thinks about. I think about the weakness of grown men in the face of charismatic evil, which is like, for me, directly is MIT. I didn't know, I actually was, I guess I was at MIT when Jeffrey Epstein was just at the very end. He must have been there.

• 27:04Lex Fridman?

  I didn't know any of this, but it, it really bothers me that nobody was able to see through this man, because he's obviously, what is also obvious to me, is that he was very charismatic. Like,

• 27:18Lex Fridman?

  I mean, I, I, I try to think about human nature from this perspective is, um, directly, like we said, help one life. Would I know a Jeffrey Epstein if he was in my life? Would I, would I know evil when I saw evil?

• 27:35Michael Malice?

  Even if it's sitting across from you?

• 27:37Lex Fridman?

  Even, I mean, you, so, exactly, the evil laugh, thank you. The, the thing.

• 27:48Lex Fridman?

  Well.

• 27:48Michael Malice?

  It's a necronomicon.

• 27:50Lex Fridman?

  Well, the thing I, I'm sure we'll talk about it, maybe not, doesn't really matter. We, we see things, you and I, Michael, very differently about a lot of things, politically and so on. The reason I, I like you a lot, the reason I like, uh, the people I do in my life is there's a, there's a warmth, there's a kindness, there's a humanity underneath it all. I don't really care what you believe. I don't care, like, I don't care what your Twitter says. You, you know, it's easy to mistake your Twitter to indicate that there's not a deeply human love for humanity in there. And that's why I'm detecting that. I think I would be able to detect that Jeff Epstein.

• 28:29Michael Malice?

  Detect, I'm just imagining the T1000.

• 28:32Lex Fridman?

  Detected. Yes. I imagine, I hope I would be able to not, um, detect that Epstein, uh, lacks that completely. Even if he's charismatic and the, in the humor he has, even if he is, uh, charismatic in the expression of curiosity for science, which he did. He was curious about like, uh, not just like boring, uh, minutia of science. He was interested about the big questions in science, which I could see that become exciting to scientists. Like, oh, wow, here's a person who's thinking big. That's always exciting to, when somebody goes into a room and thinks about like, how do we solve intelligence? How do we travel faster than the speed of light?

• 29:17Lex Fridman?

  That's exciting to people, especially people with money. Cause it's like, all right. So we might be able to actually do big things here. Uh, but you could see through the bullshit, the, the dead, the deadness in the eyes. I don't know. So I think about that because I, I feel like I have the responsibility for me as an individual to detect evil.

• 29:37Michael Malice?

  So I, do you know who Michael Alig is? Okay, this is gonna be a whole long, this is gonna be on Lex clips, but this is a whole long story. So there was a scene in New York in the 90s called The Club Kids. And they would go out to different nightclubs at night. They would all dress in really kind of crazy costumes. And but the costumes are all like goofy and like just like an angel. This was dressed like a nurse. It was, there's a juvenile aspect to it. They're all taking, you know, ketamine and ecstasy to all hours. This is kind of raid culture was coming up in there. And the head of it, and in fact, there's a

• 30:15Michael Malice?

  a clip on YouTube, I think it was the Jane Whitney Show of The Club Kids and Gigi Allen. Gigi Allen is a, you know, kind of punk rock performer, hard rock performer who passed away. And the audience, and Gigi Allen was very aggressive and like a crazy person. My friend once saw him in a concert and he took a dump on stage, smeared it all over his face, grabbed the girl from the audience, gave her a big kiss. And as she walked by him, she, she just went like this, like, excuse me, like went to the bathroom. So the audience is screaming at Gigi Allen because he's very visibly over the top. Whereas you got a bunch of these kids dressed in these silly costumes. You guys are just having fun. Well, the head of The Club Kids, Michael Alec, ended up killing someone.

• 30:58Michael Malice?

  There was a kid called Angel Menendez who hung around with them. He would always have angel wings and boots. One time they're at Michael's condo with another, with a drug dealer named Freeze. They got into a fight. Angel got hit in the head with a hammer. They kill him. What are we gonna do with the body? They put it on ice in the bathtub. They had a party. So everyone's going to the bathroom while Angel's body is there. Michael got, they're like, all right, we gotta take care of this. Michael got extremely high on heroin, had like silk cutlery from Macy's, saw the body in pieces, put in a box. They took him in a cab, the cab driver helped them throw the body into the river. And then Michael starts walking around Manhattan, wearing Angel's boots. And would tell people, oh, I killed Angel.

• 31:43Michael Malice?

  Now, because he was a super effeminate, over the top, like he would pee in people's beer kind of guy. Everyone's like, oh, God, Michael, like you and your stupid pranks. Uh, but it was true. And he got caught, um, and he got sentenced to jail. So I was in a store in Manhattan in Soho. And it was one of those stores, we have like all sorts of things for sale. And I saw a painting and it said Malice. And I'm like, wait, what? And it was M. Alec. It was a Michael Alec painting. He had painted while in jail. So my mom bought it for me for my birthday. I don't remember what birthday it was. And I started writing to him in prison. He was gonna write a memoir called Aligula, which is clever. And then I actually went to visit him. Like, I want to see what this person's like, cause on the, on one hand, he's king of New York nightlife, this goofy person.

• 32:28Michael Malice?

  And it's also kind of ironic that Gigi Allen is like, maybe he's gross. He's not killing anybody. He's probably an accountant off the stage. And Michael Alec actually did kill someone and then bragged about it, tongue in cheek. So, but meeting him, and he passed away last December, um, on Christmas, actually, on Christmas, uh, twenty, uh, twenty. He was clearly a sociopath. And I'd never met a sociopath before. Now, a lot of times we'll read these, like, you'll take a BuzzFeed quiz, like, are you a sociopath? And it's like, oh, my feelings weren't hurt when I was mean to someone. It's not a thin line between like me and you and him. It's a thick, thick line. Because when you're talking to someone like that, at least in this specific case, he was being very friendly.

• 33:13Michael Malice?

  He wasn't, and it's not like he was gonna kill anyone or as a threat to me. Um, but there's that sense, like something's really off here. And he was talking to me about how after he had killed Angel, he would just talk about it because he felt so much guilt. He just wanted to get caught. It's like, no, no, no, you, what he was describing wasn't guilt. He was describing just, he didn't like the, um, the knife over his head, like waiting to get caught. I'm like, you don't even know what guilt is? So it was kind of like, oh, wow. So.

• 33:46Michael Malice?

  As for Jeffrey Epstein, but the thing is, Michael Aleg was in a very low social position. And the thing is, when someone is powerful, very high status, and they do something, we are, as kind of hierarchical animals, we kind of defer to their norms. So if you're at a party with, let's suppose, either of us, and it's like a Jeffrey Epstein party, and everyone at the party is doing some sort of weird drug we've never heard of, we wouldn't really feel comfortable judging them, because like, their norms kind of become the norm for that space. The lesson for me about Jeffrey Epstein, there's a lot of them, because I think, to me, the

• 34:31Michael Malice?

  biggest moment was the Amy Rohrbach situation. Amy Rohrbach was caught on a hot mic, saying that they had all the goods on him, they had all the names, and that Buckingham Palace called them, they killed the story because they weren't going to get an Meghan Markle interview out of it. So that, the willingness of those in power to do the wrong thing, for the flimsiest pretext, I think was a big, important lesson. Also, the fact that no one at ABC had any consequences for this. In fact, the only person who got in trouble for all this was someone who used to work at ABC, went to, I believe, CBS, and they got fired from CBS because apparently they had access to footage at one point, even though they weren't the ones who had leaked it.

• 35:16Michael Malice?

  So whistleblowers are like, the only, for example, the case in Eric Garner, the guy who was selling Lucy cigarettes in New York City, who was arrested, he had a heart attack, or whatever it was, on the way to jail, he died. The only person, so the cops had a situation, the only person who had gotten in trouble because of that was the guy filming it, like, he went to jail. So I think there is, if there's a lesson in terms of, we, look at Julian Assange, right? There's a huge amount of power exercised by elites to make sure that what is done on the cover of darkness remains on the cover of darkness. And also Kevin McCarthy, who is currently the House Minority Leader. Leader, leader of the Republicans, he wrote a letter to ABC News like you had this guy.

• 36:01Michael Malice?

  Maybe you couldn't call on the authorities, but you could have leaked it to somebody. Why hasn't anything come forward? Nothing happened as a result of this. We also have to keep in mind that the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, Dennis Hastert, went to jail because of things related to pedophilia and things like that. So as Russians, and this is something I think you and I have mentioned before, Americans are very naive, often decreasingly so, about the nature of evil. They think an evil person is someone who's like getting kickbacks. Or, you know, like the Cuomos are colluding, something like that. I would hardly even call that evil. No, no, this is the sort of things that are so depraved that you would never think about it in a million years in your own home. You don't think in these terms.

• 36:44Michael Malice?

  And, and I think they get off on doing things that if the average person heard about it, the average person would be shocked because that gives them this sense of we're above them. We're different from them. The rules don't apply to us.

• 36:57Lex Fridman?

  There's a lot to say here. So what is the norm thing you said at a party? It's really interesting for an anarcast to say that.

• 37:05Michael Malice?

  Well, no, it's.

• 37:06Lex Fridman?

  No, well, I know, I know. I'm not sorry, that came off as criticism. I meant it as harsh criticism. No, I think about that a lot, like, as, you know, I find myself in situations where I'm invited to these kinds of parties where people have nice things. And I find it deeply uncomfortable for that reason. I don't want to be sort of an activist that goes in and ruins a party. That's, that's a, I think that's a, that's not the courageous act. Neither is a courageous, when everyone's doing some weird drug that you mentioned, to join in, I think. Courageous is more.

• 37:48Lex Fridman?

  Being your, remaining yourself, sticking to your principles calmly in that room where everybody is doing the drug and just don't do the drug.

• 37:57Michael Malice?

  Yeah, sure.

• 37:57Lex Fridman?

  Don't make a scene about it, but also don't, don't do it. And I think that little act of courage over time is the way you resist Jeffrey Epstein. That exactly the thing you said is, is probably the situation where charisma works. So one charismatic person gets the little crowd going and the crowd is everybody sort of establishes a norm at the little crowd. And yes, there could be some dynamics that allow that norm to be established. Like you said, like rich and powerful people might enjoy being rich and powerful and better than everybody else kind of, kind of thing. But like I, especially for scientists, I, I thought they should have integrity and courage

• 38:42Lex Fridman?

  enough to, to see through that, not again, as an activist, like so you can tweet about it, how courageous you are, but just literally, see, there's something off here. There's something off here and I'm not going to participate in it.

• 38:55Michael Malice?

  I'm going to defend these scientists because something off, first of all.

• 38:59Lex Fridman?

  You're always defending academia is disgusting.

• 39:02Michael Malice?

  It's my favorite thing. I think that, first of all, this is going to sound like a joke and it's not, I bet you 90% of those MIT scientists are on the spectrum. So everyone they're going to meet is going to be off, right? So I'm sure part of their brain is like, okay, this person's weird. This is just them being on the spectrum.

• 39:19Lex Fridman?

  Like the light spectrum? I couldn't even finish the joke. Okay, go ahead.

• 39:23Michael Malice?

  Number two is off, we, we tend to, there's this poem, I forget who wrote it. It was like Nick Cave or something and it was describing, like, I think it was Goebbels. Hair, normal. Height, normal. Weight, normal. What do you expect? Horns, right? So when you meet someone, you think something's off, there's going to be a bell curve of what that could be, right? It could be that they're twitchy or maybe they're completely asocial. And then you have Jeffrey Epstein over here. You're gonna need a lot of evidence to be like, oh, I feel something off there for this guy's the head of an international, you know, sex trafficking ring. So, yeah,

• 40:04Michael Malice?

  you might be like, okay, but at the same time, if their extended relationship is this guy is interested in my work, he's gonna fund my work, and I don't have to give him anything in return. He's clearly intelligent, he's appreciating it. And being a scientist is a thankless job. I know what it's like as an author. When I was writing Dear Reader, the North Korea book, my friends are sick of hearing all these North Korea anecdotes because at a certain point, it's like, okay, we get it, just save it for the book. And, you know, you gotta be in that lab, you're looking at the springtails, whatever it is you're looking at. No one knows what a springtail is.

• 40:33Lex Fridman?

  I just disagree with you. So that'd be interesting to draw the distinction between science and writing, because the scientific process itself is fun as fuck. You're solving little puzzles.

• 40:44Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 40:44Lex Fridman?

  So like, in itself, it's fun. So like, it's rewarding. Like, the reason you go into science is you can continue, really without a boss, to continue having fun and solving puzzles. That's, that's literally, so like, unless you become cynical and tired of the whole thing. So the people, the administration, or when you're running a large lab, and what you get sick of is the emails and the meetings and all that kind of stuff. The actual act of being in the lab is still fun as fuck, if you allow it to be. Writing, I feel like, there's more priority to publishing. Like, would you enjoy it, the tree falling in the

• 41:26Lex Fridman?

  forest? Would you still enjoy any of the books you've written if they never got published?

• 41:31Michael Malice?

  Not to the same extent, not even close.

• 41:33Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 41:33Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 41:34Lex Fridman?

  I think that the thing about science, it's almost like you get a peek into the mysterious.

• 41:39Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but this is, okay, this is where I'm coming from. Since moving to Austin, I've bought 150, over 150 plants.

• 41:47Lex Fridman?

  I like how you're doing the politician thing.

• 41:49Michael Malice?

  Look, let me be clear. All right?

• 41:54Lex Fridman?

  You are running in 2024. This is very interesting.

• 41:58Michael Malice?

  I bought 150 succulents in my house. They're thriving here in Austin as they wouldn't have in Brooklyn.

• 42:04Lex Fridman?

  You have a great video about it.

• 42:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, one of those plants I have is the photo I took on my Instagram. There's no other photos on the whole internet. None of my friends care. Or they care like ostensibly, but like, oh, that's cool. Like, I have a better plant collection in my house than like almost any botanical, succulent collection than any botanical garden in America than probably the Huntington, and no one cares.

• 42:23Lex Fridman?

  This is what ego looks like, by the way.

• 42:25Michael Malice?

  I was, I, I can prove it to you.

• 42:27Lex Fridman?

  No, I know, but you don't have to rub it in.

• 42:29Michael Malice?

  Well, they, they have a big budget. I don't. So if I can put it together, they should be able to.

• 42:34Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 42:34Michael Malice?

  So I can only imagine that a scientist who studied, you know, those spiders that look like ants, like at a cer-, like, oh, and this species does this with the gender dimorphism. Their friends are only going to care so much. So if you meet someone who has a lot of money, who now cares about ant spiders, it's going to be exciting.

• 42:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it will be very exciting. But I, I just wanted to push back on the,

• 43:00Lex Fridman?

  I think the act itself should be the biggest reward. I think you're always safe. We're talking about goodness being a safe default. I think it's a good default for, for plants and for writing and for science is to just enjoy the act, even if nobody cares.

• 43:18Michael Malice?

  Okay, this is where this, okay, now I'm even, now I'm wondering why I'm pushing back so hard. I realized what it was because I've, I've made this point several times and I'm glad I can make it again. There's this window of time that happened in my life, and I know it happens to a lot of people, when you're in your like 24 to 27, 28, right? So 21 to 24, like you still have your friends from college, so on and so forth, right? But then it's kind of like a poker game and, you know, every so often people cash out. They're like, I'm out, I'm out. They get married, they get a job, they move. And if you are someone who's a young, ambitious, creative, that window is a very rough one because you're doing the right thing, right? And you're not being, you know, a drug addict, you're not being a philanderer, not that those things are wrong,

• 44:03Michael Malice?

  but just like you're playing by the rules, you're creating your stuff, what you want to be known for, contribution you want to make for the world, and no one cares and it gets very lonely. And there is this very emotional disconnect about how is it that I'm creating and I'm working hard and I'm making something happen and it's just radio silence. So that, I don't think it's that easy when you're, you're, you're the scientist, not me, when you don't have any kind of external validation. Humans only have so much fuel.

• 44:36Lex Fridman?

  Nothing worth having is easy, Michael. By the way, yesterday, talked on the phone with a person, he said he was deeply moved. The first time you mentioned this age group of 24 to 27, he's like, he's 26, he said, and he feels the full responsibility of that and the excitement. So he left his like, corporate type B job to pursue something that he's really passionate about. And that that was like, you were an inspiration to him, which I was deeply saddened by that.

• 45:07Michael Malice?

  I also inspired Michael Alex.

• 45:13Lex Fridman?

  The amount of mass murder those that were inspired by you will eventually lead to is is truly horrifying. What were we talking about? So Jeffrey Epstein, oh, one thing I wanted to ask you. So let's put scientists aside. What about like, world leaders, Bill Clinton, your favorite person? Why would he fly with Jeffrey Epstein? Why would he interact with that guy?

• 45:41Michael Malice?

  I mean, don't you think that that's kind of the deal? That I'm the president and I get big and powerful people flying around their jets? And that's the symbiotic relationship?

• 45:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but don't you also have a good BS detector? Like, don't you have a good detector for people who just want to be in your presence? Like, I already understand that there's people like this out there. Like, there's people that kind of want to use me for stuff. And

• 46:12Michael Malice?

  You mean Tim Dillon?

• 46:13Lex Fridman?

  Tim Dillon.

• 46:19Lex Fridman?

  I love that guy. You guys met?

• 46:21Michael Malice?

  We haven't met yet here.

• 46:22Lex Fridman?

  You haven't met? Okay, wow.

• 46:24Michael Malice?

  We met before in New York, but we had not since I moved here.

• 46:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so you should be able to detect that there's those people and there's the people that have kindness in their heart, even if they can benefit from the interaction with you. But they have like, they're good human beings. I feel like you want to, you run into a lot of trouble if you surround yourself or have any people that are manipulative.

• 46:44Michael Malice?

  But I think you make a bad example, because like, let's look at Clinton and let's look at Obama, right? So Obama, even though their politics are very close, I'd say in many ways, Obama is Apparent, we don't know, I don't know either of them. But to me, it seems very apparent that he's a very similar behind closed doors as he in front of the camera.

• 47:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, he's Barack to me.

• 47:03Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:04Lex Fridman?

  We're, he's good.

• 47:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Clinton seems very clearly to be much more of a performer. He's in front of the cameras, he puts on a role, but behind the cameras, he very much has a temper. He's known for that. He's much more of a lech.

• 47:19Lex Fridman?

  What's that?

• 47:20Michael Malice?

  A pervert.

• 47:21Lex Fridman?

  Oh, lech with an E?

• 47:22Michael Malice?

  L E T C H, yeah.

• 47:24Lex Fridman?

  Oh, cool. Lech, is that like, that's a cool term, so I can use that on the internet? Like, you're a lech.

• 47:30Michael Malice?

  Yeah, you could use on the internet.

• 47:31Lex Fridman?

  You're a dirty lech.

• 47:32Michael Malice?

  Well, it's a dirty is implied.

• 47:34Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so it's, okay.

• 47:35Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so.

• 47:36Lex Fridman?

  Being redundant.

• 47:37Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 47:38Lex Fridman?

  But it just feels like he needs an adjective to give it more power. Anyway, I'm sorry, so Clinton is a lech.

• 47:44Michael Malice?

  Right, so you can see how there's people who want to meet, you know, the surface Bill Clinton, and I'm sure that gets old for him because he has to be on. But then there's the good old boys, where he could be a pervert, and this guy's like, yeah, I know what it's like. And then he feels like he's himself, but I'm all, we're all speculating. I mean, I don't know what Bill Clinton is like, what was in it for him. He certainly had, could afford private jets if he wanted to. There's no shortage of people who want to fly around the world to give speeches, you know, at, you know.

• 48:13Lex Fridman?

  Can't, can't he satisfy the lech within? In, without hanging out with the Jeffrey Epstein's of the world? Like, can't he get, I mean, this is the Monica Lewinsky question to me. I'm, I'm confused by all of this. Can't he get

• 48:29Lex Fridman?

  women in a legitimate way of like, not using his power, not hanging out with these shady rich people? But just like, having a normal mistress like JFK had?

• 48:42Michael Malice?

  Well, JFK had a lot.

• 48:43Lex Fridman?

  I know, I understand that, but in a normal way, or I don't, I don't know enough about JFK.

• 48:47Michael Malice?

  I, I, I don't understand the Clinton psychology. First of all, the fact that you're hooking up with someone who's close to your daughter's age, to me, I think was, is inherently disturbing. But she's an adult, so, okay, that's not that, that, you know, beyond the pale. But also the idea that, oh, if I don't. Physically fornicate with you, it's not cheating. Like that, whatever you tell yourself, or like if I don't ejaculate, it's not cheating. Like, these rules.

• 49:18Lex Fridman?

  And maybe it leads to some kind of slippery slope. Like, you start not having the rules of.

• 49:23Michael Malice?

  But who you fool? I mean, if you told your wife, like, listen, it wasn't cheating. She only, you know, performed on me. You're gonna say this with a straight face? Like, do you, I, I, at a certain point, when something is so brazen, you wonder if the person even has to believe it, because who are you fooling?

• 49:41Lex Fridman?

  But like, we started this, this conversation with, there is a line between young women older than eighteen and, um, young teen, like, twelve, thirteen, kids.

• 49:52Michael Malice?

  Have you ever, when's the last, oh, because you're, it's different for you because you're at MIT. I was hanging out with, uh, Blair White, and she had a couple of fans with her, of hers, and they were like twenty-two, twenty-three, and they were like children to me.

• 50:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Michael Malice?

  Like, I'm like, to, to me, as someone who is in his late sixties, to look at these people as adults, like, they look completely like kids. So, that.

• 50:18Lex Fridman?

  Now, of course, there's exceptions. Like, I've interacted with a young twenty, twenty-year-olds that are like, you're way more mature than I'll ever be. Like, the wisdom that comes out of them is, is quite fascinating.

• 50:30Michael Malice?

  Visually, the, the, the energy and the way they looked, they looked so young to me. And the, the way they carried themselves, it was, the, the idea that, my instinct was, let's tuck you in and read you a bedtime story, not, let me, like, touch you or something. It was just like, I, like, it was just wouldn't enter my head. So, there's, but the thing is, is it possible that in order to want to be the president, you have to be a crazy person?

• 50:57Lex Fridman?

  Hmm, that you have some kind of weird view on power. It could be a power thing, too.

• 51:03Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Lex Fridman?

  Like, like, you can get away with stuff.

• 51:06Michael Malice?

  Like, if I was Clinton's age, nothing about Monica Lewinsky to me would be attractive. And also, I would just feel bad for her, because I know she's gonna catch feelings. And it's kind of like.

• 51:17Lex Fridman?

  Catch feelings, yes, true. This is very true.

• 51:19Michael Malice?

  It's just like, why would I do this to this kid? For what? Just because I want to get some, like, momentary pleasure? Come on.

• 51:26Lex Fridman?

  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure she looked gorgeous to him in the moment.

• 51:33Lex Fridman?

  Well, let me ask, we started talking about beauty. Who are you wearing?

• 51:40Lex Fridman?

  So as a model, you usually don't have a shirt on when you're modeling. So it's nice to see you dressed up today.

• 51:53Lex Fridman?

  Nice and warm.

• 51:54Michael Malice?

  This is because, so for those who don't know, Russians don't celebrate Christmas. Obviously, with the Soviet Union, Christmas was illegal.

• 52:02Lex Fridman?

  No Thanksgiving, basically no major holidays where everyone gets together. This is the one holiday, New Year's.

• 52:08Michael Malice?

  Yeah, New Year's.

• 52:08Lex Fridman?

  The one holiday.

• 52:09Michael Malice?

  And instead of, I remember as a kid, instead of Santa Claus, we have Jedmaroz, who's the same thing, basically.

• 52:15Lex Fridman?

  It's like Android and iPhone. It's like a cheap version of Christmas.

• 52:19Michael Malice?

  He's got this girl with him. She's like Snow White or whatever. And Russian kids, they go to sleep on December 31st and they wake up January. They have a present under their pillow. And I remember as a kid, this happened once and it just blew my mind. You know what I mean? It's just like, I went to bed, my dad's like, oh, you know, you're gonna have, Jedmaroz is gonna bring you a present if you've been a good kid. I'm like, I think I was a good kid. But you don't even remember a year of your life when you're four. You remember like two weeks.

• 52:45Lex Fridman?

  You remember those moments.

• 52:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah. And then I woke up and there was a present under my pillow and I was, it just blew my mind. And that building is still there, 1461 Shro Parkway in Brooklyn. So, and it's just also funny, like, what I really like about kids, you know, being an uncle now, is kid logic. Because they have very little data, but they're using logic to make sense of it. And sometimes it gives them the completely wrong conclusions for the completely right reasons. I remember, you know, my bedroom as a kid was right off the kitchen and I'd be scared of the dark a little bit, so they'd leave the light on the kitchen while I went to sleep. And at the same time, my parents had told me, you don't leave the lights on the house.

• 53:29Michael Malice?

  It costs money, wastes electricity, right? So I would be worried because I'm like, oh, my God, my parents leave the lights on the kitchen all night. And now it's costing them so much money, not realizing that, you know, five minutes after I'm out, obviously they're turning the lights off. But like in my kid logic, this was a concern of mine.

• 53:46Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and memories work that same way. I have a collection of memories that are stitched together logically somehow, but they also don't really make sense. There's a few defining things. So I grew up in Russia and experienced a lot of New Years in Russia. There's a lot of incredible things about that tradition that just warms my heart. So one, as a kid, you mentioned these kinds of stories. That's the one night of the year that kids are allowed to be adults in the following way, like in kid logic. You're allowed to stay up all night.

• 54:23Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 54:24Lex Fridman?

  Those as late as you want, which actually ends up being you're not used to.

• 54:28Michael Malice?

  Eleven, right, you're out.

• 54:30Lex Fridman?

  You crash, but no, you get to, you know, two, three, four at night. You stay up and what you get to witness is almost like Alice in Wonderland goes into this world. You get to witness what is the adult world really like? Now, obviously, it's not an actual adult world. Merriment, like laughing, fighting, arguing, but also like in our case, like singing and like, yeah, arguing, like philosophical stuff, but also like, if I may, how would I describe it? This is also probably a little bit Russian culture, but like flirtation in all of its forms, meaning like men and women just being like, because they dress up.

• 55:15Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:16Lex Fridman?

  It's like, it's joy. It's like you get to show off like dresses, whatever you got. You show it off. This is fun. And then men too, just like friends laughing, like arguing, just showing off the best they got with delicious food. Obviously, there's a Thanksgiving element there. Where there's just so many, just you bring out all the traditional stuff. The IBS salad, just everything, just the full thing with the desserts. And obviously the vodka, a lot of vodka. And at the time, so this is the Soviet Union.

• 55:54Lex Fridman?

  Like the biggest stuff, and this is so sad that these are the things I remember is like Coca-Cola.

• 56:00Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:01Lex Fridman?

  Like American, like that, I'll probably kill somebody for a Dr. Pepper. It's so fascinating that you take it for granted, sort of the results of capitalist society, material things that are created, but that was the ultimate happiness is to experience this new thing, sugar. I don't know.

• 56:26Michael Malice?

  Do you know there's like a-

• 56:27Lex Fridman?

  Under scarcity, you just-

• 56:28Michael Malice?

  There's like communist Coca-Cola in Czech Republic. So basically, they tried to rip off Coke.

• 56:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Michael Malice?

  And it's just like, it's like they just threw whatever they could together. And it was a very poor knockoff, as you can imagine. I forget what it's called and all the Czech people right now are getting very angry at me because I can't think of it, but they have it now. And the slogan is good or weird. So it's like this, so they kind of reclaimed this kind of hipster soda. Yeah.

• 56:54Lex Fridman?

  Oh, that's awesome. It's almost like a parody.

• 56:56Michael Malice?

  Right, yeah.

• 56:57Lex Fridman?

  But I think the thing I really remember is the camaraderie. Like the love for each other and neighbors too. Like, like you and I are neighbors now. We don't see each other that often. I hope that changes, but a lot of it is also me. I'm just a deep introvert.

• 57:17Michael Malice?

  You're also the hardest working person I know.

• 57:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so it's time, but you know, like, it's not like I'll go in the middle of the night at like 4:00 a.m. and go to 7-Eleven and just sit there sipping a Slurpee for an hour, thinking about life. It's not like I'm always working. Yeah, I don't know. What I mean is like you get to meet your neighbors and you get to experience their, their highs and their lows, and you get to bitch about life, about government, about corruption, about the unfairness of life together.

• 57:50Michael Malice?

  Well, it's also, I think, what people don't appreciate as Americans is it's very rare in Russia to have a safe space.

• 57:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Michael Malice?

  So you know that that January 1st, no one's going to snitch on you, you know, they're not going to be informants probably. So you can vent and, and, you know, that's the thing with people in totalitarian countries. You have to have the public facing persona and then behind closed doors is very different.

• 58:14Lex Fridman?

  It all comes out. And I also remember the arguments and I've, I've been going on Clubhouse recently into Russian rooms.

• 58:23Lex Fridman?

  Well, just to practice Russian and they, it's so beautiful to watch. I mean, Clubhouse is a very specific collection of Russian people. Maybe it's a little bit political, but, and they're a little bit older. And it's interesting to watch how much they love to argue.

• 58:42Michael Malice?

  Oh, Russian love to argue.

• 58:44Lex Fridman?

  And so like it would be literally, you could think of it as a nonlinear dynamical system. Okay. From an engineering perspective.

• 58:54Lex Fridman?

  It, whenever any positive topic comes up, it's, you could, you could feel the skepticism and then wait a minute. This is not good. And they'll start like perturbing it until you're like, they'll find some way to say like, come on now. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And then it goes back into argument. It's so fun to watch because in one sense you could see it as negative. In another, you could see it as free to express yourself because it feels like you can solve a lot of problems by allowing yourself to just be emotional, both, both emotional and say hard truths and all those kinds of things. Without like, without patting yourself on the back about it.

• 59:39Lex Fridman?

  But also it just sort of those Russian rooms make me realize how constrained American speech is. How careful people are in the way they express it, even the Michael Malsus in the world. You're, you're constantly being like nuanced.

• 59:55Lex Fridman?

  There, they just say crazy shit.

• 59:57Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:58Lex Fridman?

  And then they correct themselves and make fun of themselves and they completely shift opinions a minute later and it's it's chaos.

• 1:00:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Lex Fridman?

  And it's, I mean, it's beautiful. So I, I love that that culture is, it's funny, given the current regime in Russia, like how that's coupled with how people are talking. And, um, yeah, I don't know. And I have those memories of childhood of, of friends that I had of just having that true freedom of talking and somehow that leads to, uh, deep bonds together. Uh, when, when the life, when you're poor, when life is, uh, has a lot of elements that are unfair, when the government is corrupt, there's sort of, it's just, um, especially in the Soviet Union, there's uncertainty about the future, all of it. You just get closer together, like penguins huddling together in the cold, like

• 1:00:48Lex Fridman?

  that March of the Penguins movie, that, I don't know. Uh, the, the friends I've gotten there, like, I get emotional every time I kind of think about those friends because it was so close. That friendship was so fucking.

• 1:01:04Michael Malice?

  But I just really hate the, the Russian cynicism.

• 1:01:07Lex Fridman?

  No, I know you do. And I actually disagree with you about it. You see it as cynicism. I see it as, um, waves on top of the water, like surface cynicism and the depths as I see the beauty of the Russian soul. So we, like, yes, that cynicism can negatively affect a lot of people. Like you, I think you've talked about, like, as a parent, like, uh, being cynical about the world.

• 1:01:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Lex Fridman?

  And then you have dire negative consequences on your children. They become cynical. They don't ever take big risks or take on bold things. And I have those arguments, um, because the cynicism is exhausting. It's destructive.

• 1:01:44Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:01:44Lex Fridman?

  It's anti-creative. But, so in, in their perspective is, this is what the Russian folks would say, well, yes, that's our role. Like, Being cynical is being reasonable about the world.

• 1:01:57Michael Malice?

  But it's not. It's completely unreasonable. It's a complete lie.

• 1:02:00Lex Fridman?

  No, I know. But their argument is, yes, but we're, we're giving you this force and it's your job to resist against it. So it's a test.

• 1:02:09Michael Malice?

  I, I love the idea that if you're gonna be creative and innovative, you don't have enough up against you.

• 1:02:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. This is exactly it.

• 1:02:16Michael Malice?

  Oh, I don't, I don't, it's not hard enough already that I wanna be an author. Now you gotta be like, well, what, let, let me just put some fire ants on top of it.

• 1:02:23Lex Fridman?

  So I, I just wanna separate, I agree with you that the cynicism is, is bad and destructive. But the idea that life is suffering and thinking from that as a first principle, I think there's a lot of beauty to be discovered through that. So there's a cynicism and then there's horrible message.

• 1:02:46Michael Malice?

  Life is suffering?

• 1:02:48Lex Fridman?

  Not, not, well, yeah, I mean, Camus.

• 1:02:52Michael Malice?

  Camus doesn't think that.

• 1:02:55Lex Fridman?

  The, now we're going into definitions of suffering then. Because absurd, what, see.

• 1:03:02Michael Malice?

  Life is absurd and life is suffering are not even close to the same concept.

• 1:03:05Lex Fridman?

  Well, then you're just defining the terms differently.

• 1:03:07Michael Malice?

  Well, that's because they're different terms.

• 1:03:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, well, so is love and beauty, but let's, so let's define.

• 1:03:12Michael Malice?

  Wait, you're selling if your baby's in the crib, like with a fever, you're like, oh, that's absurd. No, it's the kid's suffering. It's not the same.

• 1:03:19Lex Fridman?

  So, yes, starvation, see, you've been, for White Pill, researching a lot of actual specifically defined suffering.

• 1:03:26Michael Malice?

  Sure, but also a lot of, of wonderful things.

• 1:03:30Lex Fridman?

  Right, yeah, yeah. But the, the word suffering can encompass more than just specifically starving. And it could, the, it can encompass, like, a lot of the philosophers talk about it, encompass like philosophical suffering. The fact that there is, if, if you're not careful, life was, can appear meaningless. You can fall into a nihilistic view, like, it, it's, it's, it's difficult to have the responsibility of freedom to act in this world, because you can fuck up in so many different ways. And then life is seemingly unfair in this, in the sense that. Good things happen for no apparent reason and terrible things happen for no apparent.

• 1:04:12Lex Fridman?

  Like, you know, it's the old religious question of why does evil happen in the world? Or why do terrible things happen in the world?

• 1:04:19Michael Malice?

  There's this book called Six Word Memoirs, right? Where all these different personalities.

• 1:04:24Lex Fridman?

  Those are awesome.

• 1:04:24Michael Malice?

  Were you in it?

• 1:04:25Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 1:04:26Michael Malice?

  I'm in it with, so you had to basically write your autobiography in six words.

• 1:04:29Lex Fridman?

  In six words.

• 1:04:30Michael Malice?

  And mine was, good things happen to bad people.

• 1:04:34Lex Fridman?

  You see, there you go. There's humor.

• 1:04:36Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:04:36Lex Fridman?

  That's your way of dealing with the suffering.

• 1:04:38Michael Malice?

  But I don't think life is inherent. If life was suffering, we wouldn't be able to have happiness.

• 1:04:43Lex Fridman?

  No, out of suffering, happiness is born. So like, it's, it's the ups and downs of life. And what it means like.

• 1:04:49Michael Malice?

  I don't, this, I just, I don't agree at all that you need to suffer in order to be happy. I agree, you have to work hard, but that's not the same thing.

• 1:04:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, all right. So the way I'm using suffering, and I think a lot of them use suffering is the way you use like gravity. So in order for the roller coaster to work, you need gravity. There needs to be a force that bring you down.

• 1:05:11Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 1:05:12Lex Fridman?

  In that same way, there's like, you have to resist the natural pull of nature that wants to destroy you.

• 1:05:22Michael Malice?

  No, nature wants you to, nature's indifferent. But we have the capacity, because we're blessed with minds and we're blessed with friends.

• 1:05:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, to transcend.

• 1:05:34Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:05:35Lex Fridman?

  Nature. Yeah. No, I know, but I think it's, it's a word that captures something about life that there's no reason to it, that is absurd. I think, to me, oftentimes, the way I think about the word suffering is synonymous with absurdity.

• 1:05:52Michael Malice?

  This is not suffering. But this is absurd.

• 1:05:57Lex Fridman?

  I just noticed there's a box with the big bow on it next to you. What's in the box, Michael?

• 1:06:03Michael Malice?

  It's your present, so it's your present for New Year's.

• 1:06:05Lex Fridman?

  Can, can we open it?

• 1:06:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:06:09Lex Fridman?

  What's in the box?

• 1:06:11Michael Malice?

  It's gonna take.

• 1:06:11Lex Fridman?

  And you brought up suffering. This is gonna be very unpleasant.

• 1:06:14Michael Malice?

  Here you go. I packed it myself. Yeah, there's a whole process in there. So there's three presents in there.

• 1:06:25Lex Fridman?

  Lex, I'll read the card first.

• 1:06:28Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Lex Fridman?

  Something about opening presents, like tearing stuff, makes me feel like, because like I just tore this sheet of paper.

• 1:06:41Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Lex Fridman?

  So it'll never be the same again.

• 1:06:44Michael Malice?

  It's entropy.

• 1:06:44Lex Fridman?

  It's entropy. Times, you've got a powerful voice.

• 1:06:50Lex Fridman?

  You've got a powerful voice.

• 1:06:55Lex Fridman?

  To Lex, thank you. Maybe I should read the other card first. You've got a powerful voice. Listening to what you have to say always puts me in a hopeful place. I feel like this is building up to something. You show me how change can happen when you face the world with pride, confidence, and a voice that can't be silence. Keep speaking up. The world is listening.

• 1:07:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Lex Fridman?

  There's no cynicism in this card.

• 1:07:19Michael Malice?

  No, this is about, this is New Year's. This is all about hope and joy. What?

• 1:07:24Lex Fridman?

  To Lex, I'm seeing the binary. To Lex, thank you for setting the path for me to move to Austin. 01 001 001 011 011 000111 0101. Michael Malice.

• 1:07:42Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Lex Fridman?

  Brings tears to my eyes. Thank you, brother.

• 1:07:48Michael Malice?

  My pleasure.

• 1:07:50Lex Fridman?

  Let's get to the present.

• 1:07:54Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:07:55Lex Fridman?

  It's a, it's a PC box. This is very promising. It better not be sex toys.

• 1:08:02Michael Malice?

  There's nothing, this is all, there's nothing inappropriate at all. Why would it?

• 1:08:07Lex Fridman?

  Why would sex toys be inappropriate?

• 1:08:09Michael Malice?

  Because you're-

• 1:08:09Lex Fridman?

  That's sex positive.

• 1:08:10Michael Malice?

  Because you're a virgin.

• 1:08:15Lex Fridman?

  You gotta bring a knife to a party.

• 1:08:20Lex Fridman?

  How clever is it to put it in a PC box?

• 1:08:23Michael Malice?

  Well, I had it. I just got a new PC.

• 1:08:26Michael Malice?

  Okay. Again, there's also a can.

• 1:08:28Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 1:08:28Michael Malice?

  Open the can first.

• 1:08:29Lex Fridman?

  Open the can.

• 1:08:34Lex Fridman?

  You're happy yourself?

• 1:08:41Lex Fridman?

  That scares shit out of me.

• 1:08:50Lex Fridman?

  Get back in the can. That actually stayed in there. That's magic.

• 1:08:54Michael Malice?

  You just gotta cut the string.

• 1:08:57Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 1:09:05Lex Fridman?

  You're the most beautiful troll of all.

• 1:09:07Michael Malice?

  I am.

• 1:09:07Lex Fridman?

  I love you so much.

• 1:09:15Lex Fridman?

  This is awesome.

• 1:09:22Michael Malice?

  Did it not work? Pick it up.

• 1:09:27Michael Malice?

  Oh, it didn't work.

• 1:09:32Lex Fridman?

  There's a terrifying springy feeling to this thing. I don't want to open this.

• 1:09:38Michael Malice?

  I need to move something aside.

• 1:09:48Lex Fridman?

  I hate you so much.

• 1:09:49Michael Malice?

  What?

• 1:09:50Lex Fridman?

  What?

• 1:09:53Lex Fridman?

  Oh, is it the other way?

• 1:09:54Michael Malice?

  No, just pick it up.

• 1:10:14Lex Fridman?

  Can't believe I fell for that. I hate you so much.

• 1:10:18Lex Fridman?

  Wrenches are my favorite. I can't believe I fell for that.

• 1:10:22Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:10:23Lex Fridman?

  There's box number three.

• 1:10:25Michael Malice?

  It's like a matryoshka.

• 1:10:26Lex Fridman?

  I can't believe that worked.

• 1:10:27Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Michael Malice?

  I wanted the box to open all these gears to fall out, but you can't get any.

• 1:10:34Lex Fridman?

  You can't get them?

• 1:10:34Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Lex Fridman?

  Does that really grind your?

• 1:10:38Michael Malice?

  You know what grinds your gears?

• 1:10:42Lex Fridman?

  Why am I scared? Okay.

• 1:10:52Lex Fridman?

  There's another box.

• 1:10:58Lex Fridman?

  This leads to my death.

• 1:11:00Michael Malice?

  No, no, this is, this is, there's a story behind it.

• 1:11:05Lex Fridman?

  I can't believe that worked. Oh God, that's so good. Alright.

• 1:11:12Lex Fridman?

  Alright, no springs, no weapons.

• 1:11:14Michael Malice?

  No wrenches?

• 1:11:22Michael Malice?

  Okay, so let me tell you the story behind that toy.

• 1:11:27Lex Fridman?

  Tonka, robots that turn into vehicles.

• 1:11:30Michael Malice?

  So, when you, there, when I was a kid, you had Transformers, but for us poor people, you had GoBots, right? So, the GoBots, there were four main characters for the good guys. It was Leader One, Smallfoot Turbo, and Scooter. And what was annoying is, when you had the action figures, you couldn't find the ones that were on the TV show. And I was a big GoBots fan as a kid, and I went once to the Toys R Us in Caesar's Bay in Brooklyn with my grandfather. My grandfather was always very lucky, like, just good things happened to him every so often. And I went there, I remember very vividly, they must have just unpacked, just loaded the shelves, and how they had the shelving, it would be like, like a grid, you know, you'd have like, it was like, one, two, three, four, five,

• 1:12:16Michael Malice?

  five rows, and like, five by five. And I remember, it was like, two up, and then, you have to do, you have to sit by the side, and kind of sort through them. And with the GoBots, each package had a picture of the different figures, so the packaging wasn't uniform. And they just had Scooter there. She was just sitting there. And I was like, holy crap. So, that feeling, when you're a kid, and you find that, just sitting on the shelf-

• 1:12:41Lex Fridman?

  Scooter's right there.

• 1:12:41Michael Malice?

  It's just, it was such this symbol-

• 1:12:43Lex Fridman?

  Wait, is this that scooter?

• 1:12:44Michael Malice?

  No, I have it though, but that one is for you. I thought, if you want to put it next to your other robots-

• 1:12:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:49Michael Malice?

  You can open it up.

• 1:12:50Lex Fridman?

  I can open it up?

• 1:12:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, it's for you. And that way, uh, it's that symbol of joy, when you have, when you're a kid, when you find something you really want. I think it just, it's really like, so when people look at it, they'll be like, don't be hopeless.

• 1:13:03Lex Fridman?

  I'll open this carefully later.

• 1:13:05Michael Malice?

  No, do it, do it, just-

• 1:13:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I should, should do it now, okay.

• 1:13:07Michael Malice?

  There's no way to open it carefully. Kids don't open stuff carefully. You rip that crap open.

• 1:13:12Lex Fridman?

  But then you break in, then you cry. That's what happens when you're a kid.

• 1:13:15Michael Malice?

  I never did that.

• 1:13:16Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Me neither. I never cried, but never got presents either.

• 1:13:24Michael Malice?

  That is so cool.

• 1:13:25Lex Fridman?

  Hi, Scooter.

• 1:13:29Lex Fridman?

  You symbolize childlike discovery.

• 1:13:32Michael Malice?

  Right?

• 1:13:37Lex Fridman?

  Poor, the poor man's robot.

• 1:13:40Michael Malice?

  The poor man's Transformers.

• 1:13:43Michael Malice?

  I think there's instructions on the back how to transform her.

• 1:13:47Lex Fridman?

  To her?

• 1:13:47Michael Malice?

  I only found out as an adult that it was supposed to be a girl. Yeah.

• 1:13:50Lex Fridman?

  Wow, this changes everything.

• 1:13:57Michael Malice?

  No, give me here. Let me show you. It looks better when she's transformed.

• 1:14:01Michael Malice?

  What?

• 1:14:02Lex Fridman?

  No, there's, there's levels to that statement.

• 1:14:04Michael Malice?

  Oh. How does it do like this? Let me see if I remember how to do it. Cause I had this as a kid.

• 1:14:10Lex Fridman?

  Arms out.

• 1:14:13Michael Malice?

  Let go. The thing is, these are easy to break, I remember. Is it like this?

• 1:14:19Lex Fridman?

  No. Oh, the, the front comes out.

• 1:14:22Michael Malice?

  Oh, let me see this. Oh, this comes up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:26Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 1:14:26Michael Malice?

  So that's that. The arm scope.

• 1:14:30Lex Fridman?

  I'm having visions of like baby Michael.

• 1:14:34Michael Malice?

  I can't do it. Okay, I can't do it. I can't figure it out.

• 1:14:37Lex Fridman?

  Wow, you're right. She looks so much better transformed. Oh. Alright. I'm gonna follow the instructions in a bit and I'll leave.

• 1:14:47Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:47Lex Fridman?

  I'm, I'm, I'll leave this failed project of yours.

• 1:14:52Lex Fridman?

  Oh, there's a wheel out.

• 1:14:54Michael Malice?

  Look, I don't like this in-between form.

• 1:14:58Lex Fridman?

  Well, this is how it's gonna be.

• 1:15:00Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:15:01Lex Fridman?

  Because we're gonna be accepting of the transformation. That takes time.

• 1:15:06Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:15:07Lex Fridman?

  I got.

• 1:15:10Lex Fridman?

  I saw this.

• 1:15:13Michael Malice?

  Oh, what's this?

• 1:15:14Lex Fridman?

  Little thing when I was walking on Congress and it says, uh, resist. It's a bracelet. It made me think of you. The reason I got it is because there's two bracelets. So one said lucky fuck. And the other one said resist. Now, I first saw resist and I'm like, and then I saw the lucky fuck and I realized I'm a lucky fuck to find a, a, a relevant.

• 1:15:37Lex Fridman?

  It makes me think of you.

• 1:15:38Michael Malice?

  This is very nice.

• 1:15:39Lex Fridman?

  Resist the powerful.

• 1:15:41Michael Malice?

  That's true.

• 1:15:44Lex Fridman?

  I saw this somewhere, the.

• 1:15:46Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:49Lex Fridman?

  This has to do with.

• 1:15:53Lex Fridman?

  In terms of resist, you often bring up the book, uh, Machiavellians by James Burnham. And. So I was, I was looking through, I was reading different parts. It's, it's a tricky read. It's a little bit.

• 1:16:07Lex Fridman?

  But there, there is a ebook Kindle version now that I've been, um, working through this. I think there's actually an audiobook too. Anyway.

• 1:16:14Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I just bought some, the Machiavellians is, is James Burnham's analysis of four. Thinkers that he regards as the Machiavellians, who's Gaetana Moscow, Philfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel. And, um. I'm blanking on the Moscow, Pareto, Sorel.

• 1:16:33Michael Malice?

  And Georges, uh, Georges Michel, and I just got Pareto's autograph in the mail this week.

• 1:16:39Lex Fridman?

  So he, he talks about freedom and liberty. This interesting. Line that I'd like to get your opinion on in terms of resist and in terms of liberty. There's no one force, it goes quote. There's no one force, no group and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power.

• 1:17:04Lex Fridman?

  Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial in relation to entrenched power as the old court jesters. So, I mean, the question here is can liberty is, are you comfortable with that definition or that view of liberty, of freedom, that it at its highest ideal is expressed through the resistance to the powerful as opposed to existing in its own?

• 1:17:30Michael Malice?

  I think his point broadly speaking, which I agree with, is the only thing that can work to mitigate power is other power. That it's, um, uh, talk is cheap and persuasion has very limited efficacy. It's like, if there's a burglar, right, and one person will give you a speech about property rights and you shouldn't be in this person's house, and the other person has a gun, you know, it's, it's clear which is going to be more persuasive.

• 1:18:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but can't you just be free without this struggle, without this conflict? And what I'm uncomfortable with this view is how closely it links freedom and conflict. Like, why does this world have to have conflict for you to be free? Can't, I mean, it's, and part of it is just emphasis.

• 1:18:27Michael Malice?

  Well, you're just saying suffering is what leads to joy.

• 1:18:31Lex Fridman?

  See, and now you're in agreement. Thank you. That's, I just did that just so you can come around and agree. I win. Next topic. Wow, I'm playing 3D chess here. Okay.

• 1:18:48Lex Fridman?

  This is New Year's. This is, this is now December 31st. I think that's how it works, but in 1973.

• 1:18:55Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:18:56Lex Fridman?

  We recorded this before you were born. Oh, no, years after you were born, 60. You look great for 60. Is it the early 60s or?

• 1:19:06Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 1:19:07Lex Fridman?

  Okay. What five things, let's say, or moments in 2021 are you grateful for? Or people, just, I don't know, things, moments, beautiful experiences, profound essences of the year. Like, looking back, what are the cool things that just?

• 1:19:28Michael Malice?

  Personally or socially?

• 1:19:31Lex Fridman?

  Do you exist like in a platonic way socially? I mean, person, oh, in your personal life?

• 1:19:36Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Lex Fridman?

  Anything. You're, you're both. You're now Michael Malice. You exist as a social entity and a personal human being and all of it, the whole thing. Like, what, what stands out to you about 2021?

• 1:19:49Michael Malice?

  The fact that for the first time in my life, other than college, I moved to a new city. That was a very big one. And there's no part of me that regrets it or misses New York. So that was a very big deal for me.

• 1:20:02Lex Fridman?

  What do you, about this move, about Austin itself, but maybe the move itself? Maybe just the act of moving? What, what, um, what's great about it to you?

• 1:20:15Michael Malice?

  The fact that I had forgotten what it's like to have a huge social network, which I had in New York before people started falling away. And then it really escalated as a result of de Blasio and the COVID restrictions. So to have a big crew here is something that was very validating. The thing that's also exciting about Austin is that Boston is not a particularly big town. It's not a particularly great town, but everyone here, at least in the circles I travel in, is kind of a refugee from their towns. So there is this sense of camaraderie. There is this sense of we're building something together. Back in New York, when you meet someone, it would be like, who is this person? Why am I talking to them? Like, are they a normie? Are they going to be weird?

• 1:21:00Michael Malice?

  And here, there's very little of that. I think there's much more sense of trust with one another when you meet new people. So that's something that's really exciting about. Like, I've been introducing all my friends to each other and everyone's been hitting it off like gangbusters. It's really great. So I really enjoy that about Austin. I'm enjoying, you know, the weather, the space.

• 1:21:20Lex Fridman?

  You read Kerouac and you have his stuff?

• 1:21:22Michael Malice?

  I have, On the Road, I read, and I read a biography of him.

• 1:21:26Lex Fridman?

  I don't know if it was on, I think it was On the Road, where he, he talks about that feeling when you go into someplace, you're leaving a place and you go somewhere else. And the place you're leaving disappears behind you.

• 1:21:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Lex Fridman?

  And all the people and all, like, you just think about that life and it's forever gone. And there's some inkling of that where, um,

• 1:21:50Lex Fridman?

  You get to realize your almost mortality because, okay, that's a chapter. And there's not many more. I know it's a beautiful chapter, but now on to the next chapter. Is there a melancholy feeling there?

• 1:22:02Michael Malice?

  No, it's the opposite. I feel like I've been given a new lease on life because I didn't realize to what extent there was this subtext of hopelessness in New York and also people who in New York you don't appreciate or you appreciate it consciously, but you can't escape it emotionally, how much the winters get to you psychologically. It's tough. It gets dark so early, it gets cold, you can't walk around. Like, that's the thing that's fun about or was fun about New York is that, you know, when the weather's warm, you can walk for an hour and just enjoy the sunshine and there's a lot to see and do. But in the winter, you don't have any of that. It's brutal. And here, it's just, so that is something, there's no melancholy at all.

• 1:22:38Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's because there's, can we say something beautiful about New York? Not the way it is now, but the way it...

• 1:22:45Michael Malice?

  I could go on for days about how great New York was.

• 1:22:48Lex Fridman?

  What did you learn about human civilization, just life that was beautiful from New York?

• 1:22:54Michael Malice?

  I learned that there's a lot of really unique, special people out there who are doing their little part to move the envelope and make the world a better place. And that when you have a city where they're all there together at the same time, then that really moves the world. And I'm thinking of Paris in the 20s, and Harlem in the 20s, and New York in the 70s, and LA in the late 60s, and San Francisco, especially in late 60s, things like this. They really punch above Detroit, certainly, at its heyday. They punch above their weight and just really kind of Philadelphia in 1700s, things really start

• 1:23:39Michael Malice?

  happening and that ripples throughout the world.

• 1:23:41Lex Fridman?

  You think Austin has a chance to be a Paris in some way?

• 1:23:46Michael Malice?

  Yes. Because, again, it wasn't all of Paris. It was the left bank of Paris and Gertrude Stein and Hemingway and all them and a little area. So, you know, when you read these history books, these scenes, it's like 50 people, like in a 10-block radius. These aren't these huge, like, Davos conventions.

• 1:24:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so the move, the big move.

• 1:24:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:07Lex Fridman?

  What else? What else stands out to you? Again, both personally and socially, like zooming in and zooming out.

• 1:24:15Michael Malice?

  I did a book with a UFC fighter and I was making the point, he was a nine-time world champion, that I would never be as good at my job as he was at his.

• 1:24:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Michael Malice?

  And then when I dropped Anarchist Handbook in May, and it was the top nonfiction book on Amazon for like most of a day, I was like, oh, I'm the top nonfiction writer in America, just for today. I was like, oh crap, okay, so I guess I was wrong, that was a major deal. I was still shocked and delighted.

• 1:24:43Lex Fridman?

  By the way, congratulations, I'm truly happy for you, man.

• 1:24:47Michael Malice?

  Well, it's-

• 1:24:48Lex Fridman?

  I'm so proud.

• 1:24:49Michael Malice?

  But it's also, I'm proud because these are people who had points of view and they didn't have it easy, and they fought for what they believed in. And insofar as I get to rescue them to some extent from the dustbin of history and say, these people really mattered and they really are worth hearing, that I love. I love stuff like that.

• 1:25:16Michael Malice?

  You know, I was talking to a friend of mine, Topher, like a year ago, and, because we're in a weird position with what kind of jobs we have. So like, I'd be talking on my live streams about people like Candy Darling or Wallace Thurman, and like, these are not household names at all. And then I'd be like, proud of myself that I'm the one who brings them to some sort of more prominence. And then you want to tell yourself, well, get over yourself, who you think you are. But it's like, but no one else is talking about these people, or very few. So to be able to kind of give them some kind of stature and platform that they deserve, I think is, I love being able to do that.

• 1:25:51Lex Fridman?

  So you have a strong voice yourself, and to sort of join them in, it's like John Lennon, joining in with the Beatles, is like a chorus of very different views on anarchism. It's celebrating the individuals, it's celebrating the idea, and you are, I think, will be remembered as a powerful philosophy yourself, but like, you're almost taking- Just the humility of being in a room with powerful minds together in one book is cool.

• 1:26:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah, and that these people mattered and they had a unique perspective. And as I said in the introduction to the book, I remember I was in college and we were studying bioethics. And there was like a graph in the book. And one part says antinomianism, which was the view that at one side said legalism, right? The two extremes, legalism is what is legal is defined by the government or what is moral is defined by the government. And one said antinomianism, which is nothing stands above moral law. And then there was like, well, since no one believes in this, the answer is something to the other side. It's like, well, why is it on the charge? If it has a name, someone believes in it, you know? So, you know, anarchism is a word that's bandied about and in a dismissive way.

• 1:27:06Michael Malice?

  And it's like, you don't have to like me or agree with what I'm saying, but you can't pretend that they weren't Tolstoy. You're going to tell me Tolstoy doesn't know what he's talking about completely? He's in there, he was an anarchist. So it was, it was a big accomplishment.

• 1:27:19Lex Fridman?

  It was really cool to get a chance to do the audiobook. You, you did an incredible thing, which is got a bunch of really cool people to read. A lot of interesting, varied people.

• 1:27:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so what I did for the audiobook, which I, I don't like the idea that hard work is inherently good. Because sometimes being lazy is actually the right choice. So I'm like, wait a minute, why am I reading all 23 chapters when it's 23 different authors? Does it make sense? So I hit my Rolodex and I had different people read different chapters to make it sound literally like you have the different voices in the book. Thank you very much, you did my, because I was going to read my chapter, but wait a minute, like all the other authors are being read by somebody else. Let's have Lex read mine. The one chapter I am most moved by is Lauren Chen. She's a podcaster as well. She's expecting now, so we wish nothing but the best for Lauren and Liam and the Babby.

• 1:28:14Michael Malice?

  There's a chapter there by this guy named Charles Robert Plunkett called Dynamite. And he's advocating for.

• 1:28:22Michael Malice?

  Making bombs and killing people, killing, you know, the forces of capitalism. And Emma Goldman, it was published in her essay while she was in lecture tour and she was just like, why is this in here? This is, this is just really going to make us look bad, so on and so forth. And when you're dealing with any kind of, you know, H.L. Machen has that quote about every rational man must at times be tempted to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats. So I wanted to talk, sound like the seductive aspect of violence. Like, that's the problem. Like, when you deal with terrorism, when you're dealing with political violence, to be able to understand how people can fall for this, how people can be persuaded to think, this

• 1:29:07Michael Malice?

  is a good idea, that I'm going to make some dynamite and throw it into this crowd and kill, you know, police officers and innocent people possibly in the service of, you have to, it's easy to say, oh, they're all crazy, but they're not, you know, even not, most people who are crazy don't do these things, you know? So to have a woman read that chapter, and I told her, kind of read it like a phone sex operator, because I wanted to have that siren song of like, so you can understand why this calls out to people who are in the rope, the people who are like marginalized. And she did such a superb job with that chapter.

• 1:29:43Lex Fridman?

  That's such a beautiful vision. Yeah, because violence, that's, violence is part of human history to a degree that it must be seductive. It must be, there must be a strong pull. Like, it's not insane, people. There's something probably deeper than our nature that craves violence. And then when there is charismatic leaders that inspire that, and revolution plus violence, that, I could see that being extremely seductive to us. Like, when you're truly suffering in your current situation, whatever it is, you being oppressed by governments or being oppressed by the powerful, violent revolution is.

• 1:30:29Lex Fridman?

  Probably there's something deeper than us that longs for that.

• 1:30:32Michael Malice?

  And also, this is kind of the Jelaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein, right? You need that woman to be like, no, no, this is okay, honey. Come along, it's not a big deal. Don't listen to what your parents told you, they're just prudes. It's a siren song.

• 1:30:45Lex Fridman?

  What do you, uh, what do you think about Jelaine Maxwell and the trial and so on? Again, maybe the interesting story there is about the coverage of the trial. So like, the story is more complex and interesting than the actual horrific acts themselves. So to me, I don't, maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough, but to me, she's also truly evil. I don't know where to, maybe you can help me to figure out who is more evil? The, uh, just like you said, now the person that says it's okay, it's okay, that, um, helps the evil doer, or is it the evil doer themselves?

• 1:31:28Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, but I think she's a, she scares me more than Jeffrey Epstein somehow. There's people like that in the world.

• 1:31:35Michael Malice?

  I had a, like a Twitter poll, do you think it's more evil or less evil to kill someone because you've been paid to do it? And, and people, the winning answer was more evil, and I said it was less. Because I think in that case, you can kind of check out, you could be like, this isn't my, I'm just doing a job. I, I don't, you know, you kind of can, I think in a sense, if you have a certain mindset, like intellect to remove yourself from the situation, I'm just a conduit. When you were talking, I haven't been following her case that, that much.

• 1:32:09Lex Fridman?

  It's because you mostly watch CNN, and CNN is not covering it.

• 1:32:12Michael Malice?

  Well, I think my broader point would be people who are untouchable and who know they're untouchable. Do much worse things than those of us who aren't that way can appreciate. Like I was just talking about on Twitter about Rosemary Kennedy. She was one of JFK's sisters. It's not clear whether she was developmentally disabled or had like depressive mental illness. There was something clearly off with her to some capacity. And at age 23, they gave her a lobotomy. And the thing with the lobotomy is you have to be conscious. You don't, they don't put you under.

• 1:32:55Michael Malice?

  So you have to be counting backwards while their scalp was in your brain and they stopped. But they stopped, they did too far. She became mentally like a two year old, you know, never had bladder control for the rest of her life. Couldn't really talk or walk. And when that happened, they just put her away to some home and they never mentioned her again. Or they didn't tell the brothers or sisters where she went. The lobotomy was only revealed in 1987. And they pretended, oh, she's, you know, in this home for kids with special needs. And it's just like, like that to me is very, very scary. That someone could, you know, do this to their, that people, I saw people respond like, oh, that was, you know, cutting edge technology at the time, haha.

• 1:33:40Michael Malice?

  But I'm like, I don't think that that was really done that, that frequently or be hearing more about it. All these, you know, botched lobotomies. And my understanding is lobotomies are very hard to, like you, they would want to do it if someone's like a mass murderer. Or like, like if someone's really bad, like if the person's left an invalid, like who cares kind of situation? But you're dealing with something like this, like she's not killing people. She's not assaulting people. She's just difficult because she's making your, your vaunted family look bad. So.

• 1:34:11Lex Fridman?

  So that's to you, that's, what is that, like psychopathy or something like that? Like you don't care about, you just, you, you do horrific things and you don't really care.

• 1:34:19Michael Malice?

  I can't diagnose Joe Kennedy. But what I would say, like with Jelaine Maxwell, I can't empathize because I don't underst- First of all, even in a positive sense, I don't know what it's like to be grooming my son to be the president and lost, you know, the other son in war. I don't know what that's like. I don't know what it's like to be so wealthy. Like, I have, you have to give Joe Kennedy credit because a lot of what he was fighting for was to allow Irish people and Catholic people acceptance into like high society. And he was up against a lot of pressure with that. And he's like, I'm gonna, you know, screw these people. I'm gonna be recognized and we're gonna make people recognized. So there's something to be said for that. But, I mean, I can't relate to people like him.

• 1:35:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:04Michael Malice?

  But I mean, that like, is just terrifying. Like, I mean, one of the big reasons I'm an anarchist is, like, when you have someone who has that sense of amount of power over somebody else, a lot of times, they're gonna do bad things and have no consequences.

• 1:35:21Lex Fridman?

  Do you think, in the Jelaine Maxwell case and Epstein case, do you think they were

• 1:35:28Lex Fridman?

  trying to blackmail people? Like, trying the, what the conspiracy theories kind of describe,

• 1:35:34Lex Fridman?

  that's probably not too far away from reality. Did they intentionally try to put powerful people in compromising situations so that they can, um, basically get more and more power?

• 1:35:47Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I think that was a Vanity Fair piece that you're referring to, or Fortune.

• 1:35:51Lex Fridman?

  Oh, sorry. I'm just referring to a general concept.

• 1:35:53Michael Malice?

  Oh, there was, so there was an article that broke this down, because this article is either Fortune, Businessweek, Vanity Fair, I don't remember, a major, major reputable outlet. And they were, they made, the reporter made the point, they asked around, and they go, this guy's a billionaire, or extremely wealthy at least. No one I know ever traded with him. Like, where is his money coming from? There's no, there's no paper trail. So they're like, okay, if it's not trading, and trades are public often, you know, where's this money coming from? And it's also, like, why are all these people allowing Epstein to be their business manager when he has no kind of track record to show for it? So the hypothesis was, he would get people into uncompromising

• 1:36:32Michael Malice?

  situations with underage girls, secretly film it, and then he would, you know, blackmail them accordingly.

• 1:36:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, I guess that's the question.

• 1:36:40Michael Malice?

  That would make sense.

• 1:36:41Lex Fridman?

  I know it makes sense, but I also see a lot of evidence that he's just very charismatic in a room. So, so, and I've also seen, you know, that's how- Human connections get made, like business deals get made.

• 1:36:54Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but how, how, where's his money coming from?

• 1:36:57Lex Fridman?

  Oh, like they rich people without blackmailing, just like him close, like him as a friend.

• 1:37:06Michael Malice?

  I'm not arguing that. Like, okay, I like Jeff Epstein. Make sure you pull that quote.

• 1:37:10Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:10Michael Malice?

  I'm a business person. I like Jeff Epstein.

• 1:37:12Lex Fridman?

  Michael Malice. I love, like or love?

• 1:37:14Michael Malice?

  Love. I'm in love with.

• 1:37:16Lex Fridman?

  This escalated quickly.

• 1:37:17Michael Malice?

  I'm gonna hand over him to be my money manager to have 20% of my estate. Fine.

• 1:37:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Michael Malice?

  Where is he making the money for that 20%? That's the thing that there's no paper trail of him trading or anything. So I can understand.

• 1:37:31Lex Fridman?

  Oh, I see, see.

• 1:37:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:33Lex Fridman?

  Interesting.

• 1:37:34Michael Malice?

  What were your 2020 favorite moments?

• 1:37:37Lex Fridman?

  You mean 2021?

• 1:37:39Michael Malice?

  Yeah, 2021.

• 1:37:39Lex Fridman?

  Time flies when you have.

• 1:37:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:42Lex Fridman?

  Clearly, it's the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. It just really stands out to me. It's very moving, which is why I bring it up. No.

• 1:37:50Michael Malice?

  Moving here.

• 1:37:51Lex Fridman?

  So moving, moving here, but for me, I, I think we actually didn't cover that with you and I'd love to get your comment.

• 1:38:00Lex Fridman?

  Cause you said it's the first time in your life you moved. So it's not just about the desk, the place you go to. It's the actual act of moving is also a leap.

• 1:38:09Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:09Lex Fridman?

  The decision was that I'm going to give away my salary at MIT. So stop taking salary. Give away the group. So students, no more research, the grant funding. Let's still keep MIT affiliation just because I have friends and colleagues there still doing research, but giving away really primarily is the source of money. So no salary and let it go to zero. Let my banking account go to zero. And take a leap in San Francisco or elsewhere. And as COVID broke out and a lot of people started talking to me about San Francisco, about the cynicism there.

• 1:38:50Lex Fridman?

  And I'll go there and there was a kind of, uh, so it's not all the woke stuff and all that kind of things, which is also a problem. It's less, it's a less about dreaming about a big future, about building a big future. And more about some kind of identity politic battles that they're just, um, you could say it's some, some aspect in the positive light is important. But in a place like Silicon Valley, to me, the most important thing is to do big things. And. For that to be most of the conversation. And so that cynicism was there. And then I went to look at Austin and Austin was the opposite.

• 1:39:29Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Lex Fridman?

  It's the optimism. And you have people like, so I talked to, so Elon was the optimistic about making this the capital of artificial intelligence and technology and so on. And then Mr. Joe Rogan, now just the optimism about making this the cultural capital of the world of, I mean, specifically comedy, but like, it just radiates from him, just the excitement. And I've seen not many people of that nature in my life. And when I see that in their eyes, that engine, that fire of wanting to create something special about the place. First of all, those people rarely fail. That's first of all. And second of all, that's

• 1:40:07Michael Malice?

  It's contagious.

• 1:40:08Lex Fridman?

  It's contagious.

• 1:40:09Michael Malice?

  Yes, very contagious.

• 1:40:10Lex Fridman?

  And so all that combined, for me, 2021 was the actual leap of taking the leap, saying, all right, well, I'm actually going to do this. So not just giving away the salary, not giving away all of that, but the whole thing. That's it. You just move to a place, there's an empty building, you know, and you're moving into it. And this is a new life. And that leap, I don't know, it's a scary leap to take because I've taken that leap many times in my life. And this is where, you know, parents and all those kinds of cynicism is really destructive because, you know, from a cynical perspective is, you know, I worked at Google. So why leave

• 1:40:54Lex Fridman?

  Google? There's a very high paying salary that you can have Google. Then MIT, why leave MIT? Like, it's MIT. This is you've always dreamed about. Like, why do you get a PhD?

• 1:41:07Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:08Lex Fridman?

  You've loved MIT all your life. Why leave MIT? I mean, this is the same process I've gone through with a lot of things in life. Like you've been saying, every single stage, and you need that, you need friends, you need support groups and all those kinds of things that are extremely important. But in the end, it's about taking the leap. And for me, 2021 was this leap. And to me, that one of the most beautiful things you can do in life is to take those leaps.

• 1:41:33Michael Malice?

  And that's something that I think is no longer a thing in New York. There's no sense of hope. You don't go to New York now. If, if, there's been such an assault and Intentionally or otherwise, maybe it's inevitable, they didn't have a choice. But there's been such an assault on creativity and small business in New York that no one or very few people who are in New York right now think things are going to get great soon. Whereas here, I feel it's every day is just something exciting is going to happen.

• 1:42:01Lex Fridman?

  And that's part of the culture and how the conversation goes. It's just in vogue to be cynical in New York and San Francisco. I hope it changes because what I love about New York and what I love about Austin also is the weirdos, the characters, they, the, just the variety of personalities that if you just walk around, you get to meet them. And I think New York still has that, but it has the extra cynicism on top of it.

• 1:42:27Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:29Lex Fridman?

  That's a negative. I mean, just becoming friends with Joe. He inspired me to be nicer to people, to not take myself seriously, to be humble, to, to celebrate friends, not to be competitive, you know? Like all those things, since I started listening to this podcast from the very beginning, it was, it just radiated from the guy.

• 1:42:51Michael Malice?

  The thing that people don't appreciate is Joe Rogan likes it when you bust his chops.

• 1:42:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:58Michael Malice?

  I mean, it's a lot of people at that level. Like if it's, oh, Mr. Rogan, you're laughing at everything they say, they don't want that. It's very phony and they feel uncomfortable because they know that everything they say is hilarious. I remember I went with him, he was doing a performance here and I was, yeah, you were there. And he was doing his set and I had reached the point now where I don't think of him as Joe Rogan. You know, it's just like my, my buddy's doing stand up, you forget. And then I looked at the audience and I remember I'm like, oh, this is like a religious experience for these people. But you forget who he is because he doesn't carry himself like a big shot.

• 1:43:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And still, I mean, he gets competitive as fuck. Like I argue with him a lot. I mean, when I talked to Francis Collins and Pfizer CEO, you better believe I heard from Joe. And then we would just get super drunk and argue about it. So it's, I mean, it's beautiful. And he, he gets really passionate. So it's not like, it's not like easy to argue with him, but that's great. When you don't take it personally, it's fun.

• 1:44:01Michael Malice?

  As you and I discussed, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind us saying this, but like, that moment when you first get a text from Joe Rogan and it's some boomer meme, like I finally felt like I've arrived as a person.

• 1:44:14Lex Fridman?

  A boomer meme? What kind of boomer meme are we talking about?

• 1:44:16Michael Malice?

  Like he just sent some silly meme, but it's just like, this is the kind of thing you can imagine someone's uncle posting on Facebook. It's Joe Rogan texting it to you.

• 1:44:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I mean, for me also with Elon, obviously, there's a few people, I'm just saying folks that people know. Also Jim Keller, who's worked with Elon. So I've had conversations with them because it's just my line of work. They're realizing that everything is possible in this world.

• 1:44:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah. Which is not the Russian mindset.

• 1:44:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Well, okay. All right. That's, let's.

• 1:44:48Michael Malice?

  Style it down a notch.

• 1:44:49Lex Fridman?

  Style it down a notch. Yeah. It's what Elon calls first principles thinking, but really it's just not being limited by the constraints of the past.

• 1:44:59Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:45:00Lex Fridman?

  And so saying like, okay, this is how things have been done, but can be done much, much better. And that has to do with manufacturer, like, how do we, how do we do this 10 times cheaper? Like everyone says it's, it's super expensive, but is it, does it really need to be? This is more of a question about manufacturer, about how to take, build a product, how to actually have a product that scaled it as an impact than just having a very serious engineering, like to the level of physics, discussion about building a thing and fucking doing it and just being around people that did it and.

• 1:45:38Lex Fridman?

  You know, basically, literally or figuratively said fuck you to everybody in the room that said they can't do it. And that that energy, so that I've gotten to know Elon a lot better in 2021. That to me, it's like, everything, the whole thing, that moving here and being surrounded by the optimistic energy, and then the individual interactions with people that refuse to be like brought down by the, yeah, the cynicism of the world.

• 1:46:07Michael Malice?

  The naysayers, yeah.

• 1:46:07Lex Fridman?

  The naysayers. It's, that to me is what I'm gonna remember this year for. And I hope it like, materializes into something concrete here in Austin. And I feel it's doing that.

• 1:46:21Michael Malice?

  I really am curious to be a fly on the wall, I'm sure it'll happen at some point, watching you and Elon talk to each other. Because he's even more of a robot than you. He was on the Babylon B podcast, and I was honored to be able to be in the room while this was happening. And with the guys at the B do, at the end of every podcast, they have like, like 10 questions. I don't think this, remember this as one of those, no, no, this, and they go to Elon, would you, would you rather be Batman or Iron Man? You know, because they're both like multimillion industrialists. And Elon, being Elon, is like, well, let's think this through. There's different kinds of bats. You've got, you know, fruit bats, and you've got insect bats. Well, it's called Batman. Batman should fly, right? Bats can fly. And I'm just sitting there with a holy, dude, just answer

• 1:47:05Michael Malice?

  the question. It was so literal. I was like, damn.

• 1:47:11Lex Fridman?

  I guess by this point, I've released a podcast with him. That's several hours, and it's exactly as, as you would imagine. It's exactly as you would imagine.

• 1:47:21Michael Malice?

  There was this, you've watched the movie, the movie Her?

• 1:47:24Lex Fridman?

  Yes, of course.

• 1:47:25Michael Malice?

  So there's that one scene, it's when, is it Joaquin, who's the lead character?

• 1:47:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix.

• 1:47:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so he's the lead, and he falls in love with Siri, basically, who's played by Scarlett Johansson. And there's another artificial AI that she's talking to. And she's like, oh, can I, permission to go into nonverbal communication with this professor? And the guy's like, sure. And they just start talking to each other in their robot. And I'm just imagining the two of you having this mind meld.

• 1:47:52Lex Fridman?

  Well, that, so there's both the humor of that, but also the practical nature of the kind of conversations to have. It's so great because it's, uh, it's problem solving mode.

• 1:48:04Michael Malice?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 1:48:05Lex Fridman?

  It's so cool.

• 1:48:06Michael Malice?

  That is fun. That is exciting.

• 1:48:07Lex Fridman?

  Because like you stop completing sentences. I actually feel at home because you don't need to say the full sentences anymore. You could just like say random words and you start to understand

• 1:48:18Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:18Lex Fridman?

  what you're talking about. And then you can have multiple conversations at the same time and go on these tangents. One of the biggest problems I have with podcasting for me, talking, I have to finish my sentences. I have to actually finish making a point.

• 1:48:32Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:33Lex Fridman?

  Which is a big problem because there's like a listener that needs to hear the point being finished as opposed to completing your sentences, uh, in, inside your own mind. And like the, the thing I find is useful to Elon does the exact same thing is when the line of thinking is no longer useful, you just ran, you just switch to the next thing. You just leave that whole thing behind. You don't need a nice transition. You don't need any of that. And also just, um, it's the first principles thing. It's like zooming in on the, on the elephant in the room. I love that. It's so energizing. Just that, that's what I love about engineers.

• 1:49:13Lex Fridman?

  It's not the, it's not, it's not the maybe most eloquent communication style, but I, um, I love it. What about you? So you said moving.

• 1:49:23Michael Malice?

  The book.

• 1:49:24Lex Fridman?

  The book. What else?

• 1:49:28Lex Fridman?

  And you've been really excited about, so that's Anarchist Handbook, but you've also been nonstop excited about White Bill. That was most of this year. You've been, actually made significant progress.

• 1:49:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I'm on page 40 of the second draft. And it's really kind of funny because when you're doing your, I think 10th book, I lost track already, um, the first draft is actually pretty good. Like I'm going back and like, all right, this is going to be a whole slog. I'm like, oh, I just have to cut and paste this and basically tweak a few words. So, um, I, I did a good job with the first draft. It's, uh, it's also funny when you're writing, um, how, and I guess this is the mark of a good professional writer. The My personal feelings don't match how the characters in the book come off. Like, I have a lot of fondness for people like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman,

• 1:50:23Michael Malice?

  and they're early on in the book, but they're not good people. Like, and I'm writing, and I'm writing it objectively and whatever, and I'm reading it. So I'm like, they come off much worse than my personal appraisal of them. So it's kind of interesting as a writer, when you're watching it, I guess, kind of like an attorney, right? Like, you can have a situation where you, as an attorney, you have a lot of fondness for your client, but you realize that they probably did this thing. Or you could not, it could be the other way. Like, they're innocent, but you, it's hard for you to make a good case for them because the dad is not there.

• 1:50:56Lex Fridman?

  Can you actually talk about your writing process?

• 1:50:58Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 1:50:58Lex Fridman?

  In several ways. So one, your writing process, but two, by way of advice of how to write. You've talked about in the past, like, your first draft is these kind of disparate or more chaotic in that you don't. In the same way, maybe I was saying in the engineering discussion, you don't complete the sentences.

• 1:51:14Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:51:15Lex Fridman?

  It's just thoughts.

• 1:51:15Michael Malice?

  So the first, like, real good writing advice I remember getting was this book by Peggy Noonan called What I Saw at the Revolution. And she was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter. She still writes for the Wall Street Journal.

• 1:51:31Michael Malice?

  The book I bought was at a used bookstore in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, when I was in college. The spine is cocked. I still have it. It was 99 cents. And she talked, you know, when you're writing for a president, this is no joke, especially for a president who's the great communicator, Reagan, you know? So, and you have, you have to be very inspirational, but also not come off as corny, which is very hard to do. And she, in the book, talks about how she wrote speeches for him, how she, you know, I'm paraphrasing her, and this, I haven't read her book in a couple of decades, but basically, she would write like a brain dump, and it's just garbage. And she was like, that's okay, just get it all out there.

• 1:52:09Michael Malice?

  And then, you know, there's that expression, all writing is editing. So for The White Pill specifically, this is, I don't know if it's the most ambitious book I've ever done. Dear reader, I think it's more ambitious, because that's all of North Korea's history, and it's written in somebody else's voice, and that person's a Martian.

• 1:52:23Lex Fridman?

  And you, like you mentioned, had to read a giant number of books.

• 1:52:27Michael Malice?

  Yes, 60 books as research, yeah.

• 1:52:29Lex Fridman?

  Well, maybe can we just pause? Can you say what White Pill is about?

• 1:52:33Michael Malice?

  Sure, it's a tale, it's about hope and it's a tale of good and evil. And I think that's, I don't want to tip my hand too much. But people are always like, how do you think, why are you so hopeful? And I'm not hopeful on an emotional level. I'm hopeful because looking at history, I think there's certain things that not, not will certainly happen again, but it's not at all implausible to happen again and that the good guys will win. And this is one of those cases. So, you know, I had, the book took on a life of its own. It's very different from how I originally conceived it. I originally conceived it as a kind of retelling of Camus' philosophy. Ryan Holiday, who we used to be close friends with, I've talked to him in a while. He has a whole kind of cottage industry based on the Stoics of the past.

• 1:53:18Michael Malice?

  I'm like, okay, can I, I asked him once, can I do this with Camus? He said, sure. And then I reread Camus recently and it wasn't what I was, had remembered.

• 1:53:27Lex Fridman?

  I was like, can we pause on that? I apologize to interrupt. So it's interesting. So he kind of took ideas from Stoics and started to kind of use it as a book that gives you advice about how to live life from the Stoic perspectives. And you were thinking, is there something in existentialism, absurdism, or something specifically in Camus' thinking? Or I think you've mentioned the myth of Sisyphus.

• 1:53:55Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 1:53:55Lex Fridman?

  Specifically, like his philosophical work.

• 1:53:57Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:58Lex Fridman?

  So you were trying to see like, is there, can I resurrect this? That's actually, I would think that's an interesting project. And it's sad to hear that it was, it didn't materialize in exactly that form. Cause I thought there would be a lot in that.

• 1:54:18Michael Malice?

  So I had Douglas Murray on my show and he also made the point, like when you go back and read Camus, there's not that much there. The myth of Sisyphus is not at all how I remembered it. The vast bulk of that book is like literary criticism. So he's talking about Dostoevsky, you know, those different people who are embodying some of the absurd, but I'm like, this isn't, there's not much to take from here. This, the actual title essay is basically like a, like six chapter essay at the back of the book, which, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's good for what it is, but there's not that much there to draw. I'm extremely.

• 1:54:51Michael Malice?

  He's a great hero of mine. I think his life is just enormously admirable. He fought very hard against the Nazi occupation. His book, The Plague, which I find unreadable, is an allegory about Germany conquering France and so on and so forth.

• 1:55:05Lex Fridman?

  Wait a minute. Why is The Plague unreadable?

• 1:55:08Michael Malice?

  It's the kind of book where reading the book doesn't add anything to the plot. The plot is a plague comes, sweeps over the town, destroys a lot of life and vanishes as quickly as it came. You don't need to read the book now. Like, you get the point.

• 1:55:21Lex Fridman?

  I deeply disagree with you.

• 1:55:22Michael Malice?

  Have you?

• 1:55:23Lex Fridman?

  Yes, of course, I've read The Plague. To me, I mean, The Plague is about the doctor and it's about love and it's about the different roles that humans take in a time of tragedy like The Plague. Also, it's an allegory, so you could start to think about like what, you know, you could, whether it's Nazi Germany, whatever you think that is.

• 1:55:45Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:46Lex Fridman?

  To me, though, that was about love and about like the role, like the highest ideal being the doctor, like sacrificing themselves for others and like still has love and hope. I mean, to me, that, the way that story is told, I think, has a lot of meaning. It's like, to me, you saying that's interesting, you say it this way, but to me, it's like saying Animal Farm doesn't need to be read because it's an obvious story.

• 1:56:16Michael Malice?

  I don't think there's much plot to The Plague. I think Animal Farm has a very long plot and a complex plot.

• 1:56:23Lex Fridman?

  But there's experiences within, so the situation is set up in Plague and there's experiences that start to reveal a philosophy. So, yeah, it's not very plot-driven.

• 1:56:36Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Lex Fridman?

  But, but the, so I would say you still should read it, but the plot doesn't, like, you didn't give away anything currently.

• 1:56:45Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:56:46Lex Fridman?

  That, that's, so some books are just, I mean, Ayn Rand is similar to that in the sense, like, the plot is not as important as the behavior of the different people in that plot.

• 1:56:57Michael Malice?

  I think she's very plot-heavy.

• 1:56:59Lex Fridman?

  No, she has plot, but I'm saying that's not necessarily the important thing. To me, the behavior of the people is the important thing.

• 1:57:06Michael Malice?

  Sure, but-

• 1:57:07Lex Fridman?

  You could, you could, you could like separate it into a bunch of blog posts and they stand on their own. I would have to think about that with Ayn Rand. She does, through the plot, create a world where you start to understand.

• 1:57:20Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 1:57:21Lex Fridman?

  Different values that people have.

• 1:57:24Lex Fridman?

  But, yeah. But that's what the plot serves. Yeah, I would have to think, but in The Plague, it's the behavior of the people that's really important. And the same, I mean, The Stranger, too. I mean, these like,

• 1:57:39Lex Fridman?

  I'm trying to scramble here for books. I really appreciate that don't have a plot. I mean,

• 1:57:46Lex Fridman?

  Notes from Underground. So obviously, Dostoevsky has a huge amount of plot in most of his work. Herman Hesse has a huge amount of plot.

• 1:57:56Michael Malice?

  Thomas Mann doesn't have the plot. He's the one who doesn't have plots.

• 1:57:59Lex Fridman?

  Thomas Mann. Would you say Kafka has a plot?

• 1:58:02Michael Malice?

  I think Kafka is very heavy plot driven.

• 1:58:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but I just don't see that, I guess.

• 1:58:06Michael Malice?

  I guess Metamorphosis doesn't really have a plot.

• 1:58:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but like crawling around.

• 1:58:12Michael Malice?

  But it's like a vignette. It's not really like this.

• 1:58:14Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, A Hunger Artist. One of my probably favorite short stories is, that kind of is a short story, is a pretty long short story of Kafka's is really interesting. It's about a man, I don't know if you read it.

• 1:58:27Michael Malice?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:58:28Lex Fridman?

  It's about a man that is like a freak in a sense that

• 1:58:35Lex Fridman?

  his skill is that he can fast for a long time.

• 1:58:38Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 1:58:38Lex Fridman?

  And then people gather on the cage and look at him as he, as he fasts. I don't actually remember if he's in a cage or not, but the, and eventually he fasts so long that people don't even care anymore. Like, they just leave. So there's a, there's a, it has to do something. It makes me think about like,

• 1:58:59Lex Fridman?

  don't become, the way you live, don't become like a freak show, a circus act. Like, live for an ideal, live for something that brings you joy.

• 1:59:11Michael Malice?

  Or don't live for the sake of attention.

• 1:59:12Lex Fridman?

  For the sake of attention, that's.

• 1:59:14Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that's, yeah.

• 1:59:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Anyway, so you I rudely interrupted because you were talking about the plague and connecting it to the writing process of White Pill.

• 1:59:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Well, anyway, so you know, how I was writing this one, I just had a first draft of notes and they're it's not in chronological order. It's like I read certain books as research and then I had the pull quotes that was necessary there. And now I'm basically rearranging everything and putting it so the book started as Ryan Holiday's

• 1:59:45Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 1:59:46Michael Malice?

  equivalent of Ryan Holiday as Camus. The working title would have been The Point of Tears. Because this is great. Camus is a great quote maker and he has this line about man must live, live to the point of tears, which I think is just what I love about him is like Camus, you always he comes off as like he's clenching his teeth. He's clenching his teeth, both in terms of like barely mitigated rage and injustice, like when he sees people suffering, it just it just really makes him like just upset to the core, but also this sense of not taking life for granted and kind of just pushing yourself and pushing the boundaries and and you know,

• 2:00:30Michael Malice?

  his point being that life is inherently meaningless, which gives a great opportunity to impute meaning to it and to create our own meaning to life.

• 2:00:38Lex Fridman?

  So taking the the main essay from Sisyphus, Myth of Sisyphus, that was the the origin story for the White Pill, but then it became something completely different.

• 2:00:47Michael Malice?

  And so then it became, how are you so optimistic in the face of everything that's going on in the world? And I started writing it when COVID started hitting. And I because again, I'm not optimistic because of some temperament of mine. I'm optimistic because you know, people talk about how if the US didn't exist, China would just become an empire and take over everything. Empires are expensive and they're they like, look at the British Empire, you know, look at the Soviet Union, like it's not automatically sustainable. It costs a lot of lot of things to make sure when you're geographically, you know, all over the all over the world, literally, to keep everyone in line. It's not at all like a supervillain in

• 2:01:32Michael Malice?

  a movie, like, once it happens, it's the happy ending for them. So. Yeah, that was the start and I'm like, all right, let me tell. One thing I'm good at is telling stories. So this is really.

• 2:01:46Lex Fridman?

  So this is narrative, uh, plot driven.

• 2:01:48Michael Malice?

  Very, very plot driven and also heavily character driven, but the characters are real.

• 2:01:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, got it. So it's interesting to kind of mention, what kind of, what is the first draft kind of look like in terms of? What, what kind of things do you plop down?

• 2:02:05Michael Malice?

  Oh, so it'll be like, let's suppose I just read a, like, you know, some book called The Guillotine at Work, which was an early book. Attacking Lenin from the anarcho-communist perspective. So it'll just be like all the different quotes, like a paragraph here, double space, another paragraph, you know, blah, blah, blah. So on and so forth. Whereas for other sections where I wasn't just using a book as research. There would be like talking about McKinley getting shot. Like it's just me writing the narrative. Um, and that I could just pretty much copy paste into the second draft.

• 2:02:34Lex Fridman?

  By way of advice, would you give? That as advice, is that a good way to do it? Is that a very peculiar way your brain?

• 2:02:42Michael Malice?

  No, so this is, this is actually advice I feel comfortable giving to people who are trying to write.

• 2:02:48Michael Malice?

  Because it's just like with the gym, right? If you did seven sets, seven, excuse me, reps last week and you did eight this week. It's psychologically motivating because you're going in the right direction and the human mind extrapolates. So. Make sure, tell yourself, I'm going to get a page done today or two pages done. Sit your ass around the computer. You're not allowed to get up till you get those two pages. It doesn't matter if they look like garbage because if you have a 300 page first draft. And it's crap, at least you have something to work with and that's a big number. So if you're gonna, the thing is, since the first draft is going to be crap. If you're editing as you write, it's going to be extremely discouraging.

• 2:03:28Michael Malice?

  And it's also trying to drive and then doing reverse at the same time. It's, it's a completely nonsensical way to do it. Get it all out there. Don't look it over. If you have a great line, put on your phone and then add it to the, the, the draft. So it'll be a complete slog, but editing that slog is going to be a lot easier than creating it to begin with.

• 2:03:45Lex Fridman?

  And when you see those disparate lines all laid out on the page, how difficult is it to? Then start stitching it together. Do you find that when you look at a list of those things, the final product will look very different?

• 2:04:00Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:00Lex Fridman?

  Or will you actually use those lines?

• 2:04:02Michael Malice?

  No, I will use those lines. Then I have a file called scraps. So like if the line's no longer used, I put it in my scrap pile.

• 2:04:09Lex Fridman?

  I'd love to see what's in the scrap pile.

• 2:04:10Michael Malice?

  Okay, yeah, sure. One of the things I've been pulling scraps is a lot of times when I was earlier writing, I would have contemporary references. And I realized that that's bad because I want the reader to be in the past as the present. So if you're talking about, let's say, 1901, and then you're referring to Obama, that screws people up. So I had to pull all those.

• 2:04:35Lex Fridman?

  Okay, let's talk about some New Year's resolutions. Do you ever do New Year's resolutions? Do you ever think like that? Like, take a special day in the year to think about how you're gonna try to change yourself? Or do you try to transform yourself every single day when you wake up?

• 2:04:50Michael Malice?

  Well, I usually have several projects I'm working on at once. So there's always incremental progress on those.

• 2:04:55Lex Fridman?

  Right. You know, it's nice to have a deadline. By the end of 2022, I'll accomplish this. Kind of a, like, to hold yourself responsible. And then you could do that at the beginning of the year to think about that. Both philosophically, like, what kind of big, not projects that you can quantify, but more like, how can I change my life? Or like I mentioned, take the leap of different kinds. And then there's specific things like, finish the book.

• 2:05:24Michael Malice?

  I, years ago, and I'm, I think on some level, you much less than me, but I think you're increasing in this direction. I realized it's more, I have to learn how to be a surfer and not a driver. Because when you reach the level we're at in our careers or in our place in the culture, a lot of this is luck.

• 2:05:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:45Michael Malice?

  And a lot of this is just like, like, I'm just going along for the ride because it's kind of counterintuitive. Like, you know, like the success of the Anarchist Town book was counterintuitive. So all I'm hoping for is, you know, getting the book done. I am extremely proud of it. And just also, you know, building a, you know, we had Thanksgiving together at Blair's house, just building a great upcoming community here in Austin, which has happened very quickly.

• 2:06:23Michael Malice?

  I was, there was gonna be another surprise here. There's a girl named Natalie Side Surf, and she makes these ultra-realistic cakes. Like, if you've seen those cakes online where it looks like you're cutting a puppy, like, she makes those kind of things. So she's here.

• 2:06:39Lex Fridman?

  In Austin?

• 2:06:39Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:40Lex Fridman?

  Oh, cool. Like, moved permanently?

• 2:06:42Michael Malice?

  I think she's been here for a while. I've never, I haven't met her yet, but I just kind of chatted with her. So there's just, it's just so many, there's so many scenes happening here that are overlapping.

• 2:06:54Lex Fridman?

  So, in general, finish the book, keep building your community. I mean, you've already been doing that here. You've been here several months.

• 2:07:01Michael Malice?

  I've been making a point to introduce people to each other, and everyone's just really getting along very well.

• 2:07:06Lex Fridman?

  That's great. And the book is the focus.

• 2:07:09Michael Malice?

  The book is the focus.

• 2:07:11Lex Fridman?

  What about the podcast that you're doing? You're welcome.

• 2:07:14Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I mean, I enjoy it, and it's been growing a lot. I finally got a new computer, which my friend Jay installed, so I can have a decent camera, because of my old, this is my mindset as a hoarder. Like, I was more interested in spending money on a Pareto autograph than actually getting a computer that's from the 20th century. So, but I'm such an old-school person in that, in my head, podcasts are, like, so ephemeral. Like, I don't, like, there's some episodes of my podcast I'm really proud of, and there's a lot of friendships I've made as a result of it that really mean a lot to me, no question.

• 2:07:57Michael Malice?

  It's made my life a profoundly better place. But it's not the same as that book on the shelf, especially when the book is something that I think matters much more than I do.

• 2:08:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's a permanence to it. There's a seriousness to laying down the words on paper.

• 2:08:12Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:13Lex Fridman?

  Like, really giving them thought. Yeah. That's true, but I'm a huge fan of podcasts. You don't listen to podcasts much. It's just fascinating to.

• 2:08:23Michael Malice?

  Yeah, like at all. I don't know how mine is so successful. It's just, yeah.

• 2:08:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, I just love the medium. Yeah, but I love the authenticity, the realness of the medium. That's really nice.

• 2:08:38Michael Malice?

  I just understood for the, it's starting to click because like my pal Blair White, she was just on Rogan. And the first 10 minutes, I was, I was so angry. Like I was sitting there like yelling at the screen. Cause Joe and Blair, you would think that they're gonna start talking about, you know, Trump or trans issues or moving to Austin. They start talking about shark reproduction and neither of these dumbasses knew anything about it. And I know a lot about it. And they're like, oh, is it like this? Do the sharks lay eggs? And I'm sitting there, I'm like, if you don't know why you're talking about this, why? Why are you talking? And I could also see why people like these shows. Cause they feel like they're friends of the people, like they're sitting in the room. Cause I felt like I was in that room and I wanted to shake both of them.

• 2:09:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, in the room. So no, what about transforming yourself and your resolutions like that?

• 2:09:28Michael Malice?

  Oh, I'm doing a slight bulk now. So I'm almost at my heaviest weight ever, but I've been, I couldn't go to the gym this week. Cause I was a little under weather, under weather. So that's been a little frustrating, but yeah.

• 2:09:39Lex Fridman?

  So are we gonna get some remodeling pics? What are we, what's, what's, is there goals there?

• 2:09:44Michael Malice?

  So my heaviest, I'm, I'm 4'8". The heaviest I've ever been was when, and this is when I was like.

• 2:09:51Lex Fridman?

  He's exaggerating. He's not that tall.

• 2:09:53Michael Malice?

  That's the metric.

• 2:09:55Lex Fridman?

  Oh, sorry. Are you talking about your height?

• 2:09:57Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:57Lex Fridman?

  Okay. Barely 4'6".

• 2:10:00Michael Malice?

  So the heaviest I've ever been when I was like really high body fat, cause I was just, cause I learned, cause I couldn't gain weight as a kid. So when I figured out I could actually gain weight, I like, I was 164.5. So I wanna hit 165 and then see if they can from there. I have a friend who's been helping me, my buddy Trey Goff. And this kid Stronger, his Jake, his username on Instagram is Stronger, but the number five instead of letter. The number five instead of letter S. But he does, I've never, it looks like it's Photoshop, like your brain can't process it. You know the human flag?

• 2:10:34Lex Fridman?

  No. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry.

• 2:10:36Michael Malice?

  But he does human flag pushups.

• 2:10:40Lex Fridman?

  Wow.

• 2:10:40Michael Malice?

  So he is horizontal, parallel to the ground, right? He's holding himself up like a flag, but he could also do this while. So he's moving parallel to the earth, side to side while it's just crazy.

• 2:10:53Lex Fridman?

  That's really difficult. So you're interested in that kind of stuff?

• 2:10:55Michael Malice?

  No, but I'm saying like, he's been helping me out. So like, the guy knows what he's doing. He's just a really impressed kid.

• 2:11:00Lex Fridman?

  I love that kind of stuff, like bodyweight stuff. So my primary mode of working out is very like the professional. You ever seen Leon, like the professional that would now the portman in that movie? It's like I have a pull up thing as you push up some pull ups. It's very like, um, I'm just missing the milk. I like working out at home, just like that. And the body weight stuff, you can go so much with it. And it's super functional for everything else you live in, for life, for living life well.

• 2:11:31Michael Malice?

  On the other hand, I don't care about functionality. The thing that really bothers me, like I go, I know Joe's thinking of opening up a gym, like a private gym. There's only like one power cage here at the Golds I go to.

• 2:11:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:43Michael Malice?

  I don't know what source of this only one or that sometimes people aren't using it. I'm like, no one's doing deadlifts in here? No one, just me?

• 2:11:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:49Michael Malice?

  It's Golds.

• 2:11:51Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I don't want to say where I'll tell you off Mike, but there's, there's a few really like ghetto places around Austin that are just like these shitty gyms that nobody wants to go to. But they have a rack, they have like, if you want to lift heavy, that kind of stuff.

• 2:12:07Michael Malice?

  But are they 24 hours? That's the thing, Golds.

• 2:12:09Lex Fridman?

  Oh, but they're 24 hours in the following way. There's a code.

• 2:12:14Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:12:15Lex Fridman?

  And you just go in.

• 2:12:16Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:12:17Lex Fridman?

  And you turn on the lights.

• 2:12:18Michael Malice?

  That's fine.

• 2:12:18Lex Fridman?

  And then you work out.

• 2:12:19Michael Malice?

  I don't want to meet, I don't want to meet people.

• 2:12:21Lex Fridman?

  Exactly.

• 2:12:22Michael Malice?

  Well, that's just not true.

• 2:12:23Lex Fridman?

  Sometimes there's people and they're great.

• 2:12:25Michael Malice?

  Yeah, like, and, and I've had fans come up to me at Golds and they've all been cool, except, except.

• 2:12:31Lex Fridman?

  Oh, no.

• 2:12:32Michael Malice?

  Except.

• 2:12:33Lex Fridman?

  Except.

• 2:12:35Michael Malice?

  If I have my headphones on.

• 2:12:37Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 2:12:38Michael Malice?

  And I'm doing deadlifts.

• 2:12:39Lex Fridman?

  Yep.

• 2:12:40Michael Malice?

  I don't need you to come over, tap my ear and start giving me critiques about my form.

• 2:12:46Lex Fridman?

  This actually happened?

• 2:12:47Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:12:49Michael Malice?

  I'm still angry about it.

• 2:12:52Michael Malice?

  I'm pulling my 150 in peace. Thank you.

• 2:12:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, people are hilarious. I was recently in had actually the wildest day ever in my life. So many things happened in a row. So I went to a wedding in LA.

• 2:13:09Michael Malice?

  Andrew?

• 2:13:09Lex Fridman?

  Andrew Schulz and with Whitney Cummings and and Joe Rogan and a bunch of other fascinating people. It's just, speaking of weirdos, the comedian, like, the reason I find the comedians awesome. One, they're authentic. They're just cool people.

• 2:13:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:27Lex Fridman?

  But they're also just weird. Like, you don't become a comedian for not being like fucked up in all kinds of different ways. Anyway, so there's the wedding. I'm, you know, me, it was only carbs at the wedding. So I didn't eat. I didn't eat for a long time. So I was like already fasted 20 hours, 25 hours. And by so that this whole story of everything that happens is is Lex like 40 hours fasted with Joe Rogan drinking a lot of whiskey. And so

• 2:13:58Michael Malice?

  You were drinking too?

• 2:13:59Lex Fridman?

  Oh, heavy.

• 2:14:00Michael Malice?

  On 40? Oh, my God, that's crazy.

• 2:14:02Lex Fridman?

  So it is calories. That was my only source of calories is the whiskey. And I, so I didn't trust myself with carbs when I'm drunk. I just don't enjoy it because I'll forget. And I just enjoy eating like a strict, healthy diet when I'm drunk because

• 2:14:18Lex Fridman?

  I'd rather eat more food that's healthy.

• 2:14:19Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:20Lex Fridman?

  Versus not. And so anyway, so then we went to Vegas together. And then just kept doing wild thing after another wild thing. Rogan opened up for Whitney Cummings. He just like showed up at a random party that he wasn't invited and he did a thing. He almost started a fight because some guys said, stop, yelled at him, said, stop spreading misinformation.

• 2:14:44Lex Fridman?

  And then we run into David Goggins of all, this is my first time meeting David Goggins. I've talked to David a lot over the phone and we were supposed to do a thing together. And this is me trash out of my mind, meeting David for the first time with his incredible wife. Oh, Rogan's wife was there. By the way, Joe Rogan's wife, David's wife, made me realize that I really want to be married because they're not, they make their partners better.

• 2:15:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:17Lex Fridman?

  Like that, I was, there's a certain aspect of marriage that I'm afraid of that like your partner takes you away from life. You don't get to experience life as much.

• 2:15:29Lex Fridman?

  But this was like, they were enriching them. I don't know. It's like the world's most powerful support group. It was cool. Anyway, so then of course drunk Lex is, challenges Goggins to pushups.

• 2:15:41Michael Malice?

  I saw this on Instagram, whatever.

• 2:15:42Lex Fridman?

  We're in the middle of the

• 2:15:43Michael Malice?

  And you're in your suit.

• 2:15:44Lex Fridman?

  In the suit, in the middle of casino, there's a crowd gathering. Like it's Joe Rogan, me and David Goggins, and I'm just doing pushups with them. And Rogan is like commentating and yelling and screaming. It was surreal and just going on to the next thing and next thing and next thing like this. And then drove all the way from Vegas back to LA with Joe and Whitney and his wife. And it was like, what is this? And all of it is done in 24 hours. The one valuable lesson is don't fast and drink like excessively. So I've learned that because what happens is liquor hits your mind, my mind. Sorry. I'll speak about

• 2:16:29Lex Fridman?

  my particular mind. Like the intellectual part of my brain got hit really hard, really fast. So I was not able to even more so than usual stitch together sentences. I understood everything really well.

• 2:16:43Michael Malice?

  So like made your name again.

• 2:16:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I was.

• 2:16:45Michael Malice?

  Я понимаю, но не могу говорить.

• 2:16:48Lex Fridman?

  So like meeting David, I want to say so many things. He's so inspiring to me, right? But all I said was like, hello.

• 2:16:56Lex Fridman?

  And I like, I remember like opening my mouth to like, try to say more and I was like, and then I would just close my mouth and not be able to say anymore.

• 2:17:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah, this is why, this is one of the reasons I don't drink ever.

• 2:17:08Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It removes certain barriers, like it allows you to maybe have fun that you wouldn't otherwise. But yeah, definitely for a person who values intellectual eloquence and.

• 2:17:22Michael Malice?

  But I also hate being hungover.

• 2:17:23Lex Fridman?

  The hungover part, yeah.

• 2:17:24Michael Malice?

  That's the worst.

• 2:17:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's the worst.

• 2:17:26Michael Malice?

  And you also, like, I did this to myself.

• 2:17:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. But it also teaches me that this too shall pass. Because I've been hungover and I've quit drinking so many times in my life. That it realizes, it makes you realize that all the unpleasant feelings, all you have to do is just wait it out and it'll be fine.

• 2:17:44Michael Malice?

  It took me a long time to realize that that expression means the other thing.

• 2:17:49Lex Fridman?

  What's the other thing?

• 2:17:49Michael Malice?

  If things are going great, this too shall pass.

• 2:17:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:53Michael Malice?

  I always thought about.

• 2:17:53Lex Fridman?

  Life of suffering.

• 2:17:54Michael Malice?

  No, I always thought about it as being more like, don't worry if things are bad, it'll pass. It's like, it's also like, if something's going great, it's not gonna be this way forever.

• 2:18:01Lex Fridman?

  It's like Bukowski said, love is a fog that fades with the first daylight of a reality.

• 2:18:09Lex Fridman?

  Do you think love can last?

• 2:18:11Michael Malice?

  Oh, yeah, we're gonna win.

• 2:18:13Lex Fridman?

  Who's we?

• 2:18:14Michael Malice?

  The good guys.

• 2:18:17Lex Fridman?

  Didn't Hitler also think he's the good guys?

• 2:18:19Michael Malice?

  He's wrong.

• 2:18:21Michael Malice?

  Because you know why?

• 2:18:22Lex Fridman?

  Why?

• 2:18:23Michael Malice?

  He didn't win.

• 2:18:26Lex Fridman?

  So you think it's permanent? So the, this one time, the good guys winning, it'll last, it won't pass. Because I think all of it passes, unfortunately.

• 2:18:37Michael Malice?

  I think we're going to win and win big in the Nazodist future.

• 2:18:44Lex Fridman?

  Do you have specific things in mind or no? Or just a sense about human civilization, about society waking up?

• 2:18:52Michael Malice?

  I don't know about waking up, but I think the increased understanding on all sides of the political spectrum that corporate America and corporate news outlets are self motivated actors. And those motivations are often inimical to what others would regard as desirable is something that I think is happening with increasing frequency.

• 2:19:20Lex Fridman?

  So what do you think about the political landscape in general? You had a great conversation with Glenn Beck and he said that he talked to Trump and believes that Trump is Donald Trump is definitely running in 2024 or very likely running in 2024. I think he said he thinks he'll have a good chance of winning or I don't remember that, but the fact that he was running was a surprise to you. Do you think Donald Trump would be running in 2024?

• 2:19:49Michael Malice?

  Given that Glenn Beck, you know, has a much better relationship with Trump than I do, to put it mildly. If Glenn Beck is certain this is going to happen, I would defer to Glenn Beck's judgment.

• 2:20:02Lex Fridman?

  Do you think he has a chance of winning? Do you think he'll win?

• 2:20:04Michael Malice?

  Anyone in a binary political system who's the nominee has a chance. Like whoever the Republican or Democrat, I mean, has a chance. I think also it's a lot easier to vote for someone that you have voted for in the past. So that's why incumbents have a big advantage. There's not that psychological barrier to cover. I think it's also useful for Trump that he's banished from social media because then he doesn't have to have the responsibility of governing and all the costs of that, you know, because no matter what decisions you make while governing, some people aren't going to like that. So he gets to kind of be above the radar or below the radar, rather, to some extent. I don't think it's at all a given that he would get the nomination. When I say the

• 2:20:47Michael Malice?

  good guys are going to win, I certainly don't mean Donald Trump. I don't think victory is going to come as a consequence of Washington.

• 2:20:54Lex Fridman?

  Do you want to make America great again?

• 2:20:57Michael Malice?

  I think America is great. So.

• 2:21:00Lex Fridman?

  This is my failed attempt at humor.

• 2:21:03Michael Malice?

  One of many. There are also hats that Giuliani and Jim Jeffords wore that said, people can look this up. They said, because they were in south of the border, make Mexico great again also.

• 2:21:19Michael Malice?

  Like that to me, it was like, like, just the syntax there.

• 2:21:25Lex Fridman?

  Okay. So you, you, you don't even think you might get the nomination? If you, who else might?

• 2:21:33Michael Malice?

  I mean, they, if you had asked two year, three years out, who the nominee in 2020 would be, Donald Trump wasn't even, or 2016, rather, wasn't even on the, on the radar screen. So we have a long way to go.

• 2:21:46Lex Fridman?

  Even two years is, is a long way to go?

• 2:21:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Especially because we're coming out of COVID. There might be some governor who becomes a rock star for some reason. Maybe someone's gonna have some moment, some congressman might have some big moment where they're, you know, screaming at somebody and all of a sudden they become a rock star in the Republican Party.

• 2:22:04Lex Fridman?

  It could be one of the celebrities we don't

• 2:22:08Lex Fridman?

  think about. I mean, Donald Trump is essentially not a political figure before he ran.

• 2:22:12Michael Malice?

  Right, exactly.

• 2:22:13Lex Fridman?

  So it could be any of the famous republic, like right-leaning celebrities.

• 2:22:22Lex Fridman?

  I don't even know which way McConaughey leans.

• 2:22:25Michael Malice?

  No, I think he's the lefty, or he was gonna run as a Democrat, but he's not running.

• 2:22:28Lex Fridman?

  But, but like people like that just might step into the ring.

• 2:22:31Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I don't think they'd have that much of a chance because there, I think the Republican Party, there's a asymmetry. They'd be much more skeptical of like an actor than the Democrats would be because they would regard that actor as coming as a kind of ensuring candidate or whatever.

• 2:22:45Lex Fridman?

  Right, but there's other kinds of celebrity, like Jaco could run as a, as a Republican.

• 2:22:49Michael Malice?

  That's a good example. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:22:51Lex Fridman?

  That would be interesting. So military person.

• 2:22:53Michael Malice?

  Right, yeah. But already, like, for example, Dr. Oz is thinking of running for us, is going to run for the Senate in Pennsylvania. And there's already been a lot of research, people slamming him on Twitter and social media for past positions he's taken. So,

• 2:23:10Michael Malice?

  you know, DeSantis is the figure of the moment, but Scott Walker was the figure of the moment in the 2016 cycle and he didn't even make it to Iowa.

• 2:23:19Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and I wonder what role does COVID play in all of this?

• 2:23:23Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:23:23Lex Fridman?

  In terms of, you know, I'm mostly optimistic and hopeful about the world. Like, when I look at the world, I'm excited by most things. I've been a little bit or a lot disappointed by the lack of great leadership in a time of trouble. Because to me, one of the, one of the great things about a difficult time is it brings out the great leaders. Again, it's the up and down of things. Like, you don't want to ask for war. You don't want to ask for pandemics. But when they happen, it's a great opportunity for the human spirit to flourish. And the fact that it didn't quite in the way that I hoped it would is disappointing.

• 2:24:09Lex Fridman?

  I think there's still time, too, because people are trying to figure out what to do as we emerge from the fog.

• 2:24:16Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:17Lex Fridman?

  So I'm excited by 2024. Somebody said this dark cynical thing. I, I hope this is not true, but like that there was some doubt about the results of the election in 2020, that in 2024, both sides, like, it'll just start becoming standard to completely reject the results of an election, no matter who wins.

• 2:24:42Michael Malice?

  Well, that's my perspective. I don't regard elections as legitimate. And I see what you're saying, not in the terms of that, that basically the process itself was illegitimate.

• 2:24:50Lex Fridman?

  Yes, there was like cheating or something.

• 2:24:52Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but I think that that's pretty much a given. It has been a given. Like, it's either Republicans often say, oh, they got all these illegals to vote, you know? Or the Democrats will say the voting machines were hacked, or the media, so on and so forth. Because despite all the people flapping their gums about democracy, they only like democracy when it gives them the results that they want.

• 2:25:15Lex Fridman?

  Can I ask you about something else that Glenn Beck said that I thought was really interesting? I agree with him very much on this.

• 2:25:22Lex Fridman?

  And it was refreshing to hear, although he kind of made a, turned into a point about why Trump is great or whatever. But the point was the following, which is, he doesn't want to talk to anybody who can't say at least one nice thing about everyone. So like, if you don't like Donald Trump, if you don't like Joe Biden, you should still be able to say one nice thing, like legitimate, nice, not just like a dismissive nice thing, but legitimately say, what is one nice thing they did? Or like, or who they are as a person? Not, not like saying Donald Trump is funny sometimes, like no, like legitimate, where you really mean it. And it's been really troubling to me how few people are able to

• 2:26:07Lex Fridman?

  do that about political figures. I had a lot of people, I think I tweeted something like this, leading up to the election, saying like, you should be able to say something nice about both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And I've had old friends, I don't want to say specific, I guess, to call them out, but they, several people, one in particular, like wrote me this long, like several page email.

• 2:26:36Michael Malice?

  It was Sam?

• 2:26:38Lex Fridman?

  It was Sam Harris.

• 2:26:38Michael Malice?

  Was it Sam Harris?

• 2:26:39Lex Fridman?

  Sam Harris. No. But I have a lot of conversations with Sam Harris now and Joe on both sides. It's like the devil and the angel on both my, I don't know which one is which, but.

• 2:26:52Michael Malice?

  Joe's the angel.

• 2:26:53Lex Fridman?

  They're both devils.

• 2:26:54Michael Malice?

  Different kinds of devils. Yeah, that's fair.

• 2:26:57Lex Fridman?

  And they said, how could you say, how could you even consider, like, that there's something positive about Donald Trump?

• 2:27:06Michael Malice?

  Yeah, here's an easy one. He, he has three wives with three kids with each, but they all, the kids get along. I think that's really commendable, that Donald Trump Jr. And Eric Trump and Barron can all get along with each other, given the circumstances. I think that speaks to something as some, someone as a father.

• 2:27:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, Ivanka. So on the family level, and I, I see the same thing with, actually, one of the reasons I always found Joe Biden fascinating is, he's had a lot of really traumatic things happen in his life.

• 2:27:36Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:37Lex Fridman?

  And.

• 2:27:38Michael Malice?

  If I shit my pants in front of the Pope, I'd be traumatized too.

• 2:27:43Lex Fridman?

  I'm talking to a master troll about something sensitive and beautiful that is a man suffering with a loss.

• 2:27:49Michael Malice?

  I kind of know what he feels like right now. I'm pretending to the Pope.

• 2:27:54Michael Malice?

  This chair is ruined. Sorry, Elon. You're gonna have to sit in it.

• 2:28:01Michael Malice?

  Why is this chair feel like I'm sitting in a swamp? Lex, you have stuff to show, can you afford a good chair?

• 2:28:10Michael Malice?

  I'll send you a Tesla.

• 2:28:11Lex Fridman?

  It's a pretty good Elon impression.

• 2:28:14Lex Fridman?

  But yeah, I mean, like one criticism I told Joe Rogan is like he has trouble finding one positive thing to say about Joe Biden, for example. And I just don't, I don't, I don't like that. I want, I think, I mean, I'm a big believer in the shit sandwich. Sticking on topic.

• 2:28:34Michael Malice?

  Here's an easy one. I think Joe Biden clearly is a very amiable person.

• 2:28:39Lex Fridman?

  What's amiable?

• 2:28:40Michael Malice?

  Gets along with people. Like, it seems really clear that maybe before president, because it's different when you're the president, but that he could call a lot of these Republican senators, get them on the phone and have a conversation with them.

• 2:28:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and it's not some kind of manipulation.

• 2:28:51Michael Malice?

  To some extent, it is because they're all politicians, but he clearly seemed to be, wasn't like an ideologue.

• 2:28:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, but there's, I mean, maybe I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, but the blue collar thing, like riding the train, you know, the, there's ways to connect with people. And not seeing them as equals, no matter where their walks of life are. And I love it when presidents do that. To some degree, because of the wealth under which Donald Trump existed for a lot of his recent life, he's less able to do that quite naturally.

• 2:29:28Lex Fridman?

  Maybe sometimes Obama wasn't quite able to do that.

• 2:29:30Michael Malice?

  Who's more blue collar, Trump or Biden? And you can easily make the case for both, I think.

• 2:29:35Lex Fridman?

  You could. No, not the blue collar, but like, like literally be able to fit in at a bar, at a local bar and just like.

• 2:29:43Michael Malice?

  I can see both of them.

• 2:29:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you're right. I could see both of them.

• 2:29:46Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:46Lex Fridman?

  In fact, Obama doesn't quite.

• 2:29:48Michael Malice?

  No, because he's got that Ivy League.

• 2:29:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the Ivy League thing.

• 2:29:50Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:29:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you're right. Somehow Donald Trump can too.

• 2:29:56Michael Malice?

  Oh, easily. Yeah, you can see him having a beer with the guys and yelling at the screen. This is bullshit. Change the channel.

• 2:30:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I hope people do that. I think that's one of the most unpleasant things to me is.

• 2:30:10Lex Fridman?

  They're not able to empathize with the fact that half the country voted for another.

• 2:30:15Michael Malice?

  Well, it's also then, it's just a bad strategy. If you can't figure out why half the country is voting for someone you guard as like a demon, well, then how are you going to supposed to fight this demon? Like, you know, when I did your reader, the North Korea book, it's like, don't you want to understand how these people get to where they got? It's, I know it's saying that he's a good person, but like, there's a logic to their, there's a method to their madness.

• 2:30:38Lex Fridman?

  You've, you've talked about national divorce a few times. I've, I've seen a couple of videos recently where you're responding to articles. It's, it's kind of cool.

• 2:30:48Lex Fridman?

  Can, can you talk about this idea of national divorce? And as it stands today, arguing for it maybe? And if you could, just out of curious in the context of those videos, if you can still man an argument against.

• 2:31:03Michael Malice?

  So I was the first one to kind of bring this issue back into the national conversation. I wrote a piece for Observer in 2016. Then Jesse Kelly had a piece a few months after that. David Boi just recently did a piece on his stuff stack earlier this year. And it's become enough of a mainstreamed idea that paleontology outlets like the National Review have felt the need to respond to them. So the point being that America has had at least two cultures since the beginning and that there's absolutely no reason, and these cultures in recent years, and this was in 2016, not mentioned 2021, have been increasingly antagonistic toward one another and have even lost the ability to communicate. They're using language in different ways.

• 2:31:46Michael Malice?

  And that there's no reason for this to continue any further.

• 2:31:51Michael Malice?

  And, you know, just you live your life, we'll live ours and, you know, goodbye and good luck. There's no harm, no ill will. Now, there's lots of arguments against them. Some of those are, are completely, I think, stupid. The stupidest one is, well, that's what China wants. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm not going to live my life saying, I'm just going to do the opposite of whatever China wants. That, that's, that's not logic. That's not a good pathway. Now, I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but that's not a reason why we're another.

• 2:32:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you bring up China or Russia, you know, that's exactly what China or Russia want. But sort of the strong way to phrase that is.

• 2:32:33Lex Fridman?

  It weakens America, like not just the one America, but like both sides in the divorce will be much weaker than they individually were together. So in that sense, not that you have to care about what China thinks, but like it's a step, it's a big step backwards.

• 2:32:55Michael Malice?

  Yes, I think in the short term, it is absolutely a big step backwards in terms of power. There's no question that, you know, when you're trying to reestablish a society, there's going to be a transition period. That transition period is going to be costly. Each side starts wondering, wait a minute, why are we still doing this? We don't have to anymore. We're not living with them, so on and so forth. So that's going to be a concern. I don't think that the whole point of America, or even a large or primary point of America, is to be a bulwark against Chinese power. And there's going to be very few people on earth, you know, given my work, who have as much informed hatred and contempt for the Chinese government as I do. Certainly, you know, next to the North Korean people,

• 2:33:37Michael Malice?

  maybe the people from Eritrea, there's few populations who I'm as worried about as the people under the rule of the Red Chinese. My steel man argument is there's no way this is going to be peaceful because the lines don't separate out well. So all you're doing is basically just replicating the problem because the disparity isn't between, you know, like during the civil war, North and South, it's like it's between New York City and upstate New York, or between Chicago, downstate Chicago. Once you get outside of LA and like Sacramento, California in many ways is like Kentucky. So it doesn't make sense. So that's a strong argument.

• 2:34:12Lex Fridman?

  I mean, you've talked about that this process will be painful. It can be painful. And we're not just talking about violence. It could be just even the civil war, you could divide it clean, somewhat cleanly. Obviously, the kind of national divorce you might be suggesting is that people are living amongst each other. So you have to literally, it's complicated.

• 2:34:32Michael Malice?

  Right. So that is a very strong argument. It's, I think, a cogent argument against it. Two is it's not just China, it's that there's a lot of bad actors in the world who maybe aren't like China certainly wants to carry itself and have an appearance at least on the world stage as civilized and a leader. There's lots of smaller countries who without us are going to feel comfortable doing some very nefarious things and they're not going to be scared of us anymore. And so that would be a bigger concern in many regards than China. So I think that's a reasonable one. It could be that both sides, if this happens, are gonna instead of work toward better are the things that make each side bad would get worse.

• 2:35:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:15Michael Malice?

  And that's, you know, having those pushed towards the malevolent extremes is, I think, a very legitimate criticism and a concern.

• 2:35:22Lex Fridman?

  I mean, as you suggested, there's no guarantee that won't happen.

• 2:35:25Michael Malice?

  Correct, at all. Also, there's a, I think, a reasonable argument to make is like, are you America, just as a symbol and the myth of America, and I don't mean myth in a negative sense, do you really want to throw that in the garbage? Like, this meant a lot for a lot of people and a lot for history. You're just gonna be like, okay, good, good work. We were done here, let's shut the lights. So that's, I think, a reasonable argument. So those are the biggest ones, I would say.

• 2:35:54Lex Fridman?

  And still, what is the case for national divorce? And along which lines? So like, in making the case for national divorce, if it is desired, based on which kind of ideas do you think it should be carried through?

• 2:36:11Michael Malice?

  Honestly, I don't know that it has to be idea based. Like, for example, when Czechoslovakia broke up, when Norway and Sweden broke up, it wasn't really ideological. It was more cultural. So I always say divorce into two, but it would probably make more sense if it was like five, because the Northeast, certainly New England, has their own culture. The West Coast has their own kind of culture. I don't know, the thing is, into any kind of Persuasion technique, right? Like, once people are start, there's a difference between convincing someone they want to buy a car and what features you want. So if you're at the point where we're arguing about the features, then my work here is done. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:36:54Michael Malice?

  Like, I don't have a dog in the fight in terms of what it's going to look like. I just want to get to the point where you're at least considering seriously the idea of breaking up America. And I would encourage people to go look at my article to see, which I'm sure the arguments still hold five years later.

• 2:37:08Lex Fridman?

  Do you have a kind of vision of which of the two or which of the five? Do you actually have specific cultures or ideas?

• 2:37:19Michael Malice?

  I'll tell you exactly.

• 2:37:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:21Michael Malice?

  If I told you and everyone listening in 2014, we weren't that long ago, it was not long ago. Which of these two things is more likely to happen? 2014, Texas secedes or declares secession from America or Donald Trump gets elected president? Everyone's voting for Texas. Like, in terms of prediction, which is more likely? So we had this one. So it's not at all unlikely we're going to have this one.

• 2:37:45Lex Fridman?

  See, I don't know if that logic carries through. You can't just say, here's an unlikely thing that happened, therefore, anything can happen.

• 2:37:54Michael Malice?

  I just said, you just earlier said anything could happen this episode, didn't you?

• 2:37:57Lex Fridman?

  Life is suffering. I wasn't listening to half the things you're saying.

• 2:38:00Michael Malice?

  You said it.

• 2:38:01Lex Fridman?

  I said it.

• 2:38:01Michael Malice?

  Yes, you said anything could happen.

• 2:38:03Lex Fridman?

  I'm definitely not hearing, I'm like you with podcasts. I do a podcast, but I don't listen to it.

• 2:38:07Michael Malice?

  You said I'm talking.

• 2:38:09Lex Fridman?

  Talking, okay. So, yeah, yeah, it can happen, but in which, I guess I'm asking, would you stay in Texas?

• 2:38:15Michael Malice?

  A hundred percent.

• 2:38:16Lex Fridman?

  So Texas.

• 2:38:16Michael Malice?

  And I'd run for office, probably, it'd be fun. You know, I'm going to be the first president in Texas.

• 2:38:22Lex Fridman?

  I attended a debate between Yaron Brooks and Yoram Hazony. I don't know if you know who that is.

• 2:38:30Michael Malice?

  The nationalist guy.

• 2:38:31Lex Fridman?

  National, yeah. He wrote a book called The Virtue of Nationalism.

• 2:38:34Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I read that book.

• 2:38:35Lex Fridman?

  And I actually did a podcast with him, they did a debate.

• 2:38:38Michael Malice?

  Oh, they both run here?

• 2:38:39Lex Fridman?

  Hmm.

• 2:38:40Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:38:40Lex Fridman?

  It was quite interesting and I tried to wear my Michael Malice hat. So the.

• 2:38:45Michael Malice?

  You're wearing it now. You borrowed that from me.

• 2:38:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's funny because the metaphor applies across all of these level of collectivism. So he was arguing that for the power of nation. So you he would be arguing against national divorce. But he was also arguing for marriage, the power of actual marriage between individuals. Like, I think he's a conservative. And what I really like about him is there's a clear philosophy of conservatism that he expresses. And I think a lot of people get behind that philosophy. Because to me, like conservatism and liberalism often is very kind of used loosely.

• 2:39:31Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 2:39:31Lex Fridman?

  He has a clear philosophy that he's expressing there and is grounded in tradition. He has a lot of value in tradition. And so it's the thing you said about America. Like, one of the one of the arguments against national divorce is like, listen, we've been at it for a while. Like, there is a lot of value in the fact that we've been at it for a while. Don't just throw it all away all the time. So he says, like philosophically, he seems in a lot of walks of life, revolution is should be avoided as much as possible.

• 2:40:04Michael Malice?

  I agree.

• 2:40:05Lex Fridman?

  And so it's kind of interesting. So he makes the case that there's something fundamentally powerful about the nation. That we it's a it's a it's a nice way to group a culture. And so national divorce, I guess, goes against that. Do you find some aspect of the virtue of nationalism, as you will put it, powerful?

• 2:40:31Michael Malice?

  Well, powerful in a good sense or?

• 2:40:33Lex Fridman?

  In a good sense. So sorry, yeah, in a good sense, like it brings out the best in humans.

• 2:40:38Michael Malice?

  I know it's the best, but it certainly brings out good things. I have that line I always say about I love my country. I hate the government because I love my country.

• 2:40:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So there is a love of country.

• 2:40:46Michael Malice?

  I think it's, but I don't know that that's the I think.

• 2:40:51Michael Malice?

  It's also the case because the country happens to be America. Like, I don't know if I was living in, you know, whatever, I don't want to insult someone's country. Canada, yeah. If I was living in Canada, I don't know that I'd be the Ocho.

• 2:41:03Lex Fridman?

  This is a guy who calls basically every other country shithole country.

• 2:41:06Michael Malice?

  Yeah, that's true. That's, that's, that's the fact. Yeah.

• 2:41:09Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:09Michael Malice?

  So it's either, you're either, there's two types of countries, Texas or shitholes.

• 2:41:14Lex Fridman?

  Oh, wow. You went full Texas. So you, you, you, you're okay burning the Northeast to the ground at this point?

• 2:41:20Michael Malice?

  Okay, I'm hoping for it.

• 2:41:21Lex Fridman?

  I'm hoping.

• 2:41:23Michael Malice?

  What they've done to New York City, I will never forgive these people. And I hope that they suffer enormously consequences for what they've done to New York. It's unconscionable, the assault that they've done and had no remorse over how many creative outlets that they've destroyed.

• 2:41:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's the cultural hub, cultural center of the world in many, in many ways.

• 2:41:45Michael Malice?

  New York was the, this was the place where you go to put up your shingle and, and, and move the needle and make things happen. And I would understand if it was like, okay, we gotta suffer through this for a year, but we're gonna make sure all these businesses have a kind of safety net to make sure that they kind of get through and survive this, which they did to the banks in 2008, for example. And I'm saying this as an anarchist, and there was none of that. So I, I burn it down and salt the earth. It's, it's, because it's like watching like a zombie. It's unnatural. It's, it's an abomination.

• 2:42:22Lex Fridman?

  So, I mean, sort of on the, on the white pill side of things, I, I don't know about you, maybe, I have a sense that both Silicon Valley, that for me personally, maybe I have the same intensity of feeling as you do about New York. It's just disappointing to see it be consumed with cynicism and a lot of other paralyzing forces, but I still have hope for that place. I think, maybe it's the Yorom kind of tradition hope that through momentum, the, the strong reemerges. So like, I have hope for New York. I, I think New York will continue, like, not maybe on a scale of years, but a scale of decades.

• 2:43:06Lex Fridman?

  It'd be ups and downs where it reemerges as a cultural center. I just can't imagine a place like New York is like Paris. There's going to be long stretches of time where it leads the world.

• 2:43:19Michael Malice?

  Paris has not been a cultural hub for a very long time.

• 2:43:21Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:43:24Michael Malice?

  You know, the days of Matisse and Picasso and Gertrude Stein are long gone.

• 2:43:31Lex Fridman?

  It's still, it still is a hub.

• 2:43:33Michael Malice?

  Even London isn't London.

• 2:43:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:35Michael Malice?

  You know, you're not the.

• 2:43:37Lex Fridman?

  But what is then? London is still London. Paris is still Paris.

• 2:43:40Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but London.

• 2:43:41Lex Fridman?

  It's just not the Paris of old.

• 2:43:42Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:43:42Lex Fridman?

  London of old. London is still a place. It's a, it's a tech hub. It's a fashion hub. It's a music hub. I mean, it's still a pretty strong hub.

• 2:43:51Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but not like during the Beatles era.

• 2:43:54Lex Fridman?

  Right.

• 2:43:54Michael Malice?

  It's not like, or during the Sex Pistols era.

• 2:43:56Lex Fridman?

  But that's, it could be just us romanticizing the past. Cause what is a hub then?

• 2:44:01Michael Malice?

  No, it's not, we're not romanticizing the past because a hub is the place where everyone on earth, our eyes are on you. So in the late 60s, the British, in the mid 60s, you see the British Invasion, you know, the Kinks and all these other bands coming out of, of Great Britain. Like they were the innovators. This was the, this was the place that was happening.

• 2:44:20Lex Fridman?

  Well, in that sense, like.

• 2:44:21Michael Malice?

  And Brooklyn, you know, 15 years ago.

• 2:44:26Lex Fridman?

  But I guess maybe in that sense, in the 21st century, geographical hubs are becoming a thing of the past. So like, um, you can be a hub in the digital space now. So like, it's not, maybe you'll never have.

• 2:44:39Michael Malice?

  I don't think, I think there will always be, I mean, what I'm saying, digital space makes it easier for, let's suppose Cleveland to be a hub. Because all you need like 10 people who happen to live in Cleveland or, you know, Akron was a hub, a minor hub.

• 2:44:53Lex Fridman?

  All it takes is 10 to 50 people to create a, yeah, and maybe even less. Maybe it's just two or three or four people.

• 2:45:00Michael Malice?

  I mean, there's been no shortage of articles talking about Austin and what's happening here. And I know some of Joe's plans and you and I and Blair and all these other people that we know, my buddy Andrew Heaton moved here. He's just one of the best people I know. It's just, I'm really, really excited.

• 2:45:16Lex Fridman?

  Can I ask you some weird thing about friendship?

• 2:45:18Michael Malice?

  Of course.

• 2:45:19Lex Fridman?

  Cause you mentioned, um, Sam, he's Mr. Harris to you.

• 2:45:23Michael Malice?

  Hmm.

• 2:45:25Michael Malice?

  Didn't that bother you how he went after Joe?

• 2:45:27Lex Fridman?

  Uh, what?

• 2:45:28Michael Malice?

  He's like, oh, in case you guys have brain damage from watching Rogan's last episode, like, watch, here's the answer.

• 2:45:33Lex Fridman?

  And it's just like. Digs like that.

• 2:45:34Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, I didn't like that.

• 2:45:36Lex Fridman?

  I didn't like that either. Uh, I think Sam doesn't like it either about himself.

• 2:45:39Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:45:41Lex Fridman?

  Uh, he regrets those things.

• 2:45:42Michael Malice?

  Because it's very easy to say from his perspective, look, this isn't the full side, Rogan didn't show you the full side of the story. Here's the other side of the story. Please watch this and be informed. That's a very reasonable thing to say.

• 2:45:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I don't quite understand this. So they, they do this about each other now. Um, I'll, I'll put three people on the table, which is Joe Rogan, Sam Harris and Bret Weinstein. And they have a way of talking like the other person is creating a lot of harm. Like publicly would say things like that. And I understand there's emotion in it. But like, these are human beings that are friends of yours.

• 2:46:24Michael Malice?

  But I'll, I'll go the other way. Let's suppose it is true that Joe's doing a lot of harm spreading misinformation. Being sarcastic isn't going to be persuasive. Whereas if you're like, he's wrong, here's the facts. Or here's, or be informed that I, to me, but then I'm not Sam Harris. I'm not, he's got a bigger audience than me. So maybe he's the one who's right and I'm wrong.

• 2:46:42Lex Fridman?

  No, he's, well, he's just human.

• 2:46:45Michael Malice?

  Okay, well, I can relate.

• 2:46:47Lex Fridman?

  Well, have you seen your Twitter lately? I mean, your Twitter, you get very, you have a lot of fun on Twitter. I feel like Twitter lets.

• 2:46:54Michael Malice?

  I've never done that with someone I'm friends with. I never would.

• 2:46:59Lex Fridman?

  Okay, let's put that on record.

• 2:47:00Michael Malice?

  It is on record.

• 2:47:01Lex Fridman?

  Trolls me.

• 2:47:01Michael Malice?

  Because if there's an issue with you, I'm getting you on the phone.

• 2:47:04Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:06Lex Fridman?

  Good.

• 2:47:06Michael Malice?

  I mean, cause then I'm not backing you into a corner publicly. It doesn't make any sense strategically.

• 2:47:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. And actually, um, Bret Weinstein, um, tweeted something, sort of criticizing something. I didn't already forgot what. But he texted me first saying like, is it okay if I tweet this?

• 2:47:21Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:22Lex Fridman?

  And I, I said, yep. Uh, like I was excited.

• 2:47:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:27Lex Fridman?

  But I think there's some level of just. Be compassionate privately and be compassionate publicly, like both.

• 2:47:33Michael Malice?

  Or be civil.

• 2:47:34Lex Fridman?

  Civil.

• 2:47:35Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:36Lex Fridman?

  I, I, for some reason, I don't like the word civility because it, it's like polite, I do, like, it's, it's a.

• 2:47:43Michael Malice?

  Or be cordial. Is that better?

• 2:47:45Lex Fridman?

  No, what I mean is like.

• 2:47:47Michael Malice?

  It seems phony to you?

• 2:47:48Lex Fridman?

  It seems phony, like you should radiate love in whatever way. So even if you're rough with the other person, you should still show like respect and love for that person. And that, that gets back to the Russian rooms where they're yelling at each other, but there's still love underneath it. I mean, uh, the, the question I want to ask for you is, uh, I think you and I have a different view on some things.

• 2:48:11Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 2:48:12Lex Fridman?

  We have a different approach to things, but just on, on the surface level, but also a different view on some things like, I have a lot of hope for institutions. I, I, I have, so maybe it's a gut instinct, like your gut instinct is like, centers of power are like, burn them down first and then let's figure it out.

• 2:48:31Michael Malice?

  Sure.

• 2:48:31Lex Fridman?

  Or maybe that's a funny, rough way of saying it.

• 2:48:33Michael Malice?

  That's about right.

• 2:48:34Lex Fridman?

  And then for, for me, it's like, no, let's understand the institution and slowly, um, revolutions from within versus revolutions from without. And, um, but like, we can have those disagreements and there may be times when those disagreements will be, I could see in the future, I could see I'll be attacked by my friend Michael Malice, which I very look forward to it. No, not attack, but you know what I mean? On the surface level, in the idea space. Anyway, you're shaking your head now. You won't. I guess, um, maybe this also goes to Sam Harris and, uh, Joe Rogan. I would love to be able to disagree, disagree in big ways on important things and still be close friends.

• 2:49:19Lex Fridman?

  And I don't understand why those should be contradictions.

• 2:49:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:22Lex Fridman?

  And that's the tension, that's been the most heartbreaking thing to me about Sam and Brett and Joe. Well, in the case of Brett, it's me, I don't know Brett, so I'm just like looking as a, somebody who just enjoys having these voices out there. And it seems like COVID has brought out the worst in some, many folks. And it just feels like it's so sad to me to see their friendship. Somewhat deteriorating? Or maybe I'm just being a.

• 2:49:51Michael Malice?

  No, it seems clear that's deteriorated enormously.

• 2:49:54Lex Fridman?

  It's sad that that's the case.

• 2:49:56Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so my, like, I've had people come at me because I'm friends with you. And they were like, oh, Lex authored some paper about masks. I don't even know what the hell they're referring to. I don't care. I always say and mean, I don't care whether someone agrees with me. I care how they treat me. And it goes the other way because I'll have a lot of people on Twitter who are like, oh, I'm on your team and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't know you. You're not my team. And just because you happen to agree with me, it's of no value to me. Like, I don't know you and I'm interested in knowing you. Many of my friends, I don't know what their politics are. I don't care. Like, I care how we hang out, we have a good time, we watch dumb movies, watch YouTube, go to the store, whatever. I don't know what your politics are. I don't care what your politics are.

• 2:50:38Michael Malice?

  Chris Williamson, who, you know, he's just here, he's going to be moving to Austin. I learned what his politics are in the last, we've been, we chat like almost every day because he took the world's smallest political quiz. And he figured out what his answers were. I had no idea.

• 2:50:50Lex Fridman?

  He's communist.

• 2:50:51Michael Malice?

  He's well, obviously, yeah.

• 2:50:52Lex Fridman?

  Marxist. I think that's, yeah.

• 2:50:54Michael Malice?

  Let's be honest.

• 2:50:57Michael Malice?

  So like, stuff like that, like, it never, and people, I think because politics is often so tribal, especially now. They'll be like, oh, I could never be friends with someone who voted for X. Really? What if they're like grandma worked in that campaign? What if, you know, blah, blah, it's this, you can't think of one steel man argument why this would happen. What if they just want to spite their boss? So I don't like that approach at all. It makes no sense to me.

• 2:51:27Lex Fridman?

  We could still have debates. I mean, like, I would still like to have those conversations and still have disagreements. Like, I disagree with Joe on COVID a lot on a bunch of different things, very kind of, but it's never like, it's not tense at all. It's, it's just. It's a, it doesn't have that arrogance that seem, a lot of COVID conversations seems to have. Like, talking down to people from both directions.

• 2:51:54Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:51:55Lex Fridman?

  It's, so I would love to have those, because I love to debate, I love debates.

• 2:51:59Michael Malice?

  It takes a lot to get me triggered. And when the Babylon Bee were interviewing Elon, and he had this thing, he goes, well, I don't know anyone who wants to, you know, abolish the FDA and the FAA, and I'm standing there, and I'm shaking, and the guys look at me, and they're like, oh, we actually have an anarchist here. And the example he used was, you know, look, if playing football, you're gonna have a referee there, you want the referee, you know, you want, but the referee started playing the game, is, this is a good thing. And I was sitting there, I'm like, the referee doesn't work for the state.

• 2:52:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:31Michael Malice?

  The referee is a private individual working for this organization.

• 2:52:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:35Michael Malice?

  And there's no reason at all that food quality, which is something crucially important, has to be or can only be delivered through the state and a government monopoly.

• 2:52:47Lex Fridman?

  That's actually really interesting, just to link on that, just, just, just a little bit, with the vaccine and stuff like that, with the antiviral drugs, the FDA, so, like, are you comfort, like, who should be the referee?

• 2:53:00Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:53:01Lex Fridman?

  Do you have an idea, like, what's the best referee for the vaccine? It's just the market? Just let people decide?

• 2:53:07Michael Malice?

  This is tricky, because the thing, the thing that, I have not been following COVID as closely as Joe and Sam, as Mr. Harris, excuse me, and Mr. Musk. The point is, when anything like this is developing, there's gonna be a lot of misinformation out there, even from the scientists, because it's a dynamic process. They don't know what they're dealing with.

• 2:53:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:28Michael Malice?

  A lot of it has to be speculative. They don't know long-term effects, because it hasn't been around for a long time. So, I think it is very dangerous when, you know, when Joe was mocked for taking a laundry list of things, under his doctor's advice, and they kind of latched on to the ivermectin, and then they specifically said it was horse paste, although it's veterinary medicines, why didn't they say dog paste or cat paste? It's like, well, he's not dead. So, and he's also taking drugs which are used in other circumstances. The very least, maybe they're pointless, but if the drug is being allowed for pharmaceutical reasons, the odds are quite low that they're going to have deleterious side effects in general.

• 2:54:12Michael Malice?

  So I think this kind of insistence that there has to be one A officially approved outcome that we're all doing, that is kind of dangerous thinking in general.

• 2:54:25Lex Fridman?

  By the way, I don't know if you saw, I got a chance to talk to the Pfizer CEO. And I had helped collecting questions because I got a lot of questions and people put at the top, a question for Michael Malice.

• 2:54:38Michael Malice?

  Oh, really?

• 2:54:39Lex Fridman?

  No, the, ask him what he likes best about me.

• 2:54:45Michael Malice?

  Oh, what does he like best? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:54:47Lex Fridman?

  So I actually had that in my list of questions I was going to ask him. And my plan was I'll ask him, Michael Malice wants to know what you like best about him. And then my guess would he be like, who? And I'd be like, exactly. And then go on to the next. But I thought like it was such a tense conversation that I thought there would be no.

• 2:55:06Michael Malice?

  Of course, room for levity. The question I would ask him is, can you acknowledge that there is an enormous incentive for your company to force everyone in America or everyone on earth to be a consumer of your product?

• 2:55:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:21Michael Malice?

  That's my question.

• 2:55:22Lex Fridman?

  So I danced around that question quite a lot. Like is, I phrase it differently, which is a conflict of interest and attention between making a lot of money and actually helping people. And I mean, I've asked a lot of really heavy questions in that and I still, and a lot of people wrote to me with support saying like, that was a really great conversation. And a lot of people wrote saying that, I mean, saying that it was just too soft. And it, I don't know, I think about that a lot, like, how do you have that conversation? I don't think it was too soft.

• 2:56:03Lex Fridman?

  And actually, just for the record, I want to say that they didn't see any of the questions I'm asking. They, they didn't see the final interview. I can ask anything I want. And so, so any questions that I asked and failed to ask is my own.

• 2:56:23Lex Fridman?

  Shortcomings. Also, not being a coward, I was afraid of nothing. Like, what do I have to gain or lose, exactly?

• 2:56:32Michael Malice?

  Well, you have something to lose, because if you're, I do, I always do softballs. Because if I'm going to make it difficult for someone to come to my show, a lot of people will be disincentivized to do the show. Because like, I don't need this.

• 2:56:46Lex Fridman?

  I see. Oh, yeah, I wasn't thinking like that. But I was, I don't like to, what I think some fraction of folks want to be deduced, to yell at a person, like criticize them, not even ask questions, essentially.

• 2:56:58Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, how dare you.

• 2:56:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but to me, my goal, my hope is with these conversations is not just to do how great you are, all that kind of stuff, is to bring out some deeper truth. Like, the beautiful things is when you can together realize some truth, like you mentioned, that, you know, the incentive to, for everyone to take the vaccine is obviously high for the maker of a vaccine.

• 2:57:26Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:26Lex Fridman?

  Right? And for them to arrive at that truth together, like, that is a really difficult truth to operate under. Like, for example, I had a whole exchange with him about, this is Jordan Peterson asked this question. I use that as a kind of springboard, which is the, the kind of open doors between the FDA, the CDC, and Pfizer.

• 2:57:52Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 2:57:53Lex Fridman?

  Like, some people work at Pfizer and then go to work at the FDA and then vice versa. And I brought up, this is my safe space, maybe yours too, just going back to the Soviet Union to look at the lessons of, of human nature and corruption. I said, like, like this, there's two things. This looks bad, and two, this naturally leads to corruption. And I pushed this with several questions, but polite and respectful. And he ultimately said, you know, there's rules. We, there's the rule of law and there's very strict rules about this and we have to follow those rules, otherwise we get punished severely. And so like his responses, like

• 2:58:35Lex Fridman?

  people reacted to them as like, okay, that's the CEO doing the political, but there's also truth to what he's saying, that one of the beautiful things about America is that the, you can criticize the rule of law currently, but it's still, it's better than in Soviet, in the, in the Soviet Union where people bribed each other. And, but still, he made it seem like there's no corruption.

• 2:59:03Michael Malice?

  People often ask me, um, why I describe myself as an anarchist and not a narco-capitalist, because they think my views are more in line with that school of anarchism. And one of the other reasons, you just gave me a good one, is that if I am talking to someone who's a major CEO, I am, I have that hardcore left anarchist view that this person is, if not the devil, certainly going to be sinister, at the very least. And if you can't say, listen, this happens inevitably with elites, it's, you know, it's happening in universities, it happens in the food industry, there's only so many people at the top of these things, there's, the field is small, and everyone's going to know each other, which is kind

• 2:59:45Michael Malice?

  of, you know, just the dynamics of any market, that would kind of be more reasonable. And just say, it's easy to caricature us because you're not in the boardroom, but we're not, you know, we are trying to produce a product that people want. So.

• 2:59:58Lex Fridman?

  Unlike the people who criticized me, I was bothered by, I wasn't bothered by most things, but I was bothered by the fact that he didn't show more worry about the corrupting nature of money and power. Like, he should, he, if you say that there's no corruption, you should show that because we constantly worry about it.

• 3:00:20Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 3:00:21Lex Fridman?

  Not because like, look, there's rules.

• 3:00:24Michael Malice?

  Yeah, which are enforced by you.

• 3:00:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. So like, I think the only way to avoid for, for time, the corrupting force of power is to freak out about it, nonstop.

• 3:00:39Michael Malice?

  The impression I always get from people like him, and I haven't seen the interview, and I won't be watching it, is, um, They're genuinely convinced that they're good guys.

• 3:00:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:49Michael Malice?

  And if you're the good guy, sure, corruption is a concern theoretically. But I know this guy at the FDA. I know this senator. Sure, we disagree. Sure, they do some things I don't like. But in terms of corrupt, they're not getting briefcases full of money. They're not going to sell a vaccine that, you know, kills people in Georgia. So, yeah, it's a concern theoretically, but this is 21st century. The thought process, I think, writes itself.

• 3:01:13Lex Fridman?

  I think, yeah, having the humility. I do this all the time to maybe to a destructive level, thinking that I might be doing bad for the world. I might be wrong. I might be that kind of thinking is very. You should do at least some of that, not to a point of being paralyzed, but a little bit. You're actually in the right mindset for me to, to ask you then for advice.

• 3:01:33Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 3:01:34Lex Fridman?

  You're, you're in this compassionate, thoughtful mood. I like it. The compassionate, thoughtful Michael. So for future conversations like that. So the person that offered a conversation that, that at first I avoided, but I might return to is Anthony Fauci. So there's Anthony Fauci, but then there's also Trump and Biden, things, people like that. Like if you had them on your show or, or you're just giving me advice on how to talk to them. What do you think is the right way?

• 3:02:05Lex Fridman?

  To talk to them and forget about future guests. But like to get at something new, you know, together, like get at something not for views or likes or clicks or any of that. But discover something new through the mode of conversation.

• 3:02:20Michael Malice?

  Well, like, let's take those one at a time. So if I had, I was talking to Trump, I, I told Ruben to ask Trump this and he didn't. What I wanted to know is what's the look on your face when you're sending these tweets? Right? Because I'm imagining him on the toilet with his phone.

• 3:02:33Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:33Michael Malice?

  Right? Are you cracking yourself up? Are you just completely stoic? Are you kind of that Trump little smirk he does?

• 3:02:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:39Michael Malice?

  So when you get someone to open up about their emotion, about something they're passionate about. I think that breaks down some barriers and creates.

• 3:02:48Lex Fridman?

  Really good question.

• 3:02:48Michael Malice?

  A, a bond, yeah.

• 3:02:50Lex Fridman?

  But Ruben wouldn't be, that's not his style. Like, that's a great question for you to ask.

• 3:02:54Michael Malice?

  Well, I told him to say Michael Malice.

• 3:02:56Lex Fridman?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:02:58Michael Malice?

  For Biden.

• 3:03:00Michael Malice?

  That would be a tough one because Biden gets, doesn't get enough credit for what a good politician he is. There was this moment people can see on YouTube where Biden is addressing a room full of people and he had someone there and he goes, can you, why don't you stand up so everyone can give you a hand? And the guy was in a wheelchair and Biden's like, oh, and like, but instantly he goes, you know what? We're all gonna stand up for you. And he made everyone get up and applaud the guy. I'm like, that's quick. Like, yeah, you made a fool yourself. So he is a glad-hander. In many ways, he's more of a schmoozer than Trump was. Like, Trump made the point that he knows all the good people, but Biden knows how to shake hands.

• 3:03:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think with both, and sorry to interrupt, with both Trump and Biden, like you mentioned earlier, to me at least, their family is fascinating. The dynamic as a family man, as a father, as a-

• 3:03:49Michael Malice?

  I think that Biden won't acknowledge his illegitimate grandkid is a problem for me. But at the same time, I can see why he thinks it's off limits to ask. Because that's the thing, when you're dealing with people that powerful, they're not used to having to answer questions, which might be perfectly nice, but would cause them to freak the hell out.

• 3:04:06Lex Fridman?

  That's the tricky thing of talking to people, as you know, like, some topics are off limits, not in that they draw lines, but they just shut down when you ask them. Trust me, I've talked to Elon three times now. You better believe I brought up love. And how far do you think that got? And you could just imagine-

• 3:04:26Michael Malice?

  Zero, one.

• 3:04:28Lex Fridman?

  We did, we did exactly the kind of robot back and forth, and it just like, just shut down. So, yeah, I worry about that with the person. But those, that's the thing that makes it fascinating with those two, because he had, with Hunter and losing his son, like, the dynamic of the complexities of all that, like, just having, you know, children fuck up in the way children do. And then with Trump, the interesting dynamic with his very different kids, and they're all kind of interesting in different ways, and maintaining connection with all of them and also letting them flourish individually is fascinating to me.

• 3:05:06Michael Malice?

  Well, I'd also want to ask Trump if he can name all the presidents in order, which there's no he can. But I'd also want to know-

• 3:05:12Lex Fridman?

  All the, do you think he knows who the second president of the United States is?

• 3:05:16Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 3:05:17Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 3:05:17Michael Malice?

  John Adams, he knows. I think when it gets between Ulysses S. Grant and McKinley, that's when we all screw up. That window, it's tough.

• 3:05:24Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's the one window where he, I mean, he's not.

• 3:05:29Michael Malice?

  He's gonna be able to get back to FDR, no question.

• 3:05:32Lex Fridman?

  Well, I have to, my sense was with Donald Trump, and this is not, I would say, criticism, is he doesn't have a depth of knowledge, or more importantly, curiosity about history.

• 3:05:44Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but if you're old enough, you're gonna at least remember the presidents in your lifetime.

• 3:05:50Lex Fridman?

  In your lifetime.

• 3:05:51Michael Malice?

  Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. He'll get us from president to FDR pretty easily.

• 3:05:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, okay, sure. I think you meant FDR from the other direction.

• 3:05:58Michael Malice?

  No, no, yeah, from like current.

• 3:05:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, from a political perspective, like having a conversation about politics with those two.

• 3:06:12Lex Fridman?

  There is interesting topics, interaction between Donald Trump and Putin, not the interaction, like not the stupid journalistic stuff, but it's clear to me that he is a student of power.

• 3:06:24Michael Malice?

  Oh, for sure.

• 3:06:25Lex Fridman?

  And like, he enjoys the game of power.

• 3:06:28Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:28Lex Fridman?

  And so it's interesting, because it, to me, the reason he admires Putin is it's another player in the game of power.

• 3:06:35Michael Malice?

  And I think why so many people hate him, Trump, is that he demonstrated to a lot of Americans how much of a con job most of politics is.

• 3:06:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:43Michael Malice?

  And how people just say what they need to do, but behind closed doors, these people are buffoons, and he exposed them as that. I'd also, um, so the Biden, I think Biden would be a tougher interviewer than Trump, because I feel like Biden's more slippery in many ways. He's much more of a consummate politician. He's been in the Senate since the early 70s, since he was like 30 or 35, whatever it was. So, you know, he'd have his little kind of pat answers. There was Larry King, who was certainly a softball interviewer, and I don't begrudge him that at all. I remember it very vividly, and it was like, I think it was the 2008 cycle. He asked Hillary, why do so many people hate, why do you think so many people hate you? And she just goes like, oh, well, I take tough stances on the, and

• 3:07:26Michael Malice?

  he cut her off. He goes, other people have taken those stances. Why they hate you? And she didn't really, I was really impressed with him, that he didn't let her off the hook.

• 3:07:34Lex Fridman?

  That to me is great, but some people say that's still too softball. Because you like, they would want him to start listing, I don't know, droning, like all the, all the things that Hillary Clinton has criticized for.

• 3:07:48Michael Malice?

  Yeah, but then what she she's done this many times. She's very good at this. She'll be like, look, I've addressed all these in the past. If you want to start rehashing Republican talking points, you can go look up my interviews.

• 3:07:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think it's counterproductive.

• 3:07:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:59Lex Fridman?

  So what about the more prescient for me? I can't believe I'm walking through this fire for no good reason whatsoever, but Anthony Fauci. So yeah, let me tell you why I care about Anthony Fauci, because I care a lot about science and the way science is viewed in society. And not to put it at the at the feet of this one person, but I him and certain members of the scientific community that was responsible for managing the response to COVID, I think, are somewhat or entirely responsible for a significant decrease in trust in science.

• 3:08:38Michael Malice?

  Yes, no question.

• 3:08:39Lex Fridman?

  In the past couple of years.

• 3:08:40Michael Malice?

  There was a poll that just came out this week that said the number has just collapsed.

• 3:08:44Lex Fridman?

  And if you don't blame him for it, I personally blame him for not improving the problem. And so there's definitely would be a harsh conversation there to be had. And I think I want to have it. But how do you do it? It's tough.

• 3:09:04Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:05Lex Fridman?

  Because, you know, again, politicians, this political answers, if they get too frustrated too quickly, they will not explore these difficult things with you. They'll just shut down.

• 3:09:16Lex Fridman?

  But then if you say too many nice things, because I should also say Anthony Fauci is an incredible career, like.

• 3:09:24Lex Fridman?

  There's several hours worth of conversation to be had about how amazing of a person he is.

• 3:09:29Michael Malice?

  Well, I would also be curious about the AIDS stuff.

• 3:09:31Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 3:09:31Michael Malice?

  Because that's something that gets criticized about, and I wouldn't come at it aggressively. I would say, let's set the record straight. This is some of the criticism you get, blah, blah, blah. You're all in the AIDS crisis. Let's talk about this, and this is something that is important part of American history. There was a pandemic, but it was localized to certain populations. And that population, at first at least, was pretty much told goodbye and good luck. You're going to have to deal with this. So how did you deal with that? I mean, were you scared of getting AIDS, you know, so on and so forth? But also, there was that comment when, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a Fauci expert. When he, basically, they told people not to wear masks, or they lied about it to some extent, because they said that people were going to run out of them or something like that. And they admitted they were being inaccurate. I would nail him on that. Like, let's address this. Were you being dishonest?

• 3:10:16Michael Malice?

  Is there some times when it's important to be dishonest in service of whatever? Also, I would ask him how, as someone who's not a politician, whether his level of fame and adulation has gotten to his head? How do you have a perspective when? And how does it feel when a sitting senator tells you that you should be imprisoned? Do you think Ted Cruz means it? Or you think Ted Cruz is just playing to his base?

• 3:10:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I like the fame one. I would love to sneak up. I mean, that question applies to you, too. That question applies to me. When you start getting more fame, or money, or power, are you aware of how that changed you? And like, explore that, like, how has that changed you? Like, if you, like, in the privacy of your mind, Michael Malice, like, how did you change now that you've gotten more attention, let's say? You know, or even the success of the book? Like, is it, like, take yourself back to the, you know, you talk about the 20,

• 3:11:14Lex Fridman?

  the early 20s, the mid 20s person. How are you different from that person? Are you the same person? Or are you totally different? That's an interesting thought. Is Putin the same person in 2020 as he was in 2010 and then in 2000?

• 3:11:28Lex Fridman?

  It's a, it's a non-trivial, almost like.

• 3:11:33Michael Malice?

  And then the other thing with Fauci is this is a dynamic system. Like, on the one hand, he's gonna wanna say we got it right every time, right? But then how is that even possible when you're dealing with an evolving, unknown, dynamic situation? When did you guys get it wrong? Did that result in lives lost? Do you feel guilty about that?

• 3:11:50Lex Fridman?

  I mean, the big problem with the masks, the changing of mind on the mask is the arrogance in how it was communicated. To me, a lot of this boils down to how things are communicated. It's like, it's obvious that you need to change your mind when you get new information. Or sometimes, yeah, you take policies that are like, we know the truth, but we're going to lie for a particular reason. Like, you have good intentions, but if you're not able to communicate that later, like, we made a mistake.

• 3:12:18Michael Malice?

  Or even ask him, can you understand how a rational person might choose not to get vaccinated?

• 3:12:27Lex Fridman?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 3:12:30Michael Malice?

  And if he can't steel man that, then that's a situation.

• 3:12:33Lex Fridman?

  That's a good test, and I've tried, and some people succeed and some people fail. Is the ability to really steel man the other, understand that somebody should, would be hesitant about taking the vaccine. Yeah. It's a giant mess, man. This podcasting is, it's just a fun little conversation, but there also is a responsibility. I don't know. I don't know how Joe does it.

• 3:12:56Michael Malice?

  I don't think Joe cares as much as you do. It's more fun for him in a sense, and he's less concerned about the, I mean, he's not unconcerned with the cultural impact, but for him, it's just more bro-ing out.

• 3:13:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:07Michael Malice?

  Like, he doesn't do as much prep, he doesn't come in with three pages, single-spaced of, you know, questions.

• 3:13:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:12Michael Malice?

  And that's why he's talking to Blair White for 10 minutes about whether sharks lay eggs without knowing.

• 3:13:19Lex Fridman?

  You're the one triggered person. He, maybe he, he trolled the troll.

• 3:13:24Michael Malice?

  Well, it worked. He, yeah, he did. Do sharks lay eggs?

• 3:13:29Lex Fridman?

  I'd like to get an updated 2021 version of Michael Malice giving advice to young people.

• 3:13:36Michael Malice?

  Okay.

• 3:13:37Lex Fridman?

  So, there's, God forbid, high school students, college students, listening to you and looking to you for advice. What advice would you give them about career? And about life, how to live a life that you can be proud of.

• 3:13:54Michael Malice?

  This happens a lot because I have my Locals community, malice.locals.com. And there's a lot of young people on there.

• 3:13:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:14:00Michael Malice?

  So the-

• 3:14:00Lex Fridman?

  It's a great place.

• 3:14:01Michael Malice?

  I'll give them a meta piece of advice. Don't ask your friends for advice because you're an idiot at your age and they're all idiots. And they don't want to seem like idiots, so they're just going to give you advice. They pulled it from the TV and no one knows what you're talking about. And it's just going to be counterintuitive.

• 3:14:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:14:15Michael Malice?

  So seek out advice from people who you seek to emulate. And ask them for advice. If you can't get ahold of them, figure out a way to get ahold of them. Incentivize them in some way. You'd be surprised how many people are responsive on Twitter or in social media. If you just ask them a basic life question, because then they can quote tweet and answer to a whole population. So that would be one mechanism. It's also very hard at that age to realize your parents might not be all that bright. And they might not be all that good people. So that's a hard one at that age to kind of wrap your head around. Just because they love you doesn't mean they understand you. And that's okay. That's okay. We like everybody.

• 3:14:58Lex Fridman?

  Shit, your Trump's pretty good, too.

• 3:14:59Michael Malice?

  I-

• 3:15:00Lex Fridman?

  I'd like your Trump to talk to Elon. To have a conversation.

• 3:15:05Michael Malice?

  Well, Mr. President, you know, look, some things you did, like some, not so much. But, you know, for the most part, I think they're kind of a good thing. What are you talking about?

• 3:15:23Michael Malice?

  Hey, guys, what are we talking about? No, fuck, I fucked up the Lex. Anyway, so those would be two pieces. The other piece of advice I would say is join a gym. Or have some kind of quantifiable daily improvement to keep you sane. So the reason I always say weightlifting and it could be- Uh, running, can be jump rope. I don't care what it is because if you have those numbers moving in the positive direction psychologically, if you're dealing with depression or anxiety, it's concrete proof to shut your brain up because your brain knows how to talk to you. Your brain is often your enemy and it'll say exactly the right thing to undermine

• 3:16:03Michael Malice?

  you. So that's an issue. Um, B, I just, this works for me. Maybe it worked for most people. I'm very high in the openness metric. Uh, try new experiences, new things, try things you don't like. Um, it's okay to have a bad experience. You've learned something. So go to a restaurant of a cuisine you wouldn't like or hadn't heard of. Read a book that's popular, but you have no interest in. Um, read a lot. For example, I didn't know anything about the, uh, election. What was it? 1892? When there was like a split between the electors? Read a book about it. Oh, I didn't know anything. You know, I don't know anything really about Malcolm X. Read a book about him. Uh, you'll be amazed how much more full you become as a person.

• 3:16:44Lex Fridman?

  Do you see value in writing also, like writing down your ideas?

• 3:16:48Michael Malice?

  No, I think there's very little value in that. I'm not being, I'm not joking.

• 3:16:51Lex Fridman?

  So reading is where the biggest.

• 3:16:52Michael Malice?

  Yeah. Cause you're probably not going to revisit what you've written down.

• 3:16:56Lex Fridman?

  But the act of writing, you don't, you don't see, it solidifies somehow thoughts in your mind?

• 3:17:00Michael Malice?

  Not for me.

• 3:17:01Lex Fridman?

  Yes. No, it doesn't for you?

• 3:17:02Michael Malice?

  Like a tweet will, cause then it's, then I have to have it narrowed down into like a phrase.

• 3:17:07Lex Fridman?

  Or the responsibility of there being an audience.

• 3:17:10Michael Malice?

  No, I just meant in terms of, I've got 280 characters. If instead of having a meandering thought, meandering thought, I have to codify it in something that's catchy and short. That's a good, useful mental exercise.

• 3:17:19Lex Fridman?

  What face do you make when you tweet?

• 3:17:23Michael Malice?

  I wouldn't know. I don't know. That's a good point. I'll, I.

• 3:17:26Lex Fridman?

  Is it on the toilet? How much, what percentage is on the toilet?

• 3:17:29Michael Malice?

  Very little. On the toilets, I usually more reading.

• 3:17:31Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 3:17:32Michael Malice?

  So even though my tweets are all literally shit, uh, there are a few of them are on the toilet. Um.

• 3:17:38Lex Fridman?

  They're on a throne.

• 3:17:39Michael Malice?

  That's some advice. Um.

• 3:17:42Michael Malice?

  Don't compare yourself to other people. That's a really dangerous one. All my friends are married. I should have, I should have a kid by now. Should, there's an expression in recovery, stop shitting yourself. But it's, but it's should, should, should.

• 3:17:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:59Michael Malice?

  It's stupid.

• 3:18:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:01Michael Malice?

  I also, and this could be my hoarder brain. I surround my house with talismans of joy. So if you have an accomplishment, like when I did Rogan once, I bought, went to the sock store and I bought these orange socks with black cherries on them. And now whenever I wore that socks, those socks, I'm like, oh, this is because I was on Rogan, that was kind of a big deal. So if you have these little things throughout your house, it's, it was good mental fuel. Even like, like a toy, remember when I was a kid, oh, you know what? This little moments that inspire happiness, I think are visually very useful. So that's another one. And

• 3:18:38Lex Fridman?

  I, by the way, have the, that, the watch. And that, because we're talking about 2021. That was really, um, the guy in the lecture hall giving you a pat in the back. I wrote, Joe gave me the, the watch was, um, yeah, it's life changing for me.

• 3:18:59Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:19:00Lex Fridman?

  It doesn't even, it didn't, the fact that it was on a podcast or whatever, doesn't matter.

• 3:19:04Michael Malice?

  Learn how to, um, form boundaries. That's probably the biggest, that's going to be number one on my list. Because

• 3:19:11Lex Fridman?

  Can you explain?

• 3:19:11Michael Malice?

  You're going to have people around you who feel the need, that they're entitled to your time, who feel the need to criticize you and they're not coming from a good place.

• 3:19:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:19Michael Malice?

  So it's very good for you to be like, I'm not interested in talking about this anymore right now.

• 3:19:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Even if it's your parents.

• 3:19:24Michael Malice?

  Even if it's your, especially if it's your parents. Like, I need my space right now. You're entitled to your space, you're entitled to your time. No one owes you, you don't owe anyone a response. If someone has a question, you owe them an answer, especially if they're not coming at you in good faith or they're coming in a hostile way. That's a big one. It's hard to learn at that age. And, um, and, and be valuable to those who are around you. Be someone who people are happy to see. And if things are bad, like you're the one that they can rely on. Like I was just, uh, you know, a little bit under the weather and I thought to myself, you know what? If things got really bad, I'll call Blair. And she's, she would take care of me and that kind of was very reassuring.

• 3:20:09Lex Fridman?

  And you can always call me if you have your stuff lifted in a in an urgent matter.

• 3:20:17Michael Malice?

  Because of the robots?

• 3:20:18Lex Fridman?

  No, it's just me. It's kind of like those things I can help with. Or you're actually literally bleeding. Not a good caretaker. I can save you, though. I can murder. If you need somebody murdered.

• 3:20:27Michael Malice?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:20:31Michael Malice?

  Wait, what advice would you have to kids that age?

• 3:20:36Michael Malice?

  And you're all, you're a lot younger than you think you are. That's the other one.

• 3:20:40Lex Fridman?

  Like, yeah, there's time.

• 3:20:41Michael Malice?

  I know. Like, it's impossible to understand when you're 26 that your 40s are better than your 30s. Because it's like, okay, old man, that's all cope. I promise you it is.

• 3:20:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I think he said so many beautiful things. And I would say

• 3:20:59Lex Fridman?

  another version of the openness, I'll say, take big risks when you're young.

• 3:21:03Michael Malice?

  Yeah, because if you fail, who cares? You're sleeping in a futon, who cares?

• 3:21:07Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and take them often.

• 3:21:09Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:21:10Lex Fridman?

  Also, this is more a little personal to me.

• 3:21:15Lex Fridman?

  I get pushback on this, but I think take big risks and work really hard. Like at whatever you do, like, I think you just have to give yourself to a thing. It doesn't have to be in terms of time, but really give everything. So it's not like I'm going to try doing this. I'll try, I'll try, try with all of your heart. Like, really commit yourself. That doesn't mean necessarily hours, that doesn't mean, but like, if you fail at doing a thing that you commit to, it should hurt. So like, when I competed in jiu jitsu, or you do like sports and so on, don't just say, I'm gonna have fun out there, so on. No, try to win.

• 3:22:00Lex Fridman?

  And because then if you don't, it hurts and you learn from that. And then throughout, I think that's the goodness thing is be kind. It's like, some of it is also a skill, allowing yourself to be kind. I found myself earlier in life, I still do this. I find like when I hang out with people, people are often like cynical and negative. And

• 3:22:22Michael Malice?

  Yeah, I try to avoid those people.

• 3:22:24Lex Fridman?

  No, but like they, I think everybody falls into that. And sometimes it's the party norm thing. There's a temptation to me to kind of fit in by being more negative than I'm comfortable being. And so resist the pressure, I think, especially when you're younger, it's not cool to care.

• 3:22:44Michael Malice?

  The thing that drives, when you're young, if you are a fan of a band,

• 3:22:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:22:49Michael Malice?

  A writer, a podcaster, an actor, and people roll their eyes at you, watch out, those people are dangerous. You should have, if you love Avril Lavigne with her terrible music and she makes you, gives you joy, and people crap on you, they're wrong and you're right. So hold on to those things that make you happy. And if people want to take that away from you, or they, oh, how could you like that? Those people are not your friends.

• 3:23:14Lex Fridman?

  Why do you have to go make life so complicated?

• 3:23:20Lex Fridman?

  She's my favorite, favorite musician of all time. Jim Hendrix second, Avril Lavigne first.

• 3:23:28Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for almost bringing a tear to my eye. You mentioned the should haves in terms of love and you should have kids by now. I apologize if it's a personal one, but I think at least I have this thought. And not from society, but for myself, like I want to get married, I want to have kids.

• 3:23:46Lex Fridman?

  Do you feel the pressure of that? Do you want to have kids?

• 3:23:49Michael Malice?

  I don't want to have kids.

• 3:23:51Lex Fridman?

  Want to get married?

• 3:23:52Michael Malice?

  I do want to get married.

• 3:23:55Michael Malice?

  This was an issue that I had to kind of work out earlier this year in terms of the possibility of having kids. Cause I was in a relationship with someone who would have been in many ways, literally a perfect mom. So I did my due diligence and I actually sat down with friends of mine who had kids. And I say, give me the downside.

• 3:24:18Lex Fridman?

  You did the pros and the cons.

• 3:24:20Michael Malice?

  Well, the pros I knew. The pros for kids are very, I love kids. I was just with Frank Fleming. He writes for the Babylon Bee and he had his four kids and his youngest son has Down Syndrome, which is adorable. Winchester is so cute. And I always get along with kids very well. Like, I remember very vividly what it was like to be a kid, especially a precocious kid. And I remember how much it bothered me when my parents' friends wouldn't give me attention. So I always make it a point to acknowledge kids, to talk to them, and they're very grateful. And it's just really fun, especially the people who I'm friends with. Their kids are probably gonna be pretty cool. They're not gonna be annoying and, you know, kind of ugly and overweight.

• 3:25:04Michael Malice?

  So I-

• 3:25:06Lex Fridman?

  How long you got that in there? Okay, good.

• 3:25:08Michael Malice?

  Yeah, sorry, I'll go. But-

• 3:25:11Lex Fridman?

  But the cons, the negatives, what was the conversation like about that?

• 3:25:15Michael Malice?

  Well, my sister, you know, my sister has two kids, my nephews, who I absolutely adore, whatever their names are. And she was, like, she was saying certain things. It's like, if I had kids, my kids are in my top priority.

• 3:25:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:28Michael Malice?

  Like, it's not even a question. And I feel like the work I'm doing, and this sounds pompous, but it's true, is A, valuable and important, but I'm also the only one doing it. So this is a big cost. And so it's like, it would be a major lifestyle readjustment. And I'm at the point where I'm kind of like selfish enough that I wouldn't want to do that. And also would have to be with the right woman. Like, you're making a commitment, you know? And since, you know, they're all crazy, you have to find one where you can handle the crazy.

• 3:26:04Lex Fridman?

  All women are crazy?

• 3:26:05Michael Malice?

  Yeah. There are one and a halves in a binary world.

• 3:26:09Lex Fridman?

  Oh, boy. That's not comfortable for me.

• 3:26:11Michael Malice?

  No, sir.

• 3:26:15Lex Fridman?

  But do you feel the pressure in thinking of that? How much does that weigh on your heart? Like, so Elon has kids. Like, I feel like I'm, I love everything. And I love stuff I do. I love the robot over there, just working with robots. And, but I do feel the pressure of like-

• 3:26:38Lex Fridman?

  Almost like when there's amazing cuisines you never tried or something like that, like go out there and try it. Like you need to put in the work and I don't know. Like life will run away from you, slip through your fingers before you truly get to experience this other kind of love, which is like long-term love for another human being, which is like marriage and then love for kids. Yeah. And it almost makes me sad like not getting to experience that, you know, because I'm also really scared of, I've seen so many bad stories on the partner's side, like being with the wrong person.

• 3:27:20Michael Malice?

  Right.

• 3:27:21Lex Fridman?

  It can, that to me is, I'm not worried, I have kids all day. In fact, I could probably just have kids without the partner. Kids, I think, are incredible, but the, like, the partner, like a wife, it seems like she could then have the negative consequences for like you as a writer and your productivity and your mental ability to flourish, being a joy to others, to all those kinds of things.

• 3:27:45Michael Malice?

  You know what? That's, that couldn't happen because every relationship I've had, they've been very beyond supportive. Like, don't, they'd rather do the, take an hour and do your work than spend time with me. Like, I believe in what you're doing.

• 3:28:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:02Michael Malice?

  So I couldn't even casually date someone who didn't believe that. Yeah.

• 3:28:05Lex Fridman?

  So that's energizing.

• 3:28:06Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 3:28:07Lex Fridman?

  But over time, you never know like how that evolves and all those kinds of things. And for me, I think we're a little bit different. I mean, that has to do with the engineering thing. I just have to pull insane hours.

• 3:28:17Michael Malice?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:17Lex Fridman?

  So like.

• 3:28:18Michael Malice?

  I work like two hours a day.

• 3:28:20Lex Fridman?

  But that's what like creatives do. Like you can only work a couple hours, honestly, to be, to be productive and the rest of the time not. I have to do a lot of menial labor, like, and so there, there's legit tension on terms of time and attention, all those kinds of things. I don't know. Do you think about this stuff a lot? Or do you just love life and do cool stuff and whatever happens, happens?

• 3:28:44Michael Malice?

  I have been so blessed for so long now that I'm at the point where I don't think about it. And I'm like, you know, just like miracles happen every day. So just be open to it.

• 3:28:57Lex Fridman?

  You think about your death, mortality?

• 3:29:01Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 3:29:02Lex Fridman?

  Fear, what do you feel about it?

• 3:29:04Michael Malice?

  I'm just worried I want to take as many people out with me as possible. So suitcase nuke.

• 3:29:09Lex Fridman?

  What's the best way? Nuke suitcase nuke, I'm thinking. Yeah.

• 3:29:13Michael Malice?

  No, I do think.

• 3:29:13Lex Fridman?

  In New York, that would be, that would be kind of like ironic as my other favorite artist.

• 3:29:19Michael Malice?

  I think about my legacy. And that's why my books are so important to me.

• 3:29:26Lex Fridman?

  So is it, do you think of it as a kind of immortality?

• 3:29:29Michael Malice?

  It is, though.

• 3:29:30Lex Fridman?

  Like that's who you are, is those books?

• 3:29:32Michael Malice?

  Well, it's not who I am, but it's my legacy certainly is.

• 3:29:36Lex Fridman?

  What do you hope your legacy is?

• 3:29:40Michael Malice?

  That I encouraged people to be hopeful and that I taught them how to be free.

• 3:29:50Michael Malice?

  And my favorite, I think the best show of all time was Dallas, which often gets, it was like an 80s soap opera and people conflate it with Dynasty and they think it's trashy and it was very Shakespearean because all the characters are motivated by different values and the writing is just masterful and the acting is masterful. And I'm not going to spoil anything, one season ended with one of the characters on their deathbed in the hospital and the whole cast is there and the amount of acting talent in that room is just, you know, just phenomenal. And as the character is dying, they look around and they go, like, please be kind to one another, be a family. And they're yelling at this character, don't you dare die on me, you know?

• 3:30:33Michael Malice?

  And you could see the actors, you know, because they're losing their castmate who they've had in the beginning. And it would have been a perfect ending to the show, but obviously it's a cash cow, they gotta keep milking it. And I think that like kindness and tenderness, and this is Michael Malice talking, it's, there's a lot of people who want to make it that if you are kind or tender, you're going to have consequences, bad consequences. And I think it's important for me at least to create a space in my life that if someone is going to be nice or friendly or kind, that they're not going to have to feel stupid or bad about it. It's, we have such a, it's such a disincent, the set of structure is so different, like

• 3:31:16Michael Malice?

  if you want to be cynical and sneering, like round of applause, but if someone says, oh, this is great, like, okay, simp, it's really bad.

• 3:31:25Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think you do just this. You do this today, you do this in our friendship, and you do it for a very large number of people is teach them how to be, how to have hope.

• 3:31:35Michael Malice?

  Yes.

• 3:31:36Lex Fridman?

  And teach them how to be free. So, Tavash.

• 3:31:43Michael Malice?

  Snobom godam.

• 3:31:44Lex Fridman?

  Snobom godam. Thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you so much for being an inspiration. I love you, brother.

• 3:31:51Michael Malice?

  I love you.

• 3:31:53Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Michael Malice. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Albert Camus. "Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me, just be my friend." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.